The námêsti,
the square that bears your name,
bore the names of soldiers
of the young Red Army—until nineteen
eighty-nine, the year no one had to die,
not God nor Kafka, for whom the fire
to warm the icy world was words.

Soviet invasion of Prague Be Not Afraid: As the Universal Solidarity of Freedom Always Prevails

Tomorrow will mark the 35th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Prague, a vile act which put an iron blanket over freedom in Central Europe for the next 21 years.

The solidarity of the Czechoslovak underground was deeper than the fear of secret police my countrymen shared. Freedom transcends geography, culture and generations. It especially the solidarity of young (naive) romantics, like Jan Palach, who at the age of 22 dreamt of and sacrificed for liberty.
As my folkloric teacher, Marta Chamillova, used to sayIf you want to set something afire, you must burn yourself.
In history there are times when action has to be taken, Jan Palach said from his deathbed.
As B Webb of the Guardian observes: 'Exchanging brutalism for another is not what Havel and his kind have in mind nor do such prescriptions fit the democratic habit of the Czechoslovak temperament, formed long before communism's arrival to power.
· Prague's Second Spring [Current Affairs Bulletin March 1990]
· The Tyranny of Fraternal Normalisation [MediaDragon]
· An Invasion Remembered [NCA]
· Tanks Rolling into Prague [BBC ]
· Communism and freedom cannot coexist [Boston ]