O książce masońskiej słów kilka (w związku ze zbiorami masoniców Wojewódzkiej i Miejskiej Biblioteki Publicznej im. Marszałka Józefa Piłsudskiego w Łodzi)

Abstract

This article is devoted to a rather unknown subject – the Masonic book. The author briefly presents the history and the ideological foundation of Freemasonry, taking into account two main branches, the Anglo-Saxon one and the French one, both in Poland and around the world, but chiefly discusses the Masonic writings. Masonic literature includes constitutions, statutes, songbooks, texts devoted to Masonic rituals and the so-called “treacherous texts”, i.e. texts written by ex-Masons, or prepared by the opponents of Freemasonry on the basis of information received from ex-Masons. Yet the largest part of Masonic literature concerns the history of Freemasonry. At present, the most numerous collection of Masonic literature in Poland belongs to the University Library in Poznan, and is stored in the branch of the Library in Ciążeń n.Wartą. The Masonic literature collection owned by the Piłsudski Regional and City Public Library in Łódź is rather limited, consisting of mere 136 titles. These are publications in Polish, German, French and Italian. All volumes of this set are registered and described, yet the collection does not exist independently, but is integrated with the main collection, without its own catalogue or inventory. Although the collection is modest, it contains a few publications that are very interesting for both a historian of Freemasonry and a historian of book. Among them, there is the oldest Masonic print in possession of the Library, namely Augustine Barruel’s Świete tajemnice masonii sprofanowane from 1810 (cat. no. 2256) and the oldest work in a foreign language concerning the history of the Polish Freemasonry, from 1898, Salomon Goldbaum’s Geschichte der Freimaurerei in Polen (cat. no. 162800). A special attention must be paid to four publications printed between

the two World Wars in the printing house of Jan Cotty in Warsaw. One of them is a copy of Konstytucja Wielkiej Loży Narodowej “Polacy Zjednoczeni” (The Constitution of the Great National Lodge ‘the Poles United’), from 1928 (cat. no. 524446), with original certifying signatures of Stanisław Stempowski, the Great Master of the Great Lodge, and Zygmunt Dworzańczyk, his Great Secretary. Despite the limited size of the Masonic collection in the Piłsudski Library, it deserves attention, as it includes many older volumes, as well as more recent and modern ones, and the collection is, as far as possible, regularly updated. This collection will satisfy the needs of all who occupy themselves with the study of Freemasonry, both professionally and as amateurs.