Birch bark letters from Siberia

Last updated August 22, 2024

Birch bark letters from Siberia were written by people exiled to Soviet Gulag labor camps. Often they had only birch bark for writing letters, especially during the World War II when paper was scarce everywhere.^[1] In 2023 Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine, submitted a joint application to include birch bark letters from Siberia (1945–1965) in the UNESCO "Memory of the World" Register. The application presents 148 items, including letters and other documents on birch bark.^[2]^[3]

Estonia

In Estonia they are kept in the Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom and in the Estonian History Museum.^[3]

Latvia

In 2009 the collection "Letters written in Siberia on birch bark" („Sibīrijā rakstītas vēstules uz bērza tāss”) was included in the Latvian national register of the UNESCO program "Memory of the World". It consists of 45 letters written in prisons and camps between 1941 and 1965.^[5]

In Latvia they are kept in 11 museums in Latvia, including the Tukums Museum, Aizkraukle History and Art Museum, Daugava Museum [ lv ], Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, Madona Local Lore and Art Museum (Madonas novadpētniecības un mākslas muzejs), Riga Museum of Literature and Music (Rakstniecības un mūzikas muzejs), Talsi County Museum [ lv ], Latvian Museum of National History ^[6]^[7]^[8]

Agrita Ozola, head of the Tukums Museum [ lv ]^[9] published the book Sibīrijā vēstules (Siberian Letters).^[10]^[11]

Lithuania

On May 21, 2015, together with other objects, birch bark letters kept in the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights were entered into the Lithuania's national register of the “Memory of the World”^[12]^[4]^[13] Other places in Lithuania that preserve buirch bark letters are the National Library of Lithuania Martynas Mažvydas , the Directorate of the State Kernavės Cultural Reserve, the Biržai Region Museum [ lt ] "Sėla", a branch of the Gargžda Region Museum, the Special Archive of Lithuania, the Panevėžys Local Lore Museum [ lt ] , S. Nėris Memorial Museum, branch of the Maironis Museum of Lithuanian Literature, Šiauliai "Aušros" Museum, Vrublevskii Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences and Kaunas IX Fort Museum.^[14]^[15]^[16]

Poland

In Poland they are preserved in Museum of Rev. Józef Jarzębowski [ pl ] in Licheń Stary ^[17]^[18] and in the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk.^[19] In 2023 the Institute of National Remembrance received a diary made of birch bark written in Siberian exile.^[19] In 2023 Archiwum Kresowe in Zielona Góra received photographs of a similar diary from a private archive.^[20]

Ukraine

In Ukraine they are preserved in the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War in the Second World War, the Museum of Totalitarian Regimes "Territory of Terror" [ uk ] and the Ternopil regional museum of local lore [ uk ], Ternopil.^[21]

Library of Congresss

In the U.S. Library of Congress; ^[22]^[23]^[24]^[25]^[26]^[27]^[28]^[29]^[30]^[31]^[32]^[33]^[34]^[35]^[36]^[37]^[38]^[39]^[40]^[1]

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