The Ministry of Culture, in communication with our Permanent Mission to UNESCO, clarifies that:

• No decision has been taken and in no case has the Intergovernmental Committee for the Preservation of Intangible Heritage of UNESCO stated, as it is wrongly described in some media, that “the lute is not Albanian but Serbian “.

• In the 13th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Preservation of Intangible Assets, the nomination “Singing accompanied by Gusle” (the instrument called lute in Albanian) presented by Serbia, was registered. in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The Ministry of Culture, as was emphasized in this meeting by the Albanian delegation, points out again that:

• The cultural practice of “Singing with the lute” is historically present and is a living cultural practice in a very wide area of South-Eastern Europe, not only in Albania, Kosovo, but also in Montenegro, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, etc.

• Lute singing is one of those cases where the multinational proposal can be applied based on the fact that those countries share the cultural practice in question as a historical tradition and living cultural phenomenon and no country is exempt. the other.

• The Ministry of Culture of Albania is already in official contact with the Ministry of Culture of Montenegro to continue with a common will the procedure for expanding the participation in this registration of Albania and other countries other countries of Southeast Europe, who wish to join this process for this specific cultural asset.

• Each country follows different priorities in the preparatory work for the registration of cultural assets in the world heritage lists and currently Albania is in the final stage of the process of registering the file of the cultural and natural assets of the part of Lake Ohrid on the UNESCO World Heritage List, while proposals are being prepared for registration in the respective lists of some other material and non-material assets, such as the Archaeological Park of Apollonia.

We also share with the public the good news that thanks to the well-coordinated work of the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, in the same meeting, Albania’s request for international assistance was approved for the project of creating the National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Assets that will create a regional and national level database for this category.

Press release-UNESCO