OPEN
SOCIETY
ARCHIVES
Open
Society Archives
Edited
by Leszek Pud½owski and Iván Székely
Published
by the Open Society Archives at Central European University
Budapest
1999
Copyright
©1999
by
the Open Society Archives at Central European University, Budapest
English
Text Editor: Andy Haupert
ISBN
963 85230 5 0
Design
by Tamás Harsányi
Printed
by Gábor Rózsa Printing House, Budapest on Niveus acid-free
offset
printing paper of 90g/m2 produced by Neusiedler Szolnok Paper Mill, Hungary.
This
paper meets the requirements of ISO9706 standard.
Table of ContentS
Chapter I.
The coordinates of the Archives
The
enemy-archives (István Rév) 14
Archival
parasailing (Trudy Huskamp Peterson) 20
Access
to archives: a political issue (Charles
Kecskeméti) 24
The
Open Society Archives: a brief history (András
Mink) 30
Chapter
II. The holdings
Introduction 38
Communism and Cold War 39
Records
of the Research Institute
of
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 39
• The Archives in Munich (András
Mink) 39
• Archival
arrangement and structure of the records of Radio
Free
Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute (Leszek
Pud½owski) 46
• The Information Resources
Department 49
The
East European Archives 49
Records
of the Bulgarian Unit (Olga Zaslavskaya) 49
Records
of the Czechoslovak Unit (Pavol Salamon) 51
Records
of the Hungarian Unit (Csaba Szilágyi) 55
Records
of the Polish Unit (Leszek Pud½owski) 58
Records
of the Polish Underground Publications Unit 62
(Leszek
Pud½owski)
Records
of the Romanian Unit (Csaba Szilágyi) 65
Albanian
Records (Pavol Salamon) 68
Records
of the Yugoslav Section (Boško Spasojevi¾) 69
The
Slavic, Baltic and Eurasian Archives (Natasha
Zanegina) 70
The
Soviet “Red” Archives (Natasha Zanegina) 71
Soviet
Monitoring (Olga Zaslavskaya) 73
Samizdat
Archives (Natasha Zanegina) 74
• The Publications
Department (Pavol Salamon) 77
Records
of the Open Media Research Institute 79
(Natasha
Zanegina - Pavol Salamon)
• East European Archives 80
• Slavic,
Baltic and Eurasian Archives 81
Samizdat
publications of Gábor Demszky (András
Mink) 83
Personal
papers of General Béla Király (Csaba
Szilágyi) 85
Human
Rights 86
The
Records of the International Human Rights Law Institute 86
(Boško
Spasojevi¾)
Records
of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights 88
(Boško
Spasojevi¾ - Csaba Szilágyi)
Records
of Index on Censorship (Csaba Szilágyi -
Boško Spasojevi¾) 90
On
establishing an international repository of documents related
to war crimes and human rights violations (Iván
Székely) 94
Soros
Foundations Network (Gabriella Ivacs) 96
The
corporate memory of the Soros foundations network 96
Belarusian
Soros Foundation (Csaba Szilágyi) 97
Center
for Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe 98
Central
European University 100
Audiovisual
materials (Zsuzsa Zádori - Andrea Jakobs) 101
Oral
history interviews relating to the activities of
Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty 101
The
death of Yugoslavia 102
Soviet
and post-Soviet History 106
The
1956 Hungarian Revolution 108
Materials
donated by institutions of the Soros foundations network 110
The
Library (Katalin Dobó) 113
Computerization 114
The
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Book Collection 115
Periodicals 116
Books 118
Chapter
III. Public programs
The
series of historical exhibitions (Edina Kishonthy) 122
Academic
programs (András Mink) 131
Open
House (Gabriella Ivacs) 133
Chapter
IV.
Cooperation (Iván Székely)
Regional
Archival Information Centre 136
International
conferences organized by the Open Society Archives
in
Budapest 137
Conferences
organized by the Open Society Archives
in
foreign countries 139
Other
forms of cooperation 140
Cooperation
with civil organizations 143
The
Recovering Identity Program 145
The
draft DNA Recommendation 147
Managing
the records of the Soros foundations network (Gabriella
Ivacs) 148
Chapter
V.
Access, reference services and automation
Research
services (Boško Spasojevi¾) 154
Grants (Eric
Weaver) 159
The
automation system (Sergey Glushakov) 160
Chapter
VI.
The Open Society Archives and the Central European University
The
Archives in the University (Boško
Spasojevi¾) 166
Summer
University (Nóra Ábrahám) 167
APPENDIX
Proposal to establish an
international repository 172
of documents related to
war crimes and human rights violations
at the Open Society Archives
Genetic proofs of
relatedness to help recover 176
the identity of refugees
without documents and other proofs of identity.
Principles and
Recommendations – Draft
Chronology of exhibitions 180
Politics As Art/Art As
Politics – conference program, October 1997 180
Russia in the 20th
Century – Competition for high school students, 1997 182
Festival of Documentary
Films on the Conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, 184
April 1999 – program
The program of the Gulag
Film Week, May 1999 186
Selection of theses of
CEUstudents who made research 188
at the Open Society
Archives
Research Grants 190
List of Reference
Information Papers 192
Reference Information
Paper 6: 195
Records Relating to
Non-Conformist Artists in the USSR, 1956–1986
Acquisition Policy 198
List of Fonds 200
Contributors 202
Staff of the Open Society
Archives 206
Chapter
I
The
coordinates of the Archives
The enemy-archives*
The topsoil of the earth,
the matter we live on, is but decomposing residue, decaying matter, a fossil
record. The present is thus a parasite on (almost) dead traces of the past
under our feet. This is how Darwin, in The Formation of
Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms (written in 1881),
perceived and described the basis of our present world. There is an archive
beneath us; and in order to understand ourselves, our lineage and the
directions we are coming from and heading to, we should simply look for the
remains of the dead, for the decomposing archive. The key is beneath us.
(Decoding and understanding is as
simple as this. Or at least, this is how Darwin imagined the consequence of the
work of the diligent worms.)
The
Open Society Archives (OSA) is beneath my feet, two levels under the ground, on
floors minus-1 and minus-2 in one of the buildings of the Central European
University. It is a subterranean institution. The core collection of the
Archives, the documents and records accumulated by Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty are the residue of the Cold
War, remnants of the longest propaganda war in modern history. The documents in
part were produced and collected in order to aid and cover a large covert
operation of the agencies that stood behind, and at the same time helped, the
work of the Radios.
The
holdings of the Open Society Archives are both smaller and more extensive than
the Radios’ original archive. Not everything came to Budapest from Munich and
New York when, after the end of the Cold War – when the Radios had fulfilled
their original mandate and made themselves obsolete – the US Congress decided
to downsize the operation and cut the budget. The final destination of the
“Corporate Archive” – the administrative documents, the correspondence between
the Radios and the different offices of the American government, as well as the
directives sent to the Radios – was the Hoover Archive at Stanford. OSA does
not have – in fact does not even know much about – the still-classified, partly
CIA documents, which could testify about “one of the [CIA’s] most successful
covert operations” as a well-informed insider addressed the Radios
retrospectively. (Marchetti and Marks, 1974 pp. 134–135)
The
core of the collection under the ground in Budapest is a typical product of the
Cold War period: it does not directly reveal much about the organization that
produced the documents, but one can learn much inferentially by studying the
materials the Radios and the agencies behind them had collected and stored.
The
programs, or “production tapes” the different desks of the Radios had produced
did not come to OSA, but instead remained for the time being at the Radios,
which moved to Prague in 1995. A large number of the copies of the Polish and
Hungarian radio programs were later donated to Polish and Hungarian national
archives, and a plan to copy the Russian language programs and donate the
copies to an institution in Russia has not yet been abandoned. The destination
of the transcripts of the so-called “monitoring tapes”, however, was Budapest.
Besides
collecting clippings from Central and Eastern European official newspapers,
diplomatic post reports, interviews with refugees from the region, descriptions
by tourists and sensitive and clandestine information with the help of
different intelligence agencies, the Radios closely followed the events in the
so-called “target countries” by listening to and recording the official radio
broadcasts coming through the air from the communist world. The broadcasts were
then transcribed during the night, and by the time the programs resumed in the
early morning, the transcripts were already on the tables of the people in
charge of the political and ideological direction of the programs. The Radios
immediately reacted to the news coming from behind the iron curtain, where, at
the same time, agents working for the other side, for the communist
jamming/monitoring stations, listened attentively to the broadcasts of the
“enemy stations” like Radio Vatican, Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, Radio
Free Europe, Radio Liberty and, later, Radio Tel-Aviv, Radio Tirana, Radio
Peking and others as well.
Monitoring
the “enemy broadcasts” was made difficult by the political need to jam the very
same programs at the same time. Jamming took either the form of transmitting a
continuous noise on the same frequency as the “enemy station”, or broadcasting
a mixture of speech, music, and atmospheric noise designed to overwhelm the
incoming broadcast. According to the one-time director of the Hungarian secret
jamming agency, right before 1956, each day 218 hours of enemy broadcasting
trespassed the Hungarian airwaves on 214 frequencies. The jamming agency, with
the modest code-name “Post Office No. 118”, did not have the capacity to jam
all incoming programs, and even if it had possessed the necessary technical
means, it would not have been allowed to do so, as a consequence of the need to
monitor the enemy broadcasts. (Cf. Révész,
1996) During the night, while the transcribers worked at RFE/RL, scribers were
busy transcribing the recorded programs of the enemy stations inside secret
offices in the communist countries. The transcripts were delivered in due time
to desks in the ministries of interior, the offices of the secret police and
the propaganda and agitation department of the party headquarters. Orders and
directives were sent in turn to the official media including the radio
stations: how to respond to the propaganda of the enemy.
Visiting
the archives of the national news agencies of the former communist countries or
the (mostly still closed) archives of the former secret police, one would find
the recorded or transcribed versions of those program tapes that did not come
to Budapest with the core collection. OSA and these secret archives together
form a full and peculiar picture of the way the Cold War, communism, the West,
and the East were jointly fashioned and produced by the enemy Radios and the
national radios of the “target countries”. There was a constant, ongoing
dialogue in the air with both sides reflecting on the recorded, transcribed and
analyzed propaganda of the other. What the secret listeners, who tried to
comprehend the broadcasts behind the constant curtain of noise perceived about
their world, about communism, was in large part supplied by the descriptions
they gathered from the “enemy radios”, RFE/RL being most prominent among them.
RFE/RL conceived its programs largely as a response to the programs produced
behind the iron curtain.
OSA
acquired a few amateur tapes with records of RFE programs recorded inside the
“target countries”, that preserved the noise of the jamming. Superimposed on
the voices in the programs, covering the message, is the noise that was
transmitted in order to neutralize, to eliminate and to erase all meaning.
Instead of erasure, instead of an acoustic black hole, however, the result
turned out to be noise as message, as meaningful information: “for despite the
death it contains, noise carries the order in itself; it carries new
information. This may seem strange. But noise does in fact create meaning:
first because the interruption of a message signifies the interdiction of the
transmitted meaning, and signifies censorship and rarity; second, because the
very absence of meaning in pure noise or in the meaningless repetition of a
message, by unchanneling auditory sensations, frees the listener’s imagination…
The presence of noise makes sense and makes meaning. It makes possible the
creation of a new order on another level of organization, or a new code in
another network.” (Attali, 1985 p. 33)
The
Open Society Archives houses millions pieces of carefully assembled information,
obtained, collected and smuggled out in clandestine ways from countries with
rulers who tried to hermetically seal them and isolate them from the other
side, from the outside world. Most of the information stored underground, on
levels minus-1 and minus-2 in Budapest, is blatant and obvious lies: forged
election results, forged production statistics, forged birth and death rates,
doctored maps and photographs and censored descriptions of events that never
happened. Analysts at the Radios frantically searched for meaning behind the
stereotypical topoi, trying to decode the
allegedly coded messages, since it was difficult to imagine that anyone of
sound mind – even in a completely boring totalitarian regime – would produce
such unbelievable stories, news and information. But the cryptanalysis was in
most cases done in vain: there was nothing behind the message; the message, as
in the case of the noise, was the information itself.
Why
would anybody come to an archives that has as its holdings mostly lies so
detached from reality? What research, what solid knowledge can be based on such
documents, on such a foundation? On May Day in the early 1950s, it is raining
heavily outside: a worker, however, hears an announcement on the radio that the
fine weather and bright sunshine will drive hundreds of thousands of workers to
take part in the May Day Rally. He is not surprised. He does not think that his
eyes are deceiving him but knows that he is an eyewitness and an “ear-witness”
to the superhuman confidence of the regime. He knows that what he sees from his
window is true, and he is sure that he has grasped the words on the radio
correctly. He is certain that there is a discrepancy between what his eyes and
what his ears sense, but he understands that behind the truth and the lie there
is something else: the message is not that the weather is fine and the sun is
shining in spite of the hard rain, but that the Party feels confident enough to
announce that rain is sunshine. The Party is stronger than the tangible world.
Behind the lie there is the metatruth: the Party is able to announce whatever
it wants to say, thinking that no-one will question the statement openly. In
mendacio veritas, in lies there lies the truth.
Communism
was built on, and eventually ruined by, such metatruths: on noises that warned
the listeners that the jamming agency, the Party was there – even in the air,
controlling not only the propaganda of the enemy but the eager listeners as
well. Yes, the Party was there but paralyzed; capable only of making a
cacophony in the air, merely creating the appearance of being there. If one
wants to learn the truth about communism, the truth about the Cold War, the
world of propaganda and appearances, and the most important reason for the
Fall, an informed choice is to study this fake world, and the files and
documents of which OSA is the guardian.
Not
all the documents in the holdings of the Open Society Archives testify about
paralysis and impotence: the Russian, Polish and Hungarian samizdat collections
prove that there were some who questioned the lies, who chose not to remain
silent, who under the dark sky had hopes even against hope. The Archives
however houses documentation not only of individual dissent but of open
resistance, the sometimes naive, romantic, but nevertheless heroic attempts:
the Polish and Hungarian uprisings in 1956, Prague and Poland in 1968, the
strikes along the Baltic coastline, Solidarity. The documents from the Fall,
the peaceful revolutions, the transition, the End, which resulted in the
Archives move from Munich and New York to Budapest, to the basement of the
Central European University which is itself a product of the abrupt and
unexpected changes.
OSA
is not an archives frozen in time. It actively collects, solicits and acquires
important collections and documents on the afterlife of communism and issues
connected to human rights. This is why OSA houses the archives of Index
on Censorship; this is why the records of the UN
Expert Commission on war crimes on the territory of the former
Yugoslavia found a place in the Open Society Archives; this is why the decision
was made to continue the monitoring activities of the Radios and systematically
record the nightly news programs of Serb, Croat, and Bosnian television during
the war in Yugoslavia. OSA has a growing collection of new materials, but like
the core collection of RFE/RL, most of the newly acquired documents testify
about despicable acts, cruelty, the breach of democratic rules of law and grave
breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other international humanitarian law.
Ours is the archives of the enemy.
It
is difficult for cultures to grasp the unspoken order which is the basis of
their knowledges, as Foucault remarked. But “an enemy is an Archimedean point
through which a culture articulates its unspoken structures of perception and
thought. In this sense an enemy archive was and is an imaginary parallel
universe through which a culture articulates its archive as a totality by
producing representations of alien ideologies, nationalities and phenomena.”
(Richards, 1993 p. 151) The enemy-archives is an institution where we can, and
should, learn about ourselves.
The
decaying residue which preoccupied Darwin in The Formation of
Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms is not completely in the
state of death. It is “in a median stage between life and death” like the
Transylvanian noble Dracula in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel: “Stoker’s Dracula
forcibly undoes the assumptions of Darwinian morphology in the form of a
creature capable of both sudden and lasting mutations of form. Stoker’s vampire
lurks in these two blind alleys of Darwinism. He is the origin of his own
species, a human being suddenly transformed into the progenitor of a terrifying
new species.” (Richards, 1993 p. 60) We should be careful with decomposing
residues, with the matter upon which we live, with fossil records. The traces
are not completely dead – they can give life to mutants.
István
Rév
References:
Attali,
Jacques; Noise: The Political Economy of Music.
University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1985. Quoted by Thomas Bass, Balloons
and Broadcasts: Infiltrating the International Barrier Dividing East and West.
A Study in Metaphors. M.A. thesis at the Political Science
Department of Central European University, Budapest, 1996.
Marchetti,
Victor and Marks John D.; The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence.
Knopf Alfred, N.Y. 1974.
Révész,
Béla; Interview with Gusztáv Gogolyák, former director of
“Post Office No. 118”, the central jamming station in Hungary. March, 1996.
Mimeo.
Richards,
Thomas; The Imperial Archive. Knowledge and the Fantasy of
Empire. Verso, London, 1993.
Old-fashioned
cardboard transportable file containers from the RFE/RL Research Institute in
Munich.
Central
office of the Open Society Archives.
Photo by Ferenc Nemzetes. Fonds 206 Records of the Open Society Archives.
Archival
parasailing
As I write, parasailers
are circling Mt. Saleve. Each of them has arrayed his kite, run to the edge of
the cliff, and jumped off. The Open Society Archives was, at the beginning,
archival parasailing.
Now, it is true that
archives, at least in North America, are founded frequently. Colleges,
businesses, religious bodies, and even municipalities all find themselves with
an overburden of documents and a lack of management. Someone, somewhere says,
“What we need is an archivist!” and another archives is created. Alternatively,
of course, someone may say, “Let’s give this mess to Archives X” and that
archives will take care of it.
It
is no surprise that a person with a truffle-dog’s nose for history – as is true
of both George Soros and Aryeh Neier, President of the Open Society Institute
(OSI) – would begin to think about legacy. What is surprising, however, is that
OSI apparently had not begun to think about the legacy of the Soros foundations
network.
The
Open Society Archives did not come into being in that way at all: instead of
responding to piles of files and mounds of material in its offices in New York
and Budapest, OSI began by contracting to take over the collection of the
Research Institute of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which had fallen on very
hard times. In addition, copies of records of the preparatory commission
leading up to the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
were available. The leaders of OSI were intent on acquiring research resources
for the new Central European University (CEU). What they also got in the deal
was an archives and records management service for the Soros foundations
network.
I
remember a meeting at OSI in New York in the summer of 1995. Looking at a
bookshelf, I asked whether OSI had a copy of every book published through an
OSI grant. Amused, one of the staff members replied, “A copy? We don’t even
know how many there are!” It was immediately apparent to me, as it would have
been to any professional archivist, that the records being created by the Soros
foundations were important: here was an agent of change in the countries of
Central and Eastern Europe, and the history of its activity would document the
history of those countries, the history of the developing civil societies in
the region, the history of the various disciplines funded by Soros, and the
history of a unique experiment in philanthropy. Its records needed to be
managed, and, most importantly, needed to be selected for permanent
preservation in an archives. This meant that the Open Society Archives needed
to become a records manager and archivist for the Soros foundations network
while continuing to acquire materials from outside the network.
Any
archives that both acquires records from inside this network and solicits
material from outside must have a solicitation policy. I wrote one, and it was,
with only minor changes, accepted by the OSI Board. This allowed us to say
“Thanks, but no” to potential donors or sellers while ensuring that we would be
the archives of first choice for Soros organizations worldwide. We began to
give records advice to Soros foundations in various countries, with the hope
that they would eventually send their older records to the Archives in
Budapest. As independent organizations, these foundations could not be required
to send records, but we tried to be friendly and encourage them to do so.
And so the venture was
launched. We hired and trained staff, created a schematic description of the
holdings in accordance with international archival standards, and launched a
website. We had the luxury of building a temperature- and humidity-controlled
storage facility and Research Room, with the unfailing assistance of Bernie
Stollman of the Soros organization, and the architect, Michael Cojocar. We
moved into the new facilities at CEU during the early summer of 1997,
abandoning our historic mansion and the not-so-historic warehouse on the
outskirts of the city. We started to hold exhibitions and to develop training
courses, first for our staff, next for the CEU Summer University, and then at
the request of national Soros foundations.
We acquired additional
material, and several acquisitions were especially important. Warned by people
within the Soros foundations that the tapes of broadcasts of state television
stations were in jeopardy or were
actually being destroyed in Croatia, Bosnia
and Serbia, we contracted for off-air taping of all newscasts and other public
affairs programs. Monthly shipments of videotape arrived from the three
capitals, and we copied each tape and described them for research use.
Eventually taping stopped in Zagreb, as word came that Croatia was now able to
preserve its own television archives, and later taping stopped in Sarajevo. But
it continued in Serbia to document for history the state’s pronouncements
leading up to the war in Kosovo.
A
second important addition was the donation of the records of the International
Helsinki Federation (IHF). Contacts within the Open Society Institute put us in
touch with IHF’s Executive Director, Aaron Rhodes, and one late afternoon he
signed a deed of gift on behalf of the Federation. Staff members from the
Archives went to Vienna and extracted documents from offices and, yes,
bathrooms. The opening of the IHF records was marked by an exhibit, a symposium
and a press conference, with the hope that other Helsinki organizations would
also deposit their records.
The
videotaping of the trials at the International War Crimes Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslavia in The Hague had been underwritten, in part, by the Soros
organization. As a result, the Archives purchased a copy of the tapes of the
first trial the Tribunal had held: an historical trial setting legal precedents
for generations. These were used by professors and law students at Central
European University almost
as quickly as they came in the door.
Finally,
we made an agreement with an extraordinary photographer, Edward Serrate, to
obtain a copy of his photographs from the war in Bosnia. These are splendid
images which will be a marvelous compliment to the videotapes of television
broadcasts, the Helsinki records, and the materials from The Hague.
I
was asked once, “Was the idea harder, or the implementation?” Neither, in
truth. Once the decision to acquire the RFE/RL materials was made, what had to
be done was obvious. What is difficult is maintenance: maintaining standards of
service, continuing to give records management advice to the Soros foundations,
and extending the networks of relationships with donors and potential donors,
researchers and friends. It is that continuity, that maintenance of quality
which is the key to the continued success of the Open Society Archives. It is a
job worth doing – just like keeping a parasailer up in the air.
Trudy
Huskamp Peterson
Passageway
between the two wings of the former building of the Open Society Archives in
Eötvös utca
connecting the offices with guest rooms.
Photo by József Attila Balázsi. Fonds
206 Records of the Open Society Archives.
Access to archives
a political issue
The
consequences of 1989
1989 closed a chapter in
world history: the post-war period was over. In fact, this post-war period
differed from all previous post-war periods of modern times. It was neither a
peace like those which followed wars in the 19th century, nor a short,
belligerent truce like the period of less than two decades which followed the
conclusion of the peace treaty in Versailles. During the 44 years between the
surrender of the Axis powers and the implosion of the Soviet imperial system,
the world lived in a Manichean era, with tension and detente alternating. The
Cold War, however, has not degenerated into a general armed confrontation –
perhaps because the Second World War, the most horrible debauch of cruelty that
has ever happened, served as a deterrent. The hostilities stopped in 1945, but
a more or less dim souvenir of these years continued to haunt Europe.
By
an innovation against diplomatic tradition, no peace treaty was concluded with
Germany. Many questions generated by the war or the emergency decisions and
measures following it remained unsettled. In fact, they are still open,
although the main obstacle, the Manichean bloc system, was deconstructed between
1985 and 1991.
The
700 days between the opening of the Berlin wall and the coup in Moscow closed
also the communist parenthesis and the age of the totalitarian state in the
history of Europe. More than 20 countries found themselves faced with the gigantic
challenge of inventing, engineering and managing the transition from
monolithism to pluralism, from all-powerful party-state to democracy, from
bureaucratic dirigism to market economies.
Relieved
from the pressure of containment and the danger of confrontation in the West,
released from a generalized deadlock in the East, European nations became aware
that they had no free access to the knowledge of their pasts. Of course, the
organized oblivion of painful or shameful past events in a democratic country
like France or Switzerland differs radically from the organized lying and
omnipresent secrecy practiced in the Soviet imperium. But it happened that the
comfort of selective amnesia lost its attractiveness in the West at the very
moment when 20 nations achieved the right to uncover their histories, long kept
secret and distorted by compulsory lies. It is understandable that access to
archives has become a hot issue attracting media attention in much of Europe.
The
archival community reacted to this new situation by developing new working
methods to address the problem of access. Historians, lawyers and
administrators were associated with the necessary studies and, in order to
highlight specific national schemes both
those favorable to the freedom of research and those which work to its
detriment and to define realistic
objectives, brainstorming round-tables involving two or more countries were
organized. This effort, conducted by International Council on Archives (ICA),
under the aegis of the Council of Europe, led to the development of a Draft
Recommendation on a European Policy on Access to Archives.
Agreement to various provisions by the Council of Europe is still outstanding,
but hopefully the Recommendation will be formally
approved next year. It is needed as a reference instrument in all countries,
particularly in those where the democratization of access policies and the
lifting of obsolete restrictions are under debate. (An almost final version of
the text, dated February 1998, is available on the Open Society Archives’
website.) The Recommendation outlines and explains
the principles which should inspire legislation on access. It insists on the
importance of coordinating such legislation with the laws concerning related
areas, in particular with laws on access to information held by public
authorities and laws on protected personal data. It also emphasizes that access
to public archives is not merely a question of rules on disclosure and
confidentiality, time limits, declassification, special permission to inspect
restricted files and the availability of finding aids. It states that “However
liberal the access rules prescribed in legislation may be, the actual
communication of archives depends primarily on the facilities and on the human
and financial resources which an archives service possesses for the
preservation and the processing of its holdings.”
The
preliminary outline for a state-of-the-art review
Throughout
the party-state parenthesis, in spite of a unified central command based in
Moscow and a uniform phraseology, history did not stop. Each nation responded
to commands in its own way, determined by its history, and the words imposed by
the common speech-standard may have had different meanings in different
countries. Access to archives was one of the non-uniformly handled areas,
except for two rules: (i) records on political decision-making and on all
operations connected with the control of the population by the party-state
remained closed without time limit; and (ii) specific restrictions were imposed
on foreign users.
When
the parenthesis ended, the thirst for historical truth was equally strong
everywhere in the region, but government authorities and archival institutions
were not prepared to address the issue in a uniform way. Managing the
transition was easier in those countries where archives had remained attached
to a ministry of education or a ministry of culture, and thus could maintain a
professional profile. Lifting restrictions which had become irrelevant required
legal reform; there was no need to reshape the role of the archivist.
In
countries where the archival field had been placed under or closely linked with
the internal security authority, a much stronger tradition of secrecy had
developed. Users had no access to detailed finding aids but instead received
files selected for them by the archives staff, and no bundle or box was
produced in a research room without being checked, page by page, by the staff.
Through this double censorship, historians could be denied the right to inspect
any record from any period of the past that did not corroborate the Vulgate,
whether ideological or nationalist. In such situations, legal reform has to be
accompanied by a reshaping of the professional practice.
In
the new democracies, the starting positions on justified or unavoidable
restrictions also differed from country to country for a wide range of reasons
not necessarily tied with the distance between the archives and the
STASI/Securitate-type police. Without attempting to be exhaustive, one can
mention issues such as the country’s relations with the Third Reich after 1938,
the question of nationalities, conquest and repression during the party-state
regime, and, in the former Soviet Republics, the degree to which the population
identified with the USSR.
Following
the years of change, practically everywhere the state archives system took over
the archives of the communist parties, and these became accessible according to
the same conditions which pertained to other public records. In Russia,
however, after a brief general opening, the confidentiality of a number of
government, Party, and Comintern holdings was reinstated under a new regulation
on state secrets, without a specified time limit. Reopening is subject to
formal declassification, even for records dating back to the 1920s and 30s.
Civil
society and the media followed with particular intentness the fate of the
internal security police files. For political reasons, and also due to
financial considerations (processing these requires incomparably more manpower
than is needed for normal government records), they were usually placed,
following the German example, under the control of a special authority (e.g.,
in Hungary and in Romania). In other countries, they remained in the custody of
the new police authority, a solution which UNESCO experts had warned against.[1]
The
European book market indicates clearly that the public wants to know what
really happened since the appearance of the totalitarian state. People are
passionately interested in their own histories and in those of their parents
and grandparents. This demand may be satisfied if historians are given access
to the sources according to sensible rules. The primary condition, however, as
stated by the Council of Europe text, is seemingly more trivial: the records
must be in archival custody. Partial information indicates that, while in some
countries (Latvia and Slovakia, for instance) the archives possess adequate
storage capacity, in others a significant percentage of the records from after
1945 remains in the originating agencies due to a shortage of facilities (e.g.
in Albania, Poland and Romania). A survey of the situation would probably be
welcomed by the users, and it may also help the archives to obtain construction
programs or resources for renting additional premises.
The
transition continues
Throughout
Central and Eastern Europe, the revision of archival legislation and, more
particularly, of access rules, is part of the democracy-building process. The
rhythm and scope of reform have been contingent on political developments and
economic circumstances. New archival legislation has been introduced in the
majority of countries (including, among others, Croatia, the Czech Republic,
Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Russia and Slovenia), but
concepts and rules which lost their relevance with the change of regime were
not systematically abandoned everywhere. Harmonization of the new legislation
on archives with legislation in related areas has also started, but new
problems constantly arise. Aggiornamento of legislation in
the archival field is a permanent exercise; all new democracies are bound to
care about improving their legal and regulatory texts in order to adapt them to
the changing needs of the emerging information society.
According
to a firmly established tradition, no archival legislation is drafted without
extensive study of foreign laws and regulations, especially recent texts.
Between 1971 and 1996, Archivum devoted seven volumes to
publishing archival laws from all over the world (all in all 141 countries) to
facilitate broad research by those developing legislative projects. The
Internet now offers the possibility to respond to this need in a more dynamic
way than conventional printing. OSA has already started to make archival laws
and regulations available in the Regional Archives Support Project (RASP)
section of its website. I am convinced that OSA would render an invaluable
service to all partner countries and the archival community at large by continuing
this activity and building up a database visitors could search on any issue
covered by the texts: protection of personal data, declassification of
restricted files, the status of municipal archives, agencies ex empt ed from
the transfer obligation, parent authority of the archives etc. For the first
time, governments and archival authorities would have at their disposal a body
of up-to-date information on possible options for orienting archival policies,
and on the possible consequences of the options they may choose.[2]
The
principle of assigning to the state the responsibility for preserving the
national memory remains an unquestioned and unchallenged acquisition of modern
times. This relatively new state function – previously records were to remain
in the custody of the originating bodies forever – is not exercised uniformly,
even in countries which are other wise comparable. According to the pattern
followed by the UK and the US, all government agencies transfer their records
to a national archives fully responsible for their safekeeping and for making
available to users an undivided national memory. Under this pattern, the
national archives have no control whatsoever over public records created at
lower than central level of the administration and are not entitled to take
into custody private papers and non-governmental archives.
The
pattern developed by France 200 years ago gives diplomatic, military and police
archives independence from the national archival authority, although the
archival legislation is applicable to them. Under this pattern, a centrally
controlled archival network serves the provincial/regional level of public
administration, and state archives are entit l ed to acquire all kinds of
private fonds and collections.
In
fact, national situations are extremely varied, and features of the two
patterns are mixed. In the age of electronic technologies and increased
interest in recent history, the pattern which keeps the national memory
undivided seems preferable. It permits a co herent, nationwide access policy
covering paper and electronic records, strongly influenced by an authority
which is the natural ally of scholars: the national archives.
A
well-built, sufficiently rich and permanently updated database on archival legal
and policy matters would also act as a powerful incentive to overcome the
“Internet gap” still characterizing the profession. A well-developed internet
infrastructure could also provide countless services to the archives of the
region from distance training to the
dissemination of statistical data, from individual or group consultations to
on-line research.
The
challenges described here deserve an ambitious response – a response which will
serve the progress of archives in the new democracies.
Charles
Kecskeméti
Wall clock from the 1910s that shows the “Certified Central European Time”. Central office of the Open Society Archives.
Photo by Ferenc Nemzetes.
Fonds 206 Records of the Open Society Archives.
The Open Society
Archives: a brief history
While the roots of the
Open Society Archives (OSA) go back to the early Cold War, in its recent form
the Archives is a creation of the post-Cold War, the post-communist period. It
was established in 1995, in close relation to another new establishment, the
Central European University (CEU). Both institutions represent a new era in the
history of the region where the former activities of Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty (RFE/RL) were focused. The new Archives acquires, preserves and makes
available research resources in the areas of communism and the Cold War,
particularly in Central and Eastern Europe in the postwar period; human rights
issues and movements; and the activities of the Soros foundations network,
including the Open Media Research Institute (OMRI, successor of the RFE/RL
Research Institute) and CEU. The major part of the OSA holdings is the former
archives of the RFE/RL Research Institute.
The
collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe indicated that RFE/RL and
its institutions in Munich had fulfilled their task, and the US Congress cut
the Radios’ funding. The question emerged: what would happen to the archives?
Several options were discussed. The simplest suggested that the archives had
lost its function, therefore its preservation was futile. This would have meant
the total elimination of the files. Another option was that the various
national records would be donated to the new democratic states, a move which
would have led to the division of the materials and possibly to their partial destruction. It would have also
required that the governments be willing to accept and preserve the donated
materials. Moreover, the division of the archives would have damaged its
historical value. Although for many decades the archives had not functioned as
a united division, eventually it became the unified product of an institution
determined to carry out its very special mission. The archives could be deemed
a unique product of a historical age; therefore, serious arguments supported
the view that it had to be kept together and preserved as a whole. Finally,
George Soros assumed the costs of maintaining, preserving and processing the
former archives of the RFE/RL Research Institute for the next 50 years, and
made it available to researchers.
The
negotiations started in 1994. Under the custody agreement between the Open
Society Institute (OSI), part of the Soros foundations network, and the US
Congress in November 1994, the collection was to be shipped to Budapest.
The
conditions of the transaction were clear: the RFE/RL archives had not been
purchased by Soros, and it was to remain the property of the United States. The
Open Society Institute had only assumed the financial and professional duty to
preserve the documents and make them public for scholars, and literally anyone
else who might be interested in them. At the same time OSI agreed to set up a
new research unit in Prague – OMRI. The role of OMRI was similar to its
predecessor in Munich: supporting the modified broadcasting and programming activities
of RFE/RL at its new location in the Parliament building of the former
Czechoslovak Republic. RFE/RL continued its broadcasts, on a reduced level, to
those sub-regions of the former Soviet sphere that were being destabilized by
ethnic conflicts or falling under the control of new or transformed dictatorial
regimes, usually of some religious or ethnic mutation: i.e. Russia, the
Caucasus, the republics of the former Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria. In
addition to supporting the Radios, OMRI also published a monthly periodical Transition
that soon became one of the major English language sources for politicians,
journalists and investors who were interested in the post-communist political
development of Central and Eastern Europe. (OMRI supported the Radios until
1997, but remained the publisher of the periodical – later renamed Transitions – until May 1999.)
Thus,
as a consequence of the custody agreement, two new institutions were born in
1995 – OSA in Budapest and OMRI in Prague – and the documents of the RFE/RL
Research Institute had been divided between the two. However, this division was
only functional and temporal. The so-called “historical files” of the original
archives (the documents older than five years) were sent to OSA, while the
“current files” went to OMRI. Each year the documents that had supposedly lost
their current value were collected and shipped from Prague to Budapest. (After
OMRI closed its operation, the remainder of the former RFE/RL files, as well as
the files accumulated by OMRI from 1995 to 1997, ended up in Budapest by 1997.)
The
historical part of the RFE/RL archives started to move to Budapest from Munich
in the spring of 1995. The amount of material carried in dozens of enormous
trucks was amazing. The archives in Munich had collected, processed and
preserved one of the largest collections of Polish and Russian samizdat
materials in the world, and contained books and almost all possible types of
printed, self-copied and handwritten materials. The archives had accumulated a
huge collection of complete runs of periodicals from throughout the region
including regional dailies. The archives was the only place in the region
where, for example, the confidential files of the US State Department on the
Soviet Union were available to researchers. The library of the RFE/RL Research
Institute consisted of more than 130,000 volumes, monographs, essay collections
on and from the region, samizdat publications, emigrant literature and
political pulp-fiction from the Cold War era.
The
archives had to be transported from the RFE/RL headquarters and several
warehouses in the suburbs of Munich. Within two months, this huge amount of
records, books and other printed materials – more than 2,500 linear meters –
arrived in Budapest. The most important parts of it were deposited in OSA’s
first main building in Eötvös Street. However, it soon became clear
that the preliminary estimate of the quantity of records arriving in Budapest
was not even roughly accurate. Moreover, the trucks stuffed with hundreds of
cardboard boxes and filing cabinets arrived without catalogs or any approximate
descriptions of their actual content. Because the archival procedures at RFE/RL
had not been systematic for many years, and fundamental changes had taken place
during its 45 years of operation, from the “input perspective” in Budapest it
often seemed that even the archivists in Munich did not have a clear picture of
the quantity, types and locations of the materials the RFE/RL archives had
amassed.
Yet
the destination in Budapest, due to the unexpected haste and urgency, was not
in a much better condition either. The first site of the Open Society Archives
in Budapest was an old palace on the edge of downtown Budapest. The building,
once the residence of a grand merchant family, then owned by the famous
aristocratic family, the Podmaniczkys, was confiscated in 1945 and donated to
the National Trade Union of Iron Workers (Vasas Szakszervezet – the union’s
sports club, Vasas SC, was the favorite of János Kádár,
chief secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party from 1956 to 1988)
and served as headquarters, café and club for privileged trade union
functionaries. Thus the spirit of the space was not far from the historical
aura of the records soon to be deposited and stored there after the collapse of
the regime. However, the building was completely vacant when OSA’s first small
team – a historian, a technician, and a secretary – took control of it. There
were no furnishings, no shelves, no computers – just two chairs and some old
telephones. When early on it became obvious that there was not enough space in
this building for all the records that were underway from Munich, it became an
urgent necessity to rent a remote warehouse in the suburbs. The book warehouse
of a retailer in Kén Street served as a perfect temporary solution.
The
processing and arrangement of the records started immediately upon their
arrival, and this work went on parallel with the technical furnishing of the
Archives itself. The schedule was pressing, since the archives wanted to open
its doors to researchers by the beginning of the academic year.
Early
on, the number of staff was very limited. The first circle of staff was
primarily recruited from among young CEU historians. They were native speakers
of the languages of the various national records included in the RFE/RL
holdings, and their main fields were contemporary, post-war European history,
and the history of communism and the Cold War. Each curator began to process
the records relating to a particular country. Their first step was to identify
and separate the various types of series, and to recover or re- establish a
preliminary order for those records that were damaged or lost during shipment;
at the same time, the initial versions of inventories were to be prepared. The
technical staff still consisted of only one member who carried out most of the
technical and installation work within the Archives. The academic and scholarly
activities of OSA were elaborated and shaped by Professor István
Rév of the CEU History Department, who was elected as Academic Director
by the joint Executive Board of CEU and OMRI in May 1995.
The
Archives started receiving researchers on an experimental basis on 11 October
1995, yet the success of the initial period was only partial. Although many
parts of the records (perhaps the most important parts) could be made public in
time for the opening, 75 percent of the materials still had not been even
touched. It became clear that the palace on Eötvös Street, though a
quiet and attractive place, was not suitable for managing and controlling the
huge OSA collection, which had already grown with the acquisition of records
from other sources. By the summer of 1995, OSA holdings had been enriched by
donations from the International Human Rights Law Institute in Chicago and the
London-based periodical Index on Censorship.
And further acquisitions were expected. Both the final location and the matters
of human resources urgently called for a satisfactory long-term solution.
The
establishment of the new archives entered a new phase in the fall of 1995. At
the end of August, Trudy Huskamp Peterson, former Acting Archivist of the
United States, had joined OSA as Executive Director. Between October 1995 and
January 1996, the size of the staff doubled. Professional archivists were
invited from all over the world from
South Africa to the US and Europe. Systematic processing had started, including
the design and preparation of a new electronic database and archival location
register. The project included the records deposited temporarily in the
Kén Street warehouse – enormous amounts of printed materials and
documents from the early period of the Munich archives that were, for the most
part, still in a quite disorganized and unexplored state. After several months
of exhaustive work OSA celebrated its official opening on 15 March 1996, the anniversary of the 1848
Hungarian Revolution and, incidentally, Free Press Day. The ceremony was thus a
symbolic reference to the history and original mission of RFE/RL and its
archives. Gábor Demszky, the Mayor of Budapest delivered the opening
speech. On this occasion Demszky, who in the early 80s was the founder of the
largest samizdat publishing house in Hungary, also donated to OSA his private
samizdat collection – the records, reminiscences, and relics of his clandestine
activities.
By
this time OSA had begun preparations for the move to its new permanent site.
The first drafts of the new storage area were sketched in January 1996. The
site was to be constructed among the buildings of CEU’s downtown complex. The
construction started in 1996, utilizing a huge three-level storage area, which
had been partially built under CEU. The new premises were equipped with the
best available shelving and storage technology. The archives moved to the new
space in the spring of 1997, while its Research Room only had to be closed for
three weeks due to the move. Now the Archives’ Research Room, which opened on 3
May 1997, is located adjacent to the CEU Library. The new location turned out
to be much better not only in the practical and archival but also in an
intellectual sense. Now that the Archives is within CEU, it serves mainly, but
certainly not exclusively, CEU’s faculty and students, who come from the very
same region and have the most in common with the holdings and history of this
archives.
As
already indicated, the holdings of the Open Society Archives are not limited to
the history of communism and the Cold War. In July 1995, one of the most
important proponents of human rights and free press, the world-famous London
periodical Index on Censorship, donated to OSA
its archive of documents and manuscripts from the 60s through the 80s. The
first shipment arrived in August 1995, and the fonds is supplemented and updated
on a yearly basis.
Similarly,
the documents of the International Human Rights Law Institution on the war
crimes and human rights violations committed in the former Yugoslavia arrived
to OSA in August 1995. The Institution, commissioned by the United Nations and
based in Chicago, formed a research team led by Professor Cherif Bassiouni
which systematically collected and processed information about the crimes, mass
destruction and other violations committed during the civil war in Yugoslavia.
This work was sponsored by George Soros. The fonds contains news clippings,
headlines, reports and confessions
as well as a large audio-visual collection from the period 1992–1995.
The
records of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) also
belong to the holdings of OSA. The the first national Helsinki Committee
founded in 1976 in Moscow to monitor the fulfillment and execution of those
resolutions of the Helsinki Treaty that prescribed general human rights
principles with which the signatories must comply. The IHF, the federation of
the national committees, became one of the most influential organizations in
the 80s. It firmly criticized the human rights violations and intolerable
practices of the socialist states, and actively supported human rights and
opposition movements within the Soviet bloc. The records of the IHF arrived at
OSA in April 1998. In addition to the files of the central office in Vienna,
the Archives also receives the records of its local member organizations, the
Helsinki Committees from within the region.
As
previously mentioned, OSA received the collection of Gábor Demszky,
Mayor of Budapest in addition to the samizdat files arriving from Munich.
Demszky was the founder and director of the AB Independent Publishing House, which
issued and distributed periodicals (Hírmondó and
Beszélô)
and clandestine literature from the region and from the West. The Demszky files
contain periodicals, books, manuscripts, printing sheets and galley proofs.
Researchers can follow all the phases of production; moreover, with the tools
and machines Demszky donated it would be possible to produce samizdat even now.
The
Archives actively takes part in organizing and supporting historical research
on the communist period. OSA sponsored videotaped interviews with the founders
and leaders of RFE/RL. The research and the interviews were prepared by Black
Box Videoperiodical Foundation, the first independent media company established
in Hungary in the late 80s. OSA also sponsored Miklós Kun, Hungarian
historian who conducted interviews with former Soviet party-leaders and members
of the apparatus. The resulting series, consisting of more than 100 hours of
videotape, was deposited in the Archives. Also the private film and photograph
collection of Péter Forgách, the world-famous Hungarian director
of documentary films, is available at OSA.
Finally,
OSA continuously receives files from organizations in the Soros foundations
network.
András Mink
Typewriter,
used for producing samizdat materials, operated by Anna Wagner, the first
“employee” of AB Independent Publishing House, Hungary.
Photo by András Révész. Fonds
302 Samizdat Publications of Gábor Demszky, OSA.
Chapter
II
The
holdings
Introduction
The
main mission of the Open Society Archives (OSA) is to obtain, preserve and make
available research resources for the study of communism and the Cold War,
particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, and for the study of twentieth and
twenty-first century issues of human rights, as well as to provide information,
records and archival services for all parts of the Soros foundations network.
The
holdings of OSA reflect this mission: the Archives actively acquires, protects
and makes available research resources in three main areas: communism
and the Cold War, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, in the
period after the Second World War; human rights issues and
movements, with particular emphasis on the second half of the
twentieth century; as well as records that document the philanthropic
activities of the Soros foundations network,
including the Open Media Research Institute and Central European University.
In
the following pages we provide an overview of the main parts of our holdings.
We do not aspire to describe all of the details: this will be the task of our
planned Guide, after all the materials
have been processed. Instead, we briefly describe the historical background,
the administrative history and, in some cases, the history of the documents
themselves, in addition to the general description of the archival material. We
also introduce some of the important or interesting documents of our holdings
as examples.
Since the
audiovisual materials of OSA represent a special value for the researchers, and
the audiovisual documents might refer to more than one main area of the
holdings, we devote a separate subchapter to introduce this material.
Similarly, the OSA Library has a unique characteristic, collection and administrative
history, therefore its collection deserves a separate description.
Communism and the Cold
War
Records of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The
Archives in Munich
The
prehistory of the Open Society Archives (OSA) started in 1949 with the post-war
division of Europe; the local communist parties seized power in all of the countries
in Central and Eastern Europe which were controlled and/or occupied by Soviet
troops in 1944–45. Central and Eastern European emigrants – former politicians
and influential public figures, once members of the domestic political, social,
and cultural elite who had to leave their own countries due to these post-war
political developments – decided to form a common organization, the Free Europe
Committee (originally founded as the National Committee for a Free Europe). The
initiative was approved and subtly encouraged by the US government. Thus, at
the beginning the Free Europe Committee presented itself as a private
organization. The activists tried to raise funds among people within the
American upper and middle classes, and also among well-to-do emigrants who
believed that the struggle against communism was of crucial importance. The
declared aim of the Committee was to promote the “containment” doctrine of US
foreign policy as well as to advance the liberation of the people under Soviet
rule in Central and Eastern Europe by peaceful means. The Committee had a
double task: it aimed to keep alive the public interest in the West towards the
problems of their homelands, and at the same time they strived to maintain and
reinforce the spirit of hope and resistance within the oppressed countries.
Therefore, the Committee specialized in organizing research projects and
conferences, accumulating information from behind the iron curtain from all
available resources, and editing and publishing books, essay collections and
information bulletins for the academic audience and for the broader public. The
Committee set up an information center in New York which consisted of a small
library and an archives that was continuously updated and enlarged. The
archival center aimed to serve both the emigrant organizations and Western
scholars, experts and decision-makers.
However,
the mere collection of information did not seem efficient, and was
unsatisfactory for the founders. It became clear very early that the Committee
had to find and take advantage of other means that might produce the desired
effects upon the communist world. The real task was to break the information
monopoly of the communist propaganda machinery within the Eastern bloc. Under
the aegis of the Free Europe Committee several actions and projects were
started that tried to spread information and propaganda among the people who
lived “beyond” and were completely cut off from sources of
real news and information – even about themselves and about their own lives.
Two ways seemed feasible. The traditional type, widely used during the Second
World War, involved dropping leaflets and other propaganda materials from jets
or balloons. But the real attraction was radio broadcasting.
Radio
Free Europe (RFE) was established in December 1949, and its first broadcast,
targeted at Czechoslovakia, was aired in July 1950. Radio Liberty (RL)
– previously called Radio Liberation – targeted the republics of the Soviet
Union with broadcasts starting on 1 March 1953. (The
two separate Radios were merged into a single company as RFE/RL in 1976.)
After
prudent consideration the founders decided to locate the Radios in Munich, West
Germany. Certainly in the case of such a huge venture, the image of a private
club formed by enthusiastic and committed individuals could not be maintained
any more. The US government provided financial as well as technical and
logistical background for RFE/RL, and the yearly budget of the Radios was
incorporated into state spending (although nobody was fully prepared for the
Fullbright Committee of the US Congress, in 1971, to expose that RFE and RL
received funding from the budget of the CIA).
Jamming equipment from the late 1960s. In Hungary these types of machines were used by the authorities for jamming “alien” radio broadcasts. The machine was displayed at the exhibition Representation of the Counter-Revolution by OSA in November, 1996. Property of the Hungarian Postal Museum.
Photo
by Ferenc Nemzetes. Fonds 206 Records of the Open Society Archives.
The
experts and staff – editors, speakers, political analysts, archivists and
librarians – were primarily recruited from among natives, many of whom were
newcomers to the West. Former politicians, famous journalists and scholars who
had left, or rather were forced to leave their own countries gravitated toward
the Radios. The newly established national editorial desks of the Radios
enjoyed a wide range of sovereignty in determining the structure and the
content of their programs. Yet, the ultimate professional and political control
still remained in the hands of the American supervisors, who were politically
responsible and accountable for what was put on the air. The Directory Board
regularly issued strategic and tactical guidelines that basically followed the
actual directives of the US State Department.
Radio
Free Europe targeted the Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe
– Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and (shortly) Albania –
while Radio Liberty broadcast toward the Soviet Union. RL had services in most
of the languages of the Soviet republics – in Baltic, Moldavian, Belarusian,
Ukrainian and also in Caucasian languages and Turkic languages of Central Asia.
In addition, they had services in Tartarian and Baskhirian as well.
The
embryonic forms of the various national research sections that were merged into
the RFE/RL Research Institute in 1990 were established parallel with the
Radios’ editorial desks in the early 50s. In 1959, the “research” function of
the RFE news department was separated and the management established
independent units reporting to each of the broadcast desks.
As
for Radio Liberation, the research section, which became the Soviet “Red”
Archives, started working in 1953 and later remained administratively under the
jurisdiction of the Radio Liberty.
The
idea was that the research sections would serve the programming and editorial
work of the national desks. Thus, some of the research units, for instance the
Hungarian Unit, started functioning even a few months before the first programs
were put on the air. The research activities were divided into national
sections, which roughly meant that each national editorial desk was supported
by native analysts and archivists who collected, arranged, interpreted and
transmitted the necessary up-to-date information for the editors. However,
these units were not intended to operate indefinitely. Like the Radios
themselves, they were supposed to be temporary establishments, which would
operate until the collapse of communism within the Soviet satellite states. The
prevalent opinion was that the collapse would come soon. This was why the
founders of the research sections had not considered the establishment of a
uniformly regulated archival machinery. At the beginning, the research staff
worked on a day-by-day basis. Even rules for mandatory preservation had not
been laid out. Without having a unified system and processing rules the
national sections existed and functioned separately, but still parallel to each
other. The lack of unified organization meant that the processing and
organizational principles, the archival methodology, the code systems, the
finding aids and the accessories of the national departments were almost
accidental and differentiated slightly from each other, although some general
features and characteristics could be detected.
In
most cases the research units were separated into two independent parts: the
research and analysis sections and the evaluation sections. The first worked
directly for the Programming Section and for the national desks, and elaborated
actual press analyses of domestic and Western publications on the political,
economic and cultural issues of the target country. From 1952 (in some cases
from 1956), the Evaluation and
Research sections started to regularly
publish Background Reports, which consisted
of longer essays about actual events and about the political and social
situations in several countries. Soon each country had its own Background
Report bulletin written in English, making the information available
for everybody at the Radios.
In
the beginning, the Background Reports were written on an
ad
hoc, irregular basis and concerned not only the five countries to
which RFE broadcast but also Albania, the GDR, Yugoslavia, the non-ruling
communist parties of the West, and East-West political relations. Later, the
periodicals were prepared with an increasing frequency, until they became
monthly, then bi-weekly periodicals, Situation Reports
that were written separately for each of the eight countries.
During
the early period, the work of the Evaluation Sections seemed to be more
important than research on printed and electronic sources.
Their task was to analyze and evaluate reports and interviews sent to Munich by
the local Field Offices. The series of these reports became known as Items. The
Items were recorded in Western refugee camps and immigration offices by the
agents of the field offices located in several European capitals and major
cities. On the letterhead of the Items Roman numbers identified the office from
which the report was sent to the center in Munich: I. was Munich, II. was
Stockholm, III. was West Berlin, IV. was Paris, V. was Athens, VI. was Rome,
VII. was Linz, VIII. was Salzburg, IX. was Vienna, X. or XI. was Istanbul and
XII. was London. The best and most reliable reports not surprisingly arrived
from the field offices located in Linz, Salzburg and Munich, where the biggest
refugee camps functioned and the most effective information control could be
exercised. Unlike pre-elaborated questionnaires, the Items contained complete
stories as told by the “source”. The structure of each information
Item was as follows: source, date, evaluation summary, evaluation comment and
text.
The
idea was quite interesting: the field offices surrounded the communist bloc
like “military bases” and conducted information warfare. On the other hand, it
was even more characteristic that the Radios tried to base the information
acquisition on “independent” sources. But the within communist countries which
all operated a centralized propaganda machine, only the information received
from average people, i.e. the refugees, seemed to be independent and reliable.
That practice could also be interpreted as a demonstrative gesture of the democratic
commitment of the Radios: while the communist regimes used politics and
propaganda against their own people, RFE/RL based its work upon and in favor of
the very same people.
Yet,
Item stories were not taken completely at face value. The primary task of the
evaluation sections was to control them: the experts tried to compare details
of these stories to the information received from other sources (domestic
radio, official press or other Items). They also tried to filter out the
elements of exaggeration, personal revenge etc. At the national research units,
the reports were carefully checked for accuracy and plausibility. Only those
reports which passed the various filtering systems were recommended as subjects
to be used in producing radio programs.
Collection of the Items went on until 1972, when the scandal over RFE/RL broke
out in the US Congress. Then the Radio leadership, urged by the higher
authorities in the US, decided to destroy them. However, fragments of them have
survived. Moreover, the Items from 1951 to 1956 from all of the Radios’ target
and non-target countries are microfilmed as one large Evaluation Items series
in chronological order.
An Item, anonymized interview about the broadcasting services of BBC and RFE conducted with a Hungarian listener, recorded on 12 May 1965. Presumably the views expressed in this interview echo the opinions of the average Hungarian public.
Hungarian
Unit, Fonds 300 Records of the RFE/RL Research Institute, OSA.
In
the early period the Items were among the most important sources of information
(e.g. most of the Czechoslovak Subject Files from the 50s and 60s are Items.)
The other main source was the Monitoring Department, also established at the
beginning. Every day the Radios’ staff monitored and recorded the programs of
the official state radios of the target countries. The recorded broadcasts were
transcribed, and the editors found a copied selection on their desks each
morning.
It
was quite natural that the Radios acquired information from other radios, and
the daily reports compiled from the Radios’ monitoring served as a source of
information, though not exclusively or primarily, since those were produced
from totalitarian propaganda. They rather served as references: they contained
the “facts” that RFE and RL had to know in order to battle communism
effectively. The monitoring provided a clear picture of the elements and
phenomena that the official propaganda in the Eastern bloc wanted to emphasize
on the one hand, and what it wanted to hide on the other. RFE/RL particularly
concentrated upon just these elements. In this little game of propaganda and
counter-propaganda, RFE/RL and the communist radio stations always responded,
reflected, and even indirectly edited each other’s programs.
During
this period the traditional archival work of collecting and arranging
information from the printed and electronic media perhaps was not a focus of
the Research and Evaluation Sections of the Radios (although the situation was
probably different in the various national sections). However, these kinds of
archival activities had started from the beginning, and became increasingly
systematic and important. The processing of written sources, Western and
Eastern newspapers, and news agency reports was initially based on a Card File
system covering various subjects, including institutions and persons. The basic
references were recorded cards that indicated the original sources, which could
be traced back with the help of the cards.
In
the 50s the collection of news clippings was rather accidental. (It was more
systematic in the case of the archives of RL, the “Red” Archives.) The
archivists and researchers mostly relied upon the cards, together with the
material in the newspaper and periodical collection cited by the cards. But
soon a more sophisticated subject clipping system was requested, and this
enabled the archives to fulfill demands of the national desks much more
rapidly.
After
the first few years the management of the archives became more and more
professional. The experiences of the Hungarian and Polish uprisings in 1956
brought about the major changes in this respect. These historic events made
clear both the importance and the responsibility of the Radios in the region,
and also proved that this venture would not be merely a temporary one. It
became clear that communism would stay in these countries, and the division of
Europe was a long-term historical phenomenon. This new recognition invoked the
reorganization of the Radios and the research units as well.
From
1958 on, the structures of the latter were reorganized step by step, as the
traditional archival work became more and more important in information
acquisition. This shift of emphasis from accidental sources to regular ones
required a much more organized system for processing information. The various
national sections elaborated their own filing system (the Subject Code system),
according to which they clipped, arranged and processed the documents and data
coming from printed and electronic media. Additionally, at this time the
operational structure of research and evaluation was unified, and the
systematic collection and processing of the Subject Files and biographical
clippings really started. The general policy was to file the same article under
all of the relevant subject titles as well as in the Biographical Files if the
article concerned a relevant person. The result was an extremely effective and
sophisticated network of information in which data and problems could be
identified and approached via divergent routes. This was also the time when the
separate national archives gained a predominantly similar structure. The same
elements could be found in all of the national subfonds: Subject Files, the
series of Background Reports and Situation
Reports, Biographical Files, Press Surveys and Monitoring
Files.
The
research units (from 1990 the unified Research Institute) operated until the
mid-90s. During 45 years of continuous activity, they accumulated an archives
of millions of documents both in paper and micro-format about the Soviet Union
and the former Eastern bloc. The amount of archival materials exceeds 2,500
linear meters, despite the unfortunate fact that the research sections
regularly sorted out parts of the collections that were supposed to be
irrelevant in the future. After more than four decades the archives became the
major source of information about the post-war history of the region. In the
meantime, communism collapsed with an unexpected rapidity, and this changed the
role of the RFE/RL Archives and redefined its function and mission. From an
information database that served the programming needs of an electronic medium
with the ultimate purpose of undermining the communist regimes, the materials
of the Research Institute became an archives, a historical collection of the
bygone communist regimes, a product of and a memorial to communism.
Archival Arrangement and
Structure of the Records
of Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty Research Institute
The
structure of the biggest fonds of the Open Society Archives (OSA), the Records
of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute is very complex and
peculiar; therefore, its archival arrangement requires a more detailed
explanation.
According
to the agreement with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) only one part of
the Radios’ archives is in the custody of OSA. The totality consists of three
components: the Corporate Archives, containing the Radios’ correspondence and
administrative records; broadcasting archives, containing the tapes and
transcripts of the Radios’ programs; and the records of the RFE/RL Research
Institute. OSA holds the latter.
The
RFE/RL Research Institute was established on 15 November 1990, with the merger
of several RFE and RL research departments. During its entire existence, the
Research Institute’s director was Ross Johnson.
The general mission of the Research Institute was to conduct and disseminate
timely analyses of political, economic and social developments in the former
Soviet bloc; to support RFE/RL broadcasting; to survey listener habits and
public opinion; to serve as research center for scholars and other specialists;
and to maintain and automate the archival collection.
Corresponding
to this mission, the Research Institute was divided into four departments:
1.
The Analytic Research Department produced
comparative and single-country analyses of political, economic and social
developments in the region. There were four clusters: East Central Europe,
South Eastern Europe, the Russian Federation, and the cluster of other
successor states to the USSR and the Baltic countries.
2.
The Media and Opinion Research Department evaluated
media use and public opinion in the region, in order to measure the impact of
RFE/RL broadcasting and to generally survey public opinion.
3.
The Publications Department was responsible for
editing, producing and distributing Research Institute publications.
4.
The Information Resources Department was
responsible for current information, library and archival functions. The
records of this department make up the biggest part of the Research Institute
archives, which had three divisions: the East European Archives with five
national units for target countries (Albanian and Yugoslav records were added
later); Slavic, Baltic and Eurasian Archives; and the Library (see subchapter
“The Library”).
Sometimes
the US Office of the Research Institute
was regarded as the fifth department (see Organization chart of the RFE/RL
Research Institute).
The
RFE/RL Research Institute, as the successor of the respective RFE and RL
departments, inherited a huge amount of archival materials which dated from the
1950s. These materials were partly divided between the departments and partly,
especially the oldest sections, kept separately in a remote depository. Of
course, during its few years of intensive activity, the Research Institute
produced many new records of its own.
Organisation chart of the
RFE/RL Research Institute, June 1992.
Fonds 300 Records of
RFE/RL Research Institute, OSA
The
RFE/RL Research Institute was dissolved on 31 December 1994, and according to
an agreement with the Open Society Institute-New York its archival holdings
were moved to OSA in Budapest. The more current records, from approximately the
last five years, were transferred to the Open Media Research Institute (OMRI)
in Prague. OMRI continued the activity of the RFE/RL Research Institute,
creating and adding many new materials to the existing files. These
circumstances made the structure of the RFE/RL Research Institute holdings very
complex.
At
OSA, the arrangement of the records of the RFE/RL Research Institute is based
on traditional archival rules: the principle of provenance (respect
des fonds) and the principle of respect for archival
structure.
The
first rule states that the records or archives of the same provenance must not
be intermingled with those of any other provenance. From this perspective,
records from OMRI must be treated as separate fonds. OMRI obtained many records
from the RFE/RL Research Institute, but they remained in use, and their
structure was changed (in record management terms this is an “active
succession”). This is why at OSA all materials coming from Prague are kept
together, and only a small amount of materials which had clearly been
transferred to OMRI by mistake were put back into the RFE/RL Research Institute
fonds.[3]
This is very important information for all researchers who want to use the
fonds of the RFE/RL Research Institute: it is always necessary also to check
the OMRI fonds (see below separate subchapter).[4]
The
second rule, the principle of respect for archival structure, states that the
methodology used in archival operations should reflect the varying forms and
structures of the records or archives, and their administrative and functional contents.
It was very difficult to use this rule in practice, because the administrative
organization and the functions of the Radios’ departments were changed very
often. After a careful analysis of the archival materials and the historical
structure of the organization, the decision was made to keep the order of the
last user. Archival materials were divided into subfonds corresponding to the
Research Institute’s departments. The oldest part of the records, which was
kept separately in a remote depository in Munich, forms individual subfonds,
which reflect a former RFE and RL structure.[5]
Records of the Institute for the Study of the USSR were inherited after its
closure by the RFE/RL Research Institute (passive succession) and these
constitute the last subfonds in this group of archival materials.
A
general description of the better, as of date of publication of this book,
known part of the archives is below, but it is necessary to remember that the
RFE/RL Research Institute fonds is still being processed, and it is possible
that there will be changes in the structure and description of the records. The
most up-to-date version will be available on the OSA website
<www.osa.ceu.hu>. When the work is completed, OSA will publish a separate
Guide.
References:
Establishment
of the RFE/RL Research Institute, Memorandum from the Radio’s acting
president, William W. Marsh, to RFE/RL staff from 9 November 1990, RFE/RL
Administrative History, Central Files, OSA.
A
Survey of the East Europe Research and Analysis Department (EERA). May 1966,
RFE/RL Administrative History, Central Files, OSA.
The
Information Resources Department
The
East European Archives
Records
of the Bulgarian Unit
The
Bulgarian Unit initiated operations, simultaneous to the beginning of
broadcasting to Bulgaria, in the summer of 1950. Called “Evaluation and
Research” it was a subdivision of the News and Information Services Department.
From the outset, except for the News Desk, all Bulgarian units operated within
RFE’s New York branch. In 1957 the whole Bulgarian section was moved to Munich.
In order to support its broadcasts, the staff of the Bulgarian Unit had to
collect comprehensive information about events in Bulgaria after the Second
World War.[6]
The
primary work of the Bulgarian Unit consisted of covering all available
information from Bulgaria in the sphere of political developments, economy,
culture, etc., and supplying information on events and developments in
Bulgaria. Information was selected from Bulgarian and Western media, and
archived mostly on card files under different codes. The card files contain
abstracts of media reports and also provide some cross-references to the
Subject Files series. Useful and important information was extracted both from
central and regional newspapers, and also from special articles in party,
economic and literary periodicals.
The
Subject
Files contain news agency releases, excerpts of RFE Research
Reports, transcripts from monitoring of the Bulgarian
National Radio, newspaper clippings, and copies of articles from scientific
publications. They include extensive information related to agriculture, armed
forces, various parties and organizations, economy, culture, industry, and the
state apparatus in Bulgaria. The files on the country’s ethnic minorities, dissidents,
persecution and purges of the opposition, resistance to and criticism of the
regime, and anti-Western propaganda are of particular interest.
The
news and commentary broadcasts of Radio Sofia were read every day, as well as
the news “budget” of the Central News Room,
from which all information and press articles concerning Bulgaria were used.
The transcripts of radio monitoring were distributed as bulletins entitled Bulgarian
Monitoring. By 1991 television monitoring was included in the
bulletins, and in 1993 the title of the distributed copy was changed to Bulgaria
Today: Media News and Features Digest: TV and Radio Monitoring.
Particular
attention was paid to news – foreign and domestic – from Bulgarian radio and
television, political programs, and surveys of various Bulgarian newspapers.
Interviews with, and speeches by, prominent politicians were also monitored, as
well as programs by leading Bulgarian journalists. These materials were an
important source for the Bulgarian journalists at RFE who prepared Situation
Reports and Background Reports,
as well as evaluating Information Items.
At
various stages of its existence the Unit employed between two and eight people;
at the end five people worked there. From the beginning until 1960, Tosho
Damianov was chief of the Unit. Later he was replaced by Kaloyan Kaloyanov, who
was replaced by Vasil Serbesov, who in turn was succeeded by Rada Nikolaev.
The
materials of the Bulgarian Unit are principally in Bulgarian, but materials in
English, German and French can also be found here.
Records
of the Czechoslovak Unit
The
records of the Czechoslovak Unit (CZ Unit) originate from the materials of the
CZ Evaluation Section (later Evaluation and Research Section), a section which
had the role of evaluating analyses and Items produced by Field Offices (see
subchapter “The Archives in Munich”) and materials collected in Munich. In the
1950s particularly, access to Czech and Slovak dailies was rather difficult and
therefore they were not systematically collected. If available, the periodicals
were usually kept by the program editors of Radio Free Europe (RFE). [7]
The
beginning of the formal archival filing of clippings, news releases, and
reports of analysts, as well as the use of a subject code filing plan did not start
until the early 1960s.
The
individuals primarily involved in building the CZ archives were J.
N¹tík, V. Kusín, H. Hájek, S. Winter, A.
Kratochvíl, L. Nižµanský, and the director of the CZ Unit of
the RFE/RL Research Institute, P. Matuška.
The staff members were each responsible for a set of periodicals which they
continually followed.
The
Unit did not have a separate collection of samizdat materials. However, the
staff members did acquire such material through their individual personal
contacts. There was extensive cooperation, including the exchange of
photocopies with V. Preþan’s collection in Scheinfeld.
The
systematic gathering, arranging, and filing of documents, and monitoring of the
Czechoslovak Radio News from Czechoslovakia started in 1951 after the first
broadcasts of Radio Free Europe on 4 July 1950.
Although
there are a number of copies of newspapers from the period 1927 – 1938,
including coverage of presidential elections, the bulk of the material consists
of records dating from 1951 to 1994.
Unlike
other target and non-target country subfonds the Subject Files and Biographical
Files of the Czechoslovak Unit are available
both on paper and on microfilm. Combined with the two Chronological Series, the
Czechoslovak Press Survey and Monitoring of the Czech and Slovak Radios and
Television, the records extensively cover a wide range of topics and provide
information on a large variety of individuals from diverse social, cultural and
political backgrounds.
News agency release from 26 September 1978 broadcasted by RFE/RL, reporting on the state of health of Vladimir Kostov, Bulgarian journalist in exile, who suffered injuries following an attack a month earlier in Paris. The action was allegedly carried out by the Bulgarian secret services, using a “mysterious object”.
Records of the Bulgarian
Unit, Fonds 300 Records of the RFE/RL Research Institute, OSA.
The
Subject
Files consist of an abundance of information on crucial
subjects relating to Czechoslovakia. In particular, there is a substantial
amount of information (26 archival boxes) relating to the armed forces. Within
these boxes are many articles about the Warsaw Pact, NATO, the Soviet
occupation in 1968 and disarmament. The armed forces material also includes an
alphabetical list of the members of special military units, and information on
the locations and methods of intelligence officer training.
One
of the most interesting Subject Files is on the Czechoslovak Communist Party.
It consists of 73 archival boxes and includes articles about the events of
February 1948 and the 1968 “Prague Spring”. Articles about COMINFORM,
congresses, party statutes, the Central Committee and purges, as well as
regional, local and town committees are also included.
There
are 38 archival boxes of cultural articles containing information about films,
literature, music and theater. Some articles even reveal criticism of
the cultural policy in Czechoslovakia. The culture file also contains a list of
the Research Institutes of the Czechoslovak Academy of Science Organizations.
Records
on COMECON and Czechoslovakia’s cooperation with socialist and non-socialist
countries, crises, prognoses and reforms can be found in the 49 archival boxes
entitled “Economy”.
Articles
and Items on refugees and emigrants, exile literature and newspapers,
possibilities for emigration, and communist espionage are filed under “Exile”,
along with nine other archival boxes of records about the news content and
criticism of RFE and other Western stations, as well as the announcement of a
Czechoslovak spy who worked at the Radio and later denounced its activity.
The
largest Subject File is “Foreign Relations”. This material, filling 146
archival boxes, includes an alphabetical list of socialist and non-socialist
countries with which Czechoslovakia had foreign relations, along with a list of
delegations which visited Czechoslovakia and another list of Czechoslovak
delegations which worked abroad.
Information
about Czechoslovakia’s textile and mining industries, and about construction
materials and dams is located under the “Industry”. An alphabetical list of
factories in Czechoslovakia is also included.
Thirteen
archival boxes entitled “Justice” contain files on trials and sentences,
including a transcript of the 1952 trial of Slánsky, former Deputy Prime
Minister and former Secretary General of the Central Committee of the
Czechoslovak Communist Party. Files on the Constitutional Court of
Czechoslovakia, amnesty, and a list of judges and lawyers in Czechoslovakia are
also included.
Transcript
of a commentary broadcast of the RFE/RL Czechoslovak Desk relating to the
occupation of Czechoslovakia by the
Warsaw Pact countries, 21 August 1968.
Czechoslovak
Unit, Fonds 300 Records of the RFE/RL Research Institute, OSA.
A
list of police stations done alphabetically by towns, cards on informers,
methods of investigation, censorship, spies, and the People’s Militia are
located in the subject file entitled “Police”.
A
small collection of three archival boxes contains information about refugee
camps in Germany, a list of prisons in Czechoslovakia, information about prison
premises and descriptions of interrogatories.
One
of the major highlights of the records of the Czechoslovak Unit is the section
dedicated to propaganda. Sixty-one archival boxes contain information about
illegal mass media and dissident publications, and a list of newspapers and the
names of the members of the editorial boards of newspapers in Czechoslovakia.
“Dissent”
includes periodicals and underground cultural journals focusing on the younger,
“alternative” generation of intellectuals, and typewritten essays produced by dissident
activists and writers such as Václav Havel and Ludvík
Vaculík. A substantial part of these files consists of samples of Charter
77 documents and reports on the activities of the political
opposition in Czechoslovakia.
The
Biographical
Files consist of 130 archival boxes and 15 rolls of
microfilm. Individuals included in these files include
politicians, human rights activists and dissidents, artists, intellectuals,
sportsmen, scientists, party leaders and functionaries, physicians,
representatives of churches, military officers, historians, university
professors, signatories of Charter 77, emigrants,
Czechoslovak diplomats, musicians, spies, writers, and even “criminals”.
Particularly extensive files are related to Gustáv Husák,
Alexander Dubcek, Václav Havel, Lubomír Štrougal, Stalin,
Tito, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev.
The
material contains articles about foreigners as well, including some politicians,
diplomats and artists (Barbra Streisand, Arthur Miller etc.).
Monitoring
(227 archival boxes) of Czechoslovak radio (and later television) includes
daily transcripts of the main news programs of the Czech and Slovak radios from
March 1951 to December 1994, including the texts of speeches by the country’s
leaders on different occasions.
The
Collection
of Documents on 1968 (30 archival boxes)
documents this crucial year in the history of Czechoslovakia in newspapers,
reviews of events, announcements, letters, leaflets, signed protests,
occupational press reviews, the Report on Rehabilitation (on political trials
from 1949 to 1968), and the daily monitoring during the occupation. There are
also extensive files on the reactions of the Western countries from 21 August
to 15 September 1968.
The
materials of the Czechoslovak Unit are principally in Czech and Slovak, but
documents in English, German and French can also be found.
Records
of the Hungarian Unit
The
predecessors of the Hungarian Unit (HU) were set up in June 1951 as two
independently working entities: the Hungarian Evaluation Section (HES) and the
Hungarian Research Section (HRS). This occurred just a few months before RFE
started broadcasting to Hungary. The organizational changes during the long administrative
history of the HU, made as the RFE underwent structural modifications, are not
dealt with here in length. However, in order to understand some of the criteria
which determined the filing and archiving system of the Unit, it is necessary
to review the first years of its existence.
The
main task of the HES was to analyze, evaluate and process reports sent to the
Munich headquarters from the Field Offices. Since reports were generally based
on “stories” (interviews) provided by emigrants and defectors, the evaluators
had to filter out each and every element suspected of exaggeration,
falsification or motivation by personal revenge. In order to compare data in
the reports with reality, an extensive system of index cards and background
Subject Files had been developed, based principally on Hungarian press and
monitoring, and on Western press. The final results of this delicate activity,
which occasionally required utmost vigilance, were the Items (described below),
which later proved to be reliable historical data. In addition to evaluation,
the HES also produced weekly reports (from January 1953 to October 1956),
cooperated with the Central News Room in evaluating newspaper articles, and
wrote occasional papers.
Initially,
the HRS functioned as the service unit of the Hungarian Broadcasting Department
(HBD). Its staff members were in charge of producing Press
Surveys in Hungarian and English (selecting from more than
100 titles) and background analyses. They regularly briefed the HBD leadership
and assisted its editors. They also maintained a separate set of subject matter
files consisting exclusively of press clippings, as well as a collection of
books and statistical material.
In
order to increase the effectiveness of evaluation and research, to eliminate
duplication of activities (including a double filing system), and to provide
better services, the two sections were merged on 22 December 1958. The two
units continued to carry out their original activities, but in a more organized
and coordinated manner. By developing a common code system and ultimately
merging the two separate sets of Subject Files
which explains the huge number of topics included, the undesirable
duplication within the files was eliminated. In 1962 the tasks of the former
Hungarian area specialist were assigned to the HU. Situation
Reports were also in production by then.
In
line with the broader RFE guidelines for maintaining and updating a system of
documentation, the analysts and evaluators of the HU gathered a holding with
core elements which were typical to the archives of other national units: index
cards on individuals, organizations, problems, trends, and situations; Subject
Files on over 700 topics; Biographical Files.
The
Subject
Files, principally in Hungarian, contain general topics relating to
Hungary – domestic and foreign political issues, economy and culture – and an
extremely rich coverage of the 1956 Revolution. The latter deal with the
chronology of the events, their “echo” in the Western press, revolutionary organizations,
writers and the Writers’ Union, the debates of the Petôfi Circle,
political trials, sentences, amnesty, and the victims and martyrs of 1956. The
complete transcript of RFE broadcasts covering those heroic days, and special
interpretative papers are also included. However, the most extensive files are
on the Communist Party and other political parties, foreign relations,
religion, and the environment – the latter especially focuses on the
Bôs-Nagymaros (Gabþikovo) waterworks construction.
Subject
Files in English is a series unique to this Unit. As part of the
cross-reporting duties of the HU, these files were created mainly to keep
Western researchers, editors from other units, and the Radios’ policy-making
bodies informed about developments and events in Hungary. The titles included
here cover almost all aspects of Hungarian political, social and cultural life,
and sometimes they overlap with subjects from the previous series.
Occasionally, Western publications on Hungary and English translations of
interesting Hungarian newspaper articles were also interfiled.
Postcard
from 1974 sent to “Teenager Party”, the famous and popular program of the
Hungarian Desk of Radio Free Europe, requesting, among others, a Beatles song.
The postcard was printed on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the liberation of Battonya, a
small border town in South–Eastern Hungary. The stamp features the liberator,
Marshal M. J. Malinovskii.
Records
of the Hungarian Unit, Fonds 300 Records of the RFE/RL Research Institute, OSA.
It
is worth describing in more detail the series of Items mentioned
above. The existence of these series within the materials
of the HU can be considered a small miracle. The practice of producing,
printing and filing the Items ceased in 1972, when the leadership of the Radios
decided to dispose of them. Since the Items
were circulated in several copies, the ones interfiled with the Subject Files
were pulled out and, together with those kept in separate series, were
destroyed. Nevertheless, for unknown reasons, about one-fifth of the original
quantity remained intact and now forms a unique series. When appraising these
documents, one should bear in mind the importance they had in the 1950s. Many
of them were used as basis for the infamous “Black Voice”, a program of the HBD
which was addressed to the bad conscience of the petty nomenclature: local
party leaders and policemen, directors of factories and of
agricultural cooperatives. In this program the editors tried to feature the
servants of the oppressive regime, their lives and responsibilities on a
personified and locally recognizable level.
One
of the most fascinating parts of this subfonds is the Collection
of Documents on the 1956 Revolution. The core of this series
is composed of special files collected by a group of analysts led by Dr.
Aurél Bereznai, a long-time analytical specialist of the HU. The
materials accumulated were not divided and incorporated into other series, but
were kept separately in a strongbox. According to Dr. Bereznai, the strongbox
was intact until 1986, when he personally displayed some of these materials at
RFE’s exhibition in Munich on the 30th anniversary of the 1956 Revolution.
Then, during the various reorganizations within the Radios, the collection
disappeared, and only a small portion of it, about four linear meters in
length, was recovered and shipped to OSA.
The
remaining materials – press clippings, news agency releases, book extracts, RFE
Research
Papers, open-reel audiotapes such as “Voices of the Revolution” and
“Battle Sounds”, as well as original documents such as pamphlets,
pro-revolutionary Western posters, cartoons, radio transcripts, periodicals and
professional and amateur photographs – originate from both Hungarian official
and opposition sources, and also from foreign sources. They provide information
on the preceding events in Budapest and the provinces, and the domestic and
international echo of the Revolution. There are files dealing with the military
situation in Hungary before the events, the Soviet intervention and human
rights abuses, retaliation, UN reports on 1956 and discussions of the UN’s
role, and political trials and executions. Memoirs, interpretive essays, and
works of revolutionary poets against tyranny and oppression can also be found
here. Western and communist media reactions to the 1956
Revolution, and especially the press coverage from South American countries
ruled by military dictators also deserve special attention.
Finally,
there are the Biographical Files, a series which adds
a special flavor to the records of the HU. These files give information –
sometimes abundantly, sometimes superficially – about approximately 5,500
prominent and less prominent Hungarian (and also foreign)state, opposition and
dissident politicians, writers, actors, journalists, and other public figures.
Occasionally, their speeches and publications are included. The files on
leading personalities and martyrs of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution (Imre Nagy,
Pál Maléter), and opposition figures of the Kádár regime,
and the highest level communist party leaders (György Aczél,
Béla Biszku, Zoltán Komócsin) are of great interest. There
are biographical data on Árpád Göncz, the current President
of the Republic. A copy of this set of files, put in an archival box especially
designed for this purpose, were handed to the president during his 1999 visit
to OSA.
The
materials in the HU are principally in Hungarian, but materials in English,
German, and French can also be found.
Records
of the Polish Unit
“This
is Radio Free Europe speaking – the Voice of Free Poland. Attention! Attention!
On our national holiday, the Constitution Day you are listening to the
inaugural program of the radio station which will speak everyday to compatriots
at Homeland […] Poles speak to Poles.” (Påtek, 1997 p. 291)
On
3 May 1952 – exactly on the 161st anniversary of the proclamation of the first
Polish (and European) constitution – Radio Free Europe started broadcasting to
Poland. Jan Nowak-Jeziorañski, the Director of the Polish Desk presented
the mission of the new broadcast. The main goal was to offer uncensored
information, to speak about topics which were prohibited or kept secret by
official propaganda of the Stalinist government. Nowak-Jeziorañski
finished with the following words of hope and encouragement: “Compatriots!
Wherever you are – remember! Poland lives. Poland fights. Poland will win.”
(Påtek, 1997 p. 292) The staff of the Polish Unit worked under this
motto, with the idea of fighting for a free and independent homeland, for more
than 40 years. And they – together with other Poles – won.
The
beginning of the Polish Unit dates back to May 1951, when the Polish Evaluation
Section started operating. In the beginning the main, and almost exclusive,
task of this division was to evaluate Items, anonymous interviews with
travelers and defectors. There was also a group of researchers who recorded and
arranged information, but only for evaluation purposes. Later, the Section also
supported the work of the Polish Broadcasting Department. The staff digested
press, and prepared Situation Reports and
various analytical and biographical papers.
In
1952 the Polish Research Section was created with the purpose of giving
reliable information about Poland to the Radio’s units. This section also
digested press and on the basis of this produced the original-language Polish
Press Summary. To avoid duplication of work within the Polish
staff, in the summer of 1959 a decision was made to move the Polish Research
Section from the Library and Reference Unit to the Evaluation Section. This was
the last of the several mergers of national units within RFE’s East European
Research and Analysis Department, which gave birth to the Polish Evaluation and
Research Section. Later it was renamed as Polish Research and Analysis Unit,
until the time it was incorporated into the RFE/RL Research Institute, as part
of the East European Archives, to which the Polish Unit belonged until the
closure of this organization in December 1994.
During
this long period of activity, a staff of about 15 people worked intensively to
help all Radio units get information about Poland.[8]
The work of the employees was divided between directly servicing the Polish
Broadcasting Department and engaging in evaluation, research and analysis. The
methods of gathering information were adapted according to the time and
circumstances. Generally, there were four important sources: Items, press
reports by Western journalists describing their visits in communist countries,
information from press and news agencies, and the monitoring of Eastern
European radios, and, later, television stations.
Equipment for monitoring
of the official Polish radio broadcasts.
Photo from the monthly
periodical published by the Polish Desk of Radio Free Europe, Na Antenie, 19 May 1963, Vol. 1, No. 2.
OSA Library.
In
the early period, when Stalinist censorship blocked any independent source of
information, the most important data came from reports sent by the West
European Field Offices in the form of Items and anonymous interviews. The
Polish Unit specialized in this sort of work: the number of Items it collected
between 1957–1969 represented over 40 percent of all correspondents’ reports on
East European countries.[9]
It was a great loss when Polish Items from the period 1951–1969 were destroyed
in 1975, due to lack of space. (Zamorski, 1995 p. 104)
After
the death of Stalin, important additional information about life in the Soviet
bloc came from press reports by Western journalists visiting
the region. These provided independent data and facts of great value which can
be found dispersed in the Polish records.
An
important and extensive source of information for the Evaluation and Research
Unit was the communist (especially Polish) and Western press, and
later the news agencies. RFE subscribed to a huge number of central and
provincial newspapers and magazines. The Polish staff usually had to digest
about 60 different periodicals.[10]
From
the beginning of the Unit, monitoring of
the Polish radio (later also television) was an increasingly important source
of information. This contributed to a fuller picture of life in the societies
of communist countries than the one provided by the press.
The
intensive collecting work of the evaluation and research staff created a huge amount
of archival materials containing substantial information. At RFE/RL, a great
deal of time was spent on the accumulation and classification of this
information. There was one commonly accepted general filing system, but every
unit created its own specific versions. In the Polish Unit there were even two
systems: contrary to the practice of the Czechoslovak and Hungarian Units which
merged Subjects Files, the Polish Evaluation and Research Section preserved the
records of each section separately. Even 10 years after their merger there
remained two separate groups of records. The main reason for this division was
that the Research archives consisted primarily of files of newspaper clippings
and a sizable amount of bound periodicals, while the Evaluation archives was
based on Items (many of them classified) and a smaller quantity of clippings on
selected subjects. The Research section organized the Subject Files on the
basis of the subject classification of books in the RFE Library.
After
both small and major organizational changes in the Polish Unit, an original
system of arranging archival materials was developed. The staff of OSA is
trying to create series divisions within this subfonds which will reflect the
original order of the last user.[11]
The
Subject
Files are probably the most important. There
are different materials from communist and Western periodicals, Polish
Monitoring Bulletin, Items, Polish Press Summaries,
the news file “budget” papers,[12]
letters, memos, and other sources, which are coded and composed according to an
established filing system with numerical divisions and subdivisions. In the
1960s over 1,000 clippings from different sources were added to the files each
week.[13]
Equally
important information can be found in the Subject Card Files,
which are si milar to Subject Files. Originally, they were used as index cards
which served as finding aids to the records kept in the binders and folders,
but later the cards themselves became important sources of comprehensive
information.[14]
There
was also a large amount of Biographical Files in
the records of the Polish Unit. The sources for this data were the same as for
the Subject Files and Subject Cards. In the early 1990s, there were about
250,000 personal cards.[15]
This enormous amount of Polish card files created an excellent information
base. However, a decision of the Information Resources Department in 1992
condemned the majority of the cards to destruction, due to a lack of space.
From the 16 filing cabinets of cards, the Polish Unit was allowed to keep only
three. (Morawski, 1993 pp. 12–13, 83) Today OSA holds tens of thousands of the
cards. After the dissolution of the RFE/RL Research Institute, some of the
cards were sent to Budapest together with other Radio materials, but the
majority were sent to Prague and today constitute a part of the fonds of the
Open Media Research Institute.
The
Subject Files, Biographical Files and Subject Cards provide extensive
information about many aspects of Polish life, especially about politics, the
economy, the army and culture. The biggest groups of materials can be found on
the Polish United Workers Party, foreign relations, the Polish opposition,
Solidarity and churches, especially the Roman Catholic Church. In addition, the
biographical cards provide a good deal of information on more or less prominent
people in communist and post-communist Poland. Information can be found about
the leaders and members of different parties (especially the Communist Party),
opposition figures (especially Lech Wa½øsa), the leaders of
churches (Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski and many other bishops and priests of
different faiths), politicians, members of parliament, and artists. Researchers
can find, for instance, the biographical cards of W½adyslaw
Gomu½ka and Mieczys½aw Moczar, which were secretly copied by the
communist spy Andrzej Czechowicz. (Morawski, 1993, p. 196)
The
results of monitoring were published in Komunikat
Nas½uchu Radiowego/Polish Monitoring Bulletin,
in which extracts from Polish radio and (from 1982) television broadcasts were
transcribed on a day-by-day and year-by-year basis. This bulletin had
approximately 80 pages per issue and was distributed seven times per week. The
most numerous transcripts were those of the programs of Radio Warsaw I, but
sometimes those of Warsaw II and III, the regional stations, and the Polish
language broadcasts of Radio Moscow and Radio Tirana also appeared. For
example, the bulletin published the speech of General Wojciech Jaruzelski from
6:00 a.m. on 13 December 1981, announcing the martial law in Poland.
There
is a separate group of records regarding Polish defectors and
re-defectors. There are materials about prominent communist
defectors who escaped from Poland and reported about the communist life in
Poland on RFE programs. Such were the cases of Józef
²wiat½o, Lieutenant Colonel of the Ministry of Interior, who
escaped in 1953 and Seweryn Bialer, a functionary in the Central Committee of
the Communist Party, who defected in 1956.
There
are also materials about the re-defectors; that is, people who escaped from
Poland, worked at RFE, and later went back to Poland, such as Mieczyslaw Lach,
Andrzej and Wanda Smoliski, and the most famous Captain Andrzej Czechowicz. The
latter was a Polish spy who worked in the Polish Unit and returned to Poland in
1971 with documents from RFE. The communist mass media made use of his return
in a big propaganda campaign against the Radios.
The
materials in the Polish Unit are principally in Polish, but documents in
English, German, and French can also be found.
Records
of the Polish Underground Publications Unit
At
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) there was a big collection of
publications distributed despite communist censorship.[16]
After the workers’ protests in 1976, and especially after the strikes in 1980
when Solidarity was created, a huge amount of different underground
publications was printed in Poland. The Polish Unit of RFE/RL acquired these
materials as a very good source of independent information. After the
introduction of martial law in Poland, it was more difficult to obtain these
uncensored publications. Thanks to the international network of Solidarity it
was possible to organize the smuggling of independent news out of Poland.
Miroslaw Chojecki played a key role in the transportation of typographic
equipment to Poland via Sweden or Austria, and the delivery of the uncensored
publications out of the country. In the beginning, the underground materials
were collected by Weronika Krzeczunowicz. In 1984, Witold Pronobis[17]
was hired to organize and manage the Polish samizdat collection accumulated by
RFE/RL, as well as to acquire other independent publications. This was the
formal beginning of the Polish Underground Publications Unit.[18]
Thanks to the active work of the Unit’s new chief, the collection quickly
became one of the largest in the world.
It
consisted of two major parts: periodicals and monographs, which were preserved
as originals or photocopies. Periodicals contain unofficial
press, human right monitoring, and other bulletins of underground organizations
divided into two chronological groups
before and after 13 December 1981, the day on which martial law was
introduced in Poland. There are 110 titles in the first group, and 1200 in the second.
The monographs are a large accumulation of independent
Polish publications. There are many works about the country’s political
situation, but one can also find the classical sociological, philosophical and belles
lettres books, written by both Polish and Western authors,
which were banned under communist censorship. Access to the periodicals and
monographs is provided by alphabetical card catalogs. There is also an
interesting collection of ephemera which consists of
patriotic and satirical stamps, postcards, posters, cartoons and leaflets
published by underground Solidarity. A special group was created from the émigré
periodicals published by Solidarity and non-Solidarity exiles.
The
staff of the Polish Underground Publications Unit created a separate series of Subject
Files containing clippings and copies from uncensored
publications. There are about 160 thematic groups covering topics such as
opposition activities, economy, ecology and the health care system. There are
also groups of materials concerning the Polish political parties established
before 1989, and the biographical files of dissidents.
In a separate series there is a collection of documents of the
democratic opposition (Opozycja demokratyczna
w Polsce. Dokumenty) from the period 1976–1982.
Even
before the establishment of the Polish Underground Publications Unit, the staff
of the Polish Unit of the RFE/RL Information Resources Department prepared a Review
of Uncensored Polish Publication and Press (from 1977). Later the
Underground Publications Unit published in English Polish
Samizdat Extracts with translations of the underground press, and the
Polish
Independent Press Review with analytical articles based on the same
source. Copies of selected articles from Polish samizdat sources were collected
in Polish Independent Press Summary.
The
materials in the Polish Underground Publications Unit collection are principally
in Polish, but documents in English can also be found.
Demonstration
in Gdansk, 1 May 1985
Records of the Polish
Unit, Fonds 300 Records of RFE/RL Research Institute, OSA.
References:
A
Survey of the East Europe Research and Analysis Department (EERA). May 1966,
OSA, Central Files: Administration History.
Lechos½aw
Gawlikowski, Archiwum Radia Wolna Europa – struktura, zasieg i
historia, manuscript, in print.
Marek
Latyñski, Ogród Angielski 1. Wspomnienia z Radia
Wolna Europa, Wydawnictwo UMCS: Lublin 1997.
Krzysztof
Påtek, “Archiwum programowe Rozglo³ni Polskiej «Radia Wolna Europa»
przechowywane w Archiwum Dokumentacji Mechanicznej w Warszawie (przeglåd
zawarto³ci). Cze³¾ I”, Teki Archiwalne,
seria nowa vol. 2(24), 1997, pp. 289–299.
Kazimierz
Zamorski, Pod antenå Radia Wolna Europa,
Wydawnictwo Wers: Poznañ, 1995.
Records
of the Romanian Unit
In
terms of broadcasting, Romania was, from the very beginning, considered an
important target country for RFE. Ten days after the Radio had launched its
heroic introductory news bloc in 1951, the first Romanian language program went
on the air (accidentally or not, on the National Day of France). One month
earlier, on 11 June the Romanian Unit (RU) – as part of the then News and
Information Department – began operations in support of the Romanian
Broadcasting Department (RBD) with background information and analysis.
The
main tasks of the RU were to check, process, classify and index all available
information on Romania in order to furnish the RBD with documentary material
and interpretation, thus assisting in the preparation of its radio programs and
commentaries. Additionally, the Unit provided information and analysis on
Romania to the policy-making bodies of the Radios and to the other national
broadcasting departments (cross-reporting). The Unit was also involved in
providing direct assistance to the Central News Room and the dozen RFE Field
Offices in Europe. In terms of public relations, the Unit responded to queries
and briefed visitors from outside RFE.
During
the more than four decades of its existence, the RU – in line with the numerous
organizational and structural modifications within RFE – underwent basic administrative
changes. Its first and long-time chief, Ion Gheorghe was then the only employee
of the RU. In the early 1980s he retired, and the Unit was headed for a few
years by George Ciorănescu. When he was, in
turn, pensioned in 1984, Anneli Ute Gabanyi became the Unit chief. She resigned
in 1988, and Michael Shafir came on board in that same year. He held this
position until 1994, when the Research Institute, to which the RU then
belonged, was closed down in Munich, and the Open Media Research Institute (OMRI)
was established in Prague.
The
staff of the RU consisted of analysts, archivists and translators. Because the
Unit was a relatively small section (staff numbers varied over time, but it
usually had five to ten members), it was difficult to introduce a permanent and
clear-cut division of work among the various staff members. Until the
establishment of the Research Institute in 1990, when analytical and archival
functions were clearly separated, each staff member was engaged in all aspects
of the Unit’s work, although some were more devoted to analysis and others
concentrated more on archival work. Staff members usually focused their
attention on particular aspects of Romanian life, but at the same time they had
to be up-to-date with the broader contexts of events and developments in
Romania and worldwide.
The
materials gathered, filed and completed by the staff came from various sources.
The most relevant of these was the Romanian press, both printed and electronic,
central and regional. The RU subscribed to a good number of communist dailies,
professional journals, and other periodicals – over 50 titles in 1966. Another
important source until the early 1970s was the information reports from the
Field Offices, which were usually based on anonymous interviews with Romanian
travelers or defectors. Press reports from Western journalists and “stories” of
tourists visiting Romania were also useful resources.[19]
The
tireless activity of the staff resulted in the accumulation of approximately
250 linear meters of materials, which mainly included press clippings, news
agency releases, research papers, transcripts of radio broadcasts, émigré
publications, letters and Items. These altogether give a broad picture of the
various aspects of post-war Romanian life in terms of politics, economics,
culture and arts, opposition and resistance to the regime, religions, social
and military issues. The nature of the sources and of the specific activities
within the RU determined the types of series established within these subfonds:
Subject
Files, Card Files, Monitoring Files, and Biographical Files.
Apart from these, the RU also had its own publications: Situation
Reports (summaries of current events and developments in
Romania), Background Reports (special studies –
including research papers and concise interpretations – providing perspectives
on current events and trends) and Press Surveys.
Subject
Files are the largest and most encompassing series of this subfonds.
It would take much time and space to list all the topics (arranged
alphabetically, and thereunder chronologically) covered here. Nevertheless, Communist
Party, Propaganda, Police and Security, Resistance, Criticism of the Regime
are among the most interesting subjects. There is an impressive quantity of
documents on Romania’s foreign and inter-party relations under Foreign
Relations. They cover bilateral relations and agreements
(with other countries and international organizations such as the Warsaw Pact
and the United Nations), treaties, Romanian diplomats abroad, foreign
diplomatic corps in Romania, and rifts. The filing system in this series was
distinct from other units’ filing procedures in at least one aspect: most of
the files contain up to 10 internal subdivisions on the subject (e.g., laws,
decrees, VIPs, policy statements, protests etc.). If it was kept up-to-date,
this system proved to be very user friendly and had the great advantage of
providing a more comprehensive and more detailed picture of a certain subject.
This unique system was time-consuming and labor-intensive; it was by no means a
standard archiving procedure.
Another
body of materials worth mentioning is Records Relating to the
Romanian Opposition and Protest Movement, which gives a good
overview on the history of anti-communist movements, opposition and dissent in
Romania, with extensive biographical data on prominent Romanian dissidents. The
files also include correspondence between listeners and the Radio. These
letters and appeals from Romania are historically valuable because they reflect
listeners’ opinions not only on national or large-scale issues (e.g. open
letters to the Chief Party Secretary on food and fuel shortages on house
arrests, spies and agents, and on losing jobs), but also on local problems
(e.g., the misdeeds of local party leaders, factory directors, police officers,
and shop managers).
The
news programs of Radio Bucharest, as well as the releases of the Romanian
national news agency, Agerpres (after December 1989 Rompres) were monitored by
RFE on a daily basis. The files gained by this activity, transcripts of radio
broadcasts, were archived in a chronological series, Romanian
Monitoring. Occasionally, transcripts of Romanian language
programs of Radio Moscow and Radio Beijing were also included. After the fall
of the communist regime, news programs of regional radio stations and of
Romanian Television were also monitored and transcribed.
315 Biographical Cards
(1949–1989) on Romanian Communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu.
Photo by Andás
Révész. Romanian Unit, Fonds 205 Records of the Open Media
Research Institute, OSA.
Card
Files[20]
are, from the researchers’ point of view, essential resources of biographical
information about Romanian (and also foreign) political and cultural
personalities, army men, professional diplomats, and other public figures.[21]
To pick the most obvious example: the 315 biographical cards on Nicolae Ceauşescu
cover over 40 years of his political activity, and list all his functions,
public apparitions, summit meetings, state visits abroad, international titles
and distinctions. These cards can be used, together with the numerous volumes
of his speeches collected in the Subject Files under Propaganda, to
produce a sketch – if not a complete image – of a typical communist’s career.
Though
small in quantity, the Radio Free Europe Confidential Reports
Regarding Romania are a peculiar part of the records. This series
consists of often strictly confidential reports (analyses, studies and
interpretations) from anonymous sources, which usually landed on the RBD
director’s desk. (These reports are from the heritage of Noel Bernard,
long-time director of the RBD; they had helped him in policy-making and giving
guidelines to broadcasters.) The topics discussed in the reports are mainly
economic five-year plans, fiscal policy, industrial branches, and foreign trade
(especially Franco-Romanian) – but sometimes more sensitive issues are revealed
– defection and re-defection, surveillance of foreign visitors, and the state
of morale in Romania.
The
language of the materials is predominantly Romanian and English, but materials
in German, French and Russian can also be found.
Albanian
Records
Radio
Free Europe (RFE) broadcast to Albania only for a very brief period in 1950.[22]
Afterward the Radios employed persons to monitor developments in Albania, and
from this activity the Albanian records evolved. The Albanian analyst became
part of the Communist Area Analysis Department in the 1970s. The records were
accumulated by RFE from 1950 until 1990; however, the records held by OSA only
start from 1962.
The
Subject
Files are arranged alphabetically by title according to
the Latin alphabet. The series contains press clippings from the Albanian,
Western and Kosovar press, news agency releases, occasionally-printed
materials, draft research papers, and transcripts of the broadcasts of Radio
Tirana.
Politics,
economics and cultural issues were the most frequently monitored topics.
The
most extensive files cover the Albanian Communist Party, foreign policy and
agriculture, as well as foreign relations of Albania with the neighboring
countries and Italy.
The
records contain information on NATO military maneuvres, the resumption of
diplomatic relations with West Germany, the denunciation of “reactionary”
regimes, developments in Kosovo, Mother Theresa’s visit to Albania, Albanian
political turmoil, and the standard of living in the country.
The
Biographical
Files contain significant information on Albanian
politicians and the political parties in which they were involved.
Records
of the Yugoslav Section
During
the decades of the Cold War, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) did not broadcast
to Yugoslavia, nor was there a Yugoslav desk within the Programming Department.
In July 1956, however, some six years after RFE was established, “a small
Yugoslav Section” started to operate within the News and Information Service in
Munich. It became a part of the Evaluation and Research Unit and belonged to
the group of “non-target” desks which collected and filed reports and other
information on countries to which the Radios did not broadcast.
The
Yugoslav Section became part of the Communist Area Analysis Department during
the 1960s through the 1980s. Its basic task was to provide an objective and
complete picture in facts and figures concerning the current and the
anticipated situation in communist-ruled countries, according to its founder and
chief Slobodan Stankovi¾. It concentrated on two areas:
a)
reporting on what the Yugoslav Communists and the Yugoslav press were saying
about other communist-ruled countries, and
b)
offering analytical papers dealing with the internal Yugoslav situation and
Yugoslavia’s attitude towards other Eastern European countries.
During
the 1950s and 1960s, the work of the Yugoslav Section was supported by the
Yugoslav Monitoring Section, which monitored radio broadcasts from Yugoslavia
until the latter was abolished in December, 1973. Thereafter Yugoslav affairs
analysts were forced to depend mostly upon Western news agencies and
translations from the Foreign Broadcasting Information Service for news from
Yugoslavia. Relying upon these materials, the Yugoslav Section of the
Evaluation and Research Department produced many studies, Background
Reports and monthly round-ups which were first published
separately, and later, from December 1984, as the Yugoslav
Situation Report. The research maintained a balance between RFE/RL
broadcasting needs and the needs of its academic, government and media
subscribers. The Subject Files and Biographical
Files of the Yugoslav Section include both the analysts’ articles
and the materials upon which their work was based.
Subject
Files (1956–1990) contain press clippings (both Yugoslav
and foreign), RFE Research Reports, RFE Background
Reports, Situation Reports,
Yugoslav Press Survey materials, and occasionally-printed materials.
The
issues most frequently monitored were those of politics, economics, culture and
social matters, with few of these being elaborated systematically during the 35
years of the Yugoslav Section’s activities. Particularly extensive are the
files on the Yugoslav Communist Party, the Yugoslav economy, nationality problems
in Kosovo, foreign relations and dissidents.
Biographical
Files (1954–1990) contain news agency information,
clippings, translations from the foreign press, and excerpts from Yugoslav
radio broadcasting. Individuals included were prominent government and
communist party officials, intellectuals and dissidents. Particularly extensive
are the files relating to Josip Broz Tito, Stane Dolanc and Milovan Ðilas.
Although the Biographical Files cover the entire 1954–1990 period, the units
from the 1970s and the early 1980s are the most numerous.
Both
series are principally in Serbo-Croatian and English, but there are also
Slovenian, Macedonian and German language materials.
The
Slavic, Baltic and Eurasian Archives
The
Slavic, Baltic and Eurasian Archives (SBE Archives) records deal primarily with
topics and personalities related to the former Soviet Union, its successor
states, and the Baltic countries.[23]
Since the early 1950s for almost 40 years, these records were collected
primarily from the Soviet press (predominantly in Russian), but also from the
Western press (predominantly in English and German). These were compiled
together with other sources, such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)
radio transcripts, research papers, news wires, and radio and TV monitoring
materials.
Historically,
SBE Archives records originated from activity of the Research Section of Radio
Liberation (later Radio Liberty). The Research Section was created in 1953 as a
part of its Information Department, along with Soviet Monitoring and the
Library. Assigned to review Soviet and Western newspapers (approximately 40 at
that time), members of the section created the first filing system, in which
they used to store abstracts of the most significant articles they had prepared,
press clippings and related documents.
With
time, the number of sources was significantly increased. By 1962, staff of the
Soviet Research Department (into which the Information Department was
integrated) screened over 500 news sources, including all available Soviet
newspapers, all major Soviet magazines, numerous Soviet professional journals
as well as Western newspapers, journals, news wires etc.
In
1976, as result of the merger of RL and RFE, the Soviet Research Department
became the Research on Soviet Affairs Department, part of the larger
Information Resources Department, and the number of sources reviewed increased
to over 600.
As
a part of the OSA holdings, SBE Archives consists of three subfonds: Soviet
“Red” Archives, Soviet Monitoring, and Samizdat Archives (including a
collection of samizdat documents and collections of informal and regional
press).
The
Soviet “Red” Archives
The
name “Red” Archives was chosen, presumably at the end of the 1950s, since the
major goal of its creators was to reconstruct the situation in the Soviet Union
primarily using the Soviet press sources.
We
do not know much about how the Soviet “Red” Archives was arranged at that time,
but most likely the first filing system was not very complicated. A new filing
system was developed in 1962. It was based on the so-called “old subject code”
and included 600 subject categories, in Russian, arranged alphabetically. Some
categories also had subcategories. Periodically modified, this system existed
for 30 years.
In
1992, after the break-up of the Soviet Union, the staff of the Soviet “Red”
Archives started working on a new classification system with English language
subject codes. The idea was to adjust this system to the new political
situation in the territory of the former Soviet Union. Thus, they planned to
form separate files for each of the former Soviet Union’s 15 republics, using
for this purpose a special subject code (New Code Republics Files); files
documenting events affecting the Baltic states as a group (Baltic Files); files
for subjects pertaining only to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS
Files); and files for materials related to the former Soviet Union (All-Union
General Files).The project was never finished: only a few items were removed
from the previously existing Subject Files (Old Code Subject Files) and filed
under the new system.
Old
Code Subject Files (1953–1994) are the
original Subject Files compiled by the Radio staff from 1953. Although in 1992
the old filing system was replaced with a new
one, materials continued to be added to the former until 1994.
The
series comprises extensive information related to Soviet
governmental
institutions, military affairs, the Communist Party and its Central Committee,
space projects, literary activities, religion, agriculture and industry in the
USSR. Of particular interest are records reflecting such crucial events in
Soviet history as the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Afghan war, the
human rights movement in the former Soviet Union, discussions during the
Perestroika period, and certain aspects of Soviet international politics. There
are few items from the 50s and the bulk of materials are from the 70s and 80s.
All the other Subject Files of the Soviet “Red” Archives were created in 1993.
New
Code Subject Files (1954–1994) comprise
information related to ecology, economics, mass media and culture, politics,
science, security policy and social issues in the former USSR.
All-Union
General Files (1956–1994) cover topics such as ethnic groups,
international organizations and foreign broadcasting in the former Soviet
Union.
CIS
Files (1990–1994) are files on subjects pertaining to the CIS, such
as military affairs, the external debt of the former USSR, and cooperation
between CIS parliaments
Baltic
Files (1969–1994) and New Code Republics Files
(1958–1994) cover topics relating to each of the republics of the former Soviet
Union.
Three
series of the Soviet “Red” Archives are Biographical Files: Biographical Files
(Cyrillic), Biographical Files (Latin) and Kraus Biographical Files.
Biographical
Files (Cyrillic), 1953–1994, contain information on prominent
Soviet officials, famous dissidents, intellectuals and public figures.
Particularly extensive are files relating to Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev,
Leonid Brezhnev, Mikhail Gorbachev, Eduard Shevardnadze, Alexander Solzhenitsyn
and Andrei Sakharov. The files are arranged alphabetically by surname in the
Cyrillic alphabet, and thereunder chronologically. Over 25,000 biographic
records on key personalities from the Soviet Union were entered into an
electronic database; in 1994 the content of this database was published on
microfiche by Chadwick-Healey, Ltd. These are available at OSA.
Biographical
Files (Latin), 1954–1994, relate to outstanding political
figures outside of the former Soviet Union, from Europe, Asia, and America,
including Communist leaders from Central and Eastern Europe and China, famous
intellectuals, artists and singers from around the world. Of particular
interest are files relating to Willy Brandt, Zbigniew Brzeziñski,
Nicolae Ceauşescu, Milovan Ðilas,
Richard Nixon, Josip Broz Tito and Raoul Wallenberg.
Kraus
Biographical Files (formerly known as the Kraus Archives) were named
after Herwig Kraus, who worked on the project for thirty years, sometimes with
the support of several people. He retired when the RFE/RL Research Institute
was closed. Kraus Biographical Files (1958–1994) contain clippings, news agency
releases, and excerpts of RFE/RL Research Reports.
During the early period these were often just short pieces of typed information,
usually regarding new appointments, with or without indications of their
sources. The strong point of Kraus Biographical Files is the wide range of
personalities included, and these files were considered a very important
resource during the Cold War period. Records belonging to the earlier period
are available on microfiche prepared by Chadwick-Healey, Ltd.
Soviet
Monitoring
Soviet
Monitoring was founded at the very beginning
of Radio Liberty’s (RL) activity. Monitoring at RL began with radio and later
expanded to television. Conceptually, the monitoring of radio and TV was
separate from monitoring of the print press, and it was handled by different
staff. The monitoring materials were organized into bulletins, each of which
was 30–40 pages long. In the late 70s, Ukrainian Service Monitoring was formed
within the Unit, which compiled the bulletins News and
Commentaries Broadcast by Ukrainian Radio.
At
various stages of its existence the Unit employed between 10 and 20 people.
Victor Werbitsky was originally head of the Unit, and he was replaced by
Alexander Robinovic in the early 90s. In November 1990, the RL Monitoring Unit
was integrated into the RFE/RL Research Institute as a part of its Information
Resource Department; the Unit continued to support broadcasting as well as the
other departments.
By
1991, two radio stations and two television channels from Moscow were being
monitored. These activities included the monitoring of regular news programs as
well as on-demand monitoring. The Unit transcribed Soviet television and radio
broadcasts, and issued bulletins composed of selected radio and TV items
together with materials from Soviet news agencies. About four Soviet
Press Surveys were produced daily: two or three in Russian and
one or two in Ukrainian. Additionally, a Baltic Press Survey
in Russian was issued twice a week.
The
Unit was closed on 30 September 1992. The radio and television monitoring and
press clippings service were transferred from Munich to a contractor based in
Moscow. In accordance with this contract, the information agency What
Papers Say (WPS) monitored four radio stations and four
television channels. WPS faxed press clippings to Munich daily, and radio and
TV monitoring transcripts were sent electronically and compiled into three
print publications (CIS Today: Press Survey, ITAR-TASS
Daily News and TV and Radio Monitoring).[24]
The contracts for monitoring Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Latvian press were also
signed in the period 1992–1993. Belarusian monitoring materials began to arrive
from Minsk on 20 January 1992. A new Latvian Press Survey,
compiled in Riga and sent daily to Munich by fax was started on 7 September
1993.
In
1993 and 1994, on-demand monitoring was done by the Audiovisual Unit to
supplement the scheduled monitoring done by WPS.
As
newspapers and journals from Central Asia, Kazakhstan and Transcaucasia were
extremely difficult to acquire after the break-up of the Soviet Union, a new
system of delivery by courier service was developed.
The
Soviet Monitoring subfonds (1975–1994) contains
textual and audiovisual materials relating to economic, political, social, and
cultural issues in the USSR, and following its collapse, in the countries of
the former Soviet Union. The textual part consists of bulletins containing transcripts
of major news programs and special programs of radio and television, news
agency materials, and clippings from the central and regional press compiled
daily by the Soviet Monitoring staff, and
later by the WPS.
The
audiovisual part of the Soviet Monitoring materials consists of videotapes
containing Moscow television programs broadcast from 1985 to 1994 (see
subchapter “Audiovisual materials”). Additionally, the Unit archived selected
press and radio/TV monitoring materials on different subjects regarding the
USSR, and later the Russian Federation and the countries of the former Soviet
Union. That later became part of the Former Soviet Union Archives.
Composed
according to a filing plan accepted in 1994, the files formed separate archives
– Russian Monitoring and Ukrainian
Monitoring. The work on these files was continued at OMRI.
The
materials are principally in Russian, Ukrainian and other major languages of
the region.
Samizdat
Archives
Samizdat
is a Russian word, which from the 1960s meant underground issues (belles
lettres, political essays, public appeals, letters to the
Soviet leadership) which could not be officially published because of
censorship and were disseminated secretly, from person to person, very often at
a great risk. Samizdat, with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) as the
most active of its propagandists, played a very significant role in the
historical development of Soviet society.[25]
This explains why the Samizdat Archives is considered a very important part of
OSA holdings.
One
of the first samizdat items to arrive at RFE/RL was Khrushchev’s “secret
speech”. In February 1956, Khrushchev delivered a speech to a closed session of
the 20th Congress of the Communist Party in which, for the first time in Soviet
history, he admitted some of Stalin’s crimes against the Soviet people. Radio
Liberation broadcast the text of the speech in Russian for listeners throughout
the Soviet Union. During the period from 1957 to 1961, it also aired the texts
of other samizdat publications: Boris Pasternak’s Doctor
Zhivago, Milovan Ðilas’ New Class,
and Sud Idet by Abram Terts (Andrei Siniavskii).
In
1966, the writers Iulii Daniel and Andrei Siniavskii were sentenced to terms in
a labor camp for having published their satirical stories in the West under
pseudonyms. Letters of protest against their trial signaled the beginning of
the new era in the history of samizdat: samizdat became a voice of protest
against the totalitarian practices of the Soviet authorities. In order to be
heard by the people of the Soviet Union the voices of the underground writers
needed to be amplified, and for 25 years RFE/RL successfully filled this need.
In
the fall of 1968, RL started broadcasting straight readings of samizdat
materials on political and social topics. The first show of the kind was Pisma
i dokumenty (Letters and Documents). Other programs on
samizdat or samizdat-related questions prepared by the Radio’s Russian Service
were Obzor samizdata (Samizdat Review), Dokumenty
nashego vremeni (Documents of Our Time),
Dokumenty i liudi (Documents and People) and Prava
cheloveka (Human Rights). Other Radio services (Ukrainian,
Belarusian, Georgian, Armenian etc.) also incorporated samizdat documents into
their programs. “It was due to these programs that many Soviet citizens who had
no connections with dissident circles became aware of samizdat.”[26]
Black and white photo negatives with images of documents. Negatives were cut into as small pieces as possible, and were smuggled out to the West from the Soviet Union.
Photo by Andás
Révész. Samizdat Archive, Fonds 300 Records of the RFE/RL
Research Institute, OSA.
The
Samizdat Archives was an important link in the chain that connected samizdat
authors with their audience. It was founded by Peter Dornan and Albert Boiter
at the end of the 60s, when in light of the increasing flow of samizdat
documents from the Soviet Union, they started collecting these on a regular
basis. In 1968 they began publishing the Samizdat bulletin circulated by Radio
Liberty. This bulletin, which later became the more or less regular in-house
bi-weekly Materialy Samizdata (Materials of Samizdat), contained
original texts of samizdat documents.
In
1971, the Samizdat Unit was established (it operated until 30 September 1992).
Its staff carefully studied each document received by the Radio and selected
some for publication in Materialy Samizdata.
They were very alert for falsified or fabricated documents. They also took
certain precautions to be sure that publicity would not be harmful to samizdat
authors still in the Soviet Union.
To
make the materials more available to the public, in 1972 the Samizdat Unit
began publishing Sobranie dokumentov Samizdata (Collection of
Samizdat Documents), a multi-volume edition distributed to several
national and university libraries in Europe and the United States. Altogether
30 volumes were published, 16 of them on particular topics, such as the Russian
Orthodox Church, the Crimean Tartars, and The Chronicle of Current
Events.
Between
1968 and 1991, 6,617 samizdat documents were published in Materialy
Samizdata; 3,000 were also reproduced in Sobranie
dokumentov Samizdata between 1972–1977. The
documents were listed in several samizdat registers prepared by the Samizdat
Unit (1973–1977), and they are the core of the existing samizdat collection
documents in the OSA holdings (Published Samizdat).
A portion of the collection is available on microfiche.
While
preparing the samizdat documents for publication, the Samizdat Unit developed
numerous reference materials in different formats including Subject
Files, Biographical Files and card
and electronic indexes.
Those
samizdat documents which were not published in Materialy
Samizdata for various reasons were filed separately as Unpublished
Samizdat. The number of these files
increased considerably during the Perestroika period, when RFE/RL was flooded
with materials of different types sent from the former Soviet Union. This part
of the samizdat collection has still not been processed.
During
the Perestroika period the Samizdat Archives became famous for its Collections
of Informal and Regional Press
which were considered to be the best in the West. Though this collection
includes a certain number of pre-Perestroika publications, it mostly consists
of periodicals from the Perestroika period. Some of these were published by
political groups, and some were printed for commercial purposes. Others were
created by individuals. Many provincial newspapers were included in the
collection as well, because previously their distribution abroad were
prohibited. When all of these publications were put together, they created a
perfect illustration of the new horizons opened as a result of glasnost
and the liberation of the press in the former Soviet Union.
The
collection is divided into two parts: Informal Press
including 6,000 issues of over 1,000 titles; and Regional Press
with 10,000 issues of 1,400 titles. The publications are mostly in Russian, but
there are also some in Ukrainian, Lithua nian, Latvian, Estonian, Kazakh and
other languages of the former Soviet Union. There are approximately three
linear meters of audiovisual materials relating to the samizdat collection.
These include open-reel tapes, black-and-white 35mm negatives, color slides,
videotapes and audiocassettes. Of particular interest are interviews with
Andrei Sakharov, Elena Bonner and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Cover page of a Soviet
independent political periodical Saratovskii Vestnik (Saratov
Courier) June-July 1990 issue with the title ”The New Generation Will Choose...”.
Informal Press, Samizdat
Archives, Fonds 300 Records of the RFE/RL Research Institute, OSA.
The
Publications Department
The
Publications Department continued the publishing activities of both Radio Free
Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty (RL): the editing, production and distribution
of books, periodicals, research bulletins, background reports and other
publications in both print and electronic formats. Some of these were published
continuosly throughout the various reorganizations within the Radios. External
distribution of research documents and publications began in the early 1960s.
Publications
produced by the Department included:
• newsletters and brochures drawing on the
Research Institute’s materials
• attitude research data from surveys in Eastern
Europe including comparisons with Western Europe, and data on the rate of
listening to RFE (Audience and Opinion Research)
• digests of key developments in East European
countries and the former Soviet Republics (RFE/RL Research Report,
Report on Eastern Europe, Report on USSR, Daily Report)
• public opinion polls, material illustrating
Radio Free Europe’s effectiveness and impact, as well as the effects of the
communist regimes’ press and radio attacks against RFE (East
European Area and Opinion Research), and coverage of the
listeners’ reactions to RFE/RL and other Western radios (Soviet
Area Audience and Opinion Research)
• day-by-day coverage of political, social,
economic, and cultural events in “target” and “non-target” countries (East
Europe Weekly Diary)
• weeklies and monthlies intended for reference
use by the Radios’ staff (Ezhenedelnik, Airwaves)
• journals published by the Research and
Publication Service of the National Committee for a Free Europe for the use of
RFE (News from behind the Iron Curtain, in
English, and Hinter dem Eisernen
Vorhang in German)
The
two most important types of publications created by the national units and also
by the General Desk, the Office of the Political Advisor and the Analytical
Department were Background Reports (BR)
and Situation Reports (SR).
Background
Reports, (1952) 1959–1989
Background
Reports were either long studies covering a single subject
or short papers of an analytical nature providing an immediate assessment of
new information, a sudden development, or the latest development in a running
story.
These
reports were written on an ad hoc, irregular basis and
concerned not only the five countries to which RFE broadcast but also Albania,
the German Democratic Republic, Yugoslavia, the non-ruling communist parties of
the West, East-West political relations, the Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance, East-West trade and finance, the Warsaw Pact and general ideology.
Until
1974 Background Reports were also written on the
USSR, China, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Mongolia and the Sino-Soviet dispute.
The
OSA’s collection of Background Reports
is divided into a Country Series, a Foreign
Relations Series, a series solely devoted to the World
Communist Movement, and Miscellaneous reports
on subjects that do not fit into the other categories.
Of
the many publications issued between 1951 and 1955, only a few survived and
were copied onto microfiche: these are the Hungarian Background
Reports from 1952, 1954 and 1955.
Situation
Reports, 1959-1989
Originally
published daily, Situation Reports were issued on a twice-weekly schedule from
1962, a weekly schedule from 1970, and a bi-weekly schedule from 1979. With the
exception of the Baltic Area covering Estonia, Latvia,
and Lithuania from December 1984, Situation Reports were
written separately for each of the countries to which RFE/RL broadcast. The
reports covered the latest developments in almost all areas of life in these
states. They are mostly descriptive but partly analytical, with the latter element
becoming more pronounced over the years. Although RFE/RL did not broadcast to
Albania, Situation Reports on this country
were published irregularly during the 1960s. Beginning in late 1984, Yugoslav
SR were also introduced.
The
majority of the publications were in English, but some were also produced in
Russian, Hungarian, German and French.
Records of the Open Media Research Institute
When
in 1994 President Havel offered rental of the recently vacated building of the
former Czechoslovak Parliament to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) for
just one crown a year, the gesture predetermined the future of the Open Media
Research Institute (OMRI): Prague became OMRI’s home city.
The
decision to close the RFE/RL Research Institute left many questions unresolved.
The Institute was a nutrient medium providing the broadcasting services with
information; without its support the Radios were cut off from their life
breath, the incoming news. The Radio would not be able to survive without its
archival resources and analytical support. However, these problems regarding
the RFE/RL Research Institute’s archives and research facilities were solved in
one package: the Open Society Archives (OSA) pledged to maintain the historical
part of the Research Institute archives, and OMRI became the daily information
provider to the Radios, also housing the most recent records from the Research
Institute’s archives.
OMRI
was created as a non-profit public service enterprise funded jointly by the
Open Society Institute and by the United States Board for International
Broadcasting. Its principal activities were monitoring events in the countries
of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, analyzing and
spreading information around the region and worldwide, and training journalists
and analysts from the region. (Building Open Societies,
1995, pp. 175–176)
To
pursue this mission OMRI published Transition magazine
(started as a monthly, it evolved into a bi-weekly) and
several electronic publications: OMRI Daily Digest,
a six-page report of the latest news of the region in English and in Russian, Economic
Digest (beginning in 1995), Pursuing Balkan Peace
and Russian Regional Report (both beginning in
1996). OMRI also operated an internship program for students from the region;
hosted several seminars and professional meetings, including conferences on
Roma and the Media; and cooperated with RFE/RL providing it with press surveys,
TV, and radio monitoring, program briefs, analytical reports, and other
services. OSA holds electronic copies of the OMRI electronic publications.
OMRI’s
structure was more or less similar to that of the RFE/RL Research Institute. It
included the Research and Analysis Department with several clusters of
analysts; the Information Services Department including the East European
Archives, the Slavic, Baltic and Eurasian Archives and the Library; the
Operations Department; the Publications Department; the Conferences and
Residents Office; and the Audience and Opinion Research Department (which was located
in Washington, DC).
Beginning
on 1 April 1997, OMRI was significantly restructured and downsized. From then
on, OMRI continued to publish its monthly magazine, now entitled Transitions,
and ceased all other activities. At the end of 1997, OMRI
was closed.
OMRI’s
records became a part of OSA holdings. Its important contribution was that part
of the archives of the RFE/RL Research Institute which had been kept in OMRI’s
custody. The OMRI fonds also contains the administrative records of OMRI, the
records of its Research and Analysis Department (including the files of several
analysts) and Training Department, and an immense amount of materials collected
by its archives.
The
Information Services Department (ISD) of OMRI was a successor of the
Information Resources Department of the RFE/RL Research Institute and had
similar functions and a similar structure.
ISD’s
major mission was to provide information and support services to RFE/RL and
OMRI analysts. Its activities included collecting key information on current
events in the countries of the former communist bloc, selecting for acquisition
the most crucial sources of information from the region in different formats,
coordinating the activities of information vendors, building and managing a
client-oriented information systems to provide easy access to available
information, and developing technical standards sufficient to this task.
ISD
responsibilities included operation of a specialized Library with over 125,000
volumes and two archives: the East European Archives and the Slavic, Baltic and
Eurasian Archives (SBE Archives).
East
European Archives
The
East European Archives collected information on the following countries:
Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Poland, Romania,
Serbia and Montenegro, and Slovakia.
The
records of OMRI’s East European Archives are the continuation of the files of
the RFE/RL Research Institute. However, they cover broader subjects and reflect
the changes that took place in the East European countries from 1993 to 1997.
The
country subfonds consist of Subject Files,
Biographical Files, and chronological series; monitoring of each country’s
radio and television; news chronologies and press surveys.
The
records relate to a wide range of topics and provide information on a large
variety of key figures in the social, cultural, and political spheres of the
countries.
The
Subject
Files consist of files on culture, the economy, politics,
security and social issues including information services, RFE/RL,
environmental protection, economic development, monetary policy, foreign
relations, justice, local government, political ethics, armed forces, crime,
churches, education, minorities, nationalism, religion, trade unions and
women’s issues.
There
is a substantial amount of information relating to the transition period in
East European countries and conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. There are also
files on political parties, democracy, demonstrations, strikes, law and
justice, VIPs, public opinion polls and elections, United Nation Protection
Forces, non-governmental organizations, refugees, war crimes and human rights.
Records on juvenile delinquency, drug abuse, religious schools, and
international treaties and organizations (the Council of Europe, the European
Community, NATO, UNESCO etc.) can also be found here.
The
Biographical
Files include biographical documents on politicians,
human rights activists and dissidents, artists, intellectuals, sportsmen,
scientists, party leaders, artists, physicians, representatives of churches,
military officers, historians and university professors.
Slavic,
Baltic and Eurasian Archives
The
primary goal of the SBE Archives was to monitor the countries of the former
Soviet Union and to regularly provide the analysts dealing with this region at
the Radios and at OMRI with required information.
SBE
Archives staff consisted of five people working in OMRI’s building and a team
of four (the Monitoring Group) working in the building of RFE/RL.
The
SBE Archives contracted several agencies, the same ones that RFE/RL in Munich
had dealt with, to use them as information sources in the countries of the
former Soviet Union (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Latvia). The Russian agency What
Papers Say (WPS) in Moscow played the most important role,
cooperating very closely with the SBE Archives.
WPS
monitored Russian radio and television for OMRI. It also reviewed a wide range
of periodicals, from many former Soviet countries as well as the Russian
regional press, and clipped the most important materials. Twice a day WPS sent
OMRI its daily clippings – the most urgent information from Russian central
newspapers – by fax, and, after 1996, electronically. Once
a week a courier from Moscow delivered WPS clippings from periodicals in the
countries of the former Soviet Union (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) and
from the republics of the Russian Federation. These clippings were mostly in
national languages. Additionally, WPS compiled topical clippings for OMRI under
the headings “Parties and Public Movements in Russian Regions”, “National
Policy and Ethnic Conflicts”, “Ecology”, “Russia in Statistics” etc. These were
also delivered by courier.
To
facilitate access to incoming information, staff members of SBE Archives
created two data banks: Regional Files
comprising information relating to the Russian regions and their political,
economic, social and cultural developments; and Environmental
Files on environmental conditions in the Russian Federation and, to
a lesser extent, in the other countries of the former Soviet Union.
As
previously mentioned, OMRI was the custodian of the part of the RFE/RL Research
Institute archives covering the 1990s. This included the Former Soviet Union
Archives. (See Russian Monitoring) and Ukrainian Archives. SBE Archives staff
continued to file clippings into these archives. When OMRI was closed, the part
of the Former Soviet Union Archives was sent to OSA in Budapest. Its part (12
file cabinets) which were filed in Prague, and all of the Ukrainian (4 file
cabinets) and Belarusian (2 file cabinets) records were to remain at RFE/RL for
a period of three years – they will come to OSA after 1 April 2000.
References
Building
Open Societies. Soros Foundations 1994, Open Society Institute:
New York, 1995, pp.181–182.
OMRI
Special Directory, Open Media Research Institute: Prague, 1995.
Samizdat Publications of Gábor Demszky
The Open Society Archives (OSA) holds one of
the largest Polish and Russian/Soviet samizdat collections in the world.
Besides these, there are also materials in all of the national series of the
former RFE/RL holdings which are related to dissident and clandestine
activities within these countries. The original documents on the Hungarian
opposition movements were greatly increased by a donation from Gábor
Demszky, Mayor of Budapest, who deposited his private Hungarian samizdat
archives with OSA at its opening ceremony.
Gábor
Demszky was one of the leading figures of the so-called “democratic opposition”
in Hungary. He was among the founding members of SZETA (the Fund for Supporting
the Poor), and he established and ran AB Független Kiadó, the
largest Hungarian samizdat publishing house. AB produced, published, and
distributed periodicals, such as Hírmondó and
Beszélô,
and approximately 100 books, anthologies and essay collections by both
Hungarian and foreign authors.
The history of resistance and of clandestine
and opposition activities in Hungary began with the communist takeover,
although the earliest period of its history is still almost absolutely hidden
under a veil. The resistance apparently culminated during and after the 1956
Revolution, when the first widely known and widely distributed samizdat
publications appeared. After the Soviet invasion the regime was able to
suppress the weakened opposition by applying the most brutal means. During the
consolidation period, from the late 50s until the second half of the 60s,
dissident activities in Hungary were almost undetectable.
The
repression of the “Prague Spring” by Warsaw Pact troops in 1968 gave a new
impetus to the emergence of the dissident movements of a younger generation in
Hungary. This event made it clear that the communist regime was not able to
accept any reform towards a more democratic regime, and could not tolerate the
extension of neither economic nor political liberties. The intervention
provoked significant resistance among young intellectuals of both
reform-Marxist and non-Marxist origins. Their protests took several forms but
were not very well organized. In the following years, two famous books
demonstrated that intellectuals had begun to contemplate the theoretical
consequences of the intervention on the future perspectives of existing
communist regimes: Is Political Economy Possible? by
Bence-Kis-Márkus and: The Road of the Intellectuals Towards
Class-Rule by Konrád-Szelényi. Both were
prohibited and provoked repressions from the regime. At the beginning of the
1970s two major phenomena marked the gradual emergence of more organized
resistance: the conservative “coup” of the party leadership against the 1968
economic reforms, and the launch of sociological research among the most
impoverished groups in the country. These interrelated phenomena led to
retorsions in the intellectual life and became the direct antecedents of the
organized opposition and the appearance of regularly published samizdat
periodicals.
Mimeograph from the mid-1980s, which was donated to Gábor Demszky (currently the Mayor of Budapest) by Hungarian emigrants in France.
Photo by András Révész. Fonds 302 Samizdat Publications of Gábor Demszky, OSA.
The
Charter
77 movement in Czechoslovakia had a fertilizing effect in the
region and in Hungary as well. Protests against the repressive measures of the
Czechoslovak regime created a framework for dissident activities. The
appearance of two famous samizdat publications indicated a sort of
breakthrough: Profil, edited by János
Kenedi, and Napló,
(Breviary). In the next years there were several attempts to
establish samizdat periodicals that were able to come out on a regular basis – Kisúgó, Vox
Humana, Magyar Figyelô. In 1981, Beszélô
was established, and for the first time in the history of Hungarian samizdat
the editors stepped out of the shadows, making their names and addresses public
instead of remaining incognito. In the early
80s, Hungarian samizdat proliferated. New titles appeared on the scene – Hírmondó
(edited by Gábor Demszky), Demokrata, Magyar
Zsidó, etc. These new periodicals found or created their
own audiences, and were able to establish and maintain their own clandestine
production mechanisms and distribution networks. A real market for samizdat was
starting to emerge.
The end of the
story is fairly well-known. The ateliers concentrated around samizdat
periodicals became the first cells of political movements which played a
crucial role in the political transition at the end of the decade. The private
collection accumulated and preserved by Gábor Demszky provides a unique
picture of Hungarian opposition activities throughout the 80s. It contains the
publications themselves as well as their preparatory materials, manuscripts,
designs and galley proofs. Moreover, a collection of equipment used in samizdat
production (printing-machines, frames etc.) provides an insight not only into
the intellectual history of samizdat, but also into its technical history.
Personal Papers of General Béla Király
Béla
Király, Colonel General (four-star), Professor Emeritus of history,
former member of Parliament, publisher, conference organizer, and author and
editor of numerous books and articles in English and Hungarian, joined the
Hungarian Army in 1930. In 1945, he took part in the resistance movement and
brought a brigade over to the Allied side. He was sentenced to death in 1951,
but his sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. General Király
was finally paroled in 1956, and became the Chairman of the Revolutionary
Council for National Defense, Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard of
Hungary and Commander of Budapest. He was permanent resident of the United
States of America from December 1956, and in 1965 he became a US citizen. In
June 1989, he returned to Hungary, and the Supreme Court rehabilitated him
later that year. From 1990 to 1994 he was member of the Hungarian Parliament
and Vice-Chairman of the Defense Committee.
The
Personal
Papers of General Béla Király are one of the most
recent acquisitions of the Open Society Archives. The documents (about 15
linear meters in length, and now under processing) cover the various stages and
aspects of General Király’s manifold public activities and career. The
fonds includes his personal papers, diaries, resumes and correspondence, as
well as manuscripts, newspaper clippings (including the press campaign against
his repatriation) and interviews. An important part of the materials including
books, original newspapers and clippings, émigré
publications, and propaganda materials, deals with the Hungarian Revolution of
1956 and Imre Nagy’s execution and reburial. Another significant body within
the fonds is the material documenting Király’s teaching activity at
various universities: at the War Academy in Hungary; and in the US, at St.
John’s University, Columbia University and the Brooklyn College of CUNY. This
includes teaching materials, such as slides for overhead projectors
thematically focusing on the War of Independence and the two World Wars,
articles for scholarly journals, and also records (memos and correspondence)
created during the everyday life of a university department. General
Király’s four years as a member of Parliament are also covered in
detail.
The
materials are principally in English and Hungarian.
Human
Rights
Records of the International Human Rights
Law Institute
On
6 October 1992, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 780 (1992), by which
it requested that the Secretary General establish a Commission of Experts to
examine and analyze information submitted as evidence of grave breaches of the
Geneva Conventions and other violations of international humanitarian law
committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. In a further resolution on
16 November 1992, the Security Council requested the Commission to actively
pursue its investigations on the matter of violations of international
humanitarian law committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia.
On
26 October 1992, the Chairman and four members were appointed
(Kalshoven/Bassiouni’s Commission). Its first chairman was Frits Kalshoven
(Netherlands). In October 1993, following the resignation of Kalshoven, Cherif
Bassiouni (Egypt) was appointed as Chairman as well as Rapporteur for the
Gathering and Analysis of Facts.
During
its existence, from October 1992 through April 1994, the Commission received
over 65,000 pages of documentation, as well as printed and audiovisual
information. The Commission employed three methods of investigation:
• Collecting and analyzing information sent to
or requested by the Commission;
• Undertaking investigative missions in the
territory of the former Yugoslavia in order to obtain additional information,
take testimony and, as far as possible, verify facts;
• Gathering information on behalf of the
Commission by certain governments in different countries.
In
December 1992, the Commission set up a database designed to provide a
manageable record of all reported alleged war crimes. The database was
developed at the International Human Rights Law Institute (IHRLI) of DePaul
University in Chicago under the supervision of Cherif Bassiouni, who was
simultaneously the Rapporteur for the Gathering and Analysis of Facts, the
Chairman of the Commission and the President of the Institute. The information
in the database was received from several governments, which made official submissions,
as well as from intergovernmental and non-governmental bodies. The database
also contained information from open sources and media reports. IHRLI also
provided staff and space for the Commission of Experts; first, for
evidence-gathering and analysis, and then, when Bassiouni became Chairman, for
the general direction of the Commission.
Based
on this documentation, the Commission had issued two Preliminary
Reports of the Commission of Experts containing preliminary
conclusions during the summer and fall of 1993. On 14 December 1993, the
Commission was informed that, in light of the establishment of the
International Tribunal and the appointment of its Prosecutor, the Commission
should finalize its report and complete the transfer of its files, documents,
and database to the International Tribunal by 30 April 1994. The Final
Report of the Commission of Experts, including several
volumes of Annexes, was released on 27 May
1994, and, with the original back-up documentation and the database,
transferred to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Tribunal.[27]
Records
of the International Human Rights Law Institute at the Open Society Archives
comprise 15 linear meters of documents, 252 videotapes, 23 audiotapes (see
subchapter “Audiovisual materials”) and 68 books and journals. These were
donated to the Archives by the International Human Rights Law Institute of
DePaul University in 1994. The records are open for research with the exception
of four boxes to which access is restricted at the donors’ request.
Through
their scope and content these records cover all important aspects of the wars
in Croatia and Bosnia, providing insight into contemporary political and
military events, and offering a comprehensive understanding of the historical
background of the crisis.
Though
the IHRLI textual records are comprised of 13 series, the whole body of
documents can be divided into five general groups, each of which witnesses the
multitude of sources and aspects that were used by the UN Commission of Experts
in the process of preparing their final report. In addition to the Final
Report which includes both draft and final versions of the Annexes
and Special Reports, the IHRLI records also contain
documentation issued by various UN agencies, the International Red Cross
Committee and the International Court of Justice, as well as official
submissions of former Yugoslav governments.
Even
though the records of IHRLI as a whole are dedicated to war crimes and
atrocities issues, special attention should be drawn to the separate series of
materials regarding the specific phenomenon of “ethnic cleansing”, a term that
was coined during the Commission’s investigative work, as well as to those
files that deal with the destruction of the cultural property on the territory
of Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Also worth mentioning is a uniquely
complex group of records created by UN military experts in the field relating
to the military structures, strategies and tactics of the warring factions.
Full
insight into media coverage of the war is accessible through rich,
systematically collected Western press reports, including Foreign Broadcasting
Information Service reports on the Dubrovnik crisis, coverage
of the Sarajevo siege and reports on the war
in Bosnia. All of these are supported by a selected collection of related
publications as well as audiovisual materials.
Records of the International Helsinki Federation
for Human Rights
The
International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) is a self-governing
group of non-governmental, not-for-profit organizations that act to protect
human rights throughout Europe, North America and the Central Asian republics.
The Federation was formed after the break-up of the Soviet Union. Its primary
goal is to promote and monitor compliance of the states participating in the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) with the human
rights provisions of the Helsinki Final Act and its Follow-up Documents. The
international secretariat established in Vienna supports and provides liaison
among 39 Helsinki Com mittees and represents them at the international
political level. The IHF also has direct links with individuals and groups
supporting human rights in formerly totalitarian countries by the means of
organizing education projects, seminars and international projects.[28]
The
IHF has a glorious and heroic past. On 12 May 1976, Dr. Yuri F. Orlov announced
the foundation of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG). The 11 founders of the MHG
sought to monitor the USSR’s implementation of the Helsinki commitments. Their
watchdog organization was based on a provision of the Helsinki Final Act,
Principle VII, which establishes the right of individuals to know and act upon
their rights and duties. In the wake of the MHG’s appeal, new citizens’ groups
emerged in other places inside the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact
countries. In January 1977, Charter 77 was founded in
Czechoslovakia, and in September 1979, the Helsinki Watch Group was set up in
Poland. These groups continued their activities under the constant persecution
of local authorities. Though forced to disband in 1982 (reorganized in 1989),
the MHG’s pioneering efforts had inspired others to call attention to human
rights violations. Similar groups have been founded in Western Europe, Canada
and the US.
In
1982, representatives of a number of Helsinki committees held an International
Citizens Helsinki Watch Conference. The idea of such a meeting was inspired
partly by Dr. Andrei Sakharov’s appeal for the creation of a “unified international
committee to defend all Helsinki Watch Group members” and to bring their work
together. As an outgrowth of the conference, the IHF was founded the following
year to provide a structure through which independent Helsinki Committees could
support one another and strengthen the human rights movements by giving their
efforts an international dimension.
The
archives of the IHF’s international secretariat were partially transferred from
Vienna to OSA in 1998, and the materials have not yet been processed.
Nevertheless, what can be said about them at first sight is that they generally
consist of would-be series such as the alphabetic Country
Files, including individual and group case reports, press clippings,
publications on human rights and minorities, IHF publications and
correspondence. The Administrative Files
and the Files of the Executive Director contain
materials of more or less the same nature: minutes of meetings (staff, general
assembly, national committees, executive committees); financial reports and
fundraising materials; memos; materials from workshops, summer schools,
conferences, and seminars; correspondence with individuals, national committees[29],
and other human rights monitor groups; the statutes of the IHF; PR materials,
press releases and newsletters.
Twenty-three Years of the International Helsinki Human Rights Movement – exhibition in Galeria Centralis (June – August 1998). Trudy Huskamp Peterson, then Executive Director of OSA, gives the opening speech at the Press Conference. Photo by Zsuzsanna Fekete. Fonds 206 Records of the Open Society Archives.
The
CSCE/OSCE Documents (documents of the Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe and the OSCE) are arranged chronologically according to
the dates of conferences. They include – among other conference materials –
speeches of delegation leaders and participants, publications, annual activity
reports, and correspondence concerning the preparations for conferences. (Part
of this series is the documentation of the 1985 Cultural Forum in Budapest, an
event that was not welcomed by the Hungarian authorities who forbade the
organizers to using public facilities).
The
documents are principally in English and German, but there are also materials
in Russian, Spanish, Italian and other languages of the respective member
countries.
Some
of these materials together with others borrowed from the IHF in Vienna –
posters, photographs, objects, and historical documents – were displayed by OSA
at a 1998 exhibition entitled “Twenty-three Years of the International Helsinki
Federation Human Rights Movements”.
Records of Index
on Censorship
The
idea of launching Index on Censorship was conceived in
1970, when The Times published the desperate
letter of the Russian writer, Pavel Litvinov, who sought support from
colleagues abroad for his fellow writers sentenced to prison or labor camp for
publicly expressing their political views. Sixteen prominent British
intellectuals decided to answer this appeal in the form of a telegram, which
was broadcast by the BBC. This event marked the establishment of an
organization called Writers and Scholars International (WSI), set up to protect
freedom of expression. WSI “…resolved to take the following steps: […] It will
publish a regular journal, INDEX … it will record and analyze all inroads into
freedom of expression and examine the censorship situation in individual
countries and in relation to various constitutions and legal codes. Examples of
censored material (poetry, prose, articles), as well as the results of its
findings, will be published in the journal. It will assist the publication of
books, pamphlets, articles, etc. that would not otherwise be available to the
public because of censorship and other restrictions in their countries of
origin. […] It will keep the public informed about the plight of writers,
artists, scholars and intellectuals subjected to censorship, and will keep
their names before the public.”[30]
The
first issue of Index on Censorship was published in
1972, under the editorship of Michael Scammell. In the years that followed the
journal underwent basic changes, and today it has become a bimonthly “magazine
for free speech” aiming to broaden debates about freedom of expression by
involving in discussion many world renowned writers such as Salman Rushdie,
Umberto Eco, Vaclav Havel and others. Using interviews, reports, polemics and
banned literature, the journal follows how free speech affects the political
issues of the moment. In addition to analysis, each issue contains an “Index
Index”, a “chronicle of events around the world illustrating the various ways
in which freedom of expression is being limited or denied.”[31]
The
archives of Index on Censorship, which are now a
valuable part of OSA holdings, were collected by a handful of enthusiastic
employees, part-time assistants, volunteers and researchers. They sought to
gather information and background materials for the articles, reports and
chronicles to be published in the journal. Their main source was the press, but
they also relied on news agency releases, private contacts and collaboration
with other organizations sharing an interest in similar matters, such as
Article 19, Amnesty International, Asia Watch and RFE/RL.
The
arrangement of the materials in this fonds, which is still being processed,
correspond more or less with the structure of the journal. The biggest part
consists of the Country Files or Geographic Files,
which served as primary sources for the “Index
Index”. These files, arranged by continent and then alphabetically by country,
provide a unique account of the struggle for freedom of expression in Central
and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union under communism, and in Western Europe
(with a special focus on Great Britain), Africa and Asia as well. They are the
result of the journal’s meticulous and severe monitoring activity. The most
frequently monitored issues were recurring ones: censorship, suppression of
freedom of speech, imprisonment and apartheid.
The
files of topical interest, a type of Subject Files,
are of great variety, and they generally relate to particular aspects of human
rights violations and freedom of information.
Some
of the most important topics are as follows: persecution of dissenters,
dissidents, immigrants and refugees; discrimination of minorities (ethnic,
religious, and others such as gays and lesbians); political correctness;
international terrorism, the Middle East problem and the occupied territories;
prison conditions; pornography and violence in the media; protection of
privacy; telephone tapping; drug abuse issues; AIDS and animal rights. Included
in these files are several rarities as follows: manuscripts (e.g. such as plays
by Hungarian playwright Pál Salamon), books, and articles by banned
writers and journalists from all regions of Europe.
There
is one more portion of these files that should doubtlessly be touted here: the
extremely rich and ongoing coverage of the Salman Rushdie
affair. It contains press clippings dating immediately from the appearance of The
Satanic Verses, the flabbergasted official statements of the
Iranian government, Rushdie’s articles on the issue, reactions from Great
Britain and all over the world, letters criticizing, supporting and encouraging
the author of the ominous book, and also several lists of signatories of the
Rushdie Appeal.
Beside
the usual Administrative Files (memos and minutes
of meetings), there are others which provide insight into how the documents
were collected. The files also include the editors’ extensive correspondence
with human rights monitors and victims of human rights violations. In the
collection of Publications there are several less
well-known but interesting periodicals which are not found in many other
libraries in Hungary: Index on Censorship,
Cross Currents (a yearbook of Central European culture), Free
Press (journal of the Campaign for Press & Freedom), Middle
East Times and KOSMAS
(journal of Czechoslovak and Central European studies).
The
materials are principally in English, but there are also documents in the
original languages of some of the countries.
Cover
of the gramophone record titled The Ballad of a Spycatcher
by Leon Rosselson, featuring Billy Bragg and the Oyster Band. The release was
sponsored by the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom (5 October 1987).
Fonds
301 Records of the Index on Censorship, OSA.
Press announcement (24 September 1987) about the release of the record titled The Ballad of a Spycatcher by Leon Rosselson, which was inspired by the British Government’s efforts to prevent the media from informing the public of the main allegations in Peter Wright’s banned book “Spycatcher”. The record tentatively shed a light on the absurdity of banning information in the U.K.
Fonds
301 Records of the Index on Censorship, OSA.
On
Establishing an International
Repository
of Documents Related to War Crimes
and
Human Rights Violations
Preserving
memory is a fundamental tool in preventing human rights violations and crimes
against humanity from recurring. Documents created and collected by various
national and international bodies – truth commissions, tribunals, even civil
organizations – contain facts, data, evaluation and analyses of events and
procedures, all of which are of vital importance to preserving memory and
exposing the past. These textual and non-textual documents also constitute a
valuable source for historical research. However, if these documents are
dispersed, are in various states of processing, or are subject to differing
access regulations, reliable comparative research becomes very difficult and
sometimes nearly impossible.
Establishing
an international repository for preserving both important and typical documents
on this subject, and making them available for comparative analysis and
historical research would significantly enhance the work of human rights
organizations, as well as promote scholarly research and education. We believe
that the Open Society Archives (OSA) in Budapest, a research and education base
equipped with long-term and secure storage facilities and high-level expertise,
would be an ideal site for such a repository.
The
main sources of documents in such a repository would be truth commissions,
tribunals, committees of experts at the national and international level;
international organizations and their branches; and international, national or
local human rights organizations.
If
an important document collection is in danger of being destroyed, disarranged
or dispersed, the repository should be able to take the collection over in its
entirety. However, the repository does not intend to acquire any document which
constitutes an integral part of a given country’s history only if it has a
long-term, secure storage place with adequate provisions for preservation,
processing and research by outsiders. Therefore, this repository would mainly
be composed of copies of individual documents and samples of distributed or
printed material.
Documents
in the repository could cover the following areas:
• laws, resolutions, agreements and other legal
papers documenting the establishment of institutions set up to investigate war
crimes and human rights violations;
• documents describing any debates and arguments
preceding the adoption of such laws and resolutions;
• documents describing the actual founding
processes of these institutions;
• internal documents about the work of such
institutions;
• drafts and final reports, analyses and
statistical data about their activities;
• documents sent by the institution to
international organizations;
• publications about the work and findings of
the institutions;
• typical cases and procedures.
The
creators or owners of the original records would judge the importance of the
documents, deciding which ones should be copied and sent to the repository.
While
advocating and practicing easy access and openness, OSA has instituted a
restriction policy aimed at honoring the wishes of donors and depositors, and
maintaining personal privacy, among other considerations. For example, in the
case of the materials of International Human Rights Law Institute received from
Cherif Bassiouni, Chairman of the Commission of Experts
and Rapporteur for the Gathering and Analysis of Facts, the donor decided which
documents should be available for research and which documents should be
temporarily closed. Naturally, OSA is ready to follow the express restriction
requirements of any donor organization in the area of the proposed repository.
In
January 1999, an official proposal (see Appendix) describing the above
principles was sent to several organizations, officials, scholars and advocates
in order to establish cooperation, including the Commission for Historical
Clarification, Guatemala, the Committee on the Administration of Justice,
Northern Ireland and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa.
OSA
has received a number of enthusiastic responses to the proposal from around the
globe. We are prepared to launch projects in cooperation with these
organizations as soon as they select the relevant material and agree on the
conditions of sending it to Budapest.
Soros
Foundations Network
The
corporate memory of the Soros foundations network
The
Soros foundations network was founded by philanthropist George Soros, who was
born in Budapest, Hungary in 1930.[32] In
1947 he emigrated to England, where he graduated from the London School of
Economics. He moved to the United States in 1956 and began to accumulate a
large fortune through his investment activities there. He has written many
articles on the political and economic changes in Central and Eastern Europe and
the former Soviet Union, and is also the author of The
Alchemy of Finance (1987), Opening the Soviet
System (1990), Underwriting Democracy
(1991), Soros on Soros: Staying
Ahead of the Curve (1995) and The Crisis of Global
Capitalism (1998).
The
Soros foundations network is a decentralized association of nonprofit
organizations which share a common mission: their goal is to transform closed
societies into open societies and to protect and expand the values of existing
open societies. George Soros’ philanthropic activity is deeply influenced by
the concept of open society which is characterized by the rule of law; respect
for human rights; minorities and minority opinion; the division of power; and a
market economy. Its message can be summarized on the recognition that nobody
has a monopoly on the truth, that different people have different views and
interests, and that there is a need for institutions to protect the rights of
all people to allow them to live together in peace. (The term “open society” was
used by the philosopher Karl Popper in his 1945 book Open
Society and its Enemies.)
Over
the past two decades George Soros has established foundations in more than 30
countries, principally in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
Union, but also in Guatemala, Haiti, Mongolia and Southern Africa. These
organizations work to achieve their goals by funding and operating an array of
activities concerned with arts and culture, children and youth, civil society
development, economic reform, education at all levels, legal reform and public
administration, media and communications, publishing and health care.
The
Open Society Institute (OSI) established in 1993 is based in New York City.
Together with its Hungary-based affiliate, the Open Society Institute Budapest,
it assists the national Soros foundations by providing administrative,
financial and technical support, as well as by establishing “network programs”
to address certain issues on a regional or network-wide basis.
OSI
programs fall into three main categories. Network programs
are the Arts and Culture Program, the Economic and Business Development
Program, Children and Youth Programs, the English Language Programs, the
Internet Program, the Medical and Health Program, the Network Scholarship Programs
and the Network Women’s Program based in New York; and the Constitutional and
Legal Policy Institute, the East East Program, the Institute for Educational
Policy, the Higher Education Support Program, the International Fellowship
Program, the Network Library Program, the Local Government and Public Service
Reform Initiative, the Network Media Program, the Publishing Center and the
Roma Participation Program, based in Budapest.
International
initiatives include the Burma Project, the Forced Migration
Projects, the Soros Documentary Fund and the Landmines Project. They are all
based in the US.
Programs
that focus on the United States are the Center on Crime, Communities &
Culture, the Emma Lazarus Fund, the Lindesmith Center, the Open Society
Fellowship Program, the Program on Law and Society and the Project on Death in
America.
OSA
has a rapidly growing holding which relates to the
activities of the Soros foundations network. This holding documents the
corporate memory of the organizations which make up the network, and contains
information about George Soros and the genesis of the Soros network.
Several
interesting fonds within the holding deserve separate mention, even though some
Soros documents are not yet open to the public:
Belarusian
Soros Foundation
In
certain Central and Eastern European countries, where the authorities have not
welcomed the concept of “open society”, the establishment and operation of
institutions affiliated with the Soros foundations network have faced serious
obstacles. Among other cases such as
the Fund for an Open Society Yugoslavia, which has repeatedly had its offices
closed, the case of the Belarusian Soros Foundation (BSF) is a preeminent
example.
The
BSF was established in Minsk in January 1993, and its activities concentrated
primarily on education, youth, arts and culture, mass media and publishing,
science and environment, civil society, public administration, medicine and
health care. It also provided funding for national organizations and
individuals supporting the creation of an open society in Belarus. The BSF
carried out its activities – through national and regional programs as well as
grants – until 3 September 1997, when the OSI – New York Board of Trustees
decided to close it down, officially for financial reasons. The end of the BSF
did not surprise those who were closely following its peculiar history. (Some
of the events preceding the closure: in March 1997, returning from a board
meeting, the Executive Director of the BSF was not allowed to enter Belarus,
and he was finally expelled from the country; and the end of April brought a
decision by the Belarusian tax authorities, who imposed a penalty of $2.8
million for alleged violations of the Belarusian tax law.)
Following
the closure, the documentation of the BSF was split into several parts, one of
which has entered the holdings of OSA. (Strangely, another part was given to
the National Archives of Belarus.) The materials which by far outnumber the
files deposited by other Soros foundations, include a great variety of
documents: administrative files relating to programs, projects and grants;
foreign and domestic correspondence including letters of protest to and from
various Belarusian authorities; the Statutes of the Foundation; minutes of its
Executive Board meetings; annual activity reports; publications of the BSF’s
numerous programs; and conferences and workshops materials. The records also
contain public relations materials, including press releases and press
clippings covering the Foundation’s activities.
There
is a significant number of videotapes (with approximately 70 hours of footage)
from the Mass Media Center, an independent institution sponsored by the BSF.
(For a detailed description of these, see subchapter “Archival materials”.)
Center
for the Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe
The
Legal Studies Department of Central European University (CEU) has always
cooperated closely with prestigious American and Hungarian law faculties. The
establishment of educational cooperation with the University of Chicago Law
School during the Department’s early years was a major achievement. In 1994 the
Chicago Law Program (CLP) was established at CEU, and the University of Chicago
Law School’s Center for the Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe
created a second depository of its archives at the Legal Studies Department.
The deposited documents were mostly used by CEU students because the collection
contained background information, reports and publications relevant to the
studies in comparative constitutional law.
When
the CLP was closed in January 1996 and the documents were transferred to OSI’s
Constitutional and Legislative Policy Institute (COLPI), which was later
renamed Constitutional and Legal Policy
Institute. COLPI staff members continued to develop the collection, especially
after COLPI, CEU and the Center for the Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern
Europe agreed in 1996 to begin jointly publishing the periodical East
European Constitutional Review, which had
correspondents in each country of the region who periodically submitted reports
on constitutional changes to the editorial board.
The
collection also contains copies of the recent constitutions of each East
European country, as well as amendments, with special emphasis on human and
minority rights issues. These records provide a unique overview of the
constitutional changes which occurred in the region until 1998, and they offer
researchers the opportunity to compare the publications of Western experts with
the reports of East European correspondents. COLPI donated the collection to
OSA in July 1999.
This record documents a historical moment in the life of Central European University when, on 20 September 1996, the Absolute Charter replaced the Provisional Charter, granted on 24 June 1992, by the Board of Regents of the State of New York.
From
the Office of the Executive Vice-President, Central European University.
Central
European University
The
Open Society Archives as an institution affiliated with Central European University,
continuously acquires records from the university. CEU was established in 1991,
but the concept of an independent international university was born in
Dubrovnik, in April 1989, during a workshop held at the Inter-University
Centre. The 10-year history of the “first regional university of its kind in
the world” coincides with the exceptional years of intellectual, political,
cultural and economic transformation in Central and Eastern Europe and the
former Soviet Union.
In
1998 CEU donated the files of Ann Lonsdale, its former Secretary General, to
the Archives. Lonsdale, former Director of the External Relations office at
Oxford University, took up her position at CEU in 1994 and contributed to the
consolidation of the university. Her files document the dynamic academic
development of CEU: inter-university agreements, pilot seminars, the CEU Summer
University and the beginning of the university’s academic recognition as the
first accreditation was achieved in the spring of 1994.
Before
the Archives received the files of Ann Lonsdale, another important CEU-related
accession occurred: in 1997 a remarkable amount of files was donated to OSA by
William Newton-Smith, who was sitting on CEU’s Academic Planning Committee and
also chaired its Executive Committee. The Office of Bill
Newton-Smith at Oxford University played a key role in the
establishment of CEU, and it accumulated valuable documentation of the
discussions over the location, size and structure of the university.[33]
Newton-Smith’s correspondence files, including both official and personal
letters, substantially contribute to the informal history of the university.
Audiovisual
Materials
The
Open Society Archives (OSA) has a relatively small but rapidly growing
audiovisual collection. The audiovisual holdings were collected in accordance
with OSA’s general acquisition policy: to collect materials relating to the
history of communism and the Cold War, human rights issues and the history of
the Soros foundations network.
Materials
were gathered from several sources with the intent to establish an audiovisual
research center which would serve the Central and Eastern European region. This
provides an explanation why the majority of OSA’s audiovisual collection is not
archival, meaning it does not solely contain „original“ or „master“ documents,
exclusively held by the Archives. The Archives considers it inappropriate,
unnecessary and in most cases impossible to collect and ship to Budapest
original audiovisual documents from other countries. Instead, the goal is to
build a research center, a non-circulating video library. The audiovisual
holdings of OSA were intentionally designed as a regional film collection of
propaganda films, historical films, and feature films produced
after the Second World War in Central and Eastern Europe.
(See Appendix: Acquisition Policy)
Audiovisual
materials are an essential part of OSA’s exhibitions: the audiovisual staff
prepares video installations of relevant newsreels, documentary films,
historical and propaganda films, news programs and amateur footage for each
exhibit which create an overall exciting image and make the exhibits visually
interesting and give full credit to the events.
Researchers
can conveniently access the holdings by using the reference copies of audio and
video recordings and photographs in the Research Room. In special cases, groups
may also use the Archives’ Meeting Room.
Oral
history interviews relating to the activities of
Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Fonds
305 Interviews by the Black Box Videoperiodical Foundation relating to Radio
Free Europe, contains documentation of all major political and social events in
Hungary during the past 10 years of transition.
The
Black Box media organization was founded in 1988, before the change of the
political system, by a group of independent and audacious journalists. Their
goal was to document the socio-political changes taking place in Hungary, and
to some extent in other countries of the region, during the transition years.
Since March 1988 they have covered all significant actions taken by both the
current government and the opposition, such as demonstrations, founding
sessions of parties and civil organizations, round-table discussions, the
exhumation and the reburial of Imre Nagy and his associates etc. Given its
collection of important documentation and footage, Black Box is an invaluable
source for video installations used in OSA’s exhibitions in Galeria Centralis.
One of the main attractions of the most recent exhibition, Ten
Years After, was the Black Box material from 6 July 1989,
documenting the Hungarian Supreme Court’s public retrial of Imre Nagy and his
associates.
Black
Box does not only contribute to make our exhibitions more colorful and
exciting. It also enriches OSA’s audiovisual collections through various joint
projects. In 1996, OSA and Black Box signed an agreement whereby OSA was to
sponsor a project that would complete the collection of oral history interviews
about the history and activities of RFE, an effort started by Black Box in
1994. In return, Black Box would provide OSA with a copy of the new interviews,
along with a copy of a feature film which is still in the making. In addition,
in 1999 Black Box made a generous offer: the donation of its entire RFE-related
collection of oral history interviews, totalling some 100 hours. This is the
first time that the collection has been made accessible to historians and
researchers, which provides them with a uniquely rich resource of interviews
shedding light on in-house political power struggles, relations between the
various desks, and the everyday operations of the Radio from the 1950s through
the mid-1990s. The collection includes the testimony of Carlo Kováts
(Head of the Hungarian Research Unit), Gyula Borbándy (Editor of the
Hungarian Desk), Kevin Close (former President of RFE), Ralph Walter (former
President of RFE), Jan Obermann (RFE’s Spokesman in 1995), Jan
Nowak-Jeziorañski (Director of the Polish Desk) and the former defining
personalities of the Hungarian opposition: Ferenc Kôszeg, Ottilia Solt,
and Gábor Demszky, among many others.
The
death of Yugoslavia
There
is no doubt that Fonds 304 Records of the International Human Rights Law
Institute relating to the conflict in the former Yugoslavia is the most
frequently requested and studied collection in the Audiovisual Department. (see
subchapter “Records of the international Human Rights Law Institute”). One of
its most valuable aspects is its rich diversity of sources, including, but not
limited to: ABC, CBS, CNN, Channel 4, the Croatian Information Center, ITN,
ITV, Linden Productions, NBC, ORF, PBS, Saga, Sky News, RTV Belgrade and TV
Bosnia-Herzegovina. This collection provides an overview and history of the
representation of the Balkan wars in foreign and domestic media during
1992–1996.
Documentaries
from this fonds have been used in OSA’s public events, among which the Yugoslav
Film Week (26–30 April 1999) was the most successful. The event was organized
by OSA for the CEU academic community, and was prompted by the initiation of
the NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia in 1999. The films presented attempted
to objectively approach and analyze the animosities and armed conflicts between
ethnic and religious groups in the former Yugoslavia.
Fonds
307, 308, 309, and 310 comprise a collection of materials dealing with the
results of transitions taking place after the disintegration of the former
Yugoslavia. While a primary part of the Archives’ mission is to document
communism and the Cold War, it is also dedicated to seeking out materials
relating to the aftermath of communism. While OSA’s role is not to document
life in Central and Eastern Europe after communism, it is imperative to
document the political, economic, social and intellectual transitions in this
region, because these are marked by communism’s legacy. The transitional period
in Yugoslavia characterized by ethnic conflicts is also part of that legacy and
as such, the documentation of this process is certainly necessary.
Fonds
307 contains over 70 hours of television programs produced by VIN (Weekly
Independent News), an independent news service based in Belgrade. The producers
of VIN have a reputation for taking a stand against one-sided media propaganda
instigated by the current political regime, and for their active promotion of
objective journalism. They have been “blacklisted”, and their reporting efforts
are often hindered. The reports of VIN heavily concentrate on Yugoslavia’s
domestic problems, namely the way political decisions and foreign policy (both
of which resulted in a series of wars in the region) have affected the
socio-economic situation of the people of Yugoslavia. Therefore, their weekly
compilation of timely political events is significant. Historians and other
researchers can find within it alternative viewpoints and approaches in
contrast to the more well-known profile of the Yugoslav media.
In order to preserve the film A Father, A Son, A Holy Ghost from damage resulting from bombing, Želimir Gvardiol, a Yugoslav film director rescued the negatives from Yugoslavia and deposited them at OSA in April 1999.
Photo by Ferenc Nemzetes. Fonds 206 Records of the Open Society Archives.
Fonds
308, 309 and 310, also referred to as the Yugoslav Monitoring Project, contain
a very large set of Yugoslav materials and are one of OSA’s most prized
collections. The idea of the Yugoslav Monitoring Project was sparked by the
political upheavals and conflicts which have taken place in the area of the
former Yugoslavia for much of the past ten years. The primary goal of the
project is to document on videotape everyday political events as portrayed by
the official media. The project was initiated as a joint venture of OSA and
Central European University’s Southeast European Studies Program as it became
obvious, through recent developments in both Yugoslavia and Croatia, that there
was an amazing discrepancy between the official media’s representation of
events and the actual events taking place in all areas of life. Such blunt
government-sponsored propaganda paints a lifelike picture of the political
corruption currently tightening its grip on these countries. Therefore, the
founders of the project deemed it necessary to build up a collection of tapes
which would bear witness to this phenomenon. Also, the project underlines the
ongoing cooperation between Central European University (CEU) and OSA, which
considers part of its mission to serve the CEU community in its research
endeavors.
The
Yugoslav Monitoring Project consists of three integral parts: Fonds 308
Collective Fonds, Television News, Yugoslavia; Fonds 309 Collective Fonds,
Television News, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Fonds 310 Collective Fonds, Television
News, Croatia. The Archives signed contracts with individuals working for
independent media houses in the three respective countries whereby all daily
news broadcasts were to be taped along with any additional political or
cultural programs of interest. Fonds 308, monitoring of Belgrade, is an ongoing
project, given the continuing disturbances in Yugoslavia. The fonds holds many
significant materials, such as footage of Slobodan Milosevi¾’s speeches
throughout the years, the official media’s slanted view of the student protests
of 1996-97, and various political discussion programs attempting to explain and
justify both the domestic and international political difficulties. The newest
part of the Yugoslav monitoring collection, and one of its most interesting and
valuable components, are the tapes of daily news and political propaganda
programs aired during the 78-days of NATO bombing campaign. Some of the
highlights of this acquisition include President Milosevi¾’s
announcement of the beginning of the war on 24 March 1999; and his declaration
of “victory”, according to his interpretation (or “capitulation”, as the West
declared unanimously), on 7 June 1999.
Fonds
309 Bosnian monitoring, is important in its own right. The project was
established in 1996, the year which marked the end of the bloody civil war that
ripped Bosnia apart for more than four years just as the country was making the
first attempt to return to normality and to establish democratic institutions
and a working political system. OSA now houses more than 300 hours of
significant footage recording the entire process of Bosnia’s first attempts at
independence and the construction of democracy. Researchers can view events of
great historical significance: the first local and federal elections, the
process during which three ethnic groups which had fought each other so
fiercely during the past years tried to build a federal government together or
a picture of ordinary Bosnian life under UN governance. It is important to note
that OSA acquired the recordings of not only one television station, but the
daily news programs and other programs broadcasted by Muslim, Serb and Croatian
stations. This provides a view of the same events from three differing
perspectives.
Fonds
310 Croatian monitoring is similar to the other two fonds of the Yugoslav
Monitoring Project: it traces political, cultural and socio-economic developments
in the newly independent Croatian state. Croatia, even though pro-Western and
democratic, has had its share of difficulties with the process of
democratization in the past few years. OSA has collected over 300 hours of
programs produced by state-owned media houses, thus providing researchers with
significant records of often shameless media censorship and government
propaganda. Programs to note are very detailed coverage of local and state
elections, including interviews with the candidates as well as propaganda
programs depicting President Tudjman at various state functions.
OSA’s
mission to acquire materials relating to human rights, and to preserve these
materials for further research, is best exemplified by Fonds 319, the
collection of videtapes from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY). The founding of ICTY was based on the need to bring those
individuals to trial who were accused of crimes against humanity, given the
number and nature of the atrocities committed during the wars in the former
Yugoslavia. This act was significant in many ways: it proved, for example, that
actions taken during wartime by legitimate armies or paramilitary units were
subject to a code of conduct, and that they could be held legally accountable;
and it held historical significance, as it led to the first trial of this
nature since the Nüremberg trials of 1945.
In
cooperation with Internews, a non-profit organization that provides assistance
to electronic media in emerging democracies, and the International Monitoring
Institute set up for the safekeeping of the original recordings, the trial
proceedings of ICTY were recorded, copied, and sent to OSA both for archiving
and for presentation to a broad research audience. The entire trial process the
Duško Tadi¾ hearing in its entirety, parts of testimonies
incriminating General Mladi¾ and Radovan Karadži¾ etc. – is
now recorded on tape and available for research in Europe only at the Open
Society Archives. The transcripts of the complete trial proceedings are also
available in electronic format at OSA. Parts of this historically valuable collection
serve as teaching aids for CEU’s Program on Gender & Culture and are an
element of the regular curriculum of its Legal Studies Department.
Soviet
and post-Soviet History
The
most important part of OSA’s collection is based on 2,500 hours of recordings
of Soviet and Russian television news (Fonds 300 Records of the RFE/RL Research
Institute). This acquisition came to the Archives in May 1995, after RFE/RL
relocated from Munich to Prague. The bulk of the video collection is from
1992–94. There are transcripts of most of the recordings, and these are also
available at OSA.
The
RFE/RL Research Institute started to monitor various radio stations and
television channels in order to create the most comprehensive and complete
overview possible of the Soviet reality. Monitoring at Radio Liberty (RL) began
with radio and later expanded to television. By 1991, RL was monitoring two
radio stations and two television channels broadcasted from Moscow. This
included monitoring of regular news
programs according to a set schedule as well as on-demand monitoring according
to need and interest. Programs were recorded on tapes which usually held two
weeks worth of recorded materials.
After the programs were transcribed, most of the tapes were recycled.
There
were several parts of the operation: Radio Liberty in-house monitoring;
Research Institute contract monitoring; Research Institute in-house TV
monitoring; and contract monitoring on demand.[34]
Although most of the tapes of the early period of monitoring were deleted, some
very interesting programs survived: like a speech by Gorbachev on
“perestroika”, efficiency improvement, and economic development from 1985, and
the burial ceremony of K. U. Chernenko.
From
the beginning OSA has emphasized the need to conduct its own expansion of its
holdings relating to the history of communism and the Cold War, as opposed to
relying only on donations from other institutions or individuals. For this
reason, in 1996 OSA initiated and sponsored an oral history project which
resulted in its present collection of a series of interviews with former Soviet
dissidents and Communist Party functionaries, as well with their relatives.
Some notable individuals include: Stepan Chervonenko, Ambassador of the Soviet
Union to Czechoslovakia in 1968; Oleg Kalugin, former General of the KGB;
Nikolai Baibakov, former Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers;
Mikhail Liubimov, retired KGB Colonel and now a well-known writer; Vladimir
Erofeev, former diplomat and secretary of Molotov; Oleg Troianovskii, former
USSR representative at the United Nations and World Security Council. The
interviews were conducted in Russia in 1996–1997 by a prominent Hungarian
historian, Miklós Kun.
Cooperation
between the historian and OSA has already resulted in the production of several
films, including The Daughter of the Marshall, Elizaveta
Tukhachevskaia and The Blind Spots of 1968.
In
addition to this collection, OSA encourages research in this area by granting
scholars research allowances and other financial support enabling them to
expand OSA holdings through their work. OSA and CEU nurture a two-way
cooperation. The Oral History Teaching Program (OHTP) under the auspices of the
CEU History Department is planning to develop its own special collection of
oral history interviews which it will share with the Archives. At the same time
OSA provides materials to the CEU academic community, thus enabling the OHTP to
conduct invaluable research by working with materials from OSA’s existing
collection.
As
a result of the fruitful cooperation, Miklós Kun decided to donate his
entire video collection to the Archives for safekeeping and professional use.
Over thirty unique documentary films relating to the 20th century history of
the Soviet Union and Communism, including propaganda films from the 1920s about
the labor camps in Solovki and the construction of the White Sea Canal in the
USSR during the 1930s, are now housed in the Archives.
Notable
titles are: Secret and Manifest – an infamous
Soviet anti-Semitic propaganda film; Parade of Gymnasts of
the Soviet Union, 1945; Politburo. The Newest Story (1917–1934)
and Burial ceremony of Stalin (propaganda film, 1953);
political party film of the mass meeting of the Liberal Democrat Party of
Russia (Zhirinovskii) in Moscow, 6 August 1994.
As
mentioned, one of the main missions of OSA is to document the circumstances of
post-communist life when the legacy of communism is still a defining factor.
The aftermath of the Cold War is still very much visible in the example of the
Chernobyl disaster. OSA’s holdings relating to this disaster, a collection of
over 40 hours of oral history interviews, needed to be smuggled out of Belarus
in 1998 due to the country’s political circumstances (Fonds 331 Audiovisual
Interviews Relating to Chernobyl).
The
oral history project was initiated by an independent-minded and politically
progressive group of Belarusians who refused to remain indifferent to the
consequences of the Chernobyl tragedy and the government’s refusal to face the
social, ecological, and medical problems caused by the atomic explosion. In
order to preserve and document for future generations the consequences of the
disaster on ordinary lives, and to reveal the real picture of this tragedy, two
Belarusian journalists, Svetlana Alexievich and Tatiana Loginova joined efforts
to create an archives entitled Zhivye golosa Chernobylia
(Live Voices of Chernobyl).
Work
on the collection started in May 1995 and finished in 1996. The two journalists
and their team conducted 97 interviews and recorded several hundred stories of
witnesses. The interviews paint a disturbing image of the victims of the
disaster: not only those who suffered from the immediate effects of the
explosion, but also those whose lives have been completely altered in the last
10 years. One of the most evident problems has been a change in the make-up of
the population, namely a large number of people were deported and forced to
abandon their homes leaving behind all of their accumulated assets. At the same
time, people from other areas were offered attractive living and working
arrangements if they relocated to the Chernobyl area, without being provided
with adequate information about the many risks looming in the radioactive area.
Neither of these groups were able to find their proper places in their new
environments: both faced discrimination and hostility from the “natives”, and
their longing for the homes they had left behind continues to overshadow their
lives.
Those
who were ordered to the dangerous Zone in 1986 as soldiers, physical laborers
(to gather the harvest, exterminate animals, cut the hay, load brick and
cement, etc.), chauffeurs, airplane pilots, and electricians, tell personal
stories of their days and weeks in Chernobyl and the consequences of the time
they spent there. They tell of their utter ignorance of the dangers, of the
intentional misinformation by the government, and of their continuous personal
struggles during the past ten years as they try to come to terms with often
terminal illnesses.
The
interviews also include the stories of other workers, doctors, teachers,
journalists and priests who were residents of the most dangerous areas, and who
face the horrible consequences of the catastrophe on a daily basis. The most
harrowing descriptions are the accounts of the widows whose husbands were
ordered to the Zone in 1986 for one to two weeks without receiving any prior
information or instruction. In five years time, these men died amid horrible
pain and suffering.
This
collection of interviews is invaluable not only for historical research, but
also as proof of the disaster’s consequences after many years of secrecy and
denial. These tapes are now available at OSA for viewing by both researchers
and the public.
The
1956 Hungarian Revolution
Fonds
306 Audiovisual Materials Relating to the 1956
Hungarian Revolution pays homage to one of the
most defining moments of Hungary’s modern history. This is a topic which for
decades had been glossed over and misinterpreted, and OSA took on the
responsibility to collect as many original pictures and footage of the
Revolution as possible, and to document how this event had been presented in
the last 40 years.
With
the development of OSA’s first exhibition The Representation of
the Counter-revolution, 1996, which was geared towards a large
audience, OSA acquired its first audiovisual materials relating to the 1956
Revolution. This collection includes both audio and moving-image recordings and
historical films which interpret the events of 1956 as a counter-revolution.
Some interesting examples are At Midnight and Dawn.
This holding also includes a propaganda film from 1958 (How
it Happened, directed by Ilona Kolonits), which attempts to
analyze the events of 1956 and interpret it as a counter-revolution, by
utilizing original archival footage. These same archival moving images were
used again in a German documentary (also available in OSA’s holdings) which
calls the events of October-November 1956 revolutionary, Ungarn
im Flammen (Hungary in Flames).
Perhaps
the most interesting and, for historians, most attractive part of this small,
but unique collection is a compilation of more than two hours of Hungarian news
broadcasts which include János Kádár’s comments, speeches,
and interviews regarding the events of 1956 (Newsreels 1957–1989). The Archives
would like to express again its gratitude to the Hungarian 1956 Institute and
the Hungarian Film Archives for providing copies of moving picture images which
contributed to the success of the OSA exhibition dealing with the 1956 Revolution.
Fonds
306 also includes video recordings of the conference Hungary
and the World, 1956. The New Archival Evidence, held in Budapest
in 1996. This conference, organized as a joint venture of the Hungarian Academy
of Science, the Hungarian 1956 Institute, and OSA to commemorate the 40th
anniversary of the revolution, was a ground-breaking event in Hungarian
historiography. The complete recordings of this event present fresh ideas on
the problem of 1956 and the conference opened a new dialogue on the subject.
The tapes are open to researchers.
Audiovisual materials on compact shelving, at the air-conditioned archival depository.
Photo by Ferenc Nemzetes. Fonds 206 Records of the Open Society Archives.
Materials
donated by institutions in the Soros foundations network
Following
the March 1997 closure of the Belarusian Soros Foundation (BSF), its records
were shipped to OSA in 1999. The most valuable parts of the collection are the
video recordings by the Mass Media Center – a group of independent journalists
in Belarus, sponsored by BSF – which document the main political events in
Belarus in 1994–96, including parliamentary sessions, press conferences of
political parties and independent civil groups, demonstrations, the 1996
referendum, etc. The collection also includes interviews with the most
prominent personalities in the democratic forces of Belarus. This 70-hour video
collection (raw, unedited material) documents the conflict and struggle between
the political authorities and the opposition of the country under the
leadership of Lukashenko.
The
Soros Foundation Hungary has had good relations with the Archives from the
outset: it was the first among the institutions in the Soros foundations
network to donate audiovisual materials: approximately 15 hours of video
recordings of news reports, documentary films, press conferences, etc.
The
most interesting of these is a two-part documentary film produced by Black Box
in 1995 which documents the establishment of the 10-year-old Foundation as well
as its main activities (A nyitás alapítványa.
A Soros Alapítvány története – The Soros Foundation).
OSA
has audiovisual records from all the former and current campuses of Central
European University: in Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw. In the near future a
researcher will be able to follow the history of CEU by exploring the
photography collection of OSA which was accumulated by the Public Relations
Office at CEU Budapest.
The
Open Society Archives was given the East European film collection of the
Student Welfare Office of CEU Budapest in 1998. This collection contains
English-subtitled versions of the region’s “most remarkable” 45 feature films
from the last 40 years. The collection was created by the Hungarian film
historian György Báron and was used for CEU film events. Notable
titles are: Roman Polanski’s Knife in the Water; Miloš
Forman’s Loves of a Blonde; and Sergei
Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.
A
valuable video collection from CEU Prague’s Public Relations Office provides
special insight into the public programs (conferences, lectures, seminars,
opening and closing ceremonies of academic years) of CEU Prague, 1991 – 1994.
Since
its foundation in 1995, the Open Society Archives has had an active public
programs schedule. The Archives has made the documents it holds accessible and
it uses them for cultural and educational purposes. For its exhibitions OSA
collects copies of audiovisual documents from various sources, such as MTI –
Hungarian News Agency, the Moving Image Section of the Military History
Archive, the Hungarian Film Archive; the National Photo Archive, and the
Östereichische Rundfunk (ORF). Materials displayed remain with the
Archives and are incorporated into the holdings after the exhibitions are
closed.
The
most interesting group of audiovisual materials in this fonds is a collection
of propaganda films made by Hungarian, Czechoslovak and Soviet military
organizations and military academies, and by open or covert propaganda
agencies. Notable titles are: Rákosi elvtárs harcos fiai
közt (Comrade Rákosi Among the Young Warriors),
Hungarian, 1952; Megvédem népünk otthonát
(I Shall Defend My Hungarian Homeland), Hungarian, 1953; A
politikai tiszt a csapat lelke (The Political Officer is the Heart of the Troop, Hungarian,
1950; and Baráti segítségnyújtás
Csehszlovákiának (Czechoslovakia Receives a Helping Hand).
Audio
and video recordings of OSA’s public events, such as conferences and public
lectures in 1996–1999 are also accessible to researchers.
The
video collection of the Archives has significantly grown through the accession
of the records of the Open Society Institute Budapest in 1998 (Fonds 207). More
than 50 documentary films from the Sarajevo Film Festival co-organized and
sponsored by the OSI, Budapest in 1995 were acquired. They include
marvelously-made and shocking films (with English or German subtitles) from and
about the Sarajevo war period, 1992–96, and produced by various Bosnian,
English, French and American production companies.
Notable
titles are: Sarajevo. A Street Under Siege,
a series of more than 30 episodes; Traveling Children;
Bums and Dogs; Godot Sarajevo;
Origins of a War; Amelas’ School Holidays;
Water and Blood; A Man Called “Boat”; Survival Brew;
My Mother the Shehid; Waiting for Packages;
War Art.
The
other group of films in Fonds 207 that might attract researchers is the
portrayal of George Soros as both a successful financier and a philanthropist.
Notable titles among these are: Soros: The Prophet and the Loss,
a Channel 4 production; An Immigrant’s Tale, a
CNN production; and The Philanthropist (Portrait of George
Soros), a VPRO production.
The
films of the Soros Documentary Fund were received in 1998. OSA was donated 26
films of various international programs. The Soros Documentary Fund (SDF) was
initiated in 1996 to support documentary film and video projects addressing
issues of contemporary human rights, freedom of expression, social justice and
civil liberties by filmmakers in the United States and abroad. Since its
inception, the SDF has supported more than a 100 film and video documentaries
from over 16 countries in Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and from the United
States.
One
of the most powerful documentaries to have benefited from SDF support is Calling
the Ghosts. This film tells the story of two women raped
during the war in Bosnia. It helped raise public awareness of the role rape
played during the war and significantly contributed to the effort leading to
the declaration of rape as a war crime under international law.
The
Archives is planning to screen SDF at Central European University and at film
festivals covering a wide range of subject matter, including human rights,
gender issues and other contemporary issues of concern.
More
notable titles are Russian Sex Trade (Bought and Sold), US;
Life in a Ghetto, Bulgaria; Ethnically Clean. War
Criminal: Dušan Boljevi¾, Yugoslavia; and Licensed
To Kill, US.
The Library
What
is usually referred to as the Open Society Archives (OSA) Library is the
collection of books and periodicals accumulated by Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty (RFE/RL), the Open Media Research Institute (OMRI) and through OSA
subscriptions and acquisitions.
What
the Radios created can best be termed a documentation center: the acquisition
and description of materials did not happen according to classic archival or
library rules, but rather in a manner aimed at serving the information needs of
broadcasting, programming and analysis. The types of literature which were
obtained, and which unit processed the materials, varied not only by country
but also by time period. Eastern European newspapers, for example, were handled
by the Eastern European Archive. Russian newspapers representing the central
press were handled by the Library, where they were stored and bound. The
Russian regional press was handled by the Russian Samizdat Unit. The policy for
dealing with journals and newspapers was totally revised by OMRI in May 1995.
From then on, all journals were acquired and held by the Library. This was a
more logical division of labor, as the Library was geared up for large-scale
acquisitions – the role of the Archives in analyzing and abstracting the
incoming material remained.
At
the beginning, the Library at Radio Free Europe was
part of an operating division, the News and Information Service. RFE had a
general book collection (primarily Western language materials) and country
collections categorized according to language. Each of the language collections
had certain strong fields of concentration reflecting the requirements of a
particular nation’s broadcasting service. The Czechoslovak Collection’s most
important fields were political history, economic conditions and relations,
communist theory, and literature. The Hungarian Collection was particularly
strong in materials on social and economic conditions in Hungary, while the
Bulgarian Collection concentrated on internal politics, the Party, and
ideology. The Polish Collection was strong in the history of the Second World
War and the immediate post-war period, as
well as literature, culture, and church-state relations. The Romanian
Collection was very good in international affairs, international law, and
economics.
The
RFE catalog cards were filed in one large sequence: authors, titles, and
subjects in one alphabetical scheme. The best materials dated from the
beginnings of the Radios through the 1970s.
The
Library
at Radio Liberty had a Soviet and Russian focus in its
acquisitions. Over half of the material was in Russian; and 15 percent was in
other languages of the USSR. The rest of the publications were in Western
languages, with English being the strongest, followed by German and French. It
also had a good collection of books published outside the Soviet Union,
including most of the imprints of émigré publishing
houses. The collection was organized according to the traditional Dewey
cataloging system. The reference collection included dictionaries,
encyclopedias, handbooks, directories, gazetteers, atlases and the like.
Publications from other Western research institutions were acquired by exchange.
The majority of them were given directly to analysts and were never catalogued.
The
two former book collections of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were
consolidated in 1975.
Some
communist newspapers could be subscribed to, and these were sent directly to
RFE – Pravda, for example, arrived in Munich the day
after it was published in Moscow – but in many cases, particularly with
specialized periodicals or provincial and local newspapers which the Soviet
authorities were not anxious to circulate outside their country, RFE had to
resort to a variety of dodges – false addresses, third parties, multiple
subscriptions – in order to obtain copies. These limited-copy newspapers were
better sources of information, because they were less rigorously censored than
the central press.
According
to the 1989 annual report of the Chief Librarian, Iwanna I. Rebet, the RFE/RL
Library had about 120,000 volumes: the RFE Library holdings came to about
68,000 volumes, while the RL collection amounted to approximately 52,000
volumes. After the RFE/RL Research Institute in Munich was closed, part of the
library came to OSA together with the archival collections, and the rest was
delivered to RFE/RL in Prague.
The
Library
at the Open Media Research Institute was
formed as an independent educational and research organization to conduct
research and analysis primarily for RFE/RL. Its general book and periodicals
collection continued to emphasize the interests of RFE/RL, with special
attention to the former Soviet Union.
In
1996–1997 the OSA Library received two huge shipments of books and periodicals
from OMRI. Journals and dailies (mostly from the region) subscribed to by the
Institute were also directed to the Library.
Computerization
Until
1993 a card catalog was used by RFE/RL. Then the Library in Munich installed
the ALEPH library system, which was deleted by RFE/RL staff in the Spring of
1995 during the move to Prague. OMRI had a temporary library catalog which
listed new acquisitions.
In
1996 the Archives created electronic records about more than 8,000 volumes of
the General Book Collection with the help of the Online Computer Library Center
(OCLC) Microcon project.
The
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty book collection
In
the summer of 1997, following OSA’s move to the building of Central European
University (CEU), RFE/RL and CEU concluded an agreement to transfer the RFE/RL
book collection to the CEU Library. The CEU Library took over a selection of
the books, mostly in English and Russian, and the Archives gave the Library the
electronic records about these volumes as well. Thus, these books are now
included in the CEU Library’s online catalog <http://matisse.ceu.hu/departs/library/libmain.htm>.
The descriptions of the books in this catalog always indicate that they are
from the RFE/RL collection and can only be used on the premises; that is,
unlike most other CEU Library books, they cannot be borrowed.
The
remaining items from the RFE/RL book collection are being stored by OSA while
they await further processing. Also, some of them have been given away to
non-profit organizations with the permission of the Radios:
• In May 1997, 6,000 volumes of the former
Hungarian Collection – mostly fiction, biographies, books on Hungarian history
and literature available in other Hungarian libraries – were donated to the
Hungarian Institute of Culture in Bucharest, which was closed by Nicolae Ceauşescu
in 1986 and reopened after the revolution.
• The Library donated duplicate copies to
several other Hungarian and foreign libraries and foundations. The University
of Michigan Library, for example, received a series of RFE/RL publications, and
the Hungarian National Library was given 41 years of The
New York Times on microfilm (over 1,500 rolls).
Special collection of books. Photo by András Révész. Fonds 304 Records of the International Human Rights Law Institute relating to the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, OSA.
Periodicals
The
OSA Library holds the periodicals collection of the Radios and OMRI. It also
continues to acquire subscriptions to periodicals from the former Soviet Union
and the Balkan states. The collection includes publications from and about
Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Altogether over 30
languages are represented. Coverage is significant from about 1950 to the
present. The collection amounts to about 6,000 serial titles. The Library also
contains newspapers and journals on microfilm and microfiche (approximately
40,000 items) including complete sets of Pravda
from 1917 and The New York Times from 1941. They
are available in the Research Room by self service or on request.
Special
collections include Russian Regional and Informal Press and
Foreign
Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports
on Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, Central Eurasia, and China
between 1977 and 1994 (12,449 pieces of microfiche). Other governmental publications
of importance are the Confidential US State Department Central
Files. The Soviet Union. Internal Affairs 1949-1959 and
the CIA Research Reports. The Soviet Union, 1946–1976.
One
of the most interesting collections, Russian
Regional and Informal Press, dates from the late 80s
and the early 90s, and contains not only Russian language journals and
newspapers, as its name suggests, but materials published in the various
languages of the former republics of the Soviet Union. On 12 June 1990, the law
O
pechati i drugikh sredstvakh massovoi informatsii abolished
censorship and the state publishing monopoly. This made it possible for those
publications until then published secretly as samizdat to be circulated
legally. Through this unique collection one can see the process whereby the
anonymously authored, primitively duplicated works turned into professional
publications. There were also many short-lived local papers published by
various towns, associations, schools, universities, trade unions, and churches;
quite frequently these were published irregularly. Between 1995 and 1997 OMRI
continued adding to this collection, and in 1999, the OSA Library acquired more
than 400 Russian and Ukrainian regional publications on microfiche to further
enhance it.
The
regional press and the informal press were handled by the Russian Samizdat
Unit, and a database was created for them. OMRI maintained the database on the
regional press. The OSA Library will keep records on the journals and dailies
of the regional press in the same database with the other periodicals,
indicating the original source (see subchapter “Samizdat Archives”).
Polish
Independent Publications, 1976 – is the most complete collection of
opposition and samizdat periodicals issued up to 1988. It was filmed by IDC
from the serial holdings of RFE in Munich, the Polish Library in London, and
the Feltrinelli Foundation in Milan, and from the Polish collections of other
contributing libraries in Europe and North America. Titles include not only
documents of KOR, the unofficial Committee for the Defense of the Workers, but
complete serials of well-known national periodicals such as Tygodnik
Mazowsze and KOS
as well as many clandestine publications of all kinds including bulletins and
leaflets originating from factory, local, and regional Solidarity branches,
academic and student circles, peasant organizations, political groupings, and
religious and cultural groups.
The
Prague
Spring 1968 collection contains dailies and periodicals
covering all spheres of social life ranging from the two important Communist
Party newspapers Rudé Právo
and Pravda (Bratislava), and economic publications
such as Hospodáºké Noviny and
Zem¹d¹lská
Ekonomika, to a number of relatively little-known though
important military periodicals such as A Revue.
Publications of all legal political parties, cultural and even satirical
magazines (Dikobraz, Roháþ),
and a number of Czech and Slovak regional dailies are included in the
collection. The selection covers a period ranging from early 1967 to late 1969,
illustrating the reform period, the invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968,
and the so-called “normalization period”.
The
Bulgarian
Regional Press collection consists of 88 bound volumes of local
newspapers and covers the period between 1945 and 1949 and between 1962 and
1987.
The
Library handles the collection of the Radios’ own publications on microfiche (Background
Reports, Situation Reports, and others), while the original hard
copies are listed as a separate archival subfonds (see subchapter “The
Publications Department”).
Microfim reels of Pravda (Moscow) from the Russian Press Collection, Library, OSA.
Photo by Mark Snowess. Records of the Public Relations
and Development Office, Central European University.
Books
The
OSA Library’s holdings also include the small reference section (dictionaries,
bibliographies, directories, biographies, statistical handbooks, and
encyclopedies) located in the Research Room as well as maps and history
textbooks published in the region after the Second World War, and the Hungarian
Cold War Collection. The latter has been augmented by several donated
and purchased special items presenting the history,
politics, and culture of post-war Hungary, with particular emphasis on
literature about the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
The
Library also collects publications about the history of RFE/RL and the history
of broadcasting.
As
a part of an archival fond, the OSA Library holds 68 books and periodical
titles from the International Human Rights Law Institute relating to the
conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
Based
on an agreement with the CEU Library, OSA systematically buys newly published
literature on the Cold War and history of communism, thus continuously enhancing
and updating the RFE/RL book collection now located within the CEU Library.
There
is also a small but rapidly-growing section of Archival and
Information Management Publications. As a member of 13
professional associations, the Archives regularly receives newsletters,
journals, directories, and annual reports from them. The collection includes:
• current and recent issues of professional
journals;
• significant handbooks, readers,
bibliographies;
• international standards, reports, and guides.
The
OSA Library is a non-circulating library, but the materials are open to all
on-site researchers. The Western Press Collection,
a collection of newspapers and journals in English, German, French, and
Italian, the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian Collection
and periodicals from the former Yugoslavia are kept together with new
periodical titles in the Archives’ stacks and are available upon request. Back
issues of newspapers and journals in other languages of the region are located
in the Archives’ remote warehouse on the basement level of the CEU dormitory.
Researchers are asked to put in a request for the periodicals they need in
advance, at least one or two days before they come to use the collection, to
allow time for delivery from the warehouse.
The
OSA website includes catalogs for periodicals and special book collections.
Descriptions
from the Western Press Collection can be found also in the Union
Catalog for Foreign Periodical Literature in Hungary (in
Hungarian) both on CD-ROM and online <http://www.iif.hu/db/npac/>.
Our other language collections of periodicals also will be added to this union
catalog which serves as a background for interlibrary-loan requests.
Chapter
III
Public
programs
The
series of historical exhibitions
Although it may seem quite unusual that an archives would
invest so much energy into organizing and presenting historical exhibitions for
the broader public, the Open Society Archives (OSA) believes that its
exhibition series is not just an ephemeral luxury. On the contrary: these
exhibitions are inherently part of OSA’s archival work. The preliminary idea
behind such efforts, which are not reckoned among the classical duties of an
archives, is closely related to the Archives’ origins and holdings. The Cold
War period involved a harsh struggle to cover, distort, manipulate and
communicate information. The mission and activities of Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty (RFE/RL) in Munich were primarily focused on this battlefield: breaking
the information monopoly of the Soviet-type regimes and conveying alternative
information to the people. The records of RFE/RL, including the samizdat
collections and the records of its human rights related materials, are all
products and documents of that struggle. Becoming familiar with these,
analyzing them, and interpreting them is not the exclusive right of privileged
professionals just as the existence and collapse of the communist regimes was
not the private business of some particular group but was the business of
everyone who lived in those countries. It is both a moral and historical demand
that all have equal access to this past, and the OSA’s exhibition series
attempts to serve that demand.
OSA’s
historical exhibitions aim to bring the contemporary past as close as possible
to those to whom it belongs: the people who live in
this region, the people whose lives these documents are partly about. This past
is close to them – it is a part of
their lives. It remained, however unfinished: OSA functions in an environment
shaped and marked by the unavoidable heritage of communism. Thus, the structure
and ambitions of its exhibitions are somewhat unusual. The Archives does not
try only to commemorate events and demonstrate the confirmed and established
results of scholarly contemplation – it also tries to present historical
problems, questions that have not yet been raised, and problems that look
different now that communism has collapsed. The exhibits try to articulate
problems which once seemed so evident that, in many cases, it was difficult to
identify and dissect them.
Since
OSA is above all an archives, its exhibitions mainly present printed and
audiovisual documents from its holdings and from the holdings of partner
institutions in Hungary and abroad. However, the conceptual basis behind the
exhibitions is often hidden. What the Archives hopes and expects from visitors
is that they will make the same efforts as a historian must make when exploring
an archives. The exhibitions are more than mere shows: they are open
invitations, to laymen as well as to scholars to analyze the sources and documents,
to make judgments and to come to conclusions. The exhibitions call for visitors
to do exactly what the people of this region had been prevented from doing for
many decades. In this sense, the historical exhibits are not solely
representative events; they are – like an archives in the original sense –
venues for collective historical recognition and reconstruction.
The
first OSA exhibition opened on 15 March 1996, on the occasion of the Archives’
opening. Although it was small, in Hungary it was a pioneering exhibition of
its genre – a comparative exhibit of samizdat publications from all over the
region. Since OSA holdings already included some major samizdat series from the
former Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechoslovakia and in light of Gábor
Demszky’s recent donation also from Hungary – it provided an opportunity to
show the hidden and rather unintentional, instinctive and non-coordinated
cooperation between the various Central and Eastern European opposition
movements. By presenting parallel activities and productions, the exhibition
made it apparent that the separate movements profoundly influenced each other,
and often coincidentally focused on the very same issues.
The
Representation of the Counter-revolution opened on 4 November
1996, on the 40th anniversary of the invasion of Budapest by Soviet troops to
suppress the 1956 Revolution. This was the Archives’ first attempt at
organizing an archival exhibition that targeted an important but poorly
discussed, or even neglected problem of the contemporary past: how the
oppressive regime tried to handle the embarrassing circumstances of its origin.
The exhibit had a double ambition: it aimed to reconstruct how the post-1956
regime tried to communicate the official version of “counter-revolution”, while
keeping the memory of 1956 under control; and to show how and why the regime
failed to establish its version of the events, which forced it to choose
silence and oblivion instead of cultivating and propagating “heroic”party
mythology. The starting element of this historical reconstruction was the
restoration of the official traveling propaganda exhibits which were put
together at the instruction of the Party’s Politburo in the spring of 1957.
Nonconformist
Art from the Soviet Union brought together – for the first time in
history – the two biggest collections of Soviet underground art produced in the
50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. The show, which was staged in the Palace of Arts in
Budapest featured over 300 paintings, drawings, collages, and sculptures which
refused to follow the Communist regime’s prescribed aesthetics of
social-realism. One part of the exhibited works, acquired and taken out of the
Soviet Union during the Cold War, came from the private collection of Norton
Dodge, who donated the works to the Zimmerli Art Museum at the Rutgers State
University of New Jersey. The other part of the artworks came from the National
Tsaritsyno Museum of Moscow, the biggest Russian repository of Soviet
nonconformist art.
The
Art of the Unofficial was a smaller document exhibit
in Galeria Centralis which complemented the nonconformist art show by
presenting the political and historical background of the artists and their
artwork. Contemporary photos, documents and newswires from the Archives
holdings and from other sources illustrated the troublesome lives of the
artists, their “illegal” exhibits, and the sometimes tragic, sometimes comic
episodes in their continuous battle with the authorities.
These
exhibits were accompanied by the colloquium Politics as Art /Art as
Politics, hosted by OSA on 11 and 12 October 1997. The
panelists and moderators were prominent art historians, art critics and
philosophers whose work concentrates on the oppressed art of the former Soviet
Union. The American collector Norton Dodge and Andrei Erofeev, curator of the
Contemporary Art Collection of the National Tsaritsyno Museum in Moscow, were
among the speakers.
50
Years Ago It Was 100 Years Ago was a multimedia
exhibition revealing the various ways in which the 1848 Hungarian revolution
and war of independence has been remembered, celebrated, interpreted, and
represented in Hungary over the last 50 years.
The
exhibition’s narrative started with the year 1948, when the Hungarian Communist
Party seized power. The centennial festivities of that year – directed by the
Party – transformed the memory of 1848 into an early, heroic manifestation of
communist ideals. The 1956 uprising denied that image by holding up the events
of 1848 as the shining example of Hungary’s fight against foreign and domestic oppression,
and the legendary motivation and courage of the “March Youth” to defy
authority. In the years following the failure of the 1956 uprising, the
celebration of 1848 became a delicate and potentially dangerous issue – the
spontaneous, unofficial commemorative events which stressed national freedom
and independence from the Soviet Union were often brutally suppressed by the
police. After the fall of the communist regime, “15 March” again rose to the
rank of the officially cherished, majestic national holiday. Additionally, the
newly-arisen right wing groups created another image of the 1848 revolution and
its leaders by arguing that the great poet Petôfi did not die, but was
captured by the Russian Czar’s troops and taken to Siberia. They associate his
figure with those thousands of martyrs who were tortured and worked to death by
the Soviet state in its Gulag system. Thus, the poet of the 1848 revolution is
linked to the tradition of anti-communist resistance.
The
exhibition demonstrated the main stages of this process with the help of
contemporary paintings, statues, drawings, monument plans and models,
newsreels, short films, press articles, political speech transcripts, and other
commemorative paraphernalia in the most surprising shapes and forms.
OSA
also organized a Revolutionary Film Festival
related to the topic of this exhibition. Hungarian military propaganda films
exploiting the legacy of 1848 were screened along with feature films reenacting
the events of the revolution.
Legends
in Life and Art: The Portrait Photography of Roloff Beny from the National
Archives of Canada was organized by the Open Society Archives with the
financial assistance of the Ford Motor Company, which paid for the
transportation of the photos.
The
late Canadian photographer Roloff Beny (1924 – 1984) achieved an international
reputation for his lavishly produced photo-illustrated books. His photographic
and manuscript archives were donated to the National Archives of Canada by his
estate. Within the collection, there was a virtually unknown group of
approximately 500 portrait sittings taken between 1956 and 1983. The Canadian
National Archives created a travelling exhibition from these photographs, which
portray the leading figures in the world of dance, opera, music, literature,
cinema, theatre, fashion, and politics. Because of an invitation from OSA,
Budapest was one of the major European cities to receive the exhibition.
On
14 April in connection with the exhibition, there was an English language
presentation by Lilly Koltun of National Archives of Canada entitled Facing
the Past: The Historic Importance of Portrait Photography.
23
Years of the International Helsinki Human Rights Movement
was an exhibition which the Open Society Archives organized when the
International Helsinki Federation (IHF) donated its most important records to
OSA. The documents, dating from 1983 to 1996,
amount to some 22 linear meters and include administrative files, files on the
activities in each of the countries where Helsinki Committees have been
established, and documents regarding the IHF’s monitoring of the work of the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and its successor, the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The purpose of the
exhibition was to present the history of the Helsinki movement from the signing
of the Helsinki Accords to the present, and to showcase the newly acquired
documents.
On
27 June OSA and the International Helsinki Federation held a joint press
conference entitled 23 Years of the Helsinki Human Rights
Movement – Human Rights Violations Today. IHF released its 1998
Annual Report during this event, and representatives from the
national Helsinki Committees of Belarus, Russia, Kosovo, Hungary, Poland,
Serbia, Slovakia, Bosnia, the US, and Canada answered journalists’ questions
about human rights.
Prague
Spring /Prague Fall – 1968 was staged to commemorate the 30th
anniversary of the suppression of the Prague Spring. It presented the story of
the reforms in Prague – this last attempt to create a socialist utopia in
Europe – in the context of the events that took place worldwide in 1968. The
lost world of the Prague Spring was brought to life against the backdrop of the
barricades in Paris’ Latin Quarter, the Polish police forces’ brutally crushing
of student demonstrations in Poland, and the battles fought in Vietnam and
elsewhere in the Third World. In addition, by exposing newly released
interviews with the main figures of the Prague Spring, the exhibition refuted
the fable that János Kádár was unwilling to take part in
the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. Photos and documents revealed that
the Soviet incursion involved casualties and brutality, a fact that had
previously been denied.
In
connection with the exhibition Örökmozgó held a filmfestival
in 11–15 September .
Freeze
Frames of Communism was an exhibition devoted to exploring the
propaganda use of a special communist genre of visual communication, the film
strip “diafilm”, in Hungarian.
The
diafilm
prospered in the former communist countries in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition
to catering to the “natural” audience for this medium with adventure stories
exalting Pioneer morality and animal fables symbolically addressing issues of
“socialism”, the golden age of diafilm produced a mass of silly
tales about the emancipated communist woman working in the factory, the tricks
and glorious successes of hog-breeding on socialist cooperative farms, heroic
Hungarian sailors revealing a counter-revolutionary conspiracy, and the wise
peasant and his son battling potato beetles, the “secret agents of
imperialism”. Stretching the possibilities of the diafilm
resulted in such comic attempts as presenting soccer games or ice-skating
championships with a medium that cannot represent movement.
The invitation card
designed by Zsuzsa Medve for the exhibit Freeze Frames of
Communism (October–December 1998). The same design was used
for the poster of the exhibition.
Fonds 206 Records of the
Open Society Archives.
Originally
the diafilm – a shiny black-and-white celluloid strip
with a 20- to 40-frame story – was projected on the wall of a darkened room
with the help of a primitive-looking instrument that squeaks every time one
turns the knob to advance the film, and smells horribly when the strong bulb inside
heats up. The audience – children, workers, students or peasants, depending on
the topic of the film – sat in the back of the room and looked at each image as
it came wobbling into view, and listened as the person “operating” the
projector read out the short text underneath the picture: “The Zrínyi
Pioneers were marching toward their summer camp through beautiful landscapes in
merry mood.” or “Jani grabs the spade when henbane and nightshade show up, for
those provide food and ground for the potato bug.”
A special bookmark
designed by Zsuzsa Medve for the exhibition The Commissar Vanishes (March–April
1999). By pulling on the insert leaf, the face of Stalin changes to that of
Beriya.
Fonds 206 Records of the Open Society Archives.
In
the OSA exhibition several dozens diafilm
could be viewed in their original form. In a curtained corner of Galeria
Centralis visitors could project the filmstrips of their choice with the
squeaky, smelly projectors, while other filmstrips were presented on CD-ROM.
Additionally, OSA borrowed the original artwork for some of the filmstrips from
the National Széchenyi Library.
The
exhibited filmstrips were categorized according to topic and the audience
targeted: Pioneer tales, odes to the emancipated woman, life on the cooperative
farm, the heroic stories of soldiers etc. and the attempted propaganda
mechanisms through which the makers of filmstrips wanted to reach their
audience became apparent.
The
Commissar Vanishes – Falsified Photographs of the Stalin Era
was
another traveling exhibition which OSA invited for a guest appearance at
Galeria Centralis. The show, which was previously on view in Berlin and in
Milan, enjoyed a great success in Budapest as well.
The
exhibition consisted of photographs about Soviet Russian politicians and public
personalities presented in both their original and retouched versions. The
majority of the material came from the collection of David King, who started to
amass the photos about 20 years ago. Initially the British art historian simply
wanted to compile a photographic history of the Soviet Union. Later, after he
noticed the difference between the original and later versions of certain
photos, he began to seek out series of photos from which people were retouched
after they had fallen out of Stalin’s grace or had been executed. The
falsification of photographs speak volumes about the diabolic cynicism of the
regime.
OSA
complemented the photos from King’s collection with a few retouched photos from
Hungary which followed the Soviet pattern. With the help of the Hungarian Film
Archives, the motion picture equivalent of falsified photos, Soviet propaganda
and pseudo-documentary films, were also presented in video installations.
Ten
Years of Freedom – 1956 in Hungarian Hisorical Thought,
was an unusual exhibition in that, instead of exploring a historical event of
1956, it presented the findings of the exploration of the researchers without
any commentary or interpretation.
Categorized
on the basis of the most commonly occurring topics in the research of this era,
the exhibition featured all 1956-related scientific research work, monographs,
studies, bibliographies and source listings by Hungarian authors that were
published after 1989. The activities and histories of individual research centers
were also presented.
During
this exhibition Galeria Centralis functioned as a reading and research room
where visitors were able to study printed and electronic literature about the
Revolution. The computer database, digitized photo collection, and Oral History
Archives database created by the 1956 Institute
were available for use on the spot, as well as the Internet-based educational
materials, and the forthcoming CD-ROM produced by the Institute. Perusal of
these materials was aided by documentaries made in 1956 as well as segments of
films made after 1989 about the historiography of 1956. A few of the most
important items in the Oral History Archives were also be available for
reading. Additionally, the exhibit featured a computer database of sound documents
and programs about 1956 from the Archives of Hungarian Radio. Segments from
these broadcasts – including the broadcast of Radio Free Europe during the
Revolution, which are currently being processed – could be listened to in the
exhibition hall.
The
exhibit was opened by Domokos Kosáry, a historian and former President
of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Árpád Göncz, President
of the Hungarian Republic, also graced the event with his presence.
Gulag,
an exhibition about the past and present of Soviet labor camps, was not staged
in Galeria Centralis, but in the abandoned and decrepit industrial hall of the
Zrínyi Press, a token of the past regime soon to be turned into a
five-star hotel by a foreign investor. Placed in this surrealistically decayed
environment, the photos and archival documents telling the story of life in the
camps provided the visitors with a unique visual experience.
This
exhibition consisted of several components. The artistic photographs of Tomasz
Kizny, taken in the past few years, showed the present state of former labor
camps, many of which are now desolate and ruined. “Overgrown canals, unfinished
roads, abandoned mines and factories, barracks falling to ruin, mazes of barbed
wire, the stubs of watchtowers: “Remnants of a great slave empire” – writes
former Gulag inmate Sergey Kovaliov about the images Kizny captured with his
camera. Kizny’s photos were juxtaposed with archival pictures from the holdings
of the Moscow Memorial Archives which depicted life in the camps when they were
operating. The pictures from the two sources were selected and organized into
an exhibition by the Karta Center in Warsaw.
As
usual, the Open Society Archives compiled some supplemental “background”
material from its own holdings and other sources. These documents described how
the East and the West dealt with the topic of labor camps: how the official
Soviet media shrouded the forced labor camps with silence, how publications and
films propounding state propaganda tried to blur the differences between plain
criminals and political prisoners, and how truthful information was “smuggled
out” of labor camps, later to be distributed in the West, and domestically in
samizdat.
Cirkogejzír
Cinema hosted a film festival related to the
exhibition. Propaganda and feature films about the Gulag, selected by the staff
of the Open Society Archives and the Hungarian Film Archives, were shown on
6–12 May.
From
the beginning of 1999, the staff of the Archives was preoccupied with the
production of an exhibition commemorating the 10th anniversary of the
transitions in Central and Eastern Europe. Many different ideas were brought up
and discussed, and although it was agreed that the exhibition somehow had to
shed light on the contrast between the hopes of 1989 and the reality of the
past decade, it was difficult to come up with a concrete concept that would
communicate this. In the end, the solution came from outside: a beautiful photo
collection documenting the past decade, assembled by Transitions
magazine in Prague, needed a new home, because the journal’s funding had been
cut. OSA acquired the photos which became the first part of the exhibition Ten
Years After.
The
pictures, taken by 27 artists from 15 different countries, provided an
objective view of the past ten years in the countries of the region. Among the
topics presented were unemployment, prostitution, abandoned street children,
homeless people, drugs, and wars arising from resurrected nationalism, as well
as the influx of American culture, the revival of religion, the development of
private enterprises, and the newly acquired freedom of expression.
Poster of the photo and
document exhibit Ten Years After. The exhibit was
organized by OSA on the occasion of the World Economic Forum’s 1999 Central
and Eastern European Economies Summit, 30 June – 2 July 1999,
Salzburg.
Designed by Attila Nagy.
Collection of Posters, Fonds 206
Records of the Open Society Archives.
The
other half of the exhibition, recalling the events of 1989, was put together by
the Archives using documents from its holdings and photos from various sources.
The texts and images narrated the most important euphoric or solemn, or even
bloody moments of that year in each country: the first free elections in the
Soviet Union, the reburial of Imre Nagy in Hungary, the victory of Solidarity
in Poland, the general strike in Czechoslovakia, the demonstrations in Bulgaria
and Albania, the revolt and the execution of the Ceauşecus
in Romania. This part of the show was invited to the World Economic Forum’s
Central and Eastern European Economic Summit, which took place in Salzburg from
30 June to 2 July 1999.
Academic programs
The
Open Society Archives has concentrated not only on archival projects, but on
academic projects as well. In May 1995, the academic programs of OSA were
launched with two remarkable and related events. In cooperation with Collegium
Budapest (Institute for Advanced Studies), OSA organized a standing seminar of
six lectures called Construction of Memory Under Historical
Contingency. The lecturers were prominent scholars from the
fields of philosophy and the theory of history, among others Frederick
Ankersmit, Thomas Laqueur, Joan W. Scott and Geoffrey Hartmann, whose
presentations were discussed and challenged by the permanent members of the
seminar. At the end of May 1995, parallel to the standing seminar, OSA invited
to Budapest five outstanding historians of the contemporary academic world –
Thomas Laqueur, Steven Greenblatt, Carla Hesse, Reinhard Koselleck, and
Nathalie Z. Davis – for an open discussion about the “millennial perspectives”,
the future orientations and moral implications of historical scholarship. The
event took place in Budapest City Hall in front of a large audience. Professors
Gábor Klaniczay and István Rév of Central European
University moderated the discussion.
In
the following years OSA actively took part in organizing and hosting
international conferences closely related to its profile and holdings. In 1996,
the Archives contributed to New Archival Evidence,
an international conference on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution organized by the
Hungarian 1956 Institute and the National Security Archives (Washington, DC).
The conference attempted to evaluate the status and results of research on the
Hungarian Revolution throughout the world from China to the Soviet region and
the United States. A special session was devoted to the role of Radio Free
Europe in events during the days of the uprising. During 1996, OSA also held an
international conference on the handling of highly sensitive documents relating
to war crimes. Many experts, legal scholars, and historians participated in the
event: Cherif Bassiouni (head of the UN Commission for Human Rights) from De
Paul University, Chicago, Aryeh Neier, President of the Open Society Institute
and former President of International Human Rights Watch, and representatives
from the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Paris, among others.
The
last major international event organized by the Open Society Archives was the
conference and colloquium of the International Helsinki Federation held in
Budapest. The Federation played a major role in international human rights
protection, and its activities in the region before 1989 largely contributed to
the shattering of the Central and Eastern European dictatorial regimes. The
occasion of the colloquium was the 23rd anniversary of the Federation’s
foundation. At this time, the IHF also deposited its records at OSA.
OSA
has played an important role in promoting and improving the professional
quality of archival management and historical research in the region. The
Archives gives financial support to projects in these areas, and also offers
research grants for young scholars – those from the region are especially
favored – who work on the history of communism and the Cold War.
The
Archives’ CEU Summer University courses and its public lecture series both also
serve this end. OSA regularly invites highly esteemed international scholars,
archivists and historians from the fields of archival management and contemporary
history to give public lectures in Budapest, usually at CEU. In the last few
years, lecturers have included Lilly Koltun, National Archives of Canada; Anna
K. Nelson, American University; Vladimir Lapin, Director of the Russian Central
State Historical Archives; Richard Crampton, University of Oxford; John Lewis
Gaddis, Yale University; and Klaus Oldenhage, Bundesarchiv, Germany.
Professors
Crampton and Gaddis, well-known experts on postwar Central and Eastern European
history, spoke about special aspects of the history of the Bulgarian and Polish
communist regimes. Other lectures dealt with current issues in the development
of archival management and records management (Oldenhage) and the special
problems and difficulties of archives in a post-dictatorial situation (Lapin).
Not surprisingly, the greatest interest was raised by the lecture of Anna K.
Nelson, who is on the Clinton administration’s John Kennedy Assassination
Records Board. The Board has been assigned to scrutinize and declassify the
records of the investigations and hearings on the Kennedy assassination,
including background materials of the famous and often questioned Warren
Commission report. Nelson’s presentation covered the legal and archival issues
relevant to the process of declassifying such extremely sensitive materials.
She also confirmed the conclusion of the Commission and reassured the audience
that Lee Harvey Oswald was the single perpetrator, despite the recurring rumors
and legends about political conspiracies, and mafia and CIA involvement.
Open
House
The
Open Society Archives (OSA) has a three-year tradition of organizing open house
events for archival professionals from the region. The idea behind the open
house program is to put forward new and interesting topics in the archival and
information management sciences. Being in a more favorable financial position
than many other archives in the region, OSA can afford its staff members to
subscription to Western professional literature, internet access and websites, and
participation in conferences and training seminars. Part of the Archives’
mission is to serve as a gateway – an open archives – where ideas and opinions
can be exchanged, and where archivists can reinterpret their challenging role
in managing information societies. OSA staff members work on establishing
contacts with other archives, disseminating the information they gather during
their professional training, and providing other archives from the region with
the infrastructure to make their holdings accessible for researchers. Being the
only regional archives, OSA can be the place where archivists from the private
and state archives of different countries can discuss the problems they face in
the new electronic age.
The
first open house was organized at OSA’s initial location in February 1997.
Almost every Hungarian county archives sent representatives to the event, and
national institutions participated as well. Among many other programs, the
agenda focused on two main topics: the role of information technology at
archives in general, and educational possibilities sponsored by OSA. The latter
issue was raised at a round-table discussion during which archivists could
share their experiences with archival education. OSA staff members also
distributed a questionnaire to the participants in order to find out more about
topics which would stimulate their interest in the Archives’ future CEU Summer
University courses.
The second open house was held at the new
building in April 1998, attended by archivists from Hungarian institutions and
from neighboring countries. The programs on the agenda were very popular with
these professionals: Trudy Peterson’s opening speech about the Internet and
archives, a tour of the Archives’ modern facilities, and discussions on fundraising
and records management.
A fortunate coincidence allowed the Archives to profit from the presence of the international archival community in Budapest on the occasion of the annual meeting of the International Conference of the Round Table on Archives (CITRA) on 6–9 October 1999. On 6 October 1999, OSA opened the exhibition The Past in the Present for the Future in Galeria Centralis, in cooperation with the Hungarian National Archives, the official organizer of the conference. The opening of this exhibition provide OSA with the opportunity to introduce itself to the archival world and to start a constructive dialogue about common archival problems. Thus, this year’s open house will take place in a broader international context.
Chapter
IV
Cooperation
The
Open Society Archives (OSA) is not a reclusive institution. Its goals are
broader than simply acquiring, preserving and making available documents, or
exhibiting them for the public; they include cooperation with other archives
and related institutions, especially in the former communist countries, and
supporting projects which aim at preserving documents and making them
accessible to researchers. They also include giving professional help,
providing forums for exchanging information and ideas as well as sharing the
specific knowledge and experience of Archives staff, and contributing to formal
and informal archival education.
In
other words, OSA’s ambition is to provide an information gateway between East
and West; to help researchers from outside of the Central and Eastern European
region find archival sources in countries of the region, to help archivists
establish professional contacts in OSA’s main areas of activity, and to provide
relevant professional information for archivists in the former communist
countries and from the rest of the world.
OSA
is convinced that through these various forms of cooperation it can actively
contribute to the development of archival and information legislation in the
countries of the region, as well as to the formulation of an information policy
based on democratic principles.
These
were the main reasons why the Archives established the Regional Archival
Support Project (RASP) and its successor, the Regional Archival Cooperation
Project (“YEAST”) which provide a framework for the various cooperative and
support activities in the above areas.
The
following section provides an overview of the most important projects, events
and activities involving cooperation between OSA and its partners.
Regional
Archival Information Center
An
important element of RASP was an online service for the archival community,
RASP Online, which constituted a part of the OSA website. It included regularly
updated information about recent and upcoming events, descriptions of archival
courses and distance-learning possibilities, and a collection of links to
relevant websites. Important pieces of legislation related to information
policy and archival regulation, both from countries of the region and
elsewhere, as well as the texts of basic international archival standards were
also posted on the pages of RASP Online. A special service of RASP Online was
the Archives-East Listserv which provided a free online discussion forum on
archival issues of the region for participants, regardless of their geographic
location.
The
renewed Regional Archival Cooperation Project (“YEAST”) is also emphasizing the
exchange of information using the ever-increasing possibilities of the
Internet. One of the central elements of its Internet-based Regional
Archival Information Center is an information base on archives and the
archival situation in countries of the region. A questionnaire has been sent to
several leading archival organizations in the region in order to receive
up-to-date information relating to the main categories of archives; the
hierarchy among the different categories and levels of archival institutions;
the archives specializing in the history of communism and the Cold War and/or
human rights issues; the most important laws and regulations in the archival
field; the most important archival publications, archival programs and
projects; regular archival events; and contact information including websites
and mailing lists. The questionnaire has also been distributed at seminars held
at OSA, and the information received is being processed for eventual posting on
the OSA website.
International
conferences organized by the Open Society Archives in Budapest
In
addition to organizing public lectures and events, OSA regularly hosts
conferences, seminars and other forums for discussion especially for members of
the international archival community.
An
outstanding event of this kind was the meeting of archivists from former
Yugoslav countries hosted by OSA in Budapest on 12–13 July, 1996. This event
was the first face-to-face conversation of national archivists from Slovenia,
Croatia, Bosnia and Yugoslavia since the old Yugoslav Federation split apart.
The Secretary General and the Chair of the Coordinating Board for European
Programme of the International Council on Archives (ICA), as well as
representatives of UNESCO and the Council of Europe were present and took part
in the discussions. After the disintegration of Yugoslavia, the records
necessary for the functioning of the new governments, the records of the
political history of the republics, as well as their former records remained in
the National Archives in Belgrade. The
main issues raised at the meeting were as follows: a survey of all federal
records; the publication of a list of accessions to archives since the split;
the provision of copies of vital documents, guarantees of free access to
documents for government purposes; the inclusion of a consultation and consent
period for all states in the destruction schedules for federal records, and the
initiation of direct cooperation among archivists on archival issues.
On
23–24 August, 1996, an international seminar was hosted by OSA in cooperation
with the International Association of Sound Archives (IASA), the International
Council on Archives and the International Federation of Library Associations
and Institutions (IFLA) on Descriptive Standards for Sound Archives.
As a result of the joint seminar, the representatives of these three
international non-governmental organizations confirmed that, although the
underlying principles and the basic blocks of description of sound recordings
appear to be similar, the three traditions represented at the seminar approach
the practice of description in different ways. Moreover, each NGO has already
completed a great deal of work to standardize practice. Therefore, a Recommendation
and an Action Plan were drawn up by the
participants in order to foster a convergence of standards and practices of
description, building on the common elements of the three traditions, which
would be of considerable mutual benefit to both professional archivists and the
users of archives.
In
connection with the meeting of the Programme Management Commission of the
International Council on Archives (ICA/CPM) held at Central European University,
The
Electronic Record and the Changing Workplace - Colloquium on Archives and
Records Management in the Electronic Age was held in the CEU
Auditorium on 7 December, 1996. Opened by Wang Gang, President of ICA, the
colloquium provided an opportunity for the leaders of the international
archival community to participate in an exchange of information and ideas related to electronic records and
“re-engineering” of archival institutions.
In
March 1999, OSA hosted the annual research workshop of the International Team
of InterPARES (International Research on Permanent
Authentic Records in Electronic Systems), led by Luciana Duranti,
Professor at the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies,
University of British Columbia, and President of the Society of American
Archivists. The InterPARES Project is a major international research initiative
in which academics, national archival institutions, and private industry
representatives collaborate in order to develop the theoretical and
methodological background for the permanent preservation of authentic records
created in electronic systems[35].
On
12–13 March, in connection with the workshop, OSA organized the Open
Archival Forum on archival automation for archivists and
computer experts from countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The forum
provided an opportunity for the participants to introduce and discuss archival
automation systems, software developments, plans, and practices. OSA wishes to
foster the development of commonly used standards and practices in archives of
the region; to help standardize concepts, terminology, and methodology; and to
help create a common, standardized archival database in Central and Eastern
Europe. As part of the forum, the members of the InterPARES International Team
presented a short seminar on the status of research on long-term preservation
of electronic records.
A
two-day seminar and workshop for Soros foundations network staff was held at
OSA in Budapest on 25–26 March, 1999. The purpose of the event was to discuss records
management and archival issues concerning the records of the national Soros
foundations. An important issue discussed by the 20 participants from 13
foundation offices was the possible closure of some Soros foundation offices in
the near future. OSA plans to establish standard procedures for dealing with
older and current documents before the offices close.
In
addition, the seminar and workshop can be considered the first step in
establishing a network-wide comprehensive records management
manual to assist each Soros foundation in properly managing its
records, and to be used as a model in setting up records retention schedules in
each foundation. It can also assist the foundation offices to establish proper
document management procedures and transfer historic materials to OSA for
permanent retention.
Conferences
organized by the Open Society Archives in foreign countries
Responding to
the requests of archives and other organizations from various countries of the
region, OSA has organized a series of seminars and conferences in former
communist countries.
In
June 1997, two members of the Board of the Soros Foundation – Kazakhstan
visited OSA and requested assistance with reforming archival law and practice
in Kazakhstan. After a visit by OSA’s Executive Director to Kazakhstan, and
based on discussions with key individuals in the archival field, a joint
project was developed in cooperation with the Foundation.
The
Kazakhstan project consisted of a series of three seminars held in Almaty. The
first four-day seminar was organized in January 1998 under the title Access
to Government Information; the guest lecturers were Trudy Huskamp
Peterson, then Executive Director of OSA, Claes Gränström,
Deputy General of the National Archives of Sweden, and Iván Székely,
then Chief Counsellor of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Data Protection and
Freedom of Information, Hungary. The issues discussed included the examination
of the principles for archives and current records legislation prepared by the
ICA, the examination of various models of freedom of information and secrecy
legislation, and the examination of privacy legislation, with an emphasis on
the administration of the acts. The guest lecturers prepared several case
studies in order to find solutions together with the Kazakh participants, and
important pieces of legislation were translated into Russian and sent to
participants prior to the seminar. An important aim of the seminar was to
assist Kazakh legislators, government officials and archival experts in drafting
the new Archives Act for Kazakhstan.
The
second workshop was organized in April 1998 on the topic of the international
standards for archival description. The leader of the
workshop was Christine Nougaret, the chair of the ICA Committee on Descriptive
Standards. The discussions included the examination of the General
International Standard Archival Description [ISAD(G)] and the International
Standard Archival Authority Records for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families
[ISAAR(CPF)]. The participants viewed a demonstration of the application of
description standards in an automated archival information system.
The
objective of the third workshop, held in May 1999, was to develop a knowledge
of preservation management, including disaster
planning, and to offer a methodology for developing programs and priorities in
this field. The guest lecturers were Helen Forde, Head of Preservation Services
at the Public Record Office, UK, Josef Hanus, Head of Department of Archives
Preservation, National Archives of the Slovak Republic, and Leszek
Pud½owski, then Supervisory Archivist of OSA. Before the workshop, the
students were given a questionnaire which they could use to help identify the
preservation management needs in their own archives. Environmental control,
disaster control, identification of vital records, and the preservation of
audiovisual records were among the topics discussed.
On
4–5 June, 1998, OSA organized an international conference in Riga, in
cooperation with Latvian partners, on the records of the security
services of former repressive regimes. The participants
included human rights lawyers, historians, archivists and victims of the former
regimes from Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The presentations and panel
discussions focused on the analysis of the situation of the archives of the
former repressive institutions in the Baltic States and Poland, the state of
legislation, and the problems of preservation and accessibility. Topics
relating to human rights were also discussed: the rights of victims, the rights
of alleged perpetrators, the rights of third parties, and the right of access
to public information. The necessity of creating a Code of Ethics for
Archivists and the role of such a code were also among the subjects discussed.
Prior to the conference, the UNESCO/ICA report Archives of the
Security Services of Former Repressive Regimes was translated
into Latvian and distributed to the participants.
Following
the conference, a two week course on Managing Current Records
was organized by OSA and the Soros Foundation – Latvia. More than 30
participants from Latvian archives and record-keeping institutions took part in
the course, and outstanding international experts from the archival community
were invited as guest lecturers. One of the outstanding lecturers was Eric
Ketelaar, professor of archival science at the universities of Leiden and
Amsterdam and Chair of the Programme Management Commission of the International
Council on Archives.
Other
forms of cooperation
Among
all of its partner institutions, OSA has the closest relationship with the Institute
for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. This is not only
because both are located in Budapest and both focus on the contemporary,
post-war history of the region, it is also due to the crucial symbolic
historical role that the 1956 Hungarian Revolution played in shaping the
identity of RFE/RL.
Many
of the Archives’ public and scholarly programs would have been seriously
hindered, or would have failed without the help of the 1956 Institute. The
historians and archivists of the institute served as consultants to OSA in many
cases, sharing ideas and lending important resources for its exhibitions. In
addition, OSA has had the chance to participate in some major international
events organized by the 1956 Institute, such as the international conference New
Archival Evidence in 1996. In January 1999, the two institutions
held a joint exhibition about the post-1989 historiography of the revolution.
The
Institute
of Contemporary History, established in 1989 in Prague, is an
interdisciplinary research center focusing on the historical period from the
beginning of the Second World War until the present. As part of the Academy of
Sciences of the Czech Republic, the Institute aims to fill the gaps, both in
academia and in public knowledge, which have been left by totalitarian
distortions of the past. OSA and the Institute cooperate by exchanging
information on research activities; OSA provides copies of documents from its
holdings to the Institute for research purposes.
OSA
is taking part in the Russian archival education project established within the
framework of the Archival Training Center (ATC)
affiliated with the European University in St. Petersburg by actively shaping
its curriculum and sending guest lecturers to its courses, especially experts
in information policy, data protection, and access to information legislation.
The Archives has also offered to cover the costs of some Russian-speaking
archivists from former communist countries of the region who will participate
in the Center’s courses.
Recognizing
that accessibility of retrospective information plays a major role in the
political, economic, social, and cultural development of Russia and the other
countries of the former Soviet Union, and that most of the archivists in Russia
(especially in St. Petersburg and the northwestern region of the country) have
no historical and archival education, the ATC has been established in
cooperation with the Open Society Institute in Moscow as a branch of the
OSI-Russia Archival Support Program planned for
1999–2000. OSA already organizes a series of Summer University courses for
archivists at Central European University in Budapest for archivists,
especially from the former communist countries and considers it important to
strengthen archival education in the countries of the region, and seeks to
share its professional knowledge with archivists in Russia and other Central
and Eastern European countries.
OSA
holds the status of Associate Institution in the International
Committee for the Computerization of the Komintern Archives
(INKOMKA), in which the Directorate of Archives of France, the Federal Archives
of Germany, the Ministry for Education and Culture of Spain, the Swiss Federal
Archives, and the Library of Congress are partner organizations. The project is
based on the Framework Agreement between the State Archival Service of Russia
(later Federal Archival Service of Russia – Rosarkhiv) and ICA, signed in June
1996. The Russian Centre for Preservation and Study of Modern History Records,
on behalf of the Russian parties, guaranteed the integrity of the Komintern
Archives and provided for the creation of a database and digitized copies of
the documents. The Centre also developed the methodological documentation
concerning the implementation of the project and established the rules for
providing free access to the database and the digitized copies of the documents
for all researchers, irrespective of their citizenship. The ICA supplied the
Centre with the Russian version of the software used in the Archivo General de
Indias (the archives relating to the discovery of America), and provided the
delivery, installation and technical support for the necessary equipment as
approved by INKOMKA. As reported at the fourth meeting of INKOMKA held in
Moscow on 15–16 March, 1999, altogether 63,248 files were processed and 246,528
images were digitized, comprising 12 to 33 percent of the documents selected
for processing. The project, supported by the Council of Europe, will likely
continue in the following years and is expected to produce 50–60,000 new
records in the database and 120–150,000 images per scanning station each year.
Beside
the above mentioned projects and activities, OSA regularly receives visitors from
the international archival community, and Archives staff participate in
national and international archival events and pay visits to partner
organizations. The Director of the Section of Archivistics and Record
Management of the Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic visited OSA in
1998, and in the same year the Archives received a representative of the
Society of Archivists of Croatia. The Director General of the National Archives
of Hungary visited OSA in 1999. A Russian archival delegation headed by
Vladimir Eremchenko, Deputy Head of the Federal Archival Service of Russia and
Chairman of the Central Records Appraisal Commission, visited OSA in Spring
1999. The members of the delegation had discussions with senior OSA experts
about possible joint projects and asked for professional support in describing
archival materials, and in creating finding aids for the Russian archival
network. Natalia Tomilina, Director
of the Russian State Archive of Most Recent History (RSAMRH; formerly the
Storage Center for Contemporary Documentation), visited OSA in May 1999. During
her visit she gave a lecture on the holdings of RSAMRH and proposed to publish
a book on “destalinization” on the basis of documents held by OSA and RSAMRH.
The
German Historical Museum, in cooperation with the International Association for
Media and History (IAMHIST), organized an international conference on The
Media and Political Change in Europe in September 1999 in
Berlin. Csaba Szilágyi, an Archivist at OSA,
presented his paper What Do We, RFE/RL, Talk About When We Talk
About the Romanian Events of December 1989? based on an analysis of
the Romanian records (Subject Files and Monitoring Files), RFE/RL publications,
and OSA Library holdings. This not only provided the opportunity to share the
results of detailed research on OSA materials with a large scholarly audience,
but it also called the attention of historians, media professionals and other
possible researchers to further OSA resources yet to be exploited. In addition,
the conference laid the path for potential cooperation between OSA and other
organizations interested in the relationship between history and the media.
As
a unique action in an emergency situation, OSA sent 4,000 archival boxes to
Poland in the summer of 1997 in order to assist with repairing the damage
caused by the worst flooding in Polish history. Professor Daria Naløncz,
Director of the General Office of State Archives of Poland, had asked for the
international archival community’s help in diminishing the losses. In the
southern and western regions of Poland about four kilometers of records were
flooded by polluted water in public and private archives, and OSA sent a
shipment of boxes suitable for storing the material which could be salvaged.
Cooperation
with civil organizations
The
Open Society Archives has established special relationships with several civil
organizations which have as their mission the collection and preservation of
documents related to the recent past and the opening of files to ensure the public’s
right of access to information and documents.
Memorial
is one of OSA’s most important partners in the civil sector. This organization
is a movement arising from the years of perestroika with the main task of
awakening and preserving society’s memory of the severe political persecution
in Soviet Unions’s recent past. It is also a community of dozens of
organizations in different regions of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Latvia and
Georgia. Memorial maintains both a museum and a repository of documents, as
well as a number of specialized libraries[36].
In
several cases OSA has requested and received photos, copies of documents, and
books relating to famous Soviet dissidents, while colleagues from the archives
of Memorial have requested copies of samizdat publications from OSA’s holdings
of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty material.
Memorial
contributed to the Archives’ Gulag exhibition (see Chapter
III) by sending scanned images of documents, comments and autobiographies of
famous Gulag prisoners. For the same exhibition, OSA translated the Memorial’s
questionnaire for collecting data from former prisoners, their family members
and their acquaintances, and made it available for visitors to the exhibition.
Organizations of former Hungarian Gulag prisoners also received the
questionnaire. The content of the completed questionnaires will be translated
into Russian and sent to Memorial in order to enhance its database on persons
who suffered from political repression and the deprivation of freedom.
The
National
Security Archive (NSArchive) is an independent non-governmental
research institute and library located at the George Washington University in
Washington, DC. The Archive collects and publishes declassified documents
acquired through the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). NSArchive is also a
public interest law firm defending and expanding public access to government
information through the FOIA, and it indexes and publishes these documents in
books, on microfiche and in electronic formats[37].
Founded in 1985 by a group of journalists and scholars, NSArchive has become
the world’s largest non-governmental library of declassified documents. OSA has
already received copies of a number of declassified documents from the
collection of NSArchive. Since many documents describing the activities of US
secret services relating to the covert operating of Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty are still classified, it would be desirable for the OSA to establish
cooperation with both the CIA and NSArchive in order to facilitate the
declassification of those materials which have already lost their operational
character and are now of historical value. During a seminar on Cold War
documents organized by NSArchive in Washington in the summer of 1999, Natasha
Zanegina, Senior Archivist at OSA, held discussions with staff members of
NSArchive and made important steps toward establishing this potential
cooperation.
Citizens’
Watch, a St. Petersburg-based, non-governmental human rights
organization formed in 1992 by a group of human rights activists, lawyers, and
members of the Russian parliament, primarily attempts to assist in establishing
parliamentary and civic control over governmental agencies, such as security
services, armed forces, and the police.[38]
Since 1998, Citizens’ Watch has concentrated its efforts in three important
fields of the new Russian legislation: access to information, protection of
personal data, and the rights of servicemen. In December 1998, Iván
Székely, Counsellor of OSA, gave a presentation entitled Access
to Information, Access to Documents at the international
seminar Freedom of Information: Standards of a Democratic
Society, organized by Citizens’ Watch. There he consulted
with Russian archivists on the legal and practical aspects of different models
of access to information of public interest. In February 1999, Székely
participated in another Citizens’ Watch international conference held in St.
Petersburg, Privacy in the Era of Contemporary Information
Technologies. There Székely presented the paper Principles,
Dangers and the Legislative Solution. Technology against Technology.
Both papers were translated into Russian and published by the organizers.
The
founders of the Bulgarian organization Access to Information
Programme (AIP), established in 1996 are journalists, human
rights lawyers, sociologists and economists. Their main goals are to encourage
individual and public demand for information through civic education, to fight
for greater transparency in government, to provide legal help for subjects of
information refusal cases, as well as to encourage freedom of information
legislation by reporting on legal and practical solutions from different
countries, by organizing workshops and seminars, and by submitting
recommendations to governmental and legislative agencies. Iván
Székely was an invited lecturer at the international conference Access
to Information – The International Standards and the Bulgarian Legislation,
in December 1998 in Sofia organized jointly by AIP, the Bulgarian Helsinki
Committee, and the non-governmental organization Article 19. The conference was
supported by the Open Society Foundation Sofia and the Council of Europe. He
introduced the theoretical background and the legal and practical implications
of the Hungarian model of openness and secrecy legislation. In September 1999,
Székely was also invited as a lecturer and consultant to a roundtable
with lawmakers, followed by a conference for the general public, jointly
organized by AIP and the Bulgarian Media Coalition in Sofia. Both events were
intended to improve the draft bill on freedom of information, and coincided
with the first reading of the draft in the Bulgarian Parliament.
In
April 1999 the newly established Association “Memorial of
the 1989 Revolution in Timisoara” contacted OSA and
requested professional help in establishing a collection of documents relating
to the 1989 Romanian Revolution. Their mission is to keep the memory of the
Revolution in Timisoara alive, and to purchase, acquire, collect and exchange
historical documents of all types in connection with these events. The holdings
of the planned archives of the Association include manuscripts (testimonies of
eyewitnesses), oral history recordings, and collections of publications and
scanned images. OSA has offered professional archival assistance in setting up
the Association’s archives, and the two organizations have exchanged
information about their holdings concerning the Romanian Revolution.
The
Recovering Identity Program
One
of the tragic lessons of the conflict in Kosovo is that in modern wars it has
become possible to expel masses of people while systematically stripping them
of all proof of their identity, thus making it difficult or impossible for them
to return. Similarly, centralized and computerized population registers, real
estate registers and other databases concerning large numbers of citizens
provide technical possibilities for deleting or manipulating citizens’
identities and personal data.
Without
documents or other proof of identity it becomes almost impossible to gain
access to the most basic and essential services of a modern society, especially
those associated with the rights of citizenship.
At the end of any war it is essential to ensure the safe return of refugees. In most cases this requires international cooperation. One of the basic conditions of refugee return is proof of the identities of refugees, and, if no such proof exists, the formal restoration of refugees’ identities.
The
Recovering Identity Program was established by a number of international
organizations to ensure that, wherever possible, such destruction of identity
would be reversible, both in Kosovo and in future conflicts.
On
1 July 1999, a coalition of international organizations including
representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Civil Emergency
Planning Division of NATO, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE), Medicins Sans Frontieres, the Forced Migration Projects of the
Open Society Institute, the US Department of State, the International
Foundation for Election Systems, the Open Society Archives and other
organizations met in Budapest to discuss coordination of the Recovering
Identity Program. As a result of this meeting a series of specific
recommendations has been made toward the establishment of international rules
to protect and/or re-establish the identity and property rights of refugees.
To
this end, through the Recovering Identity Program the Open Society Archives
provides a consortium of international agencies with secondary sources of
verification, from OSA’s collection efforts, for refugees’ identities. These
secondary sources of identification include such varied materials as census
surveys and telephone directories. In addition, OSA offers ongoing support
services for international agencies involved in the identification of refugees,
and – using its significant expertise in dealing with openness and secrecy,
informational rights and data protection – has proposed basic principles for
the handling of personal data of refugees.
Blace, Macedonia, April 1999. A family driven out of Gnjilane arrives at the refugee camp in Blace after several days of being on the run. Displayed at the exhibit Ten Years After (Galeria Centralis, June – July 1999).
Photo by Szabolcs Dudás. Fonds 206 Records of the Open Society Archives.
The
draft DNA Recommendation
As
we learned from events in the Kosovo conflict, organizations dealing with
refugees register people as they arrive in camps, and generally record data and
issue temporary identification cards on the basis of the refugees’ own
testimony. Apart from the questionable reliability of data recorded in this way
(the memory of shocked, elderly people can be at fault, while others may even
intentionally report false data) the data collected may not be identical to
information in central registries, or may be unacceptable as proof of identity
to the authorities.
In
such cases, as a last resort, it might be necessary to establish the genetic
relationship among family members as a means of recovering identity. The
technologies required for such tests are generally well established, in some
cases routinely applied, and their reliability has been scientifically proven.
A
mass application of these technologies has been necessitated by the Bosnian
war, where genetic identification is used by the organization
Physicians for Human Rights to identify victims buried in mass graves,
and to prove their relationship with surviving family members. This
organization has worked out the technology of these tests, and has developed a
so-called “antemortem database“ to help identify missing persons.
With
the living, the task is somewhat different: a single given sample need not be
matched against many, but against one or a few. In such tests, nuclear DNA,
which is cheaper and easier to look at than the mitochondrial DNA used in
forensic samples, can be used. The technology applied is readily available and
can be used while the costs of such tests are moderate. These facts ensure the
feasibility of using this method of testing to help restore the identity of
refugees deprived of their documents.
However,
the use of genetic information relating to identifiable individuals requires
special safeguards. History has shown that centralized lists of personal data
can be used to great harm, as well as to great benefit. Genetic data, such as
data on racial or ethnic origin, might provide the basis for discrimination and
social stigmatization, as well as the resources for genocide or a new series of
deportations if history were to take an unfortunate turn.
Therefore,
a generally accepted recommendation and a set of basic principles to be
followed by all who participate in recovering peoples’ identity are needed to
serve as guidelines for such procedures if they are adopted.
OSA
has therefore worked out a draft Principles and
Recommendations based on existing international documents in order
to help recover the identity of present and future refugees by applying modern
technology with necessary safeguards to avoid harm, and ensuring full respect
of the informational rights of the people concerned.
(The
full text of the draft of Principles and Recommendations
can be found in the Appendix)
Managing the records of
the Soros foundations network
About
Records Management
There
is little doubt that our society is much more information-dependent than
previous societies – in fashionably saying, we live in an “information
society”. During the second half of the twentieth century, due largely to the
technological development, the quantity of both publicly available and
organizationally-private information has grown exponentially. The variety of
media and the forms of information has increased, as has the number of information
producers and providers. Information has become our basic resource and our
basic product, and it has to be managed properly to be useful.
One
might get the feeling that coping with the information explosion is mostly
about volume. The vision of the paperless office has not been realized, and it
may never be, but how electronic information is being managed is still an
issue. In addition, there are the problems of controlling access to
information, government control, and freedom of information, as well as the
unresolved problems of copyright and security.
Along
with the changes mentioned above, there has also been a change in the
perception of the function of records management. While in the past records
management mostly meant dealing with paper records, nowadays the profession is
considered as a part of information management. The definition of records
management has been radically broadened: it is the discipline of organizing and
maintaining records[39]
to ensure that they are kept as long as required for business purposes and for
any sanctioned secondary purpose. However, records management issues also
include the consideration of legal requirements for keeping records as well as
any legal and ethical restraints on making the records available. Information
professionals such as archivists and records managers work together to assess
records for continuing value through a process called a records survey. They
then “timetable” the records for eventual disposal, using a document known as a
retention schedule. Records are either destroyed at the end of a specified
period or transferred to archival custody. A records manager can assist
organizations by helping to incorporate the record-keeping requirements defined
in the records schedules into business procedures, practices and systems.
Records
with continuing value to the Soros foundations network
The
Archival
Policy of the Soros foundations network recently approved (June
1999) by its International Strategic Board provides a general framework for the
individual records management projects launched by organizations in the Soros
foundations network. The Open Society Archives not only has a coordinating role
in the development of these projects, but as the official archives of the
network it assumes responsibility for preserving non-current records that are
no longer needed for the regular activities of the foundations and which have
been identified as having continuing value. These records are referred to as
“permanent records”. Although OSA can provide optimum storage conditions for
the permanent records of the network, it also encourages Soros organizations to
establish their own archives and preserve records possessing sufficient
historical value in their own countries. The reason behind the strategy dividing
permanent records of the Soros foundations network into two categories –
records to be transferred to OSA and records to be kept in the country – is
that certain records created by Soros organizations are part of the national
heritage of their countries.
Soros
foundations started their activity before, during or after the collapse of the
communist regime, and their mission is to promote civil societies and to
support the development of new democratic institutions in the transitional
period in Central and Eastern Europe. The Soros Foundation Hungary, established
in 1984 was the first foundation in the region funded by George Soros, and it
is one of the oldest private, independent foundations in the region. Soros
foundations have been established in more than countries of the world; and in
addition, the Open Society Institute, Budapest and the Open Society Institute,
New York administer “network programs”, which function on a regional or
network-wide basis. It is difficult to measure how much the foundations have
contributed to the transformation of closed societies into open societies;
however, it is possible to say that these organizations have done much to
support or directly sponsor programs in education, law and arts, and in other
areas such as disseminating information. Sometimes simple things were enough to
cause irreversible changes: recognizing that access to information is one of
the keys to an open society, Soros foundations purchased xerox machines –
photocopying was not permitted in many communist countries without bureaucratic
procedures – and distributed them to all kinds of institutions.
Although
the life-span of the Soros foundations network will be relatively short, it has
existed during a period when most of the former communist countries of Central
and Eastern Europe were undergoing a deep and intense economic and political
transformation. One day the records of the Soros foundations network will
provide a unique and rich resource for scholars writing the history of the
transition in the region. Whether the right kind of information is saved for
the future, and how this information will be accessible, now depends on the
judgement of thorough records managers and archivists. Entrusted with making
these decisions in cooperation with the foundations, the Archives believes the
constant reappraisal of the network’s records will lead to the identification
of permanent records that can only be understood in their own context. Hence,
OSA is also convinced that certain records of the individual Soros foundations,
of the network programs and of the international initiatives, are more valuable
to the corporate memory of the network than to that of the national
foundations, and as such, they have a place at OSA.
Records
management services to the Soros foundations network
The
Records Management Program of the Open Society Archives was established to
assist the organizations of the Soros foundations network. The Program is based
on the information management strategy which says that information is a unique
resource for the organization producing it, and it should be managed in such a
way that it be useful and accessible in the present and in the future. The
Records Management Program includes services intended to help Soros network
staff in all locations to create effective and efficient systems for the
management of records and information. The aim is to ensure that proprietary
records of the network are accessible when and where they are needed. Knowing
the latest developments in information technology, OSA encourages the Soros
organizations to pay special attention to the management of electronic records.
In the implementation process, OSA is working to secure the permanent records
of the Soros foundations network worldwide. The advisory service of the Records
Management Program includes:
• Advice, assistance and training in the
implementation of the records management program of the Soros foundations
network;
• The preparation of appraisal reports for the
development of retention schedules to provide for the authorized, systematic
and economical disposal of all kinds of temporary records at the Soros
organizations;
• Information and advice regarding filing
procedures, equipment and storage facilities;
• Storage, preservation and retrieval of
non-current records with continuing value to make possible their permanent
retention and use at the OSA;
• Regular off-site visits to monitor the
implementation of record keeping procedures at the Soros organizations.
Chapter
V
Access,
reference services, and automation
Research Services
Reference
services
Probably
the shortest description which would catch the very essence of the Open Society
Archives’ (OSA) reference services is this: its staff is trying to carry on the
good and somewhat contradictory work of making a private archives as public as
possible. Due to the uniqueness of its aims and the diversity of its holdings,
OSA is a multifaceted institution: it is an archives, an exhibition organizer,
a research institution, and a library. It is the complexity of the Archives’
role and holdings – and the diversity of its users – that makes OSA reference
services likewise complex.
Broadly
conceived, reference services at OSA are the activities by which its archivists
bring users and records together in order to meet the users’ needs. Since OSA
users have a wide variety of research needs, reference services at the Archives
encompass a wide range of activities and call for intellectual, administrative
and interpersonal skills. OSA is an open-access facility committed to making
materials available to users on equal terms of access. Reference services are
provided in the Research Room by telephone, by fax, through the Internet, and
by e-mail or regular mail.
The
Open Society Archives’ reference services provide:
• Information about the holdings
• Information from the holdings
• Information about the creators of records
• Referrals to other repositories or resources
• Instructions of how to use archives and how to
conduct the research process
• Physical access to holdings
• Copies of archival materials
• Information about copyright, privacy,
confidentiality, and other relevant laws
• Loans from holdings
• Services through public programs
The Research Room of the Open Society Archives with
the Library of the Central European University in the background.
Photo by András Révész. Fonds
206 Records of the Open Society Archives.
Research
room
The
OSA’s Research Room shares space with the Central European University (CEU)
Library. The OSA Research Room can be reached through
the main entrance of the Library. OSA is an open-access facility committed to
making materials available to users on equal terms of access. Reference
services are provided in the Research Room, until 4:30 p.m.
The
full capacity of the Research Room is 18 people. The room contains 10 research
desks with electrical outlets; one non-restricted station for viewing or
listening to audiovisual materials, which comfortably accommodates up to three
people; two limited-access computer terminals; two microfilm/microfiche readers
with printers; a set of shelves containing finding aids and reference books;
and a microfilm cabinet containing selected microfilm copies of daily
newspapers, predominantly from former communist countries.
Archives
staff are available in the Research Room to assist researchers in finding and
using relevant materials. Researchers who wish to visit OSA are encouraged to
contact the Archives in advance to help ensure that each research visit be as
productive as possible. To arrange a visit, please contact OSA at:
Open
Society Archives Telephone: (36 1) 327-3250
Október
6. utca 12. Fax: (36 1) 327-3260
H
– 1051 Budapest E-mail: archives@ceu.hu
Hungary Website: http://www.osa.ceu.hu
Mailing
Address: H – 1396 Budapest 62. P.O. Box 458, Hungary
On-site
research
The
Open Society Archives is an open-access facility. Research status is available
to anyone at least 16 years old, while individuals under 16 may apply for
special permission to use OSA records under the direct supervision and
responsibility of an adult researcher. If a researcher intends to use records
that may be restricted, advance notice is necessary so that the classification
status of the records could be determined. The researcher will be notified if
the records have not been declassified or processed. Contacting OSA in advance
may also save the researcher needless frustration if the Archives does not hold
any records related to the topic of interest.
The
holdings of the Archives are located in its main building and in an affiliated
repository at the CEU Residence and Conference Center. Although OSA does not
have a fixed retrieval schedule, researchers should note that 3:30 p.m. is the
latest retrieval time. When ordering materials from the repository (predominantly
newspapers and publications) arrangements must be made at least one day in
advance.
When
visiting OSA for the first time, researchers should plan the visit for as early
as possible in the day. A late afternoon visit may not allow enough time for records
to be identified and retrieved during the same day.
Before
using archival records, every researcher must obtain a researcher
identification card at the OSA Reception Desk which is valid for two years and
must be presented to the Research Room Attendant each time they visit the OSA
Research Room.
Researchers
then meet with the Reference Archivist to discuss their research needs. The
orientation content varies on a case-by-case basis. Variables include the
nature of the research inquiry, whether the researcher has previously conducted
any archival research, the amount of time available to conduct research etc.
The
orientation conducted by a Reference Archivist may include the following
points:
• Identification of researchers’ reference needs
• Introduction to the holdings of OSA
• Research strategy suggestions
• Initial orientation to the use of specific
fonds and finding aids in
the Research Room
• The roles of Research Room and reference
services staff
• Proper handling of archival materials
• Notification of restrictions that pertain to
certain records
• Copying procedures
• Building orientation (including directions to
lockers, Research Room,
Reception/Cashier Desk)
• Follow-up guidance after research has
commenced
• Consultation service to researchers in order
to rectify complaints.
Microfilm cabinets in the Research Room. Photo by András Révész. Fonds 206 Records of the Open Society Archives.
Research
Room rules
Concerns
for the preservation and security of archival materials have resulted in
distinct reference procedures. Bearing this in mind, certain rules must be
followed when handling archival records in the Research Room. Researchers are
not permitted to bring briefcases, boxes, suitcases or other large containers
into the Research Room. A cloakroom is provided at no charge in CEU’s main
hall.
Researchers
who wish to bring personal typewriters, tape recorders, cameras, computers and
other equipment into the Research Room must get approval from a Reference
Services Archivist, who will inspect the equipment before allowing it to be
brought into the room.
Researchers
are expected to exercise care when using records and to follow proper handling
techniques such as maintaining the original order in which records are filed
and using only one folder of records at a time. Documents may not be leaned
upon, written on, traced, altered, or handled in any way that can do harm. The
Research Room Attendant or other staff members can assist researchers in
determining the best way to handle records. The use of pens is prohibited, and
no smoking, drinking or chewing gum is permitted in the Research Room.
Finding
aids
A
number of printed and electronic finding aids describe the holdings of the Open
Society Archives in detail. Inventories are prepared for many, but not all
fonds. Other finding aids include catalogs of OSA microfilm publications,
newspaper holdings, and audio-visual materials as well as a series of Insert
Leaflets and Reference Information
Papers on selected topics (see Appendix). Finding aids and other OSA
information materials are available in the Research Room and can be also
accessed through the OSA website at: <http://www.osa.ceu.hu>.
Copying
The
Open Society Archives provides copying services in the following formats:
electrostatic reproductions, videotape and audiotape, and photographs. The
copying is done by the Archives’ staff only; no self-service copiers are
available. For small quantities (up to 50 copies), copies are usually delivered
24 hours after being ordered. The delivery time for larger quantities of
electrostatic reproductions – as well as for videotapes, audiotapes and
photographs – is subject to agreement between OSA and the researcher requesting
the copies. Current fees (as of September 1999) are 15 HUF (approximately 7 US
cents) per A4-format copy and 20 HUF (approximately 9 US cents) per A3-format
copy. Other reproduction prices vary. Payment for reproductions ordered on-site
is done upon delivery of the copies at the Open Society Archives
Reception/Cashier Desk.
Off-site
research services (World Wide Web)
In
order to provide information and reference services to its off-site
researchers, the Open Society Archives has established its World Wide Web site
at: <http://www.osa.ceu.hu>. This site is designed to provide basic
description of OSA reference services available online, the open hours and
location of Open Society Archives facilities, information and forms regarding
off-site ordering of OSA holdings, and other information of interest to
off-site researchers (including the OSA Restriction Statement, Reference
Information Papers, citation recommendations etc.).
General
reference or research questions may be sent via e-mail, regular mail, fax or
phone (see information above). Please note that, in the case of off-site
research, OSA staff does not perform research on behalf of researchers.
However, they do offer a range of information about OSA holdings which
includes:
• confirmation of the existence of fonds
relevant to the inquirer’s research interest;
• determining the quantity of the requested
material;
• estimates
of the required time, cost and feasibility of providing copies of selected
materials in accordance with copyright laws. Researchers may request that
copies be delivered by express mail or regular mail, or in some cases by fax,
or be picked up at the Archives by special arrangement.
In
order to properly respond to researchers’ questions, OSA asks that they include
the following information in the body of all messages: first and last name,
telephone and fax numbers (including necessary codes), mailing address and
e-mail address.
Note:
Because of rapid changes in online communications, the information discussed
above is subject to change. The most current version will always be posted on
the OSA website at: <http://www.osa.ceu.hu>.
Grants
The
Open Society Archives (OSA) offers a variety of grants to encourage innovative,
outstanding and groundbreaking research. These grants are offered to scholars,
archivists, journalists, artists and others exploring the field of communist
and post-communist studies in the region covered by OSA’s holdings. Grant
applications are accepted from all over the world.
In
1998, for example, grant applications arrived from such diverse countries as
Armenia, Georgia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Russia,
Slovenia, Slovakia, Ukraine, The United States, and The Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia. In all, some 28 research grants and sundry other grants were
awarded to outstanding scholars and artists in 1998. Two of OSA’s grantees were
awarded prizes for books written utilizing OSA resources. Paul Josephson was
awarded the Marshall Shulman Book Prize for his study New
Atlantis Revisited – Akedemgorodok: the Siberian City of Science
(Princeton University Press), and Padraic Kenny was awarded the AAASS/Orbis
Polish Book Prize for his work Rebuilding Poland – Workers and Communists, 1945–1950
(Cornell University Press).
Research
Grants
The
Open Society Archives offers research grants on a competitive basis to support
scholars who wish to pursue research in its holdings (see list of research
grants in the Appendix). These grants, which are designed to provide access to
the Archives for scholars and journalists who live outside Budapest, provide
travel to and from Budapest, a modest stipend, and accommodation in Budapest
for a maximum research period of two months.
There
is no application form for the grant program. Applicants may be researchers,
students carrying out post-graduate research, or journalists, academics, artists
or others who have already embarked upon their careers. Applicants are asked to
submit a C.V., a research description plan of 500 words (or more) indicating
the period of time the applicant needs to carry out research in Budapest, and
two confidential professional or academic letters of recommendation. The
research proposal should indicate the relationship of OSA holdings to the
project, and should state the preferred dates of residence. In their research
description applicants are expected to indicate how they plan to utilize the
research they do at the Archives. Undergraduate applications are not accepted.
Preference is given to persons from Central and Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Union. Nonetheless, outstanding researchers from any part of the world
are encouraged to apply.
The
application, C.V., and letters of recommendation should be sent to the Research
Grant Selection Committee, Open Society Archives, H-1396 Budapest 62 P.O. Box
458, Hungary.
There
are no deadlines in the grant program. Applications are considered as they are
received by the Selection Committee. The Committee normally meets four times a
year in March, June, September and December.
Other
Grants
The
Open Society Archives regularly offeres other grants to scholars, artists or
journalists who wish to carry out projects related to topics covered by the
Archives’ programs, and exhibitions to be hosted by Galeria Centralis. For more
information regarding such grants, please consult the Archives’ web-page and
look under Public Programs, Galeria Centralis, or the Institute of Records.
Applicants
whose granst are considered to be of worth, but which cannot be supported by
OSA, may be referred to other programs within the Soros Foundations Network.
Such reference, however, should not be taken as a guarantee that a grant will
eventually be awarded.
The automation system
The
long-term impact of quickly developing and widely used computer technologies
was a key incentive for the Open Society Archives (OSA) to employ automation.
Computers have already become an essential part of almost every activity and
they could be used to greater advantage by archival staff and researchers
alike. For OSA, however, automation is more than just a tool which helps to
improve work efficiency and increase access to information. The Archives does
not see automation as a single action, but instead views its long-term
automation strategy as a continuous process consisting of the study and
intelligent use of technology with the aim of improving core archival functions
and facilitating the exchange of information about archival holdings and
institutions.
OSA’s
computer network is part of the larger distributed data network of Central
European University (CEU) and the Open Society Institute, Budapest, which integrates
approximately 1000 personal computers and 30 servers. The qualified staff of
the Information Technology Support Unit ensure effective operation and data
exchange among several organizational departments, including OSA. All staff
members at the Archives have computers with access to the World Wide Web and
electronic mail. Shared access to generic office applications, databases,
information and hardware provides powerful communication and collaboration
capabilities for organizing effective teamwork within and among all
departments.
This
environment was the foundation for the development and operation of the the
Archives’ automation system (AS), which addresses the needs of both the
professional archival and general administrative areas, and includes several
databases for OSA’s holdings and Library, and intranet[40]
and internet websites.
Automating
core archival functions
The
core modules of the AS were designed to help archivists in their daily work on
accessioning, arrangement, description and promotion of the documents in the
Archives.
The
Accessioning Module serves the function of taking initial
control over records being transferred to the Archives repository. Creation of
an accession record in the database is the act through which the establishment of
both physical and intellectual control begins. The records’ bulk, date, title,
donor, access restrictions etc. are recorded, and the new records are assigned
to appropriate fonds. Physical control over archival items is governed through
the Master Location Register, which stores the most
detailed information about each item from OSA holdings, including its unique
reference number, its container type, its physical location in the depository,
its relation to series within fonds and subfonds, and appropriate units of
description.
The
System
of Arrangement Module is based on interrelated fonds, subfonds
and series, and allows the Archives to maintain the records’ context and
original order. By September 1999, there were 132 fonds registered in the AS.
The
Description
Module supports various levels of description, starting
with basic information about the individual archival item (box, folder or
document). A separate Unit Description Module supports
ISAD(G)[41]
and ISAAR(CPF)[42] compliant
descriptions of fonds, subfonds and series and related authorities.
The
Reporting
Subsystem supports various forms of output: lists of
accessions, fonds, subfonds, and series; detailed reports on items within
series and storage modules; several types of labels etc. Like any database, the
AS is an efficient tool for preparing extensive information on a particular
subject, compiling lists of different types of related items, and producing
other general or subject excerpts to be used as clear directional signs guiding
researchers through the Archives.
The
main focus of the existing AS is to streamline routine archival functions into
a single automated process: from registering an accession to arrangement and
description and producing container labels and finding aids.
Going
online
The
Web
Connectivity Interface is an essential part of the AS. Utilizing
this interface, lists of series within fonds and subfonds, and detailed finding
aids on record groups and related series can be automatically converted into
web-page format and published on the website.
OSA’s
website currently includes about 900 pages. Several areas play essential roles
in promoting the holdings and activities of the Archives to a wider audience.
Traditional finding aids are complemented by Research
Information Papers prepared by OSA archivists to guide researchers to
records relating to specific topics.
In
addition to announcing public exhibitions and other OSA events, the website has
become a permanent „gallery“ for online exhibitions which provide visitors with
an opportunity to become familiar with sample records preserved in the
Archives.
Another
important part of the website contains information and links to other Internet
resources prepared especially for archivists from Central and Eastern Europe:
archival education, legal matters, publications, standards and other topics.
Staying
up-to-date
The
AS has become an efficient tool used by archivists for the acquisition and
retention of records. However, the development of technology has affected
existing methods in many ways. For instance, in case of some digital records,
certain agencies may maintain physical records while the Archives will provide
access through its automated system of intellectual control. In practice, this
demands direct integration of records-management and archival tasks.
Influenced,
if not driven, by the Internet and World Wide Web technology, archival
description in the 1990s has focused on standardization of language and
information, authority control, and ways of presenting information through unified
formats such as EAD (Encoded Archival Description).[43]
This sets a new goal for the Archives – by means of SGML technology, OSA plans
to make its finding aids interchangeable with those of other archives and fully
accessible to researchers around the world.
A
variety of usage statistics produced by the AS will serve as the basis not only
for reports and publicity – these data should be continuously evaluated and
used to improve overall performance, to plan future development and to refine
existing practices.
A modern computerized system for an archives means an independent and fully integrated system: it integrates the use of all types of media (text, pictures, video, audio, software); it provides a gateway to distributed electronic sources of information from internal computing networks to the Internet; and it provides independent access to basic functional modules – appraisal, acquisition, accession, arrangement, description, preservation and public access – through an interactive system using a common database and common access procedures.
Chapter
VI
The
Open Society Archives and the Central European University
The Archives in the University
Ties
between the Open Society Archives (OSA) and Central European University (CEU)
go far beyond their current institutional framework. Their organic bonds were
established as early as the Archives materialized, given that many OSA staff
members joined the organization from the ranks of CEU’s teaching and
administrative staff, as well as from its student body. Thus, despite the fact
that it was at first located in its own home a few subway stops from the
university campus, from its earliest days the Open Society Archives had started
its gradual move, both symbolically and literally speaking, toward its current
position within CEU.
From
the very beginning, one of the Archives’ main goals was to establish itself as
a reliable research facility and to provide creative support for CEU’s academic
community. Indeed, it took less than a year from OSA’s official opening in 1996
for both institutions to realize the mutual benefits arising from their newly
established ties. While profiting greatly from conducting research at OSA and
from taking part in its public programs, academics from CEU largely contributed
to the process of shaping the Archives’ profile in its early days both with their helpful remarks as well as
through their seats on the OSA Board. Thus, the Archives’ eventual move to the
Central European University complex seemed rather evident.
From
that moment on, with its Research Room discreetly but visibly incorporated into
the CEU Library, OSA became not only a physical part of the CEU campus, but an
inseparable, active part of the academic environment which allowed CEU students
and its own researchers to make the best use of both facilities. It was
probably the combination of the Archives’ unique holdings and the appeal of its
public programs that made OSA, soon after its move to CEU, one of the favorite
places to take the university’s academic visitors and distinguished guests.
(There are some 60 CEU-related visits per year.)
Ever
since it moved to CEU, OSA has primarily
focused on establishing itself as the natural research base for the
university’s academic community. This effort has resulted in the fact that, on
average, 25 percent of the approximately 350 researchers who register at OSA
each year come from CEU. In addition to contributing to the personal academic
efforts of CEU students and staff, OSA engages in the university’s educational
process by providing teaching staff with textual and audiovisual materials to
strengthen their syllabi. In this respect the closest cooperation so far has
been established with CEU’s Legal Studies and History departments as well as
with the Human Rights and Southeast European Studies programs. However,
initiatives to broaden this cooperation are well underway, the most significant
being OSA’s plan to put together a comprehensive collection of teaching aids
and readers based on its holdings to support CEU’s courses.
Apart
from its involvement in CEU’s academic life, OSA also became a noticeable
participant in CEU’s extracurricular activities, mostly through its public
programs such as lecture series and film weeks related to the region’s history,
culture and current social issues. In this respect, probably the most visible
OSA contribution to CEU’s academic and cultural profile is the ongoing
exhibition series, mainly presented in the Archives’ exhibition hall, Galeria
Centralis.
Finally,
a joint OSA/CEU project was launched in 1998 in order to establish the CEU
Records Center, thus making OSA a vital provider of records-management services
to CEU’s administration. This project also marked the last step towards the
OSA’s admission as a full member of the CEU family. In March 1998, the Open
Society Archives finally officially became a part of Central European
University.
Summer
University
OSA,
in close cooperation with the CEU Summer University (SUN), organizes intensive
summer courses each year. The Summer University is an academic program offering
two-, three- or four-week courses in the social sciences and humanities for
university professors, administrators, and professionals.
Its
primary aim is to strengthen, encourage and promote academic cooperation and
curriculum development, as well as to build a network of faculty and
professionals in the region to facilitate the exchange of ideas and projects.
Another significant goal of the courses is to increase interaction between
academics and professionals from the East and West.
The
Summer University courses invite applicants from all over the word. The courses
are designed both for junior faculty and researchers involved in teaching, and
for professionals such as archivists, librarians, environmental experts and
computer experts. These courses offer full funding for those participants from
Central and Eastern Europe, Mongolia, and the countries of the former Soviet
Union. Grants for these participants cover travel, accommodation, a stipend,
insurance and a book allowance. Other participants must pay for the courses.
There is, however, a limited number of scholarships for Western students.
Summer
University courses are led by a course director who is an outstanding
professional in his/her field. The task of the course director is to prepare
the academic content of the course and supervise its organization. The course
director submits a proposal that is evaluated by an external evaluator and the
SUN Board, which is chaired by the President and Rector of CEU and composed of
members including CEU faculty, the Director of the Higher Education Support
Program (HESP), the HESP Advisory Board members, the Dean of CEU’s Special and
Extension Programs, external higher education experts, and the SUN Director.
The
course director recruits an international team of instructors or “resource
persons”, preferably both Eastern and Western professionals and scholars and
they cooperate closely to design the course content, syllabus etc. of the
courses. While the resource persons help the course director with the academic
part of the course, each course director gets help from a coordinator in
completing administrative tasks. The SUN office is responsible for the overall
organization of the courses: recruitment, processing applications,
accommodations, travel arrangements etc.
Applicants
must meet the following criteria upon applying: they must have a university
degree and hold a teaching job at a university or college, or work as an
administrator or a professional. Graduate students with teaching experience may
also apply. Undergraduates without a university degree will not be considered.
As the language of the courses is English, all applicants must demonstrate a
good command of English to enable them
to actively take part in the workshops and to follow the lectures.
The
SUN office began to operate in 1996 and the Archives’ first SUN course was
held in the same year. Ever since then, the Archives has organized a two-week
course each summer.
The
archival courses are intended for professional archivists in the region, as the
course topics are closely related to archival issues (e.g. preservation,
appraisal methodology, records management, automation).
The
first course was entitled Managing Modern Archives,
and the course director was Trudy Huskamp Peterson, then the Executive Director
of the Open Society Archives. For this course she recruited a team of
internationally recognized archival professionals, mainly from the Western
archival community.
Participants
in the course had the opportunity to study issues such as international
standards for archival description, and to attend lectures covering a wide
range of topics such as preservation management, disaster planning principles
of archival practice, archival management of electronic records, access policy,
reference administration, archival ethics, professional issues, and the
profession itself.
The
course also offered participants an excellent chance to exchange ideas, as they
came from diverse backgrounds and had different work-related experiences. Participants
took a break from their academic pursuits for a visit to the Hungarian National
Archives and a boat trip on the Danube. They also had a chance to visit OSA,
(which was at that time in Eötvös Street), and the CEU building
including the Library and the computer labs.
The
first course had 25 participants from 12 countries, including two OSA staff
members.
The
Archives’ second Summer University course, in 1997, was entitled Archival
Management of Modern Records. Again, the targeted participants were archivists
from the region with special interest in current records management practices
in automated office environments.
The
course took up the challenge of introducing course participants to the practice
of modern records management in the context of modern office technology, and
also to the techniques for managing electronic records. They were able to build
on their knowledge and experience of traditional appraisal methods by attending
a lecture entitled Modern Archives Appraisal Methodology.
In the final part of the course, they learned about archival ethics, and
afterwards the participants engaged in a debate on ethical issues that affect
archivists in the transition countries.
The
course director was again Trudy Huskamp Peterson, who invited many wellknown
experts from Europe, the United States, and Canada, and utilized the expertise
of her OSA colleagues, who also gave lectures during the course.
The
number of participants increased from the first year: there were 29
participants from 15 countries, including the countries of Central and Eastern
Europe and the former Soviet Union, Finland, Norway and Turkey. Three staff
members from OSA also took part in the course.
The
third SUN course was Management Issues in Archival Preservation.
This course was intended for professional archivists from the region who are
expected to develop their skills and work with preservation strategies and
programs. It offered the opportunity for participants to continue their
professional development by exploring preservation issues and finding
solutions.
The
resource persons recruited for this course came not only from the Western
archival community, but from Hungary as well. Again the Archives’ staff
actively contributed the course, with three of them giving lectures.
The
two-week course began with a discussion of how to plan a preservation program.
Apart from the lectures, the tentative schedule also included discussions of
preservation needs assessment, appropriate environmental control, and practical
conservation monitoring procedures. An entire day was dedicated to disaster
prevention and emergency planning, which also included identification of vital
records and their maintenance. As the course proceeded, the participants were
allowed to explore how important preservation issues can be focused upon during
archival moves. During the second week the focus of the course shifted to
preservation issues concerning the three major archives formats: paper,
electronic and audiovisual.
A
half-day roundtable discussion followed on the use of reformatting as a
preservation measure. The closing session of the course dealt with the
international context, and initiatives that are mobilizing professional
expertise across international borders. As usual, a boat trip on the Danube and
other social events served as good occasions for the participants to get to
know each other and make valuable professional connections.
Altogether
30 participants took part in the course, including two OSA staff members. The
majority of the participants came from Central and Eastern Europe and the
former Soviet Union.
The
Archives’ 1999 SUN course, Archival Automation,
followed in the footsteps of the previous courses. The course director was
Margaret C. Crockett, former Deputy Executive Director of the Archives.
Because
computer-based archival management systems are being introduced to more and
more archives all over the world, the course tried to focus on this very
current issue. Archival automation was adopted gradually in the archives of
Western Europe and North America, and now many of the archives are adopting
fully-integrated systems. In Central and Eastern Europe, archives are also
interested in developing their computer-based archives management systems, but
the lack of resources is slowing this process.
The
1999 course was designed for mid-level archival managers who will be
responsible for making decisions on automating their institutions. The course
had two parts. In the first week it concentrated on planning for automation,
trying to cover issues such as the goals of automation, the identification of
users who are affected by automation, and choices of integrated and
function-specific applications. The second week offered a more practical
approach to the issue, as two archives specific systems were demonstrated and
evaluated by the class. Additionally, there were lectures about applying
various technologies in archives, and comparing and contrasting information
system development methods. The course concluded with discussions about
personnel management issues related to introducing systems in archives.
Again,
the resource persons for the course came mainly from Western countries, while
in contrast, the majority of participants came from Central and Eastern Europe
and the former Soviet Union. There were altogether 32 participants from 15
countries.
APPENDIX
Proposal
to establish an
international repository of documents related to war crimes
and human rights
violations at the Open Society Archives
Preserving
memory is a fundamental tool in preventing human rights violations and crimes
against humanity from recurring. Documents created and collected by various
national and international bodies – truth commissions, tribunals, even civil
organizations – contain descriptions of facts, data, evaluation and analysis of
events and procedures which are of vital importance in preserving memory and
exposing the past. These textual and non-textual documents also constitute a
valuable source for historical research. However, if these documents are
dispersed, are in various states of processing, and are subject to
differing accessing regulations, reliable comparative research becomes very
difficult, and sometimes almost impossible.
I
am convinced that establishing an international repository for preserving the
most important and most typical documents on this subject, and making them
available for comparative analysis and historical research would significantly
promote the work of other such institutions, and would forward the work of
human rights organizations, as well as scholarly research and education.
I
believe that the Open Society Archives in Budapest, a research and education
base equipped with long-term and secure storage facilities and top-notch
expertise, would be an ideal site for such a repository.
The
mission and holdings of the Open Society Archives
The
fundamental mission of the Open Society Archives (OSA), founded by George Soros
in 1995, is to obtain, preserve and make available research resources for the
study of communism and the Cold War (particularly in Central and Eastern
Europe), and for the study of twentieth and twenty-first century human rights
issues.
The
core of the Archives’ communism and Cold War holdings are the records of the
Research Institute of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, including a unique
collection of samizdat publications. OSA’s current human rights holdings
embrace a significant collection of materials related to the war in the former
Yugoslavia. These materials were donated to the Archives by the International
Human Rights Law Institute (IHRLI). This record group includes the reports of
the UN Commission of Experts, as well as their original background
documentation (textual documents, video tapes, audio tapes, books and
journals). OSA also holds the records of the Index on Censorship and the
International Helsinki Federation.
OSA
regularly receives researchers from all over the world and runs a reference and
retrieval service augmented by a copying and mailing service. OSA ensures equal
access to its holdings to local and distant researchers through its mailing
service, by offering research grants to support visiting scholars and
journalists, and by maintaining a web site which contains information about its
holdings.
While
advocating and practicing easy access and openness, OSA has instituted a
restriction policy aimed at, among other things, honoring the wishes of donors
and depositors, and maintaining personal privacy. For example, in the case of
the materials received from IHRLI, Mr. Cherif Bassiouni, Chairman of the Commission
of Experts and Rapporteur for the Gathering and Analysis of Facts, decided
which documents should be available for research, and which should be
temporarily closed.
OSA
also provides research opportunities for the professors, MA and PhD students of
Central European University. In the future OSA will develop an even closer
working relationship with the Human Rights Program of the Legal Studies
Department, which will launch new courses with curricula based on our archival
holdings. Some of the planned courses are: Human Rights Aspects of Armed
Conflicts, Political Rights, Minority Rights, Humanitarian Law and Protection
of Civilians, Asylum and Refugees, and International Human Rights Issues.
Proposed
acquisition principles
The
main sources of documents in such a repository would be truth commissions,
tribunals, committees of experts at the national and international level;
international organizations and their sub-branches; and international, national
or local human rights organizations.
If
an important document collection is in danger of being destroyed, disarranged
or dispersed, the repository should be able to take it over in its entirety.
However, the repository does not intend to acquire any documents which
constitute an integral part of a given country’s history if they have a
long-term, secure storage place with adequate provisions for preservation,
processing and research by outsiders. Therefore, this repository would mainly
be composed of copies of individual documents
and samples of distributed or printed material.
Documents
in the repository could cover the following areas:
• laws,
resolutions, agreements and other legal papers documenting the establishment of
institutions set up to investigate war crimes and human rights violations;
documents describing any debates and arguments preceding the adoption of such
laws and resolutions;
• documents describing the actual founding
process of these institutions;
• internal documents about the work of such
institutions;
• drafts and final reports, analyses and
statistical data about their activities;
• documents sent by the institution to
international organizations;
• publications about the work and findings of
the institutions;
• typical cases and procedures.
The
creator and/or owner of the original records would judge the importance of the
documents, deciding which ones should be copied and sent to the repository. As
stated before, OSA is ready to follow the express restriction requirements of
any donor organization.
International
cooperation is needed
My
recent discussions at the International Seminar on Justice, Truth and
Reconciliation, held in Geneva, 9–12 December 1998, and the resulting
enthusiastic response to this idea reinforced my conviction that there is a
need to establish such a repository. However, moral support received from
reputable international organizations is not sufficient for realizing this idea
– your cooperation is essential to the success of creating this repository.
Therefore, I am now sending this proposal to the leaders of the organizations
represented at the Geneva seminar, and asking them to consider this idea and
embrace our initiative.
We
are prepared to launch this project as soon as our potential partner
institutions express their intention to cooperate with the Open Society
Archives. We intend to inform all our partner institutions on a regular basis
about the growth of the repository and the processing work completed or
underway.
Budapest,
12 January 1999
István
Rév
Director,
Open Society Archives
Cover-page of a CIA Research Report, issued on 6
April 1950 regarding the Soviet atom bomb. Published on microfilm after
declassification.
Fonds 300 Records of the RFE/RL Research Institute,
OSA.
Genetic proofs of relatedness to help recover
the identity of refugees
without documents and other proofs of identity
Principles
and Recommendations
Draft
Preambulum
The Open Society
Archives
• Realizing
the danger inherent in modern wars and civil wars that masses of people might
leave their homes, losing their documents and other proofs of identity;
• Ascertaining
that techniques for genetic demonstration of relatedness are available for mass
use at moderate costs;
• Assuming
that in case of lack of other proofs or non-approval of proofs it might be
necessary to demonstrate genetic relationships as a means of recovering
identity;
• Being
aware however, that the introduction of these techniques might arouse anxiety
and that it is therefore desirable to give assurances as to their proper use;
• Being
aware of the dangers of discrimination and social stigmatisation which may
result from genetic data, and determined to fight such phenomena;
• Being
aware also that abusing human rights comprises not only physical assaults but
also infringements of information rights which can have a long-lasting impact
on the individuals’ future;
• Convinced
therefore that such tests could be carried out only when initatiated by the
persons concerned, in full respect of their personal rights and the
internationally accepted norms of data protection;
Recommends that
• The
international community and democratic governments accept the following
principles and promote their application;
• Humanitarian
and other civil organizations have due regard to these principles while
carrying out their activities and ensure their wide circulation among the
potential subjects;
• Medical
organizations suitable to carry out such tests follow these principles and be
assured that their tests are used in a way which complies with these
principles;
as
well as
All
these organizations cooperate, when necessary, to enforce these principles.
Scope
and Definitions
These
Principles and Recommendations apply to the collection of samples and use of
DNA analysis for the purposes of demonstrating genetic relatedness in order to
help recover the identity of refugees without documents and other proofs of
identity.
“DNA
analysis” or “genetic tests” refer to any procedure which may be employed in
the analysis of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the basic genetic material of
life.
“Samples”
refers to any substance of living origin which may be utilised for the purpose
of DNA analysis.
“Genetic
data” refers to any structured collection of the results of DNA analysis tests
whether retained in material form, as manually held records, or on a
computerised database.
Informing
the public
The
public should be informed about the possibilities of genetic demonstration of
relatedness, in particular their availability, purpose and implications –
legal, medical, social and ethical – as well as the centres where they are
carried out.
Equality
of access and non-discrimination
Among
refugees who have no other proof of identity, or their proof of identity is not
acceptable, there should be equality of access to genetic testing, without
financial considerations and without preconditions concerning eventual personal
choices.
No
condition should be attached to the acceptance or the undergoing of genetic
tests.
Self-determination
The
provision of genetic services to demonstrate relatedness should be based on
respect for the principle of self-determination of the persons concerned. For
this reason, any genetic testing, even when offered systematically, should be
made only when initiated by the persons concerned and should be subject to
their express, free and informed consent.
The
testing of the following categories of persons should be subject to special
safeguards:
• minors;
• persons suffering from mental disorders;
• adults placed under limited guardianship.
Testing
of these persons should be permitted only if the information is imperatively
needed to prove genetic relatedness. The consent of the person to be tested is
required in these cases too.
Non-compulsory
nature of tests
Health
service benefits, family allowances, marriage requirements or other similar
formalities, as well as the admission to, or the continued exercise of certain
activities, especially employment, should not be made dependent on the
undergoing of genetic tests.
The
granting of citizenship, and issuing of identity documents may depend on the
results of genetic demonstration of relatedness only if the person concerned
expresses his free and informed consent to the use of these results as the
basis of proving identity.
Quality
of genetic services
Genetic
tests may only be carried out under the supervision and responsibility of a
duly qualified physician.
It
is desirable for centers where laboratory tests are performed to be approved by
a competent national or international organization, and that they participate
in an external quality assurance.
Counselling
and support
Any
genetic testing procedure should be accompanied by appropriate counselling,
both before and after the procedure.
Such
counselling must be non-directive. The information to be given should include
the results of tests, pertinent medical facts, as well as the potential
consequences and choices inherent in the results. It should explain the purpose
and the nature of the tests and point out possible risks. It must be adapted to
the specific local circumstances in which individuals and families receive
genetic information.
Everything
should be done to provide, where necessary, continuing support for the tested
persons.
Data
protection
The
collection and storage of samples, and the processing of information derived
therefrom, must be in conformity with the Council of Europe’s basic principles
of data protection and data security laid down in the Convention for the
Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data,
European Treaty Series No. 108 of 28 January 1981, and in line with the
relevant Recommendations of the Committee of Ministers in this field.
Nominative
genetic data or associated personal data may be collected, processed and stored
only for the purposes of demonstrating relatedness when so requested by the
persons concerned.
Genetic
data, as all medical data, should as a general rule be kept separate from other
personal records.
Professional
secrecy
Persons
handling genetic information should be bound by professional rules of conduct
and by the rules laid down by national legislation which are aimed at
preventing the misuse of such information and, in particular, by the duty to
observe strict confidentiality. Personal information obtained by genetic
testing is protected on the same basis as other medical data by the rules of
medical data protection.
However,
in the case of a demonstration of genetic relatedness, and the finding of a
severe genetic risk or illness for the person tested or other family members,
consideration should be made whether family members or those affected should be
informed about matters relevant to their health or the health of their future
children in accordance with national legislation and professional rules of
conduct.
Such
findings may be communicated to the person tested only if they are of direct
clinical importance to the person or the family. Communication of such findings
to family members of the person tested should only be authorised by national
law if the person tested refuses expressly to inform them even though their
lives are in danger.
Handling
of samples and data
Samples
taken from individuals for DNA analysis should be destroyed after the rendering
of the final decision in the case for which they were used, unless it is
necessary for purposes directly linked to those for which they were collected.
Measures
should be taken to ensure that the results of DNA analysis and the information
so derived is destroyed when it is no longer necessary to keep it for the
purposes for which it was used. Samples, or the information derived from them,
may be stored for longer periods:
• when the person concerned so requests; or
• if
needed for population and similar research and statistical purposes, provided
that all personal data with which the individual concerned can be identified
are irreversibly removed prior to use of the samples or data for such purposes.
The
same applies to the publishing of such data.
Chronology of exhibitions
Samizdat Exhibition
15–22 March 1996
The Representation of the Counter-revolution
4 November – 20 December 1996
Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union
and The Art of the Unofficial
10 October – 31 December 1997
50 Years Ago It Was 100 Years Ago…
13 March – 10 April 1998
Legends in Life and Art:
The Portrait Photography of Roloff Beny from the
National Archives of Canada
15 April – 15 May 1998
23 Years of the International Helsinki Human
Rights Movement
27 June – 5 August 1998
Prague Spring / Prague Fall – 1968
10 September – 11 October 1998
Freeze Frames of Communism
21 October – 18 December 1998
The Commissar Vanishes – Falsified Photographs of
the Stalin Era
12 March – 25 April 1999
Ten Years of Freedom – 1956 in Hungarian
Historical Thought
28 January – 27 February 1999
Gulag
1 May – 30 May 1999
Ten Years After
23 June – 1
August 1999
The
invitation card designed by Zsuzsa Medve and Ferenc Nemzetes for the exhibition
The
Commissar Vanishes (March–April 1999). The same design was used for
the poster of the exhibition.
Fonds 206 Records of the Open Society Archives.
Politics As Art/Art As Politics
An
international conference organized by the Open Society Archives
at
the Central European University, Auditorium
11–12
October 1997, Budapest
Consultant:
Konstantin
Akinsha
Program:
Underground Art as Art
Moderator: Andrew Solomon,
art critic of The New York Times Magazine
Panelists: Boris
Groys, Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at the Hochschule
für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe
Ekaterina Dyogot, art historian, art
critic for the “Kommersant,” Moscow
Kim Levin, President of the International Association
of Art Critics, New York
Underground Art as
Politics
Moderator: Wolfgang Eichwede,
Director, Research Institute of Eastern Europe,
Bremen University
Panelists: Andrei
Kovaliov, Professor at Western European Art Department
of Lomonosov University, Moscow
László Beke,
Director, Palace of Art, Budapest
Alla Rosenfeld, curator and art
historian, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli
Art Museum, Rutgers University
Collecting Underground Art
Moderator: Dennis Cate,
Director, Jane Voorhes Zimmerli Art Museum,
Rutgers University
Panelists: Alexander
Borowsky, Head of the Department of New Trends at the
State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
Andrei Erofeev, curator and art
historian, National Tsaritsyno Museum,
Moscow
Rene Baigell, Professor at the Art
History Department of Rutgers University
Invitation card for the exhibition 50
Years Ago was 100 Years Ago (March–April 1998), designed by
Péter Vajda. The same design was used for the poster of the exhibit.
Fonds 206 Records of the Open Society Archives.
Russia in the 20th Century
Competition for High School Students, 1997
In
November 1997, the Open Society Archives organized a two-round competition for
high school students in connection with the OSA exhibition The
Art of the Unofficial – Rebel Artists and Their Work from the Soviet Union.
According to the contest guidelines, each of the participating groups sent in
two essays on topics in the two thematic groups, history and art history, by
the deadline at the end of January 1998.
An ingenious concept for
a case, which serves as a pop-up illustration of the essays submitted for the
competition Russia in the 20th Century.
Prepared by the student competitors: Lilla Bodor, Krisztina Havasi, Norbert
Jankovics, Rebeka Kánnai, Melinda Sipos, László
Szûcs from Tóparti Gimnázium és
Mûvészeti Szakközépiskola (Secondary School for Arts
and Humanities, Székesfehérvár, Hungary).
Photo by András
Révész. Fonds 206 Records of the Open Society Archives.
Twenty-nine
school groups visited The Art of the Unofficial,
and were led on tours guided by OSA historians. Of these, 18 groups submitted
essays in the competition. The five best essays were selected by the judges,
and four students from each of the five groups were invited to compete in the
finals.
The
judges of the competition were Professor Ágnes Gereben of
Eötvös Loránd University, and literary historian Ilona Kiss,
researcher at the COLPI Russian Studies Center.
The
five groups competing in the finals came from the following schools:
• Béri
Balogh Ádám High School, Tamási
• Technical Secondary School for Crafts and
Design, Budapest
• József Attila High School, Makó
• Kossuth Lajos High School, Miskolc
• Szent-Györgyi
Albert School for Elementary and Secondary Education (1–12), Budapest.
The
finals were held on 27 March 1998, in Galeria Centralis. All of the groups
proved to be exceptionally well prepared for the oral competition, displaying
sound knowledge of the subject matter. Prizes were awarded the following
groups:
First
Prize (tie) – 150,000 HUF Szent-Györgyi
Albert School for
Elementary and Secondary
Education,
Budapest;
Kossuth Lajos High School,
Miskolc
Second
Prize – 100,000 HUF József
Attila High School, Makó
Third
Prize – 50,000 HUF Béri Balogh
Ádám High School, Tamási
The
schools close to use the prize money for field trips.
Open
Society Archives at CEU
announces
FROM
DISSENSION INTO MADNESS
A
Festival of Documentary Films on the Conflicts in the former Yugoslavia
4:00
pm, Oktober 6. building, 1st floor, Room # 107
Monday, 26 April DEATH OF YUGOSLAVIA
(part I)
(BBC, United
Kingdom, 1995, 50 min.)
An excellent and detailed account of the
turbulent history of Yugoslavia from WW I to the secession of Slovenia in 1991.
One ideology replaces another: the fall of communism, brotherhood and unity and
the rise of nationalism. Old rivalries and hatred are ignited. The ‘powder keg’
of Europe explodes again.
Tuesday, 27 April DEATH OF YUGOSLAVIA
(part II)
(BBC, United Kingdom,
1995, 50 min.)
The
second part of this series traces the ultimate disintegration of the
federation. Nationalism in both Serbia and Croatia evoke deep-buried memories
of terror. Political solutions are ridiculed when warring spirits run high. All
sides disregard the consequences, and the war machine is set in motion. The
result is the horror and madness that is Vukovar.
Wednesday, 28 April A STREET UNDER SIEGE
(part I)
(Saga, BiH,
1994, 10 min.)
A
series of short clips depict the everyday lives of people living in besieged
Sarajevo. Ordinary people in unique circumstances. Water, food and shelter –
basic needs attained through unimaginable obstacles.
DISAPPEARING
WORLD: WE ARE ALL NEIGHBORS
(Channel 4 London,
United Kingdom, 1992, 55 min.)
A
very thoughtful story of a Bosnian village where Croats and Muslims lived
together for centuries. Can friendships spanning half a century be maintained
under the pressure of war? What makes neighbors, living together peacefully for
decades, suddenly take up arms against one another?
Thursday, 29 April A STREET UNDER SIEGE
(part II)
(Saga, BiH,
1994, 10 min.)
A
second part of a series tracing human destinies in war-torn Sarajevo.
Disbelief, fear, anger, disillusionment, resilience and resignation…
SARAJEVO DIARY
(Channel 4 London,
United Kingdom, 1994, 52 min.)
A
British ex-pat in Sarajevo for 27 years becomes a refugee in his native
country. The return to a city he remembers as colorful, cosmopolitan and
tolerant is painful amidst the destruction and horror. Yet the Sarajevo he
finds is not unlike the city of his memories: at once defiant and accepting.
War brings fear and suffering, but the human spirit prevails.
Friday, 30 April ROMEO AND JULIET IN
SARAJEVO
(Frontline-PBS,
United States, 1993, 85 min.)
The
title tells all: boy loves girl but nationalism and hatred intervene. Their
story is not atypical, it is one example of the great number of mixed marriages
in Bosnia. Yet their death is all the more tragic and disturbing as it brings
no resolution in a world ruled by hatred.
The
films comprise a part of the audio-visual holdings of OSA. To access the
audio-visual holdings of the Archives for similar or different materials go to:
</holdings/av/index.htm>
GULAG
FILM WEEK
On
the week of 6 May 1999 the Open Society Archives organized “Gulag film week”, a
screening of a series of films to coincide with the Archives exhibit “Gulag”.
The topic of labor camps were approached from three angles, by showing the
following types of films:
• The
most famous propaganda films made about the
Gulag in the 1930’s (The White Sea Canal, Solovki and The Fergana Canal.)
• Soviet
feature
films from the 1930’s, which present the Soviet Union as a
“heaven on earth”, and its society as being comprised of continuously and
tirelessly happy people. These movies – Volga-Volga, Jolly Fellows – and other
Soviet classics such as The Party Membership Card, The Big Sunrise, The Road to
Life, Far from Moscow and Chapayev present a non-existent world as reality,
thereby creating an absurd effect on present-day viewers.
• Documentary
and feature films from the 1980’s and 1990’s showing the reality of
the Gulag system and the totalitarian regime (Hungarian Women in the Gulag,
Recsk, The Division, Chinese Defense, The Cold Summer of ’53).
The
opening act of the film week was a lecture by Ilona Kiss, scholar of Russian
literature.
Program:
6 May 6 pm Lecture by Ilona Kiss
The
Party Membership Card (D: Pirev, Soviet, 1936.)
8 pm The White Sea Canal
(D: Lemberg, Soviet documentary, 1936.)
The
Sunrise (D: Chiaureli, Soviet, 1938.)
7 May 6 pm Solovki Camp (D: Cherkasov,
Soviet propaganda film, 1928.)
8 pm The Division (D: Péter
Gothár, Hungarian feature film, 1995.)
8 May 6 pm Volga – Volga (D: Aleksandrov
and Dunaevski, Soviet comedy, 1938.)
8 pm Recsk I–II. (D:
Böszörményi and Gyarmathy,
Hungarian
documentary, 1985-87.)
9 May 6 pm Jolly Fellows (D: Aleksandrov
and Dunaevski, Soviet comedy, 1934.)
8 pm Hungarian
women in the Gulag (D: Sándor Sára, Hungarian, 1991.)
10 May 6 pm The Road to Life
(D: Ekk, Soviet, 1931.)
8 pm The
Cold Summer of ’53 (D: Proshkin, Soviet, 1988.)
11 May 6 pm Far from Moscow
(D: Stopler, Soviet, 1950.)
8 pm Chinese
Defense (D: Gábor Tompa, Hungarian, 1998.)
12 May 6 pm The Fergana Channel
(Soviet documentary, 1939.)
8 pm Chapayev
(D: the Vasilyev brothers, Soviet, 1934.)
A graphic appendix of an Item (anonymized interview) from 16 March 1953,
showing the scheme of the Danube–Black Sea Canal with the attached forced labor
camps and units.
Romanian Unit, Fonds 300 Records of the RFE/RL
Research Institute, OSA.
Selection of theses of CEU students
who carried out research at the Open Society Archives
History
• The
Dynamics of Extinction: The Nazarene Religious Community in Yugoslavia after
1945
• Ethnic
Competition and State Policies in a Village from South-Eastern Transylvania,
1970–1999
• Institutional
Structure of Soviet Unofficial Art in Post-Stalin Russia
• Politics
of Power versus Politics of Culture: Intellectuals under Communism
• Perceptions
of Self and the Other: the Construction of National Identity in Czech and
Slovak History Textbooks during the 1980s and 1990s
• Bulgarian
Communist Historiography on Bulgarian Fascism
• Generation
Gap during the “Thaw” Period: Nonconformity of Soviet Youth
• The
Post-War International Activities of the Bulgarian Exarchate (1944–1953)
• Local
History vs. National History: Collective Memory Among the Pomaks in the Region
of Teteven, Bulgaria
• Reflections
on the Revolution in Czechoslovakia
• The
Image of the Leader in the Communist Period: The Romanian Case in the Ceaus‚escu
Era
• Advertising
“Goulash Communism”: Consumer Good and Service Advertisement Films in Hungary
in the 1970’s and 80’s
• Pedagogic
Work of the Soviet Authority: The Party Against Musical Formalism
• The
Church under Conditions of Krushchev’s Anti-Religious Offensive: The Ukrainian
Situation and its Polish Parallel
• The
First Avant-Garde Exhibitions and Culture in Turn-of-the-Century Kyiv
• Holocaust
Denial in Romania’s Post-communist Period
• Borrowed
Clothes: History Politics in Hungary, 1945–1956
• The
Peasant Uprising in Western Siberia (1921): A Case Study in History of the
Russian Civil War
• National
Movement in Croatia, 1971
• Unzipping
the USSR: Jeans as a Symbol of the Struggle Between Consumerism and Consumption
in the Brezhnev Era, 1964–1982
• The
Bulgarian Exarchate: Church Policy and Balkan Nationalism (1870–1913)
• The
Celebrations of Polish National Holidays by the State and the Church between
1944 and 1980
• “The
Kosovo Battle”: The History, the Myth, the Manipulation
• De-Stalinization
of the Soviet Bloc Countries, 1953–1956: The Case of Hungary
• Dissident
vs. Conformist in Kadarist Hungary: Mental Reservation as an Intellectual
Strategy of Survival
• U.S.
Foreign Policy During the Balkan Conflict
• Political
Usage of Culture: Cultural Policies of the Bulgarian Communist Party in the
Sixties and Seventies
• Broken
People: The Story of Prejudice and Collaboration Perpetrated Against the Roma
in Communist Hungary
• The
Memory of 1956 Gendered Transcript
• Representation
of National History in the 1950’s in Hungary
• Intellectual
Dissidents in Romania, 1977–1989
• The
Threat From Below: Workers’ Protest in Communist Romania
• The
“Making” of Elena Ceauceşcu’s Cult of Personality
by the Romanian Communist Party’s Propaganda Daily, Scinteia, 1971–80
• First
Feminist Groups in Leningrad, 1979–1982
Political
Science
• Intellectuals,
National Identity and Mass Media in Latvia: 1986–1991
• Problems
of Administrative Reform: The Case of Ukraine
• Values
in the Content of the Election Platforms of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and
the Union of Democratic Forces (1990–97)
• Delayed
Transitions: Management of Time in Post-Communist Romania
• Dual
Television Broadcasting in Transitory Societies: The Case of Czech and Slovak
Television Operators
• Media
as a Weapon: The Role of the Media in Ethnic Conflicts, Case Study:
Bosnia-Hercegovina
• Opportunity
Structure And Political Attitudes
• False
Hopes, False Fears
• Ethnicity
and the Structuring of the Political Field in Bulgarian Transition
Environmental
Sciences
• Biomass
Assessment and Utilization Options for Energy Production in Albania
• A
Simulation Model of a River Basin as a Tool in Sustainable Management
• Factors
Impacting Agricultural Occupational Health Arising From the Privatization of
Agriculture in Albania: Pesticide Issues, Policy and Agricultural Occupational
Health
Gender
Studies
• East
Meets West Where Past Meets Present: Translating Western Feminism into Eastern
Europe
Research Grants
1996
• Comparative
Study of State and Nation Creation Processes in the post WW II Lithuania and
Poland
• The
Russian Patriarchate and the Slavonic Orthodox Churches during the Period of
the Cold War
1997
• The
Impact of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution on the West
• Alternative
Macroeconomic Policies for Transitional Economics: The Case of Poland
• Stalin,
Technology and Russia’s Environmental Crisis
• Problems
of Democratic Transition: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Belorussia
• Mass
Media in the Civil Conflicts: Eastern Europe and the Former USSR
• Option
for the West: Polish Foreign Policy Orientation
• The
Responses of Eastern European Countries to the 1967 Arab–Israeli War
• Chernobyl
Stories (short stories)
• Collectivization
in the 1970’s and 1980’s: The Case of Zamogorie, Slovakia
• Transmission
of Values in the Hungarian Political Programs of Radio Free Europe
• Minorities
in Communist Romania, 1948–1965
1998
• Human
Rights Violations During the Sovietization of Armenia
• The
Effects of the 1950 Repression in the Field of Genetic Research
• The
Relationship Between Human Rights Movements in the Balkans and Existing Social
and Cultural Models of Women’s Behavior
• The
Efforts of the International Community to Solve the Emerging Ethnic Conflicts
Resulting from the Dissolution of the Former Yugoslavia
• Civil-Military
Relations in Post Communist States
• Multiculturalism
in Bosnia and Hercegovina
• Russians
Abroad: Memoirs, Diaries, Letters, 1917–1991
• The
Policy of the Soviet Union Towards Eastern Europe, 1953–1958
• The
Transformation of Bulgarian Political Elites During the System Change,
1988–1993
• The
Reception of Andrei Sakharov’s Texts by Human Rights Movements in Eastern
Europe
• The
Evolution of Cold War Propaganda Images, 1948–1989, in the Context of
US–Bulgarian Relations
• The
Effectiveness of the International Law of Armed Conflicts – The Problem of
Reprisals
• The
Educational Policy of the Socialist Countries
• Caricature
as a Source for Nationalism Studies: The Image of the Balkan Neighbor As Seen
by the Bulgarian Political Caricature
• The
Macedonian Question: Nationalism and Communism in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in
the Wider Cold War Context, 1958–1989.
• The
Ways Public Space Was Controlled by the State Socialist Regime in
Czechoslovakia
• Political
Communication Before and After the Cold War: Structural Changes, Perception and
Foreign Policy Decision Making
• Dissident
Movement in the Former USSR in 1950–1960
• The
Role of Samizdat in the Democratization of Former Socialist Countries
• Nationalism
in Czech Republic and Slovakia: A Comparative Study
• Censorship
Mechanisms in Central and Eastern Europe During Communism
• The
Attitude of Western Propaganda Toward Political Life in Bulgaria, 1949–1956
• Marxism-Leninism
and Non-conformist Intelligentsia: Years of Resistance and the Revival of
Russian National Consciousness
• Romanian
Historians Under Communism
• The
Experience of the “Russian Sixties” and the Cold War
1999
(January–August)
• Democratization,
Civil Society and Ethnic Peace Constituencies: East European and Post-Soviet
Prospectives
• Coming
to Terms with the Past: Ethnic Restructuring and Its Aftermath in the Baltic
States
• Turkestan
Re-Union: National Identity and Regional Integration in Central Asia
• Yugoslav
Theatre and the 1968 Student Protest
• The
Interplay of Communism and Nationalism in the former Soviet Union (The Case of
Armenia)
• National
History and Nationalist Myth: A Case Study of the Historical Thought of
Ukrainian Dissidents, 1960s – 1980s.
• The
Systematic Discrimination of Roma and Criminal Justice Reform in Hungary: A
Critical Sociological Approach
• Basic
Attitudes Towards Europe in Belarus and Russia, 1975–1980
• The
Roots of Collapse: Soviet “Sixties” and the End of Communism
Reference Information Papers (RIP)
prepared by OSA staff
RIP 1: Raoul Wallenberg
RIP 2: The Environment
RIP 3: Roma
RIP 4: 1956 Hungarian Revolution
RIP 5: Religious Issues and Church History (in
Hungarian)
RIP 6: Non-Conformist Artists In the USSR,
1956–1986
RIP 7: Records Relating to Prague Spring 1968
RIP 8: Forced Labor Camps under Communism
”We demand free Hungarian broadcasting stations,
independent of the Communist Party and government! – Radio Free Europe”
Cartoon from Sándor Pogány’s book “October
23” which was publisher in Budapest in 1958. The series of
caricatures on the 1956 Hungarian revolution “was inspired by anger, hatred and
sarcasm” and was pulped after its publication. Even the authorities found it too
brutal. Three known volumes remained – one of them is in the OSA Library.
Reference Information Paper 6
Records
Relating to Non-Conformist Artists in the USSR, 1956–1986
Records
of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute
Information
Resources Department
Compiled
by Olga Zaslavskaya and Bosko
Spasojevic, 17 September 1997
The
Research Institute of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty maintained files
pertaining to non-conformist artists and art in the Soviet Union for use by
Radio broadcasters and analysts. Approximately 2400 pages of such materials are
found in the research records of Radio Liberty which supported broadcasting to
the USSR.
The
records of the Slavic, Baltic and Eurasian Archives of the Information
Resources Department of the Research Institute of Radio Liberty are arranged in
two main groups of records:
1.
The Soviet (“Red”) Archives, records the Radio gathered about Soviet government
and life, contain 35 files of documents relating to non-conformist art issues
such as Exhibitions (2 files), Art (9 files), Artists (6 files), Culture (2
files), Dissenters (10 files), Intelligentsia (2 files) and Censorship (4
files). The “Red” Archives contain only two files on specific non-conformist
artists: Ernst Neizvestny and Oscar Rabin. These files contain press clippings,
wire service dispatches, RFE/RL Background Reports and research materials.
2.
The Samizdat Archives are records on dissidents, émigrés
and
human rights issues in the Former USSR, including a body of self-published
works collected by the Radio. These files contain press clippings, news agency
releases and Radio Liberty Research Reports which are primarily in Russian and
English. Two major series of Samizdat Archives records include materials on
non-conformist artists:
a)
The Biographical Files contain two kinds of files:
–
Files on Individuals. These files contain 18 personal files on the following
individual artists: BIRGER Boris, BULATOV Eric, IANKILEVSKII Vladimir, KABAKOV
Il’ia, KOMAR Vitalii, KROPIVNITSKIE Evgenii, KROPIVNITSKIE Lev, KROPIVNITSKIE
Valentina, MELAMID Aleksandr, NEIZVESTNYI Ernst, NEMUKHIN Vladimir, PRIGOV
Dmitrii, RABIN Oscar, RUKHIN Evgenii, RYBAKOV Iulii, SHTEINBERG Eduard, SIDUR
Vadim, SINIAVIN Igor, SYSOEV Viacheslav and FILIMONOV Vadim.
–
Alphabetical files with records on several individuals grouped together. These
files contain records pertaining to nearly 70 other non-conformist artists and
art critics (see next page.)
b)
The Subject Files contain the following entries on non-conformist art and
cultural issues: Arts, Artists, Censorship, Culture, Dissenters, Exhibitions,
Intelligentsia and Nonconformist Artists.
A scene from the exibition The Commissar Vanishes (Galeria Centralis, March–April 1999).
Photo by Zsuzsanna Fekete. Fonds 206 Records of the
Open Society Archives.
Alphabetical
files containing records
on
non-conformist artists and art critics
