British Library Slavonic and East European Collections
The British Library Slavonic and East European Section acquires
material across the spectrum of the humanities and social sciences.
It is responsible for obtaining and making available material
published in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and
for material in the languages of those countries published anywhere
in the world.
This page provides an overview of the Serbian and Montenegrin
Collections, illustrated by specific examples.
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Copyright © 1997, The British
Library Board
"The White Angel on the Grave"
a fresco in the Monastery Mileševa.
From Medieval Serbian Art:
from the 12th to the 17th Century
(National Museum in Belgrade, 1991)
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Contents
An overview of the Serbian and Montenegrin Collections
| Catalogues, printed guides and other resources | Serbian and Montenegrin material elsewhere in the British Library
Further information
In the following text, codes which appear in brackets after references
[C.40.e.38] indicate British Library shelfmarks.
An energetic acquisitions policy in the 19th century has led to
a very good collection of books, periodicals and newspapers from
Serbia and Montenegro.
The Department of Western Manuscripts holds the Serres Gospels,
written and illuminated in 1354-5 for the Metropolitan Jacob of
Serres [MS 39626]. An incunable of note in the
British Library holdings is the 1493 Oktoechos [IB.56904],
containing church songs written in Church Slavonic from Makarije's
press at Obod (Cetinje), Montenegro. From that date, relatively
little was printed in Serbia. The British Library has the Psaltir
[1009.b.3] printed in Venice in 1638 by Barto Ginammi.
Also held is a second edition of the Izobrazhenie oruzhii illiricheskih...
[C.40.e.38], which includes very fine woodcuts
by Hristofor Zefarović, printed in 1741.
Included in the collections are examples of the early form of the
Serbian language in Zaharija Orfelin's Iskusni podrumar
(1783) [1148.c.12] and Jovan Rajić's Istorija
raznih slavenskih narodov (1794) [869.h.22].
Works by Dositej Obradović are also held in the Library, including
the first editions of Život i priključenija (1783) [C.59.d.25.(1)],
Sovjeti zdravogo razuma (1784) [C.59.d.25.(2)],
Pesna o izbavleniju Serbie (1789) [C.59.ff.15.(2)],
and a number of other editions of Dositej Obradović's works which
were presented to the British Library by the author during his stay
in London.
The 19th century heralded a new era in the development of various
cultural movements in Serbia and Montenegro led by Vuk Stefanović
Karadžić, language reformer and collector of folk literature, poems,
tales and customs. The Library has first editions of his three collected
works, first printed in Vienna in 1814-15, Mala prostonarodna
Slaveno-Serska Pesnaritsa [1461.e.17]; the
four-volume edition published in Leipzig and Vienna 1823-33 [1064.h.26,
27]; and a large multi-volume collection published in 1841-65
[11585.f.11]; the first edition of his Lexicon
Serbico-Germanico-Latinum printed in Vienna (1818) [12976.r.6
and 827.i.30 and 1333.k.5], his
Grammar book (..kleine serbische Grammatik...) [1294.c.3],
and his New testament (1824) [3061.bb.2].
The most important works by Petar Petrović Njegoš (Luča Mikrokozma
(1845) [11585.c.52], Šćepan Mali
(1851) [11586.aaa.33] and Gorski Vijenac
(1847) [1600/224] also feature in the collections.
The British Library has good collections of 20th-century academic
publications, historical material, literature, ethnography and the
arts. Most significant Serbian and Montenegrin authors are represented
in the Library's holdings by the standard collected editions of
their single works.
Special attention is currently being devoted to the
Balkan Crisis and to the problems of political change in Serbia
and Montenegro after Tito's Yugoslavia, covering the issues of civil
wars, genocide, ethnic cleansing, human rights, refugees, war crimes
and peace conferences, and Serbia and Montenegro's involvement in
them.
Serbian and Montenegrin material is listed in the printed volumes
of the British Library General Catalogue of Printed Books to 1975
(for material acquired before 1975 only) and the Integrated
Catalogue, which is accessible via the internet. Material acquired
and catalogued prior to 1975 is in Cyrillic (with headings in transliteration);
post-1975 material, however, is displayed in transliterated form,
according to Library of Congress rules. For information on searching
and transliteration, please see Searching
for Cyrillic items in the catalogues of the British Library: guidelines
and transliteration tables.
Catalogues and printed guides
- The Balkan crisis, 1990-: catalogue [Part 1], compiled
by Sava Peić and Magda Szkuta [2719.k.2515]
- The Balkan crisis, 1990-: catalogue [Part 2], compiled
by Sadie Morgan-Cheshire and Magda Szkuta [2719.k.2515]
- Cyrillic books printed before 1701 in British and Irish
collections: a union catalogue, compiled by R. Cleminson,
C. Thomas, D. Radoslavova, A. Voznesenskij (London: The British
Library, 2000) [HLR011.440947]
- Church Slavonic entries from the British Library General
Catalogue [prepared by Brad Sabin Hill] (London: The British
Library, 1992) [2725.g.1675]
- Walker, Gregory. Library resources in Britain for the study
of Eastern Europe and the former U.S.S.R., compiled by Gregory
Walker and Jackie Johnson (Wheatley: G.Walker, 1992) [revised
edition in progress] [2719.k.1162].
Other resources
Further information
For further information on the Serbian and Montenegrin Collections
please contact:
Milan Grba
Slavonic and East European Collections
The British Library
96 Euston Road
London NW1 2DB
United Kingdom
e-mail: slavonic@bl.uk
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