B1-35 · Václav Havel: From Playwright to President

Václav Havel: From Playwright to President

When foreign visitors land in Prague, they arrive at Václav Havel Airport. Who was the man whose name they read on the signs? A writer, a prisoner and a president – all in one life.

Early years. Václav Havel was born in Prague in 1936 into a rich family. His father built the famous Barrandov Terraces, and his uncle founded the Barrandov film studios. But after the Communists took power in 1948, the family lost its property. Because of his "bourgeois" background, young Václav was not allowed to study the subjects he wanted. He worked as a lab assistant and studied at evening school.

The theater. In the 1960s, Havel found work as a stagehand at the Theater on the Balustrade in Prague, and soon he started writing plays. The Garden Party (1963) and The Memorandum (1965) made fun of the empty language of the communist system. They were performed in many countries, and Havel became famous.

A dissident. After Soviet tanks ended the Prague Spring in 1968, Havel's plays were banned in Czechoslovakia. He refused to stay silent. In 1977, he was one of the founders of Charter 77, a document that asked the government to respect human rights. In his essay The Power of the Powerless, he wrote that ordinary people could resist a dictatorship simply by "living in truth". The regime answered with prison: in total, Havel spent almost five years behind bars.

The Velvet Revolution. In November 1989, students and actors started peaceful protests. Hundreds of thousands of people filled the squares, and Havel became the leader of the movement. In just six weeks, the communist government fell, and on December 29, 1989, the former prisoner was elected president. He later served as the first president of the Czech Republic, from 1993 to 2003.

His legacy. Havel helped bring the country into NATO and on its way to the European Union. He was not a typical politician: he wrote his own speeches, rode a scooter in the long corridors of Prague Castle, and liked the music of Frank Zappa and The Rolling Stones. His famous words were: "Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred." He died in December 2011. People still argue about some of his decisions, but most agree that few politicians have been so honest about their doubts.