2026
On January 26, the TYPARABIC team presented six books of the Early Arabic Printing in the East series that they published with De Gruyter at the 57th Cairo International Book Fair. Ioana Feodorov, project PI, Archim. Policarp Chitulescu and Octavian-Adrian Negoita, team members, talked about the outcomes of the team’s research published by De Gruyter in Open Acces thanks to the ERC grant that is funding the TYPARABIC project. The event took place at the book stand of Romania, guest of honour of the Cairo Book Fair on the occasion of the anniversary of the opening of diplomatic relations between Romania and Egypt and was graced by the presence of HE Ms Clara Volintiru, Secretary of State of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and HE Mrs Olivia Toderean, Ambassador of Romania to the Republic of Egypt. The team left behind a copy of each book, graciusly presented to Romania’s stand by De Gruyter, and flyers that will be freely distributed to all visitors interested in our book series until the end of the Book Fair on February 3.
2025
In Boston, MA, Ioana and Vera visited the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, whose mission is to advance knowledge of Ukraine through teaching, research, and publication. They met with the URI director, Prof. Serhii Plokhii, and discussed the TYPARABIC team’s study of the Lavra Pechersk printing press, the influence of Ukrainian printers on the South-East European presses, and the transfer of Ukrainian artistic models and motifs to presses as far as Ottoman Syria. They also commented on the exceptional historical information offered by Paul of Aleppo’s journal on the lands of the Cossacks in the middle of the 17th century. Potential contributions to the Harvard Ukrainian Studies academic journal and online talks were also discussed. The evening ended with a fascinating talk by Prof. Peter B. Brown of the Department of History at the Rhode Island College on the Ukrainian Peasant Statuses and Hierarchies of the 17th and 18th centuries.
The second day of Ioana and Vera’s visit to the Icon Museum and Research Center in Clinton, MA, was dedicated to a commented tour of the exhibition “Printing Icons: Modern Process, Medieval Image” with advanced art history students from Clark University. On this occasion, a hands-on workshop was organized where students and professors could experience the printing technique by multiplying a medieval Bulgarian icon of the Mother of God with Child Jesus by the classical block-printing method. The printing apprentices got to take home their beautiful productions.
Some glimpses into the first day of the TYPARABIC project’s conference at the Ca’Foscari University in Venice. A wonderful day for the team and its guests, in the splendid Renaissance style Aula Magna Silvio Trentin.
Between June 16-20, 2025, the TYPARABIC project organizes, in collaboration with the Library of the Romanian Academy and the Library of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Patriarchate, the exhibition “The Connections between Romanians and the Eastern Christians during the Times of Antim of Iberia”. The public will be able to see important gems of rare printed editions that shaped the religious and cultural dynamics between the Romanian Principalities and the Christians of the Ottoman Levant.
Ioana Feodorov and Radu Dipratu discussed their commentary, edition, and translation of Demetrius Cantemir’s Arabic-type Manifesto printed in Astrakhan in 1722, at the book launch on Friday, December 5, at the Bucharest Book Fair, of a collective works volume comprising the papers presented at the conference dedicated to Cantemir by the Institute for South-East European Studies in October 2023. The title of their joint contribution to this volume is “Tipăriturile lui Dimitrie Cantemir în litere arabe: Contextul și motivația unei întreprinderi singulare”. This is the first comprehensive survey of the circumstances of this unique episode in Arabic-type printing in the East and the first re-edition and translation into Romanian of Cantemir’s Manifesto by an expert in Ottoman Turkish. The volume, titled “Dimitrie Cantemir și sud-estul european: Noi cercetări” (ed. Andrei Timotin and Daniel Cain), was published by the Publishing House of the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi and can be purchased on their website.
2024
Glimpses from the 3rd conference of the TYPARABIC project: Conference panels, hands-on at the Library of the Romanian Academy, and group photos.
Project inauguration on July 1, 2021, with the entire team, online reunion
The room dedicated to the TYPARABIC ERC Project, 24 March 2022
Thursday, March 31, 2022, we received at the ERC Project room the visit of Professor Andrei Pippidi, a member of the Romanian Academy, and Dr Ovidiu Olar, the Director of the ERC project Orthodoxies and Politics (ORTHPOL) hosted by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Vienna).
On Thursday 10 November 2022, the ERC Project team received the visit of HE Mrs Rana al-Mokaddem, Ambassador of Lebanon to Bucharest and Mr Ernest Oberlander-Tarnoveanu, general director of the National Museum of History of Romania, in preparation of the exhibition dedicated to the National Day of Lebanon next week (22 November).
