Abstract
This study is not a biography of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. It does not paint a detailed portrait of his personality based on historical sources - it reconstructs his mythical image instead. The meaning of the term "Masaryk myth" in this publication is limited to the simple name of a specific personal myth, despite the fact that especially in later discussions its sematic field seems to have grown (incorporating for example the "Dear Father" myth). The Masaryk myth is both historical and national; and political probably above all: a "founding" myth tied to the birth of Czechoslovak statehood, its democratic parliamentary system and its reorganized nationalities.
This study sees the modern myth (political, historical, national) as independent of the "general" myth only up to a point, relatively: the myth gains contents, functions and forms of mediation in accordance with its time, yet its structure and creation remain essentially identical to the original archaic myth. The "reconciliation" of the modern myth with the archaic one generally means the acceptance of the irreplaceable position and importance of myths in modern society.
The methodological starting point of this work is therefore a historical approach to the study of myths, combined with the application of the concept of archetypes and archetypal situations of cultural anthropology and cultural politics, sometimes also of psychology.
The "Hero" and "Father" archetypes are the two basic archetypal levels of the Masaryk myth. The two aspects were not always even and underwent gradual changes. While the axis of Masaryk's story immediately after the end of the Great War and the founding of independent Czechoslovakia in 1918 was the heroic liberation saga of the "President Liberator", in the interwar years the "Dear Father" aspect of Masaryk's myth grew considerably.
The peculiarity of the Masaryk myth lies in the speed of its creation, spread and consolidation, undoubtedly influenced by the equally swift tempo of "state building" of the Czechoslovak Republic. On the other hand, the tempo of the myth's decline was uncommonly fast as well. After the two relatively long periods of devastating totalitarian regimes with their innate aptitude to destroy old myths and replace them with new myths (or at least ideologies), it is still possible to find fragments of the original Masaryk myth within the morass of postmodern chaos, but these fragments are far from able to fulfill the myth's basic functions anymore. This study therefore also asks the question of how much has remained of the Masaryk myth until today.
The archive sources and the period press allowed this author to research the Masaryk myth "from below" (predominantly using the "T. G. Masaryk" fund at the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the "Office of the President of the Republic" fund at the Archives of the Office of the President of the Czech Republic). A view "from above" is mainly reconstructed on the basis of the countless available printed sources.
The publication is structured into four main chapters. The first one analyzes Masaryk's archetypal image of the Hero, the second chapter focuses mainly on his interwar role as the Father, which includes both the archetypal traits of the King and of his best-known "Dear Father" image. At the same time, this chapter also delves into the often-discussed Masaryk's cult and shows the extent to which Masaryk was not only its object but also its creator, since this cult was more often than not a deliberate system of presentation to the public, quite similar to the modern practice of public relations. The final chapter shows that today, only residual bits and pieces remain of the Masaryk myth. This is caused mostly by the discontinuous character of Czech history and also by the contemporary postmodern situation of our society. And yet, Masaryk remains part of the public knowledge. The "second life" of Masaryk no longer holds the form of historic and national myth, but he still often appears as part of various postmodern artistic narratives or marketing.