Good Evening, Dear Archivists, Dear Audience,
I
The circle of our institutions marking their centennial anniversary in the country is growing ever larger. We have more and more anniversaries to celebrate starting from last November.
We are celebrating by appreciating the fruits of our own work and that of our ancestors. This is undoubtedly a special and enjoyable duty - to stop amidst our daily rush and look back on the path covered since the summer of 1919.
Today we can only imagine how dense and eventful time was a hundred years ago. When, in a wave of enormous energy and spite, the first large state institutions of Latvia were born and were established under harsh conditions.
High and noble goals were set, national targets were set in a materially modest environment. The people acted with enthusiasm and were mission-driven. It is still much the same today.
II
We all know that a hundred years is not much for archives. However, for Latvians as a new nation and Latvia as a new state, their archives meant the foresight significant for their national self-awareness that we were a rich nation blessed with an interesting and complicated history, the history yet to be recovered.
We notice the evolution of understanding in the change of the name as well. From the Historical Archives, the first name of the newly established institution, to the State Archives in 1924. Moreover, today, we congratulate the Latvian National Archives.
III
The archive is not only the carrier of documentary memory of Latvian kins, families, and land. Throughout various times and powers, the archive has retained legal confirmation of the legitimate right of the Latvian nation and the Latvian state to exist.
I have just learned that the Latvian National Archives has discovered and received the original credentials issued to Ambassador Kārlis Zariņš, which has survived through the occupation regime in a very unusual way until today. We should commemorate that duly next year.
IV
Even after the restoration of Latvia’s independence, the archive has been a brilliant and reliable witness of the era, whose testimony based on documents and facts and neutral voice may not be ignored.
One should emphasise two processes intriguing entire society in particular, which would not have been possible without the archive and the enthusiastic involvement of its staff. The first process I would like to mention is the recovery of documentation of properties nationalised in the result of the Soviet occupation of 1940 in the 1990s. These archival documents were the basis for denationalisation in the first years after the restoration of Latvia’s independence. The second process is very recent digitisation and publication of the heritage section of the Latvian SSR State Security Committee (KGB). This opens up a very tragic page in the history of the Latvian nation and Latvia, but this page belongs to us, to our history, and we must explore and study it.
The fulfilment of these voluminous functions was a part of the process of restoring historical justice. In Latvia, this process is not yet fully completed and must be continued.
V
The archive is a public body that performs its task quietly and decently. The invaluable importance of the archive is illuminated and made clearer when the ages change and not every day. Perhaps this is why the voice of the archive itself is usually silent in everyday life, and the government and the public have not fully appreciated the efforts of its staff yet. Nevertheless, that should change.
There was a figurative statement before that the archive was the heaven for documents by depicting an almost-forgotten place where the papers turned yellow and where nobody even leafed them for decades or hundreds of years.
In the modern digital age, the documentary heritage has been given extra longevity, and anyone can connect to it from his or her smart device almost anywhere in the world.
Technological tools and their applications are changing, including the extent to which archival content can be processed and used today. This means our history becomes more accessible, we can understand it better and use it every day for research, for our historical awareness.
However, the archival function of collecting, storing, processing, and researching remain the same. From the earliest testimonies of Livonian cities to the Duchy of Courland and the Republic of Latvia in the 20th and the 21st centuries, this is the scale of our national history, which the staff of the National Archives of Latvia preserves for today and for the future.
Congratulations to the staff and management of the Latvian National Archives on this significant anniversary!
Thank you for your merits and may your plans succeed and materialise in the near and distant future. Let us continue to serve our country, Latvia!
