COURAGE

connecting collections

The exhibition “Samizdat the Creative Power of Resistance” was prepared by the library Libri Prohibiti in cooperation with the National Library of the Czech Republic in the spring of 2014. The exhibition held in the Klementinum Gallery in Prague presented samizdat as a social phenomenon within the context of the 1970s and 1980s. Among the exhibits, the most important editions and authors of Czech samizdat literature could be found. Visitors could also learn about various ways of the production and reproduction of samizdat, and about the persecution of samizdat publishers and distributors.

The exhibition entitled Enough - We Won't be Silent Anymore showed rich visual and textual material about the first oppositional mass demonstrations in Blagoevgrad in 1989, the declaration on the return of Muslim names, mass meetings and the democratic changes in local government, among which was the first democratically election for major in Blagoevgrad and others. The exhibition presents images of civic participation in the transition years 1989-1991 and numerous documents of organizations that were among the main factors of social change at the beginning of the transition. A special place was devoted to the importance of Neofit Rilski South-West University  (then known as the Higher Pedagogical Institute) in these events, such as the establishment of the Independent Student Society.
The exhibition was based both on archival materials (such as documentation of political parties from 1989-1991) and on life histories and personal archives collected by the Balkan Society for Autobiography and Social Communication. All original materials were later handed over to the Archives State Agency-Blagoevgrad; the association stores only scanned copies in its own archive.

The exhibition titled "Serial Publications by Croats Living Outside Croatia (from NUL fund)" (Serijske publikacije Hrvata izvan Hrvatske: iz fonda NSK) was held in Zagreb at the National and University Library. It took place from 24 June to 3 July 2014. The aim of the exhibition was to hold the First Croatian Diaspora Congress. The editor of the exhibition catalogue and the exhibition organiser was Željka Lovrenčić, head of the Foreign Croatica Collection. The exhibition included serials published abroad during the time of socialist Yugoslavia and depicted anti-communist and opposition activities.

The exhibition took place in A.D.A., the alternative centre of culture in Warsaw. It displayed the history of Warsaw’s anarchist-ecologist-feminist-punk movement from the years of the transition from socialism to capitalism. The political-economic transition was conceptualised not as a turn or revolution, but continuation of the state oppression, police brutality, patriarchal culture, and chauvinist social order. Presented materials included photos, leaflets, brochures, zines, posters, and other types of graphic and written documentation of the movement from years 1988-1994. The exposition was the main part of the event, but not the only one. The programme of the show included concerts, happenings, discussions, workshops, talks by the movement’s veterans, and film projections. After two intensive days of the recognition and critical interpretation of the failed activities from the very first years of the movement, many exposed items were gathered and destroyed as reminiscences that should belong to the history and thus not impact the contemporary social and political resistance. The exhibition had no ‘curators’ due to the fact that it was assembled collectively by the Warsaw’s anarchist circles, but the informal group of main organizers included Tymoteusz Onyszkiewicz, Arkadiusz ‘Owca’ Zajączkowski, Adam Ryć, Jakub Możaryn, and Bogna Olszewska.

Sources:
Tymoteusz Onyszkiewicz, Fuck 89 Manifesto, 2014.
A.D.A. website: https://adapulawska.noblogs.org/post/2014/05/24/wystawa-fuck-89/

The grand opening of the Polish Rock Granary, the branch of the Jarocin Regional Museum, took place on the 17^th July 2014, The date was by no means coincidental: it was the time of the famous Jarocin music festival – an event that turned this inconspicuous town in Greater Poland into the informal capital of Polish rock music. The choice of this date allowed the participants of the festival to visit the exhibition and explore the history of rock music in Poland and in Jarocin.

The opening involved a concert of the Dzieci Jarocina – Orkiestra Reprezentacyjna Spichlerza Polskiego Rocka band with Piotr Banach, Tomasz Budziński, Sebastian Riedl, and Muniek Staszczyk and of Projekt: Stacja Jarocin by Tomasz Budziński, former member of Siekiera and Armia, and his band. The event was facilitated by Walter Chełstowski, the organiser of the most prominent editions of Jarocin festival in the 1980s. The concerts were oganised by the Music Society of Jarocin (Towarzystwo Muzyczne w Jarocinie) and Jarocin XXI Association (Stowarzyszenie Jarocin XXI) as a gift for the Polish Rock Granary.