Interview between Timothy Snyder and Lenka Kabrhelová
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- Created Date
- 2017
- Description
(Biographical) Timothy Snyder is an American historian of Eastern Europe who teaches at Yale University. He was born in 1969 and describes himself as belonging to “the very last Cold War generation.” Snyder’s first contact with Václav Havel was “in translation, on the printed page, in the early 1980s.” He met Havel for the first time in person in Bratislava in 2009 at the Central European Forum, at which both men spoke. Snyder refers to Havel’s texts – in particular The Power of the Powerless – as continually stimulating for both his own writing and teaching. Reflecting upon his most recent publication, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Snyder says he “literally could not have done it without Havel.” The historian believes that students, and American young people more generally, can learn from Havel’s philosophy that “resistance is thoughtful… and that thoughtfulness is a kind of resistance.” In this Havel Conversations interview, Snyder reflects upon some of the contradictions and near “impossible” tasks that faced Havel upon becoming president in 1989. He comments on the centrality of human rights to Havel’s foreign policy, as well as the ways in which the late Czech president was “abused” by members of the US political establishment. Snyder characterizes Havel as an inspiration and point of reference for champions of civil society today, discussing in particular the case of Slava Vakarchuk, a massively popular Ukrainian musician and activist.
- Creator
The Vaclav Havel Library Foundation
- Contributing Institution
- Vaclav Havel Library Foundation
- Supporting Institution
- Florida International University Libraries
- Type
- moving image
- Language
- English
- Standardized Rights Statement
- In Copyright:This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
- Chicago citation style
- The Vaclav Havel Library Foundation. Interview between Timothy Snyder and Lenka Kabrhelová. 2017. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI17062601/00001. (Accessed March 28, 2024.)
- APA citation style
- The Vaclav Havel Library Foundation, (2017) Interview between Timothy Snyder and Lenka Kabrhelová. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI17062601/00001
- MLA citation style
- The Vaclav Havel Library Foundation. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America <http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI17062601/00001>.