Part 2. Collections with Separate Groups of Shelf Marks

The Müller Collection
The collection was purchased in 1901 by F.W.K. Müller (1863-1930) in Peking. In Krakow there are today 188 items from this collection including, presumably, parts of the folio-sized Peking Tripitaka which originally comprised 8,016 folding books. 

F.W.K Müller had studied Theology, before he turned to Oriental and East Asian Cultures and Languages, especially the Arabic, Chinese and Syrian languages. Between 1887 and 1928, Müller worked at the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, firstly, as research associate and, since 1906, as Director of the East Asia Department. Müller earned major credits when he deciphered the - mainly Middle Persian - manuscript fragments which had been salvaged during the Turfan expeditions (1902-1914), and for his discovery of Manichaean writing among these texts. 

The Moellendorf Collection
The collection of Paul Georg von Moellendorff (1847-1901) contains mainly Manchurian literature. It supposedly entered the Staatsbibliothek in 1931. In the course of the evacuations during the Second World War, the collection had been allocated to the three locations of Banz, Beuron und Fürstenstein. Today, 39 items of this collection are in Krakow. They mostly contain works on the Manchurian language and literature, as well as translations of Chinese works into the Manchurian language.

Von Moellendorff had studied Law, Linguistics and Oriental Studies. In 1869, he accepted an offer to work under Sir Robert Hart (1835-1911) in China’s Imperial Maritime Custom Service. Von Moellendorff stayed until 1874, when he entered the Consular Service of the German Foreign Office in China. In this capacity, he was active in Canton, Peking, Tianjin and Shanghai. Upon the recommendation of Li Hongzhang 李鴻章 (1823-1901), he went to Korea in 1882 where he worked as Advisor to the Foreign Ministry and, a year later, he became Vice-Minister. He stayed for three years, when, due to external circumstances, he returned to China and re-entered the Chinese Maritime Custom Service. Von Moellendorf died in 1901 in Ningbo.

The Pander Collection
The Pander collection encompassed, under A. 370 prints and manuscripts of Tibetan origin, under B. 315 prints and manuscripts from Peking, under C. 40 prints produced by Imperial command – the latter group containing texts in Tibetan, Mongolian, Chinese and, Manchurian. D. 37 volumes in Kandjur; E. 18 Mongolian manuscripts and prints as well as F. 68 Chinese prints and manuscripts. The Pander Collection was relocated during the Second World War to Fürstenstein (today’s Ksiaz) and transferred from there to Grüssau (present-day Krzeszów). In Krakow today there are about 300 titles of the collection.

Eugen Pander (1854-1894[?]) was Professor of National Economics at Tongwenguan同文館 College in Peking since 1881. He was a collector of Lamaist books and works of art. While the latter were acquired by the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, the books passed into ownership of the Royal Library and were accessioned in Berlin in 1889.

The Hirth Collection
According to the list produced by Friedrich Hirth (1845-1927), the collection contained 175 numbers (11 for manuscripts, 164 for prints). Just as the collection of Von Moellendorff, the Hirth Collection had been allocated to the three locations of Banz, Beuron und Fürstenstein during the war. In Krakow today there are extant 149 numbers.

Friedrich Hirth had originally studied Classical Philology in Leipzig, Berlin and Greifswald, before in 1869 he turned to the study of the Chinese language, encouraged by the recruitments of Sir Robert Hart, the organizer of the Chinese Custom Service. Just a year later, he assumed office as Customs Assistant in Canton, where he stayed for five years, studying, among others, the local Cantonese language.

In 1875 Hirth was transferred to Amoy as Assistant and later, Head, of the local Custom Office. From 1877 to 1888, he was active in the Statistical Bureau of the Custom Office in Shanghai. At all these different postings in China, Hirth cultivated his contact to and exchange with scholars. During his last Shanghai years, he was elected President of the local China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. He himself characterized his library as one „mainly serving the sinological problems of the time.“ In 1890, when Hirth returned to China after a longer stay in Germany, it was acquired by the Royal Library.