Czechoslovakia
Vaclav Havel was a writer who had written plays critical of communism and had participated in the Prague Spring movement in 1968. After playing a lead role in the Velvet Revolution that brought communism to an end in 1889, Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia (from 1989-1992). Then he served as first president of the Czech Republic (from 1993-2003), when Slovakia and the Czech Republic separated into two distinct countries.