Václav Havel

Václav Havel

In office
2 February 1993 – 2 February 2003
Prime Minister Václav Klaus
Josef Tošovský
Miloš Zeman
Vladimír Špidla
Preceded by Position established
Succeeded by Václav Klaus
10th President of Czechoslovakia
In office
29 December 1989 – 20 July 1992
Prime Minister Marián Čalfa
Jan Stráský
Preceded by Gustáv Husák
Succeeded by Jan Stráský (acting)
Born 5 October 1936 (1936-10-05) (age 74)
Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic)
Political party Civic Forum
Spouse(s) Olga Šplíchalová (1964–1996)
Dagmar Veškrnová (1997–present)
Alma mater Czech Technical University in Prague
Faculty of Theatre
Profession Playwright
Signature
Website www.vaclavhavel.cz
www.vaclavhavel-library.org

Václav Havel (Czech pronunciation: [ˈvaːtslaf ˈɦavɛl]  ( listen)) (born 5 October 1936 in Czechoslovakia) is a Czech playwright, essayist, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and the first President of the Czech Republic (1993–2003). He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally. He has received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, the Order of Canada, and the Ambassador of Conscience Award. He was also voted 4th in Prospect Magazine's 2005 global poll of the world's top 100 intellectuals.[1] He is a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism[2].

Beginning in the 1960s, his work turned to focus on the politics of Czechoslovakia. After the Prague Spring, he became increasingly active. In 1977, his involvement with the human rights manifesto Charter 77 brought him international fame as the leader of the opposition in Czechoslovakia; it also led to his imprisonment. The 1989 "Velvet Revolution" launched Havel into the presidency. In this role he led Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic to multi-party democracy. His thirteen years in office saw radical change in his nation, including its split with Slovakia, which Havel opposed, its accession into NATO and start of the negotiations for membership in the European Union, which was attained in 2004.

Contents

Biography

Václav Havel was born in Prague, on October 5, 1936. He grew up in a well-known and wealthy entrepreneurial and intellectual family, which was closely linked to the cultural and political events in Czechoslovakia from the 1920s to the 1940s. His father was the owner of the suburb Barrandov which was located on the highest point of Prague. Havel's mother came from a well known family; her father was an ambassador and well-known journalist. Because of Havel's bourgeois history, the Communist regime did not allow Havel to study formally after he had completed his required schooling in 1951. In the first part of the 1950s, the young Havel entered into a four-year apprenticeship as a chemical laboratory assistant and simultaneously took evening classes; he completed his secondary education in 1954. For political reasons, he was not accepted into any post-secondary school with a humanities program; therefore, he opted to study at the Faculty of Economics of Czech Technical University in Prague but dropped out after two years.[3] In 1964, Havel married proletarian Olga Šplíchalová, much to the displeasure of his mother.[4]

Early theater career

The intellectual tradition of his family compelled Václav Havel to pursue the humanitarian values of Czech culture. After military service (1957–59), he worked as a stagehand in Prague (at the Theater On the Balustrade - Divadlo Na zábradlí) and studied drama by correspondence at the Theater Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU). His first publicly performed full-length play, besides various vaudeville collaborations, was The Garden Party (1963). Presented in a season of Theater of the Absurd, at the Balustrade, it won him international acclaim. It was soon followed by The Memorandum, one of his best known plays, and the The Increased Difficulty of Concentration, all at the Balustrade. In 1968, The Memorandum was also brought to The Public Theater in New York, which helped establish his reputation in the United States. The Public continued to produce his plays over the next years, although after 1968 his plays were banned in his own country, Havel was unable to leave Czechoslovakia to see any foreign performances.

Dissident

During the first week of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, Havel provided a commentary on the events on Radio Free Czechoslovakia in Liberec. Following the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968 he was banned from the theatre and became more politically active. He was forced to take a job in a brewery, an experience he wrote about in his play Audience. This play, along with two other "Vaněk" plays (so-called because of the recurring character Ferdinand Vaněk, a stand in for Havel), became distributed in samizdat form across Czechoslovakia, and greatly added to Havel's reputation of being a leading revolutionary (several other Czech writers later wrote their own plays featuring Vaněk).[5] This reputation was cemented with the publication of the Charter 77 manifesto, written partially in response to the imprisonment of members of the Czech psychedelic band The Plastic People of the Universe.[6] He also co-founded the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted in 1979. His political activities resulted in multiple stays in prison, the longest being four years, and also subjected him to constant government surveillance and harassment. His longest stay in prison, from June 1979 to January 1984, is documented in Letters to Olga, his late wife.

He was also famous for his essays, most particularly for his articulation of “Post-Totalitarianism” (Power of the Powerless), a term used to describe the modern social and political order that enabled people to "live within a lie." A passionate supporter of non-violent resistance, a role in which he has been compared, by former US President Bill Clinton, to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., he became a leading figure in the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the bloodless end to communism in Czechoslovakia.

His motto was "Truth and love must prevail over lies and hate."

Presidency

Václav Havel and Karol Sidon (left), his friend and later chief Czech rabbi
Flag of the president of the Czech Republic

On 29 December 1989, while leader of the Civic Forum, he became president by a unanimous vote of the Federal Assembly. This was an ironic turn of fate for a man who had long insisted that he was uninterested in politics. He joined many dissidents of the period arguing that political change should happen through civic initiatives autonomous from the state, rather than through the state itself. He was awarded[7] the Prize For Freedom of the Liberal International in 1990.[8][9]

After the free elections of 1990 he retained the presidency. Despite increasing tensions, Havel supported the retention of the federation of the Czechs and the Slovaks during the breakup of Czechoslovakia. On 3 July 1992 the federal parliament did not elect Havel — the only candidate — due to a lack of support from Slovak MPs. After the Slovaks issued their Declaration of Independence, he resigned as president on 20 July. When the Czech Republic was created, he stood for election as president on 26 January 1993, and won.

Although Havel has been quite popular throughout his career, his popularity abroad surpassed his popularity at home, and he was no stranger to controversy and criticism. An extensive general pardon, one of his first acts as a president, was an attempt to both lessen the pressure in overcrowded prisons and release those who may have been falsely imprisoned during the Communist era. He had felt that decisions of a corrupt court of the previous regime could not be trusted, and that most in prison had not been fairly tried.[10] Critics claimed that this amnesty raised the crime rate. According to Havel's memoir To the Castle and Back, most of those released had less than a year of their sentence to run. Statistics have not lent clear support to that allegation.

In an interview with Karel Hvížďala (also included in To the Castle and Back), Havel stated that he felt his most important accomplishment as president was the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. This proved quite complicated, as the infrastructure created by the pact was so ingrained in the workings of the countries involved and indeed in their general consciousness. It took two years before the Soviet troops finally fully withdrew from Czechoslovakia.

Following a legal dispute with his sister-in-law, Havel decided to sell his 50% stake in the Lucerna Palace on Wenceslas Square, a legendary dance hall built by his grandfather Václav Havel. In a transaction arranged by Marián Čalfa, Havel sold the estate to Václav Junek, a former communist spy in France and leader of soon-to-be-bankrupt conglomerate Chemapol Group, who later openly admitted he bribed politicians of Czech Social Democratic Party.[11]

In December 1996 the chain smoking Havel was diagnosed as having lung cancer.[12] The disease reappeared two years later. He later quit smoking. In 1996, Olga, beloved by the Czech people and his wife of 32 years died of cancer. Less than a year later Havel remarried, to actress Dagmar Veškrnová.[13]

The former political prisoner was instrumental in enabling the transition of NATO from being an anti-Warsaw Pact alliance to its present inclusion of former-Warsaw Pact members, like the Czech Republic. Havel advocated vigorously for the expansion of the military alliance into Eastern Europe, including the Czech Republic.[14][15]

Havel was re-elected president in 1998. He had to undergo a colostomy in Innsbruck when his colon ruptured while on holiday in Austria.[16] Havel left office after his second term as Czech president ended on 2 February 2003; Václav Klaus, one of his greatest political opponents, was elected his successor on 28 February 2003. Margaret Thatcher writes of the two men in her foreign policy treatise, Statecraft, reserving greater respect for Havel, whose dedication to democracy and defying the Communists earned her admiration.[17][18][19]

Post-presidential career

In his post-presidency Havel has focused on European affairs

Since 1997, Havel has hosted a conference entitled Forum 2000.[20] In 2005, the former President occupied the Kluge Chair for Modern Culture at the John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress, where he continued his research in human rights.[21] In November and December 2006, Havel spent eight weeks as a visiting artist in residence at Columbia University. The stay was sponsored by the university's Arts Initiative, and featured "lectures, interviews, conversations, classes, performances, and panels center[ing] on his life and ideas", including a public "conversation" with former U.S. President Bill Clinton. Concurrently, the Untitled Theater Company #61 launched a Havel Festival, the first complete festival of his plays in various venues throughout New York City, in celebration of his 70th birthday.[22][23][24][25][26][27][28]

In May 2007, Havel's memoir of his experiences as President, To the Castle and Back, was published. The book mixes an interview in the style of Disturbing the Peace with actual memos he sent to his staff with modern diary entries and recollections.[29]

On 4 August 2007, Havel met with members of the Belarus Free Theatre at his summer cottage in the Czech Republic, in a show of his continuing support, which has been instrumental in its attaining international recognition and its membership in the European Theatrical Convention.[30][31] Havel's first new play in over 18 years, Leaving (Odcházení), was published in November 2007, to have its world premiere in June 2008 at the Prague theater Divadlo na Vinohradech,[32] but the theater withdrew it in December.[33] The play instead premiered on 22 May 2008 at the Archa Theatre to standing ovations.[34] Havel based the play on King Lear, by William Shakespeare, and on The Cherry Orchard, by Anton Chekhov; "Chancellor Vilém Rieger is the central character of Leaving, who faces a crisis after being removed from political power."[32] In September, the play had its English language premiere at the Orange Tree Theatre in London. Currently, Havel is working on directing a film version of that play.

In 2008 Havel became Member of the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation, an NGO designed to monitor tolerance in Europe and prepare practical recommendations on fighting anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia on the continent.

Havel met with U. S. President Barack Obama at the European Union (EU) and United States (US) summit in Prague on 5 April 2009.[35] He had written Obama a letter inviting the president to come to Prague.[36]

Havel is the chair of the International Council of the Human Rights Foundation.[37]

Awards

On 4 July 1994 Václav Havel was awarded the Philadelphia Liberty Medal. In his acceptance speech, he said: "The idea of human rights and freedoms must be an integral part of any meaningful world order. Yet I think it must be anchored in a different place, and in a different way, than has been the case so far. If it is to be more than just a slogan mocked by half the world, it cannot be expressed in the language of departing era, and it must not be mere froth floating on the subsiding waters of faith in a purely scientific relationship to the world."[38] In 1997 he was the recipient of the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca.

In 2002, he was the third recipient of the Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award presented by the Prague Society for International Cooperation. In 2003 he was awarded the International Gandhi Peace Prize, named after Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi by the government of India for his outstanding contribution towards world peace and upholding human rights in most difficult situations through Gandhian means. In 2003, Havel was the inaugural recipient of Amnesty International's Ambassador of Conscience Award for his work in promoting human rights.[39] In 2003, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.[40] In January 2008, the Europe-based A Different View cited Havel to be one of the 15 Champions of World Democracy. Other champions mentioned were Nelson Mandela, Lech Wałęsa, and Corazon Aquino.[41] As a former Czech President, Havel is a member of the Club of Madrid.[42] In 2009 he was awarded the Quadriga Award.[43]

Havel has also received multiple honorary doctorates from various universities.[44]

He was elected in 1993 an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature [45]

State Awards

Country Awards[46] Date Place
 Argentina Order of the Liberator San Martin Collar 09/1996 Buenos Aires
 Austria Decoration for Science and Art 11/2005 Vienna
 Brazil Order of the Southern Cross Grand Collar
Order of Rio Branco Grand Cross		 10/1990
09/1996		 Prague
Brasília
 Canada Order of Canada Honorary Companion 03/2004 Prague
 Czech Republic Order of the White Lion 1st Class (Civil Division) with Collar Chain
Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk 1st Class		 10/2003 Prague
 Estonia Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana The Collar of the Cross 04/1996 Tallinn
 France Légion d'honneur Grand Cross
Order of Arts and Letters Commander		 03/1990
02/2001		 Paris
 Germany Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Special class of the Grand Cross 05/2000 Berlin
 Hungary Order of Merit of Hungary Grand Cross with Chain 09/2001 Prague
 India Gandhi Peace Prize 08/2003 Delhi
 Italy Order of Merit of the Republic Grand Cross with Cordon 04/2002 Rome
 Jordan Order of Hussein ibn' Ali Collar 09/1997 Amman
 Latvia Order of the Three Stars Grand Cross with Collar 08/1999 Prague
 Lithuania Order of Vytautas the Great Grand Cross 09/1999 Prague
 Poland Order of the White Eagle 10/1993 Warsaw
 Portugal Order of Liberty Grand Collar 12/1990 Lisbon
 Republic of China Order of Brilliant Star with Special Grand Cordon 11/2004 Taipei
 Slovakia Order of the White Double Cross 01/2003 Bratislava
 Slovenia The Golden honorary Medal of Freedom 11/1993 Ljubljana
 Spain Order of Isabella the Catholic Grand Cross with Collar 07/1995 Prague
 Turkey National Decoration of Republic of Turkey 10/2000 Ankara
 Ukraine Order of Yaroslav the Wise 10/2006 Prague
 United Kingdom Order of the Bath Knight Grand Cross(Civil Division) 03/1996 Prague
 USA Presidential Medal of Freedom 07/2003 Washington D.C.
 Uruguay Medal of the Republic 09/1996 Montevideo

Works

Havel with American poet, Hedwig Gorski

Collections of poetry

Plays

Non-fiction books

Cultural allusions and interests

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Prospect Intellectuals: The 2005 List". http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/prospect-100-intellectuals/. Retrieved 6 April 2010. 
  2. ↑ "Prague Declaration - Declaration Text". 3 June 2008. http://www.praguedeclaration.org/. Retrieved 28 January 2010. 
  3. ↑ Vaclav Havel — Biography. The official website of Vaclav Havel . Retrieved 4 June 2008.
  4. ↑ David Remnick, "Exit Havel", The New Yorker 10 February 2003, accessed 29 April 2007., http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/vhavel.htm. Petri Liukkonen (author) & Ari Pesonen. Kuusankosken kaupunginkirjasto 2008. 4 December 2008.
  5. ↑ Goetz-Stankiewicz, Marketa, The Vanӗk Plays, 1987, University of British Columbia Press
  6. ↑ Richie Unterberger, "The Plastic People of the Universe", richieunterberger.com 26 February 2007. Retrieved 29 April 2007.
  7. ↑ Vaclav Havel (1990)
  8. ↑ Stanger, Richard L. "Václav Havel: Heir to a Spiritual Legacy". The Christian Century (Christian Century Foundation), 11 April 1990: 368–370. Rpt. in religion-online.org ("with permission"; "prepared for Religion Online by Ted & Winnie Brock"). ["Richard L. Stanger is senior minister at Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn, New York."]
  9. ↑ Tucker, Scott. "Capitalism with a Human Face?". The Humanist (American Humanist Association), 1 May 1994, "Our Queer World". Rpt. in High Beam Encyclopedia (an online encyclopedia). Accessed 21 December 2007. ["Vaclav Havel's philosophy and musings."]
  10. ↑ Havel's New Year's address
  11. ↑ Paul Berman, "The Poet of Democracy and His Burdens", The New York Times Magazine 11 May 1997 (original inc. cover photo), as rpt. in English translation at Newyorske listy (New York Herald). Retrieved 29 April 2007.
  12. ↑ "Vaclav Havel: from 'bourgeois reactionary' to president", author not mentioned, Radio Prague (the international service of Czech radio)
  13. ↑ "Vaclav Havel: End of an era" by Richard Allen Greene, BBC News online, 9 October 2003
  14. ↑ Václav Havel, "NATO: The Safeguard of Stability and Peace In the Euro-Atlantic Region", in European Security: Beginning a New Century, eds. General George A. Joulwan & Roger Weissinger-Baylon, papers from the XIIIth NATO Workshop: On Political-Military Decision Making, Warsaw, Poland, 19–23 June 1996.
  15. ↑ Žižek, Slavoj. "Attempts to Escape the Logic of Capitalism". Book review of Vaclav Havel: A Political Tragedy in Six Acts, by John Keane. the London Review of Books, 28 October 1999. Retrieved 21 December 2007.
  16. ↑ Havel's Medical Condition Seems to Worsen, New York Times
  17. ↑ Welch, Matt. "Velvet President", Reason (May 2003). Rpt. in Reason Online. Retrieved 21 December 2007.
  18. ↑ Václav Havel "Famous Czechs of the Past Century: Václav Havel" – English version of article featured on the official website of the Czech Republic.
  19. ↑ "A Revolutionary President" – Feature article on Prague tourism website, prague-life.com. ("Prague Czech Republic Travel Guide © Lifeboat Limited UK Registered Company No. 5351515.")
  20. ↑ Forum 2000 Foundation – Website of conference founded and hosted by Havel annually in Prague since 1997.
  21. ↑ Havel, Václav (May 24, 2005). Václav Havel: The Emperor Has No Clothes Library of Congress, John W. Kluge Center. Retrieved on September 3, 2009.
  22. ↑ Havel at Columbia; "Celebrating the Life and Art of Václav Havel: New York City, October through December 2006".
  23. ↑ Capps, Walter H. "Interpreting Václav Havel". Cross Currents (Association for Religion & Intellectual Life) 47.3 (Fall 1997). Retrieved 21 December 2007.
  24. ↑ Biography of Václav Havel hosted by Radio Prague.
  25. ↑ Havel at Columbia: Václav Havel: The Artist, The Citizen, The Residency – Multi-media website developed for Havel's seven-week residency at Columbia University, in Fall 2006; features biographies; timelines; interviews; profiles; and bibliographies (See "References" above).
  26. ↑ "Honours: Order of Canada: Václav Havel" (Citation). gg.ca. Accessed 21 December 2007. (Search facility.)
  27. ↑ "Celebrating the Life and Art of Václav Havel" Biography and "timeline" – The Havel Festival: Václav Havel, Untitled Theater Company (untitledtheater.com), in conjunction with the residency of Havel at Columbia.
  28. ↑ (Václav) Havel Festival: Celebrating the life and art of Václav Havel, New York City, October through December 2006 - Official website of this festival of all of Havel's works; includes descriptions of all of Havel's plays.
  29. ↑ Pinder, Ian (16 August 2008). "Czechout". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/aug/16/biography1. Retrieved 28 August 2008. 
  30. ↑ "Belarus Free Theatre Meet Vaclav Havel", press release, Belarus Free Theatre, 13 August 2007. Retrieved 31 August 2007.
  31. ↑ Michael Batiukov, "Belarus 'Free Theatre' is Under Attack by Militia in Minsk, Belarus", American Chronicle, 22 August 2007. Retrieved 31 August 2007.
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 Adam Hetrick, "Václav Havel's Leaving May Arrive in American Theatres", Playbill, 19 November 2007. Retrieved 21 December 2007.
  33. ↑ Daniela Lazarová, "Will It Be Third Time Lucky for Václav Havel's 'Leaving'?", Radio Prague, 14 December 2007. Retrieved 21 December 2007.
  34. ↑ "Everyone loves Havel's Leaving". Prague Daily Monitor. 28 May 2008. http://www.praguemonitor.com/en/344/arts_in_prague/23308. Retrieved 28 August 2008. 
  35. ↑ Havel's gift for Obama to be displayed in Prague gallery | Prague Monitor
  36. ↑ {{|cite news |url=http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/zpravy/havel-sends-letter-to-obama-inviting-him-to-prague/368550 |title=Havel sends letter to Obama inviting him to Prague |work=České Noviny |date=31 March 2009}}
  37. ↑ Human Rights Foundation, International Council, accessed 13 April 2010
  38. ↑ 1994 Speech Vaclav Havel - Liberty Medal, National Constitution Center
  39. ↑ Shipsey, Bill. "Václav Havel: Ambassador of Conscience 2003: From Prisoner to President – A Tribute". Amnesty International (October 2003). Retrieved 21 December 2007.
  40. ↑ United States "Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Vaclav Havel". The Official Site of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2004). Retrieved 21 December 2007.
  41. ↑ A Different View, Issue 19, January 2008.
  42. ↑ The Club of Madrid
  43. ↑ "Havel receives Quadriga prestigious German award". Prague Daily Monitor (original source: Czech Press Agency. http://praguemonitor.com/2009/10/05/havel-receives-quadriga-prestigious-german-award. Retrieved 5 October 2009. 
  44. ↑ "Honorary Doctorates". http://vaclavhavel.cz/index.php?sec=1&id=8. Retrieved 23 December 2008. 
  45. ↑ "Royal Society of Literature All Fellows". http://www.rslit.org/content/fellows. Retrieved 9 August 2010. 
  46. ↑ "State Decorations". http://vaclavhavel.cz/index.php?sec=1&id=7&kat=&from=25. Retrieved 17 August 2010. 
  47. ↑ 47.0 47.1 Biographies and bibliographies, "Havel at Columbia: Bibliography: Human Rights Archive". Retrieved 29 April 2007.
  48. ↑ Sam Beckwith, "Václav Havel & Lou Reed", Prague.tv 24 January 2005, updated 27 January 2005. Retrieved 26 April 2007.
  49. ↑ Samuel Beckett, "Catastrophe," in Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (New York: Grove P, 1994), 295–302, 295.
  50. ↑ page 100 of 2010 Jeff Goodell's How to Cool the Planet: Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth’s Climate "Can We 'Cool the Planet' through Geoengineering?"

Further reading

Works by Václav Havel
Media interviews with Václav Havel
Books (Biographies)

External links

Political offices
Preceded by
Gustáv Husák		 President of Czechoslovakia
1989–1992		 Jan Stráský (acting)
Position established President of the Czech Republic
1993–2003		 Succeeded by
Václav Klaus
Presidents of Czechoslovakia

Tomáš G. Masaryk  · Edvard Beneš  · Emil Hácha  · Klement Gottwald  · Antonín Zápotocký  · Antonín Novotný  · Ludvík Svoboda · Gustáv Husák  · Václav Havel  · Jan Stráský (acting)
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Richard Nikolaus Graf Coudenhove-Kalergi (1950) · Hendrik Brugmans (1951) · Alcide de Gasperi (1952) · Jean Monnet (1953) · Konrad Adenauer (1954) · Sir Winston S. Churchill (1956) · Paul Henri Spaak (1957) · Robert Schuman (1958)  · George C. Marshall (1959) Joseph Bech (1960) Walter Hallstein (1961) Edward Heath (1963) Antonio Segni (1964) Jens Otto Krag (1966) Joseph Luns (1967) The European Commission (1969) François Seydoux de Clausonne (1970) Roy Jenkins (1972) Don Salvador de Madariaga (1973) Leo Tindemans (1976) Walter Scheel (1977) Konstantinos Karamanlis (1978) Emilio Colombo (1979) Simone Veil (1981) King Juan Carlos of Spain (1982) The People of Luxembourg (1986) Henry A. Kissinger (1987) François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl (1988) Frère Roger (1989) Gyula Horn (1990) Václav Havel (1991) Jacques Delors (1992) Felipe González Márquez (1993) Gro Harlem Brundtland (1994) Franz Vranitzky (1995) Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands (1996) Roman Herzog (1997) Bronisław Geremek (1998) Anthony (Tony) Charles Lynton Blair (1999) William Jefferson (Bill) Clinton (2000) György Konrád (2001) The euro (2002) Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (2003) Pat Cox (2004) Extraordinary prize: Pope John Paul II (2004) Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (2005) Jean-Claude Juncker (2006) Javier Solana (2007) Angela Merkel (2008) Andrea Riccardi (2009) Donald Tusk (2010) Jean-Claude Trichet (2011)
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Julius Nyerere (1995) • A. T. Ariyaratne (1996) • Gerhard Fischer (1997) • Ramakrishna Mission (1998) • Baba Amte (1999) • Grameen Bank, Nelson Mandela (2000) • John Hume (2001) • Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (2002) • Václav Havel (2003) • Coretta Scott King (2004) • Desmond Tutu (2005)
Olof Palme Prize laureates

Cyril Ramaphosa (1987) • UN Peace Keeping Operation (1988) • Václav Havel (1989) • Harlem Désir, SOS Racisme (1990) • Amnesty International (1991) • Arzu Abdullayeva, Anahit Bayandour (1992) • Students for Sarayevo (1993) • Wei Jingsheng (1994) • Fatah Youth, Israeli Labor Young Leadership, Peace Now (1995) • Casa Alianza, Bruce Harris (1996) • Salima Ghezali (1997) • Veran Matić, Senad Pećanin, Viktor Ivančić (1998) • Kurdo Baksi, Björn Fries, Klippan Parent Group (1999) • Bryan Stevenson (2000) • Fazle Hasan Abed (2001) • Hanan Ashrawi (2002) • Hans Blix (2003) • Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Sergei Kovalev, Anna Politkovskaya (2004) • Aung San Suu Kyi (2005) • Kofi Annan, Mossaad Mohamed Ali (2006) • Parvin Ardalan (2007) • Denis Mukwege (2008) • Carsten Jensen (2009)
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