- Sroka, Marek. (2007) "The music collection of the former Prussian State Library at the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków, Poland: past, present, and future developments." Library Trends, 55 (3), 651-664.
- A "Dig Deeper" article from Today and Tomorrow
- Accessible online at http://bit.ly/2lxLEL5
I thought this would be offer a different perspective than what I've been reading so far. This article focuses on a specific collection, rather than on a building.
This was less on the specifics of the collection and more on the politics surrounding it. WWII saw the destruction of many countries' cultural icons, be those buildings, statues, paintings or books. Poland was hit hard but Germany was also no exception. In an attempt to save their collections from bombings, the Prussian State Library divided their materials up and scattered them around the country...which was later sectioned off into occupation zones and some areas lost when borders were rearranged. (I have read other accounts of similar situations, where personal or institutional materials were scattered in order to 'protect' them, but ultimately only to be lost in the post-war chaos.) Poland ended up with the Prussian State Library's music collection, which included original scores of composers like Bach and Beethoven, but kept it secret. Sroka called one of the motivations behind this secrecy "cultural justice," the idea that the Soviets wouldn't make the return of Polish artifacts the priority that was promised, meaning Germany would keep what was taken from them. (This did turn out to be the case.) To read how the return of these materials happened incrementally, with the bulk still being held by Poland today, was fascinating. It's almost hard to believe that, as of the time of Sroka's writing, negotiations of exchange were still being attempted. (I was unable to find any updates on this situation, if any more materials had been returned in the ten years since.)
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