This monograph belongs to genre of historical biography and draws its theoretical inspirations from the tradition of Czech personalism, as represented in works of F. X. Šalda, Václav Černý or Martin C.
Putna. It attempts to discover what is hidden and spans over the myriad of particular events of individual life and that is the unique and characteristic personality of historical actor.
Methodologically Jana Wohlmuth Markupová relied upon combination of oral history (with many interviews conducted with Ivan M. Havel himself) and archival research, including for instance both private Havel family archive and Security Services Archive.