Lithuania’s Memory of the World registry now contains the manuscripts of the Vilna Gaon and a manuscript fragment by Simonas Daukantas, the Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library reported.

The 18th century manuscripts of Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, the Vilna Gaon, are a collection of works published in different cities and countries of Europe between 1799 and 1940. They include several very rare publications and almost all of them exist as a single copy in Lithuania.

The library said the Vilna Gaon never published any of his texts, but his teaching was scrupulously written down and compiled by his students, sons and sons-in-law and were edited and published after his death.

The Vilna Gaon spoke on all important topics in Judaism and the Jewish religious worldview including religious law, deep Talmudic textual analysis and biblical studies, ethics and kabbalah.

Followers spread the Gaon’s textual legacy around the world and put Lithuania on the map as the Jewish intellectual and religious studies center.

The official ceremony to place these texts in the national registry of the UNESCO Memory of the World program is to take place September 20 at the Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library.

Full story in Lithuanian here.