MEDIEVAL LIBRARIES IN PRESENT-DAY VOJVODINA
Text topic: THE BOOK CULTURE OF THE MINORITIES IN VOJVODINA
Text author: Борис Стојковски
Throughout history, the region of present-day northern Serbian province of Vojvodina has been a crossroads of cultures and civilizations. In this context, one can observe the history of medieval libraries. In this period of time, some sources have documented the existence of a library in a very famous and rich Cistercian monastery in Petrovaradin. This was one of the most prominent convents in medieval Hungary and even Rodrigo Borgia was trying to obtain the incomes of this abbey by becoming its governor. There is an inventory of this monastery dating back to 1495 where many liturgical books are listed. The city and the fortress of Bač were a centre of renaissance in the medieval Southern Hungary, thanks to the work of the archbishop Peter Varadi. What has remained of his library shows that he has read classical Greek and Roman authors, patristic texts, Byzantine writers and so on. Finally, in the monastery of Krušedol, built in 1508, the Serbs who fled to Hungary had their first large-scale cultural and spiritual centre, with a vast library from which several valuable manuscripts have survived.