CONFERENCEThe Library of the University holds a valuable collection of books published by “Zelta Ābele” (“Golden Apple-tree”), the publishing house of Miķelis Goppers. Mikelis Goppers was born on June 13, 1908, into the family of General Kārlis Goppers, he attended Riga City Gymnasium No.1 and then studied at the Faculty of Economics and Law of the University of Latvia.
In 1935 M. Goppers, a great devotee of books, founded a publishing house and gave it a symbolic name from the Latvian folklore - “Golden Apple-tree”. The main idea was to publish books of a high quality design and polygraphy. The creator of the publisher’s logo was Voldemārs Krastiņš (1908-1960), a landscape painter and a master of etching and one of the first illustrators of the publishing house. For the work at his publishing house M. Gopper assembled a circle of the brightest writers, translators, painters and etchers of the time. “Zelta Ābele” (“Golden Apple-tree”) published classic Latvian literature, translations, illustrated monographs on the history of Latvia and Latvian culture and also recollections..
To implement the concept of tailoring book designs according to their content, Goppers involved eminent Latvian artists of art design. They were talented etching masters, e.g., Oskars Norītis (1909–1942), Jānis Plēpis (1909–1947), Rihards Zariņš (1869–1939), Edgars Slavietis (1905–1986). Books were illustrated by the painter Ludolfs Liberts (1895–1959) and sculptor Teodors Zaļkalns (1876–1972). Largely thanks to the publishing activities of M. Goppers, Latvian books of art of the second half of the thirties can be considered as an independent genre.
None of the books from this publishing house were the same as another, as the books had an individual high-quality polygraphic design and the number of copies printed was small, only 400 to 3000. These small size books had a so-called pocket-size format and the smaller of them were only 5,5 x 8,8 cm. Some individual books, printed on paper with watermarks or handmade paper, were numbered.
This famous publishing house was closed down in 1944 when M. Goppers left for Stockholm. In exile, the business of the publishing house was resumed in 1945 and continued until 1985. During all of the lifetime of “Zelta Ābele”, both in Latvia and Sweden, the founder followed his constant taste in style to reach a polygraphic excellence with every book. M. Goppers passed away in Stockholm on 5 November 1996.
The collection of the publishing house “Zelta Ābele” includes books published in Latvia and Sweden in various languages. Over the years the collection has developed from miscellaneous sources: from the Library stock of UL, from the holdings of the possessed libraries and organizations, and also donations. Books were donated by the Student Corporation Group in Sydney, the Bradford Latvian Library of the Latvian Society in Great Britain, etc. There are also books from private collections with ex-libris, which makes these books even more interesting.
Two books by Anšlavs Eglītis, “Ģīmetne” and “Par purna tiesu”, are enriched by Ruta Gaile’s bookmarks, made by book illustrator and exlibris master Alexey Yupatov (1911-1975) who attained an honorary diploma at the Bookmark International Exhibition in Los Angeles in 1936. About two hundred of the artist’s exlibris are possessed by the Latvian National Museum of Art. Richly illustrated edition of “Das Lettische Buch” (1942) contains exlibris from the private library of the linguist and cultural historian, officer of the Order of the Three Stars Konstantīns Karulis and his spouse, linguist Liene Roze. The copies of “Atraitnes dēls” by Vilis Plūdonis and “Straumēni” by Edvarts Virza, once possessed by the translator of children books Zigrīda Plaka, are adorned with a magnificent bookmark, which is an original work by the famous cartoonist and illustrator Gunārs Vīndedzis.
The collection is displayed in the Union catalog www.biblioteka.lu.lv and available to anyone.
A list of the editions included in the collection is available here.
List of the collection "Zelta ābele"
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