(18 Aug 2018) LEADIN
The Czech Republic is marking the 50th anniversary of the Soviet invasion which crushed the Prague Spring.
Two photography exhibits have opened chronicling how Soviet-led troops and tanks brought to an end a brief period of liberal reforms in 1968.
STORYLINE:
An hour before midnight on 20 August,1968, Soviet-led tanks and troops invaded Czechoslovakia enacted in the brief era known as the Prague Spring.
The move was met with mass protests and deadly street battles between civilians and Warsaw Pact country soldiers.
The result would be more than 20 years of occupation by the Soviet Union.
Soviet troops withdrew only after the anti-communist 1989 Velvet Revolution.
As the 50th anniversary approaches, two photography exhibits have opened in Prague chronicling those days of the invasion and celebrating the work of those who photographed it.
The exhibitions contain a trove of amazing images and film shot by professional and amateurs in those first few days and weeks of the invasion.
"Soviet Invasion," at Old City Hall in Prague boasts a collection so extensive it takes up two floors.
The photographers are not famous names, but the quality of their work is impressive.
In one stunning photo by, Vaclav Touzimsky, a Soviet tank crashes into an archway of the city hall of Liberec, a city in the north of the country.
Dana Kyndrova, curator of Soviet Invasion exhibit, was 13 years old in 1968 and remembers events of the time.
"I can remember the whole situation, particularly when we were by the radio building (Czech Radio) where the situation was the most dramatic. That's where the gas tanks of the tanks started to explode and their cannons were shifting down and we didn't know whether they were going to fire on us. And because we didn't know we started to run down the street and my father yelled at me to go home," she says.
Another photo by Vladimir Lammer shows a man carrying a brief case and wearing a business suit in an empty street, except for the Soviet tanks rolling by Wenceslaus Square.
The man's disbelieving stare reflects the feelings of the Czech people themselves, Kyndrova says.
"The picture when the man with the suitcase is staring at the tanks. Of course all of the other photos here are very dramatic but in that one we can see the fate of our small nation, when we can do whatever we want but we still have to be looking around at what the big nations are doing and there is nothing we can do about it. Then as it was in (19)38 and (19)39 and in 1968."
The exhibition "Soviet Invasion" includes some 200 photos from 40 photographers in Prague, Liberec, Brno and Bratislava.
Across town, at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, powerful images taken by the photographer Josef Koudelka half a century ago still resonate.
As the armies of the five Warsaw Pact countries invaded his country an hour before midnight on August 20, Koudelka was ready.
Risking his life, he took thousands of photos in the following week, capturing on film the shocking experience for his country.
After the negatives were smuggled out of the country, the photos were published in the West and became one of the most famous documentary series of the 20th century.
Koudelka's photos were first published by media around the globe in 1969 under the attribution "P.P." (standing for Prague Photographer) to prevent his persecution by the Communists.
Koudelka's exhibit titled, "Returning," is a retrospective of his career.
A wing of the exhibit is dedicated to his best known invasion photos.
That fact that there is an exhibition in Russia makes Koudelka smile.
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