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- Title
THE OWNER'S NOTE OF ST. GEORGIJ KONISKY (1717-1795) IN THE BOOKS OF HIS LIBRARY (ON THE BASIS OF THE COLLECTION IN THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF BELARUS).
- Authors
SOLOVEJ, TATJANA
- Abstract
St. Georgij Konisky (1717-1795) is one of the most outstanding people of the Orthodox Church of Belarus and Ukraine. He was born in the Ukrainian town of Nezhin, studied in the Kyiv--Mohyla Academy, was fluent in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Polish, German. In 1747, G. Konisky became hieromonk, professor of philosophy and prefect of the Academy. In 1752, he was appointed Head of the Academy and was an innovator in teaching, introduced reforms in theology, prepared new courses in Rhetoric and Philosophy. In 1755, G. Konisky was elevated to bishop at Belarusian see and in 1793 to archbishop. The personal library of G. Konisky shows him as a person of high erudition. By the end of his life the library comprised 1269 books and 241 manuscripts and documents. The library register is held in the Central State Archive in St. Petersburg (the Archive of the Holy Synod, collection 796). The library included the best publications of European authors on theology, philosophy, geography, reference literature. In accordance with his will, the books were passed to the Mogilev Seminary library. After the October Revolution of 1917, books held in monastic, church and private libraries were passed to the Library of Belarusian State University which was later reorganized into V. I. Lenin State Library, now the National Library of Belarus. The books are kept in the holdings of Bibliology department of the National Library of Belarus. The study of this collections is still in progress. Books with the owner's notes, comments and marks are being described, and there is no precise information about the number of books of G. Konisky held in the National Library of Belarus so far. About 90 publications have been identified. They have owner's notes about their belonging to the library or sidenotes made by himself. In general, the library acquired books on theology: interpretations of the Holy Scripture, sermons, dictionaries, books on rhetoric and dogmatics. The library also comprised books on physics, medicine, history. St. Georgij acquired publications of the 17th-18th centuries in Latin, Russian (Church Slavonic), Polish printed in Germany, Poland, Austria, the Netherlands, Russia. St. Georgij wrote notes on book title pages, flyleaves usually in Latin and sometimes in German, Polish, Church Slavonic, Russian; he left comments to the text on the margins, wrote out proverbs and words of wisdom. Of great interest is the book Dux viae ad vitam puram, piam, perfectam... of 1686 with the owner's notes belonging to the father of G. Konisky -- Joseph. The book is richly ornamented with copper engravings. The book Пucaаuю Cϐяmoмy coƨлacyющoecя нacmaϐлeнue... of 1735 forbidden by the Holy Synod has an autograph "Pertinet ad libros Georgij Koniskj Ep. A R" (Belongs to the books of Georgij Konisky, bishop of White Russia). In spite of the order of the Empress to destroy the book, St. Georgij kept it in memory of his foreign language teacher, the translator of the book archbishop Simon Todorsky.
- Subjects
BELARUS; KONISKY, Georgij; BOOKS; NATIONAL libraries; ORTHODOX Eastern Church; PRIVATE libraries; CHURCH libraries
- Publication
Knygotyra, 2010, Issue 54, p225
- ISSN
0204-2061
- Publication type
Article