Archival Documentation Research Articles

“Life Is Too Short Not To Speak the Truth”: Framing Accountable Community Collaboration Within HIV/AIDS Archival Work

This poster shares findings from semi-structured interviews with 25 archivists and curators working with LGBTQIA+ archival materials and collections within institutional and community settings. Focusing specifically on collections that include HIV/AIDS-related material, this project explores how practitioners build, curate, and sustain these collections against the backdrop of the epidemic’s memory and the ongoing realities of the virus within culture. This poster reports directly on findings related to the role of community accountability within the work of these practitioners. The poster identifies how such work informs and is informed by questions of archival ethics, embodied identity, and notions of evidence and truth relating to archival documentation. The poster highlights how practitioners understand the care and consideration it takes to build meaningful relationships with LGBTQIA+ community partners and how such actions can conflict with the traditional methods of archival facilitation. Example conflicts relate to questions of institutional production metrics, extraction-based preservation, and objectivist orientations to describe and access those identities within the collection. The poster provides practical and theoretical interventions for archivists working with or planning to work with LGBTQIA+ communities to ensure more accountable work. It emphasizes how event-based framing, such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic, can advance and hinder this endeavor. The poster highlights potential areas for further exploration related to other historically marginalized populations within archives whose presence in archival collections might benefit from community collaboration in nuancing archival work around such moments.

Lend-lease in the History of the Ivanovo Region in Eyewitness Memoirs and Archival Documents (1941—1942)

Lend-lease in the History of the Ivanovo Region in Eyewitness Memoirs and Archival Documents (1941—1942)

Профессионально-техническое образование Якутской АССР в середине 1960-х гг.

The study focuses on the development of vocational education in the Yakut ASSR in the mid-1960s and the creation of a separate republican directorate to modernize the industry. By using little-known archival docu-ments, the article recreates an accurate picture of the development of vocational education in the region, char-acterizing the shortage of educational institutions and personnel despite the high demand from the rapidly de-veloping mining industry. At the beginning of 1964, there were only 11 vocational schools operating in Yakutia, which was clearly insufficient for the needs of the economy. There was an acute shortage of personnel, com-pensated by imported workers with low qualifications, which was partially offset by short-term training courses. The creation of the Yakutsk Republican Department of Vocational Education in 1964 stimulated a significant increase in the number of vocational school graduates and the active construction of new educational and resi-dential buildings.

An Opera of Convenience: Musical Diplomacy and Nationalist Politics at the Barcelona Premiere of Amaya in 1934

ABSTRACT This article analyses the political background surrounding the 1934 Barcelona premiere of the opera Amaya (1920) by the Basque composer Jesús Guridi (1886–1961). During the Second Spanish Republic, amid escalating political tensions between Basque and Catalan nationalist parties and the central government in Madrid, the premiere of Amaya at the Gran Teatre del Liceu presents significant points for historiographical discussion. By interpreting the interactions between Basque and Catalan nationalists as diplomatic exchanges, this essay assesses the role conferred on musical practices in fostering solidarity and self-legitimation among sub-state actors. Drawing on archival documentation and press sources, this study provides a detailed overview of the internal mechanisms that facilitated the premiere of Amaya, with a particular focus on the strategies employed by sub-state agents to garner public recognition, musical agency, and political legitimacy.

Crafting culture in the Adriatic: a case of woodcarvers and painters in Quattrocento Dubrovnik

The well-preserved archival documentation in Dubrovnik provides valuable insights into various subjects, including production of art. This study delves into the collaboration between woodcarvers and painters in late medieval Dubrovnik, focusing on the mid-15th century, when artistic production was greatly influenced by the exceptional stability of the commune. Contribution challenges conventional assumptions regarding artist specialization during this era. Contracts from this period often delineated the responsibilities of painters in supervising carpentry work during artwork fabrication, while some documents suggest woodcarvers executed basic painting tasks. Discoveries are consistent with the knowledge of Italian art production, affirmed through meticulous examination of exceptionally well-preserved archival sources.

“LORD” OF STARA RAŠKA: WAR BIOGRAPHY OF SS-STANDARTENFÜHRER KARL VON KREMPLER (1939–1945)

The paper chronicles the life of Karl von Krempler, a war criminal who was a Yugoslav “Volksdeutscher”. The emphasis is on the period of the Second World War, when he attained high positions within the structure of SS and police in the occupied Serbia. Besides his pre-war, war and post-war career, the attention is devoted to the analysis of Krempler’s intriguing personality. The paper is prepared on the basis of the archival documentation preserved at: the Archives of Yugoslavia, The State Archives of Serbia, Historical Archives of Belgrade, the Military Archives, Historical Archives “Ras” in Novi Pazar, Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, The Political Archive of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany and Federal Archives in Berlin.

Organizational and Legal Aspects of the Activities of the Cheka Bodies at the Local Level in the Context of New Archival Documents: Theoretical and Historical Legal Issues

Organizational and Legal Aspects of the Activities of the Cheka Bodies at the Local Level in the Context of New Archival Documents: Theoretical and Historical Legal Issues

Information Technological Tools for the Formation of Organizational and Administrative Documents Of Archive of Higher Education Institution

The article describes the importance of applying the information technological tools for the effective activity of archive of higher education institution. Organizational and administrative documents make a significant part of the archives of higher education institution. Organizational and administrative documents can be of the following types: an order, resolution, decision and instruction. These documents establish and regulate the structure, tasks, functions, duties, rights and responsibilities of all the management board members. All the documents come to archive in paper form. For the convenience of storage and use there is a need for electronic storage. Development a web resource through the use of information technological tools will allow to creating a system of structured storage of electronic documents. And also to ensure the reliability, confidentiality and differentiation of access rights for a wide range of users. Converting a document from paper to an electronic form involves its digitalization. The digitalization is provided by the following stages: document scanning,recognition of its content and digital preservation. Scanning of documents from the archive is carried out using scanner. Document content recognition can be made using shareware software solutions (ABBYY FineReader, Readiris, Convertio.co, iLovePDF, Scanitto Pro ect) and free like a OCR CuneiForm, ISTIO, NAPS2, CuneiForm FreemoreOCR, FreeOCR ect. While the process of digital preservation of the document should be carried out considering the special features of its content and metadata. Therefore, the corresponding functionality was developed. Functionality has also been implemented – the creation of tasks for the permanent digitization of documents and the creation of search filters according to the attributes that were entered into the database during digital storage. The requirements to protection data from loss or modification are given.

The Motherland and the Fight with Fascism: War Cult and War Film under Brezhnev (1965–82)

AbstractThis article, based on extensive archival documentation, newspapers, and periodicals, examines the impact upon the Soviet film industry of shifts in top‐level policy relating to representation of the war. It contends that Leonid Brezhnev’s May 8, 1965, speech on the eve of Victory Day propounded an inclusive vision of the war (later sections of the speech comprise an exhaustive inventory of different representatives of military and civilian society who had been responsible for victory). Yet, in lending encouragement to participants of all kinds to consider their experience valid, the speech opened up a discursive space in which validity might be contested. Further, the emphasis in the film industry upon innovation and the need to avoid predictability ran directly against the requirement that commemoration of the war should fit highly ritualized and easily recognizable patterns. The article traces the results of these overall contradictions in the arguments about overall policy on the war film between representatives of the High Command, film managers at Goskino, cinema’s central bureaucracy, and filmmakers themselves, and the controversies around individual films, including Iurii Ozerov’s Liberation (1968–72), Andrei Smirnov’s The Belorussian Station (1970), Aleksei German’s Operation “New Year” (1971, released as Checkpoint, 1985), and Larisa Shepit'ko’s Ascent (1977).

Forms, Formations, and Reforms

ABSTRACT Oral history release forms are critical for documenting narrator intentions around access to and use of interviews, a key component of ethically managing this document type. Unfortunately, repositories are full of interviews with missing or problematic releases. To explain this phenomenon, the author reviews historical archival and oral history literature to trace the development of release form conventions and the historical trends in practice that explain the current state of documentation in archives. Important trends in this trajectory include professionalization of oral history, decades of inconsistent application of best practices, siloed discourses of archivists and oral historians, institutional review boards, and changing access expectations in the age of the Internet. The author also assesses current positive professional trends to prevent future release form problems and analyzes release form scenarios that may remain stubbornly at the discretion of archivists’ professional judgment or values.

Possibilities of Using OCR Technologies from Google for Recognition and Digitalization of Archive Documents

Possibilities of Using OCR Technologies from Google for Recognition and Digitalization of Archive Documents

Web Publication of Schmitt’s Map of Southern Germany (1797)—The Projection of the Map Based on Archival Documents and Geospatial Analysis

This work shows the original projection of a 1:57,600 scale map of southern Germany at the end of the 18th century, produced under the direction of Karl-Heinrich von Schmitt (1743–1805). The sections of the map were scanned and georeferenced as part of the MAPIRE project, and the results are publicly available. In the present work, we use contemporary documents, in particular the books of César-Francois Cassini de Thury and manuscript sketches of the map found in the Military Archive of Vienna, to show that the overall projection of the map is identical to that used in Cassini’s survey of France (first half of the 18th century). In the archive, we managed to find the overview sheet on which—in addition to the Paris Cassini coordinate system—the section grid of the Schmitt map was also constructed. This sketch served as the basis for the compilation and copying work, wherein the existing map works and survey sketches were inserted into 197 sections of the Schmitt map. Thus, the map coordinate system can be modeled in GIS systems using the Cassini (or Cassini-Soldner) projection, with the Paris Observatory as the projection origin. The georeferencing accuracy of using the pure Cassini projection is around 1–1.3 km (at the extremes, around 5 km), which is much more inaccurate than the one used in later topographic surveys. It is considered a combined result of the compilation of the different maps, presumably surveyed by graphic triangulation with measuring tables.

Kaizen Event process factors for operational performance improvement: an archival study

Organisations practicing lean effectively show operational performance improvement through various tools, including Kaizen Events. Evidence of how measurable operational performance improvement relates to specific Kaizen Event process factors is lacking though. Building upon three organisational behaviour theories, and using the six phase-based process characteristics of Kaizen Events, we first distilled nine factors that might relate to operational performance improvement. We analysed archival documentation of 79 Kaizen Events. Four Kaizen Event factors, typically applied in specific Kaizen Event phases, were significantly related to operational performance improvement: 1) in phase one, problem definition, the group is committed to solve the problem and 2) a problem indicator must be specified; 3) in phase three, idea generation, countermeasures must be quantified in relation to the problem indicator; and 4) in phase five, implementation, the line manager champions idea implementation. A conceptual model is presented to eventually obtain even more effective Kaizen Events in the future.

1 - Towards Unpacking the Origin and Development of Eswatini (Swazi) Irredentism

This article sets out to examine the origin and development of Eswatini irredentism in southern Africa as a neglected theme in African scholarship. Eswatini irredentist disputes, albeit unresolved, have been a subject of mere peripheral allusion in southern African scholarship. The global importance of irredentism as a phenomenon in international relations since the end of the Cold War makes this study imperative. How the smallest and landlocked state on the Southern African mainland can audaciously and persistently make territorial claims against its giant South African neighbour is intriguing, paradoxical and worth investigating. The study methodology involved the use of archival documentation, newspaper articles, government gazettes, in- depth interviews and focus group discussions (FGD). This study revealed that Eswatini irredentism is ethnic nationalism par excellence and its roots were nurtured by the imperial order and South Africa before Eswatini’s independence. After independence in 1968, Eswatini irredentism blossomed on historical and ethnic foundations, and was tolerated and fanned by South Africa as a strategy of surreptitiously establishing an Eswatini Bantustan for the resettlement of ethnic Eswatini people and other blacks. The post-apartheid South African governments did a volte-face and rejected persistent Eswatini irredentist claims in toto nourished by the Sobhuza Testament.

The nostalgic and political use of the past: Fascism in the Italian Social Movement

ABSTRACT Fascism has been a persistent topic in Italian public discourse since the founding of the Republic. This essay provides an analysis of the ways in which the narratives of fascism have developed within the Italian Social Movement (M.S.I), a party established by veterans and those nostalgic for fascism. Whether revolutionary or conservative, imperialistic or nationalist, ‘Manchesterian’ or inclined towards socialization, the depiction of fascism celebrated and narrated by the M.S.I is far from unambiguous. Using local press and archival documentation, this analysis will focus on specific narrative canons at key historical moments: the party’s birth and the subsequent development of a right-wing ideological profile between the 1950s and 1960s; the 1970s, scrutinized in light of the reception of the debates among professional historians on the regime; and the 1980s, examined in the context of the weakening anti-fascist paradigm and the crisis of the bipolar global balance. The aim is to trace how this historical discourse addressed the need to consolidate a community through nostalgia or the pursuit of other political goals.

The persistence of anti-Protestant policies from the Fascist period in post-World War II Italy: ideologies, practices and legislation

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to examine the continuities between Fascist Italy and the early republican period in terms of anti-Protestant policy. To this end, it analyses three main issues: the ideology behind Catholic anti-Protestantism and the role played by Catholic hierarchies and Holy See itself; Italian legislation and norms in religious matters, with reference to minority denominations; and the concrete attitudes of State organs at central and peripheral levels. Drawing on extensive archival documentation (from Italian, Vatican and international archives), this article shows the profound continuities, but also the differences, in anti-Protestant legislation and practice between Fascist period and the early Republican era, marked by a strong Catholic and Christian-Democrat hegemony. Thanks to this extensive documentation, this article highlights the role played by various State actors (government, central ministerial apparatuses, local administrations, judiciary) in determining the contrasting side-lining of anti-Protestant policies, which took place in the mid-fifties.

Sarayköy Halkevi Building According to Presidential State Archive Documents

With this article, the Sarayköy Halkevi Building, which has not survived to the present day, has been included in the art and architectural history inventory for the first time based on the documents of the Presidential State Archives. The text of the article consists of five sections in general terms. In the introduction section, information about the general course and sections of the article is given, and in the second section, the phenomenon of public houses in general and the establishment process of public houses are mentioned. In the third section, which can also be considered as a catalog, the establishment of Sarayköy Halkevi and the architectural features of the Halkevi building are mentioned. In the fourth section, comparisons are made with other public house buildings that have survived / not survived to the present day, and in the conclusion section, the original value of the study is mentioned.

Analysis of the State Archives Republican Archives Documents on Tuberculosis and Fight Against Tuberculosis in the Early Republican Period in Turkiye

Purpose: To share information obtained as a result of examination of archival documents related to tuberculosis and the fight against tuberculosis between 1923-1938. Method: Study, which is a qualitative research, was designed as a document analysis. Previous publications on subject were examined. State Archives Republican Archives Catalogue was scanned. Documents found were analysed. Selected documents were included in study. Study covers the period of Atatürk (1923-1938). Results: In early Republican period, Turkiye gave importance to fight against tuberculosis together with infectious diseases such as malaria, trachoma and syphilis. successful works initiated in Ottoman period were continued and additional works were initiated according to new practices and principles. Tuberculosis and fight against tuberculosis were discussed in "National Turkish Medical Congresses". In following period, main theme of the 11th Congress would be tuberculosis. The Ministry of Health has defined a concept for the fight against infectious diseases and implemented it. Guideline on fight against tuberculosis has started to be published. New dispensaries and sanatoriums were built. Efforts were made to increase existing bed capacity. use of BCG vaccine was introduced. New facilities were built at "Central Institute of Hygine" to start vaccine production. Participation in international exhibitions and congresses was ensured. Arrangements were made regarding the staff and salaries of doctors and nurses, and new civil servant positions were created for the fight against tuberculosis. Conclusion: It would not be wrong to say that works carried out in early Republican period were a stepping stone for the great successes to be achieved in the fight against tuberculosis in future.

Picasso without Guernica: Mexico, 1944

The analysis of a temporary exhibition allows us to study how a particular project is inflected by cultural ideas (in this case also aesthetic ideas) and, above all, by cultural policies, i.e. museum practices and the socio-cultural and diplomatic contexts that explain the realization and morphology of a curatorial concept. In order to bring about an individual exhibition of exclusive works by Pablo Picasso in Mexico in 1944 a Society of Modern Art was founded, a private organization that copied the U.S. model of cultural mediation. This foundation was a product of bilateral financing by two powerful institutions, the Galería de Arte Mexicano owned by Inés Amor, and the MoMA, directed by Alfred H. Barr. Because of the political situation during the Second World War, the alliances between Mexico and the U.S. played a significant role. Based on a review of archival documentation and press articles of this period I attempt a reconstruction of the historical process of managing this temporary exhibition, understood as a spatial construction of political power in the collective imagination. This Mexican exhibition of works by an outstanding global artist has not been studied in terms of the messages and intentions conveyed by an ephemeral collection of objects that was deprived of its political anti-fascist dimension due to the exclusion of Guernica, which reduced it to an exhibition of avant-garde art. Guernica was not shown in Mexico for reasons that include U.S. anti-communism, Barr's desire to attract reflection towards the plastic values of Picasso's work and neutralize its potential for political resistance, and external conditions driven by internal struggles among Spanish Republicans.

What Was the Role of the Dutch Reformed Church and Land in Identity Formation on Klipfontein Farm?

Historically, the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) or Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk (NGK) was at the centre of the Afrikaner dynamic, legitimising white Afrikaner nationalist ideals. The strong connection between the DRC (hereafter the church) and the nationalist government meant that the church was the spiritual link to the then ruling National Party for most Afrikaners, justifying the racially based policies and actions of the government. Paradoxically, it was this same church and its teachings that would also be adopted by “coloured” or “brown” Afrikaners to help establish their own group identity. It developed into a mechanism that helped the Klipfontein community, in Eastern Cape, South Africa, in establishing an identity which they could assert against the (white) authorities and neighbours when their right to occupation of Klipfontein was threatened. Thus, a spiritual connection with the land was formed and developed through biblical teachings and rituals. In recent years, a revivalism in Khoe-San identity and its popularity has seemingly threatened this identity. In a country like South Africa, where land and land (dis)possession are perpetual points of contention, Klipfonteiners have adopted an identity that is inextricably linked to their land. Using primary sources, such as archival documentation and interviews conducted with Klipfonteiners as well as those who have dealt directly with Klipfonteiners, and secondary sources dealing with South African coloured identity and the church, this article seeks to address the pivotal role which the church and religion have played in the formation of an identity that seeks to protect Klipfonteiners’ rights to the land from external and internal forces.