The National Archives of Hungary (Budapest, 2006)

NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL ARCHIVES OF NATIONAL COLLECTION - Hungarian National Archives by Géza Érszegi and István G. Vass

subordinate institutions. It was also damaged by drawing the written material of army and its organizations away from under the competence of National Archives. But taking over documents belonging to the competence of National Archives, which was halted until 1906, could only go on when it moved to a new building in 1923. After World War I, due to Kuno Klebesberg, the minister of culture significant events happened in the life of the Archives. For the first time since its inception in 1922, the institution came under the supervision of the Ministry of Education and Religion ostensibly to strengthen its scientific resources. Subsequently, the Hungarian National Collection University came into being according to the legislative Act number 19. of 1922, which formed the common administration of great museums, libraries and National Archives. Its later name was Hungarian National Museum after its reorganization in 1934. The act of the year of 1922 declared the archives is a scientific institution, the tasks of which are: 1)- maintaining the materials of the archives professionally, arranging materials in a systematic fashion and expanding them, making them known scientifically and publishing them, making the work of researchers possible and giving them assistance; 2)- giving advisory opinion to the state organizations; 3)- professional co-operation in the researching of nobility 4)- making authentic copies of writings. The act also ordered that the main state offices must give the records and documents exeleding 32 years to the archives. Lastly, the archives took over all of the written material of the main civil authorities and that of other bodies that had country rights. In some cases before 1914 or up to 1945. As a result of the devastion during World War II, the building was damaged by barrages of bullet holes; the roof collapsed and there were many fires. Moreover, owing to the fact that the building used to be a hospital for German soldiers during the battle of Budapest, made it a scene for considerable destruction and which caused many of the held documents to be either damaged or lost. After the war, expansion and collection of material for the archives went on with renewed effort. Its stock, holdings was increased significantly due to the archives of families and institutions. The number of the original documents and records with numerous archives of the museum merged in the Hungarian Public Archives in 1934 / the Archives of the Hungarian National Museum. The fact that a significant number of other medieval documents of familiar archives were arranged among the Archives of Diplomats Gifts, deposit and purchase also increased the number of the records. From this time up to the present, each official document originating before the Battle at Mohács, 29

th August, 1526 has been preserved in the Hungarian National Archives more so than in the Archives of Diplomat. Nowadays it is called the Collection before Mohács. They are ranked