A Catalogue "Bibles, Hymnals and Sermon Books in the Collection of the Turaida Museum Reserve" has been published. Publisher: Turaida Museum Reserve, Riga, SIA “Dardedze Hologrāfija”, 2020, 191 p., Latvian, ISBN 978-9934-8524-6-6

The Catalog “Bibles, Hymnals and Sermon Books at the Turaida Museum Reserve", which is dedicated to the religious-content books  in the collection of the Turaida Museum, consists of two parts. The first of them is a bibliographic catalogue of religious literature in the museum's collection, prepared by the Chief Bibliographer of the National Library of Latvia  Ināra Buce. Since the books in the museum's collection have expressive aesthetic and artistic qualities, due to which these editions often find a place in the museum's temporary and permanent exhibitions, the catalogue has been supplemented with book illustrations prepared by the Turaida Museum Reserve’s employees and artist Andris Nikolajevs.

The researchers' articles in the second part of the publication provide an in-depth insight into the richness of the museum's collection, reveal their versatility and express ideas about the importance of standard religious literature and book culture in the life of a particular group of society in a certain period of time. In her article, Lilija Limane, a researcher at Letonica and the Baltic Centre of the National Library of Latvia, provides an insight into the publishing of Latvian books, their polygraphic design and artistic quality from the mid-17th to the mid-20th century, as well as through the characterization of some valuable copies of the collection gives an opportunity to get acquainted with the West European experience in Bible publishing. Dr. philol. Pauls Daija describes the lasting influence of standard religious literature on the development of the Latvian literary language, book culture and writing between the 16th and 19th centuries. Dr.hist. Tālis Pumpuriņš focuses on the publishing traditions of Latvian Lutheran books in the 16th-20th centuries.

In 2020, the collection of the Turaida Museum Reserve contains 181 spiritual and liturgical publications - Bibles, Hymnals, Prayer and Sermon Books, Handbooks for Churchwardens, etc. The oldest and the most unique among them is the fourth edition of the Vidzeme Lutheran Handbook and Pericopes published in 1671, some parts of which have been published in separate volumes, but only the Turaida Museum's collection has a complete convolute consisting of eight works bound with another. Most of the books in the collection represent the 18th and 19th centuries, and they have been printed in Riga, Jelgava, St. Petersburg, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Leipzig and elsewhere. The publications can be read mainly in Latvian, a few also in German and one copy in the Latgalian dialect, English and Liv language.

The compiler of the catalogue and the author of introduction is Līga Kreišmane,  Chief Curator of the Turaida Museum Reserve’s  Collection,  editor - Dāvis Beitlers. Article Summaries in German and English. The catalog has been published with the support of the State Cultural Capital Foundation.

The catalogue can now be purchased by contacting the Museum Reserve’s administration by e-mail: turaida.muzejs@apollo.lv or by phone: +371- 67971402. After money transfer, you can get  the book by post or  Omniva. The price of the catalogue:  9.00 EUR.