Vaclav Havel at the End of the Cold War: The Invention of Post-Communist Transition in the Address to U.S. Congress, February 21, 1990

摘要

A mere three months after the peaceful Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, and lessthan a year after his last imprisonment under the communist regime, playwrightturned-president Vaclav Havel stood before a joint session of U.S. Congress in Februaryof 1990. In his address, Havel marked, for his American audience, the newfreedoms being established at home. More than just a victory lap, however, Havel’svisit articulated the importance of the invention of post-communism, as the end of theCold War had to be constructed for his global audience. Havel’s version of invention inthe speech used temporality and embodiment as key rhetorical materials—as heemphasized the opportune moment of the end of the Cold War, he also embodiedthe higher moral sense of responsibility and democratic civic culture that he believedthe moment called for. However, this inventive process was understood differently byhis American, European, and Czech audiences, and his attempts to transcend ColdWar frames were highly contested. Havel thus became a complex symbol of thetransition between the Cold War and the post-Cold War, which showed the tensionsaround the implementation of a “new world order.”