Jan Palach, Czech student who set himself on fire on 16 January 1969 in protest at the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Bronze memorial on an external wall of Charles University, Prague, Czechia / Czech Republic. Sculptor Olbram Zoubek (1926 - 2017) created the face in 1990, from a death mask taken in secret shortly after Palach self-immolated in nearby Wenceslas Square. The memorial is in a public space known in the communist era as the Square of Red Army Soldiers and re-named Jan Palach Square (Námestí Jana Palacha) after the 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia.
Prague, Czechia / Czech Republic: Jan Palach, 20-year-old student, Czech martyr and Prague Spring national hero, is commemorated by this bronze face fixed to an external wall of Charles University. Sculptor Olbram Zoubek (1926-2017) created it from a death mask taken in secret after Jan’s death in hospital three days after he had set himself on fire in nearby Wenceslas Square on 16 January 1969. Jan, born in Prague in 1948, was studying history and political economy at the University in August 1968 when Warsaw Pact armies invaded and occupied his homeland to crush mass unrest following the failed ‘Prague Spring’ attempts led by Alexander Dubček to liberalise the country’s communist regime. Dubček wanted to decentralise the economy, loosen restrictions on free speech, the media and travel, and to offer the nation a form of representative democracy. Palach’s self-immolation followed a letter he sent to several public figures calling for a general strike, the abolition of censorship and the resignation of several pro-Soviet politicians. The memorial is in a public space known during the communist era as the Square of Red Army Soldiers. It was re-named Jan Palach Square (Námestí Jana Palacha) after the Velvet Revolution in 1989 ended 41 years of one-party rule in Czechoslovakia, dismantled the command economy and founded a parliamentary republic led by President Václav Havel, who negotiated the withdrawal of 73,500 Soviet troops. In 1993, Czechoslovakia was peacefully dissolved into two separate states, the Czech Republic or Czechia and the Slovak Republic or Slovakia.
Size: 2592px × 3872px
Location: Charles University, Jan Palach Square, Prague, Czech / Czech Republic
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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