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

A képek jegyzéke

system stipulated by the Act XXIX of 1950. Under the supervision of the Ministry of Religion and Public Education (later called differently), a so- called medium level authority, i.e. the National Centre of Archives, was established to control directly the nationalized county and municipal archives. (From 1957 it was called the Archival Department of the Ministry of Culture, later the Directorate of Archives.) This way our Archives was integrated into a common organization with other archives. Regarding budgetary affairs the control was strict, while in case of professional matters it was rather moderate. In the 1960s, the independence of the institution partly increased until it became a separately managed organ in 1968. Nevertheless, it broke away from the regional archives which were placed under the direct supervision of county councils. This progress was also ratified by the new provisions of law in 1969 (Act XXVII of 1969.).

The scope of duties of archives, involving the National Archives too, significantly extended during the socialist system. Activities of public education and propaganda, and mainly the care of the archival material of record creator organs occurred as the new tasks. At the beginning, archives were involved in the selection of documents for destruction, later selecting was not allowed without their contribution. Records with historic value had to be transferred to the archives already after 5-10 years, but the date of the receipt of documents grew to 15 years in 1969 when the archives got the right to control the entire record management of organs. The authority claimed for long could be realized, which is considered to be the main achievement of the socialist archives: they could provide for the archival material from the creation of records. However, the National Archives was exempted from that task, since it became a closed historic collection with no regular transfers of documents. As a result, for managing the post-1945 records created during the socialist era - breaking away from the Hungarian traditions, and following the soviet example - a new institution was established in 1970: the New Hungarian Central Archives.

Between 1950 and 1970 the National Archives, still bearing the full scope of duties, operated under the specific conditions of the socialist period. Like in case of the other institutions in the country, the work went on the basis of strictly interpreted plans with the obligation of frequent reporting. They had to perform competition movement, austerity measures and innovative reforms as well, and archival training was full of ideological elements. The trade union and, especially, the

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