Thirty years of work, 39 volumes: a comprehensive edition of TGM's writings

13. 06. 2022

One of the most challenging editorial projects after 1989 has concluded. In cooperation of the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the CAS and the T. G. Masaryk Institute, a complete Czech edition of the works of the first Czechoslovak president has been completed. The comprehensive critical edition, which will be presented for the first time as a whole by the researchers at the Book World Fair on Friday 10 June, also includes many texts of Masaryk's that have been almost forgotten - for example, texts on literature, articles from the foreign press and various political speeches. The complete writings will enable a relevant interpretation of TGM's work: without pathos and myths.

The Writings of T. G. Masaryk were being published successively by scholars between 1993 and 2022, and in the end, the edition includes 39 volumes (with a planned appendix of an additional volume containing indexes and contents of the volumes).

The presentation of the Writings took place on Friday, 10 June 2022 in the Atelier Evropa hall at the Prague Exhibition Grounds in Holešovice. It will be attended by the editor-in-chief and author of the concept of the Writings, Jiří Brabec, and historians Josef Tomeš, Vratislav Doubek and Petr Zídek, and it will also include a debate in which the public can participate.

Neither daddy nor philosopher on the throne

The writings of T. G. Masaryk represent a demanding editorial project, which is unique in its scope at the Czech scene after 1989. "Many of the texts, especially articles from the contemporary press, have been published in a book form for the first time ever," says Jiří Brabec, a literary historian, critic, and a chief editor of the edition. "Yet Masaryk, who was significantly shaping the Czech society for more than fifty years, speaks in a surprisingly new voice: not as a 'daddy', nor as a wise philosopher on a throne, but rather as a polemicist who did not recognise external authorities, as a scholar and an educated European who entered the public arena with a kind of self-assurance," emphasises Jiří Brabec.

In his view, the complete works of Masaryk create a barrier against misinterpretations of Masaryk's legacy. "Before Masaryk became president - and partly even afterwards - he was hated by a large part of the Czech society. It is not just a question of his moral resilience. He didn't want to be popular, but he held his freedom instead. Nowadays, this defiance is relevant as well," adds Jiří Brabec.

One hundred years after the first plans

During his lifetime, T. G. Masaryk published hundreds of different texts: philosophical and sociological monographs, analytical, reflective or survey studies, topical political commentaries, polemics, but also literary criticism, interviews, and memoirs. Many of his articles in the periodical press were unsigned or signed with ciphers, and the texts were often reprinted in various languages.

The complete works of Masaryk are coming into the hands of the Czech academic and wider reading public almost a century after the first plans to publish them, which dates to the 1920s. In 1923, Masaryk's literary secretary Vasil Kaprálek Škrach was assigned the task of publishing and re-editing the president's works. At that time, he divided the project of the Writings into 32 volumes and managed to publish the first seven by 1939. After the Second World War, the project continued, and the edition plan was changed to 48 volumes. However, it was banned by the Communist regime in 1954, while only scholarly discussions in dissent continued, and it was not resumed until 1990.

Thirty years of work, 39 volumes: a comprehensive edition of TGM's writings

Read also

Contacts for Media