Lecture 28.01.25 COURIER: MY LIFE AS A SPY IN COMMUNIST CZECHOSLOVAKIA

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.

Tickets £15 including a glass of wine.

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.

Image: badge of the KSČ © Ericmetro from Creative Commons Wikimedia