Václav Havel biography

Profile

Václav Havel was a prominent participant in the liberal reforms of 1968, and, after the Soviet clampdown on Czechoslovakia, his plays, which explore the self-delusions and moral compromises that characterize life under a totalitarian system, were banned. Havel was elected president of Czechoslovakia in July 1990, becoming the country's first noncommunist leader since 1948.