WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.780 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. We are really 00:00:01.780 --> 00:00:04.179 glad you're here with us today because we are 00:00:04.179 --> 00:00:08.560 opening up a file on a figure who honestly challenges 00:00:08.560 --> 00:00:10.779 the cynicism we usually have about politics. 00:00:11.559 --> 00:00:13.320 You know, that archetype we're always looking 00:00:13.320 --> 00:00:15.980 for, that sort of unicorn politician. The philosopher 00:00:15.980 --> 00:00:18.199 king. Exactly, the philosopher king. The idea 00:00:18.199 --> 00:00:20.339 that if you just put the smartest, most moral, 00:00:20.500 --> 00:00:23.359 most educated person in charge, someone who understands 00:00:23.359 --> 00:00:26.460 logic and ethics, everything would just, you 00:00:26.460 --> 00:00:28.320 know, work out. It's Plato's Republic, isn't 00:00:28.320 --> 00:00:30.960 it? The dream that wisdom and power could actually 00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:33.280 sit in the same chair without one completely 00:00:33.280 --> 00:00:35.880 corrupting the other. Right. And usually when 00:00:35.880 --> 00:00:39.039 history tries to do that, it ends in, well, absolute 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:41.679 disaster. Intellectuals... to get eaten alive 00:00:41.679 --> 00:00:44.079 in the real world of power, or they turn into 00:00:44.079 --> 00:00:45.840 tyrants because they're so convinced they know 00:00:45.840 --> 00:00:48.640 better than everyone else. But today we are looking 00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:50.539 at the exception. We are looking at a man who 00:00:50.539 --> 00:00:53.340 might be the closest history ever got to a literal 00:00:53.340 --> 00:00:57.100 philosopher king. We are talking about Tomás 00:00:57.100 --> 00:01:00.359 Garrigue Masaryk. The father of Czechoslovakia, 00:01:00.399 --> 00:01:02.939 the man who literally wrote the book on logic 00:01:02.939 --> 00:01:06.000 and then went out and completely redrew the map 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:08.680 of Europe. We have a massive stack of sources 00:01:08.680 --> 00:01:11.420 here to get through biographies, political histories 00:01:11.420 --> 00:01:14.599 of the Habsburg Empire, sociological texts, and 00:01:14.599 --> 00:01:16.879 even some declassified intelligence reports, 00:01:17.079 --> 00:01:20.120 which are fascinating. They really are. And our 00:01:20.120 --> 00:01:23.120 mission today is to figure out how a guy who 00:01:23.120 --> 00:01:26.180 spent his life in library stacks analyzing suicide 00:01:26.180 --> 00:01:29.420 rates and, you know, logic. problems, ended up 00:01:29.420 --> 00:01:32.379 commanding an army of 40 ,000 men, running a 00:01:32.379 --> 00:01:35.319 massive spy ring and convincing the United States 00:01:35.319 --> 00:01:37.799 to let him invent a country from scratch. It 00:01:37.799 --> 00:01:40.480 is a wild ride. But I want to frame this carefully 00:01:40.480 --> 00:01:43.319 right at the start. It is so easy to look at 00:01:43.319 --> 00:01:46.319 Masaryk as a great man biography. You know, the 00:01:46.319 --> 00:01:48.560 marble statue in the town square that everyone 00:01:48.560 --> 00:01:50.640 salutes. Right. The guy on the coin. Exactly. 00:01:51.230 --> 00:01:53.689 But the sources suggest something much more interesting 00:01:53.689 --> 00:01:56.170 and I think much more applicable to how we think 00:01:56.170 --> 00:01:58.769 about leadership. This is a case study in what 00:01:58.769 --> 00:02:01.689 I call weaponized integrity. Weaponized integrity. 00:02:01.829 --> 00:02:03.930 That sounds like a contradiction in terms. It 00:02:03.930 --> 00:02:07.079 does, doesn't it? But Masaryk didn't win. Because 00:02:07.079 --> 00:02:08.939 he was a great politician in the traditional 00:02:08.939 --> 00:02:11.840 sense. He wasn't a back slapper. He wasn't, you 00:02:11.840 --> 00:02:14.379 know, buying votes or making shady deals. He 00:02:14.379 --> 00:02:16.759 won because he treated politics like a science. 00:02:16.840 --> 00:02:19.659 A science. Yeah. He believed that if you analyzed 00:02:19.659 --> 00:02:22.939 a nation's problems with brutal scientific honesty, 00:02:23.240 --> 00:02:25.800 even if that honesty hurts your own people's 00:02:25.800 --> 00:02:28.280 feelings, the political solution would present 00:02:28.280 --> 00:02:30.599 itself almost mathematically. That is the big 00:02:30.599 --> 00:02:33.379 takeaway I want to explore. Truth as a strategy, 00:02:33.520 --> 00:02:35.719 not just as a virtue. That's it in a nutshell. 00:02:35.879 --> 00:02:38.680 He called it realism, but not the Henry Kissinger 00:02:38.680 --> 00:02:40.840 kind of realism, you know, pure power politics. 00:02:41.060 --> 00:02:43.439 He meant looking at the reality of the world 00:02:43.439 --> 00:02:46.560 without the fog of national myths or emotion 00:02:46.560 --> 00:02:49.620 or superstition. And that very specific chilly 00:02:49.620 --> 00:02:52.939 academic approach took him from, well, a blacksmith 00:02:52.939 --> 00:02:56.099 shop to the. Prague Castle. Let's start at that 00:02:56.099 --> 00:02:57.960 blacksmith's shop, because for a guy who became 00:02:57.960 --> 00:02:59.919 known as the grand old man of Europe, rubbing 00:02:59.919 --> 00:03:02.340 shoulders with kings and presidents, his start 00:03:02.340 --> 00:03:05.300 was incredibly gritty. Extremely gritty. We were 00:03:05.300 --> 00:03:08.659 back in 1850. The Austro -Hungarian Empire, well, 00:03:08.740 --> 00:03:10.159 at that time, it was still just the Austrian 00:03:10.159 --> 00:03:12.819 empires, technically. He is born in Hodon Inn 00:03:12.819 --> 00:03:15.560 in Moravia. Which is meaningful. Why? For those 00:03:15.560 --> 00:03:17.379 of us who don't have a 19th century map handy. 00:03:17.919 --> 00:03:20.479 Because it is the borderlands. It's where identities 00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:23.080 collide and blur. Geographically, it's right 00:03:23.080 --> 00:03:25.000 on the line between the Czech lands, Moravia 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:27.699 and Slovakia, which at the time was under Hungarian 00:03:27.699 --> 00:03:30.379 rule as part of the empire. So it's a cultural 00:03:30.379 --> 00:03:33.900 fault line. A huge one. But socially, it's even 00:03:33.900 --> 00:03:36.620 more mixed. And his family reflects that mix 00:03:36.620 --> 00:03:39.080 perfectly. Okay, so tell me about them. His father, 00:03:39.180 --> 00:03:43.500 Josef, was a Slovak coachman, a carter working 00:03:43.500 --> 00:03:45.919 on an imperial estate. We have to understand, 00:03:46.020 --> 00:03:48.159 in the 1850s, this is essentially a serf and 00:03:48.159 --> 00:03:50.699 all but name. He was working class, barely literate, 00:03:50.699 --> 00:03:53.360 speaking a Slovak dialect, very much from the 00:03:53.360 --> 00:03:55.840 soil. Then his mother? His mother, Teresi. She 00:03:55.840 --> 00:03:58.039 was Moravian, from the Czech side of the culture, 00:03:58.139 --> 00:04:00.379 but she had received a German education. She 00:04:00.379 --> 00:04:02.659 worked as a cook at the same estate. She was 00:04:02.659 --> 00:04:04.139 the one with the aspirations, the one pushing 00:04:04.139 --> 00:04:07.580 for education. So, right there in his own kitchen, 00:04:07.599 --> 00:04:10.199 you have the collision of the three main identities 00:04:10.199 --> 00:04:13.300 that would define his life. The Slovak peasant 00:04:13.300 --> 00:04:16.660 route, the Czech Moravian identity, and the German 00:04:16.660 --> 00:04:19.800 cultural dominance of the empire. It's like he 00:04:19.800 --> 00:04:22.160 was a living Venn diagram of the future country. 00:04:22.319 --> 00:04:24.480 He really was. That's a great way to put it. 00:04:24.560 --> 00:04:26.279 And there's actually a little dispute about where 00:04:26.279 --> 00:04:28.319 he was born, which highlights this whole thing. 00:04:28.360 --> 00:04:31.439 The official record says Hodonun on the Moravian 00:04:31.439 --> 00:04:34.899 side. But the nearby Slovak village of Kopany 00:04:34.899 --> 00:04:37.819 also claims him because that was his father's 00:04:37.819 --> 00:04:40.990 home. So even his birth certificate is sort of 00:04:40.990 --> 00:04:43.810 a bridge between the Czech and Slovak lands. 00:04:44.089 --> 00:04:46.170 He didn't stay in the coach house, though. He 00:04:46.170 --> 00:04:48.410 was clearly bright, but the path wasn't straight. 00:04:48.529 --> 00:04:50.990 The notes mention he actually worked as a blacksmith. 00:04:51.209 --> 00:04:54.089 Briefly, yes. His parents were poor, and at one 00:04:54.089 --> 00:04:55.910 point he was pulled out of school and apprenticed 00:04:55.910 --> 00:04:58.550 to a blacksmith. He knew what manual labor felt 00:04:58.550 --> 00:05:01.069 like. He knew the smell of the forge. But his 00:05:01.069 --> 00:05:04.350 teachers saw his potential. They pushed for him 00:05:04.350 --> 00:05:06.170 to go back to school. And he did. He managed 00:05:06.170 --> 00:05:08.810 to get into grammar school in Brno, and eventually 00:05:08.810 --> 00:05:11.930 he made it to the University of Vienna. And this 00:05:11.930 --> 00:05:13.970 is where the philosopher part of the philosopher 00:05:13.970 --> 00:05:16.089 king really gets built. This is the foundation. 00:05:16.430 --> 00:05:18.370 And he wasn't studying political science. I think 00:05:18.370 --> 00:05:20.250 that's important to note. He wasn't aiming to 00:05:20.250 --> 00:05:22.910 be a politician from day one. No, not at all. 00:05:23.009 --> 00:05:25.850 Political science as a distinct discipline didn't 00:05:25.850 --> 00:05:28.230 really exist in the same way yet. He studied 00:05:28.230 --> 00:05:30.910 philosophy and philology, but we need to be really 00:05:30.910 --> 00:05:33.589 specific about who he studied with because it 00:05:33.589 --> 00:05:36.829 explains everything he did later. His major influence 00:05:36.829 --> 00:05:40.209 was a man named Franz Brentano. I saw that name 00:05:40.209 --> 00:05:42.589 in the notes. For the listener who hasn't brushed 00:05:42.589 --> 00:05:44.990 up on 19th century Austrian philosophy lately, 00:05:45.149 --> 00:05:47.509 which I assume is most of us, why is Brentano 00:05:47.509 --> 00:05:50.410 such a big deal? Brentano was a heavyweight. 00:05:50.860 --> 00:05:53.939 a complete game changer. He taught Edmund Hussle, 00:05:54.019 --> 00:05:56.560 the founder of phenomenology. He influenced Freud. 00:05:57.319 --> 00:05:59.439 Brentano's big thing was empirical psychology. 00:05:59.959 --> 00:06:02.040 He believed that philosophy shouldn't just be 00:06:02.040 --> 00:06:04.899 abstract clouds and metaphysics. No angels dancing 00:06:04.899 --> 00:06:07.459 on the head of a pin. Exactly. It should be based 00:06:07.459 --> 00:06:09.779 on experience, on observation. It should be rigorous. 00:06:09.899 --> 00:06:12.139 It should be scientific. So treating the mind 00:06:12.139 --> 00:06:14.660 and human experience as data that you can analyze. 00:06:15.120 --> 00:06:18.060 Precisely. Masaryk took that scientific approach 00:06:18.060 --> 00:06:20.839 to the human mind and applied it to society as 00:06:20.839 --> 00:06:23.660 a whole. He also spent time in Leipzig studying 00:06:23.660 --> 00:06:25.759 with Wilhelm Wundt, who is basically considered 00:06:25.759 --> 00:06:29.139 the father of experimental psychology. So Masaryk 00:06:29.139 --> 00:06:31.120 is being trained by the best minds in Europe 00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:34.839 to look at the world, gather data, and find the 00:06:34.839 --> 00:06:37.050 root cause of a problem. And this leads directly 00:06:37.050 --> 00:06:41.009 to his first major work. And honestly, the title 00:06:41.009 --> 00:06:43.189 is pretty shocking for a future head of state. 00:06:43.610 --> 00:06:46.329 Suicide as a social mass phenomenon of modern 00:06:46.329 --> 00:06:48.779 civilization. There's else more. Yeah. Why is 00:06:48.779 --> 00:06:51.459 a future president writing his habilitation thesis, 00:06:51.600 --> 00:06:54.819 his big 10 -year book on suicide? It seems so 00:06:54.819 --> 00:06:57.680 morbid. It sounds dark, and it is. But for him, 00:06:57.680 --> 00:07:00.199 it's actually a diagnostic tool. But Sirix wasn't 00:07:00.199 --> 00:07:02.459 looking at suicide just as an individual personal 00:07:02.459 --> 00:07:04.819 tragedy. He looked at the statistics, and he 00:07:04.819 --> 00:07:07.019 saw that suicide rates were skyrocketing across 00:07:07.019 --> 00:07:09.639 modern Europe in the late 19th century. And he 00:07:09.639 --> 00:07:12.500 asked the scientific question, why? And his answer 00:07:12.500 --> 00:07:15.100 wasn't just depression or individual mental illness. 00:07:15.339 --> 00:07:18.939 No, his answer... in a word, was godlessness. 00:07:19.560 --> 00:07:22.459 But not in a preachy religious way. He wasn't 00:07:22.459 --> 00:07:25.300 saying, go back to church. He argued that modern 00:07:25.300 --> 00:07:27.899 civilization had lost its unified religious and 00:07:27.899 --> 00:07:31.180 moral worldview. The old certainties of Catholicism 00:07:31.180 --> 00:07:33.480 were fading under the weight of science and modernity, 00:07:33.519 --> 00:07:36.139 but nothing coherent had replaced it. So people 00:07:36.139 --> 00:07:39.060 were adrift. Completely. He said people were 00:07:39.370 --> 00:07:41.490 Half educated, they knew enough to doubt the 00:07:41.490 --> 00:07:44.149 old religions, but not enough to find a new scientific 00:07:44.149 --> 00:07:46.670 or philosophical meaning for their lives. They 00:07:46.670 --> 00:07:48.410 were unmoored. They were suffering from what 00:07:48.410 --> 00:07:51.629 sociologists later called, and Mary, a sense 00:07:51.629 --> 00:07:54.129 of normlessness. Exactly. Mazorik viewed society 00:07:54.129 --> 00:07:57.110 as a patient on an operating table. He saw social 00:07:57.110 --> 00:07:59.689 problems, alcoholism, suicide, violence, political 00:07:59.689 --> 00:08:02.629 corruption as symptoms of a deeper disease. And 00:08:02.629 --> 00:08:05.269 for him, that disease was ignorance and a lack 00:08:05.269 --> 00:08:08.129 of spiritual or moral direction. So if the disease 00:08:08.129 --> 00:08:10.949 is ignorance, the cure is? Education, enlightenment. 00:08:11.329 --> 00:08:13.389 He didn't see himself as a politician initially. 00:08:13.610 --> 00:08:16.089 He saw himself as a national educator. He had 00:08:16.089 --> 00:08:18.209 this almost touching faith that if he could just 00:08:18.209 --> 00:08:20.009 teach people how to think clearly, how to be 00:08:20.009 --> 00:08:22.639 rational, the politics would fix itself. That 00:08:22.639 --> 00:08:25.680 is a very high -minded academic view. Usually 00:08:25.680 --> 00:08:27.519 when guys like that enter the public square, 00:08:27.740 --> 00:08:30.160 they get absolutely crushed because they refuse 00:08:30.160 --> 00:08:31.600 to play the game, they don't want to get their 00:08:31.600 --> 00:08:33.600 hands dirty. Or they start lecturing the voters 00:08:33.600 --> 00:08:34.820 and the voters hate them for it. Well, right. 00:08:35.019 --> 00:08:36.960 But Masaryk was different because he was combative. 00:08:37.039 --> 00:08:38.759 He actually loved to fight, didn't he? Oh, he 00:08:38.759 --> 00:08:42.620 relished it. In 1882, the university in Prague 00:08:42.620 --> 00:08:45.879 split into a German university and a Czech university. 00:08:47.070 --> 00:08:49.309 Masordjic became a professor of philosophy at 00:08:49.309 --> 00:08:52.750 the new Czech Charles Ferdinand University, and 00:08:52.750 --> 00:08:55.769 almost immediately he started attacking his own 00:08:55.769 --> 00:08:58.350 side. This is the academic rebel phase, and this 00:08:58.350 --> 00:09:00.169 is where I think the story gets really counterintuitive. 00:09:00.610 --> 00:09:03.049 Usually a nationalist leader tries to build up 00:09:03.049 --> 00:09:05.950 his nation's myths. We are the greatest, most 00:09:05.950 --> 00:09:09.409 ancient people with this glorious past. Masordjic 00:09:09.409 --> 00:09:11.730 did the complete opposite. He did. Which brings 00:09:11.730 --> 00:09:14.100 us to the manuscript's controversy. This is like 00:09:14.100 --> 00:09:17.000 a Dan Brown plot set in a 19th century library. 00:09:17.340 --> 00:09:19.559 Lay it out for us. What were these things? So 00:09:19.559 --> 00:09:23.139 earlier in the 19th century, these ancient manuscripts 00:09:23.139 --> 00:09:30.419 were discovered. They supposedly contained epic 00:09:30.419 --> 00:09:33.649 Czech poems from the early Middle Ages. for the 00:09:33.649 --> 00:09:36.529 9th and 13th centuries so this is a huge deal 00:09:36.529 --> 00:09:39.210 for people trying to assert their identity a 00:09:39.210 --> 00:09:41.730 monumental deal for the czech national revival 00:09:41.730 --> 00:09:45.529 these were the holy grail it was proof that czech 00:09:45.529 --> 00:09:48.269 culture was just as old and sophisticated as 00:09:48.269 --> 00:09:51.210 german culture It was their national epic. We 00:09:51.210 --> 00:09:54.309 have our own Beowulf. We have our own Iliad. 00:09:54.309 --> 00:09:56.750 Exactly. It was a massive point of national pride. 00:09:56.990 --> 00:09:59.590 The National Theater in Prague was decorated 00:09:59.590 --> 00:10:02.409 with scenes from these poems. The great composer 00:10:02.409 --> 00:10:04.929 Beatrix Matana wrote music based on them. It 00:10:04.929 --> 00:10:07.049 was the very foundation of the modern national 00:10:07.049 --> 00:10:09.129 identity. And then Professor Misurik comes along. 00:10:09.330 --> 00:10:11.309 And then Professor Misurik, the philologist and 00:10:11.309 --> 00:10:13.710 sociologist, looks at them with his cold scientific 00:10:13.710 --> 00:10:15.990 eye and says, these are fakes. And he didn't 00:10:15.990 --> 00:10:18.009 just whisper it in the faculty lounge. No, he 00:10:18.009 --> 00:10:20.269 led the charge. He founded an academic journal 00:10:20.269 --> 00:10:23.169 called Athenium, and he dedicated issue after 00:10:23.169 --> 00:10:26.950 issue to demolishing them. He brought in linguists, 00:10:26.990 --> 00:10:29.509 historians, chemists to analyze the ink and parchment. 00:10:29.909 --> 00:10:32.190 He used sociology and logic to prove that the 00:10:32.190 --> 00:10:34.929 values and ideas in the poems were pure 19th 00:10:34.929 --> 00:10:37.570 century romanticism, not medieval thinking. He 00:10:37.570 --> 00:10:39.629 showed there were modern forgeries, almost certainly 00:10:39.629 --> 00:10:41.610 made by the guys who found them. Oh, my God. 00:10:41.830 --> 00:10:44.590 Imagine the reaction. You are telling a subject, 00:10:44.870 --> 00:10:48.409 people, people who feel oppressed by the Austrians, 00:10:48.409 --> 00:10:51.029 that their greatest source of pride, their foundational 00:10:51.029 --> 00:10:54.419 story, is a lie. I hated him. They absolutely 00:10:54.419 --> 00:10:56.679 despised him. The press called him a traitor 00:10:56.679 --> 00:10:59.139 to the nation. Students boycotted his lectures. 00:10:59.320 --> 00:11:01.220 People would cross the street to avoid him. He 00:11:01.220 --> 00:11:03.320 was socially ostracized. But for him, it was 00:11:03.320 --> 00:11:06.460 a matter of principle. It was everything. Masorek's 00:11:06.460 --> 00:11:08.360 argument was crucial to understanding his entire 00:11:08.360 --> 00:11:11.259 political philosophy. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, 00:11:11.379 --> 00:11:14.539 a great nation cannot be built on a lie. If we 00:11:14.539 --> 00:11:16.299 want to be free, we have to live in reality. 00:11:16.580 --> 00:11:19.220 If our culture is fake, Our politics will be 00:11:19.220 --> 00:11:21.559 fake and our freedom will be fake. That is that 00:11:21.559 --> 00:11:24.220 weaponized integrity you mentioned. He was willing 00:11:24.220 --> 00:11:26.639 to be the most hated man in Prague to prove a 00:11:26.639 --> 00:11:28.639 point about truth. And he didn't stop there. 00:11:28.980 --> 00:11:31.860 He took on an even more dangerous, more toxic 00:11:31.860 --> 00:11:34.600 target a few years later with the Hilsner affair. 00:11:34.840 --> 00:11:37.940 This was 1899. This feels like a true crime story 00:11:37.940 --> 00:11:40.559 embedded in a political drama. It really is. 00:11:40.659 --> 00:11:43.720 A young Czech woman, Aneska Huzova, was found 00:11:43.720 --> 00:11:46.559 murdered in the woods. And the police arrested 00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:49.799 a local Jewish drifter named Leopold Hilsner. 00:11:50.039 --> 00:11:51.980 He wasn't a particularly sympathetic character 00:11:51.980 --> 00:11:54.120 in the eyes of the public. OK, a murder trial. 00:11:54.320 --> 00:11:56.399 But the prosecution and the press didn't just 00:11:56.399 --> 00:11:59.220 argue murder. They started hinting at ritual 00:11:59.220 --> 00:12:03.200 murder. The blood libel, the medieval anti -Semitic 00:12:03.200 --> 00:12:05.720 canard that Jews use Christian blood for Passover 00:12:05.720 --> 00:12:09.080 rituals in 1899. That feels incredibly late for 00:12:09.080 --> 00:12:10.860 that kind of superstition to be taken seriously. 00:12:11.159 --> 00:12:13.799 It was late, but anti -Semitism was absolutely 00:12:13.799 --> 00:12:16.360 rampant in Central Europe at the time. The press 00:12:16.360 --> 00:12:18.940 whipped the public into a frenzy. It was a lynch 00:12:18.940 --> 00:12:21.440 mob atmosphere, became the Czech version of the 00:12:21.440 --> 00:12:23.179 Dreyfus Affair, which was happening in France 00:12:23.179 --> 00:12:25.830 around the same time. And Messerich, the guy 00:12:25.830 --> 00:12:27.570 who just got done telling everyone their national 00:12:27.570 --> 00:12:30.370 poems were fake, decides to jump into this fire. 00:12:30.549 --> 00:12:32.830 He jumps in headfirst. Did he think Hilsner was 00:12:32.830 --> 00:12:35.210 innocent? He wasn't sure about the murder charge 00:12:35.210 --> 00:12:38.730 itself. Hilsner was a shady character, but Messerich 00:12:38.730 --> 00:12:42.809 was absolutely scientifically certain that ritual 00:12:42.809 --> 00:12:46.070 murder was superstitious garbage. He attacked 00:12:46.070 --> 00:12:48.250 the entire anti -Semitic basis of the trial. 00:12:48.850 --> 00:12:51.990 He argued that a modern, rational society cannot 00:12:51.990 --> 00:12:55.350 put a man in jail based on medieval voodoo. He 00:12:55.350 --> 00:12:57.730 wrote pamphlets. He appealed directly to the 00:12:57.730 --> 00:12:59.889 Minister of Justice. And the backlash this time. 00:13:00.029 --> 00:13:02.029 Even worse than the manuscripts. Now, he wasn't 00:13:02.029 --> 00:13:04.110 just a traitor. He was a Jew lover, a stooge 00:13:04.110 --> 00:13:06.330 for international finance, all the usual tropes. 00:13:06.529 --> 00:13:09.029 His wife Charlotte and their children were harassed 00:13:09.029 --> 00:13:11.169 in the streets. His students literally shouted 00:13:11.169 --> 00:13:13.190 him down in the middle of his lectures. He was 00:13:13.190 --> 00:13:15.409 physically threatened. But this cemented his 00:13:15.409 --> 00:13:36.669 reputation, his brand. So he is a professor, 00:13:36.830 --> 00:13:39.210 a public intellectual, and a bit of a contrarian 00:13:39.210 --> 00:13:42.679 scold. When does he actually get into... real 00:13:42.679 --> 00:13:45.240 politics into parliament. Well, he'd served in 00:13:45.240 --> 00:13:47.039 the Austrian Reichsrat, the imperial parliament 00:13:47.039 --> 00:13:50.200 in Vienna from 1891 to 1893. And then he was 00:13:50.200 --> 00:13:53.059 elected again and served from 1907 all the way 00:13:53.059 --> 00:13:56.019 up to 1914. OK, so he is part of the system he's 00:13:56.019 --> 00:13:58.639 critiquing. He is. And initially, this is really 00:13:58.639 --> 00:14:00.720 important. He wasn't trying to break up the empire. 00:14:00.960 --> 00:14:03.379 He wasn't an independence at all costs revolutionary 00:14:03.379 --> 00:14:06.059 at first. He was a reformer. A reformer, exactly. 00:14:06.379 --> 00:14:08.539 He wanted to restructure Austria -Hungary into 00:14:08.539 --> 00:14:10.740 a democratic federal state. He wanted autonomy 00:14:10.740 --> 00:14:13.409 for the Czechs. and Slovaks and other nationalities, 00:14:13.429 --> 00:14:16.389 but within the larger imperial structure. He 00:14:16.389 --> 00:14:18.029 thought the empire could be saved if it just 00:14:18.029 --> 00:14:20.350 modernized and stopped being so autocratic and 00:14:20.350 --> 00:14:22.769 German -centric. But then the world breaks. In 00:14:22.769 --> 00:14:25.950 1914, World War I begins. The Archduke gets shot 00:14:25.950 --> 00:14:28.450 in Sarajevo. The alliances trigger. The guns 00:14:28.450 --> 00:14:31.090 start firing all across Europe. And Masaryk, 00:14:31.149 --> 00:14:33.669 the sociologist, looks at the situation and makes 00:14:33.669 --> 00:14:37.330 a cold, hard calculation. He realizes Austria 00:14:37.330 --> 00:14:40.129 -Hungary has tied its fate to imperial Germany. 00:14:40.539 --> 00:14:43.480 If the Central Powers win, the Germans will dominate 00:14:43.480 --> 00:14:46.259 everything, and the Slavs, especially the Czechs, 00:14:46.259 --> 00:14:49.299 will be Germanized into submission. If they lose, 00:14:49.679 --> 00:14:52.399 the entire empire will collapse. So either way, 00:14:52.440 --> 00:14:54.820 the old system is dead. Reform is off the table. 00:14:54.899 --> 00:14:57.200 Reform is dead. The only path forward now is 00:14:57.200 --> 00:14:59.419 total independence. And this is where the story 00:14:59.419 --> 00:15:01.340 just gets unbelievable, because at this point, 00:15:01.460 --> 00:15:04.799 Masaryk is 64 years old. Yes. I mean, 64 in 1914 00:15:04.799 --> 00:15:07.799 is like being 85 today in terms of life expectancy. 00:15:08.039 --> 00:15:10.480 He should be bouncing grandkids on his knee and 00:15:10.480 --> 00:15:12.559 writing his memoirs. Instead, he decides to become 00:15:12.559 --> 00:15:15.220 a revolutionary. He decides to launch a one -man 00:15:15.220 --> 00:15:18.179 war against a 600 -year -old empire. He goes 00:15:18.179 --> 00:15:20.080 into exile. And we have to appreciate the danger 00:15:20.080 --> 00:15:22.200 here. This is high treason. If he is caught by 00:15:22.200 --> 00:15:24.720 the Austrians, he hangs. No trial, just a rope. 00:15:24.879 --> 00:15:27.480 He leaves in December 1914 with his daughter 00:15:27.480 --> 00:15:29.539 Olga. And he had to leave his wife and the rest 00:15:29.539 --> 00:15:32.759 of his family behind. He did. And that is the 00:15:32.759 --> 00:15:35.019 truly tragic part of the story for him personally. 00:15:35.500 --> 00:15:37.419 His wife Charlotte was American -born. We'll 00:15:37.419 --> 00:15:39.820 talk more about her later. And she was already 00:15:39.820 --> 00:15:41.980 in poor health. They thought maybe her American 00:15:41.980 --> 00:15:44.440 citizenship would protect her. Or perhaps she 00:15:44.440 --> 00:15:46.279 just couldn't make the dangerous journey. She 00:15:46.279 --> 00:15:48.519 wasn't safe. She wasn't safe at all. The Austrian 00:15:48.519 --> 00:15:51.039 police put her under house arrest. They harassed 00:15:51.039 --> 00:15:53.659 her, constantly interrogated her, raided their 00:15:53.659 --> 00:15:57.039 home looking for evidence. His son Jan was conscripted 00:15:57.039 --> 00:15:59.500 into the Austrian army. The pressure on her was 00:15:59.500 --> 00:16:02.340 immense and it broke her health. It's a terrible 00:16:02.340 --> 00:16:05.200 personal cost of that weaponized integrity. So 00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:08.000 he is on the run, a 64 -year -old professor with 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:10.100 a target on his back. Where does he go? All over. 00:16:10.490 --> 00:16:13.509 Geneva, Paris, but he ends up in London for a 00:16:13.509 --> 00:16:16.629 significant chunk of time. And what does a professor 00:16:16.629 --> 00:16:20.230 do when he is in exile plotting the downfall 00:16:20.230 --> 00:16:22.549 of an empire? He has a teaching gig. Of course 00:16:22.549 --> 00:16:25.090 he does. He became a professor of Slavic research 00:16:25.090 --> 00:16:28.730 at King's College London. But this wasn't just 00:16:28.730 --> 00:16:30.769 to pay the bills. This was a strategic move. 00:16:31.110 --> 00:16:33.750 He used the lecture hall as a lobbying platform. 00:16:34.110 --> 00:16:36.549 His inaugural lecture was titled The Problem 00:16:36.549 --> 00:16:39.240 of Small Nations in the European Crisis. That 00:16:39.240 --> 00:16:41.759 is so on brand. He's using the lecture hall to 00:16:41.759 --> 00:16:43.820 lobby the British establishment for his country. 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:46.720 It was absolutely brilliant. He used his academic 00:16:46.720 --> 00:16:49.100 credentials to get access to British high society, 00:16:49.399 --> 00:16:52.019 to powerful journalists, to government officials. 00:16:52.159 --> 00:16:55.500 He framed the Czech cause not as some petty squabble, 00:16:55.500 --> 00:16:58.220 we want power, but as a moral imperative for 00:16:58.220 --> 00:17:00.379 all of Europe. He argued that you can't have 00:17:00.379 --> 00:17:02.899 a peaceful, stable continent if you have these 00:17:02.899 --> 00:17:05.619 massive, oppressive empires sitting on top of 00:17:05.619 --> 00:17:08.319 oppressed small nations. But he wasn't just grading 00:17:08.319 --> 00:17:10.579 papers and giving lectures. The notes here say 00:17:10.579 --> 00:17:13.119 he was running a full -blown spy ring. Blas, 00:17:13.200 --> 00:17:15.940 yes. This is the spy ring. Highmaster Masaryk 00:17:15.940 --> 00:17:18.579 that most people don't know about. While he is 00:17:18.579 --> 00:17:20.660 lecturing at King's College, he's the central 00:17:20.660 --> 00:17:22.980 hub for an intelligence network called the Mafia. 00:17:23.279 --> 00:17:26.240 Mafia? Wait, like the Godfather? Spelled with 00:17:26.240 --> 00:17:29.220 two Fs, usually in this context, M -A -F -F -I 00:17:29.220 --> 00:17:31.819 -A. But yeah, it was the nickname for the Czech 00:17:31.819 --> 00:17:33.940 domestic resistance. It was a secret organization 00:17:33.940 --> 00:17:37.259 of Czech politicians, journalists, and businessmen 00:17:37.259 --> 00:17:39.680 back home who were gathering intelligence and 00:17:39.680 --> 00:17:42.539 passing it to him through... A network of couriers. 00:17:42.680 --> 00:17:45.119 But even more effective was his network in the 00:17:45.119 --> 00:17:47.539 United States, right? Oh, much more. The notes 00:17:47.539 --> 00:17:50.099 mention a guy named Emanuel Viktor Volska. Yes. 00:17:50.460 --> 00:17:52.559 Volska is a character straight out of a spy novel. 00:17:52.779 --> 00:17:55.279 He was a Czech -American businessman, a true 00:17:55.279 --> 00:17:58.799 patriot. Mazarik tapped him to head a massive 00:17:58.799 --> 00:18:01.259 counter -espionage network in America. They had 00:18:01.259 --> 00:18:03.519 something like 80 agents working for them. Who 00:18:03.519 --> 00:18:05.279 were these agents? They weren't trained spies. 00:18:05.640 --> 00:18:07.440 No, they were the invisible people. They were 00:18:07.440 --> 00:18:10.509 Czech and Slovak immigrants. And because of their 00:18:10.509 --> 00:18:12.309 language skills, they often worked as servants, 00:18:12.470 --> 00:18:15.589 drivers, clerks, chambermaids, or janitors for 00:18:15.589 --> 00:18:18.309 the German and Austro -Hungarian diplomats in 00:18:18.309 --> 00:18:20.809 New York and Washington, D .C. The classic invisible 00:18:20.809 --> 00:18:23.349 servant spy trope. The person you don't even 00:18:23.349 --> 00:18:25.809 notice is in the room. It works for a reason. 00:18:26.119 --> 00:18:28.319 Nobody pays attention to the guy refilling the 00:18:28.319 --> 00:18:30.559 water glass or the woman emptying the trash. 00:18:30.799 --> 00:18:33.299 They were going through diplomatic wastebaskets, 00:18:33.339 --> 00:18:35.940 listening to conversations through thin hotel 00:18:35.940 --> 00:18:39.079 walls, steaming open letters and copying secret 00:18:39.079 --> 00:18:41.940 documents. And they scored some huge intelligence 00:18:41.940 --> 00:18:44.039 wins. I saw this in the outline, and I have to 00:18:44.039 --> 00:18:47.039 admit, it sounds like a conspiracy theory. The 00:18:47.039 --> 00:18:50.119 Hindu -German conspiracy. It's real. It's absolutely 00:18:50.119 --> 00:18:52.420 real. The Germans were trying to foment a rebellion 00:18:52.420 --> 00:18:55.140 against the British in India. The plan was to 00:18:55.140 --> 00:18:57.960 ship arms from the United States, specifically 00:18:57.960 --> 00:19:01.039 from San Francisco to Indian revolutionaries, 00:19:01.039 --> 00:19:03.920 to overthrow British rule. So the Germans are 00:19:03.920 --> 00:19:05.920 in San Francisco trying to start a revolution 00:19:05.920 --> 00:19:08.599 in India to distract the British from the war 00:19:08.599 --> 00:19:12.079 in Europe. Yes. It was a global plot to destabilize 00:19:12.079 --> 00:19:14.480 the British Empire. Yeah. And it was Masurik's 00:19:14.480 --> 00:19:17.900 network, Voska's spies, who intercepted the communications 00:19:17.900 --> 00:19:20.319 between the German embassy and the plotters. 00:19:20.380 --> 00:19:22.099 They uncovered the whole thing. And they passed 00:19:22.099 --> 00:19:24.269 that intelligence on. They passed it directly 00:19:24.269 --> 00:19:26.869 to British and American authorities. This was 00:19:26.869 --> 00:19:31.130 huge. Masaryk was effectively trading high -grade 00:19:31.130 --> 00:19:33.869 intelligence for political support. He would 00:19:33.869 --> 00:19:36.269 say, look, I'll help you catch German spies and 00:19:36.269 --> 00:19:39.250 disrupt their plots. In return, you need to start 00:19:39.250 --> 00:19:41.329 taking the idea of Czechoslovakia seriously. 00:19:41.690 --> 00:19:44.170 It gave him leverage. He proved that the Czechs 00:19:44.170 --> 00:19:46.670 were active allies in the war, not just passive 00:19:46.670 --> 00:19:49.910 victims asking for a handout. Precisely. But 00:19:49.910 --> 00:19:52.269 intelligence wasn't enough. He knew he needed 00:19:52.269 --> 00:19:55.200 an army. The Czechoslovak Legion. This is the 00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:57.740 part of the story that just blows my mind. How 00:19:57.740 --> 00:20:00.039 do you build an army for a country that is not 00:20:00.039 --> 00:20:02.099 on the map? You recruit from the people who are 00:20:02.099 --> 00:20:03.599 fighting for the enemy but don't want to be. 00:20:03.700 --> 00:20:06.319 The prisoners of war. Right. There were hundreds 00:20:06.319 --> 00:20:08.779 of thousands of Czechs and Slovaks who had been 00:20:08.779 --> 00:20:11.440 conscripted into the Austro -Hungarian army and 00:20:11.440 --> 00:20:13.900 sent to the Eastern Front to fight Russia. They 00:20:13.900 --> 00:20:15.380 didn't want to fight for the emperor against 00:20:15.380 --> 00:20:17.819 their fellow Slavs. Many of them surrendered 00:20:17.819 --> 00:20:20.859 to the Russians at the first opportunity. Mazarik 00:20:20.859 --> 00:20:23.119 saw them not as prisoners, but as a potential 00:20:23.119 --> 00:20:25.680 army in exile. But the Russian government must 00:20:25.680 --> 00:20:28.680 have been skeptical. Hey, can we arm these tens 00:20:28.680 --> 00:20:30.720 of thousands of enemy prisoners and let them 00:20:30.720 --> 00:20:33.400 fight for you? It sounds crazy. They were very 00:20:33.400 --> 00:20:36.140 skeptical at first under the Tsar. But after 00:20:36.140 --> 00:20:38.839 the Russian Revolution in February 1917, the 00:20:38.839 --> 00:20:41.019 Russian army was collapsing. The Provisional 00:20:41.019 --> 00:20:42.740 Government was desperate for anyone who could 00:20:42.740 --> 00:20:45.630 hold a rifle and fight the Austrians. So Mazarek 00:20:45.630 --> 00:20:47.950 traveled to Russia again. He is in his late 60s, 00:20:47.950 --> 00:20:50.029 traveling through a war zone and a revolution 00:20:50.029 --> 00:20:53.230 to organize this legion. And he succeeded. He 00:20:53.230 --> 00:20:55.450 did. Eventually, they formed a corps of over 00:20:55.450 --> 00:20:58.730 40 ,000 troops. Some estimates go as high as 00:20:58.730 --> 00:21:01.970 60 ,000. 40 ,000! That's not a militia. That's 00:21:01.970 --> 00:21:04.369 a serious military force. And they proved themselves 00:21:04.369 --> 00:21:07.559 almost immediately. At the Battle of Zborov in 00:21:07.559 --> 00:21:11.319 July 1917, the Czechoslovak Legion fought alongside 00:21:11.319 --> 00:21:13.759 the Russians and completely overran the Austrian 00:21:13.759 --> 00:21:16.380 trenches. They took thousands of prisoners. It 00:21:16.380 --> 00:21:18.859 was a stunning victory at a time when the Russian 00:21:18.859 --> 00:21:20.880 army was falling apart. And this changed the 00:21:20.880 --> 00:21:24.119 entire narrative for Mussorgk. Completely. Mussorgk 00:21:24.119 --> 00:21:26.900 could now go to the French, the British, and 00:21:26.900 --> 00:21:29.599 the Americans and say, I am the commander -in 00:21:29.599 --> 00:21:32.099 -chief of 40 ,000 battle -hardened men on the 00:21:32.099 --> 00:21:34.339 ground actively fighting the Central Powers. 00:21:34.599 --> 00:21:37.640 We are a belligerent nation. We are earning our 00:21:37.640 --> 00:21:40.079 independence with blood. It's scientific politics 00:21:40.079 --> 00:21:43.180 again. You don't just ask for favors. You create 00:21:43.180 --> 00:21:46.579 a tangible asset, in this case an army, and you 00:21:46.579 --> 00:21:49.019 trade it for political recognition. Exactly. 00:21:49.319 --> 00:21:52.180 And the story of the Legion gets even more complicated 00:21:52.180 --> 00:21:55.500 after the Bolsheviks take over in October 1917. 00:21:56.099 --> 00:21:57.950 The Legion ended up having to... fight their 00:21:57.950 --> 00:22:00.170 way across the entirety of Siberia to get out 00:22:00.170 --> 00:22:02.250 of Russia. They controlled the Trans -Siberian 00:22:02.250 --> 00:22:04.450 Railway for a time. It's an absolute epic, a 00:22:04.450 --> 00:22:06.990 story in itself. An army without a country controlling 00:22:06.990 --> 00:22:10.049 the longest railway in the world. Yes. But for 00:22:10.049 --> 00:22:12.009 Miserics, the key was that the Legion existed 00:22:12.009 --> 00:22:14.390 as a powerful bargaining chip on the world stage. 00:22:14.970 --> 00:22:17.170 So he has the spies. He has the army. Now he 00:22:17.170 --> 00:22:19.089 needs the final diplomatic seal of approval. 00:22:19.210 --> 00:22:21.450 He needs the big guy. He needs to convince Woodrow 00:22:21.450 --> 00:22:24.569 Wilson. So in the spring of 1918, Miserec travels 00:22:24.569 --> 00:22:27.150 to the United States. The American tour. And 00:22:27.150 --> 00:22:29.930 this wasn't some quiet backroom diplomatic visit. 00:22:30.589 --> 00:22:33.410 When he arrived in Chicago. Why Chicago? Why 00:22:33.410 --> 00:22:36.130 was that the big stop? Chicago was the center 00:22:36.130 --> 00:22:38.930 of Czechoslovak immigration. There were more 00:22:38.930 --> 00:22:41.710 Czechs in Chicago than in almost any city in 00:22:41.710 --> 00:22:44.789 Bohemia, except for Prague itself. It was the 00:22:44.789 --> 00:22:48.150 unofficial American capital. When Masaryk arrived, 00:22:48.430 --> 00:22:51.869 150 ,000 people filled the streets to welcome 00:22:51.869 --> 00:22:55.970 him. 150 ,000. 150 ,000 people. That is, that's 00:22:55.970 --> 00:22:58.710 a rock star reception. That's a Super Bowl parade 00:22:58.710 --> 00:23:01.960 for a philosophy professor. It was massive. And 00:23:01.960 --> 00:23:03.980 you have to imagine the visual, this elderly 00:23:03.980 --> 00:23:06.019 professor, this philosopher with his little wire 00:23:06.019 --> 00:23:08.759 -rimmed glasses and his academic's beard, riding 00:23:08.759 --> 00:23:10.920 through the streets of Chicago like a Roman general 00:23:10.920 --> 00:23:13.920 with 150 ,000 people cheering for a country that 00:23:13.920 --> 00:23:15.859 hasn't even been officially born yet. That must 00:23:15.859 --> 00:23:17.480 have gotten President Wilson's attention. It 00:23:17.480 --> 00:23:19.700 certainly didn't hurt. It showed that Mr. Rick 00:23:19.700 --> 00:23:22.140 wasn't just some fringe intellectual. He had 00:23:22.140 --> 00:23:24.980 mass popular support. But Messerich also had 00:23:24.980 --> 00:23:27.700 an in with America that was much more personal 00:23:27.700 --> 00:23:30.180 and profound. His wife. His wife, Charlotte Garrick. 00:23:30.220 --> 00:23:32.480 She was American. Born in Brooklyn. A Brooklyn 00:23:32.480 --> 00:23:35.339 girl. I love that detail. A Brooklyn girl from 00:23:35.339 --> 00:23:38.059 a prominent Protestant family with French Huguenot 00:23:38.059 --> 00:23:40.900 ancestry. They met when he was a young scholar 00:23:40.900 --> 00:23:44.660 studying in Leipzig. He saw her in a park, fell 00:23:44.660 --> 00:23:47.920 in love, and they married. And she wasn't just 00:23:47.920 --> 00:23:50.559 a spouse. She was a true intellectual partner. 00:23:51.069 --> 00:23:53.130 The sources say he took her last name as his 00:23:53.130 --> 00:23:55.670 middle name, which is incredible for that time. 00:23:55.789 --> 00:23:59.849 He did. Tomáš Gríg Masaryk. That was a radically 00:23:59.849 --> 00:24:03.109 progressive move for the 19th century. Men simply 00:24:03.109 --> 00:24:05.250 did not take their wives' names. It was a public 00:24:05.250 --> 00:24:07.150 declaration of their partnership. That's a feminist 00:24:07.150 --> 00:24:09.450 move right there. It was. And she influenced 00:24:09.450 --> 00:24:12.430 his feminism deeply. Masaryk championed women's 00:24:12.430 --> 00:24:14.690 suffrage and equal rights in the new Czechoslovakia, 00:24:14.750 --> 00:24:17.690 largely because of Charlotte's influence. She 00:24:17.690 --> 00:24:19.609 was the one who translated John Stuart Mill's 00:24:19.609 --> 00:24:22.210 classic feminist text, The Subjection of Women, 00:24:22.269 --> 00:24:24.890 into Czech. She also introduced him to American 00:24:24.890 --> 00:24:27.430 Unitarianism, which shifted his religious views 00:24:27.430 --> 00:24:29.890 away from traditional Catholicism. So when he's 00:24:29.890 --> 00:24:32.369 in America, he isn't just another foreign dignitary 00:24:32.369 --> 00:24:34.349 asking for a meeting. He's practically family. 00:24:34.569 --> 00:24:37.289 He had friends in high places. He was close with 00:24:37.289 --> 00:24:40.049 Charles R. Crane, a wealthy Chicago industrialist 00:24:40.049 --> 00:24:42.089 who had connections to Wilson. He was friends 00:24:42.089 --> 00:24:45.180 with Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. He 00:24:45.180 --> 00:24:47.099 understood the American mindset. He knew how 00:24:47.099 --> 00:24:49.079 to speak American. And this all culminates in 00:24:49.079 --> 00:24:51.940 the Washington Declaration. October 18, 1918. 00:24:52.420 --> 00:24:54.880 The Declaration of Independence of the Czechoslovak 00:24:54.880 --> 00:24:56.880 nation. And the most amazing thing is where it 00:24:56.880 --> 00:24:59.420 was proclaimed. It wasn't in Prague. It was proclaimed 00:24:59.420 --> 00:25:01.500 in Washington, D .C., and it was published in 00:25:01.500 --> 00:25:04.420 The Washington Post. That is wild. The founding 00:25:04.420 --> 00:25:07.059 document of a Central European nation was dropped 00:25:07.059 --> 00:25:10.200 on doorsteps in D .C.? It shows how crucial the 00:25:10.200 --> 00:25:13.099 American connection was. Masaryk and his team 00:25:13.099 --> 00:25:15.859 drafted it specifically to appeal to American 00:25:15.859 --> 00:25:19.539 values. Democracy, self -determination, the rights 00:25:19.539 --> 00:25:22.259 of man. It was pitched perfectly to Woodrow Wilson 00:25:22.259 --> 00:25:25.079 and his 14 points. And it worked? It worked. 00:25:25.500 --> 00:25:28.039 The Austro -Hungarian Empire collapsed in late 00:25:28.039 --> 00:25:31.380 October 1918. The Allies officially recognized 00:25:31.380 --> 00:25:33.740 Masaryk as the head of the provisional government. 00:25:34.220 --> 00:25:36.980 And in November 1918, while he was still in New 00:25:36.980 --> 00:25:39.599 York, staying at the Plaza Hotel, he received 00:25:39.599 --> 00:25:41.799 a telegram informing him that he had been elected 00:25:41.799 --> 00:25:44.779 the first president of Czechoslovakia. Talk about 00:25:44.779 --> 00:25:47.400 a successful business trip. You leave as a wanted 00:25:47.400 --> 00:25:49.779 fugitive. You come back as the president. He 00:25:49.779 --> 00:25:52.519 returned to Prague in December 1918 to a hero's 00:25:52.519 --> 00:25:55.380 welcome, the President Liberator. So now the 00:25:55.380 --> 00:25:57.640 hard part starts. Winning the revolution is one 00:25:57.640 --> 00:26:00.059 thing, governing is a whole other beast. And 00:26:00.059 --> 00:26:02.359 governing a new state carved out of a dead empire 00:26:02.359 --> 00:26:05.599 in Central Europe in 1919 was a complete nightmare. 00:26:05.920 --> 00:26:08.660 You have resentful German and Hungarian minorities 00:26:08.660 --> 00:26:11.299 within your new borders. You have Czechs and 00:26:11.299 --> 00:26:13.539 Slovaks who have different histories and expectations. 00:26:13.940 --> 00:26:16.579 You have a shattered post -war economy. You have 00:26:16.579 --> 00:26:18.880 Bolsheviks next door in Hungary trying to start 00:26:18.880 --> 00:26:21.160 a communist revolution. The outline mentions 00:26:21.160 --> 00:26:23.440 the castle. What is that? It sounds a bit ominous. 00:26:23.599 --> 00:26:27.039 The castle, or Arad in Czech, referred to the 00:26:27.039 --> 00:26:29.420 Prague Castle, the ancient seat of Bohemian kings, 00:26:29.660 --> 00:26:31.940 which became the seat of the presidency. But 00:26:31.940 --> 00:26:34.500 politically, it referred to the informal network 00:26:34.500 --> 00:26:37.180 of advisors, journalists, and intellectuals that 00:26:37.180 --> 00:26:39.740 Mazurek built around himself. Like a deep state. 00:26:40.440 --> 00:26:42.740 In a way, but a more benevolent one, you could 00:26:42.740 --> 00:26:45.400 argue. See, the constitution they wrote was very, 00:26:45.480 --> 00:26:47.779 very democratic. It had a system of proportional 00:26:47.779 --> 00:26:50.480 representation. Which means... Lots of small 00:26:50.480 --> 00:26:53.619 parties, no clear winner. Tons of them. The agrarians, 00:26:53.640 --> 00:26:55.799 the social democrats, the national socialists, 00:26:55.880 --> 00:26:57.779 a totally different group from the German Nazis, 00:26:57.819 --> 00:26:59.920 I should add. The Catholics, the communists. 00:27:00.220 --> 00:27:03.500 No single party ever got more than about 25 % 00:27:03.500 --> 00:27:05.880 of the vote. It meant that every single government 00:27:05.880 --> 00:27:09.000 had to be a multi -party coalition. It was inherently 00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:11.339 unstable. And in Vazirik's tenure as president, 00:27:11.400 --> 00:27:13.720 there were 10 different cabinets. 10 cabinets 00:27:13.720 --> 00:27:16.420 in 17 years? That sounds like chaos. It could 00:27:16.420 --> 00:27:19.410 have been. But the one constant, the one anchor 00:27:19.410 --> 00:27:22.289 in the storm was Meserich. There was a special 00:27:22.289 --> 00:27:24.529 provision written into the Constitution that 00:27:24.529 --> 00:27:26.730 allowed the first president, meaning him, to 00:27:26.730 --> 00:27:29.490 run for unlimited terms. Everyone after him was 00:27:29.490 --> 00:27:32.589 limited to two. So he was the anchor, the stabilizing 00:27:32.589 --> 00:27:35.289 force above the daily political fray. He was 00:27:35.289 --> 00:27:38.450 the anchor. He was re -elected in 1920, 1927, 00:27:38.609 --> 00:27:41.589 and 1934. While the prime ministers and cabinets 00:27:41.589 --> 00:27:43.630 shuffled in and out, the castle Meserich and 00:27:43.630 --> 00:27:46.150 his inner circle provided the strategic direction. 00:27:46.700 --> 00:27:49.019 They kept the ship of states steady. And looking 00:27:49.019 --> 00:27:51.980 back, was it a successful state? Remarkably so 00:27:51.980 --> 00:27:54.940 for the time and place. In the 1920s and 30s, 00:27:54.940 --> 00:27:57.180 Czechoslovakia became the strongest, most stable, 00:27:57.240 --> 00:27:59.460 and most prosperous democracy in Central and 00:27:59.460 --> 00:28:01.559 Eastern Europe. While its neighbors were falling 00:28:01.559 --> 00:28:04.900 one by one into authoritarianism, Poland, Hungary, 00:28:05.240 --> 00:28:07.660 Austria, and obviously Germany -Czechoslovakia 00:28:07.660 --> 00:28:09.660 remained a functioning parliamentary democracy 00:28:09.660 --> 00:28:12.480 with a strong industrial economy. He also seemed 00:28:12.480 --> 00:28:14.720 to really push that scientific management stuff 00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:17.779 he loved. He absolutely did. He sponsored the 00:28:17.779 --> 00:28:20.039 Missouri Academy of Labor, which was dedicated 00:28:20.039 --> 00:28:22.740 to studying scientific management like Taylorism 00:28:22.740 --> 00:28:25.460 in the U .S. He wanted the country, its factories, 00:28:25.539 --> 00:28:28.119 its government to run efficiently, rationally. 00:28:28.180 --> 00:28:30.640 He poured money into education. He was trying 00:28:30.640 --> 00:28:33.170 to build a state in his own image. rational, 00:28:33.250 --> 00:28:36.049 educated, industrious, and democratic. It sounds 00:28:36.049 --> 00:28:38.730 almost too perfect. And I know because this is 00:28:38.730 --> 00:28:40.809 the deep dive, we have to look at the cracks 00:28:40.809 --> 00:28:44.309 in the marble statue. Miseric was a giant, but 00:28:44.309 --> 00:28:46.650 he was a man of the 19th century. He had his 00:28:46.650 --> 00:28:48.910 blind spots. We do. We absolutely have to be 00:28:48.910 --> 00:28:50.509 honest about the limitations of his worldview. 00:28:50.690 --> 00:28:52.430 Let's talk about the humanists with blind spots. 00:28:52.589 --> 00:28:55.289 Lay it on me. What did the sources say? Well, 00:28:55.309 --> 00:28:57.519 his big book, Reflecting on the War. Svadova 00:28:57.519 --> 00:29:00.099 Revolus, The World Resolution, is a key text. 00:29:00.359 --> 00:29:03.240 In it, he identifies the Western powers, Britain, 00:29:03.420 --> 00:29:06.380 France, the U .S., as the bearers of higher humanitarian 00:29:06.380 --> 00:29:09.079 principles. He sees the war as a victory for 00:29:09.079 --> 00:29:11.759 democracy over theocracy and autocracy. Which 00:29:11.759 --> 00:29:14.839 sounds nice, I guess. It does. Until you remember 00:29:14.839 --> 00:29:17.140 that Britain and France were massive colonial 00:29:17.140 --> 00:29:19.900 empires, ruling over hundreds of millions of 00:29:19.900 --> 00:29:21.880 people without their consent, and the United 00:29:21.880 --> 00:29:24.200 States practiced racial segregation under Jim 00:29:24.200 --> 00:29:27.519 Crow laws. Mazurek sort of glosses over all of 00:29:27.519 --> 00:29:30.539 that. He implicitly identified humanity and democracy 00:29:30.539 --> 00:29:33.839 with peoples of European stock. He didn't seem 00:29:33.839 --> 00:29:36.140 to engage deeply with the injustices of colonialism 00:29:36.140 --> 00:29:39.200 or racism outside the European context. So his 00:29:39.200 --> 00:29:41.440 universal humanism was actually quite Eurocentric. 00:29:41.740 --> 00:29:44.599 Very Eurocentric. He saw democracy as a product 00:29:44.599 --> 00:29:47.259 of Western Protestant civilization. And he wasn't 00:29:47.259 --> 00:29:48.920 always sure other cultures were ready for it. 00:29:48.940 --> 00:29:50.980 It was a common view at the time, but it's a 00:29:50.980 --> 00:29:53.079 definite blind spot from our perspective. And 00:29:53.079 --> 00:29:55.210 what about the Jewish question? This gets really 00:29:55.210 --> 00:29:57.490 complicated. We said earlier he was a hero for 00:29:57.490 --> 00:29:59.289 defending Hilsner against the blood libel. He 00:29:59.289 --> 00:30:01.230 was. And he was a genuine friend to the Zionist 00:30:01.230 --> 00:30:04.210 movement. He visited Mandatory Palestine in 1927, 00:30:04.349 --> 00:30:05.990 I believe, one of the first heads of state to 00:30:05.990 --> 00:30:08.950 do so. There are Kibbutzim and major streets 00:30:08.950 --> 00:30:11.950 named after him in Israel to this day. He is 00:30:11.950 --> 00:30:14.630 revered there. But. There's a but. There's a 00:30:14.630 --> 00:30:17.289 but. If you look at his private writings and 00:30:17.289 --> 00:30:20.130 some of his political calculations, he also believed 00:30:20.130 --> 00:30:22.910 and repeated the old trope that Jews controlled 00:30:22.910 --> 00:30:25.480 the press. The classic anti -Semitic conspiracy 00:30:25.480 --> 00:30:28.880 theory. Yes. But here is the bizarre complex 00:30:28.880 --> 00:30:32.579 twist. He didn't use it to attack Jews. He used 00:30:32.579 --> 00:30:35.480 it as a strategic political calculation. His 00:30:35.480 --> 00:30:38.339 thinking was, if the Jews control the press in 00:30:38.339 --> 00:30:40.539 America and Britain, then I need to be friendly 00:30:40.539 --> 00:30:42.819 to the Zionist cause so that they will write 00:30:42.819 --> 00:30:45.339 good things about Czechoslovakia and influence 00:30:45.339 --> 00:30:48.700 their governments in my favor. That is one of 00:30:48.700 --> 00:30:50.640 the most intellectually convoluted things ever 00:30:50.640 --> 00:30:52.849 heard. He believed the anti -Semitic trope, but 00:30:52.849 --> 00:30:55.569 tried to use it for a good outcome. Exactly. 00:30:56.029 --> 00:30:58.130 Historians who study this note that he used the 00:30:58.130 --> 00:30:59.910 same anti -Semitic trope found at the bottom 00:30:59.910 --> 00:31:02.470 of all anti -Jewish accusations, but he did it 00:31:02.470 --> 00:31:05.130 to court support. It's a very complex, uncomfortable 00:31:05.130 --> 00:31:08.049 contradiction. He would defend individual Jews 00:31:08.049 --> 00:31:10.549 from medieval superstition and violence, but 00:31:10.549 --> 00:31:12.569 he hadn't fully escaped the prejudices of his 00:31:12.569 --> 00:31:15.089 era regarding their supposed collective influence. 00:31:15.450 --> 00:31:17.849 It really shows that you can be progressive in 00:31:17.849 --> 00:31:20.660 your actions, but still hold on to some Deeply 00:31:20.660 --> 00:31:23.920 ingrained, regressive ideas. People are complicated, 00:31:24.160 --> 00:31:27.180 even our heroes, even philosopher kings. And 00:31:27.180 --> 00:31:28.960 his own religion was complicated too, right? 00:31:29.019 --> 00:31:31.099 He was born into a very Catholic society. Born 00:31:31.099 --> 00:31:33.440 Catholic, but he left the church as a young man 00:31:33.440 --> 00:31:35.680 and eventually became a non -practicing Protestant. 00:31:36.200 --> 00:31:38.619 He formally joined the Evangelical Church of 00:31:38.619 --> 00:31:41.039 Czech Brethren, but his philosophy was more of 00:31:41.039 --> 00:31:43.680 a secular humanism. What drove the change away 00:31:43.680 --> 00:31:47.259 from Catholicism? A mix of things. Intellectually, 00:31:47.279 --> 00:31:49.619 he hated the declaration of papal infallibility 00:31:49.619 --> 00:31:52.839 in 1870. The idea that one man could be infallible 00:31:52.839 --> 00:31:55.359 was, to a scientific mind, completely irrational. 00:31:55.940 --> 00:31:59.180 And personally, his American wife's Unitarianism 00:31:59.180 --> 00:32:01.900 influenced him tremendously towards a more rational 00:32:01.900 --> 00:32:04.299 ethical faith rather than a dogmatic or mystical 00:32:04.299 --> 00:32:06.420 one. And he tried to project this onto the new 00:32:06.420 --> 00:32:08.779 nation. The sources mention his promotion of 00:32:08.779 --> 00:32:12.869 Jan Hus. Yes. Jan Hus, the 15th century religious 00:32:12.869 --> 00:32:15.509 reformer from Prague who was burned at the stake 00:32:15.509 --> 00:32:17.569 as a heretic a century before Martin Luther. 00:32:18.789 --> 00:32:21.329 Masaryk promoted Hus as the ultimate Czech national 00:32:21.329 --> 00:32:24.369 hero, a man who stood for truth against corrupt 00:32:24.369 --> 00:32:27.349 power. Which is great, except... Except Czechoslovakia 00:32:27.349 --> 00:32:30.109 was still a predominantly Catholic country. And 00:32:30.109 --> 00:32:31.990 the Catholic Church and a lot of Catholic voters 00:32:31.990 --> 00:32:34.750 were not exactly thrilled about the president 00:32:34.750 --> 00:32:37.200 of the republic. promoting a famous heretic as 00:32:37.200 --> 00:32:39.779 the national icon. It caused a lot of friction. 00:32:40.039 --> 00:32:42.319 Always the professor, trying to teach the nation 00:32:42.319 --> 00:32:43.980 a lesson that maybe they didn't want to learn. 00:32:44.160 --> 00:32:45.940 He felt it was a lesson they needed to learn. 00:32:46.180 --> 00:32:48.440 He wanted to shift the national character away 00:32:48.440 --> 00:32:51.460 from what he saw as subservient Austrian Catholicism 00:32:51.460 --> 00:32:54.779 toward a more independent, truth -seeking, Protestant 00:32:54.779 --> 00:32:57.140 humanist ethic. So we get to the end of this 00:32:57.140 --> 00:33:00.380 long, incredible life. He resigns in 1935. He 00:33:00.380 --> 00:33:03.359 was 85 years old. His health was failing. He 00:33:03.359 --> 00:33:05.339 had suffered at least one stroke. It was time. 00:33:05.660 --> 00:33:08.559 He resigned and recommended his longtime foreign 00:33:08.559 --> 00:33:11.200 minister and protege, Edward Benicia, as his 00:33:11.200 --> 00:33:13.759 successor. And he died in 1937. September 14, 00:33:14.119 --> 00:33:17.279 1937, at the age of 87. The timing is just haunting. 00:33:17.619 --> 00:33:20.180 It is the most merciful thing about his death. 00:33:20.779 --> 00:33:23.160 He died less than two years before the Nazis 00:33:23.160 --> 00:33:26.539 marched in and occupied his country. He didn't 00:33:26.539 --> 00:33:28.220 live to see the Munich Agreement in September 00:33:28.220 --> 00:33:31.440 1938, where the Western allies he admired so 00:33:31.440 --> 00:33:34.990 much, France and Britain, betrayed Czechoslovakia, 00:33:35.069 --> 00:33:37.750 and handed it over to Hitler. He died believing 00:33:37.750 --> 00:33:40.029 the experiment was a success, that his life's 00:33:40.029 --> 00:33:42.690 work was secure. He did. He was mourned around 00:33:42.690 --> 00:33:45.390 the world as the grand old man of Europe. The 00:33:45.390 --> 00:33:48.410 funeral was a massive state event, a huge procession 00:33:48.410 --> 00:33:51.150 through Prague. He died at the peak of his legacy. 00:33:51.410 --> 00:33:53.390 And that legacy is so fascinating because it 00:33:53.390 --> 00:33:56.109 pops up in the weirdest, most unexpected places. 00:33:56.430 --> 00:33:58.509 It really, really does. I was reading the list 00:33:58.509 --> 00:34:00.369 of commemorations from the sources. Obviously, 00:34:00.369 --> 00:34:02.009 there are statues all over the Czech Republic, 00:34:02.150 --> 00:34:05.109 but... Mexico City. Avenida Presidente Mesarique. 00:34:05.230 --> 00:34:06.890 That's right. One of the fanciest, most exclusive 00:34:06.890 --> 00:34:09.670 streets in Mexico City. It's the Rodeo Drive. 00:34:09.989 --> 00:34:13.150 Why? What's the connection? In the 1930s, President 00:34:13.150 --> 00:34:16.809 Lázaro Cardenas of Mexico deeply admired Masaryk's 00:34:16.809 --> 00:34:19.429 democratic principles and his stance on self 00:34:19.429 --> 00:34:22.030 -determination for small nations. He named the 00:34:22.030 --> 00:34:25.030 street in his honor in 1936 while Masaryk was 00:34:25.030 --> 00:34:27.769 still alive. That is amazing. And Israel, as 00:34:27.769 --> 00:34:30.380 you mentioned. Kipidz Kifar Masaryk. Masaryk 00:34:30.380 --> 00:34:33.500 Square in Tel Aviv. He is a genuine hero there 00:34:33.500 --> 00:34:35.980 because of his early and consistent stance against 00:34:35.980 --> 00:34:38.599 anti -Semitism and his support for a Jewish homeland. 00:34:38.860 --> 00:34:41.460 And the U .S. has its share of memorial. Statues 00:34:41.460 --> 00:34:43.320 in Washington, D .C. and in Chicago, of course. 00:34:43.500 --> 00:34:45.880 And there's a small town in Florida called Masaryk 00:34:45.880 --> 00:34:48.559 Town. Masaryk Town, Florida. You can't make this 00:34:48.559 --> 00:34:51.320 up. It was founded in the 1920s by Slovak and 00:34:51.320 --> 00:34:53.860 Czech immigrants as a farming community. They 00:34:53.860 --> 00:34:55.869 named it after their hero. the man who gave them 00:34:55.869 --> 00:34:58.170 a country. And my personal favorite legacy item, 00:34:58.269 --> 00:35:00.769 just because it's so strange, pop culture. The 00:35:00.769 --> 00:35:04.590 Faith No More album. Yes. The 1997 album, album 00:35:04.590 --> 00:35:06.570 of the year by the American rock band Faith No 00:35:06.570 --> 00:35:10.409 More. The cover is a famous photograph of Mazarik's 00:35:10.409 --> 00:35:13.150 funeral procession. It's a photo of him, I believe, 00:35:13.210 --> 00:35:16.289 lying in state. The band said they chose it because 00:35:16.289 --> 00:35:18.670 it had a certain gravitas and sadness that fit 00:35:18.670 --> 00:35:21.300 the somber tone of the album. But yeah, seeing 00:35:21.300 --> 00:35:23.860 a 19th century philosopher president on a 90s 00:35:23.860 --> 00:35:26.659 alt metal album cover is peak Masaryk versatility. 00:35:26.980 --> 00:35:29.179 So let's bring this all together. Let's land 00:35:29.179 --> 00:35:31.900 the plane. What does this all mean? We started 00:35:31.900 --> 00:35:34.440 by calling him a real life philosopher king. 00:35:34.659 --> 00:35:36.900 And I think the title holds up with all the complexities 00:35:36.900 --> 00:35:39.219 we've discussed. If you were to write it out, 00:35:39.460 --> 00:35:42.650 Masaryk's formula was unique. It was education 00:35:42.650 --> 00:35:46.730 plus moral courage plus strategic opportunism. 00:35:46.769 --> 00:35:49.710 Education. Know your facts. Understand the world 00:35:49.710 --> 00:35:52.409 scientifically. Don't build on lies. Moral courage. 00:35:52.809 --> 00:35:55.050 Stand up for the truth even when it costs you 00:35:55.050 --> 00:35:57.980 everything. Defend Leopold Hilsner. Expose the 00:35:57.980 --> 00:36:00.500 fake manuscripts. Go to jail for your principles. 00:36:00.760 --> 00:36:03.420 And strategic opportunism. When the world breaks, 00:36:03.679 --> 00:36:06.119 like it did in World War I, be ready to move. 00:36:06.340 --> 00:36:09.460 Use spies, build armies, charm presidents. Use 00:36:09.460 --> 00:36:11.679 every tool at your disposal. And tying it all 00:36:11.679 --> 00:36:18.019 together is that simple, powerful motto. It sounds 00:36:18.019 --> 00:36:20.280 so simple, but building a nation on that foundation 00:36:20.280 --> 00:36:23.739 is incredibly hard. It is. Masaryk proved that 00:36:23.739 --> 00:36:26.400 a single individual armed with intellect and 00:36:26.400 --> 00:36:28.980 integrity, can actually bend the arc of history. 00:36:29.340 --> 00:36:31.420 He didn't have inherited wealth. He didn't have 00:36:31.420 --> 00:36:33.440 a royal title. He didn't even have a country 00:36:33.440 --> 00:36:35.519 when he started. He just had his mind and his 00:36:35.519 --> 00:36:37.840 principles. And with them, he built a state that 00:36:37.840 --> 00:36:40.719 for a few shining decades really was a beacon 00:36:40.719 --> 00:36:43.460 of democracy in a very dark region of the world. 00:36:43.599 --> 00:36:46.059 Exactly. All right. Leave us with a final thought 00:36:46.059 --> 00:36:48.699 to chew on, a provocative question. Well, let's 00:36:48.699 --> 00:36:51.699 go back to his core belief. Masaryk fundamentally 00:36:51.699 --> 00:36:54.360 believed that political conflict was just a result 00:36:54.360 --> 00:36:57.099 of ignorance. He thought if we were just smart 00:36:57.099 --> 00:36:59.400 enough, educated enough, and scientific enough 00:36:59.400 --> 00:37:02.420 in our approach, we could solve politics. He 00:37:02.420 --> 00:37:05.260 saw political problems as essentially engineering 00:37:05.260 --> 00:37:07.780 problems with human solutions. And the question 00:37:07.780 --> 00:37:10.460 is, was he right? That's the question, isn't 00:37:10.460 --> 00:37:13.099 it? In today's world, which is infinitely more 00:37:13.099 --> 00:37:16.099 complex, more polarized, and more data -rich 00:37:16.099 --> 00:37:18.960 than his, we have plenty of science. We have 00:37:18.960 --> 00:37:21.400 data analysts. We have think tanks. We have AI. 00:37:21.880 --> 00:37:24.840 But do we have the moral courage to act on the 00:37:24.840 --> 00:37:27.900 facts? Would Mazarik's scientific approach to 00:37:27.900 --> 00:37:30.820 politics still work today? Or was he a unicorn, 00:37:31.099 --> 00:37:33.599 the last of the philosopher kings, a product 00:37:33.599 --> 00:37:36.090 of a time that has long since passed? A heavy 00:37:36.090 --> 00:37:37.750 question for the drive home. Thank you for that 00:37:37.750 --> 00:37:39.949 incredible deep dive. My pleasure. And to our 00:37:39.949 --> 00:37:42.230 listeners, next time you're in Mexico City on 00:37:42.230 --> 00:37:44.449 that fancy avenue or listening to that Faith 00:37:44.449 --> 00:37:46.730 No More album, remember the philosophy professor 00:37:46.730 --> 00:37:49.730 who fought for truth and built a nation. We will 00:37:49.730 --> 00:37:50.610 see you next time.