19 November 2024

The project „Conservation and Restoration of the Personal Book Collection of Matas Strašunas“ is completed

The two-year project “Conservation and Restoration of the Personal Book Collection of Matas Strašunas”, implemented by the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, was completed on 1 October. The aim of the project was to restore and conserve the personal print collection of M. Strashun (1640 items) over a period of two years and to open it to readers and researchers. Matas Strašunas (Mattityahu Strashun, 1817-1885), an eminent Jewish scholar, a renowned bibliophile, an avid collector, a patron and one of the most influential members of the Jewish community in Vilnius, bequeathed his unique collection of printed books to the Jewish community in an effort to preserve it and to establish the first public library in the Jewish Community. This unique documentary heritage, which survived the Second World War, was not accessible to researchers and readers due to its poor condition.

In 2017, the personal collection of Jewish books of M. Strašunas, preserved in the National Library of Lithuania, was recognised as a documentary heritage object of regional significance and entered into the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme Register. It is an exceptional collection of more than 1,600 copies, whose chronology spans the 16th-19th centuries, and whose geography of publishing locations includes not only Lithuania, but also Italy, Greece, Turkey, Germany, the Netherlands and other countries. Many of the prints in the collection, including dozens of palaeotypes, are unique in Lithuania.

With the help of a team of six professional conservators from the Library’s Conservation and Restoration Department, 1,640 prints were conserved in two years. Thanks to the project, the valuable collection of Strašunas’s books has been made available to scholars, researchers and all those interested in the documentary heritage of Judaica.