Don't worry, it's not that you've gone back in time 40 years, nor that I'm unaware of the collapse of the "Soviet block", I just think the title really fits this post.
While preparing my next short stay in the most beautiful city in the world (obviously this is a purely subjective claim, but based on my eurocentric architectural taste Prague beats other dream spots like Vienna, Vilnius or Florence, and unfortunately I have not had a chance to visit Saint Petersburg yet), I've gone through some really interesting findings that I'd like to share here.
From previous visits I already had a limited knowledge about the Prague Spring events and figures like Jan Palach. To my astonishment, he was not the only person to set himself on fire to protest against the Soviet invasion, his radical protest was followed by others like Jan Zajick and Evzen Porcek. Indeed, wikipedia has a painfully long list of people that decided to carry out such a radical (and to my mind fruitless) means of protest.
Digging a bit more into that tragic spring, one comes across 2 enormous political figures. One of them, František Kriegel can only be labelled as a hero. You must read his biography in wikipedia, but just to awake your interest I'll give a short introduction of my own:
A Jewish guy that had to abandon his natal Galicia (present day Western Ukraine) due to the raising antisemitism, moved to Prague where he would work hard to pay for his medical studies and would become a communist. Afterwards, he moved on to Spain to join the International Brigades to fight against fascism. After the victory of the fascist scum he escaped to France where he was captured and interned in a concentration camp (oh, yes, the treatment given by the French government of that time to the Spanish Antifascist should be enough to make that whole country ashamed for centuries...). After taking part in the WWII, he returned to the new state of Czechoslovakia where he would continue his medical and political work, and as a true communist he would oppose the distorted and tyrannic Stalinist policies...
The other great political figure is the Slovak Alexander Dubček. Again, reading his biography is a real must, but I'll try to whet your appetite with an introduction:
I think it's rather accurate to label him as an idealist. Brought up in this interesting "experiment", the horrors of Stalinism didn't move him away from the Communist Ideals, but I think made him more aware and critical of the failed interpretations conducted in many countries, which would end up leading him to his "socialism with a human face". Unfortunately, this was fiercely repressed from Moscow and what could have given way to a real alternative between Western Capitalism and Eastern distorted pseudo-Communism, brought about 20 years of repression first, the embrace of Capitalism then, and the current collapse of the Western Welfare state...
The WWII was a really hard time for the whole of Czechoslovakia, but I guess it was quite worst in the Czech side, with the annexation of the Sudetenland and occupation of the rest of the country by Nazi Germany. It's hard now when you stroll along the astonishing Prague Castle to imagine the Nazi flag weaving there and the dreadful Heidrich laying out his plans of mass murdering from his office in the castle. The Czech Resistance Movement was particularly angry with the alleged condescendence of part of the Czech population with the occupants, so they chose to undertake a radical plan, the assassination of Heidrich. In principle we could say that their plan worked, as 2 Czech revolutionaries managed to kill the Nazi monster, but the wave of brutal repression brought about by the attack, including the annihilation of 2 Czech villages (Lidice and Lezaki), makes quite difficult to think of this action as a successful idea. It's OK if you want to be a martyr, but how can you grant yourself the right to turn into martyrs those people you intend to protect and liberate? Anyway, seems like this sadist retaliation helped to finish off with that alleged condescendence (now it was not just the Jews and the dissidents who were being murdered, it was ordinary Czech people).
This documentary makes a good introduction to this part of history
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