COURAGE

ryšiai tarp kolekcijų

The National Archive of the Republic of Moldova (ANRM) is the most extensive document repository in the country and holds the most representative collection of archival sources in Moldova. In the interwar period, the Romanian administration created a branch of the State Archives in Bessarabia (1918–1925), which was later reorganised into the Chișinău Directorate of the State Archives (Direcția Arhivelor Statului Chișinău). Immediately after the Second World War, the Soviet authorities merged the former Bessarabian provincial archives (which were still holding files that had not been evacuated to Romania in 1944) and the former central archives of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR). As a result, two main archives were created in 1945: the Central State Historical Archive of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR) and the Central State Archive of the October Revolution and Socialist Construction of the MSSR. These two central archives were merged in 1958 under the name of the former. The National Archive in its current form was established in 1990, through the merger of the Central State Historical Archive of the MSSR with the Central State Archive of Photo- and Cinematographic Documents of the MSSR, which had been created in 1977. At present, the National Archive of the Republic of Moldova preserves all the historical archival collections belonging to various administrative, judicial, ecclesiastical, economic, and cultural institutions of Bessarabia during the period 1812–1944, with the exception of collections transferred to the Ukrainian regional archives of Odessa and Chernivtsi/Cernăuţi, as well as certain collections that were evacuated to Romania after 1944. The institution also holds archival materials of the MSSR from the administrative, economic, and cultural spheres, as well as the main administrative archives of the Republic of Moldova, including materials related to the governmental institutions, a number of private collections and personal archives, etc. The documents stored in the National Archive cover the economic, social, political, and cultural history of this area from the fifteenth century to the present. The archival holdings consist of over 947,000 files, grouped into around 2000 archival funds and collections. The archive also preserves a valuable collection of audio-video materials, numbering over 257,000 documents and other related materials. The history of the Moldavian SSR during the period 1940–1941 and 1944–1989 is reflected in several categories of archival documents, including papers issued by central government institutions, ministries, state committees and commissions, judicial organs and the Prosecutor General’s Office, various industrial enterprises, cultural and educational institutions, etc. In 2011, a number of collections formerly held in the Archive of the Intelligence and Security Service of the Republic of Moldova, mostly files dealing with significant and representative cases of opposition to the Soviet regime, were transferred to the National Archive. The transfer occurred as a consequence of the activity of the Commission for the Study and Evaluation of the Communist Totalitarian Regime in Moldova, which recommended it as a means of increasing the accessibility of these archival records. However, the transfer process is still incomplete, while the access of interested researchers and the wider public to these funds remains heavily restricted. 

Although the National Archives of Estonia started operating on 1 January 1999, the system of state archives was formed in the early years of the Republic of Estonia. On 3 March 1920, the Commission for Archives initiated the establishment of the Central State Archives in Tartu to preserve documents from historically important institutions, and the State Archives in Tallinn for documents from institutions that were still active.

During Soviet times, the archives were maintained but were restructured. At that time, the archives were controlled by Moscow.

The old structure was restored in the 1990s. According to the Archives Act adopted in 1998, the National Archives of Estonia started its activities at the beginning of 1999. The new structure included the Historical Archives in Tartu, the State Archives and the Film Archives in Tallinn, and 15 land archives all over Estonia. The structure of the National Archives changed in connection with the construction of the new main building of the archives. By 2017, the National Archives had structural units in Tartu, Tallinn, Rakvere and Valga.

The National Archives have made great efforts to digitise a large number of archival records which are available on its web page for digitalised archival sources, called Saaga.