The “Burning Body” as an Icon of Resistance: Literary Representations of Jan Palach

Abstract

In ‘68, Czechoslovakia’s attempt at widespread political reform, which became known as the “Prague Spring,” attracted worldwide attention. Under the leadership of Alexander Dubcek, who famously described the movement’s aim as “socialism with a human face,” the regime allowed a level of freedom (including a virtual end to press censorship) that had not been seen since the Communist rise to power twenty years earlier. However, these developments were brought abruptly to an end by the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia that August. While the first weeks of the occupation inspired widespread public protests, opposition had gradually broken down by the beginning of the following year. On January 16, 1969, twenty-year-old university student Jan Palach set himself on fire in Prague’s Wenceslas Square in protest against the growing Czech apathy toward the occupation. He succumbed to the burns three days later, leaving behind a letter that he signed “Torch Number 1.” This event was a traumatic turning point that both shocked the Czechs, who had been withdrawing into stunned passivity, and unified them; his funeral in Prague drew thousands of mourners and became a major demonstration of anti-Soviet sentiment. As one man, waiting in line to see Palach’s coffin, lamented, “What a country we live in! Where the only light for the future is the burning body of a young boy.”1 By the end ofthat year, thousands of Czechs and Slovaks had gone into exile, and all calls for reform had been effectively silenced, but Jan PalachKeywordsCommunist RegimePhilosophical FacultyCommunist PeriodSoviet OccupationSoviet InvasionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.