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Women and Minority Documentation and Digital Presentation - from Fragmented Data to Integration in the Information Society

Biljana Ristovska-Josifovska

In the frame of the project “Women and Minority Documentation and Digital Presentation - from Fragmented Data to Integration in the Information Society” and concerning the Workshop in Belgrade, we are presenting a brief preview of the possibilities for researching of the women and minority archive documentation that is available in Republic of Macedonia.
Generally, the history of archiving of documents had many stages. The possibilities and forms of archiving depended on the level and forms of societies throughout the historical epoques. The system of organized collecting, holding and presentation of the archive material by the official institutions in Macedonia has been introduced after the foundation of the State Archive in Skopje (1929-1941). Most of the materials have been moved to the Diplomatic Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia in Belgrade. After World War II the collecting of archive materials began. The modern organized and institutionalized archival activity in Republic of Macedonia has begun after the establishment of the State Archive of People’s Republic of Macedonia in 1951. Nine district archives have been founded (Bitola, Kumanovo, Ohrid, Prilep, Skopje, Strumica., Tetovo, Veles and Stip). Later, they became municipal historical archives, which have been included as regional departments into the State Archive of Republic of Macedonia after 1990 (In the further text: SARM). The Macedonian Academy for Sciences and Arts organizes a separate archive. Also the government institutions both at central and local level have own archives (ministries, regional units of the local authority etc.). The archiving is an obligation for all the organizations, institutions or enterprises in the state.

Today, the preservation and usage of the archive material (all the source and reproduced documentary material with permanent value for the science, culture and other social needs) are regulated by the Law for Archive Material (“Sluzhben vesnik na SRM” №. 36/90). The whole archival activity, including the approach to the archive material, is regulated with the prescriptive and subordinate acts (decrees, bylaws, directions etc.). According to the modern ways of automatic data processing and digitalization, SARM works on importing of the data from the archive funds in the bases for automatic data processing (In the further text: ADP), as well as scanning of the prepared scientific-informative tools and their transmission into the ADP-bases, aiming an easier accessibility to the informations. Having the same goal, the process of digitalization is also in progress in SARM. (The web (http://www.arhiv.gov.mk) enables searching in the part of the publishing production. The category “e-archive” is empty.)

The classification scheme covers the archive funds and collections of the state units; social-political organizations, political parties, societies; religious organizations and other organizations (organized by the type and range of the institutions and according to an alphabetical order of the fund-founder). The personal and family funds could be considered especially important, organized according to the surnames of the fund-founders of the personal or family funds. The same principle of researching concerns the collections and the copied archive material of a foreign provenience.
In the published Guides into the archive funds and collections in SARM, the directions for searching are in accordance to the current organization of the archive material in general. The possibility for searching according to the subject or topographic index does not separate the women or the minorities. Regarding the fact that separate catalogues for women and minorities have not been issued, the data for these target groups should be searched throughout all the funds and collections that are supposed that contain some source of information.

According to the classification scheme of SARM, data about women and minorities could be searched, for example, in the funds of the education organizations (example: Women School – Skopje) or the funds of the confessional organizations (example: Albanian Muslim Community, Vakuf’s Administration in Tetovo 1941-1945). Important informations contain the funds of the political parties and social-political organizations (example: Antifascist Front of Women. General Council-Skopje; Albanian Fascist Party in Gostivar), as well as the humanitarian organizations (example: Women Society – Kratovo; Muslim “Shefket”-Skopje). We find fund-founders from these target groups in the personal and family funds too (example: Aceva Vera, social-political activist -Skopje; Karahasan Mustafa, writer-Skopje etc.).

Evan if there are no separate archive institutions for women and minorities documentation, the researching of these topics is possible outside the state archive institutions too. We also find useful the libraries, documentary departments or archives in the national scientific institutes, possessing documents, field and other materials, publications - based on team or individual researches. Some of them do specialized research of minorities (for example, the folklore of Albanians, Turks, Roms, Vlachs). Concerning the publishing of documents related to women, there are few collections of women documents, some collections of field materials with women oral history as well as published recollections of women, related to the historical events and persons etc.

Especially important in the process of searching women and minority documentation become the specialized libraries and databases of the various non-government organizations, societies and institutions with different target groups (Macedonian Women Lobby (http://www.mzl.org.mk), Union of the Organization of Women of Macedonia (http://www.sozm.org.mk) etc.), connected with the development of the women movement. It strengthened after the obtainment of independence of Republic of Macedonia, when a period of intensified civil organizing on different bases has begun. There have been some attempts for foundation of databases in the frame of several projects. Also, almost all the relevant organizations and societies, related to women or minorities, have web addresses on internet, presenting their activities.

We are underlining the Research Center for Gender Studies, a part of the “Euro-Balkan” Institute (http://www.euba.org.mk), as a unique institution for specialized researching gender and organizing studies from this field in Macedonia. Since its foundation, this Center has been a coordinator of many projects and initiatives. In the frame of Euro-Balkan Institute an Information and Documentation Unit has been working, which has begun, since 2001, a daily monitoring of the press in Macedonia concerning the women/gender studies, at the same time creating an electronic base of articles. The Research Center for Gender Studies was an initiator and, together with the Belgrade Women’s and Gender Center, an organizer of the Regional Network for Gender/Women’s Studies in Southeastern Europe. (The web (http://www.gendersee.org.mk) contains on-line Databases.)

Regarding the non-possibilities for centralized institutional archive researching of women and minority documentation in Republic of Macedonia, the possibilities for detecting documents move to many directions and cover different sources of informations. For example, the research of one woman, leaded throughout various materials and institutions from different spheres of living, at the same time represents the model of functioning of the women in the society. Accordingly, it points the ways how one woman can leave traces for her-self in the institutional structures for collecting and keeping documentation. Taking into consideration the extent of aspects and themes related to women and minorities, and as a result of their spreading throughout the documentation, the necessity of centralized and thematically defined collection and presentation appears. In addition, their digitalization becomes particularly important among the current trends of fast communication and easy approach to information.