Lakos János: A Magyar Országos Levéltár története (Budapest, 2006)

A képek jegyzéke

great importance in that process. Apart from Csánki's indisputable merits, we need to emphasize that the archival processing works in his period could not be regarded as purposeful. He failed to elaborate such a programme.

For nearly two years, between 1932 and 1934 there was no director- general appointed in the National Archives. Ferenc Dory performed the duties of the leader, then József Herzog was appointed to the position of director-general in 1934. At that time the archival material of the National Museum, consisting of mainly family archives and collections, was integrated into the National Archives. (The archives of the Museum operated in the building at Bécsi kapu square from 1926.) Herzog - unlike Csánki - regarded himself not as a historian, but as an archivist, and in accordance, he elaborated a plan of work for the purposeful repository regrouping and rearrangement of the archival material, as well as for the preparing of a central catalogue. He intended to support it also by organizational measures: by establishing a separate Office of Nobility Proofs only the staff working in this unit had to deal with the matters concerned, the others were acquitted. The quantity of the records preserved in the Archives approximated the 22 000 linear metres in 1941. The number of the persons on the staff increased to 40 during that period. Giving work to unemployed graduates improved the degree of personal supply. In 1935 security microfilming of the material of other archives started. Since Herzog's time, the Archives has been intensively participating in the organization of Hungarian archives. From 1938 it first surveyed the conditions of the archives in the reannexed areas, then in the whole country, and started to work out the archives act at the end of 1939.

After Herzog's death, when the country was at war, Dénes Jánossy became the director-general (1942-1949). Also his first measures served reorganization: research and loan services performed by the departments were placed under the scope of a newly established unit of research, discount and loan services. Due to the anti-Jewish laws, enormous burden fell on the Archives. It also affected the research and information services and promoted the change of administering order. Jánossy worked out a remarkable plan of work, which is still regarded as unique in the history of the institution. According to it, he targeted the necessary steps of making arrangements, finding aids and publishing. He focused on the creation of a basic inventory and descriptive lists. These latter ones and monographs on the history of government organs made up the

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