Masaryk, Tomas Garrig

Father, Josef Masaryk (1823-1907), was a Slovak from the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary , his mother, Teresa Masarikova (nee Kropachkova) (1813-1887) was German from Moravia . Masaryk was born in a simple working-class family - his father, who came from poor farmers, at one time was a valet, then managing the estate of Nathan Redlich (although he was illiterate for a long time and learned to read and write thanks to his son), his mother served as a cook. Parents wanted their son to learn blacksmithing and become a locksmith, but Tomas continued his studies. He studied in Brno , Vienna and Leipzig (among his teachers were Franz Brentano and Wilhelm Wundt ), in 1882 became a professor at the University of Prague . His works were devoted to the history of philosophy (including writing a book about Russian philosophy, published in Russia in Russian), sociology and history; early began to act as the ideological inspirer of the national movement. He received his doctorate in philosophy by defending a dissertation on the topic: “Suicide as a social phenomenon.” He founded the influential magazine Athenaeum. Journal of Literature and Scientific Criticism . ” In particular, Masaryk was the coordinator of the activities of scholars on the pages of the Athenaeum to expose the false manuscripts of Vaclav Ganka (claiming that true patriotism cannot be based on fake). “The great cannot be great if it is false,” was the motto of his life.

In 1902, Masaryk, at the invitation of an American Charles Crane, gives lectures at the University of Chicago. In the same place, in 1903 and in 1904-1905, the future first minister of foreign affairs of the Provisional Government of Russia P.N. Milyukov also lectured, who helped Masaryk to create the first Czech military units from prisoners of war in Russia in 1917. Masaryk and Benes meet again in England in Cambridge with P.N. Milyukov and R.V. Dmovsky in 1916.

In 1910, Tomas Masaryk visited Leo Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana, and had several conversations with him, these meetings are mentioned in Leo Tolstoy's Diaries.

Member of the Parliament of the Austrian Lands ( Reichsrat ) in 1891 - 1893 and 1907 - 1914 . According to the communist V. Kopecki , he believed that “if an independent Czech state were created, it would be such a curiosity that Negroes from Africa could come to admire it” ^{[7] [8]} . Since 1915, he participated in the underground organization Maffie, the Czechoslovak Independence Movement . He spent the years of the First World War in Switzerland , Italy , Great Britain , France , Russia , the USA , where he actively campaigned the public opinion of the Entente for the independence of Czechoslovakia within such borders and recognized the “Czechoslovakians” as a special nation. After the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he was elected in absentia (while in the USA) in 1918 the first president of the Czechoslovak Republic; a month later he returned to the country.

In 1917, Masaryk came to Russia, where he participated in the creation of the Czechoslovak Corps (later renamed the Czechoslovak Legion , and then the Czechoslovak Army on February 1, 1919). In March 1918, Masaryk left for the USA from Moscow via Vladivostok. Masaryk said of his work in Russia: “This was a great job, in Russia, but wonderful; "we didn’t return home with bare hands, we had something real, ours, our army, the first, real, albeit extraterritorial, part of our future state." The Czechoslovak National Council , chaired by Tomas Masaryk, was recognized as the sole supreme organ of all Czechoslovak military units.

The identity of Masaryk in interwar Czechoslovakia became the object of a semi-official cult ^[9] . He was portrayed as the most authoritative political and spiritual leader of independent Czechoslovakia (he had the semi-official nickname "father" - Tatíček ), the embodiment of the ethical struggle for independence and the creation of a new state. The “humanistic” nature of Masaryk’s presidency was emphasized, he was characterized by the statement: “Any reasonable and honest policy is the implementation and strengthening of the principles of humanism. Politics, like everything we do, should be subordinated to ethical principles. Politics, like the whole life of a person and society, I can not understand otherwise than sub specie aeternitatis. " Even during his lifetime, the official cult of Masaryk, the “President-Liberator,” developed Karel Chapek , author of the multi-volume Conversations with T. G. Masaryk, made a significant contribution to the formation of the “Masaryk myth”.

A fan of Anglo-American culture, Masaryk strove to create a liberal multi-party democracy, with the assumption of national minorities in politics, but as an ideologist of "Czechoslovakism" he made anti-German statements. After his resignation in 1935 , of the two candidates: Edward Benes and Bohumil German ^[10] , the long-standing Foreign Minister Edward Benes was elected president. Masaryk died in 1937 in his estate of Lana , a year before the collapse of the First Czechoslovak Republic.

His wife, Charlotte Garrig , whose last name he took as his middle name, was American and was arrested by the Austrian authorities during World War I. They met in Leipzig, where both studied. Charlotte Garrig was a relative of the wealthy American businessman Charles Crane ^[11] . Charles Crane then arranged for Tomas Masaryk to work for him. Masaryk lived and worked in the USA for a very long time. Through Crane, President of the United States Woodrow Wilson also learned about Masaryk (Charles Crane helped finance Wilson’s election as US President). Subsequently, the son of Charles Crane Richard (brother of the wife of Tomas Masaryk) in 1919-1922 was the US envoy in Prague, and the other son of Crane (John Crane) in 1922 became the secretary of Masaryk in Prague. Masaryk’s son, Jan worked for Crane, and later for President Wilson. Jan Masaryk married the daughter of Crane ^[11] , worked in the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then became Czechoslovak ambassador to London.

Critically evaluating both poles of contemporary Czech political thought - Austro - Slavism and Russophile panslavism , Masaryk held a pragmatic point of view, trying to determine whose support the Slavs would be able to count on in the future, offered to seek help from Western Europe and the United States. In the work “Russia and Europe. An Essay on the Spiritual Trends in Russia, ”he attempted to debunk the myth of Russia's saving mission in relation to Slavic peoples. Unlike Russophile Pan-Slavism, who saw virtues in Orthodoxy and absolutism that could revive Slavism, Masaryk considered tsarism to be the main evil that made it impossible to help the Slavs from the Russian Empire, as well as hindering the development of Russia itself. Masaryk supported the first Russian revolution as a step towards getting rid of absolutism, a movement towards democracy.

According to Masaryk, the Russian people were mostly uneducated and prone to mysticism, and therefore Russia, despite the presence of great literature and military successes, lagged behind the civilized world and was Europe from the Middle Ages. Masaryk considered Russian nihilism a vulgar form of semi-education, and Bolshevism was a triumph of Russian education. Masaryk proved this position in the article “On Bolshevism”, written in the form of a lecture for Czechoslovak workers: “... in Russia you will not find either communism or socialism, and all because the Russian people are simply not educated enough for socialism.” Masaryk called the leaders of the Bolsheviks the people of one book. Masaryk considered the white movement as amateurish as the Bolshevik government, and thwarted the attempt of the first Czechoslovak Prime Minister Karel Kramarz to involve the Czechoslovak legions in active participation in the Civil War in Russia.

Masaryk considered the communist government temporary, unable to gain a foothold in the country, and therefore organized a program of assistance to Russian emigrants, called the “ Russian Action ”, the aim of which was to train the young generation of specialists in all areas of knowledge who would occupy a worthy place in future democratic Russia. In 1922, in a memorandum entitled “Russian Assistance from Europe and America”, which Masaryk sent to the governments of many European countries, he gave the ideological justification for the “Russian Action” ^[12] .

Corresponding Member of the British Academy (1920).

The Museum of Masaryk is open in Hodonin. His name is Masaryk University in Brno, many streets, avenues and train stations. The largest Czech circuit is called the Masaryk highway . Also, his name is the settlement in the north of Israel - Kfar Masaryk and the square in the center of Tel Aviv .

In 1928, Czechoslovakia issued a commemorative coin in denominations of 10 kroons with a portrait of T. Masaryk. The coin was dedicated to the 10th anniversary of independence. Weight 10 grams, sample 700.

In 1937, in connection with the death of T. Masaryk, Czechoslovakia issued a commemorative coin in denominations of 20 kroons. Weight 12 grams, sample 700.

In 1990, the Czechoslovak Federal Republic issued a series of commemorative coins in denominations of 10 kroons, including with T. Masaryk.

In modern Czechia there is an order established in honor of T. Masaryk.

The portrait of Masaryk is depicted on a modern banknote of 5000 Czech crowns .

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  • T. 2. - 1927. - 367 p.
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• Masaryk, Tomas Garrig - Biography. Bibliography. Philosophical and sociological ideas. Statements
• Tomas Masaryk is the first president of Czechoslovakia. Biography
• Trotsky L. Masaryk on Russian Marxism