Knihovna Václava Havla

Club / News / Program

Three candidates shortlisted for the 2023 Václav Havel Prize 05/09/23

The selection panel of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, which rewards outstanding civil society action in defence of human rights in Europe and beyond, has today announced the shortlist for the 2023 Award. Meeting in Prague today, the panel – made up of independent figures from the world of human rights and chaired by the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Tiny Kox – decided to shortlist the following three nominees, in alphabetical order: More

Three candidates shortlisted for the 2022 Václav Havel Human Rights Prize 06/09/22

The discussion among the seven-member jury helmed by the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe centred on the importance of the issue of human rights during this tense period. The finalists include Vladimir Kara-Murza, a political prisoner and leading Russian democracy campaigner; Ukraine’s 5 AM Coalition, which gathers evidence of human rights abuses stemming from Russia’s invasion of the country; and Hungary’s Rainbow Coalition defending LGBTQIA+ rights. “This year’s selection reflects the central role that human rights play in the current European crisis,” says Michael Žantovský, jury member and executive director of the Václav Havel Library, which bestows the prize in cooperation with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and Nadace Charty 77.

The Other Europe 27/04/22

Dear Friends, After three years we have completed the international project The Other Europe, during which, in cooperation with partner institutions, we have processed and made public recordings of interviews shot in 1987 and 1988 behind the Iron Curtain, and in exile, with important representatives of the opposition and the arts, as well as random citizens. Over those three years we have prepared video, audio and text of 106 interviews in speakers’ native languages and English translation. Despite public health restrictions in the Covid period, we have jointly prepared 16 international conferences and public presentations in six Central and Eastern European states. More

From Schuman to Havel – what next? 16/02/22

The Václav Havel Library is a proud partner of the project Beyond Robert Schuman’s Europe More

Program for February 2019<>

entry-free

04. February

Pavla Jazairiová:
Another Africa

07. February

Petr Hruška: It’s
Never Said

11. February

Mark Slouka: Labyrinth
of the Heart

12. February

Debate with
Respekt

13. February

Karel Hiršl’s Path
to the Resistance

18. February

On Love, Darkness
and Amos Oz

19. February

Václav Havel and Film: Screenplays,
Analyses and Reflections, 1957–1989

20. February

Václav Havel: Protest,
Divadlo na tahu

21. February

Journalists in
Danger

26. February

Republic Café: The
Czech Lot

27. February

Evenings with Reporters: Poles and
Czechs 30 Years Later

Pavla Jazairiová: Another Africa

Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
When: February 4, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

Jiná Afrika (Another Africa) by journalist Pavla Jazairiová, an expanded version of the successful book, is focused on north and west Africa: Mali, Senegal, Algeria, Tunisia. From many perspectives, Africa is a place of misery, despair and decay. This leads many Africans to wish to depart for Europe and begin new lives. Jazairiová’s perspective, shorn of illusions or any hints of folklore, is a painful but valuable effort to avoid cheap moralising and to look for explanations. The book also includes informed glosses by Jana Hybášková, the European Union’s ambassador to Namibia.

Pavla Jazairiová recently returned from Ethiopia so has an extremely fresh view of the issues that resonate in her book.

Speaking with the author will be Charles University African Studies expert Vojtěch Šarše and Islamic Studies and African Studies specialist Luboš Kropáček.

The Czech Radio ombudsman Milan Pokorný will moderate.

Petr Hruška: It’s Never Said

Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
When: February 7, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

Publishers Host have just issued Nikde není řečeno (It’s Never Said), a new poetry collection by Petr Hruška. The Ostrava native works as a literary historian at the Institute of Czech Literature at the Czech Academy of Sciences and as well as poetry (such as Obývací nepokoje/ Living Discomforts, Auta vjíždějí do lodí/ Cars Boarding a Boat, Darmata) also writes prose (the collection Jedna věta/ One Sentence for Revolver Revue, columns for Respekt and the online Bubeník Revolveru). Hruška’s books do not come out frequently and his behaviour occasionally sparks a rumpus, such as most recently when he quit the jury of the State Literature Prize in protest at a deal with the Communists that allowed for the formation of the current Czech government.

Both Hruška’s latest book and his views will be presented during the evening, while introducing the new collection will be Adin Ljuca, a Bosnian poet, prose author, translator and theatre director resident in Prague, and Radovan Lipus, creator of the TV documentary series Šumná města.

The book (boasting visual art by Jakub Špaňhel) will be available to buy at the venue.

Mark Slouka: Labyrinth of the Heart

Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
When: February 11, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

A meeting with the Czech-American novelist

The biography of the author’s father, Zdeněk Slouka(1923–2012), reflects the history of the 20th century. During the war a forced labourer, he was later an editor of the “Svobodné” (Free) Lidové noviny newspaper. Following the Communist coup he fled with his family into exile, where he spent over 40 years and taught at a university. On returning to his homeland he continued his publishing work and was awarded the Ferdinand Peroutka Prize. One might expect such a forceful, multi-layered figure to be the central character of a memoir by his son. However, that role is played by the writer’s mother Olga. Disastrously unhappily married and given to fits of sorrow and rage, she terrorises her husband and traumatises her son, to whom she is utterly devoted. The author plays with memory and attempts to separate fiction from fact, refusing to embroider, apologise or ameliorate. He carefully pieces together the story of his parents, marked by both his mother’s fateful relationship with another man and unexpectedly lengthy and arduous exile.

The discussion will feature the author, publisher Aleš Lederer and translator Josef Moník. Actor Kajetán Písařovic will read excerpts and Denisa Novotná will moderate.

The evening is organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with the Prostor publishing house.

Debate with Respekt

Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
When: February 12, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

Discussion with Respekt editors and their guests on a topical issue. For more information visit www.vaclavhavel.cz

Karel Hiršl’s Path to the Resistance

Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
When: February 13, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

Letters written by Karel Hiršl to friends forced to work in the Reich are not just a personal and historical testimony but also a generational one. In the missives the then 20-year-old worked his way through the legacy of Czech and world literature in order, following the shock of Munich, to find a new spiritual orientation under which the world could be made better and more just. Like many, he found the answer in the ideas of socialism and in the establishment of the resistance organisation Vanguard. On 2 May 1945, Karel Hiršl was among 50 young Communist resistance fighters executed at the Small Fortress at Terezín. Those who survived, including philosopher Karel Kosík, were in the vanguard of the Prague Spring in the 1960s.

The evening will be hosted by Alena Wagnerová, who has issued the letters, and publisher Tomáš Trusina.

On Love, Darkness and Amos Oz

Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
When: February 18, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

Evening dedicated to Amos Oz, one of the most acclaimed of Israeli writers and intellectuals. The author of over 30 works of literature, essays and memoirs he died on 28 December last year. His oeuvre created indelible portraits of Israeli reality and the country’s political and spiritual roots and conflicts. His most important books include My Michael (1968), Unto Death (1971) and the memoir A Tale of Darkness (2002).

Oz was engaged for many years in trying to find a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and regarded a two-state solution as the only way forward. “What’s happening in Israel is a clash between the justified right of Israeli Jews to their own territory and the equally justified right of Palestinian Arabs,” he once said.

The author visited Prague, where his mother had once studied, several times and became friendly with Václav Havel and other Czech literary figures.

The evening is organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with the TOPAZ institute.

Václav Havel and Film: Screenplays, Analyses and Reflections, 1957–1989

Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
When: February 19, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

Launch of the book Václav Havel a Film. Scénáře, analýzy a úvahy z let 1957–1989 (Vaclav Havel and Film: Screenplays, Analyses and Reflections, 1957–1989). The freshly issued collection of work by Václav Havel includes research discoveries, such as previously unpublished screenplays and texts for and about film. It has been edited by Professor Jan Bernard of FAMU film school and is being published by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with the National Film Archive.

Cinematographer Ivan Šlapeta and Dagmar and Ivan Havel will recall the playwright’s filmmaking and acting efforts, including in Every Young Man by Pavel Juráček and the dissident video production Long Live Fronda!

From our archives we will screen, for the first time, the short film A Fateful Night, for which Václav Havel wrote the screenplay based on Vasila Biľak’s memoir and which was made by Andrej Krob and the Divadlo na tahu theatre company.

Václav Havel: Protest, Divadlo na tahu

Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
When: February 20, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

To sign or not to sign? A one-act play about a complicated question and even more complicated answer, about a long-standing dilemma that represents an essential subject for the author of dramas. Times are bad. Petitions and protests are all the rage in Czechoslovakia and internationally. But do such activities have any meaning? Can the dissatisfied and unreconciled influence what is happening around them? Do they influence the actions and consciences of politicians? Is that enough? Join us in looking back at 1978’s Protest, one of Havel’s lesser-known Vaněk plays.

Journalists in Danger

Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
When: February 21, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

It is exactly a year since the death of Slovak journalist Ján Kuciak. The talented reporter and his partner Martina Kušnírová were murdered on 21 February 2018. The investigative journalist wrote for the website Aktuality.sk and was writing about alleged links between the Italian mafia and top Slovak government officials. The crime rocked Slovakia, sparked the biggest demonstrations since the fall of communism and subsequently led to the resignations of interior minister Robert Kaliňák and prime minister Robert Fico and the departure of police chief Tibor Gašpar.

A total of 80 journalists were killed in 2018. Another 348 were imprisoned and 60 held in captivity. Is the role of a journalist becoming ever more arduous? Why is trust in journalists waning? What can journalists do to improve the reputation of their profession among the public?

Guests: Ján Kuciak’s former Michal Badín, a Slovak journalist from Aktuality.sk, investigative reporter Jiří Kubík of Seznam Zprávy and journalist Pavla Holcová, who founded the Czech Centre for Investigative Journalism and was a long-term collaborator of Kuciak’s.

Journalist and budding documentary maker Šárka Kabátová will chair the discussion.

Republic Café: The Czech Lot

Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
When: February 26, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

The Czech lot – the Czech lot? Milan Kundera’s December 1968 article and Václav Havel’s almost immediate response “caused” a long-running debate among Czech intellectuals that returns in regular waves to the pages of our culture magazines.

It is being continued at the Václav Havel Library by Michael Žantovský, who, along with his guests, will ponder the lots of nations small and large, how the Czech nation has stood up to long ago and recent historical tests, the possibilities of democracy, etc.

Confirmed guests: Bohumil Doležal, Jiří Pehe, Petr Pithart and Matěj Spurný.

Evenings with Reporters: Poles and Czechs 30 Years Later

Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
When: February 27, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

For Central European states, 1989 represented both a new starting line and the challenge of dealing with many internal problems. Thirty years after the fall of communism, Polish and Czech journalists and public figures will discuss changes in the two countries. This yearlong debate series has grown out of cooperation between the Václav Havel Library and the Polish Institute in Prague.

Reporters Marek Szymaniak and Saša Uhlová published in the same year, 2018, two very similar books: Urobieni (Manufactory) and Hrdinové kapitalistické práce (Heroes of Capitalist Labour). They capture disadvantageous contracts, undocumented labour, employer blackmail and the flouting and circumventing of legislation. If before 1989 “work for all” was a centrally planned Communist promise and threat, today the situation has turned around and we are voluntarily doing “all for work”. Where have we got to?

Petr Vizina will moderate.

Held with the support of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Czech-Polish Forum.

More news | More calendar events

Havel Channel

Havel Channel je audiovizuální projekt Knihovny Václava Havla, jehož cílem je šířit myšlenkový, literární a politický odkaz Václava Havla, bez ohledu na vzdálenost, zeměpisné hranice či nouzové stavy. Jeho páteř tvoří debaty, vzdělávací projekty a rozhovory. Velký prostor je věnován též konferencím, autorským čtením, záznamům divadelních inscenací a koncertům. Audiovizuální projekt Knihovny Václava Havla Havel Channel se uskutečňuje díky laskavé podpoře Karel Komárek Family Foundation.

In Conversation With... Bert Koenders

Protecting the safety of journalists. Evenings with Radio Free Europe

In Conversation With.. Edward Einhorn

In Conversation With... Matt Field

Publications / E-shop

The central focus of the Library’s publishing programme is the life and work of Václav Havel, his family and close collaborators and friends. For clarity, the programme is divided into six series: Václav Havel Library Notebooks, Václav Havel Library Editions, Student Line, Talks from Lány, Václav Havel Documents, Works of Pavel Juráček and Václav Havel Library Conferences. Titles that cannot be incorporated into any of the given series but which are nonetheless important for the Library’s publishing activities are issued independently, outside the series framework.

Show all publications

Conferences & prizes

Václav Havel European Dialogues

The Václav Havel European Dialogues is an international project that aims to initiate and stimulate a discussion about issues determining the direction of contemporary Europe while referring to the European spiritual legacy of Václav Havel. This idea takes its main inspiration from Václav Havel’s essay “Power of the Powerless”. More than other similarly focused projects, the Václav Havel European Dialogues aims to offer the “powerless” a platform to express themselves and in so doing to boost their position within Europe.

The Václav Havel European Dialogues is planned as a long-term project and involves cooperation with other organisations in various European cities. Individual meetings, which take the form of a conference, are targeted primarily at secondary and third-level students, as well as specialists and members of the public interested in European issues.

Prague 2022 Olomouc Prague 2023 Prague Mnichov 2020 Brussels 2020 Prague 2019 Brussels 2019 Prague 2018 Brussels 2018 Europe at the Crossroads (e-book)Prague 2017 Brussels 2017 Prague 2016 Brussels 2016 Prague 2015 Brussels 2015 Brussels 2014 Berlin 2014 Prague 2014 - J. Gauck Bruges 2014 Prague 2014

Václav Havel Human Rights Prize

The Václav Havel Human Rights Prize is awarded each year by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in partnership with the Václav Havel Library and the Charta 77 Foundation to reward outstanding civil society action in the defence of human rights in Europe and beyond.

11th Year of the Prize (2023)10th Year of the Prize (2022)9th Year of the Prize (2021)8th Year of the Prize (2020)7th Year of the Prize (2019)6th Year of the Prize (2018)5th Year of the Prize (2017)4th Year of the Prize (2016)3rd Year of the Prize (2015)2nd Year of the Prize (2014)1st Year of the Prize (2013)History of the prize

Havel - Albright Transatlantic Dialogues

Since the first Václav Havel Transatlantic Dialogues at GLOBSEC and FORUM 2000 conferences last year, we have lost another stalwart advocate of the transatlantic bond and of the need to face threats to democracy and international order together on both sides of the Atlantic, the former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. In view of the close bond between Václav Havel and Madeleine Albright and, after Havel's death, between the Secretary and the Library, the Václav Havel Library, with the approval of Madeleine Albright's family, renamed and rebranded the program as The Havel-Albright Transatlantic Dialogues (HATD), after the two major figures with roots in Central Europe who have personified the bond. Together, Václav Havel and Madeleine Albright symbolize the transatlantic relationship and the fundamental values underpinning it perhaps better than any other two people in recent history. The upcoming Dialogues “The Indispensable Woman: The Legacy of Madeleine K. Albright”, at the FORUM 2000 conference on September 1, and at the “Havel and our Crisis” conference at Colby College, ME, on September 28, will thus become venues for a well-deserved tribute to the pair we all respected and admired.

Transatlantic Dialogues 2021 Transatlantic Dialogues 2022 HATD 2022 Prague

Václav Havel

1936

Václav Havel grew up
in a well-known, wealthy entrepreneurial
and intellectual family.

1951

Václav Havel completed primary schooling. Because
of his "bourgeois" background, options for
higher education were limited.

1951

Václav Havel worked as a chemical laboratory technician
while attending evening classes at a high school
from which he graduated in 1954.

1955

Václav Havel studied at the
Economics Faculty of the Czech
Technical University in Prague.

1960

Václav Havel began working at Prague's Theatre on
the Balustrade, first as a stagehand and later as
an assistant director and literary manager.

1963

Havel´s first play The Garden
Party was staged at Prague's
Theatre on the Balustrade.

1964

Václav Havel
married Olga
Splichalova.

1966

VH finished studies at at the
Theatre Faculty of the Academy of
Performing Arts in Prague .

1968

Václav Havel played an active role in
democratization and renewal of culture during the
era of reforms, known as Prague Spring.

1969

Havel's work were banned in Czechoslovakia. He
moved from Prague to the country, continued
his activities against the Communist regime.

1974

Václav Havel worked as a manual laborer
at a local brewery near Hrádeček in
the north of the Czech Republic.

1975

Václav Havel wrote an open
letter to President Gustav Husak,
criticizing the government.

1977

Václav Havel co-founded the Charter 77
human rights initiative and was one
of its first spokesmen.

1978

Václav Havel co-founded The
Committee for the Defense
of the Unjustly Prosecuted.

1979

Václav Havel was imprisoned several times
for his beliefs, his longest prison
term lasting from 1979 to 1983.

1989

Václav Havel emerged as one of the
leaders of the November opposition movement, also
known as the Velvet Revolution.

1990

Václav Havel is elected
President of Czechoslovakia on
December 29.

1993

Václav Havel is elected, after the
dissolution of Czechoslovakia, the first President
of the Czech Republic.

1996

On January
27, Olga
Havlova died.

1997

Václav Havel married Dagmar Veskrnova,
a popular and acclaimed Czech theatrical,
television and movie actress.

1999

Václav Havel enabled the entry of
the Czech Republic into the North
Atlantic Treat Organisation (NATO).

2003

Václav Havel left office after
his second term as Czech
president ended on 2 February 2003.

2004

Foundation of Václav
Havel Library in
Prague.

2004

The Czech Republic became the 35th
member State of the Council of
Europe on 30 June 1993.

2010

Václav Havel directed
a film adaptation of
his play Leaving.

2011

Václav Havel died at his
summer house Hrádeček in the
north of the Czech Republic.

Educational projects

Archive / Documentation centre / Research projects

The Václav Havel Library is gradually gathering, digitizing, and making accessible written materials, photographs, sound recordings and other materials linked to the person of Václav Havel.

70895 records in total
27824 of events in the VH's life
2831 of VH's texts
2125 of photos
403of videos
568of audios
6604of letters
15101of texts about VH
8264 of books
40647of bibliography records

Access to the database of the VHL’s archives is free and possible after registering as a user. Accessing archival materials that exist in an unreadable form is only possible at the reading room of the Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, 110 00 Prague 1, every Tuesday (except state holidays) from 9:00 to 17:00, or by prior appointment.

We will be glad to answer your queries at archiv@vaclavhavel-library.org.

Havel in a nutshell

The virtual exhibition Václav Havel in a Nutshell places the life story of Václav Havel in the broader cultural and historic context in four chronologically distinct chapters with rich visual accompaniment. The exhibition is supplemented by the interactive map Flying the World with Václav Havel, which captures in physical form Havel’s global “footprint”.

Vladimir Hanzel's revolution

Collage of recollections, images and sound recordings from Vladimír Hanzel, President Václav Havel’s personal secretary, bringing the feverish atmosphere of the Velvet Revolution to life.

Václav Havel Interviews

A database of all accessible interviews given to print media outlets by the dramatist, writer and political activist Václav Havel between the 1960s and 1989. The resulting collection documents the extraordinary life story of an individual, as well as capturing a specific picture of modern Czechoslovak history at a time when being a free-thinker was more likely to lead to jail than an official public post.

Pavel Juráček Archive

The Pavel Juráček Archive arose in February 2014 when his son Marek Juráček handed over six banana boxes and a typewriter case from his father’s estate to the Václav Havel Library. Thousands of pages of manuscripts, typescripts, photographs, documents and personal and official correspondence are gradually being classified and digitalised. The result of this work should be not only to map the life and work of one of the key figures of the New Wave of Czechoslovak film in the 1960s, but also to make his literary works accessible in the book series The Works of Pavel Juráček.

The aim of the Václav Havel Library is to ensure that Pavel Juráček finds a place in the broader cultural consciousness and to notionally build on the deep friendship he shared with Václav Havel. Soon after Juráček’s death in 1989 Havel said of him: “Pavel was a friend of mine whom I liked very much. He was one of the most sensitive and gentle people I have known – that’s why I cannot write more about him.”

All about Library

The Václav Havel Library works to preserve the legacy of Václav Havel, literary, theatrical and also political, in particular his struggle for freedom, democracy and the defence of human rights. It supports research and education on the life, values and times of Václav Havel as well as the enduring significance of his ideas for both the present and future.

The Václav Havel Library also strives to develop civil society and active civic life, serving as a platform for discussion on issues related to the support and defence of liberty and democracy, both in the Czech Republic and internationally.

The main aims of the Václav Havel Library include

Organizing archival, archival-research, documentary, museum and library activities focused on the work of Vaclav Havel and documents or objects related to his activities, and carries out professional analysis of their influence on the life and self-reflection of society
Serving, in a suitable manner, such as through exhibitions, the purpose of education and popularisation functions, thus presenting to the public the historical significance of the fight for human rights and freedoms in the totalitarian period and the formation of civil society during the establishment of democracy
Organizing scientific research and publication activities in its areas of interest

Podpořte nás

We are well aware that freedom and democracy must be nurtured. Here at Ostrovní 13, but also on the audiovisual platform Havel Channel, we strive to do so through our own educational programmes, talks, discussion meetings, books, exhibitions, concerts, theatre performances. We honour Václav Havel's legacy and wish that the Library be a living organism and open to all. That is why our programme is free of charge for everyone. This would not be possible without regular financial support from our supporters. Become one of them...

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Help us expand the archive

The Vaclav Havel Library manages an archive of writings, documents, photographs, video recordings and other materials related to the life and work of Vaclav Havel. This archive is predominantly in digital form. If you or someone close to you owns any original texts, correspondence, photographs, speeches or any other work by Vaclav Havel, we would be grateful if you could contact us.

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