The establishment of local government in the Dubrovnik region after World War II as evidenced in preserved archival materials

Abstract

During the People’s Liberation Movement (NOP), its administrative and political body gradually developed, first as the People’s Liberation Committee, and after the victory of the NOP in the spring of 1945, as the People’s Committee. These committees held executive power at all local and regional levels of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. The analysis of the archival materials of the work of the people’s committees allowed us to gain valuable knowledge about the organization and operation of the first post-war administration, and the functioning of the government and state in general. It is the original archival materials of the local people’s committees that reveal the issues and shortcomings faced by the first organized administrative bodies of the new state. The area covered by this paper, where the problems in the organization and operation of these organizations are extremely evident, is the wider Dubrovnik area, where the dispersion and number of local people’s committees made it difficult for the central government to supervise the local administration. The absence of specific laws on the work of local people’s committees until mid-1946 made their administrative operations difficult, which consequently affected the state of archival materials almost until the abolition of the local people’s committees in 1952. Mistakes in the management of administrative operations led us to resort to the formation of archival units according to content, while maintaining the principle of the original order during the archival organization of the materials. The original order was followed for the files with a record keeping code, while the files without such a code were grouped by topic. In this way, the files with a record keeping number remained easily searchable by future users via the central registry, while the files without a number were grouped so that they form a unique thematic entity, which allowed for their better overview. Finally, by organizing, that is, by processing and describing the archival materials of Dubrovnik’s local people’s committees, a foundation was created for more detailed scientific research into the local history of the Dubrovnik region after World War II. The information aids published on the official website of the State Archives in Dubrovnik will facilitate the use of these materials.