The Institute of the Polish Library in Paris is a new cultural institution that will take care of the collections of Polish cultural heritage gathered on the Seine. It will be co-managed by the Historical and Literary Society and the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The Library houses one of the richest collections of Polish monuments to be found in émigré institutions. One of the oldest and most valuable is the Chronicle of Maciej of Miechów, published in 1521. Other valuable treasures include the three earliest editions of Nicolaus Copernicus’ work De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, fragments of Queen Bona’s correspondence and mementos of Fryderyk Chopin and Maria Skłodowska-Curie.

Important documents include the act of the Sejm dethroning Tsar Nicholas I as King of Poland, passed at a meeting of the united Chambers of the Sejm on 25 January 1831 in Warsaw, the first Polish legal act regulating the issue of national colours on 7 February 1831, and the founding act of the Polish Literary Society, from which the Historical and Literary Society originated. The Library’s collection has been inscribed on UNESCO’s international Memory of the World list as a testimony to a unique emigration institution influencing the preservation of national identity.

Negotiations for the establishment of a new cultural institution that will take care of the collections of Polish cultural heritage gathered at the Polish Library in Paris on behalf of the Polish state began almost a decade ago and were crowned with the signing of an agreement creating the Polish Library Institute in Paris.

“The newly established institution will be co-managed by the Historical and Literary Society and the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. Its headquarters will be located in Krakow, while its statutory duties in France will be carried out by a subsidiary entity financed by the Polish state”, reports the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński