Talks with T. G. Masaryk
By Karel Čapek
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Karel Čapek
Karel Capek was born in 1890 in Czechoslovakia. He was interested in visual art as a teenager and studied philosophy and aesthetics in Prague. During WWI he was exempt from military service because of spinal problems and became a journalist. He campaigned against the rise of communism and in the 1930s his writing became increasingly anti-fascist. He started writing fiction with his brother Josef, a successful painter, and went on to publish science-fiction novels, for which he is best known, as well as detective stories, plays and a singular book on gardening, The Gardener’s Year. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature several times and the Czech PEN Club created a literary award in his name. He died of pneumonia in 1938.
Read more from Karel čapek
The Gardener's Year - Illustrated by Josef Capek Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5R. U. R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5R.U.R. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mother - A Play in Three Acts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales from Two Pockets Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gardener's Year Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5R.U.R. - Rossum's Universal Robots Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Absolute at Large Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dashenka Or, The Life of a Puppy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5President Masaryk Tells His Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cheat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTravels in the North - Exemplified by the Author's Drawings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Had a Dog and a Cat - Pictures Drawn by Josef and Karel Capek Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Absolute at Large Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLetters from England Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiterature & Tolerance: Views from Prague Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings'And So Ad Infinitum' (The Life of the Insects): An Entomological Review, in Three Acts, a Prologue and an Epilogue Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Talks with T. G. Masaryk
Related ebooks
Old Gods, New Enigmas: Marx's Lost Theory Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Nonconformists: American and Czech Writers across the Iron Curtain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStudy Guide to The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerica Observed: From the 1940s to the 1980s Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Works of Spielhagen, Storm, and Raabe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings1933 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Education of Henry Adams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Karl Marx: Philosophy and Revolution Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Address Unknown: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Crisis of Theory: E.P. Thompson, the new left and postwar British politics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Communist Manifesto Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Greater Britain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hazlitt - Selected Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Boy's Journey: From Nazi-Occupied Prague to Freedom in America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Collected Essays Volume Two: Mary McCarthy's Theatre Chronicles, 1937–1962 and On the Contrary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCollected Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mahler Enigma: A Myth, A Culture, The Wonder Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAltered Pasts: Counterfactuals in History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Plummeting Old Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Portraits and Miniatures Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tomáš G. Masaryk a Scholar and a Statesman. The Philosophical Background of His Political Views Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLaughing Stock Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeleaguered Poets and Leftist Critics: Stevens, Cummings, Frost, and Williams in the 1930s Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRAB: The Life of R.A. Butler Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Bondage and My Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Non-Jewish Jew: And Other Essays Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Jail. Experiences in 1916 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Political Biographies For You
Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mein Kampf Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Nelson Mandela Biography: The Long Walk to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fear: Trump in the White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Washington: The Indispensable Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Story of the Trapp Family Singers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Profiles in Courage: Deluxe Modern Classic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Watergate: A New History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Art of Community: Seven Principles for Belonging Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Values: Lessons I Learned from My Family Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (Revised Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enough Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Assassination Vacation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Talks with T. G. Masaryk
11 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Following the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian empire after World War I, many of the (new) countries in central and eastern Europe fell under increasingly repressive regimes. But there was one country which maintained its liberal parliamentary democracy – the First Republic of Czechoslovakia – and this was due in no small part to its president, Tomáš Garrigue (T.G.) Masaryk, who had also actively campaigned for independence during the war. Masaryk was chosen as president while still in America as the war was concluding and retired in 1935, dying two years after that. He had helped to maintain the republic which consisted of Czech lands and Slovakia, populated by Germans, Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians, Catholics and Protestants and Jews. His background certainly demonstrated his ability to move in a variety of circles. Born to a peasant background, with a Slovak father, he lived and worked in Vienna and was initially uncomfortable with Prague and the Czech language. He married a Danish-American woman and took her name (Garrigue) and was fluent in multiple languages, eagerly studying the culture and literature of Germany, Russia, England, France, America and other countries. As a philosophy professor, he was embroiled in several controversies and high-profile affairs, exposing a fraudulent manuscript and defending Serbs sentenced to death and Jews accused of ritual murder. He became active in politics, forming many connections that he would later use after WWI broke out. Masaryk left Prague and traveled around Europe and America, promoting the idea of Czech independence and assisting with the formation of the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia. Later in his life, a series of conversations with the well-known writer Karel Čapek were turned into a book, Talks with T. G. Masaryk. This version, by Catbird Press, has a couple prefatory essays by Čapek, then the rest of the book is in Masaryk’s own words. It’s engagingly and simply written, and Čapek has structured the book in a more or less chronological order, with all the tangents Masaryk takes generally related to the subject at hand. Masaryk is eager to elaborate on education of children or the value of religious rituals in a small community or his studies of foreign literature, but will often offhandedly mention his brushes with spies and death or his being chosen as president. Čapek and Masaryk were friendly (there’s a cute cartoon of the two of them in the book), and Čapek was a good choice for an idiosyncratic Masaryk biography – both have an idealistic, humanistic worldview, although there’s a strong strain of pragmatism in Masaryk’s actions and words. Masaryk has many warm memories of his childhood, but notes that his father was essentially a serf. The family moved around frequently and his schooling was similarly haphazard – a few years here and there, training and tutoring in various positions. Masaryk spent a number of years in Vienna. As he grew older, the conflict between Germans and Czechs would regularly appear. As a boy, he identified with his village instead of a nation, but he found that he was not accepted by the German students at school. The constant puzzling over and identifying with various nations is a frequent theme for Masaryk. He had an exceptionally wide range of interests and describes his avid reading and book collecting – very enjoyable. He even notes that his interest in Czech literature was rather belated. As Masaryk moved into academia, he became involved in all the political struggles that one would expect in that arena. His descriptions of the controversies that he became embroiled in are a little short on detail – probably unsurprisingly, he expected his audience to be aware of the scandals in the not too distant past. Also, there is some name-dropping and while I recognized a lot of the Czech and foreign historical and cultural figures, I wasn’t familiar with the current Czech and Austrian politicians (except Beneš, Masaryk’s longtime second in command). I could definitely believe that Masaryk would rather be sitting in his study reading than out leading the nation, but he did get involved in a number of debates and eventually politics – there was at least a strong sense of duty, possibly some self-righteousness. His simple narrative style sometimes almost downplays dramatic events – Čapek notes this in one of his opening essays (where Masaryk refused to lie to get into a hotel when shooting was going on outside, but his description of his motivation is matter-of-fact). Similarly, when describing his leaving the country at the outbreak of war, the narration is a bit flat. His descriptions of moving among various European countries and America – dealing with spies and intelligence and negotiations – are very interesting. I especially enjoyed his analyses and comparisons of the different nations. He concludes with the presidency, although that chapter is not too detailed. However, Čapek ends with his warm and idealistic summation of the past and hopes for the future. Some of his ideas and beliefs are very much of the time, but this is a good account of an impressive and interesting man in his own words.