The Library of Religious Knowledge in Warsaw (1919-1939)

Abstract

The Library of Religious Knowledge, founded by Irena Tyszkiewicz in 1919 in her home at 6 Litewska Street in Warsaw was an entirely private institution funded by its founder, but at the same time a public one in social terms, as the books gathered there were lent for free to anybody presenting any kind of guarantee. Although, as its name suggests, the main objective in founding the library was to spread religious knowledge in the Catholic spirit, it also had a special division for children and young people, as well as a popular books section containing fiction and poetry. The core of the collection, however, was both Polish and foreign-language literature, as refl ected by numerical data: in 1939 the Library of Religious Knowledge’s collection numbered 17,000 volumes, the children’s section had 3000 books, and the popular literature section only a few hundred items. It is hard to determine the number of readers using the library. According to I. Tyszkiewicz, some 4000 library cards were issued, but in some cases one card was used by a whole family or even institutions such as religious orders. Although the library was destroyed (burnt in 1944 with the rest of the city after the end of the Warsaw Uprising), the surviving archival documents provide partial information about its collection and work.