International archival events in Slovenia and Italy
The Fourth Conference of Archives in the Slavic Countries was held on 18-19 October 2013 in the Slovene town of Lipica. The Conference was attended by the representatives of archives from Belarus, Macedonia, the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro.
Eight reports were delivered as part of the conference on the topic of “Archives and Present Day Requirements”. Following the tradition, the reports were presented in national languages. From the Belarusian side, the director of the Belarusian Research Institute of Records Management and Archival Studies (BelNIIDAD) Mr A.E. Rybakov delivered a presentation report on the “Archives in Belarus in Conditions of Contemporary Requirements”.
The analysis of the reports and the following discussion made it possible to the four main issues which are presently of the most importance for archives in the Slavic countries:
Organisation of the system of administrative bodies in charge of archive business and state archival institutions;
Building of an efficient system for their relationship with the bodies of state power and government;
Records preservation in the context of the provision of required buildings and facilities for archives, preservation of electronic records;
Financing of state archives;
Professional training of archivists, provision of personnel for state archives, perspectives of development in archival science.
One of the conference events was a meeting with the director of the Forum of Slavic Cultures, Andreja Rihter. The participants summed the results of the exhibition “The History of the Capitals of Slavic Countries in the Light of Archival Records” opened in May 2012 in the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. This project, initiated at the Second Conference of Archives in the Slavic Countries in 2011, covered 13 Slavic countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Macedonia, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, Czechia, Montenegro and Ukraine.
As part of the conference, Mr. Rybakov held a working meeting with the director at the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia Bojan Cvelfar and the senior advisor at this Archive Natalia Glashar. The Slovenian side showed interest in the possibility of organising a joint Belarusian-Slovenian archival project relating to the life and work of Gabriel Gruber. In 1769 Gabriel Gruber began lecturing at the Higher School of Engineering at Ljubljana; Gruber Palace (now the building of the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia) was built according to his project, in 1784 he arrived in Belarus and until 1799 taught architecture and physics at the Jesuit College at Polotsk. Thanks to his efforts, the Polotsk College expanded its scholarly basis and turned into a large technical center. Presently, the National Historical Archives of Belarus holds a collection of the Polotsk Jesuit College and they now have to the availability of the documents relating to Gabriel Gruber in their collection.
On 21-22 October 2013 the 23rd Conference of International Archival Day took place in Trieste (Italy), which was organised by the International Institute for Archival Science of Trieste and Maribore (IIAS). The conference opened with the greeting of Charles Kesckemeti, a honoured member of this institute, General Secretary of the International Council on Archives from 1962 to 1988, who celebrated his 80th anniversary this year.
In all, the conference was attended by 100 people from Austria, Barbados, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Great Britain, Hungary, Germany, India, Spain, Italy, Macedonia, Malaysia, Poland, Russia, Rumania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, USA, Turkey, Ukraine, France, Croatia, Montenegro, Czechia, Chili, Estonia and the Republic of South Africa.
The conference covered the two main topics: “History of archives and archival science from the 1950s to the present day” and “Communications of archives with the young generation and institutions in the area of cultural heritage”.
The bulk of the reports on the first topic was dedicated to the history of archives in different countries, while the greater interest was aroused by the reports on the problematic issues in the development of archives and international cooperation in archive business. The General Secretary of ICA, David Leitch (Scotland) informed the participants on the key directions in the ICA activities. In his words, the priority importance for archives now lies in the necessity to solve the issues of documentation and records managements and the development of relevant norms, regulations, recommendations and their adoption in the international standards. The ICA put a special focus on this issue in conditions of the adoption of modern information technologies.
BelNIIDAD’s director A. Rybakov delivered a presentation report formation and development of archival science in the Republic of Belarus” (in English).
The conference papers and reports have been published in the ATLANTI journal.
Following the completion of the conference, the IIAS 7th Autumn Archival School was opened on 23 October 2013 and the 29th Assembly of IIAS members. The assembly participants heard the report on the Institute’s activities in 2012-2013, discussed the acceptance of new members and the topics for the next conference of International Archival Day. The two main topics were adopted for the next conference: “The First World War” and “Archives, Political Power and Society (in context of access, data security and advocacy)”.
