Priorities of the Exhibition and Exposition Work of Zaporizhzhia State Historical Archives in the First Years of its Operation (1932–1933)

The purpose of the study is to determine the priorities of the exhibition and exposition work of the Zaporizhzhia State Historical Archives, the predecessor of the current State Archives of Zaporizhzhia Region, in the first years (1932–1933) after the reorganization of the archival system of Ukraine, which caused creation of a network of local historical archives and regional archival departments, implementing ideas of Stalin's modernization of the country. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, political pluralism, and systematicity. A microhistorical approach to the analysis of social processes was used. A complex of general scientific and special historical methods was applied, primarily analysis, synthesis, historical-genetic and historical-comparative methods, methods of source criticism and archival heuristics. The scientific novelty of the study. The Zaporizhzhia State Historical Archive's example shows the pro-government orientation, ideological determination, and typicality of the topics of the first exhibitions in the system of state historical archives in Ukraine. The themes and contents of the exhibitions have been reconstructed. New archival sources from the fond «State Archives of Zaporizhzhia Region» (R-849) have been introduced into scientific circulation. Conclusions. It is claimed that the priorities of the exhibition and exposition work of the archives during the Stalinist modernization of the country were oriented exclusively towards propaganda goals and only distanced contemporaries from the real problems of life, and formed Russian-Soviet narratives. The reasons for the archive's choice of exhibition themes, their planning, execution, and exposition were determined by the ideological guidelines of the ruling party and the socio-political situation in the country and were carried out in a directive style that reflected totalitarian methods of state administration. The topics of the exhibitions were limited. The composition of the exhibition performers depended, first of all, on the compliance of the scientists with the ideological requirements. The exhibition work tightly controlled at all stages, and supervised by party institutions.