Chopin manuscripts to be included on UNESCO heritage list

Four Chopin manuscripts from the collection of Poland's Jagiellonian Library are to be included on the National List of the UNESCO 'Memory of the World' Programme, the library has announced.

"The... musical autographs constitute an editorial base and valuable research material," the Jagiellonian Library commented. "They document the musical activity of Frederyk Chopin, the greatest Polish composer and one of the most outstanding composers in the history of music."

The Polish committee of the UNESCO programme, headed by State Archives director Dr Pawel Pietrzyk, on which sit representatives of the biggest Polish libraries, archives and academic circles, chooses items for the Polish List of the UNESCO Programme every year.

Items of fundamental importance for national history, culture and identity from Polish archives, libraries and museums to be added to the list will be officially announced on June 10 at Warsaw's Belweder Palace.

The 'Memory of the World' Programme and its Polish List created in 2014, form an integral part of the UNESCO 'Memory of the world' Science and Culture Programme initiated in 1992. Its aim is to preserve a comprehensive documentary heritage of humanity, primarily protecting them, spreading knowledge about them and creating conditions to make them as available as possible to society.

The global list contains 17 heritage documentary items provided by Poland.