People of the Book
Jan. 23rd, 2008 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mojosmomAs I was driving to work this morning, I heard an announcement on WFMT that Geraldine Brooks was speaking this evening at the Newberry Library. Now, I had heard this a while back, but had completely forgotten about it, as I had assumed that I wouldn't be able to go due to the trial I was supposed to have. So, I decided to go. Of course, it started to snow this afternoon, so I left work about a half-hour earlier than usual. Even so, it took me two hours to get there. However, in a minor miracle, I found a parking spot right on Clark Street, just across from the Newberry, with just enough time to dash into the ladies' room before the talk commenced.
It was quite an interesting, and very sad, talk. She began by showing pictures of the library in Sarajevo in flames. 90% of the collection was destroyed, and the rest was saved by librarians rescuing it under mortar attack. One librarian lost her life in the process. The book is based on the story of the Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminated manuscript probably dating to mid-14th-century Spain. Little is know of its wanderings. From a marking in the book, we know it was in Venice in 1609. It then appears in Bosnia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) in 1894, in the hands of a poor Jewish family who send it with their son to school, hoping his teacher will know someone who will buy it from them so that they can buy food. It is sent to Vienna for assessment, where vandals rebind it (we don't know what the original binding was, but it was likely valuable) and trim the parchment. It ends up in the Bosnian National Museum. When, during World War II, the Nazis occupy Sarajevo, it is saved from their hands by an Islamic scholar, and spends the war hidden among the Qurans in a village mosque.
Astonishing.
But for the even more astonishing story of the rescuer's family, and what came later, you must read Brooks' recent New Yorker article, which can be found here. (This is a .pdf.)
This was an author event well worth putting up with traffic!
It was quite an interesting, and very sad, talk. She began by showing pictures of the library in Sarajevo in flames. 90% of the collection was destroyed, and the rest was saved by librarians rescuing it under mortar attack. One librarian lost her life in the process. The book is based on the story of the Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminated manuscript probably dating to mid-14th-century Spain. Little is know of its wanderings. From a marking in the book, we know it was in Venice in 1609. It then appears in Bosnia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) in 1894, in the hands of a poor Jewish family who send it with their son to school, hoping his teacher will know someone who will buy it from them so that they can buy food. It is sent to Vienna for assessment, where vandals rebind it (we don't know what the original binding was, but it was likely valuable) and trim the parchment. It ends up in the Bosnian National Museum. When, during World War II, the Nazis occupy Sarajevo, it is saved from their hands by an Islamic scholar, and spends the war hidden among the Qurans in a village mosque.
Astonishing.
But for the even more astonishing story of the rescuer's family, and what came later, you must read Brooks' recent New Yorker article, which can be found here. (This is a .pdf.)
This was an author event well worth putting up with traffic!
