A book about Odesa through the eyes of Pinkerton was presented at the Bookstore-Café

The presentation of the book "From Odesa to the Ukrainian Bible: Robert Pinkerton's Notes" took place on June 5 at the Bookstore-Café as part of the series "Odesa through the Eyes of Foreigners."

The book is the result of a journey undertaken by Robert Pinkerton, a missionary of the British and Foreign Bible Society in the early nineteenth century.

The British Bible Society aimed to disseminate the Scriptures without additional denominational commentary. Robert Pinkerton was responsible for establishing local branches of this society in Eastern Europe. He actively promoted the translation and publication of the Bible in languages that were understood by the common people, which aroused both support and opposition from the clergy of the time.

In 1819, Pinkerton saw Odesa as a young, dynamically developing city. He was impressed by the huge number of foreign merchants, the diverse ethnic composition, and the rapid economic growth of the port on the Black Sea. At the same time, the missionary faced difficulties. He tried to persuade foreign traders to attend religious meetings, but commercial
life prevailed. According to his notes, secularization was very strong in the port city of Odesa.

Robert Pinkerton covered an incredible distance during his trip in 1816-7 thousand miles, or about 14 thousand kilometers. His route took him through Tver, Moscow, Tula, Voronezh, Taganrog, across the Crimea to Odesa, and from there to Poland, Vienna, and Berlin, which allowed him to collect unique ethnographic data.

Earlier, the Bookstore-Café presented William Burkhardt Barker 's book Odesa and Its People through the Eyes of an English Prisoner in Russia.

This book from the series "Odesa through the Eyes of Foreigners" is a description of Odesa through the eyes of Robert Stevens, an American in the early nineteenth century, published for the first time in Ukrainian.

As well as a brochure "From Mykolaiv to Odesa and from Odesa to the Inland Empire" by nineteenth-century professor Edward Clarke. It is a Ukrainian translation of fragments of the famous work of the English traveler, scholar and professor at Cambridge University Edward Daniel Clarke.

Кирило Бойко