The Kantilena and the Memory of World Register

One of the first steps undertook by the National Archives after the Notarial Registers Archive became part of its holdings was to start the process of inscribing the Kantilena in the Memory of the World Register. Vanessa Buhagiar has been tasked with preparing the draft nomination.

The Kantilena is a 20-lined lyrical poem and the earliest known literary text in Maltese. It is found on the penultimate folio of Brandano Caxaro’s first volume of notarial deeds and was written by Notary Pietro Caxaro who in the preamble to the poem is described by his relative Brandano as an orator, poet and philosopher. Pietro Caxaro died in 1485 so the poem definitely predates that year. Its transcription, well after the poet’s death, at the end of the notarial acts of Brandano Caxaro remains a mystery on a number of counts: it is written; it is irrelevant to the manuscript as a collection of bound legal contracts; and it is written in Maltese using Latin characters – a language that was not used for drawing up notarial deeds. The Kantilena was discovered by Fr Mikiel Fsadni OP and Professor Godfrey Wettinger in 1966.

In the late 20th century, there was a growing awareness of the parlous state of preservation and access to, documentary heritage in various parts of the world. Significant collections worldwide have suffered looting and dispersal, illegal trading, and destruction. In 1992 a United Nations committee discussed how to preserve significant documentary heritage from across the globe by cataloguing and protecting historical archives for future generations. The result was the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme, the documentary heritage equivalent of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The Memory of the World Programme was set up as a global plan to safeguard the world’s documentary heritage against collective amnesia, the ravages of war, decay and deterioration.

The Memory of the World Register, within the Memory of the World Programme, recognises documentary heritage of global significance and inspires both nations to identify, list and preserve their respective documentary heritage for the collective memory of humankind.

This Register lists documentary heritage which has been recommended by the International Advisory Committee and endorsed by the Executive Board of UNESCO, as corresponding to the selection criteria regarding world significance and outstanding universal value. Inscription on the Register publicly affirms the significance of the documentary heritage, makes it better known and allows for greater access to it, thereby facilitating research, education, entertainment and preservation over time. There are 432 inscriptions on the Memory of the World Register, as of December 2017, composed of 429 inscriptions and 3 additions to existing inscriptions.

Upon successful receipt of the draft nomination by the National Archives, Vanessa Buhagiar attended the workshop organised by the Korean National Commission for UNESCO in Amman (Jordan) between 5 and 7 September 2022. These annual workshops help countries with the drafting of their nomination with UNESCO experts’ assistance in order to increase their chances of successful submissions. The 2022 workshop was organised in collaboration with the Jordan National Commission for UNESCO (JONATCOM). During the workshop, Vanessa presented the draft nomination for the Kantilena and discussed it with the experts present there.

Our participation in the workshop was of great value and will hopefully lead to the successful submission of the Kantilena nomination on the Memory of the World Register in the next cycle of nominations.

The remit of the Gozo Archive (NAG) within the National Archives of Malta (NAM) is to serve public record office for the documentation produced and received by Government departments and establishments in Gozo and Comino. It includes two depositories in Għarb, one housing the Notarial Registers Archive (Gozo) and the other is an extension of the main depository in Victoria.

During the year under review, Gozo Archives staff carried out visits at the Gozo Law Courts at Cittadella and at the Nadur Primary School.

A small collection of thirty volumes from Nadur Primary School was transferred to the Għarb depository since refurbishment works were scheduled to commence at the school.

A number of volumes at the Gozo Law Courts have been earmarked for transfer to the NAG; unfortunately, since both the main hall of the NAG in Victoria as well as the Għarb Deposit are full to capacity, these volumes could be transferred. Another substantial amount of passport applications currently at the Gozo Passports Office have also been identified for transfer to the NAG; this exercise too cannot be undertaken due to storage space shortage.

This table below lists the new records that were added to the NAG during the year 2022.

A very important donation was made by John B. Pace KM, MD, B.Pharm, FRCS (Edin), consisting of twenty-nine original letters related to the 1798 Gozitan insurrection against the French led by Archpriest Saverio Cassar. This collection significantly enhances the related fonds already in existence at the NAG. One more, Dr George Azzopardi of Ta’ Sannat Gozo, made significant donations throughout the year to the NAG mostly consisting of old postcards, photographs and ephimera related to Gozo.

One hundred and thirty three volumes/items were added to the NAG depository during the year under review. This is significantly less than those registered during the previous two years: 710 (2021) and 604 (2020). This was mainly due to the lack of space available at the Gozo Archive premises.

Up to the end of the year, the NAG held fonds from twenty-eight different entities, each of which is subdivided to reflect the diverse activity carried out by the entity that created the fonds. The fonds, by the cataloguing code, are:

AG Archives Gozo (National Archives – Gozo section)

CA Civil Abattoir

CC Civic Council

CG Curia Gubernatorali (Courts of Law)

CI Charitable Institutions

CP Circulars and Posters

CR Cremona Collection

DF Documentaries and Films

GB Malta Government Savings Bank

GL Ġurdan Lighthouse

GM Ġuljana Masini

HI Hospitals and other Institutions

IR Inland Revenue

LC Local Councils

MG Ministry for Gozo

MH Medical and Health Department

MP Monte di Pietà

PA Photographs. Albums

PD Police Department

PM Plans and maps

PO Passport Office

PW Public Works

SG Secretariat to the Government

SN Street naming

SS State Schools

ST Statistics

UG Universitas Gaudisii

ZM Miscellanea

During the year under review, the digitisation process was continued mainly with regard to the MH Fonds consisting of building applications submitted to the Medical and Health Department between 1894 and 1981.

Given the popularity of this fonds with customers as well as the records’ very fragile nature, the digitisation process would make the fonds’ accessibility and research easier. Digitisation has also been completed on the Indexes related to the Curia Gubernatoriale CG Fonds consisting of documents originating from the Gozo Law Courts. With the help of students during the summer holidays, records related to a public consultation carried out by the Department of Eco Gozo at the Ministry for Gozo have been digitised.

Research sessions during 2022 amounted to 101, less than the previous two years – 257 (2020) and 212 (2021). The number of research hours amounted to 240, also less than the previous two years: 511 (2020) and 354 (2021). The number of items consulted amounted to 488.

During the year 2022, the Medical and Health fonds proved to be the most popular; followed by the Ġuljana Masini fonds and the Curia Gubernatoriale.

The following is a break-down of statistics per month (2022):

The following table shows number of consultations from each fond per month (2022):

The binding and conservation project of the Universitas Gaudisii Fonds was completed during this year. The project, which was funded by the Ministry for Gozo, provided binding or conservation boxes to the 305 volumes that make up this fonds. Several volumes were found in need of extensive restoration which will eventually be carried out at a later date.

Staff members from the audio-visual and cataloguing units at the National Archives in Malta paid a visit to the NAG with a view of assessing the collections at the NAG and advising on the best storage and conservation methods for these fonds.

The NAG uploaded several posts on the Facebook page of the National Archives with the aim of consolidating its presence on social media. A short article on an item from the NAG written by the former Assistant National Archivist Mgr Dr Joseph Bezzina and featured in the Diocesan monthly magazine Il‑Ħajja f’Għawdex continued to be shared on the NAM Facebook page every month.

A member of the staff attended the Careers Awareness Day at the Minor Seminary in Gozo where he had the opportunity of raising awareness about the work of the National Archives and about possible career opportunities in the sector.

Staff at NAG were always welcoming to groups and individuals who show an interest and visit the NAG.

After acting in the role for more than two years, John Cremona has been appointed as the Assistant National Archivist responsible for the Gozo Section of the NAG. He succeeds Mgr Dr Joseph Bezzina who was the first Assistant National Archivist and who was responsible for the creation and setting up of the NAG.

The Assistant National Archivist attended the meetings of the National Archives Council as an ex‑officio member as provided by the National Archives Act.

Visit by the Minister for the National Heritage, the Arts and Local Government and the Minister for Gozo to the NAG

Dr Josè Herrera, Minister for the National Heritage, the Arts and Local Government and Clint Camilleri Minister for Gozo visited the NAG on 11 February 2022 and assisted for the donation of original manuscripts and other written material by Frank Bezzina related to World War II in Gozo. The presentation was made by Charles Bezzina, son of the late Frank Bezzina to the NAG.

The problem of lack of space at the NAG and the National Library (Gozo) that share the same premises was discussed during the visit. A memorandum of understanding was signed between the two Ministers committing to make the premises of the Victoria Primary School in Vajrinġa Street available for an extension of the two institutions once the Primary School moves to the newly built school in Fortunato Mizzi Street.

Overleaf. ‘A baker in Qormi’ story from the MEMORJA project on the European Citizens’ app.

MEMORJA is the oral, sound and visual archive of the National Archives of Malta, designed to become the Maltese Islands’ main repository of public memory. Employing cutting‑edge research, methodologies, theoretical and archival approaches, MEMORJA collects, records, transcribes and preserves community/shared and individual memories, oral history/traditions, knowledge, and experiences as well as makes them available for research, interpretation and educational purposes.

MEMORJA’s team had started fieldwork in 2017 through face‑to‑face pre‑interview meetings, leading to the creation of networks in the community. These new relationships with individuals from different backgrounds allowed members of the public to share their stories with the project through oral and video interviews and the donation of personal photographs, letters, film reels and artefacts. Given the opportunity to have their experiences documents for future research, these ‘partners’ are today addressing a lacuna often not found in official documentation and are thus providing more balanced and rounded perspectives on numerous themes and subjects.

2022 was a year of consolidation for the Project. After the launch of MEMORJA’s website back in November 2021, the team members’ focus shifted to populating the website with research themes and to broadening outreach on different media. Radio, television and online portals were used to showcase and give access to the pool of stories, memories, photographs and different kinds of ephemera which had been preserved by the Project, along with the digitisation of the University of Malta’s Public Memory Archive which will add hundreds more stories in the years to come.

Upon the launch of the MEMORJA website in November 2021, 11 themes had been selected to give researchers an idea about the NAM’s audio-visual holdings. In 2022, the team identified further themes and interviewees which were scheduled to be made public throughout the year on the website’s ‘Voices’ section. These were interviews centred on agriculture, education, social life and healthcare. While recollections from two themes – the Covid-19 pandemic and the stories from the Second World War – had already been made public in 2021, user traffic indicated that more personal stories and material should be made accessible. In addition, photographic donations from other collections were also made available. The ‘Showcase’ section now hosts the colourful May Agius Collection along with the Philip Pisani Collection – pictures of early 1950s Malta – and the Griscti Family Collection – 1920s buses as used in the local transport industry.

The current batch of interviews from the Public Memory Archive (PMA), which is being digitised, consists of a variety of topics related to social impacts and interactions (Table 1). Throughout March and September 2022, some 50 interviews and numerous ephemera and photographic material had been digitised and ready to be catalogued. From each individual interview, biographical and technical data were sourced to help website users in their research.

The importance of the PMA is that it tackles issues relating to society and Maltese social life in general that might not necessarily have been preserved in the ‘official’ and ‘national’ narrative. These are important since they bring to light certain aspects of Maltese traditions which might not have been necessarily written down but have been passed down orally from one generation to the next. Moreover, these interviews were all done by students at the University of Malta (UM) who carried out interviews either for assignments or dissertations hence, they cover a wide variety of topics.

A topic that was of considerable interest was the series of recollections of ‘Factory Girl’ interviews. These interviews were carried out by a student and are now being used by a PhD student for their research related to the subject. This further proves the value of this archive and the importance of preserving and making accessible such interviews.

These specific interviews were recorded between 2000 and 2008, when most of the interviewees were pensioners. However, those discussing certain subjects - mostly agriculture and bakeries - would have worked in the area since their youth until their body cannot physically perform the work, meaning that their interviews would be more distinct and vivid.

As far as deposits go, we have been approached by a Francis Falzon from Mosta, who generously donated a series of interviews relating to Mosta from his parents’ perspective, who had owned a bar in the middle of the town. This deposit consists of a series of mini cassettes, which have been digitised for researchers to tackle the subject of early twentieth century society, in this case, life in Mosta.

Work on the COVID-19 Pandemic Memory Project theme within MEMORJA is developing. As an initiative going back to March 2020, marking the pandemic’s beginnings in Malta, the objective is to preserve the memories and experiences of the public during a time when social distancing was the norm and nationwide changes had to be implemented to adapt to this challenging situation. In short, this theme had to preserve the changes individuals and groups had to wide-sweeping restrictions.

The COVID-19 Pandemic Memory Project has been divided into two phases:

Phase 1: Donations from the public about their COVID-19 experiences. These include private diaries and journals, photographs and videos documenting the way everyday life was affected during the pandemic.

· Phase 2: Oral history interviews with people working in various sectors (e.g. healthcare, education, businesses) and also with those who had been infected with the coronavirus.

Two publications by Prof. Ġorġ Mallia

Prof. Ġorġ Mallia deposited two publications during 2022. The first one, Żepp: His Pandemic Year includes the first 2,300 comic strips which had appeared in the The Times of Malta between 18 April 2020 and 23 March 2022. Adopting a satirical tone, these strips reflect on the effects of the pandemic on the Maltese population.

Sliema Ferries, 1930s. Lina Brockdorff Collection

The other publication, issued digitally, is titled L Avventura Msaħħra ta’ Melanie u Karl and consists of a story for children staying at home due to school closures.

Such deposits serve as an excellent example of how the situation inspired people to embark on creative projects; these provide an alternate and unique lens through which one can look at the pandemic’s effects on society.

Deposits are still ongoing. Those pending include diaries and personal thoughts from the perspective of an individual suffering from psychological disorders.

Interviews with healthcare workers are essential as they were the ones who were directly treating and managing the coronavirus. Opinions and sentiments across different nurses and doctors were very similar. In fact, they described the hectic atmosphere created by the changes Mater Dei Hospital was going through, especially during the initial phases. New protocols were constantly being introduced and revised while new sections at the hospital were being created. As more COVID-19 positive people started being admitted at hospitals, work increased considerably. Consequently, there was a general feeling of stress, exhaustion and burn-out. The interviewees’ fear of infecting their parents was also a recurrent topic. In fact, they had mentioned how they had to make sure to minimise direct contact. For instance, those living with their parents opted to find a separate place to stay.

Interviews were conducted with people involved in the business sector (e.g. shop owners); this is especially important considering the fact that many non-essential businesses had to close in order to blunt the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. In view of this, interviewees also talked of having psychological affects. One reason for this was the sudden change in routine and having to adapt to a different one. It was also particularly worrisome and stressful for them to watch their business suddenly go downhill after years of hard work to build it all up. When talking about these issues, some interviewees were visibily emotional and one even started crying, reflecting the gravity and depth to which people were psychologically effected.

Interviews with persons working in the education sector (e.g., teachers, heads of departments, persons involved in management, youth workers) provided another unique perspective. As with non-essential businesses, schools were made to close. Virtual lessons were a topic typically discussed in such interviews. Lesson-content had to be planned in a different manner so as to better adapt to an online environment. In this regard, certain difficulties were sometimes encountered. These included technological problems whereby IT support would then have to get involved. Another case is in relation to the Secretariat for Catholic Education where certain students did not have access to computers/laptops. Therefore, laptops started to be distributed to students so that they would be able to follow online lessons. Another issue discussed during these interviews was the pandemic’s psychological effects on school children. Of course, not all were affected in the same manner. Some of them managed the situation quite well. Others were very worried and scared about the outbreak. In fact, youth workers mentioned how students would express such feelings to them.

February – March 2022

Television presence: The year’s first collaborations were with local production Maltarti where six snippets were televised on the national broadcaster, sharing with viewers some of the Project’s holdings. Gozitan bakeries, entertainment, stories from wartime Malta as well as childhood and the connections between Malta and Lampedusa were publicized. Features on Malta U Lil Hinn Minnha and Tgħid X’inhu? were also broadcast which enticed people to make contact with the NAM, preparing the ground for future collaboration.

April 2022

Drop-in session: The MEMORJA team set up in Siġġiewi to engage with the community, discuss the Project and gather new deposits. The set-up included a looping presentation showing photos related to Siġġiewi which the MEMORJA project had already acquired.

Television interview: Ms Rachelle Mizzi, the co-ordinator of the COVID-19 Pandemic Memory Project, was interviewed on the TVM programme Għaddi s’Hawn, presented by Antonella Vassallo. Main topics of discussion were the COVID-19 theme and donations in relation to it.

June 2022

Radio interview: The Project was also invited for a slot on the University of Malta’s radio channel CampusFM. Administrator James Baldacchino was interviewed on Taħdita Clio by Prof. Emanuel Buttiġieġ and Liam Gauci.

Autumn 2022

Heritage Malta publication - Tesserae 12: An article titled “The COVID-19 Pandemic Memory Project: Transforming a Challenge into an Opportunity”, written by Dr Charles Farrugia and Rachelle Mizzi, was published in Heritage Malta’s periodical Tesserae. It delves into the COVID-19 Pandemic Memory Project and the importance of preserving diaries about people’s personal experiences of the pandemic.

My House of European History

2022 offered to be a fruitful one in our collaboration with the European Union platform, My House of European History (MyHEH). The team curated snippets and recollections sourced from the PMA, on both the interview front as well as images found in the same collections. These uploads covered an array of topics:

Fishing: Il memorji ta’ Louis Cutajar tas sajd fi jiem li għaddew; Food culture: Salt harvesting in Gozo; Women in the workforce: the story of Sylvia Rapinett;

· Organic medicine: Herbal medicine in Gozo of yesteryear;

· The Malta buses;

· A baker in Qormi; The village festa;

Fireworks: Fireworks: A local tradition in the words of Ġanni Bonello; Covid-19: The experiences of a Maltese doctor Wartime Experiences;

· Pregnancy, births, and baptisms: Childbirth in mid-20th century Malta.

Three of the uploads mentioned were translated and published in the 24 official languages of the EU. The result of this exercise is to further spread abroad orally transmitted traditions of shaded areas in Maltese public memory, some of which are dying out if not out cold already.

Volunteers and Contributors

Individuals who desired to play a part in the Project sat for an oral history course led by MEMORJA’s academic advisor Prof. John Chircop. At the end, some opted to carry out oral history fieldwork whereas others chose to transcribe interviews. In all, the different media used and collaborations forged with groups and individuals ultimately offered MEMORJA the chance to better project its aims and to reap better results.