No other American president is mentioned in Prague as many times as Woodrow Wilson. It was he who, in 1918, rejected the Austrian emperor’s request to maintain the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, thereby enabling the creation of an independent Czechoslovakia. That is why one of the back roads is named after him, in the 1920s the main Prague railway station bore his name, in which his commemorative plaque is located today, and a larger-than-life statue of Wilson stands on a high stone plinth in the adjacent park. At the end of the Second World War, a new arrangement of Europe was at stake. The nations of the former Austria-Hungary, which we know today as the Czech Republic, Slovakia or Hungary, longed for independence. However, in order for the Habsburg monarchy to really fall apart, the consent of the victorious powers of the Entente, especially the USA, was needed. Their president, Woodrow Wilson, was initially not too keen on such an idea. He associated the security of Europe with a strong and united Austro-Hungarian monarchy. However, he changed his opinion after a personal interview with the seductive representative of the Czechoslovak foreign resistance, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, our first president. This Czech humanitarian scientist, politician and public intellectual spent almost the entire First World War criss-crossing Europe and later Russia in order to promote the idea of state independence for the nations of Austria-Hungary among world politicians. He arrived in the United States of America, which was crucial for him at the end of the war, in May 1918. Also thanks to the contacts of the family of his wife, the American Charlotte Garrigue, he soon managed to penetrate to the White House. He met Wilson for the first time on June 19, and the infiltration really didn’t give him much work: The complete security of the US president’s residence at the time consisted of two police officers, so the biggest obstacle turned out to be the flock of sheep that Wilson kept in the garden of the White House, among which Masaryk had to weave on arrival. As we know from his diary entries, he arrived at Wilson’s at five o’clock in the afternoon. It was his third meeting that day and he had one scheduled since seven. Apparently he caught up with her, he and Wilson talked for 45 minutes for the first time. Even for less than an hour, however, it was enough for them to feel sympathy. They understood each other very well not only as politicians, but also as essential intellectuals. Wilson was the only university professor in the history of the USA who became president in that country, and Masaryk was also a professor at two universities: Prague and London. They shared a similar discourse and knew, figuratively speaking, the language of the same tribe. This is also why Wilson was eventually convinced of Czechoslovak independence. Already on September 3, he gave Masaryk a statement from the US government, where the Czechoslovak National Council, thus representing the Czechoslovak resistance abroad, is labeled as a warring government. This had far-reaching legal consequences and opened the way for Czechoslovakia to become legally independent. The two men officially saw each other again on September 20. A month later, Wilson rejected Emperor Charles I of Austria’s last desperate bid to maintain a unified monarchy by strengthening the rights of individual nations, sealing its fate. On October 28, 1918, independent Czechoslovakia was declared (Czech Republic and Slovakia did not split until 1990), and on November 14, Masaryk, who was just returning to Europe, was elected its first president. The Czechs were well aware of Wilson’s fundamental importance for their political independence, and after the end of World War I, they showed their gratitude publicly. Prague’s main railway station, which until then bore the name of Emperor František Josef, was renamed to Wilson’s and a monument to him was erected in 1928: a statue of a statesman in a cloak, slightly raising his hands, standing on a high stone plinth. It was a gift from compatriots living in Vamerica Chicago; its author was a prominent sculptor of Czech origin, Albín Polášek, who headed the Faculty of Sculpture at the Institute of Art in Chicago. During the occupation of Czechoslovakia during II. Unfortunately, the monument was destroyed by the Nazis during World War II. It was restored after 70 years in the presence of Václav Havel. Today, the street in front of the historic station building also bears Wilson’s name. Since the 1920s, it has been called Hooverova, in honor of Herbert Hoover, the representative of American food aid and the future American president, who visited Prague several times and received an honorary doctorate from Charles University. German occupiers during World War II of course he was a thorn in the side of World War I, so from 1940 the street bore the name of Richard Wágner. After the war, it returned to Herbert Hoover’s name for two years, but in 1947 Woodrow Wilson overshadowed his popularity. Wilson Street remained until 1952, when it became Victory February Street, which was the contemporary name for the communist coup d’état in Czechoslovakia in 1948. Since 1990, it has again been named after the president who helped the Czechs achieve political independence. Today, President Wilson is commemorated at the Main Station by a plaque that was unveiled by US President George Bush on November 16, 1990. The station building itself, the work of the prominent Czech architect Josef Fanta, is a beautiful example of art nouveau nobility and elegance – the world in which university professor Mr. Woodrow Wilson also lived and shaped his character.