Who are we? – Establishment and Mission

As a legal entity, the Václav Havel Library was established and registered as a non-governmental, non-profit making organization on 26th July 2004 by course of law Czech Act No. 248/1995 Coll. and as such was included to the Public Benefit Companies Register, which is administrated by the Municipal Court in Prague under the section O, file number 338 (identification number 27169413).

Its mission is to preserve the works and legacy of Václav Havel by placing them in their proper historical context and by highlighting the enduring vitality of the ideas and ideals his life story embodies. Inspired, in part, by the American model of presidential libraries, the Václav Havel Library aims to house Havel’s works and papers, to document the complex battle for democracy and freedom in the second half of the 20th century, and to stimulate discussion, research, publications and education about the ongoing struggle for human rights and the challenges of post communist political and civic engagement.

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A Word about Words – samizdat essay

„The point I am trying to make is that words are a mysterious, ambiguous, ambivalent and perfidious phenomenon. They can be rays of light in a realm of darkness, as Belinsky once described Ostrovsky’s Storm. They can also be lethal arrows. Worst or all, at times they can be one or the other. They can even be both at once!“

Václav Havel:
A Word about Words – samizdat essay
July 25, 1989