Word: havelent
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...deepest layer of Prague is spiky, medieval, dark with coal dust. For years Vaclav Havel could look out from his dilapidated apartment building, across the fast, shallow Vltava River, and see the castle on the hill -- Hradcany, the high, elaborate complex that dominates the city. He could cross the river by the 14th century Charles Bridge, lined on either side with beseeching, tormented statuary -- church fathers, age-blackened saints...
...platzes swarming with backpackers; McDonald's opening a second branch, this one on Wenceslas Square, where the "velvet revolution" transpired in November 1989. The new McDonald's is in sight of the spot where Jan Palach set himself on fire for Czechoslovak freedom in 1969, the spot where Havel laid flowers in 1989 and was arrested for the deed. Now a deadpan sword swallower resembling Leonid Brezhnev draws a crowd of American children, and punkers with spiked Mohawk haircuts wander the medieval lanes...
...Kafka who invented the castle as literature -- the Prague castle of his novel being the symbolic seat of mysterious, anonymous power, an effect the Communists had a genius for. That Havel came to preside over the castle seemed the Czechoslovaks' graceful, transcendent leap out of the dark, a sort of miracle -- and an impish historical touch...
When the "velvet revolution" brought democracy to his country in 1989, Vaclav Havel hoped a strong and unified Czechoslovakia would help anchor a peaceful postcommunist Central Europe. Last week Havel's vision finally faded when Slovakia's parliament split the country by declaring its sovereignty. Moments later Havel stepped down as President of Czechoslovakia, giving up a long struggle to broker a federal power-sharing agreement. He may well be the leading candidate when the separate Czech Republic establishes the new office of president...
...designate Vaclav Klaus, whose Civic Democratic Party won the largest number of votes in the Czech republic, met with Meciar in two rounds of talks that ended with mutual accusations of intransigence. "The other side refuses to accept anything we are proposing," said Klaus, who has the support of Havel, the country's first postcommunist President. Part of the problem is that Slovaks believe their economically depressed republic bears the brunt of Klaus' radical proposals for privatization and austerity. But several thousand Czechs signed petitions in Prague calling for an independent Czech republic, complaining that Slovaks were backward-looking...