PAHRA (PRAGUE) ROTARY  CLUB

RI 2143 Inaugurated September 14, 1924    Chartered   November 1, 1925

This club was effectively closed by the Nazis in 1938 and remained closed under the Communists until 1990.

Re-inaugurated in 1990 and re-chartered in May 1991 in the presence of PRI President Paulo

Da Costa.

In 1924 in a time of peace, when Czechoslovakia as a sovereign state was but 6 years old, a group of Czech personalities joined forces to lay the foundations for the first Czechoslovakian Rotary Club.  The aims of Rotary attracted immediate attention among the capital's most prominent citizens, and they soon began to collaborate with their foreign colleagues in starting active projects for the formation of a Rotary organisation which would bring together the various leaders of business, industry and commerce in Prague. One of the leading spirits of this group was Jan Masaryk, a highly regarded diplomat and son of Thomas Masaryk, the President of the Republic, who also became a member and later was District Governor of D66, as was his successor in office, Eduard Benes.  Another, indeed a founder member, was Vaclav Havel senior who was the last pre-war President of the Prague Club in 1938.   His son, Vaclav Havel, was later to become President of the modern Czech Republic and the recipient of Rotary's Award for World Understanding in 1989, while another son, Ivan, attended the Portland Convention in 1990.

The Rotary Club of Prague was formally inaugurated at the Hradcany Palace on September 14, 1924. The club was given the number of 2143.  The Charter Presentation was held on November 1, 1925, with delegates of various Rotary Clubs from Great Britain, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and the United States present.  Dr. A. Sum, a diplomat who had represented his country in Washington, was elected the first President and many prominent Czech politicians were among the early membership.  The Prague Club became the forerunner of a rapid expansion of Rotary throughout the country until the incursions of first the Nazis and later the Communists forced the closure of all clubs. 

Part of this is an extract from an article written by Prague Founder President, Dr. A. Sum, which appeared in the Chicago Tribune in October 1928. 

In May 1991 Charter celebrations were held in Prague attended by more than 1000 Rotarians from abroad.  The club was revived under the patronage of the Rotary Clubs of Wien, Stadtpark,  and Salzburg West.  In September 1991, a party of 18 Czech Rotarians made their first visit to the U.S.A. where they were welcomed by the Hyde Park R.C.

It was provided by PDG Milan Roch of D2240 to Basil Lewis, 15 September 2003, together with much other useful information.. 

EARLY HISTORY OF ROTARY IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA

After the chartering of the Prague Club in 1925, expansion was rapid.  Karlovy Vary was inaugurated on December 19, 1926.  This city was deliberately selected because of the many foreigners who visited the spa annually. Because Czechoslovakia had been made up of several disparate parts, not always friendly to each other, Rotary was thought to be important in the attempts to create a unified and integrated country.  Thus Pardubice and Koeniggraetz, rival cities in East Bohemia were both inaugurated on December 17, 1926.   As Dr A. Sum, the first President of the Prague Club, wrote in 1928, "The Rotary Clubs of both cities had to be founded on the same day, or not at all.  They have also, through the influence of their members, been able to help greatly in the establishment of co-operation between their respective towns for the solution of local problems."   A similar attitude to the value of Rotary was seen in the inauguration in the same month of December 1926 of a club in Brno, one time capital of Moravia, and of Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia.

Following the Munich agreement of September 1938, and the incorporation of Sudetenland into the German Reich, Rotary Clubs in that territory were disbanded.  In March 1939, as a result of Germany's occupation of Bohemia and Moravia, and the influence exerted on Slovakia, Rotary Clubs in those territories ceased functioning.  In January 1940, the Board of RI recognized the situation and declared that District 66, Czechoslovakia, had ceased to exist.

The second club in Czechoslovakia was inaugurated in December 1926 at Carlsbad (Karlovy Vary), followed the same month by others at Koniggratz, Pardobice, Bratislava and Brno.

Basil Lewis