Records of the Nagykőrös Tradesmen’s Casino, 1927-1943

Collection description

Holding institution (official language):: Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Pest Megyei Levéltára

Title (official language):: Nagykőrösi Kereskedelmi Kaszinó iratai, 1927-1943

Scope and content:: The collection holds the records of the Nagykőrös Tradesmen’s Casino from its establishment in 1927 to its liquidation in 1943. Only fragments of the documentation survive, which mostly concern financial and administrative matters, including general records and cashier’s books from the years 1927-1943.

Archival history:: The records of the Nagykőrös Tradesmen’s Casino were probably taken over in the 1950s by the Nagykőrös branch of the Pest County Archives. The material was rearranged and described in its present form in 1978.

Administrative/biographical history:: Casinos were social and cultural associations established by urban elites in Hungary from the 1820s onwards. Later on, casinos became an important factor of modernisation, the development of bourgeoisie and also the social integration of Jews. In the interwar years, there were two casinos in Nagykőrös: the city (városi) and the bourgeois (polgári) casino. Initially, the latter had quite a few Jewish members. The establishment of the Tradesmen’s Casino in 1927 can be interpreted as the response of local Jewish elites to the antisemitic atmosphere of the 1920s. By the beginning of the 1940s, 92% of the members and 81 % of the officials in the Tradesmen’s Casino were considered Jewish by the racial laws. Using this fact as an argument, Subprefect László Endre, a notorious antisemite, initiated the dissolution of the association. The Ministry of the Interior banned and dissolved the Tradesmen’s Casino in 1943. (MNL OL K150-1943-VII-5-1979022-6193) One year later, most of the members perished in the Holocaust.

Subject terms:: Antisemitism; Assimilation, acculturation; Trade and commerce

System of arrangement:: The records are kept in a single fascicle, in thematic order, the general records followed by the financial records.

Finding aids:: An offline collection level description is available for the collection in Hungarian.

Ernő Lakatos, ed. A Magyar Állami Levéltárak fondjegyzéke, Vol. III. A Területi Levéltárak fondjegyzékei Part 13. A Pest Megyei Levéltár fondjainak jegyzéke. Budapest: Magyar Országos Levéltár, 1975.

Author of the description:: László Csősz; Hungarian National Archives; 12-12-2015