from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- A river, about 346 km (215 mi) long, of eastern Germany flowing through Berlin to the Elbe River.
- Havel, Václav Born 1936. Czech writer and politician. A widely known playwright whose works include The Increased Difficulty of Concentration (1967) and The Garden Party (1969), Havel became a civil rights leader after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968). He was elected president of Czechoslovakia in 1990 after the collapse of the Communist government, but resigned in 1992. He served as president of the newly formed Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- proper n. A river in Germany.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. Czech dramatist and statesman whose plays opposed totalitarianism and who served as president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 to 1992 and president of the Czech Republic since 1993 (born in 1936)
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After the simplest homage to Havel from the French philosopher Andre Glucksmann, more messages from Mick Jagger and the ubiquitous Bono, Joan Baez sings.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in a letter to his Czech counterpart, called Havel "a man of culture and writer of great talent" who "incarnated an indefatigable commitment to democracy and freedom."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a statement called Havel "an inspiration" to human-rights defenders around the world while singer Lou Reed, whose band the Velvet Underground had an influence on Havel, wrote on his webpage that the ex-president was a "true hero in a world bereft."
I really like the idea of Havel as a nominee; he should have been awarded this prize long ago.
I recall Havel’s original support of the United States’ conduct with respect tIraq.
Havel rallied his fellow dissidents and unleashed an international campaign to free them.
It was an idea that Havel would later take further in his influential essay The Power of the Powerless.
Perhaps the most important encounter in the stormy life of Ivan Jirous, the prolific poet, essayist and leader of the Czech cultural opposition, who managed the psychedelic rock band the Plastic People of the Universe, was a conspiratorial meeting with the future Czech president Václav Havel.
Jirous represented the raw, emotional power of a ballooning underground music scene; Havel represented the intellectual community of banned writers and academics who already enjoyed international recognition.
Spreading the document was considered a political crime and many key charter members, including Havel, were sent to prison, but later played important roles in the country's transition to democracy.