A 2026-os költségvetés-elemzésből
Should the state fund a chosen reading of national history?
VERITAS is a state institute with an assigned interpretive mandate over the 1867–1990 period — the state selecting and financing a preferred version of contested historical events.
Roughly 229 Ft per taxpayer per year — 915.5 millió Ft for an institute whose archive function is already covered by the national archive system.
Amit látsz — és amit nem
The seen: historians employed by a state institute researching a defined historical period. The unseen: the diversity of interpretation that is crowded out when public funding is concentrated on one institutionally-selected reading of contested history.
Ellenvetés
"Historical research into the 20th century is important for national memory and understanding the communist period."
Válasz
It is — and universities, independent scholars, and the Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár already do it. The archive holdings are transferred to the national archive, where they remain accessible. What ends is the state financing a specific interpretive programme in a domain where the value of any particular interpretation is precisely what history is contested about.
Share if you think historical interpretation should not be state-funded advocacy.
Az elemző értékelése
VERITAS Történetkutató Intézet és Levéltár
Az elemző indoklása jelenleg angol nyelven elérhető; magyar fordítás folyamatban.
Indoklás
VERITAS is a state-funded historical research institute with a defined interpretive remit covering the 1867-1990 period. Two of the three analytical questions point against tax-financing. Voluntariness and the knowledge problem: historical research is performed by universities, archives, and independent scholars; the value of a particular interpretive programme is precisely the kind of contested, preference-laden judgement on which there is no neutral state answer. A dedicated state institute with an interpretive mandate is the state selecting and funding a reading of national history — a subjective allocation by political officeholders, in the framework's terms. The archive function (Levéltár) is the partial exception: physical custody and preservation of historical records is a genuine, bounded preservation duty, and records cannot be left to lapse. The phase-out therefore separates the two: wind down the research-institute function over three years, and transfer the archival holdings to the national archive system (Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár) so the preservation duty is honoured. Three years is the realistic horizon for completing in-flight research commitments and arranging the archival transfer in good order.
Átállási mechanizmus
Linear three-year wind-down of the research function; the personnel component (423.4 millió Ft) is the protected payroll, and the institute's historians hold skills in active demand at universities; transfer the archival holdings and their custody duty to the Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár. Year-1 net saving 305.2 millió Ft, rising to the full 915.5 millió Ft by year 3 (less any modest residual re-provisioned for archival custody if not absorbed by the national archive's existing budget).
Érintett csoportok
VERITAS researchers (transferable academic skills, three-year horizon); users of the archive (continuity guaranteed through transfer to the national archive).
Szabad Társadalom Intézet
Támogasd a független elemzéseket
Kutatásunk ingyenes, nyílt és nem szponzorált. Ha hasznosnak találod, segíts fenntartani.