Archives and society: The exhibition "Keepers of the future. Traditions of the Historical and Archival Institute" opened in Moscow

September 29, 2016 in Moscow in the building of the Historical Archives Institute was opened an exhibition "Keepers of the future. Traditions of the Historical and Archival Institute".

The exhibition project is timed to the 85th anniversary of the Historical Archives Institute, one of the oldest universities in Moscow, brought up a whole galaxy of outstanding scientists-historians and archivists, the founders of scientific schools.

The exposition features documents and photographs from the collections of the Central State Archive of the City of Moscow, the Russian Academy of Sciences Archives, the Scientific archive RSUH, personal archives of the Institute of teachers.

The Historical and Archive Institute (Institute of archive in 1930-1932) was organized by the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and SNK on September 3, 1930 on the basis of archival courses Narcompros. Archives, according to the Soviet leadership, had become one of the frontiers in the formation of the ideology of the new society, engaging in scientific turnover materials of the recent past, promoting the socialist construction. Discussion and dialogue with the authorities for decades formed not only a unique creative team, but also the only one in the country, until the early 1990s, the historic university, and the source-document both directions. By the 1960-1970 in the majority of archives and historical institutions, half of all graduates of the Soviet Union MGIAI worked. 

Extant documents tell about the organization of educational process: curriculum, M. N. Pokrovsky Institute charter history, the initiator of the creation of the institution and the head of the national archives system in the 1920s - early 1930s; documents on the appointment of scholarships; photos of the first college student issues; materials on the reorganization of the Institute in different periods of its development. 

Considerable attention in the exhibition is a set of documents and photos dedicated to the participation of students and teachers in the Great Patriotic War: memoirs of the Institute Director, Professor P. P. Smirnov, student pictures on a mission to rescue the institute and who fought at the front and rear of the enemy.

A special place in the exhibition is given to those who have left an indelible mark in the annals of Science and Higher Education Historical Archives Russia - teachers. Their selfless work contributed to the search for new ways of development of archives in order to preserve the historical memory of many generations. Textbooks and monographs, clubs, offices and departments, lectures and seminars, thousands of trained archival work - all this is reflected in the exhibition project.