Igor Lukes

The project creates a topography of the Stalinist purges in Eastern Europe from 1948 to 1953. It stresses the anti-Semitic themes that characterized the proceedings and treats the murderous events in the context of the Soviet-Yugoslav split and Moscow’s reorientation in the Middle East. At the center of this work is the case of Rudolf Slansky, the former secretary general of the Czech Communist Party. I argue that the trigger for his downfall was an intelligence operation code-named “Great Sweeper” that was designed and carried out by OKAPI, a Czech subsidiary of the CIA.

This was a Andrei Sheptyts'kyi Senior Fellowship as part of the Ukraine in European Dialogue program. These fellowships are offered by invitation to outstanding international scholars who have demonstrated longstanding intellectual solidarity with Ukraine.