O idei archiwum. Kilka uwag
The idea of an archive. A few remarks

Summary/Abstract: The article is a reflection on the so-called “archival turn” – a movement in the humanities that emerged in the 1990s. The author contemplates three ideas of an archive, characteristic for this movement: those presented by the French philosophers – Paul Ricoeur, who links the idea of an archive with historical epistemology, demonstrating its primarily scientific function, and Michel Foucault with his oppressive, power-related role of the archive, as well as that of the German anthropologist Aleida Assmann, who situates the archive in the dialectical relationship between memory and oblivion, seeing it as a kind of a mental anchor that roots us in the past. The author concludes that these three contemporary thinkers effected what could be called a desacralization of the archive. Instead of a “sacred place” where traces of the past are preserved, accessible only to the initiated, they outline concepts with a more pragmatic dimension, occasionally revealing the oft-hidden functions of the archive, related to its place in public life. At the same time, they inspire answers to the question of why do we need archives? After all, they are no longer just a place to store documents and preserve them. Archivists and historians are no longer the only actors responsible for storing and interpreting documents. The author emphasizes that the ideas presented in the text may provide a motivation to depart from the metaphors of the archive as a trace, memento, artifact or document, in favour of a description of materiality and objects. To some extent, they also indirectly address the process of structuring archival practices, often involving an ethical dimension. They inspire the question: what is subject to archiving and what is not, how is the material selected, what is the responsibility of the archivist with regard to building a specific narrative around the fonds? The study is concluded with an observation that time will tell whether all the numerous activities designed to commemorate the past would give rise to a new model of archives that would respond differently, or maybe better, to the challenges of the present.

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