The Dissident Politics in Vclav Havels Vanek Plays

The Dissident Politics in Vclav Havels Vank Plays: Who Is Ferdinand Vank Anyway focuses on Ferdinand Vank, a semi-autobiographical character created by Vclav Havel and featured in a series of nine plays written by Havel himself and three other dissident writers Pavel Kohout, Pavel Landovsk, and Ji Dienstbier. By exploring the Vank experience, Carol Strong details a multi-episodic, absurdist journey that provides an insiders view of the challenges facing those daring enough to question the status quo, a view that remains relevant today. Strongs contention is that the lines found in these plays served as a secret language of dissent in Cold War Czechoslovakia, which called the citizenry to contemplate the need for societal reform. As the plays were written at a time when the work of Havel and other dissidents were banned, the plays were never performed publicly, but through clandestine living room performances and the sharing of samizdat scripts the plays found an audience. Select phrases were indeed whispered throughout underground networks and helped forge a sense of oppositional solidarity among potential activists. Strongs argument is that the Vank experience metaphorically highlights how official power mechanisms are among the least insidious forms of societal power, as the state must follow predictable patterns of legal jurisprudence. By contrast, non-governmental forms of power as exercised by ones fellow citizens through informal social channels can challenge oppositional actors more because of the personal tone they adopt. Using this approach, Strong presents a timelessly relevant critique of modern society with its consumerist / conformist tendencies.