Some representatives of Czech philosophy, who after the 1948 coup d'etat were silenced for not wanting to give up their philosophical views and civic attitudes, have been mentioned in several preceding chapters. These include names like I.A. Bláha, J. Král, J.B. Kozák, A. Dratvová, K. Engli, V. Kube, J. Patoka, V. Navrátil and many others.

THE EMIGRÉS

Faced with this situation, some Czech philosophers decided to emigrate. Emigration, i.e., "a voluntary or forced leaving of one's country in order to live abroad for economic, political or religious reasons," is by no means an exceptional phenomenon in Czech history. The beginnings of the history of Czech emigration, motivated culturally and politically, date back to the very beginnings of Czech history in the period of the Great Moravian Empire. At that time, after the death of Archbishop Methodius, his disciples who advocated the Slavonic liturgy were forced to leave the country. Recently, Jaroslav Kadlec published a book about Czech Catholic exiles in the Hussite period. In the period after the Thirty Years War, Comenius, a member of the Order of Czech Brothers, became an internationally renowned Czech exile. The political situation in the country after the revolution in 1848 forced Josef Václav Fri, a radical democrat, to leave for abroad (he could not return home until 1879). Frantiek Matou Klácel, an Augustinian from the city of Brno, left for America in 1869 in order to try to realize, at least with the Czechs living in America, some of his dreams about the new life of the vesmernik people as affirming a national identity, yet aware of broader and ultimately of universal contexts. T.G. Masaryk, a philosopher, and E. Bene, a sociologist, were leading Czech politicians who, during World War I, supported the interests of their nation from abroad. There were also philosophers among the numerous emigrants who left the country before the German occupation.⁽¹⁷⁶⁾

As far as Czech philosophy in the twentieth century is concerned, the waves of emigrants connected with February, 1948 and August, 1968, appear to be the most important Their characteristic features have been explained in Pavel Tigrid's Politická emigrace atomového vku (Political Emigration in the Nuclear Age, 1974 and 1990). The emigration after February, 1948, occurred as the "direct effect of the failure of peaceful coexistence between Communists and democrats in the socialist Czechoslovak state in 1945-1948"; it was "basically an intellectual" emigration. Tigrid divided the emigrants after August, 1968, into three groups: 1. people persecuted or discredited by the regime; 2. the "expert labor force discriminated against from the point of view both of their careers and of subsistence and which often was even pestered by the regime's levelling personnel policy"; and, 3. "active participants in the reform movement, former state and political officials, journalists and writers, university professors."⁽¹⁷⁷⁾

As far as philosophical personalities are concerned, it was above all some of the religious thinkers who emigrated after February, 1948, e.g., the philosophizing theologians of the Roman Catholic Church (some of them, however, only after having spent several years in prison for alleged "espionage", "sabotage', etc.).

Ferdinand Peroutka (1895-1978, New York) is one of the best known emigrants after February, 1948. A leading Czech journalist, in the period between the wars he was an editor-in-chief of the weekly Pítomnost (The Present) and political editor of Lidové noviny (People's Newspaper), a columnist, and a writer.⁽¹⁷⁸⁾ From the point of view of philosophy, his major works were his book, Jací jsme: Pokus a národní charakteristiku (What We Are Like: An Attempt to Evolve a National Identity, 1924), and his treatise, Budování státu I-V (The Building of the State, 1933-1939), analyzing political events in the first four years of the republic. After World War II, which he spent in a concentration camp, and owing to his contributions in Svobodné noviny (The Free Newspaper) and a weekly Dneek (Today), he was designated one of the most categorical adversaries of Communism and the Communist press. Peroutka criticized the Communist ideas as early as the 1920s. In the first volume of Pítomnost he began to elaborate Pro nejsem komunistou? (Why Am I Not a Communist?).⁽¹⁷⁹⁾

Pavel Tigrid (born, 1917) became a double exile. The first time he emigrated to England in 1939, where he broadcast Czech programs on the BBC. In 1948 he emigrated for the second time, first to Munich where he worked for Radio Free Europe, and then to the U.S.A., and afterwards to France. In 1956 he founded and later edited Svdectví (Testimony), a political and cultural magazine. This review, designed not only for exiles, but for readers in Czechoslovakia as well, also published texts by Czechoslovak dissidents. After November, 1989, besides the aforementioned Politická emigrace, he published in Czechoslovakia a book reflecting on recent Czech history called Kapesní prvodce inteligentní eny po vlastním osudu (A Young Woman's Pocket Guide of Her Own Fate, 1990).

Jií Kovtun and Erazim Kohák emigrated after February 1948. Jií (Georg) Kovtun (born, 1927) studied law after the war and at the same time was an editor in Tigrid's weekly, Vývoj (Development). Since the 1970s he has been employed at the Library of Congress in Washington, where he has been doing research for his works on Masaryk: Slovo má poslanec Masaryk (Deputy Masaryk Will Now Take the Floor; Munich, 1985), Tomas G. Masaryk, 1850-1937 (Washington, 1981), The Czechoslovak Declaration of Independence (Washington, 1985).⁽¹⁸⁰⁾ Erazim Kohák (born, 1933) studied philosophy and theology in the U.S.A. where he is now a full professor at Boston University. He concentrates, above all, on problems of "pure philosophy", i.e., on the questions arising from "the timeless actuality of our general humanness". From the standpoint of Husserl's phenomenology, he attempts to face postmodern skepticism with a rationality conceived as "an ability to understand the sense of things and events" (whence he also views the problems of ecology). He wrote The Victors and the Vanquished, Na vlastní ki (Living it Through), Jan Patoka. Some of his studies have been published in the exile magazines Svdectví, Studie (Studies), Promny (Metamorphoses). In 1991 he published his lectures as visiting professor at Charles University: ivot v pravd a moderní skepse (Living in Truth and Modern Skepticism).

The situation of philosophers who did not keep their non-Marxist and non-Communist views secret is well-documented, e.g., in the biography of Ladislav Hejdánek (born, 1927). In 1952 he completed his studies at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University where he was a student of Patoka, Kozák and Rieger. However, he held only a corresponding "philosophical position" in 1968-1971 at the Philosophical Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (CSAS). Before 1968 he could publish only in the religious and literary magazines Kesanská revue (Christian Review), Tvá (The Face) and Plamen (The Flame); and, after 1970, only in the foreign and samizdat press: Expedice (Expedition), Svazky pro dialog (Volumes for a Dialogue) and OIKOUMENÉ. He was a member of Charta 77, and became active as its spokesperson after Jan Patoka's death. In 1985 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Amsterdam in recognition not only of his publications but also of the philosophical seminars he held in the 1980s in which foreign philosophers participated.

Since 1990 he has been teaching at the Theological Faculty and the Faculty of Arts of Charles University. Most of Hejdánek's works to date concentrate on the relations between philosophy, myth, faith, and theology. They attempt to answer the fundamental question: "what is philosophy", the possibilities of its various dimensions, and the place of religious faith in the lives of people today. Historico-philosophical inter pretations abound in his studies, and special attention is paid to the philosophical and theological tradition (he considers most important the work of Masaryk, Rádl, Kozák, Patoka, J.B. Souek, J.M. Lochman, etc.). In a number of articles he reflects on philosophico-political subjects, especially on the conditions for "living in truth". Hejdánek's publications abroad include a translation of his samizdat Praské dopisy (Letters from Prague) and Wahreit und Widerstand (Munich, 1988); in Czechoslovakia he published Filosofie a víra (Philosophy and Faith; Prague, 1990).⁽¹⁸¹⁾

Among the authors who had no possibility to publish after February, 1948, were Václav Navrátil and Josef afaík.

Václav Navrátil (1904-1961) studied philosophy at Charles University with J. Král and J.B. Kozák. From the late 1920s when he became an editor at Orbis publishing house he published articles in Kvart, Kritický msíník (Critical Monthly), Volné smry (Free Directions), Ruch filosofický (The Philosophical Action), eská mysl (The Czech Mind), etc. These include penetrating essays on philosophical subjects, mostly in the fields of aesthetics, ethics, and the theory of fine arts. He published the studies Filosofie a umní (Philosophy and Arts, 1935), Mylení obecné a mylení dialektické (General Thought and Dialectical Thought, 1937) and O sociálnim mylení (On Social Thought, 1939) and a collection of essays O smutku, lásce a jiných vcech (On Sorrow, Love, and Other Matters, 1940). (In her Studie o souasn esk filosofii [A Study on Contemporary Czech Philosophy], J. Popelová mentions another book by Navrátil as "being prepared for publication" and devoted to the "metaphysical aspects of writing poetry". She includes Navrátil among the group of Czech existentialists.) One of the themes to which Navrátil often returned was the myth (its development, functioning and end) in mundane events and in everyday stories of the mind.⁽¹⁸²⁾ Among foreign philosophers he drew inspiration above all from Bergson, Rickert, and Jaspers.

In 1947, Josef afaik published a collection of seven essays, Sedm list Melinovi (Seven Letters to Melin), dealing with what "jeopardizes the foundations of human existence" in the modern world; thereafter, however, he wrote only for "himself and his friends". At the end of the 1960s he published several articles in a miscellany called Podoby 2 (Appearances 2) and in Host do domu (The Guest in the House), and a magazine published in Brno in 1982-1984 in the samizdat miscellany, Moravská ítanka (A Moravian Reader). Since 1990 afaik's philosophical essays have been appearing in Proglas and other magazines published in Brno, e.g., lovk a stroj (Man and the Machine, No. 8, 1990).

MARXIST PHILOSOPHERS IN EXILE

In the chapter dealing with Czech Marxist philosophy, it was mentioned that, in 1969-1970, many philosophers whose names appeared on the covers of important publications of the `60s were forced to leave their universities and scholarly institutes. Some of them found an opportunity to pursue their philosophical research abroad.

Ivan Sviták (born, 1925) was among the philosophers in Czechoslovakia most frequently criticized for "revisionism" in philosophy and the theory of fine arts.⁽¹⁸³⁾ He dealt mostly with the history of philosophy, the science of religion, and relations between philosophy, science, and ideology. In 1970-1989 he lectured at the University of California; and since 1990 he has once again been living in Czechoslovakia. He continues acknowledging the ideals of socialism and the legacy of Marx's philosophy. Of course, he points out that, in his approach, Marx is "not identical with Marxism, or Lenin, let alone Stalinism". After November, 1989, in Czechoslovakia, he published books like Kulatý tverec (A Round Square) which is a collection of articles from 1968-1973; The Unbearable Burden of History of the Sovietization of Czechoslovakia I-III, Velký skluz (The Great Carry-Over), images of people from the Czechoslovak political scene in 1938-1948; Budoucnost komunismu (The Future of Communism), about the roots of bureaucratic dictatorships; Nesnesitelné bemeno djin (The Unbearable Burden of History), about the limits of reformist communism; and in August, 1968, Ztracené iluze (Lost Illusions), about the political developments in Czechoslovakia after November, 1989, etc.

Karel Mácha (born, 1931) is currently a professor of social philosophy at Gustav-Siewerth Akademie in Germany (in 1978-1988 he was a visiting professor at the University of Munich and in 1988-1989 at the Polytechnic University in New York). Until 1966 he was a research worker at the Philosophical Institute of the SAS, then a docent (an associate professor: This docentship was gained at the Philosophical Faculty in Brno) and later a full professor of the history of philosophy at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University--however, in 1970, he had to leave. In the 1960s he published works on ethics and the history of philosophy, e.g., Ke kritice buroazního individiualismu (On the Critique of Bourgeois Individualism), Etika a dneek (Ethics Today) together with K. Maruiak and L. Hrzal, Problém lovka (The Problems of Man), Mladá generace známá a neznámá (The Young Generation Known and Unknown), etc. Abroad, his publications include 100 Thesen zur einer integralen Anthropologie (A Hundred Theses on an Integral Anthropology), Die Menschliche Individualitat (Human Individuality), and Zweifel und Einsamkeit (Doubt and lonliness) which evidence his conversion from Marxism to Roman Catholic religious faith. From this point of view, he also attempted to interpret the history of Czech thought (philosophy, theology, political science) from its beginnings in the Great Moravian Empire up to the present.

Kvtoslav Chvatík (born, 1930) has been mentioned in the chapter on structuralism. After finishing his studies of philosophy at Charles University, Prague, he worked at the Philosophical Institute of the CSAS and as a docent (associate professor) at the University Philosophical Faculty. He studied, above all, aesthetics and the theory of art (especially literature): Bedich Václavek a vývoj marxistické estetiky (Bedich Václavek and the Development of Marxist Aesthetics, 1958), Smysl moderního umní (The Purpose of Modern Art, 1965) and Strukturalismus a avantgarda (Structuralism and the Avant-Garde, 1970). Dismissed from his post in 1970, he has since been working at the University of Konstanz. In Germany, he published a monograph on the aesthetics of Prague structuralism (1981), and a book of studies, Kunst und Struktur (1987), and edited an anthology of J. Mukaovsky's work entitled Kunst-Poetik-Semiotik (1989).

Lubomír Sochor, a Marxist philosopher and sociologist, and an historian of Marxism, spent the last of his life abroad. He studied philosophy and law at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University and for years lectured at the Faculty of Law. He became a docent in 1966, but a promotion to professor was turned down in 1969. In 1960 his main interests were the dark phases of the history of Marxist philosophy and the lines of development in the thought of leading Marxist or leftist authors (Adorno, Deborin, Fromm, Goldmann, Gramsci, Horkhmeier, Korsch, Lukacs, Marcuse, Trotsky, etc.).⁽¹⁸⁴⁾ He also dealt with the relationships between Marxism and Freudianism, and with the subject of bureaucracy. In his polemics with dogmatic Marxists who had "fallen prey to an institutional logic" he showed that abroad

there are scholars and philosophers who adopted the main theses of Marxist philosophy without being included in a political movement based on a Marxist program; further, there are individuals and even whole currents in the world Communist movement that remain very far from Marx's views and from the method of Marxist scientific thought.

In 1979 he left for Paris where he was active as a political writer, for which he lost his Czechoslovak citizenship in 1981. Some of his studies were published in exile in a book called Úvahy o ideologii a praxi reálného socialismu (Some Thoughts on the Theory and Practice of the Real Socialism, 1987).

Milan Prcha, after being a member of the Philosophical Institute, left in 1968. From the end of the 1950s he had published a number of articles in journals as well as some books: Filosofické problémy existence lovka (The philosophical Problems with the Existence of Man), Existencialismus (Existentialism), and Kult lovéka (The Cult of Man) which dealt with the problems brought about by "the man-centered current in philosophy". He was concerned mainly with an analysis of its points of departure and at the same time with overcoming it by "raising more original and fundamental questions than those that can be asked from the anthropological point of view."

Václav Blohradský belongs to a younger generation of philosophers in exile. Having published articles in Literární noviny (Literary Newspaper), Tvar (The Shape), and Mladá fronta dnes (The Young Front Today), he became more publicly known after November, 1989. After his studies of philosophy and Czech (and military service), he became a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Arts in Prague. In 1970 he found a new teaching position at the Rosmini Philosophical Institute in Genoa, where he is now a professor of sociology. Abroad, he published the essay "Krise eschatologie neosobnosti" ("The Crisis of the Eschatology of the Unpersonal") in a samizdat publication, Expedice (Exposition); he published a collection of his texts called Pirozený svt jako politický problém (The Natural World as a Political Problem) in 1984 and later, in Prague (1991). In 1990, as a visiting professor at Charles University, he presented a course of lectures, Demokracie po vymení svtluek (Democracy After the Extinction of Fireflies).⁽¹⁸⁵⁾

Both Rio Preissner (born, 1925), a literary critic and writer, and Bedich Loewenstein (born, 1929), an historian and political scientist, emphasized the philosophical aspects of their work. After leaving for abroad, Rio Preissner published the trilogy: Kritika totalitarismu (The Critique of Totalitarianism), eské existence (The Types of Czech Existence) and A na konec eska (To the End of Czech Lands).⁽¹⁸⁶⁾ Bedich Loewenstein (in the 1960s a research worker at the CSAS and later, a professor at Frei Universität in Berlin) published the works Der Entwurf der Moderne, Vom Geist der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft (1987, 1990) and Problemferder der Moderne (1990), wherein he deals with the ideological, social and historical foundations of modern society, its crises and deformations. In 1991, his book O nacionalismu a revolucích (On Nationalism and Revolution) was published in Prague.

INTERIOR EXILES

Some of the philosophers who were forced to leave their positions in 1969-1970, remained in Czechoslovakia and were concerned mainly with the history of Czech thought. Among them were Oleg Sus, Milan Machovec, Josef Zumr, Jií Bedná and Zbynk Fier..

The History of Czech Thought

Oleg Sus (1924-1982) has been introduced in the chapter discussing Czech structuralism. Here it is necessary to add only that after studying philosophy and Czech he was employed at the Faculty of Arts in Brno and, after 1960, as an associate professor of aesthetics. After 1970 he was forced to become a "freelance domestic researcher". Towards the end of the `60s, rather than continuing his previous analytical approach (in works dealing with the theory and history of aesthetics and philosophy), he began to adopt a more synthetic approach. He not only focused on individual studies, but also prepared whole collections which, however, were never published: Estetické problémy pol naptim (The High Voltage Aesthetic Problems), Geneze sémantiky hudby a poezie? (A Genesis Without Gods?).⁽¹⁸⁷⁾ After 1970, he was published only abroad and in samizdat literature. From his earlier works one should note at least: Metamorfózy smíchu a vzteku (The Metamorphosis of Laughter and Anger, 1963) and studies published in Sborník prací brnnské univerzity (Brno University Studies).⁽¹⁸⁸⁾

Milan Machovec (born, 1925), after 1968 a professor at Charles University, was among the initiators of systematic research into the history of Czech thought with his Husovo uení a jeho význam v tradici eského národa (The Teachings of John Huss and Its Significance in the Tradition of the Czech Nation, 1953), Frantiek Palacký a eská filosofie (Frantisek Palacky and Czech Philosophy, 1961), Josef Dobrovsky (1964), Tomá G. Masaryk (1968).⁽¹⁸⁹⁾ He dealt also with ethics in Smysl lidského ivota (The Meaning of Human Life, 1957 and 1965), and the relationships between philosophy and theology in Utopie blouznivc a sektá (The Utopias of Lunatics and Sectarians) in collaboration with Markéta Machovcová (1960), Novotomismus (Neo-thomism, 1962), O tzv. "dialektické" teologii souasného protestantismu (On the So-called "Dialectical" Theology of Contemporary Protestantism, 1962), Sv. Augustin (St. Augustine, 1967), and Theologie und Revolution (Hamburg, 1969). After 1970 he accepted a position as organist, but had to give this up after signing Charta 77. Of all his works published abroad after 1970, only Evangélium pro ateisty (The Gospel for Atheists, 1991) has been published in Czechoslavkia so far.

Josef Zumr (born, 1928) was a research worker at the Philosophical Institute of the CSAS in 1957-1969. After being dismissed from the academy, he made a living by translating. Later, in 1988-1989, he worked in the Bureau of Greek and Latin Studies. After November, 1989, he became the director of the Philosophical Institute. He concentrates above all on the history of 18th-19th century philosophy (J.F. Herbart) and on the history of Czech thought (Herbartism, structuralism, the classical traditions) and its important figures (A. Smetana, O. Hostinský, T.G. Masaryk, L. Klíma, J.L. Fischer, J. Mukaovský, J. Patoka, and others). Together with Robert Kalivoda, he edited Antologie z djin eského a slovenského filosofického mylení (An Anthology From the History of Czech and Slovak Philosophical Thought). Zumr's texts from 1970-1989 were published anonymously, e.g., some Czech texts in Antologie z djin eského a slovenského filosofického mylení I (An Anthology from the History of Czech and Slovak Philosophical Thought, I, 1982), in samizdat miscellanies, or abroad. After 1989 he has been publishing mostly in Filosofický asopis (The Philosophical Journal).

Jií Bedná (1935-1973), a research worker at the Philosophical Institute of the CSAS, focused his attention on the leading figures of world and Czech history. Works by Camus, Dostoevski, Kafka, Masaryk, alda, and Rádl were stimuli to carry out his own analyses on the place of man in the world and the meaning of his life. Until 1970 he published mostly in Filosofický asopis.

Zbynk Fier (born, 1930), a philosopher and writer, who also used the pen-name Egon Bondy, became a distinct figure of the Czech "underground cultural movement" of the `70s and `80s. After studying philosophy (1957-1961), he worked at the National Library. In his books Otázky bytí a existence (The Questions of Being and Existence, 1967), and técha z ontologie (The Consolation of Ontology, 1969), he attempted to outline a non-essentialist theory of being, considering ontology to be a field of "basic philosophical research". In a monograph called Buddha, he pointed out that Eastern philosophy, especially Buddhism, often served as a source of inspiration for European thought. After 1970, his work was published mainly abroad and in samizdat sources, especially his poems and fiction, e.g., his novel Invalidní sourozenci (This Disabled Brother and Sister, Toronto, 1981)--he had become disabled in 1967. He associated himself with "left Marxism" which provided his method for philosophical work.

Literature and the Arts

The level of philosophical thought in the Czech milieu has also been maintained and further cultivated by persons who focused their attention largely on special fields of knowledge or on their own literary endeavors.

Václav erný (1905-1987), a literary critic and historian, in 1936 became an associate professor and in 1945 a full professor of Romance literatures and comparative literary history at Charles University. He caught the attention of Josef Král who, in his eskoslovenská filosofie (Czechoslovak Philosophy, 1937), mentioned erný's Ideové koeny souasného umní (The Ideological Roots of Contemporary Art, 1929), Bergson a ideologie souasného romantismu (Bergson and the Ideology of Contemporary Romanticism, 1929), and Essai sur le titanism dans la posie romantique (Essay on the Titans in Romantic Poetry, 1935). erný's attitude towards Western philosophy is reflected clearly in his translation of Ortega y Gassett's "The Rebellion of the Masses". When Král edited a new edition of eskoslovenská filosofie (which was never published) he noted erný's essays on baroque thought, the Esey o básnickém baroku (Essay on Baroque Poetry, 1937), and Baroko a jeho poezie (Baroque and Its Poetry), an introduction to a miscellany called Ké hoí popel mj (May My Ashes Burn, 1967), and on existentialism, Prvni seit o existencialismu (The First Volume on Existentialism, 1948). Of crucial importance for Czech culture was erný's journal Kritický msíník (Critical Monthly). In 1970, he had to leave the university for the second time (in 1954-1968 he worked in various academic institutes for a long time as a librarian), and afterwards he could be published only abroad and in samizdat publications. It is necessary to note at least his reflections on recent Czech history, Plá koruny eské (The Crying of the Czech Crown, Toronto, 1976), his studies on Masaryk Podstata Masarykovy osobnosti a ím nám TGM zstavá (The Nature of Masaryk's Personality and What TGM Means for Us Nowadays), Výroí smrti T.G. Masaryka (The anniversary of T.G. Masaryk's Death), Nkolik poznámek o Masarykovu moderním pocitu náboenském (Some Notes on Masaryk's Modern Religious Feeling)⁽¹⁹⁰⁾ and his Pamti I, II (Memoirs I and II, 1983). In 1983 he published an essay, O povaze naí kultury (On the Character of Our Culture).

The characteristic feature of the work of Jindich Chalupecký (1910-1990) was his effort to provide a "philosophical grounding for the interpretations of modern art". As an art and literary critic and theorist, his work is essential not only for the theory of fine arts, but for philosophy as long as it takes artistic production as a specific statement about man and his world. The historian of Czech philosophy must mention not only Chalupecký's work, Svt, ve kterém ijeme (The World We Live In, 1940), which was the ideological point of departure for Group 42, and Umní dnes (Art Today, 1966), and essays on the character and tendencies of contemporary art, but also his journal Listy (Letters) that introduced to Czechoslovakia "all that was crucial in the world of philosophy, aesthetics, art, and literature after World War II, and that could, in the arid 50s, be drawn on insatiably."⁽¹⁹¹⁾ In 1980, the Jazz Section managed to publish Chalupecký's study, O dada, surrealismu a eském umní (On Dada, Surrealism and Czech Art). Otherwise, after 1970, Chalupecký could only be published abroad and in samizdat. Under his own auspices, he published his "philosophical diary", Portrét umlce v moderním svt (Portrait of an Artist in the Modern World, 1982).⁽¹⁹²⁾

Among the younger generation of artists and writers who, while being involved in their confrontation with the regime also dealt with philosophical issues, is playwright Václav Havel (born, 1936). Along with Jan Patoka, he is generally considered the most important representative of Czech independent culture in the `60s and after the so-called "normalization" in 1968. After taking his finals at an evening high school, Havel spent two years at the Technical College, for he was not allowed to study at the university. After finishing his military service, he worked as a stage hand from 1960 at the Divadlo na Zábradli (the Theater on the Balustrade), where his best-known play Zahradní slavnost (The Garden Party) was staged for the first time. His plays Vyrozumní (The Memorandum) and Ztíená monost dorozumní (An Aggravated Possibility of Communication) also date back to the `60s. In the late `60s he publicized his ideas for a democratic society through numerous political and organizational activities, e.g., in 1968 he was voted chairman of Kruh nezávislých spisovatel (The Circle of Independent Writers). He continued along the same lines in the `70s and `80s, both in the events organized by Charta 77⁽¹⁹³⁾ and as a dramatist, with: ebrácká opera (The Beggar's Opera), Audience (The Audience), Vernisá (Private View), Protest (The Protest), Largo Desolato, (The Desolate Square), Pokuení (The Temptation), and Asanace (Slum Clearance), and as an essayist. His works dealing with philosophical and political issues, published in exile magazines or in samizdat, not only analyzed the state of Czech society but also expressed his opinions about the tasks of those citizens, above all intellectuals, who did not want to give in to the totalitarian political power. These include Dopisy Olze (Letters to Olga) written in prison where Havel spent some six years, and Dálkový výslech (Long Distance Interrogation) as well as interviews with Karel Hvidala, and the essays: Moc bezmocných (The Power of the Powerless), Politika a svdomí (Politics and Conscience), Anatomie jedné zdrenlivosti (An Anatomy of Reticence), Píbh a totalita (The Story and Totalitarianism), Slovo o slov (A Word About the Word), etc.⁽¹⁹⁴⁾ The positive reception Havel's work met in Czechoslovakia as well as abroad and the role he played in the events around November, 1989, logically made him a leading figure of Czechoslovak political life and led to his becoming the president.

Finally, it should be noted that the unofficial philosophical life in the `70s and `80s did not consist solely of works published in the numerous samizdat editions. Its significant components were also "household" lectures and seminars that attempted to create an environment for free philosophical thought. In Prague these were organized, according to Patoka's example, by Ladislav Hejdánk, Zbynk Fier-Bondy, Milan Machovec, Julius Tomin, Zdenk Neubauer, and others. In 1984-1989 similar seminars also took place in Brno, supported by the John Huss Foundation.⁽¹⁹⁵⁾ The important thing was that these seminars were frequented by young people interested in philosophy who could not (or did not want to) study philosophy at the university, or who had to terminate their studies prematurely.