Praxis Theatre

Vaclav Havel: Playwright/Activist/President

Vaclav Havel, the Czech dissident playwright who was jailed repeatedly, having his work banned by hardline Communist authorities before becoming the first post-1989 President of Czechslovakia, has died at age 75.

A personification of the potential for praxis between art, activism, and politics, his legacy is nothing less than a transformed country, continent and understanding of what art can achieve.

Central to Havel’s role as a dissident was his role as a signatory and vocal promoter of Charter 77, which led to his imprisonment, and continues to be influential as a political manifesto that advocates for human rights in a global context:

Charter 77 is not an organization. It has not statutes, no permanant organs and no organized membership. Everyone who agrees with ideas behind it participates in its work and supports its members.

Charter 77 is not a base for opposition political activity. It wants to serve the general interest like many similar examples of civic initiatives in various countries – West and East. It does not lay down its own programs of political or social reforms or changes but to engage in the spheres of its activity in a constructive dialogue with the political and state power, especially by calling attention to various concrete instances of the violation of human and civil rights, to prepare documentation on them, propose solutions, submit various general proposals aimed at deepening these rights and guaranteeing them”

Declaration of Charter 77