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

(Central Archives) - Magyar Országos Levéltár (Hungarian National Archives)

In the bourgeois period of its history the Archives not only opened its doors to research, in the first place to historians working for scientific aims, but it became through its specialized personnel the most significant research institution for Hungarian historical science outside the universities. In the first years of the socialist period, beginning with the final liberation of the country in 1945, the main tasks of the Archives were the renovation of the badly war-damaged building and the rescue of the damaged and endangered material. In the course of restoration the original form of the edifice was changed in some degree, its western wing became shorter, the tower at the western end disappeared, but it retained the old arrangement in other respects. Although the War Archives, placed in the building in 1918, has gone elsewhere, fires devastated 4 of the 12 stackrooms, and the increased activity accelerated from the late 1940s has made the repositories and work rooms of the Archives congested and cramped. Some parts of the material has had to be located outside the main building, in the Uri Street (Buda), the Szentkirályi Street (Pest) and Esztergom. Since the years of the reconstruction of the building and of the rescue of the material, and partly even in those years, a transformation and a radical change in archival work and outlook, characteristic of the development of the socialist period, has been manifested also in the Archives. The essence of this development may be nummarized as follows: the service of the ruling classes was supplanted by the service of the whole people in archival work. The Archives was no longer bound to give certificates of nobility which occupied a considerable part of its capacity before 1945. Instead of research in the history of the ruling classes the uncovering and the elaboration of the archival material on the past situation and struggles of workers and peasants have come to the fore. But the socialist outlook on archives, the socialist development of the archival work had and has other characteristics as well. The competence and collecting interest of the Archives have been enlarged both as to the age and the composition of the material. In the bourgeois period the Archives were bound to take over the material of governmental bodies older than 32 years. In the socialist period this time limit was abolished, the records of some organs have come into archival custody soon after coming into being. The large archives of families which played a significant role in the history of the country were all taken over by the Archives. In 1953 a special repository was established for taking over, preser-