Gyula Juhász was born in a peasant family. He graduated from a military school, but in 1956 he left the army protesting against the suppression of the 1956 Revolution. In 1958, he graduated from the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest with a degree in history. For the following decades, up to 1985 he has been working for the Historical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. From 1985 up to his death in 1993 he was the director of National Széchényi Library. In 1985, he was elected to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.