Revolutions of 1989: Vaclav Havel (1936- )

Havel is best known as a dissident in Czechoslovakia and regarded as one of the most central figures throughout the revolutions of 1989. Coming from a well-established, intellectual Czech family, he started as a playwright.  After the Prague Spring of 1968 he was increasingly involved in politics, and stood at the head of many anti-Comminist activities and initiatives.  This includes "Charter 77," the human rights manifesto. His reputation as one of the leading political and moral leaders of anti-Communist dissident movements catepulted him to the Presidency of Czechoslovakia after the Velvet Revolution. After the so-called "Velvet Divorce," the separation of Czechoslovakia into the Czech and Slovak Republics, he served President of the Czech Republic for another ten years.
 
 
 
Works about Havel
 
"Czech President Vetos Antismoking Law." BMJ: British Medical Journal 310, no. 6993 (1995): 1486-86.
 
"Dissidents and the Fight for Freedom." Journal of Democracy 18, no. 2 (2007): 182-82.
 
"Vaclav Havel, a Disappointed Czech." Economist 356, no. 8190 (2000): 58-58.
 
"Vaclav Havel, Westward Ho!". Economist 346, no. 8064 (1998): 49-49.

"Vaclav Havel: Heir to a Spiritual Legacy. (Cover Story)." Christian Century 107, no. 12 (1990): 368.

"Vaclav Havel's New Year's Address." Orbis 34, no. 2 (1990): 253.

Adam, Krystof. "Our Real Interests." New Presence: The Prague Journal of Central European Affairs 6, no. 2 (2004): 5-6.

Ambros, Veronika. "Fictional World and Dramatic Text: Vaclav Havel's Descent and Ascent." Style 25, no. 2 (1991): 310.

Baer, Josette. "Imagining Membership: The Conception of Europe in the Political Thought of T. G. Masaryk and Vã¡Clav Havel." Studies in East European Thought 52, no. 3 (2000): 203-26.

Beck, Rosalie, and David W. Hendon. "Notes on Church-State Affairs: Czechoslovakia." Journal of Church & State 32, no. 2 (1990): 446.

Brooks, D. Christopher. "The Art of the Political: Havel's Dramatic Literature as Political Theory." East European Quarterly 39, no. 4 (2005): 491-522.

Carey, Phyllis. "Living in Less: Vaclav Havel's Drama." Cross Currents 42, no. 2 (1992): 200.

Chambers, A., and T. Kahn. "Life Turns Upside Down for Vaclav Havel, out of Jail and in as Czech President." People 33, no. 3 (1990): 44.

Cobb, Kelton. "Ernst Troeltsch and Vaclav Havel on the Ethical Promise of Historical Failure." Journal of Religious Ethics 22, no. 1 (1994): 53.

Duberstein, John. A Velvet Revolution : Václav Havel and the Fall of Communism. Morgan Reynolds Pub., 2006.

Elshtain, Jean Bethke. "A Man for This Season: Vaclav Havel on Freedom and Responsibility." Perspectives on Political Science 21, no. 4 (1992): 207.

———. "Politics without Cliche." Social Research 60, no. 3 (1993): 433-44.

Ericson Jr, Edward E. "Solzhenitsyn, Havel, and the Twenty-First Century." Modern Age 41, no. 1 (1999): 3.

Fawn, Rick. "Reconstituting a National Identity: Ideologies in Czech Foreign Policy after the Split." Journal of Communist Studies & Transition Politics 19, no. 3 (2003): 204-28.

———. "Symbolism in the Diplomacy of Czech President Vaclav Havel." East European Quarterly 33, no. 1 (1999): 1.

Findlay, Edward F. "Classical Ethics and Postmodern Critique: Political Philosophy in Vaclav Havel and Jan Patocka." Review of Politics 61, no. 3 (1999): 403.

Goetz-Stankiewicz, Marketa Carey Phyllis. Critical Essays on Václav Havel. New York: G.K. Hall : Twayne, 1999.

Hammer, Dean C. "Vaclav Havel's Construction of a Democratic Discourse." Philosophy Today 39, no. 2 (1995): 119.

Howard, Paul. "Vaclav Havel: Civic Responsibility in the Postmodern Age." Society 42, no. 6 (2005): 83-86.

Keane, John. Václav Havel : A Political Tragedy in Six Acts. 1st [Basic Books] ed. New York: Basic Books, 2000.

Kriseová, Eda. Václav Havel : The Authorized Biography. 1st ed. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993.

Lawler, Peter Augustine. "Havel's Postmodern View of Man in the Cosmos." Perspectives on Political Science 26, no. 1 (1997): 27.

Madigan, Timothy J. "Transcending Havel." Free Inquiry 18, no. 4 (1998): 9.

Martin, Guy. "The Short, Happy Exile of Vaclav Havel." Esquire 119, no. 2 (1993): 84.

McLure, Brian. Havel to the Castle : A Select Bibliography Concerning Vaclav Havel and His Elavation to the Presidency of Czechoslovakia. [Vic., Australia?: State Library of Victoria?, 1990.

Michnik, Adam. "Market, Religion and Nationalism: Fundamentalisms in the New European Order." International Journal of Politics, Culture & Society 8, no. 4 (1995): 525.

Misiarz, Jan. "Vaclav Havel's Concept of Universalism and Europe." Dialogue & Universalism 11, no. 5/6 (2001): 33.

Olasky, Marvin, Philip Furia, and Richard Warch. "'Our Ideas About Poverty Reflect Our Ideas About the Nature of Man'; the Poets of Tin Pan Alley; the Character and Conduct of Czechoslovakia's Vaclav Havel." Chronicle of Higher Education 37, no. 13 (1990): B4-B4.

Pirro, Robert. "Vaclav Havel and the Political Uses of Tragedy." Political Theory 30, no. 2 (2002): 228.

Pontuso, James F. "Havel's Vanek Plays." Perspectives on Political Science 34, no. 1 (2005): 4-15.

———. "Transformation Politics: The Debate between Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus on the Free Market and Civil Society." Studies in East European Thought 54, no. 3 (2002): 153-77.

Pynsent, Robert B. "The Work of Vaclav Havel." Slavonic & East European Review 73, no. 2 (1995): 269-281.
 
Rocamora, Carol. Acts of Courage : Vaclav Havel's Life in the Theater. 1st ed. Hanover, NH: Smith and Kraus, 2005.

Rosenberger, Chandler. "The Dissident Mind: Vã¡Clav Havel as Revolutionary Intellectual." Journal of the Historical Society 6, no. 3 (2006): 465-80.

Rupnik, Jacques. "Vaclav Havel." Civilization 5, no. 2 (1998): 44.

Seaton, Paul. "Vã¡Clav Havel's Federalist Papers: Summer Meditations and the Genuine Concept of Politics." Political Science Reviewer 31, (2002): 183.

Simmons, Michael. The Reluctant President : A Political Life of Vaclav Havel. London: Methuen, 1991.

Symynkywicz, Jeffrey. Vaclav Havel and the Velvet Revolution. 1st ed, People in Focus Series; Variation: People in Focus Book. New Jersey: Dillon Press, 1995.

Tucker, A. "Vaclav Havel's Heideggerianism." Telos no. 85 (1990): 63.

West, Robin. "The Supreme Court 1989 Term Foreword." Harvard Law Review 104, no. 1 (1990): 40.

Wolchik, Sharol L. "Czechoslovakia's 'Velvet Revolution'." Current History 89, no. 551 (1990): 413-37.
 
 
 
Works by Havel
 
Havel, Vaclav. The Art of the Impossible: Politics as Morality in Practice: Speeches and Writings, 1990-1996. 1st edition. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf; distributed by Random House, 1997.

———. "A Call for Sacrifice: The Co-Responsibility of the West." Foreign Affairs 73, no. 2 (1994): 2-7.
 
Havel, Vaclav, Vaclav Klaus, and Petr Pithart. "Civil Society after Communism: Rival Visions." Journal of Democracy 7, no. 1 (1996): 12-23.
 
———. "Civilization's Thin Veneer." Surviving Together 13, no. 3 (1995): 3-5.
 
Havel, Vaclav, and Adam Michnik. "Confronting the Past Iii: Justice or Revenge?" Journal of Democracy 4, no. 1 (1993): 20-27.
 
Havel, Vaclav, and Miroslav Kusy. "Conversation: In the Realm of Culture." Uncaptive Minds 6, no. 1 (1993): 63-66.
 
______. "'The Culture of Everything'." New York Review of Books 39, no. 10 (1992): 30-30.
 
Havel, Vaclav, and Oswaldo Paya. "The Czech Past and the Cuban Future." Journal of Democracy 15, no. 2 (2004): 160-69.
 
______. "[Czech Responses]." In Civic Freedom in Central Europe: Voices from Czechoslovakia,
edited by H. Gordon Skilling, and Paul Wilson, 60-63. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1990.
 
———. "Democracy's Forgotten Dimension." Journal of Democracy 6, no. 2 (1995): 3-10.
 
Havel, Vaclav, and Karel. Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvizdala. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.
 
———. "A Dream for Czechoslovakia." New York Review of Books 39, no. 12 (1992): 8-13.
 
———. "The Emperor Has No Clothes." Journal of Democracy 16, no. 4 (2005): 5-8.
 
———. "The End of the Modern Era." Surviving Together 10, no. 2 (1992): 3-4.
 
Havel, Vaclav, and Maximilian Schell. "Europe at the Fin De Siecle." Society 32, no. 6 (1995): 68-72.
 
———. "A Farewell to Politics." New York Review of Books 49, no. 16 (2002): 4-4.
 
———. "The Future of Central Europe." New York Review of Books 37, no. 5 (1990): 18-19.
 
———. "History of a Public Enemy." New York Review of Books 37, no. 9 (1990): 36-44.
 
———. "The Hope for Europe." New York Review of Books 43, no. 11 (1996): 38-42.
 
———. "In Memory of Our Holocaust Victims." In Celebrating Elie Wiesel: Stories, Essays, Reflections, edited by Alan Rosen, 331-34. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998.
 
 
———. "A Neglected Generation." In Czechoslovakia, 1918-88: Seventy Years from Independence, edited by H. Gordon Skilling, ? New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1991.
 
———. "A New European Order?" New York Review of Books 42, no. 4 (1995): 43-45.
 
———. "New Year's Address." Orbis 34, no. 2 (1990): 253-62.
 
———. "New Year's Day Speech, 1990." In From Stalinism to Pluralism: A Documentary History of Eastern Europe since 1945, edited by Gale Stokes, 249-53. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1991.
 
———. "On Home." New York Review of Books 38, no. 20 (1991): 49-49.
 
_______. "On Kafka." New York Review of Books 37, no. 14 (1990): 19-19.
 
______. "On Rita Klimova." New York Review of Books 41, no. 3 (1994): 6-6.
 
_______. Open Letters: Selected Writings, 1965-1990. 1st American edition. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf; distributed by Random House, 1991.
 
______. "Paradise Lost." New York Review of Books 39, no. 7 (1992): 6-8.
 
———. "The Paradox of Help: No Easy Solution except More Democracy." Surviving Together no. 24 (1991): 6-7.
 
———. "'People, Your Government Has Returned to You!'." Journal of Democracy 1, no. 2 (1990): 99-105.
 
———. "The Politics of Responsibility." World Policy Journal 12, no. 3 (1995): 81-87.
 
———. "The Post-Communist Nightmare." New York Review of Books 40, no. 10 (1993): 8-10.
 
Havel, Vaclav, and Joseph Brodsky. "The Post-Communist Nightmare: An Exchange." New York Review of Books 41, no. 4 (1994): 28-30.
 
______. Post-Modernism: Address, July 4, 1994." Vital Speeches of the Day 60, (1994): 613-15.
 
______. "Postscript." In Europe from Below: An East-West Dialogue, edited by Mary Kaldor, 217-22. London: Verso, 1991.
 
______. "The Power of the Powerless." In The Power of the Powerless: Citizens against the State in Central-Eastern Europe, edited by John Keane, 23-96. New York: Armonk, 1985.
 
———. "Reflections on a Paradoxical Life." New York Review of Books 37, no. 10 (1990): 38-38.
 
———. "The Responsibility of Intellectuals." New York Review of Books 42, no. 11 (1995): 36-38.
 
Havel, Vaclav and Richard von Weizsecker. "The Return of Germany." New York Review of Books 37, no. 7 (1990): 56-57.
 
———. "A Speech by Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic, on the Occasion of 'Vaclav Havel's Civil Society Symposium'." Kosmas: Czechoslovak and Central European Journal 14, no. 1 (2000): 107-11.
 
———. Summer Meditations. 1st American edition. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.
 
______. Toward a Civil Society: Selected Speeches and Writings, 1990-1994. Prague: Lidove Noviny, 1994.
 
———. "Toward Individual Responsibility and a Multipolar World." Surviving Together no. 20 (1990): 6-7.
 
———. "Two Letters from Prison." Translation: The Journal of Literary Translation 25 (1991): 187-92.
 
———. "'Uncertain Strength': An Interview with Vaclav Havel." New York Review of Books 38, no. 14 (1991): 6ff-6ff.
 
———. Vaclav Havel: Living in Truth: Twenty-Two Essays Published on the Occasion of the Award of the Erasmus Prize to Vaclav Havel. London: Faber and Faber, 1989.

———. "The Velvet Hangover." Harper's 281, no. 1685 (1990): 18-21.
 
———. A Word About Words. New York, NY: The Cooper Union, 1992.

———. "Words on Words." New York Review of Books 36, no. 21 (1990): 5-8.
 
 
Last Updated November 17, 2010