"Unenslaved Prague, Pardubice region is with you!" August occupation and media activites in Pardubice
Abstract
This paper deals with the occupation of Pardubice in August 1968. The occupation was a response to so-called Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia in 1968.
During this period Czechoslovak society undergone several changes, civil society was slowly established, and the reforms were in progress. The media had one of the major impacts on this situation.
The censorship was abolished, media were at the time experiencing wide freedom compere to the years following the communist take over in 1948. The situation of media was one of the reasons for military invasion.
So, on the night of 20-21 August 1968, the Eastern Bloc armies invaded Czechoslovakia. The incoming Warsaw Pact troops to Pardubice were from Poland and Soviet Union.
The people in Pardubice supported Czechoslovak reform politicians in numerous spontaneous acts of nonviolent resistance (for example with signs and graffiti drawn on houses, placards, leaflets or work stoppage on 22nd August). Some young civilians tried to argue with invading troops there, but this met with little or no success.
This paper analyses the situation of politics and media (press and radio) in Pardubice during the first days of occupation. The regional communist newspaper in Pardubice called Zář and after 21st August there were the special issues of this newspapar every day (some days even two issues in one day).
The media remaind independent in this week and they informed people about situation in the city, supported people's defiance against occupation and urged soldiers to leave our country. The journalists contributed to the political failure of the military intervention.
The most important media in this time was radio. But the protests in reaction to the invasion lasted only about seven days.
Shortly after the Warsaw Pact troops invasion the Czechoslovak delegation in Moscow accepted the Moscow Protocol and the censorship was restored. The aim was to get back the media under the control of the party as soon as possible.