Vaclav Havel

Vaclav Havel was a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, philosopher and statesman. From 1989
to 1993, he served as the first democratically elected president of Czechoslovakia in 41 years. Then
he served as the first president of the Czech Republic (19932003) after the split of Czechoslovakia.
Within Czech literature he is known for his plays, essays and memoirs.
He was born in Prague on 5 October 1936 and grew up in a well-known, wealthy family

closely connected with the Czech cultural and political scene. As the son of bourgeois
parents, Havel was denied easy access to education but managed to finish high school and
study on the university level as a chemical laboratory assistant. He took evening classes at the
same time and completed his secondary education in 1954. He was a student of dramatic arts and
at the same time he was stagehand in Prague's theatre. In 1955 he starts publishing articles in
literary and theatrical magazines.
During the first week of the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 by the Soviet Union, Havel
assisted the resistance and was a prominent participant in the liberal reforms of the same year
(known as the Prague Spring). Because of this, he was banned from the theatre, his passport
confiscated, but he became more politically active. For his political activities he was arrested and
served in prison, and also he was questioned by the secret police.
On 29 December 1989, while he was leader of the Civic Forum, during the "Velvet Revolution"
Havel became President of Czechoslovakia. He was reelected to the presidency in July 1990,
becoming the countrys first noncommunist leader since 1948. As the Czechoslovak union faced
dissolution in 1992, Havel, who opposed the division, resigned from office. The following year he
was elected president of the new Czech Republic. In 1998 Havel was reelected and, under his
presidency, the Czech Republic joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1999.
He stepped down as president in 2003 because of illness.
Havel was quite popular throughout his career. However, some of his actions caused
controversy and criticism. One of his first acts as a president was to pardon many people. He
wanted to both reduce the pressure in overcrowded prisons and release those who may have been
falsely imprisoned during the Communist era. Havel said that the most important thing he did as
president was breaking up the Warsaw Pact. Ending this group of countries was very complicated
because the association was a deep part of how the countries worked. It took two years before the
Soviet troops finally left Czechoslovakia completely..

Besides being famous for his political career, he has written over twenty plays and many
non-fiction works. Many have been translated into several languages. He received many prizes,
awards and medals for both his political and literary contributions.
Vaclav Havel died on the morning of 18 December 2011, aged 75, at his country home.

Lola Ananevska and Andrea Bilbilovska