Word: palach
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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JUST RECENTLY, The New York Times reported that authorities in Czechoslavakia have removed the remains of Jan Palach from an unmarked grave in a Prague cemetary and transferred them to an unknown location...
Still, Czech citizens continue to appear day after day at Palach's former gravesite to mourn the young man who became a symbol of Czech resistance to Soviet imperialism. They have not forgotten the reform era of the "Prague Spring" when Alexander Dubcek and the other liberal leaders tried to humanize the face of Czech socialism; they have not forgotten the Russian tanks that rumbled into their country in August, 1968; they have not forgotten the martyr, Palach, who immolated himself in a central square of Prague in 1969 to protest the Soviet decision to deprive Czechoslavakia of self-determination...
Absenteeism regularly affects about 5% of the work force, or 230,000 people, and consumption of alcoholic beverages has increased noticeably. One subtle indication of resentment is the array of vigil candles and fresh flowers regularly placed around the Prague grave of Jan Palach, the student who publicly immolated himself in 1969 to protest the Russian occupation...
Shapiro put some of his feelings into a recent poem called "The Funeral of Jan Palach." Though Palach was a Czech who set fire to himself after the Russian invasion of 1968, Shapiro says that his poem is "really about the funeral of America. More than anything I can say it demonstrates my real feelings." Excerpt: "Halfway in mud and slush the microphones picked up/ It was raining on the houses./ It was snowing on the police cars./ . . . And my own mother was brave enough she looked/ And it was all right I was dead." Shapiro adds: "There...
...What would it change?" shrugged a young mechanic from Kladno. In Prague, some Czechs placed flowers and candles on the grave of Jan Palach, the student who burned himself to death on Jan. 16, 1969, in protest against the invasion. The flowers and candles were removed by the authorities...