ARHIVSKI VJESNIK 42. (ZAGREB, 1999.)

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J. Kolanović, Autonomija arhivske službe, Arh. vjesn., god. 42(1999), str. 29^2 ces, that were significant for protection and arrangement of archives, have followed such ideologically archivistics, established as a science. Firstly, a concept of categorization of record owners has been given, that is an establishment of priorities that should be emphasized in the archival practice. Here priority has been given to the ruling political party as a main "holder of historical development." Therefore, absolute advantage has been given to only one category of records. Records appraisal system has been defined in that respect, which has only serving an ideologized archivistics. Evaluation of records did not follow objective criteria, proper to archvistics as a science, but was established on the "out profession" principles that were imposed by politics. For example on the territory of former Yugoslavia such ideologized approach has not been present in the archival theory, but was asserted by archive practice. I shall mention two facts only. In practice, archival records that have been significant for "revolutionary, progressive movements and trends" have had advantage in arrangement. Some categories of records (these containing information on socialist revolution, especially in the World War II) have been arranged in detail, while the arrangement of records that did not have evidence on "progressive movement" was in the second place. The second case relates to the appraisal of records. The Rules on Appraisal and Disposal of Current Records in the Republic of Croatia, 1981, in the Article 6 explicitly say "Current records groups created by organs and organizations of the NOB (National Liberation Struggle) should be preserved wholly, and elimination is not allowed. Parts or fragments of such wholes should be preserved in the same way. During disposal of records created in XIX respectively XX century preserved should be those records containing information that in any way reflects history of labor movement, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and the National liberation Struggle" {Narodne novine SRH, 36/1981). Such example of evaluation is not isolated in the countries of former communist system. Evaluation of records concerning forbidden movements, especially ones in Africa has been discussed at the Round Table in Washington. The information referring to some revolutionary movements has been destroyed. At this conference, the problems concerning autonomy of archives will be discussed in the broad spectrum of issues that are of importance not only for transition countries but also for the majority of European countries. Entire problems referring to the autonomy of archives could be focused on the following issues, which are today topical in all countries: a) Scientific and professional autonomy. Some papers will present the issue that can be conditionally named "scientific and professional autonomy of archive practice and theory". The first question is whether archivistics is independent discipline or is an auxiliary historical science. In that context we can also raise a question 39