Václav Havel: niepolityczny polityk
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Date
2014
Authors
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Volume Title
Publisher
Wydawnictwo Nauka i Innowacje
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Václav Havel: Non-political Politician
Abstract
The article presents the political and intellectual silhouette of Václav Havel (1936–2011) – the last
president of Czechoslovakia and the first one of the Czech Republic. Havel, the next to the Pole
Lech Wałęsa, is the world renown symbol of the political turning point of 1989 that ended the world
communist system. Before 1989, during the communist age, Havel was a dramatist, essayist and
leader of Czechoslovak anticommunist and democratic dissident movement. He was strongly persecuted by the ruling communists, and while living under a permanent supervision of the security
services and he was many times arrested. In 1989 Havel became a president of democratic Czechoslovakia and after dissolving of this state, in 1993, he was elected as a the first president of the new
Czech Republic, holding the office by 10 following years. Havel was very untypical politician and
president. He has played rather the role of an intellectual for whom politics is a matter of changing
reality not by political decisions, but as a result of impact the on world by ideas and views. To follow Thomas Garrigue Masaryk example, the founder and first head of Czechoslovak state, clearly
admired by Havel, he has tried to conduct of non-political politics. In this model politics becomes
a practical applying of ethics and most important within it is not a power or state procedures and
mechanisms, but men’s good and faithfulness to the truth. Václav Havel went down in the history
as one of the greatest political figures of the second half of the last century.
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Keywords
politics, non-political politics, dramatist, communism, dissident movement, democratic opposition, president, presidency, Czechoslovakia, Czech Republic
Citation
Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne, 2014, nr 6, s.33–48
ISBN
978-83-63795-51-1