Tomáš Masaryk
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk[a] (7 March 1850 – 14 September 1937) was a Czechoslovak statesman, progressive 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.
Tomáš Masaryk
Office established
14 September 1937 (aged 87)
Lány, Czechoslovakia
- Young Czech (1890–1893)
- Czech Progressive Party (1900–1918)
University of Vienna (PhD, 1876; Dr. habil., 1879)
Philosopher
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. 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.
Early life[edit]
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.[1] Masaryk grew up in the village of Čejkovice, in South Moravia, before moving to Brno to study.[2]
His father, Jozef Masárik, was Slovak, born in Kopčany, Slovakia. Jozef 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 of Slavic origin who received a German education. A cook at the estate, she met Masárik and they married on 15 August 1849.
Politician[edit]
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 the 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.[10] 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. Supported by Norman Hapgood T. G. Masaryk wrote the first memorandum to president Wilson, concerning to independence of the Czechoslovak state, here in January 1917.[11]
During World War I and afterwards, Masaryk supported the unification of Kingdom of Serbia and Kingdom of Montenegro.[12]
Masaryk championed feminist causes, being influenced by his wife Charlotte Garrigue.[13] Masaryk's progressive ideas strongly influenced Washington Declaration of Czechoslovak Independence.
Austria-Hungary: Jubilee Military Medal (1898)
Czechoslovakia: (1919)
Czechoslovak War Cross 1918
Order of the Falcon
Books[edit]
He wrote several books in Czech, including The Czech Question (1895), The Problems of Small Nations in the European Crisis (1915), The New Europe (1917), and The World Revolution (Svĕtová revoluce; 1925) translated into English as The Making of a State (1927). Karel Čapek wrote a series of articles, Hovory s T.G.M. ("Conversations with T.G.M."), which were later collected as Masaryk's autobiography.
Personal life[edit]
Masaryk married Charlotte Garrigue in 1878, and took her family name as his middle name. They met in Leipzig, Germany, and became engaged in 1877. Garrigue was born in Brooklyn to a Protestant family with French Huguenots among their ancestors. She became fluent in Czech and published articles in a Czech magazine.[39] Hardships during the World War I took their toll, and she died in 1923. Their son, Jan, was a Czechoslovak ambassador in London, foreign minister in the Czechoslovak government-in-exile (1940–1945) and in the governments from 1945 to 1948. They had four other children: Herbert, Alice, Eleanor, and Olga.
Born and raised a Catholic, Masaryk later became a Protestant; first joining the Reformed Church in Austria and later the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in 1918 upon Czechoslovak independence, but he was mostly non-practising and rarely attended religious services.[40] He was influenced by the 1870 declaration of papal infallibility and by Charlotte, who was raised as a Unitarian.[41]