“Rereading a book is the cornerstone of education,” said Goethe. Today marks the birthday of the great German poet, writer, prose writer, playwright, and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. This year, the poet turns 275. A special place in Goethe’s work is occupied by the tragedy “Faust”—a masterpiece of German poetry on which the poet worked for more than 60 years. The brilliant representative of German Romanticism wrote about 1,600 poems. As early as 1830, the first of his poems was translated into Armenian by Khachatur Abovyan. Goethe’s poem “Rose” was translated by Hovhannes Tumanyan, with music composed by Romanos Melikyan.

The rich collection of Goethe’s books in the National Library of Armenia includes the most famous and rarest editions: German ten-volume sets published in Leipzig and Stuttgart in 1875 and 1884, German 20, 40, and 50-volume sets, “Faust” translated by Boris Pasternak, the two-volume correspondence between Goethe and Schiller, “Faust,” “Egmont,” and “Werther.” Various Armenian translations were published in Cairo, Tiflis, Beirut, Yerevan, Vagharshapat, and other locations. The National Library offers the best examples of Goethe’s literary heritage: numerous Armenian translations published in different eras and countries, individual editions in English, Russian, French, and other languages. Many of Goethe’s rare books are kept in the library’s rare book department, in the collections of the Lazarev Seminary, and in the collections of Arghutyan-Yerkainabazuk, Leo, and others. Come to the National Library to read, remember, and reread the famous and lesser-known works of the great Goethe.