Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk[a] (7 March 1850 – 14 September 1937) was a Czechoslovak statesman, progressive political activist and philosopher who served as the first president of Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 1935.

He was an advocate of restructuring the Austro-Hungarian Empire into a federal state, but by the outbreak of the First World War, he had become a supporter of Czech and Slovak independence.

With the fall of Austria-Hungary in late 1918, the First Czechoslovak Republic received recognition from the Allied powers and Masaryk was recognised as head of its provisional government.

Masaryk was born to a poor, working-class family in the predominantly Catholic city of Hodonín, Margraviate of Moravia, in Moravian Slovakia (in the present-day Czech Republic, then part of the Austrian Empire).

Tomáš's mother, Teresie Masaryková (née Kropáčková), was a Moravian of Slavic origin who received a German education.

[7] Masaryk challenged the validity of the epic poems Rukopisy královedvorský a zelenohorský, supposedly dating to the early Middle Ages and presenting a false, nationalistic Czech chauvinism to which he was strongly opposed.

Masaryk believed that social problems and political conflicts were the results of ignorance, and that provided that one undertook a proper "scientific" approach to studying the underlying causes it would be possible to devise the correct solutions.

He went into exile in December 1914 with his daughter, Olga, staying in several places in Western Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States and Japan.

Masaryk began organizing Czechs and Slovaks outside Austria-Hungary during his exile, establishing contacts which would be crucial to Czechoslovak independence.

Masaryk was pivotal in establishing the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia as an effective fighting force on the Allied side during World War I, when he held a Serbian passport.

[10] In 1915 he was one of the first staff members of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (now part of University College London), where the student society and senior common room are named after him.

Masaryk became professor of Slavic Research at King's College London, lecturing on the problem of small nations.

In January 1917, supported by Norman Hapgood, T. G. Masaryk wrote the first memorandum to president Wilson, concerning the need for the creation of an independent Czechoslovak state.

Despite continuing efforts to persuade the Russian authorities to change their minds, the Czechs and Slovaks were officially barred from recruiting POWs until the summer of 1917.

[14] On 19 October 1915, Masaryk gave the inaugural address at the newly opened School of Slavonic Studies at King's College London on "The Problem of Small Nations in the European Crisis", arguing that on both moral and practical grounds that the United Kingdom should support the independence efforts of "small" nations such as the Czechs.

[citation needed] In a rare attempt to influence public opinion, Masaryk opened up an office on Piccadilly Circus in London whose exterior was covered with pro-Czechoslovak slogans and maps with the intention of attracting the interest of those walking by.

[20] After the 1917 February Revolution he proceeded to Russia to help organize the Czechoslovak Legion, a group dedicated to Slavic resistance to the Austrians.

Except for president Wilson and the secretary of the state Robert Lansing this was Ray Stannard Baker, W. Phillips, Polk, Long, Lane, D. F. Houston, William Wiseman, Harry Pratt Judson and the French ambassador Jean Jules Jusserand.

[21] On 18 October 1918 he submitted to president Thomas Woodrow Wilson "Washington Declaration" (Czechoslovak declaration of independence) created with the help of Masaryk American friends (Louis Brandeis, Ira Bennett, Gutzon Borglum, Franklin K. Lane, Edward House, Herbert Adolphus Miller, Charles W. Nichols, Robert M. Calfee, Frank E. J. Warrick, George W. Stearn and Czech Jaroslav Císař) as the basic document for the foundation of a new independent Czechoslovak state.

Speaking on 26 October 1918 as head of the Mid-European Union in Philadelphia, Masaryk called for the independence of Czechoslovaks and the other oppressed peoples of central Europe.

Masaryk's book Světová revoluce [cs] was paradigmatic of central European thought as he identified the Western powers as the "bearers of higher humanitarian principles and democracy" without regard to non-European peoples enduring colonialism or segregation in the United States.

Czech historian Pavel Barša [cs] writes that "he implicitly identified humanity with the peoples of European stock".

[22] Masaryk believed that Jews controlled the press and helped the nascent state of Czechoslovakia during its struggle for independence.

Czech historian Jan Láníček comments that "The great philosopher and humanist Masaryk was still using the same anti-Semitic trope found at the bottom of all anti-Jewish accusations.

On paper, Masaryk had a somewhat limited role; the framers of the constitution intended to create a parliamentary system in which the prime minister and cabinet held actual power.

These factors resulted in frequent changes of government; Masaryk's tenure saw ten cabinets headed by nine statesmen.

This stability, combined with his domestic and international prestige, gave Masaryk's presidency more power and influence than the framers of the constitution intended.

He was buried next to his wife in a plot at Lány cemetery, where later the remains of Jan Masaryk and Alice Masaryková were laid to rest.

Masaryk did not live to see the Munich Agreement or the Nazi occupation of his country, and was known as the Grand (Great) Old Man of Europe.

Commemorations of Masaryk have been held annually in the Lány cemetery on his birthday and day of death (7 March and 14 September) since 1989.