Tomáš Masaryk
From Freepedia
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, sometimes called Thomas Masaryk in English, (March 7, 1850 Hodonín, Moravia, Austria, now Czech Republic - September 14, 1937 Lány, Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic) was an advocate of Czechoslovak independence during WW I and became the first President of Czechoslovakia.
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His father Josef Masaryk was a Slovak from the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary, his mother Terezie Masaryková (née Kropáčková) was from Moravia. Masaryk was born in the predominantly Catholic city of Hodonín, Moravia (then part of the Austrian Empire) to a working-class family (his father was a carter and Slovak by origin). As a youth he worked as a blacksmith. He studied in Brno, Vienna (1872-1876 philosophy with Franz Brentano) and Leipzig (with Wilhelm Wundt). In 1882, he was appointed Professor of Philosophy in the Czech part of the University of Prague. The following year he founded Athenaeum, a magazine devoted to Czech culture and science. He wrote some works on history, exposing as fraudulent the supposed early medieval old Czech mythological poems, and opposed racial prejudice by publicly defending a Jew accused of ritual murder. Although criticized by some, his efforts were acclaimed in Western intellectual circles.
Masaryk served in the Reichsrat (Austrian Parliament) from 1891 to 1893 in the Young Czech Party and again from 1907 to 1914 in the Realist Party, but he did not campaign for Czech independence from Austria-Hungary. When the First World War broke out, he had to flee the country to avoid arrest for treason, going to Geneva, to Italy, and then to London, where he started to agitate for Czech independence. In 1917 he went to Russia to help organize Slavic resistance to the Austrians. In 1918 he travelled to the United States, where he convinced President Woodrow Wilson of the rightness of his cause.
With the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, the Allies recognized Masaryk as head of the Provisional Czech government, and in 1920 he gained election as the first President of Czechoslovakia. He won re-election twice subsequently, and holding the office until 1935, when Edvard Beneš succeeded him.
Masaryk married Charlotte Garrigue, a Protestant American, from whom he took his middle name, who died near Prague in 1923 from an unspecified illness. His son, Jan Masaryk, served as Foreign Minister in the Czechoslovak government-in-exile (1940 - 1945) and in the governments of 1945 to 1948.
He, himself, died in 1937 in Lány, Czechoslovakia at the age of 87 from natural causes.
Other facts of interest
- Avenida Presidente Masaryk ("President Masaryk Avenue"), Mexico City's equivalent of Fifth Avenue in New York, takes its name from him.
- Masaryk gained the nickname of the President-Liberator. Many referred to him by his initials: TGM.
- He wrote several books, including The Problems of Small Nations in the European Crisis (1915)
- Name Tomáš (Thomas in English) has a place in the Czech calendar on March 7, as a tribute to TGM (it was Masaryk's date of birth).
- Karel Čapek, a famous Czech writer, wrote a series of books called 'Hovory s TGM'(=Dialogues with TGM).
- His life motto was 'Nebát se a nekrást' (= Not to fear and not to steal).
- Masaryktown, Florida is named after him.
External links
| Preceded by: (none) | President of Czechoslovakia 1918–1935 | Succeeded by: Edvard Beneš (1935-1948) |
