Vaclav Havel Library moves to new location in Prague’s Old Town

The Vaclav Havel Library was established two years ago, as an attempt to build an institution similar to presidential libraries in the United States, and is essentially a collection of the former president’s works in the various stages of his life – dissident, playwright, president. However its organizers want it to be more than just a collection of dusty books and papers. The library has now moved to a new location - Gallery Montmartre in Prague’s Old Town and its director Martin C. Putna says there are big plans ahead:

Photo: CTK

“The reason for this move was the need for more space which would enable a broad scale of activities–workshops, conferences, small exhibitions and programmes for children. When I say we want learning programmes for children I do not mean giving them a sum of facts, books and papers by Vaclav Havel. Primarily we want to teach them constructive thinking, we want them to think critically about Czech history, about freedom and democracy, to compare the past and present and to think critically about the author (Vaclav Havel).”

Photo: CTK

How does Mr. Havel himself like the Vaclav Havel Library and is he himself involved in any of these activities?

“Well, Mr. Havel’s health is far from ideal and although we invite him every time we are never absolutely sure if he will turn up.”

Does the library portray the president in a human light as well? I understand there is a lighthearted side to it.

“Yes. we are trying to create something different from the usual memorial. We do not want a mausoleum for a living person. Therefore the exhibition is full of little jokes at the expense of Vaclav Havel. I stress that this is kind humour, we do not want to exceed the limits. But we know that he likes to turn the irony upon himself – he is ironic when commenting on his dissident years, his presidency and his passions and we tried to imitate him in this.

Photo: CTK

So for instance, you will find in the library a collection of Mr. Havel’s books in Czech and a variety of foreign languages. But alongside his real books we placed a collection of books he never wrote, but could well have written– we simply invented a collection of ironic titles such as: Cooking for Charter 77, Cooking for Dogs, Cooking Dogs, Women Volume I, Women Volume II, etc, etc.”

And how did Mr. Havel like that? Was he amused?

“Well, he has not seen it yet, because at the opening he was not feeling well enough to come. But I hope that in the next few days I will be able to show him the exhibit and I am pretty sure he will laugh.”

For more information on the Vaclav Havel Library please go to : www.vaclavhavel-knihovna.org