PICTURE: People commemorated the tenth anniversary of Václav Havel’s death in Prague as well
At the Slavia Café, several speakers recalled Havel’s personality and the values he had promoted all his life. Senate President Miloš Vystrčil (ODS) praised its principledness.
“If we argue and argue and we are not able to take a principled position, then no one will respect us,” he said. He added that the event was originally supposed to be larger and took place in the main hall of the Senate, but due to the epidemic situation, the organizers chose a more intimate form. The Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Markéta Pekarová Adamová (TOP 09) reflected on where the Czech environment has moved in the ten years since Havel’s death. She wondered if the familiar slogan of truth and love had become a derogatory thing for many people. “I don’t see truth and love as an insult,” she said, adding that it was a value that everyone should strive for.
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The former president was remembered by the people who worked with him. The director of the Václav Havel Library, Michael Žantovský, said that it was necessary to recall the ideas that Havel promoted and not make an idol of him. He appreciated that a number of commemorative events were taking place across the country on the anniversary. “They are all the more valuable because they are not organized by any government and are not convened by any office,” he said.
The wooden heart from the Srdce na Hrad march ended on the stage of the Lucerna Music Bar, where a large memorial concert was shown in the evening. It was attended by Ivan Hlas Trio, Jiří Dědeček, We’re Home, Beata Hlavenková, Michal Hrůza and the band, Jaroslav Hutka, Organ Orchestrovič Bauer and others. The event, moderated by Ondřej Lechnýř, was broadcast live on Youtube, among other things.
Source: Youtube
From Saturday to December 23, there is a commemorative exhibition of photographs of 10 years without VH in the Lucerna passage, taken by 12 photographers such as Karel Cudlín, Tomki Němec, Petr Našic, Ivan Prokop, Ibra Ibrahimovič and Lukáš Bíba. Several films about Václav Havel were also screened at the Lucerna Cinema, and in the evening it was the documentary The Art of Dissent by the American director James Dean Le Sueur.
The Václav Havel Library also participates in commemorating the anniversary of Havel’s departure. In cooperation with the Vision 97 Foundation and the Prague Transport Company, she equipped buses and trams in Prague separately from his ideas. The Havel project for passengers brings ten quotes that Václav Havel wrote or uttered during his presidential term.
PICTURE: A memorial plaque on Melantrich commemorates Havel’s first speech
Today, the Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová and the Prime Minister of Slovakia Eduard Heger also dedicated a memory to Havel. Čaputová wrote on Facebook that the life story of Václav Havel shows that ideals belong to politics. According to her, the last Czechoslovak and the first Czech president is “inseparably connected with the stellar moments of our recent history”. According to the Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger, Havel showed that man’s strength does not lie in shouting. “Thanks to him, Slovakia has more easily joined the family of Western democracies,” added the Prime Minister of Slovakia.
The last Czechoslovak and the first Czech president became known to the public in the 1960s thanks to his work in the theater. At the time of normalization, he was one of the most prominent representatives of dissent, and after November 1989 he became a top politician. He died on December 18, 2011 at the age of 75 at his cottage in Hrádek.