Vaclav Havel

Václav Havel (1936–2011) was a Czech writer, playwright, and political dissident. Because his family was dispossessed after the communist takeover in 1948, he had to pursue his secondary and higher education by unconventional routes; he trained as a chemical laboratory technician and completed his secondary-school diploma at an evening school in 1954. He began publishing literary criticism in 1955 and wrote his first play in 1959. As a co-founder and spokesperson of Charter 77, he was persecuted and imprisoned several times. Following the political changes of 1989, he was elected president of Czechoslovakia on 29 December that year. His honors included the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (1989) and the International Charlemagne Prize (1991).