President of the Czech Republic
Curriculum vitae
Vaclav Havel is one of the best known citizens of the Czech
Republic. He became famous as a representative
of the Czechoslovak intellectual opposition, he was one of
the leaders in the so called Velvet
Revolution, and in December 1989 he was elected President of the Czechoslovakia and later on of
the Czech Republic. He was awarded numerous international prizes and honorary doctorates.
Vaclav Havel was born in Prague on October 5, 1936. In 1951 he
completed his compulsory schooling. Being the offspring of a
prominent Praguebusinessmen's family, he was barred from
pursuing regular studies afterwards. For fouryears, while
taking an apprenticeship as a chemical laboratory technician,
he was attendingevening classes at a grammar school. It was at
the age of nineteen that he started publishing studies and
articles in literary and theater magazines. Family tradition
hasled him toward embracing the humanist values of Czech
culture that were suppressed or destroyedin the 1950s. As he
was not allowed, due to his family background, to study
humanities,he went on to a Technical University where he spent
two years.
After completing his military service, he worked as a
stagehandat the ABC Theater and later, from 1960, in the
Theater on the Balustrade. The lattertheater produced his
first plays, most importantly The Garden Party (1963), a piece
representing in an outstanding manner the strong regeneration
tendencies prevailing in Czech culture and Czech society in
the 1960s which culminated in the so-called Prague Spring of
1968. At that time Vaclav Havel was taking part in public and
cultural life as one of the standard-bearersof the democratic
concepts of Czech culture and society. In thesecond half of
the 1960s his next plays, The Memorandum (1965) and The
Increased Difficulty of Concentration (1968), were performed.
Vaclav Havel - a representative of the
Czechoslovak intellectual opposition
After the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet troops, which
put an end to the Prague Spring regeneration process, Vaclav
Havel did not abandon his convictions. Consequently, a lasting
ban was imposed on publicationof his plays in Czechoslovakia.
(In 1974 he even worked as a laborer in a brewery.) It was
then that Vaclav Havel began to be known by the international
public as a representative of the Czechoslovak intellectual
opposition. As a citizen he protested against the extensive
oppression marking the years of the so-callednormalization.
His open letter to Dr. Gustav Husak (the then President of
Czechoslovakia)of 1975 in which he pointed out the critical
condition of the society and the responsibility of the then
ruling regime for that condition became widely known. In
1977he became one of the co-founders of, and one of the first
three spokesmen for, the Charter77 initiative. He was also a
member of the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly
Prosecuted which was founded by a group of Charter 77
signatories. His activity brought him to prison three times;
altogether he spent in prison nearly five years. Of
extraordinary importance at that time was his essay The Power
of the Powerless (1978) in which he analyzed the essence of
Communist totalitarian oppression and described the means
andmechanisms used by the Communist regime in its effort to
create a powerless, resigned society consisting of timid and
morally corrupt individuals. Against the background of that
analysis, he demonstrated the strength of moral resistance -
of life in truth.The impact of the essayreached beyond the
scope of the Czechoslovak dissent, influencingalso the
opposition movements in other then "socialist"
countries.
1989 Velvet Revolution
In November 1989 Vaclav Havel was one of the leading
initiators of the founding of the Civic Forum, an association
uniting opposition civic movementsand democratic initiatives.
Since the very first days of its existence he wasthe head of
the Civic Forum, becoming a key figure of the "Velvet
Revolution".
Vaclav Havel - President
In December 1989 Vaclav Havel was elected President of
Czechoslovakia for a term ending
after parliamentary elections were held in the country. The
freely elected
Parliament re-elected him to the presidency in July 1990 for a
term of two
years.
As President of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, he met
nearly all European
Heads of State, as well as the Presidents of the United
States,the Soviet Union and a
number of other countries. His activity in the area of foreign
policy has laid the
foundations of Czechoslovakia's new external relations. In
domestic policy Vaclav Havel
has been a leading initiator of democratic changes in the
administrationof the country and of the advancement
of democracy in society. He has been respectedas a nonpartisan
President and as an essential integrating authority on the
political
scene and also inmatters relating to the Czecho-Slovak
relationship.
From the position of President of the Czechoslovak Republic
VaclavHavel resigned on
July 20, at 6 pm. On July 17 he accounted for the abdication
by explaining that he could
no longer fulfill commitments necessitated by the oath of
allegiance to the Czech and
Slovac Republic in a way that would harmonize with his
convictions,dispositions
and consciousness.
After his resignation he left public life for 2 months. In
September 1992 he agreed with
goverment's suggestion that first, President is to be elected
by both chambers of
Parliament, second, President cannot be recalled by
Parliamentand third, the President
has right to dissolve Parliament. Moreover, he agreed with
so-called right of suspensive
veto (it is the right of President to return laws to
Parliament).
On January 1993 Vaclav Havel was elected the first President
of the Czech Republic.
During Vaclav Havel's presidency two more books have come in
to being - Projevy (only
in Czech, 1990) and Letni premitani (1991).
International awards
For his literary work and civic activities, especially as a
human rights champion, Vaclav
Havel was awarded numerous prestigious international prizes.
They include:
The Erasmus Prize (1986),
The Olof Palme Prize (1989),
The Simon Bolivar Prize,
UNESCO (1990),
The UNESCO Prize for the Teaching of Human Rights (1990),
The Chalemagne Prize (1991),
The Sonning Prize |
