Archives of the Czech Republic: Modern Development

The purpose of the article is to study the modern development of archives in the Czech Republic. The research methodology is based on a systemic and interdisciplinary approaches, using general scientific (analysis, synthesis, descriptive, classification, generalization) and special (source analysis, content analysis, structural and functional analysis) methods. In order to identify the development trends of the specified problem, a comparative-historical method was used. The scientific novelty of the article lies in expanding ideas about the development of archives in the Czech Republic at the present stage. The evolutionary conjuncture of archival progress is examined through the prism of the experience of organizational, structural, functional and, importantly, architectural and spatial transformations in Czech archives. The conclusions state that the Czech Republic was one of the first among post-Soviet European countries to effectively implement transformations in the archival sphere, which led to the transformation of the post-totalitarian archival system into a modern European model. As one example, the results of the large-scale experience of building archival structures are given, which still remains a special phenomenon and a successful project. The need for more careful attention to this experience is emphasized in order to understand which of its approaches and tools can be used in the post-war model of reconstructive development of the archival sector of Ukraine. The results of the study showed that essential was the renewal of the archival legal framework, formed under the influence of social and institutional reforms that took place after 1989, and which generally corresponds to the pan-European policy in the archival sector. It was also found out that the archival network has undergone changes, the specifics of the organizational structure and the functional specifics of individual subjects of this network (the National Archives, specialized and private archives) were revealed. Institutional accreditation and its role in archives obtaining the right to carry out their activities are considered.