Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk was a Czechoslovak statesman, progressive political activist and philosopher who served as the first president of Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 1935. He is regarded as the founding father of Czechoslovakia.
Portico of the University of Vienna building where Masaryk studied philosophy.
Hustopeče: Grave of parents of Masaryk
Triumvirate of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Milan Rastislav Štefánik, and Edvard Beneš.
Masaryk and his daughter, Olga, returning from exile on 21 December 1918
Czechoslovakia was a landlocked state in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland became part of Nazi Germany, while the country lost further territories to Hungary and Poland. Between 1939 and 1945, the state ceased to exist, as Slovakia proclaimed its independence and Carpathian Ruthenia became part of Hungary, while the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed in the remainder of the Czech Lands. In 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, former Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš formed a government-in-exile and sought recognition from the Allies.
Czechoslovak troops in Vladivostok (1918)
Czechoslovak declaration of independence rally in Prague on Wenceslas Square, 28 October 1918
A monument to Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Milan Štefánik—both key figures in early Czechoslovakia
The car in which Reinhard Heydrich was fatally injured in 1942