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Czechoslovakia 1968 / Demonstrators
Soviet invasion of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (Czechoslovakia),
20/21 August 1968 (passive resistance by the Slovak people).

Demonstrators.

Photo, Bratislava,...
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The Prague Spring 1968
"Insurgents versus tanks"

The Slovakian photographer Ladislav Bielik (1939 - 1984), who took the world-famous photograph on 21st August 1968

"A shirtless man in front of a tank with its gun barrel pointed at him."

was largely unknown during his lifetime. But his photograph went around the world and became an icon of protest against the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops and the quelling of the Prague Spring.

Today, the photograph is one of the icons of the 20th century.

The courageous man who fought against the tank with his bare breasts was Emil Gallo, a Slovakian who, like thousands of Czechs and Slovaks fought against the invasion of the CSSR by Russian tanks. People tried to defend the ideas of the Prague Spring and the democratization of the country with their lives.