Secret Agents and the Memory of Everyday Collaboration in Communist Eastern Europe

Edited by Péter Apor, Sándor Horváth, James Mark

Publication date:

27 September 2017

Publisher

Anthem Press

Dimensions:

229x153mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781783087235

The collection of essays in Secret Agents and the Memory of Everyday Collaboration in Communist Eastern Europe addresses institutions that develop the concept of collaboration, and examines the function, social representation and history of secret police archives and institutes of national memory that create these histories of collaboration. The essays provide a comparative account of collaboration/participation across differing categories of collaborators and different social milieux throughout East-Central Europe. They also demonstrate how secret police files can be used to produce more subtle social and cultural histories of the socialist dictatorships. By interrogating the ways in which post-socialist cultures produce the idea of, and knowledge about, “collaborators,” the contributing authors provide a nuanced historical conception of “collaboration,” expanding the concept toward broader frameworks of cooperation and political participation to facilitate a better understanding of Eastern European communist regimes.

“This excellent volume marks a genuine breakthrough in our knowledge about the everyday lives of the people who made up the secret police, of their motivations and their experiences. It challenges binary visions of the past and powerfully highlights the complexity of the term ‘collaboration.’ Ultimately, it makes a case for the human factor in the history of the repressive state.”
—Ulf Brunnbauer, Director, Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies, Regensburg, Germany