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."



From Orange Peels to Bottle Caps: Thousands of Artists Create Their Own ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’

Rob de Heer talks next to his artwork, one of 60 pieces exhibited and inspired by the famous "Girl with a Pearl Earring," painting by Johannes Vermeer, at The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP)
Rob de Heer talks next to his artwork, one of 60 pieces exhibited and inspired by the famous "Girl with a Pearl Earring," painting by Johannes Vermeer, at The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP)
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From Orange Peels to Bottle Caps: Thousands of Artists Create Their Own ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’

Rob de Heer talks next to his artwork, one of 60 pieces exhibited and inspired by the famous "Girl with a Pearl Earring," painting by Johannes Vermeer, at The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP)
Rob de Heer talks next to his artwork, one of 60 pieces exhibited and inspired by the famous "Girl with a Pearl Earring," painting by Johannes Vermeer, at The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP)

After sending its most famous work to be featured in Amsterdam’s blockbuster 2023 exhibition of nearly every work by Johannes Vermeer, the Mauritshuis museum found itself with a blank space where the iconic “Girl with a Pearl Earring” had been displayed.

The Hague-based institution turned to more than 2,700 artists, from Texas to Ukraine, from age 7 to 70, who created their own interpretations of the 17th-century masterpiece.

A selection of 60 works using materials ranging from orange peels to bottle caps to sweatshirts were exhibited in the museum while the painting was on loan 40 miles (64 kilometers) to the north.

“The submissions continue to come, it will never end with her,” Martine Gosselink, director of the Mauritshuis museum, told The Associated Press, pointing to the ongoing popularity of works featuring the mystery girl.

A 2020 investigation into the painting using a battery of modern imaging techniques uncovered details about Vermeer's methods and the makeup of his pigments, but not the young woman’s identity.

“I bring together the original The Girl with a Pearl and the face of a Wayang puppet,” artist Rob de Heer told the AP, standing in front of a screen in the museum’s foyer where all of the winning submissions are displayed.

De Heer, who primarily works with mixed media, wanted to take an image from the Golden Age history of the Netherlands and combine it with one evoking its colonial legacy. Wayang puppets are a traditional form of theater in parts of Indonesia, which was ruled by the Netherlands until 1949.

His surrealist work is followed in the rolling display by a piece featuring the original girl’s face superimposed on an antique tea tin.

Other submissions include works by South Korean artist Nanan Kang, who used an ear of corn for the face; Georgian artist Nino Kavazauri, who reimagined a modern girl waiting at a bus stop with a cup of coffee; and Simon Chong, a Welsh animator, who works on the popular television series “Bob’s Burgers” and created a girl in the show’s cartoon style.

The winners were displayed in a replica frame in the exact spot where “Girl with a Pearl Earring” usually hangs, between two portraits by Dutch Baroque painter Gerard ter Borch.

The popularity of the first competition prompted a second round and those submissions are now on display at the Fabrique des Lumières in Amsterdam. The museum continues to feature submitted works of art on its Instagram page.

Gosselink, who has been the museum’s director since 2020, said the breadth and depth of the works made it difficult to select who would be featured in the exhibition.

“I would dare to say that some of the ones we selected are new pieces of art, and they would be served very well in a new surrounding, like a museum," Gosselink said.