The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes ( or ÚSTR) is a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

government agency A government agency or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government (bureaucracy) that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, s ...

and

research institute A research institute, research centre, or research organization is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often implies natural ...

. It was founded by the

Czech government Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surna ...

in 2007 and is situated at Siwiecova street,

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

Žižkov Žižkov ( or ''Zizkow'', between 1939 and 1945 ''Veitsberg'') is a cadastral district of Prague, Czech Republic. Most of Žižkov lies in the municipal and administrative district of Prague 3, except for very small parts which are in Pra ...

(the street is named after

Ryszard Siwiec Ryszard Siwiec (; 7 March 1909 – 12 September 1968) was a Polish accountant and former Home Army resistance member who was the first person to die by self-immolation in protest against the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. Although his ac ...

). Its purpose is to gather, analyse and make accessible documents from the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

and

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

totalitarian Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition from political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and completely controls the public sph ...

regimes. The archives will also have documents from the former communist

secret police image:Putin-Stasi-Ausweis.png, 300px, Vladimir Putin's secret police identity card, issued by the East German Stasi while he was working as a Soviet KGB liaison officer from 1985 to 1989. Both organizations used similar forms of repression. Secre ...

, the

StB State Security (, ), or StB / ŠtB, was the secret police force in communist Czechoslovakia from 1945 to its dissolution in 1990. Serving as an intelligence and counter-intelligence agency, it dealt with any activity that was considered oppositio ...

or State Security. The institute is a founding member organisation of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience, and hosts its secretariat.

Exhibitions

The institute shows exhibitions from other countries and has developed its own touring exhibitions. "Prague Through the Lens of the Secret Police" was first shown in 2009 at the Permanent Representation of the Czech Republic to the European Union in Brussels; it was reviewed in the ''

Harvard Gazette Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learn ...

'', in which Mark Kramer, a fellow and director at the Harvard Project on Cold War Studies commented on the extent to which the communist regime monitored ordinary people. "The Czech secret police went to great lengths to keep track of people who were perfectly innocuous. These weren’t terrorists. They weren’t dangers to the state."

Controversies and criticism

Historians Péter Apor, Sándor Horváth and James Mark write that the institute is "closely tied to a right-wing anticommunist subculture".

Kundera controversy

In 2008, the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes received media attention when a researcher published a controversial claim that the writer

Milan Kundera Milan Kundera ( ; ; 1 April 1929 – 11 July 2023) was a Czech and French novelist. Kundera went into exile in France in 1975, acquiring citizenship in 1981. His Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979, but he was granted Czech citizenship ...

had been a

police informant An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a "snitch", "rat", "canary", "stool pigeon", "stoolie", "tout" or "grass", among other terms) is a person who provides privileged information, or (usually damaging) information inten ...

who, in 1950, gave information leading to the arrest of a guest in a student hall of residence. The arrested man, Miroslav Dvořáček, was sentenced to 22 years imprisonment as a spy. He served 14 years of his sentence, which included hard labour in a

uranium mine Uranium mining is the process of extraction of uranium ore from the earth. Over 50,000 tons of uranium were produced in 2019. Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia were the top three uranium producers, respectively, and together account for 68% of w ...

. The Institute endorsed the authenticity of the 1950 police report on which the account was based, but indicated that it was not possible to establish some key facts. Kundera denied his involvement saying, "I object in the strongest manner to these accusations, which are pure lies".

Raymond Mawby

In 2012, the BBC reported that one of its researchers, who visited Prague in connection with a programme about a putative Czech attempt to compromise

Edward Heath Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 1916 – 17 July 2005) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 ...

, came across an extensive secret service file on Conservative MP Raymond Mawby. There was evidence that Mawby sold information to the Czechs in the 1960s, although as Mawby was deceased it was not possible to hear "his side" of the story.

Directors

* Pavel Žáček (2008–2010) * Jiří Pernes (2010) * Zdeněk Hazdra (2010, acting) * Daniel Herman (2010–2013) * Pavla Foglová (2013–2014) * Zdeněk Hazdra (2014–2022) * Ladislav Kudrna (2022–present)

References

External links

The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes
{{Authority control 2007 establishments in the Czech Republic Organizations based in Prague Historiography of the Czech Republic Commemoration of communist crimes Decommunization Archives in the Czech Republic Platform of European Memory and Conscience Government agencies established in 2007