National Archives

National archives are the archives of a nation-state. The concept evolved in various nations at the dawn of modernity based on the impact of nationalism upon bureaucratic processes of paperwork retention.

From the Middle Ages into the Early Modern period archives generated by royal and clerical institutions retained proofs of political and genealogical claims as a "bastion of authenticity." The emerging Enlightenment concept of studying history as a science rather than as literature was influenced by Leopold von Ranke and brought archives into the limelight of serious historical study. In the late 18th Century, the storage of old records was divided. Business records in the archives courantes went the way of records management while documents of cultural import in the archives historiques formed the core of Western-conceived archives. As the popularity of archives increased as a function of substantiating historical narratives, national archives were purposed towards telling their respective nation's story. For example, the National Historical Archive of Spain as created excluded contemporary records in favor of documenting defunct institutions as a matter of national heritage. Historian Nicholas Dirks has said that national archives are the "primary site of state monumentality."

The 19th Century centralization of archives, precursor to the 20th Century's nationalism, has been opposed by some. Historian Craig Robertson posits that "archives do not neutrally store documents; rather, objects captured through archival practices are transformed into knowledge." He goes on to say that the "historicization of state archives can make explicit how archives create national narratives and, more importantly, national characters, prioritizing and privileging specific stories and peoples." The concept of the archivist as a custodian of records originated in the late 19th Century and was championed by no less than Hilary Jenkinson. His concept, that "the Archivist is not and ought not be an Historian" and that the archivist "is the servant of his Archives first and afterwards of the student Public" reflect the idea that archivists should primarily serve as objective custodians of records. This contrasted with the prior practice of archives serving to embellish the histories of politicians and other wealthy patrons. The retention of records in a national archive would then become a universal bureaucratic norm rather than the retention of a select few records for a predetermined purpose. Jenkinson also specified that rather than holding source documents piecemeal, that the integrity of an organic archive group must be maintained.

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