Many know the life and legacies of Tomáš Masaryk and Edvard Beneš, two Czechs who helped to found Czechoslovakia. However, there was a third person who played a very important role in the founding of the country: a Slovak named Milan Štefánik. Before he participated in the founding of Czechoslovakia though, he was first an astronomer and aviator.
Vlasta Adele Vraz : A Czech-American during Communist Czechoslovakia
Vlasta Adele Vraz was a Czech-American who served as the director of American Relief for Czechoslovakia after World War II and was arrested as a spy by the Communist government in Czechoslovakia. She was released, becoming the Czechoslovak National Council of America. She spent most of her life before World War II surrounded by writers and writing for her family’s newspaper, the “Svornost.” After her release, she continued as an editor for the American Bulletin and Vestnik before she died in 1989.
An Army with No Country: A Siberian Odyssey
It’s the First World War, and the Czechoslovaks got to get their soldiers from Ukraine to France, but without going through a Central Powers country or a sea without enemy ships. What do they do? Naturally, they go East: fight through the Bolsheviks, take over the Russian railway network, capture most of Siberia, and reach Vladivostok before the ships arrive to get you home. All this while losing less than 10% of your men over three years of fighting. It might sound crazy, but this is just the 2nd part to the story of the Czechoslovak Legion.