COURAGE

connecting collections

The Victor Frunză Collection is an important historical source for understanding and writing the history of that part of the Romanian exile community which was actively involved in supporting dissidents in the country and in publicising in the West the repressive or aberrant policies of the Ceaușescu regime. In particular, the collection illustrates the activity of the collector and other personalities of the exile community for respecting human rights in Romania. Also, the documents of this collection reflect the involvement of Romanians from abroad in the reconstruction of democracy in their country of origin.

The video and audio library of the Literary Archive of the Museum of Czech Literature consists of audio and video recordings of Czech poets and writers from 1932 until 2013; the collection also covers the literary scene in Czechoslovakia before 1989, including the activities of unofficial or “banned” writers and artists and their work in exile. One important part of the collection are recordings made between 1990 and 2013 as part of the Authentic project, which focused on recording videos and audios from various spheres of the Czech literary scene.

This ad-hoc collection was separated from the fonds of judicial files concerning persons subject to political repression during the communist regime, which is currently stored in the Archive of the Intelligence and Security Service of the Republic of Moldova (formerly the KGB Archive). It focuses on the case of Viktor Koval, an engineer of Russian ethnic background who expressed ”anti-Soviet” political opinions during the late 1970s and early 1980s, when he was working at an electrical equipment factory in the city of Bălți. In August 1982, Koval was found guilty of  “spreading calumnies and lies aimed at discrediting the Soviet state and social order.” However, instead of being sentenced to prison, he was sent to a special psychiatric facility of the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), where he spent almost eight years before being released in May 1990. Koval’s case is a revealing example of the use of punitive psychiatry in order to suppress voices critical of the Soviet regime. His file is also significant in the context of the early 1980s, usually viewed as a period featuring few open manifestations of oppositional activity.