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

(Introduction)

The Hungarian National Archives and the New Hungarian Central Archives are controlled and directed by the Minister of Culture directly. The archives of the councils are under the supervision and direction of the Executive Committees of the upkeeping councils, the professional direction of the Minister of Culture, however, extends also to them. The special archives are directed by the upkeeping state organs, social organizations or other corporate bodies, but the supervision of the Minister of Culture extends to them, equally to the activity of scientific institutions possessing archival material and collecting such (libraries, museums), related to this material. The Minister of Culture fulfils his duties as regards the protection of archival material, including the supervision and direction of the archives, and exercises his authority through the Archival Board, one of the organisational units (sections) of the Ministry of Culture. The staff of the Board totals 10 persons (the leader, his substitute, 5 rapporteurs and 3 administrative employees). The Archival Board issues directives for the elaboration of the middledistance (quinquennial) plans of the archives. The middle-distance plans, yearly plans and yearly work reports are sanctioned by the Archival Board, those of the remaining archives by the upkeeper, after the preliminary opinion of the Archival Board. In order to ensure the modern, uniform solution of archival tasks, the Archival Board issues methodological directives, or labour instructions regularly, and it appraises the work of the archives partly by the local controls made by its rapporteurs, partly by the ministerial supervision^ inquests held in 3 to 5 years. The Archival Board is also entitled to call the cultural sections of the county councils, directly controlling and directing the regional archives, to account on this activity. The Archival Board organizes twice in the year a national conference for the directors of general archives, the agenda of which contains mainly the discussion of the future methodological guides (as in the last years that on the elaboration of a finding aid on medium level, the arrangement of the records of families and enterprises, the rearranging of numerically situated records according to subject, the tasks of the archives in general education, the principles of the new record management, the points of view of the 5 year plan of the archives from 1976 to 1980, etc.). The supply of archivists between 1950 and 1955 has been ensured by the archival branch established in the Faculty of Philosophy of the Lóránd Eötvös University, Budapest. In this branch, coupled with history, the archival subjects were taught in the third to the fifth year. As the archival