COURAGE

connecting collections

The 'Action of Light‘ (Gaismas akcija) was an organisation founded by Paulis Kļaviņš in the 1970s, and registered in the USA in 1977, and in West Germany in 1978. The aims of the organisation were: 1) to provide Christians in Latvia with religious literature and information about religious life in the West; 2) to inform Western society about religious persecution, repressions against religious and political dissidents, and life in Soviet Latvia in general; 3) to organise protest actions against the persecution of dissidents in the USSR, and in the Baltic Republics in particular. The organisation provided an opportunity for émigré Latvians, as well as non-Latvians in the West, to participate in Gaismas akcija in five possible ways: 1) as couriers taking money, literature (copied on microfilm), medicines for political prisoners, etc, on tourist trips to Latvia; 2) as social activists, advocates of the cause; 3) by participating in demonstrations and other street actions; 4) by writing letters to dissidents and political prisoners in Latvia, and protest letters to Soviet functionaries; 5) by providing regular or irregular donations to the organisation.

National library of Great Britain. Besides books (more than 25 million items), journals and manuscripts, its vast collections contain photographs, newspapers, patents, maps, and music and sound recordings. It holds unique materials of great importance for European and world history. The most treasured holdings include Magna Carta, Leonardo da Vinci's Notebook, the first edition of The Times (1788), the recording of Nelson Mandela's Rivonia trial speech. The archives represent every age of written civilization – there are Chinese oracle bones over 3.000 years old and today’s newspapers’ issues.

Moreover, the British Library holds collections which could not have been gathered in different countries for institutional or ideological reasons, like the dissent materials and samizdat publications produced in socialist Poland.

The city of Zagreb, as the capital of Croatia, has a special status: Zagreb performs the self-governing public affairs of both a city and county, for it is also the seat of Zagreb County which encircles Zagreb. The city administrative bodies are the Zagreb City Assembly (Gradska skupština Grada Zagreba) as the representative body and the mayor of Zagreb (Gradonačelnik Grada Zagreba) who is the city’s chief executive official. City administrative offices, institutions and services (18 city offices, 1 public institute or bureau and 2 city services) have been established to perform activities within the self-administrative sphere and activities entrusted by the national government. The city administrative bodies are managed by their directors. The City Assembly Staff Service is managed by the secretary of the City Assembly (appointed by the Assembly) (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zagreb#Metropolitan_administration). 

Zagreb is also the cultural heart of Croatia; the city owns several museums, one of which is the Museum of Contemporary Art, which maintains the Tošo Dabac Collection and parts of the Collection for the Democratization of Art and the Casual Passer-by Collection. The collections are, therefore, the property of the City of Zagreb, and under the authority of two city offices – City Office of Property Law and City assets and City Office of Education, Culture and Sports.

The Democracy International (TDI) is a not-for-profit non-governmental organisation founded in 1979 in New York. It brought together democratic opponents of both right- and left-wing dictatorships from Asia and Latin America and from across the Soviet bloc.