Miroslav Tyrš

Miroslav Tyrš (17 September 1832 – 8 August 1884) was a Czech art historian, sports organizer and founder of the Sokol movement.

Miroslav Tyrš was born Friedrich Emmanuel Tiersch to a German doctor in Děčín (then Tetschen). The family moved to Döbling near Vienna where his father, mother and two sisters died from tuberculosis so that he became an orphan at the age of six years. He was brought up by his Czech uncle in Kropáčova Vrutice near Mladá Boleslav and was assimilated into the Czech community. He studied Gymnasium in Malá Strana, Prague and passed its final exam in Czech in 1850. At a time when student were required to take exams in the German language, Tyrš insisted on taking the exam in Czech to make a patriotic, pro-Czech stance. As a 16-year-old boy he fought in the streets of Prague during the Revolution of 1848, and then boasted of his shot-through cap. He also changed his Christian name first to Bedřich (Czech version of Friedrich) and then to Slavic Miroslav. He became doctor of philosophy in 1860. His thesis dealt with the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. He contributed philosophical articles to the first Czech encyclopaedia – Riegrův Slovník naučný. After failing to get an academic job he left Prague to work as a tutor for sons of a businessman in Nový Jáchymov near Beroun.

Tyrš did not study art or art history but he received proper education from Robert von Zimmermann, visiting art galleries in Germany, France, Italy and England and reading art history books (Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Friedrich Schiller, Arthur Schopenhauer, Hippolyte Taine, Herbert Spencer, Henry Thomas Buckle, Karl Schnaase, Gustav Friedrich Waagen, Franz Theodor Kugler, Anton Heinrich Springer, Johannes Overbeck and Giovanni Morelli).

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