The National Archives of Hungary (Budapest, 2006)

MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES - Town, City Archives by András Horváth J.

BY ANDRÁS HORVÁTH J. TOWN ARCHIVES /THE ARCHIVES OF BUDAPEST CAPITAL, THE ARCHIVES OF GYŐR TOWN OF COUNTY THE ARCHIVES OF THE TOWN OF SZÉKESFEHÉRVÁR, THE ARCHIVES OF TATABÁNYA OF COUNTY/ O

ur present day town archives cannot be considered the same type of institutions - owing to the characteristic features of the development of Hungarian towns. A less dense and partly different kind of network of towns like those found in Western-Europe; the lack of uniformed town rights; and a unilateral capital centralization: all these left their marks on the archival system as well. According to the prevailing law there are five town archives in a qualified sense. These are, as follows: The Budapest City Archives (as Capital Archives), the Archives of Győr Town of County Rank, the Archives of Székesfehérvár Town of County Rank, the Archives of Tatabánya Town of County Rank and the Archives of Vác Town. The archival law interprets the Budapest City Archives a general and regional archives but the four other archives have been classified as archives of residence places. The Town Archives of Székesfehérvár was established in 1992, the other, of Győr in 1993 and the one in Tatabánya as a branch archives of the county archives first in 1992, thereafter - it became an independent institution. The Archives of Vác was created in October of 2004. after the new archival law had been adopted. A similar feature should be mentioned that although the collection of the written material of the Ceapital Archives is the largest and its competence and collection area is the most considerable, it even contains only a few any documents prior to the Turkish occupation just in the institutions of Győr, Székesfehérvár or Vác. At the same time, we cannot forget the fact that besides these institutions in the other general regional archives (that is of the county local governments), a large quantity of town documents can be found. This has occurred because most documents of the former royal, free boroughs and market-towns have been aquired by these county institution along with the documents of the county and state organizations. Such especially valuable fonds are, of the free royal cities, Kőszeg and Sopron, e. g. There can be found even documents of some clerical provenance, as in the case of the economical records (1293-