Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (7 March 1850 – 14 September 1937) was a Czechoslovak statesman, political activist and philosopher who served as the first president of Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 1935. He is regarded as the founding father of Czechoslovakia.

Born in Hodonín, Moravia (then part of the Austrian Empire), Masaryk obtained a doctorate at the University of Vienna and was a professor of philosophy at the Czech Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague. He began his political career as a deputy of the Austrian Reichsrat, serving from 1891 to 1893 and from 1907 to 1914. He was an advocate of restructuring the Austro-Hungarian Empire into a federal state, but by the outbreak of the First World War, he had become a supporter of Czech and Slovak independence. He went into exile, and travelled around Europe to organise and promote the Czechoslovak cause. He played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Czechoslovak Legion, which fought against the Central Powers during the war. In 1918, Masaryk, along with his protégés Edvard Beneš and Milan Rastislav Štefánik, travelled to the United States to obtain support from President Woodrow Wilson and Secretary of State Robert Lansing. Their negotiations resulted in the Washington Declaration, which proclaimed the independence of a Czechoslovak state.

With the fall of Austria-Hungary in late 1918, the First Czechoslovak Republic received recognition from the Allied powers and Masaryk was recognised as head of its provisional government. He was formally elected president in November, and was reelected three times subsequently. Masaryk presided over a period of stability as Czechoslovakia emerged as a strong democratic state. He resigned from office in 1935 due to old age, and was succeeded by Beneš. He retired to the village of Lány and died two years later at the age of 87.

Masaryk was born to a poor, working-class family in the predominantly Catholic city of Hodonín, Margraviate of Moravia, in Moravian Slovakia (in the present-day Czech Republic, then part of the Austrian Empire). The nearby Slovak village of Kopčany, the home of his father Jozef, also claims to be his birthplace. Masaryk grew up in the village of Čejkovice, in South Moravia, before moving to Brno to study.

His father, Jozef Masárik, was Slovak, born in Kopčany, Slovakia. Masárik was a carter and, later, the steward and coachman at the imperial estate in the nearby town of Hodonín. Tomáš's mother, Teresie Masaryková (née Kropáčková), was a Moravian who received a German education. A cook at the estate, she met Masárik and they married on 15 August 1849.

After grammar school in Brno and Vienna from 1865 to 1872, Masaryk attended the University of Vienna and was a student of Franz Brentano. He received his Ph.D. with a thesis on Plato (Das Wesen der Seele bei Plato. Eine kritische Studie vom empirischen Standpunkt, The Essence of the Soul in Plato: A Critical Study from the Empirical Standpoint) under Brentano from that university in 1876, and later completed his habilitation there in 1879 with a thesis titled Der Selbstmord als soziale Massenerscheinung der modernen Civilisation (Suicide as a Social Mass Phenomenon of Modern Civilization). From 1876 to 1877, Masaryk studied at the University of Leipzig with Wilhelm Wundt and became acquainted with Edmund Husserl. He married Charlotte Garrigue, whom he had met while a student in Leipzig, on 15 March 1878. They lived in Vienna until 1881, when they moved to Prague.

Masaryk was appointed professor of philosophy at the Czech Charles-Ferdinand University, the Czech-language part of Charles University, in 1882. He founded Athenaeum, a magazine devoted to Czech culture and science, the following year. Athenaeum, edited by Jan Otto, was first published on 15 October 1883.

Masaryk's students included Edvard Beneš.

Masaryk challenged the validity of the epic poems Rukopisy královedvorský a zelenohorský, supposedly dating to the early Middle Ages and presenting a false, nationalistic Czech chauvinism to which he was strongly opposed. He also contested the Jewish blood libel during the 1899 Hilsner trial.

Masaryk was greatly influenced by the 19th-century respect for scientific evidence. The 19th century was an age of tremendous scientific and technological advances, and as such scientists enjoyed immense prestige. Masaryk believed that social problems and political conflicts were the results of ignorance, and that provided that one undertook a proper "scientific" approach to studying the underlying causes it would be possible to devise the correct solutions. As such, Masaryk saw his role as an educator who would enlighten the public from its ignorance and apathy.

Masaryk served in the Reichsrat from 1891 to 1893 with the Young Czech Party and from 1907 to 1914 in the Czech Progressive Party, which he had founded in 1900. At that time, he was not yet campaigning for Czech and Slovak independence from Austria-Hungary. Masaryk helped Hinko Hinković defend the Croat-Serb Coalition during their 1909 Vienna political trial; its members were sentenced to a total of over 150 years in prison, with a number of death sentences.

When World War I broke out in 1914, Masaryk concluded that the best course was to seek independence for Czechs and Slovaks from Austria-Hungary. He went into exile in December 1914 with his daughter, Olga, staying in several places in Western Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States and Japan. Masaryk began organizing Czechs and Slovaks outside Austria-Hungary during his exile, establishing contacts which would be crucial to Czechoslovak independence. He delivered lectures and wrote several articles and memoranda supporting the Czechoslovak cause. Masaryk was pivotal in establishing the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia as an effective fighting force on the Allied side during World War I, when he held a Serbian passport. In 1915 he was one of the first staff members of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (now part of University College London), where the student society and senior common room are named after him. Masaryk became professor of Slavic Research at King's College London, lecturing on the problem of small nations. In January 1917, supported by Norman Hapgood, T. G. Masaryk wrote the first memorandum to president Wilson, concerning the need for the creation of an independent Czechoslovak state.

During World War I and afterwards, Masaryk supported the unification of the Kingdom of Serbia with the Kingdom of Montenegro.

Masaryk championed feminist causes, being influenced by his wife Charlotte Garrigue. Masaryk's progressive ideas strongly influenced the Washington Declaration of Czechoslovak Independence.

On 5 August 1914, the Russian High Command authorized the formation of a battalion recruited from Czechs and Slovaks in Russia. The unit went to the front in October 1914 and was attached to the Russian Third Army.

From its start, Masaryk wanted to develop the legion from a battalion to a formidable military formation. To do so, however, he realized that he would need to recruit Czech and Slovak prisoners of war (POWs) in Russian camps. In late 1914, Russian military authorities permitted the legion to enlist Czech and Slovak POWs from the Austro-Hungarian army; the order was rescinded in a few weeks, however, because of opposition from other areas of the Russian government. Despite continuing efforts to persuade the Russian authorities to change their minds, the Czechs and Slovaks were officially barred from recruiting POWs until the summer of 1917. Under these conditions, the Czechoslovak armed unit in Russia grew slowly from 1914 to 1917. Masaryk preferred to concentrate on elites rather than public opinion. On 19 October 1915, Masaryk gave the inaugural address at the newly opened School of Slavonic Studies at King's College London on "The Problem of Small Nations in the European Crisis", arguing that on both moral and practical grounds that the United Kingdom should support the independence efforts of "small" nations such as the Czechs. Shortly afterwards, Masaryk crossed the English Channel to go to Paris, where he delivered a speech in French at the Institut d'études slaves of the Sorbonne on "Les Slaves parmi les nations" ("The Slavs Among the Nations"), receiving what was described as a "vigorous applause".

During the war, Masaryk's intelligence network of Czech revolutionaries provided critical intelligence to the allies. His European network worked with an American counterespionage network of nearly 80 members, headed by Emanuel Viktor Voska (including G. W. Williams). Voska and his network, who (as Habsburg subjects) were presumed to be German supporters, spied on German and Austrian diplomats. Among other achievements, the intelligence from these networks was critical in uncovering the Hindu–German Conspiracy in San Francisco. Masaryk began teaching at London University in October 1915. He published "Racial Problems in Hungary", with ideas about Czechoslovak independence. In 1916, Masaryk went to France to convince the French government of the necessity of dismantling Austria-Hungary. He consulted with his friend professor Pavel Miliukov, a leading Russian historian and one of the leaders of the Kadet Party, to introduce him to various members of Russian high society.

In early 1916, the Czechs and Slovaks in Russian service were reorganized as the First Czecho-Slovak Rifle Regiment. In a rare attempt to influence public opinion, Masaryk opened up an office on Piccadilly Circus in London whose exterior was covered with pro-Czechoslovak slogans and maps with the intention of attracting the interest of those walking by. One of Masaryk's most important British friends was the journalist Wickham Steed who wrote articles in the newspapers urging British support for Czechoslovakia. Another important British contract for Masaryk was the historian Robert Seton-Watson, who also wrote widely in the British press urging British support for the "submerged" nations of the Austrian empire. After the 1917 February Revolution he proceeded to Russia to help organize the Czechoslovak Legion, a group dedicated to Slavic resistance to the Austrians. Miliukov became the new Russian foreign minister in the Provisional government, and proved very sympathetic towards the idea of creating Czechoslovakia. After the Czechoslovak troops' performance in July 1917 at the Battle of Zborov (when they overran Austrian trenches), the Russian provisional government granted Masaryk and the Czechoslovak National Council permission to recruit and mobilize Czech and Slovak volunteers from the POW camps. Later that summer, a fourth regiment was added to the brigade, which was renamed the First Division of the Czechoslovak Corps in Russia (Československý sbor na Rusi, also known as the Czechoslovak Legion – Československá legie). A second division of four regiments was added to the legion in October 1917, raising its strength to about 40,000 by 1918.

Masaryk formed a good connection with Russian supreme commanders, Mikhail Alekseyev, Aleksei Brusilov, Nikolay Dukhonin and Mikhail Diterikhs, in Mogilev, from May 1917.

With the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, the Allies recognized Masaryk as head of the provisional Czechoslovak government. On 14 November of that year, he was elected president of Czechoslovakia by the National Assembly in Prague while he was in New York. On 22 December, Masaryk publicly denounced the Germans in Czechoslovakia as settlers and colonists.

Masaryk was re-elected three times: in May 1920, 1927, and 1934. Normally, a president was limited to two consecutive terms by the 1920 constitution, but a one-time provision allowed the first president–Masaryk–to run for an unlimited number of terms.

On paper, Masaryk had a somewhat limited role; the framers of the constitution intended to create a parliamentary system in which the prime minister and cabinet held actual power. However, a complex system of proportional representation made it all but impossible for one party to win a majority. Usually, ten or more parties received the 2.6 per cent of votes needed for seats in the National Assembly. With so many parties represented, no party even approached the 151 seats needed for a majority; indeed, no party ever won more than 25 per cent of the vote. These factors resulted in frequent changes of government; Masaryk's tenure saw ten cabinets headed by nine statesmen. Under the circumstances, Masaryk's presence gave Czechoslovakia a large measure of stability. This stability, combined with his domestic and international prestige, gave Masaryk's presidency more power and influence than the framers of the constitution intended.

He used his authority in Czechoslovakia to create the Hrad (the Castle), an extensive, informal political network. Under Masaryk's watch, Czechoslovakia became the strongest democracy in Central Europe. Masaryk's status as a Protestant leading a mainly Catholic nation led to criticism, as did his promotion of the 15th-century proto-Protestant Jan Hus as a symbol of Czech nationalism.

There were founded "The Masaryk Academy of Labour", for the scientific study of scientific management too, with the Masaryk's supporting in Prague in 1918 and Masaryk University in Brno.

Masaryk died less than two years after leaving office, at the age of 87, in Lány on 14 September 1937. He was buried next to his wife in a plot at Lány cemetery, where later the remains of his children Jan Masaryk and Alice Masaryková were laid to rest.

Masaryk did not live to see the Munich Agreement or the Nazi occupation of his country, and was known as the Grand (Great) Old Man of Europe.

Masaryk's unique combination of intellectual and political authority has made him a figure of interest to sociology and philosophy, especially within Czechoslovakia, where his significance has been analysed in depth by philosophers such as Jan Patočka (1991 monograph), Milan Machovec (1968 monograph) and others.

As the founding father of Czechoslovakia, Masaryk remains revered by Czechs and Slovaks.

Masaryk University in Brno, founded in 1919 as Czechoslovakia's second university, was named after him when it was founded; after 30 years as Univerzita Jana Evangelisty Purkyně v Brně, it was renamed for Masaryk in 1990.

Commemorations of Masaryk have been held annually in the Lány cemetery on his birthday and day of death (7 March and 14 September) since 1989.

The Czechoslovak, now Czech Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, established in 1990, is an honour awarded to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to humanity, democracy and human rights.

He is commemorated by a number of statues, busts, plaques, coins and postage stamps. Although most are in or of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Masaryk has a statue on Embassy Row in Washington, D.C., and in the Midway Plaisance park in Chicago and is memorialized in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park rose garden. A plaque with a portrait of Masaryk is on the wall of a hotel in Rakhiv, Ukraine, where he reportedly resided from 1917 to 1918, and a bust was erected in 2002 on Zakhysnykiv Ukrainy Square (former Druzhby Narodiv Square) in Uzhhorod, Ukraine.

He received awards and decorations before and after World War I.