Illustration photo – Music composer Antonín Dvořák (1841 – 1904) – cutout of a painting by Josef Bárta.
Prague – The Antonín Dvořák Archive and Moll's map collection have been registered by experts in the International Memory of the World Register. The entry as two of the 64 documentary heritage nominations was approved by the UNESCO Executive Board at Thursday's meeting. The Czech Republic now has ten items entered in the register for documentary heritage with worldwide significance. Ivana Awwadová informed ČTK about this today on behalf of the Ministry of Culture.
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“The UNESCO Memory of the World program was created in 1992 to raise awareness of documentary heritage as an important part of the cultural heritage of humanity,” said Awwad.
The Antonín Dvořák Archive includes the documentary heritage of one of the most important composers of the 19th century, Antonín Dvořák (1841 to 1904), whose work belongs to the pinnacle of world music of this period. It contains most of Dvořák's sheet music manuscripts, important descriptions of compositions authorized by him and the first edition of his works, as well as a collection of correspondence, diplomas, honorary appointments and others. It is a testimony to the work of a personality who brought unique and innovative procedures in musical composition. At the same time, the archive is an extraordinary testimony of musical culture and the position of the artist in the second half of the 19th century, which was a key stage for the development of the modern world.
“The archive is considered part of the cultural heritage of the Czech Republic, as it is a testimony to Antonín Dvořák as one of the founders of Czech musical culture and to his work, which is reflected by the public as the contribution of the Czech countries to the world's cultural treasure. The collection can be viewed in the Czech Museum of Music – the National Museum in Prague,” Awwadová pointed out.
Moll's map collection represents an exceptionally extensive document of map collecting from the early Enlightenment. It includes maps and views from the end of the 16th century to the 1860s, geographically covering a large area roughly within the borders of the following present-day states of Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, Italy, the Vatican, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, marginally also Moldova, Bulgaria, Ukraine and France. A number of plans are handwritten, so it is a unique representation of the given territories.
The uniqueness of the collection also lies in the preserved original well-thought-out structure created in the middle of the 18th century and documented by the original handwritten catalogs. In the case of some areas, especially Hungary, they represent the earliest inventories of cartographic processing of the given territories. The manager of the collection is the Moravian State Library in Brno.
