Československý konzulát v Kyjevě objektem zájmu NKVD (1936–1938)
The Czechoslovak Consulate in Kyiv as an Object of NKVD Interest in 1936–1938

Summary/Abstract: The article aims to map the counterintelligence activities of the authorities of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (Narodnyi komissariat vnutrennikh del – NKVD) of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic against the Consulate General of the Czechoslovak Republic in Kyiv, which existed between June 1936 and April 1938. The authors make primary use of recently declassified documents from Ukrainian security archives and diplomatic reports of Consul General Rudolf Brabec (1884–1955). They first outline earlier Czechoslovak diplomatic representations in Soviet Ukraine and point out that their functioning was of particular importance for the newly established state, especially because of the existence of a large Czech minority there. The re-establishment of a diplomatic office in Ukraine after almost ten years took place after the establishment of official diplomatic relations between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union in 1934 and the opening of its embassy in Moscow. Czechoslovak diplomacy considered this step a success, but quickly sobered up. As the authors document, the Czechoslovak consulate almost immediately became an object of interest for the Soviet security forces and, after a few months (like other embassies in Ukraine) a central lightning rod for the then Stalinist regime’s growing fears of foreign threats. Even before the “Great Terror” began, the consulate was the target of sophisticated actions by the Ukrainian NKVD authorities in an effort to control and gradually paralyse its activities, which eventually contributed to its closure. The authors show a clear connection between the measures taken against the Kyiv consulate and the repression of the Czech minority in Ukraine, which claimed many innocent victims in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

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