oh yeah and welcome to spotlight the interview on r.t. i'll bring our friend today my guest on the show. more than four decades ago in czechoslovakia the so-called prague spring cape town it was a period of political liberalization which ended up with nassif invasion of the warsaw pact armies into the country besides being important in history the prague spring was also a breakthrough for one of the most renowned photographer of the twentieth century.

who doubt that photograph the invasion and the resistance and today he's here to share his experience. as a kook is considered one of the most equal actual photographers of modern times he started his career by turning his lands on the gypsies in slovakia and romania later for his strong landscape photography but his best known work is on the song that invasion of czechoslovakia nine hundred sixty eight it was published in the british times magazine under the pen name peepee make those hours regular popular an award winning photographer. how does the codell kind of welcome to the show good my very much should be with. that's out for now. but there's a tell all the time in france they say. in english. you can call what i was.

it's very hard for me being a russian to talk to a check national about the events of nine hundred sixty eight even after all these years well what about you are you alright with a russian. after forty years of you know it's very hard for me to. in fact. before going to moscow it's not my first time in a moscow. before going to moscow but they have been here for eight years so before going to moscow i was the thing which i was most afraid not to get emotional. because still. it is very close to my heart. because because the first sure of the fish the word was that this invasion in prague in czechoslovakia was over but by the socialist countries by the countries of the of the war so pale but actually it was led by the soviet army and most of the soldiers

were russians of course he was khalid there was an i would like you to excuse me because in the bust of time saying russians russian so i would i do apologize to all the viewers if i say russian of what they really mean soviet union soldiers was it was a different country and yours was a different country and ours was a different country well as a matter of fact today well the face of europe has changed and there's no more socialist countries on the face of europe could we say that actually your country czechoslovakia was and your people were the first to spark this change to start the process is a true. i can't talk about that you know i was never interested in the politics. and i was living in czechoslovakia and it was similar in their show. before sixty eight nothing was possible

and suddenly in sixty eight everything's that will be possible i mean even even people who are not interesting politic certainly involve so i can talk about what was really happening it doesn't interest me much but there were so happy to bring happen because suddenly i could say what they wanted to say it was the perestroika in russia years later thirty years later would go but yes i can tell you. i in one thousand eight hundred nine i couldn't go back to czechoslovakia but i was innovative to come to russia. to get up at history. so every day when i was in front of the law. people are saying i was walking around moscow quite a few being arrested because a photograph something what they didn't supposed to photograph but exactly i would say it was probably something similar so so you did find things things in common

even even being just a photographer non-polar capsule well actually more than forty years ago russian tanks and tanks of other socialist countries rolled into czechoslovakia to put an end to the country's reforms this is what. the need of a has to say about. spring nineteen sixty eight was exceptional in the history of what was known as czechoslovakia the country was dominated by this period of liberalization was taking place the czechs under slovaks were anticipating a milder more democratic version of the soviet regime the reformist alexander do puke i just come to power huge the communist party's grip on the country granting citizens agree to freedom of expression the reforms home of are not received well by this. of it you know and a series of negotiations for the road but the you were ceasars leader their new

direction if it wasn't satisfied with the results eventually on the twenty first of all list troops from five warsaw pact countries and to your cost of a care so that tanks were deployed on the streets of the capital prague during the uprising seventy two czech and slovak civilians were killed later on a group of moscow citizens held a protest on red square against the invasion demonstrators were arrested then lead upon ish to the soviet invasion put an end to this short period of liberalization in czechoslovakia which had to wait a further twenty years to the reader of this soviet regime. you graduated from university back in one thousand nine hundred sixty one and you got a diploma of an engineer yes the same year when you graduated you you actually organize your first exhibit of your photographic works doesn't mean that then when

you were a young graduate you already wanted to be a professional photographer or it was never like a hobby i still don't consider myself to be a professional killer. is you know i think i'm a much of it that you make money. yes i'm a living from the front of you know that that makes you professional. i think it depends on how you look at it ok so let's say i live from the photography but i still consider myself to have the same life all these feet and i'm going to start. for so so would you consider yourself making money by photography but but still i can still see an amateur like for example agatha christie's poor role miss marple they weren't professional detectives they were amateurs. you know what in fact what they wanted to say that. none of us engine in

a study or an engineering i started to make for us. to make for two thousand because something was interesting and it developed great love to the photography which is luckily enough lastings there today so that's what i wanted to say that in fact i am still the same man who started photographing fifty years ago was he you were and they're mature for governor for ok in the sixty's and when when these reforms when this period story car in czechoslovakia started what were you interested in photographing the events you said you were not political i was not i was not. really interested in the politics of course but i can tell you hold it happened i know a photograph as a photographer before any news and i never photographed any newspaper.

i never thought oh you have any story but it happened something that one day i came back from a woman in every photo you have gypsy and next night my girlfriend called me and they said the russians are here. she called me three times because i thought i didn't believe she was drunk that was at four o'clock in the morning you know and finally when she said open the window and listen i opened the window i could hear the plane flying very i don't know five minutes so i realized something was happening. any hesitation these are thinking about politic result think i just pick my camera pick my films and i get on the streets. and i started to photograph. i thought that it was important to her. because i was czech it was my country. and it concerned me directly.

and suddenly because what was happening you know there were photographs everywhere there were so many things happening it was so is it before. you turn around and picture was there i have two pictures i'm not sure if these pictures are here there's one picture of the known picture which is a man against the tank opening and the second picture which is very good picture two young men it is the flame which is but every thirty seconds that one yeah after one after second. so it was incredible and i think you know for me for me the biggest the most interesting thing is that i was not the man who fought to get out of the news but suddenly this what i did become classic example of the reporter or it is considered. one of the

a lot of people with cameras on the streets. there are not to many people is the commerce there. and of course the russian soldiers they have the order to prevent they quickly downs. to destroy to come at us or take some of us away and the shooter after the fight over they probably didn't shoot him but if you're here shooting behind you you don't bother much beach anywhere anyway so their version but. you know i think. like you my picture might be better than the some other ones and definitely more complete and my that different that the pictures of all these professional photographers that you know. i think because . it was my problem it was my country and i had to add to it says photographer. spotlight will be back shortly after the break so stay with us

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however again and welcome to spotlight i am al green of and here in the studio with me today i have photographer just so i could dunk. you said that your pictures the pictures that you took in the prague spring in the back nine hundred sixty eight probably were better than pictures taken by professionals from from the agencies with a lot of people the courage to get into czechoslovakia for a from

a professional agency yes but they probably they didn't have it like like me because i was the first on the spot. and in fact the first day it was the most interesting you know i had a certain picture in fact my picture as i remember being published in. book on my guys you know as a little russian soldiers look on what was going on in the streets because i was standing just next to the soldiers was it he said that the russian soldiers even could shoot in the direction of people taking pictures so it could have been very dangerous was it. a lesson i saw people being killed but i know that the russian soldiers they try to every child thing. you know they could of course when they learn that your tank is burning and you are

there is the gun you can start to short it is clear and there were dissipation and there were not children shooting but of course people. shot you you talking about. burning soviet tanks will does that mean that the resistance against invasion world was very strong and i mean the czechs and slovaks were very serious about fighting back you know. they didn't have a chance that they had they understood that they didn't have any chance of course yes you know i can talk to you only about but out. there really i wouldn't and after of course the prague is not. is not moscow and i can tall tell you and my pictures are showing i publish this book in eleven countries and my book. is published also in the russian and it show what was happening in the center of the broken seven days. how did you manage to smuggle your pictures abroad

because after there after the invasion the regime was were was a very strict soviet regime no war perestroika no war liberals so so it probably was hard for you to to to to get your pictures look at home here now. all these events in sixty eight as there was really like it. that i wake up early there was the first. of all these pictures that. nobody take my films but i really i didn't did this picture is that it is the aim to publish and. i developed my films only one month or two months later and then i started to make those little prince i was showing them my friends and i left some of them as my friend then came czechoslovakia came somebody one curator of the

photography from washington smithsonian institute. and he saw them. he asked if he can take six with them so my friend called me and said give it to him the big day. and then he was front of it who in that time was president of the long for target of. and he saw these pictures he was very interested then in these beaches so he sent a message to. ask if the photographer has more of these pictures and if i would be willing to send then i got i said no no i don't. want to have them i don't want to take that risk so len finally they convinced me that magnum is the it was from michael. sirus organisation the solution here that i don't need to be afraid. so that somebody else came for some different these new which i don't

know exactly i think he was the doctor for medical con congress and he took in they got this old circle smuggling anyway yeah but what was the reaction in prague your reaction or friends. or your photographs your pictures started to be published all around the world to all all the world publications know in a truck nobody saw that really so you know you can do about it now in fact the only thing the whole way you. and all my pictures never use it to us free of voice of america somebody here then use an anonymous check for. receive the call and mail and dig up our prize for his picture. and by chance therefore first anniversary in august. i was in this group my theatre group which i photographed they play many chuckles and

they came to play call and. what happened one sunday i get to aunt and everybody are still looking in the magazine so i look to the magazine was full of my photographs but of course i couldn't tell them they were my focal so so so so so all the time when your pictures were published anonymous check for google and only not only your look time. i my pictures of are not published is on mine for sixteen years mainly for the reason that i still have got family in czechoslovakia and of course they could have problems with when you decided to immigrate to to leave chicks like you was for political reasons or did you get a good job offer for money. i didn't know anything about my example that i knew that they they got their negatives so as not not at all of my go it

was not for political reasons the policy the main reason or us and probably you can understand it because you are younger than me but i was afraid. i was afraid they're going to learn who is this proud of her who would take all these pictures from praxis. and if they knew i went to jail really and as that is good to jail but the people voted. for much simpler things here and the charge would have been smuggling pictures yes i thinks no no you go for the group no a charge would be. saying something bad about it because like your own country yes well in fact very happy that for sixteen years i didn't say in the speech or by my name and the arguments that had become i became known by some different sort of

pictures of each other mainly gypsy pictures and not by these pictures was it a difficult decision for you and was a difficult actually to get out from czechoslovakia so it was a very difficult but and the difference of what you said how did you manage what you said the regime didn't change as quickly as they wanted you know van de russian came and but all these people in the ministry. in the gypsy group which you needed to get their recommendations they stay there. so the story is a little longer but maybe we don't have a time to tell it. but you left your family back in ships like each other for the first couple of years later they joined you yes no no no. my thought my my parents. and i was not able to see to them. i know when you come to prague these days do you see it from

a different angle it was what i mean the city the people the country i after after so many years you spent abroad you know. exile it gives you. exile is. can be bad for some people i have written the book which is called exile us which is not a boat people who are in the exam but people it'll all side of the society. and just love me last. who is the nobel prize writer polish. to and he said exile and kill but if doesn't kill you make you stronger and exile gives you one possibility to start your life from the scratch you live in the moscow you come every day here they know who you are influence you can change from one day throughout the day you suddenly you

are you get in some and nobody knows anything you have your whole suburban go on and you have to start your life you ask about the proud going back the others are the present which gives you it gives you possibility if you are lucky enough i was lucky enough that after twenty years good to go back that you get back. and you are able to look on everything what you knew the different and different mind and then i get to practice. every day i took three four five streets alone i walk alone and i was looking like for the first on the contrary the train knew perfectly. do you know of a home in front. of a home an apartment in prague no i have two apartments when the one in the old

factor in the common. in parents we have still have study only in their garden and then. i can say that i love their king place both are beautiful and very different and displace that i look on this beautiful church. very different so i can't tell you i have these two places but if i come there if i open the doors in the uk i think it's fantastic but if i leave i'm not sorry to leave it all on the. head anyway when you come you know it's a visitor you coming home when you come to prague is a true yes i would call it q. what is the home. call me whole whatever wherever you lay your head i am thank you thank you very

much for being with us and i hope muska will be your home for the next couple of days and they might thank you just a reminder that my guest today was young. to photograph the soviet invasion into checkers to get back to nine hundred sixty eight and that's it for now from all of us here if you want to add your sales where some of them aren't you i mean tribute next aren't just junk mail aren't album enough t.v. dots are you let's keep spotlight interactive back with more personal comments on what's going on in and outside pressure until then stay on our team and take thank you very much for. coming.

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