Abstract
The beginnings of Czech sociology from 1880 onward are intertwined with the academic and political career of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, who for 40 years was the only professor to teach the discipline at the Czech University in Prague. In Masaryk’s thought, sociology was closely tied to the philosophy of history, and both were expected to provide guidelines for practical life. Masaryk and his student Edvard Beneš were early public sociologists addressing Czech society in an era of intense nationalist aspirations. Despite their claim that sociology supplied their political actions with a scientific foundation, they practiced politics as usual when they became leaders of an independent Czechoslovakia. The first institutional foundations of Czech sociology were laid before WWI, but they remained weak and fragile.
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Skovajsa, M., Balon, J. (2017). Sociology in Service to Nation-Building: The Legacy of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. In: Sociology in the Czech Republic. Sociology Transformed. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-45027-2_2
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