Blinken OSA – 2019

(Photo: Dániel Végel)

We are happy to announce that the 2019 Annual Report of Blinken OSA is now available on our website. Similarly to the practice of previous years, the online publication is illustrated with photos and data, presenting a wide variety of activities performed at the Archives.

Archives, gallery, research center, and library all in once in a historical building. Besides professional archival work, the annual report also describes the research and education activities at OSA. Last year, we launched new student programs, and continued the highly successful accredited course aimed at history teachers. Many people turned to us in 2019 with donations that further extended our collections. The Annual Report details in depth the public programs and the VERZIÓ Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, a spin-off project of Blinken OSA.

The professional work was not interrupted by the sad exodus of our mother institution, the Central European University, which had began last year. At the same time, the state of the museums, libraries, and archives has worsened in Hungary. Director István Rév writes in his Introduction titled For the Record:

“2019 was a dark year for Hungarian history (-writing), for the historical consciousness and historical self-awareness of the Hungarian public.”

He later continues, “The Blinken Open Society Archives has once more become the archive of last resort, as we have tried to provide help, shelter, and refuge for endangered archival collections and documents. Obviously, it is not only historical research that is being intimidated, but the human and social sciences, together with the rest of the academic world, and reasoned, critical, serious deliberation as well.”