The Czech Question a Century Later

Abstract

Tomas G. Masaryk's Ceska otazka (The Czech Question [1895]) is framed in terms of both what had been achieved historically & what would be achieved through the social modernization & political efforts of his day. To that end, he sought to replace Auguste Comte's vision of an industrial society with his own concept of democracy & to relate national emancipation to social emancipation. But because he ultimately wanted to bring the social democratic movement under control by containing it within the Czech national movement, Masaryk also incorporated elements of the early Czech myth into his philosophy of Czech national history. As a result, his conception of democracy did not correspond to Western European models.