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One on OneLeslie Woodhead - the filmmaker who specialised in portraying life behind
British director Leslie Woodhead first made a name for himself as a
reporter for the popular 1960s World in Action current affairs programme
at Britain's Granada television. He has also made a number of acclaimed
documentaries and is considered one of the pioneers of the docudrama
genre, which comprises dramatised recreations of real events. This was a
particularly popular format in the 1970s and 80s during the Cold War, as
it allowed journalists and filmmakers to cover events "behind the
wall" in the Soviet Bloc despite not being able to have any direct
access to their subject matter. More
One on OneIvan Havel - science, hippies and growing up with Vaclav
This week Rob Cameron's guest is Ivan Havel, younger brother of the Czech
Republic's former president Vaclav. While no means as famous as his older
sibling, Ivan Havel is an important figure in the Czech academic
community, as well as the editor-in-chief of the prestigious science
magazine Vesmir. During communism Ivan invited dissidents and academics to
his apartment overlooking the River Vltava, meetings at which Vaclav Havel
was often present. But Ivan shied away from politics after 1989, choosing
instead to stay in the world of science and academia.
More
Current AffairsPrague museum shows Czech-Polish exhibition on Prague Spring 1968 and invasion of Warsaw Pact troops
The invasion of Czechoslovakia by the troops of five Warsaw Pact countries
on August 21st, 1968 put a brutal end to the democratisation process in
Czechoslovakia that became known as the Prague Spring. An exhibition
currently on display in Prague looks back at the events 37 years ago
More
Current AffairsMPs agree on compensation for victims of 1968 Soviet-led invasion
Victims of the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of the former Czechoslovakia may
finally win compensation. The lower house of the Czech parliament has
approved a bill, now awaiting Senate approval, which would provide
compensation to relatives of those killed during the invasion, as well as
to those killed, raped or injured by Soviet or Warsaw Pact troops who
occupied the country until 1991. More
Czechs TodayThe 'Dutch Rhapsody' of Jan Stavinoha: A Czech writer in Amsterdam
The writer Jan Stavinoha was born in Prague in May 1945, a couple of weeks
after the Soviet Red Army freed the Czechoslovak capital from Nazi
control. In 1968 the Soviet Army returned to Prague not as liberators but
as oppressors. Stavinoha, then a 23-year-old student of classical music,
forged paperwork saying he was a "reliable person" worthy of a
passport — and fled to the West. Today, nearly 40 years later,
he is a popular 'Dutch' novelist, and, he says, a "tourist" in
his homeland. More
ArtsArts news
Welcome to the programme. This week we take you to an unusual exhibition -
a bold and daring endeavour and certainly nothing for the squeamish. But
first of all we bring you the latest in the world of art in the Czech
Republic.
More
WitnessMargita Kollarova - Dubcek's address to the nation and a silence that spoke more than words
For this week's Witness we return again to the events of August 1968. As
Soviet troops crushed the Prague Spring on the 21st August, the entire
Czechoslovak leadership was spirited away to Moscow for what were
euphemistically described as talks. Five days later, exactly 35 years ago,
they returned, broken and bullied into signing a document that effectively
legitimized the occupation of the country. The Communist Party First
Secretary and leading force of the reforms, Alexander Dubcek, gave a radio
address to the nation on the 27th August, immediately after his return
from Moscow. He appealed for calm and understanding, but as the speech
went on - in one of the most chilling moments of the entire period of
August '68 - Dubcek gradually broke down. The speech was interrupted by
long silences. This extraordinary and unnerving address was being recorded
by Czechoslovak Radio's parliamentary correspondent of the time, Margita
Kollarova. Here she remembers the moment.
More
Czechs in HistoryThe Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia and the crushing of the Prague Spring
It has been thirty-five years since Soviet troops began entering
Czechoslovakia late on August 20th and early August 21st in a carefully
orchestrated invasion designed to crush the period of political and
economic reforms known as the Prague Spring, reforms led by the country's
new First Secretary of the Communist party Alexander Dubcek. A movement
viewed by Leonid Brezhnev and other Soviet hard-liners in Moscow as a
serious threat to the Soviet Union's hold on the Socialist satellite
states, they decided to act. In the first hours on the 21st Soviet planes
began to land unexpectedly at Prague's Ruzyne airport, and shortly Soviet
tanks would roll through Prague's narrow streets. Within hours foreign
troops would take up strategic positions throughout the city, including
surrounding the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party,
taking hold of Wenceslas Square, and eventually taking over Czechoslovak
radio and television. The occupation of '68 had begun.
More
Current AffairsDubcek and Brezhnev: the last conversation
35 years ago just before midnight on 20th August 1968 Soviet tanks rolled
into Czechoslovakia, bringing the brief reforms of the Prague Spring to an
abrupt and violent end, shattering the dreams of the reformist leader
Alexander Dubcek and millions of Czechs and Slovaks. Dubcek had grown up
in the Soviet Union, believed passionately in the ideals of communism, and
was sincere in his dream of "socialism with a human face". But
Dubcek was also naïve. He never dreamed that his beloved Soviet Union
would resort to invading his homeland, to halt the process of reform. A
week before that nightmare became a reality the Soviet leader Leonid
Brezhnev phoned Dubcek from Yalta in the Crimea. The two spoke together in
Russian, their last conversation before the occupation.
More
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