Identity and Loss of Historical Memory ― The Destruction of Archives

Archives are the documentary memory of each society and so they become one of the pillars of its identity. Its destruction is sometimes accidental, but it is often deliberate in order to remove the ties with the past. The new times that revolutions attempt to reach usually involve forceful and symbolic ruptures with former identity, including the destruction of the economic, administrative and historical documentation. This book collects updated texts written by outstanding researchers from an initial Congress held in Moscow in 2006 in order to analyze the causes and consequences of the destructive violence against archives boasted during revolutionary turmoils. The studies pay special attention to the first important contempt and destruction of documentation, during the French Revolution; continue studying the damages to archives during 19^th century; and culminated analyzing the effects of Russian Revolution over the documentation and the evolution until the end of the Soviet period.

Igor Philippov is Professor of Medieval History at the Moscow State Lomonossov University, former director of the Russian State Library (1992–1996) and author of The Mediterranean France in the Early Middle ages (PhD Dissertation, 2001).

Flocel Sabate is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Lleida, ICREA researcher, doctor honoris causa of the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo (Argentina) and director of the research journal Imago Temporis. Medium Aevum.