Háromnyelvű levéltárismertető : The National Archives of Hungary : Das Ungarische Staatsarchiv : Les Archives Nationales de Hongrie

The beginnings of the National Archives of Hungary go back to the Middle Ages. The royal archives developed gradually during the reign of the kings of the Arpad Dynasty (the first royal family of Hungary) from the end of the 12

th century. Its records, however, perished or got scattered in the middle of the 16

th century when the Ottoman Empire occupied the larger part of Hungary and the country was divided into three parts: 1. the so-called Royal Hungary under the Austrian Habsburgs who claimed themselves the kings of the whole country but in fact ruled only its north-west part, 2. the Transylvanian Principality in the east, formally independent, in fact a Turkish satellite, 3. and the territory under direct Ottoman rule in the central and southern regios. The government offices of the Habsburg Court, keeping their own records in Vienna, and similarly the higher authorities of Royal Hungary had their own archives. Following their example, the Hungarian Diet also endeavoured to keep safely its records of national importance and the records documenting the rights of the estates. This trend strengthened after the reoccupation of the country at the end of the 17

th century, and led to Act no. 45 of 1723, which ordered that the public records of the country (Publica Regni Acta) should be placed in the Archives of the Country (Archivum Regni). Even the place of the future institution was designated at once in the Parliament building of Pozsony (now Bratislava, Slovakia), the capital of the country at the time, but decades had passed before the archives could in fact start operating in 1756. This required the persistent organising activity of Count Lajos Batthyány, Palatine of Hungary between 1751 and 1765. As a result of his appeals, the records gradually accumulated, soon reaching a quantity that necessitated appropriate storage and processing. This is how the National Archives came Into being seven years after the foundation of the Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchlv in Vienna. The organisational structure of the institution, later generally known as the 'old National Archives', was finalized in 1765. In 1784-1785 the Archives moved to Buda, the capital of Hungary, following the Pozsony interlude.