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Vaclav Havel. Who is he?. Born in Prague, 5th October 1936, to a politically minded family, Václav Havel is a Czech playwright, writer and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and the first President of the Czech Republic (1993–2003).
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Who is he? • Born in Prague, 5th October 1936, to a politically minded family, Václav Havel is a Czech playwright, writer and politician. • He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and the first President of the Czech Republic (1993–2003). • He has written over twenty plays and many non-fiction works which have been translated internationally. • He has received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, and the Ambassador of Conscience Award.
The good old days… • The background and interests of his family, compelled Václav Havel to pursue the humanitarian values of Czech culture. • After military service, he worked as a stagehand in Prague and studied drama by correspondence at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. • His first publicly performed full-length play, was The Garden Party (1963). This was soon followed by The Memorandum, one of his best known plays, and The Increased Difficulty of Concentration. • In 1968, TheMemorandum was also brought to The Public Theatre in New York, which helped establish his reputation in the United States. • After 1968 his plays were banned in his own country and Havel was unable to leave Czechoslovakia to see any foreign performances.
Dissident – becoming a political rebel! • Following 1968, Havel was banned from the theatre and became more politically active. He was forced to take a job in a brewery, which he wrote about in his play Audience. This play, along with two other "Vaněk" plays y added to Havel's reputation of being a leading revolutionary. • His reputation was strengthened by the publication of the Charter 77 manifesto, which he wrote in response to the imprisonment of members of a Czech psychedelic band. • He also co-founded the organisation, the Committee for the Defence of the Unjustly Persecuted in 1979. • He was also famous for his essays, most famously for Post-Totalitarianism and became a leading figure in the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the end to communism in Czechoslovakia.
Recently… • Havel's first new play in over 18 years, Leaving, was published in November 2007. Havel based the play on King Lear. and on The Cherry Orchard, by Anton Chekhov.
