Activities during the period of the Czech presidency of the Council of the EU

The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes has prepared a host of events within the scope of the Czech presidency of the Council of the EU. Following are some of the most significant of these:

Hearing in the European Parliament “European Conscience and Crimes of Totalitarian Communism: 20 Years After” (Brussels, March 18, 2009)

The goal of the hearing, organized in cooperation with the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic, was to jointly reflect on Europe’s common past and legacy and initiate the process of establishing a European platform devoted to all aspects of research on and overcoming of the residue of totalitarian regimes within the European context. The two sessions – “Europe’s Common History: A Common European Platform” and “How Does Europe Reconcile with its Totalitarian Legacy?” – each began with presentations from a panel of experts followed by moderated discussions. The hearing closed with the signing of a Final Conclusion – the wording of which had been deliberated and agreed upon in advance – by many of the participants. The event follows on the working meeting of representatives of 18 EU member countries and Serbia which took place in November 2008 in Prague’s Lichtenstein Palace.

International Conference “Resistance and Opposition against the Communist Regime in Czechoslovakia and Central Europe” (Prague, April 15-16, 2009)

The scholarly international conference will present the historical research findings, related legal contexts, and reflections of survivors of the 1940s and 50s from former Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Hungary, Poland, Romania the Baltic States and Ukraine. Representatives of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes and partner institutions will focus on Soviet Bloc security services’ methods of repression as well as support from Western democracies. Main themes include the question of legitimacy of the anti-communist resistance, the position of its participants and their acknowledgment in contemporary society, and different approaches to the rehabilitation of victims of Communist regimes in the new member states of the European Union. The conference, to be opened by Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek, will be interpreted into English and, in one of the two halls, also into German. An English and Czech language publication of conference proceedings will be released after the conference.

Premiere of the exhibition “Prague Through the Lens of the Secret Police” (Brussels, April 7, 2009, on the premises of the Permanent Representation of the Czech Republic to the European Union)

The exhibition, organized jointly by the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, the Security Services Archive and the Permanent Representation of the Czech Republic to the European Union, premiered on April 7 in the building of the Permanent Representation of the Czech Republic to the European Union at Rue Caroly 15 in Brussels, where it will be on view through the end of the month. The exhibition features a selection of photographs and films taken by officers of the (communist) Secret Police’s (StB) Surveillance Directorate between 1969-89, as well as complementary texts. It has been designed as a travelling exhibition, with the expectation that audiences around Europe as well as other continents will have the opportunity to view it over the course of the year. In conjunction with this project, the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes has just released an eponymous book featuring a more comprehensive selection of photographs as well as detailed introductory and scholarly texts addressing the nature of their origin and related technical details. This entirely bi-lingual Czech-English publication will be available for purchase as of late April-early May 2009.

International Conference “20 Years After” (Prague, October 2009)

The conference is conceived as interdisciplinary, offering uncommon points of view on coming to terms with the communist past and zooming in on the points of view of participants from individual post-communist states on daily life and practices in the communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe in the 1980s. The institutional form of overcoming the totalitarian residue and vestiges of communist ideology, as a main theme of the conference, will also be presented by way of the theme “transitional justice,” popular in Western academic circles. The conference will be prepared mainly in cooperation with partner institutions from Central Europe (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia), and will take place in the form of scholarly lectures and panel discussions with historians, witnesses and social scientists. The program will further include several screenings accompanied by discussions.

Internet Portal of Survivor Accounts (www.pametnaroda.cz or www.memoryofnation.eu)

The ongoing project Memory of Nation will continue to develop during the period of the Presidency. Between March-June, the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes is organizing research symposia on the Community of European Memory. Every individual, association, governmental and semi-governmental agency, school, and training institution – primarily in Europe, but outside as well – may become a member of this international community. The prerequisites are the submission of an oral history project whose end products will become a part of the witnesses’ portal, as well as the project’s methodology. The first research symposium on the Memory of Nation internet portal took place at the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes in Prague in November 2008.

Behind the Iron Curtain: English-language Review

The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes released the pilot issue of its English-language review, Behind the Iron Curtain, in mid-March. The 52-page magazine’s first issue includes an overview of both the Institute and Security Services Archive, historical chronologies, abbreviated articles and studies chiefly originating in the Institute’s Czech-language review Paměť a dějiny (Memory and History), and a presentation of ongoing projects and activities, especially those occurring within the scope of the Czech presidency of the European Union in the first half of 2009.