Czechs
Češi

Clockwise from upper left: Charles IV, Jan Hus, Comenius, František Palacký, Jan Evangelista Purkyně, Alfons Mucha, Antonín Dvořák, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Václav Havel
Total population
c. 11-12 million
Regions with significant populations
Czech Republic 6,732,104[1]
United States 1,462,000[2] (including German Bohemians)  Canada 98,090 (2006)[3]  Italy 80,000-90,000  United Kingdom 30,000–90,000  Germany 20,000–50,000  Slovakia 30,367[4]  Argentina 38,000  Australia 21,196[5]  Austria 20,000  Switzerland 20,000  Ukraine 11,000  France 10,731 (1990)  Croatia 10,510 (2001)  Israel 8,000  Sweden 7,175 (2001)  Ireland 5,278[6]  Spain 5,622 (2006)  Russia 5,000–6,000  Brazil 450,000[citation needed]  Netherlands 3,500  Romania 3,339 (2002)  Poland 3,000  South Africa 2,300  Serbia 2,211 (2002)  Mexico 2,000  Bosnia and Herzegovina 600–1,000[7]  Bulgaria 436
Languages
Czech
Religion
Non-religious (agnostic or atheist) 79.4%, Roman Catholic 10.3%, Protestant 0.8%, other religions 9.4%.[8]
Related ethnic groups
Other Slavs, especially other West Slavs[9] Slovaks are the most related[10]

Czechs, or Czech people (Czech: Češi, Czech pronunciation: [ˈtʃɛʃɪ], archaic Czech: Čechové [ˈtʃɛxɔvɛː]) are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries. They speak the Czech language, which is closely related to the Slovak and Upper Sorbian language.^[11]

Among the ancestors of the Czechs are ancient Slavic tribes who inhabited the regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Upper Silesia from the 6th century onwards.

History[link]

The Czechs are descended from the Celts, early Slavs, and Germanic tribes. According to an international project called Family Tree DNA results a very slight majority of the Czech population forms an offspring of the Celts (28.8%), followed by Slavic (28.4%) and Germanic (13.0%) forefathers.^[12] West Slavic tribes have inhabited the regions of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia since the 6th century, and eventually absorbed pre-Slavic populations. Within the West Slavs, the Czechs form part of the Czech-Slovak group (together with the Slovaks), alongside the Lechites and the Sorbs.

According to a popular myth, the Czechs come from a certain Forefather Čech who settled at Říp Mountain. In 880, Prague Castle was constructed by Prince Bořivoj and the city of Prague was established. Vratislav II was the first Czech king in 1085.

St. Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia. A famous patron saint of the Czech people. Statue at the Holy Trinity Column in Olomouc.

The second half of the 13th century was a period of large-scale German immigration into Czech lands. The number of Czechs who have at least partly German ancestry probably runs into hundreds of thousands.^[13] The Habsburg Monarchy focused much of its power on religious wars against the Protestants. While these religious wars were taking place, the Czech estates revolted against Habsburg from 1546 to 1547 but were ultimately defeated. ^[14]

Czech patriotic authors tend to call the following period, from 1620 to 1648 until the late 18th century, the "Dark Age". It is characterized by devastation by foreign troops; Germanization; and economic and political decline. It is estimated that the population of the Czech lands declined by a third due to the Thirty Years' War and the expulsion of Protestants.^[15]

At the turn of the 20th century, Chicago was the city with the third largest Czech population, after Prague and Vienna.^[16][17]

In 1918, independent Czechoslovakia was proclaimed, and Czechs formed the leading class in the new state from the remnants of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy. In 1938 the Munich Agreement severed the Sudetenland, with a considerable Czech minority, from Czechoslovakia, and in 1939 the German Nazi regime established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia for the so-calling "remaining Czechia" (Resttschechei). Emil Hácha became president of the protectorate under Nazi domination, which only allowed pro-Nazi Czech associations and tended to stress ties of the Czechs with the Bohemian Germans and other parts of the German people, in order to facilitate assimilation by Germanization. In Lidice, Ležáky and Javoříčko the Nazi authorities committed war crimes against the local Czech population. On May 2, 1945 the Prague Uprising reached its peak, supported by the Russian Liberation Army. The post-war expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia and the immediate reprisals against Germans and Nazi collaborators by Czech resistance and the Czechoslovak state authorities, made Czechs – especially in the early 1950s – settle alongside Slovaks and Roma people in the former lands of the Sudeten Germans, who had been deported to West Germany and Austria according to the Potsdam Conference and Yalta Conference.

Tens of thousands of Czechs had repatriated from Volhynia and Banat after World War II. Since the 1990s, the Czech Republic has been working to repatriate Romania and Kazakhstan's ethnic Czechs.^[18][19]

The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 was followed by a wave of emigration, unseen before and stopped shortly after (estimate: 70,000 immediately, 300,000 in total),^[20] typically of highly qualified people.

Following the Czech Republic's entry into the European Union in May 2004, Czechs gained the right to work in some other EU countries.^[21]

Genetics[link]

Indications suggest that modern Czechs are a genetic mixture of the Slavic, Celtic, and Germanic people that have inhabited the Czech territory throughout its history.

Czechs show the characteristic R1a genes of the paternal ancestorship at 34.2%. Such large frequencies of R1a have been found in Eastern Europe among Slavs and in India.^[22]

According to a 2000 study by Semino, 35.6% of Czech and Slovak males have y-chromosome haplogroup R1b[57], which is very common among Celts but also quite rare among Slavs.^[23] Additionally, a high frequency of mutation of the G551D gene CFTR (cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator), causing Cystic fibrosis is found in the Czech Republic, Austria, and among the Celtic Nations: Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, Ireland and Brittany.^[24]

Notable figures[link]

Historical figures[link]

The most successful and influential of all Czech kings was Charles IV, who also became the Holy Roman Emperor.^[25] The Luxembourg dynasty represents the heights of Czech (Bohemian) statehood territorial and influence as well as advancement in many areas of human endeavors.^[26]

Many people are considered national heroes and cultural icons, many national stories concern their lives. Jan Hus was a religious reformist from the 15th century and spiritual father of the Hussite Movement.^[27] The teacher of nations Jan Amos Komenský is also considered a notable figure in Czech history.^[28] Josef Jungmann is often credited for expanding the modern Czech language, and preventing its extinction.^[29]

Mythology[link]

There are also ancient folk stories about the Czech people, such as the Forefather Čech, who according to legend brought the tribe of Czechs into its land,^[30] or Přemysl, the Ploughman,^[31] who started the dynasty that ruled for 400 years until 1306.

Modern politicians[link]

First President of the Czech Republic Václav Havel

One of the most notable Velvet Revolution figures is Václav Havel, who became the first president of the independent Czech Republic.^[32] The current president (2nd) is Václav Klaus.^[33]

The Czech Republic has had multiple prime ministers the first of which was latter president Klaus, the second under Havel was Josef Tošovský^[34] and the last prime minister under Havel was prominent ČSSD member Miloš Zeman.^[35] So far Klaus has had five prime ministers, the current one being Petr Nečas.

Sports[link]

Sports have also been a contributor to famous Czechs especially tennis, soccer, hockey and athletics:

• Tennis – Ivan Lendl, Martina Navrátilová, Petra Kvitová,^[36] Tomáš Berdych
• Football – Pavel Nedvěd, Antonín Panenka, Tomáš Rosický, Karel Poborský, Patrik Berger,^[37][38] Petr Čech
• Hockey – Jaromír Jágr, Dominik Hašek, Bohumil Modry, Patrik Eliáš, Jiri Holecek
• Athletics – Emil Zátopek, Roman Šebrle, Jan Železný, Barbora Špotáková

The arts[link]

The Czechs are accomplished in the field of music, painting, film and literature.

Music

Czech music started develop by first signifiant pieces, created in 11th century.^[39]The great progress of Czech artificial music has begun in the end of Renaissance and early Baroque era, concretely in works of Adam Václav Michna z Otradovic, where the specific character of Czech music was rising up by using the influence of genuine folk music. This tradition determined the development of Czech music and has remained the main sign in the works of great Czech composers of almost all eras – Jan Dismas Zelenka and Bohuslav Matěj Černohorský in Baroque, Bedřich Smetana and Antonín Dvořák in Romanticism, Leoš Janáček and Bohuslav Martinů in modern classical or Miloslav Kabeláč in contemporary classical music.

Czech musicians played also important role in the development of European music . Jan Václav Antonín Stamic in 18th century contributed to the creation of Classicism in music^[40] by innovations of compositional forms and founding of Mannheim school, similarly Antonín Rejcha's experiments prefigured new compositional techniques in 19th century.^[41] The influence of Czech musicians has been gone later beyond the borders of European continent, when Antonín Dvořák brought into life new American classical music style, using the potential of the richness of ethnic music of that country during his mission in USA. The contribution of Alois Hába to microtonal music in 20th century must be also mentioned.

Literature

Poet Jaroslav Seifert was awarded the Nobel Literature Prize.^[36] Božena Němcová has become a cultural icon and gained much fame for her book Babička.^[42] Writer Franz Kafka (born in Prague) wrote most of his works in Prague (although in German).^[43]

Painting

Mikoláš Aleš was a painter, known for redesigning the Prague National Theatre.^[44]/

Alphonse Mucha was an influential artist in the Art Nouveau movement of the Edwardian period.

Film

Film director Miloš Forman, known best for his movie, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is of Czech origin and started his career in Czechoslovakia.^[45]

National performers such as Karel Kryl,^[46] Helena Vondráčková,^[47] Karel Gott^[48] (singers), Zdeněk Svěrák (director and actor), Vlastimil Brodský,^[49] Vladimír Menšík^[50] (actors) or Ivan Mládek (comedian), have also made a mark in modern Czech history.

Saints[link]

Czech culture boasts many saints,^[51] most notably St. Wenceslaus (Václav), patron of the Czech nation,^[52] St. John of Nepomuk (Jan Nepomucký),^[53] St. Adalbert (Vojtěch),^[54] Saint Procopius or St. Agnes of Bohemia (Anežka Česká).^[55]

Geography[link]

Simple map of the Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is compound from 3 historical lands: Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia;^[56] today the country is divided into 14 regions.^[57] There is a slightly varying culture in each of the lands.^[58] Each part speaks Czech but there are certain local dialects.^[59]

Czech language[link]

The Czech language is spoken by approximately 12 million people around the world including most of the people in the Czech Republic.^[60] It developed from the Proto-Slavic language in the 10th century^[60][61] and is mutually intelligible with the Slovak language.^[62]

See also[link]

• List of Czechs
• Demographics of the Czech Republic
• The Greatest Czech
• Czech American
• Czech Argentinean
• Czech Australian
• Czech Brazilian
• Czech British
• Czech Canadian

Further reading[link]

• Hroch, Miroslav (2004). "From ethnic group toward the modern nation: the Czech case". Nations and Nationalism 10 (1/2): 95–107. DOI:10.1111/j.1354-5078.2004.00157.x. 
• Berka, Petr and Palan, Ales and Stastny, Petr: Xenophobe's Guide to the Czechs, Oval Books, London, 2008
• Holý, Ladislav: The Little and the Great Czech Nation, Cambridge University, 1996

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Czech website, links to multiple articles regarding the Czech people.

v t e Slavic ethnic groups East Slavs Belarusians • Russians • Ukrainians (Rusyns) West Slavs Czechs (Moravians) • Silesians • Poles (Kashubians) • Sorbs • Slovaks South Slavs Bosniaks • Bulgarians (Pomaks) • Croats (Bunjevci • Burgenland Croats • Janjevci • Krašovani • Molise Croats • Šokci) • Macedonians • Montenegrins • Serbs • Slovenes

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Václav Havel
1st President of the Czech Republic
In office 2 February 1993 – 2 February 2003
Prime Minister	Václav Klaus Josef Tošovský Miloš Zeman Vladimír Špidla
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Václav Klaus
President of Czechoslovakia
In office 29 December 1989 – 20 July 1992
Prime Minister	Marián Čalfa Jan Stráský
Preceded by	Marián Čalfa (Acting)
Succeeded by	Jan Stráský (Acting)
Personal details
Born	(1936-10-05)5 October 1936 Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic)
Died	18 December 2011(2011-12-18) (aged 75) Vlčice, Czech Republic
Political party	Civic Forum (1989–1993) Green Party supporter (2004–2011) (from 1980s supporter of green politics)
Spouse(s)	Olga Šplíchalová (1964–1996) Dagmar Veškrnová (1997–2011)
Alma mater	Technical University, Prague
Religion	Roman Catholicism[1]
Signature
Website	www.vaclavhavel.cz www.vaclavhavel-library.org

Václav Havel (Czech pronunciation: [ˈvaːt͡slaf ˈɦavɛl] ( listen); 5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011) was a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician.

Havel was the ninth^[2] and last president of Czechoslovakia (1989–1992) and the first president of the Czech Republic (1993–2003). He wrote more than 20 plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally.

Havel was voted 4th in Prospect magazine's 2005 global poll of the world's top 100 intellectuals.^[3] At the time of his death he was Chairman of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation. He was the founder of the VIZE 97 Foundation and the principal organizer of the Forum 2000 annual global conference.

Havel was one of the signatories of the Charter 77 manifesto, a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism,^[4][5] and a council member of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Havel received many recognitions, including the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Gandhi Peace Prize, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, the Order of Canada, the freedom medal of the Four Freedoms Award, and the Ambassador of Conscience Award.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Havel was born in Prague on 5 October 1936^[6] and grew up in a well-known, wealthy entrepreneurial and intellectual family, which was closely linked to the cultural and political events in Czechoslovakia from the 1920s to the 1940s.

His father, Václav Maria Havel, was the owner of the suburban Barrandov Terraces, located on the highest point of Prague, and of the large Barrandov Film Studios. Havel's mother, Božena Vavrečková,^[7] came also from an influential family; her father was a Czechoslovak ambassador and a well-known journalist. In the early 1950s, the young Havel entered into a four-year apprenticeship as a chemical laboratory assistant and simultaneously took evening classes; he completed his secondary education in 1954. For political reasons, he was not accepted into any post-secondary school with a humanities program; therefore, he opted for studies at the Faculty of Economics of the Czech Technical University in Prague but dropped out after two years.^[8] In 1964, Havel married Olga Šplíchalová.

Early theatre career[link]

The intellectual tradition of his family was essential for Havel´s lifetime adherence to the humanitarian values of the Czech culture.^[9] After finishing his military service (1957–59), Havel had to bring his intellectual ambitions in line with the given circumstances, especially with the restrictions imposed on him as a descendant of former bourgeois family. He found an employment in the theatre world of Prague as stagehand at Prague´s Theatre ABC – Divadlo ABC, and then at the Theatre On Balustrade – Divadlo Na zábradlí. Simultaneously, he was a student of dramatical arts by correspondence at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU). His first own full-length play performed in public, besides various vaudeville collaborations, was The Garden Party (1963). Presented in a series of Theatre of the Absurd, at the Theatre on Balustrade, this play won him international acclaim. The play was soon followed by The Memorandum, one of his best known plays, and the The Increased Difficulty of Concentration, all at the Theatre on Balustrade. In 1968, The Memorandum was also brought to The Public Theater in New York, which helped to establish Havel´s reputation in the United States. The Public Theatre continued to produce his plays in the following years. After 1968, Havel´s plays were banned from the theatre world in his own country, and he was unable to leave Czechoslovakia to see any foreign performances of his works.^[10]

Dissident[link]

During the first week of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Havel assisted the resistance by providing an on-air narrative via Radio Free Czechoslovakia station (at Liberec). Following the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968, he was banned from the theatre and became more politically active. Short of money, he took a job in a brewery, an experience he wrote about in his play Audience. This play, along with two other "Vaněk" plays (so-called because of the recurring character Ferdinand Vaněk, a stand in for Havel), became distributed in samizdat form across Czechoslovakia, and greatly added to Havel's reputation of being a leading dissident (several other Czech writers later wrote their own plays featuring Vaněk).^[11] This reputation was cemented with the publication of the Charter 77 manifesto, written partially in response to the imprisonment of members of the Czech psychedelic band The Plastic People of the Universe.^[12] (Havel had attended their trial, which centered on the group's non-conformity in having long hair, using obscenities in their music, and their overall involvement in the Czech underground).^[13] Havel co-founded the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted in 1979. His political activities resulted in multiple stays in prison, and constant government surveillance and questioning by the secret police, (Státní bezpečnost). His longest stay in prison, from May 1979 to February 1983,^[14] is documented in letters to his wife that were later published as Letters to Olga.

He was known for his essays, most particularly The Power of the Powerless, in which he described a societal paradigm in which citizens were forced to "live within a lie" under the communist regime.^[15] In describing his role as a dissident, Havel wrote in 1979: "...we never decided to become dissidents. We have been transformed into them, without quite knowing how, sometimes we have ended up in prison without precisely knowing how. We simply went ahead and did certain things that we felt we ought to do, and that seemed to us decent to do, nothing more nor less."^[16]

Presidency[link]

Václav Havel and Karol Sidon (left), his friend and later chief Czech rabbi

Flag of the President of the Czech Republic: "The Truth Prevails"

On 29 December 1989, while he was leader of the Civic Forum, Havel became President of Czechoslovakia by a unanimous vote of the Federal Assembly. He had long insisted that he was not interested in politics and had argued that political change in the country should be induced through autonomous civic initiatives rather than through the official institutions. In 1990, soon after his election, Havel was awarded the Prize For Freedom of the Liberal International.^[17][18][19]

Following the first free elections in Czechoslovakia in 1990, Havel retained his presidency. Despite increasing political tensions between the Czechs and the Slovaks in 1992, Havel supported the retention of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic prior to the dissolution of the country. On 3 July 1992, the Federal Parliament did not elect Havel, who was the only candidate, due to a lack of support from Slovak deputies. The largest Czech political party, the Civic Democratic Party, let it be known that it would not support any other candidate. After the Slovaks issued their Declaration of Independence, he resigned as President on 20 July, saying that he would not preside over the country's breakup.

However, when the Czech Republic was created as one of two successor states, he stood for election as its first president on 26 January 1993, and won. He did not have nearly the power that he had as president of Czechoslovakia. Although he was nominally the new country's chief executive, the Constitution of the Czech Republic intended to vest most of the real power in the prime minister. However, owing to his prestige, he still commanded a good deal of moral authority, and the presidency acquired a greater role than the framers intended. For instance, largely due to his influence, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, successor to the KSC's branch in the Czech Lands, was kept on the margins for most of his presidency, as Havel suspected it was still an unreformed Stalinist party.^[20]

Havel's popularity abroad surpassed his popularity at home,^[21] and he was often object of controversy and criticism. During his time in office, Havel stated that the expulsion of the indigenous Sudeten German population after World War II was immoral, causing a great controversy at home. His extensive general amnesty was one of his first acts as President. It was an attempt to lessen the pressure in overcrowded prisons as well as to release political prisoners and persons who may have been falsely imprisoned during the Communist era. He had felt that many of the decisions of the previous regime´s courts should not be trusted, and that most of those in prison had not received fair trials.^[22] On the other hand, his critics claimed that this amnesty led to a significant increase in the crime rate. According to Havel's memoir To the Castle and Back, most of those who were released had less than a year to serve before their sentences ended. Statistics have not lent clear support to either claim.

In an interview with Karel Hvížďala (included in To the Castle and Back), Havel expressed his feeling that it was his most important accomplishment as President to have contributed to the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. According to his statement the dissolution was very complicated. The infrastructure created by the Warsaw Pact was part of the economies of all member states, so that it took for example two years for Soviet troops to fully withdraw from Czechoslovakia.^{[citation needed]}

Following a legal dispute with his sister-in-law Dagmar Havlová (wife of his brother Ivan M. Havel), Havel decided to sell his 50% stake in the Lucerna Palace on Wenceslas Square in Prague, built from 1907 to 1921 by his grandfather, also named Václav Havel (spelled Vácslav,) one of the multifunctional "palaces" in the center of the once booming pre-World War I Prague. In a transaction arranged by Marián Čalfa, Havel sold the estate to Václav Junek, a former communist spy in France and leader of the soon-to-be-bankrupt conglomerate Chemapol Group, who later openly admitted that he bribed politicians of the Czech Social Democratic Party.^[23]

In December 1996, Havel who had been a chain smoker for a long time, was diagnosed with lung cancer.^[24] The disease reappeared two years later. He quit smoking. In 1996, Olga Havlová, his wife of 32 years, died of cancer at 63. In 1997, he remarried, to actress Dagmar Veškrnová.^[25]

Havel was among those influential politicians who contributed most to the transition of NATO from being an anti-Warsaw Pact alliance to its present form. Havel advocated vigorously for the inclusion of former-Warsaw Pact members, like the Czech Republic, into the Western alliance.^[26][27]

Havel was re-elected president in 1998. He had to undergo a colostomy in Innsbruck when his colon ruptured while he was on holiday in Austria.^[28] Havel left office after his second term as Czech president ended on 2 February 2003. Václav Klaus, one of his greatest political adversaries, was elected his successor as President on 28 February 2003. Margaret Thatcher wrote of the two men in her foreign policy treatise Statecraft, reserving the greater respect for Havel. Havel´s dedication to democracy and his steadfast opposition to the Communist ideology earned her admiration.^[29][30][31]

Post-presidential career[link]

In his post-presidency Havel focused on European affairs

Beginning in 1997, Havel hosted Forum 2000, an annual conference to "identify the key issues facing civilisation and to explore ways to prevent the escalation of conflicts that have religion, culture or ethnicity as their primary components". In 2005, the former President occupied the Kluge Chair for Modern Culture at the John W. Kluge Center of the United States Library of Congress, where he continued his research on human rights.^[32] In November and December 2006, Havel spent eight weeks as a visiting artist in residence at Columbia University. The stay was sponsored by the Columbia Arts Initiative and featured "performances, and panels centr[ing] on his life and ideas", including a public "conversation" with former U.S. President Bill Clinton. Concurrently, the Untitled Theater Company No. 61 launched a Havel Festival, the first complete festival of his plays in various venues throughout New York City, including The Brick Theater and the Ohio Theatre, in celebration of his 70th birthday.^{[33][34][35][36][37][38][39]} Havel was a member of the World Future Society and addressed the Society's members on 4 July 1994. His speech was later printed in THE FUTURIST magazine (July, 1995).^[40]

Havel's memoir of his experience as President, To the Castle and Back, was published in May 2007. The book mixes an interview in the style of Disturbing the Peace with actual memoranda he sent to his staff with modern diary entries and recollections.^[41]

On 4 August 2007, Havel met with members of the Belarus Free Theatre at his summer cottage in the Czech Republic in a show of his continuing support, which has been instrumental in the theatre's attaining international recognition and membership in the European Theatrical Convention.^[42][43]

Havel's first new play in almost two decades, Odcházení (Leaving), was published in November 2007, and was to have had its world premiere in June 2008 at the Prague theater Divadlo na Vinohradech,^[44] but the theater withdrew it in December as it felt it could not provide the technical support needed to mount the play.^[45] The play instead premiered on 22 May 2008 at the Archa Theatre to standing ovations.^[46] Havel based the play on King Lear, by William Shakespeare, and on The Cherry Orchard, by Anton Chekhov; "Chancellor Vilém Rieger is the central character of Leaving, who faces a crisis after being removed from political power."^[44] The play had its English language premiere at the Orange Tree Theatre in London and its American premiere at The Wilma Theater in Philadelphia. Havel subsequently directed a film version of the play, which premiered in the Czech Republic on 22 March 2011.^[47]

Other works included the short sketch Pět Tet, a modern sequel to Unveiling, and The Pig, or Václav Havel's Hunt for a Pig, which was premiered in Brno at Theatre Goose on a String and had its English language premiere in June 2011 at the 3LD Art & Technology Center in New York, in a production from Untitled Theater Company no. 61.^[48][49]

In 2008, Havel became Member of the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation. He met U.S. President Barack Obama in private before Obama´s departure after the end of the European Union (EU) and United States (US) summit in Prague in April 2009.^[50]

Havel was the chair of the Human Rights Foundation's International Council and a member of the international advisory council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.^[51]

Václav Havel at Velvet Revolution Memorial (Národní Street, Prague) in 2010

From the 1980s Havel supported the green politics movement (partly due to his friendship with the co-founder of the German Die Grünen party Milan Horáček).^[52][53]).

From 2004 until his death he supported the Czech Green Party.^{[54][55][56][57]}

Death[link]

Havel died on 18 December 2011, aged 75, at his country home in Hrádeček.^[58][59][60]

A week before his death, he met with his longtime friend, the Dalai Lama, in Prague;^[61] Havel appeared in a wheelchair.^[59] Within hours Havel's death was met with numerous tributes, including from U.S. President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Polish President Lech Wałęsa. Merkel called Havel "a great European", while Wałęsa said he should have been given the Nobel Peace Prize.^[59][62]

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a native of Czechoslovakia, said, "He was one of the great figures of the 20th Century", while Czech expatriate novelist Milan Kundera said, "Václav Havel's most important work is his own life."^[63]

Memorial gathering of Václav Havel in Wenceslas Square in Prague on the day of his death on 18 December 2011

Prime Minister Petr Nečas announced a three-day mourning period from 21 to 23 December, the date announced by President Václav Klaus for the state funeral. The funeral Mass was held at Saint Vitus Cathedral, celebrated by the Archbishop of Prague Dominik Duka and Havel’s old friend Bishop Václav Malý. During the service, a 21 gun salute was fired in the former president’s honour, and as per the family’s request, a private ceremony followed at the crematorium in Strašnice, Prague. Havel’s ashes were placed in the family tomb in the Vinohrady Cemetery in Prague.^[64] On 23 December 2011 the Václav Havel Tribute Concert was held in Prague's Palác Lucerna.

In contrast, Czech Communist Party leader Vojtěch Filip stated that Havel was a very controversial person and that his words often conflicted with his deeds. He criticised Havel for having supported NATO's war against the former Yugoslavia, which Havel called a "humanitarian bombing".^[65] In response to his death, the Czech Young Communists wrote on their web page, "Nation celebrate! Václav Havel, a lackey of the United States, NATO, Sudeten Germans and Israel, has died. The biggest traitor of the Czech people has died! Václav Havel, an accomplice in the bombing of Yugoslavia, an accomplice in the murder of 2500 civilians, has died. Down with traitors!" The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) dissociated the party from these comments.^[66]

An online petition organized by one of the best-known Czech and Slovak film directors, Fero Fenič, calling on the government and the Parliament to rename Prague Ruzyně Airport to Václav Havel International Airport attracted - in a week after 20 December 2011 - a support of over 80,000 signatories both within and outside of the Czech Republic.^[67] A rendition of the airport with the proposed Václav Havel's name in a form of his signature along with his typical heart symbol after it is included in a blog's article in support of renaming of the airport.^[68]

Awards[link]

On 4 July 1994, Václav Havel was awarded the Philadelphia Liberty Medal. In his acceptance speech, he said: "The idea of human rights and freedoms must be an integral part of any meaningful world order. Yet I think it must be anchored in a different place, and in a different way, than has been the case so far. If it is to be more than just a slogan mocked by half the world, it cannot be expressed in the language of departing era, and it must not be mere froth floating on the subsiding waters of faith in a purely scientific relationship to the world."^[69]

In 1997, Havel received the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities and the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca.

In 2002, he was the third recipient of the Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award presented by the Prague Society for International Cooperation. In 2003, he was awarded the International Gandhi Peace Prize by the government of India for his outstanding contribution towards world peace and upholding human rights in most difficult situations through Gandhian means; he was the inaugural recipient of Amnesty International's Ambassador of Conscience Award for his work in promoting human rights;^[70] he received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom; and he was appointed as an honorary Companion of the Order of Canada.

In January 2008, the Europe-based A Different View cited Havel to be one of the 15 Champions of World Democracy.^[71] As a former Czech President, Havel was a member of the Club of Madrid.^[72] In 2009 he was awarded the Quadriga Award,^[73] but decided to return it in 2011 following the announcement of Vladimir Putin as one of the 2011 award recipients.^[74]

Havel also received multiple honorary doctorates from various universities such as the prestigious Institut d'études politiques de Paris in 2009.^[75]

On 10 October 2011 Havel was awarded by the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili with the St. George Victory Order.^[76]

In 1993, he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.^[77]

Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent[link]

In April 2011, Havel's widow, Dagmar Havlová, authorized the creation of the Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent. The prize was created by the New York-based Human Rights Foundation and is awarded at the annual Oslo Freedom Forum. The prize "will celebrate those who engage in creative dissent, exhibiting courage and creativity to challenge injustice and live in truth."^[78]

Works[link]

Collections of poetry[link]

• Čtyři rané básně (Four Early Poems)
• Záchvěvy I & II, 1954 (Quivers I & II)
• První úpisy, 1955 (First promissory notes)
• Prostory a časy, 1956 (Spaces and times)
• Na okraji jara (cyklus básní), 1956 (At the edge of spring (poetry cycle))
• Antikódy, 1964 (Anticodes)

Plays[link]

• Life Ahead/You Have Your Whole Life Ahead of You, 1959, (Život před sebou) with Karel Brynda
• Motomorphosis/Motormorphosis, 1960/1961, (Motomorfóza), a sketch from Autostop
• Ela, Hela and stop/Ela, Hela and Hithchiking, 1960/1961, (Ela, Hela a stop), a sketch for Autostop; discarded from the play, lost; found in 2009; published in 2011
• An Evening with the Family, 1960, (Rodinný večer)
• Hitchhiking, 1961, (Autostop), with Ivan Vyskočil
• The Best Years of Missis Hermanová, 1962, (Nejlepší rocky paní Hermanové) with Miloš Macourek
• The Garden Party (Zahradní slavnost), 1963
• The Memorandum, 1965, (Vyrozumění)
• The Increased Difficulty of Concentration, 1968, (Ztížená možnost soustředění)
• Butterfly on the Antenna, 1968, (Motýl na anténě)
• Guardian Angel, 1968, (Anděl strážný)
• Conspirators, 1971, (Spiklenci)
• The Beggar's Opera, 1975, (Žebrácká opera)
• Unveiling, 1975, (Vernisáž)- a Vanӗk play
• Audience, 1975, (Audice) – a Vanӗk play
• Mountain Hotel 1976, (Horský hotel)
• Protest, 1978, (Protest) – a Vanӗk play
• Mistake, 1983, (Chyba) 
• Largo desolato 1984, (Largo desolato)
• Temptation, 1985, (Pokoušení)
• Redevelopment, 1987, (Asanace)
• The Pig, or Vaclav Havel's Hunt for a Pig (Prase, aneb Václav Havel´s Hunt for a Pig), 1987; published in 2010; premiered in 2010, directed by Vladimír Morávek
• Tomorrow, 1988, (Zítra to spustíme)
• Leaving (Odcházení), 2007
• Dozens of Cousins (Pět Tet), 2010, a short sketch/sequel to Unveiling

Non-fiction books[link]

• The Power of the Powerless (1985) [Includes 1978 titular essay. Online
• Living in Truth (1986)
• Letters to Olga (Dopisy Olze) (1988)
• Disturbing the Peace (1991)
• Open Letters (1991)
• Summer Meditations (Letní přemítání) (1992/93)
• Towards a Civil Society (1994)
• The Art of the Impossible (1998)
• To the Castle and Back (2007)

Fiction books[link]

• Pizh'duks

Films[link]

• Odcházení, 2011

Cultural allusions and interests[link]

• Havel was a major supporter of The Plastic People of the Universe, and close friend of its leader, Milan Hlavsa, its manager, Ivan Martin Jirous, and its guitarist/vocalist, Paul Wilson (who later became Havel's English translator and biographer) and a great fan of the rock band The Velvet Underground, sharing mutual respect with the principal singer-songwriter Lou Reed, and was also a lifelong Frank Zappa fan.^[79][80]
• Havel was also a great supporter and fan of jazz and frequented such Prague clubs as Radost FX and the Reduta Jazz Club, where U.S. President Bill Clinton played the saxophone when Havel brought him there.^[79]
• The period involving Havel's role in the Velvet Revolution and his ascendancy to the presidency is dramatized in part in the play Rock 'n' Roll, by Czechoslovakia-born English playwright Tom Stoppard. One of the characters in the play is called Ferdinand, in honor of Ferdinand Vaněk, the protagonist of three of Havel's plays and a Havel stand-in.
• In 1996, due to his contributions to the arts, he was honorably mentioned in the rock opera Rent during the song "La Vie Boheme", though his name was mispronounced on the original soundtrack.
• Samuel Beckett's 1982 short play, Catastrophe, was dedicated to Havel while he was held as a political prisoner in Czechoslovakia.^[81]
• In David Weber's Honor Harrington series, a genetic slave turned freedom fighter (and later Prime Minister of a planet of freed slaves) names himself "W.E.B. du Havel" in honor of his two favorite writers on the subject of freedom, W. E. B. du Bois and Havel.

See also[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

Works by Václav Havel

• Commentaries and Op-eds by Václav Havel and in conjunction between Václav Havel and other renowned world leaders for Project Syndicate.
• "Excerpts from The Power of the Powerless (1978)", by Václav Havel. "Excerpts from the Original Electronic Text provided by Bob Moeller, of the University of California, Irvine."
• "The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World" (Speech republished in THE FUTURIST magazine). Accessed 19 December 2011
• Václav Havel: 'We are at the beginning of momentous changes'. Czech.cz (Official website of the Czech Republic), 10 September 2007. Accessed 21 December 2007. On personal responsibility, freedom and ecological problems.
• Two Messages Václav Havel on the Kundera affaire, English, salon.eu.sk, October 2008

Media interviews with Václav Havel

• After the Velvet, an Existential Revolution? dialogue between Václav Havel and Adam Michnik, English, salon.eu.sk, November 2008
• Warner, Margaret. "Online Focus: Newsmaker: Václav Havel". The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. PBS, broadcast 16 May 1997. Accessed 21 December 2007. (NewsHour transcript.)

Books (Biographies)

• Keane, John. Vaclav Havel: A Political Tragedy in Six Acts. New York: Basic Books, 2000. ISBN 0-465-03719-4. (A sample chapter [in HTML and PDF formats] is linked on the author's website, "Books".)
• Kriseová, Eda. Vaclav Havel. Trans. Caleb Crain. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. ISBN 0-312-10317-4.
• Pontuso, James F. Vaclav Havel: Civic Responsibility in the Postmodern Age. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. ISBN 0-7425-2256-3.
• Rocamora, Carol. Acts of Courage. New York: Smith & Kraus, 2004. ISBN 1-57525-344-5.
• Symynkywicz, Jeffrey. Vaclav Havel and the Velvet Revolution. Parsippany, New Jersey: Dillon Press, 1995. ISBN 0-87518-607-6.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Václav Havel

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Václav Havel

• Václav Havel Official website
• Václav Havel Library, Prague
• Works by or about Václav Havel in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Václav Havel at the Internet Movie Database
• Václav Havel collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Václav Havel collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Václav Havel archive from The New York Review of Books
• Havel at Columbia: Bibliography: Human Rights Archive
• A Vaclav Havel´s Virtual Memorial.
• Condolences on Vaclav Havel's death from Russia and Belarus.