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Masaryk's reflections on history and historiography (Study regarding the so-called dispute over the meaning of Czech history)
HOLEC, Miloš
This work aims to use Masaryk's thoughts to analyse, summarise and interpret his philosophy of history. The introduction is followed by a chapter on the peculiarities of Masaryk's expressions. The third chapter looks at the perspective of eternity. This is Masaryk's yardstick for assessing history and its meaning. The term 'humanity' is also explained here. He bases his view on history and historiography on it, as right from the perspective of eternity. The chapter's conclusion analyses Josef Pekář's incorrect view on it and its opposite liberalism as understood by Masaryk. As demonstrated, Josef Kaizl and Kamil Krofta made a similar mistake, which had a practical impact in the escalation of the so-called conflict over the meaning of Czech history, or even directly in its origins. Masaryk's liberalism is subsequently given a separate chapter. This contains, amongst other things, practical examples of expressions of the opposite of humanity in history. The fifth chapter explains why it was humanity which Masaryk took as the basis of his philosophy of history. The sixth chapter explains how an ageing professor who had preached humanity his whole life could have led a war and even strived to ensure that a peace would not be concluded which would go against his political objectives. His relativisation of humanity wasn't sudden however, and didn't go against his pre-war values system, nor against his method of looking at history. As demonstrated, it was already in existence when Ceská otázka was written, which initiated the mentioned conflict.
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