Montesquieu developed a doctrine of the separation of powers with countervailing institutions to protect liberty.
Burke and Tocqueville long ago recognised the value of intermediary associations in guarding the individual against atomisation and despotism. Many of these writers, in fact, make scattered cameo appearances in this book. Keane's enterprise, therefore, is hardly original, and after pages I cannot discern a new, systematic theory of power, nor do I see in it the 'manual for democrats' that Keane promises on page The Machiavellian dimension is a potentially fascinating and fruitful one, but Keane does not pursue it sufficiently.
To begin with, he does not pick up Gordon Skilling's magnificent essay on the failures of Czech statecraft, 'Lions or Foxes: Heroes or Lackeys', in Czechoslovakia Seventy Years from Independence. In that analysis, Skilling regretted that only one Czech leader, Masaryk, possessed the Machiavellian fusion of qualities needed for successful statesmanship. How might one update Skilling's analysis eleven years later?
Has Havel displayed the necessary virtu? How has the example of Masaryk influenced Havel, both philosophically and practically? Alfred Thomas argues that Havel, like Masaryk, has been handicapped in his truth claims by the lack of an underpinning metaphysics or ideology; would Keane agree? Is that one of the reasons why Havel could be outflanked by Vaclav Klaus, who could legitimate his policy preferences through a heady mix of liberalism and nationalism? These questions find no answer in Keane's book, for Masaryk is as conspicuously absent as Patocka.
As the preceding points suggest, Keane ignores the modest body of serious secondary literature on Havel. This is unfortunate, given that most of it is actually very good, and Keane's analysis would have benefited from consideration of it.
Vaclav Havel
Why does he not draw on Aviezer Tucker's Fenomenologie a politika od J. Czech and Slovak Ideas of Nationality and Personality? Truth and Representation in Czech Literature? Or Matustik's Postnational Identity: What about Jerzy Szacki's astute critique of Havel and 'anti-politics' generally in Liberalism after Communism? The book is a disappointment in other regards.
Keane is not to be faulted for having been given almost no access to Havel himself; he is to be criticised, however, for not making better use of the next best thing, the extensive transcripts that capture Havel at work in critical moments. The round-table talks, from which hundreds of pages of transcription were generated, deserve more than a page and a half pp. In cases where Keane does refer to the transcripts, he does not capture the full flavour of the meeting. For example, he cites the record of a planning session held on 22 December to support his important point that Havel had clearly promised to step down from the presidency after the first free elections and allow Alexander Dubcek to seek the office.
In Keane's telling of the story, Havel never took the pledge seriously, using it in Machiavellian fashion only to persuade a rival to stand aside.
VACLAV HAVEL: A Political Tragedy in Six Acts.
To give himself an escape route, according to Keane, Havel 'carefully planned a nebulously worded declaration of sympathy for the idea that, sometime in the future, a Slovak might become president' p. This episode of 'knavery' is used to illustrate power's 'polymorphously perverse' effect on Havel once he acquired a taste for it p. Yet when we visit the transcript, we find Havel freely bringing his promise to the attention of the other leaders of Civil Forum and Public against Violence, and asking them when they thought would be the best time for him to publicise it - later that day, or in his New Year's Day presidential address, or at some other point.
A Czech jurist advises thus:. Let us please consider one thing seriously. Any of us would be hard pressed to guess what shape the course of events will take in coming months. So, Vaclav should think very carefully, whether at this point he should formulate anything at all in the sense of The 'nebulously worded declaration' was thus the idea of someone whom Keane elsewhere portrays as a beacon of sanity and respect for the law. Unless Keane can prove that Havel somehow prompted Jicinsky's advice from behind the scenes, it appears to me that very little premeditation was at work.
Rather, Jicinsky was urging Havel to be flexible and pragmatic, and Havel followed that advice. Perhaps I overlooked it, but I saw in this book no reconstruction of Havel's reasoning for standing for the presidency in July This episode highlights the need for a treatment of Havel's pursuit of power more nuanced than one finds here.
On more than one occasion, Havel has compared the presidency to imprisonment, an analogy that may be less flippant than it first appears. Was Havel's decision to pursue the presidency in , , and a variation of the same curious process by which he quickly came to terms with being in prison in , as admitted in Letters to Olga?
On a lighter note, had Keane consulted these transcripts in detail, he would have found that Havel indeed misrepresented Klaus when introducing the Civil Forum team during the round-table talks, but it was not just the case that Klaus 'winced', as Keane reports p.
More outrageous is the neglect of the valuable transcript of the summit of Czech, Slovak and federal leaders at Hradecek in November , which shows Havel working hard to salvage the federation. The transcript was published in instalments in Slovenske listy and Domino efekt in , so it is easily obtainable. Similar transcripts are in the public domain, at the Czech parliamentary records office in particular. Keane's neglect of the Hradecek meeting is typical of his slipshod treatment of Havel's role in the failure of the federation.
The reader is given no sense that from very early in , Havel was brimming with ideas for ways in which relations between Czechs and Slovaks could be improved. Keane does not observe that it was Havel who in March first suggested hyphenating the name of the state, which was seconded by Slovak deputies. Keane makes no mention of Havel's presentation of the draft of an entirely new federal constitution in March Havel was proposing a method for ratification of a new constitution; a radical redistribution of power between the branches of government and between the republics and centre including a Bundesrat -type council that would sit in Bratislava ; a new opportunity for ordinary citizens to demand a referendum; and a new electoral law.
These episodes are essential to any study of Havel in office, since they were his most ambitious attempts to be a legislating president, in accordance with his constitutional right. The defeat of the president's proposals revealed the limitations of his power in a polity already dominated by parties and the inability of the federal parliament to agree on any meaningful constitutional change.
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- Václav Havel : a political tragedy in six acts.
- Václav Havel: A Political Tragedy In Six Acts.
A reader not aware of these important moments would come away from Keane's account with the disgracefully erroneous impression that Havel thought that the constitution inherited from , with the amendments, was perfectly acceptable, as indicated on p. In fact, as early as 23 January , Havel reminded the federal assembly that 'we all look forward to a new Czechoslovak constitution and to the constitutions of our two national republics'. Keane insists that Havel, on becoming president, 'intuitively opted' not 'to cultivate the institutions of republican democracy, like parliament and a judiciary that upheld the rule of law', but 'worked for the creation of a crowned republic' p.
The notion of the 'crowned republic' has no foundation in Havel's own pronouncements, but in those of Novalis, writing two hundred years ago to the Prussian king. Novalis urged the sovereign to oversee the education of the people in republican virtues, inspiring them through charisma, example, patronage of the arts, that is, through the means at the disposal of the institution of monarchy. Without producing any evidence from Havel's statements, Keane announces that this was Havel's master plan for Czechoslovakia.
Young Vaclav's parents were wealthy by European standards and part of a cultural elite. But under the Nazi rule of the Second World War, their country became a killing field where moral and ethical restrictions were not relevant to the rulers. Havel's family suffered in a variety of ways.
The end of war did not bring relief; just before Vaclav's 11th birthday, the Communists assumed the power that they held for over 40 years. During Havel's youth, his mother took responsibility for her son's education. There were also family friends whose conversations with Vaclav kept him in touch with a wider world.
He became particularly attracted to literature and philosophy. Of special interest is a remarkable circle of literary friends and acquaintances drawn together in by Havel and his mother. Called the Thirty-Sixers they were all born in the same year , the group met to discuss a wide range of literary and other subjects.
Keane illuminates the relationship between Havel's art as a playwright and his role as a dissident. His plays often deal with themes of depersonalization and the failure of language. Jak to bylo ke konci s Olgou? K tomu, co jsem si myslel mi doplnila docela dost: May 13, Dave rated it really liked it. The weaknesses - a bit too long. Also some might find the ending, the fact that actually governing is harder than criticizing a government, fairly predictable. I think the book has many more strengths, among them - - Even though you can anticipate the ending, like a Shakespeare tragedy, you want to see how it plays out, and the author does this fairly well.
I had always assumed that a 'political' play must be deathl The weaknesses - a bit too long. I had always assumed that a 'political' play must be deathly boring, but apparently not Havel's. Being a good American, I disagree with Havel the author, a good Brit, does the same as the conclusion of his ideas inevitably means some kind of personal rule that could be just as bad - but I had not considered his argument before.
He may have been a bit autocratic, but he was not stuffed shirt!
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Aug 06, David Miller rated it it was amazing. This is as biography should be: Often it leans hard on those ideas, dropping out of narrative in favor of explications of theories of power and the individual. But this is necessary, because without that context, even a life like Havel's is only a dull play. Keane's writing is energetic and personal, but extremely focused, setting a tone for some of the best writing on Communism in history that I have ever rea This is as biography should be: Keane's writing is energetic and personal, but extremely focused, setting a tone for some of the best writing on Communism in history that I have ever read.
The Czechoslovakian regime is accurately and memorably realized as more than a series of faceless villainies, but a systemic antagonist.
Václav Havel: a biographer's account
And the nature of Havel's opposition to the regime is similarly fleshed out, so that we get a fuller sense of what he stoid for, and not merely what he stood against. May 02, Robert Wechsler rated it liked it Shelves: Not really of artistic significance unfortunately, but oddly structured, often opinionated, not at all academic, critical without being sensational or ideological. I read this book a couple years ago for my Senior Theatre Seminar class in college. The class was centered around Havel and his work in Political Theatre.
This book became sort of the cornerstone of our class discussions and was a great resource for putting Havel's plays into historical context. Although I'm not usually a fan of biographical works, I do find Havel's life fascinating. It's definitely not a book for everyone, but I would recommend this book to anyone studying Theatre History or an I read this book a couple years ago for my Senior Theatre Seminar class in college. It's definitely not a book for everyone, but I would recommend this book to anyone studying Theatre History or anyone interested in Havel or his work.
May 29, Michelle rated it really liked it. This was a very long informative book. Although there were a lot of references I didn't understand and I did have to re-read a lot of pages it definitely gave me some insight into the lifestyle and mentality of the times in Czechoslovakia.