This paper considers Masaryk's Czech Question not primarily as an analysis of the Czech national awakening, not as a „philosophy of Czech history”, but above all as a programmatic challenge. Masaryk's attitude towards history is a rather subjective and instrumental one: his aim was a proper conception of the present, constructed against an enforced ideology of the past; that is the main reason why the book bears an historical character. However, Masaryk's idea of humanity, drawn from the tradition of the Bohemian Brethren, goes necessarily wrong when projected onto other historical periods; the idea was also too exclusive to deliver a strong basis for Czech (not to speak of Czechoslovak) politics. Masaryk's emphasis on „firm philosophical foundations”, in the author's opinion, overburdens political life with academic doctrines. In singling out philosophy, he of course pleads for the primacy of humanitarianism before nationality, which clearly is no matter-of-course to him. Masaryk views nationalism as a modern phenomenon; he also perceives the danger that it might become detached from its humanitarian origin. However his criticism is far from being consistent: he accepts Palacky's conception of nation as a moral and even juridical subject, as well as his frame of a total „sense of Bohemian history”, as he does the claim of ancient Bohemian Law. Masaryk's „realism”, based on Karel Havlíček, includes a number of productive aspects, last but not least an unbiased relation towards Bohemian Germans and the Austrian monarchy, as well, however, as a strong dose of Weberian „ethics of opinion” and aversion for liberal compromise. Together with a call for national science and culture, popular education, everyday work and activities, he created a comprehensive programme of morally accentuated „non-politics” a stimulating and inspiring contribution to the political leaders of his day and ours.