Havel'sCivic Forum party played a major role in theVelvet Revolution that toppled the Communist system in Czechoslovakia in 1989. He assumed the presidency shortly thereafter, and was re-elected in a landslide the following year and afterSlovak independence in 1993. Havel was instrumental in dismantling theWarsaw Pact andenlargement of NATO membership eastward. Many of his stances and policies were controversial domestically, such as his opposition to Slovak independence, condemnation of the treatment ofSudeten Germans and their massexpulsion from Czechoslovakia afterWorld War II, and granting of general amnesty to all those imprisoned under the Communist era. By the end of his presidency, he enjoyed greater popularity abroad than at home. Havel continued his life as a public intellectual after his presidency, launching several initiatives including thePrague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism,[4][5] the VIZE 97 Foundation, and theForum 2000 annual conference.
Havel was born inPrague on 5 October 1936[8] into a wealthy family celebrated inCzechoslovakia for its entrepreneurial and cultural accomplishments. His grandfather, Vácslav Havel, a real estate developer, built a landmark entertainment complex on Prague's Wenceslas Square. His father, Václav Maria Havel, was the real estate developer behind the suburbanBarrandov Terraces, located on the highest point of Prague—next door to which his uncle,Miloš Havel, built one of the largest film studios in Europe.[9] Havel's mother, Božena Vavrečková,[10] also came from an influential family; her father was a Czechoslovak ambassador and a well-known journalist.
In the early 1950s, because of hisclass background, Havel entered into a four-year apprenticeship as a chemical laboratory assistant and simultaneously took evening classes at agymnasium. He completed his secondary education in 1954.
For political reasons, he was not accepted into any post-secondary school with a humanities program; therefore, he opted for studies at the Faculty of Economics of theCzech Technical University in Prague but dropped out after two years.[11] On 9 July 1964, Havel marriedOlga Šplíchalová.[9]
The intellectual tradition of his family was essential for Havel's lifetime adherence to the humanitarian values of the Czech culture.[12] After finishing hismilitary service (1957–59), Havel had to bring his intellectual ambitions in line with the given circumstances, especially with the restrictions imposed on him as a descendant of a bourgeois family. He found employment in Prague's theatre world as astagehand at Prague's Theatre ABC –Divadlo ABC, and then at the Theatre on Balustrade –Divadlo Na zábradlí. Simultaneously, he was a student of dramatic arts by correspondence at theTheatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU). His first own full-length play performed in public, besides various vaudeville collaborations, wasThe Garden Party (1963). Presented in a series ofTheatre of the Absurd, at the Theatre on Balustrade, this play won him international acclaim. The play was soon followed byThe Memorandum, one of his best known plays, andThe Increased Difficulty of Concentration, all at the Theatre on Balustrade. In 1968,The Memorandum was also brought toThe Public Theater in New York, which helped to establish Havel's reputation in the United States. The Public Theater continued to produce his plays in the following years. After 1968, Havel's plays were banned from the theatre world in his own country, and he was unable to leave Czechoslovakia to see any foreign performances of his works.[13]
Havel embraces the formerCommunist leaderAlexander Dubček at a meeting in the Laterna Magika theatre in Prague on 24 November 1989
During the first week of theWarsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Havel assisted the resistance by providing an on-air narrative via Radio Free Czechoslovakia station (atLiberec). Following the suppression of thePrague Spring in 1968, he was banned from the theatre and became more politically active.[14] He took a job atKrakonoš brewery inTrutnov, an experience he wrote about in his playAudience.[15] This play, along with two other "Vaněk" plays (so-called because of the recurring characterFerdinand Vaněk, a stand in for Havel), became distributed insamizdat form across Czechoslovakia, and greatly added to Havel's reputation of being a leading dissident (several other Czech writers later wrote their own plays featuring Vaněk).[16] This reputation was cemented with the publication of theCharter 77manifesto, written partially in response to the imprisonment of members of the Czechpsychedelic rock bandThe Plastic People of the Universe;[17] Havel had attended their trial, which centered on the group's non-conformity in having long hair, using obscenities in their music, and their overall involvement in thePrague underground movement.[18] Havel co-founded theCommittee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted in 1979. His political activities resulted in multiple imprisonments by the authorities, and constant government surveillance and questioning by the secret police (Státní bezpečnost). His longest period in prison, from May 1979 to February 1983,[18] is documented in letters to his wife that were later published asLetters to Olga.
He was known for his essays, most particularlyThe Power of the Powerless (1978), in which he described a societal paradigm in which citizens were forced to "live within a lie" under the Communist regime.[19] In describing his role as a dissident, Havel wrote in 1979: "we never decided to become dissidents. We have been transformed into them, without quite knowing how, sometimes we have ended up in prison without precisely knowing how. We simply went ahead and did certain things that we felt we ought to do, and that seemed to us decent to do, nothing more nor less."[20]
Václav Havel andKarol Sidon (left), his friend and later chief Czech rabbiFlag of the president of the Czech Republic. The national motto "Truth Prevails" was part of the greatercoat of arms of Czechoslovakia during the interwar period.
On 29 December 1989, while he was leader of theCivic Forum, Havel became President of Czechoslovakia by a unanimous vote of theFederal Assembly. He had long insisted that he was not interested in politics and had argued that political change in the country should be induced through autonomous civic initiatives rather than through the official institutions. In 1990, soon after his election, Havel was awarded thePrize For Freedom of theLiberal International.[23][24][25]
In 1990, Czechoslovakia heldits first free elections in 44 years, resulting in a sweeping victory for Civic Forum and its Slovak counterpart,Public Against Violence. Between them, they commanded strong majorities in both houses of the legislature, and tallied the highest popular vote share recorded for a free election in the country.
Despite increasing political tensions between the Czechs and the Slovaks in 1992, Havel supported the retention of theCzech and Slovak Federative Republic prior to thedissolution of the country. Havel sought re-election in 1992. Although no other candidate filed, when the vote came on 3 July, he failed to get a majority due to a lack of support from Slovak deputies. The largest Czech political party, theCivic Democratic Party, let it be known that it would not support any other candidate. After the Slovaks issued their Declaration of Independence, he resigned as president on 20 July, saying that he would not preside over the country's breakup.[26]
However, when the Czech Republic was created as one of two successor states, he stood for election as its first president on 26 January 1993, and won. Although he was nominally the new country's chief executive, the framers of theConstitution of the Czech Republic intended to vest most of the real power in the prime minister. However, owing to his prestige, he still commanded greatmoral authority, and the presidency acquired a greater role than the framers intended. For instance, largely due to his influence, theCommunist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM), successor to the KSC's branch in the Czech Lands, was kept on the margins for most of his presidency. Havel suspected that the KSCM was still an unreformed Stalinist party.[27]
Havel's popularity abroad surpassed his popularity at home,[28] and he was often the object of controversy and criticism. During his time in office, Havel stated that the expulsion of the indigenousSudeten German population afterWorld War II was immoral, causing a great controversy at home. He also extended general amnesty as one of his first acts as president, in an attempt to lessen the pressure in overcrowded prisons as well as to release political prisoners and persons who may have been falsely imprisoned during the Communist era. Havel felt that many of the decisions by the previous regime's courts should not be trusted, and that most of those in prison had not received fair trials.[29] However, critics claimed that this amnesty led to a significant increase in the crime rate:[30] the total number of crimes doubled,[31] as did the number of murders.[32][33] Several of the worst crimes in the history of the Czech criminology were committed by criminals released in this amnesty.[34][35][36] Within four years of theVelvet Revolution (and following another two amnesties declared by Havel), criminality had more than tripled since 1989.[31]
In an interview with Karel Hvížďala (included inTo the Castle and Back), Havel expressed his feeling that it was his most important accomplishment as president to have contributed to the dissolution of theWarsaw Pact. According to his statement the dissolution was very complicated. The infrastructure created by the Warsaw Pact was part of the economies of all member states, and the Pact's dissolution necessitated restructuring that took many years to complete.
Following a legal dispute with his sister-in-law Dagmar Havlová (wife of his brother Ivan M. Havel), Havel decided to sell his 50% stake in theLucerna Palace onWenceslas Square in Prague, built from 1907 to 1921 by his grandfather, also named Václav Havel (spelled Vácslav,) one of the multifunctional "palaces" in the center of the once booming pre-World War II Prague. In a transaction arranged byMarián Čalfa, Havel sold the estate toVáclav Junek, a former Communistspy in France and head of the soon-to-be bankruptconglomerate Chemapol Group, who later openly admitted that hebribed politicians of theCzech Social Democratic Party.[37]
His close friend wasIvan Medek, who became the chief of the president's office.[38]
In January 1996,Olga Havlová, his wife of 32 years, died of cancer at 62. In December 1996, Havel who had been achain smoker for a long time, was diagnosed withlung cancer.[39] The disease reappeared two years later. He quit smoking. In 1997, he remarried, to actressDagmar Veškrnová.[40]
Havel was among those influential politicians who contributed most to the transition ofNATO from being an anti-Warsaw Pact alliance to its present form. Havel advocated vigorously for the inclusion of former-Warsaw Pact members, like the Czech Republic, into the Western alliance.[41][42]
Havel was re-elected president in 1998. He had to undergo acolostomy inInnsbruck when his colon ruptured while he was on holiday in Austria.[43]
Havel left office after his second term as Czech president ended on 2 February 2003.Václav Klaus, one of his greatest political adversaries, was elected his successor as president on 28 February 2003.Margaret Thatcher wrote of the two men in her foreign policy treatiseStatecraft, reserving the greater respect for Havel. Havel's dedication to democracy and his steadfast opposition tocommunist ideology earned him admiration.[46][47][48]
In his post-presidency Havel focused on European affairs.Václav Havel at Velvet Revolution Memorial (Národní Street, Prague) in November 2010
Beginning in 1997, Havel hosted Forum 2000, an annual conference to "identify the key issues facing civilisation and to explore ways to prevent the escalation of conflicts that have religion, culture or ethnicity as their primary components". In 2005, the former president occupied the Kluge Chair for Modern Culture at theJohn W. Kluge Center of the United StatesLibrary of Congress, where he continued his research on human rights.[49] In November and December 2006, Havel spent eight weeks as a visitingartist in residence atColumbia University. The stay was sponsored by the Columbia Arts Initiative and featured "performances, and panels centr[ing] on his life and ideas", including a public "conversation" with former U.S. PresidentBill Clinton. Concurrently, the Untitled Theater Company No. 61 launched a Havel Festival, the first complete festival of his plays in various venues throughout New York City, includingThe Brick Theater and the Ohio Theatre, in celebration of his 70th birthday.[39][50][51][52][53][54][55] Havel was a member of theWorld Future Society and addressed the Society's members on 4 July 1994. His speech was later printed in THE FUTURIST magazine (July 1995).[56]
Havel was greatly admired by Czech citizens. In the poll taken for the 2005 TV showNejvětší Čech (the Czech spin-off of the BBC100 Greatest Britons), Havel placed third.
Havel's memoir of his experience as president,To the Castle and Back, was published in May 2007. The book mixes an interview in the style ofDisturbing the Peace with actual memoranda he sent to his staff and modern diary entries and recollections.[57]
On 4 August 2007, Havel met with members of theBelarus Free Theatre at his summer cottage in the Czech Republic in a show of his continuing support, which has been instrumental in the theatre's attaining international recognition and membership in theEuropean Theatrical Convention.[58][59]
Havel went on a hunger strike in 2007 to support Kurdish doctor and human rights activistYekta Uzunoglu in his legal battle. A former president going on a hunger strike to support the legal battle of a foreigner in his country was a first in world history.[60][61]
Havel's first new play in almost two decades,Leaving, was published in November 2007, and was to have had its world premiere in June 2008 at the PragueVinohrady Theatre,[62] but the theater withdrew it in December as it felt it could not provide the technical support needed to mount the play.[63] The play instead premiered on 22 May 2008 at theArcha Theatre to standing ovations.[64] Havel based the play onKing Lear, byWilliam Shakespeare, and onThe Cherry Orchard, byAnton Chekhov; "Chancellor Vilém Rieger is the central character ofLeaving, who faces a crisis after being removed from political power."[62] The play had its English language premiere at theOrange Tree Theatre in London and its American premiere atThe Wilma Theater inPhiladelphia. Havel subsequently directed a film version of the play, which premiered in the Czech Republic on 22 March 2011.[65]
Other works included the short sketchPět Tet, a modern sequel toUnveiling, andThe Pig, or Václav Havel's Hunt for a Pig, which was premiered inBrno at Theatre Goose on a String and had its English language premiere at the 3LD Art & Technology Center in New York, in a production from Untitled Theater Company No. 61, in a production workshopped in the Ice Factory Festival in 2011[66][67] and later revived as a full production in 2014, becoming aNew York Times Critic's Pick.[68]
Memorial gathering of Václav Havel inWenceslas Square in Prague on the day of his death on 18 December 2011
A week before his death, he met with his long-time friend, theDalai Lama, in Prague;[78] Havel appeared in a wheelchair.[79] He died in the morning of 18 December 2011, at the age of 75, at his country home inHrádeček.[80][79][81]
Within hours Havel's death was met with numerous tributes, including from U.S. PresidentBarack Obama, British Prime MinisterDavid Cameron, German ChancellorAngela Merkel and former Polish PresidentLech Wałęsa. Merkel called Havel "a great European", while Wałęsa said he should have been given theNobel Peace Prize.[79][84] The Russian Embassy sent an official condolence on behalf of the PresidentDmitry Medvedev and Prime MinisterVladimir Putin.[85]Slovakia declared 23 December a day of national mourning.[86]
At the news of his death, former U.S. Secretary of StateMadeleine Albright, a native of Czechoslovakia, said, "He was one of the great figures of the 20th Century", while Czech expatriate novelistMilan Kundera said: "Václav Havel's most important work is his own life."[87] Leader ofCommunist Party of Bohemia and Moravia,Vojtěch Filip, stated that Havel was a very controversial person and that his words often conflicted with his deeds. He criticized Havel for having supported theNATO bombing of Yugoslavia, repeating the charge that Havel had called the event a "humanitarian bombing",[88] although Havel had expressly and emphatically denied ever using such a phrase.[89]
An online petition organized by one of the best-known Czech and Slovak film directors,Fero Fenič, calling on the government and the Parliament to renamePrague Ruzyně Airport to Václav Havel International Airport attracted—in a week after 20 December 2011—support of over 80,000 Czech Republic and foreign signatories.[90] It was announced that the airport would be renamed the Václav Havel Airport Prague on 5 October 2012.[91][92]
Reviewing a new biography byMichael Žantovský, Yale historian Marci Shore summarized his challenges as president: "Havel's message, 'We are all responsible, we are all guilty,' was not popular. He enacted a general amnesty for all but the most serious criminals, apologized on behalf of Czechoslovakia for the post-World War II expulsion of the Sudeten Germans and resisted demands for a more draconian purge of secret police collaborators. These things were not popular either. And as the government undertook privatization and restitution, Havel confronted pyramid schemes, financial corruption and robber baron capitalism. He saw his country fall apart (if bloodlessly), becoming in 1993 the Czech Republic and Slovakia."[93]
On 4 July 1994, Václav Havel was awarded thePhiladelphia Liberty Medal. In his acceptance speech, he said: "The idea of human rights and freedoms must be an integral part of any meaningful world order. Yet I think it must be anchored in a different place, and in a different way, than has been the case so far. If it is to be more than just a slogan mocked by half the world, it cannot be expressed in the language of departing era, and it must not be mere froth floating on the subsiding waters of faith in a purely scientific relationship to the world."[95]
Russian protesters hold portrait of Václav Havel during ananti-regime demonstration inMoscow, 24 December 2011. The text on the sign translates to "We prefer Prague toPyongyang" (lit. "Prague is closer to us than Pyongyang is")
In 2008 he was also awarded the Giuseppe Motta Medal for support for peace and democracy.[104] As a formerCzech President, Havel was a member of theClub of Madrid.[105] In 2009 he was awarded theQuadriga Award,[106] but decided to return it in 2011 following the announcement ofVladimir Putin as one of the 2011 award recipients.[107]
On 10 October 2011, Havel was awarded by the Georgian PresidentMikheil Saakashvili with the St. George Victory Order.[110] In November 2014, he became only the fourth non-American honored with a bust in theU.S. Capitol.[111]
The Václav Havel Library, located inPrague, is a charitable organization founded byDagmar Havlová,Karel Schwarzenberg andMiloslav Petrusek on 26 July 2004. It maintains a collection of pictorial, audio and written materials and other artefacts linked to Václav Havel.[116][117] The institution gathers these materials for the purpose of digitisation, documentation and research and to promote his ideas. It organises lectures,[118] holds conferences and social and cultural events that introduce the public to the work of Václav Havel and club discussion meetings on current social issues.
In May 2012, the library opened a branch inNew York City named the Václav Havel Library Foundation. In 2014, the Václav Havel Library moved to larger premises at Ostrovni 13, in the centre of Prague.[119]
On 4 October 2016, the day before what would have been the 80th birthday of Václav Havel, his photograph was presented on a fountain in Croatian capitalZagreb. Croatian-Czech Society proposed the Václav Havel Street in Zagreb.[122]
Václav Havel photograph on a fountain inZagreb, Croatia
Václav Havel Boulevard and memorial plaque in Kyiv
In November 2016, Václav Havel Boulevard was opened inKyiv, Ukraine. The new name has replaced the one given during Soviet era when boulevard was named in honor of the Communist politicianJānis Lepse. In December, First Deputy ChairmanIryna Herashchenko along with Minister of Culture ofCzech RepublicDaniel Herman and Minister of Culture ofUkraineYevhen Nyshchuk opened memorial plaque in honor of Václav Havel.
The Václav Havel Bench (Havel's Place) is an artistic and urban utility project, created by Czech architect and designerBořek Šípek.[123] It is composed of two wooden garden chairs connected by a round table, which has a hole inside. A linden, the Czech national tree, is growing through this hole. These benches can be found in many Czech towns as well as in some foreign locations such asWashington, D.C.,Dublin,Lisbon, andBarcelona.
On 19 November 2014, a bust of Havel, created by Czech-American artist Lubomír Janečka, was unveiled at theU.S. Congress, commemorating the 25-year anniversary of theVelvet Revolution. Havel is the fourth European ever to be honored by having a bust of himself in the U.S. Congress, afterWinston Churchill,Raoul Wallenberg andLajos Kossuth.[124] Another sculpture of Havel is placed in a boardroom ofLeinster House in Dublin, the historical seat of theOireachtas, the Irish National Parliament.[125]
On 22 June 2017 a statue of Václav Havel created by Georgian sculptorJumber Jikia was unveiled inTbilisi, Georgia.[126]
Havel was also a great supporter and fan of jazz and frequented such Prague clubs as Radost FX and the Reduta Jazz Club, whereU.S. PresidentBill Clinton played the saxophone when Havel brought him there.[128]
Havel befriendedJoan Baez after he evaded arrest by pretending to be her roadie.[130]
Václav Havel has been portrayed, as himself or a character based on him, in a number of feature and television films:
Czech Century is a 2013 historical television series chronicling Czech history from 1989. Havel is portrayed byMarek Daniel.
Marek Daniel also portrayed Havel in a satirical web series,Kancelář Blaník.
Havel is a 2020 historical film about Havel's (Viktor Dvořák) life before 1989.
The Prog-related Art-rock band,Toy Matinee, recorded a song about Havel, entitled "Remember My Name" from their 1990 eponymous album released by Reprise Records.[citation needed]
^Václav Havel,The Power of the Powerless, in: Václav Havel, et alThe power of the powerless. Citizen against the state in central-eastern Europe, Abingdon, 2010 pp. 10–60ISBN978-0-87332-761-9
^Thompson, Wayne C. (2008).The World Today Series: Nordic, Central and Southeastern Europe. Harpers Ferry, West Virginia: Stryker-Post Publications.ISBN978-1-887985-95-6.
^PRECLÍK, Vratislav. Masaryk a legie (Masaryk and legions), váz. kniha, 219 pages, first issue – vydalo nakladatelství Paris Karviná, Žižkova 2379 (734 01 Karvina, CZ) ve spolupráci s Masarykovým demokratickým hnutím (Masaryk democratic movement, Prague), 2019,ISBN978-80-87173-47-3, str. 24-25, s. 151, s. 157, s. 169, s. 184, s. 185
^Václav Havel, K Falbrově lži,Mladá fronta Dnes 24 May 2004:Obskurní pojem "humanitární bombardování" jsem samozřejmě nejen nevymyslel, ale nikdy ani nepoužil a použít nemohl, neboť mám – troufám si tvrdit – vkus.(in Czech)
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