The Story of a Hebrew Censor and Clementinian Librarian (Portal of Prague)

Karel Fischer unfortunately belongs to those few important, but little known figures of Czech history. The coming exhibition at the National Library aims to change this.

In quick succession, The National Library is presenting two important and innovative programmes. Not long after an inspiring display highlighting the necessity for the future development of a new library building, the exhibition team at the library are launching a new and significant event. In cooperation with specialists from The Jewish Museum in Prague the creation a new and absorbing project is underway. It takes visitors back many centuries, to the times, in which the Clementinian bibliotheca celebrated its first tangible results.

Anniversary Year

The theme of the exhibition was carefully selected. This year the National Library celebrates three anniversaries closely linked to its own history: the 200 years anniversary of the death of the primary scholar of the library Karel Rafael Ungar (1743 – 1807); the 230 years anniversary of the opening of the library to the public (1777 – 2007); and last but not least the 250 anniversary of the birth of one of its first employees, librarian and Hebrew censor, Karel Fischer (1757 – 1844).

At the time of the opening of the library (1777), the institution itself was not fully consolidated and the first real outcomes came only shortly after an appointment of Karel Rafael Unger in 1780. Therefore, the organisers of the exhibition decided to introduce this period through a figure closely related to Unger and the library at that time: Karel Fischer. History does not refer much to Fischer, however, it acknowledges, that Fischer entered the library after being offered the job by Unger in 1785 and most importantly that he stayed in service for long fifty eight years!

Through Human to History

The exhibition presents the beginnings of the Prague’s University Library and ingeniously contributes to the knowledge of Jewish history of the period through the life story of Karel Fischer. The exhibition’s themes pursue Fischer’s youth, his librarian and his censorship activities. It combines his world of thought and old age as well as precisely documenting his professorial career. In the main, the display presents materials from the resources of the National Library of the Czech Republic, the National Archive of the Czech Republic and the collections of the Jewish Museum in Prague.

The opening ceremony was held in the afternoon of Thursday 19^th of April 2007 and the exhibition itself is to be found on the 1^st floor, in a so called ‘directorate’ hall of the Prague’s Clementinum. The exhibition will be open to public until 30^th of May 2007 and opening hours are as follows: 9.00 a.m. – 7.00 p.m. every day except Sunday.

Accompanying the exhibition is a monograph called ‘A Borderline between Christian and Jewish Worlds’. The book covers the life of the Hebrew censor and Clementinien librarian Karel Fischer (1757 – 1844), it is based on a number of recently discovered materials collected by the exhibitions script authors, Iveta Cermanová and Jindřich Marek.