For more than 500 years, there have been rumors about the existence of a certain lost library, which consists of unique ancient texts. It belonged to Ivan the Terrible and bore the name of Liberia. But was it really, or is it an old legend that has no foundation?
Library of Ivan the Terrible
Legend has it that this library was collected by the emperors of Byzantium. For several centuries, they bit by bit collected ancient texts, among which were the Gospels, Homer's poems, the works of Aristotle and Plato. The last emperor to own the library was Constantine XI, but after the fall of Constantinople, the library fell into the hands of Sophia Palaeologus.
She took the library as a dowry and kept it under the Kremlin. Sophia was the wife of Ivan III, and in 1472 she arrived in Moscow. The collection of books was mentioned in passing by Maxim the Greek, who wrote that among the royal treasures there was an innumerable collection of Greek books. Sofia did her best to preserve the unique volumes and called the architect Fioravanti. He also created a stone bunker under the Kremlin. But then the trace of Libereya appears only under Ivan the Terrible, who made a lot of efforts to translate and preserve the books.
It is known that in 1570 the tsar summoned Pastor Johann Wettermann to work with the texts. Records of this have been preserved in the Livonian Chronicle - it was said that the books were kept in a walled basement. Any mentions are cut off by 1571, then the tsar went to the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. But there is a certain document called Dabelov's List.
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It is believed that in 1822 Professor Dabelov discovered a list of rare literature that has not survived to this day. However, there was no real list, and duplicates reached descendants, which may be fake. It is believed that the library's exhibits could have been more than 800 volumes of literature that could change the course of history. But it cannot …
The search for the missing library began in 1601 by the Vatican. Russia began official searches in 1724, but to no avail. The Kremlin, Vologda (a favorite resting place near Grozny), Alexandrov and other cities were named under the possible place of preservation of books. But where is the evidence? Most scholars believe Liberia is a myth.
firstly, Sophia was only 12 years old when she left the captured Constantinople. She arrived in Rome (if even with books), and wouldn't the Vatican take a cart full of ancient texts from her? In addition, Sophia was a poor dowry, and she could not bring a whole pile of books to Russia. Roman soldiers accompanied her everywhere until she fell into the hands of the king. And why should she bring books in Greek to Russia if none of the Slavs could understand them?
There is no solid evidence of the existence of the Ivan the Terrible library. More precisely, it was in the Kremlin, but freely available and with a complete inventory. Of course, the ancient texts were not there.
Do you think there is a library of Ivan the Terrible?
