Václav Havel Library to Change Its Name as Sedláček Steps Down as Director

Prague's Václav Havel Library will enter the new season with a revamped team, a new director and, quite possibly, under a different name. That's according to Marek Merka, the institution's crisis manager, who made the announcement on Monday.

According to Merka, the supervisory board has decided to terminate Tomáš Sedláček's tenure as director as part of an overhaul of the library's team. "Over the coming months, as we stabilise the new team and the organisation's operations, the board will launch a search for a new director," Merka said.

The library intends to preserve as many of its educational, research and outreach programmes as possible. However, it will no longer organise the annual conference tied to the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, having lost the right to use the former president's name. The conference had previously been held under an agreement with Havel's widow, Dagmar Havlová, the Charter 77 Foundation and the Council of Europe.

"We were unable to reach an agreement with the trademark owner that would have allowed the library to remain involved in organising the prize," Merka said, adding that with the event's date fast approaching, continued cooperation was no longer feasible.

In early June, Havlová announced she was withdrawing from the cooperation agreement on the library project, following the lead of billionaire sponsors Zdeněk Bakala and Karel Komárek, who had already pulled their support. This followed a bitter dispute: the supervisory board had suspended director Sedláček amid conflicts with staff, effectively paralysing his work at the organisation. In the aftermath, most of the library's employees left, and both the board and the supervisory board were reshuffled.

In late June, Havlová withdrew her consent for the use of Václav Havel's name in the institution named after the late president. She said she did not want to bear responsibility for how her late husband's name was being used, and that she had lost confidence in the current leadership and the direction the library was taking.

David Dušek, chairman of the supervisory board and a member of the STAN party, said negotiations with Havlová were still ongoing, though it appears no agreement has been reached. "The board has decided to begin the process of renaming the library. We will share details and a timeline in the coming weeks," Merka said, stressing that the organisation's mission would remain unchanged: it will continue to serve as a hub for research, education and public outreach, as well as a venue for meetings and discussions.

"The name may change, but our reason for existing will not. Havel's legacy isn't an archive — it's work that continues," Dušek said. The revamped supervisory board now also includes musician Michael Kocáb, Egyptologist Miroslav Bárta, crisis manager Merka and entrepreneur Filip Štelin.

This autumn, the library will press ahead with its planned projects: together with Prague City Hall, it is preparing an exhibition on Mariánské náměstí to mark the 90th anniversary of Havel's birth, along with a club evening on the role of public broadcasters and a discussion on media under communism. The institution will also take part in a New York staging of the play "The Memorandum."

The library was founded by Dagmar Havlová together with Karel Schwarzenberg and Miroslav Petruzsek in 2004, after Václav Havel left the presidency. Economist Tomáš Sedláček took over as director in March 2025.

Source: seznamzpravy.cz