Gotha Research Library
| Gotha Research Library | |
|---|---|
 Gotha Research Library in Friedenstein Castle
|
|
| founding | 1647 |
| Duration | more than 700,000 printed works, including around 350,000 prints from the 16th to 19th centuries |
| place |
Gotha 
|
| ISIL | DE-39 (Gotha Research Library) |
| operator | central scientific institution of the University of Erfurt |
| management | Kathrin Paasch |
| Website | https://www.uni-erfurt.de/forschungsbibliothek-gotha |
The Gotha Research Library (FBG) is a scientific library and independent scientific institution of the University of Erfurt . It works closely with the Erfurt University Library , with which it was united from 1999 to 2018 as the Erfurt / Gotha University and Research Library . The research library is located in the east wing of Friedenstein Castle in Gotha .
history
17th century to 1918
Duke Ernst the Pious took over the reign of the newly founded Duchy of Saxony-Gotha in 1640 . He brought his book collection from Ernestine family property and from the spoils of the Thirty Years' War to Gotha. This also included the magnificent manuscript of the Ottheinrich Bible . The book collection has been continuously expanded through donations and purchases. Among other things through the library of the theologian Johann Gerhard , his son Johann Ernst Gerhard and through Duke Ernst's son, Duke Friedrich I. with parts of the Altenburg court library .
The library system of seven subject groups, which has been valid until the recent past, goes back to Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff , who was appointed the first supervisor of the library at the age of 19 and worked there until 1664. Joachim Bartholomäus Meyer continued to enforce this order from 1665 and began to catalog the library. The builder of Schloss Friedenstein, Andreas Rudolphi (1601–1679), was also temporarily entrusted with the management of the library. The library was given a scientific profile by the librarian and theologian Ernst Salomon Cyprian .
Over the years, many different librarians have given the Ducal Library their own stamp. Library director Julius Carl Schläger (1706–1786) endeavored to increase the holdings and the development of financial resources, but also overstrictly regulated the use of the library. He was followed by the rector Johann Gottfried Geissler (1726–1800), who reopened the library, employed high school students on a trial basis as library assistants and acquired valuable access. At that time, the theologian Adolf Heinrich Friedrich Schlichtegroll was an accessist to the library and founded his Nekrolog der Deutschen there in 1791 . At the time of the librarian Friedrich Jacobs , the private library of Ernst II and other libraries were merged with the Gotha library from 1814 , which thereby reached a stock of 110,000 volumes. In particular, valuable manuscripts and old prints were added from Ernst's library, including the Gospels of Echternach . The librarian Friedrich August Ukert has in the 1835-1838 published and issued jointly with Jacobs oddities described many of the older works in the library. Ulrich Jasper Seetzen brought back oriental manuscripts from a research trip to the Orient , which the orientalist Johann Heinrich Möller (1792–1867) took care of. The ducal library was raised to a Fideikommiss on December 13, 1824 . The permanent stay in Gotha was to be secured. Librarian Philipp Heinrich Welcker came out with numerous poems of his own. Library secretary Georg Rathgeber (1800–1875) made a contribution to the publication of book treasures from the Gotha holdings by including them in the catalogs of works of art from the Gotha collections that he edited. August Beck , who was a librarian from 1845, wrote numerous works on the history of Gotha. From 1852 to 1854, the later political scientist Karl Friedrich Lucian Samwer worked as a librarian in Gotha. The library's characteristic spiral stairs go back to the collection manager Karl Joachim Marquardt . From 1856 onwards, his successor Wilhelm Pertsch made a great contribution to the detailed description of the oriental manuscripts. During his time, Karl Zangemeister , who later made great contributions to the Heidelberg University Library, also worked at the Gotha library from 1866 to 1873 . The art scholar Carl Aldenhoven , who soon joined the museum and later headed the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, only stayed briefly in the Gotha library . The long-time library director Heinrich Georges made a name for himself above all with revisions to the Latin lexicons of his father Karl Ernst Georges . Around 1900, librarian Rudolf Ehwald established the tradition of exhibiting Gotha book treasures. The last head of the library was the writer Herman Anders Krüger , who headed the library from 1921. In 1925, the Duke of Coburg-Gotha took offense at Krüger's story Expelled People and drove him out of office.
Since 1918
The collections suffered severe damage from 1918 onwards because ownership of the library was disputed. After the Imperial Court ruled in 1925 to invalidate the expropriation of the princes in 1919, the library and the other parts of the collection were incorporated into the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha Foundation for Art and Science, which was established in 1928 and effective from 1934 . Even at this point there were individual sales. Almost all of the top items in the collection, including the Echternach Gospels, the Giant Mainz Bible and the Gotha Missal, were brought to Coburg by the ducal family at the beginning of July 1945 shortly after the end of the Second World War before the Americans left , and later distributed through sale. Ten of the works are in five other German libraries.
In April 1946, the Red Army's “Trophy Commission” brought 330,000 manuscripts and printed matter and thus almost the entire ducal collection to the Soviet Union . The valuable Münzkabinett, the coins and the associated numismatic literature took the same route.
The holdings of the Gotha library now only included the library of the disbanded Gotha Gymnasium Ernestinum , remnants of the Gothana collection and parts of Thuringia literature.
In 1953, the central office for old scientific holdings was set up in the otherwise largely empty rooms . It was commissioned to collect books that had become ownerless as a result of social changes in the Soviet zone of occupation or the GDR through expropriation, segregation from existing libraries or the liquidation of entire libraries. It was recorded bibliographically and made accessible to the academic libraries of the GDR. Books that could not be brokered in this way ended up in the state-controlled, export-oriented second-hand book trade via the Zentralantiquariat in Leipzig. In 1959 the central office went to Berlin.
In 1956, the Soviet Union returned the removed stocks of manuscripts and printed matter, with the exception of 25,000 pamphlets. Among other things, the cimelia are still missing. The Münzkabinett also returned. The books were assigned to the library, the coins to the castle museum.
In 1968 the library was named Research Library . It was assigned to the Methodological Center for Scientific Libraries in East Berlin . As the Gotha Research and State Library, it was placed under the Thuringian Ministry of Science and Art in 1991.
After a long-standing restitution dispute, in 2001 the "amicable investment agreement" between the State of Thuringia and the House of Saxony-Coburg and Gotha and its foundations created legal security for the collections.
With the new version of the Thuringian University Act , the Gotha Research Library and Erfurt University Library were merged to form the Erfurt / Gotha University and Research Library. In 2003 the Perthes Gotha Collection (Perthes Archive) was added, which has since been made accessible by the research library at the Gotha site. The Gotha Research Center for cultural and social science studies has been attached to the research library since 2004 .
Around 25,000 volumes (from the 10th to the 20th century) are still in Russia in 2016 as " looted goods ", declared as "Russian cultural assets". Like Helmut Claus, the long-time director of the research library, Kathrin Paasch, the current director of the research library, is pushing for these holdings to be recorded and digitized.
As a result of an evaluation by the Science Council in 2014/15, the research library became an independent academic institution again in 2018, but remained part of the University of Erfurt. Your mandate and the cooperation with the university library are regulated by the statutes for the organization of the Gotha Research Library (FBG) of the University of Erfurt of February 1, 2018
Library profile
Collection focus
The Research Library Gotha takes, as former National Library of the former duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg , for their old stocks the task as regional library true and for the area south leads and Westthüringen them the collection nationwide historical and regionalkundlicher continued literature. The main focus of the collection is the continuous acquisition and maintenance of literature on the history and regional studies of Thuringia. Since the state of Thuringia was founded in 1920, the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar and the Thuringian University and State Library in Jena have collected deposit copies . For the Free State of Thuringia, this has been done by the Thuringian University and State Library in Jena since 1990 . According to the statutes of 2018, the research library is characterized by "its early modern collections, the oriental collection and the Perthes collection."
Scientific work
The focus of the academic work is on the ducal private libraries , the culture of the German and European royal court in Gotha, correspondence and the court calendar . There are also early modern travel reports and country customers on modern geosciences and astro sciences , the reception and history of European literature from the 16th to 19th centuries, the history of the interpretation of the religious cultures of biblical and classical antiquity , Protestantism and Islam and history and Philosophy of the German and European Enlightenment scientifically processed.
Estates
There are currently 89 estates from librarians, scientists, writers and cultural associations in the Gotha Research Library. Among others, the bequests of the Gotha scientist and writer Kurd Lasswitz (1848-1910), the geophysicist, pacifist and pioneer of the international language Esperanto Adolf Schmidt (1860-1944), the Gotha painter and graphic artist Franz Vetter (1886-1967) with the Hermann- Hesse collection and the journalist and publisher Joseph Kürschner (1853–1902) with correspondence from Henrik Ibsen , Karl May and Wilhelm Raabe, among others .
Projects
There are several projects to catalog the holdings of manuscripts and old prints. The focus is on the following topics:
- The library has a stock of around 100 volumes of German-language medieval manuscripts from the 13th to 16th centuries. For example, the manuscript of the Saxon World Chronicle with many illustrated codices , various testimonies to classic Middle High German literature and unique items such as the verse novel Reinfried von Braunschweig .
- Among the manuscripts of the early modern period , the theological and ecclesiastical manuscripts are of particular importance.
- The music collection contains about 8000 notes in addition to works on music theory . In addition to compositions by the Kapellmeister of the Gotha court orchestra from the 17th and 18th centuries, there are some of the ducal family as well as those of the Thuringian composers of the 18th to 20th centuries. The largest Thuringian collection of compositions by the Bach family of musicians contains some works by Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach from Bückeburg that only exist in Gotha .
- In the Age of Enlightenment , the Gothaer Hof played an important role in the reception and dissemination of new ideas. This was reflected in the private libraries of the dukes and their families.
- The University and Research Library Erfurt / Gotha has been involved in the creation of VD 17 - the retrospective national bibliography of the 17th century - since 1996 .
Friends of the Gotha Research Library eV
The Friends of the Gotha Research Library was founded at Friedenstein Castle in May 2006. The association would like to contribute with its work so that the Gotha Research Library is better noticed by the public. The library was included in the blue book drawn up by Paul Raabe .
See also
literature
- Princely love for books: Treasures of the Gotha Research Library. 2004, ISBN 3-910027-19-9
- Roswitha Jacobsen, Hans-Jörg Ruge: Ernst the Pious - Statesman and Reformer , Jena 2002, ISBN 978-3-931505-96-7
- Helmut Claus: Bibliotheca Gerhardina. Character and fate of a Thuringian scholarly library of the 17th century . State Library, Gotha 1968
- Helmut Roob: From the Treasures of the Gotha Library , 1957
- Kathrin Paasch (Ed.): The Gotha Research Library . dmz print media center, Gotha 2008
- Kathrin Paasch: The Gotha Research Library and its treasures . Morio Verlag, Heidelberg 2017, ISBN 978-3-945424-58-2 .
Web links
- Gotha Research Library
- Friends of the Gotha Research Library
- Perthes Gotha Collection
- Gotha Directory of medieval manuscripts in the Gotha Research Library
- Entry (Gotha) in the online version of the handbook of historical book collections
Individual evidence
- ↑ Portrait , accessed June 15, 2020
- ^ Gerhard Pachnicke: Gothaer Librarians , Gotha 1958.
- ↑ For the whereabouts, see this list of losses ( memento of July 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) of the library
- ^ Mitteldeutsche Zeitung Gotha / dpa
- ↑ Entry in the handbook of historical book holdings
- ↑ Hanno Müller: 25,000 books from Gotha are as spoils of war in Russia . Thuringian newspaper, May 24, 2016.
- ↑ Bylaws for the organization of the Gotha Research Library (FBG) of the University of Erfurt from February 1, 2018 , accessed on June 25, 2020
- ↑ Bylaws for the organization of the Gotha Research Library (FBG) of the University of Erfurt from February 1, 2018 , accessed on June 25, 2020
- ↑ List of bequests in the Gotha Research Library
- ↑ Manuscripts, Incunabula, Alte Drucke Website , accessed on May 12, 2020
- ↑ http://www.freundeskreis-forschungsbibliothek-gotha.de/