No other American president has visited Prague as many times as Woodrow Wilson. It was he who, in 1918, refused the Austrian Emperor’s request to preserve the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, thus enabling the creation of an independent Czechoslovakia. That is why one of the main streets was named after him, why the main railway station in Prague where his memorial plaque is now located bore his name in the 1920s, and why a larger-than-life statue of Wilson stands on a tall stone pedestal in the adjacent park. As World War I ended, the game for a new European order got underway. The nations of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, known today as the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, longed for independence. However, for the Habsburg monarchy to actually disintegrate, the consent of the victorious powers of the Entente, especially the USA, was needed. Initially, American president Woodrow Wilson was not very keen on the idea. He associated the security of Europe with a strong and united Austro-Hungarian monarchy. However, he changed his mind after a personal conversation with the leader of the Czechoslovak foreign resistance, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, our first president. The Czech humanities scholar, politician and public intellectual spent almost the entirety of World War I travelling across Europe and later Russia to promote the idea of state independence for the peoples of Austria-Hungary among the world’s politicians. He arrived in the United States, a nation of crucial importance for him at the end of the war, in May 1918. Thanks also to the contacts of his wife’s family – Charlotte Garrigue was American – he soon managed to access the White House. He met Wilson for the first time on 19 June 1918, and in truth, gaining access proved not to be very difficult: At the time, the entire security team for the American president’s residence was made up of two policemen. In the end, the greatest obstacle turned out to be the flock of sheep that Wilson kept in the White House garden, and which Masaryk had to weave through on his arrival. As we know from the description in his diary, he arrived to meet Wilson at five o’clock in the afternoon. It was his third appointment that day, and he had one more scheduled from seven in the evening. Apparently he made it, as he and Wilson only spoke for 45 minutes the first time round. Yet even in this short time, they found sympathy for each other. They got along very well not only as politicians, but also as devout intellectuals. Wilson was the only university professor in US history to become president of the country, and Masaryk was also a professor at two universities: in Prague and London. They shared a similar discourse and spoke, figuratively speaking, the language of the same tribe. This is why Wilson was finally persuaded in favour of Czechoslovak independence. By 3 September, he had handed Masaryk a statement from the US government, in which the Czechoslovak National Council, representing the Czechoslovak foreign resistance, was described as a government at war. This had far-reaching legal consequences and opened the way for Czechoslovakia to become an independent state. The two men officially met again on 20 September. A month later, Wilson rejected the last desperate offer of Emperor Charles I of Austria to maintain a unified monarchy with enhanced rights for individual nations, thus sealing its fate. On 28 October 1918, an independent Czechoslovakia was proclaimed (Czechia and Slovakia did not split until 1990), and on 14 November, Masaryk, who had just returned to Europe, was elected its first president. The Czechs were well aware of Wilson’s crucially important role in gaining political independence and after the end of World War I they expressed their gratitude publicly. Prague’s main station, which until then had been named after Emperor Franz Joseph, was renamed Wilson Station and a monument was erected in front of it in 1928: a statue of the statesman in a cloak, arms slightly raised, standing on a high stone pedestal. It was a gift from compatriots living in Chicago, USA; its author was Albín Polášek, an important sculptor of Czech origin, who headed the Faculty of Sculpture at the Art Institute in Chicago. During the occupation of Czechoslovakia during World War II, the monument was unfortunately destroyed by the Nazis. It was restored 70 years later in the presence of Václav Havel. The street in front of the historic station building also bears Wilson’s name now. From the 1920s, it had been called Hooverova (Hoover Street) in honour of Herbert Hoover, a representative of American food aid and future American president, who visited Prague several times and received an honorary doctorate from Charles University. He was a thorn in the side of the German occupiers in World War II, and the street was named after Richard Wagner in 1940. After the war, Herbert Hoover’s name was restored for two years, but Woodrow Wilson eclipsed his popularity in 1947. The street remained Wilson’s until 1952, when it became třída Vítězného února (Victorious February Avenue), the contemporary name for the communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948. Since 1990, it has again been named after the president who helped the Czechs achieve political independence. Today, President Wilson is commemorated at Central Station by a plaque unveiled by U.S. President George Bush on 16 November 1990. The station building itself, the work of eminent Czech architect Josef Fanta, is also worth a visit. It is a beautiful example of Art Nouveau refinement and elegance – the world in which the university professor Woodrow Wilson lived and which shaped his character. Cover photo: Official portrait of President Woodrow Wilson