CZ Centennial

Dear Friends,

2018 marks the most important anniversary in modern Czech history. On October 28, 1918, Czechs regained independence after 300 years. Important chapters of the remarkable story of the creation of Czechoslovakia were written one hundred years ago in Chicago. The Czech and Slovak state would not have come into existence were it not for Charles Crane, Czech-Americans and other friends from Chicago and the US Midwest, the traditional center of Czech immigration to the United States since the 1850s. Their help to Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Edvard Beneš, the first two Czechoslovak presidents and University of Chicago professors, was of key importance. On the occasion of the centennial of the founding of Czechoslovakia and 25^th anniversary of the creation of the Czech Republic, the highest representatives of our country will travel to Chicago to honor Americans and Czech-Americans who contributed to the birth of the modern Czech statehood and its rebirth after the World War II.