Prague Spring, 1968, Jos. Koudelka

[James Brody]

For all my talk of emergent nets and social oscillation between bottom-up vs. top-down societies, for all the literature on individualism vs. collectivism and the emergence of thugs from idealists, it's easy to forget that changes in either direction may cost blood and that equations may imply bullets. Prague is particularly relevant: we gave her once to the Germans and twice to the Russians. During one of those exchanges in 1968, Koudelka and his camera recorded the Soviet invasion of Prague. Those same images could have led to his execution. The anniversary text is a little expensive, it is also rediculously cheap for those of us who forget that Mussolini and Hitler were once heroes and how narrow our last escape was from the progressives.

Buy the book. Show it to your kids...

JimB

"You may not be familiar with the name Josef Koudelka, but there is a very good chance you will know his work. And we're all sure to see a lot more of it as the August anniversary of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia draws nearer. Koudelka's striking black-and-white shots of tanks in the centre of Prague and other images from that turbulent period are regarded as some of the most important works of photojournalism of the 20th century. Koudelka's photographs (nearly 250 of which are now gathered in a new book called 1968 Prague Invasion) are a brilliant but depressing record of that time – depressing because the protests of the young people captured in his pictures were so obviously futile, and because we know what the country's fate was to be in the aftermath of the invasion.

"The pictures, which had been smuggled out and reached the famous Magnum Photos agency, were not published until 1969, and when they did appear in the Sunday Times Magazine they didn't bear Koudelka's name. They were credited to PP – Prague Photographer – as he was still in Czechoslovakia and publishing his name could have put him in serious danger."

Ian Willoughby

More at http://www.radio.cz/en/issue/104790

http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/...Album&SP=Album

http://www.thamesandhudson.com/en/1/...8a8be84468e37d