2024-08-23 18:40:31
A five-meter bronze monument by sculptor Jiří Sozanský was dedicated to the victims of the occupiers and Czechoslovak repressive forces from August 1968 and 1969, which was unveiled this Wednesday evening on the embankment near Prague’s Museo Kampa. This happened on the day when the Czech Republic commemorated the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops. The work shows the brutality of aggression with metal spikes or a piece of tank belt.
The sculpture premiered last year in the covered atrium of the Army Museum in Žižkov, but it has not yet been possible to see it in the open air. It bears the names of 147 victims of 1968 and six people killed a year later, when the police brutally suppressed a demonstration against the occupiers.
“For reasons that are difficult for me to understand, the names of those who perished in 1968 and 1969 remain essentially anonymous. I consider the memorial to be the first step towards ending the shameful silence,” says sculptor Jiří Sozanský, who calls for the awarding of state honors in memoriam to these victims .
The monument stands on the embankment near Museo Kampa, where it replaced the so-called Titans, i.e. three processed wooden logs created by the artist Emilie Benes Brzezinski and which had been standing there since 2002. Sozanský’s work is also here temporarily. “The location of the sculptures is currently planned for a year, further development will be resolved as we go,” said museum spokesman Daniel Hrdlička. Josef Pleskot is signed as the architect under the installation.
Guitarist Michal Pavlíček accompanied the unveiling of the monument organized by the Kampa Museum on Wednesday with his own music. Several hundred people watched the ceremonial unveiling. In September, more educational panels should be added at Kampa, where the Military Historical Institute will present period photographs and texts. The sculpture follows on from the professional work of the historians of this workplace, Ivo Pejčoch and Prokop Tomek. They specified the number of people who lost their lives as a result of the invasion.
The invasion of Warsaw Pact troops began on the night of August 21, 1968. Already on the first day of the occupation, dozens of Czechoslovak residents died in clashes with soldiers or in traffic accidents caused by the Soviet army.
In response to August 1968, the artist Jiří Sozanský stayed in boxing. It also lasted him after the revolution. | Photo: CTK
On the first anniversary of the occupation in August 1969, a wave of protests swept the country. The regime reacted brutally. According to the latest findings of historians, seven people died during the demonstrations – in addition to the five who were shot, a woman on a scooter collided with an armored personnel carrier near Prague and an unknown soldier.
In addition to Public Security units and units of the Ministry of the Interior, the regime deployed 20,000 soldiers and 27,000 militia members to quell the riots. In total, about 2,400 people were detained.
Bloody crackdowns were legalized by the Federal Assembly already on August 22 with the so-called Pendrek Law, which was valid until December 31, 1969 and made it possible to detain those arrested for up to 21 days, increase the penalty rates, expel people from work and students from schools. The repressive measures were signed by all top officials, including the then Speaker of the Parliament Alexander Dubček, whose name, paradoxically, was chanted most often by the demonstrators in August.
“The events around the first anniversary of August 1968 can be described as ‘days of shame’. Not only for the very fact of the occupation, but also for the betrayal of many political representatives against their own citizens,” says Prokop Tomek from the Military Historical Institute.
In his works, the 78-year-old painter and sculptor Jiří Sozanský focuses on people in marginal situations caused by war, a totalitarian regime or the indifference of the environment. He entered the art scene in the mid-70s, he had his first exhibition in 1976 in Terezín, which is still for him a memento of violence, willfulness and unfreedom. He returned to it repeatedly with his projects.
“I wanted to understand the nature of totalitarian systems, what they actually were. I belong to a generation that grew up at a time when world culture was dealing with the theme of World War II. When I understood that I was living in a similar regime, it became my theme,” recalled an artist who wanted to devote himself to visual arts at the age of 12. Nevertheless, he first learned to be a bricklayer and worked for four years as a laborer or, for example, in Kladno ironworks. Also so that he could earn money and help his mother, with whom he grew up alone.
His father came from Transcarpathian Ukraine, and his mother met at the barricades at the end of World War II. However, the father has been missing since 1948.
Sozanský has been playing sports since the age of 14, from which his love for boxing remained until adulthood. He entered the boxing gym for the first time after August 1968. “After the invasion, because I got into a situation several times when I understood that nothing much could be done against machine guns. I thought that one should at least be able to use one’s hands,” described the artist, who also had a red punching bag in the studio for a long time.
Among other things, Sozanský kept himself in shape due to physically demanding work on large-format paintings and sculptures. “I’ve been fighting all my life, even art is a fight. A person who isn’t completely physically fit can’t do that,” he says.
Sozanský pointed to traumatic moments in history already during normalization, when he was banned. For example, in Prague’s Veletržní Palace, which was destroyed by fire, he organized the Orwell Year event from 1984.
His most important works include the Memorial to the Victims of Communism, the Vojna Camp near Příbram, the Memorial to Political Prisoners in Valdice, the Twenty-seventh Day dedicated to the legacy of Milada Horáková or the Year of the Break dedicated to Jan Palach. He created the sculpture called 68/69 with his own funds.
Video: We carry a bit of a myth that someone bigger always overpowers us, says historian Stehlík about August 1968
“We wanted almost democracy and the Russian spoiled it all for us. This is a myth, it was a dispute between the communist parties,” historian Michal Stehlík says in the program Spotlight. | Video: Team Spotlight