1968 occupation of Czechoslovakia...

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Spyderman

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Last summer I was at an exhibition of Ladislav Bielik's photos. Simply great photos, but at the same time it was scary to see tanks in streets where I walk almost daily...

At home, I have a leaflet of his contact-sheets. There are about 5-6 rolls. I wish I had the success rate he had :)

A few minutes ago I came across THIS PDF, and just wanted to share...

For short reference: Ladislav Bielik was a pj and was covering the occupation events on 21st and 22nd August 1968.
kontakty1.jpg

© Ladislav Bielik, "man with uncovered chest in front of occupation tank"

His photo "man with uncovered chest ..." was published all around the world. Some big news agencies were offering his photo and breaking copyright law. After 1968 he could no longer work as a pj in the newpaper he used to work for...

The whole story and more photots are in the pdf (also in english).
 
Thank yo Ondrej, that was a major event indeed, I would love to read the whole story and see his images.
Can you please provide the link to that PDF for download ?

Thanks, Alex
 
Jan Palach

Jan Palach

In school in the early 1970's I studied the following poem by Jane Mapstone.

Now
I am only a thought in your mind
A headline on the paper of your thoughts
By tomorrow I will be relegated to a side column
And then I will disappear.
And maybe, in a year from today
Some line in the 'In Memoriam' will commemorate my death
But that's all
And in five years you will hear my name and think
'Now who the hell was he?"
And your kids will learn my name for one of their history tests.

But in spite of the fact
That today you are moved by the staring capitals, inch high,
You don't understand the enormity,
The reality
That made me
Twenty one
Burn
Myself
To
Death
You can't understand
You don't think about
The feelings that went through my body
As I poured the petrol over me
As I felt its stickiness running like blood down my arms
Down my legs
And you can't know
That with all my body
All my mind
Crying 'NO! NO!'
I found somewhere the necessity
To strike that match
To see it licking away at my clothes
To feel it biting away at my flesh
Consuming me
A person
Me
Watching it as though I was sat at
the back of a cinema, watching a film,
Completely detached
Watching me dying
And you'll never know
That before the clouds of laughing smoke, and whirling pain
Merged into darkness
I thought that
Maybe I was wrong.
Now
I am only a thought in your mind
A line in some volume of memory
I don't exist
I have no substance, flesh or feeling
Only decaying bones and decaying dreams
I died
You don't understand that
But think of this
I could have thrown stones and cracked your windows
I could have fought your policemen, burnt your cars
And made a public nuisance of myself
To gain attention

But what I did I can't do more than once
If you ignore it now then it is finished
If you just relegate me to your history books
Then there can be no point in what I did
No point. No reason
In burning myself to death
And I was wrong.
 
Hi ondrej, Gawd... that's 38 years ago.
And Chris, what a heavy duty poem!

As we move freely about to photograph
Whatever... and wherever...
And ponder our gear, tools and toys
Let us remember and cherish
How valuable and dear, our
Freedom really is.

- mlg [a bit of a poet in the moment]

Thanks for this sharing! mike
 
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Didn't Koudelka get his big shot also from his photos of the invasion?
 
Yep about Koudelka... thanks for the photos, Spyderman... I know how it feels, although for me the city ain't Bratislava but Prague, and I'm not even a czech citizen, but it's scary to imagine tanks & and empty Vaclavské Namesti at 4pm....

I checked the PDF, it's very striking, and I noticed something (a bit OT)... on page 37, the photographer (presumably Bielik) is holding a Pentacon Six with what seems to be a 180/2.8 Sonnar and pentaprism .... Just seeing this made my day :D :D :D :D
 
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The world was in such an uproar in the Spring of 1968 that I stopped going to classes at the University of Buffalo (3rd year Mech Eng). I went to demos and art exhibits and changed my mind about my life.
 
Thanks for sharing, Ondrej. I lived in Slovakia for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer, and passed by this spot in Bratislava often (my girlfriend was a student at the University behind the man). There's a memorial on the wall of that building, I believe, to the protesters of 1968.
 
There was change everywhere in the world that year, unfortunately and most notably, brutally suppressed by the end of the barrel by the two major superpowers back then, either directly or by proxy.
 
I took a great class in grad school that was just on the events of 1968...taught by this guy who was heavily involved in the Black Power movement. What an incredible year if you look at what was happening all over the globe. And what an incredible backlash it brought. Wish I could have seen it.
 
Was that picture taken in Bratislava? It doesn't quite look like what I remember when I visited several years ago. My mom was in the main building (looks like the one to the right in the background), where the side street goes up mudronova (?) by the castle. She saw the tanks waving their turrets around, then ducked under a table until things calmed down a bit. Within a few months, she made her way out of the country after my dad (who sent her love letters from the US where he was finishing up his medical studies) The rest.. is history.
 
1968-An interesting year

1968-An interesting year

I married my first wife in 1968.

The events were the subject of a song as well. "Czechoslovakia" (Julie Driscoll) on the album Streetnoise. I remember it well when I was in Germany in 1969. My vinyl copy got away from me. It's out on CD now. Very good.

Jools-Streetnoise.jpg


I'm still married to my first wife. :D :eek: :)
 
Today I had an interesting talk to my grandma about the August events of '68.
She only heard about it on radio, looked out of window of their apartment and saw a long queue of military trucks on a near road... and everyone was scared - they felt like "what will happen now? another war? but soviets are our liberators and allies... how could they?..." My granparents then went to the grocery store, but everything was already sold...

I posted this to show some good photos, but it's become a more philosophical thread :)
Thank you for your time to think about it all...
 
Jano: the University is at Safarikovo square, near the old bridge across Danube.

In this picture, it's in the middle right:
normal_sat-01s.jpg
 
Today is the 40th anniversary of the invasion of armed forces of the Warsaw pact to Czechoslovakia.

... and the Russian army is in Georgia...
 
The BBC is doing '1968 day by day' at 16:56 every day.

Today I walked into the kitchen as the Czechoslovak National Anthem played and the sounds of gunfire grew louder.

Tears came to my eyes. I heard that on the wireless, 40 years ago.

But a few weeks ago this year, we had just crossed the Danube from Hungary to Slovakia. Just after we crossed, in a small café, my wife was drinking tea, talking to a couple of teenage girls about how marvellous it is to travel through most of Europe (the Schengen Area) without a passport.

They could not understand the tears in her eyes. To them, it was just normal.

Which is as it should be.

Cheers,

R.
 
Spyderman said:
Today is the 40th anniversary of the invasion of armed forces of the Warsaw pact to Czechoslovakia.

... and the Russian army is in Georgia...
Click to expand...

What can you know about 40-years-ago events?
And what do you know about Osetia now?
Come and see yourself before making judgements based on TV show
Why were you silent on 25th of October , the date of Grenada invasion?
 
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No answers to questions.
And no need to continue as you are definitely do not need truth.

I thought this was a photography forum and not the Political Anti-Russian Club.
 
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