What went so wrong for Vaclav Havel?

The unforgettable moment a quarter of a century ago when the Berlin Wall came down was the most vivid drama in that dizzying year of revolutions in 1989 when the Soviet empire fell to its knees. But another event a month later and 250 miles away in Prague was equally poignant. As the playwright/philosopher Václav Havel was sworn in as president of Czechoslovakia and declared in one of the most moving speeches I have heard, ‘Citizens, your government has returned to you’, it was clear that if history hadn’t exactly come to an end, the world had changed utterly.

In his own country Havel’s reputation has nosedived since those giddy days, though it flickered briefly after his death two years ago. He is rarely acknowledged nowadays as one of the three great figures — along with Lech Walesa and Mikhail Gorbachev — who played the key roles in the death of communism. Once they were feted in the West. Now, if they are considered at all, they are thought bit players as the Cold War recedes from memory. Perhaps with Russia resurgent and a second cold war looming that will change.

In Havel’s case one can hope that this lively biography will reintroduce a major figure in modern history and letters to a new generation. Michael Zantovsky, the Czech ambassador to Britain, was Havel’s friend and press spokesman during his first years as president. He confesses that he was ‘in love’ with his subject, not always a great qualification for producing an interesting biography. But Zantovsky was an elegant writer before he turned diplomat and this is a clear-eyed portrait that never descends into gush or hagiography.

He describes Havel’s life as a ‘riches to rags to riches fairytale’ — not an exaggeration. Havel was born into privilege. His grandfather made a fortune in land speculation but Havel was 12 when the Communist regime seized the family assets in 1948.