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2. The Taeschner collection

In December 1970, the University Library registered a collection of 131 manuscripts, mostly with texts in Turkish, and numbered 1 to 143 stamped in gold on the backing - missing were the numbers 4, 6, 94-5, and 111-8 - from the collection of the German orientalist Franz Gustav Taeschner (1888 or 1896 - 1967). Also part of the collection are ten hefty folders with photographs, mostly of manuscript texts, and some personal papers (Cod.Or. 12.583, described in Chapter 3; two boxes with photographs of two Istanbul library handlisted catalogues are found in Cod.Or. 12.856-7), as well as two scrolls with Arabic texts (Codices Or. 12.584-5). Taeschner studied Oriental languages and literatures in Bonn, Berlin, Munich, Erlangen, and Kiel, where he studied under Georg Jacob, one of whose manuscripts he later acquired (Cod.Or. 12.429). He obtained his doctorate in 1912 and was appointed (ausserordentlich) professor of Oriental languages at Münster University in 1929, but only obtained tenure as full Ordinarius in 1942. Having become a member of the Nazi Party in May 1933, he was temporarily dismissed in 1945. He retired in 1956. Taeschner was a prolific writer, editor of texts and translator, and was fluent in all three Islamic languages, Arabic, Persian and Turkish. He travelled extensively in the Middle East. He first visited Istanbul from September 1912 to early 1913, but a more thorough experience of the Orient doubtless came with the First World War, when he served as dragoman for Turkish in Palestine. He was captured by, probably, the British and held as a prisoner-of-war for more than a year before he was able to return to Germany at the end of 1919. From inscriptions in his manuscripts and personal papers, we know about further visits to Istanbul in 1924, 1925, 1927 and 1930-1, when he also visited Cairo and Jerusalem. Taeschner seems to have been a man of considerable wealth and was able to bring together an impressive collection of books and manuscripts through the years, as well as a great number of expensive photographs. Prices are only rarely mentioned: a magificently- produced translation of a chapter from Ibn al-‘Arabfs Futühat al-Makkfya cost him two and a half piastres (kurus) in 1912 (Or. 12.345); a 16th-century copy of Seybï’s Husrev ii Sirin was acquired for 16 lira (RM 2.25, in 1924, Or. 12.382); and a 17th-century collection of works on futuwwa, partly unique, cost him RM 250 (in 1929, Or. 12.427). The collection finally (in 1933 - no later acquisitions are documented) comprised 104 manuscripts with Turkish texts - one, exceptionally, in Azeri Turkish (Cod.Or. 12.398) -; one with a mixed Persian- Turkish content (Cod.Or. 12.448); sixteen with Arabic; and nine with Persian texts. As far as we can tell - about half of all items contain notes on their provenance - 41 Turkish manuscripts were acquired from the well-known Istanbul bookseller Rtza Nasrullah Tebrïzï, who had a shop at the adalar iskelesi, "Islands’ Quay", at Sirkeci, but also at the bookmarket near Bayezid Square, in 1912-3,