The Prague Post
September 8th, 2008
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Havel to play library card

Research center, repository for presidential papers, museum modeled on U.S. institutions

Free from public officialdom, ex-President Vaclav Havel begins a news conference musically.
By Andy Markowitz
For The Prague Post
(February 26, 2004)


A year into his post-presidential life, Vaclav Havel is taking a cue from his American counterparts.

The dissident/playwright-turned-politician's life and legacy will be the focus of a presidential library, modeled on similar institutions in the United States dedicated to 10 former presidents. The project is being overseen by the nonprofit company Knihovna Vaclava Havla, co-founded by former first lady Dagmar Havlova, and a six-person administrative board that met for the first time Feb. 16. Havel publicly announced the project the next day during a wide-ranging interview with Czech journalists, his first such meeting since leaving office in February 2003.

Organizers say the library will serve as a research center and repository for Havel's writings and records related to his public life. It will also host exhibits on the communist era, the dissident movement and the re-establishment of Czech democracy and will host seminars and conferences on global issues and human rights.

"The library can be the platform for exchanging ideas and give President Havel the possibility to express his opinions as far as problems not only of this country but of the globe," said Jakub Hladik, the former president's secretary.


New path

The library is one of the first concrete steps in Havel's effort to navigate uncharted waters in Czech public and political life: the role of an ex-president. He discussed the issue during the Feb. 17 press conference, saying both he and the country were embarrassed about his awkward position.

"I had completely absurd thoughts that once my presidency ended, I would be as free and unhindered as a bird," he told reporters. Havel has made few public appearances and, until the press conference, offered little comment on domestic issues since his term ended.
IN HIS OWN WORDS

Highlights from Havel's Feb. 17 press conference:

• Kicking off his session by playing a harmonica: "I'm no longer a public official, so I can allow myself the opportunity to open the meeting in an unconventional way."

• On being the Czech Republic's first former president: "The country is terribly embarrassed at there being such an individual. But equally, the particular ex-president is himself embarrassed at the situation and does not know how to maneuver within it."

• On continually receiving international honors: "With each prize, I fall into deeper and deeper embarrassment that I have so many prizes."

• On the country joining the European Union: "I feel an everlasting excitement that I live in this time, and if potatoes will be slightly more expensive, it seems to me trivial compared to the historic importance of integration."

• On his support for the war in Iraq: "In international politics I am a supporter of not being indifferent to others. We should not ignore it when people here or there are suffering. It is a basic moral imperative to help them."

Source: CTK

"We have a problem -- what to do with a former president," said Milan Znoj, head of the political science department at Charles University. "It's a new situation. He is the first former president who can be active, the first to be democratically elected. We are trying to do the best to help use his capacities and knowledge for the benefit of the Czech Republic."

Znoj said the library "is a useful idea, because it could be a civic center, an educational center. Students can come and study political issues, and [it would] be a memory of the presidential time of Havel."

Jiri Pehe, a longtime Havel adviser and a member of the library board, said the idea was bandied about while Havel was still in office by Czech and American associates "who were convinced that given his influence and legacy, it would be appropriate to create something along the lines of the presidential libraries in the U.S." But he said the then-president responded coolly.

"He doesn't like to be part of an initiative that could look like him building a monument for himself," Pehe said. "I think what changed his mind is the fact that very often Czech journalists, researchers and so on are writing things about his presidential period and about developments during that time without really checking their facts, using facts that are given to them by people who have no background in those things. So he thought it would be good to have a depository of documents. ... It would make it much easier to deal with historical studies and journalism about the period in a more-professional way."

How the Havel era will be remembered and retold apparently remains a sensitive issue for the former president. Asked at his press conference about his fractious relationship with successor Vaclav Klaus, Havel singled out a November 2002 Klaus comment that during Havel's years in office "he has only been interested in himself."

"I thought of it as spitting on my entire life," Havel said.


Early steps planned

How much the privately financed library will cost, where it will be located and when it will be open to the public have yet to be determined. Organizers say the first step will be to hire an executive director and staff to oversee logistical details and fund-raising here and abroad. Havel will also likely talk up the project during an upcoming three-month sojourn to the States, but Hladik said he will not have a day-to-day role in creating or running the center.

"He doesn't have any particular role or position, but it bears his name, so he feels engaged in its activities," Hladik said. "He will, of course, add ideas and formulate basic purposes and activities."

Havel told reporters he would like to visit some presidential libraries during the U.S. trip for inspiration, but Hladik said that would depend on the 67-year-old ex-president's physical condition. Havel and his wife will be based in Washington, D.C., during their April-to-July stay.

The U.S. system dates to 1939, when then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt donated his papers to the government. His successors followed suit, and a series of U.S. laws over the past 50 years have codified the creation and maintenance of presidential archives and museums. They are built largely with private funds but are turned over to the U.S. government once they are completed.

The Havel library, however, will remain a private institution, Pehe said. "At this point there is no intention to get governmental funding," he said.

"It would be nice, of course, if we could have a tradition here that this kind of thing could be supported by the state, not just for Havel but for future presidents. Presidential legacies are very important, and that is in the public interest."

While the country will certainly have future ex-presidents, Charles University's Znoj noted, not all ex-presidencies are created equal.

"Havel is unique because he is a 'founding father,'" he said.

"I would say that one presidential library would be enough."

Andy Markowitz can be reached at news@praguepost.com




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