About the Havel Conversations Collection

The Havel Conversations project is an oral history initiative in which artists, activists and politicians reflect upon Vaclav Havel’s legacy, and themes close to the late Czech president such as cultural diplomacy and human rights. This collection of interviews with American politicians (such as Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright), and artists (such as Suzanne Vega) stresses the work that Havel undertook to foster Czechoslovak-American, and then later, Czech-American relations. These semi-structured interviews with those who knew Havel personally complement written sources which consider his political decisions from the top down; taken together, the interviews make the case for understanding policymaking as a series of conversations, instead of a paper-trail of memos. The Havel Conversations collection consists of video interviews and PDF transcripts, housed in full at Florida International University Libraries and also available online at www.havelcenter.org.