Exhibitions

Prague Through the Lens of the Secret Police

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The exhibition “Prague through the Lens of the Secret Police,” organized jointly by the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes and the Security Services Archive, features a selection of photographs and films taken by servicemen of the (communist) Secret Police’s (StB) Surveillance Directorate between 1969-89, as well as complementary explanatory texts in both English and Czech. It has been designed as a travelling exhibition; audiences around Europe and the United States will have the opportunity to view it over the course of the year.

The exhibition premiere took place on April 7, 2009 at the Permanent Representation of the Czech Republic to the European Union in Brussels, where it was on view through the end of that month within the scope of the Czech Republic's presidency of the EU Council.

In conjunction with this project, the Institute has released an eponymous book featuring a more comprehensive selection of these never before published photographs taken in the course of secret police during the “normalization” era of hard-line socialist entrenchment after the 1968 Soviet-led occupation of Czechoslovakia. In addition, the book offers readers a selection of detailed introductory and scholarly texts addressing the nature of the photographs’ origin and related technical details. The entirely bi-lingual Czech-English publication can be purchased online at www.kosmas.cz.

Exhibition

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On the Cold War Front – Czechoslovakia 1948-1956

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The exhibition “On the Cold War Front,” organized by the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes in cooperation with the City of Prague Museum, opened in Prague on February 24, 2009, where it was on view at the Museum through May 3, 2009.

The exhibition is dedicated to the thousands of unknown fellow citizens who, after February 1948, decided to actively fight from abroad against the Communist power in Czechoslovakia. Dramatic battles of the Cold War took place on the border between East and West in the years 1948-1956. The secret operations of exile intelligence groups have practically been forgotten by now. Today we search for their significance both for the development of our country and for the traditions of the struggle for freedom and democracy.

The entirely bi-lingual English-Czech exhibition covers the following main themes: the inception, development and structure of foreign intelligence resistance and its organizers, goals and results; the various ways in which couriers (or “agent-walkers”) crossed the borders and the technical and operative measures taken against them; personalities from among the couriers and the technical equipment they used; concrete cases of persecution of Czechoslovak citizens who contributed to the couriers’ activities; the security apparatus structures of the State Security Service (Státní bezpečnost – StB), the National Security Corps (Sbor národní bezpečnosti – SNB) and the Border Guard Service (Pohraniční stráž – PS) which the foreign resistance had to face; period propaganda and reactions on the part of the regime.


Soviet Secret Services in Czechoslovakia

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Under the auspices of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Security of the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, and in cooperation with Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance and the Institute of Historical Studies of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, the November 19-21, 2008 Prague conference “NKVD/KGB Activities and its Cooperation with other Secret Services in Central and Eastern Europe 1945-1989 II” attracted scholar-presenters from Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, the UK and the USA, as well as significant contributions from local scholars and an attendance of over 100.

Over the course of three days, participants engaged in a series of five panels, addressing the following over-arching themes: Archives of security services of Central and Eastern European countries; Establishment of the security apparatus in Soviet satellite states after WWII; Central and Eastern Europe as a starting point for intelligence infiltration into Western societies; Development of cooperation of the NKVD/KGB with satellite intelligence services; and Operations of Communist intelligence services, joint operations managed by the KGB.

The accompanying bi-lingual Czech-English mini-exhibit, on display at the conference entrance in the Wallenstein Palace chambers of the Czech Senate, mapped out the Soviet Secret Services in Czechoslovakia through six detailed panels: Agreements with “friends”; Negotiations with the KGB; Operative cooperation between the KGB and Czechoslovak State Security (StB); the KGB and the StB’s joint efforts; Study in the USSR; and Disinformation and active measures.


Test of Courage – Stories of Underage Political Prisoners

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The Department of Exhibitions and Education of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes has organized a testimonial exhibition thematically focused on the political persecution of adolescents during the early years of the Communist regime. The theme, which has yet to attract significant attention from the historical community, maps the fates and resistance activities of four groups that came into being in 1948-49 and which were made up primarily of those active in the Scouts or Sokol organizations as well as members of families persecuted by the regime – entrepreneurs and farmers. Content-wise, the exhibition centers around the study of archival materials preserved in the Security Services Archive and in Department IV of the Czech National Archive, as well as testimonies of living witnesses, largely from the Litomyšl region. The curator’s aim was to present information about an interesting group of political prisoners, as well as to call attention to their hitherto marginalized position in society.

The exhibition premiere took place in the building of the Alois Jirásek Gymnázium in Litomyšl on December 15, 2008. It then moved to Prague, where it premiered as part of the Mene Teke Festival against Totalitarianism and Injustice on February 23, 2009. Finally, it opened in Brno’s Cloister of the Minorites on March 19, 2009 – thus completing a tour of the three main places where the events addressed in the exhibition took place, and where until today a majority of the witnesses live. While the exhibition panels are in Czech only, a detailed companion exhibition catalogue is available in both Czech and English versions. In addition to the material on view in the panels, the catalogue contains a more thorough analysis of individual cases and a wider offering of photographs and documents.

The exhibition came into existence with the material support of the civic association Post Bellum and in cooperation with the Regional Museum in Litomyšl.