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“Publishing of the Collection of Archival Documents”
(Archival Documents in Relation with the Events Developing in Georgia from the 5th to the 9th of March of the Year of 1956)
Project is financed by the Embassy of Switzerland in Georgia.
Project is supported by the Heinrich Böll Foundation South Caucasus Regional Office;
Project is realized together with the Archive Administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia.
With a joint project the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information, the Archive Administration of Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, financed by the Embassy of Switzerland in Georgia and with the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation South Caucasus Regional Office, will work on the project “Publishing of the Collection of Archival Documents” (Archival Documents in Relation with the Events Developing in Georgia from the 5th to the 9th of March of the Year of 1956.
The Institute for the Development of Freedom of Information (the IDFI) together with the Archive Administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia aims to develop the archive business and researches on the archival documents in Georgia by making careful studies of the archive materials documents and afterwards by publishing those documents in periodicals, will invite qualified scholars and researchers to provide this work.
Within the frameworks of the project, the scholars guided and supported by the IDFI and the Archive Administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia will search for, select, examine and study archive materials. The selected documents will be published in collection periodicals strictly according to the originals and will be accompanied by explanations of scholars and related vocabulary. The electronic version of the publication will be uploaded on IDFI web-page and will be accessible for everyone by internet.
Such a collection of documents will enable both scholars and the society in general to get to know and understand the real environment of the Soviet Georgia way of being, which for almost 70 years was hidden and known as classified information.
The first collection of works will be dedicated to the events developed in the 5-9 March of 1956 when Soviet troops execute first antigovernment riots in Soviet Georgia after Stalin’s death. Due to lack of information, it is not known till now, what was the realm of these events. Was this just the protest of the Georgian society against new policy of the Soviet State declared in the secret speech the of the First Secretary of the Central Committee of Communist Party of the USSR Nikita Khrushchev “the Personality Cult and its Consequences” or it was the protest with ethnic content?
Most of the history of Soviet Georgia is still unstudied and the series of the publication of archival documents will help to fill that gap.
Addressing the Need
History of the 20th century of Georgia is the least studied period in the current Georgian historiography. It is not a secret to anyone that during the 70 years of Soviet totalitarian rule, a series of serious falsifications and concealment of history and facts occurred under the condition of vehement ideological pressure. Reality, that was created by the Soviet historiography did not reflect the truth and was based on communist postulates. Actual description of existing realities was done only in official documents, but they were hidden from the society under the classification “Secret” and “Top Secret”. These documents were for the internal use only by the top officials of the Party, and could only be shared among the ruling elite.
In the modern times tendencies of declassification of the Soviet times archives have been somewhat universal and reluctant across the post Soviet space. Following the initial openness of the archives most of them have been practically closed soon after. In most of the post Soviet states, it is very difficult for a researcher to undertake any analytical work on documents due to the working procedures in the archives. It has to be noted out, that documents kept in Georgia’s archives pertain not only to contemporary history of Georgia, but also to the 20th century history of the Caucasus Region and the Soviet Union, as well as to the history of regional and global international relations. Therefore researching declassified materials kept in Georgia’s archives would give an opportunity to not only study Georgian history but to encompass a larger spectrum of the new world historiography.
It is due to the abovementioned reasons that undertaking an extensive research and publishing activities of the archival materials and other documents kept in the Georgia’s archives is so important and urgent.
Carrying out the tasks:
To provide revision and study of the history of the XX Century of Georgia the Institute for development of Freedom of Information undertakes research, analysis, study and publishing of the archival materials and educational activities.
Execution Strategy
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Searching and sorting the archival documents;
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Analyzing selected materials;
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Publishing & distributing collection of archival materials.
Searching and sorting the archival documents;
Te working group of the IDFI search and sort documents kept in the former Archive of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia and the former Archive of the Committee of State Security (KGB) of Georgia. From collected factual materials the IDFI selects documents that will be included in the published collection of archival materials.
Analyzing and researching the collected materials;
A detailed research work undertaken by the IDFI enables our expert team to analyze researched documents, prepare and provide explanations and commentaries for each of the published material. The Institute verifies provided information on accuracy when possible and prepares explanations of events or facts provided in the documents. Commentaries may include detailed information about all known persons or organizations mentioned in the document;
Additional available information and details such as who signs the document, any signature of the above standing official or any dates written on the documents are also provided in the commentary section of published documents. Each document has the summary in English and Georgian languages. In the publication the IDFI also prepares and provides the summary, preface, foreword and a glossary of thematic terminology and abbreviations.
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