From memory to recorded history

The role and prospects of the Archives of the Korea Democracy Foundation

Abstract

The Archives of Korea Democracy Foundation was established in 2001 both to commemorate all the democratization movements that have existed since the formation of the Republic in Korea in 1948 and to promotetheir values. The Foundation is now preparing to open the Korea Democracy Memorial by 2007. The Memorial is expected to incorporate “all the memories as yet unrecorded" since the time of the Rhee Syng-man administration. The archive institution discussed in this paper is a subdivision of the Foundation. Its aims are 1) to collect and securely preserve the historical materials that relate to the democratization movement, 2) to systematize what have been the hitherto scattered historical sources of that movement as a reconstructed collective memory, and 3) to develop effective ways to use such materials.