Archival Collections
The Archivum’s catalog offers integrated search in cross-referenced archival, library and film library records. Where available, digital content is presented along rich contextual descriptions. While the primary language of the catalog is English, some of the collections are described in their original language, including in Hungarian, Russian, Polish and Italian.
The Archivum’s textual and audiovisual materials come in analog and digital format and in 40+ languages. Altogether they comprise 10,000 linear meters, 17,000 hours of audiovisual, and 15 TB of digital records, as well as 150,000 photographs, 6000+ documentary film titles and 19,000 library items on three main themes, see above.
Communism, the Cold War, and their Afterlives
The largest collection on this topic is that of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Research Institute and its successor, the Open Media Research Institute, consisting of background and reference materials accumulated over 45 years of activity. It is an essential source on the post-WWII political, social, economic, and cultural history of the Central and Southeast European region, including, among others, Radio Liberty broadcasts, Soviet television monitoring and unique Soviet, Polish and Hungarian samizdat materials.
Special collections comprise Soviet propaganda films; live recordings and documentary films of the Hungarian Black Box Video Journal; copies of state security and secret police documents; propaganda and educational films of the communist Hungarian Ministry of the Interior and the Workers’ Militia; video interviews relating to Chernobyl; and the archive of the journal Budapest Week.
Individual donations or deposits include those made by the filmmakers Pál Schiffer and Péter Forgács, the former democratic opposition member and mayor of Budapest Gábor Demszky, the freedom fighter General Béla Király, the sociologist István Kemény, the photographers Rodolf Hervé, Lajos Erdélyi and Éva Kapitány, and the philanthropist and diplomat couple Vera and Donald Blinken.
Human Rights and Social Justice
Collections comprise records from international and local agencies and non-governmental organizations, as well as individuals active in documenting the history of human rights movements and violations worldwide, including but not limited to genocide, war crimes, torture, rape and crimes against humanity, as well as of the rights and representation of marginalized, disadvantaged groups, such as refugees, the Roma, and other ethnic minorities, the LGBTQI+ community or people with disabilities.
Most important among these record groups are those of the UN Expert Commission on Investigating War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia, International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, Index on Censorship, Physicians for Human Rights, American Refugee Committee’s Balkan Programs, Human Rights Watch, Hungarian Roma Parliament Association, and International Federation of Persons with Physical Disability.
The Archivum’s Yugoslavia related collections contain substantial source materials on the communist past, violent dissolution and turbulent afterlife of the region, including video recordings of human rights abuses collected by the International Monitor Institute, research materials of the journalist David Rohde, home movies from Srebrenica recorded by a local cameraman before and after the enclave’s fall, and postwar monitoring of newscasts and political programs from televisions in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia.
Central European University (CEU) and the Open Society Foundations (OSF) Network
The Archivum, the official repository and historical archives of the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest and Vienna, as well as of the Open Society Foundations (OSF) network globally, is responsible for the long-term preservation of the permanent records of these entities.
The records of CEU include documents related to the foundation and activities of this unique research university, established initially and primarily to offer quality English language higher education to and foster dialogue between students coming from emerging democracies in Central and Southeastern Europe, as well as the former Soviet Union. Beyond recordings of academic programs and public events, CEU collections include personal papers of some of its founders and professors, such as that of the philosopher of science Bill Newton-Smith.
The OSF records reflect the philanthropic activities of the foundations in the domain of public education and health, culture, arts and sciences, transparent governance, disabilities, human rights, environment, poverty, and ethnic minorities. They comprise the archives of the Soros Foundation Hungary, the first entity of the network, the documentary film collection of the Soros Documentary Fund or OSF’s Sarajevo Programs’ records. These latter include text and video materials on humanitarian, educational and cultural aid, on exchange and science projects initiated and managed for population of the city under siege during the recent Yugoslav Wars.
Archival Collections