Masaryk, Tomáš Garrigue << MAS uh rihk, TAW mahsh guh REEG >> (1850-1937), was a Czech scholar and political leader. With his student Eduard Beneš, he founded Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia) in 1918. Masaryk became the country’s first president in 1918 and served until 1935.
Masaryk was born on March 7, 1850, in the region of Moravia, then a part of Austria. He was educated at the universities of Vienna and Leipzig. Masaryk taught philosophy and sociology at Charles University in Prague.
Masaryk began his political career in 1891 in Austria-Hungary’s parliament. He fought for the rights of Slavic minority groups. When World War I broke out in 1914, he fled to Switzerland and then to England. Masaryk began to call for an independent nation for Czechs and Slovaks. Austria-Hungary’s government sentenced him to death for treason in 1916.
Masaryk came to the United States in 1917 to seek support for an independent Czechoslovakia. He met with President Woodrow Wilson and with the ethnic groups the Czechs, Slovaks, and Ruthenes in the United States. After the Allied armies defeated Austria-Hungary in 1918, the Republic of Czechoslovakia was created.
Masaryk’s 17-year term as president of Czechoslovakia was generally a time of peace and prosperity. But many Slovaks gradually became restless because they thought that he had not fulfilled a promise to grant them the right of self-government. The large German minority group turned increasingly to Nazi Germany for sympathy and help. Masaryk resigned in 1935 because of poor health. He died on Sept. 14, 1937. Beneš succeeded him.
Masaryk’s son Jan Garrigue Masaryk entered the Czechoslovak foreign service in 1919 and later became foreign minister. He fought a losing battle from 1945 to 1948 against the increasing Communist control of Czechoslovakia.
