In the midst of Soviet invasion that ended the Prague Spring, Tereza went out on the streets with a camera to "preserve the face of violence for the distant future" (67). She photographed Russian soldiers, tanks, corpses, and protestors. This post explores Tereza's perspective as a photographer through the photos of Josef Koudelka, a hero of photojournalism.
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| Exhibition in New York City |
Koudelka is a Czech-French photographer and former engineer who mostly photographed Gypsies until Russian tanks invaded his home country on the night of 20-21 August 1968. Like Tereza's shots, his pictures of the invasion were smuggled out of Prague and published abroad. The photographer fled Czechoslovakia in 1970 and did not publicly admit ownership of the shots for 15 years. They were credited to "Prague Photographer." Starting in 1984, he has opened exhibitions in numerous cities including Prague, London, Paris, New York, and Moscow.
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| Young Czech killed for having tried to drape his flag over a Russian tank. A total of 108 Czechs and Slovaks died. |
"While he has been lauded for the courage it took to photograph during the occupation, Mr. Koudelka finds the praise misdirected. 'The courageous here were the Russians who went to Red Square to demonstrate against the Prague invasion,' he said, adding, 'Prison was the only way out of Red Square.' (Eight protesters were jailed after unfurling protest banners in Moscow after the invasion.)"
“[The Russian soldiers] were more like me, the same age, maybe a little younger. I felt sorry for them because I knew they were not guilty. The Russian politicians were guilty.”
"Many of the soldiers did not even know what country they were in, he added. 'Some thought they were in Germany,' he said."
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| Man shows soldier a newspaper. Soldiers do seem they have no idea what they are doing. |
"[Russia] is the only country in Europe where my invasion pictures have never been published in a full story in a magazine; just odd images here and there. If, after this exhibition, they remain unpublished, I will know Russia is not a truly free country."
"[Koudelka's photographs] exposed the official lie that the invasion was 'fraternal help' to a fellow socialist state in the grip of counter-revolutionaries; and, as a puppet Soviet government took control, they became a testament to lost hope."
"If young Russians come to look at this exhibition, if they see their fathers and grandfathers in the faces of these soldiers, if they see their own faces, and they think, 'I never want to be manipulated like that, to invade a peaceful country', then these photographs will have served a purpose."
Extra photos (not by Koudelka):
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| "young girls in unbelievably short skirts provoking the miserable sexually famished Russian soldiers by kissing random passersby before their eyes" (67) |
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