The National Archives of Hungary (Budapest, 2006)
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL ARCHIVES OF NATIONAL COLLECTION - Hungarian National Archives by Géza Érszegi and István G. Vass
Microfilms (8 th - 20 th centuy - X section) were gathered from the various archives relating to Hungary and which are kept in archives and in other locations. The making of microfilms on a continuous basis can be said to have begun in the year of 1935. Making security copies (prepared in case of their destruction or damage) the replacement of the originals began in 1943. As a result of peace-treaty of World War I, Hungary not only lost a significant part of her cultural possessions and her territory but lost valuable sources for her archives as well. It lost the documents of the county and settlements administrative bodies and also the files of historical families and so on. Therefore it became an imperative necessity for the Hungarian historic research to discover these documents or copies and to send them to Hungary. Another important task was to make microfilms of the Hungarian related documents kept abroad- in the archives of England, Austria, Croatia, Germany, Romania, Slovakia and the Vatican and about the source types kept in different domestic institutions (ecclesiastical registers from before 1895, records on canonical visitation, medieval documents, reports of county general assembly from the time of feudalism) Collecting and increasing the quantity of secondary documents, systematically formed the film cabinet of the National Archives, which is considered a major research centre of national importance. The archives started to take security photos of their own material during World War II. Fortunately this action proved to be useful since a great majority of the archives was destroyed in January 1945. Because of the fires that took place during the revolution of 1956, microfilms were taken of only about 60 per cent of the existing material. The film cabinet involves 55 million pieces of shots that were the results of work, covering a period over six decades. The cabinet increased its collection by over one million pieces yearly. The registration of microfilms is based on the order from the originals since they are only mean secondary data carriers. The Archives of Hungarian National Archive, (1842 - 1994 - Y section) involve the administrative files originating from its own operation from the year of 1875. The average files from the years between 1875 and 1944 include, on one hand, the basic documents, which are important from the point of view of the history of the institution and which are the primary resource base of the history of Hungarian National Archives after 1875. On the other hand, we can learn about Hungarian archiving from before 1945 with the help of this material such as reports about the county comitat and town archives from the year of 1880s and from 1940 and 1942, archives materials in connection with the Peace-Treaty of Trianon, and preparatory work prior to of the act of archives 1940 and the case of the municipal archives special exam. The average administrative files from after 1945 - except for the ones that were registered in
