Coming home…After 60 years 136 highly valuable books arrived back to Hungary

By: Gyarmathy Dóra, Hungarian Radio

---

The manuscripts, fractions of codices, printed matters partly from the 15th century and other documents are the property of the Sárospatak Library and were transferred from Hungary in the end of the World War II. Discussions about the return of Sárospatak book collection started in the beginning of the 1990’s, finally in the end of February 136 volumes arrived back to Hungary. Similarly valuable “war booty” was given back in 1978 last time, when the Hungarian Holy Crown arrived back to Budapest from the United States of America.

The Sárospatak Library was founded in 1531 when Rákóczi György I established the Sárospatak Reformed College. In the 17th century there was the most famous book collection, between the World War I and II more than 100000 volumes were kept in the North-East Hungarian town. The book collection is ecclesiastical property and consists fractions of codices, incunabula (early printed matters from the 15th-16th century, the beginning of the typography) unique issues in the field of theology, philosophy and social sciences. Among them 96 were written in Latin language, 33 in Hungarian and 6 in German. 60 % of the volumes are prayer books; the others are about medical, legal, historical, topics and travel reports. The most valuable books from this collection – about 170 books – were transferred from Sárospatak to Budapest in 1938 for security reasons. This small collection was kept in the National Bank and the safes of other banks. The volumes were taken to Nizhniy Novgorod by the Soviet troops. (The official point of view in Moscow is that the books were transferred from Budapest by German troops, were found and taken to Nizhniy Novgorod from Berlin.). All of the books contain the stamp of the Sárospatak Library that was how Hungarian experts found the volumes in the beginning of the 1990’s in Nizhniy Novgorod by luck. Although Hungarian experts identified 146 books in the 1990’s, until last September 135 books were – officially – identified. Finally 136 volumes were put into the cases because one more book was found in the Nizhniy Novgorod Regional Museum of Fine Arts.

The first agreement between Russia and Hungary was signed by Boris Yeltsin, President of Russia and Antall József, Prime Minister of Hungary in 1992. Russian-Hungarian restitution committee was formed in 1993 to discuss the important issues in connection with the collection. After long debates and discussions, modification of the law a plane with the 7 cases which contained the 136 books landed in Budapest. After all the Hungarian partner has to pay 12.000.000 SUR (more than 400.000 USD) because of the “restoration” of the books. The returning books were transferred to the National Library from the airport to survey the condition and conservation. From 1 March to June the book collection can be seen by public in the Hungarian National Museum.