National Records Office of Sudan

Last updated

The National Records Office of Sudan, located in Khartoum, serves as the National Archives of Sudan. It holds 20 million documents and 13,000 volumes about the history of Sudan since 1870. [1]

Since 2018, the National Records Office has been a leading partner of the online archive and cultural heritage project Sudan Memory. It aims to conserve and promote Sudanese cultural heritage both physically in the country itself, as well as through the Internet. [2] Among many other documents, a collection of Arabic manuscript s, letters and images digitised at the National Records Office relates to the Mahdist State (1885 -1899). This includes a letter by Rudolf von Slatin, former Governor of Darfur, to al-Ṭāhir al-Majdhūb, the leader of the Sufi brotherhood of the Majdhūbiyya in eastern Sudan. [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

Khartoum Capital of Sudan

Khartoum or Khartum is the capital of Sudan. With a population of 5,274,321, its metropolitan area is the largest in Sudan. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile, flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile, flowing west from Lake Tana in Ethiopia. The place where the two Niles meet is known as al-Mogran or al-Muqran. From there, the Nile continues north towards Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.

Music of Sudan History of the music of Sudan

The rich and varied music of Sudan has traditional, rural, northeastern African roots and also shows Arabic, Western or other African influences, especially on the popular urban music from the early 20th century onwards. Since the establishment of big cities like Khartoum as melting pots for people of diverse backgrounds, their cultural heritage and tastes have shaped numerous forms of modern popular music. In the globalized world of today, the creation and consumption of music through satellite TV or on the Internet is a driving force for cultural change in Sudan, popular with local audiences as well as with Sudanese living abroad.

Islam in Sudan Most common religion in Sudan

Islam is the most common religion in Sudan and Muslims have dominated national government institutions since independence in 1956. According to UNDP Sudan, the Muslim population is 97%, including numerous Arab and non-Arab groups. The remaining 3% ascribe to either Christianity or traditional animist religions. Muslims predominate in all but Nuba Mountains region. The vast majority of Muslims in Sudan adhere to Sunni Islam of Maliki school of jurisprudence, deeply influenced with Sufism. There are also some Shia communities in Khartoum, the capital. The most significant divisions occur along the lines of the Sufi brotherhoods. Two popular brotherhoods, the Ansar and the Khatmia, are associated with the opposition Umma and Democratic Unionist Parties respectively. Only the Darfur region is traditionally lacking the presence of Sufi brotherhoods found in the rest of the country.

Sudan University of Science and Technology

Sudan University of Science and Technology is one of the largest public universities in Sudan, with ten campuses in Khartoum state. The main campus is located in the so-called Al Mugran area of Khartoum, the confluence of the White Nile and the Blue Nile.

As of the early 2000s, Sudan had one of the most restrictive media environments in Africa. Sudan’s print media since independence generally have served one of the political parties or the government in power, although there occasionally were outspoken independent newspapers.

National Assembly of Sudan Lower house of Sudans legislature

The National Assembly is the lower house of the National Legislature of Sudan. The Legislature was unicameral until 2005. The upper house is the Council of States.

Sudanese literature consists of both oral as well as written works of fiction and nonfiction that were created during the cultural history of today's Republic of the Sudan. This includes the territory of what was once Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, the independent country's history since 1956 as well as its changing geographical scope in the 21st century.

Gadalla Gubara was a Sudanese cameraman, film producer, director and photographer. Over five decades, he produced more than 50 documentaries and three feature films. He was a pioneer of African cinema, having been co-founder of both the Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers FEPACI and the FESPACO Film festival. His daughter, Sara Gubara, who is a graduate of the Cinema Institute in Cairo, Egypt, assisted him with his later film projects, after he had lost his eyesight. She is considered to be Sudan's first female film director.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is a specialised agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences, and culture. It has 193 member states and 11 associate members, as well as partners in the non-governmental, intergovernmental, and private sector. Headquartered at the World Heritage Centre in Paris, France, UNESCO has 53 regional field offices and 199 national commissions that facilitate its global mandate.

The first inscriptions on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register were made in 1997. By creating a compendium of the world’s documentary heritage—manuscripts, oral traditions, audio-visual materials, library and archive holdings—the program aims to tap on its networks of experts to exchange information and raise resources for the preservation, digitization, and dissemination of documentary materials. As of 2013, 193 documentary heritages have been included in the Register, among them recordings of folk music, ancient languages and phonetics, aged remnants of religious and secular manuscripts, collective lifetime works of renowned giants of literature, science and music, copies of landmark motion pictures and short films, and accounts documenting changes in the world’s political, economic and social stage. Of these, 12 properties were nominated by countries from the region of Africa.

GLAM (cultural heritage) Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums

GLAM is an acronym for "galleries, libraries, archives, and museums", and refers to cultural institutions with a mission to provide access to knowledge. GLAMs collect and maintain cultural heritage materials in the public interest. As collecting institutions, GLAMs preserve and make accessible primary sources valuable for researchers. The term, in particular in related forms such as LAM is increasingly used for the comparative studies of these institutions, often motivated by their claimed convergence.

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Khartoum, Sudan.

Photography in Sudan History of photography in Sudan

Photography in Sudan refers to both historical as well as to contemporary photographs taken in the cultural history of today's Republic of the Sudan. This includes the former territory of present-day South Sudan, as well as what was once Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and some of the oldest photographs from the 1860s, taken during the Turkish-Egyptian rule (Turkiyya). As in other countries, the growing importance of photography for mass media like newspapers, as well as for amateur photographers has led to a wider photographic documentation and use of photographs in Sudan during the 20th century and beyond. In the 21st century, photography in Sudan has undergone important changes, mainly due to digital photography and distribution through social media and the Internet.

Cinema of Sudan refers to both the history and present of the making or screening of films in cinemas or film festivals, as well as to the persons involved in this form of audiovisual culture of the Sudan and its history from the late nineteenth century onwards. It began with cinematography during the British colonial presence in 1897 and developed along with advances in film technology during the twentieth century.

Rashid Mahdi Sudanese photographer

Rashid Mahdi was a Sudanese photographer, active in Atbara from the 1950s to the 1970s. French photographer Claude Iverné, founder of a large archive of photographs dedicated to this "Golden Age" of photography in Sudan, called Mahdi "certainly the most sophisticated and one of the major African photographers of the 20th century."

Visual arts of Sudan History and present of material culture in Sudan

The visual arts of Sudan encompass the historical and contemporary production of objects made by the inhabitants of today's Republic of the Sudan and specific to their respective cultures. This encompasses objects from cultural traditions of the region in North-East Africa historically referred to as the Sudan, including the southern regions that became independent as South Sudan in 2011.

Architecture of Sudan History and present of architecture in Sudan

The architecture of Sudan mirrors the geographical, ethnic and cultural diversity of the country and its historical periods. The lifestyles and material culture expressed in human settlements, their architecture and economic activities have been shaped by different regional and environmental conditions. In its long documented history, Sudan has been a land of changing and diverse forms of human civilization with important influences from foreign cultures.

<i>Soudan 2019, année zéro</i> French book about the Sudanese revolution of 2019

Soudan 2019, année zéro is a book about the Sudanese revolution, published in French in 2021. It contains descriptions, commentaries and photographs of the protestors' sit-in area during the weeks in May and June 2019 that led up to the Khartoum massacre. As additional visual documents, the book contains images by Sudanese documentary photographers, illustrating different stages and social backgrounds of the revolution up to the destruction of the sit-in by security forces on 3 June 2019.

Sudan Memory is an online archive and cultural heritage project, provided by an international group of partners with the aim of conserving and promoting Sudanese cultural heritage. In the course of the project, digital reproductions of books and newspapers, photographs and films, visual art and architecture, as well as of other cultural objects in Sudan were created and published on the project's website.

References

  1. Sudan - Libraries and museums
  2. "Home - Sudan Memory". www.sudanmemory.org. Retrieved 2022-04-19.
  3. "Mahdia - Sudan Memory". www.sudanmemory.org. Retrieved 2022-04-02.