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Thiermanns Bible1 Name: Thiermann (Tīrmanis)
| There were problems in the USSR with the library shelves that
were overfilled with regularly printed books. The library stocks were periodically
revised, and books that were found to be worked out or were not needed anymore
were excluded out of the library stock and transported to waste paper factories.
Similar problems still remain - recently the National library excluded out
of its stock more than 1 million, as they say - units. What was the fate
of these units, I do not know.
Some 30 years ago my former colleague Aleksander Ždanok happened to be near a truck loaded with the books from the State (now National) library stock ready for transport them for recycling. He took the risk and alienated a book out of the truck. This was a Bible in German. Maybe the State library had 2 Bibles in German, maybe it was decided not to have German Bibles at all. By the way, the Bible in Latvian was available there during the Soviet time. Aleksander needed not this Bible. Firstly, he was a nonbeliever and, secondly, he could not read German. He just thought that the Holy Bible should not be recycled. From the legal point of view, his deed was a subject of criminal prosecution, because even in this truck the books remained to be the state property. Of course, the harm to the state was not great enough to have real consequences even in the case the "crime" would be revealed. Aleksander knew that the book should be interesting for me and presented it to me. The book is intentionally damaged rather seriously. This was the strict rule to damage the written off inventory, in order nobody had an idea of appropriating them. So the first 50 pages of this Bible were partially torn out, it is possible to read them, however, because no fragments are lacking, except the title-page that lacks completely, because it hold the stamp of the library, and the rules insisted that such pages should be torn out. However on the flying-leaf an inscription (in German) of the first owner remained:
On the same page the contents of the Bible is copied by hand and it seems that this was done at the same time as the name was written. I do not understand why one should copy the contents that was printed 2 pages further. Some minor written remarks in the main text could be found that show that the owner used the book seriously. I have no proven information on the owner - Th. Thiermann and even can not definitely say where he lived, because Birkenruh was the name of a city part of Cēsis [Wenden] and also a place near Riga. But I have some ideas concerning him. In the Album Academicum that lists all students of Riga Politechnicum I found Tirman Fjodor, born in Vidzeme [Livland] province on August 26, 1871, graduated from the Gymnasium in Birkenruh, studied agriculture in Riga Polytechnicum 1892-1893. It is quite possible, he was the owner of the Bible; and he used the Book while attending the well known German gymnasium in Birkenruh near Cēsis. The list in the Album is compiled in Russian, so the name Theodor quite easily could be transformed to Fjodor.
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