Magyar Posta is issuing a pair of special stamps to mark two distinguished anniversaries of the National Archives of Hungary in 2023. The strip of two stamps was designed by the graphic artist Imre Benedek and produced at ANY Printing Company. The new issue is available from Filaposta, philately specialist services, certain post offices and www.posta.hu.
The National Archives of Hungary (which changed its Hungarian name in 2012) is the Hungarian state’s public collection of documents that are considered national treasures. It houses 86 kilometres of documents, more than 63.5 million microfilm images and countless seals, maps, photographs, plans and documentary records. Its activities are governed by Act LXVI of 1995 on archives.
In 1701, the establishment of the national archives was initiated as until then the records of the kingdom of national importance had been kept together with private archives by the lords and the palatines. At the time, Palatine Pál Esterházy proposed the construction of a new national assembly building where the archives would also be kept. Eventually, in 1723, the Diet passed Law XLV establishing the national archives to be kept in the national assembly building in Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia), which actually began operating in 1756. The Archivum Regni was not at that time a public academic institution, but the official repository for documents of state. The erection of the building of the National Archives is associated with the institution’s former director general Dezső Csánki (1857–1933). Construction began in October 1913 and was due to be completed by 1 May 1916. However, the financial and staffing difficulties that ensued after the outbreak of the First World War delayed completion until 1918 and the building was not opened for archival purposes until 1923.
The stamp with a face value of HUF 525 bears the text of Law XLV of 1723 establishing the National Archives and the seal of Palatine Lajos Batthyány, who strove for its establishment. The building of the National Archives appears on the stamp with a face value of HUF 715. The two stamps are joined to form a pair by the wax impression of a seal. On the front of the first day cover, there is a mural painting (1927) from the entrance to the building by the painter Andor Dudits (1866–1944), which depicts the architect Samu Pecz (1854–1922), who designed and oversaw the construction of the archives building, holding a model of the building (based on aphotograph by Károly Szelényi). The imprint of the special postmark on the first day cover features the logo of the Hungarian National Archives.
