Burnt books
Books are a permanent asset and value of human culture, but they are also a fragile and perishable artifact. This duality of the printed word has unfortunately been exploited throughout history, as attempts to conquer or eradicate a culture have often manifested themselves in the destruction of its books. Great historical events or changes could be marked by burned libraries. Some were collateral victims during the general destruction, but most were destroyed intentionally, as manifestations of a new power that wants to erase the identity, habitat and accumulated knowledge of the conquered people.
The fire of the Library of Alexandria has acquired a mythical meaning in the collective consciousness of Western civilization, although it is undetermined what, how much and when it was destroyed. It is believed that there were three significant fires that are attributed to greater or lesser damage. The first occurred in 47 BC. During the siege of Alexandria, when Julius Caesar ordered the burning of the ships that blocked his way in the port, and the fire then spread. The second when the Christian emperor Theodosius demanded the destruction of pagan symbols and artifacts in 391, so the library was destroyed in the riots that followed. The third in 642 when the Arabs took over the city and Caliph Omar decided to burn the library because, paraphrasing, either the books are against the Koran, so they should be destroyed, or they are in accordance with it, so these are just superfluous and unnecessary words. Since antiquity, the fire of the Library of Alexandria has become a symbol of culticide and great loss, although even then individuals perceived it in a different way – such a large collection of books as vain bibliomania, and the disappearance of old manuscripts as something that clears the way for new knowledge and teaches us to appreciate what is left (Seneca, later, for example, J. Burckhardt). (see: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2709356)
Unfortunately, too many books and libraries were burned to list them all here, but some of the losses are so significant that we must mention them, because they really abolished a certain cultural period or worldview. In 1193, the Muslims who founded the Mamluk dynasty in northern India destroyed the monasteries and the university of Nalanda, which was the center of Buddhism, and destroyed a huge number of manuscripts, and Buddhism has since lost its significance in India. Bishop and conquistador Diego de Landa reports in his writings that in 1562, during the conquest of Yucatan, they found a large number of manuscripts with pictorial writing, which they burned because they were only superstitions and Satan's lies, and for which the inhabitants greatly regretted. Today, we know only three complete surviving Mayan codices, and the fourth in parts.
The Nazis burned a huge number of books and libraries during their rule. The most memorable is the public burning of books on May 10, 1933 at the Opernplatz (now Bebelplatz), when members of the Nazi Youth destroyed over 25,000 books, including works by Einstein, Bertolt Brecht, Heinrich Heine, Remarque, H. G. Wells and many others. Jewish books were burned and those that were characterized as perverted art that was not in accordance with the German spirit. Libraries in Poland were particularly damaged during the capture of Warsaw and the suppression of the Ghetto uprising, so that several old and valuable libraries and almost 20 million written artifacts, including manuscripts, old folders and other documents, were systematically destroyed.
A more modern and closer example of a burned library is the Sarajevo Library, which was deliberately destroyed during the Serbian occupation of Sarajevo. Writer Miljenko Jergović in his award-winning collection "Sarajevo Marlboro" also has a record of the burning of Sarajevo libraries. You can read it on his website: https://www.jergovic.com/ajfelov-most/biblioteka-3/
Those in power often burned books also because they wanted to prevent some knowledge or truth from spreading. Itzcoatl (1380–1440), the founder of the Aztec Empire and ruler of Tenochtitlan, according to some records, had old historical codices burned, because "it is not wise for all the people to see pictures", and the state created an official historiography and encouraged myths that glorified a particular deity.
It is clear that subjects who believe in only one given truth are much easier to manage and easier to control. This conclusion was reached by Qin Shi Huang Di, the emperor of the first Chinese state of Qin in the 3rd century. BC. BC, with the advice of his chancellor Li Xi. Li Si was a very skilled politician who introduced many positive innovations into the organization of the state, but he was ruthless and unscrupulous in implementing what he considered necessary. A letter he sent to the emperor has been preserved, in which he explains why all historical records of conquered states should be destroyed and all other books and writings of philosophical schools that question or do not follow the promoted historical truth and other officially accepted teachings (see: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25540352). As a result, there was a large burning of texts, and according to some sources, the burial of representatives of other philosophical schools still alive.
In some environments, anxiety was caused not only by serious and important texts that directly questioned existing relationships and social ideas, but also by those that in some way introduced a new code, a new atmosphere or novelty into the medium of the book itself. In America, after World War II, a whole wave of comic book bonfires was initiated. comic books that were thought to corrupt moral values and have a bad effect on the youth, and the great burning of comic books took place in 1955 in Denmark. Encouraged by an elderly person who thought he was preserving traditional and correct values, the burning was often organized by young people, sometimes in a frighteningly ceremonial way and with an almost ritualistic vow not to read them again (see: https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/great-comic-book-conflagration)
It would be too sad and anxious to go on listing examples of the burning and destruction of books, because there have been various reasons for this throughout history. So are books really that dangerous? Can they change society and disrupt the state of affairs? It is evident that they can instill new ideas and encourage different views on the order of things and established values. For dogmatic, totalitarian and conservative environments, this is indeed a danger. Or do new ideas simply cause fear and uncertainty in the face of the changes that are taking place?
Today's era is the age of archiving and preservation, but the amount of information and written documents is increasing and requires more and more resources and organization, and even this can cause the destruction of books. We have an example from 2013 in Libraries of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. In an effort to reduce the number and costs of manipulation of the 9 existing libraries, only a small percentage of the material was digitized, and valuable scientific research and data on the ocean ecosystem collected in the 19th century were thrown away or burned.
As mentioned at the beginning, books are easy to destroy in the material sense, and there were always those who approved it or were indifferent to it. Fortunately, just as there is a history of the destruction of the written word, there are also examples of saved and preserved books, sometimes with great danger. We will deal with them next time. That is why we will end this review with an (accidental) positive event that resulted from the destruction of a library. When the united Babylonians, Scythians and Medes conquered Nineveh in 612 BC. They conquered Nineveh and burned the palace of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, the great heat partially baked the clay tablets, and they were thus preserved for the future. Unfortunately, the fire destroyed many wax tablets and other types of writing, but let these baked and preserved tablets be at least a symbolic sign that books will always somehow survive.
