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The Husbandman: Tomáš Masaryk's Leader Cult in Interwar Czechoslovakia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2009

Andrea Orzoff
Andrea Orzoff
Affiliation:
New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003
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Extract

For almost a century now, Tomáš Masaryk has been one of the most famous Czechs in world history. He was nominated at least twice for a Nobel Prize and lionized by noteworthies across the globe. However, that esteem paled when compared to the adoration expressed for him at home. During and after his lifetime, Masaryk was presented as the embodiment of moral rectitude, cosmopolitan erudition, and democratic egalitarianism. By the end of the 1930s, Masaryk's association with the state he had helped found was impressively total. But it was not accidental. Many different groups and factors collaborated to position Masaryk as the only man capable of superseding Czechoslovakia's ethnic and political divisions, a devoted democrat to lead Europe's self-styled ideal new democracy.

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Articles
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Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 39 , April 2008 , pp. 121 - 137
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Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 2008

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References

1 Of the scholars to mention the pervasive interwar Masaryk cult, only Vít Vlnas and Robert Pynsent have analyzed it in any depth. See Vlnas, “Myty a kyče první republiky” [The First Republic's myths and kitsches], Nová Přítomnost [The new presence] 8 (1991): 28–29; Pynsent, Questions of Identity: Czech and Slovak Ideas of Nationality and Personality (London, 1994), 193ff.

2 The extensive literature on political mythology has its roots in the work of Ernst Cassirer, who argues that states revert to myths in times of deep crisis, and that modern myths differ from ancient or sacred ones mainly due to the explicit, cynical way that modern regimes craft them: Cassirer, Der Mythus des Staates (Frankfurt, 1988). I have found the following helpful: Yves Bizeul, ed., Politische Mythen und Rituale in Deutschland, Frankreich, und Polen (Berlin, 2000); Christopher Flood, Political Myth: A Theoretical Introduction (New York, 2002); the work of Heidi Hein-Kircher, including Der Piłsudski-Kult und seine Bedeutung für den polnischen Staat 1926–1939 (Marburg, 2002); George Schöpflin and Geoffrey Hosking, ed., Myths and Nationhood (New York, 1997); Vladimir Tismaneanu, Fantasies of Salvation: Democracy, Nationalism, and Myth in Post-Communist Europe (Princeton, 1998); Nina Tumarkin, Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia, enlarged edition (Cambridge, 1997).

3 William Bascom, “The Forms of Folklore: Prose Narratives,” in Alan Dundes, ed., Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth (Berkeley, 1984), 9–10.

4 Joseph Campbell, interview with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth (New York, 1988), 30.

5 On the Lenin cult, see Tumarkin and Benno Ennker, Die Anfänge des Leninkults in der Sowjetunion (Köln 1997). For some of the most recent work on the Stalin cult see Apor, Behrends, et al., ed., The Leader Cult in Communist Dictatorships: Stalin and the Eastern Bloc (Houndmills, UK, 2004).

6 As set out by Heidi Hein-Kircher and Benno Ennker at Der Führer im Europa des. 20. Jahrhunderts, October 2007, Marburg, Germany.

7 E. A. Rees offers a concise presentation of the theory regarding modern leader cults. See Rees, “Leader Cults: Varieties, Preconditions and Functions,” in Apor, Behrends, et al., eds., The Leader Cult in Communist Dictatorships, 3–26.

8 Robert Kvaček, “The Rise and Fall of Democracy,” in Mikuláš Teich, Bohemia in History (Cambridge, 1998), 251.

9 For example, within the Castle chancellery, younger staffers frequently chafed against the conservative nationalism of political chief Josef Schieszl. Masaryk himself had to scold Schieszl in 1924 when Schieszl publicly denigrated the newly created, Castle-sponsored National Labor Party led by Jaroslav Stránský. Schieszl, “Nové strany” [New parties], Nová svoboda [New freedom], 1 October 1925, cited in Tomáš Dvořák, “Národní strana práce (1925–1930), II. Část” [The National Labor Party (1925–1930), part II], Střední Evropa [Central Europe] 77 (1998): 123. Also, the holdings for the interwar Czechoslovak Ministry of the Interior, in the Czech National Archives (formerly the State Central Archives, or SÚA), contain a chronological roster of censored publications. On that roster, several times, even before the First Republic's 1938 demise, was Ferdinand Peroutka's Přítomnost [The presence], now regarded as one of the foremost Castle publications. See Národní Archiv (Prague), Presidium ministerstva vnitra.

10 On the Castle, see, for example, Karl Bosl, ed. Die Burg: Einflußreiche politische Kräfte um Masaryk und Beneš, 2 vols. (Munich, 1973–74); Antonín Klímek, Boj o Hrad [Battle for the Castle], vol.1, Hrad a Pětka, 1918–1926 [The Castle and the Pětka, 1918–1926] (Prague, 1996), and Boj o Hrad, vol. 2, Kdo po Masarykovi? 1926–1935 [Who after Masaryk? 1926–1935] (Prague, 1998); Jaroslav Pecháček, Masaryk, Beneš, Hrad: Masarykovy dopisy Benešovi [Masaryk, Beneš, The Castle: Masaryk's Letters to Beneš] (Prague, 1996). In English, see F. Gregory Campbell, “The Castle, Jaroslav Preiss, and the ΂Živnostenská Bank,” Bohemia: Jahrbuch des Collegium Carolinum 15 (1974): 231–53, and Andrea Orzoff, Battle for the Castle: National Myth and Propaganda in Czechoslovakia, 1914–1948 (Oxford, forthcoming).

11 Zbyněk Zeman, The Masaryks: The Making of Czechoslovakia (New York, 1976), 139.

12 On the emperor, see Daniel L. Unowsky, The Pomp and Politics of Patriotism: Imperial Celebrations in Habsburg Austria, 1848–1916 (West Lafayette, IN, 2005), 25, as well as Veronika Sušová, “Integrační role rakouského císaře v rakouské státní propagandě 19. století” [The integrative role of the Austrian emperor in Austrian state propaganda of the 19th century], Dějiny a současnost [History and the present] 5 (2004): 15–19. On Masaryk, see Klímek, Boj o Hrad, 1:84; also see, for example, Karel Čapek, President Masaryk Tells His Story (1935; repr., New York, 1971), 286–89.

13 For examples, see Kaiser Franz Josef I. und seine Zeit: Porträts und historische Blätter (Vienna, 1908) and Karel Čapek, Masaryk ve fotografii [Masaryk in photographs] (Prague, 1931).

14 Zeman, The Masaryks, 121.

15 Ferdinand Peroutka, Budování státu [Building the state], 4 vols. (Prague, 1991), 1:301.

16 Klímek, Boj o Hrad, 1:74–75.

17 Zeman, The Masaryks, 119.

18 The Czech is: “Tomáše den požehnaný,/ štedrejší než Mikuláš./ Co jsi chtěl a zač seš modlil, / národe můj, tu to máš!/ Tomáš tu! Po ctyřech letech/ z apostolských prišel cest,/ přinašeje v ruční tašce / [žluté] novou blahověst.” “Kronika pestrá” [The vivid chronical], in Karel Čapek, Hovory s T. G. Masarykem [Conversations with T. G. Masaryk] (Prague, 1990), 369.

19 Jan Rokyta, President Masaryk. Baseň k jeho šedmdesatým narozeninám [President Masaryk. A Song for His Seventieth Birthday] (Prague, 1920), (stanza 11). Like much of this material, this pamphlet was sold very cheaply. The price was 30 haléř, with 100 haléř to the crown.

20 Václav Němec, “Našemu milému presidentovi” [To Our Dear President]. 1926, H 189/26, Archiv kanceláře presidenta republiky, (hereafter cited as AKPR), Prague.

21 Frantisek Kubka, “Roku 2000 na Hradě pražském” [The year 2000 at the Prague Castle], Národní osvobození [National liberation] 3 July 1930, cited in Vlnas, “Myty a kyče,” 29.

22 On Kramář, the best source is now Martina Winkler, Karel Kramář (1860–1937): Selbstbild, Fremdwahrnehmungen und Modernisierungsverständnis eines tschechischen Politikers (Munich, 2002), although Winkler does not deal much with the creation of a leader cult. Some evidence exists in the battles between Kramář and the Castle. For example, in late 1926 Karel Scheinpflug, one of the last members of the Castle circle to remain in the National Democratic Party, informed the presidential chancellery that “the editors must toss reams of news into the trash, and publish endless boring parliamentary speeches, even the same speech two or three times, as has happened with speeches by Dr. Kramář …” AKPR, sign. 635/21, document (hereafter cited as doc.) 1349/26, as reported by Karel Scheinpflug, dated 29 November, 1926.

23 On Czech Catholicism and Czech nationalism, see the work of Cynthia Paces, especially “‘The Czech Nation Must Be Catholic!’: An Alternative Version of Czech Nationalism During the First Republic,” Nationalities Papers 27 (1999) and “Religious Heroes for a Secular State: Commemorating Jan Hus and Saint Wenceslas in 1920s Czechoslovakia,” in Nancy Wingfield and Maria Bucur, eds., Staging the Past: Commemorations in the Habsburg Lands (Lafayette, IN, 2001), 199–225. Also see Martin C. Putna, “Mezi republikou, fašismem a proletariátem: publicistika Jaroslava Durycha ve dvacátých letech a její souvislost s autorovým uměleckým dílem” [Between the republic, fascism, and the proletariat: The political journalism of Jaroslav Durych in the twenties and its context with the author's artistic work], Soudobé dějiny [Contemporary history] 9, nos. 3–4 (2002): 397–411.

24 Paces, “‘The Czech Nation Must Be Catholic!’,” 407.

25 See Nancy M. Wingfield, Flag Wars and Stone Saints: How the Bohemian Lands Became Czech (Cambridge, 1997) and the works of Mark Cornwall, such as “Dr. Edvard Beneš and Czechoslovakia's German Minority, 1918–1943,” in The Czech and Slovak Experience: Selected Papers from the Fourth World Congress for Soviet and East European Studies, ed. John Morrison (New York, 1992). Also helpful are the essays in Marie L. Neudorflová, ed., Češi a Němci v pojetí a politice T. G. Masaryka: sborník příspěvků z mezinárodní konference [Czechs and German in the theory and politics of T. G. Masaryk: A collection of contributions to an international conference] (Prague, 2004).

26 James Felak, “At the Price of the Republic”: Hlinka's Slovak People's Party, 1929–1938 (Pittsburgh, 1994), 40–41, 153.

27 On this “Tateleben” controversy, see Parlament České Republiky, Poslanecká Sněmovna [Parliament of the Czech Republic, Chamber of Deputies], “Národní shromáždění republiky Československé 1920–1925, Poslanecká sněmovna, 357. schůze” [National assembly of the Czechoslovak Republic, Chamber of Deputies, 357th meeting], 10 July 1925, http://www.psp.cz/eknih/1920ns/ps/stenprot/357schuz/s357003.htm (accessed 7 October 2007), as well as Slovák 2 April 1924 and 9 March 1926. My thanks to James Ward for these references.

28 Klímek, Boj o Hrad, 1:85–87.

29 Jaroslav Pelikan, “Jesus, not Caesar”: The Religious World View of Thomas Garrigue Masaryk and the Spiritual Foundations of Czech and Slovak Culture. Westminster Tanner-McMurrin Lectures on the History and Philosophy of Religion at Westminster College (Salt Lake City, UT, 1991), 4.

30 Klímek, Boj o Hrad, 1:88.

31 See Peter Bugge, “Czech Democracy: Paragon or Parody?” in Bohemia: Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der böhmischen Länder 47, no. 1 (2006): 22, and Peter Heumos, “Die Arbeiterschaft in der Ersten Tschechoslowakischen Republik,” Bohemia 29 (1988): 69–71.

32 AKPR, inventářní kniha signatury R, Žádosti o podporu. For example, see 1928 letter from former Senator P. Mudroch, from Sotiná pri Senici nad Myjavou (R 7/28).

33 AKPR, inventářní kniha signatury R, Žádosti o podporu. See R 17273, from Helena Dědková, Hradec Králove, Husová ul 3. A chancellery staffer marked the letter “Vyšetřeno” and noted the family's real need for support.

34 Arnošt Caha, Tatíček Masaryk—Osvoboditel [Daddy Masaryk—Liberator] (Brno, 1921). Similarly, for a slightly more sophisticated audience, see Jan Hajšman, Masaryk—Vůdce, osvoboditel. Jak Masaryk zahajoval odboj za hranicemi [Masaryk—Leader, Liberator. How Masaryk Initiated the Resistance Abroad] (Prague, 1920).

35 Ivan Herben, “Dáry a lásky” [Gifts and loves], Lidové noviny [The people's newspaper], 8 March 1930, reprinted in Vlnas, “Myty a kyče,” 29.

36 Archiv Masarykova Ústavu, Masaryk Archive (hereafter AMÚ/MAR), photographs, VIII/ 47 / 2* 411, pictures 4821, 4823. On the Museum of Gifts, see Broklová, Hájková, Tomeš, and Vašek, eds., Mám jen knihy a skripta, cenná práce životní [I have only books and manuscripts, the precious work of a lifetime] (Prague, 2002), 164–65.

37 Christopher Flood, Political Myth, 41, discussing Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion (New York, 1958), 430.

38 Josef Koudelák, T. G. Masaryk: Dětská hrá o 3 jednáních s dohrou [T. G. Masaryk: A children's play in three acts with epilogue] (Brtnice, 1930).

39 Among many examples, see R. Eliáš, T. G. Masaryk (Prague, 1920) and Lída Merlínová, Tatíček Masaryk [Daddy Masaryk] (Prague, 1934). The second piece was written in consultation with the Castle; the author notes that it was corrected by the president's archivist, V. K. Škrach.

40 Hans Lemberg, “Ein Geschichtsbuch unter drei Staatsystemen: Josef Pekářs Oberklassenlehrbuch von 1914–1945,” in Deutsch-tschechische Beziehungen in der Schulliteratur und im populären Geschichtsbild, ed. Hans Lemberg and Ferdinand Seibt (Braunschweig, 1980), 85. See Josef Pekář, Dějiny československé: pro nejvyšší třídy škol středních [Czechoslovak history: For advanced high school classes] (Prague, 1921), 45ff.

41 Pekář, 168.

42 Klímek, Boj o Hrad, 1:87.

43 Čapek, Masaryk ve fotografii. Many editions of this book were printed between 1931 and 1947, including German- and Hungarian-language versions.

44 On the Legions, inter alia see Manfred Alexander, “Die Rolle der Legionäre in der Ersten Republik: Ein politischer Verband und sein Geschichtsbild,” in Vereinswesen und Geschichtspflege in den böhmischen Ländern, ed. Michael Neumüller (München, 1986), 265–79; Karel Pichlík, Bohumír Klípa, and Jitka Zabloudilová, Českoslovenšti legionáři 1914–1920 [Czechoslovak Legionnaires 1914–1920] (Prague, 1996); Gerburg Thunig-Nittner, Die tschechoslowakische Legion in Russland. Ihre Geschichte und ihre Bedeutung bei der Entstehung der ersten Tschechoslowakischen Republik (Wiesbaden, 1970). Wingfield, Flag Wars and Stone Saints, discusses the role of the Legionnaires in public commemorations.

45 Orzoff, Battle for the Castle, chapters 3–4.

46 Masaryk's writing is quoted in Vlnas, “Myty a kyče,” 29. On Legionnaire patriotic culture, see Wingfield, Flag Wars and Stone Saints, ms 263ff, and Alexander, “Die Rolle der Legionare in der Ersten Republik,” 270.

47 Jaroslav Papoušek, ed., Masaryk a revoluční armada: Masarykovy projevy k Legiím a o Legiích v zahraniční revoluci [Masaryk and the Revolutionary Army: Masaryk's speeches to the Legions and about the Legions in the revolution abroad] (Prague, 1922).

48 Čapek, Masaryk ve fotografii, especially the 1922 military maneuvers near Sedlčany. See also Rudolf Těsnohlídek, ed., President mezi svými: druhý zájezd na Moravu a navstěva Slezska v roce 1924 [The president among his own (people): The second excursion to Moravia and visit to Silesia in 1924] (Prague, 1924), which contains only six pictures, one of which is Masaryk reviewing a military formation in Znojmo.

49 See Orzoff, Battle for the Castle, chapter 4, as well as the Masaryk archives in Prague. Many of these anonymous manuscripts have been published recently: see Jiří Brabec et.al., eds., T. G. Masaryk, Cesta demokracie: Projevy, články, rozhovory [T. G. Masaryk, the path of democracy: Speeches, articles, interviews], vols. 1, 3–4, (Prague, 1994–2003).

50 Peter Bugge, “A Happy Ending? The Czech ‘Return’ to Masaryk after 1989,” (conference paper, American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Denver, November 2000), 8–9. I thank the author for permission to cite this paper.

51 Čapek to Scheinpflugová, 3 and 6 October 1927, in Korespondence [Correspondence], 2 vols. (Prague, 1993), 2:220.

52 The Masaryk archives in Prague contain manuscript sections of the Conversations, edited in Masaryk's handwriting. See also Karel Čapek, Čtení o T. G. Masarykovi [Readings about T. G. Masaryk], ed. Miroslav Halík (Prague, 1969), photograph following 143.

53 Klímek, Boj o Hrad, 2:395. See also Julius Firt, Knihy a osudy [Books and fates] (Brno, 1972), 263.

54 Anna Gašparikova-Horakova, U Masarykovcov: spomienky osobnej archivárky T. G. Masaryka [At the Masaryks': Recollections of T. G. Masaryk's personal archivist] (Bratislava, 1995), diary entry for 14 February 1930, cited in Bruce Berglund's unpublished manuscript, “Prague Castle as Sacred Acropolis: Faith, Conviction, and Skepticism in the House of Masaryk,” 34.

55 Čapek, Talks with T. G. Masaryk, trans. Dora Round (North Haven, CT, 1995), 90, 93.

56 Čapek, Masaryk on Thought and Life (London, 1938), 186, 194.

57 Čapek, foreword to Život a práce [Life and work] (Prague, 1932), cited in “Publishers' Notes” in Čapek, Hovory s T. G. Masarykem [Conversations with T. G. Masaryk] (1969; repr., Prague, 1990), 553.

58 Ibid., 175–76, 179.

59 See, for example, Masaryk's comment that even propaganda must be honorable in Světová revoluce: za války a ve válce, 1914–1918 [World revolution: Before and during the war, 1914–1918] (Prague, 1925), 100. Čapek was also struck by this story and Masaryk's emphasis on the truth. See the section titled “Nechtěl jsem lhát…” [I didn't want to lie…] in Mlčení s T. G. Masarykem [Silences with T. G. Masaryk] (Prague, 1935), cited in Čapek, Hovory s T. G. Masarykem, 347–66.

60 A Čapek manuscript from early 1930 for Lidové noviny [The people's newspaper] can serve as an example in this case. Its title was “Presidentská otázka” [The presidential question]. The manuscript bears penciled-in comments in the president's handwriting. AMÚ/MAR, Dokumentace, karton 9, sl. 56. In the top right-hand corner, the manuscript bears the label 95/30, indicating it was written in 1930, probably in the early part of the year.

61 Čapek, “Váš Masaryk” [Your Masaryk], reprinted in Čapek, Hovory s T. G. Masarykem, 440–441.

62 Čapek, “Dvacáty čtvrty květen” [The twenty-fourth of May], Lidové noviny 25 May 1934, reprinted in Čapek, Hovory s T. G. Masarykem, 446–49. Čapek's italics.

63 Quotations from untitled obituary in Lidové noviny, 14 September 1937, and “Věčný Masaryk” [Eternal Masaryk], Lidové noviny, 14 September 1937, both reprinted in Čapek, Hovory s T. G. Masarykem, 459–61. Čapek's capitalization.

64 Ferdinand Peroutka, Deníky, dopisy, vzpomínky [Diaries, letters, memories] (Prague, 1995), 136–37, 143.

65 Klímek, Boj o Hrad, 2:249.

66 Peroutka, Deníky, dopisy, vzpomínky, 143.

67 Klímek, Boj o Hrad, 2:284.

68 Peroutka relied particularly on the recollections of Alois Rašín: Peroutka, Budování státu, 1:294. At times he also alludes to entries Karel Kramář made in his diary: Peroutka, Budování státu, 2:723–24.

69 Peroutka, Budování státu, 1:297, 299.

70 Peroutka, Budování státu, 2:842, 843.

71 Ibid., 765–66.

72 Peroutka, Budování státu, 1:296.

73 Peroutka, Budování státu, 2:772–73.

74 Cited in Robert Pynsent, introduction to T. G. Masaryk 1850–1937: Thinker and Critic, 3 vols., ed. Robert Pynsent, et al. (London, 1989), 2:2.

75 On the use of Masaryk after 1938, see inter alia Bruce Berglund, “‘We Wish We Were Home’: The Czechoslovak Emigré Community in Britain 1940–1945,” (PhD dissertation, University of Kansas, 1999); Jan Kuklík and Jan Němeček, Proti Benešovi! Česká a slovenská protibenešovská opozice v Londýně 1939–1945 [Against Beneš! The Czech and Slovak opposition to Beneš in London 1939–1945] (Prague, 2004); Chad Bryant, Prague in Black: Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism (Cambridge, 2007); Bradley F. Abrams, The Struggle for the Soul of the Nation: Czech Culture and the Rise of Communism (New York, 2004); Bugge, “A Happy Ending?”

76 Flood, Political Myth, 35.

77 The previous two quotes are from Rees, “Leader Cults,” The Leader Cult in Communist Dictatorships, ed. Apor, et al., 11.

78 Democratic leader cults, while more openly contested, are not inherently weaker or less effective than dictatorial leader cults in, say, Stalin-era Eastern Europe or Nazi Germany. Much research indicates a surprising degree of apathy or open resistance of these leader cults. See ibid.

79 See Bugge, “Czech Democracy: Paragon or Parody?” for the most recent discussion of the nature of interwar Czechoslovak democracy, in addition to other important assessments made by Melissa Feinberg, Elusive Equality: Gender, Citizenship, and the Limits of Democracy in Czechoslovakia, 1918–1950 (Pittsburgh, 2006); Antonín Klímek, Boj o Hrad; and Jan Rataj, O autoritativní národní stát: Ideologické proměny české politiky v druhé republice 1938–1939 [On the authoritarian national state. The ideological sources of Czech politics during the Second Republic 1938–1939] (Prague, 1997), among others.

80 Rees, “Leader Cults,” in The Leader Cult in Communist Dictatorships, ed. Apor, et al., 13.

81 Ibid., 7. Čapek, “Věčný Masaryk” [Eternal Masaryk], Lidové noviny, 14 September 1937, reprinted in Čapek, Hovory s T. G. Masarykem, 459–61.