In 1968, thirty-year-old Josef Koudelka was a renowned theater photographer who had never photographed a news event.
On August 20, 1968, military forces of the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia to suppress the so-called “Spring of Prague”, the ambitious program of liberalization and democratization of the Communist regime.
The previous day, Koudelka had returned from photographing gypsies in Romania.
During the political turmoil, Josef Koudelka is photographing. As he states: “I knew it was important to photograph, so I photographed”.
Amid the turmoil of the Soviet invasion, this series of photographs was fled the country and distributed in New York by Magnum Photos, anonymous to avoid retaliation.
His photographs were published in the Sunday Times of London in 1969. A year later in May 1970, for security reasons, Koudelka left Czechoslovakia.
Thanks to them he wins – as the anonymous Prague Photographer (PP – Prague Photographer) – the Robert Capa Prize.
Sixteen years will pass until the photographer’s identity is safely revealed.
