He was the first democratically elected president of either country after the fall of communism. As a writer of Czech literature , he is known for his plays, essays and memoirs. His educational opportunities having been limited by his bourgeois background, when freedoms were limited by the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic , Havel first rose to prominence as a playwright.
After participating in the Prague Spring and being blacklisted after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia , he became more politically active and helped found several dissident initiatives, including Charter 77 and the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted.
His political activities brought him under the surveillance of the StB secret police, and he spent multiple periods as a political prisoner , [ 3 ] the longest of his imprisoned terms being nearly four years, between and Havel's Civic Forum party played a major role in the Velvet Revolution that toppled the Communist system in Czechoslovakia in He assumed the presidency shortly thereafter, and was re-elected in a landslide the following year and after Slovak independence in Many of his stances and policies, such as his opposition to Slovak independence, condemnation of the treatment of Sudeten Germans and their mass expulsion from Czechoslovakia after World War II , as well as granting of general amnesty to all those imprisoned under the Communist era, were very controversial domestically.
By the end of his presidency, he enjoyed greater popularity abroad than at home. Havel continued his life as a public intellectual after his presidency, launching several initiatives including the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism , [ 4 ] [ 5 ] the VIZE 97 Foundation, and the Forum annual conference.
Havel's political philosophy was one of anti-consumerism , humanitarianism , environmentalism , civil activism , and direct democracy. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award. The β academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour. Havel was born in Prague on 5 October [ 8 ] into a wealthy family celebrated in Czechoslovakia for its entrepreneurial and cultural accomplishments. In the early s, because of his class background , Havel entered into a four-year apprenticeship as a chemical laboratory assistant and simultaneously took evening classes at a gymnasium.
