T. G. Masaryk a čeští historici: dějiny jednoho nedorozumění ve veřejném prostoru

• Authors: Alain Soubigou

Title variants

EN

Masaryk and Czech historians: history of a misunderstanding in public space

FR

Masaryk et les historiens tchèques: histoire d’un malentendu dans l’espace public

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk had a long contact with foreign and home historians. From heuristic point of view, he discussed Buckle’s theory of positivist history. He tried to follow his steps but he was not so methodic as the English self-taught historian. Masaryk adored František Palacký, historian and the father of the nation. Palacký was an academic writer who worked in archives and libraries, in this perspective, he was methodic. But he wrote (elegantly) in romantic style. The point for Masaryk was to intervene in public space. For him, more than for Palacký, history has to enlight present time. Palacký had to convince colleagues, Masaryk wanted to convince other citizens. The first Masaryk’s public battle was about authenticity of two manuscripts from Zelená Hora and Dvůr Králové. With a team around positivist historian Jaroslav Goll, Masaryk dissassembled the nationalist myth around these forged manuscripts. The struggle was so violent that Masaryk almost lost his place at Prague University and thought to an academic carrier in USA. Alongside political struggles, Masaryk wrote books about Czech question, about Jan Hus, about Karel Havlíček Borovský, which testified his durable interest for history, in spite of political, teleogical, religious interpretations. Lot of historians then stood away from Masaryk before WW1. After WW1, Masaryk was elected president of new built Republic of Czechoslovakia. He wrote two books on bolshevism and about the WW1 seen as the victory of democracy on authoritarianism of four fallen empires. Very interesting books, written with the help of professional historians, but not really books of history. The book which he dicted to his talented friend writer Karel Čapek, Talks with Masaryk, is very useful and was and is still a best-seller, but it is just the history of a (rich) personality. Two Czech historians crossed Masaryk’s life between WW. First was great historian Josef Pekař who was next to Masaryk before WW1. But Pekař was Catholic and regretted the fate of Bohemian nobility in the Republic. He met Masaryk just once in 1933. Masaryk paid tribute to the great historian when he died at the beginning of 1937. The second historian was Kamil Krofta who worked in Vatican archive, was close to Catholic interests but served as diplomat of Czechoslovak Republic and became the last minister of Foreign Affairs after Edvard Beneš and before tragedy of Munich. Resistant against nazis, he suffered of repression and died in 1945. The paths of both historians were opposite: Pekař was close to Masaryk and went away; Krofta was far and came to Masaryk’s ideals. Above all, misunderstanding weighed on ties between Masaryk and historians.

EN

These wanted to defend scientific positions in historic discurse. Masaryk wanted to defend political, teleogical, religious positions in his books about history.

Keywords

EN

Henry Buckle; positivist history; František Palacký; manuscripts of Zelená Hora and Dvůr Králové; Josef Pekař; Kamil Krofta

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Český časopis historický (The Czech Historical Review)
• Year: 2023
• Volume: 121
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 7-16
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Alain Soubigou

• Historický ústav AV ČR, v. v. i., Prosecká 809/76, 190 00 Praha 9, Czech Republic