Schwarzenberg opens photo exhibition on Havel

Prague, Jan 10 (CTK) - Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg opened an exhibition of photographs of late president Vaclav Havel in Cafe Nona in the New Scene of Prague's National Theatre Thursday.

Photographer Oldrich Skacha made pictures of Havel from the 1970s when he was a dissident challenging the Czechoslovak communist regime.

But most of the photos presented at the Homage to Vaclav Havel exhibition dates from 1989 and 1990 when the communist regime fell and Havel was elected the country's first post-communist president.

Schwarzenberg runs for president in the direct election whose first round starts on Friday.

He said Skacha's photographs 22 years old made him feel the burden of the need to develop Havel's legacy. "It is difficult but possible to develop it," Schwarzenberg said.

He recalled that Havel dreamed of civic society in which everybody would contribute.

Schwarzenberg headed the presidential office under Havel in the 1990s for some time.

Havel died on December 18, 2011 at the age of 75. He had serious health problems for many years, also due to his imprisonment in the early 1980s.

Several major photo exhibitions on Havel were organised in the past year, including an extensive presentation of pictures by CTK photographers.