The Editorial Board of the Slavic & East European Journal (SEEJ) has awarded my article on Bulgarian typewriters its 2022 best article of the year award. A very nice recognition for someone in my academic field.
Just posted some of my newer acquisitions to my typewriter gallery
I’m not so good at cataloging my typewriters, but I finally decided to update my typewriter page with some of my newest acquisitions.
My Talk on East European Typewriters on YouTube →
This is my first public presentation on my project dealing with the history and material culture of East European typewriters.
My visit to the Belgrade book museum →
Yesterday, on my hunt for information about Yugoslav typewriters, I found myself at ADLIGAT, the Society for Culture, Art and International Cooperation in Belgrade. This place is a bibliophile’s dreamland; they have over one million books and various exhibits and displays about book cultures from around the globe. They also have an impressive number of typewriters on display, many which belonged to famous writers, including the wonderful UNIS tbm de Luxe, which was manufactured in Bugojno from 1971 to 1991 under a German license and was exported with 92 different keyboards to nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. I’m told they have more than 100 machines in storage, and I am lobbying for a special typewriter room! Below are some photos from my visit, but they simply cannot do justice to the magical nature of the place. Visit if you can!
Anatomy of a Zoom background
So now that I am teaching again and appearing on a lot of podcasts with video components, I have had a lot of questions about the room (my home office) that I sit in when I am in front of my computer’s camera. I will have to admit that I thought about buying one of those room dividers or a green screen, but in the end I decided to clean up the space and decorate my bookshelves with some of my favorite things. A few notable items in the background:
Two of my favorite typewriters on top of the bookshelves: my 1930s Urania QWETZ typewriter from Dresden on the right and my 1950s Model T Groma typewriter (from the former GDR) on the left. There is a bust of David on the floor (who will beat the Goliath of capitalism eventually), hiding some storage boxes hidden between the corners of the bookshelves. There is a framed and signed photo of the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, given to me by the late Elena Lagadinova, as well as an unframed photo of Alexandra Kollontai. I still have my original Rubik’s Cube from the 1980s (designed by a Hungarian architect during the Cold War) and a variety of books on various utopian movements and ideologies. On my walls are a poster of the Acropolis in Athens and the Oxford Cartographers World History Timeline that I have often lectured and written about. The big plant behind me is a fake one that adds a little depth to the room.
It’s not the most exciting background, but I feel like it is at least visually more interesting than a paper screen.
A Royal Safari from 1965
Friday was a wonderful day. I thrifted two amazing pant suits at the Junior League, and found this 1965 Royal Safari manual typewriter in a local nostalgia shop for $40. It’s in excellent condition, and is a perfect addition to my collection. It has “magic margins!”
Berlin days
The first couple of days in Berlin have been amazing so far. I am sinking deep into the history of the DDR, and trying to better understand the transition after 1989. I met with my brilliant German editor at Suhrkamp on Thursday, had dinner with my dear friend Susan Neiman on Friday, and have hit the Berlin Trödel markets hard this weekend.
In front of a portrait of August Bebel in Prenzlauer Berg.
Berliner Dom by night
DDR-era bust of Marx purchased in the Weissensee trödelmarkt for 3 euro
Two new typewriters from the trödelmarkt: An Olympia Traveller de Luxe and a Prvileg.
the Plaza of the 9th of November 1989
Writing on the deck
The sun was shining and the words felt like they were going to flow…
Important software update
Ribbons are soft, right?
Cyrillic typewriters
In my research on the Bulgarian typewriter factory in Plovdiv, I stumbled across a couple of earlier models. The German Erika is probably from the 1920s, and I bought it and brought it home with me to the United States to add to my growing typewriter collection. It needs a good clean up, but otherwise it works like a charm.
