National Museum Library Research Articles

From the History of the Library of Bohuslav Dušek

The article works with sources concerning the history of the library of Bohuslav Dušek (1886–1957), a bank clerk and a collector of books and art. Dušek built his library, comprising more than 3,000 volumes, from the beginning of the 20th century. Despite changing state regimes, he kept it until his death. His second wife, Hermína Dušková (1910–2012), organised the library and donated it in 1977 to the National Museum Library. The personal archival collection of Bohuslav Dušek, deposited in the National Museum Archives, provides as-yet unpublished information on the development of the library and its owners as well as on the process of the handover of this unique collection to the National Museum Library.

Exhibition Policy of the National Museum 2017−2020

Abstract The National Museum (NM) is preparing several temporary exhibitions in all of its buildings, along with preparing new permanent exhibitions in the New and Historical Buildings. All parts of the National Museum are incorporated in the preparation of new exhibitions, i.e. the Historical Museum, Natural History Museum, Czech Museum of Music, Náprstek Museum and the National Museum Library. In 2017, these exhibition projects are: Light and Life, Masaryk as a Phenomenon, and Indians. In 2018, the National Museum will present the Czech-Slovak / Slovak-Czech exhibition, which will reflect the 100th anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia, together with selected moments of Czechoslovakian history and the relationship of these two nations. 2019 could bring the opening of the grand Egyptology exposition Sun Kings and also new Natural history expositions. The remaining permanent expositions should be opened in 2020. The exhibitions in this period will likely recall some important anniversaries (1620, 1920). In future years, the renovation of the Czech Museum of Music and Náprstek Museum will take place.

From the Life of the National Museum Library in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia

The aim of the paper is to show the situation of the National Museum Library (NML) in the period of 1939–1945 based on archival documents. Central changes made by the Nazis affected people as well as their work in the NML. It was not possible to continue as before – some employees had been arrested or executed by the Gestapo. Nevertheless, the number of the NML staff increased as a result of the transfer of officials from the closed Ministry of War and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Two employees of German nationality joined the NML based on the new rules concerning the relations between Czechs and Germans in public services. The operation of the library came under the supervision of Professor Carl Wehmer, who planned a cataloguing reform, was in charge of the book collections and ensured their later evacuation. The plans for a new NML exhibition were cancelled and replaced by propagandistic exhibitions imported from Germany, such as Deutsche Größe. The Nazi ideologists planned to return the National Museum and its library to the original idea of the land museum. Also Emil Franzel, a former leading member of the German Social Democracy in Czechoslovakia, a later member of the Sudeten German Party and in 1940–1941 an official in the NML, followed the idea of a land museum in his book History of the National Museum Library (Prague 1942), the first monograph on the history of the NML.

Unknown Organ Tablature from the Early Seventeenth Century

In the course of research on fragments from the National Museum Library, a large torso was discovered containing hitherto unknown organ tablatures from the early seventeenth century (shelf mark CZ-Pn 1 K 219). The author of the article reassemble the torso based on signatures and analyzed its content, which consists of intabulations of sacred compositions by leading Renaissance composers (e.g. Orlando di Lasso, Tomás Luis de Victoria, Jakob Handl-Gallus) as well as some lesser-known composers. On the basis of analysis, she then focused her attention on Silesia and the German-speaking milieu of northern Bohemia and Moravia, compared the tablature with similar sources from Czech and foreign collections, and placed it in the context of musical practice in the milieu of Lutheranism.

Vilém Gabler’s Library and Alexander the Great

Abstract The article is divided into three parts. The first one aims to present the figure of Vilém Gabler, a close colleague of Karel Havlíček and František Ladislav Rieger, as a person important for the beginnings of Czech–French relations and for the spread of the knowledge of the Czech language and culture in the Czech milieu. The second part is devoted to the summary of previous research and the reconstruction of the personal library of Vilém Gabler, scattered in the central collection of the National Museum Library. The last, third part discusses Gabler’s article Alexander Veliký [Alexander the Great], written in reaction to the work Alexandre le Grand from the pen of Alphonse de Lamartine and under the impression of the events of 1859. Despite its thematic focus on the ancient commander, it provides abundant information on the author’s view of the recent Austrian-Czech past as well as present. It thus shows a man with his own world of opinion and moral schemes created based on his own experience from 1848 and strongly influenced by the study of French history, especially the period after 1789.

Sources of Lute- and Guitar Music in the Holdings of the National Museum in Prague

This study gives an overview of lute and guitar tablatures in the holdings of the National Museum (at the Czech Museum of Music and the National Museum Library), and it briefly characterizes them in the form of a catalogue. Since music from the Strahov and Lobkowicz collections, which also involve a rather large set of tablatures, has been returned to its original owners in restitution, the study provides up-to-date information about where this historical material is now kept. It reflects new knowledge and discoveries (lute tablature with the shelf mark KNM Nostic gg 412). The composers presented (e.g. G. P. Foscarini, P. Mutti, N. Vallet, Ch. Mouton, P. I. Jelínek, A. Dix, M. Galilei, J. Dowland, Ch. de Lespine, J. Regnart, S. L. Jacobides, J. Ch. Beyer and many others), living and working in the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, are primarily Italian, French, German, and Czech, and with respect to social classes, they represent practically all of the environments where playing on plucked instruments was cultivated.

The Books of Hanuš Jelínek and Božena Jelínková in the National Museum Library in Prague

The article points out the uniqueness of the personal book collection of the Czech poet, translator and theatre critic Hanuš Jelínek, one of the most prominent figures in Czech–French cultural relations. Based on the owner’s last will, it has been deposited in the National Library in Prague since 1951, when the book estate was handed over to the National Museum after the death of his wife, Božena Jelínková-Jirásková, an academic painter, and it also contains books that belonged to her. The book collection, which still awaits further research and is hardly known to the wider professional public, is a very valuable source on the life and work of Mr and Mrs Jelínek as well as an important source of information on the history of Czech-French cultural transfers and the cultural history of Europe in the first half of the 20th century.

French Provenance in the Personal Library of the Art Critic and Theorist Karel Teige in the National Museum Library

The National Museum Library contains the personal library of an outstanding Czech critic and modern art theorist, Karel Teige. From the 1920s, he was in touch with the founders and important representatives of modern art movements, mostly from France, whose relations and cooperation are i.a. demonstrated by the books donated to him. The article presents several dedications by André Breton, Tristan Tzara, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Le Corbusier and Salvador Dalí.

Бунт Хмельницького Алоїзa Гонзаги Жулковського - перша драма про українського гетьмана на польській сцені ХІХ ст.

It was created in 1812 and had short stage run but was never printed. Text preserved in the National Museum Library of Warsaw is the earliest drama text of 19th century devoted to Bohdan Khmelnytskyi. The emerging of this text can be interpreted as the beginning of pre-romantic tendencies and rising interest in history of Ukrainian-Polish relations and Cossack epoch. At the same time, the play was as relevant as ever because there exists a strong desire of playwrights to respond to important social and political problems of that time.