CHARAKTERYSTYKA | CHARACTERISTICS
Charakterystyka (Characteristics) (1) a general term for a document describing ("characterising"), e.g. operative activities as part of a case, documentation gathered in files, personal history and activities of a person subject to surveillance, opinion proceedings, etc., history and circumstances of cooperation and personal characteristics of a collaborator, activities and members of subversive, underground or armed organisations, etc. (cf. (2) below). "Characteristics" of secret collaborators were drawn up periodically and at the end of the collaboration. (2) Characteristics (factology) – a historical study based on archived files of operative cases, investigations, personal dossiers of informants/agents/secret collaborators, etc. "Factologies" were prepared in the 1970s to collectively describe the independence organisations, units and groups operating between 1944 and 1956 that were fought by the security apparatus. A "characteristics (factology)" usually included a study briefly describing the history, membership, activities and circumstances of the dismantling or crushing by the security apparatus of the organisation in question, as well as a "personal questionnaire for membership in an illegal organisation/group", a "personal questionnaire for the helper of an illegal organisation/group", and "criminal act sheets", in which the most significant speeches, operations and activities of the organisation were described. "Characteristics (factologies)" were ordered in archive according to the "C" divisions of the Provincial Headquarters of the Citizens' Militia which prepared them and given consecutive numbers and titles corresponding to the names of the organisations (or names of their commanders/heads), their copies were sent to Bureau "C" of the Ministry of the Internal Affairs.