A Brief View of the History of Archives in Poland in 1944–1989

Abstract

Immediately after the war, efforts were made to recreate the network of archives in Poland, which was based on the models from before 1939 and at the same time took into account the territorial changes made in 1945. At that time, much effort was put into their reconstruction by former archivists from state, local government and private archives, who had been educated before the war along with new people who started working in archives after 1945. The situation changed radically during the Stalinist period, especially after the 1951 Decree on State Archives, which definitely broke away with the pre-war model. It introduced the centralization of the state archival network and ensured that the state archives should control the resources stored in other public-law institutions. Political and social changes in Poland led to the adoption of a new Act on the national archival resources and archives on 14 July 1983. It introduced the concept of the national archival resource, regulated the matter of managing this resource and strengthened the centralization of its supervision. This law generally maintained the previously binding provisions on the organization of the archival network and forms of archives' activity.