On 7 March of this year, it was the 160th anniversary of the birth of a significant personality from our history, thanks to whom the modern history of our republic started to be written. Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, pedagogue, philosopher, politician and statesman, co-founder of the Czechoslovak Republic (1918) and its first president, was one of the most significant Czechs. He markedly influenced the Czech way of thinking, cultural and political life and he is still perceived as a symbol of democracy, humanity and morality.
Masaryk was born to a poor family; his father was a coachman and his mother a cook. Tomáš was their first son. Nevertheless, he had the possibility to study at the Grammar School of Hustopeče and later go to the University in Vienna (1870–1876), where he acquired a doctor of philosophy degree and two years later started to profess there for free as a private docent (1878–1882). Meanwhile, he traveled all over Germany and Italy. He spent one year at the University in Leipzig, Germany, where he first met his future wife Charlotte Garrigue in 1877, an American from New York and the daughter of a wealthy American businessman. He married her on 15 March 1878 and they returned to Vienna together. In 1879, his wife gave birth to their daughter Alice, and son Herbert one year later, and in 1886
son Jan, who also become a politician. Their youngest daughter Olga was born in 1891.
The need to financially secure his family made Masaryk seek a better-paid job, so he accepted the special professor post at Charles University in Prague in 1882, where he moved with his family. He received the regular title of professor from the University in 1897.
In 1885, Masaryk published his major philosophical work called Základové konkrétné logiky: Třídění a soustava věd.
In 1891, Masaryk entered the world of politics and became a representative in the Vienna parliament for Young Czechs. However, he drew attention to himself in the political scene already in 1883, when he disputed the validity of the epic poems Rukopisy Královédvorský (supposedly dating from the 9th century) and Zelenohorský (supposedly dating from the 13th century) in the Athenaeum magazine, which was used by the Czech linguists, trying to prove that Czech is a language equal to German, having an equal history. This topic discussed in the long term resulted in a dispute, which gradually grew into a nationwide affair, with the scientific arguments colliding with patriotic feeling of national politics. Masaryk stood on the side of proving the fact that the poems were a forgery, which the Czech patriots could not forgive him for, for a long time, as he, in their opinion, betrayed their efforts to support the national consciousness. Masaryk was often criticized for his opinions against Czech nationalism, which arose from a hatred of everything German.
Masaryk left politics in 1893, to come back a few years later, in 1907, as a representative of the Realist Party that he founded. He remained as the representative for two election periods until the start of the First World War.
In 1914, Masaryk was already a famous personality of the political and academic life. He acted as a supporter of democracy, but he still saw the best way of future development in the reformation of Austria-Hungary. He did not even think of a new state establishment at the beginning of the war. But he gradually started to become aware that the Habsburg Monarchy was outdated, and headed for destruction.
He decided to join the allies and left Austria-Hungary in 1914. Along with
Edvard Beneš and Milan Rastislav Štefánik, they composed the Czechoslovak National Council in Paris and started to work on getting the Czech and Slovak nations acknowledged as independent and starting the existence of an independent state of the Czechs and Slovaks after 300 years of Habsburg supremacy. He negotiated with the governments of England, Russia and United States of America and he managed to pursue the post-war split of Austria-Hungary and foundation of the independent Czechoslovak state.
On 14 October 1918, Masaryk became the head of the interim Czechoslovak government, declaring the independence of the Czechoslovak nation in the Washington Declaration 4 days later, and the Revolutionary National Assembly elected Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk the president of the new republic in his absence on 14 November. On 21 December 1918, Masaryk triumphantly returned to Prague and addressed his mission to the National Assembly at Prague Castle on the following day.
He won the presidential election twice, in 1927 and in 1934. He resigned from his presidential post owing to old age and bad health in 1935 and lived in the Lány Chateau for the rest of his life. Edvard Beneš succeeded him. Masaryk died on 14 October 1937.
From the bottom of his soul, he was a democrat and critic of national violence; he fought against racism and anti-Semitism, and insisted on morality, religion and scientific understanding. He was a big personality of the entire state, becoming a symbol of fairness, wisdom and deliberation for a lot of people, and his name will always remain inseparably connected with the foundation of the independent Czechoslovak state.