In our 2025 Anniversary Year, the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence reflects on people who have gone before us and whom we wish to recollect as companions or mentors, advisers, colleagues, and friends contributing to the origins, history, and growth of our organization across the years.<\/p>\n
Part of that process has yielded the formation of our own nonprofit educational publishing house.\u00a0 Our books and booklets in printed form and digital formats include Memoirs, to which we add this year.<\/p>\n
1. Oleg Andreevich Grabar<\/h2>\n
The first of these Memoirs appeared quietly in 2015 as a 4-page booklet.\u00a0 It offers a Memorial for Oleg Grabar<\/a>, art historian and archaeologist:<\/p>\n Composed by Leonid A. Beliaev<\/a>, the text was published first in Russian. By request, it was translated from the Russian into English, set in multi-lingual RGME Bembino<\/a>, provided with a photograph by permission, and laid out as a booklet corresponding with our RGME Style Manifesto<\/a>.<\/p>\n Although Oleg did not participate in RGME activities, he generously gave advice for our research over several years while our Director worked as a part-time research assistant for his colleague Giles Constable (see below).\u00a0 The translation and publication of the English version of the Memoir in Russian were carried out for its author, an RGME Associate, at the request and with the assistance of a long-term supporter and advisor of the RGME.\u00a0 Note that the RGME font Bembino supports the Cyrillic font appropriate for portions of the text of the published Memoir.<\/p>\n The booklet can freely be downloaded:<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n For our blog on Manuscript Studies<\/a>, in 2014 our Director, Mildred Budny, provided a blogpost called Memorials<\/a>.\u00a0 Principally it shares recollections of friend, colleague, and long-time RGME participant (first as Associate of our international scholarly organization in England and then as Trustee of our non-profit corporation), Vivien Anne Law<\/a> (1954\u20132002). This forms part of a larger report or Memoir responding, in part, to the opportunity to examine and advise on Vivien’s archives in late 2005 at the request of her widower, Sir Nicholas Shackleton<\/a> (1937\u20132006).<\/p>\n Our Director’s paper for our 2002 Colloquium at the British Museum<\/a> in London in March (a month after Vivien’s death) is dedicated to her memory, as well as that of another, dear, friend and mentor.<\/p>\n Vivien Law in her Cambridge Garden in June 1996 (Photograph \u00a9 Mildred Budny)<\/p><\/div>\n *****<\/p>\n Also for our blog Manuscript Studies<\/a>, this year we posted a set of recollections about of Giles Constable<\/a> (1 June 1929 \u2014 17 January 2021), friend, colleague, mentor, and RGME Associate and Honorary Trustee.\u00a0 These recollections do not comprise an obituary<\/a> as such, because Giles often and firmly expressed his wish for no such thing, nor any Memorial Service or Festschrift<\/a> for him in his honor.<\/p>\n Instead, after an interval of mourning, we record appreciation for his contributions as a presence and guiding force for our organization since its early years in the United States, following the move of our principal base from the United Kingdom to Princeton, New Jersey, in October of 1994.<\/p>\n Giles Constable reading in his office at the Institute for Advanced Studies. Photograph by Mildred Budny.<\/p><\/div>\n Also, his generous encouragement of our work for manuscript studies by long-term loans or gifts made it possible closely to examine, over time, groups of original specimens of medieval manuscripts, manuscript fragments, documents, seals in metal or wax, early printed materials, bindings, and associated records.\u00a0 The work included conservation, photography, research, seminars, display, and publication in our blog and other forms.<\/p>\n Discoveries abounded, and found expression in those publications as well as in various of our RGME events. For example:<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Now, in preparation for our Episode 17. \u201cRGME Retrospect and Prospects: Anniversary Reflections\u201d<\/a> in September 2024, our RGME Associate and Trustee David Ganz<\/a> offers a Memoir of our RGME Associate Patrick Wormald<\/a> (1947\u20132004).<\/p>\n Patrick Wormald at the 2002 Colloquium<\/p><\/div>\n *****<\/p>\n See also RGME Officers, Associates, and Volunteers<\/a>: In Memoriam.<\/p>\n Another Memoir composed by our Director in booklet format, published in a limited edition:<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Are there others whom you wish to remember?\u00a0 Please let us know.\u00a0 Would you like to contribute a Memoir of some kind about someone you recall with appreciation and seek to record?<\/p>\n For example, you could Contact Us or write to the director@manuscriptevidence.org<\/a> with your requests or suggestions.<\/a><\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n As part of our anniversary celebrations, the RGME prepares an Episode in our online series \u201cThe Research Group Speaks\u201d to consider our past, present, and future.<\/p>\nIn Memory of
\nOleg Andreevich Grabar
\n[\u041e\u043b\u0435\u0433 \u0410\u043d\u0434\u0440\u0435\u0435\u0432\u0438\u0447 \u0413\u0440\u0430\u0431\u0430\u0440]
\n(3 November 1929 \u2013 8 January 2011)<\/h3>\n\n
2. Vivien Anne Law<\/h2>\n
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![\"Vivien](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Vivien-Law-in-her-Garden-June-1996-Photograph-\u00a9-Mildred-Budny-1024x749.jpg\")
3. Giles Constable<\/h2>\n
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![\"Giles](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/IMG_4876-Giles-reading-at-the-window-1024x768-cropped-1.jpg\")
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5. Patrick Wormald<\/h3>\n
![\"Coffee](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/2002-BM-Colloquium-Photos-005-cropped-1024x626.jpg\")
In Memoriam<\/h2>\n
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Others?<\/h2>\n
Episode 17 of “The Research Group Speaks”<\/h3>\n