Knihovna Václava Havla

Václav Havel About the Library

Fate ordained that I should be a witness to, participant in, and even an initiator of events that became of great importance for our country,  Europe, and, indeed, for the entire world. I have always advocated the universal respect for human rights, as well as for human freedom and dignity. I helped create an opposition movement during the Communist regime and for these my efforts I was imprisoned several times. I was in the centre of dramatic transformations of the system and then after the fall of the Iron Curtain, I stood at the head of the state, which was striving to contribute to the establishment of a new international political order. I have been writing for almost 60 years already - plays, essays and speeches, as well as proposals and directives, which have together with my public presence and assignments marked my life with all sorts of texts and documents. They all have certain significance and are of interest above all as a testimony to recent history, to the nature of the totalitarian system and the struggle against it, and to the problems of the social transformation after its collapse. These archival documents are currently scattered on different places, and are owned by different individuals and institutions. No one has a total overview of it. This is a pity. All sorts of things could be clarified if this archival material were systematized and made available in some form to researchers and the public...
Václav Havel: „About the Václav Havel Library“ Prague 11.9.2006