The first forty-one years, 1958-19991 1. T - MTA Régészeti Intézet

optimal structure of a research institute. Considering all these reviews, the Section for Social
Sciences of the HAS decided finally on the establishment of an institute with a purely
research profile and attached to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The decision was
submitted to the highest academic forum, the Archaeological Committee of the HAS, which
passed it with a majority of one single vote. 10
Though the accepted plan no longer conflicted
with the interests of the Hungarian National Museum, the memory of the abandoned ideas—
which were primarily suggested by external reviewers—proved nevertheless stronger and for
long decades overshadowed the relationship between the Museum and the Archaeological
Institute.
During the course of the next three years, however, the HAS was unable to raise the
necessary funds. In the late months of 1956 and in the first half of 1957, i.e., during the 1956
revolution and in the period immediately following it, consideration of the proposal submitted
to the Council of Ministers in September 1956 could not be expected. It was repeated thus in
August 1957, 11 and, with necessary governmental authorization, on July 1, 1958 the President
of the HAS announced the establishment of the Archaeological Research Group of the HAS. 12
Only a few permanent jobs could be funded, however, and the director himself as well as the
majority of the nine founding research fellows of the Research Group continued to occupy
part-time positions in the Research Group until the early 1960s. The founding order of the
President of the HAS determined the tasks of the Research Group to be the following: “a/
Methodologically exemplary field research with the gradual introduction of modern
techniques; analysis of the finds on the basis of historical materialism; b/ Progressive
establishment of the conditions for coordinating and directing archaeological research nationwide;
c/ Preparations for the establishment of the Archaeological Institute”. 13
2. The founders and the works of the first years
The foundation document was rather vague and rhetorical as to the tasks of the Research
Group but its vagueness also secured some freedom of movement. Fortunately, the tasks of
nation-wide coordination and direction of archaeological research—the instruments of which
remained unspecified in the document—were transferred shortly to a higher level when the
Scientific and Higher Education Council, i.e., the directing body of research policy at that
10
Oral communication of Professor János György Szilágyi, 22. 10. 1999.
11
Memorandum drafted by László Castiglione and signed by Imre Szabó, Secretary of the IInd Class of
the HAS, no. MTA II. Osztály (II)Dm/1957.
12
Presidential order no. 13/1958. MTA (A.K. 15.-16.).
13
Ibid.
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