The Life Of An Agent (Az ügynök élete)
Grim's post with a link to a piece about a KGB training manual reminded me to share with you all something I came across in Budapest this past Summer at Memento Park, where many of the Soviet era statues and monuments were moved for display. They also have a recreated barrack from an internment camp (which was in August, appropriately unbearably hot), within which they have exhibited a brief history of the Communist era in Hungary, along with the history of the park itself, and a small theater room running the movie "The Life of an Agent" on a loop. It's an interesting film. It seems to be a compilation of training film clips from various periods in the communist era, for the AVH (Pre 1956) and the Interior Ministry (After the '56 revolution). It's kind of a fun, yet sobering reminder of how a totalitarian society operates. Of course, today there's no need for such an apparatus. We have social media and digital traces for governments to surveil us, if they like. Enjoy.
I loved Szoborpark. I was there in 2000.
ReplyDeleteInteresting film. Nice to see how they used to do it in the old days.
ReplyDeleteI saw agents in leather coats,which fits the stereotype of security types/secret agents wearing them. At the end of the films, it talked about "leather-coated men of the world."
ReplyDeleteI am reminded of an acquaintance visiting New York City some decades ago. Back then the Times Square area had a lot of prostitutes. She said to me that "they really looked like prostitutes."
That's a good point. Society has undeclared, unofficial uniforms that people nevertheless wear. They often serve the same purpose as actual uniforms.
ReplyDeleteIn recent years, fashion trends have made it a lot tougher to tell who's a prostitute or not. Then again, they probably aren't if you see them on the street, as I hear prostitutes mostly solicit online now.
ReplyDeleteAVI- there's now an all white cat there, interestingly named "Mao". Well, cats are stone cold killers...
I had not visited when I had been there last- around that time, because it's a bit outside of town, so I was glad to get to it this time, plus it was great to show the kids and give them a sense of what their grandparents had experienced and left everything behind to get away from. Interestingly, my MIL, after seeing this, had an interesting story about an uncle who was certainly in the organization, and who it seems at one point was sizing her up as a potential recruit, taking her (as a young architecture student) around for a walk and asking her to describe things she'd just seen back to him. That didn't pan out, fortunately. I imagine it would be a tough offer to turn down.