Tughra from Turkish treaty, photo from press materials
Treaties between neighbours with differing traditions and religions are considered part of the Memory of the World, as are library collections that impacted the restoration of Poland’s independence after over 120 years of partitions
UNESCO’s Memory of the World register expands with the addition of two Polish items: peace treaties between the Kingdom of Poland and the Ottoman Empire, and collections at the Polish Library and the Adam Mickiewicz Museum in Paris. They were added to the Memory list, among the 54 items approved at the 11th Meeting of the International Advisory Committee in mid June 2013 in the Republic of Korea.
"An example of mutual tolerance and universal values in international relations", as the UNESCO website states, the peace treaties between the Kingdom of Poland and the Ottoman Empire date from the mid-15th century to late 18th century. The Turkish section of the Royal Archives of Warsaw includes some 1,500 documents from a period of over 300 years.
"A Library that has no equal in the world", the UNESCO adds,
The Polish Library, founded in Paris in the 1830s by political emigres, is an example of solidarity and collaboration among international intellectual elites and had a profound impact on the preservation of national identity of Poles and the restoration of independence of Poland after over 120 years of partitions.
photo Danuta Matloch/MKiDN
With 14 Polish items on a Register that now totals to 299 items, Poland is third among the countries with the largest number of selections. Notable among the Polish items are the Copernicus autography, De revolutionibus libri sex, circa 1520 - the most important treatise found in the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków - the masterworks of Chopin conserved by the Fryderyk Chopin Society and the National Library, and the 21 demands made by the Strike Committee in August 1980 in Gdansk, which led to the creation of Solidarity, the first free trade union within the communist bloc.
photo from press materials
UNESCO established the Memory of the World Programme in 1992. The Memory of the World Register, in some ways the most publicly visible aspect of the programme, was founded in 1995. The programme aims to protect and grant access to the world’s documentary heritage.
Editor: Marta Jazowska 02.07.2013
Sources: culture.pl, UNESCO website, news.pl