National archives
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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National archives are the archives of a country. The concept evolved in various nations at the dawn of modernity based on the impact of nationalism upon bureaucratic processes of paperwork retention.
Conceptual development
From the Middle Ages into the Early modern period archives generated by royal and clerical institutions retained proofs of political and genealogical claims as a "bastion of authenticity."
The emerging Enlightenment concept of studying history as a science rather than as literature was influenced by Leopold von Ranke and brought archives into the limelight of serious historical study. In the late 18th century, the storage of old records was divided. Business records in the archives courantes went the way of records management while documents of cultural import in the archives historiques formed the core of Western-conceived archives.
Political impact on the administration of archives has been common in both dictatorships and democracies.
