COURIER: MY LIFE AS A SPY IN COMMUNIST CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Prof. Cornwall draws on his own surveillance file, asking why, when and where he was being followed and assessed by the StB (the Czechoslovak security police). He then widens the focus to evaluate the general methods of StB information-gathering during the last years of communism. Who were the StB informers, and how far can we speak of an efficient system of vigilance, especially of foreign visitors to the country? Although so much of the StB archive was deliberately destroyed in December 1989, the talk reveals what can still be learnt from scrutinizing some personal case studies. It thereby offers some deeper suggestions about the actual (in)stability of the late communist regime in the build up to the Velvet Revolution.

Mark Cornwall is Emeritus Professor of Modern European History at the University of Southampton. He has researched and taught modern Czech history for over 30 years, and lived in Czechoslovakia in the late 1980s. He is currently researching the communist secret police (StB), and also writing a book about treason, including Czech traitors, in the late Habsburg Empire. In 2022 the Czech Academy of Sciences awarded Prof. Cornwall the 'Palacký Medal for Merit in the Historical Sciences' for his work on Czech history.

Tickets £15 including a glass of wine.

Image clockwise from top left: badge of the KSČ © Ericmetro; observation post © Pudelek; target image © Francis Flinch; silhouette © M. P. Ball; all preceding images from Creative Commons Wikimedia; 1st May parade © Mark Cornwall.

Host or Publisher The Friends of Czech Heritage