Location

• Ljubljana Metelkova ulica 6, Slovenia 1000
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Languages

• Croatian
• English
• French
• German
• Italian
• Serbian
• Slovene

Website

• http://www.mirovni-institut.si

Name of collection

• Archives of the Peace Movement in Ljubljana

Provenance and cultural activities

• The collection was originally assembled in the Information Centre (INFOSHOP) of the Centre for the Culture of Peace and Non-violence in Ljubljana. The Centre was established in 1989 as the publicly accessible infrastructure of the Movement for the Culture of Peace and Non-violence at the address Mestni trg 13, Ljubljana, Slovenia. This location was also the initial headquarters of the Ljubljana Peace Institute (founded in June 1991). The initial purpose of the public collection (as an open INFOSHOP) was to provide general access to the newsletters and samizdats of partner movements in Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe and overseas. “Partner movements” implied: democratic opposition, peace, anarchist, non-violent, gender, environmental and general human rights movements and campaigns globally. The collection evolved and grew spontaneously, particularly through the extensive involvement of the peace movement members in regional (Alps-Adriatic region), European (.e.g., East-West dialogue group, European Nuclear Disarmament, Helsinki Citizens Assembly….), global (War Resisters International, Global Nuclear Disarmament, International Fellowship of Reconciliation, Helsinki Watch, etc.) and bilateral (action-oriented or solidarity) campaigns.

  In 1989-1993, the collection was open to the public; public access and outreach was the core mission of the Centre for the Culture of Peace and Non-violence and its raison d’ être. The International Institute for Social History from Amsterdam, with Tjebbe van Tijen, embarked on the project of microfilming the collection in 1992. This process was supported by Nace (Ignac) Kalin, who was crucial in structuring the collection. Nace Kalin and Marko Hren also shared the burden of securing the collection after the premises of the Centre at Mestni trg 13 were abandoned in 1993. The collection was then temporarily, for almost two decades, held in Hren's and Kalin's private archives, and then finally turned over to the Peace Institute on the celebration of its 20^th anniversary in 2011.

  When the Peace Institute assumed the collection, it was in a chaotic, disorganised state. An employee of the Peace Institute at the time, Jovana Mihajlović Trbovc, reorganized the collection in its current orderly form in 2014. On that occasion, she put the paper folders in archival registers, added additional folders with miscellaneous documents and publications, and created an electronic (Excel table) catalogue of the collection.

  At the moment, the collection is not in active use for exhibitions, public events, publications or political campaigns. It is available to interested researchers.

Description of content

• The collection consists of 58 archival folders. Most of materials are paper documents (e.g., letters, paper correspondence, notes, drafts of documents). The second largest group consists of printed publications (e.g., fanzines, newsletters, NGO published magazines). Among the correspondence there is certain quantity of fax paper which is beginning to fade. There are also: address lists, press clippings, signed petitions, completed questionnaires, business cards, and film negatives.

  The language is predominantly Slovenian. However, some of the correspondence is in Croatian, English and Serbian, but less in other languages (French, German). The publications in the collection are in Slovenian, Croatian, English, German, Italian, Serbian and a few other languages.

  There are no digital materials.

Content

• grey literature (regular archival documents such as brochures, bulletins, leaflets, reports, intelligence files, records, working papers, meeting minutes): 10-99
• manuscripts (ego-documents, diaries, notes, letters, drafts, etc.): 100-499

Operator(s)

• The Peace Institute in Ljubljana

Owner(s)

• Hren, Marko
• The Peace Institute in Ljubljana

Stakeholder(s) of the collection

• Kogovšek Šalamon, Neža

Geographical scope of recent operation

• international

Topics

• peace movements

Founder(s)

• Hren, Marko
• The Peace Institute in Ljubljana

Date of founding

• 1989

Place of founding

• Ljubljana, Slovenia
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Creator(s) of content

• Hren, Marko

Collector(s)

• The Peace Institute in Ljubljana

Important events in the history of the collection

• Donation of the Marko Hren Collection to the Peace Institute, 2011

Featured items

• Independent Voices from Yugoslavia, 1988. Bulletin
• Proposal for Article 24 of the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia, 1991

Access type

• completely open to the public
• visits by appointments

Publications

• In addition to the publications issued by peace movement organisations (the predecessors to the Peace Institute), i.e., Independent Voices from Slovenia and  Intruder, other publications in the collection (mostly published by other foreign peace/non-violence organisations) are not catalogued individually.

Author(s) of this page

• Mihajlović Trbovc, Jovana

References

1. Hren, Marko. 2011. Če Hočeš Mir, Pripravljaj Mir!: Spremna Publikacija Besedilu Si Vis Pacem Para Pacem. Ljubljana: Self-publishing

2. Hren, Marko. 2012.“The Slovenian Peace Movement: An Insider’s Account.” In Resisting the Evil: [Post-]Yugoslav Anti-War Contention, edited by Bojan Bilić and Vesna Janković, 63–82. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft,

3. Jalušič, Vlasta, and Lev Kreft, eds. 2011. Vojna in Mir: Refleksije Dvajsetih Let. Ljubljana: Mirovni inštitut

4. Kenney, Padraic. 2003. A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Pres, part of chapter 4: Slovenia’s People for Peace Culture

Hren, Marko, interview by Bagarić, Petar, September 05, 2017. COURAGE Registry Oral History Collection