April 2007:
To conduct archival research for my advanced diploma in local history from the University of Oxford, I travelled to Győr for a week. Beforehand, I had sent e-mails to the city and county archives as well as diocesan archives. I had also sent an e-mail to the Xántus-János-Museum to enquire about the wooden playing-card printing-blocks from the Unger family. The only person to send a response was Ádám Vajk from the diocesan archives, who provided very helpful information as to how to approach my research question there.
I then went to the county archives nevertheless, who told me they didn’t have any fonds I may be interested in, but thankfully provided a photocopy from a book with a short history of the Abbot House in Hungarian. Also, one of the archivists took me to the local library, where I was able to find some useful sources for my research. At the city archives, the archivist declared that they were undergoing a reorganization process and that he could only check the list of burghers (no success) and offer copies of the church books of the 19th century, but none of the other sources I’d requested such as tax books, wills/probate records, council minutes, old maps, or cadasters.
At the diocesian archives I’d enquired whether there was a heirloom for Carolus Károly Unger and told no and that if there were one, it would be at the diocesan library. The head of the library informed me that no when I went there, but asked his assistant to make a photocopy of the article on the national drawing school by Vince Bedy. I wasn’t informed of the fact that the library also holds correspondences of priests such as parts of the one between Franz Ferenz Ebenhöch and Florian Flóris Rómer nor was I shown or offered a list of the library collections.
Summer 2009:
The head of the diocesan library (who’d meanwhile become a teacher at the Benedictine grammar school?) contacted me by e-mail and enquired whether I’d published on the Unger family. I sent him my first short article from TALON and asked him a question as to whether there were any new developments regarding the Unger family, but it was never answered. I was under the impression that he was in touch with the curator of the 2010 exhibition, also because I had sent my article to the latter on the same day, but although I had attached only part of the article intentionally to check on my intuition he commented on the article in its entirety and didn’t seem to miss any information.
In December I sent an e-mail in Hungarian to the director of the city archives to request some sources for my upcoming research trip, but never received an answer.
February 2010:
After I’d agreed to provide information for the exhibition on the Unger playing-card-making and artist family planned at the Xántus-János-Museum for September of that year, I returned not only to the diocesan archives, but also to the city archives and requested the council minutes/protocollum, like in Sopron, but was told I could only look through the two tomes of the so-called mayor’s minutes, but that there were no council minutes in Győr (nem mint Sopronban itt! (sic!)), nor cadastres, wills or passport registers. At that point I didn’t ask for tax books because I’d ordered those available at the Latter-Day-Saints for consultation back home in Germany since my time there was limited.
August/September 2010:
I conducted some more research at the local library in Gyor.
Autumn 2010:
I requested a copy of a source I had viewed during my visit in February, but wrongly came to the conclusion that it didn’t pertain to my family – I’d somehow read part of it originated in the 18th century, long before my family had moved to Györ. It was only when happily the curator of the museum exhibition sent me a list of house numbers for my Family he’d looked up at the archives (he seemed to have worked on house histories in another context as well) that I realized that the sale of their house coincided with the year in which the previous source was recorded in the books and alerted him of this indicating the source and number. I never heard about it again and it was just at the exhibition where he presented the source documenting the bankruptcy as his original find and accused me of trying to suppress the source to make my family look better than they were! The archivist sent a CD with a copy of the papers that belonged to that source so I could quote it properly.
April 2011:
On my way back from an Erasmus teaching stint I returned to the city archives in Győr to request tax books different from those available at the Latter-Day Saints, which I looked through. I also asked for the main tax book for 1846, which the archivist said was not available.
Summer 2011:
At my father’s birthday party in Austria I met an acquaintance of his from Győr again who encouraged me to continue my Research — which I’d planned to continue anyway –to try and locate the house where the final Unger playing-card workshop was located. He told me that there was a branch of the city archives where house plans were kept. I’d meanwhile been able to narrow down the possibilities to two large houses at Dunakapu tér. It was interesting to find the plans for the houses, although they didn’t state any of the old tax numbers, which had served as house numbers up to the 1870s. It had only been after I’d booked my trip that only this branch of the archives were still open before the annual summer closure. At the county archives I was told I wouldn’t be able to get any documentation without knowing the property number.
February 2012:
In the meantime I’d improved my Hungarian to the point that I started to understand fully the inventory list provided by the city archives in Hungarian. To my surprise, it did say that they held cadastre books, wills/probate records, council minutes/protocollum, passport registers and more. However, the archivist, the same as in 2010 and 2011, still categorically denied that they existed by firmly stating „ninc“, „nincs“, „nincs“… even when I pointed on them in the list from the archives‘ homepage. My parents‘ acquaintance had heard that I had difficulty obtaining what I was looking for and had offered to join me, also to offer linguistic assistance. I received some lists of some male inhabitants, but none oft he documents from before. When we returned on another day, there was another archivist and I asked him to be given a specific book that allowed the reconstruction of an address based on the old tax number from the 1870s. He kept looking for it for 45 minutes, and finally handed it over. It confirmed a suspicion, namely that the house in question was that of Dunakapu tér 7.
September 2012:
I had copied the Hungarian version already in 2012, but my parents’ acquaintance and another man he’d introduced to me as an interpreter-translator informed me that it would be possible to see and take photos of the entire diary of Johann János Ecker from 1847-50 at the local library.
February 2013:
I was looking for primary sources to prove that Mathias Mátyás Unger the Elder was indeed a burgher (civis, Vollbürger) of Győr, although not on the official burgher roll kept in the archives. I’d also sent an e-mail message upfront to ask for the main tax book from 1846, passport register… and received the written confirmation that these documents would be available. When I arrived there, I was suddenly told that no. However, it emerged that the archives did actually possess council minute books/protocolla.
August/September 2013:
I continued to ask for the above resources. Promised again by e-mail, but not available upon my actual visit to the Archives.
December 2013:
I conducted some more research at the local library for a day.
2014:
During our stays in February and August/September I went to the archives again and the translator-interpretor insisted to join me because he was trying to locate information for an Austrian family he was helping with their family research. On arrival, we were suddenly offered a cadastre book from the early 1850s, whose existance had previously been negated (despite being listed in the inventory). In the summer, as we kept insisting, part of the passport register (from 1844-1850) was finally available. We kept enquiring about the main tax book from 1846, lists of craftspeople and merchants frequently mentioned in Balázs 1980, and the first part of the passport register from 1836-1843/44, but to no avail.
A local insider who knows the cultural scene and the archives very well told me that the director knew exactly where all of his sources were, but oftentimes only made them available to people in his network. There were numerous other people requesting sources in vain or being given excuses, apparently. The director had talked to us personally and said he would try and locate what we needed for us.
Also we had heard that photos by a priest-photographer from Győr had surfaced at the diocesan archives of Győr, which had been presented in part in the local news. When we went to the archives, we were told that we could only see part of the collection, mainly landscape images, but not the large collection of portraits of priests of the diocese as well as inhabitants of Győr or else we’d have to contact Gyula Perger, the former director of the museum of Győr and the director of the museum of Tata. We were told that he – someone we’d experienced to be a heavy smoker – had taken them home since he was writing a book on the photos and that we should contact him privately if we wanted to see them. We therefore waited until the book was published in 2017 and, as expected, there was an image of Károly Unger and some more images relevant to my research.
2015:
Overall, all the sources we requested were promised to us in their entirety upfront by e-mail at least three to four times. However, although the missing passport register was part of the sources promised, we were unable to receive it when we came.
2017:
It took the archives and director some time to respond because they were on an (extended) holiday. I was informed beforehand that most of the sources I was looking for would be available. When we arrived at the archives the director had a lengthy conversation with us and I asked about some of the sources that were frequently mentioned in Balázs (1980) such as the list of craftsmen and merchants as well as the Diary of Mrs. Wurda from the Reform Era (update summer 2024: The diary still exists and someone let me view a copy of it. I was told that the original diary actually is in the archives of Györ). The director explained to us that the city archives were separated from the county archives in the early 1990s after the collapse oft he east-bloc and that various sources disappeared including the lists of craftsmen and merchants and the Diary of Mrs Wurda (in a newspaper article in the local newspaper Kisalföld from March 2019, however, he mentioned this diary along with that of János Ecker’s as some of the most important personal accounts oft he Reform Era and there was no mention of regret about its loss). We were able to receive a number of books and resources, but neither the main tax book from 1846 nor the first part of the passport register from 1836 onwards as it was claimed they were being restored.
2018:
Towards the end of the year I tried to contact the director of the archives again, also because he had given us his business card and had voluntarily promised his support in case we needed anything else from the archives. Although I received a delivery protocol, he insisted that he’d never received my e-mail and that I’d used the wrong e-mail address, although I’d sent it tot he one on the latest version oft he homepage oft he archives. It was then, after I had posted about it on social media and written to the mayor of Győr, that the then director of the Rómer-Flóris-Museum offered to talk to him so we could access the sources we had been looking for for so many years. By e-mail we were finally promised access. It was only because of this confirmation message that I booked a hotel in Györ and went there again with my husband. Otherwise we would have spent a holiday elsewhere.
2019:
Upon arrival the director, after we had talked to him and an ensuing long wait the director first said we would probably get what we wanted, but after our return later on in the afternoon, declared that he we wouldn’t be able to receive neither the passport register nor the main tax book from 1846 because they were being digitised or else still had to be found. We were offered other sources and I finally requested the burgher roll to check on the husband of a family member, because I didn’t want to continue to wait idling. As he showed us a dark room accessible from the yard with various shelves, all in disarray, a heartwrenching view apparently to prove that part of the archives still needed reorganization, hence the chaos, the librarian and former deputy director of the museum at the time of the exhibition in 2010 who had stormed into the museum director’s room to catch a glimpse of Alois Alajos Unger’s madonna painting I had just brought from Austria without ever saying a word to me, had arrived in the yard of the archives and was watching us as we looked in disbelief, but otherwise kept a stiff upper lip. I would never have taken the trip just for this one, minor source, however. I posted about my disbelief and disappointment on social media and the director replied that I had received a source after all and should be satisfied!
2020:
We sent the director a digitally signed message which he could not pretend to not have received and requested the passport register from 1836 onwards again. This time he sent a reply in German claiming that they were still not able to find the said register (although he’d claimed it was being digitised in 2018!)
My husband is of the opinion – and I agree – that the director, who also attended the opening of the Unger exhibition in 2010 is truly interested in my research and topic, which apparently is a reason for him to speak to us personally.
It is really disappointing and I dream of how much new information I could have gathered if I had been given free access to the sources at the archives, as is apparently granted to a chosen few from the director’s network as well as to his employees.
