Challenging Archives is a new series of podcasts jointly organized between Review of Democracy and Blinken Open Society Archives, based in Budapest. We will invite scholars to discuss about their investigation in this archive.
The Blinken Open Society Archives, or the OSA, is a complex archival institution. On one hand, it is a repository of vast collections that document how power operated across the twentieth century. OSA holds 10,000 linear meters of archival material, 17,000 hours of audiovisual recordings, and 15 TB of digital records, as well as 150,000 photographs, 6000+ documentary film titles and 22,000 library items. Their catalogue is available online.
OSA is not only an archive. It is one of Europe’s leading research centers on the history of the Cold War, state socialism, human rights, and surveillance. The OSA Archivum also provides fellowships for promising researchers that want to investigate the archival funds. Particularly the Visegrad Fellowship supports scholars, engaged artists, journalsts, scholars at risk who want to work directly with these materials. Since its start in 2010, the Visegrad Scholarship has been awarded to more than 290 fellows from over 65 countries.
In our series, we will invite the Visegrad Fellows that will share us their experience with working with this fascinating archive.
In our third episode, we invited John Bessai, who researched the impact of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act. Signed by 35 states from both sides of the Cold War divide, the agreement aimed to reduce tensions between East and West in the process called détente. Beyond security issues, it also included commitments on human rights, information, and contacts between people.
The human rights commitments contained in the Helsinki Final Act had consequences that reached far beyond diplomacy. They encouraged the emergence of citizen groups dedicated to monitoring state behavior and documenting rights violations. Over time, these initiatives developed into organizations such as Helsinki Watch and eventually the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, the central focus of John Bessai’s research. As he mentioned in our podcast:
this organization […] was composed by individuals and groups who found voice thanks to the Helsinki Accords. It was connected to the creation of human rights organizations which actually followed the protocols that were within the Helsinki agreements and it continued on until 2007.
The Records of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, held by the OSA Archivum, revealed how reports, testimonies, and public documentation became important tools in Cold War politics. John Bessai’s reading of these archival materials is fresh, as he shifts attention away from military confrontation and toward procedures, communication, and the growing role of civil society:
[IHFHR] did fundamental work in ensuring that human rights were being observed. In a nutshell, the Helsinki Accords provided a foundation for legitimizing human rights within the Eastern Bloc. This was counterposed to the Western Bloc, or NATO, on one hand, and the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact on the other. This sort of breakthrough through the Helsinki Accords (…) opened the door to the discourse of human rights within the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union.
In our conversation, we discuss the Helsinki process, the role of culture and dissident networks, the challenges of archival research, and what the archives can reveal about the changing nature of international politics during the late Cold War.
John Bessai is an independent scholar and media producer based in Canada. He completed his PhD at Trent University in Peterborough, Canada and studies how media, public institutions, and digital storytelling shape democratic dialogue.
The interview was conducted by Adrian-George Matus. Alina Young edited the audio file.
