ARCHIVE ACTIVITY

In the turbulent and very rich history of Macedonian people, the history of Bitola has a special place. It is known that on these Balkan areas the city, except Thessaloniki, was one of the most important commerce, political, educational and cultural centers. This was greatly due to the favorable position here, on the crossroad between the East and the Wets. It was especially famous in the 19^th century. As the seat of Bitola district, it was a place where many military, diplomatic, religious and other institutions of Turkish government and authority were located. But, at the same time, the city was one of the most eminent centers of Macedonian strife for liberation of the country by the centuries long slavery. Many prominent revolutionaries were active here. Institutions of organized resistance were active at the same time: Regional, District and City Committee of Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. All this instigated special interest among great European powers for their presence in Bitola.

This intensive political life resulted in creating and keeping of archive records of priceless value for the city history, but for our country as well. Being aware of their value many usurpers plundered them and took them in the treasuries of big Balkan and European archives. Due to the already known historical conditions it took more then half a century, that is after the liberation of the country, for proper conditions to be created and a process of an organized way of gathering of archive records, through institutional forms, to be initiated. The first steps were made in 1954, when within the frames of that time National Museum of Bitola, a special archive department was established in order to collect and sort archive and documented materials of that time Bitola surroundings. Three years later, on 26^th May 1954, the National Board of Bitola district, formed an independent professional expert archive organization called Historical District Archive-Bitola, the aim of which was to collect, sort, process, preserve, keep and enable citizens use that archive and documented material. This date is considered to be the day of establishment of this Archive. It functioned in this manner until 1965 when it was renamed into Historical Archive-Bitola. The reason for this change was the new administrative, territorial division of Macedonia, when districts stopped to exist and municipalities were formed. From 1966 onwards this Archive widened this scope covering the territory of Demir Hisar. With the new law for archive records in 1990, municipal archives are revoked and continued to be active as units of the Archive of Macedonia.

By bringing the normative acts it acquired a status of its Subordinate section. The new thing about Subordinate sections is, in addition to the so far obligation, to enable citizens satisfy their needs for issuing documentation that the Archive has from the field of working and property-legal relation.

During its existence the Archive was moved to a number of buildings. Today it is located in its own new building, next to the Rectorate of the Bitola University, on the left side of the river Dragor. It is located on 1266m² of usable space, enough for a modern treatment of archive materials: a few halls-depots, accepting depot, working premises, exhibition area, conservation laboratory etc. All this enables the process of preservation, sorting and processing research of materials, as well as publishing activity.

There are a lot of archive funds and collections, which have wider national significance for the culture: Collection of newspapers from 19^th and 20^th century; Library consisting of valuable books; Collection of old photographs etc. Among them are: Archive funds 1918-1941; funds of Bitola district head office 1941-1944; District court-Bitola 1927-1941; Gymnasium-Bitola 1918-1949; French school “St. Vincent”-Bitola 1903-1944; State Mortgage Bank-agency Bitola 1922-1948; Collection of documents from the last world was 1941-1945; Register books of churches, parishes and other religious institutions; Personal funds of: Family Robevi 1897/1937 of Milton Manaki with a collection of 6000 plates and 10000 photographs; Fund of the Russian Royal Consulate 1860/1915 and many others. It is the richest archive within Macedonia, therefore, its cultural function and place where numerous authentic documents regarding cultural heritage of Bitola are kept.