COURAGE

connecting collections

The Aktionsgruppe Banat Ad-hoc Collection reflects the type of cultural opposition represented by a group of Romanian-German writers, who founded together the literary circle Aktionsgruppe Banat and developed a neo-Marxist criticism of “really existing socialism.” The collection comprises two types of items: (1) manuscripts and other materials confiscated by the Securitate from these writers, (2) documents issued by the Securitate concerning their cultural activity, which the communist regime perceived as dangerous.

‘Aldona Liobytė. Smiling Resistance' was the title of one of the first books about the writer, publicist and interpreter Aldona Liobytė. Being a very active person with a strong sense of humour, Liobytė initiated and led informal networks among the Lithuanian intelligentsia. She kept up social ties and correspondence with many artists, discussing and making suggestions about creative work and everyday life, as well as supporting the ideas of the younger generation of artists. Through her personal ties and networks, she expressed an outlook (usually in the form of humour, irony or sarcasm) that had a sense of the existence beyond official Soviet ideology. While she was forced to leave her job at the Literary Fiction publishers because of her un-Soviet attitudes, she continued to work in the cultural sphere, writing for children and the younger generation. Translating from other languages was also an important activity and a reliable source of income for Liobytė's family .
The collection consists of the papers of Aldona Liobytė, which are split between the Maironis Lithuanian Literature Museum and Liobytė’s daughter Gintarė Paškevičiūtė-Breivienė.

The Alenka Bizjak Environmental Collection is based on Alenka Bizjak's professional work as a lawyer and activism in the period from the late 1970s to the beginning of the 2000s. Bizjak was an active member of the environmental movement in Slovenia since the 1970s. The movement sought to warn the Slovenian and Yugoslav public of the harmfulness of large industrial facilities and hydroelectric plants on the Rivers Soča, Idrija, Mura and Sava and Lake Cerknica and prevent their construction. The collection is interesting because it attests to the culture of dissent in Yugoslavia in the form of a civil society campaign and its struggle for the affirmation of environmental issues that directly obstructed governmental plans for the construction of power facilities.

The Alenka Puhar Collection on the Human Rights Movement in Slovenia/Yugoslavia was mostly created in the 1980s and testifies to the struggle of Slovenian and Yugoslav activists to promote and protect human rights in Yugoslavia. Alenka Puhar was one of the key people in the 1983 campaign to abolish the death penalty in Yugoslavia, and in the organization of mass protests in Ljubljana in 1988 and in the Slovenian spring in the late 1980s. The collection documents the struggle and connections between Slovenian activists and other Yugoslav activists and dissidents who had the common goal of promoting and protecting human rights in Yugoslavia and ultimately the collapse of the communist regime.