HRÁDEČEK – the first President of the Czech Republic Václav Havel has passed away
19.12.2011 / 06:39 | Aktualizováno: 09.03.2018 / 04:18
On December 18, 2011, the first President of the Czech Republic (1993-2003) Václav Havel, aged 75, passed away quietly during his sleep at his country home at Hrádeček. Writer, philosopher, leading figure of the Velvet Revolution which toppled the communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1989, last Czechoslovak President (1989-1992) and a leading political figure of the Czech Republic will also be remembered as a foremost human rights advocate and a fighter for the freedom. His last public appearance very much symbolized his world views, as – only a week ago - he met his decades-long friend His Holiness Dalai Lama, who visited him in Czech capital Prague and signed an appeal in support of dissidents and human rights activists around the world.
Václav Havel with his life-long friend Karel Schwarzenberg, now Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic
photo by Tomki Němec
Václav Havel had long term contacts with Korea, too. He visited the Republic of Korea as President of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic in 1992. The following year President Havel hosted Kim Dae-jung in Prague and in 1995, he was the host of President of the Republic of Korea Kim Young-sam, who came to Prague on an official state visit.
Václav Havel regularly commented on the situation in North Korea, the leaders of which were according to him “committing crimes against humanity against its own people.“ Havel also repeatedly criticized North Korea for holding „people without due process of law for arbitrary reasons in political prison camps.“ His views were very clear and he became one of the most vocal critics among the former world top politicians. Not surprisingly in 2008 he wrote: „Not only /the North Korean citizens/ are imprisoned in unspeakable conditions ― fed starvation-level rations, forced to labor under brutal conditions and, subject to torture and execution for trivial offences ― but so are their relatives, including the elderly and children, under a three-generation guilt-by-association system instituted by North Korea's founder Kim Il-sung.“
Václav Havel is also well-known in Korea for his literary works. In the 1990s three Havel´s non fiction books were published. The first was selection of his essays Living in Truth (인간에 대한 예의, translated by Lee Sang Yeong) published by Haneulttang in 1990, followed two years later by Letters to Olga (올가에게 보내는 편지, translated from Czech by Kim Kyuchin) which consists of his private letters he wrote to his wife during his stay in prison from 1979 to 1982 (Korean edition published by Segye munhak), and essays Summer Meditations (프라하의 여름, translated by Kang Jangseok) published by Imprima in 1994. Two of Havel´s plays were also translated into Korean – Audience (청중, translated by Shin Eun-soo and published by Yenee publishing house in 1990) and his last work, drama Leaving (리빙, translated by Shin Ho and published by LG Arts Center in 2010). In 2010 Czech theatre Archa performed Havel´s Leaving with its original cast in Seoul. There is also an original Korean book about philosophy of Václav Havel written by Professor Park Young-sin (실천 도덕으로서의정치, published by Yonsei University in 2000).
photo by Tomki Němec