"Informers" - between Victimhood and Guilt? / Foreign Authors on State Security Collaborators and the Limits of Interpretation

The year 2024 saw the publication of a unique foreign monograph dedicated to the world of the Czechoslovak State Security's (Státní bezpečnost, StB) secret collaborators.A secret collaborator is an issue of great social interest in Czech history as well as in the present time.Despite several works that can be related to the issue, 1 an analysis of collaboration, its motives and the relationship between "informers" and the StB members still remains largely an unfulfilled task.Still, there are several studies that do focus on the issue of secret collaborators. 2 It is 1 See mainly BÁRTA, Milan (ed.):Člověk v soukolí StB.Praha, Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů 2020.However, even this collective monograph is a body of case studies rather than an analysis of the world of secret collaborators.2 BÍLEK, Libor: Zavazuji se dobrovolně… Rezidenti, agenti, informátoři a další: Tajní spolupracovníci Státní bezpečnosti v letech 1945-1989.