Educational Activities of the Croatian Memorial Documentation Centre of the Homeland War

Abstract

Croatian Memorial Documentation Centre of the Homeland War is a specialized archives and a scientific institution with the mission to collect, arrange, safekeep, professionally and scientifically research and publish archival records from the Homeland War. Apart from these main tasks, the Centre also engages in educational activities by organizing and providing lectures for elementary school, high school, university students and history teachers or by the engagement of its employees at the universities. Speakers will present these activities by giving examples of various types of lectures and describing methodology and contents. The authors present the theory of archival pedagogy and its development in Croatia, as well as examples of good practice in the Croatian archives. In Croatia, in the last couple of years, special attention has been given to archival pedagogy as a potential for the development of archival activities and the modernization of the archives. The Croatian Archival Society has an important role in promoting archival pedagogy and it encourages archivists to participate in educational activities. The authors will present educational activities organized by the Croatian Memorial Documentation Centre of the Homeland War. The Centre aims to follow modern trends in archive pedagogy and education by combining its two main activities - archival practice and scientific research. Special emphasis is given to the use of various categories of the Centre’s archival materials, such as official records, printed material, audio recordings, photographic material, maps, etc. in the lectures. Besides paper records, the Centre has a large collection of digitalized documents which are particularly useful and convenient to use in the lectures. The materials from the Collection of photographs and the Collection of video materials are most frequently used. Dealing with the original archival material, especially when it comes to photographs or video materials, students get the most precise frame of the past on the basis of which they then best develop their own critical thinking. In this way, archival practice illustrates the educational role of archives. Authors also deal with the question how and to what extent does the use of archival materials affect the students' understanding of the topic and inspires them to visit archives and to do their own research which also contributes to the popularization of archives and archival science.