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NewsNovember Hurricane November 14, 2015 November 17 marks the 26th anniversary of the start of Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. We are marking the occasion with an excerpt from the writing of one of Vaclav Havel’s favorite writers. From “November Hurricane,” by Bohumil Hrabal Translated by Paul Wilson, November 2015 In 1989, Hrabal, who by that …
NewsChinese dissident receives political award in Washington November 6, 2015 Source: Asia Times / By dpa / Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng received an award Thursday from a US organization dedicated to the memory of the victims of communism. Chen, who escaped house arrest in China in 2012, was awarded the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom from the Victims of …
NewsDesignation of Small House Rotunda November 6, 2015 Washington – President Barack Obama on Monday, November 2, 2015, signed into law a bipartisan budget bill that includes Designating Small House Rotunda as “Freedom Foyer”. This section designates the first floor area of the House of Representatives wing of the U.S. Capitol known as the Small House Rotunda as …
NewsCuba and the European Union: Opportunities, Challenges and Tensions October 14, 2015 Václav Havel Program for Human Rights and Diplomacy Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs Cuba and the European Union: Opportunities, Challenges and Tensions Presentation by EU Parliament Member Pavel Telička Friday, October 16, 2015 | 2 PM | FIU Modesto A. Maidique Campus | GC 140 Join …
NewsHungary’s First Post-Communist President Goncz Dies at 93 October 9, 2015 Source: Bloomberg / By Andras Gergely and Marton Eder / Arpad Goncz, a Hungarian writer and translator who battled Nazism and communism and went on to become the country’s first president after the fall of the Iron Curtain, has died. He was 93. Goncz “peacefully passed away in the company of his family,” his aide Andras … NewsAN EXCERPT FROM VACLAV HAVEL’S UNPUBLISHED ESSAY ENTITLED A DAY IN A PRISON CELL, ca. 1977-78 October 5, 2015 On the occasion of Vaclav Havel’s 79th birth anniversary (10/05/36) This is a translation of three hand-written pages now on display at the Bohemian National Hall in Manhattan. They are a rough sketch for an essay Havel intended to write, describing the tedious and monotonous daily routine of his pre-trial …
NewsWendy Willis on Havel: A Life October 1, 2015 Source: Los Angeles Review of Books / By Wendy Willis / An All or Nothing Gamble: Václav Havel and His Spiritual Revolution “MICHAEL,” said former Czech president Václav Havel to his now-biographer Michael Zantovsky when they met for the last time, “I am a ruin.” At that point, they had …
NewsVeteran Russian Activist Wins Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize September 29, 2015 Source: Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty / By Claire Bigg / STRASBOURG, France — The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has awarded its annual Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize to veteran Russian activist Lyudmila Alekseyeva. A Soviet-era dissident and one of Russia’s most outspoken and respected rights advocates, …
NewsInsert Ideology Here September 26, 2015 Source: The Stranger / By Brendan Kiley / Strawshop Switches Capitalism for Communism in Havel’s The Memorandum, and It Fits Perfectly. In 1965, a new play by Vaclav Havel titled The Memorandum premiered at the Theatre on the Balustrade in Prague. It was a bitter satire of Soviet bureaucracy and how it dehumanizes people …
NewsThe International Day of Peace in Seoul September 22, 2015 Source: The Korean Times / By hcchung@koreatimes.co.kr / PBF 2015 Contest To commemorate the International Day of Peace, participants will explore what must be done to realize a sustainable global community. Participants will be able to present papers, photos or short video clips related to the main theme of the 2015 …
NewsThe Dolomites embrace human rights September 15, 2015 The Dolomites embrace human rights – 6,000 people joined their hands to symbolically protect every woman, man and child whose fundamental rights are denied. Organized by Art for Amnesty, Amnesty International, and Together We Can. https://www.facebook.com/CatenaUmanaTreCime/videos/509491669210578/
NewsVaclav Havel’s Radio Appeals from August 1968 August 21, 2015 On August 21, 1968, the armies of the Warsaw Pact, led by the Soviet Union, entered Czechoslovakia, crushed the reform process begun during the Prague Spring, and began a military occupation of the country that would last for more than two decades. Vaclav Havel spent the first dramatic week of …
NewsCuba reunited August 20, 2015 The Speech by Martin Palous at the Final Dinner of Cuban National Reunion San Juan, Puerto Rico Saturday, August 15, 2015 (The Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary) Dear Cuban Friends, It is a real honor for me to be with you here tonight – Catholics celebrating the …
NewsFerdinand Vanek Today August 7, 2015 Enjoy Havel’s classic character transformed into these days by a promising Czech playwright Petr Erbes. The Theatre Faculty in Prague (DAMU) and the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation presented stage readings of student plays that took first three places in the contest for best mini-drama on the theme of “Ferdinand Vanek …
NewsHavel the Artist, Havel the Citizen – Interviews at Columbia University July 13, 2015 In an interview in 2006, Lou Reed, the New York musician, who influenced many rock and punk bands that followed him, confessed: “A heroic intellectual, music loving person, amazing person named President Vaclav Havel, and getting to meet him and talk to him over the years has been a wondrous …