Three recent NSZL publications

The offer of NSZL's successful book publishing program has been expanded with new high-quality and informative books. All three of our recent publications are based on the unique treasures of the Hungarian national library and/ or its rich history. The publications were based on the history of the Music Collection, on the representative collection of a unique private library and on the cultural historical significance of our corvinas.

Éva Kelemen has been dealing with the history of the almost one hundred year old Music Collection of National Széchényi Library. By way of using the genre of oral history, she made interviews with one-time staff members of the Library, and these interviews form the bulk of the book entitled Az járt oda, aki kottát is tudott olvasni (The one who could read a sheet music went there).

Another novelty is a trilingual illustrated album entitled Todoreszku. Egy kivételes könyvtár kincsei (Todoreszku. Treasures of a Unique Library); Edited by Bernadett Varga. The album commemorates the great collector and patron Dr. Gyula Todoreszku (1866 −1919) who died exactly a century ago. Todreszku is one of the most significant donators to National Széchényi Library: his private library, holding approximately 3,000 volumes, got into the possession of NSZL in 1920. The book was published with the support of the Department of Romanian Philology of Eötvös Loránd University and the Embassy of Romania in Hungary.

Our third book is the long-awaited, sophisticated catalog guiding readers into the highly exciting world of our most precious treasures, the corvinas was recently published. The professional catalog made for our highly successful exhibition entitled The Corvina Library and the Buda Workshop has been edited by Edina Zsupán and it was published under the title “To the ornament of the country.” The structure of the illustrated volume reflects the structure of the original exhibition, and it also aims at presenting in detail a whole lot of recent research results related to the topic, via various studies. The exhibition, and consequently the current volume, focus on corvinas made in the royal workshop of Buda, as well as on their complex significance in cultural history, by skipping the tradition of simple presentations and providing scientifically demanding, unparalleled analyzes of cultural history instead.

All of our three recent books can be ordered from NSZL Publishing House.