Tomas Garrigue Masaryk

Chronology of Masaryk's Life and Work

1850	Tomas Masaryk is born in Hodonin in south-east Moravia on 7 March, the son of a coachman and a cook.
1864-65	Apprenticed to a blacksmith.
1865-72	Attends high school (gymnasia) in Brno and Wienna.
1872-76	Studies at Vienna University, graduates with the thesis `The Nature of the Soul According to Plato'.
1876-77	Works as a private tutor in Leipzig where he meets the American, Charlotte Garrigue.
1878	First journey to America, marries Charlotte Garrigue in New York on 15 March.
1879	His second thesis (habilitation thesis), `Suicide as a Social Mass Phenomenon', is accepted; it allows him to teach as an unsalaried Privatdozent at Vienna University.
1881	Publishes in book form the revised German version of his thesis on suicide.
1882	Appointed Professor Extraordinarius of philosophy at the new Czech University in Prague; is not nominated for full professorship until January 1897.
1883	Establishes the monthly Athenaeum, a magazine devoted to the critical examination of Czech culture and science.
1885	Publishes the Czech version of his philosophical work The Foundations of Concrete Logic; an enlarged German version is published in 1887.
1886-88	Famous manuscripts, considered by many patriots as valuable testimonies of medieval Czech culture, are exposed as forgeries by scholars grouped around the Athenaeum; Masaryk plays an important part in this campaign.
1887	Journey to Russia, discussions with Tolstoy; further meetings with Tolstoy in 1889 and 1910; rejects Tolstoy's doctrine of non- resistance to evil.
1891	Elected to the Vienna parliament as a deputy of the Young Czech Party which he had joined as a member of the `Realist' group.
1893	Resigns his seat in parliament, dissatisfied with the empty radicalism of the Young Czechs and frustrated by inner-party squabbles.
1895-98	Years of intensive writing devoted mainly to Czech problems; Masaryk defines his views on the meaning of Czech history and develops a Czech political programme; presents himself as a political thinker whose opinions have a firm moral and religious foundation; publishes The Czech Question (1895), Our Present Crisis (1895), Jan Hus (1896), Karel Havlicek (1896), and The Social Question (1898).
1899-1900	The trial of Leopold Hilsner, a Jew accused of the murder of two Christian girls, triggers widespread manifestations of anti- Semitism; Masaryk campaigns against racial prejudice, especially against the superstition of Jewish ritual murders.
1900	Together with some of his `Realist' supporters, Masaryk establishes a new political party, The Czech People's (Realist) Party, later renamed the Progressive Party; it remains a marginal group in Czech political life.
1902	Second journey to America; lectures at Chicago University about Czech literature and history and on general Slavic questions.
1907	Re-enters the Vienna parliament as a deputy of the Realist Party, elected with the support of the Social Democrats; remains in parliament for two consecutive election periods until the outbreak of the First World War. Third journey to America; speaks about religion in Austria at the Congress of Religious Liberals in Boston; visits Czech immigrants in many American cities.
1907-08	Demands freedom of science in a parliamentary action; defends the Austrian professor Ludwig Wahrmund, persecuted for a lecture about contradictions between church doctrine and science.
1909-11	In connection with the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina Masaryk sharply criticises Austria's foreign policy, especially the alliance with Germany; defends the South Slavs accused of high treason in a trial at Agram; testifies against the historian Heinrich Friedjung who used forged documents in his accusations against the Austrian Slavs.
1913	Publishes in German the first two volumes of his major work Russland und Europa (translated as The Spirit of Russia); The third volume is published in English translation in 1967.
1914-18	The First World War.
1914-17	Masaryk decides to join the Allied Powers in their fight against Austria-Hungary and Germany; visits Italy, Switzerland, France and England; establishes the Czechoslovak National Council in Paris with Edvard Benes and Milan R. Stefanik; Czechoslovak military units are formed in Russia and France.
1917-18	Masaryk travels to Russia; consolidates the Czechoslovak Army after the Bolshevik Revolution, declares it a part of the Czechoslovak Army in France and reaches agreement about its departure from Russian territory.
1918	Masaryk arrives in the United States; the Czechoslovak National Council is recognised by France and England as the de factogovernment of Czechoslovakia; Masaryk gains the same recognition for his movement by the American government; Czechoslovak soldiers fight in France and Italy against the Central Powers; in Russia the Czechoslovak Legion, involved in conflict with the Bolsheviks, is instructed by the Allies to stay in Siberia and temporarily controls the entire Siberian Railway (the last Czechoslovak soldiers return home in 1920); in Prague the revolutionary National Assembly elects Masaryk the first President of Czechoslovakia. Publishes The New Europe, an outline of the post-war European reconstruction.
1920	Elected President according to the new Czechoslovak constitution; re-elected in 1927 and 1934.
1925	Publishes his memoirs and political-historical observations Svetova revoluce (The World Revolution), translated into English as The Making of a State.
1928	Publication of the first volume of Hovory s T. G. Masarykem (President Masaryk Tells His Story), an autobiography and philosophical profile in the form of Masaryk's discussions with the writer Karel Capek.
1935	Resigns the post of President for reasons of health.
1937	Dies at Lany in central Bohemia on 14 September