Velvet Recall: The Rushed Revolution
Velvet Recall: The Rushed Revolution

Summary/Abstract: Jaroslav Kucera’s camera captured the sudden, seismic shifts of November 1989. A TOL special report. On 17 November 1989, police in Prague cracked down on a student demonstration, triggering 10 days of mass protest and political action that peacefully brought down Czechoslovakia's communist regime. To mark the anniversary, all this week TOL features prominent Czechs offering their recollections of the Velvet Revolution. Today: photographer Jaroslav Kucera. For more memories of 1989, see the Recollections section of our 20 Years After website. *** Born in Central Bohemia in 1946, Jaroslav Kucera arrived in Prague as an engineering student amid the foment of 1968. He soon discovered a talent for photography that has made him one of the foremost chroniclers of life in the Czech capital, and his photographs of the Velvet Revolution are among the most celebrated images of the era. Kucera also distinguished himself in 1989 by smuggling to the West a recording of Communist Party General Secretary Milos Jakes delivering a two-hour address at a party conference. Circulation of the tape dealt the party a heavy blow, as Jakes’ incoherent speech became for many Czechs the definitive demonstration of the regime’s incompetence. Kucera co-founded the photography organizations Photoclub Strahov and Signum and has won 12 prizes from United Press Photo. Often focusing his lens on the socially marginalized, he is described by Daniela Mrazkova, director of the annual Czech Press Photo showcase, as “a brilliant and sensitive observer” whose ability to charm his subjects is “a gift from God.”

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