Gustavs Šaurums – mācītājs, bibliotekārs, bibliofils

Abstract

The article is dedicated to one of the most prominent and versatile personalities of the library sector in Latvia – the pastor and bibliophile Gustavs Šaurums (1883–1952). From 1934 to 1938, he managed the Riga City Library, the oldest library in Latvia (today – part of the Academic Library of the University of Latvia), during which time he started the identification and bibliography of Latvian ancient printed works stored at the foreign libraries. As a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia (for 38 years, from 1914 to 1952), he was also the editor of several religious press publications, an active researcher and populariser of Latvian religious and cultural history. In 1914, his first book “Iekšējā misija” (“Inner Mission”), was published in Riga, in which he explained the inner mission as voluntary Christian charity and education work to various groups of society and emphasized its importance in strengthening the church and Christian faith. Being the pastor of the Umurga and Ārciems parishes from 1920 to 1934, he also started publishing himself: he compiled and published not only parish calendars and reports, but also his own books (nine in total). The most notable among them is Šaurums’s monograph “Tērbatas Universitāte, 1632–1932” (University of Dorpat, 1632–1932), as it contains the first comprehensive overview of the university’s history over three hundred years. In 1933, Šaurums also begun the compilation, publication and distribution of the religious literature series “Rakstu Avots” (“Source of Writings”) in order to limit the spread of “harmful”, valueless literature. The series was financed by annual payments from subscribers, which ensured the publication of 12 small print works (books or pictures) per year. Although the series did not gain as much popularity as hoped, it nevertheless was a visible and stable segment in the literature of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia. Šaurums continued his work as a pastor even during the years of Soviet and Nazi occupation. The study shows that his attitude towards non-democratic political regimes was conformist: loyalty was shown, apparently with the hope that it would provide better conditions for the church’s survival in difficult times. Šaurums’s private library is considered particularly valuable, – he collected Latvian and Baltic German literature from his early youth, paying particular attention to obtaining periodicals. According to the testimonies of contemporaries, Šaurums’s library contained more than 20,000 books, calendars, sets of magazines and newspapers. After the owner’s demise, they ended up in the collections of the National Library of Latvia and the Academic Library of the University of Latvia.