Archives of Ukrainian Silent Cinema: Formation, Storage and Legal Basis of Access

The purpose of the article is to investigate the history and current state of archiving of the collection of fi lm documents produced by the All-Ukrainian Photo Cinema Administration (VUFKU), which is stored in the Central State Film and Photo Archives of Ukraine named after H. S. Pshenychny. Interdisciplinarity and insuffi cient elaboration of the problem led to the choice of methodological basis of research based on the principles of objectivity, historicism, complexity, as well as a systematic approach to the study of archives and archival collections of fi lm documents as complexes of interconnected elements with appropriate structure and functional features. General scientifi c methods (of analysis and synthesis, classifi cation, extrapolation method, methods of structural and functional analysis), methods of historical research (chronological, historical-comparative methods, method of historical description), methods of legal science (formal-legal, comparative-legal), and also methods of source research were used. The scientifi c novelty of the study is that for the fi rst time on the basis of a comprehensive analysis and involvement in the scientifi c circulation of previously unknown archival sources traced conditions, ways and means of formation and development of documentary fi lm collection of VUFKU as part of national archival information resources. Stage moments of the history of receipts and sources of fi lling the collection, its quantitative and species composition are analyzed. The specifi cs of the organization of collection storage are considered, the dependence of archiving of fi lm documents on industrial practice due to the technical nature of the latter is emphasized. Emphasis is placed on archival initiatives in the direction of providing and updating the information and source potential of the collection of VUFKU fi lm documents, the peculiarities of legal access to it are revealed. The conclusions suggest, in particular, to consider the possibility of integrating a collection of VUFKU fi lm documents into the Interarchial Search Portal, which currently combines digital resources of state archives in a single search space, as well as separate thematic digital collections of documents running on the ARCHIUM platform.