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

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.

Péter Apor (PhD), a permanent research fellow at the Institute of History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary, is a specialist in the social and cultural history of East-Central European countries after World War II.

Sándor Horváth (PhD), a permanent research fellow and the head of department for Contemporary History at the Institute of History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary, is the founding editor of the Hungarian Historical Review.

James Mark (PhD) is professor of history at the University of Exeter, United Kingdom.