Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk was a Czechoslovak politician, statesman, sociologist, and philosopher who lived from 7 March 1850 to 14 September 1937. Until 1914, he campaigned for the Austro-Hungarian Empire to be restructured as a federal state. Masaryk achieved independence for the Czechoslovak Republic with the assistance of the Allied Powers as World War I concluded in 1918. He was the first president of Czechoslovakia, which he co-founded with Milan Rastislav Štefánik and Edvard Bene.
Masaryk served in the Reichsrat with the Young Czech Party from 1891 to 1893 and with the Czech Realist Party, which he created in 1900, from 1907 to 1914. When World War I broke out in 1914, Masaryk determined that the wisest course of action for Czechs and Slovaks was to pursue independence from Austria-Hungary. In December 1914, he went into exile with his daughter, Olga, and spent time in Western Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and Japan. During his exile, Masaryk began gathering Czechs and Slovaks outside of Austria-Hungary, building ties that would be critical to Czechoslovak independence. He gave speeches and authored essays and memoranda in support of the Czechoslovak cause. Despite having a Serbian passport, Masaryk was instrumental in organizing the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia as an effective combat force on the Allied side during World War I. During and after World War I, Masaryk advocated for the merger of the Kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro.
When the Austro-Hungarian Empire fell in 1918, the Allies recognized Masaryk as the interim Czechoslovak government's leader. While in New York, he was elected president of Czechoslovakia by the National Assembly in Prague on November 14, that year. Masaryk was re-elected three times: once in May 1920, once in 1927, and once in 1934. The 1920 constitution normally limited a president to two consecutive terms, but a one-time provision permitted the first president, Masaryk, to run for an unlimited number of terms. Masaryk died in Lány at the age of 87, less than two years after leaving office. He was renowned as the Grand (Great) Old Man of Europe but he did not live to see the Munich Agreement or the Nazi conquest of his nation.
