COURAGE

Свързване на колекции

The machine-read transcript of the audio recorded interviews from the secret meetings which took place in Božena Komárková´s flat, comprised of 42 pages. She discusses her life, reflection of T. G. Masaryk, St. Augustine, relationship to democracy, Christian faith, Socialism and Christianity, church affairs after the Communist coup in 1948, etc. The transcription is crossed out and supplemented by Božená Komárková´s comments. Part of the collection is also the original audio record. This document shows authentic and original views from the meetings and a wide range of views from the prominent figure of Protestant dissent - Božena Komárková.

The 11th Congress of the Union of Artists, which took place on 13-14 November 1987, was a significant event not only for artists, but also for other groups among the Soviet Lithuanian intelligentsia, which started to raise more vociferously questions about the historical memory, greater modernism, the historical heritage, and others. During the congress, speakers spoke about the necessity for the National Gallery and the Directorate of Art Exhibitions to apply more flexibility in managing this sphere of culture, and they also spoke about the need to democratise the work of art critics, about the necessary avoidance of pitching Soviet art against modernism, the importance of the integration of contemporary art into the global context, and a broader dialogue with foreign countries. During the congress, all the old Board of the Union of Artists was changed for new people (such as Bronius Leonavičius and Arvydas Šaltenis), who a few months later became leaders of the Sąjūdis national movement. Arvydas Šaltenis, one of the leaders of contemporary artists, called this congress a 'revolutionary congress, which was noticed by a public audience' (see http://www.bernardinai.lt/straipsnis/2016-07-25-arvydas-saltenis-nereikia-meluoti-grazinti-pudruoti-tikroves/146626), and which had an impact on Sąjūdis. 

The 5th Congress of Soviet Lithuanian Writers, which took place on 27-28 May 1970 in Vilnius, was a significant event among local writers, showing that ethnic values had become one of the main issues with local writers, but at the same time revealing that there were limits to Modernist expression. During the Congress, writers of the older generation, who dominated the Union of Writers, criticised their younger colleagues, calling their Modernist position Formalism. At the Congress, writers such as Eduardas Mieželaitis, Algirdas Pocius, Vytautas Bubnys and Algimantas Baltakis criticised authors such as Jonas Mikelinskas, Romualdas Lankauskas and Juozas Aputis, for disassociating themselves from tradition and everyday problems. 
This document is important, because it reveals that the older generation had adapted to the stricter ideological policies of Brezhnevism, and disciplined their younger colleagues. 

Travel reports of lecturers and members of the Jan Hus Educational Foundation are embodied in six volumes. In terms of time, they cover the period from 1983 to December 1989, mainly from Prague, Brno and Bratislava. The reports include the length and main purpose of the stay, a description of the trip including possible complications in crossing borders, meetings with other people and subjects of their interviews, information on specific activities of the state police, etc. Visitors of Czechoslovakia also proposed other forms of cooperation in their reports. There are unique and very specific documents mapping the concrete forms of the Czechoslovak dissent linked with underground universities, efforts of the foreign organisation and important Western representatives of science to support the unofficial educational environment, and documents describing the contemporary social and political conditions in Czechoslovakia including the activities of the state police.