On June 6, the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian National Library (RNB) in St. Petersburg will host the opening of the exhibitions "Works of Alisher Navoi in manuscripts of the 15th-19th centuries" and "Manuscript book of Samarkand, Bukhara, Kokand and Khiva of the 15th-19th centuries".
The exhibitions were prepared within the framework of the Second International Congress "Cultural legacy of Uzbekistan – a path to dialogue between peoples and countries". The expositions feature both masterpieces of the book art of Khorasan and Transoxiana, as well as books in Persian, Turkic (Chagatai) and Arabic, demonstrating a wide range of interests of Central Asians. Books were received by the library in various ways: as diplomatic gifts of the Bukhara emirs and the Shahs of Iran, as part of the collections of Russian diplomats in Iran, as trophies of the Russo-Iranian War, as a result of the annexation of the territories of Turkestan to the Russian Empire, as well as from private individuals.
During the opening ceremony of the exhibition, a ceremony will be held to donate facsimile copies of the Katta-Langar Koran and the Divan of Sultan Hussein Baykar to the RNB. Also, sets of 13 books-albums of the series "Architectural Epigraphy of Uzbekistan" will be donated to the library. A project of digitization and facsimile copying of three manuscripts of Alisher Navoi's works from the collection of the Russian National Library will be presented.
