T. G. Masaryk, Václav Havel a heslo „pravda vítězí“ z československé prezidentské standarty
T. G. Masaryk, Václav Havel and the “Prevailing Truth” from the Flag of the President of Czechoslovakia

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with the motto written on the flag of the president of Czechoslovakia, “Truth Prevails”. It is usually associated with T. G. Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia, and Václav Havel, its last president and the first president of Czech Republic. For Masaryk the truth was an ethical ideal and an imperative which obliged him to fight for what he believed to be true. In his writings on the meaning of Czech history he gave it religious connotation, presenting it as a fulfillment of the humanitarian ideal, a heritage of the Czech reformation started by Jan Hus and the Hussites (who used the slogan “God’s truth prevails”). However, the meaning of the motto was in fact polyphonic, as most of the Czech public treated it as a generalized nationalist, perhaps anti-German symbol. For the Communists it symbolized a highly prized, domestic revolutionary tradition. Another meaning the motto received under Václav Havel, a former dissident whose truth aimed against “deceitful” Communism, losing its meaning after the fall of the Communist regime when it turned into an obstacle for critical self-reflection. The history of the motto gives the impression that the idea of truth may be a viable basis for the political ethics of conviction, but it hardly forms a basis for the ethics of responsibility.

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