Embassy Events
Štefan Osuský: Slovak Diplomat and Founding Father, with Strong American Ties
October 30, 2008
The 90th anniversary of the 1918 founding of Czechoslovakia is marked by a new exhibit, "Štefan Osuský, Great Slovak Diplomat and Co-Founder of Czecho-Slovakia and the League of Nations," at the University Library, Bratislava. Štefan Osuský was born in what is now Slovakia, but he moved to the United States when he was 17 years old. He spent much of his young manhood there, and at the end of his professional career, died in Virginia in 1973. His work from 1915, when he established Slovak language newspapers in the US, until 1918, when helped organize the Czecho-Slovak legions, helped to create Czechoslovakia. In the years following he brought his diplomatic skills to a wider and wider community of nations, serving at the League of Nations and on the War Reparations Committee where he represented not only Czechoslovakia but Poland, Yugoslavia, Romania and Greece. The exhibit is the first by the Diplomatic Museum, under the direction of Dr. Miroslav Musil of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It continues at the University Library until the end of November. The Embassy's Deputy Chief of Mission Keith Eddins, in opening the exhibit of documentary materials, spoke of the importance of the independence of Czechoslovakia for Americans in his remarks. He said: "Osuský’s vision was of a united Europe, a Europe without wars, democratic, and at peace. He was a Slovak who was a world citizen."