C. Csapodi, E. Moravek et al.(szerk.): The Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1826–1961.
III. International Exchange Relations of the Academy
Akademie had been personally handed over to Schelling, that of the Institut Franyais to Gay-Lussac, and that of the Royal Society of London to the Luke of Sussex, and at the sessions of the societies of Paris and London ho had recommended the then young Academy to their goodwill. Both the founders and Ferenc Toldy, the first director of the Library soon recognized the importance of these foreign relations in respect to the Academy and the Library. The tragic defeat of the struggle for freedom of 1848/49 paralyzed the Hungarian w Torld of learning, and also the Library's further development. While in 1838 collectors and scholars gave 164 books to the Library, the total number of books received as a gift in 1849 was two. Exchange relations, however, continued and expanded even in these hard times. A considerable decline was caused in this respect by the First World War. While in 1913 the Academy had been maintaining exchange relations with 287 institutes abroad, in 1918 not more than 87 institutes maintained these relations. During the years after the war — as there were no material that could be sent out in exchange — the Library could not take up its interrupted exchange relations. There were, however, institutions such us the Academies of London, Edinburgh and Rome, that continued sending their publications without any compensation. During the thirties and forties exchange agreements were established with 450 institutions. This was all the more important as the then leadership of the Academy did not develop the Library by purchasing any books at all, and thus exchange constituted the only possibility of obtaining the modern scientific material needed. The Library, despite the contemporary government's narrow-minded, chauvinistic attitude to cultural policy, continued maintaining its broad exchange relations in those years too. This can be well seen from the fact that the Library established regular and ever developing exchange relations with the academic centers of the Soviet Union (Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, etc.) and with the academies of the neighbouring states. The Second World War again interrupted this broad exchange activity. After the Liberation, however, the situation gradually improved. In 1946—1949
