Germany has nominated fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm to join the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (Unesco) Memory of the World list to preserve the gothic stories adored by generations of children, officials said on Wednesday.
The German chapter of Unesco proposed Grimm’s Fairy Tales for the honour, saying it is, along with Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible, the most widely published work in German literature.
If the general director of Unesco accepts the nomination in autumn 2005, stories such as Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty will be inscribed in the world’s cultural heritage.
”Taken together they are the first systematic summary and scientific documentation of the entire European and Eastern fairy tale tradition,” Bernhard Lauer, the director of the Brothers Grimm Museum in the central city of Kassel, said in an essay on behalf of the nomination.
He said the museum has singled out 14 fairy tales and two volumes of commentary by Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786-1859) published in 1812 and 1857 for preservation.
Grimm’s Fairy Tales has been translated into 160 languages and dialects.
Memory of the World is part of a Unesco initiative to defend the world’s cultural and documentary heritage in archives, libraries, museums and other institutions. — Sapa-AFP