Czech Archives at the Crossroads: Breaking with the Past

The close ties of the Czechoslovak archival institutions with the ideological superstructure of the past oppressive Communist regime has left the archives vulnerable to attacks in the period of ideological breakdown of Marxism-Leninism throughout the Eastern bloc countries. The future of Czech and Slovak archives will be determined by how fast and thoroughly they disassociate themselves from the untenable ideology and from their own inconvenient past. The major task for archivists today is to rehabilitate, to reform, and to integrate the archival profession into the new social order. The first steps in the right direction have been taken. How Czechoslovak archivistics will meet the challenge of newly regained autonomy under the conditions of Czechoslovakia's strangled economy remains to be seen.