Tomáš Černušák

New digitizing projects in the Moravian Provincial Archives in Brno

The Moravian Provincial Archives, the oldest institution of its kind in the Czech Republic,

was founded in 1839. In 2007 it took up residence in a multi-purpose building that provides

perfect conditions for a long term depositing of valuable archive documents, for scientific

research and the work of archivists and which makes the research of archive documents

carried out by local and foreign scientists easily accessible and comfortable. In the past ten

years the Moravian Provincial Archives has successfully taken part or has been involved in

several different projects with the aim to record and digitalise archive documents. The

Archives did this either by carrying out the particular project on its own, or by becoming a

member of a currently running project (i.e. Monasterium) or by designing completely new

projects (Acta Publica). Currently, there seems to be a new tendency initiated by various local

or foreign organisations, which have declared and made offers to the Moravian Provincial

Archives to record and digitalise particular types or groups of archive documents. They will

use these documents and records for their own projects and plans in accordance with the

conditions stated in the contract with the Archives. During the realisation of these projects,

which will always be conducted within the premises of the Moravian Provincial Archives and

supervised by the archive staff, the Archives will provide access to the archive documents and

coordinate manipulation with them. The technical and administrative expenses to cover the

recording and digitalisation will be borne by the ordering party. The Moravian Provincial

Archives will receive the digitally recorded archives documents in a copy for its own use.

The interest in digitalisation of a wide range of archive documents is an important part of a

project in which the Moravian Provincial Archives will participate in the next couple of years.

The American governmental organisation „United States Holocaust Memorial Museum“,

which is situated in Washington, aims to collect and make available digital copies of

manuscripts and historical records that relate to the persecution of Jews in the time of the Nazi

occupation of Czechoslovakia from 1939 till 1945. This work will take place in the Moravian

Provincial Archives in Brno and in its particular district archives in the whole region of South

Moravia. In our archive the archive documents concerning papers of highest importance for

the political administration of Moravia (Police Files, Gendarmerie Files) can be taken into

account. There are about 21 files in the Moravian Provincial Archives in Brno and 65 files in

the particular district archives in South Moravia that have already been defined and pointed

out. The extent of the digitalisation will increase in the next 5 years to 2 million pages of

archive material.

The next project that has been currently conducted for a couple of months in the Moravian

Provincial Archives by the American organisation „Family Search International“ is the digital

recording of a wide range of historical documents. With the help of its own staff and technical

equipment the organisation has been gathering and purchasing digital records of those archive

documents that contain information about the history of the population in South Moravia and

that are used by people who want to learn more about their family history or are interested in

genealogy, as a supplementary resource to the parish vital registers. In particular these are the

individual census records from 1857 to 1929, which are deposited in the district archives in

the region of South Moravia. In this case it is a way to preserve these archive documents, for

the quality of the paper is very poor and this is causing their gradual destruction. The next

type of archive documents that the previously mentioned organisation has been gathering and

preserving are documents from different financial authorities from 1667 to 1768 and a great

amount of Grund Books. The cooperation between the Moravian Provincial Archives and the

organisation „Family Search International“ is planned to continue for several years – the

digitalisation should cover about 661 microfilms and about more than 1 km of archive

documents and resources.

Another organisation with which the Moravian Provincial Archives in Brno cooperates in

terms of digitalisation is the non-profit organisation Terezín Initiative Institute. The aim of the

Institute is to pursue and support the digital recording of application documents for the issuing

of identity cards for the Jewish inhabitants of Brno from 1939 to 1941. These are a part of the

files of the Police Headquarters of Brno. It is not a tremendous amount of archive documents

though – only 2.5 boxes. Besides this the organisation can also pick up rare documents from

these files that relate to its area of interest and add them to the main subject of digitalisation.

In a short time the purchasing of digital records will be started by Československá obec

legionářská. The cooperation also covers the organisation of exhibitions and lectures on the

topic of the Czechoslovak Legions in the First World War, alongside the archive material

from the Museum of Resistance, which shall be scanned. Even though this does not exist

anymore it used to store various valuable collections on this topic. Besides old maps and

posters the main aim of the project is the digitalisation of the photographs that document the

activities of the Czechoslovak Legions in 1914 to 1918 in Russia, France and Italy. The

digitalisation will start this year and continue till 2018.

The last current project is the cooperation with the Department of the Auxiliary Historical

Sciences and Archive Studies of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Masaryk University. The

main aim of this cooperation is the gradual digitalisation of the commissions, i.e. normative

historical documents from the 17th and 18th century that are stored in several files in the

Moravian Provincial Archives and the creation of descriptive metadata. The active

participation of the students of the mentioned department is assumed and expected. The

project is being designed at the moment. The particular term for the start of the project has not

been set yet due to the broad range of other currently running project.