The Slovenian State Security Administration's (UDB-a) Surveillance Collection on Maks Samec is located at the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia. In the 1950s (most likely in 1952), materials in paper form (approximately 500 pages) were microfilmed, and afterwards destroyed. In 1998, the entire preserved UDB-a collection with the official code AS_1931 that consist of materials about Maks Samec was transferred to the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia.
The materials about Maks Samec were collected and organized by three different sections of the Slovenian UDB-a, hence they are divided into three series (Lm, III, VIII). The materials can also be divided into three chronological sections: the first set consists of materials obtained by the UDB-a from the German Consulate in Ljubljana for the period 1938-1945; the second set consists of materials created about Maks Samec by the Department for People's Protection and UDB-a in the period 1945-1947; the third set consists of materials for the period 1948-1952 which were compiled on the basis of focused and persistent monitoring of Maks Samec, his contacts and his activities at work and in his private life as well.
Maks Samec lost his venia docendi at the University of Ljubljana in August 1945 in the so-called purge of academic staff. However, as an irreplaceable scientist, he was given the opportunity to continue his scientific career in Ljubljana. Samec had to accept a modified research policy in terms of limited academic freedom (Oset 2015, 165-169).
Samec was afraid of control by the communist authorities, thus he was extremely cautious in expressing his views. The materials present the form of control exercised by the Slovenian/Yugoslav communist authorities over a scientist who implemented the country's most important research projects in the first decade after World War II, the changing of academic standards after 1945 and obstacles to Samec’s free and open communication with foreign scientists. Samec responded by adapting to the new circumstances and relationships with authorities and his colleagues.
The UDB-a materials were used more frequently by Slovenian researchers after 2006, upon enactment of new legislation governing the protection of documents and archives and archival institutions. The Maks Samec materials were first used in 2013.
The added value of the Maks Samec collection is in its presentation of a relationship between a scientist of the older generation and the authorities in the period 1945-1952 when a new relationship was formed between communist authority and scientists. This period of history was marked by mistrust on the part of the communist authorities and various survival strategies by scientists. The authorities wanted to secure dominance over the academic community, and because of a lack of its own favourable scientists, they agreed to a transitional period in which established scientists continued their careers. Scientists, on the other hand, sought to continue their careers, and they perceived science as an ivory tower that would protect them from expressing political views. The collection is, therefore, an example of the adaptation of an established scientist to new political circumstances and the restrictions to expressing his views.
