The main aim of the Szabédi Memorial House has been to create and maintain an accessible archive for research concerning the Hungarian literature after 1918. So, the collection of the Szabédi Memorial House encompasses the literary heritage of various 20th century Hungarian Transylvanian writers and intellectuals, especially after the First WW. The targeted legators were initially writers, publicists and scientists, but lately the focus of the collection was extended to encompass the domain of theater too. The complete or partial heritages are composed of libraries and personal documents.
The core of the collection represented the manuscripts and various personal documents of the poet, writer, linguist and university professor László Szabédi (1907–1959). From 1947 to his death, Szabédi taught at the Bolyai University in Cluj/Kolozsvár. Due to his protest to the merging process of the Romanian University and the Hungarian University, which eventually resulted the Babeș–Bolyai University in 1959, the Romanian secret services continued to harrassed him. In a final protest against the supression of the University, he committed suicide. Before 1989 neither his work, nor his personal legacy could not have been publicly commemorated. After the change of the political regime however, in 1992, Szabédi’s sister, Rozália Székely turned one of the rooms of the family-house into a memorial room. Upon her death in 1996, the family left the house to the Hungarian Cultural Society of Transylvania.
The Society developed de collection during the next two decades with the heritages of the following outstanding Hungarian intellectuals: Edgár Balogh (1906–1996, publicist, editor-in chief, university professor, university rektor), József Méliusz (1909–1995, writer, poet, translator), Sándor Kacsó (1901–1984, writer, editor, publicist, author of studies), István Nagy (1904–1977, writer), Károly Engel (Köllő) (1923–2002, literary and art historian, translator, bibliographer), Magda Muzsnay (1929–2004, radio reporter, editor), Gábor Gaál (1891–1954, writer, literary historian, szociologist, editor, literary critic, publicist), Sándor Reményik (1890–1941, poet), Ilona E. Szabó (1924–1993, drawing teacher, art critic), Sándor Török Enyingi (1911–1990, journalist, poet, writer), Ilona Nagy (1919–2007, writer), Géza Domokos (1928–2007, writer, director of a book publishing house, politician), Manyi Kiss (1911–1971, actress), Dezső Balogh (1930–1999, linguist, author of school books, university professor), István Asztalos (1909–1960, writer, publicist), László Lőrinczi (1919–2011, poet, writer, translator, editor), Endre Senkálszky (1914–2014, actor, director), Károly Jódy (1899–?, theatre director), Pál Bodor (1930–2017, writer) , Lajos Lévai (1894-1974, writer), Kálmán Nagy (1939–1971, translator), as well as with the materials of the Cluj-branch of the Kriterion publishing house (Bucharest).
The collection offers primary sources for studying individual careers and works, as well as the history of various institutions, phenomena pertaining to the domains of the history of mentalities and social history. This can be well illustrated by the legacy of Szabédi, or the legacy of Géza Domokos, general director of the Kriterion publishing house (1969-1990) that was dedicated to books in minority languages, along wiht the Kriterion-archive of the editorial office operating in Cluj. Both Domokos, and the editorial staff of the publishing house, fully capitalized their measures of latitude, and continuously pursued to extend possibilities of publication against the state and party opression, furthermore, their work implied activities of organizing and preserving cultural life all over Romania.
Beside archival processing and collecting novel materials, the Szabédi Memorial House accomplishes the following tasks: maintaining a permanent exhibition in the Szabédi memorial room, anually organizing a series of events called Szabédi Days (Szabédi Napok), which includes a scientific conference too.
