In the night of 20th August 1968 five countries from the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia. There were over 50 000 tanks, of which 33 were Bulgarian. 100 people lost their lives to the invasion. Bulgaria was the first volunteer to join the “brotherly assistance against the counter-revolution” and the last one to extend its apology for having participated in this deeply shameful moment in European history.

FotoFabrika presents a selection of documentary photos capturing that August day when Spring had come to an end and a new political season had begun. These are news report photos but they look like movie stills. And the exhibition is part of our belated apology. Today, 50 years later, 1968 does not seem so distant.

The military occupation of Czechoslovakia allowed the conservative forces in the Communist party to stop the democratization of society, to take control of the situation and to sign a contract for the temporary deployment of Soviet troops. This “temporary deployment” went on for the next two decades. The so-called “Central Group of Forces” of the Soviet army was stationed on Czechoslovak territory, comprising about 75 thousand soldiers as well as heavy weaponry and aircraft.

Dana Kindrova, curator of the exhibition