WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.879 I want you to try a little visualization exercise 00:00:01.879 --> 00:00:05.040 with me. Picture a head of state. Close your 00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:07.219 eyes, if you have to. Unless you're driving, 00:00:07.379 --> 00:00:08.839 please don't close your eyes if you're driving. 00:00:09.279 --> 00:00:12.279 But picture a president. You are probably imagining, 00:00:12.480 --> 00:00:15.599 you know, a sharp suit, a silk tie, maybe a flag 00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:17.859 pin on the lapel. Right. Someone with perfect 00:00:17.859 --> 00:00:21.280 posture, hair that never moves. Exactly. And 00:00:21.280 --> 00:00:23.100 a way of speaking that sounds like it's been 00:00:23.100 --> 00:00:25.820 focus grouped to death. The standard model. The 00:00:25.820 --> 00:00:28.920 politician. That's the one. I want you to delete 00:00:28.920 --> 00:00:32.899 that image. Critch alt delete. Instead, I want 00:00:32.899 --> 00:00:36.219 you to picture a man in a rumpled sweater, hair 00:00:36.219 --> 00:00:38.880 kind of messy, chain -smoking cigarettes, like 00:00:38.880 --> 00:00:41.359 his life depends on it. He looks a little bit 00:00:41.359 --> 00:00:43.579 terrified, honestly. He's standing on a balcony 00:00:43.579 --> 00:00:46.060 staring out at a sea of people, and he has just 00:00:46.060 --> 00:00:48.219 been handed the keys to an entire country. And 00:00:48.219 --> 00:00:50.420 his qualifications. Oh, and his previous job 00:00:50.420 --> 00:00:53.399 experience, rolling beer barrels in a brewery 00:00:53.399 --> 00:00:56.579 and writing plays about people who talk in complete 00:00:56.579 --> 00:00:59.600 gibberish. It sounds like fiction. If you pitch 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:01.600 this script to a Hollywood studio, they would 00:01:01.600 --> 00:01:04.459 probably tell you it's too on the nose. It's 00:01:04.459 --> 00:01:07.609 too perfect of an underdog story. But this is 00:01:07.609 --> 00:01:11.670 the actual reality of Vaclav Havel. It is. Welcome 00:01:11.670 --> 00:01:14.849 back to the Deep Dive. Today we are unpacking 00:01:14.849 --> 00:01:18.069 what I think is one of the most improbable stories 00:01:18.069 --> 00:01:21.450 of the 20th century. We are looking at the life 00:01:21.450 --> 00:01:24.290 of Vaclav Havel, the bourgeois child, the lab 00:01:24.290 --> 00:01:27.370 assistant, the playwright, the prisoner, and 00:01:27.370 --> 00:01:29.189 eventually the president. The philosopher king, 00:01:29.329 --> 00:01:31.730 as he was sometimes called, though... As we will 00:01:31.730 --> 00:01:33.390 see, he probably would have rolled his eyes at 00:01:33.390 --> 00:01:35.730 that title. He rolled his eyes at a lot of titles. 00:01:35.829 --> 00:01:38.090 But we have a specific mission today. We aren't 00:01:38.090 --> 00:01:40.650 just doing a biography. We have a massive stack 00:01:40.650 --> 00:01:43.390 of sources here. His letters from prison, his 00:01:43.390 --> 00:01:46.090 absurdist plays, historical records of the Velvet 00:01:46.090 --> 00:01:49.409 Revolution, and his own dense philosophical essays. 00:01:49.650 --> 00:01:51.769 And we are trying to answer one central question. 00:01:51.989 --> 00:01:56.010 How? How? How does a shy, socially awkward intellectual 00:01:56.010 --> 00:01:58.450 who just wanted to listen to the Velvet Underground 00:01:58.450 --> 00:02:01.739 and write weird theater... end up dismantling 00:02:01.739 --> 00:02:04.280 a totalitarian empire without firing a single 00:02:04.280 --> 00:02:06.420 shot. And more importantly, how does his philosophy, 00:02:06.620 --> 00:02:08.580 this idea of living in truth, actually work? 00:02:08.680 --> 00:02:10.620 Because it sounds nice on a bumper sticker, live 00:02:10.620 --> 00:02:13.680 in truth, but in practice. In practice, as we 00:02:13.680 --> 00:02:15.580 go through the sources, it turns out to be actually 00:02:15.580 --> 00:02:18.319 kind of terrifying. It is. It is a weaponized 00:02:18.319 --> 00:02:21.319 philosophy. It demands everything from you. And 00:02:21.319 --> 00:02:23.560 to understand how he arrived at it, we have to 00:02:23.560 --> 00:02:26.479 understand the sheer absurdity of the world he 00:02:26.479 --> 00:02:29.280 was born into. So let's get into it. Part one. 00:02:29.840 --> 00:02:33.159 the bourgeois outsider. If we are talking about 00:02:33.159 --> 00:02:35.659 the People's Republic and the communist takeover 00:02:35.659 --> 00:02:39.180 of Czechoslovakia, you usually assume the heroes 00:02:39.180 --> 00:02:41.360 of the story start at the bottom. Right. The 00:02:41.360 --> 00:02:43.860 down -fraud worker fighting the power. Generally, 00:02:44.039 --> 00:02:46.599 yes. That is the standard revolutionary narrative. 00:02:46.819 --> 00:02:49.340 But Havel starts at the complete opposite end 00:02:49.340 --> 00:02:51.780 of the spectrum. The 1%. Oh, way beyond that. 00:02:51.900 --> 00:02:54.240 If you were looking for a candidate least likely 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:56.759 to survive, let alone lead under a communist 00:02:56.759 --> 00:02:59.500 regime, you would build Vaclav Havel in a lab. 00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:02.000 The sources emphasize this bourgeois background. 00:03:02.300 --> 00:03:04.639 But I feel like that term is a bit dry. It doesn't 00:03:04.639 --> 00:03:06.379 really capture it. We need to paint the picture. 00:03:06.979 --> 00:03:09.439 How rich are we talking here? We are talking. 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:12.860 the Rockefellers of Prague levels of influence. 00:03:13.219 --> 00:03:16.550 I mean, his grandfather, Václav Havel, didn't 00:03:16.550 --> 00:03:18.810 just own property, he built the cultural heart 00:03:18.810 --> 00:03:21.270 of the city. Have you ever seen photos of the 00:03:21.270 --> 00:03:23.909 Lucerna Palace in Prague? I looked it up while 00:03:23.909 --> 00:03:25.409 prepping. It looks like something out of the 00:03:25.409 --> 00:03:28.270 Great Gatsby. It's huge. It is massive. It's 00:03:28.270 --> 00:03:30.409 this Art Nouveau entertainment complex right 00:03:30.409 --> 00:03:33.669 on Wenceslas Square. It has a cinema, a theater, 00:03:33.889 --> 00:03:37.909 a grand ballroom, restaurants, arcades. The center 00:03:37.909 --> 00:03:40.030 of the universe for Prague society. It was the 00:03:40.030 --> 00:03:42.629 place to be seen in the early 20th century. And 00:03:42.629 --> 00:03:45.300 his uncle, Millie Havel, He built the Barandov 00:03:45.300 --> 00:03:47.800 Film Studios, which was essentially the Hollywood 00:03:47.800 --> 00:03:50.879 of Central Europe. So young Vaclav, born in 1936, 00:03:51.159 --> 00:03:53.759 is growing up surrounded by movie stars, directors, 00:03:54.159 --> 00:03:56.259 intellectuals, and servants. He's the little 00:03:56.259 --> 00:03:58.979 prince of Prague. Exactly. He described his childhood 00:03:58.979 --> 00:04:01.599 as being in a golden cage. He actually felt guilty 00:04:01.599 --> 00:04:03.419 about it later in life. There's this anecdote 00:04:03.419 --> 00:04:05.460 where he talks about being a child and feeling 00:04:05.460 --> 00:04:07.639 ashamed that he had a governess while other kids 00:04:07.639 --> 00:04:09.240 were playing in the street. He felt isolated 00:04:09.240 --> 00:04:12.569 by it. Totally isolated by his own privilege. 00:04:12.729 --> 00:04:15.409 He wanted to be normal, you know, but he was 00:04:15.409 --> 00:04:17.870 walled off by wealth. Which is deeply ironic 00:04:17.870 --> 00:04:20.129 because that privilege was about to be stripped 00:04:20.129 --> 00:04:23.290 away very, very violently. 1948. The Communist 00:04:23.290 --> 00:04:27.139 Who. The victorious February. The iron curtain 00:04:27.139 --> 00:04:30.339 slams down and almost overnight, the Havel family 00:04:30.339 --> 00:04:33.259 goes from being cultural royalty to being class 00:04:33.259 --> 00:04:35.560 enemies. Class enemy. Yeah. That's a specific 00:04:35.560 --> 00:04:38.279 legal and social designation, right? It's not 00:04:38.279 --> 00:04:39.839 just people being mean to him on the playground. 00:04:40.019 --> 00:04:42.360 No, no. This is systemic. It's a formal label. 00:04:42.519 --> 00:04:45.680 The regime confiscates the Lucerna Palace. They 00:04:45.680 --> 00:04:48.439 confiscate the studios. The family is evicted 00:04:48.439 --> 00:04:50.060 from their properties. They lose everything. 00:04:50.199 --> 00:04:52.699 They lose the wealth, yes. But the real punishment 00:04:52.699 --> 00:04:55.579 wasn't financial. It was existential. The regime 00:04:55.579 --> 00:04:57.779 decided that because of his bloodline, Vaclav 00:04:57.779 --> 00:05:00.660 Havel did not deserve a future. This is the part 00:05:00.660 --> 00:05:03.019 of the sources that really frustrated me. We 00:05:03.019 --> 00:05:05.779 had this kid who is obviously brilliant. He's 00:05:05.779 --> 00:05:08.300 reading Kafka and Philosophy at age 15. And the 00:05:08.300 --> 00:05:10.920 state says, no, you can't go to high school. 00:05:11.120 --> 00:05:14.660 It was a strategy of cadre assessment. The state 00:05:14.660 --> 00:05:17.199 controlled all education, all opportunities. 00:05:17.699 --> 00:05:20.579 If your profile was bourgeois, you were barred 00:05:20.579 --> 00:05:23.209 from the humanities. Why? What were they so afraid 00:05:23.209 --> 00:05:26.370 of? They didn't want the old elite infecting 00:05:26.370 --> 00:05:28.589 the new socialist generation with their dangerous 00:05:28.589 --> 00:05:30.790 ideas. They wanted to break the intellectual 00:05:30.790 --> 00:05:33.769 lineage completely. So they deny him an education. 00:05:33.970 --> 00:05:36.949 What does he do? Does he just give up? No. And 00:05:36.949 --> 00:05:38.910 this is the first instance of a pattern we're 00:05:38.910 --> 00:05:40.649 going to see his whole life. He doesn't just 00:05:40.649 --> 00:05:43.829 quit. He finds a workaround. He gets a job as 00:05:43.829 --> 00:05:46.269 a chemical laboratory assistant. A chemical lab 00:05:46.269 --> 00:05:48.529 assistant? Can you imagine a teenage boy who 00:05:48.529 --> 00:05:50.970 dreams of being a poet? who is obsessed with 00:05:50.970 --> 00:05:53.990 theater and metaphysics, is forced to spend four 00:05:53.990 --> 00:05:56.870 years washing beakers and staring at test tubes. 00:05:57.230 --> 00:06:00.089 Talk about a fish out of water. Completely. But 00:06:00.089 --> 00:06:02.449 he works the lab job by day, and then he enrolls 00:06:02.449 --> 00:06:04.889 in evening classes at a gymnasium, basically 00:06:04.889 --> 00:06:07.870 night school, to get his secondary diploma. He 00:06:07.870 --> 00:06:10.350 just chips away at it. He finally finishes in 00:06:10.350 --> 00:06:12.910 1954. So he gets a diploma. Does that open the 00:06:12.910 --> 00:06:15.170 doors? Is he finally allowed in? Not at all. 00:06:15.209 --> 00:06:17.839 Not even a little bit. He applies to university 00:06:17.839 --> 00:06:21.600 for philosophy, for history, for drama. Rejected, 00:06:21.600 --> 00:06:24.800 rejected, rejected. That cadre report, that class 00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:28.060 enemy label, it follows him everywhere. It's 00:06:28.060 --> 00:06:30.459 almost comical how afraid the state was of this 00:06:30.459 --> 00:06:33.639 one teenager reading books. It feels like they 00:06:33.639 --> 00:06:36.779 knew even then that he was trouble. They were 00:06:36.779 --> 00:06:39.920 afraid of independent thought in any form. So 00:06:39.920 --> 00:06:42.379 he tries a Hail Mary. He enrolls in the Faculty 00:06:42.379 --> 00:06:45.000 of Economics at the Czech Technical University. 00:06:45.360 --> 00:06:47.720 Economics. That does not sound like him. He hated 00:06:47.720 --> 00:06:50.199 it. He barely understood the math. He later said 00:06:50.199 --> 00:06:52.000 he spent most of his time looking out the window 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:54.839 or writing poems in the margins of his ledger. 00:06:54.920 --> 00:06:57.160 He dropped out after two years. He just couldn't 00:06:57.160 --> 00:06:59.639 fake it. And thank God he couldn't. Because if 00:06:59.639 --> 00:07:01.939 he had become a mediocre economist, we wouldn't 00:07:01.939 --> 00:07:04.019 have the halfway note. Exactly. The failure of 00:07:04.019 --> 00:07:06.120 his academic career pushed him toward the only 00:07:06.120 --> 00:07:08.750 place that would take him. the theater but not 00:07:08.750 --> 00:07:10.629 through the front door no through the stage door 00:07:10.629 --> 00:07:13.009 he starts as a state hand a stage hand so he's 00:07:13.009 --> 00:07:15.509 moving props pulling ropes weeping the floor 00:07:15.509 --> 00:07:18.790 first at the theater abc and then at the legendary 00:07:18.790 --> 00:07:20.649 theater on the bell street and this is crucial 00:07:21.339 --> 00:07:23.540 He wasn't learning theater from a textbook in 00:07:23.540 --> 00:07:26.500 a lecture hall. He was learning it from the floorboards 00:07:26.500 --> 00:07:28.959 up. He saw the mechanics of it. He saw how the 00:07:28.959 --> 00:07:31.160 lights worked, how the actors moved, how the 00:07:31.160 --> 00:07:33.579 audience breathed. He understood the machinery 00:07:33.579 --> 00:07:35.839 of communication from the inside out. And this 00:07:35.839 --> 00:07:38.319 is the 1960s now. The atmosphere is starting 00:07:38.319 --> 00:07:40.019 to thaw a little bit, right? The Prague Spring 00:07:40.019 --> 00:07:42.519 is on the horizon. Just a little. There's a buzzing 00:07:42.519 --> 00:07:45.000 energy in the air. Small avant -garde theaters 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:46.740 are popping up, pushing the boundaries of what 00:07:46.740 --> 00:07:49.139 the censors would allow. And Havel starts writing. 00:07:49.500 --> 00:07:51.439 OK, let's talk about the plays, because when 00:07:51.439 --> 00:07:54.620 I hear absurdist theater, I think of Samuel Beckett 00:07:54.620 --> 00:07:57.540 waiting for Godot guys sitting around doing nothing, 00:07:57.600 --> 00:08:00.120 questioning existence. Is that what Havel was 00:08:00.120 --> 00:08:02.779 doing? Yes and no. He was definitely influenced 00:08:02.779 --> 00:08:05.660 by Beckett. In fact, they became distant admirers 00:08:05.660 --> 00:08:07.959 of each other, which we'll get to. But Havel's 00:08:07.959 --> 00:08:10.540 absurdism was much more political. It wasn't 00:08:10.540 --> 00:08:12.639 just about the meaninglessness of life in general. 00:08:12.759 --> 00:08:15.939 It was about the specific manufactured meaninglessness 00:08:15.939 --> 00:08:18.860 of life under communism. Can you give us an example? 00:08:19.389 --> 00:08:22.110 The source material highlights the memorandum 00:08:22.110 --> 00:08:25.490 from 1965. This is his masterpiece of that era. 00:08:25.610 --> 00:08:28.569 It's brilliant. Imagine an office, a typical 00:08:28.569 --> 00:08:31.509 boring bureaucracy. Suddenly, the management 00:08:31.509 --> 00:08:33.990 introduces a new official language called TIDIP. 00:08:34.220 --> 00:08:36.799 Tidepi. Even the name sounds impossible to pronounce. 00:08:37.039 --> 00:08:40.120 It's meant to. The premise is that natural human 00:08:40.120 --> 00:08:43.679 language is too emotional, too imprecise. It 00:08:43.679 --> 00:08:46.240 leads to misunderstandings. So they want to fix 00:08:46.240 --> 00:08:49.580 language. Exactly. The bureaucrats engineer Tidep 00:08:49.580 --> 00:08:52.200 to be scientifically perfect. Every word has 00:08:52.200 --> 00:08:55.559 a precise definition. The only problem is the 00:08:55.559 --> 00:08:57.980 words are incredibly long and complex, and the 00:08:57.980 --> 00:09:00.440 grammar is impossible. So nobody can actually 00:09:00.440 --> 00:09:03.080 speak it. No one. The main character, Gross, 00:09:03.259 --> 00:09:06.799 receives a memo written in Taibis, but he can't 00:09:06.799 --> 00:09:08.600 read it. To get it translated, he needs authorization 00:09:08.600 --> 00:09:11.379 from a Taidei specialist. But to get the authorization, 00:09:11.779 --> 00:09:14.159 he needs to file a request. Which must be written 00:09:14.159 --> 00:09:16.240 in Taidei. You got it. It's a catch -22. It's 00:09:16.240 --> 00:09:18.399 a loop of total paralysis. People are running 00:09:18.399 --> 00:09:20.059 around with dictionaries, terrified of using 00:09:20.059 --> 00:09:22.080 the wrong word, while the actual work of the 00:09:22.080 --> 00:09:25.500 office stops completely. It creates chaos in 00:09:25.500 --> 00:09:27.399 the name of order. That's the perfect way to 00:09:27.399 --> 00:09:30.899 put it. He is holding up a mirror to the regime. 00:09:31.450 --> 00:09:34.009 The audience at the theater on the balustrade 00:09:34.009 --> 00:09:36.909 would watch this and roar with laughter. But 00:09:36.909 --> 00:09:39.210 it was that laughter of recognition. They lived 00:09:39.210 --> 00:09:41.269 this every day. They lived in a world where the 00:09:41.269 --> 00:09:43.529 party slogans meant nothing, where the rules 00:09:43.529 --> 00:09:45.909 changed yesterday, where you needed a stamp to 00:09:45.909 --> 00:09:47.950 get a stamp. You took the terrifying reality 00:09:47.950 --> 00:09:50.590 of the police state and turned it into a joke. 00:09:50.769 --> 00:09:53.029 And that is a very dangerous thing to do. Because 00:09:53.029 --> 00:09:54.730 if you can laugh at the monster, the monster 00:09:54.730 --> 00:09:57.450 becomes less scary. The authorities knew this. 00:09:57.470 --> 00:10:00.110 They watched him very closely. But here's the 00:10:00.110 --> 00:10:03.309 kicker. The play was so good, it crossed the 00:10:03.309 --> 00:10:05.370 Iron Curtain. It went to New York, right. In 00:10:05.370 --> 00:10:08.250 1968, the Public Theater in New York puts on 00:10:08.250 --> 00:10:11.710 the memorandum. He wins an Obie Award. Suddenly, 00:10:11.789 --> 00:10:14.990 this class enemy stagehand is the toast of the 00:10:14.990 --> 00:10:17.110 Western theater world. He's finding his voice. 00:10:17.409 --> 00:10:20.490 He's successful. He's relatively young. It feels 00:10:20.490 --> 00:10:23.669 like he's on an upward trajectory. And then history 00:10:23.669 --> 00:10:27.350 interferes again. August 21st, 1968. The Prague 00:10:27.350 --> 00:10:30.110 Spring ends, not with a whimper, but with a bang. 00:10:30.480 --> 00:10:34.360 Or rather, the rumble of Soviet tanks. The brief 00:10:34.360 --> 00:10:37.940 period of freedom is crushed. 200 ,000 Warsaw 00:10:37.940 --> 00:10:41.460 Pact troops and 2 ,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia 00:10:41.460 --> 00:10:44.240 to restore order. And where was Havel when this 00:10:44.240 --> 00:10:47.000 happened? He was in Liberec, a town in the north. 00:10:47.139 --> 00:10:49.639 And this is where he stops being just an observer, 00:10:49.799 --> 00:10:52.179 just a playwright. He goes to the local radio 00:10:52.179 --> 00:10:55.279 station. Oh, wow. Now, remember. The Soviets 00:10:55.279 --> 00:10:58.259 are taking over the broadcast towers. But Havel 00:10:58.259 --> 00:11:00.460 and his friends keep broadcasting. He's on the 00:11:00.460 --> 00:11:02.759 air narrating the invasion as it happens, telling 00:11:02.759 --> 00:11:05.559 people what's going on, urging nonviolent resistance. 00:11:05.759 --> 00:11:07.759 He's the voice of the resistance. Really? For 00:11:07.759 --> 00:11:11.220 a week, yes. But the tanks win. The hardliners 00:11:11.220 --> 00:11:14.639 take over. And this begins the era known as normalization. 00:11:15.519 --> 00:11:18.639 Normalization? Sounds so benign. It sounds terrifying. 00:11:18.799 --> 00:11:21.320 It means we're going to flatten everything until 00:11:21.320 --> 00:11:24.460 it fits. A return to total conformity. And Havel, 00:11:24.539 --> 00:11:27.059 he is erased. His plays are banned. He is forbidden 00:11:27.059 --> 00:11:29.840 from leaving the country. His passport is confiscated. 00:11:29.919 --> 00:11:32.159 He goes from Broadway success back to zero. He's 00:11:32.159 --> 00:11:34.320 a non -person? A non -person. Shut out of a cultural 00:11:34.320 --> 00:11:36.580 life completely. And this leads to what I think 00:11:36.580 --> 00:11:39.179 is the most cinematic visual of his life. The 00:11:39.179 --> 00:11:42.080 famous playwright, the guy who just won an Obie 00:11:42.080 --> 00:11:45.000 Award in New York, rolling barrels in a brewery. 00:11:45.210 --> 00:11:50.000 The Krakenow Brewery in Trutnoff. 1974. Why a 00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:52.240 brewery? I mean, why not a library or a bookstore? 00:11:52.340 --> 00:11:54.320 Something closer to his world. Because he needed 00:11:54.320 --> 00:11:56.460 a job where he could be invisible. And under 00:11:56.460 --> 00:11:58.820 communism, unemployment was illegal. It was called 00:11:58.820 --> 00:12:01.659 parasitism. If you didn't have a stamp in your 00:12:01.659 --> 00:12:04.019 ID card saying you were employed, you went to 00:12:04.019 --> 00:12:05.860 prison. Like she had to have a job, any job. 00:12:06.039 --> 00:12:08.519 Any job. So the intellectuals, the philosophers, 00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:11.580 the writers, they became window washers, stokers, 00:12:11.620 --> 00:12:14.340 and in Havel's case, brewery workers. But he 00:12:14.340 --> 00:12:16.840 didn't stop writing. This is where the Wannick 00:12:16.840 --> 00:12:18.600 plays come from. And I want to dig into audience 00:12:18.600 --> 00:12:21.360 because the dynamic there is just so weird. It's 00:12:21.360 --> 00:12:24.580 incredibly meta. Havel writes a play called Audience. 00:12:24.659 --> 00:12:27.600 The main character is Ferdinand Wannick. And 00:12:27.600 --> 00:12:30.039 Wannick is a playwright who has been forced to 00:12:30.039 --> 00:12:32.860 work in a brewery. Subtle. Very. And the whole 00:12:32.860 --> 00:12:35.019 play is just a conversation between Wannick and 00:12:35.019 --> 00:12:37.200 the brewmaster. Okay, so what's the setup? The 00:12:37.200 --> 00:12:39.740 brewmaster is this earthy, functional alcoholic 00:12:39.740 --> 00:12:43.480 who is terrified of the secret police. The secret 00:12:43.480 --> 00:12:45.639 police have told the brewmaster that he has to 00:12:45.639 --> 00:12:49.220 write weekly reports on Vonick. What is he saying? 00:12:49.320 --> 00:12:51.870 Who is he meeting? But the brewmaster is too 00:12:51.870 --> 00:12:54.610 drunk and uneducated to write the report. Exactly. 00:12:55.029 --> 00:12:58.110 So the brewmaster, in this moment of just pathetic 00:12:58.110 --> 00:13:01.870 desperation, asks Vonick, the dissident, if he 00:13:01.870 --> 00:13:03.809 would mind writing the secret police reports 00:13:03.809 --> 00:13:06.350 on himself. Please spy on yourself for me because 00:13:06.350 --> 00:13:08.850 I'm too tired. It's perfect. Right. It captures 00:13:08.850 --> 00:13:11.529 the moral rot of the system perfectly. It's not 00:13:11.529 --> 00:13:13.559 about hate. The brewmaster doesn't hate Vonnick. 00:13:13.639 --> 00:13:15.440 He actually likes him. He wants to drink with 00:13:15.440 --> 00:13:18.919 him. But the system forces them into this absurd 00:13:18.919 --> 00:13:21.600 betrayal. It's not about good versus evil. It's 00:13:21.600 --> 00:13:24.379 about the system making everyone complicit. Everyone 00:13:24.379 --> 00:13:27.059 is trapped in the lie. And these plays spread 00:13:27.059 --> 00:13:29.679 like wildfire. But they weren't in theaters. 00:13:29.899 --> 00:13:32.759 No. Semizdat. We need to explain this because 00:13:32.759 --> 00:13:34.740 in the age of the internet, it's hard to grasp. 00:13:35.159 --> 00:13:37.960 Imagine typing a manuscript on a typewriter with 00:13:37.960 --> 00:13:41.100 12 sheets of carbon paper. You have to hit the 00:13:41.100 --> 00:13:43.379 keys incredibly hard to make the letters show 00:13:43.379 --> 00:13:45.480 up on the bottom sheet. Click, click, click. 00:13:45.620 --> 00:13:46.919 And if you get caught with those papers, you 00:13:46.919 --> 00:13:49.220 go to jail. But people did it. They typed them, 00:13:49.340 --> 00:13:51.940 bound them, and passed them hand to hand in bags, 00:13:52.039 --> 00:13:55.860 in coats. Vonneg became a folk hero. Everyone 00:13:55.860 --> 00:13:58.080 knew who Vonneg was, even if they had never seen 00:13:58.080 --> 00:14:00.399 the play performed. So he's a celebrity of the 00:14:00.399 --> 00:14:02.519 underground. But he's not a political organizer 00:14:02.519 --> 00:14:05.379 yet. He's an artist. What turns him into the 00:14:05.379 --> 00:14:08.600 leader of a movement? Rock and roll. I love this. 00:14:08.759 --> 00:14:11.159 It wasn't a tax hike. It wasn't a border dispute. 00:14:11.399 --> 00:14:14.840 It was a psychedelic rock band. The Plastic People 00:14:14.840 --> 00:14:17.379 of the Universe. Great name. They were these 00:14:17.379 --> 00:14:20.200 long -haired, scruffy kids who loved the Velvet 00:14:20.200 --> 00:14:23.360 Underground, Frank Zappa. Their lyrics were weird, 00:14:23.500 --> 00:14:25.460 sometimes vulgar. They just wanted to play their 00:14:25.460 --> 00:14:28.500 music. But the regime arrested them in 1976. 00:14:29.240 --> 00:14:31.879 Why? Were they singing down with communism? No! 00:14:32.259 --> 00:14:34.200 That's the point. They were singing about... 00:14:34.570 --> 00:14:37.590 Nothing political. But in a totalitarian state, 00:14:37.730 --> 00:14:40.350 ignoring the state is a political act. By acting 00:14:40.350 --> 00:14:42.210 like they were free, they were challenging the 00:14:42.210 --> 00:14:45.049 state's monopoly on reality. Their crime was 00:14:45.049 --> 00:14:47.909 nonconformity. And Havel saw this trial, and 00:14:47.909 --> 00:14:49.889 something clicked for him. He sat in the courtroom, 00:14:50.169 --> 00:14:52.950 he looked at these kids, and he realized, if 00:14:52.950 --> 00:14:55.450 the system can put these boys in jail just for 00:14:55.450 --> 00:14:59.210 singing songs, then nobody is safe. He realized 00:14:59.210 --> 00:15:01.769 that the freedom to write high philosophy and 00:15:01.769 --> 00:15:04.360 the freedom to sing rock and roll are the same 00:15:04.360 --> 00:15:06.720 freedom. It's the freedom to be yourself. That 00:15:06.720 --> 00:15:10.000 is the spark for Charter 77. It is. And Charter 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:12.360 77 changes everything. It changes the game from 00:15:12.360 --> 00:15:15.059 art to action. So let's talk about Charter 77 00:15:15.059 --> 00:15:17.539 because I think people hear Manifesto and they 00:15:17.539 --> 00:15:20.480 think it was a call for revolution, for, you 00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:23.149 know, storming the barricades. Was it? Not at 00:15:23.149 --> 00:15:25.629 all. That's the brilliance of it. Charter 77 00:15:25.629 --> 00:15:28.590 was a document signed by a loose group of dissidents, 00:15:28.629 --> 00:15:30.990 intellectuals, fired politicians, priests, artists. 00:15:31.429 --> 00:15:34.509 And all it said was, hey, government, you signed 00:15:34.509 --> 00:15:36.769 the Helsinki Accords on human rights in 1975. 00:15:37.029 --> 00:15:39.389 Which they did. We just want you to obey your 00:15:39.389 --> 00:15:41.490 own laws. That's it. Follow the laws you sign. 00:15:41.629 --> 00:15:43.649 That's it. They weren't asking for the overthrow 00:15:43.649 --> 00:15:45.870 of socialism. They were just pointing out the 00:15:45.870 --> 00:15:48.629 huge gap between the law on paper and the reality 00:15:48.629 --> 00:15:51.649 on the street. But to the regime, this was high 00:15:51.649 --> 00:15:54.529 treason. Because it exposed the lie. It exposed 00:15:54.529 --> 00:15:56.750 the fundamental hypocrisy of the whole system. 00:15:57.090 --> 00:16:00.830 And the crackdown was immediate. Brutal. Signatories 00:16:00.830 --> 00:16:03.889 were fired from their jobs, interrogated, harassed. 00:16:03.889 --> 00:16:06.409 Their kids were kicked out of school. And Howell 00:16:06.409 --> 00:16:08.870 was one of the three spokespersons for the charter. 00:16:09.029 --> 00:16:11.429 They came for him hard. And this eventually leads 00:16:11.429 --> 00:16:14.970 to his longest imprisonment. Yes. From 1979 to 00:16:14.970 --> 00:16:18.690 1983, nearly four years. Four years. That is 00:16:18.690 --> 00:16:20.950 a long time to sit in a cell, especially for 00:16:20.950 --> 00:16:23.610 a guy who, by all accounts, was a gentle soul. 00:16:23.710 --> 00:16:25.830 He wasn't a street fighter. No, he was a chain 00:16:25.830 --> 00:16:29.309 -smoking intellectual. And prison nearly broke 00:16:29.309 --> 00:16:31.809 him physically. He had hemorrhoids. He had recurring 00:16:31.809 --> 00:16:34.750 pneumonia. He was treated terribly. But mentally, 00:16:34.909 --> 00:16:38.070 mentally, he turned the prison cell into a university. 00:16:38.350 --> 00:16:41.330 This brings us to the letters to Olga. Yes. He 00:16:41.330 --> 00:16:43.110 was allowed to write one letter a week to his 00:16:43.110 --> 00:16:45.389 wife, Olga. But he couldn't write about prison 00:16:45.389 --> 00:16:47.929 conditions or they would be censored. So he couldn't 00:16:47.929 --> 00:16:50.450 say the food is terrible. I'm sick. Nothing like 00:16:50.450 --> 00:16:53.809 that. So he wrote about philosophy. He wrote 00:16:53.809 --> 00:16:57.250 about identity, responsibility. God, the human 00:16:57.250 --> 00:17:00.409 spirit. These letters, which were later published, 00:17:00.590 --> 00:17:03.070 are some of the most dense, profound, existential 00:17:03.070 --> 00:17:05.450 writings of the 20th century. It's amazing. He's 00:17:05.450 --> 00:17:07.890 sitting in a concrete box and he's exploring 00:17:07.890 --> 00:17:11.230 the cosmos of the human mind. But I want to pivot 00:17:11.230 --> 00:17:13.269 to the essay he wrote just before prison because 00:17:13.269 --> 00:17:15.630 I think this is the key to understanding everything 00:17:15.630 --> 00:17:19.849 else. The Power of the Powerless, 1978. If you 00:17:19.849 --> 00:17:22.490 read One Thing by Havel. Make it this. Absolutely. 00:17:22.690 --> 00:17:25.190 We have to unpack the central analogy here, the 00:17:25.190 --> 00:17:28.349 greengrocer, because it explains why totalitarian 00:17:28.349 --> 00:17:31.009 regimes work and maybe more importantly, how 00:17:31.009 --> 00:17:33.930 they fail. OK, so imagine a greengrocer. He manages 00:17:33.930 --> 00:17:36.210 a fruit and vegetable shop. Every morning he 00:17:36.210 --> 00:17:38.269 arranges the onions and the carrots and then 00:17:38.269 --> 00:17:40.430 he takes a sign out of a box and puts in the 00:17:40.430 --> 00:17:43.109 window. The sign says workers of the world unite. 00:17:43.369 --> 00:17:46.910 OK. Does he believe it? Is he thinking, yes, 00:17:47.130 --> 00:17:49.789 I hope the workers unite today as he puts it 00:17:49.789 --> 00:17:52.559 up? No. That's Havel's point. The greengrocer 00:17:52.559 --> 00:17:54.380 doesn't care about the workers of the world. 00:17:54.420 --> 00:17:56.259 He probably doesn't even read the sign. It's 00:17:56.259 --> 00:17:58.500 just part of the background scenery. So why does 00:17:58.500 --> 00:18:00.279 he put it up? He puts it up because that's what 00:18:00.279 --> 00:18:02.940 you do. It's expected. If he puts it up, the 00:18:02.940 --> 00:18:05.480 store manager won't yell at him. The secret police 00:18:05.480 --> 00:18:08.119 won't put him on a list. His children will be 00:18:08.119 --> 00:18:10.240 allowed to go to school. He puts it up to be 00:18:10.240 --> 00:18:12.799 left alone. It's a signal. It says, I am obedient. 00:18:13.119 --> 00:18:16.460 I am not trouble. Exactly. But Havel says that 00:18:16.460 --> 00:18:19.200 by putting up that sign, the greengrocer is living 00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:23.319 within a lie. He is confirming the system. The 00:18:23.319 --> 00:18:25.900 system relies on millions of greengrocers putting 00:18:25.900 --> 00:18:28.299 up signs they don't believe in. They create the 00:18:28.299 --> 00:18:31.259 facade that the system is popular and unanimous. 00:18:31.319 --> 00:18:34.420 So the greengrocer is the victim, but he's also 00:18:34.420 --> 00:18:36.900 the enforcer. He is holding up the very system 00:18:36.900 --> 00:18:39.519 that oppresses him. Yes. But then Havel asks 00:18:39.519 --> 00:18:43.279 the crucial question. What happens if one day 00:18:43.279 --> 00:18:46.720 the greengrocer snaps? What if he doesn't put 00:18:46.720 --> 00:18:49.180 up the sign? The system panics. The system has 00:18:49.180 --> 00:18:52.019 to punish him. Not because the sign itself matters, 00:18:52.079 --> 00:18:55.119 but because if one greengrocer refuses to lie, 00:18:55.279 --> 00:18:58.000 he shows everyone else that it's possible. He 00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:00.440 reveals that the emperor is naked. He breaks 00:19:00.440 --> 00:19:02.559 the spell. He breaks the spell. He threatens 00:19:02.559 --> 00:19:05.539 the entire structure of the appearance of agreement. 00:19:06.079 --> 00:19:09.240 And that is living in truth. Yes. It's not about 00:19:09.240 --> 00:19:11.700 storming the palace with a gun. It's about simply 00:19:11.700 --> 00:19:14.380 refusing to participate in the lie, refusing 00:19:14.380 --> 00:19:17.259 to vote in the rigged election, refusing to sign 00:19:17.259 --> 00:19:19.519 the loyalty pledge, saying what you actually 00:19:19.519 --> 00:19:22.460 think, even in a small way. It sounds so simple, 00:19:22.539 --> 00:19:25.519 but the consequences are huge. The green grocer 00:19:25.519 --> 00:19:27.819 will lose his job. He won't go on that vacation. 00:19:28.140 --> 00:19:30.500 His kids might have trouble. Exactly. It's a 00:19:30.500 --> 00:19:33.559 huge personal risk. But Havel argues that this 00:19:33.559 --> 00:19:35.980 power of the powerless is the only thing that 00:19:35.980 --> 00:19:37.640 can actually destroy the system from within. 00:19:37.839 --> 00:19:40.759 And he was right, because eventually the cost 00:19:40.759 --> 00:19:43.200 of enforcing the lie becomes too high for the 00:19:43.200 --> 00:19:45.660 regime. So while Havel is in prison thinking 00:19:45.660 --> 00:19:48.700 about greengrocers, his fame is growing internationally. 00:19:49.099 --> 00:19:51.980 And Samuel Beckett, the actual king of absurdism, 00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:55.140 gets involved. That was a huge moment. In 1982, 00:19:55.559 --> 00:19:57.839 Beckett writes a short play called Catastrophe. 00:19:58.319 --> 00:20:00.500 It's about a protagonist who stands silent on 00:20:00.500 --> 00:20:03.660 a pedestal while a director molds him, abuses 00:20:03.660 --> 00:20:06.900 him. And Beckett dedicated it to Havel. Wow. 00:20:07.200 --> 00:20:09.819 It was a message from the free world. We see 00:20:09.819 --> 00:20:12.880 you. We haven't forgotten. Fast forward to 1989, 00:20:13.319 --> 00:20:15.880 the year the world turned upside down. The Berlin 00:20:15.880 --> 00:20:19.099 Wall falls. Regimes are crumbling across Eastern 00:20:19.099 --> 00:20:21.799 Europe. What is happening in Prague? November 00:20:21.799 --> 00:20:25.660 17th, 1989. A student demonstration is brutally 00:20:25.660 --> 00:20:28.289 suppressed by riot police. This is the spark. 00:20:28.470 --> 00:20:30.309 People are tired of being the greengrocer. They 00:20:30.309 --> 00:20:32.490 start coming out into the streets. First thousands, 00:20:32.549 --> 00:20:35.049 then hundreds of thousands. And they gather on 00:20:35.049 --> 00:20:37.190 Wenceslas Square. Right in front of the Lucerna 00:20:37.190 --> 00:20:39.730 Palace his grandfather built. The symbolism is 00:20:39.730 --> 00:20:41.869 just incredible. The square is packed with people 00:20:41.869 --> 00:20:44.430 jingling their keys. Jingling keys. What was 00:20:44.430 --> 00:20:46.490 that about? It was a symbol. It meant goodbye, 00:20:46.609 --> 00:20:49.690 boys. Time to go home. It was the sound of the 00:20:49.690 --> 00:20:52.410 final bell ringing on the regime. A beautifully 00:20:52.410 --> 00:20:54.930 nonviolent sound. And Havel is right in the eye 00:20:54.930 --> 00:20:57.450 of the storm. He's just been released from another 00:20:57.450 --> 00:21:00.390 shorter prison term. He helps found the Civic 00:21:00.390 --> 00:21:03.849 Forum. It's a chaotic mix of everyone who hates 00:21:03.849 --> 00:21:06.769 the communists. They are meeting in theater basements, 00:21:06.769 --> 00:21:09.910 in smoke -filled rooms, negotiating the transfer 00:21:09.910 --> 00:21:12.269 of power with a government that is just dissolving 00:21:12.269 --> 00:21:14.890 in front of their eyes. And then on December 00:21:14.890 --> 00:21:18.970 29th, 1989, we get the moment that I still struggle 00:21:18.970 --> 00:21:22.049 to wrap my head around. The Federal Assembly 00:21:22.049 --> 00:21:25.029 needs to vote for a new president. Now, who is 00:21:25.029 --> 00:21:26.829 sitting in this assembly? This is the best part. 00:21:26.970 --> 00:21:29.430 The assembly is still 100 franc controlled by 00:21:29.430 --> 00:21:31.750 the Communist Party. These are the same people 00:21:31.750 --> 00:21:34.190 who banned Hubble's plays, who sent him to prison, 00:21:34.309 --> 00:21:36.710 who called him a class enemy his entire life. 00:21:36.890 --> 00:21:40.150 And they vote for Vaclav Havel. Unanimously. 00:21:40.490 --> 00:21:42.210 That is, I mean, talk about absurdist theater. 00:21:42.309 --> 00:21:44.369 That is the plot of one of his plays. He couldn't 00:21:44.369 --> 00:21:46.710 have written it better. It is the ultimate Havelian 00:21:46.710 --> 00:21:49.109 irony. The pressure from the hundreds of thousands 00:21:49.109 --> 00:21:51.269 of people in the streets was so intense, the 00:21:51.269 --> 00:21:53.549 collapse was so total, that the communists voted 00:21:53.549 --> 00:21:56.369 for their own executioner just to try and save 00:21:56.369 --> 00:21:58.710 their own skins. They raised their hands for 00:21:58.710 --> 00:22:01.349 the man they had persecuted for 20 years. And 00:22:01.349 --> 00:22:03.470 Havel, the man who just wanted to write plays, 00:22:03.630 --> 00:22:06.089 becomes the president. The reluctant president. 00:22:06.349 --> 00:22:08.450 He absolutely was. He kept insisting he didn't 00:22:08.450 --> 00:22:10.589 want the job. He said, I'll do it for six months 00:22:10.589 --> 00:22:13.779 until we have free elections. He wore pants that 00:22:13.779 --> 00:22:16.640 were too short for him to his inauguration. Intentionally 00:22:16.640 --> 00:22:18.900 or not, it became a symbol. He wasn't a slick 00:22:18.900 --> 00:22:22.359 politician. He's just a guy. But the guy is now 00:22:22.359 --> 00:22:25.240 in the Prague Castle. And reality hits hard. 00:22:25.500 --> 00:22:29.259 The party is over and the hangover begins. Because 00:22:29.259 --> 00:22:32.059 governing is not the same as dissenting. Governing 00:22:32.059 --> 00:22:35.289 in reality. That's the hard part. It's easy to 00:22:35.289 --> 00:22:37.650 be morally pure when you have no power. When 00:22:37.650 --> 00:22:39.390 you have power, you have to compromise. You have 00:22:39.390 --> 00:22:41.750 to make choices that affect millions of people. 00:22:41.910 --> 00:22:44.089 One of the first major crises is the breakup 00:22:44.089 --> 00:22:48.069 of the country. The Velvet Divorce. Yes. Czechoslovakia 00:22:48.069 --> 00:22:50.690 was a federation of two peoples, the Czechs and 00:22:50.690 --> 00:22:53.589 the Slovaks. But once the heavy hand of Moscow 00:22:53.589 --> 00:22:56.269 was lifted, the Slovaks wanted more autonomy. 00:22:57.109 --> 00:22:59.609 Nationalism bubbled up. Havel fought this, right? 00:22:59.809 --> 00:23:02.539 He didn't want the country to split. He hated 00:23:02.539 --> 00:23:05.299 the idea. He believed in a multi -ethnic federal 00:23:05.299 --> 00:23:08.640 state. He campaigned for it. But the political 00:23:08.640 --> 00:23:11.579 momentum driven by Václav Klaus in the Czech 00:23:11.579 --> 00:23:15.299 lands and Vladimir Maitcher in Slovakia was unstoppable. 00:23:15.680 --> 00:23:17.980 They wanted to split the assets and go their 00:23:17.980 --> 00:23:20.380 separate ways. So what did Havel do when he saw 00:23:20.380 --> 00:23:23.460 he couldn't stop it? He resigned. In July 1992, 00:23:23.900 --> 00:23:25.660 when it became clear the split was happening, 00:23:25.839 --> 00:23:28.140 he stepped down. He said he would not preside 00:23:28.140 --> 00:23:30.299 over the death of the country he swore to protect. 00:23:30.480 --> 00:23:32.380 That's a principled move. He walked away. He 00:23:32.380 --> 00:23:35.799 did. But he came back. Czechoslovakia ended on 00:23:35.799 --> 00:23:40.380 December 31st, 1992. And in January 1993, the 00:23:40.380 --> 00:23:42.319 new Czech Republic was born. And they needed 00:23:42.319 --> 00:23:44.559 a president. So Havel ran again, and he won. 00:23:45.069 --> 00:23:46.890 He became the first president of the Czech Republic. 00:23:47.109 --> 00:23:48.829 So he survived the breakup. But let's talk about 00:23:48.829 --> 00:23:51.089 the policies, because the sources show he made 00:23:51.089 --> 00:23:52.990 some decisions that really angered people. The 00:23:52.990 --> 00:23:55.329 great amnesty, for example. This was huge. And 00:23:55.329 --> 00:23:57.369 it happened right after the revolution in 1990, 00:23:57.670 --> 00:24:00.109 one of his first acts. He declared a massive 00:24:00.109 --> 00:24:02.490 amnesty. He released about two thirds of the 00:24:02.490 --> 00:24:05.529 prison population. Two thirds. That's thousands 00:24:05.529 --> 00:24:07.210 of people. Why? What was the thinking there? 00:24:07.349 --> 00:24:10.950 His logic was moral. It was pure Havel. He argued 00:24:10.950 --> 00:24:13.670 that the communist courts were corrupt and illegitimate. 00:24:14.370 --> 00:24:16.490 Therefore, the verdicts they handed out were 00:24:16.490 --> 00:24:20.009 suspect. He also said the prison conditions were 00:24:20.009 --> 00:24:23.029 inhumane. He wanted to signal that the new state 00:24:23.029 --> 00:24:26.529 was built on mercy, not vengeance. A clean slate? 00:24:26.809 --> 00:24:29.490 A very clean slate. But I assume the public didn't 00:24:29.490 --> 00:24:31.450 love having thousands of convicts back on the 00:24:31.450 --> 00:24:34.190 streets overnight. They hated it. The sources 00:24:34.190 --> 00:24:36.210 mentioned that crime rates tripled in the years 00:24:36.210 --> 00:24:39.349 following 1989. Now, some of that was just the 00:24:39.349 --> 00:24:41.710 chaos of opening the borders and economic transition. 00:24:42.069 --> 00:24:44.589 But the amnesty was blamed for a lot of it. Were 00:24:44.589 --> 00:24:47.549 there specific cases? Oh, yes. There were high 00:24:47.549 --> 00:24:50.029 profile cases where released prisoners committed 00:24:50.029 --> 00:24:52.750 murders or rapes shortly after getting out. Yeah. 00:24:52.829 --> 00:24:54.650 And the press was all over it. That must have 00:24:54.650 --> 00:24:57.009 been heavy for him, knowing that his act of living 00:24:57.009 --> 00:24:59.589 in truth and mercy resulted in innocent people 00:24:59.589 --> 00:25:02.109 getting hurt. It was a brutal lesson in consequences, 00:25:02.490 --> 00:25:05.190 a moral idea colliding with a messy reality. 00:25:05.789 --> 00:25:08.390 But he stuck to his guns. He believed it was 00:25:08.390 --> 00:25:10.289 the right thing to do, even if it was unpopular. 00:25:10.490 --> 00:25:12.589 Another controversy was the Sudeten Germans. 00:25:12.849 --> 00:25:16.470 This is a deep historical wound. Right. So after 00:25:16.470 --> 00:25:21.190 WWII, Czechoslovakia expelled millions of ethnic 00:25:21.190 --> 00:25:23.289 Germans as punishment for the Nazi occupation. 00:25:24.049 --> 00:25:27.190 It was a violent, ugly process. People lost their 00:25:27.190 --> 00:25:30.049 homes, their lives. For decades, the official 00:25:30.049 --> 00:25:32.849 check line was they deserved it. And Havel apologized. 00:25:33.269 --> 00:25:36.829 He did. He called the expulsion immoral. He said 00:25:36.829 --> 00:25:38.950 collective guilt is wrong. I can imagine that 00:25:38.950 --> 00:25:40.990 didn't play well at home. People probably called 00:25:40.990 --> 00:25:43.349 him a traitor. They did. It was political dynamite. 00:25:43.349 --> 00:25:45.990 It's still a sensitive topic today. But internationally, 00:25:46.369 --> 00:25:49.690 it was viewed as incredibly brave. It showed 00:25:49.690 --> 00:25:51.609 that the Czech Republic was mature enough to 00:25:51.609 --> 00:25:54.430 face its own dark history. It smoothed the path 00:25:54.430 --> 00:25:56.569 for relations with Germany, which was crucial. 00:25:56.829 --> 00:25:59.390 Seems like he often chose the moral path over 00:25:59.390 --> 00:26:01.390 the political path. But then we get to foreign 00:26:01.390 --> 00:26:04.039 policy and he becomes surprisingly hawkish. This 00:26:04.039 --> 00:26:06.759 surprises a lot of people. Havel was a pacifist 00:26:06.759 --> 00:26:09.700 at heart. In 1989, he wanted to dissolve both 00:26:09.700 --> 00:26:12.400 the Warsaw Pact and NATO. He wanted a Europe 00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:14.500 without blocks. But he ended up being the guy 00:26:14.500 --> 00:26:16.960 pushing hardest for NATO expansion to the east. 00:26:17.140 --> 00:26:19.559 He learned fast. He looked at the chaos in the 00:26:19.559 --> 00:26:22.400 Balkans, the instability in Russia, and he realized 00:26:22.400 --> 00:26:27.259 we need security. He pivoted completely. He became 00:26:27.259 --> 00:26:29.259 the biggest cheerleader for bringing the Czech 00:26:29.259 --> 00:26:32.220 Republic, Poland, and Hungary into NATO. And 00:26:32.220 --> 00:26:35.059 he considered the end of the Warsaw Pact his 00:26:35.059 --> 00:26:37.319 biggest achievement. He said that specifically, 00:26:37.640 --> 00:26:40.400 dismantling the Soviet military alliance that 00:26:40.400 --> 00:26:43.000 had occupied his country for decades. That was 00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:45.980 the closure of 1968. That was personal. But then, 00:26:46.119 --> 00:26:50.039 the Iraq War. 2003. This is a stain for a lot 00:26:50.039 --> 00:26:52.420 of his fans. It is. Just before leaving office, 00:26:52.599 --> 00:26:55.140 he signed the Letter of the Eight. It was a statement 00:26:55.140 --> 00:26:57.400 from several European leaders supporting the 00:26:57.400 --> 00:26:59.799 U .S. position on Iraq, supporting the invasion. 00:27:00.119 --> 00:27:02.869 Why? Why would the man of peace support a war 00:27:02.869 --> 00:27:05.789 that so many Europeans opposed? Two reasons based 00:27:05.789 --> 00:27:08.109 on the sources. One, he valued the alliance with 00:27:08.109 --> 00:27:10.529 America deeply. He never forgot that the U .S. 00:27:10.529 --> 00:27:12.250 stood against the Soviets. He felt a sense of 00:27:12.250 --> 00:27:15.069 loyalty. And two, he had a visceral hatred of 00:27:15.069 --> 00:27:17.529 dictators. He looked at Saddam Hussein and saw 00:27:17.529 --> 00:27:19.630 a totalitarian monster just like the ones he'd 00:27:19.630 --> 00:27:21.690 fought his whole life. He thought removing him 00:27:21.690 --> 00:27:24.490 was a moral imperative. It's complicated. And 00:27:24.490 --> 00:27:25.970 then there's the humanitarian bombing, quote, 00:27:26.130 --> 00:27:29.569 regarding Yugoslavia. That is a famous and very 00:27:29.569 --> 00:27:32.369 bitter controversy. During the NATO intervention 00:27:32.369 --> 00:27:36.490 in Kosovo in 1999, critics claimed Havel used 00:27:36.490 --> 00:27:39.049 the term humanitarian bombing to justify the 00:27:39.049 --> 00:27:42.789 airstrikes. Havel vehemently denied ever using 00:27:42.789 --> 00:27:45.009 those two words together. He called it a lie, 00:27:45.150 --> 00:27:47.789 a piece of propaganda spread by his opponents. 00:27:48.089 --> 00:27:50.769 But his critics, especially on the far left, 00:27:50.990 --> 00:27:54.849 used it to paint him as a hypocrite, a warmonger 00:27:54.849 --> 00:27:57.089 in philosopher's clothing. It just goes to show 00:27:57.089 --> 00:27:58.609 that when you step out of the world of essays 00:27:58.609 --> 00:28:00.890 and into the world of cruise missiles, moral 00:28:00.890 --> 00:28:03.269 purity gets very muddy very fast. Absolutely. 00:28:03.430 --> 00:28:06.089 Governing in reality is a messy business. Let's 00:28:06.089 --> 00:28:08.450 pivot to the man himself. Yeah. Because while 00:28:08.450 --> 00:28:11.069 he's dealing with NATO and amnesties, his personal 00:28:11.069 --> 00:28:14.250 life is chaotic. To say the least. First, there 00:28:14.250 --> 00:28:16.009 was his health. The man was a chimney. He lived 00:28:16.009 --> 00:28:18.049 in a cloud of smoke for decades. And it caught 00:28:18.049 --> 00:28:20.440 up with him. Big time. He was diagnosed with 00:28:20.440 --> 00:28:23.359 lung cancer in 1996. He had half a lung removed. 00:28:23.660 --> 00:28:26.720 Then in 1998, he nearly died from a ruptured 00:28:26.720 --> 00:28:29.480 colon while on vacation in Austria. He spent 00:28:29.480 --> 00:28:31.819 a significant part of his presidency in and out 00:28:31.819 --> 00:28:35.299 of hospitals. He was frail. And amidst all this, 00:28:35.519 --> 00:28:38.299 tragedy struck his family. His wife Olga passed 00:28:38.299 --> 00:28:42.059 away from cancer in January 1996. Olga was his 00:28:42.059 --> 00:28:44.359 anchor. She was the one who kept him grounded. 00:28:44.599 --> 00:28:47.400 She was a formidable dissident in her own right. 00:28:47.819 --> 00:28:51.039 Tough, no nonsense. When she died, the nation 00:28:51.039 --> 00:28:53.380 mourned her deeply. She was revered. And then 00:28:53.380 --> 00:28:56.640 rather quickly, he remarried. Yes, in 1997 to 00:28:56.640 --> 00:29:00.019 Dagmar Viskrava, a popular comedic actress. That 00:29:00.019 --> 00:29:01.359 must have been a bit of a shock for the public. 00:29:01.680 --> 00:29:04.039 It was a massive culture shock. Olga was this 00:29:04.039 --> 00:29:07.859 saintly, stoic figure. Dagmar was colorful, flamboyant, 00:29:07.859 --> 00:29:10.759 a celebrity. The tabloids went crazy. A lot of 00:29:10.759 --> 00:29:12.740 people felt he had moved on too fast, that it 00:29:12.740 --> 00:29:15.180 was disrespectful to Olga's memory. It damaged 00:29:15.180 --> 00:29:17.880 his popularity for a while. And speaking of damage, 00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:19.880 we have to talk about the Lucerna Palace scandal. 00:29:20.059 --> 00:29:21.980 This feels like a plot point from a soap opera, 00:29:22.079 --> 00:29:24.859 but it's real. It's a messy family business saga. 00:29:25.559 --> 00:29:28.960 Remember, the Lucerna was restituted, given back 00:29:28.960 --> 00:29:31.650 to the Havel family after the revolution. Havel 00:29:31.650 --> 00:29:33.630 owned half, and his brother's wife owned the 00:29:33.630 --> 00:29:35.430 other half. But they couldn't get along. It was 00:29:35.430 --> 00:29:38.789 a bitter public dispute. To resolve it, Havel 00:29:38.789 --> 00:29:41.930 sold his 50 % stake. But he sold it to a man 00:29:41.930 --> 00:29:44.710 named Vaclav Junik, the head of a company called 00:29:44.710 --> 00:29:47.569 Shemapol. And who was Junik? That's the problem. 00:29:47.890 --> 00:29:50.390 Junik was a former communist spy and a businessman 00:29:50.390 --> 00:29:54.289 with a very shady reputation. Ouch. So the moral 00:29:54.289 --> 00:29:56.410 leader of the nation, the man who preached living 00:29:56.410 --> 00:29:59.470 in truth, sells his family heritage to a former 00:29:59.470 --> 00:30:02.269 communist spy. It looked terrible. It was a moment 00:30:02.269 --> 00:30:04.589 where the practical reality of needing to settle 00:30:04.589 --> 00:30:07.430 a messy property dispute collided violently with 00:30:07.430 --> 00:30:09.789 his moral image. It didn't destroy him, but it 00:30:09.789 --> 00:30:12.329 certainly humanized him in a flawed way. It showed 00:30:12.329 --> 00:30:14.910 he could make bad calls. But despite the scandals, 00:30:14.910 --> 00:30:18.390 the health scares, the messy politics, he remained 00:30:18.390 --> 00:30:20.890 this massive cultural icon. He wasn't just a 00:30:20.890 --> 00:30:23.740 politician. He was... the cool president. He 00:30:23.740 --> 00:30:26.500 brought a bohemian vibe to the Broadcastle. He 00:30:26.500 --> 00:30:28.740 hated the pomp and circumstance. I heard he used 00:30:28.740 --> 00:30:30.680 to ride a scooter through the ancient hallways. 00:30:30.900 --> 00:30:33.619 I love that image. He also hosted Frank Zappa 00:30:33.619 --> 00:30:35.720 as a cultural ambassador. He was friends with 00:30:35.720 --> 00:30:38.000 Lou Reed. And that famous moment with Bill Clinton. 00:30:38.160 --> 00:30:42.819 The Reduda Jazz Club in Prague, 1994. Havel takes 00:30:42.819 --> 00:30:45.460 Clinton there. Clinton borrows a saxophone and 00:30:45.460 --> 00:30:48.119 plays Summertime. It was the defining image of 00:30:48.119 --> 00:30:51.440 the 90s era of optimism. the U .S. president 00:30:51.440 --> 00:30:53.539 and the playwright president jamming in a jazz 00:30:53.539 --> 00:30:56.119 club. It signaled to the world the Cold War is 00:30:56.119 --> 00:31:00.039 over. We are free. We are cool. And he also established 00:31:00.039 --> 00:31:03.359 the Forum 2000 conference. Yes, starting in 1997. 00:31:03.819 --> 00:31:06.660 He wanted a space to discuss the really big questions, 00:31:06.859 --> 00:31:09.980 civilization, religion, human rights. He brought 00:31:09.980 --> 00:31:11.980 together Nobel laureates, religious leaders, 00:31:12.160 --> 00:31:14.759 thinkers from all over the world. It showed that 00:31:14.759 --> 00:31:16.900 he never stopped being an intellectual at heart. 00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:18.859 He wanted to solve the world's problems through 00:31:18.859 --> 00:31:21.720 dialogue, not just legislation. So his presidency 00:31:21.720 --> 00:31:26.180 ends in 2003. Vaclav Klaus takes over his political 00:31:26.180 --> 00:31:28.789 arch rival, by the way. What does Havel do? Does 00:31:28.789 --> 00:31:31.170 he retire to a golf course? No, Havel didn't 00:31:31.170 --> 00:31:33.069 golf. He goes back to his roots. He goes back 00:31:33.069 --> 00:31:35.710 to the theater. The final act. Literally. He 00:31:35.710 --> 00:31:38.190 writes a new play called Leaving Ochazany, published 00:31:38.190 --> 00:31:41.549 in 2007. And what is it about? It is about a 00:31:41.549 --> 00:31:44.789 chancellor who is leaving power and has to move 00:31:44.789 --> 00:31:48.400 out of the government villa. Laughs. I sense 00:31:48.400 --> 00:31:51.059 a theme here. It's painfully autobiographical, 00:31:51.240 --> 00:31:54.039 but mixed with King Lear and Chekhov's The Cherry 00:31:54.039 --> 00:31:57.359 Orchard. It explores the loss of influence, the 00:31:57.359 --> 00:31:59.559 sycophants who disappear when you lose power, 00:31:59.839 --> 00:32:03.299 the emptiness of stepping down. It was art imitating 00:32:03.299 --> 00:32:06.160 life, imitating art. And he even directed the 00:32:06.440 --> 00:32:09.420 film version of it. He did in 2011. Even in his 00:32:09.420 --> 00:32:12.099 70s, with failing health, he was still creating. 00:32:12.400 --> 00:32:14.900 There is also a mention of a hunger strike in 00:32:14.900 --> 00:32:17.839 2007. This really stood out to me. He's an ex 00:32:17.839 --> 00:32:20.099 -president, an elder statesman, and he goes on 00:32:20.099 --> 00:32:22.240 a hunger strike. It was in support of a Kurdish 00:32:22.240 --> 00:32:25.380 doctor and activist named Yekta Uzunoglu, who 00:32:25.380 --> 00:32:27.640 was facing a protracted legal battle in the Czech 00:32:27.640 --> 00:32:30.519 Republic. Havel felt it was a grave injustice. 00:32:30.779 --> 00:32:33.400 So yes, the former head of state went on a symbolic 00:32:33.400 --> 00:32:35.640 hunger strike. That's incredible. It's unprecedented. 00:32:35.940 --> 00:32:38.059 It showed that the dissident inside him never 00:32:38.059 --> 00:32:40.220 really retired. He couldn't just watch an injustice 00:32:40.220 --> 00:32:42.640 happen even if he was old and frail. And he was 00:32:42.640 --> 00:32:45.599 getting frail. Yes. His respiratory problems 00:32:45.599 --> 00:32:49.140 were severe. But he kept working. A week before 00:32:49.140 --> 00:32:52.319 he died in December 2011, he met with the Dalai 00:32:52.319 --> 00:32:54.960 Lama in Prague. The source mentions he was in 00:32:54.960 --> 00:32:57.279 a wheelchair for that meeting. He was, but the 00:32:57.279 --> 00:32:59.759 photo of that meeting is powerful. Two spiritual 00:32:59.759 --> 00:33:02.240 giants, both of whom led their people through 00:33:02.240 --> 00:33:04.940 moral resistance, sharing a final moment. And 00:33:04.940 --> 00:33:08.299 then, on December 18, 2011, he passed away at 00:33:08.299 --> 00:33:10.980 his country home, Produsk. Rochek is important. 00:33:11.180 --> 00:33:13.559 That was his sanctuary. It was a cottage in the 00:33:13.559 --> 00:33:16.000 woods. It was where he held underground concerts, 00:33:16.099 --> 00:33:17.819 where he wrote his plays, where the dissidents 00:33:17.819 --> 00:33:20.059 met during the bad years when the police were 00:33:20.059 --> 00:33:22.839 parked outside. It was fitting he died there. 00:33:23.160 --> 00:33:26.480 The reaction was massive. A state funeral. A 00:33:26.480 --> 00:33:29.940 21 -gun salute. And in true Havel fashion, a 00:33:29.940 --> 00:33:33.500 rock tribute concert at the Lucerna. At his grandfather's 00:33:33.500 --> 00:33:35.980 palace. It was the perfect send -off. The pomp 00:33:35.980 --> 00:33:38.000 of the state and the spirit of the underground 00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:40.440 all coming together in one place. And today, 00:33:40.599 --> 00:33:43.720 his name is everywhere. The airport. The Prague 00:33:43.720 --> 00:33:47.200 airport was renamed Václav Havel Airport Prague. 00:33:47.950 --> 00:33:50.210 That was actually a petition started by a film 00:33:50.210 --> 00:33:53.609 director, Fero Fenich. It got over 80 ,000 signatures 00:33:53.609 --> 00:33:55.789 in a week. And there are the benches. I love 00:33:55.789 --> 00:33:57.789 the Howell's Place memorials. They are beautiful 00:33:57.789 --> 00:34:01.210 designs by Busek Shipik. Two garden chairs facing 00:34:01.210 --> 00:34:03.490 each other across a round table with a linden 00:34:03.490 --> 00:34:05.869 tree, a Czech national tree growing through the 00:34:05.869 --> 00:34:07.930 center of the table. It's an invitation to talk. 00:34:08.110 --> 00:34:10.610 Exactly. It's not a statue of him on a horse 00:34:10.610 --> 00:34:13.170 looking heroic with a sword. It's an empty chair 00:34:13.170 --> 00:34:15.010 waiting for you to sit down and have a conversation. 00:34:15.369 --> 00:34:18.329 That encapsulates his legacy perfectly. Dialogue, 00:34:18.329 --> 00:34:20.710 connection, living in truth. You can find these 00:34:20.710 --> 00:34:23.349 benches in Washington, D .C., Dublin, Barcelona. 00:34:24.429 --> 00:34:26.610 It's a global network of conversation spots. 00:34:26.929 --> 00:34:29.050 So let's bring this all together. We have walked 00:34:29.050 --> 00:34:31.530 through the life of a boy born into privilege, 00:34:31.710 --> 00:34:34.369 cast down to the brewery floor, raised up by 00:34:34.369 --> 00:34:36.789 his own pen to the presidency, and who left us 00:34:36.789 --> 00:34:39.289 as a legend. But what does this all mean for 00:34:39.289 --> 00:34:42.110 us? Why should the listener, sitting in traffic 00:34:42.110 --> 00:34:44.289 or doing dishes right now, care about a Czech 00:34:44.289 --> 00:34:46.489 playwright from the 80s? I think it comes back 00:34:46.489 --> 00:34:49.079 to that concept of living in truth. We live in 00:34:49.079 --> 00:34:52.559 an era that feels very different from 1970s Czechoslovakia. 00:34:52.619 --> 00:34:55.139 But in some ways, the challenges are similar. 00:34:55.280 --> 00:34:58.539 We are bombarded with information disinformation. 00:34:59.420 --> 00:35:02.639 Pressure to conform, pressure to just go along 00:35:02.639 --> 00:35:05.400 with things we know aren't quite right. The greengrocer's 00:35:05.400 --> 00:35:08.039 sign. Exactly. We all have our versions of the 00:35:08.039 --> 00:35:09.800 greengrocer's sign. Maybe it's not a communist 00:35:09.800 --> 00:35:12.519 slogan. Maybe it's performative behavior on social 00:35:12.519 --> 00:35:14.960 media. Maybe it's silence in the face of corporate 00:35:14.960 --> 00:35:17.940 malpractice at your job. Maybe it's just cynicism, 00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:20.139 you know, saying nothing matters. Havel teaches 00:35:20.139 --> 00:35:22.639 us that the antidote to a powerless situation 00:35:22.639 --> 00:35:26.119 isn't necessarily a grand revolution. It's the 00:35:26.119 --> 00:35:29.480 small daily act of refusing to lie. The power 00:35:29.480 --> 00:35:32.219 of the powerless. It's the idea that your integrity 00:35:32.219 --> 00:35:34.199 matters even when you think you are insignificant, 00:35:34.599 --> 00:35:37.320 even when you are just rolling barrels in a brewery. 00:35:37.340 --> 00:35:39.239 And that politics doesn't have to be just about 00:35:39.239 --> 00:35:42.099 power and transaction. Havel believed politics 00:35:42.099 --> 00:35:44.480 should be moral. He believed that conscience 00:35:44.480 --> 00:35:47.440 should drive policy. Now, did he always succeed? 00:35:47.699 --> 00:35:50.880 No. We discussed his failures, the amnesty, the 00:35:50.880 --> 00:35:53.309 property deals. He wasn't a saint. But he tried. 00:35:53.469 --> 00:35:55.610 He brought a human soul into the machinery of 00:35:55.610 --> 00:35:57.349 the state. He proved that you don't have to be 00:35:57.349 --> 00:36:00.110 a shark to be a leader. Which leads to the provocative 00:36:00.110 --> 00:36:02.449 thought I want to leave everyone with. You look 00:36:02.449 --> 00:36:06.130 at Havel, a chain -smoking philosopher, absurdist 00:36:06.130 --> 00:36:09.469 playwright, a man who apologized for his country's 00:36:09.469 --> 00:36:12.590 history, a man who admitted his doubts openly. 00:36:13.190 --> 00:36:16.300 Could someone like that be elected today? That 00:36:16.300 --> 00:36:18.840 is the big question. In our current world of 00:36:18.840 --> 00:36:21.739 hyper -pragmatism, soundbites, big data, and 00:36:21.739 --> 00:36:24.519 polished image consultants, Havel seems like 00:36:24.519 --> 00:36:27.599 a glitch in the matrix. Was he a historical accident 00:36:27.599 --> 00:36:30.400 that can never be repeated? Or is he a model 00:36:30.400 --> 00:36:32.840 that we have forgotten how to look for? A historical 00:36:32.840 --> 00:36:35.639 accident or a blueprint for the future. That 00:36:35.639 --> 00:36:38.260 is something to chew on. Indeed. Thank you for 00:36:38.260 --> 00:36:40.139 listening to this deep dive into the incredible 00:36:40.139 --> 00:36:42.840 life of Václav Havel. Go find a bench, sit down 00:36:42.840 --> 00:36:44.940 with a friend, and tell the truth. We'll see 00:36:44.940 --> 00:36:45.360 you next time.