The Prague Post
December 1st, 2008
Endowment Fund     Business Listings ONLINE      Reservations      Classifieds    Subscriptions
Hotel Prague Centre

Home » Archives » Tempo

Around Town

Old tank, new day

By Benjamin Thomas Cunningham
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
August 27th, 2008 issue

The nearby tank attracted all the attention, and several young men dressed as Soviet soldiers sipped beers, smoked cigarettes and posed for pictures on its hood.

Tourists from everywhere milled about in front of the National Museum, and there was sun and smiles all around.
Slightly off to the side, near the Jan Palach Memorial, stood Václav Lamr, seemingly out of place and holding a sign that read: “People in power have ‘the truth.’ But the truth is more powerful.”
For a day commemorating the brutal repression of free speech on tank-back in the form of an invading foreign army, an oddly carnivalesque atmosphere prevailed around Lamr as he recalled his own memories of August 1968.
He was on a bus to Brno, when suddenly it happened.
“There were the Russians. The tanks were coming in the opposite direction,” he said. “We went through a short period of freedom, so we had been writing a lot of posters. I used to write a lot.”
The bus stopped, and Lamr, then a 25-year-old painter, and several others fled in fear into nearby fields.
He heard a rifle being cocked, he says, and then: “I was scared, but then nothing happened. Since that time I have been fighting for freedom.”
Lamr’s choice of venue was fitting as the only place in the vicinity where seriousness seemed to prevail. Some briefly stepped away from the hubbub of the tank or reproduced graffiti backdrop and paused for a moment near the spot where Palach (and later Jan Zajíc) set himself on fire in protest. Though the event would not take place until months later in early 1969, it remains linked both as a political reaction to the August invasion and in hearts and minds.
“It was one attempt by a really innocent person to awaken other people from their lethargy,” said Miroslava Karlová, a Prague native, now 65 years old. “Everybody, every Czech should know.”
On this afternoon, few were taking notice, though the foreign minister of Kosovo — whose own country has more recent experience with active tanks — is said to have paid a visit to the site, leaving a wreath.
Earlier in the day, protesters against the U.S.-backed missile-defense radar station had set up tents in the sacred spot perhaps in an attempt to capture a bit of the revolutionary atmosphere, but the atmosphere by afternoon was much more like an amusement park or picnic.
Karlová looked over at the tank — with a cannon barrel now stuffed with roses — and remembered seeing them for the first time in 1968 while on holiday in Slovakia.
“They were coming from the east,” she said. “I never thought they would be so fast. ... People were crying and rushing to queue in front of the bakeries.”
I asked her why of all the places in Prague had she come here to commemorate the anniversary.
Karlová looked around at the scene, no doubt bearing faint resemblance to that of 40 years ago.
“It was here. This is where the main events took place,” she said.  
A ceremony at the Palach site was scheduled but did not occur, maybe wise in this case. Among the staging that included old cars and reproductions of graffiti reading “Proletariat of the world leave,” “Long live democracy without Moscow,” or “Lenin wake up, Brezhnev has gone crazy,” this was not the right atmosphere.
Back over by the tank, one man gave a sip of slivovice (or perhaps vodka?) from a flask to a soldier actor, who then gave a “thumbs up” signal. Lamr, now 65 — for the record in support of the radar base — was in a rush to move on.
“Life is not just to enjoy but to fight,” he said.
What was the big hurry?
He was off to protest in front of the Russian Embassy.
— Naďa Černá contributed to this report.

Benjamin Thomas Cunningham can be reached at bcunningham@praguepost.com


Other articles in Tempo (27/08/2008):

Browse the Current Issue

If you enjoyed this article, why don't you subscribe to the print version!
We accept secure online transactions provided by PayPal and Moneybookers

Be the first to add a comment!


Full Name: *
City: *
E-mail: **
This comment can be published in the print version of The Prague Post
Enter the text on the right:
 visual captcha
Comment: *
* Required field. In order to be approved for display, comments must have a first and last name and a city.
** E-mails are required and will only be used for internal purposes.

Most visited in Business Listings

Hotel booking
The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.