The second gold coin from the Czech Mint's four-part miniseries commemorating the events of the “Prague Spring“ is dedicated to the manifesto that went down in history as “Two Thousand Words“.

The reformist communists were slowly but surely loosening order in Czechoslovakia in 1968. For example, a law banning censorship was passed on 26 June. The very next day a radical manifesto was printed in four Czech newspapers, the full title of which was “Two thousand words belonging to workers, farmers, officials, artists and everyone“. The creation of this document was initiated by the workers of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. The text itself was the work of the writer Ludvík Vaculík, who aptly described the problems of Czechoslovakia and called for a radical change in the country's circumstances. On the one hand, the declaration stirred the nation - hundreds of public figures signed it, joined by over a hundred thousand other citizens. On the other hand, the declaration undermined existing reform efforts - moderate communists saw it as a threat to their own changes, and communist fundamentalists saw it as a call for civil war. The boldness of the manifesto also frightened the Soviets, who feared Czechoslovakia's secession from the Eastern Bloc. They branded the text counter-revolutionary and launched a military invasion to put an end to the “Prague Spring“…

The reverse side of the coin, which is the work of the medal maker Mgr. Art. Miroslav Hric, Art. D., presents a portrait of Ludvík Vaculík. The writer is surrounded by birds symbolizing freedom and an excerpt from his manifesto “Truth does not win, truth simply remains when everything else is lost“. The obverse side of the coin then follows the reverse - presenting a torn barbed wire and birds flying to find freedom. As the coins of the Czech Mint are issued with the foreign licence of the island of Niue, the obverse side bears its national emblem, the nominal value TEN DOLLARS (NZD) and the year of issue 2023.

The events of the groundbreaking year 1968 continue on two more coins. The complete collection can be stored in a collector's case which can also be found in the offer of the Czech Mint.