Kati pražského jara - Brežněv a jeho éra v Kremlu – Novák Martin (2021)

The name Leonid Brezhnev is known by almost everyone in the Czech Republic, including those who were born or grew up after November 1989. The man associated with the liquidation of the reform process in Czechoslovakia in 1968 influenced the lives of Czechs and Slovaks like few other foreign politicians. Along with him were those who decided in the Kremlin from the mid-sixties to the mid-eighties about what the superpower known as the USSR would do: Alexei Kosygin, Yuri Andropov, Mikhail Suslov, Andrei Gromyko, Konstantin Chernenko, and others. Reporter and publicist Martin Novák systematically maps the Brezhnev era for the first time from various perspectives, which he calls the era of the 'executioners of the Prague Spring.' The author visited many places associated with Brezhnev's life and his regime, gathering documents and testimonies for a long time. He describes Brezhnev's complicated childhood and adolescence in Ukraine, Stalin's long posthumous shadow over all events in the Soviet Union, dramatic details of the conspiracy against Khrushchev, the fierce struggle for positions in the Kremlin, the persecution and torture of dissidents, and the futile attempts to reform the ailing Soviet economy. In addition, he also addresses the details of the dialogue between Washington and Moscow in the first half of the seventies, the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops into...