Vaclav Havel From Playwright to President1

A detailed Summary of Vaclav Havel From Playwright to President1

The president of the Czech Republic was not always a politician. Vaclav Havel's first career was in the theatre. Throughout his work in drama, Havel satirized the Communistic government of Czechoslovakia. He became a dissident because of his writings and soon began political movements that eventually brought him to power in his country.

Havel is considered by may to be one of the best Czech writers there are around today. Yet, as a president, he is harshly criticized.; It is interesting to speculate whether Vaclav is a better writer or a better president.

Vaclav Havel was born in Prague on October 5, 1936. In 1951 he completed his compulsory schooling. Being the offspring of a prominent Prague businessman'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 theatre magazines. Family tradition has led him toward embracing the humanist values of Czech culture that were suppressed or destroyed in the 1950's. As

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 few other countries. His activity in the area of foreign policy has laid the foundations of Czechoslovakia's new external relations. In domestic policy Vaclav has been a leading initiator of democratic changes in the administration of the country and of the advancement of democracy in society. Havel has been respected as a nonpartisan President and as an essential integrating authority on the political scene and also in matters relating to the Czech-Slovak relationship. From the position of President, Vaclav Havel resigned on July 20, 1992 because he could no longer consciously serve the country in a way consistent with his convictions (Kriseova, p. 245).

Contemporary Literary Criticism. "Vaclav Havel". vol. 25.

After the end of the Prague Spring, it was then that Vaclav began to be known by the international public as a representative of the Czechoslovak intellectual resistance to Communism. 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 ruling regime and that condition became widely known (Havel, Open Letters, p. 56).

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Approximate Word count = 1617
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

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