For Our Freedom and Yours: Havel and Lithuania
- Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
- When: March 14, 2016, 18:00 – 20:00
Lithuania independence was renewed on 11 March 1990, meaning that a quarter century has now passed since freedom and democracy changed the fates of the societies of the then Czechoslovakia and Lithuania. In the case of Lithuania, the transition to an independent state claimed human lives, sacrificed during an attack by Soviet forces on Vilnius’s television tower on 13 January 1991.
Twenty-five years after those events the words of Václav Havel are still pertinent. We are standing, he said, before the most important task in our history, to make sure “that the large and powerful will never again be able to decide on the fates of the small and less powerful.” (Speech at Vilnius University, 1996)
Direct participants in the political and civic events of that time, Alexandr Vondra (CEVRO Institut) and Almis Grybauskas (Masaryk University), will take part in the discussion, as will experts on the Baltic region Luboš Švec (Charles University). Michael Žantovský will moderate.
The event will be attended by the Ambassador of the Republic of Lithuania in Prague, J. E. Edvilas Raudonikis and held in cooperation with the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania and the Institute of International Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University.