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Nationally aware Czechs celebrated the Czech language and cultural heritage, contrastingthem with the supposedly Habsburg and German vices of aggression, repres-sion, and dogmatism.They were inspired by the romantic nationalismof historian Frantíaek Palacký, whose multivolume History of the CzechNation in Bohemia and Moravia reinterpreted the Czech medieval past as acharged interaction between Slavs and Germans, a matrix for modern Czechnationalism.Palacký s themes were later simplified and popularized by othernationalist historians and authors, who translated them into Czech nationalconsciousness.Masaryk claimed to reject Palacký s ideas even while relyingon them, trying to link the fifteenth-century Hussites to early twentieth-century progressive liberalism, ethnic tolerance, and an ecumenical Chris-tian spirituality.His attempt to practice a morally influential unpolitical politics within the Austrian imperial parliament, or Reichsrat, was inspiredby those ideas as well.Masaryk s and Benea s work abroad during the First World War, alsodescribed in chapter 1, presented their version of the Czech past, present, andfuture to a Great Power audience, via propaganda, cultural diplomacy, andthe British, French, and American mass media.Their wartime experiences,and their steady faith in the truth of Czech (now equated with Czechoslovak)nationalism, led the two men to develop a vision of postwar politics thatremained remarkably consistent through the interwar era: admiration forWestern values, reliance on the Great Powers of Western Europe, and intentto shape the First Czechoslovak Republic in their image.Achieving thesegoals would require substantial remaking of Czech political life, whichMasaryk and Benea viewed as provincial, uninformed, and prone to wrong-headed political notions that might alienate the state from its Great Powerguarantors.Their vision became the Castle s agenda, at home and abroad.Chapter 2 details the Castle s means of gathering and disseminating infor-mation, raising funds, and exerting influence, involving many governmentinstitutions as well as personal friendships.One of the most importantelements of the Castle apparatus was the propaganda section of Benea sforeign ministry, which was actively involved with European intellectual andliterary culture.Through propaganda, the Castle funded journalists, writers,and academics; it published and distributed their books, translating theminto all the major languages, via Orbis, the Foreign Ministry s semiprivate The Golden Republic 19publishing house, or in, the publishing house owned by a CzechoslovakLegionnaire organization loyal to the Castle.The Castle paid the expensesof the Czech chapter of the International P.E.N.Club, which Benea andthe writer-members viewed and used as a propagandistic forum.The ThirdSection sponsored trips abroad for authors, artists, and musicians, and builtthe Spole%0Å„enský klub (Social Club), a luxurious gentleman s club in the heartof downtown Prague, for entertaining visiting foreigners and socializing withCastle allies and intelligentsia.Throughout the interwar period, the Castle faced many political chal-lenges.At home, as chapter 3 explains, the Castle fought to dominatenational politics and to frame Czech nationalism; parliamentary leadersand factions fought back.Of its enemies, the Castle viewed the radicalRight as the most dangerous.As opposed to the Castle s Western-leaningcosmopolitanism, the Right espoused Czech chauvinism, combined withaggressive anti-German sentiment and glorification of the CzechoslovakLegionnaires (Czechoslovak World War I veterans) and the mythic Slavicforebears of the Czech nation.In letters, in meetings, and in highly publiclegal causes célèbres, the Castle and the Right vied not just for politicalbut also for mythic advantage.One of the most important arenas formythical combat was the press.Masaryk and Benea involved themselvesdeeply in the affairs of the mass media, founding and abandoning vari-ous newspapers and journals, and developing relationships with prominentjournalists to propagate their ideas.The Castle also worked to encour-age the development of Masaryk s personality cult; it published pamphletsof his writings, books of photographs showing Masaryk sitting ramrod-straight on horseback or cuddling his grandchildren, and worshipful biogra-phies in almost every European language.The Castle s work at home wasdevoted to winning support from influential figures and sectors of theelectorate, and limiting the power of groups and people the Castle deemedharmful.Chapter 4 presents Czechoslovakia s problematic international position,which became more precarious as the 1930s wore on.German and Hungarianpropagandists had made inroads into the sympathies of the British elite,who had long found the Treaty of Versailles distasteful and who mistrustedEdvard Benea.The growing distance between the British and French gov-ernments weakened the Czechoslovak position vis-à-vis the Nazi threat
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