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

Pest Megyei Levéltár (Pest County Archives)

PEST MEGYEI LEVÉLTÁR (PEST COUNTY ARCHIVES) 1364 BUDAPEST V.Városház u. 7. (Pf. 112.) Tel. 176-297,180-111/148,155 Director: Dr. Ernő LAKATOS There is a department of the Archives at Nagykőrös with the following name and adress: Nagykőrös Section of the Pest County Archives, 2751 NAGYKŐRÖS, Hősök tere 4-5. (Pf. 52.) Tel. 492. Its competence covers the cities Cegléd and Nagykőrös with the area of the Cegléd district. Pest County Archives, preserving nearly 12 000 running metres, is one of the most considerable county archives. Pest county, the creator and maintainer of the repository, played always a prominent part in Hungarian political and economic life; this fact is mirrored in the rich historical material of Pest County Archives. Its collecting interest covers the area of actual Pest county, its material is continually completed by the historical records of the county organs and those of the local administrative, judicial, economic and cultural organs. The repository has a past of three hundred years. Between 1541 and 1686 the entire county was dominated by the Turks; we can only surmise the existence of former archives. Fleeing from the Turks, the administrative and judicial organs of Pest county continued to work in the royal area, in the neighbouring Nógrád county in the Turkish period. So it happened that the same area was administered and judged by the organs of two different, nay inimical states at the same time. Some scattered Turkish records have remained in the archives of Hungarian towns under Turkish rule (e.g. at Nagykőrös). The records of the Hungarian nobilitary administration and jurisdiction of the county are preserved with many defects from the first half of the seventeenth century. Contemporary sources mention not only county records but expressedly county archives. The first mention of the repository is made in 1664 in the county journals, as the Lord Lieutenant, Ferenc WESSELÉNYI, at the same time the count palatine of the country, ordered the custody of the county archives by the county notary in Murány castle. After the palatine's death the county estates removed the archives to Fülek castle in Nógrád county (1678), where the large part of it was annihilated during the Turkish siege of the castle, on the 16th August 1682. After the liberation of Buda and Pest county from the Turks (1686) the archival office worked still under the leadership of the chief notary in the