Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, Hodonin, Czech Republic
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ToRo61
N 48° 51.025 E 017° 07.807
33U E 656263 N 5413015
Hodonin a birthplace of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk - the first President of Czechoslovakia
Waymark Code: WMEFCA
Location: Jihomoravský kraj, Czechia
Date Posted: 05/21/2012
Views: 81
Hodonín (
visit link) is a town on the River Morava in the southeast of Moravia, in the Czech Republic. Hodonín is in the heart of the Slovácko region in Moravia where the borders of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria converge.
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk sometimes called Thomas Masaryk in English, (7 March 1850 – 14 September 1937) was an Austro-Hungarian and Czechoslovak politician, sociologist and philosopher, who as an eager advocate of Czechoslovak independence during World War I became the founder and first President of Czechoslovakia. He originally wished to reform the Habsburg monarchy into a democratic federal state, but during the First World War he began to favour the abolition of the monarchy and, with the help of the Allied Powers, eventually succeeded.
In 1918 T. G. Masaryk traveled to the United States, where he convinced President Woodrow Wilson of the rightness of his cause. Speaking on 26 October 1918 from the steps of Independence Hall in Philadelphia as head of the Mid-European Union, Masaryk called for the independence of the Czechoslovaks and other oppressed peoples of Central Europe.
With the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, the Allies recognized Masaryk as head of the Provisional Czechoslovak government, and on November 14, 1918, he was elected President of the Czechoslovak Federation by the National Assembly in Prague.
Masaryk was re-elected as president three times: in 1920, 1927, and 1934. After the rise of Hitler, he was one of the first political figures in Europe to voice concern. Masaryk enjoyed almost legendary authority among the Czechoslovak people.
Masaryk's life motto was: Do not fear and do not steal (CZ: Nebát se a nekrást).
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