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PEOPLE & ARTS Monday 20 august 2018

AP Interview: Photographer documented 1968 Soviet invasion

By KAREL JANICEK Looking back at 1968 in an
Associated Press interview with The Associ-
PRAGUE (AP) — It’s been ated Press, Koudelka said
50 years, but powerful im- he seized the once-in-a-
ages of the Soviet-led in- career opportunity.
vasion of Czechoslovakia “The opportunity to take so
taken by photographer many photos made it possi-
Josef Koudelka still reso- ble for me to do something
nate among Czechs and I never thought I would be
elsewhere in the world able to do,” Koudelka said.
— they’ve even been ad- “And I think that a major-
mired in Russia. ity of people in Czechoslo-
As the armies of the five vakia who knew me as a
Warsaw Pact countries in- photographer didn’t even
vaded his country an hour think I could do anything
before midnight on Aug. like that.”
20, 1968, Koudelka was His photos captured the
ready. Risking his life, he mood on the streets of
took thousands of photos Prague: the public anger,
in the week that followed, frustration and massive pro-
capturing the shocking tests against the troops that
experience for his nation came in with tanks to crush
— and the defiance of its the Prague Spring — the
people. brief period of liberal re- In this Aug. 10, 2018 photo 80-year old photographer Josef Koudelka answers questions in a
After the negatives were forms under leader Alexan- rare media interview with the Associated Press at his retrospective exhibition “Returning” at the
smuggled out of the coun- der Dubcek meant to lead Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, Czech Republic.
try, the photos that were toward democratization of Associated Press
published in the West be- communist Czechoslova- time,” Koudelka said. “One elsewhere — that people attack, the whole nation
came one of the most kia. of the biggest miracles for are able to completely became united.
famed documentary series “It was a tragedy. But also me was — and that has change overnight.”
of the 20th century. miracles happened at the happened at major events He said in reaction to the Continued on Page 31