The National Archives of Hungary (Budapest, 2006)

THE ARCHIVES OF SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTIONS - University Archives by László Szögi

more importantly the data of higher education held in ecclesiastical archives was raised. The information was also thought to complete the material of the surviving archives at Hungarian universities and colleges. For this reason, the Higher Education History Team wrote a circular to the Hungarian archives and higher educational institutions so as to publish the document list of Hungarian higher education archives on the basis of the received answers. At the beginning of 1980s, the Hungarian National Committee of International University History Committee was established and put forth the topic of archival renewal on top of the agenda. József Antall requested that László Szögi and Endre Szemkeő publish a report on their findings. The answers obtained in the second half of 1980s showed that a great quantity of archives material of great value accumulated in the Hungarian institutions of higher education despite years of devastation, but unfortunately, 95% of the material was unprocessed, and were too dispersed; consequently, they were not conducive for research. So it was impossible to publish useful finding aids on the given information. Only two or three of Budapest universities and colleges had arranged written material while others had hardly any useful data. Although in the country the county archives acquired university material e.g. in Pécs, Debrecen and Szeged, the series still were not complete. Some parts of the material remained at the universities in poor condition. All of the above mentioned made impossible to publish a uniform publication of finding aids at the time. Practical changes had to be carried out among different university archives to make the collection area more viable. In this way the Archives of ELTE relinquished material to other university archives. Smaller quantity of documents were given back to the university archives by Hungarian National Archives, by the county archives and the former Party Archives of MSZMP The basic organizing principle for publishing was that we wished to present the data of higher educational institutions being checked, examined and process so that they may be of use for research. On the other hand, we intended to introduce all the university and higher education collections that have professional, special archives legal status. In 1977 this work came at a point when we were able to publish the fond and holdings register of the archives which contained real data. In the first part of the volume we introduced thirteen Hungarian higher education archives. One of them, the Kandó Kálmán Technical College has not been granted legal status of a professional archives, yet the level of the arrangement is the same with that of the other archives. Out of the twelve professional archives four are from the countryside: Gödöllő, Keszthely, Miskolc and Sopron. The ordering procedures of the Archives of Miskolc University is different from other universities in the way that the fond main groups were applied there. This basic entity is not employed by other