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

(Introduction)

registries, serving the conduct of affairs and also archival interests, they declared the archives scientific institutions, defined the competence and the tasks of the various types of archives, and established the New Hungarian Central Archives, empowered to take over the records of national government organs after 1945. The declaration of the concept of the scientific archivist and the defence of the level of this status, further the rules on the instruction and qualification of the non-scientific staff of the archives and registries give a chance to the solution of this long-pending problem. The regulation of Archival Management (abbreviated: LÜSz) was issued as ministerial decre No. 130 of 1971.MM., going into details of several problems ordered by law. The Council of Archives founded by ordinance No. 134 of 1969, uniting expert archivists and representatives of related bodies, is the professional consultative organ of the Minister of Culture. On its own initiative or on the request of the Minister the Council gives opinion or subjects proposals in the problems of general archival development and on principles and methods. Thus according to the mentioned regulations the archives is a scientific institution, fulfilling also administrative tasks in the legally defined frames. It is in its competence to take over, to handle archival material professionally and to preserve it safely. Through scientific arrangement, registering and elaborating finding aids it makes the preserved archival material accessible for research and it secures other conditions of the latter as well. It performs scientific research in the branches of learning, mainly in historical science, facilitating the use of archival material and it publishes its results. For the protection of archival material it controls the record management and registry selection of the organs professionally. It also controls the archival material placed under protection on account of its historical value, regularly in private property. It helps general education through its special means. The archival tasks are fulfilled by general and special archives in their respective fields. The Hungarian National Archives and the New Hungarian Central Archives (taking over the archival material of the national organs and that of national significance) and the archives of the councils (taking over the archival material of the organs in their territory and that of local significance) work as general archives, the repositories kept by other organs (collecting the records of an organ or of a special field) act as special archives. Some historically developped record groups may be organized as departments in their original place, without enjoying structural independence. According to the manifold tasks set to the archives in the protection, preserving of, and securing access to the records, the number of the archival