The Making of a State/Preface

WRITTEN by President Masaryk as an authoritative record of the efforts by which the freedom of Czechoslovakia had been won, this book was originally published at Prague in 1925 under the title “The World Revolution.” It is a discerning historical interpretation both of the process of Czechoslovak redemption from Hapsburg servitude, and of the war as a whole. Wider in range than any “war book” yet written, it is a comprehensive examination of the philosophy of national, international and social life by a philosopher-statesman whose principles experience has vindicated. It deserves not only to be read but to be studied throughout the English-speaking world.

In the preparation and arrangement of this English version some changes of sequence have been made in parts of the narrative, and a few minor details have been omitted. Otherwise it is an accurate and faithful rendering of the original. I wish gratefully to acknowledge the help given by President Masaryk himself in revising the greater part of the manuscript. My acknowledgments are also due to M. Camille Hoffmann, of the Czechoslovak Legation in Berlin, who prepared the German edition, as well as to Messrs. Lawrence Hyde and J. C. C. Johnstone, and to M. Paul Selver and Dr. Jaroslav Cisař, of the Czechoslovak Legation in London, for the assistance I have received from their painstaking work.

No attempt has been made to transliterate Czech names. They have been printed with the original accents and spelling of which the following English equivalents may, however be given:—

The stress usually falls on the first syllable. The acute accent (as in “Palacký,” which is pronounced “Palatskee”) denotes the length of a vowel, not the accentuation of the word.H. W. S.