The Price of Velvet: On Thomas Masaryk and Vaclav Havel

Both Masaryk and Havel are “President-Liberators,” who helped bring about the transition from a repudiated regime to a more legitimate one. Masaryk found this title being formally attributed to him. It is unlikely this precedent will be followed in the case of Havel. Both were/are intellectuals deeply concerned with the moral basis of politics and, in particular, the moral basis of their own participatory politics. In the days preceding victory, both had been part of a small minority in opposition to the regime they eventually replaced. Havel opposed a regime which was vile even by the exacting standards of “really existing socialism.”