Latvian Archives in Exile: selection of the archive materials, digitization, and interviews in the Latvian Centre Münster and in the House Annaberg of Baltic Christian Federation

Dr. Eva Eglāja-Kristsone

1) Created digital collection of the Latvian archives in exile in the vortals (www.literatura.lv and www.garamantas.lv).

2) Conducted interviews with employees of the House Annaberg of Baltic Christian Federation and Latvian exile in Westhofen, Bonn, and Cologne.

3) Studied and promoted Austra Rudzīte’s and other personalities’ contribution to the creation of Latvian exile archives.

4) The public and researchers in the humanities have been introduced to the content of the digital collection, supplementing public knowledge of Latvian cultural history, exile social life in Western Europe, especially in Germany, as well as elsewhere in Europe after the Second World War, and promoting new research on Latvian diaspora and German relations, as well as cultural contacts between the Baltics (Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Baltic Germans).

1) Review, evaluate and select materials for digitisation (the Latvian Centre in Münster (LCM) the House Annaberg (HA)).

2) Digitize documents, manuscripts, letters and photographs in high quality and resolution (LCM, HA).

3) Scientifically process the obtained collection, adding descriptions, references and metadata to the digitised materials (LCM, HA, ILFA).

4) Conduct interviews with current and former employees of the archive in the House Annaberg (Annaberg, Bonn, Westhofen, Cologne).

5) Create a collection of the digitized materials in the database literatura.lv and make it publicly available to researchers for further scientific work (ILFA).

6) Inform Baltic researchers and the general public about the collection of new digitized materials on the website; inform about the contribution of Austra Rudzīte and other personalities in the compilation of archives (seminar in the Latvian Centre in Münster, seminar in the House Annaberg, the closing seminar at the National Library of Latvia).

7) Publish information and inform about the activities on social networks and media.

Direct: Ca. 300 researchers in humanities, employees of archives and museums, librarians, teachers, students, high school students.

Indirect: Latvian society; Latvian society; users of the site literatura.lv; average statistics: 24,000 individual visits per month.