A Dissident and President Still Relevant Today

Václav Havel (2014). Living in Truth. Essays and Speeches / translated from Czech by Siarhei Smatrychenka and Yuliya Smatrychenka. Vilnius: Lohvinau, 396 pp.

Review prepared by Andrei Tsikhamirau

Translation can be a very thankless task. People who know several languages often do not need translation, because grasping the meaning of a text does not require a literal explanation for them. They simply know the nuances of the language and “live” in each of them. For people who know only one language, translations are a window onto another world and another way of perceiving it. For them, translation is not only a retelling of meaning, but also a chance to enrich their own language and come closer to another culture.

Translators do not merely explain; they also recreate meaning. In my view, the greatest gift of a translator is the art of conveying meaning in such a way that an author’s text sounds organic in a language foreign to that author, so that the reader cannot tell that the text was originally written in another language.

The translators of the volume of Václav Havel’s speeches and essays, Siarhei Smatrychenka and Yuliya Smatrychenka, have done an excellent job not only of translating meanings, but also of making the texts of the Czech playwright, dissident, and politician “organic” in Belarusian. Reading Havel in their translation is an extraordinary intellectual adventure. The choice of words and the construction of sentences are not everything; what also matters is the preservation of the authorial style and force characteristic of Havel’s texts. Belarusian readers will find in them not only much that is relevant, but will also take pleasure in the author’s style: simple, calm, and at the same time deeply affirmative. Reading his essays allows one not only to understand reality, but also to try to look into the future, although the author certainly did not cast himself in the role of a fortune-teller or prophet.

For a linguist, this translation may be a wonderful source of quotations: usually simple, open to understanding, yet dense and rich in meaning. A historian will be able to trace the development of Havel’s political thought, observe his analysis of totalitarianism, and look at the evolution of his ideas after 1989. Specialists in political science will certainly use the opportunity to enter the world of ideas, find many excellent metaphors, and once again remind themselves of the importance of ethics for political activity and political analysis.

Truth as an ethical category appears very often in these texts. It is not only one of the main themes, but also one of the author’s main motivations. The first part of the book, “The Dissident,” consists of texts written by Havel between 1975 and 1989. “Letter to Gustáv Husák” (8 April 1975) does not merely expose and describe the reality of “consolidated” and “stabilised” Czechoslovakia after the Prague Spring. A historian may above all notice that the author of this text defended awareness of the phenomenon of social time, of historicity, which the communist authorities sought to freeze, conceal, and replace with the fetish of “stability,” the actual humiliation of society, and rule through fear. Havel also called this condition “existential oppression,” when state power seeks only self-preservation, pushes people’s lives into the “private” sphere, and expels them from the public sphere. Political police, ideology, ubiquitous careerism, and political apartheid help make this possible. In the author’s view, such a situation leads to the corrosion of all moral norms and to a crisis of human identity.

The famous essay “The Power of the Powerless,” written in October 1978, is not only an outstanding analysis of the nature of authoritarian power in its communist form. The dictatorship of the political bureaucracy, which possesses a flexible ideology and in effect monopolises the labour market, with the state acting as the sole employer, is combined with a certain level of industrialisation and consumer society. Havel proposed the term “post-totalitarian system” as a definition of socialism in the 1970s. Ideology as a form of lie appears in it not only as a factor in controlling society, but also as a moral trap for power itself: its representatives themselves believe in the lie and rely on ideology rather than reality. A person in such a system is not only a victim of ideology; he or she also creates and sustains it.

The crisis of the human being appears here very clearly, while the post-totalitarian political regime itself emerges at the collision point of dictatorship and consumer society. Ideology as a form of “social game” can be stopped only by truth, by mutual solidarity and responsibility for freedom, and by independent social life. Havel recalls the figure of the first president of Czechoslovakia, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, who also very often turned to ethical problems and pointed to the possibilities of everyday “small work.” This echo of positivism may seem rather outdated, but for Havel precisely “small work” was the only possible result of dissidence as a political position. The defensive character of dissidence and the rejection of violence are also a movement. The author advocated the development of “parallel structures” and responsibility for oneself and for others; here Havel recalls another famous Czech, the philosopher Jan Patočka.

The essays “Politics and Conscience” (February 1984), “Letter to Participants of the International Days of Freedoms and Human Rights” (25 May 1985), and “On the Meaning of Charter 77” (July 1986) reveal the essence of the totalitarian Soviet system, while Havel stresses that its very logic came from the West, as an avant-garde of the crisis of civilisation. They call for a “solidarity of the shaken,” Patočka’s term, and propose possible exits from the crisis of society after 1968 in Czechoslovakia.

Historians will certainly be able to draw inspiration for their analytical constructions from the text “History and Totalitarianism” (April 1987). A totalitarian system destroys the historical event and cancels the sense of time. History is replaced by pseudo-history; time begins to die off and is replaced by ideology, which pushes all unsanctioned events out of the consciousness of society. An attack on pluralism in society becomes an attack on history as the unfolding of events, while the standardisation of life leads to universal banality. The short philosophical essay “A Word about Words” (15 October 1989) reminds us of the power of words and of the responsibility of people who use words in public life. Words too have their own history, and the force of the word is unpredictable.

The second part of the book, “The President,” consists above all of Havel’s speeches as president of Czechoslovakia and, after 1993, of the Czech Republic. The playwright and dissident becomes a politician and tries not to turn into a bureaucrat incapable of hearing society’s voice. Havel the politician did not cease to be a reflective person: the texts “The Temptation of Power” (28 May 1991), “The Possibilities of an Open Society at the End of the Twentieth Century” (31 March 1995), and “The Capillaries of Global Civilisation” (8 June 1995) set him apart from the banal speeches of other heads of state. Havel turns to the problem of the politician’s responsibility, reflects on the meaning of the concept “intellectual,” on the fragility of universal technological civilisation, and on the risks of nuclear weapons and terrorism.

The text “Europe as a Task” (15 May 1996) may today seem like a somewhat banal and dissonant set of words. Yet amid the crisis of European identity and of the European Union, reflections on the “European soul” or the “captivity of national collectivism” may become an impulse for thinking about the state of the continent and contemporary challenges. Havel also turned to global issues. The speech “Before the Iceberg of Global Threats” (4 September 1997) draws attention to a crisis of responsibility, the deeply atheistic character of modern civilisation, conflicts between different religious worldviews, and the multipolarity and multiculturalism of the contemporary world.

In “The Concept of the ‘West’ and the Tasks of NATO” (11 May 2001), the author not only addressed the meaning of the “West” as a symbol of good in Soviet times, but also called for treating it as a morally neutral concept. The author also believed in the end of the violent division of Europe and the bipolar model of the world, and reflected on Russia’s problems. Distrust of oneself and uncertainty about one’s own identity, in his view, can turn into distrust of the entire world and into aggressiveness, which may end in the appropriation of other people’s territories and the imposition of one’s own domination. Russia’s lack of self-confidence is easily compensated for by imperial rhetoric. Havel’s thoughts strikingly anticipated the future evolution of Russian policy at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The desire for self-assertion ended in the wars of 2008 against Georgia and of 2014-2015 against Ukraine.

The final essay in the collection, “The Restlessness of the Soul” (20 September 2002), recalls the author’s earlier suspicion of himself, already present during his Czechoslovak presidency, and the appeal of critical reflection for his readers.

The appendix contains the full text of Charter 77 and a brief chronology of Václav Havel’s life.

Havel should be remembered not only on anniversaries. He should be recalled not only because he spoke about Belarus and was concerned with Belarusian problems. One should return to Havel’s texts in order to see contemporary Belarusian life in the mirror of Czechoslovakia of the 1970s and 1980s and of the global consumer world. One should also return to them in order to be reminded of truth as a moral category.