An anthropological turn in historical and archival studies: personal archives as sources of spiritual life

Abstract

The article considers collecting of personal archives that have undergone a complex development, formed by individuals in accordance with their own ideas about the archival and spiritual purposes. Personal papers, which are the monuments of human creativity and destinies, appear as objective evidence of spiritual life, and we are confronted with the resurrected destinies of living individuals. Unfortunately, the evolution of ideas about the potential value of certain documents has led to the irreversible destruction of many of them. As a result, «living» documents that reflect specific aspects of the private lives of different social groups have remained outside of the archives. In this regard, it is necessary to state the qualitative loss of the source base formed during the Soviet period, when the rights and interests of the state, rather than the individual, were the priority. The article analyzes the anthropological approach in historical and archival research at the end of the 20th century, when there was a gradual rejection of the idea that society is only a product of state institutions. Instead, attention was focused on the daily lives of individuals and the «ordinary» participants in social processes. The research focuses on a person’s internal memory, not the result, but the process of his emotional and spiritual development in the context of everyday life.