POLAND: PARTS OF PRUSSIAN LIBRARY COLLECTION WILL GO ON PUBLIC SHOW FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 50 YEARS

Record ID: 584682

  • Title: POLAND: PARTS OF PRUSSIAN LIBRARY COLLECTION WILL GO ON PUBLIC SHOW FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 50 YEARS
  • Date: 2nd March 1996
  • Summary: CRACOW, POLAND (RECENT) 1. PAN CRACOW TOWN CENTRE 0.12 2. LV EXT JAGIELLONIAN UNIVERSITY, COLLEGIUM MAIUS 0.16 3. PAN INT LIBRARY, LIBRARIAN SORTING MANUSCRIPTS 0.21 4. CU MOZART MANUSCRIPTS 0.44 5. CU MANUSCRIPT FOR MOZART'S COSI FAN TUTTE 0.55 6. CU MANUSCRIPT FOR BEETHOVEN'S NINTH SYMPHONY (2 SHOTS) 1.18 7. SV KRZYSZTOF ZAMORSKI, DIRECTOR OF THE JAGIELLONIAN LIBRARY SAYING: THE FIRST SIGN THAT AUTOGRAPHS OF MOZART AND BEETHOVEN WERE STORED IN OUR LIBRARY CAME WHEN STALINISM WAS FINISHED (ENGLISH) 1.33 8. SCU ZAMORSKI SAYING: HOW CAN WE ESTIMATE THE VALUE OF THE AUTOGRAPH OF BEETHOVEN'S EIGHTH SYMPHONY? HOW CAN WE ESTIMATE THE VALUE OF THE PICTURATI? (ENGLISH) 1.56 9. CU 'KNIGHTS BOOK' FROM THE MIDDLE AGES 2.25 10. SV MARIAN ZWIERCAN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE JAGIELLONIAN LIBRARY SAYING: ONE OF THE FIRST SCIENTISTS WHO MANAGED TO SEE THE COLLECTION WAS A BRITISH SCIENTIST DOCTOR PETER WHITEHEAD; IT TOOK HIM THREE YEARS TO GET PERMISSION FROM THE COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT (POLISH) (3 SHOTS) 2.50 11. CU BIBLE WITH HAND-WRITTEN NOTES BY MARTIN LUTHER 3.05 12. PAN BASEMENT OF THE KSIAZ CASTLE 3.14 13. CU BOXES USED TO STORE THE COLLECTION 3.22 14. GV AREA AROUND KSIAZ CASTLE 3.32 Initials s3, p3 Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
  • Embargoed: 17th March 1996 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: CRACOW, POLAND
  • City:
  • Country: Poland
  • Reuters ID: LVA39RMEY201L73T6KTNYBH2KND4
  • Story Text: INTRO: A priceless collection of original manuscripts and autographs, thought to be destroyed during WW2, will soon go on public show for the first time in fifty years.

    The Prussian Library collection, now housed in the Polish university town of Cracow, includes many of the greatest works of Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and Brahms -- written in their own hand.

    Among 400 volumes of originals are manuscripts for Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte" and "The Marriage of Figaro"; Beethoven's Ninth Symphony - now adopted as the European Union anthem - and a Bible anotated by religious reformer Martin Luther.

    The manuscripts formed a part of a large collection of the Prussian State Library in Berlin, evacuated at the start of the Allied forces bombardment of the German capital in 1941 and abandoned by retreating Nazi forces at their wartime shelter in a monastery in Gruessau, then part of Germany but now Krzeszow, in Polish territory.

    Polish experts who guarded the library from marauding Soviet troops were sworn to silence by the post-war communist authorities who spirited the collection to Cracow where it stayed hidden from the world for over three decades.

    The truth first leaked out in 1970s when Poland communist authorities handed East Germany six manuscripts,including Beethoven's 9th symphony and Mozart's "Magic Flute." The rest of the collection remained in Poland and was only available to a limited number of scholars.

    Later this month, a small part of the collection is going to be shown to the public for the first time since the end of war when the original manuscripts of Ludwig van Beethoven are put on display in the Jagiellonian University Library during Beethoven's festival to be held on Cracow from March 26-28.

    Germany demands the return of the collection under the 1907 Hague convention which says countries should not keep cultural property taken in wartime.

    Poland has agreed to discuss the collection only if Germany reveals more about the works of art taken from Poland by the Nazis during the Second World War and returns the works of art allegedly located by the Polish experts in various museums in Germany.

    Warsaw says it did not steal the collection but gained it under the Potsdam agreement by which Allied powers stripped Poland of its eastern territories and gave it German land - on which the collection had been left.

    By some estimates Poland lost 85 per cent of its works of art in the war when teams of art specialists, following invading German troops, stripped museums and private collections.


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