Summary
For my money, the classic in this respect is the third Vanek play, Protest (1978), in which the wealthy television writer Stanek, enjoying the ruling regime's patronage, strives to present himself to Vanek as a principled opponent ofthe police state, while steering clear of his "dissident ghetto" whose routine protests are utterly futile because (claims Stanek) they are fatally predictable. Starting with humanist platitudes, Rieger moves on to claim economic policies clearly intended to parody those of Klaus: he talks of incentives to foreign investors, "including zero-sum or negative-sum tax payments and special profit-based rewards ... a polyfunctional promotional campaign for qualifying corporations".
See the full content of this document
Extract
The Leading Man
It seemed out of the question for Václav Havel to become president of Czechoslovakia after 40 years of Communist rule. The long-haired playwright had been just a persistent dissident voice, if one making some of the most eloquent minority demands for civil liberties, notably Charter 77. Everything changed when the new Civic Forum of November 1989 brought crowds to Wenceslas Square unanswerably demanding freedom from a collapsing Soviet empire. In the course of ...
See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
