Karel Kramář
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| Karel Kramář | |
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Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia
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| In office 1918 – 1919 |
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| Succeeded by | Vlastimil Tusar |
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| Born | December 27, 1860 Vysoké nad Jizerou |
| Died | May 26, 1937 Prague |
| Political party | Young Czech Party National Democratic Party |
| Occupation | Politician |
Karel Kramář (December 27, 1860 - May 26, 1937) was a Czech politician.
Leader of the Young Czech Party in Austria-Hungary and later of the National Democratic Party in Czechoslovakia. A liberal nationalist with close ties to the political elite in Prague and Vienna, Kramář pursued a policy of cooperation with the Austrian state as the best means of achieving Czech national goals before the First World War, even as he favored closer ties between the Czechs and the Russian Empire. His commitment to this policy of cooperation with the Austrian government ("positive politics" in the parliance of the day) led him to resign his leadership of the Young Czech party in 1914 as the party drifted toward a more nationalist and oppositional stance. During the First World War the Austrian authorities charged Kramář with treason, tried him and ultimately sentenced him to 15 years of hard labour. His imprisonment acted however to galvanise Czech nationalist opinion against the Austrian state. The new Emperor Karl I released Kramář as part of a general political amnesty in 1917.
Formerly a close associate of Tomáš Masaryk, later the first president of Czechoslovakia, Kramář and Masaryk were barely on speaking terms by 1914. Kramář, as the most prominent politician in Czechoslovakia, was named the country's first prime minister (14 November 1918 - 8 July 1919), much to the displeasure of Masaryk. Kramář, a strong Russophile who was married to a Russian aristocrat, subsequently represented Czechoslovakia at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 but later resigned over Foreign Minister Edvard Beneš's failure to support anti-Bolshevik White forces in Russia.
Following the first general election in Czechoslovakia, Kramář's party, now the National Democratic party, became a minor player in the various interwar governments of the new state. Later, Kramář worked together with Jiří Stříbrný in the National Union (Narodni sjednoceni).
In May 1919, an anarchist named Alois Šťastný made an unsuccesful attempt to kill Kramář.
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| First Republic | Karel Kramář • Vlastimil Tusar • Jan Černý • Edvard Beneš • Antonín Švehla • Jan Černý • Antonín Švehla • František Udržal • Jan Malypetr • Milan Hodža • Jan Syrový |
| Second Republic | Jan Syrový • Rudolf Beran |
| Government in exile | Jan Šrámek • Zdeněk Fierlinger |
| Transition to Communism | Zdeněk Fierlinger • Klement Gottwald |
| Communist | Klement Gottwald • Antonín Zápotocký • Viliam Široký • Jozef Lenárt • Oldřich Černík • Lubomír Štrougal • Ladislav Adamec • Marián Čalfa |
| after the Velvet Revolution | Petr Pithart • Jan Stráský |
