PALACH 1969, ANATOMIE D’UNE RÉCEPTION

Abstract

On January 16, 1969, a 20-year-old young man immolated himself in Prague. The event makes the headlines
national newspapers for a week. From January 17, the news goes around the world. Jan
Palach died three days later. On January 25, tens of thousands of people take part in its
funeral. The images of this funeral are broadcast around the world. Palach's name is
imprinted in the consciousness. We know what he did, and more or less why, in what context.
Palach has become a symbol. Sometimes you wonder about the meaning of your gesture, or about
its legitimacy (Stach, 2016). On the other hand, the question of how this act imposed itself on our
consciousnesses, and how it became an event is more rarely asked. As if the perception
such an act was taken for granted. We know today, thanks to the work of historians in this field,
that this is not the case, and that each occurrence can have a very different outcome (Biggs, 2005).