Book excerpt: Founded in 1632, the library of the Kiev Mohyla Academy went up in flames in 1780. Encompassing predominantly humanist, scholastic and homiletic titles in Latin yet placed in a heartland of Eastern Orthodox territories, the library was something of an anomaly for its time, offering East Slavic intellectuals a comprehensive introduction to Western printed matter. Those books brought along with them not only a new pattern of knowledge, but also an awareness of the diversity and multiplicity of views which the educated could hold.