Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/125

T. G. Masaryk was born March 7 1850 of poor parents at Hodonín, a little town in the south of Moravia. After finishing his studies (1866–1872) at the grammar-school of Brno, the capital of Moravia, he entered the University of Vienna (1872–1876) and then completed his philosophical studies at the University of Leipsic. Afterwards he undertook several journeys in Germany and Russia, on one of which he made the acquaintance of an American lady, Miss Charlotte Garrigue, who later became his wife. In 1879 he established himself as lecturer of philosophy at the University of iVenna, and when, in 1881, the University of Prague had been divided into a German and a Czech University, Masaryk was transferred, in 1882, to this newly created Czech University.

His arrival at Prague marked the beginning of a complete revolution in the currents of philosophical and scientific thought prevailing in Bohemia. It signified an absolute emancipation from the German philosophy of Kant and his followers, and the adhesion to the French and the English empiric, positivist and evolutionist doctrines of Hume, Mill, Comte and Spencer. However, we must not suppose Masaryk having simply adopted these doctrines; he rather worked them critically, trying to assimilate them to his own personality and inner need. As a scientist and philosopher, he was not a type of a specialist, strictly limited to one or more branches of his science, but he is rather a vast and encyclopaedic mind who touched all sides of both the theoretical and practical philosophy. Everywhere he gave new impulses, calling attention to problems in Bohemia heretofore if not known at least neglected or undervalued.

In 1891–1893 Masaryk took an active part in politics, having been, in 1891, elected deputy to the Austrian Parliament. In this quality he was in most intimate relations to two prominent members of the Young Czech Party, one of whom is the well-known Dr. Kramář, formerly Prime Minister of the Czechoslovak Republic. Owing to his eminent qualities, Masaryk in the Austrian Parliament soon rose to be among the first political leaders. Although he did not always approve of all that the Czech delegation undertook, he never denied his true Czech sentiments. He criticised the Austrian systems against the Serbs of Bosnia so severely as to be stigmatised by German deputies a traitor.

In 1909 he was for the second time elected deputy to the Austrian Parliament. When in 1893 Masaryk had resigned his mandate as deputy, he did not quit altogether political work. In 1900 he grouped his partisans into a political party called “Realists” because of their principle to count in all work only with what is real, with facts.

When deputy for the second time, Masaryk already saw the course the official Austrian politics had taken, and the ends to which it must sooner or later come. He protested against the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, he publicly denounced all the crimes and the whole baseness of the Austrian Government with which it tried to justify, in the face of Europe, its barbarous proceedings against the Serbs, he intrepidly defended the Croatians and Serbs accused of high treason in 1909 and, in the infamous process of Friedjung, he greatly contributed to the discovery of false documents on which the Austrian Government, in the person of Count Aehrenthal, had based its whole Bosnian politics. Masaryk remained deputy till 1917 when, on account of his “treasonable” activity abroad, he was declared deprived of his mandate.

The task which Masaryk had undertaken in the present war against Austria-Hungary, is only the corollary of all his political activity of the last years before the war. As soon as the war was declared, he clearly saw the whole state of things. Austria, serf of Germany and its vanguard in the “Drang nach Osten”, attacked Serbia in order to dispatch, together with it, the whole Slavdom within its own boundaries, and to subdue it for ever to the German-Magyar yoke. Foreseeing all further events that were to come from it, he preferred leaving his native country that he might openly take side with the Allies and fight against Austria-Hungary for his own people.