Václav Havel (former President of the Czech Republic)
Václav Havel grew up in a well-known intellectual family, closely linked to cultural and political events in Czechoslovakia from the 1920s to the 1940s. Because of these links the communists did not allow Havel to study formally after having completed required schooling in 1951.
Following his return from two years military service, he worked as a stage technician and from 1962 until 1966, studied drama by correspondence at the Faculty of Theatre of the Academy of Musical Arts. From the age of twenty, he published a number of studies and articles in various literary and theatrical periodicals. His play The Garden Party (1963) became a standard bearer for the revivalist tendencies of Czechoslovak society which culminated in the historic Prague Spring of 1968.
Following the suppression of the Prague Spring by the armies of the Warsaw Pact, Havel stood against the political repression characterised by the years of the so-called communist “normalisation”. In 1975, he wrote an open letter to President Husak, in which he warned of the accumulated antagonism in Czechoslovak society.
The culmination of his activities resulted in Charter 77. Published in January of 1977, it spoke for the Czechoslovak people who silently protested against the communist government. Václav Havel was one of the founders of this initiative, and one of its first three spokesmen. He was imprisoned three times and spent nearly five years behind bars. During this time, Czechoslovak authorities made it impossible to publish any of Havel’s texts.
The social upheaval came to a climax on 29 December 1989 when Václav Havel, as the candidate of Civic Forum, was elected President by the Federal Assembly of Czechoslovakia. In his inaugural address, he promised to lead the nation to free elections, which he fulfilled in the summer of 1990. He was elected to the Czechoslovak Presidency a second time by the Federal Assembly on the 5 July the same year.
During the course of his second term in office as President of the Czech and Slovak Federation, a rift between the Czech and Slovak political representatives over the future of the state began to emerge. Václav Havel was a determined supporter of a common Federation of Czechs and Slovaks but after the July 1992 parliamentary elections the parties failed to agree on a model of the Federation and he resigned the Presidency.
On 26 January of the following year, the Chamber of Deputies elected Václav Havel as the first President of the independent Czech Republic. He was re-elected to the Presidency by both Chambers of Parliament in January 1998 and retired in February 2003.
For his literary and dramatic works, his lifelong championship of human rights, Václav Havel is the recipient of a number of state decorations, international awards and honorary doctorates.
To see Vaclav Havel’s letter of support for Speakers’ Corner Trust, please click here