It was a logical consequence of the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy that the archivists of the successor states should take care of the documents of the former commonwealth in consultation with each other. For 100 years now, a Hungarian archival delegate has been working at the Austrian State Archives (Österreichisches Staatsarchiv – ÖSA) in Vienna. On the occasion of the anniversary, Helmut Wohnout, Director-General of the Staatsarchiv visited Budapest at the invitation of Csaba Szabó, Director-General of the National Archives of Hungary.
We were pleased that Mr. Wohnout – accompanied by archival delegation members Csaba Szabó and András Oross and by historian-archivist Róbert Fiziker – would also visit the collection of the Otto von Habsburg Foundation, since we have already emphasized several times: by processing and digitizing our collection, we would like to make the legacy of Otto von Habsburg accessible to the Austrian public as well.
Helmut Wohnout came with a meaningful gift: he brought a copy of the photograph that captured the historic moment on 4 May 1972 when Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky greeted Otto von Habsburg with a handshake. This gesture expressed that after five decades, the political leadership of the Republic of Austria had accepted the head of the Habsburg family, who had also been an Austrian citizen since 1961.
We presented in detail the work of our Foundation, highlighting that our professional activities are fully in line with internationally accepted practices and those of domestic institutions.
Director-General Wohnout has offered his help in setting up research programmes on the Staatsarchiv’s collection. Furthermore, the idea of implementing several cultural and public collection projects on the common history of the two countries has been raised, the details of which will be discussed in the autumn.
Gergely Prőhle
