COURAGE

savienojot kolekcijas

This ad-hoc collection consists of the work of Binka Zhelyazkova, an emblematic Bulgarian cinema director, as it is preserved in the Bulgarian National Film Archive, plus related materials. Zhelyazkova was among the first generation of professional Bulgarian cinematographers and one of the first female directors not only in Bulgaria, but in general. The collections informs not only about the work of this notable director but gives also insight into the development of Bulgarian cinema throughout the entire period of state socialism.

The collection illustrates Anton Vovk's theological and pastoral work as a priest and bishop who led the Catholic Church in the Ljubljana Archdiocese despite being persecuted by the institutions under the control of the communist government. The Collection includes books, original manuscripts, the author's published articles and correspondence, showing Vovk's critical stance on Slovenia’s communist regime in the period until his death in 1963. 

The “Black Book” collection contains documents from the first seven days of the occupation of Czechoslovakia by five Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968, which served as a basis for Seven Prague Days 21-27 August 1968, also called the “Black Book”. The “Black Book” was edited by Milan Otáhal and Vilém Prečan, academics from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, and all materials were collected during or shortly after the occupation.

The video periodical Black Box was the first independent film production studio during the last years of communist rule in Hungary. It reported on demonstrations and civilian initiatives that the official media passed over in silence or reported on with disinformation. With its film reports, and portraits distributed in samizdat channels, at the beginning Black Box managed to create the largest film collection documenting the events of the transitional period and the change of political system both in Hungary and in other communist countries.

This collection tells the sinuous story of the restoration to its former glory of the Black Church, a Gothic monument of the highest significance for the collective identity of the Saxon community in Transylvania. Launched by the local German-speaking elite during the 1930s, the restoration of the Black Church in Braşov was carried out during the communist period despite such politically driven adversities as the atheist system of values and the policy of so-called of “urban systematisation,” which envisaged the demolition of an important part of the architectural heritage of Romania.