Blinken OSA Archivum

This year’s Night of the Museums, coinciding with the 200th anniversary of Mór Jókai’s birth, sees the thirty-year-old Blinken OSA Archivum paying tribute to the famously philanthropic writer with a charity evening. Continuing its decades-long commitment to Budapest, the Archivum responds to the city’s increasingly precarious situation by organizing a special concert in collaboration with the Festival String Quartet. Proceeds from the event will support the From Street to Home Association (ULE), a civic organization dedicated to improving housing conditions in Budapest. During the concert, selected Budapest-related footage from the Private Photo and Film Archive will be screened. Visitors will also have the opportunity to explore other Budapest-focused collections throughout the evening. 

The event runs from 4:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., featuring guided tours of the Goldberger House—the industrial heritage building that now houses the Archivum. The building preserves unique archival materials, including the background files of the Radio Free Europe Research Institute, as well as collections on the Cold War and human rights. Guests can also join guided tours of our current exhibition, The Tactless Photojournalist – Lajos Erdélyi’s Archive from the Ceaușescu Era.  The curators—photographer Lenke Szilágyi and senior archivist Zsuzsa Zádori—will personally lead the tour. 

Budapest has remained central to the Archivum’s mission over the past three decades. Initiatives such as Budapest100, Fortepan, and Yellow Star Houses were all launched here, inviting citizens to engage with and explore the city’s history. Continuing this tradition, we are now introducing a new community-based digitization program that will also rely on contributions from Budapest’s residents. 

Beginning this month, on the first Wednesday afternoon of every month (from 2:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m.), we welcome analog audiovisual materials made before 1989—VHS tapes, home movies, and other formats—preserved by residents of Budapest and beyond. With the donors’ consent, the Archivum will digitize these materials for long-term preservation and to build a new digital collection, while returning the originals to their owners. 
(For more information, please visit: archivum.org.)