About community archives and its meaning for Polish national heritage and local identity

Abstract

Community archives display notable activity, especially during last years. Due to that they have become a significant element of the system of archives in Poland. But there are still a number of basic problems, not only theoretical, concerning their activity, that must be set down: their formal status (also: their holdings status), their place in system of Polish archives (in the broad sense), and shape of their relations to other archives (especially state ones). Moreover, corresponding to problems mentioned above, their fundamental meaning to national heritage and local identity must be looked into. Taking a thesis of Jerzy Skowronek, that the archival national heritage are all archival materials produced by a particular nation and state, regardless of place of keeping, the holdings of community archives must be seen as that. But not always they are simply associated with phenomena, processes or events that are crucial from the point of view of a nation as a whole. Whereas these holdings, according to a scope of their collection, are direct and very accurate reflection of local history. This makes community archives main creators and protectors of local identity, especially with common practice among community archives, that consists in dragging local communities into cooperation in making the history and, in general, into cooperating with them. Their mission, in both of these spheres, is carried out in a condition of a dichotomy. On the one hand there is intentional using of assets: creativity, enthusiasm and a special ability to reach to sources that are unavailable to other potential rivals. On the other hand, a full success is impediment due to various limitations, especially often observed financial fragility and lack of certainty of existence in a longer time perspective. Whereas state archives, having no problems in that area, due to some formal and organizational reasons cannot impact the non-state branch of the national archival holdings effectively. That, and a number of other reasons should induce both types of archives to strengthen contacts between them and to take up or intensify collaboration in various fields. It will result in increasing efficiency of archival activity performed by them separately.