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

Budapest Főváros Levéltára (Budapest Municipal Archives)

wages, testing of measures, the public and private constructions in the cities, the growth of the built-in area and the number of population, the becoming of Buda a governmental, of Pest an economic centre, the phenomena of cultural life, the regularized theatres, the efforts to secure the connection between both cities (pontoon-bridge, later a standing bridge), the management and hiring out of the sources of revenue, the allocation of urban revenue, the management of foundations, the upkeeping of city schools, hospitals, alms-houses, churches etc., the care for the property of orphans, the control of guild activity, the admittance to civic rights, the financial situation of the people, the sources of income, the police measures, civil and criminal jurisdiction of the cities, the guarding of prisoners, in short all phenomena of life of the cities and their inhabitants. The archives of Óbuda (totalling 57 running metres), possessing a more modest self-government, is of interest because of the fragment of the records of the "Jewish community", the semi-autonomous organ of the populous Jewry from the end of the eighteenth century. From the archival material of the capital, unified in 1873 (up to 1944) we get acquainted with the life and the problems of a Budapest, lively developping to a modern metropolis. Although at the time of the unification the capital was provided with a self-government essentially identical to the other municipal cities, nay it has lost some rights compared with its pre-unification status (through the abolition of civic jurisdiction in 1871, the extension of the activity of the state police to the capital and the establishment of the Municipal Public Works Council for the state interference with city regulation in 1870), the organs of metropolitan self-government, its continuously multiplying institutes and works undertook and solved huge and ever growing tasks nevertheless. The almost 3400 running metres of the records of the central organs (municipal committee, council, mayor and burgomaster, the sections of the council, or from 1930 of the burgomaster, respectively, the attorney's department, the orphans' court, the chief physician, the audit office, the engineering office) are joined by the 938 running metres of the district prefectures, with a considerably enlarged competence since 1893, to ease the former, and also those of the cultural, social, hygienical and economical offices, institutes, institutions directing ever larger sections of urban life (141 running metres), the latter the more important as some of them (so the Tourist Office established in 1916) were in charge of national tasks as well. Mainly by their connection with the workers' movement, this archival