Photos give new look at '68 Czech invasion

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Russian soldiers aim rifles at students waving flags. Tanks, cars and buses burn. A mother and her small daughter tread through rubble in front of smoldering buildings pockmarked by bullets and shrapnel.

These are some of the images in a new exhibition of photographs of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 taken by Czech photographer Josef Koudelka.

Although they are 40 years-old, some of the nearly 250 black and white snapshots currently being shown at the Aperture Gallery in New York look surprisingly contemporary, and are made even more interesting in the wake of Russia's recent invasion of the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

The fighting that followed the invasion left an estimated 72 Czechs and Slovaks dead. It was the first news event the 30-year-old Koudelka covered.

As he roamed the city with his camera, Koudelka was not afraid to climb on tanks or look down the barrels of guns.

In a recent interview with the editor of Aperture magazine, he described some of the dangers he faced during the shooting and shelling by the Soviet soldiers.

"I climbed to the top of one of the buildings, and the Soviets saw me. They thought I was a sniper and started to chase me," he said.

"I ran through the hallways into another building, and by chance found that a friend of mine was living there. I left all the film I had shot that day -- about 20 rolls -- with him, just in case the Soviets caught me."

Koudelka barely slept for seven days. His photos were smuggled out of Czechoslovakia and reached the Magnum photo agency in New York. When they were published around the world a year later -- ascribed to an "unknown Czech photographer" -- they caused a sensation. Koudelka decided it was time to flee before Soviet officials learned the pictures were his.

PRAGUE SPRING

The images show that the fighting was fierce, especially in front of Czechoslovak Radio headquarters in Prague. Cars, buses and tanks were set ablaze while the invading soldiers fired live ammunition and shelled buildings.

A photo taken in front of the radio building shows two young men, whose clothes and haircuts would not look out of place in 2008, walking through the rubble and smoldering debris carrying a Czechoslovak flag.

Another shows the corpse of young Czech man who was shot when he tried to drape a Czechoslovak flag over a Soviet tank.

Koudelka's images also help tell the story of what happened behind the scenes in August 1968, when Moscow put a stop to the growing reform movement in the Soviet satellite state.

One image shows the license plate numbers of cars allegedly carrying Czechoslovakia's detained leader Alexander Dubcek and other members of the Prague government who had denounced the Warsaw Pact invasion as illegal.

"Stop the black Volga (cars) AE-40-01, ABA-71-19," a young man writes on a building in chalk in one of Koudelka's shots. "They've arrested our leaders."

This period of liberalization, called Prague Spring, began in January 1968 and was intended to create what Dubcek called "socialism with a human face." The reforms went too far for the Kremlin, which said that Prague government officials had asked Soviet, Polish, Hungarian and Bulgarian forces to stop Dubcek.

Dubcek and other government officials issued a proclamation against the invasion but they were arrested, whisked off to Moscow and forced to capitulate. Dubcek was later ousted and Soviet troops stayed in the country until the Velvet Revolution in 1989 put an end to four decades of Communist rule.

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)