Tomas Garrigue Masaryk

Tomas Garrigue Masaryk was a Czechoslovak statesman, political activist and philosopher who served as the first president of Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 1935 and is regarded as the country's founding father. Born in Hodonin, Moravia, he earned a doctorate at the University of Vienna and became a professor of philosophy at the Czech Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague before entering Austrian imperial politics as a Reichsrat deputy. Initially an advocate of reforming Austria-Hungary into a federal state, he had become a supporter of Czech and Slovak independence by the outbreak of the First World War, going into exile to organize the Czechoslovak cause abroad and helping to establish the Czechoslovak Legion. His negotiations in the United States with President Woodrow Wilson produced the Washington Declaration proclaiming Czechoslovak independence, and after Austria-Hungary's collapse he was elected president of the new republic, presiding over a period of democratic stability until his resignation in 1935.