Azernews.Az

By Seymur Aliyev, AzerNEWS Staff Writer

A unique museum inside the fortress walls makes its visitors unwillingly feel like "Alice in Wonderland" or "Gulliver". Fairy books kept on the glass shelves bewitch the soul. It seems now that a dwarf or a blueberry elf will appear out of the corner and take away some books from this mini-library.

This is a unique venue where miniature books are exhibited.

First miniature books appeared in the Middle Ages and were a variety of manuscripts, which monks and scribes diligently copied on a thin list of parchment. They were religious books available only to the royal family and some rich people. Creation of these books took months or even years.

Most of miniature books are not cheap. It is a significant sample of book publishing art, which was created by using antique and modern technologies.

The Museum of Miniature Books in the Azerbaijani capital Baku is a private exposition held by Zarifa Salahova, a sister of the famous Azerbaijani artist Tahir Salahov. Ms. Salahova is a dedicated book lover and opened the museum to motivate youths to engage more in reading books. Over the past 30 years, Ms Salahova has managed to collect more than 6,500 miniature books published in 71 countries. She has also published a few miniature books herself, including the Constitution of Azerbaijan, which is also on display in the museum.

The museum opened its doors to book lovers in 2002 on World Book and Copyright Day - April 23.

The museum exhibits 3,600 miniature books in 15 sections with 25 exhibition cases, including Azerbaijani authors, Oldest, Smallest, Children's, Soviet era, Pushkin, Baltic countries, Central Asia, and International.

Visitors may now come here and admire these fabulous books every day.

The first thing that impresses a visitor most of all is a small glass box. You can mistake the box for a button. This box contains the smallest books, which are three times smaller than rice (each 2mm x 2mm). It is impossible to read them with the naked eye. They can be read only with a special magnifying glass and tweezers for turning pages. They are books "The language of flowers, Stones of the month", and "The signs of the Zodiac", published in 1978 in Tokyo by Toppan publishing house.

The oldest volume in the museum is a copy of the Koran dating back to the 17th century. Other early miniatures include "The History of England", London: 1815. There is also a set of five volumes in French entitled "The Adventure of Young Lavilas in Greece", published from 1817.

The "History of England", published in 1815, stands out among the oldest miniature works, which the museum displays, along with a Bible and a pocket volume published in 1468 by Peter Schoffer, assistant and successor to Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press.

A copy of La Fontaine's Fables, published in Paris, dates back to 1850. Also, there is a volume which contains a poem called "Ashug Garib", written by prominent Russian Romantic poet Mikhail Lermontov, and published in Kharkov, Ukraine, in 1892.

"It is a fantastic exposition," said one of the visitors, expressing her admiration with the collection. "This is a part of the national heritage of Azerbaijan, which is a brilliant gift to world culture."

Ms Salahova says many of these tiny volumes are the results of years and years of gift giving and exchanges between friends. "Every book has a story of entrance into the collection, which is now housed under one roof in the Old City (Icheri Shahar) of Baku."

Ms. Salahova is proud of the international scope of her collection, which represents 47 countries and numerous languages.