The National Archives of Hungary (Budapest, 2006)
THE ARCHIVES OF SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTIONS - University Archives by László Szögi
BY LÁSZLÓ SZÖGI UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES A lthough establishing the first universities coincides with that of the most important ones in Middle Europe, (because of the difference of historic circumstances) the medieval Hungarian universities existed ony for a short period of time. Therefore, we have university documents about Hungarian higher education continuously only from the 17 th century . The only university was the one founded in Nagyszombat in 1635 and then it became The Scientific University of Budapest up to 1872. The university archives was probably modelled after German one. The Scientific University of Kolozsvár formed in 1872 ened up across the border after operating for half a century. In the Technical University of Budapest, which was nearly the same age, the written material accumulated so slowly that it took a long time to realize the feasibility of forming an archives. Dealing with the archives of the country scientific universities and of smaller professional universities and colleges most of which were formed in the dualistic era - exceptions were Selmecbánya, Sopron, Mosonmagyaróvár - when it became a pressing need only in the third part of the 20 th century. Based on this history we can readily understand why the first archives proposed foundation rules were made by Professor Rémig Békefi in the Scientific University of Budapest in 1911. But because of World War I and its attendant political and financial turmoil, his proposal never recieved any follow up. Unfortunately, even at the 300 th anniversary of the foundation of Scientific University of Budapest the archives were still not established. Otherwise the documents of the university wouldn't have been sent to the Hungarian National Archives after 1950. However, the existing documents burnt in the autumn of 1956 and an irreplaceable collection of the Hungarian University archives suffered severe damage. The only positive consequence of devastation was that with the collection of the surviving documents the first Hungarian university archives were formed at Eötvös Loránd University in 1958. The institution operated on its own amidst scarce resources for a long time. The circumstances only began to change at the beginning of 1970s. Almost at the same time a new collection, arranging and writing up work started at Eötvös Loránd University, at Technical University of Budapest, in Miskolc and in Sopron. In many
