Personal library of Karel Havlicek Borovsky

Only very few copies from over 1,200 books owned by Havlicek (as indicated the now lost library list prepared by Havlicek himself) can be found today. During the search for books from Havlicek library, the project workers based their activities mostly on Pravoslav Kneidl´s article entitled "Havlicek library", which was published at Sbornik Narodniho musea  in 1957. According to this source and on the basis of further research activities, we have identified 24 volumes of Havlicek library, 21 of which most probably belonged to Havlicek (as indicated by his autograph). The MCL Literary Archive collections contain several items with Havlicek´s signature and the National Museum Library possesses four volumes with his signatures, drawings and notes mentioned already by Pravoslav Kneidl in 1960´s. The Highland´s Museum at Havlickuv Brod owns eleven books with Havlicek´s signature and several volumes, which might have belonged to Havlicek (most of them were not mentioned by P. Kneidl). Thanks to the surviving evidence, we can imagine the original extent of Karel Havlicek Borovsky library, which contained language textbooks, national songs and proverbs, Czech and foreign prose, poetry and plays, history, magazines, Latin literature and Polish, Serbian, Russian and Ukrainian books.

The project workers would like to thank the Director of the National Museum Library Martin Sekera for his approval to publish the relevant digital copies of interesting features, to the Head of National Museum Library Services Marie Klucinova for her support in the preparation of these copies and to the Head of Basic Library Eva Lachmanova for her friendly cooperation in accessing Havlicek library. We would also like to thank the Head of MCL Literary Archive Nadezda Macurova and the Director of the MCL Zdenek Freisleben for enabling us to copy documents from the K.H. Borovsky collections and to publish them at the "Knihovny vyznamnych ceskych osobnosti" web site. We are also grateful to Jiri Jedlicka, Director of the Highlands Museum at Havlickuv Brod, and Zita Zborovska, the Collection Custodian, for their cooperation and approval to publish relevant copies at the web site. We would further like to thank the Director of the Prague Municipal Library Tomas Rehak and the Head of Valuable Prints Department Pavla Pursova for their consent to prepare and publish copies of two volumes originating most likely from Havlicek library. Nearly forgotten items from the collections of the Highlands Museum at Havlickuv Brod were located and identified by Ilona Klementova, student of IISL, and Zina Zborovska, the Collection Custodian.