SOKOL A LEGIONÁŘ JAN ČAPEK. DRUHÝ ŽIVOT „NÁRODNÍHO HRDINY“
FALCON AND LEGIONARY JAN ČAPEK. THE SECOND LIFE OF A "NATIONAL HERO"

Author(s): Tomáš Rusek
Subject(s): Military history, Pre-WW I & WW I (1900 -1919), Interwar Period (1920 - 1939), WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Politics of History/Memory
Published by: Masarykova univerzita nakladatelství
Keywords: Jan Čapek; Sokol movement; Czechoslovak army;
Summary/Abstract: Jan Čapek was regarded, especially by the interwar sources, as the founder of the Czechoslovak legions in Italy. Although this statement in much simplifies the whole process, which in the last year of the Great War led to an establishing of a Czechoslovak division fighting against Austro-Hungarian Empire on the Italian front, it is nevertheless the truth, that he played key role in it. As a co-founder and leader of the so called Czechoslovak voluntary corps (Československý dobrovolnický sbor), a body of Czech and Slovak prisoners of war willing to fight for the idea of an independent Czechoslovakia alongside the forces of the Entente, he inspired roughly 10 000 prisoners to join the corps, which eventually formed the core of the legion. As simple riflemen he died on the day of his 42 birthday in an advance to a machine-gun nest, which only added the aura of a martyr to his legacy. This study deals with his afterlife, that is with the forms of commemorating and celebrating Jan Čapek. Wide span of sources from many different fields such as literature, sculpture, painting, faleristics or topographical naming was utilized. In order to sort them, the idea of a collective memory formulated already by Maurice Halbwachs was put to use in this work. Defining three main groups which preserved the memory on Jan Čapek – surviving legionaries, Sokol movement and Czechoslovak army (drawing on the traditions of the legions), created a structure of the study. Such a method also helped us define different as well as mutual aspects and forms of commemoration of Jan Čapek employed by this groups.

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