The Prague Spring Through the Lens of Frank Carter

Join us at the opening reception of two accompanying exhibitions: The Prague Spring Through the Lens of Frank Carter and The Story of an Image: Bare-Chested Man in front of a Tank on Monday 4 June, 4.00-6.00pm!

Displaying items from UCL SSEES Library Special Collections, the exhibition 'The Prague Spring Through the Lens of Frank Carter' depicts the resilience and bravery of ordinary Czechs and Slovaks during the era of political liberalization in 1968. The geographer Frank Carter captured the turbulent times of the former republic of the Eastern Bloc during his research trip to Prague and Pilsen. At that time, on the night of 20-21 August, thousands of Warsaw Pact troops and tanks invaded Czechoslovakia to halt pro-liberalization reforms.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the Prague Spring as well as the European Year of Cultural Heritage during the UCL Festival of Culture 2018, Frank Carter's collection will be digitised and made available in the UCL Digital Collections repository. The exhibition is curated by UCL SSEES Library in partnership with the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, and it is realised with support from Professor Frank Carter Postgraduate Prize Fund. It will be on display until 8 June 2018.  

Professor Frank Carter (1938-2001) was a historical geographer who held a joint appointment in the UCL Department of Geography and at UCL SSEES from 1966 to 1990. In 1990 he moved full-time to UCL SSEES and died in service in 2001, having been awarded a Personal Chair. Fluent in all the main East European languages, he also possessed an extraordinary talent to perceive the country he was studying from the inside; he was Bulgarian in Bulgaria, Polish in Poland, and Greek in Greece. His contribution to UCL is commemorated by two annual prizes for graduate students in the UCL Department of Geography and the UCL SSEES.