Fráter Jánosné: A Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Történettudományi Bizottságának működése 1854–1949 (A MTAK kiadványai 52. Budapest, 1966)

The activity of the Committee for Historical Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1854—1949)

THE ACTIVITY OF THE COMMITTEE FOR HISTORICAL SCIENCES OF THE HUNGÁRIÁN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES (1854—1949) The Committee for Historical Sciences is the oldest such body of the Hungárián Academy of Sciences. It was set up in 1854 with the objective of hunting up, collecting and publishing systematically historical relics and records, both foreign and Hungárián, relating to Hungary. The Committee's scope of activity and organization was förmed in accordance with its objective. The Committee's activity covered the following fields: 1. Starting Magyar Történelmi Tár (Hungárián Historical Collection), a periodical published irregularly, with the aim of promoting the knowledge of Hungárián historical sources, and of publishing minor sources. (In 12 items the study enumerates the themes of treatises and papers published in the periodical.) For a long time, the periodical, first published in 1855, played an important role in the Hungárián historiography. Between 1878 and 1911 it was edited and published jointly by the Hungárián Historical Society and the Committee under the title Történelmi Tár (Historical Collection). After 1911, however, it had been taken over again by the Committee but only a few volumes appeared in irregular intervals due to the Committee's embarassed financial circumstances. The last issue appeared in 1934 as volume 28 of the Magyar Történelmi Tár, and with this the periodical died after an existence of eighty years. 2. Publishing historical sources: A) serial publications, B) monographs. A) Simultaneously with the publication of Hungárián Historical Collection, the Committee for Historical Sciences alsó undertook the work of collecting and editing major historical sources. The first stage of the work involved the engrossment of documents and records found in foreign and Hungárián archives and libraries, and was carried out systematically. (In his work „A Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Törté-