In 1969, Reverend Canon Dr. Michael Bourdeaux, along with political scientist Peter Reddaway, diplomat and writer Sir John Lawrence and Soviet historian Leonard Schapiro, set up the Center for the Study of Religion and Communism, later known as Keston College and Keston Institute. It soon grew into a widely known British human rights organization and a resource center, unique in a way, as its field of expertise focused on church-state relations and persecutions of religious believers behind the Iron Curtain. From its foundation, the creation and development of an archive of documentation was a primary aim for Keston. Today, the Keston Archive and Library remains a unique collection of primary-source material on religious life and religious persecutions in socialist countries, containing, among other things, the world’s most extensive collection of religious samizdat. The Keston collection fills an important gap between state historical records and official church histories, giving voices to ordinary believers in their everyday struggle to freely express their faith.
The private collection of musician, DJ, radio journalist, and educator Attila Koszits is the primary source on rock and underground (especially New Wave) culture of the last half century in Pécs, a city in southern Hungary. The collection contains periodicals, photo documentation, literature of music, bootleg recordings, and music recorded on discs and cassette tapes.
“Kowalnia” is the popular name of professor Grzegorz Kowalski's Studio of Audiovisual Space at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Kowalski, a creator of installations and performer, has been its leader since 1984, drawing from the modernist tradition in which he was educated, and the communal, countercultural experiences of his own artistic activity. The studio gained popularity in the 1990s as a forge of the stars of the art world and of some of the most controversial figures in Polish “critical art”. The archive, maintained by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, includes photo and video documentation of the studio's activity, as well as its manifestos, exhibition catalogues and issues of a zine published by students.
