Our Notes & References

The Leuchtenberg – Fekula – Atabey copy of “the best description of the Holy Land… in Russian literature” (Khitrovo) and “one of the most popular works of the 19th century in Russia” (Izotov), penned by a book collector, linguist and statesman, and a key figure in the dialogue between Russia, Orthodox Greeks and the Ottoman Empire.

The rare first edition: Worldcat locates five physical copies in Western libraries (University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Chicago, Yale and two in Harvard). We could not trace any other example passing through Western auctions or trade in recent decades.

Born to an old Russian noble family, Avraam Norov (1795-1869) became a military officer, a traveller and writer, and a statesman. During Napoleon’s invasion in 1812, he lost a leg at the Battle of Borodino; yet he remained in the ranks until 1823, retiring as a Colonel. A prominent linguist and bibliophile, he was the Minister of Education in 1853-58 at the time of the Crimean War. Under his governance, Russian universities significantly expanded in number of students, the programs were diversified, and the practice of sending young scholars abroad was restored.

In addition to five European languages and two West Slavic languages, he was proficient in Ancient Greek, Latin, ancient Hebrew and Arabic. His famed book collection of more than 15,000 volumes was one of the best in Russia and is now one of the highlights of the Russian State Library.

A deeply religious character, Norov went on a journey to the Holy Land in 1835; the trip proved to be “the most significant event in his life, which had a profound impact on his worldview” (Alekseev, our translation here and below). In a letter to his parents from Jerusalem dated 31 March 1835, Norov exclaims: “Despite many obstacles, I reached Jerusalem yesterday, on Palm Sunday, half an hour before sunset. This day is the happiest of my life!” (Alekseiev) Norov then travelled through Jerusalem, Jordan, the Dead Sea, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Mount Tabor, Lake Tiberias, Tyre, Sidon and later Cyprus, several Anatolian cities and villages to Constantinople and then back to Russia via the Balkan Peninsula.

In his erudite and lively account, Norov attempts to identify the locations mentioned in the Bible with what he saw in Palestine, focusing on the places about which other authors had left little information. He thus bases his topographical survey of Palestine on both the Old and New Testaments, as well as on the findings of all major Ancient and modern Western historians, geographers and philologists. He finds surprising coincidences between the curses of the prophets and the reality that changed the biblical landscape (e.g. describing Lake Menzaleh [also Manzala] which flooded a once fertile plain). He also adds insightful observations about the cities and villages he visits, as well as about his travelling companions, guides and guards.

Published by Smirdin, Pushkin’s publisher and a leading literary figure of Russia’s Golden Age, this first edition features in particular a folding map of the region and a plan of Jerusalem, together with lithographic plates showing intricate city views and landscapes, including those drawn by Norov himself.

“A profound and comprehensive scholarly source for studying the Orthodox East” (Izotov), the work was praised by contemporaries, including major Russian scholars of the subject, such as Vasilii Khitrovo, the founder of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society. A second edition was published in 1844.

After his trip to the Holy Land, Norov began expanding his book collection with works on the subject: his “collection of works relating to the Orient in general and to Egypt and Palestine in particular constitutes a separate and unique library in its completeness and rarity, which can hardly be compared with any of the public European libraries” (Guminskii).

In a deluxe binding with imperial provenance

From the library of the Tsar’s son-in-law, Maximilian de Beauharnais, 3rd Duke of Leuchtenberg (1817-52), first cousin of Emperors Napoleon III and Francis Joseph I of Austria and the husband of Grand Duchess Mariia Fedorovna, the eldest daughter of Tsar Nicholas I. His large library presented many very similar bindings, of usually green or red full leather, with elaborate, baroque-like gilt ornaments.

Provenance

Maximilian, 3rd Duke of Leuchtenberg (armorial bookplate to upper pastedown); Paul M. Fekula (num. 5837 in his catalogue; sold, Christie’s, 24 October 1990, lot 81); Sefik E. Atabey (bookplate; sold, Sotheby’s, 29 May 2002, lot 876); Alex Rabinovich, New York; Private collection, London.

Bibliography

Atabey 878 (this copy; misdescribed as ex-Nicholas I); Fekula 5837 (this copy); Obolianinov 1820.

Alekseev A. I., Sukhorukov L. N. Avraam Sergeevich Norov (1795–1869). K 225-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia putnika i pisatelia // RNB virtualnye vystavki.

Izotov Andrei Borisovich, “Russkoe palomnichestvo na Sviatuiu zempliu: aspekty istoriografii”, p. 168-169.

Khitrovo Vasilii, Egipet i Sinai. Bibliograficheskii ukazatel russkikh knig i statei o sviatykh mestakh Vostoka, preimushchestvenno palestinskikh i sinaiskikh, SPB, 1876.

Weisensel, Peter, Avraam Sergeevich Norov: Nineteenth-Century Russian Traveler, Bureaucrat and Educator, PhD Thesis, Uni. of Minnesota, 1973, and Imperial Russia in transitionand the extended version Prelude to the Great Reforms : Avraam Sergeevich Norov and Imperial Russia in transition, Minneapolis, 1995.