This year, our Foundation was honoured to be invited as a guest institution at the Annual Meeting of the Council of the Leaders of Hungarian Archives (MLVT) in 2024. The Council of the Leaders of Hungarian Archives was founded in 1994 and is a prominent professional organisation of archivists. Through its membership, it fully represents the county archives operated as affiliated institutions of the National Archives of Hungary, the city archives maintained by the municipalities, and the other registered public and private archives: the university and specialised archives, as well as the ecclesiastical archives.
The Meeting was held in Kaposvár, Hungary, between 23-25 May 2024. On behalf of our Foundation, Szilveszter Dékány, Senior Collection Fellow, described Otto von Habsburg’s document and audiovisual collection. The photograph archive of about 30,000 items in our care is an integral part of the heritage of Otto von Habsburg: this unique source material not only provides an opportunity to illustrate the life of our namesake but also contains unique portraits of various members of the Habsburg family. The collection includes pictures taken by both professional and amateur photographers. Our colleague referred to the world-famous photographer Juan Gyenes, born in Kaposvár, whom Otto von Habsburg knew personally, as he made several series of photos of him in Spain.
Portrait of Otto von Habsburg by Juan Gyenes
Our colleague gave a comprehensive overview of the collection: he outlined the structure of the estate in the Foundation’s care and the processing work carried out in the archives of letters, books, photographs and audiovisual material. The audience was offered the opportunity to identify the individuals depicted in the photos, which were taken from a series of pictures of Otto von Habsburg’s visit to Kaposvár in 1992 at the Society for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge (TIT) invitation.
Otto von Habsburg’s visit to Kaposvár (1992)
Participation in the Archives Forum allowed the professional community to understand our Foundation’s collection processing work better.
Eszter Barcs
