The author’s thirtieth birthday fell on August 1968. He had just come back from Romania where he worked on a reportage taking photographs of Gipsies. It was there that he had decided to end his career as an aviation engineer and to fully focus on photography. One day later, the Russians arrived in Prague…
..suddenly I found myself in a situation brought something out of me, something that I did not even know I would be capable of,
Josef Koudelka comments on the occupation week when he practically did not put his camera down. I had the impression that in the course of the seven days, I was experiencing everything that I could actually experience in my life.
When taking pictures, Koudelka stuck to one basic rule – to quickly disappear from the place that he has just photographed. Sometimes I even heard gunfire behind me, but it was probaby just into the air. I have no idea how I managed to keep my films from being taken by the Russians. They chased me many times.
During the fateful August days, Koudelka used approximately 260 films, which means some 7 200 pictures. That week he did not develop any of the pictures that he had taken. He did not have time for that until later.
A few of these photographs got secretly out to the USA thanks to the historian Anna Fárová and thanks to Eugen Ostroff, the curator of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. It was the work of the Magnum agency that one year later, to commemorate the anniversary of the occupation, Koudelka’s coverage was published in many international magazines without mentioning the name of the author. To protect Koudelka and his family, the pictures were ascribed to an “unknown photographer” who was in 1969 awarded Robert Capa’s Medal. One of Koudelka’s photographs from August 68 was used for the cover of Karel Kryl’s record Bratříčku, Zavírej Vrátka.
This unique collection of photographs affected Koudelka’s life more that he could have realized when he was taking them. The fear that the police might find out who the author was led him to emigrate in 1970. He did not officially acknowledge the authorship until 1984 after his father died. In Czechoslovakia the pictures were first published in 1990 in a separate supplement to the magazine Respekt. This year, his photographic book entitled Invasion 68 was published in the Czech Republic and in another eight countries.
About of Photograph
Josef Koudelka was born on 10th January 1938 in Boskovice. He finished his studies of mechanical engineering and in the 1960’s he engaged himself in photography. He took photographs of the world of a few Prague’s theatres (Divadlo Na zábradlí and Divadlo Za branou). He is considered a classic of post-war reportage photography. When abroad, he created such collections as Exiles or Chaos. He has been awarded a number of distinguished awards and his works can be seen in many museums worldwide. Since 1987 he has officially become French citizen. In 2002, he was awarded the Medal For Merit by president Václav Havel.
source: blog.aktualne.centrum.cz/blogy/karel-hvizdala
Photo: ©Josef Koudelka / Magnum Photos
