Armenian-language old prints in Polish libraries

Abstract

Literacy and literature have allowed the Armenians living in the First Republic of Poland to maintain their religious, cultural and linguistic identity for many centuries. Thus, books have always accompanied them throughout the diaspora, becoming part of their national tradition and cultural heritage. The stories of these volumes were as varied and complex, and sometimes as dramatic as the fortunes of their readers. To this day, not many of these books have survived in Polish libraries (55 in total), but these contribute to the richness of the libraries in which they were once stored. Part of the heritage has been preserved outside the borders of today’s Poland; another part has been lost or has been destroyed. Those preserved in Polish collections have not been previously studied, but they offer the opportunity to enrich the understanding of the specificity of both the Armenian heritage in the field of written culture and the perspective of Polish-Armenian cultural ties. This gap in research has shaped the main goal of this project, which is to identify and catalogue Armenian old prints, which are currently housed in Polish libraries and constitute a substantive amount of material for research and analysis.