Volume 50, Number 6 · April 10, 2003
Wonderful Life
By Paul Wilson
On January 29, five days before leaving the public stage, Václav Havel flew to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia and the scene of the greatest political humiliation of his career. At the Prague airport, he seemed anxious and slightly nervous as he told Czech journalists that this visit was meant as a kind of 'closing of the circle,' but as it turned out he needn't have worried. From the time he and his second wife, Dagmar, walked down the red carpet rolled out for him at the Bratislava airport until the final round of drinks in a crowded wine cellar late that evening, Havel met with nothing but warmth and gratitude from the Slovaks who turned out to bid him farewell. Ironically, his final foreign visit as president of the Czech Republic felt more like a homecoming.
Feature, 6006 words
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