If Havelia existed, I would totally live there.

Next door to the Kafka Museum is the Vaclav Havel Commemorative Library. As you may know, I'm a tremendous fan of Havel, the first President of the Czech Republic. Basically this guy was a playwright who was a constant thorn in the side of the Communist government. He was never violent, he just refused to censor himself and his work, and he would never shut up. As I mentioned earlier in this blog, he was quite suddenly thrown into the position of President, so he is a unique modern figure that so many candidates seemingly strive to be, the non-politician. However, it has now come to my attention that I was wrong. Havel always had political ambitions. Why, look at this drawing he made in his early childhood:


Havelia, indeed! So the exhibit wasn't the most well thought out, but I still enjoyed seeing it. Basically there was a room full of his documents (like his drawing above), and then a room full of quotes and clips from his public appearances. But first, I was sat down in front of a flat-screen TV sitting crooked on an armchair, and a women put on a DVD called something like Vaclav Havel Goes on Vacation. It occurred to me an hour in that this was a full length documentary on the time, during Havel's house arrest by the Communists, when he wrote the government asking if he could go on vacation. Assumably since the circumstances of his incarceration were dubious at best, he was somehow given the approval to go out into the Czech Republic and visit with a few of his friends. In this country it seems commonplace to go out into "the nature" and enjoy quiet evenings in your summer cottage sipping Becherovka. So I suppose if he were denied that privilege it could have led to a public outcry, which in the end was all it took to overthrow the regime, so the threat of such solidarity was enormous.

Two anecdotes come to mind from the film. The first was after Havel had become President. He returns to a room which was formerly a prison-cell that he spent a few nights in, only to find that it was now a room in a hostel charging 300 CZK ($17) a night. Other than that is was virtually unchanged. Not a bad price for Prague though. The second was about a time the secret police barged into his flat searching for evidence of "conspiring to disturb the peace." As the officers tore apart his room looking for hidden secrets, Havel anxiously looked down at the document sitting on his desk right in front of him. Details of a plan to meet Polish dissidents in the mountains in northern Czech was more than enough to convict him for whatever they wanted. Casually, as they wrecked the place, Havel crinkled up the papers in his hand. He looked over at a man standing near him. It was conventional to always bring a civilian observer with you when you raided someone's home, so this man was an unrelated stranger who was brought in off the street. Having no other available option, Havel made eye contact with the man and with a subtle motion handed him the papers. Against all the communist brainwashing this man grew up with, this complete stranger helped Havel. Many people speak ill of the Czechs today because they supposedly never get involved when they see injustice around them. I disagree.