On This Day: Czech student Jan Palach burns himself to death in anti-Soviet protest

JAN 19, 1969: Czech student Jan Palach, who set fire to himself in a protest against the Soviet occupation of his country, died from horrific burns on this day in 1969.

The 21-year-old stunned the world by dousing himself in petrol and setting himself alight in a painful suicide bid in Prague’s Wenceslas Square three days earlier.

It followed the Red Army’s invasion in August 1968 that crushed the ruling Czechoslovak Communist Party’s recent liberalisation, known as the Prague Spring.

A British Pathé newsreel showed smuggled-out footage of Palach’s funeral and a procession in the rain that was defiantly watched by 500,000 people.

Hundreds of his crying compatriots, who considered Palach a martyr, were filmed filing past his coffin at Charles University, where he studied philosophy.

They shared the grief of his inconsolable mother, who led the procession to Olsany Cemetery, the largest and most historic graveyard in Prague.

By taking his life in such a horrifying way, Palach succeeded in his hope of inspiring Czechoslovaks to not give up the hope of freeing their country from oppression.

According to burns specialist Jaraslava Moserova, who treated the student during his three days in hospital, he feared “that people were not only giving up, but giving in”.

The day after his funeral, which Soviet troops had kept away from, the occupiers ordered police to brutally evicted mourners from Wenceslas Square.

A sea of flowers and candles surrounded the statue of King Wenceslas, who inspired the Christmas carol and had long been a focus of patriotic Czech protesters.

The 18ft high monument had also been daubed with the slogan: “Do not be indifferent to the day when the light of the future was carried forward by a burning body.”

In a letter Palach sent to officials – demanding an end to censorship and a Soviet exit – he also claimed he was part of a group all prepared to burn themselves to deaths.

This was not the case - but he managed to inspire copycat self-immolations.

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A month later, Jan Zaijic, burned himself to death on the same spot and in April Evzen Plocek set fire to himself and died in Jihlava, 80 miles from the capital.

That month, Gustav Husak, who had supported the coup, took over from the ousted moderate Alexander Dubcek and scrapped all of his predecessor’s popular reforms.

Restrictions were reintroduced on the media, speech and travel, while central control of the economy was re-established during a period called “normalisation”.

But, despite increased repression, the new hardline authorities failed to wipe out all traces of resistance and hopes of a freer country.

Soviet tanks entered Prague again on the first anniversary of Palach’s death after huge protests were staged.

The communist party, which had been second largest in the world before the war and – with Soviet backing – seized power after German occupation, took steps to rub out his memory.

In 1973, they finally resorted to exhuming his body at night and secretly cremating it after his Olsany grave had become a popular shrine.

In January 1989 – on the 20th anniversary of his death – opposition groups launched Palach Week with a series of demonstrations, which prompted a brutal crackdown.

It became a catalyst for change and protesters were further emboldened by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s vow not to send troops to Eastern Bloc nations.

Czechoslovakia’s communists were overthrown during the November 1989 “Velvet Revolution” following the fall of the Berlin Wall in neighbouring East Germany.

It was the first of many relatively peaceful anti-communist revolts that swept through Eastern Europe that year.

In the aftermath, the new democratic Czechoslovakia was dissolved into two states – the Czech Republic and Slovakia - during the Velvet Divorce.

Dubcek, who emerged from exile to be cheered by thousands in Wenceslas Square during the revolution, led Slovakia’s Social Demoratic Party before dying in 1992.

And Palach was honoured with a different Prague square being named in his honour, a cross marking the spot where he burned himself and his ashes reburied in Olsany.