Russia's Kaliningrad Digitizes Kant's Works

A woman walks on a street during snowfall in Moscow, Russia, 30 November 2023. EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV
A woman walks on a street during snowfall in Moscow, Russia, 30 November 2023. EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV
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Russia's Kaliningrad Digitizes Kant's Works

A woman walks on a street during snowfall in Moscow, Russia, 30 November 2023. EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV
A woman walks on a street during snowfall in Moscow, Russia, 30 November 2023. EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV

In a once-German corner of Russia, an ambitious project to digitize hundreds of rare and ancient books is under way.
"The principal mission of libraries is to preserve books," said Ruslan Aksyonkin, an expert at the culture and education center at Baltic University in the city of Kaliningrad.
"A huge project is currently under way in Russia aimed at scanning all pre-Revolution [of 1917] books."
In Kaliningrad, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic coast and separated from the rest of Russia, around 450 books dating from the 15th to the 20th centuries, some more accessible than others, are to be digitized.
The centerpiece are the books that once belonged to German Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, best known for his "Critique of Pure Reason" of 1781 - a ground-breaking but dense 800-page treatise on the relationship between knowledge and experience or perception.
Kant spent his entire life, from 1724 to 1804, in what was then the Prussian city of Koenigsberg, and the project is part of citywide celebrations of next year's 300th anniversary of his birth.
Little of the city Kant would have known is left today, much of the historic center having been flattened by British air raids in 1944, in World War Two, Reuters reported.
After Germany's surrender, the city was ceded to the Soviet Union and resettled with Soviet newcomers, while its German population were expelled.
Even so, modern-day Kaliningrad remains fond of its most famous German resident, despite the abstruseness of his ideas.
The city's university bears his name, and Kant's tomb and a small exhibition on the philosopher have pride of place in the restored German cathedral.
"There are very few authentic items linked to Kant," said Marina Yadova, deputy director at the cathedral's museum. "But we do have certain items, and they are Kant's works published during his lifetime."
Some of the books being digitized, unopened for centuries, contain dried leaves or handkerchiefs, as well as scribbles in the margins of their fragile pages.
"Ancient books can be particularly finicky. They're not always stable. Typically, they're very thick, often with more than 600 pages," said Aksyonkin.
"There are books that seem resistant to scanning."



Gaza Heritage and Destruction on Display in Paris

This photograph shows antiques on display during the installation of the archaeological heritage exhibition "Treasures saved from Gaza - 5000 years of history" (Tresors sauves de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire) at the Institut du Monde Arabe, in Paris, on March 31, 2025. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)
This photograph shows antiques on display during the installation of the archaeological heritage exhibition "Treasures saved from Gaza - 5000 years of history" (Tresors sauves de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire) at the Institut du Monde Arabe, in Paris, on March 31, 2025. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)
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Gaza Heritage and Destruction on Display in Paris

This photograph shows antiques on display during the installation of the archaeological heritage exhibition "Treasures saved from Gaza - 5000 years of history" (Tresors sauves de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire) at the Institut du Monde Arabe, in Paris, on March 31, 2025. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)
This photograph shows antiques on display during the installation of the archaeological heritage exhibition "Treasures saved from Gaza - 5000 years of history" (Tresors sauves de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire) at the Institut du Monde Arabe, in Paris, on March 31, 2025. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)

A new exhibition opening in Paris on Friday showcases archaeological artifacts from Gaza, once a major commercial crossroads between Asia and Africa, whose heritage has been ravaged by Israel's ongoing onslaught.

Around a hundred artifacts, including a 4,000-year-old bowl, a sixth-century mosaic from a Byzantine church and a Greek-inspired statue of Aphrodite, are on display at the Institut du Monde Arabe.

The rich and mixed collection speaks to Gaza's past as a cultural melting pot, but the show's creators also wanted to highlight the contemporary destruction caused by the war, sparked by Hamas's attack on Israel in October 2023, AFP reported.

"The priority is obviously human lives, not heritage," said Elodie Bouffard, curator of the exhibition, which is titled "Saved Treasures of Gaza: 5,000 Years of History".

"But we also wanted to show that, for millennia, Gaza was the endpoint of caravan routes, a port that minted its own currency, and a city that thrived at the meeting point of water and sand," she told AFP.

One section of the exhibition documents the extent of recent destruction.

Using satellite image, the UN's cultural agency UNESCO has already identified damage to 94 heritage sites in Gaza, including the 13th-century Pasha's Palace.

Bouffard said the damage to the known sites as well as treasures potentially hidden in unexplored Palestinian land "depends on the bomb tonnage and their impact on the surface and underground".

"For now, it´s impossible to assess."

The attacks by Hamas militants on Israel in 2023 left 1,218 dead. In retaliation, Israeli operations have killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and devastated the densely populated territory.

The story behind "Gaza´s Treasures" is inseparable from the ongoing wars in the Middle East.

At the end of 2024, the Institut du Monde Arabe was finalising an exhibition on artifacts from the archaeological site of Byblos in Lebanon, but Israeli bombings on Beirut made the project impossible.

"It came to a sudden halt, but we couldn´t allow ourselves to be discouraged," said Bouffard.

The idea of an exhibition on Gaza´s heritage emerged.

"We had just four and a half months to put it together. That had never been done before," she explained.

Given the impossibility of transporting artifacts out of Gaza, the Institut turned to 529 pieces stored in crates in a specialized Geneva art warehouse since 2006. The works belong to the Palestinian Authority, which administers the West Bank.

The Oslo Accords of 1993, signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel, helped secure some of Gaza's treasures.

In 1995, Gaza´s Department of Antiquities was established, which oversaw the first archaeological digs in collaboration with the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem (EBAF).

Over the years, excavations uncovered the remains of the Monastery of Saint Hilarion, the ancient Greek port of Anthedon, and a Roman necropolis - traces of civilizations spanning from the Bronze Age to Ottoman influences in the late 19th century.

"Between Egypt, Mesopotamian powers, and the Hasmoneans, Gaza has been a constant target of conquest and destruction throughout history," Bouffard noted.

In the 4th century BC, Greek leader Alexander the Great besieged the city for two months, leaving behind massacres and devastation.

Excavations in Gaza came to a standstill when Hamas took power in 2007 and Israel imposed a blockade.

Land pressure and rampant building in one of the world's most densely populated areas has also complicated archaeological work.

And after a year and a half of war, resuming excavations seems like an ever-more distant prospect.

The exhibition runs until November 2, 2025.