Királyi könyvek by Magyar Országos Levéltár (review)

Abstract

554 SEER, 8i, 3, 2003 expulsion of 20,000 Czech state employees in addition to the 'exclusion of the Jewish population from the Slovak economy' (p. I26). Moreover, whilst the wartime resistance and the Slovak National Uprising are treated in some depth, there is no attempt to romanticize an iconic period in Slovak history. It was not just the Nazis, but also Slovak resistance fighters who committed 'inhumane acts of brutality and murder' during the Second World War (P. 146). Two criticisms, however, deserve to be levelled at the book. Firstly, the subtitle is badly chosen. As the authors themselves point out, Samo was neither a Slovak (he was a Frankish merchant), nor did he unify the Slovaks, but rather 'created the first historically known tribal union of Slavs' in the seventh century (p. 4). To put both Samo and current Slovak Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda's names in the subtitle smacks more of the need for a catchy subtitle than good history. Secondly, the book lacks a bibliography or at least a guide for further reading. The inquisitive reader is left, therefore, to follow up the authors' notes. Although these are on the whole helpful, the omission of references to the two best books on the Prague Spring, Gordon Skilling's Czechoslovakia's Interrupted Revolution(Princeton, NJ, I976) and Kieran Williams s ThePragueSpringandItsAftermath (Cambridge, 1997), was striking. A single volume which attempts to span a period longer than a millennium is inevitably forced to lean more towards brevity than detail when discussing historical events. No doubt specialists on particular periods will be frustrated by the lack of depth and the glossing over of particular events, but Toma and Kovac should be commended for their book. Those with a reading knowledge of Slovak would be best advised to go straight to the work of Lubomir Liptak; whereas those who want a better introduction to contemporary Slovak politics should turn to Karen Henderson's Slovakia:TheEscapefromInvisibility(London, 2002). Nevertheless, for the reader of the SlavonicandEast EuropeanReviewwho feels his/her knowledge of Slovak history is patchy and in need of reinforcement , I would recommend they read Toma and Kova's book. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies T. HAUGHTON University College London Magyar Orszagos Leveltar. Kiraiyi kdnyvek. On CD-ROM. 4 disks:Vols I-9, 1527-I647; Vols IO-I7, I647-I683; Vols I8-26, I682-I703; Vols 27-38, I703-1740. Distributed by Arcanum Digiteka (www.arcanum .hu). Budapest, 2000-2002. HFT io,ooo per disk. THEHungarian 'Royal Books' (Libriregii,Kirayikdnyvek) were originallyheld in theroyalchancelleryandconsistedof copiesof charters,bound chronologically together in thick volumes. The copies were either made because the originalswere consideredat the time of theirissueto be of unusualimportance or, more usually, commissioned at the behest of the owner or recipient of a deed because he thought it worthwhile to have a transcript made of its contents. For this service, he had to pay, and the price itself determined whether a full transcription was made or just a short summary of the deed's contents. The Royal Books contain a medley of material relating, among REVIEWS 555 much else, to royal grants of rights to markets and tolls, ennoblements, pardons, divorces, gifts of land and other transactions affecting property, treaties with the Turk and articles of the estates. Prudent landowners might even choose to have copied letters adjourning suits which involved their propertyas well as the written assuranceof the rulerthat he had no claim on theirland. Later,the Royal Booksalso includedcopies of patentsof invention. The institutionof the Royal Booksgoes backto the Middle Ages and, most probably, to the fourteenth century. The medieval volumes, including those compiled during the reign of John I Zapolya (1526-40) were lost as a consequence of the naufragium, which claimed the bulk of the royal archive in 1526, and of the Turkishoccupation of Budawhich began in I54I. The extant seriesthuscommences only in I 527, followingupon the Habsburgsuccession. Altogether, seventy-threevolumes survivefrom this year up until I 914 when the institution fell into desuetude (to be formally abolished in 1920). By this time thepurposeof theRoyal Bookswasalmostsolelyto recordennoblements. A separateseriesof books was compiled in Transylvaniaduringthe sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies,afterwhich, in i 690, theywere removedto Vienna. By I848 these had reachedfifteenvolumes...