Hungarica Canadiana — Archival sources

Abstract

The material known as Hungarica Canadiana goes back to the 1880s, when a group of Hungarians in Pennsylvania, U.S.A., had expressed interest in immigrating to Canada and settling in the Canadian prairies. The first documents, mainly Cabinet discussions in Parliament, followed by extensive correspondence between the Canadian Government and Paul O. Eszterházy, a settlement agent in New York, are housed in the National Archives of Canada. During a century-and-a-half, the subject of Hungarian-Canadian studies and its archival collections has grown into an extensive and highly complex literature of print and non-print material, of official and semi-official documents issued by the Hungarian and Canadian governments and their related establishments, of societal and institutional records, of the cultural and religious organizations, as well as the private and family holdings of correspondence and photoalbums and handwritten manuscripts. Because of the enormity of the material, this essay is designed to focus on one aspect only: the archival records and their sources.As an ever growing interest has occurred over the years in Hungarian studies in Canada, the purpose of this survey is to make the vast amount of information on archival sources readily available to the student and the information specialist. For further information the reader is advised to consult this author’s bibliography Canadian Studies on Hungarians 1886–1986 , published by the University of Regina Press, Canadian Plains Research Center, 1987, and its 3rd supplement, put out by the Hungarian Studies Review, 1998. Both publications have special sections on archival sources and their organization. The Publications listed at the end of this study should also be reviewed.