Havel launches NATO book on Velvet Revolution anniversary

On November 17, Czech politicians remembered the 13th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, which brought down the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. On Sunday afternoon President Vaclav Havel laid flowers on the student revolution memorial and met former student leaders from 1989, but also those who took part in protests against the Nazi occupation in 1939, the communist takeover in 1948 and the Soviet occupation in 1968. President Havel also used November 17, now a public holiday in the Czech Republic, to launch a book of selected speeches, articles and interviews published during the years of his career as president, a career which is to end at the beginning of next year.

Havel launches NATO book on Velvet Revolution anniversary

President Vaclav Havel, photo: CTK

Exactly thirteen years ago thousands of students called for the communist regime to reform in a demonstration on Prague's Narodni Street. Police put down the peaceful protest by force, but the impulse for change had come, and within days the regime fell. On Sunday, for the anniversary, there was a very different atmosphere. At a cosy café in the centre of Prague, just metres from the spot where police had advanced on the students with truncheons, President Havel launched his new book called "NATO, Europe, and the Security of Democracy". The book is being published to mark the NATO summit taking place in Prague later this week. The collected texts cover the period of thirteen years, from 1989 to 2002 and deal with the cultural identity of European civilisation, NATO's role in Europe, as well as the relationship between Europe and the United States. Looking back at those thirteen years condensed in the thin publication, Vaclav Havel expressed this small complaint.

"I'm glad that this period of my life is about to end very soon, one which had many interesting aspects; it brought me many interesting experiences, both good and bad, but it also meant I had to write much more than ever before. But it was all only one type of writing - official speeches and addresses. I could not write whenever a flame of inspiration burned in my soul but only when I had a free couple of hours. For me as a writer, it was interesting but difficult because I couldn't just abandon my conviction that a speech had to have a structure, a melody. So this stage is ending and after that I will write whatever I like and whenever I like."

President Havel also used the opportunity to introduce a piece of music whose creation he himself instigated. The opus, called "Celebration of Freedom" was composed especially for the occasion of the summit by rock musician Michal Pavlicek, using English lyrics written by Senator and former Czech ambassador to the US Michael Zantovsky. A string quartet played a little taster of what is going to be a giant performance featuring a symphonic orchestra, a children's choir, opera singers and pop and rock artists who will all play and sing to accompany a state dinner given to NATO heads of state on Thursday.