An occupation that destroyed hope – and whose echoes we hear in today’s war against Ukraine

“With outrage and pain we most resolutely protest…” declared the statement of the academic community of what was then Jan Evangelista Purkyně University (UJEP). But the voices of academics and students were silenced, and the hope of reform was replaced by an atmosphere of fear. The anniversary of the invasion still resonates strongly today – especially in light of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

“The fifty-seventh anniversary of the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact armies, carried out under the orders and leadership of the Soviet Union, can be remembered for many reasons. We can see it as a violent attempt to block a more free development of a nation, or as a decisive military response aimed at protecting the Soviet sphere of influence in Central Europe. From a broader perspective – looking at the year 1968 as a whole – we can also remember the preceding effort to reform the communist ideal (or, more fittingly, utopia), or the beginning of the stagnant era of the so-called normalisation which, as we now know, marked the start of the decline of the Soviet colossus on clay feet. Yet for Czechoslovakia it was also a year of hope, a time when civil society was awakening, including universities and educational institutions,” recalls historian Jiří Hanuš, Vice-Rector of Masaryk University for Human Resources, Academic and Cultural Affairs.

The invasion put an end to “a period of partial renewal of civil society”. When it came to education, universities, publishing and a generally more free atmosphere, the late 1960s had been a turning point. The months before the invasion were also linked to an effort to restore the university’s original name – Masaryk University – which at the time had been changed to Jan Evangelista Purkyně University (UJEP).

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This effort was closely linked with the philosopher Lubomír Nový (1930–1996), but it quietly faded away after the occupation. Teachers and students did protest against the August invasion, although mostly within individual faculties. The leadership of the Faculty of Medicine played a particularly visible role, and students of the Faculty of Arts issued their own declaration – the Student Ten Commandments. The Masaryk University archive has also preserved a statement from the academic community criticising the entry of the armies. It includes the following passage:

“With outrage and pain we most resolutely protest against the flagrant violation of all the basic principles of international law committed by five members of the Warsaw Pact. We protest against the occupation of our homeland by their armies, against the trampling of our sovereignty and freedom, and against the dishonouring of socialism… We firmly demand that the lawfully elected constitutional representatives of our state be guaranteed the freedom to carry out their public and political functions… We call on our public to preserve complete unity and not to disgrace our honour and our history by collaborating with the occupiers and with traitors.”

“The state of today’s world also calls for cheerless reflection and comparison. The current Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin is not the Soviet Union, and it no longer operates with the communist ideology of world domination. Yet it is, once again aggressive towards its neighbours, this time openly reviving the old Russian imperial ambitions once pursued by J. V. Stalin. This tendency is most evident in war-torn Ukraine, which has been resisting Russia with arms in hand for more than three years now,” continues Jiří Hanuš.

“Our experience of 1968 can guide us towards solidarity, even if our ability to help is limited. For universities, this help is mainly in the fields of education and joint research projects. But academic solidarity also matters when it becomes part of a broader effort to curb the Russian imperial expansion and to prevent attempts to restrict free development in countries such as Ukraine, Belarus or Georgia,” he adds.

Parallels with 1968 are also noted by Russian historian, religious scholar and political scientist Andrei Zubov, who had to flee Russia in 2022 under threat from Putin’s regime and is now a visiting professor at Masaryk University. “The same imperial idea that drove Leonid Brezhnev to attack then drives Vladimir Putin to attack today,” he says. According to him, much as in 1968, a large part of the political elite in Moscow today sees the invasion as a mistake, but does not dare to oppose the Kremlin’s inner circle. “Almost no one was happy about the occupation of Czechoslovakia – only those who were foolish or aggressive,” Zubov notes.