ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the conscious creation of the new identity of the Czechoslovak nation and state after 1918 impacted the narratives of modern art. After 1918, the Czech graduates of the University of Vienna came to occupy crucial positions in Czechoslovak institutions and brought the methods and ideas of their teachers to the cultural and political sphere of the new state. The foundation stone for the construction of the idea of the Czechoslovak nation and the policy of Czechoslovakism was the linguistic proximity of the Czech and Slovak languages. Czechoslovakia found itself in a situation typical for the early phase in the development of nation-states, which is marked by the search for the relics of political autonomy; recovery of the memory of the former independence, and reconnection with a mediaeval written language, which was undertaken by many politicians and scholars.
