The Publication of the New Issue of Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae – Historia litterarum

This year’s spring double issue of the journal Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae – Historia litterarum (Vol. 65, 2020/1–2) is mostly focused on manuscripts in the broadest sense of the word. The article Rukopisný Litevský slovník v kontextu české baltistiky první poloviny 19. století: koncepční záměr slovníku a otázka autorství [The Handwritten Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language in the Context of the Czech Baltic Studies in the First Half of the 19th Century: The Conceptual Plan of the Dictionary and the Question of Authorship] by A. Tollarová deals with a little-known manuscript kept in the Department of Manuscripts and Early Printed Books of the National Museum Library (shelf mark IV A 11), which is supposed to have been written by F. L. Čelakovský. The study by M. Dragoun and K. Voleková is devoted to fragments containing copies of the Latin poem Facetus with a Czech translation, deposited in the NML (shelf mark 1 H b 179) and in the National Library of the CR (shelf mark X F 19). J. Novotný’s contribution K současné terminologii restaurování knižní vazby [On the Contemporary Terminology of Book-Binding Conservation] first provides a comprehensive overview of terminology and then focuses on current debates on the appropriateness of using certain scientific terms in contemporary conservation practice. A Czech military handbook from 1618 is discussed in the article written by K. Andresová; selected aspects of the decoration of the manuscript of the so-called Druhý díl Písní Chval Božských [The Second Volume of the Songs of Divine Worship] (shelf mark I A 16), deposited in the NML, are the subject of the study by E. Součková.
The Miscellanea section contains a contribution by Z. Mužík, dealing with the acquisitions of the manuscript collection of the National Museum Library in 2014–2019. A brief introduction to the issue is followed by a detailed codicological description of all nine manuscripts acquired. The spring double issue also includes nine reviews. The editors would like to draw particular attention to the text of D. Bálan, dedicated to the publication Literární kronika první republiky: události, díla, souvislosti [A Literary Chronicle of the First Republic: Events, Works, Contexts], which was published by the Institute for Czech Literature of the CAS in cooperation with the Museum of Czech Literature in 2018 on the 100th anniversary of the establishment of Czechoslovakia. In the section The News from the National Museum Library, K. Křenek and J. Tvrzníková provide information on the completed material research into the Manuscript of Dvůr Králové and the Manuscript of Zelená Hora, which was conducted in the NML in 2017 and 2018 thanks to the institutional funding of the long-term conceptual development of a research organisation (IP DKRVO) and whose main aim was to determine the current physical condition of these two remarkable manuscripts.