Jiří Guth

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Jiří Guth

Jiří Guth (born January 23, 1861 in Heřmanův Městec (German Hermannstädtel), Bohemia ; † January 8, 1943 in Náchod , Czechoslovakia ) was a Czech pedagogue, sports official and man of letters. His international fame is linked to his position as a founding member of the International Olympic Committee . From 1920 he called himself Jiří Stanislav Guth-Jarkovský . As a writer, he also used the pseudonyms Gaston Humbert, Jan Chvojan, Jiří Murdoch, Jiří Jarkovský, Stanislav Jarkovský and A. Záruba.

Life

Guth was one of four sons of a rent master in the lordly princely administration of Bohemia . After passing the Matura age of 17 he began to study at the Charles University in Prague , where he attended the Faculty of Arts and received his doctorate in 1882 at the age of 21 years as a doctor of philosophy . A year later he passed the state examination for teaching at grammar schools.

Guth was educator of the princes of Schaumburg-Lippe from 1883 to 1887 , for which he moved to Lancy near Geneva in 1884 . In Geneva he also attended the university there for further studies . In 1887 he went back to Prague to teach as a high school teacher.

The time in Geneva increased his interest in the French school system, which is why he took a trip to Paris in 1891 , in particular to get to know the spread of physical exercises in education , which was promoted by Pierre de Coubertin in France . The first personal contact between Guth and Coubertin was to end in a lifelong friendship.

Engagement in the IOC

In the same year Guth von Coubertin was made an honorary member of the Union des Sociétés Francaises des Sports Athlétiques (USFSA) . Of course Guth also received an invitation to the international sports congress in 1894 at the Sorbonne in Paris, which would later go down in history as the first Olympic congress . Guth, who had never played competitive sports but did swimming, riding and cycling in his free time, sought support and participation in the congress from various sports clubs in his native Bohemia, but was unsuccessful. Although his name was on the list of honorary members of the Congress, he was not actually present in Paris. Nevertheless, it was not surprising that Coubertin had appointed him as a member of the International Olympic Committee, which was founded on June 23, 1894, the last day of the Congress.

Guth, who continued to work as a high school teacher in Prague and Klatovy , recognized in his appointment the possibility of making his native Bohemia independent of Austria, at least on the stage of international sport. Although he did not succeed in attracting Czech athletes to participate in the first Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 , his presence as an IOC member in Athens encouraged him so much that he first joined the Czech Amateur Athletic Union in 1897 and the Czech Olympic Committee in 1899 founded, which he chaired until 1929. In 1900 athletes for Bohemia took part in the Olympic Games in Paris for the first time. They returned with one silver (discus throwing) and two bronze (tennis) medals .

Since these successes at the latest, people in Austria were in a bad mood and demanded the abandonment of Bohemia's independence at the Olympic Games , as well as Guth's exclusion from the IOC. The friendship with Coubertin and the respect of the other IOC members for Guth, which he had gained with his diligence, his skill and his intellect, made him inviolable to all external hostility. Coubertin took Austria's demands as an opportunity to coined the new term sporting geography , which should clarify the independence of sport from political interests. Bohemian athletes also took part in the Olympic Games in 1906, 1908 and 1912.

Late years

Coubertin and Guth at the Olympic Congress in Prague 1925

Guth's reputation peaked in 1919. he became the chief of protocol Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk , the first president of the new state of Czechoslovakia . He held this post until his retirement in 1925. Guth was appointed Secretary General of the IOC in 1919 and remained so until 1923.

During this time Guth devoted himself increasingly to his literary inclinations. He called himself Jiří Stanislav Guth-Jarkovský and took on a number of different pseudonyms under which he published a wide variety of publications, novels, travelogues and magazine articles. He was also known as a translator for famous authors such as René Descartes , Émile Zola and Guy de Maupassant . Since 1928 he was a member of the Academy for Art and Science and various writers' associations.

In 1925 Guth directed the organization of the VIII Olympic Congress in Prague. It was no accident that Prague was chosen as the venue for this congress. Coubertin had announced his departure from active activities in the IOC in advance for 1925, and it should be left to Guth to arrange this departure for his friend as glamorously as possible, which he succeeded in doing. Guth remained a member of the IOC until his death.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jiri Guth: The Olympic Games in Athens 1896. Journal for the Austrian Gymnasium 11 (1896), 961-975
  2. ↑ Arnd Krüger : Neo-Olympism between nationalism and internationalism, in: Horst Ueberhorst (Hrsg.): Geschichte der Leibesübungen , Vol. 3/1, Berlin: Bartels & Wernitz 1980, 522-568.

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Guth, Jiří
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Guth-Jarkovský, Jiří Stanislav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech pedagogue and writer, founding member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC)
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1861
PLACE OF BIRTH Heřmanův Městec , Bohemia
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 1943
Place of death Náchod , Czechoslovakia