36 
The History of the Book in the Baltic States
36 JÜRGEN M. WARMBRUNN
The Baltic States comprise the Republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. As the so-called Baltic Sea Provinces, all three states formed part of the Russian empire in the 18th and 19th centuries (except for Lithuania Minor, which was under the governance of Prussia and later of Germany). The three states proclaimed their respective independence in 1918, losing it again in 1940 following the Hitler–Stalin pact and annexation by the Soviet Union. After the outbreak of the war between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, the Baltic States were briefly occupied by German troops until the Soviet Union reconquered and annexed the republics within the USSR. Under Soviet occupation, the Baltic States suffered severe population loss through deportation and emigration, the latter resulting in a sizeable output of émigré publications (e.g. in Sweden, Germany, the UK, US, and Australia). Following the establishment of strong pro-independence movements during the second half of the 1980s, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania formally declared their independence in 1990 and de facto became independent sovereign states again in 1991. In 2004, they became members of the European Union and NATO.
The historical and cultural development of Estonia and Latvia has been largely influenced by the presence of a German upper class—originally established under the rule of the Teutonic Order and comprising noblemen, academics, clerics, merchants, and craftsmen—as well as by their long affiliation with Russia and later the Soviet Union. Lithuania in turn has strong historical ties to Poland; the two countries formed a ‘Republic of two Nations’ (Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów) between 1569 and 1795, and share a predominantly Catholic faith. Particularly in Estonia and Latvia, the Reformation played a major role in the spread of books and reading in the vernacular. Latvian and Lithuanian are both Baltic languages and form part of the Indo-European linguistic family, whereas Estonian is a Finno-Ugric language, which in part explains the traditionally strong ties between Estonia and Finland.
Under Soviet rule, the Baltic States’ printing and publishing industries were nationalized into large state enterprises and tightly controlled to forestall the publication of dissenting opinions. In Latvia, for example, following a 1965 decision by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the issuing of all newspapers, journals, and other publications was centralized in the Riga Printing House, where editorial staff and production facilities for the whole country were concentrated. During the occupation of the Baltic States, the Soviet authorities nevertheless permitted the publication of a considerable number of works in the three languages.
The library system in the Baltic Soviet republics had been reorganized according to Soviet directives. Since 1990, however, the independent countries have again developed a system of public and academic libraries offering free access to their holdings and information resources. In Estonia in particular, libraries also play a major role in the dissemination of information technology and use of the World Wide Web.
Following the return to independence, censorship was abolished in the Baltic States and a new printing, publishing, and bookselling sector has developed under free market conditions with a wide variety of publishers and booksellers. Estonia and Latvia still have significant Russian minorities, a fact that results in a continuing demand for Russian language publications in those countries.
Fragments of the first surviving work printed in Estonian come from a catechism printed at Wittenberg in 1535, the Wanradt-Koell Catechism. Printing in Estonia itself developed only in the 17th century: first—from 1631—in Dorpat (Tartu), and later—from 1634, when Cristoph Reusner established his successful enterprise—in Reval (Tallinn). Book publishing in Estonian began in 1637, and periodicals in Estonian followed in 1766. Many printers also worked as booksellers and publishers. From the second half of the 19th century, the numbers of printers and of printed materials in Estonia increased rapidly; towards the end of the first period of independence in 1936, there were 94 printers at work.
The first itinerant booksellers were active in Estonia in the 16th century, while the earliest bookshops recorded in Tallinn and in Tartu date from the 17th. Initially, books were mainly sold by bookbinders, but later, printers also offered their products for sale. Independent bookshops developed in the 18th century (Gauger in Tartu, von Glehn in Tallinn), often operating subscription libraries simultaneously. In the 19th century the numbers of publishing companies increased, mostly due to the merging of printing and bookselling enterprises.
Publications in Estonian were originally distributed by shops catering for the needs of country people, and later by itinerant booksellers. The first bookshop selling Estonian language publications was established in 1867 by Heinrich Laakmann in Tartu. The publication of titles in Estonian, the official language of the new state, increased enormously following its first declaration of independence in 1918.
The development of libraries in Estonia has been strongly influenced by the country’s political and social changes. Tallinn has only a few pre-Reformation fragments from monastic libraries, while the library holdings of the Swedish University in Tartu were taken to Stockholm in 1710. The oldest book collection still to be found in Estonia derives from St Olav’s Church in Tallinn. Reading societies in Estonia developed towards the end of the 18th century. In 1825 the Estonian Public Library was founded in Tallinn, and the country’s major academic library, the Tartu University Library, was founded in 1802. From the 1860s, libraries catering for the Estonian-speaking population developed in towns and in the country. In 1918 the Estonian provisional government decided to establish a state library, originally designed mainly to meet the needs of government and parliament; by the 1930s, it began systematically to collect all publications in Estonian and on Estonia.
The first work in Latvian was most likely printed in Germany in 1525, but the oldest surviving Latvian printed text is a Catholic catechism printed at Vilnius in 1585, closely followed by books printed in Königsberg for Latvian evangelical parishes (1586–7).
In 1588, the Riga town touncil established the Riga Town Printing House, owned by Nicolas Mollyn, who also acted as a bookseller. Following a Swedish initiative, a second printing office—the Royal Printing House—was established in Riga by J. G. Wilcken, publishing many books in Latvian and Estonian. In Mitau (Jelgava), a printing office existed from 1666–7, but its importance was later overshadowed by J. F. Steffenhagen’s printing company (1769–1919). For the region of Latgale (which came under the control of Russia in 1772 through the First Partition of Poland, and underwent a ban on using roman script), books were mostly printed in Vilnius. Although, by the end of the 18th century, there were printers throughout the country, the first printing office run by Latvians was not opened until 1869. During the country’s first period of independence, the number of printing firms increased considerably owing to much higher demand, reaching 108 in 1931.
Vernacular works were mostly sold by itinerant booksellers (colporteurs, or chapmen) who are documented in Riga from the second half of the 15th century. Bookshops traded mainly in conjunction with printers and bookbinders. Of primary importance is the bookseller J. F. Hartknoch, who also ran a publishing firm, maintained close links with western Europe, and published the most prominent Baltic authors of his day, including Kant and Johann Gottfried von Herder. The first Latvian-language publishing firms set up business in 1867 in Riga and Jelgava. The turn of the century saw a huge expansion of the book industry, which continued to flourish during Latvia’s first period of independence.
Despite the loss of the famous collection of the dukes of Courland to St Petersburg in 1714, Latvian libraries have a long history, beginning with the foundation, in 1524, of Riga City Library which was based on the libraries of secularized monasteries. In 1885 the Jānis-Misiņš-Library was founded, with the aim of documenting the history of the Latvian book. The library of the University of Latvia (founded in 1909) took over the holdings of the earlier Polytechnic Institute, and the foundation of the National Library of Latvia followed the country’s first declaration of independence (1919).
Printing, publishing, and bookselling in Lithuania were largely influenced by religious divisions. Duke Albrecht of Prussia brought theologians from Lithuania to Königsberg, where works in Lithuanian intended to strengthen the Lutheran faith were printed. Martynas Mažvydas’s Lutheran catechism, printed in roman type in 1547 by Hans Weinreich in Königsberg, is regarded as the first Lithuanian book. Earlier, between 1522 and 1525, the first vernacular editions of the Bible had been printed in Vilnius by Francysk Skaryna. From 1553, printers worked with roman type in Brest-Litovsk. Their printing equipment was later transferred to Vilnius and given to the Jesuits for use in their university by Count Mikolaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł, whose family supported the printing of both Protestant and Catholic books in the 16th and 17th centuries. By 1805 the Vilnius Academic Printing House had produced 3,264 titles, mostly in Latin and Polish, but also in Lithuanian. Among these are the first Lithuanian Catholic books: Mikalojus Daukša’s catechism (1595; the unique copy is now in the Vilnius University Library) and Postilla (1599), as well as the earliest Lithuanian Dictionary by Konstantinas Sirvydas. The first Lithuanian grammar, however, was printed in Königsberg (1653). Until the 18th century, there were also 33 smaller printing houses working for Catholics, Protestants, and the Orthodox in Lithuania.
Following the uprising of 1863–4, the Russian governor-general banned the printing of Lithuanian books in roman type in an attempt to Russify the country, a move strongly opposed by the nationalist movement, the Catholic Church, and the general population. As a consequence, Lithuanian Catholic books with roman characters were printed in Prussia at Memel and Tilsit and brought illegally over the border by knygnešiai (book-bearers).
In 1900, there were 51 printing houses in Lithuania, producing Russian, Polish, and Jewish publications. Once the printing of Lithuanian books in roman type had been legalized again (1904), there was a significant increase in the number of printing offices, which—as in the other Baltic States—flourished, particularly in the first period of independence; between 1918 and 1940, 110 printing companies operated in Lithuania. The Polish printing firm of Zawadzki, successor to the Academic Printing House, was the most productive in Vilnius, combining publishing, printing, and bookselling activities between 1805 and 1940. Because Kaunas was Lithuania’s interwar capital, a large number of publishing houses opened there, among them state, university, ministerial, minority, and private commercial publishers.
The existence of book collections in the Roman Catholic monasteries of Lithuania dates back to the 16th century. The library of the Jesuit Academy in Vilnius later became part of the Vilnius University Library, but, following the university’s closure, its holdings were taken to Kiev, Kharkov, and St Petersburg. During Lithuania’s first period of independence, a central library was founded in the capital Kaunas, but its books and MSS were transferred to Vilnius in 1963 to form the State (today National) Library of Lithuania. Since 1922, Kaunas has also had a university with its own library, which was closed in 1950, but reopened in 1989 following independence. The holdings of the Kaunas Art Institute were among the many losses suffered by official and private libraries in the Baltic States during World War II.
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