Vlastimil Ježek about Talks from Lány
June 7, 2010
Several insights from the former director of Czech Radio who was directly involved in Talks from Lány.
There are not many personalities you can build such type of program on. After Václav Havel has nothing like this continued. I cannot imagine that it would be possible, for example, with Václav Klaus. He has an incredible desire to define himself against everyone and everything, besides, only a few people are a partner for a dialogue to him. When you quote someone in front of Václav Klaus, he raises his eyebrow and says: “I don’t know him, I’m not interested.”
I managed Czech Radio from 1994 to 1999. Sometime in the middle of that period came Václav Havel with suggestion to change the dramaturgy of the Talks. The two people interviewing one person were then joined by a guests chosen by Václav Havel. He no longer was only responding but started to ask questions too.
Of all the dialogues where I and the second moderator Robert Tamchyna were rather kind of catalysts, I remember especially the one with Václav Klaus. Had had said in advance that he did not really know if he wanted to come at all, because the Ježek is a weird bird. He also feared being harmed by cutting of the program. Then when we were ready in Lány, Václav Havel walked around the room and looking out of the window said, “Of course, prime minister. Of course, he will come late just to show who’s the boss here.” In the end, I think, this program was ironically one of the best, although, of course, it was not friendly. People who really have almost nothing in common, were willing to talk about something for nearly two hours.
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Letters to Olga – essays written in prison, letter
„Once you’re here, however, whether you want to or not, you have to ask the question: does all of this have a meaning, and if so, what?… Ultimately, I can only find an answer – a positive answer – within myself, in my general faith in the meaning of things, in my hope. What, in fact, is man responsible to? What does he relate to? What is the final horizon of his actions, the absolute vanishing point of everything he does, the undeceivable “memory of Being”, the conscience of the world and the final “court of appeal”? What is the decisive standard of measurement, the background or the field of each of his existential experiences? And likewise, what is the most important witness or the secret sharer in his daily conversations with himself, the thing that – regardless of what situation he has been thrown into – he incessantly inquires after, depends upon, and toward which his actions are directed, the thing that, in its omniscience and incorruptibility, both haunts and saves him, the only thing he can trust in and strive for? “
Václav Havel:
Letters to Olga – essays written in prison, letter
August 7, 1980
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