The Péter and Gitta Esterházy Library has opened, which was inaugurated in the building of the national center of the Lutheran Church, Magyar Nemzet was informed.
The Esterházy couple's library of twelve thousand one hundred and eighteen volumes arrived in nearly four hundred boxes at the Budapest VIII. to Szentkirályi Street in the district, to the building of the national center of the Lutheran Church. In addition to the director of the Evangelical National Collection, librarian Kriszta Balogh and curator Zsuzsanna Zászkaliczky participated in the processing of the collection, and the background work, which has been going on for a year now, was carried out by Katalin Németh and librarian Ildikó Ravasz.
In 2020, the book collection of the Kossuth Prize-winning writer and his wife, who consider reading not a holiday, but a daily necessity, was transferred to the national headquarters of the Hungarian Evangelical Church. Kultúra.hu reported in detail about the ceremonial opening of the Péter and Gitta Esterházy Library.
Gergely Prőhle, the national supervisor of the Lutheran Church, gave a view of the place where the library of the writer and his wife was located. As he said, Szentkirályi utca 51 "is a meeting point that serves a deep expression of the relationship between intellectual and spiritual life, culture, art, and God".
Every library is a sanctuary. The public library is like a church, open to everyone. The private library belongs to the individual, strangers are only rarely allowed to enter, it is a special favor to be invited there. Now a private library will be open to the public, with all its intimacy and personality, said Péter Fekete, the State Secretary responsible for culture at the Ministry of Human Resources. He wished those who come here to find what this huge material shows them personally, "this is how present and living education will come from the heritage, from the past".
In Péter Esterházy's library, in addition to the Hungarian classics - Bálint Balassi, Mihály Vitéz Csokonai, Kálmán Mikszáth and so on - the largest number of works by the creators of contemporary Hungarian literature are present. There are not a large number of volumes in the collection that came into the couple's possession as family heirlooms - from parents and grandparents - but there are many art history publications (the latter are mainly of interest to Gitta Esterházy), and there are also numerous historical works and books about the writer's ancestors. There are especially many monographs on Miklós Esterházy "Fényes", and ten or twelve monographs on Haydn as well. During the processing, the specialists came across a Bible whose title page was missing and the binding had already fallen apart from the many uses.
Source: magyarnemzet.hu
Featured image: f2.hu
