The Historical Archives preserves and manages documents produced by or in connection with various Hungarian authorities that engaged in state protection or state security activities between 21 December 1944, and 14 February 1990. These documents were produced by various bodies, the most prominent of which was the State Protection Department of the Hungarian State Police in the second half of the 1940s (the infamous ÁVO, Államvédelmi Osztály), and the State Protection Authority (ÁVH, Államvédelmi Hatóság) during the Mátyás Rákosi’s communist reign of terror in the first half of the 1950’s. After the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which also marked the beginning of the Kádár era, the Political Investigation Division became the primary investigation body of political reprisal, later followed by Department III (State Security) of the Ministry of Interior until the collapse of the system, which was responsible for tracking down and persecuting the “internal reaction,” the political opposition of the dictatorship.
The Historical Archives was qualified as a specialized state security library in 2017 by a legal amendment repealing the time limit of 1990. Thus, according to Act XCIV of the year 2017, the post-1990 documents of the current Hungarian national security services are also to be preserved in this archive. The Historical Archives is prepared to receive electronically archived records in the future.
Persons who lived under the communist regime came into contact with the above-mentioned state security bodies through various forms of persecutions, such as interment, deportation, or vilification in show trials. Survivors of persecution were not only placed under surveillance for decades after their release, but their family members also suffered political discrimination and stigmatization because of these judicial murders. The documents at the Historical Archives contain references to approximately one million persons, and these persons or their legal successors are now able to obtain available information about themselves as the individual amendment.
In addition to documents pertaining to private persons the Historical Archives also contains sources on the activities of civilian and military intelligence and counterintelligence during the state socialist era, but compared to internal counterintelligence, these are considerably fewer documents available on the activities of these bodies. Also there is relatively little data available of the various categories of former informants, who were referred to as “network persons” within the Secret Service.
While establishing an archival system, the Historical Archives was faced with the fact that the documents falling within its legal competence were produced by a multitude of different state security bodies and units that operated in different periods, were organizationally separate from one other, and handled documents in their own unique ways. Therefore, the Archives divided these documents into sections based on historical period, chronological order and the state security bodies that produced them, with each section divided into fonds, collections, and series, where applicable. The most important data regarding the documents of the Historical Archives is contained in a list of fonds and collections, which is available at the Research Hall of the Archive and at our website (www.abtl.hu).
The Historical Archives divided its documents into sections based on the principle of provenience, or in other words, the place of origin of the documents. Accordingly, Section I comprises documents pertaining to the organizational structure and operation for the state protection and state security bodies of the Hungarian communist dictatorship. This section contains, for example, fragmentary documentation on the pre-1956 state defence agencies, such as the State Protection Department and the State Protection Authority, as well as documents relating to the operation of the Political Investigation Division that played an important role in the reprisal following the fall of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Documents relating to the operation been place here along with documents of military security and counterintelligence.
Section 2 contains documents that either belong to several different organizational units or where, produced by several organizational units, such as operative and network records, internment documentation, various reports of the Ministry of the Interior or the personal files of well-known or secret state security officials.
Section 3 contains more than two thirds of our archived documents including network, operative, and investigation documents, including recruitment, work, operative, and investigation files prepared by Hungarian state protection and state security bodies. Within this collection of documents, Fonds 3.1 contains files that were stored in the archive of the Operative Registration Department of the Data Processing and Information Division and its legal predecessors, while Fonds 3.2 contains files that were managed by Intelligence at Division III/I of the Ministry of Interior and its legal predecessors.
Section 4 comprises various collections and series of documents relating to the activities of Hungarian state security bodies. For example, this section includes books, manuscripts, studies and journals, materials that were obtained from libraries, archives, record halls or public and private collections and then processed by state security bodies in certain ways to support operative activities. Textbooks, studies, and internal publications that were used for professional preparation, training and the dissemination of experiences can also be found here, along with educational films that served a double purpose: on the one hand, these films facilitated the preparation of ministerial staff, and on the other hand, they were part of political propaganda and often enacted by well-known professional actors.
Section 4 also contains a collection of orders gathered from other collections, the personal documents of former head of the State Protection Authority Gábor Péter, as well as private documents that had been presented to the Archives as pertaining to our field of interest.
Section 5 contains documents of the so-called Screening Committee, which was created to screen persons in important positions or positions of public trust or public opinion. These documents are the sole exception to the general rule that the scope of interest of the Historical Archives only extends to documents dating from before 1990.
By the end of 2020, the quantity of documents held in the Historical Archives amounted to over 4,500 linear meters, two thirds of which were different types of files while the rest were operational documents of former Hungarian state security bodies as well as collections and background materials prepared and used by these bodies.
The majority of documents at the Archives are paper based, but there are also a large number of contemporary microfilm backup copies of investigation files, operative files, and Daily Operative Information Reports (NOIJ, Napi Operatív Információs Jelentések).