#Industrial Heritage – Latvia: The construction of the Kegums Hydro Power Plant and the rise in living standards

Our December featured document is a throwback to our #IndustrialHeritage exhibition: the construction of Kegums Hydro Power Plant was one of the most important events in Latvia in the 1936-1939 period. It was positively welcomed by the entire society, which recognised it as an opportunity for rapid economic growth, electrification of the Latvian territory, and general improvement of the living standards. Find the history of the plant and the beautiful photographs that document its construction on Archives Portal Europe

 

 

#Featuredocument – Charter of Privileges by George II Rákóczi, Prince of Transylvania

Our November featured document is the Charter of Privileges by George II Rákóczi, Prince of Transylvania, held at the National Archives of Hungary  – a beautiful book from the 17th Century that settles the privileges of the Moravian new Christians fled from Nikolsburg, in Moravia. See the full Featured Document here !

 

#BuildingPeace – Serbia: the treaties

A very informative Featured Document from Serbia as part of our online exhibition #BuildingPeace – From the Historical Archives of Belgrade, a copy of the Treaty of Versailles, the Treaty of Saint-Germain, and the Treaty of Neuilly, regulating respectively the conditions of Peace with Germany, with Austria, and with Bulgaria. Read all about the peace clauses here

#BuildingPeace – Sette Giugno

A very special off topic #BuildingPeace to honour the 100th anniversary of the Sette Giugno, the massacre of protesters in Malta on the 7th June 1919. In the aftermath of #worldwarI, the disruptions in agriculture across the whole of the continent caused the British colonial government to fail to provide adequate food supplies. Protests spread throughout the country, until on the 7th of June the troops shot on the crowd, killing four people. The incidents caused the military to be deferred to martial court, and the outrage allowed for a series of liberal concessions on part of the government, and the strengthening of the pro-Italian parties. In the picture, from The National Archives of Malta and available on #archivesportaleurope, a commemoration of the victims shot on the 9th June 2019, only 48 hours after the shooting.

The conditions of peace

Plakat zu den Bedingungen dm Versailler Vertrages, Hrsg. unbekannt. Mai 1919 Quelle: BArch, Mak 002-008-015 / Oppenheim, Louis

“What must we lose!”

German reparations after World War I were the core point of the negotiations in the Paris Peace Conference, and the focus of the power struggle between France and Germany. While the peace conference following “the war to end all wars” (in the words of British commentator H.G. Wells) was supposed to establish perpetual peace in Europe, the reparations imposed to Germany were aimed at destroying and humiliate the enemy. The most important economist of the 20^th Century, John Maynard Keynes, quit his role as delegate of the British Treasury, and called the treaty a Carthaginian peace that would economically destroy Germany.

See: https://www.archivesportaleurope.net/featured-document/-/fed/pk/82418#sthash.epTzkh9n.dpbs