Handwritten copies of In Flanders Fields poem preserved and recognized on UNESCO register

Just before Remembrance Day, four handwritten copies of John McCrae’s iconic war poem In Flanders Fields have been recognized and added to the Canadian Commission for UNESCO’s Canada Memory of the World Register.

The register, launched by UNESCO in 1992, recognizes documentary heritage of outstanding universal value and promotes its preservation and accessibility.

“In Flanders Fields continues to move hearts around the world, reminding us of the human cost of war and the enduring power of compassion,” said Deep Saini, president and vice-chancellor of McGill University, in a news release.

McCrae was a McGill professor and physician. He and his colleagues from Montreal's No. 3 Canadian General Hospital, organized by the university, cared for thousands of soldiers during the First World War.

In Flanders Fields is still recited each year at Remembrance Day ceremonies across Canada — more than a century after it was written.

McCrae, serving as a medical officer in the Canadian Expeditionary Force as a lieutenant-colonel, wrote the poem in the spring of 1915 as the war entered its 11th month. Born in Guelph, Ont., he crafted the piece in Belgium following the death of a friend and fellow soldier during the Second Battle of Ypres.

Guylaine Beaudry, Trenholme dean of libraries at McGill, described the handwritten copies as “the most meaningful treasures in McGill’s collections.”

Through preservation and digitization, McGill Libraries has made the fragile manuscripts accessible to all, she said in the release.

The four copies include an autographed version McCrae sent to a friend, Carleton Noyes, on May 31, 1916.

That version differs slightly from the published poem and the manuscript held at Library and Archives Canada — its first line ends with the word “grow” instead of “blow,” suggesting McCrae may have revisited the poem after its publication as its fame spread.

The other three, copied from the original manuscript and circulated among his friends and colleagues, appeared in the diaries and correspondence of Andrew Macphail, Clare Gass and Edward William Archibald — McCrae’s friends and fellow members of the Canadian Army Medical Corps and the No. 3 Canadian General Hospital, fielded by McGill.

'So many people have grown up with this poem,' says Librarian

Svetlana Kochkina is a librarian at the Osler Library of the History of Medicine, a branch of the McGill University Library. She spearheaded the campaign to add the four copies to the world register. 

“For these papers, the distinction means more exposure — more people knowing that we have those incredible treasures,” said Kochkina, noting anybody, anywhere in the world will be able to access them online.