50 years since Havel’s “Dear Dr. Husák”: How Czech archive keeps memory of Communism alive in 21st century
Fifty years have passed since Václav Havel wrote his open letter to Gustáv Husák, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, titled “Dear Dr. Husák.” But is the document merely a relic of the past, or does it still hold significance in understanding the former totalitarian regime and the value of democracy today?
The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes and the Archive of the Security Services hold approximately 21 kilometers of archival materials, managing 755 archival collections. The archive focuses on the years 1938 to 1945 and then the Communist totalitarian regime from 1948 to 1989. In 2024, it was visited by 1,226 researchers, with over 25,000 inventory units of archival materials being presented to them.
At the event commemorating the anniversary of the fifty years that have passed since future president of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, Václav Havel, sent his open letter to Gustáv Husák, Deputy Director of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes Kamil Nedvědický stressed that it is important to continue the maintenance of the archive to remember how easily the police state operated in Czechoslovakia and other totalitarian countries behind the Iron Curtain:
"[The importance of the Archive of the Security Services] is that it helps map out how the totalitarian regime operated here and how easily it controlled the citizens of Czechoslovakia.
“This has enormous preventive significance because, if we understand how easy it is to destroy freedom and democracy, set up a totalitarian regime, and create a police state where the Secret Service knows even the most intimate information about people, we will be able to recognize similar actions in the future; we will recognize how simple it is to lose freedom and how easy it is to dismantle a democratic system to set up a police state.
“This is the importance of the documents. No other archive contains similar evidence of the security services’ activities. It would be a great mistake to overlook them and not learn from them.”
In order to preserve the materials of the archive and the memory of totalitarianism in Czechoslovakia, archivists continue their process of digitization. The speakers mentioned that in 2024, a total of over 750,000 digital copies of manuscripts were created. And over 10 million scans have been made available, with approximately 3,000 researchers accessing them.
‘Where space is created for collective events, a space is also opened for collective memory. A society that lives has a history.’
Václav Havel
In 2024, the archive also hosted approximately 60 tours. It published the "Archive of the Security Services" yearbook, collaborated with institutions both domestically and internationally, and conducted student internships.
Head of the Department of the Archive of Security Services Ľubomír Augustin was among the last to speak, quoting Havel on the need to keep the collective memory of totalitarianism alive:
“Allow me to share a short quotation from a letter by Václav Havel, in which he stated: ‘Where space is created for collective events, a space is also opened for collective memory. A society that lives has a history.’ ”
