Amy Reid I Amstreaming

In the interpretation of marginal notes

The study marks or handwritten marginal notes on printed books has been used primarily in the context of literary history or the history of the book for the modern era ( sixteenth-eighteenth centuries). I give some references at the end of this post for those interested.

During my various trips to Albania, I assembled a small collection of books of religious propaganda dating from the communist era to study the policy of atheism in the country by the regime of Enver Hoxha. Some seem have more experience than others: binding worn, damaged cover or pages and some handwritten notes of previous readers. Like the historians of the book, I asked myself if these marks left by readers could reflect an attitude toward the Party's propaganda, it is of interest, support or rejection. The vast majority does not actually much to the researcher.

One book in particular caught my attention. Written by Hulusi Hako, a leading proponent of atheism in Albania (at the time of Enver Hoxha and even now), it's called "Akuzojmë Fene "(We acknowledge the religion"). My copy was printed in 1968. Republished many times, this is one of the basic works of the Albanian anti-religious propaganda. The coverage is fairly damaged. On the back of the book, partially torn, it rewrote the title and author name in marker. A reading of the manuscript markings, we can identify three owners / players: "MB" (I give here only the initials), "ML" and a third anonymous. The first two are of Albanian Women. The latter is translated into English and some English passages margin. ML has left his name and some doodles vaguely representative flowers (but this could be merely mechanical drawings). Cons MB has made some brief comments that might interest the historian.

Here you can see the page in question: it has two pictures of Pope Paul VI, one with U.S. President Johnson (symbol of capitalism in the eyes of the communist countries) and the other with a Soviet ambassador (the Albania broke with the USSR in 1961). At the top of the page, MB wrote "Turpi me i madh" ("The greatest shame"). Faced with this sentence, the historian has a choice between two interpretations: the reader nods propaganda to show the complicity of the pope with Albania's Communist enemies or, rather, it denies the accusations, describing them as shameful. Both interpretations are interesting, but terribly inconsistent and it is difficult to determine. Another hand-written in the margins of the page might suggest the first solution: the word "Dad" is crossed out. But here we are at the limit of over-interpretation. One can only conclude that the reader MB reacted to this page during his reading, that the message has not been left unmoved. But to know which side to take its sensitivity should be other items that are no longer available the researcher who must resign himself to the ambiguity of this source.

Some references on the study of handwritten marks and marginal notes:

- "The book annotated " document published in the Journal of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France , No. 2, June 1999.

- "The corpus marginal notes," special issue of the Journal Voltaire No. 3, 2003.

- Damien Blanchard, "An Archaeology of the book. The handwritten marks as a source of history Benedictine libraries in the Old Regime ", in The monks and their books in modern times , dir. Dompnier B. and MH-Froeschl Chopard, Clermont-Ferrand, Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal, 2000 p. 195-211.