A big world in little books...

Tucked away down a sloping alley in the old quarter of Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, is one of the city’s best-kept secrets.

The Museum of Miniature Books is recognised by the Guinness World Records as the largest collection of miniature books in the world. Coincidentally, it was on World Book Day (April 23) that I strolled into this museum after a visit to the nearby Shirvanshah Palace.

Before I began my exploration of this unique treasury of minuscule books, I met Zarifa Salakhova, curator and founder of the museum, who was seated in a corner, poring over some papers. “Thank you for coming, it is a special day, World Book Day, you know,” she smiled, expressing regret that she lacks fluency in English. She told the museum manager to show me around.

Founded in April 2002, the museum has a collection of some 8,000 miniature books from over 75 countries, neatly displayed in glass cabinets and categorised under specific titles such as Azerbaijan, Russian Classics, Western Classics, Religious Books, Rare Books, Russian History, America, Europe, China, Central Asia, Cinema, etc.

The manager leads me to a cabinet and points at the oldest book in the museum, a miniature copy of the Holy Quran dating back to the 17th century. She also draws my attention to some old editions of the Quran and prayer books of the 19th century.

A tourist seeks the manager’s help, so I explore on my own, peering at books about arts, culture, cities, countries of the world, etc. I spotted ‘The History of England’, published in 1815 in London and a tiny set of ‘One Thousand and One Nights’.

I look for the cabinet featuring Russian books and find some of my favourite authors — Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Maxim Gorki. Pushkin’s novel in verse, ‘Eugene Onegin’, was prominently displayed alongside several of his books.  

Among the special collections printed during the Soviet Union era are miniatures of the USSR Constitution as well as Soviet leaders Stalin and Lenin.

The manager returns and leads me to a cabinet and proudly points to the four microbooks, rare ones in the collection. They are published by Toppan Publishing House, Tokyo. One is in a 0.75x0.75 mm format, while three are in the 2x2 format. There are also five microbooks from German publishers.

The tiniest exhibits are Japanese books measuring just 2x2 mm that can be read only with a magnifying glass that’s kept next to those books.

It was fascinating to see the entire works of Shakespeare (40 volumes) published in 1841, as well as books by Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, Edgar Allan Poe, and Arthur Conan Doyle.  Alongside these is a miniature book comprising songs of the rock band ‘Beatles’. Two Shri Hanuman Chalisas and a Bhagavad Gita are the three Indian books displayed alongside some religious miniature books. Remarkably, there was a translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s love poems.

Miniatures among sports books include Ode to Sports by Pierre de Coubertin, eight volumes of Olympic Games 1952-80, Olympiad 1984, Chess Games of Anatoly Karpov and some others.

In all, there are 40 glass cabinets in the museum, filled with books.

It was in 1982 while in Moscow that Salakhova fell for a miniature version of Krylov’s Fables (1835), paying 23 Roubles. When she visited the studio to pick up the book, she was bowled over by the collection there and decided to collect miniature books.

“That’s how it began; over the years, wherever I have travelled, I visited antiquarian book stores and bought them. Many people have also contributed such books because they know I collect them,” smiles the nonagenarian who is a passionate collector.

They include her family members, book lovers and even royalty. The Princess of Thailand donated 38 books to the Museum in 2017.

A businessman from Venezuela donated a couple of books. Since the museum opened, it has attracted numerous book lovers, many of whom have spent long hours admiring the books and even taking notes and photographs.

The Chinese ambassador to Azerbaijan has noted in 2004 in the comments book: “In little books I saw a big world and the wide human soul.”

That speaks volumes!