Exhibition of the Society of Greek Archivists with Olympic and Sports Documents in the XV International Congress on Archives, Vienna, Wiener Stadt-und Landesarchiv, August 2004

the exhibition online

Within the framework of the creation of the CIA Section on Sports Archives (SPO – CIA), and following the meeting of Madrid in spring 2004, the Society of Greek Archivists organised on the third day of the International Archives Congress in Vienna, during the Olympic Games of Athens in August 2004, a small exhibition in Vienna under the title “Greek Sports and Olympic Archives” and reference to the relative exhibitions organized in Athens. The exhibition took place at the Municipal Archive - Landes Archiv of Vienna, with the support of the Austrian Archivists’ Society. It was accompanied by a relative annotation of the exhibits, as well as the exhibitions of Athens “Coubertin and the Greek miracle”, "Athens 1896", exhibitions which were the only serious and successful events in 2004, referring to the Revival of the Olympic Games and were realized without any support from “Athens 2004”. In both those exhibitions, the collections of G. Dolianitis, member of the Society of Greek Archivists and collector of Olympic documents and stamps, very popular internationally, played an essential role.

Also, during the exhibition of Vienna, medals and diplomas of the Greek sports were presented and photos from the Balkan Games (see catalogue). Thus, 3 films for the international history of sports were projected, on the subjects: Olympic Games of the Employers – Antwerp 1937 (AMSAB archive – Gand), a great Finnish runner of the’50s and the Finnish Sports.

A. Krauss, representative of the Society of Greek Archivists, organizer of the exhibition and the projections in Vienna and Vice-President of the SPO - CIA, commented on the exhibits and the film “Antwerp1937”, stressing out that Greece, as a small country, allocates less sports archives than other countries do. It has, however, in its possession exceptionally valuable Olympic archives on the Revival of the Olympic Games (1850 – 1906), as well as remarkable collections about the development in the country of sports that followed, the Balkan Games and the post-war period (collection of D. Bontikoulis - Museum of Youth and Exercising of the Municipality of Athens). Kenth Sjoblom of the Finnish Olympic Archive and Vice-President of the SPO-CIA, presented and commented on the film about the Finnish Sports. The Exhibition of Vienna visited the SPO - CIA Committee, the Director of Landes Archiv and many archivists, as well as the Ambassador of Greece, Mr Sotiropoulos, who expressed their most positive commentaries.

In Greece can indeed someone find, already back from the dues of the 19th century, the elitist model for the start of the newer sports, as well as the public model that is connected with the development of football, which was mainly introduced right after the arrival of the refugees of the Minor Asia, in 1922. The Balkan Games combine diplomacy and sports from the interwar, after giving up the efforts for permanent performance of the Olympic Games in Greece.

The Greek Archivists and the Society of Greek Archivists have already been activated since the the International Archives Congress of Paris in1987, in the sector of promotion and making the best of the Olympic and Sports Archives. Since 1992, in collaboration with the General Archives of the State, they have realised an exhibition in the congress of the CIA in Montreal, on the Archives of the Olympic Games’ Revival (Dolianitis’ collection).

Right after the congress of 1992, the Society of Greek Archivists submitted a proposal to the International Archives Council about the creation of an International Sports and Olympic Archives’ Committee in the International Archives Congress. In Greece, the Society of Greek Archivists recommended a parallel committee of Olympic and Sports Archives and drew up a relative, model for the country, program of researches with 14 subjects and the collaboration of researchers, academic teachers and archivists. Responsible introducer of the issue of the Sports and Olympic Archives of the Society of Greek Archivists, as well as coordinator of the organisation of the research program, in collaboration with the National Institution of Researches, was the, by that time, Vice-President of the Society and current Vice-President of the SPO - CIA.

In 1996, during the International Congress in Beijing, the Society of Greek Archivists organised a wider exhibition on the Revival of the Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 and the Inter-Olympiad of 1906, which was held at the Olympic Museum of Beijing (archives of G. Dolianitis and the Pan-Hellenic Gymnastics Association). In 2000 in Seville, the Society of Greek Archivists came in contact with the new Secretary of the International Council on Archives for the promotion of the Sports and Olympic Archives sector. A detailed report of this activity of the Society has been presented, within the framework of a national archives congress on the island of Samos (Greek Archivists’ Society magazine “Archeiaka Nea”, no. 22), by the President of the Society, Mr. Zissimos Synodinos, who thus offered his personal special experience in the organisation of the Exhibition in Vienna.

Finally, in 2004, the Society of Greek Archivists collaborated with Mr. I. Dury, founder of the National French Museum of Sports in Paris, Vice-President of the Coubertin Committee, which organised a relative exhibition in Athens, under the title : "Coubertin et le Miracle Grec ", with the collaboration of the French Institute and the Municipality of Athens. The exhibition ran from June to September 2004 and hosted more than 10.000 visitors.

The initiatives of the Greek archivists find their continuity in the proposals that they submitted to the SPO-CIA committee for making the best of the great sports events, aiming at the projection of the Archives. Thus, the initiative of the Chairman of the Italian Archivists’ Society and Cashier of the SPO – CIA, Mrs Isabella Orefice, was provoked for the effort of making the best of the Winter Olympic Games in Turin, in 2006 (archives’ exhibition, congress on the winter sports). We are also spotting on the proposal of the Greek Archivists for the presence of the SPO-CIA committee or even other committees of the CIA in the Olympic Games of Beijing in 2008. This connection of the CIA with Beijing has already been prepared since 1996, where, during the International Archives Congress, the Greek Archivists organised, as we reported, an Archives Exhibition on the Revival in the Olympic Museum of Beijing. Moreover, during the International Archives Congress in Vienna, the representative of the Society of Greek Archivists and Vice-President of the SPO-CIA had met with the Chinese delegation, and in particular with the new President of the China Public Archives, Mao Fumin, who was informed about the relative proposal and was given relevant issued of the "Athens 1896" Exhibition. The proposal of the Society of Greek Archivists was supplemented by a special paragraph referring to the organisation of the Exhibition on the Olympic Archives of the Revival in Beijing, with the collaboration of many states present at the Revival.