| dc.description.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. | en_EN |
