Archive the linkspam
A few items specifically archivally/manuscript related:
Blood thicked with cold: A proposed law may lead to the destruction of Hungarian secret police documents preserved by the Historical Archives of Hungarian State Security:
[T]he Hungarian government is preparing to enact a new law which may lead to the blatant, politically-motivated sanitization of the country’s communist past. Allegedly out of a concern for privacy rights, citizens who were spied upon or observed by the previous regime’s state security officers may now not only ask to view their files at the Archives of Hungarian State Security in Budapest, but may also remove these preserved archival documents from the reading room, take them home and have them destroyed.
According to Bence Rétvári, a secretary of state in Hungary’s Ministry of Justice, ”A constitutional system cannot preserve documents collected through anti-constitutional means, as these are the immoral documents of an immoral regime.” The government decree makes it permissible to remove and destroy irreplaceable archival documents. Were Rétvári’s warped logic also used by authorities in other countries, we could no longer produce histories of the world’s most dictatorial and genocidal regimes.
I don't even...
It is very difficult to see the destruction of Hungarian archives as anything other than a crude political move on the part of politicians who are concerned about potentially unpleasant and embarrassing documents on their relationship with the former regime that may one day be found by historians. Such documents may even suggest that some of the most fervent anti-communist politicians today were of a rather different opinion only two decades ago.
Yeah, quite.
On another paw, however, sometimes you should ask before giving a repository your archives: a piece in the snippety bits at the beginning of today's Guardian Review section, not online, about the bequest by Richard Lancelyn Green of his amazing Conan Doyle collection to the Portsmouth Central Library indicates that although this story has a happy ending, there were serious concerns about the resources to house, catalogue and make it all available.
And on the whole, we are entirely in concurrence with yesterday's 'In Praise of' leader: In praise of … manuscripts for the nation, though I am all for the mention of the significance of resources available for processing. And, hey, an intelligent remark in the Comments!
John Le Carre is doing fine, the manuscripts we need saving are sitting in many of these little soceity's [sic] collections, they demonstrate our local and national history in a multitude of ways and deserve far more respect than some tedious spy novels.
Tell me about it. (More about the Le Carre presentation of literary archives to the Bodleian.)
Records of Victorian women murderers and thieves placed online. We feel that possibly this was a practicable project because there were far fewer of them than male criminals - plus possibly more likely to have been paroled.
***
The Saturday interview: Susie Orbach. Yet again, I think we see journos bemused by Orbach's refusal to feed them sound-bitey titbits and suggestion that There Are No Simple Answers.
Suzanne Moore would like pro-feminist men to speak up a bit more.
The Ms Senior America pageant was created in 1972 to challenge a culture that worshipped youth and dreaded wrinkles. The pageant would embrace the experience, wisdom, dynamism and beauty of the older woman - even if a few had been surgically assisted to escape the ravages of time.
Hmmmm.... errrr.... no, I'm not sure what I think about this, apart, possibly, from 'deuced un-British, what?' - I can't honestly envisage many of the women of my generation with PhDs and serious careers (including some who were involved in the 1970 Miss World protest) being interested in this sort of thing. Plus, if it is all about talents and graces and personal style acquired through lived experience and maturity, what is with those froofy dresses?
***
And spotted on a listserv posting, that Rouge Dragon Pursuivant is on email - username, yes, rougedragon [at] The College of Arms - yes, it has a website, how very different from the days when I was working there and as I recall, typewriters were about the highest tech around.
This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/1387307.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
comments.