Memory and Disinformation Studies

Victims of Soviet Repressions in Georgia – Legal Remedies and Their Assessment

To date, modern societies fully recognize the events of mass human rights violations at the territory of the former USSR. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the states took the responsibility to restore the violated rights of their citizens and ensure their legal rehabilitation. Georgia is among these states.

Openness of State Archives and Memory Studies - Conference Theses

On 5-6 December 2019, with the financial support of the Open Society Institute – Budapest Foundation, the Institute for Development of Freedom of information (IDFI) held a conference on the Openness of State Archives and Memory Studies in the Former Soviet and Eastern Bloc Countries in Tbilisi. Up to 30 researchers, historians, and the representatives of civil society from all over the world participated in the conference.

Tbilisi Events of 14 April 1978 and the Excerpts from the Western Press

On 14 April, a large demonstration was held in Tbilisi. The citizens of Soviet Georgia protested an attempt of the Communist party to change the constitutional status of the Georgian language. 

A Year after the Discovery of the Mass Graves of the Victims of the Soviet Repressions

A year has passed since the Batumi and Lazeti Diocese discovered a burial site of around 150 persons in Khelvachauri, near the city of Batumi.

The First Mass Grave of the Individuals shot during the Great Terror in Georgia

Great Terror, Red Terror, Great Cleansing, Stalinist Repressions - these are the names used by the historians for describing the events taking place in the Soviet Union in 1934-1954 and culminated in 1937-1938.

Educational Week dedicated to the Soviet occupation

On 25 February 2020, Georgia marked 99 years after the occupation of Georgian by the Bolshevik Red Army. Within the frame of the project “Enhancing Openness of State Archives in the Former Soviet and Eastern Bloc Countries”, comprising the component of memory studies, the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) actively works on increasing the awareness about the Soviet occupation in the society.

Accessing Archives in a Post-Soviet World: The Georgian Experience

Commitments to bring about positive changes in archival landscape have been made by nearly 20 countries in their action plans for the Open Government Partnership (OGP). Commitments ranged from ensuring unhindered citizen access to public information and archival documents, adopting or amending relevant archival laws, declassifying archival materials, and digitizing paper-based documents to make them publicly available online.

The Conference - Nationalist Historiography in Post-Communist South Caucasus

On 15-16 February 2020, the head of the Archives, Soviet and Memory Studies direction at the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI), Anton Vacaharadze and an analyst, Megi Kartsivadze attended the conference „Nationalist Historiography in Post-Communist South Caucasus“ organized by the Central European University in Budapest.

IDFI Partner Discusses Open Archives in Belarus

On February 4, 2019, a briefingand discussion for journalists was held at the Belarusian Documentation Centre at which the openness of state archives and the publicity of data about repressed people were discussed. The initiator and organizer of the event was the researcher of the Belarusian Documentation Centre and the partner of the project “Enhancing Openness of State Archives in the Former Soviet and Eastern Bloc Countries” by the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI), Dmitry Drozd.

Results of the International Conference - Openness of State Archives and Memory Studies