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

Győr-Sopron Megyei 2.sz. Levéltár (Győr-Sopron County Archives (No.2.)

In the beautiful rooms the standing exhibition of the Archives on city history is on show. The archival material of the county was first arranged by Márton DALLOS, vice-notary and later archivist (1779). In the time before the Sopron plebiscite (1921), when the population of the city had to choose between Austria and Hungary, the material was transferred to Eszterháza (to-day Fertőd) which led to the dissolution of its system. The new arrangement was executed by Dezső SÜMEGHY in a self-made scientific system between 1923 and 1938. The publication of the pre-1526 records of the Archives is also due to his efforts. Most or the half of the medieval records was annihilated during World War II. The inadequate selection in 1947 decimated the material of the sub-prefects office. Equally through war events were destroyed, before coming to archival custody, the administrative and judicial material of the Csepreg, Csorna, Kapuvár and Sopron districts, the records of the Sopron County Court between 1870 and 1944, also those of the Sopron Chamber of Commerce and Industry, extending to several Transdanubian counties, between 1850 and 1944, to mention the most important only. On the other hand the archives of Sopron city have a value singular in the whole country with the rich medieval material. It was lucky to survive the ravages of the wars and also the fire cremating the city in 1676, as it was under cover. The city council furnished two rooms of the city hall with cases for the storage of the records in the 1780s; these are monuments of arts today. The first arrangement of the records was executed in the middle of the fifteenth century, this consisted of marking the contents on the reverse. At the end of the eighteenth century the city archives were arranged by Daniel HOCHHOLZER, József PÖCK and József BLASOVSZKY, then registered by Károly János OERTL, a barrister in Sopron. The almost four thousand records prior to the sixteenth century have been published from 1924 to 1943 by Dr. Jenő HÁZI with the assistance of the city council. The archival material of the Győr-Sopron County Archives No. 2 totals 4100 running metres, of which 2855 running metres are arranged to medium level. Of the years before 1541 the repository preserves 4723 records, the majority of which are due to the city council: 3808 pieces, among them