Alois Rašín (18 October 1867 in Nechanice,ší Bohemia, Austria-Hungary – 18 February 1923 in Prague, Bohemia, Czechoslovakia) was a Czech and Czechoslovakian politician, economist, one of the founders of Czechoslovakia and first Ministry for Finance. He was the author of the first law of Czechoslovakia and creator of the country's currency, the Czechoslovak koruna. Rašín was a representative of conservative liberalism and was mortally wounded in assassination for being viewed as a head of the nation's capitalism.
Early years
Rašín was born as a ninth child (of which seven were alive) into the cottage in the outskirts of a small town Nechanice near Hradec Králové. His father František Rašín was a farmer, baker and a vendor of flour and cereals. His mother worked in their household and on the field. The family later bought a house in the town and another field. Later in life, Rašín described poor social reality in the area that was focused on the sugar industry. He also criticized the so-called "harfenictví": traveling musician groups connected to prostitution that expanded after the cancellation of the corvee.
From 1878 to 1881, Rašín attended a gymnasium in Nový Bydžov and he spent the fourth year of the gymnasium in a German gymnasium in Broumov. He finished the last years of high school in the gymnasium of Hradec Králové and graduated there in 1886. In these years he became interested in politics into which he was guided by his father who in 1887 became the mayor of Nechanice. He was fourth of his brothers who started to study at university. The other two brothers pursued a job in the trade sector. Firstly, he studied at the Faculty of Medicine of Charles University (back then called Charles-Ferdinand) but he was forced to leave due to lung disease. He switched for Faculty of Law because there was an optional attendance at lectures and moved to the house of his sister in Krkonoše for rehabilitation. After two years he recuperated.
Student radical movement
In 1888, Rašín returned to Prague to properly continue his studies. There he was actively participating in the student movement and three years later he participated at the Conference of Slavonic students with Antonín Hajn and Václav Klofáč. The Czech youth's opinions defied against the Austrian monarchy, police and the conservative Old Czech Party. Their most powerful instrument was the Magazine of Czech Students (), where they propagated the adoption of universal voting rights and greater national rights for Czech people. Rašín was supporting the National Freedom Party which is another name for the Young Czech Party that got into the Bohemian Diet and in 1891 into the Imperial Council.
In October 1891, he graduated from his law studies at Charles University and continued in his political activity. In the day of the Emperor's Franz Joseph I of Austria arrival to Prague, Rašín published an anti-state legal-political text Czech State Law () in which he outlined the program of restoring the independent Czech state in the spirit of the democracy with the guarantees for the rights of the minorities. He joined service in the military in Hungarian Pest (where he was complaining about their cuisine) and passed an officer’s exams with the best results. But because of his previous controversial article that was confiscated by the police, he was threatened by prolonging his service in the military to two years in total and loss of his ranks.
Rašín returned from his military service in the fall of 1892 and started to work as an advocate concipient. He was elected the mayor of "Slavia": literary and rhetorical association of progressors that supported strengthening radicalism. He also published critical articles in journals New Flows of Ideas () and Prospects () like Study on the death penalty, Judicial independence, Political crimes according to the outline of the new Criminal Code, Reflections on the draft Criminal Code.