Zbierka spomienkových prác

The collection of memoirs in the Military Historical Archive was created from the memoirs obtained from the Military Historical Institute in Bratislava and from the archive's own collection activities since the archive was founded in 1994. The authors of the memoirs are mainly military persons who served in the Austro-Hungarian army and in the Czechoslovak legions during the First World War, in the Czechoslovak army in 1918-1939, in the Slovak army in 1939-1945, in the Czechoslovak army after 1945, and especially the participants of the Czechoslovak domestic and foreign resistance in the years of the Second World War.

The collection includes memoirs of military service in various armies, personal participation in military-historical events, and persons with whom the authors of the memoirs knew and collaborated. The collection also includes biographies, correspondence of a reminiscent nature, statements, and testimonies of military persons. According to the origin and the way of obtaining, the collection includes authorized originals and copies of memoirs obtained directly from the authors or their family members, photocopies and Xerox copies of memoirs and testimonies obtained from other archives (archives of the SNP Museum Banská Bystrica, Slovak National Archives and former archives of the Institute of the History of the Communist Party of Slovakia).

The collection consists of a total of 502 titles of memoirs, whose content touches on historical events and military activities from 1848 to 1989.

Thematically, most of the memoirs concern the Second World War - the First Czechoslovak Army in Slovakia in the Slovak National Uprising (136 titles), the Slovak Army in 1939-1945 and its field campaign in the USSR (124 titles), and partisan units in the Slovak National Uprising (102 titles). There are few memoirs on the Czechoslovak resistance in the West during the Second World War (11 titles).