Lusine Sargsyan, Zsolt Magyari-Sáska, Armenian Printed Books in the Library of Armenian Catholic Parish in Gheorgheni (17th-19th Centuries)

TOME LXI 2023
pp. 275-320
Online publication date: 
06/01/2024
Keywords: 
Old Armenian printed books, Gheorgheni, Armenian-Catholic parish, library, catalogue.
Abstract: 

The Armenian Catholic Parish in Gheorgheni (Harghita county, Romania) houses a rich library of books in different languages (ill. 1). The parish is situated near the Holy Mother of God church, which was built by Armenians in 1733–34. The parish library was created by priests of the church, as indicate the ex librises and possessors’ handwritten inscriptions on the books. This library is an important evidence of the Armenian community in Gheorgheni with its long history. The collection of Armenian manuscripts and printed books of the library is smaller than that of the items in languages other than Armenian. Some publications about manuscripts are already known, yet very little is known about the printed books.

The purpose of this study is to present: a) the catalogue of Armenian printed books from 17th to 19th centuries; b) the chronology and topography of these books; c) the information contained in handwritten inscriptions in order to form a certain idea about the Armenian community and its representatives (basically in Transylvania, as these inscriptions testify). It should be noted that the library is currently incomplete. As the inventory numbers reveal, many books from the library are missing. To form an idea about the original state of the library, we kept the existing inventory numbers and assigned numbers only to those books that did not have an inventory number.