A working meeting on the establishment of a Council of Archives of Southeast Europe is being held Friday in Skopje. It is organized by the State Archive of Macedonia, which is marking its 65th anniversary.
The initiative has been presented at the annual assembly of the International Council on Archives, held last year in Iceland’s capital Reykjavik, said Filip Petrovski, Director of the State Archive of Macedonia.
“An association is lacking, which will help our archives and our staff to cooperate with each other, share experiences and build bridges in a symbolic way, which are maybe missing or are not strong enough if they have been already established,” Petrovski stated.
The meeting is attended by representatives of the archives of BiH, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Turkey and Romania with officials of the International Center for Archival Research (ICARUS) being present as honorary guests.
Minister of Culture Elizabeta Kanceska-Milevska said the initiative on setting up the organization, launched by the Director of the State Archive of Macedonia, would be the driving force of many joint projects and activities aimed at protecting and promoting Macedonia’s cultural and historical heritage.
“The State Archive of Macedonia, the guardian of our collective memory, is observing an important milestone – its 65th anniversary. In the past 6,5 decades, the institution has taken diligent care to collect, process, protect, preserve and curate our archives, which identify us as a nation, as a state,” stated Kanceska-Milevska.
By implementing international and European standards in relation to archival science, the State Archive has been turned into a modern institution, according to her.
“This institution is housing an abundance of archival material, over 57 million documents, collections, rare books and micro-films with more than 11 million recordings,” the Minister said.
As part of its celebrations marking the 65th anniversary, the State Archive of Macedonia promoted an edition featuring a series of copies of crucial documents from the Macedonian cultural and historical heritage.