What’s the future of Central and Eastern European liberal democracies? Join a provocative conversation with Jiri Pehe, former chief political advisor to the Czech president Vaclav Havel and one of Prague’s most insightful commentators.
The Czech journalist and political writer Jiri Pehe, director of New York University’s center in Prague, is a shrewd observer of both the American and European political scenes. He will talk with Dr. Marilyn Wyatt, former cultural affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in Prague and board member of the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation in New York City.
This conversation, the second in the series Havel Conversations on Zoom, will be on the future of liberal democracies in Central and Eastern Europe. Are the values of the Czechoslovak 1989 Velvet Revolution still alive today, ten years after Vaclav Havel’s death? Or is it more accurate to say—as many do—that the region’s democratic transition has failed to fulfil its promise? Are the stresses experienced by the Visegrad countries the same as those undermining democracy in western Europe and the US? What is the path forward for the Biden administration as it tries to rebuild the alliance of democracies?
““Recent opinion polls and election results, in which the older post-communist generation particularly favors illiberal parties and populists, suggest that we may need to tell a new story about the Velvet Revolution. . . .” ”
JIRI PEHE is an affiliated faculty member at New York University’s Center for European and Mediterranean Studies as well as director of NYU Prague. From September 1997 to May 1999 he directed the Political Department under President Havel and later served as the president’s advisor. Previously he was director of Central European research at the Research Institute of RFE/RL in Munich. The author of six books on politics and four novels, Pehe has written extensively on current events in Eastern Europe for American, Czech, and German periodicals and academic journals.
MARILYN WYATT is a former diplomat who served as cultural affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in Prague from 1992 to 1994. Since 2000 she has worked as a consultant in governance to civil society sectors around the world and, more recently, as an editor specializing in development and foreign affairs. She lived in Prague from 2005 to 2010, and returns frequently to her beloved adopted city. She is a vice chair of the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation board.
This event will be livestreamed on ZOOM. RSVP through Eventbrite to receive a Zoom link. It will be recorded and available on YouTube.
Free and open to the public. Suggested donation $10.
This event is organized by the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation with support of Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association.