COURAGE

connecting collections

The Museum of Literature and Music was founded in 1925. It is an institution of national importance, working under the Ministry of Culture and funded by the government. Its main mission is to nurture the heritage of Latvian literature, theatre, cinema and music, as well as art, as far as it is connected with the main fields of interest. The museum's collection consists of more than 900,000 items.

Literatūra un Māksla (Literature and Art) was a weekly journal published from 1945 by the creative unions (the Soviet Latvian unions of writers, composers, artists, architects and cinematographers, as well as the Theatrical Society). Although it was closely monitored by the Central Committee of the Latvian Communist Party, at some points in its existence from the mid-1950s the weekly became a platform for comparatively free and lively discussions, not only on artistic and intellectual matters, but also on public matters. The periodical ceased to exist in November 1994. Some documents about the 1958 protest campaign against the construction of the Pļaviņas HES were kept in the editorial office, and they were given to the Museum of the River Daugava, as well as many protest letters that were sent to the weekly by protesters against the construction of the Daugavpils HPP in 1986. 

The Lithuanian Archive of Literature and Art was established on the basis of the LSSR Central State Archive of Literature and Art. The Soviet Lithuanian government established the Central State Archive of Literature and Art in 1968. At that time, the archive had 111 funds, and about 12,000 units. The government of the independent Republic of Lithuania changed the name of the archive to the Lithuanian State Archive of Art in 1990. The archive was given its current name, the Lithuanian Archive of Literature and Art, in 1993. It is now a public archive, supervised by the Office of the Chief Archivist, and controlled by the Ministry of Culture.

The Lithuanian Archive of Literature and Art preserves and accumulates records from state institutions, societal organisations and private persons, reflecting the development of culture and art in Lithuania. Most of the records are from the 20th century. Some documents in the collections of private persons date from the 15th century. The Library of the Archive of Literature and Art, which stores more than 177,067 publications from the 18th century to the present day, is a separate structural unit. The documents preserved in the archive comprise five sets: documents from cultural management institutions, documents from literary institutions, documents from art institutions, documents from music institutions, and documents from theatre and film institutions. The archive now has 790 funds, and more than 197,000 files.

The archive has changed its location once, moving from 11 Mindaugo St to 19 O. Milašiaus St in Vilnius.