HOW MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS FROM GERMANY TRANSPORTED TO THE SOVIET UNION AFTER 1945 COULD END UP IN PRIVATE HANDS? ABOUT A 15TH-CENTURY MANUSCRIPT FROM THE RUSSIAN STATE LIBRARY

The adventure of the Hanseatic collection of library and archival materials from the cities of Lübeck, Hamburg and Bremen transported to the Soviet Union which included, among other things, medieval manuscripts and charters, is an issue which has been described at least in a general way both by Russian and German historians. However, usually only displacements of the whole collection or its parts by ‘official’ channels are in the focus of attention. At the same time, there are some medieval manuscripts currently preserved in Russian libraries which ended up there not by ‘official’ channels, but being sold by private people. Such cases demonstrate clearly that at some time, in Germany and/or in the Soviet Union, some thefts of manuscripts took place. Usually, we do not know circumstances of that: we know only the name of the person who sold the manuscript to the state. However, one case was found, where we can try to make some assumptions. This case is what this article is mostly devoted to. There are also some explanations of why such thefts were possible: during the most part of the Soviet era the main part of the looted handwritten materials, which finally ended up in Moscow in the Central Archive of Ancient Acts, had no inventories at all.

Hanseatic League, manuscripts, Middle Ages, looted art, Russian State Library, Markushevitch collection, theft