Recollection of Honorary President of the ASCR Prof. Rudolf Zahradník
At the very beginning, there was the Na zábradlí Theatre. As a member of the audience, I could look into the author’s mind for the first time. I tremendously appreciated the numerous announcements of Charter 77 on various topics, which weighed heavily on democrats in oppressed Czechoslovakia; it was said that it was he who significantly contributed to their wording. After the second miracle of my life (the first was the end of the world war), after the collapse of the cheekiness called real socialism, I saw V. H. for the first time with my own eyes. It was at a restaurant boat anchored on the River Vltava, where he invited about fifteen researchers and artists for a discussion and dinner in 1991…
Two years later, I went to V. H. to be introduced at Prague Castle as the just elected
President of the freshly established Academy of Sciences of the CR. And then a diverse meeting
followed in which V. H. as usual played a significant role; it dealt for instance with the creation
of a Learned Society. Then, there was a number of unforgettable encounters at Friday afternoon and
evening meetings in Amálka, a villa not far from the presidential chateau in Lány.
I purposely did not mention in more detail the features of those meetings, because V. H. was
for me what physicists call the constant of motion. Hence a quantity unchanged in time, and thus it
is possible to describe my feelings overall. What was he like for me then?
V. H. was a being with extraordinary personal charm. A person of perfect manners, a very
polite person, kindly and humble; a person from whose words and eyes a great intellectual force
radiated. A person incredibly disciplined in discussions, who managed with unlimited patience to
listen to a short line or series of the opinions of others and only later with Havellian shyness
claim the floor: he always offered a fitting synthetic response. He did not share his opinion
hastily; on the contrary, he expressed himself deliberately in a way typical rather for a
mathematician than for a playwright. V. H. was a person with a character reminiscent of single
crystal quartz. For his truth, he went resolutely and repeatedly to communist prison. He was not
only a renowned writer and playwright but also a remarkable philosopher of society and politics.
These features and unequal, yet victorious battle with the dictatorship had an unprecedented
response all over the world. For the name of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, he did an
incredible amount. What a pity that later some of the politicians here not only did not contribute
to the name of the CR but on the contrary damaged it.
Fate has wished for me to become acquainted with many exceptional people in my life. I must,
however, add that V. H. was a singular giant among them.
Rudolf Zahradník, 20 December 2011
Photo: Stanislava Kyselová
20 Dec 2011
