Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of the government. His plays - typically focusing on the absurdities and dehu-
manisation of totalitarian bureaucracy - were banned and his passport seized.
The massive demonstrations of November 1989 thrust Havel into the limelight
as a leading organiser of the noncommunist Civic Forum movement, which ulti-
mately negotiated a peaceful transfer of power. Havel was swept into office as
president shortly after, propelled by a wave of thousands of cheering demon-
strators, holding up signs saying
'Havel na hrad!'
(Havel to the castle!).
In 2003, after two terms in office as president, Havel was replaced by former
prime minister Václav Klaus. After leaving office, Havel finished two sets of
memoirs and even returned to the stage as the author of the highly acclaimed
play
Odcházení
(Leaving). He died on 18 December 2011 at the age of 75 after
battling cancer for many years.
In a historical twist, Prague could have been liberated by US soldiers un-
der General George S Patton, based in Plzeň, perhaps as early as May 6
1945. Despite Patton's pleas, US commanders called off the American ad-
vance to allow the Russians the 'honour' of liberating the capital.
THE CZECH REPUBLIC REJOINS 'EUROPE'
It would be impossible to summarize in just a few paragraphs the changes that have
taken place in the more than 20 years since the Velvet Revolution. The big-picture
view is largely positive. The Czech Republic achieved its two major long-term
foreign-policy goals: joining NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.
In terms of domestic politics, the country continues to ride a knife-edge. Neither
major centrist party ‒ the right-leaning Civic Democratic Party (ODS) or the left-lean-
ing Social Democrats (ČSSD) ‒ has been able cobble together a lasting consensus, so
the country lurches from side to side with each election cycle.
Perhaps the biggest news since 1989 was the death of Havel himself on 18 Decem-
ber 2011. The former president and leader of the Velvet Revolution had served both as
a symbol of the Czech Republic's commitment to Western ideals of democracy and
human rights, and as a moral compass for a society still badly deformed by corrupt
