Schweizerisches Ost-Institut (SOI) was a documentation and specialist information centre in Switzerland founded in 1959 by Peter Sager and active until 1994. It focused on communist countries, particularly those in the Eastern Bloc. In the same year that he founded the institute, Sager also established the Swiss Library for Eastern Europe, which is now part of the University Library of Bern.

The SOI's activities focused on processing, evaluating and compiling information about events in the communist-dominated part of the world. Peter Sager himself described the SOI as a «middle ground» between popularisation and scientific education.

In order to make its educational work accessible to a broad audience, the SOI was active in journalism and published various publications, the most successful and important for the financing of the SOI being the journal «Der Klare Blick». In 1969, the journal was renamed «Zeitbild».

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Source:

Schweizerisches Ostinstitut, in: Wikipedia – The free encyclopedia, version from 11.02.2025. https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Schweizerisches_Ostinstitut&oldid=253231967, retrieved on 03.03.2026.

Contact:

Stiftung für Demokratie
www.sfd-bern.ch