Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A Usable Collection
A Usable
Collection
Essays in Honour of Jaap Kloosterman
on Collecting Social History
Edited by Aad Blok, Jan Lucassen and Huub Sanders
AUP.nl
A Usable
Collection
A Usable
Collection
Essays in Honour of Jaap Kloosterman
on Collecting Social History
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
A u s ab le c olle c ti on
|5
Contents
Preface
Henk Wals
10
12
24
40
I.2
56
I.3
66
84
I.5
100
I.6
108
I.7
142
I.4
c onte nts
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A Broken Mirror
The Library of Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis
Bert Altena
158
II.2
170
II.3
186
II.4
II.5
208
II.6
222
II.7
234
II.8
240
II.9
264
276
284
292
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
302
310
318
330
342
352
III.6 Sources for Writing the History of Russia and the Soviet Union
National and Transnational Perspectives
Gijs Kessler
376
386
400
IV.2
408
IV.3
418
c onte nts
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IV.4
426
IV.5
434
IV.6
Gunnar Mendoza
A Life to Share
Rossana Barragn Romano
442
Jaap Kloosterman
A Tentative Bibliography
454
464
Index
470
Preface
Much of what I know about the iish and about collecting social history I
learned from Jaap Kloosterman. This is understandable, since we teamed up
for decades running the iish: first Jaap was deputy director and I head of
operations, later Jaap became director, and I advanced to deputy director.
We interacted daily, sometimes in very intense sessions in times of crisis, as
well as on our many long drives together to the Czech Republic or Hungary
to fetch collections there. Jaap and I often shared the same view about many
things. Whenever we differed, our positions were very complementary. In
2006, when I left the iish to become the director of the Huygens Institute,
I was suddenly on my own and without a sparring partner. That was an adjustment for me, and my guess is that Jaap had to get used to it as well.
I have returned to the iish and once again see Jaap daily. I still value his
opinion. That each of us now has a different role matters little to me. We
interact as we always have, even though Jaaps office has been moved a few
doors further away. He is an exceptionally valuable advisor, and I hope to
continue to benefit from his input for quite a while.
Jaap Kloosterman has been involved with the iish throughout his career.
In 1969 he started working at the Institute in the Bakunin Department.
In 1985 he became deputy director of Collections, and he was appointed
director in 1993, when Eric Fischer left for a position at the Verbond van
Verzekeraars. Jaaps appointment was not taken for granted within the
Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (knaw). Board members of the
knaw usually take the view that acclaimed scholars make the best directors
of its institutes. Appointing Kloosterman a university dropout may have
been an occupational accident within the erudite society of the Academy,
but the choice was very fortunate indeed for the iish.
In hindsight, after all, Jaap Kloosterman has in my view been one of the
best directors the iish has had and easily holds a candle to Posthumus,
Rter, and Fischer. Eric Fischer, during his relatively brief period as director between 1984 and 1993, gave the Institute a complete overhaul, setting
up a research department, acquiring the new premises at Cruquiusweg,
and extending collection development beyond Europe. And it was Jaap
Kloostermans innovative spirit that guided the iish into an unprecedented heyday in the 1990s. Jaap introduced information technology in the iish
very early on, revolutionized collection processing, and was aware before
anyone else of the enormous impact the Internet would have. Under his aegis, the iish became a pioneer in many fields and became renowned as a
superior international research institute.
Jaap Kloosterman had a unique managerial style that is difficult to describe. He did not operate according to a set protocol. Coaching may best
pre f ac e
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capture his approach. Jaap often talks with co-workers, possibly over dinner
at whatever happens to be his favourite restaurant at the time. His impressive knowledge of virtually all areas the Institute covers may unintentionally be overwhelming, but he rarely imposes his ideas, at least not noticeably.
Jaaps most distinctive trait is his ability to relativize. What many people
would call wonderful, he will at best label nice or usable, often preceding such modifiers with the qualifier fairly. The title of this book A Usable
Collection refers to this practice. In addition, the term usable is the shortest possible summary of Jaaps chief principle in developing and cataloguing
the iish collection: it should be usable for researchers. This was the basis for
many of his decisions, which in many cases were years ahead of what was to
become standard practice in traditional library and archival circles.
Jaap Kloosterman gave his co-workers extensive latitude. Thanks to his
efforts, the IISH has become a setting where creativity and individual initiative thrive. Jaap is immensely tolerant of deviant, wayward behaviour. In
fact, he appreciates it. This receptive disposition appeals to people of any ilk
and all political affiliations and encourages them to contribute to the iish.
In seeking out knowledge, Jaap leaves no stone unturned. His opinions
and ideas derive from his great familiarity with the subject concerned. In
debates he is rarely at a loss for words and is very convincing. This coincides with another trait: careful reflection about every word he puts in writing. Jaaps publications sometimes have an extended gestation period, but,
once they are done, they do not contain one word too many or too few and
are not subject to revision. He despises peer review for this reason, since he
believes that all suggested changes will mean deterioration. He is probably
right about that.
Many co-workers, former co-workers, and other contacts have nonetheless contributed to this volume, edited by Aad Blok, Jan Lucassen, and Huub
Sanders. Thanks to the authors and the editors, the result is impressive in
terms of both size and content. It is not a traditional Festschrift serving a
hagiographic purpose but a serious work about a subject particularly dear to
Jaap Kloosterman: the iish. We hope this book reflects the immense merit
that Jaap has had for the Institute, and that remains undiminished.
Henk Wals
Introduction to
A Usable Collection
Aad Blok, Jan Lucassen
and Huub Sanders
Jaap Kloosterman and Jan Lucassen, Rebels with a Cause: Five centuries of social history
collected by the International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam 2010).
i ntrodu c ti on
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14
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
2009 a small team at the iish conducted the memory project, from which
selected results are presented in this Festschrift.
This involvement was expected to conclude on 1 July 2013, when Jaap
Kloosterman turned 65, the official retirement age in the Netherlands at the
time. Circumstances at the iish, then undergoing one of the most extensive
reorganizations in its existence, however, led him to stay on. He remained
head of the collection development department until the end of 2009. From
November 2012 until December 2013 he manned this post again. From
November 2011 until September 2012 he once again served as deputy director. And at the time this is written, he continues to advise the present director, who started 1 November 2012. Nonetheless, from the middle of 2012,
management and co-workers alike suggested that Jaaps retirement would
be a logical moment to honour him with a dedicated publication. An editorial committee was formed to coordinate the necessary preparations.
Collections
The earliest discussions made clear that this volume was not to become a
standard Festschrift or liber amicorum. From the outset, it was understood
that for someone who has been so influential in the development of the
iish and in its collections in particular, the focus should primarily be on collections, libraries, and archives. Libraries and archives may be seen in several ways. They may be considered the laboratories of the historians, a conditio
sine qua non for historical research. As we know from Latour and Woolgar,
chemists and biologists produce scientific facts in their laboratories. But
they are not the sole creators of facts. In their analysis in Laboratory Life, they
credit many more people of different ranks, professions, and positions with
promoting the creation of these facts.3 And even the material objects present play a role on an equal footing. In the analogy of the iish as a laboratory, social historians work through and select material they can use for their
histories, their facts, and their creation of knowledge. They do this with raw
material that upon closer consideration already consists of knowledge with
a certain structure that was often devised previously by social historians in
a different capacity or produced and organized by the social agents: activists transformed into archivists or historians. Archivists and librarians subsequently contribute their own viewpoints in the creative process. What a
historian finds and is therefore able to use depends largely on how these
other professionals have handled the raw material. Willingly or otherwise,
they initiate still another process in the historical trade, colloquially known
as archivization. What has been kept, inventoried, and classified, has, because
of those actions, come to outrank documents overlooked or neglected.
Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory life: The social construction of scientific facts
(Beverly Hills, 1979).
i ntrodu c ti on
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In work in libraries and archives, the value or quantity of the curated documents sometimes controls the minds of the staff. Systems are built, remodelled, and ground again and again at the risk of becoming a goal in their
own right. Jaap has consistently combated this outcome, from his early days
in the library commission of the iish, through his term as deputy director
and head of the collections department, responsible for the introduction
of library automation, to his position as general director. He has pursued
a pragmatic course in all dealings with collections. In the end, the use of a
collection was what mattered, not its revered status.
People familiar with the iish take for granted that the archives and collections in its care come from individuals or organizations. We should be
aware that this means there is no legal obligation whatsoever to collect
these materials. Conversely, these individuals and organizations are not required to keep their own records, and there is no guarantee that the knowledge about the specific world they contain will be manifested at all. It exists
by virtue of the deliberate choice mentioned earlier. Quite a number of
collectors contributing to the iish collections were actively engaged in ensuring that material in danger of neglect would survive. The usual motivation for these efforts was to make the voices of the people who produced
the material resound.
Archive Particularities
Jaap has experienced all the particularities of archives in his career. Baptized
by fire in 1969 as a young man editing Bakunins texts, he became familiar
with all that archives could represent. As a historian and collector, he knew
that archives were not only sources of information but were also sources
of legitimacy and recognition, especially in our highly politicized field of
interest. He witnessed two occupations of the Institute, in 1979 and 1984
by groups connected to the successors of the pre-Franco Spanish cnt/fai.
In both cases, the occupation was intended to obtain the cnt/fai archives,
which the Institute had rescued in 1939. The group able to claim ownership
would clearly solidify its claim to political legitimacy as well. As director,
Jaap managed many years later to deescalate the conflict and broker an
agreement, whereby these archives were deposited in Amsterdam.
Jaaps continuous interest in Russia visualizes many of the elements mentioned above as well. The highly political nature of arrangements with regard to archives is clear. In 1991 Jaap seized with unequalled skill the opportunity when communism fell in the Soviet Union. The change was both
promising and ominous. Many in Russian archival circles were happy to
work with Western partners and grant access to the sources hidden during the long years of the Soviet regime. Ironically, sources directly relating
16
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
to communism and the labour movement were now in jeopardy. Jaap was
aware of this and invested considerable efforts in maintaining the collection
of the successors of the imel.4
Cooperation with Memorial in microfilming records of Gulag prisoners
tied in closely with the original function of the iish of rescuing sensitive
material not produced by but contrary to the incumbent political powers.
The recent political developments in Russia and the Ukraine attest to the
wisdom of the course taken back then, whatever the future outcome of the
present conflicts. Jaap does not consider states by definition to be the sacrosanct protectors of the historical heritage of its citizens.
Another aspect of the new relations with the Russian Federation after
1991 manifested in the restitution issues. Overall, the fascinating story is relatively simple, but its details are amazing. German agencies in World War
ii seized archives and libraries in occupied Europe from those perceived as
enemies of the Nazis. Some parts of the iish prewar collection suffered that
fate. In May 1945 these collections, or whatever had survived the acts of war,
found in the areas under Red Army control were seized by the special archival units of the Soviets. These collections were brought to Moscow and
kept in a special secret archival institution of which the existence was disclosed only in 1991. The ensuing struggle for restitution clearly revealed that
opinions vary on what archives represent.5 These archives undoubtedly belonged to owners from the World War ii allies of the Soviet Union but were
nevertheless classified by Russian officials as war trophies. From a distance,
Jaap followed all the negotiations with great interest.6 Though always pragmatic, in one instance he nonetheless adopted a principle stance: when the
Russian counterparts suggested that a custodial fee was due for keeping the
archives in Moscow from 1945 on, Jaap refused. He was not willing to pay
for a service never requested.
Cooperation with Russian people and institutions is a special case of international cooperation. The International Association of Labour History
Institutions (ialhi) is a central force in the international relations of the
Institute. This association, which was formed in 1970 and included the iish
as a prominent member from the start, became a platform for cooperation
in a sensitive world of archives that often originated from political parties
and trade unions.7 In the beginning old grudges made for slow progress in
cooperation. From 1987 to 1996 the iish housed the associations secretariat,
4
5
6
7
About the imel: Vladimir Mosolov, IMel citadel partijnoj ortodoksii iz istorii Instituta
Marksizma-Leninizma pri ck kpss 1921 1956 (Moscow, 2010).
See Patricia Grimsted, Eric Ketelaar, and F.J. Hoogewoud (eds), Returned from Russia:
Nazi archival plunder in Western Europe and recent restitution issues (Builth Wells, 2007).
Eric Ketelaar was important in the early stages of these negotiations.
See: Dieter Schuster and Rdiger Zimmermann, Chronik und Dokumente zur
frhen Geschichte der International Association of Labour History Institutions
(ialhi) (2008), available at: http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bibliothek/05588.pdf; last
accessed 8 April 2014.
i ntrodu c ti on
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which was run by Jaap. Under his aegis, membership of the ialhi rose substantially. At the same time, the scope was expanded beyond Europe and
the United States to comprise institutions in the global South.8 While this
would merit a separate contribution in this volume, it is definitely thanks
to Jaaps efforts that this very diverse group of libraries, archives, research
institutions, and other organizations has become a serious and productive
International in our field of interest. This association is now equipped to
deal with the complicated eu bureaucracy in raising funds to produce international tools for social historians such as the hope project.9
8
9
18
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
On the Nettlau collection, see: Maria Hunink, Das Schicksal einer Bibliothek: Max
Nettlau und Amsterdam (Assen, 1982), pp. 4-42.
i ntrodu c ti on
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riod when Jaap was at the helm of the iish, in part during earlier periods of
the Institute, and in part at other institutions similar to the iish.
Overview
The three steps involved in building a usable social history collection as explained above are represented or depicted in the contributions to this volume in a variety of ways. Most authors deal with the first step of the actual
creation of a collection or part of one. The first section, The Emergence
of Social History Collections, offers a variety of perspectives on the early
history of social history collections, as practised by the Institutes founder Posthumus. Eric Ketelaars Prolegomena to a Social History of Dutch
Archives sketches the larger infrastructural context of writing the history of archival collections. Huub Sanders explores the personal history of
Posthumus in an interview with his daughter Claire Posthumus and covers
the modest professional contacts of Posthumus with the great Dutch historian of his era Johan Huizinga in another chapter. Alex Geelhoed contributes
to the early post-1945 history of the Institute in the context of the reconstruction of the Netherlands in his portrait of Posthumus student Cornelis
de Dood. Co Seegers adds the economic history aspect of collection building
by portraying the recent acquisition of an important addition to the neha
collection. One prominent iish competitor, the Marx-Engels Institute and
its famous first director Rjazanov, features in Irina Novichenkos fascinating story of Harry Stevens activities as a correspondent for the early Soviet
acquisition endeavours, while Francisca de Haan and Annette Mevis explore
how Posthumus was involved in setting up the International Archives for
the Womens Movement (Internationaal Archief voor de Vrouwenbeweging,
iav) and the iish.
The next section, The European Collections of the iish: Acquisitions and
Catalogues, is focused on what could be called the classical core of the iish
collection and its relations with European sister institutes. The politics and
strategies around building a social history collection may be traced in the account from Bert Altena of how Posthumus tried to incorporate the library of
Dutch early socialist and anarchist leader Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis.
Collection building may as well be seen in the essay by Wouter Steenhaut
on the deliberate strategy of dispersion by Hendrik de Mans heirs of his
personal papers, as well as in the chapter by Margreet Schrevel on the laborious manoeuvring around the Dutch Communist Party archives. In the contribution from Rdiger Zimmermann, we discover the relation of the iish
with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, which progressed from its tense start to
increasing dtente, while Karl-Heinz Roth describes in his essay how Jaap
and the iish were involved in founding the Stiftung fur Sozialgeschichte,
two examples of the importance of institutional relations in this context.
Another specifically Dutch institutional context is the background to the
incorporation of the knaw library in the iish library collection, as told by
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk. Marien van der Heijden and Franck Veyron,
Andrew Lee, Kees Rodenburg, Marcel van der Linden, Francis Ronsin, and
Jenneke Quast in their contributions in this section each focus on a specific
collection or document in their explorations of topics that Jaap cherishes,
remarkably all of them concerning writings in the Romance languages
French and Spanish.
The second step, processing and cataloguing, is represented in this section by the contributions of Coen Marinus on the origins of the cataloguing
rules, and how this process has driven changes in iish cataloguing practices.
Henk Wals concludes this section by documenting the essential role Jaap
played in the early digitization of both cataloguing and providing access.
In this volume published to honour the man who started his iish career working on the Bakunin project, the ample consideration for the iish
Eastern European collections and activities in the third section (The iish
and Eastern Europe) is perfectly logical. The story of the acquisition of
the Posrednil and Slovobodnoe Slovo publishing houses, as related by Els
Wagenaar, offers a fine example of the kind of small collections special to
Jaap as a connoisseur. The essays by Francesca Gori and Nanci Adler connect
very directly to the aforementioned essential role Jaap played in the post1990 era in the restitution and preservation of archives that became endangered by the end of Soviet communism. So do Touraj Atabaki and Solmaz
Rustamova-Towhidi more indirectly in their contribution on the politics of
archives in Azerbaijan in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. A remarkable
form of ensuring sustained access to the newly opened Soviet archives is
the ArcheoBiblioBase (abb), the online directory of Russian archives and archival repositories, developed and maintained with extensive support from
the iish. The story of its origins and development over the past decades as
told here by the projects indefatigable coordinator and advocate Patricia
Grimsted underlines Jaaps pivotal role as facilitating advisor, with deep
concern for the accessibility of collections. The activities to enable ongoing
and improved access to archives in Russia and the former Soviet Union, in
which the iish has played such an important though not always very visible role, has in fact brought about a new frontier in historiography, as
Gijs Kessler analyses in his contribution on the effects of these newly available sources on Russian and global social history. Lex Heerma van Vosss essay, concluding this section, brings to our attention another example of the
early adoption of new digital techniques devised under Jaaps directorship:
the process of making available the complete Bakunin Archive on cd-rom,
which in a way may be interpreted as Jaaps iish career coming full circle.
The last section, The iish Goes Global, brings us to the most recent
emergence of globalization in both research policy and collection development at the Institute. Starting with the establishment of a Turkish department, as described in Zlfikar zdoans contribution and followed by the
description by Roel Meijer of the acquisition of Egyptian and Sudanese communist documents, these collections were among the first steps on a new
i ntrodu c ti on
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22
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
torical knowledge, which in turn implies that all activities involving writing and collecting history are intensely personal. Because of this personal
character, it is also contingent and narrative. Whatever laws and structures
we think we discover as social historians, human agency will always play a
role. In collecting and in history writing, people make deliberate choices. If
they are helped by pragmatic people with usable collections in institutions
that do not forget their origins, they will enlarge knowledge for the benefit
of all of us.
Acknowledgements
A volume as complex as this one could be realized only with the help of
many. The initial editorial board consisted of Aad Blok, Marien van der
Heijden, Marcel van der Linden, Jan Lucassen, Coen Marinus, Elise van
Nederveen Meerkerk, Jenneke Quast, Huub Sanders, and Eric-Jan Zrcher.
Henk Wals has greatly supported the entire process. Lee and Phyllis
Mitzman worked on translations and editing English-language texts.
Additional translations were done by David Fernbach and Tineke van Buul.
Copy editing was provided, meticulously as always, by Bart Hageraats.
Images from the iish collections were reproduced by Hans Luhrs and
Vimala Tummers. Ivo Sikkema, Ruparo designed the book, and at aup,
Saskia Gieling and Rob Wadman have provided wonderful support. Thanks
are due to all.
How to qualify for the directorate of the iish? The nearly eighty-year history of the Institute reveals a clear precedent in terms of formal qualifications: a Masters degree from a Dutch university (one director) or, better yet,
a phd degree (all others), to be supplemented by a professorial chair (five
out of eight) seem to have become prerequisites.1 Of course, many more requirements apply, but the director serving longer than any other so far is a
remarkable exception. Jaap Kloosterman, deputy director 1987-1993 and general director 1993-2007, was enrolled in the Dutch philology and literature
programme at Utrecht University for a few years but never seems to have
tried to obtain academic credentials.
*
1
I am grateful to Aad Blok and Huub Sanders for their useful comments. Any errors,
however, are entirely mine.
N.W. Posthumus 1935-1940; 1945-1952 (professor University of Amsterdam),
A.J.C. Rter 1952-1965 (professor Leiden University), F. de Jong Edz. 1965-1977 (professor University of Amsterdam), J.R. van der Leeuw 1978-1983 (ma in History, also
1984-1986, when he was officially still director, but his successor was actually in
charge), E.J. Fischer 1984-1993 (professor University of Amsterdam), J. Kloosterman
1993-2007 (deputy director 1987-1993), E.J. Zrcher 2007-2012 (professor Leiden
University), H. Wals 2012 to present (phd, University of Amsterdam).
l u c as s e n H ow to Qu ali f y ?
|25
Nevertheless, as many contributions to this volume indicate, Jaap is regarded as having been an immense success as a director, a function that has
become more challenging since the Institute became part of the prestigious Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences of the Netherlands in 1979. If we
count Jaaps years as deputy director, no other person has been at the helm
of the institute for so long, not even the Institutes founder Posthumus.
Apparently, Jaap developed the skills necessary to be such a successful director in different ways than his predecessors.2
In hindsight he appears to have pursued in four main life courses, each
comprising a significant minor pursuit. While they did not culminate jointly
in any kind of official degree, he nevertheless developed various skills that
enabled him to become a successful director. With imperceptible guidance
he is unlikely to have harboured a longstanding ambition to become director of the Institute, the explanation below actually suggests the contrary
he became proficient in a great many languages (both active and passive),
learned to write fluently and clearly, acquired practical knowledge about
running libraries and archives, and gained an extremely broad and in-depth
understanding of history (especially that of leftist movements), and finally
became skilled in the art of diplomacy. I will not systematically elaborate on
each of these skills but will demonstrate how, when, and where he acquired
them by highlighting some of his activities.3
It follows from the nature of this volume that this contribution was prepared without involving Jaap Kloosterman. I also chose not to interview persons close to him
now or in the past, because Jaap deeply cherishes his privacy, as all his colleagues
and friends are aware. These two circumstances have severely limited this effort.
Nevertheless, Jaap, a strong advocate of making documents available through
archives, libraries, and online, will be pleased to see how much information is
publicly available, including about his own activities.
I have chosen not to cover what Jaap learned from his mother (Wilhelmina
Gerarda Maria Kieft, Baarn 1918 - Utrecht 1989) and father and others. This is
not because I consider this to be unimportant but simply because I have no
information about this. Moreover, this is not a biography but merely an impressionist sketch. Biographical data were obtained from the Centraal Bureau voor
Genealogie, the Hague.
Utrechts Nieuwsblad, 10-06-1966, p. 2.
26
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
9
10
l u c as s e n H ow to Qu ali f y ?
|27
may have prepared him for his fourth minor pursuit, which was computer hardware and software (see below). At the time, it was still very remote
from institutes such as the iish, although our operations are now inconceivable without them.
11
D.M., Een vriendelijke goedlachse jongen, p. 3.
12 In Stemmen he had already reported on the Dutch novelist Willem Frederik
Hermans.
13
Utrechts Nieuwsblad, 07-12-1967, p. 9, Trophonios krijgt een nieuwe hoofdredacteur.
On how Jaap was recruited for this new job, see D.M., Een vriendelijke goedlachse
jongen.
14
iish, Archives Politeia, available at: http://search.socialhistory.org/Record/
ARCH00453; last accessed 30 May 2014..
15
F. de Jong Edz., Macht en Inspraak. De strijd om de democratisering van de universiteit van
Amsterdam (Baarn, 1981), pp. 102-104.
16
I have found only three issues of Poly-Rood (also spelled Polirood): 2e Jg No. 10, 14-06-
28
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
17
18
19
20
21
1968 [8 pp; monthly]; 3e jg No. 1, 06-09-1968 [20 pp] and 3e jg No. 2, 17-10-1968 [8
pp], all in IISH, Archives Politeia Amsterdam, folder 1.
Jaap had already acquired some writing experience as one of the editors of the
school newspaper Stemmen, in which he published his own work as well.
Jaap stopped being active in Politeia after August 1969 while already employed
at the iish when he had agreed to launch a new periodical for Politeia/svb, see
iish, Stan Poppe papers 76, letter from Ed Elbers to Jaap Kloosterman, Nijmegen
24 August 1969. Hunink, Kloosterman, and Rogier, Voor Arthur Lehning [see fn 46], p.
484.
For a history of this political party, see Paul Denekamp, Bert Freriks, Gerrit
Voerman, Sporen van pacifistisch socialisme: bibliografie en bronnen betreffende de psp
(Amsterdam, 1993).
Jaap Kloosterman, psp: Wat te doen? and Wat doet de psp?, Trophonios 5, No. 18
(21 February 1969), p. 3.
iish, Archives psp, 532; Ibid., Archives psp Utrecht. I thank my colleague Jack
Hofman for his assistance.
l u c as s e n H ow to Qu ali f y ?
|29
trated weekly of 8 pages, published by a foundation under Dutch law supported by Utrecht University, but independent as regards content. On a cold
December afternoon in 1967 Jaap was at work in the antiquarian bookshop
of Frans la Poutre in Schoutenstraat (Utrecht), where besides second-hand
books political pamphlets and graphic art were for sale, when he was asked
to take on this new job. He will not have regretted it, although after a year
and a half, he appears to have become somewhat bored with it and grew
uncertain about the effect of all his work.22
The topics Jaap wrote about were always serious and in most cases concerned international politics, especially China, Vietnam, Africa, and South
America. The first of his contributions to Troof (as the student paper was
nicknamed) dealt with the war in Angola and the Johnson Tribunal. He authored a total of 45 articles, on average more than two articles a month, at
least one in every second issue. This output exceeded by far what Dutch students were required to produce in their first two years at university! At the
time studying at Dutch humanities departments meant listening and taking notes while professors lectured and subsequently reading ten to twenty
books. Students sat for their exams orally, often at the private home of their
professor. Hardly any written work was required.
One may wonder what role Jaap played in this journal, which must have
included many dissatisfied individuals on its staff, as suggested by the remark made by Helge Bonset at the occasion of the farewell gathering for
their colleague Han Heidema: Han is gewoon een gelukkige tevreden jongen, wel een beetje vreemd voor een Troofredacteur, eigenlijk. [Han is simply a happy, contented young man rather unusual for a Troof editor].23 This
was echoed in 1969 by the farewell to Jaap as een vriendelijke goedlachse
jongen [a friendly young man, with an easy laugh].
At the same time Jaap was described as de strenge sectarir die tot ieder
prijs een revolutionair standpunt wil innemen [the rigid sectarian, ready to
take a revolutionary stand at any price]. There may be some truth to these
words, but the sources give the impression of a very dedicated student trying to grasp the origins of all injustices he discovered throughout the world.
Dutch politics and even student politics very vibrant at this time of university sit-ins, democratization, and administrative reforms rarely set his
pen in motion.24 Jaap once warned against undue optimism and against the
infiltration of leftist student circles by Dutch intelligence agents, but that
was about all he wrote on Dutch politics.25 In world politics his main con22
23
24
25
D.M., Een vriendelijke goedlachse jongen; for Frans la Poutre (1924-2012) see:
http://dnu.nu/artikel/5937-flaneur-frans-la-poutre-overleden; last accessed 30 May
2014.
Helge Bonset in Trophonios of 01-03-1968.
Cf. Jacques Janssen and Paul Voestermans, De vergruisde universiteit. Een cultuurpsychologisch onderzoek naar voorbije en actuele ontwikkelingen in de Nijmeegse studentenwereld
(phd, Nijmegen University 1978).
Jaap Kloosterman, Studentenakties: niet veel te verwachten, Trophonios, 5, No.9
30
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
cern was the division between the rich West and the poor rest, a division
he believed the countries that had been made and kept poor would have to
overcome on their own through revolutionary means.
As such, Jaap could certainly be called a revolutionary at the time. As
far as practical political choices were concerned, however, he seemed far
quicker to condemn abuses than to advocate a concrete ideology or party
line notwithstanding his membership of the psp for some time. Of course,
he was also involved in some practical actions, such as when he acted as
the Utrecht chapter of the Comit van Solidariteit met Cuba (Cuba solidarity
committee), which launched a campaign to send books to Cuba.26
Parties and ideologies that did not promote this revolution were social
democracy and Russian-style communism, and the Christian democrats in
Latin America were doomed as well, according to Jaaps writings.27 In his
numerous contributions on China he loathes the Cultural Revolution, and
although he criticizes the ensuing Soviet and American policies vis vis
China, he is uncertain what to think about the developments in China in
general. He was certainly no Mao fan in the making. So what else?28 Trotsky
as a historical figure, especially since his exile from Russia, was unquestionably among his sources of inspiration. In particular the common manifesto
of Trotsky and the surrealist Andr Breton (1896-1966), published in 1938 as
Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art offered a solution, according to
Jaap. Together with the pamphlet by the Dadaist-surrealist Benjamin Pret
(1899-1959), Le dshonneur des potes (1945), these are the texts for which he
expressed approval in the articles he published in these years. In the end,
new morals were far more necessary than new politics. This also shows
clearly that Jaap has derived far greater inspiration from revolutionary
politico-artistic, intellectualist ideals than from actual political ideology or
strategy, be it Trotskyite or anarchist.29
Just as important as his search for the right political views and politics,
these articles attest to his scholarly approach to journalism. Jaaps contributions to Trophonios mostly advanced solid arguments. Although he was never
afraid to express his political opinions, Jaap did not use fancy words and
settled for straightforward, tongue-in-cheek phrasing. Little wonder that
26
27
28
29
(08-11-1968), p. 1.
Advertisement in Trophonios, 5, No. 8 (11 November 1968), p. 7.
Jaap Kloosterman and Wam van den Akker, Kristendemokratie: opkomst of ondergang. De Latijnsamerikaanse situatie, Trophonios 5, No. 21 (14-03-1969), pp. 4-5.
For Jaaps many contributions on China in the years 1968-1978, see the bibliography elsewhere in this volume.
Jaap Kloosterman, Een moraal voor de enrags. Trotski en Pret, Trophonios,
5, 17 (14 February 1969), pp. 1 and 8; cf. Ibid., Tussen twee wereldoorlogen: de
Surrealistische revolutie and Changer la vie et transformer le monde, Trophonios,
5, No. 14 (13 December 1968), pp. 5-7; in a letter to Igor Cornelissen dated 16 May
1967 he is very positive about the Trotskyite periodical De Internationale but confesses that he is not a pure Trotskyite (iish, Igor Cornelissen papers, 137) .
l u c as s e n H ow to Qu ali f y ?
|31
Jaap prefers a more factual style, even though his political stand was always
clear. In two extended articles on biological and chemical warfare, for example, authored together with the chemist Han Heidema, tables and footnotes are used to demonstrate the effects and consequences of this kind of
weapon, which Jaap, as the classicist of the two authors, traces back to the
Trojan War.30 These contributions bear the distinctive title War without casualties. This was also the phrase the American Army Chemical Corps used
to curry favour among politicians under the Kennedy administration first
and subsequently, slowly but surely, among the public at large. Operation
Blue Skies of the Corps suggested that this type of weapon, unlike the
atomic bomb, would enable the u.s. to eliminate the enemy by putting him
to sleep, whereas napalm of course came closer to reality. In the footnotes,
finally, we see the detective at work, as one of the main sources is the secret
internal course material of the Dutch army for officers about bc weapons.
While calling Jaap a Francophile might be exaggerated, his taste for
French culture, literature, and intellectual climate was visible in his editorial work from these years. In an in-depth comparative study of the coverage of Greece, India, China, Africa, and Latin America in ten Dutch and
three international dailies (once again, with an elaborate table listing word
counts in press releases by press bureaus and articles based on them), he
concludes: Het is voor een fatsoenlijk mens haast niet meer mogelijk nog
n[sic]ederlandse kranten te lezen wanneer hij eenmaal Le Monde in handen
heeft gehad. Iets wat vr dit onderzoek al eens gebleken was. [These days
it is hardly possible for a decent person to read Dutch newspapers, once he
has got hold of Le Monde, as already apparent before this research].31
For several reasons all that I have written in this paragraph has to be seen
as highly provisional. Not only because of the limited context I have forced
myself to observe, and because developments covering roughly two and a
half years have been forged together in a single course comprising a minor, but most of all because we cannot forget that this is an attempt to
characterize somebody by reading about his younger years. Jaap stresses
this point very eloquently in a quotation by Rgis Debray (born 1940), who
in Le Nouvel Observateur commented on the unauthorized republication of
some of his early texts.32
En wat de commercie betreft, daar komt opeens een uitgever
die meedoet aan dezelfde inflatie, evenzeer voorbijgaat aan wat
30
31
32
Han Heidema and Jaap Kloosterman, Oorlog zonder doden (i) and (ii),
Trophonios, 4, 18 (2 February 1968), pp. 1 and 4 and no. 4, 19 (9 February 1968), p.
1. Han Heidema (born 1943, also amateur poet and friend of Cees Buddingh) is
actually editor-in-chief ofSpel!, the Dutch games magazine, see: http://www.internationalgamersawards.net/members/general-strategy/han-heidema; last accessed 13
January 2014.
Onder de pers, Trophonios, 19-1-1968, p 1.
Jaap Kloosterman, Kritiese Kritiek, Trophonios, 4, No. 27 (15 March 1968), p. 5.
3 2
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
essentieel is: hij publiceert twee teksten van een padvinder, een
snotneus, teksten die ik in de puberteit geschreven heb en destijds niet te publiceren waren, alsnog onder de titel Twee verhalen [As for commercial considerations, this publisher applies
the same exaggeration and similarly overlooks the essence: he
publishes two texts by a Boy Scout and brat that I wrote as an
adolescent, and that were not suitable for publication at the
time, issued now as Two stories.].
33
34
35
l u c as s e n H ow to Qu ali f y ?
|33
later the iish, after it was founded.36 Apart from this extended undertaking that culminated in success, the professor and his former student (who
never took his degree, neither in Rotterdam, nor later on in Berlin) were
linked in other ways. On 11 December 1930 Lilly van der Goot defended her
phd thesis in Rotterdam and became the first woman to obtain a doctorate degree in economics in the Netherlands.37 Her thesis advisor was professor Posthumus, whom she married a few weeks later in London. Among
the 30 guests present at the wedding banquet were her former fellow students and friends Arthur Lehning and Joris Ivens and his girlfriend Quick
Nolthenius.38
In 1935 Lehning became one of the first staff members of the new Institute,
responsible for the French cabinet, which included all books and papers
on anarchism, of which the Nettlau collection was indisputably pivotal. This
treasure trove also contained the Bakunin papers, acquired by Nettlau over
the years from friends and relatives of this great Russian anarchist. As a consequence of the turbulent history of the Institute during the war, manifold
problems with his German nationality, and his involvement in the Indonesian
independence struggle, Lehning resumed his work for the iish only in 1958.39
Again he was approached by Posthumus. The founder of the iish, then 78
years old and formerly director of Brill publishers, asked his former student,
then 58 years old, to edit the complete works of Bakunin. This became the
incomplete (at least in its original form) Archives Bakounine project of which
seven volumes in eight parts appeared between 1961 and 1981.40
Lehning worked on this project mainly from his private home overlooking the Amstel River, well-stocked with books and quality art. After some
years, he was permitted an assistant at the iish. Jaap joined the Institute
on 1 July 1969, at the time of the move from the original address at 264
Keizersgracht to 262-266 Herengracht, which could house the iiav and the
Domela Nieuwenhuis Museum as well.41 Initially Lehning was going to do
the project with Dr. P. Scheibert, first in Cologne and then in Marburg, and
they certainly collected materials together (Scheibert in Russia). Ultimately,
however, this man features only as series editor together with Institute director Rter. He is never listed as the editor of a volume of the AB.42 In all
seven volumes published, Arthur Lehning appears as the sole editor.
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
3 4
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
For many years, Archives Bakounine was treated by the Institute as a completely separate project, and little information appears about it in the annual reports of the iish. Only gradually from 1970 onwards, does the iish
no longer wish to describe the project publicly as a sort of private enterprise of Arthur Lehning, initially separately financed by the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft and soon by zwo (now nwo, the Netherlands
Organisation for Scientific Research).43 The publication of a volume every
other year since 1961 is certain to have been conducive to extending the annual funding for more than a decade. The same holds true for the qualities
of the editor and the staff. After Mrs. E. Thijssen de Graaf for Russian texts
(half-time-assistant 1964-1978, succeeded by Christine Warmenhoven), Jaap
became the second assistant in 1969, Els van Daele the secretary in 1972,
and on 1 January 1974 Maria Hunink (1924-1988), one of his dearest friends
in those years, exchanged her position as the iish librarian for one as research assistant. Lehning, already known for his interesting life and anarchist views, now gained recognition as well for this academic enterprise at
prestigious institutes, such as Princeton and All Souls in Oxford, culminating in his honorary doctorate at the University of Amsterdam in 1976.44
When Jaap arrived as second research assistant, Volume i (Michel Bakounine
et LItalie 1871-1872 in two parts) had already been published in 1961 and 1963,
Volume ii (Michel Bakounine et les conflits dans LInternationale 1872) in 1965, and
Volume iii (tatisme et Anarchie) in 1967. Preparations for Volume iv were in
progress but took longer time than anticipated, as the manuscript had originally been scheduled for completion at the end of 1967. During the frequent
absences of Lehning, the staff of three assistants and a secretary was coordinated by Jaap, who actively participated in the publication of volumes iv
(Michel Bakounine et ses relations avec Sergej Necaev 1870-1872) in 1971, v (Michel
Bakounine et ses relations slaves) at the end of 1974, vi (Michel Bakounine sur la
guerre franco-allemande et la rvolution sociale 1870-1871) at the end of 1977, and
vii (LEmpire knouto-germanique et la rvolution sociale 1870-1871) in 1981.
Jaaps importance on the project was also recognized, as from 1978 onwards he was officially called assistant editor and from 1980 onwards editor
on the same footing as Lehning.45 In 1974 Director Frits de Jong Edz. already
described Jaaps tasks as follows:
De Heer Kloosterman is te omschrijven als de Heer Lehnings
belangrijkste assistent. Niet alleen is hij verantwoordelijk voor
alle technische details de publicatie betreffend en onderhoudt
l u c as s e n H ow to Qu ali f y ?
|35
46
47
I am grateful to the director of the iish for this information from the Institutes
current archives.
On Lehnings activities during these years, see Maria Hunink, Jaap Kloosterman,
Jan Rogier (eds), Voor Arthur Lehning. Over Buonarotti, internationale avant-gardes, Max
Nettlau en het verzamelen van boeken, anarchistische ministers, de algebra van de revolutie,
schilders en schrijvers (Baarn, 1979), pp. 419-514; on Jaaps part, see also his bibliography for the years 1969-1979 elsewhere in this volume.
3 6
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
esting persons and literature. Although this is not the context to reconstruct
Jaaps intellectual development in the 1970s beyond what a glance at his
bibliography may reveal, one exception is justified: Jaap was fascinated with
the French political, intellectual, and artistic Situationist International and
their main representative Guy Debord (1931-1994). His interest in this group
most likely started in his Trophonios years, and Lehning is believed to have
encouraged this pursuit.48 There was also a practical link: Grard Leibovici
(1932-1982), the film producer and founder of the Paris-based Champs Libre
Publishing House, with whom Artur and Jaap were in direct contact because he reprinted the Archives Bakounine volumes, was a close friend of Guy
Debord. Together with his co-editor from Trophonios Ren van de Kraats, Jaap
translated Debords main work La socit du spectacle (1967) into Dutch as De
spektakelmaatschappij (1976).49
Jaap also maintained a personal correspondence with Debord. It may be a
curious coincidence that in a published letter from Debord to Jaap, dated 23
February 1981, we learn about the deep rift that had come between the iish
and Lehning, as well as between the master and his pupil.50 That Debord in
this letter fully agrees with Jaap about this is not important here. Nor would
the contrary have been relevant. What matters is that the two editors, finally equals on paper, were no longer able to work together in the very year
that Volume vii of Archives Bakounine went to press, and that the next year
(1982) Arthur Lehning took leave as editor, although he will continue to
work for the institute as the annual report states.51 Jaaps third course had
come to an end.
48
49
50
51
l u c as s e n H ow to Qu ali f y ?
|37
52
53
Cf. Leo Noordegraaf, In gesprek met Eric Fischer, in idem, Waarover spraken zij?
Economische geschiedbeoefening in Nederland omstreeks het jaar 2000 (Amsterdam, 2006),
pp. 79-89; Fischer, Wim Polak als bestuurder.
See the contribution by Coen Marinus in this volume. Cf. also that of Eric Ketelaar.
3 8
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
from the first decade had been overcome. Jaap, with his interest in international developments and his early minor in chess, was ideally positioned
to pose essential questions and find logical answers, thus ensuring the success of the automation of the collections department.54 An experienced
historical researcher,55 he understood what this species really needed from
this Institute. First mate Eric now had Jaap as a second, and the two worked
closely together. When Fritjof Tichelman was injured in a serious traffic accident, Jaap became the temporary stand-in for Fritjof in November 1985
and from 1 January 1987 became deputy director and head of collections.
Soon Henk Wals was to become third mate.
In 1993 Eric Fischer, seeking new challenges, left the Institute, and Jaap
succeeded him. Crash course number four was over, and Jaap had completed the full curriculum, albeit still without the official credentials.
54
55
I
THE EMERGENCE
OF SOCIAL HISTORY
COLLECTIONS
I.1
Prolegomena to a
Social History of
Dutch Archives
Eric Ketelaar
On several occasions Jaap Kloosterman has shown his interest in and mastery of the history of collections. In his historical overview of the labour history libraries before World War I he demonstrates that contemporary problems associated with industrialization provided an incentive to collecting.
The history of a collection provides a biography of the scholarly discipline
served by that particular collection.1 Because that history needs to be placed
in a broader social and cultural context, the history of the iish written by
Kloosterman and Jan Lucassen begins with a sketch of the political, economic, social, and cultural backgrounds: the dynamic world filled with new ideas about social planning, emerging political parties, and trade unions.2 The
1
Jaap Kloosterman and Jan Lucassen, Working for Labour: Three Quarters of a
Century of Collecting at the iish, in Jaap Kloosterman and Jan Lucassen (eds),
Rebels with a Cause: Five Centuries of Social History Collected by the iish (Amsterdam,
2010), pp. 7-28; Jaap Kloosterman, Unwritten Autobiography: Labor History
Libraries before World War I, in Marcel van der Linden and Leo Lucassen (eds),
Working on Labor: Essays in Honor of Jan Lucassen, (Leiden, 2012), pp. 395-416; Jaap
Kloosterman, In Bebels voetspoor: Wouter Steenhaut en de ialhi, in Paule
Verbruggen (ed.), Wouter Steenhaut en AMSAB-ISG (Ghent, 2009), pp. 27-35.
Kloosterman and Lucassen, Working for Labour, p. 12.
Ke te l a a r P r o l e g o me na to a S oc i al Hi story
|41
later vicissitudes of the iish are treated against the backdrop of the lead-up
to ww ii, the reconstruction of Europe after the war, the Cold War, and the
aftermath of the demise of the Soviet Union.
It is only natural for an institute such as the iish to have such a social
history of the collection.3 And this history is also an aspect of the social history of Dutch archives as well, and that is the subject of my current work of
which I present here a few prolegomena as introductory reflections.
Historicizing Archives
Historicizing is desirable for collections and parts of collections: the separate archives. The usual practice is for Dutch archival inventories to provide
in the introduction a history of the archives with a view to their proper
use.4 An inventory aims to provide access, and this determines the limited
scope of the introduction. The introduction does not present the archive as
an object of historical study. Neither does it mention how the archival system functioned in the past, although the essence of such a system is disclosed in its functioning. Peter Horsman calls this the behaviour of the archival system (in the interaction with its environment). He supplied a model
for the explanation of this behaviour and applied it to the archival history
of the city of Dordrecht (1200-1920).5 Archivists as scholars of record keeping are the very people to fathom the mechanisms of the old administration, as the Dutch Manual for the arrangement and description of archives (1898)
already stated.6 This forms an essential part of historical archivistics as advocated by Charles Jeurgens, professor of archivistics at Leiden University.
He wants to look behind the formation of the records to find out in what
way the information laid down in the record, has come into being.7
3
5
6
See also the history of the International Womens Archive (for long closely associated with the iish): Francisca de Haan and Annette Mevis, The iav/iiavs
Archival Policy and Practice: Seventy Years of Collecting, Receiving, and Refusing
Womens Archives (1935-2005), in Saskia E. Wieringa (ed.), Traveling Heritages. New
Perspectives on Collecting, Preserving and Sharing Womens History (Amsterdam, 2008),
pp. 23-46; updated version: Francisca de Haan and Annette Mevis, The Making of
the Collection Internationaal Archief voor de Vrouwenbeweging (iav). Seventy-five
Years of Collecting, Receiving, and Refusing Womens Archives (1935-2010), in
Theo Vermeer, Petra Links, Justin Klein (eds), Particuliere archieven. Fundamenten in
beweging. Jaarboek 12 Stichting Archiefpublicaties (s-Gravenhage, 2013), pp. 150-168.
Eric Ketelaar, Dimensies van archiefgeschiedenis, in Eddy Put and Chantal
Vancoppenolle (eds), Archiefambacht tussen geschiedenisbedrijf en erfgoedwinkel. Een
balans bij het afscheid van vijf rijksarchivarissen [ ](Brussels, 2013), pp. 227-241.
Peter Horsman, Abuysen ende desordin. Archiefvorming en archivering in Dordrecht 12001920 (s-Gravenhage, 2011).
S. Muller, J.A. Feith, and R. Fruin, Manual for the Arrangement and Description of
Archives. Translation of the Second Edition by Arthur H. Leavitt, with New Introductions []
(Chicago, 2003), section 61.
K.J.P.F.M. Jeurgens, Een brug tussen twee werelden. Rede uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding
van het ambt van hoogleraar op het gebeid van de archivistiek aan de Universiteit van Leiden
42
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
9
10
Ke te l a a r P r o l e g o me na to a S oc i al Hi story
|43
13
14
15
Ernst Posner, Archives in the Ancient World (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), p. vii.
Theo Thomassen, Het begrip context in de archiefwetenschap, in P.J. Horsman,
F.C.J. Ketelaar and T.H.P.M. Thomassen (eds), Context. Interpretatiekaders in de archivistiek. Jaarboek 2000 Stichting Archiefpublicaties (s-Gravenhage, 2000), pp. 15-28.
Sue McKemmish, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: A Continuum of
Responsibility, in P.J. Horsman, F.C.J. Ketelaar, and T.H.P.M. Thomassen (eds),
Naar een nieuw paradigma in de archivistiek. Jaarboek 1999 Stichting Archiefpublicaties (sGravenhage, 1999), pp. 195-210.
Theo Thomassen, Instrumenten van de macht. De Staten-Generaal en hun archieven 15761796 (phd thesis Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2009), pp. 35-36, available at: http://
tinyurl.com/8qmpqxe; last accessed 6 March 2014.
Eric Ketelaar, Archivalisation and Archiving, Archives and Manuscripts, 27 (1999), pp.
54-61; Eric Ketelaar, Archivistics Research Saving the Profession, American Archivist,
63 (2000), pp. 322-340, 328-329; Eric Ketelaar, Writing on Archiving Machines, in
Sonja Neef, Jos van Dijck, and Eric Ketelaar (eds), Sign here! Handwriting in the Age of
New Media (Amsterdam, 2006), pp. 183-195, 188.
44
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
taxing people (the Spanish), or trading goods (the Dutch). These archivalization factors caused the creation of different types of records: the English
kept survey maps, the Spanish censuses, the Dutch commercial data.16 These
different record types reinforce the limited colonial gaze which focuses on
land, people, or goods. For, as James Scott writes in Seeing like a state, there
are virtually no other facts for the state than those that are contained in
documents.17
In her book on the ceremonies of possession in Europes conquest of the
New World, Patricia Seed also argues that for the Dutch, discovering and
taking possession of new territories meant description: tracing coastlines,
noting their exact latitudes, drawing locations, describing places, and inscribing names. These predominantly written forms of claiming conflicted
with those of the English, who were convinced that only clear acts or physical objects created possession of new territories.18 Archivalization led the
Dutch and the English to different types of recording and archiving.
Ke te l a a r P r o l e g o me na to a S oc i al Hi story
|45
21
Brien Brothman, Perfect Present, Perfect Gift: Finding a Place for Archival
Consciousness in Social Theory, Archival Science, 10 (2010), pp. 141-189, 143.
22
Brien Brothman, [review of] Pekka Henttonen: Records, Rules and Speech Acts,
Archival Science, 8 (2008), pp. 149-156, 154.
23
Raul Hilberg, Sources of Holocaust Research: An Analysis (Chicago, 2001); Alison Lewis,
Reading and Writing the Stasi File: On the Uses and Abuses of the File as (Auto)
Biography, German Life & Letters, 56 (2003), pp. 377-397; Karsten Jedlitschka, The
Lives of Others: East German State Security Services Archival Legacy, American
Archivist, 75 (2012), pp. 81-108. See also the bibliography in Antonio Gonzlez
Quintana, Archival Policies in the Protection of Human Rights (Paris, 2009), available at:
http://tinyurl.com/ckohmku; last accessed 6 March 2014.
24
R. Kretzschmar (ed.), Das deutsche Archivwesen und der Nationalsozialismus (Essen, 2007).
25
Eric Ketelaar, Recordkeeping and Societal Power, in Sue McKemmish, Michael
Piggott, Barbara Reed, and Frank Upward (eds), Archives: Recordkeeping in Society
(Wagga-Wagga, 2005), pp. 277-298.
26 Jeurgens, Een brug tussen twee werelden, pp. 13-15.
27
Randolph Head, Preface: Historical Research in Archive and Knowledge Cultures:
An Interdisciplinary Wave, Archival Science, 10 (2010), pp. 191-194, 191.
46
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
show the numerous ways with which archival practice and archival knowledge shape subjects in history and subjects of history.28 The archival profession followed the archival turn from a distance, although even in 1982,
Tom Nesmith had argued for an archival scholarship grounded in the study
of the nature and purposes of archival records and institutions, taking as
a starting point the history of society.29 His plea was repeated in 1992 by
Barbara Craig who warned archivists that if they left archival history to others, their future would be at stake. She was of the opinion that archival history is essential for the professional identity of the archivist in the modern
age, because it is an aid in understanding the contextual place of records
in the world of affairs, of thought, and of information. In short we would
benefit greatly from a historical sociology of the record and a diplomatic of
the document.30 At her invitation the first International Conference on the
History of Records and Archives (i-chora) met in 2003.31 According to the
hosts of the first i-chora, archival history is important because it holds the
promise of providing a better understanding of human experience and human needs.32
Social Context
A social history of archives has to reach out beyond record formation as
such to its social and cultural contexts. Thus, the Australian Michael Piggott
expects to find an answer to questions like how Australian society and
its constituent groupings and strata have been ordered and governed by
recordkeeping.33 Recently he proposed searching for the conditioning facAnn Blair and Jennifer Milligan, Introduction, Archival Science, 7 (2007), pp. 289296, 291.
29
Tom Nesmith, Archives From the Bottom Up: Social History and Archival
Scholarship, Archivaria 14 (Summer 1982), pp. 5-26, 6-7; repr. in Tom Nesmith (ed.),
Canadian Archival Studies and the Rediscovery of Provenance (Metuchen, nj, 1993), pp.
159-184, 161. In 2003 Nesmith urged for a reorientation of the knowledge base
of the archival profession toward this expanded degree of historical information
about records creation, its surrounding personal and organizational cultures, types
of records, record-keeping systems, and custodial and archival histories. Tom
Nesmith, Whats History Got to Do with It?: Reconsidering the Place of Historical
Knowledge in Archival Work, Archivaria, 57 (2004), pp. 1-27, 27.
30
Barbara L. Craig, Outward Visions, Inward Glance: Archives History and
Professional Identity, Archival Issues, 17 (1992), pp. 113-124, 121.
31 Subsequent i-chora conferences were held in Amsterdam (2005), Boston (2007),
Perth (2008), London (2010), and Austin (2012). Selections of the presented papers
were published in Archivaria, Archival Science and Libraries & the Cultural Record.
32
Barbara L. Craig, Philip B. Eppard, and Heather Macneil, Exploring Perspectives
and Themes for Histories of Records and Archives. The First International
Conference on the History of Records and Archives (i-chora), Archivaria, 60 (2006),
pp. 1-9, 7-8.
33
Michael Piggott, The History of Australian Recordkeeping: A Framework for
Research, in B.J. McMullin (ed.), Coming Together. Papers from the Seventh Australian
28
Ke te l a a r P r o l e g o me na to a S oc i al Hi story
|47
Archival consciousness expressed: Cornelis van der Voort, Regents of the Old Peoples
Home (Oude Mannen- en Vrouwengasthuis) in Amsterdam, 1618. The pictured registers
and documents were not randomly chosen, but expressly shown to the painter with
the instruction to portray these records because they were important to the home.
Amsterdam Museum, SA 7436.
tors shapingthe patterns of record creation, demise, preservation, management, and multiple uses in Australia.34 Following his approach, I have been
looking for these conditioning factors in Dutch society. It might be useful to
take as a starting point what struck visitors to the Dutch Republic:
the prodigious extent of Dutch shipping and commerce, the
technical sophistication of industry and finance, the beauty and
orderliness, as well as cleanliness of the cities, the degree of religious and intellectual toleration to be found there, the excellence of the orphanages and hospitals, the limited character of
ecclesiastical power, the subordination of military to civilian au-
34
48
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
thority, and the remarkable achievements of Dutch art, philosophy, and science.35
Indeed, most if not all of these had an effect on (and to a large extent: were
facilitated by) practices of record formation. The same is true for many aspects of the Dutch moral geography of the embarrassment of riches,36 of
Dutch economy,37 etc.
But for the factors determining archivalization (and consequently archiving) it is important to look further, seeking archival consciousness that
precedes the appearance of formal archives.38 Such archival consciousness
manifests itself in oral tradition, rituals, monuments, and art,39 embedded
in a socio-cultural mind set. Archival theory, as Tom Nesmith argued, should
broaden its purview, from a focus on what constitutes the nature of an archive and a record according to the classical doctrine, to the study of how
human perception, communication, and behaviour shape the archives.40
As the main conditioning factor in Dutch society past and present
I propose its particular mode of consensual governance, the polder model.
The polder model (an expression coined in the 1990s) is described in a recent
book by historians Maarten Prak and Jan Luiten van Zanden as a manner
of living together in which different societal groups always join forces and
political decision-making leaves room for mutual concessions and modifications resulting from negotiations among these groups.41 On Wikipedia it is
called consensus decision-making in the Dutch fashion and described with
phrases like a pragmatic recognition of pluriformity and cooperation
despite differences. Prak and Van Zanden label Dutch society as one that
through structured conversation through discussions, eventually followed
by a vote endeavours to find answers to societal challenges.42 In different shapes this has always been a characteristic of Dutch society since the
Middle Ages.43 It has made the Netherlands into a vergaderland:44 a country of
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic. Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477-1806 (Oxford, 1995),
p. 1.
Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches. An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the
Golden Age (London, 1987).
Jan de Vries and Ad van der Woude, The First Modern Economy. Success, Failure, and
Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500-1815 (Cambridge, 1997).
Brothman, Perfect Present, Perfect Gift, p. 155.
Eric Ketelaar, Accountability Portrayed. Documents on Regents Group Portraits in
the Dutch Golden Age, Archival Science, 14 (2014), pp. 69-93.
Tom Nesmith, Still Fuzzy, But More Accurate: Some Thoughts on the Ghosts of
Archival Theory, Archivaria, 47 (1999), pp. 136-150, 142.
Maarten Prak and Jan Luiten van Zanden, Nederland en het poldermodel (Amsterdam,
2013), p. 12.
Prak and Van Zanden, Nederland en het poldermodel, p. 9.
Dennis Bos, Maurits Ebben, and Henk te Velde (eds), Harmonie in Holland. Het poldermodel van 1500 tot nu (Amsterdam, 2008).
Wilbert van Vree, Nederland als vergaderland. Opkomst en verbreiding van een vergaderre-
Ke te l a a r P r o l e g o me na to a S oc i al Hi story
|49
Resolutions
Governance according to this polder model was reflected in the archiving systems. For centuries their backbone were the resoluties, decisions taken in a
meeting. All incoming and outgoing letters were arranged as annexes to the
resoluties, made accessible through indexes on these resoluties.45 In the course
45
gime (Groningen, 1994). Transl. by Kathleen Bell: Wilbert van Vree, Meetings, manners
and civilization: the development of modern meeting behaviour (London, 1999). The Dutch
word vergadering is [] difficult to translate accurately, because it imposes a specific and well-understood mode of behavior not quite covered by the more vague
meeting: William Shetter, The Netherlands in Perspective. The Organization of Society
and Environment (s-Gravenhage, 1987), p. 123.
Muller, Feith, and Fruin, Manual for the Arrangement and Description of Archives, section
20; Thomassen, Instrumenten van de macht, pp. 283-286. Decision making by councils
and boards and minuting their proceedings are not typically Dutch. However the
50
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Collegiate decision making: Jan de Baen, Directors of the Chamber Hoorn of the United
East India Company (VOC), 1682. The pictured registers, documents and maps (including
a town plan of Cochin, todays Kochi in India, the VOCs headquarters in Malabar) were
the directors instruments of governance. Westfries Museum Hoorn.
of time there have been different variants and innovations, but up to the
present day the emphasis in archiving has generally been on collegiate decision-making, reflected in the acta or proceedings.46
Some examples
In the Dutch Reformed Church, decisive factors to start recording the acta
of the local church council, consisting of ministers and elders, were both
the need to maintain unity and discipline within the church and the need
to account for its management. Sinners were summoned by the church
46
Ke te l a a r P r o l e g o me na to a S oc i al Hi story
|51
52
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
50
Prak and Van Zanden, Nederland en het poldermodel, p. 135.
51 Posner, Archives in the Ancient World, p. 3.
52
Michel Foucault, Lives of infamous men, in James D. Faubion (ed.), Michel Foucault.
Power. Vol. 3 (London, 2002), pp. 157-175, 161. Thomas Osborne pleads for a sociological history of the agents of the archive framed in the technological terms
of the sociology of power: Thomas Osborne, The ordinariness of the archive,
History of the human sciences, 12/2 (May 1999), p. 52.
Ke te l a a r P r o l e g o me na to a S oc i al Hi story
|53
was kept and ended up in the archives, was only the tiny flotsam of the
great, slow-moving river of Everything, to use Carolyn Steedmans words.53
53
54
55
56
Carolyn Steedman, Something She Called a Fever: Michelet, Derrida, and Dust,
American Historical Review, 106(4) (2001), pp. 1159-1180, 1165. Also Carolyn Steedman,
Dust (Manchester, 2001), p. 18.
Richard Pearce-Moses, A Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology (Chicago,
2005) available at: http://www2.archivists.org/glossary. In the appendix to
Recommendation R (2000) 13 of the Council of Europe on a European policy on
access to archives, archives and Archives are distinguished, the latter meaning the
public institutions charged with the preservation of archives: https://wcd.coe.int/
ViewDoc.jsp?id=366245; all last accessed 6 March 2014.
Sue McKemmish, Yesterday, today and tomorrow: a continuum of responsibility,
in Proceedings of the Records Management Association of Australia 14th National Convention,
15-17 Sept. 1997 (Perth 1997), reprinted in: Horsman, Ketelaar, Thomassen, Naar een
nieuw paradigma, p.203. p. 203, available at: http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/
research/groups/rcrg/publications/recordscontinuum-smckp2.html; last accessed 6
March 2014.
Th.H.P.M. Thomassen, De nationale collecties en het amalgaam der charters: het
ontstaan van het Nederlandse archiefwezen, in Het archiefwezen in Europa omstreeks
1800. Les archives en Europe vers 1800 (...) (Brussels, 1998), pp. 57-74.
54
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
58
59
60
Ke te l a a r P r o l e g o me na to a S oc i al Hi story
|55
Conclusion
A social history of Dutch archives should treat societal archivalization influencing practices of record formation and archiving, and vice versa: record
formation and archiving that conditioned or facilitated societal practices.
Such a social history of archives is important for the user of archives, the
archivist, and the archival policy maker. We must understand the societies
and the people who created and used the documents before we can really understand their value for research and other purposes.61 Archives have
narratives of their own that need to be carefully read before their materials can be fully appreciated and most effectively used.62 According to
Francis Blouin and Bill Rosenberg, historians and other users of the archive
must comprehend the conceptual and cultural milieu in which their archival sources are created, structured, processed, appraised, discarded, and
preserved.63 Research in this field may bridge the divide between archivists
and historians, they argue.
This divide is strange to Jaap Kloosterman and the iish. The strength of
this Institute, as Jaap once said, is in the collaboration of research and collection management under one roof, in one organization, thus bridging conceptual borders, leading to synergy and enrichment.64 May a future social history
of Dutch archives be written in this spirit!
61
62
63
64
Nesmith, Archives From the Bottom Up, p. 16 (in Nesmith, Canadian Archival
Studies, p. 171), referring to C.N.L. Brooke, The Teaching of Diplomatic, Journal of
the Society of Archivists, 4 (1970), pp. 3-4, 9.
Francis X. Blouin and William Rosenberg, Processing the Past: Contesting Authority in
History and the Archives (Oxford, 2011), p. 208.
Blouin and Rosenberg, Processing the Past, p. 210. See also Jeurgens, Een brug tussen twee werelden; Terry Cook, The Archive(s) is a Foreign Country: Historians,
Archivists, and the Changing Archival Landscape, American Archivist, 74 (2011), pp.
600-632.
J.A.M.Y. Bos-Rops and P.W.J. den Otter, iisg revisited. Een gesprek met Jaap
Kloosterman, Nederlands Archievenblad, 99 (1995), pp. 209-215, 210.
I.2
The Founder of the
iish, as Experienced
by his Daughter
Interview with
Claire Posthumus*
Huub Sanders
The idea was to speak with Claire Posthumus to discover why there is no
N.W. Posthumus archive? Of course talking with a creative person such as
Claire soon turned out to cover all kinds of other subjects.
Claire is the daughter of N.W. Posthumus (Nien) from his second marriage. His previous marriage, from 1908 to 1928, was to Dorothea Maria van
Loon. They had two children, Jan Huibert (1909-1991) and Theodora [Tedoor]
Wilhelmina [1914-1998].1
How would you describe your fathers intellectual background?
My father was not from a family of academics, but they were by no means
uneducated. His younger sister Annie, for example, completed a phd, I believe in Scandinavian languages. I knew her. She lived in The Hague.2 I know
*
1
sa n d e r s th e f ou nde r of the i i s h
|57
only a few isolated fragments about my fathers early childhood. His mother, Huibertje IJzerman, was a very clever woman.3 My grandfather, who was
also N.W., was a geographer and regularly wrote for the Tijdschrift van het
Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap.4 He died young, in 1885, when my father was only five. His mother remarried by 1886.5 My father was not happy
about that. His mothers second husband was a geographer as well. My father felt driven to go to university quickly. Money was tight at home, and he
had a strong sense of urgency.
At any rate, together with his sister, probably as the first in his family, he enrolled at
the university, where he met many fascinating individuals.
I never really spoke with my father about his student days. I remember him
telling me about the writer Aart van der Leeuw. He met him around that
time, when he was a member of the Clio student society.6 I heard the story
that he gave a lecture about Calais to Clio, but it was not greatly appreciated. His active involvement in socialism was never mentioned. I am unaware of whether he ever considered entering in politics.7 I have no idea as to
his oratory skills. He spoke highly of Jacques Presser as a speaker.8 In 1908
he took his phd on a historical study of Leidens cloth industry, on which he
had discovered many previously unknown archives.9
3
4
58
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Did he ever describe the early days of his career, after graduating in 1904?
After graduating my father followed in the footsteps of his father and his
uncle and became a teacher at the Openbare Handelsschool in Amsterdam.
In the very first class he taught, he expelled a boy from class. Firm discipline was his method of choice. He also worked on his phd thesis, which he
defended in 1908.
He soon became a professor at the newly opened Handelshogeschool (institute of higher education in business administration) in Rotterdam, in
1913. He always had many other pursuits as well. When he administered
oral exams, he was constantly interrupted by telephone calls.
So he advanced rapidly in his career. Was he also adept at communicating with those
around him?
He was a gentleman and was always well dressed. He cared very much about
that and always wanted me to look elegant as well. Not necessarily formal
skirt suits, but enough to make a good impression. His talent was in demand early on, and he was recommended to the minister as a possible candidate for the position of State Archivist in the province of Zeeland in the
1920s.10 He was one of the few to acknowledge the importance of archives.
In addition, he knew how to communicate with the authorities in these circles. Who do you tell, when you discover a major archive? Yes, your friends,
of course, but it ends there. He was able to tell important people and to
persuade them as well. On the one hand, he was terribly introverted, on the
other hand, he was very charming and playful.11
How did he meet your mother?
My mother Willemijn (known as Lil or Lillian to her many foreign friends)
van der Goot was one of his students in Rotterdam. Others she met there
included Arthur Mller Lehning and Joris Ivens. They were present on 11
December 1930, when my mother defended her phd thesis in economics
(the first woman in the Netherlands to do so!). My father was her phd advisor.12 He had divorced his first wife over two years earlier. One week after
she took her phd, they drafted their prenuptial terms, and on 7 January 1931
they were married in London. She was 17 years younger than he was and
was very internationally oriented.13 Mother was one of the founders of the
10
11
12
13
F.J. Dupac and W.A. van Es, Een eeuw strijd voor Nederlands cultureel erfgoed (s-Gravenhage, 1975), p. 457.
Peter-Paul de Baar, Een bewogen huwelijk. Echtpaar Posthumus bracht sociale
archieven bijeen, Ons Amsterdam, 62:10 (2010), pp. 402-405, 407.
Willemien Hendrika Posthumus-van der Goot, De besteding van het inkomen: het indexcijfer van de kosten van levensonderhoud (s Gravenhage, 1930).
Wilhelmina Hendrika van der Goot, Pretoria 1897-Amsterdam 1989 spent much of
her childhood abroad, in South Africa (1897-1900) and the Netherlands East Indies
(1902-1915) and then lived in Switzerland for some years, where on 17 October 1918
she enrolled at the University of Lausanne. During the First World War, she made
sa n d e r s th e f ou nde r of the i i s h
|59
14
15
16
17
18
60
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
19
20
21
22
An van der Goot (1901-1976), married Luigi Diaz in 1927. They had a daughter, E.M.
Voskuilen-Diaz. Before the war, while she still lived in Paris, An Diaz-van der Goot
was very active for the iish and was employed there from 1947 until 1960. Claire
called An Diaz-van der Goot Aunt Koel, a name that ran in the family, and that
her mother had bestowed on her sister, in memory of a cat with the same name.
Nicknames were commonplace: Her cousin Liesbeth was called Cucuz. Mother
Posthumus-van der Goot was nicknamed Bliek.
In 2008 the two sisters and N.W. Posthumus were posthumously awarded the Yad
Vashem medal. Little Bep first went into hiding with the Posthumus family in
Noordwijk aan Zee, quite early in 1942.
Bep Koster remembers him reading the stories aloud. See: Maaike Schoon, Isral
eert oprichter niod en zijn vrouw, Het Parool, 24 November 2008.
De Baar, Een bewogen huwelijk, p. 407.
sa n d e r s th e f ou nde r of the i i s h
|6 1
23
24
25
62
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
27
28
29
There were still some fun moments. In this collection, see also the contribution
from Alex Geelhoed. At the festivities in honour of Posthumus 25th anniversary
as professor at the gu Amsterdam in 1947, Willemijn, Aunt An, Annie Adama-van
Scheltema, Theodora and others put on a little performance for him. See: iish
Archive of Claire Posthumus, Box 36. Claire remembers that when her father
retired as a professor, Amsterdam Mayor dAilly presented her father with a silver
medal of the City of Amsterdam.
Wilhelmina van Straalen, 1912-1997.
In an out-of-court-settlement deed of 18 March 1955 N.W. Posthumus and Willemijn
Posthumus-van der Goot settled their reciprocal financial claims. According to this
deed, the house on Apollolaan became the property of Willemijn Posthumus-van
der Goot, in exchange for forgiving a substantial debt. See iish Archive of Claire
Posthumus, Box 31. The Apollolaan house was noticed by his son Jan shortly after it
was built and was purchased by N.W. Posthumus in 1929.
iish Archive of Claire Posthumus, Box 36: this contains a copy of Posthumus
publication De Oosterse handel te Amsterdam, het oudst bewaarde koopmansboek van een
Amsterdamse vennootschap betreffende de handel op de Oostzee, 1485-1490 (Leiden, 1953)
with the following dedication: To Claire, from her father, who hopes that she
will enjoy reading this book now and in the future, as much as he did writing it. 9
March 1954.
sa n d e r s th e f ou nde r of the i i s h
|6 3
corrections. He did not have a large library of his own; in Wassenaar he had
only a bookcase, and the books were hardly extraordinary. The entire home
radiated the ambience of Aunt Wil. Aunt Wil was the home. She was a bit
neurotic about being in control. Walking around there felt creepy: you were
surrounded by white things. On Apollolaan and in Leiden he had always had
his own room. But because he moved so often, not much accumulated. That
is one of the reasons why he did not leave behind a vast collection of personal papers.
Father did not exactly beat a path to the door of family members. I remember once we went to visit Aunt Annie in The Hague, at my suggestion.
The moment we arrived, my father announced: Claire asked. .
When you were growing up as a secondary school student, your father was not there.
Did you stay in touch, and how?
I often went to Leiden. We would have lunch together.30 At a certain point I
started visiting him at home in Wassenaar. About once every two months. It
was immensely important to him that I learned Latin and Ancient Greek.31
He compiled charts of words in different languages. I took them back with
me and never looked at them. He bought a lot of books. I was always interested in reading and books. He encouraged that and gave me piles of books,
such as Kapitein Marryat32 and Coopers Last of the Mohicans.33 Complete series.
He picked them up at estate auctions and the like.
I also visited Brill publishers at Oude Rijn in Leiden, when my father was
the director there.34 I was given a guided tour. I remember being told about
archery, and that he gave me a book about that.35 I was also impressed by a
30
31
32
33
34
35
The personal papers of Claire Posthumus at the iish include notes from Posthumus
to his daughter about these appointments. One from 14 January 1952, for example,
starts Dear Sweetheart and is signed daddy, and one from 28 September 1953
opens Dear Claire. In this note he expresses regret that Claire had to cancel and
therefore missed out on the wild duck he ordered at the restaurant De Turk (presumably In den Vergulden Turk). The note concludes So please write me soon,
monkey face. Bye. Much love from daddy. iish Archive of Claire Posthumus, Box
36.
In 1962 Claire passed the gymnasium state examination.
Frederick Marryat and Jan van der Velde (translator), Kapitein Marryat (Amsterdam,
1940).
Frans Piet (illustrations) and James Fenimore Cooper, De laatste der Mohikanen: een
spannend indianenverhaal (Haarlem, 1948).
During his term as director at Brill, Posthumus sharply reoriented the publishing company to Asia. In 1957, for example, he launched The Journal of the Economic
and Social History of the Orient. On this subject, see: Harriet T. Zurndorfer, The
Orientation of jeshos Orient and the Problem of Orientalism: Some Reflections
on the Occasion of jeshos Fiftieth Anniversary, Journal of the Economic and Social
History of the Orient, 51, 1 (2008), p. 2-30. On his directorship, see: F.C. Wieder, In
memoriam professor mr. N.W. Posthumus 1880-1960. Directeur van de N.V. E.J. Brill
1946-1958, De Uitgever, 40, 5 (1960), pp. 149-50.
This most likely refers to one of the books published at the time by the publisher:
64
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
36
Eugen Herrigel and R.A Baudisch, Het Zen-Boeddhisme in de kunst van het boogschieten
(Leiden, 1951).
Karel van het Reve (1921-1999) was the librarian at the Russia Institute from 1947.
This institute founded in part at the initiative of Posthumus was located in the
same building as the iish on Keizersgracht from 1948 (Jaarverslag IISG, 1948, pp. 1112). Only in 1961 did the Russia Institute move out of the iish premises (Jaarverslag
S, 1961, p. 5).
sa n d e r s th e f ou nde r of the i i s h
|6 5
house was sold, together with a considerable amount of land. He and Aunt
Wil then moved to Blaricum.37
One week before he died, I saw him walking along in Amsterdam.38
I waved to him, and he waved back. Then he was gone. He spent only a
week in the hospital. He had advanced prostate cancer. Aunt Wil mentioned
cancer very discreetly. He was admitted to the hospital in Laren.39 I visited
him there shortly before he died. He smiled to show he recognized me, that
moved me. I was very fond of my father, despite all the issues. He died at
Easter. I rushed over there and saw him before he was laid out. Aunt Wil
rang me to ask what he was wearing. She hoped he was dressed in his finest
pajamas. The question struck me as odd, given the circumstances. He was
buried in Blaricum.40
Few were present at the funeral, only immediate family members and
Aunt Wil.41 Rter, director of the iish at the time, did not attend. The
mourners were divided into two groups: Aunt An Diaz was there together
with Annie Adama van Scheltema across from us, his children! The inheritance was the problem. You can imagine that it caused bad blood between us
and Aunt Wil. My brother Jan thought we should decline the inheritance, or
what remained of it, after all, it was nothing but debts. Especially tax debts.
During his final years, father had made a huge mess of his finances.
I learned later on that after his death Aunt Wil sold the home in Blaricum
to pay my fathers tax debts, because she felt that a professor should not
leave behind any debts. Since she was in fact not married to him, she probably could have avoided that.42
37
38
39
40
41
42
Address: Steenakker 2. This house became the property of Wil van Straalen, depriving the three legitimate children of their inheritance.
This was probably on 7 April 1960. The neha board, on which Posthumus still
served, met on that date. The festivities held 29 February in honour of his 80th
birthday figured on the agenda at this meeting. Posthumus was chairman of the
neha association until his death. See iish Archive neha 9.
He passed away on Easter Monday 1960 (18 April) at the St. Jans Hospital in Laren
(nh). See: De Telegraaf, 21 April 1960.
He was buried at the Algemene Begraafplaats [general cemetery] in Blaricum. See:
De Telegraaf, 21 April 1960.
The obituary was the absolute sole notification of his death. The funeral will
be a very quiet affair on Wednesday 20 April [1960]. The obituary was placed by
the children from his first marriage and their spouses, Claire and her husband
and Posthumus sister. Not listed: Willemijn Posthumus-Van der Goot and Wil van
Straalen and her son. iish Archive neha 485. Upon the death of Wil van Straalen in
1997, Rob Posthumus had widow of Prof.dr.mr. N.W. Posthumus printed beneath
his mothers name. iish Archive Claire Posthumus, Box 36.
During this period Wil van Straalen also sold 18th-century price gazettes, privately
owned by N.W. Posthumus, to the antiquarian Menno Hertzberger. See: http://
www.neha.nl/specialcollections/0771comm.php; last accessed 25 October 2013.
I.3
Looking for
Traces of Huizinga
His Relation with
N.W. Posthumus,
Based on Unpublished
Letters and a Text
Huub Sanders
Introduction
The eight-year age difference between Johan Huizinga (1872-1945) and N.W.
Posthumus (1880-1960) cannot possibly be the real reason why the former
became a renowned cultural historian and the latter a pioneer in social and
economic history. During Posthumus student years between 1898 and 1906
in Amsterdam, Marxism was definitely more in vogue than when Huizinga
was studying in Groningen between 1891 and 1895. This may explain why
Posthumus chose the course he did. German studies and comparative linguistics as an area of specialization accommodated Huizingas preference
for language and culture. In 1897 he took his phd on classical theatre in
India. P.J. Blok (1855-1929), who until 1894 was a professor of general and
national history in Groningen and later on in Leiden, encouraged his interest in history and helped him find his first job: in 1897 Huizinga became
a history teacher in Haarlem. Haarlem was also the first historical topic
on which he published.1 In 1905 Blok was the one who arranged to have
1
sa n d e r s l o o ki n g f or trac e s of h u i zi nga
|6 7
J. Huizinga, Briefwisseling I 1894-1924, Lon Hanssen, W.E. Krl, Anton van der Lem
(eds), ([Utrecht] 1989), p. 170.
P.B. Cleveringa (1894-1980), professor of commercial law and law of civil procedure
at Leiden state university, was dismissed by the Nazis on 27 November 1940.
Short biography of Johan Huizinga by F.W.N. Hugenholtz at: http://www.historici.
nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/BWN/lemmata/bwn1/huizinga; last accessed 24 July 2013;
chronology in Anton van der Lem, Johan Huizinga: leven en werk in beelden & documenten (Amsterdam, 1993), pp. 287-290; Jo Tollebeek, De toga van Fruin: denken over
geschiedenis in Nederland sinds 1860 (Amsterdam, 1996), pp. 201-257.
Noord-Hollands Archief, knaw Archive, 559.
68
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
created and organized this scholarly practice. His accession to the knaw
introduces an entire branch of historical scholarship not yet represented
there in its own right. Moreover, he was the best representative of this
scholarly discipline. The four concluded that this appointment would cover economics as well. In 1929 Posthumus and his fellow Clio student society member H. Bolkestein (1887-1942) were elected to the knaw Literature
Department, of which Huizinga became the chair from December of that
same year. Bolkestein was the first knaw representative on the board of the
iish, which Posthumus had established in 1935.6 Following the anti-Jewish
measures imposed by the occupation forces, Posthumus cancelled his membership on 11 December 1942: a fairly exceptional act.7 Previously, in 1942,
Posthumus had been dismissed by the occupying forces from his position
as professor at the University of Amsterdam on political grounds, together
with eleven of his colleagues.8
For over twelve years, Posthumus and Huizinga shared a prestigious position and met at meetings of this scholarly society, of which the History and
Literature Department comprised 45 members in 1939/40.9 The combined
meetings of both departments included reports from the audit and review
committee, on which Posthumus served.10 Posthumus was also involved in
the knaw library as secretary to the Library Commission. In 1940 he reported with satisfaction that the period of a backlog, in the library, definitely lay behind them.11 During Huizingas years as chairman, Posthumus
published twice in knaw series, and one of his activities from this period
appears in the inventory of this institutions archive.12 We find no traces
6
7
9
10
11
12
sa n d e r s l o o ki n g f or trac e s of h u i zi nga
|6 9
of joint activities or critiques of each others work in the knaw archive, although both supported a recommendation memorandum for the Austrian
historian Dopsch to become a regular member abroad of the knaw.13 This
document reflects the signatures of Gosses, Posthumus, and Huizinga alongside one another. Huizingas archive at the Leiden University library does
not reflect any other signs of contact between the two.14
With this in mind, the discovery in the neha archive that Huizinga was
the twelfth member of this association is all the more remarkable.15 No archive of Posthumus remains; his activities and contacts are reflected in the
archives of the organizations he served or founded or co-founded. As for his
ties with Huizinga, we find very few traces. A letter to Posthumus dated 18
May 1914 is listed in the annex as the first one. And a letter to him from
Huizinga from 1938, published as the third in this article, is about a request
from Dopsch mentioned above.
We can only speculate about the reasons for the lack of contact between
these two great historians. Politically, Huizinga was moderately conservative, whereas Posthumus was a social democrat. But Huizinga hardly restricted his interactions to kindred spirits. He corresponded extensively
with Henriette Roland-Holst (1869-1952), whose actions were more leftist
than those of Posthumus. Other correspondents of his included Jan Romein
(1893-1962) and Annie Romein-Verschoor (1895-1978), both communists until
well into the 1930s.
The file on Posthumus membership of the knaw contains a form with
data entered by Posthumus.16 At Question 4: Names of the wife and children, he listed only his two children. On 1 August 1928 he had divorced
his first wife, Dorothea Maria van Loon (1881-1960). In the staid society of
the Netherlands in 1929, could this act have deterred Huizinga from staying
13
14
15
16
70
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Catrien Santing, Het liefkozen van schone vormen. Johan Huizinga en het vrouwenvraagstuk, De Gids, 168 (2005), p.122.
18
Ibid., p. 127.
19
Email from Anton van der Lem to Huub Sanders, 8 October 2013.
20
Thanks are due to Bouwe Hijma for his immense assistance in these searches.
21
Short biography of Jan Romein by Albert Mellink at: http://socialhistory.org/bwsa/
biografie/romein; last accessed 25 July 2013.
22
J. Huizinga, Briefwisseling I 1894-1924 (eds.) Lon Hanssen, W.E. Krul, and Anton van
der Lem ([Utrecht], 1989); J. Huizinga, Briefwisseling II 1925-1933 (eds) ibid. ([Utrecht],
1990), J. Huizinga, Briefwisseling III 1934-1945 (eds) ibid. ([Utrecht], 1991).
23 Huizinga, Briefwisseling I 1894-1924, op. cit., p. 291, note 1.
24
iish Archive of Jan Romein: 224 First research paper for the history section of the
degree programme. With corrections. 1920. Includes a rough draft. 1920. 1 folder.
25
iish Archive of Jan Romein, No. 228. The phd thesis of Romein was not supervised
sa n d e r s l o o ki n g f or trac e s of h u i zi nga
|71
72
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
tor of the iish and did much to establish the scholarly reputation of this
Institute.
The personal papers of Rter at the iish include few documents relating
to Huizinga. Inventory No. 6 lists Summary of Beschrijving en verklaring
van Augustinus [...]. First degree dissertation supervised by J. Huizinga.
[1931] Handwritten and typed. 3 covers.30 Pencilled onto these archival documents are three small remarks by Huizinga in pencil. What a difference
from the sea of red on Romeins project.
The iish also holds the personal papers of Jef Suys (1897-1956).31 Two letters to this friend of Jan Romein are in Huizingas handwriting. Suys also
started as a communist and became entangled in a dispute over a professional appointment.32
Yet another student of Huizingas whose published letters are kept at the
iish is Herman Bernard Wiardi Beckman (1904-1945).33 The reconciliation
of social democracy with the Dutch nation that Wiardi Beckman advocated
may be the most visible manifestation of Huizingas political influence.34
Letters 913, 948, and 956, which are about different topics, were published
in Volume II, and the location is listed as: held by family, Aerdenhout.35
In 1994 and 1995 the iish received accruals to the Wiardi Beckman archive,
including copies of the three published letters stated, as well as two unpublished ones, listed as letters 4 and 5.
F.M. Wibaut received a letter from Huizinga dated 20 January 1928.36
At the time Wibaut was briefly on leave as alderman but was interested in the appointment of a successor to Jhr Jan Six (1857-1926) at the
Gemeentelijke Universiteit. Huizinga recommended his friend Andr
Jolles for the position.37 The letter is published in Volume ii of Briefwisseling
[Correspondence].38
30
sa n d e r s l o o ki n g f or trac e s of h u i zi nga
|73
in any case not in the personal papers of F.M. Wibaut, where one might expect to
find it.
39
J. Huizinga, Briefwisseling III 1934-1945, letter 1453 p. 332.
40
iisg Archief iisg, letter from Jaap Kloosterman to J.P.E. Teding van Berkhout, 29
October 2004.
41
Inquiries by Hansen et al. revealed that this letter was held by M.F.W. Teding van
Berkhout, Esq. See Huizinga, Briefwisseling III 1934-1945, p. 332.
42 Huizinga, Briefwisseling III 1934-1945, op. cit. (Note 27), p. 332.
43
IISG Archive N.G. Teding van Berkhout, No. 60.
44
Oral remark by Frank de Jong.
74
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Annexes
Letter 1, neha archive: No. 24.
klein toornvliet
helpman
at Groningen
18 May 1914
Dear Sir,
I lack the time, within the rigid deadline you set me, to search consistently for persons eligible for membership of the n.e.h.a. I therefore list only a
few names that come to mind.
G. Mesdag Vz. Dir. agentsch. Ned. Ba.
U.G. Schilthuis, member of the provincial executive
Jhr. R. Feith, Esq., member of the provincial executive
J.H. Geertsema Wz., Esq., secretary to the Chamber of Commerce
Mr H.A. Poelman, state archive commissioner
J.E. Scholten, industrialist
[next page]
F.F. Beukema, Esq. ibid.
Jhr E.v. Beresteyn, Esq., mayor of Veendam
Professor I.B. Cohen, Esq.
Professor C.A. Verrijn Stuart, phd
J.G.C. Joosting, Esq, national archivist
M.C. Offerhaus, Esq., steward of city property.
Except where indicated otherwise, all in Groningen.45
Very truly yours,
J. Huizinga
***
45
Of the persons listed, Poelman, Scholten and Cohen were in fact members of the
neha Association.
sa n d e r s l o o ki n g f or trac e s of h u i zi nga
|75
Letter 2, personal papers of Bruno Becker (iisg): No. 3 letter from Huizinga
to Becker, 1924.46
Dear Colleague,
Please accept my sincere thanks for your article, which once again reflects excellence in our history, with which you almost put us to shame.47
I would not presume to reply in Russian to somebody so proficient in foreign languages as you:
[next page]
it would be riddled with mistakes! But as a token of my best effort:
Iskrenno Uvazhaiu Vas48
J. Huizinga
Leiden 6 February 1924
***
46
47
48
Bruno Becker (1885-1968). See: http://hdl.handle.net/10622/ARCH02483; last accessed 29 July 2013. At first the archive was at the Eastern Europe Institute of the
University of Amsterdam and pursuant to an agreement dated 20 June 2002, signed
by M.C. Jansen on behalf of the Eastern Europe Institute and by Jaap Kloosterman
on behalf of the Stichting iisg, was entrusted to the iish. Beckers short biography
by M.C. Jansen at historici.nl still lists the location of the archive as the Eastern
Europe Institute. See: http://www.historici.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/BWN/lemmata/
bwn5/becker#sthash.JQwBulrR.dpuf; last accessed 29 July 2013.
This appears to concern one of these two articles that Becker published in 1923:
Bruno Becker, Iets over Ian van Zuren, zijn drukkerij en zijn medeghesellen,
Het Boek 12, 1923, pp. 313-317, or Idem, Thierry Coornhert et Christophe Plantin,
Compas dor. Bulletin de la Socit de Bibliophiles anversois, 1923, pp. 97-123.
Translation: I sincerely hold you in great esteem. The line in Russian is pre-revolutionary spelling. Thanks are due to Gijs Kessler.
76
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Letter 3 (iisg) Netherlands collection, small archives, and isolated documents, Persons, Volume 1.
HUIZINGA, J.
31 Letter from J. Huizinga to N.W. Posthumus, 1938, 1 item.49
Leiden, 27 September 1938
Dear Colleague,
Yesterday I received a letter from Professor Alphons Dopsch in Vienna,
whom you know. He has asked me to assist in helping Professor A. von
Loehr, previously director of the Austrian coin cabinet, who has been dismissed from his position.50 He is working on a book about payment methods and the like in the different countries in earlier times and hopes to
work in the Netherlands and in England to complete his material.
[next page]
He lacks the resources to this end, and Dopsch is asking whether we could
be of assistance here.
Would that not be a perfect cause for your institute?
I cannot send you the letter from Dopsch today. I do not have it here, but
the moment it is returned to me, I will send it to you.51
Best wishes,
J. Huizinga
***
49
50
51
The Collectie Nederland, kleine archieven en losse stukken at the iish was created at an unknown date. In any case, it existed when Anneke Welcker (1920-2009)
and Mies Campfens (1940-2010) were in charge in the 1970s and 1980s. This letter
from Huizinga to the director of the Institute (your Institute) was presumably
addressed to Posthumus as director of the iish. The letter therefore belongs at the
archive of the iish (organization). At some point somebody decided to register it
as a separate archival document. Who, let alone why, is impossible to determine.
Perhaps it was an iish staff member who deeply admired Huizinga?
August von Loehr (1882-1965) studied history and other subjects, was involved with
the royal and imperial coin collections at Vienna since 1906. Very active after 1918
in retaining the royal and imperial collections for Austria despite claims from
successor states. Forced to retire following the Anschluss. In 1938 he was able to
conduct research in London. Whether the request from Dopsch and Huizinga was
fruitful remains unclear. After the Second World War, Von Loehr was still highly
respected in Austrian history and museum circles. He was among the founders of
the Verband sterreichischer Geschichtsvereine. See the short biography of von
Loehr by Erwin Auer, at: http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz53752.html; last accessed 29 July 2013.
Dopschs letter is not known to be among Huizingas personal papers and has not
been found elsewhere either.
sa n d e r s l o o ki n g f or trac e s of h u i zi nga
|77
Leiden 17 XI 35
Dear Beckman,
Thank you very much for your review. Of course I am open to criticism
and am aware of my weaknesses. I am delighted that you have understood
the book overall in the way I would most appreciate.53
So much better than the reviewer in the Utrechtsch Nieuwsblad of 9 November.
Two minor remarks: at the place
[next page]
... where your page 722 refers, first line at the top, I did not mean any specific statements, perhaps I had Italian oratory in mind. The way from America
to Europe, which you attribute to me on the same page, does not ring any
bells, but there might be a connection.
This week an important phd defence supervised by Colenbrander: A.J.C.
Rter on the Railway strikes and the like. You will soon see the book.
I hope you are doing well. If you happen to be in Leiden, I would be delighted, if you came to visit me. After 1 January, my address will be Van
Slingelandtweg 4.
Best wishes,
Yours,
J. Huizinga.
****
52
53
Copies of letters 4 and 5 are in the personal papers of H.B. Wiardi Beckman at the
iish in the 1994 accrual. On the cover is a handwritten note from Mies Campfens,
reading addition to the archive of H. Wiardi Beckman (copies) Mies [= initials]
11-11-94.
H.B. Wiardi Beckman, [Bespreking van] In de schaduw van morgen, De Socialistische
Gids. Maandschrift der Sociaal-Democratische Arbeiderspartij, 20 (1935), pp. 718-25.
78
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Dear Friend,
We had long been planning to invite you over again, but we were away for
a week. It would be delightful, if we could meet Mrs Wiardi Beckman at
this occasion as well, who as we heard from Suze Kuenen, returned home a
while ago.54 Would you join us for dinner (but wait: the blackout!). Should
that be an obstacle, could you come have coffee with us on a Sunday? I presume you work during office hours during the week? Sunday the 8th we
have plans, but what about Sunday the 15th? How complicated it is these
days to make even the simplest appointment! Please let me know, what
would suit you; you are of course welcome to come visit on other dates.
Best wishes v.h.t.h.55
Yours,
J. Huizinga
***
Text 1 iish Archive of Jan Romein, No. 224.56
Plato, Arist., Cato, Seneca condemned interest [payment]. But laws prohibiting it were impossible to enact. Restrictions set during the Roman Empire:
Diocl. Const. 12%, Just. 6%. church fathers contest this. Conc. Arles 314,
Nicaea 325 prohibited clergy, capitularies also prohibited laypeople, include
all trade for profit. Ibid. Lat. 1179, Lyon 1274, Vienne 1311.
But scholasticism acknowledges: right to compensation for damnum emergens, lucrum cessans, periculum sortis, mora. landrecht [land law] allows: interest instead of pledge, rentekoop etc.
Theory of pretium iustum. One was not allowed to take advantage of ignorance or diffidence of buyers.
Cities simultaneously devised the lending system and legislation prohibiting the right of pre-emptive purchase.
Lat. 1517 revised and defined it: deriving profit from the use of a barren
business without investing labour, expenses or danger the hum., the Ref.
54
55
56
Suzanna Maria Kuenen (1916-1980). First degree in history, Leiden, 1940. See
Huizinga, Briefwisseling III 1934-1945, p. 347; Wiardi Beckman was married to Maria
Petronella Margaretha Wackie Eijsten.
v.h.t.h.: van huis tot huis: from door to door.
I will merely state in full the abbreviated names and concepts: Aristotle, Roman,
Diocletian, Constantine, Justinian, Council of Arles, Council of Nicaea, clergy
(third) Council of Lateran, Council of Lyon, Council of Vienne, (fifth) Lateran
Councils, humanists, Reformation.
sa n d e r s l o o ki n g f or trac e s of h u i zi nga
|79
except Calvin maintained it under the laws of states, it came to be restricted or was officially enforced
Originals in Dutch:
Brief 1 archief neha: nr. 24.
klein toornvliet
helpman
bij Groningen
18.V.14
Zeer Geachte Heer,
De tijd ontbreekt mij, om in den korten tijd, die U mij stelt, stelselmatig
naar personen te zoeken, die voor het lidmaatschap van het n.e.h.a. in aanmerking kunnen komen. Ik geef dus slechts eenige namen, die mij invallen:
G. Mesdag Vz. Dir.agentsch.Ned.Ba.
U.G. Schilthuis, lid v. gedep. staten
Jhr.Mr. R. Feith, lid v. gedep. staten
Mr. J.H. Geertsema Wz., secr. KvK.
Dr. H.A. Poelman, comm. Rijksarchief
J.E. Scholten, industrieel
[volgende bladzijde]
Mr. F.F. Beukema, id.
Jhr.Mr. E. v. Beresteyn, burgem. v. Veendam
Prof.Mr. I.B. Cohen,
Prof.Dr. C.A. Verrijn Stuart
Mr. J.G.C. Joosting, Rijksarchivaris
Mr. M.C. Offerhaus, rentmeester der stadsbezittingen.
Zonder bijvoeging allen te Groningen.
Hoogachtend,
Uw dw.
J. Huizinga
***
80
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Brief 2 archief Bruno Becker: nr. 3 brief van Huizinga aan Becker, 1924.
Zeer Geachte Collega
Ontvang mijn oprechte dank voor Uw artikel, dat opnieuw getuigt van
een meesterschap in onze geschiedenis, waarmee U ons bijna beschaamt.
Ik waag mij tegenover iemand die zijn vreemde talen zoo beheerscht als
U, niet aan een russisch ant
[volgende bladzijde]
woord; het zou al te gebrekkig uitvallen! Maar om mijn goeden wil te
toonen:
Iskrenno Uvazhaiu Vas
J. Huizinga
Leiden 6 Febr.24
***
Brief 3 Collectie Nederland, kleine archieven en losse stukken, Personen,
deel 1,
HUIZINGA, J
31
Brief van J. Huizinga aan N.W. Posthumus. 1938, 1 stuk.
Leiden,
27 IX 38
Waarde college,
Gisteren ontving ik een brief van prof. Alphons Dopsch te Weenen, U welbekend, die mijn medewerking inriep ten behoeve van prof. A. von Loehr,
vroeger directeur van het Oostenrijksche Mnzkabinett, nu ontslagen. Deze
werkt aan een boek over betalingswijzen enz. in de verschillende landen in
vroegeren tijden en zou ter completeering van zijn materiaal nog gaarne in
Nederland en in Engeland werken.
sa n d e r s l o o ki n g f or trac e s of h u i zi nga
|8 1
[ volgende bladzijde]
Daartoe ontbreken hem echter de middelen, en nu vraagt Dopsch of men
hier iets zou kunnen doen.
Zou dat niet juist iets zijn voor Uw Instituut?
Ik kan U heden den brief van Dopsch niet zenden, ik heb hem niet hier,
maar zoodra ik dien terug krijg, zal ik hem laten volgen.
Met vriendelijke groeten.
Gaarne Uw dw.
J. Huizinga
***
Brief 4 Huizinga aan H.B. Wiardi Beckman, 17 november 1935.
Leiden 17 XI 35
Waarde Beckman,
Hartelijk dank voor Uw bespreking. Ik sta natuurlijk open voor kritiek,
en ben mij zwakke plekken wel bewust. Het verheugt mij, dat ge het boek
als geheel zoo zeer begrepen hebt in den zin, die mij het liefst is.
Wel heel veel beter dan den beoordeelaar in het Utrechtsch Nieuwsblad van
9 November.
Twee kleine kantteekeningen: op de plaats,
[volgende bladzijde]
waarop Uw blz. 722 eerste regel bovenaan slaat, heb ik geen bepaalde uitingen op het oog gehad; mogelijk heeft mij Italiaansche oratorie voor den
geest gezweefd. Den gang van Amerika naar Europa, dien ge me op dezelfde
bladzijde toeschrijft, ben ik mij niet bewust, maar het verband kan bestaan.
Deze week onder Colenbrander een belangrijke promotie: A.J.C. Rter,
De Spoorwegstakingen enz. Ge zult het boek wel spoedig zien.
Ik hoop dat het U naar wensch gaat. Voert Uw weg U naar Leiden, dan
houd ik mij voor een bezoek aanbevolen. Na 1 Januari a.s. zal mijn adres
zijn Van Slingelandtweg 4.
Met vriendelijke groeten,
De Uwe
****
J. Huizinga.
82
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Leiden 3.IX.40
Amice,
Wij hadden al lang het plan, je weer eens een bezoek hier voor te stellen, maar nu waren we zelf een week van huis. Het aardigst zou het zijn,
als we dan ook met Mevrouw Wiardi Beckman mochten kennismaken, die
immers, naar we van Suze Kuenen hoorden, al lang weer thuis is. Zoudt ge
samen kunnen komen eten (maar ho! de verduistering!). Levert dat bezwaar op, kan het dan koffiedrinken op een zondag zijn? In de week zijt
ge zeker aan kantooruren gebonden? Zondag 8 zijn wij waarschijnlijk niet
thuis, maar zondag 15? Wat wordt zelfs het maken van de eenvoudigste
afspraak in dezen tijd omslachtig! Laat eens hooren, wat U mogelijk is; voor
ons staan natuurlijk ook andere data open.
Met vriendelijke groeten v.h.t.h.
de Uwe
J. Huizinga
***
Tekst 1 iisg Archief Jan Romein, nr. 224
Plato, Arist., Cato, Seneca verwerpen rente. Maar verbodswetten onuitvoerbaar. Rom. Keizertijd stelt grenzen: Diocl. Const. 12%, Just. 6%. kerkvaders
bestrijden het. Conc. Arles 314, Nicaea 325 verbieden het aan geestel.- capitularia ook aan leeken: begrijpen er ook alle winsthandel in. id. Lat. 1179,
Lyon 1274, Vienne 1311.
Maar scholastiek erkent: recht op vergoeding van damnum emergens, lucrum cessans, periculum sortis, mora. landrecht staat toe: rente in pl. van
pand, rentekoop etc.
Theorie v. pretium iustum. Men mocht geen gebruik maken v. onwetendh.
of verlegenheid des koopers.
De steden ontwikkelen tegelijk het credietwezen en de
anti-voorkoopswetgev.
Lat. 1517 hernieuwt en definieert het: uit het gebruik eener onvruchtbare
zaak zonder arbeid, kosten en gevaar winst trekken de hum., de ref.
behalve Calvijn handhaven het. de staatswetten stellen nu grenzen, of
handhaven het formeel.
I.4
I.4
Working
Workingfor
for
the
theInstitute
Institute
Kees
KeesdedeDood,
Dood,
N.W.
N.W.Posthumus
Posthumusand the
International
and the International
Institute of
Social
Institute
History,
of Social
1940-1950*
History,1940-1950
Alex
Geelhoed
Alex
Geelhoed
I wish to express my warm thanks for the comments made by my daughters Fenna
(screenwriter) and Anne (editor), and my wife Sanne Benjamin (secretary). I refer as
much as possible to sources in English.
In a Dutch secret service report, he was speculatively called a champagne
communist, and a much too solid capitalist to be communistic at the same time.
National Archives of the Netherlands, The Hague, Archive 2.03.01, Cabinet of the
Minister President/Kabinet Ministerpresident, inventory no. 5657.
g e e l h o e d w orki ng f or the i ns ti tu te
|8 5
4
5
86
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Cornelis de Dood was born in 1892 in Amsterdam to a prosperous middle class family. In his youth, Kees de Dood (as he was called) was part of a
Bohemian group of poets, painters, and other raging artists and intellectuals, among them Erich Wichman, an artist, provocateur and proto-fascist7
whom De Dood both loved and later detested, and despite all still loved.
Members of this bunch performed at Dada-esque manifestations in the
years following the First World War. Next, we find De Dood as a journalist in
Berlin, as foreign correspondent for one of the leading Dutch newspapers,
Het Vaderland, and also working for German and American press agencies.
He even met Hitler in the early years of his movement. While in the culturally bustling German capital he married the Dutch expressionist ballet
dancer Florrie Rodrigo;8 the couple remained childless. After their return
to Amsterdam, De Dood had a unique successful play produced on stage in
1925 by the director Albert van Dalsum. After that he worked as a journalist at the Dutch social-democratic daily newspaper Het Volk, and he turned
out to be a popular orator at numerous party meetings of the sdap (Social
Democratic Labour Party) and its affiliates. In 1932 he became a member of
the Amsterdam city council, but the following year he exchanged his social-democratic seat for a position in the communist party group. This act
stemmed from his political radicalization after the Nazi-seizure of power,
as well as because he was offended by an intentional negative review of his
new book (a Dutch Literature History) in the party press. His betrayal of
the sdap raised a hell of a row, reported by every newspaper in the country. De Dood too much of an individualist never became a true communist, and in his next novel he criticized communist practices. After that he
was no longer active on the political stage. He was an author of 15 books
published under various pseudonyms, novels as well as detective-stories.
He also wrote the first radio drama in the Netherlands, some plays, regular columns, short stories, and a political brochure in 1931 (Het Plan Briand,
which also appeared in French: Le Plan Briand), hardly any best sellers. In
the 1950s he mainly worked on translations, for example, the first biography of Sigmund Freud into Dutch. His masterpiece, however, was the threevolume translation in English of The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh for
an American publisher (1958). At the same time he translated into English
a series of profiles on Dutch artists and architects, that have been distributed all over the world by the Department of Education, Arts, and Sciences.
The American weekly The Nation published a one-off article on Benelux
7
8
tussen droom en daad 1850-1950 (Amsterdam, 2009), pp. 289-301. Documents on and by
C. de Dood can be found in several record offices and also in a small collection at
the iish, Amsterdam, together with all his publications.
He died the first day of 1929, and did not live long enough to experience the real
consequences of fascism in power.
See a short biography at: http://socialhistory.org/bwsa/biografie/rodrigues; last
accessed 11 November 2013. Florrie was born as Flora Rodrigues (1893-1996).
g e e l h o e d w orki ng f or the i ns ti tu te
|8 7
Disunion in 1954. His greatest disappointment, however, was that publishers in the 1950s declined his philosophical essay The revolt of science, in
which, based on the English medieval philosopher Francis Bacon, he emphatically argued for the use of common sense science in international
politics.9
Both C. de Dood and N.W. Posthumus were hard workers, promoters
of science, socialists, and definitely strongly opinionated, for better or for
worse. In 1965, five years after the death of Posthumus, Kees de Dood died
at the age of 72. Now he is largely forgotten, whereas the fame of N.W.
Posthumus remains.
In this article I shall deal with some of the meetings and collaborations
between C. de Dood and N.W. Posthumus, mainly around World War ii.
9
10
11
12
88
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
16
g e e l h o e d w orki ng f or the i ns ti tu te
|8 9
17
18
19
J.Romein was rejected for this chair, with the support of N.W. Posthumus.
Within a few years however a true friendship between these two began to
flourish.Tenhaeff in 1939 joined the General Board of the iish.
Annie Adama was the widow of the socialist poet C.S. Adama van Scheltema,
who had been a friend of Posthumus during his student years. Annie Adama
had already worked a couple of years in the Economic-Historical Library with
Posthumus. See for a short biography of Annie Adama van Scheltema (1884-1977):
http://socialhistory.org/nl/node/681; last accessed 3 November 2013.
iish, Institutional archives of the of the Netherlands Economic History Archive,
inventory no. 142.
See footnote 10, the second mentioned letter of 4 June 1956.
90
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
I discover a thick file in the municipal archives, which allowed me to realize how long he had worked on this, what the nature of the work was,
and the annual progress.20 The purpose was to classify and catalogue 20,000
iish brochures and leaflets that had been saved from the German robbers
at the very end. The official documents on this project concealed its real
nature; the brochures were only specified in general terms, and neither
the iish nor Posthumus was mentioned. The second task was the work on
the war catalogue, consisting of systematically arranged, typed index cards
containing references to newspaper reports on the political, military, economic, social, and cultural events of the war. The sources were dozens of
German controlled Dutch newspapers and journals, including even the
Jewish Weekly (Joodsche Weekblad, 1941-1943) and also ten German papers such
as Die Vlkischer Beobachter and the Frankfurter Zeitung (until 1943). One day
the Sicherheitsdienst became inquisitive about this work on all the newspapers. Obviously, in a strictly scientific account, nothing was explained about
Posthumuss real intentions.21 This last project can be considered as the early (1941) start of his initiative for the Institute for War Documentation. The
war catalogue with its 120,000 cards, finished in 1946, can still be seen in the
reading room of this institute in Amsterdam.
For De Dood, this work meant that he had a steady income for five years
(1941-1945). He earned 26 Dutch guilders a week, more than twice his unemployment benefit. He had, in fact, along with one other colleague, the
highest income of the team. I have the impression that the cataloguing
work of the iish material went fairly quickly, the official progress however
was slower, as can be seen in the annual reports.22 Participation and income
should have been more important. This work allowed De Dood to pay more
of his creative attention to his novel Mozes, which was based on thoughts of
Sigmund Freud. This book, that I consider as his finest work, was published
by the Wereldbibliotheek in 1947, under the pseudonym Per Olafson.
Apart from the cataloguing, done in a room of the central university
building, the Oudemanhuispoort (at the Kloveniersburgwal), the presence of
De Dood could also be noted in visitors books of the Economic-Historical
Library (ehb).23 It is possible that some work on the project (also) took place
20
21
22
23
g e e l h o e d w orki ng f or the i ns ti tu te
|9 1
25
26
27
92
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
28
29
Itook the liberty to translate a few of these original Dutch lines: In moffenoogen
was hij niet best/Ze hadden aan hem gruwelijk de pest/Ontnamen hem zijn ambt
en boeken/Entlassen war der Posthumus/ Zoo klonk hun vuile Duitsche smoes.
N.W. Posthumus was a member of the Board of Directors. See Prospectus
Nederlandsch Genootschap voor Internationale Zaken (1947), p. 6.
Lydia Winkel and Posthumuss son Jan Huibert (1909-1991) were among
the people who took part in this. See Jaarverslag 1945-1946 Rijksinstituut voor
Oorlogsdocumentatie (The Hague, 1948), pp. 6-7; and also Lydia Winkel, Mijn werk
bij Oorlogsdocumentatie 1, Lecture, vara Radio, 7 July 1956, typescript in niod
Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam, Institutional
archives.
g e e l h o e d w orki ng f or the i ns ti tu te
|9 3
who was taken hostage by the Germans; G.J. van der Heijden (1897-1982),
an apolitical businessman; Henk Beishuizen (1910-1945), a journalist for the
(resistance) newspaper Het Parool, and more importantly, Kees de Dood, who
undoubtedly mediated between the discussion group and Posthumus, and
finally, J. Franken.
J.H.A. Franken (1896-1955) was a leading commercial agent for plastics,
mainly from Germany. He had grown up in a textile milieu in Tilburg and
as a youngster he was employed by the Deli-Atjeh Handel-Maatschappij and
worked for over ten years for that firm in the East-Indies. Surprisingly,
De Dood was also an employee of the Deli-Atjeh for a short time, in the
Amsterdam head office. In the manuscript of an unpublished novel, De
Dood ironically portrayed Franken under the name of Kroon (both names
are used for foreign currencies, francs and crown). Many of the facts in the
book are realistic, though this may not be true of the portrayal of Frankens
character and gestures. He is described as a thick-set figure, but lively, not to
say hot-tempered.30
From this cooperation between De Dood and Franken (who lived in the
same Amsterdam neighborhood) earlier in the war, w7 started discussions
in September 1944 at the office of Franken at Singel 66. (De Dood worked
for his firm in that period as a pedantic business correspondent in foreign
languages, much to the irritation of the other staff.)31 The Werkgemeenschap
7 saw itself as a political, economic, social, and cultural study group, politically heterogeneous, but definitely democratic and emancipative. The intention was objective knowledge, and therefore more scientifically based
politics. This was a theme that had interested De Dood since the 1930s, and
Posthumus and Romein tried to realize it in their new Faculty for Political
and Social Sciences. This Faculty was also supposed to include institutes for
Russia and America and other areas. And with respect to the idea of adding
a Central Europe Institute, J. Franken offered a partnership to Posthumus.
The plan was that this institute would be oriented to science as well as
commerce. In the w7 files, a draft with both their names typed as signatories can be found for the establishment of a foundation for these institutes, mainly to attract financial support. The prospect of a large sum of
at least 100,000 Dutch guilders (about 543,548 in 2012), was held out to
Posthumus. Indeed, a year later, in 1946, a brochure by Posthumus was published on behalf of a Dutch Foundation for Political and Social Sciences, but
it is not certain if this is the same as the one designed by Franken.
Aside from the Singel address, Werkgemeenschap 7 had a few rooms in
a building on the Nieuwe Spiegelstraat at the corner of the Herengracht,
which had been taken from a German firm. w7 housed its library there,
partly consisting of books captured from national-socialist and German or30
31
94
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
ganizations. Books were also been offered to scientific libraries. Nationalsocialist books stored on the premises of the publishing house Allert de
Lange (de Lange had come across these when it was resurrected) were offered to the Institute for War Documentation. (Allert de Lange had published Exil authors in the 1930s, and had therefore been liquidated by the
Germans soon after the occupation began.32) C. de Dood certainly facilitated
the transfer of the books, as he had published a book with Allert de Lange
before, and another one soon after the war. In letters signed by Posthumus,
the Institute for War Documentation welcomed this offer.
A couple of days preceding the German capitulation, Franken discussed handing over the materials of the Deutsche Informations Bibliothek in
Amsterdam with Posthumus, as compensation for the German robbery of
Dutch cultural goods.33 In the first week after the liberation, w7 offered all
kinds of books to the Economic-Historical Library, this time not of nationalsocialist content, which can still be found in the iish catalogue. Franken, incidentally, was also a member of the Netherlands Economic History Archive
for a couple of years, from June 1944.
A study group such as the Werkgemeenschap 7 was not unique, particularly in the half year before the German capitulation. Several of these groups
discussed blueprints for a radical change in the Netherlands after the war,
but they did not result in anything. Nor was the newspaper issued by the w7
the only new one in May 1945.34 w7/Het Oordeel (The Opinion, or The Judgement)
was merely a one-man journal by De Dood, writing editorials, articles, and
a column under various names.35 Herman Milikowski (Jewish, survivor of
the concentration camps, later a well known sociologist), Hugo Zimmerman
(working for the Institute for War Documentation), Jan Franken, and, from
Brussels, Friedrich Weissman were among the authors of multiple pieces. The
journal grew in no more than 27 issues from an unsightly pamphlet to 16
printed pages, with photographs and photo collages. In the end, the editorial
office was moved from Frankens office to an address where another journal
(Metro) was put together by a circle around the comic artist Marten Toonder,
and this resulted in contributions by Piet Beishuizen and Dirk Huizinga.
32
33
34
35
The books published by Allert de Lange before 1940 were confiscated and the
archives were initially transported to Nazi Germany, and after the war to Moscow,
but they returned from Potsdam in 1991. The archives are now in the iish in
Amsterdam.
Letter J. Franken to N.W. Posthumus, 1 May 1945, in the morning, niod Institute
for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Dossier Werkgemeenschap 7, 249-0904. A.
Posthumus later became trustee of the Deutsche Informations Bibliothek and had the
collection transferred to the Institute for War Documentation. (National Archives
of the Netherlands, The Hague, Archive 2.09.16, Nederlands Beheersinstituut,
Beheersdossiers, 1945-1967, inventory no. 58117.)
Probably financed by Franken.
De Dood should have tried first to publish his articles in De Vrije Katheder, a more
distinguished journal. But no article can be found there under his name. Copies of
the W7/Het Oordeel-newspaper can be found at the iish.
g e e l h o e d w orki ng f or the i ns ti tu te
|9 5
36
37
38
iish, Amsterdam, Archives J. Romein, inventory no. 16, Diaries of 11, 12, and 28 May
1945.
National Archives of the Netherlands, The Hague, Archive 2.09.09, Central Archives
for Special Criminal Jurisdiction/Centraal Archief Bijzondere Rechtspleging, cabr,
1945-1952, inventory no. 86666.
Sytze van der Veen et al., Brill: 325 years of scholarly publishing (Leiden-Boston, 2008),
pp. 105 ff.
96
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
39
40
41
42
g e e l h o e d w orki ng f or the i ns ti tu te
|9 7
set up in 1945: the Commissariat for War Damage, that had as a subdivision
the Schade Enqute Commissie (sec, Committee for Inquiry Into War Damages).
Sadly, the complete archives of this institution were destroyed.43 Fortunately
though, the Ministry could trace a C. de Dood in their personnel files.44
Possibly, Posthumus, with his respectable influence, helped De Dood apply
to the sec. Indeed, from May 1, 1946 until July 1953, De Dood was a civil
servant in the Ministry of Finance, and his job in the sec was to investigate
damaged and stolen cultural goods such as paintings, books, and private
and public libraries. He earned a decent salary, not very different from that
of a school teacher. The Amsterdam sec office was at the Bunge Huis in the
center, today one of the University buildings, and later at the Keizersgracht
277, directly opposite the iish. Again, this was probably not a nine-to-five
office job. As an example, De Dood used as a contact address his private
43
44
In the Amsterdam municipal archives (Stadsarchief) a small file has been preserved
of one of the officials of the Schade Enqute Commissie. See Archive 1396.
De Dood had become seriously affected by rheumatism and was reported ill
in 1952.When most of the work had been finished in 1953 De Dood was fired
involuntary and received a redundancy fee after that. Letter Ministry of Finance to
Alex Geelhoed, The Hague, 19 June 2000.
98
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Conclusion
If N.W. Posthumus did not appoint C. de Dood directly or indirectly to the
War Damage Inquiry Committee to work for the Institute, then this was
in any case a main task for De Dood in his last steady job aside from his
writing.
A few final meetings of both leading figures can be put on record. In
1949, when De Dood proposed Posthumus to the committee to honor the
Dutch author Kees van Bruggen for his 75th birthday; Annie Adama was the
secretary of this committee.49 Some years later De Dood, after consultation
with Posthumus, suggested in vain to the Wereldbibliotheek the idea that he
could prepare dissertations for publishing.
45
46
47
48
49
g e e l h o e d w orki ng f or the i ns ti tu te
|9 9
50
As Onno Brand, Grootvader, ik heb er geen vrede mee (Amsterdam, 1957), pp. 218-220.
I.5
The Persistent Life of
The British Merchant
Co Seegers
In 2013 the city of Utrecht celebrated the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of
Utrecht with a concert (in the presence of then Queen Beatrix), exhibitions,
a commemorative medal, an international congress, and a Treaty of Utrecht
Chair at Utrecht University. The city of Utrecht is very keen on explaining
that the significance of the Treaty is that it marks the birth of modern diplomacy and the road to the European Union. It represents a turning point in
European and world history. For economic historians this period may mark
a less ambitious turning point, it was the first time in Great Britain that
commercial policy dominated the political discussion and brought down
a government and commercial treaty. The commercial and financial press
played an unprecedented role in this.
Thus it is certainly worthwhile to focus on the the Economic History
Librarys (ehb) acquisition two years ago of a newspaper with a clear relationship to the Treaty and its aftermath. In June 2011 Ian Smith of Quaritch
in London offered me a recently acquired complete run of The British
Merchant.
Particular strengths of the ehb are its collections in the area of trade and
the commercial sciences, especially contemporary accounts of everyday
commercial practice, which may be compared with such internationally re-
|1 01
10 2
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
|1 03
Contributions
Our copy of The British Merchant was bound with 88 pages of contemporary
manuscript material and additional blanks (numbered). The binding is in recent calf. The manuscript material consists of four contributions:
1) Papers concerning the Trade to Russia in relation to Tobacco in 1705,
21 pages, comprising transcriptions of petitions and reports by the Maryland
and Virginia planters in connection with the crisis over the trade to Russia,
Peter the Great having canceled the contract in December 1704. The planters protested against the presence in Russia of British workers skilled in
tobacco processing, for fear they would give away trade secrets to a country with ample local supply of the raw materials. Queen Anne duly ordered
their return to England and the destruction of their machinery. There seems
to be another manuscript in the Yale Library. The full text is reprinted in the
William and Mary Quarterly of 1925.
2) Transcriptions of Parliamentary reports and an address relative to the
Asiento with Spain, 5-8 July 1714, 4 pages. The Treaty with Spain (signed
July 13, 1713) was preceded by the asiento agreement, by which Spain gave
to Britain the exclusive right to supply the Spanish colonies with African
slaves for the next 30 years.
3) Report of the Commissaries appointed by Her Majesty to Treat with
those of France, & to Settle the Commerce of both Nations, 9 June 1714, 39
pages. A detailed report on the process of negotiation over Articles 8 and
9 of the Treaty of Utrecht. Whitworth, Murray, and Joseph Martin formed
the British party, DIberville, Annison, and Fnelon the French. Included are
copies in English and French of 14 relevant documents: powers of negotiation, memorials, propositions, and extracts from correspondence. The report concludes with a transcript, in two columns, of the relevant Articles,
with facing observations by the Commissioners.
4) Transcriptions of several documents relating to the Recoinage of 1717,
23 pages, including Isaac Newtons reports to the Treasury of 21 September
and 23 November 1717, and a three-page table of gold and silver bullion exported, by country, from 1711 to January 1717/8. Newtons report advised
the fixing of gold relative to silver coins to a level conforming with that
of much of Europe to halt the sale of silver bullion abroad. In practice, the
bi-metallic relationship between gold and silver coins was changed, forbidding the exchange of gold guineas for more than 21 silver shillings. Due to
differing valuations in other European countries, this inadvertently led to a
drain on silver and a resulting shortage, as silver coins were used to pay for
imports, while exports were paid for in gold.
Publication of The British Merchant was the result of British skirmishes during the aftermath of the conclusion of the Treaties of Utrecht in April 1713.
Utrecht ended the War of the Spanish Succession, the war between France
(Louis xiv) and Austria (Leopold i), supported by Great Britain and the Dutch
10 4
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
|1 05
Contributors
Internal evidence provides no clear sign of who wrote The British Merchant.
All texts are anonymous. Charles King, author of several contributions and
editor of a later edition, named Henry Martin (d. 1721) as the most important contributor. As a reward for his leading part in the ultimately rejection
of the Treaty, Martin was made inspector-general of imports and exports of
customs by the government. Other key sources came from the originals
of Sir Theodore Janssen, Sir Charles Cooke. In 1680 Theodore Janssen (d.
1748) went to England and was successful in trade. He was naturalized as an
English citizen in 1685. A tract by Janssen entitled General Maxims in Trade
particularly applied to the Commerce between Great Britain and France appeared in 1713 (iish, Kashnor Collection Bro E 5840/44Ks). It was reproduced
in the 1721 edition of The British Merchant.
Following this, Perry Gauci, in an article on the political tracts concerning the Bill of Trade with France deposited in the Bodleian Library, made
a plausible argument that these papers played a central role in the documentation necessary for contributions in The British Merchant and that these
papers were collected and annotated by Charles Cooke. In Gaucis opinion
this collection compensated for the serious deficiency in the anti Bill party.
The author of the rival Mercator, Daniel Defoe, had better access to records
and inside information.1 Other merchants who aided The British Merchant
were James Milner, Nathaniel Toriano, Joshua Gee, Christopher Haynes, and
David Martin.
Circulation of The British Merchant peaked at 7,000 copies per week (i.e.,
3500 copies per issue) in April 1714. This compared to the Mercator, which
briefly peaked at 14,400 copies per week (4,800 per edition) just before the
vote in 1713. In March 1714 the circulation decreased to 1,600 per issue.
Nevertheless, compared to other journals quite a large number.2
Publication of The British Merchant continued only until the stated aim was
achieved: Parliament voted down the disputed articles and that part of the
Treaty collapsed. The Mercator ceased publication on 20 July 1714. The British
Merchant held on for a few weeks to deal with the Asiento, which granted
the South Sea Company the right to provide slaves to the Spanish colonies.
But in fact, with its mission accomplished, The British Merchant ceased to appear by the end of July 1714.
Seven years later, in 1721, a selection of numbers was collected and edited
by Charles King in a three-volume edition with the same title. Rather than
containing advances to the theory of trade, the work represented a compilation of contemporary merchant opinion. King sought to preserve the home
1
2
Perry Gauci, The Clash of Interest: Commerce and the Politics of Trade in the Age
of Anne, in The Parliamentary History Yearbook Trust (2009), pp. 115-125.
Jacob M. Price, Note on the circulation of the London press 1704-1714, in Bulletin of
the Institute of Historical Research, 31 (1958), pp. 215-224, 221-222.
10 6
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
market for British-made goods, and argued that the first and best market
of England are the natives and inhabitants of England. Such ideas would
prevail in commercial policy debates until the later part of the eighteenth
century. Charles King, at that time chamber-keeper of the treasury, dedicated the concluding volume of the work to Paul Methuen, son of the framer
of the Methuen Treaty (with Portugal in 1703). He was allowed 395 pounds
from the exchequer for expenses of printing. Copies of the book were sent
to all corporations in Great Britain that sent members to Parliament.
Forty years after its first publication, The British Merchant still enjoyed
great authority, and the arguments against free trade were still valuable. A
second edition was published in 1743 and a third in 1748.
In 1728 a translation in Dutch, Historie van den Algemenen en Byzonderen
Koophandel van Groot-Britannien, was published in two volumes by the Delft
publisher Reinier Boitet. There is no specific introduction for readers in the
Republic to this Dutch edition. Its importance to Dutch trade is obvious, but
the contribution by Theodore Janssen is not included.
In 1753 a French translation, by Franois Vron Duverger de Forbonnais,
was published titled Le Negotiant Anglois; a contribution by Charles Davenant
De lusage de larithmetique politique (1698) was added. The French edition was
published with the imprint: Imprim Dresde & se trouve Paris, Chez les
frres Estienne, 1753. In 1776 a second edition with the same title (although
Negotiant was now Negociant) was published in Amsterdam by Franois
Changuion.
In 1764 a German revised edition appeared under the title Der Englische
Kaufmann, translated by Johann Lder Albrecht and published by Caspar
Fritschischen Handlung in Leipzig.
It would be expected that this edition would include information on Ken
Carpenter, Dialogue in political economy. Translations from and into German in the
18th century.3 It is not mentioned, but this work does deserve a place among
the top 50 of eighteenth-century bestsellers. More than that, The British
Merchant proved to be a perfect example of how well the old books collection of the Economic History Library and the Kashnor Collection at the
International Institute of Social History are a perfect match.4 Together they
hold one of the most important collections in the fields of economic history
and the history of economics.
3
4
Kenneth C. Carpenter, Dialogue in political economy. Translations from and into German in
the 18th century (Boston, 1977).
Catalogue of the Kashnor collection at the iish: Huub Sanders, Books and Pamphlets
on British Social and Economic Subjects (ca. 1650-1880) at the iisg Amsterdam (Amsterdam,
1988).
|1 07
Bibliographic Survey
british merchant (the); or, Commerce preservd: in Answer to the
Mercator, or Commerce retrievd to be published every Tuesday and Friday,
August 7, 1713 [- Friday July 30, 1714] (London, printed for A[bigail] Baldwin
[for Ferd. Burleigh after number 32]. [1713-1714] 102 issues (the final issue
numbered erroneously 103). neha arch03691
british merchant (the); or Commerce preservd : in three volumes /
Charles King (London: John Darby, 1721). neha ehb 7665-7667
british merchant (the). A collection of papers relating to the trade and
commerce of Great Britain and Ireland. First publ. by C. King, from the originals of T. Janssen, C. Cooke, H. Martin a.o. In three vols. (London 1743) 2nd
ed. iish e 770/1-3
british merchant (the). A collection of papers relating to the trade and
commerce of Great Britain and Ireland. First publ. by C. King, from the originals of T. Janssen, C. Cooke, H. Martin among others. In three vols. (London
1748) 3th ed.
Not in our collection historie van den algemenen en byzonderen koophandel van groot-britannien, door alle gewesten van den waerelt: behelzende eene uitvoerige verhandeling van de goederen en koopmanschappen
die van daar verzonden, en uit andere gewesten wederom ontfangen worden: waar by gevoegt zyn zeer veele merkwaerdige echte stukken en bewyzen ieder koopmanschap in het byzonder rakende; als mede de tractaten
van commercie [] door Charles King. Uit het Engels vertaalt in twee deelen
(Delft, Reinier Boitet, 1728) 2 vols. neha ehb 279/C/9-10
negotiant anglois (le); ou traduction libre libre du livre intitul: The
British Merchant, contenant divers mmoires sur le commerce de lAngleterre avec la France, le Portugal et lEspagne. Publi pour la premire fois
en 1713. Tome premier [-Tome second](Imprim Dresde & se trouve Paris,
Chez les frres Estienne, 1753) 2 vols. Includes De lusage de larithmtique
politique dans le commerce & les finances par M. [Charles] Davenant en
1698, pages clviii-cxcii. neha ehb 278/F/18-19 and neha ehb 7668-7669 DK
englische kaufmann (der); oder Grundstze der englischen Handlung,
aus dem Buche The British Merchant gezogen [...] herausgegeben von D.
Johann Lder Albrecht (Leipzig: Caspar Fritschischen Handlung, 1764) 36,
444 pages. neha 2000/688
I.6
Harry Stevens, the British
Correspondent of David
Rjazanovs Institute
On the History of Collecting
at the Marx-Engels Institute
(1927-1931)
Irina Novichenko
n o v i c he nko harry s te v e ns
|1 09
C. Stevens was a young journalist who knew nothing about collecting books
and archives, but after a year or so under the guidance of D.B. Rjazanov,
the Director of the mei, he grew into a highly skilled expert. His work is
completely unknown and seems rather instructive, in particular for those
who are keen to understand the theory of building distinguished archival
and book collections like the iish and the current successors of the mei
the Russian State Social and Political Library (gopb) and the Russian State
Archive of Social and Political History (rgaspi) in Moscow. Harry Stevens
worked for the mei, and then for the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute (meli),
from March 1928 to May 1937. In this article, on the basis of correspondence between Stevens and the mei, I try to reconstruct the first years of activity (1928-1931) of the British correspondent of D.B. Rjazanovs Institute1
and to demonstrate his role in building the collection of British materials in
Moscow. The extensive citations of the documents in the text are partly constrained because they speak for themselves. This source is bright and substantial; it requires almost no comments.
Rjazanov
David Borisovich Rjazanov (1870-1938) was a man of outstanding personality. An old Socialist, one of the leaders of the Russian trade union movement, the founder of the Soviet archival system and a prominent scholar,2
he founded and then in 1921 became head of the Marx-Engels Institute in
Moscow.3 The Institute was intended to collect the literary legacy of Karl
Marx and Friedrich Engels, and to study and publish their texts. The mei
became a centre for the historical study of Marxism. Since Rjazanov was
convinced that it is impossible to study Marxism in isolation from the historical context, the collection included materials from all over the world
and covered the broad areas that today we classify as branches of social his-
110
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
tory. Historical research, in his opinion, requires a laboratory like any other
serious science. Rjazanov built up the collection from a variety of sources.
One of the most effective means of acquisition was the purchase of materials abroad, mainly in Western European countries. From his emigrant past
Rjazanov knew well the institutions, archives and people who might be useful in the process of accumulating records.4 He traveled regularly to Europe
on buying trips and managed to create a network of correspondents authorized to acquire rare books and manuscripts for the mei.
The Institute included a number of departments or cabinets, each focusing on a specific topic: the cabinets of the history of Germany, France, the
United Kingdom, Marx and Engels, philosophy, political economy, law, etc.
Rjazanov coordinated the work of the Institute, the heads of the cabinets
maintained contacts with the correspondents, formulated the goals of their
search activities, controlled the tasks and expenses, and processed the received materials and books. In France, the Institutes correspondents were,
successively, Boris Souvarine, Leon Bernstein and Alix Guillain;5 in Germany
they were Boris Nikolaevsky, Hans Stein and Alfred Schulz; and in Austria
there was Roman Rosdolsky.6 From 1925, the flow of materials to the mei
from France and Germany was abundant. With the United Kingdom, the
situation left something to be desired.
Studying the lives of Marx and Engels, their works and ideas was hardly
possible without materials from England, where Marx spent around thirty
and Engels more than fifty years. Rjazanovs buying trips, orders at Londons
antiquarian bookshops and instructions given to various co-workers from
the mei during their stays in London brought modest results. Moreover, in
May 1927, after diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and the
ussr were broken off all communication was interrupted and even the bookshops refused to fulfil orders. But Rjazanov came up with a clever way out
of the deadlock. He invited Max Beer to work at the mei as head of the cabinet of the history of the United Kingdom.7 After his arrival in Moscow in au4
6
7
n o v i c he nko harry s te v e ns
|1 1 1
tumn 1927, Beers first and most urgent task was to find a correspondent in
London.
Shortly before Beer received the new job at the mei, British Marxist economist Maurice Herbert Dobb8 had contacted him to ask permission to write
an introduction to the English translation of his book. Now Beer asked Dobb
to recommend someone for the position of the meis correspondent and the
latter suggested Harry C. Stevens. Unfortunately, I didnt manage to find any
publications or additional information about him. Almost every detail that
is known, he told himself. Stevens wrote to Beer on 24 February 1928 for the
first time:
I have heard from Mr. Dobb of Cambridge that he has recommended me to you as being suitable, if willing, to undertake
research work in London on behalf of the Marx and Engels
Institute. He has sent me your original letter, dated January
18th 1928, from which I get a very good idea of the kind of thing
wanted. And I write to say that I shall be delighted to undertake
the work, since it is in close connection with my own desires
and interests.9
112
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
10
11
12
13
14
Maurice Dobb, Russian Economic Development Since the Revolution (London, 1927), 437 p.
Assisted by H.C. Stevens. (A second edition, with a new appendix, was published in
1929. The book was written and published to stress the ten-year anniversary of the
ussr, the importance of the events of November 1917.)
rgaspi, F.71, Op.50, D.192, L.1.
Ibid., D.193, L.10.
Ibid., D.192, L.2.
Ibid., L.3.
n o v i c he nko harry s te v e ns
|1 1 3
16
17
18
Harry Stevens visited the ussr as a member of the British Quakers Relief Mission
that worked actively during the famine in the Volga Region in 1922-1924. His
second visit to the ussr took place in 1926; see: Maurice Dobb, Russian Economic
Development Since the Revolution (London, 1929), p. XI. An online search for additional information on H. Stevenss visits to Russia in the Ruth A. Fry Papers in
Swarthmore College Peace Collection (available at: http://www.swarthmore.edu/
library/peace/DG026-050/DG046ARFry.html; last accessed 21 November 2013) as
well as in the other archives of the British Quaker Relief mission in Russia in
1921-1924 (available at: http://search.swarthmore.edu/?q=Russia#q=Russian%20
Famine%20Relief%20; last accessed 21 November 2013) found no results. Ruth Fry,
the Honorary General Secretary of the Friends Relief Committee in 1914-1923, who
visited Russia in 1922-1924, did not mention the name Stevens in her book. See:
Ruth A. Fry, Three visits to Russia. 1922-1925 (London, 1942).
rgaspi, F. 71, Op.50, D.192, L.35.
Ibid., L.46.
The letters were signed consecutively by M. Beer, E. Czbel, R. Fox, in 1931 by V.
Adoratskij.
114
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Vanity Fair and Engelss article in the Labour Standard; to check whether this
journal had another article by Engels and report to the mei; to make photostatic reproductions of The New Moral World (in case you dont find this
paper in the British Museum, try the Goldsmiths Library) and of articles
from various English newspapers quoted or referred to in Marxs Kapital.19 In
a week Stevens reported the results in details and asked for further instructions.20 This kind of work to find a newspaper or a journal with or probably with texts written by Marx and Engels, order their photostatic reproductions (or even better, to buy the selected press items of the necessary period)
and send the copies to the mei remained the most important job for years.
There was a term that was used for this material: desiderata.
Stevens acquired a feel for this work quickly and on 3 April 1928 Beer
noted: You will soon feel at home in the Marx-Engels-workshop and you
will like it.21 Stevens replied: I am already feeling very much at home in
the work, and liking it extremely.22 Stevens located, copied, looked through
and described the periodicals, evaluated the possible attribution of unsigned
texts to the style of Marx or Engels, studied the publications of the mei that
were specially sent to him, and commented on the materials that were difficult to copy or purchase. He became a key person and genuine participant
in the process of preparing and publishing mega volumes.
The first results of his activity, certainly, impressed Rjazanov and Beer.
The second letter of instructions had some requests to find and copy the
articles but also one special request. Beer wrote:
Prior to the break of Anglo-Soviet relations we were in regular
communication with well-known London booksellers who supplied our Institute with all sorts of books. With Foyle we did a
good deal of business. After the break we reduced our orders in
a very considerable degree, and for the indispensable minimum
of our wants we arranged with the Communist (not Workers)
bookshop to supply us. Up to the end of 1927 all went well. Later
on, however, great interruptions occurred, orders not receiving
any attention, and even telegrams were not answered.23
Stevens cleared up the situation with the Communist bookshop and the
order for periodicals was found. He also checked the balance and found
that some books had been sent to Moscow and that the Institute still had a
credit of a bit more than 10.24 Stevens was asked to control and resolve the
19
20
21
22
23
24
n o v i c he nko harry s te v e ns
|1 1 5
problems with mei book orders with other London, and later Manchester,
bookshops and antiquarians. This work took a lot of time and effort. As
the representative of the mei, he visited the managers and owners of the
bookshops, checked the orders and payments, oversaw the process of regularly sending materials and catalogues to the mei, bargained for discounts
and settled conflicts. The Workers Bookshop and W.A. Foyle became the
meis main partners in book purchases. They accumulated the book order
flows and sent the parcels by post or by arcos steamers.25 The mei negotiated also with Quaritch, Kashnor (or The Museum Book Store), among others. Unexpected problems arose only with Baker. This bookseller refused to
sell Commonweal to the mei, citing the break of diplomatic relations with the
ussr. Stevens commented on the situation: [] Just to show, how much
political prejudice remains strong here.26 From time to time Stevens complained to the mei that, in the interests of the endeavor, he couldnt say
openly for whom he was working and buying the items. In any case, he later found a way to resolve the problem with Baker.
In April 1928 Beer,27 in addition to the desiderata, set another objective
for Stevens:
We would like to complete our collection of Socialist and
Labour papers of the Eighties and Nineties. You will oblige us
by assisting us in this matter and inquiring at booksellers or
persons (old trade unionists and Socialists) likely to possess such
papers []. Kindly have us in mind whenever you happen to
come across those old labour people who have played some part
in the movement.28
This work really was complicated, demanding specific abilities, skills and
the talent to find an approach and common language with different people.
Stevens responded to the mei: I am seeing Maurice Dobb on Thursday next
and shall discuss with him what are the best steps to take on this whole
matter, it occurs to me at the moment that letters in the socialist press
would be as good a way as any.29
Every time Stevens encountered difficulties he sought to talk them over
with Dobb. They were more than on good friendly terms. In the case of
work with the mei, Stevens had no secrets from Dobb at all. Maurice Dobb
tells me, he wrote to the mei, that he has not received any duplicates of
instructions forwarded to me, although it was arranged that he should be
25
26
27
28
29
116
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
30
31
32
33
34
35
Ibidem.
Ibid., L.30ob.
Dobb left his admiring impressions in a book: Maurice Dobb, In Soviet Russia.
Autumn 1930 (London, 1930), 30 p.
rgaspi, F. 71, Op.50, D.194, L.117.
Tom Quelch was the son of Harry Quelch, one of the first Marxists in the uk.
Tom followed in his fathers footsteps as a radical political activist, became a
founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Tom Mann (18561941) was a noted British trade unionist, a successful organizer and a popular
public speaker in the labour movement. In 1884 he joined the Social Democratic
Federation. He was a founding member of the Independent Labour Party and
took part in parliamentary elections. In 1901, Mann emigrated to Australia, but
returned to Britain in 1910. In 1917, he joined the British Socialist Party, took part
in the formation of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and was chairman of
the British Bureau of the Red International of Labor Unions and its successor, the
National Minority Movement (in 1921-1929).
rgaspi, F. 71, Op.50, D.192, L.28.
n o v i c he nko harry s te v e ns
|1 1 7
chance Stevens came upon Joseph Burgess,36 whom he knew by sight, in the
British Museum Newspaper Room, and promptly tackled him. It turned out
that Burgess had one file of the Workmens Times and apparently was not willing to dispose of it. But he asked to write and possibly to call on him shortly,
and Stevens took it as a chance to talk things over with him better. This ordinary situation revealed in Stevens some unique qualities of a true archival
collector: the ability to use any opportune moment to get in contact with
the required people; to be precise in describing the scope of his interests;
and to be persistent in maintaining acquaintances.
Rjazanov, being a genius in this field himself, certainly appreciated the
abilities of the British correspondent and decided to entrust him with the
most delicate task investigating the details of the lives of K. Marx and F.
Engels, as well as their relatives with the purpose of finding any documents,
objects or evidence that might be related to them. On 24 April 1928 the mei
asked Stevens to fulfil a new type of request:
We should ask you to look for any possible literary inheritance
(letters, documents etc) left by Edward Aveling.37 We believe
there is no need to explain to you the significance of this matter for the investigations of our Institute, as you must know
that Aveling in the course of many years was an intimate friend
of Engels. One must say that in fact there is not much hope to
find out something definite about this inheritance. Aveling,
who after the death of Eleonor lived with the actress Nilsson,
withdrew himself from the labour movement, and there is little
probability to suppose that this couple felt particular reverence
to letters or documents left from previous times. Anyhow the
matter requires definite explanation: you could find considerable help in trying to consult some old members of the Labour
movement in England. We are told that the writing table of
Marx also came into possession of Aveling, however, we are not
able to control the truth of this statement.38
36
37
38
Joseph Burgess (1853-1934) was a British journalist and Labour politician, who took
part in the creation of the Independent Labour Party and the Labour Party, and
edited and published a number of workers newspapers.
Edward Bibbins Aveling (1849-1898) was a prominent English biology instructor and
popular spokesman for Darwinian evolution, atheism and socialism, the author of
numerous books and pamphlets, and a founding member of the Socialist League
and the Independent Labour Party. For many years he was the partner of Eleanor
Marx Aveling (1855-1898), the youngest daughter of Karl Marx. She was herself a
socialist activist. In March 1898, after discovering that her partner, Edward Aveling,
had secretly married a young actress in June the previous year, she committed
suicide by poison.
rgaspi, F. 71, Op.50, D.192, L.31.
118
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
The next order to Stevens in this area was to arrange the photographing
of all London residences of Karl Marx.39 The literary inheritance of the relatives, friends, companions-in-arms and acquaintances was also the target of
the archival hunting, particularly the literary legacies of Maltman Barry,40
John George Eccarius,41 Professor Edward Spencer Beesly42 and Henry Hubert
Juta.43
This task was among the most difficult. Stevens was making endless
inquires in order to find something, but the progress was bound to be
very slow. He wrote letters, visited lawyers, and looked for documents at
Somerset House, where the Registrar General of Births, Marriages and
Deaths was located, but in vain. The mei constantly demanded that he
should continue the search. The first results started to appear only in late
autumn 1928, when Stevens found the heirs (the sons) of Mr. Beesly, who responded to his letter and said that they had kept the archive of their father.
The mei made this proposal: We have about 50 letters of Beesly, some of
which we might offer in exchange for Marx-letters.44 Later Stevens managed to get copies of Marxs letters. The other investigations brought nothing new, nevertheless they were continued until the last day of Stevenss
employment by the Institute.
In his search for Socialist and Labour Movement papers, Stevens proved to
be rather inventive. He started to make inquires privately in certain direc39
40
41
42
43
44
Ibid., L.32.
Maltman Barry (Michael Maltman Barry, 1842-1909) was a Scottish journalist and
political activist who described himself as a Marxist but stood in elections for the
Conservative Party; he was a friend and supporter of Karl Marx. In 1871 Barry was
appointed as Provisional Chairman of the International Workingmens Association
but, after a year, he was compelled to leave the organization. Later he continued to
be active in radical circles.
Johann Georg (John George) Eccarius (1818-1889) was a Thuringian tailor, labour
activist, longstanding friend of K. Marx and F. Engels, a member of the League
of the Just, and later of the League of Communists and the International
Workingmens Association. Here he served jointly with Karl Marx on the General
Council for a number of years. Following quarrels with Marx in 1872, he joined the
English trade union and suffrage movements.
Edward Spencer Beesly (1831-1915) was a positivist historian and one of the
founding editors of the Positivist Review, professor of history and Latin at Bedford
College for women and after 1889 at University College, and a friend of K.
Marx (was well acquainted with his circle). Beesly was chairman at the meeting
in St. Martins Hall, London (28 September 1864) at which the International
Workingmens Association was founded. In March 1867 he published an article in
the Fortnightly Review supporting the activities of the new model trade unions. K.
Marx corresponded with him.
Henry Hubert Juta (1857-1930) was a nephew of K. Marx, the son of one of his
brothers-in-law, born in Cape Town (South Africa), graduated from the University
of London, was admitted to the Cape bar and practiced there as Judge of Appeal
from 1880 to 1914.
rgaspi, F. 71, Op.50, D.193, L.20ob.
n o v i c he nko harry s te v e ns
|1 1 9
tions, among members of the labour movement who were friendly and who
might possibly provide material at a very reasonable price. He had posted a
notice in the New Leader. At the same time, he tried to take advantage of another opportunity. On 8 May 1928 he reported to the mei:
You will doubtless have had the news of the death of H.H.
Champion.45 [] I also happen to have a friend at present in
London who knows his wife, Mrs. Champion, quite well. She
will willingly put me in touch with Mrs. Champion if I desire
it, and write to know whether you would like me to do so, or
whether you have someone in Australia who can take up with
Mrs. Champion the question of old files. If you would like me to
write, I should be glad of instructions as to what offers I could
make for old material.46
So he wrote to Mrs. Champion and later received some publications from
her. From that point on, Stevens did not let any death of a more or less
prominent individual in the labour movement pass him by.
How did it work? Here is just one typical example. After the death of comrade Westbury, a forty-year-old worker in the labour movement, Stevens
wrote to his relatives. Unfortunately Westbury did not seem to have left any
periodicals, but his executor, a man living a short distance from London,
wrote in answer to Stevenss letter, saying that there were a number of pamphlets and books that might be worth examining. Stevens reported to the
mei:
I went out to Harrow last night and found over a dozen books
and pamphlets originating from the 1880-90 period, which Mr.
Cole very kindly said I could bring away with me. You have given no instructions in regard to pamphlets so I am holding these
and append list of them. If any of them are considered of importance I shall send them across at once, of course.47
The collection apparently was unique because not a single title was found at
the mei and Stevens was asked to send it to Moscow as soon as possible.
45
46
47
Henry Hyde Champion (1859-1928) was a socialist journalist and assistant secretary
of the Social Democratic Federation, who took part in the formation of the
Independent Labour Party. In 1893 he emigrated to Australia.
rgaspi, F.71, Op.50, D.192, L.41.
Ibid., L.67.
120
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
James Keir Hardie (1856-1915) was a Scottish socialist and labour leader, the first
Independent Labour Member of Parliament elected to the Parliament of the United
Kingdom. He was one of the primary founders of the Independent Labour Party, as
well as the Labour Party.
Michael Davitt (1846-1906) was an Irish republican, agrarian agitator, labour leader,
journalist, Member of Parliament and a founder of the Irish National Land League.
Francis Samuel Smith (1854-1940) was a British newspaper editor, became a
founding member of the Independent Labour Party, was its first parliamentary
candidate and contested a large number of elections before finally winning a
parliamentary seat in his mid-70s.
rgaspi, F.71, Op.50, D.193, L.25.
Ibid., L.54.
Ibid., D.192. L.59. Llewellyn Archer Atherley-Jones (1851-1929) was a British
politician, barrister and later a judge. He was the son of Ernest Charles Jones (18191869), an English poet, dramatist and novelist, and Chartist.
John Lincoln Mahon (1865-1933) was a trade unionist and labour politician, an early
member of the Social Democratic Federation.
rgaspi, F. 71, Op.50, D.192, L.87. Henry W. Lee (1865-1932) was a prominent British
n o v i c he nko harry s te v e ns
|1 21
Mann answered that he had nothing because in his frequent travels his collection had broken up, and only provided some useful names. But Mahon
was friendlier and Stevens met with him many times, always reporting the
results of the talks to the mei. Mahon, who was one of the original founders
of the Socialist League, which succeeded the Social Democratic Federation (with
W. Morris, Belfort Bax56 and others), knew very little of Beesly, and of the
Avelings all he had to say was that, as far as he knew, there was nothing
left of them. He had known the Avelings quite well and had been in touch
with them almost until their deaths. He had met Engels and been on very
friendly terms with him, visiting him more than once. He had many interesting things to say about Professor Rjazanovs book on Marx and Engels,
which he greatly admired, though he thought that it presents a slightly different side of Engels from that which he knew. Mahon had Commonweal but
did not want to give it to anyone. He promised to get in touch with other
co-founders of the Socialist League or their descendants with a view to finding
out whether any materials had survived. Stevens wrote to the mei:
Meantime he informs me that Reeves, booksellers in Charing
Cross Road has a number of old socialist publications []. I am
getting into touch with Reeves with a view to seeing what he
has got. He (Mahon) is of the opinion that Marx has never been
understood in this country and very little on the continent,
though he says that in his view Riazanov is the best of the lot,
and there is almost nothing he could quarrel with []. He is
not a member of the Communist Party, although his son is, I
believe. He himself is a lonely survivor of the good old times.57
56
57
58
socialist who joined the Social Democratic Federation soon after its foundation,
became the full-time Assistant Secretary of the party in 1885 and soon after became
its General Secretary. He held this position until the organization dissolved itself
into the new British Socialist Party. Then Lee was a member of the right-wing split
of 1916 which founded the National Socialist Party. This group opposed the October
Revolution, and Lee wrote a pamphlet entitled Bolshevism: A Curse and Danger to
the Workers. In his last years he worked at the headquarters of the Trades Union
Congress.
Ernest Belfort Bax (1854-1926) was a British socialist journalist and philosopher,
associated with the Social Democratic Federation.
rgaspi, F. 71, Op.50, D.192, L.98-99.
Ibid., D.193, L.10.
122
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
At their next meeting, Mahon said that he was in possession of a long letter from Eleanor Marx, written when she began to cohabit with Edward
Aveling, which would have been in 1883 or early in 1884. It was personal
about herself, added Mahon, I think I have preserved it. If so I would present it also to the Institute. My mind at present is to collect all I have and
lend them for a year to the Marx-Engels Institute.59 Stevens asked Rjazanov
to write a personal letter to Mahon,60 which Rjaznov did.61 Mahon replied
with a very pleasant letter, and Rjazanov intended to respond,62 but never
did. When Stevens reminded him of the letter, he received this ruthless retort: Here we do not expect much, Mahon being rather old. If you find a
chance of approaching him again you might do so on occasion.63
Meanwhile the story continued. Stevens almost lost trace of Mahon, but
suddenly in January 1930 Mahon wrote him that he had collected several
letters that the mei might find of interest altogether 16 letters, of which
seven were from Engels, three from Eleanor Marx and two from Aveling,
two copies of letters by Mahon and two others from lesser known people.
There were also other documents, including one with Engelss annotation at
the side.64 Eventually the letters were delivered to the mei as a gift.
H.W. Lee responded promptly to Stevens. On the Avelings, he wrote that
there were no heirs whatsoever as far as he knew; in regard to Eccarius,
he mentioned his son, with whom he had a slight acquaintance, though
he had neither heard nor seen anything of him since; and about Barry he
wrote that Barrys son had probably emigrated to America.65 In a month or
so Lee found the old pamphlets and asked Stevens how much the Institute
could pay for them.66 Then Lee himself made an offer of thirty shillings, but
Stevens found this price excessive and advised the mei to agree to no more
than twenty. In a letter from 30 October 1928 the Institute replied:
Although we possess about one third of these pamphlets and
the price asked for is indeed no cheap one, we cannot very well
bargain with Lee. You see we do not consider our transactions
with him from a strictly commercial point only and it must
be said that the set contains some very interesting and [r]are
pieces. In case you find it possible to drop a hint regarding a
reduction in price when conversing with Lee then, of course, we
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
n o v i c he nko harry s te v e ns
|1 23
would not mind you do so; otherwise we are willing to take the
pamphlets at price stated.67
At the end of November, Stevens noted that he had bought Lees collection
for twelve shillings.68 Lee continued regularly to offer books and materials.
Occasionally the mei declined to buy, but more often than not it was willing
to obtain the issues.
In January 1929, Stevens received these instructions:
Adolf Smith69 died on 9 November 1925. He was a close friend
of Lee. In the 1880s-1890s Smith played a prominent role in the
Social Federation, assisted in all the International Congresses
in the capacity of translator and was well acquainted with the
leading personalities of the Labour Movement. (After his death
one of co-workers being in London approached Lee regarding
the literary inheritance but Lee answered that nothing left.)
This answer might have been due to the inquiry coming from
an outsider. Our intercourse with Lee having become a little
more friendly in the meantime, we thought it would be no
harm to again ask him on this matter, and ask you to kindly
broach this matter to him in careful, diplomatic form [] next
time you have the chance of seeing him. To our view it does not
seem at all likely that Smith, having played such an important
role in the Workers Movement [] did not leave his impressions, reminiscences, etc.70
In March 1929, Stevens had dinner with Lee and asked him many questions.
But Lee said he was surprised himself by the fact that nothing was left after
the death of Adolphe Smith. Mainly because Smiths brother was Granville
Smith, a member of the Conservative Leaders Consultative Committee, Lee
thought family reasons might have prevented anything of Adolphe Smiths
becoming public property.71 Lee explained also that lately his ability to obtain books for the Institute had begun to fail. He had more or less exhausted
the supply. Nevertheless, he promised to keep his eyes and ears open for
anything that might interest the mei.
In July 1928, Stevens reported that he had obtained the address of Joseph
Edwards, former editor of the Reformers yearbook and Labour Annual. He
67
68
69
70
71
124
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
lives in London, and I understand he has a very fine file of documents etc.
I hope to get into contact with him. On 15 August 1928 Stevens noted that
Edwards proposed some volumes as well as his disorganized personal archive. I think Edwards must have a very good collection, judging by various
accounts,72 he added. Stevens visited Edwards and obtained a quantity of
Commonwealth Land Party pamphlets, as well as information about some people who might have material to spare. He mentioned also that Edwards had
a large collection but it was impossible to find out what else was in it.73
Stevenss attitude to his work was so constructive that he conducted
his own investigation into how other people had built their collections.
He found out that Edwards, for instance, and also G.D.H. Cole,74 had spent
hours turning over books, etc. in secondhand bookshops, possibly spending
several hours without finding anything worth buying. He concluded:
The kind of materials wanted by the Institute is the kind that
booksellers stuff away at the very bottom of their piles, regarding it as useless from their point of view. The only other thing
to be done is to collect the booksellers catalogues as exhaustively as possible, as I have already suggested in my last letter.
This can possibly be done more easily by me than by Foyle.75
Gathering the catalogues and sending them to the mei was one of Stevenss
numerous duties. In response he was receiving desiderata lists, or the
same catalogues with the notes, or the direct orders for the bookshops. The
thematic horizons of collecting had broadened and inevitably raised the
question of the acquisition profile. Stevens was the first to pay attention
to this point. The responses from the mei shed light on the Institutes acquisition policy under Rjazanov. Probably E. Czbel,76 Rjazanovs deputy,
explained:
Regarding your fear that specific lists would not necessarily
cover everything we might want we beg to say that in the nature of our work we can never definitely give exhaustive lists,
as by going through one paper, new light is thrown on a sub-
72
73
74
75
76
n o v i c he nko harry s te v e ns
|1 25
77
78
126
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
considered as the most important and the earlier these are taken in hand the better for us.79
In one of his letters Stevens mentioned that he was looking for a contact for
John Burns,80 and he received an immediate reply:
In 1925 com. Rjasanov had paid a visit to John Burns (Intercessor
was Tom Mann). According to Rjasanov, Burns possesses the best
More-Collection in the world. On occasion of this visit it was
mentioned that Burns was having a catalogue of his collection
prepared and a copy of the same was promised to Rj[asanov],
who agreed also to having the Index made on account of the
Institute. At present we still would agree to such an arrangement. Burns possesses two edition princeps of Moruss Utopia. At
the time it was also mentioned to cede the Institute one copy.
Today this is out of the question as we have already obtained
a copy. Soon after his return Rj[asanov] sent, purely as a mark
of attention, several Russian Morus-Studies and offered him the
first Russian Morus-Translation, appeared 1788. (The letter and
parcel remained unanswered and unacknowledged).81
J. Edwards provided Stevens with a letter of recommendation to John Burns
and Stevens wrote him. At the mei, they did not have high hopes: We think
him a very close character and do not expect much but of course a visit will
be quite interesting.82
However, Stevens soon reported that Burns had agreed to see him. This
short note in a letter to the mei in March 1929 was emphatically underlined
three times by Rjazanov. Stevens received these instructions:
Your expected visit to him is good news indeed. As we know
Burns possesses not only the finest More Collection but also a
most interesting collection on Labour questions and Workers
movement, he probably knew Marx and Engels, met them personally, certainly knew their friends and acquaintances, and
had precise and interesting communications with the leaders of
English Workers Movement. Perhaps it would be more advisable to start with the question of his memoirs, personal impres-
79
80
81
82
Ibid., L.181ob.
John Elliot Burns (1858-1943) was an English trade unionist and politician, socialist
and then a Liberal Member of Parliament and Minister. As a book collector, he
created a very large private library, much of which he left to the University of
London Library.
rgaspi, F. 71, Op.50, D.192, L.118.
Ibid., D.193, L.121ob.
n o v i c he nko harry s te v e ns
|1 27
sions and etc., than with More Collection, but we leave it to you
to decide. By the way Burns was well acquainted with Bernstein
at a time when Engels was still alive. Should Burns feel more inclined to talk about his reminiscences on the foundation of the
2nd International this also would be excellent.83
The report on the visit to Burns arrived at the beginning of April 1929.84
Stevens spent over two hours with him, pursuing the specific points mentioned in the Institutes letters and viewing his books. He noticed that the
More Collection consisted of over 3000 volumes; there was no catalogue or
index. Concerning the Russian edition of Mores Utopia, Burns said: This,
together with the Basle German 1524 edition, is all I need to complete my
collection, and he indicated to Stevens that he would be glad to make an
exchange for either or both of these works. I should make it clear, Stevens
wrote, that Burns is a remarkable specimen of the book collector genus! Of
course, anything on More would be of interest but the general Institute publications did not arouse his keen eagerness.
It turned out that Burns did not know Marx at all but knew Engels well.
He said that Engels was very fond of him, and that he had a number of
Engelss letters. He spoke of Engels as a fine, upright gentleman and spoke
of how Engelss house at Regents Park Road was always crowded with visitors. He himself had been there many times. He knew Eleanor Marx, of
course, and Aveling, of whom he spoke in strong terms. He was indeed a
good friend of Bernstein until the war of 1914, when the latter parted with a
number of former friends. He has letters also from Liebknecht, Bebel and
many others, Stevens wrote, and in this direction there is much promise.
He also showed me a gift he had received from Engels of Marxs cigar case,
a more or less ordinary Stuttgart case. Engels had given it to him as a token
of his esteem.
Burns took Stevens rapidly over the library, which was considerable, and
Stevens noticed that the social and political side was excellent.
His collection of pamphlets and periodicals appeared to be enormous. Speaking generally, I got the impression that Burns delighted in showing visitors his books, he extended a cordial invitation to me to come again and again and look at them []. I
hope to get his permission to work in his library, which would
of course be a big concession. One factor certainly was an aid:
he apparently shows keen interest in Soviet Russia. He asked
me to let him have material on the ussr and so far I have sent
him a copy of Dobbs Economic Conditions. I must not forget that
he had very warm recollections of Professor Riazanov, refer83
84
128
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
ring to his visit again and again, and sending his regards to him
through me. He hopes to meet him sooner or later.85
On 10 April 1929 Rjazanov wrote to John Burns personally and sent him
some Russian publications of the mei.
In May Stevens heard nothing from John Burns. In the middle of June the
mei sent an instruction: According to Prof. Riazanov Burns possesses the
only complete series of Beehive existing, and perhaps it would not be a bad
idea to approach Burns with a view of having his file photostated as soon
as a suitable moment presents itself.86 Burns again received Stevens, explained to him that he had not found any letters from Engels yet but he had
discovered letters from Bebel, Liebknecht, Bernstein, Kautsky, the Avelings,
G.J. Harney, C.T. Craig and two telegrams from Engels.87 Stevens reported:
Burns made an interesting admission that he was keeping a diary at least just prior to the war. I rather gathered that he would
even like to visit the ussr possibly in a semi-official capacity.
He is certainly extremely interested, definitely favorable to the
ussr and might make quite a good intermediary.88
Burns gave permission to copy Beehive. Stevens transferred the volumes for
photostating to the London School of Economics (lse) and received a curious
offer from the lse Librarian, who was of course interested in the fact that
the representative of the mei was photostating the Beehive.89 He proposed
that the lse be allowed to make positives from the Institutes negatives in
exchange for a discount of five per cent on the total cost to the Institute.
If the Institute agrees to the lse proposal, Stevens wrote, I think it will
strengthen the already friendly relations existing with them.90 The mei approved the deal, saying that if Burns having no objection to this proposal
we willingly agree to their offer but should very much like to receive the
positives ourselves.91 The mei did not refuse the five per cent discount; it
only proposed to leave the negatives to the lse. Burns agreed to allow the
lse to have a copy and the lse Librarian was happy to know that they get
the negatives because they could sell positives to all the American universities [...].92 I did not find a rational explanation for this decision in the documents. The meis motives for choosing the positives in this case despite
being well aware of with the difference in value between positives and
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
Ibidem.
Ibid., L.96.
Ibid., L.101.
Ibid., L.111.
Ibid., D.195, L.54.
Ibidem.
Ibid., L.63ob.
Ibid., L.74.
n o v i c he nko harry s te v e ns
|1 29
93
94
95
96
130
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
his past experience of living in the country did not help. Politics or political
sympathies had never been discussed in his correspondence with the mei.
At that time, he saw the Soviet state as a superior system by definition and
the mei as a centre of collective rationality, knowledge and wisdom.
In September 1928 Stevens asked the mei to send him some of its Russian
publications: Marx-Engels-Archives, Letopisi Marxizma, Pod Znamenem Marxizma,
Plechanovs volumes, etc. He proposed to cover the expenses by deducting
one pound monthly from his salary. He hoped the Institute would give him
trade rates and discounts for books. [] As a matter of fact I have a library
of nearly two hundred books dealing with Russian revolutionary history.
[] I can take steps to fill out the gaps in my library in the way I suggest.97
In its next letter the mei wrote:
With great pleasure we shall let you have the various Institutes
publications without deducting for them, just considering
these books as an accessory in your work for the benefit of the
Institute. In the course of the next few days the first lot will be
dispatched to you. Regarding Pod Znamenem Marksizma we beg to
mention that this is not a publication of the M.E.I. We have a
few stray copies of this paper which we shall let you have.98
Stevens was genuinely grateful to hear this from the mei: I hardly know
how to express my thanks for these []. Even now I have a feeling that I
ought to pay for them. Their value to me is enormous and I have already
spent two or three nights reading into the small hours of the morning. [] I
can only repeat my very grateful thanks for this considerable addition to my
own reference and study collection.99
In general, by the end of 1928 Stevens had won the absolute confidence
of the mei and this was acknowledged in one of the letters: Take your time
and make arrangements best suited to present circumstances. We have entire confidence in your tact and efficiency and feel sure that this matter as
similar other ticklish affairs will be solved to satisfaction.100
Stevens continued collecting with great enthusiasm. He placed an advertisement for old socialist publications in the Labour Research Department
(of which he was a member) and in April 1929 he received a letter from
a man named Bryan, who said that he had a very good collection of pamphlets dating back over the last 30 years. Stevens made an appointment
with him and found a remarkable collection (including a large number of
Fabian Tracts). Stevens sent the list to the mei. Each item was priced, but the
seller was willing to offer twenty per cent discount for the lot. Then a friend
97
98
99
100
Ibid., L.101.
Ibid., L.108.
Ibid., L.114. The fate of the personal library of H. Stevens is unknown.
Ibid., L.121ob.
n o v i c he nko harry s te v e ns
|1 31
of Bryan, another Trade Union official named Hann also proposed quite a
few items that Bryans list did not include.101
Shortly thereafter, one more collection appeared. J.B. Askew102 died in
Moscow and his widow had a large quantity of pamphlets, books and periodicals at the disposal of the manager in the Workers Bookshop, who invited Stevens to look at this collection. Stevens spent two days sorting out
the issues and three days compiling a list for the mei. The Askew materials
partly overlapped with the Hann and Bryan collections. The Askew collection included a number of German pamphlets of the war period.
A man named Trask also came across the advertisement. He had been interested in the collection of old socialist and similar rare literature for years,
made donations to the lse and elsewhere from time to time and had assisted Cole in searching for research materials. Stevens reported to the mei:
He is keen on the idea of a socialist archives and would appear
to be quite willing to let some of his collection go at the same
price that he paid for the items he showed me a list of some
of the items and certainly they appeared to be of decided interest. He has very good collection of Fabian tracts (bound in one
large volume). In addition he made a free gift to the Institute
(W. Morris, Holyoake, and G.W. Foote). I am going down to see
Trasks collection in a weeks time. In addition I think it might
be worth while considering using him to some extent for the
purpose of searching in likely secondhand bookshops etc. for
rare literature, paying him a small commission on each find, in
order to repay him for his trouble.103
Stevens soon reported new proposals: the collections of Alexander, Taylor
and Stevens (namesake). He viewed the Stevens collection as an extremely interesting little group of publications; the Alexander collection as a
valuable one; and the collection of Taylor, one of the founders of the Shop
Assistants Union in about 1889 and a member of the Socialist League, as
an important one. Taylor had a large collection that he had to store in a
garage belonging to a friendly labour man. He had some very interesting
items. Taylor said nothing concerning the price.104 The Stevens and Askew
Collections were offered as a gift to the Institute. The mei asked for the
101
102
103
104
132
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
addresses of the donors so it could send them letters of thanks. As for the
other collections, the orders were the following: Alexander collection to
buy with reduction if possible, Hann Collection to buy, Bryan Collection
this is the most interesting of all to buy, Trask and Taylor Collections to
buy.105 All the collections were acquired.
The accumulation of this enormous material raised the question of how
it was to be shipped to Moscow. Stevens proposed to pack it all and ship by
Soviet arcos steamer, which was considerably cheaper than book post. But
before anything was shipped from London it was necessary to get a license
to import the materials. The Workers Bookshop obtained this license and
arranged shipment with arcos. The mei reported in a month that all the
boxes had arrived safely.
Ibid., L.93.
Raymond William Postgate (1896-1971) was an English socialist, journalist and
editor, social historian, and a founding member of the British Communist Party
in 1920. He left the party after falling out with its leadership in 1922, when the
Communist International insisted that British communists follow the Moscow
line. He was one of Britains first left-wing former-communists, and the party came
to treat him as an archetypal bourgeois intellectual renegade. He remained a key
player in left journalism in the 1920s. His sister Margaret married the socialist
writer and economist G.D.H. Cole.
n o v i c he nko harry s te v e ns
|1 33
108
109
110
111
134
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
112
113
114
n o v i c he nko harry s te v e ns
|1 35
115
116
117
Ibid., L.156.
Ibid., L.167ob.
Ralf Fox (Ralph Winston Fox, 1900-1936) was a British journalist and novelist, author
of several books, including biographies of Lenin and Genghis Khan, member of the
Communist Party of Great Britain (since October 1920, on the recommendation of
A.F. Rothstein); he visited Soviet Russia several times. In 1922, for six months, he
worked as a member of the Quakers Relief Organisation, then he lived in Moscow
while working for the Communist International in 1925, 1926, 1928. In July 1929 he
was sent to work for three years at the mei; he returned to London in July 1932. For
details, see the biography of R. Fox that he wrote himself rgaspi, F.495, Op.198,
D.391, L.36. Fox was killed in Spain during the Spanish Civil War.
136
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
119
120
121
122
Evelyn John St. Loe Strachey (1901-1963) was a British Labour politician and writer,
the son of John Strachey, editor of The Spectator. Strachey joined the Labour Party
in 1923 and was editor of the Socialist Review and The Miner, a Member of Parliament
in 1929-1931. Strachey was one of the most prolific and widely read British MarxistLeninist theorists of the 1930s. He broke with the Communist Party of Great Britain
in 1940.
George Macaulay Trevelyan (1876-1962) was a well-known British historian, elected
a Fellow of the British Academy in 1925. In 1927 he took up a position as Regius
Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University; in 1940 he was appointed
Master of Trinity College and served in this post until his retirement in 1951.
Harold William Vazeille Temperley (1879-1939) was a British historian, Professor
of Modern History at the University of Cambridge from 1931, and Master of
Peterhouse, Cambridge. Temperleys field was modern diplomatic history, and
he was heavily involved as editor in the publication of the British Governments
official version of the diplomatic history of the early twentieth century.
rgaspi, F. 71, Op.50, D.195, L.67.
George Peabody Gooch (1873-1968) was a British journalist, diplomatic historian
and a Member of Parliament for the Liberal Party from 1906 to 1910. He never held
an academic position, but after the First World War Gooch became an influential
historian of Europe of the period. For about ten years from the mid-1920s onwards
he was involved, with Harold Temperley, in the publication of the official British
diplomatic history.
n o v i c he nko harry s te v e ns
|1 37
125
138
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
128
129
130
131
n o v i c he nko harry s te v e ns
|1 39
132
133
140
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Changing Relationship
In August 1929 Stevens began to receive letters from the mei signed not
only by E. Czbel, but also by Ralf Fox, who became the head of the cabinet of British history. In July 1929 Fox was sent by the Communist Party
of Great Britain to work at the mei for three years, the aim being to give
me an opportunity to develop my theoretical education, Fox noted in his
autobiography, I have been a teacher of History of the Labour Movement
and Comintern in kutv137 since 1930 and in the Lenin School since 1931.138
His main duties at the mei were to prepare Marx and Engels English texts
for publication, to process the British materials, to communicate with
Stevens and provide him with all kind of information. There is no doubt
that Stevens and Fox knew each other, but they were hardly friends.
They both first came to Russia with the British Quakers Relief mission in
1922, both were young journalists, members of the Communist Party, and
worked mainly in London. Initially at the mei Fox tried to interfere in the
details of Stevenss work and give advice, but he very soon recognized the
evident professional superiority of Stevens, who in any case always considered the smallest remarks from E. Czbel to be more important than Foxs
instructions.
From September 1930 onward, the actions of the mei became more and
more incomprehensible. Stevens reported frequently and appropriately as
usual, the salary and the bills were paid. However, news from the Institute
arrived rarely, only once or twice per month, and then completely stopped.
No one even reacted to Stevenss complaints. At the end of March 1931,
Fox briefly informed Stevens: The academic character of the work of the
134
135
136
137
138
n o v i c he nko harry s te v e ns
|1 41
139
140
141
rgaspi, F. 71, Op.50, D.196, L.67. R. Fox continued to work at the Marx-Engels-Lenin
Institute, formed in October 1931, until June 1932, when he left for the United
Kingdom.
Adoratskij Vladimir Viktorovich (1878-1945) was a Soviet communist, historian
and political theorist. In 1920-1928 he became assistant manager of the Central
Archives Board, then worked in the Institute of Lenin; from 1931 to 1939 he was
director of the Institute of Marx-Engels-Lenin, in 1932 he was elected a member of
the Academy of Sciences of the ussr.
rgaspi, F. 71, Op.50, D.196, L.78.
I.7
The Importance
of Friendship
The Shared History of
the iav/iiav and iish
Francisca de Haan
and Annette Mevis
d e h a a n a n d M e v i s i mportanc e of f ri e nds hi p
|1 43
The official opening of the iav on 19 December 1936, Keizersgracht 264 in Amsterdam.
N.W. Posthumus sitting far right, third from right Rosa Manus, fourth from right
Johanna Naber, and fifth from right Willemijn Posthumus-van der Goot. Atria, collection IAV no.100014639; photographer unknown.
tional womens movement.1 At the official opening the Institute also presented its first publication, a brochure written by historian Jane de Iongh
(1901-1982) entitled Documentatie van de geschiedenis der vrouw en der vrouwenbeweging (Documentation of the history of woman and the womens movement). Describing the new Institutes acquisition guidelines and research
policies, the brochure stated:
The Archive aims to bring together a collection of sources in
whatever form [...] that will contribute to the knowledge of
womens role in history in general, and more particularly in
the era of social development in the Western world when the
struggle for the political, economic and social emancipation of
women began.2
1
2
144
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
The iav grew steadily in the following years, until the Nazi occupation of
the Netherlands brutally interrupted this process. In June 1940, just a month
after the Nazis occupied the country, German officers paid two visits to the
iav. On 12 July 1940, the Sicherheitspolizei removed the entire contents of the
iav and subsequently transported them to Berlin.3 iav founding President
Rosa Manus was questioned by German police officers several times. She
was finally arrested in August 1941 and held for some weeks in the prison
for political prisoners in Scheveningen, near The Hague. Thereafter, she was
transported from one prison to another in Germany for a period of seven
weeks, finally to be incarcerated in Ravensbrck, the main Nazi concentration camp primarily intended for women prisoners. It is now believed
that she was killed in a Euthanasie-Anstalt (Euthanasia institution) in
Bernburg in 1942.4
The re-opening of the iav took place in October 1947, with Willemijn
Posthumus-van der Goot succeeding Rosa Manus as president. Many efforts were made to trace and retrieve the stolen iav property, but with only
minor success. From the second half of the 1970s, spurred by the United
Nations proclaimed International Womens Year (1975) that furthered the
rise of the womens movement and a developing interest in womens history, the iav went through a period of spectacular growth. It received government funding, and in 1981 could move to larger premises. In 1988 it
merged with the Information and Documentation Centre for the womens
3
d e h a a n a n d M e v i s i mportanc e of f ri e nds hi p
|1 45
movement (idc) and the feminist journal lover to form the International
Information Centre and Archives for the Womens Movement (abbreviated in Dutch as iiav). An important element of this process of change and
growth for the iav was when its archival department came into being in the
1980s, which played a significant role in the development of womens history as a recognized academic field in the Netherlands.5
Francisca de Haan and Annette Mevis, The Making of the Collection Internationaal
Archief voor de Vrouwenbeweging (iav). Seventy-Five Years of Collecting,
Receiving, and Refusing Womens Archives (1935-2010), in Theo Vermeer, Petra
Links and Justin Klein (eds), Particuliere Archieven. Fundamenten in beweging. Jaarboek 12
(s-Gravenhage, 2013), pp. 150-168.
Letter in English from the iav Librarian, E. Ferf, to Phyllis Lovell, October 9, 1936.
Quoted in De Haan, A Truly International Archive, p. 148.
146
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Rosa Manus, Johanna Naber and Willemijn Posthumus-van der Goot participated in efforts to defend womens economic rights and internationally, at
the League of Nations.7 The establishment of womens libraries and archives
was part of this attempt to oppose the dangerous political trend at the time,
both by safekeeping the movements documents and by using these institutes as springboards for informed action against reactionary policies. These
historical factors were all part of the iav founders motives to set up their
institute.
The books and documents of feminists and womens organizations, however, were certainly not the only ones in danger of disappearing or being
destroyed in the interwar period: so were the books and collections of
other progressive, especially left-wing, individuals and organizations. Thus
economic historian N.W. (Nien) Posthumus took the initiative to establish
the International Institute of Social History (iish), intended as a safe place
for books and archives that were under threat by fascism, Stalinism, and
Nazism.8 This is where the shared histories of the two Amsterdam institutes, the iish and the iav, started.
Professor Posthumus was well established and well connected, and
had a talent for setting up (important) historical institutes: the list of his
initiatives, besides the iish, includes the Netherlands Economic History
Archive (Nederlandsch Economisch-Historisch Archief, neha, 1914), and the
Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Instituut voor Oorlogs-,
Holocaust- en Genocidestudies, niod, originally the Rijksinstituut voor
Oorlogsdocumentatie, riod).9 The iish was founded on 25 November 1935.
It was located on Keizersgracht 264, and opened its doors to the public on 11
March 1937.
It is not clear who was responsible for the iish/iav cooperation the way it
emerged,10 but both personal connections and shared political views played
10
Entries Maria Grever on J.W.A. Naber, and Francisca de Haan and Annette Mevis
on W.H. Posthumus-van der Goot, in Biografisch Woordenboek van het Socialisme en de
Arbeidersbeweging (bwsa), available at: http://socialhistory.org/bwsa; last accessed 18
August 2013. Carol Miller, Geneva the Key to Equality. Inter-war Feminists and
the League of Nations, Womens History Review, 3, no. 2 (1994), pp. 218-245. On Rosa
Manuss role in the League of Nations, see various articles in Everard and De Haan,
Rosa Manus.
Jan Lucassen, Tracing the Past. Collections and Research in Social and Economic History: The
International Institute of Social History, the Netherlands Economic History Archive and Related
Institutions (Amsterdam, 1989), p. 14.
In his efforts to establish the iish, Posthumus was bijgestaan door een staf met
als bibliothecaresse de weduwe van zijn studievriend Adama van Scheltema, Annie
Kleefstra. In de persoon van de directeur van de Centrale Arbeiders Verzekeringsen Depositobank Nehemia de Lieme vond hij een onmisbare steun voor de verwezenlijking van zijn plannen wat betreft de financiering. Entry N.W. Posthumus,
bwsa, also for the other data mentioned here, available at: http://socialhistory.org/
bwsa/biografie/posthumus; last accessed 17 August 2013.
Neither the article of 9 January 1937 in the Algemeen Handelsblad referred to below
d e h a a n a n d M e v i s i mportanc e of f ri e nds hi p
|1 47
a role. iav founding President Rosa Manus by 1935 had been active in the
womens movement for almost three decades. She was an exceptionally talented organizer, and one of her first major projects was the Tentoonstelling
De Vrouw 1813-1913 (Exhibition Woman 1813-1913), which she co-organized together with Dr Mia Boissevain. Professor Posthumus was a member of the commission responsible for the exhibitions Historical Division
(Historische Afdeeling),11 as was Johanna W.A. Naber.12 Two of the three
later iav founders, therefore, Naber and Manus, worked with Professor
Posthumus as early as 1913 on a historical womens movement project (and
Naber had been Manuss feminist mentor since 1908).13 Willemijn van der
Goot, the youngest iav founder and the Institutes secretary, in December
1930 became the first Dutch woman with a phd in economics. Her advisor
was Professor Posthumus, and the two were married less than a month later, in January 1931.14 Rosa Manus and the Posthumus couple also lived close
to each other and, as various letters show and Willemijn Posthumus-van der
Goot later said, there was a personal bond between them.15
In 1930 Rosa Manus began to create what she called a feministic library.
As she explained in a letter to the American feminist, social work pioneer
and peace activist, Jane Addams:
Her [Aletta Jacobss] papers and intimate letters as well as her
library have come to me and I am organising in my office [in
the Vrouwenclub-Lyceumclub] a feministic library in connection
with my own books and it is my intention to make this library
useful to the women of the world.16
11
12
13
14
15
16
nor Posthumus-van der Goot in a 1981 interview adequately mention Rosa Manuss
role in the process of establishing the iav. For us, her key contribution has only
become fully clear after the return of her archives (part of the iav archives stolen
by the Nazis in 1940 and returned to Amsterdam in 2003). Mirjam Elias, Interview
met mevrouw W.H. Posthumus-van der Goot. De generatie van de verwende
meisjes, in Jaarboek voor Vrouwengeschiedenis, 2 (1981), pp. 222-235.
Catalogus van de Tentoonstelling De Vrouw 1813-1913 Meerhuizen- Amsteldijk Mei-October
1913 (Amsterdam, 1913), p. 27.
Entry J.W.A. Naber in bwsa, available at: http://socialhistory.org/bwsa/biografie/
naber; last accessed 17 August 2013.
Myriam Everard, Chapter 1, Rosa Manus: The Genealogy of a Dutch Jewish
Feminist, in Everard and De Haan, Rosa Manus.
See their entries in bwsa, available at: http://socialhistory.org/bwsa/; last accessed 17
Augustus 2013
Letters for example in archive iav inv. no. 105. Ik heb echter weinig persoonlijk
kontakt met hen gehad, behalve met Rosa Manus. Zij woonde vlakbij en had een
enorme begaafdheid om met verschillende soorten mensen om te gaan. [The latter refers to the generally elite character of the liberal womens movement]. Elias,
Interview met mevrouw W.H. Posthumus-van der Goot, p. 230.
Letter to Jane Addams 29 July 1930, Atria, iav Collection, archive Rosa Manus, inv.
no. 68.
148
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
17
18
19
d e h a a n a n d M e v i s i mportanc e of f ri e nds hi p
|1 49
The Treaty of Friendship, signed on 24 February 1936. Atria, archive iav, inv. no. 146.
Even though Manus was not very specific here, it is clear that Jane de Iongh
played a role in the process leading to the establishment of the iav. Her
involvement in building up the new Institute is underscored by the fact
that she accepted the invitation to become iav board member and wrote
Documentatie van de geschiedenis der vrouw en der vrouwenbeweging (Documentation
of the history of woman and the womens movement), a brochure outlining
the iavs acquisition guidelines and research policies, as mentioned above.
archive Rosa Manus, inv. no. 96, one of a series of letters between them (translation Aleid Fokkema). See further Thea den Hartog, Jane de Iongh (1901-1982). De
historische verbeelding van het feminisme, in Jaarboek voor Vrouwengeschiedenis, 14
(1994), pp. 181-192.
150
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
The cooperation between the iish and iav was made official in an agreement, the Treaty of Friendship, signed on 24 February 1936.20 According to
this document, the iish would provide on loan to the iav all its materials related to the womens movement. To house these collections as well as those
the iav continued to acquire, the iish made available to the iav two rooms
with all related facilities, and agreed to cover part of the iavs operational
costs (for heating, cleaning, the use of telephone, etc.). The iav agreed to
catalog the material made available by the iish according to the iishs system, and to allow iish visitors to see its materials. (For the original text and
more details, see the photograph of the Treaty of Friendship).
A letter from iav president Rosa Manus to Willemijn Posthumus-van der
Goot (who was abroad) in April 1936 captures her appreciation, as well as
the good atmosphere between her and the Posthumus couple:
At this very moment we are actually sitting at a desk in the
i.a.v. [] We are very pleasantly sitting here in the sun and
are very pleased with these beautiful rooms. Please do tell the
Professor that the green filing cabinet is a jewel, for which I am
deeply grateful to him.21
21
22
Document in archive iav, inv. no. 146. Atria received the signed document in 2012
from the granddaughter of Fernanda Schreuder-Feith, iav librarian from 1947
to 1950. Other, not signed versions were already present in the iav archive. The
contract was not notarized, but was a deed with a seal (op zegel) (minutes Board
Meeting iav 11 February 1936), archive iav, inv. no. 1. Treaty of Friendship is our
term for this document, FdH and AM.
Letter in archive iav, inv. no. 105 (Our translation, FdH and AM).
Discussed in a letter of 4 January 1960 from iav treasurer Lien Kleinhoonte, to her
fellow board members, archive iav, inv. no. 36.
d e h a a n a n d M e v i s i mportanc e of f ri e nds hi p
|1 51
iish policies regarding the iav were also related to its then directors views
and priorities. Historian Adolf Rter, Nien Posthumuss successor as iish
director, appears to have been the least iav-friendly of the iish directors.23
From 1947 until 1953 the iish paid the iav an annual sum of fl. 600 (six hundred guilders), as well as providing the two rooms and paying for the costs
related to the iav functioning there. Rter ended the additional yearly subsidy in 1953.24 Two years later, in 1955, he tried to get the iav to leave, efforts
the iav leadership successfully opposed, with support from the Amsterdam
Bureau for Organization and Efficiency (Bureau voor Organisatie en
Efficiency van de Gemeente Amsterdam). The iav leadership regarded their
being housed within the iish as so crucial that in a confidential letter from
1955 they referred to this whole issue for the iav as one of to be or not
to be.25 Once the iav had been forced to live on its own in 1960, it tried
to improve its connections with womens organizations such as the Dutch
Association for Womens Interests, Womens Labor and Equal Citizenship
(Nederlandse Vereniging voor Vrouwenbelangen, Vrouwenarbeid en Gelijk
Staatsburgerschap), and in 1961 explored the possibility of moving in with
the Amsterdam Public Library (Openbare Leeszaal). An iav report about that
potential development tellingly stated: That is why it is better not to make
known such plans to the Institute of Social History, since that might give
the Institute a motive to sever ties that the Institute might like to see severed but the iav certainly not.26
Friction also occasionally arose between the iish and the iav about their
core business, the collecting and keeping of archival collections. Table 1 lists
a number of collections that are partly stored in the iish and partly in the
iav, sometimes for clear reasons, in other cases less so, and in a number
of cases not without this having been contested. Generally speaking, since
the womens movement and the labour movement had some very different
strands but important overlaps as well, especially in the case of left-feminist
women and their organizations, it is not always easy for archive creators
to decide what is the best place for a collection, the iav or the iish. A striking example is that of the left-wing Nederlandse Vrouwenbeweging (Dutch
Womens Movement, nvb), founded in 1946 as a broad womens movement
23
24
25
26
In 1951 and 1952, Posthumus and Rter co-directed the iish. Posthumus stepped
down on 31 December 1952.
Hence the year immediately after Posthumus had retired. Annual Report 1953,
archive iav, inv. no. 38; see also the letter from Rter to IAV, 20 April 1953, and the
striking reply from Posthumus-van der Goot, 30 April 1953, archive IAV, inv. no. 27.
See letters 1955 in archive iav, inv. no. 33. The to be or not to be were their
words.
Report 8 November 1961, archive iav, inv. no. 33, p. 2: Daarom is het ook tegenover het Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis beter voorlopig geen ruchtbaarheid aan
dergelijke plannen te geven om het Instituut niet een mogelijk motief te verlenen
de banden te verbreken die het Instituut misschien wel, maar het i.a.v. zeker niet
verbroken zou willen zien.
152
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
27
28
Document containing agreements about processing the archive of the nvb, 27 May
1985, archive iav, inv. no. 443.
Verslag van een informeel gesprek over de afbakening van het acquisitieterrein tussen het Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (iisg) en het
Algemeen Rijksarchief (ara) op 28 november 1983, point 5 Archieven op het terrein van de vrouwenbeweging: naar het iav, zolang daar een deskundig archiefbeheer wordt gegarandeerd. The iav in 1988 received a copy of this document from
iish archivist Atie van der Horst.
d e h a a n a n d M e v i s i mportanc e of f ri e nds hi p
|1 53
the article explained, soon after she became involved in the national and
international womens movement started to collect material
related to the womens movement in all its phases. She continued this collecting for decades, and the many congresses she attended supplied her with a rich variety of materials. In addition,
she acquired many important works published in this field, and
this collection after Dr Jacobss death [in 1929] was complemented with all the feminist literature this pioneer had owned.29
The newspaper article continued to observe how Rosa Manuss collectors
fervor reminiscent of Derridas term archive fever developed from a
young womans hobby into a systematic bringing together and categorizing of insignia and menus, brochures, pamphlets, periodicals, annual reports, documents, letters, biographies, etc.30 We cannot but assume that
others involved in first creating and then consolidating and expanding the
two institutes, the iav and the iish, were and are affected by the same fever,
with the joys and sorrows it may have led to An example of archive fever might be how Jaap Kloosterman, then iish acting deputy director of collections, dealt with documents belonging to Willemijn Posthumus-van der
Goot, co-founder of the iav. Her papers have been stored in the iav since
1990. In the spring of 2011, Jaap Kloosterman accepted Claire Posthumuss
personal papers, which also included some items and documents belonging
to her mother, Willemijn Posthumus-van der Goot (for example, her phd degree, a diary, and pictures).31 However, according to the principle of provenance generally maintained in the archival world, these items belong in
Posthumus-van der Goots personal archive in the iav collection.
Nonetheless, while there remain some unresolved issues regarding a
number of womens collections, the overall tone of this history is positive.
The iavs forced exile in the 1960s (for so it felt) ended when in May 1967
Frits de Jong, Rters successor as iish director, offered the iav space in the
iishs new Amsterdam premises at Herengracht 262 (where the iish and iav
moved in 1969). iav president H.P. Hogeweg-de Haart wrote a deeply appreciative letter to Professor de Jong, emphasizing how delighted we are about
your proposal [] which will not only end the isolation in which the iav
found itself for years due to its location at the citys periphery, but will also
allow us to renew the old ties with the iish.32
29
30
31
32
154
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
In 1981 the iav moved to a nice building at Keizersgracht 10, which was
necessitated by the Institutes unprecedented growth as a result of the active womens movement and the related strong interest in womens history. Good relations with the iish remained, however, as was exemplified
in the 1990s. For half a century, the location of many archives the Nazis
had stolen from West-European countries during ww ii, including those
belonging to the iav and iish, remained unknown. In 1992, many of these
archives turned out to be stored in a so-called secret archive in Moscow,
where they ended up after the Red Army took them as war loot from Nazioccupied territory. When it became clear that the iav archives in Moscow
would not be returned to Amsterdam any time soon, if ever, iish director
Jaap Kloosterman in 1994 used his connections and resources to have all the
iav papers in Moscow recorded on microfilm (33,663 exposures on 14 films),
and gave these microfilms to the iav (the iav original materials were only
returned to the Institute in Amsterdam in 2003). Historians Myriam Everard
and Mineke Bosch, in an article about Feminism as War Trophy, aptly concluded that Jaap Kloosterman deserves a place of honor in the annals of the
Dutch womens movement.33
Conclusion
Our essay has explored the shared history of the International Institute of
Social History and the International Archives for the Womens Movement
in Amsterdam. It has shown that the iishs material support for the iav has
played an absolutely crucial role in the latters history. The significance of
this support is further highlighted when we contrast the iavs relative success with contemporary efforts in the usa in the mid-1930s to establish a
World Center for Womens Archives, which failed after a couple of years for
a number of reasons, but primarily lack of financial support.34
As discussed above, the combination of having good personal relations
and holding similar political views was behind the iish-iav cooperation. In
the end, key to this shared history has been the fact that from the beginning
in 1935, iish directors such as founder N.W. Posthumus, Frits de Jong, and
certainly not least Jaap Kloosterman, have actively supported the iav/iiav,
thus acting in the spirit of the probably unique 1936 Treaty of Friendship.
33
34
d e h a a n a n d M e v i s i mportanc e of f ri e nds hi p
|1 55
30
0.68
Jo van Gogh-Bonger
33 letters
8 letters
0.05
0.02
1.50
Annie
Romein-Verschoor
Mathilde WibautBerdenis van
Berlekom
Clara Wichmann
0.72
0.02
everything
nothing
Claire Posthumus
Anna Catharina
Ploeg-Ploeg
W.H. Posthumus-van
der Goot
Nederlandse
Vrouwenbeweging
(nvb)
16.50
0.36
II
THE european
collections
of the IISH:
acquisitions
and catalogues
II.1
A broken mirror
The library of Ferdinand
Domela Nieuwenhuis
Bert Altena
Personal libraries can be useful sources for biographies, if only because they
show their owners fields of interest. They indicate whether these owners
were committed collectors, which books they perused, and which remained
unread. If a library contains all the works of Shaw, but none of Shakespeare,
or only scientific publications and detectives, the biographer is in a good
position to make or corroborate hypotheses about the owners cultural
predilections. If books are full of remarks, they are a good source for intellectual history. Without remarks, it is difficult to know what a book meant
to the possessor. Last year Jan Willem Stutje accused Ferdinand Domela
Nieuwenhuis of having been an anti-Semite. One part of his generally very
weak argument was that the revolutionary had possessed some nasty antiSemitic books. As long as we do not know why Domela Nieuwenhuis had
acquired these books and what they meant to him, this part of Stutjes accusation is without grounds. As this contribution will show, we also need to
establish whether it was Domela Nieuwenhuis himself who bought these
books. Is his library still intact, did he personally own all the books? This is
not an irrelevant question, because the catalogue of his library contains several works published during the 1920s and 1930s, therefore, after his death.1
1
|1 59
1913
Our story begins in the second half of 1913, for it was then that preparations for the founding of three institutions took off: on 14 July for the association Het Nederlandsch Economisch-Historisch Archief (neha,
founded on 2 April 1914), followed on 8 November by the opening of the
Rotterdam academy for trade (now part of Erasmus University Rotterdam).
Lastly, in December preparations started to found the Ferdinand Domela
Nieuwenhuis-Foundation, aimed at providing the aging anarchist leader
with an appropriate pension. This Foundation officially came into being on
1 July 1914. Linking these organizations is Nicolaas Willem Posthumus, coinitiator and secretary/director of the neha, first professor of economic history at Rotterdam, founder of the iish, and from 1933 onwards involved in
the affairs of the fdn Foundation.2
One of the nehas aims was to collect archives and documents on the economic history of the Netherlands. It ended up being located in the Hague
because that was between the contending academies of Amsterdam and
Rotterdam. There it would house many business and other archives, and
was also a significant economic-history library. From the very start, secretary/director Posthumus, who had been active in social-democratic circles,
tried to engage representatives of the social-democratic movement in the
activities of the association. Among the members of the first advisory board,
we find F.M. Wibaut, and the diamond workers union became a donating
member. Its president, Henri Polak, and social-democrats Henriette Roland
Holst and Anke van der Vlies were among the early members of neha.
When trying to acquire archives Posthumus took a broader look than just
trade unions. In 1915 he asked Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis to bequeath
his papers to neha, but was not successful. In the early 1920s he started to
collect archives from trade unions and so proposed Edo Fimmen as a member of the board of neha.3
160
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
|1 6 1
Posthumus and his library had become players in European archival acquisitions and libraries. Their main competitor was the Moscow Institute of
Marxism-Leninism, which had already acquired most of the international
correspondence of Domela Nieuwenhuis. It was unfortunate for Posthumus
that many Rotterdam-based contributors withdrew at a time when the consequences of the deepening economic crisis were felt. Companies that were
members of neha went bankrupt, and others reviewed their expenditures.
What a Rotterdam businessman called the years of champagne were clearly over, even the Philips Company had to be begged to give at least a very
small (25 guilders) contribution. Moreover, Dutch public authorities also began to wind down their subsidies. As a result, the neha and ehl budgets had
to be reduced. The Posthumus imperium began to face difficult times.
Review of Social History, 27/1 (1982), pp. 4-42). The problems within neha are not
mentioned in this otherwise very well researched essay.
Albert de Jong, fdn-Fonds, pp. 35-36. Circular Albert de Jong, Amsterdam Feb./
March 1923 and circular W. Beek, April 1923; minutes national congress of the
Foundation, 29/4/1923, in: iish, Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis-Foundation
archive, 1.
162
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Beek had to wait until 23 November 1924 before the museum could open.
With the financial aid of the union of bricklayers assistants, the foundation
was able to buy Alberdingk Thijmstraat 7. There the library was open every
Sunday afternoon (because the books were not to be lent out), and after
July 1, 1926, when the librarian lived on the floor above the museum, it was
open three evenings a week.6
According to initial plans, the librarian would receive a salary of
1600 guilders, but he would have to pay rent for his living space. For the
cataloguing of the library, a yearly sum of 1000 guilders was calculated.
Before the cataloguing could start, however, hundreds of books needed
to be bound or rebound. Even done by admirers of Domela Nieuwenhuis,
this work still would cost a great deal of time. Since the cataloguing proved
to be difficult, progress was even slower than anticipated. In 1933 the
Foundation tried to speed up the process by hiring an unemployed clerk,
but the candidate declared himself incompetent to do this job. Meanwhile,
the economic crisis affected both the Foundation and the museum because
income declined and maintaining the museum and hiring a new librarian
remained expensive.7
On 3 April 1933 Domela Nieuwenhuis widow died. As a consequence
the Foundation now had 1200 guilders annually to spend on the museum
and library. Nevertheless, it was clear that this sum was not enough to give
the library of Domela Nieuwenhuis the professional attention it needed.
Therefore, a special committee of the board of the Foundation began
to study possibilities for including the museum within a professional
institution. On the advice of Dr Molhuysen, director of the Royal Library,
the board contacted Posthumus, who was quick to react. He was especially
interested because the Foundation offered in addition to a large library a
considerable sum of money to maintain and expand it. Within a few weeks
an agreement was drawn up. The library would remain owned by the
Foundation, but would be housed in the garden house of the Economic
History Library as a separate library. The books could not be lent out. The
director of the ehl should act as librarian of the library, and every year the
Foundation would allocate the sum of at least 1200 guilders at his disposal.
The committee of the Foundation was very happy because it thought that
through an association with a large professional library both the museum
and library would benefit: more people would be consulting the books
and, moreover, no one less than Posthumus would act as unpaid librarian.
6
7
Financial report fdn Museum, 4/11/1923-31/12/1924; annual report 1925 in: iish,
Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis Foundation archive, 62.
Minutes congress Foundation 29/4/1923 in: iish, Ferdinand Domela NieuwenhuisFoundation archive, 1; Annual report museum 1926-1927 in: ibid., 62; annual report
Museum 1931, ibid.; Rapport van de commissie ingesteld door het F. Domela
Nieuwenhuis-fonds in zake het toekomstig beheer van de Bibliotheek van wijlen
Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, Amsterdam 7/7/1933 [rapport 1933], in: ibid. 65.
|1 6 3
Now the Domela Nieuwenhuis Foundation could easily leave the care of
the library in his hands. The fact that he will take care of buying additions
in our opinion is an advantage, because that is a very difficult task indeed,
which better can be fulfilled from a scientific and unbiased standpoint.
Also Cesar Domela Nieuwenhuis was glad the library was at last in capable
hands.8
But what should be added and how should new acquisitions be
catalogued? This question was the more important, since only part of the
library was catalogued. Apparently, Posthumuss assistant Annie Adama
van Scheltema even considered the library as good as uncatalogued. It
is not likely that the board of the Foundation had clear answers to these
questions, but it certainly had some ideas about what should be added to
the library. It believed the lacunae in the library should be filled, especially
books, brochures, and periodicals that were contemporary with Domela
Death widow: Albert de Jong, fdn-Fonds, p. 23. ehl: Rapport 7/7/1933, in:
iish, Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis Foundation archive, 65. Cesar Domela
Nieuwenhuis to Annie Adama van Scheltema, Paris 2/3/1934, in: iish, archive iish,
331IV.
164
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
10
|1 6 5
from the spd archive in Berlin and the Marx-Engels archive in Moscow, and
he purchased six French brochures by Lenin. All these acquisitions could
have been seen as an indication of his plans. The following year the number
of books and brochures that should be considered foreign to the Domela
Nieuwenhuis Library had increased: a German translation of Adam Smith,
Lehr-Frankensteins Produktion und Konsumtion in der Volkswirtschaft, or K. Luxs
Studien ber die Entwicklung der Warenhuser in Deutschland. In 1936 he bought a
number of anti-Semitic books and publications about the Dreyfus affair. All
these anti-Semitic books are now in the Domela Nieuwenhuis library. The
books may have come from the collection of Augustin Hamon, which had
been acquired by Posthumus in that year. Apparently there were no objections from the Domela Nieuwenhuis Foundation.11
These were only made in 1938, after Posthumus had purchased important
archives: letters from Karl Marx ( 549.83), Lassalle ( 207.90), two volumes
by Stirner with letters ( 167.04), and the archive of Albert Grzesinski,
former head of the Berlin police ( 1016.505). It was this last acquisition to
which the board of the Foundation objected. A police archive was the last
thing that should be kept in a Domela Nieuwenhuis Museum. Posthumus
was not amused at the Foundation blocking his activities, especially since
this archive had been very expensive. He angrily replied that the Domela
Nieuwenhuis Library should also contain publications that had been
published after 1919, and even archives of adversaries. If the Foundation
stuck to its position, the next year he would try and buy back for the newly
founded International Institute for Social History the Grzesinski archive.
The Foundation was alerted, however, and now stipulated that no books
should be bought that had been published after 1919, and that either the
ehl or iish should reimburse them for the Grzesinski archive. After this
interruption, it was agreed that the Foundation would still provide funds
for the acquisition of archives from the collection of Eugen Oswald: four
letters from Engels, seven from Marx, 13 from Karl Blind, one from Julius
Frbel, three from Alexander Herzen, one from Lajos Kossuth, one from
Colonel Picquart, one from Jules Michelet, two from Carl Schurz, and five
from Louis Blanc (totalling 402).12
During the row over Grzesinski, the secretary of the Foundation, W. van
Blijenburgh, also noticed that the books had been shelved incorrectly, between the already catalogued books he saw new volumes. What about the
Librarys catalogue? Apparently Annie Adama van Scheltema, who would
become custodian of the museum and take care of the library, had started
11
12
Lists of acquisitions in the annual reports of the museum in: iish, Ferdinand
Domela Nieuwenhuis Foundation archive, 68. Hamon: ibid. Annual report 1935; see
also Boris Souvarine to Posthumus, Neuilly 7 and 12/1/1935. in: iish, archive iish,
193B.
Annual report fdn-Museum 1937, 1938 and 1939, in: iish, Ferdinand Domela
Nieuwenhuis Foundation archive, 68.
166
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
After 1945
All in all, in 1940 Posthumus had acquired for the Foundation archives, at
least 99 posters and 675 books, plus an unknown number of brochures.
The cataloguing of the library was well under way, but not completed.
Apparently the nazi occupation left the Museum untouched, but all the
books from the Institute still in Amsterdam were carried away, and it is not
entirely clear whether they were all returned after the war. It might be that
among them there were books from the Domela Nieuwenhuis Library, but
that does not seem likely. Indeed, Albert de Jong has written that in 1945
the library in the garden house was found to be intact. There is no mention
of any loss in the archives, and in 1954 it became clear that the Institute
contained part of the library and that the remaining part still was kept in
the now derelict garden house. The Institutes catalogue and the catalogue
of the Domela Nieuwenhuis Library were destroyed, however, and it would
13
14
See for cataloguing problems at the iish during these years: Maria Hunink, De
papieren van de revolutie. Het Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1935-1947
(Amsterdam, 1986), pp. 103-104.
Annual reports fdn Museum 1934-1940, in: iish, Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis
Foundation archive, 68.
|1 6 7
take many years for a new catalogue to be ready. At that time the Institute
may have also decided to purchase books according to the requirements of
a subject catalogue. Thus, in the present catalogue there are three copies
of Domela Nieuwenhuiss biography of Jean Paul Marat, because according
to the new system of the Institute, such a book belonged under the headings of anarchism, France, and the French Revolution. This meant that the
Institute needed many books because in some instances even three copies
were not enough.15
This affected the Domela Nieuwenhuis Library too, because the
Foundation also suffered from the occupation. Assets had been confiscated
or were lost because they had been invested in mortgages for buildings of
the revolutionary trade union movement. These had been sold during the
war. Unlike the experience of other institutions, the Foundation never saw
most of these investments back. The Dutch judiciary denied all its claims.
In 1966 Albert de Jong wrote that only 28,000 had been rescued from a
capital that in 1940 had totalled 53,000. He said that in 1966 the original
capital would have been worth 100,000. In 1953, however, the Foundation
could not maintain the museum and the library. Therefore, it started negotiations to move the museum and the library to the iish. It also wanted to
deposit the archive of F. Domela Nieuwenhuis there. Four years later the
Institute found enough room to host the museum and library, and a contract was drawn up in February 1957. It was agreed that the Institute would
purchase what Posthumus had bought in the 1930s with the Foundations
money. The sum agreed was 1000, and it was also agreed that this money would be used to pay for moving the museum to the Keizersgracht. In
1940 the archives alone cost more than 1000, in 1957 the value of that sum
would have been 2555. The Institute promised to catalogue the library, a
duplicate of this catalogue could be added to the Institutes library. The new
director of the Institute, A.J.C. Rter, translated this promise for his own
board as: The archive and the separate collection of social-historical works
are an integral part of the collections of the Institute.16
In the Institutes catalogue, it is still possible to see which books are in
the Domela Nieuwenhuis Library because their signature starts with dn.
While 853 brochures have been catalogued as belonging to the library of
Domela Nieuwenhuis, only 3037 volumes of books (some dn signatures con15
16
Minutes executive board iish 22/12/1945 and Overzicht van het Internationaal
instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis tijdens den oorlog (December 1945), in:
iish, archive iish, 331. Hunink, Papieren van de revolutie, pp. 151-158. De Waarheid,
19/2/1954. Albert de Jong, Geschiedenis van het Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis
Fonds (1968), p. 131, archive Albert de Jong.
Albert de Jong, fdn-Fonds, p. 34; Albert de Jong to A.J.C. Rter, Heemstede
12/6/1953 in: iish, archive iish 364; Rter to De Jong, Amsterdam 4/6/1954 in:
ibidem, 357; Arthur Lehning to Rter, Amsterdam 4/2/1957 ibidem; contract
Foundation - Institute, Amsterdam 12/2/1957, ibidem; translation: minutes of the
board of the iish, 23/11/1956 in: ibidem 331III.
168
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
tain multi-volume books) can be found. This includes what was added from
the acquisitions of the 1930s, which totalled 675 books, of which 281 have
a dn signature, and 302 have been put on the shelves of the Institute. Nine
others have an ehl signature and five may have gone to the library of the
International Archive for the Womens Movement. In all, 83 books have not
been found. Estimating from the current catalogue, the original Domela
Nieuwenhuis Library probably contained 2756 books. That is very different
from the 11,000 volumes that were reported in the 1920s. How can this be
explained? Possibly the term volumes may be ambiguous. Were the periodicals and newspapers included among the 11,000 volumes? Probably. That
would mean there were 39 volumes of Recht voor Allen and De Vrije Socialist.
Other serials in the library have not been catalogued fully. There are also
some multi-volume books on the shelves and have dn numbers, but are
not in the catalogue, and there are book series of which only one or two
volumes have been catalogued. That is the case for the entire collection of
Reclam books Domela Nieuwenhuis possessed. However, these omissions
cannot account for the loss of 8244 volumes. At most they come to 500 volumes. Even if we count the brochures as volumes, there is a gap of about
6900 volumes. Our basic number of 11,000 may be an overestimate, but the
extent of the library was certainly known, as once in 1924 the museum exhibited it.17
This leaves three other possibilities. First: the library was damaged during
the occupation. Alas, we have no corroboration of this. Second: there was
undoubtedly some negligence, but that could only explain a small part of
the loss. Third: some of it is in the Institute. Although a loss of at most 6900
books to the library of the Institute seems almost incredible, it is certain
that some books from the Domela Nieuwenhuis library were deliberately
moved to this library. They can be recognised by the stamp f.d.n. Fonds
and/or by a different catalogue number (or start of that number, such as
ges) written with pencil on the front page. These are books which had already been catalogued in the 1920s. Of the 138 books Domela Nieuwenhuis
mentions in his correspondence with family members, 91 have been found
in his library. Four others now are in the possession of Institute, but the
rest either was not in the iish library or could not be traced back to Domela
Nieuwenhuis. How many books were removed to the library of the Institute
can no longer be determined because the cataloguing was far from complete by 1934, and during the war the new librarys catalogue and that of
the Institute were destroyed. After the war the Institutes library was largely
returned, but since the Institute was seriously understaffed (in 1959 only
60,000 titles from its library had been catalogued), it might well be that in
the chaos it became impossible to tell which book belonged to the Domela
Nieuwenhuis Library and which did not. After all, we need to keep in mind
17
Number: circular [Amsterdam April 1923] in: iish, archive Ferdinand Domela
Nieuwenhuis-Foundation 1; Albert de Jong, fdn-Fonds, 35.
|1 6 9
that a large part of this library was not yet stamped and therefore could not
be recognized as belonging to the Domela Nieuwenhuis Museum.18
As long as there was no complete catalogue of the library, there was ample opportunity to remove books without it becoming known. Was there
also a motive? Here we encounter the personalities of Posthumus and especially Annie Adama van Scheltema, librarian of the Institute and curator of
the museum. She was very concerned with the well-being of the Institute
and went to great lengths to further its interests. But her curatorship of the
Domela collection became less important than her position of the Institutes
librarian. Thus, she advised Bernard Damme not to donate his papers and
publications to the Museum, but to the Institute instead, where they would
be more useful. She and Posthumus had instituted some new procedures.
Newly bought libraries were incorporated into the library of the Institute.
Apparently, Adama van Scheltema was not very good at distinguishing between a library that had been purchased and a library that was just on loan.
Moreover, Posthumus idea of developing the Domela Nieuwenhuis library
into a first class socio-economic library did not promote maintaining that
distinction. Nevertheless, removing books from the Domela Nieuwenhuis
Library was a breach of contract with the Foundation, and it certainly went
against the wishes of the Foundation to keep the Domela Nieuwenhuis
Library intact. The Foundation, however, did not have a clear-cut strategy
regarding the library, especially since it also wanted to add to the library.
Additions were made that had nothing to do with Domela Nieuwenhuis,
and the Foundation tried to stop Posthumus and Van Scheltema from doing
that. It certainly would have been upset if it discovered that some books had
been removed to the library of the Institute.19
In the end, even if the original library did not show the owner was a
good collector, it certainly reflected his personality. Although Domela
Nieuwenhuis published some important theoretical articles, he was never
a theoretician pour lart de la thorie. Practical things were much more important to him, and that probably is reflected in his library. As far as the
Domela Nieuwenhuis library is concerned, 1933-1957 were a period of uncertain encounters between the world of labour and the completely different
world of academic students of labour. That encounter has not been beneficial to the inheritance left behind by Domela Nieuwenhuis.20
18
19
20
Bert Altena and Rudolf de Jong (eds), en al beschouwen alle broeders mij als den verloren
broeder. De familiecorrespondentie van en over Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis. 1846-1932
(Amsterdam, 1997), pp. 673-678.
Damme: A. Adama van Scheltema to B. Damme, Amsterdam 7/11/1951 in: iish,
archive iish 663.
F. Domela Nieuwenhuis, Le Socialisme en danger (Paris, 1897).
II.2
The archives of
Hendrik de Man
A tragedy
Wouter Steenhaut
|1 71
Life
Although Hendrik de Man (1885-1953) hailed from an Antwerp liberal and a
Flemish petit-bourgeois family, he joined the Antwerp Socialistische Jonge
Wacht [socialist young guard] in 1902 and espoused a rigid Marxist line. After
failing his studies at the Universit Libre de Bruxelles and the University of
Ghent, in 1905 he moved to Leipzig, where he became a correspondent for
the Leipziger Volkszeitung. At the University of Leipzig he studied philosophy,
economics and history. In 1907 he and Karl Liebknecht founded the socialist youth international, where he served as the international secretary until
1909. Upon returning to Belgium in 1910, he became the national secretary
of the Centrale voor Arbeidersopvoeding [Workers' Education Association].
At the outbreak of the First World War, he volunteered for the Belgian army.
After the war he became the director of the socialist Arbeidershogeschool
[Labour Academy] in Brussels in 1921 and in 1923 became a professor at the
University of Frankfurt am Main. He abandoned Marxism and wrote several
important social-theoretical works, including Zur Psychologie des Sozialismus
(1926), Der Kampf um die Arbeitsfreude (1927), Aufbauender Sozialismus (1931), and
Die Sozialistische Idee (1933). After Hitler seized power, de Man was dismissed
from his teaching position at the Frankfurt university. Back in Belgium, he
ran the socialist partys research service, the Bureau voor Sociaal Onderzoek
[Bureau of Social Studies] and launched the Plan van de Arbeid [Labour
Plan] to solve the economic depression in a national context. He served
as minister of public works and eliminating unemployment (1935); minister of Finance (1936), culminating as national chairman of the Belgische
Werkliedenpartij [Belgian workers party] (1939).
Following the Belgian surrender on 28 May 1940, he was convinced that
the Germans would be victorious in Europe. In his manifest of 28 June 1940,
he disbanded the socialist party and its affiliate organizations and aimed,
as soon as Belgium gained some independence from Hitler, to establish an
authoritarian, corporative state structure around King Leopold iii. De Man
17 2
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Hendrik de Man and Vali von Orelli, Greng, 1951 or 1952. Collection Amsab-isg.
|1 73
somewhat cautiously,4 since they were contacted around the same time by
Annie Adama van Scheltema, who asked them to donate the archive to the
International Institute of Social History (iish) in Amsterdam. According to
this legendary iish librarian, who had contacted de Man several times in
Switzerland about what he intended to do with his archive and library, he
had promised in writing to bequeath it to the iish.5 While his family wanted
to respect his final will and testament, it was far from specific. Therefore,
they transferred only 10 to 20 crates directly from Mrten to Amsterdam.
Lumbered as they were with the in memoriam project, the family believed they could preserve the memory of Hendrik de Man by dispersing
his archive among different institutions, hoping to arouse greater interest
among researchers. Such a distribution was moreover expected to enhance
the physical safety of the different archival donations. From an archival and
scholarly research perspective, however, this measure massacred the archive of Hendrik de Man.
The first, most dramatic division of the archives into three large collections was in the 1950s: donation to the iish in Amsterdam in 1953; to the
amvc in Antwerp in 1956; and in 1959 to the Oorlogsarchief [war archive] in
Anderlecht, which later merged with the Algemeen Rijksarchief van Belgi
[National Archives of Belgium] in Brussels. The fourth large archive collection was donated only in 1969 to the Navorsings- en Studiecentrum voor de
Geschiedenis van de Tweede Wereldoorlog (ncwoii) [Centre for Research
and Studies on the History of the Second World War] in Brussels and was
part of the action plan of the son-in-law of Hendrik de Man, Yves Lecocq,
who launched his opration des archives with the intention of compelling
the Belgian establishment to agree to rehabilitate Hendrik de Man, who in
his view had been wrongly convicted of collaborating with the Nazi forces
of occupation.6
Even before the Second World War, the zealous iish librarian Annie
Adama van Scheltema had met with Hendrik de Man personally in Brussels.
She hoped for his guidance and support on her quest for archive and library
materials in Belgium. Although the exact time of her visit can no longer be
verified, her action would be remarkable, had it taken place after December
1937. On 9 December 1937 in Brussels the socialist insurance company La
Prvoyance Sociale officially established the Nationaal Instituut voor Sociale
Geschiedenis [National Institute of Social History] based on the iish model.7 That Hendrik de Man had previously opted for an international insti4
5
6
Letter from (Jan de Man) to Ger Schmook, June 28, 1953 -n.p.- Amsab-isg, Gent,
Document collection of the de Man family.
Letter from (Jan de Man) to Beck, August 30,1953 - n.p.- Amsab-isg, Gent, Document
collection of the de Man family.
Testimony from Yves Lecocq in Actes du colloque international sur loeuvre dHenri de
Man. Organis par la Facult de Droit de lUniversit de Genve, les 18, 19 et 20 juin 1973.
(Geneva, 1974), p. 206.
Jacques Lust, Wouter Steenhaut et al., Een zoektocht naar archieven. Van nisg naar
174
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
tute over a national institute of his own socialist movement related to his
international role and renown, his personal vanity, and his role by then as
a Cavalier seul [solo operator] in the Belgian socialist movement, which
supported the initiative of the Nationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis
(nisg).
In 1951 Adama van Scheltema contacted Hendrik de Man again, requesting a copy of his Petitie aan de Voorzitter van de Senaat (Petition to the
President of the Senate) and a complimentary copy of his most recent memoires Cavalier seul. She also reminded him of his promise to entrust his correspondence with Mussolini to her institute. She glorified her institute as
a unique centre dedicated to scholarship, with immensely important collections on the social and political history of the Netherlands, Belgium,
England, Germany, and France, [] entirely different from the Marx-Engels
institute in Moscow, which admittedly holds illustrious collections but is
inaccessible to [scholars from] Western countries.8 Most letters, especially
the most important ones, from his old archive, however, had been lost: []
some were pillaged and destroyed, others seized by the Justice, which was
basically the same.9 Later, a very large share of his archive turned out to
have been preserved after all.
De Mans life in exile in Switzerland was difficult. He tried to eke out a
living by delivering lectures, doing translations, writing books and articles,
and sometimes by selling important archival documents. Financial need led
him to sell the correspondance with Mussolini about his book Au del du
marxisme to his affluent close friend Auguste Lambiotte.10 But he remembered his promise: final will and testament has ensured that the meagre surplus would be transferred to your institute [].11 The passionate
iish librarian must have been overjoyed at reading this final will and testament. And she was probably still more delighted, when he informed her
two months later that he had come into a magnificent collection of correspondence from the estate of Hector Denis,12 entrusted to him when Denis
passed away. This collection comprised letters from e.g. Bakunin, Alexander
Herzen, Paul Lafargue, Csar De Paepe . He hoped to write an article about
this for the iish journal, for adequate reimbursement (which is not as
8
9
10
11
12
|1 75
immaterial for me, as I would like it to be!),13 which Adama van Scheltema
promised he would receive, as soon as the Institutes Review was published.14
As stipulated in the final will and testament of Hendrik de Man, Jan de
Man and his sister Elise Lecocq-de Man brought a section from his personal
papers and this treasure trove of correspondence to Amsterdam in 1953, after having verified that the iish was a responsible and reputable institute.
De Mans personal papers cover the period 1920-1940 and comprise thousands of documents contained in 550 folders of correspondence, clippings,
memos, and lecture notes, seed materials for his books and articles, manuscripts for his books and studies, such as Zur Psychologie des Sozialismus,
Der Kampf um die Arbeitsfreude, and his phd thesis Das Genter Tuchgewerbe im
Mittelalter. The files on his political involvement concern his activities within the Belgian workers party in the period 1933-1940 and his participation
in Belgian governments (1935-1940). An index to this archive was compiled
by H. Riethof.15 In 1972 the donation was supplemented by five articles by
Hendrik de Man and some related documents. In November 1974 his family added several journals, some correspondence, and additional reports
and documentation concerning the deployment of E. Vandervelde, L. de
Brouckere, and H. de Man to the Russian front in 1917. His family had initially offered this file to the Soviet Union, which did not accept it.16
The bequest by de Man is described by the iish in its 1953 Annual Report as
the greatest gift the Institute had the good fortune to receive this year.
Institute librarian Annie Adama van Scheltema was particularly delighted
at the unique collection of 270 letters, most of which were addressed to
Hector Denis. This collection comprises e.g. 22 letters from C. De Paepe
from 1865-1888, including the manuscript of H. Deniss eulogy upon the
death of C. de Paepe and a school notebook from C. de Paepe (religious instruction), 23 letters from J.J. Altmeyer from after 1866, 9 letters from Ch.
De Coster from 1869-1879, 1 letter from Bakunin to the editors of La Libert
from 1870 (4p.), 1 letter from A. Herzen to L. Fontaine (1864), 3 letters from
B. Malon from 1876-1878 to C. De Paepe, 2 letters from E. Bernstein (1880),
1 letter from G. von Vollmar (1885), 1 letter sent by A. Schlesinger from
prison (1876), 2 letters from M. Schlesinger (1876), 3 letters from V. Arnould
(1869, 1879, and 1886), 4 letters from L. Brentano (1902-1907), 1 letter from
A. Cipriani (1894), 1 letter from J. Jaurs (1890s), 1 letter from P. Hger 1879,
1 letter from D. Halvy (undated), 2 letters from A. de Potter (1901), 1 let13
14
15
16
Letter from Hendrik de Man to Adama van Scheltema, December 24, 1951, - Greng
par Morat - iish, Amsterdam, Adama van Scheltema archive. The draft of this letter
is in the Fonds Lecocq-de Man, vol. I, nr 454 (Ghent, Amsab-isg).
Letter from Adama van Scheltema to Hendrik de Man, January 15, 1952,Amsterdam - Amsab-isg, Ghent, Fonds Lecocq-de Man, vol I, nr. 455.
H. Riethof, Index of the collection of Hendrik de Man (Amsterdam, 1969), 67 p.
Letter from Jan de Man and Elise de Man to the Ambassador of the Netherlands in
Brussels, April 27, 1972, - Anderlecht -, iish, Amsterdam. Letter from Elise de Man
and Yves Lecocq to J.M. Welcker, October 30, 1974, - Brussels -, iish, Amsterdam.
17 6
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
ter sent by L. de Brouckre sent from St. Gillis prison in 1896.17 With the
Metamorfoze grant toward conserving and maintaining collections, the iish
decided in 2012 to digitize the archive of Hendrik de Man.18
On the sixth anniversary of the death of Hendrik de Man (20 June 1959),
another large portion of his archive was donated to the Oorlogsarchief
[war archive] in Anderlecht, at the time still a separate branch of the
Algemeen Rijksarchief [National Archives of Belgium].19 The archive covers the periods 1938-1942 and 1945-1950 and contains lectures, manifests
(1940-1942), publications, files with reports, clippings, notes, and correspondence about his secret peace missions, the disbandment of the
Belgian workersparty and its affiliates, the establishment and operation
of the Unie van Hand- en Geestesarbeiders [Union of manual and spiritual workers], the publication of a Flemish and/or French union daily or
weekly, the establishment in June 1941 of the national Vrij Belgi [free
Belgium] movement. The postwar files gathered by de Man, his family, and
his most loyal friends concern the trials conducted against de Man, his
motion for review of [the rulings in] these cases, followed by the petition
to the Senate, press clippings, and copies of expressions of sympathy and
gratitude. This archive was inventoried by Dr H. De Schepper and comprises 3,038 items.20
As described above, immediately after Hendrik de Man died, curator Ger
Schmook proposed setting up a dedicated de Man fund at the amvc. Only
on 1 August 1956 did Jan and Elise de Man transfer ownership of part of
the archive to the City of Antwerp, where Hendrik de Man was born. This
first donation consisted of books and brochures, personal mementos, photographs, sports equipment, including his skis and a mountain hiking stick,
an army uniform with a helmet, cap, and sabre, and medals and diplomas.
It did not yet include written or personal documents. After all, the archive
overall remained dispersed among family members and friends.
From 1970 the heirs increasingly transferred archive materials to the
amvc. The final supplement was provided in 2003, shortly before the inventory was concluded. In 2002 Mrs de Man-Flechtheim also donated a part
of her father-in-law's personal library to the Amsab-Instituut voor Sociale
Geschiedenis Amsab-isg in Ghent (Amsab-Institute of Social History). Her
son Piet de Man still holds e.g. a couple of books, personal correspondence
and New Years letters from H. de Man. Photocopies of such letters were in17
18
19
20
1953 annual report of the International Institute of Social History. (Amsterdam, 1954), p. 20.
Lists of these letters that were donated are also in the Document collection of the
de Man family at the Amsab-isg (Ghent).
Available at: http:// http://socialhistory.org/en/node/3578; last accessed 19 December
2012.
Letter from Jan de Man and Elise de Man-Lecocq to Sire (King Leopold iii),
January 1, 1970, -Anderlecht -, Amsab-isg, Ghent, Docucument collection of the de
Man family.
Hugo De Schepper, Inventory of the collection of Hendrik de Man (Brussels, 1977), 100 p.
|1 77
cluded in the document collection of the de Man family, which is also kept
at the Amsab-isg.21
As recommended by Leen Van Dyck, director of the amvc-Letterenhuis,
now rightly identified as the literary archive and museum of Flanders, the
Antwerp city council entrusted the archive on 24 July 2001 to the AmsabInstituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (Amsab-isg).22 The inventory, compiled
by Dr W. Steenhaut and J. De Clerck, comprises 1,646 described items, 936
photograph descriptions, and 26 material relic descriptions.23 Contrary to
the other archive sections, which each relate to a specific, isolated period of
de Mans life and career, this archive is the most comprehensive. It covers
albeit not always exhaustively for each period all of de Mans life, ideas,
work, and actions.24
The archive consists of correspondence, memos, clippings, official documents regarding his family and youth; seed materials for his lectures and
articles, official documents, and personal correspondence from his student
and early activist period until 1914, as well as e.g. a file on his dispute with
Edward Anseele about the article Die Arbeiterbewegung in Belgien, which
he published in 1911 together with Louis de Brouckre in the German journal Die Neue Zeit. The First World War period contains personal, official, and
military documents and correspondence about the situation and living conditions at the front; his deployment together with Emile Vandervelde and
Louis de Brouckre to Russia in 1917; his mission as a member of a Belgian
government delegation to the United States (1918). The files from the interwar years concern e.g. his stay in the United States and Canada (1919-1920),
his stints teaching at the Akademie der Arbeit (Darmstadt, 1922-1926), at the
University of Frankfurt am Main (1929-1933), and at the Universit Libre de
Bruxelles (1933-1940), the Arbeidershogeschool (Labour Academy) in Ukkel,
Centrale voor Arbeidersopvoeding (Workers Education Association), the
Plan van de Arbeid (Labour Plan), membership of the government (19351940), seed materials for his many lectures, articles, and university courses,
manuscripts of his publications and correspondence with publishers. Very
few of these items cover the war years 1940-1944, and overlap with the archive sections at the ncwoii and in the Algemeen Rijksarchief. His exile in
Switzerland (1944-1953), however, is extensively documented in correspondence with his friends and family, his diary, the memos about his financial
expenses, his candidacy for university appointments in South Africa and
Switzerland, his work as a translator, and his countless speeches and radio
21
22
23
24
Wouter Steenhaut and Jose De Clerck, Inventory of the document collection of the de
Man family, (Ghent, 2003), 34 p.
Amsab-Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Bagattenstraat 174, 9000 Ghent.
Wouter Steenhaut and Jose De Clerck, Inventory of the archive of Hendrik de Man
(Ghent, 2003), 310 p.
Items from the years he spent in Flims (1926-1927) and in Haute-Savoie (November
1941 - August 1944) are missing from this archive.
17 8
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
25
26
27
|1 79
Letter from (Yves Lecocq) to Cher Jan, October 27, 1969, - n.p.-, Amsab-isg, Ghent,
Document collection of the de Man family.
180
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
ered in French to the Russian troops at the front in Galicia, as well as some
other documents from this deployment to Russia, did not respond. Nor
did Poland. Canada, France, Italy, the United States, Switzerland, and the
Federal Republic of Germany accepted. The Federal Republic of Germany
placed the bequest with the Archiv fr Soziale Demokratie der FriedrichEbert-Stiftung in Bonn-Bad Godesberg. The articles that de Man published
in the Leipziger Volkszeitung in 1907-1908 were entrusted to the Staatsarchiv
in Dresden. Whether all these donations actually took place remains unclear.29 The State Department archive in Washington, D.C. is said to have
received personal documents and a few articles by Hendrik de Man from
1907 and 1908 from his family. A photocopy of the correspondence between
Mussolini and de Man from 1930 about his publication Au del du Marxisme
was henceforth entrusted to the Archivio Storico Ministerio Affari Esteri in
Rome. The report on his journey to explore Newfoundland in 1919 and some
personal notes from before 1920 were transferred to the Public Archives of
Canada (Ottawa). In 1972 the Bibliothque Nationale in Paris received several off-prints of his articles from the period 1934-1935 and 1939, a letter from
1939 from the French author Jules Romains to de Man, and two letters from
de Man to a French publisher (1953).
A small donation was given to the Museum of the Dynasty in Brussels,
including a note by de Man about the royal family and some documents
concerning the Werk Koningin Elisabeth voor onze Soldaten (The Queen
Elisabeth charity for our soldiers) which de Man chaired.30
It would be difficult today to compile an accurate account and obtain a
clear impression of these modest donations to institutions in Belgium and
abroad. All institutions would need to be contacted and possibly inspected
on site. Copies or prints of the documents were added by the family to the
archive sections at the Algemeen Rijksarchief in Brussels, the ncwoii/cegesoma in Brussels, the amvc/Amsab-isg in Ghent, and the document collection of the de Man family (Amsab-isg).
29
30
|1 8 1
31
32
33
34
35
36
Inventaire sommaire des documents dposs aux archives de la ville de Morat (Canton de
Fribourg) en 1970, compiled by the Foundation In Memoriam Hendrik de Man.
See also De Schepper, Inventory, p.10.
The archive at the Mrten municipal archive is also described in: Herman
Balthazar, H. de Man archive, (Brussels,1971) and in De Schepper, Inventory.
Michel Brlaz, Archives de la Ville de Morat. Fonds Henri de Man (Grand-Lancy/Geneva,
2002), 74 p.
New name: Studie- en Documentatiecentrum Oorlog en Hedendaagse Maatschappij
[Research and documentation centre on war and contemporary society] (cegesoma), Luchtvaartsquare 29, 1070 Brussels.
Letter from (Yves Lecocq) to Cher Jan, October 27, 1969, n.p - Amsab-isg, Ghent,
Document collection of the de Man family.
182
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
39
40
41
Letter from Jan de Man and Elise de Man-Lecocq to Sire, January 1, 1970,Anderlecht-, Amsab-isg, Ghent, Document collection of the de Man family.
Count Gobert dAspremont-Lynden belonged to the Cabinet of His Majesty from
1936 until 1945, Chief Marshall of the Court from 1954 to 1962 and honorary
ambassador.
Letter from Count Gobert dAspremont-Lynden to Jan de Man, April 28, 1970, Brussels -, Amsab-isg, Ghent, Document collection of the de Man family.
Herman Balthazar, H. de Man archive (Brussels, 1971), 55 p.
De Schepper, Inventory, p. 11.
|1 8 3
were arranged chronologically, in some cases classified by subject. The volumes that are of immense importance on the war period include Unie van
Hand- en Geestesarbeiders (Union of manual and spiritual workers), Belgian
workers party, the daily and weekly Le Travail, and miscellaneous reports
(1940-1943). The volumes on the postwar period cover the anti-Hitler resistance and H. de Man, correspondence (1945-1952), the trials and motions for
review, expressions of sympathy, articles on and about de Man etc. The archives donated later are about the ties between Leopold iii and de Man, as
well as miscellaneous correspondence.
The Amsab-isg recently acquired a few additional archives, some of which
included the personal papers of Hendrik de Man.
In 2007 his grandson Tyl Lecocq donated the first volume of the Fonds
Lecocq-de Man.42 This archive, on which the late Dr M. Brlaz compiled an
exhaustive inventory,43 contains 1,811 items, including 1,358 items for which
Hendrik de Man (1,284 items) and his wife Valrie von Orelli started the archive. These primarily cover his period of exile in Switzerland (1944-1953). In
addition to correspondence with various individuals, including Adama van
Scheltema and various publishers, this section contains some memos, family correspondence (1927-1939), his diary (1941-1942), personal documents,
and the correspondence from 1930 between Mussolini and Hendrik de Man
about his book Au del du marxisme. The second section contains documents
from after his death, such as condolences, a necrology, newspaper articles,
the operations and correspondence of the actual In Memoriam Hendrik de
Man commemorative foundation with institutions in Belgium and abroad
(including the iish) about distributing and donating his archives.
The late Dr M. Brlaz also assembled an almost complete reconstruction
of originals and photocopies from the correspondence of Hendrik de Man
with his most loyal friends Auguste and Rose LambiotteDemeulemeester.44
Besides the correspondence, this documentation file contains memos and
photographic materials, as well as items from after the deaths of Hendrik
42
The second volume of this archive is still held by the Lecocq family. This volume
(1,684 items) comprises mainly the combined family correspondence of Hendrik
de Man with Elise de Man and Yves Lecocq; correspondence between H. de Man
and publishers; personal papers of H. de Man and Vali von Orelli; death and estate,
correspondence with archive institutions; personal correspondence of Elise de Man
and Yves Lecocq with others; cf. Michel Brlaz, Fonds Lecocq-de Man. Vol II, (GrandLancy/Geneva, 2006), 490 p.
43 Brlaz, Fonds Lecocq- de Man. Inventory, Vol. I (Grand-Lancy/Geneva), 2003, 224 p.
44
Rose Demeulemeester (1891-1964): daughter of the Bruges beer brewer and socialist senator Victor Demeulemeester; married to the Belgian-French industrialist
Auguste Lambiotte (1892-1966) in London in 1919. Like Hendrik de Man, he was
a fly-fishing aficionado; donated his father-in-laws vast collection on the Paris
Commune to the Royal library in Brussels.
184
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
de Man and Auguste Lambiotte. This file contains 1,136 items and is kept at
the Amsab-isg.45
The impressive work of the late Dr Michel Brlaz was part of his relentless
effort to assemble the most comprehensive possible collection of archives
and documents on and about Hendrik de Man. His ultimate objective was an
integral reorganization of the archives of Hendrik de Man and a globally exhaustive inventory to encourage scholarly research about the life and ideas
of Hendrik de Man. Following his death in 2006, his own vast files of documentation, as well as his library, were entrusted to the Amsab-isg.46
In pursuing its specific mission, the Amsab-isg has a longstanding special
interest in Hendrik de Man and archives and documentation files related to
him. The institute has, for example, retrieved the remaining archive from
the Bureau voor Sociaal Onderzoek (Bureau of social studies),47 of which
Hendrik de Man was the director. This fund comprises his correspondence
admittedly incomplete with a great many persons in Belgium and abroad.
In 1997 the library of the Ecole Ouvrire Suprieure (Haute Ecole Libre
Ilya Prigogine) in Brussels donated a small file of correspondence between
Hendrik de Man and Lon Delsinne to the Vereniging voor de Studie van het
Werk van Hendrik de Man [Association for research on the work of Hendrik
de Man],48 consisting of 39 letters from the period 1909-1934. This is in effect an incomplete selection of the personal papers of Lon Delsinne. Dr M.
Brlaz compiled an inventory of these items as well.49
The small archive that Hendrik de Man mentioned in his letter to Adama
van Scheltema has now expanded into a voluminous archive comprising
thousands of items dispersed among different institutions, greatly complicating any inventory efforts. All these difficulties should, however, be
considered in the context of the new technologies of the computer age.
Gathering the archives physically may no longer be necessary: perhaps a virtual assembly will be sufficient. We imagine a future, in which institutions
45
46
47
48
49
|1 8 5
feature their de Man archives digitally, with a central search engine conducting full-text searches of all documents among all institutions at once.
*
1
2
va n d er h e i j d e n a n d v e y r o n tr y i ng to f i nd a mas ke d man
|1 8 7
188
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
up and threw him against a wall, crushing his skull. Coeurderoy escaped
after the incident, but had to live in hiding afterwards. He only resurfaced
during the infamous Commune, which enrolled this penniless fugitive killer smoothly among its ranks. At the end of the Commune, Coeurderoy was
executed together with a bunch of rascals, a shameful death for a man who
was born honest, the newspaper article concludes: sa force dangereuse
avait perdu lhomme masqu.3
All this was written over 40 years after the supposed facts, based on a
story told by some anonymous source. The story fascinated us, and we started looking for documentary evidence in libraries, archives, and in the ever
growing number of digitized sources found on the internet. Perhaps we
would spoil a good story. But on the other hand, some of it might be true.
Our investigation is far from finished, but we think we have already found
enough to tell an interesting tale.
Paris
The oldest document was found in the population register of Sens, where
Coeurderoy was born on 4 January, 1832, and registered as Edouard Jean.4
Later in life he would also be known as Jean-Baptiste Edouard. His father
was a farmer, later also listed as landowner. In 1852 Coeurderoy was registered as a law student, still living with his parents. One year later, he left his
hometown. In November 1854 he appears in the Paris police archives, being
condemned to eight days in prison for rebellion, his first of many brushes with the authorities. In May 1859 Coeurderoy was in trouble again: he
was sentenced to a month in prison for having beaten policemen. In both
cases, the backgrounds are unknown. During these years, Coeurderoy made
his living as a cloth merchant. He ran into another type of trouble in the
second half of 1862: his firm, the Socit Gouguenheim & Coeurderoy, rue
de Mulhouse 3, went bankrupt, as is registered in the Gazette des Tribunaux5.
From here on, the trace becomes vague. According to some later sources he
became a saltimbanque, a fairground acrobat or strong man. It is tempting to think of Daumiers sketches of fairground artists, and of the stories
by Jules Valls, both dating from these very years.
And then, during the 1867 Universal Exhibition held in Paris, a mysterious masked wrestler appeared in Les Arnes athltiques, a roofed wooden
3
4
L. Saint-R., La petite histoire des sports: lhomme masqu. Vision parisienne, in:
Le Gaulois, 30 May 1912.
Sens : nmd (1832-1832) 5 Mi 884/ 6 1832-1832 (Archives dpartementales de
lYonne, Auxerre). We found it thanks to his short biography in Jean Maitrons
indispensable collection of biographies of Communards (Dictionnaire biographique du
mouvement ouvrier franais, Deuxime partie, 1864-1871: la Premire Internationale
et la Commune, tome V (Paris, 1968), p. 138-139. Maitron also pointed us to the
documents in the police archives mentioned later.
Gazette des Tribunaux, 2 July 1862.
va n d er h e i j d e n a n d v e y r o n tr y i ng to f i nd a mas ke d man
|1 8 9
6
7
8
9
190
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
M. Lix, Une soire lArne athltique. Lutte de lHomme Masqu contre Marseille
jeune, from LUnivers illustr 1867, p. 608. Collection Marien van der Heijden.
fulness of these reports we will return later. The newspaper clipping from
the Descaves collection proves that it was a persistent story among wrestling experts, but it cannot be taken as conclusive evidence.
What Coeurderoy did between 1867 and the start of the Paris Commune
is not clear. He may have had jobs in the military. But in 1870 his name
appears in documents again, as a member of the Garde Nationale Mobile,
Seine infrieure. In December he was awarded a medal. In 1871 he had
risen to lieutenant colonel or colonel, serving in the Seventh Bataillon of
the forces defending the beleaguered Paris against the troops of Versailles.
He was not one of the ideological or political leaders of the Commune, and
left no written statements as to his views and actions, as far as we know.
From the fragmentary evidence in reports by witnesses and in files from the
Versailles government, he emerges as a hardline Communard, full of energy and sometimes aggressive.10 In the last weeks of the Commune, he may
have tried to destroy buildings to prevent them from falling into the en10
For instance: Paul Seigneret, sminariste de Saint-Sulpice, fusill Belleville le 26 mai 1871.
Notice rdige daprs ses lettres, par un directeur du Sminaire de Saint-Sulpice (Paris, 1875
[3me dition]) p. 338
va n d er h e i j d e n a n d v e y r o n tr y i ng to f i nd a mas ke d man
|1 9 1
emy hands. Based on later reports from police spies, the Versailles government charged him with attempts to set fire to the two theaters of the Opra
and the Htel des ventes, and of involvement with the attempt to blow up
the powder storage of the Invalides, which would have been a spectacular
explosion.11
There are several contemporary brief reports about Coeurderoys last
hours, fighting the soldiers of the Versailles army, better equipped and
more numerous than the forces of the Commune. Some of them have him
dying on a barricade, others say he was executed. In the most elaborate report, the nergumne (firebrand) Coeurderoy fights on a barricade in the
rue Rochechouart, and kills an innocent wine merchant with a rifle shot.
Wounded and leaning on an 18 year-old girl named Louise Breteuil, who did
not cease to shoot during the retreat, he makes his way to a barricade on
the rue du Chteau-dEau, where the two of them are caught and immediately shot.12 The killing of an innocent wine merchant and the introduction
of a murderous girl are typical of the horror scenarios invented about the
Commune and the Communards. They were repeated for many years to justify the ruthless killing by the forces from Versailles of thousands or tens of
thousands of Parisians during the Semaine sanglante (Bloody Week), and
to paint a spectral picture of the abominable horrors of the Commune.
Exile
In the case of Coeurderoy, the reports of his death were greatly exaggerated:
he was not killed at all. He had escaped to Switzerland, and the story of his
death was kept alive to protect him from immediate prosecution. This route
was not easy, but feasible. Many Communards made it to Geneva, where
they could live without threat of expulsion as long as they did not commit a
crime a situation quite strange to our twenty-first century minds, soaked
with the rhetoric of the war against terrorism.
In July 1871 we find Coeurderoy on the terrace of the Caf du Nord in
Geneva, enjoying a drink in the company of other refugees. The episode is
described in the memoirs of Maxime Vuillaume, the indispensable chronicler of the community of Communards in Switzerland and one of the refugees on the terrace. The men exchange the stories of their escapes, and
then it is Coeurderoys turn. Vuillaume relates: Et toi? dis-je Coeurderoy.
Coeurderoy va nous raconter son histoire, quand un coup de coude me fait
retourner vers mon voisin, Massenet [another refugee]. Quoi? Diraiton pas le pre Gaillard... L. En face de nous, avec Claris? Father Gaillard
and Claris were two prominent Communards. They were invited to join the
table, and of course they started telling their stories. Coeurderoy never got to
11
12
192
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
13
14
15
16
17
18
Maxime Vuillaume, Mes cahiers rouges au temps de la Commune (Paris, 1911 [cinquime
dition]), p. 362-369.
[Il] tait parti bravement, se souciant peu des mouchards quil jurait dtouffer
entre ses bras musculeux. Maxime Vuillaume, Comment je me suis souvenu, in
LAurore, 5 March 1907.
Archives dEtat de Genve, Dossier dexpulsion. Cote : Etrangers J n97; Archives de
la Prfecture de Police de Paris, BA 431 and BA 483.
For example: Gustave Lefranais, Arthur Arnould, Souvenirs de deux Communards
rfugis Genve, 1871-1873. Prsentation par Marc Vuilleumier (Genve, 1987);
Aristide Claris, La proscription francaise en Suisse 1871-72 (Genve, 1872).
Unfortunately the Lucien Descaves papers held at the iish do not contain further
information on Coeurderoy himself.
Such as: Marc Vuilleumier, Les exiles communards en Suisse, in Cahiers dhistoire
(Lyon, vol. 22, 1977) or Lexil des communeux, in: La commune de 1871: lvnement,
les hommes et la mmoire (St Etienne, 2004). See also the recently published collection
of articles by Vuilleumier: Marc Vuilleumier, Histoire et Combats. Mouvement ouvrier et
socialisme en Suisse, 1864-1960 (Genve: 2012).
va n d er h e i j d e n a n d v e y r o n tr y i ng to f i nd a mas ke d man
|1 9 3
ing house in Plainpalais, at that time just outside Geneva proper. He ran
this with his wife (it is not certain if they were married), who, at the time
of the Commmune, had defended by herself a barricade for a whole day.19
According to Lucien Descaves documentary novel about the French exiles
in Switzerland, Coeurderoys wife came from the Alsace. She was tall and
had an ample figure, and was therefore nicknamed lphantine. Descaves
describes how the two frequently quarreled. When the argument became
serious, Coeurderoy would say Lets go downstairs. Then lephantine followed him to the basement, where they gave each other a beating. After
some time, the two would come upstairs again, relieved, and, in Descaves
words, happy to have protected the outward respectability of the community of exiles.20
Coeurderoys and lphantines place (Brasserie de Plainpalais) was frequented by many exiles, and several times political meetings and memorial
banquets were held there. From an espionage report sent to Paris, we know
that there were two large rooms, each with a capacity of a hundred people,
one with two billiard tables, and a garden with a stage for an orchestra and
27 tables for outside dining, if the weather permitted. A separate, smaller
room was reserved for the exiles. For 10 francs a month, they could become
a member. The money was used to buy French newspapers, which the exiles
could read and study before they were passed on to the other customers a
day later.21 How Coeurderoy was able to finance this enterprise is not clear.
A predictable rumor held that he had made a great deal of money during
his time as official of the Commune.22
Still, Coeurderoys life was not without trouble, to put it mildly. In
August 1872 the court in Paris sentenced him in absentia to be deported
to a fortified prison for attentat contre le gouvernement et dans le but
dexciter la guerre civile, port duniforme militaire et darmes apparentes, usage de ces armes, construction de barricades, arrestations illgales et
complicit darrestations illgales, exercice dun commandement dans des
gardes armes23 His brasserie had competition from the Marmite Sociale
and the Buvette de la Commune (exploited by Gaillard pre him again!),
both in Geneva and catering for the exile community. Coeurderoy was sentenced for a fraudulent bankruptcy in some business venture of which no
details are known. The exiles frequently quarreled, and where there was a
fight, Coeurderoy often was not far away. He was involved in a series of incidents.24 He was reported to have threatened someone with a gun in the
19
20
21
22
23
24
194
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
25
26
va n d er h e i j d e n a n d v e y r o n tr y i ng to f i nd a mas ke d man
|1 9 5
27
28
29
30
Ibid.
Ibid.
douard Coeurderoy, Lescrime (Chaux-de-Fonds: Impr. du national suisse, 1874).
Quotes from p. 5, 6, 7.
Edmond Desbonnet, Les rois de la force: histoire de tous les hommes forts depuis les temps
anciens jusqu nos jours, avec 733 photographies et dessins (Paris, 1911), p. 52.
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
who declared that Coeurderoy had always been a bit rebellious and hardhanded, but righteous and generous. Another character witness, perhaps
the prominent radical politician Georges Favon, member of the Grand
Conseil (the Genevan cantons parliament), stated: Je vous assure que cest
un des hommes les plus travailleurs et les plus honntes de la proscription franaise et quil a t victime, lors de son expulsion, de haines trs
caractrises.31 As far as we know, Coeurderoy was given his residence permit. In 1879 he was among the Communards given amnesty by the French
government. But according to a newspaper article from 1880, Coeurderoy
was one of the refugees whose life in Switzerland was so good they would
not take the risk of having to accept a lesser position after returning to
Paris.32 He became a frequent visitor of the meetings of the Grand Conseil in
Geneva, and seriously considered naturalization.33
Paris
But Coeurderoy did not stay in Switzerland, and he did not become wealthy.
The last traces we have recently34 found concern his death in a Paris municipal hospital on 1 April, 1909, and his cremation at Pre-Lachaise on 4 April.35
La Fraternelle des Anciens Combattants de la Commune, the association
of veterans of the Commune, invited its members to attend.36 Later in April,
Maxime Vuillaume published some memories of recently deceased ex-Communards, including Coeurderoy, described and honored as a brave and fearless man, a real fighter. Vuillaume had encountered him in Paris a few years
earlier, still a Hercules, but old and tired. Coeurderoy died as a poor man,
like most of the ex-Communards. He made a living by walking from building site to building site, selling tools to stonemasons. Il travailla ainsi jusqu ce que lge vint le plier tout fait et le coucher enfin dans sa bire.37
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
va n d er h e i j d e n a n d v e y r o n tr y i ng to f i nd a mas ke d man
|1 9 7
More to be found
So what do we know, after scraping all these fragments together from archives in Amsterdam, Paris, and Geneva, from so many books, brochures,
journals, and newspapers? We can say that the newspaper clipping on the
back of his portrait is inaccurate in most details, completely wrong in some
aspects, and impossible to prove in others. But it paints a surprisingly accurate character of the Coeurderoy we got to know. For a figure of such modest historical importance, Coeurderoy left behind many traces in a vast array of documentary sources. Ongoing digitization projects are making more
sources available as we speak. We are sure that there is more to be found,
and we will try to find it. Still, we may never be able to reconstruct his complete life. We may never know if he was the masked wrestler or not. We
may even find documents that raise new questions we cannot answer.
In fact, this has already happened. On the internet, we found a sales catalogue of portrait photographs of Communards from the collection of Jules
Perrier, another great collector of Commune documents and memorabilia.38
Among the portrayed Communards listed was our friend. Unfortunately, the
photograph itself was not shown, and has been sold to an unknown buyer.
According to the description from the seller, the portrait was taken at the
atelier of Paul Metzner & Fils, in La Chaux-de-Fonds, and had a dedication
on the back: a son ami Perrier, Coeurderoy (Retour de lInde).39 So after all
our investigations, we are again confronted with a photograph this time a
photograph we cannot even see with something on the back that fires our
imagination. Back from India? What did he do there?
38
39
The research institution that collects anarchist materials faces several conundrums. While the majority of these are not unique to anarchist materials, the anti-governmental/anti-authoritarian politics of libertarian
movements often compound these problems.2 What follows is a brief examination of the questions that arise in institutional collecting. This is followed
by an examination of the importance of the Internationaal Instituut voor
Sociale Geschiedenis (iisg) as a center for research on these movements, focusing on those based in Spain. These will be peppered with some opinionated (and personal) observations derived from my dual careers as a librarian
and a researcher on anarchism, drawn from the research for my dissertation on the Spanish anarchist Federica Montseny.3
le e la ros a d e f oc
|1 9 9
2012). To be crystal clear: I am speaking only for myself, neither for my employer
nor any other institutional affiliation.
Anarchy in The American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd ed. (New York, 1994, [1992]).
20 0
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Material
Further complicating the issue are not only the standard title changes
and publisher changes (Generacin Consciente became Estudios and moved
from Alcoy to Valencia), but also the political problems of censorship and
the frequent repression of anarchist serials. While La Revista Blanca experienced censorship, it was never suppressed in part due to their name El
Luchador, on the other hand, suffered severely at the hands of the state.7
The Barcelona-based Soldiaridad Obrera, simultaneously the national newspaper of the anarcho-syndicalist Confederacin Nacional del Trabajo (cnt)
and the principal newspaper of the Catalan Regional Federation, not only
went through five series in less than thirty years but also experienced frequent suspensions.8 Another complication is the popularity of the title
Solidaridad Obrera for the newspapers of other cnt regional federations.9
How can you provide authority control with such a multitude of names and
organizations?
5
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|201
20 2
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
iisg collection
Having identified several of the problems facing institutions that collect this
material, I turn to look at how an institution has dealt with some of these
conundrums. This is the iisg, which I fondly refer to as the Mecca of social
history collections. The iisg is legitimately renowned throughout the world
for its collections. There are few other institutions with such vast and wellconnected (thanks to authority control) collection of materials about social
movements from well beyond their immediate national boundaries. The
range and depth of the iisgs collection more than justify the international
in its name, and nowhere more so than in its holdings on anarchism. While
there are collections that have particular strengths or are notable for holding the records of some illustrious names or leading organizations, these
almost always reflect local or national orientation. The reasons for this parochialism are generally historically specific to the institution, albeit often
unacknowledged if they are even examined. The proudly acknowledged historical background of the iisgs vast collections is firmly rooted in its specific history and intimately connected with that of the Netherlands.
The Netherlands successfully maintained its neutrality during the First
World War, which helped make it an attractive location for migrs in
the tumultuous period after the war. The continuing perception of the
Netherlands as a more tolerant society, however problematic, meant that
it became a haven for a diverse group of political refugees and records.
Another positive by-product of the Netherlands image is the corresponding and continuing perception of the Institute as neutral in ideological and/
or factional fights. As a consequence there were numerous opportunities to
acquire materials from and about individuals and of movements that might
otherwise have been seized by antagonistic authorities and/or destroyed
by these authorities or in World War ii and the ensuing social revolutions.
Thus, and even more importantly for the preservation of historical documentation, this positive experience of political refugees led to the migrs
encouraging their compaer@s to deposit their material in Amsterdam for
safe keeping. One notable example of this is Max Nettlau. This acquisition was so important that the iisg was almost named the Max Nettlau
Institute.10 Nettlaus 1935 agreement to sell the iisg his extensive collection not only gave the Institute the largest accessible collection of anarchist
materials in the world; it did something that is immeasurable. It enabled
10
le e la ros a d e f oc
|203
the iisg to transcend the libertarians suspicion of institutions. The ongoing relationship between Nettlau and the iisg was pivotal in establishing
the Institute as the repository of choice for anarchists to deposit materials; moreover, it opened doors that otherwise would have been closed. His
extensive network of correspondents and personal relationship with anarchists in the Americas as well as in Europe spread a positive view of the
iisg across the globe. These individuals and organizations in turn responded
positively to requests from the Institute for materials and frequently sent
materials without being solicited by the iisg, further enhancing the iisgs
reputation and expanding its collections.11 This became especially important
in the case of Spain, the center of the worlds largest and most significant
libertarian movement at the time. Here Nettlau still played a crucial role in
soliciting materials as well as assuaging concerns. Francos brutal repression
in the areas under his control made the rescue of material imperative.12
Montseny
My research centered on the works of Federica Montseny i Ma, a leading
militant in Spain during the Second Republic until her 1939 escape into exile. Montsenys parents, Federico Urales and Soledad Gustavo published the
important anarchist review La Revista Blanca in Madrid from 1898 until 1905.
After moving to Barcelona, Montseny convinced her parents to resume publication and in 1923 the semi-monthly second series of La Revista Blanca began. The publication attracted contributions from around the world, including prominent anarchists such as Nettlau, Charles Malato, Maria Lacerda
de Moura, Pedro Esteve, Jean Grave, mile Armand, Adrin del Valle, and
Han Ryner. La Novela Ideal, a series of short novellas, was launched in 1925,
and they published complete novels as well. Nineteen thirty-one saw the introduction of the weekly El Luchador followed by a second, longer series of
novellas titled La Novela Ideal, and numerous pamphlets on a wide range of
topics.13
Montseny was a major contributor to the familys publishing operations.
La Revista Blanca published all three of her novels, in addition to her fifty-six
11
12
13
This is not to claim that everyones response was positive or that action was taken
in time. For a specific example see the Nettlau correspondence with the Spanish
anarchist Soledad Gustavo (ne Teresa Ma i Miravet). Though an important
figure in her own right, Gustavo is remembered today primarily as the compaera
of Federico Urales and mother of Federica Monsteny. Gustavo administered the
familys publishing enterprise and Nettlau encouraged her to deposit the archives
at the iisg because of the Second Republics impending defeat in the Civil War.
Unfortunately the deposit did not occur.
One example of what was lost is the daily correspondence between Montseny and
Germinal Esgleas, her compaero for over fifty years. She assumes the Nationalists
burned it. Montseny, Mis primeros cuarenta aos, p. 51.
These publications are all available at the iisg, though the two series of novellas
have some gaps. See the listing available at: http://socialhistory.org/en/collections/
la-novela-ideal-and-la-novela-libre; last accessed 12 November 2013.
20 4
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
titles in the two novella series, and hundreds of articles, essays, and reviews
in the two journals. The publications, while available in Spain, and despite
the popularity of the novellas, are relatively scarce inside and outside the
country. In addition to the problems of pamphlets examined earlier, another issue is the lack of respect accorded popular or light fiction by many.
Serious institutions simply did not collect popular material in keeping with
the perspective that fiction is ephemeral, of no lasting value, especially the
type of romances that Montseny wrote.
Luckily the Institutes collection development policy does not exclude the
ephemeral or popular. The collections at the iisg hold most of Montsenys
publications. It has complete runs of La Revista Blanca and El Luchador, all
three of her novels, almost all of her contributions to the two novella series except one La Novela Libre.14 Equally important are the various editions
of other works that were published either in exile or in Spain after Franco.
These often include new prologues by Montseny that are useful sources
of information, especially the pamphlets published during her exile in
Toulouse.
Spanish Libertarians
As noted by John Brademas, the excellence of the Institutes collections
of material on Spanish libertarians is without question. Until the death of
Franco, it was the one place you could find such depth of materials. Outside
of Spain (forget the possibility of such research inside fascist Spain), there
were microfilm sets one could consult, collections of materials that were
often based on what an individual gathered in a finite amount of time, more
of a cross section rather than the iisgs profound and ongoing collecting.15
That the most significant academic English language general histories of
the Civil War appear to have not consulted the riches readily available in
Amsterdam, may explain their uneven treatment of the Spanish libertarian
movement.16
14
15
16
Curiously, that one title is La vampiresa, which was not held (or at least listed in the
catalogues) by any of the twenty odd collections I used in my research. It is owned
by the Biblioteca Nacional de Espaa. I finally acquired a personal copy from a
Spanish book dealer for 50 about one hundred times its original price.
One such collection is that of Burnett Bolloten who had worked in Spain for the
United Press International syndicate during the Civil War. Bollotens materials
were acquired by the library of the Hoover Institution in 1949 and are the core of
his first book, The Grand Camouflage: The Communist Conspiracy in the Spanish Civil War
(New York, 1961).
The first serious academic study was John Brademas 1953 dissertation cited earlier.
Brademas work was never published in English, but was published in Spain
in 1974. That uneven treatment by earlier historians kept suspicion of Englishspeaking researchers strong through the eighties. On one of my first research trips
members of the cnt were very wary until I presented a fairly full membership dues
book for the Industrial Workers of the World. That instantly transformed me from
forastero to compaero.
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|205
The ongoing history of the Institutes active global collecting of anarchist materials enables the diligent researcher to recognize the truly international imagined community of anarchists. Not only is the researcher
in Amsterdam able to trace references and locate these in other Spanish
publications, but also to locate and use those from France and elsewhere
in Europe. I was able to read through French publications, including finding specific references to Montseny. But the truly global nature comes when
one is searching in the Institutes catalogues for those references that always seem to arise in researching libertarian movements. These references include one by Montseny, just a sentence, to a review of her work
in Solidaridad: peridico quincenal de los Trabajadores Industriales del Mundo, published in Brooklyn, New York. The libertarian movements interconnected
nature reflects what is loosely referred to as an anarchist Atlantic.
The global nature of the iisgs collecting means that the potential research materials at the iisg are limited only by the researchers time and
language skills. Certainly the career of Diego Abad de Santilln is a prime
example. A significant portion of his correspondence at the Institute is
from his two exiles in Argentina. There are his letters to Federico Urales
in their joint attempts to set up a publishing/distribution agreement, and
Abad de Santillns letters from Germany with accounts of his activities in
the Asociacin Internacional de los Trabajadores. Priceless to me was a letter to Nettlau from Abad de Santilln denouncing the publication of stupid novels by Urales. But the collection also includes other interesting materials such as a circular letter warning fellow anarchists that a book dealer
is a thief and a 1924 letter from the California-based Comit Pro-Presos de
Texas.17 Nothing unusual about that, as libertarian records are usually full of
appeals for financial aid for social prisoners. Such finds can be little sparks
lighting hidden parts of history. The Max Nettlau letters include a thank you
note for a contribution he made to a political prisoners fund. What was remarkable was that it came from the small New Jersey town in which I live.
However, the actual physical collections and the level of access, processing, and conservation could not exist without the unsung and often invisible work of the men and women who labored to make and provide access to
these collections. They collect the publications, manuscripts, posters, photographs, paving stones, etc. They maintain relationships and contacts, and
then try to make all the material accessible and useable for researchers. I
am not thinking only of the iisgs dedicated staff but also the activists, organizations, and fellow members of the Fdration internationale des centres
dtudes et de documentation libertaires. Libertarian documentation centers consciously strive to document and preserve the history of anarchism.
These include the Centre Internationale de Recherches sur lAnarchisme in
17
The Comit was created to help a group of men arrested in Texas in 1913 when
they tried to go to Mexico to fight against Victoriano Huerta. They were finally
released in 1926.
20 6
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
18
19
Organization of Knowledge
The tool people have used for centuries to order knowledge and make it
accessible is the catalogue. According to the general definitions this is a list
of books and other documents, compiled based on specific rules with reference to their location. In the fourth millennium before Christ, clay tablets were already used as information medium and shelved in the library
on numbered racks. The most famous library in antiquity was the one in
Alexandria, founded at the start of the third century before Christ. The enormous book rolls were classified systematically by theme.1
A breakthrough in the multiplication and dissemination of knowledge
was the invention of printing in the fifteenth century. Books became less
vulnerable and could get lost less easily. Therefore the production and distribution of books could soar.2 Literacy increased and there was a great
*
1
2
m a r i n u s ke y to t he li b rary s c olle c ti on
|209
need for libraries. With the foundation of university libraries in the sixteenth century, printed catalogues made their appearance. The instrument
for registration of and access to the collection. Actually the catalogue is the
hinge point between bookshelf and knowledge production. Catalogues were
mostly organized systematically. An alphabetical register was not yet a moot
point. In some cases an author catalogue was published,3 mainly as an aid
for the librarian. A major drawback of the printed catalogue was the rapid
ageing. Often loose folio sheets were added, because of which staff was continually occupied ordering what became eventually a loose-leaf catalogue.
At the end of the nineteenth century an adequate solution was found in
making descriptions on much smaller sheets and bind these together in a
solid cover. This was the birth of the catalogue card still in the form of the
famous Sheaf catalogue (Leidse boekje).4
Regulation
As libraries grew larger, a need for regulation arose. Attempts were already
made in the sixteenth century to develop a set of rules, but it did not get
serious attention until the nineteenth century. That was necessary by then,
because collections could not longer be encompassed in simple lists. Before
that, books were usually shelved in order of acquisition or by subject and
the librarian was the catalogue, an omniscient guide. At its foundation in
1935, iisg used placement by country, incidentally not without a comprehensive discussion.5 The genesis and further development of regulation led
from the outset to hefty opposites in cataloguing traditions, in which the
Anglo-Saxon and Prussian systems vied for the largest influence. In addition,
every self-respecting library kept their own house rules.
the Pre-Modern Economy in the East and the West (Leiden, 2013), pp. 323-340.
The Bodleian Catalogue (Oxford University) was the first catalogue in 1620 where
bibliographic descriptions were alphabetically ordered by author name or first
word of the title.
A sheaf of cards bound together (so-called fiches) with titles ordered alphabetically.
New acquisitions could easily be interspersed in the right place. The English term
for this system is Sheaf cataloque.
Founder-director N.W. Posthumus (1880-1960) and his staff spent much time on
determining the ordering principle. No existing system was sufficient for the very
specialized collections. Staff member Arthur Lehning consulted collector Max
Nettlau, but his ideas were not feasible. The eventual choice of system would
mainly be based on the proposals of Hans Stein, head of the German cabinet. Maria
Hunink, De papieren van de revolutie: Het Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis
1935-1947 (Amsterdam, 1986), pp. 102-103.
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
largest library in the world at that time. He drew up his famous Ninety-One
Cataloguing Rules6 and therewith laid the foundation for the modern catalogue. The title page was the starting point for Panizzi and thus the primary
source for the description.7 Later in the nineteenth century Charles Ammi
Cutter (1837-1903), the founder of the classification system of the Library of
Congress (lcc), elaborated Panizzi s ideas. Cutter mainly emphasized the
manageability of the catalogue and the importance of the cohesion between
the various works, which is called the collocation function.8 Panizzi and Cutter
are seen as the founders of the Anglo-American regulations. The influence
of Cutter can be seen clearly in the so-called aa-code, the Anglo-American
Rules from 1908, an English-American project to bring more unity to the
very diverse cataloguing practices.
6
7
9
10
Catalogue of Printed Books in The British Museum, vol. 1 (London, 1841), pp. V-IX
[hereafter, Ninety-One Rules].
Donald J. Lehnus, A Comparison of Panizzis 91 rules and the aacr of 1967
(Urbana, IL, 1972), available at: https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/3872/gslisoccasionalpv00000i00105.pdf ?sequence=1; last accessed 2 May
2014.
The collocation function means that all works of an author, irrespective of
the different forms in which the authors name appears in the publications,
must be brought together in a single standardized form: the uniform heading.
Federatie van Organisaties op het gebied van het Bibliotheek-, Informatie- en
Dokumentatiewezen (fobid), Regels voor de titelbeschrijving, 3: Regels voor catalogusbouw
(Den Haag, 1994), p. 30 [hereafter, Regels voor catalogusbouw, 3].
Instruktionen fr die alphabetischen Kataloge der preussischen Bibliotheken und fr den
preussischen Gesamtkatalog vom 10. Mai 1899 (Berlin, 1899).
Any organization or group of persons or organizations with a name that identifies
the organization or group thus, is considered to be a corporation/corporate
author. Par. V 101 in Regels voor catalogusbouw, 3 (Den Haag, 1981), p. 171.
m a r i n u s ke y to t he li b rary s c olle c ti on
|21 1
Battle
Despite all good intentions to agree on uniform regulation, practice was refractory. Even Panizzis rules from 1841 could not change much in that respect. The rules had become more and more extensive, due to consecutive
editions of Cutters rules which resulted in much fatter tomes with the AA
Rules from 1908 onwards. Partly due to the explosive growth of the libraries
in the early twentieth century an urgent need for new rules and detailed
specifications grew. In 1941 exactly 100 years after Panizzis Ninety-One Rules
the American Library Association (ala) published the provisional second
edition in two parts of their ala-Rules, with no less than 324 rules. They were
by no means innovative, but reworked on the previously established rules,
which prompted for even more rules. There was a broad discussion, with a
battle between supporters of overall innovation and opponents who pleaded for a review. Eventually a new revision was prepared in 1943, with the
question which information must be on the catalogue card and in which
bibliographic order. The title page was chosen as the source for the simplest
details on which to base description and identification of the book. This resulted in simpler rules for author and title entry, which were published in
1949 by the ala. Seymour Lubetzky (1898-2003) who had supplied a large
contribution to the debate with his Cataloguing Rules and Principles11 was a
major cataloguing theorist at the Library of Congress, in the tradition of
Panizzi. He campaigned for consistent and logical accumulated catalogues,
in which purpose and method are adapted to modern needs. Lubetzky incidentally disagreed with a trend in the library world that was of the opinion
that the cataloguer should adhere strictly to the prescribed rules for efficiency considerations and is not allowed to think or interpret.12
Breakthrough
Lubetzkys Cataloguing Rules and Principles were the prelude to the big breakthrough, which took shape with the first international conference on cataloguing, the International Conference on Cataloguing Principles (iccp) in
1961 in Paris, organized by the ifla.13 Here the so-called Paris Principles were
approved.14 A milestone in the history of cataloguing, although the confer11
12
13
14
Seymour Lubetzky, Cataloging Rules and Principles: A Critique of the A.L.A. Rules for Entry
and a Proposed Design for their Revision (Washington dc, 1953).
Seymour Lubetzky, Development of Cataloging Rules, Library Trends (1953), pp.
179-187.
The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (ifla) founded
in Edinburgh 1927, is the leading international body representing the interests of
library and information services and their users.
Statement of Principles adopted by the International Conference on Cataloguing
Principles Paris, October 1961, available at: http://www.nl.go.kr/icc/paper/20.pdf; last
accessed 2 May 2014.
212
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
ence could not resolve the many points of contention. The Principles were
based on a relatively limited view of the function of the catalogue. The central theme of the conference was the determination of the main entry. The
user should be able to find a book by title and author, and in accordance
with the ideas of Panizzi and Cutter the catalogue should show which works
of a certain author and in which editions were present in the library. What
to do for instance in the case of multiple authors or in the case of only a corporate author? The Anglo-American perspective with the texts of Lubetzky
may have had great influence, but compromises had to be reached. The final text of the Principles turned out to be multi-interpretable and a source of
discussion. The official annotated text that appeared in 1970 needed many
pages to explain the Principles of 1961 which were barely six pages.15 The discussion was mainly about whether or not to include the corporate author
and if so, in which form. The Americans had a tradition of including corporate authors under name of city and wanted to stick to that,16 although the
Principles prescribed that corporate authors must be ordered by name, like
Lubetzky had suggested. For the time being, the German-speaking countries
stuck to the Prussian tradition where the corporate author was concerned, a
tradition which did not recognize this as an entry. There was still a long way
to go. Nevertheless the Principles would mean a caesura for cataloguing. But
for a proper international exchange of bibliographic data more agreements
were necessary. A big step was set in 1969 at the International Meeting of
Cataloguing Experts (imce) in Copenhagen,17 where it was decided to standardize the order of punctuation in the bibliographic description. The draft
publication of the International Standard Bibliographic Description (isbd) appeared in 1971 and was thus the first step towards international exchange of
bibliographic data, a preliminary conclusion of the breakthrough with the
Principles.
15
16
17
18
m a r i n u s ke y to t he li b rary s c olle c ti on
|21 3
19
20
was ceded on loan to the Institute in that year, as well as the library of Ferdinand
Domela Nieuwenhuis. These libraries, together with the already acquired
collections of amongst others Max Nettlau and Max Adler, made for an extensive
iisg collection from the start.
Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Jaarverslag, 1936, p. 21 [hereafter,
Jaarverslag IISG]. The ordering of the books in the Dutch, German and Russian
cabinets progressed so well, that the books could be shelved systematically
grouped by sub department and within that, alphabetically. This has the big
advantage that, even though the alphabetical catalogue is not yet finished, library
staff can still check whether a required book is available. This arrangement can at
least somewhat mitigate the objections, which go hand in hand with the absence
of a catalogue.
Annie Adama van Scheltema-Kleefstra (1884-1977) was the widow of the poet of
the sdap Carel Adama van Scheltema who died in 1924, because of this she had
got to know many key figures from Dutch social democratic circles.
214
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Alfabetische catalogus van de boeken en brochures van het Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale
Geschiedenis Amsterdam. Boston : Hall, 1970. - 12 vols. + supplementen (location reading
room)
m a r i n u s ke y to t he li b rary s c olle c ti on
|21 5
turn-over among cataloguers and within the cabinets, priority was given to
ordering and systemizing of the material.24 Nonetheless some progress was
made. In 1951 the books from the German cabinet were fully catalogued. In
the same year a duplication machine could be bought, making the retyping of cards superfluous.25 This also offered the opportunity to supply duplicated cards to the Central Catalogue.26 After 1959 production increased
enormously due to a gift of 1.3 million guilders from the Ford Foundation
for improving access to the collections.27 Because of this financial injection,
staff was increased with about 75%28 and production was increased from a
few thousand records per year in the early fifties, to over 27,000 titles in
1964, when the project funds were depleted and the Ford-project was closed.
A huge catch-up was made, which was rewarded in 1970 with the publication of the so-called Hall-Catalogue.29 This printed catalogue appeared, with
financial support from De Centrale,30 after a long period of preparation.
In the regulations, the iisg rules followed the rules as laid down by the
National Advisory Board on Libraries (Rijkscommissie van Advies inzake het
Bibliotheekwezen) in 1924.31 In 1948 the aforementioned Board decided on
a substantial review of the rules and after careful discussion published the
new rules in 1953. The most important change was to let go of the Prussian
tradition with selection of title based on the grammatical principle without
entries for corporate authors. iisg, with its extensive German and Russian
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
216
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
collections, only partially followed the new rules. It retained the Prussian
rules for anonymous works and titles of periodicals. During the period after
the war, when catalogues were still far from perfect, this sometimes was
an advantage when searching the enormous collection of unique periodicals
with mostly similar titles. Many a title for instance, started with Rote, like
the publication Rote Fahne, which according to Prussian alphabetization
was shelved as Fahne, Rote. Therefore one did not need to search all titles
starting with the word Rote, instead it sufficed to search for Fahne to find all
Rote Fahne titles together.
Nevertheless the iisg house-rules were determined by a mixture of AngloSaxon and Prussian rules, together with the institutes own additions. The
discussion about regulation as took place at almost every library would
continue for years. At iisg this was not so much about the cataloguing tradition to be followed, as about the correct interpretation and application of
the Prussian rules.
m a r i n u s ke y to t he li b rary s c olle c ti on
|21 7
Between the Principles (Paris, 1961) and imce (Copenhagen, 1969) it became
clear that automation was to play a substantial role in library catalogues
too. The Anglo-Saxon countries (usa, Canada and England) came in 1967
with their new modified Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (aacr-2) and the
German speaking countries followed in the mid-seventies with their Regeln
fr die alphabetische Katalogisierung (rak).32 The trend towards standardization
soared high. In 1971 a draft version appeared of the International Standard
Bibliographic Description for Monographic Publications, followed by the First
Standard Edition of the isbd(m) in 1974.33 In that year ifla, supported by unesco, initiated the Universal Bibliographic Control Project (ubc) in order to
stimulate the exchange of bibliographic data. In the Netherlands the rules
were also revised and conformed to the starting points as accepted by the
Principles. In 1975 the first preliminary edition of the isbd(m) for the Rules of
Catalogue Maintenance appeared, under the wings of fobid.34
Now that the choice of main heading had been standardized and the descriptive part defined by strictly prescribed punctuation, the next step could
be taken by capturing the data in machine readable format. The system
for this was naturally designed by the Library of Congress, with their millions of catalogue cards that could no longer be processed manually. This
Machine Readable Catalogue (marc) was a model for the rest of the world
and is still the leading library format used world-wide. The International
Organization for Standardization (iso) contributed among other things, by
developing standards for bibliographic abbreviations.35
iisg went along with the developments and introduced the new isbd
rules in 1978. For works published prior to 1 January 1978, the Prussian rules
still applied. This resulted in two catalogues. In addition there was an order administration, fed with isbd titles mainly from national biographies
which grew into a new catalogue, the so-called Working catalogue. This
32
33
34
35
For the developments, see Monika Mnnich Interview, Cataloging & Classification
Quarterly, 33 (2001), no. 2, pp. 3-17.
There are different isbds for the various categories of bibliographic material, such
as the isbd(a) for old books (a = antiquarian), the isbd(m) for monographs and the
isbd(s) for serial publications.
Federation of Organizations in the field of Libraries, Information Management and
Documentation (Federatie van Organisaties op het gebied van het Bibliotheek-,
Informatie- en Documentatiewezen fobid), established in 1974. The national
association of nationwide library organizations: association of public libraries
(Vereniging van Openbare Bibliotheken vob), Dutch Association of professionals
in the library, information and knowledge sector (Nederlandse Vereniging van
Beroepsbeoefenaren in de bibliotheek-, informatie- en kennissector nvb), the
partnership of thirteen Dutch University libraries and the National Library of the
Netherlands Koninklijke Bibliotheek (ukb).
iso (International Organization for Standardization) founded in 1947 develops
International Standards and has published more than 19.500 International
Standards covering almost all aspects of technology and business. From food safety
to computers, and agriculture to healthcare.
218
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
36
37
38
39
Anton Bossers, Samenwerkende bibliothecarissen en technische innovaties: Pica van 19692002 (Leiden, 2005).
Notulen Bibliotheekcommissie 1977-1985 (iisg archief 675-676).
From the budget Intentioneel apparatuur schema (ias) voor het para-universitaire
onderzoek. Ministerie van Onderwijs en Wetenschappen, 1985 (Jaarverslag iisg,
1986, p. 17.
Ibid.
m a r i n u s ke y to t he li b rary s c olle c ti on
|21 9
41
42
43
220
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
(icp) as replacement of the Paris Principles that were nearly fifty years old by
then. The broadly-based new Principles are meant for all material types with
the user as the central point. Based on this, a new international cataloguing standard was implemented at the start of 2013: Resource, Description &
Access (rda),44 suitable for all object categories, types, sources and content.
The starting point is to make the bibliographic data accessible as broadly
as possible and with more freedom in applying the rules.45 Discussion on
primary or secondary entries is no longer necessary, the limit on number of
authors has been abandoned as well as the prescribed abbreviations, which
have been abolished. The new regulations are expected to make an important contribution to the bibliographic metadata infrastructure.46
Finally
The nineteenth century theoreticians Antonio Panizzi, Charles Ammi
Cutter, and later also Seymour Lubetzky were mainly concerned with keeping bibliographic data manageable and this still is a guide for new developments in the Internet world of mass availability and broad interchangeability. The enormous amount of information in all forms demands linkage and
structure. International standards are an aid in structuring metadata, with
the Internet as central focus. The identification and collocation of sources
remains an issue. Admittedly isbd has lost some importance, the once strictly prescribed dots and commas are no longer important for the presentation standard, but are still meaningful as part of the structure of separated
data fields. The method of cataloguing will certainly as far as access to
and presentation of data are concerned still remain subject to change, but
without rules it is not possible to find a structured way of inputting, saving
and exchanging bibliographic data.
44
45
46
rda is developed by The Joint Steering Committee for Development of rda (jsc)
and is published by The American Library Association, The Canadian Library
Association (cilip: Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals).
Advice to the fobid Committee concerning the application of rda in the
Netherlands / rda Working party of the fobid. Committee, 1 March 2011, available
at: http://www.fobid.nl/sites/fobid/files/0000_FCO_RDA.pdf; last accessed 2 May
2014.
Since the launch of the new Principles, Ingressus (service provider for libraries)
has added the basic knowledge for the new cataloguing method to their course
programme. Peter Schouten, Catalogiseren in het frbr-tijdperk : basiskennis voor
titelrecords (Rotterdam, 2003).
II.6
From Ice Age to
Global Warming
The Libraries of the
Amsterdam iish and
the Friedrich-EbertStiftung (fes)
Rdiger Zimmermann
In April 1962 Adolf Rter, director of the iish in Amsterdam since 1950, received an unexpected visit. Herbert Allerdt, the house lawyer of the German
Social-Democratic Party, had come to see him. He demanded nothing less
than a handover of the spd party archive, against refund of the purchase
price paid in the special emergency situation after the Nazi seizure of power. When the archive was sold in 1938, the desperate situation of the migr
spd had allegedly been improperly exploited.1
Adolf Rters response to the proposal was a sharp refusal. From this
time on, a regular ice age set in between the iish and the German SocialDemocrats. The atmosphere was poisoned for years. Despite this, however, suggestions in the spd party leadership of suing the iish were rejected: the legal conditions in which the spd party archive had been sold
in 1938 were quite unambiguous. Disappointed at this failure to have the
archive returned, a quite new vision arose in the spd milieu: to establish
Mario Bungert, Zu retten, was sonst unwiederbringlich verloren geht. Die Archive der
deutschen Sozialdemokratie und ihre Geschichte (Bonn, 2002), p. 80. Paul Mayer, Die
Geschichte des sozialdemokratischen Parteiarchivs und das Schicksal des MarxEngels-Nachlasses, Archiv fr Sozialgeschichte, 6/7 (1966/67), pp. 5-198.
|223
Willy Brandt lays the foundation stone of the Archiv der sozialen
Demokratie, Bonn 12 December 1967. Photo: J.H. Darchinger.
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.
224
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
5
6
|225
226
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
play a role in the acquisition of materials. This was due among other things
to the advice of Werner Krause, who had worked for a long period at the
iish, and enforced a strict separation in Bonn between archive and library
professionals and researchers. Werner Krauses great achievement in
Amsterdam included indexing the personal papers of Julius Motteler. This
was long seen in Bonn as a model for the indexing of political personal papers. In Werner Krauses opinion, the internal organization of the iish had
not proved itself. The Amsterdam researchers had always been interested
in good results for their own research, and had neglected the indexing of
archival materials.
There was one area where the fes library renounced from the start competing with the Amsterdam institute: acquisition of literature on Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels, and of expensive first editions of the old masters.
What were the reasons for this? In 1968, the fes took over sponsorship of
the Karl-Marx-Haus in Trier. In Marxs birthplace, under the direction of
Hans Pelger, the foundation was laid for a small special library with Marx
and Engels as its focus. With the transfer of the Daniel-Nachlass (1971) and
the purchase of the so-called Adams collection (1974), the Trier book collection suddenly gained scientific importance. In 1981, the special library received a worthy place in its own study centre at the Karl Marx house. In
2009, the executive of the fes took the decision to integrate the Karl-MarxHaus library into the Bonn library. In December of that year, the entire Trier
library was moved to Bonn. Close to 100,000 volumes migrated from the
Moselle to the Rhine. Among this large quantity, however, literature by and
about Marx and Engels formed only a small component. Even with the considerable extension from Trier, the Bonn library could not match the wealth
of the Amsterdam Marx-Engels holding. But despite this, today a genuine
special collection on the founders of scientific socialism is at the disposal of
researchers in Bonn.10
In the sector of systematic microfilming of primary sources of the German
and international workers movement, the fes library played a dynamic
role from the start as a co-founder of the microfilm archive of the Germanlanguage press. With generous resources from donations and public funds,
the library succeeded in building up an excellent collection for scholarly research.11 The library soon became one of the leading libraries in Germany
with high-quality microfilmed complete sources. Microfilmed sources from
Polish libraries, those in the GDR, and from American, Spanish, Swiss and
Scandinavian institutions, particularly stood out. Yet attempts to involve the
Amsterdam institute in common microfilm projects had only modest suc-
10
11
|227
cess. Mutual animosities were still too great. At the sessions of the coordination committee of the ialhi, the director of the fes library, Horst Ziska,
failed to win over the director of the Amsterdam institute, Rein van der
Leeuw, for a common microfilm project.
In the Federal Republic, Social-Democratic newspaper collections in smaller archives had surprisingly survived the Nazi inferno, and were now microfilmed for reasons of safety. With this new medium, the feslibrary was
able to close the gaps that war and fascism had torn, and offer an outstanding collection in a single place. The technical equipment in Bonn was of a
correspondingly high quality. In contrast to the original Amsterdam collections, which users had often found painfully full of gaps, the Bonn microfilm collection offered a good substitute. Years later, the systematically obtained microfilm collection provided the basis for a comprehensive project
of digitalization.
Scientific librarianship in Germany was guided to a great extent by the
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (dfg), which placed substantial special
funds at its disposal. It proved of great advantage that since 1975 the dfg
promoted the library of the fes as a specialist library, enabling it systematically to acquire and catalogue the non-conventional literature of parties
and trade unions.12 Starting in 1975, colleagues from the library undertook
systematic acquisition trips, funded by the dfg, to collect materials of
parties and trade unions. These pamphlets, business reports and minutes
generally appeared outside of the regular book trade and could only be obtained by unconventional means. The collecting work of the dfg encompassed all political tendencies, so that the fes library today is also a special library for all varieties of civic movements. These include conservative,
Christian-Democratic and liberal parties and trade unions. Publications on
the environmental movement were also very intensively collected. With the
collection of publications from the radical right, the fes displays a certain
reservation, since in this area, the Bibliothek fr Zeitgeschichte in Stuttgart,
and the library of the Institut fr Zeitgeschichte in Munich, are the specialists in Germany. Because of the excellent holdings in the iish, the library
decided not to collect materials that were also present in the id-archive in
Amsterdam (Knastarchiv, raf).
With the rise of the internet as worldwide medium of communication,
the library extended its national collecting task to the archiving of sources
in digital media, although print media surprisingly still play a leading role
for parties and trade unions. The collecting and cataloguing of non-conventional sources is time-consuming and consumes much in the way of resources. Over the years, however, systematic collecting activity has changed the
12
Rdiger Zimmermann, Und erbitten wir einen ersten Bericht bis zum Ende
des Jahres. Die Hilfe der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft beim Aufbau
der Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, in Das gedruckte Gedchtnis der
Arbeiterbewegung (Bonn, 1999), pp. 36-54.
228
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
14
15
16
17
|229
(igf).18 Both libraries excelled in terms of their copious international collections. According to the assessments of trade-union experts, by the takeover
of several trade-union libraries and an acquisition policy systematically pursued for many years the fes library developed into the greatest trade-union
library in the world.
It was above all the acquisition of complete libraries that led the fes holding to grow to over a million volumes. Each volume was properly catalogued
bibliographically piece by piece, rather than just being crudely filed according to documentary principles. It was fine bibliographic cataloguing
that made for the quite particular special value for international research,
since the former proprietors lacked the resources for state of the art cataloguing. Despite good personnel and staffing, the fes library would not have
been in the position to shoulder this task. Only with generous support from
the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft did it become possible to master
the incoming flood of books. The dfg also supported the cataloguing of the
Bibliothek der Arbeiterwohlfahrt, which was newly built up in Hamburg
and Bonn after the end of the War. The cataloguing of the Bibliothek der
Naturfreunde was also financed; this had been built up in Hofgeismar over
many years, with great commitment of old activists, and could no longer
maintain itself financially as an independent organisation.
It was not only organisations that provided materials to the fes library
through to the turn of the century. Individuals also donated their holdings.
Two collections particularly stand out. The art collector and former dgb official Kurt Hirche19 left in his will, his priceless collection of the expressionist artists who in the early years of the Weimar republic had been with the
anti-parliamentary left. The renowned scholar of Communism, Hermann
Weber, gave the Trotskyism archive he had built up at Mannheim university, which contains a full range of printed material from the anti-Stalinist
opposition.20
Forty years after its foundation under the aegis of the fes, the character
of the library had completely changed. The library was no longer a nationally limited political library. Instead it reproduced the broad scope of the
old German labour movement, which, thanks to the Enlightenment, was
marked by a high output of literature.
In 1987 the eighteenth congress of the International Association of Labour
History Institutions (ialhi) was held in Bonn, organised by the library direc-
18
19
20
des Bestandes Internationaler Metallgewerkschaftsbund (imb) in der Bibliothek der FriedrichEbert-Stiftung (Bonn, 1994).
Graphische Presse in der Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. Ein
Periodikabestandsverzeichnis der Internationalen Graphischen Fderation (Bonn, 1991).
Angela Rinschen (ed.), Dokumentation der Sammlung Prof. Dr. Kurt Hirche in der
Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (Bonn, 2000).
Anne Brhausen, Gabriele Rose (eds), Das Trotzkismus-Archiv (Sammlung Hermann
Weber) in der Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. Ein Bestandsverzeichnis (Bonn, 2007).
230
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
tor Horst Ziska.21 At this congress, the new administration of the iish with
Eric Fischer and his deputy Jaap Kloosterman were present for the first time.
With the new Amsterdam administration, the climate between the two institutes, which had continued to be perceived in Bonn as cool, perceptibly changed. Soon incredible news came from Amsterdam to Bonn about
modernisation projects in the library field: card indexes would be abolished
and replaced by digital catalogues. In the early 1990s, this information interested the Bonn library. The administration of the fes pressed the Bonn
library management to undertake serious steps of modernisation. The introduction of new technologies here would mean economising on staff.
What were the causes for this? The political turn of 1989 had wide-ranging effects for library, archival and historical research in the fes. Both library and archive owed the generous support they received to the Cold War
conflict. Social-Democrats in the Federal Republic were unwilling to leave
to the East German Communist leadership the interpretation of the history
of the German workers movement. The promotion of a historical remembrance of the German workers movement in Bonn was an expression of
this attitude. In 1989 the parameters changed. After the winning of the
Cold War, the fess interest in continuing to invest resources and staff indiscriminately in historical projects declined. Though the new management
did not want to turn its back on historical work, the costs of this had to be
substantially brought down, so as to release resources for projects in East
Germany. It was the library that particularly felt this pressure. Management
advisers even questioned the entire project of a major library of the national and international workers movement at the fes, and recommended that
the library be offloaded.
In this extremely difficult situation, the experiences of the Amsterdam library played a particular role for that of the fes in its own modernisation
process. In several discussions at the iish, Jaap Kloosterman shared his experiences with the Bonn modernisation team. Papers were translated
from Dutch into German. In Bonn, the adage heard very soon was: We do
it just like they do in Amsterdam, but completely differently. Much of the
Amsterdam experience was directly adopted: thus the Bonn library chose
the same contractor for the conversion of conventional metadata into digital.22 On many things, however, the Bonn team took a different path from
the Amsterdam. Thus the fes library maintained its intellectual subject classification of its books and continued to allocate keywords.
21
22
18. Tagung der International Association of Labour History Institutions (ialhi) vom 14. 17.
September 1987 in Bonn. Texte der Vortrge (Bonn, 1990).
Anne Brhausen, Manuelle Offline-Konversion im Allegro-Format in der Bibliothek
der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Bonn, in Retrokonversionsprojekte Planung und
Durchfhrung. Referate und Materialien aus einer Fortbildungsveranstaltung des Deutschen
Bibliotheksinstituts (Berlin, 1997), pp. 36-42.
|231
232
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
24
25
Patrik von Zur Mhlen, Die internationale Arbeit der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. Von den
Anfngen bis zum Ende des Ost-West-Konflikts (Bonn, 2007). Erfried Adam, Vom mhsamen Geschft der Demokratiefrderung. Die internationale Entwicklungszusammenarbeit
der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (Bonn, 2012). Andreas Wille, Klaus-Peter Treydte, Volker
Vinnai, Die Arbeit der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in wichtigen Schwellenlndern. Chile,
Indien und Sdafrika (Bonn, 2009). Norbert von Hofmann, Volker Vinnai, Hermann
Benzing, Die Arbeit der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Indonesien, Tansania und Zentralamerika
seit den 1960er Jahren (Bonn, 2010). Hans-Joachim Spanger, Bernd Reddies, Die Arbeit
der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in der udssr/Russland und in der Volksrepublik China (Bonn,
2011). Jrgen Eckl, Kooperation mit Gewerkschaften und Frderung von Wirtschafts- und
Sozialentwicklung. Zentrale Ttigkeitsfelder der internationalen Arbeit der Friedrich-EbertStiftung seit Beginn der 1960er Jahre (Bonn, 2012). Hans Schumacher, Wechselhafter
Halbmond. Die Arbeit der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in der Trkei (Bonn, 2012).
Bibliographie der Verffentlichungen der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (Bonn, 1979 ff.)
II.7
Does a History
Research Institute
Need Its Own Archive?
Karl Heinz Roth
At the beginning of the 1980s, a group of West German social scientists, historians, political scientists, biologists, psychologists, and doctors gathered
to initiate an interdisciplinary project on the history of health and social
policy during the global economic crisis and the Nazi dictatorship. The
members of this group had played an active part in the extra-parliamentary
movement of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as making a contribution, albeit a late one, to overcoming the authoritarian post-Nazi structures in West
Germany and West Berlin. At this point they took up positions as publicists,
scientists, doctors, teachers, and psychotherapists in central areas of social
life, endeavoring to gain acceptance in their everyday professional work
for their alternative ideas. To this end it was deemed useful to carry out an
exhaustive and interdisciplinary analysis of the old encrusted structures in
their various professions. To coordinate their activities, they first founded a
society, the Verein zur Erforschung der ns-Gesundheits- und Sozialpolitik,
and set up a documentation site, called Dokumentationsstelle zur ns-Sozialpolitik.1 A few years later they came into contact with a critically-minded
1
|235
sponsor, who was willing to give the initiative generous support. Since the
middle of the 80s, in the shortest possible time, a research institute was developed, dedicated to the multidisciplinary historical analysis of the first
half of the twentieth century. The leading representatives of some established institutions of a similar kind for instance, the Munich Institut fr
Zeitgeschichte and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung were not so happy to feel
this fresh wind from northern Germany, but a substantial minority of their
staffs enjoyed it.
Hamburger sfs
On the basis of these ideas, the Hamburger Stiftung fr Sozialgeschichte des
20. Jahrhunderts was founded in the summer of 1986. It provided the institutional framework for establishment of an interdisciplinary Institute for
Social History. Its departments grew out of the society and the documentation site, in which initiative groups, in particular those based in Hamburg
and Berlin, introduced their first research projects, which took a critical
look at Nazi health and social policy as well as the history of large companies since the Great Depression. Immediately after the founding of the
institute, these original fields of research were consolidated, and new points
of emphasis were added, which covered specific areas of scientific history,
in particular population policy, social and patriarchal racism, the social utopias of genetics, and the systemic nationalism of the history writing process, as well as the special questions of national-socialist crisis management
and the Cold War.
The research department of the Institute was to provide the framework
for coordinating these various fields of study. For this purpose, a clearly organized, efficiency-oriented and non-bureaucratic structure was aimed at.
This was more easily said than done. One requirement that was easily put
into practice was that all those employed, including those working externally on research projects, would not merely pursue their own interests
but were committed to taking part in discussions on other fields of study.
Furthermore there was agreement that research results would be published
speedily. The framework was thus given, as was quickly recognized by the
experts from the iisg in Amsterdam Eric Fischer, Jaap Kloosterman, and
Marcel van der Linden who had agreed to advise us.2 To support the research projects and the publications department, a documentation site
was to be developed, so that all those involved could fall back on a wellequipped research library. In this way, the research department of our foundation profited from the experiences which the management of iisg had
made in the previous years while reorganizing their own institute. Fischer,
2
236
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Kloosterman, and Van der Linden made it perfectly clear that a concept of
interdisciplinary research based on the interlinking of personnel was no
guarantee in the medium term that the various groups involved would
not simply go their own way, hiding behind their own research apparatus.
Certainly they were supposed to develop their own individual dynamics and
style of work. But only when the documentation department maintained
control and kept an overall view of the various research teams, could it be
assured that related projects and guest scientists of the foundation would
be able to join in the work. Furthermore, the scheduling of the publications
department and of the journal subordinate to it 1999. Journal of Social
History of the 20th and 21st centuries had a healing and coordinating influence, since it was able, in its functions as editor, reader, and advisor, to deal
with the research teams on an equal footing.3 We received excellent help in
the early years of our foundation, taking to heart the advice given by the experts and our friends in Amsterdam. Looking back on 27 years of foundation
history, we can say that this direction setting was to a large extent responsible for the foundation being able to establish itself as the outsider in the
field of historical and social research.
In this context the early contact with the representatives of the iish was
a happy accident. Theo Pinkus, an informal adviser from Zrich, urged
our foundation to join the ranks of the International Association of Labour
History Institutions (ialhi), of the Austrian International Conference of
Labour Historians (ith), and to contact the iish staff from the beginning.
So we came into contact with Kloosterman, Fischer, and Van der Linden
at the end of 1987. They advised not only the internal architecture of our
institution, but were also highly interested in some of our research topics,
especially the destruction of the labour movements in German dominated
Europe during World War ii. In 1988 we started extensive research on the
spoliation of archives and libraries by Nazi institutions in the occupied
countries. Some of our findings, including the fate of the iish Library itself,
were published in 1989 in the International Review of Social History.4 A long lasting co-operation followed. Eric Fischer was elected chief of the Scientific
Advisory Board. Jaap Kloosterman relieved him in the beginning of the
1990s, and some years later Marcel van der Linden joined the Executive
Board of our foundation as vice president.
|237
Own Archive?
Does a dynamic medium-size research institute for history and social science, which does a balancing act between the scientific community and
new social movements, need its own archive? This was a controversial question that had to be answered quickly, because the forerunner of the foundation, the documentation site, had since 1984 compiled comprehensive
dossiers on the history of fascist health, social, and economic policy. Jaap
Kloostermans advice helped greatly in solving this problem. He argued that
we were between two stools, as it were, and recommended that we carefully
assess the pros and cons of setting up an archive. It could not be our intention to make the waters of public and private archives muddier than they already were. The archive was to be limited to the framework of our research
foundation, thus procuring, taking stock of, and storing material needed by
the respective research projects. Similarly eliminated was the option, within the scope of current research projects, of putting our own signature to
reproductions procured from donor archives whether microfilms, microfiches, photos or paper copies and thus sparking off a great deal of intense rivalry with the guardians of the original documents. Nevertheless,
it seemed wrong to throw reproductions of unpublished material procured
238
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
by the various research teams in the bin, when work on the projects was
over. And if they could be sorted and exhibited according to the location
and signature of the donor archives, then they could be continuously added
to with material from related projects and stored for future research. In the
medium term, this saved enormously on costs, which compensated for secondary archiving work as well as gradually reducing the cost of expensive
trips to other archives. In recent decades, extensive collections stemming
from approximately 120 German, European and overseas primary archives
have indeed come into being.5 In doing so, fragments often spread over several donor archives could be brought together and edited as a whole for
example the files and related material on the Nrnberg doctor trials. Their
immaterial value has also grown inasmuch as the original archives were often made inaccessible, due to a variety of political or technical reasons, so
that today consulting them is only possible using secondary sources.
In addition, Kloosterman pointed out that in the course of ongoing research work original material always accrues, which cannot simply be
passed on to other public or private archives. This includes original sound
recordings and transcripts of oral sources, original documents, diaries, and
material collected by interview partners, as well as important original material made over to the research teams either by purchase or donation. This
prediction by Kloosterman has also come true. In the archive of our foundation, significant sound and video recordings, questionnaires, and additional
written reports by contemporary witnesses can be found. In addition, there
is much valuable correspondence by letter and numerous diaries dating
from both World Wars, as well as original material from business companies and grass roots initiatives, which quite simply must be preserved. In
some of these rescue operations, we always saw Jaap Kloosterman as our
role model, a man who has done splendid work at the highest level in this
field, saving written accounts of underground social-revolutionary currents
in Europe and overseas.
The balancing act undertaken by the archive of our foundation finds
particular expression in the case of our own documentation. Over the past
decades the filing department of our foundation has grown immensely. In
addition, there are the files of the research projects and publications department, which document the genesis and development of our major plan to
edit the social strategies of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront,6 to publish the reports of the us military government examining Germanys large banks and
|239
i.g. Farben,7 and also cover the general plan for the East8 and the trial of
the doctors in Nrnberg.9
At the beginning of the 1990s, the material conditions of the foundation
worsened drastically. We managed to save the foundation, however, with
the help of new international sponsors and safeguard its future by achieving guest status at the University of Bremen. In this new context, there has
been significant progress in improving the contents of the archive.10 But no
change has been made to its basic approach to research and its threefold
tectonics. In this respect Jaap Kloosterman may regard our archive as one
of those adopted children that he helped and advised in the decisive constructive phase.
8
9
10
II.8
A Manuscript Found
at the Institute*
Kees Rodenburg
The author is grateful to Heiner Becker for making available from his personal
collection the letters from Shapiro. In The Russian Anarchists (Princeton, nj, 1967, see
p. vi), Paul Avrich uses the spelling Alexander Schapiro, because he was in the West
throughout most of his career and used this spelling in non-Russian texts as well.
The official transliteration Aleksandr Shapiro has been used throughout in the main
text.
r o d e n b u r g a m a n u scr i p t f ou nd at the i ns ti tu te
|241
In Part 3 (p. 15) of the Archief series an announcement appeared that an issue would
be dedicated to the May uprising in Barcelona in 1937, although it never appeared.
The May uprising was an effort by the Barcelona proletariat to halt the rise of the
Stalinists in Spain. In 2004 Tegen de volksvertegenwoordiging was reissued by Voltaire
publishers with virtually no changes. Ivo Gay, the editor at Voltaire publishers,
operated in the same capacity at Het Wereldvenster.
Maria Hunink, Jaap Kloosterman, Jan Rogier, Over Buonarroti, internationale avantgardes, Max Nettlau en het verzamelen van boeken, anarchistische ministers, de algebra van
de revolutie, schilders en schrijvers: voor Arthur Lehning (Baarn, 1979). Indicated below as
Hunink et al., Over Buonarroti.
Alexander Schapiro, Twee artikelen over de Spaanse klassenoorlog (1936-1937), in
242
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
4
5
6
7
Hunink et al., Over Buonarroti, pp. 275-316. The introduction covers pages 275-303.
According to Toke van Helmond in her introduction at: Arthur Lehning, Spaans
Dagboek 7 oktober-5 november 1936 (Oude Tonge, 1996), p. 13.
Grondslagen: anarcho-syndicalistisch tijdschrift. The journal was published from 1932
until 1935. A reprint appeared in 1978 at Anarchistische Uitgaven publishers
in Amsterdam. See Vol. 1, No. 5, 1932, pp. 97-110. From the early 1930s Shapiro
emphasized the need in Spain to think about what kind of society would emerge
from a revolutionary process and advised against limiting this to rhetoric about
the anarchist ideal.
This is the transliteration used at the iish and the British Library for this title and
Rockers publishing company.
Fermin Rocker, The East End Years: A Stepney Childhood (London, 1998), p. 49.
r o d e n b u r g a m a n u scr i p t f ou nd at the i ns ti tu te
|243
engineering, worked at the physiological lab of Augustus Waller, the inventor of the electrocardiogram. He is credited on the list of publications
from this lab.8 Following a brief stay in Paris around the turn of the century, where he joined the tudiants socialistes rvolutionnaires internationalistes,
a group that tried to connect anarchism with syndicalism, he returned in
1901 at the instigation of Kropotkin to London, where he joined the group
of Russian anarchists living there. Between 1906 and 1907 he helped publish Kropotkins series of pamphlets Listki Chleb i Volja [Pamphlets of Bread and
Freedom]. These Russian anarchists living in England maintained ties with
Russian anarchosyndicalists in Odessa. He also served on the secretariat
of the Federation of Yiddish-speaking Anarchist Groups, which dispatched
him as their representative to the International Anarchist Congress, held
in Amsterdam in 1907. He was elected together with Rocker and Malatesta
to the Bureau de correspondance of the Anarchist International founded at
that Congress. Until 1910 he edited the Bulletin de lInternationale Anarchiste
issued by the Bureau. He worked as a translator at the First International
Syndicalist Congress, which was held in London in 1913. In 1915 Shapiro
spoke out against the war from an internationalist perspective in a manifest
issued in conjunction with e.g. Emma Goldman and Domela Nieuwenhuis.
Meanwhile, he replaced Rocker (who was serving a prison sentence) as
editor of the Arbeyter Fraynd, until he was imprisoned as well in 1916.
After his release and the February Revolution in Russia he campaigned to
have Russian revolutionaries repatriated in a joint effort with a committee, on which the secretary Georgy Chicherin later became the Peoples
Commissioner for Foreign Affairs.
On 31 May 1917 Shapiro arrived in Petrograd, where he joined the anarchosyndicalist group Golos Truda [Voice of Labour]. He contributed to the
homonymous journal and publishing house, which brought forth many anarchist and syndicalist publications, mostly translations. He also worked as
a translator for the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of Chicherin, whom he
knew from London. With the rising Bolshevist repression of the anarchists
and their organizations, Shapiro became increasingly determined to arrange the release of imprisoned comrades. He and Aleksandr Berkman, the
organizers of Kropotkins funeral in February 1921, presented a list of prisoners to the English anarchist journal Freedom. In an open letter to Lenin,
they together with Emma Goldman and a few others protested the prosecutions resulting from the Kronstadt rebellion. Thanks especially to his ef8
See A.H. Sykes, A.D. Waller and the University of London Physiological
Laboratory, Medical History, Vol. 33, 1989, p. 224, n. 47. Between pp. 226 and 227 is a
photograph of the staff at Waller, including Shapiro. Consulted on website http://
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1035821/pdf/medhist00059-0073.pdf; last
accessed 19 June 2013. Tom Keell (1866-1938), the editor of Freedom and partner of
Lilian Wolfe (see Note 23) was a test subject at this lab. This is clear from a letter
from Shapiro to Keell, 22 January 1914, written on stationery of the Waller lab.
Private collection of Heiner Becker.
244
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
forts, several anarchist prisoners were released and sent into exile abroad in
1921. That same year in June, he teamed up with Berkman, Goldman, and
Alexei Borovoy to write a pamphlet, which Rocker published anonymously in Berlin that same year as Die Russische Revolution und die Kommunistische
Partei. Jaap published the Dutch translation of this work in Part 2 of Archief:
De Russische Revolutie.9 In 1922 this group arrived (without Borovoy) in Berlin,
where Shapiro worked with representatives of anarchosyndicalist organizations from other countries to prepare to form the iwma. More of an idealist
than the others, he returned to the Soviet Union before completing this mission.10 He was arrested soon after arriving there. Thanks to an internation-
9
10
r o d e n b u r g a m a n u scr i p t f ou nd at the i ns ti tu te
|245
al campaign he was released and sent into exile, returned to Berlin just in
time to experience the foundation of the anarchosyndicalist International
in December 1922, running the secretariat of this organization together
with Augustin Souchy and Rocker (until 1925).
Shapiro was never prominent as a militant activist like Emma Goldman
and Aleksandr Berkman, as he was busy with jobs that required his full
attention. Until then, he had operated mainly behind the scenes as secretary in the aforementioned Bureau de correspondance of the Anarchist
International, where according to Rocker he did most of the work.11 And
the same held true, according to Souchy, for his work on the iwma secretariat.12 Shapiro provided the anarchosyndicalist International with a formidable theoretical potential, according to Jaap.13 And in the international
anarchosyndicalist press this potential started to assess the lessons to be
learned from the Russian Revolution. Jaap has summarized this as follows:
Shapiros position is distinctive, in that he does not follow the usual course
in these circles of examining the revolution from an anarchist perspective,
but instead considers anarchism from the perspective of the proletarian
revolution.14 Shapiro believed that a revolutionary process should not be
considered from the abstract ideal of anarchism, but as a process of transitions. A theory of the revolutionary process was deemed necessary.15 The
anarchosyndicalist trade union drove that process. Shapiro was convinced
that in addition to that trade union, the factory (or farmers) council was
pivotal and insisted that all workers should be able to participate, regardless
of their backgrounds. This view was by no means generally accepted within
the anarchosyndicalist movement. It illustrates the extent of his aversion to
dogma. He also openly condemned the influence of anarchist ideological organizations on trade unions, which he believed needed to be able to operate
autonomously.16 The iwma, of which the ultimate objective was a stateless
society, based on the principles of libertarian federalism, was in Shapiros
view optimally equipped to elaborate a new political, economic, and social
system, free of capitalist exploitation and oppression.17
Soon after the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed in 1931 and the
cnt restored, a revolutionary situation occurred that drew the interest of
11
246
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
the iwma, since the cnt was the largest trade union confederation in the
International. In April 1932 Shapiro was re-elected to the secretariat of
the International and in mid December 1932 arrived in Barcelona, where
together with Eusebio Carb he was expected to reorganize the organizations Iberian secretariat. His timing was perfect. The cnt had serious internal problems, and on 8 January 1933 in various parts of the country a
poorly organized uprising broke out, known primarily for the tragic events
in Casas Viejas.18 Shapiro endeavoured to investigate the actions of the cnt
and the circumstances of the uprising. The report he subsequently wrote for
the International (Rapport sur lActivit de la Confdration Nationale du Travail
dEspagne, 16 dcembre, 1932 26 fvrier 1933) got him a place in academic historiography on Spanish anarchosyndicalism. No hay mejor fuente para
ambos problemas, according to John Brademas.19 Jaap published a German
translation of much of the report in Part 4 of the Jahrbuch Arbeiterbewegung,
adding an extensive introduction, in which he analysed the struggle that
Shapiro faced over which course to pursue within the iwma and the anarchosyndicalist movement in Spain.20 In his Rapport, Shapiro criticizes the
revolutionary spontaneity repeatedly manifested by the anarchists in Spain
in those years. The practical angle of the revolution, he believed, needed to
be considered.
In 1934 Shapiro returned to Paris, where he lived and worked. In the autumn of 1936 he was briefly in Barcelona, where Arthur Lehning spoke with
him upon his arrival on 7 October. He noted: Alexander is also pessimistic
about where this is headed. Also in terms of the political course; too many
foolish mistakes are being made.21 Shapiro carefully monitored the developments in Spain, where in November 1936 the cnt had joined the national
government. His observations appear in the texts published in Waarom verloren wij de Revolutie? [Why did we loose the Revolution?] and in Over Buonarroti
[On Buonarroti]. Those unable to obtain copies can nonetheless learn about
his sharp style of argumentation in some texts posted online.22 In all texts
18
The uprising in this village in the province of Cdiz was struck down so violently
that it caused great consternation in the country.
19
There is no better source for both problems [transl. K.R.], John Brademas,
Anarcosindicalismo y revolucin en Espaa (1930-1937) (Esplugues de Llobregat, 1974), p.
40, n. 46.
20 Pozzoli, Jahrbuch Arbeiterbewegung, pp. 159-194. He annotated both the introduction
(pp. 159-170) and the Rapport extensively. In a note Shapiro harshly criticized
Federica Montseny, the subsequent minister during the Civil War.
21
Arthur Lehning, Spaans Dagboek (Amsterdam, 2nd print 2006), p. 24. The cnt had by
then joined the regional government of Catalonia.
22 http://robertgraham.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/alexander-schapiro-open-letterto-the-cnt/; last accessed 19 June 2013. This open letter was published in the
summer of 1937 in Le Combat Syndicaliste. Cf. Hunink et al., Over Buonarroti, p.
311; http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/pk0q0r; last accessed 19 June 2013. This
article originally appeared in Le Combat Syndicaliste, 1.10.1937; http://robertgraham.
wordpress.com/2008/06/28/alexander-schapiro-anarchosyndicalism-and-anarchist-
r o d e n b u r g a m a n u scr i p t f ou nd at the i ns ti tu te
|247
Crtica de la cnt
In his introduction to the two articles by Shapiro reprinted in Over
Buonarroti, Jaap announces the publication of a collection of Shapiros articles entitled Crtica de la cnt: Artculos 1923-1937. The same announcement appears in the Archief issue Waarom verloren wij de Revolutie? with the additional
note that it is in press at Ruedo Ibrico publishers in Barcelona.24 This title,
however, is nowhere to be found in the library catalogues. The answer appears in the inventory of this publishing houses archive, stored at the iish
under the name of its publisher, Jos Martnez Guerricabeitia. Inventory
number 1259 lists a text by Shapiro. This entry is in fact Crtica de la cnt.
A collection of articles critiquing the cnt seemed appropriate for the
fund of Ruedo Ibrico exile publishers, founded in 1961 by Jos Martnez
(1921-1986) and four others in Paris to enable the anti-Francoist opposition
in Spain to publicize its views.25 The founders hailed from various political
backgrounds. Jos Martnez had anarchist roots; although he abandoned
organization/; last accessed 19 June 2013. The English translation of this originally
Russian text from September 1917 was previously published in Paul Avrich (ed.),
The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution (Ithaca, ny, 1973), pp. 87-88.
23
Personal collection of Heiner Becker. Lilian Wolfe (1875-1974) was on the staff of
the Freedom Press group. Shapiro wrote her after Lehning had sent him a postcard
reporting that he had visited her in the Whiteway Colony. Shapiro writes that this
notice reminded him of their common struggle from before and during the First
World War. They had both opposed the war. In 1916 Wolfe had published an appeal
to evade military service in the anarchist journal The Voice of Labour. She and her
partner Tom Keell were subsequently arrested. From 1920 until Keells death in
1938, they lived in the Tolstoyan Whiteway Colony, Gloucestershire.
24 Hunink et al., Over Buonarroti, p. 275; Shapiro & De Jong, Waarom verloren wij de
Revolutie?, p. 14
25
For an account in English of the history of Ruedo Ibrico, see the iish website:
http://socialhistory.org/en/collections/ruedo-iberico. For an account in Spanish of
the archive, see: http://socialhistory.org/en/collections/archivo-de-jose-martinez-yfondos-ruedo-iberico. The iish acquired the archive in 1982. Both Arthur Lehning
and the Spanish anarchist exile living in the Netherlands Francisco Carrasquer
helped establish the contacts between Martnez and the iish, according to the
correspondence that his friend Martnez had with Lehning. See his letters from 10
and 11 March 1981 to Lehning and Carrasquer, Martnez archive, inv. no. 473. This
file consists exclusively of the copies of letters from Martnez.
248
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
the movement early on, he remained independent, heterodox, and libertarian throughout his lifetime. He was the driving force behind the publishing
company. In the mid 1970s the integration of various oppositional movements in Spanish politics led him to drift away from those movements and
to explore more anti-capitalist courses. He briefly set his sights on the cnt
but was soon disappointed.26 In September 1979 by then the publisher was
based in Barcelona Martnez published the book cnt: ser o no ser: la crisis de
1976-1979, two thirds of which consisted of a critical essay he wrote (under
a pseudonym) about the actions of the cnt in the years following Francos
death.
A series of articles by Shapiro would be a nice historical complement
to the contemporary critique written by Martnez. In a letter dated 5 April
1979 Martnez wrote that he intended to publish the book after the summer and before the Fifth cnt Congress, which was scheduled for December
that year.27 Such a collection presented an opportunity for Jaap to produce
a coherent survey of Shapiros publications in journals of the movement after the iwma was founded, with the intention of assessing the lessons from
the Russian Revolution and applying them to the situation in Spain. In the
process, he subconsciously did justice to the intention that Shapiro shared
in a letter to William Wess of 19 January 1922.28 Shapiro had written this
letter during his stay in Stockholm,29 after he left the Soviet Union together
with Emma Goldman and Aleksandr Berkman. The following passage is very
revealing:
What I want is to raise the main question: the lessons of the
Russian Revolution and the problems of the next revolution.
Must anarchist tactics be reconsidered in the light of the bolshevic experiments? We have got at the bottom of centralism
thanks to the Russian debacle. We must get at the bottom of
federalism. What is the federalism everyone talks about, with
nobody concretising it. Are there any pitfalls in the federalist
structure? What should we replace the dictatorship of the proletariat with on the morrow after a successful revolution? What
is the actual role of labour organisations the day before and the
day after the revolution? Need we have trade (or industrial) unions at all after the revolution? Is not the factory Committee
26
27
28
29
See Freddy Gomez, Jos Martnez, diteur, libertaire et htrodoxe : Portrait dun homme
singulier. Consulted on website: http://www.ruedoiberico.org/articulos/index.
php?id=17; last accessed 2 July 2013.
Jos Martnez to Jaap Kloosterman, Martnez archive, inv. no. 459.
William Wess (1861-1946), anarchist and until Word War I an adherent of
Kropotkin, active in trade unions and around the Freedom group and the Arbeyter
Fraynd, friends with Lilian Wolfe.
Personal collection of Heiner Becker. The archives of the iish also contain several
letters from Shapiro, which have not been used here.
r o d e n b u r g a m a n u scr i p t f ou nd at the i ns ti tu te
|249
30
31
32
33
34
250
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
tion means in Barcelona and other parts of the Republic.35 He also criticized
the lack of democracy in the movement.
Crtica de la cnt concludes with a report from the iwma Extraordinary
Congress, which was held in Paris from 6 to 17 December 1937, with Shapiro
attending as the representative of the French anarchosyndicalists.36 He was
then silenced in France. Only De Syndicalist [The Syndicalist], the journal of the
Nederlandsch Syndicalistisch Vakverbond, of which Albert de Jong was the
editor, ran some of his articles.37 The table of contents lists some documents
that in some cases were annexes to the Rapport or served as a background to
the articles published.
The 42-page typed introduction that Jaap generated for the collection,
however, is of particular interest.38 This introduction comprises a biography of Shapiro and a thoroughly documented analysis of his views and is
far more detailed than the two published in Over Buonarroti and Jahrbuch
Arbeiterbewegung. In addition to the two stated sources, the above biographical sketch of Aleksandr Shapiro is based mainly on the unpublished introduction. According to Wayne Thorpe, an eminent historiographer on revolutionary syndicalism, who had a copy of the Materiales, this is the best source
on Shapiro.39 This is what he wrote in 1989, and it appears to hold true to
this day.
Why was the book never published, despite all the work invested in it,
and the importance it instils? Marianne Brll, who previously worked for
Martnez, suspects that he had been overburdened by the enormous task of
publishing cnt: ser o no ser. Moreover, the publishing company had fallen on
hard times. During the Transicin period in Spain, the contemporary fund
was impossible to launch on the market. Financial problems precluded taking the risk that a book about a historical subject would entail. Marianne
added: I know this bothered Martnez ().40
35
36
37
38
39
40
This contrasts with the perspective of the key figures of the movement: in the early
days of the Revolution, cnt member Jos Ester Borrs heard Federica Montseny tell
some others: This sombrero is too big for us. Oral remark from Francisco Olaya to
the author, Paris, ca. 2005.
See also Shapiro & De Jong, Waarom verloren wij de Revolutie? pp. 17-55.
Ibid., pp. 57-75.
Introduccin: Materiales sobre Alexander Shapiro, Martnez archive, inv. no. 1259, File
4. This introduction includes over 5 pages comprising a bibliography (Principales
fuentes). The same file contains 75 notes in some cases very detailed and
interesting to the articles in Spanish.
Wayne Thorpe, The Workers Themselves: Revolutionary Syndicalism and International
Labour 1913-1923 (Dordrecht [etc.], 1989), p. 292, n. 6. Jaap benefited from being
able to use Shapiros oral remarks to Arthur Lehning as the foundation for his
biographical data. See Pozzoli, Jahrbuch Arbeiterbewegung, p. 161, n. 8.
Ich weiss, dass Martnez sich in dieser Sache nicht gut fuelte (). E-mail
from Marianne Brll to the author, dated 22.3.2013. The same fate befell Arthur
Lehnings publication: Bakunin: teora y prctica. See Martnez archive, inv. no. 11471148. The translator of both manuscripts was Francisco Carrasquer (1915-2012). For
a tribute to Carrasquer, see: http://www.tijdschrift-de-as.nl/documenten/de_AS_180.
pdf, p.17.
r o d e n b u r g a m a n u scr i p t f ou nd at the i ns ti tu te
|251
Table of contents for the unpublished collection. IISH Martinez archive, inv. no. 1259.
Thanks are due to Alice Mul for a critical reading of the first draft, and to Lee
Mitzman for the translation from Dutch and French.
1
Frits Kool (ed.), Die Linke gegen die Parteiherrschaft (Olten, 1970), p. 525.
2 The gic view appears to have been devised by the teacher Henk Canne Meijer
(1890-1962). On Pannekoeks conversion to the gic view, see: Anton Pannekoek,
Herinneringen. Herinneringen uit de arbeidersbeweging. Sterrenkundige herinneringen. With
contributions from B.A. Sijes and E.P.J. van den Heuvel. Compiled and edited by
|253
B.A. Sijes, J.M. Welcker and J.R. van der Leeuw (Amsterdam, 1982), p. 215.
Cajo Brendel, Die Gruppe Internationale Kommunisten in Holland. Persnliche
Erinnerungen aus den Jahren 1934-1939, Jahrbuch Arbeiterbewegung, 2 (1974),
pp. 253-63, at 253-254; Frits Kool, Die Klosterbrder des Marxismus und die
Sowjetgesellschaft: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Rtekommunismus, in G.L.
Ulmen (ed.), Society and History: Essays in Honor of Karl August Wittfogel (The Hague
[etc.], 1978), pp. 259-280.
For details, see [Philippe Bourrinet], The Dutch and German Communist Left: A
Contribution to the History of the Revolutionary Movement, 1900-1950 (London, 2001). This
uncorrected and anonymized version of the authors phd thesis was published
against his wishes. An authorized version is forthcoming from the publisher Brill,
Leiden, in the series Historical Materialism.
J. Kloosterman, Nawoord. Thesen ad Pannekoek, in Anton Pannekoek, Partij,
raden, revolutie. Compiled and annotated by Jaap Kloosterman (Amsterdam, 1972),
pp. 227-233.
Guy Debord, De spektakelmaatschappij. Translated by Jaap Kloosterman and Ren
van de Kraats (Baarn, 1976). Originally published as La Socit du spectacle (Paris,
254
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
published, Debord, by his own admission, knew little about Dutch council
communism, but the theses corresponded with the theoretical perspective
that the French philosopher devised.
Debords perspective was the outcome of many dialogues and confrontations with other radicals, including members of the group Socialisme
ou Barbarie, of which he was briefly a member in 1960-1961. In the 1950s
Socialisme ou Barbarie had gradually drifted away from Marxism, because its
structured ideas blocked an open interpretation of historical and political
processes. At the same time, the group engaged in lengthy debates about
the organizational question. It can hardly have been a coincidence that
Socialisme ou Barbarie in the course of these debates also came into contact
with the Dutch council communists, who had joined forces with former adherents of the aforementioned Sneevliet in the Spartacusbond back in 1944.
I will introduce both groups in a bit more detail. Socialisme ou Barbarie (19491967) is certainly one of the most interesting organizations emerging from
the twentieth-century radical left. The socio-barbarians, as they were
sometimes known, were never very numerous. At their peak, they may
have comprised one hundred (predominantly male) members, and editions
of their journal sold about one thousand copies.7 But Socialisme ou Barbarie
was also an exceptional forum, of which the participants over time included
countless highly vocal intellectuals. The first that merits mention is the now
world-renowned Cornelius Castoriadis alias Pierre Chaulieu (1922-1997), the
philosopher, economist, and psychoanalyst of Greek heritage who was an
important force in the debates from the outset of the organization until its
dissolution.8 Another influential member was the co-founder and philosopher Claude Lefort alias Montal (born 1924; member 1949-1958), who became known mainly for his ideas about democracy and human rights. Other
intellectuals who figured in the group interactions for brief or extended periods during the 1950s and were internationally acclaimed thanks to their
publications included the psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche (1924-2012; member
1949-1950), the sociologist Benno Sternberg alias Sarel (?-1971; member 19491967), the literary theoretician Grard Genette (born 1930; member 1957-58),
1967). Selected letters from Debord to Jaap have been published in Guy Debord,
Correspondance, Vol. 5: Janvier 1973-Dcembre 1978 (Paris, 2005) and Vol. 6: Janvier
1979-Dcembre 1987 (Paris, 2006).
The best account appears in Philippe Gottraux, Socialisme ou Barbarie. Un engagement politique et intellectuel dans la France de laprs-guerre (Lausanne, 1997). Another
highly informative source is Andrea Gabler, Antizipierte Autonomie. Zur Theorie und
Praxis der Gruppe Socialisme ou Barbarie (1949-1967) (Hannover, 2009). Marcel van der
Linden offers a concise history in Socialisme ou Barbarie: A French Revolutionary
Group, 1949-1965, Left History, 5: 1 (1998), pp. 7-37.
On Castoriadis, see his biographical website http://www.agorainternational.org/;
last accessed 8 July 2013. After fleeing Greece in 1945, Castoriadis used pseudonyms, as he did not become a French citizen until 1970.
|255
The influence is very clearly visible in: Daniel and Gabriel Cohn-Bendit, Le
Gauchisme, remde la maladie snile du communisme (Paris, 1968).
Entretien avec Cornlius Castoriadis, Le Monde, 13 December 1977.
They published their interpretation of the events as several Letters from France
in the journal of the Spartacusbond: [Cajo Brendel and Theo Maassen,] Splitsing in
de Franse groep Socialisme ou Barbarie: Brieven uit Frankrijk, Spartacus, 18: 21-25
(11 October 6 December 1958). See also on this subject Marcel van der Linden,
Ein Bericht niederlndischer Rtekommunisten ber die Spaltung von Socialisme
ou Barbarie (1958), Sozial.Geschichte, 22: 3 (October 2007), pp. 103-127.
256
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
responsible for its own liberation; they regarded the old labour movement (trade unions, labour parties of whatever political affiliation) as totally
obsolete and believed that a new labour movement was emerging, based
on autonomous activity.12 To my knowledge the vanguard party position
did not surface as exactly that within Spartacus in the 1950s, although most
members favoured promoting the class struggle actively through propaganda and solidarity. A minority within Spartacus supported non-intervention,
including the two members maintaining contact with Socialisme ou Barbarie:
Theo Maassen (1891-1974) and Cajo Brendel (1915-2007). Both had previously
belonged to the non-interventionist gic in the 1930s, although Maassen had
been excluded from the organization back then.13
Spartacus members had followed the rise of Socialisme ou Barbarie from the
outset. As early as 1949-1950, they published an excerpt of the principle
statement by the French revolutionaries in their own journal.14 Only in 1952,
however, did they get in touch with each other. In September of that year,
Spartacus wrote to the French, briefly introducing the group and announcing
its national conference on 25-26 October. The letter continued: If you could
possibly have one or a few comrades attend this discussion, we would be
delighted.15 This invitation was immediately accepted. Socialisme ou Barbarie
dispatched Ren Caul (alias Neuvil),16 whose immense satisfaction with the
meeting led him to propose another gathering.17
The contacts then intensified. Spartacus members, especially Cajo Brendel,
henceforth made regularly trips to Paris, while socio-barbarians visited
Amsterdam occasionally as well, such as on Whitsun in 1954, when a delegation of five arrived.18 At that point, considerable criticism had arisen within Spartacus of the majority view expressed in Socialisme ou Barbarie, coming
from Cornelius Castoriadis and his kindred spirits. In the autumn of 1954
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
For an account of these debates, see: Marcel van der Linden, On Council
Communism, Historical Materialism: research in critical marxist theory, 12: 4 (2003),
pp. 27-50. The key text of the non-interventionists was: [Henk Canne Meijer,] Das
werden einer neuen Arbeiterbewegung, Rtekorrespondenz, No 8-9 (April 1935), pp.
1-28; English translation: The Rise of a New Labor Movement, International Council
Correspondence, 1: 10 (August 1935), pp. 1-26.
On Maassen, see: Jaap [Meulenkamp], In het harnas gestorven, Daad en Gedachte,
10: 6 (June 1974), pp. 16-17; and on Brendel, see my necrology in Sozial.Geschichte, 22:
3 (October 2007), pp. 196-200.
Socialisme of Barbarij, Spartacus, 9, 38 (3 December 1949) 10: 3 (11 February
1950); originally: Socialisme ou Barbarie, Socialisme ou Barbarie, No 1 (March-April
1949), pp. 7-46
Tjeerd Woudstra, Aux camarades de lOrgane Socialisme ou Barbarie, 22 September
1952; Archive of Stan Poppe (iish), box 27.
Aux camarades du groupe Spartacus, 15 October 1952; Poppe archive, box 27.
Ren to Cher Camarade Cajo, undated letter received on 13 November 1952;
Archive of Cajo Brendel (iish), box 2.
Discussies met kameraden uit Belgi, Duitsland en Frankrijk, Contact in eigen
kring. Intern orgaan van de Communistenbond Spartacus, No 31 (September 1954); Stan
Poppe to A. Pannekoek, 17 June 1954, Archive of Anton Pannekoek (iish), box 52A.
|257
one member (presumably Brendel) noted that over this past summer, the
longstanding deep-seated differences between the majority of the French
group and Spartacus have become more pronounced, while a minority within the French group, which does not embrace the party stand, has on the
other hand moved closer to Spartacus.19 He attributed this to the massive
strikes held in France in August 1953.20
The adherents of Spartacus did not quite know how to respond to theoretical criticism from an intellectual of Castoriadis stature, as their organization consisted mainly of blue and white collar workers without a university
education.21 But they did have their own minence grise: Anton Pannekoek.22
In the autumn of 1953 he received a complete set of all previously published
issues of Socialisme ou Barbarie from Brendel and thus had cause to put in
writing his well-intentioned critique of the movement behind Castoriadis.23
On 8 November 1953 Pannekoek, by then eighty years old, wrote the
French that while he sympathized with their group in many respects, his
view differed from theirs on two essential points: the assessment of the
Russian Revolution of 1917 and the matter of the vanguard party. Unlike
Socialisme ou Barbarie, Pannekoek did not consider this Russian Revolution to
be a proletarian uprising that had later degenerated to a bureaucratic state
capitalism. He was more inclined to regard the revolution from the outset
as a bourgeois effort that could never have given rise to a socialist society.
Pannekoek adamantly rejected the idea of a vanguard party. In his view, revolutionaries should not form a party but should stick to disseminating propaganda and interfering in theoretical debates. Their task was not to lead
the struggle for liberation; their sole mission was to launch a universal appeal for control for workers.
Socialisme ou Barbarie published Pannekoeks letter, together with a response from Castoriadis.24 In his reply, Castoriadis focused on the question
19
20
21
22
23
24
258
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
of the vanguard organization. In his view, revolutionaries who did not form
a party would pave the way toward a bureaucratic dictatorship such as the
Soviet Union. In fact, the only safeguard against such an error is to apply
the idea in practice, just as the only safeguard against bureaucratization is
to engage permanently in anti-bureaucratic action and to demonstrate that
a non-bureaucratic organization of the avant garde is possible in practice.25
Pannekoek later clarified aspects of his view in a second letter, dated 15
June 1954. This one was not published in Socialisme ou Barbarie. In 1971 Cajo
Brendel argued that this was because that letter displeased Castoriadis, and
he had therefore suppressed it.26 At the start of the present century, this
accusation was repeated in a slightly different wording by Henri Simon, a
former member of Socialisme ou Barbarie.27 The allegation seemed unfounded from the outset, because Socialisme ou Barbarie did run a response from
Theo Maassen on the same subject at a later date.28 Proper refutation was
impossible in the 1970s and thereafter, however, because Castoriadis could
by then no longer recall the circumstances under which this letter was
not published.29 Two documents that Pannekoek has left us definitively
prove that the accusation is untenable. The first document is a letter from
Castoriadis to Pannekoek, dated 22 August 1954, announcing the publication of Pannekoeks second letter in Socialisme ou Barbarie. This letter also
mentions a third letter from Pannekoek, dated 10 August 1954, which I
have so far been unable to locate. The other document is a draft version of
a fourth letter from Pannekoek to Castoriadis, dated 3 September 1954, in
which Pannekoek writes that his second letter was not written with great
care and was not intended for publication. He also reiterates the essential difference of opinion with Castoriadis, thereby clarifying the view that
Jaaps Thesen ad Pannekoek countered over forty years ago.
25
26
27
28
29
|259
Documents
Letter from Castoriadis to Pannekoek, 22 August, 195430
Paris, le 22 aot 1954.
Cher camarade Pannekoek,
Excusez-moi de rpondre avec un certain retard votre lettre du 15 juin;
jtais absent de Paris et nai voulu vous rpondre quaprs en avoir discut
avec les camarades de notre groupe. Entre temps, jai galement reu votre lettre de 10 aot, avec larticle sur lthique marxiste, dont nous avons
aussi discut.
Concernant votre lettre du 15 juin, nous avons unanimement dcid de
la publier dans le prochain numro (15) de Socialisme ou Barbarie. Elle
pourra certainement aider les lecteurs mieux comprendre votre point
de vue, aussi bien sur la question du parti que sur celle du caractre de la
Rvolution russe. Quant moi, je ne pense pas personellement avoir ajouter quoi que ce soit dimportant ce que jai crit dans le No 14. A vous
seulement je voudrais faire remarquer que je nai jamais pens que nous
puissions vaincre le P.C. en copiant ses mthodes, et que jai toujours dit
quil fallait la classe ouvrire ou son avantgarde un mode dorganisation nouveau, qui corresponde aux ncessit de la lutte contre la bureaucratie, non seulement la bureaucratie extrieure et ralise (celle du P.C.) mais
aussi la bureaucratie intrieure potentielle. Je dis: il faut la classe ouvrire
une organisation avant la constitution des Conseils, vous me rpondez: il
ne lui faut pas une organisation du type stalinien. Nous sommes daccord,
mais votre thse exige que vous montriez quun organisation de type stalinien est la seule organisation ralisable. Je pense dailleurs que sur ce terrain
la discussion ne peut pas avancer beaucoup; jai lintention de reprendre la
question partir du texte intellectuels et ouvriers qui a t publi dans
le No 14 de Socialisme ou Barbarie, et jespre pouvoir publier un article
l dessus dans le No. 16. Jose penser qu ce moment l nous pourrons reprendre la discussion dune manire plus fconde.
[...]31
Fraternellement
Pierre Chaulieu
P.S. Cest la suite dun malentendu que vous croyez quune erreur est glisse dans la traduction de votre lettre. Lexpression (p. 40, ligne 13 du No 14)
nous navons que faire dun parti rvolutionnaire est un gallicisme qui signifie nous navons pas besoin, nous ne pouvons pas nous servir dun parti
30
31
260
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Translation
Paris, 22 August 1954
Dear Comrade Pannekoek,
I apologize for the delay in replying to your letter of 15 June; I was not
in Paris and wanted to reply to your letter only after discussing it with the
comrades of our group. In the meantime, I have also received your letter
of 10 August, including the article on Marxist ethics, which we have discussed as well.32
As far as your letter of 15 June is concerned, we have agreed unanimously
to publish it in the upcoming issue (15) of Socialisme ou Barbarie. It will certainly help readers understand your point of view better, both regarding the
question of the party and that of the nature of the Russian Revolution. As
for myself, I do not personally think I need to add anything of importance
to what I wrote in Issue 14. Please let me share with you alone that I had
never thought that we could overcome the Communist Party by copying its
methods, and that I have always said that the working class or its avant
garde requires a new method of organization that meets the needs of the
fight against bureaucracy, not merely the realized, external bureaucracy
(that of the Communist Party) but also the potential, internal bureaucracy.
I say: the working class needs an organization before forming Councils
you respond: it does not need a Stalinist type of organization. We agree, but
your thesis requires that you show that a Stalinist type of organization is
the only organization attainable. I think, moreover, that advancing in this
area of the discussion will be difficult. I intend to take up the question
again based on the text intellectuels et ouvriers published in Issue 14 of
Socialisme ou Barbarie,33 and I hope to be able to publish an article on the subject in Issue 16. I even believe that at that point, we will be able to resume
the discussion more fruitfully.
[...]
With fraternal greetings
Pierre Chaulieu
P.S. Due to a misunderstanding, you believe that there is an error in the
translation of your letter. The expression (p. 40, line 13 of Issue 14) [which
reads literally] all we need is to form a revolutionary party is a French
wording that in fact means we do not need, we cannot help ourselves with
32
33
|26 1
262
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
action , but based on very real conditions, [x] securing the unity of action
needed for positive results. Here the leading personalities become unimportant accidentals. The real and lasting gain of progress of society consists
in what the total class, the working masses change in their inner character (acquiring independence, defiance, losing their servility); and this takes
place [x] only by their own activity and initiative, not by following others.
Between these two points of view the practice of the class struggle may take
all its kinds grades of intermediate or combined forms.
There may still be made a remark on massal actions. Looking at the present life conditions in our Western countries it may seem (and is widely
accepted) that such massal actions ever more become impossible and unnecessary. Impossible because of the enormously increased power and violence of the governments backed by big capital. ([x]If an industrial region
should be [x] in the hands of the workers an one atom bomb may destroy it).
Unnecessary because working and living conditions, as well as [x] political
rights for the working class become ever better and more secured (see usa).
Yet we are convinced certain that the threat of now in capitalism is heavier
and more dangerous than ever before. Now world-war is the its most important side of form and it. The impending destruction of mankind and and
misery of mankind threatens the entire population, not only the workers
[x] intellectuals and trades people as well as workers, though these are latter form the most numerous part. So massal actions will be necessary more
than in the past, and they loose their strict class character of such as they
had in the past (Belgium, Russia). They are the only form way in which the
majority masses of the peoples may take action exhibit their will in what
constitutes their life-interest. Yet you never find them mentioned, not neith
neither in political discussions and papers, notr in revolutionary socialist
reviews. Is it the fear to be identified with Russian communism? Or, more
generally the fear of all leading groups for the working masses taking action
themselves?
II.10 Matriarchy
and Socialism
French Precedents*
Francis Ronsin
In his study on Bachofen,1 Walter Benjamin mentioned the ties between the
great anarchist geographer Elise Reclus and the Swiss scholar.2 Such a relationship did not surprise Benjamin, since communism even seemed to him
(Bachofen) inseparable from gynaecocracy.3 Benjamin therefore highlighted the influence that Bachofen had on Engels and Lafargue, and joined the
This study results from an extended period of working with Jaap Kloosterman,
from his involvement in receiving and processing the personal papers of Jeanne
Humbert at the iish, through his participation in planning the international
research seminar Socialisme et Sexualit. Thanks are due to Jenneke Quast.
Johann Jakob Bachofen (1815-1887), a scholar of law and anthropologist, wrote Das
Mutterrecht (1861) which is regarded as an important early work in modern social
anthropology.
Walter Benjamin, Johann Jakob Bachofen, written in 1935; first published in
France in Les Lettres nouvelles, n 11, 1954. Here I use the anthology Walter Benjamin,
Ecrits Franais (Paris, 1991), pp. 123-142.
Ibid., p. 139. Benjamin mentions Bachofens work Le Matriarcat, whereas Mutterrecht
(1861) was translated as Le Droit maternel. Bachofen never used the term matriarchy but refers to a gynaecocracy. At one time he considered using this term for
the title of his book.
|26 5
A Saint-Simonian
Born in 1805 at Falaise (Calvados), Pauline Roland, already an adherent of
Saint-Simonianism, moved to Paris in 1832. She rapidly became prominent
in Saint-Simonian circles there. She considered virginity to be poorly compatible with the theories she supported. She addressed this problem as
a perfect Saint-Simonian: I would not agree to marry any man in a society, which did not acknowledge me as a full equal of the one with whom I
united, or rather to whom I sold myself. I do not aim to dominate through
cunning but to achieve perfect quality and freedom.6 She thus beckoned
into her bed a follower of the Father Enfantin, Adolphe Guroult, whom
she was told was in need of affection. She then proceeded to wonder about
maternity just as rigorously: I want to be a mother, but with a mysterious
paternity.7 In April 1834, she was carrying Guroults child. But on 24 June
1834, in a new letter, she notified Agla Saint-Hilaire: On Friday I gave myself to Mr Aicard.8 Once informed, Guroult turned out to be noble and
4
5
7
8
Johann Jakob Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht. Eine Untersuchung ber die Gynaikokratie der
alten Welt nach ihrer religiosen und rechtlichen Natur (Stuttgart, 1861).
The following is quoted from the presentation Doctrine Fouriristeby Jenny
dHricourt in 1860: 11 A mother is the guardian of her children: they belong
to her alone; the fathers rights to them are limited to what the mother grants
him. Jenny P. dHricourt, La femme affranchie, rponse MM. Michelet, Proudhon, E. de
Girardin, A. Comte et aux autres novateurs modernes. 2 vols (Brussels, 1860), p. 54.
Letter from Pauline Roland to Agla Saint-Hilaire, 23-24 August 1832, Bibliothque
de lArsenal, Fonds saint-simonien, 7777, quoted in Edith Thomas, Pauline Roland:
Socialisme et fminisme au xixe sicle (Paris, 1956), p. 47.
Ibid., pp. 64-65.
Ibid., p. 68. Jean-Franois Aicard, another Saint-Simonian.
266
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
deeply religious.9 As for the child that Pauline carried, He senses what she
has always felt, that she alone was this childs entire family. He would therefore love [the child] but would not feel any entitlement to [the child].10
Jean-Franois Roland was officially registered on 13 January 1835. The witnesses were: Jean Aicard and Achille Leroux (the younger brother of Pierre
Leroux). Three other children were born to Pauline and Aicard: Marie
Roland (died in infancy), Mose Roland, and Irma Roland.
Never, neither before nor after they separated, or even when Pauline was
imprisoned for her role in the Union des Associations ouvrires [Union of
workers associations] or deported to Algeria for supporting the insurrections against the coup by Louis-Napolon Bonaparte, did she imagine entrusting her lover with parental responsibility.
Another Saint-Simonian, Claire Dmar, condemned both matriarchy and
patriarchy with equal vigour. At the same time, she strongly advocated,
with a virulence ahead of her day, sexual liberation, together with custody
of children exercised not by their father or their mother but by the collective: Loyalty nearly always derives from the fear or inability to do better
or otherwise. [] Proclaiming the law of inconsistency will lead women to be
emancipated; but that is the only way.11
Therefore:
No more paternity, which was always questionable and impossible to prove.
No more ownership, no more inheritance []
No more maternity, no more law of lineage []
You want to liberate women! Very well, from within the natural
mother, carry the newborn to the nurturing mother, the functional wet nurse.12
Whether by virtue of marriage laws that subjected wives and children entirely to male domination combined with the prohibition of divorce
in effect from 1816 to 1884, or in fact for other fairly personal reasons it
remains very likely that some women, regardless of whether they are influenced by Saint-Simonianism, around the same time of their own accord
exercised conduct similar to that of Pauline Roland. In very rare cases, they
have explained the reasons for their decision in writing. Far rarer still are
those whose writings have been retained and are available for study.
9
10
11
12
|26 7
13
14
15
16
17
Quoted in the preface to Johann Jakob Bachofen, Le Droit maternel. Recherche sur la
gyncocratie de lantiquit dans sa nature religieuse et juridique. Translated from German,
with a preface by Etienne Barilier (Lausanne, 1996), p. xxx. The French translation
of Droit maternel ends with this sentence a bit like an addition: This world to
which some French writers recommend restoring the principle of Isis, as a unique
remedy, as well as the natural truth of maternal rights (pp. 1197-1198). In a note,
Michelet is also quoted, which is very inappropriate, and Emile de Girardin, author
of La Libert dans le mariage par lgalit des enfants devant leur mre.
Maurice Reclus, mile de Girardin. Le crateur de la presse moderne (Paris, 1934).
Emile de Girardin, 1850, La question du moment. La rpublique est-elle au-dessus du suffrage universel? (Paris, 1850).
Quoted in Reclus, mile de Girardin, pp. 183-184.
Guillaume Geniller (1789-1864), a revolutionary communist activist. Polemic published inEmile de Girardin, La Rvolution lgale par la prsidence dun ouvrier. Solution
dmocratique de 1852, par Emile de Girardin Reprsentant du peuple (Articles extraits du
Bien-Etre universel), (Paris, 1851), pp. 11-23.
268
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
|26 9
23
24
25
26
27
27 0
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
28
29
30
In this historical study, Mr Paul Abram deals at length with the book by Mr Alfred
Naquet, Religion, Proprit, Famille and was wise to do so. This book, which was published in 1869, remains most enlightening in several respects. It has been, in my
view, in a moral sense comparable to the programme of Belleville for the political
order. Preface by Lon Blum to Paul Abram: Lvolution du mariage (Paris, 1908), p.
xi.
Alfred Naquet, Religion-Proprit-Famille (Paris, 1869), p. 118.
Ibid., pp. 189-190.
|271
In the future, the family will not revolve around the father but
around the mother, only the mother will pass her name on to
the children, and she alone will have certain limited rights to
them during their childhood. [...] For each child she has, and
until that child attains a specific age, she will receive an annual allowance from society, calculated to enable her to live
comfortably.31
In 1871, Naquet was elected deputy in his Department of Vaucluse. He represented the far left and had to respond to challenges addressed to him as
the author of Religion Proprit Famille. His first justification appeared in
the preface of La Rpublique radicale Dmocratie du Midi, of Avignon, on 7 July
1871: I affirm that [...] I consider the ideas I have expressed, especially in
this third section (the one about the family), to be incompatible with the
morals of our time, although if it were up to me alone, to decree their immediate application, I would be more inclined to let my hand wither, before
I would sign such a decree.32
While awaiting the radiant future, in which free love and the matriarchy
would prevail, Naquet rallied to support restoring divorce. From 1876, when
he submitted his first bill, until 1884, when his third bill, which was very
watered down, was ultimately adopted, Naquet invested considerable energies in the House and then in the Senate, in the press, at meetings. These
efforts made him renowned as the Man of divorce. In so doing, he increasingly came to reject the ideals he had previously supported:
At this time, driven by a zeal I find commendable for its generosity [], I was imbued with communist ideas and ways.
Since then, I have become firmly convinced that [] if, by
chance, the collectivist and communist ideas [] were embraced in a country, this would suppress all civilization, all progress, and all freedom. [] The best evidence, moreover, that I
have abandoned these doctrines is that I support divorce, which
I did not at that time. [...]
Today, by contrast, I am a liberal, an individualist; I am entirely
opposed to the collectivist solution and, therefore, I aim to retain the institution of marriage; I seek to strengthen and con31
32
27 2
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
solidate it, and my sense is that divorce, far from weakening it,
will serve to consolidate and reinforce it.33
After his victory, Naquet may have believed that he faced one of the most
brilliant political careers ever. Not so: he became General Boulangers righthand man, next, he was affected by the Panama Canal affair, and so his career ended! That interlude behind him, he rekindled his interest in political
philosophy and re-examined how marriage, matriarchy, and communism
related to one another.
In fact, he wrote in 1900, in his preface to the book by J.-C. Spence, LAurore
de la civilisation: Only recently did I begin to support collectivism; still, I
have been a socialist all my life.34 Again, in the same year: Yes! My former
partner in crime, my old Reclus! Let us work on improving education, and
let us work especially on scientific progress. That is what will make collectivism necessary tomorrow and may also make anarchism possible in the
centuries ahead.35 Collectivism tomorrow, perhaps anarchy in the centuries
ahead, at that time, however, Naquet continued to believe that laws were
beneficial. Vers lunion libre, which he published in 1908, reflected this conviction: In our individualist and capitalist society [] women who are mothers
still need to be supported by men, as do children. [] Matriarchy is inadmissible here; patriarchy prevails.36 In communist society, care for children
and the elderly will be entrusted to society, and, as Emile de Girardin wanted, as Mr Paul Abram is now suggesting, the mother will pass her name on
to the children, since it is certain only who the mother is. Surnames, which
are now patronymic, will become matronymic.37
Girardin, Naquet, and some others believed that matriarchy was necessary to achieve sexual liberation, while protecting women from the dangers
of their unfortunate propensity toward motherhood. Logically, therefore, in
1900, Alfred Naquet rejoined and sponsored the Ligue de la Rgnration
humaine, a neo-Malthusian organization that Paul Robin had established
four years earlier.38
33
34
35
36
37
38
Speech at the Senate, 1 June 1884. Journal officiel de la Rpublique franaise. Dbats parlementaires. Snat (1880), p. 1018-1019.
J.-C. Spence, Laurore de la civilisation; ou, LAngleterre au xxe sicle. Translated from
English by Alfred Naquet and Georges Moss (Paris, 1900), p. iii.
Alfred Naquet, Temps futurs. Socialisme anarchie (Paris, 1900), p. 316.
Alfred Naquet, Vers lunion libre (Paris, 1908), p. 253.
Ibid., p. 48.
It is even less surprising that from Religion, Proprit, Famille onward, Naquet turned
out to be a convinced Malthusian. The fourth section of his study, which was
about Mariage et famille [marriage and family], carried the title: Le mariage et
le principe de population [Marriage and the populationprinciple], and the third
chapter of this sectionwas:Le remde lexcs de population est dans labolition
du mariage [The solution to surplus population is to abolish marriage], Naquet,
Religion-Proprit-Famille, p. 312.
|273
274
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
39
40
41
42
|275
43
44
II.11 Neo-Malthusians
A Photograph
Jenneke Quast
q u as t ne o-malth u s i ans
|277
Neo-Malthusian Conference, The Hague, 28-29 July 1910. Notice the modern lamp
hanging from the ceiling. IISH Collection, BG H12/260.
27 8
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
tailed description of the conference room4, which he characterizes as spacious, light and modern:
The conference participants were sitting at small tables. Only
the honorary president, Mr. S. Van Houten, the general president, Dr Alice Drysdale-Vickery, and the executive committee
of our League, the organizers [of the conference], were sitting
at the green table. [...] Fresh flowers adorned the tables, a floral tribute paid by one of our female members, which gave the
room a pleasant and festive appearance.5(Rutgers continues his
description:) On all sides coloured charts were hanging from
the walls making visible at a glance population developments
in each country, particularly birth and death rates, drawn and
prepared by the engineer Dr. C.V. Drysdale.5
In our photo sheets of paper with dark shapes can be seen hanging from a
wall, and, although we cannot see the colours, Rutgers description confirms
that our photo is a snapshot of the Hague conference. Eugne Humbert
(the date on the back of the photo is in his handwriting), must have been
mistaken.
With the help of Rutgers conference report, it should be possible to identify other people in the conference room. Rutgers green table must be
the long table in the background. At one end is Marie Rutgers-Hoitsema. She
was a socialist, feminist, and president of the Dutch Nieuw-Malthusiaansche
Bond from 1899 to 1912.6 She was also the second wife of Jan Rutgers. The
man in the middle is the liberal politician Samuel van Houten, who is best
known for the legislation he initiated to prohibit factory work for children under twelve; he also started the discussion on contraception in the
Netherlands. He had been an honorary president of the nmb since its foundation in 1881.7
One of the two ladies with hats on must be Dr. Alice Drysdale-Vickery,
one of the first women doctors in England and a pioneering birth-control
advocate, co-founder of the Malthusian League in England in 1877, and the
president of the Fdration Universelle de la Rgnration Humaine. With
the help of pictures from the Rosika Schwimmer collection at the New York
Public Library (nypl),8 the square jawed woman in the large hat at the end
4
5
6
7
8
q u as t ne o-malth u s i ans
|279
of the long table can be identified as Alice Drysdale.9 The woman with the
round face sitting between her and Mr Van Houten is probably Mrs F. De
Beer-Meyers, vice-president of the nmb between 1905 and 1919.
As Rutgers wrote in his report, the people in the foreground are sitting
at tables with flower vases. The woman at the right holding a pen and looking into the camera is the socialist, feminist, and linguistic genius Martina
Kramers. She translated the conference documents, took minutes and acted
as the conference interpreter. She also mastered Esperanto.10 With the help
of the nypl photos the serious looking woman at the left can be identified
as Bessie Drysdale (1871-1950), Alices daughter-in-law.11 Apart from Bessie
Drysdale and Martina Kramers, we cannot definitively identify the people
at the small tables, but using the collections of the iish and publications on
the Internet, we can make some educated guesses.
From Rutgers report we know who attended the conference.12 He mentions G. Hardy, whose real name was Gabriel Giroud, the son-in-law of Paul
Robin and a militant French neo-Malthusian; Eugne Humbert; Professor
Forel from Switzerland; Aletta Jacobs, the Dutch feminist and suffragette
who was the first woman doctor in the Netherlands; Hlne Stcker, a
feminist, pacifist, and founding member of the German organization Bund
fr Mutterschutz und Sexualreform; the German feminist and suffragette
Marie Stritt, from Dresden, Henriette Frth from Frankfurt; Professor Knut
Wicksell from Lund; and Dr. Anton Nystrm from Stockholm; the Spanish
anarchist doctor and neo-Malthusian Luis Bulffi; Sarolta (or Charlotte)
Steinberger, the first female physician to graduate from a Hungarian university; the educational reformer, feminist, and peace activist Vilma
Glcklich, the first woman in Hungary to receive a degree from the Faculty
of Philosophy Budapest State University; several Belgian neo-Malthusians,
9
10
11
12
Dr Alice Drysdale-Vickery (1844-1929), widow of Charles Robert Drysdale (18291907), feminist and co-founder of the Malthusian League in England in 1877. She
was also the president of the Fdration Universelle de la Rgnration Humaine.
Charles Robert was a brother of George R. Drysdale (1825-1904), the author of the
often reprinted The Elements of Social Science; or, Physical, sexual and natural religion.
An exposition of the true cause and only cure of the three primary social evils: poverty,
prostitution, and celibacy (1854).
Martina Kramers (1863-1934) was an nmb board member from 1899 to 1913.
Bessie Drysdale (1871-1950).
Among those who wished to come but could not make it were neo-Malthusian
pioneers Paul Robin and the Dutch trade unionist B. Heldt, the co-founder, with
Aletta Jacobss husband Carel Victor Gerritsen, of the nmb. Others expressed their
adherence, including the French feminist and birth control advocate Nelly Roussel,
Rosika Schwimmer, and two British eugenicists named Dr C.W. Saleeby and Arthur
P. Busch. The late Dr Charles R. Drysdale, the first president of the Fdration
Universelle de la Rgnration Humaine, was commemorated, as was Dr. Mensinga
of Flensburg, the gynecologist and inventor of the pessarium occlusivum (the
pessary also known as the Dutch cap), who had died that year. The Belgian neoMalthusian pioneer Fernand Mascaux could not attend because he was in the
prison of Nivelles doing time for spreading birth control propaganda.
280
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
13
14
15
16
17
We dont have his papers but we do have those of Eugne Gaspard Marin, who had
joined Chapeliers commune. On the Waterfront, no. 13 (2006), p. 4-5.
August Forel (1848-1931). The iish has dozens of his publications, including his
memoirs, which contain a few portraits.
Karl Kautsky, Vermehrung und Entwicklung in Natur und Gesellschaft (Stuttgart, 1910).
Henriette Frth (1861-1938). Her papers are kept in the iish.
Knut Wicksell (1851-1926).
q u as t ne o-malth u s i ans
|28 1
engaged in a variety of other partly overlapping social movements: feminism (all women at the conference); labour reform (Van Houten), pacifism
(Humbert, Forel); the Esperanto movement (Chapelier, Kramers); the fight
against poverty (Frth); sexual reform (Rutgers, Forel); prostitution reform
(Forel); eugenics (Robin, Humbert, Forel, Rutgers); temperance (Forel),18
free-thinking (Van Houten, Wicksell, Chapelier), education reform (Robin,
Glcklich); and even spelling reform (Rutgers).19 Not surprisingly most conference participants left traces in the iish collections.
Apart from a shared commitment to neo-Malthusianism and the fight
against ignorance and prejudice, this group of people was far from homogeneous in their politics, with Van Houten at the right end of the political
spectrum and Chapelier at the left. They also disagreed over other issues,
had different reasons to promote neo-Malthusianism and different agendas
as well. Rutgerss eugenic views, for example, differed from those of someone like Forel.20 Henriette Frth, to give another example, warned against
going too far with neo-Malthusianism, comparing France unfavourably with
Germany.21 Eugne Humbert would probably disagree.
In spite of these differences, the atmosphere during the conference seems
to have been pleasant enough. Emile Chapelier, who published his own
report of the conference, recalls that despite initial misgivings, the discussions were respectful and that it had been a pleasure to exchange ideas with
an intellectual like Forel, with whom he thoroughly disagreed.22
The Conference
What was the conference like? A hundred years ago the conference layout, organization, and programme were surprisingly similar to those of
present-day small scale international meetings such as, say, an ialhi23 conference: a room with bookstalls displaying books, pamphlets, and flyers;
reports on the situation in each country; lectures on a special theme; discussions; financial matters;24 and even an excursion on the last conference
18
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
The Schwimmer-Lloyd collection, New York Public Library, available at: http://
digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?1536883; last accessed 2 may 2014. The nypl
also has a much better copy of our conference photo. This photo is undamaged,
and shows some more charts and an unknown woman, but the only information
about the photo they have is: Birth Control Congress, Holland, 1910. Available at:
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?1536884; last accessed 2 May 2014.
Every Dutch male present at the meeting was named either Joop or Jaap,
which is just about the same. The atmosphere was tense, as there was a
great deal at stake in this encounter with the mysterious Russian guest.
Jaap Kloosterman had been invited as a representative of an internationally influential institution in order to corroborate the request of the
Dutch communists. What was going on here?
When the archives of the Communist International were opened in Moscow
in 1991, the administrators of the Dutch Communist Party (cpn) records sat
on the edge of their chairs. There were many Dutch party documents from
the prewar period on the shelves in Moscow. A special Stichting (foundation) to administer the party archives had been established in 1990, when
the cpn disbanded. The Foundations membership consisted of an equal
number of former party officials and leftist historians.1 Its contacts with
the International Institute of Social History were already close, whereas
relations with the Russian Center for the Conservation and Research of
*
sch r e v e l s e c re t s u i tc as e s
|28 5
2
3
286
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
cpn Archives
Whereas most of the prewar archive is in Moscow, the postwar history of
the party is documented in The Hague in the archives of the Dutch Central
Intelligence Agency bvd. Incidentally the first intelligence agency in the
Netherlands was created in the same year as the Comintern (1919). In these
bvd archives too, many cpn documents come directly from the party office
itself, as the ever present spies in the party truthfully sent all reports and
minutes of important board meetings to The Hague. It is no longer contested that the cpn always had a many moles in all its parts. The German
intelligence office sd too had very successfully disseminated its agents in
the party. Many of these were communist exiles in the interwar period who
received aid and shelter from their Dutch comrades. When the war began,
the Sicherheitsdienst in Berlin already had a card system with 800 names
and addresses of Dutch communists.4 Later on they were easily arrested at
their home addresses. The Dutch cia usually bugged the party leader even
in his bedroom5 and thus built an impressive collection of primary sources
on Dutch communism. Sadly enough, the archives of the bvd are virtually
impenetrable. The lucky historian who is able to storm the fortress only
gains access to a minor part of the collection and cannot see all of it.
For all that, the cpn itself would beat all intelligence agencies and
Moscovian archives when inaccessibility, mystification, and alienation of
documents are at stake. It was common practice for party cadres to hide
suitcases filled with confidential documents in their attic or cellar and regularly move them from one house to another so as not to be discovered by
the enemy. The enemy always lurked outside and, in an even more menacing manner, inside the party. In the Cold War period, when the cpn led a
quasi-underground life and was torn by inner conflicts, the number of secret suitcases must have been at its peak. The party leadership had given
guidelines that the formation of any kind of archive or written accounts
should be avoided. As the cp parliamentarian leader Marcus Bakker put it:
We were an anti-paper party.6 Nevertheless, it was felt necessary to put
certain matters on record, as only papers could provide convincing evidence
in case of conflicts or cleansing procedures that might be needed in the future. The party had an intelligence agency of its own, the Kadercommissie
(Cadre Committee) which investigated and recorded the background of
hundreds of cadres. A very small percentage of these files has been saved
4
5
6
sch r e v e l s e c re t s u i tc as e s
|28 7
as proof of their existence. Every cadre of consequence had his own hiding
place for the files under his jurisdiction.
In 1992, one of those suitcases was delivered under cover of night to the
former party premises, and was found next morning by the archivist. It was
accompanied by two old desk drawers. From these odd packages emerged a
mass of intriguing documents from the period 1940-1946.7 To this very day,
it has not been clarified where this asset to the party archive actually came
from. The size of it was enormous. At one go, the archival section on the
war period measured two metres, whereas the majority of the papers from
the 1950s and 1960s has not been preserved. It is a testimony to the historical awareness of the resistance fighters who felt the need to collect these illegal papers in the face of a deadly enemy.
Memorial
A specific part of this nocturnal accession requires more attention, as it describes the ways communists dealt with such documents. This is the collection named Gedenkboek Communistisch Verzet (Memorial Book of Communist
Resistance), a memorial that in fact never saw the light. As of 1 September
1945, the communist daily De Waarheid (The Truth) repeatedly called for
documentation and personal papers on all comrades who have sacrificed
their strength and life during the struggle against the German occupier.
More than 900 relatives of deceased communists, mostly widows, submitted
photos, farewell letters written by their husbands on the eve of execution,
letters from concentration camps, memoirs, and reconstructions of the activities of the deceased. Biographical data were noted on forms, as was information on the date of arrest and their activities on behalf of the party
before the war. The Memorial Department, as it was called, had collected
936 files that contained very interesting documents and knowledge about
party members in wartime.8
The forms yielded a great deal of hitherto unknown data on the construction of the party during the occupation. For instance, the sad total sum of
Dutch communists who died under Nazi terror could now be fixed at an
approximate 1000. Usually the loss had been estimated at thousands or even
tens of thousands. The records testify that six percent of these victims was
female. The activities of the female members were mostly concerned with
distribution of illegal newspapers. The forms confirmed the image of the
cpn as a party of schooled manual workers. But among the dead there were
also 20 bakers, 17 artists, one acrobat, one Italian chimney sweep, and one
police officer. Producing and distributing illegal newspapers was in most
cases ground for arrest, but armed resistance or sabotage was mentioned
7
8
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
123 times. Eleven per cent of the victims was of Jewish descent. These people were killed because they were communists, not because they were Jews;
91 percent was seized by the Germans according to a determined plan,
mapped out after 22 June 1941. By 1943, almost all experienced elderly party cadres had been killed or detained in concentration camps, and underground activities had to be carried out by novices. Apart from the forms,
the Memorial collection included some heart-breaking personal letters and
many descriptions of specific group activities and local initiatives.
The papers reveal that editors once worked on the documents, preparing
them for the printing office. There is even a letter stating that the Memorial
is ready to go to the publishers in January 1946. But in the end this did not
happen. If required, former party officials declare that they do not remember anything about the project, nor are there any written traces about the
end of the project in the archive. It is only possible to guess the reasons.
Lack of funds or scarcity of pulp are unlikely, as the party was in its heyday
and enjoyed much goodwill from the public, precisely because of its recent
actions against the Germans. An educated (admittedly cynical) guess would
be that the Memorial would result in the upgrading to hero status of nearly
1000 dead communists, who would then become more popular than the survivors who were presently in power. De mortibus nil nisi bonum, of the dead
nothing but good is to be said, a fine expression, provided some good words
are also said of the living. Another guess would be that the events and facts
as sketched in the Memorial no longer fit the canonical version of wartime
history as prescribed by the party leadership. For instance, there was no
mention of the name of Paul de Groot in the memoirs on the grand general
strike against the Nazis organized by the underground cpn in February 1941.
The contributors to the Memorial could not possibly foresee that the postwar party leader Paul de Groot would pose as the initiator of this illustrious
February Strike.9 Moreover, a considerable number of the stories in the draft
of the Memorial hinted at painful matters such as treason and guilt of fellow party members.
The contributors were from the grass-root levels and had noted down
their experiences and observations, creating a history of communist resistance that did not match the official version. And the official version too was
bound to change many times, as in inner party circles the war started as
soon as the World War was finished. Various heroes of resistance were referred to the garbage heaps of history whenever the leadership felt the need
to do so. Written, or even worse, published traces of them would complicate
such procedures. This is the most plausible reason why the book never appeared and the draft and source materials for it were hidden.
Jan Willem Stutje, De man die de weg wees. Leven en werk van Paul de Groot 1899-1986
(Amsterdam, 2000), passim.
sch r e v e l s e c re t s u i tc as e s
|28 9
10
11
12
E.g. Hansje Galesloot, Susan Legne, Partij in het verzet. De cpn in de Tweede
Wereldoorlog (Amsterdam, 1986); W.F.S. Pelt, Vrede door revolutie. De cpn tijdens het
Molotov-Ribbentrop pact 1939-1941 (Den Haag, 1990).
Dutifully recorded in Margreet Schrevel, Gerrit Voerman (eds), De communistische
erfenis. Bibliografie en bronnen betreffende de cpn (Amsterdam, 1997).
cpn archive, iish, inventory nrs 708-754.
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Sorting out the confidential documents, 1992. Left: Joop IJisberg, right: Margreet
Schrevel. Photograph by Susan Legne.
13
For example, the archives of Joop Wolff, Jaap Wolff, Daan Goulooze at the iish.
Introduction
In the early 2000s I worked at the iish as a phd student, writing a dissertation on early modern womens work. I felt I was in the right place at this
institute: the Research Department focused on family strategies and increasingly on global labour history. The academic atmosphere and debates were
lively and colleagues were friendly. The best thing was that the iish was
not simply an institute of researchers. There were also many capable people
working on the development and preservation of collections and developing a digital infrastructure. In the past I had worked closely with some of
them on a few business history projects, but in a context of inventorying
the available archival material of the firm in question, rather than as a frequent user of the core iish archives.1
*
1
The author would like to thank Wiljan van den Akker, Lex Heerma van Voss, Frans
van der Kolff, Jan Lucassen and Jenneke Quast for their useful suggestions.
For instance, the preliminary inventory work by Bouwe Hijma in the Philips
archives for the history of the Philips Retirement Fund. Elise van Nederveen
Meerkerk and Jan Peet, Een peertje voor de dorst. Geschiedenis van het Philips
Pensioenfonds (Amsterdam, 2002).
|29 3
E. Wayland Barber, Womens work: the first 20,000 years: women, cloth, and society in early
times (New York, 1995).
http://socialhistory.org/nl/collecties/gidsen/akedemiebibliotheek-geschiedenis; last
accessed 24 April 2014.
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journals.4 This implied that the former interest in the librarys book collection faded. Therefore, large parts of the collection were outsourced to other
Dutch institutes. In 1938, for instance, the collection of western manuscripts
containing manuscripts by the seventeenth-century literary scientist
Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687) and his son Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695)
were given in permanent loan to the Royal Library in The Hague. Other
parts of the collection (eastern manuscripts) were lent to the University of
Leiden and the collection of coins went to the Koninklijk Penningkabinet, now
for as long as it will still exist the Money Museum in Utrecht.5
The Academy Library thus outsourced important parts of its collections,
making it perhaps an even more haphazard assemblage than before. Still, in
the 1990s, interest in the library was revived. A restoration department was
installed, and parts of the collection were used for exhibitions. Also, efforts
4
5
Lectures on the library of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences,
On the Waterfront. Newsletter of the Friends of the IISH, 11 (2005), pp. 9-15.
http://socialhistory.org/nl/collecties/gidsen/akademiebibliotheek-geschiedenis; last
accessed 24 April 2014.
|29 5
were made to reorganize the catalogue of the librarys collection and to perform research on specific subsets.6
Despite this revival of interest, the collection became too large for the
Academy to house within its walls in the late twentieth century. The Royal
Academy decided to find accommodation for its library in the newly established Netherlands Institute for Information Services (niwi). This was a
merger of six different institutes that were supposed to focus on the provision of (especially digital) infrastructure for the arts and sciences in the
Netherlands. In practice, however, it was not a very coherent umbrella for
its many different activities, some more successful than others. In 2005
Wiljan van den Akker, then the director of the knaw-institutes, decided to
dissolve the niwi, and to continue some of its activities in a different form.
But of course, there was still the valuable large collection of books, journals,
pamphlets, and other curiosities. Selling parts of the collection would have
been difficult, especially what to do with the rest of the material.
In one of his conversations with Jaap Kloosterman, the director of the
International Institute of Social History at the time, Wiljan van den Akker
mentioned his dilemma with the Academy library. Fortunately, Jaap
Kloosterman as always had a pragmatic attitude and offered to house
the entire collection at the iish. While the collection appeared to be somewhat scattered, Kloosterman saw its value quite clearly. In Van den Akkers
words, he was not one of those posh directors who says: Well, Im sorry,
this doesnt fit my collection, but instead he was pragmatic and helpful.
Perhaps, Van den Akker speculates, this was also owing to both mens coinciding interests.7 Kloosterman probably saw this acquisition indeed as
complementary to the iish collection. It was a typical scholarly library with
different cultural and scientific specializations than the social and economic collections the iish and Economic Historical Library housed until
then. It constituted an extension of the larger Enlightenment project, just
as was the case with the emancipation of the labouring classes.8 Or, in the
words of Jan Lucassen, the French Encyclopedists, Smith, Darwin, Stuart
Mill e tutti quanti cannot be considered separate from Marx, Engels, Bakunin
and pals.9
This is how the iish acquired the largest library collection at once in
its history thus far. The Academy library added a sub-collection of about
200,000 volumes, which in large part covers the physical and biological sciences. The book collection comprises around 60,000 documents, and there
6
7
8
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
are about 2,000 drawings, plates, and maps. Furthermore the Academy library contains almost 3,000 journal series of various scientific societies and
about 5,000 pamphlets.10 While perhaps not at the core of the Institutes collection profile, the directorate still believed this was a valuable collection to
acquire. First, because the Academy library represented a unique historical
collection, which was in fact endangered.11 Some of the books in the library
are the only copy available in the Netherlands, and sometimes even very
rare in the world. Also, the librarys contents were, surprisingly close to
the areas of interest of iish and neha.12 Not only indirectly, since many of
the works represent a collection of contemporary works of propositional
knowledge la Joel Mokyr.13
What is more, apart from the majority of books on physics and biology, there were also many examples of historical accounts of the fifteenth
through nineteenth centuries that may be very suitable for social and economic historical analysis. For instance, the collection contains many manuscripts and documents of the Directorate of the Mediterranean trade, established in 1625 to maintain relationships with the Ottomans, Venetians,
and other notable powers in the Mediterranean. Another example is a fairly
unique copy of the work of an English shipbuilder, William Sutherland:
Prices of Labour in Ship-Building, a two-volume manuscript which records elaborate calculations of costs of labour in this particular industry.14 Moreover,
from the more recent books in the Academy Library, the iish made a selection of secondary literature, including many unpublished phd theses, which
were able to nicely complement the more recent collection of the library.15
So, there is also a more direct link to the use made of the library by other
historians as well as to the research performed at the institute. One particular suggestion for current research, especially in the context of global labour history, are the many travel descriptions of scientists in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. They discovered a new world, just as traditional
labour historians have now come to uncover new regions of the world by
increasingly studying their labour histories, including the very first colonial
encounters. In the context of the regional desks that have been extended by
the Institute over the past few years, ranging from Southeast Asia to Latin
America, it is all the more valuable to reflect this in its collections. Let us
now turn to one of the volumes in the book collection, the Historie Naturael,
10
11
12
13
14
15
|29 7
17
18
Jos de Acosta, Historie Naturael ende Morael van de Westersche Indien: Waer inne
ghehandelt wordt van de merchelijckste dinghen des hemels, elementen, metalen, planten ende
ghedierten van dien: als oock de manieren, ceremonien, wetten, regeeringen ende oorloghen
der Indianen, Translated from Spanish by Jan Huyghen van Linschoten (Enkhuizen,
1598). Call no.: knaw AB E 4913 s.
As quoted by his biographer, Claudio M. Burgaleta, in Jos de Acosta, s.j. (1540-1600):
His Life and Thought (Chicago, 1999), p. 9.
Augustin Udias and W. Stauder, Jesuit geophysical observatories, eos Trans. Am.
Geophys. Union, 72 (1991) pp. 185-187.
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Title page of the Historie Naturael in the IISH collection, KNAW AB E 4913.
Photograph by the author.
ter, air, fire) and the same natural orders (mineral, vegetal, animal) as the
other continents a belief that apparently not many of his contemporaries
shared. In the second half of the book, he described the human inhabitants
of the New World. Although he certainly did not describe the indigenous
peoples as equal to Europeans, he did acknowledge that they were intelligent, spiritual, physical, feeling, and rational creatures. Also, he stressed the
accomplishments of the inhabitants of the New World, their culture, and
the fact that they had their own history, which was generally orally transmitted. In fact, as Butzer has argued, Acosta was the first European to explicitly recognize that New World phenomena existed in their own right.19
He also fervently countered the common opinion that the Indians descended from Jewish lineage [...], because they were fearful, pusillanimous, of
plentiful ceremony, sensible, and mendacious.20 As explanation, he stated
19
20
Karl W. Butzer, From Columbus to Acosta: Science, Geography, and the New
World, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 82:3 (1992), pp. 543-565, 557.
Dat dIndianen vant Joodsche geslachte afcomen, houdt de gemeyne Man
voor een seker teycken, omdat de selve vreesachtich, cleynmoedich, van veel
ceremonien, sinnich ende leugenachtich zijn. Acosta, Historie Naturael, Cap. 23, fol.
48-48v.
|29 9
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
made some remarks on the West Indies, stated that in no way could these
compare to Acostas descriptions, which were in all of the writings of the
authors intention in case more highly taken, more gracefully described,
and more perspicaciously elaborated than my own exercise and humble
mind encompassed, or ever could encompass.22
22
|301
are currently under threat, or will be in the near future, not necessarily
far from home.23 As was recently argued, library collections can be highly
informative, not only by studying their contents, but also by studying their
histories.24 As we have seen above, the knaw Library can also be considered
an autobiography of a culture,25 and it is thus advisable to keep it as a
separate collection instead of blending it with other parts of the iish
collection.
23
24
25
Until recently, for instance, the unique kit-Library collections were severely threatened. Remarkably, the Alexandrina Library in Egypt decided to rescue two-thirds (c.
700,000 items) of the collection of the Royal Institute for the Tropics (kit). See e.g.
Veel boeken Instituut Tropen gered, nrc Handelsblad (1 November 2013), p. 16.
Jaap Kloosterman, Unwritten autobiography: Labor history libraries before World
War I, in Marcel van der Linden and Leo Lucassen (eds), Working on Labor: Essays in
honor of Jan Lucassen (Leiden, 2012), pp. 395-416.
As quoted in Kloosterman, Unwritten autobiography, p. 395.
Computers
Eric Fischer, formerly a navigating officer on seafaring vessels, was not initially convinced of the merits of computers in historical research and was
highly sceptical of the incipient alpha informatics. Still he was sufficiently
1
International Institute of Social History, Annual Report 1985, p. 23. In November 1985
Jaap Kloosterman was initially appointed as a temporary replacement for acting
librarian Dr Fritjof Tichelman, who was incapacitated by a serious car accident.
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2
3
4
5
6
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
|305
In the second half of the 1980s substantial progress was made on retrospective introduction of the card catalogue in the library system. Most of
the work was outsourced. The conversion took place at a mind-boggling
pace. Within two years the titles of all printed materials were available.8
In 1989 the next stage began, in which the descriptions of the visual material were entered and descriptions generated of material that had yet to be
catalogued. This required compiling a new thesaurus, based on the options
a relational database features. Most images lack a title, complicating provision of access.9 The image project comprised various stages: first the photographs, then the posters, and subsequently the prints. The revolutionary
feature was that a digitized version was generated for each image or group
of images, which could then be retrieved on the computer in the reading
room (and later via internet). The project was funded by the Ministry of
Education and Science and was completed as planned in 1996.10
10
11
12
13
14
3 0 6
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
continental Europe that year to join the Research Library Group (rlg). The
consortium consisting primarily of American universities maintained a
joint catalogue comprising over seventy million records. Adding the iish
catalogue to this database considerably enhanced the discoverability of the
Institutes collection.15 In 2006 the rlg merged with the oclc, which led the
iish records to be included in WorldCat.
While the iish website served primarily to give the general public access
to the catalogue, in 1996 additional items were posted on the site, such as
information about the European Social Science History Conference, the
Labour and Business History section of the www Virtual Library, and the
first virtual iish exhibition, The Chairman Smiles.16 Visits to the iish website
soared, from 20,000 unique visitors in 1996, to 150,000 in 1997, 250,000 in
1998, 457,000 in 1999, 762,000 in 2000, reaching 1.3 million in 2001.17 The
peak was in 2006, when the website drew over 4 million visitors. Visits declined after that, possibly because of the abundance of fascinating websites
by then.18
Jaap Kloosterman was the very first to understand the fundamental
change that the Internet brought about for the Institute:
Clearly, we have to reconsider what we are doing, and how we
are doing it. The new environment should have an impact not
just on the way archives are indexed or publications presented,
but on our perspectives on the users we serve. Traditionally, the
better part of our patrons consisted of several thousand WestEuropean academics. No longer. The Institutes Webservers
received close to half a million visitors, many of them from
countries and segments of society that we have never reached
before,
so he explained in the 1999 annual report.19
Like many libraries and archives, the iish had a considerable backlog in
cataloguing. Although the reorganization and automation of the 1980s led
to an impressive increase in productivity, substantial sections of the collection remained inaccessible to users. In 1994 the backlog in cataloguing books and periodical had indeed been reduced by sixty percent, but
the large collections successfully acquired meant that there was still some
catching up to do.20 Following an investigation of alternative methods for
15
16
17
18
19
20
Ibid., p. 12.
Ibid., p. 48.
International Institute of Social History, Annual Report 1997, p. 10.
International Institute of Social History, Annual Report 2010, p. 14.
International Institute of Social History, Annual Report 1999, p. 10.
International Institute of Social History, Annual Report 1994, p. 9; International
Institute of Social History, Annual Report 1996, p. 43; International Institute of Social
History, Annual Report 1998, p. 11; International Institute of Social History, Annual
|307
providing access, Jaap Kloosterman approved an unorthodox solution, involving bulk access to relatively cohesive sections.21 His rationale was that
providing general access was preferable to none at all. While this course of
action appalled some conventionally-trained librarians and archivists, many
researchers were delighted. In some cases this procedure even yielded items
that would have been overlooked by using individual access methods. Other
heritage institutions have adopted similar methods.
Researchers often work differently than library experts think they do.
Based on a user survey conducted in 1995, for example, Jaap Kloosterman
determined that the overwhelming majority of researchers found what
they needed through searches by title, subtitle, or author fields in the automated iish catalogue. Use of the substantive classification system was minimal. Substantive cataloguing was done by academic staff of the Collection
Development and was therefore costly. As a result of these findings, the iish
stopped classifying printed material in 1996. This revolutionary decision
met with resistance in traditional library circles. The board of the Stichting
IISG had reservations as well. As expected, however, new publications remained perfectly retrievable. And, as had been the case with bulk access,
other libraries eventually followed the example of the iish.
The iish was also at the vanguard in coping with another traditional library problem. Perhaps more than do many other libraries the iish works
with collections especially newspapers in poor condition. Restorative efforts would be doomed, reasoned Jaap Kloosterman. From the early 1980s,
the iish therefore invested most of its conservation budget in microfiche
recordings, with a view to securing the content of the material in danger
of disintegrating. In 1999 Kloosterman observed with satisfaction that our
longstanding policy to focus on microfilming rather than restoration is increasingly being accepted [by the outside world] as the most feasible way of
tackling the problem.22
Golden Years
The 1990s were golden years at the iish. Its technological edge gradually
waned in the new millennium. The Institute remained a trailblazer in library and archive technology and in research databases, but many of the
novelties that Jaap Kloosterman had introduced had become commonplace
in the 2000s. In university settings and at other knaw institutes digital humanities was truly getting off the ground. Interesting advances included
text mining and crowd sourcing. In addition, techniques and methods were
developed that would have been of interest to the iish but were not adopted
21
22
Report 1999, p. 20; International Institute of Social History, Annual Report 2000, p. 22;
International Institute of Social History, Annual Report 1996, p. 43; International
Institute of Social History, Annual Report 1997, p. 45.
International Institute of Social History, Annual Report 1999, p. 12.
3 0 8
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
there. Heritage studies made a quantum leap as well, and libraries and archives started to digitize their holdings. Sources increasingly became available online, while the iish except for the visual materials was not quick
to digitize its collections.
What led to the loss of the leading edge? The lead undoubtedly had an
inhibiting effect. Early on, the iish devised a highly functional, popular
website that grew to massive proportions within a few years, comprising
hundreds of pages. Still, this website was built in flat html, based on the
technological insights of the 1990s. When content management systems became the vogue in the decade that followed, the enormous conversion operation was long delayed.
Perhaps an unnoticed complacency set in as well. In the 1990s and early
2000s the iish was widely acclaimed and consulted. The iish administration
advised about merges in the Dutch archive system. Even those in charge of
the National Library of the Netherlands spent an afternoon at the iish to
learn how the iish achieved such feats. So much acknowledgement may
instil the sense that outside surroundings have little left to offer and may
cause an organization to lose its creative drive.
More objective factors are identifiable as well. One concerns the serious
financial predicament of the iish in the first decade of the 21st century. This
was when public funding for scholarship was reduced. The knaw had to
pass these budget cuts on to the institutes. In research, this was largely offset by raising project grants from research institutes and contract funding.
The collections were an entirely different matter. In addition, the lump sum
ceased to be adjusted for inflation in the 1980s. In 2002 Jaap Kloosterman
calculated that the real fixed income of the iish had been reduced by virtually half by all the assorted spending cuts over the past decade.23 In addition
to its diminished financial leverage for innovation, the iish had to reorganize twice in this period and was forced to make staff members redundant.
Such measures can paralyze an organization for some time.
In 2004, Jaap Kloosterman, the main driver of the iish as an innovative organization, suffered a heart attack. He recovered rapidly but had to consider
his health more than he had in the past. In 2007 he resigned from his position as director to dedicate his efforts entirely to historical research. In the
course that the iish pursued under the aegis of his successor, technological
advances and digital humanities became secondary.
23
III
THE IISH AND
EASTERN EUROPE
Preliminary
In 2010 Jaap Kloosterman took the initiative to start the Memory Project.
Most of the collaborators in the Collection Development Department were
due to retire soon, often after decades of work at the iish, and much of the
knowledge about the collections would probably get lost when they retired.
The goal of the Memory Project was to give them the opportunity to record
in articles or web presentations information about (parts of) the collections
that was stored in their memory, but for various reasons could not be incorporated in the standard catalogues or archival descriptions. This contribution is one of the results of this project.
The most important part of the Russian collections are the archives of
nineteenth-century thinkers and political activists, often formed during
their exile outside Russia, beginning with the archives of the revolutionary
populists of the 1870s (Alexander Herzen, Petr Lavrov, Valerian Smirnov).
A second category was the archives of world-famous anarchists such as
Michail Bakunin, Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, and Senya Flechine.
Then there is a third group of materials that concern social democracy:
in addition to Pavel Axelrods vast collection of personal papers, there
are smaller collections of Georgij Plechanov and Aleksandr Potresov, who
|31 1
together with Vladimir Lenin, Vera Zasulich, and Julius Martov strove
to introduce social democracy in Russia. The archive of the SocialistRevolutionary Party, psr, by far the largest and most illustrious organization
archive in the Russian collection, reached the iish in 1938. Since the early
1990s, the iish has worked closely with Russian grass-roots initiatives to
collect archives and gather documentation. The Institute has obtained
copies of the Memorial and Vozvrashchenie archives, comprising thousands
of files filled with memoirs, surveys, literary statements, and biographical
data about victims of Stalinist terror. Finally, the archive of the Alexander
Herzen Foundation (a Dutch initiative from the 1970s to publish the
writings of Russian dissidents in the West) contains a wealth of data from
and about the samizdat and correspondence with Russian authors.
In addition to archives, iishs Russian collections are a real treasure trove
of publications of the social movement itself, books, periodicals, and leaflets. Among the specialized libraries and subject-based collections, there is
the Lavrov-Goc library (this was the psr party library and contains approximately 10,000 titles, including Marxs Russian books with his personal remarks), the library of the Bund (the Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeiterbund in
Lite Polyn un Rusland, a collection comprising 20,000 leaflets and pamphlets), the library of Boris Sapir (1902-1989), a Russian social democrat, who
led a turbulent life of exile and emigration, became the head of the iish
Eastern Europe desk in 1936, and remained affiliated with the Institute for
3 12
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
many years after the Second World War. His library comprises hundreds of
titles on socialist history, humanities, and the arts), and the late twentieth
century mnob collection, containing newspapers, newsletters, and bulletins
from movements ranging from leftist extremists to the ultra right wing, the
womens and environmental movements and the like, from the Gorbachev
era to the present.
Also worth mentioning is the large collection of original posters in constructivist and social-realist styles from the countries of the former Soviet
Union, and the Russian Childrens Books collection from the 1920s and
1930s, often illustrated by famous avant-garde artists.
Shortly before the start of the Memory Project the iish received a very interesting addition to its Russian collections: a collection of brochures, published around 1900 by the Russian idealistic publishing houses Posrednik
(The Mediator) and Svobodnoe Slovo (The Free Word). This collection made
a fine addition to the publications of these publishing houses already at the
iish, and so formed a good opportunity to examine them more closely and
to document this material as a whole.1
|31 3
N.A. Rubakin, Sredi knig (Among Books) St-Petersburg, 1906, p. 1. (iish R1/10M).
N.A. Rubakin, Uslovija rasprostranenija estestvenno-naunych znanij v
Rossii. (Doklad, itannyj na II sezde russkich dejatelej po technieskomu i
3 14
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
4
5
|31 5
3 16
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Some archive material about Tolstoy, Chertkov and the Tolstoyans can be found in
the archives of the War Resisters International (WRI) (http://www.iisg.nl/archives/
en/files/w/10773401.php) (inventory numbers 496 and 497) and the Charles William
Daniels Company (http://www.iisg.nl/archives/en/files/c/10741558.php) (inventory
numbers 111-144).
7
From the introduction of the first edition of Svobodnoe Slovo. Periodieskij sbornik, pod
red. P. I. Birjukova. (Purleigh, Essex, ertkov, 1898-9), nr. 1-2, p. 3 (iish ZO 22285).
8 The iish possesses a small archive on this religious sect (http://www.iisg.nl/archives/
en/files/d/10749160.php). The 1949 annual report of the iish mentions: Separate
mention deserves a small archive, comprising about 250 documents related to
the emigration of Duchobors to Canada. These Duchobors are one of many sects
representing the richness of Russian religious life. They are of importance to social
history on account of their social beliefs: their communism and strongly rejective
attitude towards the state. [...] In 1895, Duchobors conscripted to military service
refused to take arms and every Duchobor burnt his weapons in a solemn show of
resistance. The Russian government responded with persecutions and reprisals.
And hence we arrive at our Russian collection, since the persecutions to which
the Duchobory were subjected, spurred L.N. Tolstoy and his followers to unleash
a protest against the action by the Russian government. This resulted in their
granting authorisation to the Duchobors to emigrate; the money to finance the
emigration could be accumulated, as Tolstoy himself offered the proceeds of his
novel Resurrection. Between 1898 and 1899, 8200 men, women and children,
split up in three groups, voyaged to Canada, after an unsuccessful attempt at
9
10
11
12
13
|31 7
Thanks to Joris van Zundert and the editors for comments on a previous version of
this essay.
Sarah Lloyd, Ticketing the British Eighteenth Century: A thing never heard of
before, Journal of Social History, 46 (2013) 4, pp. 843-871.
|31 9
Source Publications
Scholarly editing has been part and parcel of the historians craft for a
long time. For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, providing
scholarly editions of historical texts was one of the main tasks of historical institutes. It was a logical corollary of collecting important documents
in archives. For most of this period, there was a broad consensus about the
kind of questions that were asked in history, the kind of explanations that
provided the answers to these questions, and the kind of sources that were
relevant to these answers. Typically, these were questions about political,
military, and institutional developments in national history, the answers
were to be found in the thoughts and actions of great men, and the relevant
sources were descriptions of such actions and thoughts in state papers and
the correspondence of the same great men. It was therefore relatively easy
to identify the relevant text or part of text for source publications.
If it was easy to identify the relevant texts once found, it was often very
difficult to find them. Sources were hidden in archives without organization, often dispersed over many collections or not actually available, but
had to be reconstructed from later witnesses of their existence. As some of
the extant sources were forgeries which had been produced in the recent
or more distant past, one of the essential tasks of editing the texts was to
establish which text was what it claimed to be, and which was partial or
complete falsification. The writing could be difficult to read, and the language and context only accessible to specialists and in need of clarification
for less specialist readers. But as this was the stuff history was made of, it
was worthwhile to go to great lengths to collect, select, decipher, transcribe,
annotate, and print these sources, and make editions available to the scholarly world. A published edition substituted a long, expensive and arduous
journey to many archives by a visit to the nearest scholarly library.
Source editions in social history could and did fit this mould. Social history had its own great men, who created institutions, fought social conflicts
and revolutions, competed for power and wrote letters, resolutions, and
manifestos. But social history also gave rise to alternative ways of looking at
sources. It identified other movers in history, In some cases these were abstract powers such as social classes, labour relations, or demographic devel-
3 20
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
opments; in other cases quite ordinary women and men acting in day-to-day
struggles to better their lives or at least survive. If history moved because of
the shifting balance between abstract social forces, or the outcome of many
individual decisions, very diverse sources might be relevant, and the writings of great men might not be. To give one example: Jan de Vries proposed
that the industrial revolution in North-western Europe was preceded by an
industrious revolution. In the industrious revolution middle and working
class households decided to have more household members work longer
hours, to enable the household to buy more market goods, like tobacco, cotton textiles or coffee. To evaluate this theory, social historians had to determine how many hours working men, women, and children worked, and
how much of these delectable goods they consumed.2
Social history thus led to new types of source publications. Now the letters of paupers to poor relief organizations and of sailors to their wives, autobiographies of working men and women, of slaves and bonded labourers,
collections of probate inventories, or databases of types of labour relations
and life histories became relevant.3 And social historians came to ask different questions of traditional sources. They looked into newspapers, not for
the political news, but for news on strikes and social legislation, and also for
tickets. They might look in the collected writings of a nineteenth-century
revolutionary not only for the precise content or development of his political views, but also for information about the wardrobe of a gentleman.
Jan de Vries, The Industrious Revolution. Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy,
1650 to Present (Cambridge, 2008); Hans-Joachim Voth, Time and work in eighteenth-century London, The Journal of Economic History, 58 (1998), pp. 29-58; Anne
McCants, Exotic Goods, Popular Consumption, and the Standard of Living.
Thinking about Globalization in the Early Modern World, Journal of World History,
18 (2007), pp. 433-462; Anne McCants, Poor Consumers as Global Consumers. The
Diffusions of Tea and Coffee Drinking in the Eighteenth Century, The Economic
History Review, 61 S (2008), pp. 172-200.
Mary Jo Maynes, Taking the Hard Road: Life Course in French and German Workers
Autobiographies in the Era of Industrialization (Chapel Hill, 1995); K.D.M. Snell, Annals
of the Labouring Poor: Social Change and Agrarian England, 1660-1900 (Cambridge, 1985);
http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/boedelbank/index.php ; http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html and http://www.clio-infra.eu/; last accessed 10 November
2013; Lex Heerma van Voss, Ten geleide, in Erik van der Doe, Perry Moree en Dirk
J. Tang (eds), Buitgemaakt en teruggevonden. Nederlandse brieven en scheepspapieren in een
Engels archief [Sailing letters journaal v] (Zutphen, 2013), pp. 9-15.
Bakunin
|321
List of clothes Bakunin handed in when he went to jail; a 19th Century gentlemans wardrobe4
10 Hemden
1 Unterhosen
4 3 Snapftch
2 1 Halstch
1 Strmpfen
2 Westen
1848 Kleiderliste, Original Moscu, RCChIDNI f.192, o.1, d.79. Copy from the Bakunin
CD-Rom.
Available at: http://www.iisg.nl/archives/en/files/b/ARCH00018.php; http://search.
socialhistory.org/Record/ARCH00018/ArchiveCollectionSummary; last accessed 10
November 2013.
On the history of Bakunins papers, see Jaap Kloosterman, Les papiers de Michel
Bakounine Amsterdam, available at: http://socialhistory.org/sites/default/files/
docs/publications/bakarch.pdf; last accessed 1 August 2013.
3 22
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
This, however, only covered a selection of Bakunins works from the first
half of the 1870s. In 1988 iish management in which Jaap Kloosterman
was the main force positioning iish at the scholarly forefront in profiting
from new digital possibilities decided to try and finish the series. It realized that external financial means to finish it would not be forthcoming if
the project would proceed at the pace of the Archives Bakounine. In July 1990
the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (knaw), of which iish
is an Institute, allocated money to a project which would finish the publication in a limited number of years. In May 1992 Bernedine Bos started a feasibility study, which was finished by the end of that year. She concluded that
it would be possible to publish the complete works of Bakunin, using novel
methods of editing and publication. iish announced publication for 1997.7
cd-rom
What were these novel methods? Archives Bakounine had published in print
selected texts, in some cases only parts of a text. It had published these
texts in their original language, and a French translation if French was not
the original language. The texts were annotated following the established
practices of historical source publications, not only supplying information
on the provenance and history of the document, but also with comments by
the editor, explaining unclear passages, the geographical names and persons
mentioned in the text, and relations to other documents. The new project
decided to publish Bakunins Oeuvres compltes on a cd-rom. It did not make
any selection, but included all extant writings for which Bakunins authorship was at least probable. It published images of the most original version
available, either the manuscript or the first publication. The principle that
these were transcribed in their original language and that a French transla-
The project was conceived under the supervision of Jan Lucassen. It was executed
at iish by Bernedine Bos and Anke van der Moer, with participation by Nikita
Kolpinski and Vladimir Mosolov of the former Institute of Marxism-Leninism in
Moscow. The application and user interface were developed by the Netherlands
Institute for Scientific Information Services (niwi), and production and editorial
support were provided by Edita, the publishing department of the knaw, in the
person of Yola de Lusenet. The publication was announced at: http://socialhistory.
org/en/news/bakunin-collected; last accessed 6 May 2014.
|323
tion was offered for the non-French texts was retained.8 In the new situation
the fact that for every document a French language version was available,
made full text search possible. Digital search possibilities, online or on the
cd-rom itself, were felt to be a good alternative to traditional explanatory
editorial notes, so the cd-rom only contains provenance information on the
documents. Bakunins main correspondents were introduced on the cd-rom
with brief biographical notes. As a full text search in all Bakunins writings
was possible, relations to other documents on the cd-rom could be established by the user, in fact the user could establish many more such relations
than an editor could indicate.
A core aspect of the Oeuvres compltes was that as far as possible an image
was supplied for every transcribed text. This allows users to check the transcription. For printed editions the current practice at iish was to collate a
transcription twice with the original, and a result with the smallest possible
number of transcription errors was a matter of pride among editors. For the
Oeuvres compltes it was decided to dispense with any verification of the first
transcription. Colleagues preparing editions which were to appear in print
experienced this as an insult to their professional standards. On a number
of occasions they would point out transcription or translation errors, and
were dismayed that these finds did not lead to a general round of verification. Although the project had been conceived as a publication on cd-rom,
by, say 1996 the staff of the Bakunin project already thought of it in terms of
the Internet, and assumed that in a future online version of the application
errors would be corrected and alternative readings would be made available.
In hindsight, it is clear that by that time it would have been better to develop the project further as an online application. However, the financial
constraints at the time dictated publication on cd-rom. This happened in
8 The cd-rom contains 368 writings by Bakunin, 1232 letters and 153 various texts
like personal documents, secret codes and notes on Bakunins readings. The
division over the different languages and categories is as follows:
Original language
Writings
Letters
Various
French
246
533
65
Russian
50
592
71
German
47
99
13
Italian
16
7
3
Swedish
4
Polish
2
Serbian
1
Czech
1
1
English
1
1
Total
368
1232
153
3 24
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
September 2000, but the 16 bit application was soon technically outdated.9
Bakunins Oeuvres Compltes now await a resurrection on the Internet.10
However, looking online for the works of Michael Bakunin reveals a
large number of available texts.11 These are typically transcribed from earlier printed publications by volunteers and in some cases also offer images
of the publications. The two authoritative editions, the Archives Bakounine
and the Oeuvres compltes, cannot be accessed online. Something similar
is true for the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, which are abundantly available online, but not in the authoritative version of the MarxEngels-Gesamtausgabe (mega). We do not know how often the paper editions
are consulted. But anyone who has the privilege to grade students papers
knows that there is something like Greshams Law for texts: any version of
a text available on the Internet will be quoted, regardless of how much better an edition may be which is available exclusively on paper. So it is not
difficult to predict that whatever is available online is read and used much
more frequently than the best available scholarly editions.
For this reason alone source editions available online will drive out editions which solely exist on paper. But there are also more substantive reasons to believe that digital editions are the future. For every source edition
the relationship between text and metadata is relevant, and for almost every edition those of the edited text with other texts, with additional information, and if these exist with other versions of the text. These relationships
can all be offered in an online edition. Depending on the use to be made of
the edition, they can be shown or remain hidden.12
Different users have different preferences. One user may simply want to
read the text, another wants to check every editorial decision and so needs
information about them. One reader is interested in different versions of
the text, for another these are just a distraction. A digital edition can display
9 The cd-rom met with positive reviews, but the present writer is not aware that it
gave rise to important new interpretations in the first 10 years of its availability.
Mark Leier, Bakunin: The Creative Passion. A Biography (New York, 2009), p. 335, called
it a wonderful research tool. Reviews in the scholarly press include Bertrand
Taithe in European Review of History, 9 (2002), pp. 115-116 (This is a stupendous
scholarly enterprise and it is a great, albeit low-key, technical success); Rob
Knowles in The Australian Journal of Politics and History (2002), pp. 139-140.
10
At the time of writing, this is anticipated by iish staff for 2014.
11
In August 2013, larger collections include those of at www.marxists.org, the
Anarchy Archives run by Dana Ward (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_
Archives/bakunin/BakuninCW.html) and the Anarchist Library (http://
theanarchistlibrary.org/authors/Michail_Bakunin.html). The 1895-1913 edition
of the Oeuvres is available from http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Spcial:Recherche/
Bakounine/uvres. All last accessed 1 August 2013.
12
A random example is the Online Froissart http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/
onlinefroissart/index.jsp, which offers transcriptions and for some manuscripts
images of 113 manuscripts of Jean Froissarts Chroniques of the last three quarts of
the 14th century. Last accessed 1 August 2013.
|325
all these variants, and if the variant lends itself to being read as a book, it
can be printed as a print-on-demand publication.
A very fundamental reason to opt for a digital edition is its ability to include images of originals. From the mid-1990s it has been prophesized that
future editions would consist of, or at least contain, scans of the original
witness or witnesses, a transcription and metadata.13 Even a very good transcription may contain reading errors, and a user may want to compare the
transcription against an image even if just to come to the conclusion that a
transcription is indeed correct. And as we noted, an online edition can both
correct errors and offer alternative readings. The availability of images also
makes transcription and the layout of transcriptions easier. Instead of describing peculiarities of the original (such as text placed elsewhere than on
the line) in the transcription, the transcription can now refer to the image.
There is yet another fundamental reason to opt for a digital edition. A
transcription which fully confirms to the source text will hardly ever be
the desired end product of an edition project. Different scholarly disciplines
have different conventions about what should be added to a transcription to
create a useful edition. For example: historians are used to editions in which
abbreviations are expanded and obvious errors are corrected.14 But literary
researchers and linguists may be interested in exactly these errors. To make
texts useful for as many disciplines as possible, transcriptions should be
presented that are faithful to the source in every aspect. The online edition
can then offer other versions, with for instance errors corrected or abbreviations expanded, as need be.
And finally, there is a non-fundamental reason to favour online editions.
Just as in the case of the Bakunin editions, traditional edition projects of
substantial bodies of texts often take a very long time to complete. Outside
funding organizations are often reluctant to fund projects which will run
for decades. Online edition projects make it relatively easy to include the
work of volunteers in adding additional layers of value to the digital edition.
Depending on the readability of the images, it is feasible to put images and
metadata online, and organize transcription as a crowd editing project.15
13
14
15
3 26
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
This brings down costs, and offers a more versatile and more useful product
on line, the functionality and scholarly value of which increases over time.16
Layers
Thus we can expect for the future a model for scholarly editing which can
be conceived as a number of layers. I therefore refer to it as the spekkoek or
spekuk model for editing, after a Dutch-Indonesian layered cake, which gets
its name, literally bacon cake, from its layers that make a transection resemble striped bacon.
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Any edition will consist of at least two layers: the images and the metadata.
If we are talking about an edition which consists of a large number of individual texts, such as the Bakunin edition or any collection of letters, it is
easy to think of the metadata as a layer in which each document is identified by its corresponding set of metadata. When we are dealing with a single
document, say a book, it is perhaps less evident to think of the metadata as
a layer, but the principle remains the same, each image in the images layer
having its corresponding set of metadata in the metadata layer. When we
16
Sharing Public History Work Using Crowdsourcing of Both Data and Sources.
Panel presented at the Webwise 2012, Baltimore, February 29, 2012. Available
at: http://www.crowdsourcing.org/video/webwise-2012-session-2---sharing-publichistory-work-crowdsourcing-data-and-sources-/17572; last accessed 6 May 2014.
That enough volunteers can be found for such ventures, is clear from the
Gekaapte brieven project [Captured Letters] Available at: http://www.
gekaaptebrieven.nl/tekst; last accessed 1 August 2013.
|327
are dealing with several versions of one text, for instance several versions of
a book (one or more manuscripts, proofs, several published editions), each
version will be represented by a layer of images and a corresponding layer
of metadata. The minimal set of metadata will identify the correct image,
and may have some information about the provenance of the text. For letters we would think of including the addressee and the place and date of
writing. In the case of the letters taken by the British on board prize ships
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the ships name, port of departure and destination, and date and place of seizure would be logical additional metadata.17
In those cases where the images are easily readable, these two layers in
themselves already offer a useful product. But we expect from an edition at
least a transcription of the text. This is also what makes source publications
into the text corpora that lend themselves to digital humanities research. As
argued above, this second use of every contemporary source edition means
that this layer should in general be a transcription which follows the text
as closely as possible. One or more separate layers could contain transcriptions which follow the conventions of the relevant disciplines and which
for instance expand abbreviations, silently correct obvious errors, or adjust
punctuation to current usage.
17
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
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it may be that a layer is only available for part of the material or that it offers information which is only useful or easy to understand for expert users.
Luckily the digital format enables us to offer an edition in different way for
different audiences, ranging from a simple reading edition to a very complex layered scholarly tool, and anything in between.
Some of the data that we find in historical sources lend themselves to be
rendered in ways other than text. This is the case with financial records,
which it may be possible to render as text, but also in a more recent accounting format.
Regardless of whether the crowd has had a role in producing the transcription, the online digital environment makes it possible to correct erroneous readings or add alternative readings, as was already envisaged in the
Bakunin project. In a similar way, users can help in annotating the texts,
or by adding comments on interpretation. This can either find its way to
the main online edition, or be shared by researchers in a Virtual Research
Environment.
The opening of the former Soviet archives, the so-called archival revolution, is one of the primary cultural and political events that followed the
collapse of the ussr in the early 1990s. The opening included materials from
the years from 1917 until the de-Stalinization phase (1956), as well as some
materials related to the subsequent years, which gave scholars the opportunity to examine documents on the history of Russia, the Soviet Communist
Party, and the fates of the Russian and international workers movement.
A new archival law was introduced in the post-Soviet Russia of the early 1990s. The new law reflected the more general review of legislation on
State secrets. It involved reorganization of the archives and the ministerial
bodies that had been assigned to this task. The opening of the Russian archives (law of 7 July 1993 on the Legislative Fundamentals of the Russian
Federation on the archival records of the Federation and on archives in
general1 and Regulation of the archival legacy of the Russian Federation
of March 1994)2 has brought to light extensive documentation that marks
1
2
g o r i A cti v i ti e s i n Mos c ow af te r 1 9 9 1
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Archival Revolution
Leading scholars, such as Patricia Kennedy Grimsted and Nikita Petrov,3
have written extensively on the archival revolution, on the results of archival investigations, and on the different periods during which access to
the documents was either open or restricted (by law or by facts).
At that time I was working at the Feltrinelli Foundation, one of the main
institutes for the history of international labour movement. From its outset, the Foundation has been collecting materials on the Russian labour
movement, the revolutionary parties, and on Soviet Russia. The Feltrinelli
Foundation is the holder of one of the most important funds on pre-revolutionary Russia, thanks to a donation made by Franco Venturi the author of Il
populismo russo, a well known work.4
From the beginning, the Foundation has devoted much effort to the studies of Russia and Soviet Union. This resulted in the publication of important works, and in the organization of seminars and specific studies, such as
3
3 32
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Leo Haimson and Giulio Sapelli (eds), Strikes, Social Conflict and the First World War.
An International Perspective. Annali della Fondazione Feltrinelli, xxvii (Milan, 1992);
Francesca Gori (ed.), Pensiero e azione politica di Lev Trockij. Atti del convegno internazionale per il 40 anniversario della morte (Firenze, 1992); Marco Buttino (ed.), In a Collapsing
Empire. Underdevelopment, Ethnic Conflicts and Nationalisms in the Soviet Union. Annali
della Fondazione Feltrinelli, xxviii (Milan, 1993).
Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, Displaced Cultural Treasures as a Result of World War
II and Restitution Issues: a bibliography of publications. Available at: http://socialhistory.org/en/russia-archives-and-restitution/bibliography. See also http://socialhistory.org/en/projects/russia-archives-and-restitution,http://socialhistory.org/en/news/
archives-back-amsterdam; all last accessed 2 May 2014.
g o r i A cti v i ti e s i n Mos c ow af te r 1 9 9 1
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Cominform Archives
The sources on the Cominform
fund in the Russian archives are
particularly relevant to reconstruct the origins of the Cold
War.7 Previous knowledge on the
establishment of the Cominform
as a key aspect of the ussr reaction to the Marshall Plan, and
of the consequent division of
Europe since 1947, as far as the
Soviet part is concerned, relied
in fact on the limited published
material available at that time,
on memoirs and on Western archives. Even the official proceedFrontispiece of the proceedings of the first
ings of the three Cominform
Conference of Cominform of 1947. RGASPI f.575,
conferences were known only
op.1, d.1, s.1. Thanks are due to RGASPI.
in the censored version that had
been made public at that time.
The discovery of the complete
protocols of the three conferences has thus represented a very important
step forward in our knowledge, and has allowed us to read the complete
presentations of the Soviet delegates and of the representatives of the other Communist parties. It also showed us which aspects had been kept secret. Even more important was the opening of archival records such as the
Cominform records and other personal papers of Soviet leaders (containing
assorted material such as confidential notes, reviewed texts and various documents, reports of conversations, letters, telegrams, etc.). These materials
allowed us to reconstruct in detail the reasons and dynamics that led to the
establishment of Cominform in September 1947.
7
The main reference for the archival sources published on the Cold War, is the Cold
War International History Project Bulletin, Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars, Washington d.c.
3 34
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Giuliano Procacci et al., The Cominform. Minutes of the Three Conferences 1947/1948/1949,
Annali della Fondazione Feltrinelli, xxx (Milan, 1994), and subsequently published
in Russia Soveshchaniia Kominforma 1947, 1948, 1949. Dokumenty i materialy (Moscow,
1998), Ya. Gibiansky, Kak voznik Kominform. Po novym archivnym materialam,
Novaja i noveishaja istoriia, 4 (1993); Ya. Gibiansky, Kominform v dejstvii. 19471948 gg. Po archivnym dokumentam, Novaja i noveishaja istoriia, 1-2 (1996); Silvio
Pons, A challenge let drop: Soviet foreign policy, the Cominform, and the Italian
Communist Party, 1947-8, in F. Gori, S. Pons (eds), The Soviet Union and Europe in the
Cold War, 1943-53 (London, 1996).
g o r i A cti v i ti e s i n Mos c ow af te r 1 9 9 1
|335
Chronicles
In those same years, together with Jaap Kloosterman, we got in touch with
the Roskomarchiv (Komitet po delam arkhivov pri Pravitelstve Rossiiskoi
Federatsii, State Committee for Archival Affairs of the Russian Federation)10
and during one of the meetings with Tatiana Pavlova and other officers, we
decided to continue a project on the workers movement that had been originally launched by the Maison des sciences de lhomme, under the guidance
of Maurice Aymard.
It so happened that the International Institute of Social History, together
with the Feltrinelli Foundation and the Bibliothque de Documentation
Internationale Contemporaine (bdic), (whose coordinator of the Russian section, Hlne Kaplan, is undoubtedly one of the major experts not just of
Russian archives but of all Eastern Europe) and the Maison des sciences de
lhomme, started to publish the Rabochee dvizhenie v Rossii, 1905- fevral 1917.
9
10
3 36
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Khronika series under the supervision of Irina M. Pushkareva. It is a valuable chronologic account of all the important events regarding the Russian
workers movement from 1895 to 1917. An editorial committee composed of
archivists and scholars of the workers movement was established. The publication aimed at collecting all the documentation on the diverse forms of
protest and struggle and on the workers and party organizations in Russia.
This account is a unique tool that simplifies research work on the workers
movement, in that it broadens the aims of traditional studies on this field
and spreads knowledge of the archives and of the material published at
the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth century. The sources
were found not just in the archives of Moscow and Petersburg, but also in
those of Kazakhstan, Ukraine, the Republic of Belarus, North Caucasus, and
Northern Russia. The Khronika collects documents from 466 funds and 112
archives. This was a very long, complex, but fascinating job that made us
aware of the peripheral network not only of the Russian archives, but also
of the Russian administration.11
The iisg has also collaborated with the Institute of World History ras in
Moscow, run by Aleksander Chubarian. Both institutions worked together, supported the publication of the Social History Yearbook, which was
launched by the iisg and edited by a group of well- known historians and
carried on with the strong engagement of Irina Novichenko. The journal
was first published in 1997.12
Apart from the research work on the archives, I have to mention the social history courses that Jaap organized involving me at the rgaspi Archive,
an enterprise I was invited to participate in. It was a very meaningful experience, as Jaap Kloosterman and I regularly met with students and intellectuals from all over Russia. The courses proved an extremely interesting
activity during which Jaap Kloosterman managed to convey his passion for
research and his competence. Irina Novichenko took part in all the courses
and phases of project planning, and her contribution was essential throughout the years of study on the archive.13
11
g o r i A cti v i ti e s i n Mos c ow af te r 1 9 9 1
|337
Memorial, Moscow
Memorial
Our quest, however, could hardly stop at State archives. At the end of the
1980s, the Memorial Association was established to preserve the memory
of the victims of Stalins repression, systematically collecting all the material on the forced labour camps, on repression and dissent.14 One further
aim was to promote the publication of important works based on the material stored by the association as well as those located in the State and kgb
archives.15
An important project to reproduce all these materials was developed as a
result of Jaaps work and the efficient scientific support of Arseniy Roginskii
and Nikita Okhotin. The iisg produced a microfilm of approximately 50,000
files that contain memoirs, letters, and documents on the repressions, with
the dates of arrest, accusation, conviction, and reports of the interrogations.
14
15
3 38
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
The conservation and dissemination of these records is even more important today, as non-governmental organizations (ngos) dealing with politics
and receiving foreign funding (such as Memorial, the organization nominated for the Nobel peace prize) are threatened with closure as a result of a
new law regulating ngos operations. Should this organization be unable to
continue its activities, it would be a serious blow, not only to the memory
and civil rights of Russia, but of the whole world.
The efforts made in those years and especially the effort made by
the International Institute of Social History today have made it possible
to access all these important documents: in fact, they are stored at the
Amsterdam archive, which has become an increasingly important reference
point for scholars all over the world.
This is also the result of the generous and intelligent research work that
Jaap Kloosterman has always carried out throughout his activity as researcher on the sources of the international workers movement.
Italians in su
As a matter of fact, the research on Italians in the Soviet Union carried out
by Elena Dundovich, Emanuela Guercetti, and myself started precisely from
the Memorials archive. Thanks to the archival material found in Moscow
and in other cities of the former Soviet Union, it was possible to reconstruct for the first time, based on documentary evidence, the complex history of Italian migration in Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union. Of particular interest were the origins and characteristics of the different migratory
waves, the mechanisms through which Soviet political history in the 1920s
and 1930s was reflected in the microcosm of the Italian communities in the
ussr.
The internment of Italians in Stalins lagers had already been reported in
some memoirs of witnesses and survivors. But the opening of the archives
allowed access to the direct documents and to reconstruct the fate of about
1,000 Italians, both political and non political migrants.
Evidence of the presence of Italians was found in 27 lagers throughout the
immense Russian territory and in 19 border areas or labour camps.
These figures certainly cannot compare with the millions of Soviet victims and with the losses suffered by other foreign communities, but they
are nonetheless significant when compared with the small Italian community in the Soviet Union.
As a result of the archival research, it was possible to split Italian migration to the Soviet Union in three distinct groups. Repression occurred at different times and for different reasons, but the history of these groups is inevitably intertwined. On one side there was traditional migration boasting
ancient roots, as it started at the end of the 1700s, but especially in early
1800. These migrants were persecuted, especially in the 1920s and during
the Second World War: the migrants were divided in separate communities
g o r i A cti v i ti e s i n Mos c ow af te r 1 9 9 1
|339
17
Besides Central Archives, an important work was carried out at some peripheral
archives, such as the Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv pri Sovete Ministrov Avtonomnoi
Respubliki Krym (ga pri sm ark) of Simferopol, because a rather large Italian community lived in Kerch and in other cities in Crimea; the State Archive of the Region
of Cheliabinsk (Obedinennii gosudatstevennyi arkhiv Cheliabinskoi oblasti) was
found to be especially meaningful.
Elena Dundovich, Francesca Gori, Emanuela Guercetti (eds), Reflections on the Gulag.
With a Documentary Appendix on the Italian Victims of Repression in the ussr, Annali della
3 40
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
The activity of the iish and the Feltrinelli Foundation was not limited to the archives. We also worked in the libraries of the former Soviet
Union. With Jaap Kloosterman, we had a number of meetings with Mikhail
Afanasev, director of the gpib (Gosudarstennaia Publichnaia Istoricheskaia,
Biblioteka, State Public Historical Library) that were followed by numerous
acquisition projects and microfilming of the journals of the unofficial press
of the 1990s.18 One acquisition project was carried out to fill gaps in the
Russian sections of the library of both the International Institute of Social
History and Feltrinelli Foundation.
Jaap Kloostermans latest efforts were focused on the important library
gopb, (Gosudarstvennaia Obshchestvenno-Politicheskaia Biblioteka State
Socio-Political Library), the library of the former Institute of Marxism
Leninism, one of the largest libraries of social history worldwide, established by Boris Rjazanov, leading scholar and bibliophile, who had spent his
life collecting bibliographical and historical materials throughout Europe.
Since 1991, the Institute of Marxism Leninism has ceased its activity. The
Archive was deposited at the rgaspi, and for some time the library has been
almost forgotten. The staff was reduced from 200 to 30, and for nearly one
year they did not receive a salary. Thanks to Jaap Kloostermans commitment, the library obtained a financial support during this period. Above all,
Jaap Kloosterman endeavored to protect this library, stating the need to preserve it in its original form, because it was unique; he succeeded in having
the library placed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture of the
Russian Federation.
A recent article in a book in honor of David Rjazanov published recently: Do Rjazanova. Rasmyshleniia o pervich bibliotekach posvjashchennych
rabochei istorii,19 helps us understand Jaap Kloostermans in-depth knowledge of the libraries devoted to social history. Jaap Kloostermans command and thorough understanding of available evidence intertwines with
Rjazanovs own work and with his passionate experience as a scholar and
bibliophile.
Apart from ordinary research activities, all the projects carried out in
the archives, the invaluable cooperation for scientific and dissemination
purposes in Europe and worldwide, I would like to conclude by remembering the visit Jaap and I made to Yasnaia Poliana and the strong emotion
we felt when we visited the home, library, and tomb of Lev Tolstoy. There
we understood the extent of our involvement with the Russian world, its
18
19
g o r i A cti v i ti e s i n Mos c ow af te r 1 9 9 1
|341
culture, the nature of those places, the passion that for so many years had
driven us to seek and spread the historical memory of that country.
For an early history of the organization, see Nanci Adler, Victims of Soviet Terror: The
Story of the Memorial Movement (Westport ct, 1993).
|343
Opening Archives
The post-Soviet opening of the archives re-opened the debate regarding
how many victims were repressed in what period and under which article
of the Soviet Criminal Code. The range of estimates is wide because the
victims include those who were incarcerated in labor camps, starved by
the man-made famine, subjected to de-kulakization, deported, and killed
outright. Additionally, their non-incarcerated family members effectively
lived in prisons without walls. Those born in special settlements (exile)
are not included in the category of victims of political repression, nor are
the citizens who were incarcerated and sent to the Gulag on non-political
articles such as those covered by the 1941 draconian labor laws. According
to Memorial chairman Arsenii Roginskii, a review of the cases in these excluded categories, would no less than double the number of political prisoners calculated in the Gulag statistics.4 The accuracy of figures regarding
arrest, incarceration, and release is further confounded by the fact that the
statistics include re-arrests and moribund victims who were sometimes released only so that their death would take place outside the camp.5 The estimates range from a few million to well over twenty million victims. There is
relative consensus that in the years 1930-56, 17-18 million were sentenced to
detention in prisons, colonies and camps.6 With regard to the number of re-
2
3
4
5
6
Nanci Adler, The Gulag Survivor: Beyond the Soviet System (New Brunswick, 2002).
Nanci Adler, Keeping Faith with the Party: Communist Believers Return from the Gulag
(Bloomington in, 2012).
See interview in Obeliat Stalina bessmyslenno, 30 Oktiabria, 84, 2008, pp. 4-5.
See Oleg V. Khlevniuk, The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror
(New Haven ct, 2004), p. 78.
For a review and apt analysis of the various estimates, see Michael Ellman,
Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments, Europe-Asia Studies, 54:7 (2002),
pp. 1151-1172. In 2000, Russian criminologists Vladimir Kudriavtsev and A.I. Trusov
introduced the figure of 6.1 million sentenced on political articles between 1918
and 1958 (V.N. Kudriavtsev, A.I. Trusov, Politicheskaia Iustitsiia v sssr (Moscow, 2000),
pp. 312-318. See also J.A. Getty, G.T. Rittersporn & V.N. Zemskov, Victims of the
Soviet Penal System in the Pre-war Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival
Material, American Historical Review, 4 (1993), pp. 1017-1049; Steven Rosefielde,
Stalinism in Post-Communist Perspective: New Evidence on Killings, Forced
Labour and Economic Growth in the 1930s, Europe-Asia Studies, 48:6 (1996), pp. 959987; Stephen Wheatcroft, The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression
3 44
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Memorial archive associates in the apartment of Nikita Okhotin, one of the founders of
Memorial, Moscow, 1990 Photos Rob Knijff.
|345
prisons, camps, and exile. He endured ten prisons, among them Butyrka,
Lubianka, Lefortovo, Magadan, Krasnoiarsk, and ten camps including those
of Kolyma and exile in Norilsk.9 Gavrilov was a staunch Party loyalist, who
called himself a zapasnoi communist (reserve Communist), which is a play on
words with the Russian abbreviation, or acronym z/k, meaning prisoner. In
his memoirs, he describes how he extracted his own gold teeth to contribute to the war effort. When he tried to give them to his interrogators, they
did not want to accept this offer from an enemy of the people. Gavrilov
did not accept the assessment that he was someone who had violated his
right to be a Communist.10 Such narratives offer valuable insight into the
prisoners experiences and in this case, Communisms compelling grasp.
Other gaps in our understanding of the Gulag have also been filled by
these archives. Until the emergence of the Memorial collection, we had
only scattered sources such as Solzhenitsyns Gulag Archipelago11 and Evgeniia
Ginzburgs Within the Whirlwind12 to inform us on the dynamics of such phenomena as, for example, exile under Stalin. The intention of the policy governing the release into exile of political prisoners (who had survived their
ten year terms) seems to have been that no prisoner should ever taste freedom again.13 Accordingly, a February 1948 ukaz (decree) of the Presidium of
the ussr Supreme Soviet ordered political offenders and individuals presenting a danger on account of their anti-Soviet ties [to be] exiled indefinitely when their prison terms were up.14 A March 1948 order of the Ministry
of State Security further specified the remote regions to which these exiles
were to be sent for settlement.15
A typical example of release into exile can be found in the following story from the Memorial files. Grigory Grigorevich Budagov, a railroad engineer, was arrested in 1930 and taken to Moscows Butyrka prison. His journey through the prisons and camps ended when his term was completed
in 1948. He waited three days, then walked sixteen kilometers to the train
station and headed for Novosibirsk. At this destination, he was picked up
by the authorities and taken to prison. He waited four days and then went
on a hunger strike to protest being held illegally. It was finally explained
to the prisoner that they had lost him and were thus obligated to send
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
him for consignment. Then he learned that all Article 58ers (counter-revolutionaries) were being sent to remote places in Siberia for permanent
settlement. Dozens of others were in the same situation, all waiting to be
dispatched:
Under convoy two officers took us to the village of Chumakovo
in Novosibirsk province where I was reminded of Uncle Toms
Cabin. It was something like a slave auction. All the big bosses
of the region came I was chosen by the head of the regional
community services, who took me right away, telling me along
the way that he did not have a technical engineer, and if the
chairman of the regional executive committee gives permission,
then he would engage me in this function. After his visit to that
chairman, the head of the regional community services reported the formers answer: Give him the heaviest physical work.
[] I dragged logs for a week.16
The experiences of this disheartened exile were not unlike those of others.
They had to report to the authorities every ten days, and any attempt to
transgress their prescribed borders was considered an escape, punishable
by ten years of incarceration. These and other rich documents from the
Memorial archive address fundamental questions on the broad and deep entrenchment of terror in the Soviet system; they are indispensable for any researcher working on Soviet victimizations. Their accessibility is particularly
important because most of these memoirs have yet to be published.
Saving Archives
Those, like Jaap, who advocated for a safe place for the archive, were prescient. Perhaps unrelated to the states ambiguity with regard to the Stalinist
past, on the eve of the first international conference on Approaches to
Stalinism in Moscow in December of 2008, the Memorial office in St.
Petersburg was raided by masked federal security agents, who proceeded to
confiscate the organizations hard drive and numerous archival dossiers.17
The pretext was the St. Petersburg Memorials alleged association with an
extremist article in the newspaper Novyi Peterburg. Among other transgressions, the authorities carried away Memorials belongings without leaving
16
17
|347
an inventory. Veniamin Iofe, who stowed that same archive under his bed
eighteen years earlier, would likely not have been surprised by the raid.
Irina Flige, chairman of the St. Petersburg Memorial, has tried to explain
what might have precipitated this event. She asserted that the state glossed
over the state-sponsored crimes of the terror, emphasizing instead its great
accomplishments in modernization and its victory over the Nazis. This
omission in the historical record led Memorial to draft an international appeal in 2008, wherein they lamented that, instead of a serious nationwide
discussion about its Soviet past, the Soviet State patriotic myth with small
changes is reviving. This myth views Russian history as a string of glorious
and heroic achievements.18
The voluminous materials that Memorial holds on the scope and nature of
the terror provide an unwelcome addition to this image. Memorial had reason to believe that the St. Petersburg raid, and similar such actions, are part
of a concerted effort by the authorities to brand Memorial as a dissident/extremist group and marginalize the importance of its revelations.19 If so, this
would represent a politically retrogressive trend; the pursuit and dissemination of information on Soviet repression has not been considered a marginal activity since the Brezhnev era.20 But it may be unofficial policy; some
archival documents on the terror are now less accessible than they were in
the 1990s.21 In January of 2011 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation
dismissed a law suit filed by Memorial to gain access to documents on the
repression. Many of these materials are subject to a 75-year period of inaccessibility from the day the case closed due to violations of privacy.22
Apparently, an accurate account of the victimizations under seven decades of Soviet rule cannot yet be integrated into Soviet history. Until it can
be, this part of the past will continue to challenge the credibility of Russias
present version of history.23 In the aftermath of the raid, Memorial engaged
18
19
20
21
22
23
National Images of the Past: the twentieth century and the war of memories, an
appeal from the International Memorial Society, March 2008; See also Irina Flige,
Predmetnaia I materialnaia pamiat o Bolshom Terror, draft paper, 2007.
Conversation with Irina Flige and Arsenii Roginskii, Moscow, 7 December 2008.
For a comment on latter-day dissidence, see Serge Schmemann, The Case Against
and for Khodorkovsky, International Herald Tribune, 20 October 2008.
Clifford J. Levy, Purging History of Stalins terror, International Herald Tribune, 27
November 2008. I personally experienced this trend while working in the Party
archive. Documents to which I had had access in 1996 were not available, nor were
Party Control Commission statistics from the Brezhnev era on. The archive staff
themselves did not seem to know the reason. Other researchers working in other
places reported similar problems.
See Nikita Petrovs open appeal, Landmark Decision by the Supreme Court:
Is Access to Documents about Repressions being Closed Down in the Russian
Federation?, 2 February 2011. Available at: http://hro.org/node/10136; last accessed
3 February 2011.
Similarly in Chechnya, a 2009 ally of Russia, the scars of war were being erased as
Grozny had a makeover. The deputy mayor cited a Russian proverb that guided the
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
|349
24
25
26
For more on Vilenskiis biography, see Gulag Survivor, pp. 125-134, and Semn
Vilenskii, Any Questions?, Gulag Studies, 2-3 (2009-2010), pp. 95-106.
Semn Samuilovich Vilenskii, interview, Moscow, 18 November 2003.
Ibid., interview, Moscow, 30 October 2011.
3 50
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Foreign Agent [Loves] USA, graffiti on Memorial headquarters, Moscow, 2013. Photo
Nanci Adler.
uscripts have been published, but countless others are in danger of deteriorating, and the organization may not survive beyond the lifetime of its
founder. Once again recognizing the historic and scholarly value of this collection, Jaap arranged for its microfilming and accessibility to iish visitors
and researchers.
Threats
The importance of having a safe copy of collections like those of Memorial
and Vozvrashchenie should not be underestimated. In early 2013, Memorial
was raided again, this time by lawyers, accountants, television crews and
tax inspectors. Two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the work
of historians and civil society actors who challenge the official narrative of
present or past events has become more marginalized, and in some cases
even dangerous. Representatives of Memorial and other human rights organizations have been not only physically, but also legally harassed. Even if
they triumph in their day in court, it is seldom publicized.27 Memorial has
been accused of political activities and targeted for official harassment for
not having duly declared themselves foreign agents, in keeping with a
new law. They share this dubious status with a number of other ngos, including the Levada Center, a highly respected independent polling agency.
27
On the legal battle of researchers arrested for working in the archives, see Catriona
Bass, Controlling History, Transitions Online, 6 December 2011.
|351
28
g ri ms t ed A r ch i v a l R e v o l u ti o n a nd Inte lle c tu al Ac c e s s
|353
panded English edition of Archives in Russia in 2000, however, Rosarkhiv declined further collaboration in the expansion of the bilingual Internet version iish was proposing. Jaap Kloosterman, as iish director was not prepared
to let ArcheoBiblioBase (abb) expire. Already since 1997 iish hosted and developed an English Internet version of abb on the Institute website (http://
www.iisg.nl/abb/), which now covers close to 600 Russian archives and manuscript repositories with links to their reference facilities. Following the
Dutch-Russian 2013 cooperative Agreement, ranepa launched an abb mirror
website in February 2014 at http://abb.ranepa.ru/, while planning continues
for further updating and eventual revival of a bilingual version.
When the Bolshevik October Revolution overthrew the Russian Empire in
1917, it was followed by an archival revolution that led to the most centralized state archival system the world had ever known. As a would-be totalitarian state, the Soviet Union had every reason to control all of the archives
of the nation. Control of the historical records of society was a means to
control that society and what was to be revealed about its history, with the
aim of molding its future. During the postwar Soviet decades the state archival administration developed a central catalogue of fonds in state repositories, which could have been the infrastructure at the heart of a centralized
reference system, but it was not for public consumption. The concept of
public intellectual access to archives was virtually unknown in the Soviet
Union by the end of 1991.3
If only archival restrictions were the most glaring insufficiency of our archival service, replied Academician Dmitrii Likhachev, one of the most revered scholars of Russian culture, when asked in September 1989 to respond
to foreign criticism that many Soviet archives remained closed. It is insufficient to decide from on high merely to declassify archives. We still need to
tell the whole world exactly what is held in them, to publish inventories and
catalogues of previously secret documents.4 A perceptive article by the former head of the Lenin Library Manuscript Department, Sara Zhitomirskaia,
entitled Files Not Only Classified Secret, carried a similar message in that
initial period of glasnost: our whole archival system was oriented toward the
utmost restriction on information.5 Today as part of the post-Soviet archival
4
5
3 54
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
ICA Congress in Washington dc, 1976. Patricia Grimsted presents the supplement
Russian Archival Directory and idc microfiche catalogue to Soviet Glavarkhiv director
F.I. Dolgikh (left), with idc editor Jan Juffermans (center). Archivist of the United States
J.B. Rhoads (right) looks on. Collection of the author.
revolution, many federal archives under Rosarkhiv are providing Internet access to their portion of the updated Central Catalogue of Fonds, and some
even to the finding aids, or inventories (opisi) for each fond.
A quarter century earlier, in 1972, the hitherto most extensive interagency archival directory describing a total of seventy-four archives and manuscript repositories in Moscow and Leningrad with an annotated bibliography
of their finding aids could only be published abroad.6 My private presentation in Moscow of a hand-bound copy to the Chief of the Main Archival
July 1989), p. 3; see also the P.K. Grimsted response, Propisi pro opisi, Literaturnaia
gazeta, no. 33 (16 August 1989), p. 5, and comments by V.P. Kozlov and N.N.
Bolkhovitinov; and later by V.V. Tsaplin, in Kruglyi stol zhurnala, Sovetskie arkhivy,
1990, no. 1, p. 12; quoted in Grimsted, Intellectual Access, Preface. Zhitomirskaia
translated my essay, but it was never published in Russian.
P.K. Grimsted, Archives and Manuscript Repositories in the USSR: Moscow and Leningrad
(Princeton nj, 1972). I could not acknowledge Zhitomirskaias brave assistance with
my directory.
g ri ms t ed A r ch i v a l R e v o l u ti o n a nd Inte lle c tu al Ac c e s s
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7
8
10
11
K.I. Rudelson and N.V. Brzhostovskaia in Voprosy istorii, 1973, no. 10.
P.K. Grimsted, Archives and Manuscript Repositories in the ussr: Moscow and Leningrad.
Supplement 1: Bibliographical Addenda (Leiden, 1976); together with Archives and
Manuscript Collections in the ussr: Finding Aids on Microfiche. Series 1: Moscow and
Leningrad (Zug, 1976); updated electronic version: (Leiden, idc website, 2001).
See my first two reports: New us-ussr Archival Commission, aaass Newsletter
27, no. 3 (May 1987), p 6, 9-10; and u.s.-ussr Archival Commission Update, aaass
Newsletter 28, no. 5 (November 1988), pp. 13-14.
Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, A Handbook for Archival Research in the ussr (Washington
dc, 1989).
The Commission owed much to irex Deputy Director Wesley A Fisher, who served
as Secretary. My project benefited from generous support and encouragement
3 56
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
abb
Specially developed for the Russian project, ArcheoBiblioBase as a computerized database was born in 1990 at Harvard University, although the collection of data started much earlier.12 Developed amidst the euphoria of glasnost
and perestroika, even before the collapse of the ussr in December 1991, in
conception and content abb grew out of my directories of Soviet archives
starting in the mid-1960s and the contacts developed in that process.13
In contrast to earlier Soviet days, when archivists could never invite me
home, by 1990 in Moscow already the period of glasnost I became friends
with a new generation of historian-archivists bent on archival reform. A
group I came to know had just made an historic visit to the Netherlands
on their maiden voyage abroad. There they got a first glimpse of Western
archives, as guests of the Royal Association of Archivists in the Netherlands.
From this group, Vladimir Kozlov became director of what was then the former Central Party Archive, today the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political
History (rgaspi).14 Sergei Mironenko took over what became the State
Archive of the Russian Federation (ga rf), combining the former Central
State Archives of the October Revolution and Socialist Development of both
the ussr and the rsfsr. Vitalii Afiani was then assigned to the deputy post
in what had been the Politburo Archive, now rgani, and today he heads the
archival system of the Academy of Sciences. Toasts to mir i druzhba continued in Russian kitchens with a new sense of irony as well as euphoria,
as they joined the revolutionary western partnerships, cooperative foreign
publication projects such as the vast Hoover Project for microfilms of
Communist Party records or the Annals of Communism series undertaken by Yale University Press, which in 2013 culminated in the Stalin Digital
Archive.15
12
13
14
15
from irex since its 1968 foundation, and starting in the early 1970s was funded by
a series of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (neh) with
matching funds from several other sources.
The Macintosh database in acius 4th Dimension for abb was initially developed
by programmers at Harvard, from my office at the Ukrainian Research Institute,
where I had been a Research Associate since its beginning in 1974, as well as an
Associate of the Russian Research Center, now the Davis Center for Russian and
Eurasian Studies. Renewed funding for my Soviet archival directory project came
from neh.
See bibliography of P.K. Grimsted writings on Russian archives at the
ArcheoBiblioBase website.
See V.P. Kozlovs privately published memoirs, Bog sokhranial arkhivy Rossii
(Cheliabinsk, 2009).
See <http://www.eastview.com/Files/EVStalinDigitalArchive.pdf>.
g ri ms t ed A r ch i v a l R e v o l u ti o n a nd Inte lle c tu al Ac c e s s
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irex
Fortunately, given the Glavarkhiv rejection of joint efforts in my archival
directory project, irex had also arranged for my participation in the official
us-Soviet exchange program of the American Council of Learned Societies
(acls) with the Academy of Sciences of the ussr. Vladimir Kozlov, fresh from
his trip to the Netherlands, was then Scientific Secretary of the Division of
History, and his boss, Academician and Professor G.N. Sevastianov, was
also President of the newly organized Society of Archivists of the ussr.
Following the Glavarkhiv rejection of the proposed computerized directory,
the Academy initiative and enthusiastic reception in Moscow led to a formal agreement between irex and the Academy Division of History. Moscowbased operations for abb, with computers furnished by irex, started in the
spring of 1991. Initially we were housed in the State Public Historical Library
(gpib), thanks to encouragement of gpib director Mikhail D. Afanasev, who
remains to this day a strong abb advisor. The opening of Soviet archives was
accompanied by expanded public reference facilities and hence intellectual
access.16 ArcheoBiblioBase became the computerized reference system that
could keep track of all the changes of names and directors, together with
reference publications, leading researchers to wider access to the record of
the Soviet and Russian imperial past.
As I recall, it was the early 1990s when I first became associated with Jaap
Kloosterman, who was already spending considerable time in Moscow, trying to assure the preservation of important library collections whose survival might be endangered as a result of the new revolution. One of my own
archival revelations was of special interest for Jaap and iish. News about the
secret repositories of trophy art in 1990 led to front-page headline news
in the West in 1991, followed by revelations about an estimated twelve million trophy books transferred to the ussr after the Second World War.17
Already in early 1990 came the revelations about the captured German archives still held in the hitherto top-secret Special (Osobyi) Archive.18 Later
that year in another Moscow archive, I discovered a file with Soviet security chief Lavrentii Berias personal orders for seizure in May 1945 of French
intelligence and national security archives from a remote Gestapo/Abwehr
counter-intelligence center in a Czech village. My Russian archival friends
16
17
18
See my series of articles in the American Archivist (1989-1993), and a 1990 iccees
Harrogate presentation in Solanus, 5 (1991), pp. 177-198. Some of the text below
is drawn from my 2000 Bad Godesberg conference presentation Archives in
the Former Soviet Union Ten Years After: Between Law and Politics; OR, Still
Caught between Political Crossfire and Economic Crisis, in Stefan Creuzberger,
Rainer Lindner (eds), Russische Archive und Geschichtswissenschaft: RechtsgrundlagenArbeitsbedingungen- Forschungsperspektiven (Frankfurt am Main, 2003), pp. 51-80.
See P.K. Grimsted, Tracing Trophy Books in Russia, Solanus, 19 (2005), pp. 131-145.
Ella Maksimova, Piat dnei v Osobom arkhive, Izvestiia, nos. 49-53 (18-22 February
1990), based on interviews with tsgoa sssr director Anatolii Prokopenko.
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
did not believe my story, nor could French archival colleagues in Paris confirm. I turned to a Russian investigatory journalist friend, Evgenii Kuzmin,
who had done such fine detective work about the millions of trophy books
left to rot in the abandoned church outside of Moscow.19 Only a year later,
in October 1991, after suppression of the August coup, could he publish his
interview with me in Literaturnaia gazeta, revealing what turned out to be
seven linear kilometers of French records in Moscow.20 A week later, Osobyi
Archive director Anatolii Prokopenko confirmed the findings of the wellknown archival spy Grimsted in an interview entitled Archives of French
Spies Concealed on Leningrad Highway. He admitted the existence as well
of captured archives from almost every country in Europe.21
Soviet trophy archives were of particular interest to Jaap Kloosterman
because it turned out among them were many long-lost iish holdings seized
by the Nazis from the iish Paris Branch headed by the Menshevik exile
Boris Nikolaevsky, whose legendary name is today honored in memorial
seminar rooms in both Moscow and Amsterdam. My first iish seminar in
Amsterdam about the captured archives in Moscow also featured leaders of
the Dutch Womens Archive, who were in tears of joy when they learned
that the Special Archive also held many of their long-lost archival treasures
seized during German occupation.22
Meanwhile, from its gpib base, ArcheoBiblioBase had already produced
brief directory data for the 1991 irex Orientation for the final group of outgoing scholars under Soviet exchange agreements. But abb could not continue to expand to its optimal goals without endorsement of the new official
Committee for Archival Affairs of the Russian Federation (Roskomarkhiv),
then headed by Rudolf G. Pikhoia, replacing the Soviet-era Glavarkhiv.23
19
20
21
22
23
Evgenii Kuzmin, Taina tserkvi v Uzkom, Literaturnaia gazeta, no. 38 (5365) (18
September 1990), p. 10; English edn.: The Mystery of the Church in Uzkoe, Literary
Gazette International, 1990, no. 16 (October, no. 2), p. 20.
Evgenii Kuzmin, Vyvezti unichtozhit spriatat L. Beriia: Sudby
trofeinykh arkhivov (interview with Patricia K. Grimsted), Literaturnaia gazeta, no.
39 (5365) (2 October 1991), p. 13. Kuzmin later headed the Library Department of
the Ministry of Culture, and considerably assisted ArcheoBiblioBase.
Ella Maksimova, Arkhivy Frantsuzskoi razvedki skryvali na Leningradskom shosse
(interview with Anatolii Prokopenko), Izvestiia, no. 240 (9 October 1991).
See P.K. Grimsted, Displaced Archives and Restitution Problems on the Eastern
Front from World War II and its Aftermath, Contemporary European History 6, no.1
(1997), pp. 27-74, updated from Janus (1996) and iisg Research Paper, no. 18 (1995).
See the bibliography of P.K. Grimsted publications on displaced archives and
restitution issues at: <http://socialhistory.org/en/russia-archives-and-restitution/
bibliography>. Electronic texts of many of the P.K. Grimsted publications listed are
available at this website or through hot links.
November 1991-December 1992: Roskomarkhiv [Komitet po delam arkhivov pri
Pravitelstve rf]; December 1992 July 1996: State Archival Service of Russia-Rosarkhiv
[Gosudarstvennaia arkhivnaia sluzhba Rossii]; July 1996-March 2004, Federal Archival
Service of Russia [Federalnaia arkhivnaia sluzhba Rossii]; since March 2004: Federal
Archival Agency of Russia [Federalnoe arkhivnoe agentstvo Rossii].
g ri ms t ed A r ch i v a l R e v o l u ti o n a nd Inte lle c tu al Ac c e s s
|359
irex was able to arrange a new agreement for abb with Roskomarkhiv,
signed symbolically at the opening of the sensational exhibition of
Revelations from Russian Archives at the Library of Congress in June 1992,
during the presidential summit in Washington dc.24
In mid-1992, Vladimir Kozlov became Pikhoias deputy and assumed the
Rosarkhiv editorial role for abb. Our subsidiary agreement continued with
the State Public Historical Library (gpib), but the following year we moved
to larger facilities within the Rosarkhiv complex at Bolshaia Pirogovskaia.
Our principal Russian coordinator was Lada V. Repulo, a talented graduate
student and docent at the Historico-Archival Institute (iai), which by then
had formed the basis for the newly established Russian State University for
the Humanities (rggu).25 St. Petersburg coverage was handled by the Branch
Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (pfa ran), headed by Vladimir
Sobolev, with deputy director Irina Tunkina as our coordinator, while the St.
Petersburg Mayors Office circulated our abb questionnaire.
By summer 1992 we produced an enlarged English-language, Archives
in Russia 1992. A Brief Directory, for irex out-going exchange scholars.26 irex
wisely decided on an easily updated loose-leaf format. The day after our text
was sent to irex in the States, we learned that new directors were appointed for six renamed federal archives; fortunately we were already in e-mail
contact with the Washington office and could send the updated data before
they had printed copies. Even before the ink was dry, another institution
had changed its name, often not knowing how soon its new street address
would be official, or when new street signs or a new plaque for its building
would appear. Still more replacement pages were ready for the special abb
directory edition we presented at the Congress of the International Council
on Archives (ica) in Montreal in September 1992. irex provided travel funds
for Pikhoia and Kozlov, their first participation in an ica world congress, at
a moment when Russian archives were in center stage. I served as their escort and makeshift interpreter. To be sure Jaap Kloosterman was on hand in
Montreal as well.
With most European archival leaders present, Russias trophy archives
and restitution issues were of overriding concern. Our latest abb edition already had an updated entry for the Special Archive (tsgoa sssr), by
24
25
26
See the catalogues: Revelations from the Russian Archives: An Exhibit at the Library of
Congress, June 17-July 16, 1992 (Washington dc, 1992); and Revelations from the Russian
Archives: A Checklist (Washington dc, 1992).
irex funding was augmented by the National Endowment for the Humanities
(neh) and the Smith-Richardson Foundation, among others, and later the Soros
Foundation and iish.
Archives in Russia. 1992: A Brief Directory, Part 1: Moscow and St. Petersburg, 2nd
preliminary English version, P.K. Grimsted, L.V. Repulo, I.V. Tunkina, and V.G.
Zabavskii (comps); M.D. Afanasev, P.K. Grimsted, V.P. Kozlov, and V.S. Sobolev (eds);
Preface by P.K. Grimsted; Forward by V.P. Kozlov (Princeton, September 1992).
3 60
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
then euphemistically renamed the Centre for Preservation of HistoricoDocumentary Collections (tskhidk), including reference to the published list of fonds in the German Division hot off the press in Germany.27
Indicative of commercial interests in those early years, one enterprising
microform vendor proposed microfilming all the fonds in tskhidk, offering
me generous compensation as consultant. But given Russian recalcitrance in
restitution, Pikhoia preferred dealing with the rival firm Chadwick-Healey
and the delegation from the Hoover Institution, who were promoting many
perks for his support of the Hoover Project of microfilming Soviet-period
cp records and their finding aids (opisi). Meanwhile a special ica session
discussed European plans for digitization of the newly opened Comintern
Archive.
Reflecting Rosarkhiv mood in Montreal, Kozlov entitled his Foreword for
our ica edition of Archives in Russia Invitation for Collaboration. I quote the
27
Kai von Jena and Wilhelm Lenz, Die deutschen Bestnde im Sonderarchiv in
Moskau, Der Archivar, 45 (1992, Heft 3), pp. 457-467.
g ri ms t ed A r ch i v a l R e v o l u ti o n a nd Inte lle c tu al Ac c e s s
|36 1
opening indicative of the welcome abb and I had found in Moscow reformist archival circles:
Patricia Kennedy Grimsted and her writings about archives
in Russia and the former ussr have, for a long time, been lessons for Russian archivists. For many years she was actually
the only binding link between Russian archivists and their
foreign colleagues, between Russian archives and their foreign users. She has made a serious contribution to the process of mutual professional enrichment and informational
exchange. The critical spirit of her writings on a number of issues regarding the archives of the former ussr was understood
to a limited extent by some Russian archivists. But for wellknown political reasons, Grimsteds critical views could not
be discussed openly and taken into appropriate consideration.
Now the situation has changed. Very symbolically the directory we are presently offering is, first of all, a real confirmation of
this change, and secondly, it is produced as a result of real collaboration between the former severe critic and those to whom
for many years her critical words were addressed.28
Expounding on the new order for opening Russian archives, Kozlov suggested the main distinguishing feature of the new archival-information
sphere should be the principle of openness and general accessibility to all.
After discussing legal and organizational aspects, he turned to the information or reference aspect and plans for development of an archival information system on three levels. In his words, ArcheoBiblioBase represented,
the most general directory covering the entire range of Russian
archives regardless of their controlling agency[...] The present
directory, or rather its initial part dealing with archives in
Moscow and St. Petersburg, we view as the first and very important most general level of information about Russian archives as
a whole.29
Our Russian colleagues, and especially Kozlov, were equally preoccupied
with Russian archival materials abroad archival Rossica, as known in
Moscow. Emigr archives were long taboo in Soviet days, while they were
the major archival sources available to Western scholars. In the early 1990s
there was explosive interest and many new links to the Russian emigration,
and active attempts to retrieve related archives. iish holdings were of particular importance as the largest collections of Russian revolutionary-related
28
29
3 62
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Internet
From the beginning, Kozlov always insisted that planned abb output should
first appear in Russian, and by 1993, our new resourceful Russian programmer, Iurii Liamin, had completed a Cyrillic utility with automatic transliteration for parallel Russian data files. The WorldWideWeb was still in its
infancy when the Eurasia Foundation supported a crucial workshop in the
30
31
g ri ms t ed A r ch i v a l R e v o l u ti o n a nd Inte lle c tu al Ac c e s s
|36 3
abb Work Station at the Historical Library (gpib), 1993. Left to right: abb programmer
Iurii Liamin, Lada Repulo, Patricia Grimsted, and Vladimir Zabavskii. Collection of the
author.
United States for our abb programmers and coordinators from Russia and
Ukraine to become acquainted with American Internet developments. That
visit also resulted in our first abb Internet outlet in gopher format on the
website of Yale University, launched in 1995.
A year later at the ica Congress in Beijing in 1996, with added support
from the Soros Foundation and iish, Kozlov (by then head of Rosarkhiv)
and I presented a mock-up of the 1,000-page Russian edition of Arkhivy Rossii.
That comprehensive directory of over 260 archival repositories in Moscow
and St. Petersburg with close to 3,000 bibliographic entries for reference literature, produced with automatic typesetting-ready output from
ArcheoBiblioBase was published in Moscow in 1997.32 Presenting data
about archival materials under all agencies from the still secretive Archive
of the President of the Russian Federation (ap rf) to film studios and factory
museums it provided basic reference for those using traditional state and
cpsu records, medieval manuscripts, and personal papers. The new directory also identified manuscript maps, folk songs, motion pictures, genealogical data, and architectural drawings, to name only a few among the specialized sources covered. Notes about access and working conditions in each
repository augmented researcher orientation, with annotated bibliographic
32
3 64
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
33
The gpib website and free public assistance was established during 1996 under
sponsorship of irex with usia funding.
34
See P.K. Grimsted, Russian Archival Directory Published in Moscow and Launched
on the Internet, in irex International Alumni Forum, 1 (1997, no. 2), pp. 14-16.
35 The fsb agreed to be included only after I presented them a copy of Steven A.
Grants Scholars Guide to Washington dc, for Russian, Central Eurasian, and Baltic Studies,
3rd edn revised by William E. Pomeranz (Washington dc, 1994), with printed
coverage of cia resources!
36
P.K. Grimsted, Archives of Russia Five Years After: Purveyors of Sensations or
Shadows Cast out to the Past (Amsterdam, 1997, IISG Research Paper,
no. 26, at: http://socialhistory.org/en/publications/archives-russia-fiveyears-after; revised edn: Archives of Russia Seven Years After (Washington
g ri ms t ed A r ch i v a l R e v o l u ti o n a nd Inte lle c tu al Ac c e s s
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Access
Thanks to our printed abb directory, was there really more widespread public access to a reformed archival information system for Russian archives?
In many ways, I regret having to answer negatively, even more so because
I personally shared the euphoria of fall 1991 and 1992 with my Russian archival colleagues and the satisfaction of completing that 1997 volume with
them. At most, it was only in limited circles.
First was the problem of publicity and lack of serious peer reviews,
although our directory rated more than many. A front-page notice appeared in Izvestiia, followed by a write-up in the Rosarkhiv archival journal,
Otechestvennye arkhivy, and at the end of the year in Knizhnoe obozrenie, by a
specialist at Moscow State University (mgu).37 However, the only serious review appeared in Poland, as far as we know.38 Neither Rosarkhiv nor the
publisher had any mechanism for publicity or distribution of review copies.
Second, more basically, we were a foreign-funded operation, not a basic component in the Rosarkhiv federal budget; our staff were not on the
Rosarkhiv payroll. What is striking is that, with few exceptions, every major
guide, shortlist of fonds, and more detailed finding aid for Russian archives
issued since 1991 has depended on foreign subsidy for publication, and in
many cases on a further foreign subsidy for preparation of the text or microform. However, for ArcheoBiblioBase, actually produced collaboratively in
Russia, there was no Rosarkhiv infrastructure to take over and assure continuity of our revolutionary information system. After our 1995 experimental Internet outlet at Yale University, Kozlov had insisted we could not continue English Internet coverage without a Russian equivalent. After launch
of our Russian Internet coverage on the Historical Library (gpib) server,
Rosarkhiv promised upkeep of abb, but never followed through. We and our
foreign sponsors had hoped that ArcheoBiblioBase would open a new era
of intellectual access within Russia. But was abb really a high priority for
Rosarkhiv? And if so, were they prepared to assist in keeping that opening
current? They were willing to house the abb workstation with our special
staff, as long as we had outside funding to cover costs, but there was even
discussion that we should pay rent and electricity costs.
Third, and in some ways even more important, distribution of our directory within Russia was extremely limited. Even for such a well-subsidized
37
38
3 66
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
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40
Just before our publication, Pikhoia had been forced to resign, and the Hoover
Project essentially curtailed, having earlier aroused similar criticism from the same
Russian nationalist source.
41 The us Embassy discovered a secret regulation had been issued regarding
computer searches, but it was rarely enforced for departing foreigners. klm agents
kindly let me use my ticket to Amsterdam from the day before.
42
Sharpe did acknowledge copyright of the earlier Russian edition by Rosarkhiv.
3 68
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
43
44
45
Janet Hartley in Slavonic and East European Review, 79 (2001) no. 3, p. 524. See also
Ingo Kolasa in Zeitschrift fr Bibliothekswesen und Bibliographie, 47 (2000) H. 5, pp. 512516. Choice chose it one of the top 100 reference books of the year.
See http://socialhistory.org/en/news/patricia-grimsted-honoured. I was particularly
gratified that Jaap Kloosterman came all the way to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for
the ceremony.
Rosarkhiv came under the Ministry as a subordinate Agency in 2004.
g ri ms t ed A r ch i v a l R e v o l u ti o n a nd Inte lle c tu al Ac c e s s
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46
P.K. Grimsted, Archives and Manuscript Repositories in the ussr: Ukraine, and Moldavia
(Princeton, 1988). See also Grimsted, Biblioteka-Arkhiv: Shliakh do intehruvannia
(Avtomatyzovannyi dostup do arkhivno informatsi dlia Rosi), Ukrainy ta inshykh
nezalezhnykh derzhav kolyshnoho Soiuzu, Bibliotechnyi visnyk (Kyiv), 1994, no.5-6,
pp.26-29.
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
and I pleaded with Rosarkhiv to continue collaboration and expand our bilingual database, which he proposed could be transformed to an Internet
system that would put Rosarkhiv far ahead in the international archival
reference world for the twenty-first century. But again, Rosarkhiv refused;
close collaboration such as we had enjoyed in the 1990s was no longer the
order of the day.
The Soros Foundation, which had done so much to expand Russian archival reference publications, including abb, was offering support and a subsidy for the official Russian archival website Arkhivy Rossii, launched in
the spring of 2001. They offered Rosarkhiv funding for an English version
as well, but Rosarkhiv preferred to use available funds to retranslate the by
then expanded English abb data files back into Russian. Presumably with
remaining Soros funds, a Russian-language html version of selected abb
data files became part of the new Rosarkhiv official website. Initially the
website offering covered only the fourteen Rosarkhiv-administered federal
archives; they even retained our abb bibliographic numbers for reference
publications listed, but rarely did they update the files with newer issues.
Rosarkhiv leadership again rejected the iish offer to develop a bilingual
web-based Content Management System that could make more extensive archival directory information available on the Internet.
As the Internet gained more favour, some Russian archival leaders considered making the abb database a commercial operation, as had been done
with the subscription-based digital version of the Comintern Archive and
now the Stalin Digital Archive. I was approached by several commercial vendors in Russia and abroad. But fortunately for researchers, the principle of
free public information won out, as was necessitated by the requirements
of our abb funding sources, including the National Endowment for the
Humanities and the Soros Foundation.
Then unfortunately in November 2003, the Soros Foundation was thrown
out of Moscow. By that time, even the collaboration that had produced our
published directories and nascent Internet websites became more suspect,
produced as they were with a foreign director and support from abroad.47 By
2004 Rosarkhiv was under control of the Ministry of Culture, but the political orientation of the Ministry had changed dramatically. There were no further suggestions of federal subsidy for an updated Russian printed edition,
or an Internet equivalent to the cms English abb being developed by iish in
Amsterdam. Finally, by 2005, we were asked to vacate our work area in the
Rosarkhiv building.
47
Soros offices shut down in Moscow, 7 November 2003 the bbc gave frontpage coverage when At least 30 men stormed the offices and seized computers
and documents in the raid of the Open Society Institute in Moscow, founded by
George Soros at news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/Europe/3251281.stm. The osi, established
in Moscow in 1995, was responsible for funding extensive archival reference
publications, among its other activities.
g ri ms t ed A r ch i v a l R e v o l u ti o n a nd Inte lle c tu al Ac c e s s
|371
A New Database for abb at iish, Amsterdam. Left to right: Natalia Maslova, Gordan
Cupac (iish programmer), Marien van der Heijden, and Patricia Grimsted. Collection of
the author.
Not withstanding the Russian refusal of collaboration on a bilingual basis during the early years of the new century, thanks to Jaap Kloosterman,
the English-language abb website continued to develop and operate out of
Amsterdam with a workstation within a Rosarkhiv compound until 2005,
and continuing cooperation from gpib. By mid-decade, Jaap found funding
and a talented programmer, Gordan Cupac, in Amsterdam to develop the
sophisticated web-based Content Management System that now supports
abb. Our extensive English-language abb database was launched on the iish
website, with iish still subsidizing upkeep in Moscow by abb coordinator
Natalia Maslova. Under Jaaps guidance, iish did much in those years to encourage preservation of the archives and libraries in Russia, while also keeping reference access to the archives of the would-be workers state on the
international platform of the WorldWideWeb.
Quite ironically, the Amsterdam abb website is still more extensive and
often more up-to-date than the Russian-language coverage on the official
Rosarkhiv website. Some of that Rosarkhiv Russian-language directory coverage still remains a retranslation from our 2000 English-language data files.
A few other archives outside of the federal system also benefit from our abb
directory: for example, one major archive under the Russian Academy of
Sciences even displayed a scanned image of the abb 1997 printed Russian
coverage of their repository on their own website. That ironic situation,
although a compliment to abb, does not quite seem appropriate for the
Russian Federation in the twenty-first century.
3 7 2
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Although Rosarkhiv has yet to provide comprehensive directory coverage of Russian archives on their website, they have made notable reference developments over the past two decades to open intellectual access to
the fourteen federal archives under their immediate control. For example,
Putevoditeli po arkhivam Rossii (Guide to Archives of Russia) a database
now on the Rosarkhiv Internet portal has brought together digitized data
from many recent guides to numerous federal and regional state archives,
albeit thanks to initial American government funding from the Department
of Education through a grant to the University of Kansas. Unfortunately the
American developers were not aware of abb, and did not link their helpful database to abb with its basic directory, bibliographic, and contact data
that might give users a better orientation. Besides, so far that database still
does not even cover all of the federal and regional state archives, let alone
the hundreds of repositories covered in abb under agencies other than
Rosarkhiv.48
The Rosarkhiv website also now displays a database of its Central
Catalogue of Fonds, listing record groups held in federal and state archives.
Today some federal and local state archives display on their own websites
their own registers of fonds, and some even the internal finding aids (opisi)
listing files within individual fonds. Indeed, it is a real achievement of the
archival revolution to find such facilities on the Internet and have access
on line to the many of the opisi that foreigners were never permitted to examine in reading rooms. But how can researchers, and especially foreigners, know what opisi they might need for what fonds, if they cannot start
with basic directory and bibliographic-level coverage of all archives and determine the current names and addresses of the archives most relevant for
their research?
Recent Developments
When in 2010 with Kozlov retired and a new Rosarkhiv head, we had hopes
and even strong encouragement from friends at court that Rosarkhiv might
again welcome abb back as an integral part of its expanded Internet portal.
But in the course of negotiations, it became apparent, that was only wishful
thinking. abb and its foreign developers were still foreign appendages to
the Russian archival scene, and Kozlovs Invitation for Collaboration had
been withdrawn. Rosarkhiv seemed to have turned its back on his 1992 vision of ArcheoBiblioBase as the first and very important most general level
of information about Russian archives as a whole.
Whereas forty years ago, my directory of Soviet archives in Moscow and
Leningrad could only be published in English abroad, twenty years ago we
were able to launch a collaborative bilingual directory in Russia itself, albeit
with generous foreign subsidy. But today, Western foundations, such as the
48
g ri ms t ed A r ch i v a l R e v o l u ti o n a nd Inte lle c tu al Ac c e s s
|373
374
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Cheers to Jaap
Kloosterman with a
bottle of Putinka vodka.
Collection of the author.
g ri ms t ed A r ch i v a l R e v o l u ti o n a nd Inte lle c tu al Ac c e s s
|375
tion about the entire range of Russian archives regardless of their controlling agency.49
The dramatic Russian archival revolution of the post-Soviet era has produced new impetus for reference and documentary publications as well as
historical, economic, social and cultural analysis never dreamed possible in
Soviet days. The declassification of archives and production of reference materials over the past quarter century has been truly impressive. But without
continuing directory-level intellectual access, access to all the newly available archival resources, including increasing digitized collections on the
Internet, will remain less than optimal. We must encourage Russian archivists committed to safeguarding and researchers committed to using those
resources in Russia to plead for better public support for the archives, with
further declassification and subsidy of improved, more user friendly information systems. Only then will researchers at home and abroad know more
about the primary sources relating to Russias troubled past and multifaceted culture as prologue to what we hope will be a more open society of the
future.
49
For the historical profession the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 opened
up what can perhaps best be described as a historiographic frontier.
Practically overnight sources became available to write and rewrite the history of a major empire: kilometers of archives to be dealt with by a historical discipline which was ill-equipped to take on this gargantuan task.
To start with, previously existing secrecy rules and access restrictions prevented historians from having a clear understanding of the bureaucratic
procedures, information flows, and administrative practices that had produced the mountains of paper now suddenly accessible to researchers after
the Archival Revolution of the early 1990s.1 In some cases detailed inventories and finding aids provided well-marked access routes, but large swathes
of archival material, particularly for the lower ranks in the state bureaucracy, and for decades such as the 1930s, when there was a great deal of flux,
were ordered and described in a much cruder and untraceable way.2
For a first stock-taking of the impact of the archival revolution, cf. Andrea Graziosi,
The New Soviet Archival Sources. Hypotheses for a critical assessment, Cahiers du
Monde russe, 40:1-2 (January-June 1999), pp. 13-64.
Based on personal experience in archival research in the mid- and late 1990s for my
k es sl e r S o u r ce s f o r W r i ti ng the Hi s tory of Ru s s i a
|377
What complicated exploration of these archives was that the crisis of the
Russian state in the early post-Soviet years severely disrupted adequate financing of science and research. This had a doubly negative effect because
on the one hand it sent salaries plummeting and forced scholars to take extra jobs to make ends meet, while at the same time it dissuaded the younger
generation from entering academic careers after finishing university. Thus,
at a time when major work needed to be done in exploring and coming to
terms with the archival legacy of the Soviet state, the number of historians
ready to take on the job did not increase, indeed probably even declined.
Lack of adequate financing also undermined the functioning of the archival system as such, forcing it to struggle to maintain existing facilities and
conservation standards and throwing up major obstacles to the application
of information technology, the modernization of finding aids, and the digitization of archival holdings. For several years an English-language online
inventory of archives and libraries, the ArcheoBiblioBase, maintained by the
International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, offered the only generally accessible and by far the most comprehensive body of information on
Russian archives and their holdings.3
In light of the difficulties outlined in the paragraphs above, the work that
has been done over the last twenty years in charting, exploring, and using
the newly opened archives is all the more impressive. Russian and foreign
scholars alike have thrown themselves at the opportunity to fill in blank areas, verify established notions, test existing hypotheses, and extract a significant body of new knowledge on a wide variety of topics relating to Russias
recent and less recent past.
Important instruments in this process were source publications, which
became a flourishing genre during the 1990s and remain so now. As a rule,
these source publications had a thematic focus, rather than publishing particular types of documents, or documents from particular holdings. Many
of them served as preludes to monographs on the subject concerned, or
were indeed the by-products of research for such monographic studies, but
a great many also served the primary goal of offering an overview and coming to grips with the variety of material available in the archives.4 Apart
3
4
dissertation on labour migration during the collectivization of the 1930s. Cf. Gijs
Kessler, The Peasant and the Town. Rural-Urban Migration in the Soviet Union,
1929-40 (phd thesis, European University Institute, 2001).
ArcheoBiblioBase, available at: http://www.iisg.nl/abb/; last accessed 24 November
2013.
It would be impossible to even try and present an overview of the main source publications, particularly if one includes publications from the regions as well, but an
important example which served as a source of inspiration to many others was the
series Dokumenty sovetskoi istorii, which took off in 1995 with O.V. Khlevniuk,
et al. (eds), Stalinskoe Politbyuro v 30-e gody. Sbornik dokumentov (Moscow, 1995) and
subsequently went on to publish ten more volumes with rosspen publishing house
in Moscow.
3 7 8
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
The foremost specialist on the terror and the Gulag is Oleg Khlevniuk, cf. O.V.
Khlevniuk, The history of the Gulag : from collectivization to the great terror (New
Haven, ct, 2004); idem, Khoziain. Stalin i utverzhdenie stalinskoi diktatury (Moscow,
2010). Crucial work on collectivisation has been done by the school of peasant
studies founded by the late Victor Petrovich Danilov, notably the multi-volume,
integral publication of secret police reports on the village: A. Berelovich and V.P.
Danilov (eds), Sovetskaia derevnia glazami vchk-ogpu. Dokumenty i materialy v 4 tomakh
(Moscow, 1998-), but also by Andrea Graziosi, Sheila Fitzpatrick and others, cf.
Sheila Fitzpatrick, Stalins Peasants. Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village after
Collectivization (New York, 1994); Andrea Graziosi, The Great Soviet Peasant War.
Bolsheviks and Peasants, 1917-33, Harvard Papers in Ukrainian Studies (Cambridge, ma,
1996); Dann R. Penner, Stalin and the Italianka of 1932-1933 in the Don region,
Cahiers du Monde russe, 39(1-2) (January-June 1998), pp. 27-68. On the Stalinist deportations, cf. Pavel Polian, Against their will: the history and geography of forced migrations
in the ussr (Budapest, 2004).
Archival, library, and museum holdings of Memorial available at: http://www.
memo.ru/s/70.html; last accessed 24 November 2013; Historical-literary association
Vozvrashchenie available at: http://www.vozvraschenie-m.ru/; last accessed at 24
November 2013. The archives of Vozvrashchenie are in part available to researchers on microfilm at the International Institute of Social History, and are currently
being integrally digitized by iish. Available at: http://search.socialhistory.org/
k es sl e r S o u r ce s f o r W r i ti ng the Hi s tory of Ru s s i a
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
the time, and the published data were indeed manipulated to obscure the
location of the labour camps and army units.10 However, the original, uncorrected data are available in the archives at several levels of aggregation, and
ready to be used in research.11
Soviet statistics were not primarily gathered and compiled for propaganda
purposes, but to supply policy-making bodies with as accurate information
as possible on the processes they were expected to steer and direct. But did
they? One of the accusations often levelled at Soviet statistics is that they
were produced by a system with a built-in incentive to inflate figures reported upwards in order to boast better performance and avoid sanctions for not
meeting the plan. Although this was a tendency which obviously existed, it
is important to realize, however, that the scope of distortion was also limited by the fact that the authorities were perfectly aware of this problem and
operated an intricate number of checks and balances to reduce the problem and secure as accurate a flow of information as possible. Recent archival-based research by Mark Harrison has demonstrated the eventual scope
of such falsification from below to have been quite limited in practice.12
There is therefore no intrinsic need to be more distrustful of Soviet statistics than of statistics procured from any archive anywhere else in the world,
provided universally accepted standards of source critique are applied when
using them.
Changing Attitudes
The example of statistical data is illustrative of a gradual change in the attitudes how scholars have approached the archives since their opening up
in the early 1990s. Initially, the tendency was to focus on the revelations the
archives had to offer, but gradually research questions and hypotheses again
came to the fore in archival work, which by the end of the decade started
to result in a steady trickle of monographs on an ever-widening range of
subjects. Twenty years after the archival revolution, the historiography of
Russia and the Soviet Union differs in no fundamental respect from that of
other countries historians regularly turn to archival data when required to
find answers to their research questions.
Research questions have, however, been dominated almost exclusively by
a national perspective in the sense that the history of the country is essentially approached as a case in itself, rather than a case within a wider, com-
10
11
12
Iu.A. Poliakov (ed.), Vsesoiuznaia perepis naseleniia 1939 goda: Osnovnye itogi (Moscow,
1992), pp. 4-10.
Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv ekonomiki (rgae), f. 1562 (Tsentralnoe statistischeskoe upravlenie sssr), op. 336, part 1 (Biuro vsesoiuznoi perepisi naseleniia
1926, 1939 g.).
Mark Harrison, Forging Success: Soviet Managers and Accounting Fraud, 1943 to
1962, Journal of Comparative Economics, 39:1 (2011), pp. 43-64.
k es sl e r S o u r ce s f o r W r i ti ng the Hi s tory of Ru s s i a
|38 1
Global Comparisons
The significance of the Russian case in global comparisons has several dimensions. The first dimension is Russias particular social, economic, and
political development relative to other parts of Europe, as well as many other parts of the world. Its autocracy, the reintroduction of serfdom, and its
subsequent late abolition, its high land to labour ratios, and of course its
twentieth-century experience of non-capitalist development all make it attractive for comparative purposes. It may be noted that this appeal of Russia
as a contrasting case can, somewhat paradoxically, strengthen perspectives which focus on the particular rather than the universal in explaining
Russias development.
A second reason why global historians are interested in Russia, although
related to the first, is that it is a country that is perceived as essentially part
3 82
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
14
15
k es sl e r S o u r ce s f o r W r i ti ng the Hi s tory of Ru s s i a
|38 3
standards of classification, such as nace16 (Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community) and hisco17 (Historical international standard classification of occupations), because this will allow
researchers without a background in Russian history to draw direct comparisons with their own data. This opens the way to historians and non-historians alike to benefit from the data, including economists and other social
scientists keen on adding a historical dimension to their analysis.
Second, the Electronic Repository for Russian Historical Statistics offers regional-level data rather than national aggregates for each of the 89 provinces of the modern-day Russian Federation. The background to this choice for
regional data is twofold. A first consideration is that in global history the preferred unit of comparison is the region rather than the country, particularly
where large territorial entities like India, Russia, and China are concerned.
Kenneth Pomeranzs famous study of the causes of the Great Divergence,
the differential development of Europe and Asia since 1500, is based on such
a regional perspective, comparing particular regions of China to others in
Europe, for the simple reason that a comparison on the aggregate level
would largely amount to comparing apples and oranges.18 Indeed, the diversity within such large territorial formations might mean that comparison at
the aggregate level becomes pointless, whereas comparing specific regions,
similar in make-up but differing in other crucial respects, can offer highly
fruitful avenues of research. What is more, such transnational comparisons
and perspectives are more apt when studying processes and developments
not necessarily related to the national context and/or legislation, which is
the case for many aspects of social and economic development.
Even in studies focusing on Russia alone, a regional perspective has much
to offer, given the size of the country and its spread over varied climate and
cultural zones. At the aggregate level this diversity is obscured, but given
the lack of readily available data, all too often research projects simply cannot afford to address the regional variety within the aggregate figures. One
of the best examples of how a lack of attention to regional variation has
tended to distort analysis is the debate about agrarian overpopulation in
the late nineteenth century Russian countryside and its impact on agricultural productivity. It was long believed, following Gerschenkrons classical
argument, that overpopulation resulted in a fragmentation of landholdings
and a constant downward pressure on levels of productivity and rural living standards, but on closer scrutiny this pattern was typical only for the
16
17
18
nace is the acronym for Nomenclature statistique des activites economiques dans
la Communaut Europeenne.
Available at: http://socialhistory.org/nl/projects/hisco-history-work; last accessed 3
October 2013.
Kenneth Pomeranz, The great divergence: China, Europe, and the making of the modern
world economy (Princeton nj, 2000), p. 10.
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Basic Indicators
By making available a grid of basic indicators of social and economic development at the level of individual regions, the aim of the Electronic Repository
for Russian Historical Statistics is to lower the threshold for addressing regional variation in research projects. Projects can rely on the Repository for
the more basic data and supplement this with targeted data mining for the
specific parameters they need to investigate. Also, the basic grid of indicators
available in the repository can offer an effective way of selecting regions with
a specific profile for interregional comparisons. Whether from a national or
a transnational perspective, regional data can be instrumental in obtaining
better answers to more precisely formulated questions.
The data set in the repository consists of five historical cross sections
pegged to the availability of more or less comprehensive population data
from censuses or taxpayers registers at roughly 50-year intervals: 1795, 1858,
1897, 1959, 2002. For each of these five benchmark years of data, the data
gathering program consists of the same uniform grid along five main lines:
Category
Population
Labour
Land
Capital
Output
19
Indicator
size
age/sex
urban/rural
literacy and/or higher education
religion
estate
fertility
mortality
nuptiality
profession
labour relation
employment by sector
source of income
type
ownership
prices
rents
capital assets by branch
investments
interest
arable agriculture by main crops
animal husbandry
industry by branch
services by branch
Peter Gatrell, The Tsarist Economy 1850-1917 (London, 1986), pp. 74, 128-139; Teodor
Shanin, Russia as a Developing Society (London, 1985), p. 143.
k es sl e r S o u r ce s f o r W r i ti ng the Hi s tory of Ru s s i a
|38 5
Of course not all of these data are available for all benchmark years and for
all regions. Some of the indicators are simply not applicable to some of the
cross sections, such as the estate for the twentieth century. Others might in
theory be applicable but in practice non-existent or impossible to come by,
such as the investments and interest rates for earlier benchmark years. But
on the whole the grid of indicators aims to maximize the potential availability of data for all five cross sections and all regions, ensuring maximum
comparability over time and extent.
Data are procured from published and unpublished sources available in
libraries and archives. The sole limitations are that the data set should be
available in Moscow or St. Petersburg repositories and should cover at least
the majority, and preferably all of Russias regions. The reasons for these
limitations are mostly pragmatic and serve to keep the project manageable,
as well as to ensure data for different regions have been gathered as much
as possible according to the same program, and, consequently, contain the
same biases, which is crucial for ensuring comparability.
Data for the benchmark years 1795, 1858, and 1959 have been procured
exclusively, or almost exclusively from archives, for lack of published data,
whereas for 1897 and 2002 publications are the main source. The data set is
accompanied by extensive documentation in both English and Russian, and
contains full information on the sources used, the corrections, standardizations, and extrapolations applied, and an assessment of the possible biases
the data may contain. The full data set and documentation is made available
online at the dedicated web address: www.histstat.ru in 2014.
Returning to the ongoing process of (re)writing the history of Russia and
the Soviet Union which started just over twenty years ago, as the Soviet
state collapsed and its archival holdings were opened up to the public it is
to be expected that the use of Russian data in international comparative research will also contribute to our understanding of the history of an important country in its own right. Especially on crucial aspects where not much
more than the barest of outlines is currently known. For optimal results in
comparative global history, national and transnational perspectives ought
to supplement each other.
|38 7
Congress of the People of the East, Baku, September 1920. Baku, 1920. Collection IISH.
The course of this entire Congress has been well documented in written proceedings. However, the existence of a documentary film recording both the
congress proceedings and the scenes from beyond the confines of the congress has been overlooked. The film covers the journey by the Cominterns
leaders from Moscow to Baku, the sabotage launched by the counterrevolutionaries to halt the missions travel, celebrations in the streets of
Baku, featuring the delegates diverse and colourful cultures, the presence
of women, veiled as well as unveiled, among the delegates, and even the
individual initiative to support unveiling women.
In 1990, while at the archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism in Baku,
conducting our joint research project on the history of the Comintern, we
found a reference dated 1920 to a documentary film on the Congress proceedings. Our further enquiries led to the Azerbaijan State Archive of Film
and Photo. We were astonished to discover film reels from this recording
there. We screened the film in Baku first and were then granted permission
to make a copy of the film for the International Institute of Social History
(iish). This marked the start of a partnership between the iish and a research and archival institution in the former Soviet South. In Amsterdam,
such an association not only became part of the iish collecting profile but
was also strongly encouraged by Jaap Kloosterman, then the director of the
institute. Although Jaap had been committed to extending the research and
collecting activities of the Institute to include West Asia, Iran, and Turkey
since the 1980s, this film of the Baku Congress of the People of the East led
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
the Soviet South to be added to the list of areas receiving institutional support from Jaap during the years that followed.
In December 1920, three months after the First Congress of the People of
the East, all documents of the congress were deposited at the newly founded
Central State Archive. Nariman Narimanov, the chairman of the newly established supreme state body (the Revolutionary Committee of Azerbaijan)
ratified a decree proclaiming the establishment of the Central State
Archive under the administration of the National Education Commissariat.
According to the new decree, the Central State Archive was responsible
for collecting and preserving all documents originating from all government departments and public organizations that existed in the past in the
territory of Azerbaijan. The new decree also called on all citizens of the
Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic to urgently return all documents of a
variety of state and public enterprises still in their possession to the Central
State Archive. Furthermore, state and public organizations had no right to
destroy any file, correspondence or a separate document without the written permission of the Central State Archive. The State Publishing House
was instructed to provide three copies of all locally published printed materials, as well as all publications received from Soviet Russia (books, brochures, magazines, journals, newspapers, leaflets, posters, orders etc.) to the
Central State Archive. The Central State Archive of the Azerbaijan Soviet
Socialist Republic, the first in the Soviet South thus came into being in
January 1921.1
|38 9
For studies on the Comintern in the Caucasus and neighbouring countries see:
Solmaz Rustamova-Towhidi, Kominternin arg Siyasati va Iran, 1919-1943 (Baku, 2001);
Touraj Atabaki, The Comintern, the Soviet Union and the Labour Militancy in
Interwar Iran, in Stephanie Cronin (ed.), Iranian-Russian Encounters. Empires and
Revolutions since 1800 (London, 2012), pp. 298-323. Touraj Atabaki, Incommodious
Hosts, Invidious Guests. The Life and Times of Iranian Revolutionaries in the Soviet
Union: (1921-1939), in Stephanie Cronin, Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran:
New Perspectives on the Iranian Left (London, 2004), pp. 147-165.
Azerbaycan Respublikas Dvl t Arxivl ri (Republic of Azerbaijan State Archives) (Baku,
2003), pp. 7-11.
e
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Workers who participated in the 1905 Revolution. Baku, 1925. Collection IISH.
the years that followed the state opened additional archival institutions: the
Archive of Film and Photo (1943), the Archive of Literature and Art (1966),
the Sound Recording Archive (1968), and the Archive of Science, Technical
and Medical Documents (1969).
After the fall of the Soviet Union and with the emergence of the new sovereign states, the constructing of a shared memory and writing national history evolved into a persuasive political project in each republic. The main
role of national history in this project was to refashion a significant and unbroken link with each nations real or imagined past and present. This new
mission restored the initial purpose of the institution of national archives,
though within the new nation-state context.4 In the Republic of Azerbaijan,
the Central Archive Office was renamed the National Archive and was entrusted with recovering and recording the countrys past and the national
perception of the countrys sovereignty.5
Today, six state archives operate in the Republic of Azerbaijan. These are
the National Archive, the Archive of Political Documents, formerly known
as the Archive of the Marxist-Leninist Institute, the State Archive of History,
the State Archive of Film and Photo, the State Archive of Sound Documents,
The same consideration led to the establishment of the new national museums in
the former Soviet Republics, which have replaced the celebrated Museums of the
October Revolution that existed in each republic during the Soviet era.
Azerbaycan Respublikas Dvl t Arxivl ri, p. 9.
e
|39 1
and the State Archive of Literature and Art. The aim of this essay is to explore the past and present of two of these state archives, which for the past
twenty years have worked closely with the International Institute of Social
History: the State Archive of History and the Archive of the Marxist-Leninist
Institute (now the Archive of Political Documents).
7
8
Of the 756 funds and 244,367 files in this archive, a considerable share concerns
the history of political, economic, and cultural life during the Tsarist Empire
colonial period (1805-1920).
M.E. Fakus, The Industrialisation of Russia. 1700-1914 (London, 1972), pp. 44-46; pp.
64-66.
In the city of Baku, for example, the population grew as a result of the oil boom
from 13,000 in 1859 to 112,000 in 1879 and to 300,000 in 1917, while the workforce
in the oil fields increased from 1800 in 1872 to 30,000 in 1907. Bakunun Tarixine dair
Senedler, 1810-1917 (Documents on the History of Baku, 1810-1917) (Baku, 1978), p. 13,
pp. 29-30.
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
no one could envisage that within a few decades it would turn into the empires cornucopia.
At such an accelerated pace of economic growth, not only the labour-intensive industries did face serious labour scarcities, but the growing agricultural lands and industries, such as tea plantations, were affected by the
same labour shortage. Consequently, local inhabitants were joined by hundreds of thousands of Iranian, Russians, Armenians, and Daghistanis who
migrated to oilfields, mining areas, and other industrial or agricultural sectors. Studying the living and working conditions among these labour migrants adds new chapters to nineteenth-century global labour history and
enhances our understanding of the Tsarist Empires colonial practice.9
The Archive of History holds a wide range of documents of particular importance for studying the social history of the oil industry in this region.
These documents cover oil extraction and processing, transportation and
transmission, construction of oil pipelines and oil refineries, working and
living conditions, the struggle by workers for better living and working conditions, as well as records from labour organizations. The Archive of History
also holds noteworthy records of migrant workers in the Baku oil industry.
The well-recorded documents in this archive on the ethnic, gender, and age
9
|39 3
3 94
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
parties the Musavat, Ittihad, and Hummat, as well as the Baku branch of
the Russian Social Democrat Workers Party (Mensheviks), the local party
organizations of Socialist-Revolutionaries (sr), the Armenian nationalist
Dashnaksutyun party, and the Social Democratic Hunchakian Party, the
Jewish Social Democrat Party Poale Zion, the Jewish Bund, the Cadets, the
Anarchist parties, and the Social-Democrat Party of Iran, are all collected at
this State Archive. An additional collection of documents relating to the social history of the Russian Revolutions of February and October 1917 is here
as well.
During its early years of operation, in addition to tracing and documenting the past of the Bolsheviks and non-Bolsheviks in the Caucasus, the task
of the Azistpart included collecting documents on local opposition to the
Soviet power, primarily the nationalist movement in Azerbaijan, Armenia,
and Georgia in the period 1918-1920. The Azistpart preserved all documents
deriving from the Government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, as
well as the stenographic records of its Parliament (1918-1920) and the archives of its ministries. This collection contained correspondence between
the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and the neighbouring countries Iran,
Turkey, Georgia, and Armenia, as well as accounts of the involvement of the
Azerbaijani Delegation in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.
Pursuant to the Comintern assignment guideline, the Azistpart also collected the records of major labour and anti-colonial movements in West
Asia and neighbouring countries. In addition, the Azistpart complemented
the archive of the First Congress of the People of the East. The First World
War and the ensuing developments had sweeping consequences for both
Iran and Turkey. In both countries the nationalist movement intended to
establish a modern central state on the remains of the Ottoman Empire
in Turkey and in opposition to the resilient provincial movements in
Iran, where the Socialist Republic of Iran was proclaimed (1920-1921). The
Azistpart collected documents related to these movements and episodes, as
well as the records of the Communist Parties in both countries.
In 1928 the Azistpart was renamed the Institute of the Study of Class
Struggle of the Azerbaijan Communist Party and a year later was again renamed, becoming the Azerbaijan Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the
Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Communist Party. Additional name
changes during the years that followed included the Marx-Engels-Lenin
Institute and the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin Institute. In 1956, the institute became the Azerbaijan branch of the Marxism-Leninism Institute under the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union, retaining this designation until the
fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Following the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the MarxismLeninism Institute ceased to operate independently and became the
Azerbaijan Republic State Archive of Political Parties and Social Movements,
affiliated with the Central Archive Office. This reorganizing and renaming of the institute continued. By 2009 it was called the Archive of Political
|39 5
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Republic. In the 1920s and 30s many employees of the archive perished, all
charged with foreign espionage and criminal associations with the nationalist, national communist, or Trotskyist network, in addition to
consulting these archives.10
Currently, the Archive of Political Documents with its large library of
reference books and periodicals and an archive of 4,979 funds comprising
over 1,215,000 files is considered to be the largest archive in the Republic
of Azerbaijan. Its extended library holds not only all major books and periodicals published under the Soviet regime in the Caucasus but all those
throughout the Soviet Union as well.
Postscript
The twentieth century has gone down in history as the century of the rise
and fall of Soviet communism. For many historians, studying the social and
political history of seventy years of Soviet government resembles a voyage
to a mysterious island that few explorers have visited. Among the many reasons for such hesitation, there is undoubtedly the question of the existence
and availability of archival sources. How much of the Soviet social and political past has been recorded, and how much is accessible? While in 1991 no
straightforward answer was available to any of these questions, now, more
than twenty years since the fall of the Soviet Union, there is at least an explicit answer to the first question. The Soviet Union kept records of virtually
every trace of its practices, which is exceptional, even compared to many
countries that cherish their past and claim to record it in a continuous register. Historians note with astonishment that in the Soviet era, every act of
state and society in the union was documented, down to registering the details of the very dark practices of Stalinist purges. This procedure often puzzles Soviet historians and analysts. Disregarding whether such documentations was accessible during the Soviet period, the question remains: what
led the Soviet authorities to archive their past so consistently?
The fall of the Soviet Union seriously interfered with this practice. Not all
who inherited the fallen empire, especially those privileged to be associated
with the new ruling elites, were happy to confront their immediate past.
After the early years of the post-Soviet era, when in some former Soviet
republics historians were granted partial access to the Soviet archives, by
early 2000 access to some archives was once again restricted, but a covert
10
Among those employed at the archive who were executed as victims of the purge
was Ahmad Ahmadov, a young Azerbaijani Bolshevik and early Communist Party
celebrity, who was arrested and executed in 1928. The purges of 1937-38 claimed
the lives of many other archive staff, including the archives directors and a
group of established Marxist historians: Mahmoud Agayev, B.N. Tixomirov,Ismail
Eminbayli,Rahim Hasanov, Ruhollah Akhundov, Vali Khuluflu, Biukaga
Talibli,Hussein Mamadov, Baba Asgarov, and many others. See: Zia Bunyadov,
Kirmizi Terror (Red Terror) (Baku, 1993), pp. 80-87, 101-114, 128-136.
|39 7
Workers of a workshop associated to the Baku oil industry. Baku, 1924. Collection IISH.
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Caucuses, Everyday Stalinism in the Caucasus, the Comintern and the East,
the Fall of the Soviet Union Remembered (an oral history project conducted
in Azerbaijan, examining how the fall of the Soviet Union was remembered
ten years after the collapse of the Soviet Union by elites and non-elites
alike). In 2003, following a proposal submitted by the International Institute
of Social History to the Ministry of National Security of the Republic of
Azerbaijan, a joint conference was organized in Baku on the Stalinist repressions of the 1937-1938. The immediate outcome of such a unique initiative of
cooperating with a security institute in one of the former Soviet republics
was that the partial restriction on access was lifted for the Soviet Peoples
Commissariat for Internal Affairs nkvd archive. Utilizing the nkvd collections significantly broadened our understanding of everyday repression in
the 1930s.
The mutual cooperation between the International Institute of Social
History and the archives in Georgia and Azerbaijan has been conducive to
organizing several joint research projects, exchanging archives, and initiating international conferences.11 Social history of labour in the Caucasus and
everyday Stalinism in the Caucasus were the themes of these conferences
held in Baku, Tehran, Istanbul, and Tbilisi. The partnerships between Baku
and Amsterdam have enabled scholars from both places to access their mutual archives and to host joint research projects that have extended their
research beyond national frontiers.
11
A few of the publications that resulted from this partnership are: Touraj
Atabaki, Svetlana Ravandi-Fadai and Solmaz Rustamova-Towhidi, Fallen for Their
Faith: From Comrades to Enemies of the People. The Iranian Revolutionaries in the Land
of the Soviets (Forthcoming); Solmaz Rustamova-Towhidi, Baku: March 1918 (Baku,
2009); Touraj Atabaki (ed.), The State and the Subaltern. Society and Politics in Turkey
and Iran (London, 2007); Touraj Atabaki, The Comintern, the Soviet Union and
the Labour Militancy in Interwar Iran, in Cronin, Iranian-Russian Encounters;
Touraj Atabaki, Incommodious Hosts, Invidious Guests. The life and Times of
Iranian Revolutionaries in the Soviet Union (1921-1939), in Cronin, Reformers and
Revolutionaries in Modern Iran; Solmaz Rustamova-Towhidi, The First Congress of
the Peoples of the East: Aims, Tasks and Results, in Mikhail Narinsky and Jrgen
Rojahn (eds), Centre and Periphery. The History of the Comintern in the Light of New
Documents (Amsterdam, 1996).
IV
THE IISH
goes global
Over the past quarter century, the Institute has evolved into the largest and
most successful institution collecting materials on modern Turkish history
outside Turkey. How this came about is a fascinating story, of which only
the highlights may be described here. Still, the achievement is important
for understanding one of the most important acquisitions from recent
years, as will be discussed below in more detail.
Before 1987, Turkey was nowhere to be found in the annual reports of
the Institute. Nevertheless, the Institute had reached an agreement the previous year with the Turkish political refugee Orhan Silier (born in 1946 in
Malatya and fled following the military coup of 1980) to purchase his collection on Turkish social and labour movements since World War II and to
undertake all kinds of research and collection projects. As the working relationship became increasingly tense, Silier resigned in 1989. His collection
remained at the IISH, as did his assistant Mehmet Bilgen.
From 1990 to 1999, Erik-Jan Zrcher, a specialist in late Ottoman political and social history, was responsible for the Turkish collections and for
scholarly research in this field.1 He worked closely with assistants in Turkey
1
zd o a n L o n g J o u r ne y of the DH KP Arc hi v e
|401
and with Herman van Renselaar, who was posted at the Dutch embassy in
Ankara. At the iish, besides Mehmet Bilgen, Erhan Tuskan had by then been
recruited to perform archival inventories. In April 1996 I started working at
the Institute as well. Within a few years, in addition to research and acquisitions, cataloguing got under way.2
Meanwhile, Zrcher continued to be assigned additional duties at Leiden
University, leading him to resign from the iish in 1999.3 I subsequently became responsible for the Turkish acquisitions. The collections had by then
expanded considerably, both the ones consisting of books and periodicals,
and the archives and audiovisual materials. Jewels in the crown included
the Kemal Slker papers, the archives of the Communist Party of Turkey
(tkp) and of one of its leaders Hikmet Kivilcimli, and the archives of the
htib, an important organization of Turkish migrant workers in Europe, including the Netherlands.
Turkish Collection
The Turkish collection presently comprises 25,000 books and brochures,
4,000 titles of periodicals, a great many audiovisual materials, including 2,000 posters, plus 40 collections of archives and documentation. The
Kurdish collection comprises 3,000 books and brochures, 500 titles of periodicals, a few collections of archives and documentation, a great many posters, photographs, videos, cds featuring battle songs, audiotapes, and textile
items.4
Over the past fifteen years, I have acquired quite a few archival collections, as well as printed matter. The most important one among them in
my view is that of Dev-Sol/dhkp/c (the Revolutionary Left / Revolutionary
Peoples Liberation Front). This collection consists of 7 metres of arranged
materials and about 5 metres of materials that have yet to be arranged,
including many library materials, such as books, brochures, hundreds of
pamphlets, and audiovisual materials, such as posters, video cassettes, photographs, and objects, such as chains, necklaces, and textiles.5 Below I describe how complicated acquiring this material turned out to be.
2
3
For details, see the annual bulletin zler Traces, published by the Institute from
1992 to 1997 in English.
From January 1994 he held an iish-sponsored part-time chair in modern history
of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey at the University of Amsterdam and was
appointed full professor of Turkish Studies at Leiden University in 1997 and
associate dean of the Arts Faculty there in 1999.
For additional information, see the iish Annual Reports, the English-language
brochure Turkeys Red Flank (Amsterdam, 2007), and especially the annual newsletter Sosyal Tarih (Social History), published in Turkish 2001-2009 (illustrated and
published in colour from 2005 onward).
As stressed in Turkeys Red Flank (2007), a considerable number of iish collections
not classified as Turkish archives nevertheless contains important material on
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Prisons
During that first visit, I noticed extremely interesting materials on the large
table in the centre of the room: journals, satirical newspapers, brochures,
drawings, poems, and, surprisingly, miscellaneous items, such as chains,
small figures, and the like, all handmade. I could not believe my eyes! How
was this possible? Who had made this? Where did it all come from? What
was this material doing here in Amsterdam, at this office, lying on this
table?
A female comrade explained that these items came from their comrades
languishing in Turkish prisons. Her answer made me still more curious, and
I thought it would be wonderful, if this material were transferred to the
iish. I could not help asking: What do you plan to do with all this? She
replied: We intend to digitize the material. I told her that this would need
to happen quickly, since the police might raid the premises at any time. She
agreed with me and added that far more material was present in an adja-
zd o a n L o n g J o u r ne y of the DH KP Arc hi v e
|403
cent storage area. She opened it to show me, revealing a magnificent selection, all neatly inventoried and recorded on lists.
While doing this, she told me about the prisoners who had made these
items.
They include dozens of dhkp/c militants in various prisons
throughout Turkey. The regulations of the Ministry of Justice stipulate that prisoners in solitary confinement may spend only ten
hours a week together; the rest of the time they are in deep solitude in their cells. But the regulations are not properly applied by
the prison administrators, as social contact hours for the prisoners are reduced or cancelled altogether for no reason at all.
Revolts among prisoners are commonplace, both because of this situation
and to enforce other rights. The revolt in 2000 was the most massive: hundreds of political prisoners in 20 prisons simultaneously demanded better
and more humane conditions. Dozens staged hunger strikes that lasted very
long indeed. Many nearly starved to death, and some even perished from exhaustion. Daily news about the prisoners on hunger strikes drew a lot of at-
40 4
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
tention in Turkey and abroad. A special police force was ordered by the government to intervene. This action was given the ironic code name Return
to life! Still, 32 prisoners did not return there but were killed at random
by the police, while 200 prisoners were injured. The others were sent into
solitary confinement in F-type prisons, which are prisons built according to
eu standards.
What can you do, when you are stuck in a tiny cell measuring only a few
square yards? Reading and writing, nothing else. They also had a limited
allotment of books (they were allowed to receive no more than 10 at once)
and therefore had a lot of time on their hands. So they wrote articles and
poems, made drawings and satirical papers, and devised objects, most with
some political connotation.
Political prisoners have a tremendous need to speak out. To avoid a complete loss of morale inside your cell, you need to stay busy to keep your
spirits up. Writing, drawing, and creating objects were the only options.
Of course this requires materials, such as paper, various pens, and fabric.
These were supplied by comrades outside, who snuck them in through various channels. And the output needed to be smuggled back out, which was
how all these materials ended up on that table in Amsterdam. Outside it
was obviously not safe either, as the police relentlessly hunted down the
remaining dhkp/c members. So they decided to smuggle the materials to
Brussels, where the information desk of the organization is based. The ultimate destination along this one-way journey of the material turned out
to be a side street off Ceintuurbaan in Amsterdam, followed by a semi-legal
office in Amsterdam North.
The woman who told me all about this ran the information desk. I stayed
in touch with her for quite a while afterwards, until she was arrested in
Brussels. Her alias was Nermin (only much later, when she trusted me, did
I learn her real name). She was a very tough woman, maintained a strict
regimen, was not very streetwise but was highly disciplined and politically
completely devoted to her party. Whenever we met, she would spend half
an hour venting propaganda about how bad and unfair capitalism was,
and how the Turkish state was oppressing her comrades. I listened attentively to her speech, as if I did not already know that. I never told her that
I used to be a member of the Workers Party of Turkey (tp) and then joined
the Communist Party of Turkey (tkp), and that I had studied Marxism in
Moscow.7
Over time, I convinced her that the material was no longer safe at the
office, and that transferring it to the iish would be wiser. She was worried
that this would mean giving it up permanently. I explained that granting it
as a standing loan was an option. The date that the archive would be opened
to the public was determined after lengthy negotiations. Understandably,
the dhkp/c was reluctant to open the material to the public quickly. Jaap
7
zd o a n L o n g J o u r ne y of the DH KP Arc hi v e
|405
Kloosterman allowed the importance of preserving it to prevail; he understood the issues this organization faced. Following extensive deliberations,
the archive is now available for consultation, subject to consent from the
dhkp/c. For security reasons, no deadline has been set (yet) for when the
archive needs to be opened. At first, two authorized persons were supposed
to sign, but this arrangement soon proved insufficient for them. So another
person joined them and then still another. We raised no objection to this
circuitous procedure, because we realized beforehand how difficult working
with such a group would be, and our main concern was to get the material
to safety quickly.
At my request the archive department gave this archive priority, and it
has been arranged very nicely. Mehmet Bilgen was responsible for this project.8 I was elated about this outcome. Transportation of the material was
arranged by iish staff member Ed Kool. We had announced in our bulletin
published in Turkish, Sosyal Tarih (Social History), that the dhkp/c archive had
been entrusted to the iish. Sosyal Tarih had a circulation of 1,500 and was
sent mainly to addresses in Turkey, such as universities, libraries, human
rights institutions, and the like. Months later, I received a letter from a prisoner in solitary confinement in Turkey. The following is an excerpt from
this letter:
Dear Zlfikar zdoan, When I received your magazine (Sosyal
Tarih) through the ventilation duct of my cell, I was amazed.
I had never imagined that the materials we made would ever
be collected by an international institution such as yours. It
brought tears of joy to my eyes. Thank you so much for your
efforts to preserve our materials. Your magazine has travelled
a long way, passing through the ventilation ducts in all cells.
Everyone is now aware of the destiny of the material that he or
she made. I have been incarcerated for 8 years and have been
charged with being a member of tkp/ml (Communist Party of
Turkey /Marxist-Leninist). In Europe you must find it impossible
to understand how anybody can spend 8 years in solitary without having been convicted. The legal proceedings will certainly
take a very long time, and I do not know when I might be released. If I am ever released, though, I would like your institute
to preserve the materials I have gathered. R. Aydn, Tekirda
F-Type Prison. 9
I sent him a reply, but our contact ended there, with no information at all
from his end. My hunch is that he never received my last letter from the
8
9
40 6
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
prison administration. I was aware that incoming and outgoing post for the
prisoners was heavily censored and for that reason was very cautious in my
wording to avoid getting him in any trouble. Perhaps the administration
simply objected to prisoners maintaining foreign correspondence. I do not
expect I will ever know what really happened. I later published one of his
letters anonymously in Sosyal Tarih, 2008.
Recently
One day I received a call from a comrade at the Information desk for
Freedom. The man sounded rather tense. He reported: The police raided
our offices. We rescued our archive materials by sneaking them out the back
door and loading them into a minivan. Comrade Nermin said that you could
help us store the materials. Can you do that? Of course I agreed immediately, and we brought the archive materials over here together. Thinking
back, I still wonder, what would have happened, if we had been unable to
rescue that material?
The story of the dhkp/c archive still haunts me. I still think about this
group, because the militant members remain in solitary confinement and
continue to produce materials that reach Amsterdam via various channels. After comrade Nermin left the Netherlands, however, I had a hard
time staying in contact with the people who took over. The people who replaced Nermin were inexperienced and did not understand what our work
was about. Communication was strained between us. I urgently requested
an appointment with the new leader A. to discuss everything clearly in private. A. took over following the death in the Netherlands of Dursun Karata,
who was the founder and leader of the movement. After a few unsuccessful attempts, I finally managed to schedule an appointment with him for
February 2013. I planned to tell him how important it was to provide regular
accruals to the archive, and that designating a comrade to act as a permanent liaison was essential. I also hoped to make firm commitments about
the audiovisual materials.
But then fate intervened. On 1 February 2013 in Ankara there was a suicide attack on the u.s. Embassy. One policeman was killed, and a journalist
was injured. According to the Turkish media, the leader of dhkp/c ordered
the attack. That was A., who was living in the Netherlands. That news was
immediately broadcast by the Dutch media, and A. had to go into hiding for
his own protection. Our appointment never took place.
Working closely with Jaap, I have brought in far more archive collections
over the years, and each collection has a story behind it. After ten years of
intensive joint efforts, we have, if I may say so, assembled a lovely Turkish
and Kurdish collection for the iish. When I joined the iish in 1996, I had
only a very general awareness of social history. After three years as an assistant at both the archive department and the Turkey department, I replaced
zd o a n L o n g J o u r ne y of the DH KP Arc hi v e
|407
Erik-Jan Zrcher as the person in charge of the Turkish and Kurdish collections from. Since no special training was available for this area of expertise,
I had to learn what I needed to know on the job. Jaap has provided me with
wonderful guidance.
Introduction
This contribution is based on my experience as an archivist and collector
of documents of the Middle Eastern communist and left-wing movements.
I became attached to the iish after I had written my phd in 1995. My doctoral thesis focused on the liberal and left-wing movements in the period
1945-1958,1 and I was very glad to become part of the iish as it allowed me
to continue to pursue my interests. I did not realize that we had already acquired our biggest addition even before my appointment. The Henri Curiel
archives, or the Groupe de Rome (Rome Group in the iish archives),2 had already been acquired through my Egyptian connection Rifat al-Said in 1994.
Henri Curiel, born 1914, had been one of the most fascinating and controversial figures in the communist movement in the Middle East. He was assassinated in 1978.3
1
2
3
My doctoral thesis was later published as The Quest for Modernity: Secular Liberal and
Left-Wing Political Thought in Egypt, 1945-1958 (London, 2002).
The Egyptian Communists in Exile (Rome Group) Collection, http://search.
socialhistory.org/Record/ARCH01722/Description; last accessed 2 June 2014.
Gilles Perrault, Un Homme Part: Qui tait Henri Curiel? (Paris, 1984).
|409
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Selma Botman, The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-70 (New York, 1988).
Rifat al-Said, Tarikh Munazzamat al-Yasariyya al-Misriyya, 1940-1950 (History of
Egyptian Left-Wing Movements, 1940-1950) (Cairo, 1976).
|41 1
Arabic. I also had my first taste of Egyptian infighting. When Mubarak succeeded the assassinated Sadat in 1981, Egypt went through a liberal period
in which there was an upsurge in interest by Egyptians in their own history.
Vehement debates took place between intellectuals about where and how
things had gone wrong in the past. One of the controversies concerned the
communist movement and especially the role of the Jews in the movement.
This aspect of the communist movement became even more problematic
when the Islamist movement expanded in the 1970s and 1980s. The Jewish
presence impaired the authentic (nationalist) character of the communists, who were tarnished with the foreign, or even worse, Zionist brush.
The Soviet recognition of Israel in 1948 affected the movement even in the
1980s. In search of authenticity (asala) and the masses, some left-wing intellectuals went over to the Islamist movement, entertaining the romantic
idea that Egypt had to find its roots again if it wanted to become strong. In
this climate of re-evaluation of the past, Curiel was singled out as the evil
genius who had prevented a fusion of social reform with an Islamic identity,
thwarting the true revolution from coming about and allowing the military
to take over in 1952.
The collection of the Group de Rome consists mostly of the documents of
the group after they were exiled, first to Rome and later to Paris. The most
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
|41 3
send me Arabic newspapers clippings, or pass on rumors about the iish and
its plot to squirrel away crucial documents of the communist movement.
Only after years of persistent trips to Egypt I was able to obtain the originals of another remarkable movement: the Workers Vanguard. In contrast
to Curiels group, in the 1940s it decided to limit the number of intellectuals
and concentrate its recruitment among workers. Although the number of
documents was very small, they are worth their weight in gold, metaphorically speaking. Among them are the last collection of original pamphlets
the Workers Vanguard had issued during the student-workers movement in
1945-1946. I remember having to travel to a depressing high rise building in
a Paris banlieu to receive them personally from one of its leaders, Abu Sayf
Yusuf, an incredibly dedicated and kind man, whom I enjoyed visiting when
I was in Cairo. I made a highly detailed inventory of the collection, describing each pamphlet separately.13
Over the next years every now and then we obtained other collections of
the Egyptian communists, mainly from outside Egypt. For instance, we obtained documents on Michel Kamel, who was a well-known Egyptian intellectual of the 1960s and 1970s and lived in Paris. His collection also contains
documents related to the unification of the Egyptian communist party in
1973.14 We also obtained the collections of letters and documents of one of
the remarkable Egyptian intellectuals Ahmad Abdalla, who became famous
as a student leader in 1973 in the resistance against president Sadat. The
documents are mostly concerned with his activities in Great Britain from
1980-1983.15 The archives of the Egyptian left also include the very interesting collection of Bertus Hendriks, one of the most well-known Dutch Middle
East journalists, who started out writing a phd on the Egyptian Tajammu
Party, which he never finished because of his passion for following the latest political developments. Having finally given up on this project, he donated his remarkable collection of pamphlets, booklets, and programs of the
main leftist party from the end of the 1970s to the beginning of the 1990s
to the iish.16 Rifat al-Said later stored with the iish minutes of the trials
against communists in Egypt between 1951 and 1958.17 In between, we received a collection of the Egyptian Communist Party containing inner documents, among them minutes of secret meetings of the Central Committee,
in the period between 1980 and 1995. We received this collection through
13
14
15
16
17
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
|41 5
his garden shed for the past five years. He could not understand why the
party had taken so long to donate the collection and preserve it in a professional archive. He explained to us that it was neither money nor neglect of
the real value of the documents, but simply a different way of looking at
documents that explains why it took so long for the cps to donate them to
the iish.
Once in Amsterdam the collection proved to be extremely interesting.
Mohammad, who made the inventory, was amazed to find documentation
on the so-called failed communist coup dtat in 1971, minutes giving in detail the reasons for the party line he himself had had to follow when he had
been student. In short, the whole inventory took much longer than planned
because Mohammad read most of the documentation from cover to cover.
In the end several other parts were added to the collection,22 but the hope
we would receive the main chunk of archives in the Comintern archives in
Moscow was never fulfilled. The Sudanese archives would also attract some
attention from researchers on the Sudan, as they were the only collections
available for research. Also, the widow of the leader of the cps, Abd al-Khaliq Mahjub, who was hanged 1971 by the Sudanese regime, visited the iish
several times and was impressed with the Institute.
As so often happens, one case led us to another. A friend was working on
a phd on Mahmud Taha, the founder and leader of the Republican Brothers,
who was hanged when he was 88 by president Numeiri in 1985. Over the
years we acquired most of the booklets written by the Republican Brothers.
Several visits by the daughter helped to expand the collection. Another collection belonged to the National Democratic Alliance,23 the coalition of forces against the government of the National Islamic Front when it took power
in the Sudan in 1989, with the help of the army.
Books
In the entire period I was at the iish, we collected an impressive number of
Arabic books on the communist movement in the Middle East and on Arabic
history. Since the main interest in the communist movement was beginning
to ebb, a last attempt to collect pamphlets and digital information of more
modern movements such as the Kifaya movement against the re-election of
Mubarak in 2004 proved to be a failure. As always, it was extremely difficult
to find people who were willing to collect material systematically for a long
period on a regular basis. In the end this was unfortunate, because the iish
missed documents from the Arab Spring, as one of the persons I contacted
was at the forefront of the revolt in Egypt.
22
23
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Over the past few years I focused more on social movements, including
the Islamist movement. I never tried to collect any documents, because
our earlier communist concentration prohibited any suggestion of preserving material of the Muslim Brotherhood. But purchasing Arab books
and booklets with documents is often sufficient to get a collection started.
During a trip to Jordan in 2006, I purchased almost all the books available
on the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, and on a trip to Lebanon in 2009, I
acquired the complete works (from the 1950s until his death a few years
later of Fathi Yakan (d. 2009), the most important leader of the Lebanese
Muslim Brotherhood over the past 40 years. I also went to Great Britain to
collect Salafi literature that had been translated form Arabic to English. This
was an amazing trip that took me to mosques and a religious bookshop in
Manchester, Birmingham, and London, where I encountered a new world of
religious activity. Although the trip proved fruitful, the material was a bit
too outlandish for the iish, so it became a secular archive. I left the iish in
2008 to work at Clingendael.
Conclusion
I believe the iish has done an excellent job in collecting documents and secondary literature on the Middle East with the limited means at its disposal
(I had only a small budget for travel and acquiring books). I am especially
grateful to Jaap Kloosterman for giving me the opportunity to work in this
way, which I believe proved very efficient. When I was in the Middle East,
I was able to contact people and purchase the necessary books, maintaining and updating the Middle East collection on specific topics, and allowing enough room to acquire larger collections of documents when necessary. Though low key and not very ambitious, it was a good way to function.
Working at the iish was always a pleasure; one of the few places where people understood that patience is an art and success is not instantaneous.
sa i ch co l l e c ti ng u nd e r u nc e rtai nty
|41 9
of Democracy blocking his view. The Goddess of Democracy was the students last throw of the dice, erected by the students, dressed in her white
robes of plaster and styrofoam, holding the torch of freedom under the old
mans nose as if taunting him to respond.
Almost twenty-five years on, are the demonstrations still relevant
and what value does a collection of materials sitting in an archive on
Cruquiusweg have? Collecting in a time of uncertainty always carries the
danger that what looks important at the time might seem irrelevant later
or that the wrong kinds of materials have been collected. However, much
as the leadership of the ccp has tried to banish the events from historical
memory, its historical legacy remains and, while reassessment seems far
away, it could still form part of a reconciliation between state and society.
The spontaneous demonstrations were unprecedented in the history of the
Peoples Republic of China (prc). They revealed a high level of dissatisfaction with the reform program that had been initiated in the late-1970s and
exposed deep divisions within the leadership about the future trajectory
of the revolution. Below, we recap briefly the events before turning to the
question of the collection itself.
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tions, a challenge that was increased by the founding of the Beijing Workers
Autonomous Federation in mid-May. The idea that students and workers
could form horizontal linkages of their own that cut across traditional vertical hierarchies was anathema to orthodox party leaders.
The denunciation of official corruption gave the movement the flavor
of a moral crusade that drew many Beijing residents to its support. The
launch of a hunger strike on 13 May heightened further this moral image.
However, as the movement grew and different groups began to emerge, it
became clear that the student leaders had little capacity to control or direct
the movement and there was no effective mechanism for negotiation with
the ccp. This situation was made even worse by the incoherent and divisive
response of the party leaders themselves. The response to the movement
exposed deep divisions within the party elite, divisions that had to be resolved before the student-led movement could be dealt with. The General
Secretary, Zhao Ziyang, was seen as more sympathetic to a peaceful resolution to the demonstrations and had strived to moderate the harsh rhetoric. However, he was marginalized and martial law was invoked on 20 May.
From that day, Zhao remained under house arrest until his death in 2005
and his smuggled out memoirs portrayed the violent suppression as a serious mistake for which the party should apologize.2 By contrast, his more
orthodox opponents saw the establishment of autonomous organizations as
a fundamental challenge to party rule and were unwilling to accept any political agenda that was not set by the party itself. This shut out any potential
for compromise and the result was the tragic clearing of the Square during
the night of 3-4 June.
Subsequently, the partys response has been three-fold. First, control the
message. Initially, the party-controlled media was saturated with its side of
the story about the rebellion and how it had been put-down by the heroic
soldiers of the pla to safeguard the interests of the Chinese state and society. Outside of Beijing, this propaganda seemed to have an effect. In a world
without internet and social media, citizens had little access to alternative information. In 1991, I remember vividly visiting relatives in a medium-sized
town in Central China and being taken aback by their view of events. They
were considered to be the citys liberals, yet in a discussion over dinner
they mentioned the turmoil in Beijing and its suppression. The choice of
words surprised me as no ordinary citizen in Beijing used this phrase but
referred simply 4 June or the Beijing massacre. When I asked them
how they knew it was turmoil and a counter-revolutionary incident, they
simply replied that it was true because they had seen it on Central Chinese
Television news!
Second, its the economy stupid! After three-years, Deng Xiaoping was
able to win the economic policy debate and launch a new round of econom2
For the English language version see Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier
Zhao Ziyang (New York, 2009), edited by Adi Ignatius.
sa i ch co l l e c ti ng u nd e r u nc e rtai nty
|421
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Language publication, The Ordinary and the Extraordinary.3 For myself, I arrived after the movement had begun on a trip for the Institute to discuss
our collaborations with the Translation Bureau for the Collected Works of
Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin of the Central Committee. And to conduct
research at the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought of
the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. At the time, the Director of the
Institute, Professor Su Shaozhi, was a well-respected critic of policy and became a strong supporter of the student-led movement. This support led to
his exile from China shortly after 4 June, when he left on a flight to Finland
on a list of Dutch students returning home (another story that remains to
be told).
Both Frank and I decided to collect materials as best we could with no
real plan about what to do with them. We collected materials from multiple
sides of the unfolding drama, including whatever pamphlets we could from
the students and the official responses of the party and government. I was
fortunate that Chinese friends gave me many materials, including photos of
the aftermath of the entry of the troops in the West side of the city and photos of most, if not all, of the posters that were put up at Peking University
at the democracy triangle. This became a key spot for discussion and dissemination of information. The modes of communication immediately revealed two different worlds that had emerged as a part of the reform. The
partys propagandistic response showed how out of touch it was with the
world that its policies was creating. It mobilized traditional media, a topdown approach and the use of archaic rhetoric to attack the students. While
loudspeakers around the Square blasted out traditional propaganda messages, the students on the Square formed horizontal linkages that cut across
the traditional hierarchical forms of communication. They also made use of
new technology: the fax machine! At their headquarters on the Square they
received faxed information from their supporters around the city as well
as faxes from overseas that feed back information on what was happening
and what was being said about the movement. The information was then
sent across the city through their networks, often using the private Flying
Tigers Motor Brigade. These networks also enabled them to keep abreast
of troop movements once martial law was declared. The bbc correspondent, James Miles, became a local hero as they replayed his Chinese language
reporting. One way to get access to the inner sanctum on the Square, as
the students began to adopt the same hierarchical organization as that they
Frank Pieke, The Ordinary and the Extraordinary: An Anthropological Study of Chinese
Reform and the 1989 Peoples Movement (London and New York, 1996). Under the
pseudonym of Frank Niming he also published Op het scherp van de snede: achtergronden en ontwikkeling van de volksbeweging in China, Beijing voorjaar 1989 (On the knifes
edge: backgrounds and development of the peoples movement in China, Beijing
Spring 1989) (Kampen, 1990).
sa i ch co l l e c ti ng u nd e r u nc e rtai nty
|423
were struggling against, was to claim to be a friend of Mai Jiesi (his Chinese
name) and invisible doors would open.
On returning to the Netherlands and having managed to get a significant
amount of original materials back, we had to decide whether the plan to
set up an archive could be realized. There was also the realization that we
were not the only people who had thought about this idea, although we
were the only ones in the Netherlands. Having worked for some time at the
iish on the Sneevliet Archive, I was aware that this kind of material was the
lifeblood of such an institution. As a result, with the support of Eric Fischer,
then the Director of the iish, funding was granted from the Dutch Ministry
of Education and Science (hw/oiub 836.720, 22 August 1989). This funding
launched a collaboration between the iish and the Sinological Institute,
Leiden University for the project to build the archive for the Chinese
Peoples Movement, Spring 1989. The project was led by Frank Pieke and
the concrete work of building the archive was planned and executed under
his guidance. Fons Lamboo was employed to help with the compiling and
cataloging.
The first task was how to systematize the eclectic collection that had been
brought together through the grab whatever you can approach of Pieke and
Saich in Beijing and the donations of friends and colleagues. By this time,
other collections were being set up such as that at the British library, primarily based on the personal collection of Robin Munro. It was clear that
not everything could be collected, nor did it make sense for everything to be
collected. This applied especially to the readily available newspaper reporting and television footage. Pieke decided to concentrate on the materials
that had become available in the Netherlands and other European countries
and then to use these as a basis for exchange with materials collected elsewhere. For example, an active exchange was set up with Ms. Nancy Hearst,
the Librarian of the Fairbank Center Library, Harvard University. Given that
we had both been based in Beijing, the geographic focus was there. This was
justifiable as the movement began and ended there and it was the spiritual
home. It should be remembered, however, that significant movements developed in many other cities such as Shanghai, Nanjing and Changsha. By
contrast, we know relatively less about events in these other cities.4
Three types of material were collected, with the emphasis placed on categories one and two. These were: a) pamphlets, wall-posters, unofficial publications and slogans written by participants; b) photographic and audio materials; and c) diaries and media coverage. Some 1,000 pieces were collected
in total and are inventoried in the following three publications:
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Vincent Mentzel, Tony Saich, Frnk van der Linden e.a., Hemelse Vrede. De Lente
van Peking (Amsterdam, 1989) and Tony Saich (ed.), The Chinese Peoples Movement.
Perspectives on Spring 1989 (Armonk ny, 1990).
The first two memoirs were Li Lu, Moving the Mountain: My Life in China from the
Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square (Basingstoke and New York, 1990) and Shen
Tong, Almost a Revolution: The Story of a Chinese Students Journey from Boyhood to
Leadership in Tiananmen Square (Ann Arbor, 1991). Chai Ling, who was named as the
General Commander on the Square, contributed her memoir much later in 2011,
A Heart for Freedom: The Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, Her Daring Escape, and
Her Quest to Free Chinas Daughters (Illinois, 2011). The most useful documentary collections in English are Han Minzhu (ed.), Cries for Democracy: Writings and Speeches
from the Chinese Democracy Movement (Princeton, 1990); Suzanne Ogden (ed.), Chinas
Search for Democracy: The Student and Mass Movement of 1989 (Armonk ny, 1992); and
Michel Oksenberg, Lawrence R. Sullivan and Marc Lambert (eds.), Beijing Spring 1989:
Confrontation and Conflict: the Basic Documents (Armonk ny, 1990). Two of the more
interesting journalistic accounts are: Phillip J. Cunningham, Tiananmen Moon: Inside
the Chinese Student Uprising of 1989 (Lanham md, 2009) and James Miles, The Legacy of
Tiananmen: China in Disarray (Ann Arbor, 1997). There is also the remarkable documentary made by the Long Bow Group, The Gate of Heavenly Peace, 1995.
sa i ch co l l e c ti ng u nd e r u nc e rtai nty
|425
This is a fair question but I think there are four strong reasons that justify
the existence of the archive. First, having so many original materials kept
in one place in a well ordered archive makes it easy for future researchers
to conduct their work. Including, we hope, those from China. Second, the
holding of original documents or authentic copies is more reliable than
what is printed in books. It allows verification of the printed word where
there may be selection bias or possibly even the editing of documents to
support a particular perspective. Third, as history rolls along research questions and perspectives change. What interested one generation of researchers might not be of interest to subsequent generations and new questions
and perspectives might be explored. Having an archive of original materials held in one place and easily accessible means that the needs of future
researchers can also be served. Last, and certainly not least, the archive
stands as a monument to the heroic but doomed efforts of a young generation of students to open the path to a more democratic and open China. The
archive remains in Amsterdam for the day when Chinese researchers and
citizens are able to look freely at their own history, review historical documents and make their own judgment on what happened and why.
Jaap Kloosterman on the Chinese Wall, with Ineke Mertens and Jrgen Rojahn, 1992.
Photograph by the author.
In 1958 Nepal Nag, a prominent communist in East Pakistan, fell ill. When
it turned out that he had tuberculosis, his comrades arranged for him to
go to a sanatorium in the Soviet Union.1 There he learned about Soviet life
and he killed time by studying Russian and reading books in English.2 He
returned to Dhaka, the capital of East Pakistan (today: Bangladesh) but the
*
I would like to thank Meghna Guhathakurta and Marcel van der Linden for help
in finding source material for this chapter, and Kathinka Sinha Kerkhoff for useful
comments.
Nibedita Nag, Mone Pore unpublished memoirs (Nepal Nag Papers), pp. 103-110;
Ronesh Dasgupto, Biplobi Shathi Nepal Nag, in Nibedita Nag (ed.), Nepal Nag
Smriti Charona (Kolkata, 1996), pp. 20-29, 28. The Communist Party was banned in
Pakistan and Nepal Nag was living an underground life, so travelling on a Pakistani
passport was out of the question; friends in Delhi approached Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru who helped him, his wife and their two children get Indian
passports. Nibedita Nag, Amader Jibon, in Nibedita Nag (ed.), Nepal Nag (Kolkata,
1996), p. 116.
Letter from Nepal Nag in Vasilevskoe to his wife Nibedita Nag, 15 February 1959
(Nepal Nag Papers, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam). He also
describes life in the sanatorium and the enormous popularity of Hindi film stars
such as Raj Kapoor. See also Nibedita Nag, Amader Jibon, p. 116.
|427
Moni Singh, Jibon-Shongram (Dhaka, 1983-1992), 2 vols., II, p. 67; Nibedita Nag,
Amader Jibon, pp. 118-119.
She donated these to the International Institute of Social History (iish),
Amsterdam, in 2000 and 2001. Nepal Nag was born in 1909 and died in 1978.
Donald S. Zagoria, The Sino-Soviet Conflict, 1956-1961 (Princeton nj, 1962), p. 343.
According to one source, Africa sent 4 delegations, the Americas 24, Asia 20,
Europe 28 and Oceania 2. Three delegations were not identified. Documenten van de
conferentie van vertegenwoordigers der communistische en arbeiderspartijen uit 81 landen
been te Moskou, november 1960 (Amsterdam, 1960), p. 4. MacFarquhar states that
the world communist movement consisted of 87 parties at the time. Roderick
MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, Vol. 2, The Great Leap Forward, 19581960 (Oxford, 1983), p. 285.
Nepal Nags Moscow Diary (Nepal Nag Papers); William E. Griffith, The November
1960 Moscow Meeting: A Preliminary Reconstruction, The China Quarterly, 11 (1962),
pp. 38-57.
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A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
The main ideological disagreements were over the evaluation of the role of Joseph
Stalin, peaceful coexistence, the peaceful transition to socialism, and war and
imperialism.
9 Zagoria, The Sino-Soviet Conflict, pp. 343-369; MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural
Revolution, pp. 255-292.
10
Lorenz M. Lthi, The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World (Princeton nj
and Oxford, 2008), see especially pp. 157-193.
11
For views on the 1960 conference from East Pakistan/Bangladesh, see Khoka Ray,
Shongramer Tin Doshok (Dhaka, Bortoman Shomoy, n.d), p. 129; Badruddin Umar, The
Emergence of Bangladesh (Oxford, 2004-2006), 2 vols., II, pp. 74-84.
12
For example, Zagoria, The Sino-Soviet Conflict; Griffith, The November 1960 Moscow
Meeting; MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution; and Lthi, The Sino-Soviet
Split.
|429
Nepal Nag (second from right) with other delegates at the Moscow Conference, 1960.
IISH BG A57/875.
perspectives on it. Nepal Nags observations show that collecting and using
such material may enrich historical accounts of the dynamics of world
communism at the time.
43 0
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
two distant wings) and India. The Communist Party of India was one of
many organizations that were now in a quandary: should it also split in two:
a Pakistani and an Indian party? It decided to remain united, but soon it
was clear that animosity between the newly independent states made this
difficult. In 1948 a conference was held in Calcutta (now: Kolkata) in India to
decide how to proceed. Out of a total of some 900 delegates, 130 came from
Pakistan. A Pakistan Committee was formed within the Communist Party
of India to coordinate activities in Pakistan (today, this is usually regarded
as the beginning of the Pakistan Communist Party). The vast majority of
Pakistani communists lived in East Pakistan, and at the Kolkata conference
Pakistans two wings were very unequally represented. There were 125
delegates from (nearby) East Pakistan and only 5 from West Pakistan (today:
Pakistan). Nepal Nag was one of the leaders from East Pakistan.13
After the Kolkata conference, the members of the Pakistan Committee
could never meet, so the East Pakistan group went ahead and formed
the East Pakistan Communist Party later in 1948.14 Nepal Nag was a
central figure, and he soon became vice-president of the newly founded
East Pakistan Trade Union Federation as well.15 A period of frequent
reorganization of trade union federations followed, but there was little
proper trade union work going on.16 Party membership dwindled.17 Even
so, Nepal Nag emerged as the most influential communist leader among
the working class, and took part in organizing several strikes.18 Soon the
Pakistan government cracked down on the communists and most leaders
were jailed. Nepal Nag escaped imprisonment, went underground and
became the party secretary and main organizer.19 Despite the fact that the
13
Among the others were Moni Singh and Khoka Ray, whose memoirs this chapter
refers to. See Singh, Jibon-Shongram, I, p. 89; Umar, The Emergence of Bangladesh, I, p.
42.
14
Up to 1957 there were no contacts between the communist parties of East and West
Pakistan and it was not until 1967 that a coordinating committee was formed to
exchange experiences. Yet, formally, a Pakistan Communist Party had been created
at the 1948 Kolkata conference; the East Pakistan Communist Party waited until
1968 to declare itself a completely separate organisation. Umar, The Emergence of
Bangladesh, I, pp. 46-50 and II, pp. 130-131.
15 Umar, The Emergence of Bangladesh, I, p. 52.
16
Ibidem, I, p. 54.
17
Shotyendronath (Gokul) Chokroborti, Amader Nepalda, in Nibedita Nag, Nepal
Nag, pp. 37-47, 45.
18 Umar, The Emergence of Bangladesh, I, p. 67.
19
By this time, in order not to stand out in Muslim-majority East Pakistan, he had
shed his Hindu dress and customs, looked and behaved like a Muslim, and called
himself Rohman Saheb. His wife Nibedita adopted the name Rizia Begum.
Nibedita Nag, Mone Pore, p. 83. In these unpublished memoirs she gives detailed
descriptions of the everyday realities of life in the underground with two young
children. See also Chokroborti, Amader Nepalda, p. 45; Kolpotoru Sengupto,
Nepal Nagke Kemon Dekhechi, in: Nibedita Nag, Nepal Nag, p. 67; Nibedita Nag,
Amader Jibon, p. 101.
|431
East Pakistan Communist Party was banned, its leaders tried to keep in
touch with the outside world: Even though we were under a suppressive,
reactionary government, we, leaders of the underground East Pakistan
Communist Party, constantly stayed informed about the decisions of the
international communist movement and we were keen to learn from them.
The party was always loyal to proletarian internationalism.20
But ill feeling about proletarian internationalism was soon felt within
the East Pakistan Communist Party. Eleven out of thirteen leaders followed
the Moscow line, and Nepal Nag was among them.21 The schism between
Beijing and Moscow gradually tore the East Pakistan party apart, and,
despite strenuous attempts to maintain unity, it split in two in 1966.22 The
resulting pro-Moscow and pro-Beijing parties were sharply divided over
policy matters, both locally and internationally; over time they would
give birth to numerous successor parties. Read in this light, the Nepal Nag
papers are of historical interest because they mark a moment of suspense at
the beginning of the splintering of communist thought and organization in
East Pakistan.
43 2
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
25
26
27
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Defining Archives
Archives are generally understood as institutional settings characterized
by two principal features: first, they are repositories where documents are
preserved, transmitted, and organized; second, they are spaces for the constructing, preserving, transmitting, and organizing knowledge. Archives are
a conduit to the past, allowing researchers to prove historical facts or even
to claim certain rights.
The job of an archivist requires both specific knowledge and a large degree of practical skill. A flexible intellectual approach is intrinsic to the
work. An archivist needs to master and interact with multifaceted and
multidisciplinary knowledge. At the same time, archivists need to consider changes in society, politics, culture, and technology. Such developments
may, in fact, have a cumulative effect on an archive collection, as well as on
its organization, formation, preservation, and utilization, and may affect the
direction originally envisaged at its inception. The world changes, as does
the style of writing history, together with the topics and focus of historical
research, as well as the public that accesses archives.
To enhance understanding about potential developments in our perceptions
of how archives should be defined, and the ways they continue to impact con-
|435
temporary society, a congress was convened in Florence in February 2007, entitled Is the Mobile Phone an Archive? Archivists, it experts, historians, and philosophers participated. They concluded that mobile phones were indisputably
far more than oral communication devices. Their widespread use as a typing
interface for writing and as a camera for taking photographs and videos clearly confirms the veracity of that conclusion. Mobile phones have thus become
a repository for images, sounds, and texts. Conceivably, these representations (or annotations of life1) may one day substitute their equivalent paperbased documents, such as, for example, paper prints of photographs.
Given the existing definitions of archive, asserting that a mobile phone
is an archive may seem controversial. Lexical definitions of archives in dictionaries and specialized publications do not reflect such a broad scope.
Meanings and usages of words change over time, however, and a more expansive definition of archives, encompassing technological developments
that do not transform the core purpose of an archive, may surface in future
dictionaries. At the end of the twentieth century, Aleida Assmann wrote:
the digital age will probably give rise to new forms of archival activity and
will archive the very notion of archive.2 Googling the term archive will
retrieve thousands of definitions and utilizations of the term: from title of
reviews to online papers; from individual blogs to company websites that
offer online cataloguing services; from data repositories on biographies to
collections of sports items, news, music, texts, poems, etc. These varied
uses of the word archive coexist with the definitions used by specialists.
Accurately defining what an archive is therefore involves some degree of
approximation.
In this paper, the following definitions of archive have been applied.
1. Materials created or received by a person, family, or organization, public
or private, in the conduct of their affairs and preserved because of the
enduring value contained in the information they contain or as evidence
of the functions and responsibilities of their creator, especially those materials maintained using the principles of provenance, original order, and
collective control; permanent records.
2. The division within an organization responsible for maintaining the organizations records of enduring value.
3. An organization that collects the records of individuals, families, or other
organizations; a collecting archive.
4. The professional discipline of administering such collections and
organizations.
5. The building (or portion thereof) housing archival collections.
6. A published collection of scholarly papers, especially as a periodical.3
43 6
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
|437
7
8
9
10
43 8
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
|439
14
15
440
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
|441
debate is ongoing and will remain so for the foreseeable future, in part because a solution adapts to technological advances over time, and in part because of a general lack of international financial resources.
Conclusions
Over the past few decades, at least in Europe, states, in all their various
manifestations, have significantly cut back on the support that they used
to give archives to ensure the transmission of memory. It is all the more
critical that archivists those who have safeguarded our historical patrimony from time immemorial refute all stereotypical assumptions that they
have become anachronisms in society. Only by remaining abreast of the
developments in the digital revolution will archivists remain preeminent
in preserving archives and continue to provide guidance in setting archive
policy. Contemporary historians should see themselves as allies in this
mission and not as extraneous to it. The real cooperation between archivists
and historians at the IISH, for example, has manifested in the far-reaching
and world-renowned paper and digital archive collection at the Institute.
Enforcing any separation between historians and archivists would be detrimental to their overall objectives.
Archivists should be closely involved in the selection and transmission
of online and digital archives. In contemporary times, historically interesting material may be obtained from high-level and low-level digital sources.
Personal blogs, for example, arguably reveal as much about contemporary
societys realities as do speeches by politicians. In this brave new world a
specialized force of archive collectors should be formed to act as a filter or
conduit for the mass of digital material available. They are the best-placed
professionals to discern which criteria should be applied, envision the overall picture, and adapt to accommodate the proliferation of modern digital
applications. In short, archives and archivists in the contemporary age
must remain fundamental in ensuring the transmission of memory.
I just consider myself a worker, who does his best at the job that life and
vocation have assigned to me. (Gunnar Mendoza, 1985)1
Between 1952 and 1962, Gunnar Mendoza Loza (1914-1994) organized and
systematized two of the most important archival collections in Bolivia, entitled Mine Workers and Mine Resources. The research was made easier
by the search of names, places, topics and years for these collections. A comprehensive new system of cross-references, for an important period spanning almost 300 years (from 1542 to 1825), became available in the National
Archive of Bolivia before the computer age.
Free and short translation of: Yo no me creo otra cosa que un trabajador que trata
de hacer tan concienzudamente como puede la obra que la vida y la vocacin le
han impuesto y no hago ninguna diferencia entre el trabajador manual y el de la
cultura (Gunnar Mendoza, 1985, El Diablo sabes ms por Diablo que por viejo,
in Obras Completas, Vol. V, p. 24). Our main source for this article is the eight-volume
work of Gunnar Mendoza Loza, Obras Completas, published in Sucre, 2005-2006 by
the Fundacin Cultural del Banco Central de Bolivia and the Archivo and Biblioteca
Nacionales de Bolivia. Thanks are due to Judith Tern, from the National Archive
in Sucre for the photographs of Gunnar Mendozas card catalogue and to Alfredo
Ballerstaedt of the Archivo and Biblioteca Nacionales de Bolivia.
b a r r a g a n g u n n a r m e ndoza: a li f e to s h are
|443
Photograph left: The card system of Gunnar Mendoza. Photograph right: The records
on Mine Workers and Mines Resources of Gunnar Mendoza. Photographs taken in the
National Archive of Bolivia by Jess Mendoza, Sucre, August 2012.
Basic description cards measured between 15 and 20 cm and contained the following information: 1. Date, 2. Place, 3. Provenance and Form, 4. Title or Content, 5.
Number of pages, 6. Place in the Archives, 7. Number and Code.
Mendoza, Prefacio a la Gua de Fuentes Virreinales en Hispanoamrica. Gua de
fuentes inditas en el Archivo Nacional de Bolivia para el estudio de la administracin virreinal en el Distrito de la Audiencia de Charas, 1537-1700. Explicaciones
sobre las documentaciones comprendidas en la Gua (1980), in Mendoza, Obras
Completas, Vol. III, pp. 272-273. He wrote that the indexes, presented in general as
some final accessory facilitated retrieving and finding key information (Ibid. p.
235).
los indios son obviamente los protagonistas humanos mximos en estos
recursos documentales sobre la historia social de la minera andina (Mendoza,
1986, Recursos Documentales inditos en el Archivo Nacional de Bolivia en el
rea andina del Distrito de la Audiencia de Charcas, 1548-1826, in Mendoza, Obras
Completas, Vol. III, p. 287).
444
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Gunnar Mendoza in his office in the old building of the National Archive of Bolivia, 1993.
vious in those times. Third, a small team of people without a formal training for work in archives and libraries implemented this sophisticated professional system. They were trained and led by Gunnar Mendoza. Fourth,
the cards were generated on old blank papers recovered from the documents, because insufficient funds were available to purchase new cards.
Gunnar Mendoza is the author of more than 14 volumes of Descriptive
Guides of Different Funds and Collections, comprising more than 7,000 pages and providing over 56,452 points of access.5 He has also edited several
historical manuscripts from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century
and has written a number of books and essays.6
To produce these works, he devoted his life to the National Archive and
Library. As a self-taught researcher who set high standards, he understood
how crucial making the documents accessible was. He stated that the archives were not cemeteries of documents but service centres, and that such
Luis Oporto, Gunnar Mendoza and la construccin de la Archivstica Boliviana (La Paz,
2004), p. 27. Mendoza stated: A guide of archival documents is in fact a computer
to identify, and find documents (Una gua de documentos de archivo es de hecho
una computadora para identificar y localizar documentos). Mendoza, Prefacio
a la Gua de fuentes virreinales en Hispanoamrica (1977), in Mendoza, Obras
Completas, Vol. III, p. 234.
See Gunnar Mendoza, Obras completas I-VIII.
b a r r a g a n g u n n a r m e ndoza: a li f e to s h are
|445
10
446
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13
14
b a r r a g a n g u n n a r m e ndoza: a li f e to s h are
|447
One of their most important activities was editing and publishing another
eighteenth-century manuscript on the history of Potos which took Gunnar
Mendoza and Lewis Hanke nearly a decade to complete.15 In 1959 Mendoza
edited a third manuscript, Relacin general de la Villa Imperial de Potos de Luis
Capoche, which became a classic on the early history of the Potosi mines.
Mendoza was assigned several tasks related to the archives almost immediately. In 1959 he produced an evaluation about the Bolivian collections at
the Library of Congress and made suggestions for their development. Two
years later he wrote a booklet about problems with ordering and describing archival documents in Latin America and a guide about Latin American
Archives. He was also invited that year as co-organizer of the Primer
Seminario Interamericano sobre Archivos in Washington. Last but not least, in
1965, he published Archival Underdevelopment in Latin America, in which
he outlined the main problems and presented possible solutions for over 28
Latin American archival institutions.16
In the 1970s and 1980s he participated in several seminars on archive subjects and led meetings on the organization of archives in Bolivia to prepare
new legislation on archives.
448
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
body was familiar with the complete manuscript. Since the early twentieth
century, several people had tried to publish these writings, including Juan
Pern from Argentina (who noticed the manuscript in Madrid) and the tin
production magnate Mauricio Hochschild at Harvard University, as well as
the Institute of Hispanic Culture in Spain.19
Arzans History was written between 1705 and 1736 and comprises nearly one million words.20 The first section of the manuscript of Madrid had
539 fols, the second section 152; the manuscript at Brown University has
543 fols. In 1967, John L. Phelan reviewed the manuscript. He wrote that the
book was as rich as a mine for social historians today, featuring great detail
on wealth and poverty, avarice and generosity, religiosity and deep hatred,
intense cruelty, and intrigue.21
Hanke and Mendoza stated in the preface to the History that the book covered an exhaustive range of topics: the mining process, cultural traditions
and festivities, religious practices, economic issues, and experience with
and attitudes toward Indians.22 One of the most impressive descriptions relates to the origin of products sold in Potosi:
Granada Priego and Jaen with taffeta and all kinds of silk and
textiles; Toledo with stockings and swords; Segovia with rough
cloths and slices; Valencia and Murcia with satins and silks;
Crdoba with silks, cloaks and other textiles; Madrid with fans,
cases and a thousand toys and knick knacks; Seville with stockings, cloaks and all kinds of textiles; Vizcaya with iron; Portugal
with fine yarns and other textiles; France with all the fabrics,
gold, silver, serge, beaver hats and all kinds of linens; Flanders
with tapestries, mirrors, laminates, beautiful secretaries, cambrics, lace, and types of haberdashery impossible to express;
Holland with strips of cloth and fabrics; Germany with swords
and all kinds of steel and shawls; Genoa with paper; Calabria
and la Apulia with silks; Naples with stockings and textiles;
Florence with rough cloths and satins; Tuscany with rich embroidered cloths and admirably crafted fabrics ; Rome with
relevant paintings and engravings; England with flannels, hats
and all kinds of wool cloths; Venice with glass crystals; Cyprus,
Crete and African coastal areas with bleached wax; East India
with fine scarlet cloths, crystals, tortoise shells, marbles and
gemstones; Ceylon with diamonds; Arabia with aromas; Persia,
Cairo, Turkey with carpets; Terranate, Malacca and Goca on all
19
20
21
22
b a r r a g a n g u n n a r m e ndoza: a li f e to s h are
|449
23
Ibid., p. 347.
450
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Painting of Melchor Mara Mercado, 1841. The popular metaphor of the world
upside-down. The ox, - instead of man - is directing the work while two men
are ploughing the land. Colllection Archivo y Biblioteca Nacionales de
Bolivia. Sucre, Bolivia.
b a r r a g a n g u n n a r m e ndoza: a li f e to s h are
|451
lish his diary. Finally, suffering from malaria, he died around 1853, lapsing
into oblivion until the late twentieth century.
In the drummer boys colloquial narrative, he wrote that his aim was to
let the people know how much effort, blood, courage, and heroism went
into the liberty of the fatherland. He was aware that his diary would be
useful for future historians.24
The Painter Melchor Mara Mercado (1816-1871)
Mercado was from a middle class family in the city of Sucre and was deeply
influenced by the visit to Bolivia of the French naturalist Alcide DOrbigny
in 1833, when he was only 16. He studied law, one of the main courses of
study available to young people in that period. Throughout his career, he
was active in politics and consequently suffered deeply: his enemies frequently exiled him to desolate, impenetrable regions. But he was also a
teacher and loved natural sciences. He gathered a zoological collection, in
which ornithology and reptiles were especially prominent. He offered his
museum to the local authorities when he was only 30. On his explorations, he travelled in 1859 to the tropical regions on the border with Brazil.
He was also a musician and as such collected sheet music, including traditional religious hymns from the Jesuit period in the eighteenth century and
Indian songs.
Marechal Sucre, one of the great Libertadores, was depicted using one
hand to cut the chains of a slave, thereby making possible the freedom represented by the woman depicted, while using the other hand to pour the
source of the flowers of arts and sciences.
Melchor M. Mercado is well known today for his paintings, although he is
far from a trained, professional artist. His work was influenced by the drawings by DOrbigny, as well as by the work of Fierro, a mulatto painter from
Lima (Peru). He had a naive style, and his most valuable works are in his
album, featuring 116 watercolours painted over the course of 37 years, between 1827 and 1868. The topics are landscapes, plants, buildings, and especially local customs.
Conclusion
Gunnar Mendoza has been enormously influential, although the true impact of his work is difficult to specify, as it is so broad dispersed among archives, libraries, and historians. His impressive professional achievements
are almost inconceivable, given the Spartan circumstances in which he operated: absence of basic working conditions, scarce space for the archive,
lack of adequate equipment. Most importantly, he never gave up and found
ways to overcome every difficulty he encountered. If he lacked sufficient
24
452
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
funds to pay salaries for workers, he always managed very well to find the
necessary financial resources, training them as well; when he did not have
money to purchase paper for the library and archive cards, he improvised
by using blank pages from documents dating back to the sixteenth century;
and when he lacked enough typewriters, he and his staff simply performed
their tasks in longhand. He also became skilled at submitting requests: every Minister of Education and Culture received constant calls and requests
from him. He challenged the public administration, managing scarce resources with maximum efficiency and creativity.
Archives, libraries, and historians embraced Mendozas legacy of work
and above all his legacy of life. His life was far from easy, and his impressive
achievements were attributable to his fortitude and perseverance. Times
have changed, since he left us in 1994. Nonetheless, his amazing realm of
accomplishments transcends borders and time.
Jaap Kloosterman
A Tentative
Bibliography*1
1967
Wat doet Portugal met de Nato wapens?, Trophonios, 4, 15 (December 15,
1967), pp. 3 and 7.
1968
Onder de pers, Trophonios, 4, 17 (January 19, 1968), p. 1.
BVD vertraagt verschijning Trophonios, Trophonios, 4, 17 (January 19, 1968),
p. 5.
[With Han Heidema], Oorlog zonder doden (I), Trophonios, 4, 18 (February 2,
1968), pp. 1 and 4.
[With Han Heidema], Oorlog zonder doden (II), Trophonios, 4, 19 (February
9, 1968), p. 1.
Johnson na het tribunal, Trophonios, 4, 23 (March 8, 1968), p. 3.
Kordinatie der revolutionairen, Trophonios, 4, 24 (March 15, 1968),
pp.1,4-5.
Lcker alias Teixeira, Trophonios, 4, 25 (March 29, 1968), pp. 1 and 4.
De weerstaanbare NSR-neergang: liever dood dan rood, Trophonios, 4, 25A
(April 26, 1968), pp. 1 and 3.
De zeer-buitenparlementaire Franse Oppositie, Trophonios, 4, 27 (May 24,
1968), p. 1.
Compiled by Marcel van der Linden with the support of Aad Blok, Ren van de
Kraats, Jan Lucassen, Kees Rodenburg and Huub Sanders. Only substantial essays
and articles (and no unrevised reprints) have been included. For his substantial
contributions to the Archives Bakunine IV-VII see Jan Lucassen in this volume.
b i b li ograph y
1969
[With Ren van de Kraats], Fernando Solanas: Violencia Revolucionario
contra Violencia imperialista, Trophonios, 5, 15 (January 31, 1969), p. 3.
Een moraal voor de enrags. Trotski en Peret, Trophonios, 5, 17 (February
14, 1969), pp. 1 and 8.
The good, the bad and the ugly, Trophonios, 5, 17 (February 14, 1969), p. 8.
De revisionisten zijn de ergsten, Trophonios, 5, 18 (February 21, 1969), p. 1.
|455
456
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
1970
Michael Bakoenin over anarchisme, staat en diktatuur. Samengesteld en ingeleid
door Arthur Lehning, vertalingen van Jaap Kloosterman (Stadskanaal:
Anarchistiese Uitgaven, c. 1970). Stencil. 50 pp. [Dutch translation].
Michael Bakoenin over anarchisme, staat en dictatuur. Samengesteld en ingeleid
door Arthur Lehning. Vertalingen van Jaap Kloosterman (The Hague:
L.J.C. Boucher, 1970). 201 pp. [Dutch translation].
1972
Arthur Lehning, Radendemocratie of staatscommunisme: Marxisme en anarchisme
in de Russische Revolutie. Vertaald door Jaap Kloosterman. Amsterdam: Van
Gennep, 1972. 128 pp. [Dutch translation of Arthur Lehning, Marxismus
und Anarchismus in der russischen Revolution, Die Internationale [FAUD],
1929/1930].
Anton Pannekoek, Partij, raden, revolutie. Samengesteld en van aantekeningen voorzien door Jaap Kloosterman (Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 1972).
238 pp. [Editing, and concluding theses].
1976
Guy Debord, De spektakelmaatschappij. Vertaald door Jaap Kloosterman en
Ren van de Kraats, Baarn: Het Wereldvenster, 1976. 139 pp. [Dutch
translation, with Ren van de Kraats, of La socit du spectacle (Paris:
Buchet Castel, 1967)].
b i b li ograph y
Michael Bakoenin, Over anarchisme, staat en dictatuur. Samengesteld en ingeleid door Arthur Lehning. Vertalingen van Jaap Kloosterman. Revised
reprint (Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 1976). 135 pp. [Dutch translation].
Alexander Schapiro, Bericht ber die Confederacin Nacional del Trabajo
(CNT) und den Aufstand in Spanien im Januar 1933. Einleitung von Jaap
Kloosterman, in: Claudio Pozzoli (ed.), Jahrbuch Arbeiterbewegung, vol.
4: Faschismus und Kapitalismus (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch
Verlag, 1976), pp. 159-194. [Introduction to, and editing of German
edition of Association internationale des travailleurs: Rapport sur lactivit de la
Confdration nationale du Travail dEspagne, 16 dcembre 1932-26 fvrier 1933
(n.p., n.y.)].
1978
Simon Leys [ps. of Pierre Ryckmans], De nieuwe kleren van voorzitter Mau:
kroniek van de culturele revolutie. Vertaald uit het Frans door M.W. Blok.
Inleiding van Jaap Kloosterman (Baarn: Het Wereldvenster, 1978). 284
pp., pp. 7-29 [Introduction to the Dutch translation of Simon Leys, Les
habits neufs du prsident Mao (Parijs: Champ Libre, 1971)].
1979
Anselme Bellegarrigue, Tegen de volksvertegenwoordiging: manifesten 1848-1850.
Vertaling [uit het Frans] door Gerard van Heeswijk. Ingeleid door Jaap
Kloosterman (Baarn: Het Wereldvenster, 1979). [Archief, vol. 4], 152 pp.
[Introduction to Dutch translation of Au fait, au fait! Interprtation de lide
dmocratique (Paris and Toulouse: Garnier and Delboy, 1848), and two
issues of Lanarchie: journal de lordre, 1850].
Michael Bakoenin, Brief aan een Fransman: de revolutionaire situatie in Frankrijk
in 1870. Redactioneel, bibliografische aantekening en annotatie door Jaap
Kloosterman (Baarn: Het Wereldvenster, 1979). [Archief, vol. 1], 132 pp.
[Translation M.W. Blok.][Introduction and annotation of Dutch edition
of a fragment of Michail A. Bakunin, Lettre un Franais, manuscript,
1870].
Over Buonarroti, internationale avantgardes, Max Nettlau en het verzamelen
van boeken, anarchistische ministers, de algebra van de revolutie, schilders en
schrijvers: voor Arthur Lehning. Onder redactie van Maria Hunink, Jaap
Kloosterman en Jan Rogier (Baarn: Het Wereldvenster, 1979). XII + 527
pp. [Co-editor].
Julco Elysard [ps. of Mikhail Bakunin], De reactie in Duitsland. Een fragment van een Fransman, ingeleid, vertaald en geannoteerd door Jaap
Kloosterman, in: Hunink, Kloosterman, Rogier, Over Buonarroti, pp. 33122. [Introduction, translation, annotation].
Alexander Schapiro, Twee artikelen over de Spaanse klassenoorlog (19361937), ingeleid door Jaap Kloosterman, in Over Buonarroti, pp. 275-316.
[Introduction].
|457
458
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
1982
Kroonstad 1921. De derde revolutie. Uit het Russisch vertaald door
Ineke Mertens. Onder redactie van Jaap Kloosterman (Baarn: Het
Wereldvenster, 1982). [Archief, vol. 5], 100 pp. [Editing of the Dutch
translation of Stepan M. Petrienko, Pravda o Krontadtskich Sobytijach
(n.p., 1921), and of articles published in Izvestija Vremennogo Revoljucionnogo
Komiteta Matrosov, Krasnoarmejcev I Raboich gor. Krontadta (Kronstad, 1921)].
Jan Beukels [ps.], De Poolse kwestie, of zij bestaat en, zo ja, een toekomst heeft,
gevolgd door Lijsken Rems, Sebastiaan Matte, Kroniek van de gebeurtenissen 19801982 (Bussum: Het Wereldvenster, 1982). 159 pp.
Carl von Clausewitz, Over de oorlog. Vertaald door Hans Hom. Ingeleid door
Jaap Kloosterman (Bussum: Het Wereldvenster, and Antwerp: Standaard,
1982). 247 pp. [Introduction, pp. 7-17].
1984
Max Nettlau, Anarchisten und Syndikalisten. Part 1: Der franzsische
Syndikalismus bis 1909 Der Anarchismus in Deutschland und Russland
bis 1914 Die kleineren Bewegungen in Europa und Asien. Redaktion:
Ursula Balzer, Rudolf de Jong, Jaap Kloosterman (Vaduz: Topos Verlag,
1984). [Max Nettlau, Geschichte der Anarchie, vol. 5, part 1], XV + 553 pp.
[Co-editor].
b i b li ograph y
1985
Het Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis: Geschiedenis en aktiviteiten,
Amsterdam: IISG, 1985. 24 pp. [Anonymous brochure].
1987
The International Institute of Social History, Saothar. Journal of the Irish
Labour History Society, Nr 12 (1987), pp. 90-92.
Informatisations et histoire sociale: le cas de lInstitut International dHistoire Sociale dAmsterdam, Materiaux pour lhistoire de notre temps, Nr 10
(April-December 1987), pp. 9-14.
1988
An Unpublished Letter of Filippo Buonarroti to Charles Teste, International
Review of Social History, XXXIII (1988), pp. 202-211.
1989
Retrieving the Reds: the IISGs Visual Information System (s.l., s.n., 1989). 8 pp.
[Unpaged typoscript].
[With Liebje Hoekendijk], Documentatiecentrum Europees vrijwilligerswerk
betreffende de 19e en 20e eeuw = European Documentation Centre concerning
Volunteer Work in the 19th and 20th centuries = Centre Europen de documentation du travail volontaire aux XIX et XXme sicles (Amsterdam: European
Documentation Centre concerning Volunteer Work in the 19th and 20th
centuries, 1989). 43 pp.
[With Hans van Beek], Moving Marx: the International Institute of Social History
at 31 Cruquiusweg Amsterdam (Amsterdam: Stichting Beheer IISG, 1989). 48
pp.
Review of T.R. Ravindranath, Bakunin and the Italians (1989), International
Review of Social History, XXXV (1990), pp. 132-134.
1990
Geautomatiseerde ontsluiting van beeldmateriaal in het Internationaal
Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, NBBI Bericht, June 1990, pp. 5-6.
1991
Vele gezichten: achter de schermen van het IISG. Bundel aangeboden aan Prof Dr
P. de Wolff en Prof Dr W. J. Wieringa ter gelegenheid van hun afscheid van het
IISG. Redactie: Eric Fischer, Jaap Kloosterman, Henk Wals (Amsterdam:
Stichting Beheer IISG, 1991). 131 pp. [Co-editor.]
|459
460
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
1994
Een eigen/aardig mens, in: Nico Markus and Emile Schwidder (eds), Dertig
jaar tussen stofmappen en kaartenbakken: herinneringen aan dr. Fritjof Tichelman,
hem aangeboden ter gelegenheid van zijn afscheid van het Internationaal Instituut
voor Sociale Geschiedenis (Amsterdam: Stichting beheer IISG, 1994), pp.
47-50.
1995
The International Institute of Social History, in: International Council
on Archives, Proceedings of the Twenty-Ninth, Thirtieth and Thirty-First
International Conference of the Round Table on Archives 1993-1995, pp. 111-114.
De schok der herkenning: Scanning (3): OCR in het IISG, Open, 27, 3 (1995),
pp. 97-99.
1997
Rossika za rubezom: Archivy Medunarodnogo Instituta Socialnoj Istorii,
in: Problemy zarubeznoj archivnoj Rossiki: sbornik statej (Moscow: Russkij
Mir, 1997), pp. 121-123.
Geheim!, Archievenblad, 100, 1 (January 1997), pp. 15-16.
Geen partij, Archievenblad, 100, 2 (February 1997), pp. 13-14.
Vreemd land, Archievenblad, 100, 3 (March 1997), pp. 21-22.
Vrije seks, Archievenblad, 100, 4 (April 1997), pp. 21-22.
Arbeid adelt, Archievenblad, 100, 5 (May 1997), pp. 21, 23.
Nooit weerom, Archievenblad, 100, 7 (September 1997), pp. 13-14.
1998
Terugblik, Archievenblad, 101, 1 (January-February 1998), p. 27.
Ante portas, Archievenblad, 101, 3 (April 1998), p. 27.
Waar gebeurd!, Archievenblad, 102, 5 (June 1998), p. 19.
WvSt, Archievenblad, 102, 7 (September 1998), p. 25.
Op zoek, Archievenblad, 102, 9 (November 1998), p. 27.
1935 Gered verleden: het Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale
Geschiedenis, in: P.W. Klein, in collaboration with M.A.V. Klein-Meijer
and I.J. van Houten (eds), Een beeld van een Academie. Mensen en momenten
uit de geschiedenis van het Koninklijk Instituut en de KNAW (Amsterdam: KNAW,
1998), pp. 144-145.
b i b li ograph y
Institut international dhistoire sociale Amsterdam, Materiaux pour lhistoire de notre temps, Nr 49-50 (January-June 1998), pp. 29-30.
1999
Schande!, Archievenblad, 103, 1 (February 1999), p. 33.
Scripta volant, Archievenblad, 103, 3 (April 1999), p. 35.
O, o!, Archievenblad, 103, 4 (May 1999), p. 37.
Vanitas, Archievenblad, 103, 7 (September 1999), p. 27.
European Union Archive Network, Archievenblad, 103, 9 (November 1999),
p. 19.
Economie, Archievenblad, 103, 9 (November 1999), p. 33.
2000
A Librarys Way. De geheime instructies van de Jezuetenorde, in: Menno
Spiering et al. (eds), De weerspannigheid van de feiten: opstellen over geschiedenis, politiek, recht en literatuur aangeboden aan W.H. Roobol (Hilversum:
Verloren, 2000), pp. 135-142.
Dilemma, Jaarverslag Ondernemingsraad KNAW 1999-2000, p. 4.
2001
Review of Paul Gourdot, Les Sources maonniques du socialisme franais 1848-1871
(1998), International Review of Social History, XLVI (2001) 1, pp. 93-94.
2003
Kein Nachruf!: Beitrage uber und fur Gotz Langkau. Hrsgg. von Ursula Balzer,
Heiner M. Becker, Jaap Kloosterman (Amsterdam: IISG, 2003). 147 pp.
[Co-editor].
Phantome. Aus den Papieren Adolf Reichels, in: Balzer, Becker,
Kloosterman, Kein Nachruf!, pp. 64-69.
2004
Les papiers de Michel Bakounine Amsterdam (2004). 13 pp. Available at: http://
socialhistory.org/sites/default/files/docs/publications/bakarch.pdf; last
accessed 8 May 2014.
Der Zugang zu Privatarchiven beim Internationalen Institut fr
Sozialgeschichte (IISG), Archivpflege in Westfalen und Lippe, 58 (2003), pp.
27-28. Also available at: http://www.lwl.org/waa-download/archivpflege/
heft58/seite027_028_kloosterman_jaap.pdf; last accessed 8 May 2014.
|46 1
462
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
2007
Het nuttige met het aangename, in: Cees Boekraad and Leon Thier (eds),
Wisselwerking. Liber Amicorum voor Hans van Beek (The Hague: Atelier Pro,
2007), pp. 6-9.
2009
In Bebels voetspoor: Wouter Steenhaut en de IALHI, in: Paule Verbruggen
(ed.), Wouter Steenhaut en AMSAB-ISG (Gent: AMSAB, 2009), pp. 27-35.
2010
[With Jan Lucassen], Wereldverbeteraars: Vijf eeuwen sociale geschiedenis verzameld
door het IISG (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2010). 237 pp.
[With Jan Lucassen], Rebels with a cause: Five centuries of social history collected by
the IISH (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2010). 237 pp.
2011
Do Riazanova: razmylenija o pervich bibliotekach, posvjaennych raboej
istorii, in: I.B. Cvetkova and I.Yu. Novichenko (eds), Izvestnyj i neizvestnyi
David Borisovi Rjazanov (1870-1938): k 140-letiju so dnja rodenija: materialy
naunoj Konferencii (Moscow: GOPB, 2011), pp. 73-104.
2012
Unwritten Autobiography: Labor History Libraries before World War I, in:
Marcel van der Linden and Leo Lucassen (eds), Working on Labor. Essays in
Honor of Jan Lucassen (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 395-416.
2014
Review of Guy Debord, Un art de la guerre (2013), International Review of Social
History, LIX (2014), pp. 134-136.
Notes on Contributors
Aad Blok (*1959; ma History Utrecht University). Executive Editor iish and
Managing Editor ad interim bmgn (Huygens Institute, The Hague).
E-mail: abl@iisg.nl
Alex Geelhoed (*1947; ma Contemporary political and social history
University of Amsterdam). Retired iish research staff member for collection
development.
E-mail: alex.geelhoed@gmail.com
c ontri b u tors
|46 5
Francesca Gori (*1952; phd 1977 Universit degli Studidi Firenze). President
of Memorial Italia; former Head of Eastern Europe Countries Section at
Feltrinelli Foundation, Milan; author (with Elena Dundovich) of Italiani nei
lager di Stalin, Laterza 2006.
E-mail francesca.gori21@gmail.com
Patricia Kennedy Grimsted (*1935; phd 1964 University of California,
Berkeley in Russian history: The Foreign Ministers of Alexander I: Political
Attitudes and the Conduct of Russian Diplomacy, 1801-1825. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1969). Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and
Eurasian Studies and the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University;
Honorary Fellow iish; Visiting Professor and Honorary Fellow, Center for
Russian Studies at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy
and Public Administration (ranepa), Moscow.
E-mail: grimsted@fas.harvard.edu
Francisca de Haan (*1957; phd 1992 Erasmus University Rotterdam: Sekse
op kantoor. Over vrouwelijkheid, mannelijkheid en macht, Nederland 1860-1940).
Professor of Gender Studies and History at the Central European University,
Budapest.
E-mail: dehaanf@ceu.hu
Lex Heerma van Voss (*1955; phd 1991 Utrecht University: De doodsklok voor
den goeden ouden tijd). Director Huygens Institute, The Hague and professor
of the history of labour and labour relations at Utrecht University.
E-mail: lex.heermavanvoss@huygens.knaw.nl
Marien van der Heijden (*1958; ma Art History Utrecht University). Head
Collection Development at iish.
E-mail: mvh@iisg.nl
Gijs Kessler (*1969; ma Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; phd 2001 European
University Institute, Florence: The Peasant and the Town: RuralUrban Migration
in the Soviet Union, 192940). Senior Research Fellow at the iish.
E-mail: gke@iisg.nl
Eric Ketelaar (*1944; lld 1978 Leiden University: Oude zakelijke rechten vroeger, nu en in de toekomst). Former General State Archivist of the
Netherlands; Emeritus Professor of Archivistics in the Department of
Mediastudies at the University of Amsterdam.
E-mail: ketelaar@uva.nl or archivistics@xs4all.nl
466
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Andrew H. Lee (*1956; phd 2012 New York University: Mothers without Fathers
or Nothing More than a Woman: Gender and Anarchism in the Work of Federica
Montseny). Associate Curator for History, European Studies, & Politics at New
York University, New York.
E-mail: andrew.lee@nyu.edu
Marcel van der Linden (*1952; phd 1989 University of Amsterdam: Het
westers marxisme en de Sovjetunie: Hoofdlijnen van structurele maatschappijkritiek
(1917-1985)). Research director of the iish and Professor of Social Movement
History at the University of Amsterdam.
E-mail: mvl@iisg.nl.
Jan Lucassen (*1947; ma History Leiden University; phd 1984 Utrecht
University: Migrant Labour in Europe 1600-1900. The Drift to the North Sea).
Honorary fellow at the iish and Emeritus Professor at the Free University in
Amsterdam.
E-mail: jlu@iisg.nl
Coen Marinus (*1949; History Teacher Training Vrij Leergangen, Vrije
Universiteit, Amsterdam (mo geschiedenis)). Retired librarian iish.
E-mail: cma@iisg.nl
Roel Meijer (*1956; phd 1995 University of Amsterdam: The Quest for
Modernity: Secular Liberal and Left-Wing Political Thought in Egypt, 1945-1958).
Visiting professor at Gent University, Dept. of Conflict and Development
Studies and assistant professor Islam Studies at Radboud University,
Nijmegen.
E-mail: roel-meijer@planet.nl
Annette Mevis (*1953; ma History, Radboud University Nijmegen). Archivist
of the collection Internationaal Archief voor de Vrouwenbeweging (IAV), Atria,
Institute on Gender Equality and Womens History, Amsterdam.
E-mail: a.mevis@atria.nl
Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk (*1975; ma 1998 Economic and Social
History Utrecht University; phd 2007 Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam: De draad
in eigen handen. Vrouwen en loonarbeid in de Nederlandse textielnijverheid 1581-1810).
Associate Professor at Wageningen University and Honorary Fellow at the
IISH.
E-mail: elise.vannederveenmeerkerk@wur.nl
Irina Novichenko (*1967; phd 1994 Institute of World History, Russian
Academy of Sciences: Charles Kingsley i anglijskij khristianskij socialism seredeny xix veka = Charles Kingsley and British Christian Socialism in the middle of the
c ontri b u tors
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468
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Huub Sanders (*1953; ma History Leiden University 1980). iish staff member for collection development. Chairman of the Friends of the iish.
E-mail: hsa@iisg.nl
Willem van Schendel (*1949; phd 1980 University of Amsterdam: The
odds of peasant life: processes of social and economic mobility in rural Bangladesh).
Professor of Modern Asian History at the University of Amsterdam and
senior research fellow at the IISH.
E-mail: h.w.vanschendel@uva.nl
Margreet Schrevel (*1951; ma History, University of Amsterdam). iish staff
member: web editor and text writer.
E-mail: mas@iisg.nl
Co Seegers (*1950; ma 1977 History, University of Amsterdam). Research
staff member for collection development iish (new social movements and
economic history).
E-mail: cse@iisg.nl
Wouter Steenhaut (*1947; phd 1983 Gent University: De Unie van Hand- en
Geestesarbeiders. Een onderzoek naar het optreden van de vakbonden in de bezettings
jaren (1940-1944)). Retired director Amsab-Institute of Social History Gent.
E-mail: wouter.steenhaut@hotmail.com
Franck Veyron (*1968; dea History, Paris). Head of archives department,
BDIC (Bibliothque de documentation internationale contemporaine), Paris
Nanterre.
E-mail: franck.veyron@bdic.fr
Els Wagenaar (*1946; ma 1972 Slavonic studies University of Amsterdam).
Retired IISH staff member collection development for Russia and Eastern
Europe.
E-mail: elswagenaar@yahoo.com
Henk Wals (*1954; phd 2001 University of Amsterdam: Makers en stakers.
Amsterdamse bouwvakarbeiders en hun bestaansstrategien in het eerste kwart van de
twintigste eeuw). General director iish.
E-mail: henk.wals@iisg.nl
Rdiger Zimmermann (*1946; phd 1976 Technische Universitt Darmstadt:
Der Leninbund. Linke Kommunisten in der Weimarer Republik.). Emeritus-librarian
Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Bonn.
E-mail: ruedigerzim@aol.com
Name Index
i nde x
Austin 446
Australia 42, 46-47, 53, 117, 119, 324
Austria 32, 50, 69, 76, 103, 110, 137, 179,
236
Aveling, Edward Bibbens 117-118, 121122, 127-128
Avrich, Paul 240, 247
Axelrod, Pavel 310, 315
Aydn, R. 405
Aymard, Maurice 335
Azerbaijan 20, 385-398, 464, 467
Azov Sea 339
Baar, Peter-Paul de 58, 60
Baas Becking, L.G.M. 59, 68
Bachofen, Johann Jakob 264-265, 267
Bacon, Francis 87
Bad Godesberg 180, 357
Baker Library 101
Bakker, Marcus 286
Baku 386-398
Bakunin, Mikhail Alexandrovich (see
also Archives Bakounine) 10, 13, 15,
20, 32-33, 36, 146, 174-175, 192, 241,
250, 273, 295, 319, 321-326, 328-329,
335, 454, 457, 459
Baldwin, Abigail 101, 107
Balthazar, Herman 181-182
Balzer, Ursula 208, 458, 461
Bangladesh 427-428, 430-432, 468
Baranov (ps; see Zhook) 312
Barcelona 200, 203, 206, 241, 246-250
Brhausen, Anne 228-230
Barilier, Etienne 267
Barnadas, Josep 445-446
Barr Smith Library 101
Barragan, Rossana 21, 442, 464
Barry, (Michael) Maltman 118, 122, 134
Basle 127
Bass, Catriona 350
Batatu, Hanna 409
Batavia 52
Baturinsky (ps) 312
Baudisch, R.A. 64
Bax, Ernest Belfort 121
Beatrix, Queen of the Netherlands 100
|471
472
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
i nde x
|473
Chukavino 348
Chumakovo 346
Cipriani, A. 175
Clapham, John Harold 138
Claris, Aristide 191-192
Clausewitz, Carl von 27, 458
Cleveringa, Hilletje 61
Cleveringa, P.B. 67
Cochabamba 445, 449
Coeurderoy, Edouard Jean 186-197
Cohen, I.B. 74, 79
Cohn-Bendit, Daniel/Gabriel 255
Cole, George Douglas Howard 134-135,
137-138, 181
Colenbrander, Herman Theodoor 71, 77,
81
Cologne 33, 467
Comte, August 265
Conde, Carmen 201
Constantine 78
Constantinople 242
Cook, Terry 55
Cooke, Charles 105, 107
Cooper, James Fenomore 63
Coornhert, Dirck V. 75, 299
Copenhagen 212, 216
Crdoba 448
Cornelissen, Igor 30, 286
Cortlever, Catelijne 424
Costa Rica 231
Cotta, I. 437
Courbet, Gustave 189
Craig, Barbara L. 46
Craig, C.T. 128
Cramer, Dr 69
Crmieux, Adolphe 270
Crete 448
Creuzberger, Stefan 357
Crimea 339
Cronin, Stephanie 389, 398
Cuba 30, 89, 449
Cunningham, Philip J. 424
Cupac, Gordan 371
Curiel, Henri 408, 410-414
Cutter, Charles Ammi 210-212, 219-220
474
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Cuzco 449
Cyprus 317, 428, 448
Czbel, Ern 113, 115, 125, 140-141
DAilly, Arnold Jan 62
DAlambert, J. le R. 436
DAspremont Lynden, Gobert 182
Iberville, Charles-Franois de la Bonde,
sieur d 103
DOrbigny, Alcide 451
Daele, Els van 34
Dalsum, Albert van 86
Damme, Bernard 169
Daniel-Nachlass 226
Daniels Company, Charles William 316
Danilov, Victor Petrovich 378
Darchinger, J.H. 223
Daro, Rubn 445
Darmstadt 117, 468
Darwin, Charles 117, 295
Dasgupto, Ronesh 426
Dastidar, Shukhendu 431
Daumier, Honor 188
Davenant, Charles 106-107
Davies, Robert William 379
Davitt, Michael 120
Davos 61
De Beer-Meyers, F. 279
De Clerck, Jose 177
De Coster, Ch. 175
De Muynck, August 170
De Paepe, Csar 174-175
De Schepper, Hugo 176, 180-182
De Smet, Egbert 212
De Steeg 67
Debord, Guy 36, 253-254, 256, 262
Delescluze, Louis Charles 270
Delft 51, 59, 106-107
Delgado, Jos Luis Garca 200
Delhi 426
Delsinne, Lon 186
Dmar, Claire 266
Demeulemeester, Rose 183
Demeulemeester, Victor 183
Denekamp, Paul 28
Deng Xiaoping 418, 420, 427
i nde x
|475
Fernbach, David 22
Ferraris, M. 435
Fierro, painter 451
Figes, Orlando 346
Fimmen, Edo 159
Finland 422
Finneran, Richard 325
Fischer, Eric J. 10, 24, 36-38, 54, 230,
235-236, 302-303, 305, 423, 459
Fisher, Wesley A. 355
Fitzpatrick, Sheila 378
Flanders 177, 448
Flechine, Senya 310
Flige, Irina 347
Flinterman, Jan-Jaap 284
Florence 435, 448, 465
Folkers, Theunis 61
Fomichev, Valerij 110
Fontaine, L. 175
Foote, George William 131
Ford, Edsel 215
Ford, Henry 215
Forel, August 279-281
Foucault, Michel 52
Fourier, Charles 265
Fox, Ralph Winston 113, 136, 140-141
Foyle, W.A. 114-115, 124
Fraigneux, Raphal 280
France passim
Franco, Francisco 15, 203-204, 247-248
Franken, J.H.A. (Jan) 85, 92-96, 99
Frankenstein, Kuno 165
Frankfurt am Main 110-112, 171, 177,
179, 228, 279
Freiburg 180
Freriks, Bert 28
Freud, Sigmund 86, 90, 438
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung 19, 180, 222-232
Frbel, Julius 165
Froissart, Jean 324
Fruin, R. 41, 49, 67
Fry, Ruth A. 113
Frth, Henriette 279-281
Gaastra, Femme 51
Gabler, Andrea 254
476
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
i nde x
|477
478
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Jong, Lou de 61
Jong, Rudolf de 159, 169, 458
Joosting, J.G.C. 74, 79
Juffermans, Jan 354
Justinian 78
Juta, Henry Hubert 118
Kafka, Franz 437-438
Kallus, Felicitas 228
Kamel, Michel 413
Kampen 54
Kansas 372
Kaplan, Hlne 335
Kapoor, Raj 427
Karata, Dursun 406
Kashnor collection 104-106, 115
Kautsky, Karl 128, 131, 280
Keell, Tom 243, 247, 249
Keep, John 345
Kenya 438
Kerch 339
Kern, H. 299-300
Kernkamp, G.W. 67
Kessler, Gijs 20, 75, 465
Ketelaar, F.C.J. (Eric) 16, 19, 37, 41-43, 45,
48, 53, 362, 465
Keyser, Piet de 212
Khlevniuk, Oleg V. 343-344, 377-379
Khodorkovsky, Mikhail 347
Khrushchev, Nikita 344, 379
Khuluflu, Vali 396
Kieft, Wilhelmina Gerarda Maria 25-26
King, Charles 105-107
Kingsley, Charles 108, 466
Kivilcimli, Hikmet 401
Kivit, W.M.G. 56
Klein, Justin 41, 145
Klein, P.W. 59, 68, 460
Kleinhoonte, Lien 150
Klein-Meijer, M.A.V. 59, 68, 460
Klevan, David 325
Kloek, Els 144
Kloosterman, Elly 26
Kloosterman, Jaap passim
Kloosterman, Wilhelmus Johannes 26
Knegtmans, Peter Jan 59, 85, 91
i nde x
|479
480
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
i nde x
|48 1
482
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
i nde x
|48 3
484
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Rav, H. 269
Ravensbrck 144
Ray, Khoka 428
Reclus, Elise 264, 267, 270, 272
Reclus, Maurice 267
Reddies, Bernd 232
Reed, Barbara 45
Renau, Josep 201
Renselaar, Herman van 401
Repulo, Lada V. 352-353, 359, 363, 369
Resnais, Alain 438
Reve, Karel van het 64
Rhoads, J.B. 354
Riethof, H. 175
Rinschen, Angela 228-229
Riobamba 449
Ritter Jr, P.H. 87
Rittersporn, G.T. 343
Rjazanov, David Borisovich 7, 19, 108111, 113-115, 117, 121-122, 125, 127-128,
135, 137-139, 141, 340, 462
Robertson, D.H. 111
Robin, Paul 272-275, 279, 281
Rocker, Fermin 242
Rocker, Rudolf 242-245
Rodenburg, Kees 20, 454, 467
Rodrigo, Florrie (= Flora Rodrigues) 86,
91, 96
Rogier, Jan 28, 35, 214, 241, 457
Roginskii, Arseniy 337
Rojahn, Jrgen 398, 425
Rokitjanskij, Jakov 109
Roland Holst, Henriette (see also Holst,
H.R.) 69, 159
Roland Holst, Richard 70
Roland, Irma 266
Roland, Jean-Franois 266
Roland, Marie 266
Roland, Mose 266
Roland, Pauline 265-266
Rling, H.Q. 281
Romains, Jules 180, 436
Romania 427
Rome 180, 199, 408, 410, 412-413, 448
Romein, Jan 69-72, 78, 82, 85, 89, 93, 95
i nde x
|48 5
Segovia 448
Senegal 189, 438-439
Sengupto, Kolpotoru 430
Senn, A.E. 314
Sens 188
Sevastianov, G.N. 357
Seville 488
Shakespeare, William 158
Shanghai 423
Shanin, Teodor 384
Shapiro, Aleksandr 240-250, 458
Shapiro, Moses 242
Sharfenstein, Ricardo 200
Shaw, G.B. 158
Shen Tong 424
Sheremetevo 366
Shetter, William 49
Shillingsburg, Peter L. 325
Siberia 346
Sijes, B.A. 252-253
Sikkema, Ivo 22
Silier, Orhan 400
Simferopol 339
Simon, Henri 258
Simons, Ibi 61
Singh, Moni 427, 430-431
Sinha Kerkhoff, Kathinka 426
Six, Jan 72
Slauerhoff, Jan 32
Smirnov, Valerian 310
Smith (-Headingley), Adolphe 123-124
Smith, Adam 165
Smith, Frank (Francis Samuel) 120
Smith, Granville 124
Smith, Ian 100
Smith-Richardson Foundation 359
Sneevliet, Henk 253-254, 423
Snell, K.D.M. 320
Sneller, Z.W. 160
Snijder, Jan 57
Sobolev, Vladimir S. 352-353, 359
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I. 345
Sombart, Werner 57
Soros Foundation 359, 363, 366, 370
Souchy, Augustin 245
486
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
Suys, Jef 72
Suys-Reitsma, S.J. 72
Svetkova, I. 110, 340
Switserland 58, 61, 172-174, 177, 179-181,
183, 191-194, 196, 206, 226, 228, 264,
273, 279-280, 335
Sykes, A.H. 243
Syrup, Peter 61
Taha, Mahmud 415
Taithe, Bertrand 324
Talibli, Biukaga 396
Tang, Dirk J. 320
Tanselle, G. Thomas 325
Tanzania 231
Tarama Bombn 449
Tashin, Hudi 424
Tavera, Susanna 200
Tawney, Richard Henry 135-138
Taylor Collection 132
Teding van Berkhout, J.P.E. 73
Teding van Berkhout, Nicolaas Govert
73
Temperley, Harold William Vazeille
136-138
Tenhaeff, N.B. 88-89
Tern, Judith 442
Terpstra, H. 299-300
Terranate 448
The Hague 25, 51-52, 56-57, 59, 62-63,
84, 87-88, 92, 94-95, 97, 144, 159-160,
163, 215, 277-278, 280, 282, 286, 294,
300, 446, 464-465
Theissen, J.S. 71
Thessalonica 362
Thiel, F.J. van 62
Thijssen de Graaf, E. 34
Thijssen, Peter 61
Thomas, Edith 265
Thomassen, Theo H.P.M. 43, 49, 51, 53
Thorez, Maurice 427
Thorpe, Wayne 250
Tiananmen Square 21, 418-419, 424
Tichelman, Fritjof 37-38, 302, 460
Tijn, Theo van 37
Tilly, Charles 332
i nde x
|48 7
488
A us a b l e co l l e cti o n
i nde x
|48 9