Dr. Péter Balázs: Guide to the archives of Hungary (Budapest, 1976)

Nógrád Megyei Levéltár (Nógrád County Archives)

loss during the Turkish wars, in 1682, as in the siege of Fülek castle the archives of the county, together with those of other counties guarded there, were destroyed by fire and very few sixteenth-seventeenth century journals and records could be saved. In the eighteenth century the wandering of the county seat has caused another damage. Formerly the county seat was at Balassagyarmat, but in 1763 a county hall was built in Szügy village. Hence in 1785 the county, together with its archives, settled to Balassagyarmat again. At the order of Emperor Joseph II the separation of administrative records from the jurisdictional ones (the so-called sequestratio) was effected in these years. This act and the restoration of the original conditions after the death of Joseph II resulted in a large-scale mixture of the archival material. The relative calm and the regular growth of the archives in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries came to an end in 1945, when the events of World War II made another move of the archival material necessary. As the execution of decree-law No. 29 of 1950 was met with obstacles in the case of Nógrád county, the competent authority ordered the transference of the Nógrád county material to the Pest county archives in 1951. This repository, called first Budapest State Archives No. 2, later State Archives of Pest and Nógrád Counties, made great efforts to complete and to arrange our archival material according to the valid rules. When the archives were taken over by the councils, Nógrád County Archives became self-standing again and it occupied its place at Salgótarján, the new seat of Nógrád county in 1968. Since then, though the temporary localities cause numerous difficulties, the repository can work according to the valid rules similarly to other county archives. Its collecting interest covers Nógrád county and the cities Salgótarján and Balassagyarmat. The archival material totals 1300 running metres. Its eldest part is the journal of the county nobilitary assembly of 1597; from the previous time only one charter is left prior to 1526, this is the donation of King Charles Robert from 1321, preserved in the record collection of the historian Iván NAGY. The most valuable archival groups of the repository contain the records of the most important corporative, administrative and judicial organs of the county: those of Nógrád county nobilitary assembly (1597-1848, here the