11 August 2021
New online - July 2021
This month's round-up of newly available collections features archives from Nepal, Serbia, and Ghana.
- Digitisation of the photographic collection from DirghaMan and GaneshMan Chitrakar Art Foundation [EAP838]
- Safeguarding the fragile collection of the private archive of the Lazic family [EAP833]
- Safeguarding the British Colonial and Regional Administrative Archive in Northern Ghana [EAP935]
EAP838 - The DirghaMan and GaneshMan Chitrakar Art Foundation photographic collection
This important and unique collection of photographs gives a fascinating insight into life in Nepal at a time when the country was under self-imposed isolation from the outside world. During this period cameras were still quite rare and only owned by the elites and court photographers. As a result, there are relatively few photographic records documenting late 19th and early 20th Century Nepal.
The collection consists of images taken by the Royal Painter and Court Photographer Dirgha Man Chitrakar (1877-1951), and his only son Ganesh Man Chitrakar (1916-1985), who took over the role in 1945. Dirgha Man was a skilled painter and employed in the palace from the age of 14. After his brother received treatment from the Court Physician, Dirgha Man presented him with a painted medallion as a way of thanks. Prime Minister Chandra Shamsher (ruled 1901-1929) saw this medallion and impressed with the painting skills, decided to employ him as Royal Painter and Court Photographer in his palace. This important role enabled him to capture court and local life, official events and state visits that otherwise would not have been recorded.
After his father retired at the age of 71, Ganesh Man took over the role of Royal Painter and Court Photographer. After the country opened up to the outside world at the end of the Rana rule in 1951, Ganesh Man then worked for USAID as Chief Photographer where he documented the landscape of Kathmandu Valley and the surrounding cities. He made the first aerial photographs in 1955 and was the first person in the country to develop colour slides. He also opened a black and white photo studio, Ganesh Photo Lab., in 1971.
Their photographs are a rich resource that captures key moments in Nepal’s history. The photographs include portraits, diplomatic visits, landscapes, historic structures, and festivals. They capture images of urbanization, changes in the lifestyle and infrastructural transformation in Nepal. The collection is not only one family’s patrimony but also an account of Nepal’s history.
EAP833 - The Lazic family private archive
This project digitised and preserved valuable private archives and library collections owned by the Lazić family in Serbia, who for six generations have collected important and rare material. Aleksandar Lazić (1846–1916) was the founder and owner of the Library until 1910 when his son Luka Lazić (1876-1946) took over and enriched the collection with material documenting the Great War. He acquired much of the material in or around the battlefield and continued to purchase related material until his death in 1946. Along with his son and successor Milorad Lazić (1912–1977), they also accumulated a significant collection of law books. The majority of these were acquired between 1930-1950 and are crucial for theoretical and historical research of the Serbian state, law, and society. The collection has continued to grow as other members of the Lazić family care for this important archive.
Much of this material relating to the First World War is unique and not found in any other library or archive. The collection includes Serbian newspapers printed in exile in Corfu and Thessaloniki during the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Serbia. There are also copies of the rare journal ‘Pregled Listova’, published in Geneva for members of the Serbian government in exile.
EAP935 - Safeguarding the British Colonial and Regional Administrative Archive in Northern Ghana
This project continued the work of two previous EAP projects (EAP256 and EAP541) to digitise the material from the Public Records and Archives Administration (PRAAD) in Tamale, northern Ghana. During the earlier projects, the research team was able to assess PRAAD’s collection of rare historical records on the colonial administration and history of Northern Ghana, resulting in a comprehensive survey of the Northern Regional Administration Records and District Assembly Records collections. Subsequently, through the EAP541 Major project, the research team digitised five records series amounting to 126,239 images. The EAP935 project completed this work by digitising a further eight collections, adding over 212,000 images to the archive from three regions of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast: Northern region records collections, Upper West Region records collection and Upper East Region records collection.
19 June 2019
New collections online - June 2019
Over the past few months we have made six new projects available to view online through our website. These new collections demonstrate the diverse variety of archives the EAP digitises, and includes eighteenth-century Brazilian royal orders, artwork and photography by Lalit Mohan Sen, colonial archives, Coptic manuscripts and prayer scrolls, war photography, and historic newspapers.
EAP627 - Digitising endangered seventeenth to nineteenth century secular and ecclesiastical sources in São João do Carirí e João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil
EAP627/1/1/1 - Book 1: Baptisms, Marriages, and Deaths (1752-1808) / Livro 1 Batizados, casamengtos e óbitos anos de 1752 a 1808
The aim of EAP627 was to digitise the oldest historical documents in the state of Paraíba, Brazil (located in the semi-arid hinterlands and on the humid coastline). The project team successfully digitised 266 historical documents, ranging from 1660 to 1931 and their digitisation resulted in c. 83,000 TIFF images being created. It includes the entire collection of ecclesiastical documents at Paróquia de Nossa Senhora dos Milagres do São João do Cariri (comprised of 54 volumes produced between 1752 and 1931). During digitisation, the team uncovered the original, signed Constitution of Paraíba of 1891 – the first constitution of this state after Brazil was declared a republic in 1889. To the best of their knowledge and research, the project team believes this is the only existing copy of the document. The digital preservation of these documents have already contributed to shifting the historical narrative of the state’s back lands, and will ensure the ongoing possibility of study in the history of Paraíba’s Afro-Brazilian, indigenous, and mestiço populations.
EAP781 - Santipur and its neighbourhood: text and image production history from early modern Bengal through public and private collections
EAP781/1/7/1 - Photographs and artwork by Lalitmohan Sen
This was a continuation of EAP643, an earlier pilot project. The project team were able to digitise almost all the records discovered in the pilot. The collection includes 1265 manuscripts from Santipur Bangiya Puran Parishad, 78 bound volumes from Santipur Municipality, and 510 images of Lalit Mohan Sen’s artwork and photography. Some of Sen’s work can be seen in this previous EAP blog post.
EAP820 - Documenting Slavery and Emancipation in Kita, Western Mali
EAP820/1/1/3/1 - Compte-rendu d’une tournée de recensement dans le Birgo 1899 (Report of a census tour)
Kita is an important site in the history of rural slave emancipation in Western Mali (occurring at the turn of the twentieth century). It hosted the highest number of ‘Liberty villages’ (17 in total) following the French conquest (Western Mali was the first region of today’s Mali to be colonised by the French from the 1890s). Liberty villages hosted the slaves of the defeated enemies of the French army. The project team captured this specific history of slavery and emancipation in Kita through digitised reports, correspondence and court registers held in the Cercle archives of Kita. The collection is extensive, ancient and rare in its content, and is of great scholarly significance.
EAP823 - Digitisation and preservation of the manuscript collection at the Monastery of St Saviour in Old Jerusalem
EAP823/1/2/25 - Risālat al-ḣajj min Al-Ḣasan al-Baṡrī - Trakt on the pilgrimage and its benefits by Ḣasan al-Baṡrī
The objective of this project was to digitise and make widely available the manuscripts at the Franciscan monastery of St Saviour in the Old City of Jerusalem. The collection dates from the 12th to the 20th century, and is written in seventeen languages: Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Classical Ethiopic, Coptic (Bohairic & Sahidic), English, French, Old German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, Samaritan, Spanish, Syriac and Turkish. The digitised material is remarkably diverse and is a valuable resource for scholars interested in Christian, Islamic and Jewish traditions, as well as to linguists and philologists, art historians, and musicologists. The texts contain theological and philosophical treatises, biblical and liturgical books, dictionaries, profane and religious poetry, collections of sermons, pilgrim accounts, and also cooking recipes and magic prayers. Among the books are also rare items, for instance texts written in Armenian and Arabic scripts but in Turkish language, and the fragments of Byzantine manuscripts used for the flyleaves in bindings. A special group is made up by large size liturgical books with musical notations, produced for monastic choirs, as well as precious volumes lavishly decorated and illuminated with miniatures, initials and aniconic ornamentation. Research material of particular value consists of a variety of book covers (leather, textile, metal, decorative cardboards etc.) representing diverse binding methods.
EAP894 - Endangered photographic collections about the participation of pre-industrial Bulgaria in three wars in the beginning of the 20th century
EAP894/1/24 - Single and group photographs of Rada Bozhinova (Box 24)
EAP894/1/15 - Scenes from urban and rural life (Box 15)
The EAP894 project team digitised two collections of photographs (and other records) from the pre-industrial development era of Bulgaria, covering the period 1880-1930. Colonel Petar Darvingov, the Chief of Staff of the Bulgarian Army and a commander of the occupation corps in Moravia (now the Czech Republic and Serbia) created the first collection. He captured moments of military action in the Balkans and Central Europe across three wars: the Balkan War, the Second Balkan War, and World War I. Within the collection are a large volume of photos from different fronts – positional photos of infantry and artillery units, fighting marches, frontline parades and prayers, aviation and motorized units, moments from tactical exercises, building of trenches, laying of roads and telephone wires, views of settlements, etc. Preserved are also the portraits, both group and individual, of the entire command staff of the Bulgarian army during the wars. The photographs record not only the military life at the front, but also at the rear – the camps and bivouacs, clothing, supplies, military equipment and everyday life of the Bulgarian soldier. Many of the backs of the photos have explanatory notes about specific events and characters. They include initiations, names and occasionally short biographical data on individual persons etc. The collection also includes military business cards with author´s notes, operational sketches of battlefields, sketches of the Bulgarian headquarters where the Serbian and Bulgarian troops were positioned during the Balkan Wars, stories of warfare during World War I, and sketches of military sites.
The second collection contains photos, cartoons and caricatures created by the renowned artist and photographer Aleksandar Bozhinov. He was one of the first significant cartoonists of the 20th century and a war correspondent. He documented military positions and the social life in the Balkan villages and towns in the time of war – daily life, work, calendar and festive rituals. The sketches and caricatures in the collection are both the originals and those published in albums and newspapers from the early 20th century. Copies of the Bulgarian comic newspaper (authored by Aleksandar Bozhinov) are also preserved in this collection.
EAP1086 - Preserving and digitising the historic newspaper, The Barbados Mercury Gazette
EAP1086/1/1/1/1 - The Barbados Mercury. 5 April 1783
This project digitised the Barbados Mercury and Bridgetown Gazette, a newspaper printed in Barbados from 1783 to 1839. The Gazette was printed biweekly and each issue was four pages long. It is the most complete set of the Gazette and the only copies known to exist. The newspaper is crucial for understanding Barbados’ 18th and 19th century history, particularly because these were formative years for the island. The newspaper sheds light on the everyday life of a slaveholding society; Bussa’s 1816 rebellion; and the events that led to the abolition of the slavery on the island (1834). Digitisation of the newspaper offers the opportunity to unearth an untold history of the enslaved people of the island and their resistance in the early nineteenth century. EAP1086 was a collaborative effort between a team of practitioners and scholars, based both in Barbados and abroad. At the end of the project around 2,331 issues were digitised with around 9,000 digital images in total.
Written by Alyssa Ali, EAP Apprentice
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