George Sabo

Sabo was born in Orechova, Slovakia and immigrated to New York in July 1913.^[1] Sabo was inspired to become a book dealer as a child when his father took him to Julij Feldesi's bookstore.^[2] He became a naturalized American citizen in April 1926.^[1]

In 1936, Sabo began his work as a book dealer with the purchase of 18,000 Russian books.^[2] With John M. Constantinoff and Israel Perlstein, Sabo is considered to be "well-established in the historiography of the Russian antiquarian book in New York".^[3] One of his clients was Russian bibliophile Andrey Avinoff.^[4] Another important client was Paul M. Fekula, whose collection of Slavica was the largest assembled by an individual in the United States.^[5] Sabo also contributed Slavic books to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, helping the University develop the largest Slavic collection west of the Mississippi by the 1970s.^[6] In addition to his work as a book dealer, Sabo was also involved in the publication of Rusyn books and periodicals.^[7] Until the 1950s, Sabo's publishing house was one of the two largest sources of Rusyn-American literature.^[8] He also served as Secretary of the Supreme Tribunal of the Greek Catholic Union.^[2] Sabo later moved to Melbourne, Florida, where he continued his business under the name Slavic Books.^[9]

After his death, the majority of his 16,000 book collection was acquired by Sterling C. Evans Library at Texas A & M University.^[10] An additional 432 books from his collection were donated to Seton Hall University Library in 2012.^[11]