Photographs of Events in Hungary

Major events and everyday life is recorded in the photographs of this unit, taken by professional amateur and home photographers from the beginnings of news photography to present.

The earliest photographies are those of József Heller, photographing the the coronation festivities of 1867. The number of pictures made of events increased from the 1890's. After the funeral of Lajos Kossuth (1894) and the Millenial Celebration, the environs of the new Parliament became the new hunting territory of photographers, where they could catch a glimpse of politicians arriving and leaving.

With photographing becoming cheaper and easier at the beginning of the 20th century, the number of those photographing for themselves or for the pleasure of their friends and family, increased. A lot of pictures were made allowing a glimpse into the private sphere by photographing small events of everyday life. The collection keeps these in a large number.

During the First World War a lot of pictures were made, both at the fighting scenes and in the hinterland. From the battlefield pictures of amateur photographers, of the events in Budapest during the war years the pictures by János Müllner are kept in the collection. The events of the revolutions following the war were photographed by several excellent photographers like Gyula Jelfy, János Müllner, Révész & Bíró, Manó Vjda, Gyula Varsányi and Ármin Schäffer. Amateurs also took pictures of the turbulent days.

The official media photo material of the Horthy era was presented by the photo section of the Hungarian Film Office. The political and diplomatic events of the era were recorded by the archive photos of Pesti Hírlap (and of Pesti Napló in a few cases), or got into the collection from the legacy of the reporters working by that time (Károly Escher, Sándor Bojár, Tibor Inkey, Oszkár Kallós). Photo material of excellent quality is to be found in the Photo Collection of the visits of foreign politicians, or governments following one another.

About Hungary's participation in the Second World War, mostly the photos of war correspondants are in the collection.

The events of the years between 1945 and 1947 are known firstly from the recordings of the MAFIRT (Hungarian Film Office Ltd.) The company, after taking the name Magyar Fotó in 1947, continued to be the main producer of photographs until April 1956.

The destruction of the war, the clearing out of the ruins, the re-building process are shown on the pictures of József Széll, Kálmán Szölőssy, Tibor Csörgeő and János Kunszt.Sándor Bojár's pictures show the trials of the People's Tribunal and the execution of the verdicts. There are almost 3500 photographs of the Revolution and Freedom Fights of 1956. Most of these are the works of well-known and unknown Hungarian photographers (Árpád Précsenyi, Dr. Tibor Szentpétery, and Dr. Dénes Hegedűs) and foreign reporters (Jean-Pierre Pedrazzini, Franz Goess, Anders Engmann). From the period after 1956 the majority of aour photographs were produced by the Hungarian News Agency (MTI).

The photo-reporter Irén Ács donated her life's work of about 70 000 negatives to the collection in the 1990's. Being the reporter of "Ország-Világ" she photographed important and less important events, artists and ordinary people alike, from the 1960's to the 1980's.

The events following the change of regime are shown on the pictures of András Bánkuti, Imre Benkő, Csaba Habik, Zoltán Fejér, Zoltán Hajtmanszki, Miklós Gulyás, Tamás Szigeti, Zsolt Szigetváry, and others.