In 1935 Cec h participated a famous conference on combinatorial topology in
Moscow. His results met with such attention that he was invited to lecture at the
I.A.S. in Princeton. After his return in 1936, he organized a seminar on general
topology in Brno. The most active participants of the seminar were Josef Novak
and Bedrich Pospsil. In 1937 Cec h published his most important paper in general
topology On bicompact spaces", Ann. of Math. 38(1937), 823-844. In 1938 he
established another seminar for the secondary school teachers, which was devoted
to didactical questions, and started with writing rst textbooks for secondary
schools. The topological seminar continued working in secret during the second
world war, when all Czech universities were closed by Nazis.