Imperial and Royal Military and Civil Government for Hungary, 1849-1856

Collection description

Holding institution (official language):: Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára

Title:: Imperial and Royal Military and Civil Government for Hungary, 1849-1856

Title (official language):: K. K. Militär- und Civil-Gouvernement für Ungarn, Civil Section, 1849-1856

Scope and content:: In the era of Habsburg absolutism in Hungary the Imperial and Royal Military and Civil Government (later, General Government) was the central state organ supervising and controlling public administration in Hungary. Unlike in the case of ministries, the documents concerning Jews and Jewish communities are not arranged into separate units and these files are scattered throughout the material. Therefore, the collection requires item-based research. Jewish-related files can be found chiefly in the following archival (thematic) units:

V. (Country and People): files on registries of births, marriages and deaths, citizenship issues, emigration and immigration

VI. (Police administration): files on the supervision of non-resident aliens, passports, social organisations

VII. (Health): doctors

IX. (Home Defence): conscriptions

X. (Education)

XII. (Commerce and Trade): commerce, shops, banks, etc.

Archival history:: The files of the dissolved Vienna-based ministries of the absolutist era were handed over to the reorganised Locotenential Council and the Court Chancelleries with the exception of presidential and certain classified records. After 1867, all documents were taken to the newly established Royal Hungarian Ministry of the Interior (1867-1945). The part of the collections that had remained in Vienna were handed over to Hungary (Baden agreement, 1926). The material from the years 1849-1860 had been incorporated into the medieval (feudal) section of the archives until 1949, when the National Archives started to re-arrange and systematise the files pertaining to this historical period. The Section D (Records of the Era of Absolutism) was created in 1952. The first finding aid was published in 1959. Since then, the collection has been rearranged and selected several times.

Administrative/biographical history:: The Hungarian term era of absolutism (abszolutizmuskor) refers to the attempt of Emperor Franz Joseph I to incorporate Hungary into the Habsburg Empire after the defeat of the Hungarian War of Independence in 1849. The administrative bodies of the previous period, including the Locotenential Council (Helytartótanács/Ungarische Statthalterei), the Hungarian and Transylvanian Court Chancelleries (Magyar és Erdélyi Udvari Kancellária) and the local autonomies were dissolved and replaced by imperial ministries seated in Vienna. The so-called October Diploma (imperial decree) of October 20, 1860 signalled the end of the era of centralisation. The Vienna-based ministries were disbanded and their function was taken over by the reorganised Locotenential Council and the Court Chancelleries.

Subject terms:: Education; Health and medical matters; Military; Trade and commerce; Vital records

Finding aids:: Well-prepared and very detailed contemporaneous finding aids are available for the collection. Sashegyi Oszkár, ed. Az abszolutizmuskori levéltár. Repertórium. Vol 1. Budapest: MOL, 1984.