Author reveals aristocrat father's sordid secret ? he spied for communist regime

He was the head of one of Europe's best-known aristocratic families but for 20 years he was a spy for Hungary's communist-era secret police, diligently filing reports to the heart of a dictatorship that had devastating consequences for those named in them.

The revelation that Count Matyas Esterhazy, father of Peter Esterhazy, Hungary's most famed writer, was an informer is the latest in a series of spy scandals to shake the country. For centuries the Esterhazys were known as patrons of the arts: the family hosted the composer Joseph Haydn in the 18th century.

But like every noble house, the Esterhazys lost everything under communism, and their name and upper-class background had made them a particular target for the vengeful functionaries of Budapest's Moscow-backed secret police.

Targeted after the failed revolution of 1956, Count Esterhazy agreed – almost certainly under extreme pressure – to routinely inform on his friends, members of his family and associates, his son Peter has revealed in a book, Javitott Kiadas (Revised Edition).

The country has been rocked by spy scandals. This summer, the Socialist Prime Minister, Peter Medgyessy, confessed he had been a spy, known as agent D-209, for the communist-era secret service.

He told a parliamentary investigative committee that his task was to covertly ease Hungary's path to membership of the International Monetary Fund as Moscow was opposed to Hungary's plan.

And he faced tough questions in parliament from Zoltan Pokorni, president of the right-wing opposition Fidesz party. Then Mr Pokorni resigned after his father was unmasked as a 30-year informer for the secret service.

Count Esterhazy's past came to light after Peter Esterhazy applied to see the records of secret service surveillance on his family. "I immediately recognised my father's handwriting when I saw the files. It was a dramatic moment. I could not believe it was true, because I had no memories that could support something like this."

The revelations followed the publication of his best-selling work Harmonia Caelestis, a partly-fictional recounting of the family's history, thus prompting the title of Revised Edition.

Count Esterhazy was recruited at a time of intense repression, in the aftermath of the failed 1956 revolution. Peter Esterhazy said: "There are times when you are put under so much pressure that you have no choice. If someone cannot take this pressure of history, he will break, and if he breaks he becomes helpless. You could see that my father was suffering, but his sufferings were also the starting point for other people's sufferings."

For those named in Count Esterhazy's reports, the consequences could be devastating, if not fatal. At this time, the Hungarian regime was hunting former revolutionaries, who were then usually executed. Others named could lose their jobs, homes and be jailed for trifling offences.

Count Esterhazy, known as Agent Csanadi was sent to the village of Csobanka, 20km from Budapest, early in 1957 to seek survivors who had fought for anti-Soviet forces. The secret police believed he had great potential in rural areas, where his aristocratic lineage would bring respect.

Count Esterhazy took quickly to his work as an informer. By March, he had named three former Budapest street fighters who had used weapons. Then he named someone he believed had removed the red star from the Russian monument in Csobanka.

His superiors commented that "the agent gives more and more [to his work]." Later reports are blander, general descriptions of communist pageantry, such as the May Day celebrations.

Count Esterhazy's superiors then noted: "The agent finds every opportunity not to write something compromising. He does not do his work well, and we have to work more with him in the future."

Count Esterhazy also used his connections to help ensure his son Peter's entrance to university, requesting that this happen in a letter in 1968, also written under the name of Csanadi. His son said: "My father's story was complex, and because he was also a representative of a historic family, the pressure was multiplied. It does seem he was a kind of trophy for the system.

"He was a good father to us, and we learnt a lot from him, especially with regard to ethics, my relationship to history and the family's history. He was a shining example in all of this. Anyone who knew him could only talk of him with love and respect. But all the time I was seeing a parallel story."

Count Esterhazy continued filing reports for 22 years, until 1979, when he asked to be released and given a pension. He died in 1998. Now Peter Esterhazy is struggling to come to terms with the life- changing revelations that for decades had been hidden among dusty files.