Slovak Ambassador to Turkey Vladimir Jakabcin on Friday hosted a ceremony for the unveiling of the plaque, which he said they put in the entrance so that everyone passing by the embassy could honor Dubcek’s memory.
Dubcek, who lived from 1921 to 1992, was the first secretary of the Communist Party of then-Czechoslovakia in 1968-69, whose liberal reforms led to the Soviet invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968.
Two years after sparking the Prague Spring, on Jan. 25, 1970, Dubcek arrived in Ankara to take up his appointment as ambassador. He had been appointed to this position in December 1969. Dubcek was the ambassador of Czechoslovakia to Turkey until June 24, 1970.
Dubcek returned to prominence in Czechoslovakia’s national affairs in December 1989 after the country’s Communist Party had relinquished its monopoly on power and agreed to participate in a coalition government. On Dec. 28 he was elected chairman of the Federal Assembly, and by 1992 he had become the leader of Slovakia’s Social Democrats. He died that year of injuries suffered in an automobile accident.
