50 Years Since Prague Spring: Czechoslovak Dreams and Cold War Realities

This panel offers a retrospective examination of the 1968 Czechoslovak “Prague Spring”, or what the LBJ administration labeled the “Czechoslovak crisis.” Panelists Dr. Mary Neuburger, Professor of History and Director, Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREEES) and Dr. Jeremi Suri, Professor of History and Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs, offer their insights into the 1968 reform movement and popular response in the context of internal Bloc transformation and the “global 1960s.” They also discuss the implications of the Soviet (or Warsaw Pact) Invasion of Czechoslovakia and the US decision not to intervene for East-West Cold War engagement. 50 years after the event, both panelists tap into the past due decades of scholarship to re-examine the regional and global importance of these events and their aftermath.

Dr. Neuburger also introduced the Prague Spring Archive Project, an open-access resource consisting of digitized documents – such as intelligence reports, briefs, and day-to-day commentary by US policymakers – on the Prague Spring held at the LBJ Library.

Dr. Neuburger and Ian Goodale, CREEES digital librarian,  reflect on phase one of the project, and Ian Goodale discusses media and the Prague Spring.