Cyrillic prints from the Basilians library in Żyrowice

Abstract

The article describes briefly the history of the Basilians monastery library in Żyrowice. It consisted of 3867 volumes at the beginning of the 19^th century and was the second in the Lithuanian Province, the Vilnius was the first one. The collection was dispersed and can be found in many countries nowadays. The author aimed at identification and description of preserved copies of the Cyrillic prints, because the monastery documentation is incomplete. Specific provenance signs, placed on the books in 1758 and 1759, were helpful in the inquiry. The autopsy descriptions of the books from the Wróblewski Library of the Academy of Sciences in Vilnius, the library of the Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg, and the National Library of Poland in Warsaw were prepared by the author. The others, stored in the libraries of Russia (Moscow), Ukraine (Kyiv, Lviv), and Great Britain (London) were identified in printed catalogues and research articles. The majority of preserved monastic prints are liturgical and orthodox ones. Also works of the Orthodox Church Fathers, hagiographies, grammars of the Slavonic language, and the juristic work Statut Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego [the Statute of the Great Duchy of Lithuania] were found. They come from either Basilian or Orthodox printing houses active from the 15^th until the end of the 18^th century at the territory of Poland and Moscow Ruthenia.