Otto's Encyclopedia

The next year, Masaryk got involved in a tempestuous dispute over the authenticity of the allegedly historical Zelenohorský and Královedvorský manuscripts and resigned from the editorship.

Otto managed to establish a new editorial group from prominent technicians, theologians and representatives of Czech universities including figures such as Karel Boromejský Mádl.

[4] Immediately after finishing his encyclopedia, Otto began to plan a second, sixteen-volume revised edition and started to prepare its realization.

These supplements, of very broad conception, were supposed to reflect new pieces of knowledge arising since the first edition was published, new historical events and the new political reality of the freshly born Czechoslovakia.

In 1945, an order not to publish the rest of the encyclopedia came, substantiated by a statement that volumes released during World War II were severely affected by the Nazi censorship.

Jan Havránek, a contemporary Czech historian, states that such censorship interference indeed took place, its range was much more limited than was thought at that time.)

Derek Sayer in his book says that "But it is Ottův slovník naučný that remains the greatest of Czech works of reference, unsurpassed by anything published since.