The Power of the Powerless and Further Havelian Paradoxes in the Stream of Time

Abstract

Recognizing Václav Havel’s essentially dramatic and paradoxical perception of reality can help us to resolve apparent contradictions in his thought before and after 1989, revealing fundamental continuities. The authors trace Havel’s thinking and its reception—both at home and abroad—from The Power of the Powerless to his Czechoslovak and Czech presidencies, explaining how his thinking changed and did not change over the quarter century from 1978 to 2003. Throughout this period, the authors argue, Havel remained committed to certain core ideas of The Power of the Powerless (perhaps most notably “post-democracy”) though perestroika and especially the revolution of 1989 altered possibilities for their realization. While Havel’s sense for ambivalence and paradoxical tension was often fruitful, it could also have problematic implications for political practice and political culture.

Interpretative Frames, Phenomenology, and the Question of the Republican Character of Polish and Czech Dissident Movements of the 1970s and 1980s

“…Although Wojtyła's book was a philosophical and theological treatise, rather than an explicitly political tract, it remained keenly aware of the social-or "communal," to use Wojtyła's phrasing-meaning of his thought. A call to living in truth was readily embraced by many Polish dissidents 114 and resonated well with the previous, purely philosophical, elaborations of the future pope.…”

Beyond “The Power of the Powerless”: the Political Thought and Polemics of the Czechoslovak Opposition, 1977–1980

“…2 Pioneering studies of the richness and plurality of political thought among Czechoslovak dissidents include the English-language works of H. GordonSkilling (1981),Barbara Falk (2003), AviezerTucker (2000), and JonathanBolton (2012). More recent scholarship includes works on dissent by KristinaAndělová (2019;2021);Suk and Andělová (2018), and MichalKopeček (2019) are worthy of attention. hanyš East Central Europe 50 (2023) 279-303 Downloaded from Brill.com 06/02/2024 12:12:47AM via Open Access.…”