Truth and Love and Vaclav Havel Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Vaclav Havel was president twice. He was the last president and the first president. He was president of two countries. Which two?

Answer: Czechoslovakia and The Czech Republic

Vaclav Havel (1936-2011), as head of the dissident 'Civic Forum' was elected first president of a newly-democratic Czechoslovakia in 1989. During his term he faced ever increasing opposition from the Slovak delegates in parliament because of his opposition to their demands for an independent Slovak state.

He resigned from the presidency in July 1992, refusing to preside over the breakup of the country. On January 1, 1993 Czechoslovakia ceased to exist and was replaced by two new republics, Czech and Slovak. On January 26, Havel was elected the first president of the Czech Republic.

2. Vaclav Havel was born with a silver spoon. His mother was an intellectual socialite and his father (also Vaclav) was a wheel in a very new industry in pre-war Czechoslovakia. What did Vaclav Sr. do?

Answer: He founded a movie studio

Back in the early 1920's, Vaclav Havel Sr. and his brother Milos were businessmen who purchased a hill overlooking Prague, planning to build an upscale development there. They called the new area 'Barrandov', after a 19th century French geologist who had worked extensively in the area. They built a luxury restaurant complex (The Terrace) and a movie studio, 'Barrandov' (1933). It quickly became one of the major film producers in Europe. During the Nazi occupation it was used as a propaganda machine, and then it and all the Havel holdings were expropriated when the Communists took over in 1949.

After 1989, Barrandov Studios underwent a shaky transition to the free market, but eventually grew into the best equipped and biggest studios in Europe. Because of all the international films made there, including 'Mission: Impossible" and the "Narnia" series, it has become a real 'Hollywood East'.

3. After he left primary school, it was very difficult for Vaclav Havel to continue studying. Why?

Answer: His parents were bourgeois intellectuals

Getting an education was a tricky thing in Communist countries. Because his family had been rich and prominent, Havel was kicked out after primary school and had to take a job in a chemical lab to prove that he was a 'worker' and he went to high school at night.

Then, he was denied studies in literature or the arts, and forced to enter a 'practical' university program, so in 1954 he entered the Czech Technical University and studied Economics (i.e. Marxist Economic Theory) there. He lasted two years, and then quit to do 2 years of military service (where he wrote entertainments and plays for his fellow soldiers and got into trouble for being 'anti-army').

He later got a degree in Dramaturgy from the Academy of Performing Arts after studying by correspondence from 1962 to 1966.

4. In 1959 Vaclav Havel started working as a stage hand at a small theater in Prague. He also started writing plays. His first play to gain international attention was produced in 1963. What was the name of the play?

Answer: The Garden Party

'Na Zabradli' was an understandably small dissident theatre and Havel started writing and directing right away. The absurdist 'Garden Party' (Zahradn� slavnost) brought him to the attention of John Roberts of the Royal Shakespeare Company, who had the play translated and produced in England.

'The Garden Party' is a very funny, very sad play about a young man's rise through the political echelons at the expense of his very identity. As he rises, his speech becomes more and more platitude-laden and incomprehensible, mocking convoluted, meaningless Communist jargon. He gradually becomes unrecognizable, even to his parents. One of the prevailing themes in Havel's works is the use and misuse of language - either to indoctrinate and destroy or to reveal truth. His 'The Memorandum' (Vyrozumen�) (1965), another play to win international acclaim, concerned the invention of a new bureaucratic language that was to facilitate communication - with disastrous results. 'The Memorandum was produced in New York by Joseph Papp in 1968, where it won an Obie.

5. On the 19th of August, 1968, Vaclav Havel was enjoying a summer party with some friends just outside the Czechoslovak border town of Liberec. The party would not end well because some uninvited guests rolled into town. Who were they?

Answer: Warsaw Pact tanks

August 20, 1968 marked the end of the greater freedom associated with Alexander Dubcek's 'Socialism with a human face' and the 'Prague Spring'. Havel and his friend Jan Triska broadcast from the 21st to the 27th for their impromptu 'Free Czechoslovak Radio' from the huge TV/radio tower above Liberec.

Although Havel later fondly remembered the Prague Spring as a more liberal time, he was basically ambivalent about the whole thing. Essentially, he saw it as an ideological battle between different kinds of the same thing - Communists.

6. After the Soviet invasion in 1968 it was almost impossible for Vaclav Havel to produce or publish, but he could still circulate his plays and writings in a special way. They were copied in secret and distributed underground. What was this kind of illicit circulation of print material called?

Answer: Samizdat

'Samizdat' was the term for underground texts throughout the former Soviet Bloc. 'Samizdat' is from the Russian for something like 'your own publishing house' and consisted of letters, polemics, essays and literature by dissidents like Havel, Milan Kundera or Ivan Klima, as well as banned foreign publications like 'Lord of the Rings' or 'Gorky Park'.

It was a really risky process, considering that in Czechoslovakia every copier had to be registered with the government.

7. Between 1975 and 1979 Vaclav Havel wrote three short plays featuring an alter-ego; Frantisek Vanek. Like Havel, Frantisek was a dissident and a playwright and he worked at the same dead-end job in the same place. Where?

Answer: A brewery

In 1974-75, Havel was forced to find work somewhere since he couldn't work in the theatre. An 'anti-parasite' law stipulated that anyone over 18 without a job would be thrown in jail. Oddly enough, Havel was enjoying a relatively privileged lifestyle because he was allowed to keep his foreign royalties, but while living under virtual house arrest, he worked at the Krakonos brewery in the mountain town of Trutnov.

The 'Vanek Trilogy': 'Audience' (1975), 'The Unveiling' (1975) and 'The Proposal' (1979), have become among his most popular and frequently-produced works.

8. On January 7, 1977, 'Charter 77' appeared in four major European newspapers. Authored in part by Vaclav Havel, it was a significant call for the observance of Human Rights in Czechoslovakia. What prompted 'Charter 77'?

Answer: The arrest of a rock band

The Plastic People of the Universe (PPU) were a progressive rock band in Prague who often sang in English and admired Frank Zappa. In 1976 they were arrested and sentenced for anti-government agitation (although they all maintained that they were apolitical and just wanted to play). During their trial Havel acted as their advocate and as a liaison with the foreign press. PPU broke up at the end of the 70s, but reunited in 1989 at Havel's request.

Over 200 notable Czechoslovaks signed Charter 77, and who signed and who didn't is still a hot issue in the Czech lands. It led to the formation of an unauthorized political party of the same name. Charter 77 inspired many similar documents abroad, including the British anti-Thatcher 'Charter 88'.

9. Although he had spent time in and out of prisons for years, in 1979 Vaclav Havel was arrested and this time he faced serious time. When he first went in, the authorities made him an offer they thought he couldn't refuse. What was it?

Answer: They offered to send him to New York

For years Vaclav Havel had been walking around with pockets stuffed with cigarettes and toiletries just in case, but his work with the outlawed VONS (Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted) finally landed him in prison. He was offered a 'year' in New York as a way of getting rid of him, but he realized that he would never be allowed to return and chose to stay and fight. While in prison he contracted what was essentially chronic pneumonia, which would weaken him and eventually shorten his life. Due to his illness and mounting international pressure, he was released in 1984.

While in prison he wrote his 'Letters to Olga', compiled letters to his wife which became one of his most celebrated works. Salman Rushdie says that he kept a copy with him all the time that he was in danger of being killed.

10. In January 1989, Vaclav Havel was arrested for being involved in a huge student protest in Prague. He was out in June and November 17 was the beginning of the end of Communism in Czechoslovakia. What was this movement called?

Answer: The Velvet Revolution

Between 1985 and 89, Havel had been travelling throughout Czechoslovakia talking to people. He garnered a huge amount of international interest and sympathy and got thrown back in jail on a regular basis. He became the focal point of the revolution when he spoke at mass rallies in Wenceslaus Square in Prague and as head of the newly-formed 'Civic Forum', negotiated for a new government.

In December he was elected the first president of a new, free Czechoslovakia.

Source: Author annaheldfan

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor stedman before going online.
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Here's a quiz about the courageous dramatist, statesman, freedom fighter and cool old hippie, Vaclav Havel. How much do you know about his life and work?

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