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Book burning is the deliberate destruction by fire of books or other written materials, usually carried out in a public context. The burning of books represents an element of
The burning of books has a long history as a tool that has been wielded by authorities both
Book burning is the deliberate destruction by fire of books or other written materials, usually carried out in a public context. The burning of books represents an element of censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...
and usually proceeds from a cultural, religious, or political opposition to the materials in question. Book burning can be an act of contempt for the book's contents or author, intended to draw wider public attention to this opinion, or conceal the information contained in the text from being made public, such as diaries or ledgers.
In some cases, the destroyed works are irreplaceable and their burning constitutes a severe loss to cultural heritage
Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by soci ...
. Examples include the burning of books and burying of scholars
The burning of books and burying of scholars (), also known as burning the books and executing the ru scholars, refers to the purported burning of texts in 213 BCE and live burial of 460 Confucian scholars in 212 BCE by the Chinese emperor Qin ...
under China's Qin Dynasty
The Qin dynasty ( ; zh, c=秦朝, p=Qín cháo, w=), or Ch'in dynasty in Wade–Giles romanization ( zh, c=, p=, w=Ch'in ch'ao), was the first Dynasties in Chinese history, dynasty of Imperial China. Named for its heartland in Qin (state), ...
(213–210 BCE
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...
), the destruction of the House of Wisdom
The House of Wisdom ( ar, بيت الحكمة, Bayt al-Ḥikmah), also known as the Grand Library of Baghdad, refers to either a major Abbasid public academy and intellectual center in Baghdad or to a large private library belonging to the Abba ...
during the Mongol
The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member of ...
siege of Baghdad (1258), the destruction of Aztec codices
Aztec codices ( nah, Mēxihcatl āmoxtli , sing. ''codex'') are Mesoamerican manuscripts made by the pre-Columbian Aztec, and their Nahuatl-speaking descendants during the colonial period in Mexico.
History
Before the start of the Sp ...
by Itzcoatl
Itzcoatl ( nci-IPA, Itzcōhuātl, it͡sˈkoːwaːt͡ɬ, "Obsidian Serpent", ) (1380–1440) was the fourth king of Tenochtitlan, and the founder of the Aztec Empire, ruling from 1427 to 1440. Under Itzcoatl the Mexica of Tenochtitlan threw off th ...
(1430s), the burning of Maya codices
Maya codices (singular ''codex'') are folding books written by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in Maya hieroglyphic script on Mesoamerican bark paper. The folding books are the products of professional scribes working under the patronage of ...
on the order of bishop Diego de Landa
Diego de Landa Calderón, O.F.M. (12 November 1524 – 29 April 1579) was a Spanish Franciscan bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Yucatán. Many historians criticize his campaign against idolatry. In particular, he burned almost al ...
(1562), and the burning of Jaffna Public Library
The burning of the Jaffna Public Library ( ta, யாழ் பொது நூலகம் எரிப்பு, ''Yāḻ potu nūlakam erippu''; Sinhala language, Sinhala: යාපනය මහජන පුස්තකාලය ගිනි ...
in Sri Lanka (1981).
In other cases, such as the Nazi book burnings
The Nazi book burnings were a campaign conducted by the German Student Union (, ''DSt'') to ceremonially burn books in Nazi Germany and Austria in the 1930s. The books targeted for burning were those viewed as being subversive or as representin ...
, copies of the destroyed books survive, but the instance of book burning becomes emblematic of a harsh and oppressive regime which is seeking to censor or silence some aspect of prevailing culture.
In modern times, other forms of media, such as phonograph records
A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog signal, analog sound Recording medium, storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove ...
, video tapes
Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassette ...
, and CDs
The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Octo ...
have also been burned, shredded, or crushed. Art destruction
Art destruction involves the damaging or destruction of works of art. This can happen through a natural process, an accident, or deliberate human involvement.
Natural destruction
All physical works of art are slowly affected and degraded by the n ...
is related to book burning, both because it might have similar cultural, religious, or political connotations, and because in various historical cases, books and artworks were destroyed at the same time.
When the burning is widespread and systematic, destruction of books and media can become a significant component of cultural genocide
Cultural genocide or cultural cleansing is a concept which was proposed by lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944 as a component of genocide. Though the precise definition of ''cultural genocide'' remains contested, the Armenian Genocide Museum defines ...
.
Historical background
The burning of books has a long history as a tool that has been wielded by authorities both secular
Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...
and religious
Religion is usually defined as a social system, social-cultural system of designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morality, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sacred site, sanctified places, prophecy, prophecie ...
, in their efforts to suppress dissent
Dissent is an opinion, philosophy or sentiment of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or policy enforced under the authority of a government, political party or other entity or individual. A dissenting person may be referred to as ...
ing or heretical
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
views that are believed to pose a threat
A threat is a communication of intent to inflict harm or loss on another person. Intimidation is a tactic used between conflicting parties to make the other timid or psychologically insecure for coercion or control. The act of intimidation for co ...
to the prevailing order.
Hebrew Bible (7th century BCE)
According to theTanakh
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''
In 213 BCE
In Catholic 
During a tour of Thuringia in 1525,
In 1937, during Vargas Era#Third Brazilian Republic (Estado Novo), Getúlio Vargas' dictatorship in Brazil, several books by authors such as Jorge Amado and José Lins do Rego were burned in an anti-communist act.
In the People's Republic of China from the 1940s to present day, library officials publicize the burning of "illegal publications, religious publications".
In 1942, local Catholic priests forced Irish storyteller Timothy Buckley to burn a book ''The Tailor and Ansty'' by Eric Cross (writer), Eric Cross about Buckley and his wife, because of its sexual frankness.
In 1947, the FDA burned the work of William Reich to censor his work on healing energy and keep people sick.
In the 1950s, over six tons of books by William Reich were burned in the U.S. in compliance with judicial orders. In 1954, the works of Mordecai Kaplan were burned by Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jewish rabbis in America, after Kaplan was Herem (censure), excommunicated.
In Denmark, a comic book burning took place on 23 June 1955. It was a bonfire which consisted of comic books topped by a life-size cardboard cutout of The Phantom.
During the military dictatorship in Brazil from 1964-1985), several methods of censure were used, among them, torture and the burning of books by firemen.
Some supporters have celebrated book-burning cases in art and other media. Such is the case in Italy in 1973 with ''The Burning of Heretical Books'' over a side door on the façade of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, the bas-relief by Giovanni Battista Maini, which depicts the burning of "heretical" books as a triumph of righteousness.
During the years of the Chilean military dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet from 1973-1990, book burnings in Chile, hundreds of books were burned as a way of repression and censorship of left-wing literature. In some instances, even books on Cubism were burned because soldiers thought it had to do with the Cuban Revolution.
In 1981, the Jaffna Public Library in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, was Burning of Jaffna Public Library, burned down by Sinhalese police and paramilitaries during a pogrom against the minority Tamil population. At the time of its burning, it contained almost 100,000 Tamil books and rare documents.
Kjell Ludvik Kvavik, a senior Norwegian official, had a penchant for removing maps and other pages from rare books and he was noticed in January 1983 by a young college student. The student, Barbro Andenaes, reported the actions of the senior official to the superintendent of the reading room and then reported them to the head librarian of the university library in Oslo. Hesitant to make the accusation against Kvavik public because it would greatly harm his career, even if it was proven to be false, the media did not divulge his name until his house was searched by police. The authorities seized 470 maps and prints as well as 112 books that Kvavik had illegally obtained. While this may not have been the large-scale, violent demonstration which usually occurs during wars, Kvavik's disregard for libraries and books shows that the destruction of books on any scale can affect an entire country. Here, a senior official in the Norwegian government was disgraced and the University Library was only refunded for a small portion of the costs which it had incurred from the loss and destruction of rare materials and the security changes that had to be made as a result of it. In this case, the lure of personal profit and the desire to enhance one's own collection were the causes of the defacement of rare books and maps. While the main goal was not destruction for destruction's sake, the resulting damage to the ephemera still carries weight within the library community.
In 1984, Amsterdam's South African Institute was infiltrated by an organized group which was bent on drawing attention to the inequality of apartheid. Well-organized and assuring patrons of the library that no harm would come to them, group members systematically smashed microfiche machines and threw books into the nearby waterway. Indiscriminate with regard to the content which was being destroyed, shelf after shelf was cleared of its contents until the group left. Staff members fished books from the water in hopes of salvaging the rare editions of Travel literature, travel books, documents about the Boer Wars, and contemporary materials which were both for and against apartheid. Many of these materials were destroyed by oil, ink, and paint that the anti-apartheid demonstrators had flung around the library. The world was outraged by the loss of knowledge that these demonstrators had caused, and instead of supporting their cause and drawing people's attention to the issue of apartheid, the international community denounced their actions at Amsterdam's South African Institute. Some of the demonstrators came forward and sought to justify their actions by accusing the institute of being pro-apartheid and claiming that nothing was being done to change the status quo in South Africa.
* In Don Quixote#Destruction of Don Quixote's library (Chapters 6–7), chapters 6 and 7 of the first part of ''Don Quixote'', his friends examine his library, full with chivalry romances and other books, and decide to burn most of them and seal the room. The comments of the priest allow Miguel de Cervantes, author Cervantes to praise or condemn the books.
*In his 1821 play, ''Almansor'', the German writer Heinrich Heine – referring to the burning of the Muslim holy book, the Qur'an, during the Spanish Inquisition – wrote, "Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn people." ("''Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.''") Over a century later, Heine's own books were among the thousands of List of book-burning incidents#Jewish, anti-Nazi and "degenerate" books (by the Nazis), volumes that were torched by the
When Memory Turns into Ashes... Memoricide During the XX Century
''
DOI
* Knuth, Rebecca (2006). ''Burning Books and Leveling Libraries: Extremist violence and Cultural Destruction''. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. * Knuth, Rebecca. ''Libricide : the regime-sponsored destruction of books and libraries in the twentieth century''. * Ovenden, Richard ''Burning the Books''. London: John Murray * Polastron, Lucien X. 2007. ''Books on Fire: The Destruction of Libraries throughout History.'' Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions.
The Bosnian Manuscript Ingathering Project
– A call for Bosnian manuscripts ingathering * Polastron, Lucien X. (2007) ''Libros en Llamas: historia de la interminable destrucción de bibliotecas''. Libraria,
* Polastron, Lucien X. ''Books on fire: the destruction of libraries throughout history''. * Raven, James. (2004). ''Lost Libraries: The Destruction of Great Book Collections Since Antiquity.'' Palgrave Macmillan Limited. * UNESCO
Lost Memory – Libraries and archives destroyed in the twentieth century
Books on Fire: The Destruction of Libraries Throughout History
Lucien Xavier Polastron. Translated by John E Graham. Inner Traditions. . .
"On Book Burnings and Book Burners: Reflections on the Power (and Powerlessness) of Ideas"
by Hans J. Hillerbrand
"Burning books"
by Haig A. Bosmajian
"Bannings and burnings in history"
– Book and Periodical Council (Canada)
by Daniel Schwartz, CBC News. Updated 10 September 2010. {{DEFAULTSORT:Book Burning Book burnings, Events relating to freedom of expression Book censorship History of books Historical negationism Freedom of expression Protest tactics Anti-intellectualism
''
Jehoiakim
Jehoiakim, also sometimes spelled Jehoikim; la, Joakim was the eighteenth and antepenultimate king of Judah from 609 to 598 BC. He was the second son of king Josiah () and Zebidah, the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah. His birth name was Eliakim.; ...
of Judah burned part of a scroll that Baruch ben Neriah had written at prophet Jeremiah
Jeremiah, Modern: , Tiberian: ; el, Ἰερεμίας, Ieremíās; meaning " Yah shall raise" (c. 650 – c. 570 BC), also called Jeremias or the "weeping prophet", was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish ...
's dictation (Jeremiah 36).
Burning of books and burying of scholars in China (210–213 BCE)
In 213 BCE Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang (, ; 259–210 BC) was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of a unified China. Rather than maintain the title of "king" ( ''wáng'') borne by the previous Shang and Zhou rulers, he ruled as the First Emperor ( ...
, the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty
The Qin dynasty ( ; zh, c=秦朝, p=Qín cháo, w=), or Ch'in dynasty in Wade–Giles romanization ( zh, c=, p=, w=Ch'in ch'ao), was the first Dynasties in Chinese history, dynasty of Imperial China. Named for its heartland in Qin (state), ...
, ordered the Burning of books and burying of scholars
The burning of books and burying of scholars (), also known as burning the books and executing the ru scholars, refers to the purported burning of texts in 213 BCE and live burial of 460 Confucian scholars in 212 BCE by the Chinese emperor Qin ...
and in 210 BCE he supposedly ordered the live burial
Premature burial, also known as live burial, burial alive, or vivisepulture, means to be buried while still alive.
Animals or humans may be buried alive accidentally on the mistaken assumption that they are dead, or intentionally as a form of t ...
of 460 Confucian scholars in order to stay on his throne. Though the burning of books is well established, the live burial of scholars has been disputed by modern historians who doubt the details of the story, which first appeared more than a century later in the Han Dynasty official Sima Qian
Sima Qian (; ; ) was a Chinese historian of the early Han dynasty (206AD220). He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for his ''Records of the Grand Historian'', a general history of China covering more than two thousand years b ...
's ''Records of the Grand Historian
''Records of the Grand Historian'', also known by its Chinese name ''Shiji'', is a monumental history of China that is the first of China's 24 dynastic histories. The ''Records'' was written in the early 1st century by the ancient Chinese hist ...
''. Some of these books were written in Shang Xiang
Shang Xiang ({{zh, c=上庠, p=shàng xiáng, w=Shang Hsiang) was a school founded in the Yu Shun (虞舜) era in China. Shun (2257 BCE–2208 BCE), the Emperor of the Kingdom of Yu (虞, or 有虞/Youyu), founded two schools. One was Shang Xiang ( ...
, a superior school founded in 2208 BCE. The event caused the loss of many philosophical treatises of the Hundred Schools of Thought
The Hundred Schools of Thought () were philosophies and schools that flourished from the 6th century BC to 221 BC during the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period of ancient China.
An era of substantial discrimination in China, ...
. Treatises which advocated the official philosophy of the government (" legalism") survived.
Christian book burnings (80–1759)
In theNew Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
's Acts of the Apostles
The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its messag ...
, it is claimed that Paul performed an exorcism
Exorcism () is the religious or spiritual practice of evicting demons, jinns, or other malevolent spiritual entities from a person, or an area, that is believed to be possessed. Depending on the spiritual beliefs of the exorcist, this may be ...
in Ephesus. After men in Ephesus failed to perform the same feat many gave up their "curious arts" and burned the books because apparently, they did not work.
And many that believed, came and confessed and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.After the
First Council of Nicea
The First Council of Nicaea (; grc, Νίκαια ) was a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325.
This ecumenical council was the first effort ...
(325 CE), Roman emperor Constantine the Great
Constantine I ( , ; la, Flavius Valerius Constantinus, ; ; 27 February 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337, the first one to Constantine the Great and Christianity, convert to Christiani ...
issued an edict
An edict is a decree or announcement of a law, often associated with monarchism, but it can be under any official authority. Synonyms include "dictum" and "pronouncement".
''Edict'' derives from the Latin edictum.
Notable edicts
* Telepinu Proc ...
against nontrinitarian
Nontrinitarianism is a form of Christianity that rejects the mainstream Christian doctrine of the Trinity—the belief that God is three distinct hypostases or persons who are coeternal, coequal, and indivisibly united in one being, or essence ...
Arians
Arianism ( grc-x-koine, Ἀρειανισμός, ) is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius (), a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God t ...
which included a prescription for systematic book-burning: "In addition, if any writing composed byAccording toArius Arius (; grc-koi, Ἄρειος, ; 250 or 256 – 336) was a Cyrenaic presbyter, ascetic, and priest best known for the doctrine of Arianism. His teachings about the nature of the Godhead in Christianity, which emphasized God the Father's un ...should be found, it should be handed over to the flames, so that not only will the wickedness of his teaching be obliterated, but nothing will be left even to remind anyone of him. And I hereby make a public order, that if someone should be discovered to have hidden a writing composed by Arius, and not to have immediately brought it forward and destroyed it by fire, his penalty shall be death. As soon as he is discovered in this offense, he shall be submitted for capital punishment....."
Elaine Pagels
Elaine Pagels, née Hiesey (born February 13, 1943), is an American historian of religion. She is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Pagels has conducted extensive research into early Christianity and Gnosti ...
, "In AD 367, Athanasius
Athanasius I of Alexandria, ; cop, ⲡⲓⲁⲅⲓⲟⲥ ⲁⲑⲁⲛⲁⲥⲓⲟⲩ ⲡⲓⲁⲡⲟⲥⲧⲟⲗⲓⲕⲟⲥ or Ⲡⲁⲡⲁ ⲁⲑⲁⲛⲁⲥⲓⲟⲩ ⲁ̅; (c. 296–298 – 2 May 373), also called Athanasius the Great, ...
, the zealous bishop of Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
... issued an Easter letter in which he demanded that Egyptian monks destroy all such unacceptable writings, except for those he specifically listed as 'acceptable' even 'canonical'—a list that constitutes the present 'New Testament'". (Pagels cites Athanasius's Paschal letter (letter 39) for 367 CE, which prescribes a canon, but her citation "cleanse the church from every defilement" (page 177) does not explicitly appear in the Festal letter.) Heretical texts do not turn up as palimpsest
In textual studies, a palimpsest () is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off so that the page can be reused for another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid skin an ...
s, scraped clean and overwritten, as do many texts of Classical antiquity. According to author Rebecca Knuth, multitudes of early Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
texts have been as thoroughly "destroyed" as if they had been publicly burnt.
In 1759 Pope Clement XIII
Pope Clement XIII ( la, Clemens XIII; it, Clemente XIII; 7 March 1693 – 2 February 1769), born Carlo della Torre di Rezzonico, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 6 July 1758 to his death in February 1769. ...
decreed that all books of biologist Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
to be burned.
Burning of Nestorian books (435)
Activity byCyril of Alexandria
Cyril of Alexandria ( grc, Κύριλλος Ἀλεξανδρείας; cop, Ⲡⲁⲡⲁ Ⲕⲩⲣⲓⲗⲗⲟⲩ ⲁ̅ also ⲡⲓ̀ⲁⲅⲓⲟⲥ Ⲕⲓⲣⲓⲗⲗⲟⲥ; 376 – 444) was the Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 to 444 ...
( 376–444) brought fire to almost all the writings of Nestorius
Nestorius (; in grc, Νεστόριος; 386 – 451) was the Archbishop of Constantinople from 10 April 428 to August 431. A Christian theologian, several of his teachings in the fields of Christology and Mariology were seen as controve ...
(386–450) shortly after 435. 'The writings of Nestorius were originally very numerous', however, they were not part of the Nestorian or Oriental theological curriculum until the mid-sixth century, unlike those of his teacher Theodore of Mopsuestia
Theodore of Mopsuestia (c. 350 – 428) was a Christian theologian, and Bishop of Mopsuestia (as Theodore II) from 392 to 428 AD. He is also known as Theodore of Antioch, from the place of his birth and presbyterate. He is the best known ...
, and those of Diodorus of Tarsus
Diodore of Tarsus (Greek language, Greek Διόδωρος ὁ Ταρσεύς; died c. 390) was a Christianity, Christian bishop, a monastic reformer, and a Christian theologian, theologian. A strong supporter of the orthodoxy of First Council of ...
, even then they were not key texts, so relatively few survive intact, cf. Baum, Wilhelm and Dietmar W. Winkler. 2003. The Church of the East: A Concise History. London: Routledge.
Burning of Arian books (587)
According to theChronicle of Fredegar
The ''Chronicle of Fredegar'' is the conventional title used for a 7th-century Frankish chronicle that was probably written in Burgundy. The author is unknown and the attribution to Fredegar dates only from the 16th century.
The chronicle begins ...
, Recared
Reccared I (or Recared; la, Flavius Reccaredus; es, Flavio Recaredo; 559 – December 601; reigned 586–601) was Visigothic King of Hispania and Septimania. His reign marked a climactic shift in history, with the king's renunciation of Arianis ...
, King of the Visigoths
The Visigothic Kingdom, officially the Kingdom of the Goths ( la, Regnum Gothorum), was a kingdom that occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries. One of the Germanic successor states to ...
(reigned 586–601) and first Catholic king of Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
, following his conversion to Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
in 587, ordered that all Arian
Arianism ( grc-x-koine, Ἀρειανισμός, ) is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius (), a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God t ...
books should be collected and burned; and all the books of Arian theology were reduced to ashes, along with the house in which they had been purposely collected. Which facts demonstrate that Constantine's edict on Arian works was not rigorously observed, as Arian writings or the theology based on them survived to be burned much later in Spain.
French burning of Jewish manuscripts in 1244
In 1244, as an outcome of theDisputation of Paris
The Disputation of Paris ( ''Mishpat Pariz''; ), also known as the Trial of the Talmud (), took place in 1240 at the court of King Louis IX of France. It followed the work of Nicholas Donin, a Jewish convert to Christianity who translated the T ...
, twenty-four carriage loads of Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...
s and other Jewish religious manuscripts were set on fire by French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
law officers in the streets of Paris.
Spanish empire burning of Aztec and Mayan manuscripts in the 1560s
During theSpanish colonization of the Americas
Spain began colonizing the Americas under the Crown of Castile and was spearheaded by the Spanish . The Americas were invaded and incorporated into the Spanish Empire, with the exception of Brazil, British America, and some small regions ...
, numerous books written by indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
were burned by the Spaniards. Several books written by the Aztecs
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...
were burnt by Spanish conquistador
Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, O ...
s and priests during the Spanish conquest of Yucatán
The Spanish conquest of Yucatán was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish ''conquistadores'' against the Late Postclassic Maya states and polities in the Yucatán Peninsula, a vast limestone plain covering south-eastern Mexico, northern Gu ...
. Despite opposition from Catholic friar Bartolomé de las Casas
Bartolomé de las Casas, OP ( ; ; 11 November 1484 – 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish landowner, friar, priest, and bishop, famed as a historian and social reformer. He arrived in Hispaniola as a layman then became a Dominican friar ...
, numerous books found by the Spanish in Yucatán
Yucatán (, also , , ; yua, Yúukatan ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Yucatán,; yua, link=no, Xóot' Noj Lu'umil Yúukatan. is one of the 31 states which comprise the political divisions of Mexico, federal entities of Mexico. I ...
were burnt on the order of Bishop Diego de Landa
Diego de Landa Calderón, O.F.M. (12 November 1524 – 29 April 1579) was a Spanish Franciscan bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Yucatán. Many historians criticize his campaign against idolatry. In particular, he burned almost al ...
in 1562. De Landa wrote on the incident that "We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they (the Maya
Maya may refer to:
Civilizations
* Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America
** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples
** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples
* Maya (Ethiopia), a populat ...
) regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction".
Catholic book burnings in Tudor and Stuart periods (16th–18th century)
The founding of theChurch of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
after King Henry VIII
Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disag ...
broke away from the Catholic Church led to the targeting of English Catholics
The Catholic Church in England and Wales ( la, Ecclesia Catholica in Anglia et Cambria; cy, Yr Eglwys Gatholig yng Nghymru a Lloegr) is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in full communion with the Holy See. Its origins date from the 6th ce ...
by Protestants
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
. During the Tudor and Stuart period
The Stuart period of British history lasted from 1603 to 1714 during the dynasty of the House of Stuart. The period ended with the death of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, Queen Anne and the accession of George I of Great Britain, King George I ...
s, Protestant citizens loyal to the Crown
The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...
attacked Catholic religious sites across England, frequently burning any religious texts they found. These acts were encouraged by the Crown, who pressured the general public to take part in such "spectacles". According to American historian David Cressy, over "the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries book burning developed from a rare to an occasional occurrence, relocated from an outdoor to an indoor procedure, and changed from a bureaucratic to a quasi-theatrical performance".
British burning of Washington during the War of 1812
During theWar of 1812
The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It bega ...
, a British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
expeditionary force routed an American militia at Bladensburg. Shortly thereafter, the British marched into Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, briefly capturing and occupying the city. In retaliation for the American destruction of Port Dover, the British ordered the destruction of several public buildings in the city, including the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
, erected just fourteen years prior. The U.S. Capitol
The United States Capitol, often called The Capitol or the Capitol Building, is the Seat of government, seat of the Legislature, legislative branch of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is form ...
was also burnt by the British, with books from the Library of Congress being used to burn the building. Both the library and the Capitol were rebuilt after the war.
Comstock institution dedicated to book burnings in the USA (1873–1950)
Anthony Comstock
Anthony Comstock (March 7, 1844 – September 21, 1915) was an anti-vice activist, United States Postal Inspector, and secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV), who was dedicated to upholding Christian morality. He op ...
's New York Society for the Suppression of Vice
The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV or SSV) was an institution dedicated to supervising the morality of the public, founded in 1873. Its specific mission was to monitor compliance with state laws and work with the courts and di ...
, founded in 1873, inscribed book burning on its seal, as a worthy goal to be achieved. Comstock's total accomplishment in a long and influential career is estimated to have been the destruction of some 15 tons of books, 284,000 pounds of plates for printing such "objectionable" books, and nearly 4,000,000 pictures. All of this material was defined as "lewd
Lascivious behavior is sexual behavior or conduct that is considered crude and offensive, or contrary to local moral or other standards of appropriate behavior. In this sense "lascivious" is similar in meaning to "lewd", "indecent", "lecherous", ...
" by Comstock's very broad definition of the term – which he and his associates successfully lobbied the United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
to incorporate in the Comstock Law
The Comstock laws were a set of federal acts passed by the United States Congress under the Grant administration along with related state laws.Dennett p.9 The "parent" act (Sect. 211) was passed on March 3, 1873, as the Act for the Suppression of ...
.
Nazi regime (1933)
TheNazi government
The government of Nazi Germany was totalitarian, run by the Nazi Party in Germany according to the Führerprinzip through the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. Nazi Germany began with the fact that the Enabling Act was enacted to give Hitler's gover ...
decreed broad grounds for burning material "which acts subversively on Nazi Germany's
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
future or strikes at the root of German thought, the German home and the driving forces of German people".
Allied Powers in Japan after WW2 (1945–1952)
Under the occupation by allied force GHQ, any kind of criticism against allied force was banned and many of books were prohibited and deleted. The number of books deleted amounts to more than 7000 books.Notable book burnings and destruction of libraries
Burnings by authors
In 1588, the exiled English Catholic William Cardinal Allen wrote "''An Admonition to the Nobility and People of England
An, AN, aN, or an may refer to:
Businesses and organizations
* Airlinair (IATA airline code AN)
* Alleanza Nazionale, a former political party in Italy
* AnimeNEXT, an annual anime convention located in New Jersey
* Anime North, a Canadian a ...
''", a work sharply attacking Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
El ...
. It was to be published in Spanish-occupied England in the event of the Spanish Armada
The Spanish Armada (a.k.a. the Enterprise of England, es, Grande y Felicísima Armada, links=no, lit=Great and Most Fortunate Navy) was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aris ...
succeeding in its invasion. Upon the defeat of the Armada, Allen carefully consigned his publication to the fire, and it is only known of through one of Elizabeth's spies, who had stolen a copy.
Carlo Goldoni Carlo is a given name. It is an Italian form of Charles. It can refer to:
*Carlo (name)
*Monte Carlo
*Carlingford, New South Wales, a suburb in north-west Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
*A satirical song written by Dafydd Iwan about Prince Char ...
is known to have burned his first play, a tragedy
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...
called ''Amalasunta
Amalasuintha (495 – 30 April 534/535) was a ruler of Ostrogothic Kingdom from 526 to 535. She ruled first as regent for her son and thereafter as queen on throne. A regent is "a person who governs a kingdom in the minority, absence, or disabili ...
'' in the 1730s, when encountering unfavorable criticism.
The Hassid
Ḥasīd ( he, חסיד, "pious", "saintly", "godly man"; plural "Hasidim") is a Jewish honorific, frequently used as a term of exceptional respect in the Talmudic and early medieval periods. It denotes a person who is scrupulous in his observ ...
ic Rabbi Nachman of Breslov
Nachman of Breslov ( he, רַבִּי נַחְמָן מִבְּרֶסְלֶב ''Rabbī'' ''Naḥmān mīBreslev''), also known as Reb Nachman of Bratslav, Reb Nachman Breslover ( yi, רבי נחמן ברעסלאווער ''Rebe Nakhmen Breslover'' ...
is reported to have written a book which he himself burned in 1808. To this day, his followers mourn "The Burned Book" and seek in their Rabbi's surviving writings for clues as to what the lost volume contained and why it was destroyed.
Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; uk, link=no, Мико́ла Васи́льович Го́голь, translit=Mykola Vasyliovych Hohol; (russian: Яновский; uk, Яновський, translit=Yanovskyi) ( – ) was a Russian novelist, ...
burned the second half of his 1842 magnum opus ''Dead Souls
''Dead Souls'' (russian: «Мёртвые души», ''Mjórtvyje dúshi'') is a novel by Nikolai Gogol, first published in 1842, and widely regarded as an exemplar of 19th-century Russian literature. The novel chronicles the travels and adv ...
'', having come under the influence of a priest who persuaded him that his work was sinful; Gogol later described this as a mistake.
As noted in Claire Tomalin's intensively researched "The Invisible Woman", Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
is known to have made a big bonfire of his letters and private papers, as well as asking friends and acquaintances to either return letters which he wrote to them or themselves destroy the letters – and most complied with his request in the 1850s and the 1860s. Dickens' purpose was to destroy evidence of his affair with the actress Nelly Ternan. To judge from surviving Dickens letters, the destroyed material – even if not intended for publication – might have had considerable literary merit.
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lewis ...
, a well-known expert on the work of Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...
, believes that Carroll had written a earlier version in the 1860s of ''Alice in Wonderland
''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatur ...
'' which he later destroyed after writing a more elaborate version which he presented to the child Alice who inspired the book.
In the 1870s Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
destroyed the full manuscript of his first opera, '' The Voyevoda''. Decades later, during the Soviet period, ''The Voyevoda'' was posthumously reconstructed from surviving orchestral and vocal parts and the composer's sketches.
20th century
Alberto Santos-Dumont
Alberto Santos-Dumont (Santos Dumont, Minas Gerais, Palmira, 20 July 1873 — Guarujá, 23 July 1932) was a Brazilian aeronaut, sportsman, inventor, and one of the few people to have contributed significantly to the early development of both l ...
, after being considered a spy by the French government in 1914 and then having this deception excused by the police, he destroyed all his aeronautical documents. The following year, according to the afterword to the historical novel "De gevleugelde," Arthur Japin
Arthur Valentijn Japin (born 26 July 1956 in Haarlem) is a Dutch novelist.
Biography
His parents were Bert Japin, a teacher and writer of detective novels, and Annie Japin-van Arnhem. After a difficult childhood—his father killed himself when ...
says that when Dumont returned to Brazil, he "burned all his diaries, letters and drawings."
After Hector Hugh Munro
Hector Hugh Munro (18 December 1870 – 14 November 1916), better known by the pen name Saki and also frequently as H. H. Munro, was a British writer whose witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories satirize Edwardian society and cultur ...
(better known by the pen name
A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name.
A pen na ...
''Saki'') was killed in World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
in November 1916, his sister Ethel destroyed most of his papers.
There is substantial evidence that Finnish composer Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius ( ; ; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius; 8 December 186520 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic and 20th-century classical music, early-modern periods. He is widely regarded as his country's greatest com ...
worked on an Eighth Symphony. He promised the premiere of this symphony to Serge Koussevitzky
Sergei Alexandrovich KoussevitzkyKoussevitzky's original Russian forename is usually transliterated into English as either "Sergei" or "Sergey"; however, he himself adopted the French spelling "Serge", using it in his signature. (SeThe Koussevit ...
in 1931 and 1932, and a London performance in 1933 under Basil Cameron
Basil Cameron, CBE (18 August 1884 – 26 June 1975) was an English conductor.
Early career
He was born Basil George Cameron HindenbergW.L. Jacob, "Hindenburg v. Cameron" (Letter to the Editor) (1991). ''The Musical Times'', 132 (1782), p. ...
was even advertised to the public. However, no such symphony was ever performed, and the only concrete evidence of the symphony's existence on paper is a 1933 bill for a fair copy of the first movement and short draft fragments first published and played in 2011. Sibelius had always been quite self-critical; he remarked to his close friends, "If I cannot write a better symphony than my Seventh, then it shall be my last." Since no manuscript survives, sources consider it likely that Sibelius destroyed most traces of the score, probably in 1945, during which year he certainly consigned a great many papers to the flames.
Aino, Sibelius' wife, recalled that "In the 1940s there was a great auto da fé
Auto may refer to:
* An automaton
* An automobile
* An autonomous car
* An automatic transmission
* An auto rickshaw
* Short for automatic
* Auto (art), a form of Portuguese dramatic play
* ''Auto'' (film), 2007 Tamil comedy film
* Auto (play), ...
at Ainola __NOTOC__
(literal English translation: "Aino's Place") is a museum in Järvenpää, Finland, that originally was the home of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, his wife Aino (née Järnefelt), and their six daughters. Situated on the shores o ...
here the Sibelius couple lived My husband collected a number of the manuscripts in a laundry basket and burned them on the open fire in the dining room. Parts of the ''Karelia Suite
''Karelia Suite'', Op. 11 is a subset of pieces from the longer ''Karelia Music'' (named after the region of Karelia) written by Jean Sibelius in 1893 for the Viipuri Students' Association and premiered, with Sibelius conducting, at the Imper ...
'' were destroyed – I later saw remains of the pages which had been torn out – and many other things. I did not have the strength to be present and left the room. I therefore do not know what he threw on to the fire. But after this my husband became calmer and gradually lighter in mood." It is assumed that a draft of Sibelius' Eighth Symphony - which he worked on in the early 1930s but with which he was not satisfied - was among the papers destroyed.
Joe Shuster
Joseph Shuster (; July 10, 1914 – July 30, 1992), professionally known simply as Joe Shuster, was a Canadian-American comic book artist best known for co-creating the DC Comics character Superman, with Jerry Siegel, in ''Action Comics'' #1 (c ...
, who together with Jerry Siegel
Jerome Siegel ( ; October 17, 1914 – January 28, 1996)Roger Stern. ''Superman: Sunday Classics: 1939–1943'' DC Comics/Kitchen Sink Press, Inc./ Sterling Publishing; 2006 was an American comic book writer. He is the co-creator of Superman, in ...
created the fictional superhero
A superhero or superheroine is a stock character that typically possesses ''superpowers'', abilities beyond those of ordinary people, and fits the role of the hero, typically using his or her powers to help the world become a better place, ...
Superman
Superman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, and debuted in the comic book ''Action Comics'' #1 (cover-dated June 1938 and publi ...
, in 1938 burned the first Superman story when under the impression that it would not find a publisher.
Axel Jensen
Axel Buchardt Jensen (12 February 1932 – 13 February 2003) was a Norwegian author. From 1957 until 2002, he published both fiction and non-fiction texts which include novels, poems, essays, a biography, and manuscripts for cartoons and animated ...
made his debut as a novelist in Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
in 1955 with the novel ''Dyretemmerens kors'', but he later burned the remaining unsold copies of the book.
In August 1963, when C.S. Lewis
CS, C-S, C.S., Cs, cs, or cs. may refer to:
Job titles
* Chief Secretary (Hong Kong)
* Chief superintendent, a rank in the British and several other police forces
* Company secretary, a senior position in a private sector company or public se ...
resigned from Magdalene College, Cambridge
Magdalene College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary ...
and his rooms there were being cleaned out, Lewis gave instructions to Douglas Gresham
Douglas Howard Gresham (born November 10, 1945) is an American British stage and voice-over actor, biographer, film producer, and executive record producer. He is one of the two stepsons of C. S. Lewis.
Early life
Gresham was born in Ne ...
to destroy all his unfinished or incomplete fragments of manuscript - which scholars researching Lewis' work regard as a grievous loss.
In 1976 detractors of Venezuelan liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
writer Carlos Rangel
Carlos Rangel (17 September 1929 – 15 January 1988) was a Venezuelan liberal writer, journalist and diplomat.
Background
Carlos Enrique Rangel Guevara was born in Caracas on 17 September 1929. His parents were José Antonio Rangel Báez and ...
publicly burned copies of his book ''From the Noble Savage to the Noble Revolutionary
''From the Noble Savage to the Noble Revolutionary'' (Spanish: ''Del buen salvaje al buen revolucionario'') is a book published in 1976 by Venezuelan writer Carlos Rangel that seeks to explore a new interpretation of the reality of Latin America f ...
'' in the year of its publication at the Central University of Venezuela
The Central University of Venezuela (Spanish: ''Universidad Central de Venezuela''; UCV) is a public university of Venezuela located in Caracas. It is widely held to be the highest ranking institution in the country, and it also ranks 18th in L ...
.
Books saved from burning
In Catholic hagiography
A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies migh ...
, Saint Vincent of Saragossa
Vincent of Saragossa (also known as Vincent Martyr, Vincent of Huesca or Vincent the Deacon), the Protomartyr of Spain, was a deacon of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Zaragoza, Church of Saragossa. He is the patron saint of Lisbon and Valenci ...
is mentioned as having been offered his life on condition that he consign Scripture to the fire; he refused and was martyred. He is often depicted holding the book which he protected with his life.
Another book-saving Catholic Saint is the 10th-century Saint Wiborada
Wiborada of St. Gall (also Guiborat, Weibrath or Viborata; Alemannic: ''Wiberat'') (died 926) was a member of the Swabian nobility in what is present-day Switzerland. She was an anchoress, Benedictine nun, and martyr.
Biography
There are two bi ...
. She is credited with having predicted in 925 an invasion by the then-pagan Hungarians of her region in Switzerland. Her warning allowed the priests and religious of St. Gall and St. Magnus to hide their books and wine and escape into caves in nearby hills. Wiborada herself refused to escape and was killed by the marauders, being later canonized. In art, she is commonly represented holding a book to signify the library she saved, and is considered a patron saint of libraries
A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...
and librarians.
During a tour of Thuringia in 1525, Martin Luther
Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Reformation, Protestant Refo ...
became enraged at the widespread burning of libraries along with other buildings during the German Peasants' War
The German Peasants' War, Great Peasants' War or Great Peasants' Revolt (german: Deutscher Bauernkrieg) was a widespread popular revolt in some German-speaking areas in Central Europe from 1524 to 1525. It failed because of intense oppositio ...
, writing ''Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants
''Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants'' (german: link=no, Wider die Mordischen und Reubischen Rotten der Bawren) is a piece written by Martin Luther in response to the German Peasants' War. Beginning in 1524 and ending in 1525, t ...
'' in response.
During the Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire
The Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire were a set of revolutions that took place in the Austrian Empire from March 1848 to November 1849. Much of the revolutionary activity had a nationalist character: the Empire, ruled from Vienna, incl ...
the Imperial Court Library
The Austrian National Library (german: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) is the largest library in Austria, with more than 12 million items in its various collections. The library is located in the Neue Burg Wing of the Hofburg in center of V ...
(now Austrian National Library
The Austrian National Library (german: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) is the largest library in Austria, with more than 12 million items in its various collections. The library is located in the Neue Burg Wing of the Hofburg in center of V ...
) was in extreme danger, when the bombardment of Vienna caused the burning of the Hofburg
The Hofburg is the former principal imperial palace of the Habsburg dynasty. Located in the centre of Vienna, it was built in the 13th century and expanded several times afterwards. It also served as the imperial winter residence, as Schönbrunn ...
, in which the Imperial Library was located. Fortunately, the fire was halted in time - saving countless irreplaceable books, diligently collected by many generations of Habsburg emperors and the scholars in their employ.
At the beginning of the Battle of Monte Cassino
The Battle of Monte Cassino, also known as the Battle for Rome and the Battle for Cassino, was a series of four assaults made by the Allies against German forces in Italy during the Italian Campaign of World War II. The ultimate objective was ...
in World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, two German officers – Viennese-born Lt. Col. Julius Schlegel (a Roman Catholic) and Captain Maximilian Becker (a Protestant) – had the foresight to transfer the Monte Cassino
Monte Cassino (today usually spelled Montecassino) is a rocky hill about southeast of Rome, in the Latin Valley, Italy, west of Cassino and at an elevation of . Site of the Roman town of Casinum, it is widely known for its abbey, the first h ...
archives to the Vatican. Otherwise the archives – containing a vast number of documents relating to the 1500-years' history of the Abbey as well as some 1,400 irreplaceable manuscript codices
The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...
, chiefly patristic
Patristics or patrology is the study of the early Christian writers who are designated Church Fathers. The names derive from the combined forms of Latin ''pater'' and Greek ''patḗr'' (father). The period is generally considered to run from ...
and historical – would have been destroyed in the Allied air bombing which almost completely destroyed the Abbey shortly afterwards. Also saved by the two officers' prompt action were the collections of the Keats-Shelley Memorial House in Rome, which had been sent to the Abbey for safety in December 1942.
The Sarajevo Haggadah
The Sarajevo Haggadah is an illuminated manuscript that contains the illustrated traditional text of the Passover Haggadah which accompanies the Passover Seder. It is one of the oldest Sephardic Haggadahs in the world, originating in Barcelona a ...
– one of the oldest and most valuable Jewish illustrated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the ...
s, with immense historical and cultural value – was hidden from the Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
and their Ustaše
The Ustaše (), also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croats, Croatian Fascism, fascist and ultranationalism, ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaš ...
collaborators by Derviš Korkut, chief librarian of the National Museum in Sarajevo
Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its a ...
. At risk to his own life, Korkut smuggled the Haggadah out of Sarajevo and gave it for safekeeping to a Muslim cleric in Zenica
Zenica ( ; ; ) is a city in Bosnia and Herzegovina and an administrative and economic center of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Zenica-Doboj Canton. It is located in the Bosna (river), Bosna river valley, about north of Sarajevo. Th ...
, where it was hidden until the end of the war under the floorboards of either a mosque or a Muslim home. The Haggadah again survived destruction during the wars which followed the breakup of Yugoslavia
The breakup of Yugoslavia occurred as a result of a series of political upheavals and conflicts during the early 1990s. After a period of political and economic crisis in the 1980s, constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yu ...
.
In 1940s France, a group of anti-fascist exiles created a Library of Burned Books which housed all the books that Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
had destroyed. This library contained copies of titles that were burned by the Nazis in their campaign to cleanse German culture of Jewish and foreign influences such as pacifist and decadent literature. The Nazis themselves planned to make a "museum" of Judaism once the ''Final Solution
The Final Solution (german: die Endlösung, ) or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question (german: Endlösung der Judenfrage, ) was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution to th ...
'' was complete to house certain books that they had saved.
Posthumous destruction of works
WhenVirgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
died, he left instructions that his manuscript of the ''Aeneid'' was to be burnt, as it was a draft version with uncorrected faults and not a final version for release. However, this instruction was ignored. It is mainly to the ''Aeneid'', published in this "imperfect" form, that Virgil owes his lasting fame – and it is considered one of the great masterpieces of classical literature as a whole.
Before his death, Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...
wrote to his friend and literary executor
The literary estate of a deceased author consists mainly of the copyright and other intellectual property rights of published works, including film, translation rights, original manuscripts of published work, unpublished or partially completed wo ...
Max Brod
Max Brod ( he, מקס ברוד; 27 May 1884 – 20 December 1968) was a German-speaking Bohemian, later Israeli, author, composer, and journalist.
Although he was a prolific writer in his own right, he is best remembered as the friend and biog ...
: "Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, sto be burned unread." Brod overrode Kafka's wishes, believing that Kafka had given these directions to him, specifically, because Kafka knew he would not honour them – Brod had told him as much. Had Brod carried out Kafka's instructions, virtually the whole of Kafka's work – except for a few short stories published in his lifetime – would have been lost forever. Most critics, at the time and up to the present, justify Brod's decision. In his forward to Kafka's ''The Castle'' Brod noted that when entering Kafka's apartment after his death, he found several big empty folders and traces of burnt paper - the manuscripts which were in these folders having evidently been destroyed by Kafka himself before his death. Brod expressed pain at the irreversible loss of this material and happiness at having saved so much of Kafka's work from its creator's ruthlessness.
A similar case concerns the noted American poet Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry.
Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massach ...
, who died in 1886 and left to her sister Lavinia the instruction of burning all her papers. Lavinia Dickinson did burn almost all of her sister's correspondences, but interpreted the will as not including the forty notebooks and loose sheets, all filled with almost 1800 poems; these Lavinia saved and began to publish the poems that year. Had Lavinia Dickinson been more strict in carrying out her sister's will, all but a small handful of Emily Dickinson's poetic work would have been lost.
In early 1964, several months after the death of C.S. Lewis
CS, C-S, C.S., Cs, cs, or cs. may refer to:
Job titles
* Chief Secretary (Hong Kong)
* Chief superintendent, a rank in the British and several other police forces
* Company secretary, a senior position in a private sector company or public se ...
, Lewis' literary executor Walter Hooper
Walter McGehee Hooper (March 27, 1931December 7, 2020) was an American writer and literary advisor of the estate of C.S. Lewis. He was a literary trustee for Owen Barfield from December 1997 to October 2006.
Life
Hooper was born in Reidsville, No ...
, rescued a 64-page manuscript from a bonfire of the author's writings - the burning carried out according to Lewis' will. In 1977, Hooper published it under the name '' The Dark Tower''. It was apparently intended as part of Lewis' ''Space Trilogy
''The Space Trilogy'' or ''Cosmic Trilogy'' is a series of science fiction novels by C. S. Lewis. The trilogy consists of ''Out of the Silent Planet'' (1938), '' Perelandra'' (1943), and ''That Hideous Strength'' (1945). A philologist named E ...
''. Though incomplete and evidently an early draft which Lewis abandoned, its publication aroused great interest and a continued discussion among Lewis fans and scholars researching his work.
Modern biblioclasm
Although the act of destroying books is condemned by the majority of the world's societies, book burning still occurs on a small or large scale.20th century
InAzerbaijan
Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...
, when a modified Latin alphabet was adopted, books which were published in the Arabic script were burned, especially those published in the late 1920s and 1930s. The texts were not limited to the Quran; medical and historical manuscripts were also destroyed.
Book burnings were regularly organised in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
in the 1930s by stormtroopers so that "degenerate" works could be destroyed, especially works written by Jewish authors such as Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novella ...
, Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...
, and Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
. One of the most infamous book burnings in the 20th century occurred in Frankfurt, Germany, on May 10, 1933. Organized by Joseph Goebbels, books were burned in a celebratory fashion, complete with bands, marchers, and songs. Seeking to "cleanse" German culture of the "un-German" spirit, Goebbels compelled students (who were egged on by their professors) to perform the book burning. To some this could be easily dismissed as the childish actions of the youth, but to many in Europe and America, it was a horrific display of power and disrespect. During the denazification
Denazification (german: link=yes, Entnazifizierung) was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by remov ...
which followed the war, literature which had been confiscated by the Allies was reduced to pulp rather than burned.
In 1937, during Vargas Era#Third Brazilian Republic (Estado Novo), Getúlio Vargas' dictatorship in Brazil, several books by authors such as Jorge Amado and José Lins do Rego were burned in an anti-communist act.
In the People's Republic of China from the 1940s to present day, library officials publicize the burning of "illegal publications, religious publications".
In 1942, local Catholic priests forced Irish storyteller Timothy Buckley to burn a book ''The Tailor and Ansty'' by Eric Cross (writer), Eric Cross about Buckley and his wife, because of its sexual frankness.
In 1947, the FDA burned the work of William Reich to censor his work on healing energy and keep people sick.
In the 1950s, over six tons of books by William Reich were burned in the U.S. in compliance with judicial orders. In 1954, the works of Mordecai Kaplan were burned by Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jewish rabbis in America, after Kaplan was Herem (censure), excommunicated.
In Denmark, a comic book burning took place on 23 June 1955. It was a bonfire which consisted of comic books topped by a life-size cardboard cutout of The Phantom.
During the military dictatorship in Brazil from 1964-1985), several methods of censure were used, among them, torture and the burning of books by firemen.
Some supporters have celebrated book-burning cases in art and other media. Such is the case in Italy in 1973 with ''The Burning of Heretical Books'' over a side door on the façade of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, the bas-relief by Giovanni Battista Maini, which depicts the burning of "heretical" books as a triumph of righteousness.
During the years of the Chilean military dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet from 1973-1990, book burnings in Chile, hundreds of books were burned as a way of repression and censorship of left-wing literature. In some instances, even books on Cubism were burned because soldiers thought it had to do with the Cuban Revolution.
In 1981, the Jaffna Public Library in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, was Burning of Jaffna Public Library, burned down by Sinhalese police and paramilitaries during a pogrom against the minority Tamil population. At the time of its burning, it contained almost 100,000 Tamil books and rare documents.
Kjell Ludvik Kvavik, a senior Norwegian official, had a penchant for removing maps and other pages from rare books and he was noticed in January 1983 by a young college student. The student, Barbro Andenaes, reported the actions of the senior official to the superintendent of the reading room and then reported them to the head librarian of the university library in Oslo. Hesitant to make the accusation against Kvavik public because it would greatly harm his career, even if it was proven to be false, the media did not divulge his name until his house was searched by police. The authorities seized 470 maps and prints as well as 112 books that Kvavik had illegally obtained. While this may not have been the large-scale, violent demonstration which usually occurs during wars, Kvavik's disregard for libraries and books shows that the destruction of books on any scale can affect an entire country. Here, a senior official in the Norwegian government was disgraced and the University Library was only refunded for a small portion of the costs which it had incurred from the loss and destruction of rare materials and the security changes that had to be made as a result of it. In this case, the lure of personal profit and the desire to enhance one's own collection were the causes of the defacement of rare books and maps. While the main goal was not destruction for destruction's sake, the resulting damage to the ephemera still carries weight within the library community.
In 1984, Amsterdam's South African Institute was infiltrated by an organized group which was bent on drawing attention to the inequality of apartheid. Well-organized and assuring patrons of the library that no harm would come to them, group members systematically smashed microfiche machines and threw books into the nearby waterway. Indiscriminate with regard to the content which was being destroyed, shelf after shelf was cleared of its contents until the group left. Staff members fished books from the water in hopes of salvaging the rare editions of Travel literature, travel books, documents about the Boer Wars, and contemporary materials which were both for and against apartheid. Many of these materials were destroyed by oil, ink, and paint that the anti-apartheid demonstrators had flung around the library. The world was outraged by the loss of knowledge that these demonstrators had caused, and instead of supporting their cause and drawing people's attention to the issue of apartheid, the international community denounced their actions at Amsterdam's South African Institute. Some of the demonstrators came forward and sought to justify their actions by accusing the institute of being pro-apartheid and claiming that nothing was being done to change the status quo in South Africa.
21st century
The advent of the digital age has resulted in the cataloguing of an immense collection of written works, exclusively or primarily in digital form. The intentional deletion or removal of these works has often been referred to as a new form of book burning. For example, Amazon, the world's largest online marketplace, has increasingly banned the sale of controversial books. An article in ''The New York Times'' reported that "Booksellers that sell on Amazon say the retailer has no coherent philosophy about what it decides to prohibit, and seems largely guided by public complaints.". A biblioclastic incident occurred in Mullumbimby, New South Wales, Australia in 2009. Reported as "just like the ritual burning of books in Nazi Germany", a book-burning ceremony was held by students of the "socially harmful cult" Universal Medicine, an Alice Bailey#Esoteric healing, esoteric healing business which was owned by Serge Benhayon. Students were invited to throw their books onto the pyre. Most of the volumes were on Chinese medicine, kinesiology, acupuncture, homeopathy and other alternative healing modalities, all of which Benhayon has decreed evil or "prana". Russian nationalists burned Ukrainian history books in Crimea in 2010. Prorussian demonstrators burned books in Eastern Ukraine, 2014. After the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, failed 2016 Turkish coup d'etat, the Turkish government burned 301,878 books deemed related to the coup or its alleged leader, Fethullah Gülen, including 18 textbooks with the word "Pennsylvania" in them. Photos of books being burned became a viral sensation on the internet once they were taken by a website named Kronos27. In 2019, the French language in Ontario, French-language Conseil scolaire catholique Providence, Providence Catholic School Board in southwestern Ontario held a 'flame purification' ceremony and burned around thirty recently banned children's books. The ashes were used as fertilizer to plant trees and according to the participants the action was 'to turn a negative to a positive'. The books included The Adventures of Tintin, Tintin and Asterix and were deemed harmful to Indigenous people. Since the introduction of the controversial Hong Kong national security law, national security law in 2020, multiple counts of biblioclasm have been reported. Shortly after the introduction of the new law, books written by prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy figures, including Joshua Wong and Tanya Chan, have been removed from Hong Kong Public Libraries, public libraries. In 2021, 29 previously available titles about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Tiananmen Massacre are completely removed from the public libraries, whilst 94 of the remaining 120 titles are only available on request. In 2022, reported by local media, three secondary schools removed more than 400 books since June 2021. Unlike the two book burning happened in the public libraries, the schools were not given any concrete criteria but the schools had to perform the self-censorship themselves. Titles that were removed included those related to the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, 2019-2020 Hong Kong protests, Tiananmen Massacre and jailed activists. In the same year, the Hong Kong government also refused to provide a list of books that have been removed from the public libraries. In February of 2021 some religious communities in the United States have started holding book burning ceremonies to garner attention and publicly denounce heretical beliefs. In Tennessee pastor Greg Locke has held sermons over the incineration of devil and witchcraft worshiping books like Harry Potter and Twilight. This trend of calling for the burning of books one's ideology conflicts with has continued into the political sphere. Two members of a Pennsylvania school board Rabih Abuismail, and Kirk Twigg, have condoned the burning of recently banned books to keep their ideas out of the minds of the public.Sikh book burning
In the Sikh religion, any copies of their sacred book, Guru Granth Sahib, which are too badly damaged to be used, and any printer's waste which bears any of its text, are cremated. This ritual is called an ''Agan Bhet'', and it is similar to the ritual which is performed when a deceased Sikh is cremated.Book burnings in popular culture
* In Don Quixote#Destruction of Don Quixote's library (Chapters 6–7), chapters 6 and 7 of the first part of ''Don Quixote'', his friends examine his library, full with chivalry romances and other books, and decide to burn most of them and seal the room. The comments of the priest allow Miguel de Cervantes, author Cervantes to praise or condemn the books.
*In his 1821 play, ''Almansor'', the German writer Heinrich Heine – referring to the burning of the Muslim holy book, the Qur'an, during the Spanish Inquisition – wrote, "Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn people." ("''Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.''") Over a century later, Heine's own books were among the thousands of List of book-burning incidents#Jewish, anti-Nazi and "degenerate" books (by the Nazis), volumes that were torched by the Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
in Berlin's Bebelplatz, Opernplatz, even while his poem "Die Lorelei" continued to be printed in German schoolbooks as "by an unknown author".
* Book burning played a small part in Jules Verne's 1864 ''Journey to the Center of the Earth''. After Professor Lidenbrock deciphers a writing of Arne Saknussem and attempts to recreate his purported subterranean journey, his nephew Axel protests that they should study more of his works before making any rash decisions. Professor Lidenbrock explains that this is impossible: Saknussem was out of favor in his native country, whose leaders ordered all of his writings burned after his death.
* In Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel ''Fahrenheit 451,'' about a culture which has outlawed books due to its disdain for learning, books are burned along with the houses they are hidden in.
See also
* Banned books * Library fires * List of book-burning incidents *Maya codices
Maya codices (singular ''codex'') are folding books written by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in Maya hieroglyphic script on Mesoamerican bark paper. The folding books are the products of professional scribes working under the patronage of ...
* Bonfire of the vanities
* Bibliophobia
Further reading
* * Civallero, Edgardo.When Memory Turns into Ashes... Memoricide During the XX Century
''
DOI
* Knuth, Rebecca (2006). ''Burning Books and Leveling Libraries: Extremist violence and Cultural Destruction''. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. * Knuth, Rebecca. ''Libricide : the regime-sponsored destruction of books and libraries in the twentieth century''. * Ovenden, Richard ''Burning the Books''. London: John Murray * Polastron, Lucien X. 2007. ''Books on Fire: The Destruction of Libraries throughout History.'' Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions.
The Bosnian Manuscript Ingathering Project
– A call for Bosnian manuscripts ingathering * Polastron, Lucien X. (2007) ''Libros en Llamas: historia de la interminable destrucción de bibliotecas''. Libraria,
* Polastron, Lucien X. ''Books on fire: the destruction of libraries throughout history''. * Raven, James. (2004). ''Lost Libraries: The Destruction of Great Book Collections Since Antiquity.'' Palgrave Macmillan Limited. * UNESCO
Lost Memory – Libraries and archives destroyed in the twentieth century
Books on Fire: The Destruction of Libraries Throughout History
Lucien Xavier Polastron. Translated by John E Graham. Inner Traditions. . .
References
External links
"On Book Burnings and Book Burners: Reflections on the Power (and Powerlessness) of Ideas"
by Hans J. Hillerbrand
"Burning books"
by Haig A. Bosmajian
"Bannings and burnings in history"
– Book and Periodical Council (Canada)
by Daniel Schwartz, CBC News. Updated 10 September 2010. {{DEFAULTSORT:Book Burning Book burnings, Events relating to freedom of expression Book censorship History of books Historical negationism Freedom of expression Protest tactics Anti-intellectualism