UNESCO UNESCO - Memory of the World - The treasures that record our history from 1700 BC to the present day

Introduction of the decimal metric system, 1790–1837

The Leprosy Archives of Bergen

The Vienna City Library Schubert collection

The masterpieces of Fryderyk Chopin

Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales)

General Archive of the Nation: Writings of The Liberator Simón Bolívar

The Søren Kierkegaard archives

Final document of the Congress of Vienna

Registry of Slaves of the British Caribbean 1817–1834

Csoma archive of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

The Bleek collection

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony no. 9, D minor, op. 125

Royal archives (1824–1897)

Catecismo corticu pa uso di catolicanan di Curaçao (first catechism written in Papiamentu language)

Manuscripts and correspondence of Hans Christian Andersen

Records of the Indian indentured labourers

Farquharson’s Journal

Epigraphic archives of Wat Pho

János Bolyai: Appendix, Scientiam Spatii absolute veram exhibens

Brahms collection

Memory of the Suez Canal

The Treaty of Waitangi

The Emperor’s collection

Alfred Nobel family archives

Colonial archives, Benin

The A.E. Nordenskiöld Collection

‘José Martí Pérez’ fonds

Archival documents of King Chulalongkorn’s transformation of Siam (1868–1910)

Arnold Schönberg estate

Jinnah papers (Quaid-i-Azam)

Dainu Skapis – Cabinet of folksongs

Silver men: West Indian labourers at the Panama Canal

Henrik Ibsen: A Doll’s House

Nikola Tesla’s Archive

Benz patent of 1886

Correspondence of the late Sultan of Kedah (1882–1943)

The Historical Collections (1889–1955) of St Petersburg Phonogram Archives

German records of the National Archives

Manifesto of the Queensland Labour Party to the people of Queensland

The 1893 Women’s Suffrage Petition

Early cylinder recordings of the world’s musical traditions (1893–1952)397

Lumière films

Fonds of the Afrique occidentale française (AOF)

Historic ethnographic recordings (1898–1951) at the British Library

The historical collections (1899–1950) of the Vienna Phonogrammarchiv

Letter journals of Hendrik Witbooi

Russian posters of the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries

Collection of Latin American photographs of the 19th century

Presidential papers of Manuel L. Quezon

Sakubei Yamamoto collection

The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906)

Desmet collection

Roald Amundsen’s South Pole Expedition (1910–1912)

Collection of Jewish musical folklore (1912–1947)

Original records of Carlos Gardel – Horacio Loriente collection (1913–1935)

Archives of the International Prisoners of War Agency, 1914–1923

The Battle of the Somme

Collection of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian émigré periodicals 1918–1945

League of Nations archives 1919–1946

Constantine collection

First flight across the South Atlantic Ocean in 1922

Kalman Tihanyi’s 1926 patent application ‘Radioskop’

Metropolis – Sicherungsstück Nr. 1: Negative of the restored and reconstructed version (2001)

C.L.R. James collection

Documentary heritage on the resistance and struggle for human rights in the Dominican Republic, 1930–1961

Sir William Arthur Lewis papers

Thor Heyerdahl archives

Ingmar Bergman archives

The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939), produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Warsaw Ghetto archives (Emanuel Ringelblum archives)

Astrid Lindgren archives

The Appeal of 18 June 1940

Diaries of Anne Frank

Archive of Warsaw Reconstruction Office

Archives of the Literary Institute in Paris (1946–2000)

Federal Archives fonds

Audiovisual documents of the international antinuclear movement ‘Nevada-Semipalatinsk’

UNRWA photo and film archives of Palestinian refugees

Los Olvidados

Nita Barrow collection

The Archives of Terror

John Marshall Ju/’hoan bushman film and video collection, 1950–2000

Traditional music sound archives

Neighbours, animated, directed and produced by Norman McLaren in 1952

José Maceda collection

Derek Walcott collection

The Family of Man

Christopher Okigbo collection

Eric Williams collection

The Mabo case manuscripts

Original negative of the Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano

Construction and fall of the Berlin Wall and the Two-Plus-Four-Treaty of 1990

Criminal Court Case No. 253/1963 (The State versus N. Mandela and Others)

Network of information and counter information on the military regime in Brazil (1964–1985)

First Byurakan Survey (FBS or Markarian survey)

Aral Sea archival fonds

Landsat Program records: Multispectral Scanner (MSS) sensors

Human Rights Archive of Chile

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum archives

Human rights documentary heritage, 1976–1983

Liberation Struggle Living Archive Collection

Human rights documentary heritage, 1980

Twenty-One demands, Gdańsk, August 1980

National Literacy Crusade

Radio broadcast of the Philippine People Power Revolution

The Baltic Way – Human chain linking three states in their drive for freedom

Index

Contact information

Photo credits

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

Foreword

by Irina Bokova

Director-General of UNESCO

© UNESCO

UNESCO launched the Memory of the World Programme in 1992 to protect and promote the world’s documentary heritage through preservation and access – access to encourage protection, and preservation to ensure access.

This vision was vindicated a few months later, when on 25 August 1992, 1.5 million books in the Bosnia National and University Library in Sarajevo were destroyed. With this, a chapter of the history of humanity vanished. Too much of our heritage is lost like this in the heat of conflicts and through the twists and turns of history. Too much also lies hidden and inaccessible in libraries, museums and archives. This documentary heritage carries the memory of human experience. It is a vehicle for identity and a wellspring of knowledge and wisdom. For twenty years, UNESCO has worked to capture and to share this wealth for the benefit of all.

The UNESCO Memory of the World Registry contains today 245 documentary items from all parts of the world – from clay tablets, manuscripts and films to photographs, maps and web pages. This Register is our flagship to preserve, raise awareness and promote access to the documentary treasures of humanity. Preserving this heritage is important for maintaining the cultural heritage and identity of all societies. It safeguards our memories as a force shaping us as social beings in a common humanity.

The Memory of the World encourages every country to establish a national register and propose items for the international register. Heritage can be recorded on any of the carriers used to safeguard memories. These range from listings of archives relating to historical figures, such as Nelson Mandela and Alfred Nobel, to major historical events, voyages of exploration that have transformed the world, and the records of scientific discoveries and anthropological recordings. The scope is as vast, indeed, as is human experience.

Anne Frank’s Diaries or the Epigraphic Archives of Wat Pho need little explanation today. However, other items on the Register, such as the Sakubei Yamamoto collection and the 1824-1897 Royal Archives of Madagascar, may be less well-known but are no less emblematic of human ingenuity.