Václav Havel, Czech poet, playwright, and politician, 1st President of the Czech Republic (born 1936)

Václav Havel was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until 1992, prior to the dissolution of Czechoslovakia on 31 December, before he became the first president of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003. He was the first democratically elected president of either country after the fall of communism. As a writer of Czech literature, he is known for his plays, essays and memoirs.

The president of the Czech Republic, constitutionally defined as the President of the Republic, is the head of state of the Czech Republic and the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic.