„Történetgyűjtés” – Oral history archívumok Magyarországon
Collecting Stories – Oral History Archives in Hungary Collecting Stories – Oral History Archives in Hungary

Summary/Abstract: Social sciences in Hungary often rely on oral history as a source for research. Our paper gives a summary of how the bigger, sometimes forgotten collections conducted and used the interviews. Outlining the history of several institutions – the Memory Collecting Group (VEGY) of the one-time Party History Institute, a department of the National Széchényi Library (OSZK), the Repository of Historical Interviews (TIT), the Oral History Archive (OHA) of the Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the Centropa Foundation – it describes the practice of oral source recording and usage in Hungary in the Socialist era and after the collapse of Communism. The analysis highlights that oral history was hold in low esteem in the academic world, that this view changed only slowly, and dis-cusses the emergence of a new way of thinking with Centropa. Beside describing the activ-ity in the institutions founded in the Socialist period or after the Transition, it touches on the circumstances of their foundation, the particular aims of collecting oral sources as well as the publications of these institutions. The founders of the collections have defined for the long run how the collected material can be accessed and made use of. According to the author, in the case of VEGY and TIT only limited access is granted, while the mission of OHA and, especially, Centropa is to make the interviews available to as many interested parties as possible.

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