В Праге прошла акция NeverMore 68: участники напомнили о вторжении 1968 года на фоне новой войны в Европе

At NeverMore 68, generations gathered to commemorate a painful anniversary. For them, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia is not just history, it’s a lesson for the future. Uniformed men cluster around a tank parked at Prague’s Vystaviste exhibition center. Couples posed for pictures with the tank and children playfully mimicked their poses. But for those old enough to remember, the scene was an unsettling flashback to 21 August 1968, when Warsaw Pact troops swept across Czechoslovakia’s borders and occupied Prague’s streets, setting off two decades of severe political repression. This time, however, the tank was not there to enforce an occupation; it was there to remember one. At NeverMore 68, Prague’s annual commemoration of the invasion, a painful memory became a catalyst for action. And with Russia again waging war in Europe, organizers and participants say remembering 1968 has taken on a new urgency. Filip Simanek, a tram driver from Prague, tells Transitions he enjoys explaining Czech history to school children, despite the difficulties of making it feel relevant to a generation that didn’t live through it. For him, though, remembering still matters. It’s hard to get across the trauma of that time, “because for young people, it’s not important for them, the history of our country,” Simanek says. “But it’s important for our future.” The significance of 1968 doesn’t lie only in the invasion itself, Simanek says, but also in the months of political liberalization known as the Prague Spring that preceded it. “This is what we must remember, how the people wanted to live with freedom, with freedom of speech and the media,” Simanek says. The event is also painful on a personal level. His family is from the South Bohemian region, and during the communist era they lost property, including houses and farms. “It’s not a good day for our history and for my family,” he says. “We don’t commemorate much on this day because it’s so hard.” Recognizing the Present This year’s gathering was the fifth edition of NeverMore 68. According to the founder and manager of the event, Barbora Subrtova, the inspiration for the project came from a desire for community, which was set into motion with Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine in 2022. “There was a lack of a comprehensive event that would gather people for this very important date in our history,” Subrtova says. “The final push was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, because the historical parallel was impossible to ignore and very painful.” Ukraine was a large topic at the event, with parallels between the August 1968 events in Prague and the February 2022 events in Kyiv drawn at every corner. Team 4 Ukraine and Spark – NGOs that deliver equipment, medical supplies, vehicles, and drones to soldiers on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine – were participants at the event. “We’re trying to make the perfect prototype [drone] for them [Ukraine], and then we will start manufacturing in big numbers,” says Jan, a Spark employee who requested anonymity for security reasons. “Right now we can build like 200 of them per month. Later it should be like 1,000 or 2,000 a month.” Jaroslav Holub, a programmer for Team 4 Ukraine, helped restore and armor a military-grade Humvee, nicknamed Pasha after his Ukrainian friend who is currently serving as a soldier. The vehicle will soon be sent to Ukraine. “It’s an American military car. It’s not well-armored in the original form,” Holub says, describing Pasha, which will be used to transport injured soldiers and supplies. “So we stripped down the whole cabin, and we replaced it with this 6.5 millimeter thick Armox steel.” “We have another car, which we delivered last year, that took a hit by a mine and lost the wheel, but they drove half a kilometer and exchanged the wheel and drove on,” he adds. “They are very resistant cars.” Holub says he has traveled to Ukraine on 23 different Team 4 Ukraine missions, already eight times this year alone, and will likely head back this month as the need for supplies increases. Preparing for the Future But for organizers, the lessons of 1968 extend beyond supporting Ukraine. They also concern the political direction of the Czech Republic itself. Notably, one participant this year was Pulse of Europe, an international pro-European civic movement that was invited to NeverMore 68 for the first time. Czechia’s chapter, in particular, campaigns for the country to adopt the euro and has opposed Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s more Euroskeptic approach to European integration. A 28-year-old volunteer and activist with Pulse of Europe, Radek Stasek, puts the aim of his group succinctly: “We can be Czechs but we can also be Europeans,” he says. “That’s our message.” Stasek considers himself fortunate not to have lived through the events of 1968, unlike his mother, who grew up under communist rule. To him, the good fortune of being born into a democracy comes with a responsibility to ensure that it endures. Subrtova said her decision to invite groups such as Pulse of Europe to NeverMore 68 was simply the natural evolution of the event in an attempt to respond to current dynamics. “Every year I try to broaden the pool of organizations involved in programming or participating at the event,” she explains. “Naturally, the European Union or Pulse of Europe are subjects that have the same values we are promoting here.” That effort to connect the past with the present also extends to current debates over Czechia’s place in Europe. “I have to admit that part of the decision-making process was that there is huge propaganda against the European Union present in the public discussion,” she adds. “I felt I needed to balance it a little bit.” Remembering the Past Yet having lived through 1968 does not necessarily mean seeing today’s Russia through the same historical lens. Holub, the Team 4 Ukraine programmer, points to his own father. “My father was 18 when the invasion of Eastern Bloc armies came. And he doesn’t like communists, but now he supports the Russians and Putin. He doesn’t support Ukraine.” “In Czech, they are called dezolati,” he explains, using a pejorative slang expression for zealous adherents of disinformation, conspiracy theories, and anti-system ideologies. “The disinformation has made them believe that there is some right for the Russians to do what they do. And they do terrible, terrible things.” Subrtova says NeverMore 68 does not fit neatly into familiar categories. It is neither a festival, with its associations of celebration, nor a funeral, focused on mourning. Instead, it encompasses both hope and profound loss. “For me, it’s a platform that provides various ways – such as discussions, exhibitions, and screenings – to reflect on this date in our history, provide new information, and open up new areas for discussion.” Stasek, from Pulse of Europe, had a different answer: “It’s a reminder.” “It’s for us to remind [ourselves] that we are happy now, because we can just talk about it, but we don’t have to live it.” Ranee Brady is an editorial intern at Transitions. She is a graduate of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and an incoming master’s student at the Cardiff University School of Journalism in Wales.