{"id":698,"date":"2012-11-28T11:48:19","date_gmt":"2012-11-28T11:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/?p=229"},"modified":"2024-11-05T12:05:32","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T12:05:32","slug":"melanie-ilic-protecting-the-historical-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/2012\/11\/28\/melanie-ilic-protecting-the-historical-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Melanie Ilic &#8211; Protecting the Historical Record"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/446\/2018\/05\/mark-harrison1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-261\" style=\"width:149px;height:266px\" title=\"mark harrison\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/446\/2018\/05\/mark-harrison1.jpg\" height=\"225\" width=\"149\" \/><\/a>On Friday 23 November, my friend and colleague Mark Harrison (Prof of Economics, University of Warwick) was interviewed for Radio 4\u2019s Today programme (begins 2.24 to 2.29) about the Soviet practice of erasing the public record of political and cultural figures who fell into disfavour, mostly during the Stalin period. Mark outlines the debate on his own blog: <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.warwick.ac.uk\/markharrison\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/blogs.warwick.ac.uk\/markharrison\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\nOnce individuals fell out of favour with the Soviet regime and became \u2018politically inconvenient\u2019, their publications were removed from the bookshelves of libraries and they were no longer mentioned in news reports. Roads, squares, factories and whole cities, which once celebrated <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/446\/2018\/05\/bbc_radio_four1.png\"><\/a>and honoured these great figures, were now renamed. Their image was re<a href=\"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/446\/2018\/05\/bbc_radio_four1.png\"><\/a>moved from photographs and paintings (see David King\u2019s book, The Commissar Vanishes for high-profile examples).<\/p>\n<p>The Today presenter, Justin Webb, then asked what we should do with the historical record of those who, in our own time, were once celebrated but have since been accused of engaging in criminal behaviours. Jimmy Savile\u2019s gravestone has been destroyed, commemorative streets and hospital wards have been renamed, his edition of \u2018Desert Island Disks\u2019 has been removed from the online archive, with discussions continuing over what to do with his recordings of \u2018Top of the Pops\u2019 and \u2018Jim\u2019ll Fix It\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>The removal of honours is one thing, but the destruction of the historical record, or limiting access to it, is another. How do we guarantee \u2018free and equal\u2019 access to the historical record not just for our own, but also for future generations?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Friday 23 November, my friend and colleague Mark Harrison (Prof of Economics, University of Warwick) was interviewed for Radio 4\u2019s Today programme (begins 2.24 to 2.29) about the Soviet [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[72],"class_list":["post-698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-melanie-ilic-2"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3527,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698\/revisions\/3527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}