COURAGE

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Vanda Zaborskaitė (1922-2010) was a professor of Lithuanian literature. In 1961, she was dismissed from her position as a lecturer at Vilnius University because of her 'nationalism'. After that, she found a position at the Lithuanian Institute of History. While she had other research topics at the institute, she also worked on Lithuanian literature, researching a very disapproved of topic at the time, the work and activities of the Lithuanian poet Jonas Mačiulis-Maironis (1862-1932). Maironis was a Catholic priest, who used strong patriotic and nationalist expression in his works, and the Soviet regime had to consider how to interpret his legacy, what parts of his work should be available to society, and what should be seen as religious.

Colecția reflectă varietatea disidenței religioase din România comunistă și ilustrează practicile religioase subterane de la sfârșitul anilor 1940 până în anii 1980. Colecția cuprinde, pe de o parte, documente și alte artefacte culturale create de diferite confesiuni și confiscate de Securitate și, pe de altă parte, documentele create de poliția secretă. Acestea din urmă ilustrează supravegherea intensă și politicile represive ale poliției secrete îndreptate spre acele activități religioase care s-au opus politicilor regimului comunist din România.

Vasyl Stus was an iconic figure of the human rights movement in Soviet Ukraine and one of the leading Ukrainian poets of his generation. Volumes of his poetry circulated widely through samizdat in the 1960s-1980s. While conducting searches, the KGB would  find his works in the homes of every writer, artist, chemist, and human rights activist, whose activities were cause for concern. As with many writers, Stus’s struggle with the Soviet regime, particularly his brutal incarceration and torture in a Soviet prison camp, which led to his death in 1985, have in many ways overshadowed his human and artistic legacy. The Vasyl Stus Collection at the T. H. Shevchenko Institute of Literature in Kyiv was donated by the Stus family after Ukrainian independence in 1991, with the aim of popularizing and making more accessible his writings. These materials include previously unknown works, volumes of Stus’s vast correspondence, as well as fragments of writings that survived his imprisonment in strict-regime hard labor camps in Mordovia and Perm.

The Velid Đekić collection covers beginning of rock and disco culture not only in Rijeka but also in the former Yugoslavia. While working on the books 91 decibels (2009) and Red! River! Rock! (2013), Đekić collected materials on many of Rijeka's bands that have existed from the late 1950s until the early 1980s, and on the places where young people gathered. That is why this collection testifies to the unique history of rock 'n' roll behind the Iron Curtain.