Thematic Guide - The Roma
Records of Open Society Foundation entities
The records of separate national entities of the Open Society Foundations form individual fonds, from HU OSA 1 Records of the Open Society Foundation for Albania to HU OSA 34 Records of the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation–Uzbekistan. The fonds primarily feature annual reports and other publications, and, in some cases, board meeting minutes, administrative and program files, and video recordings. The fonds contain reliable information on the many activities of the Foundations, which has considered supporting Romani people a primary objective.
HU OSA 103 Records of Constitutional and Legal Policy Institute (1956–1997)
COLPI was a multi-project program meant to inform, assist and sponsor the constitutional, legal and police reforms and consequently facilitate the establishment of rule of law in the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Also including records related to Roma rights, the series contain an article collection and bibliography, country files and background materials, various manuscripts, Western commentary on the constitutions, and publications.
HU OSA 104 Records of the Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative (1994–2011)
The collection consists of textual, audio-visual and electronic records related to the activities of the Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative (LGI), one of the programs of the Open Society Institute (OSI). Also exploring ethnic relations, multiethnic communities, and Roma education, materials include background materials, annual and activity reports, practical guides, and various publications.
HU OSA 107 Records of the EU Monitoring and Advocacy Program (2005)
The EU Monitoring and Advocacy Program was an Open Society Institute initiative monitoring the development of selected issues related to human rights and the rule of law in current and potential future European Union member countries. Recurrent topics include Roma people's rights, access to education, and general conditions.
HU OSA 205 Records of the Open Media Research Institute (1952–1997) HU OSA 300 Records of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute (1949–1994)
The Research Insitute of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL RI) and its successor organization, the Open Media Research Institute (OMRI), have compiled enormous media archives on the domestic and international development and influential political-cultural figures of former Soviet Bloc countries, covering the years between 1949 and 1997. The Records of RFE/RL RI is arranged according to target countries and original subject terms, primarily comprising press clippings, news agency releases, radio transcripts, reports, analyses, and more. After RFE/RL RI was shut down in 1994, OMRI pursued a similar activity until 1997. Both fonds include, sorted by countries, so-called Subject Files like "Minorities," "Population: Demography," or, reflecting the terminology used at the time, "Gypsies," as well as Biographical Files.
HU OSA 301 Records of Index on Censorship (1957–1998)
The periodical Index on Censorship was founded in 1972 with the goal to protect the basic human right of free expression, reporting on censorship issues from all over the world, also adding to the debates on those issues. The Subject Files and Country Files of the fonds includes press clippings, reports, and background materials on topics related to, among many others, "Minorities." Publications contain, primarily, the print copies of the journal, from 1972 until 1993.
HU OSA 302 Gábor Demszky Personal Papers (1972–2010)
Gábor Demszky, as sociologist, was a pupil of István Kemény. He founded one of the most influential Hungarian samizdat publishing houses (AB Független Kiadó), was editor-in-chief of the samizdat periodical Hírmondó (Herald), and participated in the activities of the Szegényeket Támogató Alap (Foundation for supporting the poor, SZETA) and the wider democratic opposition. A founding member of the Alliance of Free Democrats, he was, following the 1989 regime change, mayor of Budapest from 1990 until 2010. Consequently, his personal papers include samizdat publications, state security files (reflecting, for example, the police harassment of SZETA members), and records of the Budapest City Council and his separate records as mayor.
HU OSA 305 Fekete Doboz Alapítvány Video Archive (1988–2008)
The Black Box Foundation was launched, in 1987, to capture and promote the activity of the Hungarian democratic opposition, otherwise censored or marginalized by the mainstream state media, in the form of a "video journal." The raw, unedited footage and the edited documentary films include, on the one hand, interviews revolved around sociologists István Kemény and Ottilia Solt, and, on the other, hours of uncut video reporting on post-1989 demonstrations of the emerging Roma rights movement. In 1996, the Black Box Foundation launched the Community Television School, offering, to Roma students, training in journalism, television reporting, and documentary filmmaking. Later renamed the Roma Media School, students' films are preserved in a separate series.
HU OSA 318 Records of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (1968–2007)
The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) was originally founded, in 1982, to monitor human rights in the 37 signatory states of the Helsinki Final Act, but first and foremost in the Soviet Union and its Communist allies. IHF organized consultations between member committees, submitted frequent inquiries to governments, and conducted fact-finding missions. The reference files, country files, project files, and various publications of the federation all include records documenting the conditions of and human rights violations against Roma people.
HU OSA 341 Human Rights Watch Reports (1982–2000)
The yearly world reports and the country and thematic reports, more or less frequently published, are the results of intensive field work and systematic investigations of human rights violations which Human Rights Watch (HRW) conducts in more than seventy countries across the globe. Accurately written, these reports are reliable and invaluable sources for all those interested in researching violations of human rights against, among others, Roma people.
HU OSA 356 Pál Schiffer Personal Papers (1964–2001)
From 1970, documentary film director Pál Schiffer (1939–2001) worked for several years with sociologist István Kemény and a team of mostly oppositional social researchers investigating the housing, working, and schooling conditions of the Roma in Hungary. The result is a number of films experimenting with a specific combination of documentary and feature filmmaking methods. His personal papers include not only the rich documentation of his films, with scripts, notes, and set photos, but also research and reference materials, composing a significant sociological collection.
HU OSA 368 István Kemény Personal Papers (1937–2011)
Sociologist István Kemény left an immense intellectual legacy to a group of sociologists who were already calling themselves the Kemény School during his lifetime. His taboo-breaking inquiries into the problems of economics and society re-thematized the theory and practice of sociology in Hungary in the 1970s and 1980s, meeting with the harsh disapproval of the State Socialist regime. The fonds contain the documentation of his sociological research projects, such as the social strata in Hungary, the living conditions of the low-income population, or, most importantly, the materials of his nation-wide Roma surveys. The latter series includes preliminary plans, reports, templates for and transcripts of the in-depth interviews, and various related publications. A not completely identical collection of the interviews are preserved in the fonds HU OSA 369 Records of the Roma Sajtóközpont Egyesület.
HU OSA 401 Video Collection of the Honorka Hégető Foundation (1992–2008)
The Honorka Hégető Award was established by the commercial television channel RTL Klub Hungary, with the aim of honoring the best television documentary of the year about people in need. Films and reports in the program portray people living with disabilities, or members of communities living in deprivation. The fonds contains over one hundred television programs, mostly short reports about people living on the margins of society, including Roma communities living in deep poverty and segregation
HU OSA 409 Voices of the 20th Century Archive (1970–2010)
In 2009, the Institute of Sociology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences brought to life the 20th Century Voices Research Group, to curate the documentary heritage of Hungarian sociology. The collection is organized according to research projects named after the principal investigator or the subject of the research.
HU OSA 420 Collection on the Hungarian Institute for Public Opinion Research (1969–1991)
The Mass Communication Center (TK) and its successor, the Hungarian Public Opinion Research Institute (MKI), carried out, between 1969 and 1991, systematic academic research in order to understand the workings of the media, the public’s behavior, and public opinion on domestic and international developments, whether political, economic, social, cultural, etc. The fonds contains research materials with original questionnaires and data files, as well as the resulting confidential internal reports and open publications.
HU OSA 428 Records of the Autonomia Foundation (unprocessed)
Since its establishment in 1990, Autonomia Foundation has been working in Hungary to strengthen the civil society and to support marginalized groups. Their records collection donated to the Blinken OSA Archivum contains project files from 1990 to 2004; reports and correspondence of programs the foundation supported financially to help create self-sustaining communities across the country.
HU OSA 438 Records of the Hungarian Roma Parliament Association (unprocessed)
The Hungarian Roma Parliament Association was an umbrella organization created in late 1990 for bottom-up political and cultural initiatives of Roma communities. In its initial years, the Roma Parliament was the foremost representative of the Roma of Hungary. It published a significant monthly journal (Amaro Drom), ran a Roma art gallery, and, in conjunction with the City of Budapest, and maintained a legal clinic for members of the Roma community. Also, the Roma Parliament organized countless cultural festivals and other events, as well as trainings for human rights activists emerging within the Roma communities of Hungary.
