29 October 2019 press release

The German National Library and the Russian State Library in Moscow sign an agreement for the collaborative digitalisation and cataloguing of cultural heritage displaced during wartime

The most valuable collections from the German National Library’s German Museum of Books and Writing were taken to Moscow during the first post-war months. Nearly 75 years later, the German National Library and the Russian State Library in Moscow have now signed a collaboration agreement which aims to digitalise and catalogue the collections kept in Leipzig and Moscow.

The technical and cultural achievements of digitalisation open up whole new possibilities for cultural heritage displaced during wartime, as scattered collections can now be reunited online. For Stephanie Jacobs, Director of the German National Library’s German Museum of Books and Writing, this represents “a quantum leap forward for the complex subject of displaced cultural heritage: not only does the digital provision bridge spatial distances, it also represents a quantum leap forward for the history of knowledge”.

The collaboration agreement firstly covers the collection of medieval manuscripts and incunabula, better known among researchers as the Klemm collection. This unique collection originated in the private collection of the master tailor Heinrich Klemm (1819–1886), who – despite being born into severe poverty – built a fortune with women’s dress patterns, going on to become a major entrepreneur and publisher. (cf. “Vom Waisenkind zum Millionär – 200 Jahre Heinrich Klemm.” A virtual exhibition by Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek). Klemm invested his fortune into collecting early prints from all European printing locations.

The second collection to which the collaboration agreement refers is a collection of historic book bindings, predominantly comprised of 17th- and 18th-century European examples but also including ones from Persia and Mauritania.

In total, the collection to be digitalised comprises approximately 33,700 titles, most of which are kept in Leipzig. However, the most precious volumes, which were relocated to Rauenstein Castle in the Ore Mountains during the war and that also include a parchment copy of the 42-line Gutenberg bible, are now housed in Moscow.

Background

The book has shaped our culture and civilisation like no other medium. For centuries our knowledge about the world and its peoples has been stored in books. The task of the German Book and Writing Museum of the German National Library is to collect, exhibit and process evidence of book and media history. Founded in 1884 in Leipzig as the Deutsches Buchgewerbemuseum (German Book Trade Museum), it is the oldest museum in the world in the field of book culture, and also one of the most important with regard to the scope and quality of its holdings. The museum interlinks its holdings through national and international cooperative projects and feeds them into the widest possible range of academic disciplines.

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Pictures

Images for editorial use with reports on the exhibition