Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes

Location:
Institute for the Study
of Totalitarian Regimes
Siwiecova 2 CZ
130 00 Prague 3
Czech Republic

Contact:
Office Secretary
Tel. +420 221 008 274
        +420 221 008 322
Fax +420 222 715 738

info[at]ustrcr.cz

www.ustrcr.cz

Description: 

The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes was established in 2008, based on Act 141/2007 of the Czech Republic. Its mission is to study and document the time of the Nazi and Communist dictatorship, to secure and make accessible to the public documents relating to this period, to provide the public with the results of its activity, to publish and disseminate publications, to organise exhibitions, seminars, conferences and discussions, and to cooperate with scientific, cultural, educational and other institutions at home and abroad. The activities of the Institute are mainly focused on three fields: research, civic education and public relations.

The Security Services Archive of the Czech Republic is closely related to the Institute and collaborates with it.

Cold War Interests: 

The Institute's work is focused on research about the dictatorships in Czechoslovakia during the period 1938–1989.

The projects and activities led to a number of publications and presentations in the Internet on certain Cold War topics: For example, the Documentation of victims of the so-called Iron Curtain on Czechoslovakia's western border as well as a Documentation about the deaths of people on the border between 1948 until 1989. Another research project is about Couriers and People Smugglers, 1948–1955, centred on the crossing of the Western border. There is also a Documentation of the events and victims of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces in August 1968. The research project "Czech exile political activism and political journalism outside the Council of Free Czechoslovakia, 1948–1968" is added by the online presentation of the émigré magazine Západ (West). Also the activities of the State Security have numerous links to the Cold War. We have focused on this mainly within the Institute's largest research project at present: The History of State Security Units. Finally, the oral history website Memory of Nations contains the testimonies of several thousand, mainly Czech, witnesses.

Numerous texts on the subject of the Cold War can be found in both of the magazines published by the Institute. These are the academic journal Securitas Imperii, and the popular magazine Paměť a dějiny (Memory and History).