Chagatai Manuscripts at the State Library Berlin

Aysima Mirsultan

Chagatai Manuscripts at the State Library Berlin

(55th Meeting, 2012)

The Oriental Department of the State Library Berlin (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin) houses a big number of Oriental and Far Eastern manuscripts. Among them is a set of 190 manuscripts in the Chagatai language which was widely spread in Central Asia from the fifteenth century until the beginning of the twentieth. The paper presents the story of the beginnings and development of the Chagatai collection in Berlin which has attracted relatively little attention so far. These manuscripts are now being digitalized. The paper will give short information about the present process which is taking place in the library.

Keywords: State Library Berlin, Chagatai manuscripts, Chagatai language, digitization