132 American Archivist / Vol. 55 / Winter 1992 Change Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/55/1/132/2748337/aarc_55_1_g15783l74577780t.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 Displaced European Archives: Is It Time for a Post-War Settlement? CHARLES KECSKEMETI About the author: Charles Kecskemiti is Executive Director of the International Council on Archives. For an expanded introduction see the Gallery of Contributors at the end of the issue. Abstracts in English, French, German, and Spanish follow the article. ON THE DAY THAT I received the invitation stant fluctuations in European boundaries from Ann Arbor to write an essay on the ever since the appearance of territorial sov- transfer of archives, the Yugoslav Navy had ereignties such as empires, kingdoms, prin- just lifted for a short while the blockade of cipalities, duchies, city-states, and the Croatian harbors of Pula, Rijeka, and bishoprics. During the longest phase of its Dubrovnik. These are three cities with re- post-Roman history, Europe was frag- markably different historical backgrounds. mented into an extraordinary number of Within the twentieth century alone, Pula territorial political entities which usually had had been Austrian, then Italian, and finally ties, either tight or loose, with the highest Yugoslavian. During the same period, Ri- authorities of the continent, including the jeka (known before as Fiume) passed first Emperor, the King of France, the Pope, from Hungarian to Italian rule and then be- and the Sublime Porte of Constantinople. came part of Yugoslavia. Dubrovnik (or The status of the Croatian Kingdom in Ragusa), which had been a city-republic the Ancien Regime offers a good example for centuries, went from Austria to Yugo- of these complex ties between political en- slavia in 1918 and belonged to short-lived tities. In 1790, Croatia possessed its own Croatia during World War II. legislative body (the Sabor) but was asso- These are but three examples of the con- ciated with the Hungarian Kingdom, which Is It Time for a Post-War Settlement? 133 was part of the larger Habsburg Lands al- from international politics between 1400 and though not included in the Holy Empire. 1800. Fading in prominence were Bur- As King of Hungary, the Habsburg Em- gundy, Granada, Scotland, Aragon, Na- peror was King of Croatia by virtue of the varra, Bohemia, Hungary, Sicily, Lithuania, house law of the dynasty (the Pragmatica Norway, and the Teutonic Order as well as Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/55/1/132/2748337/aarc_55_1_g15783l74577780t.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 Sanctio), which had been accepted by the practically all of the southeast European Croatian Sabor ten years before its enact- states absorbed by or subjected to the Ot- ment by the Hungarian Diet in 1723. Half toman Empire. This first stage of simpli- or more of the Croats lived outside of the fication was ended with the collapse of Kingdom, in the Austrian Military Frontier Venice and the partition of Poland. The Regiments, in Bosnia under Turkish rule, process was completed with the unifica- or in the Dalmatian province of Venice. At tions of Germany and Italy. The opposite the end of the Napoleonic intermezzo of trend started in southeastern Europe some- French Illyria, the Dalmatian province, with what earlier when Greece and Serbia en- its Croatian and Italian-speaking popula- tered the international scene in the 1830s tions, was given to Austria by the Congress as autonomous states. of Powers in Vienna in 1814 and 1815. Until 1914, the disintegration process, Throughout Europe, there existed simi- baptized as "balkanization," progressed at lar complications. Boundaries were perpet- a moderate pace. It took an impressive leap ually moving as a result of conquests and forward after World War I with the dis- compensations, royal marriages, and the mantlement of the old multi-national em- extinction of dynasties. After the end of the pires. They were replaced with a dozen Volkerwanderung, mass migrations no multi-ethnic states of various sizes, which longer had an immediate affect on the shap- enjoyed imagining that they were national ing of territorial sovereignties (with the ex- states conceived after the French model. ception of the Turkish takeover of the The geographical surgery performed in the Byzantine Empire).1 At the "grassroots" middle of Europe produced a series of tra- level, each country, province, district, or gedies, with the latest one being the war free city kept its own rights, duties, and conducted by Serbia against Croatia. privileges. These survived the perpetual From the fourteenth century on, clauses changes in sovereignty. Political bounda- on the devolution of public archives appear ries concerned monarchs, not their sub- in treaties on territorial annexations. The jects. inclusion of such clauses on the transfer of At the level of international politics, a judicial and administrative archives, to- new era began in the fifteenth century. Eu- gether with the territory to which they be- rope was gradually reorganized so that the long, became systematic in the seventeenth continent was shared by a decreasing num- century. The Minister peace treaty of 1648 ber of powers. This trend of simplification prescribed neither the transfer nor the res- started almost simultaneously in Spain, titution of records. It simply legalized the France, the British Isles, and East-Central archival situation as it was shaped by the Europe. While maintaining their separate Thirty Years War (1618-1648) so that ar- legal existence, the majority of medieval chives existing in the annexed territories kingdoms or similar entities disappeared would become the property of the annexing power, while archives which had been re- moved by occupying forces during the war would remain in the ownership of these 'However, the territorial reorganization of Europe after 1918 took into account the ethnic map shaped powers. The practice which developed after by such post-medieval movements. the Thirty Years War prescribed the ces- 134 American Archivist / Winter 1992 sion of archives necessary to the govern- of the Holy See in Rome, the German Em- ment of the territory annexed, including the pire archives in Vienna and the Simancas restitution of records removed during the archives of the Spanish Kingdom, as well conflict. as the archives of provinces annexed by The treaties concluded in the seventeenth France (including Piedmont and Belgium) Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/55/1/132/2748337/aarc_55_1_g15783l74577780t.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 and eighteenth centuries brought forward a were transferred to Paris in a gigantic ar- number of remarkable innovations which chival institution. The long-distance trans- gradually became part of the routine. These portation of hundreds of thousands of cubic included the prescription of a deadline of feet of documents and their safe storage in usually two to four months for the delivery Paris required both huge financial re- of the archives to be transferred or resti- sources and uncommon organizing capa- tuted;2 the obligation of the party receiving bilities. France had both of these at the the originals to produce authentic copies beginning of the nineteenth century. The for the other party (usually the former owner) central figure of the whole operation was in order to avoid the dismemberment of ar- Pierre-Claude-Frangois Daunou, head of the chival entities;3 the designation of expert French national archives from December commissioners for making the partition of 1804 to February 1816 and again from Au- records;4 and the distinction between pub- gust 1830 until his death in June 1840. lic records attached to the territory and the The organization of the Imperial Ar- ruling family's private papers, which would chives in Palais Soubise (still part of the 5 be exempt from transfer obligations. headquarters of the Archives nationales) was Sovereigns in Ancien Regime Europe more than mere plundering even though it believed in the value of records as titles that was carried out by virtue of conquest.6 It were instrumental in supporting territorial was part of the great design of an empire gains. They used them accordingly. Hence which Napoleon had planned to survive be- the impressive efforts of a Louis XIV or a yond his personal reign. In 1812, three years Maria Theresa to concentrate archives and after the beginning of the mass transfers, exploit them. This monarchic conception he decided to erect a building large enough of the importance of possessing archives for the storage of all records of government survived the French Revolution of 1789. or general historical interest from France Combined with the new practice of cultural and from all annexed, occupied, and sub- plundering introduced by revolutionary jugated territories.7 France in order to enrich the Bibliotheque The Empire collapsed before this project nationale and the Louvre, and with the Na- could materialize. The transportation to Paris poleonic vision of a new Roman Empire, and subsequent organization were achieved it produced an extraordinary archival proj- with such impressive care and professional ect. The most prestigious record accumu- skill that the Emperor of Austria, after hav- lations of the continent, such as the archives ing recovered the holdings, awarded Daunou with a golden snuffbox for the good order imposed upon the archives of the Aulic 2E.g., the 1658 Treaty of the Pyrenees between France and Spain. 3E.g., the 1621 Treaty of Nikolsburg between Em- peror Ferdinand II and Transylvania. 4E.g., the 1748 Treaty of Aachen between Austria The Imperial Archives were also expected to pro- and France. duce a regular income for the Imperial Treasury through 5The Vienna Convention between Austria and France taxes on copy delivering. (1736) recognized the right of Francis, Duke of Lor- This building was to occupy a site near the Champ raine, to retain his personal papers.