Identity Statement

Reference Code

HU OSA 408-2

Title

Research Documentation on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution

Date(s)

1956 - 1995

Description Level

Subfonds

Extent and medium (processed)

18 Archival boxes, 2.25 linear meters

Context

Name of creator(s)

Varga, László

Archival history

László Varga started his research on the secret police in 1986. Before 1990, research on this topic was extremely difficult: His research permit issued by the Military History Archives in 1986 was withdrawn without explanation even before he could start his research project. Not much later he was expelled from the Archives of the Party History Institute and could continue his research only six months later but was forbidden to make copies. To be able to compile the planned volume of sources, he copied records by hand, and later smuggled out the heavily guarded documents, Xeroxed them in the offices of the periodical HVG and smuggled them back the same day. After 1989-1990 many archives made research of the period impossible for privacy reasons. Finally, freedom of research was regulated democratically by the law on archives in 1995. An exception was the Budapest City Archives, where documents about the revolution were collected secretly and made available for Varga. Furthermore, some of the archivists let him use information from death certificates even without a research permit. The originals of the documents are kept in the Budapest City Archives, the National Archives of Hungary, the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security, The Archives of Political History and of Trade Unions, the Archives of MTI, the Library of Congress, National Széchényi Library, and the 1956 Institute and Oral History Archive. US Foreign Affairs documents were transferred to Varga from the legacy of historian and archivist, Elek Karsai while the records pertaining to Yugoslavia were handed over to the Institute of History Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and later Prime Minister Gyula Horn.

Content and Structure

Scope and Content (Abstract)

The subfonds consists of documents of Minister of Light Industry Mrs. József Nagy and research documents of László Varga, including bibliographies on 1956, hardly or not accessible papers, unique manuscripts, and press publications before, during and after the revolution. Furthermore, it includes relevant American, Yugoslavian and Hungarian foreign affairs records; the latter primarily on the activities of and reactions to the UN Committee on the Hungarian question.

The “miscellaneous documents” in series 5 are primarily related to various important events in the revolution, such as Secretary General János Kádár’s meeting in Moscow on November 3, or the contemporary diary of historian Péter Hanák, wounded at the party headquarters in the firing on Kossuth Square on October 25, 1956 (Next to him was shot dead Zoltán I. Tóth, dean of ELTE University).

The documents on the reprisals after the revolution are related to persons, giving an insight in the mechanism.

Some of the career interviews with participants in the revolution were recorded by Varga, the rest come from historian Péter Gosztonyi’s personal archives, including the very controversial interviews made by historian David Irving. Irving gave the background material he collected for his own book to Gosztonyi.

Series 11 on the victims include contemporary Hungarian Central Statistical Office statistics and a list of names of death certificates issued in Budapest.

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information

After collecting the documents, no destruction was carried out during processing.

Accruals

Not Expected

Conditions of Access and Use

Conditions governing access

Documents are researchable according to the general rules of research in OSA Research Room.

Conditions governing reproduction

A dokumentumok oktatási és kutatási célból digitálisan másolhatók az OSA kutatótermében.

Languages

Hungarian

Description Control

Archivist's note

Processed by László Varga, March 2, 2015.