The conference aims to look at the Prague spring in the context of cultural and societal changes that were taking place across Europe and the world and put the Czechoslovak events of 1968 into a broader context of European history. The discussions will bring together experts with various scientific backgrounds, from many EU countries.

What do the events of the 1968 mean for the Czech Republic and Europe from today’s perspective? What
impact have the events had on a regional cooperation after 1990? What is the use of 1968 in the current
political and social discourse? And finally, what is the understanding of guilty from the perspective of 50
years? 

The events of the year 1968 cannot be understood as a single event that ended up by the invasion of the
Warsaw Pact armies lead by the Soviet Red Army. It was a result of an intellectual, political, and social uprising
which was driven by the will of Czechoslovaks to be an example a transformation of communist regime driven
from the inside. However it was the regional as well as European political and social development which
created an environment that allowed the Czechoslovak society to believe that reformation of the communist
regime was possible.

The intellectual and cultural movement, strongly supported by a political transformation, eventually ended
very quickly. The invasion of the Warsaw Pact in August 1968 served as a warning for the other communist
states of the Central and Eastern Europe. The same external strength that enabled the early 1968
transformation was used to show that such a reform aims were not welcomed.