Otakar Odložilík
- Lindsay Suarez
- Mar 12, 2016
- 1 min read
Otakar Odložilík was born on January 12th, 1899, in a Moravian village in the former Repbulic of Czechoslovakia. He was a historian of Czecho-Slovakian history and taught for 13 years at Charles University in Prague. He was morally against totalitarian governments, living in voluntary exile after the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939, and again in 1948 when communists sezied power in Czechoslovakia.
He lectured at Vassar College in November 1940 and again in April 1943. At the time of his first visit to Vassar, only his book The Study of Wiclif and Bohemia had been translated into English, but he sent President MacCracken a copy of his article "Twilight or Dawn for the Small Nations" reprinted from the Journal of Central European Affairs. He later taught at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, becoming a US citizen in 1955.
Sources:
Brock, Peter. “Otakar Odložilík, 1899-1973”. Central European History 7.3 (1974): 279–281. Web.
"Dr. Odlozilik Will Lecture On Hus, Wiclif Here." Vassar Miscellany News 27 Nov. 1940: 1. Vassar Newspaper Archive. Web.
"Odlozilik, Historian, Describes Struggles Of Bohemian People." Vassar Miscellany News 21 Apr. 1943: 1. Vassar Newspaper Archive. Web.
Pokorna, Magdalena. "Otakar Odložilík." Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Masaryk Institute, 12 Oct. 2015. Web.
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