DESCRIPTION OF THE ARCHIVAL HOLDINGS PRESERVED IN
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF HUNGARY

 The archival holdings of the National Archives of Hungary are divided into sections and main groups of fonds in historical and chronological order as well as on the basis of administrative units or type of records. The archival material created before 1945 and the records of the Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP) / Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSZMP) have been registered in sections marked with capital letters. The records created after 1945 are divided into main groups of fonds marked with Roman numbers. In addition, in several cases, main groups are further divided into sub-groups, individual fonds and record groups.

Sections, main groups of fonds and the departments concerned are as follows:

As of 31^st December 2002, the complete archival material of the National Archives of Hungary was 70.778,08 linear metres of records and 60.817.682 microfilm frames.

Listed below is the detailed description of the archival material in departmental order. Within the material of a department records are classified by sections/main groups of fonds and archives/sub-groups of fonds. The descriptions begin with the indication of the reference code, nomination (title), time period (inclusive years) and extent (in linear metres) of the records. The textual descriptions consist of the most important data and information on the agency that originated the records (date of establishment and termination, scope of duties and competence), references on the records' structure, level of arrangement, language, contents and accessibilty (including finding aid availability).

This department handles the records of pre-1867 Hungarian and Transylvanian government organs and central courts.

 Section " A" – Archives of the Hungarian Chancellery

(1354) 1414-1848 (1963); 1.658,45 linear metres

Between 1529 and 1848 the Hungarian Court Chancellery was operating at the royal court in Vienna (from 1576 to 1612, during the reign of Rudolf Habsburg, in Prague) initially, in many ways submitted to the Austrian Court Chancellery, from 1690 as an independent government organ. Concerning internal affairs the Chancellery played the role of the main Hungarian government authority. Its competence included the submission of Hungarian matters to the sovereign, the issue of royal orders and the maintenance of relations with the court organs. Financial, military and foreign affairs did not fall within the competence of the Chancellery as these were administered by the Court Chamber in Vienna, the Hungarian Chamber and other central government organs.

Beside the records of the Registry, the Archives of the Hungarian Chancellery contains the archival legacy of some chancellery officials; the documents of royal committees and committees of the Estates dealing with Hungarian affairs; some series of records created at the Chancellery which consist of document collections originated elsewhere; and finding aids created in the 20^th century concerning family and local history related documents of the Chancellery.

Language: Latin, German, (Hungarian)

Finding Aids: Repertory, manuscript lists and indexes, family and local history
related finding aids and computer data base for the documents of guilds.

Section " B" – Archives of the Transylvanian Chancellery

1686-1848 (1867); 484,64 linear metres

Between 1690 and 1848 the Transylvanian Chancellery was the supreme government authority in Transylvania which formed a part of the Habsburg Monarhcy in the period. Its function was similar to the Hungarian Chancellery’s role: it forwarded the orders of Vienna to the Transylvanian government organs and submitted the reports and appeals of them to the Court. Its scope of competence was narrower than that of the Hungarian Chancellery. In 1782 the two Chancelleries were unified by a decree of King Joseph II. The unified Chancellery operated until 1791 when it was divided again and from then until its termination the Transylvanian Chancellery managed local affairs independently.

The archival material of the Chancellery’s Registry consists of two main components: general and presidential records. A large number of records, created before the 1775 introduction of filing, were destroyed. The material of the Transylvanian Chancellerey Archives contains the documents of Chancellery and other officials, the records of acting officers of the Court and of royal commissioners as well as several collections of record series mainly concerning Diet issues.

Language: Latin, German, (Hungarian)

Finding Aids: Repertory, descriptive inventory, manuscript lists and indexes.

Section " C" – Archives of the Locotenential Council

17^th century -1848 (1913); 2836,08 linear metres

The task of the Locotenential Council, which operated between 1724 and 1848, was to execute the decrees of the sovereign and the Chancellery. Except Transylvania and the frontier defence districts its competence included the public administration of the entire territory of Hungary, Croatia, and, from 1778, the Banat of Temesvár. Beside public administration the Council acted as the professional supervisory authority of the branches of economic and social administration emerging in the 18^th century: taxation, army supplies, agriculture, industry, trade, transport, culture, education and health as well as peasant-landowner relations.

This material has survived in its original order, without disposal. It consists of two main parts: the documents created during the activities of the Council and the documents created during the work of its subordinate organs.

From 1785 to 1790 the Locotenential Council worked jointly with the Hungarian Chamber. The unification and repeated separation of the two agencies did not significantly influence their administrative work. The documents concerning Chamber related issues of the period such as matters concerning the Banat, bursary and land survey issues, settling, protection of Treasury rights, general economic questions, taxation and salt trade matters can be found in the Archives of the Hungarian Chamber.

As a result of record rearrangements carried out at the National Archives aiming rationalisation, the records of the Council’s subordinate bodies and officials are now organised in subject order as follows: audit offices, accountancies, commissions, public supply, transport and construction, public health, education, church, foundations, land survey agencies and officials.

Language: Latin, (German, Hungarian)

Finding Aids: Descriptive inventory, manuscript lists and indexes, computer data base for the documents of guilds. The preparation of the archives’ repertory is in progress.

(1813) 1848-1867 (1873); 2.270,93 linear metres

Beside the archival records of the Hungarian Chancellery, the Transylvanian Chancellery and the Locotenential Council which derive from the age of absolutism, Section “D” includes the documents of other political government authorities and subordinate administrative offices that operated in Hungary between 1849 and 1867. During the frequent reorganisations of state administration the terminated offices handed over their documents to the successor authorities which resulted in an extremely complicated provenance structure.

The first document series of the political authorities which operated in the period of imperial centralism (1849-1860) consists of the royal and imperial ministries’ records concerning Hungary and Transylvania. These records were created by the imperial ministries. The records of central government organs of a civil character such as the general directorate of provincial councils and the public administration organised after the pattern of the dissolved Locotenential Council (all established by Prince Alfred Windischgrä tz and operated between December 1848 and June 1849), were also returned from Vienna. The documents of the royal commissioners appointed by the commander-in-chief of the army to lead local authorities, usually form record series if the commissioner in question run the administration of more than one county. The archival materials of political authorities that operated during the " Bach System” (1849 -1860) are organised on the basis of administrative levels: central authorities, regional authorities, county authorities and district offices. Between June and December 1860 the decentralised Locotenential Council departments were merged in a central Locotenential Council under the leadership of Lajos Benedek with its headquarters in Buda. In Kassa, Pozsony, Sopron and Nagyvárad regional Lieutenancy offices were established. The October Diploma of 1860 ordered the restoration of all central government organs that existed before 1848.

Language: German (Hungarian)

Finding Aids: Descriptive inventory, repertory, manuscript lists and indexes.

Section " E" – Archives of the Hungarian Treasury

11-20 century; 2896,49 linear metres

Section “E” includes the archival material of the central agencies of the post-1526 financial administration. The section consists of five archives and some record units which do not belong to formal archives.

Language: Latin (German, Hungarian)

1. Archives of the Hungarian Chamber (Pozsony Chamber)

(12^th century) 1517-1848 (20^th century)

The function of the Hungarian Royal Chamber was the management, handling and supervision of Royal Treasury properties, the administration of regular and irregular Treasury income as well as the control of salt and mine issues, taxes, postal revenues and the supervision of the economy of free royal cities. From 1785 to 1790 the Hungarian Chamber operated jointly with the Council of Lieutenancy.

Finding Aids: A two volume repertory, descriptive inventory, manuscript lists and indexes. The preparation of a computerised index for documents concerning settling issues is in progress.

2. Archives of the Hungarian Chamber

(11^th century) 1236-1848 (1919)

The Chamber Archives was established by Queen Maria Theresa in 1756. Its mission, as determined by the Queen, was to trace royal and Treasury property rights, authenticate them by appropriate documentation and preserve all their relevant records. The archives of persons convicted for disloyalty, the extinct aristocrat families and dissolved orders were also added to this material. The main subject groups are as follows: warranties of titles and vitally important documents, records of ecclesiastical organs and their legal successors, census returns, documentation of treasury trials and guild privileges, family and personal fonds, miscellaneous records, administrative registers and seals. The collection type record series are organised in different ways. The most frequent classification type is the subject order but time, nominal and numerical classification are also in use.

Finding Aids: Descriptive inventory, repertory, manuscript lists and indexes. The preparation of a computerised index for missilis and seals is in progress.

3. Archives of the Szepes Chamber

13^th century-1813

The Szepes Chamber was established in the city of Kassa, in 1567, for the purposes of financial administration of the north-west region of the country which lay far from the Pozsony headquarters of the Hungarian Chamber. Its territorial competence included the region east of Lipót, Hont and Nógrád counties. For lack of any other central authority, beside financial matters, the Chamber governed the political and military administration of the region as well. It operated under the control of the Court Chamber, first with almost equal authority as the Pozsony Chamber, later closely co-operating with it but with limited power.

Finding Aids: Repertory, manuscript registers.

4. Separate Fonds and Sub-fonds

For the administration of new-acquisition territories recaptured from the Turks new chamber authorities were established directly subordinated to the Court Chamber of Vienna. The chamber administrations of Buda, Slavonia, the Banat and Croatia performed not only economic management but public administration and legal activities as well. Within the territory of their competence they imposed and collected taxes, sold properties, managed settling, army supply, post and advowee related matters.

The chamber administrations, established by Emperor Francis Joseph, that managed local financial administrations, with some exceptions, existed until 1793. The treasury authorities were committees and organs concerned with taxation management, customs administration as well as mining and salt related issues.

Finding Aids: Repertory, manuscript registers.

5. The Financial Administration Archives of the Age of Absolutism

(1733) 1848-1867

The " Financial Administration Archives of the Age of Absolutism” includes the record collections which were handed over by the Ministry of Finance as the legal successor of the financial authorities of 1849-1867.

Finding Aids: Repertory, manuscript registers.

6. Archives of the Royal Board of Legal Affairs

1327-1882

Beside the records of the Legal Board itself, the subordinate public prosecutors and financial prosecutors, the Archives of the Royal Board of Legal Affairs includes the archival legacies confiscated together with the assets of extinct families. The Board worked within the organisation of the Hungarian Chamber. As the legal representative of the Treasury it proceeded in every civil action in which the Treasury were concerned. As the legal attorney of the Holy Crown it played the role of public prosecutor in high treason, disloyalty, serious bullying, coinage offence and forgery, precious metal smuggling, treasure finding and usury cases. After 1848 the Legal Board lost its public attorney function, therefore its territorial competence also changed in the age of absolutism.

Finding Aids: Repertory, manuscript registers.

13-20 century; 3462,11 linear metres

Section “F” consists of nine archives and some record units which do not belong to formal archives.

Language: Latin, German, Hungarian

Finding Aids: Descriptive inventory, manuscript registers, lists and indexes.

1. The National Archives of the Chapter of Gyulafehérvár

13^th-20^th century

The archives of the Chapter of Gyulafehérvár includes the documents of national importance of the cathedral chapter which served as Episcopal Notary of the Roman Catholic Church, and fragments of the principal archives of the Transylvanian Principality such as diplomatic correspondence, official correspondence on domestic military issues, private correspondence, documents of the principal household, domanial accounts of Treasury estates.

2. The National Archives of the Convent of Kolozsmonostor

1438-1900

This material’s character is similar to that of the Chapter of Gyulafehérvár.

3. The Archives of the Gubernium Transylvanicum

The Gubernium, established in 1693, was the main local government authority after Transylvania became a part of the Habsburg empire. As an authority directly subordinated to the Transylvanian Court Chancellery of Vienna it carried out central public administrative, sectoral administartive tasks and perfomed legal duties.

In public and sectoral administrative cases, the competence and file management of the Gubernium was similar to the Lieutenancy’s conduct of affairs. In its capacity as judicial authority the Gubernium proceeded as a court of first instance in cases concerning Treasury rights, high treason, disloyalty and debated borders between local authorities. As Court of Appeal it heard civil and criminal cases of Greek Orthodox appellants, cases on bills and bankruptcy proceedings, proofs of nobility, contravention of public health rules as well as court-baron cases.

The archives called Cista Diplomatica of the Gubernium Transylvanicum consists of royal rescripts, the copies of decrees and regulations of the Transylvanian Court Chancellery, collections of Diet, nobiliary, and guild documents as well as some document collections formed on the basis of diplomatic and public history aspects.

4. Archives of the High Commissioner’s Office of Transylvania

The Transylvanian High Commissioner’s Office was a civil authority concerning with the supply, quartering and transport of the army. As a subordinate body of the Gubernium it only had a practical importance until 1849.

5. Archives of the National Audit Office of Transylvania

The task of the Transylvanian National Audit Office was the supervision of the accounts of local authorities and the High Commissioner’s Office. Until 1782 it was subordinate to the Gubernium, between 1782 and 1786 to the Court Audit Office, then to the Gubernium again. After 1849 it gradually lost its importance.

6. Archives of the Transylvanian Treasury

The Treasury Archives includes the general and presidential records of the Thesaurariatus and its subordinate organs as well as the collection of the Transylvanian Fiscal Archives.

During the 18^th century the Thesaurariatus took over the effective administration of Treasury affairs from the Chamberlain who was responsible to the Gubernium. Its scope of authority included general chamber affairs (salt-mining, taxation, administration of Treasury estates) as well as coinage and general mining issues. Between 1785 and 1790 the Thesaurariatus worked jointly with the Gubernium then, until 1848, as an independent authority under the control of the Gubernium. In 1848-1849 the management of Transylvanian Treasury authorities were taken over by the provisional national authorities of the Hungarian Government. In 1850 the Thesaurariatus was succeeded by the National Finance Directorate (Finanz-Landesdirection) subordinated to the Imperial Ministry of Finance.

The Transylvanian Fiscal Archives was established in 1767. Its scope of activities included the collection of diplomas proving Treasury rights in Transylvania as well as the tracing and procurement of latent royal rights.

7. Archives of the Hungarian Authorities of Transylvania in 1849

The Transylvanian authorities of 1849 had no nation-wide competence. They only carried out temporary duties in connection with the unification of Hungarian and Transylvanian administrations. The plenipotentiary National High Commission had political and military responsibilities above all. The High Commissioner supervised the activities of government commissions, Treasury administrations, the Transylvanian Court of Appeal and the Auditorial Commission.

8. Public Administration Archives of the Age of Unification and Absolutism

This archives contains the records of central government authorities (Militür- und Civilgouvernement, Satthalterei in Siebenbürgen) and the High Commission. The character and order of the record units preserved in this archives is similar to the arrangement of the records of Hungarian government organs.

9. Archives of the District Commissions during the Reign of Joseph II.

In 1786 Emperor Joseph II. divided Transylvania into three public administration districts with their seats in Szeben, Kolozsvár and Fogaras. The District Commissioners mainly proceeded in administrative cases, however they also had limited supervisory competence in chamber related matters, and, except capital cases, their scope of authority included the supervision of all criminal cases of commoners.

10. Miscellaneous Fonds and Sub-fonds

Miscellaneous fonds and record groups comprising document and decree collections on public administration, religion and education; statistics; collection of legal cases and financial accounts which belong to Section “F” but do not form individual archives.

Section " G" – Archives Relating to the Wars of Independence

(1529) 1648-1714 (1728); 18,79 linear metres

This section consists of two artificially created, collection type archives.

The records of this archives were selected from the private archives of the Thököly family, the archives of the Hungarian Chamber and the Szepes Chamber in 1954. The purpose of the selection was to reconstruct the document units of contemporary central and local offices and to collect the papers of individuals who played significant roles in the events. The material is divided into “kuruc” (rebel) and “labanc” (imperial) record series.

2. Archives of the Rákóczi War of Independence

The records of this archives were selected from the private archives of the Rákóczi-Aspremont family, the archives of the Hungarian Chamber and the Szepes Chamber in 1952-1953, with the same purpose as in the case of the Thököly Archives. The documents of the collection are classified as follows: the remaining documents of the archives of the Prince; the documents of the central authorities of the Insurrection; the documents of local authorities; letters and appeals of individuals; “kuruc” (rebel) and “labanc” (imperial) documents.

Finding Aids: Descriptive inventory (Emma Iványi: The Political Archives of Francis Rákóczi II; Levéltári Közlemények [Archival Bulletin]; Budapest,1954.

Ferenc Maksai: The Archives of the Rákóczi War of Independence; Levéltári Közlemények [Archival Bulletin]; Budapest,1954.), repertory.

1848-1850; 171,65 linear metres

Section “H” is an artificially created group of records comprising documents of Lajos Kossuth which got back from Vienna in the 1960s, a selection of documents of the Chancellery, the Locotenential Council and the Chamber Archives as well as the Post-1526 Collection. Beside the records of the Ministry (until 1918, in Hungary the expression Ministry officially referred to the board of Ministers, i.e. the Government, as well as the whole of government departments headed by Ministers) the section also includes the records of its predecessor, the National Provisional Ministerial Committee and the records of the Ministry’s subordinate organs.

The material of the section is arranged in accordance with the organisational structure of the Ministry. The records of the Presidency and the Departments headed by Ministers, the Department of Domestic Affairs, Financial Affairs, Public Labour and Transport, Religion and Education, National Defence and the Department of the Minister Responsible for the Affairs Concerning the King (in fact for foreign affairs) are all divided into year groups and, within years, into subject groups.

Finding Aids: Descriptive inventory, repertory, manuscript registers, lists and indexes.

Section " I" – Records Transferred from the Archives of Vienna

1000-1918; 54,64 linear metres

Part of the documents with Hungarian provenance which were returned from Vienna, for the most part in 1927, on the basis of the Baden Agreement of 1926 concluded by the Hungarian and Austrian Government, were not placed into the material of the respective archival departments. For this material a separate record section was created.

This collection type unit of records is arranged by subject. The following series were created within the section: diplomas, diploma and document copies, lists of property rights, legacies, documents concerning the royal household in Hungary, Hungarian related document groups of the Cabinet Archives and court authorities, parliamentary documents.

Finding Aid: Repertory

Section " N" – “Archivum Regnicolare”

1222-1988; 392,26 linear metres

The “ Archivum Regnicolare” (“ The Archives of the Country”), established in Pozsony in 1756, includes the records of Hungary’s chief justices: the Palatine and the Lord Chief Justice, as well as parliamentary, legal and other documents concerning public administration. This material consist of three archives.

1. Archivum Palatinale (The Platines’ Archives)

The Palatines’ Archives includes the remaining records of Palatines and Governor-generals of 1554-1848. The material of this archives is discontinuous because the Palatine’s post were frequently left vacant. Neither it is complete because part of the official documents of the Palatines, especially those of the 16-17^th century, remained in the familiy archives of the Palatines or perished.

2. Archivum Judicium Curiae (The Archives of the Lord Chief Justice)

This archives contains the documents and protocols concerning the judicial and notarial activities of the Lord Chief Justice, the holder of the second highest public office after the Palatine.

3. Archivum Regni

The greatest part of the Archivum Regni, which originally served the protection of the rights of the Estates, consists of parliamentary records and document series of parliamentary committees delegated to examine various economic, administrative, educational and legal issues. Beside documents concerning the National Museum, the Academy of Sciences and the construction of Count Széchenyi’s Chain Bridge, records of peace treaties, adjusment of frontiers and national census can be found in this material.

Language: Latin, German (Hungarian)

Finding Aids: Repertory, manuscript registers and indexes.

Section " O" – Judicial Archives

13^th century-1869 (1979); 1112,28 linear metres

This section contains a total of 12 groups of fonds and a few separate record units concerning the activities of Hungarian and Transylvanian central courts between 1526 and 1869.

Language: Latin, German, Hungarian

Finding Aids: Repertory, descriptive inventory, manuscript registers and indexes.

In 1723 Emperor Charles III ordered the introduction of regular jurisdiction. The highest forum of the jurisdictional organisation of the period was the Royal Curia, the composition of two central court: the Septemvirate (before 1868 the name of the Hungarian Supreme Court of Justice) and the Royal Court of Justice. This latter proceeded as a court of first instance in legal actions brought by the Treasury, in cases concerning entailment and bullying and, after 1791, in disloyalty and forgery cases. It served as court of appeal in civil and criminal cases submitted by district courts. The Septemvirate served as supreme court of appeal.

2. Archives of the Personalis

The Archives of the Personalis includes the records of the Royal Personalis, the Lord Chief Justice of the Personalis and the Council of the Personalis. The Personalis as the personal legal representative of the sovereign issued decrees of judicial character on behalf of the king authenticated with the royal seal, performed national notarial activities and played an important role in the organisation of lawyers training. The Personalis was the head of the Royal Court of Justice and the Council of the Personalis, the highest legal forum of civil cases.

3. Archives of the Protonotary of the Palatine

The competence of the Master Notary of the Palatine included a wide range of national notarial activities concerning cases in civil law. Besides, in the 16-18^th centuries, the Master Notary had a certain independent judicial competence as well.

4. Archives of the Protonotary of the Lord Chief Justice

The competence of the Master Notary of the Lord Chief Justice and the structure of his archives is the same as that of the Palatine’s Master Notary.

5. Archives of the Tavernicus

The Council of the Tavernicum Magister (i.e. the head of the Treasury) served as the Supreme Court of Appeal for the citizens of the royal free boroughs (libera regia civitas). The most of the cases heard by the Council were testamentary, right of inheritance, later, from the 18^th century, rather debt and bankruptcy related cases.

6. Archives of the Transylvanian Royal Court of Appeal

The archival material of the court was almost entirely destroyed by the fire of 1945. The remaining records are preserved in this archives.

7. Archives of the Cisdanubian District Court

As a part of the court reform of 1723 four district courts were established with their seats in Nagyszombat, Kőszeg, Eperjes and Nagyvárad. The District Courts functioned as courts of first instance in civil actions. Appeals against their decisions could be lodged to the Royal Court of Justice.

8. Archives of the Transdanubian District Court

The competence of the Transdanubian District Court included the jurisdiction of Sopron, Vas, Zala, Komárom, Somogy, Győr, Fejér, Veszprém Moson, Tolna and Baranya Counties.

9. Archives of the Cis-Tiszanian District Court

The competence of the Cis-Tiszanian District Court included the jurisdiction of Abaúj, Zemplén, Sáros, Ung, Szepes, Gömör, Heves, and Szolnok Exterior Counties. This archives was almost entirely destroyed by the fire of 1956.

10. Archives of the Trans-Tiszanian District Court

The competence of the Trans-Tiszanian District Court included the jurisdiction of Szatmár, Szabolcs, Bereg, Ugocsa, Bihar, Csanád and Csongrád Counties.

11. Archives of the Age of Absolutism

This archives contains the fragmentary material of the Ministry of Justice (Justizministerium) as well as the documents of the (Oberster Gerichts- und Gassationshof)

12. Archives of the Age of Provisory and Dualism

The Office of the Lord Chief Justice, the Royal Curia and the Supreme Court of Transylvania were restored in 1861 but only small fragments of their material survived the fire of 1956.

13. Separate Record Units

The fonds that do not belong to formal archives consist of pieces broken away from their original record units which perished during the siege of Budapest in 1945, various collection type document series, archival legacies from the 19^th-20^th centuries and notes on judicial archives up to 1979. This material is basically disarranged.

This department handles the records of government organs and central courts from the period 1867-1944.

between 1867 and 1945

(1770) 1867-1945 (1971); 8657,05 linear metres

The Parliamentary Archives contains the records of Hungarian legislative bodies from the period 1861-1944: the House of Representatives, the Upper House, the National Council of 1918-1919 and the Hungarian Nazi (Arrow-Cross) House of Representatives.

Until 1918 the Hungarian Parliament operated in a two-chamber system consisting of the House of Representatives and the Upper House. During the rule of the Károlyi Government the Parliament was replaced by the National Council; during the Hungarian Soviet Republic by the National Assembly of Soviets; and from 1920 to 1927 the role of the main legislative body was taken over by the National Assembly. Between 1927 and 1944 the two-chamber system, with the House of Representatives and the Upper House, was restored.

The archival material of the House of Representatives includes the rescripts of the King and the Governor, as well as the replies of the House; bills, documents of committee and plenary debates and parliamentary resolutions. In addition, this material includes the records of parliamentary committees: the judicial, screening, immunity, public/constitutional law, ethnic minority affairs, financial, economic committees etc., as well as the records of elections. In accordance with the Act of 1885/VII the members of the Upper House got their mandates by succession, honour or office, royal nomination and partly by election. The Upper House had the right to initiate proceedings and to reject the proposals of the House of Representatives as well.

Archives of the Head of State’s Office

The Archives of the Head of State’s Office consists of fragmentary archival materials. The remaining records of the Cabinet Office of the Governor-general mostly contains the political, family and personal documents of Miklós Horthy. The Hungarist Diary, the seven volume typewritten diary of Ferenc Szálasy, forms a separate record unit.

The function of the Ministry of the Royal Household, which operated between 1867 and 1918, was to administrate the matters related to granting of nobility and honours. Besides, it also played an intermediary role between the Court and the Hungarian Ministries.

Finding aids: Repertory and the original registers of the Ministry.

Archives of the Prime Minister’s Office

The Prime Minister’s Office co-ordinated the work of the Ministries. To execute the King’s (after 1920, the Governor’s) decisions and resolutions, to perform administrative duties concerning the Royal Household, the King’s visits to Hungary as well as the convocation and dissolution of the Parliament, to manage the matters concerning elections and to approve drafts of replies to parliamentary interpellations belonged to the Office’s duties. The duties of the Office also included the management of the issues that concerned several Ministries, such as the issues concerning nationalities and ethnic minorities (before 1918 the minorities inside Hungary, after 1920 mainly the Hungarian ethnic minorities living in the surrounding countries). After the First World War, to meet the new requirements caused by the increased number of matters, a separate Department of Nationalities and Minorities were organised that observed the living conditions of Hungarians living beyond the borders of the country. To manage press, welfare, national security and propaganda issues, to follow the changes of the economic life with attention, to take the appropriate measures during the Second World War such as the organisation of defence and evacuations and the evaluation of military situation – all belonged to the duties of the Prime Minister’s Office. This material contains the reports of the county administration committees of the post-1876 period as well.

The units of personal records, the official and semi-official documents of Prime Ministers and high-ranking officials of the Prime Minister’s Office, form an important part of the material’s fonds.

Finding aids: To the Office documents of the period 1867-1912 the original index book, to the documents created after 1912 a card-index is available.

Archives of the Ministry of the Interior

1867-1945 (1950)

The Ministry’s scope of activities were mainly shaped during the take-over of the duties of the dissolved Council of Lieutenancy and Ministries that worked in Vienna. The Ministry’s responsibilities included the public administration, activities concerning public law and order, social welfare, public health as well as foundations and associations. Naturally, following its establishment, the Ministry’s scope of duties were frequently changed and permanently extended.

The records of the Ministry of Public Welfare can also be found in this archives because the Welfare Ministry, established in 1918, took over several areas from the Ministry of the Interior such as public health, public welfare and matters concerning foundations and associations. All these duties were transferred to the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare in 1920. When this latter was dissolved in 1932, its documents along with its duties got back to the Ministry of the Interior.

Finding aids: Repertory, detailed index to minor fonds.

Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs contains documents created after the establishment of the independent Hungarian Foreign Ministry in 1918. Between the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and the end of WW I foreign affairs were conducted by the common Imperial Ministry for Foreign Affairs, later, during the Hungarian Soviet Republic, by the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs.

Parallel with the establishment of the Foreign Ministry the organisation of foreign missions began too. The first foreign representations were opened in Vienna and Bern. By 1939, 24 embassies, 1 high consulate, 7 consulates, 15 honorary high consulates, 61 honorary consulates, 2 honorary vice-consulates and 3 local consular office existed.

Finding aid: Manuscript repertory

Archives of the Ministry of Justice

This archives contains the records of the central organs of public jurisdiction of 1867-1944 but the most of the documents perished in the 1956 fire. After its rearrangement the material was grouped into four main units:

The Justice Ministry, organised in the first months of 1867, exercised authority over the courts, public prosecutor's departments, public notaries, the organisation and personnel of Law Society, the correctional and youth affairs. The Ministry also played a leading role in the preparation of acts. The records of courts contains the documents of the Hungarian Royal Curia and the Court of Budapest. From the records of press censorial courts only the one dossier material of the press court of Nagyszombat survived. From the material of the public prosecution organisation only the deficient documents of the Crown Prosecutor's Office and the Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Budapest are available. From the documents of the organisations which acted as the legal representatives of the Treasury the records of the Treasury Board of Legal Affairs are available. A smaller amount of documents from country prosecutor’s offices of crown estates and treasury manors survived.

Finding aid: Repertory published in 1993

Archives of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education

Most of the records of this archives has perished. From the material of the inter-war period only the records of educational administration survived in larger amounts.

Initially, the Ministry’s scope of activities was divided between three administrative branches: religious affairs, public foundations and public education management. Only the ensuing development brought about the separation of this latter into education management, higher education management and public cultural administration. This material is still under arrangement, therefore the published repertory became invalid but the new one is not yet complete. For the records already arranged manuscript finding aids are available.

From among the archival materials of subordinate national institutions of the Ministry the records of the National Board of Public Education, the National Board of Physical Education, the National Board of Arts and Literature, the National Board of Museums and Libraries and the National Superintendence of Museums and Libraries contain many interesting documents concerning famous personalities, scientists, artists, writers etc.

A large amount of documents survived from the material of the organisation called Hungarian National University of Collections between 1922-1949, later Hungarian National Museum. This material contains information concerning library, archives and museum related affairs, Hungarian institutions abroad as well as national scholarship policy.

Archives of the Ministry of Finance

The material of this archives is also incomplete. Many records are missing, mainly from the departmental documents of 1867-1918, as a result of drastic document destruction. From the early period the records of the departments of forestry and farming remained. From the documents of the period 1919-1944 substantially more survived. The documents of delegations sent out to international conferences, the personal notes and semi-official correspondence of ministers and under-secretaries of state were not selected or destroyed.

Finding aid: At present, a typewritten index is available.

There are official documents left from almost every significant Ministers of the financial administrations that operated after the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The documents of the delegations sent out to the economic conferences in Geneva and the Hague between 1925 and 1938 as well as the records of “the financial commission delegated to the Paris negotiations on non-German war damage compensations” form a precious part of this material.

In order to supervise the financial management of state and treasury resources stewardships were organised which belonged to the competence of the Finance Ministry. From among the material of stewardships the records of the Óbuda Stewardship of the period 1868-1899 remained. From the documents of the Kolozsvár and Szeged Stewardships only fragments survived.

Archives of Economic Ministries

The Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce operated between 1867 and 1889. After its establishment its competence was changed and extended several times. Agricultural, economic, [technical] educational, statistical, forestry and forest management, animal husbandry and veterinary health, factory, handicrafts, mine and water management, commercial and customs related issues – all belonged to the Ministry’s duties. The Ministry of Public Labour and Transport worked in the same period. Its main competence included the administration of road construction, architecture, water construction, shipping, hydrography, railways, post and telegraph related activities.

After the dissolution of the above Ministries their duties were taken over by the newly established Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Commerce and partly by the Ministry of Finance.

From 1889 the Ministry of Agriculture was the central authority of the agricultural administration but water management belonged to its duties as well. The Archives of the Ministry of Commerce contains only a fragment of the material of the Ministry (operated between 1889 and1935). The Commerce Ministry took over all industrial and trade issues including vocational training, industrial and commercial statistics, fairs, various customs issues, patents and trademarks, industrial exhibitions, several institutions, chambers, the stock exchange, technical and trade schools. The record unit of the Patent Office which contains documents from the period of 1916-1944 is a valuable source for research concerning patent matters. A Ministry of Commerce and Transport existed between 1935 and 1945, however, due to the excessive document destruction, only 2,50 linear metres of its documents survived.

The Archives of the Ministry of Industry (1935-1948) has also been destroyed almost entirely. In the Archives of the Ministry of Public Supply (1919-1933) a disproportionally small amount of documents (84,13 linear meter) survived. The task of the Ministry was to organise and co-ordinate public supply activities in order to relieve post-war poverty.

Finding aids: To the agriculture, industry, transport and public supply related materials repertories are available. More detailed finding aids are also available in the Research Rooms (for example a register for the documents concerning economic schools).

Press Archives

This unit consists of artificially created fonds of which material was drawn together by the National Archives from documentation with various provenance. The fonds that belong to this record unit can be classified by subject in two main category: part of them are administrative documents, the others are news and program materials.

Administrative documents form the smaller part of the Hungarian News Agency’s fond (1920-1950). The rest consists of so called “ stone prints”, in fact news material.

The documents of the Hungarian National Information Co. are available from the period 1924-1945. The task of the Hungarian Film Office Co. was, among others, to serve as the Hungarian propaganda film service at home. TO SUPPLY? The fond of the Hungarian Radio an Telediffusion Co. is another particularly valuable source of information. Finally, the Press Collection deserves attention which was established by the Prime Minister’s Office and developed by the Foreign Ministry. It preserves press cuttings of almost every remarkable news or information from the period of 1914-1944.

Finding aids: A typewritten guide to the material of the Press Archives is available at the research room and the archivist concerned.

DEPARTMENT III. – DEPARTMENT OF FAMILY RECORDS

 This Department preserves the medieval (pre-Mohács) collections, the records of families, pre-1945 bodies, associations and institutions, the Post-1526 Collection, the Map Collection, the Collection of Plans, the Photo Collection and the Seal Collection. The Department’s material is divided into Sections.

1109-1526;108 030 charters, 106 linear metres of finding aids,

3 linear metres of copy collections

Every official document which was created before the battle of Mohács (29^th of August, 1526) and got into the custody of the National Archives of Hungary were placed into the pre-Mohács collection (by its former name the “ Archives of Diplomatics”) irrespective of whether it survived in its original form, in transcript or a later copy. In the first place the originals and their medieval transcripts were transferred to the collection and only in the absence of such primary pieces were later copies added.

The collection mainly consists of diplomas and charters written in Latin, partly in German, Hungarian etc. Their research requires not only the mastery of the above languages but appropriate experience in the reading of medieval texts. In accordance with the principle of the protection of irreplaceable originals the pieces of the collection can only be accessed by means of photocopies available in the Photo Collection. Orders for the copies can be placed by the reference numbers of the originals. The group of codices and codex fragments form a special part of the collection.

Finding aids: For the research of the more than 100 000 medieval charters several series of finding aids are available. Inventories, numeral books, registers, chronological card-index (the most detailed conventional catalogue which contains the date, issuer, original archival reference code as well as the current reference number of all charter texts), index of issuers, elenchi, Óváry registers, concordance index. The computer data base of the collection, facilitating research work by advanced search and listing options, is also at the researchers’ disposal.

The pre-1526 Records of Section “U”– Diplomatic Photographic Collection

11^th century-1526; 90.930 photographs

The Diplomatic Photographic Collection is a part of the Photo Collection placed into Section " U" which contains photos of pre-1526 charters. Originally, it mostly consisted of the photos taken of the charters of the Diplomatic Archives for research purposes. During the 1970s the making of photographic copies of pre-1526 charters preserved outside the National Archives, and the processing of such copies became regular.

For the most part, the collection consists of photos of original charters which survived in family archives but some photos of registers and protocols from former notaries and church archives can also be found in it. The photos of charters survived in church archives form a more significant part of the collection. Regarding municipal materials, in Hungary the collection of Sopron is the richest, however there are dozens of cities in the surrounding countries (Kassa, Kolozsvár, Pozsony, Zágráb etc.) of which archives surpass even the material of Sopron. Only an insignificant part of the Hungarian-related material of the Secret Vatican Archives is available in microfilm in the National Archives.

Of course the photocopied charters are also available in microfilm format.

Language: Latin (German, Hungarian)

Finding aids: see Section " Q"

Section "P" – Archives of Families, Corporations and Institutions

(1165) 1527-20th century; 3.333,12 linear metres

Family Archives and Personal Legacies

Family archives got to the National Archives in various ways and ages. Several of them has been seriously damaged or got confused. The rearrangement of this material lasted until the middle of the 1970s. Parallel with the arrangement of the archives of the Balassa, Batthyány, Bethlen, Csáky, Desewffy, Festetics (of Keszthely), Forgách, Károlyi, Orczy, Perényi, Széchenyi, Teleki, Zichy and Prince Esterházy families as well as the archives of the Tata, Csákvár and Zólyom branches of the Esterházy family, were the repertories of these archives prepared. In addition to the repertories published in major independent volumes five collected edition, entitled " Minor Personal and Family Fonds" , have appeared on minor materials up to this day and a sixth one is in preparation. Having this latter be published essentially the repertory of every family material will be available in print.

Beside repertories, the published family name index is a useful aid which calls attention to the archival materials of relative and stranger families integrated to the material of major family archives. For example in the archives of the Prince Esterházy family the documents of 150 other families can be found forming a valuable historical source material. The name-index also refers to family materials which form organic parts of other Sections of the National Archives such as the Chamber Archives, the Internal Archives of the National Archives or the Microfilm Collection.

In the case of some depository family materials the permission of the depositor is required for research and publication. Such restrictions are indicated in the repertory.

Minor Fonds of Corporations, Associations and Institutions

The material of associations and institutions already belonged to the competence of the National Archives from the beginning of the 20^th century. The document collection of Hungarian Freemason organisations is one of the largest organic archival materials. Beside Freemason documents the material contains the records of pre-1945 associations, corporations, bodies and institutions of national importance. In addition, the material of some minor, short-lived political parties, ecclesiastical associations, convents, nunneries and girls’ boarding schools have been placed into this material. It is also worth to mention the fonds of the World Federation of Hungarians and the Hungarian Red Cross concerning the 1930s and 1940s, as well as the documents of the Directorate of the National Institution of Chemistry, the National Social Security Institute, the Hungarian National Industrial Association and the National Federation of War Invalids, War-widows and War Orphans.

Finding aids: Repertory based on the material accessioned before 1965.

Section " R" – Post-1526 Collection

1527-20^th century; 154,53 linear metres

Most documents of this collection’s material were transferred to the National Archives along with the records of the Archives of the National Museum. The archives of the Museum arranged its material, which was mainly purchased or received as a present, into a chronological series called the " Basic Material" . In addition, subject groups were also created. Although most of this latter perished its expansion has never been stopped. The Museum effectively collected the documents concerning the 1848-1849 war of independence and emigration. The taking over of the Torino legacy of Lajos Kossuth, later, at the turn of the century, the purchasing of István Türr’s documents and the acquisition of the archives of György Klapka were all outstanding achievements. The large collection of 1848-1849 printed material is also deserves attention.

Due to its character, the Post-1526 Collection is one of the most expanding materials of the National Archives of which repertory was published in 1977.

Sections " S" and " T" – Collection of Maps and

17^th-20^th century; 345,48 linear metres

These two Sections have been formed and developed simultaneously thus their structure is practically identical. This explains their common introduction.

The core of the two Sections is formed by maps and blueprints selected from various record units of the Archives. In the beginning, the only respect of selection was the irregular shape and size of the maps and plans which made their storage difficult together with other documents. This meant that the selected maps and plans were placed into the collection regardless of their originating agency, institution, authority or family. Between 1925 and 1930 a considerably large amount of plans got into the National archives by purchase and donation. Following WW II the maps and plans were consequently selected from every new acquisition in such a way that left the original integrity of fonds intact. Regarding research this means that any maps or plans, selected from a family archives, can be researched by the title of the originator and an independent reference number within the respective section. Plans and maps have been entirely removed from Section “P” but this cannot be said about the record units of central organs.

Beside the two major collections selected from the governmental and family archives, the material of the two sections contains other valuable source materials such as the records of the Royal Chamber Cartographic Directorate (Königliche Kameralische Mappirungs-Direction), the documents and maps of the Institute of Hydrography or the remaining fragment of the National Geodesic Institute’s documents. The records of the cadastral survey of 1786-1789 contain 224 maps mainly of the localities of Arad, Békés and Csongrád County. The cadastral collection consists of 190 linear metres of documents concerning cadastral surveys and more than 3.600 manuscript and lithographic maps made of the country’s whole territory between 1851 and 1918.

In the series of “The Map Catalogue of the National Archives of Hungary” the description of the Chamber’s and Lieutenancy Council’s maps has appeared in print. For the computerised version of the catalogue the preparation of piece-level descriptions is in progress.

Beside the above mentioned two major series, the Collection of Plans also contains such valuable personal legacies as the Schikedanz-Herczog, Gerster, Feszl or Samu Pecz legacies.

Finding aids: Two series card-index

The post-1526 Records of Section " U" – Post-Mohács

1527-20^th century; 42.841 prints

The bases of the Section’s material were laid down by the exploratory work of the historical geography team of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The exploration of documents and charters with a historical geographic or local history relevance was started under the leadership of Dezső Csánki in Northern Hungary in the 1930s. To simplify the process the selected material was photographed on the spot and enlarged at home for later treatment. These photographic prints formed the basis of the Photographic Collection of National Archives. Later on photos and prints were made for research projects by Hungarian and foreign archives but new accessions also include presents and purchased pieces. From the 1970s, the systematic collection development aiming the build-up of a collection as complete as possible of pre-1526 charter prints took priority over the accession carried out to meet research requirements. Now, parallel with acquisition, pre-1526 prints were selected from previous series, too, and were transferred to the so called Charter-cadastre where the starting reference number of the series is U 401.

The post-Mohács series of the Section are arranged by their original place of preservation. Several series deserves special attention. Examples of such special series include the facsimile collection of Gyula Tasnádi Nagy or the prints of post-Mohács documents from perished family archives once belonged to the holdings of the National Archives. (Unfortunately, only a small fragment of perished documents had prints.) Another special material is the 1.065 piece collection of photos, preserved in Section “X” – the Microfilm Collection of the National Archives, printed from early 20^th century wet plates which were taken of documents preserved by private individuals.

The Collection is an abundant source for history writing but, as its development shows, most of its pieces were created for previous research projects, therefore it is most useful to further exploit the information hidden in published sources or, in the case of purchased or donated prints, to study privately owned sources.

Finding aids: Since 1956 no printed finding aid has been published for the section. Due to the rearrangements and accessions of the last decades, the old basic inventory of the section has become outdated. It is the summary of records of the National Archives that gives a full picture of the renewed section.

Section " V" – Collection of Seals

11^th-20^th century; 36,69 linear metres + 3354 pieces

The “Collection of Seals” subtitle of the above mentioned basic inventory of 1956 only refers to a series of the Archives purchased from Museum Director Elemér Varjú which consists of a collection of squeeze mouldings and some damaged original seals. In fact, the seal collection’s size was less modest even at that time, as, among others, the post-1526 Collection preserved the seal and arms collection of Gusztáv Altenburger and Sándor Réső Ensel as well as the Zichy-Czikán crested seal and copy collection. The seals of government authorities and the seals handed over by Austria in accordance with the Baden Agreement after 1927 lay in chests in repositories. This material was assessed and placed into the Collection of Seals in the 1980s.

Beside seals, the material of this section consists of collections of imprints of seals. In addition, the development of the copy series of medieval seals, which will help to avoid the use of the originals, is in progress. The most frequently researched series of the section is the Altenburger-Réső seal and arms collection which contains the seal imprints of sovereigns and localities of the Austrian and German Empires as well as the seals of Hungarian counties and localities in alphabetical order under the subtitle “Hungary and the Hungarian Empire”. The above mentioned Collection of Elemér Varjú consists of 436 copies of seal imprints of medieval sovereigns and officials.

Finding aids: Specifications are available to every unit of the section.

DEPARTMENT IV. – DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS ARCHIVES

 This department handles the 16^th-20^th century records of industrial, commercial, transportation and agricultural companies, banking institutions, insurance companies, co-operatives as well as economic corporate bodies of national importance.

The material of the modern (and feudal) age (Section “ Z”) contains 7.711 linear metres of records in 660 fonds. The post-1945 material of the fonds XXIX, XXX and XXXII consists of 261 fonds/4.858,51 linear metres of documents.

The 99 fonds of banking institutions include the records of banks, the institutions and enterprises of banks, savings banks, pawnshops, mortgage institutions

It was after 1867 when the banks and banking institutions played a vitally important part in the organisation and development of Hungarian economy. The most significant fonds preserved in the National Archives are as follows: First Home Savings Bank Association of Pest Co., Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest Co., Hungarian General Credit Bank Co., State Banking Centre.

The establishment of an independent central bank of issue was a fundamental prerequisite for the consolidation following the post-WW I economic collapse. The Hungarian National Bank was established to resolve this problem in July 1924. After their nationalisation in 1948, most banks and banking institutions were closed down or merged with other institutions. The scope of activity of the remaining institutions were narrowed down and they had become subservient to the central economic will. The National Bank became the centre of the specialised socialist bank system. From the post-1945 material the fonds of the National Savings Bank, the Hungarian Investment Bank (State Development Bank) and the National Mint deserve attention.

Finding aids: Repertories are available for several fonds of banking institutions.

The Hungarian Land-bank was established in 1862 in order to “ make dead estates credit-worthy by granting them loans, through associations with mutual guarantee, up to half of the amount of their mortgage value”. The archival material of the National Land-bank of Smallholders, the National Association of Hungarian Land-banks and the National Land-bank also deserves attention.

Finding aids: Contemporary place-name indexes, synoptic repository registers.

The foundation of credit unions was important to the stimulation of the economy. The most valuable fonds of such institutions are the material of the National Central Credit Union, the Union for Financial Management of the Land Reform, the National Villatic Building-society and the National Building and Loan Association. The National Credit Union for Co-operatives was established in 1947. Beside giving credits, it was assigned to collect “kulak debts” and to control the credit and financial management of collective farms as well as individual farmers (it was dissolved in 1952)

The record group of insurance companies consists of 25 badly fragmented fonds. The 1860s and 1870s are considered as the period of the formation of the insurance organisation. Parallel with Hungarian investments, German, Austrian, Italian and French investors also took part in the build-up of the insurance business. The examples of foreign investments include the UNITAS, the Hungarian branch of Phoenix Life-insurance Co., the Hungarian Directorate of Adria Insurance Co. As well as the Fonciere General Insurance Institute.

Finding aid: Repertory

The institution of chambers was introduced in the entire territory of the Habsburg Empire in 1850. By its influence and wide-ranging activities, the Budapest Commercial and Industrial Chamber rose above the others. Beside operating as a corporate body it also acted as an authority concerning commercial, industrial and public administration. Between 1945 and 1948, when it was dissolved, its activities were connected to the industrial reform and the issuing of merchant licences.

Finding aid: Repertory

The Produce and Stock Exchange of Budapest was established in 1864. The growing manufacturing industry organised an independent corporate body, the Union of Hungarian Manufacturers (GYOSZ), in 1902. Its archival material survived in a badly fragmented state. In 1948, both the Stock Exchange and GYOSZ were dissolved.

Finding aid: Repertory

Within the 157 fonds of mining companies the documents of every relevant branch of the mining industry can be found including the coal, bauxite, metal and oil companies as well as the companies processing mineral by-products like brick, plaster, lime and cement works, their supply stations as well as the institutions organically connected to the activities of the companies such as retiring funds, mine directorates and inspectorates, workers’ and screening committees, party organisations and sports clubs.

In the historical Hungary, the bulk of coal production was in the hands of three major monopoly: the Hungarian General Coal-mine Company, the Coal-mining Company of Salgótarján and the First Danubian Steamship Navigation Company. The fonds of coal-mine companies as mine authorities are valuable historical sources concerning both economic and local history.

In 1946, the coal-mine companies were taken into public ownership, and the Hungarian State Coal-mine Company (MÁSZ) was established. The mines were administered from the centre of the Company and the regional mine directorates. In 1948, the MÁSZ was dissolved and, as part of the decentralisation of the mine industry, the coal-mining industrial centres and national companies were founded. The coal-mine trusts were formed from the coal-mining industrial centres during 1952.

The United Hungarian Coal Mines Co. was established in 1967 in order to co-ordinate the projects aiming the rationalisation of the coal-mine industry, utilise development funds and draw up plans for production.

Finding aid: Repertory

The Bauxite Mine and Industrial Co. began its activities in 1917. After the First World War, in order to utilise mine-fields that remained outside the decreased territory of Hungary, the company established branches in Fiume, Trieste, Bucharest and Zagreb. To co-ordinate the work of the Hungarian and foreign companies a holding was established in Zurich, Switzerland, by the name Bauxite Trust A.G. By the end of the 1920s the concern of these two companies became one of the largest bauxite companies of the world.

In 1946, in this area, too, the shares of former German assets were taken over by the Soviet Union, thus were the Soviet-Hungarian Bauxite-Aluminium Co. and the Hungarian Bauxite Mine Soviet-Hungarian Aluminium Co. established. The bauxite mining and its processing industry played a prominent part in the Hungarian industry. The documents of the Bakony Bauxite Mine Company, the Ajka Alumina Factory and Smelting Works, the Almásfüzitő Alumina Works and the Hungarian Aluminium Industry Trust confirm this fact.

Finding aids: Repertory to the pre-1945 material, repository registers to the post- 1945 records.

The Hungarian-American Oil Industrial Co. was the only significant firm of the inter-war period oil industry. Its archival material can be studied by repertory. The Hungarian-Soviet Oil Company and National Oil and Gas Industrial Trust belonged to the major companies of the postwar period.

The record unit of the iron, metal and machine industry consists of 127 fonds. The economic documents of the companies usually survived in a defective, fragmented form.

The Rimamurány-Salgótarján Ironworks Co. was one of the largest industrial companies after the Austrian-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. As a result of the Trianon peace treaty the firm got into an extremely difficult situation. Its mines and certain depots were placed under foreign control and it lost most of his markets but its processing factories remained in Hungary. During WW II the company was one of the most important war factories. In 1946 it was taken into public ownership. Its successor, the Metallurgical Works of Ózd went through a forced development during the 1950s and it belonged to the leading industrial enterprises in the 60s and 70s too.

Following the Compromise, the production of vehicles and agricultural machines became predominant within mechanical engineering with the exception of the Ganz Co. which produced railway and mill equipment and joined in the electrotechnical industry as well. At the turn of the century the Ganz Co., with its 6500 workers, was the country’s largest mechanical company. The Hofherr-Schrantz-Clayton-Shuttleworth Hungarian Mechanical Engineering Co. was one of the Monarchy’s, later Hungary’s, most important agricultural machinery producers. After its nationalisation, its name was changed to Red Star Tractor Factory.

Finding aids: Repertories

On drawing near the Second World War, the government invested large amounts in the development of war industry. The Manfred Weiss Concern Enterprises was one of the biggest war factories. The leading role of the Manfred Weiss Steel and Metal Co., including the management and control over both domestic and foreign companies, guaranteed the co-ordinated governance of the companies and the protection of the Weiss family’s interests. In 1928, the Manfred Weiss Aeroplane and Motor Industries Co. was established, then in 1941, in accordance with the German-Hungarian agreement on aeroplane production, the Danubian Aeroplane Co. followed which embarked upon the mass production of aeroplane engines.

An exceptionally important source of the nationalisation period is the material of the Heavy Industrial Centre which contains valuable information on the postwar reactivation and reorganisation of large industrial companies. A similarly important material is the fond of the Representation of Industrial Works National Co. of which commercial questionnaires provide an overall view on individual companies including data on the nationalisation and financial status of the firms.

The Ikarus Carrosserie and Vehicle Factory was established by merging the nationalised Uhri factory in the Ikarus Mechanical and Hardware Co. The Csepel Iron and Metal Works, Danubian Iron Works, Lenin Metallurgic Works, Diósgyőr Mechanical Works and the Hungarian Anti-friction Bearings Works were the centres of the large-scale socialist industry.

The 59 fonds of chemical works contain valuable information on a wide range of chemical productions.

The material of the Hungarian Rubber Co. is a significant source of economic history. Following the First World War, the company belonged to the first line of international chemical industry.

In the pharmaceutical industry, the Richter and the Chinoin were the two largest and most famous companies. Important documents can be found in the material of the Chinoin’s scientific and patent department and the Richter’s directorate. After 1945, the pharmaceutical industry remained one of the most dynamic branches of the economy. The fond of the Hungarian Pharmaceutical Union contains important documents of the industry’s medium level management.

The record unit of chemical companies also contains such significant enterprises as the Shell Oil Co., the Vacuum Oil Company, the Hungaria Artificial Fertiliser, Vitriol and Chemical Co. or the Nitrokémia Industrial Plants Co. The Hungarian Chemical Industry Union, established in 1968, co-ordinated the development and research activities of associated firms. From among the companies that worked within the framework of the Union, the following have material at Department IV: the Nitrogen Woks of Pét, North Hungarian Chemical Works, Tiszanian Chemical Complex.

Finding aids: Repertories and repository registers.

This group of fonds contains the archival material of such companies as the Corporation for Electric Industrial and Transportation Companies, Hungária Electrical Co., Hungarian Transdanubian Electrical Co., Hungarian Electrics Trust as well as the Thermal Power Plants of Ajka, Pécs and Tatabánya.

Finding aids: Repository registers.

The archival material of electric industrial companies is badly fragmented as, during the Second World War, most of the companies became a military target therefore a large amount of their documents perished.

The United Electric Co. was established in 1896. Its name was changed to United Light Bulb and Electrics Co. in 1906, and its products became world famous by the trademark Tungsram. It also produced telephone and telegraph appliances and the first Hungarian automatic telephone exchange was made in its factories too. The Hungarian Brown Boveri Works Electric Co. produced electric machinery, motors, transformers and generators. The Hungarian Siemens-Schuckert Works Eelctric Co. was formed in 1904 and specialised in power-current and week current engineering. The company’s name was changed to Hungarian Siemens Works Co. in 1942. Between 1945 and 1947 it worked under the name of Electric Industrial and Commercial Co. then, for almost five years, it have been taken into Soviet ownership.

The Hungarian Wolfram-lamp Factory János Kremenezky Co. was founded in 1913. Beside producing electric bulbs, it also manufactured machinery, appliances and tools to electric lighting and electric power transmission. (Their products was circulated under the name of Orion.) The Telephone Factory Co., the Remix Electrical Engineering Factory Ltd., the Hungarian Philips Works Co. and the “ Standard” Electrics Co., which was formed from the telephone department of the United Electrics, were also among the most significant electric industrial enterprises.

From among the post-1945 firms the material of the VIDEOTON Electronics Company contains a considerable amount of documents but the Hungarian Telecommunications United also deserves attention.

In Hungary, the precision engineering, as an independent branch of industry, only slowly developed but the boom of mechanical engineering, aircraft production and electronics as well as the needs of war industry had created favourable conditions to its development.

In the 1920s, the Hungarian Optical Works Co. produced precision mechanical appliances, road and railway construction instruments as well as minig, military, scientific, aviation and electrical engineering instruments. It also dealt with grinding of optical lenses. Between 1945 and 1950 it worked as a Soviet-Hungarian joint venture. The Gamma Precision Engineering and Optical Works Co. produced geodesic, optical and precision instruments as well as anti-aircraft and targeting appliances. The Hungarian Siemens Reiniger Works Co. produced several surgical instruments and appliances.

The precision engineering factories, due to their war industrial character, also suffered serious damages during WW II. Their documents survived in a fragmented state.

From among the post-1945 companies, the fonds of the MIKI Measurement Technology Development Company, the Labor Precision Instrument Works and the Microelectronics Company can be mentioned.

Finding aids: Repertories.

The fond group of construction and building material industry consists of 16 fonds. The companies of the bourgeois age are represented by the badly fragmented material of some brickworks, road construction, glass and ceramics factories. Within the post-1845 material, the Road Construction Trust as well as the Cement and Lime Works have a considerable amount of documents.

Finding aids: Repository registers.

Paper and Timber-industry

The 15 fonds of paper and timber-industry contains records concerning woodworking, paper making and trade.

Finding aids: Repository registers.

Printing and Publishing Companies

The fond group of printing and publishing companies contains 14 fonds. The records of the Royal Hungarian University Press form the most valuable material within the group. The documents, created between 1784 and 1947, are a precious source for researchers interested in the history of book publishing. The fonds of the Révai Brothers Literary Institute Co. and the Athenaeum Literary and Press Co. form a challenging material for librarians and the researchers of literary history.

The archival material of the Printing Industrial Trust and Association is a valuable source of the socialist economic organisation and management. The Trust was founded in 1963 and dissolved in 1968 parallel with the establishment of the Printing Industrial Association. The Association consisted of 38 member companies including ancillary industries and commercial firms as well.

Finding aid: Repository register.

Film and Entertainment Enterprises

The film and entertainment industry is represented by 5 fonds. The scripts of quite a few old movies can be found in the material of the Production Department of the Hunnia Film Factory Co. The records of the Hungarian Cinematography Company are arranged by film productions. The Hungarian Circus and Show Variety Company organised and managed a considerable part of the show-business.

Enterprises of Textile, Fur and Leather Industry

1800-1992

After the Compromise, the light industry, including the textile, fur and leather industry, was modestly represented within the industrial production, however, in the inter-war period, the textile industry became one of the most developing branches.

The Samuel F. Golberger & Sons Co. was turned into a large-scale enterprise in the mid-20s. The archival material of Leo Goldberger, which forms a separate record unit, contains the family’s private and business related documents from 1817. The documents of this record unit reveal the colourful political and public activities of Leo Goldberger. The main rival of the Goldgbergers, the Hungarian Cotton Industry Co. became one of the leading textile factories of the inter-war Hungary. Among the most significant new enterprises of the early 20^th century, the Kispest Textile Works Co., the Jute and Hemp Industrial Co. and the Hungarian Hemp and Flax Industrial Co. deserves attention. The Home Fésűsfonó and Weaving Factory Co., which introduced a new branch of industry in Hungary, was the most significant new company of the 1920s. The Budaprint Cotton Printing Company was one of the remarkable firms of the post-1945 textile industry.

The primary conditions of large-scale mechanised leather and fur industry were established in the 1880s and 1890s. The Pannónia Lambskin Manufacturing and Trade Co. dealt with the currying and tanning of lambskin, sheepskin, game and precious fur. The Panofix trademark became known even in the world market. The scope of activities of the Julius Wolfner & Co. included the wool washing, tanning and currying as well as the shoe sole and uppers production. The Wolfner family played a significant role in the organisation and development of the sports and cultural life of the town of Újpest.

Finding aid: Repertory.

Only a very small, fragmented part of the milling industry’s documents have been transferred to the National Archives. Within this material, the records of the Syndicate of Hungarian Export Mills deserves attention.

The Hungarian Cocoa and Chocolate Factory Co. was the first large-scale Hungarian sweets industry enterprise. The Dreher Maul Cocoa and Chocolate Factory Co. was the other most serious firm. It merged into the Dreher Brewery and Cholate Factory in 1933. Within the post-1945 material, the Danube Chocolate Factory has a considerable amount of documents.

Within the distillation business the Geschwindt Spirit, Yeast, Liqueur and Sugar Factory Co. as well as the J. Zwack & Sons Liqueur and Rum Works were among the most significant. In Hungary the industrial brewery was introduced by Austrian and Swiss entrepreneurs, Anton Dreher and Henrik Haggenmacher. The documents of their companies, the Anton Dreher Breweries Co., the First Hungarian Brewery Inc., the Haggenmacher Breweries of Kőbánya and Budafok Co. as well as the Dreher Haggenmacher First Hungarian Brewery Inc. can be found in the material of Section “ Z”.

One of the most interesting and, on the basis of the available documents, relatively well accessible material of the nationalised food industry is the records of the post-1945 centralisation period. Among others, the fonds of the following food industry trusts can be found in the material of Department IV: Cereals Trust, Animal Trade and Meat Industrial Trust, Trust of Sugar Works, Trust of Distillation Plants and Trust of Breweries.

Finding aids: Repertories and supplementary repository registers

The 76 fonds of cooperatives and agricultural enterprises contains the archival material of various producer, commercial and consumer cooperatives along with their institutions and enterprises as well as some agricultural enterprises.

In Hungary, the development of the co-operative movement started as late as the last decades of the 19^th century. The Co-operative of Hungarian Farmers was established in 1891, mainly in order to resolve the purchase and sale problems of big and medium landowners. The “ Ant” Production, Marketing and Consumers’ Co-operative started its activities in 1898 and in one and a half years its organisation covered almost the whole country. The “ Ant” also maintained international relations taking an active part in Hungary’s foreign trade. Part of its documents perished during the siege of Budapest. In 1947 both co-operatives merged into the Hungarian National Centre of Co-operatives.

Finding aids: Repertories to the pre-1945 material of co-operatives and agricultural companies. The fonds of post-1945 marketing boards and consumers’ co-operatives contain only some centimetres of documents.

The fragmented fonds of commercial enterprises cover almost every branches of foreign and internal trade.
Part of the enterprises specialised in the trade, export or import, of a certain group of goods (for example the Singer Sewing-machine Co.). The rest of the companies focused on the trade with a particular country (e.g. Hungarian Brazilian Trade Co.). The more significant companies circulated a wide range of goods.

Among the nationalised foreign trade companies which were created at the end of the 1940s, the AGRIMPEX Hungarian Agricultural National Company, the BUDAVOX Telecommunications Foreign Trade Co. and the ELEKTROIMPEX Electrical and Precision Engineering Company have the most significant fonds.

The post-1945 nationalisation of internal trade companies began with the creation of “national enterprises”. From among the internal trade companies established subsequently, the Furniture-warehouse Company, the MOBIL Vehicle and Autospares Trade Company, the Hungarian Stamp Trade Company and the Co-operative Bookseller Company have a considerable archival material.

The fond group of transportation companies consists of 36 fonds including the fonds of railway transportation, riverine and marine transport, road transportation of passengers and goods as well as a very small material of air transportation.

The fond of Narrow-gauge and Suburban Railway (HÉV) corporations contains the records of 160 railway company. The Directorate of Hungarian Royal Railways was established in 1869 by the fusion of three already nationalised lines. The railway network of the Hungarian State Railways (MÁV) was formed by taking lines, constructed and maintained by private companies, into public ownership. The presidential (1875-1949), “small” (vice-president?) presidential (1920-1946) and confidential (1888-1949) records as well as the protocols of directorial meetings of the MÁV are valuable historical documents.

Finding aids: Contemporary finding aids and repertory (except general records).

The most significant domestic shipping company was the Hungarian Royal Riverine and Maritime Transport Corporation.

The post-1945 period is represented by the fonds of several transportation company. The scope of activities of the Hungarian State Railways Road Transportation Company (MÁVAUT) was confined exclusively to local (point-to-point) transportation of passengers. The Domestic Commercial Transportation Company as well as the VOLÁN Trust also belonged to the most significant transportation companies of the period.

The fonds of planning and investment companies contain the material of such firms as the General Building Design Company, the Building Equipment and Electrical Design Office, the Chemical Engineering Design Company as well as the Agricultural Planning and Investment Company.

Finding aids: Repository registers.

DEPARTMENT V. – DEPARTMENT OF POST-1945 POLITICAL

Records of post-1945 political, welfare and cultural government agencies, central courts, public prosecutors’ departments as well as political, health and cultural association, corporations and institutions. The material is divided into main groups of fonds.

No. XVII. Main Group of Fonds – Committees of People’s Power

1958-1989; 532,29 linear metres

On the basis of Act 1957/ VII. the State Ministry of Control (see the description of No. XIX. main group of fonds) was replaced by the People’s Central Commission of Control (KNEB). The KNEB existed between 1958 and 1989. Its scope of duties included “ the protection of state order and the struggle against the wasting of people’s property”.

Finding aids: Contemporary finding aids and repository registers.

No. XVIII. Main Group of Fonds – High Organs of the State Authority

1944-1980; 16,73 linear metres

The records originated by the Legislature form a very important material but only a small amount of them have been transferred to the Archives. It includes the documents of the Provisional National Assembly which functioned only for a few days in 1944 and 1945, the National Assembly of 1945-1947 as well as the fragmented records of the Parliament. (A considerable part of the Parliament’s documents is still in the custody of the parliamentary archives.)

Between 1945 and 1946 the National High Council acted on behalf of the head of state. It had the right to appoint officials, grant convicts a pardon and it also made decisions in pension and certain diplomatic cases. The Presidential Council of the People’s Republic (NET) acted on behalf of the head of state and the Parliament (between its sessions). From among the documents of the NET only part of the supervisory files on local councils, arranged in the system worked out by the secretariat of the NET, were transferred to the Archives

No. XIX. Main Group of Fonds – High Organs of the Public Administration

1944-1993; 6.847,13 linear metres

The fond of protocols, proposals and resolutions of the Council of Ministers forms a significant part of the department’s archival material. The material, originating from the period of 1944-1960, consists of two record groups. Group a) contains the protocols and their appendixes; group b) contains the proposals and resolutions.

Finding aids: Index of agenda, repository register.

The fond of the Prime Minister’s Office is an important and valuable historical source of the period 1944-1949. Half of the fond consists of internal administrative documents and the fragments of the documents of former Prime Ministers and other government officials. The rest comprises general files.

Finding aids: Contemporary registers and indexes.

Between 1953-1972, the Secretariat of the Council of Ministers (in fact one of its departments) directly supervised the activities of local councils. In addition, the fond also contains the documents of other internal organisational units as well as the records of certain officials of the Council (e.g. Ernő Gerő, Lajos Fehér. Jenő Fock or János Kádár).

The Council’s Office of the Cabinet, which were formed during the preparation of the 3rd act on local councils, was an important organ of the local councils’ system. Its material contains various documents concerning the central administration of local councils.

The fond of the State Office for Church Affairs graphically describes the policy of the socialist state towards churches. The Office, established in 1951, under different names and subordinated to various authorities, operated until 1989. Its competence included the supervision of all churches and religious organisations of the country. During its work the Office administered all religious affairs in every detail, what is more, it decided essentially upon every significant question, making the independence of denominations and churches theoretical. (The confidential documents of the State Office for Church Affairs have not been transferred to the National Archives yet.)

The Supreme Economic Council was established in 1945 in order to meet the requirements of the economy. The Prime Minister in power hold the position of the Council’s President as well. The Secretary-general of the Council, who at the same time acted as head of the Council’s administrative Secretariat, was appointed by the Government. The Council’s material, created during the period of 1949-1952, is arranged by subject groups and forms an important historical source concerning the postwar restoration of the economy and financial stabilisation. Between 1949 and 1952 the Supreme Economic Council was responsible for the systematic management of the “people’s economy”. Among others, the determination of the general guidelines of the socialist economy’s development, the issue of directives concerning national economic plans and the co-ordination of the work of different economic ministries and other economic organisations belonged to the Council’s duties. The Council supervised the activities of the Central Planning Board, the Central Statistical Office and the State Control Centre. From 1948, such central authorities as the Registry of Public Investigations and its legal successors, the State Control Centre and the Ministry of State Control served the establishment of a state control system. (After 1956 the management of state control was taken over by the People’s Central Commission of Control. See its description above.)

Some of the government committees, such as the Economic Committee, the National Nuclear Energy Board or the Science-Political Board deserves special attention.

The archival material of the Ministry of the Interior is badly fragmented. The records of the Ministry’s Department of Associations and the documents concerning elections are

The documents of the Ministry of Public Welfare (established in 1944) and its legal successor, the Ministry of Health (1950) as well as the Ministry of Labour (1957-1981), are in the custody of the Archives. The record unit of health, public welfare and labour includes the documents of the Repatriation Commission for Prisoners of War in Debrecen and the National Veteran Welfare Office as well. The material of the Repatriation Commission basically consists of registers. Most of the records of the Veteran Welfare Office are filed documents.

The record unit of the Ministry of Justice among others includes the originally separately handled archival legacies of high-ranking officials (Erik Molnár, Ferenc Nezvál, Mihály Korom, Imre Markója). The material of the Department of Penal and Pardon Issues illustrates the jurisdiction of the era and the close connection between state administration and jurisdiction. The record units of the Codification Department, Department of People’s Courts and the Department of Courts have significant historical value.

Within the fond of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education, the Department of International Cultural Relations, which was responsible, among others, for the development and maintenance of international scientific and cultural relations, the preparation of international cultural agreements and the administration of educational affairs of the ethnic minorities in Hungary, deserves special attention. The Department of Primary Education, Department of Secondary Education and Department of Higher Education and Science contains valuable information concerning the public education of the period between 1945-1951.

The Ministry of People’s Education was operating between 1949 and 1957. The larger part of its material consists of general records.

Only small part of the material of the Ministry of Public Education (1951-1953) and the Ministry of Education (1953-1957) survived. The documents of the Ministry for Educational Affairs (1957-1974), the Ministry of Culture (1974-1980) and the Ministry of Education (1974-1980) are also in the custody of the National Archives. The Chief Administration of Publishing and Chief Administration of Films were characteristic censorial institutions of the “socialist” era. The group of the institutions which were responsible for archival administration such as the National Inspectorate of Archives (1949-1950), the National Centre of Archives (1950-1957), the Bursary of Archives (1951-1968) or the Archival Directorate (1968-1972) and Archival Department (1973-1978) of the Ministry for Educational Affairs, also forms a part of the cultural group of fonds.

The most remarkable record units of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1944-1990) are the material of the Department of Peace Preparations and the Truce Department which contains the correspondence concerning war damage compensation and cease-fire negotiations. The documents of the Hungarian Peace Delegation also form a significant group of records. The extent of the expired international agreements of 1945-1989 is 60,96 linear metres. With some exceptions, the latest material of foreign representations which were transferred to the Archives is the material of the 1960s. The archives of foreign affairs also includes the material of the Hungarian Delegation of the [Vietnamese] International Commission of Control and Supervision.

No. XX. Main Group of Fonds – High Organs of Jurisdiction

1945-1979; 708,54 linear metres

The resolutions and leading cases of the plenary sessions of the Curia, the highest judicial forum, were normative in the practice of subordinate courts (1945-1949). The documents are arranged in the original numerical order of registration marks. Up to this day, the 1950-1965 material of the Supreme Court, the legal successor of the Curia, have been transferred to the archives. The “h” record group of the fond includes, among others, the post-1957 operative, investigational and judicial documents concerning the cases of Imre Nagy, Tibor Déry, György Ádám, László Kardos and their “accomplices”. The National Council of People’s Tribunals (NOT) was a special organ of penal jurisdiction between 1945 and 1950. This new jurisdictional institution was established in order to challenge war criminals and delinquents of antipopular crimes. The NOT served as appellate court for people’s tribunals. Beside administrative documents, its material mainly contains sentences of people’s tribunals. In 1945 the Crown Prosecution was replaced by the Supreme State Prosecution which were reorganised as Supreme Prosecution in 1953. Its material of 1953-1977 as well as the records of the People’s Chief Prosecution (1945-1950) are valuable historical sources.

The record group of the Central Economic Arbitration Board contains information on the 1949-1972 period of “socialism” including the special form of jurisdiction, the state-controlled settlement of legal debates between economic agencies.

No. XXVI. Main Group of Fonds – Institutes and Institutions

1944-1992; 593,74 linear metres

This group of fonds contains, among others, the documents of the Hungarian Radio (1945-1982), the National Institute of Public Health (1955-1965)and the National Institute Of Education (1946-1950). From the documents of the Hungarian News Agency only the lithographic press releases of 1944-1962 survived. One of the new accessions is the material of the Hungarian Public Opinion Poll Institute (1963-1992).

No. XXVII. Main Group of Fonds – Corporations

1945-1989; 335,93 linear metres

The major fonds in this group are the National Organisation of Handicraftsmen (1945-1975), the Hungarian Chamber of Economics [Commerce] (1948-1981), the Hungarian UNESCO Commission (1964-1962), the National Board of Industrial Co-operatives (1949-1989), the Hungarian National Centre of Co-operatives (1944-1950), the National Confederation of Co-operatives (1948-1980) and the National Board of Producers' Co-operatives (1967-1972).

   No. XXVIII. Main Group of Fonds – Associations

1945-1990; 397,21 linear metres

The following organisations deserve special attention in this main group of fonds: the Union of Technical and Natural Science Associations (1950-1982), the National Executive Council of the Red Cross (1946-1972), the Association of Hungarian Architects (1957-1971), Federation of Hungarian Writers (1945-1963), Popular Scientific Society (1946-1973), World Federation of Hungarians (1945-1990).

No. XXXII. Main Group of Fonds – Collections

1938-1990; 44,87 linear metres

This is one of the minor materials but some of its collections deserve attention. Examples of such collections include the copies of KGB files concerning István Bethlen and János Esterházy (from the Moscow KGB archives, 1944-1949) or the copies of documents preserved in foreign archives concerning the 1956 Hungarian revolution (1955-1958).

No. XXXIII. Main Group of Fonds – Records Transferred to the Archives upon Special Orders

1944-1988; 16,73 linear metres

An outstanding material, both in extent and significance, of this record unit is the material of the National Jewish Rehabilitation Fund (1947-1988). The " Act on Condemnation of the Atrocities against the Hungarian Jewry and the Compensation for the Consequences of the Holocaust” was adopted by the Hungarian legislation in 1946. In accordance with this act, the legacies of Holocaust victims which had been taken into state ownership were now transferred into a separate fund established to support the victims and their organisations.

No. XXXIV. Main Group of Fonds – Administrative Records of the New Hungarian Central Archives

(1960)1970-1992; 52,95 linear metres

This record unit contains one single fond which consists of 3 record groups of the New Hungarian Central Archives (1970-1992).

DEPARTMENT VI. – DEPARTMENT OF POST-1945 ECONOMIC

This department handles the records of post-1945 government organs, institutes, institutions, corporations and associations of economic character.

1945-1946; 0,35 linear metres

This record unit consists of one single fragmented fond. Most of the National Land Reform Council’s documents (1945-1946) have perished and only the protocols of the Land Boards I, II and III have survived. This material is an important supplementary source to the research concerning the land reform and Jewish compensations.

1945-1990; 10.023,92 linear metres

The archival material of the Central Planning Board - " OT” (1947-1990) is of outstanding importance. The OT was established by the " Act on the First 3 Year Plan” of 1947. In the first two decades of the communist era it played an important part in the development of direct central economic management. Its material contains the plans of industrial, agricultural and commercial companies alike. The OT material of the 1960s serve as basic historical source in connection with the economic reform attempt of 1968 known as the " new economic mechanism”. Throughout the whole period of its existence, the OT functioned as central authority in the administration of large-scale state investments and projects and co-ordinated the development of the investment system.

The Ministry of Reconstruction operated between 1945 and 1956 when it was replaced by the Ministry of Construction and Public Labour. Its scope of duties included the organisation of the national economy’s restoration, the co-ordination of the struggle against unemployment and the management of public labour. Its material is fragmented.

The Ministry of Construction and Public Labour existed between 1946 and 1949. Its competence included surface construction and civil engineering, town planning and landscape architecture, the control of building industry materials, the central management of human resources and public labour as well as the administration of the building industry and public construction. One of the most important tasks of the Ministry of Construction (1949-1967) was the development of the industrial infrastructure of the state housing project. As its legal successor, the Ministry of Construction and Town Planning (1967-1988) dealt, among others, with building administration, town planning activities and housing administration matters.

The Ministry of Building Materials (1952-1953) was established to draw the building materials industry, which had been subordinated to different ministries up to that time, under unified control. The remaining fragmented material of the Ministry provides information on the development concepts of the building materials industry as well as the central material management and price control. The Ministry of Town and Village Management (1954-1956) administered town planning and landscape architecture. It also controlled the housing administration, the investment departments of local councils as well as communal (i.e. public) works.

The Ministry of Industry (1945-1949) supervised the industrial production and the " production of industrial character”, industrial and mining administration, energy planning and public services, patent laws as well as trade mark and brand protection. From 1949 the competence of the Ministry was divided between the Ministry of Light Industry and the Ministry of Heavy Industry. This was the beginning of the division of industrial administration into branches. The heavy industry as well as the metallurgy and engineering industry branch was taken over by the Ministry of Heavy Industry (NIM). After the termination of NIM I. the heavy industry went under the control of the Ministry of Mining and Energetics I. whereas the metallurgic branch was taken over by the Ministry of Metallurgy and Engineering Industry. The light industrial branch was also controlled by an independent ministry.

The main function of the ministries which belonged to this branch (Ministry of Heavy Industry I., Ministry of Mining and Energetics I., Ministry of Chemical Industry I. and II., Ministry of Coal Industry, Ministry of Chemical Industry and Energetics) was the central administration of chemical, mining and energetics management.

This branch managed and supervised the metallurgy, engineering industry, electrical installation industry and metalworks industry. Between 1950 and 1980 the following ministries administered the branch: Ministry of Metallurgy and Engineering Industry I. (1950-1952); Ministry of Medium Machinery Industry (1952-1953); Ministry of Metallurgy (1952-1953); Ministry of General Engineering Industry (1952-1953); Ministry of Metallurgy and Engineering Industry II.(1953-1980). The ministerial material of the 1950s, especially the branch departmental documentation, is very deficient. However, the material of the Secretariat, Professional Board and the ministerial meetings of the post-1953 Ministry of Metallurgy and Engineering Industry II. is almost complete.

The material of the Ministry of Light Industry (1949-1980) is an important historical source of the 1950s concerning the Ministry’s foundation, reorganisation and termination, the liquidation and socialisation of private firms as well as the applications for compensation and exemption.

The Ministry of Trade and Co-operative Matters (1945-1949) supervised internal and external trade, customs regulations and customs policy as well as the management of tourism and non-agricultural co-operatives. In 1949, the competence of the portfolio was taken over by the simultaneously established Ministry of Internal Trade and Ministry of External Trade. The fond of the Ministry of Internal Trade (1953-1988) includes the material of the Ministry of Internal and External Trade (1953-1954) as well. The Ministry of Foreign Trade (1949-1976) handled theoretic organisational, supervisory, administrative and company management related issues as well as the management of domestic and foreign trade representations.

The name and structure of the Ministry of Transportation and Postal Administration (" KPM”–1946-1976) changed several times throughout the decades but its competence remained basically the same ( public roads, bridges, internal customs, public quarry operation, road vehicles, public, restricted and private railways, postal, telegraph, telephone and radio administration, shipping and air services). The Ministry also controlled water management between 1950 and 1951, and tourist administration between 1948 and 1964.

The records of the Railways Department form the most significant material of the Ministry. In 1949 the Managing Directorate of the “MÁV” (Hungarian State Railways) merged into the Railways Department of the Ministry and thereafter the Department’s material contains the company’s records as well. The incomplete material of the Shipping Department includes the documents concerning the postwar restoration of shipping. The documents of the Department of Air Traffic provide a more or less full picture of the management of air services between 1946 and 1949. The Postal Managing Directorate material of the Postal Administration Department includes the matters of postal, telegraph, telephone and radio works except the radio technical service, the newspaper distribution and sale and the postal surface construction works. After the 1983 termination of the KPM, its duties were taken over by the Ministry of Transportation. The KPM’s documents of 1977-1983 are still in the custody of the Ministry of Transport, Communication and Water Management.

Until 1967, the administration of the agricultural branch fell within the competence of the Ministry of Agriculture (FM). Between 1945 and 1967 the Ministry was reorganised eight times. Due to the organisation of separate ministries for special tasks, from time to time the scope of the FM’s duties was temporarily narrowed. The FM supervised land reform issues, the development of agricultural production, the development of the forms of collective farming, the central management of agricultural machine depots, the veterinary service, the determination of guidelines for cultivation of plants, animal husbandry and forestry. The fond includes sources on the implementation of the land reform, the distribution of socialised large estates for public purposes, circulation, partition and expropriation of estates, migration, the organisation and operation of co-operatives as well as the modification of the principles of collective farming.

The record unit of the National Land Board is an indispensable source on the agrarian policy of 1945-1950. The material includes valuable documents concerning the land reform and the deportation of ethnic Germans. The Ministry of State Farms and Forests was established in 1952. It controlled and supervised state farms, forests, lakes and reed cutting farms. The Ministry of State Farms was founded in 1954. It took over the scope of duties of the FM’s Managing Directorate of State Farms.

Within the food administration branch, most of the material of the Ministry of Public Supply has perished. In 1947 the Ministry was replaced by the National Public Supply Board of which duties included the organisation and management of the forced collection system and, from 1948, the supervision of food industry directorates. By the establishment of the Ministry of Food Administration, the management of public food supply, agricultural collection and food industry were reunified. In 1952, this Ministry was terminated too, and a separate Ministry for Collecting Agricultural Products and Livestock was established. The archival material of this latter is nearly complete. The same refers to the Ministry of Food Industry of which name changed to Ministry of Food Administration in 1957.

The material of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Administration (established in 1967) includes documents concerning agriculture and food industry, forestry, primary timber industry, wildlife and hunting, land administration, loan policy, production circulatory system, wage and income control, investment system, proposals on production and technical development, scientific research, professional training and the international relations of the branch.

The central authority of financial management is the Ministry of Finance (" PM”). Its competence includes the preparation of the state budget and final accounts, the registration and management of state property, determination of taxation policy, management and supervision of the imposition and collection of taxes, the central administration of the collection of fees, revenues and customs, the control of banking institutions, insurance companies, public foundations and funds and the direct management and control of the organs of financial public administration. Following 1945 the Finance Ministry’s responsibility was extended over the handling of properties confiscated by sentences of people’s tribunals as well as the exploration and sequestration of assets abandoned due to war events, illegal emigration or other reasons as well as the assessment and clearing of foreign credit balances. The PM proceeded in cases related to the implementation of the financial and economic resolutions of the peace treaty as well as the Hungarian public and private assets taken abroad. The PM’s responsibility was further extended in 1949 when it took over the competence of central exchange control authority from the National Bank of Hungary. In 1952, some of its duties was taken over by the National Customs Headquarters (later the National Headquarters of the Customs Authority). In 1967, the newly established Chief Administration of Revenues of the PM took over the duties related to the taxation of national companies.

No. XXVI. Main Group of Fonds – Institutes and Institutions

(1939)1945-1993; 363,44 linear metres

This main group of fonds consists of 6 subgroups: building industry, industry, trade, transport and postal administration, agriculture and food administration and finance. Generally speaking, most fonds of the group are incomplete, therefore it is advisable to study them as additional sources, parallel with the material of their superior authorities. In most cases, the original order of documents has been disrupted, the contemporary finding aids have been lost, have not been prepared or have not been transferred to the Archives. As a result, the records are rearranged and accessible by repository indexes.

The most significant fonds of the group are as follows:

Institute of Architecture, Scientific Institute of City Planning, Aluminium Industry Designing Institute, Leather-work, Artificial Leather, Boot and Shoe Manufacturing Research Institute, Domestic Trade Research Institute, Postal Planning Institute, Research Institute of Agricultural Economics.

No. XXVII. Main Group of Fonds – Corporations

(1916)1945-1975; 16,86 linear metres

This group of fonds contains 3 subgroup. The most important fonds are the Hungarian FAO Commission and the Council of Co-operatives.

No. XXVIII. Main Group of Fonds – Associations

1945-1949; 0,72 linear metres

 The group consists of 3 subgroups.

No. XXXII. Main Group of Fonds – Collections

(1939)1945-1993; 363,44 linear metres

This group of fonds contains 2 subgroup. One of the most significant fonds is the Emigrant Press Collection which mainly contains the materials of the Hungarian press of Western Europe.

DEPARTMENT VII. – DEPARTMENT OF THE RECORDS OF THE HUNGARIAN WORKING PEOPLE’S PARTY (MDP) AND THE HUNGARIAN SOCIALIST WORKERS’ PARTY (MSZMP)

This Department keeps the documents of the central organs of the Hungarian Working People’s Party (1948-1956) and its legal successor, the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (1956-1989) including the material of the party organs of Budapest. The material has been placed to Section “M”. Its records are classified as follows: central organs of the MDP, central organs of the MSZMP, MDP-MSZMP organs in Budapest.

The supreme organ of the MDP was the Congress or, between the sessions of the Congress, the Central Board. In practice, the power of the Central Board was exerted by the Politburo of which members were elected from the Board. As a result of this system, the Politburo became the supreme authority of the Party and its members occupied the leading positions of Party departments as well.

The Central Board meeting of 27^th-28^th June 1953 dissolved the Organising Committee, and the Secretariat, as a political authority, was replaced by a new Secretariat consisting of Central Board members subordinated to the Politburo. The Secretariat directly controlled the work of the party apparatus. Within the central administration of the MDP the organisationally determined division of labour was embodied by 17, later 9 Departments, namely the Department of Party and Mass Organisations, Agitprop Department, Departments of Cadres, Departments of State Economy, Agriculture and Co-operatives, Administrative Department, Department of Foreign Relations, Department of Party Economics and Administration and the Hungarian Institute of Labour Movement.

As a result of the 1956 revolution the MDP was dissolved and the establishment of a new party was determined. In its declaration of 1st November 1956 the Presidium announced the formation of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (MSZMP). Following the Soviet military invasion, a 24 member Provisional Central Committee was formed which controlled the further organisation of the party. The party organisation was finalised in 1957 (Congress, Central Committee, Politburo etc.) During both the MDP’s and MSZMP’s period the party and state activities were completely interwined. The Party exerted direct state power. At its last (XIV.) Congress, the state-party announced the dissolution of the MSZMP.

1948-1956; 298,03 linear metres

Only an insignificant amount of documents remained from the Congress, the supreme organ of the Party. However, the events of Congress sessions can be reconstructed by the edited publications of the time. Between Congress sessions the Central Board, which was elected by the Congress and held its meetings in every second month, represented and managed the party’s organisation. Nevertheless, the most important decisions was not taken here but at the meetings of the Politburo of which members were elected from the Central Board to which it was, in theory, subordinated.

In the beginning (until June 1953) the members of the Secretariat, which proceeded as a political managing body, were also elected by the Central Board from its own members. This body discussed daily matters at its meetings held once a week and submitted its decisions to the Politburo for final approval. The scope of duties and competence of the Politburo and the Secretariat was clearly defined in June 1953 in a way that the main tasks of the Secretariat, as a subordinate body of the Politburo, were the preparation of Politburo meetings as well as the management and control of the Party’s organisation. As another body elected by the Central Board, the Organising Committee held a meeting every week and supervised party organs and organisations. The records of Politburo Secretaries are arranged by their names. These relatively small records provide valuable information on the internal life of the Party as well as its managing and supervisory activities.

At the Archives the records of MDP committees are arranged by their sessions whereas the records of party departments are arranged in the order of their organisational structure. The reports of party delegations sent abroad, the documents concerning the first and second " five year plans” as well as the speeches of state and party functionaries are handled as separate collections. The record unit called “The Secretarial Records of Mátyás Rákosi” which consists of 6,30 linear metres of documents is one of the most valuable source material concerning the period between 1948 and 1956.

1956-1989; 895,83

The records concerning the activities of central party organs are kept in the following groups:

• Congresses and conferences
• Meetings of the MSZMP’s Central Committee (until June 1957 Provisional Central Committee)
• Meetings of the MSZMP’s Politburo (until June 1957 Executive Committee)
• Records of the Organising Committee and the Central Committee’s Secretariat
• Documents of ad-hoc votes, circulars, information sheets for members of managing bodies, Central Control Commission materials and printed resolutions

Documents of some working parties subordinated to the Central Committee, like the Economic Policy Committee or the Agitprop Committee, form independent record groups. The same applies to some of the Central Committee’s work teams dealing with theoretical questions such as the Economic Theoretical Work Team, Work Team for Co-operative Policy, Work Team for Cultural Policy or the Physical Education and Sports Committee.

The relatively small records of Central Committee Secretaries form nominal groups. The most frequently researched record unit of this category is the secretarial material of János Kádár (1956-1989) which includes almost 14 linear metres of documents.

The records of the Central Committee’s organisation contain information on every significant fields of the country’s life.

Department of Party and Mass Organisations, Agitprop Department, Departments of Cadres, Departments of State Economy, Agriculture and Co-operatives, Administrative Department, Department of Foreign Relations, Department of Party Economics and Administration and the Hungarian Institute of Labour Movement.

• The material of the Department of Party and Mass Organisations contains important information on the party’s internal organisational structure, the composition of party membership as well as the activities of local party organisations and mass organisations. The cadre register of the Department contains the personal material of functionaries who took part in the pre-1945 labour movement and played an important role in post-1945 public life.

The party archives received the material selected and classified on the basis of the above criteria.

The material of the Agitprop Department includes information on the theoretical theses and practical activities of domestic and external propaganda, the methodology of atheistic re-education, experiences of political courses and the contents of reports on the prevailing general feeling of the society. It also contains data on the activities of the Cultural Committee and theoretical work teams, the press, radio and TV, as well as the organs which fell within the Department’s competence.

• Several departments dealt with certain fields of the national economy, the preparation of respective economic concepts, their implementation and supervision. Probably the most important one is the material of the Department of Economic Policy on the basis of which the decision procedure concerning the economy as a whole, the work of economic organisations and the development of international economic relations can be traced.
  
• The theoretical and practical questions of the educational administration, culture, arts, scientific life, public health and ethnic minorities fell within the competence of the Cultural and Scientific Department (1957-1963), the Department of Science and Public Education (1964-1968), the Cultural Department (1964-1966) as well as the Department of Scientific, Educational and Cultural Affairs (from1967).
  
• The Administrative Department (from 1967 Dep. of Public Administration and Management) was responsible for the party control and supervision of national defence, state and public security, jurisdiction, local and state administration affairs.

• The Department of Foreign Affairs administered the relations with the so called “twin parties”, controlled the party organs of Hungary’s foreign representations, dealt with foreign scholarships and the matters of emigrants living in Hungary, etc.

• The Department of Party Economics and Administration (former Economic Dep.) supervised the budget and management of party organs, worked out the system of membership fees, handled the registries, supervised the status and payment and social conditions of the apparatus.

• The Central Committee’s Office was responsible, among other things, for the preparation of the meetings of managing organs, the preparation of protocols on the meetings, the distribution of decisions and information, etc. This material contains the party’s international correspondence, the documents concerning the foreign trips of Central Committee Secretaries and the registers on party members who fell within the competence of the Office.

1948-1989; 2.179,11 linear metres

The organisational structure of the MDP and MSZMP and the historical value of the relevant documents are very similar to each other which makes their one by one description unnecessary. The records of the MDP’s and MSZMP’s Budapest Committee, the territorial and district party committees as well as their subordinate, so called “intermediate” party committees of companies, offices, top and direct basis organisations, as well as the district battalions and Budapest Headquarters of the Worker’s Militia. (According to the statistics of the 1975 party meeting of Budapest, there were 1.033 company and office party committees, 1.769 top leaderships and party organisations as well as more than 5.000 primary party organisations in Budapest.)

Half of the Budapest Party Committee’s departments was preoccupied with self-supporting activities: Department of Party and Mass Organisations, Agitprop Department, Department of Cadres, Department of Party Economics and Administration. The rest dealt with management and supervisory issues in a wider sense: e.g. Department of Industry and Transport, Department of Culture and Public Education.

The great majority of documents was created at the primary party organisations and concerns their own activities. At this level, the protocols of elected bodies and work teams, the public opinion reports and information, muster-rolls, economic accounts, annual reports etc. also can be found.

DEPARTMENT VIII. – DEPARTMENT OF REPROGRAPHY

11^th-20^th century; 57.723.634 microfilm frames

The Microfilm Collection is a copy collection of secondary character as it mainly contains safety and supplementary films of which originals are also preserved at the National Archives. It is a widely accepted principle in professional circles that the archival copy collections must keep their secondary character, in other words, where it is possible, their structure, order, and finding aids must follow the order and structure of the original documents. In practice, this means that the registration as well as the research primarily rely on the original order and reference codes, and the films’ own order (order of boxes) and reference (reference code and shelfmark) are simply based upon them.

The material of the Microfilm Collection is divided into 5 main groups:

1. Microfilms of materials of the National Archives of Hungary.
2. Microfilms of materials preserved in other Hungarian institutions.
3. Microfilms of materials preserved in other countries.
4. Microfilms of registers of births, marriages and deaths.
5. Miscellaneous microfilms.

The most important microfilm materials are as follows:

The institutions are listed in hierarchical order: the National Archives of Hungary, archives of local councils in alphabetical order, ecclesiastical archives classified by religions, libraries and other institutions in alphabetical order.

The number of microfilms of documents preserved in the National Archives of Hungary is over 30 million which means that these form the majority of the Collection’s material.

Section “A”: Most of the Hungarian Chancellery’s oldest record groups (pre-1770 registry, A 1-38) are available on microfilm. Mention must be made of the annually and alphabetically listed indexes of the post-1770 registry’s general documents (Acta generlia, A 39) and the Royal Books (Libri regii, A 57) consisting of benefit and privilege charters.

Section “B”: The great majority of the records of the Transylvanian Chancellery Archives is already available on microfilm.

Section “C”: Mainly the finding aids have been microfilmed from the material of the Locotenential Council. Regarding the rest of the Section’s material, the following records deserve special attention: the Acta nobilium (C 30) comprising nobiliary issues, the records of the Departamentum urbarie as an important source concerning copyhold issues, (only the terriers are available on microfilm, C 59) and some records of the audit-office of the Council of Lieutenancy.

Section “D”: Within the material of the Archives of the age of Absolutism mostly the finding aids (lists, indexes, registers) are available on microfilm.

Section “E”: The same refers to the Hungarian Chamber’s material. Beside the finding aids, the management group of the Litterae ad cameram exaratae (E 41), which contains letters and transcripts of the Chamber’s correspondence, is worth mentioning. In the other major archives of the Section, the Archives of the Hungarian Chamber, several very frequently used fonds and record groups are available on microfilm, such as the Neo-regestrata acta (E 148), the Acta jesuitica (E 152) which concerns the Jesuit Order, the Urbaria at conscriptiones (E 156) which, beside the above mentioned C 59 record group, is the other important source on copyhold conditions, as well as two early census type record unit, the Conscriptiones portarum (E 158 taxation indexes) and the Regesta decimarum (E159 tithe indexes).

Section “F”: About half of the material of the national government authorities of Transylvania have been microfilmed. The following records are the most significant: the royal books of the Transylvanian Principality Chancellery (Libri regii, F 1), the presidential records of the archives of the Gubernium (Praesidialia, F 37), the protocols of sessions (Protocolla sessionalia, F 41), the files (F 46), the complete census series (Assorted “conscriptio”-s, F 49, the national census of 1750, F 50, the terriers of 1785-1786, F 51, Conscriptio Czirakyana [terrier of Cziraky] F52) the protocols of the sessions of the Gubernium Judiciale (Protocolla sessionalia, F75), the presidential documents record collection of the Thesaurariatus (Praesidialia, F189 and Acta No. X, F 199), as well as the Transylvanian Fiscal Archives comprising title warranties (F 234).

Section “H”: The finding aids of various fonds and record groups of the Ministerial Archives of 1848-1849 are available on microfilm.

Section “K”: Some of the archives of the central government authorities of the bourgeois period deserve special attention: the royal books of the Department of the Minister Responsible for the Affairs Concerning the King (K19), protocols of the Council of Ministers (K 27), the reports of the public administration committees of municipalities and the collection of records concerning the emigration to America (centrally filed documents, K26), the records of the Department of Nationalities and Ethnic Minorities as well as the finding aids of various ministries (Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Public Labour and Transport, Ministry of Trade, Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education).

Section “N”: Most of the Palatines’ fonds of the Archivum Regnicolaris are available on microfilm (N 1-24), the national census material is complete (1715: N 78, 1720: N79 and 1828: N 26), whereas Archivum regni’s material mainly represented by finding aids.

Section “O”: Mention must be made of some records of the judicial archives’ material such as the session protocols of the Royal Curia (Protcolla Tabulae septemviralis, O 8 and Protocolla Tabulae regiae, O 9), the compendia of its trials (Decisiones curiales, O 39) as well as the capitular, conventional and archival indexes and elenchi submitted to the Tabula provincialis. (O 65, O 66 and O 67).

Section “P”: From the archives of families, corporations and institutions the complete material of genealogical tables of various family fonds, the correspondence of the Batthyány family (Missiles, P 1314), the documents of the Körmend central directorate of the Batthyánys’ domains (P 1322), the Repositorium collection of the archives of the ducal branch of the Esterházy family (P 108), the fonds of some significant members of the family like Palatine Miklós or Palatine Pál (P 123, P 125), the records of the central directorate of the Esterhazys’ domains (Acta dominiorum, P 150) the records of Archduke Albrecht from the Habsburg family’s Magyaróvár archives (P 301) as well as the correspondence from the Zichy family’s archives (Missiles, P 707).

Section “Q”: The complete material of the archives of diplomas and charters are on microfilm including the charters (in numerical order) and the finding aids.

Section “R”: The majority of the post-1526 collection’s microfilms have been filmed of the material of the Kossuth Archives, mostly of the Kossuth-collection (R 90-122) which includes the Torino archives and all documents that have not been placed to the material of the family or the government authorities of 1848-1849.

Section “Z”: From the records of the Business Archives mostly the managerial documents of banks and companies (consult and general assembly protocols, managerial files) have been microfilmed, as well as the company archives which are considered to be the most precious materials of any firms mainly consisting of proofs of rights. E.g. the records of the National Bank of Hungary (chief consult protocol, Z 6; secret presidential files, Z 9), the Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest Co. (executive management, Z 34) the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Budapest (general assembly, Z 192), the Colliery of Salgótarján Co. (company archives, Z 222) and the Manfred Weiss Concern (company archives, Z 402).

The post-1945 microfilms of the National Archives of Hungary belong to two main group of fonds:

Group XIX: Some of the fonds of the high organs of state administration deserve special attention. Examples of such fonds include the records of the Department of Codification of the Ministry of Justice (XIX-E-1-c), the records of Gyula Szekér, Minister of Metallurgy and Engineering (XIX-f-17-bb), the Foreign Ministry’s records concerning the peace treaty ending the Second World War (Department of Peace Preparations, XIX-J-1-a), the material of various embassies as well as the records of the Presidential Department of the Ministry of Agriculture (XIX-K-1-b).

Group XX: Within the material of the high organs of jurisdiction, the records of the People’s Prosecution (XX-1) and the National Council of People’s Tribunals (XX-4) deserve attention.

Over 11 million frames belong to this material. Although the composition of the originals, preserved in 22 different institutions, is very diverse, due to the purposeful microfilming over the past decades most filmed documents belong to standardised types as follows:

– The pre-1867 general assembly protocols of counties (protocolla): the most important organ of county administration and jurisdiction was the general assembly. The protocols are concentrated sources concerning the activities of general assemblies. The councils of municipalities (e.g. Pécs, Bud, Pest) and the protocols of their sessions played a similar role.

– The pre-1848 census returns (conscriptiones): this collection properly fits into the material of national census returns preserved at the National Archives of Hungary. In addition, as one copy of certain national census returns (e.g. the 1848 census) was sent to the counties too, part of the documents missing from the collection of the National Archives is retrievable. The frames are usually arranged by census type (tax, population, nobiliary etc.), chronologically or geographically. The majority of the records is taxational census. Some of the counties reponed the census returns selected from various fonds and record groups, thus in such cases a separate census collection exists only on microfilm.

– Nobiliary documents (nobilitaria): part of this collection is identical with the census returns, as they often contain nobiliary census returns. Most of the records consist of verifications of nobility or investigational documents.

– Pre-1526 Charters (Antemohácsiana)

– Most of the Holocaust related documents derive from county archives, mainly from prefectural, subprefectural, judicial and mayoral materials. Since the records have been reponed to their original place, this thematic collection exists only on microfilm.

In the case of ecclesiastical archives, the microfilming of two types of documents can be considered as complete:

– Protocols of canonical visitations (visitationes canonicae) which, by documenting the supervisory visitations, provide an overall view of the state or (in chronological order) development of congregations. Mainly Catholic protocols have been microfilmed.

– Pre-1895 ecclesiastical registers of births, marriages and deaths. The collection of registers created before the introduction of civil marriage is the largest and most popular material. The documents have been microfilmed in the order of localities and religions, within a congregation by register types (births, marriages, deaths and mixed) and in chronological order. In cases where the original registers were unavailable, the duplicates, preserved by county archives, were microfilmed (1828-1895).

In addition, the following materials can further illustrate the abundance of the microfilm collection: the old ecclesiastical archives of the Catholic Primatical Archives (Archivum ecclesiasticum vetus), the selected documents of Primates Serédi, Mindszenty and Csernoch, as well as the collection concerning radical rights (Acta radicalia), the Diplomataria which contains the rich collection of charters of the Prelacy Archives of Pannonhalma, the document collection preserved in the Calvinist Ráday Archives concerning Protestant agents (Archivum agentiale, B 1-13), the famous genealogical collection of Zoltán Daróczy or the protocols of assemblies of reformed dioceses.

The reference order of this unit is similar to the arrangement of the Hungarian material: the archives registered by their country of origin are listed in hierarchical and alphabetical order. However, apart from noting that every record consists of Hungarian-related documents and that every identified pre-1526 Hungarica has already been microfilmed, it is almost impossible to divide them into standardised groups. Thus, the following classification is unavoidably arbitrary and serves only as illustration.

United Kingdom: Microfilms of documents from the foreign affairs collection of the Public Record Office concerning the inter-war period Hungary, as well as ministerial minutes and reports concerning the 1956 revolution (Foreign Office, General Correspondence, Hungary).

Austria: About half of the complete foreign microfilm material is from Austria, mostly from the major Viennese central archives. A large number of documents concerning the foreign affairs of the Habsburg Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (Staatskanzlei and Ministerium des Aussern – State Chancellery, Foreign Ministry) have been microfilmed from the Haus-, Hof und Staatsarchiv (Home, Court and State Archives). The record group called Politisches Archiv (Polotical Archives, Foreign Ministry) as a rich historical source concerning the diplomatic and military events of the First World War and the pre-war period (Krieg [War] series) as well as the documents of the Informationsbüro (Information Bureau) which in fact functioned as state police, deserve special attention. Mention must be made of the Turcica series, the collection of State Chancellery documents concerning the 16^th-17^th century foreign policy towards the Turkish Empire (Staatenabteilungen, Türkei) and the protocols of the Austrian Council of Ministers from the Kabinettkanzlei’s (Cabinet Office) material. One of the richest Hungarian-related foreign source is the series called Ungarische Akten (Hungarian Files) within the material of the State Conference.

The Court Chamber’s Hungarian series (Hoffinanz, Ungarn) in the Hofkammerarchiv’s (Archives of the Court Chamber) material, the record unit called Ungarisches Münz- und Bergwesen which concerns Hungarian mining issues, as well as the collection called Ungarisches Camerale (Hungarian Chamber issues) which consists of the documents of the 18^th-19^th century Hungarian financial state administration deserve attention.

Relatively few documents have been microfilmed from the Kriegsarchiv’s (War Archives) material. Some of the more significant records are the 1670-1711 documents (Expeditionsprotocolle) of the Court War Council (Hofkriegsrat) as well as the files of the presidential office of the War Ministry (Kriegsministerium, Prä sidialbureau).

Regarding local institutions, the largest microfilm material is from the Archives of Burgenland (Burgenlandisches Landesarchiv). The majority of frames have been microfilmed of the managerial documents of the Batthyány family’s domains. (Batthyanisches Herrschafts- und Familienarchiv).

Croatia: Most records have been microfilmed of documents preserved at the Archives of Croatia (Archiv Hrvatske). (Part of this material comprises the documents handed over by Hungary in accordance the resolutions of the Paris and Trianon paece treaties.) The more significant records are as follows: the 1848-1849 documents of Bans (Acta banalia), the Zrínyi-Frangepán collection (16^th-18^th c.), as well as the records concerning the Paul and Jesuit Orders (Acta paulinorum és Acta jesuitica).

Yugoslavia: The majority of frames have been microfilmed at the Archives of Vojvodina (Achiv Vojvodine). Beside the protocols from county fonds (Bács-Bodrog County, Temes County, Torontál County), mention must be made of the archives of Franciscan monasteries (14^th-18^th c.), as well as the documents of the southern provincial authority of the Bach-era (K.K. Landesverwaltung des Serbischen Woiwodschaft und des Temescher Banats) which formerly belonged to the material of the National Archives of Hungary.

Germany: Among the records microfilmed in various archives, the collection of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Auswä rtiges Amt) concerning the First World War (Abteilung A, Akten, Weltkrieg) is an especially rich material. The same applies to the Hungarian-related selection of inter-war period German foreign ministry documents (Politisches Abteilung II). The selected documents of the Prussian Secret State Archives concerning the age of Rákóczi preserved at the Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv, Potsdam) or the microfilms concerning the reoccupation of Hungary from the Turkish Empire (Grossherzogliches Haus- und Staatsarchiv, Abteilung 46, Personalien [the Court and State Archives of the Grand Duchy, Department 46, Personal records]) which have been selected from the fonds of the Central Provincial Archives of Karlsruhe (General Landesarchiv Karlsruhe).

Romania: The majority of Romanian records have been microfilmed at some county archives. The medieval collection of the Brasso County Archives (Arhivele Statului Jud. Brasov) is a particularly rich material. The best frames are from the Kolozs County Archives (Arhivele Statului Jud. Cluj) but mention must be made of the county and district protocols and documents (Szolnok Interior, Doboka, Kolozs, Kraszna, Szatmár, Torda, Kõvár area, Udvarhely district), the archives of the City and District of Beszterce as well as the accounts of merchants and protocols of the City of Kolozsvár. The protocols of Maros district preserved in Marosvásárhely (Arhivele Statului Jud. Mures) as well as various census returns (17^th-19^th c.) are also available on microfilm. Finally, mention must be made of the rich family collection of the Historical Archives of the Kolozsvár Branch of the Romanian Academy of Sciences (Arhiva Istorica a Filialei din Cluj a Academiei R.R.) from which a large number of records have been microfilmed (Bánffy, Bethlen, Gyulay-Kuun, Kemény, Mikó-Rhédey, Wesselényi families).

Slovakia: From the Slovakian Central State Archives (Statny Slovensky Ustredny Archiv) mainly the family records have been microfilmed, such as the records of the Bárczay, Erdõdy, Eszterházy (Csesznek branch), Pálffy, Révay and Zay families. The records of the pre-1526 ecclesiastical notaries (the Provostry of Jászó, the Provostry of Lelesz, the Chapter of Pozsony, the Convent of Garamszentbenedek, the Chapter of Szepes) form a particularly rich material. The records of the High Commissioners of Upper Hungarian districts (Count Antal Forgács, Imre Péchy, Count Sándor Szirmay) had formerly been in the National Archives of Hungary and were microfilmed before their transfer.

The Microfilm Collection preserves a large number of records from local Slovakian archives as well. The protocols and other documents of the general assemblies of several Upper Hungarian counties are available on microfilm (Zólyom, Gömör, Árva, Túróc, Sáros, Abaúj, Torna, Szepes, etc.) In addition, the documents and correspondence of the archives of the Koháry-Coburg family (Rodovy Archiv Koháry-Coburgov) preserved in the Archives of Besztercebánya (Státny Oblastny Archiv v Banskej Bystrice), the collection of the political documents of Sáros county (Sarisská zupa, Acta politica) concerning the age of KURUC and Rákóczi’s war of independence preserved in the Archives of Eperjes (Státny Oblastny Archiv v Presove), as well as the Illésházy-correspondence (Rodina Illésházy, Korespondencia) received from the Archives of Nyitra (Státny Oblastny Archiv v Nitre) deserve attention.

In Slovakia the public records of cities are usually preserved at the state district archives. Many of the National archives microfilms are from the archives of Bártfa, Besztercebánya, Eperjes, Lőcse, Nagyszombat, Körmöcbánya and Selmecbánya. The city of Kassa has an independent archival institution (Archiv Mesta Kosic) which holds the Schwartzenbach-collection (Collectio Schwartzenbachiana), one of the richest urban microfilm material. The medieval collection of the Metropolitan Archives of Pozsony (Archiv Hlavného Mesta SR Bratislavy, Archiv Magistrátu) is another exceptionally rich material.

Vatican: Probably the richest medieval archival material of Europe can be found in the Secret Archives of the Vatican (Archivo Segreto Vaticano). Only a fraction of this material is available on microfilm in the National Archives, however, two series deserves special attention: the Vatican registers (Registra Vaticana) of the Apostolic Chancellery (Cancellaria apostolica) as well as the Avignon registers (Registra Avenionensia), created during the Great Schism, of which naturally only the Hungarian-related documents have been microfilmed.

THE ARCHIVES OF THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF HUNGARY

Among the administrative documents created during the activities of the institution since 1875, the “General files” (Y1, Y7) form an exceptionally important part of the Archives. On the one hand, these record units serve as the primary source concerning the post-1875 history of the National Archives of Hungary. On the other hand, they include important documents concerning the pre-1945 archival administration of Hungary, e.g. reports from the 1880s and 1940-42 concerning county and municipal archives, the archival matters in connection with the Trianon peace treaty, the preparation of archival acts (1940s) and the matters of the municipal training (professional exams) of archivists. The plans, technological descriptions, tenders and protocols concerning the construction of the building at Bécsi kapu Square, the legal regulations, decrees, international agreements and contracts concerning the National Archives are preserved in a separate series. Beside the large number of files concerning the organisational structure, personnel, accessions, publishing and educational activities, reprographic and preservation work, research and information services as well as the international relations of the institution, these record units also include materials of which extent and popularity make them noteworthy: the expert opinions of the National Archives given to the National Board of Local Registries on place-name specifications, revision of stamps of local authorities, and to the Ministry of the Interior on nobility verification as well as the legitimate use of family crests and titles.

The administrative records of the former New Hungarian Central Archives are kept at the Department of post-1945 Political Government Agencies (see their description there).