The most important features of the collection:
The document collection in New York City includes the following:
1) nearly three hundred thousand pages of documents in roughly sixteen thousand folders in sixteen metal drawer cabinets at two sites: at the HHRF’s Office and in the basement and other rooms of the Hungarian House,
2) approximately two thousand photos and various boxes at the HHRF’s Office
3) about one hundred videotapes and CDs in the HHRF’s Office, which document the activities of HHRF in congressional debates, TV interviews in English and Hungarian, and demonstrations organized by the HHRF
4) approximately two hundred audio tapes, including interviews recorded with prominent Hungarian and American personalities, audio recordings of lectures and demonstrations at various locations, New York City broadcast radio recordings, and recordings of interviews done by Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America.
The contents of the document collection:
On the one hand, the archive includes documents related to the internal operating of the organization (correspondence, fundraising, documents related to its internal administration), while on the other hand it documents or collects background materials related to Hungarians living in the states neighboring Hungary and their various leading personalities. The latter group of materials includes news, reports, newspaper articles, and materials of other organizations’ materials in general minority politics, Hungarian and cross-border topics, in foreign and trade policy, about visits of Romanian politicians to the U.S., and different materials used and compiled for advocacy activities. The third major section contains documents about the organization’s activities, i.e. publicity work, lectures, information materials, demonstrations, and documents about the advocacy activities that have been conducted at a variety of international organizations, the American Senate and Congress, different bodies of the Helsinki Commission, and the White House, as well as other campaign and fundraising events by other Hungarian American associations organized for politicians who support causes that are important to the HHRF. The documents regarding the efforts of the organization to persuade Congress to change Romania’s Most-Favored-Nation status are among the materials concerning the advocacy activities carried out in Congress. These documents extend from the petitions to and informative materials provided for Congressional delegates in order to convince them to support a particular cause. They also touch on the efforts of delegates who had already been convinced and the decisions that were made, the documents created regarding the individual case, and the resolution proposals to the Protocols of the Congressional Hearings, including the oral testimonies given by members of the organization. This topic also includes the organization’s mail campaigns, which mobilized a large proportion of the American Hungarian community and proved to be the largest advocacy strength of the organization, as well as organized charity efforts undertaken by HHRF, publications, and press releases. Another important part of the archival body comprises the papers relating to the relationship with other Hungarian American organizations. The digitalized and searchable documents in accordance with the detailed description of this topic can be found here: https://kisebbsegkutato.tk.mta.hu/uploads/files/HHRF_ARCHIVUM_kategoriak_magyarazata2016.pdf
The contents of the collection from the perspective of cultural resistance and social roles:
Several of the families of the founding members had origins in Hungarian minority communities in Slovakia or Romania, so they had contact with organizations which had been trying to represent the Hungarian community in Transylvania since World War II (including members and the leader of the American Transylvanian Association and other organizers among the American Hungarian community). Thus, before the establishment of the organization itself, at a very young age, they could meet with eminent representatives of Transylvanian Hungarians (such as Sándor Kányádi, Árpád Wolf, and András Sütő), for whom roundtrips to the United States were organized by members of the older generation. Later, they strove to maintain ties with eminent representatives of the elites and opposition leaders among Hungarians in Romania, such as Károly Király, László Tőkés, and Géza Szőcs, one of the authors of “Ellenpontok, a samizdat journal in 1981–82, and other authentic sources on the situation of Hungarians in Romania through representatives of the Hungarian democratic opposition and informants of Hungarian-Romanian descent, and also through personal experiences on the ground and travel reports of relatives and acquaintances.
HHRF regularly held public demonstrations throughout the United States at locations and times like the headquarters of Romania’s UN mission in Manhattan in 1976, the time of the election of President Carter in early 1977, the time of Romanian president Nicolae Ceaușescu’s last trip to the U.S. in 1978, and occasions when Hungarians in Romania suffered any kind of discriminatory measures. Particular attention was paid to attempts to suppress thousands of villages, many of which lay in Hungarian-inhabited areas of Transylvania, through the so-called “systematization program” launched by the Romanian party leadership in early 1988. In addition, they gave oral testimony before the various committees and subcommittees of the congress and senate, with which their goal was to achieve the annulment of the special preferential trade treatment, the so-called MFN, Most Favored Nation status of Romania, because of the oppression by the Romanian state of Hungarians and other minorities in Romania. The advocacy activity of HHRF drew the attention of the Romanian political police to the organization, and the police followed their movements in Romania and in the United States.
In the 1980s, HHRF developed a well-functioning clandestine news service in Romania called the “Erdélyi Magyar Hírügynökség” (Hungarian Press of Transylvania – HTP), which worked in collaboration with Attila Ara-Kovács, a representative of the Hungarian democratic opposition. The information center was first set up in Budapest and then moved to Vienna after Ara-Kovács’ emigration to Austria. HTP sent information gathered about the Hungarian community in Romania through a large secret network of volunteers to the HHRF’s office in New York by fax. Information was gathered through a loose network of students working independently and then submitted to a fact-check process, translated into English, and released to American and international media outlets. The HHRF also assisted the clandestine transfer of copies of the Ellenpontok to the West. In the late 1980s, HHRF members regularly organized food and medicine donation campaigns to Romania, and in early 1989, HHRF famously helped smuggle an interview done in Timișoara with Transylvanian Hungarian dissident leader László Tőkés, a Calvinist pastor, to Hungary and then to the West. In the summer of 1989, the broadcast of that interview in the Hungarian state media, which could be seen in the Western part of Romania, had a great impact on the local population, contributing to the outbreak of the 1989 Romanian Revolution.
In the 1980s, HHRF was involved in all eleven follow-up multilateral meetings of the Helsinki Final Act. Provided with a press accreditation, HHRF activists had the opportunity to provide diplomats and academics with first-hand information, drawing attention to the failures of the Romanian government to respect human and minority rights. At the first two follow-up conferences in Belgrade and Madrid, HHRF published separate volumes on the subject, which were distributed among the participants.
HHRF activists did not limit themselves to advocacy in defense of the rights of Hungarian minority communities. It also helped organize regular meetings and briefings between foreign delegations and the members of the Hungarian democratic opposition.
