Illustrated History Books: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
Illustration from the textbook by E. V. Agibalov and G. M. Donskoy "History Middle Ages” (1966), which depicts a printing house of the end of the XNUMXth century. It's just beautifully drawn!
Tell me, Semyon, my boyar - he is a book reader,
history loves honor, are you literate?
- I studied ... in the monastery of Cheti-Minei
man and one more thing...
I know grammar and prosody, I studied little ...
- Okay! And I called “Bova Korolevich” so much.
There is Polkan the hero, then she read a book,
translated from Fryazhsky, like Bova, -
a lot is written about polkans in that book,
as if they were kidnapping wives,
and how they were all killed later,
only in Fryazhsky polkans are called centaurs ...
Both of these books - to Bov and about centaurs -
the holy one saw and threw it into the oven,
into the fire, and gave me the honor of the “Colored Triodion.”
Alexey Pavlovich Chapygin "People Walking"
history loves honor, are you literate?
- I studied ... in the monastery of Cheti-Minei
man and one more thing...
I know grammar and prosody, I studied little ...
- Okay! And I called “Bova Korolevich” so much.
There is Polkan the hero, then she read a book,
translated from Fryazhsky, like Bova, -
a lot is written about polkans in that book,
as if they were kidnapping wives,
and how they were all killed later,
only in Fryazhsky polkans are called centaurs ...
Both of these books - to Bov and about centaurs -
the holy one saw and threw it into the oven,
into the fire, and gave me the honor of the “Colored Triodion.”
Alexey Pavlovich Chapygin "People Walking"
History and culture. We all once studied at school and got acquainted with the history of the past from school textbooks. And, it is clear that not only the text mattered to us, but also the pictures placed in these books. And sometimes the pictures were much more important. So now let's get acquainted with history ... already books on history, and not just with some abstruse scientific monographs and dissertations, with popular illustrated publications that are interesting to both children and adults. What is their past, present, and in the future, their future ...
"A book for reading on the history of the Middle Ages" edited by Professor S. D. Skazkin, edition of 1951. The illustrations are at the level of that time and besides, there are not enough of them. But a wonderful syllable. These are the books you should learn to write from!
Well, you will have to start again with memories of your old wooden house built in 1882. As a child, I did not find the time when my mother worked as a history teacher at school: she was quickly offered to work at the institute, and she went there.
But on the other hand, from that past work of hers, I inherited a folder with color pictures on the history of the Ancient World, tied to shoe ribbons, and a large cardboard tube, with paintings the size of a considerable rug (hang on a blackboard in the classroom), with images of scenes of Russian history. There were also paintings by Bilibin and Vasnetsov, and it was all so beautiful that I could look at them for hours.
Illustration from the book by S. D. Skazkin. The horrors of medieval feudalism are very clearly shown.
And then - more! I once climbed into my grandfather’s woodshed, and there... not only was there a French bayonet for a Gras rifle hidden behind the boards, and a creepy-looking homemade dagger in a wooden scabbard (which he found in a bloody cemetery!), but also a whole “strewn” of old textbooks from the 30s and 40s.
All of them were printed on yellow paper and had a completely old look, but I was attracted to them primarily by the pictures, and I began to read the text itself after 1962, when I learned to read on my own.
Illustration from the textbook "Stories on the history of the USSR" for grade 4, edition of 1966
And here it turned out that at first the history of the USSR, from ancient times, was taught in our school in parallel with foreign history, that is, there was a single textbook on them. The illustrations were exclusively black and white line graphics. Moreover, there were no original works by artists. Only redrawings of pictures from ancient manuscripts.
Textbook by E. V. Agibalov and G. M. Donskoy “History of the Middle Ages”. No wonder he won the 1st prize in the competition of history textbooks
Readers of VO know well how disproportionate and even funny many of the figures from these illustrations look. Therefore, I didn’t like the textbooks of those distant years at all - they were somehow poor in appearance, although I perfectly understood that these graphics were inserted into the textbooks for a reason, but in order to show how it all was then!
Schematic of the three-field system from this tutorial. Everything is very simple, clear and understandable!
I already had another book in my house - a source of unceasing pleasure - "A Book for Reading on the History of the Middle Ages" edited by Professor S. D. Skazkin, edition of 1951. Also, the paper there was not so hot, but photographs and drawings ... well, very mediocre. But I didn’t see the best then, and for me it was good. Why, even to say (I realized this later!) that only 6 years have passed since the end of the Great Patriotic War, so it would be simply ridiculous to demand something better.
And here is an interior view of the Cathedral in Reims. Graphics made from photographs. But it would be better to post a color photo. Our children have never been inside such cathedrals, so imagining it on the basis of such a drawing is a difficult task.
There were enough colorful pictures in school textbooks, but with each next class, their number was rapidly decreasing. And suddenly, I get a textbook "Stories on the history of the USSR" for the 4th grade, and there - all the pages are made of thick white paper, and on them ... color drawings of the artist, almost on each.
I leafed through it with bated breath, and then... I outlined all the illustrations I liked with black ink and cut them out to paste into my album as appliques! And my grandmother had to buy me a second such textbook, but... I got my own, hand-made, “history book”!
And then it was like this.
In the same 4th grade, I demanded a history textbook for the 5th grade, and in the 5th - for the 6th... And since I read them many times, and even in advance, I answered the lessons literally by heart and received the stories are only A's. In my opinion today, these two textbooks most optimally corresponded to both child psychology and children’s artistic perception.
The pictures there were both black and white and color, the latter being the author’s. And, by the way, they are very high quality even by today’s standards! The content... Here it is, in my opinion today, it could be better, but I have practically no complaints about the design of those books.
Cover of the book “Expedition to the Ancestors” (1970)
And then, already in 1970, I saw in the bookstore the “book of knowledge” by A. Svirin (co-authored with M. Lyashenko) “Expedition to the Ancestors” - the fifth part of his series of educational books “The Earth is still far away”, and it had an impact on me just amazing impact.
The combination of historical realities with the adventures of fictional characters was so masterful in it that ... Well, in a word, I read it with great pleasure and still use some phrases from it. And I am very sorry that the Malysh publishing house ended this series of books with this issue and I did not get into the Middle Ages along with Kagen, Nkale, Tkavy and Lended.
But... I really liked the idea of this book. The only pity is that it cannot yet be implemented in any form.
Page of the book “Early Civilizations” by the publishing house “Rosman” (1994). Translation from English. By Jane Chisholm, Anne Millard. Illustrations by Ian Jackson and many others. In fact, there is not a single page in the book without illustrations!
Well, then 1991 came, and translated books by foreign authors began to be republished in our country. And it was a breakthrough, because until that time we simply had nothing like these books. Moreover, I drew attention to the fact that in the same England, the Dorling Kindersley publishing house publishes many drawing books filled exclusively with the author's works of artists.
Again, it is clear that children really like such “books with pictures”, but their price must be very high - after all, how much did the artists have to pay?!
At the same time, other “educational” books were published there, which, on the contrary, were illustrated only with photographs of artifacts from museums. Moreover, British museums, which, apparently, were the easiest for the authors to reach.
Another translated series of the publishing house "Rosmen" (1994) - "The Strokes of Time"
And this is how a page from the book “Ships” was illustrated
In 1997, a significant event occurred: my first book on the history of the Middle Ages was published by the Prosveshcheniye publishing house. Back then, books were still published in large editions, so they were all illustrated with drawings made by the artist. Not a single photo! Only drawings! This, most likely, turned out to be possible only because of the huge circulation, because the artist was paid a lot at that time!
Illustration from the author’s book “Knights of the Middle Ages” (1997) - the first untranslated book on this topic published in Russia after 1991. All illustrations are drawn, absolutely everything. Moreover, this allowed the illustrator to laugh a little at our “team”. He just took us all and painted us as knights of different orders! From left to right: the artist himself (hospitalier), a tall, mustachioed Templar - editor-in-chief of the History editorial board, sword-bearer - the editor who was directly responsible for my book. But the artist didn’t find my portrait... and dressed me in a closed helmet!
1999 Medieval World, Rosmen Publishing House. Translation book by Jane Bingham. There are a lot of illustrations, but they are quite primitive...
Then circulation began to gradually decline. And new “Books of Knowledge” began to be published in a format with a mixed design - drawings by the artist, photographs, and “pictures” taken from the Internet.
However, there were exceptions, for example, the St. Petersburg book company A.V.K. Timoshka became famous throughout the country with a series of her books “Know the World”, decorated with drawings by the artist, but she only made them (T. N. Kanivets) on a computer. And this was their certain “charm”, and some inevitable “machinism” with such a technique.
The book "The Medieval Castle" by the BMM AO publishing house Philip Steel came out "with them" in 1995, and with us in 1997, that is, with a minimal gap. And look at the amazing illustrations!
Books of historical content published by Rosmen, say, in 2005, already contained drawings and photographs from miniatures and artifacts. Although in the same year and in the same publishing house I managed to release, again, the entirely drawn book “Knights. Locks. Weapon”, which most likely became the last such book illustrated by the author's drawings.
The series by the Hachette publishing house in Paris was published in 1976–1980. Our publishing house "Olma-Press" published it in 1998. It is interesting that the illustrations in it are hand-drawn, but there are also images from manuscripts. But without any indication of what it is, where it comes from or where the source is. That is, the approach to design is purely childish
By 2016, the Internet had finally defeated book publishing, primarily in the sense of not even publishing books, as such, but in terms of their design. For example, the "Encyclopedia of the Samurai" (Yauza/Eksmo) was illustrated with black and white photographs and several colored inserts. "The artist's drawings should not be!" - I was warned about this in advance.
There are no color "pictures" (ACT) in Zoe Lionidas' book "Kitchen of the Middle Ages" at all. Only black and white copies of manuscript miniatures. But in the book of Ekaterina Mishanenkova "The Gluttonous Middle Ages", in addition to black-and-white "photos", they also managed to insert a tab of several pages with color illustrations! That is - there is something to please the eye!
2005 year. Book “Knights. Locks. Weapon". Publishing house "Rosman". It was probably the last book completely hand-drawn by the artist in Russia. Moreover, the drawings are no worse than those of foreign illustrators!
Finally, in my just published book “The Brilliant Middle Ages: Knights and Castles” All illustrations are in color and almost all are color miniatures from manuscripts, as well as author’s photographs. This has never happened before in our country, primarily in terms of the volume of materials involved.
There are original illustrations by A. Sheps, but they can be counted on one hand. But the book was very decorated with his initials, that is, the capital letters with which the text on each page began in medieval books. And each such initial looks like a real work of art!
By Michael Baym. In 1997, this book was published here. Illustrated only with photographs, literally 2–3 drawings
In England, this book was published by Dorling Kindersley Limited in 1992. Our publishing house “Slovo” published it in 2001. And again, almost only photographs as illustrations!
But what's next for illustrated history books? They will contain author's photographs of the places in question - why not?! There will be photocopies of archival documents and images from old books in the public domain.
But the “drawn book” will simply disappear, because it is simply not possible to pay for the artist’s work from a circulation of 1 copies. Or the price of such a book will be prohibitive, and no one will buy it!
"Exmo". World Children's Encyclopedia "Knights" (2002). In the design of the author's drawings of artists, "pictures" from the Internet and black and white book graphics (scanned)
Book published by A.V.K. Timoshka from the Explore the World series, decorated with drawings by artist T.N. Kanivets by computer graphics
One of the illustration diagrams used in this book
That is, it can be argued with a sufficient degree of objectivity that in the near future book illustration in “books of knowledge” will be reduced to a minimum, and its place will be taken by photographs of authors and “pictures” downloaded from the Internet “public domain”.
This should be remembered by all those who today would like to write and publish such books. With illustrative material - and no one needs illustrated books of this genre - they can have very serious problems.
"Rosman." "Castles" by Leslie Sims (2003). The design is a motley mixture of original drawings and photographs.
True, especially expensive “gift” children's books have already appeared, where there are photos, drawings, pasted-in scans, and pockets with additional tabs. All this makes the book more entertaining, but only up to a certain point. As for textbooks, in my opinion, today they have an excessive number of illustrations, and small ones, where it is difficult to see anything, cut out from nowhere, and therefore do not tell the student anything.
You can imagine yourself in the future as a fold-out book, the pages of which, when opened, would turn into an ancient Greek temple, a cross-section of an Egyptian pyramid, or a medieval knight's castle. It’s probably possible to do this, but it’s definitely not for my thinking.
But I think that in the future such a book will certainly appear. And I would also insert a reamer into it for self-gluing a topfhelm helmet with helmet decorations of your choice! Let the child work with his head and hands ...
2016 Eksmo / Yauza "The first complete encyclopedia of the samurai." There are a lot of black and white photographs and there are several color inserts with illustrations on coated paper. All of them are copies of Japanese woodcuts in the u-kiyo genre from the collections of foreign museums.
There are very few author's drawings in this book, but there are a lot of miniatures from medieval manuscripts and author's photographs. There is something to see, well, the text to them is also appropriate. That is, this edition is in no way inferior to the books of Dorling Kindersley Limited, and in terms of scientific content in the presentation of the material, it surpasses them by a head. A sequel to it has already been written, but whether it will see the light entirely depends on the market.
In general, our popular science and school educational literature has come a long way in 73 years, and enormous changes have occurred in it, as well as throughout the world around us. If, say, the book “Brilliant...” had come to me, say, in 1962, I probably would have slept with it. And now this no longer surprises anyone. Everyone understands that this is exactly how it should be.
PS
Today at VO, fortunately for all of us, and in the sense of, so to speak, continuity in writing such literature, there are several people who could well write such “books of knowledge” in the future. A. Svirin, by the way, was neither an astronomer, nor an oceanologist, nor a historian.
He was a radiologist and this did not hinder him at all. So we have people who, with their erudition, are not inferior to another candidate of sciences, and it’s time for them to think about extending themselves in books. For example, it is high time to write a popular book dedicated to illustrations from ancient Russian chronicles; a book about medieval monetary systems - “The Middle Ages with the Ringing of Coins”, but there aren’t many interesting topics to which even professional historians are not yet paying attention. After all, books must be written and published, since new children are born every year.
So, gradually, step by step, why not start doing it?
For example, I conceived the book “Brilliant...” back in 2016, and after seven years of hard work (although it was not so noticeable over so many years), it was eventually completed and edited in the shortest possible time.
In a word, we are talking about the fact that there is no need to bury your talents (and the Bible says so directly about this!) in the ground. The eyes are afraid, but the hands are doing - this is a very good rule that you can and should follow!
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