<<< | Contents^ 1. A brief historical overview The history of Hungarian libraries began in the 11th century when the Hungarian state was established and Christianity was adopted as the state religion. During this period, the abbeys of Tihany and Pannonhalma held collections of valuable manuscripts, and the great Mediaeval Hungarian codices, the ‘Anjou Legend’ and the ‘Illustrated Chronicle’, were prepared at the request of the Hungarian kings. Renaissance culture flourished under the reign of King Matthias (1458-1490), whose library, known as the Bibliotheca Corviniana, was one of the greatest collections of illustrated chronicles and scientific and philosophical works in contemporary Europe. The library contained nearly 2.500 books (or „corvinae“), but the collection was dispersed after the death of the king, and today only 216 corvinae remain at various libraries worldwide. More than 50 of these are held in Hungarian collections. During the time of the Protestant Reformation and the Counter Reformation, Hungarian written cultural heritage was preserved by the libraries of the Protestant colleges of Debrecen, Sárospatak and Pápa. In the 18th century, library rooms furnished in a baroque or classical style became important parts of bishops‘ residences and the homes of noblemen. These contained encyclopaedic collections, classified by subject, and were held in richly ornamented wooden bookcases. Several valuable examples of these libraries are preserved today, including the library of the Teleki family in Marosvásárhely, Transylvania (today Tirgu-Mures, Romania) and the fine book collection of the Festetics family in Keszthely, Hungary. The beginning of the 19th century was marked by the promotion of national identity, which fostered a new interest in the nation’s language, culture and history. The idea of establishing a national library – collecting, cataloguing and making available to scholars all the documents relating to the history of Hungary – was put forward by Count Ferenc Széchényi. In 1802, the Count donated to the nation his own collection of 13,000 printed books, 1,200 manuscripts, and hundreds of maps, coats of arms, engravings and medals. In 1808, the Hungarian National Museum was established and the national library founded by Count Széchényi became part of it. The library became an independent national institution in 1949 and relocated from the National Museum to its new premises in Buda Castle in 1985. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences was founded by Count István Széchenyi in 1825, and its library was set up the following year when Count József Teleki donated his book collection of 30,000 volumes to the Academy. The library was opened to the general public in 1865. The famous Jesuit University of Nagyszombat (today Trnava, Slovakia) was founded by archbishop and theologian Péter Pázmány in 1635. After the dissolution of the Jesuit order, the university moved to Buda in 1777 and then to its final location in Pest in 1784. Named after physicist Eötvös Loránd, it has since become the largest and most prestigious university in Hungary. The university library holds a number of codices, 14 corvinae, and hundreds of prints and books from the 16th and 17th centuries. The Library of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics is another academic library with a prestigious historical collection. Following the political „compromise“ that established the dual monarchy of Austro-Hungary in 1867, the autonomous Hungarian state established its own administrative institutions. At this point the Library of the Hungarian Parliament and the Library of the Central Statistical Office were founded. School libraries in Hungary have existed since the time of the Protestant Reformation, when schools had their own book collections, and college education was supported by collections belonging to students‘ societies. The concept of the modern school library was born when the law on public education came into force in 1868. The antecedents of public libraries were reading groups and booksellers’ lending libraries; the Anglo-Saxon model of public libraries was introduced by Ervin Szabó, who reorganised the metropolitan library of Budapest and opened it to the general public in 1910. The new metropolitan library had one central library and five branches. It opened its local history collection (called the Budapest Collection) in 1913, and made available a department of children’s literature in the same year. The development of libraries slowed down following World War One, and during World War Two a large number of books were destroyed. After 1945, when the „socialist“ political and economic era started in Hungary, priorities in library policy changed. In order to create a new generation of intellectuals, the regime introduced an ambitious cultural policy aimed at increasing literacy in general and providing working class citizens with a wide variety of cultural and educational material. The policy was implemented via two networks of public libraries: council libraries, run by local authorities; and trade union libraries, available at workplaces. The transition to democracy in 1989 brought radical political, economic and social changes that also had a considerable impact on the library system. Libraries faced new challenges due to insufficient funding from local authorities, as well as from the changing structures and policies of the cultural sector, resulting in a need for new systems and solutions to ensure the successful operation of the library system in the new environment. At the same time, political openness and the prospect of European Union membership created a stimulating atmosphere and encouraged new international links. As a result, Hungarian libraries needed to adopt entirely new strategies to ensure a modern library system by the beginning of the third millennium. In order to meet the new requirements set by library authorities and the changes in society, the following priorities were identified: a new legal basis for the restructuring of the library system focus on users‘ needs focus on diversified services the automation of libraries financing of the new system the introduction of modern library management at Hungarian libraries ^top | >>>
Illustrated Chronicle (cca. 1360) | College Library, Eger, reading room
Festetics Codex (cca. 1493) | Central Library of the Metropolitan Szabó Ervin Library, Budapest, reading room
College Library, Sárospatak
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