I got this message today from Buba Kudava, the director of the National Centre of Manuscripts (ეროვნული ცენტრის დირექტორი) in Tbilisi, so I thought I might share:

Georgian Manuscript is an important part of the world’s cultural heritage. It represents the major phases of the evolution of the Georgian culture – development of the Georgian alphabet, written language, and philosophical, literary, legal and scientific thought, cultural contacts of the Georgian people with the outside world…

Exceptional monuments of the Georgian history and culture – handwritten books, historical documents, archives of the writers, statesmen and scholars, old printed editions are preserved in the Fonds of the National Centre of Manuscripts. Another part of the Centre’s treasury – ancient documents, manuscripts and old printed books in Greek, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Hebrew, Armenian, Slavic, Latin and other languages – is also of
great interest for the academic circles.

The Fonds of the National Centre of Manuscripts attract Georgian and foreign scholars with their variety and antiquity. These Fonds gave birth to many interesting ideas, new interpretations, important discoveries.

Together with the study and popularization of the handwritten heritage, the National Centre has another priority – protection of this treasury: preservation, conservation and restoration, cataloguing and description, digitalization, creation of the information database of the manuscripts.

The First International Symposium “Georgian Manuscript” was held in 2009 in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the National Centre of Manuscripts. At that time it was decided that this type of scholarly forum must be organized on a regular basis once in a few years.

The aim of the current Symposium is to offer an opportunity to scholars who study Georgian and other language manuscripts, to present the results of their work in the different spheres of research. Although the title of the Symposium indicates that the forum will be mostly focused on Georgian handwritten heritage, studies of manuscripts in other languages will be also highly welcomed.