1936. Vaclav Gavel was born

Photo: BOHDAN Holomíček

80 years ago, on October 5, 1936, Vaclav Gavel, Czech playwright, dissident and politician, President of Czechoslovakia in 1989-1992 was born. and the president of the Czech Republic in 1993-2003. He began dissident activities in 1975 by the publication of an open letter to the leader of the Czechoslovak communists Gustav Gusaku. He was one of the authors of the manifesto of human rights "Charter 77". Gavel was repeatedly arrested and was imprisoned.

In 1984, he wrote in the essay “Politics and Conscience”: “I advocate“ anti -political policy ”, that is, a policy that is not understood as the technology of power and manipulation, not as a cybernetic system of managing human beings and not as the skill of pragmatics, but as one of the ways of searching and achieving a meaningful life, protecting such a life and service to it. I advocate politics as a practical moral, as a practical morality, as a practical morality, as a practical morality. Serving the truth is essentially human and by human standards to the concern for our brothers.