On this page, you can explore the catalog of available transcriptions of the Joseph Mathia Svoboda Diaries. To navigate this page, select the diary you want to view under “Explore Other Diaries.” To access a diary, click on either the book cover image or the ‘View Diary’ button. In order to search for a diary using the number or keyword, click on the search bar in the upper right corner to search.

Within the diary viewer, you can scroll on the left to advance the transcription and scroll on the right to advance the original diary images if you are ascy. In many of the diaries, there are marginal notes in Arabic written in ink by the Baghdad historian Yaqub Serkis sometime after he received them from Alexander Svoboda, circa late 1920s. Because these notes are a later addition extrinsic to Joseph Mathia Svoboda’s writings, we have gathered them in an appendix where they are listed under unique identifiers–for example [A47_006_09:001]–recording the diary number, place in the diary, and numerical order. For some of the diaries, we have prepared minimal notes and glosses as well as extensive word lists. In many of the diary transcriptions, there are live links to the original diary pages invoked by clicking on the page numbers on the display on the left. Where links are not provided, one may refer to the original diary images in ContentDM. In several of the diaries, pockets in the back covers hold a variety of memorabilia including newspaper clippings, pictures, and souvenirs. Some of the textual material has been transcribed and is visible in the HTML display. This was not done consistently but the contents of the pockets are displayed in the images in ContentDM.