"The Czech Question" A Century Later

Abstract

The Ceska otazka (The Czech Question) by Masaryk is the supreme work of Czech national mythology. It is true that the author had already been filled with the spirit of a positivistic critical science, but he also embraced the Czech National Revival. The aim of the study is to analyze the reasons for this asymmetry. The study points out the fundamental differences between contemporary interpretations of Masaryk and interpretations during his lifetime: the Czech people participated substantially in the economic miracle which took place in the Czech lands in the latter half of the 19th century, and constituted the third largest nation in the huge Central European empire. They did not suffer from such a marked , small nation* complex as their descendants of today. That is why Masaryk conceived his Czech Question as a view of what had been achieved, and as an ideological basis or the social modernization and political efforts of that time. Masaryk replaced Comte' s vision of an industrial society with the concept of democracy: this concept is very broad and does not dwell on political definitions only. Masaryk, as an expert in theoretical and political socialism ofthat time, relates national emancipation to social emancipation. This would correspond with Western European models if it were not for Masaryk's efforts to incorporate into this framework archaic elements of the early Czech national imagination, as well as the Slavonic idea which lost its viability in the Czech modernization process as early as the mid 1840's. The reason for this strange syncretism was pragmatically political: the shaping of the Czech myth towards the social issue also means the shaping of the social issue towards the Czech myth. An originally conservative critic of modern culture, Masaryk addresses, as a practical politician, the new massive and rapidly growing power of social emancipation, i.e. primarily the working class and the social democratic movement. He wants to bring these under control by transferring them from the cosmopolitan platform of socialism to the Czech national movement which, for this purpose, he interprets as the , philosophy of Czech national history*. This should be seen in connection with some events of the Czech and Central European political scenes of that time, and with Masaryk's efforts to find a strong starting position in Czech and Central European politics. Czech Sociological Review, 1995, Vol. 3 (No. 1: 59-73) Masaryk's Ceska otazka (The Czech Question) is the foremost work within Czech national mythology. Even though its author was influenced by the critical spirit of the positivist branch of science [Střitecký 1995], he focused his interest on the Czech national revival which, in 1894, could already be accepted as a historical fact in need of interpretation. That is also why the work represents a kind of inventory summarising all that had already been achieved. Czech national society existed then not merely as some kind of revivalist dream and programme, but was already fully developed in all its components, and an internally *) Direct all correspondence to Prof. Jaroslav Střitecký, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, A. Novaka 1,660 88 Brno.