Vaclav Havel Library Foundation Fellowship for Human Rights Announcement
The Vaclav Havel Library Foundation announces The Vaclav Havel Library Foundation Fellowship for Human Rights, a summer fellowship in Prague for undergraduate students studying in the United States. Founded as part of Havel@80, the annual fellowship program will offer students a two week, fully-funded opportunity to learn from and engage with organizations in the Czech Republic working to carry forward Havel’s legacy in the field of human rights.
Vaclav Havel (1936-2011) was a playwright, essayist, political dissident, and the former president of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. He became well-known as a dramatist in the 1960s when his plays The Garden Party and The Memorandum were seen on world theatre stages. In the 1970s, he was one of the authors of Charter 77 – a manifesto calling for the Czechoslovak government to adhere to the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Agreement. Around this time, Havel released The Power of the Powerless, a powerful political essay that dissects the nature of totalitarian rule and the resistance that emerges within it.
In 1989, he became the leader of the two-month long Velvet Revolution, which culminated in his ascension to the Presidency of the re-established democratic Czechoslovakia. Only a few months earlier, he had been released after being held by the communist regime for his activities in defense of human rights.
