Overviews of the Collections

The Czech and Slovak Collections at the Library of Congress

George Kovtun, Czech/Slovak Area Specialist

General Collections

The Library of Congress is considered to be the best repository of Czech and Slovak books, periodicals and other reading materials outside the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The monographs and bound periodicals relating to the culture of the Czechs and Slovaks amount to ca. 115,000 items, with the yearly acquisitions of monographs averaging ca. 1,500 over the last 10 years. The LC has about 2,000 Czech and Slovak periodicals, of which ca. 600 are currently received, and more than 170 Czech and Slovak newspapers, with 14 titles currently received. It is estimated that about 80 percent of all these materials are in Czech or Slovak, English being the predominant language of the rest.

While the Czech and Slovak collections in the LC are generally good, they are especially strong for books and periodicals published after 1945. This is due to the fact that after 1945 monographs and periodicals published in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech and Slovak Republics) were purchased by LC on the basis of a blanket order.

The period of the 1920s and 1930s (the era of the First Czechoslovak Republic) is also well represented. Some of the holdings of works from this period have been acquired retrospectively, with stress being laid on volumes showing the excellent Czechoslovak craftsmanship in book design and printing.

Another area of relative strength is Czech and Slovak exile and Samizdat literature published during the Communist era.

Highlights

• John Hus, (1369-1415), the religious reformer, 222 volumes
• Comenius (1592-1670), the noted educator, 512 volumes
• Jan Kollar (1793-1852), poet, national awakener, 49 volumes
• Ludovit Stur (1815-1856), writer, national awakener, 58 volumes
• Thomas Masaryk (1850-1937), philosopher, statesman, 286 volumes

A researcher interested in literature would find the following holdings of the six leading authors:

• Karel Capek, 285 volumes
• Jaroslav Hasek, 146 volumes
• Bozena Nemcova, 143 volumes
• Karel Hynek Macha, 93 volumes
• Jaroslav Seifert (Nobel Prize winner in 1984), 89 volumes
• Josef Skvorecky, 119 volumes

The quality of the holdings is also extraordinary. No fewer than 25 of the Comenius volumes are books published before 1800. The Comenius collection in the LC includes nine editions of his famous Orbis sensualium pictus, including the first American edition published in New York in 1810. Works by Thomas G. Masaryk include the first edition of his first book, Selbstmord als sociale Massenerscheinung (1881) and its English translation, Suicide and the Meaning of Civilization (1970). Both historically important and rare is a microfilmed set of the critical and literary monthly Athenaeum published by Masaryk in 1884-1893. Of the works by and about Karel Capek, one of the first noted European authors of science fiction, the LC has the first American edition (1923) of his 'fantastic melodrama' R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) with photographs of the first American production. Jaroslav Hasek's world-famous Good Soldier Svejk is represented by almost 30 editions (the Czech original and translations into several languages). There are close to 20 editions of the seminal poem "Maj" (May) by Karel Macha which marks the beginning of modern Czech poetry. The LC has the first edition (1836) and the 100th edition adorned with engravings of Vaclav Masek and printed in 100 copies. The collection of the works of Jaroslav Seifert includes the first edition of his first book of poems, Mesto v slzach (City in Tears) (1920), and a luxury edition of the book Postovni holub (The Carrier Pigeon) (1929). The latter was published in 350 copies, of which the LC has Copy No. 34, signed by the author.

Czech and Slovak Literature: Special Features

During the Communist era a number of Czech and Slovak authors left the country and, for political reasons, many others were banned from publishing their works in Czechoslovakia. Especially in the two decades between 1968 and 1989 important works by the exile authors were published in several Western countries. At the same time, silenced authors published Samizdat editions of their writings in Czechoslovakia. Two special agreements, one with '68 Publishers' in Toronto, the other with the Czechoslovak Samizdat Documentation Center in West Germany, ensured the acquisition of this type of literary work, without which the LC collection of modern Czech and Slovak literature would be incomplete.

The LC collection of exile literature is several hundred volumes strong. Authors such as Josef Skvorecky, Milan Kundera, Arnost Lustig and many others are represented by most of their novels and stories written and published outside Czechoslovakia. The Samizdat collection consists of a selection of about 500 monographic titles and 40 periodical titles published in the 1970s and 1980s. It documents well both the scope and the contents of 'unofficial' literature from this period, and includes works of such important authors as Jan Patocka, Vaclav Cerny, and Jindrich Chalupecky.

History and Politics

The LC's resources for the study of history and political developments in the Czech Lands and Slovakia are generally very good. They cover all periods and include a good number of English- language materials. A recently published bibliography shows more than 5,000 items (books, essays, articles, dissertations) written in English on the subject of Czech and Slovak history.

There are items of exceptional value in this area, including some that are unique in the United States. For the study of Czech and Slovak politics before the First World War (when both the Czech Lands and Slovakia were parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) the LC offers an excellent documentation: the almost complete stenographic protocols of the Vienna parliament (Reichsrat) in the years 1861-1918 preserved on microfilm. The recorded proceedings include verbatim speeches of prominent politicians. The set consists of 22O microfilm reels, and is well indexed. Related to this are the stenographic protocols of the Bohemian Diet for the years 1868-1908 (20 reels).

The political development of Czechoslovakia in the years 1918-1938 is documented in two microfilmed collections:

• the stenographic protocols of the Czechoslovak Parliament (46 reels)
• the Czechoslovak Budget (24 reels).

Particularly valuable information about Czech and Slovak history and culture is stored in 19th-century periodicals, of which the LC has long runs of some of the most prominent titles.

On the Slovak side, the LC has microfilmed copies of:

• Pestbudinske vedomosti, the first Slovak political newspaper, published in Budapest, 1861-1865.
• Narodnie noviny, the most important Slovak newspaper of the 19th century, 1871-1922.
• Hlas, the journal of Slovak modernists, associated with Masaryk's "Realist" group, 1898-1904.
• Slovenske pohlady, historically important review documenting the Slovak literary developments before the First World War.

For the Czech Lands, the LC has:

• Casopis ceskeho musea, the cultural review established in 1827 and in the early stages edited by Frantisek Palacky, the founder of modern Czech historiography (the LC has holdings of this valuable review throughout the entire 19th century; they were acquired in 1904 when the LC bought the library of the noted Czech linguist Prof. Martin Hattala).
• The monthly Nase doba (editor T. G. Masaryk, published 1893-1938).
• The microfilmed holdings of the German-language newspaper, Prager Presse (1921-1938, 47 reels).

Czech-Americans and Slovak-Americans

• The Thomas Capek Papers, a collection of nearly 5,000 manuscripts, letters, documents, books, and periodicals assembled over many years by the noted Czech-American writer and activist (1861-1950).
• The Edward O. Tabor Papers, a collection of documents (about 3,000 items) connected with the activities of the Pittsburgh lawyer prominent in Czechoslovak-American affairs from 1918 to 1948.

Especially valuable among the periodicals published by Czechs and Slovaks in the United States is the complete run of the newspaper Slavie, which was published in Racine and Chicago from 1861 to 1918 (18 microfilm reels). For the period during and after the First World War two ethnic newspapers are of great interest: Denni Hlasatel, published in Chicago (1941-1985, 166 reels) and Newyorske Listy, published in New York (1940-1966, 47 reels).

Rare Books

The Rare Book Division of the LC has several Czech cultural treasures. They include seven incunabula from the Czech Lands, one of which is a Bible was printed in Kutna Hora in 1489. This is one of the first Bibles printed in Czech, and the LC's copy is one of eighteen remaining copies. Other especially rare books are a one- volume edition of the Kralice Bible of 1596 and Jan Hus' Postilla of 1563.

The Rare Book Division also has in its custody 30 works by Comenius, including a Czech hymnal printed in Amsterdam during his lifetime in 1659.

The Rare Book collections also include about 150 volumes of modern literature, many of them published in bibliophile editions in a small number of copies. They are kept by the Rare Book Division as examples of high quality Czech book design which flourished especially in the 1920s and 1930s. This selection includes works by such noted authors as Karel Capek, Jaroslav Seifert, Vitezslav Nezval, Jiri Wolker, and Petr Bezruc. The illustrators and book designers include such renowned artists as Karel Svolinsky, Vratislav H. Brunner, Karel Capek, Adolf Kaspar.

Manuscripts

The most valuable Czech manuscript in the custody of the Manuscript Division is Thomas G. Masaryk's complete original handwritten copy of his book Nova Evropa (The New Europe). The final version of this work was written by Masaryk during his stay in Washington in 1918, and the manuscript was donated to the LC by Masaryk's former private secretary, Dr. Jaroslav Cisar.

More than 20 documents (letters, memoranda, statements) relating to Masaryk's liberation movement during the First World War can be found in the collection of the Woodrow Wilson Papers. They include the 'Declaration of Common Aims' issued by the Mid-European Democratic Union, an organization of representatives of the Central European peoples, in October 1918.

Documents on the situation in Czechoslovakia after World War II are included in the collection of Papers of Laurence A. Steinhardt, U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1945 to 1948.

Of great interest for the study of the history of the city of Prague is the collection of Papers of Antonin Novotny (1891-1958), a Czech author specializing in the history of the capital of Bohemia.

Prints and Photographs

Most valuable from the historical point of view are about 70 prints by the 17th-century Czech artist Vaclav Hollar (1607-1677), the creator of splendid etchings showing landscapes, cities, and portraits.

The Prints and Photographs Division also houses more and Slovakia. Among them are 6 posters by Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), including one rare item made for Sarah Bernhardt's American tour in 1896, and 23 by the noted contemporary artist Zdenek Ziegler (born 1932). Another poster in the custody of the Division shows the 1941 German blueprint for the destruction of the village of Lidice.

The 14 posters by Vojtech Preissig (1873-1944), who spent a part of his career in the United States, deserve special attention. Most of these posters were created in support of the Czech and Slovak resistance efforts against Austria-Hungary and Germany during the First World War.

Maps

The LC has the first atlas with the first Czech map of Bohemia. This is in the 1545 Muenster edition of Ptolemy's Geographia. It also has the first independent map of Moravia (Fabricius, 1568), which appears in Ortelius' Theatrum orbis terrarum (Antwerp, 1573), and the first Ortelius atlas with Lazius and Sambucus maps showing Slovakia (1579).

A particularly precious item in the LC collection is Augustin Herman's extremely rare map of Virginia and Maryland of 1670, which was acquired in 1960. Augustin Herman was a Czech emigre who came to America via Holland. Herman's map was entitled, "Virginia and Maryland as it is planted and inhabited this present year 1670 surveyed and exactly drawne by the only labour & endeavor of Augustine Herrman bohemiensis".

Music and Recorded Sound

The LC has an impressive set of scores by Bedrich Smetana, Antonin Dvorak, Leos Janacek, Zdenek Fibich, Eugen Suchon, and other Czech and Slovak composers. Chamber music is an area of special strength, and is represented by several baroque and early classical figures such as Jan Dismas Zelenka, Josef Myslivecek, Jan Stamitz, and Jiri Benda, and, up through the modern period, Bohuslav Martinu.

Josef Myslivecek (called 'il divino Boemo') is represented by 30 titles of pieces of music, including several 18th-century manuscripts.

The Archives of World Literature on Tape has recording of a number of Czech authors reading from their works (Bohumil Hrabal, Ivan Klima, Arnost Lustig, Ivan Divis, and others).

LC also has two recorded sound collections relating to key political events:

• The CBS tapes with the network's entire coverage of the September 1939 Munich crisis.
• A set of 23 tapes of the 1952 trial of Rudolf Slansky as broadcast by Radio Prague.

Related material on the Library of Congress web site:

• Portals to the World. Selected Internet Resources for the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
• The Czechs in America
• The Slovaks in America