BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES FOR HUNGARY

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This page is under construction.

Hungarian Biographical Archive = Magyar Eletrajzi Archivum = Ungarisches Biographisches Archiv.
Kramme, U. ; Urra Muena, Z. Munchen: K.G. Saur, 1993-1999.
UIUC Call Number:  Slavic Reference Mfiche 920.0439 Un3. (In the fiche cabinet near microfilm readers)
687 fiches.

As with the other K.G. Saur biographical archives on microfiche, they have copied the entries from biographical reference books and cumulated all of the entries for one individual together. Thus, the entries are replicas of the original source with a citation to the original source at the head of each entry. This source is valuable because it eliminates checking numerous books for information and also provides access to sources that the Uof I Library may not own. The Hungarian biographical archive contains entries for approximately 90,000 individuals from 127 sources published between the 16th century and 1990. Entries include Hungarians living in their native lands or in exile, as well as non-Hungarians living in parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that were controlled by Hungary such as Slovenes and Croats. Depending on the original sources, the entries may or may not have bibliographical references and may appear in languages other than Hungarian. Beware that sometimes the entries for different people with the same name may be conflated.

The K.G. Saur web site provides a list of the 141 sources covered in the archive in case you want to see the range of biographical resources in this area. This list is also available on microfiche at the beginning of the set. (N.B. The Hungarian set has a few fiche labeled G001-G025 which contain several reference works filmed in their entirety and not collated with the alphabetical entries that comprise the rest of the set.) On the Saur website you can search the World biographical index for free, however the entries contain only brief biographical data, not the actual entries that are on the microfiche. The results of the search will tell you which sets contain entries for the individual and from which reference books they were taken. This feature will be available for the Hungarian biographical archive sometime in 2003 according to the publisher. Beware: Although this archive is a valuable resource, do not be deceived into thinking that use of this source is will cover all bases. It is impossible to include all of the biographical resources that exist. If you rely on the Archive alone, you will miss some potentially useful material.

Follow the link for two entries for Janos Hegedus, an Hungarian lawyer, from two different sources as they appear on the microfiche.