Juergen Warmbrunn1; 1 Herder Institute, Research Library, Marburg, Germany
Discussion
The Slavonic Library in Prague was established in 1924 as part of the new Czechoslovak Republic's effort to strongly support Slavonic studies and to position itself as an important part of a new European Panslavonic movement following the First World War. The paper will try to describe the four major phases that can be identified in the library's development in the last 98 years: growth and prosperity during the First Republic, not in the least because of the strong interest President T.G. Masaryk took in matters Slavonic; the extremely difficult and dangerous situation during the Nazi occupation; the phase of benevolent State support combined with strict control during Socialist rule; and the new freedom achieved after the Velvet revolution. Special attention, however, will be given to the role of the Library in the context of the Russian and Ukrainian diaspora in Prague in the 1920s and the 1930s in which relations with the Soviet Union tended to be extremely complicated. This had of course major consequences for the Library after 1948 when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic became a part of the "Soviet bloc" and the Library had to follow the directives of the new Socialist government. The paper will close with a short outline of how the difficult relationship between the West (of which the Czech Republic is now undoubtedly a part) and Putin's Russia have influenced the work of the Slavonic Library and its possibilites to cooperate with Russia in the last decade.
