Talk:Václav Havel

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[edit] Education

Education or lack thereof

Left program - he was forced to leave the program, usually it is called drop out

By the way, his brother could study and later started academic carrier.

http://www.cts.cuni.cz/~havel/short_cv.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.103.14.196 (talk) 15:04, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

oh man, this needs work. it jumps from 1968 to 1989 without any explanation. That is the segment that is most important to the story! If I had the time, I'd work on this. I hope someone else can. Kingturtle 11:12, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

this is a hagiography, not reality. why is it not proven that someone who produced propaganda for Goebbels was not a collaborateur —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]]) honza

The reasons I have deleted the edits by anonymous user 212.80.64.66 are the following: a) There is no distinction between fact, evaluation, and analysis. The user 212.80.64.66 mentions some facts but the evaluation and anylysis is his/her own, no sources are cited. The style is not encyclopedic. b)The niveau of wording and style is extremely low, there is not a single sentence without errors in grammar. --Georgius 18:29, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC).

I agree with you, there is too many mistakes in my english and in my style.

Please, take it as idea, what to write about (anybody, who want to see another face of him, have it now in the page history). It was written because many peopple do not know, what was his real politic. Sometimes He is even presented as Humanist and Democrat.

How many people abroad do have statistic about avaliable space in czech media for different opinions in the age after 1989? How many of them do know about backround of his elections? About no referendum when we come into NATO ? About no referendum when the Czechoslowakia was splitted into 2 parts? About 5% limit in parliament (with 200 members) elections - witch eliminate small parties? Etc.

There is no information about it. Without it, Vaclav Havel seems like somebody, who bring freedom and democracy into Czech rep.

I agree that my english is terrible - I thank to all, who are better and possible will spend some time to correct it. I think that every information in every form is better then missing information. My informations was correct by content. When I ll have time, i ll try to rewrite it, with less grammar mistakes and with better style. And with more informations including sources. Have a nice day. --User:annonymous 2:00, 12 Jun 2005

To: Honza: I think that nobody is responsible for his relatives. But it can be interesting in context of czech-german declaration(p.e.). Try to write something about it. --User:annonymous 2:09, 12 Jun 2005

The link to the play "The Beggar's Opera (1975)" was incorrect. The link was to a 1728 play written by John Gay, so I removed the link. --128.231.88.4 21:19, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Unanimous vote in 1898 - I would like to add that Havel got an unanimous vote of the communist sponsored parliament. The puppet-MPs voted unanimously for a man, who was two months before the major villain of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. Unfortunately, I do not know how to do it in a NPOV way. I would appreciate your support. JanSuchy 15:48, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi, there is a mistake in the article. When diagnosed with a lung cancer in late 1996, Havel underwent a surgery not in Innsbruck, but in Prague´s hospital "Londynska". In Innsbruck he was cured in 1998, after a serious bowels illnes.—Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

~hi i had to delete two sentences because they weren't truthful (At the same time, Havel pushed abolition of the death penalty through the parliament, another very unpopular decision. A third unpopular decision at the time was his refusal to seek out and punish former Communist party members or members of the secret service.). Firstly, in the Czech rep there is no presidential form of government but parliamentary form that means that president has no right to make a bill and send it to chamber of deputies. So he couldn't pushed it through the parliament. Secondly, the Czech rep passed charter of fundamental rights and basic freedom (act 23/1991) which death penalty is abolished in. Thirdly, the Czech rep as member of Council of Europe is binded by European Convection on Human Rights and following protocols which abolish capital punishment as well. I didn't find anywhere that VH as president used a pardon, amnesty or any other act for not bringing former communist party member and its secret service to justice. if u prove me wrong, feel free to change :-) Andy —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ohuml (talk • contribs) 00:09, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deist thinker

Havel's comments on the nature of and search for God in the atheistic civilizations suggests that he expresses deistic tendencies. I'm going to put that up as a category. If you disagree, please feel free to place comments here. If I don't respond a couple of days later, take him off the category. Thanks! Homagetocatalonia 22:28, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

http://www.acton.org/publicat/randl/print_article.php?id=284 "A modern philosopher once said: "Only a God can save us now." Yes, the only real hope of people today is probably a renewal of our certainty that we are rooted in the earth and, at the same time, in the cosmos. This awareness endows us with the capacity for self-transcendence. Politicians at international forums may reiterate a thousand times that the basis of the new world order must be universal respect for human rights, but it will mean nothing as long as this imperative does not derive from the respect of the miracle of Being, the miracle of the universe, the miracle of nature, the miracle of our own existence. Only someone who submits to the authority of the universal order and of creation, who values the right to be a part of it and a participant in it, can genuinely value himself and his neighbors, and thus honor their rights as well." - Wikiquote http://www.adherents.com/largecom/fam_deist.html

Unless you can find a citation where he (or someone personally close to him, I suppose) explicitly states that he is a Deist, it should not be listed in his infobox. I will remove it for now. K. Lásztocska 20:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I think he might have left it for some time, but he latter rejoined Roman Catholic Church. I remember a book were it says that he was recieved in confession by the pope John Paul II himself. The book is called "The Pope Who Defeated Communism". I´m gonna try to find the exact quotations.Mistico (talk) 14:22, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why I removed Edward Einhorn's self-promoting links

Based on these comments by TheronJ - anybody who has a problem with my actions can take it up with TheronJ:

  1. I think there's a conflict of interest, because Nancy has a personal interest in driving traffic to the Met Theatre's performance of her play. (For relevant guidelines, see here and here and here).
  2. In general, a link to a page advertising January 2007 performances of Twain-related plays is not appropriate because (1) it's not encyclopedic, and (2) it will become irrelevant in two months. See here, here, items 1, 3, and 4 and here.
  3. Assuming that you've described them accurately, the Havel play links should go too, and I will try to take a look at them. In the meantime, if you want to remove them, I will support you.
  4. I'm open to any kind of dispute resolution you would find helpful. I also think it's great that you wrote a Huck Finn adaptation and that the Met Theatre is performing it.
  5. Please try to stay civil. "Link Nazis" isn't helpful.
Thanks, TheronJ 17:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Of course, good luck to TheronJ and all other Wikipedia purity freaks in their quest to keep such horrible "irrelevant" information off Wikipedia. While they are at it, they might want to inform the NYTimes that it's quite possible that some of the information contained in its archives is also horribly irrelevant too.

I think the problem is that people with 20th-century info-control mindsets, developed in an age of expensive paper-and-ink techologies, are trying to maintain those traditions in the 21st century. Nancymc 17:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what your personal dispute is with TheronJ, but in fact the Havel Festival was talked and Havel's residency at Columbia was talked about many times in major publications such as the New York Times, The Village Voice, and many others, President Havel has stated multiple times that he personally feels they are significant, and though I have done work on this page (including editing some of the info regarding the above), I was not the only person responsible for listing the info.

Nancymc has a personal vednetta against me (she writes about it at United States copyright law in the performing arts), but of course choosing to attack me in response to her dispute with TheronJ is hypocritical. If you visit the Tam Lin page, for example, you will see a link to her play, so her objection to the Havel information is not based on a desire to uphold the wiki standards.

Also, the Havel events discussed have ended, so it is not a matter of bringing people to the theater, which I believe was the main objection of TheronJ. The sites themselves are, I believe, significant research tools, with detailed information about Havel, his plays, and his polical career. I invite any third party to visit the sites to determine for themselves whether they should be included.—Preceding unsigned comment added by DrMajestico (talk • contribs)

Sorry for causing all this drama. When I corresponded with Ms. McClernan, I hadn't looked at this page, as I made clear in my response, and I wasn't aware that my comments had sparked this drama (so to speak). Given that DrMajestico is the director of the Havel festival, the Wikipedia guidelines linked above do "strongly encourage" (but not technically require) him to suggest the link on the talk page and leave it up to other editors rather than inserting it himself. If an editor other than a personal enemy deleted the link, I would encourage DrMajestico to try to work out the dispute on the talk page.
However, I tend to agree with DrMajestico that his link isn't self-promotion to the same degree as the "Huck Finn" link was because the Havel Festival is in the past, so the only benefit is reputational rather than ticket sales. I also note that (1) if Ms. McClernan had limited herself to an analogous situation (including a link to "TwainFest" on the Mark Twain page), I doubt anyone would have bothered her, and (2) if she had tried to engage rather than immediately referring to people as "Link Nazis" and "Wikipedia purity freaks," we might have been able to sort out her problem. (After sleeping on the issue for a couple weeks, I actually did decide to include a link to her play on the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn page, which is how I ended up curious what happened here.) TheronJ 23:27, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Miscategorization

The books and essays listed under "Poetry" are most definitely not poetry. I've read "Open Letters", "Summer Meditations", and "The Power of the Powerless". If I had to categorize them, I'd call them non-fiction; they have to do with the state of affairs in Czechoslovakia prior to the Velvet Revolution. They are basically about Havel's personal philosophy and the history of the Czech Republic. The dates given for each of the works only indicate when they were published, not when they were written; they weren't published until long after Havel became president (his work was supressed before the Velvet Revolution). I would strongly recommend any of the above mentioned works, particularly for someone who is an active contributor to this article. Also, I suspect that the other works listed under "Poetry" are, in fact, also non-fiction. As far as I know, Havel didn't write any poetry. And also... this article (or the Velvet Revolution article) perhaps should mention the fact that, written on the side of the base of Prague castle (the seat of the government) is, in Czech: "Václav to the castle!" These articles really don't do the subject justice in their current form, as they leave out details like this; details that show how truly amazing the Velvet Revoution was. So many people believe that revolution must be bloody; to these people, I say: go to the Czech Republic, and learn about their culture and history. Fuzzform 18:35, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 9th vs 10th

In the first paragraph, the article states that he was the 9th and final president of Czechoslovakia; however, below his picture it states that he was the 10th president of Czechoslovakia. Contradictory facts??

So, which is it finally? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.74.238.145 (talk) 00:51, August 20, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Amnesty

It is much more complicated

http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:3sokT31WSYMJ:www.mvcr.cz/sbirka/1990/sb001-90.pdf+republiky+ze+dne+1.+ledna+1990&hl=cs&ct=clnk&cd=3



Number of criminals

The number of released criminals: very good source is Amnestie 1990, Sborník ze semináře usp. Marešová,A. but on-line you can find that number here

http://www.novinky.cz/domaci/klaus-vezne-zklamal--amnestie-nebude_6781_210l8.html

I have included your edit on the numbers of released criminals, but the summary of those released is the same that Havel himself provides in Prosím stručně. If you wish to refine his description or dispute it, that is of course a viable discussion, but to simply revert my referenced information on the grounds that it is more complicated is not a valid response.
--DrMajestico 15:24, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I deleted it, because it is simply not true


those who may have been falsely imprisoned during the Communist era,

--- this was not a group, it was given by VH as a reason for this highly controversial step


those who had been found guilty of petty crime,

--- not true, although misdemeanor still existed in that time, it is not mentioned in the pardon


and also many whose prison terms were due to end in a year or less.

--- not true

What better reference do you want, this is the text of the pardon

http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:3sokT31WSYMJ:www.mvcr.cz/sbirka/1990/sb001-90.pdf+republiky+ze+dne+1.+ledna+1990&hl=cs&ct=clnk&cd=3


I have not read this place of Prosím stručně, but may be he is lying (politicians sometime do), maybe the ghost writer was not informed enough.


I moved your comments, to make the organization more clear. In response to what you say, the pardon does not specify why, just that people are being pardoned. Havel's explanation of who and why is separate, and still just as valid. You have not given any alternate reason for release., which is a bit nonsensical. Do you imagine he picked randomly? If you have an alternate theory of why he chose those particular people for pardon, please write and reference. Also, as this revert thing has been going on for a while now, I would like to ask others for comments on this. Furthermore, of course, there was no ghost writer for Havel. Havel is a writer, which is what makes his account of his years in the presidency unique. Everything was stated directly by him. Which doesn't mean you can't dispute it, but only with contrary evidence.
--DrMajestico 13:41, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

RE: 9th vs. 10th He was the 10th president of Czechoslovakia (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_Czechoslovakia) Myname100 (talk) 02:22, 27 November 2007 (UTC)


It is stated in the duvodova zprava (report on reasons). His reason was, that he is the same kind of criminal as these people. He did not pick at all, it was a general pardon. Evidence is the text of the pardon, what else.

He was 10th but sometimes the president of the "Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren" Emil Hácha is not listed as a president of czechoslovakia.

[edit] Sources

This is English Wikipedia: the sources (full citations) need to be in English; they must be capable of being verified by all English readers of Wikipedia. This talk page is for discussing improvements to the article; it is not for discussing the subject of the article [or other subjects] (not a discussion forum): see links in template; espec. in relation to WP:BLP#Sources and WP:V#Sources; see the Wikipedia Manual of Style for format and how to format citations in WP:CITE; see also Wikipedia:Reliable sources and WP:EL for further guidance. Thank you. (I've done some clean up of references and EL, which took a lot of time. Please give full citation information in the future in both notes and in the Reference section; see prevailing format. Just putting in external links will not do for controversial subjects who are also living persons, such as Havel.) --NYScholar (talk) 12:07, 21 December 2007 (UTC) --[addition in brackets. --NYScholar (talk) 13:08, 21 December 2007 (UTC)]

This is nonsense, sources to a topic like a Czech president will be necessary mostly in Czech, I can not imagin, how someone, who can not speak the language, can have a relevant opinion about him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.103.14.196 (talk) 14:28, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Civic Forum - Tomáš Pokrývka?

There is a mistake in the right box - Václav Havel surely was not succeeded by "Tomáš Pokrývka" (who is he, anyway?) as a chairman of Civic Forum. Jan Urban took over when Havel became the President. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.218.130.223 (talk) 21:53, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is he dead?

Articles starts with "Václav Havel was a Czech writer and dramatist.", so it looks like he's already dead. I guess that if he's alive he IS "a Czech writer and dramatist". Netrat_msk (talk) 18:24, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Controversy

I deleted most of the controversy section as the claims made there were not very likely true (e.g. 90% of roma population loosing their voting rights) and they were definitely not verifiable. I left there a part that states that "Roma all over the globe were appalled" as this claim is backed up by book that I do not have access to. This section is definitely not written in neutral tone and needs to be at least reworded if not removed completely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.37.33.144 (talk) 13:34, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

You obviously deleted this without doing any verification, because the loss of Roma rights is found in articles all over the internet and in several books, including the work of Dr. Ian Hancock, the famous Romani researcher. The 1993 Czech citizenship law did deny 90% of the Roma their rights. The law was only amended in 99 after harsh international criticism. The European Roma Rights Center has a list of rights violations against the Roma committed under Havel's administration. Their website is at http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=402 . Please do a modicum of research before wiping out an entire paragraph because "it doesn't sound likely." It was a neutral paragraph that sited the work of a Czech historian, so how was it not verifiable?

[edit] Cultural allusions and interests

Under cultural allusions, I added that he is referenced in the RENT song "La Vie Boheme". It happens at about 5:28 in the song and is listed in the linear notes for the recording. However I am not sure how to go about referencing the album notes. For now, there is no reference, but I am working on it. If anyone else knows the format, help is welcomed and would be appreciated. I also want to make sure the community feels the reference is appropriate. I feel it is comparable to the note about his reference in Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll and interesting because of the other great names he is associated with. Thanks Soccer309 (talk) 04:43, 22 May 2008 (UTC)