photo credits: Russian T-72B3 tanks in St. Petersburg, Russia | Shutterstock; kafkadesk.org Viktória Križanová/ March 20, 20225 min read The book A Voluntary, by Aaron B. Powell, tells the story of the end of the world and the self-destructive fashion that somehow defines the setting of today's society. In search of the right start for this reflection, I came across his quote, which struck a chord: "Will this generation be able to turn things around and learn a valuable lesson from all of this? I hope so, but I have my doubts. The damage has been done. And as a lifelong student of history, it's quite evident that human beings don't learn from the mistakes of past generations." Learning from your past mistakes is easier said than done. A very current example can be seen in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. After reading the news from this area in the last few months, I am sure that many Czechs and Slovaks are connecting it to the stories told by their grandparents and history textbooks – the invasions of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union and Hitler. The similarities are pretty sharp. The Soviet Union, along with Bulgaria, Poland, and Hungary, as members of the Warsaw Pact, had been preparing for the invasion of Czechoslovakia for about half a year (Gazdík, 2022). So the invasion was not a sudden decision but a deliberate military operation. The long process of preparations and strategizing was the same then as now. Many people think that Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24, 2022, but the fact is that Russian troops have been besieging Ukraine for more than eight (!) years. Sadly, the public only caught this year's incursion, while the eight-year operation somehow remained in the shadows. The process of invasion as such is also far too similar. In both cases, gathering troops at the border, mobilizing troops, military exercises, and special operations are keywords. A military exercise in 1968, which took place on the territory of Czechoslovakia, was a harbinger of the Soviet invasion. During his visit to Prague on May 17-22, 1968, Soviet Defence Minister Anton Grečko forced the Czechoslovak side to hold the military exercise, code-named "Šumava", which had initially been scheduled for September 1968, on June 20-30 (Klubert, n.d.). It was attended by nine army staff, three of whom were Soviet, three Czechoslovak, two Hungarian and one Polish (ibid). The theme of the "Šumava" exercise was to repel a fictitious aggression by the North Atlantic Alliance and Austria against the states of the Soviet bloc, and then stage a subsequent counter-offensive in the Prague-Nuremberg and Ostrava-Vienna directions (Klubert, n.d.). In fact, it allowed the Soviet command to survey Czechoslovak communications and build a liaison network in preparation for Operation Danube, the name given to the invasion of Czechoslovakia (ibid). In the present-day case, Russian forces were very active in Belarus and Crimea, a mobilization that was suspicious to the West but that Russia justified by calling it a military exercise, just as it did in the case of Šumava. A similarity also lies in the soldiers themselves, whom their own commanders deceived. An exchange of messages between a Russian soldier and his mother has spread around the Internet recently. He informed her that they were not in any exercise but a real war in Ukraine. He said they were told they were going to liberate Ukraine, the Russians living there, and Russia itself from Western influence. They believed that people would welcome them, but the reality was diametrically different. In the case of Soviet soldiers, they were also told to help their brothers and sisters fight Western influence and save socialism (PhDr. Tomáša Jahelka, PhD. for Trnavská Univerzita v Trnave, 2022). We can observe another resemblance to history, but this time from a leader from the West itself. The Donbas, Crimea, and other areas inhabited by Russian-speaking Ukrainians appeared to be in the same situation as the Sudeten Germans during WWII. At Hitler's request and outrage over their status as an oppressed minority, they became part of Germany (Florea, 2022). A similar situation has arisen with Putin's rhetoric and statements that the Russians are being oppressed by Ukraine and, moreover, that genocide is taking place against them. The fact remains that, like Hitler, Putin is aware that Western countries will do everything in their power to avoid war (Florea, 2022). This gives Russia a chance to try, as long as the West allows it, to go in and decide how much territory to appropriate. Despite the abundance of similarities between history and the current conflict in Ukraine, there are also a few differences. The most obvious is the reaction of the victim itself – the state. In the case of Czechoslovakia, the local army did not respond, while in the case of Ukraine, soldiers were mobilized and deployed by the government. The reaction of the West also differed – it reacted to the invasion of Czechoslovakia with a firm rejection, but also refused any material assistance to the besieged country. The West reacted better to the invasion of Ukraine than most had hoped – with harsh sanctions, by providing humanitarian and military aid, and by allowing its citizens to fight on the side of Ukraine. Czechoslovakia could only hope for a similar response. However, perhaps not, since Dubček-led Czechoslovakia did not disagree with communism as such, and did not have the ambition to disconnect from Moscow. However, Ukraine has distanced itself from Russian rule since declaring independence. To conclude, it is unfortunate, then, that Powell's hopes have not been fulfilled: people living in 21st-century Europe do not know what war is. They did not simply believe they would experience such a thing first-hand in their immediate vicinity. Somehow, we forgot the lessons of history and misjudged the situation, hoping that Russia only wanted to scare us. I mean, who would want to start a war in the days of nuclear weapons, which just helped to end the last war our continent experienced - the Cold War. References Florea, C. (2022, February 28). The Crisis in Ukraine Has Disturbing Echoes of the 1930s. Retrieved from TIME: https://time.com/6152294/ukraine-invasion-europe-1930s/ Gazdík, J. (2022, March 03). Kreml má agresi v genech. Historik srovnává okupaci v srpnu 1968 s útokem na Ukrajinu (The Kremlin has aggression in its genes. The historian compares the occupation in August 1968 with the attack on Ukraine). Retrieved from Aktuálně.cz: https://zpravy.aktualne.cz/zahranici/srovnani-ruska-invaze-do-ceskoslovenska-1968-a-na-ukrajinu-2/r~6954695a988411ecbdb0ac1f6b220ee8/ Klubert, T. (n.d.). 20. − 30. jún 1968. Vojenské cvičenie „Šumava“. Retrieved from Ústav pamäti národa (Nation's Memory Institute): https://www.upn.gov.sk/sk/20-%E2%88%92-30-jun-1968-vojenske-cvicenie-sumava/ Rusi sa prerátali, ako bude vyzerať konflikt. Je možné, že Ukrajinci vyjdú z neho víťazne (The Russians overlooked what the conflict would look like. It is possible that the Ukrainians will come out of it victorious). (2022, March 03). Retrieved from Trnavská Univerzita v Trnave: https://www.truni.sk/news/rusi-sa-preratali-ako-bude-vyzerat-konflikt-je-mozne-ze-ukrajinci-vyjdu-z-neho-vitazne [ https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/25142889-voluntary]
Croatia will become the twentieth member of the Eurozone on 1.1.2023 and will start using the common European currency Euro (EUR).
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