1 50 13 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/29447f6d211a355161309fa98bc1dea0.pdf 3a23cb29402bede360b3cea790b2ea44 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA If he does not find sufficient records, he will survey the self-reoog,nition nationailly, especfa:lly the personalities of the Rev. Stephen Furdek, the foll!Ilder of t.lhe First Catholic SJ.walk Union, and P eter Rovniiaine'k, the foU!Ilde r of the Nationa1 Slova'k Society. Dr. Greene, who has learned to read and ooderstand SlovaJk, is familiar with the ouilitura1 and historicaJl material a'Wlllfa1ble art: tihe J ankola Lj,brary iin Damville, Pa., the S[ova'k linst1turte Li,b rary in Olevel-amd, Ohio, and the faciltties iin Pittsburgh, Pa. rund Chicago, Illinois. In his own reference library he has joot about aJll the books publ!ished about the American SlovaJks, both ii11 the English and S.Jovak language. In his cooversation he talks 147 with ease aibout FuTdek, JankoLa, Murgas, Rovnianek, Sabol, Cutlen, Ko j is, Hrobak, Hletko, itfue Slov,a;k League of Arrnedca, the S[ovalk CaitJholic Federation of America, Lhe Jednota, amd a;ll the other Slovaik orgamizations. He .feels he hi t a bonanza when he came across the 75 Year History of the 1?'irst Oatholk Slovaik Union (75 rdkov Prvej KatoliC!kej Sloveniskej Jednoty), by Dr. Joseph Pauco. •'Not only is it a complete a.ind most comprehensive 1h i s t o r y of the J ednota ,amd rt!he Slovatks in Arrnerlca, buit its many references, footnotes, and bibliography wiilil sart:isfy any serious reader and research historiam," said Dr. Greene. Joseph C. Krajsa A DELICATE SUBJECT On March 17, 1965, was St. Pia t T •i c k's Day, a day Wlhidh iJS lh~1d .fill high esteem in ,tJhe heart of every Irishman wthether of remote ancestry from -the United States or from a,cross :the s ea. ]n New Yoiik this day is celebra,ted wi:f:Jh an annual parade down F'wth Avenue. By chiam.ce my -husbam.d is em- ployed in a 'luxury apa:ritment house overlooking Ce n tr a 1 parik: ; thus lh e viewed the paraide for the first time a1thougih !he immigrated to the United States six years ago. His Irish co-wo:rike r raved about the spectac:Ie. Meanwhile, they were jomed by a third pa11ty who oommented on the strong Irish nation- �148 SLOVAKIA aJisti,c fee '1i 111 g. Noting my being Ni:tra situated in Slohusband's aocenit asked where vaJkia. he was from. What is the reruson for my "S1lova'kia", wa:s his reply. interest? I was born twentyUpon this his i ill q u i r e r four yeaiis a,go in New York drew a bl8J!llk expression and City of Mora:viam-SlovaJk iparelllts; rHved in tJhe heart :lf shrugged lb.is shoU!lders. the Slovak and Czech neigh..Czecho-SlovaJkfa; it's a bo•rhood; and graduated from p a r t of Czee1ho-Sll.O'V\akia. the O.rech School. I sensed There aTe two nation,a11ities. that .there was an Ullleasy I'm Slovruk", was his earnest feeRng between some of the reply. Czechs amd SlovaJks. Af,t hough not beilllg a:gg,ressive nor any "Oh." mteHeoturul, I mooe timid inWitJh tlhi<s tJhe company dis- quires for wlhiclh peoip1e either persed. shurnrned away from the poin,t Thart: s a m e evening my or ranigTilly hU'S'.hed me. I soon hUJSban'd recounted the day's discovered that whatever the events remrutikinig how very reaison, it was a delicate and few people are awaire that a coml)lioated subject. 'I'hen I met my fU!ture husbamd who S'1ov,aikia exists. as a subscriber to "Slovak After loolkilng up in a ·b ook v Amerilke" 'began to read of Saints ibheir brief notes secrtion•s irn volving the poliition Saint Part:rick, one of the crul issues 8Jlld ipast history of paJtron sa:illlibs of Ireland, we tJhe cou'1!try. ln the beginning t u r n e d to see whart: was it was difficult for me to written aJbouJt Sairut Cyri,l a,nd ruoknowledg:e the i.1!1.1.f ormatfon Saint MetihodiU!S. According whioh seemed inrflammatory to the text these two saints and cOilltrary to what I preare responsi,ble for tlhe Slav sUJined to be the whole truth. rul,phalbet and s,u/bsequently the Slaiv l,amguage a:s well as Slowly I began to correilaspreading Christianity. It te ·tJhis infovmation with what a·lso mentiOlllS very briefly was wdtten ~rn various artictihe territory .they covered - les, hooks, encyclopedias as soUtt:hern Russia, Bohemia, wel!l as by ,various authors, and Paland. 'Dhere is no men- and foU'Ild thaJt certain fact s tion of Great Mora:via whi~h seemed etther omitted, g,lid~ existed at this time du!':ng ed over, or misinterpreted. the ninth cent ury, its center For e:x:ample, one source ad• �SLOVAKIA milts ilil a few pages 'bha,t Slov.aikia became an independent sitate on March 14, 1939, ,b ut there is no mention of Jozef Tiso, the Roman OatJholic priest a·s :president. lt only states thait Slovaikia fatithfuily did it!he 1b iddings of Germany UIIltil .April 5, 1945 ; when it decided to return to the originaJl bi~sit,a te of Czecho.:Slova!kia, but on equal b a s i s with the Czedhs I pemonai11y ,o annot see it becaiUJSe Slov,aJkia during its independence enjoyed g,reater prosperity than wihen it was in the centra:lized Republic. No state once tasting the fruits of independence :is going to e~ohange it for denationa!lization and communism ll1Il1ess forced to do so. A it ih i rd souree .portrays President Tiso ia;s ,a cautious fascist; a fourth as 'b eing a N arzi ipuppet who danced when Hitler pu[1leid the stTiings. and ainotJher treats the pr;blem as something which unfortunaitely existed. 149 Sudete!rland? In faict Slovak autonomy did not rise over nig<hit so i,t could hide in H itler's· shadow; S<lova!ks wanted aiuitonomy ,b efore World War II. 1t j u s t happened they made a successful break during a itoomoil; a brea!k which was fort!hcoming regardless !if there would have been a Hitler. As for it doing Hitler's biddings, Ptresidenrt Tiso was d e e P 1 Y rooted in Roman Catholic dogma, became presideint without opposition £r?~ the V,aitic~, cou4d not wihlmgly obey H utler who was an ~t heist and ohief advocate agamst ~oman Oa,tJholicism OIIl the pomt itihairt Jesus was a Jew. If President Tiso is bd ng bI18Jil!ded a f ,a scist or a Nazi 1 pUJPPet wihairt would one label Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, along wiith tJhe French who made a..n agreement with Hitler in Mu\Jlich in reg,a.rd to Sudclenland; O!I' Benes's 20 ye a r aJilisance treaity wi,t h Moscow when he c o u l d have well The ,p oint is these state- guessed StaJlm's intentions! menits are 1cold and narrowIt is easy to labe'l rpeople, miinded. How could a small the de trimentail fact being it ' newly..formed Slovalk st.ate ' iJS sei'zed Uipon by an NI-inaif.ter a tjhousam.d y e a r ;; of formed audience which dines fore~gn ru[e, stand against on coiined phrases disregardthe higMy organized and miing the initial source. litarized Germany who alMary A. Hlock y ready todk Austr~a and the � SLOVAKIA If he does not find sufficient records, he will survey the self-reoog,nition nationailly, especfa:lly the personalities of the Rev. Stephen Furdek, the foll!Ilder of t.lhe First Catholic SJ.walk Union, and P eter Rovniiaine'k, the foU!Ilde r of the Nationa1 Slova'k Society. Dr. Greene, who has learned to read and ooderstand SlovaJk, is familiar with the ouilitura1 and historicaJl material a'Wlllfa1ble art: tihe J ankola Lj,brary iin Damville, Pa., the S[ova'k linst1turte Li,b rary in Olevel-amd, Ohio, and the faciltties iin Pittsburgh, Pa. rund Chicago, Illinois. In his own reference library he has joot about aJll the books publ!ished about the American SlovaJks, both ii11 the English and S.Jovak language. In his cooversation he talks 147 with ease aibout FuTdek, JankoLa, Murgas, Rovnianek, Sabol, Cutlen, Ko j is, Hrobak, Hletko, itfue Slov,a;k League of Arrnedca, the S[ovalk CaitJholic Federation of America, Lhe Jednota, amd a;ll the other Slovaik orgamizations. He .feels he hi t a bonanza when he came across the 75 Year History of the 1?'irst Oatholk Slovaik Union (75 rdkov Prvej KatoliC!kej Sloveniskej Jednoty), by Dr. Joseph Pauco. •'Not only is it a complete a.ind most comprehensive 1h i s t o r y of the J ednota ,amd rt!he Slovatks in Arrnerlca, buit its many references, footnotes, and bibliography wiilil sart:isfy any serious reader and research historiam," said Dr. Greene. Joseph C. Krajsa A DELICATE SUBJECT On March 17, 1965, was St. Pia t T •i c k's Day, a day Wlhidh iJS lh~1d .fill high esteem in ,tJhe heart of every Irishman wthether of remote ancestry from -the United States or from a,cross :the s ea. ]n New Yoiik this day is celebra,ted wi:f:Jh an annual parade down F'wth Avenue. By chiam.ce my -husbam.d is em- ployed in a 'luxury apa:ritment house overlooking Ce n tr a 1 parik: ; thus lh e viewed the paraide for the first time a1thougih !he immigrated to the United States six years ago. His Irish co-wo:rike r raved about the spectac:Ie. Meanwhile, they were jomed by a third pa11ty who oommented on the strong Irish nation- �148 SLOVAKIA aJisti,c fee '1i 111 g. Noting my being Ni:tra situated in Slohusband's aocenit asked where vaJkia. he was from. What is the reruson for my "S1lova'kia", wa:s his reply. interest? I was born twentyUpon this his i ill q u i r e r four yeaiis a,go in New York drew a bl8J!llk expression and City of Mora:viam-SlovaJk iparelllts; rHved in tJhe heart :lf shrugged lb.is shoU!lders. the Slovak and Czech neigh..Czecho-SlovaJkfa; it's a bo•rhood; and graduated from p a r t of Czee1ho-Sll.O'V\akia. the O.rech School. I sensed There aTe two nation,a11ities. that .there was an Ullleasy I'm Slovruk", was his earnest feeRng between some of the reply. Czechs amd SlovaJks. Af,t hough not beilllg a:gg,ressive nor any "Oh." mteHeoturul, I mooe timid inWitJh tlhi<s tJhe company dis- quires for wlhiclh peoip1e either persed. shurnrned away from the poin,t Thart: s a m e evening my or ranigTilly hU'S'.hed me. I soon hUJSban'd recounted the day's discovered that whatever the events remrutikinig how very reaison, it was a delicate and few people are awaire that a coml)lioated subject. 'I'hen I met my fU!ture husbamd who S'1ov,aikia exists. as a subscriber to "Slovak After loolkilng up in a ·b ook v Amerilke" 'began to read of Saints ibheir brief notes secrtion•s irn volving the poliition Saint Part:rick, one of the crul issues 8Jlld ipast history of paJtron sa:illlibs of Ireland, we tJhe cou'1!try. ln the beginning t u r n e d to see whart: was it was difficult for me to written aJbouJt Sairut Cyri,l a,nd ruoknowledg:e the i.1!1.1.f ormatfon Saint MetihodiU!S. According whioh seemed inrflammatory to the text these two saints and cOilltrary to what I preare responsi,ble for tlhe Slav sUJined to be the whole truth. rul,phalbet and s,u/bsequently the Slaiv l,amguage a:s well as Slowly I began to correilaspreading Christianity. It te ·tJhis infovmation with what a·lso mentiOlllS very briefly was wdtten ~rn various artictihe territory .they covered - les, hooks, encyclopedias as soUtt:hern Russia, Bohemia, wel!l as by ,various authors, and Paland. 'Dhere is no men- and foU'Ild thaJt certain fact s tion of Great Mora:via whi~h seemed etther omitted, g,lid~ existed at this time du!':ng ed over, or misinterpreted. the ninth cent ury, its center For e:x:ample, one source ad• �SLOVAKIA milts ilil a few pages 'bha,t Slov.aikia became an independent sitate on March 14, 1939, ,b ut there is no mention of Jozef Tiso, the Roman OatJholic priest a·s :president. lt only states thait Slovaikia fatithfuily did it!he 1b iddings of Germany UIIltil .April 5, 1945 ; when it decided to return to the originaJl bi~sit,a te of Czecho.:Slova!kia, but on equal b a s i s with the Czedhs I pemonai11y ,o annot see it becaiUJSe Slov,aJkia during its independence enjoyed g,reater prosperity than wihen it was in the centra:lized Republic. No state once tasting the fruits of independence :is going to e~ohange it for denationa!lization and communism ll1Il1ess forced to do so. A it ih i rd souree .portrays President Tiso ia;s ,a cautious fascist; a fourth as 'b eing a N arzi ipuppet who danced when Hitler pu[1leid the stTiings. and ainotJher treats the pr;blem as something which unfortunaitely existed. 149 Sudete!rland? In faict Slovak autonomy did not rise over nig<hit so i,t could hide in H itler's· shadow; S<lova!ks wanted aiuitonomy ,b efore World War II. 1t j u s t happened they made a successful break during a itoomoil; a brea!k which was fort!hcoming regardless !if there would have been a Hitler. As for it doing Hitler's biddings, Ptresidenrt Tiso was d e e P 1 Y rooted in Roman Catholic dogma, became presideint without opposition £r?~ the V,aitic~, cou4d not wihlmgly obey H utler who was an ~t heist and ohief advocate agamst ~oman Oa,tJholicism OIIl the pomt itihairt Jesus was a Jew. If President Tiso is bd ng bI18Jil!ded a f ,a scist or a Nazi 1 pUJPPet wihairt would one label Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, along wiith tJhe French who made a..n agreement with Hitler in Mu\Jlich in reg,a.rd to Sudclenland; O!I' Benes's 20 ye a r aJilisance treaity wi,t h Moscow when he c o u l d have well The ,p oint is these state- guessed StaJlm's intentions! menits are 1cold and narrowIt is easy to labe'l rpeople, miinded. How could a small the de trimentail fact being it ' newly..formed Slovalk st.ate ' iJS sei'zed Uipon by an NI-inaif.ter a tjhousam.d y e a r ;; of formed audience which dines fore~gn ru[e, stand against on coiined phrases disregardthe higMy organized and miing the initial source. litarized Germany who alMary A. Hlock y ready todk Austr~a and the � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1965, Vol. 15 Description An account of the resource Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA If he does not find sufficient records, he will survey the self-reoog,nition nationailly, especfa:lly the personalities of the Rev. Stephen Furdek, the foll!Ilder of t.lhe First Catholic SJ.walk Union, and P eter Rovniiaine'k, the foU!Ilde r of the Nationa1 Slova'k Society. Dr. Greene, who has learned to read and ooderstand SlovaJk, is familiar with the ouilitura1 and historicaJl material a'Wlllfa1ble art: tihe J ankola Lj,brary iin Damville, Pa., the S[ova'k linst1turte Li,b rary in Olevel-amd, Ohio, and the faciltties iin Pittsburgh, Pa. rund Chicago, Illinois. In his own reference library he has joot about aJll the books publ!ished about the American SlovaJks, both ii11 the English and S.Jovak language. In his cooversation he talks 147 with ease aibout FuTdek, JankoLa, Murgas, Rovnianek, Sabol, Cutlen, Ko j is, Hrobak, Hletko, itfue Slov,a;k League of Arrnedca, the S[ovalk CaitJholic Federation of America, Lhe Jednota, amd a;ll the other Slovaik orgamizations. He .feels he hi t a bonanza when he came across the 75 Year History of the 1?'irst Oatholk Slovaik Union (75 rdkov Prvej KatoliC!kej Sloveniskej Jednoty), by Dr. Joseph Pauco. •'Not only is it a complete a.ind most comprehensive 1h i s t o r y of the J ednota ,amd rt!he Slovatks in Arrnerlca, buit its many references, footnotes, and bibliography wiilil sart:isfy any serious reader and research historiam," said Dr. Greene. Joseph C. Krajsa A DELICATE SUBJECT On March 17, 1965, was St. Pia t T •i c k's Day, a day Wlhidh iJS lh~1d .fill high esteem in ,tJhe heart of every Irishman wthether of remote ancestry from -the United States or from a,cross :the s ea. ]n New Yoiik this day is celebra,ted wi:f:Jh an annual parade down F'wth Avenue. By chiam.ce my -husbam.d is em- ployed in a 'luxury apa:ritment house overlooking Ce n tr a 1 parik: ; thus lh e viewed the paraide for the first time a1thougih !he immigrated to the United States six years ago. His Irish co-wo:rike r raved about the spectac:Ie. Meanwhile, they were jomed by a third pa11ty who oommented on the strong Irish nation- 148 SLOVAKIA aJisti,c fee '1i 111 g. Noting my being Ni:tra situated in Slohusband's aocenit asked where vaJkia. he was from. What is the reruson for my "S1lova'kia", wa:s his reply. interest? I was born twentyUpon this his i ill q u i r e r four yeaiis a,go in New York drew a bl8J!llk expression and City of Mora:viam-SlovaJk iparelllts; rHved in tJhe heart :lf shrugged lb.is shoU!lders. the Slovak and Czech neigh..Czecho-SlovaJkfa; it's a bo•rhood; and graduated from p a r t of Czee1ho-Sll.O'V\akia. the O.rech School. I sensed There aTe two nation,a11ities. that .there was an Ullleasy I'm Slovruk", was his earnest feeRng between some of the reply. Czechs amd SlovaJks. Af,t hough not beilllg a:gg,ressive nor any "Oh." mteHeoturul, I mooe timid inWitJh tlhi<s tJhe company dis- quires for wlhiclh peoip1e either persed. shurnrned away from the poin,t Thart: s a m e evening my or ranigTilly hU'S'.hed me. I soon hUJSban'd recounted the day's discovered that whatever the events remrutikinig how very reaison, it was a delicate and few people are awaire that a coml)lioated subject. 'I'hen I met my fU!ture husbamd who S'1ov,aikia exists. as a subscriber to "Slovak After loolkilng up in a ·b ook v Amerilke" 'began to read of Saints ibheir brief notes secrtion•s irn volving the poliition Saint Part:rick, one of the crul issues 8Jlld ipast history of paJtron sa:illlibs of Ireland, we tJhe cou'1!try. ln the beginning t u r n e d to see whart: was it was difficult for me to written aJbouJt Sairut Cyri,l a,nd ruoknowledg:e the i.1!1.1.f ormatfon Saint MetihodiU!S. According whioh seemed inrflammatory to the text these two saints and cOilltrary to what I preare responsi,ble for tlhe Slav sUJined to be the whole truth. rul,phalbet and s,u/bsequently the Slaiv l,amguage a:s well as Slowly I began to correilaspreading Christianity. It te ·tJhis infovmation with what a·lso mentiOlllS very briefly was wdtten ~rn various artictihe territory .they covered - les, hooks, encyclopedias as soUtt:hern Russia, Bohemia, wel!l as by ,various authors, and Paland. 'Dhere is no men- and foU'Ild thaJt certain fact s tion of Great Mora:via whi~h seemed etther omitted, g,lid~ existed at this time du!':ng ed over, or misinterpreted. the ninth cent ury, its center For e:x:ample, one source ad• SLOVAKIA milts ilil a few pages 'bha,t Slov.aikia became an independent sitate on March 14, 1939, ,b ut there is no mention of Jozef Tiso, the Roman OatJholic priest a·s :president. lt only states thait Slovaikia fatithfuily did it!he 1b iddings of Germany UIIltil .April 5, 1945 ; when it decided to return to the originaJl bi~sit,a te of Czecho.:Slova!kia, but on equal b a s i s with the Czedhs I pemonai11y ,o annot see it becaiUJSe Slov,aJkia during its independence enjoyed g,reater prosperity than wihen it was in the centra:lized Republic. No state once tasting the fruits of independence :is going to e~ohange it for denationa!lization and communism ll1Il1ess forced to do so. A it ih i rd souree .portrays President Tiso ia;s ,a cautious fascist; a fourth as 'b eing a N arzi ipuppet who danced when Hitler pu[1leid the stTiings. and ainotJher treats the pr;blem as something which unfortunaitely existed. 149 Sudete!rland? In faict Slovak autonomy did not rise over nig<hit so i,t could hide in H itler's· shadow; S<lova!ks wanted aiuitonomy ,b efore World War II. 1t j u s t happened they made a successful break during a itoomoil; a brea!k which was fort!hcoming regardless !if there would have been a Hitler. As for it doing Hitler's biddings, Ptresidenrt Tiso was d e e P 1 Y rooted in Roman Catholic dogma, became presideint without opposition £r?~ the V,aitic~, cou4d not wihlmgly obey H utler who was an ~t heist and ohief advocate agamst ~oman Oa,tJholicism OIIl the pomt itihairt Jesus was a Jew. If President Tiso is bd ng bI18Jil!ded a f ,a scist or a Nazi 1 pUJPPet wihairt would one label Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, along wiith tJhe French who made a..n agreement with Hitler in Mu\Jlich in reg,a.rd to Sudclenland; O!I' Benes's 20 ye a r aJilisance treaity wi,t h Moscow when he c o u l d have well The ,p oint is these state- guessed StaJlm's intentions! menits are 1cold and narrowIt is easy to labe'l rpeople, miinded. How could a small the de trimentail fact being it ' newly..formed Slovalk st.ate ' iJS sei'zed Uipon by an NI-inaif.ter a tjhousam.d y e a r ;; of formed audience which dines fore~gn ru[e, stand against on coiined phrases disregardthe higMy organized and miing the initial source. litarized Germany who alMary A. Hlock y ready todk Austr~a and the  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Delicate Subject Description An account of the resource Mary A. Hlocky Slovakia, Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965 pp. 147-149 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hlocky, Mary A. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/fcf3fe94bf3d88f466b31198a8cc2bb1.pdf 2bbe72291b71a9b403abd0d61d81994d PDF Text Text 146 SLOVAKIA AN AMERICAN illSTORIAN AND THE SLOVAKS Dr. VJctor R. Greene, Professor of American History aJt -the Kansa;s Staite Un~versity, Mamhattam, Kansas, a 1Jhiird generation American, who has no connection with Slovail~s in his brucikground, was asked for the reason of his interest in the American Slovaks and in the history Otf the First Cath~lic Slovak Union. Without hesitation and wi:th iassurance he promptly gave this answer. "I am not Slovak amd I ha:ve no immediate personal c.onneciion with ,t he nationality. The abHity of a re1atively uneducaited, ,p oor group of Slovruk immigramts to construct am ethnic community with all the ,a ssociations of seilf-help and murtual aid amazes me and I want to discover how their organi2Jations (like the Jednota) were formed." Professor Greene received his B.A. degree f r o m the University of Harv a r d in 1955; his M.A. degree from the University of Rochester in 1960; and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963. His dissertation for his Ph.D. was: A History of East European lmmigrants in the Anthracite Area before 1903. We asked the Professor to be more specific about his. disse:ritation and he respunded, "It is a study of the contribution Slovruks and others made rto ithe unions in the coal ficlds amd the aid to President J oihnny MitcheiH and the Uniited Mine Workers of America. My thesis is that it was because of the loyalty amd sacrifice of Slova,k mine wol1kers that trhe union was permanerutly estab1ished in the hard coal fields." A microfilm copy of the dissertation can ,b e purchased from University Microfilms, Allln Arbor, Michigan or the University of P ennsylvania Llbrary, Philadelphia, Pa. Of course, there are other dissertaitions aJbout Slovaiks that cam be obtained from Microffilms. In his present research, Profess·or Greene is making a. study of ;t he origins of Slovak and East European American s e 1 f -oonsciousness and why by World War I every Slovak immigrant realized such a strong feeling of his ethnic h eritage. He •is attempting to use Chicago, Illinois as a case study, ,b ut as yet h as found Httle ma,teriiaJ before 1910. �SLOVAKIA If he does not find sufficient records, he will survey the self-reoog,nition nationailly, especfa:lly the personalities of the Rev. Stephen Furdek, the foll!Ilder of t.lhe First Catholic SJ.walk Union, and P eter Rovniiaine'k, the foU!Ilde r of the Nationa1 Slova'k Society. Dr. Greene, who has learned to read and ooderstand SlovaJk, is familiar with the ouilitura1 and historicaJl material a'Wlllfa1ble art: tihe J ankola Lj,brary iin Damville, Pa., the S[ova'k linst1turte Li,b rary in Olevel-amd, Ohio, and the faciltties iin Pittsburgh, Pa. rund Chicago, Illinois. In his own reference library he has joot about aJll the books publ!ished about the American SlovaJks, both ii11 the English and S.Jovak language. In his cooversation he talks 147 with ease aibout FuTdek, JankoLa, Murgas, Rovnianek, Sabol, Cutlen, Ko j is, Hrobak, Hletko, itfue Slov,a;k League of Arrnedca, the S[ovalk CaitJholic Federation of America, Lhe Jednota, amd a;ll the other Slovaik orgamizations. He .feels he hi t a bonanza when he came across the 75 Year History of the 1?'irst Oatholk Slovaik Union (75 rdkov Prvej KatoliC!kej Sloveniskej Jednoty), by Dr. Joseph Pauco. •'Not only is it a complete a.ind most comprehensive 1h i s t o r y of the J ednota ,amd rt!he Slovatks in Arrnerlca, buit its many references, footnotes, and bibliography wiilil sart:isfy any serious reader and research historiam," said Dr. Greene. Joseph C. Krajsa A DELICATE SUBJECT On March 17, 1965, was St. Pia t T •i c k's Day, a day Wlhidh iJS lh~1d .fill high esteem in ,tJhe heart of every Irishman wthether of remote ancestry from -the United States or from a,cross :the s ea. ]n New Yoiik this day is celebra,ted wi:f:Jh an annual parade down F'wth Avenue. By chiam.ce my -husbam.d is em- ployed in a 'luxury apa:ritment house overlooking Ce n tr a 1 parik: ; thus lh e viewed the paraide for the first time a1thougih !he immigrated to the United States six years ago. His Irish co-wo:rike r raved about the spectac:Ie. Meanwhile, they were jomed by a third pa11ty who oommented on the strong Irish nation- � 146 SLOVAKIA AN AMERICAN illSTORIAN AND THE SLOVAKS Dr. VJctor R. Greene, Professor of American History aJt -the Kansa;s Staite Un~versity, Mamhattam, Kansas, a 1Jhiird generation American, who has no connection with Slovail~s in his brucikground, was asked for the reason of his interest in the American Slovaks and in the history Otf the First Cath~lic Slovak Union. Without hesitation and wi:th iassurance he promptly gave this answer. "I am not Slovak amd I ha:ve no immediate personal c.onneciion with ,t he nationality. The abHity of a re1atively uneducaited, ,p oor group of Slovruk immigramts to construct am ethnic community with all the ,a ssociations of seilf-help and murtual aid amazes me and I want to discover how their organi2Jations (like the Jednota) were formed." Professor Greene received his B.A. degree f r o m the University of Harv a r d in 1955; his M.A. degree from the University of Rochester in 1960; and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963. His dissertation for his Ph.D. was: A History of East European lmmigrants in the Anthracite Area before 1903. We asked the Professor to be more specific about his. disse:ritation and he respunded, "It is a study of the contribution Slovruks and others made rto ithe unions in the coal ficlds amd the aid to President J oihnny MitcheiH and the Uniited Mine Workers of America. My thesis is that it was because of the loyalty amd sacrifice of Slova,k mine wol1kers that trhe union was permanerutly estab1ished in the hard coal fields." A microfilm copy of the dissertation can ,b e purchased from University Microfilms, Allln Arbor, Michigan or the University of P ennsylvania Llbrary, Philadelphia, Pa. Of course, there are other dissertaitions aJbout Slovaiks that cam be obtained from Microffilms. In his present research, Profess·or Greene is making a. study of ;t he origins of Slovak and East European American s e 1 f -oonsciousness and why by World War I every Slovak immigrant realized such a strong feeling of his ethnic h eritage. He •is attempting to use Chicago, Illinois as a case study, ,b ut as yet h as found Httle ma,teriiaJ before 1910. �SLOVAKIA If he does not find sufficient records, he will survey the self-reoog,nition nationailly, especfa:lly the personalities of the Rev. Stephen Furdek, the foll!Ilder of t.lhe First Catholic SJ.walk Union, and P eter Rovniiaine'k, the foU!Ilde r of the Nationa1 Slova'k Society. Dr. Greene, who has learned to read and ooderstand SlovaJk, is familiar with the ouilitura1 and historicaJl material a'Wlllfa1ble art: tihe J ankola Lj,brary iin Damville, Pa., the S[ova'k linst1turte Li,b rary in Olevel-amd, Ohio, and the faciltties iin Pittsburgh, Pa. rund Chicago, Illinois. In his own reference library he has joot about aJll the books publ!ished about the American SlovaJks, both ii11 the English and S.Jovak language. In his cooversation he talks 147 with ease aibout FuTdek, JankoLa, Murgas, Rovnianek, Sabol, Cutlen, Ko j is, Hrobak, Hletko, itfue Slov,a;k League of Arrnedca, the S[ovalk CaitJholic Federation of America, Lhe Jednota, amd a;ll the other Slovaik orgamizations. He .feels he hi t a bonanza when he came across the 75 Year History of the 1?'irst Oatholk Slovaik Union (75 rdkov Prvej KatoliC!kej Sloveniskej Jednoty), by Dr. Joseph Pauco. •'Not only is it a complete a.ind most comprehensive 1h i s t o r y of the J ednota ,amd rt!he Slovatks in Arrnerlca, buit its many references, footnotes, and bibliography wiilil sart:isfy any serious reader and research historiam," said Dr. Greene. Joseph C. Krajsa A DELICATE SUBJECT On March 17, 1965, was St. Pia t T •i c k's Day, a day Wlhidh iJS lh~1d .fill high esteem in ,tJhe heart of every Irishman wthether of remote ancestry from -the United States or from a,cross :the s ea. ]n New Yoiik this day is celebra,ted wi:f:Jh an annual parade down F'wth Avenue. By chiam.ce my -husbam.d is em- ployed in a 'luxury apa:ritment house overlooking Ce n tr a 1 parik: ; thus lh e viewed the paraide for the first time a1thougih !he immigrated to the United States six years ago. His Irish co-wo:rike r raved about the spectac:Ie. Meanwhile, they were jomed by a third pa11ty who oommented on the strong Irish nation- � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1965, Vol. 15 Description An account of the resource Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 146 SLOVAKIA AN AMERICAN illSTORIAN AND THE SLOVAKS Dr. VJctor R. Greene, Professor of American History aJt -the Kansa;s Staite Un~versity, Mamhattam, Kansas, a 1Jhiird generation American, who has no connection with Slovail~s in his brucikground, was asked for the reason of his interest in the American Slovaks and in the history Otf the First Cath~lic Slovak Union. Without hesitation and wi:th iassurance he promptly gave this answer. "I am not Slovak amd I ha:ve no immediate personal c.onneciion with ,t he nationality. The abHity of a re1atively uneducaited, ,p oor group of Slovruk immigramts to construct am ethnic community with all the ,a ssociations of seilf-help and murtual aid amazes me and I want to discover how their organi2Jations (like the Jednota) were formed." Professor Greene received his B.A. degree f r o m the University of Harv a r d in 1955; his M.A. degree from the University of Rochester in 1960; and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963. His dissertation for his Ph.D. was: A History of East European lmmigrants in the Anthracite Area before 1903. We asked the Professor to be more specific about his. disse:ritation and he respunded, "It is a study of the contribution Slovruks and others made rto ithe unions in the coal ficlds amd the aid to President J oihnny MitcheiH and the Uniited Mine Workers of America. My thesis is that it was because of the loyalty amd sacrifice of Slova,k mine wol1kers that trhe union was permanerutly estab1ished in the hard coal fields." A microfilm copy of the dissertation can ,b e purchased from University Microfilms, Allln Arbor, Michigan or the University of P ennsylvania Llbrary, Philadelphia, Pa. Of course, there are other dissertaitions aJbout Slovaiks that cam be obtained from Microffilms. In his present research, Profess·or Greene is making a. study of ;t he origins of Slovak and East European American s e 1 f -oonsciousness and why by World War I every Slovak immigrant realized such a strong feeling of his ethnic h eritage. He •is attempting to use Chicago, Illinois as a case study, ,b ut as yet h as found Httle ma,teriiaJ before 1910. SLOVAKIA If he does not find sufficient records, he will survey the self-reoog,nition nationailly, especfa:lly the personalities of the Rev. Stephen Furdek, the foll!Ilder of t.lhe First Catholic SJ.walk Union, and P eter Rovniiaine'k, the foU!Ilde r of the Nationa1 Slova'k Society. Dr. Greene, who has learned to read and ooderstand SlovaJk, is familiar with the ouilitura1 and historicaJl material a'Wlllfa1ble art: tihe J ankola Lj,brary iin Damville, Pa., the S[ova'k linst1turte Li,b rary in Olevel-amd, Ohio, and the faciltties iin Pittsburgh, Pa. rund Chicago, Illinois. In his own reference library he has joot about aJll the books publ!ished about the American SlovaJks, both ii11 the English and S.Jovak language. In his cooversation he talks 147 with ease aibout FuTdek, JankoLa, Murgas, Rovnianek, Sabol, Cutlen, Ko j is, Hrobak, Hletko, itfue Slov,a;k League of Arrnedca, the S[ovalk CaitJholic Federation of America, Lhe Jednota, amd a;ll the other Slovaik orgamizations. He .feels he hi t a bonanza when he came across the 75 Year History of the 1?'irst Oatholk Slovaik Union (75 rdkov Prvej KatoliC!kej Sloveniskej Jednoty), by Dr. Joseph Pauco. •'Not only is it a complete a.ind most comprehensive 1h i s t o r y of the J ednota ,amd rt!he Slovatks in Arrnerlca, buit its many references, footnotes, and bibliography wiilil sart:isfy any serious reader and research historiam," said Dr. Greene. Joseph C. Krajsa A DELICATE SUBJECT On March 17, 1965, was St. Pia t T •i c k's Day, a day Wlhidh iJS lh~1d .fill high esteem in ,tJhe heart of every Irishman wthether of remote ancestry from -the United States or from a,cross :the s ea. ]n New Yoiik this day is celebra,ted wi:f:Jh an annual parade down F'wth Avenue. By chiam.ce my -husbam.d is em- ployed in a 'luxury apa:ritment house overlooking Ce n tr a 1 parik: ; thus lh e viewed the paraide for the first time a1thougih !he immigrated to the United States six years ago. His Irish co-wo:rike r raved about the spectac:Ie. Meanwhile, they were jomed by a third pa11ty who oommented on the strong Irish nation-  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource An American Historian and the Slovaks Description An account of the resource Joseph C. Krajsa Slovakia, Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965 pp. 146-147 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Krajsa, Joseph C. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/769635e2364a7189d5a2c1f98263f219.pdf 56d063a8bde528fa9dbe67bef21c308f PDF Text Text 150 SLOVAKIA WHO'S WHO AMONG SLOVAKS IN U. S. A. A!ND OANADA Hletko, Peter Paul, M.D., physlcian-s urge on; (semi-retired); med. examiner of many insurance Co's; born June 26, 1'902 in Chicago, Ill.; son of Martin and Catherine (IHargas ) Hletko; educated, St. Michael's School (1908-1915), Chicago, St. Procopius Academy and College, Lisle, Ill. (1915-19) and (1919-21); De Paul Univ., Chicago (1921-23, B. Sc. in Chem. 1923); Loyola University, Chicago, (M.D. 1927) ; Resident Staff (interne) Cook County Hosp., Chicrugo (19271928); instructor in clinical neurology, Loyola U. Medical School (1931-35) ; wed Anna E. Remijas in 1938; led Slovak League of Am. delegation to Czecho-Slovakia in 1938 in behal! of Pittsburgh Pact recognition; pres. Slovak League of Am. (1935-1939) and (1963M); Hon. Presid•ent and member of Exec. Committee of Slovak League (19·3 8-196i); Tice-pres. Slov. Cath. F ed er ation of Amer. (19314); Supr. Med. Examiner, Slovak Cath. Sokol (1927-19&4); Hon. Med. Examiner (emeritus), and Member of Exec. Comm. •Slovak Cath. Sokol; Supr. Med. Examiner Nat. Slovak Society (1934-39); secretary, Supreme Court 01' Na:t. Slovak Society (l'll26-19.3 4); organizer and 1s t pres . 'Club Furdek' (Oath. Slovak Cultural Society, Chicago) 1929; member Amer. Med. Assn., Ill. Med. Assn. and Chicago Medical Assn. since 1929; med. examiner of Municipal Court and Law Dept. Benefit and .Pension Fund, Chica~o. (1936-61); Pl!"esident, Gage Park Savings & Loan Assn., Chica~o. ,since .1985. Author: "The Slovaks and the Pittsburgh Pact" (publi,shed by 'Slovak Catholic Federation 1934); vrote "Islm,r" - rQprint of satko-comic column in the Osad n e Hlasy (Slovak Parish N liws), 19,311 ; edited the "Catholic Slovak Sokol Cook-Book", 1964; contrib. editor, Osadne Hlasy (Chi- cago P a rish News, 1927-63); editor 'Jaro", English supplement to 'Jednota, 1927-3·6. Editor, 'Chicagsky Dennik' (Chicago Slovak D a i 1 y News), 1926-27. Democrat. Hobbies : Books, philately, pinochle. Home : Warrenville, Ill. Office : 2740 W. 55th St., Chicago 32, Ill. Mlynarovic h, Clement, Milos, Born October 1'1, 1·887, Hasprunka 1 ( Studlenka), S 1 ova k i a, son of Stephen and Stephanie (Heiny) Mlynarovich; educated in Studienka, Trnava, Bratislava; ordained May 21, 1910 Bratislava; doc ent of Eloquence and Blblicum in Franciscan Seminary 1911-1914. Assistant at St. J oh n Parish, Whiting, Indiana 1915; organizer of Assumption Parish, East Chicago, Indiana. /Pastor of A s sumpt.ion Pwrish 1915; ,b uilt church 1917, rectory 1919, school and convent 1,926. Organized Sacred Heart Parish, East Chicago, Indiana (East side) and ·b uilt church 1g3'7. Toured Central Europe 1925; elected Supr,e me Judge of Slovak Catholic Sokol 1930; elected chaplain or ISlovak Catholic Sokol 193.:'l. Elected •Supreme •P resident Slovak Catholic ·F ederwtion 1930-193•5. Made Very Rev. Monsignor 194•5 ; visited Peace Conference 1945. Elected l!"egul ar member of the Gallery-Academy of Livi n g Authors 1949; resigned the Assumption (Parish, East Chicago, Indiana, and moved to Seven Dolors 1Shrine, Valparaiso, .Indiana 1950. Reelected 1Supreme Presid ent Slovak Catholic Federation or America. 19>50. Visited ,I taly and Germany 1955 In re: Slovak ,seminarians in Pontifical Nepomucenum, Rome, and In re: Slovak emigll"ants in Germany. Was made Rt. R ev. Monsignor 1955; made r egular member the International Marian Academy 1955. 1 �SLOVAKIA Visited Europe in 1962 and 1963 In re: St. Cyril and IMethodius Institu te in Rome. Literary works: Slavia J>oems Novels from American Life Great God (poems) Christmas Telephone Two Worlds "In Search of God," (poems) "In The 'Shadow of Skyscrapers," ( short novels) "S,truggle With Fate," (short novels) "Birds in The Storm," (novel) "From the People for the People," {poems) "Mary the Divine Design," "IRoseta," (novel) Sermons "Story of a Hea rt," (poems) All literary works aire in Slovak. !Awarded with Hlinka Silver Cup and with Gold Medal of the Slovak Catholic Intellectuals. Stephen B. Roman is widely recognized as a leading spokesman for the Canadian uranium industry. He has been in the forefront of those who have claimed that the demand for nuclear fuel and power would build up rapidly in the next few years. Today, he and his company, Denison Mines Limited, are on the threshhold of a solid, long-term association with European customers. Details in full have to be ironed out, but negotiations involve the sale of 100,000,000 lbs. of uranium oxide over a 25-year period. In honoring Stephen Roman recently, Western Miner recognizes that even greater things lie ahead for the ambitious 43-year old executive who heads one of Canada's most important mining and industrial complexes. Denison, with its diversified investments b o th in Canada and the U. S. A., appears destined to b e c o m e one of the great "growth" organizations of North America. Born in Slovakia, Stephen Ro- 151 man came to Canada as an immigrant lad of 17 in the company of an older brother. He began his life in Canada by spending his first three years on a farm near Port Perry. Nights were consumed with study, furthering both his cultural interests and his knowledge of a new language. Following service in the Canadian army, he married, worked in industry and, briefly, as an editor of a Slovak weekly newspaper. His subsequent, phenomenal financial career evolved over a period of 18 years. As president of Denison Mines Limited, he brought the world's largest uranium mine into production, at Elliot Lake, Ontario. He has made "Denison" synonymous with dynamism and diversification. The company today is a leading g a s and o i 1 producer, with large proven reserves in Western Canada. Through its investments, it is also a manufacturer of cement and building materials (Lake Ontario Cement Company, Premier Building Materials Limited, Primeau Argo Block Company). Un, der Denison's guidance, a b a s emetal property, Black Hawk Mining Limited, is being currently developed in Maine, U.S.A. In this perspective, a not her newsworthy accomplishment was his prominent role in the merging of Roman Corporation with TransCanada Explorations. Roman Corporation, the new company, in addition to its interests in a variety of attractive mining properties and its own diversified holdings, has a substantial investment in Denison stock, its most important single asset. With Denison as a base, Mr. Roman has built a $85 million industrial empire of diversified investments. Now with Roman Corporation Limited as an active new agency of investment, he is advancing on another phase of his meteoric career. �152 SLOVAKIA BOOK REVIEWS Pauco, Joseph, Ph.D.: 75 rokov Prvej Katoiickej Slovenskej Jednoty, Middletown, . Pa., 1965, p. 664, Illustrated. Not infrequently one encounters in life a specific circumstance which calls for the accomplishment of a momentous task, but there is no one at hand with the necessary competence to perform it; and, vice versa, one oftentimes meets with a person of marked ability for a particular task, who is denied the opportunity to exercise his talent. Matthew Arn old neatly states the outcome when the two appear simultaneously in the literary field: "Great creative works in literature result from the happy concurrence of two notable powers, the power of the man and the power of the moment." Such a happy concurrence of two notable power~ has been strikingly exemplified before our eyes this year. For the power of the moment there was the 75th anniversary of the First Catholic Slovak Union in 1965, calling for the writing of the history of this remarkable organization. For the power of the man there was Joseph Pauco, Ph.D., a gifted author, historian and scholar, capable and willing to assume the task of writing this history. The result is a truly monumental contribution to Slovak history and literature, entitled, "75 Rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej J ednoty." The history of the First Catholic Siovak Union can well be considered concommitant with that of the adjustment of S l o v a k immigrants to the American way of life. On page one of its June 2, 1965 issue, the JEDNOTA weekly notes : "The 75-year history of the First Catholic Slovak Union is interlocked with the story of the Slovaks in America from their very first days in this country, embodying their dreams and aspirations, their programs and campaigns of action, their accomplishments, their contributions to the ideals of this great country ... " It is important that we Slovaks f a m i 1 i a rize ourselves with this record. Only too often we are confronted by inquirers seeking information on matters which they quite rightly expect us to know. A careful reading of Dr. Pauco's book will enable us to furnish answers to questions like the following: When and why did the Slovaks emigrate �SLOVAKIA to the United States in such large numbers? Why all this concern about conditions in Central Europe? What part was played by American Slovak leaders in the founding of the Czecho-Slovak Republic in 1918 and of the Independent Slovakia in 1939? Thus the book portrays the early struggles of the Slovak immigrants, their traits of <:haracter, their involvement in events, both here and in their fatherland, their progress from life in simple settlements to flourishing parishes and to the founding of religious, educational, cultural, and charitable institutions. The book presents thumb·n ail sketches of institutions like the Catholic Slovak Federation, the Slovak League of America, the various Religious Congregations of men and women, and the newly established Institute of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Rome for 'the training of priests for Slovakia. It includes biographical sketches of notable persons in Slovak life, contemporary as well a.s past, persons whose names were ·household w0rds iR their day-Furdek, .Jankola, Pavco, Di an is k a, Murgas, Rusek, Hrobak, Kozak, Lach, Rovnianek, all ac·tive in American Slovak life. Nor are there lacking names like Culen, Hronsky, Hlinka, 153 Razus, Hrusovsky, Urbanek, Sasinek, Skultety, 0 s v a 1 d, whose area of action stemmed from Slovakia and whose influence was felt in America. Scores of other names appear in the record of persons still living and active in the Slovak cause. Furthermore, Dr. Pauco's book records events like the following: The Consecration of the first Slovak bishop in America in 1957; a Slovak pilgrimage to the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D. C. and the erection within its walls of the altar of our Mother of Sorrows, Patroness of Slovakia; visits made to America by Msgr. Hlinka, the Slovak Bishops: Blaha, Vojtassak, Cars k y, and Jantausch; visits of delegations representitng national, educational and cultural societies in Slovakia; Papal honors conferred upon distinguished Slovaks. It contains hi&torical documents such a.s: Memoranda on behalf of Slovakia addressed to the President and Congress of the United States and to the U.N.; messages to the Slovak people by eminent churchmen, like Cardinal S p e 11 m a n a n d Cardinal Stritch, climaxed by the memorable address of Pope Paul VI to the Slovak pilgrims a~ sembled in Rome from the �154 SLOVAKIA United States, Austria, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, South America and the Far Ea;st on September 14, 1963. Moreover, the author has authentically annotated e a c h fact so that if the reader wishes further information he can pursue the topic further. The foregoing is but a superficin.l s u m m a r y of the wealth of information contained in Dr. Pauco's book. ~cholars will appreciate the amount of painstaking and persistent research and methodical organization of material that produced in one volume a veritable treasury of information. To the older members of the J ednota, the book offers precious reminiscences of past struggles, labors, trials, triumps, and achievements; to the discerning reader it offers historical data on a gallant and courageous nation; to the student it offers a valuable r eference in the field of research. In recent years there · has been in America a welcome awakening of interest in the Slovak people. Students in high schools and colleges are encouraged to write papers on topics relating to Slovak history, literature, culture, and politics. There is immense need for source material. Dr. Pauco has pr o v i d e d this source material in his book "Seventy-five Years of the First Catholic Slovak Union", so rich in content, in abundant notes and references, and in bibliographic data. On the occasion of an anniversary it is customary for the celebrating jubilarian to r eceive gifts; now the order has been reversed; the celebrating jubilarian, the 75year old Jednota, does not receive a gift, but bestows one-a gift of lasting value · to its members, to the Slovak people, and to history and literature in general. Speaking of value draws attention to the price of the volume. Only $5.00! A small sum indeed for such a valuruble 'book-'lllllieommOllllly valuable in content and proportionately valuable in its digno.fled fomna;t~iits tyipe, its numerous illustrations, and its durable binding. One more important thought. The statement of Matthew Arnold about the power of the moment and the power of the man applies here again. 'Dhere :i!S urgent need-the power of .t he moment-to provide source material in Eng- · lish for students and to make · Slovak information available to the general American reader. This need calls for a writer �SLOVAKIA _,the power of the mancaJPa!ble and willing to translaite Dr. P.auc's booO{ imito ffingHsh. God grant that the two powers concur very soon to fulfill this need of the times. Mother M. Emerentia, SS.C.M. M!lan S. Durica, LA SL0VAICC'HI!A. E LE SUE RELAZIONI POLITIOHE 0ON LA GEJRMANIA - 1938/ 194 5, (Slovakia and Her Political Relations with Germany), Marsilio E ditor!, Padova, Italy, 1964, Sarmatlca Series, Introduction by Ettore Anchleri, p. 274. Books on Slovakia in foreign languages are growing in number and quality, and the present volume counts undoubtedly among the bes,t bo th for its scholarly method and objective analysis of the events and for -the use of documents rela ted to Slovakia's recent history. Admitted to unpublished diplomatic archives of the Third Reich, the author tried to find an ansvrer to and put in proper per~pQctive 1.) The origin of the Slovak 'Republic, 2.) The rel ation s of Slovakia with Germany, and 3.) The policy of the Slovak Government towards Berlin. All these topics were casually treated in Western European languages in connection with the Eastern Europea n problems or with the Second WGrld War, but the writers, except for those of Slovak origin mostly accepted biased opinions from anti,Slovak sources and were not concerned with archives and do cuments . Profesor DuTica is the first social scientist who has used his knowledge of foreign languages to look into the -primary sources and find out wheTe the truth lies and where the Western historiography relied on political myths. The result of his research is consequently in dis.agreement with many a thesis on 155 both the origm of the Slovak state in March 1939 and on the policy of the Slovak government towards the German attempts to limit Slovakia's sovereignty and to impose national socialism upo n the Slovak people. Without any intention ,t o exculpate or apologize, a tendency which can be found in other works, professor Durica depicts the relations betwee n Germany and Slovakia as they appear in the light of the documents of German diploma ts, Slovak cabinet ministers, or other personalities, playing a role in Slovak politics. The present volume which ls the first o! a series, deals with the events of the years 1938-1939, from the Munich Agreement to the outburst of the Second World War. A'\vare of the scarce knowledge of the Slovak problem in the West, including Italy, the author also gives a brief survey of the Slovak national aspirations before the First World War and during the years 1918-1938 in Czecho-Slovakia. Jn an extensive introduction he deals with Wes tern historiography concerning Slovakia and shows considerable knowledge of literature in several European languages. On ,the 'basis of such documentation and research, Profesor Durica came to the conclusion that "a direct influence of Germans on Slovak politician<.! with regard to an immediate declaration or independence of Slovakia can be documented only from March 7, 1939", and "that the principal Slovak personalities gave a proof of firmness wh en enco untered with German press ure and faced witih dignity even the personal intervention of Hitler on March 13." (p. 11-5) The declaration of Slovak independence on March H, 1939 "was made under the pressure of the international situation, pa rticularly und er that of Germany, but the independence was nevertheless proclaimed by the diet of the autonomous Slovakia on the �156 SLOVAKIA basis of delibera:tions basically free, and by a free and unanimous vote of all members of the Diet present in the Parliament." (p. 115) ,P rofesor Durica states emphatically ,tha,t; "the Slovak state cannot be considered as a creation of Hitler's Germany. In the secret documents of Nazi Germany preceding the crisis of March 1939, there is no project of this kind. The subsequent documents clearly prove instead that there was on one hand, an initial disorientaition in Berlin as to the viability of the independent Slovak state, and on the other, a decisive and constant resistance of Slovakia against repeated attempts, by the Third Reich, first at the military occupation of the Slovak territory, and later, at reducing <the Slovak state to a German protectorate" (p. 116) As for the viability and ideological orientation of Slovakia the author concludes that "in the period of March-September 1939 <the Slovak State consolidated noteworthy its administrative structure, adopted a republican constitution inspired by the Christian traditions or its people and obtained sufficiently large recognition as the member of the international community." (P. 116). Durica came to these conclusions on the basis of an extensive study, as shown by his footnotes and bibliography, of secondary and primary sources of which the 86 documents in German and English, attached to the book enhance thtl value of his work. He also cleared a confusion around two ducuments, .na mely a letter by the Hungarian regent Nicholas Horthy of March 13, 1939, and a telegram, allegedly sent by Dr. Tiso to Hitler on March 15th, 1939. This reviewer has been responsible for a part of the confusion since he was the first to use, in good faith, Horthy's letter as a document referring to Slovakia in an article published in 1948 and later in 1958 in my book "Nas boj o samostatnost: Slovenska", from which it passed into Mikus French book and Oddo's work. It was left out from my English book SLOVAKIA (publ. 1960) since I found out in the meantime that the document referred to the Carphato-Ukraine. The other document was publish• ed in the DOCUMENTS ON GER• MA!N FOiREIGN PO[,!CY SERIES D and since I was aware of a telegram sent to Hitler on March 14, 1939 (I was personal secretary to the Minister of External Affairs of Slovakia at that time), I mistakingly considered the draft, found in Berlin and never used, as the text of Tiso's telegram. It is now clear that Tiso never sent that teleg,r am and the message I was aware of, was signed by Durcansky as published . by Durica (Doc. 51, p. 196). If the following volumes of Durica's work will be of the same scholarly precision and objectivity, he will undoubtedly make a valu• able contribution to Western historiography on Central Eastern Europe. We hope that he will adcI to the fortcomiug volumes a resume in English and French which he did not attach this time and which Is one o-f the short-comings of this valuable work. J. M. KIRSCHBAUM Ludwig v. Gogolak, BEITRAGE ZUR GElSCHICHTE DES SLOV A· KISCHE~ VOLKES I, (Contribut• ions to the History of the Slovak People), Verlag R. Oldenburg, Munchen, 1963, p. 265. This scholarly work by a professor of •Central European history at the University of Vienna, is the first critical work by a foreign scholar on the rise of Slovak national consciousness and on the origin of the Czecho- Slovak question. It deserves, therefore, more than casual attention �SLOVAKIA o! Slavists and experts in Central ·E astern European problems. :As the subtitle indicates (Die Natiornalwerdung der Slowaken und die Anfange der tschechoslowakischen 1F rage 1526-1790), the author made a thorough research, facilitated lby his knowledge of German, Hungarian, Slovak and Czech, into two contested questions on which not only politicians but also linguists and historians for a long time held and defended divergent positions and opinions. Western historiography predominantly accepted the Czech thesis ,t hat ethnically, and linguistically Slovaks were a part of the Czech people or a:t the best a part of the "Czechoslovak people". The Slovaks vehemently defended their linguistic, cultural and political identity, but until recently they scarcely found understanding or support among Western scholars. The first serious attempt on the part of Western scholars to present a critical analysis of the q u e s t i o n, base.d on original sources; dates only from 19.3'1 and was made by Th. J. Locher in his D1E NIA:T.IONAIJE DH'FERENZIER UN G UND INTEGRIERUNG DER SLOWAKEN UND TSCHECHEN IN IHREM GESCHICHTLICHEN VERLAUF 'BIS 1848 (The Natrona! Differentation and Integration of 1Slovaks and Czechs in its historical development until 1848). Dr. 'Locher completed two years of post-graduate studies in Prague and IBratislava (after graduating .from the University of Leiden in his native Holland) and to the dismay of his Czech professors (J. Susta in Prague and V. Chaloupecky in Bratislava) he came to conclusions contradicting the Czech t h e s i s of fue ethnic linguistic, cultural and political unity of the Slovaks and Czechs. The work by professor v. Gogolak confirms Lecher's conclusions, but it is at the same time more de- 157 tailed, broader in scope and much better documen,ted. We might say that this is the first foreig n-language book which goes de eper into the problem of the relations between the Slovaks and Czechs than any other book in Slovak or Czech, and -there were many books written on this ,topic in the last hundred years. Gogolak's knowledge of sources in the languages pertainin.g to the topic is unique among the Western historians and he displays a rare objectivity !ri his analysis not only with regard to the Czechs but also with regard to Hungarians, who similarly attempted to create "a Hungari an people" of the inhabitants of !Hungary by the assimilation of Slovaks and other nationalities. It does not mean, however ithat the book is not bound to stir up controversy among C z e ch and Hungarian historians alike; it may provoke disag,r eement in some det ails even among the Slovaks, and particularly among the Pro-· testant Slovaks. ;Frofessor v. Gog o 1 a k defends not only the thesis of an independent Slovak linguistic and cultural entity, but correctly states· that the so-called Czechoslovak· problem or ,the thesis of the unity of Czechs and Slovaks is of very late date and was masterminded by the Slovak Protestant minority (about 18% at the present time) which ,was to a great degree of Czech ancestry and has been linked wi,th the. Czechs by their liturgical language (see pp. 214 and fol.). Gogolak goes so .far as to say that "had the Protestant intelligentsia, which in fact lived mostly on their historical heritage and foreign German-Czech connections, r emained in the leading role, the result would have been the complete disappearance of the Slovak people" (p. 229) In his view "it is thanks only to the activity of several Catholic priests and scholars, who. were conscious of their goal and �_158 SLOVAKIA mission, that the Slovak national character did not lose its own characteristics and identity in the clash with the menacing political magyarization and the spiritual 'self-czechizatlon' ... " Such statements, even if basically true, are undoubtedly bound to provoke reaction on the side of the Slovak Protestant intellectuals of whom many reel, like their ancestors ait the beginning of ,the 19th century, that they are "the ex c I u s iv e leaders of the Slovak people" whose "bold consciousness of their mi s s ion (Sendungsbewusstsein ) came again and again in the foreground until 1918-1919". (p. 217). Besides these two main problems the author deals with many other questions related to the rise of Slovak national consciousness, as for instance the role of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie in Slovak cultural life, the role of the German element, Hungarian assimilatory t e n d e n c i es etc., on which topics there are some monographic works in Slovak, which were not analyzed from a global point of view. This concise and well-documented scholarly work deserves attention not only from SloTak scholars, but also from Slavists in general. JK. Edward E . Delaney, FREEDOM'S FRONTIER, .Published by H. A. Nickel, Sacramento, Cal., 211 p. The author is a n,vell-known news reporter, whose area of opera,tion was Central Europe during World War II. On more than one oc- casion he visited Slovakia and learned its problems firsthand. In this book he sets forth a challenging analysis of western policy, pointing out its blunders with regard to Soviet expansion. In no uncer,tain terms the a uthor expr esses his condemnation of western appeasement and calls for a constructive policy of liberation of captive nations, tearing down the Iron C urtain and the Berlin Wall, and undoing the brainwashing to which the American public has been subjected. In his references ,to Slovakia h e names Slovak intellectuals and politicians whose anti-Communist stand has been known in the West and n,vho rightfully claim freedom and independence for their nation. In his view Slovakia is a captive nation, now occupied by the Soviets. After Hs so-called liberation, it was combined again with Bohemia and Moravia in a restored Czecho,Slovakia to compensate Benes for services rendered to Moscow by himself and other Czech politicians. Delaney condemns such disr egard or a nation's rights as well as the unjust condemnation or Slovak politicias and specifically •the execution of Dr. Tiso. Quoting Slovak scholars like Dr. J . M. Kirschbaum and Dr. F. Durcansky, he presses for Slovakia's independence. A perusal of the book proves that the author is acquainted with the literature and basic problems of Central Europe and has personally met some of its leaders. JK . Die Slowaken und das Grossmiihrishe Reich (The Slovaks and the Great-Moravian Empire), by Dr. Arved Grebert, Munich, 1965, p. 64, bibl. For a long time a matter of interest for a few historians and linguists, the Great-Moravian Empire became during the past two decades an object of scholarly research by experts in many fields, especially of archeologists, ethnographers and social scientists. The booklet under review is a contribution to the ethnic character of the Great-Moravian Empire, according to its subtitle, but it also sheds a new light on many other problems. �SLOVAKIA 159 After having outlined historical and geographical data of this first empire of Carpathian and Danubian Slavs, called Sclaveni or Sclavi Marahenses in contemporary Latin sources and Slovene in eastern re• cords, the author attempts to give an answer to the following ques• tions: Which Slavic tribes lived on the territory of the Great-Moravian Empire in the 9th Century? What is the ethnic character of the population of today's Moravia? What was the relation of the Slovaks to the Czechs in the 9th century? Dr. Grebert's answer is based on a thorough study of sources, of historical and linguistic works of renown scholars of various nationali• ties, published in half a dozen languages. Nevertheless, it is an answer which is bound to provoke controversy, since it contradicts or refutes many an outdated thesis of Czech Slavists or of historians guided by political considerations. In his conclusion Dr. Grebert states that his research and quoted sources and data prove that "the Great-Moravian Empire was a Slovak state, formed by Slovaks" (p. 50). Though amply supported by the views of scholars not only of the Slovak, German, Hungarian, but also of the Czech origin, the author refers in his conclusion also to the so-called Marxist experts to give his study an objective basis beyond any doubt. It will be now to the experts in this period of history to accept or refute Grebert's new look at the first Slavic empire which was claimed mainly by the Czechs as a part of their national heritage. The essay is written in a clear style, concise form, and convincing manner. The writer apparently was guided by the dictum "non multa, sed multun". J. M. Kirschbaum ANTON BERNOLAK-The First Codifier of the Slovak Language (1762-1813). By J. M. Kirschbaum, LL.D., Ph.D. Publishers: Slovak In• stitute, Cleveland, Ohio, 48 pages. Bernolak's 200th birthday anniversary provided the occasion for the author's masterful address at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, which fortunately has been preserved for us in this highly documented work. The wide scope of his research is shown in the Bibliography in which sources are quoted from works in Latin, German, Slovak, Polish, English, Czech, French and Italian. No one so far has come up with such a concise and scholarly his• torical and literary background to the development of the modern Slovak language as Dr. Kirschbaum in this brochure in English and French. This small volume is an excellent and invaluable handbook for future scholars who may want to treat the subject more extensively. They will find in it not only the Slovak literary and national leaders who saved the Slovak nation from extinction in a period of historic crisis but a list of names of philologists, historians, etc. as references to authorities on the subject. Rarely does one find such an imposing array of distinguished men quoted as we find in Dr. Kirschbaum's priceless work. To mention a few: Bajza, Safarik, Holly, Pa?lrnvic, Fandly, stur, Jungman, Niederle, Vlcek, Mraz, Kotvan, Bartek, Mihal, Sta• nislav. Pauliny, Seton-Watson, Denis, Dobrov,sky, Auty, de Bray, von Gogolak, Skultety, Krcmery, Miskovic, Tibensky, Pisut, Banik, Lepacek, MeriggL A.P. �160 SLOVAKIA CONTRIBUTORS Zatko, James J., Ph.D., Rev., received an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. Under sponsorship of Ford Fellowships he studied at Harvard in 1954-1955 and at the Catholic University of Lublin in 1958. He was also the recipient of an Association of Middle Eastern Studies Fellowships in 1962. He is assistant professor of history at the University of Notre Dame. Just off the press is his book Descent Into Darkness -The Destruction of the Roman Catholic Church in Russia 1917-1923, published by Notre Dame University. Kona, William, was born in Slovakia where he was reared and took his secondary education. He received part of his education in law at Bratislava in Slovakia. He continued his education in law in Rome and in Madrid. Attended Roosevelt University, Chicago Teachers College; Chicago Real Estate Board Institute. At Rosary College in River Forest, Illinois, he received his M.A. He also took advanced :studies in library science at the University of Chicago. In his travels Mr. Kona has been to Austria, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Monaco France, Portugal, Gibraltar, Croatia, Spain, Canada, Mexico, and has toured the United States extensively. Mr. Kona is a Member of the Association of Hospital and Institutional Libraries of the American Library Association of which he is on the Publications Advisory Committee ( 1962-64) and Bibliotherapy Committee (1962-66); Medical Library Association in which he is the Chairman of the Nursing Libraries Group (1963-64 and 1964-65), Chairman of Membership Committee (1964-65), and member of the Exchange Committee ( 1963-64 and 1964-65). As well as these two national organizations he is a member of the Midwest Regional Group of the Medical Library Association (Member of the Board of Directors) and also he was Program chairman for the Tri-State Hospital Assembly Medical Library Service (1963-64); Permanent Chairman since 1960 of the Nursing Librarians of Metropolitan Chicago; VicePresident of A.P.P. (1962-64); American Hospital Association of which he was faculty member to the Institute on Hospital Librarianship in 1961 and 1964. Evangela, M. Sister, B.S., M.A., the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius whose Motherhouse is in Danville, Pa., is working toward a doctorate in history at Georgetown University, Washington, D. C. She is the recipient of a summer grant in history under the National Defense Educational Act. For her Master's thesis from De Paul University in 1964, Sister wrote on: Foreign Relations Between the United States and Czecho-Slovakia with Special Emphasis on Slovakia, 1920-1960. Essay in this issue of Slovakia is a part of her thesis. Krajsa, Joseph C., B.S., with majors in Health and Physical Education, History, and English - plus graduate work in Philosophy at Lehigh University, was born in Allentown, Pa. For 11 years he taught high school English and History and was Head Coach in three sports; tor 15 years he was associated in a finance business; and since February 1964, he has been the Editor of the Catholic Weekly JEDNOTA. �Misan11, N. Joseph, is a well-known lawyer. President of Mil- waukee Assemb!y 20 of the .Slovak L eague of America, an Assistant City Attorney of Milwaukee, Wis., Comma nder of Post 508, Catholic War Veterans, Adju tant of Wisco nsin Pos t 490, Inc, The Am erican Legion, and is a member of •the Sokols, J ednota and Narodny Spolok; a parishione r o! St. Stephen's (Slovak) Catholic Church, Milwaukee, Wis., Misany graduated from ?.forquette University an d the Law School, helped organize the Father Blinka Club there, and wrote h is political science thesis on Slova kia, Yester day and Today : The Feelings and Sen,timen ts of a Catholic People (M. U. L ibrar y, 1940), believed to be one of the fi r st such works on a University level in U.S.A. Kirschbaum, J . M., LL.D., Ph.D., former Slovak diplomat in Rome, Italy, and Bern, Switzerland, born in Slovakia and residing in c;anada. For a decade, he was professor at the Unive. sity of Montreal, Department of Slavic Studies, and contributor to French, English and Slovak periodicals and symposia. Some of his writings were also published in Spanish and German. His best known books: Slovakia: A Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe (Speller and Sons, New York, N. Y., 1960) and Neis boj o samostatnost' Slovenska (Slovak Institute, Cleveland, Ohio, 1958). Urban, Eugene, was born January 2, 1914 at Podolie, Slovakia. He completed his studies of Slovak and French language and literature at the University in Bratislava, Slovakia, with a M.A. in Education degree in 1938. In 1935 he studied slavistics at the Slovenian University at Ljubljana, Slovenia, and French language and literature at the Universite Catholique, Lille, France. In 1960 he received his M.A. in Library Science degree from the Rosary College, River Forest, Ill. In World War II he was assigned as press attache to the Legation of the Slovak Republic in Vatican City. Actually, he is librarian in the Research Library of Inland Steel Company, Hammond, Ind. Many of his articles on Slovak literary, historical and J>Qlitical topics were published in Slovak, Slovenian and Italian journals. The publishing house Sandron, Rome, Italy, published in 1945 his translation into Italian of Slovak short stories by the Slovak author Milo Urban, with the title Novelle Slovacche. Vnuk, Frantisek, P.Eng., professor at a Technological Institute in Adelaide, Australia, was born in Slovakia. He belongs to the younger generation of Slovak intellectuals who did not give up their fight a: ainst communism and strive for freedom and democracy in Slovakia. Profilic and gifted historian writer, he covers in his Slovak and English writings several fields of intellectual activities, from politics to literature. Recently he published the book Neuveritel'ne sprisahanie dealing with the invasion of the communists into Slovakia in 1944. SLOVAKIA $2.00 per annum in the U.S.A. - $3.00 elsewhere. PRI NTED IN THE U.S. A. JEDNOTA PRESS M idd letown, Pa. 17057 �The Slovak League of America - - is an AMERICAN INSTITUTION; it was organized May 26, 1907, at Cleveland, 0., by the Rev. Stephen Furdek; is a CULTURAL and CMC organization of Americans of Slovak descent; is interested primarily in promoting the welfare and security of the United States of America; represents an overwhelming majority of organized Americans of Slovak descent; actively affiliated with it are the largest Slovak fraternals, religious organizations, Slovak Clubs and Slovak civic organizations in the United States; is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U. S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English; promotes a better understanding and appreciation of the Slovak nation, its history, culture, traditions, achievements and its long, hard struggle for freedom and independence; firmly believes in the American principle of self-determination of all nations, the inherent and God-given right of every nation, whether large or small, to freedom and independence, the right of every nation to freely choose its own form of government and freely elect persons of its own choice by whom it shall be governed; condemns and unequivocally opposes all forms of tyranny, every form of totalitarian political system. The Slovak League of America has always recognized the Godless philosophy of materialistic Communism for the dread evil and conspiracy against free humanity that it is, as the political system which threatens mankind with utter enslavement and, therefore, has fought resolutely against it in and out of season and, today, is still determined to fight against it with all the means at its command until the dread plague of Communism is wiped off the face of the earth, � 150 SLOVAKIA WHO'S WHO AMONG SLOVAKS IN U. S. A. A!ND OANADA Hletko, Peter Paul, M.D., physlcian-s urge on; (semi-retired); med. examiner of many insurance Co's; born June 26, 1'902 in Chicago, Ill.; son of Martin and Catherine (IHargas ) Hletko; educated, St. Michael's School (1908-1915), Chicago, St. Procopius Academy and College, Lisle, Ill. (1915-19) and (1919-21); De Paul Univ., Chicago (1921-23, B. Sc. in Chem. 1923); Loyola University, Chicago, (M.D. 1927) ; Resident Staff (interne) Cook County Hosp., Chicrugo (19271928); instructor in clinical neurology, Loyola U. Medical School (1931-35) ; wed Anna E. Remijas in 1938; led Slovak League of Am. delegation to Czecho-Slovakia in 1938 in behal! of Pittsburgh Pact recognition; pres. Slovak League of Am. (1935-1939) and (1963M); Hon. Presid•ent and member of Exec. Committee of Slovak League (19·3 8-196i); Tice-pres. Slov. Cath. F ed er ation of Amer. (19314); Supr. Med. Examiner, Slovak Cath. Sokol (1927-19&4); Hon. Med. Examiner (emeritus), and Member of Exec. Comm. •Slovak Cath. Sokol; Supr. Med. Examiner Nat. Slovak Society (1934-39); secretary, Supreme Court 01' Na:t. Slovak Society (l'll26-19.3 4); organizer and 1s t pres . 'Club Furdek' (Oath. Slovak Cultural Society, Chicago) 1929; member Amer. Med. Assn., Ill. Med. Assn. and Chicago Medical Assn. since 1929; med. examiner of Municipal Court and Law Dept. Benefit and .Pension Fund, Chica~o. (1936-61); Pl!"esident, Gage Park Savings & Loan Assn., Chica~o. ,since .1985. Author: "The Slovaks and the Pittsburgh Pact" (publi,shed by 'Slovak Catholic Federation 1934); vrote "Islm,r" - rQprint of satko-comic column in the Osad n e Hlasy (Slovak Parish N liws), 19,311 ; edited the "Catholic Slovak Sokol Cook-Book", 1964; contrib. editor, Osadne Hlasy (Chi- cago P a rish News, 1927-63); editor 'Jaro", English supplement to 'Jednota, 1927-3·6. Editor, 'Chicagsky Dennik' (Chicago Slovak D a i 1 y News), 1926-27. Democrat. Hobbies : Books, philately, pinochle. Home : Warrenville, Ill. Office : 2740 W. 55th St., Chicago 32, Ill. Mlynarovic h, Clement, Milos, Born October 1'1, 1·887, Hasprunka 1 ( Studlenka), S 1 ova k i a, son of Stephen and Stephanie (Heiny) Mlynarovich; educated in Studienka, Trnava, Bratislava; ordained May 21, 1910 Bratislava; doc ent of Eloquence and Blblicum in Franciscan Seminary 1911-1914. Assistant at St. J oh n Parish, Whiting, Indiana 1915; organizer of Assumption Parish, East Chicago, Indiana. /Pastor of A s sumpt.ion Pwrish 1915; ,b uilt church 1917, rectory 1919, school and convent 1,926. Organized Sacred Heart Parish, East Chicago, Indiana (East side) and ·b uilt church 1g3'7. Toured Central Europe 1925; elected Supr,e me Judge of Slovak Catholic Sokol 1930; elected chaplain or ISlovak Catholic Sokol 193.:'l. Elected •Supreme •P resident Slovak Catholic ·F ederwtion 1930-193•5. Made Very Rev. Monsignor 194•5 ; visited Peace Conference 1945. Elected l!"egul ar member of the Gallery-Academy of Livi n g Authors 1949; resigned the Assumption (Parish, East Chicago, Indiana, and moved to Seven Dolors 1Shrine, Valparaiso, .Indiana 1950. Reelected 1Supreme Presid ent Slovak Catholic Federation or America. 19>50. Visited ,I taly and Germany 1955 In re: Slovak ,seminarians in Pontifical Nepomucenum, Rome, and In re: Slovak emigll"ants in Germany. Was made Rt. R ev. Monsignor 1955; made r egular member the International Marian Academy 1955. 1 �SLOVAKIA Visited Europe in 1962 and 1963 In re: St. Cyril and IMethodius Institu te in Rome. Literary works: Slavia J>oems Novels from American Life Great God (poems) Christmas Telephone Two Worlds "In Search of God," (poems) "In The 'Shadow of Skyscrapers," ( short novels) "S,truggle With Fate," (short novels) "Birds in The Storm," (novel) "From the People for the People," {poems) "Mary the Divine Design," "IRoseta," (novel) Sermons "Story of a Hea rt," (poems) All literary works aire in Slovak. !Awarded with Hlinka Silver Cup and with Gold Medal of the Slovak Catholic Intellectuals. Stephen B. Roman is widely recognized as a leading spokesman for the Canadian uranium industry. He has been in the forefront of those who have claimed that the demand for nuclear fuel and power would build up rapidly in the next few years. Today, he and his company, Denison Mines Limited, are on the threshhold of a solid, long-term association with European customers. Details in full have to be ironed out, but negotiations involve the sale of 100,000,000 lbs. of uranium oxide over a 25-year period. In honoring Stephen Roman recently, Western Miner recognizes that even greater things lie ahead for the ambitious 43-year old executive who heads one of Canada's most important mining and industrial complexes. Denison, with its diversified investments b o th in Canada and the U. S. A., appears destined to b e c o m e one of the great "growth" organizations of North America. Born in Slovakia, Stephen Ro- 151 man came to Canada as an immigrant lad of 17 in the company of an older brother. He began his life in Canada by spending his first three years on a farm near Port Perry. Nights were consumed with study, furthering both his cultural interests and his knowledge of a new language. Following service in the Canadian army, he married, worked in industry and, briefly, as an editor of a Slovak weekly newspaper. His subsequent, phenomenal financial career evolved over a period of 18 years. As president of Denison Mines Limited, he brought the world's largest uranium mine into production, at Elliot Lake, Ontario. He has made "Denison" synonymous with dynamism and diversification. The company today is a leading g a s and o i 1 producer, with large proven reserves in Western Canada. Through its investments, it is also a manufacturer of cement and building materials (Lake Ontario Cement Company, Premier Building Materials Limited, Primeau Argo Block Company). Un, der Denison's guidance, a b a s emetal property, Black Hawk Mining Limited, is being currently developed in Maine, U.S.A. In this perspective, a not her newsworthy accomplishment was his prominent role in the merging of Roman Corporation with TransCanada Explorations. Roman Corporation, the new company, in addition to its interests in a variety of attractive mining properties and its own diversified holdings, has a substantial investment in Denison stock, its most important single asset. With Denison as a base, Mr. Roman has built a $85 million industrial empire of diversified investments. Now with Roman Corporation Limited as an active new agency of investment, he is advancing on another phase of his meteoric career. �152 SLOVAKIA BOOK REVIEWS Pauco, Joseph, Ph.D.: 75 rokov Prvej Katoiickej Slovenskej Jednoty, Middletown, . Pa., 1965, p. 664, Illustrated. Not infrequently one encounters in life a specific circumstance which calls for the accomplishment of a momentous task, but there is no one at hand with the necessary competence to perform it; and, vice versa, one oftentimes meets with a person of marked ability for a particular task, who is denied the opportunity to exercise his talent. Matthew Arn old neatly states the outcome when the two appear simultaneously in the literary field: "Great creative works in literature result from the happy concurrence of two notable powers, the power of the man and the power of the moment." Such a happy concurrence of two notable power~ has been strikingly exemplified before our eyes this year. For the power of the moment there was the 75th anniversary of the First Catholic Slovak Union in 1965, calling for the writing of the history of this remarkable organization. For the power of the man there was Joseph Pauco, Ph.D., a gifted author, historian and scholar, capable and willing to assume the task of writing this history. The result is a truly monumental contribution to Slovak history and literature, entitled, "75 Rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej J ednoty." The history of the First Catholic Siovak Union can well be considered concommitant with that of the adjustment of S l o v a k immigrants to the American way of life. On page one of its June 2, 1965 issue, the JEDNOTA weekly notes : "The 75-year history of the First Catholic Slovak Union is interlocked with the story of the Slovaks in America from their very first days in this country, embodying their dreams and aspirations, their programs and campaigns of action, their accomplishments, their contributions to the ideals of this great country ... " It is important that we Slovaks f a m i 1 i a rize ourselves with this record. Only too often we are confronted by inquirers seeking information on matters which they quite rightly expect us to know. A careful reading of Dr. Pauco's book will enable us to furnish answers to questions like the following: When and why did the Slovaks emigrate �SLOVAKIA to the United States in such large numbers? Why all this concern about conditions in Central Europe? What part was played by American Slovak leaders in the founding of the Czecho-Slovak Republic in 1918 and of the Independent Slovakia in 1939? Thus the book portrays the early struggles of the Slovak immigrants, their traits of <:haracter, their involvement in events, both here and in their fatherland, their progress from life in simple settlements to flourishing parishes and to the founding of religious, educational, cultural, and charitable institutions. The book presents thumb·n ail sketches of institutions like the Catholic Slovak Federation, the Slovak League of America, the various Religious Congregations of men and women, and the newly established Institute of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Rome for 'the training of priests for Slovakia. It includes biographical sketches of notable persons in Slovak life, contemporary as well a.s past, persons whose names were ·household w0rds iR their day-Furdek, .Jankola, Pavco, Di an is k a, Murgas, Rusek, Hrobak, Kozak, Lach, Rovnianek, all ac·tive in American Slovak life. Nor are there lacking names like Culen, Hronsky, Hlinka, 153 Razus, Hrusovsky, Urbanek, Sasinek, Skultety, 0 s v a 1 d, whose area of action stemmed from Slovakia and whose influence was felt in America. Scores of other names appear in the record of persons still living and active in the Slovak cause. Furthermore, Dr. Pauco's book records events like the following: The Consecration of the first Slovak bishop in America in 1957; a Slovak pilgrimage to the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D. C. and the erection within its walls of the altar of our Mother of Sorrows, Patroness of Slovakia; visits made to America by Msgr. Hlinka, the Slovak Bishops: Blaha, Vojtassak, Cars k y, and Jantausch; visits of delegations representitng national, educational and cultural societies in Slovakia; Papal honors conferred upon distinguished Slovaks. It contains hi&torical documents such a.s: Memoranda on behalf of Slovakia addressed to the President and Congress of the United States and to the U.N.; messages to the Slovak people by eminent churchmen, like Cardinal S p e 11 m a n a n d Cardinal Stritch, climaxed by the memorable address of Pope Paul VI to the Slovak pilgrims a~ sembled in Rome from the �154 SLOVAKIA United States, Austria, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, South America and the Far Ea;st on September 14, 1963. Moreover, the author has authentically annotated e a c h fact so that if the reader wishes further information he can pursue the topic further. The foregoing is but a superficin.l s u m m a r y of the wealth of information contained in Dr. Pauco's book. ~cholars will appreciate the amount of painstaking and persistent research and methodical organization of material that produced in one volume a veritable treasury of information. To the older members of the J ednota, the book offers precious reminiscences of past struggles, labors, trials, triumps, and achievements; to the discerning reader it offers historical data on a gallant and courageous nation; to the student it offers a valuable r eference in the field of research. In recent years there · has been in America a welcome awakening of interest in the Slovak people. Students in high schools and colleges are encouraged to write papers on topics relating to Slovak history, literature, culture, and politics. There is immense need for source material. Dr. Pauco has pr o v i d e d this source material in his book "Seventy-five Years of the First Catholic Slovak Union", so rich in content, in abundant notes and references, and in bibliographic data. On the occasion of an anniversary it is customary for the celebrating jubilarian to r eceive gifts; now the order has been reversed; the celebrating jubilarian, the 75year old Jednota, does not receive a gift, but bestows one-a gift of lasting value · to its members, to the Slovak people, and to history and literature in general. Speaking of value draws attention to the price of the volume. Only $5.00! A small sum indeed for such a valuruble 'book-'lllllieommOllllly valuable in content and proportionately valuable in its digno.fled fomna;t~iits tyipe, its numerous illustrations, and its durable binding. One more important thought. The statement of Matthew Arnold about the power of the moment and the power of the man applies here again. 'Dhere :i!S urgent need-the power of .t he moment-to provide source material in Eng- · lish for students and to make · Slovak information available to the general American reader. This need calls for a writer �SLOVAKIA _,the power of the mancaJPa!ble and willing to translaite Dr. P.auc's booO{ imito ffingHsh. God grant that the two powers concur very soon to fulfill this need of the times. Mother M. Emerentia, SS.C.M. M!lan S. Durica, LA SL0VAICC'HI!A. E LE SUE RELAZIONI POLITIOHE 0ON LA GEJRMANIA - 1938/ 194 5, (Slovakia and Her Political Relations with Germany), Marsilio E ditor!, Padova, Italy, 1964, Sarmatlca Series, Introduction by Ettore Anchleri, p. 274. Books on Slovakia in foreign languages are growing in number and quality, and the present volume counts undoubtedly among the bes,t bo th for its scholarly method and objective analysis of the events and for -the use of documents rela ted to Slovakia's recent history. Admitted to unpublished diplomatic archives of the Third Reich, the author tried to find an ansvrer to and put in proper per~pQctive 1.) The origin of the Slovak 'Republic, 2.) The rel ation s of Slovakia with Germany, and 3.) The policy of the Slovak Government towards Berlin. All these topics were casually treated in Western European languages in connection with the Eastern Europea n problems or with the Second WGrld War, but the writers, except for those of Slovak origin mostly accepted biased opinions from anti,Slovak sources and were not concerned with archives and do cuments . Profesor DuTica is the first social scientist who has used his knowledge of foreign languages to look into the -primary sources and find out wheTe the truth lies and where the Western historiography relied on political myths. The result of his research is consequently in dis.agreement with many a thesis on 155 both the origm of the Slovak state in March 1939 and on the policy of the Slovak government towards the German attempts to limit Slovakia's sovereignty and to impose national socialism upo n the Slovak people. Without any intention ,t o exculpate or apologize, a tendency which can be found in other works, professor Durica depicts the relations betwee n Germany and Slovakia as they appear in the light of the documents of German diploma ts, Slovak cabinet ministers, or other personalities, playing a role in Slovak politics. The present volume which ls the first o! a series, deals with the events of the years 1938-1939, from the Munich Agreement to the outburst of the Second World War. A'\vare of the scarce knowledge of the Slovak problem in the West, including Italy, the author also gives a brief survey of the Slovak national aspirations before the First World War and during the years 1918-1938 in Czecho-Slovakia. Jn an extensive introduction he deals with Wes tern historiography concerning Slovakia and shows considerable knowledge of literature in several European languages. On ,the 'basis of such documentation and research, Profesor Durica came to the conclusion that "a direct influence of Germans on Slovak politician<.! with regard to an immediate declaration or independence of Slovakia can be documented only from March 7, 1939", and "that the principal Slovak personalities gave a proof of firmness wh en enco untered with German press ure and faced witih dignity even the personal intervention of Hitler on March 13." (p. 11-5) The declaration of Slovak independence on March H, 1939 "was made under the pressure of the international situation, pa rticularly und er that of Germany, but the independence was nevertheless proclaimed by the diet of the autonomous Slovakia on the �156 SLOVAKIA basis of delibera:tions basically free, and by a free and unanimous vote of all members of the Diet present in the Parliament." (p. 115) ,P rofesor Durica states emphatically ,tha,t; "the Slovak state cannot be considered as a creation of Hitler's Germany. In the secret documents of Nazi Germany preceding the crisis of March 1939, there is no project of this kind. The subsequent documents clearly prove instead that there was on one hand, an initial disorientaition in Berlin as to the viability of the independent Slovak state, and on the other, a decisive and constant resistance of Slovakia against repeated attempts, by the Third Reich, first at the military occupation of the Slovak territory, and later, at reducing <the Slovak state to a German protectorate" (p. 116) As for the viability and ideological orientation of Slovakia the author concludes that "in the period of March-September 1939 <the Slovak State consolidated noteworthy its administrative structure, adopted a republican constitution inspired by the Christian traditions or its people and obtained sufficiently large recognition as the member of the international community." (P. 116). Durica came to these conclusions on the basis of an extensive study, as shown by his footnotes and bibliography, of secondary and primary sources of which the 86 documents in German and English, attached to the book enhance thtl value of his work. He also cleared a confusion around two ducuments, .na mely a letter by the Hungarian regent Nicholas Horthy of March 13, 1939, and a telegram, allegedly sent by Dr. Tiso to Hitler on March 15th, 1939. This reviewer has been responsible for a part of the confusion since he was the first to use, in good faith, Horthy's letter as a document referring to Slovakia in an article published in 1948 and later in 1958 in my book "Nas boj o samostatnost: Slovenska", from which it passed into Mikus French book and Oddo's work. It was left out from my English book SLOVAKIA (publ. 1960) since I found out in the meantime that the document referred to the Carphato-Ukraine. The other document was publish• ed in the DOCUMENTS ON GER• MA!N FOiREIGN PO[,!CY SERIES D and since I was aware of a telegram sent to Hitler on March 14, 1939 (I was personal secretary to the Minister of External Affairs of Slovakia at that time), I mistakingly considered the draft, found in Berlin and never used, as the text of Tiso's telegram. It is now clear that Tiso never sent that teleg,r am and the message I was aware of, was signed by Durcansky as published . by Durica (Doc. 51, p. 196). If the following volumes of Durica's work will be of the same scholarly precision and objectivity, he will undoubtedly make a valu• able contribution to Western historiography on Central Eastern Europe. We hope that he will adcI to the fortcomiug volumes a resume in English and French which he did not attach this time and which Is one o-f the short-comings of this valuable work. J. M. KIRSCHBAUM Ludwig v. Gogolak, BEITRAGE ZUR GElSCHICHTE DES SLOV A· KISCHE~ VOLKES I, (Contribut• ions to the History of the Slovak People), Verlag R. Oldenburg, Munchen, 1963, p. 265. This scholarly work by a professor of •Central European history at the University of Vienna, is the first critical work by a foreign scholar on the rise of Slovak national consciousness and on the origin of the Czecho- Slovak question. It deserves, therefore, more than casual attention �SLOVAKIA o! Slavists and experts in Central ·E astern European problems. :As the subtitle indicates (Die Natiornalwerdung der Slowaken und die Anfange der tschechoslowakischen 1F rage 1526-1790), the author made a thorough research, facilitated lby his knowledge of German, Hungarian, Slovak and Czech, into two contested questions on which not only politicians but also linguists and historians for a long time held and defended divergent positions and opinions. Western historiography predominantly accepted the Czech thesis ,t hat ethnically, and linguistically Slovaks were a part of the Czech people or a:t the best a part of the "Czechoslovak people". The Slovaks vehemently defended their linguistic, cultural and political identity, but until recently they scarcely found understanding or support among Western scholars. The first serious attempt on the part of Western scholars to present a critical analysis of the q u e s t i o n, base.d on original sources; dates only from 19.3'1 and was made by Th. J. Locher in his D1E NIA:T.IONAIJE DH'FERENZIER UN G UND INTEGRIERUNG DER SLOWAKEN UND TSCHECHEN IN IHREM GESCHICHTLICHEN VERLAUF 'BIS 1848 (The Natrona! Differentation and Integration of 1Slovaks and Czechs in its historical development until 1848). Dr. 'Locher completed two years of post-graduate studies in Prague and IBratislava (after graduating .from the University of Leiden in his native Holland) and to the dismay of his Czech professors (J. Susta in Prague and V. Chaloupecky in Bratislava) he came to conclusions contradicting the Czech t h e s i s of fue ethnic linguistic, cultural and political unity of the Slovaks and Czechs. The work by professor v. Gogolak confirms Lecher's conclusions, but it is at the same time more de- 157 tailed, broader in scope and much better documen,ted. We might say that this is the first foreig n-language book which goes de eper into the problem of the relations between the Slovaks and Czechs than any other book in Slovak or Czech, and -there were many books written on this ,topic in the last hundred years. Gogolak's knowledge of sources in the languages pertainin.g to the topic is unique among the Western historians and he displays a rare objectivity !ri his analysis not only with regard to the Czechs but also with regard to Hungarians, who similarly attempted to create "a Hungari an people" of the inhabitants of !Hungary by the assimilation of Slovaks and other nationalities. It does not mean, however ithat the book is not bound to stir up controversy among C z e ch and Hungarian historians alike; it may provoke disag,r eement in some det ails even among the Slovaks, and particularly among the Pro-· testant Slovaks. ;Frofessor v. Gog o 1 a k defends not only the thesis of an independent Slovak linguistic and cultural entity, but correctly states· that the so-called Czechoslovak· problem or ,the thesis of the unity of Czechs and Slovaks is of very late date and was masterminded by the Slovak Protestant minority (about 18% at the present time) which ,was to a great degree of Czech ancestry and has been linked wi,th the. Czechs by their liturgical language (see pp. 214 and fol.). Gogolak goes so .far as to say that "had the Protestant intelligentsia, which in fact lived mostly on their historical heritage and foreign German-Czech connections, r emained in the leading role, the result would have been the complete disappearance of the Slovak people" (p. 229) In his view "it is thanks only to the activity of several Catholic priests and scholars, who. were conscious of their goal and �_158 SLOVAKIA mission, that the Slovak national character did not lose its own characteristics and identity in the clash with the menacing political magyarization and the spiritual 'self-czechizatlon' ... " Such statements, even if basically true, are undoubtedly bound to provoke reaction on the side of the Slovak Protestant intellectuals of whom many reel, like their ancestors ait the beginning of ,the 19th century, that they are "the ex c I u s iv e leaders of the Slovak people" whose "bold consciousness of their mi s s ion (Sendungsbewusstsein ) came again and again in the foreground until 1918-1919". (p. 217). Besides these two main problems the author deals with many other questions related to the rise of Slovak national consciousness, as for instance the role of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie in Slovak cultural life, the role of the German element, Hungarian assimilatory t e n d e n c i es etc., on which topics there are some monographic works in Slovak, which were not analyzed from a global point of view. This concise and well-documented scholarly work deserves attention not only from SloTak scholars, but also from Slavists in general. JK. Edward E . Delaney, FREEDOM'S FRONTIER, .Published by H. A. Nickel, Sacramento, Cal., 211 p. The author is a n,vell-known news reporter, whose area of opera,tion was Central Europe during World War II. On more than one oc- casion he visited Slovakia and learned its problems firsthand. In this book he sets forth a challenging analysis of western policy, pointing out its blunders with regard to Soviet expansion. In no uncer,tain terms the a uthor expr esses his condemnation of western appeasement and calls for a constructive policy of liberation of captive nations, tearing down the Iron C urtain and the Berlin Wall, and undoing the brainwashing to which the American public has been subjected. In his references ,to Slovakia h e names Slovak intellectuals and politicians whose anti-Communist stand has been known in the West and n,vho rightfully claim freedom and independence for their nation. In his view Slovakia is a captive nation, now occupied by the Soviets. After Hs so-called liberation, it was combined again with Bohemia and Moravia in a restored Czecho,Slovakia to compensate Benes for services rendered to Moscow by himself and other Czech politicians. Delaney condemns such disr egard or a nation's rights as well as the unjust condemnation or Slovak politicias and specifically •the execution of Dr. Tiso. Quoting Slovak scholars like Dr. J . M. Kirschbaum and Dr. F. Durcansky, he presses for Slovakia's independence. A perusal of the book proves that the author is acquainted with the literature and basic problems of Central Europe and has personally met some of its leaders. JK . Die Slowaken und das Grossmiihrishe Reich (The Slovaks and the Great-Moravian Empire), by Dr. Arved Grebert, Munich, 1965, p. 64, bibl. For a long time a matter of interest for a few historians and linguists, the Great-Moravian Empire became during the past two decades an object of scholarly research by experts in many fields, especially of archeologists, ethnographers and social scientists. The booklet under review is a contribution to the ethnic character of the Great-Moravian Empire, according to its subtitle, but it also sheds a new light on many other problems. �SLOVAKIA 159 After having outlined historical and geographical data of this first empire of Carpathian and Danubian Slavs, called Sclaveni or Sclavi Marahenses in contemporary Latin sources and Slovene in eastern re• cords, the author attempts to give an answer to the following ques• tions: Which Slavic tribes lived on the territory of the Great-Moravian Empire in the 9th Century? What is the ethnic character of the population of today's Moravia? What was the relation of the Slovaks to the Czechs in the 9th century? Dr. Grebert's answer is based on a thorough study of sources, of historical and linguistic works of renown scholars of various nationali• ties, published in half a dozen languages. Nevertheless, it is an answer which is bound to provoke controversy, since it contradicts or refutes many an outdated thesis of Czech Slavists or of historians guided by political considerations. In his conclusion Dr. Grebert states that his research and quoted sources and data prove that "the Great-Moravian Empire was a Slovak state, formed by Slovaks" (p. 50). Though amply supported by the views of scholars not only of the Slovak, German, Hungarian, but also of the Czech origin, the author refers in his conclusion also to the so-called Marxist experts to give his study an objective basis beyond any doubt. It will be now to the experts in this period of history to accept or refute Grebert's new look at the first Slavic empire which was claimed mainly by the Czechs as a part of their national heritage. The essay is written in a clear style, concise form, and convincing manner. The writer apparently was guided by the dictum "non multa, sed multun". J. M. Kirschbaum ANTON BERNOLAK-The First Codifier of the Slovak Language (1762-1813). By J. M. Kirschbaum, LL.D., Ph.D. Publishers: Slovak In• stitute, Cleveland, Ohio, 48 pages. Bernolak's 200th birthday anniversary provided the occasion for the author's masterful address at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, which fortunately has been preserved for us in this highly documented work. The wide scope of his research is shown in the Bibliography in which sources are quoted from works in Latin, German, Slovak, Polish, English, Czech, French and Italian. No one so far has come up with such a concise and scholarly his• torical and literary background to the development of the modern Slovak language as Dr. Kirschbaum in this brochure in English and French. This small volume is an excellent and invaluable handbook for future scholars who may want to treat the subject more extensively. They will find in it not only the Slovak literary and national leaders who saved the Slovak nation from extinction in a period of historic crisis but a list of names of philologists, historians, etc. as references to authorities on the subject. Rarely does one find such an imposing array of distinguished men quoted as we find in Dr. Kirschbaum's priceless work. To mention a few: Bajza, Safarik, Holly, Pa?lrnvic, Fandly, stur, Jungman, Niederle, Vlcek, Mraz, Kotvan, Bartek, Mihal, Sta• nislav. Pauliny, Seton-Watson, Denis, Dobrov,sky, Auty, de Bray, von Gogolak, Skultety, Krcmery, Miskovic, Tibensky, Pisut, Banik, Lepacek, MeriggL A.P. �160 SLOVAKIA CONTRIBUTORS Zatko, James J., Ph.D., Rev., received an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. Under sponsorship of Ford Fellowships he studied at Harvard in 1954-1955 and at the Catholic University of Lublin in 1958. He was also the recipient of an Association of Middle Eastern Studies Fellowships in 1962. He is assistant professor of history at the University of Notre Dame. Just off the press is his book Descent Into Darkness -The Destruction of the Roman Catholic Church in Russia 1917-1923, published by Notre Dame University. Kona, William, was born in Slovakia where he was reared and took his secondary education. He received part of his education in law at Bratislava in Slovakia. He continued his education in law in Rome and in Madrid. Attended Roosevelt University, Chicago Teachers College; Chicago Real Estate Board Institute. At Rosary College in River Forest, Illinois, he received his M.A. He also took advanced :studies in library science at the University of Chicago. In his travels Mr. Kona has been to Austria, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Monaco France, Portugal, Gibraltar, Croatia, Spain, Canada, Mexico, and has toured the United States extensively. Mr. Kona is a Member of the Association of Hospital and Institutional Libraries of the American Library Association of which he is on the Publications Advisory Committee ( 1962-64) and Bibliotherapy Committee (1962-66); Medical Library Association in which he is the Chairman of the Nursing Libraries Group (1963-64 and 1964-65), Chairman of Membership Committee (1964-65), and member of the Exchange Committee ( 1963-64 and 1964-65). As well as these two national organizations he is a member of the Midwest Regional Group of the Medical Library Association (Member of the Board of Directors) and also he was Program chairman for the Tri-State Hospital Assembly Medical Library Service (1963-64); Permanent Chairman since 1960 of the Nursing Librarians of Metropolitan Chicago; VicePresident of A.P.P. (1962-64); American Hospital Association of which he was faculty member to the Institute on Hospital Librarianship in 1961 and 1964. Evangela, M. Sister, B.S., M.A., the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius whose Motherhouse is in Danville, Pa., is working toward a doctorate in history at Georgetown University, Washington, D. C. She is the recipient of a summer grant in history under the National Defense Educational Act. For her Master's thesis from De Paul University in 1964, Sister wrote on: Foreign Relations Between the United States and Czecho-Slovakia with Special Emphasis on Slovakia, 1920-1960. Essay in this issue of Slovakia is a part of her thesis. Krajsa, Joseph C., B.S., with majors in Health and Physical Education, History, and English - plus graduate work in Philosophy at Lehigh University, was born in Allentown, Pa. For 11 years he taught high school English and History and was Head Coach in three sports; tor 15 years he was associated in a finance business; and since February 1964, he has been the Editor of the Catholic Weekly JEDNOTA. �Misan11, N. Joseph, is a well-known lawyer. President of Mil- waukee Assemb!y 20 of the .Slovak L eague of America, an Assistant City Attorney of Milwaukee, Wis., Comma nder of Post 508, Catholic War Veterans, Adju tant of Wisco nsin Pos t 490, Inc, The Am erican Legion, and is a member of •the Sokols, J ednota and Narodny Spolok; a parishione r o! St. Stephen's (Slovak) Catholic Church, Milwaukee, Wis., Misany graduated from ?.forquette University an d the Law School, helped organize the Father Blinka Club there, and wrote h is political science thesis on Slova kia, Yester day and Today : The Feelings and Sen,timen ts of a Catholic People (M. U. L ibrar y, 1940), believed to be one of the fi r st such works on a University level in U.S.A. Kirschbaum, J . M., LL.D., Ph.D., former Slovak diplomat in Rome, Italy, and Bern, Switzerland, born in Slovakia and residing in c;anada. For a decade, he was professor at the Unive. sity of Montreal, Department of Slavic Studies, and contributor to French, English and Slovak periodicals and symposia. Some of his writings were also published in Spanish and German. His best known books: Slovakia: A Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe (Speller and Sons, New York, N. Y., 1960) and Neis boj o samostatnost' Slovenska (Slovak Institute, Cleveland, Ohio, 1958). Urban, Eugene, was born January 2, 1914 at Podolie, Slovakia. He completed his studies of Slovak and French language and literature at the University in Bratislava, Slovakia, with a M.A. in Education degree in 1938. In 1935 he studied slavistics at the Slovenian University at Ljubljana, Slovenia, and French language and literature at the Universite Catholique, Lille, France. In 1960 he received his M.A. in Library Science degree from the Rosary College, River Forest, Ill. In World War II he was assigned as press attache to the Legation of the Slovak Republic in Vatican City. Actually, he is librarian in the Research Library of Inland Steel Company, Hammond, Ind. Many of his articles on Slovak literary, historical and J>Qlitical topics were published in Slovak, Slovenian and Italian journals. The publishing house Sandron, Rome, Italy, published in 1945 his translation into Italian of Slovak short stories by the Slovak author Milo Urban, with the title Novelle Slovacche. Vnuk, Frantisek, P.Eng., professor at a Technological Institute in Adelaide, Australia, was born in Slovakia. He belongs to the younger generation of Slovak intellectuals who did not give up their fight a: ainst communism and strive for freedom and democracy in Slovakia. Profilic and gifted historian writer, he covers in his Slovak and English writings several fields of intellectual activities, from politics to literature. Recently he published the book Neuveritel'ne sprisahanie dealing with the invasion of the communists into Slovakia in 1944. SLOVAKIA $2.00 per annum in the U.S.A. - $3.00 elsewhere. PRI NTED IN THE U.S. A. JEDNOTA PRESS M idd letown, Pa. 17057 �The Slovak League of America - - is an AMERICAN INSTITUTION; it was organized May 26, 1907, at Cleveland, 0., by the Rev. Stephen Furdek; is a CULTURAL and CMC organization of Americans of Slovak descent; is interested primarily in promoting the welfare and security of the United States of America; represents an overwhelming majority of organized Americans of Slovak descent; actively affiliated with it are the largest Slovak fraternals, religious organizations, Slovak Clubs and Slovak civic organizations in the United States; is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U. S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English; promotes a better understanding and appreciation of the Slovak nation, its history, culture, traditions, achievements and its long, hard struggle for freedom and independence; firmly believes in the American principle of self-determination of all nations, the inherent and God-given right of every nation, whether large or small, to freedom and independence, the right of every nation to freely choose its own form of government and freely elect persons of its own choice by whom it shall be governed; condemns and unequivocally opposes all forms of tyranny, every form of totalitarian political system. The Slovak League of America has always recognized the Godless philosophy of materialistic Communism for the dread evil and conspiracy against free humanity that it is, as the political system which threatens mankind with utter enslavement and, therefore, has fought resolutely against it in and out of season and, today, is still determined to fight against it with all the means at its command until the dread plague of Communism is wiped off the face of the earth, � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1965, Vol. 15 Description An account of the resource Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 150 SLOVAKIA WHO'S WHO AMONG SLOVAKS IN U. S. A. A!ND OANADA Hletko, Peter Paul, M.D., physlcian-s urge on; (semi-retired); med. examiner of many insurance Co's; born June 26, 1'902 in Chicago, Ill.; son of Martin and Catherine (IHargas ) Hletko; educated, St. Michael's School (1908-1915), Chicago, St. Procopius Academy and College, Lisle, Ill. (1915-19) and (1919-21); De Paul Univ., Chicago (1921-23, B. Sc. in Chem. 1923); Loyola University, Chicago, (M.D. 1927) ; Resident Staff (interne) Cook County Hosp., Chicrugo (19271928); instructor in clinical neurology, Loyola U. Medical School (1931-35) ; wed Anna E. Remijas in 1938; led Slovak League of Am. delegation to Czecho-Slovakia in 1938 in behal! of Pittsburgh Pact recognition; pres. Slovak League of Am. (1935-1939) and (1963M); Hon. Presid•ent and member of Exec. Committee of Slovak League (19·3 8-196i); Tice-pres. Slov. Cath. F ed er ation of Amer. (19314); Supr. Med. Examiner, Slovak Cath. Sokol (1927-19&4); Hon. Med. Examiner (emeritus), and Member of Exec. Comm. •Slovak Cath. Sokol; Supr. Med. Examiner Nat. Slovak Society (1934-39); secretary, Supreme Court 01' Na:t. Slovak Society (l'll26-19.3 4); organizer and 1s t pres . 'Club Furdek' (Oath. Slovak Cultural Society, Chicago) 1929; member Amer. Med. Assn., Ill. Med. Assn. and Chicago Medical Assn. since 1929; med. examiner of Municipal Court and Law Dept. Benefit and .Pension Fund, Chica~o. (1936-61); Pl!"esident, Gage Park Savings & Loan Assn., Chica~o. ,since .1985. Author: "The Slovaks and the Pittsburgh Pact" (publi,shed by 'Slovak Catholic Federation 1934); vrote "Islm,r" - rQprint of satko-comic column in the Osad n e Hlasy (Slovak Parish N liws), 19,311 ; edited the "Catholic Slovak Sokol Cook-Book", 1964; contrib. editor, Osadne Hlasy (Chi- cago P a rish News, 1927-63); editor 'Jaro", English supplement to 'Jednota, 1927-3·6. Editor, 'Chicagsky Dennik' (Chicago Slovak D a i 1 y News), 1926-27. Democrat. Hobbies : Books, philately, pinochle. Home : Warrenville, Ill. Office : 2740 W. 55th St., Chicago 32, Ill. Mlynarovic h, Clement, Milos, Born October 1'1, 1·887, Hasprunka 1 ( Studlenka), S 1 ova k i a, son of Stephen and Stephanie (Heiny) Mlynarovich; educated in Studienka, Trnava, Bratislava; ordained May 21, 1910 Bratislava; doc ent of Eloquence and Blblicum in Franciscan Seminary 1911-1914. Assistant at St. J oh n Parish, Whiting, Indiana 1915; organizer of Assumption Parish, East Chicago, Indiana. /Pastor of A s sumpt.ion Pwrish 1915; ,b uilt church 1917, rectory 1919, school and convent 1,926. Organized Sacred Heart Parish, East Chicago, Indiana (East side) and ·b uilt church 1g3'7. Toured Central Europe 1925; elected Supr,e me Judge of Slovak Catholic Sokol 1930; elected chaplain or ISlovak Catholic Sokol 193.:'l. Elected •Supreme •P resident Slovak Catholic ·F ederwtion 1930-193•5. Made Very Rev. Monsignor 194•5 ; visited Peace Conference 1945. Elected l!"egul ar member of the Gallery-Academy of Livi n g Authors 1949; resigned the Assumption (Parish, East Chicago, Indiana, and moved to Seven Dolors 1Shrine, Valparaiso, .Indiana 1950. Reelected 1Supreme Presid ent Slovak Catholic Federation or America. 19>50. Visited ,I taly and Germany 1955 In re: Slovak ,seminarians in Pontifical Nepomucenum, Rome, and In re: Slovak emigll"ants in Germany. Was made Rt. R ev. Monsignor 1955; made r egular member the International Marian Academy 1955. 1 SLOVAKIA Visited Europe in 1962 and 1963 In re: St. Cyril and IMethodius Institu te in Rome. Literary works: Slavia J>oems Novels from American Life Great God (poems) Christmas Telephone Two Worlds "In Search of God," (poems) "In The 'Shadow of Skyscrapers," ( short novels) "S,truggle With Fate," (short novels) "Birds in The Storm," (novel) "From the People for the People," {poems) "Mary the Divine Design," "IRoseta," (novel) Sermons "Story of a Hea rt," (poems) All literary works aire in Slovak. !Awarded with Hlinka Silver Cup and with Gold Medal of the Slovak Catholic Intellectuals. Stephen B. Roman is widely recognized as a leading spokesman for the Canadian uranium industry. He has been in the forefront of those who have claimed that the demand for nuclear fuel and power would build up rapidly in the next few years. Today, he and his company, Denison Mines Limited, are on the threshhold of a solid, long-term association with European customers. Details in full have to be ironed out, but negotiations involve the sale of 100,000,000 lbs. of uranium oxide over a 25-year period. In honoring Stephen Roman recently, Western Miner recognizes that even greater things lie ahead for the ambitious 43-year old executive who heads one of Canada's most important mining and industrial complexes. Denison, with its diversified investments b o th in Canada and the U. S. A., appears destined to b e c o m e one of the great "growth" organizations of North America. Born in Slovakia, Stephen Ro- 151 man came to Canada as an immigrant lad of 17 in the company of an older brother. He began his life in Canada by spending his first three years on a farm near Port Perry. Nights were consumed with study, furthering both his cultural interests and his knowledge of a new language. Following service in the Canadian army, he married, worked in industry and, briefly, as an editor of a Slovak weekly newspaper. His subsequent, phenomenal financial career evolved over a period of 18 years. As president of Denison Mines Limited, he brought the world's largest uranium mine into production, at Elliot Lake, Ontario. He has made "Denison" synonymous with dynamism and diversification. The company today is a leading g a s and o i 1 producer, with large proven reserves in Western Canada. Through its investments, it is also a manufacturer of cement and building materials (Lake Ontario Cement Company, Premier Building Materials Limited, Primeau Argo Block Company). Un, der Denison's guidance, a b a s emetal property, Black Hawk Mining Limited, is being currently developed in Maine, U.S.A. In this perspective, a not her newsworthy accomplishment was his prominent role in the merging of Roman Corporation with TransCanada Explorations. Roman Corporation, the new company, in addition to its interests in a variety of attractive mining properties and its own diversified holdings, has a substantial investment in Denison stock, its most important single asset. With Denison as a base, Mr. Roman has built a $85 million industrial empire of diversified investments. Now with Roman Corporation Limited as an active new agency of investment, he is advancing on another phase of his meteoric career. 152 SLOVAKIA BOOK REVIEWS Pauco, Joseph, Ph.D.: 75 rokov Prvej Katoiickej Slovenskej Jednoty, Middletown, . Pa., 1965, p. 664, Illustrated. Not infrequently one encounters in life a specific circumstance which calls for the accomplishment of a momentous task, but there is no one at hand with the necessary competence to perform it; and, vice versa, one oftentimes meets with a person of marked ability for a particular task, who is denied the opportunity to exercise his talent. Matthew Arn old neatly states the outcome when the two appear simultaneously in the literary field: "Great creative works in literature result from the happy concurrence of two notable powers, the power of the man and the power of the moment." Such a happy concurrence of two notable power~ has been strikingly exemplified before our eyes this year. For the power of the moment there was the 75th anniversary of the First Catholic Slovak Union in 1965, calling for the writing of the history of this remarkable organization. For the power of the man there was Joseph Pauco, Ph.D., a gifted author, historian and scholar, capable and willing to assume the task of writing this history. The result is a truly monumental contribution to Slovak history and literature, entitled, "75 Rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej J ednoty." The history of the First Catholic Siovak Union can well be considered concommitant with that of the adjustment of S l o v a k immigrants to the American way of life. On page one of its June 2, 1965 issue, the JEDNOTA weekly notes : "The 75-year history of the First Catholic Slovak Union is interlocked with the story of the Slovaks in America from their very first days in this country, embodying their dreams and aspirations, their programs and campaigns of action, their accomplishments, their contributions to the ideals of this great country ... " It is important that we Slovaks f a m i 1 i a rize ourselves with this record. Only too often we are confronted by inquirers seeking information on matters which they quite rightly expect us to know. A careful reading of Dr. Pauco's book will enable us to furnish answers to questions like the following: When and why did the Slovaks emigrate SLOVAKIA to the United States in such large numbers? Why all this concern about conditions in Central Europe? What part was played by American Slovak leaders in the founding of the Czecho-Slovak Republic in 1918 and of the Independent Slovakia in 1939? Thus the book portrays the early struggles of the Slovak immigrants, their traits of <:haracter, their involvement in events, both here and in their fatherland, their progress from life in simple settlements to flourishing parishes and to the founding of religious, educational, cultural, and charitable institutions. The book presents thumb·n ail sketches of institutions like the Catholic Slovak Federation, the Slovak League of America, the various Religious Congregations of men and women, and the newly established Institute of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Rome for 'the training of priests for Slovakia. It includes biographical sketches of notable persons in Slovak life, contemporary as well a.s past, persons whose names were ·household w0rds iR their day-Furdek, .Jankola, Pavco, Di an is k a, Murgas, Rusek, Hrobak, Kozak, Lach, Rovnianek, all ac·tive in American Slovak life. Nor are there lacking names like Culen, Hronsky, Hlinka, 153 Razus, Hrusovsky, Urbanek, Sasinek, Skultety, 0 s v a 1 d, whose area of action stemmed from Slovakia and whose influence was felt in America. Scores of other names appear in the record of persons still living and active in the Slovak cause. Furthermore, Dr. Pauco's book records events like the following: The Consecration of the first Slovak bishop in America in 1957; a Slovak pilgrimage to the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D. C. and the erection within its walls of the altar of our Mother of Sorrows, Patroness of Slovakia; visits made to America by Msgr. Hlinka, the Slovak Bishops: Blaha, Vojtassak, Cars k y, and Jantausch; visits of delegations representitng national, educational and cultural societies in Slovakia; Papal honors conferred upon distinguished Slovaks. It contains hi&torical documents such a.s: Memoranda on behalf of Slovakia addressed to the President and Congress of the United States and to the U.N.; messages to the Slovak people by eminent churchmen, like Cardinal S p e 11 m a n a n d Cardinal Stritch, climaxed by the memorable address of Pope Paul VI to the Slovak pilgrims a~ sembled in Rome from the 154 SLOVAKIA United States, Austria, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, South America and the Far Ea;st on September 14, 1963. Moreover, the author has authentically annotated e a c h fact so that if the reader wishes further information he can pursue the topic further. The foregoing is but a superficin.l s u m m a r y of the wealth of information contained in Dr. Pauco's book. ~cholars will appreciate the amount of painstaking and persistent research and methodical organization of material that produced in one volume a veritable treasury of information. To the older members of the J ednota, the book offers precious reminiscences of past struggles, labors, trials, triumps, and achievements; to the discerning reader it offers historical data on a gallant and courageous nation; to the student it offers a valuable r eference in the field of research. In recent years there · has been in America a welcome awakening of interest in the Slovak people. Students in high schools and colleges are encouraged to write papers on topics relating to Slovak history, literature, culture, and politics. There is immense need for source material. Dr. Pauco has pr o v i d e d this source material in his book "Seventy-five Years of the First Catholic Slovak Union", so rich in content, in abundant notes and references, and in bibliographic data. On the occasion of an anniversary it is customary for the celebrating jubilarian to r eceive gifts; now the order has been reversed; the celebrating jubilarian, the 75year old Jednota, does not receive a gift, but bestows one-a gift of lasting value · to its members, to the Slovak people, and to history and literature in general. Speaking of value draws attention to the price of the volume. Only $5.00! A small sum indeed for such a valuruble 'book-'lllllieommOllllly valuable in content and proportionately valuable in its digno.fled fomna;t~iits tyipe, its numerous illustrations, and its durable binding. One more important thought. The statement of Matthew Arnold about the power of the moment and the power of the man applies here again. 'Dhere :i!S urgent need-the power of .t he moment-to provide source material in Eng- · lish for students and to make · Slovak information available to the general American reader. This need calls for a writer SLOVAKIA _,the power of the mancaJPa!ble and willing to translaite Dr. P.auc's booO{ imito ffingHsh. God grant that the two powers concur very soon to fulfill this need of the times. Mother M. Emerentia, SS.C.M. M!lan S. Durica, LA SL0VAICC'HI!A. E LE SUE RELAZIONI POLITIOHE 0ON LA GEJRMANIA - 1938/ 194 5, (Slovakia and Her Political Relations with Germany), Marsilio E ditor!, Padova, Italy, 1964, Sarmatlca Series, Introduction by Ettore Anchleri, p. 274. Books on Slovakia in foreign languages are growing in number and quality, and the present volume counts undoubtedly among the bes,t bo th for its scholarly method and objective analysis of the events and for -the use of documents rela ted to Slovakia's recent history. Admitted to unpublished diplomatic archives of the Third Reich, the author tried to find an ansvrer to and put in proper per~pQctive 1.) The origin of the Slovak 'Republic, 2.) The rel ation s of Slovakia with Germany, and 3.) The policy of the Slovak Government towards Berlin. All these topics were casually treated in Western European languages in connection with the Eastern Europea n problems or with the Second WGrld War, but the writers, except for those of Slovak origin mostly accepted biased opinions from anti,Slovak sources and were not concerned with archives and do cuments . Profesor DuTica is the first social scientist who has used his knowledge of foreign languages to look into the -primary sources and find out wheTe the truth lies and where the Western historiography relied on political myths. The result of his research is consequently in dis.agreement with many a thesis on 155 both the origm of the Slovak state in March 1939 and on the policy of the Slovak government towards the German attempts to limit Slovakia's sovereignty and to impose national socialism upo n the Slovak people. Without any intention ,t o exculpate or apologize, a tendency which can be found in other works, professor Durica depicts the relations betwee n Germany and Slovakia as they appear in the light of the documents of German diploma ts, Slovak cabinet ministers, or other personalities, playing a role in Slovak politics. The present volume which ls the first o! a series, deals with the events of the years 1938-1939, from the Munich Agreement to the outburst of the Second World War. A'\vare of the scarce knowledge of the Slovak problem in the West, including Italy, the author also gives a brief survey of the Slovak national aspirations before the First World War and during the years 1918-1938 in Czecho-Slovakia. Jn an extensive introduction he deals with Wes tern historiography concerning Slovakia and shows considerable knowledge of literature in several European languages. On ,the 'basis of such documentation and research, Profesor Durica came to the conclusion that "a direct influence of Germans on Slovak politician<.! with regard to an immediate declaration or independence of Slovakia can be documented only from March 7, 1939", and "that the principal Slovak personalities gave a proof of firmness wh en enco untered with German press ure and faced witih dignity even the personal intervention of Hitler on March 13." (p. 11-5) The declaration of Slovak independence on March H, 1939 "was made under the pressure of the international situation, pa rticularly und er that of Germany, but the independence was nevertheless proclaimed by the diet of the autonomous Slovakia on the 156 SLOVAKIA basis of delibera:tions basically free, and by a free and unanimous vote of all members of the Diet present in the Parliament." (p. 115) ,P rofesor Durica states emphatically ,tha,t; "the Slovak state cannot be considered as a creation of Hitler's Germany. In the secret documents of Nazi Germany preceding the crisis of March 1939, there is no project of this kind. The subsequent documents clearly prove instead that there was on one hand, an initial disorientaition in Berlin as to the viability of the independent Slovak state, and on the other, a decisive and constant resistance of Slovakia against repeated attempts, by the Third Reich, first at the military occupation of the Slovak territory, and later, at reducing <the Slovak state to a German protectorate" (p. 116) As for the viability and ideological orientation of Slovakia the author concludes that "in the period of March-September 1939 <the Slovak State consolidated noteworthy its administrative structure, adopted a republican constitution inspired by the Christian traditions or its people and obtained sufficiently large recognition as the member of the international community." (P. 116). Durica came to these conclusions on the basis of an extensive study, as shown by his footnotes and bibliography, of secondary and primary sources of which the 86 documents in German and English, attached to the book enhance thtl value of his work. He also cleared a confusion around two ducuments, .na mely a letter by the Hungarian regent Nicholas Horthy of March 13, 1939, and a telegram, allegedly sent by Dr. Tiso to Hitler on March 15th, 1939. This reviewer has been responsible for a part of the confusion since he was the first to use, in good faith, Horthy's letter as a document referring to Slovakia in an article published in 1948 and later in 1958 in my book "Nas boj o samostatnost: Slovenska", from which it passed into Mikus French book and Oddo's work. It was left out from my English book SLOVAKIA (publ. 1960) since I found out in the meantime that the document referred to the Carphato-Ukraine. The other document was publish• ed in the DOCUMENTS ON GER• MA!N FOiREIGN PO[,!CY SERIES D and since I was aware of a telegram sent to Hitler on March 14, 1939 (I was personal secretary to the Minister of External Affairs of Slovakia at that time), I mistakingly considered the draft, found in Berlin and never used, as the text of Tiso's telegram. It is now clear that Tiso never sent that teleg,r am and the message I was aware of, was signed by Durcansky as published . by Durica (Doc. 51, p. 196). If the following volumes of Durica's work will be of the same scholarly precision and objectivity, he will undoubtedly make a valu• able contribution to Western historiography on Central Eastern Europe. We hope that he will adcI to the fortcomiug volumes a resume in English and French which he did not attach this time and which Is one o-f the short-comings of this valuable work. J. M. KIRSCHBAUM Ludwig v. Gogolak, BEITRAGE ZUR GElSCHICHTE DES SLOV A· KISCHE~ VOLKES I, (Contribut• ions to the History of the Slovak People), Verlag R. Oldenburg, Munchen, 1963, p. 265. This scholarly work by a professor of •Central European history at the University of Vienna, is the first critical work by a foreign scholar on the rise of Slovak national consciousness and on the origin of the Czecho- Slovak question. It deserves, therefore, more than casual attention SLOVAKIA o! Slavists and experts in Central ·E astern European problems. :As the subtitle indicates (Die Natiornalwerdung der Slowaken und die Anfange der tschechoslowakischen 1F rage 1526-1790), the author made a thorough research, facilitated lby his knowledge of German, Hungarian, Slovak and Czech, into two contested questions on which not only politicians but also linguists and historians for a long time held and defended divergent positions and opinions. Western historiography predominantly accepted the Czech thesis ,t hat ethnically, and linguistically Slovaks were a part of the Czech people or a:t the best a part of the "Czechoslovak people". The Slovaks vehemently defended their linguistic, cultural and political identity, but until recently they scarcely found understanding or support among Western scholars. The first serious attempt on the part of Western scholars to present a critical analysis of the q u e s t i o n, base.d on original sources; dates only from 19.3'1 and was made by Th. J. Locher in his D1E NIA:T.IONAIJE DH'FERENZIER UN G UND INTEGRIERUNG DER SLOWAKEN UND TSCHECHEN IN IHREM GESCHICHTLICHEN VERLAUF 'BIS 1848 (The Natrona! Differentation and Integration of 1Slovaks and Czechs in its historical development until 1848). Dr. 'Locher completed two years of post-graduate studies in Prague and IBratislava (after graduating .from the University of Leiden in his native Holland) and to the dismay of his Czech professors (J. Susta in Prague and V. Chaloupecky in Bratislava) he came to conclusions contradicting the Czech t h e s i s of fue ethnic linguistic, cultural and political unity of the Slovaks and Czechs. The work by professor v. Gogolak confirms Lecher's conclusions, but it is at the same time more de- 157 tailed, broader in scope and much better documen,ted. We might say that this is the first foreig n-language book which goes de eper into the problem of the relations between the Slovaks and Czechs than any other book in Slovak or Czech, and -there were many books written on this ,topic in the last hundred years. Gogolak's knowledge of sources in the languages pertainin.g to the topic is unique among the Western historians and he displays a rare objectivity !ri his analysis not only with regard to the Czechs but also with regard to Hungarians, who similarly attempted to create "a Hungari an people" of the inhabitants of !Hungary by the assimilation of Slovaks and other nationalities. It does not mean, however ithat the book is not bound to stir up controversy among C z e ch and Hungarian historians alike; it may provoke disag,r eement in some det ails even among the Slovaks, and particularly among the Pro-· testant Slovaks. ;Frofessor v. Gog o 1 a k defends not only the thesis of an independent Slovak linguistic and cultural entity, but correctly states· that the so-called Czechoslovak· problem or ,the thesis of the unity of Czechs and Slovaks is of very late date and was masterminded by the Slovak Protestant minority (about 18% at the present time) which ,was to a great degree of Czech ancestry and has been linked wi,th the. Czechs by their liturgical language (see pp. 214 and fol.). Gogolak goes so .far as to say that "had the Protestant intelligentsia, which in fact lived mostly on their historical heritage and foreign German-Czech connections, r emained in the leading role, the result would have been the complete disappearance of the Slovak people" (p. 229) In his view "it is thanks only to the activity of several Catholic priests and scholars, who. were conscious of their goal and _158 SLOVAKIA mission, that the Slovak national character did not lose its own characteristics and identity in the clash with the menacing political magyarization and the spiritual 'self-czechizatlon' ... " Such statements, even if basically true, are undoubtedly bound to provoke reaction on the side of the Slovak Protestant intellectuals of whom many reel, like their ancestors ait the beginning of ,the 19th century, that they are "the ex c I u s iv e leaders of the Slovak people" whose "bold consciousness of their mi s s ion (Sendungsbewusstsein ) came again and again in the foreground until 1918-1919". (p. 217). Besides these two main problems the author deals with many other questions related to the rise of Slovak national consciousness, as for instance the role of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie in Slovak cultural life, the role of the German element, Hungarian assimilatory t e n d e n c i es etc., on which topics there are some monographic works in Slovak, which were not analyzed from a global point of view. This concise and well-documented scholarly work deserves attention not only from SloTak scholars, but also from Slavists in general. JK. Edward E . Delaney, FREEDOM'S FRONTIER, .Published by H. A. Nickel, Sacramento, Cal., 211 p. The author is a n,vell-known news reporter, whose area of opera,tion was Central Europe during World War II. On more than one oc- casion he visited Slovakia and learned its problems firsthand. In this book he sets forth a challenging analysis of western policy, pointing out its blunders with regard to Soviet expansion. In no uncer,tain terms the a uthor expr esses his condemnation of western appeasement and calls for a constructive policy of liberation of captive nations, tearing down the Iron C urtain and the Berlin Wall, and undoing the brainwashing to which the American public has been subjected. In his references ,to Slovakia h e names Slovak intellectuals and politicians whose anti-Communist stand has been known in the West and n,vho rightfully claim freedom and independence for their nation. In his view Slovakia is a captive nation, now occupied by the Soviets. After Hs so-called liberation, it was combined again with Bohemia and Moravia in a restored Czecho,Slovakia to compensate Benes for services rendered to Moscow by himself and other Czech politicians. Delaney condemns such disr egard or a nation's rights as well as the unjust condemnation or Slovak politicias and specifically •the execution of Dr. Tiso. Quoting Slovak scholars like Dr. J . M. Kirschbaum and Dr. F. Durcansky, he presses for Slovakia's independence. A perusal of the book proves that the author is acquainted with the literature and basic problems of Central Europe and has personally met some of its leaders. JK . Die Slowaken und das Grossmiihrishe Reich (The Slovaks and the Great-Moravian Empire), by Dr. Arved Grebert, Munich, 1965, p. 64, bibl. For a long time a matter of interest for a few historians and linguists, the Great-Moravian Empire became during the past two decades an object of scholarly research by experts in many fields, especially of archeologists, ethnographers and social scientists. The booklet under review is a contribution to the ethnic character of the Great-Moravian Empire, according to its subtitle, but it also sheds a new light on many other problems. SLOVAKIA 159 After having outlined historical and geographical data of this first empire of Carpathian and Danubian Slavs, called Sclaveni or Sclavi Marahenses in contemporary Latin sources and Slovene in eastern re• cords, the author attempts to give an answer to the following ques• tions: Which Slavic tribes lived on the territory of the Great-Moravian Empire in the 9th Century? What is the ethnic character of the population of today's Moravia? What was the relation of the Slovaks to the Czechs in the 9th century? Dr. Grebert's answer is based on a thorough study of sources, of historical and linguistic works of renown scholars of various nationali• ties, published in half a dozen languages. Nevertheless, it is an answer which is bound to provoke controversy, since it contradicts or refutes many an outdated thesis of Czech Slavists or of historians guided by political considerations. In his conclusion Dr. Grebert states that his research and quoted sources and data prove that "the Great-Moravian Empire was a Slovak state, formed by Slovaks" (p. 50). Though amply supported by the views of scholars not only of the Slovak, German, Hungarian, but also of the Czech origin, the author refers in his conclusion also to the so-called Marxist experts to give his study an objective basis beyond any doubt. It will be now to the experts in this period of history to accept or refute Grebert's new look at the first Slavic empire which was claimed mainly by the Czechs as a part of their national heritage. The essay is written in a clear style, concise form, and convincing manner. The writer apparently was guided by the dictum "non multa, sed multun". J. M. Kirschbaum ANTON BERNOLAK-The First Codifier of the Slovak Language (1762-1813). By J. M. Kirschbaum, LL.D., Ph.D. Publishers: Slovak In• stitute, Cleveland, Ohio, 48 pages. Bernolak's 200th birthday anniversary provided the occasion for the author's masterful address at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, which fortunately has been preserved for us in this highly documented work. The wide scope of his research is shown in the Bibliography in which sources are quoted from works in Latin, German, Slovak, Polish, English, Czech, French and Italian. No one so far has come up with such a concise and scholarly his• torical and literary background to the development of the modern Slovak language as Dr. Kirschbaum in this brochure in English and French. This small volume is an excellent and invaluable handbook for future scholars who may want to treat the subject more extensively. They will find in it not only the Slovak literary and national leaders who saved the Slovak nation from extinction in a period of historic crisis but a list of names of philologists, historians, etc. as references to authorities on the subject. Rarely does one find such an imposing array of distinguished men quoted as we find in Dr. Kirschbaum's priceless work. To mention a few: Bajza, Safarik, Holly, Pa?lrnvic, Fandly, stur, Jungman, Niederle, Vlcek, Mraz, Kotvan, Bartek, Mihal, Sta• nislav. Pauliny, Seton-Watson, Denis, Dobrov,sky, Auty, de Bray, von Gogolak, Skultety, Krcmery, Miskovic, Tibensky, Pisut, Banik, Lepacek, MeriggL A.P. 160 SLOVAKIA CONTRIBUTORS Zatko, James J., Ph.D., Rev., received an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. Under sponsorship of Ford Fellowships he studied at Harvard in 1954-1955 and at the Catholic University of Lublin in 1958. He was also the recipient of an Association of Middle Eastern Studies Fellowships in 1962. He is assistant professor of history at the University of Notre Dame. Just off the press is his book Descent Into Darkness -The Destruction of the Roman Catholic Church in Russia 1917-1923, published by Notre Dame University. Kona, William, was born in Slovakia where he was reared and took his secondary education. He received part of his education in law at Bratislava in Slovakia. He continued his education in law in Rome and in Madrid. Attended Roosevelt University, Chicago Teachers College; Chicago Real Estate Board Institute. At Rosary College in River Forest, Illinois, he received his M.A. He also took advanced :studies in library science at the University of Chicago. In his travels Mr. Kona has been to Austria, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Monaco France, Portugal, Gibraltar, Croatia, Spain, Canada, Mexico, and has toured the United States extensively. Mr. Kona is a Member of the Association of Hospital and Institutional Libraries of the American Library Association of which he is on the Publications Advisory Committee ( 1962-64) and Bibliotherapy Committee (1962-66); Medical Library Association in which he is the Chairman of the Nursing Libraries Group (1963-64 and 1964-65), Chairman of Membership Committee (1964-65), and member of the Exchange Committee ( 1963-64 and 1964-65). As well as these two national organizations he is a member of the Midwest Regional Group of the Medical Library Association (Member of the Board of Directors) and also he was Program chairman for the Tri-State Hospital Assembly Medical Library Service (1963-64); Permanent Chairman since 1960 of the Nursing Librarians of Metropolitan Chicago; VicePresident of A.P.P. (1962-64); American Hospital Association of which he was faculty member to the Institute on Hospital Librarianship in 1961 and 1964. Evangela, M. Sister, B.S., M.A., the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius whose Motherhouse is in Danville, Pa., is working toward a doctorate in history at Georgetown University, Washington, D. C. She is the recipient of a summer grant in history under the National Defense Educational Act. For her Master's thesis from De Paul University in 1964, Sister wrote on: Foreign Relations Between the United States and Czecho-Slovakia with Special Emphasis on Slovakia, 1920-1960. Essay in this issue of Slovakia is a part of her thesis. Krajsa, Joseph C., B.S., with majors in Health and Physical Education, History, and English - plus graduate work in Philosophy at Lehigh University, was born in Allentown, Pa. For 11 years he taught high school English and History and was Head Coach in three sports; tor 15 years he was associated in a finance business; and since February 1964, he has been the Editor of the Catholic Weekly JEDNOTA. Misan11, N. Joseph, is a well-known lawyer. President of Mil- waukee Assemb!y 20 of the .Slovak L eague of America, an Assistant City Attorney of Milwaukee, Wis., Comma nder of Post 508, Catholic War Veterans, Adju tant of Wisco nsin Pos t 490, Inc, The Am erican Legion, and is a member of •the Sokols, J ednota and Narodny Spolok; a parishione r o! St. Stephen's (Slovak) Catholic Church, Milwaukee, Wis., Misany graduated from ?.forquette University an d the Law School, helped organize the Father Blinka Club there, and wrote h is political science thesis on Slova kia, Yester day and Today : The Feelings and Sen,timen ts of a Catholic People (M. U. L ibrar y, 1940), believed to be one of the fi r st such works on a University level in U.S.A. Kirschbaum, J . M., LL.D., Ph.D., former Slovak diplomat in Rome, Italy, and Bern, Switzerland, born in Slovakia and residing in c;anada. For a decade, he was professor at the Unive. sity of Montreal, Department of Slavic Studies, and contributor to French, English and Slovak periodicals and symposia. Some of his writings were also published in Spanish and German. His best known books: Slovakia: A Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe (Speller and Sons, New York, N. Y., 1960) and Neis boj o samostatnost' Slovenska (Slovak Institute, Cleveland, Ohio, 1958). Urban, Eugene, was born January 2, 1914 at Podolie, Slovakia. He completed his studies of Slovak and French language and literature at the University in Bratislava, Slovakia, with a M.A. in Education degree in 1938. In 1935 he studied slavistics at the Slovenian University at Ljubljana, Slovenia, and French language and literature at the Universite Catholique, Lille, France. In 1960 he received his M.A. in Library Science degree from the Rosary College, River Forest, Ill. In World War II he was assigned as press attache to the Legation of the Slovak Republic in Vatican City. Actually, he is librarian in the Research Library of Inland Steel Company, Hammond, Ind. Many of his articles on Slovak literary, historical and J>Qlitical topics were published in Slovak, Slovenian and Italian journals. The publishing house Sandron, Rome, Italy, published in 1945 his translation into Italian of Slovak short stories by the Slovak author Milo Urban, with the title Novelle Slovacche. Vnuk, Frantisek, P.Eng., professor at a Technological Institute in Adelaide, Australia, was born in Slovakia. He belongs to the younger generation of Slovak intellectuals who did not give up their fight a: ainst communism and strive for freedom and democracy in Slovakia. Profilic and gifted historian writer, he covers in his Slovak and English writings several fields of intellectual activities, from politics to literature. Recently he published the book Neuveritel'ne sprisahanie dealing with the invasion of the communists into Slovakia in 1944. SLOVAKIA $2.00 per annum in the U.S.A. - $3.00 elsewhere. PRI NTED IN THE U.S. A. JEDNOTA PRESS M idd letown, Pa. 17057 The Slovak League of America - - is an AMERICAN INSTITUTION; it was organized May 26, 1907, at Cleveland, 0., by the Rev. Stephen Furdek; is a CULTURAL and CMC organization of Americans of Slovak descent; is interested primarily in promoting the welfare and security of the United States of America; represents an overwhelming majority of organized Americans of Slovak descent; actively affiliated with it are the largest Slovak fraternals, religious organizations, Slovak Clubs and Slovak civic organizations in the United States; is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U. S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English; promotes a better understanding and appreciation of the Slovak nation, its history, culture, traditions, achievements and its long, hard struggle for freedom and independence; firmly believes in the American principle of self-determination of all nations, the inherent and God-given right of every nation, whether large or small, to freedom and independence, the right of every nation to freely choose its own form of government and freely elect persons of its own choice by whom it shall be governed; condemns and unequivocally opposes all forms of tyranny, every form of totalitarian political system. The Slovak League of America has always recognized the Godless philosophy of materialistic Communism for the dread evil and conspiracy against free humanity that it is, as the political system which threatens mankind with utter enslavement and, therefore, has fought resolutely against it in and out of season and, today, is still determined to fight against it with all the means at its command until the dread plague of Communism is wiped off the face of the earth,  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Back Matter, Slovakia, Vol. 15 (No. 38) Description An account of the resource includes Who's Who Among Slovaks in U.S.A. and Canada; Book Reviews; Contributors Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/1d5cb84a7f17e3373754833b4495dba0.pdf 2ba3da7f17378068460166b0be921a69 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 93 CENSORSHIP POLICIES IN CZECHO-SLOVAKIA 1918-1938 WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON SLOVAKIA Eugene Urban ABSTRACT By means of clever propaganda, the Czecho-Slovak Republic became known as an exemplary democratic State and the ethnic groups living within her boundaries were enjoying a personal, cultural, political and economic freedom. But the reality was exactly the opposite. The CzechoSlovak Republic was nothing but a big concentration camp for four million Slovaks, three and half million Germans, seven hundred thousand Ukrainians, six hundred thousand Magyars, one hundred fifty thousand Poles, etc., the Czechs enjoying the privileged position of guards. The real objective of the Czecho-Slovak Republic was to deprive the different ethnic groups of their national identity and, at their expense, to enlarge herself to the point of becoming a power among the others of Europe. The Slovaks, a very nationally selfconscious group, differing from the Czechs in language, traditions, culture, customs, and character, were guaranteed 1918 that the new Republic would be a confederation of two States: the Slovak and the Czech. But the Czechs failed to keep their promises and pacts and instead they treated Slovakia as a colony. One of the weapons used to suppress the desire of the Slovaks to be again a free and independent nation was the censorship of the press, the most effective medium of communication. The aim was to blot out all remembrance of Slovqk historical traditions, and to suppress the individuality and evidence of an oid cultural nation in the very heart. of Europe - a nation which has made its contributions to the building up of Western Christian culture and civilization. And, although the Czecho-Slovak Constitution had guaranteed freedom of the press, several laws were later enacted to make censorship legal. But the Slovaks defended them- �94 SLOVAKIA selves as well as they could in Parliament and with "underground" means of communication. Czecho-Slovak Laws Concerning Freedom of Press, Speech, and Association. Theory and Practice The freedoms of press and association in the CzechoSlovak Republic were guaranteed in paragraph 113, (1) of the Constitution accepted by the Revolutionary National Assembly on the 29th of February, 1920: Freedom of the press as well as the right to assemble peaceably and without arms and to form associations is guaranteed. It is therefore in principle inadmissible to place the press under preliminary censorship.I Paragraph 117 guaranteed the freedom of expression of opinion: Every person may within the limits of the law express his or h er opinion by word, in writing, in print, by picture, etc. The same applies to legal persons within the limits of their competence. No one shall suffer in the ,sphere of his work or emloyment for excercising this right.2 According to these articles of the C o n s t i t u t i o n, Czecho-Slovakia had no press law of its own. The press was supposed to be free of Government interference and to serve the genuine interests of the various ethnical groups living in Czecho-Slovakia. It was supposed, also, that they would be free to assemble in political, cultural, religious, economical, etc. organizations and to secure through them their rights. Except for the Czechs, all other ethnical groups were integrated in Czecho-Slovakia without being given opportunity to express their will freely. With regard to the Slovaks, the Constitution was in direct contradiction to the spirit and letter of the Cleveland and Pjttsburgh Pacts signed by the Slovaks and Czechs in Cleveland, Ohio, October 5, 1915 and in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 30, 1918. 3 This latter was signed moreover by President Tomas G. Masaryk. According to these two pacts, Czecho-Slovakia was supposed to be a federation of both the Slovak and the Czech States. 4 But these pacts were not included in the Constitution. �SLOVAKIA !)5 The representatives for Slovakia who voted in Parliament for the acceptance of this anti-Slovak Constitution were not elected by the people, but appointed by the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Prague from a minority group advocating integration with the Czech nation. The Constitution was in flagrant contradiction to the spirit and the principles on which Czecho-Slovakia had been created. In the first years of her existence, the discontent of the Slovaks and of the other minorities with Czech imperialism and centralism early started to manifest itself, and this particularly in the periodical press and at the meetings of the political parties. The Czechs did not delay in their retaliation. They replaced the guarantees of paragraph 113 of the Constitution with a series of laws by which the freedom of the press was practically nullified. Not having a press law of their own, the Czech majority in the Prague Parliament made use of the old Austrian press law No. 119/ 1873 (May 23) and No. 142/ 1868 (October 15) of the Austrian Code, and the Hungarian law No. XIV /1914 to suppress freedom of the press. These were the oppressive laws of the old Au.stro-Hungarian regime against which both Slovaks and Czechs fought in the Parliaments of Vienna and Budapest. It has been said repeatedly that Czecho-Slovakia was created to liberate the Czechs and Slovaks from the Austro-Hungarian yoke. It is an ironic fact that Dr. Tomas G. Masaryk, the first President of Czecho-Slovakia, who as deputy for Bohemia, had condemned these laws in the Parliament of Vienna, now signed and approved them as the laws of the land, as law No 50/1923 (March 19), paragraph 34.5 The co-founder of the Czecho-Slovak Republic and her second President, Dr. Eduard Benes, who was also theoretically a defender of the freedom of the press, also signed law No. 50/1923. The same law No. 50/ 1923 provided for the defense of the Republic, and paragraph 34 stipulated the conditions under which the publication of periodicals might be prohibited. Law No. 3006 was drawn up on April 14, 1920; it was later supplemented by law No. 125/ 1933 (July 10)7, according to which the State's Security Bureau, without a judicial order could demand the c o n f i s c a t i o n and opening of letters �96 SLOVAKIA and other items transported by mail. It could prohibit public meetings and it could impose special conditions upon the activities of associations or prohibit them. Paragraph 10 was concerned with the press. The State's Security Bureau could limit or impose special conditions for the publication and distribution of periodicals, or prohibit their publication. It could order the editor of a periodical to present, two hours before its publication, copies for preventive censorship. The same Bureau could put under surveillance or prohibit the activities of printing shops, of distributing companies, and of press agencies. It could also prohibit possession of printing presses and other means of reproducing writings and illustrations by private persons. Law No. 50/1923, for the defense of the Republic, was enacted in a period when Czecho-Slovakia was fully recognized and her existence insured by International Peace Treaties. This law was not addressed against her enemies from abroad, but to deal with the growing dissatisfaction from inside. Especially in Slovakia the discontent was alarming. The fact that the Czechs violated the Pacts of Cleveland and Pittsburgh were the most powerful reasons for this discontent. Law 50/1923 was enacted in order to give the Czechs a weapon to terrorize the dissatisfied Slovaks and the other minorities. It fixed the penalty for military treason, for violation of State secrets, for offence to the President of the Republic, for any challenge to commit penal acts or not to fulfill legal obligations, for approving the crime, for associating against the State, for the spread of false reports, etc. All the paragraphs of this law were appliable also to the periodical press. Directly concerned with the periodical press was paragraph 34 of this law. It gave the Government's ooreaus power to prohibit the publication of periodicals. The period of suspension of publication was established as one month for periodicals published at least five times a week, two months for those published at least three times a week, and six months for those purlished less than this. But this law seemed not to be strict enough for the Czech Government. Ten years larer, law No. 50/1923 was completed and changed by the law No. 124/ 1933 (July 10).8 This new law extended the list of "crimes and offences" �SLOVAKIA 97 for which the publication of a periodical could be suspended and gave the Government the right to enlarge the validity of paragraph 34 by a simple government decree. The suspension period of periodicals was enlarged from one to three months and from two to six months. Not even that was enough for the Government of CzechoSlovakia. The Governmental Decree No. 150/1933 (July 18),9 published ten days later, again increased the number of paragraphs which could be violated by the press and added to the number of crimes and offences also the infringements of these laws. One year later a new law No. 140/ 1934 was drawn up. (July 10), 10 which changed and completed the law No 50/ 1923, the law No. 124/ 1933 and the Government Decree No. 150/ 1933. The number of possible penal acts was increased again. The Government was empowered to prolong the validity of these laws for another two years. The distribution of transgressing periodicals could be prohibited in all stores which sold the products of the State's monopoly (tobacco, stamps, salt, etc.) or in the buildings and stations of the State owned railways (there were only State owned railways in Czecho-Slovakia). These periodicals could be also deprived of the right to use special tariffs and of the right of transportation by mail or by railroads. The same law compelled all periodicals to publish free, without change or comment, on their first or second page, by usual types of letters, and in the largest edition, official declarations of the President, the Vice-President, the Prime-Minister, members of the Government, etc., appealing to this law. A new Government Decree No. 163/ 1934 (July 16) 11 further extended the number of "crimes, offences and infringements" for which the publication of a periodical could be suspended. Two other government decrees, No. 157 / 1935 (July 13) 12 and No. 165/ 1937 (July 24) 13 , prolonged the validity of the paragraph 34 of the law No. 50/ 1923 and the subsequent laws until the 13th July 1939. Another law, No. 126/ 1933 (July 10) 14 was concerood with the distribution (col portage) of periodicals. The distribution of periodicals which directly or indirectly subvert or put blame on the independence, Constitutional unity, the �98 SLOVAKIA integrity and the democratic and republican form of the State or the democratic order in the Czecho-Slovak Republiccould be prohibited. This right could also be taken away from those periodicals which "menace the public peace and order, especially by publishing false news and news which distort the truth". The distribution in Czecho-Slovakia of periodicals published abroad could be also prohibited. It was prohibited to distribute periodicals in the schools and in the military quarters. The Regional Office was entitled to prohibit the distribution of periodicals published in Czecho-Slovakia, while the Ministry of Interior in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could prohibit the distribution of periodicals published in foreign countries. Paragraph II of this law required publication of any correction asked by a person who felt that the content of some article published by the periodical was offensive to him or that information given was untrue. And finally the law No. 130/ 1936 (May 13)15 was enacted, which completed the previous National Defense laws for the defense of the Republic. This law established capital punishment for many crimes against law No. 50/ 1923. It also prohibited the publication of news regarding military treason if not approved previously by the Ministry of National . Defense. All these laws and Government Decrees were climaxed by • National Defense Law No. 131/ 1936 (May 13)16 for the defense of the State. This law gave the Government absolute power in a national emergency to suspend all laws, all rights and liberties. It gave the Government the right to censor the press, films, telegrams, telephone conversations, letters, packages sent by mail, phonographs records, etc. It established preventive censorship and gave the State's Security Bureau the power to prohibit the publication and distribution of periodicals. The importation of periodicals from abro.ad ·could be also prohibited. The law provided for the establishment of a commission which would direct and carry out the censorship policy. The Government was given in fact dictatorial powers: and this law was generally considered as the last nail in the coffin of democracy in Czecho-Slovakia. �SLOVAKIA 99 Objectives and Methods of Czechoslovak Censorship Policies From the analysis of censored material it is possible to learn much about the objectives pursued by the Czech Government in the case of Slovakia. Previous mention has been made of the profound antagonism developed between the Slovaks and Czechs as a result of the Czech violation of the Cleveland and Pittsburgh pacts. The Czech wanted to denationalize the Slovaks by forcing them to accept the false claim that Slovaks are Czechs and that the Slovak language is a Czech dialect. To obtain this aim, the Czechs made use of various means. They created a wave of terrorism, using the armed forces, police, gendarmery and the C z e ch national organizations, especially "Sokol" known for both its atheism and chauvinism. They also sent hundreds of thousands of Czech teachers and Czech Government officials into Slovakia, thereby forcing the Slovaks, who were denied jobs in their own country, to emigrate because of hunger and unemployment. They further contributed to the economic impaverishrnent of Slovakia by dismantling its heavy industry and transporting the productive machinery to Bohemia. In this way production was stopped and the enterprises were forced to dose. Many factory buildings were purposely demolished .and many mines flooded.17 The steel, chemica:l, glass and leather industries suffered most cruelly. When the workers, deprived of their jobs demonstrated to prevent the dismantling of the factories and machinery, the Czech soldiers and the gendarmery killed many of them. 18 In the period from 1918 to 1932, 261 enterprises were closed down in Slovakia. From 1933 to 1937 another 425 enterprises were dismantled, bringing the total number to 686. 19 Meanwhile, new industries were founded in Bohemia which logically belonged in Slovakia, since Slovakia provided the raw materials used in them.20 The transportation tariffs in Slovakia were about 40 percent higher than in Bohemia and Moravia. Consequently the Slovak coal was more expensive than coal imported from Bohemia. 21 Further discrimination was manifest in the field of housing construction. 22 �100 SLOVAKIA From 1921 to 1923 Slovakia received only 6 per cent of the State's subsidies for the unemployed, although the unemployment in Slovakia was higher than in Bohemia. 23 From the sum assigned by the Government for the construction and maintenance of schools of higher education and Universities, Slovakia received 10 per cent, while the educational institutions in Slovakia were to be built up almost entirely. 24 The result: Slovakia had only one incomplete University and no Polytechnical Institute, while the Czechs had several, and the German minority had two Universities and two Polytechnical Institutes. Further, the Slovak University was practically a Czech University, because the professors named by the Government were all Czechs. Salaries for the Slovaks were about 20 per cent lower than for the Czechs. While Slovakia abounded in natural resources, especially for the production of energy, the petroleum lamp was the usual source of light. The combined savings of five Slovak citizens were equal to the savings of a single Czech. Czech capital absorbed whatever Slovak industry still remained after its dismantling. Slovak banks were engulfed by Czech banks, and foreign capital was allowed to supplant the remaining Slovak capital. 25 When agrarian reform was inaugurated in Slovakia, only 21 per cent of the land was sold to Slovak peasants, while the rest was distributed free to the Czechs. 26 The discrimination against Slovak peasants in transportation tariffs and taxes resulted in frequent strikes. Instead of offering to improve their desperate condition, the Government gave the order to fire at the strikers.27 Their hopeless situation led them to emigrate in large numbers to the U.S.A., Canada, Argentina, France, Germany and Belgiurn. 28 Slovakia was treated like a colony by the Czechs. They regarded Slovakia only as an object of exploitation, a reservoir of cheap labor and a market for the products of Czech industries. The Czech Government aimed to keep Slovakia as an underdeveloped agricultural country. 29 Practically all the administrative positions in Slovakia were filled by Czechs, whose salaries also were double those of the Slovaks. 30 In Slovakia political oppression worked hand in hand with economic injustice. Aware of Czech chauvinism, the Slovaks began early �SLOVAKIA \'yd»od1 denne ~rem pondelk.a Zdkladafel' a YO!ICA ; Andrei ffllnka 101 Br611slava,. slreda 6. m11e. t9H 1Grecki povsfalci chysfaju illok na Affleny Rozvral na Balk6ne, alebo vffllZSlvo greckel vl6dy - Bulbarsko vyslela voJsko na grkke brank:e ·• •11>1 ••• ~-••U ,.....,n,&aJ-.. ,.,,..,., .. ~i,---iol,f . .•• ~ ~ - : . • ~ ,• :'" .:.:.•\.:=: tf~i~~l~~t;~~~ ~fiff;[f~!~1f[~tt¥.Jlf§ l{if;}~t~¥.K~~ The whitewashed newspapers had to be presented in a new form: A corrected issue was printed after the confiscation to organize politically. The great Slovak patriot Msgr. Andrej Hlinka founded the Catholic and nationalist Slovak People's Party. Its program aimed at autonomy for Slovakia in accordance with the decrees of the Pittsburgh Pact (1918). The Protestant leader, poet, and writer, Rev. Martin Razus, restored the Slovak National Party. In order to hinder Slovak political association, the Czechs established branches of their own parties in Slovakia. By means of political intrigue and corruption they attained a measure of success, but the majority of Slovaks resolutely opposed them. Because of �102 SLOVAKIA the forced intergration of Slovakia with Bohemia, and the denial of Slovakia's right to self-determination, the fiftyfive Slovak deputies were invariably outvoted by the Czech majority in the Prague Parliament. The Czechs employed terrorist tactics also against Slovak political parties, imposing on them a relentless censorship of the press and disruption of their public meetings. By such means they strove to impede direct communication between the Slovak people and their political leaders. The press was a high-powered tool in the hands of the Slovak political parties. It introduced new ideas, it taught the people to recognize and support their own national interest, it pointed out the injustices committed against the Slovak nation by the Government and it suggested ways to remedy the situation. Public meetings served the same purpose, demonstrating by enthusiastic attendance the growing strength of the Slovak nation. Consequently, public meetings were dissolved by government agents whenever the speaker criticized the government, and troops and police were ordered to charge against the protesting Slovaks. Many Slovaks were killed and wounded by Czech bullets. The censor deleted from the press every criticism of Government officials and legislative bodies, in order to cover their misdeeds and keep the people uninformed. The second purpose was to hinder opposition parties from communicating with their readers and voters. In the hope of keeping such ideas in the background and forcing on the Slovaks the false notion of a "Czechoslovak nation and people", the Czech censor confiscated articles dealing with Slovakia's national identity and its right to self determination. The Czech determination to eradicate religion from Slovak public life must remain under cover, hence the censor suppressed all articles and reports of the desecration of churches by the Czechs and the removal of crosses from schools. In the eyes of the Czechs it was a most serious crime for the Slovak press to publicize the struggle of the Slovak people for autonomy, for the right to govern themselves, to run their own schools; in short, to enjoy all the rights of nationhood belonging to them as a nation. The Czechs seem �SLOVAKIA 103 to have naively thought that without the press to remind them of their rights the Slovaks would drop the issue. The Slovaks were not allowed to read reports on CzechoSlovakia in press. The Czech Government feared that this would more profoundly motiviate their political aspirations. Practically all the statements and resolutions of the Slovak political parties were censored in order to stifle opposition and prevent the natural political development of the Slovak nation. Reports of the activity of Slovak organizations in the United States of America were yet another object of the censor's displeasure, because these organizations were strongly in favor of autonomy for Slovakia. The two presidents of Czecho-Slovakia, Masaryk and Bene~, were unassailable in the press. The slightest criticism, whether by Czechs or by Slovaks, was taboo and automatically censored out. A legend was built up around these two men, making them untouchable as if they were the apex of perfection. To perpetuate it no criticism of their many human foibles and moral lapses was tolerated. The real objective of Czech cenzorship was to suppress the facts of Slovak history with their underlying appeal to self-respect and to strike out these glorious moments of the past which could fortify the Slovak political and national fight for the realization of their ideal of freedom and independence. Censorship was thorough. It made impossible any attempt by the Slovaks and other minority groups to charge the Czech government with undemocratic practices. Meanwhile the Czechs were using it to create a "great Czech nation" at the expense of the other ethnic groups living in Czecho-Slovakia and disregarding their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Their ultimate goal was to achieve a dominant position among the small States in Central Europe. In a word, Czech censorship was a tool of Czech imperialism and its faithful servant. It was the ruthless Czech antidote to the self-determination and national development of the Slovak nation and the other minorities in the CzechoSlovak Republic. As such, Czech censorship was diametrically opposed to the principles of democracy, freedom, and human progress. �104 SLOVAKIA "Authority is conservative ... freedom is progressive .. . conflict between the two is inevitable", says Lucy Maynard Salmon, 31 in reference to freedom of the press. Since Czech censorship was directed against human progress, freedom, and democracy, the means it employed could only have been wicked. It stopped at nothing to attain its objectives. Nothing was immoral if it served the Czech goal of domination. Czech post office and railway employees often seized entire editions of the opposition's periodicals and destroyed them. Soldiers were often ordered to raid newspaper and party offices to confiscate mailing lists and manuscripts. This happened in Trnava, Leopoldov, Bratislava, and elsewhere. Sometimes the soldiers reduced the place to shambles. Consequently, readers in the capital city itself were often deprived of their papers. Karol Sidor reported in the March 22, 1919 issue of the Slovak: " Orders have been given (,b y Czech officials) to destroy the SLOVAK. Revorts have been pouring in from all parts of Slovakia that the SLOVAK, ofl!!c!al PU!bl!cation of the Slovak 'People's Party, has been seized by scoundrels and its sale and dlstriburtion prohibited."32 Kon~tantin Culen wrote: "In the early yea,rs the SLOVAK was subjected to as many as three censorsihips: political, military, and economic. Some issues of the newspaper ,bore the inscription, "Thrice censored and corrected edition". Even these multi-censored copies were sometimes thrown out of trains en route by Czech mailmen. Slovak employees who dared to subscribe to the Sl.lOVAK endangered their livelihood. And when even this did not dauRt them, they were personally terrorized by the police and government of!lclals .33 Oftentimes newspapers were deprived of the right of distribution (colportage). Post offices were instructed to refuse money orders sent to the opposition newspapers. Persons who subscribed to these newspapers were harassed and many were dismissed from government jobs. 34 Court action was taken against editors of newspapers which printed articles unwelcome to the censor. The editors 111.sually assumed responsibility for unsigned articles; hence, many of them were in and out of jail. In a censored article entitled "We protest" Msgr. Andrej Hlinka wrote these bitter words: �SLOVAKIA 105 "We a re involved in doz ens, even hundreds of cour-t ca-ses. Hereafter I will assume full responsibility for every news article, whether written by the editor or by Paul or Saul. J will appear before the judge, I will answer the charges. And when I have been deprived of freedom, when the iron door of my prison has dosed behind me, when I am locked up and begin to burn like an expiatory candle on the a ltar of the fa,therl and, then I will charge you, friends, deputies. and leaders of the P eople's Party: •F ollow me! Let each of you shoulder r esoonsibility for one, two, ten articles, an d all of us will become involved with the courts. But no. I am wrong. Let us not get so involved. Not of our own volition will we become entangled with the courts. We will yield only to brutal compulsion. You Czechs will have to drag us into the courts. And when my right hand has become still and my mortal remains have decomposed, I tell you that a great line will form behind me, eager as I for the glory that is sure to follow. 7ou cannot silence us. You can only massacre us. But one tiling I ask: Do not go on deceiving the world that you are our brothers tsons of the same nation). Never will we consent to be Czechos lovaks ... Slova kia is ours an d we will defend our country against you as we defended it against the Magyars. The more you incriminate ns, the more you imprison us, the more forcef ully will we fight against you." As the representative and chairman of the People's Party, Msgr. Andrej Hlinka spoke out boldly on this subject in Parliament. In June 1922, in the debate arising from his interpellation No. 3584 on the raid of the offices of the Slovak and Eudove noviny, he described the attack as initiated and engineered by government agents. Not only did the assailants wreck office equipment and furniture and destroy books, but they were aided in their orgy of destruction by the police, who should have been maintaining order. The chief of police of Bratislava, Dr. Slavicek, a Czech, declared that he had been unable to check the raid because the majority of his men were hostile to the Slovak People's Party. Andrej Hlinka rightly demanded to know when the Slovaks might expect to have the protection of law and order. 35 Karol Sidor described the demolition and plundering of the offices of the Slovak as follows: On :!\fay 25, 1922 a huge rally was orga nized in Bratislava -to protest. Several Slovak legiona ries and Slovak university students were present. At one 'POint a Czech speaker railed against the SLOVAK. dem <tndlnr; that it be placed under the strictest censorship. An aroused Slovak legionary shouted: "Your aim is to cripple the Catholic press; you would do better to suppress your own anti-Catholic and antiSlovak press." The legionary paid for these words with a cruel beating ... A Slovak university student r eceived th e same treatment, bis �106 SLOVAKIA clothes torn and covered with blood, after he had called out to an abusive Czech speaker, "Please, talk to us in Slovak!" ... ·The speeches continued until 12: 30 p.m. At 1: 00 p.m. the first group of demonstrators appeared in front of the editorial offices or the SLOV.AK . . . Some 1,500 Czech legionaries escorted the demonstrators. Awaiting them was a group of 150-200 men and women who had assembled from the villages to defend SLOVAK property. A fight ensued, but the Czech legionaries with the aid of some 10(} policemen, invaded the editorial offices and broke tables and chairs, flung books, bound journals, manuscripts etc. out the windows. (Czech) legionaries piled •the items into ca,r s and drove away. Other (Czech) legionaries r aided the ,SLOV.AK's administrative offices and worked havoc there also. They carried off valuaibles, including shares and mailing lists. The yard outside ,w as littered with papers. These raids were permitted, even abetted by the police, who together with the legionaries received praise and commendation in the Czech press for their acts of des,truction.36 During the night of March 31, 1920, a certain Czech army major Ludevit Palounek by name, placed a bomb in the Lev printery in Ruzomberok in the hope of destroying the voice of the People's Party and its organ of free discussion. 37 Even the mails were misused: derisive pamphlets were inserted in the bundles of the Slovak, 38 as they were being shipped to their destination. With the growing tension in the relations between the· Slovaks and Czechs, the censorship became more and more despotic. After 1932, there were almost daily confiscations of the Slovak press. The censor received his instructions from the Ministry of the Interior. If the censor found in the piece examined something he considered inadmissible, he deleted it; the· Attorney General then ordered the police to confiscate the publication. The police seized the entire edition and burned it. The publishing house or the editors could make an appeal in court, or a board of representatives in Parliament could protest to the Minister of the Interior, or of Justice, or both. If the censorship was found unfair, the editors or publishers could demand reimbursement for damages. But in most cases they lost the appeal. After confiscation, a newspaper, book, or journal was printed in a new edition with the censored areas left blank. It bore the inscription "Following confiscation, a new and corrected edition" in the upper left corner of the front page of the periodical, or on the cover of the book. �SLOVAKIA 107 After Slovakia achieved independence on March 14, 1939, government officials found in the archives of the Attorney General confidential orders issued by the Czech Government with instructions to the censor as to how many times a week certain newspapers were to be confiscated. After a stated number of confiscations, the periodical could be suspended for three or six months, and after repeated confiscations, it could be suspended indefinitely at the discretion of the censor. This was a most powerful weapon in the hands of the Government, and it was effectively used during the visit of President Edward Benes in Slovakia in 1933. Under the pretex of repeated confiscations, the newspapers Slovak, Slovenska pravda, Narodne noviny and the political review Nastup were suspended, so as to prevent any criticism of Benes's speeches in the press. It was on this visit that he angered the Slovaks by declaring that they must become Czechs. The actions of the censor were despotic because he knew that the Government would not fail to support him. The Slovak and Slovenska pravda were confiscated almost every day. The humoristic weeklies Osa and Kocur were also confiscated, along with the cultural monthlies Pero , Slovenske pohl'ady and Elan. Almanacs, books, poetry collections, and placards were not exempt. Sometimes periodicals were confiscated because of articles reprinted from other non-censored newspapers. For example a periodical was confiscated because it contained a poem originally published in the Slovak-American almanac Jednota. An editorial containing quotations from a book by President Thomas G. Masaryk was also confiscated. An article by the great Slovak writer, Svatozar Hurban Vajansky, published in Hungary at the ~md of the 19th century, was censored when reprinted in Slovak after World War I. Newspapers were confiscated for using the hyphen in the name of the Republic "CzechoSlovakia" although early peace treaties carry the name in this form. 39 On several specific occasions the Czechs declared that it would be dangerous for the future of the Republic if freedom of speech and press were permitted in Slovakia.40 With confiscation being an almost daily occurence, periodicals suffered very heavy losses. It is pertinent to point out that while the Czech party press subsisted on �SLOVAKIA 108 government funds, the Slovak press depended entirely upon the voluntary support of party members, together with subscription fees. The Slovak people understood perfectly the great importance of the press and supported it generously. Only in this way was the Slovak opposition press able to survive such continuous economic strangulation by the Czech Government. Characteristic of the situation are words like the following: " . .. we must perforce decline to publish original articles on topics banned by the government and must limit ourselves to those which have already passed the censor." 41 This is not all. When Slovak representatives protested in Parliament against the policies of the Government and its agencies, their speeches in Parliament were censored and denied publication in the parliamentary record Tisky Poslaneck e Snemovny Nar odniho Shromazdeni Ceskoslovensk e. The bimonthly Nastup wrote: Republiky " Instead of aick now ledging the human righ t to fr eedom of di scussion, th e Czechs pr oh ibited a utonomist meetings a nd r estricted their publications. Now they have resorted to oth er meas ures. "Th e P r esi de nt of th e Senate su ppressed a portion of Dr . Joseph Buday's speech i n ·P a rlia men t. The Presidents of both C hambers of Parl iamen t confiscated a major portion of the statement pr esented by th e representatives of the Slovak People's Party. "An exten ded (95 pages) and repo r tedly objective in ter pellation of th e r epresentatives of the Slovak People's Par ty was als o censored by the Presidents of Par liament and denied publicati on. " T his action was t a ken at a time w h en press censorshi p was so stringent that no politician or political party could f r eely and publicly express a dissenting opinion as far as the Government was concerned. "Ju Slovakia the natio na li st press is pres ently s ubjected to continuous sharp criticism a nd s uppression .. . In view of this we mus t behold with a s tonishment the a d ditional measures taken in Parlia m ent ·to silence the autonomists who are already so effectively silenced by press cens orship . Meanwhile •Slova k centr alists (i.e., Czech p a r tisans ) without hindrance flood Slovakia wit h their uncensored public_ations ."42 The newspaper Nar odne Noviny reported in its November 27, 1936 issue: Statistics show that the number of confiscated publications in Czecho-Slovakia for the given years was as follows~ 1929 1930 1934 Newspapers and periodicals ______ 3,370 Books ___ ______________ __________ 918 2,533 2,138 846 Confiscations 718 �109 SLOVAKIA Foreign books and periodicals _____ 255 Total ______ ________ 4,543 183 3,434 329 3,313 Of these confiscations, 60 to 70% involved Slovak books and periodicals. Censorship of Books Writing under the pseudonym Andrej Zarnov, a student at the University of Bratislava, named Frantisek Subik, made his literary debut in 1925 with the publication of a book of poems which already then showed the promise that was to make him a leading Slovak poet. The title of the book was Straz pri Morave (Sentry at the Morava River) . Finding it too nationalistic, the censor ordered the entire edition confiscated and had it burned at police headquarters. The representatives of the Slovak People's Party challenged this action in the Parliament. They asked the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Justice: 1) Whether they were aware of the confiscation of these poems; 2) Whether they approved; 3) Whether both Ministers were disposed to secure the validity of the Constitution which guarantees freedom of the press; 4) Whether they were disposed to take appropriate disciplinary action against the censor in Bratislava; 5) Whether they were ready to guarantee freedom of the press in Slovakia equal to that in Bohemia. Needless to say, the Czech majority refused to discuss this urgent interpellation in Parliament. 43 On the occasion of Msgr. Andrej Hlinka's seventieth birthday, Karol Sidor, representative in Parliament and editor of the Slovak, published his biography, covering the years 1864-1926. A great admirer and loyal follower of Hlinka, Sidor presented his hero as the key figure in the Slovak political and national struggle for freedom and independence. This 554-page biography suffered 31 deletions totaling some 295 lines, equal to seven pages of the book. It was issued with the customary caption on the cover: "Po konfiskacii nove opravene vydanie" (After confiscation a new and �110 SLOVAKIA corrected edition) and with blankspaces to show where the censor had disapproved. The following lines were deleted on pages 368-369, from Sidor's description of the Czech attack on the meeting of the Slovak People's Party in Zilina, August 17, 1919: With draiwn bayonets, soldiers charged upon the people In the square and scenes of horror ensued. Andrej Hlinka saw hi,s people struck with rifl e 1butts and carried a,way as prisoners to the barracks. Women from Kysuce exposed thei,r breasts to the bayonets and shouted: "Strike here, you curs, and touch not Hlinka ! " On October 10, 1920 Czech military units once more dispersed a meeting of the Slovak People's Party in Namestovo and fired into the crowd, killing two Slovak peasants and seriously wounding ten. On page 442 the description of this savage act was deleted: Bedfich Danek, a Czech lieutenant, scornfully asked a young man weeping over the body of his slain father: "Why do you weep? It ,w as Hlinka who killed him!" Namestovo came to ,be regarded a-s a second Cernova. The Czech press and the Government Press Agency CTK wished to place the blame for this bloodshed on Hlinka. They charged Hlinka with inciting the Slovaks against the Czechs. Hlinka answered in the October 16, 1920 issue of the Slovak. This portion of the article was deleted from the biography: Yes, I did incite the people. I incited them and will continue to Incite •them . My very presence incites them. So much so that it stirs your murky conscience, stained with a ·b rother's blood. I have incited and will continue to incite them to oppose t:he •b ase t,raud you perpetrated against •the !Slovak n ation. W,e •w ill rise up to oppose every injustice. Why should we not be aroused against you, who seized me a year ago in the dead of night and held me captive for six months at Mirov, iBrodek, Podolie, to afford you an opportunity to demoralize and dis• rupt .Slovakia? Should I have danced to your music when you placed bombs in our "Lev" printery, •which had •been established with owhard•earned savin~s? I would be a cowardly traitor If I did not raise my voice, if J did not search for a remedy and seek help. We have incited and lest we be despised by Slovakia, we will not stop inciting our people until w,e win autonomy from you. On page 490 the censor deleted a reference to discrimination against the Slovaks in assigning government jobs: The •Slovaks were unable to procure even the cheapest loaf or government bread in Slovakia; (referring to jobs) their applications were answered with a curt: "Impossible to grant", while t he Czech people, often without qualification, were given the best paid jobs in Slovakia. �SLOVAKIA 111 That is how the newspapers SLOVAK, NARODNIE NOVINY, and the magazine, NASTUP, looked after censorship A quotation on p. 506 from an "Appeal of the Representatives of the Slovak People's Party to the Minister of the Interior" in Prague, September 4, 1923, was confiscated: The authorities spread terror every-where. Civil servants planned the disruption of meetings by force and public safety agencies did nothing to -defend the victims; on the contrary, they cooperated with the agressors. Holle, Nove Zamky, and ,t he riot at Brezova make it clear as day that groups of assailants were organized to incHe rioting and to damage private property. Very heavily censored was the chapter in which Sidor described Hlinka's arrest at midnight. The occasion was his return from the Peace Conference in Paris, where he had delivered to the delegates a Memorandum in which he demanded in the name of the Slovak nation that the Slovaks be given national and civic freedom and their autonomy guaranteed. Hlinka's words to one of his chaplains were censored on page 385. "Proclaim abroad to the wide world the kind of freedom we enjoy in Slovakia. They have come to carry me off like a criminal In the middle of the night when everybody is asleep ... The press reported that I trembled. On the contrary, I felt like a lion. I cared not whether they killed me or jailed me. My blood �112 SLOVAKIA boiled. Indescribable feelings struggled within me. I could not tell which was stronger: my love for my oppress-ed nation or my contempt of the intruders ... " Following Hlinka's deportation, an account of the rebellions of the students and citizens of his parish town, Ruzomberok, was variously deleted as on pages 387, 392 and 393. The description of the terrorism of the Czech soldiers and employees in Slovakia was censored on page 444: November 6, 1920 he (Rev. Frantisek Klein) reported in the SLOVAK that he was traveling by train •with soldiers who insulted him because he was reading the .SIJOV AK. One of ,them asked in Czech: "Why doesn't someone kill tH!inka ?" On pages 458-459 the account of the murderous attack on Hlinka's life in Krupina, June 12, 1921, by a Czech, and the insult to which he was subjected in Sahy two days later by Czech railroadmen was expunged: The following day, June 13, Hlinka set out with companions to Sahy to report the Krupina incident to the "Zupan", [)r. Victor Ravasz. As he was passing through the square a railroadman, named S<tu~hlik and the school inspector, Bartolom/lj Krpelec, both Czechs, confronted him with curses, calling him "bandit" and "agitator". Later at the "zupan's" office, Stuchlik, with 60 co-workers, delivered the following ultimatum: The "zupan" must expel Andrej iHlinka at once from ,the 1Hont "zupa" or suffer the consequences. The railroadmen (all Czechs) also declared that they would not permit Hlinka's train to leave the Sahy station. ·T he "zupan", after appealing to the Ministry in BraJtislava for instructions, assured Blinka that the culprits in both Krupina and Sahy •w ould ,be penalized as an example to others. In the a,fternoon IHlinka ,boarded •the train at Sahy. The station wa,s filled with people, waiting to see the outcome of the contest. The rallroadmen held to their purpose. After a long while the zupan arrive6l at ,t he station. The railroadmen demanded that -he order Hlinka out of the train. Lenghty nego tiations followed. Meanwhile Hlinka waited patiently within ... Finally the "zupan" announced that the ,train was about to depart. At that moment a line of railroadmen formed below the windO'W of Hlinka's compartment. They gave vent to their haitred -b y spitting at Hlinka, cursing and maligning ·h im until the train moved out oE sight. Another incident which occurred in the railroad station Trencianske Teplice, July 5, 1921, was deleted from page 459: A Czech in the station, recogmzmg Hlinka, called out, "Hang Hlinka ! " Andrej IHlinka stepped forward and asked him to identify himself. The Czech continued to shout, but did not give his name ... And a few lines further on the same page: �SLOVAKIA 113 Another •Czech took up the cry, shouting, "Hang Hllnka". The p eople attacked h im, although ,Hlinka- made an effort to calm them. Mea nwhil e the train arrived and he boarded it ,w ith his secretary Ramaj . :Bishop Kmeeko a nd tMsgr. Tiso remained in the station, bu t they were unable to quiet the p eople. Several Czechs were severely beaten . Other subjects censored in Sidor's book were: criticism ·o f President Masaryk's anti-Catholic attitude (page 286) ; daims of job discrimination that while hundreds of thousands of Czechs were given the best paid jobs in Slovakia, often without qualification, more than 300,000 Slovaks were forced to emigrate because of the discrimination against them (pages 345 and 490). Also censored were references to organized Czech terror against the Slovaks, to agression against Hlinka and his followers, to denial of government protection in the exercise of freedom of speech and association, and any account of the formation of defense groups of the Slovak People's Party for the protection of its meetings .against Czech terrorists. Among the deletions were several lines about the general anti-Catholic attitude of the Czech people (page 471). Another censored book was Vo vazeni, written by a young editor of the Slovak, Alexander Mach. 46 The author had been jailed on a charge of conspiracy with Professor Dr. Vojtech Tuka against the integrity of Czecho-Slovakia. After serving part of the sentence, he was exonerated from complicity in the "plot" and released. A year later he published his book about his term in prison. In a manifestly unjust trial Dr. Vojtech Tuka was sentenced to 15 years and liberated after 10 years, when Slovakia won her autonomy on October ·6, 1938. From Mach's book the censor confiscated some 520 lines, totaling 13 pages, or 7 per cent of the 198 pages of the book. Unfortunately, I do not know of any uncensored copy of the book and can therefore quote nothing from it. To illustrate the mental climate in which the author wrote his book, I will cite some lines of his epilogue "Po roku" (After one year): I was in prisoa on charges which cannot at present be freely and sincerely dis cussed. In preparing this accoun t I was hemmed in by restrairut lest I again find myself rb ehind prison bars . I was obliged to limit my remarks lest the censor fo11bid their publication. Difficulties in the selection of material abounded. It was not easy for me to decide what to eliminate, what to omit ... Thus as I prepared �114 SLOVAKIA my narrative rhe penal code was before me. Yet I have remained completely frank; I did not change what I had •w ritten as a prisoner. I preferred only .to eliminate the sensitive issues ... Another example of the censorship of books is furnished by the interpellation presented in the Prague Parliament by the representative Msgr. Dr. Jozef Tiso, concerning the confiscation of the Kalendar Hlinkovej Slovenskej Eudovej Strany na rok 1934 (Almanac of the Hlinka's Slovak People's Party for the year 1934). Two articles which appeared over the name of Msgr. Andrej Hlinka, chairman of the Party, were confiscated. In these articles Hlinka warned the Czechs to stop persecuting the Slovaks for claiming autonomy. Even Czech authors, whom Hlinka quoted to illustrate his articles, were censored. The title of the first article was "Za ~t'astne Slovensko" (For a prosperous Slovakia). In the second article "Uprimne slovo o Nitre" (A frank comment on Nitra) Hlinka analyzed the spontaneous explosion of Slovak discontent at the festivities commemorating the 1,l00th anniversary of the first Christian church on Slovak territory, created in Nitra by Prince Pribina in about 831 A. D. It was, Hlinka declared, a display of resistance to the Prague Government, intent on exploiting these eminently Slovak festivities for their own purposes. Andrej Hlinka, who had been refused the right to speak on the program, was carried up to the stage and backed by his 200,000 followers, he read a statement in which he solemnly affirmed Slovakia's adherence to its eleven hundred years-old Christian traditions and proclaimed Slovakia's right to territorial sovereignity. This demonstration of outraged Slovak national pride was observed by foreign diplomats and news reporters, who were thus witnesses of the true will of the Slovak nation to be free and the chauvinistic aim of the Czechs as expressed in the Ottuv Obchodni Slovnik (Otta's Commercial Dictionary, 1921) volume 2, page 1217: "Slovakia shall be a colony to us. It is an error to suppose that a colony cannot have common frontiers with the mother country. An example of this is Russia and Siberia." Several lines from a poem by Ignac Grebac Orlov were· also censored. Partially censored was the article entitled "Narodna jednota" (National unity), by Dr. Jozef Tiso on the· necessity of national unity for the Slovaks. . �SLOVAKIA 115 From the article "K sedemdesiatke Andreja Hlinku" (On the 70th anniversary of Andrej Hlinka) by Karol Sidor this paragraph was deleted: What occured in 11919, ,w hen 'Hlinka and other Slovak leaders were jailed, the ISiLOVAK suspended, and terrorism unleashed everywhere, was now repeated on a larger scale. In .September 193131 the 1SIJOVAK was suspended -f or 3 months ... lik,ewise the .S'.liOVAiK TYZDENNIK (1Slovak Weekly) and the T!AT·•RA:N,SKY SLOVAK (Tatra Slovak). We were left without a voice ... We were not permitted to w,rite, the people had nothing to read. And the prisons were daily being filled with objectors. Hundreds of Slovaks were suJbjected ,to investigations about their participation In the Nitra festivities ... Dr. Karol Mederly's article "Obec a politika" (Community and politics) was also confiscated, for its insistence on the right of the Slovaks to vote according to their conscience. Pictures of Hlinka carried on the shoulders of University students to the Nitra stage, the procession of 200,000 Slovaks in Nitra, and even articles of comic and satiric content were censored. The interpellation contains a complete rescript of the articles confiscated in the almanac. 47 In conclusion the writer would like to mention here that printed works of other minorities and political parties were also confiscated by the censor. CENSORSHIP OF PERIODICALS The periodicals in Slovakia have a long tradition. The oldest periodical published on Slovak territory was Schemnitzer N ewszeitung edited in Banska Stiavnica in German, in 1540-1541. Latin periodicals also had their day. The first periodical in the Slovak language was Presspurske noviny (Bratislava News - Pressburg is German for :Bratislava,), published from 1783 to 17 87. Following World War I, newspapers, reviews, and magazines promised to become more plentiful. This was especially welcome to Slovakia, where publications in the Slovak language had been prohibited by Hungarian oppressors. Under the Czecho-Slovak republic the Slovaks were prepared to -enjoy the democratic freedom promised by the Pittsburgh .P act and especially freedom of the press, speech, and association. Alas, they soon came to realize that the promises, �116 SLOVAKIA as far as Slovakia was concerned, were empty words and nothing more. In Czecho-Slovakia, the newspapers were usually owned and operated by political parties. There were very few socalled "independent newspapers". Yet even though labeled "independent", some of these were nevertheless the tool of a financial group, a political party or a governmental coalition. The newspapers in Slovakia were of two kinds: government and so-called opposition. Under opposition came the publication of the Slovak People's Party, the Slovak National Party and the Communist Party. The Hungarian and German minorities had a similar classification of newspapers. All these newspapers were characterized by their adherence to an ideology and the effort to propagate it. They were interested in social and political problems, and they never evaded any controversial issue. Their influence on the formation of public opinion was considerable. The rapid political evolution and maturation of the Slovak nation was due chiefly to the efforts of the political press of the Slovak People's Party and the Slovak National Party. The obstacles with the Czech administration plac~d in their path by means of censorship, economic and political pressure, by corruption and terrorism, by political trials and murder in its effort to suppress the Slovak drive for in-dependence, only helped to accelerate and strenghten this process. In their 20 years of forced cohabitation with the· Czechs, the Slovaks achieved a rapid political evolution, thanks to their press and they were thus prepared in the international crisis of 1938-1939 to proceed prudently toward the realization of their national aspirations. The press of the opposition encountered paralyzing difficulties in Czecho-Slovakia. In a debate before Parliament Msgr. Andrej Hlinka, chairman of the Slovak People's Party declared that under Hungary and Austria, unjustly as they had been treated, the Slovaks and the Czechs had enjoyed greater freedom of the press than in the new "brotherly" State. of Czecho-Slovakia. 48 A resolution issued by the 14th Convention of the Social Democratic Party in 1922 protested against the practice of confiscation of the press. 49 �SLOVAKIA 117 Jozef Vr ab e c, representative of the Slovak People's Party, protested against the confiscation of the March 13, 1921 issue of Slovensky krest'ansky socialista, for its article "Za more, za ocean" (Beyond the Sea, beyond the Ocean). 50 In this article the Czech Government was held responsible for the emigration of thousands of Slovaks through its policy of job discrimination and its dismantling of Slovak industries. Slovenske Eudove Noviny was confiscated because it criticized the discriminatory policy against Slovak construction workers by a Czech construction enterprise, which led to a bloody fight between the Slovak jobless workers and the imported Czech workers. The police arrested the Slovaks. 51 In a parliamentary debate on Novembre 24, 1920, representative A. Bobok complained about the "terrible restriction of the press and opinion" in Czecho-Slovakia and claimed the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. 52 In a debate in the House of Representatives, June 21, 1922 Msgr. Andrej Hlinka declared: Each issue of the SLOVAK ts censored . . . ,I will show you a startling example of freedom of the press. Here it is. (He shows censored issues of the ,S1L OVAK, rwith their blank columns). Everything is censored from t he first word to the last. That is suppo,sed to be freedom of the -press, freedom to express an opinion . .. iSee, here is the S1LOVEN,S,KA. JEIDNOTA ... here, SIJOVENSKA. POLITl!KA. Here you see the freedom of the press for which I spent 4 years in jail. Here is 1SlJOViIDNSKA. PRAVDA. Notice what has been deleted. (He reads): "What Czech statistics s-h ow about •S lovak schools." And mention of "Teaching the Slovak language" was eradicated. Such freedom of the press do we enjoy in Slovakia! This has been going on now since Mairch 25 - we are systematically criticized and censored. And they tell the world we have freedom of the -press in this Republic! In Interpellation No. XXI/4226, April 26, 1923, representative Rev. Florian Tomanek interpellated the Minister of Justice on the confiscation of the Slovak, April 25, 1923, because it reprinted the article "Zapredana Orava a Spi§" (Orava and Spis Betrayed) from the newspaper Denny hlas (Daily voice) published in Cleveland, Ohio, April 3, 1923. In this article the Czech diplomat Dr. Karel Pergler, who had also signed the Pittsburgh Pact (1918), accused the CzechoSlovak Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Edvard Bene~ of �118 SLOVAKIA having sold to the Poles the Slovak territories of Orava and Spg for the coal districts of Karvina in Silesia, inhabited by Poles. 54 The Slovak, December 11, 1923, was censored for declaring inaccurate and false the statement of President Dr. T. G. Masaryk that the Slovaks and the Czechs were one and the same nation and that Slovak is a dialect of the Czech language. Representative Rev. Pavol Machacek wrote as follows in the article "Kati sa raduju" (The executioners rejoice) in the August 10, 1922 issue of Slovenske l'udove noviny: Heavy -f ines were imposed on the peasants. Financial burdens forced artisans to close their shops . . . !Government officia1's confiscated articles reprinted from Czech newspapers ... They issued the directive to destroy us at any cost. And they succeeded. ·Since the first or Januwry our daily S'LOVAK has been confiscated 45 times and the SLOVENiSIKE Im.DOVE NOWNY almost as many. Every confiscation meant a loss of 3,5004,000 crowns in damages. In thi-s brief period we were in arrears 1'70,000 crowns. The financial burden became .so greait that the S,J,;{}VAK was forced to cease publication. In an interpellation to the Minister of Interior, representative Rev. Florian Tomanek declared: The coalition government is not content to pass a cruel law, which empowers the Attorney General to confiscate newspapers before distribution. It did not hesitate to permit the violation of the secrecy of registered mail in 'Slovakia without a court order. The Plenipotentiary ordered the confiscation or an Open Letter addre!ised to the !President of the Republic, sent •b y :registered mail from Americans of .Slovak extraction. ,I ndeed, the Minister, •D r. Kallay, has empowered not only the post offices, but also the gendarmery and the police to confiscate letters without notifying the addressee.55 The Slovak in its August 19, 1933 issue complained that it had been confiscated six times in the previous week. The only reason it was not seven times is that the paper is issued only six times a week. The same paper in its August 26, 1933 issue notes: Yesterday's SLOVAK carried news of the confiscation of the TATRA!NSKY SLIOV.AK. But the 1SLIOVAK, SDOVAK TYZDENNIK, SLOVENS<KA BRAVDA, and the fortnightly tSLOVAK NA STRAZI of Zilina suffered a similar fate. In the later paper, seven columns were en<tirely deleted, so that it was issued •with two or its four pages blank. In the article56 "Nedorozumenie medzi autonomistickou tlacou a bratislavskym cenzorom" (A misunderstanding between �SLOVAKIA 119 the autonomist press and the censor of Bratislava), the author -ks- (who is probably Karol Sidor, editor-in-chief of the Slovak) wrote that in the previous week an issue of the Slovak had been confiscated because it reprinted in the Slovak language an article about Slovakia written by a Frenchman, Ebray, and published in the Pester Lloyd, a newspaper permitted in Czecho-Slovakia and available in the coffeehouses of Bratislava to anybody who could read German. In a parliamentary debate on the proposal of a new press law, June 9, 1933, Representative Jozef Sivak declared: I would venture to assert ,t hat the development and evolution of d emocracy is best achieved by a ,f ree press ... ,I t is true that article 113 of our Constitution guarantees freedom of the press ... but it is nothing ,but a pa per guairantee, as are all th e guarantees in this Republic. You know that by the Pit tsburgh !Pact the Slovaks were guarantP.ed autonomy, but again this is only a paper guarantee . . . The feverish zeal of the censor knows no limits. The Attorney General confiscates everything. It is not possible in this day and age to w.rite the truth about Czech discriminrution of the !Slovak laborer, to say anything about the rights of •Slovak peasants, !Slovak workers, ,S lovak artisans and shop-keepers. No one is, allowed to criticize the ,government or individual officers. ·All is censored... even the statements of the Board of Representatives of the Slovak \People's iParty ... The following appeared in the article "Neustale habanie Slovaka" (The constant harassment of the Slovak) in its August 22, 1933 issue: Readers of the SLOVAK received the !Sunday edition with dismay. The front page, with six deletions, showed how heavily the hand of the censor had struck. On no account are we p ermitted to criticize ithe government. An article in which Msgr. Andrej Hlinka ,s et forth the significance of the Nitra centennary celebration on August 13, 1933 and praised the Slovaks tfor itheir participation in it, was censored. Confiscated also was an article by 1S enator Andrej Janecek, in which he assumed responsibility for (his part in) the Nltra episode. A report on the investigation of several partici pants in the Nltra festivities was confiscaited, although the government had encouraged attendance. Other confiscations were: Part of the report on the fiasco perpetrated by government parties in Nitra who, although a minority in the district, had convened to protest · the €Vents of August 13, 1933 ; · Slav repor ts on •t he Nitra centenary; ·Reflections on the Pittsburgh Pact. It is not unusual for us to b e subjected to confiscations - evea dally. But what the censor did with our !Sunday edition outrageously surpass·e s anything ever attempted before. Our party will adopt -s uitable measures to defend our consti- �120 SLOVAKIA t uti onal r igh t to free dom of th e press, denied us by th e " lords" i n the governm ent. W e will e m ploy a ll possible means to r each on r read er s. On its anniversary the Slovak was confiscated for the editorial "Patnast' rokov Slovaka" (Fifteen years of the Slovak), which conveyed the impressions of its readers on the reappearance of the Slovak after three months' suspension by the Attorney General. The same issue was confiscated for its information about the activities of Americans of Slovak descent in the United States, a reprint from Osadne hlasy (Parish News ), a Slovak weekly in Chicago, Illinois, and one part of an article by a Czech signatary of the Pittsburgh Pact. 57 Interpellation No. 1193/ IX, November 10, 1937, proffered by representatives Karol Sidor and Dr. Martin Sokol was motiviated by the confiscation of two articles in Slov enska pravda and Slovak, November 10 and 11, 1937. The title of the two articles was "Zakony demonstracii". They included a report on the spirited demonstrations of the studets of Bratislava University, demanding the slovakization of the University, of government bureaus, and of the army and police in Slovakia, under the slogan "Slovakia for the Slovaks". It carried an account of the brutal intervention of Czech police, who severely beat the students with sabres and clubs. An illustration showing a hand brandishing a club (used by the police ) was also confiscated. The headline "Demand plebiscite for Slovak autonomy!" was deleted from the February 10, 1938 issue of the Slovak, but the same line was left by the censor in the text of the article. Such inconsistencies in the practice of censorship were frequent. For this reason the Czech journalist Dr. Benes (not the President Dr. Benes) could declare in the organ of the Union of Czecho-Slovakia Journalists: The pr ess is practically ou tlawed in Czechoslovakia . .. a nd fr ee• dom of the press •has become degenerated by confisca tions .58 Such a statement, naturally, could not have been published in Slovakia. In an evening discussion at the Czechoslovak National Council, the Czech editor Jan· Hrabanek declared that the articles of the Constitution concerning freedom of the press were not respected, that a permit for printing newspapers �SLOVAKIA 121 was required, that the publication of periodicals was too often suspended and the right of distribution forfeited on the basis of a mere suspicion, without any conviction of a penal act. 59 After 1932, when young Slovak members of government parties were more attuned to the ideas and attitudes of the majority of the Slovak nation, the governmental press in the Slovak language also began to appear with blank pages. In the May 5, 1939 issue (page 90) of Zem (Soil) a political magazine of young Agrarians, the editor wrote an article entitled "Komu osozi cenzura?" (Who Benefits from censorship?) Among other things he said: Newspapers with blank pages ... that is a product of the censor. The author sees thi.s miscarrriage of his intellectual effort and loses heart. Readers are cheated by receiving blank newspapers . . . Jn recent times the censor is busier than ever before. Formerly only newspapers which habHually pabl!shed a rticles sharply criticizing the government were censored. These were chiefly the papers of the opposition. •B ut that is a. thing of the past. Nowadays even the newsp a pers of government pal'ties are censored and they appear now with the familiar blank spaces. What was most offensive to the Slovaks was the confiscation of the literary magazine Slovenske Pohl'ady, No. l0A, 1932, published with the date of October 28, the "Day of Freedom", the official national festivity of the CzechoSlovak Republic. Slovenske Pohl'ady, founded in 1846, had never been confiscated before. It had always stood as a symbol of the independent cultural life of the Slovaks and was dear to the heart of every Slovak. Why was this revered non-political periodical censored? Its editor Dr. Stefan Krcmery, submitted to criticism the Czechs in Slovakia, because they did not read or buy Slovak books and despised Slovak literature. In the other censored article he reviewed very favorably a new volume of poems Hlas krvi (The Voice of blood), published by Andrej Zarnov, author of the confiscated volume of poems Straz pri Morave, mentioned on page 53. The cultural magazines Pero (Pen), Pramen (Source), Elan (Impetus) and DAV (The Masses) and the humoristic periodical Osa (Wasp) and Kocur (Cat) were also confiscated several times. �122 SLOVAKIA CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS OF OTHER NATIONALITIES LIVING IN CZECHO-SLOV AKIA The Slovak press was not alone in the battle for freedom of the press. Other ethnical groups living in CzechoSlovakia were also hindered in the free expression of ideas. It is true that the Czech Government was much more lenient toward the Germans and Magyars, who were favorably situated and could appeal to the German Reich and Hungary for moral and financial support. But the case of the Ukrainians living in the territory of "Subcarpathian Russia" was similar to that of the Slovaks. By the Peace Treaties of Saint Germain-en-Laye, France, on October 10, 1919, this territory which had belonged to Hungary before World War I was incorporated in Czecho-Slovakia as an autonomous entity. Its position in the Czecho-Slovak Republic was to be that of a federated state. But, as in the Slovak case, the Czechs failed to honor their obligations and the Ruthenians were treated as another Czech colony. Its political and economic exploitation was in open contradiction to the terms of the St. Germain-en-Laye treaties. The po:.. sition of the Subcarpathian Ruthenians was as hopeless as that of the Slovaks. But this poor and exploited nation was also aware of its national origin and of the Czech aims of domination. Its representatives in the Prague Parliament and its periodicals followed generally the same line as that of the Slovaks. They demanded their rights, guaranteed by the peace treaties, especially the right of national self-determination. · The Czech methods of domination in Subcarpathian Russia were similar to those employed in Slovakia: military and political terrorism, economic exploitation and impoverishment, political corruption and censorship, combined with the curtailing of freedom of speech and association. In Parliament the Ruthenians reacted in the same way as the Slovaks. The January. 31, 1926 issue of the newspaper Karpatska pravda (Carpathian truth), published in Uzgorod, was censor·ed in its editorial "Continuous Oppression" for this statement: The cup is full to overflowing. ·T he poor people of Subcarpathian Ruthenia, ruthl essly oppressed ·by the Czech bourgeoisie, suffers cold, �SLOVAKIA 123 unemploy men t, hu nger, pove r ty a nd e ndles·s mis,ery. Eig-h teen years we h ave lived in "fr ater nal" union with Czecho,S lovak ia, but nothing h as ·been do ne to improve social cond Hions .. .so On April 8, 1937 Representative Dr. S. A. Fencik interpellated the Minister of the Interior on the confiscation of issue No. 216 of Na§ put (Our way ), published in Uzgorod. The periodical was confiscated on the pretex that the censored article might disturb the public peace. It was entitled "Voice of a Slovak" and included a quotation from the daily Slovak, March 19, 1937, stating that the establishment by Prague of a "Gubernatorial Council" for Subcarpathian Russia is but a surrogate for the autonomy guaranteed by the Constitution. The article was not confiscated in the Slovak, but the Na§ put was confiscated for informing its readers .a bout the Slovak' s views. The No. 212 issue of Na§ put, 1937 was confiscated on the same pretex, i. e. that it might disturb the public peace. The article "Autonomy" was confiscated for the lines: " ... this a utonomy is guaranteed only on paper . To this day it h as not been r ealized. In eighteen yea.rs no effort has been made to b egi n to put it into effect."61 The press of the Czech opposition also shared the fate of that of the other nationalities. Only a very insignificant percentage of Czechs however, voted for their opposition parties. The others were generally satisfied with their privileged position and had no desire to change it. On September 16, 1930 the representatives of the Czech National Democracy, Dr. Karel Pergler and Ji.ti Sti'ibrny interpellated the Minister of Justice on the confisc ation of the periodical Franta, vol. III. No. 21 , March 6, 1930: Despite the guarantees of freedom or speech and press contained i n the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak •Republic, o ur legislative bodies have not checked or even improved the preventive censorship inconsistent with democracy, especially in peacetime. Under a r egi me li k e ours one wou ld not expect a censor.s hip and confiscation policy which ·r enders impossible a decent and desirable criticism of ideas and political principles h el d by government functionaries. But the exact opposite is the ca,se. In this Repu1blic it is not permitted to discuss people in the government and their views on any topic. As a proo1' of my assertion, I have here several periodicals that suf·fered con fiscation. The classic example of the confiscation policy adopted by the government in contradiction to the most basic concepts of freedom of the press and discussion, was the confiscation of the March 6, 19·30 issue of F'RQ)l''DA. The article "Two Concepts" by F. Schwartz was the offender ... �124 SLOVAKIA This article contained criticism of Dr. Tomas G. Masaryk, President of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Another article "Co je vice nez 7. marec" (What is more significant than March 7) written by Josef Vodracka and published in the same issue, was also confiscated, because of its criticism of Masaryk's philosophy of Czech statehood. (March 7 was Masaryk's birthday and a national holiday.) In the article "Napoleonsky rys" (Napoleonic feature), published in the same issue, a description of Masaryk's charact€r was also censored. Another article "Muz Bible" (Biblical man) by Kamil Masin was censored for its designation of Masaryk as a "messianist" (man of Providence). In the same issue also F. Petrik's article "Rozsevac a znec" (Sower and harvester) on the ideological inconsequence of Masaryk's philosophy and F. Schwarz's article "Souhlasime s Masarykem" (We agree with Masaryk) along with several other articles were censored. The interpellation continued: The press wa·s at one time the principal means of maintaining freedom and national consciousness. In the Czecho,Slovak Republic, the press has become the .frightening destroyer of every freedom because an honest and independent press has been annihilated. It serves now as ~ blindfold for the people ...62 This example shows that censorship in Czecho-Slovakia was like an octopus which extended its arms into all areas of public life and impeded the march of democracy and the natural evolution of the various ethnical groups. SLOVAK DEFENSE AGAINST THE EFFECTS OF CENSORSHIP A direct result of the systematic violation of freedom of the press by governmental censorship was that Slovak political parties were denied normal communication with their members. At the disposal of the Government were the police, the army, the gendarmry and about 300,000 privileged Czech functionaries in Slovakia, whose task it was to hinder the activity of Slovak political forces, working and fighting for the freedom and independence of Slovakia. The people of Slovakia, deprived of the most effective means of communication, the press, which was constantly, almost daily, confiscated, the radio was State-owned and controlled, and never at the disposal of opposition parties, �SLOVAKIA 125 were more and more interested in knowing, what new injustice was committed against the Slovak nation. Several methods of rendering the censorship less effective were developed by the political parties. These political parties, who owned many of the newspapers, constantly challenged the respective Ministers in Parliament by interpellations. Their interpellations were always published, together with the censored articles, in the Tisky Poslanecke Snemovny N<irodniho Shromazdeni Repub liky Ceskoslovenske (a publication comparable to the U.S. Congressional Record) and this procedure gave them immunity and the right to be reprinted in the newspapers. But it was not unusual for the censor to confiscate even these immunized articles and interpellations. The interpellation had to be signed by at least twenty representatives. Small parties, which lacked this number, obtained the necessary signatures from the representatives of other opposition parties. The interpellations were addressed to the Minister of the Interior, or the Minister of Justice. The reply of the Government to the interpellation, which also requested that the matter be discussed, was usually negative.If a written answer was requested, the Minister almost invariably approved the procedure of the censor. Here is an example: Reply of the Government to the interpellation of representative Andrej Hlinka and associates concerning .the confiscation of the dally SLOVAK, No. 105, May 9, 1934 (No. 2712/VII). - The confiscation of the portions adduced In the lnterpellatlon . . . executed by the office -of the Attorney General in Bratislava, •w as exa mined by the regional court In Bratislava and approved In full. The complaint challenging this decision was rejected by the 1Prlme Minister: J. Malypetr.63 If nothing was found wrong in the censored article, the reply to the interpellation was: .. . I find that some portions adduced in interpellation No. 3610/· XIV were confiscated without a legal r eason. I informed the office of the Attorney General in Nitra that thes e articles ... are nothini;: more than poli,tical r eflections and attacks and their suppression cannot be justified by law. I hope that similar cases will not be repeated .. ,64 But the censorship policy was not modified by a few decisions in favor of the opposition's press. Another procedure used by the opposition press to �126 SLOVAKIA counteract the effects of censorship was to send the first printed copy to the censor's office and simultaneously to deliver several hundred copies to the public vendors. The Bratislava readers were usually waiting and so at least some of them were able to obtain uncensored copies, which passed clandestinely from hand to hand. The procedure was the same for the towns and villages near the capital city of Bratislava. Workers, employees, railroadmen and occasional travelers, women from the villages selling vegetables in the market, all cooperated in smuggling the uncensored copies of newspapers out of Bratislava. Most helpful in this distribution of uncensored copies were the Slovak railroadmen. Each town in which the train stopped, had its copy of the uncensored newspaper. This was done with the utmost caution, since those involved could have been charged with a criminal act against the security of the State at the risk of imprisonment or loss of job. After the censor completed his job, the Attorney-General ordered the police to confiscate the newspaper. The policemen seized the unsold uncensored copies from the news-stands. In coffeehouses they seized uncensored copies from the hands of readers, who had not reali21ed in good time the presence of the officers and failed to hide their copies. Articles from confiscated political, social and cultural periodicals, were typed and distributed among interested people, chiefly university students and graduates, who formed little clubs to discuss them. The same was done with confiscated books or volumes of poetry. The writer recalls how, after the publication of Sidor's and Mach's books, mentioned previously, he was given one typewritten copy of the censored parts of the books, and was required to type at least fiV'e new copies and distribute them among five other persons. Such distribution was possible only among persons who were trustworthy and of the same political convictions. The result was that almost everybody in Slovakia could have his own copy of the censored parts of the books. The secretariats of the political parties cooperated with students, workers and peasants in this underground press and the solidarity of the nation as a whole was wonderful. It is true that many people were caught and penalized, but that was the risk. �SLOVAKIA 127 Students in foreign countries supplied information about the views of the foreign press on the Slovak problem and themselves published the Slovak viewpoint in foreign newspapers. They smuggled into the country articles about Slovakia from the foreign press. The customs examination of Slovak students traveling abroad or returning from foreign countries was viery thorough. The clandestine importing of news reports from abroad was even more dangerous than the distribution of censored articles in Slovakia. If caught in possession of any news item unfavorable to Czecho-Slovakia, a person could be prosecuted for "association with the enemies of the State", for espionage, or for plotting against the State. Information brought from abroad was discussed only in small confidential groups of students and intellectuals, and secret reports were given to certain leaders of political parties. The Czechs were not generally able to identify the persons responsible for this smuggling of information. But they never forgot. During his studies in Zagreb (Croatia) in 1937 or 1938, one of my friends wrote several articles about the oppression of the Slovaks in Czecho-Slovakia. For these and other articles written for the Croatian press ten years later in 1947 he was sentenced by a Czech Communist "people's court" to eight years in prison. CONCLUSION Freedom of the press consist~ in the free gathering of information, in free communication, in the free publication of information, in the free printing and distribution of published information and in the free subscription and free reading of published information. In Czecho-Slovakia these freedoms were very limited and in Slovakia they were practically non-existent. If one succeeded in gathering information, it became impossible to communicate it if the Czechs felt that it criticized or threatened their hegemony. To publish such information signified sure intervention of the censor and meant the consequent confiscation of the entire edition of the book or periodical, in which it was published. To diffuse information confiscated by the censor was �128 SLOVAKIA considered by the Czechs as an act against the security of the State. The freedom to subscribe to and to read published information was also very limited. Anyone found to be in possession of censored information was ,exposed to the danger of being arrested and penalized. From pertinent material available to the writer and from his own experiences in Czecho-Slovakia in the years 1918-1938, he has reached the conclusion that despite the constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press, censorship in its most drastic form was widely employed against the opposition and the minorities in direct contradiction to the Constitution and the so-called "democratic" system which it guaranteed. Public opinion in Slovakia could not manifest itself freely in the press and information was diffused chiefly through the channels generally resorted to by underground organizations. The people of Slovakia learned to read and interpret the blank spaces of the censored newspapers and what they "read" this way was much more unfavorable to the Czech system than the impression the censored words would have provoked. The impossibility of frank discussion had created an atmosphere of hatred in which the Slovaks renounced once and for all any discussion with the Czechs. They began to take their own course which led logically to the unanimous declaration of the independent Slovak Republic, March 14, 1939, by the autonomous Slovak Parliament. Censorship applied against the Slovaks proved that freedom cannot be suppressed indefinitely, because it is a part of the condition of our life, our development, and our progress. In its essence our soul is free. Whoever suppresses the freedom of others, will himself lose freedom. The Czechs lost their freedom on the very day when the Slovaks declared their independence. Bohemia became a Protectorate of Germany. When with the aid of the Soviet army and through the indifference of the Western world, the Czechs enslaved the Slovaks a second time after World War II, they lost their freedom too, and became a satelite of Soviet Russia. In order �SLOVAKIA 129 to keep the Slovaks in Czech slavery, they sold their own freedom to the Muscowite tyrant, exposing to Red danger the entire Central and Occidental Europe. The words of the great Slovak poet Jan Kollar (17931852) are most appropriate here: Whoever respects the freedom of others Is himself worthy of freedom. Whoever enslaves with handcuffs Is himself a slave ! 65 FOOTNOTES 1. "The Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic", with introduction by Ji:ri Hoetzl and V. Joachim, American Association for International Conciliation, Pt,blications, No. 179 (October 1922), 2. 3. Ibid., p. 443. Karl Falk, "Strife in Czechoslovakia: The German Minority Question", Foreign Policy Reports, XIV, (March 15, 1938), p. 4. The Cleveland Pact stipulated that the Slovaks and Czechs would form II federative union of states. Slovakia was to enjoy complete national autonomy, including its own Parliament and government administration, its own political and financial institutions, complete freedom to develop culturally and the right to use Slovak as its official language. The form of government was to be democratic, operating in a union of two autonomous states. The Pittsburgh Pact guaranteed that "Slovakia shall have its own administration, its own tribunals and its own Parliament. Slovak shall be the official language in schools, in government offices and in public life in general." Sbirka zakonu a narizeni statu ceskoslovenskeho. Part 23 (March 31, 1923), pp. 207-218. Sbirka zakonu a nafizen£ statu ceskoslovenskeho. (1920) . Ibid. Part 44 (July 15, 1933) pp. 708-709. Sbirka zakonu a nafizeni statu ceskoslovenskeho. Part 44 (July p. 441. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8 15, 1933), p. 707. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. Ibid. ( 1933) p. 771. Ibid. Part 56 (July 7, 1934) pp. 513-516. Sbirka zakonu a nafizeni statu ceskoslovenskeho. (1934), p. 598. Ibid. (1935), p. 527. Ibid. (1937), p. 786. Ibid. Part 44 (July 15, 1933) pp. 709-714. Sbirka zakonu a narizeni statu ceskoslovenskeho. Part 35, (May 23, 19i6) pp. 477-479. I!Jid. pp. 479-541. Imrich Stanek, Zrada a pad. (Praha: Statnf Nakladatelstvf Politicke Literatury, 1958), p. 33. �SLOVAKIA 130 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. Imrich Stanek, Op. cit., p. 41. Ibid., p. 33. Ibid., p. 34. Imrich Stanek, Op. cit., p. 34. Ibid., p. 35. loc. cit. loc. cit. loc. cit. Ibid., pp. 38-39. Ibid., p. 39. Ibid., p. 40. Ibid., p. 32. Ibid., pp. 41-43. Lucy Maynard Salmon, The newspaper and authority. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1923), p. 3. Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka (1864-1926), Bratislava: Knihtlaciaren Sv. Andrej a, 1934), p. 359. Culen, Konstantin. "Sloboda tlace v CSR", Bratstvo, (May 23, 1951). Machacek, Pavol. "Katovia sa raduju", Slovenske .l!udove Novi· ny", (August 10, 1923). pp. 1-2. Ceskoslovenska Republika, Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. 150, (1922). Karol Sidor, Op. cit., pp. 487-488. Ibid., p. _426. Ibid., p. 425. Culen, Konstantin, "Slaboda tlace v CSR", Bratstvo, (May 23, 1951). C. A. Macartney, Hungary and her successors, pp. 137-139. "Azda takto", Nastup, (November 1, 1933), p. 163. "Nerovny boj", Nastup, (November 1, 1933), p. 162. Ceskoslovenska Republika, Niirodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. 5280, (1925). Head of a region. Administrative region of Slovakia. Sano Mach, Vo viheni, (Bratislava: Jednota, 1930). Ceskoslovenska Republika, Niirodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, 'l)sky, No. 2799, (1934). Culen, Konstantin. "Slaboda tlace v CSR", Bratstvo, (May 23, 1951). Ceskoslovenska Socialne demokraticka strana. Protokol sjazdu z 12. a 22. aprila 1922, p. 203. Ceskoslovenska Republika. Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka· Snemovna, Tisky, 1. volebni obdobi, 2. zasedani, No. 1882, 1921. Op. cit., No. IV/4098, 1923. (;ulen, Kon~tantin, "Slcboda tlace v CSR", Bratstvo, (May 23, 1951). �SLOVAKIA 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. fi3. 64. 65. 131 ceskoslovenska Republika, Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. 3584, (June 21, 1922.). ceskoslovenska Republika, Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. XXI/4226, (April 26, 1923). ceskoslovenska Republika, Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. VI/4636, (May 27, 1924). Slovak, July 23, 1933. Slovak, J anuary 26, 1934. Tisk a novinari, XII, No. 5, (1938). Druhy kruh diskusnich vecerii Narodni Rady ceskoslovenske", Cechoslovak a nase zahranici. Vsenarodni mesicnik. Vol. XV, No. 4-5, (April-May, 1935), p. 100. ceskoslovenska Republika, Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, 1937, VI. volebne obdobi, 5 zasedani, No. 876/ VI, April 8. Ibid, XV/4226, (May 25, 1923). ceskoslovenska Republika. Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, 628/IX, (September 16, 1930). ceskoslovenska Republika. Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. 2951, (1934). ceskoslovenska Republika. Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, I. volebni obdobi, 5. zasedani, No. 2591, (July 28, 1922), pp. 10-11. Jan Kollar, Slavy dcera. 1824. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS <::incik, Joseph G. Anglo-Saxon and Slovak-Avar Patterns of the Cuthbert Gospel. Series Cyrilomethodiana, v. 1. Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1958. Delaney, Edward L. False freedom . Los Angeles: Sequoia University Press, 1954. Diplomaticus. The Czechs and their minorities. London, Thornton Butterworth, (1938). Durcansky, Ferdinand. Pohl'ad na slovensku politicku minitlost'. Bratislava: Ludotypia, 1943. Hrusovsky, Frantisek. Slovenske dejiny. 6th ed. Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1940. Kerr, Walter. Criticism and censorship. Milwaukee: Bruce, 1956. Kimball, Young and Lawrence, Raymond D. Bibliography on censorship and propaganda. University of Oregon publications, v. 1, 1928. Journalism series, No. 1. Eugene: University Press, 1928. Mach, Sano. Vo viizeni. Censored ed. Bratislava: Jednota, 1930. Macartney, C. A. Hungary and her successors. The treaty of Trianon and its consequences, 1919-1937. New York, Oxford University Press, 1937. McKean, Richard et al. The freedom to read. Perspective and program. New York: R. R. Bowker, 1957. �SLOVAKIA 132 Miskovic, Alojz and Pisut, Milan. Dejiny slovenskej literatury pre VI. triedu slovenskych gymnazii a pre ucitel'ske akademie. Bratislava: Statne nakladatel'stvo, 1941. Mraz, Andrej. Die Literatur der Slovaken. Berlin: Volk und Reich Verlag, n. d. Salmon, Lucy Maynard. The newspaper and authority. New York: Oxford University Press, 1923. Seton-Watson, R. W. A history of the Czechs and Slovaks. New York: Hutchinson and Co., 1943. Sidor, Karol. Andrej Hlinka (1864-1926). Censored ed. Bratislava: Knihtlaciareii Sv. Andreja, 1934. -Andrej Hlinka (1864-1926). Uncensored ed. Bratislava: Knihtlaciarer1 Sv. Andreja, 1934. - Slovcici v zahranicnom odboji. Bratislava: Jednota, 1928. Slovensky Oslobodzovaci vybor. Prcivo Slovcikov na samostatnost' vo svet• le dokumentov. Sv. 1: Biela kniha. By Ferdinand Durcansky. Buenos Aires: Dorrego, 1954. Stanislav, Jan. Slovanski apostoli Cyril a Metod • ich cinnost' vo Vel'ko• moravskej risi. Bratislava: Academia Scientiarum et Artium Slovaca, 1945. Thomas, S. Harris. Czechoslovakia in European history. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944. Zubek, Theodoric J., O.F.M., S.T.D. The Church of silence in Slovakia. Published by John J. Lach, 1956. PAMPHLETS Comite d'action Slovaque. Aide-memoire sur la necessite de plebiscite en Slovaquie. Paris: 1946. Comite d'action Slovaque. Aide-memoire sur l'existence de la Republique Slovaque et sur la necessite de conclure le traite de paix avec elle. Paris: 1946. Durcansky, Ferdinand. The international asp zct of the Slovak question. New York: Slovak Liberation Committee, 1954. Jakobson. R. Slavic languages. New York: Columbia University Press, 1955. Slovak Action Committee, Slovak National Council in London, Slovak League of America and Canadian Slovak League of Canada. Memorandum presented to the Peace Conference concerning the rationality of existence of Czecho-Slovakia. Paris: 1946. Th e Slovaks and the Pittsburgh Pact. (Chi cago) : The Slovak Catholic Federation of America, 1934. Stewart, John F. Slovakia, its people and right to sovereign independence and freedom. Information leaflets, No. 7. Edinburgh: Scottish League for European Fre<>dom, n. d. PERIODICALS AND ARTICLES "Azda takto," Ncistup (Nove.' llber 1, 1933). ceskoslovensko a na.se zahrar,;i:i, XV, No. 4-5 (April-May, 1935). "The Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic", with introduction �SLOVAKIA 133 by Jiri Hoetzl and V. Joachim. American Association for International Conciliation, Publications, No. 179) (October, 1922). culen, Konstantin. "Sloboda tlace v cSR", Bratstvo (May 23, 1951). Falk, Karl. "Strife in Czechoslovakia", Foreign Policy Reports, XIV (March 15, 1938). Hlinka, Andrej. "Protestujeme", Slovak (December 22, 1921). "Komu osozi cenzura?", Zem, III, No. 9 (May 5, 1937). Machacek, Pavel "Katovia sa raduju", Slovenske l'udove noviny, (August 10, 1923). "Nedorozumenie medzi autonomistickou tlacou a bratislavskym cenzorom", Slovak, (August 27, 1933). "Nerovny boj", Nastup (November 1, 1933) . "Neustale habanie Slovaka", Slovak (August 27, 1933). " O cenzure", Slovak (May 16, 1934). "Pracuje cenzura pre stat alebo pre politicke strany?", Slovak (September 15, 1933). "Preco nas cenzurovali", Slovak (April 29, 1934). "150 rocna cenzura rakuska platna este aj v republike", Slovak (June 11, 1933). Slovak (June 11, 1933). Slovak (September 15, 1933). Slovak (January 26, 1934). Slovak (June 13, 1934). Taylor, Paul B. "Partition of Czechoslovakia", Foreign Policy Reports, (November 15, 1938). - "Germany's expansion in Eastern Europe", Foreign Policy Reports, XV (May 15, 1939). Tisk a novinai'i, XII, No. 5 (1938). PUBLIC DOCUMENTS ceskoslovenska Republika. Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna. Tisky. Years: 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924. 1925, 1926, 1929, 1930, 1934, 1935. Sbirka zakonu a narizeni statu ceskoslovenskeho. Years: 1920, 1922, 1923, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1~37. THESIS Woytko, Sister Mary Gabrielle, 0.P. Slovakia's road to statehood. A Study of the efforts of Slovakia to secure national independence. Thesis submitted to the Graduate School of Duquesne University as a thesis under the title "A study of the efforts of Slovakia to secure national independence" in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts. (Published by John Lach, 1957). � SLOVAKIA 93 CENSORSHIP POLICIES IN CZECHO-SLOVAKIA 1918-1938 WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON SLOVAKIA Eugene Urban ABSTRACT By means of clever propaganda, the Czecho-Slovak Republic became known as an exemplary democratic State and the ethnic groups living within her boundaries were enjoying a personal, cultural, political and economic freedom. But the reality was exactly the opposite. The CzechoSlovak Republic was nothing but a big concentration camp for four million Slovaks, three and half million Germans, seven hundred thousand Ukrainians, six hundred thousand Magyars, one hundred fifty thousand Poles, etc., the Czechs enjoying the privileged position of guards. The real objective of the Czecho-Slovak Republic was to deprive the different ethnic groups of their national identity and, at their expense, to enlarge herself to the point of becoming a power among the others of Europe. The Slovaks, a very nationally selfconscious group, differing from the Czechs in language, traditions, culture, customs, and character, were guaranteed 1918 that the new Republic would be a confederation of two States: the Slovak and the Czech. But the Czechs failed to keep their promises and pacts and instead they treated Slovakia as a colony. One of the weapons used to suppress the desire of the Slovaks to be again a free and independent nation was the censorship of the press, the most effective medium of communication. The aim was to blot out all remembrance of Slovqk historical traditions, and to suppress the individuality and evidence of an oid cultural nation in the very heart. of Europe - a nation which has made its contributions to the building up of Western Christian culture and civilization. And, although the Czecho-Slovak Constitution had guaranteed freedom of the press, several laws were later enacted to make censorship legal. But the Slovaks defended them- �94 SLOVAKIA selves as well as they could in Parliament and with "underground" means of communication. Czecho-Slovak Laws Concerning Freedom of Press, Speech, and Association. Theory and Practice The freedoms of press and association in the CzechoSlovak Republic were guaranteed in paragraph 113, (1) of the Constitution accepted by the Revolutionary National Assembly on the 29th of February, 1920: Freedom of the press as well as the right to assemble peaceably and without arms and to form associations is guaranteed. It is therefore in principle inadmissible to place the press under preliminary censorship.I Paragraph 117 guaranteed the freedom of expression of opinion: Every person may within the limits of the law express his or h er opinion by word, in writing, in print, by picture, etc. The same applies to legal persons within the limits of their competence. No one shall suffer in the ,sphere of his work or emloyment for excercising this right.2 According to these articles of the C o n s t i t u t i o n, Czecho-Slovakia had no press law of its own. The press was supposed to be free of Government interference and to serve the genuine interests of the various ethnical groups living in Czecho-Slovakia. It was supposed, also, that they would be free to assemble in political, cultural, religious, economical, etc. organizations and to secure through them their rights. Except for the Czechs, all other ethnical groups were integrated in Czecho-Slovakia without being given opportunity to express their will freely. With regard to the Slovaks, the Constitution was in direct contradiction to the spirit and letter of the Cleveland and Pjttsburgh Pacts signed by the Slovaks and Czechs in Cleveland, Ohio, October 5, 1915 and in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 30, 1918. 3 This latter was signed moreover by President Tomas G. Masaryk. According to these two pacts, Czecho-Slovakia was supposed to be a federation of both the Slovak and the Czech States. 4 But these pacts were not included in the Constitution. �SLOVAKIA !)5 The representatives for Slovakia who voted in Parliament for the acceptance of this anti-Slovak Constitution were not elected by the people, but appointed by the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Prague from a minority group advocating integration with the Czech nation. The Constitution was in flagrant contradiction to the spirit and the principles on which Czecho-Slovakia had been created. In the first years of her existence, the discontent of the Slovaks and of the other minorities with Czech imperialism and centralism early started to manifest itself, and this particularly in the periodical press and at the meetings of the political parties. The Czechs did not delay in their retaliation. They replaced the guarantees of paragraph 113 of the Constitution with a series of laws by which the freedom of the press was practically nullified. Not having a press law of their own, the Czech majority in the Prague Parliament made use of the old Austrian press law No. 119/ 1873 (May 23) and No. 142/ 1868 (October 15) of the Austrian Code, and the Hungarian law No. XIV /1914 to suppress freedom of the press. These were the oppressive laws of the old Au.stro-Hungarian regime against which both Slovaks and Czechs fought in the Parliaments of Vienna and Budapest. It has been said repeatedly that Czecho-Slovakia was created to liberate the Czechs and Slovaks from the Austro-Hungarian yoke. It is an ironic fact that Dr. Tomas G. Masaryk, the first President of Czecho-Slovakia, who as deputy for Bohemia, had condemned these laws in the Parliament of Vienna, now signed and approved them as the laws of the land, as law No 50/1923 (March 19), paragraph 34.5 The co-founder of the Czecho-Slovak Republic and her second President, Dr. Eduard Benes, who was also theoretically a defender of the freedom of the press, also signed law No. 50/1923. The same law No. 50/ 1923 provided for the defense of the Republic, and paragraph 34 stipulated the conditions under which the publication of periodicals might be prohibited. Law No. 3006 was drawn up on April 14, 1920; it was later supplemented by law No. 125/ 1933 (July 10)7, according to which the State's Security Bureau, without a judicial order could demand the c o n f i s c a t i o n and opening of letters �96 SLOVAKIA and other items transported by mail. It could prohibit public meetings and it could impose special conditions upon the activities of associations or prohibit them. Paragraph 10 was concerned with the press. The State's Security Bureau could limit or impose special conditions for the publication and distribution of periodicals, or prohibit their publication. It could order the editor of a periodical to present, two hours before its publication, copies for preventive censorship. The same Bureau could put under surveillance or prohibit the activities of printing shops, of distributing companies, and of press agencies. It could also prohibit possession of printing presses and other means of reproducing writings and illustrations by private persons. Law No. 50/1923, for the defense of the Republic, was enacted in a period when Czecho-Slovakia was fully recognized and her existence insured by International Peace Treaties. This law was not addressed against her enemies from abroad, but to deal with the growing dissatisfaction from inside. Especially in Slovakia the discontent was alarming. The fact that the Czechs violated the Pacts of Cleveland and Pittsburgh were the most powerful reasons for this discontent. Law 50/1923 was enacted in order to give the Czechs a weapon to terrorize the dissatisfied Slovaks and the other minorities. It fixed the penalty for military treason, for violation of State secrets, for offence to the President of the Republic, for any challenge to commit penal acts or not to fulfill legal obligations, for approving the crime, for associating against the State, for the spread of false reports, etc. All the paragraphs of this law were appliable also to the periodical press. Directly concerned with the periodical press was paragraph 34 of this law. It gave the Government's ooreaus power to prohibit the publication of periodicals. The period of suspension of publication was established as one month for periodicals published at least five times a week, two months for those published at least three times a week, and six months for those purlished less than this. But this law seemed not to be strict enough for the Czech Government. Ten years larer, law No. 50/1923 was completed and changed by the law No. 124/ 1933 (July 10).8 This new law extended the list of "crimes and offences" �SLOVAKIA 97 for which the publication of a periodical could be suspended and gave the Government the right to enlarge the validity of paragraph 34 by a simple government decree. The suspension period of periodicals was enlarged from one to three months and from two to six months. Not even that was enough for the Government of CzechoSlovakia. The Governmental Decree No. 150/1933 (July 18),9 published ten days later, again increased the number of paragraphs which could be violated by the press and added to the number of crimes and offences also the infringements of these laws. One year later a new law No. 140/ 1934 was drawn up. (July 10), 10 which changed and completed the law No 50/ 1923, the law No. 124/ 1933 and the Government Decree No. 150/ 1933. The number of possible penal acts was increased again. The Government was empowered to prolong the validity of these laws for another two years. The distribution of transgressing periodicals could be prohibited in all stores which sold the products of the State's monopoly (tobacco, stamps, salt, etc.) or in the buildings and stations of the State owned railways (there were only State owned railways in Czecho-Slovakia). These periodicals could be also deprived of the right to use special tariffs and of the right of transportation by mail or by railroads. The same law compelled all periodicals to publish free, without change or comment, on their first or second page, by usual types of letters, and in the largest edition, official declarations of the President, the Vice-President, the Prime-Minister, members of the Government, etc., appealing to this law. A new Government Decree No. 163/ 1934 (July 16) 11 further extended the number of "crimes, offences and infringements" for which the publication of a periodical could be suspended. Two other government decrees, No. 157 / 1935 (July 13) 12 and No. 165/ 1937 (July 24) 13 , prolonged the validity of the paragraph 34 of the law No. 50/ 1923 and the subsequent laws until the 13th July 1939. Another law, No. 126/ 1933 (July 10) 14 was concerood with the distribution (col portage) of periodicals. The distribution of periodicals which directly or indirectly subvert or put blame on the independence, Constitutional unity, the �98 SLOVAKIA integrity and the democratic and republican form of the State or the democratic order in the Czecho-Slovak Republiccould be prohibited. This right could also be taken away from those periodicals which "menace the public peace and order, especially by publishing false news and news which distort the truth". The distribution in Czecho-Slovakia of periodicals published abroad could be also prohibited. It was prohibited to distribute periodicals in the schools and in the military quarters. The Regional Office was entitled to prohibit the distribution of periodicals published in Czecho-Slovakia, while the Ministry of Interior in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could prohibit the distribution of periodicals published in foreign countries. Paragraph II of this law required publication of any correction asked by a person who felt that the content of some article published by the periodical was offensive to him or that information given was untrue. And finally the law No. 130/ 1936 (May 13)15 was enacted, which completed the previous National Defense laws for the defense of the Republic. This law established capital punishment for many crimes against law No. 50/ 1923. It also prohibited the publication of news regarding military treason if not approved previously by the Ministry of National . Defense. All these laws and Government Decrees were climaxed by • National Defense Law No. 131/ 1936 (May 13)16 for the defense of the State. This law gave the Government absolute power in a national emergency to suspend all laws, all rights and liberties. It gave the Government the right to censor the press, films, telegrams, telephone conversations, letters, packages sent by mail, phonographs records, etc. It established preventive censorship and gave the State's Security Bureau the power to prohibit the publication and distribution of periodicals. The importation of periodicals from abro.ad ·could be also prohibited. The law provided for the establishment of a commission which would direct and carry out the censorship policy. The Government was given in fact dictatorial powers: and this law was generally considered as the last nail in the coffin of democracy in Czecho-Slovakia. �SLOVAKIA 99 Objectives and Methods of Czechoslovak Censorship Policies From the analysis of censored material it is possible to learn much about the objectives pursued by the Czech Government in the case of Slovakia. Previous mention has been made of the profound antagonism developed between the Slovaks and Czechs as a result of the Czech violation of the Cleveland and Pittsburgh pacts. The Czech wanted to denationalize the Slovaks by forcing them to accept the false claim that Slovaks are Czechs and that the Slovak language is a Czech dialect. To obtain this aim, the Czechs made use of various means. They created a wave of terrorism, using the armed forces, police, gendarmery and the C z e ch national organizations, especially "Sokol" known for both its atheism and chauvinism. They also sent hundreds of thousands of Czech teachers and Czech Government officials into Slovakia, thereby forcing the Slovaks, who were denied jobs in their own country, to emigrate because of hunger and unemployment. They further contributed to the economic impaverishrnent of Slovakia by dismantling its heavy industry and transporting the productive machinery to Bohemia. In this way production was stopped and the enterprises were forced to dose. Many factory buildings were purposely demolished .and many mines flooded.17 The steel, chemica:l, glass and leather industries suffered most cruelly. When the workers, deprived of their jobs demonstrated to prevent the dismantling of the factories and machinery, the Czech soldiers and the gendarmery killed many of them. 18 In the period from 1918 to 1932, 261 enterprises were closed down in Slovakia. From 1933 to 1937 another 425 enterprises were dismantled, bringing the total number to 686. 19 Meanwhile, new industries were founded in Bohemia which logically belonged in Slovakia, since Slovakia provided the raw materials used in them.20 The transportation tariffs in Slovakia were about 40 percent higher than in Bohemia and Moravia. Consequently the Slovak coal was more expensive than coal imported from Bohemia. 21 Further discrimination was manifest in the field of housing construction. 22 �100 SLOVAKIA From 1921 to 1923 Slovakia received only 6 per cent of the State's subsidies for the unemployed, although the unemployment in Slovakia was higher than in Bohemia. 23 From the sum assigned by the Government for the construction and maintenance of schools of higher education and Universities, Slovakia received 10 per cent, while the educational institutions in Slovakia were to be built up almost entirely. 24 The result: Slovakia had only one incomplete University and no Polytechnical Institute, while the Czechs had several, and the German minority had two Universities and two Polytechnical Institutes. Further, the Slovak University was practically a Czech University, because the professors named by the Government were all Czechs. Salaries for the Slovaks were about 20 per cent lower than for the Czechs. While Slovakia abounded in natural resources, especially for the production of energy, the petroleum lamp was the usual source of light. The combined savings of five Slovak citizens were equal to the savings of a single Czech. Czech capital absorbed whatever Slovak industry still remained after its dismantling. Slovak banks were engulfed by Czech banks, and foreign capital was allowed to supplant the remaining Slovak capital. 25 When agrarian reform was inaugurated in Slovakia, only 21 per cent of the land was sold to Slovak peasants, while the rest was distributed free to the Czechs. 26 The discrimination against Slovak peasants in transportation tariffs and taxes resulted in frequent strikes. Instead of offering to improve their desperate condition, the Government gave the order to fire at the strikers.27 Their hopeless situation led them to emigrate in large numbers to the U.S.A., Canada, Argentina, France, Germany and Belgiurn. 28 Slovakia was treated like a colony by the Czechs. They regarded Slovakia only as an object of exploitation, a reservoir of cheap labor and a market for the products of Czech industries. The Czech Government aimed to keep Slovakia as an underdeveloped agricultural country. 29 Practically all the administrative positions in Slovakia were filled by Czechs, whose salaries also were double those of the Slovaks. 30 In Slovakia political oppression worked hand in hand with economic injustice. Aware of Czech chauvinism, the Slovaks began early �SLOVAKIA \'yd»od1 denne ~rem pondelk.a Zdkladafel' a YO!ICA ; Andrei ffllnka 101 Br611slava,. slreda 6. m11e. t9H 1Grecki povsfalci chysfaju illok na Affleny Rozvral na Balk6ne, alebo vffllZSlvo greckel vl6dy - Bulbarsko vyslela voJsko na grkke brank:e ·• •11>1 ••• ~-••U ,.....,n,&aJ-.. ,.,,..,., .. ~i,---iol,f . .•• ~ ~ - : . • ~ ,• :'" .:.:.•\.:=: tf~i~~l~~t;~~~ ~fiff;[f~!~1f[~tt¥.Jlf§ l{if;}~t~¥.K~~ The whitewashed newspapers had to be presented in a new form: A corrected issue was printed after the confiscation to organize politically. The great Slovak patriot Msgr. Andrej Hlinka founded the Catholic and nationalist Slovak People's Party. Its program aimed at autonomy for Slovakia in accordance with the decrees of the Pittsburgh Pact (1918). The Protestant leader, poet, and writer, Rev. Martin Razus, restored the Slovak National Party. In order to hinder Slovak political association, the Czechs established branches of their own parties in Slovakia. By means of political intrigue and corruption they attained a measure of success, but the majority of Slovaks resolutely opposed them. Because of �102 SLOVAKIA the forced intergration of Slovakia with Bohemia, and the denial of Slovakia's right to self-determination, the fiftyfive Slovak deputies were invariably outvoted by the Czech majority in the Prague Parliament. The Czechs employed terrorist tactics also against Slovak political parties, imposing on them a relentless censorship of the press and disruption of their public meetings. By such means they strove to impede direct communication between the Slovak people and their political leaders. The press was a high-powered tool in the hands of the Slovak political parties. It introduced new ideas, it taught the people to recognize and support their own national interest, it pointed out the injustices committed against the Slovak nation by the Government and it suggested ways to remedy the situation. Public meetings served the same purpose, demonstrating by enthusiastic attendance the growing strength of the Slovak nation. Consequently, public meetings were dissolved by government agents whenever the speaker criticized the government, and troops and police were ordered to charge against the protesting Slovaks. Many Slovaks were killed and wounded by Czech bullets. The censor deleted from the press every criticism of Government officials and legislative bodies, in order to cover their misdeeds and keep the people uninformed. The second purpose was to hinder opposition parties from communicating with their readers and voters. In the hope of keeping such ideas in the background and forcing on the Slovaks the false notion of a "Czechoslovak nation and people", the Czech censor confiscated articles dealing with Slovakia's national identity and its right to self determination. The Czech determination to eradicate religion from Slovak public life must remain under cover, hence the censor suppressed all articles and reports of the desecration of churches by the Czechs and the removal of crosses from schools. In the eyes of the Czechs it was a most serious crime for the Slovak press to publicize the struggle of the Slovak people for autonomy, for the right to govern themselves, to run their own schools; in short, to enjoy all the rights of nationhood belonging to them as a nation. The Czechs seem �SLOVAKIA 103 to have naively thought that without the press to remind them of their rights the Slovaks would drop the issue. The Slovaks were not allowed to read reports on CzechoSlovakia in press. The Czech Government feared that this would more profoundly motiviate their political aspirations. Practically all the statements and resolutions of the Slovak political parties were censored in order to stifle opposition and prevent the natural political development of the Slovak nation. Reports of the activity of Slovak organizations in the United States of America were yet another object of the censor's displeasure, because these organizations were strongly in favor of autonomy for Slovakia. The two presidents of Czecho-Slovakia, Masaryk and Bene~, were unassailable in the press. The slightest criticism, whether by Czechs or by Slovaks, was taboo and automatically censored out. A legend was built up around these two men, making them untouchable as if they were the apex of perfection. To perpetuate it no criticism of their many human foibles and moral lapses was tolerated. The real objective of Czech cenzorship was to suppress the facts of Slovak history with their underlying appeal to self-respect and to strike out these glorious moments of the past which could fortify the Slovak political and national fight for the realization of their ideal of freedom and independence. Censorship was thorough. It made impossible any attempt by the Slovaks and other minority groups to charge the Czech government with undemocratic practices. Meanwhile the Czechs were using it to create a "great Czech nation" at the expense of the other ethnic groups living in Czecho-Slovakia and disregarding their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Their ultimate goal was to achieve a dominant position among the small States in Central Europe. In a word, Czech censorship was a tool of Czech imperialism and its faithful servant. It was the ruthless Czech antidote to the self-determination and national development of the Slovak nation and the other minorities in the CzechoSlovak Republic. As such, Czech censorship was diametrically opposed to the principles of democracy, freedom, and human progress. �104 SLOVAKIA "Authority is conservative ... freedom is progressive .. . conflict between the two is inevitable", says Lucy Maynard Salmon, 31 in reference to freedom of the press. Since Czech censorship was directed against human progress, freedom, and democracy, the means it employed could only have been wicked. It stopped at nothing to attain its objectives. Nothing was immoral if it served the Czech goal of domination. Czech post office and railway employees often seized entire editions of the opposition's periodicals and destroyed them. Soldiers were often ordered to raid newspaper and party offices to confiscate mailing lists and manuscripts. This happened in Trnava, Leopoldov, Bratislava, and elsewhere. Sometimes the soldiers reduced the place to shambles. Consequently, readers in the capital city itself were often deprived of their papers. Karol Sidor reported in the March 22, 1919 issue of the Slovak: " Orders have been given (,b y Czech officials) to destroy the SLOVAK. Revorts have been pouring in from all parts of Slovakia that the SLOVAK, ofl!!c!al PU!bl!cation of the Slovak 'People's Party, has been seized by scoundrels and its sale and dlstriburtion prohibited."32 Kon~tantin Culen wrote: "In the early yea,rs the SLOVAK was subjected to as many as three censorsihips: political, military, and economic. Some issues of the newspaper ,bore the inscription, "Thrice censored and corrected edition". Even these multi-censored copies were sometimes thrown out of trains en route by Czech mailmen. Slovak employees who dared to subscribe to the Sl.lOVAK endangered their livelihood. And when even this did not dauRt them, they were personally terrorized by the police and government of!lclals .33 Oftentimes newspapers were deprived of the right of distribution (colportage). Post offices were instructed to refuse money orders sent to the opposition newspapers. Persons who subscribed to these newspapers were harassed and many were dismissed from government jobs. 34 Court action was taken against editors of newspapers which printed articles unwelcome to the censor. The editors 111.sually assumed responsibility for unsigned articles; hence, many of them were in and out of jail. In a censored article entitled "We protest" Msgr. Andrej Hlinka wrote these bitter words: �SLOVAKIA 105 "We a re involved in doz ens, even hundreds of cour-t ca-ses. Hereafter I will assume full responsibility for every news article, whether written by the editor or by Paul or Saul. J will appear before the judge, I will answer the charges. And when I have been deprived of freedom, when the iron door of my prison has dosed behind me, when I am locked up and begin to burn like an expiatory candle on the a ltar of the fa,therl and, then I will charge you, friends, deputies. and leaders of the P eople's Party: •F ollow me! Let each of you shoulder r esoonsibility for one, two, ten articles, an d all of us will become involved with the courts. But no. I am wrong. Let us not get so involved. Not of our own volition will we become entangled with the courts. We will yield only to brutal compulsion. You Czechs will have to drag us into the courts. And when my right hand has become still and my mortal remains have decomposed, I tell you that a great line will form behind me, eager as I for the glory that is sure to follow. 7ou cannot silence us. You can only massacre us. But one tiling I ask: Do not go on deceiving the world that you are our brothers tsons of the same nation). Never will we consent to be Czechos lovaks ... Slova kia is ours an d we will defend our country against you as we defended it against the Magyars. The more you incriminate ns, the more you imprison us, the more forcef ully will we fight against you." As the representative and chairman of the People's Party, Msgr. Andrej Hlinka spoke out boldly on this subject in Parliament. In June 1922, in the debate arising from his interpellation No. 3584 on the raid of the offices of the Slovak and Eudove noviny, he described the attack as initiated and engineered by government agents. Not only did the assailants wreck office equipment and furniture and destroy books, but they were aided in their orgy of destruction by the police, who should have been maintaining order. The chief of police of Bratislava, Dr. Slavicek, a Czech, declared that he had been unable to check the raid because the majority of his men were hostile to the Slovak People's Party. Andrej Hlinka rightly demanded to know when the Slovaks might expect to have the protection of law and order. 35 Karol Sidor described the demolition and plundering of the offices of the Slovak as follows: On :!\fay 25, 1922 a huge rally was orga nized in Bratislava -to protest. Several Slovak legiona ries and Slovak university students were present. At one 'POint a Czech speaker railed against the SLOVAK. dem <tndlnr; that it be placed under the strictest censorship. An aroused Slovak legionary shouted: "Your aim is to cripple the Catholic press; you would do better to suppress your own anti-Catholic and antiSlovak press." The legionary paid for these words with a cruel beating ... A Slovak university student r eceived th e same treatment, bis �106 SLOVAKIA clothes torn and covered with blood, after he had called out to an abusive Czech speaker, "Please, talk to us in Slovak!" ... ·The speeches continued until 12: 30 p.m. At 1: 00 p.m. the first group of demonstrators appeared in front of the editorial offices or the SLOV.AK . . . Some 1,500 Czech legionaries escorted the demonstrators. Awaiting them was a group of 150-200 men and women who had assembled from the villages to defend SLOVAK property. A fight ensued, but the Czech legionaries with the aid of some 10(} policemen, invaded the editorial offices and broke tables and chairs, flung books, bound journals, manuscripts etc. out the windows. (Czech) legionaries piled •the items into ca,r s and drove away. Other (Czech) legionaries r aided the ,SLOV.AK's administrative offices and worked havoc there also. They carried off valuaibles, including shares and mailing lists. The yard outside ,w as littered with papers. These raids were permitted, even abetted by the police, who together with the legionaries received praise and commendation in the Czech press for their acts of des,truction.36 During the night of March 31, 1920, a certain Czech army major Ludevit Palounek by name, placed a bomb in the Lev printery in Ruzomberok in the hope of destroying the voice of the People's Party and its organ of free discussion. 37 Even the mails were misused: derisive pamphlets were inserted in the bundles of the Slovak, 38 as they were being shipped to their destination. With the growing tension in the relations between the· Slovaks and Czechs, the censorship became more and more despotic. After 1932, there were almost daily confiscations of the Slovak press. The censor received his instructions from the Ministry of the Interior. If the censor found in the piece examined something he considered inadmissible, he deleted it; the· Attorney General then ordered the police to confiscate the publication. The police seized the entire edition and burned it. The publishing house or the editors could make an appeal in court, or a board of representatives in Parliament could protest to the Minister of the Interior, or of Justice, or both. If the censorship was found unfair, the editors or publishers could demand reimbursement for damages. But in most cases they lost the appeal. After confiscation, a newspaper, book, or journal was printed in a new edition with the censored areas left blank. It bore the inscription "Following confiscation, a new and corrected edition" in the upper left corner of the front page of the periodical, or on the cover of the book. �SLOVAKIA 107 After Slovakia achieved independence on March 14, 1939, government officials found in the archives of the Attorney General confidential orders issued by the Czech Government with instructions to the censor as to how many times a week certain newspapers were to be confiscated. After a stated number of confiscations, the periodical could be suspended for three or six months, and after repeated confiscations, it could be suspended indefinitely at the discretion of the censor. This was a most powerful weapon in the hands of the Government, and it was effectively used during the visit of President Edward Benes in Slovakia in 1933. Under the pretex of repeated confiscations, the newspapers Slovak, Slovenska pravda, Narodne noviny and the political review Nastup were suspended, so as to prevent any criticism of Benes's speeches in the press. It was on this visit that he angered the Slovaks by declaring that they must become Czechs. The actions of the censor were despotic because he knew that the Government would not fail to support him. The Slovak and Slovenska pravda were confiscated almost every day. The humoristic weeklies Osa and Kocur were also confiscated, along with the cultural monthlies Pero , Slovenske pohl'ady and Elan. Almanacs, books, poetry collections, and placards were not exempt. Sometimes periodicals were confiscated because of articles reprinted from other non-censored newspapers. For example a periodical was confiscated because it contained a poem originally published in the Slovak-American almanac Jednota. An editorial containing quotations from a book by President Thomas G. Masaryk was also confiscated. An article by the great Slovak writer, Svatozar Hurban Vajansky, published in Hungary at the ~md of the 19th century, was censored when reprinted in Slovak after World War I. Newspapers were confiscated for using the hyphen in the name of the Republic "CzechoSlovakia" although early peace treaties carry the name in this form. 39 On several specific occasions the Czechs declared that it would be dangerous for the future of the Republic if freedom of speech and press were permitted in Slovakia.40 With confiscation being an almost daily occurence, periodicals suffered very heavy losses. It is pertinent to point out that while the Czech party press subsisted on �SLOVAKIA 108 government funds, the Slovak press depended entirely upon the voluntary support of party members, together with subscription fees. The Slovak people understood perfectly the great importance of the press and supported it generously. Only in this way was the Slovak opposition press able to survive such continuous economic strangulation by the Czech Government. Characteristic of the situation are words like the following: " . .. we must perforce decline to publish original articles on topics banned by the government and must limit ourselves to those which have already passed the censor." 41 This is not all. When Slovak representatives protested in Parliament against the policies of the Government and its agencies, their speeches in Parliament were censored and denied publication in the parliamentary record Tisky Poslaneck e Snemovny Nar odniho Shromazdeni Ceskoslovensk e. The bimonthly Nastup wrote: Republiky " Instead of aick now ledging the human righ t to fr eedom of di scussion, th e Czechs pr oh ibited a utonomist meetings a nd r estricted their publications. Now they have resorted to oth er meas ures. "Th e P r esi de nt of th e Senate su ppressed a portion of Dr . Joseph Buday's speech i n ·P a rlia men t. The Presidents of both C hambers of Parl iamen t confiscated a major portion of the statement pr esented by th e representatives of the Slovak People's Party. "An exten ded (95 pages) and repo r tedly objective in ter pellation of th e r epresentatives of the Slovak People's Par ty was als o censored by the Presidents of Par liament and denied publicati on. " T his action was t a ken at a time w h en press censorshi p was so stringent that no politician or political party could f r eely and publicly express a dissenting opinion as far as the Government was concerned. "Ju Slovakia the natio na li st press is pres ently s ubjected to continuous sharp criticism a nd s uppression .. . In view of this we mus t behold with a s tonishment the a d ditional measures taken in Parlia m ent ·to silence the autonomists who are already so effectively silenced by press cens orship . Meanwhile •Slova k centr alists (i.e., Czech p a r tisans ) without hindrance flood Slovakia wit h their uncensored public_ations ."42 The newspaper Nar odne Noviny reported in its November 27, 1936 issue: Statistics show that the number of confiscated publications in Czecho-Slovakia for the given years was as follows~ 1929 1930 1934 Newspapers and periodicals ______ 3,370 Books ___ ______________ __________ 918 2,533 2,138 846 Confiscations 718 �109 SLOVAKIA Foreign books and periodicals _____ 255 Total ______ ________ 4,543 183 3,434 329 3,313 Of these confiscations, 60 to 70% involved Slovak books and periodicals. Censorship of Books Writing under the pseudonym Andrej Zarnov, a student at the University of Bratislava, named Frantisek Subik, made his literary debut in 1925 with the publication of a book of poems which already then showed the promise that was to make him a leading Slovak poet. The title of the book was Straz pri Morave (Sentry at the Morava River) . Finding it too nationalistic, the censor ordered the entire edition confiscated and had it burned at police headquarters. The representatives of the Slovak People's Party challenged this action in the Parliament. They asked the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Justice: 1) Whether they were aware of the confiscation of these poems; 2) Whether they approved; 3) Whether both Ministers were disposed to secure the validity of the Constitution which guarantees freedom of the press; 4) Whether they were disposed to take appropriate disciplinary action against the censor in Bratislava; 5) Whether they were ready to guarantee freedom of the press in Slovakia equal to that in Bohemia. Needless to say, the Czech majority refused to discuss this urgent interpellation in Parliament. 43 On the occasion of Msgr. Andrej Hlinka's seventieth birthday, Karol Sidor, representative in Parliament and editor of the Slovak, published his biography, covering the years 1864-1926. A great admirer and loyal follower of Hlinka, Sidor presented his hero as the key figure in the Slovak political and national struggle for freedom and independence. This 554-page biography suffered 31 deletions totaling some 295 lines, equal to seven pages of the book. It was issued with the customary caption on the cover: "Po konfiskacii nove opravene vydanie" (After confiscation a new and �110 SLOVAKIA corrected edition) and with blankspaces to show where the censor had disapproved. The following lines were deleted on pages 368-369, from Sidor's description of the Czech attack on the meeting of the Slovak People's Party in Zilina, August 17, 1919: With draiwn bayonets, soldiers charged upon the people In the square and scenes of horror ensued. Andrej Hlinka saw hi,s people struck with rifl e 1butts and carried a,way as prisoners to the barracks. Women from Kysuce exposed thei,r breasts to the bayonets and shouted: "Strike here, you curs, and touch not Hlinka ! " On October 10, 1920 Czech military units once more dispersed a meeting of the Slovak People's Party in Namestovo and fired into the crowd, killing two Slovak peasants and seriously wounding ten. On page 442 the description of this savage act was deleted: Bedfich Danek, a Czech lieutenant, scornfully asked a young man weeping over the body of his slain father: "Why do you weep? It ,w as Hlinka who killed him!" Namestovo came to ,be regarded a-s a second Cernova. The Czech press and the Government Press Agency CTK wished to place the blame for this bloodshed on Hlinka. They charged Hlinka with inciting the Slovaks against the Czechs. Hlinka answered in the October 16, 1920 issue of the Slovak. This portion of the article was deleted from the biography: Yes, I did incite the people. I incited them and will continue to Incite •them . My very presence incites them. So much so that it stirs your murky conscience, stained with a ·b rother's blood. I have incited and will continue to incite them to oppose t:he •b ase t,raud you perpetrated against •the !Slovak n ation. W,e •w ill rise up to oppose every injustice. Why should we not be aroused against you, who seized me a year ago in the dead of night and held me captive for six months at Mirov, iBrodek, Podolie, to afford you an opportunity to demoralize and dis• rupt .Slovakia? Should I have danced to your music when you placed bombs in our "Lev" printery, •which had •been established with owhard•earned savin~s? I would be a cowardly traitor If I did not raise my voice, if J did not search for a remedy and seek help. We have incited and lest we be despised by Slovakia, we will not stop inciting our people until w,e win autonomy from you. On page 490 the censor deleted a reference to discrimination against the Slovaks in assigning government jobs: The •Slovaks were unable to procure even the cheapest loaf or government bread in Slovakia; (referring to jobs) their applications were answered with a curt: "Impossible to grant", while t he Czech people, often without qualification, were given the best paid jobs in Slovakia. �SLOVAKIA 111 That is how the newspapers SLOVAK, NARODNIE NOVINY, and the magazine, NASTUP, looked after censorship A quotation on p. 506 from an "Appeal of the Representatives of the Slovak People's Party to the Minister of the Interior" in Prague, September 4, 1923, was confiscated: The authorities spread terror every-where. Civil servants planned the disruption of meetings by force and public safety agencies did nothing to -defend the victims; on the contrary, they cooperated with the agressors. Holle, Nove Zamky, and ,t he riot at Brezova make it clear as day that groups of assailants were organized to incHe rioting and to damage private property. Very heavily censored was the chapter in which Sidor described Hlinka's arrest at midnight. The occasion was his return from the Peace Conference in Paris, where he had delivered to the delegates a Memorandum in which he demanded in the name of the Slovak nation that the Slovaks be given national and civic freedom and their autonomy guaranteed. Hlinka's words to one of his chaplains were censored on page 385. "Proclaim abroad to the wide world the kind of freedom we enjoy in Slovakia. They have come to carry me off like a criminal In the middle of the night when everybody is asleep ... The press reported that I trembled. On the contrary, I felt like a lion. I cared not whether they killed me or jailed me. My blood �112 SLOVAKIA boiled. Indescribable feelings struggled within me. I could not tell which was stronger: my love for my oppress-ed nation or my contempt of the intruders ... " Following Hlinka's deportation, an account of the rebellions of the students and citizens of his parish town, Ruzomberok, was variously deleted as on pages 387, 392 and 393. The description of the terrorism of the Czech soldiers and employees in Slovakia was censored on page 444: November 6, 1920 he (Rev. Frantisek Klein) reported in the SLOVAK that he was traveling by train •with soldiers who insulted him because he was reading the .SIJOV AK. One of ,them asked in Czech: "Why doesn't someone kill tH!inka ?" On pages 458-459 the account of the murderous attack on Hlinka's life in Krupina, June 12, 1921, by a Czech, and the insult to which he was subjected in Sahy two days later by Czech railroadmen was expunged: The following day, June 13, Hlinka set out with companions to Sahy to report the Krupina incident to the "Zupan", [)r. Victor Ravasz. As he was passing through the square a railroadman, named S<tu~hlik and the school inspector, Bartolom/lj Krpelec, both Czechs, confronted him with curses, calling him "bandit" and "agitator". Later at the "zupan's" office, Stuchlik, with 60 co-workers, delivered the following ultimatum: The "zupan" must expel Andrej iHlinka at once from ,the 1Hont "zupa" or suffer the consequences. The railroadmen (all Czechs) also declared that they would not permit Hlinka's train to leave the Sahy station. ·T he "zupan", after appealing to the Ministry in BraJtislava for instructions, assured Blinka that the culprits in both Krupina and Sahy •w ould ,be penalized as an example to others. In the a,fternoon IHlinka ,boarded •the train at Sahy. The station wa,s filled with people, waiting to see the outcome of the contest. The rallroadmen held to their purpose. After a long while the zupan arrive6l at ,t he station. The railroadmen demanded that -he order Hlinka out of the train. Lenghty nego tiations followed. Meanwhile Hlinka waited patiently within ... Finally the "zupan" announced that the ,train was about to depart. At that moment a line of railroadmen formed below the windO'W of Hlinka's compartment. They gave vent to their haitred -b y spitting at Hlinka, cursing and maligning ·h im until the train moved out oE sight. Another incident which occurred in the railroad station Trencianske Teplice, July 5, 1921, was deleted from page 459: A Czech in the station, recogmzmg Hlinka, called out, "Hang Hlinka ! " Andrej IHlinka stepped forward and asked him to identify himself. The Czech continued to shout, but did not give his name ... And a few lines further on the same page: �SLOVAKIA 113 Another •Czech took up the cry, shouting, "Hang Hllnka". The p eople attacked h im, although ,Hlinka- made an effort to calm them. Mea nwhil e the train arrived and he boarded it ,w ith his secretary Ramaj . :Bishop Kmeeko a nd tMsgr. Tiso remained in the station, bu t they were unable to quiet the p eople. Several Czechs were severely beaten . Other subjects censored in Sidor's book were: criticism ·o f President Masaryk's anti-Catholic attitude (page 286) ; daims of job discrimination that while hundreds of thousands of Czechs were given the best paid jobs in Slovakia, often without qualification, more than 300,000 Slovaks were forced to emigrate because of the discrimination against them (pages 345 and 490). Also censored were references to organized Czech terror against the Slovaks, to agression against Hlinka and his followers, to denial of government protection in the exercise of freedom of speech and association, and any account of the formation of defense groups of the Slovak People's Party for the protection of its meetings .against Czech terrorists. Among the deletions were several lines about the general anti-Catholic attitude of the Czech people (page 471). Another censored book was Vo vazeni, written by a young editor of the Slovak, Alexander Mach. 46 The author had been jailed on a charge of conspiracy with Professor Dr. Vojtech Tuka against the integrity of Czecho-Slovakia. After serving part of the sentence, he was exonerated from complicity in the "plot" and released. A year later he published his book about his term in prison. In a manifestly unjust trial Dr. Vojtech Tuka was sentenced to 15 years and liberated after 10 years, when Slovakia won her autonomy on October ·6, 1938. From Mach's book the censor confiscated some 520 lines, totaling 13 pages, or 7 per cent of the 198 pages of the book. Unfortunately, I do not know of any uncensored copy of the book and can therefore quote nothing from it. To illustrate the mental climate in which the author wrote his book, I will cite some lines of his epilogue "Po roku" (After one year): I was in prisoa on charges which cannot at present be freely and sincerely dis cussed. In preparing this accoun t I was hemmed in by restrairut lest I again find myself rb ehind prison bars . I was obliged to limit my remarks lest the censor fo11bid their publication. Difficulties in the selection of material abounded. It was not easy for me to decide what to eliminate, what to omit ... Thus as I prepared �114 SLOVAKIA my narrative rhe penal code was before me. Yet I have remained completely frank; I did not change what I had •w ritten as a prisoner. I preferred only .to eliminate the sensitive issues ... Another example of the censorship of books is furnished by the interpellation presented in the Prague Parliament by the representative Msgr. Dr. Jozef Tiso, concerning the confiscation of the Kalendar Hlinkovej Slovenskej Eudovej Strany na rok 1934 (Almanac of the Hlinka's Slovak People's Party for the year 1934). Two articles which appeared over the name of Msgr. Andrej Hlinka, chairman of the Party, were confiscated. In these articles Hlinka warned the Czechs to stop persecuting the Slovaks for claiming autonomy. Even Czech authors, whom Hlinka quoted to illustrate his articles, were censored. The title of the first article was "Za ~t'astne Slovensko" (For a prosperous Slovakia). In the second article "Uprimne slovo o Nitre" (A frank comment on Nitra) Hlinka analyzed the spontaneous explosion of Slovak discontent at the festivities commemorating the 1,l00th anniversary of the first Christian church on Slovak territory, created in Nitra by Prince Pribina in about 831 A. D. It was, Hlinka declared, a display of resistance to the Prague Government, intent on exploiting these eminently Slovak festivities for their own purposes. Andrej Hlinka, who had been refused the right to speak on the program, was carried up to the stage and backed by his 200,000 followers, he read a statement in which he solemnly affirmed Slovakia's adherence to its eleven hundred years-old Christian traditions and proclaimed Slovakia's right to territorial sovereignity. This demonstration of outraged Slovak national pride was observed by foreign diplomats and news reporters, who were thus witnesses of the true will of the Slovak nation to be free and the chauvinistic aim of the Czechs as expressed in the Ottuv Obchodni Slovnik (Otta's Commercial Dictionary, 1921) volume 2, page 1217: "Slovakia shall be a colony to us. It is an error to suppose that a colony cannot have common frontiers with the mother country. An example of this is Russia and Siberia." Several lines from a poem by Ignac Grebac Orlov were· also censored. Partially censored was the article entitled "Narodna jednota" (National unity), by Dr. Jozef Tiso on the· necessity of national unity for the Slovaks. . �SLOVAKIA 115 From the article "K sedemdesiatke Andreja Hlinku" (On the 70th anniversary of Andrej Hlinka) by Karol Sidor this paragraph was deleted: What occured in 11919, ,w hen 'Hlinka and other Slovak leaders were jailed, the ISiLOVAK suspended, and terrorism unleashed everywhere, was now repeated on a larger scale. In .September 193131 the 1SIJOVAK was suspended -f or 3 months ... lik,ewise the .S'.liOVAiK TYZDENNIK (1Slovak Weekly) and the T!AT·•RA:N,SKY SLOVAK (Tatra Slovak). We were left without a voice ... We were not permitted to w,rite, the people had nothing to read. And the prisons were daily being filled with objectors. Hundreds of Slovaks were suJbjected ,to investigations about their participation In the Nitra festivities ... Dr. Karol Mederly's article "Obec a politika" (Community and politics) was also confiscated, for its insistence on the right of the Slovaks to vote according to their conscience. Pictures of Hlinka carried on the shoulders of University students to the Nitra stage, the procession of 200,000 Slovaks in Nitra, and even articles of comic and satiric content were censored. The interpellation contains a complete rescript of the articles confiscated in the almanac. 47 In conclusion the writer would like to mention here that printed works of other minorities and political parties were also confiscated by the censor. CENSORSHIP OF PERIODICALS The periodicals in Slovakia have a long tradition. The oldest periodical published on Slovak territory was Schemnitzer N ewszeitung edited in Banska Stiavnica in German, in 1540-1541. Latin periodicals also had their day. The first periodical in the Slovak language was Presspurske noviny (Bratislava News - Pressburg is German for :Bratislava,), published from 1783 to 17 87. Following World War I, newspapers, reviews, and magazines promised to become more plentiful. This was especially welcome to Slovakia, where publications in the Slovak language had been prohibited by Hungarian oppressors. Under the Czecho-Slovak republic the Slovaks were prepared to -enjoy the democratic freedom promised by the Pittsburgh .P act and especially freedom of the press, speech, and association. Alas, they soon came to realize that the promises, �116 SLOVAKIA as far as Slovakia was concerned, were empty words and nothing more. In Czecho-Slovakia, the newspapers were usually owned and operated by political parties. There were very few socalled "independent newspapers". Yet even though labeled "independent", some of these were nevertheless the tool of a financial group, a political party or a governmental coalition. The newspapers in Slovakia were of two kinds: government and so-called opposition. Under opposition came the publication of the Slovak People's Party, the Slovak National Party and the Communist Party. The Hungarian and German minorities had a similar classification of newspapers. All these newspapers were characterized by their adherence to an ideology and the effort to propagate it. They were interested in social and political problems, and they never evaded any controversial issue. Their influence on the formation of public opinion was considerable. The rapid political evolution and maturation of the Slovak nation was due chiefly to the efforts of the political press of the Slovak People's Party and the Slovak National Party. The obstacles with the Czech administration plac~d in their path by means of censorship, economic and political pressure, by corruption and terrorism, by political trials and murder in its effort to suppress the Slovak drive for in-dependence, only helped to accelerate and strenghten this process. In their 20 years of forced cohabitation with the· Czechs, the Slovaks achieved a rapid political evolution, thanks to their press and they were thus prepared in the international crisis of 1938-1939 to proceed prudently toward the realization of their national aspirations. The press of the opposition encountered paralyzing difficulties in Czecho-Slovakia. In a debate before Parliament Msgr. Andrej Hlinka, chairman of the Slovak People's Party declared that under Hungary and Austria, unjustly as they had been treated, the Slovaks and the Czechs had enjoyed greater freedom of the press than in the new "brotherly" State. of Czecho-Slovakia. 48 A resolution issued by the 14th Convention of the Social Democratic Party in 1922 protested against the practice of confiscation of the press. 49 �SLOVAKIA 117 Jozef Vr ab e c, representative of the Slovak People's Party, protested against the confiscation of the March 13, 1921 issue of Slovensky krest'ansky socialista, for its article "Za more, za ocean" (Beyond the Sea, beyond the Ocean). 50 In this article the Czech Government was held responsible for the emigration of thousands of Slovaks through its policy of job discrimination and its dismantling of Slovak industries. Slovenske Eudove Noviny was confiscated because it criticized the discriminatory policy against Slovak construction workers by a Czech construction enterprise, which led to a bloody fight between the Slovak jobless workers and the imported Czech workers. The police arrested the Slovaks. 51 In a parliamentary debate on Novembre 24, 1920, representative A. Bobok complained about the "terrible restriction of the press and opinion" in Czecho-Slovakia and claimed the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. 52 In a debate in the House of Representatives, June 21, 1922 Msgr. Andrej Hlinka declared: Each issue of the SLOVAK ts censored . . . ,I will show you a startling example of freedom of the press. Here it is. (He shows censored issues of the ,S1L OVAK, rwith their blank columns). Everything is censored from t he first word to the last. That is suppo,sed to be freedom of the -press, freedom to express an opinion . .. iSee, here is the S1LOVEN,S,KA. JEIDNOTA ... here, SIJOVENSKA. POLITl!KA. Here you see the freedom of the press for which I spent 4 years in jail. Here is 1SlJOViIDNSKA. PRAVDA. Notice what has been deleted. (He reads): "What Czech statistics s-h ow about •S lovak schools." And mention of "Teaching the Slovak language" was eradicated. Such freedom of the press do we enjoy in Slovakia! This has been going on now since Mairch 25 - we are systematically criticized and censored. And they tell the world we have freedom of the -press in this Republic! In Interpellation No. XXI/4226, April 26, 1923, representative Rev. Florian Tomanek interpellated the Minister of Justice on the confiscation of the Slovak, April 25, 1923, because it reprinted the article "Zapredana Orava a Spi§" (Orava and Spis Betrayed) from the newspaper Denny hlas (Daily voice) published in Cleveland, Ohio, April 3, 1923. In this article the Czech diplomat Dr. Karel Pergler, who had also signed the Pittsburgh Pact (1918), accused the CzechoSlovak Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Edvard Bene~ of �118 SLOVAKIA having sold to the Poles the Slovak territories of Orava and Spg for the coal districts of Karvina in Silesia, inhabited by Poles. 54 The Slovak, December 11, 1923, was censored for declaring inaccurate and false the statement of President Dr. T. G. Masaryk that the Slovaks and the Czechs were one and the same nation and that Slovak is a dialect of the Czech language. Representative Rev. Pavol Machacek wrote as follows in the article "Kati sa raduju" (The executioners rejoice) in the August 10, 1922 issue of Slovenske l'udove noviny: Heavy -f ines were imposed on the peasants. Financial burdens forced artisans to close their shops . . . !Government officia1's confiscated articles reprinted from Czech newspapers ... They issued the directive to destroy us at any cost. And they succeeded. ·Since the first or Januwry our daily S'LOVAK has been confiscated 45 times and the SLOVENiSIKE Im.DOVE NOWNY almost as many. Every confiscation meant a loss of 3,5004,000 crowns in damages. In thi-s brief period we were in arrears 1'70,000 crowns. The financial burden became .so greait that the S,J,;{}VAK was forced to cease publication. In an interpellation to the Minister of Interior, representative Rev. Florian Tomanek declared: The coalition government is not content to pass a cruel law, which empowers the Attorney General to confiscate newspapers before distribution. It did not hesitate to permit the violation of the secrecy of registered mail in 'Slovakia without a court order. The Plenipotentiary ordered the confiscation or an Open Letter addre!ised to the !President of the Republic, sent •b y :registered mail from Americans of .Slovak extraction. ,I ndeed, the Minister, •D r. Kallay, has empowered not only the post offices, but also the gendarmery and the police to confiscate letters without notifying the addressee.55 The Slovak in its August 19, 1933 issue complained that it had been confiscated six times in the previous week. The only reason it was not seven times is that the paper is issued only six times a week. The same paper in its August 26, 1933 issue notes: Yesterday's SLOVAK carried news of the confiscation of the TATRA!NSKY SLIOV.AK. But the 1SLIOVAK, SDOVAK TYZDENNIK, SLOVENS<KA BRAVDA, and the fortnightly tSLOVAK NA STRAZI of Zilina suffered a similar fate. In the later paper, seven columns were en<tirely deleted, so that it was issued •with two or its four pages blank. In the article56 "Nedorozumenie medzi autonomistickou tlacou a bratislavskym cenzorom" (A misunderstanding between �SLOVAKIA 119 the autonomist press and the censor of Bratislava), the author -ks- (who is probably Karol Sidor, editor-in-chief of the Slovak) wrote that in the previous week an issue of the Slovak had been confiscated because it reprinted in the Slovak language an article about Slovakia written by a Frenchman, Ebray, and published in the Pester Lloyd, a newspaper permitted in Czecho-Slovakia and available in the coffeehouses of Bratislava to anybody who could read German. In a parliamentary debate on the proposal of a new press law, June 9, 1933, Representative Jozef Sivak declared: I would venture to assert ,t hat the development and evolution of d emocracy is best achieved by a ,f ree press ... ,I t is true that article 113 of our Constitution guarantees freedom of the press ... but it is nothing ,but a pa per guairantee, as are all th e guarantees in this Republic. You know that by the Pit tsburgh !Pact the Slovaks were guarantP.ed autonomy, but again this is only a paper guarantee . . . The feverish zeal of the censor knows no limits. The Attorney General confiscates everything. It is not possible in this day and age to w.rite the truth about Czech discriminrution of the !Slovak laborer, to say anything about the rights of •Slovak peasants, !Slovak workers, ,S lovak artisans and shop-keepers. No one is, allowed to criticize the ,government or individual officers. ·All is censored... even the statements of the Board of Representatives of the Slovak \People's iParty ... The following appeared in the article "Neustale habanie Slovaka" (The constant harassment of the Slovak) in its August 22, 1933 issue: Readers of the SLOVAK received the !Sunday edition with dismay. The front page, with six deletions, showed how heavily the hand of the censor had struck. On no account are we p ermitted to criticize ithe government. An article in which Msgr. Andrej Hlinka ,s et forth the significance of the Nitra centennary celebration on August 13, 1933 and praised the Slovaks tfor itheir participation in it, was censored. Confiscated also was an article by 1S enator Andrej Janecek, in which he assumed responsibility for (his part in) the Nltra episode. A report on the investigation of several partici pants in the Nltra festivities was confiscaited, although the government had encouraged attendance. Other confiscations were: Part of the report on the fiasco perpetrated by government parties in Nitra who, although a minority in the district, had convened to protest · the €Vents of August 13, 1933 ; · Slav repor ts on •t he Nitra centenary; ·Reflections on the Pittsburgh Pact. It is not unusual for us to b e subjected to confiscations - evea dally. But what the censor did with our !Sunday edition outrageously surpass·e s anything ever attempted before. Our party will adopt -s uitable measures to defend our consti- �120 SLOVAKIA t uti onal r igh t to free dom of th e press, denied us by th e " lords" i n the governm ent. W e will e m ploy a ll possible means to r each on r read er s. On its anniversary the Slovak was confiscated for the editorial "Patnast' rokov Slovaka" (Fifteen years of the Slovak), which conveyed the impressions of its readers on the reappearance of the Slovak after three months' suspension by the Attorney General. The same issue was confiscated for its information about the activities of Americans of Slovak descent in the United States, a reprint from Osadne hlasy (Parish News ), a Slovak weekly in Chicago, Illinois, and one part of an article by a Czech signatary of the Pittsburgh Pact. 57 Interpellation No. 1193/ IX, November 10, 1937, proffered by representatives Karol Sidor and Dr. Martin Sokol was motiviated by the confiscation of two articles in Slov enska pravda and Slovak, November 10 and 11, 1937. The title of the two articles was "Zakony demonstracii". They included a report on the spirited demonstrations of the studets of Bratislava University, demanding the slovakization of the University, of government bureaus, and of the army and police in Slovakia, under the slogan "Slovakia for the Slovaks". It carried an account of the brutal intervention of Czech police, who severely beat the students with sabres and clubs. An illustration showing a hand brandishing a club (used by the police ) was also confiscated. The headline "Demand plebiscite for Slovak autonomy!" was deleted from the February 10, 1938 issue of the Slovak, but the same line was left by the censor in the text of the article. Such inconsistencies in the practice of censorship were frequent. For this reason the Czech journalist Dr. Benes (not the President Dr. Benes) could declare in the organ of the Union of Czecho-Slovakia Journalists: The pr ess is practically ou tlawed in Czechoslovakia . .. a nd fr ee• dom of the press •has become degenerated by confisca tions .58 Such a statement, naturally, could not have been published in Slovakia. In an evening discussion at the Czechoslovak National Council, the Czech editor Jan· Hrabanek declared that the articles of the Constitution concerning freedom of the press were not respected, that a permit for printing newspapers �SLOVAKIA 121 was required, that the publication of periodicals was too often suspended and the right of distribution forfeited on the basis of a mere suspicion, without any conviction of a penal act. 59 After 1932, when young Slovak members of government parties were more attuned to the ideas and attitudes of the majority of the Slovak nation, the governmental press in the Slovak language also began to appear with blank pages. In the May 5, 1939 issue (page 90) of Zem (Soil) a political magazine of young Agrarians, the editor wrote an article entitled "Komu osozi cenzura?" (Who Benefits from censorship?) Among other things he said: Newspapers with blank pages ... that is a product of the censor. The author sees thi.s miscarrriage of his intellectual effort and loses heart. Readers are cheated by receiving blank newspapers . . . Jn recent times the censor is busier than ever before. Formerly only newspapers which habHually pabl!shed a rticles sharply criticizing the government were censored. These were chiefly the papers of the opposition. •B ut that is a. thing of the past. Nowadays even the newsp a pers of government pal'ties are censored and they appear now with the familiar blank spaces. What was most offensive to the Slovaks was the confiscation of the literary magazine Slovenske Pohl'ady, No. l0A, 1932, published with the date of October 28, the "Day of Freedom", the official national festivity of the CzechoSlovak Republic. Slovenske Pohl'ady, founded in 1846, had never been confiscated before. It had always stood as a symbol of the independent cultural life of the Slovaks and was dear to the heart of every Slovak. Why was this revered non-political periodical censored? Its editor Dr. Stefan Krcmery, submitted to criticism the Czechs in Slovakia, because they did not read or buy Slovak books and despised Slovak literature. In the other censored article he reviewed very favorably a new volume of poems Hlas krvi (The Voice of blood), published by Andrej Zarnov, author of the confiscated volume of poems Straz pri Morave, mentioned on page 53. The cultural magazines Pero (Pen), Pramen (Source), Elan (Impetus) and DAV (The Masses) and the humoristic periodical Osa (Wasp) and Kocur (Cat) were also confiscated several times. �122 SLOVAKIA CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS OF OTHER NATIONALITIES LIVING IN CZECHO-SLOV AKIA The Slovak press was not alone in the battle for freedom of the press. Other ethnical groups living in CzechoSlovakia were also hindered in the free expression of ideas. It is true that the Czech Government was much more lenient toward the Germans and Magyars, who were favorably situated and could appeal to the German Reich and Hungary for moral and financial support. But the case of the Ukrainians living in the territory of "Subcarpathian Russia" was similar to that of the Slovaks. By the Peace Treaties of Saint Germain-en-Laye, France, on October 10, 1919, this territory which had belonged to Hungary before World War I was incorporated in Czecho-Slovakia as an autonomous entity. Its position in the Czecho-Slovak Republic was to be that of a federated state. But, as in the Slovak case, the Czechs failed to honor their obligations and the Ruthenians were treated as another Czech colony. Its political and economic exploitation was in open contradiction to the terms of the St. Germain-en-Laye treaties. The po:.. sition of the Subcarpathian Ruthenians was as hopeless as that of the Slovaks. But this poor and exploited nation was also aware of its national origin and of the Czech aims of domination. Its representatives in the Prague Parliament and its periodicals followed generally the same line as that of the Slovaks. They demanded their rights, guaranteed by the peace treaties, especially the right of national self-determination. · The Czech methods of domination in Subcarpathian Russia were similar to those employed in Slovakia: military and political terrorism, economic exploitation and impoverishment, political corruption and censorship, combined with the curtailing of freedom of speech and association. In Parliament the Ruthenians reacted in the same way as the Slovaks. The January. 31, 1926 issue of the newspaper Karpatska pravda (Carpathian truth), published in Uzgorod, was censor·ed in its editorial "Continuous Oppression" for this statement: The cup is full to overflowing. ·T he poor people of Subcarpathian Ruthenia, ruthl essly oppressed ·by the Czech bourgeoisie, suffers cold, �SLOVAKIA 123 unemploy men t, hu nger, pove r ty a nd e ndles·s mis,ery. Eig-h teen years we h ave lived in "fr ater nal" union with Czecho,S lovak ia, but nothing h as ·been do ne to improve social cond Hions .. .so On April 8, 1937 Representative Dr. S. A. Fencik interpellated the Minister of the Interior on the confiscation of issue No. 216 of Na§ put (Our way ), published in Uzgorod. The periodical was confiscated on the pretex that the censored article might disturb the public peace. It was entitled "Voice of a Slovak" and included a quotation from the daily Slovak, March 19, 1937, stating that the establishment by Prague of a "Gubernatorial Council" for Subcarpathian Russia is but a surrogate for the autonomy guaranteed by the Constitution. The article was not confiscated in the Slovak, but the Na§ put was confiscated for informing its readers .a bout the Slovak' s views. The No. 212 issue of Na§ put, 1937 was confiscated on the same pretex, i. e. that it might disturb the public peace. The article "Autonomy" was confiscated for the lines: " ... this a utonomy is guaranteed only on paper . To this day it h as not been r ealized. In eighteen yea.rs no effort has been made to b egi n to put it into effect."61 The press of the Czech opposition also shared the fate of that of the other nationalities. Only a very insignificant percentage of Czechs however, voted for their opposition parties. The others were generally satisfied with their privileged position and had no desire to change it. On September 16, 1930 the representatives of the Czech National Democracy, Dr. Karel Pergler and Ji.ti Sti'ibrny interpellated the Minister of Justice on the confisc ation of the periodical Franta, vol. III. No. 21 , March 6, 1930: Despite the guarantees of freedom or speech and press contained i n the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak •Republic, o ur legislative bodies have not checked or even improved the preventive censorship inconsistent with democracy, especially in peacetime. Under a r egi me li k e ours one wou ld not expect a censor.s hip and confiscation policy which ·r enders impossible a decent and desirable criticism of ideas and political principles h el d by government functionaries. But the exact opposite is the ca,se. In this Repu1blic it is not permitted to discuss people in the government and their views on any topic. As a proo1' of my assertion, I have here several periodicals that suf·fered con fiscation. The classic example of the confiscation policy adopted by the government in contradiction to the most basic concepts of freedom of the press and discussion, was the confiscation of the March 6, 19·30 issue of F'RQ)l''DA. The article "Two Concepts" by F. Schwartz was the offender ... �124 SLOVAKIA This article contained criticism of Dr. Tomas G. Masaryk, President of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Another article "Co je vice nez 7. marec" (What is more significant than March 7) written by Josef Vodracka and published in the same issue, was also confiscated, because of its criticism of Masaryk's philosophy of Czech statehood. (March 7 was Masaryk's birthday and a national holiday.) In the article "Napoleonsky rys" (Napoleonic feature), published in the same issue, a description of Masaryk's charact€r was also censored. Another article "Muz Bible" (Biblical man) by Kamil Masin was censored for its designation of Masaryk as a "messianist" (man of Providence). In the same issue also F. Petrik's article "Rozsevac a znec" (Sower and harvester) on the ideological inconsequence of Masaryk's philosophy and F. Schwarz's article "Souhlasime s Masarykem" (We agree with Masaryk) along with several other articles were censored. The interpellation continued: The press wa·s at one time the principal means of maintaining freedom and national consciousness. In the Czecho,Slovak Republic, the press has become the .frightening destroyer of every freedom because an honest and independent press has been annihilated. It serves now as ~ blindfold for the people ...62 This example shows that censorship in Czecho-Slovakia was like an octopus which extended its arms into all areas of public life and impeded the march of democracy and the natural evolution of the various ethnical groups. SLOVAK DEFENSE AGAINST THE EFFECTS OF CENSORSHIP A direct result of the systematic violation of freedom of the press by governmental censorship was that Slovak political parties were denied normal communication with their members. At the disposal of the Government were the police, the army, the gendarmry and about 300,000 privileged Czech functionaries in Slovakia, whose task it was to hinder the activity of Slovak political forces, working and fighting for the freedom and independence of Slovakia. The people of Slovakia, deprived of the most effective means of communication, the press, which was constantly, almost daily, confiscated, the radio was State-owned and controlled, and never at the disposal of opposition parties, �SLOVAKIA 125 were more and more interested in knowing, what new injustice was committed against the Slovak nation. Several methods of rendering the censorship less effective were developed by the political parties. These political parties, who owned many of the newspapers, constantly challenged the respective Ministers in Parliament by interpellations. Their interpellations were always published, together with the censored articles, in the Tisky Poslanecke Snemovny N<irodniho Shromazdeni Repub liky Ceskoslovenske (a publication comparable to the U.S. Congressional Record) and this procedure gave them immunity and the right to be reprinted in the newspapers. But it was not unusual for the censor to confiscate even these immunized articles and interpellations. The interpellation had to be signed by at least twenty representatives. Small parties, which lacked this number, obtained the necessary signatures from the representatives of other opposition parties. The interpellations were addressed to the Minister of the Interior, or the Minister of Justice. The reply of the Government to the interpellation, which also requested that the matter be discussed, was usually negative.If a written answer was requested, the Minister almost invariably approved the procedure of the censor. Here is an example: Reply of the Government to the interpellation of representative Andrej Hlinka and associates concerning .the confiscation of the dally SLOVAK, No. 105, May 9, 1934 (No. 2712/VII). - The confiscation of the portions adduced In the lnterpellatlon . . . executed by the office -of the Attorney General in Bratislava, •w as exa mined by the regional court In Bratislava and approved In full. The complaint challenging this decision was rejected by the 1Prlme Minister: J. Malypetr.63 If nothing was found wrong in the censored article, the reply to the interpellation was: .. . I find that some portions adduced in interpellation No. 3610/· XIV were confiscated without a legal r eason. I informed the office of the Attorney General in Nitra that thes e articles ... are nothini;: more than poli,tical r eflections and attacks and their suppression cannot be justified by law. I hope that similar cases will not be repeated .. ,64 But the censorship policy was not modified by a few decisions in favor of the opposition's press. Another procedure used by the opposition press to �126 SLOVAKIA counteract the effects of censorship was to send the first printed copy to the censor's office and simultaneously to deliver several hundred copies to the public vendors. The Bratislava readers were usually waiting and so at least some of them were able to obtain uncensored copies, which passed clandestinely from hand to hand. The procedure was the same for the towns and villages near the capital city of Bratislava. Workers, employees, railroadmen and occasional travelers, women from the villages selling vegetables in the market, all cooperated in smuggling the uncensored copies of newspapers out of Bratislava. Most helpful in this distribution of uncensored copies were the Slovak railroadmen. Each town in which the train stopped, had its copy of the uncensored newspaper. This was done with the utmost caution, since those involved could have been charged with a criminal act against the security of the State at the risk of imprisonment or loss of job. After the censor completed his job, the Attorney-General ordered the police to confiscate the newspaper. The policemen seized the unsold uncensored copies from the news-stands. In coffeehouses they seized uncensored copies from the hands of readers, who had not reali21ed in good time the presence of the officers and failed to hide their copies. Articles from confiscated political, social and cultural periodicals, were typed and distributed among interested people, chiefly university students and graduates, who formed little clubs to discuss them. The same was done with confiscated books or volumes of poetry. The writer recalls how, after the publication of Sidor's and Mach's books, mentioned previously, he was given one typewritten copy of the censored parts of the books, and was required to type at least fiV'e new copies and distribute them among five other persons. Such distribution was possible only among persons who were trustworthy and of the same political convictions. The result was that almost everybody in Slovakia could have his own copy of the censored parts of the books. The secretariats of the political parties cooperated with students, workers and peasants in this underground press and the solidarity of the nation as a whole was wonderful. It is true that many people were caught and penalized, but that was the risk. �SLOVAKIA 127 Students in foreign countries supplied information about the views of the foreign press on the Slovak problem and themselves published the Slovak viewpoint in foreign newspapers. They smuggled into the country articles about Slovakia from the foreign press. The customs examination of Slovak students traveling abroad or returning from foreign countries was viery thorough. The clandestine importing of news reports from abroad was even more dangerous than the distribution of censored articles in Slovakia. If caught in possession of any news item unfavorable to Czecho-Slovakia, a person could be prosecuted for "association with the enemies of the State", for espionage, or for plotting against the State. Information brought from abroad was discussed only in small confidential groups of students and intellectuals, and secret reports were given to certain leaders of political parties. The Czechs were not generally able to identify the persons responsible for this smuggling of information. But they never forgot. During his studies in Zagreb (Croatia) in 1937 or 1938, one of my friends wrote several articles about the oppression of the Slovaks in Czecho-Slovakia. For these and other articles written for the Croatian press ten years later in 1947 he was sentenced by a Czech Communist "people's court" to eight years in prison. CONCLUSION Freedom of the press consist~ in the free gathering of information, in free communication, in the free publication of information, in the free printing and distribution of published information and in the free subscription and free reading of published information. In Czecho-Slovakia these freedoms were very limited and in Slovakia they were practically non-existent. If one succeeded in gathering information, it became impossible to communicate it if the Czechs felt that it criticized or threatened their hegemony. To publish such information signified sure intervention of the censor and meant the consequent confiscation of the entire edition of the book or periodical, in which it was published. To diffuse information confiscated by the censor was �128 SLOVAKIA considered by the Czechs as an act against the security of the State. The freedom to subscribe to and to read published information was also very limited. Anyone found to be in possession of censored information was ,exposed to the danger of being arrested and penalized. From pertinent material available to the writer and from his own experiences in Czecho-Slovakia in the years 1918-1938, he has reached the conclusion that despite the constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press, censorship in its most drastic form was widely employed against the opposition and the minorities in direct contradiction to the Constitution and the so-called "democratic" system which it guaranteed. Public opinion in Slovakia could not manifest itself freely in the press and information was diffused chiefly through the channels generally resorted to by underground organizations. The people of Slovakia learned to read and interpret the blank spaces of the censored newspapers and what they "read" this way was much more unfavorable to the Czech system than the impression the censored words would have provoked. The impossibility of frank discussion had created an atmosphere of hatred in which the Slovaks renounced once and for all any discussion with the Czechs. They began to take their own course which led logically to the unanimous declaration of the independent Slovak Republic, March 14, 1939, by the autonomous Slovak Parliament. Censorship applied against the Slovaks proved that freedom cannot be suppressed indefinitely, because it is a part of the condition of our life, our development, and our progress. In its essence our soul is free. Whoever suppresses the freedom of others, will himself lose freedom. The Czechs lost their freedom on the very day when the Slovaks declared their independence. Bohemia became a Protectorate of Germany. When with the aid of the Soviet army and through the indifference of the Western world, the Czechs enslaved the Slovaks a second time after World War II, they lost their freedom too, and became a satelite of Soviet Russia. In order �SLOVAKIA 129 to keep the Slovaks in Czech slavery, they sold their own freedom to the Muscowite tyrant, exposing to Red danger the entire Central and Occidental Europe. The words of the great Slovak poet Jan Kollar (17931852) are most appropriate here: Whoever respects the freedom of others Is himself worthy of freedom. Whoever enslaves with handcuffs Is himself a slave ! 65 FOOTNOTES 1. "The Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic", with introduction by Ji:ri Hoetzl and V. Joachim, American Association for International Conciliation, Pt,blications, No. 179 (October 1922), 2. 3. Ibid., p. 443. Karl Falk, "Strife in Czechoslovakia: The German Minority Question", Foreign Policy Reports, XIV, (March 15, 1938), p. 4. The Cleveland Pact stipulated that the Slovaks and Czechs would form II federative union of states. Slovakia was to enjoy complete national autonomy, including its own Parliament and government administration, its own political and financial institutions, complete freedom to develop culturally and the right to use Slovak as its official language. The form of government was to be democratic, operating in a union of two autonomous states. The Pittsburgh Pact guaranteed that "Slovakia shall have its own administration, its own tribunals and its own Parliament. Slovak shall be the official language in schools, in government offices and in public life in general." Sbirka zakonu a narizeni statu ceskoslovenskeho. Part 23 (March 31, 1923), pp. 207-218. Sbirka zakonu a nafizen£ statu ceskoslovenskeho. (1920) . Ibid. Part 44 (July 15, 1933) pp. 708-709. Sbirka zakonu a nafizeni statu ceskoslovenskeho. Part 44 (July p. 441. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8 15, 1933), p. 707. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. Ibid. ( 1933) p. 771. Ibid. Part 56 (July 7, 1934) pp. 513-516. Sbirka zakonu a nafizeni statu ceskoslovenskeho. (1934), p. 598. Ibid. (1935), p. 527. Ibid. (1937), p. 786. Ibid. Part 44 (July 15, 1933) pp. 709-714. Sbirka zakonu a narizeni statu ceskoslovenskeho. Part 35, (May 23, 19i6) pp. 477-479. I!Jid. pp. 479-541. Imrich Stanek, Zrada a pad. (Praha: Statnf Nakladatelstvf Politicke Literatury, 1958), p. 33. �SLOVAKIA 130 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. Imrich Stanek, Op. cit., p. 41. Ibid., p. 33. Ibid., p. 34. Imrich Stanek, Op. cit., p. 34. Ibid., p. 35. loc. cit. loc. cit. loc. cit. Ibid., pp. 38-39. Ibid., p. 39. Ibid., p. 40. Ibid., p. 32. Ibid., pp. 41-43. Lucy Maynard Salmon, The newspaper and authority. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1923), p. 3. Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka (1864-1926), Bratislava: Knihtlaciaren Sv. Andrej a, 1934), p. 359. Culen, Konstantin. "Sloboda tlace v CSR", Bratstvo, (May 23, 1951). Machacek, Pavol. "Katovia sa raduju", Slovenske .l!udove Novi· ny", (August 10, 1923). pp. 1-2. Ceskoslovenska Republika, Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. 150, (1922). Karol Sidor, Op. cit., pp. 487-488. Ibid., p. _426. Ibid., p. 425. Culen, Konstantin, "Slaboda tlace v CSR", Bratstvo, (May 23, 1951). C. A. Macartney, Hungary and her successors, pp. 137-139. "Azda takto", Nastup, (November 1, 1933), p. 163. "Nerovny boj", Nastup, (November 1, 1933), p. 162. Ceskoslovenska Republika, Niirodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. 5280, (1925). Head of a region. Administrative region of Slovakia. Sano Mach, Vo viheni, (Bratislava: Jednota, 1930). Ceskoslovenska Republika, Niirodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, 'l)sky, No. 2799, (1934). Culen, Konstantin. "Slaboda tlace v CSR", Bratstvo, (May 23, 1951). Ceskoslovenska Socialne demokraticka strana. Protokol sjazdu z 12. a 22. aprila 1922, p. 203. Ceskoslovenska Republika. Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka· Snemovna, Tisky, 1. volebni obdobi, 2. zasedani, No. 1882, 1921. Op. cit., No. IV/4098, 1923. (;ulen, Kon~tantin, "Slcboda tlace v CSR", Bratstvo, (May 23, 1951). �SLOVAKIA 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. fi3. 64. 65. 131 ceskoslovenska Republika, Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. 3584, (June 21, 1922.). ceskoslovenska Republika, Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. XXI/4226, (April 26, 1923). ceskoslovenska Republika, Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. VI/4636, (May 27, 1924). Slovak, July 23, 1933. Slovak, J anuary 26, 1934. Tisk a novinari, XII, No. 5, (1938). Druhy kruh diskusnich vecerii Narodni Rady ceskoslovenske", Cechoslovak a nase zahranici. Vsenarodni mesicnik. Vol. XV, No. 4-5, (April-May, 1935), p. 100. ceskoslovenska Republika, Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, 1937, VI. volebne obdobi, 5 zasedani, No. 876/ VI, April 8. Ibid, XV/4226, (May 25, 1923). ceskoslovenska Republika. Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, 628/IX, (September 16, 1930). ceskoslovenska Republika. Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. 2951, (1934). ceskoslovenska Republika. Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, I. volebni obdobi, 5. zasedani, No. 2591, (July 28, 1922), pp. 10-11. Jan Kollar, Slavy dcera. 1824. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS <::incik, Joseph G. Anglo-Saxon and Slovak-Avar Patterns of the Cuthbert Gospel. Series Cyrilomethodiana, v. 1. Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1958. Delaney, Edward L. False freedom . Los Angeles: Sequoia University Press, 1954. Diplomaticus. The Czechs and their minorities. 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Die Literatur der Slovaken. Berlin: Volk und Reich Verlag, n. d. Salmon, Lucy Maynard. The newspaper and authority. New York: Oxford University Press, 1923. Seton-Watson, R. W. A history of the Czechs and Slovaks. New York: Hutchinson and Co., 1943. Sidor, Karol. Andrej Hlinka (1864-1926). Censored ed. Bratislava: Knihtlaciareii Sv. Andreja, 1934. -Andrej Hlinka (1864-1926). Uncensored ed. Bratislava: Knihtlaciarer1 Sv. Andreja, 1934. - Slovcici v zahranicnom odboji. Bratislava: Jednota, 1928. Slovensky Oslobodzovaci vybor. Prcivo Slovcikov na samostatnost' vo svet• le dokumentov. Sv. 1: Biela kniha. By Ferdinand Durcansky. Buenos Aires: Dorrego, 1954. Stanislav, Jan. Slovanski apostoli Cyril a Metod • ich cinnost' vo Vel'ko• moravskej risi. Bratislava: Academia Scientiarum et Artium Slovaca, 1945. Thomas, S. Harris. Czechoslovakia in European history. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944. Zubek, Theodoric J., O.F.M., S.T.D. The Church of silence in Slovakia. Published by John J. Lach, 1956. PAMPHLETS Comite d'action Slovaque. Aide-memoire sur la necessite de plebiscite en Slovaquie. Paris: 1946. Comite d'action Slovaque. Aide-memoire sur l'existence de la Republique Slovaque et sur la necessite de conclure le traite de paix avec elle. Paris: 1946. Durcansky, Ferdinand. The international asp zct of the Slovak question. New York: Slovak Liberation Committee, 1954. Jakobson. R. Slavic languages. New York: Columbia University Press, 1955. Slovak Action Committee, Slovak National Council in London, Slovak League of America and Canadian Slovak League of Canada. Memorandum presented to the Peace Conference concerning the rationality of existence of Czecho-Slovakia. Paris: 1946. Th e Slovaks and the Pittsburgh Pact. (Chi cago) : The Slovak Catholic Federation of America, 1934. Stewart, John F. Slovakia, its people and right to sovereign independence and freedom. Information leaflets, No. 7. Edinburgh: Scottish League for European Fre<>dom, n. d. PERIODICALS AND ARTICLES "Azda takto," Ncistup (Nove.' llber 1, 1933). ceskoslovensko a na.se zahrar,;i:i, XV, No. 4-5 (April-May, 1935). "The Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic", with introduction �SLOVAKIA 133 by Jiri Hoetzl and V. Joachim. American Association for International Conciliation, Publications, No. 179) (October, 1922). culen, Konstantin. "Sloboda tlace v cSR", Bratstvo (May 23, 1951). Falk, Karl. "Strife in Czechoslovakia", Foreign Policy Reports, XIV (March 15, 1938). Hlinka, Andrej. "Protestujeme", Slovak (December 22, 1921). "Komu osozi cenzura?", Zem, III, No. 9 (May 5, 1937). Machacek, Pavel "Katovia sa raduju", Slovenske l'udove noviny, (August 10, 1923). "Nedorozumenie medzi autonomistickou tlacou a bratislavskym cenzorom", Slovak, (August 27, 1933). "Nerovny boj", Nastup (November 1, 1933) . "Neustale habanie Slovaka", Slovak (August 27, 1933). " O cenzure", Slovak (May 16, 1934). "Pracuje cenzura pre stat alebo pre politicke strany?", Slovak (September 15, 1933). "Preco nas cenzurovali", Slovak (April 29, 1934). "150 rocna cenzura rakuska platna este aj v republike", Slovak (June 11, 1933). Slovak (June 11, 1933). Slovak (September 15, 1933). Slovak (January 26, 1934). Slovak (June 13, 1934). Taylor, Paul B. "Partition of Czechoslovakia", Foreign Policy Reports, (November 15, 1938). - "Germany's expansion in Eastern Europe", Foreign Policy Reports, XV (May 15, 1939). Tisk a novinai'i, XII, No. 5 (1938). PUBLIC DOCUMENTS ceskoslovenska Republika. Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna. Tisky. Years: 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924. 1925, 1926, 1929, 1930, 1934, 1935. Sbirka zakonu a narizeni statu ceskoslovenskeho. Years: 1920, 1922, 1923, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1~37. THESIS Woytko, Sister Mary Gabrielle, 0.P. Slovakia's road to statehood. A Study of the efforts of Slovakia to secure national independence. Thesis submitted to the Graduate School of Duquesne University as a thesis under the title "A study of the efforts of Slovakia to secure national independence" in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts. (Published by John Lach, 1957). � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1965, Vol. 15 Description An account of the resource Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA 93 CENSORSHIP POLICIES IN CZECHO-SLOVAKIA 1918-1938 WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON SLOVAKIA Eugene Urban ABSTRACT By means of clever propaganda, the Czecho-Slovak Republic became known as an exemplary democratic State and the ethnic groups living within her boundaries were enjoying a personal, cultural, political and economic freedom. But the reality was exactly the opposite. The CzechoSlovak Republic was nothing but a big concentration camp for four million Slovaks, three and half million Germans, seven hundred thousand Ukrainians, six hundred thousand Magyars, one hundred fifty thousand Poles, etc., the Czechs enjoying the privileged position of guards. The real objective of the Czecho-Slovak Republic was to deprive the different ethnic groups of their national identity and, at their expense, to enlarge herself to the point of becoming a power among the others of Europe. The Slovaks, a very nationally selfconscious group, differing from the Czechs in language, traditions, culture, customs, and character, were guaranteed 1918 that the new Republic would be a confederation of two States: the Slovak and the Czech. But the Czechs failed to keep their promises and pacts and instead they treated Slovakia as a colony. One of the weapons used to suppress the desire of the Slovaks to be again a free and independent nation was the censorship of the press, the most effective medium of communication. The aim was to blot out all remembrance of Slovqk historical traditions, and to suppress the individuality and evidence of an oid cultural nation in the very heart. of Europe - a nation which has made its contributions to the building up of Western Christian culture and civilization. And, although the Czecho-Slovak Constitution had guaranteed freedom of the press, several laws were later enacted to make censorship legal. But the Slovaks defended them- 94 SLOVAKIA selves as well as they could in Parliament and with "underground" means of communication. Czecho-Slovak Laws Concerning Freedom of Press, Speech, and Association. Theory and Practice The freedoms of press and association in the CzechoSlovak Republic were guaranteed in paragraph 113, (1) of the Constitution accepted by the Revolutionary National Assembly on the 29th of February, 1920: Freedom of the press as well as the right to assemble peaceably and without arms and to form associations is guaranteed. It is therefore in principle inadmissible to place the press under preliminary censorship.I Paragraph 117 guaranteed the freedom of expression of opinion: Every person may within the limits of the law express his or h er opinion by word, in writing, in print, by picture, etc. The same applies to legal persons within the limits of their competence. No one shall suffer in the ,sphere of his work or emloyment for excercising this right.2 According to these articles of the C o n s t i t u t i o n, Czecho-Slovakia had no press law of its own. The press was supposed to be free of Government interference and to serve the genuine interests of the various ethnical groups living in Czecho-Slovakia. It was supposed, also, that they would be free to assemble in political, cultural, religious, economical, etc. organizations and to secure through them their rights. Except for the Czechs, all other ethnical groups were integrated in Czecho-Slovakia without being given opportunity to express their will freely. With regard to the Slovaks, the Constitution was in direct contradiction to the spirit and letter of the Cleveland and Pjttsburgh Pacts signed by the Slovaks and Czechs in Cleveland, Ohio, October 5, 1915 and in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 30, 1918. 3 This latter was signed moreover by President Tomas G. Masaryk. According to these two pacts, Czecho-Slovakia was supposed to be a federation of both the Slovak and the Czech States. 4 But these pacts were not included in the Constitution. SLOVAKIA !)5 The representatives for Slovakia who voted in Parliament for the acceptance of this anti-Slovak Constitution were not elected by the people, but appointed by the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Prague from a minority group advocating integration with the Czech nation. The Constitution was in flagrant contradiction to the spirit and the principles on which Czecho-Slovakia had been created. In the first years of her existence, the discontent of the Slovaks and of the other minorities with Czech imperialism and centralism early started to manifest itself, and this particularly in the periodical press and at the meetings of the political parties. The Czechs did not delay in their retaliation. They replaced the guarantees of paragraph 113 of the Constitution with a series of laws by which the freedom of the press was practically nullified. Not having a press law of their own, the Czech majority in the Prague Parliament made use of the old Austrian press law No. 119/ 1873 (May 23) and No. 142/ 1868 (October 15) of the Austrian Code, and the Hungarian law No. XIV /1914 to suppress freedom of the press. These were the oppressive laws of the old Au.stro-Hungarian regime against which both Slovaks and Czechs fought in the Parliaments of Vienna and Budapest. It has been said repeatedly that Czecho-Slovakia was created to liberate the Czechs and Slovaks from the Austro-Hungarian yoke. It is an ironic fact that Dr. Tomas G. Masaryk, the first President of Czecho-Slovakia, who as deputy for Bohemia, had condemned these laws in the Parliament of Vienna, now signed and approved them as the laws of the land, as law No 50/1923 (March 19), paragraph 34.5 The co-founder of the Czecho-Slovak Republic and her second President, Dr. Eduard Benes, who was also theoretically a defender of the freedom of the press, also signed law No. 50/1923. The same law No. 50/ 1923 provided for the defense of the Republic, and paragraph 34 stipulated the conditions under which the publication of periodicals might be prohibited. Law No. 3006 was drawn up on April 14, 1920; it was later supplemented by law No. 125/ 1933 (July 10)7, according to which the State's Security Bureau, without a judicial order could demand the c o n f i s c a t i o n and opening of letters 96 SLOVAKIA and other items transported by mail. It could prohibit public meetings and it could impose special conditions upon the activities of associations or prohibit them. Paragraph 10 was concerned with the press. The State's Security Bureau could limit or impose special conditions for the publication and distribution of periodicals, or prohibit their publication. It could order the editor of a periodical to present, two hours before its publication, copies for preventive censorship. The same Bureau could put under surveillance or prohibit the activities of printing shops, of distributing companies, and of press agencies. It could also prohibit possession of printing presses and other means of reproducing writings and illustrations by private persons. Law No. 50/1923, for the defense of the Republic, was enacted in a period when Czecho-Slovakia was fully recognized and her existence insured by International Peace Treaties. This law was not addressed against her enemies from abroad, but to deal with the growing dissatisfaction from inside. Especially in Slovakia the discontent was alarming. The fact that the Czechs violated the Pacts of Cleveland and Pittsburgh were the most powerful reasons for this discontent. Law 50/1923 was enacted in order to give the Czechs a weapon to terrorize the dissatisfied Slovaks and the other minorities. It fixed the penalty for military treason, for violation of State secrets, for offence to the President of the Republic, for any challenge to commit penal acts or not to fulfill legal obligations, for approving the crime, for associating against the State, for the spread of false reports, etc. All the paragraphs of this law were appliable also to the periodical press. Directly concerned with the periodical press was paragraph 34 of this law. It gave the Government's ooreaus power to prohibit the publication of periodicals. The period of suspension of publication was established as one month for periodicals published at least five times a week, two months for those published at least three times a week, and six months for those purlished less than this. But this law seemed not to be strict enough for the Czech Government. Ten years larer, law No. 50/1923 was completed and changed by the law No. 124/ 1933 (July 10).8 This new law extended the list of "crimes and offences" SLOVAKIA 97 for which the publication of a periodical could be suspended and gave the Government the right to enlarge the validity of paragraph 34 by a simple government decree. The suspension period of periodicals was enlarged from one to three months and from two to six months. Not even that was enough for the Government of CzechoSlovakia. The Governmental Decree No. 150/1933 (July 18),9 published ten days later, again increased the number of paragraphs which could be violated by the press and added to the number of crimes and offences also the infringements of these laws. One year later a new law No. 140/ 1934 was drawn up. (July 10), 10 which changed and completed the law No 50/ 1923, the law No. 124/ 1933 and the Government Decree No. 150/ 1933. The number of possible penal acts was increased again. The Government was empowered to prolong the validity of these laws for another two years. The distribution of transgressing periodicals could be prohibited in all stores which sold the products of the State's monopoly (tobacco, stamps, salt, etc.) or in the buildings and stations of the State owned railways (there were only State owned railways in Czecho-Slovakia). These periodicals could be also deprived of the right to use special tariffs and of the right of transportation by mail or by railroads. The same law compelled all periodicals to publish free, without change or comment, on their first or second page, by usual types of letters, and in the largest edition, official declarations of the President, the Vice-President, the Prime-Minister, members of the Government, etc., appealing to this law. A new Government Decree No. 163/ 1934 (July 16) 11 further extended the number of "crimes, offences and infringements" for which the publication of a periodical could be suspended. Two other government decrees, No. 157 / 1935 (July 13) 12 and No. 165/ 1937 (July 24) 13 , prolonged the validity of the paragraph 34 of the law No. 50/ 1923 and the subsequent laws until the 13th July 1939. Another law, No. 126/ 1933 (July 10) 14 was concerood with the distribution (col portage) of periodicals. The distribution of periodicals which directly or indirectly subvert or put blame on the independence, Constitutional unity, the 98 SLOVAKIA integrity and the democratic and republican form of the State or the democratic order in the Czecho-Slovak Republiccould be prohibited. This right could also be taken away from those periodicals which "menace the public peace and order, especially by publishing false news and news which distort the truth". The distribution in Czecho-Slovakia of periodicals published abroad could be also prohibited. It was prohibited to distribute periodicals in the schools and in the military quarters. The Regional Office was entitled to prohibit the distribution of periodicals published in Czecho-Slovakia, while the Ministry of Interior in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could prohibit the distribution of periodicals published in foreign countries. Paragraph II of this law required publication of any correction asked by a person who felt that the content of some article published by the periodical was offensive to him or that information given was untrue. And finally the law No. 130/ 1936 (May 13)15 was enacted, which completed the previous National Defense laws for the defense of the Republic. This law established capital punishment for many crimes against law No. 50/ 1923. It also prohibited the publication of news regarding military treason if not approved previously by the Ministry of National . Defense. All these laws and Government Decrees were climaxed by • National Defense Law No. 131/ 1936 (May 13)16 for the defense of the State. This law gave the Government absolute power in a national emergency to suspend all laws, all rights and liberties. It gave the Government the right to censor the press, films, telegrams, telephone conversations, letters, packages sent by mail, phonographs records, etc. It established preventive censorship and gave the State's Security Bureau the power to prohibit the publication and distribution of periodicals. The importation of periodicals from abro.ad ·could be also prohibited. The law provided for the establishment of a commission which would direct and carry out the censorship policy. The Government was given in fact dictatorial powers: and this law was generally considered as the last nail in the coffin of democracy in Czecho-Slovakia. SLOVAKIA 99 Objectives and Methods of Czechoslovak Censorship Policies From the analysis of censored material it is possible to learn much about the objectives pursued by the Czech Government in the case of Slovakia. Previous mention has been made of the profound antagonism developed between the Slovaks and Czechs as a result of the Czech violation of the Cleveland and Pittsburgh pacts. The Czech wanted to denationalize the Slovaks by forcing them to accept the false claim that Slovaks are Czechs and that the Slovak language is a Czech dialect. To obtain this aim, the Czechs made use of various means. They created a wave of terrorism, using the armed forces, police, gendarmery and the C z e ch national organizations, especially "Sokol" known for both its atheism and chauvinism. They also sent hundreds of thousands of Czech teachers and Czech Government officials into Slovakia, thereby forcing the Slovaks, who were denied jobs in their own country, to emigrate because of hunger and unemployment. They further contributed to the economic impaverishrnent of Slovakia by dismantling its heavy industry and transporting the productive machinery to Bohemia. In this way production was stopped and the enterprises were forced to dose. Many factory buildings were purposely demolished .and many mines flooded.17 The steel, chemica:l, glass and leather industries suffered most cruelly. When the workers, deprived of their jobs demonstrated to prevent the dismantling of the factories and machinery, the Czech soldiers and the gendarmery killed many of them. 18 In the period from 1918 to 1932, 261 enterprises were closed down in Slovakia. From 1933 to 1937 another 425 enterprises were dismantled, bringing the total number to 686. 19 Meanwhile, new industries were founded in Bohemia which logically belonged in Slovakia, since Slovakia provided the raw materials used in them.20 The transportation tariffs in Slovakia were about 40 percent higher than in Bohemia and Moravia. Consequently the Slovak coal was more expensive than coal imported from Bohemia. 21 Further discrimination was manifest in the field of housing construction. 22 100 SLOVAKIA From 1921 to 1923 Slovakia received only 6 per cent of the State's subsidies for the unemployed, although the unemployment in Slovakia was higher than in Bohemia. 23 From the sum assigned by the Government for the construction and maintenance of schools of higher education and Universities, Slovakia received 10 per cent, while the educational institutions in Slovakia were to be built up almost entirely. 24 The result: Slovakia had only one incomplete University and no Polytechnical Institute, while the Czechs had several, and the German minority had two Universities and two Polytechnical Institutes. Further, the Slovak University was practically a Czech University, because the professors named by the Government were all Czechs. Salaries for the Slovaks were about 20 per cent lower than for the Czechs. While Slovakia abounded in natural resources, especially for the production of energy, the petroleum lamp was the usual source of light. The combined savings of five Slovak citizens were equal to the savings of a single Czech. Czech capital absorbed whatever Slovak industry still remained after its dismantling. Slovak banks were engulfed by Czech banks, and foreign capital was allowed to supplant the remaining Slovak capital. 25 When agrarian reform was inaugurated in Slovakia, only 21 per cent of the land was sold to Slovak peasants, while the rest was distributed free to the Czechs. 26 The discrimination against Slovak peasants in transportation tariffs and taxes resulted in frequent strikes. Instead of offering to improve their desperate condition, the Government gave the order to fire at the strikers.27 Their hopeless situation led them to emigrate in large numbers to the U.S.A., Canada, Argentina, France, Germany and Belgiurn. 28 Slovakia was treated like a colony by the Czechs. They regarded Slovakia only as an object of exploitation, a reservoir of cheap labor and a market for the products of Czech industries. The Czech Government aimed to keep Slovakia as an underdeveloped agricultural country. 29 Practically all the administrative positions in Slovakia were filled by Czechs, whose salaries also were double those of the Slovaks. 30 In Slovakia political oppression worked hand in hand with economic injustice. Aware of Czech chauvinism, the Slovaks began early SLOVAKIA \'yd»od1 denne ~rem pondelk.a Zdkladafel' a YO!ICA ; Andrei ffllnka 101 Br611slava,. slreda 6. m11e. t9H 1Grecki povsfalci chysfaju illok na Affleny Rozvral na Balk6ne, alebo vffllZSlvo greckel vl6dy - Bulbarsko vyslela voJsko na grkke brank:e ·• •11>1 ••• ~-••U ,.....,n,&aJ-.. ,.,,..,., .. ~i,---iol,f . .•• ~ ~ - : . • ~ ,• :'" .:.:.•\.:=: tf~i~~l~~t;~~~ ~fiff;[f~!~1f[~tt¥.Jlf§ l{if;}~t~¥.K~~ The whitewashed newspapers had to be presented in a new form: A corrected issue was printed after the confiscation to organize politically. The great Slovak patriot Msgr. Andrej Hlinka founded the Catholic and nationalist Slovak People's Party. Its program aimed at autonomy for Slovakia in accordance with the decrees of the Pittsburgh Pact (1918). The Protestant leader, poet, and writer, Rev. Martin Razus, restored the Slovak National Party. In order to hinder Slovak political association, the Czechs established branches of their own parties in Slovakia. By means of political intrigue and corruption they attained a measure of success, but the majority of Slovaks resolutely opposed them. Because of 102 SLOVAKIA the forced intergration of Slovakia with Bohemia, and the denial of Slovakia's right to self-determination, the fiftyfive Slovak deputies were invariably outvoted by the Czech majority in the Prague Parliament. The Czechs employed terrorist tactics also against Slovak political parties, imposing on them a relentless censorship of the press and disruption of their public meetings. By such means they strove to impede direct communication between the Slovak people and their political leaders. The press was a high-powered tool in the hands of the Slovak political parties. It introduced new ideas, it taught the people to recognize and support their own national interest, it pointed out the injustices committed against the Slovak nation by the Government and it suggested ways to remedy the situation. Public meetings served the same purpose, demonstrating by enthusiastic attendance the growing strength of the Slovak nation. Consequently, public meetings were dissolved by government agents whenever the speaker criticized the government, and troops and police were ordered to charge against the protesting Slovaks. Many Slovaks were killed and wounded by Czech bullets. The censor deleted from the press every criticism of Government officials and legislative bodies, in order to cover their misdeeds and keep the people uninformed. The second purpose was to hinder opposition parties from communicating with their readers and voters. In the hope of keeping such ideas in the background and forcing on the Slovaks the false notion of a "Czechoslovak nation and people", the Czech censor confiscated articles dealing with Slovakia's national identity and its right to self determination. The Czech determination to eradicate religion from Slovak public life must remain under cover, hence the censor suppressed all articles and reports of the desecration of churches by the Czechs and the removal of crosses from schools. In the eyes of the Czechs it was a most serious crime for the Slovak press to publicize the struggle of the Slovak people for autonomy, for the right to govern themselves, to run their own schools; in short, to enjoy all the rights of nationhood belonging to them as a nation. The Czechs seem SLOVAKIA 103 to have naively thought that without the press to remind them of their rights the Slovaks would drop the issue. The Slovaks were not allowed to read reports on CzechoSlovakia in press. The Czech Government feared that this would more profoundly motiviate their political aspirations. Practically all the statements and resolutions of the Slovak political parties were censored in order to stifle opposition and prevent the natural political development of the Slovak nation. Reports of the activity of Slovak organizations in the United States of America were yet another object of the censor's displeasure, because these organizations were strongly in favor of autonomy for Slovakia. The two presidents of Czecho-Slovakia, Masaryk and Bene~, were unassailable in the press. The slightest criticism, whether by Czechs or by Slovaks, was taboo and automatically censored out. A legend was built up around these two men, making them untouchable as if they were the apex of perfection. To perpetuate it no criticism of their many human foibles and moral lapses was tolerated. The real objective of Czech cenzorship was to suppress the facts of Slovak history with their underlying appeal to self-respect and to strike out these glorious moments of the past which could fortify the Slovak political and national fight for the realization of their ideal of freedom and independence. Censorship was thorough. It made impossible any attempt by the Slovaks and other minority groups to charge the Czech government with undemocratic practices. Meanwhile the Czechs were using it to create a "great Czech nation" at the expense of the other ethnic groups living in Czecho-Slovakia and disregarding their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Their ultimate goal was to achieve a dominant position among the small States in Central Europe. In a word, Czech censorship was a tool of Czech imperialism and its faithful servant. It was the ruthless Czech antidote to the self-determination and national development of the Slovak nation and the other minorities in the CzechoSlovak Republic. As such, Czech censorship was diametrically opposed to the principles of democracy, freedom, and human progress. 104 SLOVAKIA "Authority is conservative ... freedom is progressive .. . conflict between the two is inevitable", says Lucy Maynard Salmon, 31 in reference to freedom of the press. Since Czech censorship was directed against human progress, freedom, and democracy, the means it employed could only have been wicked. It stopped at nothing to attain its objectives. Nothing was immoral if it served the Czech goal of domination. Czech post office and railway employees often seized entire editions of the opposition's periodicals and destroyed them. Soldiers were often ordered to raid newspaper and party offices to confiscate mailing lists and manuscripts. This happened in Trnava, Leopoldov, Bratislava, and elsewhere. Sometimes the soldiers reduced the place to shambles. Consequently, readers in the capital city itself were often deprived of their papers. Karol Sidor reported in the March 22, 1919 issue of the Slovak: " Orders have been given (,b y Czech officials) to destroy the SLOVAK. Revorts have been pouring in from all parts of Slovakia that the SLOVAK, ofl!!c!al PU!bl!cation of the Slovak 'People's Party, has been seized by scoundrels and its sale and dlstriburtion prohibited."32 Kon~tantin Culen wrote: "In the early yea,rs the SLOVAK was subjected to as many as three censorsihips: political, military, and economic. Some issues of the newspaper ,bore the inscription, "Thrice censored and corrected edition". Even these multi-censored copies were sometimes thrown out of trains en route by Czech mailmen. Slovak employees who dared to subscribe to the Sl.lOVAK endangered their livelihood. And when even this did not dauRt them, they were personally terrorized by the police and government of!lclals .33 Oftentimes newspapers were deprived of the right of distribution (colportage). Post offices were instructed to refuse money orders sent to the opposition newspapers. Persons who subscribed to these newspapers were harassed and many were dismissed from government jobs. 34 Court action was taken against editors of newspapers which printed articles unwelcome to the censor. The editors 111.sually assumed responsibility for unsigned articles; hence, many of them were in and out of jail. In a censored article entitled "We protest" Msgr. Andrej Hlinka wrote these bitter words: SLOVAKIA 105 "We a re involved in doz ens, even hundreds of cour-t ca-ses. Hereafter I will assume full responsibility for every news article, whether written by the editor or by Paul or Saul. J will appear before the judge, I will answer the charges. And when I have been deprived of freedom, when the iron door of my prison has dosed behind me, when I am locked up and begin to burn like an expiatory candle on the a ltar of the fa,therl and, then I will charge you, friends, deputies. and leaders of the P eople's Party: •F ollow me! Let each of you shoulder r esoonsibility for one, two, ten articles, an d all of us will become involved with the courts. But no. I am wrong. Let us not get so involved. Not of our own volition will we become entangled with the courts. We will yield only to brutal compulsion. You Czechs will have to drag us into the courts. And when my right hand has become still and my mortal remains have decomposed, I tell you that a great line will form behind me, eager as I for the glory that is sure to follow. 7ou cannot silence us. You can only massacre us. But one tiling I ask: Do not go on deceiving the world that you are our brothers tsons of the same nation). Never will we consent to be Czechos lovaks ... Slova kia is ours an d we will defend our country against you as we defended it against the Magyars. The more you incriminate ns, the more you imprison us, the more forcef ully will we fight against you." As the representative and chairman of the People's Party, Msgr. Andrej Hlinka spoke out boldly on this subject in Parliament. In June 1922, in the debate arising from his interpellation No. 3584 on the raid of the offices of the Slovak and Eudove noviny, he described the attack as initiated and engineered by government agents. Not only did the assailants wreck office equipment and furniture and destroy books, but they were aided in their orgy of destruction by the police, who should have been maintaining order. The chief of police of Bratislava, Dr. Slavicek, a Czech, declared that he had been unable to check the raid because the majority of his men were hostile to the Slovak People's Party. Andrej Hlinka rightly demanded to know when the Slovaks might expect to have the protection of law and order. 35 Karol Sidor described the demolition and plundering of the offices of the Slovak as follows: On :!\fay 25, 1922 a huge rally was orga nized in Bratislava -to protest. Several Slovak legiona ries and Slovak university students were present. At one 'POint a Czech speaker railed against the SLOVAK. dem <tndlnr; that it be placed under the strictest censorship. An aroused Slovak legionary shouted: "Your aim is to cripple the Catholic press; you would do better to suppress your own anti-Catholic and antiSlovak press." The legionary paid for these words with a cruel beating ... A Slovak university student r eceived th e same treatment, bis 106 SLOVAKIA clothes torn and covered with blood, after he had called out to an abusive Czech speaker, "Please, talk to us in Slovak!" ... ·The speeches continued until 12: 30 p.m. At 1: 00 p.m. the first group of demonstrators appeared in front of the editorial offices or the SLOV.AK . . . Some 1,500 Czech legionaries escorted the demonstrators. Awaiting them was a group of 150-200 men and women who had assembled from the villages to defend SLOVAK property. A fight ensued, but the Czech legionaries with the aid of some 10(} policemen, invaded the editorial offices and broke tables and chairs, flung books, bound journals, manuscripts etc. out the windows. (Czech) legionaries piled •the items into ca,r s and drove away. Other (Czech) legionaries r aided the ,SLOV.AK's administrative offices and worked havoc there also. They carried off valuaibles, including shares and mailing lists. The yard outside ,w as littered with papers. These raids were permitted, even abetted by the police, who together with the legionaries received praise and commendation in the Czech press for their acts of des,truction.36 During the night of March 31, 1920, a certain Czech army major Ludevit Palounek by name, placed a bomb in the Lev printery in Ruzomberok in the hope of destroying the voice of the People's Party and its organ of free discussion. 37 Even the mails were misused: derisive pamphlets were inserted in the bundles of the Slovak, 38 as they were being shipped to their destination. With the growing tension in the relations between the· Slovaks and Czechs, the censorship became more and more despotic. After 1932, there were almost daily confiscations of the Slovak press. The censor received his instructions from the Ministry of the Interior. If the censor found in the piece examined something he considered inadmissible, he deleted it; the· Attorney General then ordered the police to confiscate the publication. The police seized the entire edition and burned it. The publishing house or the editors could make an appeal in court, or a board of representatives in Parliament could protest to the Minister of the Interior, or of Justice, or both. If the censorship was found unfair, the editors or publishers could demand reimbursement for damages. But in most cases they lost the appeal. After confiscation, a newspaper, book, or journal was printed in a new edition with the censored areas left blank. It bore the inscription "Following confiscation, a new and corrected edition" in the upper left corner of the front page of the periodical, or on the cover of the book. SLOVAKIA 107 After Slovakia achieved independence on March 14, 1939, government officials found in the archives of the Attorney General confidential orders issued by the Czech Government with instructions to the censor as to how many times a week certain newspapers were to be confiscated. After a stated number of confiscations, the periodical could be suspended for three or six months, and after repeated confiscations, it could be suspended indefinitely at the discretion of the censor. This was a most powerful weapon in the hands of the Government, and it was effectively used during the visit of President Edward Benes in Slovakia in 1933. Under the pretex of repeated confiscations, the newspapers Slovak, Slovenska pravda, Narodne noviny and the political review Nastup were suspended, so as to prevent any criticism of Benes's speeches in the press. It was on this visit that he angered the Slovaks by declaring that they must become Czechs. The actions of the censor were despotic because he knew that the Government would not fail to support him. The Slovak and Slovenska pravda were confiscated almost every day. The humoristic weeklies Osa and Kocur were also confiscated, along with the cultural monthlies Pero , Slovenske pohl'ady and Elan. Almanacs, books, poetry collections, and placards were not exempt. Sometimes periodicals were confiscated because of articles reprinted from other non-censored newspapers. For example a periodical was confiscated because it contained a poem originally published in the Slovak-American almanac Jednota. An editorial containing quotations from a book by President Thomas G. Masaryk was also confiscated. An article by the great Slovak writer, Svatozar Hurban Vajansky, published in Hungary at the ~md of the 19th century, was censored when reprinted in Slovak after World War I. Newspapers were confiscated for using the hyphen in the name of the Republic "CzechoSlovakia" although early peace treaties carry the name in this form. 39 On several specific occasions the Czechs declared that it would be dangerous for the future of the Republic if freedom of speech and press were permitted in Slovakia.40 With confiscation being an almost daily occurence, periodicals suffered very heavy losses. It is pertinent to point out that while the Czech party press subsisted on SLOVAKIA 108 government funds, the Slovak press depended entirely upon the voluntary support of party members, together with subscription fees. The Slovak people understood perfectly the great importance of the press and supported it generously. Only in this way was the Slovak opposition press able to survive such continuous economic strangulation by the Czech Government. Characteristic of the situation are words like the following: " . .. we must perforce decline to publish original articles on topics banned by the government and must limit ourselves to those which have already passed the censor." 41 This is not all. When Slovak representatives protested in Parliament against the policies of the Government and its agencies, their speeches in Parliament were censored and denied publication in the parliamentary record Tisky Poslaneck e Snemovny Nar odniho Shromazdeni Ceskoslovensk e. The bimonthly Nastup wrote: Republiky " Instead of aick now ledging the human righ t to fr eedom of di scussion, th e Czechs pr oh ibited a utonomist meetings a nd r estricted their publications. Now they have resorted to oth er meas ures. "Th e P r esi de nt of th e Senate su ppressed a portion of Dr . Joseph Buday's speech i n ·P a rlia men t. The Presidents of both C hambers of Parl iamen t confiscated a major portion of the statement pr esented by th e representatives of the Slovak People's Party. "An exten ded (95 pages) and repo r tedly objective in ter pellation of th e r epresentatives of the Slovak People's Par ty was als o censored by the Presidents of Par liament and denied publicati on. " T his action was t a ken at a time w h en press censorshi p was so stringent that no politician or political party could f r eely and publicly express a dissenting opinion as far as the Government was concerned. "Ju Slovakia the natio na li st press is pres ently s ubjected to continuous sharp criticism a nd s uppression .. . In view of this we mus t behold with a s tonishment the a d ditional measures taken in Parlia m ent ·to silence the autonomists who are already so effectively silenced by press cens orship . Meanwhile •Slova k centr alists (i.e., Czech p a r tisans ) without hindrance flood Slovakia wit h their uncensored public_ations ."42 The newspaper Nar odne Noviny reported in its November 27, 1936 issue: Statistics show that the number of confiscated publications in Czecho-Slovakia for the given years was as follows~ 1929 1930 1934 Newspapers and periodicals ______ 3,370 Books ___ ______________ __________ 918 2,533 2,138 846 Confiscations 718 109 SLOVAKIA Foreign books and periodicals _____ 255 Total ______ ________ 4,543 183 3,434 329 3,313 Of these confiscations, 60 to 70% involved Slovak books and periodicals. Censorship of Books Writing under the pseudonym Andrej Zarnov, a student at the University of Bratislava, named Frantisek Subik, made his literary debut in 1925 with the publication of a book of poems which already then showed the promise that was to make him a leading Slovak poet. The title of the book was Straz pri Morave (Sentry at the Morava River) . Finding it too nationalistic, the censor ordered the entire edition confiscated and had it burned at police headquarters. The representatives of the Slovak People's Party challenged this action in the Parliament. They asked the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Justice: 1) Whether they were aware of the confiscation of these poems; 2) Whether they approved; 3) Whether both Ministers were disposed to secure the validity of the Constitution which guarantees freedom of the press; 4) Whether they were disposed to take appropriate disciplinary action against the censor in Bratislava; 5) Whether they were ready to guarantee freedom of the press in Slovakia equal to that in Bohemia. Needless to say, the Czech majority refused to discuss this urgent interpellation in Parliament. 43 On the occasion of Msgr. Andrej Hlinka's seventieth birthday, Karol Sidor, representative in Parliament and editor of the Slovak, published his biography, covering the years 1864-1926. A great admirer and loyal follower of Hlinka, Sidor presented his hero as the key figure in the Slovak political and national struggle for freedom and independence. This 554-page biography suffered 31 deletions totaling some 295 lines, equal to seven pages of the book. It was issued with the customary caption on the cover: "Po konfiskacii nove opravene vydanie" (After confiscation a new and 110 SLOVAKIA corrected edition) and with blankspaces to show where the censor had disapproved. The following lines were deleted on pages 368-369, from Sidor's description of the Czech attack on the meeting of the Slovak People's Party in Zilina, August 17, 1919: With draiwn bayonets, soldiers charged upon the people In the square and scenes of horror ensued. Andrej Hlinka saw hi,s people struck with rifl e 1butts and carried a,way as prisoners to the barracks. Women from Kysuce exposed thei,r breasts to the bayonets and shouted: "Strike here, you curs, and touch not Hlinka ! " On October 10, 1920 Czech military units once more dispersed a meeting of the Slovak People's Party in Namestovo and fired into the crowd, killing two Slovak peasants and seriously wounding ten. On page 442 the description of this savage act was deleted: Bedfich Danek, a Czech lieutenant, scornfully asked a young man weeping over the body of his slain father: "Why do you weep? It ,w as Hlinka who killed him!" Namestovo came to ,be regarded a-s a second Cernova. The Czech press and the Government Press Agency CTK wished to place the blame for this bloodshed on Hlinka. They charged Hlinka with inciting the Slovaks against the Czechs. Hlinka answered in the October 16, 1920 issue of the Slovak. This portion of the article was deleted from the biography: Yes, I did incite the people. I incited them and will continue to Incite •them . My very presence incites them. So much so that it stirs your murky conscience, stained with a ·b rother's blood. I have incited and will continue to incite them to oppose t:he •b ase t,raud you perpetrated against •the !Slovak n ation. W,e •w ill rise up to oppose every injustice. Why should we not be aroused against you, who seized me a year ago in the dead of night and held me captive for six months at Mirov, iBrodek, Podolie, to afford you an opportunity to demoralize and dis• rupt .Slovakia? Should I have danced to your music when you placed bombs in our "Lev" printery, •which had •been established with owhard•earned savin~s? I would be a cowardly traitor If I did not raise my voice, if J did not search for a remedy and seek help. We have incited and lest we be despised by Slovakia, we will not stop inciting our people until w,e win autonomy from you. On page 490 the censor deleted a reference to discrimination against the Slovaks in assigning government jobs: The •Slovaks were unable to procure even the cheapest loaf or government bread in Slovakia; (referring to jobs) their applications were answered with a curt: "Impossible to grant", while t he Czech people, often without qualification, were given the best paid jobs in Slovakia. SLOVAKIA 111 That is how the newspapers SLOVAK, NARODNIE NOVINY, and the magazine, NASTUP, looked after censorship A quotation on p. 506 from an "Appeal of the Representatives of the Slovak People's Party to the Minister of the Interior" in Prague, September 4, 1923, was confiscated: The authorities spread terror every-where. Civil servants planned the disruption of meetings by force and public safety agencies did nothing to -defend the victims; on the contrary, they cooperated with the agressors. Holle, Nove Zamky, and ,t he riot at Brezova make it clear as day that groups of assailants were organized to incHe rioting and to damage private property. Very heavily censored was the chapter in which Sidor described Hlinka's arrest at midnight. The occasion was his return from the Peace Conference in Paris, where he had delivered to the delegates a Memorandum in which he demanded in the name of the Slovak nation that the Slovaks be given national and civic freedom and their autonomy guaranteed. Hlinka's words to one of his chaplains were censored on page 385. "Proclaim abroad to the wide world the kind of freedom we enjoy in Slovakia. They have come to carry me off like a criminal In the middle of the night when everybody is asleep ... The press reported that I trembled. On the contrary, I felt like a lion. I cared not whether they killed me or jailed me. My blood 112 SLOVAKIA boiled. Indescribable feelings struggled within me. I could not tell which was stronger: my love for my oppress-ed nation or my contempt of the intruders ... " Following Hlinka's deportation, an account of the rebellions of the students and citizens of his parish town, Ruzomberok, was variously deleted as on pages 387, 392 and 393. The description of the terrorism of the Czech soldiers and employees in Slovakia was censored on page 444: November 6, 1920 he (Rev. Frantisek Klein) reported in the SLOVAK that he was traveling by train •with soldiers who insulted him because he was reading the .SIJOV AK. One of ,them asked in Czech: "Why doesn't someone kill tH!inka ?" On pages 458-459 the account of the murderous attack on Hlinka's life in Krupina, June 12, 1921, by a Czech, and the insult to which he was subjected in Sahy two days later by Czech railroadmen was expunged: The following day, June 13, Hlinka set out with companions to Sahy to report the Krupina incident to the "Zupan", [)r. Victor Ravasz. As he was passing through the square a railroadman, named S<tu~hlik and the school inspector, Bartolom/lj Krpelec, both Czechs, confronted him with curses, calling him "bandit" and "agitator". Later at the "zupan's" office, Stuchlik, with 60 co-workers, delivered the following ultimatum: The "zupan" must expel Andrej iHlinka at once from ,the 1Hont "zupa" or suffer the consequences. The railroadmen (all Czechs) also declared that they would not permit Hlinka's train to leave the Sahy station. ·T he "zupan", after appealing to the Ministry in BraJtislava for instructions, assured Blinka that the culprits in both Krupina and Sahy •w ould ,be penalized as an example to others. In the a,fternoon IHlinka ,boarded •the train at Sahy. The station wa,s filled with people, waiting to see the outcome of the contest. The rallroadmen held to their purpose. After a long while the zupan arrive6l at ,t he station. The railroadmen demanded that -he order Hlinka out of the train. Lenghty nego tiations followed. Meanwhile Hlinka waited patiently within ... Finally the "zupan" announced that the ,train was about to depart. At that moment a line of railroadmen formed below the windO'W of Hlinka's compartment. They gave vent to their haitred -b y spitting at Hlinka, cursing and maligning ·h im until the train moved out oE sight. Another incident which occurred in the railroad station Trencianske Teplice, July 5, 1921, was deleted from page 459: A Czech in the station, recogmzmg Hlinka, called out, "Hang Hlinka ! " Andrej IHlinka stepped forward and asked him to identify himself. The Czech continued to shout, but did not give his name ... And a few lines further on the same page: SLOVAKIA 113 Another •Czech took up the cry, shouting, "Hang Hllnka". The p eople attacked h im, although ,Hlinka- made an effort to calm them. Mea nwhil e the train arrived and he boarded it ,w ith his secretary Ramaj . :Bishop Kmeeko a nd tMsgr. Tiso remained in the station, bu t they were unable to quiet the p eople. Several Czechs were severely beaten . Other subjects censored in Sidor's book were: criticism ·o f President Masaryk's anti-Catholic attitude (page 286) ; daims of job discrimination that while hundreds of thousands of Czechs were given the best paid jobs in Slovakia, often without qualification, more than 300,000 Slovaks were forced to emigrate because of the discrimination against them (pages 345 and 490). Also censored were references to organized Czech terror against the Slovaks, to agression against Hlinka and his followers, to denial of government protection in the exercise of freedom of speech and association, and any account of the formation of defense groups of the Slovak People's Party for the protection of its meetings .against Czech terrorists. Among the deletions were several lines about the general anti-Catholic attitude of the Czech people (page 471). Another censored book was Vo vazeni, written by a young editor of the Slovak, Alexander Mach. 46 The author had been jailed on a charge of conspiracy with Professor Dr. Vojtech Tuka against the integrity of Czecho-Slovakia. After serving part of the sentence, he was exonerated from complicity in the "plot" and released. A year later he published his book about his term in prison. In a manifestly unjust trial Dr. Vojtech Tuka was sentenced to 15 years and liberated after 10 years, when Slovakia won her autonomy on October ·6, 1938. From Mach's book the censor confiscated some 520 lines, totaling 13 pages, or 7 per cent of the 198 pages of the book. Unfortunately, I do not know of any uncensored copy of the book and can therefore quote nothing from it. To illustrate the mental climate in which the author wrote his book, I will cite some lines of his epilogue "Po roku" (After one year): I was in prisoa on charges which cannot at present be freely and sincerely dis cussed. In preparing this accoun t I was hemmed in by restrairut lest I again find myself rb ehind prison bars . I was obliged to limit my remarks lest the censor fo11bid their publication. Difficulties in the selection of material abounded. It was not easy for me to decide what to eliminate, what to omit ... Thus as I prepared 114 SLOVAKIA my narrative rhe penal code was before me. Yet I have remained completely frank; I did not change what I had •w ritten as a prisoner. I preferred only .to eliminate the sensitive issues ... Another example of the censorship of books is furnished by the interpellation presented in the Prague Parliament by the representative Msgr. Dr. Jozef Tiso, concerning the confiscation of the Kalendar Hlinkovej Slovenskej Eudovej Strany na rok 1934 (Almanac of the Hlinka's Slovak People's Party for the year 1934). Two articles which appeared over the name of Msgr. Andrej Hlinka, chairman of the Party, were confiscated. In these articles Hlinka warned the Czechs to stop persecuting the Slovaks for claiming autonomy. Even Czech authors, whom Hlinka quoted to illustrate his articles, were censored. The title of the first article was "Za ~t'astne Slovensko" (For a prosperous Slovakia). In the second article "Uprimne slovo o Nitre" (A frank comment on Nitra) Hlinka analyzed the spontaneous explosion of Slovak discontent at the festivities commemorating the 1,l00th anniversary of the first Christian church on Slovak territory, created in Nitra by Prince Pribina in about 831 A. D. It was, Hlinka declared, a display of resistance to the Prague Government, intent on exploiting these eminently Slovak festivities for their own purposes. Andrej Hlinka, who had been refused the right to speak on the program, was carried up to the stage and backed by his 200,000 followers, he read a statement in which he solemnly affirmed Slovakia's adherence to its eleven hundred years-old Christian traditions and proclaimed Slovakia's right to territorial sovereignity. This demonstration of outraged Slovak national pride was observed by foreign diplomats and news reporters, who were thus witnesses of the true will of the Slovak nation to be free and the chauvinistic aim of the Czechs as expressed in the Ottuv Obchodni Slovnik (Otta's Commercial Dictionary, 1921) volume 2, page 1217: "Slovakia shall be a colony to us. It is an error to suppose that a colony cannot have common frontiers with the mother country. An example of this is Russia and Siberia." Several lines from a poem by Ignac Grebac Orlov were· also censored. Partially censored was the article entitled "Narodna jednota" (National unity), by Dr. Jozef Tiso on the· necessity of national unity for the Slovaks. . SLOVAKIA 115 From the article "K sedemdesiatke Andreja Hlinku" (On the 70th anniversary of Andrej Hlinka) by Karol Sidor this paragraph was deleted: What occured in 11919, ,w hen 'Hlinka and other Slovak leaders were jailed, the ISiLOVAK suspended, and terrorism unleashed everywhere, was now repeated on a larger scale. In .September 193131 the 1SIJOVAK was suspended -f or 3 months ... lik,ewise the .S'.liOVAiK TYZDENNIK (1Slovak Weekly) and the T!AT·•RA:N,SKY SLOVAK (Tatra Slovak). We were left without a voice ... We were not permitted to w,rite, the people had nothing to read. And the prisons were daily being filled with objectors. Hundreds of Slovaks were suJbjected ,to investigations about their participation In the Nitra festivities ... Dr. Karol Mederly's article "Obec a politika" (Community and politics) was also confiscated, for its insistence on the right of the Slovaks to vote according to their conscience. Pictures of Hlinka carried on the shoulders of University students to the Nitra stage, the procession of 200,000 Slovaks in Nitra, and even articles of comic and satiric content were censored. The interpellation contains a complete rescript of the articles confiscated in the almanac. 47 In conclusion the writer would like to mention here that printed works of other minorities and political parties were also confiscated by the censor. CENSORSHIP OF PERIODICALS The periodicals in Slovakia have a long tradition. The oldest periodical published on Slovak territory was Schemnitzer N ewszeitung edited in Banska Stiavnica in German, in 1540-1541. Latin periodicals also had their day. The first periodical in the Slovak language was Presspurske noviny (Bratislava News - Pressburg is German for :Bratislava,), published from 1783 to 17 87. Following World War I, newspapers, reviews, and magazines promised to become more plentiful. This was especially welcome to Slovakia, where publications in the Slovak language had been prohibited by Hungarian oppressors. Under the Czecho-Slovak republic the Slovaks were prepared to -enjoy the democratic freedom promised by the Pittsburgh .P act and especially freedom of the press, speech, and association. Alas, they soon came to realize that the promises, 116 SLOVAKIA as far as Slovakia was concerned, were empty words and nothing more. In Czecho-Slovakia, the newspapers were usually owned and operated by political parties. There were very few socalled "independent newspapers". Yet even though labeled "independent", some of these were nevertheless the tool of a financial group, a political party or a governmental coalition. The newspapers in Slovakia were of two kinds: government and so-called opposition. Under opposition came the publication of the Slovak People's Party, the Slovak National Party and the Communist Party. The Hungarian and German minorities had a similar classification of newspapers. All these newspapers were characterized by their adherence to an ideology and the effort to propagate it. They were interested in social and political problems, and they never evaded any controversial issue. Their influence on the formation of public opinion was considerable. The rapid political evolution and maturation of the Slovak nation was due chiefly to the efforts of the political press of the Slovak People's Party and the Slovak National Party. The obstacles with the Czech administration plac~d in their path by means of censorship, economic and political pressure, by corruption and terrorism, by political trials and murder in its effort to suppress the Slovak drive for in-dependence, only helped to accelerate and strenghten this process. In their 20 years of forced cohabitation with the· Czechs, the Slovaks achieved a rapid political evolution, thanks to their press and they were thus prepared in the international crisis of 1938-1939 to proceed prudently toward the realization of their national aspirations. The press of the opposition encountered paralyzing difficulties in Czecho-Slovakia. In a debate before Parliament Msgr. Andrej Hlinka, chairman of the Slovak People's Party declared that under Hungary and Austria, unjustly as they had been treated, the Slovaks and the Czechs had enjoyed greater freedom of the press than in the new "brotherly" State. of Czecho-Slovakia. 48 A resolution issued by the 14th Convention of the Social Democratic Party in 1922 protested against the practice of confiscation of the press. 49 SLOVAKIA 117 Jozef Vr ab e c, representative of the Slovak People's Party, protested against the confiscation of the March 13, 1921 issue of Slovensky krest'ansky socialista, for its article "Za more, za ocean" (Beyond the Sea, beyond the Ocean). 50 In this article the Czech Government was held responsible for the emigration of thousands of Slovaks through its policy of job discrimination and its dismantling of Slovak industries. Slovenske Eudove Noviny was confiscated because it criticized the discriminatory policy against Slovak construction workers by a Czech construction enterprise, which led to a bloody fight between the Slovak jobless workers and the imported Czech workers. The police arrested the Slovaks. 51 In a parliamentary debate on Novembre 24, 1920, representative A. Bobok complained about the "terrible restriction of the press and opinion" in Czecho-Slovakia and claimed the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. 52 In a debate in the House of Representatives, June 21, 1922 Msgr. Andrej Hlinka declared: Each issue of the SLOVAK ts censored . . . ,I will show you a startling example of freedom of the press. Here it is. (He shows censored issues of the ,S1L OVAK, rwith their blank columns). Everything is censored from t he first word to the last. That is suppo,sed to be freedom of the -press, freedom to express an opinion . .. iSee, here is the S1LOVEN,S,KA. JEIDNOTA ... here, SIJOVENSKA. POLITl!KA. Here you see the freedom of the press for which I spent 4 years in jail. Here is 1SlJOViIDNSKA. PRAVDA. Notice what has been deleted. (He reads): "What Czech statistics s-h ow about •S lovak schools." And mention of "Teaching the Slovak language" was eradicated. Such freedom of the press do we enjoy in Slovakia! This has been going on now since Mairch 25 - we are systematically criticized and censored. And they tell the world we have freedom of the -press in this Republic! In Interpellation No. XXI/4226, April 26, 1923, representative Rev. Florian Tomanek interpellated the Minister of Justice on the confiscation of the Slovak, April 25, 1923, because it reprinted the article "Zapredana Orava a Spi§" (Orava and Spis Betrayed) from the newspaper Denny hlas (Daily voice) published in Cleveland, Ohio, April 3, 1923. In this article the Czech diplomat Dr. Karel Pergler, who had also signed the Pittsburgh Pact (1918), accused the CzechoSlovak Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Edvard Bene~ of 118 SLOVAKIA having sold to the Poles the Slovak territories of Orava and Spg for the coal districts of Karvina in Silesia, inhabited by Poles. 54 The Slovak, December 11, 1923, was censored for declaring inaccurate and false the statement of President Dr. T. G. Masaryk that the Slovaks and the Czechs were one and the same nation and that Slovak is a dialect of the Czech language. Representative Rev. Pavol Machacek wrote as follows in the article "Kati sa raduju" (The executioners rejoice) in the August 10, 1922 issue of Slovenske l'udove noviny: Heavy -f ines were imposed on the peasants. Financial burdens forced artisans to close their shops . . . !Government officia1's confiscated articles reprinted from Czech newspapers ... They issued the directive to destroy us at any cost. And they succeeded. ·Since the first or Januwry our daily S'LOVAK has been confiscated 45 times and the SLOVENiSIKE Im.DOVE NOWNY almost as many. Every confiscation meant a loss of 3,5004,000 crowns in damages. In thi-s brief period we were in arrears 1'70,000 crowns. The financial burden became .so greait that the S,J,;{}VAK was forced to cease publication. In an interpellation to the Minister of Interior, representative Rev. Florian Tomanek declared: The coalition government is not content to pass a cruel law, which empowers the Attorney General to confiscate newspapers before distribution. It did not hesitate to permit the violation of the secrecy of registered mail in 'Slovakia without a court order. The Plenipotentiary ordered the confiscation or an Open Letter addre!ised to the !President of the Republic, sent •b y :registered mail from Americans of .Slovak extraction. ,I ndeed, the Minister, •D r. Kallay, has empowered not only the post offices, but also the gendarmery and the police to confiscate letters without notifying the addressee.55 The Slovak in its August 19, 1933 issue complained that it had been confiscated six times in the previous week. The only reason it was not seven times is that the paper is issued only six times a week. The same paper in its August 26, 1933 issue notes: Yesterday's SLOVAK carried news of the confiscation of the TATRA!NSKY SLIOV.AK. But the 1SLIOVAK, SDOVAK TYZDENNIK, SLOVENS<KA BRAVDA, and the fortnightly tSLOVAK NA STRAZI of Zilina suffered a similar fate. In the later paper, seven columns were en<tirely deleted, so that it was issued •with two or its four pages blank. In the article56 "Nedorozumenie medzi autonomistickou tlacou a bratislavskym cenzorom" (A misunderstanding between SLOVAKIA 119 the autonomist press and the censor of Bratislava), the author -ks- (who is probably Karol Sidor, editor-in-chief of the Slovak) wrote that in the previous week an issue of the Slovak had been confiscated because it reprinted in the Slovak language an article about Slovakia written by a Frenchman, Ebray, and published in the Pester Lloyd, a newspaper permitted in Czecho-Slovakia and available in the coffeehouses of Bratislava to anybody who could read German. In a parliamentary debate on the proposal of a new press law, June 9, 1933, Representative Jozef Sivak declared: I would venture to assert ,t hat the development and evolution of d emocracy is best achieved by a ,f ree press ... ,I t is true that article 113 of our Constitution guarantees freedom of the press ... but it is nothing ,but a pa per guairantee, as are all th e guarantees in this Republic. You know that by the Pit tsburgh !Pact the Slovaks were guarantP.ed autonomy, but again this is only a paper guarantee . . . The feverish zeal of the censor knows no limits. The Attorney General confiscates everything. It is not possible in this day and age to w.rite the truth about Czech discriminrution of the !Slovak laborer, to say anything about the rights of •Slovak peasants, !Slovak workers, ,S lovak artisans and shop-keepers. No one is, allowed to criticize the ,government or individual officers. ·All is censored... even the statements of the Board of Representatives of the Slovak \People's iParty ... The following appeared in the article "Neustale habanie Slovaka" (The constant harassment of the Slovak) in its August 22, 1933 issue: Readers of the SLOVAK received the !Sunday edition with dismay. The front page, with six deletions, showed how heavily the hand of the censor had struck. On no account are we p ermitted to criticize ithe government. An article in which Msgr. Andrej Hlinka ,s et forth the significance of the Nitra centennary celebration on August 13, 1933 and praised the Slovaks tfor itheir participation in it, was censored. Confiscated also was an article by 1S enator Andrej Janecek, in which he assumed responsibility for (his part in) the Nltra episode. A report on the investigation of several partici pants in the Nltra festivities was confiscaited, although the government had encouraged attendance. Other confiscations were: Part of the report on the fiasco perpetrated by government parties in Nitra who, although a minority in the district, had convened to protest · the €Vents of August 13, 1933 ; · Slav repor ts on •t he Nitra centenary; ·Reflections on the Pittsburgh Pact. It is not unusual for us to b e subjected to confiscations - evea dally. But what the censor did with our !Sunday edition outrageously surpass·e s anything ever attempted before. Our party will adopt -s uitable measures to defend our consti- 120 SLOVAKIA t uti onal r igh t to free dom of th e press, denied us by th e " lords" i n the governm ent. W e will e m ploy a ll possible means to r each on r read er s. On its anniversary the Slovak was confiscated for the editorial "Patnast' rokov Slovaka" (Fifteen years of the Slovak), which conveyed the impressions of its readers on the reappearance of the Slovak after three months' suspension by the Attorney General. The same issue was confiscated for its information about the activities of Americans of Slovak descent in the United States, a reprint from Osadne hlasy (Parish News ), a Slovak weekly in Chicago, Illinois, and one part of an article by a Czech signatary of the Pittsburgh Pact. 57 Interpellation No. 1193/ IX, November 10, 1937, proffered by representatives Karol Sidor and Dr. Martin Sokol was motiviated by the confiscation of two articles in Slov enska pravda and Slovak, November 10 and 11, 1937. The title of the two articles was "Zakony demonstracii". They included a report on the spirited demonstrations of the studets of Bratislava University, demanding the slovakization of the University, of government bureaus, and of the army and police in Slovakia, under the slogan "Slovakia for the Slovaks". It carried an account of the brutal intervention of Czech police, who severely beat the students with sabres and clubs. An illustration showing a hand brandishing a club (used by the police ) was also confiscated. The headline "Demand plebiscite for Slovak autonomy!" was deleted from the February 10, 1938 issue of the Slovak, but the same line was left by the censor in the text of the article. Such inconsistencies in the practice of censorship were frequent. For this reason the Czech journalist Dr. Benes (not the President Dr. Benes) could declare in the organ of the Union of Czecho-Slovakia Journalists: The pr ess is practically ou tlawed in Czechoslovakia . .. a nd fr ee• dom of the press •has become degenerated by confisca tions .58 Such a statement, naturally, could not have been published in Slovakia. In an evening discussion at the Czechoslovak National Council, the Czech editor Jan· Hrabanek declared that the articles of the Constitution concerning freedom of the press were not respected, that a permit for printing newspapers SLOVAKIA 121 was required, that the publication of periodicals was too often suspended and the right of distribution forfeited on the basis of a mere suspicion, without any conviction of a penal act. 59 After 1932, when young Slovak members of government parties were more attuned to the ideas and attitudes of the majority of the Slovak nation, the governmental press in the Slovak language also began to appear with blank pages. In the May 5, 1939 issue (page 90) of Zem (Soil) a political magazine of young Agrarians, the editor wrote an article entitled "Komu osozi cenzura?" (Who Benefits from censorship?) Among other things he said: Newspapers with blank pages ... that is a product of the censor. The author sees thi.s miscarrriage of his intellectual effort and loses heart. Readers are cheated by receiving blank newspapers . . . Jn recent times the censor is busier than ever before. Formerly only newspapers which habHually pabl!shed a rticles sharply criticizing the government were censored. These were chiefly the papers of the opposition. •B ut that is a. thing of the past. Nowadays even the newsp a pers of government pal'ties are censored and they appear now with the familiar blank spaces. What was most offensive to the Slovaks was the confiscation of the literary magazine Slovenske Pohl'ady, No. l0A, 1932, published with the date of October 28, the "Day of Freedom", the official national festivity of the CzechoSlovak Republic. Slovenske Pohl'ady, founded in 1846, had never been confiscated before. It had always stood as a symbol of the independent cultural life of the Slovaks and was dear to the heart of every Slovak. Why was this revered non-political periodical censored? Its editor Dr. Stefan Krcmery, submitted to criticism the Czechs in Slovakia, because they did not read or buy Slovak books and despised Slovak literature. In the other censored article he reviewed very favorably a new volume of poems Hlas krvi (The Voice of blood), published by Andrej Zarnov, author of the confiscated volume of poems Straz pri Morave, mentioned on page 53. The cultural magazines Pero (Pen), Pramen (Source), Elan (Impetus) and DAV (The Masses) and the humoristic periodical Osa (Wasp) and Kocur (Cat) were also confiscated several times. 122 SLOVAKIA CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS OF OTHER NATIONALITIES LIVING IN CZECHO-SLOV AKIA The Slovak press was not alone in the battle for freedom of the press. Other ethnical groups living in CzechoSlovakia were also hindered in the free expression of ideas. It is true that the Czech Government was much more lenient toward the Germans and Magyars, who were favorably situated and could appeal to the German Reich and Hungary for moral and financial support. But the case of the Ukrainians living in the territory of "Subcarpathian Russia" was similar to that of the Slovaks. By the Peace Treaties of Saint Germain-en-Laye, France, on October 10, 1919, this territory which had belonged to Hungary before World War I was incorporated in Czecho-Slovakia as an autonomous entity. Its position in the Czecho-Slovak Republic was to be that of a federated state. But, as in the Slovak case, the Czechs failed to honor their obligations and the Ruthenians were treated as another Czech colony. Its political and economic exploitation was in open contradiction to the terms of the St. Germain-en-Laye treaties. The po:.. sition of the Subcarpathian Ruthenians was as hopeless as that of the Slovaks. But this poor and exploited nation was also aware of its national origin and of the Czech aims of domination. Its representatives in the Prague Parliament and its periodicals followed generally the same line as that of the Slovaks. They demanded their rights, guaranteed by the peace treaties, especially the right of national self-determination. · The Czech methods of domination in Subcarpathian Russia were similar to those employed in Slovakia: military and political terrorism, economic exploitation and impoverishment, political corruption and censorship, combined with the curtailing of freedom of speech and association. In Parliament the Ruthenians reacted in the same way as the Slovaks. The January. 31, 1926 issue of the newspaper Karpatska pravda (Carpathian truth), published in Uzgorod, was censor·ed in its editorial "Continuous Oppression" for this statement: The cup is full to overflowing. ·T he poor people of Subcarpathian Ruthenia, ruthl essly oppressed ·by the Czech bourgeoisie, suffers cold, SLOVAKIA 123 unemploy men t, hu nger, pove r ty a nd e ndles·s mis,ery. Eig-h teen years we h ave lived in "fr ater nal" union with Czecho,S lovak ia, but nothing h as ·been do ne to improve social cond Hions .. .so On April 8, 1937 Representative Dr. S. A. Fencik interpellated the Minister of the Interior on the confiscation of issue No. 216 of Na§ put (Our way ), published in Uzgorod. The periodical was confiscated on the pretex that the censored article might disturb the public peace. It was entitled "Voice of a Slovak" and included a quotation from the daily Slovak, March 19, 1937, stating that the establishment by Prague of a "Gubernatorial Council" for Subcarpathian Russia is but a surrogate for the autonomy guaranteed by the Constitution. The article was not confiscated in the Slovak, but the Na§ put was confiscated for informing its readers .a bout the Slovak' s views. The No. 212 issue of Na§ put, 1937 was confiscated on the same pretex, i. e. that it might disturb the public peace. The article "Autonomy" was confiscated for the lines: " ... this a utonomy is guaranteed only on paper . To this day it h as not been r ealized. In eighteen yea.rs no effort has been made to b egi n to put it into effect."61 The press of the Czech opposition also shared the fate of that of the other nationalities. Only a very insignificant percentage of Czechs however, voted for their opposition parties. The others were generally satisfied with their privileged position and had no desire to change it. On September 16, 1930 the representatives of the Czech National Democracy, Dr. Karel Pergler and Ji.ti Sti'ibrny interpellated the Minister of Justice on the confisc ation of the periodical Franta, vol. III. No. 21 , March 6, 1930: Despite the guarantees of freedom or speech and press contained i n the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak •Republic, o ur legislative bodies have not checked or even improved the preventive censorship inconsistent with democracy, especially in peacetime. Under a r egi me li k e ours one wou ld not expect a censor.s hip and confiscation policy which ·r enders impossible a decent and desirable criticism of ideas and political principles h el d by government functionaries. But the exact opposite is the ca,se. In this Repu1blic it is not permitted to discuss people in the government and their views on any topic. As a proo1' of my assertion, I have here several periodicals that suf·fered con fiscation. The classic example of the confiscation policy adopted by the government in contradiction to the most basic concepts of freedom of the press and discussion, was the confiscation of the March 6, 19·30 issue of F'RQ)l''DA. The article "Two Concepts" by F. Schwartz was the offender ... 124 SLOVAKIA This article contained criticism of Dr. Tomas G. Masaryk, President of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Another article "Co je vice nez 7. marec" (What is more significant than March 7) written by Josef Vodracka and published in the same issue, was also confiscated, because of its criticism of Masaryk's philosophy of Czech statehood. (March 7 was Masaryk's birthday and a national holiday.) In the article "Napoleonsky rys" (Napoleonic feature), published in the same issue, a description of Masaryk's charact€r was also censored. Another article "Muz Bible" (Biblical man) by Kamil Masin was censored for its designation of Masaryk as a "messianist" (man of Providence). In the same issue also F. Petrik's article "Rozsevac a znec" (Sower and harvester) on the ideological inconsequence of Masaryk's philosophy and F. Schwarz's article "Souhlasime s Masarykem" (We agree with Masaryk) along with several other articles were censored. The interpellation continued: The press wa·s at one time the principal means of maintaining freedom and national consciousness. In the Czecho,Slovak Republic, the press has become the .frightening destroyer of every freedom because an honest and independent press has been annihilated. It serves now as ~ blindfold for the people ...62 This example shows that censorship in Czecho-Slovakia was like an octopus which extended its arms into all areas of public life and impeded the march of democracy and the natural evolution of the various ethnical groups. SLOVAK DEFENSE AGAINST THE EFFECTS OF CENSORSHIP A direct result of the systematic violation of freedom of the press by governmental censorship was that Slovak political parties were denied normal communication with their members. At the disposal of the Government were the police, the army, the gendarmry and about 300,000 privileged Czech functionaries in Slovakia, whose task it was to hinder the activity of Slovak political forces, working and fighting for the freedom and independence of Slovakia. The people of Slovakia, deprived of the most effective means of communication, the press, which was constantly, almost daily, confiscated, the radio was State-owned and controlled, and never at the disposal of opposition parties, SLOVAKIA 125 were more and more interested in knowing, what new injustice was committed against the Slovak nation. Several methods of rendering the censorship less effective were developed by the political parties. These political parties, who owned many of the newspapers, constantly challenged the respective Ministers in Parliament by interpellations. Their interpellations were always published, together with the censored articles, in the Tisky Poslanecke Snemovny N<irodniho Shromazdeni Repub liky Ceskoslovenske (a publication comparable to the U.S. Congressional Record) and this procedure gave them immunity and the right to be reprinted in the newspapers. But it was not unusual for the censor to confiscate even these immunized articles and interpellations. The interpellation had to be signed by at least twenty representatives. Small parties, which lacked this number, obtained the necessary signatures from the representatives of other opposition parties. The interpellations were addressed to the Minister of the Interior, or the Minister of Justice. The reply of the Government to the interpellation, which also requested that the matter be discussed, was usually negative.If a written answer was requested, the Minister almost invariably approved the procedure of the censor. Here is an example: Reply of the Government to the interpellation of representative Andrej Hlinka and associates concerning .the confiscation of the dally SLOVAK, No. 105, May 9, 1934 (No. 2712/VII). - The confiscation of the portions adduced In the lnterpellatlon . . . executed by the office -of the Attorney General in Bratislava, •w as exa mined by the regional court In Bratislava and approved In full. The complaint challenging this decision was rejected by the 1Prlme Minister: J. Malypetr.63 If nothing was found wrong in the censored article, the reply to the interpellation was: .. . I find that some portions adduced in interpellation No. 3610/· XIV were confiscated without a legal r eason. I informed the office of the Attorney General in Nitra that thes e articles ... are nothini;: more than poli,tical r eflections and attacks and their suppression cannot be justified by law. I hope that similar cases will not be repeated .. ,64 But the censorship policy was not modified by a few decisions in favor of the opposition's press. Another procedure used by the opposition press to 126 SLOVAKIA counteract the effects of censorship was to send the first printed copy to the censor's office and simultaneously to deliver several hundred copies to the public vendors. The Bratislava readers were usually waiting and so at least some of them were able to obtain uncensored copies, which passed clandestinely from hand to hand. The procedure was the same for the towns and villages near the capital city of Bratislava. Workers, employees, railroadmen and occasional travelers, women from the villages selling vegetables in the market, all cooperated in smuggling the uncensored copies of newspapers out of Bratislava. Most helpful in this distribution of uncensored copies were the Slovak railroadmen. Each town in which the train stopped, had its copy of the uncensored newspaper. This was done with the utmost caution, since those involved could have been charged with a criminal act against the security of the State at the risk of imprisonment or loss of job. After the censor completed his job, the Attorney-General ordered the police to confiscate the newspaper. The policemen seized the unsold uncensored copies from the news-stands. In coffeehouses they seized uncensored copies from the hands of readers, who had not reali21ed in good time the presence of the officers and failed to hide their copies. Articles from confiscated political, social and cultural periodicals, were typed and distributed among interested people, chiefly university students and graduates, who formed little clubs to discuss them. The same was done with confiscated books or volumes of poetry. The writer recalls how, after the publication of Sidor's and Mach's books, mentioned previously, he was given one typewritten copy of the censored parts of the books, and was required to type at least fiV'e new copies and distribute them among five other persons. Such distribution was possible only among persons who were trustworthy and of the same political convictions. The result was that almost everybody in Slovakia could have his own copy of the censored parts of the books. The secretariats of the political parties cooperated with students, workers and peasants in this underground press and the solidarity of the nation as a whole was wonderful. It is true that many people were caught and penalized, but that was the risk. SLOVAKIA 127 Students in foreign countries supplied information about the views of the foreign press on the Slovak problem and themselves published the Slovak viewpoint in foreign newspapers. They smuggled into the country articles about Slovakia from the foreign press. The customs examination of Slovak students traveling abroad or returning from foreign countries was viery thorough. The clandestine importing of news reports from abroad was even more dangerous than the distribution of censored articles in Slovakia. If caught in possession of any news item unfavorable to Czecho-Slovakia, a person could be prosecuted for "association with the enemies of the State", for espionage, or for plotting against the State. Information brought from abroad was discussed only in small confidential groups of students and intellectuals, and secret reports were given to certain leaders of political parties. The Czechs were not generally able to identify the persons responsible for this smuggling of information. But they never forgot. During his studies in Zagreb (Croatia) in 1937 or 1938, one of my friends wrote several articles about the oppression of the Slovaks in Czecho-Slovakia. For these and other articles written for the Croatian press ten years later in 1947 he was sentenced by a Czech Communist "people's court" to eight years in prison. CONCLUSION Freedom of the press consist~ in the free gathering of information, in free communication, in the free publication of information, in the free printing and distribution of published information and in the free subscription and free reading of published information. In Czecho-Slovakia these freedoms were very limited and in Slovakia they were practically non-existent. If one succeeded in gathering information, it became impossible to communicate it if the Czechs felt that it criticized or threatened their hegemony. To publish such information signified sure intervention of the censor and meant the consequent confiscation of the entire edition of the book or periodical, in which it was published. To diffuse information confiscated by the censor was 128 SLOVAKIA considered by the Czechs as an act against the security of the State. The freedom to subscribe to and to read published information was also very limited. Anyone found to be in possession of censored information was ,exposed to the danger of being arrested and penalized. From pertinent material available to the writer and from his own experiences in Czecho-Slovakia in the years 1918-1938, he has reached the conclusion that despite the constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press, censorship in its most drastic form was widely employed against the opposition and the minorities in direct contradiction to the Constitution and the so-called "democratic" system which it guaranteed. Public opinion in Slovakia could not manifest itself freely in the press and information was diffused chiefly through the channels generally resorted to by underground organizations. The people of Slovakia learned to read and interpret the blank spaces of the censored newspapers and what they "read" this way was much more unfavorable to the Czech system than the impression the censored words would have provoked. The impossibility of frank discussion had created an atmosphere of hatred in which the Slovaks renounced once and for all any discussion with the Czechs. They began to take their own course which led logically to the unanimous declaration of the independent Slovak Republic, March 14, 1939, by the autonomous Slovak Parliament. Censorship applied against the Slovaks proved that freedom cannot be suppressed indefinitely, because it is a part of the condition of our life, our development, and our progress. In its essence our soul is free. Whoever suppresses the freedom of others, will himself lose freedom. The Czechs lost their freedom on the very day when the Slovaks declared their independence. Bohemia became a Protectorate of Germany. When with the aid of the Soviet army and through the indifference of the Western world, the Czechs enslaved the Slovaks a second time after World War II, they lost their freedom too, and became a satelite of Soviet Russia. In order SLOVAKIA 129 to keep the Slovaks in Czech slavery, they sold their own freedom to the Muscowite tyrant, exposing to Red danger the entire Central and Occidental Europe. The words of the great Slovak poet Jan Kollar (17931852) are most appropriate here: Whoever respects the freedom of others Is himself worthy of freedom. Whoever enslaves with handcuffs Is himself a slave ! 65 FOOTNOTES 1. "The Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic", with introduction by Ji:ri Hoetzl and V. Joachim, American Association for International Conciliation, Pt,blications, No. 179 (October 1922), 2. 3. Ibid., p. 443. Karl Falk, "Strife in Czechoslovakia: The German Minority Question", Foreign Policy Reports, XIV, (March 15, 1938), p. 4. The Cleveland Pact stipulated that the Slovaks and Czechs would form II federative union of states. Slovakia was to enjoy complete national autonomy, including its own Parliament and government administration, its own political and financial institutions, complete freedom to develop culturally and the right to use Slovak as its official language. The form of government was to be democratic, operating in a union of two autonomous states. The Pittsburgh Pact guaranteed that "Slovakia shall have its own administration, its own tribunals and its own Parliament. Slovak shall be the official language in schools, in government offices and in public life in general." Sbirka zakonu a narizeni statu ceskoslovenskeho. Part 23 (March 31, 1923), pp. 207-218. Sbirka zakonu a nafizen£ statu ceskoslovenskeho. (1920) . Ibid. Part 44 (July 15, 1933) pp. 708-709. Sbirka zakonu a nafizeni statu ceskoslovenskeho. Part 44 (July p. 441. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8 15, 1933), p. 707. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. Ibid. ( 1933) p. 771. Ibid. Part 56 (July 7, 1934) pp. 513-516. Sbirka zakonu a nafizeni statu ceskoslovenskeho. (1934), p. 598. Ibid. (1935), p. 527. Ibid. (1937), p. 786. Ibid. Part 44 (July 15, 1933) pp. 709-714. Sbirka zakonu a narizeni statu ceskoslovenskeho. Part 35, (May 23, 19i6) pp. 477-479. I!Jid. pp. 479-541. Imrich Stanek, Zrada a pad. (Praha: Statnf Nakladatelstvf Politicke Literatury, 1958), p. 33. SLOVAKIA 130 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. Imrich Stanek, Op. cit., p. 41. Ibid., p. 33. Ibid., p. 34. Imrich Stanek, Op. cit., p. 34. Ibid., p. 35. loc. cit. loc. cit. loc. cit. Ibid., pp. 38-39. Ibid., p. 39. Ibid., p. 40. Ibid., p. 32. Ibid., pp. 41-43. Lucy Maynard Salmon, The newspaper and authority. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1923), p. 3. Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka (1864-1926), Bratislava: Knihtlaciaren Sv. Andrej a, 1934), p. 359. Culen, Konstantin. "Sloboda tlace v CSR", Bratstvo, (May 23, 1951). Machacek, Pavol. "Katovia sa raduju", Slovenske .l!udove Novi· ny", (August 10, 1923). pp. 1-2. Ceskoslovenska Republika, Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. 150, (1922). Karol Sidor, Op. cit., pp. 487-488. Ibid., p. _426. Ibid., p. 425. Culen, Konstantin, "Slaboda tlace v CSR", Bratstvo, (May 23, 1951). C. A. Macartney, Hungary and her successors, pp. 137-139. "Azda takto", Nastup, (November 1, 1933), p. 163. "Nerovny boj", Nastup, (November 1, 1933), p. 162. Ceskoslovenska Republika, Niirodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. 5280, (1925). Head of a region. Administrative region of Slovakia. Sano Mach, Vo viheni, (Bratislava: Jednota, 1930). Ceskoslovenska Republika, Niirodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, 'l)sky, No. 2799, (1934). Culen, Konstantin. "Slaboda tlace v CSR", Bratstvo, (May 23, 1951). Ceskoslovenska Socialne demokraticka strana. Protokol sjazdu z 12. a 22. aprila 1922, p. 203. Ceskoslovenska Republika. Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka· Snemovna, Tisky, 1. volebni obdobi, 2. zasedani, No. 1882, 1921. Op. cit., No. IV/4098, 1923. (;ulen, Kon~tantin, "Slcboda tlace v CSR", Bratstvo, (May 23, 1951). SLOVAKIA 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. fi3. 64. 65. 131 ceskoslovenska Republika, Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. 3584, (June 21, 1922.). ceskoslovenska Republika, Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. XXI/4226, (April 26, 1923). ceskoslovenska Republika, Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. VI/4636, (May 27, 1924). Slovak, July 23, 1933. Slovak, J anuary 26, 1934. Tisk a novinari, XII, No. 5, (1938). Druhy kruh diskusnich vecerii Narodni Rady ceskoslovenske", Cechoslovak a nase zahranici. Vsenarodni mesicnik. Vol. XV, No. 4-5, (April-May, 1935), p. 100. ceskoslovenska Republika, Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, 1937, VI. volebne obdobi, 5 zasedani, No. 876/ VI, April 8. Ibid, XV/4226, (May 25, 1923). ceskoslovenska Republika. Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, 628/IX, (September 16, 1930). ceskoslovenska Republika. Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, No. 2951, (1934). ceskoslovenska Republika. Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna, Tisky, I. volebni obdobi, 5. zasedani, No. 2591, (July 28, 1922), pp. 10-11. Jan Kollar, Slavy dcera. 1824. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS <::incik, Joseph G. Anglo-Saxon and Slovak-Avar Patterns of the Cuthbert Gospel. Series Cyrilomethodiana, v. 1. Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1958. Delaney, Edward L. False freedom . Los Angeles: Sequoia University Press, 1954. Diplomaticus. The Czechs and their minorities. 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Die Literatur der Slovaken. Berlin: Volk und Reich Verlag, n. d. Salmon, Lucy Maynard. The newspaper and authority. New York: Oxford University Press, 1923. Seton-Watson, R. W. A history of the Czechs and Slovaks. New York: Hutchinson and Co., 1943. Sidor, Karol. Andrej Hlinka (1864-1926). Censored ed. Bratislava: Knihtlaciareii Sv. Andreja, 1934. -Andrej Hlinka (1864-1926). Uncensored ed. Bratislava: Knihtlaciarer1 Sv. Andreja, 1934. - Slovcici v zahranicnom odboji. Bratislava: Jednota, 1928. Slovensky Oslobodzovaci vybor. Prcivo Slovcikov na samostatnost' vo svet• le dokumentov. Sv. 1: Biela kniha. By Ferdinand Durcansky. Buenos Aires: Dorrego, 1954. Stanislav, Jan. Slovanski apostoli Cyril a Metod • ich cinnost' vo Vel'ko• moravskej risi. Bratislava: Academia Scientiarum et Artium Slovaca, 1945. Thomas, S. Harris. Czechoslovakia in European history. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944. Zubek, Theodoric J., O.F.M., S.T.D. The Church of silence in Slovakia. Published by John J. Lach, 1956. PAMPHLETS Comite d'action Slovaque. Aide-memoire sur la necessite de plebiscite en Slovaquie. Paris: 1946. Comite d'action Slovaque. Aide-memoire sur l'existence de la Republique Slovaque et sur la necessite de conclure le traite de paix avec elle. Paris: 1946. Durcansky, Ferdinand. The international asp zct of the Slovak question. New York: Slovak Liberation Committee, 1954. Jakobson. R. Slavic languages. New York: Columbia University Press, 1955. Slovak Action Committee, Slovak National Council in London, Slovak League of America and Canadian Slovak League of Canada. Memorandum presented to the Peace Conference concerning the rationality of existence of Czecho-Slovakia. Paris: 1946. Th e Slovaks and the Pittsburgh Pact. (Chi cago) : The Slovak Catholic Federation of America, 1934. Stewart, John F. Slovakia, its people and right to sovereign independence and freedom. Information leaflets, No. 7. Edinburgh: Scottish League for European Fre<>dom, n. d. PERIODICALS AND ARTICLES "Azda takto," Ncistup (Nove.' llber 1, 1933). ceskoslovensko a na.se zahrar,;i:i, XV, No. 4-5 (April-May, 1935). "The Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic", with introduction SLOVAKIA 133 by Jiri Hoetzl and V. Joachim. American Association for International Conciliation, Publications, No. 179) (October, 1922). culen, Konstantin. "Sloboda tlace v cSR", Bratstvo (May 23, 1951). Falk, Karl. "Strife in Czechoslovakia", Foreign Policy Reports, XIV (March 15, 1938). Hlinka, Andrej. "Protestujeme", Slovak (December 22, 1921). "Komu osozi cenzura?", Zem, III, No. 9 (May 5, 1937). Machacek, Pavel "Katovia sa raduju", Slovenske l'udove noviny, (August 10, 1923). "Nedorozumenie medzi autonomistickou tlacou a bratislavskym cenzorom", Slovak, (August 27, 1933). "Nerovny boj", Nastup (November 1, 1933) . "Neustale habanie Slovaka", Slovak (August 27, 1933). " O cenzure", Slovak (May 16, 1934). "Pracuje cenzura pre stat alebo pre politicke strany?", Slovak (September 15, 1933). "Preco nas cenzurovali", Slovak (April 29, 1934). "150 rocna cenzura rakuska platna este aj v republike", Slovak (June 11, 1933). Slovak (June 11, 1933). Slovak (September 15, 1933). Slovak (January 26, 1934). Slovak (June 13, 1934). Taylor, Paul B. "Partition of Czechoslovakia", Foreign Policy Reports, (November 15, 1938). - "Germany's expansion in Eastern Europe", Foreign Policy Reports, XV (May 15, 1939). Tisk a novinai'i, XII, No. 5 (1938). PUBLIC DOCUMENTS ceskoslovenska Republika. Narodni Shromazdeni, Poslanecka Snemovna. Tisky. Years: 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924. 1925, 1926, 1929, 1930, 1934, 1935. Sbirka zakonu a narizeni statu ceskoslovenskeho. Years: 1920, 1922, 1923, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1~37. THESIS Woytko, Sister Mary Gabrielle, 0.P. Slovakia's road to statehood. A Study of the efforts of Slovakia to secure national independence. Thesis submitted to the Graduate School of Duquesne University as a thesis under the title "A study of the efforts of Slovakia to secure national independence" in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts. (Published by John Lach, 1957).  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Censorship Policies in Czecho-Slovakia 1918-1938 Description An account of the resource Eugene Urban Slovakia, Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965 pp. 93-133 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Urban, Eugen A., 1914-1972 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/5a80af21bc4bdc2a0d8ebdf6a58b39d4.pdf 68a94f69423288d267fe8620b43373e6 PDF Text Text SLOV AKIA Pub lished by the Slovak League of America VOL XV 1965 NO. 38 EARLY BEGINNINGS OF THE SLOVAKS IN AMERICA By James J. Zatko, Ph.D. , University of Notre Dame Occupying the area enclosed by the Carpathian mountains, the Danube River, and the Theiss River, the Slovaks to the number of two million or 12% of the total population of Hungary, eked out a meagre existence between the two rivers and the mountains. Because the Slovaks had to struggle for a living, men and women were inured to hard work and to a very low standard of living. Their facial features form two general types: the round-faced with wide-set eyes, and the long-headed narrow face with a long nose. The people live in villages consisting of long, low brick or wood houses with hand-made shingles. The interiors were generally neat and tidy, even where there was an earthen floor. 1 Slovakia itself is a geographic unit, whose northern boundary runs along the Carpathian mountains, and whose southern boundary is the Danube River and the Theiss River, which cut deep valleys and ravines through the mountain ridges. The land is divided in the west by the streams flowing to the Danube, by those flowing to the Theiss in eastern Slovakia, with a central Slovak upland lying between. 2 The area consists of about 18,895 square miles of mostly agricultural land, but the land is not the best for cultivation, much of it being woodland and the rest not very fertile. Bratislava was the capital, the ancient coronation city of Hungarian Kings before Budapest, and a great Danubian river port at the cross-roads of Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary. Other important cities in Slovakia are: Trnava in western Slovakia, Nitra in west central Slovakia on the river Nitra, Zilina in northern Slovakia on the river Vah, Turciansky Sv. Martin in north central Slovakia, Zvolen in central Slovakia, and Kosice in eastern Slovakia. 3 Within Slovakia itself population shifted during the �2 SLOVAKIA fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, by occupying the northern highlands in Slovakia. The villagers of the central plain and the river valleys created new settlements especially in Orava in the north, Trencin in the west, Zvolen in the central portion; the new settlers on the Carpathian mountainsides began to engage in animal husbandry, especially sheep-raising. 4 At the end of the seventeenth century an emigration strictly so-called began. Only individuals and very small groups left the recently settled highlands at first. The saffron-dealers and dealers in medicinal oils from Turiec county in north central Slovakia carried their home products all over eastern Europe, crossed Asia, as far as the Pacific coast of Siberia. In the business they established in Russia, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Siberia, they often employed their own countrymen. Weavers from Orava county in the north and lace makers from the Hron River region sold their wares in Hungary and central Europe generally. Menders with wire and glaziers from Trencin county in the northwest of Slovakia wandered throughout central Europe; the more enterprising settled in Germany and Russia. From the eighteenth century, after the Turk had been expelled from central and southern Hungary, the poverty stricken of Slovakia began to migrate into Hungary in quest of lands and helped to repopulate the area as well as to restore its economic productivity through agriculture. Thus did Slovak settlements originate in Hungary, Rumania, Yugo-Slavia, Bulgaria, and the Banat. 5 The poverty which accelerated this new shift in population was caused by a decline in economic and commercial activity in Slovakia itself. Early in the eighteenth century there had still been considerable export of cattle and wine from Nitra and Bratislava counties, production of cloth in Myjava, forestry and river traffic, mining and textile production. Although Maria Theresa favored Austrian industries against those of Hungary, only during the reign of Joseph II did non-Slovak manufacturers begin to compete effectively with native products; and the soil in Slovakia was insufficient to provide a livelihood for the Slovak masses. 6 A migration began from the Slovak counties across their southern borders into Hungary. In 1787 eleven counties in Hungary had a population of 1,537,969, whereas the counties in Slovakia had 1,535,480. Sixty years afterwards the Hun- �SLOVAKIA 3 garian counties had in 1848 a population of 2,844,830 and the counties of Slovakia had a population of 1,910,000. In 1787 Budin in Hungary had a population of 23,000 and Pest in Hungary, had only 16,000; Presporok in Slovakia had 29,000 and Banska Stiavnica in Slovakia had 24,000. After 83 years, in 1870, the population of Banska Stiavnica had declined to 12,000. 7 This decline in population, as the figures above indicate, extended to the period of the great exodus to America after 1873. As in the migration to Hungary, so in the modern migration to America economic conditions provided the main force that helped to empty Slovakia, but there were other causes, namely, political, social, and economic. The political ambitions of the Slovaks were closely linked with the rise of nationalism in Slovakia, which developed from three factors, contemporary trends of thought in Europe, outside pressure by the Magyars, and Slovak internal life itself. A conviction developed in the people that the country which they occupied was their own and that within it they had rights not to be contravened by any power. This thought was emphasized in a book by John Baltazar Magin who spoke in 1728 of the rights of the Slovak nation . Memories of Slovak antiquity began to be revived. George Papanek published Of Slovak Kings and K ingdoms in 1780; George Sklenar in 1783 wrote of the glories of Greater Moravia, and in 1793 George Fandli published a revision of Papanek's book. The Slovak poet John Holly portrayed the events of the Slovak past in an epic Sviitopluk (1833), in his book Slav (1834), and in Cyrilo-Methodi ada (1835)8 These writings prepared the ground for further studies in the Slovak language. During the Reformation the Czech language had spread in Slovakia among the Slovak Protestants ; but it remained a foreign language in Slovakia. This led to the cultivation of Slovak as the particular language of the Slovak nation. Matthew Bel-Funtik (1687-1749) wrote of the Slovak language that "in no respect does it fall behind the ponderousness of Spanish, the charm and smoothness of English, the richness and emphasis of German, the softness and tenderness of Italian or the imperious sternness of Magyar." Since the Slovaks had no national literary medium as late as the end of the eighteenth century, Anton Bernolak created a national literary language based on the western �4 SLOVAKIA or Trnava dialect. In 1787 he published a grammar of literary Slovak and later also published a six volume SlovakCzech-Latin-German-Magyar dictionary. 9 The greatest writer of the "Bernolakian" school was John Holly, who is described as "in the fullest sense the awakener of national consciousness by right of actualizing what others had planned and dreamed of." 10 Even though a considerable school of "Bernolakian" writers developed, the western Slovak dialect failed to become the national idiom. Uudovit Stur (1815-1856) together with the Lutheran pastors Joseph Miloslav Hurban (18171888) and Michael Miloslav Hurban established the definite form of literary Slovak, based upon a dialect spoken in the eight central counties. Together they founded a literary and publishing society, Tatrin (1844), and began to publish the political journal Slovenske narodnie noviny (1845), and the literary monthly, Slovenske pohl'ady (1846). The use of the Slovak language became an essential demand in Slovak political agitation. In May of 1848 the Slovak nationalist leaders met in the rectory of Michael Miloslav Hodza in Liptovsky Sv. Mikulas, where they drew up a political program for the Slovaks: "Petitions of the Slovak Nation." They expressed no desire to break away from the Hungarian state; they wanted defined boundaries for Slovak lands, social, political, cultural equality of Slovaks with Hungarians, and official recognition of the Slovak language. When the leaders planned to submit this program for the approval of the Slovak people, the Hungarian government forbade Slovak assemblies and imprisoned the Slovak leaders. 11 The hand of Eudovit Stur was obvious in the program. Already in 1847 he had listed these grievances: manorial courts, maldistribution of public offices, lack of uniform taxation, need of reform in the judicial system, insufficient freedom of the press and speech; he also demanded the use of the Slovak language in schools, churches, and courts. 1 z With the demands of Liptovsky Sv. Mikulas ignored and then repressed, the Slovaks took to revolutionary activity against the Hungarians. Since their only hope of relief lay with the central government at Vienna, they threw in their lot with the imperial forces of Habsburg against the �SLOVAKIA 5 revolution of Kossuth. After the prostration of Magyarism through Russian intervention in 1849, the Slovaks were prepared to accept a limited territorial sovereignty from the imperial government; but even though the assimilative policy of the Magyars was suspended, centralization, not autonomy, remained the order of the day. In the Spring of 1861 the Slovaks renewed their political activity. After their political principles had been published in the newspapers, an assembly was called to meet in Turciansky Sv. Martin. The prominent attorney Stephen Marko Daxner formulated the political program: recognition of the Slovak nation by imperial edict, the constitution of Slovakia as a distinct administrative unit in Hungary, the right of Slovaks to develop their own life without restriction. This "Memorandum of the Slovak People" was presented to the Emperor Franz Joseph; the only result was that the Slovaks were allowed to establish the cultural institution, the Matice, Slovenska. 14 Austria's defeat by Prussia in 1866 forced a settlement with the Magyars. Known as the Compromise of 1867, it granted Magyars internal independence and divided the Empire into two countries under one crown. The Compromise of 1867 and the dualistic sys.tern based on it, appeared before public opinion as the compromise of the Austrian Emperor with the Hungarian feudal classes which the liberal German high bourgeoisie accepted, though not without serious hesitation, in order to secure its own hegemony against tbe will of the Slav majority.15 Jaszi observes that this artificial dualistic system could be maintained only "by a corrupt and restricted electoral system, by open ballot, and by terroristic procedures in the administrative and military machine." 16 The political injustices after 1867 should therefore be considered not only against a background of Magyarization but also seen as a means used to preserve the structure of the dual monarchy. The electoral laws and improper representation in the Hungarian parliament were among the grievances. For instance, in the 58 electoral areas inhabited by Slovaks for the most part, these deputies were elected: �6 SLOVAKIA ELECTION OF DEPUTIES 1865-1881 Year Magyar Deputies 1865 1869 1872 1875 1878 1881 58 58 56 58 58 58 Slovak Deputies 0 0 2 0 0 0 Source: C. J. Street, HU GARY AND DEMOCRACY (London, 1923), PP. 57-58. The constituencies and polling stations were so arranged that Magyar communities were assured of easy access •to the poll, while non-Magyar communities had ,to travel great distances. It wa-s no uncommon trick for the local authorities to declare roads and bridges unsafe for traffic on the day of election, or for all the hors es in non-Magyar districts to be placed under veterinary supervision and forbidd en to move outside the commune.17 The Slovaks had grievances against the judicial system. Until 1871 the judicial and administrative spheres were not separated. In that year judicial reform was inaugurated. Criminal and civil cases were dealt with in the District and Sedrial courts as the first instance, the Tables as the second, and the Royal Curia in Budapest as the final one. 18 The Slovaks complained too that the nationality of the legal officers did not correspond to the national distribution of population. In 1910 there were 2,633 judges and official lawyers in Hungary; 2,601 were Magyars, 31 Germans, 1 Slovak. This was the proportion of legal officers in a country where the Slovaks formed 12 % of the population.19 Moreover, in spite of the fact that the law of Nationalities (1868) admitted other languages to court, 20 the law remained a dead letter, for summonses were issued in Magyar, and verdicts given in Magyar, and the need of an interpreter was disregarded. 21 Slovaks also called for freedom of the press. 22 Between 1905 and 1908 there were 43 court actions against fourteen Slovak newspapers ; sentences totaling eleven years and three months were imposed as well as fines totaling 11,000 crowns for Pan-Slavistic activities. 23 Besides these unsettling political factors, other social causes added to the sense of national frustration. �SLOVAKIA 7 At the basis of the cultural conflict was the idea of the Magyar state. The law of Hungary recognized only one nation in Hungary, and that was the Magyar. To be secure, Hungary had to be Magyar. The objective of political action became to create one nation, Magyar in sentiment and speech, from the multinational and polylingual Hungarian lands. 24 This ideal was pushed by every means: newspapers, the society for the Magyarization of Proper Names founded in 1880, and 1898 law to give all towns Magyar names; suppression of the Slovak language in rail, postal, and telegraph service. 25 As one reaction against the process of forcible assimilation, the Slovak sought comfort and national security in Pan-Slavism. Having become conscious of the larger Slav community, the Slovak nationalist leaders shook off their feeling of inferiority and began to place their hopes of realizing national ideals in the larger Slav group. 26 The Hungarians reacted by denouncing as Pan-Slav any Slovak who refused to renounce his nationality and language. 27 The chief means of transforming Slovaks into Magyars were to be the schools. After the Compromise of 1867, an attack was launched against German, Slovak, and Ruthenian schools. Bela Grunwald in 1873 began publishing Svornost', a bi-monthly, attacking the Slovak gymnasia as hot-beds of Pan-Slavism. 28 The gymnasium at Revuca was closed August 20, 1874; the one at Klastor pod Znievom, on September 21, 1874; and the one at Turciansky Sv. Martin, on December 30, 1874. 29 All Slovak elements were expelled from secondary and technical schools, and permission was refused to erect a chair of Slovak at the University of Budapest.30 The school statistics reveal this Magyarizing tendency: SCHOOLS IN SLOVAKIA 1910-1918 Schools Primary Grammar Indus., Comm., Agric. Teacher training Middle (High Schools) University Magyar Slovak German 3,777 101 118 419 20 39 �8 SLOVAKIA Source: Nicholas Timashe!f, PEDIA (1948), p. 262. "Education," SLAVONIC ENCYCW- The official statistics of the Hungarian government in 1914 reveal the extent of Magyarization. They list 256,020 children of Slovak language as attending school. Of these, 214,267 Slovak children were in purely Magyar elementary schools, and only 42,186 in 365 Slovak elementary schools. 31 Educational standards were low. Attendance was weakly enforced; in most villages the schools remained open for five or six months per year. In 1913, just before World War I, 32,700 Slovak children of school age were not enrolled.32 Naturally the results were bad. Those able to read and write averaged 63 per cent of the Slovak population; but individual counties had worse records. In the county of Saris, only 48.6 per cent, in Spis 58 per cent, in Zemplin 51.4 per cent, in Ung 43.5 per cent could read and write. 33 The Matica Slovenska or Slovak Institute, a national cultural society founded in 1863, was dissolved in 1875. The charges were unlawful political activity and mismanagement. The government seized not only money and property but also the library and museum. 34 Even the churches were made instruments of Magyarization. The religious history of the period 1867-1914 is dark, indeed. Bishop Parvy of Spis lived in Budapest for many years; Bishop Balasz of Roznava ignored everything Slovak as though it were non-existent. The Cardinal-Primate of Hungary, Czernoch, was of Slovak birth, but Magyar in thought and sentiment. 35 Often other priests felt their people's cultural humiliation and endeavoured to alleviate it, but were placed so that their influence was limited. The Lutheran General Assembly resolved against "Pan-Slavism" in 1882; in no district did the Slovak Lutherans have a majority.36 However, the chief reasons for Slovak emigration in the latter half of the nineteenth century seem to have been economic.37 The predominantly agricultural nature of the country's economy is best illustrated by the following chart on agriculture: �SLOVAKIA 9 POPULATION ENGAGED IN AGRICULTURE 1910 Total Population in 1,000 Austrian Provinces Counties of Hungarian Crown Bosnia and Herzogovina Total Total engaged in Agriculture in 1,000 Agricultural Percentage 28,572 13,842 48.5 % 20,886 13,470 64.5% 1,932 1,674 86.6 % ----------------- - -- - -- - ----- --- - --51,390 28,982 Source: Oscar Ja,szi, THE DIS,SOLUTION MONARCHY (Chicago, 1929) p. 195. 56.4 % OF THE IHABSBUHG The soil was not of the best quality. Woodland averaged about 15 per cent of the total. In Turiec county 33 per cent was unfit for cultivation; in Orava, 30 per cent; in Zvolen, 32 per cent; in Liptov, 41 per cent; in Novohrad, 26 per cent; in Gerner, 47 per cent; Spis, 37 per cent; in Saris, 43 per cent. In Orava county there were 2761 farms that averaged one to five acres; of this land only 43 per cent was arable. 38 In addition to the problem of poor soil, there existed the problem of the great estates. Speaking of Hungary in general, Jaszi says that 40 per cent of the total area of Hungary was occupied in 1913 by a small number of large and very large estates. The medium sized farms of 142 to 1,420 acres embraced a smaller area, but with the greater estates covered 54.4 per cent of the total territory. Over 64.4 per cent of the country was possessed by small farmers holding less than 142 acres. Moreover, only 34.5 per cent of Hungarian territory belonged to those who actually cultivated the soil. 39 In Hungary proper, without !Croatia, there lived 2,280,000 farmer families. According to the most optimistic calculation only 460,000 families owned property on the average above 20 acres, guaranteeing an independent livelihood, whereas 1,820,000 families, that is to say four fifths of them possessed only so-called "dwarf" properties or no property at all.40 �10 SLOVAKIA If we consider the situation of Slovakia in particular, an equally cheerless picture presents itself. In Slovakia 1,000 persons owned 2,100,000 hectares, that is, about 8,000 square miles; 21.5 per cent of the holdings were less than a half hectare in size; 41 75 per cent of the land was held by the great landlords. 42 The agricultural areas compared unfavorably with the western and northwestern parts of the Habsburg Monarchy. The industrialized parts did not exceed three-tenths of the entire territory of the Monarchy, whereas over seven-tenths were populated by peasants, poor, almost on the level of slow starvation. 43 One way to raise the peasant's standard of living was to raise the productivity of agricultural labor and the growth of crops. Between 1850 and 1895 there was progress in agricultural production. Improvements were made in Hungary after 1848, e.g., the iron plow replaced the wooden. The great landlords led the advance and the peasants imitated them. These landlords in Hungary between 1850 and 1890 were deeply interested in improving agricultural production, chiefly because of the high price of wheat in the world market. They were anxious to increase wheat production for export. After 1885 the world market price began to decline and the landlords gradually lost interest. Indeed, they began to cut production. The strategy was to create a domestic scarcity so that wheat would have to be imported. The objective of the policy was to transform a grain exporting country into a grain importing one. This would enable the landlords to raise the price of domestic grain to the world price augmented by the tariff. By 1907 the tariffs began to have a constant effect. In this situation the lot of the agricultural worker grew steadily worse. Unemployment grew, wages decreased, and the cost of living rose. Jaszi observes that the heavy hand of the landlord-controlled economy pushed the Monarchy toward disaster. 44 The workers' wages in Hungary averaged the equivalent of sixty to a hundred dollars a year, while a woman's wages averaged yearly only between forty and fifty dollars. 45 In Slovakia the agricultural worker earned 25 cents a day.46 His staple food in winter was cabbage and potatoes. 47 To the low wages and the agricultural poverty we must �SLOVAKIA 11 add the difficulty of buying land in Slovakia. The price of land in Slovakia by 1906 had risen in some cases 100 percent; the amount of money sent from America helped cause this price rise. The Postal Bank of Kosice received in 1896 six and a half million florins from America. 48 Over and above these burdens, the poor peasant had to bear the load of usurious banking. In pre-war Slovakia almost every town had a little joint-stock institution; although this was called a bank, it did not carry on real banking operations, but was only a savings and loan bank. The majority of these banks dispersed capital which was not available where it was needed. The banks under Magyar control followed a policy of dividends, whereas the Slovak banks paid a lower rate of interest. 49 Virtually no institutions provided long term mortgage credits; in fact, only two banks, both unsound, engaged in this business in Slovakia. Besides these banks, there were cooperative societies which offered limited cr,edit facilities to the peasants. 50 The small farmer ended up borrowing at rates of 7 per cent to 8 per cent, and sometimes rates were as high as 14 per cent. On short term loans rates of 50 per cent were not unknown. Consequently the profits of the banks were high. One bank in Slovakia with a capitalization of 60,000 crowns and reserves of 18,000 profited one year to the amount of 22,000 crowns. The average profit of the banks in 1888 was 29.56 per cent on the capital invested; in 1894 the profit was 13.58 per cent. 51 The economic situation worsened by the national addiction to drink. On this all the sources seem agreed. Impoverishing effects of overindulgence in drink were a factor in driving the Slovaks to seek improved economic conditions in America. 52 This lack of economic opportunity and security led to the migration. The following figures, though somewhat suspect because of the tendency of Magyarization, still tell an eloquent story. This table is a modification of the original. NATIONALITIES IN HUNGARY Nationality Slovaks 1880 1,855,000 1890 1,897,000 1900 2,002,000 1910 1,946,000 �12 SLOVAKIA Source: Robert A. Kann, THE -MULTINATIONAL EJMP]RE: NATIONALISM AND NATIONAL REF1ORM IN THE HABSBURG MONAROHY 1848-1914 {New York, 19 50) I, 278. The Slovaks in considerable numbers migrated to America after 1880 as part of the "new immigration". Until 1880 the bulk of the new additions to American population by immigration was predominantly either English in speech or at least derived from the northern and western areas of Europe; this was the "old immigration." Thereafter newcomers from southern and eastern Europe arrived, representing peoples who were very different in language, customs, political experiences, and personal standards of living. Italian, Greek, and the confusion of Slavic languages sounded strange indeed to ears attuned to English or Germanic sounds. Invidious comparisons were made. The "Nordic" was more akin to the American in blood; the "new immigrants" had not the Anglo-Saxon training in self-government, and they were merely birds of passage. Besides the fact that he spoke a strange language, the "new immigrant" was more often than not a Catholic. All these things set him apart from the "old immigrant." 53 The year 1873 saw the beginning of the flood. Even though the political, cultural, social, and economic causes were ripe for emigration, other causes operated to bring America to the attention of the hardpressed Slovak immigrants. The steamship company agents urged the peasants to emigrate, for the companies derived a large part of their income from transport of immigrants. In most countries there were laws prohibiting advertisements of prosperous conditions in another country. Two leading steamship companies were reported to have five or six thousand agents in Galicia alone. In Hungary, Immigration Commission members saw letters written by agents instructing prospective immigrants on how to leave the country without the government's consent, what routes to follow, and other related information. 54 Other agents who increased emigration from Hungary after 1870 were labor contractors, who came to hire workers for the mines and steel mills. These agents promised everything. Archduke Rudolph, they said, was living in South America, establishing there a new ideal state; immigrants to, �SLOVAKIA 13 the United States were to receive grants of land and aid in buying equipment and in constructing necessary buildings.55 Many peasants who went with the agents wrote back letters reporting high wages. These lett'ers were undoubtedly one of the most powerful means of persuading the Slovak peasants to cross the ocean. 56 In the earlier phases of immigration many emigrants returned to their native country after they had laid by a sufficiency of this world's goods. The figures given by the Hungarian government for emigration and return for the year of 1905 show the extent of this return movement and suggest the breadth of influence exercised by returning emigrants. In 1905 the Magyar figures list 38,770 as leaving the country, while they give 4,038 as returning to Hungary.57 The news of work and wages certainly had an effect in stimulating further emigration. The Slovak emigrants moved generally westward by rail for German or Dutch ports. During the years 1881-1900 some 372,979 Slovaks were reported to have passed through the port of Hamburg, whereas only 9,501 embarked from Italian ports. 58 During 1886-1907 the German ports handled 348,808 emigrants from Hungary, Antwerp 57,170, Dutch ports 33,762, and Italian ports 3,785. 59 The low cost of steamship crossing attracted many to undertake the difficult journey. Passage from Hamburg on the way out was $20; the return journey as far as Oderburg, a station on the Hungarian frontier, was $23.60. The Hungarian Government granted the Cunard Line the monopoly of transporting emigrants from Hungary. So great was the rush to America that the Cunard Line called on other companies and formed the "Continental Pool" to handle the traffic. This "Pool" provided the worst accommodations, the worst diet, and the worst navigation. 61 The journey's length varied from fifteen to sixty days. The emigrants fortified themselves against sea-sickness with prunes and brought their own supplies of sausage, bacon, plum brandy, and gin. Water was distributed only at intervals, sometimes only once a day. The ventilation in the living quarters was bad. 62 One emigrant described his journey in these words: "It was in the year 1883 that, with three men, I set out from Trebis ov for America. We got on a wagon that took us to Obisovce, �14 SLOVAKIA where we boarded a train and rode to Vrutky. There we obtained travel permits for Bohumfn, and from Bohumin to Bremen, where we boug1hit our steamship tickets, for which we paid 53 ,gold pieces. A chill comes over me even now when I think of that ship of ours. We were afloat almost 18 days and twice the shi p was in danger of sinking. Everything on the deck rwas broken, a nd water poured into it. And as the boat rocked, one could feel that even in one's s-tomach."63 Among the ports of entry New York easily ranked first for the Slovak immigrants; then in order followed Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Boston and Portland. 64 Nor did the ills of the immigrants cease when they landed in the United States. Often enough their meagre funds and they were quickly parted. One immigrant paid a fare of $60 for a ride from the harbor to the Lackawanna railroad station. Hotels deliberately detained the immigrants by telling them that the train to their destination made the trip only once a week. Other swindlers met the immigrants as they came ashore and offered to send a telegram to their relatives or friends for the price of twenty five cents ; needless to say, no telegram was sent, and the immigrants were only so much poorer. One porter kidnapped two young girls who ended in brothels.85 The Slovak immigrants of the 1880's were not the first Slovaks to set foot upon American soil. The very first Slovak to come to America, so far as we know, was Andrew Jelik, a tailor on a Dutch ship which sailed to America in 17541755. He did not remain in America and eventually died in Budin, Hungary, 1783.66 Another Slovak who had arrived in America in the eighteenth century was Count Maurice Benovsky who landed at Baltimore in 1775. He was but an adventurer whose later career took him to Madagascar where he became king and where he also perished. 67 In the year 1800 a Slovak dealer in oils surprised a Slovak Jesuit in Mexico City by making his confession in Slovak. 68 The first Slovak settlement was made in Philadelphia by drotari, wireworkers, in 1840 at 412-414 Front Street. 69 Martin Chalan landed in the United States in 1872, took out his first papers in 1876, and became a citizen in 1879. Making the trip back and forth across the ocean, he was h1 America twenty six times. He died in 1915. 70 In the wake of these individuals the larger numbers began to come, first, from eastern Slovakia, especially from the �SLOVAKIA 15 counties of Zemplin, Sari~, and Spis. 71 Between the years 18691890 the county of Spis lost 14% of her youths between 20 to 25 years of age, and 31 % of the men between 26 and 30; Saris lost 34% of those between 20 and 25, 44 % of the men between 26 and 30. 72 Only after the eastern counties did the western ones take to emigration. To give exact figures on Slovak immigration before 1899 is impossible because prior to 1899 the immigration authorities counted the immigrants according to country of last residence, and many Slovaks listed Hungary as their country of last residence. Since 1899 the immigrants are counted according to race or language. Therefore the figures before 1899 do not give us exact data on Slovak immigrants; but according to Emily Green Balch the earlier immigrants from Hungary may be presumed to be Slovaks with some Jews and Magyars included. 73 In 1873 immigrants from Hungary numbered 1,300; in 1880 4,000 entered the United States, and in 1884 the number rose to 15,000. 74 The following table shows the total number of Slovaks coming into this country in the years 1899 to 1909: SLOVAK IMMIGRANTS ADMITTED TO THE UNITED STATES Year ending June 30 Number 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 15,838 29,243 29,343 36,934 34,427 27,940 52,368 38,221 42,041 16,170 Source: Emily Green Balch, OUR (New York, 1910), P. 103. 22,568 SLAVIC FELLOW CITI ZENS In the period 1899-1910 the total immigration to the United States numbered 9,555,673; in this number there were 337,527 Slovaks. 75 Consideration of Table 5 shows that �Hl SLOVAKIA 1905 was the peak year for the Slovaks in which 52,368 of them were admitted. Numerically in the twelve years ending June 30, 1910 Slovakia ranked eighth among the nations providing immigrant material. 76 The rate of emigration of Slovaks per 1,000 was 18.6; this was double that of any other race of people, except the Hebrews (18.3), Croatian-Slovenians (13.1), and South Italians (11.9). The rate was the highest of any group. 77 Having arrived in the United States, the Slovak immigrants began to look for a place to live and to work. The first areas to draw them were the coal mine centers; only in the second instance did the Slovaks settle in the factory cities.78 One focus of settlement was the hard-coal area of northeastern Pennsylvania where the center was Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Before World War I the mines in this district employed 75,000 to 100,000 men; of this group 12% were Slovaks. 79 In the soft coal area of southwestern Pennsylvania Mt. Pleasant was the center of dispersion. From there the Slovaks moved northward to Latrobe or Greensburg, southward to Connellsville and Uniontown. The chief centers of Slovak settlement were: Alice, Standard, Bessemer, Bridgeport, Mammouth, Old Hecla, New Hecla, Calumet, Old Tarrs, Donnelly, Buckeye, Moyer, Johnstown, Pittsburgh, Gayette City, Brownsville, Masontown, Fairchance, Point Marion, Cannonsburg, Perryopolis, Republic, and others. 80 Only later did pockets of immigrants form in Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit. About the geographic dispersion of Slovaks an interesting note occurs in a letter sent to the Jednota in 1913 by a J . P. Kapas, who had been traveling in the west. He wrote: "There had been plenty of Slovak people in the west, but almost all returned to the eastern states, and only for this r eason that in the west the people were all foreigners and wild." 81 Alaska seems to have been the limit of immigration, at least as far as the group was concerned. John Miklas, writing from Alaska, recommended against coming and said that he had not found any Slovaks there as yet. He surmised, however, that after his return from the "Old Country", where he meant to go for a visit, he might settle in Alaska.82 By 1885 large groups of Slovaks had settled in the fol- �SLOVAKIA 17 lowing states: Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois. 83 In the hard coal area in northeastern Pennsylvania a sub-employment system was used in which an operator hired the men who dug and loaded the coal; the mine company paid the operator and he paid off his hired men. The Slovaks, inexperienced in mine work and unskilled in language, worked merely as the hired men; this left them exposed to the wiles of unscrupulous operators who kept some of the pay from them. 84 In 1856 the Pennsylvania Railroad had reached Pittsburgh from Philadelphia; the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad in 1871 built tracks to Pittsburgh, thus giving Pittsburgh an outlet to Baltimore. The demand for laborers in the mine fields of Westmoreland and Fayette Counties in Pennsylvania was answered by many Slovak men from the hard coal area and "the old country." But who the first Slovak was to enter the Pittsburgh area we do not know. When the agents of the Frick Company from the coke and coal region of southwestern Pennsylvania hired new immigrants · at Castle Garden, but for trivial exceptions the hired men were Slovaks. The company transported them by rail to Alverton, lying between Scottdale and Mt. Pleasant, Pa. Thence they walked to Morewood, Pa., where a company house awaited them. It is impossible to tell how many Slovaks there were in the coke region. We do know that in Morewood by 1893 there were four hundred men engaged in work, and how many Slovaks there were in this group we do not know. As early as 1880 John and Sophia Hvizdo~ had eighteen Slovak boarders in their house. 85 Until 1900 Slovaks worked mostly in the coal mines and at the coke ovens of Frick and Company. This firm had been organized in 1871 as Frick and Company, with about 300 acres of coal area and 50 coke ovens around Connellsville, Pa. By 1889 it had about 35,000 acres and 15,000 coke ovens. The lowest paid worker in 1890 was the "yard worker" who earned $1.40 for a ten hour day; the best wages were paid the "road man" who received $2.10 for nine hours of work. 86 At first the Slovaks worked beside the Czechs in the coal mines, while the Poles worked at the coke ovens; but gradually, the Slovaks too began to work their way up to jobs at the ovens. �18 SLOVAKIA Most Slovaks were satisfied with their wages, which varied from $16.00 to $25.00 every two weeks. Strange as it may seem, it was possible to live and also to lay something by from these wages. A pound of beef soup meat cost three cents; for six dollars a man could dress himself rather well; rent cost three or four dollars a month for a small four room house. Nevertheless, not all miners were satisfied; demands were made for more pay and less work. When the mine operators refused, there were strikes, often riotous and bloody. 87 The Slovaks were also employed in the Egdar Thompson Iron Works of Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie with Frick employed the greatest number of Slovaks; others, like Rainey, Oliver, and Jones and Laughlin also engaged considerable numbers of Slovaks, but the number cannot be exactly stated. However, until 1900 most of the Slovaks worked in the mines and at the coke ovens.88 When the Slovaks got jobs in the mines, they lived in "company houses ",which were built practically at the site of the mine. This was a settlement of large houses built by the company and rented to the worker, who had also to pay for water, gas and coal. 89 To buy his food and other necessities the miner had to patronize the company store. This made the dependence of the worker on the comp:.my complete; the threat of expulsion during a strike was a powerful weapon in keeping the miners submissive. 90 The company r ented a house to a married couple on condition that they take in "boarders," the usual number being ten, but in the larger houses the number varied upward to thirty or forty. 91 The cleanliness d 2p::!nded on the character, ability, or sheer physical strength of the housewife. Within the household food arrangements provided that except for meat, flour, and coffee, the food was purchased in common. One meal a day wa:; eaten together, on Sunday at noon and during the week in the evening. For the other meals the gazdina or housewife cooked individually for the men whatever they bought. Beer by the barrel was also bought in common; sometimes this ran to a hundred barrels per month. At the end of the month the common bill was divided: the housewife did not pay; the men including the husband, paid equally, and two children were counted as one adult. 92 Moreover, on pay day several barrels of beer would be bought as well as whiskey, �SLOVAKIA 19 and much meat was prepared for a gay evening. At first, dancing was the chief recreation. One man pulled out an accordion, and the dancing began, even men dancing with men because of the shortage of women partners; frequently this mixure of drink, food, and music led to drunken brawls sometimes over the excellence of their home towns in Slovakia, often enough over women. Dancing was not limited to pay day; any celebration of even slight importance had to be combined with dancing and shouting of the most vigorous sort. The Cardas was a universal favorite. Family life was injured by many men coming to America without their wives and families and by the dearth of marriageable Slovak girls. To find a wife many young men on week ends went to Passaic, New Jersey, where many Slovak girls worked in the textile mills, and the men watched the girls as they came from work and made their choice. On Sundays in Passaic there often were ten to twenty weddings. Difficult as family life was, the "boarding house," allowing for so little privacy, did not help very much; sometimes it led to the wife's running off with a boarder. 93 Organizational life among the Slovaks began in the lodges and societies so common in America after the Civil War. By 1914 in the United States principal organizations had 15,600,000 members. Economic and social need led the Slovaks to form lodges. Mine disasters often took the lives of husbands and fathers, leaving the family not only destitute, but even without the money for a funeral. In answer to the need of sickness and funeral benefits a large number of societies grew up in industrial and .mining towns. The first of these was the Persi Uhorszko-Slovenszky v nemoczi podporujuci Szpolek, established in New York, on March 3, 1883. In this society, which lasted for eight years, Slovak was made the official language. Fraternal and mutual benefit iocieties mushroomed in the Slovak settlements. The Spolok Sv. Stefana in Passaic, N. J. was organized 1884 and already in 1887 was calling for a unification with other Slovak fraternal organizations. Under the influence of a Polish organization whose constituti-on it used, the Cirkevny a v ntmoci pl!>dporujuci spolok arose in Hazleton, Pa., in 1884. The Slovaks in Houtzdale, Pa., organized the Bratstvo Najsvatejsieho Srdca Pana Jezisa, on November 14, 1886; on December 12, 1884 the Spolok Sv. Stefana in Plymouth, Pa., came �20 SLOVAKIA into existence. A touch of humor accompanied the difficulties of the lodge in Bayonne City, N. J., where the Spolok Princa Rudolfa, set up in 1887, had to change its name after the tragic death of Archduke Rudolph of Hapsburg at Mayerling, because the other Slovaks ridiculed the members for having lost their patron. Bayonne City, N. J., had one of the largest mutual benefit societies, the Prvy bednarsky vypomocny spolok, an organization of Coopers engaged in making barrels, staves, chests, boxes; it was organized in 1888 and acted also as a bargaining agent for the membership with their employees. They were the first to have their own flag, whereas the other groups used the Hungarian flag. The Spolok Sv. Cyrila a Methoda in Minneapolis, Minn., and the Slovensky Spolok Sv. Petra i Pavla of McKeesport, Pa., both came into existence in 1888; the Slovensky v nemoci podporujuci spolok in Braddock, Pa., arose in 1889. The chief purpose of these societies was help in need, especially providing an elaborate funeral. In these funerals all the local lodges took part with flags, uniforms, and mourning bands. The secondary purpose was to aid in the organization of parishes, the building of churches and schools and lodge halls. 94 In spite of the success of these lodges, financial problems arose from the system of assessment which they used. The system required a contribution of about fourteen cents a month to meet administrative costs; on the death or sickness of a member the others had to contribute as much as would be needed for the stipulated sum. A considerable number of deaths or cases of sickness within a month or a short time made the financial burden too great for the small lodges. 95 The first appeal for unification came from the Society of St. Stephen in Passaic, N. J., as early as 1887. Julius Schwartz-Markovic in Nova Vlast' (a periodical that lasted only from March to December, 1888) made appeals for consolidation; Peter Rovnianek repeated this appeal in the October issue, as did B. Lajciak in the December issue. The Rev. Joseph Kossalko, a Roman Catholic priest of proMagyar conviction, seeing the nationalist tendency of these lodges in their use of Slovak as the official language and their gradual abandonment of the Hungarian flag, opposed this movement in a new periodical, the Zastava. The consolidation did not come until the 1890's. 96 When the Slovak immigrants, of whom the bulk was �SLOVAKIA 21 Catholic, first came to the United States, they were financially unable to build churches for their own use. Before the Slovak Catholics had their own churches, they attended Polish, German, Czech, or Irish churches; if they happened to be regular attendants at a church where their languago was not understood, they often went a considerable distance to receive the sacraments, especially that of Penance, from someone who understood their language. In the southwestern Pennsylvania mining area the Slovaks were fortunate to have in their midst St. Vincent's Archabbey, a Benedictine institution, which took special care to provide priests who could understand the Slovak language. Priests from this archabbey went from settlement to settlement taking care of the spiritual needs of the Slovaks. The first to do "mission" work among the Slovaks was Rev. Nepomuk Yaeger, O.S.B., who for three years in southwestern Pennsylvania visited the mining camps, where often enough he had to offer the· Mass to the accompaniment of card-playing, drunken singing, swearing and quarreling. 97 First to organize on a religious basis were the Slovak Lutherans. The first Lutheran parish was established in Streator, Illinois, where the church was ready for services on October 5, 1884. Karol Horak, ordained in 1883, was the first minister, but he gave up ministerial work and became a real estate agent. While the parish was withouth a minister's services, the Slovak Lutherans met in the home of Mr. G. Kozlej, who read the Bible to them. A minister, Cyril Droppa, reached Streator on March 26, 1884 and stayed there until 1887; eventually his spiritual labors took him to Russia. This first Lutheran parish had 49 members; the pastor's salary was fixed at forty dollars a month. The name of the parish was the Parish of the Blessed Trinity. Lutheran parishes were organized in Freeland, Pa., and Nanticoke, Pa., in 1886, and Minneapolis, Minn., in 1888. 98 Almost simultaneously with the Lutherans, the Slovak Catholics organized themselves into parishes. However, before this could go on apace, priests able to speak Slovak were needed. Even among the first priests, 99 the division into Slo·vak nationalists and Madarones disturbed their relations with one another and their work among Slovaks, Protestant as _well as Catholics. In 1882 the Rev. Ignatius Jaskovic, who came to Hazle- �22 SLOVAKIA ton, Pa., was the first active Slovak Catholic priest in the United States. He built St. Joseph's church in Hazleton, where the first Mass was said on December 6, 1885. He stayed in Hazleton until 1890. The Rev. J. Kossalko, arriving in 1884, had his first parish in Streator, Ill.; he said the first Mass in the new church of St. Stephen on December 10, 1885, just four days after the first mass had been said in Hazleton, Pa. The Rev. Samuel Bella, also a Catholic priest, became the pastor of Nanticoke, Pa., and later of Bayonne City, N. J. These three priests were all Madarones, that is, Slovaks with pro-Magyar convictions, and firmly opposed to any Slovak nationalism. 100 This Madarone element introduced the first division of the Slovak group into the factions that played a part among the pre-World War Slovaks of America. In 1887 in Scranton, Pa., the Slovak Calvinists first organized as a religious group. The Slovak Calvinists of Jessup, Pa., had a chapel there since 1888, but the building of churches had to wait until the 189O's. To conduct services in their parishes the Calvinists hired Magyar and English ministers; the Slovaks and Magyars fought about the language to be used in the divine service, Slovak or Magyar. There was no general solution for these churches, but the language varied from church to church. 101 At first some Slovaks objected to building schools on the score of uselessness; these untutored peasants had to be taught that schools were important. Some Slovak immigrants had come to make money and were in America only temporarily. Schools meant permanence. Why should they contribute to the education of other people's chidren? However a beginning was made. St. Stephen's parish, Streator, Ill., built the first Slovak Catholic parochial school in 1889, a wooden structure, costing $4,500, a considerable sum for those days. From the very beginning the schools were not strictly Slovak, for there were not enough Slovak teachers; this led to many subjects being taught by "English" teachers and "Irish" nuns. Slovak nationalists were satisfied by having the pastor teach the children on Saturday afternoons, when they studied the Slovak language, Slovak history, and Slovak geography.102 The 11cattered Slovak settlements were brought in touch with one another by newspapers written in the Slovak language. John Slovensky, a trained teacher from Slovakia, had �SLOVAKIA 23 come to the United States in 1879, and had obtained a clerical job in the Austro-Hungarian consulate. This put him in contact with the Slovak immigrants, who came to the consulate often seeking information about conditions in the Monarchy, as for instance, was the Monarchy at war with the Turk? This suggested to Slovensky the idea of a Slovak periodical. In 1885 he launched a lithographed paper called Rulletin, which contained news from Europe and items about Slovak immigrants. Especially the tavern keepers subscribed to it for their taverns where Slovaks met to read it. Success prompted John Slovensky to embark on · a larger enterprise, the publication of Amerikanszko-Slovenszke Noviny. J. Schwartz-Markovic and the Rev. Erwin Gelhoff, a Catholic priest, published the Nova Vlast' in Streator, Illinois, in March 1888; this venture lasted only until December of that very year. The year 1889 saw the birth of two other newspapers, the Slovak v Amerike and Rev. J. Kossalko's Madarone newspaper, Zastava. 103 These newspapers became the sounding boards of popular opinion as well as a unifying force among the Slovaks. Discussion in the newspapers led to the consolidation of local lodges during the 1890's. With the beginning of the 1890's the Slovaks began to unify the many individual lodges into a federation for greater economic security. However, from the very start factions divided the Slovaks. The leaders of the Slovak immigrants disagreed on whether the principle of organization should be religious or nationalist. The Rev. Stephen Furdek, a Catholic priest, believed that the new national organization should be based upon religious uniformity within the organization; the Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists should each have their own organization. Peter Rovnianek, a Slovak nationalist, wanted nationality to be the principle of organization. Any Slovak, no matter what his religious convictions or lack of them, could be a member. 104 Because of this difference of principle, two separate, and in many ways rival, organizations arose. On February 16, 1890, Peter V. Rovnianek led in founding the National Slovak Society in Pittsburgh, Pa. All Slovaks, Catholics, Protestants, Freemasons, Freethinkers or indifferentists, were welcome. Openly nationalist, the National Slovak Society played down religious differences, emphas- �24 SLOVAKIA izing all Slovaks were one. The frank nationalism and liberalism antagonized the Madarone Slovaks and some Catholici. The Rev. J. Kossalko, the most outstanding Madarone, refused absolution to Catholic members of the National Slovak Society. 105 Others besides the Madarone element opposed the liberal National Slovak Society. The Rev. Stephen Furdek established a Catholic fraternal organization, the First Catholic Slovak Union, September 4, 1890. The objectives of this First Catholic Slovak Union were to preserve the Catholic Faith, to support fellow-members, widows, and orphans in need, to preserve and extend the use of the Slovak language and Slovak nationality. Conditions of membership were recognition of the bishop of Rome as head of the Catholic Church, faithful performance of religious duties, attendance of one's children at a Catholic school, support of parish and parochial school, no ridicule of religious ceremonies, and no writing against the Church and the clergy. 106 Slovak women felt that they, too, should have their own organizations independent of male control. They established the Zivena Beneficial Society in the year 1891. In 1892 the Slovak Catholic women organized a similar society, the First Catholic Slovak Ladies' Union. 107 The Slovak Lutherans organized their own beneficial society in 1893, the Slovak Evangelical Union; and soon afterwards the Slovak Calvinists formed the Slovak Calvinist Union. 108 For reasons that are not evident, almost all these groups felt the strain of internal strife. A split in the First Catholic Slovak Union provided members for a new organization, the Pennsylvania Roman and Greek Catholic Union in 1893. This society intended to encourage religion, temperance, and morality, to train its members in obedience and respect for civil law and in performance of civil duties, to collect funds to pay burial benefits.109 In Chicago the local lodge of the National Slovak Society left the national organization and formed the Slovak National Society. 110 Later a similar break occurred in the Slovak Evangelical Union. In 1890 P. V. Rovnianek and his associates published the First Slovak National Almanac. Almanacs were already a Slovak European tradition. The National Slovak Society first issued its own almanac in 1893; and the First Catholic �SLOVAKIA 25 Slovak Union began its series with the Kalendar Jednota in 1896. These almanacs provided the literary reading that most Slovaks did: short stories, political essays on conditions in the United States, reviews of the year's important events, religious essays, articles on the Indians and Negroes, moral essays on how to spend Sundays, counseling articles on marriage, and almost any subject useful to the Slovak readers. In these almanacs the best Slovak writers reached their limited Slovak American public; eventually the almanacs became so popular that ,twenty-nine were published. 111 Newspapers received the strongest impetus from the national societies. The Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny were the mouthpiece of the National Slovak Society; the First Catholic Slovak Union published an official organ, the Jednota. These were real newspapers with world news, reports from the domestic scene in America, and organization news in their columns. One feature distinguished these papers from the trend turning American newspapers into large business enterprises; the Slovak immigrant papers remained very much the voice of the individual editors. However, many Slovaks had no desire to read a newspaper. The editors, who usually combined editing with other work to earn their living, on Saturday and Sunday toured Slovak settlements to get subscriptions for their periodicals. 112 Very soon after the organization of the two fraternal societies the Slovaks learned how effective and necessary cooperation on a national level can be. When the price of steel billets began to fall, the Edgar Thompson Works in Braddock, Pa., announced a wage cut. This led to a strike late in 1890. On the night of January 1, 1891, Michael Quinn, a guard at the mill was slain. Many Slovaks were arrested, among them persons who had been strolling about after a pleasant evening in a tavern. The police arrested about sixty persons and charged them with being involved in the crime. Most of them received light sentences, but on April 8, 1891, Andrew Toth, Michael Sabol, and George Rusnak received the death sentence for the murder of Michael Quinn. Only by heroic efforts did the Slovak leaders and organizations secure on February 7, 1892 a commutation of sentence to life imprisonment. 113 The efforts of Rev. F. Wider, president of the First Catholic Slovak Union, Peter V. Rovnianek of the National �26 SLOVAKIA Slovak Society, Rev. Stephen Furdek, and Julius Wolf, won the release of Michael Sabol, suffering from tuberculosis, in 1895; he died ten days after leaving prison. Peter V. Rovnianek, engaging a lawyer, Clarence Burleigh, secured the freedom of George Rusnak in 1897; George Rusnak, too, had tuberculosis. Andrew Toth left prison only twenty years later, a man sixty two years old. After the efforts of the Slovak League had failed, Edward Goehring, an attorney, succeeded in showing that the evidence which convicted Toth was contradictory. Toth was freed in 1911. The Pennsylvania legislature rejected a motion to give Toth $300.00 for every year he had spent unjustly in jail. However, the Carnegie Foundation fixed a grant of $40 a month on him. 114 During February, 1891, a strike against the firm of Henry Clay Frick, Frick and Company, bec:;_me general in the Connellsville, Pa., area of coke ovens and soft coal. By 1889 Frick had acquired 35,000 acres of coal area and 15,000 coke ovens and employed about 30,000 workers. Andrew Virostek, a worker in the Tip Top Mine and member of the United Mine Workers of America, threatened miners who loaded more coal than union regulations permitted. Then the company fired him. The union fought the mine operators over the dismissal, and by February a strike flared throughout the region. On April 2, 1892 when about five hundred miners attacked the Southwest Company shops in Morewood, Pa., three Slovaks, three Poles, and one Italian were shot to death. The state militia came in to restore order, and some men drifted to work. Frick hired Pinkerton detectives to expel the remaining strikers from the company homes. During the week of April 18, 1892 these detectives were to oust seven hundred families in Fayette county alone. When the agents began the evictions, a Slovak man and woman perished in the violence in Leisenring No. 3, two Slovak women were wounded at Adelaide, and at Trotter, sixteen men and thirteen women were shot. Then in the following month Frick began hiring Negroes and Italians to replace the Slovaks. 115 Julius Wolf and Peter V. Rovnianek figured secretly in the settlement of the strike. The Frick company paid them sums of money for persuading the miners to return to the pits. Unwisely, the two men discussed the deal in letters, �SLOVAKIA 27 which their enemies subsequently published. Slovak immigrant writing has branded these letters as the "Four Letters of Betrayal. " 116 The Slovaks' preoccupation with wages, bad housing, and mine disasters seem to have led to a decline in religious fervor. Causes suggested to explain the decline varied: nonconfessional schools, public schools, neglect by religious authorities, too great preoccupation with earning a living. 117 Evidence exists to show that some Catholics fell away. A "Home Mission among the Slavic Immigrants" in 1885 supported a Congregational Church in Cleveland; it also provided a Presbyterian Church in New York. 118 The effectiveness of these efforts among the Slovaks, it is impossible to judge. In Mt. Pleasant, Pa., a Slovak preacher came to the "Church of God" and succeeded in bringing at least 7 SloYak Catholic families into it. 119 Higganum, Conn., had a Slovak colony of about 20 families; some Slovak Catholics went to church only to keep their benefits in the Jednota; others were entirely indifferent, so far gone that they married in the Lutheran church, even though a Catholic priest was always available. 120 The namecalling contest between P. V. Rovnianek and the Rev. Stephen Furdek, unedifying as it was, certainly spread anti-clericalism among the nationalist element. This apparent religious decline should not blind us to the extensive church building activities of the Slovak immigrants during the 1890's. Frequently the construction of a church or organization of a parish began in cooperation with another national group, Poles, Croatians, Irish, or Germans; sometimes many different nationalities cooperated, Lithuanians, Poles, Italians, and Irish. Often cooperation failed, because each group felt its rights were ignored. 121 Still, for instance, at least eight new Slovak parishes were opened in the Pittsburgh diocese; and in Cleveland from St. Ladislaus' parish St. Martin's was created in 1893. 122 A Slovak parish was organized in Kangley, Ill., as a mission of the Streator congregation, in 1892. 123 The Slovak Catholics of Chicago finally got their own parish in 1898, the Roman Catholic Church of St. Michael the Archangel. 214 Expansion was the keynote. Just after the decade ended, in 1903, there were 78 Roman Catholic Slovak churches. 125 However, the Slovaks failed to build parochial schools; this had to wait for the next decade. �28 SLOVAKIA The Slovak Lutherans of Chicago organized the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Blessed Trinity in 1893; in 1894 the Rev. L. Boor became the pastor and in that very year began teaching the children of the parish the Slovak language. 126 Hand in hand with progress in organization appeared the elements of culture. Such efforts as the organization of the First Catholic Slovak Band in Johnstown, Pa., in 1892, were only straws in the wind. The Rev. S. Furdek in 1893 led in a move to establish a cultural organization to be called the Matica Slovenska in memory of the Slovak cultural institution disbanded by the Magyars in 1875. It held a convention in Chicago, September 26, 1893, and was incorporated in Columbus, Ohio, October 26, 1893. The Matica was to be a central organization to improve the cultural life of the Slovaks in Europe and America. On February 18, 1894 Peter V. Rovnianek, not to be behind hand, organized a Majak, literarne kola, that is, the Beacon Literary Circle, partly in opposition to the Matica, although he fervently disavowed any such a purpose. The Majak's objectives were encouragement of Slovak literature and culture, establishment of a Slovak cultural press, and nationalist agitation. The Literary Circle began publishing the first Slovak literary "journal, a forty page periodical, Majak, literary, political, and nationalist. It survived only six months. Both these organizations failed, partly through division of effort, partly through lack of interest among the Slovaks. 127 During this decade another society arose in Chicago, the First Slovak Sokol. The Sokol groups were gymnastic societies with a planned program of calisthenics, track events, and eventually all sports. Just when the first Sokol group was organized is doubtful; one source says that the First Slovak Sokol was organized in Chicago in 1892128 ; another gives the date as 1895. 129 Whatever be the case, the Sokol developed into a federation national in scope. The Slovak Catholic priests, divided though they were on the question of Slovak nationalism, united in an organization known as the Society of Roman Catholic Slovak Priests in 1896. Peter V. Rovnianek originated another club in the same year, the first Slavonic Political Club with 100 members, and its influence was soon felt in politics. 130 Both of these organizations were successful, in contrast to the cul- �SLOVAKIA 29 tural societies; it seems that the early Slovak immigrants were not sufficiently interested to support purely cultural groups. The cultural society and literary circle failed because labor conflicts occupied the Slovaks' attention. The Connellsville mine region was again the scene of a strike and violence that began in April, 1894. On April 4 a Slovak was slain; two days later Joseph Paddock, chief engineer of Frick's company in Davison, Pa., was killed. Blame for this crime fell on the Poles and Slovaks and over a hundred were thrown into the Uniontown jail. The court sentenced John Husar to twelve years and Michael Furin to three years in prison. Violence continued: one Slovak was killed on the main street of Connellsville and two others in the rioting at Stickle Hollow around the Washington Coal and Coke shops. At the beginning of August most of the Strikers had returned to work, but about 5,000 Slovaks remained on strike. These gradually drifted back to work or abandoned the Connellsville mines. The Rev. Orbach, a Lutheran minister, founded a Slovak colony in Wisconsin; on September 4 about 300 Slovaks set out for Wisconsin. Another farm settlement originated from the Connellsville strike. Industrial life was, after all, strange to the Slovak; he had either been a small farmer, peasant, or agricultural worker in Slovakia. His interest in acquiring a farm remained; but he did not become a farmer immediately after he landed simply because he did not have the money to invest in such a project. 131 Besides, the city gave him the companionship he would not find on the farm. Still the desire grew to place as many Slovaks as possible on the land. In the summer of 1894 Peter V. Rovnianek, Francis Pucher, Julius Tatraj, Rev. btephen Furdek, Rev. Vaclav Panu~ka, and Rev. Alexander Dzubaj examined land in Arkansas near Grand Prairie; they intended to settle Slovaks on some 40,000 acres of land. Peter Rovnianek and Francis Pucher received a charter for the Slovak Colonization Company of Pittsburgh on September 24, 1894, the land was bought, and sales began. After the prospective settlers had saved enough money, they bought forty or so acre farms from the Slovak Colonization Company. The cost of land was $2 to $3 an acre. 132 �30 SLOVAKIA Slovak settlers established a farm community near Stuttgart, Arkansas, and named their community Slovaktown. The settlers had been born in the "old country" but came to Arkansas chiefly from the coalfields of Pennsylvania and Illinois. The chief produce included corn, oats, hay, fruits, vegetables, and dairy products. The children attended the public schools. The settlers were mostly Catholics, but there were a few Lutherans. 133 The new farmers in Slovaktown were more than satisfied with their new lives; their letters continually encouraged their fellow Slovaks to flee from the factories and the mines; but only in the 1900's did anything like a movement to the farm begin. To publicize the project and success of Slovaktown the Slovak Colonization Company began publishing a periodical, Slovaktownske Hlasy, in Pittsburgh in 1896; but it lasted only six months. 134 It might indeed have been well for the Slovaks to leave the mines and go to the farms, for violence once again found them; this time it was in the anthracite region of northeastern Pennsylvania. One day in September, 1897 a group of strikers set out for Latimer. Sheriff Martin informed of the move, summoned his deputies and attempted to halt the men. Sharp words were exchanged, and Sheriff Martin ordered his deputies to fire upon the unarmed men. Twenty-one fell before the murderous gunfire and died; many others were wounded. Most of the victims were Slovaks. In spite of the unprovoked nature of the attack, the courts declared Sheriff Martin innocent, for he had ordered the shooting while performing his duty. The outcry against this verdict was most violent in the Slav press, but nothing further could be done. 135 Despite the internal dissensions among themselves and difficulties in the mines, a new interest appeared among the Slovaks during this decade; the most public manifestation of their nationalism came in 1899. Strange as it may seem, most Slovaks were not violent nationalists when they came to this country; the growth of nationalism was gradual and almost imperceptible. Slovak became the official language for the lodges; the societies abandoned the Hungarian flag. P. V. Rovnianek, joining the staff of the Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny in 1889, infused �31 SLOVAKIA a nationalist spirit into that paper; his National Slovak Society was nationalist in principle. Rev. S. Furdek, whose nationalism was of a very moderate kind, wanted American Slovaks to Americanize themselves; but he also felt it their duty to help the oppressed Slovaks overseas. 136 Under the force of this nationalism the Slovak immigrants gradually became more interested in the fate of Slovakia. In 1899 Father Furdek sent a lengthy memorandum to the Hungarian government, discussing the "Slovak question", but to no avail, except the publicity which such a memorandum aroused. It effected nothing practical; but it was the shadow of coming events; for the "Slovak question", was in the next decades to assume first place among the Slovaks. As the nineties passed, the Slovaks had made solid progress. Their economic and social life had improved through the national fraternal societies, which by 1899 had become important factors in Slovak life. Their membership stood as follows: THE FRATERNAL SOCIETIES Society Number of Members First Catholic Slovak Union __ _________ _ National Slovak Society _________ ___ ___ __ Pennsylvania Slovak Union ______ ___ ____ _ Evangelical Slovak Union ____ __ _______ _ First Catholic Slovak Ladies' Union _____ _ iivena --------- --- -------------- -- ---Source: "Slovenske (1899), IV, 38. pomery v Amerike", KALENDAR 11,000 9,450 1,727 909 1,600 1,000 JEDNOTA The religious life of the Slovaks had a chance to develop now that churches had been built. For the Roman Catholics there were now in America 33 priests, and for the Greek Catholics 32; and more were needed. 137 However, not all the picture was bright. Indeed, these were the things the Slovaks needed; but it was only after 1900 that the advance in education, the business world, political life, became pronounced. FOOTNOTES 1. Emily Green Balch, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens (New York, 1910), p. 86, pp. 88-89, p. 93. �32 SLOVAKIA 2. •F ranti§ek Hru§ovsky, Slovenske Dejiny (Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1939), p. 14. 3. Ibid., pp. 95-97. 4. I bid., p . 216. 5. Ibid., pp. 342-S43. 6. Joseph S,k ultety, Sketches from Slovak History (Middl etown, 1'930), pp. 106-109. 7. I bid., pp. 109-110. 8. Frantisek •Hrusovsky, This Is Slovakia (Scranton, 1953) , p . 40. 9. Ibid., pp. 40-41. 10. Peter P. Yurchak, The Slovaks: Their History and Traditions (Scranton, 1947), p. 28 . 11. Thomas Capek, The Slovaks of Hungary (New York, 1906), p . 108; 1Hrusovsky, This Is Slovakia, pp. 44-46. 12. Frantisek :J3okes, Dejiny Slovenska i Slovakov (;Bratislava, 1946), p . 158. 13. Robert A. ,Ka,nn, The Multinational Empire: Nationalism and National 'Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy 1848-1914 (New York, 1950), I. 278. 14. Frantisek iHrusovsk y, This Is Slovakia, pp. ,47-48. 15. Oscar Jaszi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy (Chicago, 1929), p. 107. 16. Ibid., p. 108. 17. Ibid., p. 59 . 18 . R. W. Seton-Watson, ed. , Slovakia Then and Now (London, 1931), pp. 244-245. 19. Street, Hungary and Democracy, p. ·65 . 20. Seton-Watson, Slovakia, p. 245. 21. Street, Hungary and Democracy, p . 64 . 22. Bokes, Deji ny Slovenska, p. 158. 23. C. J . Stree t, Slovakia: Past and Present (Westmins,ter, n.d .), p. 24. 24 . •Capek, Slovaks of Hungary, p. 96; Hrusovsky, Dejiny, p. 323. 25. ,Capek , Slovaks of Hungary, p. 166. 26 . Jirusovsky, Dejiny, p. 252. 27. Ibid., p. 325. 28. Ib i d., p. 319. 29. I bid., p. 319. 30. Seton-Watson, Slovakia, p. 117. 31. Seton•Watson, Slovakia, pp. 117-118. -3•2. I bid., p. 119. 33. I bid., p. 118. 34. Hrus ovsky, Dejiny, pp. 320-321; Bokes, Dejiny Slovenska, pp. 272-273 . 35. Seton-Watson, Slovakia, p. 176. 36 . Hrusovsky, Dejiny, p. -329 . 37. Bokes, Dejiny Slovenska, p. 276. 38 . Capek, Slovaks of Hungary, p. 150. 39. Jaszi, The Dissolution, p. 222. 40 . Ibid., p . 223 . 41. Street, •Slovakia: Past and Present, p. 56. 42. Harrison 'Thompson, Czechoslovakia in Europe (Princeton, 194-1) , p. 294. 43. Jaszi, The Dissolution, pp . 196-199. H. Ibid., p. 238. 45. Ibid., p. 231. �SLOVAKIA 33 46. F. J . Hask in s, The Immigrant: An Asset and a Liab ility (New York , 1913) , p . 35. 47. Capek, Slovaks of Hungary, p . 162. 48. I b id., p. 156. 49. Seton-Watso n , Slovakia, p. 275. 50. Ibid., p. 276. 51. Capek , Slovaks of Hungary, p. 152. 52. Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny, A u g u st 19, 1897. 53. Geor ge Stephen son , A H istory of American Immigrat ion 18201924 (New Yor k , 1926), P. 61; Carl W ittk e, We Who Built Amer ica (New York , 1939) , p. 405. 54. J eremiah J enk s a nd W. Jebt Lau ck , The Imm igration Problem: A Study of American Immigration Conditions and Needs (New York, 1922), pp. 21-22. 55 . Konstantin Culen, Dejiny Slovakov v Amerike (B r atislava, 1942), I , 38; Caspar Molch an, "Th e Developmen t of the S lovak Community in Pittsburgh 1880-1920", (Unpublished Master of Arts dissertation, U n iversity of Notr e Dame, 1948), p. 23. 56. Cul en, Deji ny, I, 38; Stephenson , History of Ame ri can I mm igrat ion , p. 89. 57. Balch , Slav ic Fellow Citizens, p . 102. 58. I bid., p. 25. 69. I b id., p. 437. 60. I bid., p. 101. 61. Culen, Dejiny, I, 60-61. 62. Ibid., I, 67. 63. Ibid., I, 67-68. ~4. Ibid., I, 60. 65. Na rodn e Noviny, Ap ril 9, 1914. 66. Cule n , Dejiny, I, 24-25. -67. Ibid., I , 26; Molchan, "Development of the S lovak Community" , p. 8. 6'8. Konsta'!lltfn Cu len, Slovenska Liga v Amerike styridsaf rocn a (Scr anton , 1947). p. 4. 69. Cul e n , Dej i ny , I, 28. 70. Ib id., I , 28-29. 71. Molchan, "Development of the Slovak Comr;mnity", p. 25. 72 . Capek, Slovaks of Hunga r y , p. 156. 73. Balch, Sl a vic Fe ! low C itizens, p. 100. 74. Ibid , p. 100. 75 . William P. Dillingham, Reports of the Immigration Commision, Vol. I: Abs t racts of Reports of Immigration Commision (Washington, D . C., 1911), I, 97. 76. I b id., I, 215. 77. Ibid., I, 277. 78. J. A. F., "Nacrtok Dejin Slov. prist'ahovalectva v Amerike", Sborn ik Narodn e ho Slovenske ho Spolku (1915), I, 12. 79. Culen, Deji ny , I, 96. 80. Ib id ., I. 96; Jos e ph Kushn e r, Sl ov a c i ka tol ici pi t t sbu-rghsk e ho b is kupstv a (Passaic, 19 -16), pp. 16-17 ._ 81. J ednota , March 19, 1913. 82. Na rodn e Noviny, May 26, 1910. 83. Culen, Dejiny, I, 99. 84. Kushner, S lov a ci, p. 6. 85. Ibid., p. 12, p. 16. �34 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. l09. ll0. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. SLOVAKIA Ibid., p. 7. I bid., p. 7. Ibid., p. 7. Narodne Noviny, March 12, 19·1.!; April 27, 1911. Narodne Novlny, March 12, 1914. Culen, Dejiny, I, 82-83. Ibid., I, ·82-831; J. A. F., 'INe.crtok Dejin", Sbornik, (1915), I, 11. Culen, Dejiny, I , 82-83; "Jedno-druhe", Narodny Kalendar, (1908), XVIII, 154. Culen, DeJiny, I, 195-199. "Prorocke slova dp. Matusa Jankolu o novom systeme", Sbornik Slovenskeho Katolickeho Sokola na rok 1942, XXIX, 81. Culen, Dejiny, I, 200. Kushner, Slov;ici, pp. 13-14; Jednota, July 15, 1914. Culen, Dejiny, I, 111-114. Culen, Dejiny, I, 108. I bid., I, 111. Ibid., I, 114-115. Ibid., 1, 115; Kon§tantin Culen, Slovaci v Amerike (Tur~lansk:r Sv. Martin, 11138), pp. 384-385. Culen, DeJlny, I, 213-214. Culen, Dejiny, I, 202. Ibid., I, 208-209. Ibid., I, 207-208. Souvenir Program: 19th Regular Convention, The National Slovak Society, (Young~town, 1946), p. i>4; P. V. Rovnianek, "Slovenslce organ!zacie v Amerike", World's Fair -Memorial of the Czechoslovak Group (,Chicago, 1933), p . 67 . IP. V. Rovnlanek, op. cit., pp . 67-68. Pennsylvanska Slovenaka Jednota (Wilkes-Barre), June 24, 1943. Jaroslav ·Pelikan, "Cesi a .Slovacl v Chicagu ", World's Fair Memorial of the Czechoslovak Group (Oh!cago,1933), p. 9•. Culen, Slovaci v Amerike, p. 162. Culen, Dejiny, I, 214-215. Kushner, Slovaci, p . 10; Molchan, ''Development or the Slovak Community", p . 48. Kushner, Slovacl, pp. 10-11. Ibid., p. 8. Culen, Dejlny, I, 138-139. :Fr. Sasinek, "Mysllenky o stave nabozenstva medzi Slovakm!", Kalendar Jednota, (1,8 97), II, 139-140. Narodne Novlny, August 11, 1910. !Kushner, Slov;icl, p. 21. Jednota, March 4, 1914. Kushner, Slovacl, p . 22; Michael J . Hynes, History of the Dioceae of Cleveland (Cleveland, 1953), p. 1'53. Hynes, Diocese of Cleveland, p . 255. Kushner, Slovaci, p . 41. Kushner, Slovacl, p . 41. Kalendar J.ednota, (1903), VIII, 210-211. Jaromir Psenka a Jan Pelikan, "<'.:es! a Slovac! v Chicagu", World's Fair Memorial, p . 95 . <'.:ulen, DeJiny, I, 222-227. Pellkan a Paenka, "Cesl a Slovacl v Chicagu", World's Fair Memor ial", p. 94. �35 SLOVAKIA 1211. Joseph Cermak, "·Physical Education among the Czechs and SloTaks", World'• Fair Memorial, p. 44 . 130. Molchan, "Development o! the Slovak Community", p. 67. 131. 1Narodne Noviny, July 17, 1113. 132. Narodne Noviny, May 5, 1910. 133. Kushner, Slovaoi, p. 9; Balch, Slavic Fellow Citizens, pp. 337-33·8. 134. Culen, Slovaci v Amerike, p . 115. 185. Culen, Dejlny, I, 162-18'3; Amerlkansk0-Slovenske Novlny, Feb· ruary 5, 1898. 136. Kalendar Jednota, (1899), IV, 37-41. 137. "Slovenske pomery v Amerike", Kalendar Jednota (1899), IV, 39-40. BIBLIOGRAPHY PRIMARY SOURCES - PUBLIC DOCUMENTS U. S. Bureau o! Census Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, Population Statistics, Vol. I. Washington : Government Printing omce, 1913. U. S. Congress. Senate Documents. 61 Cong., 3 Session. Washington: Government Printing O!f!ce, 1911. Vols. XI and XX. NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS Jednota (Middletown., Pa.), Vols. XXI-XXII (19113cl9H). Kalendar Jednota. Middletown: The First Cathol!c Slovak Union. Vols. I-XXI (1896-1915). Kalendar Narodneho Slovenekeho Spolku. Plit.ts·burgh: National Slovak Society. Vols. XX-XXIV (1912-1!116). Narodne Noviny (Pittsburgh, Pa.), Vols. I·V (1910-1914). SECONDARY SOURCES - BOOKS Abbot, Edith. Historical Aspects of the Immigration Problem. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1924. Balch, Emily Green. Our Slavic Fellow Citi.aiens. New York: Charities Publication Company, 11110. Bokes, Frantisek. Dejiny Slovenska t Slovakov. Bratislava: SloTenska Akademia Vied a Umeaii, 1946. Capek, Thomas. The Slovaks of Hrungary, Slavs and Panslavism. New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1,906. Culen, Konstantin. Dejiny Slovakov v Amerike. 2 vols. Bratislava: Matica Slovenskii., 19 42. Culen, Konstantin. Slovaci v Amerilc:e: Crty z kulturnych deJfn. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1938. Culen, Konstantin. Slovenska Liga v Amerike styridsat'rocna. Scranton : Obrana Press, Lnc., 19,47. Eaton, A. H . Immigrant Gifts to American Life. New York: Russell Sage Foundati,m, 1933. Fairchild, Henry 0. (ed .). Immigrant Backgrounds. New York: Wiley and Sons, lnc., 1927. • Yairchild, Henry 0. (ed.). Immigration: A World Movement and its American Significance. New York: The Mcmillan Company, 1926. i'aulkner, Harold U. The Quest for Social Justice, 189-8-1914. Vol. XI or Hi-story o! America12 Life. Edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger �36 SLOVAKIA and· Dixon Ryan Fox, 13 vols . Ne1v York : Macmillan Company, 1931. Handlin, Oscar. The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations that Made the American People. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1951. Hansen, Marcus Lee. The Atlantic Migration, 1607-1860. Cam bri dge: . The H arvard Un iversity Press, 1940. Hansen, Marcus Lee. The Immigrant in American History. Cambridge : The Harvard Univer sity Press, 1940. Hrusovsky, F rantisek . Slovenske Dejiny. Turcian sky Sv. Martin: Matica Slove'nska, 1939. Hrusovsky, Frantisek. This is Slovakia. Scranton: Obrana Press, Inc., 1953. Hynes, Michael J. History of the Diocese of Cleveland. Cleveland : Diocese of •Cleveland, 1953. Jaszi, O'scar. The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1929. Jenks, Jeremiah W. and Lauck, W . Jett. The Immigration Problem . New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 19 22 . Kann, Robert A. The Multinational Empire: Nationalism and National Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy 1848-1918. 2 vols. New York: The Columbia U niversity Press, 1950. Kushner, Jos eph. Slovaci katolfci pittsburghskeho b iskup:::tva. P as saic: The Slovak Catholic Sokol, ·1946. Nev ins, Allan. The Emergence of Modern America, 1865-1878. Vol. VIII of A History of American Life. Edited by Ar t hur M. Schlesinger and Dixon Ryan Fox, 13 vols. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1927. . Orth, Samuel P. Our Foreigners: A Chronicle of J).mericans in the Making . Vol. 35 of the .Chronicles of America. Edited by ;\llen Johnson, 56 vols. New Haven ·: Yale University Press, 1920. · Park, •Robert. The lmmigran_t Press an~ its Control. New York: Harper and Bro-thers, 1922. Pauco, J oseph. l.!.udovychova u Sturovcov: Obdobie Slovenskych Na rodnych Novin. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1943. Purcell, William J. (ed.). Catholic Pittsburgh 's One Hundred Years. Chicago: Loyola U n iversity Press, 1943. Seton-Watson , R . W. Racial Problems in Hungary. London: Constable, 1908. Seton-Watson, R. W. (ed.). Slovakia Then and Now. Prague: Orb is Publishing Company, 1931. Shaugnessy, . Gerald. Has t he l.mmigrant Kept the Faith ? New York:: The Macmillan Company, 1925 . · Sidor, Karol. Andrej H linka, 1864-1926. Bratislava: St. Andrew's. Press, 1934. Skultety, Joseph. Sketches from Slovak History. Middletown: The First Catholic Slova~ Union, 1930. Stephenson, George M. A History of American Immigration, 18201924. Boston: Ginn Publishing Company, 1926. Street, C. J.C. Slovakia: Past and Present. Westminster: P . S. Kingston and Son, Ltd., n. d . Tarbell, Ida. The Nationalizing of Business, 1878-1898. V ol. IX of A 'History of Ameri can Life. Edited by Arthur -M. Schlesinger and Dixo~ Ryan Fox, 13 vols. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1936. �SLOVAKIA 37 Thompson, S. Harrison. Czechoslovakia in European History. Princeton: The Princeton U niversity Press, 19-44. Wittke, Carl. We Who Bui It America: The Saga of the Immigrant. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1940. Yurchak, Peter P. The Slovaks: Their History and Trad itions. Revised edition. Scranton: Obrana Press, Inc., 1947. ARTICLES F., J. A. "Nacrtok dejin s lov. prisfahovalectva v Amerike", Sbornik Narodneho Slovenskeho Spolku, I (1915), 20-39 . Jamar ik, Paul. "Zivot Americkych .Slovakov dakedy a teraz_" , Sbornik Na rodneho Slovenskeho Spolku, I (1915), 98-109. "Prorocke slova dp. Matusa Jankolu o novom systeme", Sborn ik Slovensk e ho Katolickeho Sokola na rok 1942, XXIX. Shipman, Andr ew J . "Slavs ~-n America", The Catholic Encyclopedia, XIV (1913). 51-57. Stephenson, George M. "Immigration", Dictionary of American History, III (1940), 73-75. "The Slovak Sokol", Sborn ik S lovenske ho Katolickeho Sokola na rok 1942, XXIX, 242-243. Timasheff, Nicholas. "Education", Slavonic Encyclopedia. Edited by Joseph .S. 1Roucek. New York: The Philosophical Library, Inc., 1949, pp. 261-269. Ware, Caroline. "Immigration", Encyclopedia of Soc ia l Sc iences, VII (1932), 587-595. World 's Fair Memorial of the Czechos lo va k Group. Chicago: Czechoslovak Group, 1933. Bradac, John S. "Slovenski Evanjelici-Luterani v Spojenych Statoch", pp. 81-83. Cermak, Joseph. "Physical Education among the Czechs and Slovaks in America", pp. 42-45. ·· Pelikan, J. and Psenka, R. Jaromir. "Cesi a Slovaci v Chicagu", pp. 89-97. Rovnianek, Peter V. "Slovenske organizacie v Amerike", pp. 66-68. UNPUBLISHED SOURCES Gregorovic, Sister M. Counsuela, SS.C.M . "Father Jankola's Con tribution t0 Catholic Education in America". Unpublis hed Master of Arts dissertation. History Department, Catholic University, 1943. Molchan, Caspar, C.S.C . "The Development of the Slovak Comqiunity in Pittsburgh, 1880-1920". Unp ub lished Master of Arts di sserta·,£ion. History Department, U niversity of Notre Dame, 1948. · Stefan, Sister M. Leocadia, SS.C .M. "The Reverend Stephen Furdek" . Unpublis-h ed Master of Arts dis se r tation. History Depar tment, Catholic University, _ 1952. Teplicky, Sister M. Berchmans, SS .C.M. "Educational Activities of the Sisters of SS. Cy,ril and Methodius". Unpublishe d Master of Arts diss ertation. Education Department, Marywood College, 1945. � SLOV AKIA Pub lished by the Slovak League of America VOL XV 1965 NO. 38 EARLY BEGINNINGS OF THE SLOVAKS IN AMERICA By James J. Zatko, Ph.D. , University of Notre Dame Occupying the area enclosed by the Carpathian mountains, the Danube River, and the Theiss River, the Slovaks to the number of two million or 12% of the total population of Hungary, eked out a meagre existence between the two rivers and the mountains. Because the Slovaks had to struggle for a living, men and women were inured to hard work and to a very low standard of living. Their facial features form two general types: the round-faced with wide-set eyes, and the long-headed narrow face with a long nose. The people live in villages consisting of long, low brick or wood houses with hand-made shingles. The interiors were generally neat and tidy, even where there was an earthen floor. 1 Slovakia itself is a geographic unit, whose northern boundary runs along the Carpathian mountains, and whose southern boundary is the Danube River and the Theiss River, which cut deep valleys and ravines through the mountain ridges. The land is divided in the west by the streams flowing to the Danube, by those flowing to the Theiss in eastern Slovakia, with a central Slovak upland lying between. 2 The area consists of about 18,895 square miles of mostly agricultural land, but the land is not the best for cultivation, much of it being woodland and the rest not very fertile. Bratislava was the capital, the ancient coronation city of Hungarian Kings before Budapest, and a great Danubian river port at the cross-roads of Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary. Other important cities in Slovakia are: Trnava in western Slovakia, Nitra in west central Slovakia on the river Nitra, Zilina in northern Slovakia on the river Vah, Turciansky Sv. Martin in north central Slovakia, Zvolen in central Slovakia, and Kosice in eastern Slovakia. 3 Within Slovakia itself population shifted during the �2 SLOVAKIA fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, by occupying the northern highlands in Slovakia. The villagers of the central plain and the river valleys created new settlements especially in Orava in the north, Trencin in the west, Zvolen in the central portion; the new settlers on the Carpathian mountainsides began to engage in animal husbandry, especially sheep-raising. 4 At the end of the seventeenth century an emigration strictly so-called began. Only individuals and very small groups left the recently settled highlands at first. The saffron-dealers and dealers in medicinal oils from Turiec county in north central Slovakia carried their home products all over eastern Europe, crossed Asia, as far as the Pacific coast of Siberia. In the business they established in Russia, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Siberia, they often employed their own countrymen. Weavers from Orava county in the north and lace makers from the Hron River region sold their wares in Hungary and central Europe generally. Menders with wire and glaziers from Trencin county in the northwest of Slovakia wandered throughout central Europe; the more enterprising settled in Germany and Russia. From the eighteenth century, after the Turk had been expelled from central and southern Hungary, the poverty stricken of Slovakia began to migrate into Hungary in quest of lands and helped to repopulate the area as well as to restore its economic productivity through agriculture. Thus did Slovak settlements originate in Hungary, Rumania, Yugo-Slavia, Bulgaria, and the Banat. 5 The poverty which accelerated this new shift in population was caused by a decline in economic and commercial activity in Slovakia itself. Early in the eighteenth century there had still been considerable export of cattle and wine from Nitra and Bratislava counties, production of cloth in Myjava, forestry and river traffic, mining and textile production. Although Maria Theresa favored Austrian industries against those of Hungary, only during the reign of Joseph II did non-Slovak manufacturers begin to compete effectively with native products; and the soil in Slovakia was insufficient to provide a livelihood for the Slovak masses. 6 A migration began from the Slovak counties across their southern borders into Hungary. In 1787 eleven counties in Hungary had a population of 1,537,969, whereas the counties in Slovakia had 1,535,480. Sixty years afterwards the Hun- �SLOVAKIA 3 garian counties had in 1848 a population of 2,844,830 and the counties of Slovakia had a population of 1,910,000. In 1787 Budin in Hungary had a population of 23,000 and Pest in Hungary, had only 16,000; Presporok in Slovakia had 29,000 and Banska Stiavnica in Slovakia had 24,000. After 83 years, in 1870, the population of Banska Stiavnica had declined to 12,000. 7 This decline in population, as the figures above indicate, extended to the period of the great exodus to America after 1873. As in the migration to Hungary, so in the modern migration to America economic conditions provided the main force that helped to empty Slovakia, but there were other causes, namely, political, social, and economic. The political ambitions of the Slovaks were closely linked with the rise of nationalism in Slovakia, which developed from three factors, contemporary trends of thought in Europe, outside pressure by the Magyars, and Slovak internal life itself. A conviction developed in the people that the country which they occupied was their own and that within it they had rights not to be contravened by any power. This thought was emphasized in a book by John Baltazar Magin who spoke in 1728 of the rights of the Slovak nation . Memories of Slovak antiquity began to be revived. George Papanek published Of Slovak Kings and K ingdoms in 1780; George Sklenar in 1783 wrote of the glories of Greater Moravia, and in 1793 George Fandli published a revision of Papanek's book. The Slovak poet John Holly portrayed the events of the Slovak past in an epic Sviitopluk (1833), in his book Slav (1834), and in Cyrilo-Methodi ada (1835)8 These writings prepared the ground for further studies in the Slovak language. During the Reformation the Czech language had spread in Slovakia among the Slovak Protestants ; but it remained a foreign language in Slovakia. This led to the cultivation of Slovak as the particular language of the Slovak nation. Matthew Bel-Funtik (1687-1749) wrote of the Slovak language that "in no respect does it fall behind the ponderousness of Spanish, the charm and smoothness of English, the richness and emphasis of German, the softness and tenderness of Italian or the imperious sternness of Magyar." Since the Slovaks had no national literary medium as late as the end of the eighteenth century, Anton Bernolak created a national literary language based on the western �4 SLOVAKIA or Trnava dialect. In 1787 he published a grammar of literary Slovak and later also published a six volume SlovakCzech-Latin-German-Magyar dictionary. 9 The greatest writer of the "Bernolakian" school was John Holly, who is described as "in the fullest sense the awakener of national consciousness by right of actualizing what others had planned and dreamed of." 10 Even though a considerable school of "Bernolakian" writers developed, the western Slovak dialect failed to become the national idiom. Uudovit Stur (1815-1856) together with the Lutheran pastors Joseph Miloslav Hurban (18171888) and Michael Miloslav Hurban established the definite form of literary Slovak, based upon a dialect spoken in the eight central counties. Together they founded a literary and publishing society, Tatrin (1844), and began to publish the political journal Slovenske narodnie noviny (1845), and the literary monthly, Slovenske pohl'ady (1846). The use of the Slovak language became an essential demand in Slovak political agitation. In May of 1848 the Slovak nationalist leaders met in the rectory of Michael Miloslav Hodza in Liptovsky Sv. Mikulas, where they drew up a political program for the Slovaks: "Petitions of the Slovak Nation." They expressed no desire to break away from the Hungarian state; they wanted defined boundaries for Slovak lands, social, political, cultural equality of Slovaks with Hungarians, and official recognition of the Slovak language. When the leaders planned to submit this program for the approval of the Slovak people, the Hungarian government forbade Slovak assemblies and imprisoned the Slovak leaders. 11 The hand of Eudovit Stur was obvious in the program. Already in 1847 he had listed these grievances: manorial courts, maldistribution of public offices, lack of uniform taxation, need of reform in the judicial system, insufficient freedom of the press and speech; he also demanded the use of the Slovak language in schools, churches, and courts. 1 z With the demands of Liptovsky Sv. Mikulas ignored and then repressed, the Slovaks took to revolutionary activity against the Hungarians. Since their only hope of relief lay with the central government at Vienna, they threw in their lot with the imperial forces of Habsburg against the �SLOVAKIA 5 revolution of Kossuth. After the prostration of Magyarism through Russian intervention in 1849, the Slovaks were prepared to accept a limited territorial sovereignty from the imperial government; but even though the assimilative policy of the Magyars was suspended, centralization, not autonomy, remained the order of the day. In the Spring of 1861 the Slovaks renewed their political activity. After their political principles had been published in the newspapers, an assembly was called to meet in Turciansky Sv. Martin. The prominent attorney Stephen Marko Daxner formulated the political program: recognition of the Slovak nation by imperial edict, the constitution of Slovakia as a distinct administrative unit in Hungary, the right of Slovaks to develop their own life without restriction. This "Memorandum of the Slovak People" was presented to the Emperor Franz Joseph; the only result was that the Slovaks were allowed to establish the cultural institution, the Matice, Slovenska. 14 Austria's defeat by Prussia in 1866 forced a settlement with the Magyars. Known as the Compromise of 1867, it granted Magyars internal independence and divided the Empire into two countries under one crown. The Compromise of 1867 and the dualistic sys.tern based on it, appeared before public opinion as the compromise of the Austrian Emperor with the Hungarian feudal classes which the liberal German high bourgeoisie accepted, though not without serious hesitation, in order to secure its own hegemony against tbe will of the Slav majority.15 Jaszi observes that this artificial dualistic system could be maintained only "by a corrupt and restricted electoral system, by open ballot, and by terroristic procedures in the administrative and military machine." 16 The political injustices after 1867 should therefore be considered not only against a background of Magyarization but also seen as a means used to preserve the structure of the dual monarchy. The electoral laws and improper representation in the Hungarian parliament were among the grievances. For instance, in the 58 electoral areas inhabited by Slovaks for the most part, these deputies were elected: �6 SLOVAKIA ELECTION OF DEPUTIES 1865-1881 Year Magyar Deputies 1865 1869 1872 1875 1878 1881 58 58 56 58 58 58 Slovak Deputies 0 0 2 0 0 0 Source: C. J. Street, HU GARY AND DEMOCRACY (London, 1923), PP. 57-58. The constituencies and polling stations were so arranged that Magyar communities were assured of easy access •to the poll, while non-Magyar communities had ,to travel great distances. It wa-s no uncommon trick for the local authorities to declare roads and bridges unsafe for traffic on the day of election, or for all the hors es in non-Magyar districts to be placed under veterinary supervision and forbidd en to move outside the commune.17 The Slovaks had grievances against the judicial system. Until 1871 the judicial and administrative spheres were not separated. In that year judicial reform was inaugurated. Criminal and civil cases were dealt with in the District and Sedrial courts as the first instance, the Tables as the second, and the Royal Curia in Budapest as the final one. 18 The Slovaks complained too that the nationality of the legal officers did not correspond to the national distribution of population. In 1910 there were 2,633 judges and official lawyers in Hungary; 2,601 were Magyars, 31 Germans, 1 Slovak. This was the proportion of legal officers in a country where the Slovaks formed 12 % of the population.19 Moreover, in spite of the fact that the law of Nationalities (1868) admitted other languages to court, 20 the law remained a dead letter, for summonses were issued in Magyar, and verdicts given in Magyar, and the need of an interpreter was disregarded. 21 Slovaks also called for freedom of the press. 22 Between 1905 and 1908 there were 43 court actions against fourteen Slovak newspapers ; sentences totaling eleven years and three months were imposed as well as fines totaling 11,000 crowns for Pan-Slavistic activities. 23 Besides these unsettling political factors, other social causes added to the sense of national frustration. �SLOVAKIA 7 At the basis of the cultural conflict was the idea of the Magyar state. The law of Hungary recognized only one nation in Hungary, and that was the Magyar. To be secure, Hungary had to be Magyar. The objective of political action became to create one nation, Magyar in sentiment and speech, from the multinational and polylingual Hungarian lands. 24 This ideal was pushed by every means: newspapers, the society for the Magyarization of Proper Names founded in 1880, and 1898 law to give all towns Magyar names; suppression of the Slovak language in rail, postal, and telegraph service. 25 As one reaction against the process of forcible assimilation, the Slovak sought comfort and national security in Pan-Slavism. Having become conscious of the larger Slav community, the Slovak nationalist leaders shook off their feeling of inferiority and began to place their hopes of realizing national ideals in the larger Slav group. 26 The Hungarians reacted by denouncing as Pan-Slav any Slovak who refused to renounce his nationality and language. 27 The chief means of transforming Slovaks into Magyars were to be the schools. After the Compromise of 1867, an attack was launched against German, Slovak, and Ruthenian schools. Bela Grunwald in 1873 began publishing Svornost', a bi-monthly, attacking the Slovak gymnasia as hot-beds of Pan-Slavism. 28 The gymnasium at Revuca was closed August 20, 1874; the one at Klastor pod Znievom, on September 21, 1874; and the one at Turciansky Sv. Martin, on December 30, 1874. 29 All Slovak elements were expelled from secondary and technical schools, and permission was refused to erect a chair of Slovak at the University of Budapest.30 The school statistics reveal this Magyarizing tendency: SCHOOLS IN SLOVAKIA 1910-1918 Schools Primary Grammar Indus., Comm., Agric. Teacher training Middle (High Schools) University Magyar Slovak German 3,777 101 118 419 20 39 �8 SLOVAKIA Source: Nicholas Timashe!f, PEDIA (1948), p. 262. "Education," SLAVONIC ENCYCW- The official statistics of the Hungarian government in 1914 reveal the extent of Magyarization. They list 256,020 children of Slovak language as attending school. Of these, 214,267 Slovak children were in purely Magyar elementary schools, and only 42,186 in 365 Slovak elementary schools. 31 Educational standards were low. Attendance was weakly enforced; in most villages the schools remained open for five or six months per year. In 1913, just before World War I, 32,700 Slovak children of school age were not enrolled.32 Naturally the results were bad. Those able to read and write averaged 63 per cent of the Slovak population; but individual counties had worse records. In the county of Saris, only 48.6 per cent, in Spis 58 per cent, in Zemplin 51.4 per cent, in Ung 43.5 per cent could read and write. 33 The Matica Slovenska or Slovak Institute, a national cultural society founded in 1863, was dissolved in 1875. The charges were unlawful political activity and mismanagement. The government seized not only money and property but also the library and museum. 34 Even the churches were made instruments of Magyarization. The religious history of the period 1867-1914 is dark, indeed. Bishop Parvy of Spis lived in Budapest for many years; Bishop Balasz of Roznava ignored everything Slovak as though it were non-existent. The Cardinal-Primate of Hungary, Czernoch, was of Slovak birth, but Magyar in thought and sentiment. 35 Often other priests felt their people's cultural humiliation and endeavoured to alleviate it, but were placed so that their influence was limited. The Lutheran General Assembly resolved against "Pan-Slavism" in 1882; in no district did the Slovak Lutherans have a majority.36 However, the chief reasons for Slovak emigration in the latter half of the nineteenth century seem to have been economic.37 The predominantly agricultural nature of the country's economy is best illustrated by the following chart on agriculture: �SLOVAKIA 9 POPULATION ENGAGED IN AGRICULTURE 1910 Total Population in 1,000 Austrian Provinces Counties of Hungarian Crown Bosnia and Herzogovina Total Total engaged in Agriculture in 1,000 Agricultural Percentage 28,572 13,842 48.5 % 20,886 13,470 64.5% 1,932 1,674 86.6 % ----------------- - -- - -- - ----- --- - --51,390 28,982 Source: Oscar Ja,szi, THE DIS,SOLUTION MONARCHY (Chicago, 1929) p. 195. 56.4 % OF THE IHABSBUHG The soil was not of the best quality. Woodland averaged about 15 per cent of the total. In Turiec county 33 per cent was unfit for cultivation; in Orava, 30 per cent; in Zvolen, 32 per cent; in Liptov, 41 per cent; in Novohrad, 26 per cent; in Gerner, 47 per cent; Spis, 37 per cent; in Saris, 43 per cent. In Orava county there were 2761 farms that averaged one to five acres; of this land only 43 per cent was arable. 38 In addition to the problem of poor soil, there existed the problem of the great estates. Speaking of Hungary in general, Jaszi says that 40 per cent of the total area of Hungary was occupied in 1913 by a small number of large and very large estates. The medium sized farms of 142 to 1,420 acres embraced a smaller area, but with the greater estates covered 54.4 per cent of the total territory. Over 64.4 per cent of the country was possessed by small farmers holding less than 142 acres. Moreover, only 34.5 per cent of Hungarian territory belonged to those who actually cultivated the soil. 39 In Hungary proper, without !Croatia, there lived 2,280,000 farmer families. According to the most optimistic calculation only 460,000 families owned property on the average above 20 acres, guaranteeing an independent livelihood, whereas 1,820,000 families, that is to say four fifths of them possessed only so-called "dwarf" properties or no property at all.40 �10 SLOVAKIA If we consider the situation of Slovakia in particular, an equally cheerless picture presents itself. In Slovakia 1,000 persons owned 2,100,000 hectares, that is, about 8,000 square miles; 21.5 per cent of the holdings were less than a half hectare in size; 41 75 per cent of the land was held by the great landlords. 42 The agricultural areas compared unfavorably with the western and northwestern parts of the Habsburg Monarchy. The industrialized parts did not exceed three-tenths of the entire territory of the Monarchy, whereas over seven-tenths were populated by peasants, poor, almost on the level of slow starvation. 43 One way to raise the peasant's standard of living was to raise the productivity of agricultural labor and the growth of crops. Between 1850 and 1895 there was progress in agricultural production. Improvements were made in Hungary after 1848, e.g., the iron plow replaced the wooden. The great landlords led the advance and the peasants imitated them. These landlords in Hungary between 1850 and 1890 were deeply interested in improving agricultural production, chiefly because of the high price of wheat in the world market. They were anxious to increase wheat production for export. After 1885 the world market price began to decline and the landlords gradually lost interest. Indeed, they began to cut production. The strategy was to create a domestic scarcity so that wheat would have to be imported. The objective of the policy was to transform a grain exporting country into a grain importing one. This would enable the landlords to raise the price of domestic grain to the world price augmented by the tariff. By 1907 the tariffs began to have a constant effect. In this situation the lot of the agricultural worker grew steadily worse. Unemployment grew, wages decreased, and the cost of living rose. Jaszi observes that the heavy hand of the landlord-controlled economy pushed the Monarchy toward disaster. 44 The workers' wages in Hungary averaged the equivalent of sixty to a hundred dollars a year, while a woman's wages averaged yearly only between forty and fifty dollars. 45 In Slovakia the agricultural worker earned 25 cents a day.46 His staple food in winter was cabbage and potatoes. 47 To the low wages and the agricultural poverty we must �SLOVAKIA 11 add the difficulty of buying land in Slovakia. The price of land in Slovakia by 1906 had risen in some cases 100 percent; the amount of money sent from America helped cause this price rise. The Postal Bank of Kosice received in 1896 six and a half million florins from America. 48 Over and above these burdens, the poor peasant had to bear the load of usurious banking. In pre-war Slovakia almost every town had a little joint-stock institution; although this was called a bank, it did not carry on real banking operations, but was only a savings and loan bank. The majority of these banks dispersed capital which was not available where it was needed. The banks under Magyar control followed a policy of dividends, whereas the Slovak banks paid a lower rate of interest. 49 Virtually no institutions provided long term mortgage credits; in fact, only two banks, both unsound, engaged in this business in Slovakia. Besides these banks, there were cooperative societies which offered limited cr,edit facilities to the peasants. 50 The small farmer ended up borrowing at rates of 7 per cent to 8 per cent, and sometimes rates were as high as 14 per cent. On short term loans rates of 50 per cent were not unknown. Consequently the profits of the banks were high. One bank in Slovakia with a capitalization of 60,000 crowns and reserves of 18,000 profited one year to the amount of 22,000 crowns. The average profit of the banks in 1888 was 29.56 per cent on the capital invested; in 1894 the profit was 13.58 per cent. 51 The economic situation worsened by the national addiction to drink. On this all the sources seem agreed. Impoverishing effects of overindulgence in drink were a factor in driving the Slovaks to seek improved economic conditions in America. 52 This lack of economic opportunity and security led to the migration. The following figures, though somewhat suspect because of the tendency of Magyarization, still tell an eloquent story. This table is a modification of the original. NATIONALITIES IN HUNGARY Nationality Slovaks 1880 1,855,000 1890 1,897,000 1900 2,002,000 1910 1,946,000 �12 SLOVAKIA Source: Robert A. Kann, THE -MULTINATIONAL EJMP]RE: NATIONALISM AND NATIONAL REF1ORM IN THE HABSBURG MONAROHY 1848-1914 {New York, 19 50) I, 278. The Slovaks in considerable numbers migrated to America after 1880 as part of the "new immigration". Until 1880 the bulk of the new additions to American population by immigration was predominantly either English in speech or at least derived from the northern and western areas of Europe; this was the "old immigration." Thereafter newcomers from southern and eastern Europe arrived, representing peoples who were very different in language, customs, political experiences, and personal standards of living. Italian, Greek, and the confusion of Slavic languages sounded strange indeed to ears attuned to English or Germanic sounds. Invidious comparisons were made. The "Nordic" was more akin to the American in blood; the "new immigrants" had not the Anglo-Saxon training in self-government, and they were merely birds of passage. Besides the fact that he spoke a strange language, the "new immigrant" was more often than not a Catholic. All these things set him apart from the "old immigrant." 53 The year 1873 saw the beginning of the flood. Even though the political, cultural, social, and economic causes were ripe for emigration, other causes operated to bring America to the attention of the hardpressed Slovak immigrants. The steamship company agents urged the peasants to emigrate, for the companies derived a large part of their income from transport of immigrants. In most countries there were laws prohibiting advertisements of prosperous conditions in another country. Two leading steamship companies were reported to have five or six thousand agents in Galicia alone. In Hungary, Immigration Commission members saw letters written by agents instructing prospective immigrants on how to leave the country without the government's consent, what routes to follow, and other related information. 54 Other agents who increased emigration from Hungary after 1870 were labor contractors, who came to hire workers for the mines and steel mills. These agents promised everything. Archduke Rudolph, they said, was living in South America, establishing there a new ideal state; immigrants to, �SLOVAKIA 13 the United States were to receive grants of land and aid in buying equipment and in constructing necessary buildings.55 Many peasants who went with the agents wrote back letters reporting high wages. These lett'ers were undoubtedly one of the most powerful means of persuading the Slovak peasants to cross the ocean. 56 In the earlier phases of immigration many emigrants returned to their native country after they had laid by a sufficiency of this world's goods. The figures given by the Hungarian government for emigration and return for the year of 1905 show the extent of this return movement and suggest the breadth of influence exercised by returning emigrants. In 1905 the Magyar figures list 38,770 as leaving the country, while they give 4,038 as returning to Hungary.57 The news of work and wages certainly had an effect in stimulating further emigration. The Slovak emigrants moved generally westward by rail for German or Dutch ports. During the years 1881-1900 some 372,979 Slovaks were reported to have passed through the port of Hamburg, whereas only 9,501 embarked from Italian ports. 58 During 1886-1907 the German ports handled 348,808 emigrants from Hungary, Antwerp 57,170, Dutch ports 33,762, and Italian ports 3,785. 59 The low cost of steamship crossing attracted many to undertake the difficult journey. Passage from Hamburg on the way out was $20; the return journey as far as Oderburg, a station on the Hungarian frontier, was $23.60. The Hungarian Government granted the Cunard Line the monopoly of transporting emigrants from Hungary. So great was the rush to America that the Cunard Line called on other companies and formed the "Continental Pool" to handle the traffic. This "Pool" provided the worst accommodations, the worst diet, and the worst navigation. 61 The journey's length varied from fifteen to sixty days. The emigrants fortified themselves against sea-sickness with prunes and brought their own supplies of sausage, bacon, plum brandy, and gin. Water was distributed only at intervals, sometimes only once a day. The ventilation in the living quarters was bad. 62 One emigrant described his journey in these words: "It was in the year 1883 that, with three men, I set out from Trebis ov for America. We got on a wagon that took us to Obisovce, �14 SLOVAKIA where we boarded a train and rode to Vrutky. There we obtained travel permits for Bohumfn, and from Bohumin to Bremen, where we boug1hit our steamship tickets, for which we paid 53 ,gold pieces. A chill comes over me even now when I think of that ship of ours. We were afloat almost 18 days and twice the shi p was in danger of sinking. Everything on the deck rwas broken, a nd water poured into it. And as the boat rocked, one could feel that even in one's s-tomach."63 Among the ports of entry New York easily ranked first for the Slovak immigrants; then in order followed Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Boston and Portland. 64 Nor did the ills of the immigrants cease when they landed in the United States. Often enough their meagre funds and they were quickly parted. One immigrant paid a fare of $60 for a ride from the harbor to the Lackawanna railroad station. Hotels deliberately detained the immigrants by telling them that the train to their destination made the trip only once a week. Other swindlers met the immigrants as they came ashore and offered to send a telegram to their relatives or friends for the price of twenty five cents ; needless to say, no telegram was sent, and the immigrants were only so much poorer. One porter kidnapped two young girls who ended in brothels.85 The Slovak immigrants of the 1880's were not the first Slovaks to set foot upon American soil. The very first Slovak to come to America, so far as we know, was Andrew Jelik, a tailor on a Dutch ship which sailed to America in 17541755. He did not remain in America and eventually died in Budin, Hungary, 1783.66 Another Slovak who had arrived in America in the eighteenth century was Count Maurice Benovsky who landed at Baltimore in 1775. He was but an adventurer whose later career took him to Madagascar where he became king and where he also perished. 67 In the year 1800 a Slovak dealer in oils surprised a Slovak Jesuit in Mexico City by making his confession in Slovak. 68 The first Slovak settlement was made in Philadelphia by drotari, wireworkers, in 1840 at 412-414 Front Street. 69 Martin Chalan landed in the United States in 1872, took out his first papers in 1876, and became a citizen in 1879. Making the trip back and forth across the ocean, he was h1 America twenty six times. He died in 1915. 70 In the wake of these individuals the larger numbers began to come, first, from eastern Slovakia, especially from the �SLOVAKIA 15 counties of Zemplin, Sari~, and Spis. 71 Between the years 18691890 the county of Spis lost 14% of her youths between 20 to 25 years of age, and 31 % of the men between 26 and 30; Saris lost 34% of those between 20 and 25, 44 % of the men between 26 and 30. 72 Only after the eastern counties did the western ones take to emigration. To give exact figures on Slovak immigration before 1899 is impossible because prior to 1899 the immigration authorities counted the immigrants according to country of last residence, and many Slovaks listed Hungary as their country of last residence. Since 1899 the immigrants are counted according to race or language. Therefore the figures before 1899 do not give us exact data on Slovak immigrants; but according to Emily Green Balch the earlier immigrants from Hungary may be presumed to be Slovaks with some Jews and Magyars included. 73 In 1873 immigrants from Hungary numbered 1,300; in 1880 4,000 entered the United States, and in 1884 the number rose to 15,000. 74 The following table shows the total number of Slovaks coming into this country in the years 1899 to 1909: SLOVAK IMMIGRANTS ADMITTED TO THE UNITED STATES Year ending June 30 Number 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 15,838 29,243 29,343 36,934 34,427 27,940 52,368 38,221 42,041 16,170 Source: Emily Green Balch, OUR (New York, 1910), P. 103. 22,568 SLAVIC FELLOW CITI ZENS In the period 1899-1910 the total immigration to the United States numbered 9,555,673; in this number there were 337,527 Slovaks. 75 Consideration of Table 5 shows that �Hl SLOVAKIA 1905 was the peak year for the Slovaks in which 52,368 of them were admitted. Numerically in the twelve years ending June 30, 1910 Slovakia ranked eighth among the nations providing immigrant material. 76 The rate of emigration of Slovaks per 1,000 was 18.6; this was double that of any other race of people, except the Hebrews (18.3), Croatian-Slovenians (13.1), and South Italians (11.9). The rate was the highest of any group. 77 Having arrived in the United States, the Slovak immigrants began to look for a place to live and to work. The first areas to draw them were the coal mine centers; only in the second instance did the Slovaks settle in the factory cities.78 One focus of settlement was the hard-coal area of northeastern Pennsylvania where the center was Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Before World War I the mines in this district employed 75,000 to 100,000 men; of this group 12% were Slovaks. 79 In the soft coal area of southwestern Pennsylvania Mt. Pleasant was the center of dispersion. From there the Slovaks moved northward to Latrobe or Greensburg, southward to Connellsville and Uniontown. The chief centers of Slovak settlement were: Alice, Standard, Bessemer, Bridgeport, Mammouth, Old Hecla, New Hecla, Calumet, Old Tarrs, Donnelly, Buckeye, Moyer, Johnstown, Pittsburgh, Gayette City, Brownsville, Masontown, Fairchance, Point Marion, Cannonsburg, Perryopolis, Republic, and others. 80 Only later did pockets of immigrants form in Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit. About the geographic dispersion of Slovaks an interesting note occurs in a letter sent to the Jednota in 1913 by a J . P. Kapas, who had been traveling in the west. He wrote: "There had been plenty of Slovak people in the west, but almost all returned to the eastern states, and only for this r eason that in the west the people were all foreigners and wild." 81 Alaska seems to have been the limit of immigration, at least as far as the group was concerned. John Miklas, writing from Alaska, recommended against coming and said that he had not found any Slovaks there as yet. He surmised, however, that after his return from the "Old Country", where he meant to go for a visit, he might settle in Alaska.82 By 1885 large groups of Slovaks had settled in the fol- �SLOVAKIA 17 lowing states: Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois. 83 In the hard coal area in northeastern Pennsylvania a sub-employment system was used in which an operator hired the men who dug and loaded the coal; the mine company paid the operator and he paid off his hired men. The Slovaks, inexperienced in mine work and unskilled in language, worked merely as the hired men; this left them exposed to the wiles of unscrupulous operators who kept some of the pay from them. 84 In 1856 the Pennsylvania Railroad had reached Pittsburgh from Philadelphia; the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad in 1871 built tracks to Pittsburgh, thus giving Pittsburgh an outlet to Baltimore. The demand for laborers in the mine fields of Westmoreland and Fayette Counties in Pennsylvania was answered by many Slovak men from the hard coal area and "the old country." But who the first Slovak was to enter the Pittsburgh area we do not know. When the agents of the Frick Company from the coke and coal region of southwestern Pennsylvania hired new immigrants · at Castle Garden, but for trivial exceptions the hired men were Slovaks. The company transported them by rail to Alverton, lying between Scottdale and Mt. Pleasant, Pa. Thence they walked to Morewood, Pa., where a company house awaited them. It is impossible to tell how many Slovaks there were in the coke region. We do know that in Morewood by 1893 there were four hundred men engaged in work, and how many Slovaks there were in this group we do not know. As early as 1880 John and Sophia Hvizdo~ had eighteen Slovak boarders in their house. 85 Until 1900 Slovaks worked mostly in the coal mines and at the coke ovens of Frick and Company. This firm had been organized in 1871 as Frick and Company, with about 300 acres of coal area and 50 coke ovens around Connellsville, Pa. By 1889 it had about 35,000 acres and 15,000 coke ovens. The lowest paid worker in 1890 was the "yard worker" who earned $1.40 for a ten hour day; the best wages were paid the "road man" who received $2.10 for nine hours of work. 86 At first the Slovaks worked beside the Czechs in the coal mines, while the Poles worked at the coke ovens; but gradually, the Slovaks too began to work their way up to jobs at the ovens. �18 SLOVAKIA Most Slovaks were satisfied with their wages, which varied from $16.00 to $25.00 every two weeks. Strange as it may seem, it was possible to live and also to lay something by from these wages. A pound of beef soup meat cost three cents; for six dollars a man could dress himself rather well; rent cost three or four dollars a month for a small four room house. Nevertheless, not all miners were satisfied; demands were made for more pay and less work. When the mine operators refused, there were strikes, often riotous and bloody. 87 The Slovaks were also employed in the Egdar Thompson Iron Works of Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie with Frick employed the greatest number of Slovaks; others, like Rainey, Oliver, and Jones and Laughlin also engaged considerable numbers of Slovaks, but the number cannot be exactly stated. However, until 1900 most of the Slovaks worked in the mines and at the coke ovens.88 When the Slovaks got jobs in the mines, they lived in "company houses ",which were built practically at the site of the mine. This was a settlement of large houses built by the company and rented to the worker, who had also to pay for water, gas and coal. 89 To buy his food and other necessities the miner had to patronize the company store. This made the dependence of the worker on the comp:.my complete; the threat of expulsion during a strike was a powerful weapon in keeping the miners submissive. 90 The company r ented a house to a married couple on condition that they take in "boarders," the usual number being ten, but in the larger houses the number varied upward to thirty or forty. 91 The cleanliness d 2p::!nded on the character, ability, or sheer physical strength of the housewife. Within the household food arrangements provided that except for meat, flour, and coffee, the food was purchased in common. One meal a day wa:; eaten together, on Sunday at noon and during the week in the evening. For the other meals the gazdina or housewife cooked individually for the men whatever they bought. Beer by the barrel was also bought in common; sometimes this ran to a hundred barrels per month. At the end of the month the common bill was divided: the housewife did not pay; the men including the husband, paid equally, and two children were counted as one adult. 92 Moreover, on pay day several barrels of beer would be bought as well as whiskey, �SLOVAKIA 19 and much meat was prepared for a gay evening. At first, dancing was the chief recreation. One man pulled out an accordion, and the dancing began, even men dancing with men because of the shortage of women partners; frequently this mixure of drink, food, and music led to drunken brawls sometimes over the excellence of their home towns in Slovakia, often enough over women. Dancing was not limited to pay day; any celebration of even slight importance had to be combined with dancing and shouting of the most vigorous sort. The Cardas was a universal favorite. Family life was injured by many men coming to America without their wives and families and by the dearth of marriageable Slovak girls. To find a wife many young men on week ends went to Passaic, New Jersey, where many Slovak girls worked in the textile mills, and the men watched the girls as they came from work and made their choice. On Sundays in Passaic there often were ten to twenty weddings. Difficult as family life was, the "boarding house," allowing for so little privacy, did not help very much; sometimes it led to the wife's running off with a boarder. 93 Organizational life among the Slovaks began in the lodges and societies so common in America after the Civil War. By 1914 in the United States principal organizations had 15,600,000 members. Economic and social need led the Slovaks to form lodges. Mine disasters often took the lives of husbands and fathers, leaving the family not only destitute, but even without the money for a funeral. In answer to the need of sickness and funeral benefits a large number of societies grew up in industrial and .mining towns. The first of these was the Persi Uhorszko-Slovenszky v nemoczi podporujuci Szpolek, established in New York, on March 3, 1883. In this society, which lasted for eight years, Slovak was made the official language. Fraternal and mutual benefit iocieties mushroomed in the Slovak settlements. The Spolok Sv. Stefana in Passaic, N. J. was organized 1884 and already in 1887 was calling for a unification with other Slovak fraternal organizations. Under the influence of a Polish organization whose constituti-on it used, the Cirkevny a v ntmoci pl!>dporujuci spolok arose in Hazleton, Pa., in 1884. The Slovaks in Houtzdale, Pa., organized the Bratstvo Najsvatejsieho Srdca Pana Jezisa, on November 14, 1886; on December 12, 1884 the Spolok Sv. Stefana in Plymouth, Pa., came �20 SLOVAKIA into existence. A touch of humor accompanied the difficulties of the lodge in Bayonne City, N. J., where the Spolok Princa Rudolfa, set up in 1887, had to change its name after the tragic death of Archduke Rudolph of Hapsburg at Mayerling, because the other Slovaks ridiculed the members for having lost their patron. Bayonne City, N. J., had one of the largest mutual benefit societies, the Prvy bednarsky vypomocny spolok, an organization of Coopers engaged in making barrels, staves, chests, boxes; it was organized in 1888 and acted also as a bargaining agent for the membership with their employees. They were the first to have their own flag, whereas the other groups used the Hungarian flag. The Spolok Sv. Cyrila a Methoda in Minneapolis, Minn., and the Slovensky Spolok Sv. Petra i Pavla of McKeesport, Pa., both came into existence in 1888; the Slovensky v nemoci podporujuci spolok in Braddock, Pa., arose in 1889. The chief purpose of these societies was help in need, especially providing an elaborate funeral. In these funerals all the local lodges took part with flags, uniforms, and mourning bands. The secondary purpose was to aid in the organization of parishes, the building of churches and schools and lodge halls. 94 In spite of the success of these lodges, financial problems arose from the system of assessment which they used. The system required a contribution of about fourteen cents a month to meet administrative costs; on the death or sickness of a member the others had to contribute as much as would be needed for the stipulated sum. A considerable number of deaths or cases of sickness within a month or a short time made the financial burden too great for the small lodges. 95 The first appeal for unification came from the Society of St. Stephen in Passaic, N. J., as early as 1887. Julius Schwartz-Markovic in Nova Vlast' (a periodical that lasted only from March to December, 1888) made appeals for consolidation; Peter Rovnianek repeated this appeal in the October issue, as did B. Lajciak in the December issue. The Rev. Joseph Kossalko, a Roman Catholic priest of proMagyar conviction, seeing the nationalist tendency of these lodges in their use of Slovak as the official language and their gradual abandonment of the Hungarian flag, opposed this movement in a new periodical, the Zastava. The consolidation did not come until the 1890's. 96 When the Slovak immigrants, of whom the bulk was �SLOVAKIA 21 Catholic, first came to the United States, they were financially unable to build churches for their own use. Before the Slovak Catholics had their own churches, they attended Polish, German, Czech, or Irish churches; if they happened to be regular attendants at a church where their languago was not understood, they often went a considerable distance to receive the sacraments, especially that of Penance, from someone who understood their language. In the southwestern Pennsylvania mining area the Slovaks were fortunate to have in their midst St. Vincent's Archabbey, a Benedictine institution, which took special care to provide priests who could understand the Slovak language. Priests from this archabbey went from settlement to settlement taking care of the spiritual needs of the Slovaks. The first to do "mission" work among the Slovaks was Rev. Nepomuk Yaeger, O.S.B., who for three years in southwestern Pennsylvania visited the mining camps, where often enough he had to offer the· Mass to the accompaniment of card-playing, drunken singing, swearing and quarreling. 97 First to organize on a religious basis were the Slovak Lutherans. The first Lutheran parish was established in Streator, Illinois, where the church was ready for services on October 5, 1884. Karol Horak, ordained in 1883, was the first minister, but he gave up ministerial work and became a real estate agent. While the parish was withouth a minister's services, the Slovak Lutherans met in the home of Mr. G. Kozlej, who read the Bible to them. A minister, Cyril Droppa, reached Streator on March 26, 1884 and stayed there until 1887; eventually his spiritual labors took him to Russia. This first Lutheran parish had 49 members; the pastor's salary was fixed at forty dollars a month. The name of the parish was the Parish of the Blessed Trinity. Lutheran parishes were organized in Freeland, Pa., and Nanticoke, Pa., in 1886, and Minneapolis, Minn., in 1888. 98 Almost simultaneously with the Lutherans, the Slovak Catholics organized themselves into parishes. However, before this could go on apace, priests able to speak Slovak were needed. Even among the first priests, 99 the division into Slo·vak nationalists and Madarones disturbed their relations with one another and their work among Slovaks, Protestant as _well as Catholics. In 1882 the Rev. Ignatius Jaskovic, who came to Hazle- �22 SLOVAKIA ton, Pa., was the first active Slovak Catholic priest in the United States. He built St. Joseph's church in Hazleton, where the first Mass was said on December 6, 1885. He stayed in Hazleton until 1890. The Rev. J. Kossalko, arriving in 1884, had his first parish in Streator, Ill.; he said the first Mass in the new church of St. Stephen on December 10, 1885, just four days after the first mass had been said in Hazleton, Pa. The Rev. Samuel Bella, also a Catholic priest, became the pastor of Nanticoke, Pa., and later of Bayonne City, N. J. These three priests were all Madarones, that is, Slovaks with pro-Magyar convictions, and firmly opposed to any Slovak nationalism. 100 This Madarone element introduced the first division of the Slovak group into the factions that played a part among the pre-World War Slovaks of America. In 1887 in Scranton, Pa., the Slovak Calvinists first organized as a religious group. The Slovak Calvinists of Jessup, Pa., had a chapel there since 1888, but the building of churches had to wait until the 189O's. To conduct services in their parishes the Calvinists hired Magyar and English ministers; the Slovaks and Magyars fought about the language to be used in the divine service, Slovak or Magyar. There was no general solution for these churches, but the language varied from church to church. 101 At first some Slovaks objected to building schools on the score of uselessness; these untutored peasants had to be taught that schools were important. Some Slovak immigrants had come to make money and were in America only temporarily. Schools meant permanence. Why should they contribute to the education of other people's chidren? However a beginning was made. St. Stephen's parish, Streator, Ill., built the first Slovak Catholic parochial school in 1889, a wooden structure, costing $4,500, a considerable sum for those days. From the very beginning the schools were not strictly Slovak, for there were not enough Slovak teachers; this led to many subjects being taught by "English" teachers and "Irish" nuns. Slovak nationalists were satisfied by having the pastor teach the children on Saturday afternoons, when they studied the Slovak language, Slovak history, and Slovak geography.102 The 11cattered Slovak settlements were brought in touch with one another by newspapers written in the Slovak language. John Slovensky, a trained teacher from Slovakia, had �SLOVAKIA 23 come to the United States in 1879, and had obtained a clerical job in the Austro-Hungarian consulate. This put him in contact with the Slovak immigrants, who came to the consulate often seeking information about conditions in the Monarchy, as for instance, was the Monarchy at war with the Turk? This suggested to Slovensky the idea of a Slovak periodical. In 1885 he launched a lithographed paper called Rulletin, which contained news from Europe and items about Slovak immigrants. Especially the tavern keepers subscribed to it for their taverns where Slovaks met to read it. Success prompted John Slovensky to embark on · a larger enterprise, the publication of Amerikanszko-Slovenszke Noviny. J. Schwartz-Markovic and the Rev. Erwin Gelhoff, a Catholic priest, published the Nova Vlast' in Streator, Illinois, in March 1888; this venture lasted only until December of that very year. The year 1889 saw the birth of two other newspapers, the Slovak v Amerike and Rev. J. Kossalko's Madarone newspaper, Zastava. 103 These newspapers became the sounding boards of popular opinion as well as a unifying force among the Slovaks. Discussion in the newspapers led to the consolidation of local lodges during the 1890's. With the beginning of the 1890's the Slovaks began to unify the many individual lodges into a federation for greater economic security. However, from the very start factions divided the Slovaks. The leaders of the Slovak immigrants disagreed on whether the principle of organization should be religious or nationalist. The Rev. Stephen Furdek, a Catholic priest, believed that the new national organization should be based upon religious uniformity within the organization; the Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists should each have their own organization. Peter Rovnianek, a Slovak nationalist, wanted nationality to be the principle of organization. Any Slovak, no matter what his religious convictions or lack of them, could be a member. 104 Because of this difference of principle, two separate, and in many ways rival, organizations arose. On February 16, 1890, Peter V. Rovnianek led in founding the National Slovak Society in Pittsburgh, Pa. All Slovaks, Catholics, Protestants, Freemasons, Freethinkers or indifferentists, were welcome. Openly nationalist, the National Slovak Society played down religious differences, emphas- �24 SLOVAKIA izing all Slovaks were one. The frank nationalism and liberalism antagonized the Madarone Slovaks and some Catholici. The Rev. J. Kossalko, the most outstanding Madarone, refused absolution to Catholic members of the National Slovak Society. 105 Others besides the Madarone element opposed the liberal National Slovak Society. The Rev. Stephen Furdek established a Catholic fraternal organization, the First Catholic Slovak Union, September 4, 1890. The objectives of this First Catholic Slovak Union were to preserve the Catholic Faith, to support fellow-members, widows, and orphans in need, to preserve and extend the use of the Slovak language and Slovak nationality. Conditions of membership were recognition of the bishop of Rome as head of the Catholic Church, faithful performance of religious duties, attendance of one's children at a Catholic school, support of parish and parochial school, no ridicule of religious ceremonies, and no writing against the Church and the clergy. 106 Slovak women felt that they, too, should have their own organizations independent of male control. They established the Zivena Beneficial Society in the year 1891. In 1892 the Slovak Catholic women organized a similar society, the First Catholic Slovak Ladies' Union. 107 The Slovak Lutherans organized their own beneficial society in 1893, the Slovak Evangelical Union; and soon afterwards the Slovak Calvinists formed the Slovak Calvinist Union. 108 For reasons that are not evident, almost all these groups felt the strain of internal strife. A split in the First Catholic Slovak Union provided members for a new organization, the Pennsylvania Roman and Greek Catholic Union in 1893. This society intended to encourage religion, temperance, and morality, to train its members in obedience and respect for civil law and in performance of civil duties, to collect funds to pay burial benefits.109 In Chicago the local lodge of the National Slovak Society left the national organization and formed the Slovak National Society. 110 Later a similar break occurred in the Slovak Evangelical Union. In 1890 P. V. Rovnianek and his associates published the First Slovak National Almanac. Almanacs were already a Slovak European tradition. The National Slovak Society first issued its own almanac in 1893; and the First Catholic �SLOVAKIA 25 Slovak Union began its series with the Kalendar Jednota in 1896. These almanacs provided the literary reading that most Slovaks did: short stories, political essays on conditions in the United States, reviews of the year's important events, religious essays, articles on the Indians and Negroes, moral essays on how to spend Sundays, counseling articles on marriage, and almost any subject useful to the Slovak readers. In these almanacs the best Slovak writers reached their limited Slovak American public; eventually the almanacs became so popular that ,twenty-nine were published. 111 Newspapers received the strongest impetus from the national societies. The Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny were the mouthpiece of the National Slovak Society; the First Catholic Slovak Union published an official organ, the Jednota. These were real newspapers with world news, reports from the domestic scene in America, and organization news in their columns. One feature distinguished these papers from the trend turning American newspapers into large business enterprises; the Slovak immigrant papers remained very much the voice of the individual editors. However, many Slovaks had no desire to read a newspaper. The editors, who usually combined editing with other work to earn their living, on Saturday and Sunday toured Slovak settlements to get subscriptions for their periodicals. 112 Very soon after the organization of the two fraternal societies the Slovaks learned how effective and necessary cooperation on a national level can be. When the price of steel billets began to fall, the Edgar Thompson Works in Braddock, Pa., announced a wage cut. This led to a strike late in 1890. On the night of January 1, 1891, Michael Quinn, a guard at the mill was slain. Many Slovaks were arrested, among them persons who had been strolling about after a pleasant evening in a tavern. The police arrested about sixty persons and charged them with being involved in the crime. Most of them received light sentences, but on April 8, 1891, Andrew Toth, Michael Sabol, and George Rusnak received the death sentence for the murder of Michael Quinn. Only by heroic efforts did the Slovak leaders and organizations secure on February 7, 1892 a commutation of sentence to life imprisonment. 113 The efforts of Rev. F. Wider, president of the First Catholic Slovak Union, Peter V. Rovnianek of the National �26 SLOVAKIA Slovak Society, Rev. Stephen Furdek, and Julius Wolf, won the release of Michael Sabol, suffering from tuberculosis, in 1895; he died ten days after leaving prison. Peter V. Rovnianek, engaging a lawyer, Clarence Burleigh, secured the freedom of George Rusnak in 1897; George Rusnak, too, had tuberculosis. Andrew Toth left prison only twenty years later, a man sixty two years old. After the efforts of the Slovak League had failed, Edward Goehring, an attorney, succeeded in showing that the evidence which convicted Toth was contradictory. Toth was freed in 1911. The Pennsylvania legislature rejected a motion to give Toth $300.00 for every year he had spent unjustly in jail. However, the Carnegie Foundation fixed a grant of $40 a month on him. 114 During February, 1891, a strike against the firm of Henry Clay Frick, Frick and Company, bec:;_me general in the Connellsville, Pa., area of coke ovens and soft coal. By 1889 Frick had acquired 35,000 acres of coal area and 15,000 coke ovens and employed about 30,000 workers. Andrew Virostek, a worker in the Tip Top Mine and member of the United Mine Workers of America, threatened miners who loaded more coal than union regulations permitted. Then the company fired him. The union fought the mine operators over the dismissal, and by February a strike flared throughout the region. On April 2, 1892 when about five hundred miners attacked the Southwest Company shops in Morewood, Pa., three Slovaks, three Poles, and one Italian were shot to death. The state militia came in to restore order, and some men drifted to work. Frick hired Pinkerton detectives to expel the remaining strikers from the company homes. During the week of April 18, 1892 these detectives were to oust seven hundred families in Fayette county alone. When the agents began the evictions, a Slovak man and woman perished in the violence in Leisenring No. 3, two Slovak women were wounded at Adelaide, and at Trotter, sixteen men and thirteen women were shot. Then in the following month Frick began hiring Negroes and Italians to replace the Slovaks. 115 Julius Wolf and Peter V. Rovnianek figured secretly in the settlement of the strike. The Frick company paid them sums of money for persuading the miners to return to the pits. Unwisely, the two men discussed the deal in letters, �SLOVAKIA 27 which their enemies subsequently published. Slovak immigrant writing has branded these letters as the "Four Letters of Betrayal. " 116 The Slovaks' preoccupation with wages, bad housing, and mine disasters seem to have led to a decline in religious fervor. Causes suggested to explain the decline varied: nonconfessional schools, public schools, neglect by religious authorities, too great preoccupation with earning a living. 117 Evidence exists to show that some Catholics fell away. A "Home Mission among the Slavic Immigrants" in 1885 supported a Congregational Church in Cleveland; it also provided a Presbyterian Church in New York. 118 The effectiveness of these efforts among the Slovaks, it is impossible to judge. In Mt. Pleasant, Pa., a Slovak preacher came to the "Church of God" and succeeded in bringing at least 7 SloYak Catholic families into it. 119 Higganum, Conn., had a Slovak colony of about 20 families; some Slovak Catholics went to church only to keep their benefits in the Jednota; others were entirely indifferent, so far gone that they married in the Lutheran church, even though a Catholic priest was always available. 120 The namecalling contest between P. V. Rovnianek and the Rev. Stephen Furdek, unedifying as it was, certainly spread anti-clericalism among the nationalist element. This apparent religious decline should not blind us to the extensive church building activities of the Slovak immigrants during the 1890's. Frequently the construction of a church or organization of a parish began in cooperation with another national group, Poles, Croatians, Irish, or Germans; sometimes many different nationalities cooperated, Lithuanians, Poles, Italians, and Irish. Often cooperation failed, because each group felt its rights were ignored. 121 Still, for instance, at least eight new Slovak parishes were opened in the Pittsburgh diocese; and in Cleveland from St. Ladislaus' parish St. Martin's was created in 1893. 122 A Slovak parish was organized in Kangley, Ill., as a mission of the Streator congregation, in 1892. 123 The Slovak Catholics of Chicago finally got their own parish in 1898, the Roman Catholic Church of St. Michael the Archangel. 214 Expansion was the keynote. Just after the decade ended, in 1903, there were 78 Roman Catholic Slovak churches. 125 However, the Slovaks failed to build parochial schools; this had to wait for the next decade. �28 SLOVAKIA The Slovak Lutherans of Chicago organized the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Blessed Trinity in 1893; in 1894 the Rev. L. Boor became the pastor and in that very year began teaching the children of the parish the Slovak language. 126 Hand in hand with progress in organization appeared the elements of culture. Such efforts as the organization of the First Catholic Slovak Band in Johnstown, Pa., in 1892, were only straws in the wind. The Rev. S. Furdek in 1893 led in a move to establish a cultural organization to be called the Matica Slovenska in memory of the Slovak cultural institution disbanded by the Magyars in 1875. It held a convention in Chicago, September 26, 1893, and was incorporated in Columbus, Ohio, October 26, 1893. The Matica was to be a central organization to improve the cultural life of the Slovaks in Europe and America. On February 18, 1894 Peter V. Rovnianek, not to be behind hand, organized a Majak, literarne kola, that is, the Beacon Literary Circle, partly in opposition to the Matica, although he fervently disavowed any such a purpose. The Majak's objectives were encouragement of Slovak literature and culture, establishment of a Slovak cultural press, and nationalist agitation. The Literary Circle began publishing the first Slovak literary "journal, a forty page periodical, Majak, literary, political, and nationalist. It survived only six months. Both these organizations failed, partly through division of effort, partly through lack of interest among the Slovaks. 127 During this decade another society arose in Chicago, the First Slovak Sokol. The Sokol groups were gymnastic societies with a planned program of calisthenics, track events, and eventually all sports. Just when the first Sokol group was organized is doubtful; one source says that the First Slovak Sokol was organized in Chicago in 1892128 ; another gives the date as 1895. 129 Whatever be the case, the Sokol developed into a federation national in scope. The Slovak Catholic priests, divided though they were on the question of Slovak nationalism, united in an organization known as the Society of Roman Catholic Slovak Priests in 1896. Peter V. Rovnianek originated another club in the same year, the first Slavonic Political Club with 100 members, and its influence was soon felt in politics. 130 Both of these organizations were successful, in contrast to the cul- �SLOVAKIA 29 tural societies; it seems that the early Slovak immigrants were not sufficiently interested to support purely cultural groups. The cultural society and literary circle failed because labor conflicts occupied the Slovaks' attention. The Connellsville mine region was again the scene of a strike and violence that began in April, 1894. On April 4 a Slovak was slain; two days later Joseph Paddock, chief engineer of Frick's company in Davison, Pa., was killed. Blame for this crime fell on the Poles and Slovaks and over a hundred were thrown into the Uniontown jail. The court sentenced John Husar to twelve years and Michael Furin to three years in prison. Violence continued: one Slovak was killed on the main street of Connellsville and two others in the rioting at Stickle Hollow around the Washington Coal and Coke shops. At the beginning of August most of the Strikers had returned to work, but about 5,000 Slovaks remained on strike. These gradually drifted back to work or abandoned the Connellsville mines. The Rev. Orbach, a Lutheran minister, founded a Slovak colony in Wisconsin; on September 4 about 300 Slovaks set out for Wisconsin. Another farm settlement originated from the Connellsville strike. Industrial life was, after all, strange to the Slovak; he had either been a small farmer, peasant, or agricultural worker in Slovakia. His interest in acquiring a farm remained; but he did not become a farmer immediately after he landed simply because he did not have the money to invest in such a project. 131 Besides, the city gave him the companionship he would not find on the farm. Still the desire grew to place as many Slovaks as possible on the land. In the summer of 1894 Peter V. Rovnianek, Francis Pucher, Julius Tatraj, Rev. btephen Furdek, Rev. Vaclav Panu~ka, and Rev. Alexander Dzubaj examined land in Arkansas near Grand Prairie; they intended to settle Slovaks on some 40,000 acres of land. Peter Rovnianek and Francis Pucher received a charter for the Slovak Colonization Company of Pittsburgh on September 24, 1894, the land was bought, and sales began. After the prospective settlers had saved enough money, they bought forty or so acre farms from the Slovak Colonization Company. The cost of land was $2 to $3 an acre. 132 �30 SLOVAKIA Slovak settlers established a farm community near Stuttgart, Arkansas, and named their community Slovaktown. The settlers had been born in the "old country" but came to Arkansas chiefly from the coalfields of Pennsylvania and Illinois. The chief produce included corn, oats, hay, fruits, vegetables, and dairy products. The children attended the public schools. The settlers were mostly Catholics, but there were a few Lutherans. 133 The new farmers in Slovaktown were more than satisfied with their new lives; their letters continually encouraged their fellow Slovaks to flee from the factories and the mines; but only in the 1900's did anything like a movement to the farm begin. To publicize the project and success of Slovaktown the Slovak Colonization Company began publishing a periodical, Slovaktownske Hlasy, in Pittsburgh in 1896; but it lasted only six months. 134 It might indeed have been well for the Slovaks to leave the mines and go to the farms, for violence once again found them; this time it was in the anthracite region of northeastern Pennsylvania. One day in September, 1897 a group of strikers set out for Latimer. Sheriff Martin informed of the move, summoned his deputies and attempted to halt the men. Sharp words were exchanged, and Sheriff Martin ordered his deputies to fire upon the unarmed men. Twenty-one fell before the murderous gunfire and died; many others were wounded. Most of the victims were Slovaks. In spite of the unprovoked nature of the attack, the courts declared Sheriff Martin innocent, for he had ordered the shooting while performing his duty. The outcry against this verdict was most violent in the Slav press, but nothing further could be done. 135 Despite the internal dissensions among themselves and difficulties in the mines, a new interest appeared among the Slovaks during this decade; the most public manifestation of their nationalism came in 1899. Strange as it may seem, most Slovaks were not violent nationalists when they came to this country; the growth of nationalism was gradual and almost imperceptible. Slovak became the official language for the lodges; the societies abandoned the Hungarian flag. P. V. Rovnianek, joining the staff of the Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny in 1889, infused �31 SLOVAKIA a nationalist spirit into that paper; his National Slovak Society was nationalist in principle. Rev. S. Furdek, whose nationalism was of a very moderate kind, wanted American Slovaks to Americanize themselves; but he also felt it their duty to help the oppressed Slovaks overseas. 136 Under the force of this nationalism the Slovak immigrants gradually became more interested in the fate of Slovakia. In 1899 Father Furdek sent a lengthy memorandum to the Hungarian government, discussing the "Slovak question", but to no avail, except the publicity which such a memorandum aroused. It effected nothing practical; but it was the shadow of coming events; for the "Slovak question", was in the next decades to assume first place among the Slovaks. As the nineties passed, the Slovaks had made solid progress. Their economic and social life had improved through the national fraternal societies, which by 1899 had become important factors in Slovak life. Their membership stood as follows: THE FRATERNAL SOCIETIES Society Number of Members First Catholic Slovak Union __ _________ _ National Slovak Society _________ ___ ___ __ Pennsylvania Slovak Union ______ ___ ____ _ Evangelical Slovak Union ____ __ _______ _ First Catholic Slovak Ladies' Union _____ _ iivena --------- --- -------------- -- ---Source: "Slovenske (1899), IV, 38. pomery v Amerike", KALENDAR 11,000 9,450 1,727 909 1,600 1,000 JEDNOTA The religious life of the Slovaks had a chance to develop now that churches had been built. For the Roman Catholics there were now in America 33 priests, and for the Greek Catholics 32; and more were needed. 137 However, not all the picture was bright. Indeed, these were the things the Slovaks needed; but it was only after 1900 that the advance in education, the business world, political life, became pronounced. FOOTNOTES 1. Emily Green Balch, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens (New York, 1910), p. 86, pp. 88-89, p. 93. �32 SLOVAKIA 2. •F ranti§ek Hru§ovsky, Slovenske Dejiny (Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1939), p. 14. 3. Ibid., pp. 95-97. 4. I bid., p . 216. 5. Ibid., pp. 342-S43. 6. Joseph S,k ultety, Sketches from Slovak History (Middl etown, 1'930), pp. 106-109. 7. I bid., pp. 109-110. 8. Frantisek •Hrusovsky, This Is Slovakia (Scranton, 1953) , p . 40. 9. Ibid., pp. 40-41. 10. Peter P. Yurchak, The Slovaks: Their History and Traditions (Scranton, 1947), p. 28 . 11. Thomas Capek, The Slovaks of Hungary (New York, 1906), p . 108; 1Hrusovsky, This Is Slovakia, pp. 44-46. 12. Frantisek :J3okes, Dejiny Slovenska i Slovakov (;Bratislava, 1946), p . 158. 13. Robert A. ,Ka,nn, The Multinational Empire: Nationalism and National 'Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy 1848-1914 (New York, 1950), I. 278. 14. Frantisek iHrusovsk y, This Is Slovakia, pp. ,47-48. 15. Oscar Jaszi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy (Chicago, 1929), p. 107. 16. Ibid., p. 108. 17. Ibid., p. 59 . 18 . R. W. Seton-Watson, ed. , Slovakia Then and Now (London, 1931), pp. 244-245. 19. Street, Hungary and Democracy, p. ·65 . 20. Seton-Watson, Slovakia, p. 245. 21. Street, Hungary and Democracy, p . 64 . 22. Bokes, Deji ny Slovenska, p. 158. 23. C. J . Stree t, Slovakia: Past and Present (Westmins,ter, n.d .), p. 24. 24 . •Capek, Slovaks of Hungary, p. 96; Hrusovsky, Dejiny, p. 323. 25. ,Capek , Slovaks of Hungary, p. 166. 26 . Jirusovsky, Dejiny, p. 252. 27. Ibid., p. 325. 28. Ib i d., p. 319. 29. I bid., p. 319. 30. Seton-Watson, Slovakia, p. 117. 31. Seton•Watson, Slovakia, pp. 117-118. -3•2. I bid., p. 119. 33. I bid., p. 118. 34. Hrus ovsky, Dejiny, pp. 320-321; Bokes, Dejiny Slovenska, pp. 272-273 . 35. Seton-Watson, Slovakia, p. 176. 36 . Hrusovsky, Dejiny, p. -329 . 37. Bokes, Dejiny Slovenska, p. 276. 38 . Capek, Slovaks of Hungary, p. 150. 39. Jaszi, The Dissolution, p. 222. 40 . Ibid., p . 223 . 41. Street, •Slovakia: Past and Present, p. 56. 42. Harrison 'Thompson, Czechoslovakia in Europe (Princeton, 194-1) , p. 294. 43. Jaszi, The Dissolution, pp . 196-199. H. Ibid., p. 238. 45. Ibid., p. 231. �SLOVAKIA 33 46. F. J . Hask in s, The Immigrant: An Asset and a Liab ility (New York , 1913) , p . 35. 47. Capek, Slovaks of Hungary, p . 162. 48. I b id., p. 156. 49. Seton-Watso n , Slovakia, p. 275. 50. Ibid., p. 276. 51. Capek , Slovaks of Hungary, p. 152. 52. Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny, A u g u st 19, 1897. 53. Geor ge Stephen son , A H istory of American Immigrat ion 18201924 (New Yor k , 1926), P. 61; Carl W ittk e, We Who Built Amer ica (New York , 1939) , p. 405. 54. J eremiah J enk s a nd W. Jebt Lau ck , The Imm igration Problem: A Study of American Immigration Conditions and Needs (New York, 1922), pp. 21-22. 55 . Konstantin Culen, Dejiny Slovakov v Amerike (B r atislava, 1942), I , 38; Caspar Molch an, "Th e Developmen t of the S lovak Community in Pittsburgh 1880-1920", (Unpublished Master of Arts dissertation, U n iversity of Notr e Dame, 1948), p. 23. 56. Cul en, Deji ny, I, 38; Stephenson , History of Ame ri can I mm igrat ion , p. 89. 57. Balch , Slav ic Fellow Citizens, p . 102. 58. I bid., p. 25. 69. I b id., p. 437. 60. I bid., p. 101. 61. Culen, Dejiny, I, 60-61. 62. Ibid., I, 67. 63. Ibid., I, 67-68. ~4. Ibid., I, 60. 65. Na rodn e Noviny, Ap ril 9, 1914. 66. Cule n , Dejiny, I, 24-25. -67. Ibid., I , 26; Molchan, "Development of the S lovak Community" , p. 8. 6'8. Konsta'!lltfn Cu len, Slovenska Liga v Amerike styridsaf rocn a (Scr anton , 1947). p. 4. 69. Cul e n , Dej i ny , I, 28. 70. Ib id., I , 28-29. 71. Molchan, "Development of the Slovak Comr;mnity", p. 25. 72 . Capek, Slovaks of Hunga r y , p. 156. 73. Balch, Sl a vic Fe ! low C itizens, p. 100. 74. Ibid , p. 100. 75 . William P. Dillingham, Reports of the Immigration Commision, Vol. I: Abs t racts of Reports of Immigration Commision (Washington, D . C., 1911), I, 97. 76. I b id., I, 215. 77. Ibid., I, 277. 78. J. A. F., "Nacrtok Dejin Slov. prist'ahovalectva v Amerike", Sborn ik Narodn e ho Slovenske ho Spolku (1915), I, 12. 79. Culen, Deji ny , I, 96. 80. Ib id ., I. 96; Jos e ph Kushn e r, Sl ov a c i ka tol ici pi t t sbu-rghsk e ho b is kupstv a (Passaic, 19 -16), pp. 16-17 ._ 81. J ednota , March 19, 1913. 82. Na rodn e Noviny, May 26, 1910. 83. Culen, Dejiny, I, 99. 84. Kushner, S lov a ci, p. 6. 85. Ibid., p. 12, p. 16. �34 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. l09. ll0. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. SLOVAKIA Ibid., p. 7. I bid., p. 7. Ibid., p. 7. Narodne Noviny, March 12, 19·1.!; April 27, 1911. Narodne Novlny, March 12, 1914. Culen, Dejiny, I, 82-83. Ibid., I, ·82-831; J. A. F., 'INe.crtok Dejin", Sbornik, (1915), I, 11. Culen, Dejiny, I , 82-83; "Jedno-druhe", Narodny Kalendar, (1908), XVIII, 154. Culen, DeJiny, I, 195-199. "Prorocke slova dp. Matusa Jankolu o novom systeme", Sbornik Slovenskeho Katolickeho Sokola na rok 1942, XXIX, 81. Culen, Dejiny, I, 200. Kushner, Slov;ici, pp. 13-14; Jednota, July 15, 1914. Culen, Dejiny, I, 111-114. Culen, Dejiny, I, 108. I bid., I, 111. Ibid., I, 114-115. Ibid., 1, 115; Kon§tantin Culen, Slovaci v Amerike (Tur~lansk:r Sv. Martin, 11138), pp. 384-385. Culen, DeJlny, I, 213-214. Culen, Dejiny, I, 202. Ibid., I, 208-209. Ibid., I, 207-208. Souvenir Program: 19th Regular Convention, The National Slovak Society, (Young~town, 1946), p. i>4; P. V. Rovnianek, "Slovenslce organ!zacie v Amerike", World's Fair -Memorial of the Czechoslovak Group (,Chicago, 1933), p . 67 . IP. V. Rovnlanek, op. cit., pp . 67-68. Pennsylvanska Slovenaka Jednota (Wilkes-Barre), June 24, 1943. Jaroslav ·Pelikan, "Cesi a .Slovacl v Chicagu ", World's Fair Memorial of the Czechoslovak Group (Oh!cago,1933), p. 9•. Culen, Slovaci v Amerike, p. 162. Culen, Dejiny, I, 214-215. Kushner, Slovaci, p . 10; Molchan, ''Development or the Slovak Community", p . 48. Kushner, Slovacl, pp. 10-11. Ibid., p. 8. Culen, Dejlny, I, 138-139. :Fr. Sasinek, "Mysllenky o stave nabozenstva medzi Slovakm!", Kalendar Jednota, (1,8 97), II, 139-140. Narodne Novlny, August 11, 1910. !Kushner, Slov;icl, p. 21. Jednota, March 4, 1914. Kushner, Slovacl, p . 22; Michael J . Hynes, History of the Dioceae of Cleveland (Cleveland, 1953), p. 1'53. Hynes, Diocese of Cleveland, p . 255. Kushner, Slovaci, p . 41. Kushner, Slovacl, p . 41. Kalendar J.ednota, (1903), VIII, 210-211. Jaromir Psenka a Jan Pelikan, "<'.:es! a Slovac! v Chicagu", World's Fair Memorial, p . 95 . <'.:ulen, DeJiny, I, 222-227. Pellkan a Paenka, "Cesl a Slovacl v Chicagu", World's Fair Memor ial", p. 94. �35 SLOVAKIA 1211. Joseph Cermak, "·Physical Education among the Czechs and SloTaks", World'• Fair Memorial, p. 44 . 130. Molchan, "Development o! the Slovak Community", p. 67. 131. 1Narodne Noviny, July 17, 1113. 132. Narodne Noviny, May 5, 1910. 133. Kushner, Slovaoi, p. 9; Balch, Slavic Fellow Citizens, pp. 337-33·8. 134. Culen, Slovaci v Amerike, p . 115. 185. Culen, Dejlny, I, 162-18'3; Amerlkansk0-Slovenske Novlny, Feb· ruary 5, 1898. 136. Kalendar Jednota, (1899), IV, 37-41. 137. "Slovenske pomery v Amerike", Kalendar Jednota (1899), IV, 39-40. BIBLIOGRAPHY PRIMARY SOURCES - PUBLIC DOCUMENTS U. S. Bureau o! Census Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, Population Statistics, Vol. I. Washington : Government Printing omce, 1913. U. S. Congress. Senate Documents. 61 Cong., 3 Session. Washington: Government Printing O!f!ce, 1911. Vols. XI and XX. NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS Jednota (Middletown., Pa.), Vols. XXI-XXII (19113cl9H). Kalendar Jednota. Middletown: The First Cathol!c Slovak Union. Vols. I-XXI (1896-1915). Kalendar Narodneho Slovenekeho Spolku. Plit.ts·burgh: National Slovak Society. Vols. XX-XXIV (1912-1!116). Narodne Noviny (Pittsburgh, Pa.), Vols. I·V (1910-1914). SECONDARY SOURCES - BOOKS Abbot, Edith. Historical Aspects of the Immigration Problem. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1924. Balch, Emily Green. Our Slavic Fellow Citi.aiens. New York: Charities Publication Company, 11110. Bokes, Frantisek. Dejiny Slovenska t Slovakov. Bratislava: SloTenska Akademia Vied a Umeaii, 1946. Capek, Thomas. The Slovaks of Hrungary, Slavs and Panslavism. New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1,906. Culen, Konstantin. Dejiny Slovakov v Amerike. 2 vols. Bratislava: Matica Slovenskii., 19 42. Culen, Konstantin. Slovaci v Amerilc:e: Crty z kulturnych deJfn. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1938. Culen, Konstantin. Slovenska Liga v Amerike styridsat'rocna. Scranton : Obrana Press, Lnc., 19,47. Eaton, A. H . Immigrant Gifts to American Life. New York: Russell Sage Foundati,m, 1933. Fairchild, Henry 0. (ed .). Immigrant Backgrounds. New York: Wiley and Sons, lnc., 1927. • Yairchild, Henry 0. (ed.). Immigration: A World Movement and its American Significance. New York: The Mcmillan Company, 1926. i'aulkner, Harold U. The Quest for Social Justice, 189-8-1914. Vol. XI or Hi-story o! America12 Life. Edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger �36 SLOVAKIA and· Dixon Ryan Fox, 13 vols . Ne1v York : Macmillan Company, 1931. Handlin, Oscar. The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations that Made the American People. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1951. Hansen, Marcus Lee. The Atlantic Migration, 1607-1860. Cam bri dge: . The H arvard Un iversity Press, 1940. Hansen, Marcus Lee. The Immigrant in American History. Cambridge : The Harvard Univer sity Press, 1940. Hrusovsky, F rantisek . Slovenske Dejiny. Turcian sky Sv. Martin: Matica Slove'nska, 1939. Hrusovsky, Frantisek. This is Slovakia. Scranton: Obrana Press, Inc., 1953. Hynes, Michael J. History of the Diocese of Cleveland. Cleveland : Diocese of •Cleveland, 1953. Jaszi, O'scar. The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1929. Jenks, Jeremiah W. and Lauck, W . Jett. The Immigration Problem . New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 19 22 . Kann, Robert A. The Multinational Empire: Nationalism and National Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy 1848-1918. 2 vols. New York: The Columbia U niversity Press, 1950. Kushner, Jos eph. Slovaci katolfci pittsburghskeho b iskup:::tva. P as saic: The Slovak Catholic Sokol, ·1946. Nev ins, Allan. The Emergence of Modern America, 1865-1878. Vol. VIII of A History of American Life. Edited by Ar t hur M. Schlesinger and Dixon Ryan Fox, 13 vols. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1927. . Orth, Samuel P. Our Foreigners: A Chronicle of J).mericans in the Making . Vol. 35 of the .Chronicles of America. Edited by ;\llen Johnson, 56 vols. New Haven ·: Yale University Press, 1920. · Park, •Robert. The lmmigran_t Press an~ its Control. New York: Harper and Bro-thers, 1922. Pauco, J oseph. l.!.udovychova u Sturovcov: Obdobie Slovenskych Na rodnych Novin. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1943. Purcell, William J. (ed.). Catholic Pittsburgh 's One Hundred Years. Chicago: Loyola U n iversity Press, 1943. Seton-Watson , R . W. Racial Problems in Hungary. London: Constable, 1908. Seton-Watson, R. W. (ed.). Slovakia Then and Now. Prague: Orb is Publishing Company, 1931. Shaugnessy, . Gerald. Has t he l.mmigrant Kept the Faith ? New York:: The Macmillan Company, 1925 . · Sidor, Karol. Andrej H linka, 1864-1926. Bratislava: St. Andrew's. Press, 1934. Skultety, Joseph. Sketches from Slovak History. Middletown: The First Catholic Slova~ Union, 1930. Stephenson, George M. A History of American Immigration, 18201924. Boston: Ginn Publishing Company, 1926. Street, C. J.C. Slovakia: Past and Present. Westminster: P . S. Kingston and Son, Ltd., n. d . Tarbell, Ida. The Nationalizing of Business, 1878-1898. V ol. IX of A 'History of Ameri can Life. Edited by Arthur -M. Schlesinger and Dixo~ Ryan Fox, 13 vols. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1936. �SLOVAKIA 37 Thompson, S. Harrison. Czechoslovakia in European History. Princeton: The Princeton U niversity Press, 19-44. Wittke, Carl. We Who Bui It America: The Saga of the Immigrant. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1940. Yurchak, Peter P. The Slovaks: Their History and Trad itions. Revised edition. Scranton: Obrana Press, Inc., 1947. ARTICLES F., J. A. "Nacrtok dejin s lov. prisfahovalectva v Amerike", Sbornik Narodneho Slovenskeho Spolku, I (1915), 20-39 . Jamar ik, Paul. "Zivot Americkych .Slovakov dakedy a teraz_" , Sbornik Na rodneho Slovenskeho Spolku, I (1915), 98-109. "Prorocke slova dp. Matusa Jankolu o novom systeme", Sborn ik Slovensk e ho Katolickeho Sokola na rok 1942, XXIX. Shipman, Andr ew J . "Slavs ~-n America", The Catholic Encyclopedia, XIV (1913). 51-57. Stephenson, George M. "Immigration", Dictionary of American History, III (1940), 73-75. "The Slovak Sokol", Sborn ik S lovenske ho Katolickeho Sokola na rok 1942, XXIX, 242-243. Timasheff, Nicholas. "Education", Slavonic Encyclopedia. Edited by Joseph .S. 1Roucek. New York: The Philosophical Library, Inc., 1949, pp. 261-269. Ware, Caroline. "Immigration", Encyclopedia of Soc ia l Sc iences, VII (1932), 587-595. World 's Fair Memorial of the Czechos lo va k Group. Chicago: Czechoslovak Group, 1933. Bradac, John S. "Slovenski Evanjelici-Luterani v Spojenych Statoch", pp. 81-83. Cermak, Joseph. "Physical Education among the Czechs and Slovaks in America", pp. 42-45. ·· Pelikan, J. and Psenka, R. Jaromir. "Cesi a Slovaci v Chicagu", pp. 89-97. Rovnianek, Peter V. "Slovenske organizacie v Amerike", pp. 66-68. UNPUBLISHED SOURCES Gregorovic, Sister M. Counsuela, SS.C.M . "Father Jankola's Con tribution t0 Catholic Education in America". Unpublis hed Master of Arts dissertation. History Department, Catholic University, 1943. Molchan, Caspar, C.S.C . "The Development of the Slovak Comqiunity in Pittsburgh, 1880-1920". Unp ub lished Master of Arts di sserta·,£ion. History Department, U niversity of Notre Dame, 1948. · Stefan, Sister M. Leocadia, SS.C .M. "The Reverend Stephen Furdek" . Unpublis-h ed Master of Arts dis se r tation. History Depar tment, Catholic University, _ 1952. Teplicky, Sister M. Berchmans, SS .C.M. "Educational Activities of the Sisters of SS. Cy,ril and Methodius". Unpublishe d Master of Arts diss ertation. Education Department, Marywood College, 1945. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1965, Vol. 15 Description An account of the resource Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOV AKIA Pub lished by the Slovak League of America VOL XV 1965 NO. 38 EARLY BEGINNINGS OF THE SLOVAKS IN AMERICA By James J. Zatko, Ph.D. , University of Notre Dame Occupying the area enclosed by the Carpathian mountains, the Danube River, and the Theiss River, the Slovaks to the number of two million or 12% of the total population of Hungary, eked out a meagre existence between the two rivers and the mountains. Because the Slovaks had to struggle for a living, men and women were inured to hard work and to a very low standard of living. Their facial features form two general types: the round-faced with wide-set eyes, and the long-headed narrow face with a long nose. The people live in villages consisting of long, low brick or wood houses with hand-made shingles. The interiors were generally neat and tidy, even where there was an earthen floor. 1 Slovakia itself is a geographic unit, whose northern boundary runs along the Carpathian mountains, and whose southern boundary is the Danube River and the Theiss River, which cut deep valleys and ravines through the mountain ridges. The land is divided in the west by the streams flowing to the Danube, by those flowing to the Theiss in eastern Slovakia, with a central Slovak upland lying between. 2 The area consists of about 18,895 square miles of mostly agricultural land, but the land is not the best for cultivation, much of it being woodland and the rest not very fertile. Bratislava was the capital, the ancient coronation city of Hungarian Kings before Budapest, and a great Danubian river port at the cross-roads of Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary. Other important cities in Slovakia are: Trnava in western Slovakia, Nitra in west central Slovakia on the river Nitra, Zilina in northern Slovakia on the river Vah, Turciansky Sv. Martin in north central Slovakia, Zvolen in central Slovakia, and Kosice in eastern Slovakia. 3 Within Slovakia itself population shifted during the 2 SLOVAKIA fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, by occupying the northern highlands in Slovakia. The villagers of the central plain and the river valleys created new settlements especially in Orava in the north, Trencin in the west, Zvolen in the central portion; the new settlers on the Carpathian mountainsides began to engage in animal husbandry, especially sheep-raising. 4 At the end of the seventeenth century an emigration strictly so-called began. Only individuals and very small groups left the recently settled highlands at first. The saffron-dealers and dealers in medicinal oils from Turiec county in north central Slovakia carried their home products all over eastern Europe, crossed Asia, as far as the Pacific coast of Siberia. In the business they established in Russia, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Siberia, they often employed their own countrymen. Weavers from Orava county in the north and lace makers from the Hron River region sold their wares in Hungary and central Europe generally. Menders with wire and glaziers from Trencin county in the northwest of Slovakia wandered throughout central Europe; the more enterprising settled in Germany and Russia. From the eighteenth century, after the Turk had been expelled from central and southern Hungary, the poverty stricken of Slovakia began to migrate into Hungary in quest of lands and helped to repopulate the area as well as to restore its economic productivity through agriculture. Thus did Slovak settlements originate in Hungary, Rumania, Yugo-Slavia, Bulgaria, and the Banat. 5 The poverty which accelerated this new shift in population was caused by a decline in economic and commercial activity in Slovakia itself. Early in the eighteenth century there had still been considerable export of cattle and wine from Nitra and Bratislava counties, production of cloth in Myjava, forestry and river traffic, mining and textile production. Although Maria Theresa favored Austrian industries against those of Hungary, only during the reign of Joseph II did non-Slovak manufacturers begin to compete effectively with native products; and the soil in Slovakia was insufficient to provide a livelihood for the Slovak masses. 6 A migration began from the Slovak counties across their southern borders into Hungary. In 1787 eleven counties in Hungary had a population of 1,537,969, whereas the counties in Slovakia had 1,535,480. Sixty years afterwards the Hun- SLOVAKIA 3 garian counties had in 1848 a population of 2,844,830 and the counties of Slovakia had a population of 1,910,000. In 1787 Budin in Hungary had a population of 23,000 and Pest in Hungary, had only 16,000; Presporok in Slovakia had 29,000 and Banska Stiavnica in Slovakia had 24,000. After 83 years, in 1870, the population of Banska Stiavnica had declined to 12,000. 7 This decline in population, as the figures above indicate, extended to the period of the great exodus to America after 1873. As in the migration to Hungary, so in the modern migration to America economic conditions provided the main force that helped to empty Slovakia, but there were other causes, namely, political, social, and economic. The political ambitions of the Slovaks were closely linked with the rise of nationalism in Slovakia, which developed from three factors, contemporary trends of thought in Europe, outside pressure by the Magyars, and Slovak internal life itself. A conviction developed in the people that the country which they occupied was their own and that within it they had rights not to be contravened by any power. This thought was emphasized in a book by John Baltazar Magin who spoke in 1728 of the rights of the Slovak nation . Memories of Slovak antiquity began to be revived. George Papanek published Of Slovak Kings and K ingdoms in 1780; George Sklenar in 1783 wrote of the glories of Greater Moravia, and in 1793 George Fandli published a revision of Papanek's book. The Slovak poet John Holly portrayed the events of the Slovak past in an epic Sviitopluk (1833), in his book Slav (1834), and in Cyrilo-Methodi ada (1835)8 These writings prepared the ground for further studies in the Slovak language. During the Reformation the Czech language had spread in Slovakia among the Slovak Protestants ; but it remained a foreign language in Slovakia. This led to the cultivation of Slovak as the particular language of the Slovak nation. Matthew Bel-Funtik (1687-1749) wrote of the Slovak language that "in no respect does it fall behind the ponderousness of Spanish, the charm and smoothness of English, the richness and emphasis of German, the softness and tenderness of Italian or the imperious sternness of Magyar." Since the Slovaks had no national literary medium as late as the end of the eighteenth century, Anton Bernolak created a national literary language based on the western 4 SLOVAKIA or Trnava dialect. In 1787 he published a grammar of literary Slovak and later also published a six volume SlovakCzech-Latin-German-Magyar dictionary. 9 The greatest writer of the "Bernolakian" school was John Holly, who is described as "in the fullest sense the awakener of national consciousness by right of actualizing what others had planned and dreamed of." 10 Even though a considerable school of "Bernolakian" writers developed, the western Slovak dialect failed to become the national idiom. Uudovit Stur (1815-1856) together with the Lutheran pastors Joseph Miloslav Hurban (18171888) and Michael Miloslav Hurban established the definite form of literary Slovak, based upon a dialect spoken in the eight central counties. Together they founded a literary and publishing society, Tatrin (1844), and began to publish the political journal Slovenske narodnie noviny (1845), and the literary monthly, Slovenske pohl'ady (1846). The use of the Slovak language became an essential demand in Slovak political agitation. In May of 1848 the Slovak nationalist leaders met in the rectory of Michael Miloslav Hodza in Liptovsky Sv. Mikulas, where they drew up a political program for the Slovaks: "Petitions of the Slovak Nation." They expressed no desire to break away from the Hungarian state; they wanted defined boundaries for Slovak lands, social, political, cultural equality of Slovaks with Hungarians, and official recognition of the Slovak language. When the leaders planned to submit this program for the approval of the Slovak people, the Hungarian government forbade Slovak assemblies and imprisoned the Slovak leaders. 11 The hand of Eudovit Stur was obvious in the program. Already in 1847 he had listed these grievances: manorial courts, maldistribution of public offices, lack of uniform taxation, need of reform in the judicial system, insufficient freedom of the press and speech; he also demanded the use of the Slovak language in schools, churches, and courts. 1 z With the demands of Liptovsky Sv. Mikulas ignored and then repressed, the Slovaks took to revolutionary activity against the Hungarians. Since their only hope of relief lay with the central government at Vienna, they threw in their lot with the imperial forces of Habsburg against the SLOVAKIA 5 revolution of Kossuth. After the prostration of Magyarism through Russian intervention in 1849, the Slovaks were prepared to accept a limited territorial sovereignty from the imperial government; but even though the assimilative policy of the Magyars was suspended, centralization, not autonomy, remained the order of the day. In the Spring of 1861 the Slovaks renewed their political activity. After their political principles had been published in the newspapers, an assembly was called to meet in Turciansky Sv. Martin. The prominent attorney Stephen Marko Daxner formulated the political program: recognition of the Slovak nation by imperial edict, the constitution of Slovakia as a distinct administrative unit in Hungary, the right of Slovaks to develop their own life without restriction. This "Memorandum of the Slovak People" was presented to the Emperor Franz Joseph; the only result was that the Slovaks were allowed to establish the cultural institution, the Matice, Slovenska. 14 Austria's defeat by Prussia in 1866 forced a settlement with the Magyars. Known as the Compromise of 1867, it granted Magyars internal independence and divided the Empire into two countries under one crown. The Compromise of 1867 and the dualistic sys.tern based on it, appeared before public opinion as the compromise of the Austrian Emperor with the Hungarian feudal classes which the liberal German high bourgeoisie accepted, though not without serious hesitation, in order to secure its own hegemony against tbe will of the Slav majority.15 Jaszi observes that this artificial dualistic system could be maintained only "by a corrupt and restricted electoral system, by open ballot, and by terroristic procedures in the administrative and military machine." 16 The political injustices after 1867 should therefore be considered not only against a background of Magyarization but also seen as a means used to preserve the structure of the dual monarchy. The electoral laws and improper representation in the Hungarian parliament were among the grievances. For instance, in the 58 electoral areas inhabited by Slovaks for the most part, these deputies were elected: 6 SLOVAKIA ELECTION OF DEPUTIES 1865-1881 Year Magyar Deputies 1865 1869 1872 1875 1878 1881 58 58 56 58 58 58 Slovak Deputies 0 0 2 0 0 0 Source: C. J. Street, HU GARY AND DEMOCRACY (London, 1923), PP. 57-58. The constituencies and polling stations were so arranged that Magyar communities were assured of easy access •to the poll, while non-Magyar communities had ,to travel great distances. It wa-s no uncommon trick for the local authorities to declare roads and bridges unsafe for traffic on the day of election, or for all the hors es in non-Magyar districts to be placed under veterinary supervision and forbidd en to move outside the commune.17 The Slovaks had grievances against the judicial system. Until 1871 the judicial and administrative spheres were not separated. In that year judicial reform was inaugurated. Criminal and civil cases were dealt with in the District and Sedrial courts as the first instance, the Tables as the second, and the Royal Curia in Budapest as the final one. 18 The Slovaks complained too that the nationality of the legal officers did not correspond to the national distribution of population. In 1910 there were 2,633 judges and official lawyers in Hungary; 2,601 were Magyars, 31 Germans, 1 Slovak. This was the proportion of legal officers in a country where the Slovaks formed 12 % of the population.19 Moreover, in spite of the fact that the law of Nationalities (1868) admitted other languages to court, 20 the law remained a dead letter, for summonses were issued in Magyar, and verdicts given in Magyar, and the need of an interpreter was disregarded. 21 Slovaks also called for freedom of the press. 22 Between 1905 and 1908 there were 43 court actions against fourteen Slovak newspapers ; sentences totaling eleven years and three months were imposed as well as fines totaling 11,000 crowns for Pan-Slavistic activities. 23 Besides these unsettling political factors, other social causes added to the sense of national frustration. SLOVAKIA 7 At the basis of the cultural conflict was the idea of the Magyar state. The law of Hungary recognized only one nation in Hungary, and that was the Magyar. To be secure, Hungary had to be Magyar. The objective of political action became to create one nation, Magyar in sentiment and speech, from the multinational and polylingual Hungarian lands. 24 This ideal was pushed by every means: newspapers, the society for the Magyarization of Proper Names founded in 1880, and 1898 law to give all towns Magyar names; suppression of the Slovak language in rail, postal, and telegraph service. 25 As one reaction against the process of forcible assimilation, the Slovak sought comfort and national security in Pan-Slavism. Having become conscious of the larger Slav community, the Slovak nationalist leaders shook off their feeling of inferiority and began to place their hopes of realizing national ideals in the larger Slav group. 26 The Hungarians reacted by denouncing as Pan-Slav any Slovak who refused to renounce his nationality and language. 27 The chief means of transforming Slovaks into Magyars were to be the schools. After the Compromise of 1867, an attack was launched against German, Slovak, and Ruthenian schools. Bela Grunwald in 1873 began publishing Svornost', a bi-monthly, attacking the Slovak gymnasia as hot-beds of Pan-Slavism. 28 The gymnasium at Revuca was closed August 20, 1874; the one at Klastor pod Znievom, on September 21, 1874; and the one at Turciansky Sv. Martin, on December 30, 1874. 29 All Slovak elements were expelled from secondary and technical schools, and permission was refused to erect a chair of Slovak at the University of Budapest.30 The school statistics reveal this Magyarizing tendency: SCHOOLS IN SLOVAKIA 1910-1918 Schools Primary Grammar Indus., Comm., Agric. Teacher training Middle (High Schools) University Magyar Slovak German 3,777 101 118 419 20 39 8 SLOVAKIA Source: Nicholas Timashe!f, PEDIA (1948), p. 262. "Education," SLAVONIC ENCYCW- The official statistics of the Hungarian government in 1914 reveal the extent of Magyarization. They list 256,020 children of Slovak language as attending school. Of these, 214,267 Slovak children were in purely Magyar elementary schools, and only 42,186 in 365 Slovak elementary schools. 31 Educational standards were low. Attendance was weakly enforced; in most villages the schools remained open for five or six months per year. In 1913, just before World War I, 32,700 Slovak children of school age were not enrolled.32 Naturally the results were bad. Those able to read and write averaged 63 per cent of the Slovak population; but individual counties had worse records. In the county of Saris, only 48.6 per cent, in Spis 58 per cent, in Zemplin 51.4 per cent, in Ung 43.5 per cent could read and write. 33 The Matica Slovenska or Slovak Institute, a national cultural society founded in 1863, was dissolved in 1875. The charges were unlawful political activity and mismanagement. The government seized not only money and property but also the library and museum. 34 Even the churches were made instruments of Magyarization. The religious history of the period 1867-1914 is dark, indeed. Bishop Parvy of Spis lived in Budapest for many years; Bishop Balasz of Roznava ignored everything Slovak as though it were non-existent. The Cardinal-Primate of Hungary, Czernoch, was of Slovak birth, but Magyar in thought and sentiment. 35 Often other priests felt their people's cultural humiliation and endeavoured to alleviate it, but were placed so that their influence was limited. The Lutheran General Assembly resolved against "Pan-Slavism" in 1882; in no district did the Slovak Lutherans have a majority.36 However, the chief reasons for Slovak emigration in the latter half of the nineteenth century seem to have been economic.37 The predominantly agricultural nature of the country's economy is best illustrated by the following chart on agriculture: SLOVAKIA 9 POPULATION ENGAGED IN AGRICULTURE 1910 Total Population in 1,000 Austrian Provinces Counties of Hungarian Crown Bosnia and Herzogovina Total Total engaged in Agriculture in 1,000 Agricultural Percentage 28,572 13,842 48.5 % 20,886 13,470 64.5% 1,932 1,674 86.6 % ----------------- - -- - -- - ----- --- - --51,390 28,982 Source: Oscar Ja,szi, THE DIS,SOLUTION MONARCHY (Chicago, 1929) p. 195. 56.4 % OF THE IHABSBUHG The soil was not of the best quality. Woodland averaged about 15 per cent of the total. In Turiec county 33 per cent was unfit for cultivation; in Orava, 30 per cent; in Zvolen, 32 per cent; in Liptov, 41 per cent; in Novohrad, 26 per cent; in Gerner, 47 per cent; Spis, 37 per cent; in Saris, 43 per cent. In Orava county there were 2761 farms that averaged one to five acres; of this land only 43 per cent was arable. 38 In addition to the problem of poor soil, there existed the problem of the great estates. Speaking of Hungary in general, Jaszi says that 40 per cent of the total area of Hungary was occupied in 1913 by a small number of large and very large estates. The medium sized farms of 142 to 1,420 acres embraced a smaller area, but with the greater estates covered 54.4 per cent of the total territory. Over 64.4 per cent of the country was possessed by small farmers holding less than 142 acres. Moreover, only 34.5 per cent of Hungarian territory belonged to those who actually cultivated the soil. 39 In Hungary proper, without !Croatia, there lived 2,280,000 farmer families. According to the most optimistic calculation only 460,000 families owned property on the average above 20 acres, guaranteeing an independent livelihood, whereas 1,820,000 families, that is to say four fifths of them possessed only so-called "dwarf" properties or no property at all.40 10 SLOVAKIA If we consider the situation of Slovakia in particular, an equally cheerless picture presents itself. In Slovakia 1,000 persons owned 2,100,000 hectares, that is, about 8,000 square miles; 21.5 per cent of the holdings were less than a half hectare in size; 41 75 per cent of the land was held by the great landlords. 42 The agricultural areas compared unfavorably with the western and northwestern parts of the Habsburg Monarchy. The industrialized parts did not exceed three-tenths of the entire territory of the Monarchy, whereas over seven-tenths were populated by peasants, poor, almost on the level of slow starvation. 43 One way to raise the peasant's standard of living was to raise the productivity of agricultural labor and the growth of crops. Between 1850 and 1895 there was progress in agricultural production. Improvements were made in Hungary after 1848, e.g., the iron plow replaced the wooden. The great landlords led the advance and the peasants imitated them. These landlords in Hungary between 1850 and 1890 were deeply interested in improving agricultural production, chiefly because of the high price of wheat in the world market. They were anxious to increase wheat production for export. After 1885 the world market price began to decline and the landlords gradually lost interest. Indeed, they began to cut production. The strategy was to create a domestic scarcity so that wheat would have to be imported. The objective of the policy was to transform a grain exporting country into a grain importing one. This would enable the landlords to raise the price of domestic grain to the world price augmented by the tariff. By 1907 the tariffs began to have a constant effect. In this situation the lot of the agricultural worker grew steadily worse. Unemployment grew, wages decreased, and the cost of living rose. Jaszi observes that the heavy hand of the landlord-controlled economy pushed the Monarchy toward disaster. 44 The workers' wages in Hungary averaged the equivalent of sixty to a hundred dollars a year, while a woman's wages averaged yearly only between forty and fifty dollars. 45 In Slovakia the agricultural worker earned 25 cents a day.46 His staple food in winter was cabbage and potatoes. 47 To the low wages and the agricultural poverty we must SLOVAKIA 11 add the difficulty of buying land in Slovakia. The price of land in Slovakia by 1906 had risen in some cases 100 percent; the amount of money sent from America helped cause this price rise. The Postal Bank of Kosice received in 1896 six and a half million florins from America. 48 Over and above these burdens, the poor peasant had to bear the load of usurious banking. In pre-war Slovakia almost every town had a little joint-stock institution; although this was called a bank, it did not carry on real banking operations, but was only a savings and loan bank. The majority of these banks dispersed capital which was not available where it was needed. The banks under Magyar control followed a policy of dividends, whereas the Slovak banks paid a lower rate of interest. 49 Virtually no institutions provided long term mortgage credits; in fact, only two banks, both unsound, engaged in this business in Slovakia. Besides these banks, there were cooperative societies which offered limited cr,edit facilities to the peasants. 50 The small farmer ended up borrowing at rates of 7 per cent to 8 per cent, and sometimes rates were as high as 14 per cent. On short term loans rates of 50 per cent were not unknown. Consequently the profits of the banks were high. One bank in Slovakia with a capitalization of 60,000 crowns and reserves of 18,000 profited one year to the amount of 22,000 crowns. The average profit of the banks in 1888 was 29.56 per cent on the capital invested; in 1894 the profit was 13.58 per cent. 51 The economic situation worsened by the national addiction to drink. On this all the sources seem agreed. Impoverishing effects of overindulgence in drink were a factor in driving the Slovaks to seek improved economic conditions in America. 52 This lack of economic opportunity and security led to the migration. The following figures, though somewhat suspect because of the tendency of Magyarization, still tell an eloquent story. This table is a modification of the original. NATIONALITIES IN HUNGARY Nationality Slovaks 1880 1,855,000 1890 1,897,000 1900 2,002,000 1910 1,946,000 12 SLOVAKIA Source: Robert A. Kann, THE -MULTINATIONAL EJMP]RE: NATIONALISM AND NATIONAL REF1ORM IN THE HABSBURG MONAROHY 1848-1914 {New York, 19 50) I, 278. The Slovaks in considerable numbers migrated to America after 1880 as part of the "new immigration". Until 1880 the bulk of the new additions to American population by immigration was predominantly either English in speech or at least derived from the northern and western areas of Europe; this was the "old immigration." Thereafter newcomers from southern and eastern Europe arrived, representing peoples who were very different in language, customs, political experiences, and personal standards of living. Italian, Greek, and the confusion of Slavic languages sounded strange indeed to ears attuned to English or Germanic sounds. Invidious comparisons were made. The "Nordic" was more akin to the American in blood; the "new immigrants" had not the Anglo-Saxon training in self-government, and they were merely birds of passage. Besides the fact that he spoke a strange language, the "new immigrant" was more often than not a Catholic. All these things set him apart from the "old immigrant." 53 The year 1873 saw the beginning of the flood. Even though the political, cultural, social, and economic causes were ripe for emigration, other causes operated to bring America to the attention of the hardpressed Slovak immigrants. The steamship company agents urged the peasants to emigrate, for the companies derived a large part of their income from transport of immigrants. In most countries there were laws prohibiting advertisements of prosperous conditions in another country. Two leading steamship companies were reported to have five or six thousand agents in Galicia alone. In Hungary, Immigration Commission members saw letters written by agents instructing prospective immigrants on how to leave the country without the government's consent, what routes to follow, and other related information. 54 Other agents who increased emigration from Hungary after 1870 were labor contractors, who came to hire workers for the mines and steel mills. These agents promised everything. Archduke Rudolph, they said, was living in South America, establishing there a new ideal state; immigrants to, SLOVAKIA 13 the United States were to receive grants of land and aid in buying equipment and in constructing necessary buildings.55 Many peasants who went with the agents wrote back letters reporting high wages. These lett'ers were undoubtedly one of the most powerful means of persuading the Slovak peasants to cross the ocean. 56 In the earlier phases of immigration many emigrants returned to their native country after they had laid by a sufficiency of this world's goods. The figures given by the Hungarian government for emigration and return for the year of 1905 show the extent of this return movement and suggest the breadth of influence exercised by returning emigrants. In 1905 the Magyar figures list 38,770 as leaving the country, while they give 4,038 as returning to Hungary.57 The news of work and wages certainly had an effect in stimulating further emigration. The Slovak emigrants moved generally westward by rail for German or Dutch ports. During the years 1881-1900 some 372,979 Slovaks were reported to have passed through the port of Hamburg, whereas only 9,501 embarked from Italian ports. 58 During 1886-1907 the German ports handled 348,808 emigrants from Hungary, Antwerp 57,170, Dutch ports 33,762, and Italian ports 3,785. 59 The low cost of steamship crossing attracted many to undertake the difficult journey. Passage from Hamburg on the way out was $20; the return journey as far as Oderburg, a station on the Hungarian frontier, was $23.60. The Hungarian Government granted the Cunard Line the monopoly of transporting emigrants from Hungary. So great was the rush to America that the Cunard Line called on other companies and formed the "Continental Pool" to handle the traffic. This "Pool" provided the worst accommodations, the worst diet, and the worst navigation. 61 The journey's length varied from fifteen to sixty days. The emigrants fortified themselves against sea-sickness with prunes and brought their own supplies of sausage, bacon, plum brandy, and gin. Water was distributed only at intervals, sometimes only once a day. The ventilation in the living quarters was bad. 62 One emigrant described his journey in these words: "It was in the year 1883 that, with three men, I set out from Trebis ov for America. We got on a wagon that took us to Obisovce, 14 SLOVAKIA where we boarded a train and rode to Vrutky. There we obtained travel permits for Bohumfn, and from Bohumin to Bremen, where we boug1hit our steamship tickets, for which we paid 53 ,gold pieces. A chill comes over me even now when I think of that ship of ours. We were afloat almost 18 days and twice the shi p was in danger of sinking. Everything on the deck rwas broken, a nd water poured into it. And as the boat rocked, one could feel that even in one's s-tomach."63 Among the ports of entry New York easily ranked first for the Slovak immigrants; then in order followed Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Boston and Portland. 64 Nor did the ills of the immigrants cease when they landed in the United States. Often enough their meagre funds and they were quickly parted. One immigrant paid a fare of $60 for a ride from the harbor to the Lackawanna railroad station. Hotels deliberately detained the immigrants by telling them that the train to their destination made the trip only once a week. Other swindlers met the immigrants as they came ashore and offered to send a telegram to their relatives or friends for the price of twenty five cents ; needless to say, no telegram was sent, and the immigrants were only so much poorer. One porter kidnapped two young girls who ended in brothels.85 The Slovak immigrants of the 1880's were not the first Slovaks to set foot upon American soil. The very first Slovak to come to America, so far as we know, was Andrew Jelik, a tailor on a Dutch ship which sailed to America in 17541755. He did not remain in America and eventually died in Budin, Hungary, 1783.66 Another Slovak who had arrived in America in the eighteenth century was Count Maurice Benovsky who landed at Baltimore in 1775. He was but an adventurer whose later career took him to Madagascar where he became king and where he also perished. 67 In the year 1800 a Slovak dealer in oils surprised a Slovak Jesuit in Mexico City by making his confession in Slovak. 68 The first Slovak settlement was made in Philadelphia by drotari, wireworkers, in 1840 at 412-414 Front Street. 69 Martin Chalan landed in the United States in 1872, took out his first papers in 1876, and became a citizen in 1879. Making the trip back and forth across the ocean, he was h1 America twenty six times. He died in 1915. 70 In the wake of these individuals the larger numbers began to come, first, from eastern Slovakia, especially from the SLOVAKIA 15 counties of Zemplin, Sari~, and Spis. 71 Between the years 18691890 the county of Spis lost 14% of her youths between 20 to 25 years of age, and 31 % of the men between 26 and 30; Saris lost 34% of those between 20 and 25, 44 % of the men between 26 and 30. 72 Only after the eastern counties did the western ones take to emigration. To give exact figures on Slovak immigration before 1899 is impossible because prior to 1899 the immigration authorities counted the immigrants according to country of last residence, and many Slovaks listed Hungary as their country of last residence. Since 1899 the immigrants are counted according to race or language. Therefore the figures before 1899 do not give us exact data on Slovak immigrants; but according to Emily Green Balch the earlier immigrants from Hungary may be presumed to be Slovaks with some Jews and Magyars included. 73 In 1873 immigrants from Hungary numbered 1,300; in 1880 4,000 entered the United States, and in 1884 the number rose to 15,000. 74 The following table shows the total number of Slovaks coming into this country in the years 1899 to 1909: SLOVAK IMMIGRANTS ADMITTED TO THE UNITED STATES Year ending June 30 Number 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 15,838 29,243 29,343 36,934 34,427 27,940 52,368 38,221 42,041 16,170 Source: Emily Green Balch, OUR (New York, 1910), P. 103. 22,568 SLAVIC FELLOW CITI ZENS In the period 1899-1910 the total immigration to the United States numbered 9,555,673; in this number there were 337,527 Slovaks. 75 Consideration of Table 5 shows that Hl SLOVAKIA 1905 was the peak year for the Slovaks in which 52,368 of them were admitted. Numerically in the twelve years ending June 30, 1910 Slovakia ranked eighth among the nations providing immigrant material. 76 The rate of emigration of Slovaks per 1,000 was 18.6; this was double that of any other race of people, except the Hebrews (18.3), Croatian-Slovenians (13.1), and South Italians (11.9). The rate was the highest of any group. 77 Having arrived in the United States, the Slovak immigrants began to look for a place to live and to work. The first areas to draw them were the coal mine centers; only in the second instance did the Slovaks settle in the factory cities.78 One focus of settlement was the hard-coal area of northeastern Pennsylvania where the center was Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Before World War I the mines in this district employed 75,000 to 100,000 men; of this group 12% were Slovaks. 79 In the soft coal area of southwestern Pennsylvania Mt. Pleasant was the center of dispersion. From there the Slovaks moved northward to Latrobe or Greensburg, southward to Connellsville and Uniontown. The chief centers of Slovak settlement were: Alice, Standard, Bessemer, Bridgeport, Mammouth, Old Hecla, New Hecla, Calumet, Old Tarrs, Donnelly, Buckeye, Moyer, Johnstown, Pittsburgh, Gayette City, Brownsville, Masontown, Fairchance, Point Marion, Cannonsburg, Perryopolis, Republic, and others. 80 Only later did pockets of immigrants form in Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit. About the geographic dispersion of Slovaks an interesting note occurs in a letter sent to the Jednota in 1913 by a J . P. Kapas, who had been traveling in the west. He wrote: "There had been plenty of Slovak people in the west, but almost all returned to the eastern states, and only for this r eason that in the west the people were all foreigners and wild." 81 Alaska seems to have been the limit of immigration, at least as far as the group was concerned. John Miklas, writing from Alaska, recommended against coming and said that he had not found any Slovaks there as yet. He surmised, however, that after his return from the "Old Country", where he meant to go for a visit, he might settle in Alaska.82 By 1885 large groups of Slovaks had settled in the fol- SLOVAKIA 17 lowing states: Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois. 83 In the hard coal area in northeastern Pennsylvania a sub-employment system was used in which an operator hired the men who dug and loaded the coal; the mine company paid the operator and he paid off his hired men. The Slovaks, inexperienced in mine work and unskilled in language, worked merely as the hired men; this left them exposed to the wiles of unscrupulous operators who kept some of the pay from them. 84 In 1856 the Pennsylvania Railroad had reached Pittsburgh from Philadelphia; the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad in 1871 built tracks to Pittsburgh, thus giving Pittsburgh an outlet to Baltimore. The demand for laborers in the mine fields of Westmoreland and Fayette Counties in Pennsylvania was answered by many Slovak men from the hard coal area and "the old country." But who the first Slovak was to enter the Pittsburgh area we do not know. When the agents of the Frick Company from the coke and coal region of southwestern Pennsylvania hired new immigrants · at Castle Garden, but for trivial exceptions the hired men were Slovaks. The company transported them by rail to Alverton, lying between Scottdale and Mt. Pleasant, Pa. Thence they walked to Morewood, Pa., where a company house awaited them. It is impossible to tell how many Slovaks there were in the coke region. We do know that in Morewood by 1893 there were four hundred men engaged in work, and how many Slovaks there were in this group we do not know. As early as 1880 John and Sophia Hvizdo~ had eighteen Slovak boarders in their house. 85 Until 1900 Slovaks worked mostly in the coal mines and at the coke ovens of Frick and Company. This firm had been organized in 1871 as Frick and Company, with about 300 acres of coal area and 50 coke ovens around Connellsville, Pa. By 1889 it had about 35,000 acres and 15,000 coke ovens. The lowest paid worker in 1890 was the "yard worker" who earned $1.40 for a ten hour day; the best wages were paid the "road man" who received $2.10 for nine hours of work. 86 At first the Slovaks worked beside the Czechs in the coal mines, while the Poles worked at the coke ovens; but gradually, the Slovaks too began to work their way up to jobs at the ovens. 18 SLOVAKIA Most Slovaks were satisfied with their wages, which varied from $16.00 to $25.00 every two weeks. Strange as it may seem, it was possible to live and also to lay something by from these wages. A pound of beef soup meat cost three cents; for six dollars a man could dress himself rather well; rent cost three or four dollars a month for a small four room house. Nevertheless, not all miners were satisfied; demands were made for more pay and less work. When the mine operators refused, there were strikes, often riotous and bloody. 87 The Slovaks were also employed in the Egdar Thompson Iron Works of Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie with Frick employed the greatest number of Slovaks; others, like Rainey, Oliver, and Jones and Laughlin also engaged considerable numbers of Slovaks, but the number cannot be exactly stated. However, until 1900 most of the Slovaks worked in the mines and at the coke ovens.88 When the Slovaks got jobs in the mines, they lived in "company houses ",which were built practically at the site of the mine. This was a settlement of large houses built by the company and rented to the worker, who had also to pay for water, gas and coal. 89 To buy his food and other necessities the miner had to patronize the company store. This made the dependence of the worker on the comp:.my complete; the threat of expulsion during a strike was a powerful weapon in keeping the miners submissive. 90 The company r ented a house to a married couple on condition that they take in "boarders," the usual number being ten, but in the larger houses the number varied upward to thirty or forty. 91 The cleanliness d 2p::!nded on the character, ability, or sheer physical strength of the housewife. Within the household food arrangements provided that except for meat, flour, and coffee, the food was purchased in common. One meal a day wa:; eaten together, on Sunday at noon and during the week in the evening. For the other meals the gazdina or housewife cooked individually for the men whatever they bought. Beer by the barrel was also bought in common; sometimes this ran to a hundred barrels per month. At the end of the month the common bill was divided: the housewife did not pay; the men including the husband, paid equally, and two children were counted as one adult. 92 Moreover, on pay day several barrels of beer would be bought as well as whiskey, SLOVAKIA 19 and much meat was prepared for a gay evening. At first, dancing was the chief recreation. One man pulled out an accordion, and the dancing began, even men dancing with men because of the shortage of women partners; frequently this mixure of drink, food, and music led to drunken brawls sometimes over the excellence of their home towns in Slovakia, often enough over women. Dancing was not limited to pay day; any celebration of even slight importance had to be combined with dancing and shouting of the most vigorous sort. The Cardas was a universal favorite. Family life was injured by many men coming to America without their wives and families and by the dearth of marriageable Slovak girls. To find a wife many young men on week ends went to Passaic, New Jersey, where many Slovak girls worked in the textile mills, and the men watched the girls as they came from work and made their choice. On Sundays in Passaic there often were ten to twenty weddings. Difficult as family life was, the "boarding house," allowing for so little privacy, did not help very much; sometimes it led to the wife's running off with a boarder. 93 Organizational life among the Slovaks began in the lodges and societies so common in America after the Civil War. By 1914 in the United States principal organizations had 15,600,000 members. Economic and social need led the Slovaks to form lodges. Mine disasters often took the lives of husbands and fathers, leaving the family not only destitute, but even without the money for a funeral. In answer to the need of sickness and funeral benefits a large number of societies grew up in industrial and .mining towns. The first of these was the Persi Uhorszko-Slovenszky v nemoczi podporujuci Szpolek, established in New York, on March 3, 1883. In this society, which lasted for eight years, Slovak was made the official language. Fraternal and mutual benefit iocieties mushroomed in the Slovak settlements. The Spolok Sv. Stefana in Passaic, N. J. was organized 1884 and already in 1887 was calling for a unification with other Slovak fraternal organizations. Under the influence of a Polish organization whose constituti-on it used, the Cirkevny a v ntmoci pl!>dporujuci spolok arose in Hazleton, Pa., in 1884. The Slovaks in Houtzdale, Pa., organized the Bratstvo Najsvatejsieho Srdca Pana Jezisa, on November 14, 1886; on December 12, 1884 the Spolok Sv. Stefana in Plymouth, Pa., came 20 SLOVAKIA into existence. A touch of humor accompanied the difficulties of the lodge in Bayonne City, N. J., where the Spolok Princa Rudolfa, set up in 1887, had to change its name after the tragic death of Archduke Rudolph of Hapsburg at Mayerling, because the other Slovaks ridiculed the members for having lost their patron. Bayonne City, N. J., had one of the largest mutual benefit societies, the Prvy bednarsky vypomocny spolok, an organization of Coopers engaged in making barrels, staves, chests, boxes; it was organized in 1888 and acted also as a bargaining agent for the membership with their employees. They were the first to have their own flag, whereas the other groups used the Hungarian flag. The Spolok Sv. Cyrila a Methoda in Minneapolis, Minn., and the Slovensky Spolok Sv. Petra i Pavla of McKeesport, Pa., both came into existence in 1888; the Slovensky v nemoci podporujuci spolok in Braddock, Pa., arose in 1889. The chief purpose of these societies was help in need, especially providing an elaborate funeral. In these funerals all the local lodges took part with flags, uniforms, and mourning bands. The secondary purpose was to aid in the organization of parishes, the building of churches and schools and lodge halls. 94 In spite of the success of these lodges, financial problems arose from the system of assessment which they used. The system required a contribution of about fourteen cents a month to meet administrative costs; on the death or sickness of a member the others had to contribute as much as would be needed for the stipulated sum. A considerable number of deaths or cases of sickness within a month or a short time made the financial burden too great for the small lodges. 95 The first appeal for unification came from the Society of St. Stephen in Passaic, N. J., as early as 1887. Julius Schwartz-Markovic in Nova Vlast' (a periodical that lasted only from March to December, 1888) made appeals for consolidation; Peter Rovnianek repeated this appeal in the October issue, as did B. Lajciak in the December issue. The Rev. Joseph Kossalko, a Roman Catholic priest of proMagyar conviction, seeing the nationalist tendency of these lodges in their use of Slovak as the official language and their gradual abandonment of the Hungarian flag, opposed this movement in a new periodical, the Zastava. The consolidation did not come until the 1890's. 96 When the Slovak immigrants, of whom the bulk was SLOVAKIA 21 Catholic, first came to the United States, they were financially unable to build churches for their own use. Before the Slovak Catholics had their own churches, they attended Polish, German, Czech, or Irish churches; if they happened to be regular attendants at a church where their languago was not understood, they often went a considerable distance to receive the sacraments, especially that of Penance, from someone who understood their language. In the southwestern Pennsylvania mining area the Slovaks were fortunate to have in their midst St. Vincent's Archabbey, a Benedictine institution, which took special care to provide priests who could understand the Slovak language. Priests from this archabbey went from settlement to settlement taking care of the spiritual needs of the Slovaks. The first to do "mission" work among the Slovaks was Rev. Nepomuk Yaeger, O.S.B., who for three years in southwestern Pennsylvania visited the mining camps, where often enough he had to offer the· Mass to the accompaniment of card-playing, drunken singing, swearing and quarreling. 97 First to organize on a religious basis were the Slovak Lutherans. The first Lutheran parish was established in Streator, Illinois, where the church was ready for services on October 5, 1884. Karol Horak, ordained in 1883, was the first minister, but he gave up ministerial work and became a real estate agent. While the parish was withouth a minister's services, the Slovak Lutherans met in the home of Mr. G. Kozlej, who read the Bible to them. A minister, Cyril Droppa, reached Streator on March 26, 1884 and stayed there until 1887; eventually his spiritual labors took him to Russia. This first Lutheran parish had 49 members; the pastor's salary was fixed at forty dollars a month. The name of the parish was the Parish of the Blessed Trinity. Lutheran parishes were organized in Freeland, Pa., and Nanticoke, Pa., in 1886, and Minneapolis, Minn., in 1888. 98 Almost simultaneously with the Lutherans, the Slovak Catholics organized themselves into parishes. However, before this could go on apace, priests able to speak Slovak were needed. Even among the first priests, 99 the division into Slo·vak nationalists and Madarones disturbed their relations with one another and their work among Slovaks, Protestant as _well as Catholics. In 1882 the Rev. Ignatius Jaskovic, who came to Hazle- 22 SLOVAKIA ton, Pa., was the first active Slovak Catholic priest in the United States. He built St. Joseph's church in Hazleton, where the first Mass was said on December 6, 1885. He stayed in Hazleton until 1890. The Rev. J. Kossalko, arriving in 1884, had his first parish in Streator, Ill.; he said the first Mass in the new church of St. Stephen on December 10, 1885, just four days after the first mass had been said in Hazleton, Pa. The Rev. Samuel Bella, also a Catholic priest, became the pastor of Nanticoke, Pa., and later of Bayonne City, N. J. These three priests were all Madarones, that is, Slovaks with pro-Magyar convictions, and firmly opposed to any Slovak nationalism. 100 This Madarone element introduced the first division of the Slovak group into the factions that played a part among the pre-World War Slovaks of America. In 1887 in Scranton, Pa., the Slovak Calvinists first organized as a religious group. The Slovak Calvinists of Jessup, Pa., had a chapel there since 1888, but the building of churches had to wait until the 189O's. To conduct services in their parishes the Calvinists hired Magyar and English ministers; the Slovaks and Magyars fought about the language to be used in the divine service, Slovak or Magyar. There was no general solution for these churches, but the language varied from church to church. 101 At first some Slovaks objected to building schools on the score of uselessness; these untutored peasants had to be taught that schools were important. Some Slovak immigrants had come to make money and were in America only temporarily. Schools meant permanence. Why should they contribute to the education of other people's chidren? However a beginning was made. St. Stephen's parish, Streator, Ill., built the first Slovak Catholic parochial school in 1889, a wooden structure, costing $4,500, a considerable sum for those days. From the very beginning the schools were not strictly Slovak, for there were not enough Slovak teachers; this led to many subjects being taught by "English" teachers and "Irish" nuns. Slovak nationalists were satisfied by having the pastor teach the children on Saturday afternoons, when they studied the Slovak language, Slovak history, and Slovak geography.102 The 11cattered Slovak settlements were brought in touch with one another by newspapers written in the Slovak language. John Slovensky, a trained teacher from Slovakia, had SLOVAKIA 23 come to the United States in 1879, and had obtained a clerical job in the Austro-Hungarian consulate. This put him in contact with the Slovak immigrants, who came to the consulate often seeking information about conditions in the Monarchy, as for instance, was the Monarchy at war with the Turk? This suggested to Slovensky the idea of a Slovak periodical. In 1885 he launched a lithographed paper called Rulletin, which contained news from Europe and items about Slovak immigrants. Especially the tavern keepers subscribed to it for their taverns where Slovaks met to read it. Success prompted John Slovensky to embark on · a larger enterprise, the publication of Amerikanszko-Slovenszke Noviny. J. Schwartz-Markovic and the Rev. Erwin Gelhoff, a Catholic priest, published the Nova Vlast' in Streator, Illinois, in March 1888; this venture lasted only until December of that very year. The year 1889 saw the birth of two other newspapers, the Slovak v Amerike and Rev. J. Kossalko's Madarone newspaper, Zastava. 103 These newspapers became the sounding boards of popular opinion as well as a unifying force among the Slovaks. Discussion in the newspapers led to the consolidation of local lodges during the 1890's. With the beginning of the 1890's the Slovaks began to unify the many individual lodges into a federation for greater economic security. However, from the very start factions divided the Slovaks. The leaders of the Slovak immigrants disagreed on whether the principle of organization should be religious or nationalist. The Rev. Stephen Furdek, a Catholic priest, believed that the new national organization should be based upon religious uniformity within the organization; the Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists should each have their own organization. Peter Rovnianek, a Slovak nationalist, wanted nationality to be the principle of organization. Any Slovak, no matter what his religious convictions or lack of them, could be a member. 104 Because of this difference of principle, two separate, and in many ways rival, organizations arose. On February 16, 1890, Peter V. Rovnianek led in founding the National Slovak Society in Pittsburgh, Pa. All Slovaks, Catholics, Protestants, Freemasons, Freethinkers or indifferentists, were welcome. Openly nationalist, the National Slovak Society played down religious differences, emphas- 24 SLOVAKIA izing all Slovaks were one. The frank nationalism and liberalism antagonized the Madarone Slovaks and some Catholici. The Rev. J. Kossalko, the most outstanding Madarone, refused absolution to Catholic members of the National Slovak Society. 105 Others besides the Madarone element opposed the liberal National Slovak Society. The Rev. Stephen Furdek established a Catholic fraternal organization, the First Catholic Slovak Union, September 4, 1890. The objectives of this First Catholic Slovak Union were to preserve the Catholic Faith, to support fellow-members, widows, and orphans in need, to preserve and extend the use of the Slovak language and Slovak nationality. Conditions of membership were recognition of the bishop of Rome as head of the Catholic Church, faithful performance of religious duties, attendance of one's children at a Catholic school, support of parish and parochial school, no ridicule of religious ceremonies, and no writing against the Church and the clergy. 106 Slovak women felt that they, too, should have their own organizations independent of male control. They established the Zivena Beneficial Society in the year 1891. In 1892 the Slovak Catholic women organized a similar society, the First Catholic Slovak Ladies' Union. 107 The Slovak Lutherans organized their own beneficial society in 1893, the Slovak Evangelical Union; and soon afterwards the Slovak Calvinists formed the Slovak Calvinist Union. 108 For reasons that are not evident, almost all these groups felt the strain of internal strife. A split in the First Catholic Slovak Union provided members for a new organization, the Pennsylvania Roman and Greek Catholic Union in 1893. This society intended to encourage religion, temperance, and morality, to train its members in obedience and respect for civil law and in performance of civil duties, to collect funds to pay burial benefits.109 In Chicago the local lodge of the National Slovak Society left the national organization and formed the Slovak National Society. 110 Later a similar break occurred in the Slovak Evangelical Union. In 1890 P. V. Rovnianek and his associates published the First Slovak National Almanac. Almanacs were already a Slovak European tradition. The National Slovak Society first issued its own almanac in 1893; and the First Catholic SLOVAKIA 25 Slovak Union began its series with the Kalendar Jednota in 1896. These almanacs provided the literary reading that most Slovaks did: short stories, political essays on conditions in the United States, reviews of the year's important events, religious essays, articles on the Indians and Negroes, moral essays on how to spend Sundays, counseling articles on marriage, and almost any subject useful to the Slovak readers. In these almanacs the best Slovak writers reached their limited Slovak American public; eventually the almanacs became so popular that ,twenty-nine were published. 111 Newspapers received the strongest impetus from the national societies. The Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny were the mouthpiece of the National Slovak Society; the First Catholic Slovak Union published an official organ, the Jednota. These were real newspapers with world news, reports from the domestic scene in America, and organization news in their columns. One feature distinguished these papers from the trend turning American newspapers into large business enterprises; the Slovak immigrant papers remained very much the voice of the individual editors. However, many Slovaks had no desire to read a newspaper. The editors, who usually combined editing with other work to earn their living, on Saturday and Sunday toured Slovak settlements to get subscriptions for their periodicals. 112 Very soon after the organization of the two fraternal societies the Slovaks learned how effective and necessary cooperation on a national level can be. When the price of steel billets began to fall, the Edgar Thompson Works in Braddock, Pa., announced a wage cut. This led to a strike late in 1890. On the night of January 1, 1891, Michael Quinn, a guard at the mill was slain. Many Slovaks were arrested, among them persons who had been strolling about after a pleasant evening in a tavern. The police arrested about sixty persons and charged them with being involved in the crime. Most of them received light sentences, but on April 8, 1891, Andrew Toth, Michael Sabol, and George Rusnak received the death sentence for the murder of Michael Quinn. Only by heroic efforts did the Slovak leaders and organizations secure on February 7, 1892 a commutation of sentence to life imprisonment. 113 The efforts of Rev. F. Wider, president of the First Catholic Slovak Union, Peter V. Rovnianek of the National 26 SLOVAKIA Slovak Society, Rev. Stephen Furdek, and Julius Wolf, won the release of Michael Sabol, suffering from tuberculosis, in 1895; he died ten days after leaving prison. Peter V. Rovnianek, engaging a lawyer, Clarence Burleigh, secured the freedom of George Rusnak in 1897; George Rusnak, too, had tuberculosis. Andrew Toth left prison only twenty years later, a man sixty two years old. After the efforts of the Slovak League had failed, Edward Goehring, an attorney, succeeded in showing that the evidence which convicted Toth was contradictory. Toth was freed in 1911. The Pennsylvania legislature rejected a motion to give Toth $300.00 for every year he had spent unjustly in jail. However, the Carnegie Foundation fixed a grant of $40 a month on him. 114 During February, 1891, a strike against the firm of Henry Clay Frick, Frick and Company, bec:;_me general in the Connellsville, Pa., area of coke ovens and soft coal. By 1889 Frick had acquired 35,000 acres of coal area and 15,000 coke ovens and employed about 30,000 workers. Andrew Virostek, a worker in the Tip Top Mine and member of the United Mine Workers of America, threatened miners who loaded more coal than union regulations permitted. Then the company fired him. The union fought the mine operators over the dismissal, and by February a strike flared throughout the region. On April 2, 1892 when about five hundred miners attacked the Southwest Company shops in Morewood, Pa., three Slovaks, three Poles, and one Italian were shot to death. The state militia came in to restore order, and some men drifted to work. Frick hired Pinkerton detectives to expel the remaining strikers from the company homes. During the week of April 18, 1892 these detectives were to oust seven hundred families in Fayette county alone. When the agents began the evictions, a Slovak man and woman perished in the violence in Leisenring No. 3, two Slovak women were wounded at Adelaide, and at Trotter, sixteen men and thirteen women were shot. Then in the following month Frick began hiring Negroes and Italians to replace the Slovaks. 115 Julius Wolf and Peter V. Rovnianek figured secretly in the settlement of the strike. The Frick company paid them sums of money for persuading the miners to return to the pits. Unwisely, the two men discussed the deal in letters, SLOVAKIA 27 which their enemies subsequently published. Slovak immigrant writing has branded these letters as the "Four Letters of Betrayal. " 116 The Slovaks' preoccupation with wages, bad housing, and mine disasters seem to have led to a decline in religious fervor. Causes suggested to explain the decline varied: nonconfessional schools, public schools, neglect by religious authorities, too great preoccupation with earning a living. 117 Evidence exists to show that some Catholics fell away. A "Home Mission among the Slavic Immigrants" in 1885 supported a Congregational Church in Cleveland; it also provided a Presbyterian Church in New York. 118 The effectiveness of these efforts among the Slovaks, it is impossible to judge. In Mt. Pleasant, Pa., a Slovak preacher came to the "Church of God" and succeeded in bringing at least 7 SloYak Catholic families into it. 119 Higganum, Conn., had a Slovak colony of about 20 families; some Slovak Catholics went to church only to keep their benefits in the Jednota; others were entirely indifferent, so far gone that they married in the Lutheran church, even though a Catholic priest was always available. 120 The namecalling contest between P. V. Rovnianek and the Rev. Stephen Furdek, unedifying as it was, certainly spread anti-clericalism among the nationalist element. This apparent religious decline should not blind us to the extensive church building activities of the Slovak immigrants during the 1890's. Frequently the construction of a church or organization of a parish began in cooperation with another national group, Poles, Croatians, Irish, or Germans; sometimes many different nationalities cooperated, Lithuanians, Poles, Italians, and Irish. Often cooperation failed, because each group felt its rights were ignored. 121 Still, for instance, at least eight new Slovak parishes were opened in the Pittsburgh diocese; and in Cleveland from St. Ladislaus' parish St. Martin's was created in 1893. 122 A Slovak parish was organized in Kangley, Ill., as a mission of the Streator congregation, in 1892. 123 The Slovak Catholics of Chicago finally got their own parish in 1898, the Roman Catholic Church of St. Michael the Archangel. 214 Expansion was the keynote. Just after the decade ended, in 1903, there were 78 Roman Catholic Slovak churches. 125 However, the Slovaks failed to build parochial schools; this had to wait for the next decade. 28 SLOVAKIA The Slovak Lutherans of Chicago organized the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Blessed Trinity in 1893; in 1894 the Rev. L. Boor became the pastor and in that very year began teaching the children of the parish the Slovak language. 126 Hand in hand with progress in organization appeared the elements of culture. Such efforts as the organization of the First Catholic Slovak Band in Johnstown, Pa., in 1892, were only straws in the wind. The Rev. S. Furdek in 1893 led in a move to establish a cultural organization to be called the Matica Slovenska in memory of the Slovak cultural institution disbanded by the Magyars in 1875. It held a convention in Chicago, September 26, 1893, and was incorporated in Columbus, Ohio, October 26, 1893. The Matica was to be a central organization to improve the cultural life of the Slovaks in Europe and America. On February 18, 1894 Peter V. Rovnianek, not to be behind hand, organized a Majak, literarne kola, that is, the Beacon Literary Circle, partly in opposition to the Matica, although he fervently disavowed any such a purpose. The Majak's objectives were encouragement of Slovak literature and culture, establishment of a Slovak cultural press, and nationalist agitation. The Literary Circle began publishing the first Slovak literary "journal, a forty page periodical, Majak, literary, political, and nationalist. It survived only six months. Both these organizations failed, partly through division of effort, partly through lack of interest among the Slovaks. 127 During this decade another society arose in Chicago, the First Slovak Sokol. The Sokol groups were gymnastic societies with a planned program of calisthenics, track events, and eventually all sports. Just when the first Sokol group was organized is doubtful; one source says that the First Slovak Sokol was organized in Chicago in 1892128 ; another gives the date as 1895. 129 Whatever be the case, the Sokol developed into a federation national in scope. The Slovak Catholic priests, divided though they were on the question of Slovak nationalism, united in an organization known as the Society of Roman Catholic Slovak Priests in 1896. Peter V. Rovnianek originated another club in the same year, the first Slavonic Political Club with 100 members, and its influence was soon felt in politics. 130 Both of these organizations were successful, in contrast to the cul- SLOVAKIA 29 tural societies; it seems that the early Slovak immigrants were not sufficiently interested to support purely cultural groups. The cultural society and literary circle failed because labor conflicts occupied the Slovaks' attention. The Connellsville mine region was again the scene of a strike and violence that began in April, 1894. On April 4 a Slovak was slain; two days later Joseph Paddock, chief engineer of Frick's company in Davison, Pa., was killed. Blame for this crime fell on the Poles and Slovaks and over a hundred were thrown into the Uniontown jail. The court sentenced John Husar to twelve years and Michael Furin to three years in prison. Violence continued: one Slovak was killed on the main street of Connellsville and two others in the rioting at Stickle Hollow around the Washington Coal and Coke shops. At the beginning of August most of the Strikers had returned to work, but about 5,000 Slovaks remained on strike. These gradually drifted back to work or abandoned the Connellsville mines. The Rev. Orbach, a Lutheran minister, founded a Slovak colony in Wisconsin; on September 4 about 300 Slovaks set out for Wisconsin. Another farm settlement originated from the Connellsville strike. Industrial life was, after all, strange to the Slovak; he had either been a small farmer, peasant, or agricultural worker in Slovakia. His interest in acquiring a farm remained; but he did not become a farmer immediately after he landed simply because he did not have the money to invest in such a project. 131 Besides, the city gave him the companionship he would not find on the farm. Still the desire grew to place as many Slovaks as possible on the land. In the summer of 1894 Peter V. Rovnianek, Francis Pucher, Julius Tatraj, Rev. btephen Furdek, Rev. Vaclav Panu~ka, and Rev. Alexander Dzubaj examined land in Arkansas near Grand Prairie; they intended to settle Slovaks on some 40,000 acres of land. Peter Rovnianek and Francis Pucher received a charter for the Slovak Colonization Company of Pittsburgh on September 24, 1894, the land was bought, and sales began. After the prospective settlers had saved enough money, they bought forty or so acre farms from the Slovak Colonization Company. The cost of land was $2 to $3 an acre. 132 30 SLOVAKIA Slovak settlers established a farm community near Stuttgart, Arkansas, and named their community Slovaktown. The settlers had been born in the "old country" but came to Arkansas chiefly from the coalfields of Pennsylvania and Illinois. The chief produce included corn, oats, hay, fruits, vegetables, and dairy products. The children attended the public schools. The settlers were mostly Catholics, but there were a few Lutherans. 133 The new farmers in Slovaktown were more than satisfied with their new lives; their letters continually encouraged their fellow Slovaks to flee from the factories and the mines; but only in the 1900's did anything like a movement to the farm begin. To publicize the project and success of Slovaktown the Slovak Colonization Company began publishing a periodical, Slovaktownske Hlasy, in Pittsburgh in 1896; but it lasted only six months. 134 It might indeed have been well for the Slovaks to leave the mines and go to the farms, for violence once again found them; this time it was in the anthracite region of northeastern Pennsylvania. One day in September, 1897 a group of strikers set out for Latimer. Sheriff Martin informed of the move, summoned his deputies and attempted to halt the men. Sharp words were exchanged, and Sheriff Martin ordered his deputies to fire upon the unarmed men. Twenty-one fell before the murderous gunfire and died; many others were wounded. Most of the victims were Slovaks. In spite of the unprovoked nature of the attack, the courts declared Sheriff Martin innocent, for he had ordered the shooting while performing his duty. The outcry against this verdict was most violent in the Slav press, but nothing further could be done. 135 Despite the internal dissensions among themselves and difficulties in the mines, a new interest appeared among the Slovaks during this decade; the most public manifestation of their nationalism came in 1899. Strange as it may seem, most Slovaks were not violent nationalists when they came to this country; the growth of nationalism was gradual and almost imperceptible. Slovak became the official language for the lodges; the societies abandoned the Hungarian flag. P. V. Rovnianek, joining the staff of the Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny in 1889, infused 31 SLOVAKIA a nationalist spirit into that paper; his National Slovak Society was nationalist in principle. Rev. S. Furdek, whose nationalism was of a very moderate kind, wanted American Slovaks to Americanize themselves; but he also felt it their duty to help the oppressed Slovaks overseas. 136 Under the force of this nationalism the Slovak immigrants gradually became more interested in the fate of Slovakia. In 1899 Father Furdek sent a lengthy memorandum to the Hungarian government, discussing the "Slovak question", but to no avail, except the publicity which such a memorandum aroused. It effected nothing practical; but it was the shadow of coming events; for the "Slovak question", was in the next decades to assume first place among the Slovaks. As the nineties passed, the Slovaks had made solid progress. Their economic and social life had improved through the national fraternal societies, which by 1899 had become important factors in Slovak life. Their membership stood as follows: THE FRATERNAL SOCIETIES Society Number of Members First Catholic Slovak Union __ _________ _ National Slovak Society _________ ___ ___ __ Pennsylvania Slovak Union ______ ___ ____ _ Evangelical Slovak Union ____ __ _______ _ First Catholic Slovak Ladies' Union _____ _ iivena --------- --- -------------- -- ---Source: "Slovenske (1899), IV, 38. pomery v Amerike", KALENDAR 11,000 9,450 1,727 909 1,600 1,000 JEDNOTA The religious life of the Slovaks had a chance to develop now that churches had been built. For the Roman Catholics there were now in America 33 priests, and for the Greek Catholics 32; and more were needed. 137 However, not all the picture was bright. Indeed, these were the things the Slovaks needed; but it was only after 1900 that the advance in education, the business world, political life, became pronounced. FOOTNOTES 1. Emily Green Balch, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens (New York, 1910), p. 86, pp. 88-89, p. 93. 32 SLOVAKIA 2. •F ranti§ek Hru§ovsky, Slovenske Dejiny (Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1939), p. 14. 3. Ibid., pp. 95-97. 4. I bid., p . 216. 5. Ibid., pp. 342-S43. 6. Joseph S,k ultety, Sketches from Slovak History (Middl etown, 1'930), pp. 106-109. 7. I bid., pp. 109-110. 8. Frantisek •Hrusovsky, This Is Slovakia (Scranton, 1953) , p . 40. 9. Ibid., pp. 40-41. 10. Peter P. Yurchak, The Slovaks: Their History and Traditions (Scranton, 1947), p. 28 . 11. Thomas Capek, The Slovaks of Hungary (New York, 1906), p . 108; 1Hrusovsky, This Is Slovakia, pp. 44-46. 12. Frantisek :J3okes, Dejiny Slovenska i Slovakov (;Bratislava, 1946), p . 158. 13. Robert A. ,Ka,nn, The Multinational Empire: Nationalism and National 'Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy 1848-1914 (New York, 1950), I. 278. 14. Frantisek iHrusovsk y, This Is Slovakia, pp. ,47-48. 15. Oscar Jaszi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy (Chicago, 1929), p. 107. 16. Ibid., p. 108. 17. Ibid., p. 59 . 18 . R. W. Seton-Watson, ed. , Slovakia Then and Now (London, 1931), pp. 244-245. 19. Street, Hungary and Democracy, p. ·65 . 20. Seton-Watson, Slovakia, p. 245. 21. Street, Hungary and Democracy, p . 64 . 22. Bokes, Deji ny Slovenska, p. 158. 23. C. J . Stree t, Slovakia: Past and Present (Westmins,ter, n.d .), p. 24. 24 . •Capek, Slovaks of Hungary, p. 96; Hrusovsky, Dejiny, p. 323. 25. ,Capek , Slovaks of Hungary, p. 166. 26 . Jirusovsky, Dejiny, p. 252. 27. Ibid., p. 325. 28. Ib i d., p. 319. 29. I bid., p. 319. 30. Seton-Watson, Slovakia, p. 117. 31. Seton•Watson, Slovakia, pp. 117-118. -3•2. I bid., p. 119. 33. I bid., p. 118. 34. Hrus ovsky, Dejiny, pp. 320-321; Bokes, Dejiny Slovenska, pp. 272-273 . 35. Seton-Watson, Slovakia, p. 176. 36 . Hrusovsky, Dejiny, p. -329 . 37. Bokes, Dejiny Slovenska, p. 276. 38 . Capek, Slovaks of Hungary, p. 150. 39. Jaszi, The Dissolution, p. 222. 40 . Ibid., p . 223 . 41. Street, •Slovakia: Past and Present, p. 56. 42. Harrison 'Thompson, Czechoslovakia in Europe (Princeton, 194-1) , p. 294. 43. Jaszi, The Dissolution, pp . 196-199. H. Ibid., p. 238. 45. Ibid., p. 231. SLOVAKIA 33 46. F. J . Hask in s, The Immigrant: An Asset and a Liab ility (New York , 1913) , p . 35. 47. Capek, Slovaks of Hungary, p . 162. 48. I b id., p. 156. 49. Seton-Watso n , Slovakia, p. 275. 50. Ibid., p. 276. 51. Capek , Slovaks of Hungary, p. 152. 52. Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny, A u g u st 19, 1897. 53. Geor ge Stephen son , A H istory of American Immigrat ion 18201924 (New Yor k , 1926), P. 61; Carl W ittk e, We Who Built Amer ica (New York , 1939) , p. 405. 54. J eremiah J enk s a nd W. Jebt Lau ck , The Imm igration Problem: A Study of American Immigration Conditions and Needs (New York, 1922), pp. 21-22. 55 . Konstantin Culen, Dejiny Slovakov v Amerike (B r atislava, 1942), I , 38; Caspar Molch an, "Th e Developmen t of the S lovak Community in Pittsburgh 1880-1920", (Unpublished Master of Arts dissertation, U n iversity of Notr e Dame, 1948), p. 23. 56. Cul en, Deji ny, I, 38; Stephenson , History of Ame ri can I mm igrat ion , p. 89. 57. Balch , Slav ic Fellow Citizens, p . 102. 58. I bid., p. 25. 69. I b id., p. 437. 60. I bid., p. 101. 61. Culen, Dejiny, I, 60-61. 62. Ibid., I, 67. 63. Ibid., I, 67-68. ~4. Ibid., I, 60. 65. Na rodn e Noviny, Ap ril 9, 1914. 66. Cule n , Dejiny, I, 24-25. -67. Ibid., I , 26; Molchan, "Development of the S lovak Community" , p. 8. 6'8. Konsta'!lltfn Cu len, Slovenska Liga v Amerike styridsaf rocn a (Scr anton , 1947). p. 4. 69. Cul e n , Dej i ny , I, 28. 70. Ib id., I , 28-29. 71. Molchan, "Development of the Slovak Comr;mnity", p. 25. 72 . Capek, Slovaks of Hunga r y , p. 156. 73. Balch, Sl a vic Fe ! low C itizens, p. 100. 74. Ibid , p. 100. 75 . William P. Dillingham, Reports of the Immigration Commision, Vol. I: Abs t racts of Reports of Immigration Commision (Washington, D . C., 1911), I, 97. 76. I b id., I, 215. 77. Ibid., I, 277. 78. J. A. F., "Nacrtok Dejin Slov. prist'ahovalectva v Amerike", Sborn ik Narodn e ho Slovenske ho Spolku (1915), I, 12. 79. Culen, Deji ny , I, 96. 80. Ib id ., I. 96; Jos e ph Kushn e r, Sl ov a c i ka tol ici pi t t sbu-rghsk e ho b is kupstv a (Passaic, 19 -16), pp. 16-17 ._ 81. J ednota , March 19, 1913. 82. Na rodn e Noviny, May 26, 1910. 83. Culen, Dejiny, I, 99. 84. Kushner, S lov a ci, p. 6. 85. Ibid., p. 12, p. 16. 34 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. l09. ll0. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. SLOVAKIA Ibid., p. 7. I bid., p. 7. Ibid., p. 7. Narodne Noviny, March 12, 19·1.!; April 27, 1911. Narodne Novlny, March 12, 1914. Culen, Dejiny, I, 82-83. Ibid., I, ·82-831; J. A. F., 'INe.crtok Dejin", Sbornik, (1915), I, 11. Culen, Dejiny, I , 82-83; "Jedno-druhe", Narodny Kalendar, (1908), XVIII, 154. Culen, DeJiny, I, 195-199. "Prorocke slova dp. Matusa Jankolu o novom systeme", Sbornik Slovenskeho Katolickeho Sokola na rok 1942, XXIX, 81. Culen, Dejiny, I, 200. Kushner, Slov;ici, pp. 13-14; Jednota, July 15, 1914. Culen, Dejiny, I, 111-114. Culen, Dejiny, I, 108. I bid., I, 111. Ibid., I, 114-115. Ibid., 1, 115; Kon§tantin Culen, Slovaci v Amerike (Tur~lansk:r Sv. Martin, 11138), pp. 384-385. Culen, DeJlny, I, 213-214. Culen, Dejiny, I, 202. Ibid., I, 208-209. Ibid., I, 207-208. Souvenir Program: 19th Regular Convention, The National Slovak Society, (Young~town, 1946), p. i>4; P. V. Rovnianek, "Slovenslce organ!zacie v Amerike", World's Fair -Memorial of the Czechoslovak Group (,Chicago, 1933), p . 67 . IP. V. Rovnlanek, op. cit., pp . 67-68. Pennsylvanska Slovenaka Jednota (Wilkes-Barre), June 24, 1943. Jaroslav ·Pelikan, "Cesi a .Slovacl v Chicagu ", World's Fair Memorial of the Czechoslovak Group (Oh!cago,1933), p. 9•. Culen, Slovaci v Amerike, p. 162. Culen, Dejiny, I, 214-215. Kushner, Slovaci, p . 10; Molchan, ''Development or the Slovak Community", p . 48. Kushner, Slovacl, pp. 10-11. Ibid., p. 8. Culen, Dejlny, I, 138-139. :Fr. Sasinek, "Mysllenky o stave nabozenstva medzi Slovakm!", Kalendar Jednota, (1,8 97), II, 139-140. Narodne Novlny, August 11, 1910. !Kushner, Slov;icl, p. 21. Jednota, March 4, 1914. Kushner, Slovacl, p . 22; Michael J . Hynes, History of the Dioceae of Cleveland (Cleveland, 1953), p. 1'53. Hynes, Diocese of Cleveland, p . 255. Kushner, Slovaci, p . 41. Kushner, Slovacl, p . 41. Kalendar J.ednota, (1903), VIII, 210-211. Jaromir Psenka a Jan Pelikan, "<'.:es! a Slovac! v Chicagu", World's Fair Memorial, p . 95 . <'.:ulen, DeJiny, I, 222-227. Pellkan a Paenka, "Cesl a Slovacl v Chicagu", World's Fair Memor ial", p. 94. 35 SLOVAKIA 1211. Joseph Cermak, "·Physical Education among the Czechs and SloTaks", World'• Fair Memorial, p. 44 . 130. Molchan, "Development o! the Slovak Community", p. 67. 131. 1Narodne Noviny, July 17, 1113. 132. Narodne Noviny, May 5, 1910. 133. Kushner, Slovaoi, p. 9; Balch, Slavic Fellow Citizens, pp. 337-33·8. 134. Culen, Slovaci v Amerike, p . 115. 185. Culen, Dejlny, I, 162-18'3; Amerlkansk0-Slovenske Novlny, Feb· ruary 5, 1898. 136. Kalendar Jednota, (1899), IV, 37-41. 137. "Slovenske pomery v Amerike", Kalendar Jednota (1899), IV, 39-40. BIBLIOGRAPHY PRIMARY SOURCES - PUBLIC DOCUMENTS U. S. Bureau o! Census Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, Population Statistics, Vol. I. Washington : Government Printing omce, 1913. U. S. Congress. Senate Documents. 61 Cong., 3 Session. Washington: Government Printing O!f!ce, 1911. Vols. XI and XX. NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS Jednota (Middletown., Pa.), Vols. XXI-XXII (19113cl9H). Kalendar Jednota. Middletown: The First Cathol!c Slovak Union. Vols. I-XXI (1896-1915). Kalendar Narodneho Slovenekeho Spolku. Plit.ts·burgh: National Slovak Society. Vols. XX-XXIV (1912-1!116). Narodne Noviny (Pittsburgh, Pa.), Vols. I·V (1910-1914). SECONDARY SOURCES - BOOKS Abbot, Edith. Historical Aspects of the Immigration Problem. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1924. Balch, Emily Green. Our Slavic Fellow Citi.aiens. New York: Charities Publication Company, 11110. Bokes, Frantisek. Dejiny Slovenska t Slovakov. Bratislava: SloTenska Akademia Vied a Umeaii, 1946. Capek, Thomas. The Slovaks of Hrungary, Slavs and Panslavism. New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1,906. Culen, Konstantin. Dejiny Slovakov v Amerike. 2 vols. Bratislava: Matica Slovenskii., 19 42. Culen, Konstantin. Slovaci v Amerilc:e: Crty z kulturnych deJfn. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1938. Culen, Konstantin. Slovenska Liga v Amerike styridsat'rocna. Scranton : Obrana Press, Lnc., 19,47. Eaton, A. H . Immigrant Gifts to American Life. New York: Russell Sage Foundati,m, 1933. Fairchild, Henry 0. (ed .). Immigrant Backgrounds. New York: Wiley and Sons, lnc., 1927. • Yairchild, Henry 0. (ed.). Immigration: A World Movement and its American Significance. New York: The Mcmillan Company, 1926. i'aulkner, Harold U. The Quest for Social Justice, 189-8-1914. Vol. XI or Hi-story o! America12 Life. Edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger 36 SLOVAKIA and· Dixon Ryan Fox, 13 vols . Ne1v York : Macmillan Company, 1931. Handlin, Oscar. The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations that Made the American People. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1951. Hansen, Marcus Lee. The Atlantic Migration, 1607-1860. Cam bri dge: . The H arvard Un iversity Press, 1940. Hansen, Marcus Lee. The Immigrant in American History. Cambridge : The Harvard Univer sity Press, 1940. Hrusovsky, F rantisek . Slovenske Dejiny. Turcian sky Sv. Martin: Matica Slove'nska, 1939. Hrusovsky, Frantisek. This is Slovakia. Scranton: Obrana Press, Inc., 1953. Hynes, Michael J. History of the Diocese of Cleveland. Cleveland : Diocese of •Cleveland, 1953. Jaszi, O'scar. The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1929. Jenks, Jeremiah W. and Lauck, W . Jett. The Immigration Problem . New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 19 22 . Kann, Robert A. The Multinational Empire: Nationalism and National Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy 1848-1918. 2 vols. New York: The Columbia U niversity Press, 1950. Kushner, Jos eph. Slovaci katolfci pittsburghskeho b iskup:::tva. P as saic: The Slovak Catholic Sokol, ·1946. Nev ins, Allan. The Emergence of Modern America, 1865-1878. Vol. VIII of A History of American Life. Edited by Ar t hur M. Schlesinger and Dixon Ryan Fox, 13 vols. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1927. . Orth, Samuel P. Our Foreigners: A Chronicle of J).mericans in the Making . Vol. 35 of the .Chronicles of America. Edited by ;\llen Johnson, 56 vols. New Haven ·: Yale University Press, 1920. · Park, •Robert. The lmmigran_t Press an~ its Control. New York: Harper and Bro-thers, 1922. Pauco, J oseph. l.!.udovychova u Sturovcov: Obdobie Slovenskych Na rodnych Novin. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1943. Purcell, William J. (ed.). Catholic Pittsburgh 's One Hundred Years. Chicago: Loyola U n iversity Press, 1943. Seton-Watson , R . W. Racial Problems in Hungary. London: Constable, 1908. Seton-Watson, R. W. (ed.). Slovakia Then and Now. Prague: Orb is Publishing Company, 1931. Shaugnessy, . Gerald. Has t he l.mmigrant Kept the Faith ? New York:: The Macmillan Company, 1925 . · Sidor, Karol. Andrej H linka, 1864-1926. Bratislava: St. Andrew's. Press, 1934. Skultety, Joseph. Sketches from Slovak History. Middletown: The First Catholic Slova~ Union, 1930. Stephenson, George M. A History of American Immigration, 18201924. Boston: Ginn Publishing Company, 1926. Street, C. J.C. Slovakia: Past and Present. Westminster: P . S. Kingston and Son, Ltd., n. d . Tarbell, Ida. The Nationalizing of Business, 1878-1898. V ol. IX of A 'History of Ameri can Life. Edited by Arthur -M. Schlesinger and Dixo~ Ryan Fox, 13 vols. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1936. SLOVAKIA 37 Thompson, S. Harrison. Czechoslovakia in European History. Princeton: The Princeton U niversity Press, 19-44. Wittke, Carl. We Who Bui It America: The Saga of the Immigrant. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1940. Yurchak, Peter P. The Slovaks: Their History and Trad itions. Revised edition. Scranton: Obrana Press, Inc., 1947. ARTICLES F., J. A. "Nacrtok dejin s lov. prisfahovalectva v Amerike", Sbornik Narodneho Slovenskeho Spolku, I (1915), 20-39 . Jamar ik, Paul. "Zivot Americkych .Slovakov dakedy a teraz_" , Sbornik Na rodneho Slovenskeho Spolku, I (1915), 98-109. "Prorocke slova dp. Matusa Jankolu o novom systeme", Sborn ik Slovensk e ho Katolickeho Sokola na rok 1942, XXIX. Shipman, Andr ew J . "Slavs ~-n America", The Catholic Encyclopedia, XIV (1913). 51-57. Stephenson, George M. "Immigration", Dictionary of American History, III (1940), 73-75. "The Slovak Sokol", Sborn ik S lovenske ho Katolickeho Sokola na rok 1942, XXIX, 242-243. Timasheff, Nicholas. "Education", Slavonic Encyclopedia. Edited by Joseph .S. 1Roucek. New York: The Philosophical Library, Inc., 1949, pp. 261-269. Ware, Caroline. "Immigration", Encyclopedia of Soc ia l Sc iences, VII (1932), 587-595. World 's Fair Memorial of the Czechos lo va k Group. Chicago: Czechoslovak Group, 1933. Bradac, John S. "Slovenski Evanjelici-Luterani v Spojenych Statoch", pp. 81-83. Cermak, Joseph. "Physical Education among the Czechs and Slovaks in America", pp. 42-45. ·· Pelikan, J. and Psenka, R. Jaromir. "Cesi a Slovaci v Chicagu", pp. 89-97. Rovnianek, Peter V. "Slovenske organizacie v Amerike", pp. 66-68. UNPUBLISHED SOURCES Gregorovic, Sister M. Counsuela, SS.C.M . "Father Jankola's Con tribution t0 Catholic Education in America". Unpublis hed Master of Arts dissertation. History Department, Catholic University, 1943. Molchan, Caspar, C.S.C . "The Development of the Slovak Comqiunity in Pittsburgh, 1880-1920". Unp ub lished Master of Arts di sserta·,£ion. History Department, U niversity of Notre Dame, 1948. · Stefan, Sister M. Leocadia, SS.C .M. "The Reverend Stephen Furdek" . Unpublis-h ed Master of Arts dis se r tation. History Depar tment, Catholic University, _ 1952. Teplicky, Sister M. Berchmans, SS .C.M. "Educational Activities of the Sisters of SS. Cy,ril and Methodius". Unpublishe d Master of Arts diss ertation. Education Department, Marywood College, 1945.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Early Beginnings of the Slovaks in America Description An account of the resource James J. Zatko, Ph.D. Slovakia, Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965 pp. 1-37 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Zatko, James J. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/b1a85b1b41473f73a2afecfbab35cd9a.pdf 5690363428fb0764a76a83ea53c572bc PDF Text Text 68 SLOVAKIA FATHER ANDREW HLINKA - - An Unspent Martyr - A Slovak Soul on Slovak Soil - A Heart of Gold in a Humble Body A Leader of Men, Led by the Spirit of His People - Who is this man who after a quarter century is yet cherished in the memories of the young adult generation of Slovak descent ? Who is he, so loved by his contemporaries in Slovakia, whom he stiirred to zeal for the brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God in a nation of their own choice? Who is the man that suffered humiliatioo and degradation to free the Slovaks from political and economic enslavement? 'J.'lhese questions are answerable in the life and activirties of Father Andrew Hlinka, born a Slovak peasant in the village of Cernova on September 27, 1864, and died a Monsignor of the Catholic Church on August 16, 1938, at the age of 74, in Ruzomberok, seven months before the Declaration of Independence of Slovrukia and its proclama~ tion to -the world of ia Slovak Republic on March 14, 1939. Father Hlinka did not live to see or participate in a selfgoverning, free and independent Slovakia, recognized •b y 27 countries from Rome through Russia. Nor did Father Hlinka live to see or experience the invasion of Slovakia by Communist armies in May of 1945, or the execution of his beloved friend and successor, Monsignor Joseph Tiso, the first President of Slovakia. For over 50 years Father Hlinka fought for the rights of the Slovaks - as people of self-determination, of civic, cultural and economic ·pursuit in which they were suppressed, first, before World War I by the Magyar overlords of Hungary in the Monarchy of ·Austria-Hungary, and then until 1938 entrapped in a ~ohemian political machine maneuvered by Thomas Masaryk and Edwar:a Benes in the newly created state of Czecho-Slovakia, in which the hyphen was deliberately deleted and the Slovaks proclaimed to be "Czechs" by their new masters. Just as there a �SLOVAKIA 69 were Sloviaks who sold their birthrights to the Magyar overlords for political and economic privileges, so there were Slovaks who ran to the Czech ringmasters to be deJhyphenated and absorbed as "Czechoslovaks". But Father Hlinka was a true Slovak heart, soul and body, sufi'ering discouragement, humiliation, torment and imprisonment at the •h ands both of the Magyars and of the Czechs, and he epitomizes the Slovak in the history of the world. Karol Sidor concludes his biogra;phy of Father Hlinka with the following tribute: "There he stands as lhough less a mortal man than an enshrined symbol, as one not formed of earth's clay but woven of the noblest feelings and thoughts of man. Consequently, in Hlinka, each Slovak recognized himself and in every Slovak there was something of Hlinka , gilded with heroism, goodness, loyalty, courage, and the nobility of Hlinka's heart. Thus did Andrew Hlinka live, and thus will he remain as long as even one Slovak remains." At the age of twenty Hlinka was expelled from the seminary by the Hungarian authorities on charges of PanSlavism, of promoting the study of Slovak, both }anguage and literature, and of fostering loyalty to their ancestry among the Slovak seminarians. Later he was recalled and on June 19, 1889 1he was ordained a priest. In Cernova, the vmage of his birth, Hlinka helped and encouraged his people to erect a church, but he was not permitted to· participate in its consecration, for he was under suspension (unjustly) already a year and a half. The villagers, who had expected his reinstatement, held a demonstmtion in protest. Without warning the government ·gendarmes · fired into the crowd, killing fifteen persons and wounding several others. The incident is remembered as the Cernova Massacre of October 27, 1907. In March, 1909 the Vatican exonerated Hlinka, who was in prison at the time, and lifted the suspension. In June of the same year Father Hlinka was delegated to consecrate the church in Cernova. During one of his prison terms under the Hungarian regime, loather Hlinka translated the Old Testament of the Holy Bible into Slovak, and during another prison term he completed his "Apologia for Christianity" in Slovak. At the age of 55 he was arrested and imprisoned by �70 SLOVAKIA the "Czechoslovak" government for fighting the anti-clerica1ism of Czech rp oliticians, a drive to Czech-ize the Sfovaks and economioally force their submission. Rioting, demonstrations ,a nd the ele0tion ,b y the Slovaks of Hlinka to the "Czechoslova;k" Parliament necessitated 'his release from prison in 1920. It is true that as early as 1908 Fabher Hlinka looked to a union with the Moravians and Ozechs to strengthen the Slav position, with the understanding however, that the Slovaks would enjoy autonomy and cultural and political freedom. The Cleveland Agreement of 1915 and the Pittsburgh Pact of 1918 indicated that we in America agreed with what ouT brothers and ancestors in Slovakiia desired. However, once Masaryk and Benes were in power, Father Hlinka was chagrined to see that the Slovaks continued to be the victims of harsh discrimination in all phases of government, education and 'Public life. Diplomatic documents in the British archives attest to the errors of the Czech administration by corruption in public office, attempts to substitute Czech for the Slovak language, hostility of Czedh soldiers and officials to the Catholic Church, which included desecration and mutilation of crucifixes and holy images, intemerence in marriages and similiaT offenses against the principles of culture and decency. It was also officially reported by the British Minister, Cecil Gosling, who witnessed conditions in Slovakia in late 1919, that Slovakia was flooded with Czech officials and the Slovaks dismissed, or if employed, they received from ½ to ¾ ~ess pay than the Czechs. The Benes-Masaryk intrigue led to .flirtini with and fawning over Rrussiain Communism and its religious, social and economic fallacies. Father Hlinka's h eart and soul were tormented ,b y the God-less and inhuman policies emamating from Prague and found it necessary to organize his Slova,k people for their own well-being, and his "Hlin:ka's People's Party" became a ,p olitical success in 1925. Protesting the activities and genocidal efforts first af the Magyars and then of the Czechs Father Hlinka became the savior of his people. He adopted as his motto "For God rand n at i o n" and showed whi:wt love of God and fuith in humanity can accmnrplish. One u1nfamiliar with S 1 o v a k ,feeling1S and sentiments may ~ why a priest should have to be the leader of his nation and participate �SLOVAKIA 71 in civic affairs - even unto degradation and imprisonment? The answer is simply that a Catholic priest takes ian oath to God to minister to the people and cannot countenance injustice or inhumanity. As a human •b eing man is worthy of dignity, respect and ,p ossesses the right to live a life worbhy of his reward in heaven. For over a thousand years under ,t:Jhe Magyaris, the only educated group were the priests - bhey were the healers of the mi111d as well as of the soul. The priests were the leaders, the counselors of the people in civic as well as in religious matters. It is true that while the past two generations of laity in SloV'akia produced an educated intelligentsia, in the years prior to World War I. our Slovak ancestors were serfs, peasants, yes, slaves of the soil owned by their ancestors. On the occasion of the death of Fr. Hlinka the American journalist, Stephen J. Palickar, wrote as follows (Jednota, August 24, 1938) : "Father 1Hlinka has departed from our midst, but his spirit has not. And while God in His Divine Providence has removed him in the .flower of his activity, we, of the loyal Slovaks, whether in Europe or America, will continue to use the spirit of Hllnka as an instrument of battle untll such time when the Slovaks have regained that whlol;I rightfully !belongs to them, namely, their freedom in the Fatherland of Slovensko." There are great Slovak leaders among our Catholic priests today, particularly in the U.S.A. and Canada, thougih they ·p refer to •h ave laymen lead in social and civic affairs, as witness the great fraternal orgianizations and prominent elected public officials. But we are graiteful for the initiative and zeal that serve as a pattern for us. Father Stephen Furdek founded the Slovak League of America in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 26, 1907. It has the greatest representation of Slovaks in the world today, and interesting to say, it is non-denominational, though Christian. Some 17 years earlier, Father Furdek had organized the First Catholic Slovak Union and a sister Jednota two years later. The spirit of Fr. Hlinka permeated Fr. Furdek, and that spirit of a "slovensky duch" can be seen in such men of cloth as Bishops Andrew G. Grutka, of Gary, Indiana, Paul Hnilica (Jesutt) of Rome and Michael Rusnak (Redemptorist) of Canada, Rt. Rev. Theodore G. Kojis (Benedictine Abbot), Cleveland, Rt. Rev. Stanislav F. Gmuca. �72 SLOVAKIA (A:bbot), Monsignors Dubosh, Mlynarovic, Krasula, Petro, and many others. Another kindred spirit of Hlinka was found in Dr. Karol Kmefiko, who was appointed Archbishop of Nitra, in Slovakia, in 1944, which is the same ancient Nitra of which St. Methodius was first Archbishop over 1,000 years before. You will recall the brothers Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Slova:kia in 863 AD. These Arpostles were Greeks, but certainly Ohristlike in spirit in their love for the Slovaks, since they Christianized our Slovak ancestors and compiled an alphalbet from the linguistic sounds, which to this day is the basis of Slovak culture and civilization. Again an echo of Fr. Hlinka's words, Za Borhra a rnirod. No doubt any Slovak can think of dedicated Slovak priests whom he admires, respects, and loves. Three wonderfu!l priests who left their impreissfon on me through personal associiaJt.ion are Frs. Florian C. Bihly (Franciscan) of Lisbon Falls, Me., who pours out rhis heart and soul in Slovak sermons and songs; Andrew V. Pier (Benedictine) of the Abbey in Cleveland, a schol•ar, educator and prolific chronicler of "Slovakiama", and Gerald P. Brennan (Jesuit) of Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wis., an Irishman who stimulated the students of Slovak ancestry to organize the Father Hlinka Club at Marquette in February of 1939, some six months after Father Hlinka's death in Slovakia. One of the first presidents of the Flather Hlinka Club was Joseph Labaj, then a journalism student, who shortly thereafter left us to enter the Jesuit novitiate and is todray "Father Joe" Labaj, S.J., ,t he principal of Marquette University High School, at Milwaukee. The Constitution of the Father Hlinka Club, signed by the student organizers on February 6, 1939, stated as its purpose : Catholic action among the Slovaik people to be accomplished with the cooperation of the SloV1a:k parish priests; and the statement of intention, Article 1, parag. 4 reads: "To counter a ct any subversive actiTities a mong our people which might tend to undermine their faith or ,the democratic principles of our governm e nt, a nd to expose and expla in any activities which might place our people in dangerous or embarrassing circumstances" . Marquette University approved the Faither Hlinka Club on February 14, 1939; it affiliated itself with Sodality �SLOVAKIA 73 activities, and the following month, on St. Piatrick's day, Dr. Raphael C. McCarthy, President of the University, accepted ,the offer and became the first 1honorary member of the Father Hlinka Club. Father McCarthy became enthusiastic wbout the aims of this Slovak Catholic students' group and predicted i,t would afford real laboratory training and develop leadersihip among the Slovak people. Since then numerous educators, lawyers, doctors, dentists, journalists and engineers have gone through the club. At ,the time the U.S.A. entered World War II, all nationality clubs were deacti\nated at Marquette with attendrunt difficulties in reorganizing later. Attorney John F. Spacek and Dr. Albert Nemcek, as M.U. students were early ,p ost-war presidents of the Father Hlinka Olub. Father Oasimir Cvercko, O.F.M. Conv., pastor of St. Stephen's (Slovak) Church in Milwaukee at that time, gave much encouragement to the M. U. Slovak students, ,and iit is recalled that one year the Hlinka Club entered a "float" and won first place in the clubs and societies division of the University Homecoming (football) parade. A "Father Hlinka Club Scholarship Fund" was started many years ago, to which the national Jednota and Sokol societies contributed money, insufficient, however, for a permanent scholarship, thereby necessitating only partial grants to Oathoiic students of Slovak origin or descent. A few years ago, this author recalls, Miss Carol Zvara of Milwaukee was publicized in the metropolitan press as recipient of ia Father Hlinka Scholarship grant, Which I 'believe to !have been merely ,a modest honorarium. At the present time the Father Hlinka Club is inactive, but with the help of Marquette Slovak alumni, iit can certainly be reactivated, and no doubt the Slovak people and Slovak societies throughout the U.S.A. would contribute funds to reinvigorate the :Blather Hlinka Club Scholarship Fund at Marquette University. The help would have to come from outside as most of our students there are present through the sacrifices of their Slov,ak ,parents and lack time for solicitation of funds for future scholars. We have since infancy heard our parents speak of "nasa mladez" and "buducnosf nasho slovenskeho naroda", i. e. our youth and the future of the Slovaks. The thought has been e~ressed that scholarship help should �74 SLOVAKIA be on a college level because nowadays public high schools are available to anyone of average intelligence, and that it is in college that leadership and professionalism can be developed for ,t he Slovaks. A recent aTtiC'le in Jednota by Daniel Tanzone, Jr., of Yonkers, N. Y., ,a high school senior of Slovak-Italian descent, tells Editor Krajsa of the interest 'he has in past and present Slova;k life, and pleads for the donation of Slovak books in English for the library of the good Slovak Sisters of SS CYTil and Method1us at the Slovak school of the Most Holy Trinity. This is a good example of a student of Slovak origin or descent, who should ,b e benefited by the Father Hlink<a Club Scholarship Fund. This young man has a real zeal for rhis Slovak ancestry which he expresses without shame or reservation. Konstantin Culen, journailist and authority on Slovak culture and political histOTy, a man who was schooled under the Magyar and Czech regimes, and who died in New York last year, credited American Slovaks with great influence, saying, "What the Slovaks brought frem America they sought to validate at home. The American way of life encouraged and dir ected their plans in Slovakia. Slovak life waxed strong even during the hardest times, because H was nourished materially and ideologically by a current of material and spiri,tual wea1th from America". Culen and Sidor, in the spirit of F'ather Hlin'ka were joined by the late Philip Hroba:k, an American of Slovak descent, an educator, a writer of materials rich in cultural, social, historical and political "Slovakiana". Hrobak was the first American leader, in 1957, to receive the Hlinka Silver Award. Is the Slovak heritage to be submerged? Is Slovak ancestry to be denied? Is Slovakia in Europe any less entitled to self-determined, self-governed statehood than any other nationality on earth? Scores of "new nations" have been recognized and added to the roster of the United Nations, but the Slov,ruks get little sympathy from the political sophisticates of today, ,p articularly those who show a peculiar affinity with the aims and ideals of the red tyrants of Russia. Well-meaning people would not deprive Slovaks of �SLOVARlA 75 their God-given rights, even if they never heard the word Slovak. Eleven hundred years ago, two non-Sloviak Greek brothers, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, recognized the rights of the Slovaks and compiled the ancient Cyrillic alphabet so that the people could extend and per,petuate their culture. 'l'he Greeks had a word for it as did Ohrist the Leader 863 years before, - "Teach ye all nations." Pope Paul VI, in speaking to a Slovia!k assemblage, led by the Slovak Bishop Andrew Grutka of Gary, gathered at the Vaticam on September 14, 1963, spoke to them as "dear Slovak children" and referred to their "centuries-old traditions." Further, the Pope lauded them: "Dear Sons of the Slovak nation, to our satisfaction and to our praise, for reasons already explained, allow us to add a werd of paternal recommendation - perseverance. Continue to cultivate the mem©ry, the cult, the imitaition of your Saints (Cyril and Methodius), who from the di-stant Middle Ages even now light the path along which the spirLt of the Slovak people must pass in our time and in the fut ure ... " And obviously aware of us over here, the Pope interjected: "We want to be mindful specially of the Slovak people resident in the United States of America ... " In his closing remarks, His Holiness said: "We will invoke the Sorrowful Mother whom the Slovaks consider their heavenly Patroness." Hon. Robert F. Kennedy, Attorney General of the U.S., speaking for his brother, President John F. Kennedy, to the Slovak OatJholic Sokols at the July 14, 1963 gymnastics at Youngstown, Ohio, stated: "As a representative of the Un~ted States government, the President has asked me to tell you that ,the United !States rwill continue to support the jus,t aspirations of all people in the world for independenee and liberty - aspirations which the Slovaks share today with many other captive nations." Hon. Michael A. Feig,han, U.S. Representative from Ohio, addressing the Lakewood, Ohio Slovaks on Slovak Independence, last year, said: "Slovakia today suffers under the harsh heel of Ru ssian Communist occupation. That occupaJtion has sought to rob the Slovak people of their ancient traditions, their r eligious, aBd their heritage as well as their political liberties. But the Slovak people are steeled in ,their tactics which must be employed against a foreign. occupier. Time and the experience of centuries has prepared them well for �76 SLOVAKIA the tests they now endure. It Is !Lttle wond er that the . spirit of r esistance to ,tyranny runs so strong in !Slovakia today. The Russians as well as their rCzech quislings in Prague, know the power of Slovak national aspirations." On Easter of 1963, Pope John XXIII, spoke a greeting in "Slovaik" to be faithful, wherever they mig,ht live. In July of 1963, the St. Stephen's Catholic Social Club of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in a Commemorative publication then edited ,b y Mary Liptaik, quotes Bishop Walter W. CuTtis of Bridgeport, Conn. as exhorting: " . . . 1:Jhe task of keeping the fiaith in Slovakia and elsewhere does not rest only with the people of Slovak origin ... it belongs to everyone, regardless of national origin." Mrs. Mina Haas, present editor of the St. Stephen's Social Club Commentary, quotes U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, as pointedly reflecting that: " Th e U nited •States would be a poorer nation today, economically, intellectually, culturally and in every other way, if it we re not for the two milion of our citizens who are of Slovak bir th or ancestry." The above paragraphs are given as examples of nonSlovak intelligentsia who r ecognize the Slovaks. The spirited writer, Faither B. S. Bue (Franciscan), says Slovak nationalism in the U .S.A. is described as the condition of being of Slovak descent, and asks, "Do we prefer to be known as Slova:ks, or do we consider our Slovak nationality as an irritant from the past?" Father Bue cautions that we should not attempt to conceal our Slovail{ identity and that we should not abandon our Slovak roots. '!'hough Father Bue feels the Slovak language, native in Slovakia, but not the "native tongue" of the United States, is falling in usage through speedy Americanizaition, he does say we must foster the Slovak language, having in mind its promotion in our schools like any foreign language. This pr ogram of ,t eaching Slovak in colleges, high schools and grade schools is more apparent in the eastern United Stat es. Father Bue states, as we know, that prejudices exist among minority groups which psychologically may ciause an inferiority complex, the rapid solution by rationale may include subservience to a considered superior nil,tionalism, which confronts all ethnic groups in America. "As in the case of competition, so in regard to prejudice", says Father Bue, "weak characters manifest an inferiority complex and �SLOVAKIA 77 strong cha r ac te r s show greater res olu ten ess in accep ti ng thei r Godgiven na tiona l id entity ... L et us therefore w ork for t he p rese r vation and continuity of Slova k, a s a m a tter o! tru th , w isdom a nd justice." The above analysis makes an impact upon us adults of Slovak origin amd descent, but is it assuring enough for our youngsters of the third and fourth generations? Surely they are not all like D8.1Jlny Tanzone of Yonkers, New York, mentioned above. ~a,t will ha n to the Slovak schools, churche institutions until refurbished ·b S'1ovak immigration after the fall of the communist iron-curtain, ~ hic'h we feel God will decr..ee ? I spea:k of an insidious influence rancored •b r e ·udi e if not b actual intent 0Jnd desi against the Slovaks. We know of the attempted genocide under the Magyar rulers and - t lieBohemian politicians, but are we aware of the da r of non-Slovrul_{s who cleverly demoralize with snide remarks, uncomplimentary jokes, derisioo,inlluendo, - actually forcing us out of "'k ey posts in clubs, lodges, institutions and even churches! , Me&nwhil~, let us trust to our faith and the prevailing spirit of Father Hlinka among Slovak leaders, let us hold to o ur l•a n u e, our culture:-our ·institutions and let us be Slova f radle rave with the g ui ance of the Slovak L eague of .America. Joseph N. Misany REC OMMEN DEID RE}ADINGS: Slovak s of H u ngary, Th omas Capek, N. Y., 19 06. Scotus Viator (R. W . Seton-Watson), Racial Problems in Hunga r y, 1908. Hungar y a nd Her Successors, C. A. Macartney, Oxford Press , 193 7. Th e Slovak s, 1Peter P. Yurcha k, Whiting, Indiana, F r . Lach, 1946. Andrew H lin ka (Biogr a phy), K a rol Sidor, Br atislava/ J ednota P ress. Slovak ia an d Its People , ,Prof. Gilb er t L. Oddo, Slovak I nstitute. 2900 E. Blvd., Clevela nd, Ohio, 1960. Slova kia, - A Poli tical H is<tory (1918-50), J oseph A. Mikus , 1963, Marquette University Press, Milwaukee , Wis. Slovak ia, 1962, Dr. John R ek em, -Mid dl etown, Pa., Slova k League o! America. An Ou tline of Slovakia's Struggle fo r In depend ence, J . M. Kirsch ba um, 1964, Canadian Slovak League. Was Czech th e Veh icle of Slovak Liter ature? iPhilip A. Hrobak, 1962. Slovak Grammar, J . J . Konu s, P ittsburgh, 1939. Slovak Dictionary, Lessons, Grammar & Rea dillgs, J ednota Press (Hrobak) . Slovak Newspaper s and P er iodicals (U.S.A., Canada, Sou th America ); r efer Drs. J oseph P a 11.co, Joseph M. Kir schba u m, Konstantin Culen. � 68 SLOVAKIA FATHER ANDREW HLINKA - - An Unspent Martyr - A Slovak Soul on Slovak Soil - A Heart of Gold in a Humble Body A Leader of Men, Led by the Spirit of His People - Who is this man who after a quarter century is yet cherished in the memories of the young adult generation of Slovak descent ? Who is he, so loved by his contemporaries in Slovakia, whom he stiirred to zeal for the brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God in a nation of their own choice? Who is the man that suffered humiliatioo and degradation to free the Slovaks from political and economic enslavement? 'J.'lhese questions are answerable in the life and activirties of Father Andrew Hlinka, born a Slovak peasant in the village of Cernova on September 27, 1864, and died a Monsignor of the Catholic Church on August 16, 1938, at the age of 74, in Ruzomberok, seven months before the Declaration of Independence of Slovrukia and its proclama~ tion to -the world of ia Slovak Republic on March 14, 1939. Father Hlinka did not live to see or participate in a selfgoverning, free and independent Slovakia, recognized •b y 27 countries from Rome through Russia. Nor did Father Hlinka live to see or experience the invasion of Slovakia by Communist armies in May of 1945, or the execution of his beloved friend and successor, Monsignor Joseph Tiso, the first President of Slovakia. For over 50 years Father Hlinka fought for the rights of the Slovaks - as people of self-determination, of civic, cultural and economic ·pursuit in which they were suppressed, first, before World War I by the Magyar overlords of Hungary in the Monarchy of ·Austria-Hungary, and then until 1938 entrapped in a ~ohemian political machine maneuvered by Thomas Masaryk and Edwar:a Benes in the newly created state of Czecho-Slovakia, in which the hyphen was deliberately deleted and the Slovaks proclaimed to be "Czechs" by their new masters. Just as there a �SLOVAKIA 69 were Sloviaks who sold their birthrights to the Magyar overlords for political and economic privileges, so there were Slovaks who ran to the Czech ringmasters to be deJhyphenated and absorbed as "Czechoslovaks". But Father Hlinka was a true Slovak heart, soul and body, sufi'ering discouragement, humiliation, torment and imprisonment at the •h ands both of the Magyars and of the Czechs, and he epitomizes the Slovak in the history of the world. Karol Sidor concludes his biogra;phy of Father Hlinka with the following tribute: "There he stands as lhough less a mortal man than an enshrined symbol, as one not formed of earth's clay but woven of the noblest feelings and thoughts of man. Consequently, in Hlinka, each Slovak recognized himself and in every Slovak there was something of Hlinka , gilded with heroism, goodness, loyalty, courage, and the nobility of Hlinka's heart. Thus did Andrew Hlinka live, and thus will he remain as long as even one Slovak remains." At the age of twenty Hlinka was expelled from the seminary by the Hungarian authorities on charges of PanSlavism, of promoting the study of Slovak, both }anguage and literature, and of fostering loyalty to their ancestry among the Slovak seminarians. Later he was recalled and on June 19, 1889 1he was ordained a priest. In Cernova, the vmage of his birth, Hlinka helped and encouraged his people to erect a church, but he was not permitted to· participate in its consecration, for he was under suspension (unjustly) already a year and a half. The villagers, who had expected his reinstatement, held a demonstmtion in protest. Without warning the government ·gendarmes · fired into the crowd, killing fifteen persons and wounding several others. The incident is remembered as the Cernova Massacre of October 27, 1907. In March, 1909 the Vatican exonerated Hlinka, who was in prison at the time, and lifted the suspension. In June of the same year Father Hlinka was delegated to consecrate the church in Cernova. During one of his prison terms under the Hungarian regime, loather Hlinka translated the Old Testament of the Holy Bible into Slovak, and during another prison term he completed his "Apologia for Christianity" in Slovak. At the age of 55 he was arrested and imprisoned by �70 SLOVAKIA the "Czechoslovak" government for fighting the anti-clerica1ism of Czech rp oliticians, a drive to Czech-ize the Sfovaks and economioally force their submission. Rioting, demonstrations ,a nd the ele0tion ,b y the Slovaks of Hlinka to the "Czechoslova;k" Parliament necessitated 'his release from prison in 1920. It is true that as early as 1908 Fabher Hlinka looked to a union with the Moravians and Ozechs to strengthen the Slav position, with the understanding however, that the Slovaks would enjoy autonomy and cultural and political freedom. The Cleveland Agreement of 1915 and the Pittsburgh Pact of 1918 indicated that we in America agreed with what ouT brothers and ancestors in Slovakiia desired. However, once Masaryk and Benes were in power, Father Hlinka was chagrined to see that the Slovaks continued to be the victims of harsh discrimination in all phases of government, education and 'Public life. Diplomatic documents in the British archives attest to the errors of the Czech administration by corruption in public office, attempts to substitute Czech for the Slovak language, hostility of Czedh soldiers and officials to the Catholic Church, which included desecration and mutilation of crucifixes and holy images, intemerence in marriages and similiaT offenses against the principles of culture and decency. It was also officially reported by the British Minister, Cecil Gosling, who witnessed conditions in Slovakia in late 1919, that Slovakia was flooded with Czech officials and the Slovaks dismissed, or if employed, they received from ½ to ¾ ~ess pay than the Czechs. The Benes-Masaryk intrigue led to .flirtini with and fawning over Rrussiain Communism and its religious, social and economic fallacies. Father Hlinka's h eart and soul were tormented ,b y the God-less and inhuman policies emamating from Prague and found it necessary to organize his Slova,k people for their own well-being, and his "Hlin:ka's People's Party" became a ,p olitical success in 1925. Protesting the activities and genocidal efforts first af the Magyars and then of the Czechs Father Hlinka became the savior of his people. He adopted as his motto "For God rand n at i o n" and showed whi:wt love of God and fuith in humanity can accmnrplish. One u1nfamiliar with S 1 o v a k ,feeling1S and sentiments may ~ why a priest should have to be the leader of his nation and participate �SLOVAKIA 71 in civic affairs - even unto degradation and imprisonment? The answer is simply that a Catholic priest takes ian oath to God to minister to the people and cannot countenance injustice or inhumanity. As a human •b eing man is worthy of dignity, respect and ,p ossesses the right to live a life worbhy of his reward in heaven. For over a thousand years under ,t:Jhe Magyaris, the only educated group were the priests - bhey were the healers of the mi111d as well as of the soul. The priests were the leaders, the counselors of the people in civic as well as in religious matters. It is true that while the past two generations of laity in SloV'akia produced an educated intelligentsia, in the years prior to World War I. our Slovak ancestors were serfs, peasants, yes, slaves of the soil owned by their ancestors. On the occasion of the death of Fr. Hlinka the American journalist, Stephen J. Palickar, wrote as follows (Jednota, August 24, 1938) : "Father 1Hlinka has departed from our midst, but his spirit has not. And while God in His Divine Providence has removed him in the .flower of his activity, we, of the loyal Slovaks, whether in Europe or America, will continue to use the spirit of Hllnka as an instrument of battle untll such time when the Slovaks have regained that whlol;I rightfully !belongs to them, namely, their freedom in the Fatherland of Slovensko." There are great Slovak leaders among our Catholic priests today, particularly in the U.S.A. and Canada, thougih they ·p refer to •h ave laymen lead in social and civic affairs, as witness the great fraternal orgianizations and prominent elected public officials. But we are graiteful for the initiative and zeal that serve as a pattern for us. Father Stephen Furdek founded the Slovak League of America in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 26, 1907. It has the greatest representation of Slovaks in the world today, and interesting to say, it is non-denominational, though Christian. Some 17 years earlier, Father Furdek had organized the First Catholic Slovak Union and a sister Jednota two years later. The spirit of Fr. Hlinka permeated Fr. Furdek, and that spirit of a "slovensky duch" can be seen in such men of cloth as Bishops Andrew G. Grutka, of Gary, Indiana, Paul Hnilica (Jesutt) of Rome and Michael Rusnak (Redemptorist) of Canada, Rt. Rev. Theodore G. Kojis (Benedictine Abbot), Cleveland, Rt. Rev. Stanislav F. Gmuca. �72 SLOVAKIA (A:bbot), Monsignors Dubosh, Mlynarovic, Krasula, Petro, and many others. Another kindred spirit of Hlinka was found in Dr. Karol Kmefiko, who was appointed Archbishop of Nitra, in Slovakia, in 1944, which is the same ancient Nitra of which St. Methodius was first Archbishop over 1,000 years before. You will recall the brothers Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Slova:kia in 863 AD. These Arpostles were Greeks, but certainly Ohristlike in spirit in their love for the Slovaks, since they Christianized our Slovak ancestors and compiled an alphalbet from the linguistic sounds, which to this day is the basis of Slovak culture and civilization. Again an echo of Fr. Hlinka's words, Za Borhra a rnirod. No doubt any Slovak can think of dedicated Slovak priests whom he admires, respects, and loves. Three wonderfu!l priests who left their impreissfon on me through personal associiaJt.ion are Frs. Florian C. Bihly (Franciscan) of Lisbon Falls, Me., who pours out rhis heart and soul in Slovak sermons and songs; Andrew V. Pier (Benedictine) of the Abbey in Cleveland, a schol•ar, educator and prolific chronicler of "Slovakiama", and Gerald P. Brennan (Jesuit) of Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wis., an Irishman who stimulated the students of Slovak ancestry to organize the Father Hlinka Club at Marquette in February of 1939, some six months after Father Hlinka's death in Slovakia. One of the first presidents of the Flather Hlinka Club was Joseph Labaj, then a journalism student, who shortly thereafter left us to enter the Jesuit novitiate and is todray "Father Joe" Labaj, S.J., ,t he principal of Marquette University High School, at Milwaukee. The Constitution of the Father Hlinka Club, signed by the student organizers on February 6, 1939, stated as its purpose : Catholic action among the Slovaik people to be accomplished with the cooperation of the SloV1a:k parish priests; and the statement of intention, Article 1, parag. 4 reads: "To counter a ct any subversive actiTities a mong our people which might tend to undermine their faith or ,the democratic principles of our governm e nt, a nd to expose and expla in any activities which might place our people in dangerous or embarrassing circumstances" . Marquette University approved the Faither Hlinka Club on February 14, 1939; it affiliated itself with Sodality �SLOVAKIA 73 activities, and the following month, on St. Piatrick's day, Dr. Raphael C. McCarthy, President of the University, accepted ,the offer and became the first 1honorary member of the Father Hlinka Club. Father McCarthy became enthusiastic wbout the aims of this Slovak Catholic students' group and predicted i,t would afford real laboratory training and develop leadersihip among the Slovak people. Since then numerous educators, lawyers, doctors, dentists, journalists and engineers have gone through the club. At ,the time the U.S.A. entered World War II, all nationality clubs were deacti\nated at Marquette with attendrunt difficulties in reorganizing later. Attorney John F. Spacek and Dr. Albert Nemcek, as M.U. students were early ,p ost-war presidents of the Father Hlinka Olub. Father Oasimir Cvercko, O.F.M. Conv., pastor of St. Stephen's (Slovak) Church in Milwaukee at that time, gave much encouragement to the M. U. Slovak students, ,and iit is recalled that one year the Hlinka Club entered a "float" and won first place in the clubs and societies division of the University Homecoming (football) parade. A "Father Hlinka Club Scholarship Fund" was started many years ago, to which the national Jednota and Sokol societies contributed money, insufficient, however, for a permanent scholarship, thereby necessitating only partial grants to Oathoiic students of Slovak origin or descent. A few years ago, this author recalls, Miss Carol Zvara of Milwaukee was publicized in the metropolitan press as recipient of ia Father Hlinka Scholarship grant, Which I 'believe to !have been merely ,a modest honorarium. At the present time the Father Hlinka Club is inactive, but with the help of Marquette Slovak alumni, iit can certainly be reactivated, and no doubt the Slovak people and Slovak societies throughout the U.S.A. would contribute funds to reinvigorate the :Blather Hlinka Club Scholarship Fund at Marquette University. The help would have to come from outside as most of our students there are present through the sacrifices of their Slov,ak ,parents and lack time for solicitation of funds for future scholars. We have since infancy heard our parents speak of "nasa mladez" and "buducnosf nasho slovenskeho naroda", i. e. our youth and the future of the Slovaks. The thought has been e~ressed that scholarship help should �74 SLOVAKIA be on a college level because nowadays public high schools are available to anyone of average intelligence, and that it is in college that leadership and professionalism can be developed for ,t he Slovaks. A recent aTtiC'le in Jednota by Daniel Tanzone, Jr., of Yonkers, N. Y., ,a high school senior of Slovak-Italian descent, tells Editor Krajsa of the interest 'he has in past and present Slova;k life, and pleads for the donation of Slovak books in English for the library of the good Slovak Sisters of SS CYTil and Method1us at the Slovak school of the Most Holy Trinity. This is a good example of a student of Slovak origin or descent, who should ,b e benefited by the Father Hlink<a Club Scholarship Fund. This young man has a real zeal for rhis Slovak ancestry which he expresses without shame or reservation. Konstantin Culen, journailist and authority on Slovak culture and political histOTy, a man who was schooled under the Magyar and Czech regimes, and who died in New York last year, credited American Slovaks with great influence, saying, "What the Slovaks brought frem America they sought to validate at home. The American way of life encouraged and dir ected their plans in Slovakia. Slovak life waxed strong even during the hardest times, because H was nourished materially and ideologically by a current of material and spiri,tual wea1th from America". Culen and Sidor, in the spirit of F'ather Hlin'ka were joined by the late Philip Hroba:k, an American of Slovak descent, an educator, a writer of materials rich in cultural, social, historical and political "Slovakiana". Hrobak was the first American leader, in 1957, to receive the Hlinka Silver Award. Is the Slovak heritage to be submerged? Is Slovak ancestry to be denied? Is Slovakia in Europe any less entitled to self-determined, self-governed statehood than any other nationality on earth? Scores of "new nations" have been recognized and added to the roster of the United Nations, but the Slov,ruks get little sympathy from the political sophisticates of today, ,p articularly those who show a peculiar affinity with the aims and ideals of the red tyrants of Russia. Well-meaning people would not deprive Slovaks of �SLOVARlA 75 their God-given rights, even if they never heard the word Slovak. Eleven hundred years ago, two non-Sloviak Greek brothers, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, recognized the rights of the Slovaks and compiled the ancient Cyrillic alphabet so that the people could extend and per,petuate their culture. 'l'he Greeks had a word for it as did Ohrist the Leader 863 years before, - "Teach ye all nations." Pope Paul VI, in speaking to a Slovia!k assemblage, led by the Slovak Bishop Andrew Grutka of Gary, gathered at the Vaticam on September 14, 1963, spoke to them as "dear Slovak children" and referred to their "centuries-old traditions." Further, the Pope lauded them: "Dear Sons of the Slovak nation, to our satisfaction and to our praise, for reasons already explained, allow us to add a werd of paternal recommendation - perseverance. Continue to cultivate the mem©ry, the cult, the imitaition of your Saints (Cyril and Methodius), who from the di-stant Middle Ages even now light the path along which the spirLt of the Slovak people must pass in our time and in the fut ure ... " And obviously aware of us over here, the Pope interjected: "We want to be mindful specially of the Slovak people resident in the United States of America ... " In his closing remarks, His Holiness said: "We will invoke the Sorrowful Mother whom the Slovaks consider their heavenly Patroness." Hon. Robert F. Kennedy, Attorney General of the U.S., speaking for his brother, President John F. Kennedy, to the Slovak OatJholic Sokols at the July 14, 1963 gymnastics at Youngstown, Ohio, stated: "As a representative of the Un~ted States government, the President has asked me to tell you that ,the United !States rwill continue to support the jus,t aspirations of all people in the world for independenee and liberty - aspirations which the Slovaks share today with many other captive nations." Hon. Michael A. Feig,han, U.S. Representative from Ohio, addressing the Lakewood, Ohio Slovaks on Slovak Independence, last year, said: "Slovakia today suffers under the harsh heel of Ru ssian Communist occupation. That occupaJtion has sought to rob the Slovak people of their ancient traditions, their r eligious, aBd their heritage as well as their political liberties. But the Slovak people are steeled in ,their tactics which must be employed against a foreign. occupier. Time and the experience of centuries has prepared them well for �76 SLOVAKIA the tests they now endure. It Is !Lttle wond er that the . spirit of r esistance to ,tyranny runs so strong in !Slovakia today. The Russians as well as their rCzech quislings in Prague, know the power of Slovak national aspirations." On Easter of 1963, Pope John XXIII, spoke a greeting in "Slovaik" to be faithful, wherever they mig,ht live. In July of 1963, the St. Stephen's Catholic Social Club of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in a Commemorative publication then edited ,b y Mary Liptaik, quotes Bishop Walter W. CuTtis of Bridgeport, Conn. as exhorting: " . . . 1:Jhe task of keeping the fiaith in Slovakia and elsewhere does not rest only with the people of Slovak origin ... it belongs to everyone, regardless of national origin." Mrs. Mina Haas, present editor of the St. Stephen's Social Club Commentary, quotes U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, as pointedly reflecting that: " Th e U nited •States would be a poorer nation today, economically, intellectually, culturally and in every other way, if it we re not for the two milion of our citizens who are of Slovak bir th or ancestry." The above paragraphs are given as examples of nonSlovak intelligentsia who r ecognize the Slovaks. The spirited writer, Faither B. S. Bue (Franciscan), says Slovak nationalism in the U .S.A. is described as the condition of being of Slovak descent, and asks, "Do we prefer to be known as Slova:ks, or do we consider our Slovak nationality as an irritant from the past?" Father Bue cautions that we should not attempt to conceal our Slovail{ identity and that we should not abandon our Slovak roots. '!'hough Father Bue feels the Slovak language, native in Slovakia, but not the "native tongue" of the United States, is falling in usage through speedy Americanizaition, he does say we must foster the Slovak language, having in mind its promotion in our schools like any foreign language. This pr ogram of ,t eaching Slovak in colleges, high schools and grade schools is more apparent in the eastern United Stat es. Father Bue states, as we know, that prejudices exist among minority groups which psychologically may ciause an inferiority complex, the rapid solution by rationale may include subservience to a considered superior nil,tionalism, which confronts all ethnic groups in America. "As in the case of competition, so in regard to prejudice", says Father Bue, "weak characters manifest an inferiority complex and �SLOVAKIA 77 strong cha r ac te r s show greater res olu ten ess in accep ti ng thei r Godgiven na tiona l id entity ... L et us therefore w ork for t he p rese r vation and continuity of Slova k, a s a m a tter o! tru th , w isdom a nd justice." The above analysis makes an impact upon us adults of Slovak origin amd descent, but is it assuring enough for our youngsters of the third and fourth generations? Surely they are not all like D8.1Jlny Tanzone of Yonkers, New York, mentioned above. ~a,t will ha n to the Slovak schools, churche institutions until refurbished ·b S'1ovak immigration after the fall of the communist iron-curtain, ~ hic'h we feel God will decr..ee ? I spea:k of an insidious influence rancored •b r e ·udi e if not b actual intent 0Jnd desi against the Slovaks. We know of the attempted genocide under the Magyar rulers and - t lieBohemian politicians, but are we aware of the da r of non-Slovrul_{s who cleverly demoralize with snide remarks, uncomplimentary jokes, derisioo,inlluendo, - actually forcing us out of "'k ey posts in clubs, lodges, institutions and even churches! , Me&nwhil~, let us trust to our faith and the prevailing spirit of Father Hlinka among Slovak leaders, let us hold to o ur l•a n u e, our culture:-our ·institutions and let us be Slova f radle rave with the g ui ance of the Slovak L eague of .America. Joseph N. Misany REC OMMEN DEID RE}ADINGS: Slovak s of H u ngary, Th omas Capek, N. Y., 19 06. Scotus Viator (R. W . Seton-Watson), Racial Problems in Hunga r y, 1908. Hungar y a nd Her Successors, C. A. Macartney, Oxford Press , 193 7. Th e Slovak s, 1Peter P. Yurcha k, Whiting, Indiana, F r . Lach, 1946. Andrew H lin ka (Biogr a phy), K a rol Sidor, Br atislava/ J ednota P ress. Slovak ia an d Its People , ,Prof. Gilb er t L. Oddo, Slovak I nstitute. 2900 E. Blvd., Clevela nd, Ohio, 1960. Slova kia, - A Poli tical H is<tory (1918-50), J oseph A. Mikus , 1963, Marquette University Press, Milwaukee , Wis. Slovak ia, 1962, Dr. John R ek em, -Mid dl etown, Pa., Slova k League o! America. An Ou tline of Slovakia's Struggle fo r In depend ence, J . M. Kirsch ba um, 1964, Canadian Slovak League. Was Czech th e Veh icle of Slovak Liter ature? iPhilip A. Hrobak, 1962. Slovak Grammar, J . J . Konu s, P ittsburgh, 1939. Slovak Dictionary, Lessons, Grammar & Rea dillgs, J ednota Press (Hrobak) . Slovak Newspaper s and P er iodicals (U.S.A., Canada, Sou th America ); r efer Drs. J oseph P a 11.co, Joseph M. Kir schba u m, Konstantin Culen. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1965, Vol. 15 Description An account of the resource Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 68 SLOVAKIA FATHER ANDREW HLINKA - - An Unspent Martyr - A Slovak Soul on Slovak Soil - A Heart of Gold in a Humble Body A Leader of Men, Led by the Spirit of His People - Who is this man who after a quarter century is yet cherished in the memories of the young adult generation of Slovak descent ? Who is he, so loved by his contemporaries in Slovakia, whom he stiirred to zeal for the brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God in a nation of their own choice? Who is the man that suffered humiliatioo and degradation to free the Slovaks from political and economic enslavement? 'J.'lhese questions are answerable in the life and activirties of Father Andrew Hlinka, born a Slovak peasant in the village of Cernova on September 27, 1864, and died a Monsignor of the Catholic Church on August 16, 1938, at the age of 74, in Ruzomberok, seven months before the Declaration of Independence of Slovrukia and its proclama~ tion to -the world of ia Slovak Republic on March 14, 1939. Father Hlinka did not live to see or participate in a selfgoverning, free and independent Slovakia, recognized •b y 27 countries from Rome through Russia. Nor did Father Hlinka live to see or experience the invasion of Slovakia by Communist armies in May of 1945, or the execution of his beloved friend and successor, Monsignor Joseph Tiso, the first President of Slovakia. For over 50 years Father Hlinka fought for the rights of the Slovaks - as people of self-determination, of civic, cultural and economic ·pursuit in which they were suppressed, first, before World War I by the Magyar overlords of Hungary in the Monarchy of ·Austria-Hungary, and then until 1938 entrapped in a ~ohemian political machine maneuvered by Thomas Masaryk and Edwar:a Benes in the newly created state of Czecho-Slovakia, in which the hyphen was deliberately deleted and the Slovaks proclaimed to be "Czechs" by their new masters. Just as there a SLOVAKIA 69 were Sloviaks who sold their birthrights to the Magyar overlords for political and economic privileges, so there were Slovaks who ran to the Czech ringmasters to be deJhyphenated and absorbed as "Czechoslovaks". But Father Hlinka was a true Slovak heart, soul and body, sufi'ering discouragement, humiliation, torment and imprisonment at the •h ands both of the Magyars and of the Czechs, and he epitomizes the Slovak in the history of the world. Karol Sidor concludes his biogra;phy of Father Hlinka with the following tribute: "There he stands as lhough less a mortal man than an enshrined symbol, as one not formed of earth's clay but woven of the noblest feelings and thoughts of man. Consequently, in Hlinka, each Slovak recognized himself and in every Slovak there was something of Hlinka , gilded with heroism, goodness, loyalty, courage, and the nobility of Hlinka's heart. Thus did Andrew Hlinka live, and thus will he remain as long as even one Slovak remains." At the age of twenty Hlinka was expelled from the seminary by the Hungarian authorities on charges of PanSlavism, of promoting the study of Slovak, both }anguage and literature, and of fostering loyalty to their ancestry among the Slovak seminarians. Later he was recalled and on June 19, 1889 1he was ordained a priest. In Cernova, the vmage of his birth, Hlinka helped and encouraged his people to erect a church, but he was not permitted to· participate in its consecration, for he was under suspension (unjustly) already a year and a half. The villagers, who had expected his reinstatement, held a demonstmtion in protest. Without warning the government ·gendarmes · fired into the crowd, killing fifteen persons and wounding several others. The incident is remembered as the Cernova Massacre of October 27, 1907. In March, 1909 the Vatican exonerated Hlinka, who was in prison at the time, and lifted the suspension. In June of the same year Father Hlinka was delegated to consecrate the church in Cernova. During one of his prison terms under the Hungarian regime, loather Hlinka translated the Old Testament of the Holy Bible into Slovak, and during another prison term he completed his "Apologia for Christianity" in Slovak. At the age of 55 he was arrested and imprisoned by 70 SLOVAKIA the "Czechoslovak" government for fighting the anti-clerica1ism of Czech rp oliticians, a drive to Czech-ize the Sfovaks and economioally force their submission. Rioting, demonstrations ,a nd the ele0tion ,b y the Slovaks of Hlinka to the "Czechoslova;k" Parliament necessitated 'his release from prison in 1920. It is true that as early as 1908 Fabher Hlinka looked to a union with the Moravians and Ozechs to strengthen the Slav position, with the understanding however, that the Slovaks would enjoy autonomy and cultural and political freedom. The Cleveland Agreement of 1915 and the Pittsburgh Pact of 1918 indicated that we in America agreed with what ouT brothers and ancestors in Slovakiia desired. However, once Masaryk and Benes were in power, Father Hlinka was chagrined to see that the Slovaks continued to be the victims of harsh discrimination in all phases of government, education and 'Public life. Diplomatic documents in the British archives attest to the errors of the Czech administration by corruption in public office, attempts to substitute Czech for the Slovak language, hostility of Czedh soldiers and officials to the Catholic Church, which included desecration and mutilation of crucifixes and holy images, intemerence in marriages and similiaT offenses against the principles of culture and decency. It was also officially reported by the British Minister, Cecil Gosling, who witnessed conditions in Slovakia in late 1919, that Slovakia was flooded with Czech officials and the Slovaks dismissed, or if employed, they received from ½ to ¾ ~ess pay than the Czechs. The Benes-Masaryk intrigue led to .flirtini with and fawning over Rrussiain Communism and its religious, social and economic fallacies. Father Hlinka's h eart and soul were tormented ,b y the God-less and inhuman policies emamating from Prague and found it necessary to organize his Slova,k people for their own well-being, and his "Hlin:ka's People's Party" became a ,p olitical success in 1925. Protesting the activities and genocidal efforts first af the Magyars and then of the Czechs Father Hlinka became the savior of his people. He adopted as his motto "For God rand n at i o n" and showed whi:wt love of God and fuith in humanity can accmnrplish. One u1nfamiliar with S 1 o v a k ,feeling1S and sentiments may ~ why a priest should have to be the leader of his nation and participate SLOVAKIA 71 in civic affairs - even unto degradation and imprisonment? The answer is simply that a Catholic priest takes ian oath to God to minister to the people and cannot countenance injustice or inhumanity. As a human •b eing man is worthy of dignity, respect and ,p ossesses the right to live a life worbhy of his reward in heaven. For over a thousand years under ,t:Jhe Magyaris, the only educated group were the priests - bhey were the healers of the mi111d as well as of the soul. The priests were the leaders, the counselors of the people in civic as well as in religious matters. It is true that while the past two generations of laity in SloV'akia produced an educated intelligentsia, in the years prior to World War I. our Slovak ancestors were serfs, peasants, yes, slaves of the soil owned by their ancestors. On the occasion of the death of Fr. Hlinka the American journalist, Stephen J. Palickar, wrote as follows (Jednota, August 24, 1938) : "Father 1Hlinka has departed from our midst, but his spirit has not. And while God in His Divine Providence has removed him in the .flower of his activity, we, of the loyal Slovaks, whether in Europe or America, will continue to use the spirit of Hllnka as an instrument of battle untll such time when the Slovaks have regained that whlol;I rightfully !belongs to them, namely, their freedom in the Fatherland of Slovensko." There are great Slovak leaders among our Catholic priests today, particularly in the U.S.A. and Canada, thougih they ·p refer to •h ave laymen lead in social and civic affairs, as witness the great fraternal orgianizations and prominent elected public officials. But we are graiteful for the initiative and zeal that serve as a pattern for us. Father Stephen Furdek founded the Slovak League of America in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 26, 1907. It has the greatest representation of Slovaks in the world today, and interesting to say, it is non-denominational, though Christian. Some 17 years earlier, Father Furdek had organized the First Catholic Slovak Union and a sister Jednota two years later. The spirit of Fr. Hlinka permeated Fr. Furdek, and that spirit of a "slovensky duch" can be seen in such men of cloth as Bishops Andrew G. Grutka, of Gary, Indiana, Paul Hnilica (Jesutt) of Rome and Michael Rusnak (Redemptorist) of Canada, Rt. Rev. Theodore G. Kojis (Benedictine Abbot), Cleveland, Rt. Rev. Stanislav F. Gmuca. 72 SLOVAKIA (A:bbot), Monsignors Dubosh, Mlynarovic, Krasula, Petro, and many others. Another kindred spirit of Hlinka was found in Dr. Karol Kmefiko, who was appointed Archbishop of Nitra, in Slovakia, in 1944, which is the same ancient Nitra of which St. Methodius was first Archbishop over 1,000 years before. You will recall the brothers Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Slova:kia in 863 AD. These Arpostles were Greeks, but certainly Ohristlike in spirit in their love for the Slovaks, since they Christianized our Slovak ancestors and compiled an alphalbet from the linguistic sounds, which to this day is the basis of Slovak culture and civilization. Again an echo of Fr. Hlinka's words, Za Borhra a rnirod. No doubt any Slovak can think of dedicated Slovak priests whom he admires, respects, and loves. Three wonderfu!l priests who left their impreissfon on me through personal associiaJt.ion are Frs. Florian C. Bihly (Franciscan) of Lisbon Falls, Me., who pours out rhis heart and soul in Slovak sermons and songs; Andrew V. Pier (Benedictine) of the Abbey in Cleveland, a schol•ar, educator and prolific chronicler of "Slovakiama", and Gerald P. Brennan (Jesuit) of Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wis., an Irishman who stimulated the students of Slovak ancestry to organize the Father Hlinka Club at Marquette in February of 1939, some six months after Father Hlinka's death in Slovakia. One of the first presidents of the Flather Hlinka Club was Joseph Labaj, then a journalism student, who shortly thereafter left us to enter the Jesuit novitiate and is todray "Father Joe" Labaj, S.J., ,t he principal of Marquette University High School, at Milwaukee. The Constitution of the Father Hlinka Club, signed by the student organizers on February 6, 1939, stated as its purpose : Catholic action among the Slovaik people to be accomplished with the cooperation of the SloV1a:k parish priests; and the statement of intention, Article 1, parag. 4 reads: "To counter a ct any subversive actiTities a mong our people which might tend to undermine their faith or ,the democratic principles of our governm e nt, a nd to expose and expla in any activities which might place our people in dangerous or embarrassing circumstances" . Marquette University approved the Faither Hlinka Club on February 14, 1939; it affiliated itself with Sodality SLOVAKIA 73 activities, and the following month, on St. Piatrick's day, Dr. Raphael C. McCarthy, President of the University, accepted ,the offer and became the first 1honorary member of the Father Hlinka Club. Father McCarthy became enthusiastic wbout the aims of this Slovak Catholic students' group and predicted i,t would afford real laboratory training and develop leadersihip among the Slovak people. Since then numerous educators, lawyers, doctors, dentists, journalists and engineers have gone through the club. At ,the time the U.S.A. entered World War II, all nationality clubs were deacti\nated at Marquette with attendrunt difficulties in reorganizing later. Attorney John F. Spacek and Dr. Albert Nemcek, as M.U. students were early ,p ost-war presidents of the Father Hlinka Olub. Father Oasimir Cvercko, O.F.M. Conv., pastor of St. Stephen's (Slovak) Church in Milwaukee at that time, gave much encouragement to the M. U. Slovak students, ,and iit is recalled that one year the Hlinka Club entered a "float" and won first place in the clubs and societies division of the University Homecoming (football) parade. A "Father Hlinka Club Scholarship Fund" was started many years ago, to which the national Jednota and Sokol societies contributed money, insufficient, however, for a permanent scholarship, thereby necessitating only partial grants to Oathoiic students of Slovak origin or descent. A few years ago, this author recalls, Miss Carol Zvara of Milwaukee was publicized in the metropolitan press as recipient of ia Father Hlinka Scholarship grant, Which I 'believe to !have been merely ,a modest honorarium. At the present time the Father Hlinka Club is inactive, but with the help of Marquette Slovak alumni, iit can certainly be reactivated, and no doubt the Slovak people and Slovak societies throughout the U.S.A. would contribute funds to reinvigorate the :Blather Hlinka Club Scholarship Fund at Marquette University. The help would have to come from outside as most of our students there are present through the sacrifices of their Slov,ak ,parents and lack time for solicitation of funds for future scholars. We have since infancy heard our parents speak of "nasa mladez" and "buducnosf nasho slovenskeho naroda", i. e. our youth and the future of the Slovaks. The thought has been e~ressed that scholarship help should 74 SLOVAKIA be on a college level because nowadays public high schools are available to anyone of average intelligence, and that it is in college that leadership and professionalism can be developed for ,t he Slovaks. A recent aTtiC'le in Jednota by Daniel Tanzone, Jr., of Yonkers, N. Y., ,a high school senior of Slovak-Italian descent, tells Editor Krajsa of the interest 'he has in past and present Slova;k life, and pleads for the donation of Slovak books in English for the library of the good Slovak Sisters of SS CYTil and Method1us at the Slovak school of the Most Holy Trinity. This is a good example of a student of Slovak origin or descent, who should ,b e benefited by the Father Hlink<a Club Scholarship Fund. This young man has a real zeal for rhis Slovak ancestry which he expresses without shame or reservation. Konstantin Culen, journailist and authority on Slovak culture and political histOTy, a man who was schooled under the Magyar and Czech regimes, and who died in New York last year, credited American Slovaks with great influence, saying, "What the Slovaks brought frem America they sought to validate at home. The American way of life encouraged and dir ected their plans in Slovakia. Slovak life waxed strong even during the hardest times, because H was nourished materially and ideologically by a current of material and spiri,tual wea1th from America". Culen and Sidor, in the spirit of F'ather Hlin'ka were joined by the late Philip Hroba:k, an American of Slovak descent, an educator, a writer of materials rich in cultural, social, historical and political "Slovakiana". Hrobak was the first American leader, in 1957, to receive the Hlinka Silver Award. Is the Slovak heritage to be submerged? Is Slovak ancestry to be denied? Is Slovakia in Europe any less entitled to self-determined, self-governed statehood than any other nationality on earth? Scores of "new nations" have been recognized and added to the roster of the United Nations, but the Slov,ruks get little sympathy from the political sophisticates of today, ,p articularly those who show a peculiar affinity with the aims and ideals of the red tyrants of Russia. Well-meaning people would not deprive Slovaks of SLOVARlA 75 their God-given rights, even if they never heard the word Slovak. Eleven hundred years ago, two non-Sloviak Greek brothers, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, recognized the rights of the Slovaks and compiled the ancient Cyrillic alphabet so that the people could extend and per,petuate their culture. 'l'he Greeks had a word for it as did Ohrist the Leader 863 years before, - "Teach ye all nations." Pope Paul VI, in speaking to a Slovia!k assemblage, led by the Slovak Bishop Andrew Grutka of Gary, gathered at the Vaticam on September 14, 1963, spoke to them as "dear Slovak children" and referred to their "centuries-old traditions." Further, the Pope lauded them: "Dear Sons of the Slovak nation, to our satisfaction and to our praise, for reasons already explained, allow us to add a werd of paternal recommendation - perseverance. Continue to cultivate the mem©ry, the cult, the imitaition of your Saints (Cyril and Methodius), who from the di-stant Middle Ages even now light the path along which the spirLt of the Slovak people must pass in our time and in the fut ure ... " And obviously aware of us over here, the Pope interjected: "We want to be mindful specially of the Slovak people resident in the United States of America ... " In his closing remarks, His Holiness said: "We will invoke the Sorrowful Mother whom the Slovaks consider their heavenly Patroness." Hon. Robert F. Kennedy, Attorney General of the U.S., speaking for his brother, President John F. Kennedy, to the Slovak OatJholic Sokols at the July 14, 1963 gymnastics at Youngstown, Ohio, stated: "As a representative of the Un~ted States government, the President has asked me to tell you that ,the United !States rwill continue to support the jus,t aspirations of all people in the world for independenee and liberty - aspirations which the Slovaks share today with many other captive nations." Hon. Michael A. Feig,han, U.S. Representative from Ohio, addressing the Lakewood, Ohio Slovaks on Slovak Independence, last year, said: "Slovakia today suffers under the harsh heel of Ru ssian Communist occupation. That occupaJtion has sought to rob the Slovak people of their ancient traditions, their r eligious, aBd their heritage as well as their political liberties. But the Slovak people are steeled in ,their tactics which must be employed against a foreign. occupier. Time and the experience of centuries has prepared them well for 76 SLOVAKIA the tests they now endure. It Is !Lttle wond er that the . spirit of r esistance to ,tyranny runs so strong in !Slovakia today. The Russians as well as their rCzech quislings in Prague, know the power of Slovak national aspirations." On Easter of 1963, Pope John XXIII, spoke a greeting in "Slovaik" to be faithful, wherever they mig,ht live. In July of 1963, the St. Stephen's Catholic Social Club of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in a Commemorative publication then edited ,b y Mary Liptaik, quotes Bishop Walter W. CuTtis of Bridgeport, Conn. as exhorting: " . . . 1:Jhe task of keeping the fiaith in Slovakia and elsewhere does not rest only with the people of Slovak origin ... it belongs to everyone, regardless of national origin." Mrs. Mina Haas, present editor of the St. Stephen's Social Club Commentary, quotes U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, as pointedly reflecting that: " Th e U nited •States would be a poorer nation today, economically, intellectually, culturally and in every other way, if it we re not for the two milion of our citizens who are of Slovak bir th or ancestry." The above paragraphs are given as examples of nonSlovak intelligentsia who r ecognize the Slovaks. The spirited writer, Faither B. S. Bue (Franciscan), says Slovak nationalism in the U .S.A. is described as the condition of being of Slovak descent, and asks, "Do we prefer to be known as Slova:ks, or do we consider our Slovak nationality as an irritant from the past?" Father Bue cautions that we should not attempt to conceal our Slovail{ identity and that we should not abandon our Slovak roots. '!'hough Father Bue feels the Slovak language, native in Slovakia, but not the "native tongue" of the United States, is falling in usage through speedy Americanizaition, he does say we must foster the Slovak language, having in mind its promotion in our schools like any foreign language. This pr ogram of ,t eaching Slovak in colleges, high schools and grade schools is more apparent in the eastern United Stat es. Father Bue states, as we know, that prejudices exist among minority groups which psychologically may ciause an inferiority complex, the rapid solution by rationale may include subservience to a considered superior nil,tionalism, which confronts all ethnic groups in America. "As in the case of competition, so in regard to prejudice", says Father Bue, "weak characters manifest an inferiority complex and SLOVAKIA 77 strong cha r ac te r s show greater res olu ten ess in accep ti ng thei r Godgiven na tiona l id entity ... L et us therefore w ork for t he p rese r vation and continuity of Slova k, a s a m a tter o! tru th , w isdom a nd justice." The above analysis makes an impact upon us adults of Slovak origin amd descent, but is it assuring enough for our youngsters of the third and fourth generations? Surely they are not all like D8.1Jlny Tanzone of Yonkers, New York, mentioned above. ~a,t will ha n to the Slovak schools, churche institutions until refurbished ·b S'1ovak immigration after the fall of the communist iron-curtain, ~ hic'h we feel God will decr..ee ? I spea:k of an insidious influence rancored •b r e ·udi e if not b actual intent 0Jnd desi against the Slovaks. We know of the attempted genocide under the Magyar rulers and - t lieBohemian politicians, but are we aware of the da r of non-Slovrul_{s who cleverly demoralize with snide remarks, uncomplimentary jokes, derisioo,inlluendo, - actually forcing us out of "'k ey posts in clubs, lodges, institutions and even churches! , Me&nwhil~, let us trust to our faith and the prevailing spirit of Father Hlinka among Slovak leaders, let us hold to o ur l•a n u e, our culture:-our ·institutions and let us be Slova f radle rave with the g ui ance of the Slovak L eague of .America. Joseph N. Misany REC OMMEN DEID RE}ADINGS: Slovak s of H u ngary, Th omas Capek, N. Y., 19 06. Scotus Viator (R. W . Seton-Watson), Racial Problems in Hunga r y, 1908. Hungar y a nd Her Successors, C. A. Macartney, Oxford Press , 193 7. Th e Slovak s, 1Peter P. Yurcha k, Whiting, Indiana, F r . Lach, 1946. Andrew H lin ka (Biogr a phy), K a rol Sidor, Br atislava/ J ednota P ress. Slovak ia an d Its People , ,Prof. Gilb er t L. Oddo, Slovak I nstitute. 2900 E. Blvd., Clevela nd, Ohio, 1960. Slova kia, - A Poli tical H is<tory (1918-50), J oseph A. Mikus , 1963, Marquette University Press, Milwaukee , Wis. Slovak ia, 1962, Dr. John R ek em, -Mid dl etown, Pa., Slova k League o! America. An Ou tline of Slovakia's Struggle fo r In depend ence, J . M. Kirsch ba um, 1964, Canadian Slovak League. Was Czech th e Veh icle of Slovak Liter ature? iPhilip A. Hrobak, 1962. Slovak Grammar, J . J . Konu s, P ittsburgh, 1939. Slovak Dictionary, Lessons, Grammar & Rea dillgs, J ednota Press (Hrobak) . Slovak Newspaper s and P er iodicals (U.S.A., Canada, Sou th America ); r efer Drs. J oseph P a 11.co, Joseph M. Kir schba u m, Konstantin Culen.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Father Andrew Hlinka Description An account of the resource Joseph N. Misany Slovakia, Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965 pp. 68-77 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Misany, Joseph N. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/e090470d84ce425eb0898525a976f562.pdf 4f528daec707a3d607df564ed0ff81bb PDF Text Text VOL. XV 1965 NO. 38 IN THIS ISSUE: Early Beginnings of the Slovaks in America - James J. Zatko - 1 T he Oldest Slovak Newspaper in the U.S.A. - William Kona - 38 The White. House and the Slovaks - Sister M. Evangela - 51 Slovaks Have Arrived! - Joseph C. Krajsa -:- 64 Father Andrew Hlinlca - Joseph N. Misany - 68 Twenty Years of Czech and Communist Rule in Slovakia J. M. Kirschbaum 78 Censorship Poli cies in Czecho-Slovakia - Eugene Urban - 93 T he Handmaid of Ideology - F. Vnuk - 134 Is Czecho-Slovakia Breaking Up? - 140 An American Historian and the Slovaks - Joseph C. Krajsa - 146 A Delicate Subject - Mary A. Hlocky - 147 Who's Who Among Slovaks in U.S.A. and Canada - 150 Book Reviews - 152 Published by THE SLOVAK LEAGU E OF AMERICA 313 Ridge Av.e nue Middletown, Pennsylvania Editor: Dr. Joseph Pauco �Officers of the Slovak League of America ·easurer VIBE3E3E3E3E3E 3E3E3E3E3E3E3E 3&!~ Edwar< Execut Paul J fi National Czech~ Slovak ~ il ~ Museum~ Library ~ ~ Iowa Cedar Rapids, rn rn ~ rn rn rn rn F SLOV. ce-Pr es. Hletko, ndrejko rn rn rn rn rn Presented by: ~ ~.~ J). /Jn_A~ ,.~-(} - rn rn rn rn Date: ~A , • / ·#/~ 9 9';t- rn rn rn rn rn m m ,TION ~IBE3E3E3E3E3 E3E3E3E3E3E3E 3Bm~ v. SLOVAK NEWSPAPERS (Affiliated with the Slovak League of America) JEDNOTA Middletown, Pa. SLOVENSKA OBRANA Scranton, Pa. ZENSKA JEDNOTA Cleveland, Ohio BRATSTVO Wilkes-Barre, Pa. SVORNOST Braddock, Pa. ZORNICKA Wilkes-Barre, Pa. KATOLfCKY SOKOL Passaic, N. J . SLOVAK V AMERIKE Middletown, Pa. Join the Local Assembly in your town or contact the Secretary of the Slovak League. Membership dues are only $1.50 per year. � VOL. XV 1965 NO. 38 IN THIS ISSUE: Early Beginnings of the Slovaks in America - James J. Zatko - 1 T he Oldest Slovak Newspaper in the U.S.A. - William Kona - 38 The White. House and the Slovaks - Sister M. Evangela - 51 Slovaks Have Arrived! - Joseph C. Krajsa -:- 64 Father Andrew Hlinlca - Joseph N. Misany - 68 Twenty Years of Czech and Communist Rule in Slovakia J. M. Kirschbaum 78 Censorship Poli cies in Czecho-Slovakia - Eugene Urban - 93 T he Handmaid of Ideology - F. Vnuk - 134 Is Czecho-Slovakia Breaking Up? - 140 An American Historian and the Slovaks - Joseph C. Krajsa - 146 A Delicate Subject - Mary A. Hlocky - 147 Who's Who Among Slovaks in U.S.A. and Canada - 150 Book Reviews - 152 Published by THE SLOVAK LEAGU E OF AMERICA 313 Ridge Av.e nue Middletown, Pennsylvania Editor: Dr. Joseph Pauco �Officers of the Slovak League of America ·easurer VIBE3E3E3E3E3E 3E3E3E3E3E3E3E 3&!~ Edwar< Execut Paul J fi National Czech~ Slovak ~ il ~ Museum~ Library ~ ~ Iowa Cedar Rapids, rn rn ~ rn rn rn rn F SLOV. ce-Pr es. Hletko, ndrejko rn rn rn rn rn Presented by: ~ ~.~ J). /Jn_A~ ,.~-(} - rn rn rn rn Date: ~A , • / ·#/~ 9 9';t- rn rn rn rn rn m m ,TION ~IBE3E3E3E3E3 E3E3E3E3E3E3E 3Bm~ v. SLOVAK NEWSPAPERS (Affiliated with the Slovak League of America) JEDNOTA Middletown, Pa. SLOVENSKA OBRANA Scranton, Pa. ZENSKA JEDNOTA Cleveland, Ohio BRATSTVO Wilkes-Barre, Pa. SVORNOST Braddock, Pa. ZORNICKA Wilkes-Barre, Pa. KATOLfCKY SOKOL Passaic, N. J . SLOVAK V AMERIKE Middletown, Pa. Join the Local Assembly in your town or contact the Secretary of the Slovak League. Membership dues are only $1.50 per year. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1965, Vol. 15 Description An account of the resource Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document VOL. XV 1965 NO. 38 IN THIS ISSUE: Early Beginnings of the Slovaks in America - James J. Zatko - 1 T he Oldest Slovak Newspaper in the U.S.A. - William Kona - 38 The White. House and the Slovaks - Sister M. Evangela - 51 Slovaks Have Arrived! - Joseph C. Krajsa -:- 64 Father Andrew Hlinlca - Joseph N. Misany - 68 Twenty Years of Czech and Communist Rule in Slovakia J. M. Kirschbaum 78 Censorship Poli cies in Czecho-Slovakia - Eugene Urban - 93 T he Handmaid of Ideology - F. Vnuk - 134 Is Czecho-Slovakia Breaking Up? - 140 An American Historian and the Slovaks - Joseph C. Krajsa - 146 A Delicate Subject - Mary A. Hlocky - 147 Who's Who Among Slovaks in U.S.A. and Canada - 150 Book Reviews - 152 Published by THE SLOVAK LEAGU E OF AMERICA 313 Ridge Av.e nue Middletown, Pennsylvania Editor: Dr. Joseph Pauco Officers of the Slovak League of America ·easurer VIBE3E3E3E3E3E 3E3E3E3E3E3E3E 3&!~ Edwar< Execut Paul J fi National Czech~ Slovak ~ il ~ Museum~ Library ~ ~ Iowa Cedar Rapids, rn rn ~ rn rn rn rn F SLOV. ce-Pr es. Hletko, ndrejko rn rn rn rn rn Presented by: ~ ~.~ J). /Jn_A~ ,.~-(} - rn rn rn rn Date: ~A , • / ·#/~ 9 9';t- rn rn rn rn rn m m ,TION ~IBE3E3E3E3E3 E3E3E3E3E3E3E 3Bm~ v. SLOVAK NEWSPAPERS (Affiliated with the Slovak League of America) JEDNOTA Middletown, Pa. SLOVENSKA OBRANA Scranton, Pa. ZENSKA JEDNOTA Cleveland, Ohio BRATSTVO Wilkes-Barre, Pa. SVORNOST Braddock, Pa. ZORNICKA Wilkes-Barre, Pa. KATOLfCKY SOKOL Passaic, N. J . SLOVAK V AMERIKE Middletown, Pa. Join the Local Assembly in your town or contact the Secretary of the Slovak League. Membership dues are only $1.50 per year.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Front Matter, Slovakia, Vol. 15 (No. 38) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/d4b00d6e34e2bfd1c65b4e8742d5060e.pdf 1cde35279fbada685ccb09c38b5a2bef PDF Text Text 14-0 SLOVAKIA A SAD COUNTRY IS CZECHO-SLOVAKIA BREAKING UP? From a Correspondent Slovak historians sent a lengthy memorandum to the Czech Government in Prague arguing the case for a federation between Bohemia-Moravia and Slovakia. In their memorandum the historians said that such a solution would satisfy the legitimate longings of the Slovaks for their own State within the frame work of a larger unity; and that a federation or a confederation of the two countries would remove various internal tensions and introduce an era of peaceful cohabitation between the two Slavonic races. This memorandum, which appeared to crown a prolonged strife between Prague and Bratislava, did not come as a surprise to foreign observers who have been witnessing during the last four years or so a gradual deterioration of relations between the two component parts of the Czecho-Slovak State, Bohemia-Moravia and Slovakia. Such a move was only to be. expected, and the rising hostility between Prague and Bratislava, finding expression in the Press of the two countries, left no doubt as to the intensity of feelings on both sides. One can say without exaggeration that never in the history of Czecho-Slovak relations has there been a period of such open enmity between the two capitals of the Republic. Some people in Bratislava speak freely of the possibility of the breaking-up of the People's Republic: 'This tension', one is assured, 'can't last much longer. Slovakia is fed up with Prague rule. The Czechs will be compelled to acknowledge the claims of the Slovak nation. We no longer want Czech tutelage.' The recent flare-up of hostility between Czechs and Slovaks calls for a short recapitulation of the history of the relations between those two countries. In 1918 a dual or, rather, a triple, Republic, taking into account Subcarpathian Ruthenia, now torn from Czecho-Slovakia and made into a part of the 'Western Ukraine' t0ge~her with the former Eastern Galicia of Poland, was born, with Slovakia liberated from Hunga- �SLOVAKIA 141 rian rule and Bohemia-Moravia from the Austrian yoke. There has been since the very inception of the dual, or triple, Republic (some even say that the Sudetenland should be counted as a fourth unit of Czecho-Slovakia), an inherent difference between the two parts of the country. Bohemia-Moravia was for decades a highly developed industrial country while Slovakia was a rural community. In comparison with Slovakia, Bohemia was also an advanced country in the domain of culture. Slovakia suffered under the heavy Hungarian heel and had no time in which to build up its cadres of intellectuals and professional classes. The result of this disparity was domination by the more prosperous Czechs in Slovakia. The country complained that the Czechs were lording it and that the Slovaks had again become a subject race. These claims were no doubt exaggerated, but it does seem that the Czechs were taking unfair advantage of their position as rulers and were relegating Slovaks to the background. Best positions and jobs went to the Czechs, who arrived in great numbers in Slovakia and plucked the best fruit. Enmity was growing between the two communities, and German propaganda aimed at the disruption of the State and at the same time trying a dual line: fawning on the Sudeten German claims and sponsoring the case for an independent Slovakia. Many Slovaks began to regard Hitler as the liberator of their country from the Czechs; and reasonable plans for transforming Czecho-Slovakia into a kind of Central European Switzerland with four autonomous 'cantons', were shelved. The policy of Benes was at the same time trying to softpedal the ambitions of the Slovaks and override their claims. But when Czecho-Slovakia was dismembered, an independent Slovakia was created. Slovaks took part in the march on Moscow and rebelled against the Germans only in 1944. Slovakia was whitewashed and a new Republic came into being minus the Subcarpathian Ruthenia and minus the Su,. detendeutsche, who were expelled from the borderlands. But Slovak aspirations were by no means quenched. The Czechs tried to repeat the prewar gambit and again sent great numbers of their people into Slovakia. But this time the country was already on the way to vast transformations; a procedure was developed there similar to that- in postwar Austria: indus- �142 SLOVAKIA trialization. After the war ithe Western provinces of Austria, Tyrol, for example, underwent violent industrialization, and the same happened in formerly agricultural Slovakia. Exigencies of war industry and atomic research, as well as the Soviet economic planning, made it imperative to convert the once idyllic valley of the Vah and other areas into bustling industrial centers. The character of the country was largely changed; the rural districts were transformed, huge movements of the population took place, as in postwar Poland, with the result that ,the social composition of the Slovak nation also underwent a serious change. The new professional classes and the new intelligentsia became more and more rebellious and not at all ready to suffer Czech preponderance. The Slovak Communist Party could noit compete with the Czech CP as the latter was among the oldest and best organized CP in Europe. Let us not forget that before the war the CP in Bohemia was one of the strongest in Europe, with extremely long traditions and connections with Moscow which regarded Czech Communists as most reliable, while dreading Polish. Czech Communists had a sizeable representation in the Prague Parliament and could publish the daily Rude Pravo, still the leading Communist publication in the country. The Czech CP was based on the frankly Slavophile attitude of the country, with its many illusions about Russia which have never been shared by the Poles, who had a chance of experiencing Russian rule for over 120 years. The Slovaks cannot compete in their CP with Prague and the execution of such leaders as Vlado Clementis has weakened the budding cadres of the professional Slovak Communists. Now rehabilitation of Clementis has been sought, but Prague seems aloof and does not want to speed up the long overdue tribute to an idealist who could not imagine the depths of 'brotherly' intrigues. The Slovak Communists have no such long traditions as the Czech Communists, and they have no open access to Moscow, as has Novotny. They are, however, brave and dynamic people and they want to emancipate themselves from Czecµ rule. The Slovak papers in Bratislava and elsewhere try to show more independence of opinion than the Czechs; some of the Slovak literary magazines publish rather astonishing articles and disclosures. There is an open rift between the �SLOVAKIA 143 Slovak and Czech Press: the Slovaks demonstrate much more courage and a will to get free from the Party fetters, but the Czechs stick meekly to orthodox doctrine. Slovakia has become a different country from the creation of Tiso. It is an industrial country where the balance between industry and agriculture is almost perfect. National consciousness has taken root and ,the masses are now far better educated than they were some thirty or forty years ago. Intellectuals are more numerous and the professional classes are also increasing. Slovakia wants to be freed from the meddling of Prague, and the praotice of the Czech bureaucrats cannot be any longer suffered by a country which feels that it deserves to be left alone to shape its own economic and cultural destiny. This seems to be the main issue in Czecho-Slovakia today. Strolling along the lovely Prague streets and boulevards, one is constantly reminded of that deep internal strife. People discuss it in cafes and restaurants, in the bars and in the 'automats', the places with the 'vending machines', one of the city's specialities. (They are a feature of Rumanian life, too: Bucharest, even before the war, was famous for its 'automats', selfservice bars where everything from cocoa to beer and sandwiches and salads could be obtained from a special taps or from movable or turntable trays.) The clash with Slovakia crops up in every conversation. People are not optimistic: 'We no longer have such wizards as Bene~, who managed to patch up the strife for years . . . and especially old Masaryk, who had such -enormous prestige. Our Novotny is clever but not up to the standard of a real statesman. He's still very successful in swimming against the tide, for the tide is against him. People want more freedom. And our economy must change, too. We can't tolerate the Russian brand of doctrinaire waste. We don't produce enough.' Czechs are fully aware that so-called 'Socialist model' economy proved a complete fiasco. They know that CzechoSlovakia cannot copy the Soviet Union and that production is not rising quickly enough. · They know t.h at Czech products could have competed in world markets but for the fact that the Czechs are not given enough rein by the Russians and that they work too patchily. The country is moving slowly towards a more relaxed �144 SLOVAKIA way of life, but the innate apathy continues unabated. The Czechs are no heroes and they do not want to rebel. They play Schveiks with a regime which is just plodding along with very meagre economic results. They try to explore every vista, and consequently foreign tourism is now the slogan and countless people from abroad, especially from the German Federal Republic, are streaming into the country. But tourists from the GRF are m'.:lre often than not the Sudetendeutsche who are amazed by ithe deterioration of conditions in their fatherland. The districts once populated by those Sudeten Germans are now derelict, often no-man's-land, or melancholy wasteland. The Czechs did not follow the policy of the Poles who repopulated the Western Territories with settlers from the Eastern marches of Poland. Hardly anybody wanted to go to the former Sudetenland. It is a deserted, fallow land. Again the waste in Communist policy is exposed on these frontier and borderland regions. Many Czechs also arrive from Austria, where they have made good careers (especially in Vienna, though under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy Vienna already had a considerable Czech population). They declare they will never consider returning for good; they make a better living in Austria. This angers the natives, and they say with bitterness that 'even this wretched little Austria, which was a pauper before the war, has succeeded in building up prosperity, while we .. .'. Those arrivals from Austria and the GFR seem to haunt the conscience of the practical Czechs: 'Look, what other nations had done with their unfettered economies. Damn Socialist planning ... they can claim successes only on paper, and paper is patient, as the Germans used to say.' There is bitterness against all those more fortunate contries who managed to escape Russian guardianship. Rumani:ms are often criticized for their too free attitude: 'One day Moscow will resent their courage. Moscow doesn't f o r g e t things.' There is also a marked racial enmity against the various Negro and Asiatic races and immigrants, students and diplomats. Czech girls who consort with them, for they seem to like their generosity, are branded as a 'shameful element'. New names are being invented for girls who prefer the company of colored people to that of Czechs. Racial hatred is rife in Prague and one has to remember the tolerant climate of �SLOVAKIA 145 London and Paris to see the difference: obviously Communism is no antidote against the sting of racialism. Czecho-Slovakia is a sad country. It hardly seems to stir in its sleep. It is planned apathy, the willed apathy of a dispirited country which wants to play safe. Even the shock of Mr. K's departure was a short-lived affair: Czecho-Slovakia was the first country to settle down in a belief that 'there is no danger for us in that Moscow change ... we shall survive all upheavals.' But no amount of the will for security would save the country from the nightmare of a break-up of the dual State, as the Slovak element appears to be much more dynamic and may prove able to force its own will on a largely indifferent, hesitant Czech community. (Contemporary Review, London, England. January 1965; pp. 21-24.) PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED f>urica, M. St.: La Slovacchia e le sue relazioni con la Germania 1938/ 1945, Marsilio Editori, Padova, Italy, 1964, p. 274. Grebert, Arved, LL.D.: Die Slowaken und das Grossmahrishe Reich, Munich, 1965, p. 64. Kirschbaum, J. M., LL.D., Ph.D.: Pavel J. Safarik and His Contribution to Slavic Studies, Slavistica No. 43, Winnipeg, Man.-Cleveland, Ohio, 1962, Slovak Institute, Cleveland, Ohio. Hacia una nueva democracia para la Europa Central, Sep. Istituts de Estudios Politicos, Madrid, 1962, p. 23. La place du slovaque parmi les langues slaves, An offprint from :f:tudes slaves et Est-europennes, Vol. VIII. Fasc. 3-4, Universite de Montreal, 1963. Anton Bernolak--The First Codifier of the Slovak Language (1762· 1813), Slavistica No. 52, Winnipeg, Man., 1964, Slovak Institute, Cleve• land, Ohio. Literature of the Cyrillo-Methodian Period and Slovakia, A reprint from Most, Vol. XI, 1-2, 1964, Slovak Institute, Cleveland, Ohio. An Outline of Slovakia' s Struggle for Independence, Canadian Slovak League, Toronto, 1964, p. 40. Second edition. Slovak Literary History in Marxist and Western Interpretations, A reprint from Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. VI, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1964. Pauco, J ., Ph.D.: 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty, Middletown, Pa., 1965, p. 664, Ill. � 14-0 SLOVAKIA A SAD COUNTRY IS CZECHO-SLOVAKIA BREAKING UP? From a Correspondent Slovak historians sent a lengthy memorandum to the Czech Government in Prague arguing the case for a federation between Bohemia-Moravia and Slovakia. In their memorandum the historians said that such a solution would satisfy the legitimate longings of the Slovaks for their own State within the frame work of a larger unity; and that a federation or a confederation of the two countries would remove various internal tensions and introduce an era of peaceful cohabitation between the two Slavonic races. This memorandum, which appeared to crown a prolonged strife between Prague and Bratislava, did not come as a surprise to foreign observers who have been witnessing during the last four years or so a gradual deterioration of relations between the two component parts of the Czecho-Slovak State, Bohemia-Moravia and Slovakia. Such a move was only to be. expected, and the rising hostility between Prague and Bratislava, finding expression in the Press of the two countries, left no doubt as to the intensity of feelings on both sides. One can say without exaggeration that never in the history of Czecho-Slovak relations has there been a period of such open enmity between the two capitals of the Republic. Some people in Bratislava speak freely of the possibility of the breaking-up of the People's Republic: 'This tension', one is assured, 'can't last much longer. Slovakia is fed up with Prague rule. The Czechs will be compelled to acknowledge the claims of the Slovak nation. We no longer want Czech tutelage.' The recent flare-up of hostility between Czechs and Slovaks calls for a short recapitulation of the history of the relations between those two countries. In 1918 a dual or, rather, a triple, Republic, taking into account Subcarpathian Ruthenia, now torn from Czecho-Slovakia and made into a part of the 'Western Ukraine' t0ge~her with the former Eastern Galicia of Poland, was born, with Slovakia liberated from Hunga- �SLOVAKIA 141 rian rule and Bohemia-Moravia from the Austrian yoke. There has been since the very inception of the dual, or triple, Republic (some even say that the Sudetenland should be counted as a fourth unit of Czecho-Slovakia), an inherent difference between the two parts of the country. Bohemia-Moravia was for decades a highly developed industrial country while Slovakia was a rural community. In comparison with Slovakia, Bohemia was also an advanced country in the domain of culture. Slovakia suffered under the heavy Hungarian heel and had no time in which to build up its cadres of intellectuals and professional classes. The result of this disparity was domination by the more prosperous Czechs in Slovakia. The country complained that the Czechs were lording it and that the Slovaks had again become a subject race. These claims were no doubt exaggerated, but it does seem that the Czechs were taking unfair advantage of their position as rulers and were relegating Slovaks to the background. Best positions and jobs went to the Czechs, who arrived in great numbers in Slovakia and plucked the best fruit. Enmity was growing between the two communities, and German propaganda aimed at the disruption of the State and at the same time trying a dual line: fawning on the Sudeten German claims and sponsoring the case for an independent Slovakia. Many Slovaks began to regard Hitler as the liberator of their country from the Czechs; and reasonable plans for transforming Czecho-Slovakia into a kind of Central European Switzerland with four autonomous 'cantons', were shelved. The policy of Benes was at the same time trying to softpedal the ambitions of the Slovaks and override their claims. But when Czecho-Slovakia was dismembered, an independent Slovakia was created. Slovaks took part in the march on Moscow and rebelled against the Germans only in 1944. Slovakia was whitewashed and a new Republic came into being minus the Subcarpathian Ruthenia and minus the Su,. detendeutsche, who were expelled from the borderlands. But Slovak aspirations were by no means quenched. The Czechs tried to repeat the prewar gambit and again sent great numbers of their people into Slovakia. But this time the country was already on the way to vast transformations; a procedure was developed there similar to that- in postwar Austria: indus- �142 SLOVAKIA trialization. After the war ithe Western provinces of Austria, Tyrol, for example, underwent violent industrialization, and the same happened in formerly agricultural Slovakia. Exigencies of war industry and atomic research, as well as the Soviet economic planning, made it imperative to convert the once idyllic valley of the Vah and other areas into bustling industrial centers. The character of the country was largely changed; the rural districts were transformed, huge movements of the population took place, as in postwar Poland, with the result that ,the social composition of the Slovak nation also underwent a serious change. The new professional classes and the new intelligentsia became more and more rebellious and not at all ready to suffer Czech preponderance. The Slovak Communist Party could noit compete with the Czech CP as the latter was among the oldest and best organized CP in Europe. Let us not forget that before the war the CP in Bohemia was one of the strongest in Europe, with extremely long traditions and connections with Moscow which regarded Czech Communists as most reliable, while dreading Polish. Czech Communists had a sizeable representation in the Prague Parliament and could publish the daily Rude Pravo, still the leading Communist publication in the country. The Czech CP was based on the frankly Slavophile attitude of the country, with its many illusions about Russia which have never been shared by the Poles, who had a chance of experiencing Russian rule for over 120 years. The Slovaks cannot compete in their CP with Prague and the execution of such leaders as Vlado Clementis has weakened the budding cadres of the professional Slovak Communists. Now rehabilitation of Clementis has been sought, but Prague seems aloof and does not want to speed up the long overdue tribute to an idealist who could not imagine the depths of 'brotherly' intrigues. The Slovak Communists have no such long traditions as the Czech Communists, and they have no open access to Moscow, as has Novotny. They are, however, brave and dynamic people and they want to emancipate themselves from Czecµ rule. The Slovak papers in Bratislava and elsewhere try to show more independence of opinion than the Czechs; some of the Slovak literary magazines publish rather astonishing articles and disclosures. There is an open rift between the �SLOVAKIA 143 Slovak and Czech Press: the Slovaks demonstrate much more courage and a will to get free from the Party fetters, but the Czechs stick meekly to orthodox doctrine. Slovakia has become a different country from the creation of Tiso. It is an industrial country where the balance between industry and agriculture is almost perfect. National consciousness has taken root and ,the masses are now far better educated than they were some thirty or forty years ago. Intellectuals are more numerous and the professional classes are also increasing. Slovakia wants to be freed from the meddling of Prague, and the praotice of the Czech bureaucrats cannot be any longer suffered by a country which feels that it deserves to be left alone to shape its own economic and cultural destiny. This seems to be the main issue in Czecho-Slovakia today. Strolling along the lovely Prague streets and boulevards, one is constantly reminded of that deep internal strife. People discuss it in cafes and restaurants, in the bars and in the 'automats', the places with the 'vending machines', one of the city's specialities. (They are a feature of Rumanian life, too: Bucharest, even before the war, was famous for its 'automats', selfservice bars where everything from cocoa to beer and sandwiches and salads could be obtained from a special taps or from movable or turntable trays.) The clash with Slovakia crops up in every conversation. People are not optimistic: 'We no longer have such wizards as Bene~, who managed to patch up the strife for years . . . and especially old Masaryk, who had such -enormous prestige. Our Novotny is clever but not up to the standard of a real statesman. He's still very successful in swimming against the tide, for the tide is against him. People want more freedom. And our economy must change, too. We can't tolerate the Russian brand of doctrinaire waste. We don't produce enough.' Czechs are fully aware that so-called 'Socialist model' economy proved a complete fiasco. They know that CzechoSlovakia cannot copy the Soviet Union and that production is not rising quickly enough. · They know t.h at Czech products could have competed in world markets but for the fact that the Czechs are not given enough rein by the Russians and that they work too patchily. The country is moving slowly towards a more relaxed �144 SLOVAKIA way of life, but the innate apathy continues unabated. The Czechs are no heroes and they do not want to rebel. They play Schveiks with a regime which is just plodding along with very meagre economic results. They try to explore every vista, and consequently foreign tourism is now the slogan and countless people from abroad, especially from the German Federal Republic, are streaming into the country. But tourists from the GRF are m'.:lre often than not the Sudetendeutsche who are amazed by ithe deterioration of conditions in their fatherland. The districts once populated by those Sudeten Germans are now derelict, often no-man's-land, or melancholy wasteland. The Czechs did not follow the policy of the Poles who repopulated the Western Territories with settlers from the Eastern marches of Poland. Hardly anybody wanted to go to the former Sudetenland. It is a deserted, fallow land. Again the waste in Communist policy is exposed on these frontier and borderland regions. Many Czechs also arrive from Austria, where they have made good careers (especially in Vienna, though under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy Vienna already had a considerable Czech population). They declare they will never consider returning for good; they make a better living in Austria. This angers the natives, and they say with bitterness that 'even this wretched little Austria, which was a pauper before the war, has succeeded in building up prosperity, while we .. .'. Those arrivals from Austria and the GFR seem to haunt the conscience of the practical Czechs: 'Look, what other nations had done with their unfettered economies. Damn Socialist planning ... they can claim successes only on paper, and paper is patient, as the Germans used to say.' There is bitterness against all those more fortunate contries who managed to escape Russian guardianship. Rumani:ms are often criticized for their too free attitude: 'One day Moscow will resent their courage. Moscow doesn't f o r g e t things.' There is also a marked racial enmity against the various Negro and Asiatic races and immigrants, students and diplomats. Czech girls who consort with them, for they seem to like their generosity, are branded as a 'shameful element'. New names are being invented for girls who prefer the company of colored people to that of Czechs. Racial hatred is rife in Prague and one has to remember the tolerant climate of �SLOVAKIA 145 London and Paris to see the difference: obviously Communism is no antidote against the sting of racialism. Czecho-Slovakia is a sad country. It hardly seems to stir in its sleep. It is planned apathy, the willed apathy of a dispirited country which wants to play safe. Even the shock of Mr. K's departure was a short-lived affair: Czecho-Slovakia was the first country to settle down in a belief that 'there is no danger for us in that Moscow change ... we shall survive all upheavals.' But no amount of the will for security would save the country from the nightmare of a break-up of the dual State, as the Slovak element appears to be much more dynamic and may prove able to force its own will on a largely indifferent, hesitant Czech community. (Contemporary Review, London, England. January 1965; pp. 21-24.) PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED f>urica, M. St.: La Slovacchia e le sue relazioni con la Germania 1938/ 1945, Marsilio Editori, Padova, Italy, 1964, p. 274. Grebert, Arved, LL.D.: Die Slowaken und das Grossmahrishe Reich, Munich, 1965, p. 64. Kirschbaum, J. M., LL.D., Ph.D.: Pavel J. Safarik and His Contribution to Slavic Studies, Slavistica No. 43, Winnipeg, Man.-Cleveland, Ohio, 1962, Slovak Institute, Cleveland, Ohio. Hacia una nueva democracia para la Europa Central, Sep. Istituts de Estudios Politicos, Madrid, 1962, p. 23. La place du slovaque parmi les langues slaves, An offprint from :f:tudes slaves et Est-europennes, Vol. VIII. Fasc. 3-4, Universite de Montreal, 1963. Anton Bernolak--The First Codifier of the Slovak Language (1762· 1813), Slavistica No. 52, Winnipeg, Man., 1964, Slovak Institute, Cleve• land, Ohio. Literature of the Cyrillo-Methodian Period and Slovakia, A reprint from Most, Vol. XI, 1-2, 1964, Slovak Institute, Cleveland, Ohio. An Outline of Slovakia' s Struggle for Independence, Canadian Slovak League, Toronto, 1964, p. 40. Second edition. Slovak Literary History in Marxist and Western Interpretations, A reprint from Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. VI, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1964. Pauco, J ., Ph.D.: 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty, Middletown, Pa., 1965, p. 664, Ill. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1965, Vol. 15 Description An account of the resource Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 14-0 SLOVAKIA A SAD COUNTRY IS CZECHO-SLOVAKIA BREAKING UP? From a Correspondent Slovak historians sent a lengthy memorandum to the Czech Government in Prague arguing the case for a federation between Bohemia-Moravia and Slovakia. In their memorandum the historians said that such a solution would satisfy the legitimate longings of the Slovaks for their own State within the frame work of a larger unity; and that a federation or a confederation of the two countries would remove various internal tensions and introduce an era of peaceful cohabitation between the two Slavonic races. This memorandum, which appeared to crown a prolonged strife between Prague and Bratislava, did not come as a surprise to foreign observers who have been witnessing during the last four years or so a gradual deterioration of relations between the two component parts of the Czecho-Slovak State, Bohemia-Moravia and Slovakia. Such a move was only to be. expected, and the rising hostility between Prague and Bratislava, finding expression in the Press of the two countries, left no doubt as to the intensity of feelings on both sides. One can say without exaggeration that never in the history of Czecho-Slovak relations has there been a period of such open enmity between the two capitals of the Republic. Some people in Bratislava speak freely of the possibility of the breaking-up of the People's Republic: 'This tension', one is assured, 'can't last much longer. Slovakia is fed up with Prague rule. The Czechs will be compelled to acknowledge the claims of the Slovak nation. We no longer want Czech tutelage.' The recent flare-up of hostility between Czechs and Slovaks calls for a short recapitulation of the history of the relations between those two countries. In 1918 a dual or, rather, a triple, Republic, taking into account Subcarpathian Ruthenia, now torn from Czecho-Slovakia and made into a part of the 'Western Ukraine' t0ge~her with the former Eastern Galicia of Poland, was born, with Slovakia liberated from Hunga- SLOVAKIA 141 rian rule and Bohemia-Moravia from the Austrian yoke. There has been since the very inception of the dual, or triple, Republic (some even say that the Sudetenland should be counted as a fourth unit of Czecho-Slovakia), an inherent difference between the two parts of the country. Bohemia-Moravia was for decades a highly developed industrial country while Slovakia was a rural community. In comparison with Slovakia, Bohemia was also an advanced country in the domain of culture. Slovakia suffered under the heavy Hungarian heel and had no time in which to build up its cadres of intellectuals and professional classes. The result of this disparity was domination by the more prosperous Czechs in Slovakia. The country complained that the Czechs were lording it and that the Slovaks had again become a subject race. These claims were no doubt exaggerated, but it does seem that the Czechs were taking unfair advantage of their position as rulers and were relegating Slovaks to the background. Best positions and jobs went to the Czechs, who arrived in great numbers in Slovakia and plucked the best fruit. Enmity was growing between the two communities, and German propaganda aimed at the disruption of the State and at the same time trying a dual line: fawning on the Sudeten German claims and sponsoring the case for an independent Slovakia. Many Slovaks began to regard Hitler as the liberator of their country from the Czechs; and reasonable plans for transforming Czecho-Slovakia into a kind of Central European Switzerland with four autonomous 'cantons', were shelved. The policy of Benes was at the same time trying to softpedal the ambitions of the Slovaks and override their claims. But when Czecho-Slovakia was dismembered, an independent Slovakia was created. Slovaks took part in the march on Moscow and rebelled against the Germans only in 1944. Slovakia was whitewashed and a new Republic came into being minus the Subcarpathian Ruthenia and minus the Su,. detendeutsche, who were expelled from the borderlands. But Slovak aspirations were by no means quenched. The Czechs tried to repeat the prewar gambit and again sent great numbers of their people into Slovakia. But this time the country was already on the way to vast transformations; a procedure was developed there similar to that- in postwar Austria: indus- 142 SLOVAKIA trialization. After the war ithe Western provinces of Austria, Tyrol, for example, underwent violent industrialization, and the same happened in formerly agricultural Slovakia. Exigencies of war industry and atomic research, as well as the Soviet economic planning, made it imperative to convert the once idyllic valley of the Vah and other areas into bustling industrial centers. The character of the country was largely changed; the rural districts were transformed, huge movements of the population took place, as in postwar Poland, with the result that ,the social composition of the Slovak nation also underwent a serious change. The new professional classes and the new intelligentsia became more and more rebellious and not at all ready to suffer Czech preponderance. The Slovak Communist Party could noit compete with the Czech CP as the latter was among the oldest and best organized CP in Europe. Let us not forget that before the war the CP in Bohemia was one of the strongest in Europe, with extremely long traditions and connections with Moscow which regarded Czech Communists as most reliable, while dreading Polish. Czech Communists had a sizeable representation in the Prague Parliament and could publish the daily Rude Pravo, still the leading Communist publication in the country. The Czech CP was based on the frankly Slavophile attitude of the country, with its many illusions about Russia which have never been shared by the Poles, who had a chance of experiencing Russian rule for over 120 years. The Slovaks cannot compete in their CP with Prague and the execution of such leaders as Vlado Clementis has weakened the budding cadres of the professional Slovak Communists. Now rehabilitation of Clementis has been sought, but Prague seems aloof and does not want to speed up the long overdue tribute to an idealist who could not imagine the depths of 'brotherly' intrigues. The Slovak Communists have no such long traditions as the Czech Communists, and they have no open access to Moscow, as has Novotny. They are, however, brave and dynamic people and they want to emancipate themselves from Czecµ rule. The Slovak papers in Bratislava and elsewhere try to show more independence of opinion than the Czechs; some of the Slovak literary magazines publish rather astonishing articles and disclosures. There is an open rift between the SLOVAKIA 143 Slovak and Czech Press: the Slovaks demonstrate much more courage and a will to get free from the Party fetters, but the Czechs stick meekly to orthodox doctrine. Slovakia has become a different country from the creation of Tiso. It is an industrial country where the balance between industry and agriculture is almost perfect. National consciousness has taken root and ,the masses are now far better educated than they were some thirty or forty years ago. Intellectuals are more numerous and the professional classes are also increasing. Slovakia wants to be freed from the meddling of Prague, and the praotice of the Czech bureaucrats cannot be any longer suffered by a country which feels that it deserves to be left alone to shape its own economic and cultural destiny. This seems to be the main issue in Czecho-Slovakia today. Strolling along the lovely Prague streets and boulevards, one is constantly reminded of that deep internal strife. People discuss it in cafes and restaurants, in the bars and in the 'automats', the places with the 'vending machines', one of the city's specialities. (They are a feature of Rumanian life, too: Bucharest, even before the war, was famous for its 'automats', selfservice bars where everything from cocoa to beer and sandwiches and salads could be obtained from a special taps or from movable or turntable trays.) The clash with Slovakia crops up in every conversation. People are not optimistic: 'We no longer have such wizards as Bene~, who managed to patch up the strife for years . . . and especially old Masaryk, who had such -enormous prestige. Our Novotny is clever but not up to the standard of a real statesman. He's still very successful in swimming against the tide, for the tide is against him. People want more freedom. And our economy must change, too. We can't tolerate the Russian brand of doctrinaire waste. We don't produce enough.' Czechs are fully aware that so-called 'Socialist model' economy proved a complete fiasco. They know that CzechoSlovakia cannot copy the Soviet Union and that production is not rising quickly enough. · They know t.h at Czech products could have competed in world markets but for the fact that the Czechs are not given enough rein by the Russians and that they work too patchily. The country is moving slowly towards a more relaxed 144 SLOVAKIA way of life, but the innate apathy continues unabated. The Czechs are no heroes and they do not want to rebel. They play Schveiks with a regime which is just plodding along with very meagre economic results. They try to explore every vista, and consequently foreign tourism is now the slogan and countless people from abroad, especially from the German Federal Republic, are streaming into the country. But tourists from the GRF are m'.:lre often than not the Sudetendeutsche who are amazed by ithe deterioration of conditions in their fatherland. The districts once populated by those Sudeten Germans are now derelict, often no-man's-land, or melancholy wasteland. The Czechs did not follow the policy of the Poles who repopulated the Western Territories with settlers from the Eastern marches of Poland. Hardly anybody wanted to go to the former Sudetenland. It is a deserted, fallow land. Again the waste in Communist policy is exposed on these frontier and borderland regions. Many Czechs also arrive from Austria, where they have made good careers (especially in Vienna, though under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy Vienna already had a considerable Czech population). They declare they will never consider returning for good; they make a better living in Austria. This angers the natives, and they say with bitterness that 'even this wretched little Austria, which was a pauper before the war, has succeeded in building up prosperity, while we .. .'. Those arrivals from Austria and the GFR seem to haunt the conscience of the practical Czechs: 'Look, what other nations had done with their unfettered economies. Damn Socialist planning ... they can claim successes only on paper, and paper is patient, as the Germans used to say.' There is bitterness against all those more fortunate contries who managed to escape Russian guardianship. Rumani:ms are often criticized for their too free attitude: 'One day Moscow will resent their courage. Moscow doesn't f o r g e t things.' There is also a marked racial enmity against the various Negro and Asiatic races and immigrants, students and diplomats. Czech girls who consort with them, for they seem to like their generosity, are branded as a 'shameful element'. New names are being invented for girls who prefer the company of colored people to that of Czechs. Racial hatred is rife in Prague and one has to remember the tolerant climate of SLOVAKIA 145 London and Paris to see the difference: obviously Communism is no antidote against the sting of racialism. Czecho-Slovakia is a sad country. It hardly seems to stir in its sleep. It is planned apathy, the willed apathy of a dispirited country which wants to play safe. Even the shock of Mr. K's departure was a short-lived affair: Czecho-Slovakia was the first country to settle down in a belief that 'there is no danger for us in that Moscow change ... we shall survive all upheavals.' But no amount of the will for security would save the country from the nightmare of a break-up of the dual State, as the Slovak element appears to be much more dynamic and may prove able to force its own will on a largely indifferent, hesitant Czech community. (Contemporary Review, London, England. January 1965; pp. 21-24.) PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED f>urica, M. St.: La Slovacchia e le sue relazioni con la Germania 1938/ 1945, Marsilio Editori, Padova, Italy, 1964, p. 274. Grebert, Arved, LL.D.: Die Slowaken und das Grossmahrishe Reich, Munich, 1965, p. 64. Kirschbaum, J. M., LL.D., Ph.D.: Pavel J. Safarik and His Contribution to Slavic Studies, Slavistica No. 43, Winnipeg, Man.-Cleveland, Ohio, 1962, Slovak Institute, Cleveland, Ohio. Hacia una nueva democracia para la Europa Central, Sep. Istituts de Estudios Politicos, Madrid, 1962, p. 23. La place du slovaque parmi les langues slaves, An offprint from :f:tudes slaves et Est-europennes, Vol. VIII. Fasc. 3-4, Universite de Montreal, 1963. Anton Bernolak--The First Codifier of the Slovak Language (1762· 1813), Slavistica No. 52, Winnipeg, Man., 1964, Slovak Institute, Cleve• land, Ohio. Literature of the Cyrillo-Methodian Period and Slovakia, A reprint from Most, Vol. XI, 1-2, 1964, Slovak Institute, Cleveland, Ohio. An Outline of Slovakia' s Struggle for Independence, Canadian Slovak League, Toronto, 1964, p. 40. Second edition. Slovak Literary History in Marxist and Western Interpretations, A reprint from Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. VI, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1964. Pauco, J ., Ph.D.: 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty, Middletown, Pa., 1965, p. 664, Ill.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Is Czecho-Slovakia Breaking Up? Description An account of the resource From a Correspondent Slovakia, Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965 pp. 140-145 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/cdb646f28f270daeb3b98aecbdfb6192.pdf 68e57641ece979f00b2be7451c23ff6f PDF Text Text 64 SLOVAKIA SLOVAKS HAVE ARRIVED! By Joseph C. Krajsa The famous hero of the Slovak people, Janosik, who with his band of mountain men fought oppression with the long-handled axe (val!aska), early irrl the 18th <:entury colored the dismal conditions of that period with daring acts for social liberation and still today portrays the spirit of the Slovak people's strength and fove for freedom. Janosik, who was symbolic of the spirit existing among a people who found themselves in a hopeless situation which resulted from a ruthless feudal system, gave hope to the people he loved when he expressed, "Truly it will come, and come must that great day of judgment when truth will be seated at the table of my people." ("No pride, bo prise musi ten vefky den sudu a za stol si sadne prnvda mojho l'udu!") Eve:n though truth does not prevail in the land of the Tatra mountains at this time, and even though as a nation the Slovak people knew independence only a few years, the last two decades have seen a stream of personal and nationality recognition in many corners of the world that acts as a balm for a people sorely tried throughout their long history. Here in America, it can be said about the Slovaks, WE HAVE ARRIVED! Time marked the classics of art, lite:riature, and music. Time marked the great moments of history and the heroes of the life story of the past. The Slovak nation had its contributions to civilization, its moments of history, its heros, its great men, and these have been preserved with time. And, time has filed a repertoire of the Slovak in America. Let us take a look at this repertory. Take our fraternal organizations for example - the National Slovak Society celebrated its 751:Jh anniversary; the First Catholic Slovak Union (Jednota) is in its 75th year in 1965; and the First Catholic Slova:k Ladies Union, the P enna. Slovak Catholic Union, the Slovak Catholic Sokol, and others are nearing milestones. �SLOVAKIA 65 Take our publications - the SLOVAK V AMERIKE, the oldest Slovak newspaper in America, celebrated its . 75th anniversary; 1:!he JEDNOTA, official orgian of the First Catholic Slovak Union, will be starting its 75th year; the OBRANA celebrated its 50th anniversary; and so it is with our other Slovak publications. A look at our Church dignita,ries shows Bishop Joseph A. Durik and Bishop Andrew G. Grutlm; a Slovak Bishop in Rome, Bishop Paul Hnilica; the first bishop in over 1,100 years for Slovaks of the Byzantine Rite, Bishop Michael Rusnak; Abbots Teodor Kojis and Stanislav F. Gmuca; five with the rank of Protonotary Aipostolic; a,bout fifty prelates; and over 1,000 Slovak priests. Several of our Slovak Catholic laity received Papa,l distinctions and many of them received Bishop's awards for outstanding service to the Churc<h. We have one abbey and seven friaries; nine motherhouses for our sisters; nine institutions of higher lea,r ning; an orphanage; four old a,ge h omes; hundreds of elementary schools; and about 300 Slovak Catholic parishes and over 100 Slovak P rotestant churches. We are familiar with the many accomplishments and projected aims of the Slova:k League of America on the political front - this cultural and civic organization of Americans of Slovak descent believes in the American principle of self-determination of all nations and primarily strives to maintain the political identity of the Slovaks; the Slovak Catholic Federation of America and its many deeds in the religious and social fields - its most recent contr ibution being the SS. Cyril and Methodius Institute in Rome which is destined to give a 'Second Spring for Slovakia'; and the recent establishment of the Anton Bernolak Cultuml Foundation - dedicated to preserve the Slovak culture and literature by the printed word. In the last two decades, over two thousand Slovak intellectuals left Slovakia to escaipe the Soviet armies and they arrived in their new surroundings around the world with earned degrees in varied fields of endeavor. In the free countries of the world, especially in the United States, among this wave of refugees from tyranny are some of the best known Slovak novelists, jour.nalists, poets, and writers. �6G SLOVAKIA '.Dhese writers presened their literary creativeness. and formed the Association of Slovak Writers and Artists and opened avenues to the greatest surge of literary efforts about the Slovaks in every language on several continents. More books have been published and distrirbuted about the Slovaks on this continent in the last ten years than in all the previous years put togetJher. As a result, several Departments of Education ·in our states have approved Slovak as a language course to be taught in their sohools; several colleges and universities have esbablished Slovak Chairs; and soon there will be released a modern language course SLOVAK LANGUAGE LABORATORY COURSE with correlated re0orded tapes. Perhaps the three significant contributions by American Slovruks rto date were the rtens of mil.lions of doHars solicited in the bond drives in World War I and World Wrar II; the SlovaJk Catholic Educational Institute (Slovenska Katolicka Matica Skolska) headed by a former editor of JEDNOTA, Joseph Husek, and Miohael Bosak, Sr., of Scranton, Pa., that helped to initiate Benedictine High School for boys in Cleveland, Ohio, and the St. Cyril Academy for girls in Danville, Pa.; and third, the Slovak Institute of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Rome, where young men aire being ,t rained to ibe priests so that one day they can serve in Slovakia. Tangible evidence of the bond drives were ships and planes that were named after leading Slovaks; Benedictine High School and St. Cyril Academy boast a record of scholarship, scientific achievement, and cultural and so-cial advancement that is the pride of all Slovaks; and in the Institute of Rome is a ,p reparatory seminary with the added ingredient - the study of Slovak history, tradition, language and culture, and, that great intang1ble: the apostolic heritage of the patrons, SS. CyrH and Methodius. Another moment in American-Slovak history will be on September 5, 1965, when the Chrupel of Our Mother of Sorrows, Patroness of Slovakia - a gift of the First Catholic Slov,ak Union - will be dedicated in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D. C. It is expected that 10,000 Slovaks will gather in our nation's capitol for this event. The Mass at the main altar �SLOVAKIA 67 will be said in Slovak and the sermon will be in Slovak. It is expected that President Lyndon B. Johnson will be the main speaker at the banquet that will follow the dedication. We all still remember President Franklin D. Roosevelt's message to the American Slova:ks. "'l'he country is mindful of the vast contribution the Slovia~s have made to the cause of 1urthering ,t he development and growth - moral, cultural and material. The stout hearted, clear minded, freedom-loving and determinded ,peo,ple of Slovakia, who sensitive of the wrongs and deprivations experienced in their own country at the hands of invading forces, turned to America seeking a new home, now compose with their children and grandchildren an asset in the lirfe, industry and culture of this great land that defies human power of appraisal. Evidence of Slovak devotion to the United States, Slov,ak enterprise, and Slovak influences, are to :be found in all :bhe States of the Union. To be able to avail myself of this opportunity of directly expressing my ea;rnest ~eetings to the Slovak people pleases me unexpressibly." Yes, time has shown that the Slovak has arrived and it is really just the dawn of things to come. Just look about you in your locale and you will find Slovak leaders in every walk of life. All this time we have strived to establish our . identity under seemingly great odds, but WE HAVE ARRIVED! "So stand tall, my generations, Stand there with the greatest pride; For we Slovak-Americans Have not a thing to hide. Our ancestors have done muoh To mold this our country. And just think They did it for you and me. So let's start today To •b ecome more like them. And let this -be our motto, Slovak osta:nem." � 64 SLOVAKIA SLOVAKS HAVE ARRIVED! By Joseph C. Krajsa The famous hero of the Slovak people, Janosik, who with his band of mountain men fought oppression with the long-handled axe (val!aska), early irrl the 18th <:entury colored the dismal conditions of that period with daring acts for social liberation and still today portrays the spirit of the Slovak people's strength and fove for freedom. Janosik, who was symbolic of the spirit existing among a people who found themselves in a hopeless situation which resulted from a ruthless feudal system, gave hope to the people he loved when he expressed, "Truly it will come, and come must that great day of judgment when truth will be seated at the table of my people." ("No pride, bo prise musi ten vefky den sudu a za stol si sadne prnvda mojho l'udu!") Eve:n though truth does not prevail in the land of the Tatra mountains at this time, and even though as a nation the Slovak people knew independence only a few years, the last two decades have seen a stream of personal and nationality recognition in many corners of the world that acts as a balm for a people sorely tried throughout their long history. Here in America, it can be said about the Slovaks, WE HAVE ARRIVED! Time marked the classics of art, lite:riature, and music. Time marked the great moments of history and the heroes of the life story of the past. The Slovak nation had its contributions to civilization, its moments of history, its heros, its great men, and these have been preserved with time. And, time has filed a repertoire of the Slovak in America. Let us take a look at this repertory. Take our fraternal organizations for example - the National Slovak Society celebrated its 751:Jh anniversary; the First Catholic Slovak Union (Jednota) is in its 75th year in 1965; and the First Catholic Slova:k Ladies Union, the P enna. Slovak Catholic Union, the Slovak Catholic Sokol, and others are nearing milestones. �SLOVAKIA 65 Take our publications - the SLOVAK V AMERIKE, the oldest Slovak newspaper in America, celebrated its . 75th anniversary; 1:!he JEDNOTA, official orgian of the First Catholic Slovak Union, will be starting its 75th year; the OBRANA celebrated its 50th anniversary; and so it is with our other Slovak publications. A look at our Church dignita,ries shows Bishop Joseph A. Durik and Bishop Andrew G. Grutlm; a Slovak Bishop in Rome, Bishop Paul Hnilica; the first bishop in over 1,100 years for Slovaks of the Byzantine Rite, Bishop Michael Rusnak; Abbots Teodor Kojis and Stanislav F. Gmuca; five with the rank of Protonotary Aipostolic; a,bout fifty prelates; and over 1,000 Slovak priests. Several of our Slovak Catholic laity received Papa,l distinctions and many of them received Bishop's awards for outstanding service to the Churc<h. We have one abbey and seven friaries; nine motherhouses for our sisters; nine institutions of higher lea,r ning; an orphanage; four old a,ge h omes; hundreds of elementary schools; and about 300 Slovak Catholic parishes and over 100 Slovak P rotestant churches. We are familiar with the many accomplishments and projected aims of the Slova:k League of America on the political front - this cultural and civic organization of Americans of Slovak descent believes in the American principle of self-determination of all nations and primarily strives to maintain the political identity of the Slovaks; the Slovak Catholic Federation of America and its many deeds in the religious and social fields - its most recent contr ibution being the SS. Cyril and Methodius Institute in Rome which is destined to give a 'Second Spring for Slovakia'; and the recent establishment of the Anton Bernolak Cultuml Foundation - dedicated to preserve the Slovak culture and literature by the printed word. In the last two decades, over two thousand Slovak intellectuals left Slovakia to escaipe the Soviet armies and they arrived in their new surroundings around the world with earned degrees in varied fields of endeavor. In the free countries of the world, especially in the United States, among this wave of refugees from tyranny are some of the best known Slovak novelists, jour.nalists, poets, and writers. �6G SLOVAKIA '.Dhese writers presened their literary creativeness. and formed the Association of Slovak Writers and Artists and opened avenues to the greatest surge of literary efforts about the Slovaks in every language on several continents. More books have been published and distrirbuted about the Slovaks on this continent in the last ten years than in all the previous years put togetJher. As a result, several Departments of Education ·in our states have approved Slovak as a language course to be taught in their sohools; several colleges and universities have esbablished Slovak Chairs; and soon there will be released a modern language course SLOVAK LANGUAGE LABORATORY COURSE with correlated re0orded tapes. Perhaps the three significant contributions by American Slovruks rto date were the rtens of mil.lions of doHars solicited in the bond drives in World War I and World Wrar II; the SlovaJk Catholic Educational Institute (Slovenska Katolicka Matica Skolska) headed by a former editor of JEDNOTA, Joseph Husek, and Miohael Bosak, Sr., of Scranton, Pa., that helped to initiate Benedictine High School for boys in Cleveland, Ohio, and the St. Cyril Academy for girls in Danville, Pa.; and third, the Slovak Institute of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Rome, where young men aire being ,t rained to ibe priests so that one day they can serve in Slovakia. Tangible evidence of the bond drives were ships and planes that were named after leading Slovaks; Benedictine High School and St. Cyril Academy boast a record of scholarship, scientific achievement, and cultural and so-cial advancement that is the pride of all Slovaks; and in the Institute of Rome is a ,p reparatory seminary with the added ingredient - the study of Slovak history, tradition, language and culture, and, that great intang1ble: the apostolic heritage of the patrons, SS. CyrH and Methodius. Another moment in American-Slovak history will be on September 5, 1965, when the Chrupel of Our Mother of Sorrows, Patroness of Slovakia - a gift of the First Catholic Slov,ak Union - will be dedicated in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D. C. It is expected that 10,000 Slovaks will gather in our nation's capitol for this event. The Mass at the main altar �SLOVAKIA 67 will be said in Slovak and the sermon will be in Slovak. It is expected that President Lyndon B. Johnson will be the main speaker at the banquet that will follow the dedication. We all still remember President Franklin D. Roosevelt's message to the American Slova:ks. "'l'he country is mindful of the vast contribution the Slovia~s have made to the cause of 1urthering ,t he development and growth - moral, cultural and material. The stout hearted, clear minded, freedom-loving and determinded ,peo,ple of Slovakia, who sensitive of the wrongs and deprivations experienced in their own country at the hands of invading forces, turned to America seeking a new home, now compose with their children and grandchildren an asset in the lirfe, industry and culture of this great land that defies human power of appraisal. Evidence of Slovak devotion to the United States, Slov,ak enterprise, and Slovak influences, are to :be found in all :bhe States of the Union. To be able to avail myself of this opportunity of directly expressing my ea;rnest ~eetings to the Slovak people pleases me unexpressibly." Yes, time has shown that the Slovak has arrived and it is really just the dawn of things to come. Just look about you in your locale and you will find Slovak leaders in every walk of life. All this time we have strived to establish our . identity under seemingly great odds, but WE HAVE ARRIVED! "So stand tall, my generations, Stand there with the greatest pride; For we Slovak-Americans Have not a thing to hide. Our ancestors have done muoh To mold this our country. And just think They did it for you and me. So let's start today To •b ecome more like them. And let this -be our motto, Slovak osta:nem." � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1965, Vol. 15 Description An account of the resource Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 64 SLOVAKIA SLOVAKS HAVE ARRIVED! By Joseph C. Krajsa The famous hero of the Slovak people, Janosik, who with his band of mountain men fought oppression with the long-handled axe (val!aska), early irrl the 18th <:entury colored the dismal conditions of that period with daring acts for social liberation and still today portrays the spirit of the Slovak people's strength and fove for freedom. Janosik, who was symbolic of the spirit existing among a people who found themselves in a hopeless situation which resulted from a ruthless feudal system, gave hope to the people he loved when he expressed, "Truly it will come, and come must that great day of judgment when truth will be seated at the table of my people." ("No pride, bo prise musi ten vefky den sudu a za stol si sadne prnvda mojho l'udu!") Eve:n though truth does not prevail in the land of the Tatra mountains at this time, and even though as a nation the Slovak people knew independence only a few years, the last two decades have seen a stream of personal and nationality recognition in many corners of the world that acts as a balm for a people sorely tried throughout their long history. Here in America, it can be said about the Slovaks, WE HAVE ARRIVED! Time marked the classics of art, lite:riature, and music. Time marked the great moments of history and the heroes of the life story of the past. The Slovak nation had its contributions to civilization, its moments of history, its heros, its great men, and these have been preserved with time. And, time has filed a repertoire of the Slovak in America. Let us take a look at this repertory. Take our fraternal organizations for example - the National Slovak Society celebrated its 751:Jh anniversary; the First Catholic Slovak Union (Jednota) is in its 75th year in 1965; and the First Catholic Slova:k Ladies Union, the P enna. Slovak Catholic Union, the Slovak Catholic Sokol, and others are nearing milestones. SLOVAKIA 65 Take our publications - the SLOVAK V AMERIKE, the oldest Slovak newspaper in America, celebrated its . 75th anniversary; 1:!he JEDNOTA, official orgian of the First Catholic Slovak Union, will be starting its 75th year; the OBRANA celebrated its 50th anniversary; and so it is with our other Slovak publications. A look at our Church dignita,ries shows Bishop Joseph A. Durik and Bishop Andrew G. Grutlm; a Slovak Bishop in Rome, Bishop Paul Hnilica; the first bishop in over 1,100 years for Slovaks of the Byzantine Rite, Bishop Michael Rusnak; Abbots Teodor Kojis and Stanislav F. Gmuca; five with the rank of Protonotary Aipostolic; a,bout fifty prelates; and over 1,000 Slovak priests. Several of our Slovak Catholic laity received Papa,l distinctions and many of them received Bishop's awards for outstanding service to the Churc<h. We have one abbey and seven friaries; nine motherhouses for our sisters; nine institutions of higher lea,r ning; an orphanage; four old a,ge h omes; hundreds of elementary schools; and about 300 Slovak Catholic parishes and over 100 Slovak P rotestant churches. We are familiar with the many accomplishments and projected aims of the Slova:k League of America on the political front - this cultural and civic organization of Americans of Slovak descent believes in the American principle of self-determination of all nations and primarily strives to maintain the political identity of the Slovaks; the Slovak Catholic Federation of America and its many deeds in the religious and social fields - its most recent contr ibution being the SS. Cyril and Methodius Institute in Rome which is destined to give a 'Second Spring for Slovakia'; and the recent establishment of the Anton Bernolak Cultuml Foundation - dedicated to preserve the Slovak culture and literature by the printed word. In the last two decades, over two thousand Slovak intellectuals left Slovakia to escaipe the Soviet armies and they arrived in their new surroundings around the world with earned degrees in varied fields of endeavor. In the free countries of the world, especially in the United States, among this wave of refugees from tyranny are some of the best known Slovak novelists, jour.nalists, poets, and writers. 6G SLOVAKIA '.Dhese writers presened their literary creativeness. and formed the Association of Slovak Writers and Artists and opened avenues to the greatest surge of literary efforts about the Slovaks in every language on several continents. More books have been published and distrirbuted about the Slovaks on this continent in the last ten years than in all the previous years put togetJher. As a result, several Departments of Education ·in our states have approved Slovak as a language course to be taught in their sohools; several colleges and universities have esbablished Slovak Chairs; and soon there will be released a modern language course SLOVAK LANGUAGE LABORATORY COURSE with correlated re0orded tapes. Perhaps the three significant contributions by American Slovruks rto date were the rtens of mil.lions of doHars solicited in the bond drives in World War I and World Wrar II; the SlovaJk Catholic Educational Institute (Slovenska Katolicka Matica Skolska) headed by a former editor of JEDNOTA, Joseph Husek, and Miohael Bosak, Sr., of Scranton, Pa., that helped to initiate Benedictine High School for boys in Cleveland, Ohio, and the St. Cyril Academy for girls in Danville, Pa.; and third, the Slovak Institute of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Rome, where young men aire being ,t rained to ibe priests so that one day they can serve in Slovakia. Tangible evidence of the bond drives were ships and planes that were named after leading Slovaks; Benedictine High School and St. Cyril Academy boast a record of scholarship, scientific achievement, and cultural and so-cial advancement that is the pride of all Slovaks; and in the Institute of Rome is a ,p reparatory seminary with the added ingredient - the study of Slovak history, tradition, language and culture, and, that great intang1ble: the apostolic heritage of the patrons, SS. CyrH and Methodius. Another moment in American-Slovak history will be on September 5, 1965, when the Chrupel of Our Mother of Sorrows, Patroness of Slovakia - a gift of the First Catholic Slov,ak Union - will be dedicated in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D. C. It is expected that 10,000 Slovaks will gather in our nation's capitol for this event. The Mass at the main altar SLOVAKIA 67 will be said in Slovak and the sermon will be in Slovak. It is expected that President Lyndon B. Johnson will be the main speaker at the banquet that will follow the dedication. We all still remember President Franklin D. Roosevelt's message to the American Slova:ks. "'l'he country is mindful of the vast contribution the Slovia~s have made to the cause of 1urthering ,t he development and growth - moral, cultural and material. The stout hearted, clear minded, freedom-loving and determinded ,peo,ple of Slovakia, who sensitive of the wrongs and deprivations experienced in their own country at the hands of invading forces, turned to America seeking a new home, now compose with their children and grandchildren an asset in the lirfe, industry and culture of this great land that defies human power of appraisal. Evidence of Slovak devotion to the United States, Slov,ak enterprise, and Slovak influences, are to :be found in all :bhe States of the Union. To be able to avail myself of this opportunity of directly expressing my ea;rnest ~eetings to the Slovak people pleases me unexpressibly." Yes, time has shown that the Slovak has arrived and it is really just the dawn of things to come. Just look about you in your locale and you will find Slovak leaders in every walk of life. All this time we have strived to establish our . identity under seemingly great odds, but WE HAVE ARRIVED! "So stand tall, my generations, Stand there with the greatest pride; For we Slovak-Americans Have not a thing to hide. Our ancestors have done muoh To mold this our country. And just think They did it for you and me. So let's start today To •b ecome more like them. And let this -be our motto, Slovak osta:nem."  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Slovaks Have Arrived! Description An account of the resource Joseph C. Krajsa Slovakia, Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965 pp. 64-67 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Krajsa, Joseph C. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/b80238ed3d420a548ce4f6fce8bf66f3.pdf 2c3f01504ad68773fb6965012fd1cc1a PDF Text Text 134 SLOVAKIA THE HANDMAID OF IDEOLOGY (Slovak literature since 1945) Among the Slovaks, literature always played a leading r ole in the national life. The writers were the foremost fighters for the national rights before 1918, and fearless critics of the political and social wrongs in the post-war years. They were looked upon as the conscience of the nation and one can hardly think of a more dignified title bestowed by a people on its writers. It was a convincing sign of a mutual trust; in a sense Slovak literature was not only a collection of novels, books of poems and stories, but a faithful chronicle of Slovak strivings, fights, defeats and victories. The years after the First World War were in fact the golden years of Slovak literature. Freed and uninhibited it blossomed into maturity and was gradually catching up with the modern western literary currents. The years of national independence, 1939-45, in spite of the fact that they coincided with the war years, were on the whole the most fruitful period in the history of Slovak literature. The fall of the Slovak Republic and the restoration of Czecho-Slovakia in 1945 was a matter of great concern for the Slovak writers. Many of them fled before the advancing Red army (Hronsky, Ga~par, Urban, Zarnov, Dilong, Strmen, etc.) and even those who stayed behind faced the new situation with grave apprehension. Officially the liquidation of Slovak independence was celebrated as an act of liberation by the Red army and of joyful reunification with the fraternal Czech nation, but there is no sign of festive mood in the contemporary literary publications. The bards of the nation failed to express gratitude to the liberators. Even those writers who tried hard to please the new regime could only produce works completely lacking in joy, jubilation or any exulted feeling of a liberated nation. Jan Kostra (who was editor of the cultural section of the Communist daily "Pravda") published a collection of f>Oems entitled "Preponderance of sadness". Other books of poems published at the same time bore titles (and had contents cor- �SLOVAKIA 135 responding to their titles) such as "The mountain of hopelessness", "The age of lepers", "Stars-the wreakers of cruelty", etc. This obviously was not the way to welcome the dawn of liberation. Similar uneasiness was predominant in the Slovak post-war prose. Instead of a joyous present the authors wrote of a legendary past or tried to escape to unreal imaginary worlds of their own creation. Those few writers who listened to the voices of the cultural commissars and attempted to depict the problem of contemporary life achieved very disappointing results (J. Ponican, F. Kral', J. Horak, A. Plavka). The attitude of the Slovak writers was displayed clearly and unmistakably. This attitude of passive contempt was embarrassing to the new regime. The change in it came in 1948/ 9 when the Communists by clever manipulation outwitted their Democratic partners in the National Front and usurped all power in Slovakia. Immediately they set about to dominate and subsequently exploited the Slovak literary community. In April 1948 K. Gottwald declared "nationalization ef culture in general and of literature in particular". Literature was given its definite "constructive tasks". All the creative artistic methods were outlawed as "decadent, formalist, reactionary", etc., except the socialist realism which from the year 1948 on was to reign supreme. Literature became a concern of politicians, parliamentarians, party ideologists and party congresses. Those who would not toe the party line were mercilessly dealt with. The government soon had complete control over the press and publishing houses, and became the only employer of the writers. In their turn the writers were degraded to being "the engineers of human souls" and entrusted with problems corresponding to their profession. In March 1949 the Czechoslovak Writers Union was formed to which 220 Czech and 60 Slovak authors were admitted. The Union absorbed the existing Slovak Writers Association. Not only did the Slovak writers lost their national identity by this step but also the best and most promising of them were excluded from Union membership (V. Beniak, E. B. Lukac, J. Silan, J. Motulko, etc., etc.) and thus forcibly silenced and materially ruined. Subsequent purges further decimated the thin line of the Slovak men of letters. In April 1951 there occurred another �136 SLOVAKIA heavy-handed purge in which the victims were old-time Communist writers accused of bourgeois nationalist deviations, namely Novomesky, D. Okali and I. Horvath. (After expulsion from the Writers Union they were imprisoned and given heavy sentences.) Attacks were hurled also at D. Tatarka, V. Minac, A. Matuska, M. Chorvath and others. In that period of trial and tribulation when the revolution was devouring its own children the literary output was extremely low (altogether 17 new books appeared in 1951, as compared with the average output in the 1939-44 period of 142 new books yearly) and its artistic standard almost nonexistent. The books of poems became political speeches in verse, the prose writing was indistinguishable from political journalism. The progressive character of the poetry is obvious from the titles: "The Ode on Stalin" (J. Kostra, 1949), "Comrade my country" (M. Lajciak, 1949), "The song of peaceloving hands" (J. Rak, 1949), "The song of steel ingots" (L. Miiacko, 1950), "The song of love to new China" (J. Brezina, 1950), "The song of great (i.e. Slovak-Soviet) friendship" (M. Lajciak, 1951), "The song of May" (M. Prochazka 1952), "The spring song of a collective farmer" (C. Stitnicky, 1950), "People, be vigilant!" (F. Citovsky, 1951), "Peace- my love" (P. Gajdos, 1951), "The guardians of peace" (M. Krno, 1951), "The banners of peace", etc. The nebulous and never properly defined concept of socialist realism, the inspiration dictated by ideological expediency and the frontal attack on all formalist tendencies, were fertile soil for the so-called "schematism". The poems of different authors were monotonously alike with no relation to the realities of life. The prose writers composed works which were encyclopedical compilations of Marxist axioms with the positive and negative heroes engaged in a class struggle which predictably ended with the victory of the working class. The popular themes of novels and stories were the collectivization of the villages ("The wooden village" of F. Hecko, 1951 ; "The wasps' nest" of K. Lazarova, 1953, etc.) the Slovak uprising of 1944 (novels and short stories of Krno, Minac, Jilemnicky, Karvas, Plavka, etc.), the industrialization of Slovakia (Hora.k's "Blast furnace", Mina.e's "Blue waves", Miiacko's "The waters of Orava", Tatarka's "Comradely years", etc.). The literary thaw which set in after Stalin's death (1953) �SLOVAKIA 137 made a belated entry into Slovakia in the winter of 1955-6. It provoked some heated exchanges of opinions between the more liberal wing of the literary community on the one hand (I. Kupec, D. Tatarka) and the hardened stalinists (especially F. Hecko) on the other. The spirit of the thaw period found its fullest expression at the second congress of the Czecho-Slovak writers (April 1956) which followed at the heels of the 20th congress of the Soviet Communist Party (February, 1956). The outspoken criticism of the drabness of contemporary literature enunciated in the unscheduled speeches of the Czech writers Seifert and Hrubin (and echoed by D. Tatarka) pointedly demonstrated an unprecedented decay in artistic values brought about by the ruthless subjection of literature to ideology. The writers rebelled against their humiliating roles of soul-engineers and declared themselves to be the conscience of the nation. The spirit of the Writer's Congress was, alas, short-lived. Soviet intervention in Poland and Hungary put a sudden stop to all liberalizing undercurrents in the socialist camp and the Czech.o-Slovak Communist leaders were none too slow to restore the status quo ante 1953. Thus-apart from a few magazine articles-the literary thaw hardly left any sign in the literary production of the time. The only significant book of the thaw period was A. Bednar's "Hours and minutes" (1956) which soon became a target for concentrated attacks by official critics, trade unionists, partisans and other spokesmen -0£ the working class. The Czecho-Slovak Communist leaders succeeded in the following years (1956-62) in restoring the rigorous control of the stalinist er~. Under the slogan of "struggle against revisionism" they devised an ingenious strategy which was then applied by L. Stoll to combat various manifestations of revi.sionism in literature. By threats and promise the writers were forced to abandon the ideas promulgated at the Writers' Congress and to return to the old days of blind obedience to the party's bidding. But only a few writers were willing to follow unconditionally the new twist in the party line. Others tried to escape the rigors of neostalinism by self-imposed silence by writing literature for children or turning back in reminiscences to their own childhood and youth. The group of young writerf'l �138 SLOVAKIA gathered around the literary monthly "Mlada tvorba" showed initially some youthful elan, but lacking a firm program and able leadership on the one hand and facing insurmountable obstructions of the hardened party line on the other, it gradually slipped into restive passivity. (Their Czech counterparts around "Kveten" showed more aggressiveness and in turn were disbanded.) As it was revealed in 1963 the Sfovak Writers Union vetoed the publication of a number of books by young authors (Feldek, Stacho, Hykisch and others) because of alleged lack of ideological clarity, because of objectionable experimenting with modernism or playing up to revisionism. The years 1956-62 (now remorsefully called "the lost years" ) were almost a repetition of the years 1949-54 with the same writers (Minac, Tatarka, Lazarova, Mihalik, Karvas, etc.) enriching Slovak socialist realist literature by books on the same old themes (collectivization, industrialization, the Slovak uprising of 1944 ... but minus the "personality cult"} with the same outworn cliches. But these lost years were not as irreparably lost as the years 1949-53. An almost unnoticed development took place during this oppressive period: the emergence of a new literary generation. These young writers whose past was not tarnished by the sins of the cult era were not attracted by the literary models offered at home (Drda, Minac, Hecko) or in the Soviet Union (Fadeyev, Sholochov} but were casting their . eyes towards the literary achievements in the West. Hem- • mingway, Salinger, Steinbeck were their idols and secretly they admired and studied such proscribed decadents and formalists as Joyce, Kafka, Proust. .. The young poets were shows · ing interest in the works of Aragon and Eluard of the surrealist period and alongside them they were exploring the modern poetry of Rilke, St. John Perse, T. S. Eliot and the Amen-· can beatnik poets. The influences of this search for new poetry are visible in the poetical writings of M. Valek, M. Feldek, J. Sfacho and_ V. Turcany. The new prose made its unobtrusive appearance in the works of J . Blazkova, A. Hykisch and others. The young writers were· permitted to publish ·their books only from 1961 onward, when the change in the political climate ushered in a new liter2ry thaw. Under the impact of the : Sino-Soviet conflict and renewed attacks on Stalin at the 22nd �SLOVAKIA 139 Soviet Communist Party Congress gradually crumbled the tenets of stalinism even in Czecho-Slovakia. This was symbolically represented by the demolition of the gigantic statue of Stalin overlooking Prague. In the wake of the new thaw, several Slovak writers were rehabilitated (Novomesky, Okali and - posthumously - I. Horvath), some prohibited books of bourgeois nationalist authors (Razus, Urban) were reprinted, a number of forcibly silenced authors were given the opportunity to publish_in literary journals (V. Beniak, E. B. Lukac) and even some unmentionable emigre writers (Hronsky) were mentioned without malice. A new look at the Slovak literary past caused the postponement (already the third time since 1957) of the publication of the History of Slovak literature. But there is still no escape from the ideological straitjacket. The party has an all-pervading control over cultural activities, it arbitrarily deposes inconvenient and outspoken critics of its methods. (E.g. it sent to diplomatic exile in Paris L . Mnacko, the author of the notorious "Belated reports". There he repented so thoroughly that the party saw fit to put him as the editor-in-chief of the "Kulturny zivot" to replace the uncomfortably critical P. Stevcek.) It seems that the controversy, criticism and discussion which were so daring in 1963 are now (in 1965) largerly a thing of the past. And the literary development is faring accordingly. F . Vnuk Jozef Ciger Hr on s 1k y, a great Slovak novelist, died J,uly 13, 1960 in Lujan, Argentina. He was the author of some 40 books � 134 SLOVAKIA THE HANDMAID OF IDEOLOGY (Slovak literature since 1945) Among the Slovaks, literature always played a leading r ole in the national life. The writers were the foremost fighters for the national rights before 1918, and fearless critics of the political and social wrongs in the post-war years. They were looked upon as the conscience of the nation and one can hardly think of a more dignified title bestowed by a people on its writers. It was a convincing sign of a mutual trust; in a sense Slovak literature was not only a collection of novels, books of poems and stories, but a faithful chronicle of Slovak strivings, fights, defeats and victories. The years after the First World War were in fact the golden years of Slovak literature. Freed and uninhibited it blossomed into maturity and was gradually catching up with the modern western literary currents. The years of national independence, 1939-45, in spite of the fact that they coincided with the war years, were on the whole the most fruitful period in the history of Slovak literature. The fall of the Slovak Republic and the restoration of Czecho-Slovakia in 1945 was a matter of great concern for the Slovak writers. Many of them fled before the advancing Red army (Hronsky, Ga~par, Urban, Zarnov, Dilong, Strmen, etc.) and even those who stayed behind faced the new situation with grave apprehension. Officially the liquidation of Slovak independence was celebrated as an act of liberation by the Red army and of joyful reunification with the fraternal Czech nation, but there is no sign of festive mood in the contemporary literary publications. The bards of the nation failed to express gratitude to the liberators. Even those writers who tried hard to please the new regime could only produce works completely lacking in joy, jubilation or any exulted feeling of a liberated nation. Jan Kostra (who was editor of the cultural section of the Communist daily "Pravda") published a collection of f>Oems entitled "Preponderance of sadness". Other books of poems published at the same time bore titles (and had contents cor- �SLOVAKIA 135 responding to their titles) such as "The mountain of hopelessness", "The age of lepers", "Stars-the wreakers of cruelty", etc. This obviously was not the way to welcome the dawn of liberation. Similar uneasiness was predominant in the Slovak post-war prose. Instead of a joyous present the authors wrote of a legendary past or tried to escape to unreal imaginary worlds of their own creation. Those few writers who listened to the voices of the cultural commissars and attempted to depict the problem of contemporary life achieved very disappointing results (J. Ponican, F. Kral', J. Horak, A. Plavka). The attitude of the Slovak writers was displayed clearly and unmistakably. This attitude of passive contempt was embarrassing to the new regime. The change in it came in 1948/ 9 when the Communists by clever manipulation outwitted their Democratic partners in the National Front and usurped all power in Slovakia. Immediately they set about to dominate and subsequently exploited the Slovak literary community. In April 1948 K. Gottwald declared "nationalization ef culture in general and of literature in particular". Literature was given its definite "constructive tasks". All the creative artistic methods were outlawed as "decadent, formalist, reactionary", etc., except the socialist realism which from the year 1948 on was to reign supreme. Literature became a concern of politicians, parliamentarians, party ideologists and party congresses. Those who would not toe the party line were mercilessly dealt with. The government soon had complete control over the press and publishing houses, and became the only employer of the writers. In their turn the writers were degraded to being "the engineers of human souls" and entrusted with problems corresponding to their profession. In March 1949 the Czechoslovak Writers Union was formed to which 220 Czech and 60 Slovak authors were admitted. The Union absorbed the existing Slovak Writers Association. Not only did the Slovak writers lost their national identity by this step but also the best and most promising of them were excluded from Union membership (V. Beniak, E. B. Lukac, J. Silan, J. Motulko, etc., etc.) and thus forcibly silenced and materially ruined. Subsequent purges further decimated the thin line of the Slovak men of letters. In April 1951 there occurred another �136 SLOVAKIA heavy-handed purge in which the victims were old-time Communist writers accused of bourgeois nationalist deviations, namely Novomesky, D. Okali and I. Horvath. (After expulsion from the Writers Union they were imprisoned and given heavy sentences.) Attacks were hurled also at D. Tatarka, V. Minac, A. Matuska, M. Chorvath and others. In that period of trial and tribulation when the revolution was devouring its own children the literary output was extremely low (altogether 17 new books appeared in 1951, as compared with the average output in the 1939-44 period of 142 new books yearly) and its artistic standard almost nonexistent. The books of poems became political speeches in verse, the prose writing was indistinguishable from political journalism. The progressive character of the poetry is obvious from the titles: "The Ode on Stalin" (J. Kostra, 1949), "Comrade my country" (M. Lajciak, 1949), "The song of peaceloving hands" (J. Rak, 1949), "The song of steel ingots" (L. Miiacko, 1950), "The song of love to new China" (J. Brezina, 1950), "The song of great (i.e. Slovak-Soviet) friendship" (M. Lajciak, 1951), "The song of May" (M. Prochazka 1952), "The spring song of a collective farmer" (C. Stitnicky, 1950), "People, be vigilant!" (F. Citovsky, 1951), "Peace- my love" (P. Gajdos, 1951), "The guardians of peace" (M. Krno, 1951), "The banners of peace", etc. The nebulous and never properly defined concept of socialist realism, the inspiration dictated by ideological expediency and the frontal attack on all formalist tendencies, were fertile soil for the so-called "schematism". The poems of different authors were monotonously alike with no relation to the realities of life. The prose writers composed works which were encyclopedical compilations of Marxist axioms with the positive and negative heroes engaged in a class struggle which predictably ended with the victory of the working class. The popular themes of novels and stories were the collectivization of the villages ("The wooden village" of F. Hecko, 1951 ; "The wasps' nest" of K. Lazarova, 1953, etc.) the Slovak uprising of 1944 (novels and short stories of Krno, Minac, Jilemnicky, Karvas, Plavka, etc.), the industrialization of Slovakia (Hora.k's "Blast furnace", Mina.e's "Blue waves", Miiacko's "The waters of Orava", Tatarka's "Comradely years", etc.). The literary thaw which set in after Stalin's death (1953) �SLOVAKIA 137 made a belated entry into Slovakia in the winter of 1955-6. It provoked some heated exchanges of opinions between the more liberal wing of the literary community on the one hand (I. Kupec, D. Tatarka) and the hardened stalinists (especially F. Hecko) on the other. The spirit of the thaw period found its fullest expression at the second congress of the Czecho-Slovak writers (April 1956) which followed at the heels of the 20th congress of the Soviet Communist Party (February, 1956). The outspoken criticism of the drabness of contemporary literature enunciated in the unscheduled speeches of the Czech writers Seifert and Hrubin (and echoed by D. Tatarka) pointedly demonstrated an unprecedented decay in artistic values brought about by the ruthless subjection of literature to ideology. The writers rebelled against their humiliating roles of soul-engineers and declared themselves to be the conscience of the nation. The spirit of the Writer's Congress was, alas, short-lived. Soviet intervention in Poland and Hungary put a sudden stop to all liberalizing undercurrents in the socialist camp and the Czech.o-Slovak Communist leaders were none too slow to restore the status quo ante 1953. Thus-apart from a few magazine articles-the literary thaw hardly left any sign in the literary production of the time. The only significant book of the thaw period was A. Bednar's "Hours and minutes" (1956) which soon became a target for concentrated attacks by official critics, trade unionists, partisans and other spokesmen -0£ the working class. The Czecho-Slovak Communist leaders succeeded in the following years (1956-62) in restoring the rigorous control of the stalinist er~. Under the slogan of "struggle against revisionism" they devised an ingenious strategy which was then applied by L. Stoll to combat various manifestations of revi.sionism in literature. By threats and promise the writers were forced to abandon the ideas promulgated at the Writers' Congress and to return to the old days of blind obedience to the party's bidding. But only a few writers were willing to follow unconditionally the new twist in the party line. Others tried to escape the rigors of neostalinism by self-imposed silence by writing literature for children or turning back in reminiscences to their own childhood and youth. The group of young writerf'l �138 SLOVAKIA gathered around the literary monthly "Mlada tvorba" showed initially some youthful elan, but lacking a firm program and able leadership on the one hand and facing insurmountable obstructions of the hardened party line on the other, it gradually slipped into restive passivity. (Their Czech counterparts around "Kveten" showed more aggressiveness and in turn were disbanded.) As it was revealed in 1963 the Sfovak Writers Union vetoed the publication of a number of books by young authors (Feldek, Stacho, Hykisch and others) because of alleged lack of ideological clarity, because of objectionable experimenting with modernism or playing up to revisionism. The years 1956-62 (now remorsefully called "the lost years" ) were almost a repetition of the years 1949-54 with the same writers (Minac, Tatarka, Lazarova, Mihalik, Karvas, etc.) enriching Slovak socialist realist literature by books on the same old themes (collectivization, industrialization, the Slovak uprising of 1944 ... but minus the "personality cult"} with the same outworn cliches. But these lost years were not as irreparably lost as the years 1949-53. An almost unnoticed development took place during this oppressive period: the emergence of a new literary generation. These young writers whose past was not tarnished by the sins of the cult era were not attracted by the literary models offered at home (Drda, Minac, Hecko) or in the Soviet Union (Fadeyev, Sholochov} but were casting their . eyes towards the literary achievements in the West. Hem- • mingway, Salinger, Steinbeck were their idols and secretly they admired and studied such proscribed decadents and formalists as Joyce, Kafka, Proust. .. The young poets were shows · ing interest in the works of Aragon and Eluard of the surrealist period and alongside them they were exploring the modern poetry of Rilke, St. John Perse, T. S. Eliot and the Amen-· can beatnik poets. The influences of this search for new poetry are visible in the poetical writings of M. Valek, M. Feldek, J. Sfacho and_ V. Turcany. The new prose made its unobtrusive appearance in the works of J . Blazkova, A. Hykisch and others. The young writers were· permitted to publish ·their books only from 1961 onward, when the change in the political climate ushered in a new liter2ry thaw. Under the impact of the : Sino-Soviet conflict and renewed attacks on Stalin at the 22nd �SLOVAKIA 139 Soviet Communist Party Congress gradually crumbled the tenets of stalinism even in Czecho-Slovakia. This was symbolically represented by the demolition of the gigantic statue of Stalin overlooking Prague. In the wake of the new thaw, several Slovak writers were rehabilitated (Novomesky, Okali and - posthumously - I. Horvath), some prohibited books of bourgeois nationalist authors (Razus, Urban) were reprinted, a number of forcibly silenced authors were given the opportunity to publish_in literary journals (V. Beniak, E. B. Lukac) and even some unmentionable emigre writers (Hronsky) were mentioned without malice. A new look at the Slovak literary past caused the postponement (already the third time since 1957) of the publication of the History of Slovak literature. But there is still no escape from the ideological straitjacket. The party has an all-pervading control over cultural activities, it arbitrarily deposes inconvenient and outspoken critics of its methods. (E.g. it sent to diplomatic exile in Paris L . Mnacko, the author of the notorious "Belated reports". There he repented so thoroughly that the party saw fit to put him as the editor-in-chief of the "Kulturny zivot" to replace the uncomfortably critical P. Stevcek.) It seems that the controversy, criticism and discussion which were so daring in 1963 are now (in 1965) largerly a thing of the past. And the literary development is faring accordingly. F . Vnuk Jozef Ciger Hr on s 1k y, a great Slovak novelist, died J,uly 13, 1960 in Lujan, Argentina. He was the author of some 40 books � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1965, Vol. 15 Description An account of the resource Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 134 SLOVAKIA THE HANDMAID OF IDEOLOGY (Slovak literature since 1945) Among the Slovaks, literature always played a leading r ole in the national life. The writers were the foremost fighters for the national rights before 1918, and fearless critics of the political and social wrongs in the post-war years. They were looked upon as the conscience of the nation and one can hardly think of a more dignified title bestowed by a people on its writers. It was a convincing sign of a mutual trust; in a sense Slovak literature was not only a collection of novels, books of poems and stories, but a faithful chronicle of Slovak strivings, fights, defeats and victories. The years after the First World War were in fact the golden years of Slovak literature. Freed and uninhibited it blossomed into maturity and was gradually catching up with the modern western literary currents. The years of national independence, 1939-45, in spite of the fact that they coincided with the war years, were on the whole the most fruitful period in the history of Slovak literature. The fall of the Slovak Republic and the restoration of Czecho-Slovakia in 1945 was a matter of great concern for the Slovak writers. Many of them fled before the advancing Red army (Hronsky, Ga~par, Urban, Zarnov, Dilong, Strmen, etc.) and even those who stayed behind faced the new situation with grave apprehension. Officially the liquidation of Slovak independence was celebrated as an act of liberation by the Red army and of joyful reunification with the fraternal Czech nation, but there is no sign of festive mood in the contemporary literary publications. The bards of the nation failed to express gratitude to the liberators. Even those writers who tried hard to please the new regime could only produce works completely lacking in joy, jubilation or any exulted feeling of a liberated nation. Jan Kostra (who was editor of the cultural section of the Communist daily "Pravda") published a collection of f>Oems entitled "Preponderance of sadness". Other books of poems published at the same time bore titles (and had contents cor- SLOVAKIA 135 responding to their titles) such as "The mountain of hopelessness", "The age of lepers", "Stars-the wreakers of cruelty", etc. This obviously was not the way to welcome the dawn of liberation. Similar uneasiness was predominant in the Slovak post-war prose. Instead of a joyous present the authors wrote of a legendary past or tried to escape to unreal imaginary worlds of their own creation. Those few writers who listened to the voices of the cultural commissars and attempted to depict the problem of contemporary life achieved very disappointing results (J. Ponican, F. Kral', J. Horak, A. Plavka). The attitude of the Slovak writers was displayed clearly and unmistakably. This attitude of passive contempt was embarrassing to the new regime. The change in it came in 1948/ 9 when the Communists by clever manipulation outwitted their Democratic partners in the National Front and usurped all power in Slovakia. Immediately they set about to dominate and subsequently exploited the Slovak literary community. In April 1948 K. Gottwald declared "nationalization ef culture in general and of literature in particular". Literature was given its definite "constructive tasks". All the creative artistic methods were outlawed as "decadent, formalist, reactionary", etc., except the socialist realism which from the year 1948 on was to reign supreme. Literature became a concern of politicians, parliamentarians, party ideologists and party congresses. Those who would not toe the party line were mercilessly dealt with. The government soon had complete control over the press and publishing houses, and became the only employer of the writers. In their turn the writers were degraded to being "the engineers of human souls" and entrusted with problems corresponding to their profession. In March 1949 the Czechoslovak Writers Union was formed to which 220 Czech and 60 Slovak authors were admitted. The Union absorbed the existing Slovak Writers Association. Not only did the Slovak writers lost their national identity by this step but also the best and most promising of them were excluded from Union membership (V. Beniak, E. B. Lukac, J. Silan, J. Motulko, etc., etc.) and thus forcibly silenced and materially ruined. Subsequent purges further decimated the thin line of the Slovak men of letters. In April 1951 there occurred another 136 SLOVAKIA heavy-handed purge in which the victims were old-time Communist writers accused of bourgeois nationalist deviations, namely Novomesky, D. Okali and I. Horvath. (After expulsion from the Writers Union they were imprisoned and given heavy sentences.) Attacks were hurled also at D. Tatarka, V. Minac, A. Matuska, M. Chorvath and others. In that period of trial and tribulation when the revolution was devouring its own children the literary output was extremely low (altogether 17 new books appeared in 1951, as compared with the average output in the 1939-44 period of 142 new books yearly) and its artistic standard almost nonexistent. The books of poems became political speeches in verse, the prose writing was indistinguishable from political journalism. The progressive character of the poetry is obvious from the titles: "The Ode on Stalin" (J. Kostra, 1949), "Comrade my country" (M. Lajciak, 1949), "The song of peaceloving hands" (J. Rak, 1949), "The song of steel ingots" (L. Miiacko, 1950), "The song of love to new China" (J. Brezina, 1950), "The song of great (i.e. Slovak-Soviet) friendship" (M. Lajciak, 1951), "The song of May" (M. Prochazka 1952), "The spring song of a collective farmer" (C. Stitnicky, 1950), "People, be vigilant!" (F. Citovsky, 1951), "Peace- my love" (P. Gajdos, 1951), "The guardians of peace" (M. Krno, 1951), "The banners of peace", etc. The nebulous and never properly defined concept of socialist realism, the inspiration dictated by ideological expediency and the frontal attack on all formalist tendencies, were fertile soil for the so-called "schematism". The poems of different authors were monotonously alike with no relation to the realities of life. The prose writers composed works which were encyclopedical compilations of Marxist axioms with the positive and negative heroes engaged in a class struggle which predictably ended with the victory of the working class. The popular themes of novels and stories were the collectivization of the villages ("The wooden village" of F. Hecko, 1951 ; "The wasps' nest" of K. Lazarova, 1953, etc.) the Slovak uprising of 1944 (novels and short stories of Krno, Minac, Jilemnicky, Karvas, Plavka, etc.), the industrialization of Slovakia (Hora.k's "Blast furnace", Mina.e's "Blue waves", Miiacko's "The waters of Orava", Tatarka's "Comradely years", etc.). The literary thaw which set in after Stalin's death (1953) SLOVAKIA 137 made a belated entry into Slovakia in the winter of 1955-6. It provoked some heated exchanges of opinions between the more liberal wing of the literary community on the one hand (I. Kupec, D. Tatarka) and the hardened stalinists (especially F. Hecko) on the other. The spirit of the thaw period found its fullest expression at the second congress of the Czecho-Slovak writers (April 1956) which followed at the heels of the 20th congress of the Soviet Communist Party (February, 1956). The outspoken criticism of the drabness of contemporary literature enunciated in the unscheduled speeches of the Czech writers Seifert and Hrubin (and echoed by D. Tatarka) pointedly demonstrated an unprecedented decay in artistic values brought about by the ruthless subjection of literature to ideology. The writers rebelled against their humiliating roles of soul-engineers and declared themselves to be the conscience of the nation. The spirit of the Writer's Congress was, alas, short-lived. Soviet intervention in Poland and Hungary put a sudden stop to all liberalizing undercurrents in the socialist camp and the Czech.o-Slovak Communist leaders were none too slow to restore the status quo ante 1953. Thus-apart from a few magazine articles-the literary thaw hardly left any sign in the literary production of the time. The only significant book of the thaw period was A. Bednar's "Hours and minutes" (1956) which soon became a target for concentrated attacks by official critics, trade unionists, partisans and other spokesmen -0£ the working class. The Czecho-Slovak Communist leaders succeeded in the following years (1956-62) in restoring the rigorous control of the stalinist er~. Under the slogan of "struggle against revisionism" they devised an ingenious strategy which was then applied by L. Stoll to combat various manifestations of revi.sionism in literature. By threats and promise the writers were forced to abandon the ideas promulgated at the Writers' Congress and to return to the old days of blind obedience to the party's bidding. But only a few writers were willing to follow unconditionally the new twist in the party line. Others tried to escape the rigors of neostalinism by self-imposed silence by writing literature for children or turning back in reminiscences to their own childhood and youth. The group of young writerf'l 138 SLOVAKIA gathered around the literary monthly "Mlada tvorba" showed initially some youthful elan, but lacking a firm program and able leadership on the one hand and facing insurmountable obstructions of the hardened party line on the other, it gradually slipped into restive passivity. (Their Czech counterparts around "Kveten" showed more aggressiveness and in turn were disbanded.) As it was revealed in 1963 the Sfovak Writers Union vetoed the publication of a number of books by young authors (Feldek, Stacho, Hykisch and others) because of alleged lack of ideological clarity, because of objectionable experimenting with modernism or playing up to revisionism. The years 1956-62 (now remorsefully called "the lost years" ) were almost a repetition of the years 1949-54 with the same writers (Minac, Tatarka, Lazarova, Mihalik, Karvas, etc.) enriching Slovak socialist realist literature by books on the same old themes (collectivization, industrialization, the Slovak uprising of 1944 ... but minus the "personality cult"} with the same outworn cliches. But these lost years were not as irreparably lost as the years 1949-53. An almost unnoticed development took place during this oppressive period: the emergence of a new literary generation. These young writers whose past was not tarnished by the sins of the cult era were not attracted by the literary models offered at home (Drda, Minac, Hecko) or in the Soviet Union (Fadeyev, Sholochov} but were casting their . eyes towards the literary achievements in the West. Hem- • mingway, Salinger, Steinbeck were their idols and secretly they admired and studied such proscribed decadents and formalists as Joyce, Kafka, Proust. .. The young poets were shows · ing interest in the works of Aragon and Eluard of the surrealist period and alongside them they were exploring the modern poetry of Rilke, St. John Perse, T. S. Eliot and the Amen-· can beatnik poets. The influences of this search for new poetry are visible in the poetical writings of M. Valek, M. Feldek, J. Sfacho and_ V. Turcany. The new prose made its unobtrusive appearance in the works of J . Blazkova, A. Hykisch and others. The young writers were· permitted to publish ·their books only from 1961 onward, when the change in the political climate ushered in a new liter2ry thaw. Under the impact of the : Sino-Soviet conflict and renewed attacks on Stalin at the 22nd SLOVAKIA 139 Soviet Communist Party Congress gradually crumbled the tenets of stalinism even in Czecho-Slovakia. This was symbolically represented by the demolition of the gigantic statue of Stalin overlooking Prague. In the wake of the new thaw, several Slovak writers were rehabilitated (Novomesky, Okali and - posthumously - I. Horvath), some prohibited books of bourgeois nationalist authors (Razus, Urban) were reprinted, a number of forcibly silenced authors were given the opportunity to publish_in literary journals (V. Beniak, E. B. Lukac) and even some unmentionable emigre writers (Hronsky) were mentioned without malice. A new look at the Slovak literary past caused the postponement (already the third time since 1957) of the publication of the History of Slovak literature. But there is still no escape from the ideological straitjacket. The party has an all-pervading control over cultural activities, it arbitrarily deposes inconvenient and outspoken critics of its methods. (E.g. it sent to diplomatic exile in Paris L . Mnacko, the author of the notorious "Belated reports". There he repented so thoroughly that the party saw fit to put him as the editor-in-chief of the "Kulturny zivot" to replace the uncomfortably critical P. Stevcek.) It seems that the controversy, criticism and discussion which were so daring in 1963 are now (in 1965) largerly a thing of the past. And the literary development is faring accordingly. F . Vnuk Jozef Ciger Hr on s 1k y, a great Slovak novelist, died J,uly 13, 1960 in Lujan, Argentina. He was the author of some 40 books  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Handmaid of Ideology (Slovak literature since 1945) Description An account of the resource F. Vnuk Slovakia, Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965 pp. 134-139 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vnuk, František, 1926- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/8307ba24c297d17dd69519720c1ad56f.pdf d071e42e8f9dcea825f7d0a61cf0f561 PDF Text Text 38 SLOVAKIA William Kana, M. A . THE OLDEST SLOV.AJK NEWSP.AJPIDR IN 'TIRE U.S.A. "Slovaik v Amerike" is the oldest Slovak newspaper continuously published in the United States. It has survived seventy-five hard years in the service of Slovaik immigrants who were hungry for news from ,theiir native Slovakia as well as fur the news of their adopted !homeland. Slovak journalism in the United States was launched on October 21, 1886 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with the publication of "Amerikan,szko.,S,zlovensZJke Noviny" (The Amerioan SlovaJk News) . 'I'he ipubHsher of this newspaper was Janka Slovensky, who served at the time as a clerk in the Austro-Hungarian Consulate in Pi,ttsburgn. 'I'he second Slovak newspaper in the United States, called "Nova Vlasf" ('Dhe New Homeland), was founded in 1888 in Streaitor, Illinois. It merged with "AmerikianszkoSzlovenszke Noviny" shortly after it appeared. At that time, an era when the Slovak nation wais being severely oppressed by the government of Budapest, the free ,p ress in America provided political refugees and emigrants with information about happenings in Slovakia as well ,as in the United States. The town of Plymouth, Pennsylvia.nia is the cradle of "Slovak v Ameri-ke", whi~h is actually the oldest continuously published Slovak newspaiper in the world. As American history is connected with the City of Plymouth, Massachusetts, so the history of tlle Slovafos in the United States is closely related to this Pennsylvanian town. The founder of "Slovak v Amerike" was Albert S. Ambrose. He describes the beginnings of this newspaper in the June 1936 issues of "New Yorksky Dennik" (The New York Daily). In Plymouth, Pennsylvania the Reverend Joseph Kossalko had published a newspaiper called "Zastava" (The Flag) in a pro-Hungarian spirit and in the Eastern Slovak dialect, a venture which lasted only nine months. After t'he demise of "Za:stava" Edmund Gretschell, an immigrant from Silesia, bought its printing press from Reverend �SLOVAKIA 39 Kossaliko. He planned to establish a printing business of his own among the Sloviarks living in Plymouth. However, these immigrants were workers and laborer~, who rarely needed such work, and his lack of facility in writing English precluded his doing any extensive business with the English-speaking re&idents of the town. Albert Ambrose proofreaJCl the Siovak and English ,p rintings, and from this business association grew 1::he idea of publishtng a newspaper for Slovaiks in Pennsylvania. The need wais great: Slovaks in America did not understand English, and furthermore, American newspapers pu1blished little news from their homeland. The first issue of "Slovak v Amerike", •r eleased on December 21, 1889, had only four pages. 'Ilhe most interesting part of the whole issue was the editorial, wihich read in part: "We have come to the conclusion that there is a need for a purely Slovak cultural newspaper. We have therefore decided to publish one. The purpose of t,h is newspaper will be : 1. To lead our countrymen; to help them; to propagate love among them; to educrute them. 2. To publish some entertaining stories for children, so as to encourage them to read Slovak at home, it being lmpossi•ble for them to study their mother's tongue in the schools . The first issue is small. Growth of the newspaper will depend on you. Arouse your eyes from sleep and darkness, and follow the voice of your country. Otherwise your descendants will curse you for not caring for yourself, your soul, and the welfare o! your country" . "Slovak v Amerike" wa~ Ambrose's property, but Gret.schell was its publisher. At aibout this time John Gostony, a resident of Bhoen1xville, Pennsylvania, was planning to publish a Slovak new~paper, and :h e asked Ambrose to ,become its editor. They signed a contract agreeing that the new publisher of "Slovak v Amerike" would be Gostony, and its editor would be Ambrose. Gretschell could continue to ,print the paper, if he should be willing to move ibis shop to Phoenixville. Greteohell agreed and itlhe newspaper was moved to Phoenixville. The new company hired as typeietters two young Slovaks, Frano Razny and Ferdinand Ursiny, who had learned their trade in tlrn printery of Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia. When Ambrose left Phoenixville in the fall of 1890 �40 SLOVAKIA Frantisek Pucher Cernovodsky became editor of "Slovak v Amerlke". Subsequently Jan Spevak -became owner and editor of "Slovak v Amerike", and under his direction notable gains were made in circulation. Spevak had emigrated to the United States in 1887. He first worked in a printing shop in Pittsburgh, and later came to Phoenixville to work for "Slovak v Amerike". He made many innovations, the most important being the change from the Eastern dialect to standard Slovak. He retained the original humorous column "R1p and Racik" for Eastern Slovaks. The charges of former publisher Gostony that the change in language WaJS sudden ahd that the newspaper therefore lost many subscribers 1are not substantiated by the facts. Statistics in Ayer's "Directory of Newspapers and Periodicals" actually disclose an increiase in the nuimber of sUJbscribers. For example "Slovak v Amerike" had 3,000 subscribers in 1894, but eleven years later, in 1905, when Spevak died, it had grown to 20,000 subscribers. Another of Spevak's innovations was more news from Slovakia, literally transcribed from "Narodnie Noviny". Naturally the news was old, because the newspaper from Slova!kia arrived in the United States one month late. However, this circumstance created no problem: the Slovak immigrant was interested in the substance of the news, not its age. The editors knew the psychology of their readers and therefore they cliassified all news from Slovakia by the province of origin. Later, as the circle of subscribers grew the publishers organized a group of correspondents in Slovaikia to provide original news from different parts of Slovakia. Spevak also published editorials from "Narodnie Noviny", particularly such as carried political significance in the Slovak resistance to the strong onsl,a ughts of Magyari2iation. · After the death of Jan Spevak, owner, publisher and _e ditor of "Slovak v Amerike", on May 31, 1905, his wife carried on for a short Ume as publisher. On June 13, 1905 "Slovak v Amerike" announced that the new publishers were Reverend Christopher Leo OrbaC'h, a Lutheran minister, and A. G. Tvrdy. On the editoria.'l page of December 8, 1905 C. L. Orbach and Compa:ny were captioned as publishers. As of December 21, 1905 "Slovak v Amerike" was published by C. L. Orbach only. Towards the end of Decem- �SLOVAKIA 41 ber 1905 a new pulblishing company bearing an English name came into existence. It was · called the Slovak Press. The company was incorporated on December 30, 1905 in the state of New York. Orbach, Faybik and Molitoris were its incorporators. On January 26, 1906 "Slovak v Amerike" listed the following officers: C. L. Orbach, president; Andrew Faybik, vice-president; J. C. Molitoris, secretary. Orbach also held the position of editor-in-chief. Everybody who worked for the newipaper boug,ht some preferred stock with dividends warrantied at 6 % . On February 2, 1906 the front -p age carried a picture of the incorporators. The next editor of "Slovak v Amerike" was Anton Bielek, one-time editor of the old-world newspaper "Katolicke Noviny" (The Catholic News) and "r.udove Noviny" (The People's News), who left his homeland because of political persecution. He aNived in the United States in September 1906 with his family of ten. Bielek's name was well known to American Slovaiks. He had written a history of the Slovak people, which was published in Pittsburgh by the Slovak National Society in 1897. It is altogether likely that Orbaoh 1he1ped finance his trip to the United States and had offered him tJhe post of editor in the newspaper. Bielek's first editorial appeared on October 2, 1906: "I will defend the people agains,t persecution, I will teach the truth, I will guide our readers to a pious life, I will call a nd cry: give the workers a dec ent way of life; I will rais e a cry ror freedom, ror education and for enlightenment. I will be an enemy of the slave drivers and of the destroyers of the people, an enemy of darkness; I will not change the purpose of my work, and always I will have as my aim: the welfare of ,tlhe Slovak people." Under the editorsh1p of Anton Bielek "Slovak v Amerike" published several criticisms of the cultural stagnation of Slovaks in the United States. On April 2, 1907 Bielek says in his editorial: "We have many societies, but no libraries. We have no educational lectures. We lack nobility of purpose." Editor Bielek was also responsible for organizing the so-oalled indignation meetings against Hungarian oppression of Slovaks in their homeland. These meetings were •held in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Olyphant, Pa., Schenectady, N. Y., Houtzdale, Pa., Bridgeport, Conn., and in other American towns. �42 SLOVAKIA The editorials of "Slovak v Amerike" reflected the varied needs and problems of Slovaks in America. The editors fully participated in and O'bserved American life. They avoided the atmosphere of a national ghetto. When a league against foreigners was organized in Chicago "Slovaik v Amerike" prnmptly editorialized against its purposes: " ... America should be grateful to foreigners for their ·s ervices, especially for the heavy la1bor whic:h forms the ba:sis for other, lighter work ... " (March, 1910). "Slovak v Amerike" was panslavistically oriented. The editors anticipated that Slovak liberation would come from Russian Cziardom. This policy was reflected in the newspaper. The editors rose to the defense of all Slav:s in reaction to Woodrow Wilson's statement in his "History of the American People" (Volume 5, Page 212), in which he advocates forbidding Slavic immigration to the United States. (November 3, 1910). At the beginning of World War I the daily "Slovak v Amerike" cautioned Slovaks to keep out of the war against Slavdom (July 31, 1914). American Slovaks in the years 1914-1915 had strong pro-Russian sympathies. The roots of this Russophilism lay in the desperate plight of the Slovaks - in Hungary in the face of severe Magyarizia.tion. During this period ~he editors of "Slovak v Am~rike" had no clear image of the direction which the Slov:aks, in Europe ought to take to .resolve their national plig,ht. Their first concern wa:s total liberiation from Hungarian rule. 'Dhomas Capek, •a prominent Czech of New· York City, speaking at a great meeting of Slavs held in New York on January 17, 1915, under the chairmanship of Michael I . Pupin, made the following remarks about the Slovak situation: "The Slovaks, as 'they work for their independence, face three a lternatives: 1. They can seek complete freedom. 2. They can join politically with the Magyars. 3. They can assure their future with their brotherly tribe, the Czechs." (Slovak v Amerike, J anuary 20, 1915). The political struggle with the Hungarians and negotiations with Czech spokesmen, were reflected faithfully in the newspaper. Devotion to truth in newspaper report- �SLOVAKIA 43 ing was expressed in an editorial at the outbreak of the war: "Our duty to God ,and before the face of the world is to present tr.uthful news." ("Slovak v Amerike", August 27, 1914). "Slovak v Amerrke" preserves a record of historical events affecting Slovaks not only in the United States, but also in Europe. Czech politicians were interested in Slovakia mainly for three reasons: 1. Bohemia would become larger if united with Slov,akia; 2. The Czechs would acquire a bridge to Russia; 3. In the United States Slovak immigrants far outnumbered the Czechs, and as a result they represented a large financial potentiial for underwriting the liberation movement. The extent of the Slovak community in the United States was reflected by statistics published in "Slovak v Amerike" on August 27, 1907, which broke down immigration figures for the years 1898-1904 as follows: SLOVAKS 173,775, Irish 199,799, Italians 929,308, Polish 338,741, ,and Bohemians 34,444. "Slovak v Amerike" jealously guarded the right of Slovaks to their national identity. Slovaks in America were greatly disturbed by a statement in a Czech manifesto which defined the Slovak people as ,an integral part of the Bohemian nation. On April 5, 1915 "Slovak T Amerike" answered this manifesto on its editorial page. Ivan Daxner, secretary o! the Slovak League of America, wrote in "Slovak v Amerrke" on April 14, 1915: "From the ve ry beginning the Czech political manifesto carefully avoided r eferring to the Slovak people as a. NtATION. Later they dearly an d unequivocally declared that only ,th e Slovak people and the Bohemian race together could form a nation." The editors were so eager to serve truth that they even published an editorial from a Hungarian newspaper "Amerikai Magyar Nepszava" on the problems of minorities in Hungary (June 22, 1915). However, the resolution of these problems was pretty well tied to the outcome of the war: the editors were familiar with Allied opinion about the Austro-Hungarian Empire - this jail of nations was to be dismantled. "Slovak v Amerike" supported American policy and American war efforts. On March 16, 1917 it started to publish ,a column titled "Loyal Slovaks" in whioh it featured letters from readers expres~ing support for the war effort of the United States. �44 SLOVAKIA The Cleveland Agreement between the Slovak League of Amerka and the Czech National Alliance was extensively discussed in seve:r,al issues of "Slovak v Amerike". On February 27, 1916 "Slovak v Amerike" published an account of the Congress of the Slovak League held in Chicago on February 22 and 23, 1916. In this article Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky recommended that the Congress send representatives to Europe to discuss the developing situi,tion with Slovak and Czech leaders. Gustav Kosik and Stefan Osusky were •c ommissioned to this task by the Slovak League, and they left for Europe - Kosik on May 29, 1916, and Osusky on May 31. Their purpose was to investigate all Slovak and Czech committees and to determine whether they worked in the spirit of the Cleveland Agreement between .t he Slovaks and the Czechs. After Kosik returned to the United States from Russia, the American Slovaks started a one million dollar fundraising campaign for the liberation of Slovakia. On May 23, 1917 "Slovak v Amerike" said: "It is believed that iat lea:st one million Slovaks live in the United States. If eac<h of them were to contribute but one dollar, we would have a million." Among the Czechs were many pan-Czechists who sought the formation of a Great Pan-Czeohia. They acted in disregard of the rights of the Slovak nation. Seton-Watson writes that great indignation was aroused among Slovaks when Thomas Masaryk, acting in the capacity of president of the Czecho-Slovak Council, sent a confidential memorandum to the English government which stated that "the Slovaks are Bohemians in spite of their use of their dialect as a literary language." Later, when 1:lhe Slovaks of Russia and America withdrew their support of the Czecho-Slovak Council, Masaryk worked frantically to regain their support. After all, the Slovaks in America had financed the whole liberation movement. Miasaryk himself ,p acified the Slovaks of Russia with .the Moscow Agreement (August 15, 1917), and the American Slovaks with the Pittsburgh Pact of May 30, 1918, in which he gave broad -assuramces of recognition of Slovak rights. "Slovak v Amerike" printed several long articles about the meeting in Pittsburgh between Slovaks and Czechs, �SLOVAKIA 45 under the chairmanship of Thomas Masaryk (June 6, 7, and 8, 1918). It wrote more about the pact on June 28, 1918: "Some of our brothers feared that the Czechs were not sincere in their dealings with us, and that they planned to ,Czechize us later. Our brothers protested against the statements of some shortsig,hted and badly-informed Czechs thwt the Slovaks are only a branch or the Bohemian nation, and that the •Slovak language is only a dialect of Czech. Our standpoint is that the Slovaks are not merely an appendix of the Czech nation, but •t hat they themselves constitute an individual nation." The Pittsburgh Pact was one of ijhe hottest political issues of the Czecho-Slovak Republic during the first twenty years of its existence. American Slovaks did what tJhey could for the liberation of their homeland. The Czechs failed to fulfil both their agreements with the Slov,2Jks, and their promises to the Allies at the Paris Peace Conference. The end of the war brought to a close the political struggle with the Magyars and saw the beginning of a new struggle - against Czech encroachments of Slovak rights. "Slovak v Amerike" guided Slovak thought and effort in this battle with as much vehemence as it had previously devoted to the battle with Austro-Hungarian suppression. TECHNICAL NOTES ON THE FEATURES AND DEVELOPMENT OF "SLOVAK V AMERIKE" THE MASTHEAD OF "SLOVAK V AMERIKE" IN 1905 Masthead: Slovak v Ameri:ke (in the English translation: Slovak American). Subtitle: A Laborite and National Newspaper. Motto: Let the Nation's Salvation be the Highest Law. On the left side of tJhe masthead, written in Slovak: Founded in 1889. "Slovak v Amerike" is an independent, genuinely Slovak national paper, published every Tuesday and Friday. The purpose of this newspaper is to defend with dignity, to teach, and to amuse the Slovak people living in the United States of America. The surbscr1ption price for one ye•ar is $2.00; for half a year $1.00. Send all letters and money to this address: Slovak v Amerike, 198 E. 10th Street, New York, N. Y. �46 SLOVAKIA On the right side of the masthead, written in English, appears: Established in 1889. Slovak v Amerike, published every Tuesday and Friday, is the only Slovak Newspaper in the Metropolis and its vicinity, and is the largest and sole SIDMI-WEEKLY in the United States. It reaches every state in the Union and Canada and has the largest circulation of any newspaiper among Slovaiks, or so-called Hungarians, in the new world. Inasmuch as all the other Slovak newspapers are weeklies, Slovak v Amerike is the best advertising medium. Slovak v Amerike, 198 E. 10th Street, New York City. Telephone: 2466 Orchard. Under the semicircle of the titular caption "Slovak v Amerike" there is a picture depicting on the left side two miners, and on the right side a farmer plowing with two horses, and in the background a farmhouse. In the middle of the picture appear two figures: on the left a man in Slovak national costume holding a flag, and on the right a young woman depicting Freedom, with an American flag. Between them stands an eagle. THE MASTHEAD OF " SLOVAK V AMERIKE" IN 1906 In 1906 the newspaper changed its masthead: under "Slovak v Amerike" there appeared a Slovak peasant couple dressed in Slovak national costume; in front of the couple is an eagle with two flags, one American, the other Slovak, stri,p ed in white blue and red. Behind th~ couple rise the three Slovak mountain peaks of the Slovaik coat-of-arms, and above them shines the sun. On the left side of the picture appea.rs a farmer ,s owing grain; on the right a miner. To the side of the central picture there is a short note d escribing the services offered by the newspaper. "Slovak v Amerike" flourished with the establishment of the new publishing company. On November 23, 1906 it announced the acquisition of a new ,p rinting press from the Goss Printing Press Company. The editor-in-chief was happy to have the new machine: ''With the avalanche of immigration Slovak business grows, too. In i.America nobody who works, who is industrious, has cause to fear bun~er, because h e can face the future confidently." �SLOVAKIA 47 There were many varied advertisements featured in "Slovak v Amerike". Banks, travel bureaus, physicians, real estate agencies, taverns, funeral homes, hotels, photographers, jewellers, pharmacists . . . all found it desirable to advertize there. The attractiveness of the newspaper was enhanced with diversified pictures, both photogrruphs and drawings. It was ia big event when the first photographic picture appeared in the July 6, 1906 issue. The influence of American newspapers is noticeable in some less significant news. On April 3, 1906 "Slovak v Amerike" pictured ,s even ladies's hats with the commentary that for the first time in its i6 year existence it was publishing something exciting for the ladies. On January 11, 1907 the newspaper was printed for the first time on a huge new rotary press. THE MASTHEAD OF "SLOVAK V AMERIKE" IN 1910 With business increasing the purblishers planned to improve the newspaper not only in content but also in appearance. On March 8, 1910 "Slovak v Amerike" appeared wi!h. a new masthead. In the center were two figures, one depicting a Slovak youth ·with a "Valaska" (hatcbet) and the Slovak flag, 1:Jhe other a young woman, symbolizing A· merica, with the American flag. Between them stands an eagle guarding the respective coat-of-arms. Above the eagle hovers the rising sun. · On the left side is a miner, on the right a farmer in the act of plowing. Captioned above is the title of the newspaper: Slovak v Amerike: below, in English: Slovak American. On · the left side of the masthead is inscribed the slogan: "Robotnicke a narodne noviny" (A Laborite and National N_e wspaper); on the right side: "Spasa narodna ,bud' tym najvyssim zakonom." (Let the nation's salvation be the highest law.) 1911 was a memorable year for "Slovak v Amerike''.. On April 4, 1911 the complete business, including the printing shop, was transferred to permanent quarters in a newly acquired building at 166 Ave. A., New York City. In the following year "Slovak v Amerike" acquired a new printing machine, manufactured by Goss Company, New York and Chicago, for $8,000.00. �48 SLOVAKIA THE MASTHEAD OF "SLOVAK V AMERIKE" IN 1912 With the new machine the masthead of the newspaper was changed again. The ·c entral figure in the new masthead was a girl sitting with a book, who symbolized Slovakia. She leans with her left arm on a globe of Amerioa. Under the globe is an American flag. On the right side stands a boy with a liberty forch, ,and next to him a globe of Europe. The boy holds a hammer in his right hand and under his feet is a worm-wheel. Between the two figures is an eagle holding the coat-of-arms of America and Slovakia. On the left side of the central picture there is a panorama of New York City; on the right a farmer and two miners are depicted in an oblong picture. Captioned above is the inscriiption: Slovak v Amerike; below: Slovak American. Semi~weekly, 166 Ave. A., New York, N. Y. On the left side is the old slogan: "Robotnicke a narodne noviny" (A Laborite and National newspaper); on the right side the motto: "Spa.sa :narodna 1bud' tym najvyssim zakonom." (Let the Nation's Salvation be the Highest Law.) Not long after the change in quarters came another change in editors. On March 26, 1912 "Slovak v Amerike" published the names of the whole personnel-staff of the newspa;per and the print shop. C. L. Orbach was listed as president and editor-in-chief. Associate editors were: Jan Culen and Karol Still!sny. The newspaper now introduced the services of a travel agency and ia law department, including a notary public. It was a natural and useful step forward. Many immigrants had no acquaintances but their factory friends and roommates. They were in need of these ser vices to send money to their wives in Slovakia, or tickets for pll!ssage to the United States. This business expanded and with time branches were established in Yonkers, New York; Newark, New Jersey; Wallington, New Jersey; and Hooversville, Pennsylv,ania. T4ere were also changes in the staff. Culen left and only Orbach and Stiasny r emained as editors. On November 13, 1913 "Slovak v Amerike" published the following important news: �SLOVAKIA 49 On January 1, 1914 Slovak v Amerike will be published daily on four pa,ges, except once a week, when it will appear on eight pages. In the masthead of the newspa,per wais a small change: the Slovak word "Dennik" (Daily) was placed over the panorama of New York City, and over the drawing of the farmer and miner was pl aced the English word "Daily". On January 10, 1914 "Slovak v Amerike" quoted from an editorial in the Slovak newspaper "Hlas" (The Voice) from Cleveland: 1 On January first "Slov:ik v Amerike" became a daily. We now h.av,e four dailies in America, and two more are in prepa ration. The Slovaks are progressing faster in the United States than in tihe old country, where they have only one daily and even this one has a hard tim e surviving. On April 1, 1915 "Slovak v Amerike" aippeared with a new masthead. The new version was similar to the old, except that the lateral figures were dropped. A few days later there was a big turnover in the editorial office. On November 6, 1915 the following editors were listed: Orbach, Stiasny; on November 8, Orbaoh, Stiasny, Culen; on November 9, Orbach, Stiasny; on November 11, Orbach, Stiaisny, Jan Galbavy. The printing shop of "Slovak v Amerike" was also growing. An announcement was made on August 5, 1915 that it had acquired a new linotype, a model 14 - multiple magazine linotype machine, manufactuJred by Mergenthaler Linoty;pe Company, Brooklyn, New York. On December 16, 1915 red ink was used for t!he first time in a headline: "Allies Fortify City of Salonika". Never again did "Slova;k v Amerike" use red ink in its headlines. No further technical changes occured in the publi<!ation of the daily "Slovak v Amerike". APPENDIX THE CIRCULATION OF "SLOVAK V AMERIKE"l Year 1889-1893 1894 1895 Listed Under Sclavonic Sclavonic Circulation Not available 3,000 Not a vaila'ble �50 SLOVAKIA 1896 1897-1899 1900 1901-1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911-1918 Sclavonic-Slo:venic Slavonic and Slovenic Siavonic and Slovenic Slavonic and Slovenic Slovac Slovac Slovac Slovac Slovak Slovak Slovak 4,000 Not available 8,900 Not available 20,000 20,000 30,000 Not available 30,000 36,000 Not available FOOTNOTES l. N. W. Ayer & Sons, DIRIDCTORY O,F PERIODICALS, (Philadelphia, 1894-1918). NEWSIPAPERS ANID BIBLIOGRAPHY Autonomlst, An . S'LO¥AKIA'S PLEA F10R A,UTONO>MY. N . p., Slovak Literary Society, 1,935. Ayer, N. W. & Sons. DIRElCTORY OF NEWSPAiP.ERiS AND PIDRIODICALS. Philadelphia, 1894-19-18. Bonsal, Stephen. SUITORS ANID SUPRLIANTS; 'I1HE LITTLE N.AT~ONS AT ¥ERSAILIJES. New York, Prentice-Hall, 1946. Capek, Thomas. THE SlJOVA~S OF HUNGARY. New York, The Knicker-Bocker Press, 1906. Culen, Konstantin. JANKO SIJOV·ENSKY. Winnipeg, Kanadsky Slovak, 1954. Durcansky, Ferdinand. PiOHI'..AiD NA SLOVENSKU POLITICKU MINULOST. Bratislava, By the author, 1943. Kohn, Hans. PANSLAVI-SM. Notre Dame, Ind ., Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1953. Lengyel, Emil. Al\f•E lRlCANS F1RIOM HUNGA!RY. P1hiladelphla, Llppincobt, 1948. Mackenzie, Compton. DR. BfilNiE~. London, Harrap, 1946. Mraz, Andrej . DEJIINY SIJOY.ENSKEJ LIT,ERATUiRY. Bratislava, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Slovaca, 1948. NEW YORKSKY DElNNiK, June, 1936. (New York) Palickar, Stephen J. SLO¥AKJI.A!N CULTURE . Cambridge, Mass., Hempshire Press, 19:H. Seton,Watson, R . W. A HISTORY OF '11HE CZEJCHS ANiD SLOVAKS. New York, Hutchinson, 1943. Seton-Watson, R. W . MASAIRYK IN ENGLAND. Cambridge, Engl., Univ. Press, 1943. Sidor, Karol. SLOVACI V ZAIH!RAiNICNOM ODBOJI. Bratislava, By the author, 1928. SLOVAK V AMIDRIKE, 1905-1918. New York. Yurchak, Peter: T,H,E SLOVAKS; THEllR HISTORY AND TRADITION . Whioting, Ind., J. J. Lach, 194-6. � 38 SLOVAKIA William Kana, M. A . THE OLDEST SLOV.AJK NEWSP.AJPIDR IN 'TIRE U.S.A. "Slovaik v Amerike" is the oldest Slovak newspaper continuously published in the United States. It has survived seventy-five hard years in the service of Slovaik immigrants who were hungry for news from ,theiir native Slovakia as well as fur the news of their adopted !homeland. Slovak journalism in the United States was launched on October 21, 1886 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with the publication of "Amerikan,szko.,S,zlovensZJke Noviny" (The Amerioan SlovaJk News) . 'I'he ipubHsher of this newspaper was Janka Slovensky, who served at the time as a clerk in the Austro-Hungarian Consulate in Pi,ttsburgn. 'I'he second Slovak newspaper in the United States, called "Nova Vlasf" ('Dhe New Homeland), was founded in 1888 in Streaitor, Illinois. It merged with "AmerikianszkoSzlovenszke Noviny" shortly after it appeared. At that time, an era when the Slovak nation wais being severely oppressed by the government of Budapest, the free ,p ress in America provided political refugees and emigrants with information about happenings in Slovakia as well ,as in the United States. The town of Plymouth, Pennsylvia.nia is the cradle of "Slovak v Ameri-ke", whi~h is actually the oldest continuously published Slovak newspaiper in the world. As American history is connected with the City of Plymouth, Massachusetts, so the history of tlle Slovafos in the United States is closely related to this Pennsylvanian town. The founder of "Slovak v Amerike" was Albert S. Ambrose. He describes the beginnings of this newspaper in the June 1936 issues of "New Yorksky Dennik" (The New York Daily). In Plymouth, Pennsylvania the Reverend Joseph Kossalko had published a newspaiper called "Zastava" (The Flag) in a pro-Hungarian spirit and in the Eastern Slovak dialect, a venture which lasted only nine months. After t'he demise of "Za:stava" Edmund Gretschell, an immigrant from Silesia, bought its printing press from Reverend �SLOVAKIA 39 Kossaliko. He planned to establish a printing business of his own among the Sloviarks living in Plymouth. However, these immigrants were workers and laborer~, who rarely needed such work, and his lack of facility in writing English precluded his doing any extensive business with the English-speaking re&idents of the town. Albert Ambrose proofreaJCl the Siovak and English ,p rintings, and from this business association grew 1::he idea of publishtng a newspaper for Slovaiks in Pennsylvania. The need wais great: Slovaks in America did not understand English, and furthermore, American newspapers pu1blished little news from their homeland. The first issue of "Slovak v Amerike", •r eleased on December 21, 1889, had only four pages. 'Ilhe most interesting part of the whole issue was the editorial, wihich read in part: "We have come to the conclusion that there is a need for a purely Slovak cultural newspaper. We have therefore decided to publish one. The purpose of t,h is newspaper will be : 1. To lead our countrymen; to help them; to propagate love among them; to educrute them. 2. To publish some entertaining stories for children, so as to encourage them to read Slovak at home, it being lmpossi•ble for them to study their mother's tongue in the schools . The first issue is small. Growth of the newspaper will depend on you. Arouse your eyes from sleep and darkness, and follow the voice of your country. Otherwise your descendants will curse you for not caring for yourself, your soul, and the welfare o! your country" . "Slovak v Amerike" wa~ Ambrose's property, but Gret.schell was its publisher. At aibout this time John Gostony, a resident of Bhoen1xville, Pennsylvania, was planning to publish a Slovak new~paper, and :h e asked Ambrose to ,become its editor. They signed a contract agreeing that the new publisher of "Slovak v Amerike" would be Gostony, and its editor would be Ambrose. Gretschell could continue to ,print the paper, if he should be willing to move ibis shop to Phoenixville. Greteohell agreed and itlhe newspaper was moved to Phoenixville. The new company hired as typeietters two young Slovaks, Frano Razny and Ferdinand Ursiny, who had learned their trade in tlrn printery of Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia. When Ambrose left Phoenixville in the fall of 1890 �40 SLOVAKIA Frantisek Pucher Cernovodsky became editor of "Slovak v Amerlke". Subsequently Jan Spevak -became owner and editor of "Slovak v Amerike", and under his direction notable gains were made in circulation. Spevak had emigrated to the United States in 1887. He first worked in a printing shop in Pittsburgh, and later came to Phoenixville to work for "Slovak v Amerike". He made many innovations, the most important being the change from the Eastern dialect to standard Slovak. He retained the original humorous column "R1p and Racik" for Eastern Slovaks. The charges of former publisher Gostony that the change in language WaJS sudden ahd that the newspaper therefore lost many subscribers 1are not substantiated by the facts. Statistics in Ayer's "Directory of Newspapers and Periodicals" actually disclose an increiase in the nuimber of sUJbscribers. For example "Slovak v Amerike" had 3,000 subscribers in 1894, but eleven years later, in 1905, when Spevak died, it had grown to 20,000 subscribers. Another of Spevak's innovations was more news from Slovakia, literally transcribed from "Narodnie Noviny". Naturally the news was old, because the newspaper from Slova!kia arrived in the United States one month late. However, this circumstance created no problem: the Slovak immigrant was interested in the substance of the news, not its age. The editors knew the psychology of their readers and therefore they cliassified all news from Slovakia by the province of origin. Later, as the circle of subscribers grew the publishers organized a group of correspondents in Slovaikia to provide original news from different parts of Slovakia. Spevak also published editorials from "Narodnie Noviny", particularly such as carried political significance in the Slovak resistance to the strong onsl,a ughts of Magyari2iation. · After the death of Jan Spevak, owner, publisher and _e ditor of "Slovak v Amerike", on May 31, 1905, his wife carried on for a short Ume as publisher. On June 13, 1905 "Slovak v Amerike" announced that the new publishers were Reverend Christopher Leo OrbaC'h, a Lutheran minister, and A. G. Tvrdy. On the editoria.'l page of December 8, 1905 C. L. Orbach and Compa:ny were captioned as publishers. As of December 21, 1905 "Slovak v Amerike" was published by C. L. Orbach only. Towards the end of Decem- �SLOVAKIA 41 ber 1905 a new pulblishing company bearing an English name came into existence. It was · called the Slovak Press. The company was incorporated on December 30, 1905 in the state of New York. Orbach, Faybik and Molitoris were its incorporators. On January 26, 1906 "Slovak v Amerike" listed the following officers: C. L. Orbach, president; Andrew Faybik, vice-president; J. C. Molitoris, secretary. Orbach also held the position of editor-in-chief. Everybody who worked for the newipaper boug,ht some preferred stock with dividends warrantied at 6 % . On February 2, 1906 the front -p age carried a picture of the incorporators. The next editor of "Slovak v Amerike" was Anton Bielek, one-time editor of the old-world newspaper "Katolicke Noviny" (The Catholic News) and "r.udove Noviny" (The People's News), who left his homeland because of political persecution. He aNived in the United States in September 1906 with his family of ten. Bielek's name was well known to American Slovaiks. He had written a history of the Slovak people, which was published in Pittsburgh by the Slovak National Society in 1897. It is altogether likely that Orbaoh 1he1ped finance his trip to the United States and had offered him tJhe post of editor in the newspaper. Bielek's first editorial appeared on October 2, 1906: "I will defend the people agains,t persecution, I will teach the truth, I will guide our readers to a pious life, I will call a nd cry: give the workers a dec ent way of life; I will rais e a cry ror freedom, ror education and for enlightenment. I will be an enemy of the slave drivers and of the destroyers of the people, an enemy of darkness; I will not change the purpose of my work, and always I will have as my aim: the welfare of ,tlhe Slovak people." Under the editorsh1p of Anton Bielek "Slovak v Amerike" published several criticisms of the cultural stagnation of Slovaks in the United States. On April 2, 1907 Bielek says in his editorial: "We have many societies, but no libraries. We have no educational lectures. We lack nobility of purpose." Editor Bielek was also responsible for organizing the so-oalled indignation meetings against Hungarian oppression of Slovaks in their homeland. These meetings were •held in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Olyphant, Pa., Schenectady, N. Y., Houtzdale, Pa., Bridgeport, Conn., and in other American towns. �42 SLOVAKIA The editorials of "Slovak v Amerike" reflected the varied needs and problems of Slovaks in America. The editors fully participated in and O'bserved American life. They avoided the atmosphere of a national ghetto. When a league against foreigners was organized in Chicago "Slovaik v Amerike" prnmptly editorialized against its purposes: " ... America should be grateful to foreigners for their ·s ervices, especially for the heavy la1bor whic:h forms the ba:sis for other, lighter work ... " (March, 1910). "Slovak v Amerike" was panslavistically oriented. The editors anticipated that Slovak liberation would come from Russian Cziardom. This policy was reflected in the newspaper. The editors rose to the defense of all Slav:s in reaction to Woodrow Wilson's statement in his "History of the American People" (Volume 5, Page 212), in which he advocates forbidding Slavic immigration to the United States. (November 3, 1910). At the beginning of World War I the daily "Slovak v Amerike" cautioned Slovaks to keep out of the war against Slavdom (July 31, 1914). American Slovaks in the years 1914-1915 had strong pro-Russian sympathies. The roots of this Russophilism lay in the desperate plight of the Slovaks - in Hungary in the face of severe Magyarizia.tion. During this period ~he editors of "Slovak v Am~rike" had no clear image of the direction which the Slov:aks, in Europe ought to take to .resolve their national plig,ht. Their first concern wa:s total liberiation from Hungarian rule. 'Dhomas Capek, •a prominent Czech of New· York City, speaking at a great meeting of Slavs held in New York on January 17, 1915, under the chairmanship of Michael I . Pupin, made the following remarks about the Slovak situation: "The Slovaks, as 'they work for their independence, face three a lternatives: 1. They can seek complete freedom. 2. They can join politically with the Magyars. 3. They can assure their future with their brotherly tribe, the Czechs." (Slovak v Amerike, J anuary 20, 1915). The political struggle with the Hungarians and negotiations with Czech spokesmen, were reflected faithfully in the newspaper. Devotion to truth in newspaper report- �SLOVAKIA 43 ing was expressed in an editorial at the outbreak of the war: "Our duty to God ,and before the face of the world is to present tr.uthful news." ("Slovak v Amerike", August 27, 1914). "Slovak v Amerrke" preserves a record of historical events affecting Slovaks not only in the United States, but also in Europe. Czech politicians were interested in Slovakia mainly for three reasons: 1. Bohemia would become larger if united with Slov,akia; 2. The Czechs would acquire a bridge to Russia; 3. In the United States Slovak immigrants far outnumbered the Czechs, and as a result they represented a large financial potentiial for underwriting the liberation movement. The extent of the Slovak community in the United States was reflected by statistics published in "Slovak v Amerike" on August 27, 1907, which broke down immigration figures for the years 1898-1904 as follows: SLOVAKS 173,775, Irish 199,799, Italians 929,308, Polish 338,741, ,and Bohemians 34,444. "Slovak v Amerike" jealously guarded the right of Slovaks to their national identity. Slovaks in America were greatly disturbed by a statement in a Czech manifesto which defined the Slovak people as ,an integral part of the Bohemian nation. On April 5, 1915 "Slovak T Amerike" answered this manifesto on its editorial page. Ivan Daxner, secretary o! the Slovak League of America, wrote in "Slovak v Amerrke" on April 14, 1915: "From the ve ry beginning the Czech political manifesto carefully avoided r eferring to the Slovak people as a. NtATION. Later they dearly an d unequivocally declared that only ,th e Slovak people and the Bohemian race together could form a nation." The editors were so eager to serve truth that they even published an editorial from a Hungarian newspaper "Amerikai Magyar Nepszava" on the problems of minorities in Hungary (June 22, 1915). However, the resolution of these problems was pretty well tied to the outcome of the war: the editors were familiar with Allied opinion about the Austro-Hungarian Empire - this jail of nations was to be dismantled. "Slovak v Amerike" supported American policy and American war efforts. On March 16, 1917 it started to publish ,a column titled "Loyal Slovaks" in whioh it featured letters from readers expres~ing support for the war effort of the United States. �44 SLOVAKIA The Cleveland Agreement between the Slovak League of Amerka and the Czech National Alliance was extensively discussed in seve:r,al issues of "Slovak v Amerike". On February 27, 1916 "Slovak v Amerike" published an account of the Congress of the Slovak League held in Chicago on February 22 and 23, 1916. In this article Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky recommended that the Congress send representatives to Europe to discuss the developing situi,tion with Slovak and Czech leaders. Gustav Kosik and Stefan Osusky were •c ommissioned to this task by the Slovak League, and they left for Europe - Kosik on May 29, 1916, and Osusky on May 31. Their purpose was to investigate all Slovak and Czech committees and to determine whether they worked in the spirit of the Cleveland Agreement between .t he Slovaks and the Czechs. After Kosik returned to the United States from Russia, the American Slovaks started a one million dollar fundraising campaign for the liberation of Slovakia. On May 23, 1917 "Slovak v Amerike" said: "It is believed that iat lea:st one million Slovaks live in the United States. If eac<h of them were to contribute but one dollar, we would have a million." Among the Czechs were many pan-Czechists who sought the formation of a Great Pan-Czeohia. They acted in disregard of the rights of the Slovak nation. Seton-Watson writes that great indignation was aroused among Slovaks when Thomas Masaryk, acting in the capacity of president of the Czecho-Slovak Council, sent a confidential memorandum to the English government which stated that "the Slovaks are Bohemians in spite of their use of their dialect as a literary language." Later, when 1:lhe Slovaks of Russia and America withdrew their support of the Czecho-Slovak Council, Masaryk worked frantically to regain their support. After all, the Slovaks in America had financed the whole liberation movement. Miasaryk himself ,p acified the Slovaks of Russia with .the Moscow Agreement (August 15, 1917), and the American Slovaks with the Pittsburgh Pact of May 30, 1918, in which he gave broad -assuramces of recognition of Slovak rights. "Slovak v Amerike" printed several long articles about the meeting in Pittsburgh between Slovaks and Czechs, �SLOVAKIA 45 under the chairmanship of Thomas Masaryk (June 6, 7, and 8, 1918). It wrote more about the pact on June 28, 1918: "Some of our brothers feared that the Czechs were not sincere in their dealings with us, and that they planned to ,Czechize us later. Our brothers protested against the statements of some shortsig,hted and badly-informed Czechs thwt the Slovaks are only a branch or the Bohemian nation, and that the •Slovak language is only a dialect of Czech. Our standpoint is that the Slovaks are not merely an appendix of the Czech nation, but •t hat they themselves constitute an individual nation." The Pittsburgh Pact was one of ijhe hottest political issues of the Czecho-Slovak Republic during the first twenty years of its existence. American Slovaks did what tJhey could for the liberation of their homeland. The Czechs failed to fulfil both their agreements with the Slov,2Jks, and their promises to the Allies at the Paris Peace Conference. The end of the war brought to a close the political struggle with the Magyars and saw the beginning of a new struggle - against Czech encroachments of Slovak rights. "Slovak v Amerike" guided Slovak thought and effort in this battle with as much vehemence as it had previously devoted to the battle with Austro-Hungarian suppression. TECHNICAL NOTES ON THE FEATURES AND DEVELOPMENT OF "SLOVAK V AMERIKE" THE MASTHEAD OF "SLOVAK V AMERIKE" IN 1905 Masthead: Slovak v Ameri:ke (in the English translation: Slovak American). Subtitle: A Laborite and National Newspaper. Motto: Let the Nation's Salvation be the Highest Law. On the left side of tJhe masthead, written in Slovak: Founded in 1889. "Slovak v Amerike" is an independent, genuinely Slovak national paper, published every Tuesday and Friday. The purpose of this newspaper is to defend with dignity, to teach, and to amuse the Slovak people living in the United States of America. The surbscr1ption price for one ye•ar is $2.00; for half a year $1.00. Send all letters and money to this address: Slovak v Amerike, 198 E. 10th Street, New York, N. Y. �46 SLOVAKIA On the right side of the masthead, written in English, appears: Established in 1889. Slovak v Amerike, published every Tuesday and Friday, is the only Slovak Newspaper in the Metropolis and its vicinity, and is the largest and sole SIDMI-WEEKLY in the United States. It reaches every state in the Union and Canada and has the largest circulation of any newspaiper among Slovaiks, or so-called Hungarians, in the new world. Inasmuch as all the other Slovak newspapers are weeklies, Slovak v Amerike is the best advertising medium. Slovak v Amerike, 198 E. 10th Street, New York City. Telephone: 2466 Orchard. Under the semicircle of the titular caption "Slovak v Amerike" there is a picture depicting on the left side two miners, and on the right side a farmer plowing with two horses, and in the background a farmhouse. In the middle of the picture appear two figures: on the left a man in Slovak national costume holding a flag, and on the right a young woman depicting Freedom, with an American flag. Between them stands an eagle. THE MASTHEAD OF " SLOVAK V AMERIKE" IN 1906 In 1906 the newspaper changed its masthead: under "Slovak v Amerike" there appeared a Slovak peasant couple dressed in Slovak national costume; in front of the couple is an eagle with two flags, one American, the other Slovak, stri,p ed in white blue and red. Behind th~ couple rise the three Slovak mountain peaks of the Slovaik coat-of-arms, and above them shines the sun. On the left side of the picture appea.rs a farmer ,s owing grain; on the right a miner. To the side of the central picture there is a short note d escribing the services offered by the newspaper. "Slovak v Amerike" flourished with the establishment of the new publishing company. On November 23, 1906 it announced the acquisition of a new ,p rinting press from the Goss Printing Press Company. The editor-in-chief was happy to have the new machine: ''With the avalanche of immigration Slovak business grows, too. In i.America nobody who works, who is industrious, has cause to fear bun~er, because h e can face the future confidently." �SLOVAKIA 47 There were many varied advertisements featured in "Slovak v Amerike". Banks, travel bureaus, physicians, real estate agencies, taverns, funeral homes, hotels, photographers, jewellers, pharmacists . . . all found it desirable to advertize there. The attractiveness of the newspaper was enhanced with diversified pictures, both photogrruphs and drawings. It was ia big event when the first photographic picture appeared in the July 6, 1906 issue. The influence of American newspapers is noticeable in some less significant news. On April 3, 1906 "Slovak v Amerike" pictured ,s even ladies's hats with the commentary that for the first time in its i6 year existence it was publishing something exciting for the ladies. On January 11, 1907 the newspaper was printed for the first time on a huge new rotary press. THE MASTHEAD OF "SLOVAK V AMERIKE" IN 1910 With business increasing the purblishers planned to improve the newspaper not only in content but also in appearance. On March 8, 1910 "Slovak v Amerike" appeared wi!h. a new masthead. In the center were two figures, one depicting a Slovak youth ·with a "Valaska" (hatcbet) and the Slovak flag, 1:Jhe other a young woman, symbolizing A· merica, with the American flag. Between them stands an eagle guarding the respective coat-of-arms. Above the eagle hovers the rising sun. · On the left side is a miner, on the right a farmer in the act of plowing. Captioned above is the title of the newspaper: Slovak v Amerike: below, in English: Slovak American. On · the left side of the masthead is inscribed the slogan: "Robotnicke a narodne noviny" (A Laborite and National N_e wspaper); on the right side: "Spasa narodna ,bud' tym najvyssim zakonom." (Let the nation's salvation be the highest law.) 1911 was a memorable year for "Slovak v Amerike''.. On April 4, 1911 the complete business, including the printing shop, was transferred to permanent quarters in a newly acquired building at 166 Ave. A., New York City. In the following year "Slovak v Amerike" acquired a new printing machine, manufactured by Goss Company, New York and Chicago, for $8,000.00. �48 SLOVAKIA THE MASTHEAD OF "SLOVAK V AMERIKE" IN 1912 With the new machine the masthead of the newspaper was changed again. The ·c entral figure in the new masthead was a girl sitting with a book, who symbolized Slovakia. She leans with her left arm on a globe of Amerioa. Under the globe is an American flag. On the right side stands a boy with a liberty forch, ,and next to him a globe of Europe. The boy holds a hammer in his right hand and under his feet is a worm-wheel. Between the two figures is an eagle holding the coat-of-arms of America and Slovakia. On the left side of the central picture there is a panorama of New York City; on the right a farmer and two miners are depicted in an oblong picture. Captioned above is the inscriiption: Slovak v Amerike; below: Slovak American. Semi~weekly, 166 Ave. A., New York, N. Y. On the left side is the old slogan: "Robotnicke a narodne noviny" (A Laborite and National newspaper); on the right side the motto: "Spa.sa :narodna 1bud' tym najvyssim zakonom." (Let the Nation's Salvation be the Highest Law.) Not long after the change in quarters came another change in editors. On March 26, 1912 "Slovak v Amerike" published the names of the whole personnel-staff of the newspa;per and the print shop. C. L. Orbach was listed as president and editor-in-chief. Associate editors were: Jan Culen and Karol Still!sny. The newspaper now introduced the services of a travel agency and ia law department, including a notary public. It was a natural and useful step forward. Many immigrants had no acquaintances but their factory friends and roommates. They were in need of these ser vices to send money to their wives in Slovakia, or tickets for pll!ssage to the United States. This business expanded and with time branches were established in Yonkers, New York; Newark, New Jersey; Wallington, New Jersey; and Hooversville, Pennsylv,ania. T4ere were also changes in the staff. Culen left and only Orbach and Stiasny r emained as editors. On November 13, 1913 "Slovak v Amerike" published the following important news: �SLOVAKIA 49 On January 1, 1914 Slovak v Amerike will be published daily on four pa,ges, except once a week, when it will appear on eight pages. In the masthead of the newspa,per wais a small change: the Slovak word "Dennik" (Daily) was placed over the panorama of New York City, and over the drawing of the farmer and miner was pl aced the English word "Daily". On January 10, 1914 "Slovak v Amerike" quoted from an editorial in the Slovak newspaper "Hlas" (The Voice) from Cleveland: 1 On January first "Slov:ik v Amerike" became a daily. We now h.av,e four dailies in America, and two more are in prepa ration. The Slovaks are progressing faster in the United States than in tihe old country, where they have only one daily and even this one has a hard tim e surviving. On April 1, 1915 "Slovak v Amerike" aippeared with a new masthead. The new version was similar to the old, except that the lateral figures were dropped. A few days later there was a big turnover in the editorial office. On November 6, 1915 the following editors were listed: Orbach, Stiasny; on November 8, Orbaoh, Stiasny, Culen; on November 9, Orbach, Stiasny; on November 11, Orbach, Stiaisny, Jan Galbavy. The printing shop of "Slovak v Amerike" was also growing. An announcement was made on August 5, 1915 that it had acquired a new linotype, a model 14 - multiple magazine linotype machine, manufactuJred by Mergenthaler Linoty;pe Company, Brooklyn, New York. On December 16, 1915 red ink was used for t!he first time in a headline: "Allies Fortify City of Salonika". Never again did "Slova;k v Amerike" use red ink in its headlines. No further technical changes occured in the publi<!ation of the daily "Slovak v Amerike". APPENDIX THE CIRCULATION OF "SLOVAK V AMERIKE"l Year 1889-1893 1894 1895 Listed Under Sclavonic Sclavonic Circulation Not available 3,000 Not a vaila'ble �50 SLOVAKIA 1896 1897-1899 1900 1901-1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911-1918 Sclavonic-Slo:venic Slavonic and Slovenic Siavonic and Slovenic Slavonic and Slovenic Slovac Slovac Slovac Slovac Slovak Slovak Slovak 4,000 Not available 8,900 Not available 20,000 20,000 30,000 Not available 30,000 36,000 Not available FOOTNOTES l. N. W. Ayer & Sons, DIRIDCTORY O,F PERIODICALS, (Philadelphia, 1894-1918). NEWSIPAPERS ANID BIBLIOGRAPHY Autonomlst, An . S'LO¥AKIA'S PLEA F10R A,UTONO>MY. N . p., Slovak Literary Society, 1,935. Ayer, N. W. & Sons. DIRElCTORY OF NEWSPAiP.ERiS AND PIDRIODICALS. Philadelphia, 1894-19-18. Bonsal, Stephen. SUITORS ANID SUPRLIANTS; 'I1HE LITTLE N.AT~ONS AT ¥ERSAILIJES. New York, Prentice-Hall, 1946. Capek, Thomas. THE SlJOVA~S OF HUNGARY. New York, The Knicker-Bocker Press, 1906. Culen, Konstantin. JANKO SIJOV·ENSKY. Winnipeg, Kanadsky Slovak, 1954. Durcansky, Ferdinand. PiOHI'..AiD NA SLOVENSKU POLITICKU MINULOST. Bratislava, By the author, 1943. Kohn, Hans. PANSLAVI-SM. Notre Dame, Ind ., Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1953. Lengyel, Emil. Al\f•E lRlCANS F1RIOM HUNGA!RY. P1hiladelphla, Llppincobt, 1948. Mackenzie, Compton. DR. BfilNiE~. London, Harrap, 1946. Mraz, Andrej . DEJIINY SIJOY.ENSKEJ LIT,ERATUiRY. Bratislava, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Slovaca, 1948. NEW YORKSKY DElNNiK, June, 1936. (New York) Palickar, Stephen J. SLO¥AKJI.A!N CULTURE . Cambridge, Mass., Hempshire Press, 19:H. Seton,Watson, R . W. A HISTORY OF '11HE CZEJCHS ANiD SLOVAKS. New York, Hutchinson, 1943. Seton-Watson, R. W . MASAIRYK IN ENGLAND. Cambridge, Engl., Univ. Press, 1943. Sidor, Karol. SLOVACI V ZAIH!RAiNICNOM ODBOJI. Bratislava, By the author, 1928. SLOVAK V AMIDRIKE, 1905-1918. New York. Yurchak, Peter: T,H,E SLOVAKS; THEllR HISTORY AND TRADITION . Whioting, Ind., J. J. Lach, 194-6. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1965, Vol. 15 Description An account of the resource Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 38 SLOVAKIA William Kana, M. A . THE OLDEST SLOV.AJK NEWSP.AJPIDR IN 'TIRE U.S.A. "Slovaik v Amerike" is the oldest Slovak newspaper continuously published in the United States. It has survived seventy-five hard years in the service of Slovaik immigrants who were hungry for news from ,theiir native Slovakia as well as fur the news of their adopted !homeland. Slovak journalism in the United States was launched on October 21, 1886 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with the publication of "Amerikan,szko.,S,zlovensZJke Noviny" (The Amerioan SlovaJk News) . 'I'he ipubHsher of this newspaper was Janka Slovensky, who served at the time as a clerk in the Austro-Hungarian Consulate in Pi,ttsburgn. 'I'he second Slovak newspaper in the United States, called "Nova Vlasf" ('Dhe New Homeland), was founded in 1888 in Streaitor, Illinois. It merged with "AmerikianszkoSzlovenszke Noviny" shortly after it appeared. At that time, an era when the Slovak nation wais being severely oppressed by the government of Budapest, the free ,p ress in America provided political refugees and emigrants with information about happenings in Slovakia as well ,as in the United States. The town of Plymouth, Pennsylvia.nia is the cradle of "Slovak v Ameri-ke", whi~h is actually the oldest continuously published Slovak newspaiper in the world. As American history is connected with the City of Plymouth, Massachusetts, so the history of tlle Slovafos in the United States is closely related to this Pennsylvanian town. The founder of "Slovak v Amerike" was Albert S. Ambrose. He describes the beginnings of this newspaper in the June 1936 issues of "New Yorksky Dennik" (The New York Daily). In Plymouth, Pennsylvania the Reverend Joseph Kossalko had published a newspaiper called "Zastava" (The Flag) in a pro-Hungarian spirit and in the Eastern Slovak dialect, a venture which lasted only nine months. After t'he demise of "Za:stava" Edmund Gretschell, an immigrant from Silesia, bought its printing press from Reverend SLOVAKIA 39 Kossaliko. He planned to establish a printing business of his own among the Sloviarks living in Plymouth. However, these immigrants were workers and laborer~, who rarely needed such work, and his lack of facility in writing English precluded his doing any extensive business with the English-speaking re&idents of the town. Albert Ambrose proofreaJCl the Siovak and English ,p rintings, and from this business association grew 1::he idea of publishtng a newspaper for Slovaiks in Pennsylvania. The need wais great: Slovaks in America did not understand English, and furthermore, American newspapers pu1blished little news from their homeland. The first issue of "Slovak v Amerike", •r eleased on December 21, 1889, had only four pages. 'Ilhe most interesting part of the whole issue was the editorial, wihich read in part: "We have come to the conclusion that there is a need for a purely Slovak cultural newspaper. We have therefore decided to publish one. The purpose of t,h is newspaper will be : 1. To lead our countrymen; to help them; to propagate love among them; to educrute them. 2. To publish some entertaining stories for children, so as to encourage them to read Slovak at home, it being lmpossi•ble for them to study their mother's tongue in the schools . The first issue is small. Growth of the newspaper will depend on you. Arouse your eyes from sleep and darkness, and follow the voice of your country. Otherwise your descendants will curse you for not caring for yourself, your soul, and the welfare o! your country" . "Slovak v Amerike" wa~ Ambrose's property, but Gret.schell was its publisher. At aibout this time John Gostony, a resident of Bhoen1xville, Pennsylvania, was planning to publish a Slovak new~paper, and :h e asked Ambrose to ,become its editor. They signed a contract agreeing that the new publisher of "Slovak v Amerike" would be Gostony, and its editor would be Ambrose. Gretschell could continue to ,print the paper, if he should be willing to move ibis shop to Phoenixville. Greteohell agreed and itlhe newspaper was moved to Phoenixville. The new company hired as typeietters two young Slovaks, Frano Razny and Ferdinand Ursiny, who had learned their trade in tlrn printery of Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia. When Ambrose left Phoenixville in the fall of 1890 40 SLOVAKIA Frantisek Pucher Cernovodsky became editor of "Slovak v Amerlke". Subsequently Jan Spevak -became owner and editor of "Slovak v Amerike", and under his direction notable gains were made in circulation. Spevak had emigrated to the United States in 1887. He first worked in a printing shop in Pittsburgh, and later came to Phoenixville to work for "Slovak v Amerike". He made many innovations, the most important being the change from the Eastern dialect to standard Slovak. He retained the original humorous column "R1p and Racik" for Eastern Slovaks. The charges of former publisher Gostony that the change in language WaJS sudden ahd that the newspaper therefore lost many subscribers 1are not substantiated by the facts. Statistics in Ayer's "Directory of Newspapers and Periodicals" actually disclose an increiase in the nuimber of sUJbscribers. For example "Slovak v Amerike" had 3,000 subscribers in 1894, but eleven years later, in 1905, when Spevak died, it had grown to 20,000 subscribers. Another of Spevak's innovations was more news from Slovakia, literally transcribed from "Narodnie Noviny". Naturally the news was old, because the newspaper from Slova!kia arrived in the United States one month late. However, this circumstance created no problem: the Slovak immigrant was interested in the substance of the news, not its age. The editors knew the psychology of their readers and therefore they cliassified all news from Slovakia by the province of origin. Later, as the circle of subscribers grew the publishers organized a group of correspondents in Slovaikia to provide original news from different parts of Slovakia. Spevak also published editorials from "Narodnie Noviny", particularly such as carried political significance in the Slovak resistance to the strong onsl,a ughts of Magyari2iation. · After the death of Jan Spevak, owner, publisher and _e ditor of "Slovak v Amerike", on May 31, 1905, his wife carried on for a short Ume as publisher. On June 13, 1905 "Slovak v Amerike" announced that the new publishers were Reverend Christopher Leo OrbaC'h, a Lutheran minister, and A. G. Tvrdy. On the editoria.'l page of December 8, 1905 C. L. Orbach and Compa:ny were captioned as publishers. As of December 21, 1905 "Slovak v Amerike" was published by C. L. Orbach only. Towards the end of Decem- SLOVAKIA 41 ber 1905 a new pulblishing company bearing an English name came into existence. It was · called the Slovak Press. The company was incorporated on December 30, 1905 in the state of New York. Orbach, Faybik and Molitoris were its incorporators. On January 26, 1906 "Slovak v Amerike" listed the following officers: C. L. Orbach, president; Andrew Faybik, vice-president; J. C. Molitoris, secretary. Orbach also held the position of editor-in-chief. Everybody who worked for the newipaper boug,ht some preferred stock with dividends warrantied at 6 % . On February 2, 1906 the front -p age carried a picture of the incorporators. The next editor of "Slovak v Amerike" was Anton Bielek, one-time editor of the old-world newspaper "Katolicke Noviny" (The Catholic News) and "r.udove Noviny" (The People's News), who left his homeland because of political persecution. He aNived in the United States in September 1906 with his family of ten. Bielek's name was well known to American Slovaiks. He had written a history of the Slovak people, which was published in Pittsburgh by the Slovak National Society in 1897. It is altogether likely that Orbaoh 1he1ped finance his trip to the United States and had offered him tJhe post of editor in the newspaper. Bielek's first editorial appeared on October 2, 1906: "I will defend the people agains,t persecution, I will teach the truth, I will guide our readers to a pious life, I will call a nd cry: give the workers a dec ent way of life; I will rais e a cry ror freedom, ror education and for enlightenment. I will be an enemy of the slave drivers and of the destroyers of the people, an enemy of darkness; I will not change the purpose of my work, and always I will have as my aim: the welfare of ,tlhe Slovak people." Under the editorsh1p of Anton Bielek "Slovak v Amerike" published several criticisms of the cultural stagnation of Slovaks in the United States. On April 2, 1907 Bielek says in his editorial: "We have many societies, but no libraries. We have no educational lectures. We lack nobility of purpose." Editor Bielek was also responsible for organizing the so-oalled indignation meetings against Hungarian oppression of Slovaks in their homeland. These meetings were •held in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Olyphant, Pa., Schenectady, N. Y., Houtzdale, Pa., Bridgeport, Conn., and in other American towns. 42 SLOVAKIA The editorials of "Slovak v Amerike" reflected the varied needs and problems of Slovaks in America. The editors fully participated in and O'bserved American life. They avoided the atmosphere of a national ghetto. When a league against foreigners was organized in Chicago "Slovaik v Amerike" prnmptly editorialized against its purposes: " ... America should be grateful to foreigners for their ·s ervices, especially for the heavy la1bor whic:h forms the ba:sis for other, lighter work ... " (March, 1910). "Slovak v Amerike" was panslavistically oriented. The editors anticipated that Slovak liberation would come from Russian Cziardom. This policy was reflected in the newspaper. The editors rose to the defense of all Slav:s in reaction to Woodrow Wilson's statement in his "History of the American People" (Volume 5, Page 212), in which he advocates forbidding Slavic immigration to the United States. (November 3, 1910). At the beginning of World War I the daily "Slovak v Amerike" cautioned Slovaks to keep out of the war against Slavdom (July 31, 1914). American Slovaks in the years 1914-1915 had strong pro-Russian sympathies. The roots of this Russophilism lay in the desperate plight of the Slovaks - in Hungary in the face of severe Magyarizia.tion. During this period ~he editors of "Slovak v Am~rike" had no clear image of the direction which the Slov:aks, in Europe ought to take to .resolve their national plig,ht. Their first concern wa:s total liberiation from Hungarian rule. 'Dhomas Capek, •a prominent Czech of New· York City, speaking at a great meeting of Slavs held in New York on January 17, 1915, under the chairmanship of Michael I . Pupin, made the following remarks about the Slovak situation: "The Slovaks, as 'they work for their independence, face three a lternatives: 1. They can seek complete freedom. 2. They can join politically with the Magyars. 3. They can assure their future with their brotherly tribe, the Czechs." (Slovak v Amerike, J anuary 20, 1915). The political struggle with the Hungarians and negotiations with Czech spokesmen, were reflected faithfully in the newspaper. Devotion to truth in newspaper report- SLOVAKIA 43 ing was expressed in an editorial at the outbreak of the war: "Our duty to God ,and before the face of the world is to present tr.uthful news." ("Slovak v Amerike", August 27, 1914). "Slovak v Amerrke" preserves a record of historical events affecting Slovaks not only in the United States, but also in Europe. Czech politicians were interested in Slovakia mainly for three reasons: 1. Bohemia would become larger if united with Slov,akia; 2. The Czechs would acquire a bridge to Russia; 3. In the United States Slovak immigrants far outnumbered the Czechs, and as a result they represented a large financial potentiial for underwriting the liberation movement. The extent of the Slovak community in the United States was reflected by statistics published in "Slovak v Amerike" on August 27, 1907, which broke down immigration figures for the years 1898-1904 as follows: SLOVAKS 173,775, Irish 199,799, Italians 929,308, Polish 338,741, ,and Bohemians 34,444. "Slovak v Amerike" jealously guarded the right of Slovaks to their national identity. Slovaks in America were greatly disturbed by a statement in a Czech manifesto which defined the Slovak people as ,an integral part of the Bohemian nation. On April 5, 1915 "Slovak T Amerike" answered this manifesto on its editorial page. Ivan Daxner, secretary o! the Slovak League of America, wrote in "Slovak v Amerrke" on April 14, 1915: "From the ve ry beginning the Czech political manifesto carefully avoided r eferring to the Slovak people as a. NtATION. Later they dearly an d unequivocally declared that only ,th e Slovak people and the Bohemian race together could form a nation." The editors were so eager to serve truth that they even published an editorial from a Hungarian newspaper "Amerikai Magyar Nepszava" on the problems of minorities in Hungary (June 22, 1915). However, the resolution of these problems was pretty well tied to the outcome of the war: the editors were familiar with Allied opinion about the Austro-Hungarian Empire - this jail of nations was to be dismantled. "Slovak v Amerike" supported American policy and American war efforts. On March 16, 1917 it started to publish ,a column titled "Loyal Slovaks" in whioh it featured letters from readers expres~ing support for the war effort of the United States. 44 SLOVAKIA The Cleveland Agreement between the Slovak League of Amerka and the Czech National Alliance was extensively discussed in seve:r,al issues of "Slovak v Amerike". On February 27, 1916 "Slovak v Amerike" published an account of the Congress of the Slovak League held in Chicago on February 22 and 23, 1916. In this article Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky recommended that the Congress send representatives to Europe to discuss the developing situi,tion with Slovak and Czech leaders. Gustav Kosik and Stefan Osusky were •c ommissioned to this task by the Slovak League, and they left for Europe - Kosik on May 29, 1916, and Osusky on May 31. Their purpose was to investigate all Slovak and Czech committees and to determine whether they worked in the spirit of the Cleveland Agreement between .t he Slovaks and the Czechs. After Kosik returned to the United States from Russia, the American Slovaks started a one million dollar fundraising campaign for the liberation of Slovakia. On May 23, 1917 "Slovak v Amerike" said: "It is believed that iat lea:st one million Slovaks live in the United States. If eac<h of them were to contribute but one dollar, we would have a million." Among the Czechs were many pan-Czechists who sought the formation of a Great Pan-Czeohia. They acted in disregard of the rights of the Slovak nation. Seton-Watson writes that great indignation was aroused among Slovaks when Thomas Masaryk, acting in the capacity of president of the Czecho-Slovak Council, sent a confidential memorandum to the English government which stated that "the Slovaks are Bohemians in spite of their use of their dialect as a literary language." Later, when 1:lhe Slovaks of Russia and America withdrew their support of the Czecho-Slovak Council, Masaryk worked frantically to regain their support. After all, the Slovaks in America had financed the whole liberation movement. Miasaryk himself ,p acified the Slovaks of Russia with .the Moscow Agreement (August 15, 1917), and the American Slovaks with the Pittsburgh Pact of May 30, 1918, in which he gave broad -assuramces of recognition of Slovak rights. "Slovak v Amerike" printed several long articles about the meeting in Pittsburgh between Slovaks and Czechs, SLOVAKIA 45 under the chairmanship of Thomas Masaryk (June 6, 7, and 8, 1918). It wrote more about the pact on June 28, 1918: "Some of our brothers feared that the Czechs were not sincere in their dealings with us, and that they planned to ,Czechize us later. Our brothers protested against the statements of some shortsig,hted and badly-informed Czechs thwt the Slovaks are only a branch or the Bohemian nation, and that the •Slovak language is only a dialect of Czech. Our standpoint is that the Slovaks are not merely an appendix of the Czech nation, but •t hat they themselves constitute an individual nation." The Pittsburgh Pact was one of ijhe hottest political issues of the Czecho-Slovak Republic during the first twenty years of its existence. American Slovaks did what tJhey could for the liberation of their homeland. The Czechs failed to fulfil both their agreements with the Slov,2Jks, and their promises to the Allies at the Paris Peace Conference. The end of the war brought to a close the political struggle with the Magyars and saw the beginning of a new struggle - against Czech encroachments of Slovak rights. "Slovak v Amerike" guided Slovak thought and effort in this battle with as much vehemence as it had previously devoted to the battle with Austro-Hungarian suppression. TECHNICAL NOTES ON THE FEATURES AND DEVELOPMENT OF "SLOVAK V AMERIKE" THE MASTHEAD OF "SLOVAK V AMERIKE" IN 1905 Masthead: Slovak v Ameri:ke (in the English translation: Slovak American). Subtitle: A Laborite and National Newspaper. Motto: Let the Nation's Salvation be the Highest Law. On the left side of tJhe masthead, written in Slovak: Founded in 1889. "Slovak v Amerike" is an independent, genuinely Slovak national paper, published every Tuesday and Friday. The purpose of this newspaper is to defend with dignity, to teach, and to amuse the Slovak people living in the United States of America. The surbscr1ption price for one ye•ar is $2.00; for half a year $1.00. Send all letters and money to this address: Slovak v Amerike, 198 E. 10th Street, New York, N. Y. 46 SLOVAKIA On the right side of the masthead, written in English, appears: Established in 1889. Slovak v Amerike, published every Tuesday and Friday, is the only Slovak Newspaper in the Metropolis and its vicinity, and is the largest and sole SIDMI-WEEKLY in the United States. It reaches every state in the Union and Canada and has the largest circulation of any newspaiper among Slovaiks, or so-called Hungarians, in the new world. Inasmuch as all the other Slovak newspapers are weeklies, Slovak v Amerike is the best advertising medium. Slovak v Amerike, 198 E. 10th Street, New York City. Telephone: 2466 Orchard. Under the semicircle of the titular caption "Slovak v Amerike" there is a picture depicting on the left side two miners, and on the right side a farmer plowing with two horses, and in the background a farmhouse. In the middle of the picture appear two figures: on the left a man in Slovak national costume holding a flag, and on the right a young woman depicting Freedom, with an American flag. Between them stands an eagle. THE MASTHEAD OF " SLOVAK V AMERIKE" IN 1906 In 1906 the newspaper changed its masthead: under "Slovak v Amerike" there appeared a Slovak peasant couple dressed in Slovak national costume; in front of the couple is an eagle with two flags, one American, the other Slovak, stri,p ed in white blue and red. Behind th~ couple rise the three Slovak mountain peaks of the Slovaik coat-of-arms, and above them shines the sun. On the left side of the picture appea.rs a farmer ,s owing grain; on the right a miner. To the side of the central picture there is a short note d escribing the services offered by the newspaper. "Slovak v Amerike" flourished with the establishment of the new publishing company. On November 23, 1906 it announced the acquisition of a new ,p rinting press from the Goss Printing Press Company. The editor-in-chief was happy to have the new machine: ''With the avalanche of immigration Slovak business grows, too. In i.America nobody who works, who is industrious, has cause to fear bun~er, because h e can face the future confidently." SLOVAKIA 47 There were many varied advertisements featured in "Slovak v Amerike". Banks, travel bureaus, physicians, real estate agencies, taverns, funeral homes, hotels, photographers, jewellers, pharmacists . . . all found it desirable to advertize there. The attractiveness of the newspaper was enhanced with diversified pictures, both photogrruphs and drawings. It was ia big event when the first photographic picture appeared in the July 6, 1906 issue. The influence of American newspapers is noticeable in some less significant news. On April 3, 1906 "Slovak v Amerike" pictured ,s even ladies's hats with the commentary that for the first time in its i6 year existence it was publishing something exciting for the ladies. On January 11, 1907 the newspaper was printed for the first time on a huge new rotary press. THE MASTHEAD OF "SLOVAK V AMERIKE" IN 1910 With business increasing the purblishers planned to improve the newspaper not only in content but also in appearance. On March 8, 1910 "Slovak v Amerike" appeared wi!h. a new masthead. In the center were two figures, one depicting a Slovak youth ·with a "Valaska" (hatcbet) and the Slovak flag, 1:Jhe other a young woman, symbolizing A· merica, with the American flag. Between them stands an eagle guarding the respective coat-of-arms. Above the eagle hovers the rising sun. · On the left side is a miner, on the right a farmer in the act of plowing. Captioned above is the title of the newspaper: Slovak v Amerike: below, in English: Slovak American. On · the left side of the masthead is inscribed the slogan: "Robotnicke a narodne noviny" (A Laborite and National N_e wspaper); on the right side: "Spasa narodna ,bud' tym najvyssim zakonom." (Let the nation's salvation be the highest law.) 1911 was a memorable year for "Slovak v Amerike''.. On April 4, 1911 the complete business, including the printing shop, was transferred to permanent quarters in a newly acquired building at 166 Ave. A., New York City. In the following year "Slovak v Amerike" acquired a new printing machine, manufactured by Goss Company, New York and Chicago, for $8,000.00. 48 SLOVAKIA THE MASTHEAD OF "SLOVAK V AMERIKE" IN 1912 With the new machine the masthead of the newspaper was changed again. The ·c entral figure in the new masthead was a girl sitting with a book, who symbolized Slovakia. She leans with her left arm on a globe of Amerioa. Under the globe is an American flag. On the right side stands a boy with a liberty forch, ,and next to him a globe of Europe. The boy holds a hammer in his right hand and under his feet is a worm-wheel. Between the two figures is an eagle holding the coat-of-arms of America and Slovakia. On the left side of the central picture there is a panorama of New York City; on the right a farmer and two miners are depicted in an oblong picture. Captioned above is the inscriiption: Slovak v Amerike; below: Slovak American. Semi~weekly, 166 Ave. A., New York, N. Y. On the left side is the old slogan: "Robotnicke a narodne noviny" (A Laborite and National newspaper); on the right side the motto: "Spa.sa :narodna 1bud' tym najvyssim zakonom." (Let the Nation's Salvation be the Highest Law.) Not long after the change in quarters came another change in editors. On March 26, 1912 "Slovak v Amerike" published the names of the whole personnel-staff of the newspa;per and the print shop. C. L. Orbach was listed as president and editor-in-chief. Associate editors were: Jan Culen and Karol Still!sny. The newspaper now introduced the services of a travel agency and ia law department, including a notary public. It was a natural and useful step forward. Many immigrants had no acquaintances but their factory friends and roommates. They were in need of these ser vices to send money to their wives in Slovakia, or tickets for pll!ssage to the United States. This business expanded and with time branches were established in Yonkers, New York; Newark, New Jersey; Wallington, New Jersey; and Hooversville, Pennsylv,ania. T4ere were also changes in the staff. Culen left and only Orbach and Stiasny r emained as editors. On November 13, 1913 "Slovak v Amerike" published the following important news: SLOVAKIA 49 On January 1, 1914 Slovak v Amerike will be published daily on four pa,ges, except once a week, when it will appear on eight pages. In the masthead of the newspa,per wais a small change: the Slovak word "Dennik" (Daily) was placed over the panorama of New York City, and over the drawing of the farmer and miner was pl aced the English word "Daily". On January 10, 1914 "Slovak v Amerike" quoted from an editorial in the Slovak newspaper "Hlas" (The Voice) from Cleveland: 1 On January first "Slov:ik v Amerike" became a daily. We now h.av,e four dailies in America, and two more are in prepa ration. The Slovaks are progressing faster in the United States than in tihe old country, where they have only one daily and even this one has a hard tim e surviving. On April 1, 1915 "Slovak v Amerike" aippeared with a new masthead. The new version was similar to the old, except that the lateral figures were dropped. A few days later there was a big turnover in the editorial office. On November 6, 1915 the following editors were listed: Orbach, Stiasny; on November 8, Orbaoh, Stiasny, Culen; on November 9, Orbach, Stiasny; on November 11, Orbach, Stiaisny, Jan Galbavy. The printing shop of "Slovak v Amerike" was also growing. An announcement was made on August 5, 1915 that it had acquired a new linotype, a model 14 - multiple magazine linotype machine, manufactuJred by Mergenthaler Linoty;pe Company, Brooklyn, New York. On December 16, 1915 red ink was used for t!he first time in a headline: "Allies Fortify City of Salonika". Never again did "Slova;k v Amerike" use red ink in its headlines. No further technical changes occured in the publi<!ation of the daily "Slovak v Amerike". APPENDIX THE CIRCULATION OF "SLOVAK V AMERIKE"l Year 1889-1893 1894 1895 Listed Under Sclavonic Sclavonic Circulation Not available 3,000 Not a vaila'ble 50 SLOVAKIA 1896 1897-1899 1900 1901-1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911-1918 Sclavonic-Slo:venic Slavonic and Slovenic Siavonic and Slovenic Slavonic and Slovenic Slovac Slovac Slovac Slovac Slovak Slovak Slovak 4,000 Not available 8,900 Not available 20,000 20,000 30,000 Not available 30,000 36,000 Not available FOOTNOTES l. N. W. Ayer & Sons, DIRIDCTORY O,F PERIODICALS, (Philadelphia, 1894-1918). NEWSIPAPERS ANID BIBLIOGRAPHY Autonomlst, An . S'LO¥AKIA'S PLEA F10R A,UTONO>MY. N . p., Slovak Literary Society, 1,935. Ayer, N. W. & Sons. DIRElCTORY OF NEWSPAiP.ERiS AND PIDRIODICALS. Philadelphia, 1894-19-18. Bonsal, Stephen. SUITORS ANID SUPRLIANTS; 'I1HE LITTLE N.AT~ONS AT ¥ERSAILIJES. New York, Prentice-Hall, 1946. Capek, Thomas. THE SlJOVA~S OF HUNGARY. New York, The Knicker-Bocker Press, 1906. Culen, Konstantin. JANKO SIJOV·ENSKY. Winnipeg, Kanadsky Slovak, 1954. Durcansky, Ferdinand. PiOHI'..AiD NA SLOVENSKU POLITICKU MINULOST. Bratislava, By the author, 1943. Kohn, Hans. PANSLAVI-SM. Notre Dame, Ind ., Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1953. Lengyel, Emil. Al\f•E lRlCANS F1RIOM HUNGA!RY. P1hiladelphla, Llppincobt, 1948. Mackenzie, Compton. DR. BfilNiE~. London, Harrap, 1946. Mraz, Andrej . DEJIINY SIJOY.ENSKEJ LIT,ERATUiRY. Bratislava, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Slovaca, 1948. NEW YORKSKY DElNNiK, June, 1936. (New York) Palickar, Stephen J. SLO¥AKJI.A!N CULTURE . Cambridge, Mass., Hempshire Press, 19:H. Seton,Watson, R . W. A HISTORY OF '11HE CZEJCHS ANiD SLOVAKS. New York, Hutchinson, 1943. Seton-Watson, R. W . MASAIRYK IN ENGLAND. Cambridge, Engl., Univ. Press, 1943. Sidor, Karol. SLOVACI V ZAIH!RAiNICNOM ODBOJI. Bratislava, By the author, 1928. SLOVAK V AMIDRIKE, 1905-1918. New York. Yurchak, Peter: T,H,E SLOVAKS; THEllR HISTORY AND TRADITION . Whioting, Ind., J. J. Lach, 194-6.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Oldest Slovak Newspaper in the U.S.A. Description An account of the resource William Kona, M.A. Slovakia, Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965 pp. 38-50 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kona, Viliam, 1920-1989 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 LCNAF+dates https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/568464b43fc472446ee6cd783df5b5c9.pdf b656347b7ad1a0531248650d01bf3dd5 PDF Text Text SJ,..OVAKIA 51 A CRITICAL DECADE THE WHITE HOUSE .A.NiD 'l1HE SLOVAKS By Sister M. Evangela, SS. C. M . In a trans-Atlantic telephone conversation, Acting Secretary of State Sumner Welles told the United States Ambassador in France, William Bullitt, that President Roosevelt did not intend to make a comment on the Slovak Declaration of Independence, proclaimed on March 14, 1939. 1 Hitler's invasion of Czecho-Slovakia the following day terminated all possibility of diplomatic negotiations. Minister Wilbur J. Carr informed the Secretary of State four days later that the Czecho-Slovak Foreign office had been closed. German military and civil authorities had assumed administrative power; as a result, there were no officials of the former Government with whom to maintain relations. 2 Although Dr. Bene~ had resigned his office as President of Czecho-Slovakia, he continued to use his past official signature in the telegrams of protest he sent to President Roosevelt, Chamberlain, Daladier, Litvinov, and to the President of the League of Nations' Council.3 He credits Roosevelt's attitude towards Hitler's occupation of Czecho-Slovakia to his foresight. "On the day of occupation I wired to President Roosevelt . . . The American Government immediately declined to recognize the occupation of Czecho-Slovakia and repudiated it. " 4 When the Czecho-Slovak Minister in France, Mr. Stephen Osusky, turned over the keys of the Czecho-Slovak Legation in Paris to the French Authorities, the United States invited Mr. Vladimir Hurban to do the same. But, as long as the United States did not recognize the disappearance of his country, Minister Hurban decided to stay on in his official former capacity while he hoped to enjoy the full and active support of the United States. In fact, he proposed to act as the Czecho-Slovak Government in order to safeguard, as he saw fit, the physical properties and assets of the CzechoSlovak Legation. Legally, of course, this was a questionable �52 SLOVAKIA procedure. He went so far as to suggest that Dr. Cervenka, the First Secretary of the Czecho-Slovak Degation in Washington, be recognized as Charge d' Affaires in the Minister's absence. In the interest of everyone concerned, President Roosevelt advised Benes, under the circumstances, not to come to Washington nor to seek an interview. 5 Earlier in the year, Dr. Benes had left London, where he had been staying since his resignation, for the United States. His purpose was "to inform it (the United States) of my intentions and plans and to draw its attention to what it was to expect and for what it had to prepare itself, the State and the Nation." 6 Accepting the Chair of Sociology, he lectured in the University of Chicago from February, 1939 to June, 1939. In the meantime, his friend from World War I days, Hamilton Fish Armstrong, editor of Foreign Affairs and President Roosevelt's regular adviser in matters of foreign policy, arranged a meeting between the President and Dr. Benes at Hyde Park for May 28, 1939. 7 Of this visit, Mr. Benes wrote: "I was received by President Roosevelt in May (28), 1939 ... Even at that time he promised me the recognition of our independence and of our future government as far as developments and possibilities in his own country would permit." 8 "We have helped you once. We will help you again. Do remain in contact with me and let me know how your affairs progress," Roosevelt encouraged the former Czecho-Slovak President. He added, "You may be sure that in this war we will not do less for you than in the last war." 9 However, when World War II broke out, the United States remained neutral and reserved toward Benes, "this being in line with its general policy," explained the Czech leader. 10 During his stay at London, Benes, though an exile without authority, nominated a Czechoslovak State Council, and then had himself confirmed as President by that Council which then became the Provisional Government-in-exile. 11 Great Britain was the first to accord it recognition (July 21, 1940) and other Allied nations followed suit. Benes waited until June 4, 1941, before requesting the United States for a formal recognition of the Czechoslovak Government in London. On July 30, 1941, Roosevelt penned these words to �SLOVAKIA 53 him: "The American Government has decided to accredit an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Provisional Czechoslovak Government in London for closer contact in the common interests of the two countries until the institutions of free government are re-estabHshed in Czechoslovakia." 12 The novel method by which Benes had again become President amazed many Slovaks who were of the opinion that the Allied recognition of this Provisional Czechoslovak Government was rather unique in political history. They became suspicious and uneasy when they discovered that the self-appointed President of a nonexistent State became one of the most influential counsellors to the Western Democracies on matters of European politics. 13 In the meantime, Slovaks in America had been urging the United States Government to recognize the Republic of Slovakia. The President of the Slovak League of America, Mr. Joseph Rusek, wrote to Secretary of State Cordell Hull on April 24 and again in August, 1939, concerning this matter. Iri his second letter, Mr. Rusek indicated very practical reasons for a reversal of the American policy on Slovakia. There a r e hundreds of Sl ovak American s who hol d property a nd h ave other mater ial inter ests i n Slovakia, w hich, due to th e u ncerta in conditi ons existing gener a ll y in E ur ope today, th ey a r e a nxious to liquidate. Since Slovakia h as no official r epresentative in the U nited States through w h om s uch matters could best b e handled, th ese Slovak Am ericans, w ho are citizen s of the U nited States, have already suffe r ed m uch anxiety a nd mater ial loss. If your Honor h a s r easons for n ot r econizing DE J UR!E this younges t of E ur opean ,s tates, I ask you to consider the m ater ial in terests of these America n citizens a nd again urge fo r y our consideration th e petition o f the Slovak L eague of America for, a t leas t DE FACTO r ecognition of 1Slova kia by th e U nited Stat es . .. 14 Mr. Hull treated this plea as he had the plea of the Slovak Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Ferdinand Durcansky, filing it but not acknowledging it. Instead, the Secretary of State wrote to the Charge in Hungary, Mr. Howard K. Travers, that, despite the hardship suffered through a lack of American consular offices in Slovakia, the United States would not abandon its position of non-recognition of Slovakia because of German military occupation of parts of West~ ern and Northern Slovakia.15 �54 SLOVAKIA It seems that it had been Dr. Benes who was more or less responsible for the American position on Slovakia. On May 12, 1939, he had sent Dr. George Slavik to the Slovak League of America to influence it against the Slovak Republic. For the failure of Slavik's mission, the League was subjected to a propaganda barrage discrediting it in Washington, D. C. 16 In an effort to offset Benes's attacks, the Slovak League established an information chancery in Washington, D. C. for the purpose of exposing the falseness of various circulating reports. It also published factual works on the Slovak nation. It took steps to acquaint the Foreign Relation Committee with the desirability of recognizing Slovakia. Under its aegis, the members subscribed $52,632,224.45 in war bonds and purchased, through the Slovenska Obrana Newspaper and the Osadne Hlasy drives, three training airplanes called the "Spirit of the Slovak League of America." 17 To list all that the patriotic zeal and loyalty of this very active organization meant to the United States would be impossible. Yet, despite the evident sincerity of many Americans of Slovak descent, investigations of their membership in the League were frequent. 18 During his residence in London, Dr. Benes had made a radio statement on December 3, 1939, that injured the reputation of numerous Slovak American citizens. He said at the time, "The entire Czechoslovak America is with us except for a small group of paid Nazi helpers." 19 The Presidents of several influential Slovak organizations in America wrote to Mr. Robert H. Jackson, United States Attorney General, requesting the Department of Justice for an investigation of the charge.20 The Slovak League also suffered accusations brought against it before the Dies Committee of the United States House of Representatives as a subversive organization. Twice Mr. Rusek (October 6 and October 28, 1939) asked Mr. Martin Dies, Chairman of the Committee, for an explanation of the circumstances which prompted the action of the Committee opposing the League. 21 None was given. To disprove the pro-Hitler accusations, "American-born, public-spirited, war-winning-minded Monsignor F. J. Dubosh of Cleveland, Ohio, leader of the Slovaks in America, offered to do this: to broadcast to the Slovaks in occupied �SLOVAKIA 55 Slovakia to rise against Hitler. He was turned down by Washington on this proposal. " 22 Finally, official Washington became convinced that the smears leveled against the League were unjustified since the FBI could produce no convicting evidence. The Department of Justice then assured the President of the League, "The fact that the Department of Justice instituted no prosecution against the Slovak League of America, would serve to disprove the accusations to which you refer. " 23 However, by that time, Benes's plan to discredit the League and Slovakia had fulfilled its purpose. As far as the United States was concerned, the Republic of Slovakia did not exist. President Roosevelt's will in this case was inflexible. Efforts on the part of Slovak Americans to foster a better understanding with him failed. One writer relates his sad experience as follows: . . . no amount of our effort could change the official position of our State Department and of our Government. I vi.sited F1DR In the White House on October 18, 1'940, along with a ,Slovak 'League delegation and, in discussing these matters, F1DR told us that President Benes was his friend and they were interested in the restoration of CzechoSlovakia.24 At this point, the question presents itself: Was Benes alone responsible for the non-recognition of the Republic of Slovakia, or was there another cause or influencing factor? In her research the · writer has come across another point of view. Unfortunately, the sources cannot be disclosed because of possible reprisals; however, this writer believes the new slant of sufficent importance to warrant inclusion in this present study on the role of Slovakia in the relations of the United States with Czecho-Slovakia. Persons having vested interests in a government would quite naturally wish to see its preservation. It is understandable why the Jews who had invested in the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia would be very interested in the perpetuation of the State at least until such a time as most of their money could be taken out safely. Slovakia posed a threat to their investment. Furthermore, because of past detrimental effects on the Catholic State of Slovakia, the newlyiounded Republic clamped down on all Freemason lodges, �56 SLOVAKIA clissolving Freemasonary in the country, and placing controls on the .Jews. 25 It is, therefore, not surprising that the nonCatholic elements in Slovakia and elsewhere would combine with the Freemasons and secretly but effectively prevent, if not the formation, then the recognition of a new State whose citizenry would be in vast majority Catholic.26 Oddly ,enough, Masonic influence in England, France and, perhaps in Scandinavia, is quite powerful, and yet these countries recognized the new Slovak State. In America, it appears that the influence of the Jews was added to that of the Freemasons, Communists, and Czechs. Together they formed a bloc strong enough to influence FDR's non-recognition policy, a fact further strengthened by the knowledge of President Roosevelt's membership in the Masonic fraternity. 27 President Benes paid another official visit to the United States in May, 1943. He talked with President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Vice-President Henry Wallace, Secretaries Morgenthau, Knox, Stimson and many other political, military and economic leaders of this country. He addressed both Houses of Congress as well as numerous representative gatherings in Washington, D.C. , New York, and Chicago. 28 This second visit with President Roosevelt confirmed and consolidated Benes's official, international, and legal position in the United States.29 It was immediately after this second visit that the CzechoSlovak Legation was raised to an Embassy with the appointment of Colonel Vladimir Hurban as the first Czecho-Slovak Ambassador to the United States, June 28, 1943. On that historic occasion, Roosevelt asserted his feelings toward · the Czech leader thus: The elevation of our respective diplomatic missions to the r ank or Embassy r eaffirms the friendship whi ch has always uni ted our two peoples and emphasize li our common aim of working togethe r to destroy the evil forces w hich s ought t o impose u pon th e world their immoral d omination . .. I shall be gr ateful, Mr . Ambassador , if you will convey to His Excellency President Benes, whose r ecent visit was a fur th er la ndmark in our efforts t o achieve fi na l victory , my ,sincere goo d ,wishes for his welfa r e a nd for the early liber ation of th e people of iCzecho-i.SloTakia.30 On June 9 and September 28, 1942, the British and the Soviet Governments accorded the Czecho-Slovak Government the status of Ambassador to their Ministers.31 �SLOVAKIA 57 Leaving the United States with a sense of relief and satisfaction after his second visit, President Benes noted that both on the domestic and the international levels friendly cooperation between America and the Soviets was functioning well. 32 From this point on, one sees a somewhat quickening get-togetherness developing between Stalin and Benes. Long years before, Masaryk, who had looked upon the Communist seizure of power in Russia with evident satisfaction, had predicted: "The revolution in Russia will bring great changes politically, socially and culturally, so that in the future we shall come to a close cooperation and a national and political reapprochement with her." 33 Prominent Czechs had believed cooperation with Russia was not only possible but also desirable. 34 Benes himself stated in his Memoirs that after the Treaty of 1935 with P.msia, Czecho-Slovak cooperation with the Soviet Union was "normal, lasting, and consistent. " 35 Imitation is the greatest compliment. Creeping socialism began only a few years after the First Republic of CzechoS1ovakia came into existence. In 1938, a visitor noted with surprise a distinct progress toward social control of the nation's industries. Railroads, mines, hydro-electric plants, fisheries, smelting and radium works, Czech Postal Savings Bank were all in the hands of the Government. 315 Under pressure of leftist leaders, the Government-inexile initiated discussions for large-scale nationalization as early as 1943. No definite plan emerged until the Kosice Agreement of 1945. By then, it was too late to turn back from the road of socialism which was to end in total involvement with communism. 37 After Stalingrad, Benes concluded that Russia would escalade the apex of Europe's political power. He found it expedient to adjust Czecho-Slovakia to the eminent position of the Soviet Union, making his country the first to line itself up voluntarily on the side of the stronghold of communism. 38 Against British advice, Benes went to Moscow to make a new treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union. 39 The SovietCzech Mutual Aid Treaty, a twenty years treaty of friendship, mutual assistance and post was collaboration, was signed on �58 SLOVAKIA December 12, 1943. 40 London at first opposed the Pact and Washington did not react favorably to it because it veered away from a world security league. 41 The Treaty did not change Roosevelt's benevolent attitude toward Stalin and Benes. In fact, "according to his own account, Benes's influence on Roosevelt's ideas concerning Central and Eastern Europe was considerable at this time; and, though not present at Teheran, he cast a fatal shadow on it from the background. He strengthened Roosevelt's sublime trust in the men of Kremlin." 42 Benes supports this interpretation with the statement, "I think, therefore, that I am not wrong in supposing that the Moscow Conference (and by implication, Teheran) was the direct result or was .:.t least hastened by the negotiations for our treaty with :Moscow." Later he observed that the Moscow Conference laid the "foundations for real agreement and friendship between the three participating Powers." 43 How far his political friendships of this period were responsible for the debacle that was to follow after the War cannot be ascertained. The facts are that the Soviets showed li.ttle regard for their treaty obligations in May, 1944, when the Red, Army liberated Pilsen and Prague and seized Ruthenia; when the Allies, without consulting Benes or notifying him, made an agreement with the Russians regarding zones of occupation; when Benes suddenly realized that CzechoSlovakia was under the immediate control of the Red Army. 44 "The American Army's failure to liberate Prague in April, 1945, is considered by many Czechs the most fateful mistake of American policy." 45 It is the opinion of some that the United States Army could have saved Czecho-Slovakia for the West as it had Vienna and Berlin. 46 The Reds made propaganda out of this by telling the people of Czecho-Slovakia that America had refused to aid their country. 47 On this case, documentary evidence proves that No prior political agreements or commitments h ad been made with respect to Czecho-'Slovakia, and the Allied Command m ade perfectly clear its willi ngness to complete the des truction of the enemy in Czecho-Slovakia as well a:s in other areas. It was only at the specific request of the Soviet High Command, and a!ter assurances were received, that the Soviet Army was already in a position to delitroy �SLOVAKIA 59 the enemy in the Vltava Valley, in which Praha (Prague) is situated, that the advance beyond the Pilsen line was halted.48 Czecho-Slovakia was to become the victim of the aggressive foreign policy of the East and a negative policy of withdrawal by the West. 49 It could have profited to a great extent from the publishing of George Kennan's excellent advice on policy toward Russia. In his American Diplomacy, Kennan stresses the point that the United States must "regard the Soviet Union as a rival, not a partner in the political arena." 50 Roosevelt and Benes both needed to be told this. The book, unfortunately, came out a few years too late for their benefit. On the other hand, Kurt Glaser concludes that "considering the entire record, ... the Western Powers had no reason to believe that the Czechs were in anyway dissatisfied with the prospect of Russian 'liberation'." 51 Certainly Benes could agree with that viewpoint inasmuch as he inked the following remarks in his Memoirs: I . . . regarded the Teheran Conference as a great success and I moulded all my further discussions in Moscow as .well as my later ones in London and our negotiations with :the Americans to fit the results of Teheran. This also covered the advance of the Soviet Army into ,Central ·E urope and on to our territory :which I regarded as a certainity - especially after Tehera n - though I did not exclude the possibility that the Western Allies would also try to reach it.52 The last sentence of the above quote clearly indicates Benes's thinking on the subject of liberation. The events following the liberation of Czecho-Slovakia were to be the saddest in its history. Preiident Roosevelt and the British War Cabinet approved a plan for the transfer of Sudeten Germans. The Czecho-Slovak Minister of Propaganda, Vaclav Kopecky, declared, "We shall expel all the Germans, we shall confiscate their property, we shall de-nationalize ... the whole area ... " 53 At Potsdam, Truman, Attlee, aod their advisers, incorrectly informed, could not prevent the total expulsion of fifteen million Germans from their original homes. The Potsdam Agreement sanctioned their transfer "in an orderly and human way." 54 What followed was a barbaric resurgence. Meanwhile an uprising, Communist led and inspired, �60 SLOVAKIA occurred in Slovakia in 1944. The German Army crushed the improvised rebellion and the Soviet Army used the occasion to occupy Slovakia's territory by mid-April, 1945. Control of the Slovak Republic passed into hands of the Prague pro-communist government which initiated a reign of terror. 55 President Benes had organized a coalition government with the help of Moscow. Together with Premier Klement Gottwald, leader of the Czech Communists, he proclaimed the Kosice Program, April 5, 1945, for the new Government of the reestablished Czecho-Slovakia. Without any form of plebiscite, Slovakia was reintegrated into the State and promised equal rights. 56 The Kosice Program was the door to Communist seizure of power three years later. The Slovak National Council, an ligency of the communist-dominated central government of Prague, created several institutions of political justice on May 15, 1945. "The legal task of these courts was to judge war criminals, but their political purpose was to get rid of the political adversaries of the two factions in power, under the pretext of collaboration with Germany." 57 President Jozef Tiso, with a majority of representatives of the Slovak Republic, placed himself in the hands of the military of the United States after the occupation of Slovakia by the Soviet Army. He remained in the American detention camp for a short time and then was surrendered to Benes who gave him to the Communists in charge of the "people's court" in Bratislava. 58 The international law expert, Dr. Fer.dinand Durcansky, declared that, "according to accepted principles of international law and traditional practices of civilized nations, a political refugee, politically guilty or not, is not to be given over to a government against which he worked, and certainly not when such a government is one from which he fled . . ." 59 His explanation demonstrates that the American officers had no legal basis for turning over Dr. Tiso and the Slovak representatives to the National Court of CzechoSlovakia. If these men had been suspected of some military crime, their trial properly belonged to the jurisdiction of the International Military Tribunal. 60 �SLOVAKIA Dr. Benes had made it clear to the Slovak National Council that sentence of death upon President Tiso was a matter of necessity. The National Court in Bratislava was, therefore, devoid of impartiality and objectivity. Since it was through the intrumentality of its Army of Occupation that Tiso was released to the Czech Government, the United States was bound to intervene.61 Why it did not do so, despite the earnest pleadings of Slovak Americans, will remain a secret in the confidential files of the State Department. Dr. Tiso died on the gallows at dawn on April 18, 1947.62 In his speech, "Murder in Slovakia," delivered in the House of Representatives on April 23, 1947, Congressman Alvin E. O'Konski of Wisconsin emphasized that the hanging of Monsignor Tiso itself is not the greatest tragedy. "The greatest tragedy is the silence by our American President and by our American State Deparment while this murder was going on." He decried the fact that our national leaders did not so much as file a protest against the execution of one "whose only crime was that he hated communism just as he hated nazism." 63 FOOTNOTES 1. FOREIGN RELATIONS, Vol. I (1 939), p. 41. 2. IBID., pp. 48-51 . 3. Eduard Benes, MEMOJJRS: FROM MUNICH TO NEW WAR AND NEW VICTORY (Boston, 1954), p . 19. 4. Eduard Benes, IN 'HDS OWIN WORDS (New York, 1944), p. 133. 5. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 56. 6. IBID., p. 54. 7. IBID., p . 75. 8. Benes, IN HIS OWN WORDS, p. 133. 9. Benes, MEMOIRS, pp. 79-80. 10. Benes. IN HIS OWN WORDS, p. 133. "The question of the recognition of the Czechoslovak Government was being examined carefully at Washington." Benes, MIDMOIRS, p. 176. 11. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 175. 12. IBID., pp. 176-77. 13 . Memorandum of the Slovak National Cottncil Abroad to His Excellency John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State (May 28, 1953), p.11. 14. Joseph Rusek to Cordell Hull, August 4, 1939. 15. FOREIGN IRElLATIONS, Vol. I (1939). pp. 69-71. �62 SLOVAKIA 16. Mikula§ i:§princ, ed., SLOViENSKA LIGA V AM1E RIKE ~TYRlDSA 'l'ROONA (Sc;ranton, 1947), pp. 70-71. 17. IBID., p. 84. 18. Correspondence in re Slova,kia. 19. IBID., The statement appeared in the Czech newspapars in the United States and was thus brought to the attention or many Americans of Slovak origin. 20. IBID. 21. J. Husak to Hon. Martin Dies, October 6 and 28, 1939. 22. Peter P. Yurchak, "Inside •CzechoJSlovak!a," THE CA'l1HOLIC WOO.Iill, CLIX (May, 1944). p. 162. 23. Frantisek J. Dubosh, "Slovenska Liga pofas vojny," (T-he Slovak League during the War), XXXV Congress of the Slovak League of America (May 26, 1957), p. 15. 24. tDr. Peter P. Hletko, President of the Slovak League or .America, to the writer, July 2, 1962. 25. CZEOHOSLOVAKIA F1IGH'DS BACK, A DOCUMENT OF THE ,CZEJOROS,L OVAK MLNILSTRY OF FOREIGN A1F1FAIRS with an Introduction by Jan Masaryk (1Washington, D. C., 1943), p. 158. 26. Dr. Tiso has sometimes been charged with persecuting the Jews, contrary to an official report of the International Committee or the Red Cross which recorded :that "at definite periods SloTakia was actually regarded as a relative asylum for Jews ... The Jews that remain ed in Slovakia were comparatively safe until the revolt which took place at the end of August, 1944." Cited by Kirschbaum from •R EVUE IN'DERNATIO::--rAL !DE LA CROIX ROUGE, 1947, iN. 348, pp. 957-9 59 in "The ,Politics of Hlinka's Party." S.IJO'VAKIA, I (May, 1951), 48. 27. ENCYCLiOPEtDIA AMEJRICANA (1958), XVIII, p. 888. 28. CZECHOSJ..JOVA.KiLA rnlGHiTS BA:OK, p. 1,9,4. 29. Benes, IN H.l!S OWN WlORDS, p. 133. 30. CZEOHiOSiLOVAKIA FIGHTS BAOK, p. 196. 31. IBID., p. 196. WORDS, p. 135. 32. Benes, IN HIS ow 33. Thomas G. -Masaryk, THE MAKING OF A STATE, New York, 1927), pp. 14-15. 34. FOREIGN RELATIONS, Vol. I (1935), p. 226. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 40. 35. 36. Harry W. Laidler, "The ,Czecho-Slovakia That Was," THE NEW REPUB!LIC, XCViIII (Ma.rch 29, 1939), 213. 37. Winifred Hadsel, "Czechoslovakia's Road to Socialism," FOREIGN BOLICY IRJEBORTS, XXIV (February 15, 1947), 271. 38. IBID., %73. 39. Wilhelm Turnwald, iRENAISCIDNCE OR iDEJOI.iINE OF CIDNTRAL EJUROPE (Munich, 1954), p. 60. 40. "American War Documents," OURREJNT HISTORY, VI (February, 1944), 15G. 41. "Russian Czech Pact Brings Up Puzzle Big Three Didn't Solve," NEWSWEEK, XXII (December 27, 1943), 30. 4!. Turnwald, IRIDNASCFl..'-.CE OR DECL]NE, p. 62. �SLOVAKIA 63 43 Benes, MEMOIRS, pp. 245-249. 44. Edward Taborsky, "Benes and the Soviets," F10REIGN AFFA!IRS, XXVH (January, 1949), 309-14. 45. Joseph Wechsberg, "They're Losing Faith in America," SATURDAY EVENING POST, CCXXIX (July 28, 1956), 93. 46. 1'BlD., 93. 47. Hubert Ripka, -CZECHOSLOVAKIA EJN5LAVED (London, 1950), p. 38. 48. UNITIDD ,STATES DEPA!RTMENT OF STATE BULLETIN, XX (May 22, 19 49) , ti 65. 49. Andrew Gyorgy, GOVEJRNMEJNTS OF DANIUBIAN EUROPE (New York, 1949), p. 103. 50. George tF. Kennan, AMERICAN DIPLOMA!CY, 1900-1950 (Chicago, 1952), p. 104. 51. Kurt Glaser, CZECHO-SLOVAKIA: A ORITIOAL HISTORY (Caldwell, Idaho, 1961), p. 109. From the Munich crisis on to the final ,t ragedy of communist takeover in 1948, Eduard Benes is a difficult character to understand. There is a bit of Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde about him as he proceeds from confussion to frustration during the declining decade of his years. 52. Benes, MEMO-IRS, p. 253. 53. TtRAGEDY OF A PEOBLE, RACIAl.JISM IN ,CZEJOHO-SLOVAKIA, n. a. (New York, 1946), p. 19. 5-4 . .Glasser, CZEGHO-SLO'VA>KIA: A CRITICAL HIS'I\ORY, p. 129. Since American troops still occupied part of Czecho-Slovakia, Truman could have demanded ,that the ,Czechs discontinue the persecution of Sudeten Germans or else risk the annexation of Western Bohemia to the United States' Zone of Germany. J:BID., p. 130. 55. Joseph Pauco, CHRISTIAJ..~ SLOVAKIA UNDER COMMUNISM (Valpa.raiso, Indiana, 1959), p. 15. · 56 . •COMMUNIST TAKEOVER AND OCCUPATION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA, Special Report No. 8. Select Committee on Communist Aggression House of Representives, 83rd Congress, Second Session, p. 15. 57. INVESTIGATION OF COMMUNIST AGGRESSION, Tenth Interim !Report of Hearings, 83rd Congress, Second Session, p. 166. 58. Gilbert L. Oddo, SlJOVAKIA AND ITS PEOPLE (New York, 1960), p. 310. 59. Petition of the ,S lovak Action Committee to the United Nations in the Trial of Dr. Joseph Tiso, n. p. 60. IBlD., n. p. As late as 1963·, the State Department refused to give out any information that it has in its files on Dr. Tiso. "As far as can be ascertained, the State Depa11trnent of the United States ordered the surrender of President Tiso and members of the Slovak Government in its custody without even investigating their status." Oddo, SLCNAKIA ANtD ITS PEOPLE, p. 310. 61. IBID., n . p. 62. Oddo, SLOVAKIA AND ITS PEOPLE, p. 315. 63. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, Proceedings and Debates, 80th CoRgress, First Session, Special Reprint, p. 2. � SJ,..OVAKIA 51 A CRITICAL DECADE THE WHITE HOUSE .A.NiD 'l1HE SLOVAKS By Sister M. Evangela, SS. C. M . In a trans-Atlantic telephone conversation, Acting Secretary of State Sumner Welles told the United States Ambassador in France, William Bullitt, that President Roosevelt did not intend to make a comment on the Slovak Declaration of Independence, proclaimed on March 14, 1939. 1 Hitler's invasion of Czecho-Slovakia the following day terminated all possibility of diplomatic negotiations. Minister Wilbur J. Carr informed the Secretary of State four days later that the Czecho-Slovak Foreign office had been closed. German military and civil authorities had assumed administrative power; as a result, there were no officials of the former Government with whom to maintain relations. 2 Although Dr. Bene~ had resigned his office as President of Czecho-Slovakia, he continued to use his past official signature in the telegrams of protest he sent to President Roosevelt, Chamberlain, Daladier, Litvinov, and to the President of the League of Nations' Council.3 He credits Roosevelt's attitude towards Hitler's occupation of Czecho-Slovakia to his foresight. "On the day of occupation I wired to President Roosevelt . . . The American Government immediately declined to recognize the occupation of Czecho-Slovakia and repudiated it. " 4 When the Czecho-Slovak Minister in France, Mr. Stephen Osusky, turned over the keys of the Czecho-Slovak Legation in Paris to the French Authorities, the United States invited Mr. Vladimir Hurban to do the same. But, as long as the United States did not recognize the disappearance of his country, Minister Hurban decided to stay on in his official former capacity while he hoped to enjoy the full and active support of the United States. In fact, he proposed to act as the Czecho-Slovak Government in order to safeguard, as he saw fit, the physical properties and assets of the CzechoSlovak Legation. Legally, of course, this was a questionable �52 SLOVAKIA procedure. He went so far as to suggest that Dr. Cervenka, the First Secretary of the Czecho-Slovak Degation in Washington, be recognized as Charge d' Affaires in the Minister's absence. In the interest of everyone concerned, President Roosevelt advised Benes, under the circumstances, not to come to Washington nor to seek an interview. 5 Earlier in the year, Dr. Benes had left London, where he had been staying since his resignation, for the United States. His purpose was "to inform it (the United States) of my intentions and plans and to draw its attention to what it was to expect and for what it had to prepare itself, the State and the Nation." 6 Accepting the Chair of Sociology, he lectured in the University of Chicago from February, 1939 to June, 1939. In the meantime, his friend from World War I days, Hamilton Fish Armstrong, editor of Foreign Affairs and President Roosevelt's regular adviser in matters of foreign policy, arranged a meeting between the President and Dr. Benes at Hyde Park for May 28, 1939. 7 Of this visit, Mr. Benes wrote: "I was received by President Roosevelt in May (28), 1939 ... Even at that time he promised me the recognition of our independence and of our future government as far as developments and possibilities in his own country would permit." 8 "We have helped you once. We will help you again. Do remain in contact with me and let me know how your affairs progress," Roosevelt encouraged the former Czecho-Slovak President. He added, "You may be sure that in this war we will not do less for you than in the last war." 9 However, when World War II broke out, the United States remained neutral and reserved toward Benes, "this being in line with its general policy," explained the Czech leader. 10 During his stay at London, Benes, though an exile without authority, nominated a Czechoslovak State Council, and then had himself confirmed as President by that Council which then became the Provisional Government-in-exile. 11 Great Britain was the first to accord it recognition (July 21, 1940) and other Allied nations followed suit. Benes waited until June 4, 1941, before requesting the United States for a formal recognition of the Czechoslovak Government in London. On July 30, 1941, Roosevelt penned these words to �SLOVAKIA 53 him: "The American Government has decided to accredit an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Provisional Czechoslovak Government in London for closer contact in the common interests of the two countries until the institutions of free government are re-estabHshed in Czechoslovakia." 12 The novel method by which Benes had again become President amazed many Slovaks who were of the opinion that the Allied recognition of this Provisional Czechoslovak Government was rather unique in political history. They became suspicious and uneasy when they discovered that the self-appointed President of a nonexistent State became one of the most influential counsellors to the Western Democracies on matters of European politics. 13 In the meantime, Slovaks in America had been urging the United States Government to recognize the Republic of Slovakia. The President of the Slovak League of America, Mr. Joseph Rusek, wrote to Secretary of State Cordell Hull on April 24 and again in August, 1939, concerning this matter. Iri his second letter, Mr. Rusek indicated very practical reasons for a reversal of the American policy on Slovakia. There a r e hundreds of Sl ovak American s who hol d property a nd h ave other mater ial inter ests i n Slovakia, w hich, due to th e u ncerta in conditi ons existing gener a ll y in E ur ope today, th ey a r e a nxious to liquidate. Since Slovakia h as no official r epresentative in the U nited States through w h om s uch matters could best b e handled, th ese Slovak Am ericans, w ho are citizen s of the U nited States, have already suffe r ed m uch anxiety a nd mater ial loss. If your Honor h a s r easons for n ot r econizing DE J UR!E this younges t of E ur opean ,s tates, I ask you to consider the m ater ial in terests of these America n citizens a nd again urge fo r y our consideration th e petition o f the Slovak L eague of America for, a t leas t DE FACTO r ecognition of 1Slova kia by th e U nited Stat es . .. 14 Mr. Hull treated this plea as he had the plea of the Slovak Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Ferdinand Durcansky, filing it but not acknowledging it. Instead, the Secretary of State wrote to the Charge in Hungary, Mr. Howard K. Travers, that, despite the hardship suffered through a lack of American consular offices in Slovakia, the United States would not abandon its position of non-recognition of Slovakia because of German military occupation of parts of West~ ern and Northern Slovakia.15 �54 SLOVAKIA It seems that it had been Dr. Benes who was more or less responsible for the American position on Slovakia. On May 12, 1939, he had sent Dr. George Slavik to the Slovak League of America to influence it against the Slovak Republic. For the failure of Slavik's mission, the League was subjected to a propaganda barrage discrediting it in Washington, D. C. 16 In an effort to offset Benes's attacks, the Slovak League established an information chancery in Washington, D. C. for the purpose of exposing the falseness of various circulating reports. It also published factual works on the Slovak nation. It took steps to acquaint the Foreign Relation Committee with the desirability of recognizing Slovakia. Under its aegis, the members subscribed $52,632,224.45 in war bonds and purchased, through the Slovenska Obrana Newspaper and the Osadne Hlasy drives, three training airplanes called the "Spirit of the Slovak League of America." 17 To list all that the patriotic zeal and loyalty of this very active organization meant to the United States would be impossible. Yet, despite the evident sincerity of many Americans of Slovak descent, investigations of their membership in the League were frequent. 18 During his residence in London, Dr. Benes had made a radio statement on December 3, 1939, that injured the reputation of numerous Slovak American citizens. He said at the time, "The entire Czechoslovak America is with us except for a small group of paid Nazi helpers." 19 The Presidents of several influential Slovak organizations in America wrote to Mr. Robert H. Jackson, United States Attorney General, requesting the Department of Justice for an investigation of the charge.20 The Slovak League also suffered accusations brought against it before the Dies Committee of the United States House of Representatives as a subversive organization. Twice Mr. Rusek (October 6 and October 28, 1939) asked Mr. Martin Dies, Chairman of the Committee, for an explanation of the circumstances which prompted the action of the Committee opposing the League. 21 None was given. To disprove the pro-Hitler accusations, "American-born, public-spirited, war-winning-minded Monsignor F. J. Dubosh of Cleveland, Ohio, leader of the Slovaks in America, offered to do this: to broadcast to the Slovaks in occupied �SLOVAKIA 55 Slovakia to rise against Hitler. He was turned down by Washington on this proposal. " 22 Finally, official Washington became convinced that the smears leveled against the League were unjustified since the FBI could produce no convicting evidence. The Department of Justice then assured the President of the League, "The fact that the Department of Justice instituted no prosecution against the Slovak League of America, would serve to disprove the accusations to which you refer. " 23 However, by that time, Benes's plan to discredit the League and Slovakia had fulfilled its purpose. As far as the United States was concerned, the Republic of Slovakia did not exist. President Roosevelt's will in this case was inflexible. Efforts on the part of Slovak Americans to foster a better understanding with him failed. One writer relates his sad experience as follows: . . . no amount of our effort could change the official position of our State Department and of our Government. I vi.sited F1DR In the White House on October 18, 1'940, along with a ,Slovak 'League delegation and, in discussing these matters, F1DR told us that President Benes was his friend and they were interested in the restoration of CzechoSlovakia.24 At this point, the question presents itself: Was Benes alone responsible for the non-recognition of the Republic of Slovakia, or was there another cause or influencing factor? In her research the · writer has come across another point of view. Unfortunately, the sources cannot be disclosed because of possible reprisals; however, this writer believes the new slant of sufficent importance to warrant inclusion in this present study on the role of Slovakia in the relations of the United States with Czecho-Slovakia. Persons having vested interests in a government would quite naturally wish to see its preservation. It is understandable why the Jews who had invested in the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia would be very interested in the perpetuation of the State at least until such a time as most of their money could be taken out safely. Slovakia posed a threat to their investment. Furthermore, because of past detrimental effects on the Catholic State of Slovakia, the newlyiounded Republic clamped down on all Freemason lodges, �56 SLOVAKIA clissolving Freemasonary in the country, and placing controls on the .Jews. 25 It is, therefore, not surprising that the nonCatholic elements in Slovakia and elsewhere would combine with the Freemasons and secretly but effectively prevent, if not the formation, then the recognition of a new State whose citizenry would be in vast majority Catholic.26 Oddly ,enough, Masonic influence in England, France and, perhaps in Scandinavia, is quite powerful, and yet these countries recognized the new Slovak State. In America, it appears that the influence of the Jews was added to that of the Freemasons, Communists, and Czechs. Together they formed a bloc strong enough to influence FDR's non-recognition policy, a fact further strengthened by the knowledge of President Roosevelt's membership in the Masonic fraternity. 27 President Benes paid another official visit to the United States in May, 1943. He talked with President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Vice-President Henry Wallace, Secretaries Morgenthau, Knox, Stimson and many other political, military and economic leaders of this country. He addressed both Houses of Congress as well as numerous representative gatherings in Washington, D.C. , New York, and Chicago. 28 This second visit with President Roosevelt confirmed and consolidated Benes's official, international, and legal position in the United States.29 It was immediately after this second visit that the CzechoSlovak Legation was raised to an Embassy with the appointment of Colonel Vladimir Hurban as the first Czecho-Slovak Ambassador to the United States, June 28, 1943. On that historic occasion, Roosevelt asserted his feelings toward · the Czech leader thus: The elevation of our respective diplomatic missions to the r ank or Embassy r eaffirms the friendship whi ch has always uni ted our two peoples and emphasize li our common aim of working togethe r to destroy the evil forces w hich s ought t o impose u pon th e world their immoral d omination . .. I shall be gr ateful, Mr . Ambassador , if you will convey to His Excellency President Benes, whose r ecent visit was a fur th er la ndmark in our efforts t o achieve fi na l victory , my ,sincere goo d ,wishes for his welfa r e a nd for the early liber ation of th e people of iCzecho-i.SloTakia.30 On June 9 and September 28, 1942, the British and the Soviet Governments accorded the Czecho-Slovak Government the status of Ambassador to their Ministers.31 �SLOVAKIA 57 Leaving the United States with a sense of relief and satisfaction after his second visit, President Benes noted that both on the domestic and the international levels friendly cooperation between America and the Soviets was functioning well. 32 From this point on, one sees a somewhat quickening get-togetherness developing between Stalin and Benes. Long years before, Masaryk, who had looked upon the Communist seizure of power in Russia with evident satisfaction, had predicted: "The revolution in Russia will bring great changes politically, socially and culturally, so that in the future we shall come to a close cooperation and a national and political reapprochement with her." 33 Prominent Czechs had believed cooperation with Russia was not only possible but also desirable. 34 Benes himself stated in his Memoirs that after the Treaty of 1935 with P.msia, Czecho-Slovak cooperation with the Soviet Union was "normal, lasting, and consistent. " 35 Imitation is the greatest compliment. Creeping socialism began only a few years after the First Republic of CzechoS1ovakia came into existence. In 1938, a visitor noted with surprise a distinct progress toward social control of the nation's industries. Railroads, mines, hydro-electric plants, fisheries, smelting and radium works, Czech Postal Savings Bank were all in the hands of the Government. 315 Under pressure of leftist leaders, the Government-inexile initiated discussions for large-scale nationalization as early as 1943. No definite plan emerged until the Kosice Agreement of 1945. By then, it was too late to turn back from the road of socialism which was to end in total involvement with communism. 37 After Stalingrad, Benes concluded that Russia would escalade the apex of Europe's political power. He found it expedient to adjust Czecho-Slovakia to the eminent position of the Soviet Union, making his country the first to line itself up voluntarily on the side of the stronghold of communism. 38 Against British advice, Benes went to Moscow to make a new treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union. 39 The SovietCzech Mutual Aid Treaty, a twenty years treaty of friendship, mutual assistance and post was collaboration, was signed on �58 SLOVAKIA December 12, 1943. 40 London at first opposed the Pact and Washington did not react favorably to it because it veered away from a world security league. 41 The Treaty did not change Roosevelt's benevolent attitude toward Stalin and Benes. In fact, "according to his own account, Benes's influence on Roosevelt's ideas concerning Central and Eastern Europe was considerable at this time; and, though not present at Teheran, he cast a fatal shadow on it from the background. He strengthened Roosevelt's sublime trust in the men of Kremlin." 42 Benes supports this interpretation with the statement, "I think, therefore, that I am not wrong in supposing that the Moscow Conference (and by implication, Teheran) was the direct result or was .:.t least hastened by the negotiations for our treaty with :Moscow." Later he observed that the Moscow Conference laid the "foundations for real agreement and friendship between the three participating Powers." 43 How far his political friendships of this period were responsible for the debacle that was to follow after the War cannot be ascertained. The facts are that the Soviets showed li.ttle regard for their treaty obligations in May, 1944, when the Red, Army liberated Pilsen and Prague and seized Ruthenia; when the Allies, without consulting Benes or notifying him, made an agreement with the Russians regarding zones of occupation; when Benes suddenly realized that CzechoSlovakia was under the immediate control of the Red Army. 44 "The American Army's failure to liberate Prague in April, 1945, is considered by many Czechs the most fateful mistake of American policy." 45 It is the opinion of some that the United States Army could have saved Czecho-Slovakia for the West as it had Vienna and Berlin. 46 The Reds made propaganda out of this by telling the people of Czecho-Slovakia that America had refused to aid their country. 47 On this case, documentary evidence proves that No prior political agreements or commitments h ad been made with respect to Czecho-'Slovakia, and the Allied Command m ade perfectly clear its willi ngness to complete the des truction of the enemy in Czecho-Slovakia as well a:s in other areas. It was only at the specific request of the Soviet High Command, and a!ter assurances were received, that the Soviet Army was already in a position to delitroy �SLOVAKIA 59 the enemy in the Vltava Valley, in which Praha (Prague) is situated, that the advance beyond the Pilsen line was halted.48 Czecho-Slovakia was to become the victim of the aggressive foreign policy of the East and a negative policy of withdrawal by the West. 49 It could have profited to a great extent from the publishing of George Kennan's excellent advice on policy toward Russia. In his American Diplomacy, Kennan stresses the point that the United States must "regard the Soviet Union as a rival, not a partner in the political arena." 50 Roosevelt and Benes both needed to be told this. The book, unfortunately, came out a few years too late for their benefit. On the other hand, Kurt Glaser concludes that "considering the entire record, ... the Western Powers had no reason to believe that the Czechs were in anyway dissatisfied with the prospect of Russian 'liberation'." 51 Certainly Benes could agree with that viewpoint inasmuch as he inked the following remarks in his Memoirs: I . . . regarded the Teheran Conference as a great success and I moulded all my further discussions in Moscow as .well as my later ones in London and our negotiations with :the Americans to fit the results of Teheran. This also covered the advance of the Soviet Army into ,Central ·E urope and on to our territory :which I regarded as a certainity - especially after Tehera n - though I did not exclude the possibility that the Western Allies would also try to reach it.52 The last sentence of the above quote clearly indicates Benes's thinking on the subject of liberation. The events following the liberation of Czecho-Slovakia were to be the saddest in its history. Preiident Roosevelt and the British War Cabinet approved a plan for the transfer of Sudeten Germans. The Czecho-Slovak Minister of Propaganda, Vaclav Kopecky, declared, "We shall expel all the Germans, we shall confiscate their property, we shall de-nationalize ... the whole area ... " 53 At Potsdam, Truman, Attlee, aod their advisers, incorrectly informed, could not prevent the total expulsion of fifteen million Germans from their original homes. The Potsdam Agreement sanctioned their transfer "in an orderly and human way." 54 What followed was a barbaric resurgence. Meanwhile an uprising, Communist led and inspired, �60 SLOVAKIA occurred in Slovakia in 1944. The German Army crushed the improvised rebellion and the Soviet Army used the occasion to occupy Slovakia's territory by mid-April, 1945. Control of the Slovak Republic passed into hands of the Prague pro-communist government which initiated a reign of terror. 55 President Benes had organized a coalition government with the help of Moscow. Together with Premier Klement Gottwald, leader of the Czech Communists, he proclaimed the Kosice Program, April 5, 1945, for the new Government of the reestablished Czecho-Slovakia. Without any form of plebiscite, Slovakia was reintegrated into the State and promised equal rights. 56 The Kosice Program was the door to Communist seizure of power three years later. The Slovak National Council, an ligency of the communist-dominated central government of Prague, created several institutions of political justice on May 15, 1945. "The legal task of these courts was to judge war criminals, but their political purpose was to get rid of the political adversaries of the two factions in power, under the pretext of collaboration with Germany." 57 President Jozef Tiso, with a majority of representatives of the Slovak Republic, placed himself in the hands of the military of the United States after the occupation of Slovakia by the Soviet Army. He remained in the American detention camp for a short time and then was surrendered to Benes who gave him to the Communists in charge of the "people's court" in Bratislava. 58 The international law expert, Dr. Fer.dinand Durcansky, declared that, "according to accepted principles of international law and traditional practices of civilized nations, a political refugee, politically guilty or not, is not to be given over to a government against which he worked, and certainly not when such a government is one from which he fled . . ." 59 His explanation demonstrates that the American officers had no legal basis for turning over Dr. Tiso and the Slovak representatives to the National Court of CzechoSlovakia. If these men had been suspected of some military crime, their trial properly belonged to the jurisdiction of the International Military Tribunal. 60 �SLOVAKIA Dr. Benes had made it clear to the Slovak National Council that sentence of death upon President Tiso was a matter of necessity. The National Court in Bratislava was, therefore, devoid of impartiality and objectivity. Since it was through the intrumentality of its Army of Occupation that Tiso was released to the Czech Government, the United States was bound to intervene.61 Why it did not do so, despite the earnest pleadings of Slovak Americans, will remain a secret in the confidential files of the State Department. Dr. Tiso died on the gallows at dawn on April 18, 1947.62 In his speech, "Murder in Slovakia," delivered in the House of Representatives on April 23, 1947, Congressman Alvin E. O'Konski of Wisconsin emphasized that the hanging of Monsignor Tiso itself is not the greatest tragedy. "The greatest tragedy is the silence by our American President and by our American State Deparment while this murder was going on." He decried the fact that our national leaders did not so much as file a protest against the execution of one "whose only crime was that he hated communism just as he hated nazism." 63 FOOTNOTES 1. FOREIGN RELATIONS, Vol. I (1 939), p. 41. 2. IBID., pp. 48-51 . 3. Eduard Benes, MEMOJJRS: FROM MUNICH TO NEW WAR AND NEW VICTORY (Boston, 1954), p . 19. 4. Eduard Benes, IN 'HDS OWIN WORDS (New York, 1944), p. 133. 5. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 56. 6. IBID., p. 54. 7. IBID., p . 75. 8. Benes, IN HIS OWN WORDS, p. 133. 9. Benes, MEMOIRS, pp. 79-80. 10. Benes. IN HIS OWN WORDS, p. 133. "The question of the recognition of the Czechoslovak Government was being examined carefully at Washington." Benes, MIDMOIRS, p. 176. 11. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 175. 12. IBID., pp. 176-77. 13 . Memorandum of the Slovak National Cottncil Abroad to His Excellency John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State (May 28, 1953), p.11. 14. Joseph Rusek to Cordell Hull, August 4, 1939. 15. FOREIGN IRElLATIONS, Vol. I (1939). pp. 69-71. �62 SLOVAKIA 16. Mikula§ i:§princ, ed., SLOViENSKA LIGA V AM1E RIKE ~TYRlDSA 'l'ROONA (Sc;ranton, 1947), pp. 70-71. 17. IBID., p. 84. 18. Correspondence in re Slova,kia. 19. IBID., The statement appeared in the Czech newspapars in the United States and was thus brought to the attention or many Americans of Slovak origin. 20. IBID. 21. J. Husak to Hon. Martin Dies, October 6 and 28, 1939. 22. Peter P. Yurchak, "Inside •CzechoJSlovak!a," THE CA'l1HOLIC WOO.Iill, CLIX (May, 1944). p. 162. 23. Frantisek J. Dubosh, "Slovenska Liga pofas vojny," (T-he Slovak League during the War), XXXV Congress of the Slovak League of America (May 26, 1957), p. 15. 24. tDr. Peter P. Hletko, President of the Slovak League or .America, to the writer, July 2, 1962. 25. CZEOHOSLOVAKIA F1IGH'DS BACK, A DOCUMENT OF THE ,CZEJOROS,L OVAK MLNILSTRY OF FOREIGN A1F1FAIRS with an Introduction by Jan Masaryk (1Washington, D. C., 1943), p. 158. 26. Dr. Tiso has sometimes been charged with persecuting the Jews, contrary to an official report of the International Committee or the Red Cross which recorded :that "at definite periods SloTakia was actually regarded as a relative asylum for Jews ... The Jews that remain ed in Slovakia were comparatively safe until the revolt which took place at the end of August, 1944." Cited by Kirschbaum from •R EVUE IN'DERNATIO::--rAL !DE LA CROIX ROUGE, 1947, iN. 348, pp. 957-9 59 in "The ,Politics of Hlinka's Party." S.IJO'VAKIA, I (May, 1951), 48. 27. ENCYCLiOPEtDIA AMEJRICANA (1958), XVIII, p. 888. 28. CZECHOSJ..JOVA.KiLA rnlGHiTS BA:OK, p. 1,9,4. 29. Benes, IN H.l!S OWN WlORDS, p. 133. 30. CZEOHiOSiLOVAKIA FIGHTS BAOK, p. 196. 31. IBID., p. 196. WORDS, p. 135. 32. Benes, IN HIS ow 33. Thomas G. -Masaryk, THE MAKING OF A STATE, New York, 1927), pp. 14-15. 34. FOREIGN RELATIONS, Vol. I (1935), p. 226. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 40. 35. 36. Harry W. Laidler, "The ,Czecho-Slovakia That Was," THE NEW REPUB!LIC, XCViIII (Ma.rch 29, 1939), 213. 37. Winifred Hadsel, "Czechoslovakia's Road to Socialism," FOREIGN BOLICY IRJEBORTS, XXIV (February 15, 1947), 271. 38. IBID., %73. 39. Wilhelm Turnwald, iRENAISCIDNCE OR iDEJOI.iINE OF CIDNTRAL EJUROPE (Munich, 1954), p. 60. 40. "American War Documents," OURREJNT HISTORY, VI (February, 1944), 15G. 41. "Russian Czech Pact Brings Up Puzzle Big Three Didn't Solve," NEWSWEEK, XXII (December 27, 1943), 30. 4!. Turnwald, IRIDNASCFl..'-.CE OR DECL]NE, p. 62. �SLOVAKIA 63 43 Benes, MEMOIRS, pp. 245-249. 44. Edward Taborsky, "Benes and the Soviets," F10REIGN AFFA!IRS, XXVH (January, 1949), 309-14. 45. Joseph Wechsberg, "They're Losing Faith in America," SATURDAY EVENING POST, CCXXIX (July 28, 1956), 93. 46. 1'BlD., 93. 47. Hubert Ripka, -CZECHOSLOVAKIA EJN5LAVED (London, 1950), p. 38. 48. UNITIDD ,STATES DEPA!RTMENT OF STATE BULLETIN, XX (May 22, 19 49) , ti 65. 49. Andrew Gyorgy, GOVEJRNMEJNTS OF DANIUBIAN EUROPE (New York, 1949), p. 103. 50. George tF. Kennan, AMERICAN DIPLOMA!CY, 1900-1950 (Chicago, 1952), p. 104. 51. Kurt Glaser, CZECHO-SLOVAKIA: A ORITIOAL HISTORY (Caldwell, Idaho, 1961), p. 109. From the Munich crisis on to the final ,t ragedy of communist takeover in 1948, Eduard Benes is a difficult character to understand. There is a bit of Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde about him as he proceeds from confussion to frustration during the declining decade of his years. 52. Benes, MEMO-IRS, p. 253. 53. TtRAGEDY OF A PEOBLE, RACIAl.JISM IN ,CZEJOHO-SLOVAKIA, n. a. (New York, 1946), p. 19. 5-4 . .Glasser, CZEGHO-SLO'VA>KIA: A CRITICAL HIS'I\ORY, p. 129. Since American troops still occupied part of Czecho-Slovakia, Truman could have demanded ,that the ,Czechs discontinue the persecution of Sudeten Germans or else risk the annexation of Western Bohemia to the United States' Zone of Germany. J:BID., p. 130. 55. Joseph Pauco, CHRISTIAJ..~ SLOVAKIA UNDER COMMUNISM (Valpa.raiso, Indiana, 1959), p. 15. · 56 . •COMMUNIST TAKEOVER AND OCCUPATION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA, Special Report No. 8. Select Committee on Communist Aggression House of Representives, 83rd Congress, Second Session, p. 15. 57. INVESTIGATION OF COMMUNIST AGGRESSION, Tenth Interim !Report of Hearings, 83rd Congress, Second Session, p. 166. 58. Gilbert L. Oddo, SlJOVAKIA AND ITS PEOPLE (New York, 1960), p. 310. 59. Petition of the ,S lovak Action Committee to the United Nations in the Trial of Dr. Joseph Tiso, n. p. 60. IBlD., n. p. As late as 1963·, the State Department refused to give out any information that it has in its files on Dr. Tiso. "As far as can be ascertained, the State Depa11trnent of the United States ordered the surrender of President Tiso and members of the Slovak Government in its custody without even investigating their status." Oddo, SLCNAKIA ANtD ITS PEOPLE, p. 310. 61. IBID., n . p. 62. Oddo, SLOVAKIA AND ITS PEOPLE, p. 315. 63. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, Proceedings and Debates, 80th CoRgress, First Session, Special Reprint, p. 2. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1965, Vol. 15 Description An account of the resource Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SJ,..OVAKIA 51 A CRITICAL DECADE THE WHITE HOUSE .A.NiD 'l1HE SLOVAKS By Sister M. Evangela, SS. C. M . In a trans-Atlantic telephone conversation, Acting Secretary of State Sumner Welles told the United States Ambassador in France, William Bullitt, that President Roosevelt did not intend to make a comment on the Slovak Declaration of Independence, proclaimed on March 14, 1939. 1 Hitler's invasion of Czecho-Slovakia the following day terminated all possibility of diplomatic negotiations. Minister Wilbur J. Carr informed the Secretary of State four days later that the Czecho-Slovak Foreign office had been closed. German military and civil authorities had assumed administrative power; as a result, there were no officials of the former Government with whom to maintain relations. 2 Although Dr. Bene~ had resigned his office as President of Czecho-Slovakia, he continued to use his past official signature in the telegrams of protest he sent to President Roosevelt, Chamberlain, Daladier, Litvinov, and to the President of the League of Nations' Council.3 He credits Roosevelt's attitude towards Hitler's occupation of Czecho-Slovakia to his foresight. "On the day of occupation I wired to President Roosevelt . . . The American Government immediately declined to recognize the occupation of Czecho-Slovakia and repudiated it. " 4 When the Czecho-Slovak Minister in France, Mr. Stephen Osusky, turned over the keys of the Czecho-Slovak Legation in Paris to the French Authorities, the United States invited Mr. Vladimir Hurban to do the same. But, as long as the United States did not recognize the disappearance of his country, Minister Hurban decided to stay on in his official former capacity while he hoped to enjoy the full and active support of the United States. In fact, he proposed to act as the Czecho-Slovak Government in order to safeguard, as he saw fit, the physical properties and assets of the CzechoSlovak Legation. Legally, of course, this was a questionable 52 SLOVAKIA procedure. He went so far as to suggest that Dr. Cervenka, the First Secretary of the Czecho-Slovak Degation in Washington, be recognized as Charge d' Affaires in the Minister's absence. In the interest of everyone concerned, President Roosevelt advised Benes, under the circumstances, not to come to Washington nor to seek an interview. 5 Earlier in the year, Dr. Benes had left London, where he had been staying since his resignation, for the United States. His purpose was "to inform it (the United States) of my intentions and plans and to draw its attention to what it was to expect and for what it had to prepare itself, the State and the Nation." 6 Accepting the Chair of Sociology, he lectured in the University of Chicago from February, 1939 to June, 1939. In the meantime, his friend from World War I days, Hamilton Fish Armstrong, editor of Foreign Affairs and President Roosevelt's regular adviser in matters of foreign policy, arranged a meeting between the President and Dr. Benes at Hyde Park for May 28, 1939. 7 Of this visit, Mr. Benes wrote: "I was received by President Roosevelt in May (28), 1939 ... Even at that time he promised me the recognition of our independence and of our future government as far as developments and possibilities in his own country would permit." 8 "We have helped you once. We will help you again. Do remain in contact with me and let me know how your affairs progress," Roosevelt encouraged the former Czecho-Slovak President. He added, "You may be sure that in this war we will not do less for you than in the last war." 9 However, when World War II broke out, the United States remained neutral and reserved toward Benes, "this being in line with its general policy," explained the Czech leader. 10 During his stay at London, Benes, though an exile without authority, nominated a Czechoslovak State Council, and then had himself confirmed as President by that Council which then became the Provisional Government-in-exile. 11 Great Britain was the first to accord it recognition (July 21, 1940) and other Allied nations followed suit. Benes waited until June 4, 1941, before requesting the United States for a formal recognition of the Czechoslovak Government in London. On July 30, 1941, Roosevelt penned these words to SLOVAKIA 53 him: "The American Government has decided to accredit an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Provisional Czechoslovak Government in London for closer contact in the common interests of the two countries until the institutions of free government are re-estabHshed in Czechoslovakia." 12 The novel method by which Benes had again become President amazed many Slovaks who were of the opinion that the Allied recognition of this Provisional Czechoslovak Government was rather unique in political history. They became suspicious and uneasy when they discovered that the self-appointed President of a nonexistent State became one of the most influential counsellors to the Western Democracies on matters of European politics. 13 In the meantime, Slovaks in America had been urging the United States Government to recognize the Republic of Slovakia. The President of the Slovak League of America, Mr. Joseph Rusek, wrote to Secretary of State Cordell Hull on April 24 and again in August, 1939, concerning this matter. Iri his second letter, Mr. Rusek indicated very practical reasons for a reversal of the American policy on Slovakia. There a r e hundreds of Sl ovak American s who hol d property a nd h ave other mater ial inter ests i n Slovakia, w hich, due to th e u ncerta in conditi ons existing gener a ll y in E ur ope today, th ey a r e a nxious to liquidate. Since Slovakia h as no official r epresentative in the U nited States through w h om s uch matters could best b e handled, th ese Slovak Am ericans, w ho are citizen s of the U nited States, have already suffe r ed m uch anxiety a nd mater ial loss. If your Honor h a s r easons for n ot r econizing DE J UR!E this younges t of E ur opean ,s tates, I ask you to consider the m ater ial in terests of these America n citizens a nd again urge fo r y our consideration th e petition o f the Slovak L eague of America for, a t leas t DE FACTO r ecognition of 1Slova kia by th e U nited Stat es . .. 14 Mr. Hull treated this plea as he had the plea of the Slovak Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Ferdinand Durcansky, filing it but not acknowledging it. Instead, the Secretary of State wrote to the Charge in Hungary, Mr. Howard K. Travers, that, despite the hardship suffered through a lack of American consular offices in Slovakia, the United States would not abandon its position of non-recognition of Slovakia because of German military occupation of parts of West~ ern and Northern Slovakia.15 54 SLOVAKIA It seems that it had been Dr. Benes who was more or less responsible for the American position on Slovakia. On May 12, 1939, he had sent Dr. George Slavik to the Slovak League of America to influence it against the Slovak Republic. For the failure of Slavik's mission, the League was subjected to a propaganda barrage discrediting it in Washington, D. C. 16 In an effort to offset Benes's attacks, the Slovak League established an information chancery in Washington, D. C. for the purpose of exposing the falseness of various circulating reports. It also published factual works on the Slovak nation. It took steps to acquaint the Foreign Relation Committee with the desirability of recognizing Slovakia. Under its aegis, the members subscribed $52,632,224.45 in war bonds and purchased, through the Slovenska Obrana Newspaper and the Osadne Hlasy drives, three training airplanes called the "Spirit of the Slovak League of America." 17 To list all that the patriotic zeal and loyalty of this very active organization meant to the United States would be impossible. Yet, despite the evident sincerity of many Americans of Slovak descent, investigations of their membership in the League were frequent. 18 During his residence in London, Dr. Benes had made a radio statement on December 3, 1939, that injured the reputation of numerous Slovak American citizens. He said at the time, "The entire Czechoslovak America is with us except for a small group of paid Nazi helpers." 19 The Presidents of several influential Slovak organizations in America wrote to Mr. Robert H. Jackson, United States Attorney General, requesting the Department of Justice for an investigation of the charge.20 The Slovak League also suffered accusations brought against it before the Dies Committee of the United States House of Representatives as a subversive organization. Twice Mr. Rusek (October 6 and October 28, 1939) asked Mr. Martin Dies, Chairman of the Committee, for an explanation of the circumstances which prompted the action of the Committee opposing the League. 21 None was given. To disprove the pro-Hitler accusations, "American-born, public-spirited, war-winning-minded Monsignor F. J. Dubosh of Cleveland, Ohio, leader of the Slovaks in America, offered to do this: to broadcast to the Slovaks in occupied SLOVAKIA 55 Slovakia to rise against Hitler. He was turned down by Washington on this proposal. " 22 Finally, official Washington became convinced that the smears leveled against the League were unjustified since the FBI could produce no convicting evidence. The Department of Justice then assured the President of the League, "The fact that the Department of Justice instituted no prosecution against the Slovak League of America, would serve to disprove the accusations to which you refer. " 23 However, by that time, Benes's plan to discredit the League and Slovakia had fulfilled its purpose. As far as the United States was concerned, the Republic of Slovakia did not exist. President Roosevelt's will in this case was inflexible. Efforts on the part of Slovak Americans to foster a better understanding with him failed. One writer relates his sad experience as follows: . . . no amount of our effort could change the official position of our State Department and of our Government. I vi.sited F1DR In the White House on October 18, 1'940, along with a ,Slovak 'League delegation and, in discussing these matters, F1DR told us that President Benes was his friend and they were interested in the restoration of CzechoSlovakia.24 At this point, the question presents itself: Was Benes alone responsible for the non-recognition of the Republic of Slovakia, or was there another cause or influencing factor? In her research the · writer has come across another point of view. Unfortunately, the sources cannot be disclosed because of possible reprisals; however, this writer believes the new slant of sufficent importance to warrant inclusion in this present study on the role of Slovakia in the relations of the United States with Czecho-Slovakia. Persons having vested interests in a government would quite naturally wish to see its preservation. It is understandable why the Jews who had invested in the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia would be very interested in the perpetuation of the State at least until such a time as most of their money could be taken out safely. Slovakia posed a threat to their investment. Furthermore, because of past detrimental effects on the Catholic State of Slovakia, the newlyiounded Republic clamped down on all Freemason lodges, 56 SLOVAKIA clissolving Freemasonary in the country, and placing controls on the .Jews. 25 It is, therefore, not surprising that the nonCatholic elements in Slovakia and elsewhere would combine with the Freemasons and secretly but effectively prevent, if not the formation, then the recognition of a new State whose citizenry would be in vast majority Catholic.26 Oddly ,enough, Masonic influence in England, France and, perhaps in Scandinavia, is quite powerful, and yet these countries recognized the new Slovak State. In America, it appears that the influence of the Jews was added to that of the Freemasons, Communists, and Czechs. Together they formed a bloc strong enough to influence FDR's non-recognition policy, a fact further strengthened by the knowledge of President Roosevelt's membership in the Masonic fraternity. 27 President Benes paid another official visit to the United States in May, 1943. He talked with President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Vice-President Henry Wallace, Secretaries Morgenthau, Knox, Stimson and many other political, military and economic leaders of this country. He addressed both Houses of Congress as well as numerous representative gatherings in Washington, D.C. , New York, and Chicago. 28 This second visit with President Roosevelt confirmed and consolidated Benes's official, international, and legal position in the United States.29 It was immediately after this second visit that the CzechoSlovak Legation was raised to an Embassy with the appointment of Colonel Vladimir Hurban as the first Czecho-Slovak Ambassador to the United States, June 28, 1943. On that historic occasion, Roosevelt asserted his feelings toward · the Czech leader thus: The elevation of our respective diplomatic missions to the r ank or Embassy r eaffirms the friendship whi ch has always uni ted our two peoples and emphasize li our common aim of working togethe r to destroy the evil forces w hich s ought t o impose u pon th e world their immoral d omination . .. I shall be gr ateful, Mr . Ambassador , if you will convey to His Excellency President Benes, whose r ecent visit was a fur th er la ndmark in our efforts t o achieve fi na l victory , my ,sincere goo d ,wishes for his welfa r e a nd for the early liber ation of th e people of iCzecho-i.SloTakia.30 On June 9 and September 28, 1942, the British and the Soviet Governments accorded the Czecho-Slovak Government the status of Ambassador to their Ministers.31 SLOVAKIA 57 Leaving the United States with a sense of relief and satisfaction after his second visit, President Benes noted that both on the domestic and the international levels friendly cooperation between America and the Soviets was functioning well. 32 From this point on, one sees a somewhat quickening get-togetherness developing between Stalin and Benes. Long years before, Masaryk, who had looked upon the Communist seizure of power in Russia with evident satisfaction, had predicted: "The revolution in Russia will bring great changes politically, socially and culturally, so that in the future we shall come to a close cooperation and a national and political reapprochement with her." 33 Prominent Czechs had believed cooperation with Russia was not only possible but also desirable. 34 Benes himself stated in his Memoirs that after the Treaty of 1935 with P.msia, Czecho-Slovak cooperation with the Soviet Union was "normal, lasting, and consistent. " 35 Imitation is the greatest compliment. Creeping socialism began only a few years after the First Republic of CzechoS1ovakia came into existence. In 1938, a visitor noted with surprise a distinct progress toward social control of the nation's industries. Railroads, mines, hydro-electric plants, fisheries, smelting and radium works, Czech Postal Savings Bank were all in the hands of the Government. 315 Under pressure of leftist leaders, the Government-inexile initiated discussions for large-scale nationalization as early as 1943. No definite plan emerged until the Kosice Agreement of 1945. By then, it was too late to turn back from the road of socialism which was to end in total involvement with communism. 37 After Stalingrad, Benes concluded that Russia would escalade the apex of Europe's political power. He found it expedient to adjust Czecho-Slovakia to the eminent position of the Soviet Union, making his country the first to line itself up voluntarily on the side of the stronghold of communism. 38 Against British advice, Benes went to Moscow to make a new treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union. 39 The SovietCzech Mutual Aid Treaty, a twenty years treaty of friendship, mutual assistance and post was collaboration, was signed on 58 SLOVAKIA December 12, 1943. 40 London at first opposed the Pact and Washington did not react favorably to it because it veered away from a world security league. 41 The Treaty did not change Roosevelt's benevolent attitude toward Stalin and Benes. In fact, "according to his own account, Benes's influence on Roosevelt's ideas concerning Central and Eastern Europe was considerable at this time; and, though not present at Teheran, he cast a fatal shadow on it from the background. He strengthened Roosevelt's sublime trust in the men of Kremlin." 42 Benes supports this interpretation with the statement, "I think, therefore, that I am not wrong in supposing that the Moscow Conference (and by implication, Teheran) was the direct result or was .:.t least hastened by the negotiations for our treaty with :Moscow." Later he observed that the Moscow Conference laid the "foundations for real agreement and friendship between the three participating Powers." 43 How far his political friendships of this period were responsible for the debacle that was to follow after the War cannot be ascertained. The facts are that the Soviets showed li.ttle regard for their treaty obligations in May, 1944, when the Red, Army liberated Pilsen and Prague and seized Ruthenia; when the Allies, without consulting Benes or notifying him, made an agreement with the Russians regarding zones of occupation; when Benes suddenly realized that CzechoSlovakia was under the immediate control of the Red Army. 44 "The American Army's failure to liberate Prague in April, 1945, is considered by many Czechs the most fateful mistake of American policy." 45 It is the opinion of some that the United States Army could have saved Czecho-Slovakia for the West as it had Vienna and Berlin. 46 The Reds made propaganda out of this by telling the people of Czecho-Slovakia that America had refused to aid their country. 47 On this case, documentary evidence proves that No prior political agreements or commitments h ad been made with respect to Czecho-'Slovakia, and the Allied Command m ade perfectly clear its willi ngness to complete the des truction of the enemy in Czecho-Slovakia as well a:s in other areas. It was only at the specific request of the Soviet High Command, and a!ter assurances were received, that the Soviet Army was already in a position to delitroy SLOVAKIA 59 the enemy in the Vltava Valley, in which Praha (Prague) is situated, that the advance beyond the Pilsen line was halted.48 Czecho-Slovakia was to become the victim of the aggressive foreign policy of the East and a negative policy of withdrawal by the West. 49 It could have profited to a great extent from the publishing of George Kennan's excellent advice on policy toward Russia. In his American Diplomacy, Kennan stresses the point that the United States must "regard the Soviet Union as a rival, not a partner in the political arena." 50 Roosevelt and Benes both needed to be told this. The book, unfortunately, came out a few years too late for their benefit. On the other hand, Kurt Glaser concludes that "considering the entire record, ... the Western Powers had no reason to believe that the Czechs were in anyway dissatisfied with the prospect of Russian 'liberation'." 51 Certainly Benes could agree with that viewpoint inasmuch as he inked the following remarks in his Memoirs: I . . . regarded the Teheran Conference as a great success and I moulded all my further discussions in Moscow as .well as my later ones in London and our negotiations with :the Americans to fit the results of Teheran. This also covered the advance of the Soviet Army into ,Central ·E urope and on to our territory :which I regarded as a certainity - especially after Tehera n - though I did not exclude the possibility that the Western Allies would also try to reach it.52 The last sentence of the above quote clearly indicates Benes's thinking on the subject of liberation. The events following the liberation of Czecho-Slovakia were to be the saddest in its history. Preiident Roosevelt and the British War Cabinet approved a plan for the transfer of Sudeten Germans. The Czecho-Slovak Minister of Propaganda, Vaclav Kopecky, declared, "We shall expel all the Germans, we shall confiscate their property, we shall de-nationalize ... the whole area ... " 53 At Potsdam, Truman, Attlee, aod their advisers, incorrectly informed, could not prevent the total expulsion of fifteen million Germans from their original homes. The Potsdam Agreement sanctioned their transfer "in an orderly and human way." 54 What followed was a barbaric resurgence. Meanwhile an uprising, Communist led and inspired, 60 SLOVAKIA occurred in Slovakia in 1944. The German Army crushed the improvised rebellion and the Soviet Army used the occasion to occupy Slovakia's territory by mid-April, 1945. Control of the Slovak Republic passed into hands of the Prague pro-communist government which initiated a reign of terror. 55 President Benes had organized a coalition government with the help of Moscow. Together with Premier Klement Gottwald, leader of the Czech Communists, he proclaimed the Kosice Program, April 5, 1945, for the new Government of the reestablished Czecho-Slovakia. Without any form of plebiscite, Slovakia was reintegrated into the State and promised equal rights. 56 The Kosice Program was the door to Communist seizure of power three years later. The Slovak National Council, an ligency of the communist-dominated central government of Prague, created several institutions of political justice on May 15, 1945. "The legal task of these courts was to judge war criminals, but their political purpose was to get rid of the political adversaries of the two factions in power, under the pretext of collaboration with Germany." 57 President Jozef Tiso, with a majority of representatives of the Slovak Republic, placed himself in the hands of the military of the United States after the occupation of Slovakia by the Soviet Army. He remained in the American detention camp for a short time and then was surrendered to Benes who gave him to the Communists in charge of the "people's court" in Bratislava. 58 The international law expert, Dr. Fer.dinand Durcansky, declared that, "according to accepted principles of international law and traditional practices of civilized nations, a political refugee, politically guilty or not, is not to be given over to a government against which he worked, and certainly not when such a government is one from which he fled . . ." 59 His explanation demonstrates that the American officers had no legal basis for turning over Dr. Tiso and the Slovak representatives to the National Court of CzechoSlovakia. If these men had been suspected of some military crime, their trial properly belonged to the jurisdiction of the International Military Tribunal. 60 SLOVAKIA Dr. Benes had made it clear to the Slovak National Council that sentence of death upon President Tiso was a matter of necessity. The National Court in Bratislava was, therefore, devoid of impartiality and objectivity. Since it was through the intrumentality of its Army of Occupation that Tiso was released to the Czech Government, the United States was bound to intervene.61 Why it did not do so, despite the earnest pleadings of Slovak Americans, will remain a secret in the confidential files of the State Department. Dr. Tiso died on the gallows at dawn on April 18, 1947.62 In his speech, "Murder in Slovakia," delivered in the House of Representatives on April 23, 1947, Congressman Alvin E. O'Konski of Wisconsin emphasized that the hanging of Monsignor Tiso itself is not the greatest tragedy. "The greatest tragedy is the silence by our American President and by our American State Deparment while this murder was going on." He decried the fact that our national leaders did not so much as file a protest against the execution of one "whose only crime was that he hated communism just as he hated nazism." 63 FOOTNOTES 1. FOREIGN RELATIONS, Vol. I (1 939), p. 41. 2. IBID., pp. 48-51 . 3. Eduard Benes, MEMOJJRS: FROM MUNICH TO NEW WAR AND NEW VICTORY (Boston, 1954), p . 19. 4. Eduard Benes, IN 'HDS OWIN WORDS (New York, 1944), p. 133. 5. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 56. 6. IBID., p. 54. 7. IBID., p . 75. 8. Benes, IN HIS OWN WORDS, p. 133. 9. Benes, MEMOIRS, pp. 79-80. 10. Benes. IN HIS OWN WORDS, p. 133. "The question of the recognition of the Czechoslovak Government was being examined carefully at Washington." Benes, MIDMOIRS, p. 176. 11. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 175. 12. IBID., pp. 176-77. 13 . Memorandum of the Slovak National Cottncil Abroad to His Excellency John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State (May 28, 1953), p.11. 14. Joseph Rusek to Cordell Hull, August 4, 1939. 15. FOREIGN IRElLATIONS, Vol. I (1939). pp. 69-71. 62 SLOVAKIA 16. Mikula§ i:§princ, ed., SLOViENSKA LIGA V AM1E RIKE ~TYRlDSA 'l'ROONA (Sc;ranton, 1947), pp. 70-71. 17. IBID., p. 84. 18. Correspondence in re Slova,kia. 19. IBID., The statement appeared in the Czech newspapars in the United States and was thus brought to the attention or many Americans of Slovak origin. 20. IBID. 21. J. Husak to Hon. Martin Dies, October 6 and 28, 1939. 22. Peter P. Yurchak, "Inside •CzechoJSlovak!a," THE CA'l1HOLIC WOO.Iill, CLIX (May, 1944). p. 162. 23. Frantisek J. Dubosh, "Slovenska Liga pofas vojny," (T-he Slovak League during the War), XXXV Congress of the Slovak League of America (May 26, 1957), p. 15. 24. tDr. Peter P. Hletko, President of the Slovak League or .America, to the writer, July 2, 1962. 25. CZEOHOSLOVAKIA F1IGH'DS BACK, A DOCUMENT OF THE ,CZEJOROS,L OVAK MLNILSTRY OF FOREIGN A1F1FAIRS with an Introduction by Jan Masaryk (1Washington, D. C., 1943), p. 158. 26. Dr. Tiso has sometimes been charged with persecuting the Jews, contrary to an official report of the International Committee or the Red Cross which recorded :that "at definite periods SloTakia was actually regarded as a relative asylum for Jews ... The Jews that remain ed in Slovakia were comparatively safe until the revolt which took place at the end of August, 1944." Cited by Kirschbaum from •R EVUE IN'DERNATIO::--rAL !DE LA CROIX ROUGE, 1947, iN. 348, pp. 957-9 59 in "The ,Politics of Hlinka's Party." S.IJO'VAKIA, I (May, 1951), 48. 27. ENCYCLiOPEtDIA AMEJRICANA (1958), XVIII, p. 888. 28. CZECHOSJ..JOVA.KiLA rnlGHiTS BA:OK, p. 1,9,4. 29. Benes, IN H.l!S OWN WlORDS, p. 133. 30. CZEOHiOSiLOVAKIA FIGHTS BAOK, p. 196. 31. IBID., p. 196. WORDS, p. 135. 32. Benes, IN HIS ow 33. Thomas G. -Masaryk, THE MAKING OF A STATE, New York, 1927), pp. 14-15. 34. FOREIGN RELATIONS, Vol. I (1935), p. 226. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 40. 35. 36. Harry W. Laidler, "The ,Czecho-Slovakia That Was," THE NEW REPUB!LIC, XCViIII (Ma.rch 29, 1939), 213. 37. Winifred Hadsel, "Czechoslovakia's Road to Socialism," FOREIGN BOLICY IRJEBORTS, XXIV (February 15, 1947), 271. 38. IBID., %73. 39. Wilhelm Turnwald, iRENAISCIDNCE OR iDEJOI.iINE OF CIDNTRAL EJUROPE (Munich, 1954), p. 60. 40. "American War Documents," OURREJNT HISTORY, VI (February, 1944), 15G. 41. "Russian Czech Pact Brings Up Puzzle Big Three Didn't Solve," NEWSWEEK, XXII (December 27, 1943), 30. 4!. Turnwald, IRIDNASCFl..'-.CE OR DECL]NE, p. 62. SLOVAKIA 63 43 Benes, MEMOIRS, pp. 245-249. 44. Edward Taborsky, "Benes and the Soviets," F10REIGN AFFA!IRS, XXVH (January, 1949), 309-14. 45. Joseph Wechsberg, "They're Losing Faith in America," SATURDAY EVENING POST, CCXXIX (July 28, 1956), 93. 46. 1'BlD., 93. 47. Hubert Ripka, -CZECHOSLOVAKIA EJN5LAVED (London, 1950), p. 38. 48. UNITIDD ,STATES DEPA!RTMENT OF STATE BULLETIN, XX (May 22, 19 49) , ti 65. 49. Andrew Gyorgy, GOVEJRNMEJNTS OF DANIUBIAN EUROPE (New York, 1949), p. 103. 50. George tF. Kennan, AMERICAN DIPLOMA!CY, 1900-1950 (Chicago, 1952), p. 104. 51. Kurt Glaser, CZECHO-SLOVAKIA: A ORITIOAL HISTORY (Caldwell, Idaho, 1961), p. 109. From the Munich crisis on to the final ,t ragedy of communist takeover in 1948, Eduard Benes is a difficult character to understand. There is a bit of Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde about him as he proceeds from confussion to frustration during the declining decade of his years. 52. Benes, MEMO-IRS, p. 253. 53. TtRAGEDY OF A PEOBLE, RACIAl.JISM IN ,CZEJOHO-SLOVAKIA, n. a. (New York, 1946), p. 19. 5-4 . .Glasser, CZEGHO-SLO'VA>KIA: A CRITICAL HIS'I\ORY, p. 129. Since American troops still occupied part of Czecho-Slovakia, Truman could have demanded ,that the ,Czechs discontinue the persecution of Sudeten Germans or else risk the annexation of Western Bohemia to the United States' Zone of Germany. J:BID., p. 130. 55. Joseph Pauco, CHRISTIAJ..~ SLOVAKIA UNDER COMMUNISM (Valpa.raiso, Indiana, 1959), p. 15. · 56 . •COMMUNIST TAKEOVER AND OCCUPATION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA, Special Report No. 8. Select Committee on Communist Aggression House of Representives, 83rd Congress, Second Session, p. 15. 57. INVESTIGATION OF COMMUNIST AGGRESSION, Tenth Interim !Report of Hearings, 83rd Congress, Second Session, p. 166. 58. Gilbert L. Oddo, SlJOVAKIA AND ITS PEOPLE (New York, 1960), p. 310. 59. Petition of the ,S lovak Action Committee to the United Nations in the Trial of Dr. Joseph Tiso, n. p. 60. IBlD., n. p. As late as 1963·, the State Department refused to give out any information that it has in its files on Dr. Tiso. "As far as can be ascertained, the State Depa11trnent of the United States ordered the surrender of President Tiso and members of the Slovak Government in its custody without even investigating their status." Oddo, SLCNAKIA ANtD ITS PEOPLE, p. 310. 61. IBID., n . p. 62. Oddo, SLOVAKIA AND ITS PEOPLE, p. 315. 63. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, Proceedings and Debates, 80th CoRgress, First Session, Special Reprint, p. 2.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The White House and the Slovaks Description An account of the resource Sister M. Evangela, SS.C.M. Slovakia, Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965 pp. 51-63 Contributor notes in backmatter indicate that Sr. Evangela published the thesis at DePaul University in 1964 found at <a href="https://depaul.on.worldcat.org/oclc/4186612">https://depaul.on.worldcat.org/oclc/4186612</a> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lubek, Sister M. Evangela, SS.C.M. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/dc541fd2e71d2c00090d420de2da30a9.pdf cac54aba1bfb86d539c94e9176e54ead PDF Text Text 18 SLOVAKIA TWENTY YiEJAIRS OF CZECH .AJND COMMUNIST RULE 1N SLOVAK1!.A. J. M. Kirschbaum The manner in which Slova,kia, 20 years ago, became a part of the restored Czecho-'S lovakia ruled by the Czech:!! and by Communists, ·a nd the disappearaJilce of the Slovak r epu:blic from the maip of post-war Europe, offers the experts of mternational law and ,political science an interesting subject for study and analysis. Having been diplomaticrully recognized 1b y 30 states, of which more than 1half were on the side of the Allies, the Slovak republic became, according to intemational law, a member of the international community rund subject as such to the princiiples and customs of international law. Consequently, in 1945 the Slovak republic was de jure and de facto a defeated state, just as Hungary, Bulgaria, Rumania, and Finland. Due respect for international law aind for the principles declared in the Atlantic charter would have required that Slovakia receive the same treatment as Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria i.e., and that Slovakia's status as an existing state under military occupation be preserved :until Peace treaties had been concluded. Instead, the Allies favormg the Czech exiles, decided not to apply the right of self-determination and the principles of the Atlantic Oharter to the Slovak people amd, although recognition of a state cannot •b e revoked, they treated Slovakia as if the Slovaik .Republic had never existed. The British Government advised the Slovak Counsel General in London, Milan Harminc, on October 12, 1939, that "he will continue to be recognized as the Slovak Counsul in London. " 1 It showed great caution for a long time during the war in its attitude towards the Czecho-Slovak Committee which, after the fall of France, moved to London, and left "open the question whether the Slovak State shall enjoy its independence in union with a Czech State, or in another form". 2 Under pressure from Moscow, 3 the Allies neverthe-less recognized a group of Czech and Slovak refugees as the government-in-exile, allowed Dr. Benes to assume the �SLOVAKIA 79 functions of the President of Czechoslovakia-although he resigned on October 5, 1938 of his own will-and the Soviet armies saw to it that the Slovak territory was incorporated into the state, which, according to the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, had disintegrated from within on March 14, 1939, by the proclamation of the independence of Slovakia by the Slovak Diet.4 The disregard for the principles of international law, as well as for wartime declarations promising independence and territorial integrity after the victory, together with disrespect for the aspirations of the 'Slovak people, created in Slovakia a situation which, from the juridical point of view, allowed the formulation of the controversial views that: 1. The Slovak Republic legally did not cease to exist; 5 2. Slovakia should be considered a territory occupied by the Czechs and Soviets; 3. The legal representatives of the Slovak Republic are outside Slovakia, as President Tiso stressed in his broadcrust from the America,n Zone in Austria in A,pril 1945.6 These ·views were held very strongly among the Slovaks in exile in 1945, and the Slovak representatives even presented a memorandum to the Peace Conference in Paris, ask,i ng for a Peace Treaty witJh Slovakia. 7 It also was in line with these views that the Slovak Government surrendered to the American Army. Against these views, principles amd political aspirations, si.ands the fact of Slova,kia's incorporation into a restored Czecho-Slovakia, governed, except for a limited cultural autonomy, by the Czechs from Prague, or by the Communist Party, led :b y Czech Communists. Slovak diplomatic missions and consulates were closed; the symbols, orgams and the Government of the Slovak Republic disappeared; and the President was jailed and executed. The Slovak State remained only in the hearts and aspirations of the Slovak people. The manner in which this happened is a sad and bloody story. It is a tragedy of a small nation whose politiciams and ·people believed that high principles of justice, democracy, international law and equality of peoples would be respected after the war in Central Europe. The Russians were aware of the feelings and aspirations of the Slovak population, and tried to make a deal, first �80 SLOVAKIA with President Tiso, a,nd later in 1944, with the fo:r,mer Minister of External Affairs, Dr. Durcansky. Emissaries of the Soviet Government gave assurances that the Slovak Republic would not be a,bolished, amd that Slova:kia would remain an independent state if the Slovak Govenment came to term with Russia the way Rumaniia did. If Russia left a ruling k,i ng in IRumania-the Soviet emissaries :pointed out-it would also tolerate a Catholic monsignor in Slovakia. 8 Mainly because of their firm conviction that a compromise with Bolshevism was morally and politically unaccepta;ble for the Slovaik nation and its government; also because of their hopes that the Western !Powers would not, in their own interest, allow Communist domination of Central Europe; and would, therefore, enforce the principles of the Atlantic Charter, the leading Slovaik personalities refused any compromise with Communism. When the Red Army, in its fast advance from Hungary, approached the capital city of Slovakia, Bratislava, the President, Government, Parliarrnent, lea,ders of the party, army, gendarmerie and the Hlinka Guards' units, together with numerous civil servants, university professors, writers and youth organization Ieaiders, began moving west, to Austria, where provisional hea:dquarters of the Government were ,p repared in the monastery of Kremsmiinster. If capitulation was inevitable, the Slovaks wished to surrender or come to terms wiith the W estem AHies. "I left Slo,va,kia," declared President Tiso during his trial, "because I wished to make the claims of the Slovak illation to its own way of llfe better known and more understandable to the Western Powers." 9 Im1tead of renouncing the right to independence and self-government, or accepting Communism, the leading Slovak circles .p referred to leave their homeland in search of justice and respect for .Slovaikia's right to independence on the side of the Western Allies. It was along this line of reasoning that the Slov:ak Government and the American commander, General W. A. Collier, on May 8, 1945, signed a document of "protection" or "surrender" to the Allied High Command. 10 Coosideri!ng the circumstances, we can ha<rdly speak of surrender in the sense the word was used at the end of the �SLOVAKIA 81 war, because Slovakia was not at war with Western AlliesGrerut Br1baiin, Frrunce or the Unirte<l. States. 11 Dr. Benes and his supporters in the United States misused a report broad-cast by the German News Agency rD. N. B., and reprinted by the New York Times on Decemlber 13, 1941, according to whkh Slovakia had declared war on the United States and Great Britain. 'Dhe truth is that neither the President 11or the Parliament of the Slovak Republic~the only constitutional authorities which can declare war-ever dealt with any declaration of war on the United States or GTeat Britain. It haJS been proven amd recognized by the U. S. authol'ies that never, at any moment, and in no area., was there any military ,a ction between the 'S lovak and American or British units. Unscrupulous propaganda was, of course, unconcerned vl!ith the faiet:s, and Slovakia was presented time and again as a country at war with the Western Allies; this in spite of the fact that Slovakia tried to inform the Western Allies, through diplomatic chamnelis, that she wanted to remain neutral with regard to the Western Powers ;12 and in spite of the fact that the Slovak President, in his public speech to the district governors of Slova:kia, called even the participation in the war against the Soviet Union "but a symbolic one". 1 In view of this, we cannot speak of a military, but rather a political surrooder. The Slovak Gnvernment looked for political protection and recognition of the right of the Slovak people to freedom and self-government. They surrendered to the American military command because they expected maximum undenstandi!Ilg from the American authorities and also because it was the first Allied authority with which they came into contact. 13 For reasons which have never been explained, the doooment, signed on behalf of the Allied High Command iby three high-ranking American officers, was not honored in any form. The President of the Slovak Republic, members of the Slovak Government, Parliament, army officers, civil servant.s, writers, artists, etc., on the !basis of a simple denunciahon ·b y the Czech police and intelligence agents, who were sent by Dr. Benes to Austria for the ,p mipose of denouncing or kidnaping, were arrested, put into concentration C!limps, .and many of them were extradited to the Prague Govern- �82 SLOVAKIA ment. In November 1945, the President of the Slovak Republic, and all 1but one member of the Slovruk Government, together with their secretaries, were transported to Prague in chains and handcuffs like "criminals". The Communist people's courts, after humiliation amd mental torture, either liquidated them on the gallows (Dr. Tiso, Dr. Tuka), or shot them or condemned them to life imprisonment amd forced labor camps. The attempts to save Slovakia's status as an independent state and to obtain recognition of the right to self-government by the Western Allies failed tragically. Regardless of the will of the Slovak people, Slovakia became again a part of Czecho-Slovakia, ruled by Prague and by the Communist party. The Restoration of the Czech Rule in Slovakia and the Road to Enslavement of Slovaks While the origin of Czecho.JSlovakia in 1918 was due in the first place to the ,policy of the victorious Powers of the First World War, especially to France, the restoration of Czecho-Slovakia in 1945 was ,undoubtedly due to the Soviet Union. Dr. Benes and his government-in-exile returned to Prague from London via Moscow on the heels of the Red Army. In Eastern Slovakia the Communists had him sign the so-called Kosice Pro~ram14 which stated that CzechoSlovrukia was to be ra state of two separate nations--C2echs and Slovaks-with Sla·vic orientation and a socialist system of economy. Back in Prague, Dr. Benes was ,a pproved in his new position by a "Parliament", from which were eliminated in advance all the parti~ and politicians suspected of resistance to the policy of "National Front" government and sub.servience to Moscow. Having been formally established, the new government, composed of Communist, Dr. Benes' Na'tional Secialists, Social Democrats and representatives ot the Czech peoples Party and the Slovli:k Democratic party, �SLOVAKIA 83 began to liquidate, by irregular "People's Courts," every.one who was suspected of some res-ervations towards the new political course. As president, Dr. Benes hereafter introduced, by a number of decress, the newstyled ",People's Democracy," and, gradually, also the socialist system of economy, freely applying the confiscation and "nationalization" of industries and private property. At first, the new Czec,ho-Slovak "People's Democracy" allowed only two political parties in Slovakia-Slovak Democratic /Party and Commll!Ilist Party. Although neither the Communists nor the small group of former Agrarians, who appointed themselves leaders of the Democratic Party, ever played a role of any importance in Slovak politics until the fall of 1944-- when they organized, in cooperation with ~oviet partisans, the t11prising~a,nd they imposed on .Slovakia a s ystem which ena,bled them. to share in ·a ll Slova;k political 1nstitutions on a /50-50 basis. The traditional conservative parties, such as the Slovak People's Party, the Agrariam Party, the Artisan Party, and S1ovak National Party, were suppressed. Favored by the Red Anmy which looted a,nd raped in Slovakia without precedent in Slovak history, both the Communists and the Democrats began to carry out the Kosice Agreement. The "Slova:k National Council," a revolutionary body of the organizers of the uprising, :b ecame the legislature and its presidium served as the executive. By Decr ee No. 33, they created organs of the so-called "people's justice," and freely used a charge of collaboration wit!h Germainy as pretext for imprisoning a,nd condemming all potential opposition. By Decree No. 51, they dissolved all associations expect those ~hich were enthusiastic for the new regime; they suppressed the religious (parochial) schools ( mostly Catholic), and institutions; a,nd confiscated their property and created forced labor camps (,Decree No. 33, .Article 5) for the re-education ·o f political adversaries. 15 Through these measures the way for tlhe Communist rule was paved in accordance with the agreement between Dr. Benes and Klement Gottwald. They decided in Moscow ,i n 1943 that the state administration would be replaced 'b y '.'national committees"-Soviets; the former right-of-center parties W?uld be eliminated; the Communist and tolerated �84 SLOVAKIA non-commUiilist parties would for,m a "governmen of· Na:tional Front", and ".p eople's courts" would be established to OOinmaJte "waT criminals." While the new regime was accepted with enthusi1a sm in Bohemia, there was only bitterness and uncertainty in Slovakia. The persecution of Catholic dergy and intelligentsia reached an inhuman fury; a wave of arrests took place throughout the country; and the leaders of the :Slova:k Republic died an gallows, in front of the firing squads, and filled jails and concentration camps. Thousands were deported to the Soviet Union in 1'945, many were executed by Soviet :partisans on simple Communist denunciation, and hundreds of Catholic intellectuals were arrested ibecause of "the conspiracy against the State and people's democracy." Occupying the most important positions in the Government, the Communists had no difficulty preparing the socalled "February Revolution" of 1948, since the Ozech nonCommunist politicians, including Dr. Benes, and the leaders of the Slovak Democratic Party offered or.ly a weak and insignificant ·opposition, if any at all. The Special Report of the U.S. Congress leaves no doubt in this regard: "It should be pointed out," says the report, "that the Communist advance in Czedhoslovakia was greatly facilitated by the behaviour of the non-Communist .p olitical .p arties and their lea:ders. Especially the naive 1b elief in the possibility of co-existence with the Communists, shared in different degrees by practically all Czech politicians, was responsilble for the extreme ease with which the Communist Party took power in 1948. The sig,ning of the Soviet-Czechoslovak agreement on December 12, 1943, and especially the proclamation of the Kosice program of April 5, 1945, opened the door for an ,unobserved drive on the part of the Communists to seize full power in the country." 16 In Slovakia the Communist Party obtained 30.4 % votes in the elections of 1946 and consequently garve a solid basis for establishment of a democratic regime. The situation in Bohemia and Morav1a was, however, quite different. Why the Czech population did not resist the complete Communist iake-over and practically voted the Communists into power by giving the communist and the Socialist Democrats, who united with the Communists, a majority of votes, 17 was ex~ �SLOVAKIA 85 plained by the Czech exiles18 ai well as iby several foreign writers. One interesting reason was given lby the English historian and exipert in Central European ,p roblems, Hugh Seton-Watson, who writes that it was fear of future Gernnan revenge for "the mass expulsion of the Gernnan population of the Bohemia borderlands (who lived there since the Middle Ages) which was accompanied by much brutality and led to tens of thousands of deaths" .19 H. Seton-Watson argues, of .course, with the validity of such an argument and writes: "But just •a s in Germany in 1932 there was no practical prospect of communists attaining power, so in Europe in 1948 there was no practical prospect of Germans revenging themselves on Czechs. The widespread Czech argument was that, as Germany would one day seek revenge, Czechoslovakia anust maintain ibs alliance with Russia, and as the Russians wanted the Communists in power in Czechoslovakia and this must be accepted. But this meant that in order to avoid a hypothetical revenge in the future, the Czech people must accept communist tyranny in the present; and in order to ensure their independence from a non-existent German menace, they must hand their country over to the agents of Soviet imperiialism. It was this that was decisive rather than the aJbsence of Western military aid against the Soviet Union. A few months later, •a .potential crisis arose in Finland through the same cause which had started the crisis in Czecho-Slovakia-packing of the .police by a communist Minister of Interior. Finland was militarily no less at the mercy of Russia than Czechoslovakia had been, and no Western aid was conceiv,able. But the :Fiinns refrused to be intimidated. They voted in parliament against the Minister, he resigned, there was no crisis and no Soviet intervention. The F.inns suffered from none of the iHu.sions a!bout Russia, that afflicted the Czechs. " 20 However, irrespective of the reason which led the Czech population to accept Communism, they he1ped to make of Czecho-Slovakia the most faithful satellite of Moscow. Slovakia suffered from now on not only for her opposition to Communism, but also under the revenge laws persecuting every Slovak who in the past or in the "new" Czecho-Slovakia showed any opposition to the Czech rule in Slovakia. �86 SLOVAKIA lit was for this reason thaJt the fiirst wave of Slovak exiles vvas followed in 1948 by those Slovaik ipoliticians who 1beHeved in co-operation with the Communists and since 1944 helped them to govern the country. ln their sub-servience to_Moscow and in their desire to i:m~tate, if not surpass, Stalin's methods and general ;policy, the Communist leaders in ,Prague went further than any other satellite. No enemy of Czecho-iSlovakia, the Canadian professor H. Gordon Skilling, after several long months study behind the Iron Curtain in 1961-1962, wrote that "Ozechoslovakia occUlpied the ll!Ilenvi~ble ,positiion of being unique in its rigidity -and uniformity, in its orthodoxy to the old ideas of Communism, and its loyaLty to IMoscow". 21 1 Ln his view Czechoslova,kia ,p resented "a picture sharply in contraJSt to that of 1Poland, iHUJI1.gary, and Yugoslavia, or even A1bania. Unlike these four states, eaoh of which has at various times resisted Moscow, there was no evtl.dence, in October 1961, or six months later, in April 1962, of any spark of resistance by Czechoslovakia to the general line of the U.S.S.R. in international affairs, or in bloc relations. On the contrary, Czechoslovakia had to he classified with East Germany, Rumania, and Bulgaria, in the category of the most loyal and subservient satellites. Neither was there any sign of a serious relaxation in domestic affairs, in the spirit of Khrushchev's de-Stalinization, such as has manifested itself in Poland and iHung,a ry, and even to some extent in Rumania and Bulgaria. In this respect, Czechoslovakia, O'Ilce regarded as an island of democracy in eastern Europe, had regretfully to be classified with Albania, East Germany, and Rumania, as a state tihat had hardly changed at all since the death of Stalin." III. After Tw~nty Years of the Czech and Communist Rule What kind of political regiim e Prague imposed on Slova'k we ca,n see best from recent conf<.IS5ions of Slovak communists themselves. 22 'Dhe Communist denunciations refer, of course, only to the ,period of so-called "personality cult" �SLOVAKIA 87 when for "bourgeois nationalism" they were hanged or put in prison (Novomesky, Husak, Oka.Ii etc.). This .p eriod of "personality cult" was, however, not much different from the other iperiods of the communist rule in Slovakia for noncommunists. It was "monstrous and horrible" as N ovomesky wrote recently and "wiped out trust, confidence, understanding, yes, even loyalty in the life and conciousness of thousands and thousands of ipeople".23 The "inhuman methods" denounced by the Slov·a k Wviters Congress in April, 1963, were applied against non-communists during the whole 20 years a,nd that "terrible curse on· the life of the country", as N ovamesky called the period of ;the so-called cult, for wh!i~h there will be "an eternal stain on the good name of everyone of us," as confessed •M:na,cko, does not refer to only a few years of Prague's persecution by Communists in Slovakia.2-l Prague and the Communist Party systematically used their power "to sweeip away from the !history of Slovak cul.: ture an entire past", to quote Novomesky again from the very beginning of the restoration of Czecho-Slovakia. 25 Reviewing the twenty years of Czech and Communist rule in Slovakia.; the political ,p ersecution of no1'l.-communist; the anti-religious measures and the tpersecution of clergy and believers alike; we can accept the conclusion of the leading Slovak intellectuals in exile tlhat "the Slovak ,p eople were ,n ever before subject to such political and religious oppression ,and economic exiploitation, a,nd life was never as hard in Slovakia as during the past 20 years". 26 In spite of this situation, there w~s no revolution similar to that ·in Hrungary and we can understand this only if we take into account the following facts: 1) Slovakia has been under constant occupation by Czech armed forces; 2) The true leaders of Slovak people were either. hanged, imprisoned or exiled; 3) 85,000 Slovak citi:zens were put mto labor and con-: centration campus; 4) 20,000 Slovaks were deported to the Soviet Union; 5) over 100,000 · Slovaik citizens of German ancestry, going back to the middle ages, were expelled from �88 SLOVAKIA Slovakia; over 120,000 Slovak citizens of Hungiarian ancestry were e~patniated, and close to 600,000 Slovaks were transferred into those parts of Bohemia and !Moravia from whicih the Czechs expelled over 3 mil1ion Sudeten Germans. 27 There is haroly a family which did not suffer under the organized terror of !P rague except those few "ruparatchiky" who helped the Communist and Czech occupation a.nd were not accused of bourgeois .nationalism. Only by means of tJhe gallows and firing squads, concentration camps and organized terror were Prague and Moscow able to keep ,a n appearance of tranquility aind maintain their rule in Slova:kia, against whiClh over 30 Slov-ak conspiracies were discovered, according to the Communists themselves, in the first decade. This treatment of Slovakia could not, of course, influence the Slovaks for Czecho.:s1ovakia or Communism. On the contrary. "Even the slight concessions of 1956-1B58 were bound to leave the Slovaks unimpressed and could in no way detract from Slovtak bitterness toward the treatment to which they had 1b een exiposed ever since the K!SC leaders abandoned their calculative support of Slovak autonomism in 1946. Ample evidence of continued Slovak resentment (against Czechs) is provided by recurrent warnmgs, criticisms, aind extortations deli'Vered by ,Party leaders and the communist press, ,a s well as by reports from underground Souivces" as admitted by Prof. E. Ta:borsky, 211 and those Czech ,i ntellectuals in exile who soberly analyze the situation (Prof. B. Chudoba etc.) "The touchy problem of Czecho.iSlova:k relations," writes Taboralky-and the ",p oison of 1bomgeois nationalism" ha.Ne figured high on the agenda of all the Slovak Communist Party congresses and Central Committee meetings held since 1948. The evidence was provided by t'he Commll.lil'ist themselves. "We ,are sbill frequently faced with dangerous ex,pression of .bourgeois nationalism in the shaipe of populd.st separatism del:i.beraJtely implanted Ml!d maintained in Slovakia by the church hierarchy," complained Siroky at the Con• gress of the ,Slovak P,a rty in April 1955. One year later, Pravda used the solemn occasion of the !May First festi'Vities 1 �SLOVAKIA 89 to deplore the "lack of confidence and the susp1c10n of fear" between the Czechs and the Slovaks and lay 1b lame on "the neglect of Leninist principles."28 According to bitter complaints made 'by the Slovak P ,a:r,ty',s Firat Seoretairy, Kar~l Ba!Cilek, at the session of the Central Committee in January 1958, "bourgeois nationalistic tendencies" have penetrated "various fields of our cultural, poliitical and scientific life; sports; the state apparatus; economic organs; and so on." They have infiltrated "the films, press, and radio" and "have recently appeared even in some ,commissioners' offices" and the Party itself. 30 Slovaks could not be gained for Czechoslovakia even by a sharp retrospective attack on "Czecho.!Slovak,i sm", the concept that the Slovaks and tihe Czechs were ethnically, linguiistieally and cUllturaHy one nation, which ia:Henated Slovaks to Mrusaryk's republic, and which Vaclav Kopecky, speaking on b'e half of the KSc's Czech hierarchy, called in 1958 "an imperialist conception of national oppression of the Slovaks". 31 "While such declaration might have flattered the Slov,a.,ks in 1945, they fell on deaf ears in 1958", writes Taborsky. Nor coUlld t:he commll!Ilist leaders de riive much comfort from the "improvement" in the Slovak class structure resulting from the communist .industrializatioo. and collectivization drive. The transfovmation of the 1p redominantly agraria.,n Slovakia of prewar days into a province where industrial output accounted for 70 percent of the iprovince's production by 1956, and over 80 percent of all aralble land was collectivi.zed 1by the end of 1959, did substantially increase the number of tih e industrial proletal'iat, who, together with the collective farmers, are supposed to be the backbone of the communi,s t system. But the communist hopes that these "two friendly <!lasses of workers and (collective) peasants" would rise in resolute defence of proletarian internationalism against the dire threat of "bourgeois natiionalis,m" have failed to ma teria:lize.32 On the contrary, Slovak Communist newspapers as well as speeches of the leading Czech communists comiplained time and again that t!here were conflicts among the Czech and Slovak workers and that even "some of the leading (Slo- �90 SLOVAKIA vak) personalities have . evinced a wrong and negative aittitude ,t owards the Czeohs." 33 We cannot but agree with the conclusion of Prof. E. Taborsky, who certainly has no sympathies for Slovak nationalism or for the Slovak aspirations for independence, when he writes that "aside from confiivmimg the obvfous fact that the communist fights ag,a inst Slovak nationalism had made no headway, aimong the Slovak peasaintry, these reports indicate that the communist industrial,1zation d~ive had backfired in am unexpected manner. By building up Slovakia's economic potential and bringing new industries to the province's backwoods areas, the regime has unwittingly prodded the Slovaks' pride and self-confidence, a'l'ld thus helped to underpin the same Slova:k nationalism it has been trying so hard to blot out. Having acquired the knowhow and the a:bility to run the system themselves, the Slovak-Communists and non-communists alike-resent being ordered around by their elder Czech brethern. " 34 To sum up, we might say with certainty that the exiled Slovak leadevs are right when they emphasize that "the Slovak ipeople did not renounce their rights to freedom and independence, ,b ecause there is no nation on earth which would prefer tyranny instead of freedom" and that "even if someone 'has a different view with regard to the Slovak republic ood her war-regime, there is no justification for enslaving Slovakia and for opposing the aspirations of the Slovak people to live free and independent according to their own traditions". (Appeal to the free World). FOOTNOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. See Document No. 23 in my book Slovakia-Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe. p. 269. C. A. Macartney, October Fifteenth, Edinburg, 1956, p. 376. In 1940 Moscow advised the Slovak Communists "they should fight for a full sovereignty of the Slovak State" and "against the world imperialism and Benes", and tried to win on her side the Slovak Government even at a time when the Soviets had diplomatic relations with the Czechoslovak Government in exile, as we shall see further. Cf. Historicky casopis, XII, 3, Bratislava, 1964 Speech in the House of Commons on March 15, 1939. The former Minister for External Affairs, Dr. F. Durcansky, writes �SLOVAKIA 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. in this regards as follows : "Inasmuch as the Slovak Republic was formed in peace time, and was recognized by many countries, it can legally cease to exist only through a treaty in which its liquidation is established. Until such time the Slovak Republic should be considered as a territory occupied by the Soviets and the Czechs. This is valid, especially as the Slovaks are not willing to give up their independence."-F. Durcansky, The International Aspects of the Slovak Question, New York, 1954, p. 26. "The Slovaks at home and abroad know," declared President Tiso, "that their legal representatives today are abroad and those at present act as rulers at home are only usurpers of power aided by the Bolsheviks." Aide-Memoire sur l'existence de la Repub lique slovaque et sur la necessite de conclure le traite de paix avec eUe, Paris, Comite d'Action slovaque, 1946. K. Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi druha nasa hlava. (Biography of Dr. J . Tiso,) Middletown, Pa., 1947 p. 281 and J . A. Mikul;, La Slovaquie dans le drame de l'Europe, p. 202. Dr. Joseph Pauco, (Ed.) Dr. Jozef Tiso o sebe. (Dr. Jozef Tiso Speaks of Himself,) and article by J . M. Kirschbaum in Slovakia, Vol. 7, March 1957. See Document No. 38 in my book Slovakia-Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe . p. 295. See Documents of the Department of State No. 50, 51, 52. in my book Slovakia, p. 318-320. Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series D, Vol. X, No. 205, Document No. 30. in my book Slovakia, p. 280. Charles Murin, "A Belated Report," in Slovakia, Vol 7, June 1957, p. 34. (Dr. Tiso's secretary, professor Charles Murin, who accompanied the President not only to Austria, but also to prison, and was definitely a man possessing the President's confidence, later testified to this respect: "There were two points around which revolved the thinking of Dr. Joseph Tiso in regards to the future of the Slovak people. First, it was the confidence in the United States as to the country of Washington, Lincoln, etc., and last, but not least, as to the country of the American Slovaks. In other words, the Slovaks had expected that the Government of the United States would not oppose the will of a na tion to freedom. •Secondly, Dr. Tiso ruled out in his thinking the possibility of creating a political vacuum in Europe after the war, because he knew that any political vacuum would be but an invitation to the Soviets who would not fail to intervene, if not opposed by a military force superior to their own." For details and an analysis, favorable to the present regime, see William Diamond, Czechoslovakia between East and West, London, 1947. For the Slovak point of view, see J . A. Mikul;. Op. cit., pp. 205-254, as well as the English translation Slovakia....A Political History, Marquette University-Press, 1964. An objective description of the religious situation in Slovakia after 1945 is to be found in several scholarly works : Prof. T. Zubek, The Church of Silence in Slovakia, published by Rev. J . J. Lach, 1 14. 15. 91 �92 SLOVAKIA Whiting, Ind., Stefano Nahalka, La Slovacchia d'Oggi, Editrice Slovacca dei SS. Cirillo e Metodio, Roma, 1957, J . A. Mikus, Op. cit., and Dr. Joseph Pauco, Christian Slovakia, Valparaiso, Ind. 1959. 16. Special Report No. 8 of the Select Committee, House of Representatives, 83 Congress, Second Session, Washington, D.C., 1958. 17. For details See Wm. Diamond, Op. cit. and J. A. Mikus, SlovakiaA Political History. 18. See books by E. Taborsky, H. Ripka, y. Busek etc. 19. See Hugh Seton-Watson, Neither War nor Peace, p. 205. Ibidem. p. 205. See also K. Glaser, op. cit. and W. Jaksch, op. cit. 20. Op. cit. p. 205, See also K. Glaser, Op. cit. and W. Jaksch, Op. cit. 21. Ibidem, p. 32. 22. See H. Gordon Skilling, Communism National and International. chapter "Ferment among Czechs and Slovaks", pp. 113-130. 23. Ibidem, p. 114. 24. See the proceedings of the Slovak Writers Congress, published in Kulturny Zivot, April 27, and May 4, 1963. 25. "In Slovakia-as prof. Skilling confirms-the policy of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia (C.P.C.) after 1947 subordinated the Slovaks to increasingly centralist rule from Prague and trod underfoot the nationalist feelings even of Slovak communists" H. G. Skilling, op. cit. p. 88. 26. See Appeal of the Slovak Liberation Council to the World Opinion, March 1964 Munich 2, Germany, Signed by Dr. F. Durcansky and the writer. 27. See Kurt Glaser, Czecho-Slovakia-A Critical History, The Caxton Printers Limited Caldwell, Idaho, 1961 and Wenzel Jaksch, Europe's Road to Potsdam, New York, N. Y., 1963. 28. See Edward Taborsky, Communism in Czechoslovakia 1948-1960, Princeton, University Press, 1961, chapter Slovakia-the everdisgruntled stepdaughter. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. Pravda, May 1, 1956. Pravda, Jan. 10 and 11, 1958. See teskoslovensky prehled, V., 5. article by P. Berka. Ibidem. See also Bacilek's report at the Slovak Party Congress of April 1957, Prague News Letter 13, 10, May 11, 1957; teskoslovensky prehled III, 3 (1956), pp. 15If. Rocenka, 1960, p. 261. Pravda, March 30, 1958. English translation in East Europe, 7, 6, (1958), p. 37. Ceskoslovensky prehled, v, 2 (1958), pp. 12ff; also J . Safranek. op. cit. � 18 SLOVAKIA TWENTY YiEJAIRS OF CZECH .AJND COMMUNIST RULE 1N SLOVAK1!.A. J. M. Kirschbaum The manner in which Slova,kia, 20 years ago, became a part of the restored Czecho-'S lovakia ruled by the Czech:!! and by Communists, ·a nd the disappearaJilce of the Slovak r epu:blic from the maip of post-war Europe, offers the experts of mternational law and ,political science an interesting subject for study and analysis. Having been diplomaticrully recognized 1b y 30 states, of which more than 1half were on the side of the Allies, the Slovak republic became, according to intemational law, a member of the international community rund subject as such to the princiiples and customs of international law. Consequently, in 1945 the Slovak republic was de jure and de facto a defeated state, just as Hungary, Bulgaria, Rumania, and Finland. Due respect for international law aind for the principles declared in the Atlantic charter would have required that Slovakia receive the same treatment as Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria i.e., and that Slovakia's status as an existing state under military occupation be preserved :until Peace treaties had been concluded. Instead, the Allies favormg the Czech exiles, decided not to apply the right of self-determination and the principles of the Atlantic Oharter to the Slovak people amd, although recognition of a state cannot •b e revoked, they treated Slovakia as if the Slovaik .Republic had never existed. The British Government advised the Slovak Counsel General in London, Milan Harminc, on October 12, 1939, that "he will continue to be recognized as the Slovak Counsul in London. " 1 It showed great caution for a long time during the war in its attitude towards the Czecho-Slovak Committee which, after the fall of France, moved to London, and left "open the question whether the Slovak State shall enjoy its independence in union with a Czech State, or in another form". 2 Under pressure from Moscow, 3 the Allies neverthe-less recognized a group of Czech and Slovak refugees as the government-in-exile, allowed Dr. Benes to assume the �SLOVAKIA 79 functions of the President of Czechoslovakia-although he resigned on October 5, 1938 of his own will-and the Soviet armies saw to it that the Slovak territory was incorporated into the state, which, according to the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, had disintegrated from within on March 14, 1939, by the proclamation of the independence of Slovakia by the Slovak Diet.4 The disregard for the principles of international law, as well as for wartime declarations promising independence and territorial integrity after the victory, together with disrespect for the aspirations of the 'Slovak people, created in Slovakia a situation which, from the juridical point of view, allowed the formulation of the controversial views that: 1. The Slovak Republic legally did not cease to exist; 5 2. Slovakia should be considered a territory occupied by the Czechs and Soviets; 3. The legal representatives of the Slovak Republic are outside Slovakia, as President Tiso stressed in his broadcrust from the America,n Zone in Austria in A,pril 1945.6 These ·views were held very strongly among the Slovaks in exile in 1945, and the Slovak representatives even presented a memorandum to the Peace Conference in Paris, ask,i ng for a Peace Treaty witJh Slovakia. 7 It also was in line with these views that the Slovak Government surrendered to the American Army. Against these views, principles amd political aspirations, si.ands the fact of Slova,kia's incorporation into a restored Czecho-Slovakia, governed, except for a limited cultural autonomy, by the Czechs from Prague, or by the Communist Party, led :b y Czech Communists. Slovak diplomatic missions and consulates were closed; the symbols, orgams and the Government of the Slovak Republic disappeared; and the President was jailed and executed. The Slovak State remained only in the hearts and aspirations of the Slovak people. The manner in which this happened is a sad and bloody story. It is a tragedy of a small nation whose politiciams and ·people believed that high principles of justice, democracy, international law and equality of peoples would be respected after the war in Central Europe. The Russians were aware of the feelings and aspirations of the Slovak population, and tried to make a deal, first �80 SLOVAKIA with President Tiso, a,nd later in 1944, with the fo:r,mer Minister of External Affairs, Dr. Durcansky. Emissaries of the Soviet Government gave assurances that the Slovak Republic would not be a,bolished, amd that Slova:kia would remain an independent state if the Slovak Govenment came to term with Russia the way Rumaniia did. If Russia left a ruling k,i ng in IRumania-the Soviet emissaries :pointed out-it would also tolerate a Catholic monsignor in Slovakia. 8 Mainly because of their firm conviction that a compromise with Bolshevism was morally and politically unaccepta;ble for the Slovaik nation and its government; also because of their hopes that the Western !Powers would not, in their own interest, allow Communist domination of Central Europe; and would, therefore, enforce the principles of the Atlantic Charter, the leading Slovaik personalities refused any compromise with Communism. When the Red Army, in its fast advance from Hungary, approached the capital city of Slovakia, Bratislava, the President, Government, Parliarrnent, lea,ders of the party, army, gendarmerie and the Hlinka Guards' units, together with numerous civil servants, university professors, writers and youth organization Ieaiders, began moving west, to Austria, where provisional hea:dquarters of the Government were ,p repared in the monastery of Kremsmiinster. If capitulation was inevitable, the Slovaks wished to surrender or come to terms wiith the W estem AHies. "I left Slo,va,kia," declared President Tiso during his trial, "because I wished to make the claims of the Slovak illation to its own way of llfe better known and more understandable to the Western Powers." 9 Im1tead of renouncing the right to independence and self-government, or accepting Communism, the leading Slovak circles .p referred to leave their homeland in search of justice and respect for .Slovaikia's right to independence on the side of the Western Allies. It was along this line of reasoning that the Slov:ak Government and the American commander, General W. A. Collier, on May 8, 1945, signed a document of "protection" or "surrender" to the Allied High Command. 10 Coosideri!ng the circumstances, we can ha<rdly speak of surrender in the sense the word was used at the end of the �SLOVAKIA 81 war, because Slovakia was not at war with Western AlliesGrerut Br1baiin, Frrunce or the Unirte<l. States. 11 Dr. Benes and his supporters in the United States misused a report broad-cast by the German News Agency rD. N. B., and reprinted by the New York Times on Decemlber 13, 1941, according to whkh Slovakia had declared war on the United States and Great Britain. 'Dhe truth is that neither the President 11or the Parliament of the Slovak Republic~the only constitutional authorities which can declare war-ever dealt with any declaration of war on the United States or GTeat Britain. It haJS been proven amd recognized by the U. S. authol'ies that never, at any moment, and in no area., was there any military ,a ction between the 'S lovak and American or British units. Unscrupulous propaganda was, of course, unconcerned vl!ith the faiet:s, and Slovakia was presented time and again as a country at war with the Western Allies; this in spite of the fact that Slovakia tried to inform the Western Allies, through diplomatic chamnelis, that she wanted to remain neutral with regard to the Western Powers ;12 and in spite of the fact that the Slovak President, in his public speech to the district governors of Slova:kia, called even the participation in the war against the Soviet Union "but a symbolic one". 1 In view of this, we cannot speak of a military, but rather a political surrooder. The Slovak Gnvernment looked for political protection and recognition of the right of the Slovak people to freedom and self-government. They surrendered to the American military command because they expected maximum undenstandi!Ilg from the American authorities and also because it was the first Allied authority with which they came into contact. 13 For reasons which have never been explained, the doooment, signed on behalf of the Allied High Command iby three high-ranking American officers, was not honored in any form. The President of the Slovak Republic, members of the Slovak Government, Parliament, army officers, civil servant.s, writers, artists, etc., on the !basis of a simple denunciahon ·b y the Czech police and intelligence agents, who were sent by Dr. Benes to Austria for the ,p mipose of denouncing or kidnaping, were arrested, put into concentration C!limps, .and many of them were extradited to the Prague Govern- �82 SLOVAKIA ment. In November 1945, the President of the Slovak Republic, and all 1but one member of the Slovruk Government, together with their secretaries, were transported to Prague in chains and handcuffs like "criminals". The Communist people's courts, after humiliation amd mental torture, either liquidated them on the gallows (Dr. Tiso, Dr. Tuka), or shot them or condemned them to life imprisonment amd forced labor camps. The attempts to save Slovakia's status as an independent state and to obtain recognition of the right to self-government by the Western Allies failed tragically. Regardless of the will of the Slovak people, Slovakia became again a part of Czecho-Slovakia, ruled by Prague and by the Communist party. The Restoration of the Czech Rule in Slovakia and the Road to Enslavement of Slovaks While the origin of Czecho.JSlovakia in 1918 was due in the first place to the ,policy of the victorious Powers of the First World War, especially to France, the restoration of Czecho-Slovakia in 1945 was ,undoubtedly due to the Soviet Union. Dr. Benes and his government-in-exile returned to Prague from London via Moscow on the heels of the Red Army. In Eastern Slovakia the Communists had him sign the so-called Kosice Pro~ram14 which stated that CzechoSlovrukia was to be ra state of two separate nations--C2echs and Slovaks-with Sla·vic orientation and a socialist system of economy. Back in Prague, Dr. Benes was ,a pproved in his new position by a "Parliament", from which were eliminated in advance all the parti~ and politicians suspected of resistance to the policy of "National Front" government and sub.servience to Moscow. Having been formally established, the new government, composed of Communist, Dr. Benes' Na'tional Secialists, Social Democrats and representatives ot the Czech peoples Party and the Slovli:k Democratic party, �SLOVAKIA 83 began to liquidate, by irregular "People's Courts," every.one who was suspected of some res-ervations towards the new political course. As president, Dr. Benes hereafter introduced, by a number of decress, the newstyled ",People's Democracy," and, gradually, also the socialist system of economy, freely applying the confiscation and "nationalization" of industries and private property. At first, the new Czec,ho-Slovak "People's Democracy" allowed only two political parties in Slovakia-Slovak Democratic /Party and Commll!Ilist Party. Although neither the Communists nor the small group of former Agrarians, who appointed themselves leaders of the Democratic Party, ever played a role of any importance in Slovak politics until the fall of 1944-- when they organized, in cooperation with ~oviet partisans, the t11prising~a,nd they imposed on .Slovakia a s ystem which ena,bled them. to share in ·a ll Slova;k political 1nstitutions on a /50-50 basis. The traditional conservative parties, such as the Slovak People's Party, the Agrariam Party, the Artisan Party, and S1ovak National Party, were suppressed. Favored by the Red Anmy which looted a,nd raped in Slovakia without precedent in Slovak history, both the Communists and the Democrats began to carry out the Kosice Agreement. The "Slova:k National Council," a revolutionary body of the organizers of the uprising, :b ecame the legislature and its presidium served as the executive. By Decr ee No. 33, they created organs of the so-called "people's justice," and freely used a charge of collaboration wit!h Germainy as pretext for imprisoning a,nd condemming all potential opposition. By Decree No. 51, they dissolved all associations expect those ~hich were enthusiastic for the new regime; they suppressed the religious (parochial) schools ( mostly Catholic), and institutions; a,nd confiscated their property and created forced labor camps (,Decree No. 33, .Article 5) for the re-education ·o f political adversaries. 15 Through these measures the way for tlhe Communist rule was paved in accordance with the agreement between Dr. Benes and Klement Gottwald. They decided in Moscow ,i n 1943 that the state administration would be replaced 'b y '.'national committees"-Soviets; the former right-of-center parties W?uld be eliminated; the Communist and tolerated �84 SLOVAKIA non-commUiilist parties would for,m a "governmen of· Na:tional Front", and ".p eople's courts" would be established to OOinmaJte "waT criminals." While the new regime was accepted with enthusi1a sm in Bohemia, there was only bitterness and uncertainty in Slovakia. The persecution of Catholic dergy and intelligentsia reached an inhuman fury; a wave of arrests took place throughout the country; and the leaders of the :Slova:k Republic died an gallows, in front of the firing squads, and filled jails and concentration camps. Thousands were deported to the Soviet Union in 1'945, many were executed by Soviet :partisans on simple Communist denunciation, and hundreds of Catholic intellectuals were arrested ibecause of "the conspiracy against the State and people's democracy." Occupying the most important positions in the Government, the Communists had no difficulty preparing the socalled "February Revolution" of 1948, since the Ozech nonCommunist politicians, including Dr. Benes, and the leaders of the Slovak Democratic Party offered or.ly a weak and insignificant ·opposition, if any at all. The Special Report of the U.S. Congress leaves no doubt in this regard: "It should be pointed out," says the report, "that the Communist advance in Czedhoslovakia was greatly facilitated by the behaviour of the non-Communist .p olitical .p arties and their lea:ders. Especially the naive 1b elief in the possibility of co-existence with the Communists, shared in different degrees by practically all Czech politicians, was responsilble for the extreme ease with which the Communist Party took power in 1948. The sig,ning of the Soviet-Czechoslovak agreement on December 12, 1943, and especially the proclamation of the Kosice program of April 5, 1945, opened the door for an ,unobserved drive on the part of the Communists to seize full power in the country." 16 In Slovakia the Communist Party obtained 30.4 % votes in the elections of 1946 and consequently garve a solid basis for establishment of a democratic regime. The situation in Bohemia and Morav1a was, however, quite different. Why the Czech population did not resist the complete Communist iake-over and practically voted the Communists into power by giving the communist and the Socialist Democrats, who united with the Communists, a majority of votes, 17 was ex~ �SLOVAKIA 85 plained by the Czech exiles18 ai well as iby several foreign writers. One interesting reason was given lby the English historian and exipert in Central European ,p roblems, Hugh Seton-Watson, who writes that it was fear of future Gernnan revenge for "the mass expulsion of the Gernnan population of the Bohemia borderlands (who lived there since the Middle Ages) which was accompanied by much brutality and led to tens of thousands of deaths" .19 H. Seton-Watson argues, of .course, with the validity of such an argument and writes: "But just •a s in Germany in 1932 there was no practical prospect of communists attaining power, so in Europe in 1948 there was no practical prospect of Germans revenging themselves on Czechs. The widespread Czech argument was that, as Germany would one day seek revenge, Czechoslovakia anust maintain ibs alliance with Russia, and as the Russians wanted the Communists in power in Czechoslovakia and this must be accepted. But this meant that in order to avoid a hypothetical revenge in the future, the Czech people must accept communist tyranny in the present; and in order to ensure their independence from a non-existent German menace, they must hand their country over to the agents of Soviet imperiialism. It was this that was decisive rather than the aJbsence of Western military aid against the Soviet Union. A few months later, •a .potential crisis arose in Finland through the same cause which had started the crisis in Czecho-Slovakia-packing of the .police by a communist Minister of Interior. Finland was militarily no less at the mercy of Russia than Czechoslovakia had been, and no Western aid was conceiv,able. But the :Fiinns refrused to be intimidated. They voted in parliament against the Minister, he resigned, there was no crisis and no Soviet intervention. The F.inns suffered from none of the iHu.sions a!bout Russia, that afflicted the Czechs. " 20 However, irrespective of the reason which led the Czech population to accept Communism, they he1ped to make of Czecho-Slovakia the most faithful satellite of Moscow. Slovakia suffered from now on not only for her opposition to Communism, but also under the revenge laws persecuting every Slovak who in the past or in the "new" Czecho-Slovakia showed any opposition to the Czech rule in Slovakia. �86 SLOVAKIA lit was for this reason thaJt the fiirst wave of Slovak exiles vvas followed in 1948 by those Slovaik ipoliticians who 1beHeved in co-operation with the Communists and since 1944 helped them to govern the country. ln their sub-servience to_Moscow and in their desire to i:m~tate, if not surpass, Stalin's methods and general ;policy, the Communist leaders in ,Prague went further than any other satellite. No enemy of Czecho-iSlovakia, the Canadian professor H. Gordon Skilling, after several long months study behind the Iron Curtain in 1961-1962, wrote that "Ozechoslovakia occUlpied the ll!Ilenvi~ble ,positiion of being unique in its rigidity -and uniformity, in its orthodoxy to the old ideas of Communism, and its loyaLty to IMoscow". 21 1 Ln his view Czechoslova,kia ,p resented "a picture sharply in contraJSt to that of 1Poland, iHUJI1.gary, and Yugoslavia, or even A1bania. Unlike these four states, eaoh of which has at various times resisted Moscow, there was no evtl.dence, in October 1961, or six months later, in April 1962, of any spark of resistance by Czechoslovakia to the general line of the U.S.S.R. in international affairs, or in bloc relations. On the contrary, Czechoslovakia had to he classified with East Germany, Rumania, and Bulgaria, in the category of the most loyal and subservient satellites. Neither was there any sign of a serious relaxation in domestic affairs, in the spirit of Khrushchev's de-Stalinization, such as has manifested itself in Poland and iHung,a ry, and even to some extent in Rumania and Bulgaria. In this respect, Czechoslovakia, O'Ilce regarded as an island of democracy in eastern Europe, had regretfully to be classified with Albania, East Germany, and Rumania, as a state tihat had hardly changed at all since the death of Stalin." III. After Tw~nty Years of the Czech and Communist Rule What kind of political regiim e Prague imposed on Slova'k we ca,n see best from recent conf<.IS5ions of Slovak communists themselves. 22 'Dhe Communist denunciations refer, of course, only to the ,period of so-called "personality cult" �SLOVAKIA 87 when for "bourgeois nationalism" they were hanged or put in prison (Novomesky, Husak, Oka.Ii etc.). This .p eriod of "personality cult" was, however, not much different from the other iperiods of the communist rule in Slovakia for noncommunists. It was "monstrous and horrible" as N ovomesky wrote recently and "wiped out trust, confidence, understanding, yes, even loyalty in the life and conciousness of thousands and thousands of ipeople".23 The "inhuman methods" denounced by the Slov·a k Wviters Congress in April, 1963, were applied against non-communists during the whole 20 years a,nd that "terrible curse on· the life of the country", as N ovamesky called the period of ;the so-called cult, for wh!i~h there will be "an eternal stain on the good name of everyone of us," as confessed •M:na,cko, does not refer to only a few years of Prague's persecution by Communists in Slovakia.2-l Prague and the Communist Party systematically used their power "to sweeip away from the !history of Slovak cul.: ture an entire past", to quote Novomesky again from the very beginning of the restoration of Czecho-Slovakia. 25 Reviewing the twenty years of Czech and Communist rule in Slovakia.; the political ,p ersecution of no1'l.-communist; the anti-religious measures and the tpersecution of clergy and believers alike; we can accept the conclusion of the leading Slovak intellectuals in exile tlhat "the Slovak ,p eople were ,n ever before subject to such political and religious oppression ,and economic exiploitation, a,nd life was never as hard in Slovakia as during the past 20 years". 26 In spite of this situation, there w~s no revolution similar to that ·in Hrungary and we can understand this only if we take into account the following facts: 1) Slovakia has been under constant occupation by Czech armed forces; 2) The true leaders of Slovak people were either. hanged, imprisoned or exiled; 3) 85,000 Slovak citi:zens were put mto labor and con-: centration campus; 4) 20,000 Slovaks were deported to the Soviet Union; 5) over 100,000 · Slovaik citizens of German ancestry, going back to the middle ages, were expelled from �88 SLOVAKIA Slovakia; over 120,000 Slovak citizens of Hungiarian ancestry were e~patniated, and close to 600,000 Slovaks were transferred into those parts of Bohemia and !Moravia from whicih the Czechs expelled over 3 mil1ion Sudeten Germans. 27 There is haroly a family which did not suffer under the organized terror of !P rague except those few "ruparatchiky" who helped the Communist and Czech occupation a.nd were not accused of bourgeois .nationalism. Only by means of tJhe gallows and firing squads, concentration camps and organized terror were Prague and Moscow able to keep ,a n appearance of tranquility aind maintain their rule in Slova:kia, against whiClh over 30 Slov-ak conspiracies were discovered, according to the Communists themselves, in the first decade. This treatment of Slovakia could not, of course, influence the Slovaks for Czecho.:s1ovakia or Communism. On the contrary. "Even the slight concessions of 1956-1B58 were bound to leave the Slovaks unimpressed and could in no way detract from Slovtak bitterness toward the treatment to which they had 1b een exiposed ever since the K!SC leaders abandoned their calculative support of Slovak autonomism in 1946. Ample evidence of continued Slovak resentment (against Czechs) is provided by recurrent warnmgs, criticisms, aind extortations deli'Vered by ,Party leaders and the communist press, ,a s well as by reports from underground Souivces" as admitted by Prof. E. Ta:borsky, 211 and those Czech ,i ntellectuals in exile who soberly analyze the situation (Prof. B. Chudoba etc.) "The touchy problem of Czecho.iSlova:k relations," writes Taboralky-and the ",p oison of 1bomgeois nationalism" ha.Ne figured high on the agenda of all the Slovak Communist Party congresses and Central Committee meetings held since 1948. The evidence was provided by t'he Commll.lil'ist themselves. "We ,are sbill frequently faced with dangerous ex,pression of .bourgeois nationalism in the shaipe of populd.st separatism del:i.beraJtely implanted Ml!d maintained in Slovakia by the church hierarchy," complained Siroky at the Con• gress of the ,Slovak P,a rty in April 1955. One year later, Pravda used the solemn occasion of the !May First festi'Vities 1 �SLOVAKIA 89 to deplore the "lack of confidence and the susp1c10n of fear" between the Czechs and the Slovaks and lay 1b lame on "the neglect of Leninist principles."28 According to bitter complaints made 'by the Slovak P ,a:r,ty',s Firat Seoretairy, Kar~l Ba!Cilek, at the session of the Central Committee in January 1958, "bourgeois nationalistic tendencies" have penetrated "various fields of our cultural, poliitical and scientific life; sports; the state apparatus; economic organs; and so on." They have infiltrated "the films, press, and radio" and "have recently appeared even in some ,commissioners' offices" and the Party itself. 30 Slovaks could not be gained for Czechoslovakia even by a sharp retrospective attack on "Czecho.!Slovak,i sm", the concept that the Slovaks and tihe Czechs were ethnically, linguiistieally and cUllturaHy one nation, which ia:Henated Slovaks to Mrusaryk's republic, and which Vaclav Kopecky, speaking on b'e half of the KSc's Czech hierarchy, called in 1958 "an imperialist conception of national oppression of the Slovaks". 31 "While such declaration might have flattered the Slov,a.,ks in 1945, they fell on deaf ears in 1958", writes Taborsky. Nor coUlld t:he commll!Ilist leaders de riive much comfort from the "improvement" in the Slovak class structure resulting from the communist .industrializatioo. and collectivization drive. The transfovmation of the 1p redominantly agraria.,n Slovakia of prewar days into a province where industrial output accounted for 70 percent of the iprovince's production by 1956, and over 80 percent of all aralble land was collectivi.zed 1by the end of 1959, did substantially increase the number of tih e industrial proletal'iat, who, together with the collective farmers, are supposed to be the backbone of the communi,s t system. But the communist hopes that these "two friendly <!lasses of workers and (collective) peasants" would rise in resolute defence of proletarian internationalism against the dire threat of "bourgeois natiionalis,m" have failed to ma teria:lize.32 On the contrary, Slovak Communist newspapers as well as speeches of the leading Czech communists comiplained time and again that t!here were conflicts among the Czech and Slovak workers and that even "some of the leading (Slo- �90 SLOVAKIA vak) personalities have . evinced a wrong and negative aittitude ,t owards the Czeohs." 33 We cannot but agree with the conclusion of Prof. E. Taborsky, who certainly has no sympathies for Slovak nationalism or for the Slovak aspirations for independence, when he writes that "aside from confiivmimg the obvfous fact that the communist fights ag,a inst Slovak nationalism had made no headway, aimong the Slovak peasaintry, these reports indicate that the communist industrial,1zation d~ive had backfired in am unexpected manner. By building up Slovakia's economic potential and bringing new industries to the province's backwoods areas, the regime has unwittingly prodded the Slovaks' pride and self-confidence, a'l'ld thus helped to underpin the same Slova:k nationalism it has been trying so hard to blot out. Having acquired the knowhow and the a:bility to run the system themselves, the Slovak-Communists and non-communists alike-resent being ordered around by their elder Czech brethern. " 34 To sum up, we might say with certainty that the exiled Slovak leadevs are right when they emphasize that "the Slovak ipeople did not renounce their rights to freedom and independence, ,b ecause there is no nation on earth which would prefer tyranny instead of freedom" and that "even if someone 'has a different view with regard to the Slovak republic ood her war-regime, there is no justification for enslaving Slovakia and for opposing the aspirations of the Slovak people to live free and independent according to their own traditions". (Appeal to the free World). FOOTNOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. See Document No. 23 in my book Slovakia-Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe. p. 269. C. A. Macartney, October Fifteenth, Edinburg, 1956, p. 376. In 1940 Moscow advised the Slovak Communists "they should fight for a full sovereignty of the Slovak State" and "against the world imperialism and Benes", and tried to win on her side the Slovak Government even at a time when the Soviets had diplomatic relations with the Czechoslovak Government in exile, as we shall see further. Cf. Historicky casopis, XII, 3, Bratislava, 1964 Speech in the House of Commons on March 15, 1939. The former Minister for External Affairs, Dr. F. Durcansky, writes �SLOVAKIA 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. in this regards as follows : "Inasmuch as the Slovak Republic was formed in peace time, and was recognized by many countries, it can legally cease to exist only through a treaty in which its liquidation is established. Until such time the Slovak Republic should be considered as a territory occupied by the Soviets and the Czechs. This is valid, especially as the Slovaks are not willing to give up their independence."-F. Durcansky, The International Aspects of the Slovak Question, New York, 1954, p. 26. "The Slovaks at home and abroad know," declared President Tiso, "that their legal representatives today are abroad and those at present act as rulers at home are only usurpers of power aided by the Bolsheviks." Aide-Memoire sur l'existence de la Repub lique slovaque et sur la necessite de conclure le traite de paix avec eUe, Paris, Comite d'Action slovaque, 1946. K. Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi druha nasa hlava. (Biography of Dr. J . Tiso,) Middletown, Pa., 1947 p. 281 and J . A. Mikul;, La Slovaquie dans le drame de l'Europe, p. 202. Dr. Joseph Pauco, (Ed.) Dr. Jozef Tiso o sebe. (Dr. Jozef Tiso Speaks of Himself,) and article by J . M. Kirschbaum in Slovakia, Vol. 7, March 1957. See Document No. 38 in my book Slovakia-Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe . p. 295. See Documents of the Department of State No. 50, 51, 52. in my book Slovakia, p. 318-320. Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series D, Vol. X, No. 205, Document No. 30. in my book Slovakia, p. 280. Charles Murin, "A Belated Report," in Slovakia, Vol 7, June 1957, p. 34. (Dr. Tiso's secretary, professor Charles Murin, who accompanied the President not only to Austria, but also to prison, and was definitely a man possessing the President's confidence, later testified to this respect: "There were two points around which revolved the thinking of Dr. Joseph Tiso in regards to the future of the Slovak people. First, it was the confidence in the United States as to the country of Washington, Lincoln, etc., and last, but not least, as to the country of the American Slovaks. In other words, the Slovaks had expected that the Government of the United States would not oppose the will of a na tion to freedom. •Secondly, Dr. Tiso ruled out in his thinking the possibility of creating a political vacuum in Europe after the war, because he knew that any political vacuum would be but an invitation to the Soviets who would not fail to intervene, if not opposed by a military force superior to their own." For details and an analysis, favorable to the present regime, see William Diamond, Czechoslovakia between East and West, London, 1947. For the Slovak point of view, see J . A. Mikul;. Op. cit., pp. 205-254, as well as the English translation Slovakia....A Political History, Marquette University-Press, 1964. An objective description of the religious situation in Slovakia after 1945 is to be found in several scholarly works : Prof. T. Zubek, The Church of Silence in Slovakia, published by Rev. J . J. Lach, 1 14. 15. 91 �92 SLOVAKIA Whiting, Ind., Stefano Nahalka, La Slovacchia d'Oggi, Editrice Slovacca dei SS. Cirillo e Metodio, Roma, 1957, J . A. Mikus, Op. cit., and Dr. Joseph Pauco, Christian Slovakia, Valparaiso, Ind. 1959. 16. Special Report No. 8 of the Select Committee, House of Representatives, 83 Congress, Second Session, Washington, D.C., 1958. 17. For details See Wm. Diamond, Op. cit. and J. A. Mikus, SlovakiaA Political History. 18. See books by E. Taborsky, H. Ripka, y. Busek etc. 19. See Hugh Seton-Watson, Neither War nor Peace, p. 205. Ibidem. p. 205. See also K. Glaser, op. cit. and W. Jaksch, op. cit. 20. Op. cit. p. 205, See also K. Glaser, Op. cit. and W. Jaksch, Op. cit. 21. Ibidem, p. 32. 22. See H. Gordon Skilling, Communism National and International. chapter "Ferment among Czechs and Slovaks", pp. 113-130. 23. Ibidem, p. 114. 24. See the proceedings of the Slovak Writers Congress, published in Kulturny Zivot, April 27, and May 4, 1963. 25. "In Slovakia-as prof. Skilling confirms-the policy of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia (C.P.C.) after 1947 subordinated the Slovaks to increasingly centralist rule from Prague and trod underfoot the nationalist feelings even of Slovak communists" H. G. Skilling, op. cit. p. 88. 26. See Appeal of the Slovak Liberation Council to the World Opinion, March 1964 Munich 2, Germany, Signed by Dr. F. Durcansky and the writer. 27. See Kurt Glaser, Czecho-Slovakia-A Critical History, The Caxton Printers Limited Caldwell, Idaho, 1961 and Wenzel Jaksch, Europe's Road to Potsdam, New York, N. Y., 1963. 28. See Edward Taborsky, Communism in Czechoslovakia 1948-1960, Princeton, University Press, 1961, chapter Slovakia-the everdisgruntled stepdaughter. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. Pravda, May 1, 1956. Pravda, Jan. 10 and 11, 1958. See teskoslovensky prehled, V., 5. article by P. Berka. Ibidem. See also Bacilek's report at the Slovak Party Congress of April 1957, Prague News Letter 13, 10, May 11, 1957; teskoslovensky prehled III, 3 (1956), pp. 15If. Rocenka, 1960, p. 261. Pravda, March 30, 1958. English translation in East Europe, 7, 6, (1958), p. 37. Ceskoslovensky prehled, v, 2 (1958), pp. 12ff; also J . Safranek. op. cit. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1965, Vol. 15 Description An account of the resource Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 18 SLOVAKIA TWENTY YiEJAIRS OF CZECH .AJND COMMUNIST RULE 1N SLOVAK1!.A. J. M. Kirschbaum The manner in which Slova,kia, 20 years ago, became a part of the restored Czecho-'S lovakia ruled by the Czech:!! and by Communists, ·a nd the disappearaJilce of the Slovak r epu:blic from the maip of post-war Europe, offers the experts of mternational law and ,political science an interesting subject for study and analysis. Having been diplomaticrully recognized 1b y 30 states, of which more than 1half were on the side of the Allies, the Slovak republic became, according to intemational law, a member of the international community rund subject as such to the princiiples and customs of international law. Consequently, in 1945 the Slovak republic was de jure and de facto a defeated state, just as Hungary, Bulgaria, Rumania, and Finland. Due respect for international law aind for the principles declared in the Atlantic charter would have required that Slovakia receive the same treatment as Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria i.e., and that Slovakia's status as an existing state under military occupation be preserved :until Peace treaties had been concluded. Instead, the Allies favormg the Czech exiles, decided not to apply the right of self-determination and the principles of the Atlantic Oharter to the Slovak people amd, although recognition of a state cannot •b e revoked, they treated Slovakia as if the Slovaik .Republic had never existed. The British Government advised the Slovak Counsel General in London, Milan Harminc, on October 12, 1939, that "he will continue to be recognized as the Slovak Counsul in London. " 1 It showed great caution for a long time during the war in its attitude towards the Czecho-Slovak Committee which, after the fall of France, moved to London, and left "open the question whether the Slovak State shall enjoy its independence in union with a Czech State, or in another form". 2 Under pressure from Moscow, 3 the Allies neverthe-less recognized a group of Czech and Slovak refugees as the government-in-exile, allowed Dr. Benes to assume the SLOVAKIA 79 functions of the President of Czechoslovakia-although he resigned on October 5, 1938 of his own will-and the Soviet armies saw to it that the Slovak territory was incorporated into the state, which, according to the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, had disintegrated from within on March 14, 1939, by the proclamation of the independence of Slovakia by the Slovak Diet.4 The disregard for the principles of international law, as well as for wartime declarations promising independence and territorial integrity after the victory, together with disrespect for the aspirations of the 'Slovak people, created in Slovakia a situation which, from the juridical point of view, allowed the formulation of the controversial views that: 1. The Slovak Republic legally did not cease to exist; 5 2. Slovakia should be considered a territory occupied by the Czechs and Soviets; 3. The legal representatives of the Slovak Republic are outside Slovakia, as President Tiso stressed in his broadcrust from the America,n Zone in Austria in A,pril 1945.6 These ·views were held very strongly among the Slovaks in exile in 1945, and the Slovak representatives even presented a memorandum to the Peace Conference in Paris, ask,i ng for a Peace Treaty witJh Slovakia. 7 It also was in line with these views that the Slovak Government surrendered to the American Army. Against these views, principles amd political aspirations, si.ands the fact of Slova,kia's incorporation into a restored Czecho-Slovakia, governed, except for a limited cultural autonomy, by the Czechs from Prague, or by the Communist Party, led :b y Czech Communists. Slovak diplomatic missions and consulates were closed; the symbols, orgams and the Government of the Slovak Republic disappeared; and the President was jailed and executed. The Slovak State remained only in the hearts and aspirations of the Slovak people. The manner in which this happened is a sad and bloody story. It is a tragedy of a small nation whose politiciams and ·people believed that high principles of justice, democracy, international law and equality of peoples would be respected after the war in Central Europe. The Russians were aware of the feelings and aspirations of the Slovak population, and tried to make a deal, first 80 SLOVAKIA with President Tiso, a,nd later in 1944, with the fo:r,mer Minister of External Affairs, Dr. Durcansky. Emissaries of the Soviet Government gave assurances that the Slovak Republic would not be a,bolished, amd that Slova:kia would remain an independent state if the Slovak Govenment came to term with Russia the way Rumaniia did. If Russia left a ruling k,i ng in IRumania-the Soviet emissaries :pointed out-it would also tolerate a Catholic monsignor in Slovakia. 8 Mainly because of their firm conviction that a compromise with Bolshevism was morally and politically unaccepta;ble for the Slovaik nation and its government; also because of their hopes that the Western !Powers would not, in their own interest, allow Communist domination of Central Europe; and would, therefore, enforce the principles of the Atlantic Charter, the leading Slovaik personalities refused any compromise with Communism. When the Red Army, in its fast advance from Hungary, approached the capital city of Slovakia, Bratislava, the President, Government, Parliarrnent, lea,ders of the party, army, gendarmerie and the Hlinka Guards' units, together with numerous civil servants, university professors, writers and youth organization Ieaiders, began moving west, to Austria, where provisional hea:dquarters of the Government were ,p repared in the monastery of Kremsmiinster. If capitulation was inevitable, the Slovaks wished to surrender or come to terms wiith the W estem AHies. "I left Slo,va,kia," declared President Tiso during his trial, "because I wished to make the claims of the Slovak illation to its own way of llfe better known and more understandable to the Western Powers." 9 Im1tead of renouncing the right to independence and self-government, or accepting Communism, the leading Slovak circles .p referred to leave their homeland in search of justice and respect for .Slovaikia's right to independence on the side of the Western Allies. It was along this line of reasoning that the Slov:ak Government and the American commander, General W. A. Collier, on May 8, 1945, signed a document of "protection" or "surrender" to the Allied High Command. 10 Coosideri!ng the circumstances, we can ha<rdly speak of surrender in the sense the word was used at the end of the SLOVAKIA 81 war, because Slovakia was not at war with Western AlliesGrerut Br1baiin, Frrunce or the Unirte<l. States. 11 Dr. Benes and his supporters in the United States misused a report broad-cast by the German News Agency rD. N. B., and reprinted by the New York Times on Decemlber 13, 1941, according to whkh Slovakia had declared war on the United States and Great Britain. 'Dhe truth is that neither the President 11or the Parliament of the Slovak Republic~the only constitutional authorities which can declare war-ever dealt with any declaration of war on the United States or GTeat Britain. It haJS been proven amd recognized by the U. S. authol'ies that never, at any moment, and in no area., was there any military ,a ction between the 'S lovak and American or British units. Unscrupulous propaganda was, of course, unconcerned vl!ith the faiet:s, and Slovakia was presented time and again as a country at war with the Western Allies; this in spite of the fact that Slovakia tried to inform the Western Allies, through diplomatic chamnelis, that she wanted to remain neutral with regard to the Western Powers ;12 and in spite of the fact that the Slovak President, in his public speech to the district governors of Slova:kia, called even the participation in the war against the Soviet Union "but a symbolic one". 1 In view of this, we cannot speak of a military, but rather a political surrooder. The Slovak Gnvernment looked for political protection and recognition of the right of the Slovak people to freedom and self-government. They surrendered to the American military command because they expected maximum undenstandi!Ilg from the American authorities and also because it was the first Allied authority with which they came into contact. 13 For reasons which have never been explained, the doooment, signed on behalf of the Allied High Command iby three high-ranking American officers, was not honored in any form. The President of the Slovak Republic, members of the Slovak Government, Parliament, army officers, civil servant.s, writers, artists, etc., on the !basis of a simple denunciahon ·b y the Czech police and intelligence agents, who were sent by Dr. Benes to Austria for the ,p mipose of denouncing or kidnaping, were arrested, put into concentration C!limps, .and many of them were extradited to the Prague Govern- 82 SLOVAKIA ment. In November 1945, the President of the Slovak Republic, and all 1but one member of the Slovruk Government, together with their secretaries, were transported to Prague in chains and handcuffs like "criminals". The Communist people's courts, after humiliation amd mental torture, either liquidated them on the gallows (Dr. Tiso, Dr. Tuka), or shot them or condemned them to life imprisonment amd forced labor camps. The attempts to save Slovakia's status as an independent state and to obtain recognition of the right to self-government by the Western Allies failed tragically. Regardless of the will of the Slovak people, Slovakia became again a part of Czecho-Slovakia, ruled by Prague and by the Communist party. The Restoration of the Czech Rule in Slovakia and the Road to Enslavement of Slovaks While the origin of Czecho.JSlovakia in 1918 was due in the first place to the ,policy of the victorious Powers of the First World War, especially to France, the restoration of Czecho-Slovakia in 1945 was ,undoubtedly due to the Soviet Union. Dr. Benes and his government-in-exile returned to Prague from London via Moscow on the heels of the Red Army. In Eastern Slovakia the Communists had him sign the so-called Kosice Pro~ram14 which stated that CzechoSlovrukia was to be ra state of two separate nations--C2echs and Slovaks-with Sla·vic orientation and a socialist system of economy. Back in Prague, Dr. Benes was ,a pproved in his new position by a "Parliament", from which were eliminated in advance all the parti~ and politicians suspected of resistance to the policy of "National Front" government and sub.servience to Moscow. Having been formally established, the new government, composed of Communist, Dr. Benes' Na'tional Secialists, Social Democrats and representatives ot the Czech peoples Party and the Slovli:k Democratic party, SLOVAKIA 83 began to liquidate, by irregular "People's Courts," every.one who was suspected of some res-ervations towards the new political course. As president, Dr. Benes hereafter introduced, by a number of decress, the newstyled ",People's Democracy," and, gradually, also the socialist system of economy, freely applying the confiscation and "nationalization" of industries and private property. At first, the new Czec,ho-Slovak "People's Democracy" allowed only two political parties in Slovakia-Slovak Democratic /Party and Commll!Ilist Party. Although neither the Communists nor the small group of former Agrarians, who appointed themselves leaders of the Democratic Party, ever played a role of any importance in Slovak politics until the fall of 1944-- when they organized, in cooperation with ~oviet partisans, the t11prising~a,nd they imposed on .Slovakia a s ystem which ena,bled them. to share in ·a ll Slova;k political 1nstitutions on a /50-50 basis. The traditional conservative parties, such as the Slovak People's Party, the Agrariam Party, the Artisan Party, and S1ovak National Party, were suppressed. Favored by the Red Anmy which looted a,nd raped in Slovakia without precedent in Slovak history, both the Communists and the Democrats began to carry out the Kosice Agreement. The "Slova:k National Council," a revolutionary body of the organizers of the uprising, :b ecame the legislature and its presidium served as the executive. By Decr ee No. 33, they created organs of the so-called "people's justice," and freely used a charge of collaboration wit!h Germainy as pretext for imprisoning a,nd condemming all potential opposition. By Decree No. 51, they dissolved all associations expect those ~hich were enthusiastic for the new regime; they suppressed the religious (parochial) schools ( mostly Catholic), and institutions; a,nd confiscated their property and created forced labor camps (,Decree No. 33, .Article 5) for the re-education ·o f political adversaries. 15 Through these measures the way for tlhe Communist rule was paved in accordance with the agreement between Dr. Benes and Klement Gottwald. They decided in Moscow ,i n 1943 that the state administration would be replaced 'b y '.'national committees"-Soviets; the former right-of-center parties W?uld be eliminated; the Communist and tolerated 84 SLOVAKIA non-commUiilist parties would for,m a "governmen of· Na:tional Front", and ".p eople's courts" would be established to OOinmaJte "waT criminals." While the new regime was accepted with enthusi1a sm in Bohemia, there was only bitterness and uncertainty in Slovakia. The persecution of Catholic dergy and intelligentsia reached an inhuman fury; a wave of arrests took place throughout the country; and the leaders of the :Slova:k Republic died an gallows, in front of the firing squads, and filled jails and concentration camps. Thousands were deported to the Soviet Union in 1'945, many were executed by Soviet :partisans on simple Communist denunciation, and hundreds of Catholic intellectuals were arrested ibecause of "the conspiracy against the State and people's democracy." Occupying the most important positions in the Government, the Communists had no difficulty preparing the socalled "February Revolution" of 1948, since the Ozech nonCommunist politicians, including Dr. Benes, and the leaders of the Slovak Democratic Party offered or.ly a weak and insignificant ·opposition, if any at all. The Special Report of the U.S. Congress leaves no doubt in this regard: "It should be pointed out," says the report, "that the Communist advance in Czedhoslovakia was greatly facilitated by the behaviour of the non-Communist .p olitical .p arties and their lea:ders. Especially the naive 1b elief in the possibility of co-existence with the Communists, shared in different degrees by practically all Czech politicians, was responsilble for the extreme ease with which the Communist Party took power in 1948. The sig,ning of the Soviet-Czechoslovak agreement on December 12, 1943, and especially the proclamation of the Kosice program of April 5, 1945, opened the door for an ,unobserved drive on the part of the Communists to seize full power in the country." 16 In Slovakia the Communist Party obtained 30.4 % votes in the elections of 1946 and consequently garve a solid basis for establishment of a democratic regime. The situation in Bohemia and Morav1a was, however, quite different. Why the Czech population did not resist the complete Communist iake-over and practically voted the Communists into power by giving the communist and the Socialist Democrats, who united with the Communists, a majority of votes, 17 was ex~ SLOVAKIA 85 plained by the Czech exiles18 ai well as iby several foreign writers. One interesting reason was given lby the English historian and exipert in Central European ,p roblems, Hugh Seton-Watson, who writes that it was fear of future Gernnan revenge for "the mass expulsion of the Gernnan population of the Bohemia borderlands (who lived there since the Middle Ages) which was accompanied by much brutality and led to tens of thousands of deaths" .19 H. Seton-Watson argues, of .course, with the validity of such an argument and writes: "But just •a s in Germany in 1932 there was no practical prospect of communists attaining power, so in Europe in 1948 there was no practical prospect of Germans revenging themselves on Czechs. The widespread Czech argument was that, as Germany would one day seek revenge, Czechoslovakia anust maintain ibs alliance with Russia, and as the Russians wanted the Communists in power in Czechoslovakia and this must be accepted. But this meant that in order to avoid a hypothetical revenge in the future, the Czech people must accept communist tyranny in the present; and in order to ensure their independence from a non-existent German menace, they must hand their country over to the agents of Soviet imperiialism. It was this that was decisive rather than the aJbsence of Western military aid against the Soviet Union. A few months later, •a .potential crisis arose in Finland through the same cause which had started the crisis in Czecho-Slovakia-packing of the .police by a communist Minister of Interior. Finland was militarily no less at the mercy of Russia than Czechoslovakia had been, and no Western aid was conceiv,able. But the :Fiinns refrused to be intimidated. They voted in parliament against the Minister, he resigned, there was no crisis and no Soviet intervention. The F.inns suffered from none of the iHu.sions a!bout Russia, that afflicted the Czechs. " 20 However, irrespective of the reason which led the Czech population to accept Communism, they he1ped to make of Czecho-Slovakia the most faithful satellite of Moscow. Slovakia suffered from now on not only for her opposition to Communism, but also under the revenge laws persecuting every Slovak who in the past or in the "new" Czecho-Slovakia showed any opposition to the Czech rule in Slovakia. 86 SLOVAKIA lit was for this reason thaJt the fiirst wave of Slovak exiles vvas followed in 1948 by those Slovaik ipoliticians who 1beHeved in co-operation with the Communists and since 1944 helped them to govern the country. ln their sub-servience to_Moscow and in their desire to i:m~tate, if not surpass, Stalin's methods and general ;policy, the Communist leaders in ,Prague went further than any other satellite. No enemy of Czecho-iSlovakia, the Canadian professor H. Gordon Skilling, after several long months study behind the Iron Curtain in 1961-1962, wrote that "Ozechoslovakia occUlpied the ll!Ilenvi~ble ,positiion of being unique in its rigidity -and uniformity, in its orthodoxy to the old ideas of Communism, and its loyaLty to IMoscow". 21 1 Ln his view Czechoslova,kia ,p resented "a picture sharply in contraJSt to that of 1Poland, iHUJI1.gary, and Yugoslavia, or even A1bania. Unlike these four states, eaoh of which has at various times resisted Moscow, there was no evtl.dence, in October 1961, or six months later, in April 1962, of any spark of resistance by Czechoslovakia to the general line of the U.S.S.R. in international affairs, or in bloc relations. On the contrary, Czechoslovakia had to he classified with East Germany, Rumania, and Bulgaria, in the category of the most loyal and subservient satellites. Neither was there any sign of a serious relaxation in domestic affairs, in the spirit of Khrushchev's de-Stalinization, such as has manifested itself in Poland and iHung,a ry, and even to some extent in Rumania and Bulgaria. In this respect, Czechoslovakia, O'Ilce regarded as an island of democracy in eastern Europe, had regretfully to be classified with Albania, East Germany, and Rumania, as a state tihat had hardly changed at all since the death of Stalin." III. After Tw~nty Years of the Czech and Communist Rule What kind of political regiim e Prague imposed on Slova'k we ca,n see best from recent conf<.IS5ions of Slovak communists themselves. 22 'Dhe Communist denunciations refer, of course, only to the ,period of so-called "personality cult" SLOVAKIA 87 when for "bourgeois nationalism" they were hanged or put in prison (Novomesky, Husak, Oka.Ii etc.). This .p eriod of "personality cult" was, however, not much different from the other iperiods of the communist rule in Slovakia for noncommunists. It was "monstrous and horrible" as N ovomesky wrote recently and "wiped out trust, confidence, understanding, yes, even loyalty in the life and conciousness of thousands and thousands of ipeople".23 The "inhuman methods" denounced by the Slov·a k Wviters Congress in April, 1963, were applied against non-communists during the whole 20 years a,nd that "terrible curse on· the life of the country", as N ovamesky called the period of ;the so-called cult, for wh!i~h there will be "an eternal stain on the good name of everyone of us," as confessed •M:na,cko, does not refer to only a few years of Prague's persecution by Communists in Slovakia.2-l Prague and the Communist Party systematically used their power "to sweeip away from the !history of Slovak cul.: ture an entire past", to quote Novomesky again from the very beginning of the restoration of Czecho-Slovakia. 25 Reviewing the twenty years of Czech and Communist rule in Slovakia.; the political ,p ersecution of no1'l.-communist; the anti-religious measures and the tpersecution of clergy and believers alike; we can accept the conclusion of the leading Slovak intellectuals in exile tlhat "the Slovak ,p eople were ,n ever before subject to such political and religious oppression ,and economic exiploitation, a,nd life was never as hard in Slovakia as during the past 20 years". 26 In spite of this situation, there w~s no revolution similar to that ·in Hrungary and we can understand this only if we take into account the following facts: 1) Slovakia has been under constant occupation by Czech armed forces; 2) The true leaders of Slovak people were either. hanged, imprisoned or exiled; 3) 85,000 Slovak citi:zens were put mto labor and con-: centration campus; 4) 20,000 Slovaks were deported to the Soviet Union; 5) over 100,000 · Slovaik citizens of German ancestry, going back to the middle ages, were expelled from 88 SLOVAKIA Slovakia; over 120,000 Slovak citizens of Hungiarian ancestry were e~patniated, and close to 600,000 Slovaks were transferred into those parts of Bohemia and !Moravia from whicih the Czechs expelled over 3 mil1ion Sudeten Germans. 27 There is haroly a family which did not suffer under the organized terror of !P rague except those few "ruparatchiky" who helped the Communist and Czech occupation a.nd were not accused of bourgeois .nationalism. Only by means of tJhe gallows and firing squads, concentration camps and organized terror were Prague and Moscow able to keep ,a n appearance of tranquility aind maintain their rule in Slova:kia, against whiClh over 30 Slov-ak conspiracies were discovered, according to the Communists themselves, in the first decade. This treatment of Slovakia could not, of course, influence the Slovaks for Czecho.:s1ovakia or Communism. On the contrary. "Even the slight concessions of 1956-1B58 were bound to leave the Slovaks unimpressed and could in no way detract from Slovtak bitterness toward the treatment to which they had 1b een exiposed ever since the K!SC leaders abandoned their calculative support of Slovak autonomism in 1946. Ample evidence of continued Slovak resentment (against Czechs) is provided by recurrent warnmgs, criticisms, aind extortations deli'Vered by ,Party leaders and the communist press, ,a s well as by reports from underground Souivces" as admitted by Prof. E. Ta:borsky, 211 and those Czech ,i ntellectuals in exile who soberly analyze the situation (Prof. B. Chudoba etc.) "The touchy problem of Czecho.iSlova:k relations," writes Taboralky-and the ",p oison of 1bomgeois nationalism" ha.Ne figured high on the agenda of all the Slovak Communist Party congresses and Central Committee meetings held since 1948. The evidence was provided by t'he Commll.lil'ist themselves. "We ,are sbill frequently faced with dangerous ex,pression of .bourgeois nationalism in the shaipe of populd.st separatism del:i.beraJtely implanted Ml!d maintained in Slovakia by the church hierarchy," complained Siroky at the Con• gress of the ,Slovak P,a rty in April 1955. One year later, Pravda used the solemn occasion of the !May First festi'Vities 1 SLOVAKIA 89 to deplore the "lack of confidence and the susp1c10n of fear" between the Czechs and the Slovaks and lay 1b lame on "the neglect of Leninist principles."28 According to bitter complaints made 'by the Slovak P ,a:r,ty',s Firat Seoretairy, Kar~l Ba!Cilek, at the session of the Central Committee in January 1958, "bourgeois nationalistic tendencies" have penetrated "various fields of our cultural, poliitical and scientific life; sports; the state apparatus; economic organs; and so on." They have infiltrated "the films, press, and radio" and "have recently appeared even in some ,commissioners' offices" and the Party itself. 30 Slovaks could not be gained for Czechoslovakia even by a sharp retrospective attack on "Czecho.!Slovak,i sm", the concept that the Slovaks and tihe Czechs were ethnically, linguiistieally and cUllturaHy one nation, which ia:Henated Slovaks to Mrusaryk's republic, and which Vaclav Kopecky, speaking on b'e half of the KSc's Czech hierarchy, called in 1958 "an imperialist conception of national oppression of the Slovaks". 31 "While such declaration might have flattered the Slov,a.,ks in 1945, they fell on deaf ears in 1958", writes Taborsky. Nor coUlld t:he commll!Ilist leaders de riive much comfort from the "improvement" in the Slovak class structure resulting from the communist .industrializatioo. and collectivization drive. The transfovmation of the 1p redominantly agraria.,n Slovakia of prewar days into a province where industrial output accounted for 70 percent of the iprovince's production by 1956, and over 80 percent of all aralble land was collectivi.zed 1by the end of 1959, did substantially increase the number of tih e industrial proletal'iat, who, together with the collective farmers, are supposed to be the backbone of the communi,s t system. But the communist hopes that these "two friendly <!lasses of workers and (collective) peasants" would rise in resolute defence of proletarian internationalism against the dire threat of "bourgeois natiionalis,m" have failed to ma teria:lize.32 On the contrary, Slovak Communist newspapers as well as speeches of the leading Czech communists comiplained time and again that t!here were conflicts among the Czech and Slovak workers and that even "some of the leading (Slo- 90 SLOVAKIA vak) personalities have . evinced a wrong and negative aittitude ,t owards the Czeohs." 33 We cannot but agree with the conclusion of Prof. E. Taborsky, who certainly has no sympathies for Slovak nationalism or for the Slovak aspirations for independence, when he writes that "aside from confiivmimg the obvfous fact that the communist fights ag,a inst Slovak nationalism had made no headway, aimong the Slovak peasaintry, these reports indicate that the communist industrial,1zation d~ive had backfired in am unexpected manner. By building up Slovakia's economic potential and bringing new industries to the province's backwoods areas, the regime has unwittingly prodded the Slovaks' pride and self-confidence, a'l'ld thus helped to underpin the same Slova:k nationalism it has been trying so hard to blot out. Having acquired the knowhow and the a:bility to run the system themselves, the Slovak-Communists and non-communists alike-resent being ordered around by their elder Czech brethern. " 34 To sum up, we might say with certainty that the exiled Slovak leadevs are right when they emphasize that "the Slovak ipeople did not renounce their rights to freedom and independence, ,b ecause there is no nation on earth which would prefer tyranny instead of freedom" and that "even if someone 'has a different view with regard to the Slovak republic ood her war-regime, there is no justification for enslaving Slovakia and for opposing the aspirations of the Slovak people to live free and independent according to their own traditions". (Appeal to the free World). FOOTNOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. See Document No. 23 in my book Slovakia-Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe. p. 269. C. A. Macartney, October Fifteenth, Edinburg, 1956, p. 376. In 1940 Moscow advised the Slovak Communists "they should fight for a full sovereignty of the Slovak State" and "against the world imperialism and Benes", and tried to win on her side the Slovak Government even at a time when the Soviets had diplomatic relations with the Czechoslovak Government in exile, as we shall see further. Cf. Historicky casopis, XII, 3, Bratislava, 1964 Speech in the House of Commons on March 15, 1939. The former Minister for External Affairs, Dr. F. Durcansky, writes SLOVAKIA 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. in this regards as follows : "Inasmuch as the Slovak Republic was formed in peace time, and was recognized by many countries, it can legally cease to exist only through a treaty in which its liquidation is established. Until such time the Slovak Republic should be considered as a territory occupied by the Soviets and the Czechs. This is valid, especially as the Slovaks are not willing to give up their independence."-F. Durcansky, The International Aspects of the Slovak Question, New York, 1954, p. 26. "The Slovaks at home and abroad know," declared President Tiso, "that their legal representatives today are abroad and those at present act as rulers at home are only usurpers of power aided by the Bolsheviks." Aide-Memoire sur l'existence de la Repub lique slovaque et sur la necessite de conclure le traite de paix avec eUe, Paris, Comite d'Action slovaque, 1946. K. Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi druha nasa hlava. (Biography of Dr. J . Tiso,) Middletown, Pa., 1947 p. 281 and J . A. Mikul;, La Slovaquie dans le drame de l'Europe, p. 202. Dr. Joseph Pauco, (Ed.) Dr. Jozef Tiso o sebe. (Dr. Jozef Tiso Speaks of Himself,) and article by J . M. Kirschbaum in Slovakia, Vol. 7, March 1957. See Document No. 38 in my book Slovakia-Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe . p. 295. See Documents of the Department of State No. 50, 51, 52. in my book Slovakia, p. 318-320. Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series D, Vol. X, No. 205, Document No. 30. in my book Slovakia, p. 280. Charles Murin, "A Belated Report," in Slovakia, Vol 7, June 1957, p. 34. (Dr. Tiso's secretary, professor Charles Murin, who accompanied the President not only to Austria, but also to prison, and was definitely a man possessing the President's confidence, later testified to this respect: "There were two points around which revolved the thinking of Dr. Joseph Tiso in regards to the future of the Slovak people. First, it was the confidence in the United States as to the country of Washington, Lincoln, etc., and last, but not least, as to the country of the American Slovaks. In other words, the Slovaks had expected that the Government of the United States would not oppose the will of a na tion to freedom. •Secondly, Dr. Tiso ruled out in his thinking the possibility of creating a political vacuum in Europe after the war, because he knew that any political vacuum would be but an invitation to the Soviets who would not fail to intervene, if not opposed by a military force superior to their own." For details and an analysis, favorable to the present regime, see William Diamond, Czechoslovakia between East and West, London, 1947. For the Slovak point of view, see J . A. Mikul;. Op. cit., pp. 205-254, as well as the English translation Slovakia....A Political History, Marquette University-Press, 1964. An objective description of the religious situation in Slovakia after 1945 is to be found in several scholarly works : Prof. T. Zubek, The Church of Silence in Slovakia, published by Rev. J . J. Lach, 1 14. 15. 91 92 SLOVAKIA Whiting, Ind., Stefano Nahalka, La Slovacchia d'Oggi, Editrice Slovacca dei SS. Cirillo e Metodio, Roma, 1957, J . A. Mikus, Op. cit., and Dr. Joseph Pauco, Christian Slovakia, Valparaiso, Ind. 1959. 16. Special Report No. 8 of the Select Committee, House of Representatives, 83 Congress, Second Session, Washington, D.C., 1958. 17. For details See Wm. Diamond, Op. cit. and J. A. Mikus, SlovakiaA Political History. 18. See books by E. Taborsky, H. Ripka, y. Busek etc. 19. See Hugh Seton-Watson, Neither War nor Peace, p. 205. Ibidem. p. 205. See also K. Glaser, op. cit. and W. Jaksch, op. cit. 20. Op. cit. p. 205, See also K. Glaser, Op. cit. and W. Jaksch, Op. cit. 21. Ibidem, p. 32. 22. See H. Gordon Skilling, Communism National and International. chapter "Ferment among Czechs and Slovaks", pp. 113-130. 23. Ibidem, p. 114. 24. See the proceedings of the Slovak Writers Congress, published in Kulturny Zivot, April 27, and May 4, 1963. 25. "In Slovakia-as prof. Skilling confirms-the policy of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia (C.P.C.) after 1947 subordinated the Slovaks to increasingly centralist rule from Prague and trod underfoot the nationalist feelings even of Slovak communists" H. G. Skilling, op. cit. p. 88. 26. See Appeal of the Slovak Liberation Council to the World Opinion, March 1964 Munich 2, Germany, Signed by Dr. F. Durcansky and the writer. 27. See Kurt Glaser, Czecho-Slovakia-A Critical History, The Caxton Printers Limited Caldwell, Idaho, 1961 and Wenzel Jaksch, Europe's Road to Potsdam, New York, N. Y., 1963. 28. See Edward Taborsky, Communism in Czechoslovakia 1948-1960, Princeton, University Press, 1961, chapter Slovakia-the everdisgruntled stepdaughter. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. Pravda, May 1, 1956. Pravda, Jan. 10 and 11, 1958. See teskoslovensky prehled, V., 5. article by P. Berka. Ibidem. See also Bacilek's report at the Slovak Party Congress of April 1957, Prague News Letter 13, 10, May 11, 1957; teskoslovensky prehled III, 3 (1956), pp. 15If. Rocenka, 1960, p. 261. Pravda, March 30, 1958. English translation in East Europe, 7, 6, (1958), p. 37. Ceskoslovensky prehled, v, 2 (1958), pp. 12ff; also J . Safranek. op. cit.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Twenty Years of Czech and Communist Rule in Slovakia Description An account of the resource J. M. Kirschbaum Slovakia, Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965 pp. 78-92 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kirschbaum, Jozef M., 1913-2001 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 SNK