An international scholarly conference “The Prague Spring. The International Crisis 1968”, Austria, 20-22 August 2008

An international scholarly conference “The Prague Spring. The International Crisis 1968” was held in Austria on August 20-22, 2008.

The conference has finalized the project that have been implemented for two years by the Austrian Boltzmann Institute for Research on War Consequences, the Russian State Archives of Contemporary History, and the History Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences, with the participation of the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus.

The conference brought together scholars and archivists from 20 countries, including Austria, Germany, Russia, Belarus, USA, Czechia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Lithuania and Estonia.

The seven sessions discussed the issues of the reform process in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic; the positions of the USSR, the USA, Austria, Germany, China and other countries in the international crisis of 1968; the role of CIA, KGB and Ministry of Internal Affairs in the conflict; and the Prague Spring and the Soviet republics.

The conference also heard the reports delivered by V. Selemenev, Director at the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus and A. Sharkov, professor and department head at the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus.