Chechen archives destroyed by warTimur Aliyev, North Caucasus – The war in Chechnya has destroyed almost all the archives of the country, stated Magomed Muzayev, head of the archive department of the Moscow-backed government of the Chechen Republic.
“Artillery shelling and bombing destroyed the building where the historical records were stored,” he said.
Out of 1,500 collections, only part of one of them was preserved, which represents less than one percent of all pre-war documents.
“This section was saved only because we personally moved it to a building in the Novye Atagi village,” Muzayev explained.
The National Archives comprised several centuries of Chechen history. “If something like this happened in any other part of the world, it would be considered a national disaster,” Muzayev added sadly.
The damaged records that survived were sent to Samara where they can be properly restored.
“We also restore our archives by acquiring documents from the archives of neighboring regions. We research, locate and copy all documents that pertain to our heritage and invite historians to give us unbiased assessments of this material. In short, we try to save what can still be saved,” said Muzayev. (T)
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