The late István Béla Ferenc Kormoss was a cartographer, esteemed academic, Europeanist, traveler, and keen collector of maps. He was also, for many years, Secretary General of the Conférence des régions de l’Europe du Nord-Ouest (CRENO), one of the earliest cross-border organisations in Europe. The intersection of Kormoss’ expertise and interests resulted in a unique personal archive now preserved in the HAEU’s holdings.
2011 Deposit Agreement
The collection, identified as ‘CRNO’, is the result of a 2011 deposit agreement between Professor Kormoss and the Historical Archives of the European Union. One area of the fonds is comprised of documents related to the administration, activities and output of CRENO, while the other contains cartographic works such as atlases and maps from Kormoss’ personal collection.
Ruth Meyer, the archivist who oversees the CRNO fonds, recalls that the first tranche of documents was personally delivered to the Archives by Professor Kormoss and his wife, who drove them to Florence from Bruges in their car. At least 1000 items were contained in that transfer.
Recently, more than ten years on, Ruth was invited back to the Kormoss home in Bruges to evaluate, together with the son of late Kormoss senior, Professor Bernard Kormoss, the important collection of materials still present there.
As a result, an additional transfer of personal papers, maps and other materials collected by Kormoss senior and not related to the CRNO is expected during the course of 2023.
Drawing Europe
The significance of the maps in the CRNO collections resides in the fact that they illustrated the new space of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Kormoss’ maps, some of which he drafted himself, were among the first to be projected by mapmakers.
Nathan Fitzmaurice, a trainee at the Historical Archives who worked extensively on the deposits, explains: ‘This is a vast collection of maps, including hand-drawn maps and sketches, topographical maps, population maps, export maps, and maps of border areas, but also maps concentrating on electricity and transport lines [... ] Kormoss was concerned with drawing Europe’.
A fortuitous relocation
It is the task of every archives to select and preserve material in line with its mission, and it is almost inevitable that some items transferred in private deposits will not be catalogued in the final collection.
Indeed, it became evident that while many of them illustrated aspects relevant to a united Europe, others, namely maps produced by various national military geographic institutes, would be more suitably preserved elsewhere.
The Historical Archives thus decided to reach out to archivists at the Historic Museum of Italian Cartography of the Italian Military Geographic Institute (IGMI), which is also located in Florence. Archivists from there visited the HAEU in late summer 2022 to survey the material, and found it coherent with and interesting for their collections.
A proposed partnership agreement between the HAEU and IGMI will allow for the transfer of Kormoss’ military maps to the IGMI.
Photo: Archivists Ruth Meyer and Valérie Mathevon prepare maps for the IGMI’s visit.