The first president of post-Communist Czechoslovakia, playwright and dissident Václav Havel (1936–) was the consensus choice to lead his country after the nonviolent revolution of 1989 that overthrew the old regime. As the Communists fled, joyous crowds in the streets of Prague chanted, “Havel to the castle”—reflecting the enormous popularity Havel had earned during years of struggle.
For the next thirteen years, Havel would be one of the most unusual leaders in world politics. A chain-smoking rock-and-roll fan, he wore jeans to work, invited the Rolling Stones to his palace, and prank-called the Kremlin, among his other exploits.
But he was also respected worldwide for his stand against Communism and is often mentioned in the same breath as South African antiapartheid leader Nelson Mandela (1918–) for the personal hardships he endured to bring freedom to his country.
Havel was born into a wealthy family in Prague. His family’s property was seized when the Communists took power in Czechoslovakia in 1948 and the family was officially branded bourgeois; the designation barred Havel from completing his education. He turned to theater instead, and gravitated to the smoky cafes and underground theaters of Prague’s bohemian intellectual scene.
In 1976, the Czechoslovakian government arrested the members of a rock band, the Plastic People of the Universe, deeming it counterrevolutionary. To support the band, Havel organized an illegal movement known as Charter 77, which would later form the leadership of the 1989 revolution. Havel spent the years between 1979 and 1983 in prison, the longest of his several jail stints. He continued to write plays and participate in the underground after his release.
Despite his heroic stature, Havel failed to prevent the split of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993, a move that he opposed. He was more successful in winning Czech membership in NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and in the European Union, two of his biggest foreign policy goals. Havel retired from the presidency in 2003 and has resumed writing plays and essays.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- After retiring Havel wrote his first new play in more than eighteen years, Leaving. The play, about a retired head of state grappling with his loss of power, premiered in Prague in June 2008.
- Havel’s first wife, Olga (1933–1996), died in 1996. He was criticized for remarrying the next year to Dagmar Veskrnová (1953–), an actress known in the Czech Republic for playing a topless vampire.
- Even after becoming president, Havel retained his theatrical sense. One of his first acts was to hire the costume designer for the movie Amadeus (1984) to redesign the uniforms of the guards at his castle, replacing the Communist-era khaki with red, white, and blue costumes.
