Memory without borders
Historical documents as basis of cross border identity and culture
From February 2012 until June 2014 the project memory without borders – as part of the European Territorial Cooperation Programme „Creating the Future Slovak Republic – Austria“ – had the goal to foster a free and simplified access to archives of the border region of the Slovak Republic and Austria with the help of modern technologies as digitization and new media.
The history of Austria and the Slovak Republic has many common characters. Those common properties were concealed for a fairly long time, for example because of the so called “Iron curtain”. Since the Middle-European countries joined the European Union those barriers disappeared and new room for a fertile cultural exchange have been established.
Numerous important documents and written historical sources of the border region Austria and the Slovak Republic are kept in the national, regional and clerical archives of both countries. For a fairly long time those mutual European cultural beneficiaries were barley open for the interested public.
The goal of the project “Memory without borders” was to get over hurdles like language or limited access to archives and to make the historical documents available to interested people of both countries independent of space, time and social status.
After project end all partners are still working on new digitization programs as well as on joint activities. Our platform crossborderarchives will be still available free of costs and with up-dated materials in the future.
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