TIRANA, Jan. 25 – Vaclav Havel’s legacy and his three concepts of the power of powerless, living in truth and responsibility have been unveiled in Tirana by Michael Zantovsky, a diplomat and writer and longtime friend of the late Czech President who now heads the Vaclav Havel Library in Prague.
Zantovsky who has also penned “Havel: A life” biography” told a Tirana audience how Havel’s three concepts helped shape the Czech Republic in its road to freedom and EU membership.
“Havel was a modest man who knew how to listen and did not take it personally if criticized. We worked for three years at the President’s office and cooperated for another ten years when I served as an ambassador,” Zantovsky, Havel’s former press secretary and ambassador to the U.S., Israel and the U.K. told politicians and diplomats who had gathered at the Tirana Times Book House this week. The discussion organized by the Czech embassy in Tirana and the Albanian Institute for International Studies (AIIS) was part of a series of other events commemorating Havel in Albania.
Asked about what Havel thought of the Western Balkans’ EU enlargement, Zantovsky said Havel was a strong supporter of EU integration also as a moral obligation other EU countries showed toward the Czech Republic in joining the European Union in 2004.
“He was quite radical in reminding the EU of this sense of obligation, but in the past decade I don’t think they liked hearing about this too much,” Zantovsky added.
Albert Rakipi, the executive director of the Albanian Institute for International Studies, said Havel’s legacy was an extra opportunity to discuss the core of changes in the Albanian society after the early 1990s following the collapse of the communist regime.
“Havel’s figure served as inspiration and he was a legend of dissidence even for Albania,” Rakipi said pointing out how Havel’s everyday and eternal fight for freedom, his relationship with freedom and his example of how to challenge totalitarian society and culture also had an impact in Albania, which emerged from a much tighter communist regime.
A series of events, including exhibitions, film screenings, lectures and discussions are commemorating in Tirana for four days Vaclav Havel, the late Czech Republic’s first president after the Velvet Revolution against communist rule.
The events brought to Tirana by the Czech embassy in Tirana kicked off on Jan. 25 at the Center for Openness and Dialogue (COD) at the Prime Minister’s office with the “Và¡clav Havel: Politics and Conscience” photo exhibition, to continue with a discussion on Havel’s legacy by Michael Š½antovskà½, the director of the Và¡clav Havel Library in Prague, at the Tirana Times Book House and conclude with two movie projections at the COD on Jan. 28.
The photographs cover the journey of Và¡clav Havel throughout the 20th century: From the Prague Spring in 1968 to the Velvet Revolution in 1989 and to the three presidency terms in the office of Czechoslovakia and later Czech Republic.
One of the most influential political figures of the late 20th century, Vaclav Havel is first and foremost a playwright, poet and philosopher who started his political career as an opposition leader to later become the last president of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic’s first.
Throughout his life, Và¡clav Havel took a strong stance in defence of those marginalized, powerless and oppressed. The main principles of Havel’s politics were conscience and responsibility, values so often lacking in today’s world.
