Převrat prof. Jana Krčmáře

On the concrete example of Jan Krčmář (professor at the Law Faculty of the Czech University), the present article describes the changing views and attitudes of Czech intellectual elites in the last years of World War I and during the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The shapping of Krčmář's attitudes is all the more interesting as he belonged to a rather narrow group within the Czech elite, which before 1914 strongly supported the Monarchy. In the personality of Krčmář, we observe not only his internal individual motives leading to a change in his former loyal or neutral views and attitudes towards the disappearing Monarchy, but also the influence of the discipline imposed by the majority of the Czech elite, which in 1917-1918 clearly identified itself with the idea of a new Czechoslovak state.