Václav Havel

Václav Havel (October 5, 1936 – December 18, 2011) was a Czech playwright, dissident, and politician. He made history as the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the independent Czech Republic. He grew up in a Prague intellectual family but was banned from studying humanities for political reasons. After his military service, he worked as a stage technician at the ABC Theatre and, from 1960, at the Theatre on the Balustrade (Divadlo Na zábradlí). His first texts premiered there, including the famous The Garden Party (1963). In the 1960s, he also wrote the acclaimed plays The Memorandum and The Increased Difficulty of Concentration. After August 1968, he actively opposed the communist regime's repression. He co-founded Charter 77, initiated the A Few Sentences petition, and helped publish samizdat. For his civic stance, he was imprisoned three times, spending nearly five years behind bars. His famous philosophical work Letters to Olga dates from this period. During the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, he became the leading figure of the Civic Forum and was elected Czechoslovak president in December. In 1993, he became the first president of the newly formed Czech Republic. His first wife was Olga Havlová; he later married actress Dagmar Veškrnová. He received numerous state and international awards for his literary work and human rights advocacy. He died after a long illness.