Madeleine Albright gives Thomas Garrigue Masaryk Lecture on Democracy

Petr Kolár, Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the United States (above, left) and Edward “Duke” Dellin, chairman of the Chicago/Prague Sister Cities Committee of the Prague Committee, joined Madeleine Albright (center) in laying a wreath at the T.G. Masaryk statue on the Midway Plaisance in honor of the 90th anniversary of the independence of Czechoslovakia. The ceremony also celebrated the University’s special relationship with the nation and its founding president Thomas Garrigue Masaryk. Masaryk visited the University in 1902 and 1907 and taught a course in Czech history during the Summer Quarter of 1902. Albright, the former Secretary of State, also delivered the Thomas Garrigue Masaryk Lecture on Democracy in the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. In addition to celebrating the connections between the Czech Republic and the University, the lecture was intended to be a forum for discussion on the fate of small nations and the future of democracy in the contemporary world.