Kraynov-Rytov Leonid Leonidovich (born January 5, 1946, Gorky) — a Nizhny Novgorod writer, journalist, editor, art historian, and collector. He began his career as a telecommunications lineman and newspaper man, spent twenty years in the militia press, published books of aphorisms and jokes in the 1990s, and entered the field of local history through research into subjects rarely considered scholarly: harness bells, "market" photographic postcards, Christmas paper flags, and business cards. What he collects he gives away: museums, archives, and libraries have received more than ten thousand items from him [1][2].
Early life and career
He was born on January 5, 1946, in Gorky. He graduated from the Gorky Choral Kapella, and later, by correspondence, from the All-Union Correspondence Law Institute (1974), Faculty of Jurisprudence [1][2]. He has been published since 1964 [2].
He worked as a telecommunications lineman on the city telephone network, served as a correspondent for the factory newspaper Krasny Sormovich at Krasnoye Sormovo, and for the newspaper Na Strazhe [1]. In 1971–1972 he was an inspector for the protection of historical monuments at the Gorky City Department of Culture; from 1972 to 1992 he was a staff member of the criminal investigation headquarters and the press center of the Regional Department of Internal Affairs — two decades devoted to the Militia press [1].
In 1989 he became editor-in-chief of the regional legal newspaper Sobytiya i Fakty (according to some sources, he edited it until 1992; according to others, until 1991), and from 1990 he also headed the newspaper Prosto Anekdot, which he ran until 2001 [2]. He is a laureate of the Dobrolyubov Prize (1996).
A member of the Union of Journalists since 1973, when it was known as the Union of Journalists of the USSR; today, Nizhny Novgorod's press corps is united by the regional organization of the Union of Journalists [2]. He also belongs to a writers' union: according to some sources — the Russian Union of Professional Writers [1], and according to others — the Union of Writers of Russia, since 1997 [2]. He is additionally a member of the Union of Artists of Russia, and belongs to the Association of Bell-Ringing Arts of Russia, which jointly with the Novgorod Museum-Reserve organizes campanological conferences [7].
He lives in Prioksky District, Nizhny Novgorod; the district newspaper "PriOKO" wrote about him as a local resident — "a collector, journalist, and writer" [12].
| Years | Place | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1960s — early 1970s | Gorky City Telephone Network | communications technician [1] |
| 1960s — early 1970s | Newspapers Krasny Sormovich and Na Strazhe | correspondent [1] |
| 1971–1972 | Gorky City Department of Culture | inspector for the protection of historical monuments [1] |
| 1972–1992 | Criminal Investigation Headquarters, Press Center of the Regional Department of Internal Affairs | militia press staff member [1] |
| 1989–1992 (according to other sources, until 1991) | Regional legal newspaper Sobytiya i Fakty | editor [2] |
| 1990–2001 | Newspaper Prosto Anekdot | editor [2] |
Anecdotes and Aphorisms
His first fame came as a collector of humor. From 1990 onward he edited the newspaper Prosto Anekdot ("Just a Joke"), and he published books in quick succession: A. S. Pushkin v anekdotakh ("A. S. Pushkin in Anecdotes", 1990), Anekdot s gosudareva dvora ("An Anecdote from the Tsar's Court", 1991), Pokhvala ostroumiu ("In Praise of Wit") and Pokhvala nemnogsloviu ("In Praise of Brevity"), and Pokhvala anekdotu ("In Praise of the Anecdote", 1998). He also compiled the work of others — the aphorisms and paradoxes of Oscar Wilde and the thoughts of Moritz Saphir[2]. From the same period of the 1990s comes a collection with the portmanteau title Tatsitataiztatsitta.
Print runs were considerable by today's standards: Koy-chto koe o chyom, ili Zigzagi mysli ("A Thing or Two About This and That, or Zigzags of Thought", Nizhny Novgorod, 1994) appeared in an edition of five thousand copies, and the Rostov edition of Zigzagi mysli ("Zigzags of Thought", 2000) in ten thousand; both books appear in the bibliography of the Moscow Aphorism Club alongside classics of the genre[15].
He was published in the weekly Novoye Vremya; his works were translated into English, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Tatar, and Ukrainian[2].
Bells: From Purekh to Valday
Running parallel to his literary work was a collecting pursuit, and the most celebrated part of it was his collection of nineteenth-century shaft-bow bells (yamshchik bells) — a rare assembly of antique Russian cast pieces, including those of Purekh origin, from the selo of Purekh in Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, one of the country's foremost bell-casting centers[6].
On 7–8 September 2002, the bicentennial of the dated Valday bell was celebrated in Valday. The most distinguished collectors gathered for an international conference on campanology — Glushchetsky from Moscow, Kraynov-Rytov from Nizhny Novgorod, Oleg Lavrov from Petrozavodsk, Vyacheslav Khrunov from Chekhov in the Moscow Region; the occasion also saw the launch of his book Kolokola-kolokol'chiki ("Bells and Little Bells"), in which all the advertising notices of bell foundries of the Russian Empire were compiled for the first time[7].
Museum researchers cite this book. Curator of the Novgorod collection N. P. Yakovleva, examining castings from the Privalov brothers' foundries, which operated in Nizhny Novgorod and Nizhny Lomov, quotes from it an advertisement describing the Privalov enterprise as "the greatest bell foundry of the Volga Region," and draws on another of his works — "Bell Production in European Russia in 1884–1885," published in the anthology Kolokol'chiki Rossii ("Bells of Russia", Moscow, 2000)[8].
A separate topic of his was inscriptions on bells: he wrote about this in the journal Rodina (2003, no. 3) under the title "Kolokol'chik zvenit — unyvat' ne velit" ("The Bell Rings — It Forbids Despondency")[11]. The mysterious abbreviation "US : YAMSHCHIK" on Kasimov bells he read as "usmekhaetsya yamshchik" ("the coachman smiles"): the driver had posed a riddle to the passenger, who cannot solve it. The author of a comprehensive study on bell inscriptions, Professor Andrey Glushchetsky, found this interpretation more plausible than other proposed solutions — the craftsman most likely cast a conversation between the driver and passenger, in the form of riddles, around the bell's skirt[9].
Postcards, Pennants, and Other "Print Ephemera"
As a philocarist, he participated in a collaborative catalogue project dedicated to the postcards of the prominent Nizhny Novgorod publisher V. I. Breyev — together with collectors from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kharkiv, Ufa, Astrakhan, and the United States [17]. He also wrote about Breyev himself in the Nizhny Novgorod press: the essay "A Rare Autograph of a Patron" was published in the newspaper Nizhegorodsky Rabochy on September 6, 1996, and was included in a bibliographic index compiled by city libraries on Nizhny Novgorod patrons of the arts [16].
His most unexpected subject was the "illegal" photo postcard — those market-stall homemade items from the 1930s–1960s, complete with little hearts and barely literate verses, which philocartist reference guides urged collectors to reject outright. In 2005, the Lobachevsky University museum took an interest in this collection and put it on display in an exhibition titled "Love Me as I Love You…"; a color catalogue reproduced 117 cards, and he donated his first collection of "illegals" to the university. That same year, a booklet appeared under the lengthy title "'Love Me with Your Blue Eyes… and Don't Walk Out with Others.' The Phenomenon of the Illegal Artistic Photographic Postcard in the USSR, 1933–1963" — 48 pages, printed in an edition of 150 copies, never sold commercially [10].
He documented the Christmas tree pennant flag with equal thoroughness: "A Brief Course in the Christmas Tree Pennant Flag in the USSR, 1938–1978" was published in Nizhny Novgorod in 2007 [10]. The Nizhny Novgorod newspaper Selyodka covered his collection of pennant flags: printing credits were not always included on these "typographical trifles," yet the collector identified more than forty artists who had designed them, among them Georgy Kovenchuk and Pyotr Buchkin. On one of the flags, a Su-class locomotive ("Sormovsky Usilenny," or Sormovo Heavy) was spotted — a product of the Krasnoye Sormovo Plant [1].
Postcards from his collection found permanent homes in libraries. On September 22, 2011, at the opening of the exhibition "Gifts and Givers" in the Book Museum of the Regional Library, he donated a collection of postal cards titled "Cities of Russia and the USSR" — delivered "in several kilograms," as the reporter put it [5]; the library's report described him as an art historian and researcher [4]. The libraries of Prioksky District displayed his postcards as a dedicated collection: views of the Volga, cities, emperors, greeting cards, reproductions of paintings and prints from his own gallery, and a series marking the 300th anniversary of the feat of the Nizhny Novgorod Militia [14].
There is no doubt that these slovenly, vulgar, kitsch, slapdash, semi-literate, yet amusing and intriguing photo-pictures are genuine monuments to the everyday culture and domestic life of the Soviet era, and will in time attract the attention of researchers and collectors alike.
Artists and Museums
His art-history work went hand in hand with collecting. Together with O. Aleksandrova he compiled the catalogue of the exhibition "Painterly Fantasies. Boris Krotikov" (Nizhny Novgorod: NNGU Publishing House, 2003), and nine years earlier had published an essay about the same artist, "The Patterns of Boris Krotikov," in the newspaper Nizhegorodsky Rabochy (20 January 1994) [13]. Boris Krotikov (1903–1982) was a Gorky painter, designer, and poster artist whose non-objective "compositions" — more than a hundred of them — he himself never exhibited; his paintings are held in the museums of Gorodets, Nizhny Novgorod, Suzdal, and Moscow, as well as in many private collections [13].
A separate book of his is devoted to a corporate art collection: "Bank Nizhny Novgorod and Its Collection" (1995) [2].
Lyonya (Kraynov-Rytov) is the only one who has Krotikov — you won't find him anywhere else.
Collection and Gifts
He collects paintings and works on paper, postcards, business cards, and "much else besides"; his business-card collection is the largest of its kind, with specimens dating to the nineteenth century. Portions of the collection have been shown in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod [1].
He gives away more than he keeps: over ten thousand items have passed from him to thirty-seven museums, archives, and libraries, including 450 inscribed books donated to the regional library; a personal fond (archival collection) of his has been established at the regional state archive, comprising around two thousand items of local-history material [1].
On 20 December 2012, the Russkiy Vek art gallery hosted the opening of the exhibition "Collection," bringing together the finest collectors of Nizhny Novgorod. Medals from the International Union of Collectors "For Outstanding Contribution to the Development of Collecting in Russia" were presented by exhibition curator Vladimir Terekhov, and the ceremony began with words of remembrance for the bibliographer Yury Galay. According to Terekhov, the exhibition itself would not have existed without Kraynov-Rytov: he is effectively vice-president of the International Union of Collectors and is responsible within it for collecting affairs in Nizhny Novgorod Region, and he had entrusted Terekhov with presenting the medals to Nizhny Novgorod collectors on his behalf [6].
At the same time he promised the Art Museum the palettes of well-known Russian artists for its permanent display, while the museum had already received a hundred paintings from his collection some time before [6].
I have on display several podduzhnye kolokoltchiki — antique Russian cast bells, including those from Purikha. And the palettes of famous Russian artists. These I will donate to the art museum, where they will be used in the exhibition.
Books
Works authored and compiled by him were published in Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow, and Rostov-on-Don; some print runs were small and never went on sale.
| Year | Book | Publication details |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | "A. S. Pushkin in Anecdotes" | [2] |
| 1991 | "An Anecdote from the Sovereign's Court" | [2] |
| 1994 | "Something About Something, or Zigzags of Thought" | N. Novgorod, 64 pp., 5,000 copies [2][15] |
| 1995 | "A Dateless Diary, or Zigzags of Thought" | [2] |
| 1995 | "Bank 'Nizhny Novgorod' and Its Collection" | [2] |
| 1996 | "Selected Wise Thoughts of Great People" | [2] |
| 1996 | "In Praise of Wit. Thoughts and Aphorisms" | N. Novgorod, compiler [2][15] |
| 1996 or 1997 | "In Praise of Brevity. Thoughts and Aphorisms" | N. Novgorod, compiler; date varies by source [2][15] |
| 1997 | "A Spare Notebook. Thoughts, Aphorisms, Notes" | N. Novgorod: NBI [2] |
| 1998 | "In Praise of the Anecdote" | [2] |
| 1999 | "Nizhny Novgorod Panopticon. A Caricature Album" | [2] |
| 1999 | "Aphorisms and Paradoxes of O. Wilde" | N. Novgorod: F-M, compiler [2][15] |
| 1999 | "Thoughts and Aphorisms of M. Safir" | [2] |
| 2000 | "Zigzags of Thought" | Rostov-on-Don: Feniks, 224 pp., 10,000 copies [2][15] |
| 2002 | "Bells Big and Small" | N. Novgorod; the first collection of advertising announcements from the Empire's bell foundries [7][8] |
| 2005 | "'Love Me with Your Blue Eyes… and Don't Stray.' The Phenomenon of the Illegal Artistic Photographic Postcard in the USSR. 1933–1963" | N. Novgorod: Niktee, 48 pp., 150 copies [10] |
| 2007 | "A Brief History of the Christmas Tree Flag in the USSR. 1938–1978" | N. Novgorod: Veksil, 36 pp. [10] |
Recognition
In 2001, the regional library published a brief bibliographic index to mark his 55th birthday and 35th anniversary of creative work — compiled by O. A. Kuznetsova and G. A. Ushakova, in the series "Nizhny Novgorod Local Historians", 16 pages [3]. In the same series "Nizhny Novgorod Local Historians", an index was published on the archaeologist Igor Kiryanov [3].
The district press wrote about him as one of their own: an essay by M. P. Koryagina, "The Bells and Little Bells Ring Out," was printed in the newspaper PriOKO on 7 August 2002 [12].
His works have entered scholarly reference circulation: museum researchers draw on his book about bells [8], campanologists discuss his transcriptions of inscriptions [9], his article on inscriptions is included in the bibliography of an exhibition at the Vladimir Regional Library on coachmen [11], and his essay on the "market" postcard was published by the St. Petersburg postcard enthusiasts' journal ZhUK [10].
Sources
- web.archive.org — "Selyodka" — a Nizhny Novgorod culture newspaper, archived copy — What Grows on a Fir Tree? (archive)
- dic.academic.ru — Great Biographical Encyclopedia — biographical reference (2009) — Kraynov-Rytov, Leonid Leonidovich (archive)
- ngounb.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Regional Library — list of local history indexes — Local History Indexes (archive)
- ngounb.ru — "Panorama of the Region's Library Life" — publication of the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Library, 2011, no. 3 — Gifts and Donors in the History and Fate of the Region's Main Library (archive)
- master-raduga.nnov.ru — "Masterskaya Radugi" — a Nizhny Novgorod website about folk culture, report dated 23 September 2011 — Presentation of the New Exhibition "Gifts and Donors" at the Regional Library (archive)
- master-raduga.nnov.ru — "Masterskaya Radugi" — report from the opening of the exhibition, 23 January 2013 — Exhibition "Collection" at the Russkiy Vek Art Gallery. Opening Report (archive)
- RIA Novosti — report on the Valdai bell festival, 7 September 2002 — On 7–8 September, Novgorod Region Will Mark the Two-Hundredth Birthday of the Valdai Bells
- rostmuseum.ru — Rostov Kremlin Museum-Reserve — proceedings of the scholarly conference "Bells: History and the Present Day" — Yakovleva N. P. Bells of Russian Bell Foundries of the 19th Century (archive)
- mybells.ru — a website about bells, article by A. Glushetskyy — It Sings, It Rings, It Speaks... What Can a Shaft-Bow Bell Tell Us? (archive)
- russianpostcardunion.ru — "ZhUK" — Journal for Postcard Enthusiasts, no. 01 (24), 2010 — Kraynov-Rytov L. L. "Love Me with Your Blue Eyes… and Don't Stray with Others" (archive)
- library.vladimir.ru — Vladimir Regional Scientific Library — virtual exhibition with bibliography — Coachman, Don't Rush the Horses… (archive)
- priokbiblio.rf — Libraries of the Prioksky District of Nizhny Novgorod — local history index "Prioksky District in Figures" — Public Life
- priokbiblio.rf — Libraries of the Prioksky District of Nizhny Novgorod — page about the artist and literature on him — Boris Savvich Krotikov (archive)
- priokbiblio.rf — Libraries of the Prioksky District of Nizhny Novgorod — digital library — Postcards from the Collection of L. L. Kraynov-Rytov (archive)
- mka.msk.ru — Moscow Club of Aphorists — bibliography of anthologies and authors' books — Bibliography of Anthologies and Authors' Books Published in Russia (archive)
- libnn.ru — Centralized Library Systems of Nizhny Novgorod — bibliographic index on Nizhny Novgorod philanthropists — Renowned for Good Deeds (archive)
- philocartist.su — "Philocartiya" — a journal for collectors, project page — Postcards by V. I. Breev: Project Participants (archive)