Silver Coin 500 CZK Czechoslovak Federation 20th Anniversary 1988

20th Anniversary of the Czechoslovak Federation

Silver commemorative coin issued in Czechoslovakia in 1988 to mark the 20th anniversary of the Czechoslovak Federation. This rare silver coin is housed in a plastic capsule, certificate of authenticity not included.

A brief period of thawing in the Soviet Union in the mid-1960s also led to a relaxation in the then Czechoslovakia and the Prague Spring of 1968, when Antonín Novotný resigned from the presidency and party office. Ludvík Svoboda became president after a short time. Hopes for "socialism with a human face" were decisively ended by the invasion of the Warsaw Pact states, officially called "fraternal international aid", on Wednesday 21 August 1968, on orders from Moscow. Despite the spontaneous resistance of the population, especially to the Soviet occupiers, the Czechoslovak politicians of the time (Alexander Dubček and most others), after being dragged to Moscow, gave in to the pressure and approved the occupation.

On 1 January 1969, Czechoslovakia was transformed into a federation of two formally sovereign nation-states, the Czech Socialist Republic and the Slovak Socialist Republic, retaining the collective name Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

In the post-1968 period, particularly in 1969, a third wave of emigration left. Jan Palach and Jan Zajíc sacrificed their lives on 16 January 1969 and 25 February 1969 respectively in protest against censorship and the onset of normalisation. With the ascension of Gustáv Husák to the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, who, on instructions from Moscow, replaced Alexander Dubček, the period of regime consolidation, the so-called normalisation, finally began. The following two decades have been described as the rule of the "grey zone", the rule of conformism and "real socialism" (popularly known as "socialism with goosebumps"). Ideologically inconvenient people were again removed from important positions during this time and the state continued to lose capable people. The Charter 77 petition campaign pointed to human rights violations in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and provoked a strong reaction from the regime. The first victim of the regime's suppression of this action (which was conducted entirely within the limits of the laws of the time) was the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka in March 1977, the last being Pavel Wonka, who died in prison on 26 April 1988 under unclear circumstances.