Dr. Péter Balázs: Guide to the archives of Hungary (Budapest, 1976)
(Introduction)
groups, while their unitary arragement make the speedy finding of the preserved records of any organ possible. Similarly significant results have been reached by the archives in the elaboration of the thematic finding aids. The composition of descriptions of this kind was started partly to make the solution of the main problems of historical science easier and quicker, partly to draw the attention of research to some outstanding archival sources. For both purposes it was important that the thematic finding aids should embrace the whole archival material of the problems, irrespective of the repository. We have such thematic descriptions on the archival groups of the Rákóczi period, of the 1919 Councils' Republio, of the political, economic and social transformations after 1945, but also on the manuscript maps preserved in the regional archives and on the conscriptions of the feudal period, both published. Beside the large-scale collecting, arrangement and selection, also the making of finding aids, the archives have become important workshops of the centrally directed scientific research, directed to the solution of problems of a national importance; beyond this, the archives of the councils have become the bases of local history in the area of their collecting interest, serving also general education effectively. The results of the scientific research of the last three decades of Hungarian archives have materialised partly in their own publications and series', partly in the studies of their personnel published outside of the archival series', being also parts of their plans and edited in the periodicals of various branches of learning or independently. These studies are not only quantitatively a considerable achievement, but they have also promoted qualitatively the development of our historical science and served as a solid base for the local work in general education. In this kind of work an outstanding significance is due to the publication of sources, making the records accessible for a scientific purpose, sometimes for the use in public education primarily. Some of these volumes (like e.g. those containing charters prior to 1526, records of the National Archives on the peasant movements in 1848 and in the period of absolutism afterwards, the journals of the Hungarian and the common Austrian-Hungarian cabinets in World War I, etc.) aimed at completeness of a defined source material, others (like those embracing the socage rules — urbaria —, the journals of the seigneurial courts, the political and economic situation between the two World Wars, the documents of political, economical and social transformation after 1945, etc.) presented the records the best illustrating a group of
