Overviews of the Collections
The South Slavic Collections at the Library of Congress
Predrag P. Pajic, South Slav Reference Librarian
Introduction
The South Slavs have been represented in the Library of Congress
for somewhat more than a hundred years. The most significant early
acquisition was the library of Professor Martin Hattala (1821-1903),
professor of philology at the University of Prague and member of
the Bohemian and Russian academies of science. His collection,
which was purchased in 1903, included Rad jugoslavenske akademije
[Works of the Yugoslav Academy] (1867-1903), and Ljetopis
jugoslavenske akademije [Annals of the Yugoslav Academy] (1877-1903),
basic works of this prestigious scientific institution that was
located in Zagreb and founded in 1867.
Several decades before this purchase, the Library included contributions
by the prominent Slovenian Bishop Friderik Baraga (1797-1868) who,
as a missionary among the American Indians and a trained linguist,
wrote a grammar of the Chippewa language, A theoretical and
practical grammar of the Ochipwe language (Detroit, 1850).
Also dating from this period are several important books on the
history of South Slavic languages: Kleine serbische Grammatik (Leipzig,
1824) by Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic; Grammatik der illyrischen
Sprache (Vienna, 1845) by Andrija Torkvat Brlic; Mala
srpska gramatika (1850) by Duro Danicic; and Ilirska slovnica (Zagreb,
1854) by Vjekoslav Babukic.
At the beginning of this century the United States had well-established
relations with the independent South Slavic countries, namely,
Bulgaria and Serbia, which resulted in an exchange of official
government publications, including important legal publications,
records of parliaments, censuses and statistical information. Scientific
institutions and universities from these countries, as well as
from those which were at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian
monarchy (Croatia and Slovenia), established ongoing relations
with the Library of Congress. After World War I and the founding
of new states, these relations developed into very comprehensive
exchange and acquisition programs. In the post-World War II period,
the collection grew to include almost 200,000 volumes of the most
outstanding works and several thousand serial titles, the richest
depository of South Slavic materials in the United States. The
collection is very strong in all areas of the humanities, especially
literature, laws, history, and the political, economic, and cultural
life of the South Slav peoples.
Bulgarian literature is well represented at LC. Works in Old Bulgarian,
i.e., up to 1762, consist of reprints of old manuscripts, the most
significant being the oldest Bulgarian anthologies from the sixteeth,
seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, the so-called Damaskini
(after the Greek teacher Damaskin Studit). They represent the transition
from religious to secular literature and from Old Slavic to the
vernacular language. The beginning of modern Bulgarian literature
is dated from the publication of the work Istoriia slavianobolgarskaia by
the Chilandar monk, Father Paisi, which first appeared in 1762
and was printed in 1840. The Library has several later editions
of this work, as well as other early Bulgarian publications, including
the Kyriakodromion, sirech Nedielnik (1806) by Bishop
Sofronii of Vratsa, Bukvar s razlichny poucheniia (1824)
by Petur Beron, the first Bulgarian secular author, and Kratkoe
politicheskoe zemleopisanie za obuchenie na bolgarskoto mladechestvo,
the first Bulgarian geography book, by Archimandrite Neofit Bozveli.
These books were in the Todor Plochev private collection of 635
early Bulgarian published works that was purchased by the Library
in 1950.
Since the Ottoman rulers prohibited the printing of books in Cyrillic,
before the country's liberation in 1878 Bulgarian books were printed
in Belgrade, Bucharest, Budapest, Odessa, Salonika, and Vienna.
Those titles printed outside the Ottoman Empire between 1806-1878
(totaling 1,910) are listed in Bulgarska vuzrozhdenska knizhnina by
Man'o Stoianov. In 1897 when the National Library in Sofia was
designated as the depository library, the first copy of the national
bibliography Bulgarski knigopis was published. According
to this source, Bulgaria published some 1,500 titles a year at
the beginning of the century. It now produces an average of 3,000
titles a year. This includes all reprints, translations, textbooks
for elementary schools, children's books, as well as original books
by Bulgarian authors in all fields. The Library of Congress, through
its exchange program with Bulgarian scientific institutions and
direct purchases from book dealers, acquires approximately one-half
of the yearly production (ca. 1,500 titles), mostly in the humanities
and social sciences, as well as the significant works in science.
The European Reading Room contains several hundred of the most
frequently used Bulgarian reference books, e.g., the latest edition
of Entsiklopediia Bulgariia, dictionaries, and the most
recent bibliographical sources on government, business, and important
personalities.
General Collections and Periodicals
The Library's acquisition of materials from other South Slavic
countries was accelerated in 1967 with the introduction of the
Public Law 480 Program, which enabled the Library to use Yugoslav
domestic currency to set up an office in Belgrade and systematically
to purchase all new titles from all parts of Yugoslavia and to
subscribe to the most important journals and newspapers. The Library's
Belgrade office operated for five years, and offered a unique opportunity
for acquiring those titles that the government under Tito later
banned and ordered burned (e.g., special issues of the serial publication, Praxis which
are publicly available only at the Library of Congress).
Collections from former Yugoslavia grew at approximately 2,000-
3,000 titles per year until the early 1990s, when the outbreak
of civil war disrupted both publishing and the acquisitions process.
In all, the collection of material from the ex-Yugoslav states
now consists of about 130,000 titles and over 2,000 serials.
The voluminous literature of the Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins,
Muslims, Slovenes, and Serbs, as well as that of national minorities
such as the Albanians, Slovaks, and Hungarians, that has appeared
over the last 50 years is listed in the comprehensive bibliographical
source, Bibliografija Jugoslavije. This work is published
in several series with a description of the monographs and articles
in Yugoslav periodicals listed according to subject. Following
the breakup of Yugoslavia and the establishment of new states,
this source now only includes publications from Montenegro and
Serbia. A similar source, Slovenska bibliografija, has
been published in Ljubljana since 1985, and lists current publications
from Slovenia.
The strongest part of the entire South Slavic collection comprises
legal materials. Official government documents, laws, parliamentary
minutes, and other legal materials represent sources much used
by all branches of the U.S. government, as well as by legal scholars
and practitioners interested in this part of the world. With the
extensive immigration of South Slavs into the United States after
World War II, this collection has been heavily used by former citizens
of these countries through their representatives in the U.S. Congress,
in support of all kinds of legal assistance from cases of inheritance
and political persecution to divorce and civil cases.
The turbulent history of the South Slavs has become a subject
of intense interest in the United States following the breakup
of Yugoslavia, the eruption of ethnic conflict, and the deployment
of U.S. troops to the region. This history can be studied in the
Library of Congress, whose collections contain nearly the same
amount of published literature as is available in the national
institutions of each of the countries of the former Yugoslavia.
In Bulgarian history, the most important works are the ongoing
multivolume monograph Sbornik za narodni umotvoreniia i narodopis which
has now reached 58 volumes, Izvori za bulgarskata istoriia in
20 volumes, and especially the comprehensive Bulgarian historical
materials from two International Conferences on Bulgarian Studies
held in 1981 and 1988 in Sofia in honor of 1300 years of the Bulgarian
state.
Historiography of other South Slavic countries can be found under
the collective history of Yugoslavia and also under the respective
Yugoslav nationalities. In addition, all material published in
Yugoslavia in the last fifty years is listed in Bibliografija
Jugoslavije and in Bibliografija jugoslovenskih bibliografija,
1945-1960. Material published before World War II and that
published by authors from Yugoslavia living abroad is catalogued
by the respective nationality.
There are about 600 newly published titles on the history of Bosnia,
including current material made available by its new government
on The Ethnic Cleansing of Bosnia-Hercegovina (Sarajevo, 1992),
as well as a recent translation (into Serbo-Croatian) of old Turkish
documents published by the Oriental Institute in Sarajevo in its
series Monumenta Turcica historiam Slavorum Meridionalium illustrantia.
Croatian history is represented by over a thousand titles acquired
by the Library and cataloged after 1980 and by many publications
from earlier periods, e.g., Znameniti i zasluzni Hrvati te
pomena vrijedna lica u hrvatskoj povijesti od 925-1925 (Zagreb,
1925). Croatians living outside their state made a significant
contribution in publishing the memoirs of prominent participants
in Croatia's recent history and describing their history from various
perspectives. Here the most important titles are Ivo Korsky, Hrvatski
nacionalizam [History of Croatia from 1918 to 1945]
and V. Vranic, Branili smo drzavu, as well as the recently
published memoirs of the leaders of the new Croatian state, especially,
for example, Franjo Tudjman's Bespuca povijesne zbiljnosti (1989).
The history of Macedonia is available in newer studies published
by the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Science and is best represented
in the series of historical books by Aleksandar Matkovski. Further
material on this subject can be found in general works on the history
of the Bulgarians, Greeks, and Serbs, whose histories Macedonia
shared for centuries.
The history of Slovenia is well represented in several hundred
titles in the Library of Congress, but most important are Zgodovina
slovenskego naroda, (1912-1916) by J. Gruden and its sequel Zgodovina
slovenskego naroda, najnovejsa doba, (1929-1939) by J. Mal.
The most recent and authoritative title on this subject is Zgodovina
Slovencev, (1979) by Z. Cepic and others.
Serbian history is represented with somewhat fewer than 600 titles
in the Library, but includes the very good seven-volume monograph, Istorija
srpskog naroda by Dragosav Srejovic and others. For the English
reader there is the excellent work by Michael B. Petrovich, A
history of modern Serbia, 1804-1918.
Works on political science and economics account for most of the
publications in the social sciences from this area. For the last
fifty years the centralized government in Bulgaria produced a considerable
amount of published material discussing Bulgarian political life
and administration of the economy. With the advent of democracy
and a free market economy, the Library offers to American enterprises
that are interested in investing in Bulgaria such titles as Bulgariia--8,000
firmi, instituti, organizatsii (1991) by A. Iliev.
In regard to the political history and economic condition of
the peoples of former Yugoslavia, the Library has almost everything
published in the languages of these peoples since World War II,
as well as important books on these subjects in English and other
West European languages. The Library also has most, although not
all, of the important publications from before and after World
War I, including those dealing with the creation of Yugoslavia.
However, it lacks considerable material published during World
War II.
Works in science and technology from South Slavic countries are
mainly represented by works from various scientific institutions
in Bulgaria and former Yugoslavia, as well as materials from numerous
international conferences held in this part of the world. Most
important are collections of works by the Bulgarian, Croatian,
Macedonian, Montenegrin, Slovenian and Serbian academies of arts
and science.
Highlights from Special Collections
The arts of the South Slavic area, because of its complicated history
and culture, reflect a wide spectrum of Eastern and Western influences.
The Library's collection of publications on Bulgarian and Serbian
medieval monasteries and their icons is considered the largest collection
outside these countries. In addition, there are voluminous works
on the Western arts of Croatia and Slovenia, beautiful prints of
Dubrovnik and Dalmatia, descriptions of Muslim arts, particularly
architecture, as well as numerous of catalogs of important individual
artists and collective exhibits.
The Prints and Photographs Division has an excellent collection
of pictures of East European architecture, including the best examples
of South Slavic cities at the beginning of this century, as well
as pictures of colorful national costumes of the region. The Music
Division has works available showing the diversity of folklore
and folk music, including recordings of the music of the Bosnian
Muslims with its strong oriental influence. There is also a very
good collection of works and recordings by internationally-known
South Slavic composers and performers. These include recordings
of the famous Bulgarian bass Boris Christoff, the Croatian soprano
Zinka Kunc Milanov (with the Metropolitan Opera for many years),
and the Serbian composer Stevan Mokranjac, as well as the most
important choral groups from this area, performing, among other
works, famous sacred music from cathedrals and monasteries in Belgrade,
Sofia, and Zagreb.
In the Library's collection of 12,550 foreign films from 23 countries
are many from the South Slavic region. There are cultural films
from Bulgaria, internationally-recognized Croatian cartoons, and
films by the well-known Bosnian film director Emir Kusturica and
his Yugoslav colleague Dusan Makavejev. The Film Division also
has available relatively recent television news broadcasts from
Belgrade and Zagreb showing the contrasts in reporting on events
in former Yugoslavia.
The Geography and Map Division has a very fine collection of maps
dating from the early history of the South Slav region and continuing
to the present, with the most recent maps of the independent states
of former Yugoslavia. The earliest map from this area is a 1541
Ptolemaic map of the Dalmatian coast.
In addition to the previously-mentioned Plochev collection of
the first Bulgarian books printed, the Rare Books Division has
also several cultural treasures of Croatian and Serbian literature;
notably the oldest Croatian book, the Missale Glagoliticum printed
in 1483 in Venice, and the 11th edition of the Psaltir printed
in 1638 in Venice. The Psaltir was printed a short time
after the first Serbian book Octoechos was printed in
1494 by the monk Makarije on the first printing press in this part
of the world, that of nobleman Durde Crnojevic in Obod, Montenegro.
In addition, there is the original edition (Rome, 1755) of De
litteraria expeditione per pontificiam ditionem ad dimentendos
meridiani gradus et corrigendam mappam geograficam by Rogerio
Josepho Boscovich, the Jesuit astronomer, philosopher, mathematician
and diplomat from Dubrovnik. Recently, the Rare Book Division has
added to its collection a beautiful photo reprint of the Nomokanon of
Saint Sava, the most comprehensive medieval Serbian book of law,
written in 1265 by Archbishop Sava, later known as Saint Sava.
Finally, in the Manuscript Division's papers of Woodrow Wilson
and his Secretary of State Robert Lansing there is extensive correspondence
with Nikola Pasic, then prime minister of Serbia. This Division
also has about 25 letters of Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), outstanding
inventor in the field of electricity, naturalized American, and
son of a Serbian Orthodox priest from the Krajina, then part of
Austria-Hungary.
Related material on the Library of Congress web site:
Portals to the World. Selected internet resources for:
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