Around the Black Sea / Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania

by William Eleroy Curtis

Nobody knows much about the libraries of Constantinople, however; none of them have ever been catalogued; few of them have even been consulted. The books are piled up on their sides in shelves and covered with the dust of ages. The Mohammedan priests, who have charge of them, are usually illiterate men and look upon learning with superstition. They can give no information concerning the volumes in their charge. Only occasionally, when some scholar from Germany, England, or Italy comes here, with sufficient patience and persistence to break through the restrictions that have protected these collections, has anything of interest ever been brought to light.

These unknown collections, however, are believed to contain early copies of the Gospel, of the Greek poets, of the Egyptian geographers, the Phœnician astrologers, and other ancient tomes, and probably within a short time we will be able to learn something about them. The lost books of Livy are supposed to be in a collection of ancient manuscripts at what is called the topcapon or Cannongate of the Seraglio, the ancient residence of the Turkish sultans.

Dr. Arminius Vámbéry, a Hungarian author, writer, and scholar of note, who somehow or other made himself popular with Abdul Hamid, obtained permission to examine the Cannongate collection, and spent several weeks there. He afterward persuaded the sultan to let him take back to Hungary a number of historical manuscripts which were brought to Constantinople as loot from Budapest after the Turkish army sacked that city in the Middle Ages. As it was strictly a personal matter between the sultan and Dr. Vambery, there is no record of what the latter carried away.

Several years ago an enterprising Russian scholar found his way into the same library and secured a very early manuscript copy of the Hexateuch, the first six books of the Bible. The manuscript was sent to the Russian Institute at St. Petersburg, where it is now being edited for publication.

Arthur Evans of London also got an opportunity to look over the books at the Cannongate a few months ago, and found a manuscript of great historical interest. It was a life of Mohammed II, by Critobolus, a Greek author, who accepted service under that sultan and became a sort of Boswell for him. His work is especially important because he was the only Greek writer of importance in that period who belonged to the Mohammedan faith and had an opportunity of consulting the Mohammedan authorities.

There is a strong impression that the libraries at all the mosques have been looted of their treasures from time to time, because the opportunity has not been lacking, and they have never been properly protected. No one has been responsible for the library at that most famous of all mosques, St. Sophia, which must have been very important at one time, but is now only a collection of bound manuscripts, not more than three or four hundred in number, in the custody of a fanatical old priest. They have been kicked around the mosque and could easily have been looted by any one who was able to gain the confidence of the custodian. But all the libraries are amply protected now, and the world of book lovers will soon have accurate information about them.

There have been conflicting reports about Abdul Hamid’s library at the Yildiz Kiosk. It has been represented by some newspaper writers to be of incomparable value and importance. Others condemned it as a lot of rubbish. Mahmoud Bey told me that it contains about 40,000 printed books and manuscripts which have been hauled away to Kuba-Altai, one of the old palaces in the Seraglio, where they have been examined and classified by a commission, of which Abdureman Sherif Bey, minister of public instruction, is the chairman. Captain Safed Bey, perhaps the foremost historian in Turkey, was in immediate charge of the work.

The sultan’s collection contains many manuscripts in the oriental languages, which were inherited by him and were received as gifts during his reign; and many printed volumes of great value for their bindings and illustrations are in English, French, and German, and were presented to him by people who were seeking favours and supposed that he had a taste for such things. But Mahmoud Bey says that he really did not care particularly for books. He was no student; he never read anything and was actually illiterate. His early education was neglected, like that of the present sultan, who has no culture or inclination to acquire it. Mehmed V is fond of show and ceremony, but it is probable that he never read anything more serious than a French novel in his life. Abdul Hamid was a miser in everything. He accepted all gifts that came his way and seized everything he could reach, simply for the pleasure of possession. He was crazy to add to his wealth, but did not care much what he acquired.

Hence his books are a motley collection of good, bad, and indifferent works in manuscripts and printed in all languages, but there is very little to interest scholars, so far as they have been examined. They were never classified nor catalogued, but were carefully kept. Sixteen librarians were employed during the latter days of Abdul Hamid, and they had several servants who dusted the books regularly and kept them clean, but the librarians were neither competent nor inclined to make a catalogue.

The most valuable items in the collection are ornamental copies of the Koran and ancient classical poems in Persian and other oriental languages. Many of them are of script of the greatest beauty. They were made when penmanship was an art. Painting is prohibited by the Koran, and for that reason, Moslems turn to penmanship and the illumination of manuscripts to exercise their taste. There are also many Turkish and Arabic works of historical value, but thus far no Hebrew, Greek, or Latin volumes of interest have been discovered.