Załuski Library
The Załuski Library (Polish Biblioteka Załuskich , Latin: Bibliotheca Zalusciana ) was a Polish library . It was built in Warsaw from 1736 to 1747 by the Catholic bishops Józef Andrzej Załuski and his brother Andrzej Stanisław Załuski in Warsaw and existed from 1747 until its dissolution by the Russian army in 1795. The library was open to the public and thus the first public library Poland, the largest in the country and one of the largest libraries in the world at the time.
In the aftermath of the Kościuszko Uprising in 1794, Russian troops, on the orders of Tsarina Catherine II , confiscated the library's holdings and took them to St. Petersburg , where a year later they became a fundamental part of the newly founded Imperial Public Library . In the 1920s, part of the library's historical holdings was returned to the newly established Polish state by the government of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic . In the wake of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, however - in October of the same year - these remaining parts were also destroyed by a German fire squad.
history
The founders of the Załuski Library, Józef Andrzej Załuski and Andrzej Stanisław Załuski, were book lovers and, over time, carried the book collections of many other former Polish bibliophiles, such as Jakub Zadzik , Krzysztof Opaliński , Tomasz Ujejzynis Ms. Januszieck and Jerseys III. Sobieski together. The plan to found a library to contain these works came into being in the 1730s and was implemented with the establishment of the Załuski Library in Warsaw's Daniłowicz Palace in 1747. The library had two floors (a large reading room was on the second floor) and was crowned by a small tower that housed an astronomical observatory.
Załuski Library is considered the first public library in Poland and one of the largest libraries of its time. When the library opened, it contained over 200,000 works, which by the end of the 1780s had grown to over 400,000 printed matter, maps and manuscripts. In addition to these works, the library also had an art collection, scientific instruments, and samples of plants and animals.
The library was open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. There were signs on the doors asking visitors to be quiet, to pray for the Załuski brothers before reading, and not to take books out of the library - a house rule that was systematically broken. Ultimately, the brothers (and bishops) Załuski even turned to Pope Benedict XIV and asked him for help in restricting the theft in their library, so that in 1752 he threatened potential thieves of the books in a papal bull (in vain) with excommunication.
After the death of the Załuski brothers, the newly founded Komisja Edukacji Narodowej (KEN) (Commission for National Education) took control of the library in 1774. In 1794, in the aftermath of the second division of Poland and the Kościuszko uprising , Russian troops, on the orders of Tsarina Catherine II , confiscated the library's holdings and took them to St. Petersburg . Numerous pieces have already been lost, stolen or destroyed on the way there. In St. Petersburg the holdings of the Załuski Library became a fundamental part of the newly established Imperial Public Library a year later. In later years the Załuski Library's holdings were distributed among various Russian libraries. Parts of the collection were returned to Poland in 1842 and 1863. After the First World War and the Polish-Soviet War , part of the library's historical holdings - around 50,000 volumes - was returned to the newly established Polish state by the government of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic in the 1920s .
During the time of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, however, these remaining parts were also destroyed by a German fire squad. Only about 1,800 manuscripts and 30,000 printed works could be saved.
The original library building was adapted as a tenement house in 1821. During the reconstruction of this building, the busts of the Polish rulers that originally adorned the interior of the library (until the times of the partitions of Poland) were found and placed on the facade of the building. Since that time it has been called "House under the Kings" (Dom pod Królami).
The building was destroyed during the Second World War. It was then rebuilt during the times of the People's Republic of Poland .
Today's Polish National Library , founded in 1928, sees itself as the heir to the Załuski Library.
Individual evidence
- ↑ SD Chrostowska: Polish Literary Criticism Circa 1772: A Genre Perspective. Archived from the original on December 9, 2013 ; accessed on June 20, 2017 (English).
- ↑ a b c d e Maria Witt: The Strange Life of One of the Greatest European Libraries of the Eighteenth Century: the Załuski Collection in Warsaw in FYI France, accessed on December 17, 2009.
- ^ Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science . Warsaw, accessed December 17, 2009.
- ↑ a b Lech Chmielewski: In the House under the Sign of the Kings. Welcome to Warsaw, archived from the original on February 4, 2012 ; accessed on June 20, 2017 (English).
- ↑ Katarzyna Czechowicz: The 260th anniversary of opening the Załuski Library. On the website eduskrypt.pl, August 14, 2007, archived from the original on August 14, 2017 ; accessed on June 20, 2017 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Nicholas A. Basbanes: A Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in to Impermanent World , Warsaw. ISBN 00-60082-87-9 . Retrieved December 17, 2009.
- ↑ Jonathan Rose: The Holocaust and the Book: Destruction and Preservation . Warsaw. ISBN 15-58492-53-4 . Retrieved December 17, 2009.
- ↑ Dom pod Królami , warszawa1939.pl.
