In 2010, the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of Hungary was admitted to be a member of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB). They marked their admittance with a promise to be active within the community, and they took their promise very seriously! Thus marked the beginning of a plan to hold the ILAB Congress in Budapest – a grand affair with lectures, field trips to see magnificent books and libraries, dinners with respected members of the antiquarian book world, and a book fair. As Ádám Bősze, President of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of Hungary put it, he felt that Hungary “had an important part to play in saving and reviving our often ‘endangered’ profession” – and boy did they ever. For the second time our fearless leader Vic Zoschak Jr. attended the Congress, and reports back!
Regrets have been few the 22 years I’ve been an ABAA member, but I confess, I do have one… to have waited until 2014 to attend my first biennial ILAB Congress, which was held in Paris that year. This year, the Hungarian Association played host, with the 2016 42nd ILAB Congress held in Budapest, September 20th through the 23rd. The experience was nothing short of awesome.
The beautiful parliament building that sits along the Danube River!
To start, I found Budapest to be one of the most picturesque cities I’ve ever had the pleasure to visit. And the Congress program, as arranged by Adam Bosze, President of the Hungarian Booksellers’ Association (MAE), was quite absorbing & engaging… of course we went to libraries, and saw wonderful books [e.g., the first book to feature Count Dracula, a believed unique copy, seen at the National Széchényi Library].
This the early (and quite possibly unique) Dracula title that so impressed Vic!
I think everyone reading this blog will agree that books are fun, but that’s not the underlying raison d’être of the Congress… it’s more about meeting colleagues from around the world, and for a few days, sharing experiences while getting to know each other better under the common roof of bibliophily.
Yum, yum… a typical Hungarian meal!
This Congress achieved that end admirably… dinner at the Ankert, a ‘ruin pub’ [think ‘bombed-out building’ decor]; lunch at a traditional Hungarian cafe, Café Central [loved the local beer, Dreher]; a tour of the Buda Castle district [very much fitting my picturesque comment above]; Lazar Equestrian Park; a sobering tour of the ‘House of Terror’ [a memorial to Hungary’s victims during the fascist & communist regimes]; a lovely lunch cruise on the Danube; and last, but certainly not least, the concluding Farewell Dinner at the nicely appointed Kempinski Hotel Corvinus.
The Congress dinner.
While the dinner concluded the Congress, it did not conclude the trip… Adam also arranged the very first Hungarian International Antiquarian Book Fair which began Friday September 23rd. Though modest in scope [~ 25 exhibitors], it was monumental in concept. While I wasn’t fortunate enough to find anything that fit my inventory profile, I noted many others more lucky than I. I hope it was a resounding success for all concerned.
So I conclude this short missive by encouraging my fellow ILAB members who have not yet attended an ILAB Congress to consider doing so… truly, they are an experience not to be missed. See you in 2018?
