Miłosz with his family: son Antoni and brother`s wife Grażyna
The eminent Polish poet’s memorabilia have been presented to the library by the Nobel laureate’s son, Antoni Miłosz, currently residing in California. The materials made available include over a hundred previously unpublished notes, and among them first drafts for poems and essays as well as a vast collection of correspondence, photographs, recordings, documents and personal objects. One of the collection’s most valuable components is the Nobel Prize medal.
Unpublished correspondence of Czesław Miłosz
The archive presented to the National Library will complement its already extensive collection of documents related to Czesław Miłosz. It includes inter alia the poet’s family archive, his correspondence and the “black notebook” – a volume of manuscripts dated 1964. “The Notebook” contains drafts of 35 poetic works and translations of 28 poems by his colleagues, published following Czesław Miłosz’s death in the “Wiersze i ćwiczenia” [“Poems and exercises”] volume. The Miłosz Collection at the National Library is the second largest in the world, following that of the Yale University library.
Czesław Miłosz`s notebook from 1975
All documents will be carefully prepared and digitalised in order to be made available to the largest possible number of recipients. The National Library is one of the so-called Digitalisation Competence Centres, set up by the Minister of Culture in 2009.
Together with the National Audiovisual Institute, the National Digital Archive and the National Heritage Board of Poland, the institution conducts the process of recording elements of the Polish national heritage in digital form, with the goal of preserving their content and facilitating access for the public.
Source: poland.gov.pl
The Nobel Prize medal of Czesław Miłosz