Monday, January 21, 2019

Jan Palach - Czech Martyr


On January 25, 1969 more than 750,000 people lined the streets of Prague to pay their respects to 21-year old Jan Palach.  Just days earlier, as a completely unknown figure, Palach had staged a shocking one-man protest, setting himself on fire in Prague’s Wenceslas Square.  The funeral procession had all the solemnity of a state occasion, but without the pomp and ceremony.  Most of those watching the funeral procession watched in deep silence.  The whole ceremony, from the display off Palach’s closed coffin to the procession, was organized entirely by students.  Palach’s aim was to wake his fellow Czech citizens from a complacency that had set over them in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia that occurred in August 1968.  Palach envisioned his actions as a “wake-up call” to the nation. 

The year before, Czechoslovakia had enjoyed a brief period of liberalism, the Prague Spring.  It was an effort by Alexander Dubcek to give socialism a “human face”. For a few months in 1968 there was a greater tolerance of political, religious and social expression.  This was done in defiance of Moscow’s wishes.  In August 1968, Soviet and Warsaw Pact tanks rolled into Prague and seized control.  Dubcek was taken into custody, and the Communists in Prague set about reversing his reforms. After the initial shock of the invasion, the Communist clampdown was more gradual.  Censorship was re-imposed, and non-Communists lost their way of participating in civil society.  To be able to teach in universities, one had to be a Communist party member.  People expressed what they wished privately, but in public they had to adhere to the party line.  Many did not want to “rock the boat”.  It was this public acceptance of the Communist regime that angered Jan Palach. 

In a letter he wrote before his death, Palach said he wanted to stir what he called as a “sleeping conscience of the nation.”  In his letter, Palach referred to himself as “Torch #1”, which implied there was part of a larger group willing to do just as he did.  But there was no “larger group”.  But several others did follow Palach’s example in Czechoslovakia and other countries behind the Iron Curtain.  The pastor who would lead the services at Palach’s gravesite met young Palach several times near the Prague church where he preached.  He said Palach came to him three or four times, and Palach said to him that he was very sad about the development of the public complacency in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion.   He thought Palach was “an extraordinary young man”.  It was on January 15, 1969 that Palach staged his one-man protest in Wenceslas Square.  Dousing himself in gasoline, he set fire to his clothes and ran through the streets before collapsing.  Passers-by put out the flames and rushed him to the hospital.  Palach died of his injuries four days later. 

Hours after Palach’s death, tens of thousands of people took part in a “remembrance march”.  Some carried signs with slogans such as “Abolish Censorship” and “Russians Go Home”.  Over several days, people from all over Czechoslovakia came to file past Palach’s coffin in the courtyard of Charles University.  Many senior ranking army officers were among the mourners.  The funeral passed with no official response from the Communist regime.  Police were nowhere to be found during the funeral.  Soon enough, anyone linked to Palach would become a target.  In the 1970s his grave would be destroyed after it became a national shrine, and his family was regularly interrogated by the Czech secret police. Protests against the regime continued for awhile but the people of Czechoslovakia seemed resigned to Communist rule. 

Czechs mourned Palach’s passing, but Palach’s act did nothing to overturn the consolidation of power by Soviet-backed hardliners who brought in a time of repression that lasted until the Velvet Revolution of 1989.  On the 20th anniversary of Palach’s death, thousands protested in the biggest anti-government protests in twenty years.  The protests continued throughout 1989, culminating in November 1989.  On November 17th, there was a massive protest in Prague.  Demonstrators marched and no longer feared the police.  It came twenty years after his death, but the Czech people shook off their apathy.


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