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

Zala Megyei Levéltár (Zala County Archives)

ZALA MEGYEI LEVÉLTÁR (ZALA COUNTY ARCHIVES) 8901 ZALAEGERSZEG, Széchenyi tér 3. (Pf. 110.) Tel. 12-794 Director: Dr. Emü SIMONFFY The archives of Zala county were established in 1732 when the county hall was built. In the eighteenth century the county made great efforts to gather its records, scattered in the successive wars, but it succeeded only partially. The first step towards the arrangement of the collected material was made in 1744. In 1757 the county notary got an auxiliary for the archival tasks expressedly. The first detailed inventory of the county archives derives from 1771, the first archivist of the county was nominated by the Lord Lieutenant in 1790. The first large-scale arrangement of the archival material accumulated in these decades was begun in 1794 only. Farkas HÁRY (archivist from 1794 to 1850) established the still existing order of the county records before 1786 and elaborated the majority of finding aids to them. The first significant selection happened in 1905 when the material of the criminal processes prior to 1786 was entirely annihilated without exception. Up to 1950 the Archives took over the records of the central county organs only, collecting family papers in a negligible quantity. After 1950 it took over the archives of the two cities of the county, Nagykanizsa and Zalaegerszeg, the records of the villages, those of other administrative organs in the territory of the county and those of the law courts. At this time the archives of the Zalavár convent as a place of authenicity have come to its custody, together with the fragments of the papers of other monasteries. The Archives are kept up by Zala County Council, directed by the Cultural Section of the Executive Commission of the same Council. Beside Zala county its collection interest extends to a part of Veszprém county which has belonged to Zala as late as in 1949, as regards records earlier than 1949 (the Keszthely and Tapolca districts of today, also a part of Ajka district). The holdings of Zala County Archives total 3148 running metres. The collection prior to Mohács contains 340 charters, of which the most ancient is a charter of King Béla IV from 1240. The most significant unit is the Archives of Zala county. The journals of the general assembly of the county