The U.S. Congress has adopted a resolution and approved the installation of the bust of Václav Havel
An important event of this year in relation to the legacy of Václav Havel is the decision of the House of Representatives to install the bust of Václav Havel on the premises of the Capital.
This decision appreciating the merit of Václav Havel was initiated by the local organization American Friends of the Czech Republic in cooperation with New York’s Václav Havel Library Foundation.
Thus Václav Havel will become the third foreigner immortalized by a bust in the Capital building, following Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Ed Roy, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Congress, commented on the adoption of the resolution, saying: “As a proud author of the resolution, today I honour the life and legacy of an extraordinary man, Vaclav Havel. For the growing crisis in Ukraine, it is important to remember the life of a man who brought the people of Czechoslovakia out of the oppression of the Soviet Union and played a major role in setting up not just one, but two pulsating European democracies: the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.”
The creator of the bust will be the Czech-American sculptor Lubomír Janeček, who is the author of the bust of the President in the Strasbourg seat of the Council of Europe.
This tribute to Vaclav Havel comes at a time when the Czech Republic celebrates its 15th anniversary of the country’s accession to NATO and the unveiling of the bust is scheduled for autumn this year to mark the 25th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution.