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The Research Centre for East European Studies together with several partner archives from different countries is establishing a joint community space on the history of dissent, human rights activism and self-published uncensored literature (samizdat/samvydav) in the former Soviet Union.

The virtual platform will unite and bring together information and metadata about physically separated but semantically connected archival holdings on the history of Soviet dissent: different types and genres of documents, scattered in personal collections of soviet dissenters, as well as samizdat/samvydav collections. Users of the portal will be able to search the full range of archival materials owned by different institutions through one meta-catalogue. 

In addition to the meta-search engine, the platform plans to provide further services for researchers, such as pooling information, publicizing archive holdings, providing expertise and much more in english language. The collaboration of the partner archives serves to bundle expertise, exchange know-how, coordinate work processes and pass on best-practice procedures in the field of collecting, preserving, indexing and researching dissent and samizdat/samvydav.

Cooperating archives: 

• Andrey Sakharov Research Center for Democratic Development at Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania)
• Archive-Museum for Samvydav Smoloskyp (Kyiv, Ukraine)
• Blinken Open Society Archives (Budapest, Hungary)
• Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (Kharkiv, Ukraine)
• Memorial 
• National Agency of Archives of the Republic of Moldova (Chisinau, Moldova)
• Research Center for East European Studies at the University of Bremen (Bremen, Germany)
• Stus-Center (Kyiv, Ukraine)

The project is the second phase of Discuss Data, a DFG-funded project of the FSO Bremen and the State and University Library Göttingen.
 
Project team:
Project leader / academic support: Dr. Manuela Putz
Technical development: Felix Herrmann