Head of Ukraine’s Archives:wants access limited

The Head of Ukraine’s State Archive, Olha Ginzburg from the Communist Party continues to assert that Ukraine’s archives are the most open in the world and still maintains her position that they should be much more restricted.

Ms Ginzburg, a former Communist Party MP has held her present post since 2007.  Throughout that time she has spoken out against openness and in favour of classifying documents about communist repressions, especially those linked with Holodomor and the Great Terror.

In an interview to the State information agency Ukrinform on 2 April, Ms Ginzburg said that as of the present, less than one percent of documents in the State Archives are classified as secret.

She then, however, goes on to say:

“We can’t, for example, show all those who would like to, the cases of victims of repression. There is, firstly, a moral aspect, after all there are usually very tragic fates behind these cases. There are, for example, very many denunciations of each other. Such documents cannot be shown to the wider public after all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of victims and denouncers are still alive. We don’t have the right to infringe their right to privacy. They can be received only by close relatives of the victims of repression.”

She asserts that Ukraine has the most open archives and that in no other country do they open them as here.

In her opinion they ought to be more closed.

The issue of whether information about those who denounced others should be concealed as upsetting to their relatives is one on which there are strong opposing views.

As reported last year, by no means all researchers consider that access to archives is as free and unimpeded as Ms Ginzburg claims.  Please see Communist Head of Ukraine’s Archives would remove access to half of them for more details.