Horia Ghibuţiu: "Before the Christmas of 1968, it is said that Romanians have walked through Europe singing carols".
Of course that crushing of the "spring from Prague" by the Russian tanks is not an occasion for jokes. Although, paradoxically, the Czechs were making jokes even under foreign occupation. To capture an enemy tank and paint it in pink, to make fun of it, is a sample of humor as only the nationals of Jaroslav Hasek, the "father" of the brave soldier Svejk, could provide. And how to qualify otherwise than an entire incredible sense of humor the fact that the "reactionary forces" defied the Soviet tank crews through the length of the skirts? Noticing the long looks f the Kirghizs who were raising their heads from the turrets, the young girls of Prague adopted enthusiastically the miniskirts fashion! And Vaclav Havel tells - see "Interogatory in the distance. Talks with Karel Hvizdala, volume published in 1991 by Editura Tinerama - which shows another action which shows the unbelievable capacity of the mild Czech people to throw in humor an invader who shelled the museums and filled the walking area in Prague with military technics. On 21 august 1968, Havel was in Liberec, in the north of Bohemia. There he has assisted at an incredible fraternization of a group of rebels with the authorities, against the enemy. Thus, after the Soviet invasion, the kids, who had scared Liberec with their trouble makings, have offered their services to the mayor. Who, flattered by their sudden empowerment, agreed. The next day, all street name plates were gone, to confuse the Russians! Furthermore, the young rebels had entered and in a variety of patriotic guards, so you could see guarding the city hall groups of policemen flanked by boys with long hair wearing jeans !
With your willing, the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Russian troops has, for the author of these lines, an apart meaning: in 1968, my family was among the few Romanian living in Prague. By chance, on 21 august they were at Snagov, on their holiday in which - I'm being indiscreet - I was going to be conceived. They have been called in emergency to Czechoslovakia, where they had to stay until May 1969, six weeks after I was born. They got to see a lot of atrocities committed by some barbarians - the poor Soviet soldiers had no idea about the world they lived in. Gathered in haste from the steppe, the Russians did not understand that they have put the boots on the Golden City of Europe, believing instead that the vast Soviet Union is again threatened by the Germans.
Family stories made me to irreversible fall in love with a great city (not with its subway, built after the Soviet model!) and with a nation with much grace. I had to participate emotionally at any wild joy of the Czechs who were beating the Russian at ice hockey, a splendid rematch with the puck and stick, to melt after the torments of Milan Kundera and after the sausages mentioned by another exceptional writer, Bohumil Hrabal .
Forty years after the Soviet invasion in Czechoslovakia, "Evenimentul Zilei" is trying to explain the significance of this event. From this corner of page, I propose you to drink a beer for the Czechs - wasn't, perhaps, Havel the only president who talked about the importance of this deeply unserious drink in the Czech society?
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