Václav Havel would have been 90 this October
When I think of birthdays as I get older, I reminisce about things of the past years and typically I take an inventory of the things I feel I have accomplished in the previous year. Not for me, but in October of 2026 it would have been the 90th birthday of Václav Havel and the Czech Republic and the Czech and Slovak Cultural Center of Minnesota (CSCC) will be reflecting on his life. I would like to take the opportunity now to address how Václav Havel influenced the Czech Republic, Minnesota, and me.
Václav Havel influenced the Czech Republic.
Per Havel’s Wikipedia page, he was a “Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and dissident.” He led a group opposing the Communist regime for many years in Czechoslovakia and through his actions eventually became the center of political change. This happened in late 1989 when protests against Communism progressed into what is now written in history books as the Velvet Revolution. The Communists stepped down and because of Havel’s leadership, he became a presidential candidate. He was elected president by unanimous vote of the parliament. Heserved as president of Czechoslovakia from December 29, 1989, to July 20, 1992. The Velvet Divorce dissolved Czechoslovakia as of December 31, 1992. Thereafter, he was voted in as the first democratic president in the Czech Republic in January of 1993 and served until 2003.
A list of Havel’s formalized accomplishments during his presidency include:
Leading the transition from communism to democracy;
Dismantling the Warsaw Pact;
Bringing the Czech Republic into NATO;
Moral leadership and reconciliation;
Amnesty for prisoners of the communist era;
Maintaining democratic norms and limiting extremist influence; and
International recognition and global influence.
Václav Havel influenced Minnesota
In 1999, Havel visited Minnesota during his presidency. Jesse Ventura was the governor of Minnesota during that time and archives available by the Minnesota Historical Society include a letter Mr. Ventura wrote to Havel thanking him for his travel. Havel’s trip to Minnesota encouraged Dr. Josef Mestenhauser and others involved and in Czech and Slovak activities to found the Czech and Slovak Cultural Center of Minnesota, which happened formally in 2002. Per our website “Havel challenged us to focus on building a “civil society” in which we each take practical concrete steps toward the ideals of mutual respect and understanding.” Our goals are outlined on our website at https://cs-center.org/about/.
While Havel was in Minnesota, he presented to Macalester College in St. Paul. His speech is memorialized in their publication “Mac Weekly” dated April 30, 1999. He details five pillars of civil society.
They are:
- Individual Responsibility
- Moral integrity
- Open Dialogue
- Community Engagement
- Resistance to Oppression.
Václav Havel influenced me
I have a strong relationship with my Czech heritage, even from childhood. My grandmother was the daughter of two Bohemian immigrants and she was very proud of her heritage. In the 8th grade for geography and English classes, we were assigned a “country report project” in which we researched a country of our choice and prepared a presentation for our classmates. I was adamant that we choose “Czechoslovakia”. My teammate and I researched via encyclopedias, during that era. I still have the tagboard flag of Czechoslovakia and I paid to have a digital copy of the video of our presentation in our geography class. Little did we know of the happenings on the news during the tumultuous year of 1989 as young children. When we did our presentation in 1994, Czechoslovakia didn’t exist. It was already the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic.
I have traveled to the Czech Republic eight times. My first time was in 2006. In 2007 I applied for and received a scholarship to study the Czech language for one month in Dobruška. This program would not have likely existed before the Velvet Revolution. Later, I studied the Czech language via a program in the Institute for Language and Preparatory Studies, Charles University, for a total of three semesters in Prague.
In June of this year, I traveled to the Czech Republic. I stayed with relatives near Humpolec for one week and the second week in Prague. My cousin and his friend traveled to Tábor for the history about the Jan Žižka and the Hussites. I also attended the Bernard Fest where I was introduced to the music of Dymytry, a Czech metal band formed in 2003.
I have been on the Board of Directors of the Czech and Slovak Cultural Center of Minnesota (CSCC) since 2012. I take this role very seriously. For the last several years I have been the Membership Chair and most recently have been named to Publicity, after several years of efforts managing those tasks. I also co-lead a monthly Czech conversation group in North East Minneapolis.
In 2025, I started a scholarship in the name of my grandmother, Irene E. Klemetson. I became a Czech nerd because of her and am extremely grateful for the opportunity to spend so many years with her. One of my life’s greatest moments was when I introduced her to cousins in the Czech Republic when she and other family members visited me while I was a student there. I am privileged to have been able to study abroad in Dobruška and in then Prague. I would like others interested in this magical place to be able to have the same opportunity. This scholarship was initiated to give others assistance to have that same opportunity. To learn more about the scholarship, visit our blog at https://cs-center.org/2026/01/31/irene-e-klemetson-scholarship/ or email info@cs-center.org for an application.
What have you have done and accomplished this year? Do you now know more about Václav Havel after this reading? Were you, or have you been a part of civil society? Have you voted in a democratic election? These questions are important to understand the influence Václav Havel had on theCzech Republic, Minnesota, and me.
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