Vaclav HAVEL

President of the Czech Republic

Curriculum vitae

Vaclav Havel was born in Prague on October 5, 1936. In 1951 he completed his

compulsory schooling. Being the offspring of a prominent Prague businessmen's family,

he was barred from pursuing regular studies afterwards. For four years, while taking an

apprenticeship as a chemical laboratory technician, he was attending evening 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 has led him toward embracing

the humanist values of Czech culture that were suppressed or destroyed in 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 stagehand at the ABC Theater and

later, from 1960, in the Theater on the Balustrade. The latter theater 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-bearers of the democratic concepts of Czech

culture and society. In the second half of the 1960s

his next plays, The Memorandum (1965) and The Increased Difficulty of Concentration

(1968), were performed. 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 publication of 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-called normalization. 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 1977 he became one of the co-

founders of, and one of the first three spokesmen for, the Charter 77 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 and mechanisms 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 essay

reached beyond the scope of the Czechoslovak dissent, influencing also the opposition

movements in other then "socialist" countries.

In November 1989 Vaclav Havel was one of the leading initiators of the founding of the

Civic Forum, an association uniting opposition civic movements and democratic

initiatives. Since the very first days of its existence he was the head of the Civic Forum,

becoming a key figure of the "Velvet Revolution". In December 1989 he 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 Presidentsof 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

administration of the country and of the advancement

of democracy in society. He has been respected as a nonpartisan

President and as an essential integrating authority on the political

scene and also in matters relating to the Czecho-Slovak relationship.

From the position of President of the Czechoslovak Republic Vaclav Havel 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 Parliament and 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 into being - Projevy (only

in Czech, 1990) and Letni premitani (1991).

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

(1991), Theodor Heuss Prize (1993) etc. He was also awarded the Grand Cross of the

Order of the Legion of Honor (1990).

Vaclav Havel is also a holder of honorary doctorates of York University, Toronto,

Canada, Le Mirail University, Toulouse, France (both 1982), Columbia University, New

York, USA, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel, Frantisek Palacky University,

Olomouc, Czechoslovakia, Charles University, Prague, Czechoslovakia, Comenius

University, Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (all 1990), The Free University of Brussels,

Belgium, and St. Gallen University (both 1991).