Everything about V Clav Havel totally explained
Václav Havel,
GCB,
CC, (born
October 5,
1936) is a
Czech writer and
dramatist. He was the tenth and last
President of
Czechoslovakia (1989-1992) and the first
President of the Czech Republic (1993-2003). He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, some of which have received international acclaim. He has received the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, the
Philadelphia Liberty Medal, and the
Ambassador of Conscience Award.
Beginning in the 1960s, his work turned to focus on the politics of Czechoslovakia. After the
Prague Spring, he became increasingly active. In 1977, his involvement with the human rights manifesto
Charter 77 brought him international fame as the leader of the opposition in Czechoslovakia; it also led to his imprisonment. The 1989 "
Velvet Revolution" launched Havel into the presidency. In this role he led Czechoslovakia and later the
Czech Republic to capitalism and multi-party democracy. His thirteen years in office saw radical change in his nation, including its split with
Slovakia, which Havel opposed, its accession into
NATO and start of the negotiations for membership in the
EU, which was completed in 2004.
Biography
Early life
Václav Havel was born in
Prague. He grew up in a well-known entrepreneurial and intellectual family, which was closely linked to the cultural and political events in
Czechoslovakia from the 1920s to the 1940s. Because of these links, the Czech communist government didn't allow Havel to study formally after he'd completed his required schooling in 1951. In the first part of the 1950s, the young Havel entered into a four-year apprenticeship as a chemical laboratory assistant and simultaneously took evening classes to complete his secondary education (which he did in 1954). For political reasons, he wasn't accepted into any post-secondary school with a humanities program; therefore, he opted to study at the Faculty of Economics of
Czech Technical University in Prague. He dropped out after two years.
Theater
The intellectual tradition of his family compelled Václav Havel to pursue the humanitarian values of Czech culture. After
military service (1957–59) he worked as a
stagehand in
Prague (at the Theater On the Balustrade -
Divadlo Na zábradlí) and studied
drama by correspondence at the Theater Faculty of the
Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU). His first publicly performed full-length play, besides various vaudeville collaborations, was
The Garden Party (1963). Presented in a season of
Theater of the Absurd, at the Balustrade, it won him international acclaim. It was soon followed by
Memorandum, one of his best known plays. In 1964, Havel married
Olga Šplíchalová, to the despair of his mother.
Entry into political life
Following the suppression of the
Prague Spring in 1968 he was banned from the theatre and became more politically active. This culminated with the publication of the
Charter 77 manifesto, written partially in response to the imprisonment of members of the Czech
psychedelic band
The Plastic People of the Universe. His political activities resulted in multiple stays in prison, the longest being four years, and also subjected him to constant government surveillance and harassment.
After his long prison stay he wrote
Largo Desolato, a play about a political writer who fears being sent back to prison. He was also famous for his essays, most particularly for his brilliant articulation of "Post-Totalitarianism" (see
Power of the Powerless), a term used to describe the modern social and political order that enabled people to "live within a lie." A passionate supporter of non-violent resistance, a role in which he's been compared, by ex-US President
Bill Clinton, to
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and
Nelson Mandela, he became a leading figure in the
Velvet Revolution of 1989, the bloodless end to communism in Czechoslovakia.
Presidency
On
December 29,
1989, as leader of the
Civic Forum, he became president by a unanimous vote of the Federal Assembly—an ironic turn of fate for a man who had long insisted that he was uninterested in politics. In this he joined many dissidents of the period, who argued that political change should happen through civic initiatives autonomous from the state, rather than through the state itself. In another move away from the ideals he put forth as a dissident, Havel presided over the privatization of the Czechoslovak economy even though he, like much of the Civic Forum, had previously spoken in support of what is sometimes called a "third way" toward neither Soviet-style socialism nor Western-style capitalism. Western powers approved of this new state of affairs and put pressure on the government to make further changes in the direction of a market capitalist system. In
1990, he was awarded the
Prize For Freedom of the
Liberal International.
After the free
elections of 1990 he retained the presidency. Despite increasing tensions, Havel appeared to have supported the retention of the federation of the Czechs and the Slovaks during
the breakup of Czechoslovakia. On
July 3 1992 the federal parliament didn't elect Havel—the only candidate for presidency—due to a lack of support from Slovak MPs. After the Slovaks issued their Declaration of Independence, he resigned as president on
July 20. When the
Czech Republic was created, he stood for election as president there on
January 26,
1993, and won.
Although Havel has been quite popular throughout his career, his popularity abroad surpassed his popularity at home, and he's been no stranger to controversy and criticism. An extensive general
pardon, one of his first acts as a president, was an attempt to both lessen the pressure in overcrowded prisons and release those who may have been falsely imprisoned during the Communist era. It was also based on his feeling that a corrupt court's decisions can't be trusted, and that most in prison hadn't been fairly tried. Critics claimed that this amnesty raised the crime rate. However, according to Havel in his most recent memoir
To the Castle and Back, the statistics don't support that allegation, especially as most released would have been released within a year.
In an interview with Karel Hvížďala (also included in
To the Castle and Back), Havel states that he feels his most important accomplishment as president was the dissolution of the
Warsaw Pact. This proved quite complicated, as the infrastructure created by the pact was so ingrained in the workings of the countries involved and indeed in their general consciousness. It took two years before the Soviet troops finally fully withdrew from Czechoslovakia.
Following a legal dispute with his
sister-in-law, Havel decided to sell his 50% stake in the
Lucerna Palace on
Wenceslas Square, a legendary dance hall built by his grandfather
Vácslav Havel. In a transaction arranged by
Marián Čalfa, Havel sold the estate to
Václav Junek, a former communist
spy in
France and leader of soon-to-be-bankrupt
conglomerate Chemapol Group, who later openly admitted he
bribed politicians of
Czech Social Democratic Party.
In December 1996 the
chain smoking Havel was diagnosed as having
lung cancer. The disease reappeared two years later. In 1996,
Olga, beloved by the Czech people and his wife of 32 years died of her cancer. Less than a year later Havel remarried, to actress
Dagmar Veškrnová.
The former political prisoner was instrumental in enabling the transition of
NATO from being an anti-
Warsaw Pact alliance to its present inclusion of former-Warsaw Pact members, like the
Czech Republic. In the interests of his country, he advocated vigorously for the expansion of the military alliance into Eastern Europe, including the Czech Republic.
Havel was re-elected president in 1998 and underwent a
colostomy when on holiday in Innsbruck. Havel left office after his second term as Czech president ended on
February 2,
2003;
Václav Klaus, one of his greatest political opponents, was elected his successor on
February 28,
2003.
Margaret Thatcher writes of the two men in her foreign policy treatise,
Statecraft, reserving greater respect for Havel, whose dedication to democracy and defying the Communists earned her admiration.
Post-presidential career
Since 1997, Havel has hosted a conference entitled
Forum 2000. In November and December 2006, Havel spent eight weeks as a visiting
artist in residence at
Columbia University. The stay was sponsored by the university's Arts Initiative, and featured "lectures, interviews, conversations, classes, performances, and panels center[ing] on his life and ideas", including a public "conversation" with former U.S. President
Bill Clinton. Concurrently, the Untitled Theater Company #61 launched a Havel Festival, the first complete festival of his plays in various venues throughout New York City, in celebration of his 70th birthday.
In May 2007, Havel's memoir of his experiences as President,
To the Castle and Back, was released. The book mixes an interview in the style of
Disturbing the Peace with actual memos he sent to his staff with modern diary entries and recollections. On
August 4,
2007, Havel met with members of the
Belarus Free Theatre at his summer cottage in the Czech Republic, in a show of his continuing support, which has been instrumental in its attaining international recognition and its membership in the European Theatrical Convention. Havel's first new play "in over 18 years,"
Leaving (
Odchazeni), was scheduled in November 2007 to have its world premiere in June 2008 at the Prague theater
Na Vinohradech (at
Vinohrady), but the theater withdrew it in December. The play is now scheduled to premier at the Archa Theater on May 22, 2008
(External Link
). Havel based the play on
King Lear, by
William Shakespeare, and on
The Cherry Orchard, by
Anton Chekhov; "Chancellor Vilém Rieger is the central character of
Leaving, who faces a crisis after being removed from political power." In 1997 he was the recipient of the
Prix mondial Cino Del Duca.
In 2002, he was the third recipient of the
Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award presented by the
Prague Society for International Cooperation. He was awarded in 2003 the International
Gandhi Peace Prize, named after
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi by the
government of India for his outstanding contribution towards world peace and upholding human rights in most difficult situations through Gandhian means. In 2003, Havel was the inaugural recipient of
Amnesty International's
Ambassador of Conscience Award for his work in promoting
human rights. In 2004, he received the
Presidential Medal of Freedom. In January 2008, the Europe-based
A Different View cited Havel to be one of the 15 Champions of World Democracy. Other champions mentioned were
Nelson Mandela,
Lech Wałęsa, and
Corazon Aquino. As a former
Czech President, Havel is a member of the
Club of Madrid.
Works
Collections of poetry
- Čtyři rané básně
- Záchvěvy I & II, 1954
- První úpisy, 1955
- Prostory a časy (poesie), 1956
- Na okraji jara (cyklus básní), 1956
- Anticodes, (Antikódy)
Plays
An Evening with the Family, 1960, (Rodinný večer)
The Garden Party, 1963, (Zahradní slavnost)
The Memorandum, 1965, (Vyrozumění)
The Increased Difficulty of Concentration, 1968, (Ztížená možnost soustředění)
Butterfly on the Antenna, 1968, (Motýl na anténě)
Guardian Angel, 1968, (Strážný anděl)
Conspirators, 1971, (Spiklenci)
The Beggar's Opera, 1975, (Žebrácká opera)
Unveiling, 1975, (Vernisáž)
Audience, 1975, (Audience)
Mountain Hotel 1976, (Horský hotel)
Private View, 1978
Protest, 1978, (Protest)
Mistake, 1983, (Chyba)
Largo desolato 1984, (Largo desolato)
Temptation, 1985, (Pokoušení)
Redevelopment, 1987, (Asanace)
Tomorrow, 1988, (Zítra to spustíme)
Leaving, 2007, (Odcházení)
Non-fiction books
The Power of the Powerless (1985) [Includes1978 titular essay.]
Living in Truth (1986)
Letters to Olga (1988)
Disturbing the Peace (1991)
Open Letters (1991)
Summer Meditations (1992/93)
Towards a Civil Society (1994)
The Art of the Impossible (1998)
To the Castle and Back (2007)
Cultural allusions and interests
Havel was a major supporter of The Plastic People of the Universe, becoming a close friend of its members, such as its manager Ivan Martin Jirous and guitarist/vocalist Paul Wilson (who later became Havel's English translator and biographer) and a great fan of the rock band The Velvet Underground, sharing mutual respect with the principal singer-songwriter Lou Reed, and is also a lifelong Frank Zappa fan.
Havel is also a great supporter and fan of jazz and frequented such Prague clubs as Radost FX and the Reduta Jazz Club, where President Bill Clinton played the saxophone when Havel brought him there.
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