Benjamin Ivry looks at the Czech leader’s complicated relationship with Catholicism.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the election of the Czech author Václav Havel (1936 –2011) to the presidency of his homeland. Havel’s rapport with Catholicism was, as he readily admitted, a work in progress, intertwined with fascination for the lives of the saints.
As a teenage stagehand at the ABC Theatre in Prague, Havel was already convinced that theatre “must be a living spiritual and intellectual focus, a place for social self-awareness”. Spirituality and morality were essential weapons for fighting a tyrannical Communist regime.
