COURAGE

gyűjtemények hálózata

Since 2006, BCU Cluj-Napoca has organised each year in March, the month of Adrian Marino’s death, commemorative exhibitions in the lobby of the institution. These events have been targeted especially at the current users of the library, students of the universities in Cluj-Napoca. The exhibitions have focused on different aspects of Marino’s activity: his work as literary historian and critic, as reflected by the manuscripts in his collection, his activity as publicist and ideologist of Romanian liberalism after 1989, and his correspondence with Romanian and foreign intellectuals of that time. As far as this last topic is concerned, in March 2015, when we commemorated 10 years since the author’s death, BCU Cluj-Napoca organised the exhibition “Din corespondenţa lui Adrian Marino” (From Adrian Marino’s correspondence). This exhibition designed by Florina Ilis included elements of the author’s correspondence with Romanian intellectuals in exile, such as Matei Călinescu and Mircea Carp, as well as photographs from the collection. The exhibited letters illustrated Marino’s capacity to carry on an ample international dialogue in the difficult conditions of correspondence control in communist Romania, and to turn his correspondence into a genuine cultural act. The March 2015 exhibition also highlighted the role the correspondence played in Marino’s intellectual development.

Some of the documents included in collection were initially classified by the State Security Service. In September 2015, all documents were declassified. As mentioned in the Public Report for 2016 by the Security and Intelligence Agency of Republic of Croatia (SOA), “the Agency's intention is that these valuable archival documents become available to the scholarly and general public, thereby enabling a clearer overview of that period of Croatian history” (SOA. 2016 Public Report, p. 42).

A notice posted on the Agency's web pages on 25 September 2015 also pointed out that the acquisition of the State Security Service Collection by the Croatian State Archives “distances the SOA from any connection with the activities, methods and traditions of the former State Security Service.” It was concluded that after doing so, “the SOA has been recognised as a modern security-intelligence agency of a democratic state which adheres to the practices of services in states with long democratic traditions where this pertains to declassification of documents for which there are no longer grounds for maintaining confidentiality.” It led to increased possibilities for research into the phenomenon of cultural opposition and dissent, as well as state surveillance of such activities.

Some of the documents were initially classified in the State Security Service as highly confidential. In September 2015, all documents were declassified. As mentioned in the SOA's Public Report for 2016, “the Agency's intention is that these valuable archival documents become available to the scholarly and general public, thereby enabling a clearer overview of that period of Croatian history” (SOA. 2016 Public Report, p. 42).

A notice posted on the Agency's web pages on 25 September 2015 also pointed out that the acquisition of the State Security Service Collection by the Croatian State Archives “distances the SOA from any connection to the activities, methods and traditions of the former State Security Service.” It was concluded that after doing so, “the SOA has been recognised as a modern security-intelligence agency of a democratic state which adheres to the practices of services in states with long democratic traditions where this pertains to declassification of documents for which there are no longer grounds for maintaining confidentiality.”

The ‘Goli Otok’ collection (PB 39) was formed in 2015 on the basis of a donation by academician Dragoslav Mihailović. It was created as a separate library entity with the idea that all literature relevant to this topic would be collected here. This is a library in the making and as such new material is regularly added.