Exploring archival absence: silences, imagined records and materiality in nineteenth-century Europe

Abstract

This article analyses archivists’ and historians’ experiences of archival absence in nineteenth-century Europe. It takes off in well-known processes of centralisation, nationalisation and dislocations of archives to discuss how experiences of missing documents and holdings have shaped historiographical practice and thought. Drawing on theorisations of archival silences, imagined records and materiality, the article argues that although ideas about the past are immaterial, archivists’ and historians’ perceptions of history relied on archival materiality. This is illustrated by two case studies of fragmented, supranational holdings: the establishment of the Central Archive of the Teutonic Order in Habsburg Vienna, and lost archives in the Baltic provinces of Romanov Russia. The article shows how practices such as mappings of holdings, negotiations of restitutions and provenance, and publications of source editions materialised absence. Enquiries into absence certainly generated new knowledge about archives, past dislocations and loss. However, the article also demonstrates that investigations of absence have produced ignorance and further absences. In conclusion, the article argues the benefits of absence studies. The cases illuminate that absence was a material issue with an intricate relationship to imagined documents and holdings. Moreover, the article recognises a long history of archival silences, which may take different forms and affect different groups throughout history. Lastly, the article addresses the issue of representation and argues the value of disregarding the nation when historicising theoretically pressing issues such as archival absence and its materiality.