COURAGE

connecting collections

Milena Angelova, as a student of history at Neofit Rilski South-West University in the first half of the 1990s, participated actively in field expeditions gathering materials for micro-historical studies. Her doctoral dissertation, dedicated to the Model village program (2004), sets out the main thematic areas in which she develops her research interests - modernization projects, history of social work, social diseases, public health and welfare.

M. Angelova’s has conducted significant research in the field of memory politics, attempts of the communist party to control memory during the totalitarian regime.

With a sense of historical detail and sensitivity to the voices of those ignored by the official historiography groups, M. Angelova actively participates in the diverse activities of the Bulgarian Society for Autobiography and Social Communication (BSASC),  enriches the archive collection, and participates in a number of regional, national and international projects (Digital Archives - Science and Information Complex, Shared Memory Places - Digital Map of Monuments - projects of the Science Fund of the Ministry of Education and Science, To Come Out of the Shadow Supporting the Social Integration of People Threatened with Marginalisation Caused by Their Nationality (2011-2013, Grundtvig Program); Politics of Memory Cultures of the Russian-Ottoman War 1877-1878: From Divergence to Dialogue 7th Marie Curie Framework Program (2012-2016, FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IRSES Marie Curie Action International Research Staff Exchange Scheme), Knowledge Exchange and Academic Cultures in Humanities: Europe and the Black Sea Region, late 18th - 21st Centuries (2017-2020, Horizon2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Rise) among others.
As a member of the Multimedia Center for Computer Archives, Digital Archives and History of Local Governance and the International University Seminar for Balkan Studies and Specializations, she contributes to their establishment as scientific and educational dialogue centers that, through numerous exhibitions, lectures and meetings, teach history and deepenen the public debate on the recent past.

Arvydas Anušauskas is a Lithuanian historian and politician, and a member of the Tėvynės Sąjunga - Lietuvos krikščionys demokratai (Homeland Union - Lithuanian Christian Democrat) party. He has been a member of the parliament of Lithuania (Seimas) since 2008. When the Tėvynės Sąjunga was the ruling party (2008-2012), Anušauskas served in the influential position of chairman of the State Security and Defence Committee. Until becoming a member of parliament, he worked at the LGGRTC as director of the Research Department. Since entering the parliament, he has supported many initiatives by the centre regarding the policy of lustration, publishing KGB documents. As well as being active in politics, Anušauskas works in historical research and publishing books on Soviet repressions and KGB activities. His most recent book is KGB. Visiškai slaptai (KGB. Top Secret, Vilnius: Versus aureus, 2015), which describes the activities of the Soviet state security apparatus in Soviet Lithuania.

Andrej Aplenc was born in Ljubljana on September 2, 1930. He is from an old family of Slovenian Liberals. His father was a gymnasium professor, and his mother a teacher. He had two brothers. Both his father and mother were sympathizers of the Partisan movement but did not participate in it. Aplenc was twice detained in the prison camp on the island of Goli. The first time was during his secondary school days and the second time during college. He was a member of the League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia (LCYY/SKOJ) and participated in the youth brigades, where he was also a troop commander. In 1947 or 1948, he was excluded from the LCYY because of his more open approach to the organization’s functioning (as troop commander he allowed the organization of a dance). He continued to advocate for greater freedom of young people among students in the school, which resulted in his first detention on Goli in 1949. He spent a year on the island and was then released. A year and a half after his release, he was summoned for interrogation by the UDSA/UDBA (State Security Administration) to assess his attitude toward everything he had experienced on Goliand his relationship with other inmates from Ljubljana, who were then released. After refusing to provide the information requested, he was sent to Goli for the second time and spent the next two years there.

After returning from Goli, he had problems reintegrating into society and was initially prohibited from studying. He began to engage in mountaineering, and in his own words – found spiritual balance and peace in that way. Later, he returned to the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (Fakulteta za strojništvo), where he graduated. He was offered an assistant’s position at the Faculty provided that he join the Party, which Aplenc refused and then went to Switzerland (he had travel documents). There he married an American of Slovenian descent and went to America with her. He earned a masters degree in mechanical engineering there. He came back to Slovenia in the 1990s. He was rehabilitated by the court and was paid compensation for being detained on Goli. He is the author of the monograph Prodaja Slovenije (The Selling of Slovenia, Mladinska knjiga, 1997), and an associate of the weekly journal Democracy.