Václav Havel - Litomerice (North Bohemia)
N 50° 32.156 E 014° 07.670
33U E 438192 N 5598584
Depicted bronze bust of Václav Havel, the last Czechoslovak and later Czech president, philosopher and writer Václav Havel, is located in park bearing his name in the historic centre of town Litomerice.
Waymark Code: WMV8F5
Location: Ústecký kraj, Czechia
Date Posted: 03/14/2017
Views: 34
Depicted bronze bust of Václav Havel, the last Czechoslovak and later Czech president, philosopher and writer Václav Havel, is located in park bearing his name in the historic centre of town Litomerice.
The Václav Havel bronze bust, work of Alžbeta Kumstátová from Litomerice, is a result of cooperation between the town of Litomerice and Endowment Fund Kalich. The bust was ceremonially unveiled in presence of Dagmar Havel and several hundreds of Litomerice citizens in October 8, 2012, almost year after former Czech President Vaclav Havel has died.
Václav Havel (5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011) was a Czech writer, philosopher, political dissident, and politician. From 1989 to 1992, he served as the last president of Czechoslovakia. He then served as the first president of the Czech Republic (1993–2003) after the Czech–Slovak split. Within Czech literature, he is known for his plays, essays, and memoirs.
His educational opportunities limited by his bourgeois background, Havel first rose to prominence within the Prague theater world as a playwright. Havel used the absurdist style in works such as The Garden Party and The Memorandum to critique communism. After participating in Prague Spring and being blacklisted after the invasion of Czechoslovakia, he became more politically active and helped found several dissident initiatives such as Charter 77 and the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted. His political activities brought him under the surveillance of the secret police and he spent multiple stints in prison, the longest being nearly four years, between 1979 and 1983.
Havel's Civic Forum party played a major role in the Velvet Revolution that toppled communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989. He assumed the presidency shortly thereafter, and was reelected in a landslide the following year and after Slovak independence in 1993. Havel was instrumental in dismantling the Warsaw Pact and expanding NATO membership eastward. Many of his stances and policies, such as his opposition to Slovak independence, condemnation of the Czechoslovak treatment of Sudeten Germans after World War II, and granting of general amnesty to all those imprisoned under communism, were very controversial domestically. As such, at the end of his presidency, he enjoyed greater popularity abroad than at home. Havel continued his life as a public intellectual after his presidency, launching several initiatives including the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, the VIZE 97 Foundation, and the Forum 2000 annual conference.
Havel's political philosophy was one of anti-consumerism, humanitarianism, environmentalism, civil activism, and direct democracy. He supported the Czech Green Party from 2004 until his death. He received numerous accolades during his lifetime including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Gandhi Peace Prize, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, the Order of Canada, the Four Freedoms Award, the Ambassador of Conscience Award, and the Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award. The 2012–2013 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour. He is considered by some to be one of the most important intellectuals of the 20th century. The international airport in Prague was renamed to Václav Havel Airport Prague in 2012. In 2011 the Parliament of the Czech Republic passed Act on Merits of Václav Havel (also known as Lex Havel). [wiki]