JAN MASARYK

Born in 1886, Jan Masaryk spent his formative years in the Austrian Empire’s period of final decline. Hapsburg power was still the dominant fact of political life, but all the subject minorities were restless, longing to break free as separate and sovereign nations; among them were the Czechs and Slovaks. That aspiration, that national dream, was a moving force in the life of any Czech with a sense of history, who could think back half a millennium to when Bohemia had indeed been an autonomous kingdom. Within the Masaryk family in particular, the hope for independence was a consuming fire: the father, Tomáš Masaryk, was an academic philosopher-turned-activist, who led the clandestine secessionist movement so persuasively that the Austrian authorities put him on the wanted list, as a dangerous subversive, and he had to flee for his life. His calculated and successful response was to unite his compatriots in the Czechoslovak Legion, to fight on the Allied side against Austria and Germany in the first world war. And his triumph was to found the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, becoming its revered Founder-President for the next seventeen years.

Growing up in the shadow of these events, and hugely influenced by his father’s luminous statesmanship, Jan Masaryk became a fervent patriot, committed to the democratic ideals of the new republic. A highly educated and intelligent man, he entered public service as a career diplomat, and served his nation well throughout the nineteen-twenties and -thirties. He fell perhaps a little short of his father’s exalted stature, for Tomáš Masaryk, by any objective standard, has to be considered the outstanding statesman of his time. Yet where the father, by virtue of his sheer eminence, was somewhat removed from the comings and goings of ordinary citizens, the son had a ready common touch and immense charm. This not only was an asset in his diplomatic work, but it also made him a true representative of his country and, in its hour of anguish, its authentic voice and rallying cry.

In 1938, Czechoslovakia was dismembered by the Munich Agreement, a disgraceful kowtowing to Hitler by the cynical Chamberlain of Britain and the cowardly Daladier of France. Eduard Beneš, who had succeeded Masaryk as President, desolated by the betrayal of his sworn allies, caved in. Instead of mounting a resolute defence, which might well have succeeded, he surrendered spinelessly. The country was partitioned, with considerable loss of territory. He resigned the Presidency, and not long afterwards, when the Germans occupied all of Bohemia and Moravia and turned Slovakia into a client state, he fled to England and set up a government-in-exile. His foreign Minister there was Jan Masaryk.

Beneš passed the war in relative safety, in the countryside away from London. Masaryk stayed in London, through all its dangers: partly because it was the honourable thing to do, to share the dangers of his hosts who had given him refuge; and partly because it gave him access to the BBC short-wave service, so that he was able to broadcast regularly to his fellow-Czechs at home, to encourage them to resist the occupation in every possible way, and to hold fast to the ideals that were the measure of their humanity.

Those broadcasts were of immense importance. Listening to them, if detected by the Germans, was punishable by death. Yet secretly huge numbers of people tuned in. Doing so, they were confirmed in their belief that Hitler, one day, would be defeated, and that the occupied lands of Europe would be liberated. And when that did actually happen, Masaryk came home to a hero’s welcome. Beneš returned, at the same time, and resumed the Presidency: he was not so highly esteemed, nor did he deserve to be; but at least he had experience of running a government and, with Masaryk at his side, he could legitimately claim to speak for a democratic people remaking their lives after the Nazi nightmare.

There was, however, a major political problem. When Britain and France had sold out Czechoslovakia at Munich in 1938, the only ally that offered to abide by its treaty obligations to Prague was the Soviet Union. Moreover, it was the Red Army that routed the Wehrmacht and liberated Czechoslovakia in 1945, not the Western Allies. So there was a natural tendency for Czechs and Slovaks to regard the Russians as their deliverers, and the West as a false friend. That feeling was re-inforced by the fact that Czech and Slovak Communists, during the war, had been at the forefront of active resistance to the Germans, either as partisan fighters or as saboteurs, and when captured had been the most courageous and unyielding prisoners in the camps. Accordingly, the Communist Party enjoyed a post-war popular respect that had little to do with its actual policies, let alone with its unpublicized subservience to Moscow; and some of its members were able to secure key posts in the Beneš administration, especially in the Ministries that controlled the police and the armed forces.

These manoeuvres made it possible for the Communists, in 1948, to stage a coup. This was a pre-emptive strike, on their part; for a general election was due, and it was clear they would lose it. Seizing power, they took control of the government and got rid of almost all the Ministers who stood for the democratic ideals of the pre-war Republic. The one Minister who remained was Jan Masaryk. He was kept on because the Communists reckoned that his presence, as a national hero, would lend their regime a certain legitimacy. He stayed on, despite his contempt for them, because he hoped to wield enough influence to temper the excesses of their dictatorial zeal. There was, however, a third party concerned with these manoeuvres, behind the scenes: Joseph Stalin. He calculated that the Czechoslovak Communist leaders were naive in thinking they could contain, or even nullify, Masaryk’s ability to lead the people in a rejection of totalitarian rule and in a restoration of parliamentary democracy. With him still around, there was a real danger that the Communists might fall from power. If he could be eliminated, the people would lack an inspiring leader and could probably be cowed into submission. So Stalin simply arranged to have him murdered: two stooges threw him to his death, late at night, from the window of his apartment on the upper floor of the Foreign Ministry; and his body was found next morning in the courtyard below. The official verdict was suicide, caused by depression; but independent research, years later, has proved beyond reasonable doubt that this was a homicide.

During the ensuing forty-one years, both of the Masaryks, father and son, became officially non-persons: their role in history was ignored; and their graves, side by side in Lány, were neglected. People kept photographs of them, carefully hidden in secret drawers or buried in their gardens. Occasionally some citizens, especially the indignant young and especially during the Prague Spring of 1968, would trek out to Lány and lay flowers on the graves. But true rehabilitation had to wait until 1989, when the Communist regime finally collapsed. Only then could the Masaryks be restored to their rightful place in history. Their burial place was properly cleaned up, and is well tended. The university in Olomouc was named after President Masaryk. A Prague street was renamed in Jan Masaryk’s honour. And quite quickly a Masaryk Museum was created. The opening ceremony of the museum, nationally televised, was a very touching occasion. In attendance were two extremely old ladies: one of them was Jan Masaryk’s only surviving sister, and the other was Marcia Davenport, the American novelist, who had been his mistress; neither of them had ever wavered, for a moment, in their certainty that this man, beloved by them and beloved by his fellow-citizens, had been murdered.

Their fidelity, and the fidelity of his people to the Masaryk ideals, is at the root of all that is best in the modern Czech Republic.

(Note: the following poem, “Beside the graves at Lány”, was written during the last decade of the Communist dictatorship; at the time, it was still dangerous to express any loyalty to the Masaryks and what they stood for; nevertheless, many citizens continued to treasure their memory and to pay their respects in the cemetery; this could only be done furtively, except during the Prague Spring, and most people came alone or in twos and threes; but over the years, cumulatively, they could probably be numbered in the thousands.)