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Friderik Irenej Baraga

Friderik Irenej Baraga (1797–1868) was the most prominent Slovenian missionary of the first half of the 19th century as well as a pious literature writer and an ethnographer. He was doing missionary work among North American native tribes for twenty-five years, first among the Ottawa tribe in L'Arbre Croche on Lake Michigan, and later also along the Grand River. As he opposed the liquor dealers and the government, who were forcibly evicting these tribes from their territories, he had to retreat to the regions around Lake Superior, where he then worked among the Chippewa tribe in La Pointe, L'Anse, and Fond de Lac. Baraga's “Description of the Customs of North American Native Tribes” was the first history book on the indigenous population of the area published in Europe. In addition to various devotional works and prayer books, he also published the first grammars of the Chippewa and Ottawa languages.

The collection consists of Baraga's works as well as biographical and other studies about his life and work.

Catalogues and Inventories of the Lyceum Library up to 1803

The collection consists of all the earliest documents that bear witness to the extent and contents of the lyceum library up to 1803. These documents are: inventories of books saved from the burned-down Jesuit college in Ljubljana, inventories of books from disbanded monasteries, whose collections were in part handed over to the newly-founded library at the Ljubljana lyceum (i. e. two Cistercian monasteries in Stična and Kostanjevica, Carthusian monastery in Bistra, monasteries of discalced and shod Augustinians in Ljubljana, and the Servite monastery in Duino). These documents are joined by catalogues of the Society for Agriculture and Useful Arts of Kranjska, disbanded in 1787, inventories of the earliest donations (of Karel Peer, Inocenc Taufferer and the Schilling's canonry), Terpin's catalogue of the diocesan library in Gornji Grad, whose collection was handed over to the lyceum library on the basis of a decree by the Governorate of Styria, and an inventory of duplicates that the lyceum library sold at auction in 1794. The collection is completed by the library inventory list from 1788 and the earliest catalogue from 1803, both compiled by the first lyceum librarian, Franz Wilde.

Jewish collection of the Regional and Study Library of Murska Sobota

In January 2021, the Regional and Study Library of Murska Sobota began the project of cataloguing Jewish prayer and ritual books, which most likely belonged to the former Jewish religious congregation of Murska Sobota. The data entry into the COBISS was completed in October 2021 and it encompassed a total of 72 titles or 99 books. The covers of these books, some of which are bilingual, were printed in Hebrew, German, Hungarian, and Yiddish languages. Content wise, they are prayer books for various religious observances (i. e. siddurim and machzorim), copies of the Haggadah, and textbooks on how to read and perform prayers. The oldest book in the collection dates from 1779, while the youngest dates from 1942. They were published in Vienna, Budapest, Berlin, Prague, Vilnius, and Sulzbach in Bavaria. Some of them, interestingly, carry signatures of Jews from Murska Sobota, e. g., of Rabbi Lazar Roth, who was murdered in Auschwitz along with most of the members of his Jewish community. In 2023, the Regional and Study Library of Murska Sobota began digitizing these books with the help of a contractor and it is safe to assume the entire collection will be digitized in a few years’ time.

Plečnik's Library - Created for All Times

The palace of the National and University Library on Turjaška Street in Ljubljana is one of the greatest masterpieces of architect Jože Plečnik (1872-1957), the foundation stone of Plečnik's Ljubljana and one of the most important architectural achievements of the last century. The first endeavours to build a university library date back to the founding of the University of Ljubljana (1919). Jože Plečnik also showed an interest in designing the library: in 1927, he created an experimental design and was later entrusted to make concrete architectural design for the library. The start of construction was delayed due to the global economic crisis, but after years of efforts on the part of the university management, representatives of the city and the region, supported by the Student Academic Action and the Slovenian public, funds were finally secured for the construction, which lasted for another five years (1936-1941). The library - according to master Plečnik, created for all times - was opened to public use in November 1941.

The collection features correspondence, designs and other documents that accompanied the efforts, designing and construction of the National and University Library building. The digitised material collected is taken from the archives of the National and University Library, and also from the archives of the Museum and Galleries of the City of Ljubljana.

Plečnik’s Notebooks

Architect Jože Plečnik was an excellent draughtsman. He often sketched, reflected and took notes. Plečnik's house stores forty-two of his notes and sketchbooks created from 1890 to 1957. The architect's notes and drawings, until now unknown to the general public, range from quickly made sketches and everyday notes, to in-depth reflections and more sophisticated depictions. The themes of Plečnik's drawings are not always associated with architecture, thus they reveal a glimpse into his comprehensive interest in visual creativity; his writings are worded insights into the architect's intimate experience.

In collaboration with the Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana, the collection presents notes, sketchbooks and some other drawings kept in Plečnik's house that were digitised during Plečnik's year 2022 on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the architect's birth.

Incunabula Slovenica

Incunables are the earliest printed books published between the years 1450 and 1500. They form part of national cultural heritages. In a similar vein, the collection Incunabula Slovenica contains the earliest printed materials of world and national importance preserved by the Slovenian cultural heritage institutions. These works originated from various printing centres of the Renaissance Europe and serve to prove the liveliness of cultural and mercantile exchange between people of our territory and those living in other European countries of the time.

Digitization of these most valuable pieces of written cultural heritage further enhances their accessibility, it helps promote their research and evaluation, and positively benefits their protection. The National and University Library is digitizing the incunables located in Slovenia with the support and financial assistance of the National Committee for the Memory of the World Programme at the Slovenian National Commission for UNESCO since 2020. By doing so, it wishes to make the whole Slovenian collection of incunables accessible to all.

Karel Štrekelj manuscript legacy

In the digital collection we present the ethnographic material from the manuscript legacy of Karel Štrekelj, slavicist, linguist, and ethnologist from the times of Austria-Hungary, who was also a collector of folk songs and tales. In 1887, Štrekelj – then lecturer of Slavic philology at the Vienna University – published a Petition for folk material in several newspapers. In his petition, he called on all his compatriots who “wanted the Slovenian people to show to the world the richness of their oral traditions”, and especially on teachers active both “in Church and in school”, to begin writing down the oral folk material. With this action, Štrekelj stepped on a path that over the 19th century had been walked by his predecessors with strong national awareness. Among Slovenian people, the Petition for folk material was accepted surprisingly well. This made it possible for Štrekelj to include in his collection of Slovenian folk songs, which was later to be followed by a collection of Slovenian folk tales, texts coming from all regions inhabited by Slovenians.

The material that was sent to Štrekelj by many from all across Slovenia and was preserved in his manuscript legacy has been digitized in cooperation between the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU) and the National and University Library.

Legendary Slovenian Cookbooks

The first cookbook in the Slovenian language Kuharske bukve (Cookbooks) was written in 1799 by poet Valentin Vodnik. It was reissued several times in the 19th century. Although there are about 350 recipes in the book, only a small number are presenting Slovenian national dishes. At first, compiling cookbooks for Slovenian housewives was mainly about copying and translating from German books, thus the bourgeois cuisine, dominated by Viennese and Graz cuisine with Venetian influence, and contemporary French cooking procedures. These are cookbooks for Slovenes in the Slovenian language, not cookbooks on Slovenian dishes. In 1903, Minka Govekar wrote a cookbook Dobra kuharica (The Good Cook) that introduced new and primarily Slovenian culinary terms.

We offer you to read and try recipes of some of the most famous, and for decades (even centuries) used cookbooks: from Vodnik's Kuharske bukve (Cooking Book) from 1799, the famous cookbooks written by Felicita Kalinšek and Marija Remec, to a tiny booklet Kuharska knjižica (A Cooking Book) which was published in 1948 in the refugee camp in Spittal (Austria).

Lectionaries

Lectionaries contain liturgical readings, a selection of texts from the Gospels and the Apostles' Letters read during standard Latin liturgy before Slovenian sermon on Sundays and holidays. Because they were also intended for private reading, they often had various additions, such as catechisms, church songs, and prayers. Since the last decades of the 15th century, translations of lectionaries into vernacular languages have also been printed. In the 17th century, lectionary in Slovenian language became one of the most important publications of the Catholic religious revival, and later also one of the most popular and most often reprinted religious works. The first, Hren-Čandek's edition of the lectionary with the title Evangelia inu lystuvi was published in 1613 (with the date of publication 1612), and the second, Schönleben's edition was published in 1672. They were followed by numerous linguistically improved and supplemented editions, which are also important for researching the development of the Slovenian language. Lectionaries that were published until 1851 from the collections of the National and University Library, the Ivan Potrč Library, the Ljubljana City Library, and the University Library in Maribor are presented in the collection.

Reformation prints

The collection includes works and translations of Protestant authors from today's Slovenian territory and some other works to which those authors contributed. In addition to the key works of the Slovenian Reformation, thus the first books in the Slovenian language, the collection also includes the Croatian Protestant prints, to which Trubar contributed. They are printed in Glagolitic alphabet, a script invented by Cyril. For many centuries it enabled to use the vernacular of the Slavs in Catholic worship. The books were published in the second half of the 16th century, some on the Slovenian territory (by Janž Mandelc printing house), others in today's Germany, in Wittenberg, and especially in Tübingen, where the works of the South Slavic Protestant authors were printed and distributed by Ulrich Morhart printing house, or by his successor Georg Gruppenbach. Digitized copies are from the Rare Prints Collection of the National and University Library, and the Royal Library of Denmark. The collection is supplemented by material digitized within the National Project for Digitization of the Slovenika (works in the Slovenian language and works on the Slovenian language and literature), and Culturally Important Library Material (2021-2030).

Libri prohibiti

In all periods individuals and communities who shared in the written word their knowledge and findings, views, ideas and visions with others met with forces that wanted to control, direct and limit the flow of knowledge and ideas: they ordered such texts to be rewritten, they confiscated and burned unwanted works, and, in the most extreme cases, their authors were condemned, exiled or even executed. But just as the Earth revolves around the Sun, readers too, have always found their ways to books despite of various strict censorship policies and lists of banned literature. The collection presents selected works kept in the National and University Library, which were once included in the papal index of banned books, or in others, mainly imperial censorship lists.

The works were on display at the exhibition entitled And Yet they Were Read - Banned Books in the Early Modern Age; as part of a research project in 2018, it was prepared by the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU) and NUK.

https://www.dlib.si/razstave/libri-prohibiti/

Philharmonische Gesellschaft in Laibach

The Philharmonic Society is the oldest musical association of the former Austrian monarchy and the successor of the Academia Philharmonicorum Labacensis. It was founded in 1794, its predecessor was a string quartet whose members were four Ljubljana citizens (Karel Moos, Karl Kogl, Jožef Jellemitzky and Jožef Flikschuh). The aim of the Society was to enrich emotions by choosing good compositions, and to shape musical taste of the citizens through a good musical performance. The Society's activities were initially limited to weekly in-house performances for a closed circle of members and quarterly 'academies' open to the public. The reputation of the Ljubljana Philharmonic Society grew steadily, and so did its membership. Anyone who was important in Ljubljana was a member of the Philharmonic Society. The French occupation and the establishment of the Illyrian Provinces halted its work for a while, however in 1816 the Society already had 200 members. The records indicate that there were up to a hundred instrumentalists in the orchestra and around forty singers in the choir, and some sixty regular listeners.

The Society held its last concert in autumn 1918, after which it became a section of the Glasbena matica musical society.

Opera Operosorum

In 1693, Academia operosorum Labacensium was founded following the example of Italian scientific academies. Its initiators were historian and lawyer Joannes Gregorius Thalnitscher, and the cathedral provost Joannes Baptista Preschern. They also drew the majority of prominent educated citizens of the time into membership. The most important members of the Academy were: chair dean and the founder of the Seminary library Joannes Antonius Thalnitscher, the states counsel Joannes Stephanus Floriantschitsch, jurists Franciscus Erasmus Hohenwart, Goeorgius Andreas Gladitsch, and Joannes Georgius Hozhevar, president of the provincial court Joannes Bertoldus Höffer, and doctors Marcus Gerbezius, Joannes Andreas Coppini and Joannes Baptista Werloschnig. They devoted their attention to literature, local historical studies, science, and art. At the initiative of the academics, Academia philharmonicorum, Academia incultorum, and a branch of the Roman Arcadia, Academia Emonia, were also founded. The Academy ceased in 1725. The collection presents a selection of works by the Academy members from the National and University Library's collections, which were suitable for digitization.

Travel and exploration

The collection comprises over 250 travelogues, diaries and reports from various research, mountaineering, missionary, ethnographic and trade expeditions, diplomatic missions and aristocratic and other travels. Some of the authors are also well-known Slovenian travellers and researchers, as well as a number of national and foreign trippers who have described the Slovenian territory. The monographs are very diverse in their appearance, as some were published in the 16th century, the latest in the collection are from the beginning of the 20th century. The collection includes travelogues from English, French, German, Spanish and other research expeditions of the late 18th and early 19th centuries which were held in the Žiga Zois library. Some booklets are rather modest, while others are richly illustrated. Among them botanical and zoological studies of rare plants and animals should be mentioned as many species were little known in the West in that period. The collection includes travel diaries of the Paolo Santonino, secretary of the Aquileian Patriarch, who visited our lands three times in the late 15th century. In 1943, his diaries were first published in Latin, partly in Italian.

When the Dead teach the Living - History of Anatomy

Following the chronological order of their creation, the collection presents some prominent works from the field of anatomy that were displayed at the National and University Library's exhibition When the Dead Teach the Living in 2015. Scientific studies, manuals, anatomical atlases, and other materials, which are kept at the National and University Library of Slovenia, and the Seminary Library represent the development of anatomy from the first known systematic attempts to discover the structure and functioning of the human body until the 20th century. The authors of the works feature many world-famous and renowned names such as Hippocrates, Galenus, Avicenna, Mesue, Vesalius, Bartholin, Eustahius, Hunter, and Zinn, as well as two local authors - Alojzij Homan and Janez Plečnik, who significantly contributed to the development of anatomy in Slovenia.

Numerous handwritten notes and additions on front pages and on the margins of the exhibited books bear witness to a strong interest in medicine and anatomy in today's Slovenian territory throughout history. Many of the books presented were once owned by important individuals and institutions.