Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/325

As an organization, the Sokols, an association for the development of the mind and physical improvement of the body is not of recent formation. It was founded February 26, 1862, when the first general meeting of this society was held. From time to time congresses of all the Slovanic societies were held in different cities.

Courtesy Czechoslovak Information Bureau.

Ten Thousand Sokols Drilling in Prague.

It was mainly through the activities of this organization that the Czechoslovak soul was kept fired with its intense nationalism. It was the soul of the Sokols which firmly held together the bands of liberty-loving Czechs and Slovaks, who made possible the wholesale desertions from the Austrian armies and their reformation as effective independent units fighting for the liberation of their home land and the breaking of the long years of bondage which held them as slaves to the House of Habsburg and its hordes.

Therefore, it was but proper and fitting that the Sokols should conduct the first athletic festival to commemorate the liberation of the Czechoslovak lands and people. This was fittingly accomplished through a tournament held in the City of Prague during the latter part of the month of June. Visitors from all corners of the world attended and were received and honored as guests by a freed people.

As a sight the 10,112 men drilling as one compact mass to be replaced by 10,112 women, at once presented a magnificent spectacle long to be remembered. It carries one back to the classical days of Greece when athletic development and bodily perfection were esteemed as essential qualities of a nation. The word “Sokol” freely translated means “Hawk” or “Falcon’ and is regarded by the Slavs more as symbol of strength. A possible American comparison