More about the cycle of events can be discovered at https://www.gramatai500.lv/ and for more about the Latvian National Library and its constantly changing exhibitions and collections, visit: https://www.lnb.lv/.
Johann Christoph Brotze and his meticulous book collection
Johann Christoph Brotze (1742–1823) has special significance in Latvian cultural history. His collection of manuscripts and books has become a treasure of the Academic Library of the University of Latvia and its original source, the Riga City Library, a symbol of historical continuity. Several generations of library staff have preserved and studied Brotze's legacy with a deeply personal interest, bordering on awe.
"From the very beginning, there was something special about Brotze. To many colleagues, he was the guardian angel of the old and the new library building, its patron saint. His portrait is still displayed in the library today. It is quite clear that thanks to this nimbus that his works were the catalyst for a bibliothecal and archival revival," were the words of the eminent German cultural historian, expert on literature and historical libraries, Honorary Doctor of the University of Latvia Prof. Klaus Garber, based on his first impressions of the Brotze collection in Riga in 1984.
Brotze's life did not take any radical turns, it had no deeply tragic or triumphant moments; it was an active, but also a quiet and serene life as a pedagogue and researcher. His life was lived before everyone’s eyes, working in one profession and in one town.
Born in Görlitz, in Saxony, Brotze studied in Leipzig and Wittenberg and arrived in Riga in 1768 as a well-trained theologian of the Protestant (Evangelical Lutheran) Church, fluent in several languages, including classical languages (especially Latin), as well as French and Italian.
He was well versed in classical literature, poetics, rhetoric, history, geography and cartography, mathematics and natural sciences. In his youth, Brotze had planned to soon become a clergyman in a parish in Livland (he therefore learned Latvian well), but this did not happen.
Brotze's work life was devoted to teaching, he was briefly a private tutor, but his only place of work (from the end of 1769) was the Riga Imperial Lyceum, founded in 1675, which was restructured and enlarged in 1804 and became well known as the Province Gymnasium of Livland. Brotze worked and lived in the stately building on Pils Square until he retired in 1815.
The building next to the former Imperial Lyceum in Riga's Old Town with a memorial plaque dedicated to Brotze.
Brotze was a conrector (deputy rector) and taught physics, mathematics, algebra, geometry, geography, Latin and literature. It appears that his personality traits were modesty, as well as a kind of detachment; Brotze deliberately avoided unnecessary popularity and positions of responsibility and devoted himself faithfully to his duties as a teacher for 46 years.
He devoted himself entirely to his hobby – archival research, drawing landscapes, townscapes, buildings and monuments – in his spare time away from school, especially in the summer. Brotze valued personal freedom and a serene life above all else; source research and historical exploration were a deeply solitary activity throughout his life which kept him isolated from his surroundings.
Brotze's fame was built on his hobby, which had simultaneously become his mission.
Johann Christoph Brotze. "Collection of various monuments, sights, coins, coats of arms, etc. of Livland"
Photo: Mariona Baltkalne/ Latvian Radio
Brotze's choice to devote himself to research was voluntary, passionate and joyful: "What he had chosen for his leisure, for the joy in his life, was once again a great effort. And what an effort! Seemingly dreary, if not for the fact that the higher meaning of what may seem insignificant in itself would also make it more sublime and of higher value (...) how relentlessly and without complaining he continued with this throughout his life! This alone would be enough to give a man's life fulfilment and a sense of value, and for him it [was] only something which filled the hours of rest and which, for a strictly conscientious man, should never undermine his true vocation [i.e. teaching in a school]. He had explored and searched everywhere for these rows of folios, year after year he had used his summer leisure time to discover and later preserve in our memory practically all of the remarkable places and monuments in our beloved Livland," this was how Brotze was remembered by his youngest colleague C. L. Grave (1784–1840).
Brotze's life's fulfilment – the collection of books and manuscripts – was preserved in its entirety, and its fate was extremely fortunate.
The hallmark of all the volumes in Brotze's collection is the bookplate: a sticker made around 1821 featuring Brotze's signature and the serial number of the volume in the collection register
Already aware of the value of Brotze's manuscripts and his library, his contemporaries donated money (1821) to buy back the collection for the Riga City Library. Brotze's unique collection (599 volumes in total) has been protected, hidden and saved, both from the tragic fire on 29 June 1941, which destroyed the city library in the town hall, and from the fate of historical museums and archives which were transported to Germany in 1944.
Brotze's most important manuscript of all time for researchers is the 10-volume manuscript of "The History of Various Livland Monuments, Sights, Coins, Coats of Arms, etc. Drawings and Descriptions", traditionally called "Monumente", has experienced decades of editorial history and the well-deserved honour of being included, together with other manuscripts and books of the Brotze collection, in the Latvian UNESCO National Register (2017). And it should be noted that alongside the Brotze Collection at LUAB a large number of Brotze’s other manuscripts can be found in archives and library collections in Latvia, Estonia and Russia.
However, each generation rediscovers anew the riches and wonders of Brotze’s collection. Brotze produced hundreds of facsimile copies of medieval documents, which can be more accurately described as redrawings of documents with the illusion of spatiality.
Johann Christoph Brotze. Either Zasulauks (Sassenhof) or Steinhauer’s paper mill in the Riga surrounds, on the other side of the Daugava. 1794. Ink drawing.
The photographically precise images of documents are part of the centuries-old tradition of manuscript printing, and are masterpieces of miniature painting, unparalleled in quality and scope in 18th-century European diplomacy and historiography. For example, in the volumes titled Sylloge diplomatum Livoniam illustrantium, Brotze has included hundreds of handwritten specimens of precisely reproduced ancient documents and the seals of archbishops, bishops, and the Masters of the Order. It is no coincidence that Brotze's friends and contemporaries have emphasised diligence, accuracy and an almost pedantic orderliness as the dominant features of his personality. Brotze often reminded others: "It is not possible to be too meticulous!"
Brotze's collection has become a fundamental asset of Latvian and Livonian historical scholarship. Brotze's life and his collection are a testimony to the existence of a united European scientific space which stimulated knowledge transfer processes, the development of academic sciences in the 18th–19th centuries in Latvia, Germany and Russia. As a fully preserved unique collection of polyphonic Latvian cultural and intellectual heritage, Brotze’s collection has been organically integrated into the European cultural milieu.
