The Institute received this library collection (approximately 2500 items) from the well-known Hungarian historian Miklos Kun who has published about Bakunin, Bucharin and the Prague Spring.
As a long-time collector, Kun has a vast network of contacts and has been on good terms with the Institute for many years.
Miklos' grandfather was Béla Kun (1886-1936, Chairman of the Presidium of the Hungarian Communist Administration 1919). Kun inherited part of the collection from Antal Hidas, who long served as the secretary to the International Revolutionary Writers' League, and from his wife Agnes Kun, Béla's sister and Miklos' great-aunt. After the fall of the Hungarian soviet republic (the famous 133 days in 1919), she settled in Moscow and worked at the Marx-Engels Institute. This part of the collection comprises a wealth of Hungarian and Russian literature, much of it containing presentation inscriptions from authors or translators.
Miklos Kun collected the other section himself over the years. The collection fills quite a few gaps in the files of the IISH on the history of communism and the Soviet Union and includes many interesting Russian pamphlets and trade union periodicals from the 1920s and 30s.
All books and serials of the Kun library can be found by searching with the words "M. Kun" in the online catalogue.
Text was taken from On the Waterfront - newsletter of the Friends of the IISH Issue 4 (pdf, 656 Kb).