Załuski Library

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The Załuski Library (Zalusciana, Biblioteka Załuskich) was built in Warsaw 1747–1795 by Józef Andrzej Załuski and his brother, Andrzej Stanisław Załuski, both Catholic bishops. The library was open to the public and indeed was the first Polish public library, the biggest in Poland and one of the first and biggest libraries in the world[1]. After the Kościuszko Uprising, the Russian troops acting on orders from Czarina Catherine II looted the library and dispatched them to Petersburg, where it became a nucleus of the Imperial Public Library. In the 1920s, the Soviet Union government returned most of the collection to Poland, yet it was destroyed by Nazi Germany during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

[edit] History

The greatest passion of the Załuski brothers were books. Józef Andrzej Załuski together with his brother Andrzej Stanisław Załuski obtained the collections of such earlier Polish bibliophiles as Jakub Zadzik, Krzysztof Opaliński, Tomasz Ujejski, Janusz Wiśniowiecki, Jerzy Mniszech and Jan III Sobieski. From 1730s they planned the creation of a library and in 1747 the brothers founded the Załuski Library (Biblioteka Załuskich). Located in Daniłowiczowski Palace in Warsaw[2] the library had two storeys (the large reading room was on the second floor) and was topped with a small tower, in which an astronomy observatory was placed.

It was considered to be the first Polish public library[3] and one of the largest libraries in the contemporary world[4]. In all of Europe there were only two or three libraries, which could pride themselves on having such a book collection[5]. The library initially had about 200,000 items, which grew to about 400,000 printed items, maps and manuscripts[6] [7] by the end of the 1780s. It also accumulated a collection of art, scientific instruments, and plant and animal specimens.

This library was open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:00 to 19:00. On the doors hung regulations demanding quiet and asking that prayers be said for the intention of the Załuski brothers before starting to read, as well as a ban on taking books outside the library. Unfortunately the last point of these regulations was systematically broken. In the end, the two bishops even turned to the pope for help. Pope Benedict XIV published a papal bull in 1752 which threatened excommunication to anyone stealing books from this library. But this failed to resolve the problem.[8]

After their death, the newly formed National Education Commission took charge of the library, renaming it the Załuski Brothers Library of the Republic.

Twenty years later in 1794, in the aftermath of the second Partition of Poland and Kościuszko Uprising, Russian troops, on orders from Russian Czarina Catherine II, plundered[9] [10] the library and took its collection to St. Petersburg, where the Imperial Public Library was formed a year later[11][12]. Parts of the collections were damaged or destroyed during the plunder of the library and the subsequent transport[13] [14]. According to the historian Joachim Lelewel, the Zaluskis' books, "could be bought at Grodno by the basket".[15]

The collection was subsequently dispersed among several Russian libraries. Some parts of the Zaluski collection came back to Poland on three separate dates: 1842, 1863[16]. In the 1920s, in the aftermath of the Polish-Soviet War and the Treaty of Riga [17] [18]the Soviet Union government returned around 50,000 items from the collection to Poland[19], yet it was destroyed by Nazi Germany during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944[20]. Only 1800 manuscripts and 30 ,000 printed materials survived.

The Polish National Library (Biblioteka Narodowa), formed in 1928[21] sees itself as a successor to the Załuski Library.