Archival Acquisitions in 2017
Iván Székely, Örs Lehel Tari and Zsuzsa Zádori
Archival Acquisitions in 2017

The collections of the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives have further expanded during 2017. The new additions include both textual and audiovisual, analogue and electronic documents providing insight into the social history of Hungary during the 20th century, most of them related to the aftermath of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. New deposits and donations are detailed below:

HU OSA 346 Film and Video Materials of István Jávor on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution

Photographer and documentary film maker István Jávor is one of the founders of the Black Box independent video journal. During the 1980s memories of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution were one of the burning topics in alternative publications in the circles of the opposition movement. István Jávor contributed to this discourse with a series of video interviews. The materials deposited in the Blinken OSA Archives in 2017 are closely related to these efforts.

The collection contains predominantly raw, unedited film and sound recordings produced by István Jávor for his three documentary films. Interviews were conducted with former prime minister András Hegedűs and philosopher Miklós Krassó. The working titles of the films were: Találós kérdések (Riddles), Úgy gondolom (I Think) and Történet és háttér (Story and Background). The collection also includes some research material for the documentary films, music and archival newsreel footage. A small amount of amateur film from c. 1935 onwards collected by István Jávor also forms part of the collection.

The collection contains 3 VHS Interviews with prominent figures of 1956, 28 metal cans of sound and film footage related to 3 major documentary films, 3 archival boxes of 8, 9.5, 16 and 35 mm celluloid films and 16 paper boxes for audio reels.

HU OSA 364 Béla Nóvé Collection of Archival Sources and Media Material on 1956 Hungarian Refugees in the French Foreign Legion

Hungarian historian and documentary film maker Béla Nóvé's research archives consist of mainly historical resources, explored and produced by the donor as a result of his extended oral historical and archival research conducted in France and Hungary between 2011 and 2017.

The collection containes 556 GB digital records of archival photographs, films and newsreels on the 1956 Hungarian revolution, the refugee crisis, the Algerian war of 1954-1962, and the later missions of the French Foreign Legion, with altogether some 50 hours of raw materials and the final version of Béla Nóvé’s feature-length documentary: ’Patria nostra: Minor Hungarian refugees in the French Foreign Legion’.

The collection also contains 5 boxes of textual and photo prints on paper, prearranged by the Donor in June-July 2017.

The collection includes both private and corporate, digital and paper-based materials relating to some of the 4,000 Hungarian volunteers who joined the French Foreign Legion between 1945 and 1956. The records include their letters, diaries, memoirs, photos, a remarkably large collection of archival and edited videos, sound recordings of interviews and autobiographical questiommaries as well as some secret documents of the French military and Hungarian counter intelligence services, the Hungarian Red Cross and of diplomatic organizations. Processing the collection is ongoing; the documents will be available for research soon. 

HU OSA 365 Gábor Vági Collection of Social Science Research Documents

In 2017 holdings of the Blinken OSA Archives have been expanded with materials collected and written by sociologist Gábor Vági (1947-1990), one of the founders of the Black Box independent video journal and recognized researcher into public administration matters. In addition to his public activity, Vági carried out major social science research and sociographic work.

Gábor Vági spent more than two decades working on the sociography of the small Hungarian town of Mezőhegyes. Although a book was published summarizing the results of the projects years after Vági’s early death, this work has remained unfinished; however,the materials collected still constitutes a significant part of the Hungarian sociographic legacy.

Besides, Gábor Vági's other sociolgical research projects conducted on local adminisitration, regional development, the social structure of localities and questions related to the Roma and the organization of work in various environments can also be found in the collection. In addition to the many interviews, the collection includes the preparatory materials and manuscripts of Gábor Vági's publications. The collection consists of 55 boxes of textual research material, 12 DVD copies of video interviews by the Black Box Foundation and audio cassettes containing interviews conducted during the fieldwork in Mezőhegyes. The collection will be processed and made available for research in the near future.

HU OSA 320 Photographs and Home Movie Collection of Private Photo and Film Foundation

The digital files were created by Péter Forgács in the early 2000s and were delivered to OSA on 8 3TB external drives in 2017. These are the digitized versions of the mostly 8mm films that were donated to OSA previously on analog VHS video cassettes. The deposit contains digitized video files, 24 TB of preservation master quality MOV videos of Hungarian home movies.

 


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