The National Library held the 29th International Scientific Symposium “Bibliophile Values” under the theme “Bessarabian Monasteries - Center of Cultural Spirituality” within which academicians, members of the Institute of History and priests spoke about the written national heritage, in particular the church book, IPN reports.
Speaking about the Căpriana Monastery, academician Andrei Eşanu, a member of the Institute of History of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research, said that this monastery is one of the oldest Moldovan monasteries, alongside the Neamţ Monastery and Moldoviţa and monasteries of Stephan the Great’s epoch, such as Voroneţ and Putna, which together became centers of written culture, spirituality and wisdom. Unlike the West, where universities developed as centers of culture in that epoch, Moldova didn’t have such centers during hundreds of years, but had yet these monasteries that since the last decades of the 14th century had turned into real centers of medieval culture.
Igor Cereteu, doctor habilitate of the same Institute, spoke about several important moments in the history of monastic libraries that he visited in 2012-2013. Among these was the Japca Monastery, which is the only monastery that wasn’t closed by the Soviet authorities in 1950-1960. The Vărzăreşti monastery, which was attested in 1420, has a library where he examined 93 old books, 25 of which were old Romanian books. Old documents show that the first Slavic book at the Căpriana Monastery is a bible printed in Kiev in 1636. The first printed Romanian book he identified was a bible of 1697.
Priest Octavian Moşin, professor of the State University of Moldova, presented the communication “Studies of monastic life in the Republic of Moldova in 1990-2020”. “During the last three decades, we identified at least 50 researchers who traded the religious theme and, evidently, focused on the old monasteries. We discovered about 350 works and studies that hold interest,” he stated, noting that from geographical viewpoint, the monasteries were situated in three distinct areas: area around Chisinau, area near Orhei and area on the Nistru.
National Library director Elena Pintilei said the National Library is a model of creation of conditions for keeping the national written heritage, especially the church book heritage, both owing to the sanitary-epidemiological conditions (temperature, humidity) and to the digitization of the religious book collection. “The problem here, in the Republic of Moldova, is very big. We hope that if we manage to implement a project to improve the digitization equipment in the National Library, we will definitely try to cooperate with some of the monasteries that now keep a part of the church book heritage so that we together create those digital copies and keep them in the digital library “Moldavica”, to which national and foreign researchers will have access,” stated Elena Pintilei.
This year’s symposium included the mounting of the online exhibition “Bessarabian Monasteries - Center of Cultural Spirituality” in connection with the celebration of the 600th anniversary of the documentary attestation of the Căpriana Monastery.
The International Scientific Symposium “Bibliophile Values” was staged by the National Library in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research, the Scientific Bibliophile Society and Ex- libris “Paul Mihail”.
