David Satran | Václav Havel and Jan Patočka: to Live (and Die) in Truth

Between the events of the Prague Spring of 1968 and the fall of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia in the final months of 1989, a preeminent figure emerged within the dissident movement: Václav Havel, a young playwright whose dramatic works had been banned from the stage but whose political essays gave trenchant expression to the principles and goals of the dissenters. It is no surprise that Havel was one of the principal signatories of “Charter (Charta) 77,” the central document of opposition to the regime, but far from obvious was one of the names that appeared next to his: Jan Patočka, a professor of philosophy nearing seventy, a student of both Husserl and Heidegger, and who, until this moment, had remained far from the political stage. Even as an academician, Patočka had been a marginalized figure – barred from university teaching for almost his entire career due to his refusal to join the Communist party. His unofficial seminars, however, attended by Havel and scores of other curious and creative young people, earned him an extraordinary stature and deep influence within the Opposition movement. Patočka’s tragic death, only a few months after his emergence as one of the spokesmen of the movement, transformed his status into that of a philosophic martyr for truth and freedom. This talk will examine the relationship between Havel and Patočka, with an emphasis on central themes in their views on moral responsibility, sacrifice and living in truth.