1 50 11 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/732811ad1b158d5290b7367e3a6a84f0.pdf 940e5e5a013deb7e553bfe516ec6d314 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 145 CONTRIBUTORS EDIT A BOSAK is Assistant Professor of History, Memorial University, St. John 1s, Newfoundland. She specializes in 19th century Slovak and Central European history, has published numerous articles in the field and is preparing a monograph on CzechSlovak relations. ELENA JAKESOV A is a member of the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. Her specialty is Slovak immigration to Canada, about which she has published many articles and the book Vysfahovalectvo Slovakov do Kanady (Bratislava, 1981). STANISLA V J. KIRSCHBAUM is Professor of Political Science and International Studies at York University, Glendon College, in Toronto, Canada. A specialist on contemporary Slovak and Central European politics, he has published many articles on this subject as well as Slovaques et Tcheques (Lausanne, 1987). CAROL SKALNIK LEFF is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana. She is the author of National Conflict in Czechoslovakia: The Making and Remaking of a State, 1918-1987(Princeton, 1988). PAUL R. MAGOCSI is Professor of History and Political Science at the University of Toronto, where he holds the Chair in Ukrainian Studies. He is also Director of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario. He has published The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus', 1848-1948 (Cambridge, Mass: 1978) �146 SLOVAKIA and Our People: Carpatho-Rusyns and their Descendants in America (Toronto, 1984), and many other books and articles. SUSAN MIKULA is Professor of History and Chair of the Division of Humanities at Illinois Benedictine College in Lisle, Illinois. She specializes in 20th century Slovakia, has published several articles on this subject, and is preparing a study of Milan Hodfa. M. MARK STOLARIK is Professor of History and holder of the Chair in Slovak History and Culture at the University of Ottawa. He specializes in the history of Slovak immigration to North America, and has published widely in the field, including Growing Up on the South Side: Slovaks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 18801976 (Lewisburg, PA, 1985) and Immigration and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 1870-1918 (New York, 1989) . ��148 SLOVAKIA GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPTS Manuscripts of articles should be sent to the editor. Articles should normally not exceed twenty-five pages in length, and should be submitted in triplicate, typed double-spaced, numbered, and placed at the end of the paper. Text and format should adhere to the style outlined in Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers. Proper orthography and diacritical marks must be supplied for all foreign words. If the article/review was composed on a computer, a copy of the disk used should be supplied as well. Manuscripts (and disks) will not be returned unless specifically requested and postage is provided. Books for review should be sent to the editor. Unsolicited book reviews are not encouraged. Individuals who wish to review books should request them from the editor. They should send a 'curriculum vitae' with their request. ��THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA Organized in 1907 EDWARD J. BEHUNCIK, K.S.G., Honorary President JOHN A HOLY Secretary-Treasurer DANIEL F. TANZONE President JOSEPH J. TALAFOUS, Esq. Vice-President ANNE Z. SAROSY Vice-President MICHAL BUCKO Vice-President Executive Committee Daniel F. Tanzone, Edward J. Behuncik, John A Holy, Anna S. Granchay Joseph R. Kristofik, Steve J. Hruska, Cecilia Sarocky, Andrew F. Hudak, Jr., Joseph Stefka, Justine Wesnak, Edward A Zelenak, Anna M. Vizza, President, Ladies Auxiliary Patrick Zelenak Youth Director SLOVAK FRATERNAL ORGANIZATIONS AFFILIATED WITH THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA FIRST CATHOLIC SLOVAK LADIES ASSOCIATION Cleveland, Ohio FIRST CATHOLIC SLOVAK UNION OF THE U.S. AND CANADA Cleveland , Ohio SLOVAK CATHOLIC SOKOL Passaic, N.J. NATIONAL SLOVAK SOCIETY OF THE U.S.A. Pittsburgh, Pa. LADIES PENNSYLVANIA SLOVAK CATHOLIC UNION Wilkes-Barre, Pa. FIRST SLOVAK WREATH OF THE FREE EAGLE Bridgeport, Conn. SLOVAK NEWSPAPERMEN'S ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA THE SLOVAK GARDEN, INC. Winter Park, Florida SLOVAKIA $7.00 per issue Printed By SLOVAK PRINT, Reg. Montreal, Quebec Canada � SLOVAKIA 145 CONTRIBUTORS EDIT A BOSAK is Assistant Professor of History, Memorial University, St. John 1s, Newfoundland. She specializes in 19th century Slovak and Central European history, has published numerous articles in the field and is preparing a monograph on CzechSlovak relations. ELENA JAKESOV A is a member of the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. Her specialty is Slovak immigration to Canada, about which she has published many articles and the book Vysfahovalectvo Slovakov do Kanady (Bratislava, 1981). STANISLA V J. KIRSCHBAUM is Professor of Political Science and International Studies at York University, Glendon College, in Toronto, Canada. A specialist on contemporary Slovak and Central European politics, he has published many articles on this subject as well as Slovaques et Tcheques (Lausanne, 1987). CAROL SKALNIK LEFF is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana. She is the author of National Conflict in Czechoslovakia: The Making and Remaking of a State, 1918-1987(Princeton, 1988). PAUL R. MAGOCSI is Professor of History and Political Science at the University of Toronto, where he holds the Chair in Ukrainian Studies. He is also Director of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario. He has published The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus', 1848-1948 (Cambridge, Mass: 1978) �146 SLOVAKIA and Our People: Carpatho-Rusyns and their Descendants in America (Toronto, 1984), and many other books and articles. SUSAN MIKULA is Professor of History and Chair of the Division of Humanities at Illinois Benedictine College in Lisle, Illinois. She specializes in 20th century Slovakia, has published several articles on this subject, and is preparing a study of Milan Hodfa. M. MARK STOLARIK is Professor of History and holder of the Chair in Slovak History and Culture at the University of Ottawa. He specializes in the history of Slovak immigration to North America, and has published widely in the field, including Growing Up on the South Side: Slovaks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 18801976 (Lewisburg, PA, 1985) and Immigration and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 1870-1918 (New York, 1989) . ��148 SLOVAKIA GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPTS Manuscripts of articles should be sent to the editor. Articles should normally not exceed twenty-five pages in length, and should be submitted in triplicate, typed double-spaced, numbered, and placed at the end of the paper. Text and format should adhere to the style outlined in Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers. Proper orthography and diacritical marks must be supplied for all foreign words. If the article/review was composed on a computer, a copy of the disk used should be supplied as well. Manuscripts (and disks) will not be returned unless specifically requested and postage is provided. Books for review should be sent to the editor. Unsolicited book reviews are not encouraged. Individuals who wish to review books should request them from the editor. They should send a 'curriculum vitae' with their request. ��THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA Organized in 1907 EDWARD J. BEHUNCIK, K.S.G., Honorary President JOHN A HOLY Secretary-Treasurer DANIEL F. TANZONE President JOSEPH J. TALAFOUS, Esq. Vice-President ANNE Z. SAROSY Vice-President MICHAL BUCKO Vice-President Executive Committee Daniel F. Tanzone, Edward J. Behuncik, John A Holy, Anna S. Granchay Joseph R. Kristofik, Steve J. Hruska, Cecilia Sarocky, Andrew F. Hudak, Jr., Joseph Stefka, Justine Wesnak, Edward A Zelenak, Anna M. Vizza, President, Ladies Auxiliary Patrick Zelenak Youth Director SLOVAK FRATERNAL ORGANIZATIONS AFFILIATED WITH THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA FIRST CATHOLIC SLOVAK LADIES ASSOCIATION Cleveland, Ohio FIRST CATHOLIC SLOVAK UNION OF THE U.S. AND CANADA Cleveland , Ohio SLOVAK CATHOLIC SOKOL Passaic, N.J. NATIONAL SLOVAK SOCIETY OF THE U.S.A. Pittsburgh, Pa. LADIES PENNSYLVANIA SLOVAK CATHOLIC UNION Wilkes-Barre, Pa. FIRST SLOVAK WREATH OF THE FREE EAGLE Bridgeport, Conn. SLOVAK NEWSPAPERMEN'S ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA THE SLOVAK GARDEN, INC. Winter Park, Florida SLOVAKIA $7.00 per issue Printed By SLOVAK PRINT, Reg. Montreal, Quebec Canada � 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 1991-92, Vol. 35 Description An account of the resource Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Slovak League of America Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 1991-92 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 145 CONTRIBUTORS EDIT A BOSAK is Assistant Professor of History, Memorial University, St. John 1s, Newfoundland. She specializes in 19th century Slovak and Central European history, has published numerous articles in the field and is preparing a monograph on CzechSlovak relations. ELENA JAKESOV A is a member of the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. Her specialty is Slovak immigration to Canada, about which she has published many articles and the book Vysfahovalectvo Slovakov do Kanady (Bratislava, 1981). STANISLA V J. KIRSCHBAUM is Professor of Political Science and International Studies at York University, Glendon College, in Toronto, Canada. A specialist on contemporary Slovak and Central European politics, he has published many articles on this subject as well as Slovaques et Tcheques (Lausanne, 1987). CAROL SKALNIK LEFF is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana. She is the author of National Conflict in Czechoslovakia: The Making and Remaking of a State, 1918-1987(Princeton, 1988). PAUL R. MAGOCSI is Professor of History and Political Science at the University of Toronto, where he holds the Chair in Ukrainian Studies. He is also Director of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario. He has published The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus', 1848-1948 (Cambridge, Mass: 1978) 146 SLOVAKIA and Our People: Carpatho-Rusyns and their Descendants in America (Toronto, 1984), and many other books and articles. SUSAN MIKULA is Professor of History and Chair of the Division of Humanities at Illinois Benedictine College in Lisle, Illinois. She specializes in 20th century Slovakia, has published several articles on this subject, and is preparing a study of Milan Hodfa. M. MARK STOLARIK is Professor of History and holder of the Chair in Slovak History and Culture at the University of Ottawa. He specializes in the history of Slovak immigration to North America, and has published widely in the field, including Growing Up on the South Side: Slovaks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 18801976 (Lewisburg, PA, 1985) and Immigration and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 1870-1918 (New York, 1989) . 148 SLOVAKIA GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPTS Manuscripts of articles should be sent to the editor. Articles should normally not exceed twenty-five pages in length, and should be submitted in triplicate, typed double-spaced, numbered, and placed at the end of the paper. Text and format should adhere to the style outlined in Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers. Proper orthography and diacritical marks must be supplied for all foreign words. If the article/review was composed on a computer, a copy of the disk used should be supplied as well. Manuscripts (and disks) will not be returned unless specifically requested and postage is provided. Books for review should be sent to the editor. Unsolicited book reviews are not encouraged. Individuals who wish to review books should request them from the editor. They should send a 'curriculum vitae' with their request. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA Organized in 1907 EDWARD J. BEHUNCIK, K.S.G., Honorary President JOHN A HOLY Secretary-Treasurer DANIEL F. TANZONE President JOSEPH J. TALAFOUS, Esq. Vice-President ANNE Z. SAROSY Vice-President MICHAL BUCKO Vice-President Executive Committee Daniel F. Tanzone, Edward J. Behuncik, John A Holy, Anna S. Granchay Joseph R. Kristofik, Steve J. Hruska, Cecilia Sarocky, Andrew F. Hudak, Jr., Joseph Stefka, Justine Wesnak, Edward A Zelenak, Anna M. Vizza, President, Ladies Auxiliary Patrick Zelenak Youth Director SLOVAK FRATERNAL ORGANIZATIONS AFFILIATED WITH THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA FIRST CATHOLIC SLOVAK LADIES ASSOCIATION Cleveland, Ohio FIRST CATHOLIC SLOVAK UNION OF THE U.S. AND CANADA Cleveland , Ohio SLOVAK CATHOLIC SOKOL Passaic, N.J. NATIONAL SLOVAK SOCIETY OF THE U.S.A. Pittsburgh, Pa. LADIES PENNSYLVANIA SLOVAK CATHOLIC UNION Wilkes-Barre, Pa. FIRST SLOVAK WREATH OF THE FREE EAGLE Bridgeport, Conn. SLOVAK NEWSPAPERMEN'S ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA THE SLOVAK GARDEN, INC. Winter Park, Florida SLOVAKIA $7.00 per issue Printed By SLOVAK PRINT, Reg. Montreal, Quebec Canada  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. 35 (No. 64-65) Description An account of the resource includes Contributors; Guidelines for Manuscripts Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-92 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/818242efd611985542705ab776577ba8.pdf a3b0dfe3e642679f62f9c236dd991acd PDF Text Text REVIEWS ��SLOVAKIA 125 Hugolfn Gavlovic . Valaska Skala . Edited with a commentary by Gerald J. Sabo, and a linguistic commentary by Cubomir Durovic . Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, 1987 (1988). 730 pp. JAN F. FRYDECKY Burnaby, British Columbia Hugolfn Gavlovic is one of the most important authors of the older Slovak literature. He was born in Cami Dunajec (in Poland) in 1712, grew up in northern Orava and lived in the Povazie region. In 1733 he was ordained a Franciscan priest and he died in 1787 in Horovce. Gavlovic's "Valaska skola" was finished in 1755. It is the largest work of the older Slovak literature, not only in length, but also because of its artistic value. It is a treasure of practical wisdom in which the author instructs the reader about all that interests him and what he needs in life. The author covers not only personal problems and private life, but also addresses public problems. It is in fact a didactic poem and Sabo has made an exact transcription of almost 18,000 lines with 27 illustrations. "Valaska skola" consists of an introduction in verses, then the main body of the poems in 22 "noty" (parts) and finally a two part "Konec": "On Death" and "On Judgement" . Every note begins with a shepherd's song about some biblical event of the Old Testament. Because 18th century society was very interested in sheepherding, every event was for the author a reason to think about the life of shepherds and peasants. Every note after a shepherd's song contains 59 moral exhortations. Durovic's excellent study (pp . 655-730) pays attention to the language of "V alaska skola". The real use and interest of this edition is linguistic. A previous edition by Michal Resetka (1830-31) left out some lines and transcribed the spelling into Bernolak's codification and so he ruined the rhymes and the whole construction of the work. The second edition by Rudolf Krajcovic (1971) presented the work as a literary monument of Slovak cultural history. His edition was substantially abbreviated. �126 SLOVAKIA Durovic shows that Gavlovic's language is half-way between the work of Pavel Dolefal's "Grammatica Slavico-Bohemica" (1746) and Anton Bernolak's "Gramatica slavica" (1790). The publishing of Gavlovic's "Shepherd's School" has enormous importance for Slovak cultural history of the 18th century. It was a precursor of Anton Bernolak's "Dissertatio philologico-critica de litteris Slavorum" (1787), which signaled the beginning of the codification of the Slovak language. Gavlovic's work was published on the occasion of the bicentennial of two important events in Slovak cultural history of the 18th century: the death of Hugolfn Gavlovic, and the publishing of the work of Anton bernolak. Gerald J. Sabo and I.:'ubomfr Durovic have contributed greatly to explaining the cultural history of Slovakia in the 18th century. Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations, Vols. I and 2, edited by Max Domarus. Waucondia, Illinois: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1990 and 1992. 611 pp. and 1367 pp. BRIAN L. VILLA University of Ottawa In 1945 the Allies were preparing to mete out severe justice, not just to Nazi Party members but to all Germans, arguing that they were guilty by complicity, by reason of having all heard Hitler's clearly articulated murderous program. This argument, which seemed persuasive in its day, is now something of an embarassment to historians, for it could also be turned against all the Western leaders who, after all, also had acces to Hitler's speeches and yet for many years indulged in appeasing him. For that matter, when Stalin made his pact with Hitler, he knew as much or more than the German public did of Hitler's intentions. There was another flaw in the argumentation and this was that Hitler mixed veiled threats and bombastic verbal terrorism with mild-sounding musings about peace and esctatic smiling at babies. �SLOVAKIA 127 Germans, and foreign observers , were thus faced with the problem of sorting out which was the real Hitler, and which was not. Yearning for a better world after the horrors of World War I, not suprisingly the hearts of this generation were ruled by wishful thinking. The consequences of Hitler's programme did not stand starkly revealed until May of 1945, as the world gazed on the lunar landscape of German cities. Most had failed miserably to perceive what his program entailed. But we will never be able to judge properly this issue of the public perception and misperception until we have a complete collection of all of Hitler's recorded utterances, public and private. Any selection prejudges the issue a bit. While the work by Max Domarus , of which the first two volumes in English translation are now in print, is a magnificentlycrafted and documented collection, it is still a selection and a number of speeches are represented only by a single sentence. Still, this is likely to be the most ambitious compilation we are likely to see in our lifetime. Accompanied by solid historical narrative and commentary, carefully documented and well-edited, this is an invaluable tool for the study of the Nazi era. Distateful as it is to put Hitler's speeches up upon the shelves of institutions devoted to truth, this is a mandatory purchase for almost any better library. Certainly it is necessary reading for those who would study the mad delusion of a nation, not to say of a generation. The picture that emerges in Domarus' masterful collection and skillful aditing is that of Hitler as a skilled concert-master calling upon the positive and the negative in his audience, blending, twisting, distorting, so that what had ever been true and false was imposible even to remember. A particularly notworthy revelation of these volumes is the brilliance with which Hitler's staff employed his time. Appearing here and there in a dizzying schedule, building a complex riddle, he climbed to power by purposefully confusing his audience. There is obviously a good book to be written about his handlers, his working staff, and how well they created the monster that eventually escaped so completely from their control. Such a study, as must almost any study of Hitler, will gain immeasurably from a careful study of this indispensable source. �128 SLOVAKIA Jozef Jablonicky. Povstanie bez legiend. Bratislava: Obzor, 1990. 357 pp. STANISLA V J. KIRSCHBAUM York University Those who are interested in a detailed account of the 1944 revolt in Slovakia will find this book useful. It is well-documented and well-writen. Furthermore, the author loses no opportunity to contradict in detail various interpretations that were published during Gustav Husak's regime. It is a valuable addition to Slovak historiography. However, the significance of Jozef Jablonicky" s book lies not so much in the history of what the Communist regime and Marxist historians dubbed the "Slovak National Uprising", as in the reasons why yet another book on those events was published, especially after the fall of Communism in 1989. In fact, this book belongs to the Communist period; it is in its own way a reflection of it. That it was published when freedom of the press was restored merely helps to underline this very fact. As the publishers indicate in the foreword: "The author does not deny that in today's changed social and political conditions, he would formulate many things differently, more openly and more directly; however, he preferred to publish his work as it had been written, under conditions when the opportunity for scientific discussion was replaced by police interrogations" (p. 7). Jablonicky is one of the scholars of the 1960s who published histories of the 1944 events (for example, Z ilegality do povstania, 1969; there are also memoirs, Husak's in particular, and edited volumes) in response to the distorted accounts of the 1950s. However, his writings, like most from the Communist period were hampered either by restricted access to documents, by censorship, or by both. When Husak came to power in 1969, in the footsteps of his predecessors, but also perhaps because he had been the object of earlier falsification himself, he began to alter the historical record, or put simply to falsify history. Jablonicky found that once again he �SLOVAKIA 129 had to set the record straight, a task for which he paid a personal pnce. He became a 'persona non grata' under Husak, was expelled from the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciencies in 1974, and from 1976 on was subjected to police harassment, or, as he put it, "primitive persecution". Even though his manuscripts were confiscated, he continued to write and to do research on the topic of the 1944 events. In 1984 the Husak regime published the fivevolume series Dejiny Slovenskeho narodneho povstania. As Jablonicky writes: "I considered it my professional responsibility to counter this literature critically. However, I also tried not to repeat my own errors and defects which are to be found in my earlier works" (p. 9) . His response began to appear in "samizdat" in 1988; this volume is that response. There is one theme that this study does not examine, namely the importance of the 1944 events in Slovak history. There is no doubt that they had far-reaching consequences for the Slovak nation . Jablonicky tells us how they happened, but not why. Nor does he explain their ultimate consequences. One can understand why they were celebrated under Communism: they gave the regime some sort of legitimacy. But that regime has now disappeared, as has the outcome which the 1944 revolt produced: the common state with the Czechs. This begs the question of their role and importance even more than before. For the moment, Jablonicky has chosen to eschew such questions. Yet as a professional historian, now able to express himself freely, he should accept the fact that he has a responsibility greater than that of merely chronicling these events. Others will no doubt tackle these questions; were Jablonicky also to do so, the history of the 1944 events might yet be written without any legends. �130 SLOVAKIA Bohus Chnoupek, A Breaking of Seals: The French Resistance in Slovakia. New York: Pergammon Press, 1988. XI-97 pp. R. VLADIMIR BAUMGARTEN Tallahassee, Florida This short work deals with a little-known aspect of Slovak and World War II history. French prisoners-of-war, escaping from camps in Germany and Hungary, made their way to Slovakia and were sheltered by the Slovak Resistance. Led by Lieutenant Georges Barazar de Lannurien, these Frenchmen fought as part of the Stefanik Brigade in the uprising of 1944. The Stefanik Brigade was under Soviet partisan command, while the Czechoslovak General Staff in Banska Bystrica insisted that the French be subordinate to its own command structure. De Lannurien's unit was able to exploit this jurisdictional dispute, gain concessions from both sides, and assure for itself a measure of operational independence. The French partisans were instrumental in thwarting the German drive on Strecno in September 1944 and aided in the recapture of Janeva Lehota. After the German suppresion of the uprising in October, de Lannurien's Frenchmen - along with Slovak soldiers and Soviet partisans - retreated into the Tatras and continued resisting as guerrillas. They were joyfully greeted by advancing Soviet forces in February 1945 and were at last permitted to return home. The author's narrative is supplemented by the accounts of partisans who remembered the Frenchmen. The introduction mentions that the author was appointed Czechoslovak Ambassador to the Soviet Union and became Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1971. As a Husak"s appointee, Chnoupek rather naturally treats the Slovak National Rising as a popular event. Correspondingly, the Slovak Republic is labelled as a "fascist state". Supporters of the Tiso regime maintain that the president-priest never signed any death warrants. Chnoupek, however, alludes to death sentences being passed in absentia on deserters from the Eastern front. �SLOVAKIA 131 Yet Chiioupek inadvertedly extends some credit to the Slovak state in the case of Ga~par Maco. Maco refused to heed his call-up orders for the Slovak Army in September 1939, proceeded to France, and served in the Czechoslovak Legion within the French Army. After France's military collapse in 1940, Maco returned to Slovakia and was arrested. The author admits that Maco's youth and frank confession were taken as "mitigating circumstances" (p. 49), and he was given only a six-month sentence. Moreover, he was released one month early for health reasons. Such leniency would not have been forthcoming in the Reichsprotectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, which was under direct Nazi domination. Despite the author's diplomatic backround, his narrative is written in a plain, even folksy style. Interactions between French and Slovak partisans are treated as frequently humorous and occasionally poignant. Especially noteworthy is the description of Christmas Eve 1944, when Slovak partisans invited their French comrades to join them in celebration. This invitation was practical as well as idealistic: The French had captured a herd of sheep from a retreating Hungarian detachment, and now had meat to spare. The Frenchmen were asked to sing the Marseillaise; they did so to the acoustical backround of Soviet artillery, as the front was drawing near. Unknown to them, on the previous day in liberated Paris, General de Gaulle approved de Lannurien's promotion. Given the author's ideological affiliation, it is sometimes easy to forget that Slovak Communists were themselves dissidents during the Novotny years, when many aspects of the Slovak uprising were considered taboo topics. Chnoupek's research was given only the briefest coverage in the newspapers for the tenth anniversary of the uprising. Years later, while laying a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Warrior at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, he was warmly greeted by French veterans of the Slovak partisan struggle. It was then that Chnoupek decided to continue his work and affect a "breaking of seals". The work is the author's own contribution to improved East-West relations. But Chnoupek nontheless conforms to the historiographical standards of Husak's Czechoslovakia, characterized by glaring omis- �132 SLOVAKIA sions of anything potentially embarrassing. Soviet partisan commander Peter Velitchko is depicted in an altogether favorable light, notwithstanding the fact that his rash actions brought full-scale German intervention, caused the rising to be launched prematurely, and thus resulted in tragic consequences. Soviet historians describe this occurance as unfortunate, but they have yet to account for their country's role in it. In post-Husak Czechoslovakia, a more genuine "breaking of seals" regarding topics concerning the 1944 revolt is at last possible. Proces s dr. J. Tisom: Spomienky obialobcu Antona Raslu a obhajcu Ernesta Zabkayho. Edited by Jan Smolec. Bratislava: Tatrapress, 1990. 254 pp. JAMES R. FELAK University of Washington Concomitant with the current revival of national feelings in Slovakia is a reevaluation of those figures from the Slovak past who were either ignored or vilified during the communist era. Most noteworthy among such figures is Jozef Tiso, the president of the wartime Slovak Republic who was executed as a war criminal in 1947. Process dr. J. Tisom, Spomienky obialobcu Antona Raslu a obhajcu Ernesta Zabkayho, is an important contribution to that reevaluation. The book consists of the memoirs of Anton Rasla, one of the prosecutors at Tiso's trial, and Ernest Zabkay, Tiso's chief defense attorney. In addition to the reminiscences of these men, the book includes excerpts from their concluding speeches at Tiso's trial , as well as the text of the trial's verdict. In Zabkay's testimony, two important assertions dominate - that Tiso did not receive a fair trial and that Tiso was not guilty as charged. In support of his first assertion, Zabkay cites the political nature of the trial , the open bias agains Tiso of the presiding judge, Igor Daxner, the denial of certain documentation to the defense, and the harassment of defense lawyers by the police, prompting one �SLOVAKIA 133 defender to resign. In Tiso's defense, Zabkay portrays him as a victim of circumstances who could not withstand the irresistible pressure from Nazi Germany nor control her allies in the radical wing of his own party, who either did not know about or was unable to prevent the atrocities commited under his regime, and whose close relations with Hitler's Germany were a matter of necessity, the only way to preserve his small nation from a Hungarian or German occupation. Rasla, who believes that Tiso was indeed guilty of war crimes, nevertheless has sharp words for Daxner and for the prosecution's approach during the trial. Against Rasla's recommendation that the prosecution limit its attention to Tiso's wartime collaboration with Hitler and his role in the crimes against humanity, the prosecution pursued a number of dubious charges, for example, that Tiso supported the interests of Horthyite Hungary. Such charges helped damage the trial's credibility in the eyes of the Slovak public. Proces s dr. J. Tisom leaves us with some important considerations for a reevaluation of Tiso. First, the historian must be careful to distinguish between the moral responsibility and the legal responsisbility of his subject, keeping both in mind but avoiding the conflation of the two that one so often finds in issues concerning war crimes. Second, there is a need to exonerate Tiso where exoneration is due, that is, to avoid reading his wartime collaboration with the Nazis back into the prewar past. For example, it is both untrue and unjust to charge Tiso, as his prosecutors did, with deliberately seeking the destruction of the First Czechoslovak Republic in accordance with Nazi plans in the years preceding the Munich Agreement. Third, there is a need to condemn Tiso where condemnation is due - as the head of a state that deported tens of thousands of Jews to the Third Reich, who gave a violently anti-Semitic speech at the height of the Holocaust, who was one of only sixteen people to receive Nazi Germany's highest decoration, and who, in a case of perverse moral reasoning, professed that Slovakia was fighting on Hitler's side in the Second World War for the "honor of the Slovak nation". �134 SLOVAKIA Owing to the emotions and political pressures of the immediate post-war period, Jozef Tiso did not receive a fair trial. A reevaluation of his trial and his place in Slovak history is long overdue, and the memoirs of Rasla and Zabkay are a welcome step in this direction. Nevertheless, given the current nationalist passions in Slovakia, an objective evaluation of Tiso in his native land may be difficult to realize for some time to come. Athanasius B. Pekar, OSBM, The History of the Church in Carpathian Rus'. New York: East European Monographs, Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1992. Lii - 296pp. KEITH P. DYRUD Concordia College St. Paul, Minnesota This book was originally published in Ukrainian in 1967. It was translated by Marta Skorupsky as part of a series of "Classics of Carpatho-Rusyn Scholarship" coordinated by Patricia A. Krafcik and Paul Robert Magocsi. The History of the Church in Carpathian Rus' is primarily an ecclesiastical history, but it also provides enough political and social context to allow a secular historian to place the· work in the more familiar secular framework. Pekar focused his attention on the Greek Catholic Church in Sub-Carpathian Rus' (Northeastern Hungary until 1918). His study began with the "union" movement which culminated with the Union of Uzhorod in 1646. Pekar gave even coverage to each period, bringing it up to the post-World War II era with a final chapter: "In the Immigration" which examined the history of the Greek Catholic Church in the United States. The author had acces to special collections not readily available to secular scholars, especially, the Archivum Secretum Vatican um (Secret Archive of the Vatican). He has treated those sources with a proper historian's respect so that other historians may feel confident �SLOVAKIA 135 in citing his work, but he also approached his topic with an obvious Vatican perspective or bias. Pekar was very critical of the Slovaks. This bias is curious and revealing. The Slovaks have a long history of cooperating with the Rusyns as they jointly resisted Magyarization. It is true that some contemporary Slovaks in the 1960s pressured Rusyns in Eastern Slovakia to identify with the Slovak national movement, but contemporary everits should not distort a historian's analysis of past cooperation. Pekar suggested that the Vatican was constantly fighting to protect the Uniate Church. These attempts were only partially successful in both Hungary and in America. In both places the Latin Church won considerable advantages over the Uniate Church. In his discussion of the Greek Catholic Church in America with its many defections, Pekar was critical of the American bishops for demanding a single rite, the Hungarian government for resisting Leo XIII's efforts to unite the Galician and Sub-Carpathian Rusyns into a single diocese in America, and the leaders of the Greek Catholic Union for resisting the guidance of Rome as the Vatican demanded changes in the Greek Catholic rite. The people, whom Pekar viewed as sheep, reacted against any affront to their rite, and the Greek Catholic Union provided them with the organization necessary to stand up to the forces that would deprive them of those traditions. Pekar's treatment of the actors as villains and heroes , accounts for the greatest weakness of his work. The Vatican was not always the hero. This reviewer would suggest that the Vatican compliantly yielded to Latin Church interest at the expense of the Uniate Church in both Hungary and in America. Pekar also treated the Rusyns as sheep in need of a shepherd. Such an attitude has been traditional with Rome, but it shows disregard for people and democratic principles, and occasionally turns heroes into villians. �136 SLOVAKIA Volodymyr Fedynysynec', Our Peaceful Rusyn Way: Two Essays. Presov: Rusinska Obroda, 1992. 110 pp. PATRICIA A. KRAFCIK Evergreen State College Olympia, Washington Our Peaceful Rusyn Way is a slim volume containing two lenghty essays by Subcarpathian poet and writer Volodymir Fedynysynec'. These essays reflect the author's perception of the current status of the Rusyn national revival in Europe, particularly in Transcarpathian Ukraine. The first, "Be a Rusyn So That Rusyns Will Survive", describes the enormous impact of the scholarly work of Dr. Paul R. Magocsi and the First World Congress of Rusyns (March 1991) on Rusyn historical awareness and revival. Fedynysynec' calls this essay his "objective and subjective notes and reflections" on both the congress and a scholarly seminar on Rusyns held in Uzhorod prior to the congress. In the second, "I am a Rusyn, My Son is a Rusyn: Some Social and Literary Dreams of a Rusyn Writer", Fedynysynec' discusses the significance of the nineteenthcentury Rusyn national awakener, Alexander Duchnovic, and why the creation of a new standard literary language is the key to the survival of Rusyns as a people. Fedynysynec' was born in 1943 and raised in the Rusynspeaking Carpathian mountain village of Repynne in the central region of Subcarpathian Rus', a former autonomous region of Czechoslovakia forcibly annexed to the Ukrainian SSR by Stalin in 1945. He was subsequently acculturated as an Ukrainian after the Soviet regime officialy declared all Rusyns in the region to be Ukrainians. Graduating with a degree in Ukrainian language and literature from Uzhorod State University in 1966, he worked as a journalist and also as a researcher at the Museum of Ethnography in Uzhorod. He has been a member of the Union of Writers of Ukraine since 1983. Until recently he was a member of the executive board of the Society of Subcarpathian Rusyns, established in Uzhorod in �SLOVAKIA 137 1990, and was founding editor of the organization's weekly newspaper, Podkarpatska Rus'. Fedynysynec' has also published several volumes of poetry in Ukrainian. To appreciate fully the value of Fedynysynec's inspiration and insights, the reader should understand that the Rusyn movement in Central Europe (Poland's Lemko Region, Eastern Slovakia's Presov Region, Transcarpathian Ukraine, and former Yugoslavia's historic Backa Region) is genuine and flourishing. The nineteenth-century process of national awakening and struggle which led to the formation of sovereign Central European states was, in the Rusyns' case, impeded by many factors. Only now are significant elements of that process occurring among the Rusyns, such as the establishment of a standard literary language, the publication of literature and historical texts, and public recognition of Rusyns as a distinct people. These are all addressed in Fedynysynec's essays. In approaching these essays, one ought to remember that Fedynysynec' is first and foremost a poet who experienced psychological and national repression under the totalitarian Soviet regime. Although known as a Ukrainian writer and poet, he never lost an elemental awareness of his Rusyn identity. This theme resonates ecstatically throughout the two essays: "I am a Rusyn ! We are Rusyns! And we will be Rusyns forever!", "And I don't have to look around me at those who will whisper curses at me. I can even shout above the Beskyds: I am a Rusyn!" Although informative, the essays are clearly not intended as historical or scholarly treatises. Fedynysynec' speaks rather with the passionate voice of an inspired poet and the vigor of an enlightened Rusyn patriot. His prose sometimes verges on stream-of-consciousness and his view of history occasionally borders on the romantic, such as his insistence that "Rusynism is two thousand years old". In the wake of the Gorbachev era, which he acknowledges as a fresh and liberating age, he recognizes a first-time opportunity to speak out on such forbidden subjects as national roots and pride: "Rusyn feelings have made their presence known ... like a kind of whirling sea within shores that were too narrow." What readers might lose in strictly historical fact, they gain through his psycho- �138 SLOVAKIA logical and emotional insight into the reality of a people who were held under a curse of silence for the past 45 years. The floodgates have opened and Fedynysynec's essays seem to pour forth expressing all the vitality of the Rusyn national movement. Fedynysynec' wrote his essays in Ukrainian (he has begun writing seriously in Rusyn only in the past two years). They appear here in the Presov Region Rusyn dialect and in Slovak and English translations. The book is neatly formated , with only a few minor misprints, and is the first publication of Rusfnska Obroda (The Rusyn Renaissance Society) based in Presov . The volume of contemporary literature on Rusyns is growing. Students of Slavic and ethnic studies can only hope that Rusfnska Obroda and other publishing enterprises will undertake to make Rusyn literature available both in the original language and in English translation to reach as wide an audience as possible. Norma Rudinsky, Incipient Feminists: Women Writers in the Slovak National Revival. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, 19'Jl. 285pp, and That Alluring Land: Slovak Stories by Timrava. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992. XVI-320 pp. MARIA FURIMSKY-LACKOV A Ottawa, Canada These two recently-published books by Norma L. Rudinsky are very welcome for several reasons: apart from dealing with topics which complement each other, both books provide a rare opportunity to read works of Slovak literature in probably the best translations available in the English language. Both describe the interesting place of Slovak women in the national movement at the tum of the 19th century and, most importantly, both fill a gap, at least partially, in the field of Slavic scholarship in North America. The first book is part history and part anthology. According to Rudinsky, it was initialy intended to be only an introduction for the second book, consisting of a translation of six stories by Slovak �SLOVAKIA 139 writer Bozena Slancikova, who published her prose fiction under the pen name Timrava. However, it became a close study of journal articles, letters and poetry showing nationalism and feminism among the Slovaks in Austria-Hungary. The desperate position of Slovak women is traced here in three parts and six chapters. The first part deals with "Woman As Inspiration" in poetic works of Slovak male writers Jan Kollar, Jan Holy, Janko Kraf and Andrej Sladkovic, among others. The second part, titled "Women As Help", describes Slovak women as founders of women's nationalist organizations and magazines, and in the third part "Women As Women" they are depicted as incipient feminist writers of the turn of the century. Heroines of Elena Soltesova, the schoolteacher spinsters of Cudmila Podjavorinska and Timrava's fighting and agonizing female characters are proud and obstinate, consumed by hopeless love and passion. They are compared by Rudinsky to the reform heroins of English and American novelists, such as Jane Austin. Especially interesting is the Appendix of 123 poems in Slovak, formerly scattered in short-lived journals or manuscripts, and collected by Marianna Prfdavkova-Minarikova of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. These poems range from a moralistic hymn in 1798 exhorting young ladies to beware of seducers, to several poems in the 1860s and 1870s equating the nation with a human lover and resolving to became a mystical bride of the nation. Available biographical data of Slovak poets, though many are still not fully indentified, are given in English. Two long essays advocating women's education are translated in full from Slovak into English and frequent comparision is made to Czech, Croatian and Magyar nationalist movements. At the end of the book is a thorough index and useful bibliography. Incipient Feminists is a very carefully-edited book with only a few misprints: e. g. the word "interesting" has an "m" in it (second line of preface); "Klastor pod Zvievom", (p. 40), should be " ... Znievom", and some diacritical marks are missing, e.g. on "zvlasr'' (p. 128). The actual names of the "two small towns in southeast Slovakia" where Timrava lived her whole life and which appear in her more than fifty stories and novellas, may also be of interest to �140 SLOVAKIA the readers. They are Polichno and Abelova. The same applies to Terezia Medvecka Vansova who "lived most of her life in a small town in southern Slovakia" (p. 89). This small town was and still is just a little village of a few hundred people and is called Rimavska Pfla. In Vansova's works it is called simply Pila, Pila pri Tisovci, or Pila v Gemeri. Here she lived from 1882 to 1911 and wrote most of her variety of sketches, tales, biographical pieces, memoirs and several plays. As well, she published there her journal for Slovak women called "Dennica". The second book, consisting of Rudinsky's excellent English translations of six of Timrava's Slovak stories written at the tum of the century, shows remarkably strong female characters desiring to assert their rights against many unfavourable odds. In "The Assistant Teacher" (from the Diary of a Young Lady)", written in 1896, Timrava deals with the financial and social necessity of a good marriage. In the second story titled "Battle" and written in 1900, the heroine rebels against the necessity of a marriage of convenience, albeit still only inwardly. This and other similar stories of rebellion placed Timrava among Slovak critical realists. The third story, "That Alluring Land", from 1907 depicts how the power of money and property takes control of human lives. This story also represents the true reason why many Slovaks emigrated to North America: not to search for instant wealth, but to avoid unemployment, political repression, famine and other basic afflictions in Austria-Hungary at the tum of the century. Mothers usually stayed home to take care of their children and the existing household. In 1911 Timrava wrote "No Joy at All" about the effect that the materialistic obsession with property can have on a family and how it could interfere with the love of two people. The backward village life that existed into the twentieth century in Slovakia is well depicted in "The fapak Clan" written in 1914. The living conditions of fapak's family are depicted probably more darkly than existed in reality in most village families at that time, but Timrava wanted to point out that such extremities existed indeed. The last story of the book "Great War Heroes", written around 1918, is Timrava's antiwar novella, which shows how unjust all wars are. It shows, not �SLOVAKIA 141 only the men as the false "heroes", but also the women and how they become corrupted by the war. This story is Timrava's condemnation of World War One. All six stories depict Slovak women in transition: from obedience without questioning, to clearly understood and expressed rebellion. Timrava's stories depict the castes and culture and the way of life of one segment of Slovak society at the tum of the century, with all its irony and tough realism, making her work invaluable for those who are interested in Slovakia and its past. Jan Simko, English-Slovak Dictionary. Waucondia, Illinois and Senica, Slovakia: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers and RESS spol. s.r.o., 1991. 1443 pp . LOUISE B. HAMMER Indiana University The arrival of Jan Simko's English-Slovak Dictionary in bookstores in the summer of 1991 was a happy event. This dictionary was first published in Slovakia in 1967, and was reissued there in 1968 and 1971. It has been unavailable since that last printing sold out. It has now been published with corrections, but without additions . The physical quality of this book is excellent. It is hardbound, and small enough to handle comfortably . Each page has two columns and the print is large and easy to read. Since the intended user of the dictionary is a native speaker of Slovak, the introductory remarks are in Slovak, as are the abbreviations. The English entry or headword appears in large bold face type flush left to the margin of the collumn. It is followed by a phonetic transcription in square brackets, then the Slovak equivalents are listed. All main entries appear in a single alphabetical list in strict sequence of spelling. English words are written in italic type. The English-speaking user of the dictionary will not need to refer to the phonetic transcriptions of the English entries in order to learn their pronunciations, but it is �142 SLOVAKIA interesting to note that although British pronunciation is used as a basic one, both the British and the American versions are given when they differ markedly, e.g., "tomato" (p. 1250). When different words are used in American and British English for commonplace terms, both are given in this dictionary, e.g. "elevator" (p. 318) and "lift" (p. 648) vffah. These are just two examples of the thoroughness and careful scholarship that characterize this dictionary. If the entry word is used in more than one grammatical form or category (if it belongs to more than one part-of-speech), the entry is clustered or nested so that the usage is designated in the following way: the boldface numeral 1 is followed by the appropriate part-ofspeech in smaller typeface, the primary and secondary meanings are given, and this process continues for the other parts-of-speech. For example, if the first usage is a noun (podstatne meno, abbreviated podst.), and the second as a verb (sloveso, abbreviated s1. or nepravidelne sloveso, abbreviated n. s1., which means an English irregular verb), it would appear in the following way: break [breik] 1. podst. 1. zlomenie, zlomenina 2. trhlina, puklina, etc. 2. n. sl. to~ 1. (po)lamaf (sa), zlomif (sa), rozbif (sa) etc. On the stylistic level, words may be designated as colloquial (hovorove, which is abbreviated as hovor.), e.g. that's great! to je skvele, dobre; slang (slangove, which is abbreviated slg.), e.g., American slang, buck dolar, bookish (knitne); poetic and archaic (basnicke and zastarane'); and dialectal. In this book, dialectal refers to dialects of English, e. g. American, Scottish or Irish. One of the most important features of this dictionary is the wealth of commonly used and idiomatic phrases that it contains. These phrases are placed after the basic definitions, and are designated by a boldface centered dot, e.g. • at the back of one's mind, v podvedomf (p. 41); • hungry as a hunter, hladnf ako vllc (p. 556); • a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, Jepsf vrabec v hrsti ako holub na streche (p. 108); • this argument does not hold water, tento argument neobstojf, je nelogickf (al. nespravny, nedosledny) (p. 540). The inclusion of many prepositional phrases in the examples is a valuable aid to students of the Slovak language �SLOVAKIA 143 who frequently make errors in choosing the proper prepositions and cases, e.g. at reduced prices, za znfiene ceny (p. 990); to climb up a ladder, ( vy)liezt'po rebn1w (p. 1313) and many , many more . Dr. Simko's dictionary is a solid scholarly work, which has been compiled in accordance with modem lexicographical principles. It is a valuable resource for both specialists and students. This dictionary should be added to the reference sections of our libraries, and to the collections of our Slovak organizations. �� REVIEWS ��SLOVAKIA 125 Hugolfn Gavlovic . Valaska Skala . Edited with a commentary by Gerald J. Sabo, and a linguistic commentary by Cubomir Durovic . Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, 1987 (1988). 730 pp. JAN F. FRYDECKY Burnaby, British Columbia Hugolfn Gavlovic is one of the most important authors of the older Slovak literature. He was born in Cami Dunajec (in Poland) in 1712, grew up in northern Orava and lived in the Povazie region. In 1733 he was ordained a Franciscan priest and he died in 1787 in Horovce. Gavlovic's "Valaska skola" was finished in 1755. It is the largest work of the older Slovak literature, not only in length, but also because of its artistic value. It is a treasure of practical wisdom in which the author instructs the reader about all that interests him and what he needs in life. The author covers not only personal problems and private life, but also addresses public problems. It is in fact a didactic poem and Sabo has made an exact transcription of almost 18,000 lines with 27 illustrations. "Valaska skola" consists of an introduction in verses, then the main body of the poems in 22 "noty" (parts) and finally a two part "Konec": "On Death" and "On Judgement" . Every note begins with a shepherd's song about some biblical event of the Old Testament. Because 18th century society was very interested in sheepherding, every event was for the author a reason to think about the life of shepherds and peasants. Every note after a shepherd's song contains 59 moral exhortations. Durovic's excellent study (pp . 655-730) pays attention to the language of "V alaska skola". The real use and interest of this edition is linguistic. A previous edition by Michal Resetka (1830-31) left out some lines and transcribed the spelling into Bernolak's codification and so he ruined the rhymes and the whole construction of the work. The second edition by Rudolf Krajcovic (1971) presented the work as a literary monument of Slovak cultural history. His edition was substantially abbreviated. �126 SLOVAKIA Durovic shows that Gavlovic's language is half-way between the work of Pavel Dolefal's "Grammatica Slavico-Bohemica" (1746) and Anton Bernolak's "Gramatica slavica" (1790). The publishing of Gavlovic's "Shepherd's School" has enormous importance for Slovak cultural history of the 18th century. It was a precursor of Anton Bernolak's "Dissertatio philologico-critica de litteris Slavorum" (1787), which signaled the beginning of the codification of the Slovak language. Gavlovic's work was published on the occasion of the bicentennial of two important events in Slovak cultural history of the 18th century: the death of Hugolfn Gavlovic, and the publishing of the work of Anton bernolak. Gerald J. Sabo and I.:'ubomfr Durovic have contributed greatly to explaining the cultural history of Slovakia in the 18th century. Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations, Vols. I and 2, edited by Max Domarus. Waucondia, Illinois: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1990 and 1992. 611 pp. and 1367 pp. BRIAN L. VILLA University of Ottawa In 1945 the Allies were preparing to mete out severe justice, not just to Nazi Party members but to all Germans, arguing that they were guilty by complicity, by reason of having all heard Hitler's clearly articulated murderous program. This argument, which seemed persuasive in its day, is now something of an embarassment to historians, for it could also be turned against all the Western leaders who, after all, also had acces to Hitler's speeches and yet for many years indulged in appeasing him. For that matter, when Stalin made his pact with Hitler, he knew as much or more than the German public did of Hitler's intentions. There was another flaw in the argumentation and this was that Hitler mixed veiled threats and bombastic verbal terrorism with mild-sounding musings about peace and esctatic smiling at babies. �SLOVAKIA 127 Germans, and foreign observers , were thus faced with the problem of sorting out which was the real Hitler, and which was not. Yearning for a better world after the horrors of World War I, not suprisingly the hearts of this generation were ruled by wishful thinking. The consequences of Hitler's programme did not stand starkly revealed until May of 1945, as the world gazed on the lunar landscape of German cities. Most had failed miserably to perceive what his program entailed. But we will never be able to judge properly this issue of the public perception and misperception until we have a complete collection of all of Hitler's recorded utterances, public and private. Any selection prejudges the issue a bit. While the work by Max Domarus , of which the first two volumes in English translation are now in print, is a magnificentlycrafted and documented collection, it is still a selection and a number of speeches are represented only by a single sentence. Still, this is likely to be the most ambitious compilation we are likely to see in our lifetime. Accompanied by solid historical narrative and commentary, carefully documented and well-edited, this is an invaluable tool for the study of the Nazi era. Distateful as it is to put Hitler's speeches up upon the shelves of institutions devoted to truth, this is a mandatory purchase for almost any better library. Certainly it is necessary reading for those who would study the mad delusion of a nation, not to say of a generation. The picture that emerges in Domarus' masterful collection and skillful aditing is that of Hitler as a skilled concert-master calling upon the positive and the negative in his audience, blending, twisting, distorting, so that what had ever been true and false was imposible even to remember. A particularly notworthy revelation of these volumes is the brilliance with which Hitler's staff employed his time. Appearing here and there in a dizzying schedule, building a complex riddle, he climbed to power by purposefully confusing his audience. There is obviously a good book to be written about his handlers, his working staff, and how well they created the monster that eventually escaped so completely from their control. Such a study, as must almost any study of Hitler, will gain immeasurably from a careful study of this indispensable source. �128 SLOVAKIA Jozef Jablonicky. Povstanie bez legiend. Bratislava: Obzor, 1990. 357 pp. STANISLA V J. KIRSCHBAUM York University Those who are interested in a detailed account of the 1944 revolt in Slovakia will find this book useful. It is well-documented and well-writen. Furthermore, the author loses no opportunity to contradict in detail various interpretations that were published during Gustav Husak's regime. It is a valuable addition to Slovak historiography. However, the significance of Jozef Jablonicky" s book lies not so much in the history of what the Communist regime and Marxist historians dubbed the "Slovak National Uprising", as in the reasons why yet another book on those events was published, especially after the fall of Communism in 1989. In fact, this book belongs to the Communist period; it is in its own way a reflection of it. That it was published when freedom of the press was restored merely helps to underline this very fact. As the publishers indicate in the foreword: "The author does not deny that in today's changed social and political conditions, he would formulate many things differently, more openly and more directly; however, he preferred to publish his work as it had been written, under conditions when the opportunity for scientific discussion was replaced by police interrogations" (p. 7). Jablonicky is one of the scholars of the 1960s who published histories of the 1944 events (for example, Z ilegality do povstania, 1969; there are also memoirs, Husak's in particular, and edited volumes) in response to the distorted accounts of the 1950s. However, his writings, like most from the Communist period were hampered either by restricted access to documents, by censorship, or by both. When Husak came to power in 1969, in the footsteps of his predecessors, but also perhaps because he had been the object of earlier falsification himself, he began to alter the historical record, or put simply to falsify history. Jablonicky found that once again he �SLOVAKIA 129 had to set the record straight, a task for which he paid a personal pnce. He became a 'persona non grata' under Husak, was expelled from the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciencies in 1974, and from 1976 on was subjected to police harassment, or, as he put it, "primitive persecution". Even though his manuscripts were confiscated, he continued to write and to do research on the topic of the 1944 events. In 1984 the Husak regime published the fivevolume series Dejiny Slovenskeho narodneho povstania. As Jablonicky writes: "I considered it my professional responsibility to counter this literature critically. However, I also tried not to repeat my own errors and defects which are to be found in my earlier works" (p. 9) . His response began to appear in "samizdat" in 1988; this volume is that response. There is one theme that this study does not examine, namely the importance of the 1944 events in Slovak history. There is no doubt that they had far-reaching consequences for the Slovak nation . Jablonicky tells us how they happened, but not why. Nor does he explain their ultimate consequences. One can understand why they were celebrated under Communism: they gave the regime some sort of legitimacy. But that regime has now disappeared, as has the outcome which the 1944 revolt produced: the common state with the Czechs. This begs the question of their role and importance even more than before. For the moment, Jablonicky has chosen to eschew such questions. Yet as a professional historian, now able to express himself freely, he should accept the fact that he has a responsibility greater than that of merely chronicling these events. Others will no doubt tackle these questions; were Jablonicky also to do so, the history of the 1944 events might yet be written without any legends. �130 SLOVAKIA Bohus Chnoupek, A Breaking of Seals: The French Resistance in Slovakia. New York: Pergammon Press, 1988. XI-97 pp. R. VLADIMIR BAUMGARTEN Tallahassee, Florida This short work deals with a little-known aspect of Slovak and World War II history. French prisoners-of-war, escaping from camps in Germany and Hungary, made their way to Slovakia and were sheltered by the Slovak Resistance. Led by Lieutenant Georges Barazar de Lannurien, these Frenchmen fought as part of the Stefanik Brigade in the uprising of 1944. The Stefanik Brigade was under Soviet partisan command, while the Czechoslovak General Staff in Banska Bystrica insisted that the French be subordinate to its own command structure. De Lannurien's unit was able to exploit this jurisdictional dispute, gain concessions from both sides, and assure for itself a measure of operational independence. The French partisans were instrumental in thwarting the German drive on Strecno in September 1944 and aided in the recapture of Janeva Lehota. After the German suppresion of the uprising in October, de Lannurien's Frenchmen - along with Slovak soldiers and Soviet partisans - retreated into the Tatras and continued resisting as guerrillas. They were joyfully greeted by advancing Soviet forces in February 1945 and were at last permitted to return home. The author's narrative is supplemented by the accounts of partisans who remembered the Frenchmen. The introduction mentions that the author was appointed Czechoslovak Ambassador to the Soviet Union and became Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1971. As a Husak"s appointee, Chnoupek rather naturally treats the Slovak National Rising as a popular event. Correspondingly, the Slovak Republic is labelled as a "fascist state". Supporters of the Tiso regime maintain that the president-priest never signed any death warrants. Chnoupek, however, alludes to death sentences being passed in absentia on deserters from the Eastern front. �SLOVAKIA 131 Yet Chiioupek inadvertedly extends some credit to the Slovak state in the case of Ga~par Maco. Maco refused to heed his call-up orders for the Slovak Army in September 1939, proceeded to France, and served in the Czechoslovak Legion within the French Army. After France's military collapse in 1940, Maco returned to Slovakia and was arrested. The author admits that Maco's youth and frank confession were taken as "mitigating circumstances" (p. 49), and he was given only a six-month sentence. Moreover, he was released one month early for health reasons. Such leniency would not have been forthcoming in the Reichsprotectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, which was under direct Nazi domination. Despite the author's diplomatic backround, his narrative is written in a plain, even folksy style. Interactions between French and Slovak partisans are treated as frequently humorous and occasionally poignant. Especially noteworthy is the description of Christmas Eve 1944, when Slovak partisans invited their French comrades to join them in celebration. This invitation was practical as well as idealistic: The French had captured a herd of sheep from a retreating Hungarian detachment, and now had meat to spare. The Frenchmen were asked to sing the Marseillaise; they did so to the acoustical backround of Soviet artillery, as the front was drawing near. Unknown to them, on the previous day in liberated Paris, General de Gaulle approved de Lannurien's promotion. Given the author's ideological affiliation, it is sometimes easy to forget that Slovak Communists were themselves dissidents during the Novotny years, when many aspects of the Slovak uprising were considered taboo topics. Chnoupek's research was given only the briefest coverage in the newspapers for the tenth anniversary of the uprising. Years later, while laying a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Warrior at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, he was warmly greeted by French veterans of the Slovak partisan struggle. It was then that Chnoupek decided to continue his work and affect a "breaking of seals". The work is the author's own contribution to improved East-West relations. But Chnoupek nontheless conforms to the historiographical standards of Husak's Czechoslovakia, characterized by glaring omis- �132 SLOVAKIA sions of anything potentially embarrassing. Soviet partisan commander Peter Velitchko is depicted in an altogether favorable light, notwithstanding the fact that his rash actions brought full-scale German intervention, caused the rising to be launched prematurely, and thus resulted in tragic consequences. Soviet historians describe this occurance as unfortunate, but they have yet to account for their country's role in it. In post-Husak Czechoslovakia, a more genuine "breaking of seals" regarding topics concerning the 1944 revolt is at last possible. Proces s dr. J. Tisom: Spomienky obialobcu Antona Raslu a obhajcu Ernesta Zabkayho. Edited by Jan Smolec. Bratislava: Tatrapress, 1990. 254 pp. JAMES R. FELAK University of Washington Concomitant with the current revival of national feelings in Slovakia is a reevaluation of those figures from the Slovak past who were either ignored or vilified during the communist era. Most noteworthy among such figures is Jozef Tiso, the president of the wartime Slovak Republic who was executed as a war criminal in 1947. Process dr. J. Tisom, Spomienky obialobcu Antona Raslu a obhajcu Ernesta Zabkayho, is an important contribution to that reevaluation. The book consists of the memoirs of Anton Rasla, one of the prosecutors at Tiso's trial, and Ernest Zabkay, Tiso's chief defense attorney. In addition to the reminiscences of these men, the book includes excerpts from their concluding speeches at Tiso's trial , as well as the text of the trial's verdict. In Zabkay's testimony, two important assertions dominate - that Tiso did not receive a fair trial and that Tiso was not guilty as charged. In support of his first assertion, Zabkay cites the political nature of the trial , the open bias agains Tiso of the presiding judge, Igor Daxner, the denial of certain documentation to the defense, and the harassment of defense lawyers by the police, prompting one �SLOVAKIA 133 defender to resign. In Tiso's defense, Zabkay portrays him as a victim of circumstances who could not withstand the irresistible pressure from Nazi Germany nor control her allies in the radical wing of his own party, who either did not know about or was unable to prevent the atrocities commited under his regime, and whose close relations with Hitler's Germany were a matter of necessity, the only way to preserve his small nation from a Hungarian or German occupation. Rasla, who believes that Tiso was indeed guilty of war crimes, nevertheless has sharp words for Daxner and for the prosecution's approach during the trial. Against Rasla's recommendation that the prosecution limit its attention to Tiso's wartime collaboration with Hitler and his role in the crimes against humanity, the prosecution pursued a number of dubious charges, for example, that Tiso supported the interests of Horthyite Hungary. Such charges helped damage the trial's credibility in the eyes of the Slovak public. Proces s dr. J. Tisom leaves us with some important considerations for a reevaluation of Tiso. First, the historian must be careful to distinguish between the moral responsibility and the legal responsisbility of his subject, keeping both in mind but avoiding the conflation of the two that one so often finds in issues concerning war crimes. Second, there is a need to exonerate Tiso where exoneration is due, that is, to avoid reading his wartime collaboration with the Nazis back into the prewar past. For example, it is both untrue and unjust to charge Tiso, as his prosecutors did, with deliberately seeking the destruction of the First Czechoslovak Republic in accordance with Nazi plans in the years preceding the Munich Agreement. Third, there is a need to condemn Tiso where condemnation is due - as the head of a state that deported tens of thousands of Jews to the Third Reich, who gave a violently anti-Semitic speech at the height of the Holocaust, who was one of only sixteen people to receive Nazi Germany's highest decoration, and who, in a case of perverse moral reasoning, professed that Slovakia was fighting on Hitler's side in the Second World War for the "honor of the Slovak nation". �134 SLOVAKIA Owing to the emotions and political pressures of the immediate post-war period, Jozef Tiso did not receive a fair trial. A reevaluation of his trial and his place in Slovak history is long overdue, and the memoirs of Rasla and Zabkay are a welcome step in this direction. Nevertheless, given the current nationalist passions in Slovakia, an objective evaluation of Tiso in his native land may be difficult to realize for some time to come. Athanasius B. Pekar, OSBM, The History of the Church in Carpathian Rus'. New York: East European Monographs, Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1992. Lii - 296pp. KEITH P. DYRUD Concordia College St. Paul, Minnesota This book was originally published in Ukrainian in 1967. It was translated by Marta Skorupsky as part of a series of "Classics of Carpatho-Rusyn Scholarship" coordinated by Patricia A. Krafcik and Paul Robert Magocsi. The History of the Church in Carpathian Rus' is primarily an ecclesiastical history, but it also provides enough political and social context to allow a secular historian to place the· work in the more familiar secular framework. Pekar focused his attention on the Greek Catholic Church in Sub-Carpathian Rus' (Northeastern Hungary until 1918). His study began with the "union" movement which culminated with the Union of Uzhorod in 1646. Pekar gave even coverage to each period, bringing it up to the post-World War II era with a final chapter: "In the Immigration" which examined the history of the Greek Catholic Church in the United States. The author had acces to special collections not readily available to secular scholars, especially, the Archivum Secretum Vatican um (Secret Archive of the Vatican). He has treated those sources with a proper historian's respect so that other historians may feel confident �SLOVAKIA 135 in citing his work, but he also approached his topic with an obvious Vatican perspective or bias. Pekar was very critical of the Slovaks. This bias is curious and revealing. The Slovaks have a long history of cooperating with the Rusyns as they jointly resisted Magyarization. It is true that some contemporary Slovaks in the 1960s pressured Rusyns in Eastern Slovakia to identify with the Slovak national movement, but contemporary everits should not distort a historian's analysis of past cooperation. Pekar suggested that the Vatican was constantly fighting to protect the Uniate Church. These attempts were only partially successful in both Hungary and in America. In both places the Latin Church won considerable advantages over the Uniate Church. In his discussion of the Greek Catholic Church in America with its many defections, Pekar was critical of the American bishops for demanding a single rite, the Hungarian government for resisting Leo XIII's efforts to unite the Galician and Sub-Carpathian Rusyns into a single diocese in America, and the leaders of the Greek Catholic Union for resisting the guidance of Rome as the Vatican demanded changes in the Greek Catholic rite. The people, whom Pekar viewed as sheep, reacted against any affront to their rite, and the Greek Catholic Union provided them with the organization necessary to stand up to the forces that would deprive them of those traditions. Pekar's treatment of the actors as villains and heroes , accounts for the greatest weakness of his work. The Vatican was not always the hero. This reviewer would suggest that the Vatican compliantly yielded to Latin Church interest at the expense of the Uniate Church in both Hungary and in America. Pekar also treated the Rusyns as sheep in need of a shepherd. Such an attitude has been traditional with Rome, but it shows disregard for people and democratic principles, and occasionally turns heroes into villians. �136 SLOVAKIA Volodymyr Fedynysynec', Our Peaceful Rusyn Way: Two Essays. Presov: Rusinska Obroda, 1992. 110 pp. PATRICIA A. KRAFCIK Evergreen State College Olympia, Washington Our Peaceful Rusyn Way is a slim volume containing two lenghty essays by Subcarpathian poet and writer Volodymir Fedynysynec'. These essays reflect the author's perception of the current status of the Rusyn national revival in Europe, particularly in Transcarpathian Ukraine. The first, "Be a Rusyn So That Rusyns Will Survive", describes the enormous impact of the scholarly work of Dr. Paul R. Magocsi and the First World Congress of Rusyns (March 1991) on Rusyn historical awareness and revival. Fedynysynec' calls this essay his "objective and subjective notes and reflections" on both the congress and a scholarly seminar on Rusyns held in Uzhorod prior to the congress. In the second, "I am a Rusyn, My Son is a Rusyn: Some Social and Literary Dreams of a Rusyn Writer", Fedynysynec' discusses the significance of the nineteenthcentury Rusyn national awakener, Alexander Duchnovic, and why the creation of a new standard literary language is the key to the survival of Rusyns as a people. Fedynysynec' was born in 1943 and raised in the Rusynspeaking Carpathian mountain village of Repynne in the central region of Subcarpathian Rus', a former autonomous region of Czechoslovakia forcibly annexed to the Ukrainian SSR by Stalin in 1945. He was subsequently acculturated as an Ukrainian after the Soviet regime officialy declared all Rusyns in the region to be Ukrainians. Graduating with a degree in Ukrainian language and literature from Uzhorod State University in 1966, he worked as a journalist and also as a researcher at the Museum of Ethnography in Uzhorod. He has been a member of the Union of Writers of Ukraine since 1983. Until recently he was a member of the executive board of the Society of Subcarpathian Rusyns, established in Uzhorod in �SLOVAKIA 137 1990, and was founding editor of the organization's weekly newspaper, Podkarpatska Rus'. Fedynysynec' has also published several volumes of poetry in Ukrainian. To appreciate fully the value of Fedynysynec's inspiration and insights, the reader should understand that the Rusyn movement in Central Europe (Poland's Lemko Region, Eastern Slovakia's Presov Region, Transcarpathian Ukraine, and former Yugoslavia's historic Backa Region) is genuine and flourishing. The nineteenth-century process of national awakening and struggle which led to the formation of sovereign Central European states was, in the Rusyns' case, impeded by many factors. Only now are significant elements of that process occurring among the Rusyns, such as the establishment of a standard literary language, the publication of literature and historical texts, and public recognition of Rusyns as a distinct people. These are all addressed in Fedynysynec's essays. In approaching these essays, one ought to remember that Fedynysynec' is first and foremost a poet who experienced psychological and national repression under the totalitarian Soviet regime. Although known as a Ukrainian writer and poet, he never lost an elemental awareness of his Rusyn identity. This theme resonates ecstatically throughout the two essays: "I am a Rusyn ! We are Rusyns! And we will be Rusyns forever!", "And I don't have to look around me at those who will whisper curses at me. I can even shout above the Beskyds: I am a Rusyn!" Although informative, the essays are clearly not intended as historical or scholarly treatises. Fedynysynec' speaks rather with the passionate voice of an inspired poet and the vigor of an enlightened Rusyn patriot. His prose sometimes verges on stream-of-consciousness and his view of history occasionally borders on the romantic, such as his insistence that "Rusynism is two thousand years old". In the wake of the Gorbachev era, which he acknowledges as a fresh and liberating age, he recognizes a first-time opportunity to speak out on such forbidden subjects as national roots and pride: "Rusyn feelings have made their presence known ... like a kind of whirling sea within shores that were too narrow." What readers might lose in strictly historical fact, they gain through his psycho- �138 SLOVAKIA logical and emotional insight into the reality of a people who were held under a curse of silence for the past 45 years. The floodgates have opened and Fedynysynec's essays seem to pour forth expressing all the vitality of the Rusyn national movement. Fedynysynec' wrote his essays in Ukrainian (he has begun writing seriously in Rusyn only in the past two years). They appear here in the Presov Region Rusyn dialect and in Slovak and English translations. The book is neatly formated , with only a few minor misprints, and is the first publication of Rusfnska Obroda (The Rusyn Renaissance Society) based in Presov . The volume of contemporary literature on Rusyns is growing. Students of Slavic and ethnic studies can only hope that Rusfnska Obroda and other publishing enterprises will undertake to make Rusyn literature available both in the original language and in English translation to reach as wide an audience as possible. Norma Rudinsky, Incipient Feminists: Women Writers in the Slovak National Revival. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, 19'Jl. 285pp, and That Alluring Land: Slovak Stories by Timrava. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992. XVI-320 pp. MARIA FURIMSKY-LACKOV A Ottawa, Canada These two recently-published books by Norma L. Rudinsky are very welcome for several reasons: apart from dealing with topics which complement each other, both books provide a rare opportunity to read works of Slovak literature in probably the best translations available in the English language. Both describe the interesting place of Slovak women in the national movement at the tum of the 19th century and, most importantly, both fill a gap, at least partially, in the field of Slavic scholarship in North America. The first book is part history and part anthology. According to Rudinsky, it was initialy intended to be only an introduction for the second book, consisting of a translation of six stories by Slovak �SLOVAKIA 139 writer Bozena Slancikova, who published her prose fiction under the pen name Timrava. However, it became a close study of journal articles, letters and poetry showing nationalism and feminism among the Slovaks in Austria-Hungary. The desperate position of Slovak women is traced here in three parts and six chapters. The first part deals with "Woman As Inspiration" in poetic works of Slovak male writers Jan Kollar, Jan Holy, Janko Kraf and Andrej Sladkovic, among others. The second part, titled "Women As Help", describes Slovak women as founders of women's nationalist organizations and magazines, and in the third part "Women As Women" they are depicted as incipient feminist writers of the turn of the century. Heroines of Elena Soltesova, the schoolteacher spinsters of Cudmila Podjavorinska and Timrava's fighting and agonizing female characters are proud and obstinate, consumed by hopeless love and passion. They are compared by Rudinsky to the reform heroins of English and American novelists, such as Jane Austin. Especially interesting is the Appendix of 123 poems in Slovak, formerly scattered in short-lived journals or manuscripts, and collected by Marianna Prfdavkova-Minarikova of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. These poems range from a moralistic hymn in 1798 exhorting young ladies to beware of seducers, to several poems in the 1860s and 1870s equating the nation with a human lover and resolving to became a mystical bride of the nation. Available biographical data of Slovak poets, though many are still not fully indentified, are given in English. Two long essays advocating women's education are translated in full from Slovak into English and frequent comparision is made to Czech, Croatian and Magyar nationalist movements. At the end of the book is a thorough index and useful bibliography. Incipient Feminists is a very carefully-edited book with only a few misprints: e. g. the word "interesting" has an "m" in it (second line of preface); "Klastor pod Zvievom", (p. 40), should be " ... Znievom", and some diacritical marks are missing, e.g. on "zvlasr'' (p. 128). The actual names of the "two small towns in southeast Slovakia" where Timrava lived her whole life and which appear in her more than fifty stories and novellas, may also be of interest to �140 SLOVAKIA the readers. They are Polichno and Abelova. The same applies to Terezia Medvecka Vansova who "lived most of her life in a small town in southern Slovakia" (p. 89). This small town was and still is just a little village of a few hundred people and is called Rimavska Pfla. In Vansova's works it is called simply Pila, Pila pri Tisovci, or Pila v Gemeri. Here she lived from 1882 to 1911 and wrote most of her variety of sketches, tales, biographical pieces, memoirs and several plays. As well, she published there her journal for Slovak women called "Dennica". The second book, consisting of Rudinsky's excellent English translations of six of Timrava's Slovak stories written at the tum of the century, shows remarkably strong female characters desiring to assert their rights against many unfavourable odds. In "The Assistant Teacher" (from the Diary of a Young Lady)", written in 1896, Timrava deals with the financial and social necessity of a good marriage. In the second story titled "Battle" and written in 1900, the heroine rebels against the necessity of a marriage of convenience, albeit still only inwardly. This and other similar stories of rebellion placed Timrava among Slovak critical realists. The third story, "That Alluring Land", from 1907 depicts how the power of money and property takes control of human lives. This story also represents the true reason why many Slovaks emigrated to North America: not to search for instant wealth, but to avoid unemployment, political repression, famine and other basic afflictions in Austria-Hungary at the tum of the century. Mothers usually stayed home to take care of their children and the existing household. In 1911 Timrava wrote "No Joy at All" about the effect that the materialistic obsession with property can have on a family and how it could interfere with the love of two people. The backward village life that existed into the twentieth century in Slovakia is well depicted in "The fapak Clan" written in 1914. The living conditions of fapak's family are depicted probably more darkly than existed in reality in most village families at that time, but Timrava wanted to point out that such extremities existed indeed. The last story of the book "Great War Heroes", written around 1918, is Timrava's antiwar novella, which shows how unjust all wars are. It shows, not �SLOVAKIA 141 only the men as the false "heroes", but also the women and how they become corrupted by the war. This story is Timrava's condemnation of World War One. All six stories depict Slovak women in transition: from obedience without questioning, to clearly understood and expressed rebellion. Timrava's stories depict the castes and culture and the way of life of one segment of Slovak society at the tum of the century, with all its irony and tough realism, making her work invaluable for those who are interested in Slovakia and its past. Jan Simko, English-Slovak Dictionary. Waucondia, Illinois and Senica, Slovakia: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers and RESS spol. s.r.o., 1991. 1443 pp . LOUISE B. HAMMER Indiana University The arrival of Jan Simko's English-Slovak Dictionary in bookstores in the summer of 1991 was a happy event. This dictionary was first published in Slovakia in 1967, and was reissued there in 1968 and 1971. It has been unavailable since that last printing sold out. It has now been published with corrections, but without additions . The physical quality of this book is excellent. It is hardbound, and small enough to handle comfortably . Each page has two columns and the print is large and easy to read. Since the intended user of the dictionary is a native speaker of Slovak, the introductory remarks are in Slovak, as are the abbreviations. The English entry or headword appears in large bold face type flush left to the margin of the collumn. It is followed by a phonetic transcription in square brackets, then the Slovak equivalents are listed. All main entries appear in a single alphabetical list in strict sequence of spelling. English words are written in italic type. The English-speaking user of the dictionary will not need to refer to the phonetic transcriptions of the English entries in order to learn their pronunciations, but it is �142 SLOVAKIA interesting to note that although British pronunciation is used as a basic one, both the British and the American versions are given when they differ markedly, e.g., "tomato" (p. 1250). When different words are used in American and British English for commonplace terms, both are given in this dictionary, e.g. "elevator" (p. 318) and "lift" (p. 648) vffah. These are just two examples of the thoroughness and careful scholarship that characterize this dictionary. If the entry word is used in more than one grammatical form or category (if it belongs to more than one part-of-speech), the entry is clustered or nested so that the usage is designated in the following way: the boldface numeral 1 is followed by the appropriate part-ofspeech in smaller typeface, the primary and secondary meanings are given, and this process continues for the other parts-of-speech. For example, if the first usage is a noun (podstatne meno, abbreviated podst.), and the second as a verb (sloveso, abbreviated s1. or nepravidelne sloveso, abbreviated n. s1., which means an English irregular verb), it would appear in the following way: break [breik] 1. podst. 1. zlomenie, zlomenina 2. trhlina, puklina, etc. 2. n. sl. to~ 1. (po)lamaf (sa), zlomif (sa), rozbif (sa) etc. On the stylistic level, words may be designated as colloquial (hovorove, which is abbreviated as hovor.), e.g. that's great! to je skvele, dobre; slang (slangove, which is abbreviated slg.), e.g., American slang, buck dolar, bookish (knitne); poetic and archaic (basnicke and zastarane'); and dialectal. In this book, dialectal refers to dialects of English, e. g. American, Scottish or Irish. One of the most important features of this dictionary is the wealth of commonly used and idiomatic phrases that it contains. These phrases are placed after the basic definitions, and are designated by a boldface centered dot, e.g. • at the back of one's mind, v podvedomf (p. 41); • hungry as a hunter, hladnf ako vllc (p. 556); • a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, Jepsf vrabec v hrsti ako holub na streche (p. 108); • this argument does not hold water, tento argument neobstojf, je nelogickf (al. nespravny, nedosledny) (p. 540). The inclusion of many prepositional phrases in the examples is a valuable aid to students of the Slovak language �SLOVAKIA 143 who frequently make errors in choosing the proper prepositions and cases, e.g. at reduced prices, za znfiene ceny (p. 990); to climb up a ladder, ( vy)liezt'po rebn1w (p. 1313) and many , many more . Dr. Simko's dictionary is a solid scholarly work, which has been compiled in accordance with modem lexicographical principles. It is a valuable resource for both specialists and students. This dictionary should be added to the reference sections of our libraries, and to the collections of our Slovak organizations. �� 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 1991-92, Vol. 35 Description An account of the resource Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Slovak League of America Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 1991-92 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 REVIEWS SLOVAKIA 125 Hugolfn Gavlovic . Valaska Skala . Edited with a commentary by Gerald J. Sabo, and a linguistic commentary by Cubomir Durovic . Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, 1987 (1988). 730 pp. JAN F. FRYDECKY Burnaby, British Columbia Hugolfn Gavlovic is one of the most important authors of the older Slovak literature. He was born in Cami Dunajec (in Poland) in 1712, grew up in northern Orava and lived in the Povazie region. In 1733 he was ordained a Franciscan priest and he died in 1787 in Horovce. Gavlovic's "Valaska skola" was finished in 1755. It is the largest work of the older Slovak literature, not only in length, but also because of its artistic value. It is a treasure of practical wisdom in which the author instructs the reader about all that interests him and what he needs in life. The author covers not only personal problems and private life, but also addresses public problems. It is in fact a didactic poem and Sabo has made an exact transcription of almost 18,000 lines with 27 illustrations. "Valaska skola" consists of an introduction in verses, then the main body of the poems in 22 "noty" (parts) and finally a two part "Konec": "On Death" and "On Judgement" . Every note begins with a shepherd's song about some biblical event of the Old Testament. Because 18th century society was very interested in sheepherding, every event was for the author a reason to think about the life of shepherds and peasants. Every note after a shepherd's song contains 59 moral exhortations. Durovic's excellent study (pp . 655-730) pays attention to the language of "V alaska skola". The real use and interest of this edition is linguistic. A previous edition by Michal Resetka (1830-31) left out some lines and transcribed the spelling into Bernolak's codification and so he ruined the rhymes and the whole construction of the work. The second edition by Rudolf Krajcovic (1971) presented the work as a literary monument of Slovak cultural history. His edition was substantially abbreviated. 126 SLOVAKIA Durovic shows that Gavlovic's language is half-way between the work of Pavel Dolefal's "Grammatica Slavico-Bohemica" (1746) and Anton Bernolak's "Gramatica slavica" (1790). The publishing of Gavlovic's "Shepherd's School" has enormous importance for Slovak cultural history of the 18th century. It was a precursor of Anton Bernolak's "Dissertatio philologico-critica de litteris Slavorum" (1787), which signaled the beginning of the codification of the Slovak language. Gavlovic's work was published on the occasion of the bicentennial of two important events in Slovak cultural history of the 18th century: the death of Hugolfn Gavlovic, and the publishing of the work of Anton bernolak. Gerald J. Sabo and I.:'ubomfr Durovic have contributed greatly to explaining the cultural history of Slovakia in the 18th century. Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations, Vols. I and 2, edited by Max Domarus. Waucondia, Illinois: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1990 and 1992. 611 pp. and 1367 pp. BRIAN L. VILLA University of Ottawa In 1945 the Allies were preparing to mete out severe justice, not just to Nazi Party members but to all Germans, arguing that they were guilty by complicity, by reason of having all heard Hitler's clearly articulated murderous program. This argument, which seemed persuasive in its day, is now something of an embarassment to historians, for it could also be turned against all the Western leaders who, after all, also had acces to Hitler's speeches and yet for many years indulged in appeasing him. For that matter, when Stalin made his pact with Hitler, he knew as much or more than the German public did of Hitler's intentions. There was another flaw in the argumentation and this was that Hitler mixed veiled threats and bombastic verbal terrorism with mild-sounding musings about peace and esctatic smiling at babies. SLOVAKIA 127 Germans, and foreign observers , were thus faced with the problem of sorting out which was the real Hitler, and which was not. Yearning for a better world after the horrors of World War I, not suprisingly the hearts of this generation were ruled by wishful thinking. The consequences of Hitler's programme did not stand starkly revealed until May of 1945, as the world gazed on the lunar landscape of German cities. Most had failed miserably to perceive what his program entailed. But we will never be able to judge properly this issue of the public perception and misperception until we have a complete collection of all of Hitler's recorded utterances, public and private. Any selection prejudges the issue a bit. While the work by Max Domarus , of which the first two volumes in English translation are now in print, is a magnificentlycrafted and documented collection, it is still a selection and a number of speeches are represented only by a single sentence. Still, this is likely to be the most ambitious compilation we are likely to see in our lifetime. Accompanied by solid historical narrative and commentary, carefully documented and well-edited, this is an invaluable tool for the study of the Nazi era. Distateful as it is to put Hitler's speeches up upon the shelves of institutions devoted to truth, this is a mandatory purchase for almost any better library. Certainly it is necessary reading for those who would study the mad delusion of a nation, not to say of a generation. The picture that emerges in Domarus' masterful collection and skillful aditing is that of Hitler as a skilled concert-master calling upon the positive and the negative in his audience, blending, twisting, distorting, so that what had ever been true and false was imposible even to remember. A particularly notworthy revelation of these volumes is the brilliance with which Hitler's staff employed his time. Appearing here and there in a dizzying schedule, building a complex riddle, he climbed to power by purposefully confusing his audience. There is obviously a good book to be written about his handlers, his working staff, and how well they created the monster that eventually escaped so completely from their control. Such a study, as must almost any study of Hitler, will gain immeasurably from a careful study of this indispensable source. 128 SLOVAKIA Jozef Jablonicky. Povstanie bez legiend. Bratislava: Obzor, 1990. 357 pp. STANISLA V J. KIRSCHBAUM York University Those who are interested in a detailed account of the 1944 revolt in Slovakia will find this book useful. It is well-documented and well-writen. Furthermore, the author loses no opportunity to contradict in detail various interpretations that were published during Gustav Husak's regime. It is a valuable addition to Slovak historiography. However, the significance of Jozef Jablonicky" s book lies not so much in the history of what the Communist regime and Marxist historians dubbed the "Slovak National Uprising", as in the reasons why yet another book on those events was published, especially after the fall of Communism in 1989. In fact, this book belongs to the Communist period; it is in its own way a reflection of it. That it was published when freedom of the press was restored merely helps to underline this very fact. As the publishers indicate in the foreword: "The author does not deny that in today's changed social and political conditions, he would formulate many things differently, more openly and more directly; however, he preferred to publish his work as it had been written, under conditions when the opportunity for scientific discussion was replaced by police interrogations" (p. 7). Jablonicky is one of the scholars of the 1960s who published histories of the 1944 events (for example, Z ilegality do povstania, 1969; there are also memoirs, Husak's in particular, and edited volumes) in response to the distorted accounts of the 1950s. However, his writings, like most from the Communist period were hampered either by restricted access to documents, by censorship, or by both. When Husak came to power in 1969, in the footsteps of his predecessors, but also perhaps because he had been the object of earlier falsification himself, he began to alter the historical record, or put simply to falsify history. Jablonicky found that once again he SLOVAKIA 129 had to set the record straight, a task for which he paid a personal pnce. He became a 'persona non grata' under Husak, was expelled from the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciencies in 1974, and from 1976 on was subjected to police harassment, or, as he put it, "primitive persecution". Even though his manuscripts were confiscated, he continued to write and to do research on the topic of the 1944 events. In 1984 the Husak regime published the fivevolume series Dejiny Slovenskeho narodneho povstania. As Jablonicky writes: "I considered it my professional responsibility to counter this literature critically. However, I also tried not to repeat my own errors and defects which are to be found in my earlier works" (p. 9) . His response began to appear in "samizdat" in 1988; this volume is that response. There is one theme that this study does not examine, namely the importance of the 1944 events in Slovak history. There is no doubt that they had far-reaching consequences for the Slovak nation . Jablonicky tells us how they happened, but not why. Nor does he explain their ultimate consequences. One can understand why they were celebrated under Communism: they gave the regime some sort of legitimacy. But that regime has now disappeared, as has the outcome which the 1944 revolt produced: the common state with the Czechs. This begs the question of their role and importance even more than before. For the moment, Jablonicky has chosen to eschew such questions. Yet as a professional historian, now able to express himself freely, he should accept the fact that he has a responsibility greater than that of merely chronicling these events. Others will no doubt tackle these questions; were Jablonicky also to do so, the history of the 1944 events might yet be written without any legends. 130 SLOVAKIA Bohus Chnoupek, A Breaking of Seals: The French Resistance in Slovakia. New York: Pergammon Press, 1988. XI-97 pp. R. VLADIMIR BAUMGARTEN Tallahassee, Florida This short work deals with a little-known aspect of Slovak and World War II history. French prisoners-of-war, escaping from camps in Germany and Hungary, made their way to Slovakia and were sheltered by the Slovak Resistance. Led by Lieutenant Georges Barazar de Lannurien, these Frenchmen fought as part of the Stefanik Brigade in the uprising of 1944. The Stefanik Brigade was under Soviet partisan command, while the Czechoslovak General Staff in Banska Bystrica insisted that the French be subordinate to its own command structure. De Lannurien's unit was able to exploit this jurisdictional dispute, gain concessions from both sides, and assure for itself a measure of operational independence. The French partisans were instrumental in thwarting the German drive on Strecno in September 1944 and aided in the recapture of Janeva Lehota. After the German suppresion of the uprising in October, de Lannurien's Frenchmen - along with Slovak soldiers and Soviet partisans - retreated into the Tatras and continued resisting as guerrillas. They were joyfully greeted by advancing Soviet forces in February 1945 and were at last permitted to return home. The author's narrative is supplemented by the accounts of partisans who remembered the Frenchmen. The introduction mentions that the author was appointed Czechoslovak Ambassador to the Soviet Union and became Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1971. As a Husak"s appointee, Chnoupek rather naturally treats the Slovak National Rising as a popular event. Correspondingly, the Slovak Republic is labelled as a "fascist state". Supporters of the Tiso regime maintain that the president-priest never signed any death warrants. Chnoupek, however, alludes to death sentences being passed in absentia on deserters from the Eastern front. SLOVAKIA 131 Yet Chiioupek inadvertedly extends some credit to the Slovak state in the case of Ga~par Maco. Maco refused to heed his call-up orders for the Slovak Army in September 1939, proceeded to France, and served in the Czechoslovak Legion within the French Army. After France's military collapse in 1940, Maco returned to Slovakia and was arrested. The author admits that Maco's youth and frank confession were taken as "mitigating circumstances" (p. 49), and he was given only a six-month sentence. Moreover, he was released one month early for health reasons. Such leniency would not have been forthcoming in the Reichsprotectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, which was under direct Nazi domination. Despite the author's diplomatic backround, his narrative is written in a plain, even folksy style. Interactions between French and Slovak partisans are treated as frequently humorous and occasionally poignant. Especially noteworthy is the description of Christmas Eve 1944, when Slovak partisans invited their French comrades to join them in celebration. This invitation was practical as well as idealistic: The French had captured a herd of sheep from a retreating Hungarian detachment, and now had meat to spare. The Frenchmen were asked to sing the Marseillaise; they did so to the acoustical backround of Soviet artillery, as the front was drawing near. Unknown to them, on the previous day in liberated Paris, General de Gaulle approved de Lannurien's promotion. Given the author's ideological affiliation, it is sometimes easy to forget that Slovak Communists were themselves dissidents during the Novotny years, when many aspects of the Slovak uprising were considered taboo topics. Chnoupek's research was given only the briefest coverage in the newspapers for the tenth anniversary of the uprising. Years later, while laying a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Warrior at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, he was warmly greeted by French veterans of the Slovak partisan struggle. It was then that Chnoupek decided to continue his work and affect a "breaking of seals". The work is the author's own contribution to improved East-West relations. But Chnoupek nontheless conforms to the historiographical standards of Husak's Czechoslovakia, characterized by glaring omis- 132 SLOVAKIA sions of anything potentially embarrassing. Soviet partisan commander Peter Velitchko is depicted in an altogether favorable light, notwithstanding the fact that his rash actions brought full-scale German intervention, caused the rising to be launched prematurely, and thus resulted in tragic consequences. Soviet historians describe this occurance as unfortunate, but they have yet to account for their country's role in it. In post-Husak Czechoslovakia, a more genuine "breaking of seals" regarding topics concerning the 1944 revolt is at last possible. Proces s dr. J. Tisom: Spomienky obialobcu Antona Raslu a obhajcu Ernesta Zabkayho. Edited by Jan Smolec. Bratislava: Tatrapress, 1990. 254 pp. JAMES R. FELAK University of Washington Concomitant with the current revival of national feelings in Slovakia is a reevaluation of those figures from the Slovak past who were either ignored or vilified during the communist era. Most noteworthy among such figures is Jozef Tiso, the president of the wartime Slovak Republic who was executed as a war criminal in 1947. Process dr. J. Tisom, Spomienky obialobcu Antona Raslu a obhajcu Ernesta Zabkayho, is an important contribution to that reevaluation. The book consists of the memoirs of Anton Rasla, one of the prosecutors at Tiso's trial, and Ernest Zabkay, Tiso's chief defense attorney. In addition to the reminiscences of these men, the book includes excerpts from their concluding speeches at Tiso's trial , as well as the text of the trial's verdict. In Zabkay's testimony, two important assertions dominate - that Tiso did not receive a fair trial and that Tiso was not guilty as charged. In support of his first assertion, Zabkay cites the political nature of the trial , the open bias agains Tiso of the presiding judge, Igor Daxner, the denial of certain documentation to the defense, and the harassment of defense lawyers by the police, prompting one SLOVAKIA 133 defender to resign. In Tiso's defense, Zabkay portrays him as a victim of circumstances who could not withstand the irresistible pressure from Nazi Germany nor control her allies in the radical wing of his own party, who either did not know about or was unable to prevent the atrocities commited under his regime, and whose close relations with Hitler's Germany were a matter of necessity, the only way to preserve his small nation from a Hungarian or German occupation. Rasla, who believes that Tiso was indeed guilty of war crimes, nevertheless has sharp words for Daxner and for the prosecution's approach during the trial. Against Rasla's recommendation that the prosecution limit its attention to Tiso's wartime collaboration with Hitler and his role in the crimes against humanity, the prosecution pursued a number of dubious charges, for example, that Tiso supported the interests of Horthyite Hungary. Such charges helped damage the trial's credibility in the eyes of the Slovak public. Proces s dr. J. Tisom leaves us with some important considerations for a reevaluation of Tiso. First, the historian must be careful to distinguish between the moral responsibility and the legal responsisbility of his subject, keeping both in mind but avoiding the conflation of the two that one so often finds in issues concerning war crimes. Second, there is a need to exonerate Tiso where exoneration is due, that is, to avoid reading his wartime collaboration with the Nazis back into the prewar past. For example, it is both untrue and unjust to charge Tiso, as his prosecutors did, with deliberately seeking the destruction of the First Czechoslovak Republic in accordance with Nazi plans in the years preceding the Munich Agreement. Third, there is a need to condemn Tiso where condemnation is due - as the head of a state that deported tens of thousands of Jews to the Third Reich, who gave a violently anti-Semitic speech at the height of the Holocaust, who was one of only sixteen people to receive Nazi Germany's highest decoration, and who, in a case of perverse moral reasoning, professed that Slovakia was fighting on Hitler's side in the Second World War for the "honor of the Slovak nation". 134 SLOVAKIA Owing to the emotions and political pressures of the immediate post-war period, Jozef Tiso did not receive a fair trial. A reevaluation of his trial and his place in Slovak history is long overdue, and the memoirs of Rasla and Zabkay are a welcome step in this direction. Nevertheless, given the current nationalist passions in Slovakia, an objective evaluation of Tiso in his native land may be difficult to realize for some time to come. Athanasius B. Pekar, OSBM, The History of the Church in Carpathian Rus'. New York: East European Monographs, Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1992. Lii - 296pp. KEITH P. DYRUD Concordia College St. Paul, Minnesota This book was originally published in Ukrainian in 1967. It was translated by Marta Skorupsky as part of a series of "Classics of Carpatho-Rusyn Scholarship" coordinated by Patricia A. Krafcik and Paul Robert Magocsi. The History of the Church in Carpathian Rus' is primarily an ecclesiastical history, but it also provides enough political and social context to allow a secular historian to place the· work in the more familiar secular framework. Pekar focused his attention on the Greek Catholic Church in Sub-Carpathian Rus' (Northeastern Hungary until 1918). His study began with the "union" movement which culminated with the Union of Uzhorod in 1646. Pekar gave even coverage to each period, bringing it up to the post-World War II era with a final chapter: "In the Immigration" which examined the history of the Greek Catholic Church in the United States. The author had acces to special collections not readily available to secular scholars, especially, the Archivum Secretum Vatican um (Secret Archive of the Vatican). He has treated those sources with a proper historian's respect so that other historians may feel confident SLOVAKIA 135 in citing his work, but he also approached his topic with an obvious Vatican perspective or bias. Pekar was very critical of the Slovaks. This bias is curious and revealing. The Slovaks have a long history of cooperating with the Rusyns as they jointly resisted Magyarization. It is true that some contemporary Slovaks in the 1960s pressured Rusyns in Eastern Slovakia to identify with the Slovak national movement, but contemporary everits should not distort a historian's analysis of past cooperation. Pekar suggested that the Vatican was constantly fighting to protect the Uniate Church. These attempts were only partially successful in both Hungary and in America. In both places the Latin Church won considerable advantages over the Uniate Church. In his discussion of the Greek Catholic Church in America with its many defections, Pekar was critical of the American bishops for demanding a single rite, the Hungarian government for resisting Leo XIII's efforts to unite the Galician and Sub-Carpathian Rusyns into a single diocese in America, and the leaders of the Greek Catholic Union for resisting the guidance of Rome as the Vatican demanded changes in the Greek Catholic rite. The people, whom Pekar viewed as sheep, reacted against any affront to their rite, and the Greek Catholic Union provided them with the organization necessary to stand up to the forces that would deprive them of those traditions. Pekar's treatment of the actors as villains and heroes , accounts for the greatest weakness of his work. The Vatican was not always the hero. This reviewer would suggest that the Vatican compliantly yielded to Latin Church interest at the expense of the Uniate Church in both Hungary and in America. Pekar also treated the Rusyns as sheep in need of a shepherd. Such an attitude has been traditional with Rome, but it shows disregard for people and democratic principles, and occasionally turns heroes into villians. 136 SLOVAKIA Volodymyr Fedynysynec', Our Peaceful Rusyn Way: Two Essays. Presov: Rusinska Obroda, 1992. 110 pp. PATRICIA A. KRAFCIK Evergreen State College Olympia, Washington Our Peaceful Rusyn Way is a slim volume containing two lenghty essays by Subcarpathian poet and writer Volodymir Fedynysynec'. These essays reflect the author's perception of the current status of the Rusyn national revival in Europe, particularly in Transcarpathian Ukraine. The first, "Be a Rusyn So That Rusyns Will Survive", describes the enormous impact of the scholarly work of Dr. Paul R. Magocsi and the First World Congress of Rusyns (March 1991) on Rusyn historical awareness and revival. Fedynysynec' calls this essay his "objective and subjective notes and reflections" on both the congress and a scholarly seminar on Rusyns held in Uzhorod prior to the congress. In the second, "I am a Rusyn, My Son is a Rusyn: Some Social and Literary Dreams of a Rusyn Writer", Fedynysynec' discusses the significance of the nineteenthcentury Rusyn national awakener, Alexander Duchnovic, and why the creation of a new standard literary language is the key to the survival of Rusyns as a people. Fedynysynec' was born in 1943 and raised in the Rusynspeaking Carpathian mountain village of Repynne in the central region of Subcarpathian Rus', a former autonomous region of Czechoslovakia forcibly annexed to the Ukrainian SSR by Stalin in 1945. He was subsequently acculturated as an Ukrainian after the Soviet regime officialy declared all Rusyns in the region to be Ukrainians. Graduating with a degree in Ukrainian language and literature from Uzhorod State University in 1966, he worked as a journalist and also as a researcher at the Museum of Ethnography in Uzhorod. He has been a member of the Union of Writers of Ukraine since 1983. Until recently he was a member of the executive board of the Society of Subcarpathian Rusyns, established in Uzhorod in SLOVAKIA 137 1990, and was founding editor of the organization's weekly newspaper, Podkarpatska Rus'. Fedynysynec' has also published several volumes of poetry in Ukrainian. To appreciate fully the value of Fedynysynec's inspiration and insights, the reader should understand that the Rusyn movement in Central Europe (Poland's Lemko Region, Eastern Slovakia's Presov Region, Transcarpathian Ukraine, and former Yugoslavia's historic Backa Region) is genuine and flourishing. The nineteenth-century process of national awakening and struggle which led to the formation of sovereign Central European states was, in the Rusyns' case, impeded by many factors. Only now are significant elements of that process occurring among the Rusyns, such as the establishment of a standard literary language, the publication of literature and historical texts, and public recognition of Rusyns as a distinct people. These are all addressed in Fedynysynec's essays. In approaching these essays, one ought to remember that Fedynysynec' is first and foremost a poet who experienced psychological and national repression under the totalitarian Soviet regime. Although known as a Ukrainian writer and poet, he never lost an elemental awareness of his Rusyn identity. This theme resonates ecstatically throughout the two essays: "I am a Rusyn ! We are Rusyns! And we will be Rusyns forever!", "And I don't have to look around me at those who will whisper curses at me. I can even shout above the Beskyds: I am a Rusyn!" Although informative, the essays are clearly not intended as historical or scholarly treatises. Fedynysynec' speaks rather with the passionate voice of an inspired poet and the vigor of an enlightened Rusyn patriot. His prose sometimes verges on stream-of-consciousness and his view of history occasionally borders on the romantic, such as his insistence that "Rusynism is two thousand years old". In the wake of the Gorbachev era, which he acknowledges as a fresh and liberating age, he recognizes a first-time opportunity to speak out on such forbidden subjects as national roots and pride: "Rusyn feelings have made their presence known ... like a kind of whirling sea within shores that were too narrow." What readers might lose in strictly historical fact, they gain through his psycho- 138 SLOVAKIA logical and emotional insight into the reality of a people who were held under a curse of silence for the past 45 years. The floodgates have opened and Fedynysynec's essays seem to pour forth expressing all the vitality of the Rusyn national movement. Fedynysynec' wrote his essays in Ukrainian (he has begun writing seriously in Rusyn only in the past two years). They appear here in the Presov Region Rusyn dialect and in Slovak and English translations. The book is neatly formated , with only a few minor misprints, and is the first publication of Rusfnska Obroda (The Rusyn Renaissance Society) based in Presov . The volume of contemporary literature on Rusyns is growing. Students of Slavic and ethnic studies can only hope that Rusfnska Obroda and other publishing enterprises will undertake to make Rusyn literature available both in the original language and in English translation to reach as wide an audience as possible. Norma Rudinsky, Incipient Feminists: Women Writers in the Slovak National Revival. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, 19'Jl. 285pp, and That Alluring Land: Slovak Stories by Timrava. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992. XVI-320 pp. MARIA FURIMSKY-LACKOV A Ottawa, Canada These two recently-published books by Norma L. Rudinsky are very welcome for several reasons: apart from dealing with topics which complement each other, both books provide a rare opportunity to read works of Slovak literature in probably the best translations available in the English language. Both describe the interesting place of Slovak women in the national movement at the tum of the 19th century and, most importantly, both fill a gap, at least partially, in the field of Slavic scholarship in North America. The first book is part history and part anthology. According to Rudinsky, it was initialy intended to be only an introduction for the second book, consisting of a translation of six stories by Slovak SLOVAKIA 139 writer Bozena Slancikova, who published her prose fiction under the pen name Timrava. However, it became a close study of journal articles, letters and poetry showing nationalism and feminism among the Slovaks in Austria-Hungary. The desperate position of Slovak women is traced here in three parts and six chapters. The first part deals with "Woman As Inspiration" in poetic works of Slovak male writers Jan Kollar, Jan Holy, Janko Kraf and Andrej Sladkovic, among others. The second part, titled "Women As Help", describes Slovak women as founders of women's nationalist organizations and magazines, and in the third part "Women As Women" they are depicted as incipient feminist writers of the turn of the century. Heroines of Elena Soltesova, the schoolteacher spinsters of Cudmila Podjavorinska and Timrava's fighting and agonizing female characters are proud and obstinate, consumed by hopeless love and passion. They are compared by Rudinsky to the reform heroins of English and American novelists, such as Jane Austin. Especially interesting is the Appendix of 123 poems in Slovak, formerly scattered in short-lived journals or manuscripts, and collected by Marianna Prfdavkova-Minarikova of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. These poems range from a moralistic hymn in 1798 exhorting young ladies to beware of seducers, to several poems in the 1860s and 1870s equating the nation with a human lover and resolving to became a mystical bride of the nation. Available biographical data of Slovak poets, though many are still not fully indentified, are given in English. Two long essays advocating women's education are translated in full from Slovak into English and frequent comparision is made to Czech, Croatian and Magyar nationalist movements. At the end of the book is a thorough index and useful bibliography. Incipient Feminists is a very carefully-edited book with only a few misprints: e. g. the word "interesting" has an "m" in it (second line of preface); "Klastor pod Zvievom", (p. 40), should be " ... Znievom", and some diacritical marks are missing, e.g. on "zvlasr'' (p. 128). The actual names of the "two small towns in southeast Slovakia" where Timrava lived her whole life and which appear in her more than fifty stories and novellas, may also be of interest to 140 SLOVAKIA the readers. They are Polichno and Abelova. The same applies to Terezia Medvecka Vansova who "lived most of her life in a small town in southern Slovakia" (p. 89). This small town was and still is just a little village of a few hundred people and is called Rimavska Pfla. In Vansova's works it is called simply Pila, Pila pri Tisovci, or Pila v Gemeri. Here she lived from 1882 to 1911 and wrote most of her variety of sketches, tales, biographical pieces, memoirs and several plays. As well, she published there her journal for Slovak women called "Dennica". The second book, consisting of Rudinsky's excellent English translations of six of Timrava's Slovak stories written at the tum of the century, shows remarkably strong female characters desiring to assert their rights against many unfavourable odds. In "The Assistant Teacher" (from the Diary of a Young Lady)", written in 1896, Timrava deals with the financial and social necessity of a good marriage. In the second story titled "Battle" and written in 1900, the heroine rebels against the necessity of a marriage of convenience, albeit still only inwardly. This and other similar stories of rebellion placed Timrava among Slovak critical realists. The third story, "That Alluring Land", from 1907 depicts how the power of money and property takes control of human lives. This story also represents the true reason why many Slovaks emigrated to North America: not to search for instant wealth, but to avoid unemployment, political repression, famine and other basic afflictions in Austria-Hungary at the tum of the century. Mothers usually stayed home to take care of their children and the existing household. In 1911 Timrava wrote "No Joy at All" about the effect that the materialistic obsession with property can have on a family and how it could interfere with the love of two people. The backward village life that existed into the twentieth century in Slovakia is well depicted in "The fapak Clan" written in 1914. The living conditions of fapak's family are depicted probably more darkly than existed in reality in most village families at that time, but Timrava wanted to point out that such extremities existed indeed. The last story of the book "Great War Heroes", written around 1918, is Timrava's antiwar novella, which shows how unjust all wars are. It shows, not SLOVAKIA 141 only the men as the false "heroes", but also the women and how they become corrupted by the war. This story is Timrava's condemnation of World War One. All six stories depict Slovak women in transition: from obedience without questioning, to clearly understood and expressed rebellion. Timrava's stories depict the castes and culture and the way of life of one segment of Slovak society at the tum of the century, with all its irony and tough realism, making her work invaluable for those who are interested in Slovakia and its past. Jan Simko, English-Slovak Dictionary. Waucondia, Illinois and Senica, Slovakia: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers and RESS spol. s.r.o., 1991. 1443 pp . LOUISE B. HAMMER Indiana University The arrival of Jan Simko's English-Slovak Dictionary in bookstores in the summer of 1991 was a happy event. This dictionary was first published in Slovakia in 1967, and was reissued there in 1968 and 1971. It has been unavailable since that last printing sold out. It has now been published with corrections, but without additions . The physical quality of this book is excellent. It is hardbound, and small enough to handle comfortably . Each page has two columns and the print is large and easy to read. Since the intended user of the dictionary is a native speaker of Slovak, the introductory remarks are in Slovak, as are the abbreviations. The English entry or headword appears in large bold face type flush left to the margin of the collumn. It is followed by a phonetic transcription in square brackets, then the Slovak equivalents are listed. All main entries appear in a single alphabetical list in strict sequence of spelling. English words are written in italic type. The English-speaking user of the dictionary will not need to refer to the phonetic transcriptions of the English entries in order to learn their pronunciations, but it is 142 SLOVAKIA interesting to note that although British pronunciation is used as a basic one, both the British and the American versions are given when they differ markedly, e.g., "tomato" (p. 1250). When different words are used in American and British English for commonplace terms, both are given in this dictionary, e.g. "elevator" (p. 318) and "lift" (p. 648) vffah. These are just two examples of the thoroughness and careful scholarship that characterize this dictionary. If the entry word is used in more than one grammatical form or category (if it belongs to more than one part-of-speech), the entry is clustered or nested so that the usage is designated in the following way: the boldface numeral 1 is followed by the appropriate part-ofspeech in smaller typeface, the primary and secondary meanings are given, and this process continues for the other parts-of-speech. For example, if the first usage is a noun (podstatne meno, abbreviated podst.), and the second as a verb (sloveso, abbreviated s1. or nepravidelne sloveso, abbreviated n. s1., which means an English irregular verb), it would appear in the following way: break [breik] 1. podst. 1. zlomenie, zlomenina 2. trhlina, puklina, etc. 2. n. sl. to~ 1. (po)lamaf (sa), zlomif (sa), rozbif (sa) etc. On the stylistic level, words may be designated as colloquial (hovorove, which is abbreviated as hovor.), e.g. that's great! to je skvele, dobre; slang (slangove, which is abbreviated slg.), e.g., American slang, buck dolar, bookish (knitne); poetic and archaic (basnicke and zastarane'); and dialectal. In this book, dialectal refers to dialects of English, e. g. American, Scottish or Irish. One of the most important features of this dictionary is the wealth of commonly used and idiomatic phrases that it contains. These phrases are placed after the basic definitions, and are designated by a boldface centered dot, e.g. • at the back of one's mind, v podvedomf (p. 41); • hungry as a hunter, hladnf ako vllc (p. 556); • a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, Jepsf vrabec v hrsti ako holub na streche (p. 108); • this argument does not hold water, tento argument neobstojf, je nelogickf (al. nespravny, nedosledny) (p. 540). The inclusion of many prepositional phrases in the examples is a valuable aid to students of the Slovak language SLOVAKIA 143 who frequently make errors in choosing the proper prepositions and cases, e.g. at reduced prices, za znfiene ceny (p. 990); to climb up a ladder, ( vy)liezt'po rebn1w (p. 1313) and many , many more . Dr. Simko's dictionary is a solid scholarly work, which has been compiled in accordance with modem lexicographical principles. It is a valuable resource for both specialists and students. This dictionary should be added to the reference sections of our libraries, and to the collections of our Slovak organizations.  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 Book Reviews, Slovakia, Vol. 35 (No. 64-65) Description An account of the resource includes:<br /><ul><li>Hugolín Gavlocič, Valaská Škola (Ján F. Frýdecký), p. 125</li> <li>Max Domarus, ed., Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations (Brian L. Villa), p. 126</li> <li>Jozef Jablonický, Povstanie bez legiend (Stanislav J. Kirschbaum), p. 128</li> <li>Bohuš Chňoupek, A Breaking of Seals: The French Resistance in Slovakia (R. Vladimir Baumgarten), p. 130</li> <li>Jan Smolec, ed., Proces s dr. J. Tisom: Spomienky obžalobcu Antona Rašlu a obhajcu Ernesta Žabkayho (James R. Felak), p. 132</li> <li>Athanasius B. Pekar, OSBM, The History of the Church in Carpathian Rus' (Keith P. Dyrud), p. 134</li> <li>Volodymyr Fedynysynec, Our Peaceful Rusyn Way: Two Essays (Patricia A. Krafcik), p. 136</li> <li>Norma Rudinsky, Incipient Feminists: Women Writers in the Slovak National Revival, and That Alluring Land: Slovak Stories by Timrava (Mária Furimsky-Lacková), p. 138</li> <li>Ján Šimko, English-Slovak Dictionary (Louise B. Hammer), p. 141</li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Baumgarten, R. Vladimir Dyrud, Keith P. 1940- Felak, James Ramon, 1957- Frýdecký, Ján Furimsky-Lackova, Maria, 1943- Hammer, Louise B., 1940- Kirschbaum, Stanislav J., 1942- Krafcik, Patricia Ann, 1949- Villa, Brian L. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-92 LCNAF LCNAF+dates name SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/b13cfc56ad80dc1b5db1b60f7f5a531a.pdf 66851a74918bd62e4c8d2e4ba7f6c9eb PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 119 REVIEW ESSAY Marxist Historians in Search of Slovak History Dejiny Slovenska, ill (od roku 1848 do konca 19. storocia). Milan Podrimavsky et.al. Bratislava: VEDA, 1992. 829pp. M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa The volume under review represents the beginning of the revision of forty years of Slovak Marxist historiography. As Richard Marsina and Julius Mesaros recently pointed out, Slovak history was bound up in the straight-jacket of Marxism from 1949 until 1989, and only after the "Velvet Revolution" of November, 1989 did it shake itself free from the shackles of Communism and "Czechoslovakism" .1 Dejiny Slovenska, III represents the transition of the writing of history from a Marxist perspective to a more objective one. The last of a six-volume synthesis of Slovak history which began to appear in 1985, Volume III covers only the period 1848-1900. The largest portion of the book was written by Julius Mesaros, who had been fired as Director of the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in 1970. Mesaros, and many other Slovak historians, were purged from the Historical Institute as a part of the "consolidation process" that followed the Warsaw Pact invasion of CzechoSlovakia in 1968. For over twenty years Mesaros could not write any history. He was allowed to contribute to Volume III only because no-one else could be found with his intimate knowledge of 1Richard Marsina, "Slovenska historiografia 1945-1990, "Historickj casopis, 39 (Nos.4-5, 1991), 370-79; and Julius Mesaro~. "Reflexie o piifdesiatych a ~esfdesiatych rokoch", ibid., 379-88. �120 SLOVAKIA the period. Also, Michal Gorbachev's policies of "glasnost" and "perestrojka" had an impact on Czecho-Slovakia and, by the late 1980's, even blacklisted historians such as Mesaros could stage a comeback. At the author's reception held in Bratislava on the occasion of the publication of this book in May, 1992, Julius Mesaros reminisced about the difficulties that he, and other historians, had faced during communist rule. He pointed out that Volume III was ready to go to press in late 1989; however, because of the "Velvet Revolution," he and the other historians involved decided to revise it and eliminate from it all the crude Marxist terminology that appeared in the previous five volumes. Thus, Volume III, in contrast to the others which had appeared earlier (especially Volumes IV, V, and VI, which covered the period 1900-1960), is a solid contribution to Slovak historical scholarship. It analyzes the role of the Slovaks in the Revolution of 1848, how they fared in the repressive Bach Era, then details the relatively productive (for the Slovaks) period of institutional growth between 1860 and 1867, and the spectre of Magyarization between 1867 and 1900 and various Slovak stragegies to deal with it. The corresponding social, political, economic and cultural development of Slovakia in the second half of the nineteenth century is covered in meticulous detail, perhaps even excessively. Excessive length, however, is the least of Volume Ill's weaknesses. More serious (and this is true of the other five volumes as well) is its only peripheral treatment of the various religions in the Kingdom of Hungary (of which Slovakia formed an integral part) and of the nobility. The churches and the nobility, after all, possessed the greatest wealth in Hungary and ruled the country. This is a fact that Marxist historians could never come to terms with. They condemned both institutions but never really analyzed or sufficiently described them. In the future, when all six volumes of Dejiny Slovenska are revised, (and revised they must be, in spite of Ivan Kamenec's protestations at the May, 1992 book reception in Bratislava that it would "take another twenty years to do so,") future historians will have to make up for these serious deficiencies. �SLOVAKIA 121 Meanwhile, it is important to put the Dejiny Slovenska into historical perspective. For all their weaknesses, these six volumes represent the triumph of Slovak nationalism over "Czechoslovak.ism". They constituted the fourth attempt to write a large-scale synthesis of Slovak history in the 20th century. The first (and largely successful) attempt to write a synthesis of Slovak history was made during the first Slovak Republic (19391945). The newly-created (1943) Slovak Academy of Arts and Sciences published the 5 volume Slovenska vlastiveda, which included Volume IV, Dejiny Slovakov a Slovenska od najstarsfch cias at po prftomnos( (1946) by Frantisek Bokes . This solid monograph (and vlastiveda) did not survive the communist coup d'etat of 1948. It was too Slovak nationalist for both the Communists and the exponents of 'Czechoslovakism'. Instead, the Communists decided that they needed a Marxist synthesis, and they struggled to produce one in the next forty years. The first attempt was made by the all-Marxist Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in the 1960's. It resulted in Dejiny Slovenska, I. Od najstarsfch cias do roku 1848 (1961) edited by I:'udovft Holitfk and Jan Tibensky and Dejiny Slovenska, II. Od roku 1848 do roku 1900 (1968), compiled largely by Julius Mesaros. No subsequent volumes appeared because the dogmatic Marxist :Cudovft Holotfk could not come to terms with the modem period, especially after the Soviet-led invasion of 1968. Meanwhile, the forces of "Czechoslovakism" produced the competing Pfehled ceskoslovenskych dejfn, 3 Volumes in 4 (Prague, 1958-1960), which muddied the waters of Slovak national identity. In spite of these difficulties, Slovak historians and others attempted to produce another Slovenska vlastiveda in the late 1960's, and partly succeeded. Between 1971 and 1980, the Slovak Academy of Sciences published four volumes in six of the vlastiveda, with the first volume being devoted to history: Slovensko: Dejiny (1971) edited by Jan Tibensky. Unfortunately , because the history volume was completed during the Dubcek era, it was considered too "liberal" by the neo-Stalinist regime of post-invasion Czecho-Slovakia, and was recalled from all public institutions and shredded. In 1978 it �122 SLOVAKIA was replaced by a new, "revised, updated and corrected" volume which spouted the neo-Stalinst party line. And, to keep the "Czechoslovaks" happy, another Pfehled dejfn Ceskoslovenska, 2 Vols. (1980-1982), appeared in Prague as a counterweight to the proSlovak vlastiveda. Ironically enough, some of the same Slovak historians worked on the latter as had on the former! Finally, in the 1980's, the Slovak historians produced the massive Dejiny Slovenska in 6 volumes, to which Prague and the Czechsolovaks had no answer. Slovak nationalism had triumphed, even though it had to do so via the route of Marxism. � SLOVAKIA 119 REVIEW ESSAY Marxist Historians in Search of Slovak History Dejiny Slovenska, ill (od roku 1848 do konca 19. storocia). Milan Podrimavsky et.al. Bratislava: VEDA, 1992. 829pp. M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa The volume under review represents the beginning of the revision of forty years of Slovak Marxist historiography. As Richard Marsina and Julius Mesaros recently pointed out, Slovak history was bound up in the straight-jacket of Marxism from 1949 until 1989, and only after the "Velvet Revolution" of November, 1989 did it shake itself free from the shackles of Communism and "Czechoslovakism" .1 Dejiny Slovenska, III represents the transition of the writing of history from a Marxist perspective to a more objective one. The last of a six-volume synthesis of Slovak history which began to appear in 1985, Volume III covers only the period 1848-1900. The largest portion of the book was written by Julius Mesaros, who had been fired as Director of the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in 1970. Mesaros, and many other Slovak historians, were purged from the Historical Institute as a part of the "consolidation process" that followed the Warsaw Pact invasion of CzechoSlovakia in 1968. For over twenty years Mesaros could not write any history. He was allowed to contribute to Volume III only because no-one else could be found with his intimate knowledge of 1Richard Marsina, "Slovenska historiografia 1945-1990, "Historickj casopis, 39 (Nos.4-5, 1991), 370-79; and Julius Mesaro~. "Reflexie o piifdesiatych a ~esfdesiatych rokoch", ibid., 379-88. �120 SLOVAKIA the period. Also, Michal Gorbachev's policies of "glasnost" and "perestrojka" had an impact on Czecho-Slovakia and, by the late 1980's, even blacklisted historians such as Mesaros could stage a comeback. At the author's reception held in Bratislava on the occasion of the publication of this book in May, 1992, Julius Mesaros reminisced about the difficulties that he, and other historians, had faced during communist rule. He pointed out that Volume III was ready to go to press in late 1989; however, because of the "Velvet Revolution," he and the other historians involved decided to revise it and eliminate from it all the crude Marxist terminology that appeared in the previous five volumes. Thus, Volume III, in contrast to the others which had appeared earlier (especially Volumes IV, V, and VI, which covered the period 1900-1960), is a solid contribution to Slovak historical scholarship. It analyzes the role of the Slovaks in the Revolution of 1848, how they fared in the repressive Bach Era, then details the relatively productive (for the Slovaks) period of institutional growth between 1860 and 1867, and the spectre of Magyarization between 1867 and 1900 and various Slovak stragegies to deal with it. The corresponding social, political, economic and cultural development of Slovakia in the second half of the nineteenth century is covered in meticulous detail, perhaps even excessively. Excessive length, however, is the least of Volume Ill's weaknesses. More serious (and this is true of the other five volumes as well) is its only peripheral treatment of the various religions in the Kingdom of Hungary (of which Slovakia formed an integral part) and of the nobility. The churches and the nobility, after all, possessed the greatest wealth in Hungary and ruled the country. This is a fact that Marxist historians could never come to terms with. They condemned both institutions but never really analyzed or sufficiently described them. In the future, when all six volumes of Dejiny Slovenska are revised, (and revised they must be, in spite of Ivan Kamenec's protestations at the May, 1992 book reception in Bratislava that it would "take another twenty years to do so,") future historians will have to make up for these serious deficiencies. �SLOVAKIA 121 Meanwhile, it is important to put the Dejiny Slovenska into historical perspective. For all their weaknesses, these six volumes represent the triumph of Slovak nationalism over "Czechoslovak.ism". They constituted the fourth attempt to write a large-scale synthesis of Slovak history in the 20th century. The first (and largely successful) attempt to write a synthesis of Slovak history was made during the first Slovak Republic (19391945). The newly-created (1943) Slovak Academy of Arts and Sciences published the 5 volume Slovenska vlastiveda, which included Volume IV, Dejiny Slovakov a Slovenska od najstarsfch cias at po prftomnos( (1946) by Frantisek Bokes . This solid monograph (and vlastiveda) did not survive the communist coup d'etat of 1948. It was too Slovak nationalist for both the Communists and the exponents of 'Czechoslovakism'. Instead, the Communists decided that they needed a Marxist synthesis, and they struggled to produce one in the next forty years. The first attempt was made by the all-Marxist Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in the 1960's. It resulted in Dejiny Slovenska, I. Od najstarsfch cias do roku 1848 (1961) edited by I:'udovft Holitfk and Jan Tibensky and Dejiny Slovenska, II. Od roku 1848 do roku 1900 (1968), compiled largely by Julius Mesaros. No subsequent volumes appeared because the dogmatic Marxist :Cudovft Holotfk could not come to terms with the modem period, especially after the Soviet-led invasion of 1968. Meanwhile, the forces of "Czechoslovakism" produced the competing Pfehled ceskoslovenskych dejfn, 3 Volumes in 4 (Prague, 1958-1960), which muddied the waters of Slovak national identity. In spite of these difficulties, Slovak historians and others attempted to produce another Slovenska vlastiveda in the late 1960's, and partly succeeded. Between 1971 and 1980, the Slovak Academy of Sciences published four volumes in six of the vlastiveda, with the first volume being devoted to history: Slovensko: Dejiny (1971) edited by Jan Tibensky. Unfortunately , because the history volume was completed during the Dubcek era, it was considered too "liberal" by the neo-Stalinist regime of post-invasion Czecho-Slovakia, and was recalled from all public institutions and shredded. In 1978 it �122 SLOVAKIA was replaced by a new, "revised, updated and corrected" volume which spouted the neo-Stalinst party line. And, to keep the "Czechoslovaks" happy, another Pfehled dejfn Ceskoslovenska, 2 Vols. (1980-1982), appeared in Prague as a counterweight to the proSlovak vlastiveda. Ironically enough, some of the same Slovak historians worked on the latter as had on the former! Finally, in the 1980's, the Slovak historians produced the massive Dejiny Slovenska in 6 volumes, to which Prague and the Czechsolovaks had no answer. Slovak nationalism had triumphed, even though it had to do so via the route of Marxism. � 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 1991-92, Vol. 35 Description An account of the resource Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Slovak League of America Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 1991-92 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 119 REVIEW ESSAY Marxist Historians in Search of Slovak History Dejiny Slovenska, ill (od roku 1848 do konca 19. storocia). Milan Podrimavsky et.al. Bratislava: VEDA, 1992. 829pp. M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa The volume under review represents the beginning of the revision of forty years of Slovak Marxist historiography. As Richard Marsina and Julius Mesaros recently pointed out, Slovak history was bound up in the straight-jacket of Marxism from 1949 until 1989, and only after the "Velvet Revolution" of November, 1989 did it shake itself free from the shackles of Communism and "Czechoslovakism" .1 Dejiny Slovenska, III represents the transition of the writing of history from a Marxist perspective to a more objective one. The last of a six-volume synthesis of Slovak history which began to appear in 1985, Volume III covers only the period 1848-1900. The largest portion of the book was written by Julius Mesaros, who had been fired as Director of the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in 1970. Mesaros, and many other Slovak historians, were purged from the Historical Institute as a part of the "consolidation process" that followed the Warsaw Pact invasion of CzechoSlovakia in 1968. For over twenty years Mesaros could not write any history. He was allowed to contribute to Volume III only because no-one else could be found with his intimate knowledge of 1Richard Marsina, "Slovenska historiografia 1945-1990, "Historickj casopis, 39 (Nos.4-5, 1991), 370-79; and Julius Mesaro~. "Reflexie o piifdesiatych a ~esfdesiatych rokoch", ibid., 379-88. 120 SLOVAKIA the period. Also, Michal Gorbachev's policies of "glasnost" and "perestrojka" had an impact on Czecho-Slovakia and, by the late 1980's, even blacklisted historians such as Mesaros could stage a comeback. At the author's reception held in Bratislava on the occasion of the publication of this book in May, 1992, Julius Mesaros reminisced about the difficulties that he, and other historians, had faced during communist rule. He pointed out that Volume III was ready to go to press in late 1989; however, because of the "Velvet Revolution," he and the other historians involved decided to revise it and eliminate from it all the crude Marxist terminology that appeared in the previous five volumes. Thus, Volume III, in contrast to the others which had appeared earlier (especially Volumes IV, V, and VI, which covered the period 1900-1960), is a solid contribution to Slovak historical scholarship. It analyzes the role of the Slovaks in the Revolution of 1848, how they fared in the repressive Bach Era, then details the relatively productive (for the Slovaks) period of institutional growth between 1860 and 1867, and the spectre of Magyarization between 1867 and 1900 and various Slovak stragegies to deal with it. The corresponding social, political, economic and cultural development of Slovakia in the second half of the nineteenth century is covered in meticulous detail, perhaps even excessively. Excessive length, however, is the least of Volume Ill's weaknesses. More serious (and this is true of the other five volumes as well) is its only peripheral treatment of the various religions in the Kingdom of Hungary (of which Slovakia formed an integral part) and of the nobility. The churches and the nobility, after all, possessed the greatest wealth in Hungary and ruled the country. This is a fact that Marxist historians could never come to terms with. They condemned both institutions but never really analyzed or sufficiently described them. In the future, when all six volumes of Dejiny Slovenska are revised, (and revised they must be, in spite of Ivan Kamenec's protestations at the May, 1992 book reception in Bratislava that it would "take another twenty years to do so,") future historians will have to make up for these serious deficiencies. SLOVAKIA 121 Meanwhile, it is important to put the Dejiny Slovenska into historical perspective. For all their weaknesses, these six volumes represent the triumph of Slovak nationalism over "Czechoslovak.ism". They constituted the fourth attempt to write a large-scale synthesis of Slovak history in the 20th century. The first (and largely successful) attempt to write a synthesis of Slovak history was made during the first Slovak Republic (19391945). The newly-created (1943) Slovak Academy of Arts and Sciences published the 5 volume Slovenska vlastiveda, which included Volume IV, Dejiny Slovakov a Slovenska od najstarsfch cias at po prftomnos( (1946) by Frantisek Bokes . This solid monograph (and vlastiveda) did not survive the communist coup d'etat of 1948. It was too Slovak nationalist for both the Communists and the exponents of 'Czechoslovakism'. Instead, the Communists decided that they needed a Marxist synthesis, and they struggled to produce one in the next forty years. The first attempt was made by the all-Marxist Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in the 1960's. It resulted in Dejiny Slovenska, I. Od najstarsfch cias do roku 1848 (1961) edited by I:'udovft Holitfk and Jan Tibensky and Dejiny Slovenska, II. Od roku 1848 do roku 1900 (1968), compiled largely by Julius Mesaros. No subsequent volumes appeared because the dogmatic Marxist :Cudovft Holotfk could not come to terms with the modem period, especially after the Soviet-led invasion of 1968. Meanwhile, the forces of "Czechoslovakism" produced the competing Pfehled ceskoslovenskych dejfn, 3 Volumes in 4 (Prague, 1958-1960), which muddied the waters of Slovak national identity. In spite of these difficulties, Slovak historians and others attempted to produce another Slovenska vlastiveda in the late 1960's, and partly succeeded. Between 1971 and 1980, the Slovak Academy of Sciences published four volumes in six of the vlastiveda, with the first volume being devoted to history: Slovensko: Dejiny (1971) edited by Jan Tibensky. Unfortunately , because the history volume was completed during the Dubcek era, it was considered too "liberal" by the neo-Stalinist regime of post-invasion Czecho-Slovakia, and was recalled from all public institutions and shredded. In 1978 it 122 SLOVAKIA was replaced by a new, "revised, updated and corrected" volume which spouted the neo-Stalinst party line. And, to keep the "Czechoslovaks" happy, another Pfehled dejfn Ceskoslovenska, 2 Vols. (1980-1982), appeared in Prague as a counterweight to the proSlovak vlastiveda. Ironically enough, some of the same Slovak historians worked on the latter as had on the former! Finally, in the 1980's, the Slovak historians produced the massive Dejiny Slovenska in 6 volumes, to which Prague and the Czechsolovaks had no answer. Slovak nationalism had triumphed, even though it had to do so via the route of Marxism.  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 Review Essay: Marxist Historians in Search of Slovak History Description An account of the resource Milan Podrimavský et. al., Dejiny Slovenska, III (od roku 1848 do knoca 19. storočia) M. Mark Stolarik Slovakia, Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92 pp. 119-122 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stolarik, M. Mark, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-92 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/98d25410d7f2879689d22a97cd1b2861.pdf d34c88dd6703b4521ac3630ddf0631b9 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 109 Slovak-Czech Relations: An assessment CAROL SKALNIK LEFF An often quoted aphorism in the literature on democratization is the caveat of a British statesman: "The people cannot decide until it is first decided who is the people." In varying forms it is precisely that question that has plagued Czech-Slovak relations over the past century. Although the essays in this forum were organized to survey the Czech-Slovak relationship in historically distinct periods, each analysis sheds light on the concrete manifestations of a persistent failure to reach a consensus on who the "people" are (Czech, Slovak or Czechoslovak citizens), and what institutional framework would be appropriate to orchestrate their decisions. Moreover, each of the essays contributes to a deeper understanding of the historical roots of the Czech-Slovak divorce proceedings of 1992. In these comments, I will try to integrate the periodized analysis of the assessments just offered, and to cull from them patterns in the CzechSlovak relationship that denote a permanent imbalance in perceptions of national identity and national interest, an imbalance that culminated in the abandonment of the joint statehood enterprise. In reviewing the period before the founding of the state, Edita Bosak defines a number of central features of Czech-Slovak relations , all of which establish a context for the tensions that persisted after 1918. Above all, she documents the essentially cultural character of the relationship during the Habsburg period, a focus that is important for two reasons. First, the tensions in that cultural nexus go to the core of the identity problem that would plague the joint �110 SLOVAKIA Czech-Slovak state into the 1990s . The centrality of the language question, from the outset, pointed to the larger issue - on whose terms would Czechs and Slovaks establish a working relationship? Slovak protectiveness regarding language was fundamentally a protection of besieged identity ,67 and Czech laments over the separation of the two languages reflected a failure to take seriously the distinctiveness of two cultures, a failure that would mark subsequent failures to acknowledge distinct Slovak interests in a range of issues from politics and economics to religion. Second, the essentially cultural character of the Czech-Slovak relationship before 1918 points to its converse - the limited political dialogue and collaboration, which Edita Bosak rightly defines as a function of Czech orientation toward the doctrine of historical rights to its ethnically mixed territory, and of the political sensitivity of any challenge to the structure of dualism. The paucity of political interaction meant an ill-constructed foundation for the edifice of joint statehood after 1918, and the carryover of unresolved ambiguities and tensions into the new state. The stakes in the inconclusive debate over identity mounted after independence, as cultural relations perforce became political and constitutional as well. Susan Mikula builds from precisely this important point to trace a pattern of political stasis in the interwar period that essentially excluded reformulation of the position of Slovaks within the state. She gives particularly cogent attention to the operation of a complex parliamentary system, a delicate balancing act dependent less of shifting electoral outcomes than on tight elite coordination and control. Stanislav Kirschbaum traces a consistent pattern of Slovak interests endplayed by Czech dominance of both the state apparatus and of the formulation of stateness itself. Through each of these analyses one can discern patterns that transcend historical eras. The Czech-Slovak relationship, in its sue67 It would have been helpful had Edita Bosak addressed more specifically the Hlasist position on the language issue; even avowed Czechoslovaks were not necessarily "linguistic" Czechoslovaks, and the distinction would contribute to a fuller understanding of the ambiguities of the "Czechoslovak" idea itself, ambiguities that heightened the probability of mutual misunderstanding and suspicion. �SLOVAKIA 111 cessive forms, was fundamentally a pragmatic alliance of small nations, brought together by the exgencies of external forces and constrained by internal structures . External threats to national survival were rooted in a usually hostile international environment, where larger and more powerful political entities were able to define the limits of national sovereignty and also to shape the character of CzechSlovak accommodation. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries , Czechs and Slovaks were hostage to the stabilities and instabilities of the larger continental balance of power, such that their encasement in the Habsburg order was broken only by World War I and postwar "high diplomacy," their joint experiment in statehood was destroyed by Nazi intervention, and the reincarnation of the state after 1945 was defined by Soviet power. In each of these successive periods , broader forces therefore set the parameters for the Czech-Slovak relationship, and it is hardly coincidental that the experiment in statehood fell apart precisely when the international constraints that had long circumscribed political negotiation loosened dramatically. Before 1989, the climate of international threat and coercion had been a decisive factor in setting political boundaries . Czechs and Slovaks in 1918 forged a common state to reinforce their respective boundaries with former German and Hungarian overlords, who survived the dissolution of empire in substantial minorities on Czech and Slovak territory . Tellingly, the consequence of that strategic alliance was not merely, or even accurately, a "joint" state, but rather a centralized state, centralized precisely on the logic of fending off the claims of neighbors and resident minorities. This was an inhospitable environment for the resolution of Czech-Slovak differences , with raison d'Etat presented to foreclose negotiation, particularly after the Hungarian incursion of 1919. Nor was the subsequent crisis of Nazi intervention a favorable climate for a Slovak definition of national interests that Czechs would regard as the betrayal of superior state interests. Finally the defeat of Nazi power left a Slovak state legacy tarnished by its genesis and the reinstatement of Czechoslovakia as the only exit from the opprobrium of association with the Axis camp. The new postwar Czech-Slovak bargain was therefore encumbered by recent history, and further encumbered by a commu- �112 SLOVAKIA nist political schema that infused Pragocentrism with a new layer of ideological meaning. Slovak claims to political definition as people, therefore, were consistently either contaminated by international intervention (as World War II), or immobilized by politics as usual. It must therefore be recognized that a central feature of the Czech-Slovak relationship , the centralist strait jacket that frustrated Slovak attempts to attain institutional recognitionn for Slovak identity, was on balance rationalized by the character of the international context, which provided a series of ready rationales to forestall a mutually acceptable constitutional bargain. Another persistent impediment to consensus was the economic context of the Czech-Slovak relationship, a factor that all the essays incorporate into their assessments with varying emphasis. From the inception of the state in 1918, the economics of national benefit was a source of dissonance between the two nations. Economic policy is never ethnically neutral. It hardly proved so in Czechoslovakia. Differentials in economic development meant that market forces and government economic policy that worked well for the Czech lands were unlikely, uncorrected, to have a similar salutary impact in Slovakia. Hence, we see the partial "deindustrialization" of Slovakia in the interwar period, documented by Mikula in the face of Czech competition and government policy being insensitive to the political impact of such differentials. The divergent economic needs of the two areas set the pattern for longstanding conflict of perceptions of regime benevolence. From Prague, Slovaks appeared consistently ungrateful for the benefits of common statehood; from Bratislava, the perception was frequently of a negligent, even exploitative or colonial economic policy. The Communist priority attached to investment in Slovakia after 1948 did little to realign these perceptions, particularly inasmuch as a Soviet economic model continued to concentrate effective economic decisionmaking power in the center. It is notable that the federal design of 1968 was retrenched in 1970 precisely in the area of economic autonomy. Even more consequential in the long run was the character of communist era investment in Slovakia. Even as it may have narrowed the gap in production as long as the communist state �SLOVAKIA 113 system endured, the pattern of investment was skewed toward the demands of a larger regional communist system (especially with regard to military production.) When that economic system dissolved, so did the benefits to Slovakia, leaving it to suffer disproportionately in unemployment and production declines in the course of the dislocations attendant on remarketization. Deeprooted economic grievances thus resurfaced to reinforce the political case for recognizing Slovak nationhood in maximally decentralized form, as a political means of protecting Slovak interests against the disruptions of the market. Finally, all the essays present a profile of successive political systems in disequilibria with the multinational character of the state, prospectively or in practice. Whether one defines this disequilibrium as a conscious decision by a larger Czech entity to preserve a constitutional structure that preserved maximum control at the center, or whether one defines important ambiguities in the mutual perceptions of the two nations, ambiguities that imposed ideological blinders, the net result is the same: a series of states that functioned without feeling impelled to respond to the unsettled problem of the fit between the common state and the national subgroups that inhabited it. How then are we to understand the disintegration of the state in the course of 1992? At one level, this outcome appears perverse; following the 1992 elections, democratically elected politicians pursued a policy of disconnection despite the absence of public consensus (an anomaly noted by Stanislav Kirschbaum) for independence in either of the two republics. Part of the answer to this conundrum lies in decoding the electoral paradox that led voters to support political parties whose agendas were so clearly destined to clash. On closer inspection, this may be less paradoxical that it first appears. Both Vladimir Meciar's HZDS and Vaclav Klaus's ODC ran on platforms that reiterated a commitment to joint statehood, albeit in very different institutional forms. For voters then, the issue in each republic was not necessarily the continuance of the state, but rather support for the party that seemed to offer the best prospects for pursuing broader, but nonetheless nationally distinct, agendas - in the Czech lands, �114 SLOVAKIA rapid economic transformation - and in Slovakia, a strong defense of Slovak interests that need not in many cases have entailed a desire for separation. What electoral politics cannot reflect then, is the dissonance of views on the character of the state project that lay behind the apparent consensus on continued joint statehood. Since polls show the Czech public aligned on the spectrum of constitutional alternatives toward the unitary or federal end, and Slovaks on the other end tilting toward confederation or separation, it is not unfair to argue that the joint state preferred by Czechs was not in fact the same animal that the Slovak public espoused when expressing preference for a joint state. The election results and postelectoral negotiations, therefore, are not so paradoxical when one thinks about the dissonant concepts of statehood in the two republics. What had occurred was a political deadlock, a deadlock that reflected clear differences in the acceptability of alternative constitutional bargains for both leaders and publics in the two republics. This understanding leads us back to the point that all contributors to this forum have emphasized in different periods, that the Czech-Slovak division ran far deeper than the momentary clash of interests between two headstrong politicians. Differing conceptions of the preferred character of the state were underpinned by a long history of divergent conceptions of the beneficiaries of the state, each nation in fact harboring the perception, also validated in poll data, that the other had gained disproportionately from common statehood. What differentiated 1992 from earlier attempts to resolve the question was, perhaps, not merely the functioning of a democratic system, contigent on electoral outcomes, but rather two additional features of the political context. First, the international environment posed a lesser threat to national survival than earlier in the twentieth century. (Note however, that Slovaks see the Czech lands as vulnerable to German domination, while Czechs warn Slovaks of subordination to the benighted east). Second, for all its dubious relevance under communism, the federal structure of the state inherited by the Velvet Revolution was subsequently infused with institutional meaning through the electoral process. In contrast with the past, Slovaks possessed a constitutional �SLOVAKIA 115 veto in the bicameral federal assembly and could claim an electorally-validated seat at the bargaining table. In fact, no constitutional design could be accepted without the acquiescence of the Slovak government. Contrast this with the vivid, and I think, accurate picture sketched by Susan Mikula of the interwar politics of symbolic Slovak leadership inclusion and practical powerlessness to set the agenda. Given institutional bases that provided leverage for Czech and Slovak negotiators alike, the outcome of the postcommunist negotiations was certain to run a different course than had previous such attempts. It is also the case that the negotiators proceeded from the premise that a renegotiated national settlement was a necessary component of democratization (it was not initially clear that no settlement would be forthcoming). Here it should be noted that the Czech agenda of what came to be called "functional federalism" probably should be recognized as according certain concessions to the Slovak position. The December 1990 provisional agreement and subsequent bargaining did provide for greater decentralization of authority than past institutional arrangements. I am therefore inclined to be more sympathetic than Stanislav Kirschbaum in discerning Czech movement on the question of constitutional reconfiguration. But the crux of the matter is that the final attempted bargain, struck in February 1992, was insufficiently decentralized to pass muster with the Slovak National Council, but at the same time as decentralized a framework as the Czechs were likely to countenance. In this sense, the 1992 electoral outcome only crystalized two years of failure to reach consensus. In some senses, the dissolution of the state in the course of the 1992 negotiations can be regarded as a failure of leadership. If so, the leadership failure in question is not merely that of the endgame period of 1992, but of the full experience of joint statehood, in which two nations coexisted without ever reaching consensus on a common destiny or on the institutional design that would secure such a vision. ��REVIEW ESSAY �� SLOVAKIA 109 Slovak-Czech Relations: An assessment CAROL SKALNIK LEFF An often quoted aphorism in the literature on democratization is the caveat of a British statesman: "The people cannot decide until it is first decided who is the people." In varying forms it is precisely that question that has plagued Czech-Slovak relations over the past century. Although the essays in this forum were organized to survey the Czech-Slovak relationship in historically distinct periods, each analysis sheds light on the concrete manifestations of a persistent failure to reach a consensus on who the "people" are (Czech, Slovak or Czechoslovak citizens), and what institutional framework would be appropriate to orchestrate their decisions. Moreover, each of the essays contributes to a deeper understanding of the historical roots of the Czech-Slovak divorce proceedings of 1992. In these comments, I will try to integrate the periodized analysis of the assessments just offered, and to cull from them patterns in the CzechSlovak relationship that denote a permanent imbalance in perceptions of national identity and national interest, an imbalance that culminated in the abandonment of the joint statehood enterprise. In reviewing the period before the founding of the state, Edita Bosak defines a number of central features of Czech-Slovak relations , all of which establish a context for the tensions that persisted after 1918. Above all, she documents the essentially cultural character of the relationship during the Habsburg period, a focus that is important for two reasons. First, the tensions in that cultural nexus go to the core of the identity problem that would plague the joint �110 SLOVAKIA Czech-Slovak state into the 1990s . The centrality of the language question, from the outset, pointed to the larger issue - on whose terms would Czechs and Slovaks establish a working relationship? Slovak protectiveness regarding language was fundamentally a protection of besieged identity ,67 and Czech laments over the separation of the two languages reflected a failure to take seriously the distinctiveness of two cultures, a failure that would mark subsequent failures to acknowledge distinct Slovak interests in a range of issues from politics and economics to religion. Second, the essentially cultural character of the Czech-Slovak relationship before 1918 points to its converse - the limited political dialogue and collaboration, which Edita Bosak rightly defines as a function of Czech orientation toward the doctrine of historical rights to its ethnically mixed territory, and of the political sensitivity of any challenge to the structure of dualism. The paucity of political interaction meant an ill-constructed foundation for the edifice of joint statehood after 1918, and the carryover of unresolved ambiguities and tensions into the new state. The stakes in the inconclusive debate over identity mounted after independence, as cultural relations perforce became political and constitutional as well. Susan Mikula builds from precisely this important point to trace a pattern of political stasis in the interwar period that essentially excluded reformulation of the position of Slovaks within the state. She gives particularly cogent attention to the operation of a complex parliamentary system, a delicate balancing act dependent less of shifting electoral outcomes than on tight elite coordination and control. Stanislav Kirschbaum traces a consistent pattern of Slovak interests endplayed by Czech dominance of both the state apparatus and of the formulation of stateness itself. Through each of these analyses one can discern patterns that transcend historical eras. The Czech-Slovak relationship, in its sue67 It would have been helpful had Edita Bosak addressed more specifically the Hlasist position on the language issue; even avowed Czechoslovaks were not necessarily "linguistic" Czechoslovaks, and the distinction would contribute to a fuller understanding of the ambiguities of the "Czechoslovak" idea itself, ambiguities that heightened the probability of mutual misunderstanding and suspicion. �SLOVAKIA 111 cessive forms, was fundamentally a pragmatic alliance of small nations, brought together by the exgencies of external forces and constrained by internal structures . External threats to national survival were rooted in a usually hostile international environment, where larger and more powerful political entities were able to define the limits of national sovereignty and also to shape the character of CzechSlovak accommodation. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries , Czechs and Slovaks were hostage to the stabilities and instabilities of the larger continental balance of power, such that their encasement in the Habsburg order was broken only by World War I and postwar "high diplomacy," their joint experiment in statehood was destroyed by Nazi intervention, and the reincarnation of the state after 1945 was defined by Soviet power. In each of these successive periods , broader forces therefore set the parameters for the Czech-Slovak relationship, and it is hardly coincidental that the experiment in statehood fell apart precisely when the international constraints that had long circumscribed political negotiation loosened dramatically. Before 1989, the climate of international threat and coercion had been a decisive factor in setting political boundaries . Czechs and Slovaks in 1918 forged a common state to reinforce their respective boundaries with former German and Hungarian overlords, who survived the dissolution of empire in substantial minorities on Czech and Slovak territory . Tellingly, the consequence of that strategic alliance was not merely, or even accurately, a "joint" state, but rather a centralized state, centralized precisely on the logic of fending off the claims of neighbors and resident minorities. This was an inhospitable environment for the resolution of Czech-Slovak differences , with raison d'Etat presented to foreclose negotiation, particularly after the Hungarian incursion of 1919. Nor was the subsequent crisis of Nazi intervention a favorable climate for a Slovak definition of national interests that Czechs would regard as the betrayal of superior state interests. Finally the defeat of Nazi power left a Slovak state legacy tarnished by its genesis and the reinstatement of Czechoslovakia as the only exit from the opprobrium of association with the Axis camp. The new postwar Czech-Slovak bargain was therefore encumbered by recent history, and further encumbered by a commu- �112 SLOVAKIA nist political schema that infused Pragocentrism with a new layer of ideological meaning. Slovak claims to political definition as people, therefore, were consistently either contaminated by international intervention (as World War II), or immobilized by politics as usual. It must therefore be recognized that a central feature of the Czech-Slovak relationship , the centralist strait jacket that frustrated Slovak attempts to attain institutional recognitionn for Slovak identity, was on balance rationalized by the character of the international context, which provided a series of ready rationales to forestall a mutually acceptable constitutional bargain. Another persistent impediment to consensus was the economic context of the Czech-Slovak relationship, a factor that all the essays incorporate into their assessments with varying emphasis. From the inception of the state in 1918, the economics of national benefit was a source of dissonance between the two nations. Economic policy is never ethnically neutral. It hardly proved so in Czechoslovakia. Differentials in economic development meant that market forces and government economic policy that worked well for the Czech lands were unlikely, uncorrected, to have a similar salutary impact in Slovakia. Hence, we see the partial "deindustrialization" of Slovakia in the interwar period, documented by Mikula in the face of Czech competition and government policy being insensitive to the political impact of such differentials. The divergent economic needs of the two areas set the pattern for longstanding conflict of perceptions of regime benevolence. From Prague, Slovaks appeared consistently ungrateful for the benefits of common statehood; from Bratislava, the perception was frequently of a negligent, even exploitative or colonial economic policy. The Communist priority attached to investment in Slovakia after 1948 did little to realign these perceptions, particularly inasmuch as a Soviet economic model continued to concentrate effective economic decisionmaking power in the center. It is notable that the federal design of 1968 was retrenched in 1970 precisely in the area of economic autonomy. Even more consequential in the long run was the character of communist era investment in Slovakia. Even as it may have narrowed the gap in production as long as the communist state �SLOVAKIA 113 system endured, the pattern of investment was skewed toward the demands of a larger regional communist system (especially with regard to military production.) When that economic system dissolved, so did the benefits to Slovakia, leaving it to suffer disproportionately in unemployment and production declines in the course of the dislocations attendant on remarketization. Deeprooted economic grievances thus resurfaced to reinforce the political case for recognizing Slovak nationhood in maximally decentralized form, as a political means of protecting Slovak interests against the disruptions of the market. Finally, all the essays present a profile of successive political systems in disequilibria with the multinational character of the state, prospectively or in practice. Whether one defines this disequilibrium as a conscious decision by a larger Czech entity to preserve a constitutional structure that preserved maximum control at the center, or whether one defines important ambiguities in the mutual perceptions of the two nations, ambiguities that imposed ideological blinders, the net result is the same: a series of states that functioned without feeling impelled to respond to the unsettled problem of the fit between the common state and the national subgroups that inhabited it. How then are we to understand the disintegration of the state in the course of 1992? At one level, this outcome appears perverse; following the 1992 elections, democratically elected politicians pursued a policy of disconnection despite the absence of public consensus (an anomaly noted by Stanislav Kirschbaum) for independence in either of the two republics. Part of the answer to this conundrum lies in decoding the electoral paradox that led voters to support political parties whose agendas were so clearly destined to clash. On closer inspection, this may be less paradoxical that it first appears. Both Vladimir Meciar's HZDS and Vaclav Klaus's ODC ran on platforms that reiterated a commitment to joint statehood, albeit in very different institutional forms. For voters then, the issue in each republic was not necessarily the continuance of the state, but rather support for the party that seemed to offer the best prospects for pursuing broader, but nonetheless nationally distinct, agendas - in the Czech lands, �114 SLOVAKIA rapid economic transformation - and in Slovakia, a strong defense of Slovak interests that need not in many cases have entailed a desire for separation. What electoral politics cannot reflect then, is the dissonance of views on the character of the state project that lay behind the apparent consensus on continued joint statehood. Since polls show the Czech public aligned on the spectrum of constitutional alternatives toward the unitary or federal end, and Slovaks on the other end tilting toward confederation or separation, it is not unfair to argue that the joint state preferred by Czechs was not in fact the same animal that the Slovak public espoused when expressing preference for a joint state. The election results and postelectoral negotiations, therefore, are not so paradoxical when one thinks about the dissonant concepts of statehood in the two republics. What had occurred was a political deadlock, a deadlock that reflected clear differences in the acceptability of alternative constitutional bargains for both leaders and publics in the two republics. This understanding leads us back to the point that all contributors to this forum have emphasized in different periods, that the Czech-Slovak division ran far deeper than the momentary clash of interests between two headstrong politicians. Differing conceptions of the preferred character of the state were underpinned by a long history of divergent conceptions of the beneficiaries of the state, each nation in fact harboring the perception, also validated in poll data, that the other had gained disproportionately from common statehood. What differentiated 1992 from earlier attempts to resolve the question was, perhaps, not merely the functioning of a democratic system, contigent on electoral outcomes, but rather two additional features of the political context. First, the international environment posed a lesser threat to national survival than earlier in the twentieth century. (Note however, that Slovaks see the Czech lands as vulnerable to German domination, while Czechs warn Slovaks of subordination to the benighted east). Second, for all its dubious relevance under communism, the federal structure of the state inherited by the Velvet Revolution was subsequently infused with institutional meaning through the electoral process. In contrast with the past, Slovaks possessed a constitutional �SLOVAKIA 115 veto in the bicameral federal assembly and could claim an electorally-validated seat at the bargaining table. In fact, no constitutional design could be accepted without the acquiescence of the Slovak government. Contrast this with the vivid, and I think, accurate picture sketched by Susan Mikula of the interwar politics of symbolic Slovak leadership inclusion and practical powerlessness to set the agenda. Given institutional bases that provided leverage for Czech and Slovak negotiators alike, the outcome of the postcommunist negotiations was certain to run a different course than had previous such attempts. It is also the case that the negotiators proceeded from the premise that a renegotiated national settlement was a necessary component of democratization (it was not initially clear that no settlement would be forthcoming). Here it should be noted that the Czech agenda of what came to be called "functional federalism" probably should be recognized as according certain concessions to the Slovak position. The December 1990 provisional agreement and subsequent bargaining did provide for greater decentralization of authority than past institutional arrangements. I am therefore inclined to be more sympathetic than Stanislav Kirschbaum in discerning Czech movement on the question of constitutional reconfiguration. But the crux of the matter is that the final attempted bargain, struck in February 1992, was insufficiently decentralized to pass muster with the Slovak National Council, but at the same time as decentralized a framework as the Czechs were likely to countenance. In this sense, the 1992 electoral outcome only crystalized two years of failure to reach consensus. In some senses, the dissolution of the state in the course of the 1992 negotiations can be regarded as a failure of leadership. If so, the leadership failure in question is not merely that of the endgame period of 1992, but of the full experience of joint statehood, in which two nations coexisted without ever reaching consensus on a common destiny or on the institutional design that would secure such a vision. ��REVIEW ESSAY �� 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 1991-92, Vol. 35 Description An account of the resource Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Slovak League of America Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 1991-92 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 109 Slovak-Czech Relations: An assessment CAROL SKALNIK LEFF An often quoted aphorism in the literature on democratization is the caveat of a British statesman: "The people cannot decide until it is first decided who is the people." In varying forms it is precisely that question that has plagued Czech-Slovak relations over the past century. Although the essays in this forum were organized to survey the Czech-Slovak relationship in historically distinct periods, each analysis sheds light on the concrete manifestations of a persistent failure to reach a consensus on who the "people" are (Czech, Slovak or Czechoslovak citizens), and what institutional framework would be appropriate to orchestrate their decisions. Moreover, each of the essays contributes to a deeper understanding of the historical roots of the Czech-Slovak divorce proceedings of 1992. In these comments, I will try to integrate the periodized analysis of the assessments just offered, and to cull from them patterns in the CzechSlovak relationship that denote a permanent imbalance in perceptions of national identity and national interest, an imbalance that culminated in the abandonment of the joint statehood enterprise. In reviewing the period before the founding of the state, Edita Bosak defines a number of central features of Czech-Slovak relations , all of which establish a context for the tensions that persisted after 1918. Above all, she documents the essentially cultural character of the relationship during the Habsburg period, a focus that is important for two reasons. First, the tensions in that cultural nexus go to the core of the identity problem that would plague the joint 110 SLOVAKIA Czech-Slovak state into the 1990s . The centrality of the language question, from the outset, pointed to the larger issue - on whose terms would Czechs and Slovaks establish a working relationship? Slovak protectiveness regarding language was fundamentally a protection of besieged identity ,67 and Czech laments over the separation of the two languages reflected a failure to take seriously the distinctiveness of two cultures, a failure that would mark subsequent failures to acknowledge distinct Slovak interests in a range of issues from politics and economics to religion. Second, the essentially cultural character of the Czech-Slovak relationship before 1918 points to its converse - the limited political dialogue and collaboration, which Edita Bosak rightly defines as a function of Czech orientation toward the doctrine of historical rights to its ethnically mixed territory, and of the political sensitivity of any challenge to the structure of dualism. The paucity of political interaction meant an ill-constructed foundation for the edifice of joint statehood after 1918, and the carryover of unresolved ambiguities and tensions into the new state. The stakes in the inconclusive debate over identity mounted after independence, as cultural relations perforce became political and constitutional as well. Susan Mikula builds from precisely this important point to trace a pattern of political stasis in the interwar period that essentially excluded reformulation of the position of Slovaks within the state. She gives particularly cogent attention to the operation of a complex parliamentary system, a delicate balancing act dependent less of shifting electoral outcomes than on tight elite coordination and control. Stanislav Kirschbaum traces a consistent pattern of Slovak interests endplayed by Czech dominance of both the state apparatus and of the formulation of stateness itself. Through each of these analyses one can discern patterns that transcend historical eras. The Czech-Slovak relationship, in its sue67 It would have been helpful had Edita Bosak addressed more specifically the Hlasist position on the language issue; even avowed Czechoslovaks were not necessarily "linguistic" Czechoslovaks, and the distinction would contribute to a fuller understanding of the ambiguities of the "Czechoslovak" idea itself, ambiguities that heightened the probability of mutual misunderstanding and suspicion. SLOVAKIA 111 cessive forms, was fundamentally a pragmatic alliance of small nations, brought together by the exgencies of external forces and constrained by internal structures . External threats to national survival were rooted in a usually hostile international environment, where larger and more powerful political entities were able to define the limits of national sovereignty and also to shape the character of CzechSlovak accommodation. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries , Czechs and Slovaks were hostage to the stabilities and instabilities of the larger continental balance of power, such that their encasement in the Habsburg order was broken only by World War I and postwar "high diplomacy," their joint experiment in statehood was destroyed by Nazi intervention, and the reincarnation of the state after 1945 was defined by Soviet power. In each of these successive periods , broader forces therefore set the parameters for the Czech-Slovak relationship, and it is hardly coincidental that the experiment in statehood fell apart precisely when the international constraints that had long circumscribed political negotiation loosened dramatically. Before 1989, the climate of international threat and coercion had been a decisive factor in setting political boundaries . Czechs and Slovaks in 1918 forged a common state to reinforce their respective boundaries with former German and Hungarian overlords, who survived the dissolution of empire in substantial minorities on Czech and Slovak territory . Tellingly, the consequence of that strategic alliance was not merely, or even accurately, a "joint" state, but rather a centralized state, centralized precisely on the logic of fending off the claims of neighbors and resident minorities. This was an inhospitable environment for the resolution of Czech-Slovak differences , with raison d'Etat presented to foreclose negotiation, particularly after the Hungarian incursion of 1919. Nor was the subsequent crisis of Nazi intervention a favorable climate for a Slovak definition of national interests that Czechs would regard as the betrayal of superior state interests. Finally the defeat of Nazi power left a Slovak state legacy tarnished by its genesis and the reinstatement of Czechoslovakia as the only exit from the opprobrium of association with the Axis camp. The new postwar Czech-Slovak bargain was therefore encumbered by recent history, and further encumbered by a commu- 112 SLOVAKIA nist political schema that infused Pragocentrism with a new layer of ideological meaning. Slovak claims to political definition as people, therefore, were consistently either contaminated by international intervention (as World War II), or immobilized by politics as usual. It must therefore be recognized that a central feature of the Czech-Slovak relationship , the centralist strait jacket that frustrated Slovak attempts to attain institutional recognitionn for Slovak identity, was on balance rationalized by the character of the international context, which provided a series of ready rationales to forestall a mutually acceptable constitutional bargain. Another persistent impediment to consensus was the economic context of the Czech-Slovak relationship, a factor that all the essays incorporate into their assessments with varying emphasis. From the inception of the state in 1918, the economics of national benefit was a source of dissonance between the two nations. Economic policy is never ethnically neutral. It hardly proved so in Czechoslovakia. Differentials in economic development meant that market forces and government economic policy that worked well for the Czech lands were unlikely, uncorrected, to have a similar salutary impact in Slovakia. Hence, we see the partial "deindustrialization" of Slovakia in the interwar period, documented by Mikula in the face of Czech competition and government policy being insensitive to the political impact of such differentials. The divergent economic needs of the two areas set the pattern for longstanding conflict of perceptions of regime benevolence. From Prague, Slovaks appeared consistently ungrateful for the benefits of common statehood; from Bratislava, the perception was frequently of a negligent, even exploitative or colonial economic policy. The Communist priority attached to investment in Slovakia after 1948 did little to realign these perceptions, particularly inasmuch as a Soviet economic model continued to concentrate effective economic decisionmaking power in the center. It is notable that the federal design of 1968 was retrenched in 1970 precisely in the area of economic autonomy. Even more consequential in the long run was the character of communist era investment in Slovakia. Even as it may have narrowed the gap in production as long as the communist state SLOVAKIA 113 system endured, the pattern of investment was skewed toward the demands of a larger regional communist system (especially with regard to military production.) When that economic system dissolved, so did the benefits to Slovakia, leaving it to suffer disproportionately in unemployment and production declines in the course of the dislocations attendant on remarketization. Deeprooted economic grievances thus resurfaced to reinforce the political case for recognizing Slovak nationhood in maximally decentralized form, as a political means of protecting Slovak interests against the disruptions of the market. Finally, all the essays present a profile of successive political systems in disequilibria with the multinational character of the state, prospectively or in practice. Whether one defines this disequilibrium as a conscious decision by a larger Czech entity to preserve a constitutional structure that preserved maximum control at the center, or whether one defines important ambiguities in the mutual perceptions of the two nations, ambiguities that imposed ideological blinders, the net result is the same: a series of states that functioned without feeling impelled to respond to the unsettled problem of the fit between the common state and the national subgroups that inhabited it. How then are we to understand the disintegration of the state in the course of 1992? At one level, this outcome appears perverse; following the 1992 elections, democratically elected politicians pursued a policy of disconnection despite the absence of public consensus (an anomaly noted by Stanislav Kirschbaum) for independence in either of the two republics. Part of the answer to this conundrum lies in decoding the electoral paradox that led voters to support political parties whose agendas were so clearly destined to clash. On closer inspection, this may be less paradoxical that it first appears. Both Vladimir Meciar's HZDS and Vaclav Klaus's ODC ran on platforms that reiterated a commitment to joint statehood, albeit in very different institutional forms. For voters then, the issue in each republic was not necessarily the continuance of the state, but rather support for the party that seemed to offer the best prospects for pursuing broader, but nonetheless nationally distinct, agendas - in the Czech lands, 114 SLOVAKIA rapid economic transformation - and in Slovakia, a strong defense of Slovak interests that need not in many cases have entailed a desire for separation. What electoral politics cannot reflect then, is the dissonance of views on the character of the state project that lay behind the apparent consensus on continued joint statehood. Since polls show the Czech public aligned on the spectrum of constitutional alternatives toward the unitary or federal end, and Slovaks on the other end tilting toward confederation or separation, it is not unfair to argue that the joint state preferred by Czechs was not in fact the same animal that the Slovak public espoused when expressing preference for a joint state. The election results and postelectoral negotiations, therefore, are not so paradoxical when one thinks about the dissonant concepts of statehood in the two republics. What had occurred was a political deadlock, a deadlock that reflected clear differences in the acceptability of alternative constitutional bargains for both leaders and publics in the two republics. This understanding leads us back to the point that all contributors to this forum have emphasized in different periods, that the Czech-Slovak division ran far deeper than the momentary clash of interests between two headstrong politicians. Differing conceptions of the preferred character of the state were underpinned by a long history of divergent conceptions of the beneficiaries of the state, each nation in fact harboring the perception, also validated in poll data, that the other had gained disproportionately from common statehood. What differentiated 1992 from earlier attempts to resolve the question was, perhaps, not merely the functioning of a democratic system, contigent on electoral outcomes, but rather two additional features of the political context. First, the international environment posed a lesser threat to national survival than earlier in the twentieth century. (Note however, that Slovaks see the Czech lands as vulnerable to German domination, while Czechs warn Slovaks of subordination to the benighted east). Second, for all its dubious relevance under communism, the federal structure of the state inherited by the Velvet Revolution was subsequently infused with institutional meaning through the electoral process. In contrast with the past, Slovaks possessed a constitutional SLOVAKIA 115 veto in the bicameral federal assembly and could claim an electorally-validated seat at the bargaining table. In fact, no constitutional design could be accepted without the acquiescence of the Slovak government. Contrast this with the vivid, and I think, accurate picture sketched by Susan Mikula of the interwar politics of symbolic Slovak leadership inclusion and practical powerlessness to set the agenda. Given institutional bases that provided leverage for Czech and Slovak negotiators alike, the outcome of the postcommunist negotiations was certain to run a different course than had previous such attempts. It is also the case that the negotiators proceeded from the premise that a renegotiated national settlement was a necessary component of democratization (it was not initially clear that no settlement would be forthcoming). Here it should be noted that the Czech agenda of what came to be called "functional federalism" probably should be recognized as according certain concessions to the Slovak position. The December 1990 provisional agreement and subsequent bargaining did provide for greater decentralization of authority than past institutional arrangements. I am therefore inclined to be more sympathetic than Stanislav Kirschbaum in discerning Czech movement on the question of constitutional reconfiguration. But the crux of the matter is that the final attempted bargain, struck in February 1992, was insufficiently decentralized to pass muster with the Slovak National Council, but at the same time as decentralized a framework as the Czechs were likely to countenance. In this sense, the 1992 electoral outcome only crystalized two years of failure to reach consensus. In some senses, the dissolution of the state in the course of the 1992 negotiations can be regarded as a failure of leadership. If so, the leadership failure in question is not merely that of the endgame period of 1992, but of the full experience of joint statehood, in which two nations coexisted without ever reaching consensus on a common destiny or on the institutional design that would secure such a vision. REVIEW ESSAY  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 Slovak-Czech Relations: An Assessment Description An account of the resource Carol Skalnik Leff Slovakia, Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92 pp. 109-115 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Leff, Carol Skalnik, 1947- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-92 LCNAF+dates https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/8f82b142b04278bd07dbb6849afe0c55.pdf a6e0a2ff98b268bf6f148328ce71cc1e PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 97 The Czech Question in Slovakia in the Post-War Years STANISLAV J. KIRSCHBAUM It is not a simple task to describe the role of the "Czech question" in Slovakia in the post-war period, especially under the Communist regime (1948-1989). The difficulties in understanding it are not unlike the dilemmas faced by a man who is looking for a comfortable place to rest at night in a dark room in which a black panther is sleeping: he knows that he must not disturb it and each movement he makes is influenced by its unseen presence. Similarly, the best way to understand the role the Czech question has played in Slovakia is to examine the twists and turns of Slovak politics in this period. The restoration of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1945 meant that the Slovaks would once again have to come to terms with the Czech control of the state. For most Czech politicians, in particular Edvard Bend, the re-created state was to be identical to the pre-Munich First Republic . Many declarations to that effect had been made during the war. At first glance it seems therefore that the war had merely been an interruption. However, the political situation at its end was quite different from what it had been in the twenties and thirties. The six-year existence of the first Slovak Republic (19391945) had brought about such changes in Slovak national life that Slovakia's re-incorporation into Czechoslovakia had to take place on new terms. What was not clear were not only the terms, but above �98 SLOVAKIA all the room for manoeuvre that the Slovaks would have to negotiate and maintain the new relationship with the Czechs. Slovak leaders had to deal with two factors that influenced postwar politics: first of all, the war-time resistance movement that the Allies recognized had been organized and led by Czech politicians with Benes at their head in the name of the Czechoslovak Republic. Slovak non-Communist politicians who joined them had no choice but to accept Czech leadership . Even Slovak Communists, who initially went their own way by creating the Communist Party of Slovakia (CPS) and propagating the idea of a Slovak Soviet Republic attached to the USSR, accepted it not only in the state, but in the end also in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPCS). The second factor had to do with the existence of the Slovak Republic. Jozef Lettrich, one of the Slovak non-Communist leaders, writes that "Slovak separatism was not only anti-Czech; it was also anti-democratic" .45 We can question the accuracy of this statement; in 1945, however, it had validity and justified the decision of the Allies to have the Slovak Republic disappear at the end of hostilities. These were the arguments invoked not only to maintain the decision to deny the Slovaks the right to their own state but above all to allow the Czechs a relatively free hand in dealing with them. As a result, as the Slovak writer, Peter Zig man, put it recently, "After the renewal of the CSR in 1945, it was not possible to renew the pre-war autonomy [of Slovakia], rather certain political forces whose particular representative was President Edvard Benes preferred to apply against Slovakia and the Slovaks the principle of collective guilt (the only problem was that, unlike the Sudeten Germans, there was no place where to deport them)" .46 The Czech question in Slovakia thus came to be identified with these two factors. They created a political situation which for all intents and purposes subjected the Slovaks to a Czech agenda which 45 Jozef Lettrich, History of Modem Slovakia, New York, Frederick A. Praeger, 1955 , p. 110. 46 Peter Zigman, •Cesko-slovenske s1Htatie", Slovenske narodne noviny, 44/3 November 1992. �SLOVAKIA 99 once again was defined as "Czechoslovak", notwithstanding the Kosice Programme of April 1945 which officially recognized the Slovak nation. This meant that there was no question of Slovakia's equality with the Czech Lands nor of equal Slovak participation in the running of the state. This situation was in total disregard of the slogan "equal partners" (rovnf s rovnfm) which the leaders of the Slovak resistance movement propagated during the 1944 Revolt in order to gain support among the Slovak people. The Revolt was a military action whose aim had been not only to overthrow the Slovak Republic and tie the Slovaks to the anti-Nazi movements in Europe, but above all to proclaim their allegiance to Czechoslovakia. 47 The first and clearest indication that they would have limited room for manoeuvre came during the negotiations that took place in Moscow in March 1945 between the Czechoslovak government-in-exile and Slovak representatives; the latter failed to have their main demand implemented, namely the transformation of Czechoslovakia into a federal state .48 Nevertheless, in the Czechoslovak government's first post-war programme, known as the Kosice Programme, the Slovaks were given relatively broad political and administrative autonomy. The institutions created during the Revolt, the Slovak National Council and the Board of Commissioners , took over the legislative and executive functions of the Parliament and Government of the Slovak Republic. For a short while, Slovakia was a state within a state. This was a situation that could not last. In a process reminiscent of the first years of the First Czechoslovak Republic, the Czech agenda was swiftly imposed on the Slovaks by the government once it was back in Prague: first, it 47 On the events of August 1944, see Stanislav J . Kirschbaum , 'The Re volt of 1944', in Stanislav J. Kirschbaum , ed ., Slovak Politics , Cleveland, Slovak Institute , 1983 , pp . 286-313 . 48 For more on this and subsequent events, see Stanislav J . Kirschbaum , "Federalism in Slovak Communist Politics", Canadian Slavonic Papers, XIX (4), 1977 , pp . 444451. �100 SLOVAKIA forced the Slovak National Council and the Board of Commissioners to sign the three Prague Agreements of 1945 and 1946 which seriously curtailed Slovak political and administrative autonomy; secondly, it sanctioned the trials of officials of the Slovak Republic, in particular President Jozef Tiso and Prime Minister Vojtech Tuka, most of whom were condemned either to death or prison terms. The political struggle between the Communist and Democratic Parties in Slovakia gave additional leverage to the government to control Slovakia. The elections of 1946 were won by the Democratic Party. As a result, the Communists , in the political battle that ensued, abandoned the nationalist stance they had taken during the elections, aligned themselves with the CPCS and ceased to oppose the centralizing tendencies of the Prague government. By the time the CPCS won power in a coup in February 1948 (with a dry-run in Slovakia in November 1947), Czechoslovakia had become a unitary centralized state in all but name, a situation which the Constitution of 1948 recognized. What this meant for the Slovaks, in the words of the Slovak historian C'ubomfr Liptak, was that "Slovak politics was replaced by politics in Slovakia" .49 For all intents and purposes, the Czech agenda, writ large as "Czechoslovak", was once again in place throughout the state. The Communists who ended up in charge of Slovak affairs in the first decade of the regime were not those who had participated in the 1944 Revolt. The latter, who were known as "povstalci", had lost a power struggle within the CPS to comrades who gave their total allegiance to the Czech leadership of the CPCS. The "povstalci" became the victims of the Stalinist purges that befell Eastern Europe in the late forties and early fifties. The "centralists", as those in power were called, proceeded to implement the Czech agenda. Their programme was an economic one: to industrialize Slovakia to the level of the Czech Lands. They allowed Slovak national institutions to be all but stripped of their remaining powers, they conducted campaigns against Slovak nationalism not only during the Stalinist 49 1:ubomfr Liptlik, Slovensko v 20. storoci, Bratislava, Vydavatefstvo politickej literatury , 1968 , p. 296. �SLOVAKIA purges, but also in the aftermath of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and in 1960, together with their Czech colleagues, they celebrated the achievements of socialism in Czechoslovakia with the promulgation of a socialist constitution. The second Soviet destalinization in 1961 and an economic crisis in the early 1960s made possible a challenge to the regime, in particular its handling of Czech-Slovak relations. First came the pressure to free and rehabilitate the condemned "povstalci". However, as Zigman writes, "The suppression of Slovak interests did not end even in the 1960s, a period which in the Czech Lands was perceived as a political thaw. This was particularly evident in the activities of [CPCS First Secretary] Antonfn Novotny and his followers as head of the state and the party" .50 Therefore, when Slovak Communists challenged the Czech agenda, they did so only in a veiled way. They allowed and even encouraged the rehabilitated "povstalci" to refer to the goals of the 1944 Revolt, namely the transformation of the state into a federation. The Slovak press as well as academic journals published new and revised histories of the 1944 events, called officially the Slovak National Uprising, and argued for the implementation of their goals .s I This challenge, which culminated in the federalization of the state on 28 October 1968, was successful only because it was shown to have ideological validity. This is the message in the memorandum52 Milo~ Gosiorovsky submitted to the Central Committee of the CPCS in 1963 which provoked an angry reaction from Novotny. Nevertheless, even with clearly acceptable ideological arguments, it took five years before a law federalizing the state could be passed. Novotny and his supporters had to be removed from office, a 50 see note 2. 51For more on this period , see Stanislav J . Kirschbaum , "National Self-Assertion in Slovakia" in George Simmonds, ed ., Nationalism in the U.S.S.R . and Eastern Europe in the Era of Brezhnev and Kosygin, Detroit , University of Detroit Press , 1977 , pp. 380-400. 52 Milo~ Gosiorovsky, "K niektorym otazkam vziahu Cechov a Slovakov v politike KSC ", Historicky casopis XVI (3), 1968, pp . 370-396. �102 SLOVAKIA removal which also made possible for a reform process to be introduced in the political life of the state _53 Under the leadership of Novotny's successor, the Slovak Alexander Dubcek, an effort was made during the spring and summer of 1968 to introduce "socialism with a human face" in the political life of the Czechs and Slovaks . The federalization of the state was one of the reforms envisaged and was the object of intensive discussions.54 However, Czechoslovakia's neighbours did not approve of this experiment in political liberalization 55 and cut it short with a military intervention in August. Of all the reforms, only the federalization of the state survived. Compared with the first decade and a half of the regime, the years leading up to the liberalization process were a period of relative freedom of expression which enabled the Slovaks to renegotiate their status in the state. They were not, on the other hand, permitted to put its existence in question.56 Put another way, there could be no discussion of the "Czech question". It is not surprising therefore that the federalization law ended up being a compromise that reflected far more the limits of Czech tolerance of constitutional change than the successful implementation of Slovak objectives or 53For an examination of the reform process of the 1960s, see Galia Golan, The Czechoslovak Reform Movement, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1971. 54For an analysis of the debate around the federal solution, see H. Gordon Skilling, Czechoslovakia 's Interrupted Revolution, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1976), pp . 451-489 . 55 For more on the reform movement of 1968 see Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, "Kontinuitat und politischer Wechsel in der "Tschechoslowakei 1968"", Bohemia , XV, 1974, pp . 378-395 and Galia Golan , Reform Rule in Czechoslovakia 1968-1969, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1973). 56 However, as Robert W. Dean writes, "While nothing indicated that separatism was actively being considered as an altemat_ive by responsible Slovak politicians, discussions of it appreared in the press regularly". See Robert W. Dean, Nationalism and Political Change in Eastern Europe: the Slovak Question and the Czechoslovak Reform Movement, The Social Science Foundation and Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, Monograph Series in World Affairs, Vol. 10, Denver, University of Denver, 1973, p. 31. �SLOVAKIA 103 even a definition of mutually acceptable goals. The two decades that followed the Warsaw Pact intervention of August 1968 , the period known as normalization, saw the wine of centralization being poured out of a federal bottle. The fact that a Slovak, Gustav Husak, had replaced Dubcek as head of the party and was from 1975 on also head of state seemed to suggest that an acceptable constitutional relationship had been found between the two nations. In actual fact, the regime was pursuing new ideological goals which once again reflected Czech interests and which were not dissimilar to the ideology of Czechoslovakism of the First Republic. As Viliam Plevza, the leading Slovak scholar of the normalization regime, writes: "It is evidently only a question of time for the prerequisites to develop, under new and most favourable conditions, based on the recent history of mutual relations , which will lead to the acceleration of the total development and rapprochement of the Czechs and Slovaks and the nationalities living in the republic, and to the attainment of such a synthesis that the notion of a "Czechoslovak people" will be the symbol of a new qualitative unity of all the citizens of the CSSR" _57 On the constitutional level, the results of the policy of normalization on the federal system were quite dramatic, as Zigman points out: "Progressively , with the argument of making the central organs more effective, a number of laws were passed which transformed the Czech Socialist and the Slovak Socialist Republics into unequal provinces in the CSSR whose republican institutions merely carried out orders from above. Every social movement was frozen and officially the theory of proletarian internationalism prevailed. In this way - with the help Soviet conservatives - this situation was maintained for twenty years and nothing modified it, not even cosmetic changes under [CPCS Secretary-General Milos] Jakes or the [political] game of "glasnost'" _58 Nevertheless , federalism did allow initially for a Slovak national 57 Viliam Plevza, Socialisticke premeny Ceskoslovenska, Bratislava, Pravda , 1983 , p. 420 . 5 8s ee note 2. �104 SLOVAKIA cultural renaissance; but given the political climate, it was quickly halted. Carol Skalnik Leff notes that in the mid-1970s there were warnings and threats about bourgeois nationalism, reminiscent of those uttered in the 1950s, which signalled a move away from the earlier enthusiastic recovery of the national heritage in cultural and academic publications. She writes that "It is unlikely that this noticeable shift reflects a diminution of Slovak national sentiment - quite the contrary, it suggests a concern that such sentiment was getting out of hand" .59 Clearly, anything in Slovakia that threatened the Czech agenda had to be eliminated; and it was. The Husak policy of normalization faced increased opposition both in Slovakia and in the Czech Lands after the Czechoslovak government signed the Helsinki Final Act in 1975. The Czechs, in particular academics, artists and writers, formed a loose movement called Charter 77 which attacked the ideology and policies of the regime. 60 Only a very small number of Slovak Communist dissidents adhered to it. The more significant Slovak opposition to the regime found its outlet primarily in religious demonstrations which had a broad mass appeal. This opposition was in fact a challenge to the continued imposition of the Czech agenda in Slovakia. The regime responded with a policy of open repression to both movements, especially the Slovak one. As far as it was concerned, there could be no discussion of anything but its own agenda while it was in power. It is only with the fall of Communism in November 1989 that a discussion of the Czech question could finally begin to take place in Slovakia. The first signal that there would be such a discussion came with the motion proposed by Slovak deputies to the Czechoslovak Federal Parliament on 30 March 1990 to return the hyphen to Czechoslovakia, the short name of the country. This spelling had been used in the Peace Treaties when the country was formed in 1918. 59 carol Skalnik Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia. The Making and Remaking of a State, 1918-1987, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1988, p. 268. 60 on this movement see H. Gordon Skilling, Charter 77 and Human Rights in Czechoslovakia, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1981. �SLOVAKIA 105 Officially the country was still the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. The motion was defeated by the Czech majority (with the help of some Slovak deputies). The compromise title of Czech and Slovak Federative Republic with the authorization of using the hyphen in Slovakia on the short form adopted a fortnight later was also not satisfactory. As a result, a campaign to influence Slovak public opinion on Czech-Slovak relations began in earnest. However, unlike the immediate post-war years and the Communist period when one outcome, the separation of Slovakia, was excluded, all solutions were now possible. This debate around the name of the common state strengthened the resolve of many Slovaks to initiate discussions on constitutional reform and helped to clarify the different positions. According to Zigman, "Suddenly, along with other problems, the question of a constitutional arrangement came to the surface. On the Czech side in particular, voices came to be heard shortly after the revolution [suggesting] that in the interest of the transformation of our economy the already centralized pseudo-federation should be further centralized and replaced by a unitary state (part of Civic Forum and [also] Public Against Violence). On the other hand , parties and movements appeared in Slovakia which sought greater rights for the republics and the breaking up of the federal moloch which crushed every national political movement. They demanded that it be replaced with a flexible system of institutions whose task it would be to coordinate the activities of the republics (part of the Slovak National Party and later part of the Christian Democratic Movement)" .6 1 The constitutional debate went on for two years 62 and indicated a desire to find a solution to the Czech question in Slovak political life. It was, however, only one aspect of a wider public debate, 61 See note 2. 62 For an examination of this debate, see Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, "Les Slovaques et le droit des peuples a disposer d'eux-m~mes: a la recherche d'une solution", in Andre Liebich et Andre Reszler, eds ., L 'Europe centrale et ses minorites: vers une solution europeenne?, (Geneve , Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales) , Paris , Presses universitaires de France , 1993, pp . 92-10 I. �106 SLOVAK.IA initiated by the Czech writer Ludvik Vaculfk when he published in May 1990 an article entitled "Our Slovak Problem". In an at times bitter tone, Vaculfk railed at the fact that the Slovaks, to whom he referred as little brothers, refused to share the common bed with the Czechs. He did not think, furthermore, that they were ready to sleep in their own. In his rejection of a Slovak approach and in his steadfast conviction of the importance of Czechoslovak statehood he wrote; "To develop our own Czech state - it is after all a step backwards. Not long ago I went to Bratislava and all my friends said to me why are you getting so agitated because those nationalist noises come from carrierists, idiots or else intrigue-makers. I heard this with pleasure" _63 Among the many who responded, it was Vladimir Minac, a Slovak writer, who best took Vaculfk to task in an article entitled "Our Czecho-Slovak Problem". Rejecting the notion of a "little brother" and examining generally the meaning of Czechoslovakism, Minac added: "Vaculik writes that "it is an honest duty to be a Czechoslovak". However, what you find behind a Czechoslovak is a badly covered pure Czech who in some peculiar way made the land of the Slovaks his own; and if he hasn't done so, then he wants to do so. But a Slovak doesn't want to be a Czechoslovak, he doesn't want to be shoved behind a foreign facade, he wants to be himself, independent and equal. Is that so difficult to understand?" .64 Minac did not propose a solution; he left that to the politicians. The parameters, on the other hand, had been made quite clear. During the twenty-four months that separate the first two free elections in post-Communist Czechoslovakia, Slovak politicians, while pushing for the transformation of the state, made every effort to come to terms with the Czechs. A parallel with the 1968 constitutional discussions comes to mind. There is, however, an important difference this time, namely the absence of a superpower to influ63Ludv0c VaculOc, "Na§e slovenska otazka", Literami noviny, 5/1990, 3 May 1990, reprinted in Nove slovo 21/1990, 24 May 1990. 64 Vladimfr Minac, "Na§a cesko-slovenska otlizka", Nove s/ovo, 21/1990, 24 May 1990 . �SLOVAKIA 107 ence, if not determine the outcome. As a result, the Czech parties were able to indicate very clearly that they were unwilling to abandon their historical perception of Czechoslovakia as a Czech state with which the Slovaks were asked to identify and accept. At best, the status quo, in other words the federal law of 1968, was acceptable. As far as most Slovaks were concerned, despite a certain lack of unity , there had to be major constitutional reforms. There were many meetings and many propositions,65 including a number of interventions from President Vaclav Havel, yet no constitutional agreement was reached before the elections of June 1992. As a result, an important percentage of the electorate in each republic cast votes for parties that articulated a parallel message: if the other nation will not accept our terms, then let us make a go of it alone. This paved the way for the Czechs to rid themselves of the "Slovak question" while the Slovaks, many reluctantly, came to the conclusion that they might be better off without a "Czech question". After the Slovak National Council declared the sovereignty of the Slovak nation in July 1992, Prime Ministers Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic and Vladimfr Meciar of the Slovak Republic agreed that Czechoslovakia would be dissolved and two states would come into existence on 1 January 1993; on 25 November 1992, the Federal Parliament passed a law approving the dissolution. Thereafter, until the break up, both sides negotiated the division of federal property and other assets. Did the independence of Slovakia and the creation of a Czech Republic put to rest the "Czech question" in Slovak politics? Two factors suggest that one cannot give a categorical answer. First, public opinion polls preceding the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in the Czech and Slovak Republics suggested that if a referendum had been held at that time on the acceptance of the break-up of Czechoslovakia into two independent national states it would most likely not have won a majority. One may well ask whether this means that 65 These are described in Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, "Czechoslovakia: The Creation, Federalisation and Disolution of a Nation-State", Regional Politics and Policy, III (I), 1993, pp . 69-95. �108 SLOVAKIA the Slovaks, after 68 years in a common state, when shove comes to push, saw living with a "Czech question", however intractable it was, as acceptable and perhaps even preferable to an uncertain future in an independent state? There is probably no simple answer to this question. What is certain, however, is that democratic politicians, unlike Communist ones, who treat public opinion as quantite negligeable do so at their own risk. It is possible that these polls reflected some degree of nostalgia as much as a fear of the future. But then again, they may have reflected the recognition of a second factor , the close relations that the two nations developed over the years. As Zigman indicated when these polls were taken, this factor placed the Slovaks before a choice: "The economic relations [with the Czechs] which were created during the recent period of development will remain and will become a significant element in a future European integration [process]. We [the Slovaks] are at a crossroads and have to decide between a Czecho-Slovak state and Czech-Slovak cooperation. I think that the starting point out of this dilemma is clear" .66 To return to our image of the beginning, after many attempts to find a comfortable place for themselves, the Slovaks found in the end that it was better to leave the room which they shared with the allegorical black panther. But they did so only after first seeking to come to an understanding with it. They also made a choice for a different kind of Czech-Slovak cooperation. Therefore, as they proceed to develop their own state, for the foreseeable future at any rate, the Slovaks will have to pay attention to a "Czech question". It is not clear what, if any, influence it will have on Slovak political life. It will, however, have ceased to be that which had been the main challenge to Slovak politics in the common state, namely an unhyphenated "Czechoslovak question" which they had not been allowed either to define or influence. 66 see note 2. � SLOVAKIA 97 The Czech Question in Slovakia in the Post-War Years STANISLAV J. KIRSCHBAUM It is not a simple task to describe the role of the "Czech question" in Slovakia in the post-war period, especially under the Communist regime (1948-1989). The difficulties in understanding it are not unlike the dilemmas faced by a man who is looking for a comfortable place to rest at night in a dark room in which a black panther is sleeping: he knows that he must not disturb it and each movement he makes is influenced by its unseen presence. Similarly, the best way to understand the role the Czech question has played in Slovakia is to examine the twists and turns of Slovak politics in this period. The restoration of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1945 meant that the Slovaks would once again have to come to terms with the Czech control of the state. For most Czech politicians, in particular Edvard Bend, the re-created state was to be identical to the pre-Munich First Republic . Many declarations to that effect had been made during the war. At first glance it seems therefore that the war had merely been an interruption. However, the political situation at its end was quite different from what it had been in the twenties and thirties. The six-year existence of the first Slovak Republic (19391945) had brought about such changes in Slovak national life that Slovakia's re-incorporation into Czechoslovakia had to take place on new terms. What was not clear were not only the terms, but above �98 SLOVAKIA all the room for manoeuvre that the Slovaks would have to negotiate and maintain the new relationship with the Czechs. Slovak leaders had to deal with two factors that influenced postwar politics: first of all, the war-time resistance movement that the Allies recognized had been organized and led by Czech politicians with Benes at their head in the name of the Czechoslovak Republic. Slovak non-Communist politicians who joined them had no choice but to accept Czech leadership . Even Slovak Communists, who initially went their own way by creating the Communist Party of Slovakia (CPS) and propagating the idea of a Slovak Soviet Republic attached to the USSR, accepted it not only in the state, but in the end also in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPCS). The second factor had to do with the existence of the Slovak Republic. Jozef Lettrich, one of the Slovak non-Communist leaders, writes that "Slovak separatism was not only anti-Czech; it was also anti-democratic" .45 We can question the accuracy of this statement; in 1945, however, it had validity and justified the decision of the Allies to have the Slovak Republic disappear at the end of hostilities. These were the arguments invoked not only to maintain the decision to deny the Slovaks the right to their own state but above all to allow the Czechs a relatively free hand in dealing with them. As a result, as the Slovak writer, Peter Zig man, put it recently, "After the renewal of the CSR in 1945, it was not possible to renew the pre-war autonomy [of Slovakia], rather certain political forces whose particular representative was President Edvard Benes preferred to apply against Slovakia and the Slovaks the principle of collective guilt (the only problem was that, unlike the Sudeten Germans, there was no place where to deport them)" .46 The Czech question in Slovakia thus came to be identified with these two factors. They created a political situation which for all intents and purposes subjected the Slovaks to a Czech agenda which 45 Jozef Lettrich, History of Modem Slovakia, New York, Frederick A. Praeger, 1955 , p. 110. 46 Peter Zigman, •Cesko-slovenske s1Htatie", Slovenske narodne noviny, 44/3 November 1992. �SLOVAKIA 99 once again was defined as "Czechoslovak", notwithstanding the Kosice Programme of April 1945 which officially recognized the Slovak nation. This meant that there was no question of Slovakia's equality with the Czech Lands nor of equal Slovak participation in the running of the state. This situation was in total disregard of the slogan "equal partners" (rovnf s rovnfm) which the leaders of the Slovak resistance movement propagated during the 1944 Revolt in order to gain support among the Slovak people. The Revolt was a military action whose aim had been not only to overthrow the Slovak Republic and tie the Slovaks to the anti-Nazi movements in Europe, but above all to proclaim their allegiance to Czechoslovakia. 47 The first and clearest indication that they would have limited room for manoeuvre came during the negotiations that took place in Moscow in March 1945 between the Czechoslovak government-in-exile and Slovak representatives; the latter failed to have their main demand implemented, namely the transformation of Czechoslovakia into a federal state .48 Nevertheless, in the Czechoslovak government's first post-war programme, known as the Kosice Programme, the Slovaks were given relatively broad political and administrative autonomy. The institutions created during the Revolt, the Slovak National Council and the Board of Commissioners , took over the legislative and executive functions of the Parliament and Government of the Slovak Republic. For a short while, Slovakia was a state within a state. This was a situation that could not last. In a process reminiscent of the first years of the First Czechoslovak Republic, the Czech agenda was swiftly imposed on the Slovaks by the government once it was back in Prague: first, it 47 On the events of August 1944, see Stanislav J . Kirschbaum , 'The Re volt of 1944', in Stanislav J. Kirschbaum , ed ., Slovak Politics , Cleveland, Slovak Institute , 1983 , pp . 286-313 . 48 For more on this and subsequent events, see Stanislav J . Kirschbaum , "Federalism in Slovak Communist Politics", Canadian Slavonic Papers, XIX (4), 1977 , pp . 444451. �100 SLOVAKIA forced the Slovak National Council and the Board of Commissioners to sign the three Prague Agreements of 1945 and 1946 which seriously curtailed Slovak political and administrative autonomy; secondly, it sanctioned the trials of officials of the Slovak Republic, in particular President Jozef Tiso and Prime Minister Vojtech Tuka, most of whom were condemned either to death or prison terms. The political struggle between the Communist and Democratic Parties in Slovakia gave additional leverage to the government to control Slovakia. The elections of 1946 were won by the Democratic Party. As a result, the Communists , in the political battle that ensued, abandoned the nationalist stance they had taken during the elections, aligned themselves with the CPCS and ceased to oppose the centralizing tendencies of the Prague government. By the time the CPCS won power in a coup in February 1948 (with a dry-run in Slovakia in November 1947), Czechoslovakia had become a unitary centralized state in all but name, a situation which the Constitution of 1948 recognized. What this meant for the Slovaks, in the words of the Slovak historian C'ubomfr Liptak, was that "Slovak politics was replaced by politics in Slovakia" .49 For all intents and purposes, the Czech agenda, writ large as "Czechoslovak", was once again in place throughout the state. The Communists who ended up in charge of Slovak affairs in the first decade of the regime were not those who had participated in the 1944 Revolt. The latter, who were known as "povstalci", had lost a power struggle within the CPS to comrades who gave their total allegiance to the Czech leadership of the CPCS. The "povstalci" became the victims of the Stalinist purges that befell Eastern Europe in the late forties and early fifties. The "centralists", as those in power were called, proceeded to implement the Czech agenda. Their programme was an economic one: to industrialize Slovakia to the level of the Czech Lands. They allowed Slovak national institutions to be all but stripped of their remaining powers, they conducted campaigns against Slovak nationalism not only during the Stalinist 49 1:ubomfr Liptlik, Slovensko v 20. storoci, Bratislava, Vydavatefstvo politickej literatury , 1968 , p. 296. �SLOVAKIA purges, but also in the aftermath of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and in 1960, together with their Czech colleagues, they celebrated the achievements of socialism in Czechoslovakia with the promulgation of a socialist constitution. The second Soviet destalinization in 1961 and an economic crisis in the early 1960s made possible a challenge to the regime, in particular its handling of Czech-Slovak relations. First came the pressure to free and rehabilitate the condemned "povstalci". However, as Zigman writes, "The suppression of Slovak interests did not end even in the 1960s, a period which in the Czech Lands was perceived as a political thaw. This was particularly evident in the activities of [CPCS First Secretary] Antonfn Novotny and his followers as head of the state and the party" .50 Therefore, when Slovak Communists challenged the Czech agenda, they did so only in a veiled way. They allowed and even encouraged the rehabilitated "povstalci" to refer to the goals of the 1944 Revolt, namely the transformation of the state into a federation. The Slovak press as well as academic journals published new and revised histories of the 1944 events, called officially the Slovak National Uprising, and argued for the implementation of their goals .s I This challenge, which culminated in the federalization of the state on 28 October 1968, was successful only because it was shown to have ideological validity. This is the message in the memorandum52 Milo~ Gosiorovsky submitted to the Central Committee of the CPCS in 1963 which provoked an angry reaction from Novotny. Nevertheless, even with clearly acceptable ideological arguments, it took five years before a law federalizing the state could be passed. Novotny and his supporters had to be removed from office, a 50 see note 2. 51For more on this period , see Stanislav J . Kirschbaum , "National Self-Assertion in Slovakia" in George Simmonds, ed ., Nationalism in the U.S.S.R . and Eastern Europe in the Era of Brezhnev and Kosygin, Detroit , University of Detroit Press , 1977 , pp. 380-400. 52 Milo~ Gosiorovsky, "K niektorym otazkam vziahu Cechov a Slovakov v politike KSC ", Historicky casopis XVI (3), 1968, pp . 370-396. �102 SLOVAKIA removal which also made possible for a reform process to be introduced in the political life of the state _53 Under the leadership of Novotny's successor, the Slovak Alexander Dubcek, an effort was made during the spring and summer of 1968 to introduce "socialism with a human face" in the political life of the Czechs and Slovaks . The federalization of the state was one of the reforms envisaged and was the object of intensive discussions.54 However, Czechoslovakia's neighbours did not approve of this experiment in political liberalization 55 and cut it short with a military intervention in August. Of all the reforms, only the federalization of the state survived. Compared with the first decade and a half of the regime, the years leading up to the liberalization process were a period of relative freedom of expression which enabled the Slovaks to renegotiate their status in the state. They were not, on the other hand, permitted to put its existence in question.56 Put another way, there could be no discussion of the "Czech question". It is not surprising therefore that the federalization law ended up being a compromise that reflected far more the limits of Czech tolerance of constitutional change than the successful implementation of Slovak objectives or 53For an examination of the reform process of the 1960s, see Galia Golan, The Czechoslovak Reform Movement, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1971. 54For an analysis of the debate around the federal solution, see H. Gordon Skilling, Czechoslovakia 's Interrupted Revolution, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1976), pp . 451-489 . 55 For more on the reform movement of 1968 see Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, "Kontinuitat und politischer Wechsel in der "Tschechoslowakei 1968"", Bohemia , XV, 1974, pp . 378-395 and Galia Golan , Reform Rule in Czechoslovakia 1968-1969, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1973). 56 However, as Robert W. Dean writes, "While nothing indicated that separatism was actively being considered as an altemat_ive by responsible Slovak politicians, discussions of it appreared in the press regularly". See Robert W. Dean, Nationalism and Political Change in Eastern Europe: the Slovak Question and the Czechoslovak Reform Movement, The Social Science Foundation and Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, Monograph Series in World Affairs, Vol. 10, Denver, University of Denver, 1973, p. 31. �SLOVAKIA 103 even a definition of mutually acceptable goals. The two decades that followed the Warsaw Pact intervention of August 1968 , the period known as normalization, saw the wine of centralization being poured out of a federal bottle. The fact that a Slovak, Gustav Husak, had replaced Dubcek as head of the party and was from 1975 on also head of state seemed to suggest that an acceptable constitutional relationship had been found between the two nations. In actual fact, the regime was pursuing new ideological goals which once again reflected Czech interests and which were not dissimilar to the ideology of Czechoslovakism of the First Republic. As Viliam Plevza, the leading Slovak scholar of the normalization regime, writes: "It is evidently only a question of time for the prerequisites to develop, under new and most favourable conditions, based on the recent history of mutual relations , which will lead to the acceleration of the total development and rapprochement of the Czechs and Slovaks and the nationalities living in the republic, and to the attainment of such a synthesis that the notion of a "Czechoslovak people" will be the symbol of a new qualitative unity of all the citizens of the CSSR" _57 On the constitutional level, the results of the policy of normalization on the federal system were quite dramatic, as Zigman points out: "Progressively , with the argument of making the central organs more effective, a number of laws were passed which transformed the Czech Socialist and the Slovak Socialist Republics into unequal provinces in the CSSR whose republican institutions merely carried out orders from above. Every social movement was frozen and officially the theory of proletarian internationalism prevailed. In this way - with the help Soviet conservatives - this situation was maintained for twenty years and nothing modified it, not even cosmetic changes under [CPCS Secretary-General Milos] Jakes or the [political] game of "glasnost'" _58 Nevertheless , federalism did allow initially for a Slovak national 57 Viliam Plevza, Socialisticke premeny Ceskoslovenska, Bratislava, Pravda , 1983 , p. 420 . 5 8s ee note 2. �104 SLOVAKIA cultural renaissance; but given the political climate, it was quickly halted. Carol Skalnik Leff notes that in the mid-1970s there were warnings and threats about bourgeois nationalism, reminiscent of those uttered in the 1950s, which signalled a move away from the earlier enthusiastic recovery of the national heritage in cultural and academic publications. She writes that "It is unlikely that this noticeable shift reflects a diminution of Slovak national sentiment - quite the contrary, it suggests a concern that such sentiment was getting out of hand" .59 Clearly, anything in Slovakia that threatened the Czech agenda had to be eliminated; and it was. The Husak policy of normalization faced increased opposition both in Slovakia and in the Czech Lands after the Czechoslovak government signed the Helsinki Final Act in 1975. The Czechs, in particular academics, artists and writers, formed a loose movement called Charter 77 which attacked the ideology and policies of the regime. 60 Only a very small number of Slovak Communist dissidents adhered to it. The more significant Slovak opposition to the regime found its outlet primarily in religious demonstrations which had a broad mass appeal. This opposition was in fact a challenge to the continued imposition of the Czech agenda in Slovakia. The regime responded with a policy of open repression to both movements, especially the Slovak one. As far as it was concerned, there could be no discussion of anything but its own agenda while it was in power. It is only with the fall of Communism in November 1989 that a discussion of the Czech question could finally begin to take place in Slovakia. The first signal that there would be such a discussion came with the motion proposed by Slovak deputies to the Czechoslovak Federal Parliament on 30 March 1990 to return the hyphen to Czechoslovakia, the short name of the country. This spelling had been used in the Peace Treaties when the country was formed in 1918. 59 carol Skalnik Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia. The Making and Remaking of a State, 1918-1987, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1988, p. 268. 60 on this movement see H. Gordon Skilling, Charter 77 and Human Rights in Czechoslovakia, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1981. �SLOVAKIA 105 Officially the country was still the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. The motion was defeated by the Czech majority (with the help of some Slovak deputies). The compromise title of Czech and Slovak Federative Republic with the authorization of using the hyphen in Slovakia on the short form adopted a fortnight later was also not satisfactory. As a result, a campaign to influence Slovak public opinion on Czech-Slovak relations began in earnest. However, unlike the immediate post-war years and the Communist period when one outcome, the separation of Slovakia, was excluded, all solutions were now possible. This debate around the name of the common state strengthened the resolve of many Slovaks to initiate discussions on constitutional reform and helped to clarify the different positions. According to Zigman, "Suddenly, along with other problems, the question of a constitutional arrangement came to the surface. On the Czech side in particular, voices came to be heard shortly after the revolution [suggesting] that in the interest of the transformation of our economy the already centralized pseudo-federation should be further centralized and replaced by a unitary state (part of Civic Forum and [also] Public Against Violence). On the other hand , parties and movements appeared in Slovakia which sought greater rights for the republics and the breaking up of the federal moloch which crushed every national political movement. They demanded that it be replaced with a flexible system of institutions whose task it would be to coordinate the activities of the republics (part of the Slovak National Party and later part of the Christian Democratic Movement)" .6 1 The constitutional debate went on for two years 62 and indicated a desire to find a solution to the Czech question in Slovak political life. It was, however, only one aspect of a wider public debate, 61 See note 2. 62 For an examination of this debate, see Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, "Les Slovaques et le droit des peuples a disposer d'eux-m~mes: a la recherche d'une solution", in Andre Liebich et Andre Reszler, eds ., L 'Europe centrale et ses minorites: vers une solution europeenne?, (Geneve , Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales) , Paris , Presses universitaires de France , 1993, pp . 92-10 I. �106 SLOVAK.IA initiated by the Czech writer Ludvik Vaculfk when he published in May 1990 an article entitled "Our Slovak Problem". In an at times bitter tone, Vaculfk railed at the fact that the Slovaks, to whom he referred as little brothers, refused to share the common bed with the Czechs. He did not think, furthermore, that they were ready to sleep in their own. In his rejection of a Slovak approach and in his steadfast conviction of the importance of Czechoslovak statehood he wrote; "To develop our own Czech state - it is after all a step backwards. Not long ago I went to Bratislava and all my friends said to me why are you getting so agitated because those nationalist noises come from carrierists, idiots or else intrigue-makers. I heard this with pleasure" _63 Among the many who responded, it was Vladimir Minac, a Slovak writer, who best took Vaculfk to task in an article entitled "Our Czecho-Slovak Problem". Rejecting the notion of a "little brother" and examining generally the meaning of Czechoslovakism, Minac added: "Vaculik writes that "it is an honest duty to be a Czechoslovak". However, what you find behind a Czechoslovak is a badly covered pure Czech who in some peculiar way made the land of the Slovaks his own; and if he hasn't done so, then he wants to do so. But a Slovak doesn't want to be a Czechoslovak, he doesn't want to be shoved behind a foreign facade, he wants to be himself, independent and equal. Is that so difficult to understand?" .64 Minac did not propose a solution; he left that to the politicians. The parameters, on the other hand, had been made quite clear. During the twenty-four months that separate the first two free elections in post-Communist Czechoslovakia, Slovak politicians, while pushing for the transformation of the state, made every effort to come to terms with the Czechs. A parallel with the 1968 constitutional discussions comes to mind. There is, however, an important difference this time, namely the absence of a superpower to influ63Ludv0c VaculOc, "Na§e slovenska otazka", Literami noviny, 5/1990, 3 May 1990, reprinted in Nove slovo 21/1990, 24 May 1990. 64 Vladimfr Minac, "Na§a cesko-slovenska otlizka", Nove s/ovo, 21/1990, 24 May 1990 . �SLOVAKIA 107 ence, if not determine the outcome. As a result, the Czech parties were able to indicate very clearly that they were unwilling to abandon their historical perception of Czechoslovakia as a Czech state with which the Slovaks were asked to identify and accept. At best, the status quo, in other words the federal law of 1968, was acceptable. As far as most Slovaks were concerned, despite a certain lack of unity , there had to be major constitutional reforms. There were many meetings and many propositions,65 including a number of interventions from President Vaclav Havel, yet no constitutional agreement was reached before the elections of June 1992. As a result, an important percentage of the electorate in each republic cast votes for parties that articulated a parallel message: if the other nation will not accept our terms, then let us make a go of it alone. This paved the way for the Czechs to rid themselves of the "Slovak question" while the Slovaks, many reluctantly, came to the conclusion that they might be better off without a "Czech question". After the Slovak National Council declared the sovereignty of the Slovak nation in July 1992, Prime Ministers Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic and Vladimfr Meciar of the Slovak Republic agreed that Czechoslovakia would be dissolved and two states would come into existence on 1 January 1993; on 25 November 1992, the Federal Parliament passed a law approving the dissolution. Thereafter, until the break up, both sides negotiated the division of federal property and other assets. Did the independence of Slovakia and the creation of a Czech Republic put to rest the "Czech question" in Slovak politics? Two factors suggest that one cannot give a categorical answer. First, public opinion polls preceding the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in the Czech and Slovak Republics suggested that if a referendum had been held at that time on the acceptance of the break-up of Czechoslovakia into two independent national states it would most likely not have won a majority. One may well ask whether this means that 65 These are described in Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, "Czechoslovakia: The Creation, Federalisation and Disolution of a Nation-State", Regional Politics and Policy, III (I), 1993, pp . 69-95. �108 SLOVAKIA the Slovaks, after 68 years in a common state, when shove comes to push, saw living with a "Czech question", however intractable it was, as acceptable and perhaps even preferable to an uncertain future in an independent state? There is probably no simple answer to this question. What is certain, however, is that democratic politicians, unlike Communist ones, who treat public opinion as quantite negligeable do so at their own risk. It is possible that these polls reflected some degree of nostalgia as much as a fear of the future. But then again, they may have reflected the recognition of a second factor , the close relations that the two nations developed over the years. As Zigman indicated when these polls were taken, this factor placed the Slovaks before a choice: "The economic relations [with the Czechs] which were created during the recent period of development will remain and will become a significant element in a future European integration [process]. We [the Slovaks] are at a crossroads and have to decide between a Czecho-Slovak state and Czech-Slovak cooperation. I think that the starting point out of this dilemma is clear" .66 To return to our image of the beginning, after many attempts to find a comfortable place for themselves, the Slovaks found in the end that it was better to leave the room which they shared with the allegorical black panther. But they did so only after first seeking to come to an understanding with it. They also made a choice for a different kind of Czech-Slovak cooperation. Therefore, as they proceed to develop their own state, for the foreseeable future at any rate, the Slovaks will have to pay attention to a "Czech question". It is not clear what, if any, influence it will have on Slovak political life. It will, however, have ceased to be that which had been the main challenge to Slovak politics in the common state, namely an unhyphenated "Czechoslovak question" which they had not been allowed either to define or influence. 66 see note 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 1991-92, Vol. 35 Description An account of the resource Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Slovak League of America Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 1991-92 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 97 The Czech Question in Slovakia in the Post-War Years STANISLAV J. KIRSCHBAUM It is not a simple task to describe the role of the "Czech question" in Slovakia in the post-war period, especially under the Communist regime (1948-1989). The difficulties in understanding it are not unlike the dilemmas faced by a man who is looking for a comfortable place to rest at night in a dark room in which a black panther is sleeping: he knows that he must not disturb it and each movement he makes is influenced by its unseen presence. Similarly, the best way to understand the role the Czech question has played in Slovakia is to examine the twists and turns of Slovak politics in this period. The restoration of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1945 meant that the Slovaks would once again have to come to terms with the Czech control of the state. For most Czech politicians, in particular Edvard Bend, the re-created state was to be identical to the pre-Munich First Republic . Many declarations to that effect had been made during the war. At first glance it seems therefore that the war had merely been an interruption. However, the political situation at its end was quite different from what it had been in the twenties and thirties. The six-year existence of the first Slovak Republic (19391945) had brought about such changes in Slovak national life that Slovakia's re-incorporation into Czechoslovakia had to take place on new terms. What was not clear were not only the terms, but above 98 SLOVAKIA all the room for manoeuvre that the Slovaks would have to negotiate and maintain the new relationship with the Czechs. Slovak leaders had to deal with two factors that influenced postwar politics: first of all, the war-time resistance movement that the Allies recognized had been organized and led by Czech politicians with Benes at their head in the name of the Czechoslovak Republic. Slovak non-Communist politicians who joined them had no choice but to accept Czech leadership . Even Slovak Communists, who initially went their own way by creating the Communist Party of Slovakia (CPS) and propagating the idea of a Slovak Soviet Republic attached to the USSR, accepted it not only in the state, but in the end also in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPCS). The second factor had to do with the existence of the Slovak Republic. Jozef Lettrich, one of the Slovak non-Communist leaders, writes that "Slovak separatism was not only anti-Czech; it was also anti-democratic" .45 We can question the accuracy of this statement; in 1945, however, it had validity and justified the decision of the Allies to have the Slovak Republic disappear at the end of hostilities. These were the arguments invoked not only to maintain the decision to deny the Slovaks the right to their own state but above all to allow the Czechs a relatively free hand in dealing with them. As a result, as the Slovak writer, Peter Zig man, put it recently, "After the renewal of the CSR in 1945, it was not possible to renew the pre-war autonomy [of Slovakia], rather certain political forces whose particular representative was President Edvard Benes preferred to apply against Slovakia and the Slovaks the principle of collective guilt (the only problem was that, unlike the Sudeten Germans, there was no place where to deport them)" .46 The Czech question in Slovakia thus came to be identified with these two factors. They created a political situation which for all intents and purposes subjected the Slovaks to a Czech agenda which 45 Jozef Lettrich, History of Modem Slovakia, New York, Frederick A. Praeger, 1955 , p. 110. 46 Peter Zigman, •Cesko-slovenske s1Htatie", Slovenske narodne noviny, 44/3 November 1992. SLOVAKIA 99 once again was defined as "Czechoslovak", notwithstanding the Kosice Programme of April 1945 which officially recognized the Slovak nation. This meant that there was no question of Slovakia's equality with the Czech Lands nor of equal Slovak participation in the running of the state. This situation was in total disregard of the slogan "equal partners" (rovnf s rovnfm) which the leaders of the Slovak resistance movement propagated during the 1944 Revolt in order to gain support among the Slovak people. The Revolt was a military action whose aim had been not only to overthrow the Slovak Republic and tie the Slovaks to the anti-Nazi movements in Europe, but above all to proclaim their allegiance to Czechoslovakia. 47 The first and clearest indication that they would have limited room for manoeuvre came during the negotiations that took place in Moscow in March 1945 between the Czechoslovak government-in-exile and Slovak representatives; the latter failed to have their main demand implemented, namely the transformation of Czechoslovakia into a federal state .48 Nevertheless, in the Czechoslovak government's first post-war programme, known as the Kosice Programme, the Slovaks were given relatively broad political and administrative autonomy. The institutions created during the Revolt, the Slovak National Council and the Board of Commissioners , took over the legislative and executive functions of the Parliament and Government of the Slovak Republic. For a short while, Slovakia was a state within a state. This was a situation that could not last. In a process reminiscent of the first years of the First Czechoslovak Republic, the Czech agenda was swiftly imposed on the Slovaks by the government once it was back in Prague: first, it 47 On the events of August 1944, see Stanislav J . Kirschbaum , 'The Re volt of 1944', in Stanislav J. Kirschbaum , ed ., Slovak Politics , Cleveland, Slovak Institute , 1983 , pp . 286-313 . 48 For more on this and subsequent events, see Stanislav J . Kirschbaum , "Federalism in Slovak Communist Politics", Canadian Slavonic Papers, XIX (4), 1977 , pp . 444451. 100 SLOVAKIA forced the Slovak National Council and the Board of Commissioners to sign the three Prague Agreements of 1945 and 1946 which seriously curtailed Slovak political and administrative autonomy; secondly, it sanctioned the trials of officials of the Slovak Republic, in particular President Jozef Tiso and Prime Minister Vojtech Tuka, most of whom were condemned either to death or prison terms. The political struggle between the Communist and Democratic Parties in Slovakia gave additional leverage to the government to control Slovakia. The elections of 1946 were won by the Democratic Party. As a result, the Communists , in the political battle that ensued, abandoned the nationalist stance they had taken during the elections, aligned themselves with the CPCS and ceased to oppose the centralizing tendencies of the Prague government. By the time the CPCS won power in a coup in February 1948 (with a dry-run in Slovakia in November 1947), Czechoslovakia had become a unitary centralized state in all but name, a situation which the Constitution of 1948 recognized. What this meant for the Slovaks, in the words of the Slovak historian C'ubomfr Liptak, was that "Slovak politics was replaced by politics in Slovakia" .49 For all intents and purposes, the Czech agenda, writ large as "Czechoslovak", was once again in place throughout the state. The Communists who ended up in charge of Slovak affairs in the first decade of the regime were not those who had participated in the 1944 Revolt. The latter, who were known as "povstalci", had lost a power struggle within the CPS to comrades who gave their total allegiance to the Czech leadership of the CPCS. The "povstalci" became the victims of the Stalinist purges that befell Eastern Europe in the late forties and early fifties. The "centralists", as those in power were called, proceeded to implement the Czech agenda. Their programme was an economic one: to industrialize Slovakia to the level of the Czech Lands. They allowed Slovak national institutions to be all but stripped of their remaining powers, they conducted campaigns against Slovak nationalism not only during the Stalinist 49 1:ubomfr Liptlik, Slovensko v 20. storoci, Bratislava, Vydavatefstvo politickej literatury , 1968 , p. 296. SLOVAKIA purges, but also in the aftermath of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and in 1960, together with their Czech colleagues, they celebrated the achievements of socialism in Czechoslovakia with the promulgation of a socialist constitution. The second Soviet destalinization in 1961 and an economic crisis in the early 1960s made possible a challenge to the regime, in particular its handling of Czech-Slovak relations. First came the pressure to free and rehabilitate the condemned "povstalci". However, as Zigman writes, "The suppression of Slovak interests did not end even in the 1960s, a period which in the Czech Lands was perceived as a political thaw. This was particularly evident in the activities of [CPCS First Secretary] Antonfn Novotny and his followers as head of the state and the party" .50 Therefore, when Slovak Communists challenged the Czech agenda, they did so only in a veiled way. They allowed and even encouraged the rehabilitated "povstalci" to refer to the goals of the 1944 Revolt, namely the transformation of the state into a federation. The Slovak press as well as academic journals published new and revised histories of the 1944 events, called officially the Slovak National Uprising, and argued for the implementation of their goals .s I This challenge, which culminated in the federalization of the state on 28 October 1968, was successful only because it was shown to have ideological validity. This is the message in the memorandum52 Milo~ Gosiorovsky submitted to the Central Committee of the CPCS in 1963 which provoked an angry reaction from Novotny. Nevertheless, even with clearly acceptable ideological arguments, it took five years before a law federalizing the state could be passed. Novotny and his supporters had to be removed from office, a 50 see note 2. 51For more on this period , see Stanislav J . Kirschbaum , "National Self-Assertion in Slovakia" in George Simmonds, ed ., Nationalism in the U.S.S.R . and Eastern Europe in the Era of Brezhnev and Kosygin, Detroit , University of Detroit Press , 1977 , pp. 380-400. 52 Milo~ Gosiorovsky, "K niektorym otazkam vziahu Cechov a Slovakov v politike KSC ", Historicky casopis XVI (3), 1968, pp . 370-396. 102 SLOVAKIA removal which also made possible for a reform process to be introduced in the political life of the state _53 Under the leadership of Novotny's successor, the Slovak Alexander Dubcek, an effort was made during the spring and summer of 1968 to introduce "socialism with a human face" in the political life of the Czechs and Slovaks . The federalization of the state was one of the reforms envisaged and was the object of intensive discussions.54 However, Czechoslovakia's neighbours did not approve of this experiment in political liberalization 55 and cut it short with a military intervention in August. Of all the reforms, only the federalization of the state survived. Compared with the first decade and a half of the regime, the years leading up to the liberalization process were a period of relative freedom of expression which enabled the Slovaks to renegotiate their status in the state. They were not, on the other hand, permitted to put its existence in question.56 Put another way, there could be no discussion of the "Czech question". It is not surprising therefore that the federalization law ended up being a compromise that reflected far more the limits of Czech tolerance of constitutional change than the successful implementation of Slovak objectives or 53For an examination of the reform process of the 1960s, see Galia Golan, The Czechoslovak Reform Movement, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1971. 54For an analysis of the debate around the federal solution, see H. Gordon Skilling, Czechoslovakia 's Interrupted Revolution, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1976), pp . 451-489 . 55 For more on the reform movement of 1968 see Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, "Kontinuitat und politischer Wechsel in der "Tschechoslowakei 1968"", Bohemia , XV, 1974, pp . 378-395 and Galia Golan , Reform Rule in Czechoslovakia 1968-1969, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1973). 56 However, as Robert W. Dean writes, "While nothing indicated that separatism was actively being considered as an altemat_ive by responsible Slovak politicians, discussions of it appreared in the press regularly". See Robert W. Dean, Nationalism and Political Change in Eastern Europe: the Slovak Question and the Czechoslovak Reform Movement, The Social Science Foundation and Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, Monograph Series in World Affairs, Vol. 10, Denver, University of Denver, 1973, p. 31. SLOVAKIA 103 even a definition of mutually acceptable goals. The two decades that followed the Warsaw Pact intervention of August 1968 , the period known as normalization, saw the wine of centralization being poured out of a federal bottle. The fact that a Slovak, Gustav Husak, had replaced Dubcek as head of the party and was from 1975 on also head of state seemed to suggest that an acceptable constitutional relationship had been found between the two nations. In actual fact, the regime was pursuing new ideological goals which once again reflected Czech interests and which were not dissimilar to the ideology of Czechoslovakism of the First Republic. As Viliam Plevza, the leading Slovak scholar of the normalization regime, writes: "It is evidently only a question of time for the prerequisites to develop, under new and most favourable conditions, based on the recent history of mutual relations , which will lead to the acceleration of the total development and rapprochement of the Czechs and Slovaks and the nationalities living in the republic, and to the attainment of such a synthesis that the notion of a "Czechoslovak people" will be the symbol of a new qualitative unity of all the citizens of the CSSR" _57 On the constitutional level, the results of the policy of normalization on the federal system were quite dramatic, as Zigman points out: "Progressively , with the argument of making the central organs more effective, a number of laws were passed which transformed the Czech Socialist and the Slovak Socialist Republics into unequal provinces in the CSSR whose republican institutions merely carried out orders from above. Every social movement was frozen and officially the theory of proletarian internationalism prevailed. In this way - with the help Soviet conservatives - this situation was maintained for twenty years and nothing modified it, not even cosmetic changes under [CPCS Secretary-General Milos] Jakes or the [political] game of "glasnost'" _58 Nevertheless , federalism did allow initially for a Slovak national 57 Viliam Plevza, Socialisticke premeny Ceskoslovenska, Bratislava, Pravda , 1983 , p. 420 . 5 8s ee note 2. 104 SLOVAKIA cultural renaissance; but given the political climate, it was quickly halted. Carol Skalnik Leff notes that in the mid-1970s there were warnings and threats about bourgeois nationalism, reminiscent of those uttered in the 1950s, which signalled a move away from the earlier enthusiastic recovery of the national heritage in cultural and academic publications. She writes that "It is unlikely that this noticeable shift reflects a diminution of Slovak national sentiment - quite the contrary, it suggests a concern that such sentiment was getting out of hand" .59 Clearly, anything in Slovakia that threatened the Czech agenda had to be eliminated; and it was. The Husak policy of normalization faced increased opposition both in Slovakia and in the Czech Lands after the Czechoslovak government signed the Helsinki Final Act in 1975. The Czechs, in particular academics, artists and writers, formed a loose movement called Charter 77 which attacked the ideology and policies of the regime. 60 Only a very small number of Slovak Communist dissidents adhered to it. The more significant Slovak opposition to the regime found its outlet primarily in religious demonstrations which had a broad mass appeal. This opposition was in fact a challenge to the continued imposition of the Czech agenda in Slovakia. The regime responded with a policy of open repression to both movements, especially the Slovak one. As far as it was concerned, there could be no discussion of anything but its own agenda while it was in power. It is only with the fall of Communism in November 1989 that a discussion of the Czech question could finally begin to take place in Slovakia. The first signal that there would be such a discussion came with the motion proposed by Slovak deputies to the Czechoslovak Federal Parliament on 30 March 1990 to return the hyphen to Czechoslovakia, the short name of the country. This spelling had been used in the Peace Treaties when the country was formed in 1918. 59 carol Skalnik Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia. The Making and Remaking of a State, 1918-1987, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1988, p. 268. 60 on this movement see H. Gordon Skilling, Charter 77 and Human Rights in Czechoslovakia, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1981. SLOVAKIA 105 Officially the country was still the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. The motion was defeated by the Czech majority (with the help of some Slovak deputies). The compromise title of Czech and Slovak Federative Republic with the authorization of using the hyphen in Slovakia on the short form adopted a fortnight later was also not satisfactory. As a result, a campaign to influence Slovak public opinion on Czech-Slovak relations began in earnest. However, unlike the immediate post-war years and the Communist period when one outcome, the separation of Slovakia, was excluded, all solutions were now possible. This debate around the name of the common state strengthened the resolve of many Slovaks to initiate discussions on constitutional reform and helped to clarify the different positions. According to Zigman, "Suddenly, along with other problems, the question of a constitutional arrangement came to the surface. On the Czech side in particular, voices came to be heard shortly after the revolution [suggesting] that in the interest of the transformation of our economy the already centralized pseudo-federation should be further centralized and replaced by a unitary state (part of Civic Forum and [also] Public Against Violence). On the other hand , parties and movements appeared in Slovakia which sought greater rights for the republics and the breaking up of the federal moloch which crushed every national political movement. They demanded that it be replaced with a flexible system of institutions whose task it would be to coordinate the activities of the republics (part of the Slovak National Party and later part of the Christian Democratic Movement)" .6 1 The constitutional debate went on for two years 62 and indicated a desire to find a solution to the Czech question in Slovak political life. It was, however, only one aspect of a wider public debate, 61 See note 2. 62 For an examination of this debate, see Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, "Les Slovaques et le droit des peuples a disposer d'eux-m~mes: a la recherche d'une solution", in Andre Liebich et Andre Reszler, eds ., L 'Europe centrale et ses minorites: vers une solution europeenne?, (Geneve , Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales) , Paris , Presses universitaires de France , 1993, pp . 92-10 I. 106 SLOVAK.IA initiated by the Czech writer Ludvik Vaculfk when he published in May 1990 an article entitled "Our Slovak Problem". In an at times bitter tone, Vaculfk railed at the fact that the Slovaks, to whom he referred as little brothers, refused to share the common bed with the Czechs. He did not think, furthermore, that they were ready to sleep in their own. In his rejection of a Slovak approach and in his steadfast conviction of the importance of Czechoslovak statehood he wrote; "To develop our own Czech state - it is after all a step backwards. Not long ago I went to Bratislava and all my friends said to me why are you getting so agitated because those nationalist noises come from carrierists, idiots or else intrigue-makers. I heard this with pleasure" _63 Among the many who responded, it was Vladimir Minac, a Slovak writer, who best took Vaculfk to task in an article entitled "Our Czecho-Slovak Problem". Rejecting the notion of a "little brother" and examining generally the meaning of Czechoslovakism, Minac added: "Vaculik writes that "it is an honest duty to be a Czechoslovak". However, what you find behind a Czechoslovak is a badly covered pure Czech who in some peculiar way made the land of the Slovaks his own; and if he hasn't done so, then he wants to do so. But a Slovak doesn't want to be a Czechoslovak, he doesn't want to be shoved behind a foreign facade, he wants to be himself, independent and equal. Is that so difficult to understand?" .64 Minac did not propose a solution; he left that to the politicians. The parameters, on the other hand, had been made quite clear. During the twenty-four months that separate the first two free elections in post-Communist Czechoslovakia, Slovak politicians, while pushing for the transformation of the state, made every effort to come to terms with the Czechs. A parallel with the 1968 constitutional discussions comes to mind. There is, however, an important difference this time, namely the absence of a superpower to influ63Ludv0c VaculOc, "Na§e slovenska otazka", Literami noviny, 5/1990, 3 May 1990, reprinted in Nove slovo 21/1990, 24 May 1990. 64 Vladimfr Minac, "Na§a cesko-slovenska otlizka", Nove s/ovo, 21/1990, 24 May 1990 . SLOVAKIA 107 ence, if not determine the outcome. As a result, the Czech parties were able to indicate very clearly that they were unwilling to abandon their historical perception of Czechoslovakia as a Czech state with which the Slovaks were asked to identify and accept. At best, the status quo, in other words the federal law of 1968, was acceptable. As far as most Slovaks were concerned, despite a certain lack of unity , there had to be major constitutional reforms. There were many meetings and many propositions,65 including a number of interventions from President Vaclav Havel, yet no constitutional agreement was reached before the elections of June 1992. As a result, an important percentage of the electorate in each republic cast votes for parties that articulated a parallel message: if the other nation will not accept our terms, then let us make a go of it alone. This paved the way for the Czechs to rid themselves of the "Slovak question" while the Slovaks, many reluctantly, came to the conclusion that they might be better off without a "Czech question". After the Slovak National Council declared the sovereignty of the Slovak nation in July 1992, Prime Ministers Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic and Vladimfr Meciar of the Slovak Republic agreed that Czechoslovakia would be dissolved and two states would come into existence on 1 January 1993; on 25 November 1992, the Federal Parliament passed a law approving the dissolution. Thereafter, until the break up, both sides negotiated the division of federal property and other assets. Did the independence of Slovakia and the creation of a Czech Republic put to rest the "Czech question" in Slovak politics? Two factors suggest that one cannot give a categorical answer. First, public opinion polls preceding the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in the Czech and Slovak Republics suggested that if a referendum had been held at that time on the acceptance of the break-up of Czechoslovakia into two independent national states it would most likely not have won a majority. One may well ask whether this means that 65 These are described in Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, "Czechoslovakia: The Creation, Federalisation and Disolution of a Nation-State", Regional Politics and Policy, III (I), 1993, pp . 69-95. 108 SLOVAKIA the Slovaks, after 68 years in a common state, when shove comes to push, saw living with a "Czech question", however intractable it was, as acceptable and perhaps even preferable to an uncertain future in an independent state? There is probably no simple answer to this question. What is certain, however, is that democratic politicians, unlike Communist ones, who treat public opinion as quantite negligeable do so at their own risk. It is possible that these polls reflected some degree of nostalgia as much as a fear of the future. But then again, they may have reflected the recognition of a second factor , the close relations that the two nations developed over the years. As Zigman indicated when these polls were taken, this factor placed the Slovaks before a choice: "The economic relations [with the Czechs] which were created during the recent period of development will remain and will become a significant element in a future European integration [process]. We [the Slovaks] are at a crossroads and have to decide between a Czecho-Slovak state and Czech-Slovak cooperation. I think that the starting point out of this dilemma is clear" .66 To return to our image of the beginning, after many attempts to find a comfortable place for themselves, the Slovaks found in the end that it was better to leave the room which they shared with the allegorical black panther. But they did so only after first seeking to come to an understanding with it. They also made a choice for a different kind of Czech-Slovak cooperation. Therefore, as they proceed to develop their own state, for the foreseeable future at any rate, the Slovaks will have to pay attention to a "Czech question". It is not clear what, if any, influence it will have on Slovak political life. It will, however, have ceased to be that which had been the main challenge to Slovak politics in the common state, namely an unhyphenated "Czechoslovak question" which they had not been allowed either to define or influence. 66 see note 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 Czech Question in Slovakia in the Post-War Years Description An account of the resource Stanislav J. Kirschbaum Slovakia, Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92 pp. 97-108 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kirschbaum, Stanislav J., 1942- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-92 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/56d04b1b183ad87ba1111fba4989ab07.pdf fc1dae71100e15a9b672c29140f57429 PDF Text Text 78 SLOVAKIA Relations Between Slovaks and Czechs in the First CSR SUSAN MIKULA At this particular point in the history of the Czechs and Slovaks, the question of the nature of the relationship between these two nations has assumed a renewed significance and interest. The disintegration of the common state which had existed for 74 years is often presented in the popular press as the result of Slovak backwardness, provincialism, undemocratic tendencies, vestiges of communist influence; in short as anything but the consequence of a long historical process. There has in fact been a persistent tendency throughout much of the 20th century, whether by popular writers or even some professional scholars, to view Slovak demands for structural changes in their relationship with the Czechs along much the same lines, that is as reflective of fascist or communist extremists, of political, economic or cultural immaturity, or of a destructive opportunism. The prime reason for such tendencies may be that the prism through which the "Slovak problem" has often been viewed is the Czech or Czechoslovak. In other words, there are certain a priori assumptions being made about the nature of the problem which affect the analysis of the problem. One such tendency is to see it as just that, a Slovak problem, that is, as a problem between two competing Slovak factions, rather than as a problem between Czechs and Slovaks. The consequence of that has been the tendency to dismiss the problem and then be repeatedly surprised and dismayed when the central nature of the issues resurfaced and influenced the �SLOVAKIA 79 entire state and people. Another tendency is to identify the Slovak nationalist aspirations in the First Czechoslovak Republic (CSR) with the extreme nationalist movements of the inter-war era, that is with fascism. The problem thus becomes reduced to the analysis of Andrej Hlinka and the Slovak People's Party, which is designated as a clerical-fascist movement. The problem is then still a Slovak problem - the authoritarian tendencies of a huge segment of the Slovak population - and also an external one - the broad movement of European fascism. The difficulty comes with trying to account for the persistence of the Slovak national aspirations, long after the dismantling and systematic discrediting of the Slovak Republic. Here the notion of backwardness (economic and political) and immaturity (political and cultural) assumes a satisfactory explanatory character. What has been common in the great majority of these analyses, written mostly from the Czechoslovak perspective, is this notion that it is the Slovak's problem . On the other hand, the few works written from the Slovak perspective , at least until very recently , have tended to veer in the opposite direction, to view it as strictly a Czech problem, that is as the result of a systematic and deliberate policy of Czechoslovakization (analogous to Magyarization). This tendency has likewise but limited value. The Czech/Slovak problem has, rather, been a structural, historical problem, especially in the First Republic. With the creation of that state an attempt was made to apply an undifferentiated model of the nation-state to a society in which a number of nations were undergoing the process of national self-actualization accelerated beyond previous historical experience. The attempt to establish a unitary nation-state comprised of a hastily constructed nation (Czechoslovak) was thus flying in the face of the very process which had led to the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire and which had precisely allowed for the possibility of self-determination for the various nations of the empire. From this perspective, the problem ceases to be a Czech or Slovak problem and becomes a problem of �80 SLOVAKIA the very idea of the Czechoslovak state as it emerged by 1920.19 The unitary, power-based political structure (mocensko-politicky system)20 of the First Republic could not satisfy the needs of the Slovaks without significant revision. However the very real successes and achievements of that state, especially for the Czechs, meant that the need for revision met with incomprehension and therefore indifference and then resistance. An examination of some critical economic and political issues affecting the Slovaks illustrates the fundamental nature of the problem for the Czechoslovak republic. To do so, certain inescapable realities must be recognized. The first is that the economic conditions of the Czech and Slovak lands were vastly different at the very onset of the Republic. A further inescapable reality is that that differences persisted throughout the First Republic and in fact deepened. A third inescapable reality is that l 9 A recent example in Western scholarship which looks at how the structure of the state related to the national struggle of the Slovaks is Carol Skalnik Leff's book , National Conflict in Czechoslovakia, Princeton University Press, I 988 . The Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Science (Historicky ustav SA V) has just published the papers from the symposium held November, 1991 entitled Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, Bratislava, Historicky ustav , 1992. Here both Czech and Slovak scholars examined the political and structural aspects of the Slovak position in the First Republic; most of them have taken a hard look at the system itself. In that vein, some of the recent writings by Czech scholars, such as Vojtech Mencl a kollectiv, Krizovatky 20. stoleti, Prague, Na~e Vojsko, 1990; Petr Pithart Dejiny a politika , Prague, Prostor , 1990; and Zdenek Pinc "The Idea of the Czechoslovak State: History, Theory and Political Reality" in Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, Vol. 10, no . I, 1991, pp. 36-45 have also taken a more critical approach to the analysis of the political system of the First Republic . There are a variety of viewpoints here and not all agree with the notion that the very structure of the First Republic, namely that of a unitary nation-state, almost certainly precluded a satisfactory resolution of conflicting national aspirations, but all recognize that at issue was much more than competing Slovak factions or Slovak immaturity. On a related subject, the theoretical and methodological approach used by Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1984, is very useful. 20 Josef Harna uses that term to characterize the operational structure of the First Republic . See Politickf system a statni politika v prvnfch Jetech existence Ceskoslo venske republiky (1918-1923), Praha, Historicky ustav, 1990. �SLOVAKIA 81 these circumstances were at the root of Slovak grievances and frustrations, which came to be shared by nearly all Slovaks, irrespective of their political beliefs. The initial differences between the two arose from their historical conditions, and are well known. While due to some degree to natural environmental factors (resources, terrain, geophysical placement) they are also the result of differing economic and political policies and interests on the part of the Austrians and the Magyars. While the Czechs had become the industrial nucleus of the Habsburg Empire and were well advanced in industrialization and urbanization by the latter decades of the 19th century, Slovak industrialization was at that time at its beginning stages. The Slovaks did have an analogous position within the Hungarian kingdom, designated to become industrially active for that sector of the Empire, but this was in its infancy stage when compared to the Czechs. Thus the creation of Czecho-Slovakia in 1918 joined together two very different economic regions. The effects of that union were also very different. While the Czech Lands continued to develop, after some initial adjustments, at least until the Great Depression, Slovakia stagnated throughout the entire period in almost every category of economic activity. 21 In attempting to explain this fact, one has to recognize that there was little if any economic planning prior to the establishment of the First Republic. In the immediate postwar period, Slovaks recognized the need for economic development and submitted plans and requests to Prague. However, their weak political representation in the crucial first years, the liquidation of the Slovak National Council, which left a leadership vacuum in Slovakia, and the small number of economic leaders in Slovakia all meant that these early efforts were without success. Equally powerless in the realm of economics were the Ministry of Unification of Laws and the Minister Plenipotentiary for Slovakia. The structure of the system did not allow for conside21 For an analysis of the Slovak economic situation in the First Republic , see the works of Miroslav Fabricius, Hospodarsky vjvoj Slovenska do konca predmnfchovskej republiky, 1987, no. 75 and Vjvoj nazorov na postavenie ekonomiky Sloven ska v prednmfchovskej republike, Bratislava, Eckonomicky ustav SAV , I 990, no. 79. �82 SLOVAKIA ration of Slovakia's economic development; it was rather submerged into the whole. In fact, the strongest protests over the restructuring of the historic counties came from those county boards most concerned with economic issues. Economic policy in the new republic was highly centralized, as was the political system. Prague was the political and economic center where all the offices and organs were located. Slovakia was not viewed as one of the two integrating units, but rather as a region to be appended to the Historic Lands.22 If there was any recognition of Slovakia's role in the economy as a distinct sector, it was to serve as the agricultural sector, to insure the agrarian self-sufficiency of the state. This theory of an "agrarian Slovakia" was the cornerstone of economic policy in the 1920's, in particular within the Agrarian Party, where political considerations played a part. Slovak Agrarian politicians also supported this notion, although by the end of the 1920's even Milan Hodfa recognized the need to bring industry to Slovakia.23 It was difficult to overcome this notion that the agrarian character of Slovakia was both natural and desirable, even while it was recognized that industrialization was essential to economic development in other areas of East Europe and also that there were actually less than optimal conditions for agriculture in Slovakia. This was especially unfortunate because there was plenty of available evidence which pointed to the social and economic inequality of the two halves of the state and their undesirable social and political consequences. The chief reason for failing to address this problem was the commitment to a laissez-faire policy of economic development. It was argued that to target Slovakia for special investment and\or development would create a dualistic policy while there existed a unitary society. In fact, 22 Vlastislav Lacina, "Uloha hospodai'ske politiky pri vytvlii'enf nove ceskoslovenske ekonomiky 1918-1923" in Politicky system a statni politika v prvnich Jetech existence Ceskoslovenske republiky, p. 86. 23 A summary of this debate about agrarian versus industrial Slovakia is to be found in Fabricius, Vyvoj nazorov na posta venie ekonomiky Slovenska v predmnfchovskej republike . �SLOVAKIA 83 economic dualism already existed and persisted and the failure to deal with it had enormous consequences for both people. Nor did Czechoslovakia actually pursue a laissez-faire economic policy, especially in the first years of the Republic. Rather what occurred was a failure to recognize the special Slovak economic needs, within the context of Slovakia rather than the context of the whole state. As a result the Slovak economy stagnated, with social, economic and political consequences. Evidence of this economic dualism can be found in both the agricultural and industrial sectors. In agriculture, between 19191927, for instance, 87,263 hectares of land in the Czech region underwent improvement while in Slovakia it amounted to 9,323 hectares or 9.6% of the total land improved . The division of investment costs for rural modernization were 95 .1 % to the Czech lands and 4.3% to Slovakia.2 4 Another indicator of the disparity was the rate of rural electrification; in 1933 , for example 125 villages were joined to the electrical network in the Czech lands, 112 in Moravia and Silesia and only 9 in Slovakia. Altogether only 1.9% of agricultural enterprises were electrified in Slovakia compared to 31.7% in Czech lands and 25.2% in Moravia.25 As a consequence, throughout the 1920 1s, Slovak agriculture remained essentially stagnant and less productive and in the 19301s the world agricultural crisis had a greater adverse effect on the Slovaks. In the industrial sector there was a whole battery of problems, so much so that it was referred to as the 11 complex of Slovak industrial woes (komplex bolesti slovenskeho priemyslu)" _26 The restructuring of Slovak industry during the period 19191921 led to an emphasis on the production of consumable (primary) goods, so that the percentage of activity devoted to producing export oriented goods declined. In spite of the fact that Slovakia needed greater modernization and improvement in its economic situation, the 24 Fabricius, Hospodarsky vyvoj S/ovenska do konca predmnichovskej republiky, p. 47 . 25 Jbid. , p. 64. 26 Ibid., p. 52. �84 SLOVAKIA pace of improvement here too was slower than in the Czech Lands. In fact, when in 1921-23 industrial output fell by 30%, some even began to talk about a policy of de-industrialization (odburavanie priemyslu). This was not quite the case but it did ring true for heavy industry; between 1918 and 1932, 260 enterprises were dismantled; by 1937 this had reached another 680 _2 7 Another severe problem was the lack of capital investment; the Czech bourgeoisie invested in existing Slovak firms, not in new ones and those listed in statistics as new were in fact results of transfer of capital and ownership. This process (nostrifikacia) was the road by which Czech capital was able to entrench itself in key positions , especially in banking, industry and marketing. 28 By 1930, after a 10 year period of the integration process, Slovakia was more clearly agrarian in character than before. The Slovak industrial labor share was at 19 .4% while Czech industrial labor rate reached 42.1 % . In the mid-1930's there was a brief spurt of "re-industrialization" in Slovakia, largely in defenserelated industries (perhaps to move them eastward, away from the German border), but even with this , at the end of the First Republic there was still a relative 6% decrease of industrial employment in Slovakia. The percentage of Slovaks in the total industrial employment in Czechoslovakia did not rise above 8% during the entire period. 29 Over the twenty year existence of the First Republic, Slovak economic development consistently lagged behind that of the Czechs, producing a highly developed sense of economic grievance among Slovaks of all political persuasions, including the centrists. On the issue of the economy there existed near unanimity of opinion among the Slovaks. The inability of the Slovaks, however, to effect significant changes in the economic policies and expenditures of the 27 Mencl , p. 143. 28 see Fabricius, Hospodarsky vyvoj S/ovenska do konca predmnfchovskej repub liky, pp . 40-56 and Lacina, pp . 87 and passim for a discusstion of Czech fin ancial investment policies in Slovakia. 29 Radoslav Selucky, "The Economic Equalization of Slovakia with the Czech Lands ", East European Economics, 4/1965, pp . 42-59. �SLOVAKIA 85 central government served to make manifest the structural impediments to full Slovak self-fulfillment within the framework of the unitary Czechoslovak republic. The result was frustration and alienation, both in the economic and the political sphere. In the political sphere, one could almost say that the very decision to create an unitary state of the "Czechoslovak" nation created an untenable situation. Even the most cursory examination of the process by which the unitary state was formed and the structure through which it functioned reveals that the system itself contributed to the erosion of the viability of the unitary Czechoslovak state. The prevailing opinions have generally been that this decision was necessary and beneficial: necessary because of the international situation, the Wilsonian commitment to national self-determination and above all by the fact that the Germans constituted the second largest national group in the new state. And it was beneficial because by that process the Slovaks became a state people rather than a national minority. The assumption therefore is that an unitary state structure was in response to these factors, and not a political decision by the Czech leadership, less a political opportunity but rather an historical necessity. What is generally glossed over is that until almost the very end of the peace process, the dualistic principle was a very real option, that is Czecho-Slovakia, as indicated by the use of the hyphen until 1920 _30 What decided the issue was not Wilsonian expectations but the military turmoil in Slovakia, necessitating occupation and creating fears for the safety of the whole republic . The structure of the state was influenced as much by some short-term problems which could have been resolved in several ways as by broad historical forces . Nor was the decision made because Slovaks were unprepared or disinterested in the structure of the new state. From the time that the Slovak League of America was empowered to negotiate for the Slovaks (Martin Memorandum, 1906) to the Pittsburgh Agreement to the various plans and statements made by Slovak leaders 30 see Joseph Kalvoda, The Genesis of Czechoslo vakia , Boulder, East European Monographs , 1986. �86 SLOVAKIA throughout 1918, it was clear the Slovaks were formulating concepts about their relationship with the Czechs. Examination of the meetings, speeches, correspondence of Slovak leaders, especially in 1918 reveals wide-ranging discussions about the anticipated relationship; autonomy was perhaps the most consistent expectation. For example, Matus Dula wrote on November 23, 1918: "when I discussed our autonomy with responsible [rozhodnymi] Czech leaders, they attested that Slovaks would get full autonomy autonomous rights would fall under the competency of the regional diet." 31 It is clear that in 1918 Slovaks were willing to join their sovereignty with that of the Czechs as partners in a new state, because that afforded them the best opportunity for political emancipation; what they were not expecting to do was to blend and blur their hardfought national identity. The decision to postulate a "Czechoslovak nation" was not made by Slovak political representatives, and these did exist, as did political parties, nor by any electoral process, but rather by a very small group of appointed politicians not very representative of the political, economic, social and cultural spectrum of Slovakia.32 There is no question that conditions were such that it did not appear that reasoned debates and consensus building were luxuries which could be afforded. What needs to be understood however is that decisions were made due to very specific historical events which led to the choice of certain options, which were not necessarily the optimal or sole options and which therefore could 31 Milan Krajcovic, "Slovensko v zahranicnopolitickych suvislostiach 1918-1922", in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, p. 148 . See also the article by Vladimir Zuberec, "Vyznamny dokument o postaveni Slovenska za burfoaznej CSR v zbierkach Slovenskeho Narodneho Muzea" in Zbornik Slovenskeho Narodneho Muzea, LXXXIII , 1989, pp. 201-207 . 32 r:ubomir Liptak points out that there were 10,000 people with, if not political experience, certainly with experience in a variety of organizations and public life. And while the number of Slovak schools had dramatically declined , the number of Slovak students had gone up; these could all be acclimated quickly to the new Slovak reality . See "Pripravenosi Slovenska na demokraciu" in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, pp. 7-12. �SLOVAKIA 87 have been readdressed as the situation changed. An underlying element in the creation of the new state was the notion that the year 1918 was the year zero - a new beginning with a clean slate. The failure to recognize and internalize the fundamentally different historical experiences and character of the two people, to recognize that in fact two separate nations existed, not branches of one nation, and that these two had differing notions about both the nature of their new relationship and its state structure influenced the subsequent development of the state as well as the two peoples. As Josef Hama points out "On the Czech side there was not the willingness to understand the differences; on the Slovak side there was impatience and anxiety arising from the feeling of powerlessness to achieve their objectives. Czechoslovakia was formed from the prevailing weight of the Czechs as a unitary state with significant characteristics of centralism." _33 The construct of the unitary state, and the method of ratification of the constitution, meant that there was no national debate and therefore no national consensus on the very definition of the nation state . In the formative period, the hyphenated form, suggesting a state of the Czechs and Slovaks, often was used interchangeably with the Czechoslovak. The definitive proclamation in the Constitution that the "Czechoslovak nation" was the creator of the state and "Czechoslovak" the language of the state created the situation in which those large numbers of Slovaks who resisted the label Czechoslovak were forced into opposition not just against the policies of the state, a normal aspect of parliamentary systems, but against the very nature of the state itself, a position the Slovaks initially had no desire to take and in fact until the very end of the republic sought to avoid. As a consequence the fiction of the single Czechoslovak nation was assumed to be the selfevident principle on which relations between Czechs and Slovaks were based. From the viewpoint of the overwhelming majority of Czech politicians, therefore, neither Slovak autonomy nor the federalization of the state on the basis of the national principle was deemed to be at all 33 Harna, p. 14. �88 SLOVAKIA necessary. This attitude prevailed even as the very construct "two branches of the Czechoslovak nation" would seem to demand the necessity of constitutional elaboration and resolution of the individuality contained within the notion of two branches _34 Once the decision was made to create a unitary state, the opportunities for initiating and implementing Slovak policies and political objectives were circumscribed at best, both by the structure of the state system, the political party structure and to an extent the Slovak political forms. The peculiar structure of the party system meant that opposition parties had no realistic chance of modifying the system. The frustration that results from the perceived inability to influence the system in any way often leads to radicalism and this was certainly the case in Czechoslovakia. The power politics party system in the interwar republic proved to be remarkably stable, even though it was a multi-party system in which significant groups were polarized. Stability was achieved at a price, namely the diminution of the role of Parliament and the enhancement of the power of the President and of the government forming coalition parties. A further price was the perception that these centrist parties (generally known as the Petka) had to achieve a consensus and cohesiveness in the face of the fundamental divergence of views from the outsider parties. Hence opposition becomes not something to be tolerated and contested, but something threatening and destabilizing. In effect, the coalition parties could not afford the luxury of opposition; aware of the differences in the state, they felt compelled to focus on retaining and centralizing power. The political cabinet of party leaders essentially overshadowed the ministerial cabinet and tended to make of Parliament a virtual rubber stamp, at least for deputies from the governing parties. What that meant in practice was that the system was impervious to any fundamental change through the normal parliamentary 34M. Matula, "Nektere problemy souvisejfci s institucionalnfm aspektem narodnfc h vztahu CSR v letech 1918-1938" in Slovensko v politickom syst6me Ceskoslovenska, p. 91 . �SLOVAKIA 89 process. What ensued then was the belief that the structure itself had to be modified if any real political power was to develop among the Slovaks. As one historian writes: The issue was not really whether or not the Slovaks achieved immediate autonomy but the Jack of understanding and the unwillingness of the Czech parties even to recognize the problem. Thus the spokesmen for the Slovak position were pushed into opposition and progressively forced into a negative stance relative to the existing regime.3 5 Illustrative of the unwillingness even to address the question of constitutional organization was the fate of administrative reconstruction. The County Law of 1920 was designed to integrate Slovakia into the new state by creating a new county structure to replace the old. What especially generated protests by Slovak administrators was that financial control at the county level was taken over by the central Ministries oflnterior and Finance. During 1921-22, several proposals were made in Parliament to address these Slovak concerns. The Hlinka Slovak People's Party (HSPP) called for selfadministration in Slovak affairs, a provincial Diet and a provincial government named by the President. There were also other variants, some more radical, of Slovak autonomy. Hodza, who at this time was still looking for a means of unifying Slovak political power, suggested a County Union with competencies in health, welfare, economic and cultural spheres precisely to shift administrative power in Slovakia out of Prague's bureaucratic hands and into Slovak political hands. The debate on these issues in the ministerial circles in Prague revealed a reluctance to delegate any real powers, even to a body like the County Union. The only concessions to be made were delegating powers addressing the needs of the feeble-minded, blind, deaf, epileptic, supervising forced labor and the poorhouses .36 35 Hama, p. 19. 36 For an analysis of the debate over the administration of Slovakia, see Natalia Krajcovicovli , "Politicke strany na Slovensku a usilie o samosprlivu v dvadsiatich rokoch" in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, pp . 47-55 . See also Ladislav Lipscher, K vyvinu politickej spravy na Slovensku v rokoch 1918-1938, Bratislava, SA V, 1966. �90 SLOVAKIA The political concerns behind such positions were evident, as expressed in the magazine Tribuna: "It is certain that a County Union in Slovakia would be a constant threat to the unity of the state. Who can guarantee that it would not give birth to some kind of autonomous Diet for Slovakia?"3 7 The result was that the administrative structure for Slovakia was extraordinarily limited, always under the strict supervision of Prague. Slovaks lost even a modicum of local autonomy, under a system which was not implemented in the rest of the country precisely because the example of centralized power as manifested in Slovakia aroused local opposition in Bohemia and Moravia. The anomaly could not be sustained and in 1927 the Provincial Law replaced the county system with the four historic provinces. While this acknowledged the territorial existence of Slovakia as an entity, little was done to give that entity any real administrative powers. The failure of these administrative efforts indicated that no serious attempt would be made to bring about a measure of decentralization of government. Problems of special significance to the Slovaks, such as the economic imbalance, the lower standard of living, the dearth of jobs for the growing numbers of university trained younger leaders, the preservation of religious and cultural values were thus not addressed regionally, but left to the central government in Prague, where Slovak power was minimal at best. It could be argued, and often has been, that the lack of Slovak power was more the result of the divisions among the Slovaks themselves than of the unitary and centralized nature of the system. The inability of the Slovaks to form a cohesive bloc was a factor, but not a decisive factor, for as long as even one Slovak was found who would enter the government in the name of the Slovaks (and in fact three, namely Vavro Srobar, Ivan Derer, Hod:fa, were all that were basically necessary during the First Republic) and while coalition parties could attract a Slovak following, (and two did), the power of the coalition bloc would outweigh any Slovak bloc. The ambiguity about the nature of the Czech-Slovak problem would however have 37Krajfovicovii, p. 51. �SLOVAKIA 91 been clarified had the Slovaks achieved a Slovak party. Hod:fa and others recognized this and an attempt was made to form a National Bloc or even a Political Committee (which Hod:fa tried) which would have functioned in a manner analogous to the Petka. This failed because of the inability to achieve a uniform stand on the question of the Slovak position in the state and also to a diversity of views on some specific issues, a problem partially attributable to confessional differences. There did exist a basic consensus on general principles; only a few Slovaks were convinced Czechoslovaks. Unfortunately it was precisely these few who were able to join the government in Prague and were thus considered to represent the Slovaks. There was in fact a fundamental unity among the Slovak populace: a rejection of ethnic and linguistic Czechoslovakism, a commitment to the Czechoslovak state, albeit a reformed one, and a recognition of the pluralistic nature of the state and society. If there was division among the Slovaks, it came on the question of how, not whether, to reform the state: regionalism or autonomy. The Slovak Agrarians, under Hod:fa's leadership, were centrist in that they worked within the system to bring about a modification of some of the system, but especially in the 1930's were also advocates of regionalism. Hodfa came to advocate an intermediary notion, looking at it from a pragmatic perspective, which "means neither centralism nor autonomy, but state-political unity and regionalism with administrative self-government" .38 Hodfa was trying to find a bridge between two ever diverging assessments (one Czech and the other Slovak) of the satisfaction level with the existing political system. The escalating criticism by Slovaks of their position in the First Republic is evident from the following editorial in Zem, the journal of the younger generation of Agrarians: The aversion of Czechs and Slovaks arises from economic and social problems . Czechs accept our arguments with a judicious attentiveness , while they continue to make their own national , cultural and linguistic politics .. . Currently a majority of the Slovaks want to acknowledge their own nation .... and the unfortunate tendencies (potmehudske narazky) seen 38Milan Hodfa, C/anky, reci, §tudie, Prague , Novina , 1934, Vol. 7, pp . xxxii-iii . �92 SLOVAKIA in various Czech newspapers, to suggest that Slovak efforts to achieve their rights somehow indicates political unreliabi lity, wi ll not deter the Slovaks. 39 If even Hodza's and the Agrarians' moderate call for regionalism was ignored , the possibility for substantive constitutional reform was all the more remote. The position of the HSPP, which consistently included Slovak autonomy as its basic program, is certainly a case in point. Representing a large portion of the Slovak people,40 they were systematically frustrated in their attempts to implement their programs. Ignored most of the time, only in times of crisis did the governing powers seek to integrate the HSPP into the process , such as the coalition crisis of the late 192O's or the presidential elections of 1935 ; once the crisis was resolved, any further negotiations were deemed unnecessary. A good illustration of this can be seen from the December 1935 talks between President Edvard Benes and Andrej Hlinka, leader of the HSPP. Hlinka asked for decentralization and legislative power for regional Slovak organs and for the post of Minister for Slovakia for the HSPP. Benes promised to give the Slovaks all that was possible without undermining the unity of the state. In February 1936 Benes noted that the entry of HSPP into the government was delayed due to unacceptable nature of the demands: the same demands which were made in negotiations in December. The governing coalition rejected the demands and the matter was closed.41 No matter what route the Slovaks followed in their efforts to modify the structure and political system, they had little success. Political parties in Slovakia were unable to compete nationally, for 39zem, IV , 4 , 20 . February , 1938, p. 39 . 40 one could argue that at times it did indeed represent a majority of the Slovaks, if one assumes that Czechs voting in Slovakia supported centrist parties and Magyars their own parties . 41 E.F. Firsov, "K problemu modifik,kif parlamentneho systemu CSR a narodnopolitickeho konsenzu Cechov a Slovakov na prelome 20. a 30 . rokov" in Slo vensk o v politickom systeme Ceskos/ovenska, p. 104. �SLOVAKIA 93 the state was in the hands of the centrist parties and thus no shadow coalition or cabinet could form. Slovaks were united in their efforts to gain control of the bureaucratic apparatus in Slovakia, as a means of indirect access to the power center. This too was frustrated by the bureaucratic structure of centralism. It took the crisis of 1938 to bring about some readjustment in the state relations between Czechs and Slovaks, a settlement subsequently repudiated as being forcibly imposed. 42 By that time however a more aggressive and assertive stance had been taken by the HSPP; 20 years of waiting for the system to change from above had led to the radicalization of the efforts to change it. It is often argued that in time of crisis the Slovaks abandoned the Czechs, generating the notion of ungrateful Slovaks. One could likewise argue that only in times of crisis did the Czechs remember the Slovaks .. . one can go to the well only so many times. There is no question that fascist elements had entered into the Slovak political arena, fueled in part by economic grievances and political frustration . The fact that fascism was a force sweeping across the disaffected sectors of Europe does not absolve the Slovaks of responsibility for those fascist features; nor does however the argument that Czechoslovakia, while it had its faults, was still the only functioning democracy in Eastern Europe and better than the surrounding systems excuse those faults and deny their consequences. For both, historical relativism is a tempting but ultimately unsatisfying position. 43 42 An interesting side point here is Hodza's argument that the political cabinet's acceptance of Slovak self-administration, as negotiated in the summer of 1938 was in fact valid , against Bene§' subsequent argument , after W .W .II broke out , that Parliament had not approved it and it was therefore invalid. Hodza was correct in his perception that the political cabinet was the crucial decision making body . That was why Slovak political efforts were in fact so often frustrated, because Parliament tended only to reflect the decisions of the political cabinet. 43 As a prominent Czech historian has observed: "The ideal of democracy became a self-indulgent compliment, nurturing the need of the Czechs for universal recognition and admiration. Czech nationalism greeted the foundation of the republic not only as an occasion to score points in the nationalistic struggle with imperialistic �94 SLOVAKIA The analogy of a marriage is perhaps an appropriate metaphor for the course of Czech and Slovaks relations . In May of 1918, as the Austro-Hungarian Empire was moving inexorably toward its demise, Hlinka declared: "It is absolutely necessary for us to decide if we will continue with the Magyars, or go with the Czechs. Let us not evade the question, let us say openly that we are for the CzechoSlovak orientation. The thousand year marriage with the Magyars has not worked. A divorce is necessary." 44 The marriage of the Czechs and Slovaks in 1918 was a classic war-time marriage: undertaken in haste, without adequate courtship, with both partners moving immediately from divorce (Austrian and Hungarian partners respectively) into this new relationship. There was no time to discuss the terms and conditions of the marriage, the expectations about what each sought and would bring to the marriage. What little was prepared was done largely by marriage brokers (Toma~ G. Masaryk on one side and the American Slovaks on the other, resulting in the Pittsburgh Agreement of 1918) . The first months of the marriage were very difficult, as the residual effects of the Great War needed to be addressed . It became apparent fairly soon, however, that the two partners in the marriage had very different expectations and notions. The Czech partner clearly saw himself as the preponderant factor, functioning as provider and decision maker in a traditional marriage . This was a natural expectation, given the Czech numerical and material dominance. Thus the Czechs had a clear notion of the nature of the relationship: a unitary state of the Czechoslovak nation. The Slovak partner was much less clear about her role in the marriage. Given her relative lack of wealth and experience, there was a tendency on the part of some to accept a dependent relationship and a subservient role in the marriage. Thus generally more than a third of the Slovaks Germany, but also as a justification of its own colonial ambitions toward Slovakia." Zden~k Pinc, "The Idea of the Czechoslovak State: History, Theory and Political Reality", Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, 10, no. I , 1991, p. 38 . 44 Karol Medvecky, Slovenskf prevrat, Tmava, Spolok Sv. Vojtecha, 1930-31 , Vol. Ill , p. 347 . �SLOVAKIA 95 accepted the Czechoslovak unitary state, though only a tiny minority believed in the notion of the Czechoslovak people and virtually no one subscribed to a Czechoslovak language. There also existed a different notion of the marriage, namely the desire for an equal partnership between two equals. This was manifested in the desire for some form of Slovak autonomy as exemplified by the hyphenated Czecho-Slovakia, a position which generally a majority of the Slovaks supported. As the marriage progressed during the 1920's and 1930's, both internal and external factors escalated Slovak discontent. The Slovaks came to resent their status in the Czechoslovak Republic because they felt increasingly frustrated , both economically and politically and because they perceived a paternalistic indifference to Slovak grievances. Increasingly, this frustration led to a sense of alienation from the marriage and a greater responsiveness to ideological concepts which addressed both the reality and the theory of the inadequacy of an unequal marriage; in this marriage it was the call of nationalism which led the "weaker" partner to re-evaluate her place within the Czech-defined relationship. As storm clouds gathered over Europe, as tension and fear escalated, the Slovaks sought to re-define the marriage precisely at the moment that the Czechs, feeling far more threatened by the forces gathering over Europe, resisted any tampering with what to them was a satisfactory marriage. They in fact did not even comprehend the alienation and sense of frustration prevalent among the Slovaks . Thus the events of Munich and after led to deep bitterness, for the Czechs believed the Slovaks had stabbed them in the back, and the Slovaks felt that, having been denied the opportunity to improve their relationship with the Czechs, they had no obligations to travel the bitter path with a partner who had never listened to them and had never been prepared to engage in a genuine dialogue with a view toward developing a marriage of true partners. During the period of the war, the Czechs and some Slovaks denied that the marriage had broken up; some Czechs even denied that any adjustments were necessary for the marriage to resume. Virtually no Slovak could subscribe to that position; for the Slovaks, at the very minimum, a co-equal marriage was imperative. �96 SLOVAKIA The fall of communism enabled old and new grievances to surface, on both sides, and to be finally openly confronted. The result was a divorce. The seeds of that divorce, not necessarily inevitable , had been planted by failures common to so many marriages: lack of communications and the inability to listen as Czechs and Slovaks talked from different historical perspectives, in different languages and with different objectives , resulting in misunderstandings, undervaluing of roles , responsibilities and contributions, and above all , the lack of commitment to a marriage of diversity and genuine equality. � 78 SLOVAKIA Relations Between Slovaks and Czechs in the First CSR SUSAN MIKULA At this particular point in the history of the Czechs and Slovaks, the question of the nature of the relationship between these two nations has assumed a renewed significance and interest. The disintegration of the common state which had existed for 74 years is often presented in the popular press as the result of Slovak backwardness, provincialism, undemocratic tendencies, vestiges of communist influence; in short as anything but the consequence of a long historical process. There has in fact been a persistent tendency throughout much of the 20th century, whether by popular writers or even some professional scholars, to view Slovak demands for structural changes in their relationship with the Czechs along much the same lines, that is as reflective of fascist or communist extremists, of political, economic or cultural immaturity, or of a destructive opportunism. The prime reason for such tendencies may be that the prism through which the "Slovak problem" has often been viewed is the Czech or Czechoslovak. In other words, there are certain a priori assumptions being made about the nature of the problem which affect the analysis of the problem. One such tendency is to see it as just that, a Slovak problem, that is, as a problem between two competing Slovak factions, rather than as a problem between Czechs and Slovaks. The consequence of that has been the tendency to dismiss the problem and then be repeatedly surprised and dismayed when the central nature of the issues resurfaced and influenced the �SLOVAKIA 79 entire state and people. Another tendency is to identify the Slovak nationalist aspirations in the First Czechoslovak Republic (CSR) with the extreme nationalist movements of the inter-war era, that is with fascism. The problem thus becomes reduced to the analysis of Andrej Hlinka and the Slovak People's Party, which is designated as a clerical-fascist movement. The problem is then still a Slovak problem - the authoritarian tendencies of a huge segment of the Slovak population - and also an external one - the broad movement of European fascism. The difficulty comes with trying to account for the persistence of the Slovak national aspirations, long after the dismantling and systematic discrediting of the Slovak Republic. Here the notion of backwardness (economic and political) and immaturity (political and cultural) assumes a satisfactory explanatory character. What has been common in the great majority of these analyses, written mostly from the Czechoslovak perspective, is this notion that it is the Slovak's problem . On the other hand, the few works written from the Slovak perspective , at least until very recently , have tended to veer in the opposite direction, to view it as strictly a Czech problem, that is as the result of a systematic and deliberate policy of Czechoslovakization (analogous to Magyarization). This tendency has likewise but limited value. The Czech/Slovak problem has, rather, been a structural, historical problem, especially in the First Republic. With the creation of that state an attempt was made to apply an undifferentiated model of the nation-state to a society in which a number of nations were undergoing the process of national self-actualization accelerated beyond previous historical experience. The attempt to establish a unitary nation-state comprised of a hastily constructed nation (Czechoslovak) was thus flying in the face of the very process which had led to the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire and which had precisely allowed for the possibility of self-determination for the various nations of the empire. From this perspective, the problem ceases to be a Czech or Slovak problem and becomes a problem of �80 SLOVAKIA the very idea of the Czechoslovak state as it emerged by 1920.19 The unitary, power-based political structure (mocensko-politicky system)20 of the First Republic could not satisfy the needs of the Slovaks without significant revision. However the very real successes and achievements of that state, especially for the Czechs, meant that the need for revision met with incomprehension and therefore indifference and then resistance. An examination of some critical economic and political issues affecting the Slovaks illustrates the fundamental nature of the problem for the Czechoslovak republic. To do so, certain inescapable realities must be recognized. The first is that the economic conditions of the Czech and Slovak lands were vastly different at the very onset of the Republic. A further inescapable reality is that that differences persisted throughout the First Republic and in fact deepened. A third inescapable reality is that l 9 A recent example in Western scholarship which looks at how the structure of the state related to the national struggle of the Slovaks is Carol Skalnik Leff's book , National Conflict in Czechoslovakia, Princeton University Press, I 988 . The Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Science (Historicky ustav SA V) has just published the papers from the symposium held November, 1991 entitled Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, Bratislava, Historicky ustav , 1992. Here both Czech and Slovak scholars examined the political and structural aspects of the Slovak position in the First Republic; most of them have taken a hard look at the system itself. In that vein, some of the recent writings by Czech scholars, such as Vojtech Mencl a kollectiv, Krizovatky 20. stoleti, Prague, Na~e Vojsko, 1990; Petr Pithart Dejiny a politika , Prague, Prostor , 1990; and Zdenek Pinc "The Idea of the Czechoslovak State: History, Theory and Political Reality" in Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, Vol. 10, no . I, 1991, pp. 36-45 have also taken a more critical approach to the analysis of the political system of the First Republic . There are a variety of viewpoints here and not all agree with the notion that the very structure of the First Republic, namely that of a unitary nation-state, almost certainly precluded a satisfactory resolution of conflicting national aspirations, but all recognize that at issue was much more than competing Slovak factions or Slovak immaturity. On a related subject, the theoretical and methodological approach used by Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1984, is very useful. 20 Josef Harna uses that term to characterize the operational structure of the First Republic . See Politickf system a statni politika v prvnfch Jetech existence Ceskoslo venske republiky (1918-1923), Praha, Historicky ustav, 1990. �SLOVAKIA 81 these circumstances were at the root of Slovak grievances and frustrations, which came to be shared by nearly all Slovaks, irrespective of their political beliefs. The initial differences between the two arose from their historical conditions, and are well known. While due to some degree to natural environmental factors (resources, terrain, geophysical placement) they are also the result of differing economic and political policies and interests on the part of the Austrians and the Magyars. While the Czechs had become the industrial nucleus of the Habsburg Empire and were well advanced in industrialization and urbanization by the latter decades of the 19th century, Slovak industrialization was at that time at its beginning stages. The Slovaks did have an analogous position within the Hungarian kingdom, designated to become industrially active for that sector of the Empire, but this was in its infancy stage when compared to the Czechs. Thus the creation of Czecho-Slovakia in 1918 joined together two very different economic regions. The effects of that union were also very different. While the Czech Lands continued to develop, after some initial adjustments, at least until the Great Depression, Slovakia stagnated throughout the entire period in almost every category of economic activity. 21 In attempting to explain this fact, one has to recognize that there was little if any economic planning prior to the establishment of the First Republic. In the immediate postwar period, Slovaks recognized the need for economic development and submitted plans and requests to Prague. However, their weak political representation in the crucial first years, the liquidation of the Slovak National Council, which left a leadership vacuum in Slovakia, and the small number of economic leaders in Slovakia all meant that these early efforts were without success. Equally powerless in the realm of economics were the Ministry of Unification of Laws and the Minister Plenipotentiary for Slovakia. The structure of the system did not allow for conside21 For an analysis of the Slovak economic situation in the First Republic , see the works of Miroslav Fabricius, Hospodarsky vjvoj Slovenska do konca predmnfchovskej republiky, 1987, no. 75 and Vjvoj nazorov na postavenie ekonomiky Sloven ska v prednmfchovskej republike, Bratislava, Eckonomicky ustav SAV , I 990, no. 79. �82 SLOVAKIA ration of Slovakia's economic development; it was rather submerged into the whole. In fact, the strongest protests over the restructuring of the historic counties came from those county boards most concerned with economic issues. Economic policy in the new republic was highly centralized, as was the political system. Prague was the political and economic center where all the offices and organs were located. Slovakia was not viewed as one of the two integrating units, but rather as a region to be appended to the Historic Lands.22 If there was any recognition of Slovakia's role in the economy as a distinct sector, it was to serve as the agricultural sector, to insure the agrarian self-sufficiency of the state. This theory of an "agrarian Slovakia" was the cornerstone of economic policy in the 1920's, in particular within the Agrarian Party, where political considerations played a part. Slovak Agrarian politicians also supported this notion, although by the end of the 1920's even Milan Hodfa recognized the need to bring industry to Slovakia.23 It was difficult to overcome this notion that the agrarian character of Slovakia was both natural and desirable, even while it was recognized that industrialization was essential to economic development in other areas of East Europe and also that there were actually less than optimal conditions for agriculture in Slovakia. This was especially unfortunate because there was plenty of available evidence which pointed to the social and economic inequality of the two halves of the state and their undesirable social and political consequences. The chief reason for failing to address this problem was the commitment to a laissez-faire policy of economic development. It was argued that to target Slovakia for special investment and\or development would create a dualistic policy while there existed a unitary society. In fact, 22 Vlastislav Lacina, "Uloha hospodai'ske politiky pri vytvlii'enf nove ceskoslovenske ekonomiky 1918-1923" in Politicky system a statni politika v prvnich Jetech existence Ceskoslovenske republiky, p. 86. 23 A summary of this debate about agrarian versus industrial Slovakia is to be found in Fabricius, Vyvoj nazorov na posta venie ekonomiky Slovenska v predmnfchovskej republike . �SLOVAKIA 83 economic dualism already existed and persisted and the failure to deal with it had enormous consequences for both people. Nor did Czechoslovakia actually pursue a laissez-faire economic policy, especially in the first years of the Republic. Rather what occurred was a failure to recognize the special Slovak economic needs, within the context of Slovakia rather than the context of the whole state. As a result the Slovak economy stagnated, with social, economic and political consequences. Evidence of this economic dualism can be found in both the agricultural and industrial sectors. In agriculture, between 19191927, for instance, 87,263 hectares of land in the Czech region underwent improvement while in Slovakia it amounted to 9,323 hectares or 9.6% of the total land improved . The division of investment costs for rural modernization were 95 .1 % to the Czech lands and 4.3% to Slovakia.2 4 Another indicator of the disparity was the rate of rural electrification; in 1933 , for example 125 villages were joined to the electrical network in the Czech lands, 112 in Moravia and Silesia and only 9 in Slovakia. Altogether only 1.9% of agricultural enterprises were electrified in Slovakia compared to 31.7% in Czech lands and 25.2% in Moravia.25 As a consequence, throughout the 1920 1s, Slovak agriculture remained essentially stagnant and less productive and in the 19301s the world agricultural crisis had a greater adverse effect on the Slovaks. In the industrial sector there was a whole battery of problems, so much so that it was referred to as the 11 complex of Slovak industrial woes (komplex bolesti slovenskeho priemyslu)" _26 The restructuring of Slovak industry during the period 19191921 led to an emphasis on the production of consumable (primary) goods, so that the percentage of activity devoted to producing export oriented goods declined. In spite of the fact that Slovakia needed greater modernization and improvement in its economic situation, the 24 Fabricius, Hospodarsky vyvoj S/ovenska do konca predmnichovskej republiky, p. 47 . 25 Jbid. , p. 64. 26 Ibid., p. 52. �84 SLOVAKIA pace of improvement here too was slower than in the Czech Lands. In fact, when in 1921-23 industrial output fell by 30%, some even began to talk about a policy of de-industrialization (odburavanie priemyslu). This was not quite the case but it did ring true for heavy industry; between 1918 and 1932, 260 enterprises were dismantled; by 1937 this had reached another 680 _2 7 Another severe problem was the lack of capital investment; the Czech bourgeoisie invested in existing Slovak firms, not in new ones and those listed in statistics as new were in fact results of transfer of capital and ownership. This process (nostrifikacia) was the road by which Czech capital was able to entrench itself in key positions , especially in banking, industry and marketing. 28 By 1930, after a 10 year period of the integration process, Slovakia was more clearly agrarian in character than before. The Slovak industrial labor share was at 19 .4% while Czech industrial labor rate reached 42.1 % . In the mid-1930's there was a brief spurt of "re-industrialization" in Slovakia, largely in defenserelated industries (perhaps to move them eastward, away from the German border), but even with this , at the end of the First Republic there was still a relative 6% decrease of industrial employment in Slovakia. The percentage of Slovaks in the total industrial employment in Czechoslovakia did not rise above 8% during the entire period. 29 Over the twenty year existence of the First Republic, Slovak economic development consistently lagged behind that of the Czechs, producing a highly developed sense of economic grievance among Slovaks of all political persuasions, including the centrists. On the issue of the economy there existed near unanimity of opinion among the Slovaks. The inability of the Slovaks, however, to effect significant changes in the economic policies and expenditures of the 27 Mencl , p. 143. 28 see Fabricius, Hospodarsky vyvoj S/ovenska do konca predmnfchovskej repub liky, pp . 40-56 and Lacina, pp . 87 and passim for a discusstion of Czech fin ancial investment policies in Slovakia. 29 Radoslav Selucky, "The Economic Equalization of Slovakia with the Czech Lands ", East European Economics, 4/1965, pp . 42-59. �SLOVAKIA 85 central government served to make manifest the structural impediments to full Slovak self-fulfillment within the framework of the unitary Czechoslovak republic. The result was frustration and alienation, both in the economic and the political sphere. In the political sphere, one could almost say that the very decision to create an unitary state of the "Czechoslovak" nation created an untenable situation. Even the most cursory examination of the process by which the unitary state was formed and the structure through which it functioned reveals that the system itself contributed to the erosion of the viability of the unitary Czechoslovak state. The prevailing opinions have generally been that this decision was necessary and beneficial: necessary because of the international situation, the Wilsonian commitment to national self-determination and above all by the fact that the Germans constituted the second largest national group in the new state. And it was beneficial because by that process the Slovaks became a state people rather than a national minority. The assumption therefore is that an unitary state structure was in response to these factors, and not a political decision by the Czech leadership, less a political opportunity but rather an historical necessity. What is generally glossed over is that until almost the very end of the peace process, the dualistic principle was a very real option, that is Czecho-Slovakia, as indicated by the use of the hyphen until 1920 _30 What decided the issue was not Wilsonian expectations but the military turmoil in Slovakia, necessitating occupation and creating fears for the safety of the whole republic . The structure of the state was influenced as much by some short-term problems which could have been resolved in several ways as by broad historical forces . Nor was the decision made because Slovaks were unprepared or disinterested in the structure of the new state. From the time that the Slovak League of America was empowered to negotiate for the Slovaks (Martin Memorandum, 1906) to the Pittsburgh Agreement to the various plans and statements made by Slovak leaders 30 see Joseph Kalvoda, The Genesis of Czechoslo vakia , Boulder, East European Monographs , 1986. �86 SLOVAKIA throughout 1918, it was clear the Slovaks were formulating concepts about their relationship with the Czechs. Examination of the meetings, speeches, correspondence of Slovak leaders, especially in 1918 reveals wide-ranging discussions about the anticipated relationship; autonomy was perhaps the most consistent expectation. For example, Matus Dula wrote on November 23, 1918: "when I discussed our autonomy with responsible [rozhodnymi] Czech leaders, they attested that Slovaks would get full autonomy autonomous rights would fall under the competency of the regional diet." 31 It is clear that in 1918 Slovaks were willing to join their sovereignty with that of the Czechs as partners in a new state, because that afforded them the best opportunity for political emancipation; what they were not expecting to do was to blend and blur their hardfought national identity. The decision to postulate a "Czechoslovak nation" was not made by Slovak political representatives, and these did exist, as did political parties, nor by any electoral process, but rather by a very small group of appointed politicians not very representative of the political, economic, social and cultural spectrum of Slovakia.32 There is no question that conditions were such that it did not appear that reasoned debates and consensus building were luxuries which could be afforded. What needs to be understood however is that decisions were made due to very specific historical events which led to the choice of certain options, which were not necessarily the optimal or sole options and which therefore could 31 Milan Krajcovic, "Slovensko v zahranicnopolitickych suvislostiach 1918-1922", in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, p. 148 . See also the article by Vladimir Zuberec, "Vyznamny dokument o postaveni Slovenska za burfoaznej CSR v zbierkach Slovenskeho Narodneho Muzea" in Zbornik Slovenskeho Narodneho Muzea, LXXXIII , 1989, pp. 201-207 . 32 r:ubomir Liptak points out that there were 10,000 people with, if not political experience, certainly with experience in a variety of organizations and public life. And while the number of Slovak schools had dramatically declined , the number of Slovak students had gone up; these could all be acclimated quickly to the new Slovak reality . See "Pripravenosi Slovenska na demokraciu" in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, pp. 7-12. �SLOVAKIA 87 have been readdressed as the situation changed. An underlying element in the creation of the new state was the notion that the year 1918 was the year zero - a new beginning with a clean slate. The failure to recognize and internalize the fundamentally different historical experiences and character of the two people, to recognize that in fact two separate nations existed, not branches of one nation, and that these two had differing notions about both the nature of their new relationship and its state structure influenced the subsequent development of the state as well as the two peoples. As Josef Hama points out "On the Czech side there was not the willingness to understand the differences; on the Slovak side there was impatience and anxiety arising from the feeling of powerlessness to achieve their objectives. Czechoslovakia was formed from the prevailing weight of the Czechs as a unitary state with significant characteristics of centralism." _33 The construct of the unitary state, and the method of ratification of the constitution, meant that there was no national debate and therefore no national consensus on the very definition of the nation state . In the formative period, the hyphenated form, suggesting a state of the Czechs and Slovaks, often was used interchangeably with the Czechoslovak. The definitive proclamation in the Constitution that the "Czechoslovak nation" was the creator of the state and "Czechoslovak" the language of the state created the situation in which those large numbers of Slovaks who resisted the label Czechoslovak were forced into opposition not just against the policies of the state, a normal aspect of parliamentary systems, but against the very nature of the state itself, a position the Slovaks initially had no desire to take and in fact until the very end of the republic sought to avoid. As a consequence the fiction of the single Czechoslovak nation was assumed to be the selfevident principle on which relations between Czechs and Slovaks were based. From the viewpoint of the overwhelming majority of Czech politicians, therefore, neither Slovak autonomy nor the federalization of the state on the basis of the national principle was deemed to be at all 33 Harna, p. 14. �88 SLOVAKIA necessary. This attitude prevailed even as the very construct "two branches of the Czechoslovak nation" would seem to demand the necessity of constitutional elaboration and resolution of the individuality contained within the notion of two branches _34 Once the decision was made to create a unitary state, the opportunities for initiating and implementing Slovak policies and political objectives were circumscribed at best, both by the structure of the state system, the political party structure and to an extent the Slovak political forms. The peculiar structure of the party system meant that opposition parties had no realistic chance of modifying the system. The frustration that results from the perceived inability to influence the system in any way often leads to radicalism and this was certainly the case in Czechoslovakia. The power politics party system in the interwar republic proved to be remarkably stable, even though it was a multi-party system in which significant groups were polarized. Stability was achieved at a price, namely the diminution of the role of Parliament and the enhancement of the power of the President and of the government forming coalition parties. A further price was the perception that these centrist parties (generally known as the Petka) had to achieve a consensus and cohesiveness in the face of the fundamental divergence of views from the outsider parties. Hence opposition becomes not something to be tolerated and contested, but something threatening and destabilizing. In effect, the coalition parties could not afford the luxury of opposition; aware of the differences in the state, they felt compelled to focus on retaining and centralizing power. The political cabinet of party leaders essentially overshadowed the ministerial cabinet and tended to make of Parliament a virtual rubber stamp, at least for deputies from the governing parties. What that meant in practice was that the system was impervious to any fundamental change through the normal parliamentary 34M. Matula, "Nektere problemy souvisejfci s institucionalnfm aspektem narodnfc h vztahu CSR v letech 1918-1938" in Slovensko v politickom syst6me Ceskoslovenska, p. 91 . �SLOVAKIA 89 process. What ensued then was the belief that the structure itself had to be modified if any real political power was to develop among the Slovaks. As one historian writes: The issue was not really whether or not the Slovaks achieved immediate autonomy but the Jack of understanding and the unwillingness of the Czech parties even to recognize the problem. Thus the spokesmen for the Slovak position were pushed into opposition and progressively forced into a negative stance relative to the existing regime.3 5 Illustrative of the unwillingness even to address the question of constitutional organization was the fate of administrative reconstruction. The County Law of 1920 was designed to integrate Slovakia into the new state by creating a new county structure to replace the old. What especially generated protests by Slovak administrators was that financial control at the county level was taken over by the central Ministries oflnterior and Finance. During 1921-22, several proposals were made in Parliament to address these Slovak concerns. The Hlinka Slovak People's Party (HSPP) called for selfadministration in Slovak affairs, a provincial Diet and a provincial government named by the President. There were also other variants, some more radical, of Slovak autonomy. Hodza, who at this time was still looking for a means of unifying Slovak political power, suggested a County Union with competencies in health, welfare, economic and cultural spheres precisely to shift administrative power in Slovakia out of Prague's bureaucratic hands and into Slovak political hands. The debate on these issues in the ministerial circles in Prague revealed a reluctance to delegate any real powers, even to a body like the County Union. The only concessions to be made were delegating powers addressing the needs of the feeble-minded, blind, deaf, epileptic, supervising forced labor and the poorhouses .36 35 Hama, p. 19. 36 For an analysis of the debate over the administration of Slovakia, see Natalia Krajcovicovli , "Politicke strany na Slovensku a usilie o samosprlivu v dvadsiatich rokoch" in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, pp . 47-55 . See also Ladislav Lipscher, K vyvinu politickej spravy na Slovensku v rokoch 1918-1938, Bratislava, SA V, 1966. �90 SLOVAKIA The political concerns behind such positions were evident, as expressed in the magazine Tribuna: "It is certain that a County Union in Slovakia would be a constant threat to the unity of the state. Who can guarantee that it would not give birth to some kind of autonomous Diet for Slovakia?"3 7 The result was that the administrative structure for Slovakia was extraordinarily limited, always under the strict supervision of Prague. Slovaks lost even a modicum of local autonomy, under a system which was not implemented in the rest of the country precisely because the example of centralized power as manifested in Slovakia aroused local opposition in Bohemia and Moravia. The anomaly could not be sustained and in 1927 the Provincial Law replaced the county system with the four historic provinces. While this acknowledged the territorial existence of Slovakia as an entity, little was done to give that entity any real administrative powers. The failure of these administrative efforts indicated that no serious attempt would be made to bring about a measure of decentralization of government. Problems of special significance to the Slovaks, such as the economic imbalance, the lower standard of living, the dearth of jobs for the growing numbers of university trained younger leaders, the preservation of religious and cultural values were thus not addressed regionally, but left to the central government in Prague, where Slovak power was minimal at best. It could be argued, and often has been, that the lack of Slovak power was more the result of the divisions among the Slovaks themselves than of the unitary and centralized nature of the system. The inability of the Slovaks to form a cohesive bloc was a factor, but not a decisive factor, for as long as even one Slovak was found who would enter the government in the name of the Slovaks (and in fact three, namely Vavro Srobar, Ivan Derer, Hod:fa, were all that were basically necessary during the First Republic) and while coalition parties could attract a Slovak following, (and two did), the power of the coalition bloc would outweigh any Slovak bloc. The ambiguity about the nature of the Czech-Slovak problem would however have 37Krajfovicovii, p. 51. �SLOVAKIA 91 been clarified had the Slovaks achieved a Slovak party. Hod:fa and others recognized this and an attempt was made to form a National Bloc or even a Political Committee (which Hod:fa tried) which would have functioned in a manner analogous to the Petka. This failed because of the inability to achieve a uniform stand on the question of the Slovak position in the state and also to a diversity of views on some specific issues, a problem partially attributable to confessional differences. There did exist a basic consensus on general principles; only a few Slovaks were convinced Czechoslovaks. Unfortunately it was precisely these few who were able to join the government in Prague and were thus considered to represent the Slovaks. There was in fact a fundamental unity among the Slovak populace: a rejection of ethnic and linguistic Czechoslovakism, a commitment to the Czechoslovak state, albeit a reformed one, and a recognition of the pluralistic nature of the state and society. If there was division among the Slovaks, it came on the question of how, not whether, to reform the state: regionalism or autonomy. The Slovak Agrarians, under Hod:fa's leadership, were centrist in that they worked within the system to bring about a modification of some of the system, but especially in the 1930's were also advocates of regionalism. Hodfa came to advocate an intermediary notion, looking at it from a pragmatic perspective, which "means neither centralism nor autonomy, but state-political unity and regionalism with administrative self-government" .38 Hodfa was trying to find a bridge between two ever diverging assessments (one Czech and the other Slovak) of the satisfaction level with the existing political system. The escalating criticism by Slovaks of their position in the First Republic is evident from the following editorial in Zem, the journal of the younger generation of Agrarians: The aversion of Czechs and Slovaks arises from economic and social problems . Czechs accept our arguments with a judicious attentiveness , while they continue to make their own national , cultural and linguistic politics .. . Currently a majority of the Slovaks want to acknowledge their own nation .... and the unfortunate tendencies (potmehudske narazky) seen 38Milan Hodfa, C/anky, reci, §tudie, Prague , Novina , 1934, Vol. 7, pp . xxxii-iii . �92 SLOVAKIA in various Czech newspapers, to suggest that Slovak efforts to achieve their rights somehow indicates political unreliabi lity, wi ll not deter the Slovaks. 39 If even Hodza's and the Agrarians' moderate call for regionalism was ignored , the possibility for substantive constitutional reform was all the more remote. The position of the HSPP, which consistently included Slovak autonomy as its basic program, is certainly a case in point. Representing a large portion of the Slovak people,40 they were systematically frustrated in their attempts to implement their programs. Ignored most of the time, only in times of crisis did the governing powers seek to integrate the HSPP into the process , such as the coalition crisis of the late 192O's or the presidential elections of 1935 ; once the crisis was resolved, any further negotiations were deemed unnecessary. A good illustration of this can be seen from the December 1935 talks between President Edvard Benes and Andrej Hlinka, leader of the HSPP. Hlinka asked for decentralization and legislative power for regional Slovak organs and for the post of Minister for Slovakia for the HSPP. Benes promised to give the Slovaks all that was possible without undermining the unity of the state. In February 1936 Benes noted that the entry of HSPP into the government was delayed due to unacceptable nature of the demands: the same demands which were made in negotiations in December. The governing coalition rejected the demands and the matter was closed.41 No matter what route the Slovaks followed in their efforts to modify the structure and political system, they had little success. Political parties in Slovakia were unable to compete nationally, for 39zem, IV , 4 , 20 . February , 1938, p. 39 . 40 one could argue that at times it did indeed represent a majority of the Slovaks, if one assumes that Czechs voting in Slovakia supported centrist parties and Magyars their own parties . 41 E.F. Firsov, "K problemu modifik,kif parlamentneho systemu CSR a narodnopolitickeho konsenzu Cechov a Slovakov na prelome 20. a 30 . rokov" in Slo vensk o v politickom systeme Ceskos/ovenska, p. 104. �SLOVAKIA 93 the state was in the hands of the centrist parties and thus no shadow coalition or cabinet could form. Slovaks were united in their efforts to gain control of the bureaucratic apparatus in Slovakia, as a means of indirect access to the power center. This too was frustrated by the bureaucratic structure of centralism. It took the crisis of 1938 to bring about some readjustment in the state relations between Czechs and Slovaks, a settlement subsequently repudiated as being forcibly imposed. 42 By that time however a more aggressive and assertive stance had been taken by the HSPP; 20 years of waiting for the system to change from above had led to the radicalization of the efforts to change it. It is often argued that in time of crisis the Slovaks abandoned the Czechs, generating the notion of ungrateful Slovaks. One could likewise argue that only in times of crisis did the Czechs remember the Slovaks .. . one can go to the well only so many times. There is no question that fascist elements had entered into the Slovak political arena, fueled in part by economic grievances and political frustration . The fact that fascism was a force sweeping across the disaffected sectors of Europe does not absolve the Slovaks of responsibility for those fascist features; nor does however the argument that Czechoslovakia, while it had its faults, was still the only functioning democracy in Eastern Europe and better than the surrounding systems excuse those faults and deny their consequences. For both, historical relativism is a tempting but ultimately unsatisfying position. 43 42 An interesting side point here is Hodza's argument that the political cabinet's acceptance of Slovak self-administration, as negotiated in the summer of 1938 was in fact valid , against Bene§' subsequent argument , after W .W .II broke out , that Parliament had not approved it and it was therefore invalid. Hodza was correct in his perception that the political cabinet was the crucial decision making body . That was why Slovak political efforts were in fact so often frustrated, because Parliament tended only to reflect the decisions of the political cabinet. 43 As a prominent Czech historian has observed: "The ideal of democracy became a self-indulgent compliment, nurturing the need of the Czechs for universal recognition and admiration. Czech nationalism greeted the foundation of the republic not only as an occasion to score points in the nationalistic struggle with imperialistic �94 SLOVAKIA The analogy of a marriage is perhaps an appropriate metaphor for the course of Czech and Slovaks relations . In May of 1918, as the Austro-Hungarian Empire was moving inexorably toward its demise, Hlinka declared: "It is absolutely necessary for us to decide if we will continue with the Magyars, or go with the Czechs. Let us not evade the question, let us say openly that we are for the CzechoSlovak orientation. The thousand year marriage with the Magyars has not worked. A divorce is necessary." 44 The marriage of the Czechs and Slovaks in 1918 was a classic war-time marriage: undertaken in haste, without adequate courtship, with both partners moving immediately from divorce (Austrian and Hungarian partners respectively) into this new relationship. There was no time to discuss the terms and conditions of the marriage, the expectations about what each sought and would bring to the marriage. What little was prepared was done largely by marriage brokers (Toma~ G. Masaryk on one side and the American Slovaks on the other, resulting in the Pittsburgh Agreement of 1918) . The first months of the marriage were very difficult, as the residual effects of the Great War needed to be addressed . It became apparent fairly soon, however, that the two partners in the marriage had very different expectations and notions. The Czech partner clearly saw himself as the preponderant factor, functioning as provider and decision maker in a traditional marriage . This was a natural expectation, given the Czech numerical and material dominance. Thus the Czechs had a clear notion of the nature of the relationship: a unitary state of the Czechoslovak nation. The Slovak partner was much less clear about her role in the marriage. Given her relative lack of wealth and experience, there was a tendency on the part of some to accept a dependent relationship and a subservient role in the marriage. Thus generally more than a third of the Slovaks Germany, but also as a justification of its own colonial ambitions toward Slovakia." Zden~k Pinc, "The Idea of the Czechoslovak State: History, Theory and Political Reality", Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, 10, no. I , 1991, p. 38 . 44 Karol Medvecky, Slovenskf prevrat, Tmava, Spolok Sv. Vojtecha, 1930-31 , Vol. Ill , p. 347 . �SLOVAKIA 95 accepted the Czechoslovak unitary state, though only a tiny minority believed in the notion of the Czechoslovak people and virtually no one subscribed to a Czechoslovak language. There also existed a different notion of the marriage, namely the desire for an equal partnership between two equals. This was manifested in the desire for some form of Slovak autonomy as exemplified by the hyphenated Czecho-Slovakia, a position which generally a majority of the Slovaks supported. As the marriage progressed during the 1920's and 1930's, both internal and external factors escalated Slovak discontent. The Slovaks came to resent their status in the Czechoslovak Republic because they felt increasingly frustrated , both economically and politically and because they perceived a paternalistic indifference to Slovak grievances. Increasingly, this frustration led to a sense of alienation from the marriage and a greater responsiveness to ideological concepts which addressed both the reality and the theory of the inadequacy of an unequal marriage; in this marriage it was the call of nationalism which led the "weaker" partner to re-evaluate her place within the Czech-defined relationship. As storm clouds gathered over Europe, as tension and fear escalated, the Slovaks sought to re-define the marriage precisely at the moment that the Czechs, feeling far more threatened by the forces gathering over Europe, resisted any tampering with what to them was a satisfactory marriage. They in fact did not even comprehend the alienation and sense of frustration prevalent among the Slovaks . Thus the events of Munich and after led to deep bitterness, for the Czechs believed the Slovaks had stabbed them in the back, and the Slovaks felt that, having been denied the opportunity to improve their relationship with the Czechs, they had no obligations to travel the bitter path with a partner who had never listened to them and had never been prepared to engage in a genuine dialogue with a view toward developing a marriage of true partners. During the period of the war, the Czechs and some Slovaks denied that the marriage had broken up; some Czechs even denied that any adjustments were necessary for the marriage to resume. Virtually no Slovak could subscribe to that position; for the Slovaks, at the very minimum, a co-equal marriage was imperative. �96 SLOVAKIA The fall of communism enabled old and new grievances to surface, on both sides, and to be finally openly confronted. The result was a divorce. The seeds of that divorce, not necessarily inevitable , had been planted by failures common to so many marriages: lack of communications and the inability to listen as Czechs and Slovaks talked from different historical perspectives, in different languages and with different objectives , resulting in misunderstandings, undervaluing of roles , responsibilities and contributions, and above all , the lack of commitment to a marriage of diversity and genuine equality. � 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 1991-92, Vol. 35 Description An account of the resource Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Slovak League of America Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 1991-92 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 78 SLOVAKIA Relations Between Slovaks and Czechs in the First CSR SUSAN MIKULA At this particular point in the history of the Czechs and Slovaks, the question of the nature of the relationship between these two nations has assumed a renewed significance and interest. The disintegration of the common state which had existed for 74 years is often presented in the popular press as the result of Slovak backwardness, provincialism, undemocratic tendencies, vestiges of communist influence; in short as anything but the consequence of a long historical process. There has in fact been a persistent tendency throughout much of the 20th century, whether by popular writers or even some professional scholars, to view Slovak demands for structural changes in their relationship with the Czechs along much the same lines, that is as reflective of fascist or communist extremists, of political, economic or cultural immaturity, or of a destructive opportunism. The prime reason for such tendencies may be that the prism through which the "Slovak problem" has often been viewed is the Czech or Czechoslovak. In other words, there are certain a priori assumptions being made about the nature of the problem which affect the analysis of the problem. One such tendency is to see it as just that, a Slovak problem, that is, as a problem between two competing Slovak factions, rather than as a problem between Czechs and Slovaks. The consequence of that has been the tendency to dismiss the problem and then be repeatedly surprised and dismayed when the central nature of the issues resurfaced and influenced the SLOVAKIA 79 entire state and people. Another tendency is to identify the Slovak nationalist aspirations in the First Czechoslovak Republic (CSR) with the extreme nationalist movements of the inter-war era, that is with fascism. The problem thus becomes reduced to the analysis of Andrej Hlinka and the Slovak People's Party, which is designated as a clerical-fascist movement. The problem is then still a Slovak problem - the authoritarian tendencies of a huge segment of the Slovak population - and also an external one - the broad movement of European fascism. The difficulty comes with trying to account for the persistence of the Slovak national aspirations, long after the dismantling and systematic discrediting of the Slovak Republic. Here the notion of backwardness (economic and political) and immaturity (political and cultural) assumes a satisfactory explanatory character. What has been common in the great majority of these analyses, written mostly from the Czechoslovak perspective, is this notion that it is the Slovak's problem . On the other hand, the few works written from the Slovak perspective , at least until very recently , have tended to veer in the opposite direction, to view it as strictly a Czech problem, that is as the result of a systematic and deliberate policy of Czechoslovakization (analogous to Magyarization). This tendency has likewise but limited value. The Czech/Slovak problem has, rather, been a structural, historical problem, especially in the First Republic. With the creation of that state an attempt was made to apply an undifferentiated model of the nation-state to a society in which a number of nations were undergoing the process of national self-actualization accelerated beyond previous historical experience. The attempt to establish a unitary nation-state comprised of a hastily constructed nation (Czechoslovak) was thus flying in the face of the very process which had led to the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire and which had precisely allowed for the possibility of self-determination for the various nations of the empire. From this perspective, the problem ceases to be a Czech or Slovak problem and becomes a problem of 80 SLOVAKIA the very idea of the Czechoslovak state as it emerged by 1920.19 The unitary, power-based political structure (mocensko-politicky system)20 of the First Republic could not satisfy the needs of the Slovaks without significant revision. However the very real successes and achievements of that state, especially for the Czechs, meant that the need for revision met with incomprehension and therefore indifference and then resistance. An examination of some critical economic and political issues affecting the Slovaks illustrates the fundamental nature of the problem for the Czechoslovak republic. To do so, certain inescapable realities must be recognized. The first is that the economic conditions of the Czech and Slovak lands were vastly different at the very onset of the Republic. A further inescapable reality is that that differences persisted throughout the First Republic and in fact deepened. A third inescapable reality is that l 9 A recent example in Western scholarship which looks at how the structure of the state related to the national struggle of the Slovaks is Carol Skalnik Leff's book , National Conflict in Czechoslovakia, Princeton University Press, I 988 . The Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Science (Historicky ustav SA V) has just published the papers from the symposium held November, 1991 entitled Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, Bratislava, Historicky ustav , 1992. Here both Czech and Slovak scholars examined the political and structural aspects of the Slovak position in the First Republic; most of them have taken a hard look at the system itself. In that vein, some of the recent writings by Czech scholars, such as Vojtech Mencl a kollectiv, Krizovatky 20. stoleti, Prague, Na~e Vojsko, 1990; Petr Pithart Dejiny a politika , Prague, Prostor , 1990; and Zdenek Pinc "The Idea of the Czechoslovak State: History, Theory and Political Reality" in Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, Vol. 10, no . I, 1991, pp. 36-45 have also taken a more critical approach to the analysis of the political system of the First Republic . There are a variety of viewpoints here and not all agree with the notion that the very structure of the First Republic, namely that of a unitary nation-state, almost certainly precluded a satisfactory resolution of conflicting national aspirations, but all recognize that at issue was much more than competing Slovak factions or Slovak immaturity. On a related subject, the theoretical and methodological approach used by Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1984, is very useful. 20 Josef Harna uses that term to characterize the operational structure of the First Republic . See Politickf system a statni politika v prvnfch Jetech existence Ceskoslo venske republiky (1918-1923), Praha, Historicky ustav, 1990. SLOVAKIA 81 these circumstances were at the root of Slovak grievances and frustrations, which came to be shared by nearly all Slovaks, irrespective of their political beliefs. The initial differences between the two arose from their historical conditions, and are well known. While due to some degree to natural environmental factors (resources, terrain, geophysical placement) they are also the result of differing economic and political policies and interests on the part of the Austrians and the Magyars. While the Czechs had become the industrial nucleus of the Habsburg Empire and were well advanced in industrialization and urbanization by the latter decades of the 19th century, Slovak industrialization was at that time at its beginning stages. The Slovaks did have an analogous position within the Hungarian kingdom, designated to become industrially active for that sector of the Empire, but this was in its infancy stage when compared to the Czechs. Thus the creation of Czecho-Slovakia in 1918 joined together two very different economic regions. The effects of that union were also very different. While the Czech Lands continued to develop, after some initial adjustments, at least until the Great Depression, Slovakia stagnated throughout the entire period in almost every category of economic activity. 21 In attempting to explain this fact, one has to recognize that there was little if any economic planning prior to the establishment of the First Republic. In the immediate postwar period, Slovaks recognized the need for economic development and submitted plans and requests to Prague. However, their weak political representation in the crucial first years, the liquidation of the Slovak National Council, which left a leadership vacuum in Slovakia, and the small number of economic leaders in Slovakia all meant that these early efforts were without success. Equally powerless in the realm of economics were the Ministry of Unification of Laws and the Minister Plenipotentiary for Slovakia. The structure of the system did not allow for conside21 For an analysis of the Slovak economic situation in the First Republic , see the works of Miroslav Fabricius, Hospodarsky vjvoj Slovenska do konca predmnfchovskej republiky, 1987, no. 75 and Vjvoj nazorov na postavenie ekonomiky Sloven ska v prednmfchovskej republike, Bratislava, Eckonomicky ustav SAV , I 990, no. 79. 82 SLOVAKIA ration of Slovakia's economic development; it was rather submerged into the whole. In fact, the strongest protests over the restructuring of the historic counties came from those county boards most concerned with economic issues. Economic policy in the new republic was highly centralized, as was the political system. Prague was the political and economic center where all the offices and organs were located. Slovakia was not viewed as one of the two integrating units, but rather as a region to be appended to the Historic Lands.22 If there was any recognition of Slovakia's role in the economy as a distinct sector, it was to serve as the agricultural sector, to insure the agrarian self-sufficiency of the state. This theory of an "agrarian Slovakia" was the cornerstone of economic policy in the 1920's, in particular within the Agrarian Party, where political considerations played a part. Slovak Agrarian politicians also supported this notion, although by the end of the 1920's even Milan Hodfa recognized the need to bring industry to Slovakia.23 It was difficult to overcome this notion that the agrarian character of Slovakia was both natural and desirable, even while it was recognized that industrialization was essential to economic development in other areas of East Europe and also that there were actually less than optimal conditions for agriculture in Slovakia. This was especially unfortunate because there was plenty of available evidence which pointed to the social and economic inequality of the two halves of the state and their undesirable social and political consequences. The chief reason for failing to address this problem was the commitment to a laissez-faire policy of economic development. It was argued that to target Slovakia for special investment and\or development would create a dualistic policy while there existed a unitary society. In fact, 22 Vlastislav Lacina, "Uloha hospodai'ske politiky pri vytvlii'enf nove ceskoslovenske ekonomiky 1918-1923" in Politicky system a statni politika v prvnich Jetech existence Ceskoslovenske republiky, p. 86. 23 A summary of this debate about agrarian versus industrial Slovakia is to be found in Fabricius, Vyvoj nazorov na posta venie ekonomiky Slovenska v predmnfchovskej republike . SLOVAKIA 83 economic dualism already existed and persisted and the failure to deal with it had enormous consequences for both people. Nor did Czechoslovakia actually pursue a laissez-faire economic policy, especially in the first years of the Republic. Rather what occurred was a failure to recognize the special Slovak economic needs, within the context of Slovakia rather than the context of the whole state. As a result the Slovak economy stagnated, with social, economic and political consequences. Evidence of this economic dualism can be found in both the agricultural and industrial sectors. In agriculture, between 19191927, for instance, 87,263 hectares of land in the Czech region underwent improvement while in Slovakia it amounted to 9,323 hectares or 9.6% of the total land improved . The division of investment costs for rural modernization were 95 .1 % to the Czech lands and 4.3% to Slovakia.2 4 Another indicator of the disparity was the rate of rural electrification; in 1933 , for example 125 villages were joined to the electrical network in the Czech lands, 112 in Moravia and Silesia and only 9 in Slovakia. Altogether only 1.9% of agricultural enterprises were electrified in Slovakia compared to 31.7% in Czech lands and 25.2% in Moravia.25 As a consequence, throughout the 1920 1s, Slovak agriculture remained essentially stagnant and less productive and in the 19301s the world agricultural crisis had a greater adverse effect on the Slovaks. In the industrial sector there was a whole battery of problems, so much so that it was referred to as the 11 complex of Slovak industrial woes (komplex bolesti slovenskeho priemyslu)" _26 The restructuring of Slovak industry during the period 19191921 led to an emphasis on the production of consumable (primary) goods, so that the percentage of activity devoted to producing export oriented goods declined. In spite of the fact that Slovakia needed greater modernization and improvement in its economic situation, the 24 Fabricius, Hospodarsky vyvoj S/ovenska do konca predmnichovskej republiky, p. 47 . 25 Jbid. , p. 64. 26 Ibid., p. 52. 84 SLOVAKIA pace of improvement here too was slower than in the Czech Lands. In fact, when in 1921-23 industrial output fell by 30%, some even began to talk about a policy of de-industrialization (odburavanie priemyslu). This was not quite the case but it did ring true for heavy industry; between 1918 and 1932, 260 enterprises were dismantled; by 1937 this had reached another 680 _2 7 Another severe problem was the lack of capital investment; the Czech bourgeoisie invested in existing Slovak firms, not in new ones and those listed in statistics as new were in fact results of transfer of capital and ownership. This process (nostrifikacia) was the road by which Czech capital was able to entrench itself in key positions , especially in banking, industry and marketing. 28 By 1930, after a 10 year period of the integration process, Slovakia was more clearly agrarian in character than before. The Slovak industrial labor share was at 19 .4% while Czech industrial labor rate reached 42.1 % . In the mid-1930's there was a brief spurt of "re-industrialization" in Slovakia, largely in defenserelated industries (perhaps to move them eastward, away from the German border), but even with this , at the end of the First Republic there was still a relative 6% decrease of industrial employment in Slovakia. The percentage of Slovaks in the total industrial employment in Czechoslovakia did not rise above 8% during the entire period. 29 Over the twenty year existence of the First Republic, Slovak economic development consistently lagged behind that of the Czechs, producing a highly developed sense of economic grievance among Slovaks of all political persuasions, including the centrists. On the issue of the economy there existed near unanimity of opinion among the Slovaks. The inability of the Slovaks, however, to effect significant changes in the economic policies and expenditures of the 27 Mencl , p. 143. 28 see Fabricius, Hospodarsky vyvoj S/ovenska do konca predmnfchovskej repub liky, pp . 40-56 and Lacina, pp . 87 and passim for a discusstion of Czech fin ancial investment policies in Slovakia. 29 Radoslav Selucky, "The Economic Equalization of Slovakia with the Czech Lands ", East European Economics, 4/1965, pp . 42-59. SLOVAKIA 85 central government served to make manifest the structural impediments to full Slovak self-fulfillment within the framework of the unitary Czechoslovak republic. The result was frustration and alienation, both in the economic and the political sphere. In the political sphere, one could almost say that the very decision to create an unitary state of the "Czechoslovak" nation created an untenable situation. Even the most cursory examination of the process by which the unitary state was formed and the structure through which it functioned reveals that the system itself contributed to the erosion of the viability of the unitary Czechoslovak state. The prevailing opinions have generally been that this decision was necessary and beneficial: necessary because of the international situation, the Wilsonian commitment to national self-determination and above all by the fact that the Germans constituted the second largest national group in the new state. And it was beneficial because by that process the Slovaks became a state people rather than a national minority. The assumption therefore is that an unitary state structure was in response to these factors, and not a political decision by the Czech leadership, less a political opportunity but rather an historical necessity. What is generally glossed over is that until almost the very end of the peace process, the dualistic principle was a very real option, that is Czecho-Slovakia, as indicated by the use of the hyphen until 1920 _30 What decided the issue was not Wilsonian expectations but the military turmoil in Slovakia, necessitating occupation and creating fears for the safety of the whole republic . The structure of the state was influenced as much by some short-term problems which could have been resolved in several ways as by broad historical forces . Nor was the decision made because Slovaks were unprepared or disinterested in the structure of the new state. From the time that the Slovak League of America was empowered to negotiate for the Slovaks (Martin Memorandum, 1906) to the Pittsburgh Agreement to the various plans and statements made by Slovak leaders 30 see Joseph Kalvoda, The Genesis of Czechoslo vakia , Boulder, East European Monographs , 1986. 86 SLOVAKIA throughout 1918, it was clear the Slovaks were formulating concepts about their relationship with the Czechs. Examination of the meetings, speeches, correspondence of Slovak leaders, especially in 1918 reveals wide-ranging discussions about the anticipated relationship; autonomy was perhaps the most consistent expectation. For example, Matus Dula wrote on November 23, 1918: "when I discussed our autonomy with responsible [rozhodnymi] Czech leaders, they attested that Slovaks would get full autonomy autonomous rights would fall under the competency of the regional diet." 31 It is clear that in 1918 Slovaks were willing to join their sovereignty with that of the Czechs as partners in a new state, because that afforded them the best opportunity for political emancipation; what they were not expecting to do was to blend and blur their hardfought national identity. The decision to postulate a "Czechoslovak nation" was not made by Slovak political representatives, and these did exist, as did political parties, nor by any electoral process, but rather by a very small group of appointed politicians not very representative of the political, economic, social and cultural spectrum of Slovakia.32 There is no question that conditions were such that it did not appear that reasoned debates and consensus building were luxuries which could be afforded. What needs to be understood however is that decisions were made due to very specific historical events which led to the choice of certain options, which were not necessarily the optimal or sole options and which therefore could 31 Milan Krajcovic, "Slovensko v zahranicnopolitickych suvislostiach 1918-1922", in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, p. 148 . See also the article by Vladimir Zuberec, "Vyznamny dokument o postaveni Slovenska za burfoaznej CSR v zbierkach Slovenskeho Narodneho Muzea" in Zbornik Slovenskeho Narodneho Muzea, LXXXIII , 1989, pp. 201-207 . 32 r:ubomir Liptak points out that there were 10,000 people with, if not political experience, certainly with experience in a variety of organizations and public life. And while the number of Slovak schools had dramatically declined , the number of Slovak students had gone up; these could all be acclimated quickly to the new Slovak reality . See "Pripravenosi Slovenska na demokraciu" in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, pp. 7-12. SLOVAKIA 87 have been readdressed as the situation changed. An underlying element in the creation of the new state was the notion that the year 1918 was the year zero - a new beginning with a clean slate. The failure to recognize and internalize the fundamentally different historical experiences and character of the two people, to recognize that in fact two separate nations existed, not branches of one nation, and that these two had differing notions about both the nature of their new relationship and its state structure influenced the subsequent development of the state as well as the two peoples. As Josef Hama points out "On the Czech side there was not the willingness to understand the differences; on the Slovak side there was impatience and anxiety arising from the feeling of powerlessness to achieve their objectives. Czechoslovakia was formed from the prevailing weight of the Czechs as a unitary state with significant characteristics of centralism." _33 The construct of the unitary state, and the method of ratification of the constitution, meant that there was no national debate and therefore no national consensus on the very definition of the nation state . In the formative period, the hyphenated form, suggesting a state of the Czechs and Slovaks, often was used interchangeably with the Czechoslovak. The definitive proclamation in the Constitution that the "Czechoslovak nation" was the creator of the state and "Czechoslovak" the language of the state created the situation in which those large numbers of Slovaks who resisted the label Czechoslovak were forced into opposition not just against the policies of the state, a normal aspect of parliamentary systems, but against the very nature of the state itself, a position the Slovaks initially had no desire to take and in fact until the very end of the republic sought to avoid. As a consequence the fiction of the single Czechoslovak nation was assumed to be the selfevident principle on which relations between Czechs and Slovaks were based. From the viewpoint of the overwhelming majority of Czech politicians, therefore, neither Slovak autonomy nor the federalization of the state on the basis of the national principle was deemed to be at all 33 Harna, p. 14. 88 SLOVAKIA necessary. This attitude prevailed even as the very construct "two branches of the Czechoslovak nation" would seem to demand the necessity of constitutional elaboration and resolution of the individuality contained within the notion of two branches _34 Once the decision was made to create a unitary state, the opportunities for initiating and implementing Slovak policies and political objectives were circumscribed at best, both by the structure of the state system, the political party structure and to an extent the Slovak political forms. The peculiar structure of the party system meant that opposition parties had no realistic chance of modifying the system. The frustration that results from the perceived inability to influence the system in any way often leads to radicalism and this was certainly the case in Czechoslovakia. The power politics party system in the interwar republic proved to be remarkably stable, even though it was a multi-party system in which significant groups were polarized. Stability was achieved at a price, namely the diminution of the role of Parliament and the enhancement of the power of the President and of the government forming coalition parties. A further price was the perception that these centrist parties (generally known as the Petka) had to achieve a consensus and cohesiveness in the face of the fundamental divergence of views from the outsider parties. Hence opposition becomes not something to be tolerated and contested, but something threatening and destabilizing. In effect, the coalition parties could not afford the luxury of opposition; aware of the differences in the state, they felt compelled to focus on retaining and centralizing power. The political cabinet of party leaders essentially overshadowed the ministerial cabinet and tended to make of Parliament a virtual rubber stamp, at least for deputies from the governing parties. What that meant in practice was that the system was impervious to any fundamental change through the normal parliamentary 34M. Matula, "Nektere problemy souvisejfci s institucionalnfm aspektem narodnfc h vztahu CSR v letech 1918-1938" in Slovensko v politickom syst6me Ceskoslovenska, p. 91 . SLOVAKIA 89 process. What ensued then was the belief that the structure itself had to be modified if any real political power was to develop among the Slovaks. As one historian writes: The issue was not really whether or not the Slovaks achieved immediate autonomy but the Jack of understanding and the unwillingness of the Czech parties even to recognize the problem. Thus the spokesmen for the Slovak position were pushed into opposition and progressively forced into a negative stance relative to the existing regime.3 5 Illustrative of the unwillingness even to address the question of constitutional organization was the fate of administrative reconstruction. The County Law of 1920 was designed to integrate Slovakia into the new state by creating a new county structure to replace the old. What especially generated protests by Slovak administrators was that financial control at the county level was taken over by the central Ministries oflnterior and Finance. During 1921-22, several proposals were made in Parliament to address these Slovak concerns. The Hlinka Slovak People's Party (HSPP) called for selfadministration in Slovak affairs, a provincial Diet and a provincial government named by the President. There were also other variants, some more radical, of Slovak autonomy. Hodza, who at this time was still looking for a means of unifying Slovak political power, suggested a County Union with competencies in health, welfare, economic and cultural spheres precisely to shift administrative power in Slovakia out of Prague's bureaucratic hands and into Slovak political hands. The debate on these issues in the ministerial circles in Prague revealed a reluctance to delegate any real powers, even to a body like the County Union. The only concessions to be made were delegating powers addressing the needs of the feeble-minded, blind, deaf, epileptic, supervising forced labor and the poorhouses .36 35 Hama, p. 19. 36 For an analysis of the debate over the administration of Slovakia, see Natalia Krajcovicovli , "Politicke strany na Slovensku a usilie o samosprlivu v dvadsiatich rokoch" in Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, pp . 47-55 . See also Ladislav Lipscher, K vyvinu politickej spravy na Slovensku v rokoch 1918-1938, Bratislava, SA V, 1966. 90 SLOVAKIA The political concerns behind such positions were evident, as expressed in the magazine Tribuna: "It is certain that a County Union in Slovakia would be a constant threat to the unity of the state. Who can guarantee that it would not give birth to some kind of autonomous Diet for Slovakia?"3 7 The result was that the administrative structure for Slovakia was extraordinarily limited, always under the strict supervision of Prague. Slovaks lost even a modicum of local autonomy, under a system which was not implemented in the rest of the country precisely because the example of centralized power as manifested in Slovakia aroused local opposition in Bohemia and Moravia. The anomaly could not be sustained and in 1927 the Provincial Law replaced the county system with the four historic provinces. While this acknowledged the territorial existence of Slovakia as an entity, little was done to give that entity any real administrative powers. The failure of these administrative efforts indicated that no serious attempt would be made to bring about a measure of decentralization of government. Problems of special significance to the Slovaks, such as the economic imbalance, the lower standard of living, the dearth of jobs for the growing numbers of university trained younger leaders, the preservation of religious and cultural values were thus not addressed regionally, but left to the central government in Prague, where Slovak power was minimal at best. It could be argued, and often has been, that the lack of Slovak power was more the result of the divisions among the Slovaks themselves than of the unitary and centralized nature of the system. The inability of the Slovaks to form a cohesive bloc was a factor, but not a decisive factor, for as long as even one Slovak was found who would enter the government in the name of the Slovaks (and in fact three, namely Vavro Srobar, Ivan Derer, Hod:fa, were all that were basically necessary during the First Republic) and while coalition parties could attract a Slovak following, (and two did), the power of the coalition bloc would outweigh any Slovak bloc. The ambiguity about the nature of the Czech-Slovak problem would however have 37Krajfovicovii, p. 51. SLOVAKIA 91 been clarified had the Slovaks achieved a Slovak party. Hod:fa and others recognized this and an attempt was made to form a National Bloc or even a Political Committee (which Hod:fa tried) which would have functioned in a manner analogous to the Petka. This failed because of the inability to achieve a uniform stand on the question of the Slovak position in the state and also to a diversity of views on some specific issues, a problem partially attributable to confessional differences. There did exist a basic consensus on general principles; only a few Slovaks were convinced Czechoslovaks. Unfortunately it was precisely these few who were able to join the government in Prague and were thus considered to represent the Slovaks. There was in fact a fundamental unity among the Slovak populace: a rejection of ethnic and linguistic Czechoslovakism, a commitment to the Czechoslovak state, albeit a reformed one, and a recognition of the pluralistic nature of the state and society. If there was division among the Slovaks, it came on the question of how, not whether, to reform the state: regionalism or autonomy. The Slovak Agrarians, under Hod:fa's leadership, were centrist in that they worked within the system to bring about a modification of some of the system, but especially in the 1930's were also advocates of regionalism. Hodfa came to advocate an intermediary notion, looking at it from a pragmatic perspective, which "means neither centralism nor autonomy, but state-political unity and regionalism with administrative self-government" .38 Hodfa was trying to find a bridge between two ever diverging assessments (one Czech and the other Slovak) of the satisfaction level with the existing political system. The escalating criticism by Slovaks of their position in the First Republic is evident from the following editorial in Zem, the journal of the younger generation of Agrarians: The aversion of Czechs and Slovaks arises from economic and social problems . Czechs accept our arguments with a judicious attentiveness , while they continue to make their own national , cultural and linguistic politics .. . Currently a majority of the Slovaks want to acknowledge their own nation .... and the unfortunate tendencies (potmehudske narazky) seen 38Milan Hodfa, C/anky, reci, §tudie, Prague , Novina , 1934, Vol. 7, pp . xxxii-iii . 92 SLOVAKIA in various Czech newspapers, to suggest that Slovak efforts to achieve their rights somehow indicates political unreliabi lity, wi ll not deter the Slovaks. 39 If even Hodza's and the Agrarians' moderate call for regionalism was ignored , the possibility for substantive constitutional reform was all the more remote. The position of the HSPP, which consistently included Slovak autonomy as its basic program, is certainly a case in point. Representing a large portion of the Slovak people,40 they were systematically frustrated in their attempts to implement their programs. Ignored most of the time, only in times of crisis did the governing powers seek to integrate the HSPP into the process , such as the coalition crisis of the late 192O's or the presidential elections of 1935 ; once the crisis was resolved, any further negotiations were deemed unnecessary. A good illustration of this can be seen from the December 1935 talks between President Edvard Benes and Andrej Hlinka, leader of the HSPP. Hlinka asked for decentralization and legislative power for regional Slovak organs and for the post of Minister for Slovakia for the HSPP. Benes promised to give the Slovaks all that was possible without undermining the unity of the state. In February 1936 Benes noted that the entry of HSPP into the government was delayed due to unacceptable nature of the demands: the same demands which were made in negotiations in December. The governing coalition rejected the demands and the matter was closed.41 No matter what route the Slovaks followed in their efforts to modify the structure and political system, they had little success. Political parties in Slovakia were unable to compete nationally, for 39zem, IV , 4 , 20 . February , 1938, p. 39 . 40 one could argue that at times it did indeed represent a majority of the Slovaks, if one assumes that Czechs voting in Slovakia supported centrist parties and Magyars their own parties . 41 E.F. Firsov, "K problemu modifik,kif parlamentneho systemu CSR a narodnopolitickeho konsenzu Cechov a Slovakov na prelome 20. a 30 . rokov" in Slo vensk o v politickom systeme Ceskos/ovenska, p. 104. SLOVAKIA 93 the state was in the hands of the centrist parties and thus no shadow coalition or cabinet could form. Slovaks were united in their efforts to gain control of the bureaucratic apparatus in Slovakia, as a means of indirect access to the power center. This too was frustrated by the bureaucratic structure of centralism. It took the crisis of 1938 to bring about some readjustment in the state relations between Czechs and Slovaks, a settlement subsequently repudiated as being forcibly imposed. 42 By that time however a more aggressive and assertive stance had been taken by the HSPP; 20 years of waiting for the system to change from above had led to the radicalization of the efforts to change it. It is often argued that in time of crisis the Slovaks abandoned the Czechs, generating the notion of ungrateful Slovaks. One could likewise argue that only in times of crisis did the Czechs remember the Slovaks .. . one can go to the well only so many times. There is no question that fascist elements had entered into the Slovak political arena, fueled in part by economic grievances and political frustration . The fact that fascism was a force sweeping across the disaffected sectors of Europe does not absolve the Slovaks of responsibility for those fascist features; nor does however the argument that Czechoslovakia, while it had its faults, was still the only functioning democracy in Eastern Europe and better than the surrounding systems excuse those faults and deny their consequences. For both, historical relativism is a tempting but ultimately unsatisfying position. 43 42 An interesting side point here is Hodza's argument that the political cabinet's acceptance of Slovak self-administration, as negotiated in the summer of 1938 was in fact valid , against Bene§' subsequent argument , after W .W .II broke out , that Parliament had not approved it and it was therefore invalid. Hodza was correct in his perception that the political cabinet was the crucial decision making body . That was why Slovak political efforts were in fact so often frustrated, because Parliament tended only to reflect the decisions of the political cabinet. 43 As a prominent Czech historian has observed: "The ideal of democracy became a self-indulgent compliment, nurturing the need of the Czechs for universal recognition and admiration. Czech nationalism greeted the foundation of the republic not only as an occasion to score points in the nationalistic struggle with imperialistic 94 SLOVAKIA The analogy of a marriage is perhaps an appropriate metaphor for the course of Czech and Slovaks relations . In May of 1918, as the Austro-Hungarian Empire was moving inexorably toward its demise, Hlinka declared: "It is absolutely necessary for us to decide if we will continue with the Magyars, or go with the Czechs. Let us not evade the question, let us say openly that we are for the CzechoSlovak orientation. The thousand year marriage with the Magyars has not worked. A divorce is necessary." 44 The marriage of the Czechs and Slovaks in 1918 was a classic war-time marriage: undertaken in haste, without adequate courtship, with both partners moving immediately from divorce (Austrian and Hungarian partners respectively) into this new relationship. There was no time to discuss the terms and conditions of the marriage, the expectations about what each sought and would bring to the marriage. What little was prepared was done largely by marriage brokers (Toma~ G. Masaryk on one side and the American Slovaks on the other, resulting in the Pittsburgh Agreement of 1918) . The first months of the marriage were very difficult, as the residual effects of the Great War needed to be addressed . It became apparent fairly soon, however, that the two partners in the marriage had very different expectations and notions. The Czech partner clearly saw himself as the preponderant factor, functioning as provider and decision maker in a traditional marriage . This was a natural expectation, given the Czech numerical and material dominance. Thus the Czechs had a clear notion of the nature of the relationship: a unitary state of the Czechoslovak nation. The Slovak partner was much less clear about her role in the marriage. Given her relative lack of wealth and experience, there was a tendency on the part of some to accept a dependent relationship and a subservient role in the marriage. Thus generally more than a third of the Slovaks Germany, but also as a justification of its own colonial ambitions toward Slovakia." Zden~k Pinc, "The Idea of the Czechoslovak State: History, Theory and Political Reality", Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, 10, no. I , 1991, p. 38 . 44 Karol Medvecky, Slovenskf prevrat, Tmava, Spolok Sv. Vojtecha, 1930-31 , Vol. Ill , p. 347 . SLOVAKIA 95 accepted the Czechoslovak unitary state, though only a tiny minority believed in the notion of the Czechoslovak people and virtually no one subscribed to a Czechoslovak language. There also existed a different notion of the marriage, namely the desire for an equal partnership between two equals. This was manifested in the desire for some form of Slovak autonomy as exemplified by the hyphenated Czecho-Slovakia, a position which generally a majority of the Slovaks supported. As the marriage progressed during the 1920's and 1930's, both internal and external factors escalated Slovak discontent. The Slovaks came to resent their status in the Czechoslovak Republic because they felt increasingly frustrated , both economically and politically and because they perceived a paternalistic indifference to Slovak grievances. Increasingly, this frustration led to a sense of alienation from the marriage and a greater responsiveness to ideological concepts which addressed both the reality and the theory of the inadequacy of an unequal marriage; in this marriage it was the call of nationalism which led the "weaker" partner to re-evaluate her place within the Czech-defined relationship. As storm clouds gathered over Europe, as tension and fear escalated, the Slovaks sought to re-define the marriage precisely at the moment that the Czechs, feeling far more threatened by the forces gathering over Europe, resisted any tampering with what to them was a satisfactory marriage. They in fact did not even comprehend the alienation and sense of frustration prevalent among the Slovaks . Thus the events of Munich and after led to deep bitterness, for the Czechs believed the Slovaks had stabbed them in the back, and the Slovaks felt that, having been denied the opportunity to improve their relationship with the Czechs, they had no obligations to travel the bitter path with a partner who had never listened to them and had never been prepared to engage in a genuine dialogue with a view toward developing a marriage of true partners. During the period of the war, the Czechs and some Slovaks denied that the marriage had broken up; some Czechs even denied that any adjustments were necessary for the marriage to resume. Virtually no Slovak could subscribe to that position; for the Slovaks, at the very minimum, a co-equal marriage was imperative. 96 SLOVAKIA The fall of communism enabled old and new grievances to surface, on both sides, and to be finally openly confronted. The result was a divorce. The seeds of that divorce, not necessarily inevitable , had been planted by failures common to so many marriages: lack of communications and the inability to listen as Czechs and Slovaks talked from different historical perspectives, in different languages and with different objectives , resulting in misunderstandings, undervaluing of roles , responsibilities and contributions, and above all , the lack of commitment to a marriage of diversity and genuine equality.  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 Relations Between Slovaks and Czechs in the First CSR Description An account of the resource Susan Mikula Slovakia, Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92 pp. 78-96 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mikula, Suzanna Maria, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-92 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/17bbd2b0b0b6b263fdc0f1514dbbc107.pdf 428431437c9616138dea7efadf8399e7 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 63 Czech-Slovak Relations From the 1840s to 1914 EDITA BOSAK Czech-Slovak relations were a constant but also a fundamental problem in the history of the Czech :md Slovak people, particularly from their political union in 1918 until the creation of two separate states in 1993. Their common state had been created out of the framework of the Austro-Hungarian Empire where the differences between the two peoples were already quite marked and also grossly underestimated . Since the arrival of the Magyars in today's Hungary in the late 9th century, the Slovaks had experienced a distinctly different development from the Czechs. Almost one thousand years of Hungarian rule had marked their economic activities , social life, degree of devotion to religion, mentality, tradition, and history. Even with the initial euphoria that followed the creation of the common state on 28 October 1918, these fundamental differences, which had not been fully considered, could not be erased. Not only were they cultural-linguistic but also religious. Our purpose is to examine how these differences were perceived prior to 1914 and what attempts were made to establish political relations between the two nations. The emergence of the Czech and Slovak national movements in the early nineteenth century helped to create a feeling of Slav solidarity. However, in the 1840s, the acceptance by most Slovak intellectuals of the central Slovak dialect as the Slovak literary language caused a permanent literary rift between the two peoples. The Slovaks were facing the first large scale attempts by the Magyars to assimilate the non-Magyars in Hungary. By 1844, �64 SLOVAKIA Magyar was made the official language of the country. The Slovak Lutherans were especially threatened because their close ties with the Czech Protestants were construed by official circles as evidence of treason, that is to say, collaboration with a foreign power. Thus they had to re-evaluate their position , especially since the Czechs were quite indifferent to the political and cultural situation of the Slovaks, embroiled as they were with their own national struggle with the Germans in Bohemia and Moravia. Assistance of any kind was not forthcoming . Nevertheless, the Czechs were considering creating a "Czechoslovak" literary language, yet refused to allow the modern Czech literary language to adopt any Slovak characteristics in order that the Slovaks might be able to identify with it. The Czechs were convinced that all concessions had to come from the Slovaks. However, as the idea that they were a nation of Slavs distinct from the Czechs grew among the Slovaks , there arose an incompatibility with the idea of being Czechoslovak and using only Czech as the literary medium. In the final analysis, a new Slovak literary language was the only recourse available to the Slovaks. Unfortunately, this step hardly fulfilled the expectations of L'udovit Stur and his followers that the Slovaks would become unified. The fact is that religious differences played an important role. The Slovaks were for the greater part Roman Catholics. But about one quarter was Lutheran and it was this group which tended to have the Czech ties that dated as far back as the sixteenth century and which used the Kralicka Bible for both literary and religious purposes . This split in Slovak society profoundly influenced the development of Czech-Slovak relations. The introduction of Sturovcina as the new Slovak literary language was called, remained a bone of contention between the Czechs and Slovaks for many decades . In the post-1849 period, CzechSlovak reciprocity almost completely disappeared. Controversy over the language split and political circumstances drove the two further apart. There were, however, some leading Czechs who continued to believe and to advocate the idea of Czechoslovakism, that is , the cultural ethnic and linguistic unity of both peoples as fellow Slavs. For instance, Karel Havlicek maintained that �SLOVAKIA 65 the Czechoslav lands, Bohemia, Moravia, a part of Silesia and Slovakia in Hungary were for a Jong time one nation as far as literary and spiritual life goes, and the greater part of them belonged to one state. Well-known individuals in Bohemia as well as in Moravia, and likewise in Slovakia had always worked towards the complete union of these lands comprising one nation, and considered themselves members of one tribe, which is verified by the names and works of men from all these Jands. 2 But there were other leading lights among the Czechs like the Old Czech Party leader Frantisek L. Rieger who accused the Slovaks of having "tom away" from the Czech nation. From 1849 to 1868 there was next to no political interest in Slovak affairs. In the 1870's, 1880's and 1890's literary contact was sporadic and minimal. The continuity of Czech-Slovak relations was maintained by a few Czech writers and persons involved in cultural activities. The closure of the three Slovak gymnazia forced Slovak students to go abroad to study, especially to Moravia which was geographically closer to Upper Hungary, as Slovakia was called . Conditions were difficult and the students were not always well received, as Vavro Srobar comments in his biography, Z mojho iivota (From My Own Life), concerning his own experience with Czech professors. Contact was not always amicable on the day-today level. Students found it difficult to learn Czech and soon discovered that academically they were far behind the Czech students. It was the work of such writers as Bozena Nemcova, Adolf Heyduk, Rudolf Pokorny, and Jozef Holecek who kept the Czech public informed on who and what the Slovaks were and under what conditions they were surviving in Hungary. However, only a tiny segment of the intelligentsia had any interest of a genuine nature in 211 Ceskoslovanska zeme, Cechy, Morava, cast Slezska a Slovenska v Uhi'fch jsou jiz davno v literarnfm a du~evnfm zivote jednfm narodem, a vet~f cast jejich byla jiz i jednfm statem. Znamej~f duchove jak z Cech, tak z Moravy, tak i ze Slovenska odjakziva smerovali k uplnemu spojenf techto zernf jednoho naroda, a povafovali sebe vzdy za osudy jednoho kmene, na co svedcf jmena a spisy najznamenitej~fch muz0 v~ech tech krajin". Karel Havlfcek Borovsky, Politicke spisy, Vol. III, ed. Dr. Zdenek Tobolka, Prague: Jan Laichter, 1902, p. 178. �66 SLOVAKIA the Slovaks. The overall view of the Slovaks tended to be a rather sentimental and romantic one. For example, the short time spent by Bozena Nemcova in Slovakia produced a collection of fairytales Slovensk6 pohadky a povesti (Slovak Stories and Tales), two novels with Slovak themes Pohorska vesnice (Mountain Villages) and Chyie pod horami (Shanties At the Foothills), and a monograph Krajov a lesov na Zvolensku (Lands and Forests of Zvolen) . Throughout her life, she remained in regular correspondence with Gustav K. Zechenter, the minister and poet Samuel Chalupka, and the poet Samuel Tomasik, author of the Slovak hymn "Hej, Slovaci!" Of the other early Czech Slovakophiles, R. Pokorny wrote Potulky po Slovensku (Wandering About Slovakia), Literama shoda ceskoslovenska (Czechoslovak Literary Agreement); A. Heyduk Cymbal a Husle (Cymbal and Violin); and J. Holecek Podejme ruku Slovakum (Let's Give Our Hand To the Slovaks). Heyduk's verses were sentimental, and the description of daily Slovak life was highly coloured but Holecek, as a journalist, pointed out to the Czechs the political importance of the Slovaks for them, that is, a union of Czech and Slovak forces in opposition to German pressure in the Czech Lands. This was to become one of the major arguments in favour of Czech-Slovak reciprocity in the late 1890's. Pokorny, too , did some foundation work in re-establishing Czech-Slovak contact by setting-up the "Knihovna ceskoslovenska" (Czechoslovak Library). Its purpose was to publish the work of Slovak literary figures but due to financial stress, it closed in 1881 after having published only two works . One can see that Czech society at large actually had very little contact with the Slovaks or even knowledge about them until the 1890's. Pavel Sochan, a Slovak artist, described the situation as follows : the circle of Slovak friends was then very limited among the Czechs , whereas among the Mora vi ans we had many sincere friends . Even intelligent Czechs considered Slovaks as "tinkers" and Slovakia as the "land of tinkers" .3 3Pavel Sochan, "Zalozenie spolku 'Detvan' v Prahe roku 1882" in Stanislav Meciar ed., Detvan 50 rokov v Prahe, Turc. Sv. Martin: Slovensky akademicky spolok �SLOVAKIA 67 At official functions, Czech academics often mistook the Slovaks for Bulgarians or Russians, for the Slovak language seemed very foreign sounding and unintelligible to their ears . They knew nothing of Slovak literature or her poets and writers. It was a very small Czech literary group which expressed any interest in the life of their brother Slavs. As the nineteenth century was coming to a close, the political situation of both the Czechs and the Slovaks required a new approach. What was needed was a realistic and systematic education effort of the Czech public with the existential struggle of the Slovaks in Hungary if aid was to be obtained for them. They had to become acquainted with Slovak culture, folklore and way of life . On the other hand, the Slovaks had to be awakened, educated, and shown that the Czechs were to be trusted and that they no longer held any grudges over the language issue. It was Karel Kalal, a Czech schoolteacher, who took on this role of arousing the Czechs in the 1890's and early 1900's to the plight of the Slovaks. Initially , his attitude vis-a-vis Slovak conditions was na"ively romantic and sentimental but by the twentieth century he became much more realistic in his comprehension, and his writing improved. Although his efforts were crowned with some success, the language question remained a thorn in the flesh of the Czechs. The Czechs were involved with the process of establishing their own separate identity from that of the Germans and yet they refused to see or accept the same nationalism in the Slovaks. They continued to see Czech-Slovak reciprocity in terms of one language, that is Czech. Kalal was just as stubborn a supporter of the Czechoslovak language. He represented a threat to the existence of the Slovak language and was often attacked for his articles by the Martin group. This language question was one of the basic problems hindering any "Detvan", 1932, pp . 8-9 . The original Slovak text is : " ...kruh slovenskych priatefov bol vtedy medzi Cechmi vefmi obmedzeny, kdezto medzi Moravanmi mali sme vefa uprimnych priatefov. I inteligentnf Cesi pokladali Slovakov za "dratenfkov" a Slovensko za "zeme drateru'lru ". �68 SLOVAKIA great Slovak moves towards the Czechs. The intellectual group centred in Turciansky Svaty Martin never ceased to defend the cultural-linguistic uniqueness of the Slovak nation from that of the Czech. The Slovak language and the idea of a distinct nation were the only weapons which they had at their disposal to fight Magyarisation. As it was, denationalisation of the younger generation, via mainly the school system, continued to increase. Another literary figure very active in attempting to bring about a rapprochement between the Czechs and the Slovaks was Jaroslav Vlcek . Born in Slovakia of mixed Czech-Slovak parentage, Vlcek spent his formative years on Slovak soil and received his early schooling there. While studying in Prague, he helped establish a student university club, Detvan, in 1882, for Slovak students studying there. During his student days, Vlcek wrote articles on a regular basis for the Slovak magazine Oral (Eagle) on Czech literature titled "Listy z Ciech" ("Letters from the Czech lands"), and in the Czech magazine Ruch a kvety (Activity and Flowers) on Slovak literature. His first major work Literatura na Slovensku (Literature in Slovakia) appeared in 1881. In 1883 he published a daring article in Slovanskf sbomfk (Slavonic Magazine) called "Slovensko za poslednfch peti let", (Slovakia in the Last Five Years) in which he disclosed the practices of the governing Magyar circles in Slovakia. In 1890, Vlcek published Dejiny literatlfry slovenske (The History of Slovak Literature). Vlcek was the first head of Detvan and he maintained an active interest in the club through the years canvassing to get support for it. The purpose of Detvan was to bring together Slovak students, to entertain and to educate them by having them give papers on Slovak literature, history and the contemporary conditions. The most important figures in the first decade of Detvan's existence were Vlcek, P. Sochan, Cyril Krcmery, St. Daxner, Ladislav Nadasi, Jan Slabej, Matej Bencur, M. Ursfny, Dusan Makovicky, J. Smetanay, and Srobar. Almost all of them were, at one time or another, to take part in the Slovak national awakening. Detvan organised Slovak evenings open to the Czech public whenever there was a significant Slovak celebration in order that the Czech public might come to �SLOVAKIA 69 know that the Slovaks were more than just a land of tinkers, that they had their own history, their great men, and that they were now in need of a helping hand from their brothers to stave off the process of Magyarisation. This club collaborated on similar ventures with the other Czech and Moravian clubs, with the Slovak club Tatran in Vienna and with the Slovak Club in Budapest. They canvassed in Bohemia and Slovakia for funds to help Slovak students to come to study in Prague. During Srobar's presidency, Detvan came to have the greatest contact with the average Czech living in Prague. Srobar had been influenced by the realist philosophy (political program) which Tomas G. Masaryk (later to become the first President of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918) expounded in his university classes. He came to believe that the political passivity favoured by the Martin group was not beneficial to the Slovak nation, that the Slovaks must abandon their fatalistic policy and stop expecting salvation from the east, from their Russian brothers. Upon returning home he became active in politics and ran for the Hungarian Parliament. In 1891 and 1895 the Czechs organised two large provincial exhibitions. The stand on the ethnographic exhibition was of the greatest importance, for the Slovaks had two rooms devoted to their culture, under the title "Part of the Czechoslav nation". Czech attendance at this exhibition was large and press coverage thorough, giving the Czech public its first opportunity to become acquainted with Slovak culture on a grand scale. Following the excitement and goodwill engendered by the Ethnographic Exhibition, the Ceskoslovanska Jednota (Czechoslavonic Unit), was formed on 7 May 1896 with the well-known Slavist, Professor Frantisek Pastrnek, as chairman. According to its constitution, its purpose was the "...cultivation of Czechoslav interests and the support of the poor young Slav people" .4 The vehicle via which this was to be carried out was: "a) to publish, to promote, 4Literami archiv pamatnik narodnfho pfsemnictvf, Rotnagl Collection. "Ucel spolku je pestovati kultumi zajmy ceskoslovanske a podporovati chudou mladez slovanskou" . �70 SLOVAKIA to collect, to buy literary works and to found libraries; b) to grant stipends and to support Slav students studying in Prague ... ; c) public lectures and discussions, excluding political ones; d) to sponsor social entertainment" .5 This organisation was created to act as a defense mechanism in areas culturally endangered by Germans, for example Moravia, Silesia and to help these Czechs outside of Bohemia to maintain their identity (Lower Austria, Vienna). As far as the Slovaks were concerned, the aim was to maintain contact, to acquaint the Czech nation with the Slovak culture, to give Slovak students financial support in Prague, and to establish Czech libraries in Slovakia. The organisation did not really become deeply involved with the Slovak situation until 1909. Detvan members Srobar, Smetanay and K. Salva, a publisher in Rufomberok, were directly connected with Jednota as trustees for Slovakia. Meanwhile, in Martin , the representatives of the Slovak National Party remained determined to uphold the programme of Shir and the concept of "Okolie", come what may . Any acceptance of the idea of a single nation called Czechoslovak was out of the question for it meant the refutation of the Slovak language. The language separation was regarded as a tragedy by the Czechs but for the ardent Slovak nationalists, it meant arising from the dead. 6 According to Elie Kedourie, "the test ... , by which a nation is known to exist is that of language. A group speaking the same language is known as a nation, and a nation ought to constitute a state" .7 To the Martin nationalists, acceptance of the Czech idea of two branches of one nation , of being completely identical peoples, despite the patent social, economic, linguistic and cultural differences which one thousand years of a different history had imposed upon them, was simply not possible. It meant a denial of their nationhood which their awakened distinct national consciousness forbade. Thus the writings of such ardent Czech Slovakophiles as Kalal were not always well 5Ibid. , Third regulation of Constitution . 6Stefan Jan~ak. tivot Dr. Pavla Blahu, Tmava: Spolok sv. Vojtecha, 1947, I, p. 41. 7Elie Kedourie, Nationalism , London: Hutchinson & Co., 1974, p. 68. �SLOVAKIA 71 received in the Martin circle. In their publication Narodnie noviny (National News), they made it clear that the Czechs were not being made familiar with true Slovak conditions: The Czech public only misleads itself, when "the friends " of the Slovaks come to it with these sorts of things. He who is a friend of the Slovaks and understands their situation would not now refer to the written language .. . From amongst the professionals of our Czech brothers none took a deep interest in the Slovaks, thus rose K. Kalal, as an "expert" on Slovak affairs.8 Masaryk, too, often came under fire by the older generation of Slovak political leaders, represented by Svetozar Hurban Vajansky a leading nationalist, poet and editor of Narodnie noviny. Masaryk was accused of anti-clericalism, immorality in the sense of disrespect for tradition and ethics, misrepresentation of the economic situation in Slovakia, that is that poverty was not on a national scale but existed only in certain regions of the country which were not conducive to crop growing due to geography , such as Orava and Eastern Slovakia, and finally, for having turned some of the young people away from their own party, the Slovak National Party. Vajansky felt the young simply did not fully comprehend the gravity of the domestic situation, that there were no alternatives to the tactics used, and that unity amongst all Slovaks in the face of the onslaught of Magyarisation was vital. The older generation was convinced that writing in newspapers, facing stiff fines and longterm jail sentences for these articles, nonparticipation in the government and steadfastness in their religious affiliations were the only avenues open to them in stemming Magyarisation. They believed in co-operation amongst the Slavs, for example the Czechs as their closest brethren, but not at the expense 8Narodnie noviny, 1901, No. 64. Original text reads: "c'.:eske obecenstvo Jen myli sa, keel' "priatelia" Slovakov prichodia mu s takymito vecmi. Kto je priatefom Slovakov a rozumie ich polofoniu , teraz nebude sa tyka{ otazky ich spisovneho jazyka ... U bratov c'.:echov z povolanych fudf nikto nev~fmal si de,kJadnej~ie Slovakov , tak povstal K. Kalal , ako "znalec" vo veciach slovenskych". �72 SLOVAKIA of their national language , with the resulting loss of their separate identity. This was something which the Czechs never came to understand fully and which created so much ill-feeling after 1918. At the tum of the century, the student club Detvan in Prague lost a good deal of its drive with the departure of many of its most active students , especially Srobar, who returned to Slovakia to establish himself in a medical practice in 1899 in Rufomberok. His departure left a gap which was to be filled later by a young Slovak from Kosariska, Milan Rastislav Stefanik. In the summer of 1897 Srobar and four other young , progressive-thinking, Slovak students dissatisfied with the tum of events at the Martin celebrations, went to Bystricka to speak with Masaryk. He had already had a great influence upon the Slovak students in Prague, and Srobar had taken very much to heart the realist philosophy which Masaryk expounded, that is "drobna praca", small work amongst the people themselves. 9 At this meeting the basic foundation for a liberaldemocratic thinking review called Hlas (Voice) was laid . Its adherents, called Hlasists, were represented by Srobar, Pavel Blaho and A. Stefanek, journalists, and the lawyer Ivan Derer, all of whom were to play prominent roles in the government of Czechoslovakia after World War I. They believed in progressive thinking, democracy, reason and non-intervention of the Roman Catholic Church in the daily life of the peasants. They were ardent Czechoslovaks, devoted to the idea of Czechoslovak unity (Ceskoslovenska jednota). Most of their support came from the organisation Jednota in Prague. The first copy of Hlas was published in 1898 in Skalica 911 Drobna praca" was developed in depth in a series of lectures by Masaryk in 1898. These can be found in Jak pracovat?, ZUrich: Konfrontation SA, 1977, pp. 16-27. Masaryk wanted students to take the knowledge they had acquired in school and by going into the countryside to pass it on to the common man in a practical fashion thus helping him to better himself and to educate himself. At the same time Masaryk believed that such endeavours would lead to greater opportunities for both. They would "be coming into contact with people and learning to work together" (p.57), thus promoting a better understanding between each other and furthering their national goal. �SLOVAKIA 73 under the editorship of Blaho. Most of the young people involved were former Detvan members. Due to financial problems, it appeared for the last time in 1904. It had not been able to build-up a wide enough reading public. Their open Czechoslovak program was regarded with suspicion by the majority of the Slovak intellectuals and others who might have bought a copy. Albeit short-lived, Hlas had a tremendous impact on Slovak political, social and cultural life. It was instrumental in establishing the idea of a union of the Czechs and Slovaks on cultural and national lines. It stressed the need to educate the peasants to think and make their own decisions and especially to free themselves from the influence of the clergy. Education was not only the means of building an awareness of the Slovak identity and political activity but also the means of bringing about change in such areas as the temperance movement. From 1909 to 1914, the progressive young Slovaks again concentrated themselves around a monthly review, Prudy. Once more, its appearance was due to the initiative of Detvan members, for example Bohdan Pavlu. It described its program as being an open platform upon which all were welcome to come and express their views. Most of the members were former Hlasists. One can see that the motivation for Czech-Slovak reciprocity from the Slovak side tended to be initiated by those people who had actually studied in the Czech Lands. One can understand why Narodnie novinytried to discourage students from continuing their higher education there. For the Martinites, to go to Bohemia meant returning as a Czechophile as a foregone conclusion It should be pointed out that although Czech political opinion may have softened vis-a-vis the Slovaks after Rieger, there was never any question of political support.IO As far as the Young 10In several speeches both in Prague and Budapest Rieger made it very clear that the relationship between the Czechs and the Slovaks was not a legal one. The Czechs had no legal right to interfere in Slovak affairs , and moreover, had not been requested to do so by Slovak political leaders. See Jozef Jablonicky, "Prfspevok k cesko-slovenskym vzt'ahom od konca 19. stor. do roku 1914", in Historicke stlfdie, �74 SLOVAKIA Czech Party was concerned, Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia formed one unit as an historic state. Newly formed Czech political parties did not include the question of the Slovaks in their program. They upheld Rieger's stand that the Slovak question is a causa finita. 11 The only political leader to have a divergent view was Masaryk. He believed that Slovakia was a part of contemporary Czech politics. The span of time during which his influence was particularly significant to Slovak affairs was from 1896 to 1902. From then on he stopped travelling to Bystricka and turned his attention to Bohemian politics and dualism. His newspapers Cas and Nasa doba continued to publish articles on Slovakia. By the early 1900's the articles were losing their romantic style in describing Slovak conditions while such journals as Osveta and Slovanskj piehled concentrated on the culture and literature of Slovakia. This political stand of non-intervention continued even after the particularly unpleasant incident at Cernova in 1907 when the local Hungarian authorities opened fire upon unarmed Slovak villagers who had not wanted their new church to be consecrated by the Magyar clergy but wanted their own priest Andrej Hlinka, who had built it, to be the officiating personage. Although Czech Slovakophiles were able to get much propaganda out of the incident, the Czech political position remained the same. Czech politicans had no wish to threaten the Czech program based on Bohemia's Historic State Rights, nor to interfere in the internal matters of another state, Hungary. Contact between the Czechs and the Slovaks was very much on a limited literary and cultural level. In 1911, the Czechoslovak Unity under the direction Professor Fr. Bfly published Slovenska citanka, an encyclopedia on Slovak culture and literature. From 1907 to 1910 Nase Slovensko (Our Slovakia), an annual journal was published to acquaint the Czech public with the Slovaks. From 1908 until the break out of war, Jednota organised annual meetings of Czech and Slovak intellectuals at the Moravian health spa Luhacovice. Initially 26 individuals came together, but by 1914 IV, 1958, p. 8. 11 Ibid., p. 22. �SLOVAKIA 75 their number had grown to 300. 12 It should be noted that those who were active were the small number of Hlasists, the young generation mostly educated in Bohemia, Milan Hodza, a member of the Hungarian Parliament and representative of the Agrarian idea in Slovakia, and a few of the old guard from Martin; and from the Czechs, it was predominantly members of the Jednota. It is here that one begins to have some suggestion of possible discourse on political aspects. The actual meetings were held in secret and there appear to be no known official minutes. That something along political lines was being aired in these circles emerges in a letter from R . Pilat to the American Slovak, Milan Getting, in the summer of 1913 where he suggests that: " .. .it is high time that work was carried out on achieving the future program of a union of Czechs and Slovaks in a political sense". 13 He appears to have a premonition of the coming war and he adds confidentially that "preparations from the Czech side are on the way, in the event of the defeat of Austria, Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia would be united with Slovakia in one state" .14 On 4 April 1914, Frantisek Votruba a well-known Czech publicist living in Slovakia presented at a major political rally in Prague a resolution of protest against Magyar oppression of its nationalities, along with a demand for the revision of the Ausgleich and the terms of dualism.1 5 This is indicative of the fact that most Slovaks still thought in terms of a resolution of their problems within the terms of the present state rather than outside of it with the dissolution of Austria-Hungary. Some mention must be made of the interests of industry, ban12 Ibid., p. 20. 13 v . Kumek , "0 cinnosti a vyznamu Ceskoslovenske jednoty pi'ed vznikem CSR", Historicky casopis 10 (1962), pp . 366-7 in Miroslav Peknfk, "Slovenska politika v Uhorsku a kry~talizacia jej politickych koncepcif pred vznikom I. svetovej voj ny" , Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, Bratislava: SA V, 1992, pp . 44. 14 M. Getting, Americkf Slovaci a vyvin ceskoslovenskej myslienky v rokoch 1914-18, Pittsburg: n. p., 1933 , p. 12 in Peknfk , p. 44. 15Slo vensky tyidennfk 12 , 4 . April 1914, No. 15 , p. 3 in Peknfk, p. 44. �76 SLOVAKIA king and investment in Slovakia by the Slovaks. With gradual economic growth in the 1870's and 1880's, the Tatra Bank was established in 1886 in Turciansky Svaty Martin. Shortly afterwards , there were bank officials and small investors , soon followed by branches in three other towns . By 1909, there were many similar banks throughout Slovakia. However, Czech investment was very small in Slovakia. Czech Slovakophiles extolled the virtues of Slovak resources, the untapped wealth, and so forth in such publications as Slovenska cftanka but it was not really significant. Similarly, there was very little movement of Slovak labour to Bohemia and Moravia except for the tinkers who wandered far to earn their bread. The largest manufacturing concern, Ceskoslovenska-Kolben-Danek (C-K-D) factory, had not a single employee recorded as coming from Slovakia in the period 1871-1920.16 In the decades that preceded the Great War, the idea of a union of the Czechs and the Slovaks was proposed initially by intellectuals rather than politicians as the only alternative to a situation which could no longer be tolerated. The general Czech and Slovak population knew very little of each other. The Czechs did not recognize the Slovak language and tended to mistake Slovaks for Yugoslavs as late as 1918.1 7 They had greater personal contact with other Europeans than with the Slovaks. Similarly, the educated Slovaks were much more at home in Vienna and Budapest. In fact, the peasants and workers migrated to these two cities as a general rule rather than to the Czech Lands. In addition, there was no truly unified Czech-Slovak club or association upon which Czechoslovak unity could be built. Ceskoslovanska Jednota had been founded by a minority, based on an idea rather than as the result of a political and economic evolutionary process. Thus, much of the misunderstanding which resulted after 16F . W. Carter, "C-K-D Employees, Prague 1871-1920: Some Aspects of Their Geographical Distribution", Journal of Historical Geography, I (I), 1975, p. 95. 17Jan Hajda, "The Role of Intelligentsia in Society" in Miloslav Rechcigl, ed., The Czechoslovak Contribution to World Culture, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964, p. 311. �SLOVAKIA 77 1918 can be attributed to a mutual lack of awareness. The Czech intelligentsia sought to change basic Slovak society along the lines of their own but they did not take into account the growth and differentiation of the other. The "Anketa" carried out by Pnfdy in 1914 and finally published in 1919 clearly showed that those who welcomed political cooperation with the Czechs were the former Hlasists and Pnidists, the liberal-progressive streams in the Slovak National Party. Tampering with the Slovak language was out of the question . Co-operation was still relatively limited as Stefanek, an ardent supporter of CzechSlovak relations, remarked: In my view, the Czech political parties should work more systematically and their leaders should above all else know Slovakia personally and all their pronouncements on our behalf in the Austrian parliament and in delegations should be founded on their own views . As far as I am aware, other than Prof. Dr. Masaryk, Dr. Herben and Klofac and a few Agrarian politicians, no one has been to Slovakia, not even Dr. Hajn, nor Dr. Fiedler, Dr. Korner, Dr. Fort and many more excellent Czech politicians who through their own personal contact could accomplish much good . Slovakia still remains terra incognita even for Czech politicians, for university professors, writers , in short for the "cream" of the Czech nation. On the other hand we gladly recognize the good work of Czech politicans.18 I 811 Anketa", Prudy V , 9-10 (1913/ 1914- 1919), p. 11 . � SLOVAKIA 63 Czech-Slovak Relations From the 1840s to 1914 EDITA BOSAK Czech-Slovak relations were a constant but also a fundamental problem in the history of the Czech :md Slovak people, particularly from their political union in 1918 until the creation of two separate states in 1993. Their common state had been created out of the framework of the Austro-Hungarian Empire where the differences between the two peoples were already quite marked and also grossly underestimated . Since the arrival of the Magyars in today's Hungary in the late 9th century, the Slovaks had experienced a distinctly different development from the Czechs. Almost one thousand years of Hungarian rule had marked their economic activities , social life, degree of devotion to religion, mentality, tradition, and history. Even with the initial euphoria that followed the creation of the common state on 28 October 1918, these fundamental differences, which had not been fully considered, could not be erased. Not only were they cultural-linguistic but also religious. Our purpose is to examine how these differences were perceived prior to 1914 and what attempts were made to establish political relations between the two nations. The emergence of the Czech and Slovak national movements in the early nineteenth century helped to create a feeling of Slav solidarity. However, in the 1840s, the acceptance by most Slovak intellectuals of the central Slovak dialect as the Slovak literary language caused a permanent literary rift between the two peoples. The Slovaks were facing the first large scale attempts by the Magyars to assimilate the non-Magyars in Hungary. By 1844, �64 SLOVAKIA Magyar was made the official language of the country. The Slovak Lutherans were especially threatened because their close ties with the Czech Protestants were construed by official circles as evidence of treason, that is to say, collaboration with a foreign power. Thus they had to re-evaluate their position , especially since the Czechs were quite indifferent to the political and cultural situation of the Slovaks, embroiled as they were with their own national struggle with the Germans in Bohemia and Moravia. Assistance of any kind was not forthcoming . Nevertheless, the Czechs were considering creating a "Czechoslovak" literary language, yet refused to allow the modern Czech literary language to adopt any Slovak characteristics in order that the Slovaks might be able to identify with it. The Czechs were convinced that all concessions had to come from the Slovaks. However, as the idea that they were a nation of Slavs distinct from the Czechs grew among the Slovaks , there arose an incompatibility with the idea of being Czechoslovak and using only Czech as the literary medium. In the final analysis, a new Slovak literary language was the only recourse available to the Slovaks. Unfortunately, this step hardly fulfilled the expectations of L'udovit Stur and his followers that the Slovaks would become unified. The fact is that religious differences played an important role. The Slovaks were for the greater part Roman Catholics. But about one quarter was Lutheran and it was this group which tended to have the Czech ties that dated as far back as the sixteenth century and which used the Kralicka Bible for both literary and religious purposes . This split in Slovak society profoundly influenced the development of Czech-Slovak relations. The introduction of Sturovcina as the new Slovak literary language was called, remained a bone of contention between the Czechs and Slovaks for many decades . In the post-1849 period, CzechSlovak reciprocity almost completely disappeared. Controversy over the language split and political circumstances drove the two further apart. There were, however, some leading Czechs who continued to believe and to advocate the idea of Czechoslovakism, that is , the cultural ethnic and linguistic unity of both peoples as fellow Slavs. For instance, Karel Havlicek maintained that �SLOVAKIA 65 the Czechoslav lands, Bohemia, Moravia, a part of Silesia and Slovakia in Hungary were for a Jong time one nation as far as literary and spiritual life goes, and the greater part of them belonged to one state. Well-known individuals in Bohemia as well as in Moravia, and likewise in Slovakia had always worked towards the complete union of these lands comprising one nation, and considered themselves members of one tribe, which is verified by the names and works of men from all these Jands. 2 But there were other leading lights among the Czechs like the Old Czech Party leader Frantisek L. Rieger who accused the Slovaks of having "tom away" from the Czech nation. From 1849 to 1868 there was next to no political interest in Slovak affairs. In the 1870's, 1880's and 1890's literary contact was sporadic and minimal. The continuity of Czech-Slovak relations was maintained by a few Czech writers and persons involved in cultural activities. The closure of the three Slovak gymnazia forced Slovak students to go abroad to study, especially to Moravia which was geographically closer to Upper Hungary, as Slovakia was called . Conditions were difficult and the students were not always well received, as Vavro Srobar comments in his biography, Z mojho iivota (From My Own Life), concerning his own experience with Czech professors. Contact was not always amicable on the day-today level. Students found it difficult to learn Czech and soon discovered that academically they were far behind the Czech students. It was the work of such writers as Bozena Nemcova, Adolf Heyduk, Rudolf Pokorny, and Jozef Holecek who kept the Czech public informed on who and what the Slovaks were and under what conditions they were surviving in Hungary. However, only a tiny segment of the intelligentsia had any interest of a genuine nature in 211 Ceskoslovanska zeme, Cechy, Morava, cast Slezska a Slovenska v Uhi'fch jsou jiz davno v literarnfm a du~evnfm zivote jednfm narodem, a vet~f cast jejich byla jiz i jednfm statem. Znamej~f duchove jak z Cech, tak z Moravy, tak i ze Slovenska odjakziva smerovali k uplnemu spojenf techto zernf jednoho naroda, a povafovali sebe vzdy za osudy jednoho kmene, na co svedcf jmena a spisy najznamenitej~fch muz0 v~ech tech krajin". Karel Havlfcek Borovsky, Politicke spisy, Vol. III, ed. Dr. Zdenek Tobolka, Prague: Jan Laichter, 1902, p. 178. �66 SLOVAKIA the Slovaks. The overall view of the Slovaks tended to be a rather sentimental and romantic one. For example, the short time spent by Bozena Nemcova in Slovakia produced a collection of fairytales Slovensk6 pohadky a povesti (Slovak Stories and Tales), two novels with Slovak themes Pohorska vesnice (Mountain Villages) and Chyie pod horami (Shanties At the Foothills), and a monograph Krajov a lesov na Zvolensku (Lands and Forests of Zvolen) . Throughout her life, she remained in regular correspondence with Gustav K. Zechenter, the minister and poet Samuel Chalupka, and the poet Samuel Tomasik, author of the Slovak hymn "Hej, Slovaci!" Of the other early Czech Slovakophiles, R. Pokorny wrote Potulky po Slovensku (Wandering About Slovakia), Literama shoda ceskoslovenska (Czechoslovak Literary Agreement); A. Heyduk Cymbal a Husle (Cymbal and Violin); and J. Holecek Podejme ruku Slovakum (Let's Give Our Hand To the Slovaks). Heyduk's verses were sentimental, and the description of daily Slovak life was highly coloured but Holecek, as a journalist, pointed out to the Czechs the political importance of the Slovaks for them, that is, a union of Czech and Slovak forces in opposition to German pressure in the Czech Lands. This was to become one of the major arguments in favour of Czech-Slovak reciprocity in the late 1890's. Pokorny, too , did some foundation work in re-establishing Czech-Slovak contact by setting-up the "Knihovna ceskoslovenska" (Czechoslovak Library). Its purpose was to publish the work of Slovak literary figures but due to financial stress, it closed in 1881 after having published only two works . One can see that Czech society at large actually had very little contact with the Slovaks or even knowledge about them until the 1890's. Pavel Sochan, a Slovak artist, described the situation as follows : the circle of Slovak friends was then very limited among the Czechs , whereas among the Mora vi ans we had many sincere friends . Even intelligent Czechs considered Slovaks as "tinkers" and Slovakia as the "land of tinkers" .3 3Pavel Sochan, "Zalozenie spolku 'Detvan' v Prahe roku 1882" in Stanislav Meciar ed., Detvan 50 rokov v Prahe, Turc. Sv. Martin: Slovensky akademicky spolok �SLOVAKIA 67 At official functions, Czech academics often mistook the Slovaks for Bulgarians or Russians, for the Slovak language seemed very foreign sounding and unintelligible to their ears . They knew nothing of Slovak literature or her poets and writers. It was a very small Czech literary group which expressed any interest in the life of their brother Slavs. As the nineteenth century was coming to a close, the political situation of both the Czechs and the Slovaks required a new approach. What was needed was a realistic and systematic education effort of the Czech public with the existential struggle of the Slovaks in Hungary if aid was to be obtained for them. They had to become acquainted with Slovak culture, folklore and way of life . On the other hand, the Slovaks had to be awakened, educated, and shown that the Czechs were to be trusted and that they no longer held any grudges over the language issue. It was Karel Kalal, a Czech schoolteacher, who took on this role of arousing the Czechs in the 1890's and early 1900's to the plight of the Slovaks. Initially , his attitude vis-a-vis Slovak conditions was na"ively romantic and sentimental but by the twentieth century he became much more realistic in his comprehension, and his writing improved. Although his efforts were crowned with some success, the language question remained a thorn in the flesh of the Czechs. The Czechs were involved with the process of establishing their own separate identity from that of the Germans and yet they refused to see or accept the same nationalism in the Slovaks. They continued to see Czech-Slovak reciprocity in terms of one language, that is Czech. Kalal was just as stubborn a supporter of the Czechoslovak language. He represented a threat to the existence of the Slovak language and was often attacked for his articles by the Martin group. This language question was one of the basic problems hindering any "Detvan", 1932, pp . 8-9 . The original Slovak text is : " ...kruh slovenskych priatefov bol vtedy medzi Cechmi vefmi obmedzeny, kdezto medzi Moravanmi mali sme vefa uprimnych priatefov. I inteligentnf Cesi pokladali Slovakov za "dratenfkov" a Slovensko za "zeme drateru'lru ". �68 SLOVAKIA great Slovak moves towards the Czechs. The intellectual group centred in Turciansky Svaty Martin never ceased to defend the cultural-linguistic uniqueness of the Slovak nation from that of the Czech. The Slovak language and the idea of a distinct nation were the only weapons which they had at their disposal to fight Magyarisation. As it was, denationalisation of the younger generation, via mainly the school system, continued to increase. Another literary figure very active in attempting to bring about a rapprochement between the Czechs and the Slovaks was Jaroslav Vlcek . Born in Slovakia of mixed Czech-Slovak parentage, Vlcek spent his formative years on Slovak soil and received his early schooling there. While studying in Prague, he helped establish a student university club, Detvan, in 1882, for Slovak students studying there. During his student days, Vlcek wrote articles on a regular basis for the Slovak magazine Oral (Eagle) on Czech literature titled "Listy z Ciech" ("Letters from the Czech lands"), and in the Czech magazine Ruch a kvety (Activity and Flowers) on Slovak literature. His first major work Literatura na Slovensku (Literature in Slovakia) appeared in 1881. In 1883 he published a daring article in Slovanskf sbomfk (Slavonic Magazine) called "Slovensko za poslednfch peti let", (Slovakia in the Last Five Years) in which he disclosed the practices of the governing Magyar circles in Slovakia. In 1890, Vlcek published Dejiny literatlfry slovenske (The History of Slovak Literature). Vlcek was the first head of Detvan and he maintained an active interest in the club through the years canvassing to get support for it. The purpose of Detvan was to bring together Slovak students, to entertain and to educate them by having them give papers on Slovak literature, history and the contemporary conditions. The most important figures in the first decade of Detvan's existence were Vlcek, P. Sochan, Cyril Krcmery, St. Daxner, Ladislav Nadasi, Jan Slabej, Matej Bencur, M. Ursfny, Dusan Makovicky, J. Smetanay, and Srobar. Almost all of them were, at one time or another, to take part in the Slovak national awakening. Detvan organised Slovak evenings open to the Czech public whenever there was a significant Slovak celebration in order that the Czech public might come to �SLOVAKIA 69 know that the Slovaks were more than just a land of tinkers, that they had their own history, their great men, and that they were now in need of a helping hand from their brothers to stave off the process of Magyarisation. This club collaborated on similar ventures with the other Czech and Moravian clubs, with the Slovak club Tatran in Vienna and with the Slovak Club in Budapest. They canvassed in Bohemia and Slovakia for funds to help Slovak students to come to study in Prague. During Srobar's presidency, Detvan came to have the greatest contact with the average Czech living in Prague. Srobar had been influenced by the realist philosophy (political program) which Tomas G. Masaryk (later to become the first President of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918) expounded in his university classes. He came to believe that the political passivity favoured by the Martin group was not beneficial to the Slovak nation, that the Slovaks must abandon their fatalistic policy and stop expecting salvation from the east, from their Russian brothers. Upon returning home he became active in politics and ran for the Hungarian Parliament. In 1891 and 1895 the Czechs organised two large provincial exhibitions. The stand on the ethnographic exhibition was of the greatest importance, for the Slovaks had two rooms devoted to their culture, under the title "Part of the Czechoslav nation". Czech attendance at this exhibition was large and press coverage thorough, giving the Czech public its first opportunity to become acquainted with Slovak culture on a grand scale. Following the excitement and goodwill engendered by the Ethnographic Exhibition, the Ceskoslovanska Jednota (Czechoslavonic Unit), was formed on 7 May 1896 with the well-known Slavist, Professor Frantisek Pastrnek, as chairman. According to its constitution, its purpose was the "...cultivation of Czechoslav interests and the support of the poor young Slav people" .4 The vehicle via which this was to be carried out was: "a) to publish, to promote, 4Literami archiv pamatnik narodnfho pfsemnictvf, Rotnagl Collection. "Ucel spolku je pestovati kultumi zajmy ceskoslovanske a podporovati chudou mladez slovanskou" . �70 SLOVAKIA to collect, to buy literary works and to found libraries; b) to grant stipends and to support Slav students studying in Prague ... ; c) public lectures and discussions, excluding political ones; d) to sponsor social entertainment" .5 This organisation was created to act as a defense mechanism in areas culturally endangered by Germans, for example Moravia, Silesia and to help these Czechs outside of Bohemia to maintain their identity (Lower Austria, Vienna). As far as the Slovaks were concerned, the aim was to maintain contact, to acquaint the Czech nation with the Slovak culture, to give Slovak students financial support in Prague, and to establish Czech libraries in Slovakia. The organisation did not really become deeply involved with the Slovak situation until 1909. Detvan members Srobar, Smetanay and K. Salva, a publisher in Rufomberok, were directly connected with Jednota as trustees for Slovakia. Meanwhile, in Martin , the representatives of the Slovak National Party remained determined to uphold the programme of Shir and the concept of "Okolie", come what may . Any acceptance of the idea of a single nation called Czechoslovak was out of the question for it meant the refutation of the Slovak language. The language separation was regarded as a tragedy by the Czechs but for the ardent Slovak nationalists, it meant arising from the dead. 6 According to Elie Kedourie, "the test ... , by which a nation is known to exist is that of language. A group speaking the same language is known as a nation, and a nation ought to constitute a state" .7 To the Martin nationalists, acceptance of the Czech idea of two branches of one nation , of being completely identical peoples, despite the patent social, economic, linguistic and cultural differences which one thousand years of a different history had imposed upon them, was simply not possible. It meant a denial of their nationhood which their awakened distinct national consciousness forbade. Thus the writings of such ardent Czech Slovakophiles as Kalal were not always well 5Ibid. , Third regulation of Constitution . 6Stefan Jan~ak. tivot Dr. Pavla Blahu, Tmava: Spolok sv. Vojtecha, 1947, I, p. 41. 7Elie Kedourie, Nationalism , London: Hutchinson & Co., 1974, p. 68. �SLOVAKIA 71 received in the Martin circle. In their publication Narodnie noviny (National News), they made it clear that the Czechs were not being made familiar with true Slovak conditions: The Czech public only misleads itself, when "the friends " of the Slovaks come to it with these sorts of things. He who is a friend of the Slovaks and understands their situation would not now refer to the written language .. . From amongst the professionals of our Czech brothers none took a deep interest in the Slovaks, thus rose K. Kalal, as an "expert" on Slovak affairs.8 Masaryk, too, often came under fire by the older generation of Slovak political leaders, represented by Svetozar Hurban Vajansky a leading nationalist, poet and editor of Narodnie noviny. Masaryk was accused of anti-clericalism, immorality in the sense of disrespect for tradition and ethics, misrepresentation of the economic situation in Slovakia, that is that poverty was not on a national scale but existed only in certain regions of the country which were not conducive to crop growing due to geography , such as Orava and Eastern Slovakia, and finally, for having turned some of the young people away from their own party, the Slovak National Party. Vajansky felt the young simply did not fully comprehend the gravity of the domestic situation, that there were no alternatives to the tactics used, and that unity amongst all Slovaks in the face of the onslaught of Magyarisation was vital. The older generation was convinced that writing in newspapers, facing stiff fines and longterm jail sentences for these articles, nonparticipation in the government and steadfastness in their religious affiliations were the only avenues open to them in stemming Magyarisation. They believed in co-operation amongst the Slavs, for example the Czechs as their closest brethren, but not at the expense 8Narodnie noviny, 1901, No. 64. Original text reads: "c'.:eske obecenstvo Jen myli sa, keel' "priatelia" Slovakov prichodia mu s takymito vecmi. Kto je priatefom Slovakov a rozumie ich polofoniu , teraz nebude sa tyka{ otazky ich spisovneho jazyka ... U bratov c'.:echov z povolanych fudf nikto nev~fmal si de,kJadnej~ie Slovakov , tak povstal K. Kalal , ako "znalec" vo veciach slovenskych". �72 SLOVAKIA of their national language , with the resulting loss of their separate identity. This was something which the Czechs never came to understand fully and which created so much ill-feeling after 1918. At the tum of the century, the student club Detvan in Prague lost a good deal of its drive with the departure of many of its most active students , especially Srobar, who returned to Slovakia to establish himself in a medical practice in 1899 in Rufomberok. His departure left a gap which was to be filled later by a young Slovak from Kosariska, Milan Rastislav Stefanik. In the summer of 1897 Srobar and four other young , progressive-thinking, Slovak students dissatisfied with the tum of events at the Martin celebrations, went to Bystricka to speak with Masaryk. He had already had a great influence upon the Slovak students in Prague, and Srobar had taken very much to heart the realist philosophy which Masaryk expounded, that is "drobna praca", small work amongst the people themselves. 9 At this meeting the basic foundation for a liberaldemocratic thinking review called Hlas (Voice) was laid . Its adherents, called Hlasists, were represented by Srobar, Pavel Blaho and A. Stefanek, journalists, and the lawyer Ivan Derer, all of whom were to play prominent roles in the government of Czechoslovakia after World War I. They believed in progressive thinking, democracy, reason and non-intervention of the Roman Catholic Church in the daily life of the peasants. They were ardent Czechoslovaks, devoted to the idea of Czechoslovak unity (Ceskoslovenska jednota). Most of their support came from the organisation Jednota in Prague. The first copy of Hlas was published in 1898 in Skalica 911 Drobna praca" was developed in depth in a series of lectures by Masaryk in 1898. These can be found in Jak pracovat?, ZUrich: Konfrontation SA, 1977, pp. 16-27. Masaryk wanted students to take the knowledge they had acquired in school and by going into the countryside to pass it on to the common man in a practical fashion thus helping him to better himself and to educate himself. At the same time Masaryk believed that such endeavours would lead to greater opportunities for both. They would "be coming into contact with people and learning to work together" (p.57), thus promoting a better understanding between each other and furthering their national goal. �SLOVAKIA 73 under the editorship of Blaho. Most of the young people involved were former Detvan members. Due to financial problems, it appeared for the last time in 1904. It had not been able to build-up a wide enough reading public. Their open Czechoslovak program was regarded with suspicion by the majority of the Slovak intellectuals and others who might have bought a copy. Albeit short-lived, Hlas had a tremendous impact on Slovak political, social and cultural life. It was instrumental in establishing the idea of a union of the Czechs and Slovaks on cultural and national lines. It stressed the need to educate the peasants to think and make their own decisions and especially to free themselves from the influence of the clergy. Education was not only the means of building an awareness of the Slovak identity and political activity but also the means of bringing about change in such areas as the temperance movement. From 1909 to 1914, the progressive young Slovaks again concentrated themselves around a monthly review, Prudy. Once more, its appearance was due to the initiative of Detvan members, for example Bohdan Pavlu. It described its program as being an open platform upon which all were welcome to come and express their views. Most of the members were former Hlasists. One can see that the motivation for Czech-Slovak reciprocity from the Slovak side tended to be initiated by those people who had actually studied in the Czech Lands. One can understand why Narodnie novinytried to discourage students from continuing their higher education there. For the Martinites, to go to Bohemia meant returning as a Czechophile as a foregone conclusion It should be pointed out that although Czech political opinion may have softened vis-a-vis the Slovaks after Rieger, there was never any question of political support.IO As far as the Young 10In several speeches both in Prague and Budapest Rieger made it very clear that the relationship between the Czechs and the Slovaks was not a legal one. The Czechs had no legal right to interfere in Slovak affairs , and moreover, had not been requested to do so by Slovak political leaders. See Jozef Jablonicky, "Prfspevok k cesko-slovenskym vzt'ahom od konca 19. stor. do roku 1914", in Historicke stlfdie, �74 SLOVAKIA Czech Party was concerned, Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia formed one unit as an historic state. Newly formed Czech political parties did not include the question of the Slovaks in their program. They upheld Rieger's stand that the Slovak question is a causa finita. 11 The only political leader to have a divergent view was Masaryk. He believed that Slovakia was a part of contemporary Czech politics. The span of time during which his influence was particularly significant to Slovak affairs was from 1896 to 1902. From then on he stopped travelling to Bystricka and turned his attention to Bohemian politics and dualism. His newspapers Cas and Nasa doba continued to publish articles on Slovakia. By the early 1900's the articles were losing their romantic style in describing Slovak conditions while such journals as Osveta and Slovanskj piehled concentrated on the culture and literature of Slovakia. This political stand of non-intervention continued even after the particularly unpleasant incident at Cernova in 1907 when the local Hungarian authorities opened fire upon unarmed Slovak villagers who had not wanted their new church to be consecrated by the Magyar clergy but wanted their own priest Andrej Hlinka, who had built it, to be the officiating personage. Although Czech Slovakophiles were able to get much propaganda out of the incident, the Czech political position remained the same. Czech politicans had no wish to threaten the Czech program based on Bohemia's Historic State Rights, nor to interfere in the internal matters of another state, Hungary. Contact between the Czechs and the Slovaks was very much on a limited literary and cultural level. In 1911, the Czechoslovak Unity under the direction Professor Fr. Bfly published Slovenska citanka, an encyclopedia on Slovak culture and literature. From 1907 to 1910 Nase Slovensko (Our Slovakia), an annual journal was published to acquaint the Czech public with the Slovaks. From 1908 until the break out of war, Jednota organised annual meetings of Czech and Slovak intellectuals at the Moravian health spa Luhacovice. Initially 26 individuals came together, but by 1914 IV, 1958, p. 8. 11 Ibid., p. 22. �SLOVAKIA 75 their number had grown to 300. 12 It should be noted that those who were active were the small number of Hlasists, the young generation mostly educated in Bohemia, Milan Hodza, a member of the Hungarian Parliament and representative of the Agrarian idea in Slovakia, and a few of the old guard from Martin; and from the Czechs, it was predominantly members of the Jednota. It is here that one begins to have some suggestion of possible discourse on political aspects. The actual meetings were held in secret and there appear to be no known official minutes. That something along political lines was being aired in these circles emerges in a letter from R . Pilat to the American Slovak, Milan Getting, in the summer of 1913 where he suggests that: " .. .it is high time that work was carried out on achieving the future program of a union of Czechs and Slovaks in a political sense". 13 He appears to have a premonition of the coming war and he adds confidentially that "preparations from the Czech side are on the way, in the event of the defeat of Austria, Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia would be united with Slovakia in one state" .14 On 4 April 1914, Frantisek Votruba a well-known Czech publicist living in Slovakia presented at a major political rally in Prague a resolution of protest against Magyar oppression of its nationalities, along with a demand for the revision of the Ausgleich and the terms of dualism.1 5 This is indicative of the fact that most Slovaks still thought in terms of a resolution of their problems within the terms of the present state rather than outside of it with the dissolution of Austria-Hungary. Some mention must be made of the interests of industry, ban12 Ibid., p. 20. 13 v . Kumek , "0 cinnosti a vyznamu Ceskoslovenske jednoty pi'ed vznikem CSR", Historicky casopis 10 (1962), pp . 366-7 in Miroslav Peknfk, "Slovenska politika v Uhorsku a kry~talizacia jej politickych koncepcif pred vznikom I. svetovej voj ny" , Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, Bratislava: SA V, 1992, pp . 44. 14 M. Getting, Americkf Slovaci a vyvin ceskoslovenskej myslienky v rokoch 1914-18, Pittsburg: n. p., 1933 , p. 12 in Peknfk , p. 44. 15Slo vensky tyidennfk 12 , 4 . April 1914, No. 15 , p. 3 in Peknfk, p. 44. �76 SLOVAKIA king and investment in Slovakia by the Slovaks. With gradual economic growth in the 1870's and 1880's, the Tatra Bank was established in 1886 in Turciansky Svaty Martin. Shortly afterwards , there were bank officials and small investors , soon followed by branches in three other towns . By 1909, there were many similar banks throughout Slovakia. However, Czech investment was very small in Slovakia. Czech Slovakophiles extolled the virtues of Slovak resources, the untapped wealth, and so forth in such publications as Slovenska cftanka but it was not really significant. Similarly, there was very little movement of Slovak labour to Bohemia and Moravia except for the tinkers who wandered far to earn their bread. The largest manufacturing concern, Ceskoslovenska-Kolben-Danek (C-K-D) factory, had not a single employee recorded as coming from Slovakia in the period 1871-1920.16 In the decades that preceded the Great War, the idea of a union of the Czechs and the Slovaks was proposed initially by intellectuals rather than politicians as the only alternative to a situation which could no longer be tolerated. The general Czech and Slovak population knew very little of each other. The Czechs did not recognize the Slovak language and tended to mistake Slovaks for Yugoslavs as late as 1918.1 7 They had greater personal contact with other Europeans than with the Slovaks. Similarly, the educated Slovaks were much more at home in Vienna and Budapest. In fact, the peasants and workers migrated to these two cities as a general rule rather than to the Czech Lands. In addition, there was no truly unified Czech-Slovak club or association upon which Czechoslovak unity could be built. Ceskoslovanska Jednota had been founded by a minority, based on an idea rather than as the result of a political and economic evolutionary process. Thus, much of the misunderstanding which resulted after 16F . W. Carter, "C-K-D Employees, Prague 1871-1920: Some Aspects of Their Geographical Distribution", Journal of Historical Geography, I (I), 1975, p. 95. 17Jan Hajda, "The Role of Intelligentsia in Society" in Miloslav Rechcigl, ed., The Czechoslovak Contribution to World Culture, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964, p. 311. �SLOVAKIA 77 1918 can be attributed to a mutual lack of awareness. The Czech intelligentsia sought to change basic Slovak society along the lines of their own but they did not take into account the growth and differentiation of the other. The "Anketa" carried out by Pnfdy in 1914 and finally published in 1919 clearly showed that those who welcomed political cooperation with the Czechs were the former Hlasists and Pnidists, the liberal-progressive streams in the Slovak National Party. Tampering with the Slovak language was out of the question . Co-operation was still relatively limited as Stefanek, an ardent supporter of CzechSlovak relations, remarked: In my view, the Czech political parties should work more systematically and their leaders should above all else know Slovakia personally and all their pronouncements on our behalf in the Austrian parliament and in delegations should be founded on their own views . As far as I am aware, other than Prof. Dr. Masaryk, Dr. Herben and Klofac and a few Agrarian politicians, no one has been to Slovakia, not even Dr. Hajn, nor Dr. Fiedler, Dr. Korner, Dr. Fort and many more excellent Czech politicians who through their own personal contact could accomplish much good . Slovakia still remains terra incognita even for Czech politicians, for university professors, writers , in short for the "cream" of the Czech nation. On the other hand we gladly recognize the good work of Czech politicans.18 I 811 Anketa", Prudy V , 9-10 (1913/ 1914- 1919), p. 11 . � 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 1991-92, Vol. 35 Description An account of the resource Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Slovak League of America Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 1991-92 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 63 Czech-Slovak Relations From the 1840s to 1914 EDITA BOSAK Czech-Slovak relations were a constant but also a fundamental problem in the history of the Czech :md Slovak people, particularly from their political union in 1918 until the creation of two separate states in 1993. Their common state had been created out of the framework of the Austro-Hungarian Empire where the differences between the two peoples were already quite marked and also grossly underestimated . Since the arrival of the Magyars in today's Hungary in the late 9th century, the Slovaks had experienced a distinctly different development from the Czechs. Almost one thousand years of Hungarian rule had marked their economic activities , social life, degree of devotion to religion, mentality, tradition, and history. Even with the initial euphoria that followed the creation of the common state on 28 October 1918, these fundamental differences, which had not been fully considered, could not be erased. Not only were they cultural-linguistic but also religious. Our purpose is to examine how these differences were perceived prior to 1914 and what attempts were made to establish political relations between the two nations. The emergence of the Czech and Slovak national movements in the early nineteenth century helped to create a feeling of Slav solidarity. However, in the 1840s, the acceptance by most Slovak intellectuals of the central Slovak dialect as the Slovak literary language caused a permanent literary rift between the two peoples. The Slovaks were facing the first large scale attempts by the Magyars to assimilate the non-Magyars in Hungary. By 1844, 64 SLOVAKIA Magyar was made the official language of the country. The Slovak Lutherans were especially threatened because their close ties with the Czech Protestants were construed by official circles as evidence of treason, that is to say, collaboration with a foreign power. Thus they had to re-evaluate their position , especially since the Czechs were quite indifferent to the political and cultural situation of the Slovaks, embroiled as they were with their own national struggle with the Germans in Bohemia and Moravia. Assistance of any kind was not forthcoming . Nevertheless, the Czechs were considering creating a "Czechoslovak" literary language, yet refused to allow the modern Czech literary language to adopt any Slovak characteristics in order that the Slovaks might be able to identify with it. The Czechs were convinced that all concessions had to come from the Slovaks. However, as the idea that they were a nation of Slavs distinct from the Czechs grew among the Slovaks , there arose an incompatibility with the idea of being Czechoslovak and using only Czech as the literary medium. In the final analysis, a new Slovak literary language was the only recourse available to the Slovaks. Unfortunately, this step hardly fulfilled the expectations of L'udovit Stur and his followers that the Slovaks would become unified. The fact is that religious differences played an important role. The Slovaks were for the greater part Roman Catholics. But about one quarter was Lutheran and it was this group which tended to have the Czech ties that dated as far back as the sixteenth century and which used the Kralicka Bible for both literary and religious purposes . This split in Slovak society profoundly influenced the development of Czech-Slovak relations. The introduction of Sturovcina as the new Slovak literary language was called, remained a bone of contention between the Czechs and Slovaks for many decades . In the post-1849 period, CzechSlovak reciprocity almost completely disappeared. Controversy over the language split and political circumstances drove the two further apart. There were, however, some leading Czechs who continued to believe and to advocate the idea of Czechoslovakism, that is , the cultural ethnic and linguistic unity of both peoples as fellow Slavs. For instance, Karel Havlicek maintained that SLOVAKIA 65 the Czechoslav lands, Bohemia, Moravia, a part of Silesia and Slovakia in Hungary were for a Jong time one nation as far as literary and spiritual life goes, and the greater part of them belonged to one state. Well-known individuals in Bohemia as well as in Moravia, and likewise in Slovakia had always worked towards the complete union of these lands comprising one nation, and considered themselves members of one tribe, which is verified by the names and works of men from all these Jands. 2 But there were other leading lights among the Czechs like the Old Czech Party leader Frantisek L. Rieger who accused the Slovaks of having "tom away" from the Czech nation. From 1849 to 1868 there was next to no political interest in Slovak affairs. In the 1870's, 1880's and 1890's literary contact was sporadic and minimal. The continuity of Czech-Slovak relations was maintained by a few Czech writers and persons involved in cultural activities. The closure of the three Slovak gymnazia forced Slovak students to go abroad to study, especially to Moravia which was geographically closer to Upper Hungary, as Slovakia was called . Conditions were difficult and the students were not always well received, as Vavro Srobar comments in his biography, Z mojho iivota (From My Own Life), concerning his own experience with Czech professors. Contact was not always amicable on the day-today level. Students found it difficult to learn Czech and soon discovered that academically they were far behind the Czech students. It was the work of such writers as Bozena Nemcova, Adolf Heyduk, Rudolf Pokorny, and Jozef Holecek who kept the Czech public informed on who and what the Slovaks were and under what conditions they were surviving in Hungary. However, only a tiny segment of the intelligentsia had any interest of a genuine nature in 211 Ceskoslovanska zeme, Cechy, Morava, cast Slezska a Slovenska v Uhi'fch jsou jiz davno v literarnfm a du~evnfm zivote jednfm narodem, a vet~f cast jejich byla jiz i jednfm statem. Znamej~f duchove jak z Cech, tak z Moravy, tak i ze Slovenska odjakziva smerovali k uplnemu spojenf techto zernf jednoho naroda, a povafovali sebe vzdy za osudy jednoho kmene, na co svedcf jmena a spisy najznamenitej~fch muz0 v~ech tech krajin". Karel Havlfcek Borovsky, Politicke spisy, Vol. III, ed. Dr. Zdenek Tobolka, Prague: Jan Laichter, 1902, p. 178. 66 SLOVAKIA the Slovaks. The overall view of the Slovaks tended to be a rather sentimental and romantic one. For example, the short time spent by Bozena Nemcova in Slovakia produced a collection of fairytales Slovensk6 pohadky a povesti (Slovak Stories and Tales), two novels with Slovak themes Pohorska vesnice (Mountain Villages) and Chyie pod horami (Shanties At the Foothills), and a monograph Krajov a lesov na Zvolensku (Lands and Forests of Zvolen) . Throughout her life, she remained in regular correspondence with Gustav K. Zechenter, the minister and poet Samuel Chalupka, and the poet Samuel Tomasik, author of the Slovak hymn "Hej, Slovaci!" Of the other early Czech Slovakophiles, R. Pokorny wrote Potulky po Slovensku (Wandering About Slovakia), Literama shoda ceskoslovenska (Czechoslovak Literary Agreement); A. Heyduk Cymbal a Husle (Cymbal and Violin); and J. Holecek Podejme ruku Slovakum (Let's Give Our Hand To the Slovaks). Heyduk's verses were sentimental, and the description of daily Slovak life was highly coloured but Holecek, as a journalist, pointed out to the Czechs the political importance of the Slovaks for them, that is, a union of Czech and Slovak forces in opposition to German pressure in the Czech Lands. This was to become one of the major arguments in favour of Czech-Slovak reciprocity in the late 1890's. Pokorny, too , did some foundation work in re-establishing Czech-Slovak contact by setting-up the "Knihovna ceskoslovenska" (Czechoslovak Library). Its purpose was to publish the work of Slovak literary figures but due to financial stress, it closed in 1881 after having published only two works . One can see that Czech society at large actually had very little contact with the Slovaks or even knowledge about them until the 1890's. Pavel Sochan, a Slovak artist, described the situation as follows : the circle of Slovak friends was then very limited among the Czechs , whereas among the Mora vi ans we had many sincere friends . Even intelligent Czechs considered Slovaks as "tinkers" and Slovakia as the "land of tinkers" .3 3Pavel Sochan, "Zalozenie spolku 'Detvan' v Prahe roku 1882" in Stanislav Meciar ed., Detvan 50 rokov v Prahe, Turc. Sv. Martin: Slovensky akademicky spolok SLOVAKIA 67 At official functions, Czech academics often mistook the Slovaks for Bulgarians or Russians, for the Slovak language seemed very foreign sounding and unintelligible to their ears . They knew nothing of Slovak literature or her poets and writers. It was a very small Czech literary group which expressed any interest in the life of their brother Slavs. As the nineteenth century was coming to a close, the political situation of both the Czechs and the Slovaks required a new approach. What was needed was a realistic and systematic education effort of the Czech public with the existential struggle of the Slovaks in Hungary if aid was to be obtained for them. They had to become acquainted with Slovak culture, folklore and way of life . On the other hand, the Slovaks had to be awakened, educated, and shown that the Czechs were to be trusted and that they no longer held any grudges over the language issue. It was Karel Kalal, a Czech schoolteacher, who took on this role of arousing the Czechs in the 1890's and early 1900's to the plight of the Slovaks. Initially , his attitude vis-a-vis Slovak conditions was na"ively romantic and sentimental but by the twentieth century he became much more realistic in his comprehension, and his writing improved. Although his efforts were crowned with some success, the language question remained a thorn in the flesh of the Czechs. The Czechs were involved with the process of establishing their own separate identity from that of the Germans and yet they refused to see or accept the same nationalism in the Slovaks. They continued to see Czech-Slovak reciprocity in terms of one language, that is Czech. Kalal was just as stubborn a supporter of the Czechoslovak language. He represented a threat to the existence of the Slovak language and was often attacked for his articles by the Martin group. This language question was one of the basic problems hindering any "Detvan", 1932, pp . 8-9 . The original Slovak text is : " ...kruh slovenskych priatefov bol vtedy medzi Cechmi vefmi obmedzeny, kdezto medzi Moravanmi mali sme vefa uprimnych priatefov. I inteligentnf Cesi pokladali Slovakov za "dratenfkov" a Slovensko za "zeme drateru'lru ". 68 SLOVAKIA great Slovak moves towards the Czechs. The intellectual group centred in Turciansky Svaty Martin never ceased to defend the cultural-linguistic uniqueness of the Slovak nation from that of the Czech. The Slovak language and the idea of a distinct nation were the only weapons which they had at their disposal to fight Magyarisation. As it was, denationalisation of the younger generation, via mainly the school system, continued to increase. Another literary figure very active in attempting to bring about a rapprochement between the Czechs and the Slovaks was Jaroslav Vlcek . Born in Slovakia of mixed Czech-Slovak parentage, Vlcek spent his formative years on Slovak soil and received his early schooling there. While studying in Prague, he helped establish a student university club, Detvan, in 1882, for Slovak students studying there. During his student days, Vlcek wrote articles on a regular basis for the Slovak magazine Oral (Eagle) on Czech literature titled "Listy z Ciech" ("Letters from the Czech lands"), and in the Czech magazine Ruch a kvety (Activity and Flowers) on Slovak literature. His first major work Literatura na Slovensku (Literature in Slovakia) appeared in 1881. In 1883 he published a daring article in Slovanskf sbomfk (Slavonic Magazine) called "Slovensko za poslednfch peti let", (Slovakia in the Last Five Years) in which he disclosed the practices of the governing Magyar circles in Slovakia. In 1890, Vlcek published Dejiny literatlfry slovenske (The History of Slovak Literature). Vlcek was the first head of Detvan and he maintained an active interest in the club through the years canvassing to get support for it. The purpose of Detvan was to bring together Slovak students, to entertain and to educate them by having them give papers on Slovak literature, history and the contemporary conditions. The most important figures in the first decade of Detvan's existence were Vlcek, P. Sochan, Cyril Krcmery, St. Daxner, Ladislav Nadasi, Jan Slabej, Matej Bencur, M. Ursfny, Dusan Makovicky, J. Smetanay, and Srobar. Almost all of them were, at one time or another, to take part in the Slovak national awakening. Detvan organised Slovak evenings open to the Czech public whenever there was a significant Slovak celebration in order that the Czech public might come to SLOVAKIA 69 know that the Slovaks were more than just a land of tinkers, that they had their own history, their great men, and that they were now in need of a helping hand from their brothers to stave off the process of Magyarisation. This club collaborated on similar ventures with the other Czech and Moravian clubs, with the Slovak club Tatran in Vienna and with the Slovak Club in Budapest. They canvassed in Bohemia and Slovakia for funds to help Slovak students to come to study in Prague. During Srobar's presidency, Detvan came to have the greatest contact with the average Czech living in Prague. Srobar had been influenced by the realist philosophy (political program) which Tomas G. Masaryk (later to become the first President of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918) expounded in his university classes. He came to believe that the political passivity favoured by the Martin group was not beneficial to the Slovak nation, that the Slovaks must abandon their fatalistic policy and stop expecting salvation from the east, from their Russian brothers. Upon returning home he became active in politics and ran for the Hungarian Parliament. In 1891 and 1895 the Czechs organised two large provincial exhibitions. The stand on the ethnographic exhibition was of the greatest importance, for the Slovaks had two rooms devoted to their culture, under the title "Part of the Czechoslav nation". Czech attendance at this exhibition was large and press coverage thorough, giving the Czech public its first opportunity to become acquainted with Slovak culture on a grand scale. Following the excitement and goodwill engendered by the Ethnographic Exhibition, the Ceskoslovanska Jednota (Czechoslavonic Unit), was formed on 7 May 1896 with the well-known Slavist, Professor Frantisek Pastrnek, as chairman. According to its constitution, its purpose was the "...cultivation of Czechoslav interests and the support of the poor young Slav people" .4 The vehicle via which this was to be carried out was: "a) to publish, to promote, 4Literami archiv pamatnik narodnfho pfsemnictvf, Rotnagl Collection. "Ucel spolku je pestovati kultumi zajmy ceskoslovanske a podporovati chudou mladez slovanskou" . 70 SLOVAKIA to collect, to buy literary works and to found libraries; b) to grant stipends and to support Slav students studying in Prague ... ; c) public lectures and discussions, excluding political ones; d) to sponsor social entertainment" .5 This organisation was created to act as a defense mechanism in areas culturally endangered by Germans, for example Moravia, Silesia and to help these Czechs outside of Bohemia to maintain their identity (Lower Austria, Vienna). As far as the Slovaks were concerned, the aim was to maintain contact, to acquaint the Czech nation with the Slovak culture, to give Slovak students financial support in Prague, and to establish Czech libraries in Slovakia. The organisation did not really become deeply involved with the Slovak situation until 1909. Detvan members Srobar, Smetanay and K. Salva, a publisher in Rufomberok, were directly connected with Jednota as trustees for Slovakia. Meanwhile, in Martin , the representatives of the Slovak National Party remained determined to uphold the programme of Shir and the concept of "Okolie", come what may . Any acceptance of the idea of a single nation called Czechoslovak was out of the question for it meant the refutation of the Slovak language. The language separation was regarded as a tragedy by the Czechs but for the ardent Slovak nationalists, it meant arising from the dead. 6 According to Elie Kedourie, "the test ... , by which a nation is known to exist is that of language. A group speaking the same language is known as a nation, and a nation ought to constitute a state" .7 To the Martin nationalists, acceptance of the Czech idea of two branches of one nation , of being completely identical peoples, despite the patent social, economic, linguistic and cultural differences which one thousand years of a different history had imposed upon them, was simply not possible. It meant a denial of their nationhood which their awakened distinct national consciousness forbade. Thus the writings of such ardent Czech Slovakophiles as Kalal were not always well 5Ibid. , Third regulation of Constitution . 6Stefan Jan~ak. tivot Dr. Pavla Blahu, Tmava: Spolok sv. Vojtecha, 1947, I, p. 41. 7Elie Kedourie, Nationalism , London: Hutchinson & Co., 1974, p. 68. SLOVAKIA 71 received in the Martin circle. In their publication Narodnie noviny (National News), they made it clear that the Czechs were not being made familiar with true Slovak conditions: The Czech public only misleads itself, when "the friends " of the Slovaks come to it with these sorts of things. He who is a friend of the Slovaks and understands their situation would not now refer to the written language .. . From amongst the professionals of our Czech brothers none took a deep interest in the Slovaks, thus rose K. Kalal, as an "expert" on Slovak affairs.8 Masaryk, too, often came under fire by the older generation of Slovak political leaders, represented by Svetozar Hurban Vajansky a leading nationalist, poet and editor of Narodnie noviny. Masaryk was accused of anti-clericalism, immorality in the sense of disrespect for tradition and ethics, misrepresentation of the economic situation in Slovakia, that is that poverty was not on a national scale but existed only in certain regions of the country which were not conducive to crop growing due to geography , such as Orava and Eastern Slovakia, and finally, for having turned some of the young people away from their own party, the Slovak National Party. Vajansky felt the young simply did not fully comprehend the gravity of the domestic situation, that there were no alternatives to the tactics used, and that unity amongst all Slovaks in the face of the onslaught of Magyarisation was vital. The older generation was convinced that writing in newspapers, facing stiff fines and longterm jail sentences for these articles, nonparticipation in the government and steadfastness in their religious affiliations were the only avenues open to them in stemming Magyarisation. They believed in co-operation amongst the Slavs, for example the Czechs as their closest brethren, but not at the expense 8Narodnie noviny, 1901, No. 64. Original text reads: "c'.:eske obecenstvo Jen myli sa, keel' "priatelia" Slovakov prichodia mu s takymito vecmi. Kto je priatefom Slovakov a rozumie ich polofoniu , teraz nebude sa tyka{ otazky ich spisovneho jazyka ... U bratov c'.:echov z povolanych fudf nikto nev~fmal si de,kJadnej~ie Slovakov , tak povstal K. Kalal , ako "znalec" vo veciach slovenskych". 72 SLOVAKIA of their national language , with the resulting loss of their separate identity. This was something which the Czechs never came to understand fully and which created so much ill-feeling after 1918. At the tum of the century, the student club Detvan in Prague lost a good deal of its drive with the departure of many of its most active students , especially Srobar, who returned to Slovakia to establish himself in a medical practice in 1899 in Rufomberok. His departure left a gap which was to be filled later by a young Slovak from Kosariska, Milan Rastislav Stefanik. In the summer of 1897 Srobar and four other young , progressive-thinking, Slovak students dissatisfied with the tum of events at the Martin celebrations, went to Bystricka to speak with Masaryk. He had already had a great influence upon the Slovak students in Prague, and Srobar had taken very much to heart the realist philosophy which Masaryk expounded, that is "drobna praca", small work amongst the people themselves. 9 At this meeting the basic foundation for a liberaldemocratic thinking review called Hlas (Voice) was laid . Its adherents, called Hlasists, were represented by Srobar, Pavel Blaho and A. Stefanek, journalists, and the lawyer Ivan Derer, all of whom were to play prominent roles in the government of Czechoslovakia after World War I. They believed in progressive thinking, democracy, reason and non-intervention of the Roman Catholic Church in the daily life of the peasants. They were ardent Czechoslovaks, devoted to the idea of Czechoslovak unity (Ceskoslovenska jednota). Most of their support came from the organisation Jednota in Prague. The first copy of Hlas was published in 1898 in Skalica 911 Drobna praca" was developed in depth in a series of lectures by Masaryk in 1898. These can be found in Jak pracovat?, ZUrich: Konfrontation SA, 1977, pp. 16-27. Masaryk wanted students to take the knowledge they had acquired in school and by going into the countryside to pass it on to the common man in a practical fashion thus helping him to better himself and to educate himself. At the same time Masaryk believed that such endeavours would lead to greater opportunities for both. They would "be coming into contact with people and learning to work together" (p.57), thus promoting a better understanding between each other and furthering their national goal. SLOVAKIA 73 under the editorship of Blaho. Most of the young people involved were former Detvan members. Due to financial problems, it appeared for the last time in 1904. It had not been able to build-up a wide enough reading public. Their open Czechoslovak program was regarded with suspicion by the majority of the Slovak intellectuals and others who might have bought a copy. Albeit short-lived, Hlas had a tremendous impact on Slovak political, social and cultural life. It was instrumental in establishing the idea of a union of the Czechs and Slovaks on cultural and national lines. It stressed the need to educate the peasants to think and make their own decisions and especially to free themselves from the influence of the clergy. Education was not only the means of building an awareness of the Slovak identity and political activity but also the means of bringing about change in such areas as the temperance movement. From 1909 to 1914, the progressive young Slovaks again concentrated themselves around a monthly review, Prudy. Once more, its appearance was due to the initiative of Detvan members, for example Bohdan Pavlu. It described its program as being an open platform upon which all were welcome to come and express their views. Most of the members were former Hlasists. One can see that the motivation for Czech-Slovak reciprocity from the Slovak side tended to be initiated by those people who had actually studied in the Czech Lands. One can understand why Narodnie novinytried to discourage students from continuing their higher education there. For the Martinites, to go to Bohemia meant returning as a Czechophile as a foregone conclusion It should be pointed out that although Czech political opinion may have softened vis-a-vis the Slovaks after Rieger, there was never any question of political support.IO As far as the Young 10In several speeches both in Prague and Budapest Rieger made it very clear that the relationship between the Czechs and the Slovaks was not a legal one. The Czechs had no legal right to interfere in Slovak affairs , and moreover, had not been requested to do so by Slovak political leaders. See Jozef Jablonicky, "Prfspevok k cesko-slovenskym vzt'ahom od konca 19. stor. do roku 1914", in Historicke stlfdie, 74 SLOVAKIA Czech Party was concerned, Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia formed one unit as an historic state. Newly formed Czech political parties did not include the question of the Slovaks in their program. They upheld Rieger's stand that the Slovak question is a causa finita. 11 The only political leader to have a divergent view was Masaryk. He believed that Slovakia was a part of contemporary Czech politics. The span of time during which his influence was particularly significant to Slovak affairs was from 1896 to 1902. From then on he stopped travelling to Bystricka and turned his attention to Bohemian politics and dualism. His newspapers Cas and Nasa doba continued to publish articles on Slovakia. By the early 1900's the articles were losing their romantic style in describing Slovak conditions while such journals as Osveta and Slovanskj piehled concentrated on the culture and literature of Slovakia. This political stand of non-intervention continued even after the particularly unpleasant incident at Cernova in 1907 when the local Hungarian authorities opened fire upon unarmed Slovak villagers who had not wanted their new church to be consecrated by the Magyar clergy but wanted their own priest Andrej Hlinka, who had built it, to be the officiating personage. Although Czech Slovakophiles were able to get much propaganda out of the incident, the Czech political position remained the same. Czech politicans had no wish to threaten the Czech program based on Bohemia's Historic State Rights, nor to interfere in the internal matters of another state, Hungary. Contact between the Czechs and the Slovaks was very much on a limited literary and cultural level. In 1911, the Czechoslovak Unity under the direction Professor Fr. Bfly published Slovenska citanka, an encyclopedia on Slovak culture and literature. From 1907 to 1910 Nase Slovensko (Our Slovakia), an annual journal was published to acquaint the Czech public with the Slovaks. From 1908 until the break out of war, Jednota organised annual meetings of Czech and Slovak intellectuals at the Moravian health spa Luhacovice. Initially 26 individuals came together, but by 1914 IV, 1958, p. 8. 11 Ibid., p. 22. SLOVAKIA 75 their number had grown to 300. 12 It should be noted that those who were active were the small number of Hlasists, the young generation mostly educated in Bohemia, Milan Hodza, a member of the Hungarian Parliament and representative of the Agrarian idea in Slovakia, and a few of the old guard from Martin; and from the Czechs, it was predominantly members of the Jednota. It is here that one begins to have some suggestion of possible discourse on political aspects. The actual meetings were held in secret and there appear to be no known official minutes. That something along political lines was being aired in these circles emerges in a letter from R . Pilat to the American Slovak, Milan Getting, in the summer of 1913 where he suggests that: " .. .it is high time that work was carried out on achieving the future program of a union of Czechs and Slovaks in a political sense". 13 He appears to have a premonition of the coming war and he adds confidentially that "preparations from the Czech side are on the way, in the event of the defeat of Austria, Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia would be united with Slovakia in one state" .14 On 4 April 1914, Frantisek Votruba a well-known Czech publicist living in Slovakia presented at a major political rally in Prague a resolution of protest against Magyar oppression of its nationalities, along with a demand for the revision of the Ausgleich and the terms of dualism.1 5 This is indicative of the fact that most Slovaks still thought in terms of a resolution of their problems within the terms of the present state rather than outside of it with the dissolution of Austria-Hungary. Some mention must be made of the interests of industry, ban12 Ibid., p. 20. 13 v . Kumek , "0 cinnosti a vyznamu Ceskoslovenske jednoty pi'ed vznikem CSR", Historicky casopis 10 (1962), pp . 366-7 in Miroslav Peknfk, "Slovenska politika v Uhorsku a kry~talizacia jej politickych koncepcif pred vznikom I. svetovej voj ny" , Slovensko v politickom systeme Ceskoslovenska, Bratislava: SA V, 1992, pp . 44. 14 M. Getting, Americkf Slovaci a vyvin ceskoslovenskej myslienky v rokoch 1914-18, Pittsburg: n. p., 1933 , p. 12 in Peknfk , p. 44. 15Slo vensky tyidennfk 12 , 4 . April 1914, No. 15 , p. 3 in Peknfk, p. 44. 76 SLOVAKIA king and investment in Slovakia by the Slovaks. With gradual economic growth in the 1870's and 1880's, the Tatra Bank was established in 1886 in Turciansky Svaty Martin. Shortly afterwards , there were bank officials and small investors , soon followed by branches in three other towns . By 1909, there were many similar banks throughout Slovakia. However, Czech investment was very small in Slovakia. Czech Slovakophiles extolled the virtues of Slovak resources, the untapped wealth, and so forth in such publications as Slovenska cftanka but it was not really significant. Similarly, there was very little movement of Slovak labour to Bohemia and Moravia except for the tinkers who wandered far to earn their bread. The largest manufacturing concern, Ceskoslovenska-Kolben-Danek (C-K-D) factory, had not a single employee recorded as coming from Slovakia in the period 1871-1920.16 In the decades that preceded the Great War, the idea of a union of the Czechs and the Slovaks was proposed initially by intellectuals rather than politicians as the only alternative to a situation which could no longer be tolerated. The general Czech and Slovak population knew very little of each other. The Czechs did not recognize the Slovak language and tended to mistake Slovaks for Yugoslavs as late as 1918.1 7 They had greater personal contact with other Europeans than with the Slovaks. Similarly, the educated Slovaks were much more at home in Vienna and Budapest. In fact, the peasants and workers migrated to these two cities as a general rule rather than to the Czech Lands. In addition, there was no truly unified Czech-Slovak club or association upon which Czechoslovak unity could be built. Ceskoslovanska Jednota had been founded by a minority, based on an idea rather than as the result of a political and economic evolutionary process. Thus, much of the misunderstanding which resulted after 16F . W. Carter, "C-K-D Employees, Prague 1871-1920: Some Aspects of Their Geographical Distribution", Journal of Historical Geography, I (I), 1975, p. 95. 17Jan Hajda, "The Role of Intelligentsia in Society" in Miloslav Rechcigl, ed., The Czechoslovak Contribution to World Culture, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964, p. 311. SLOVAKIA 77 1918 can be attributed to a mutual lack of awareness. The Czech intelligentsia sought to change basic Slovak society along the lines of their own but they did not take into account the growth and differentiation of the other. The "Anketa" carried out by Pnfdy in 1914 and finally published in 1919 clearly showed that those who welcomed political cooperation with the Czechs were the former Hlasists and Pnidists, the liberal-progressive streams in the Slovak National Party. Tampering with the Slovak language was out of the question . Co-operation was still relatively limited as Stefanek, an ardent supporter of CzechSlovak relations, remarked: In my view, the Czech political parties should work more systematically and their leaders should above all else know Slovakia personally and all their pronouncements on our behalf in the Austrian parliament and in delegations should be founded on their own views . As far as I am aware, other than Prof. Dr. Masaryk, Dr. Herben and Klofac and a few Agrarian politicians, no one has been to Slovakia, not even Dr. Hajn, nor Dr. Fiedler, Dr. Korner, Dr. Fort and many more excellent Czech politicians who through their own personal contact could accomplish much good . Slovakia still remains terra incognita even for Czech politicians, for university professors, writers , in short for the "cream" of the Czech nation. On the other hand we gladly recognize the good work of Czech politicans.18 I 811 Anketa", Prudy V , 9-10 (1913/ 1914- 1919), p. 11 .  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 Czech-Slovak Relations from the 1840's to 1914 Description An account of the resource Edita Bosák Slovakia, Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92 pp. 63-77 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bosák, Edita, 1950-2022 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-92 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/519648dadecc38cef230b824faf0ad73.pdf eba3066bdd46cab2fc8fde4fea24b341 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 61 A Century and a half of Czech-Slovak Relations A Slovak Perspective STANISLAV J . KIRSCHBAUM In the fall of 1991, when two American and two Canadian academics agreed to participate in a roundtable on Czech-Slovak relations a year later at the annual Conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, none could foresee that the end of an historical period would be at hand. By the time the roundtable took place in Phoenix in November 1992, it was clear that the common state of the Czechs and Slovaks would soon be dissolved; the Federal Parliament of Czechoslovakia passed a law approving the dissolution shortly thereafter. On 1 January 1993, two new states appeared in Central Europe, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. A study of Czech-Slovak relations had thus ceased to be an examination of one of the main issues in the common state. It had become a question of the historical record. As long as the Slovaks lived in a common state with the Czechs, Western scholars specializing in Slovak history and Slovak politics fully knew under what handicap they had to labour. Western scholarship tended to favour the Czech perception, as Stanley Z. Pech noted two decades ago: Although Western specialists in Eastern European history have usually regarded it as their task to make the West familiar with the entire ethnic panorama of the polyglot region, they have in practice often been selective in the favours they have bestowed on each nation. They have incorporated in their work, in modified form, the outlook and the preju- �62 SLOVAKIA dices of the nations which they "adopted". To give the most conspicuous examples, they viewed Slovak history through Czech eyes and Ukrainian history through Polish (or Russian) eyes. In so doing, they have in fact created a second-class status for certain nations . The history of the Slovaks in the West has usually been presented from the point of view of "Czechoslovakism" and has appeared as hardly more than a postscript to Czech history .1 There is no theme that has enjoyed such a one-sided approach as that of Czech-Slovak relations , in particular in their common state. The following papers do not seek so much to redress the balance as to offer a Slovak perspective on a question that also has a Czech one and that is likely to be debated for some time. They are not exhaustive examinations, rather they are interpretative essays of three important periods, the first on seven decades preceding the creation of the common state in 1918 written by Edita Bosak, the second on the first two decades of Czechoslovakia, which were characterized by a democratic regime, written by Susan Mikula and the third on the post-war decades of communist rule and the three years that preceded the dissolution of the state written by Stanislav J. Kirschbaum. In each, the theme is the Slovak definition of and response to what might be termed the "Czech question " in Slovak political life. Carol Skalnik Leff offers a commentary of the three papers . Each text was revised by its author and edited for publication by the writer of this introduction. 1stanley Z. Pech, "New Avenues in East European History", Canadian Slavonic Papers, X (1), 1968, pp. 14-15. � SLOVAKIA 61 A Century and a half of Czech-Slovak Relations A Slovak Perspective STANISLAV J . KIRSCHBAUM In the fall of 1991, when two American and two Canadian academics agreed to participate in a roundtable on Czech-Slovak relations a year later at the annual Conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, none could foresee that the end of an historical period would be at hand. By the time the roundtable took place in Phoenix in November 1992, it was clear that the common state of the Czechs and Slovaks would soon be dissolved; the Federal Parliament of Czechoslovakia passed a law approving the dissolution shortly thereafter. On 1 January 1993, two new states appeared in Central Europe, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. A study of Czech-Slovak relations had thus ceased to be an examination of one of the main issues in the common state. It had become a question of the historical record. As long as the Slovaks lived in a common state with the Czechs, Western scholars specializing in Slovak history and Slovak politics fully knew under what handicap they had to labour. Western scholarship tended to favour the Czech perception, as Stanley Z. Pech noted two decades ago: Although Western specialists in Eastern European history have usually regarded it as their task to make the West familiar with the entire ethnic panorama of the polyglot region, they have in practice often been selective in the favours they have bestowed on each nation. They have incorporated in their work, in modified form, the outlook and the preju- �62 SLOVAKIA dices of the nations which they "adopted". To give the most conspicuous examples, they viewed Slovak history through Czech eyes and Ukrainian history through Polish (or Russian) eyes. In so doing, they have in fact created a second-class status for certain nations . The history of the Slovaks in the West has usually been presented from the point of view of "Czechoslovakism" and has appeared as hardly more than a postscript to Czech history .1 There is no theme that has enjoyed such a one-sided approach as that of Czech-Slovak relations , in particular in their common state. The following papers do not seek so much to redress the balance as to offer a Slovak perspective on a question that also has a Czech one and that is likely to be debated for some time. They are not exhaustive examinations, rather they are interpretative essays of three important periods, the first on seven decades preceding the creation of the common state in 1918 written by Edita Bosak, the second on the first two decades of Czechoslovakia, which were characterized by a democratic regime, written by Susan Mikula and the third on the post-war decades of communist rule and the three years that preceded the dissolution of the state written by Stanislav J. Kirschbaum. In each, the theme is the Slovak definition of and response to what might be termed the "Czech question " in Slovak political life. Carol Skalnik Leff offers a commentary of the three papers . Each text was revised by its author and edited for publication by the writer of this introduction. 1stanley Z. Pech, "New Avenues in East European History", Canadian Slavonic Papers, X (1), 1968, pp. 14-15. � 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 1991-92, Vol. 35 Description An account of the resource Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Slovak League of America Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 1991-92 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 61 A Century and a half of Czech-Slovak Relations A Slovak Perspective STANISLAV J . KIRSCHBAUM In the fall of 1991, when two American and two Canadian academics agreed to participate in a roundtable on Czech-Slovak relations a year later at the annual Conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, none could foresee that the end of an historical period would be at hand. By the time the roundtable took place in Phoenix in November 1992, it was clear that the common state of the Czechs and Slovaks would soon be dissolved; the Federal Parliament of Czechoslovakia passed a law approving the dissolution shortly thereafter. On 1 January 1993, two new states appeared in Central Europe, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. A study of Czech-Slovak relations had thus ceased to be an examination of one of the main issues in the common state. It had become a question of the historical record. As long as the Slovaks lived in a common state with the Czechs, Western scholars specializing in Slovak history and Slovak politics fully knew under what handicap they had to labour. Western scholarship tended to favour the Czech perception, as Stanley Z. Pech noted two decades ago: Although Western specialists in Eastern European history have usually regarded it as their task to make the West familiar with the entire ethnic panorama of the polyglot region, they have in practice often been selective in the favours they have bestowed on each nation. They have incorporated in their work, in modified form, the outlook and the preju- 62 SLOVAKIA dices of the nations which they "adopted". To give the most conspicuous examples, they viewed Slovak history through Czech eyes and Ukrainian history through Polish (or Russian) eyes. In so doing, they have in fact created a second-class status for certain nations . The history of the Slovaks in the West has usually been presented from the point of view of "Czechoslovakism" and has appeared as hardly more than a postscript to Czech history .1 There is no theme that has enjoyed such a one-sided approach as that of Czech-Slovak relations , in particular in their common state. The following papers do not seek so much to redress the balance as to offer a Slovak perspective on a question that also has a Czech one and that is likely to be debated for some time. They are not exhaustive examinations, rather they are interpretative essays of three important periods, the first on seven decades preceding the creation of the common state in 1918 written by Edita Bosak, the second on the first two decades of Czechoslovakia, which were characterized by a democratic regime, written by Susan Mikula and the third on the post-war decades of communist rule and the three years that preceded the dissolution of the state written by Stanislav J. Kirschbaum. In each, the theme is the Slovak definition of and response to what might be termed the "Czech question " in Slovak political life. Carol Skalnik Leff offers a commentary of the three papers . Each text was revised by its author and edited for publication by the writer of this introduction. 1stanley Z. Pech, "New Avenues in East European History", Canadian Slavonic Papers, X (1), 1968, pp. 14-15.  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 Century and a half of Czech-Slovak Relations: A Slovak Perspective Description An account of the resource Stanislav J. Kirschbaum Slovakia, Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92 pp. 61-62 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kirschbaum, Stanislav J., 1942- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-92 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/28dd9c150f56b57e1a28fba02d689b94.pdf 4815fd154d5ccf07abafc0563bd4d893 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 36 Carpatho-Rusyns: Their Current Status And Future Perspectives PAUL ROBERT MAGOSCI Who Are The Rusyns? In 1875, geographers from the old Hungarian Kingdom erected a monument in a remote region of their country that carried the following inscription: "Precise instruments have confirmed this point where the latitude and longitude lines meet as the center of Europe." 1 Just over a century later, in 1977, the former Soviet authorities, who had by then ruled the area, erected a second monument to mark the center of the continent that stretches from the Arctic shores of Norway in the north to the beaches of Crete in the south, and from the coast of Ireland in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east. The precise center where the monuments are located is near the village of Dilove (formerly Trebusany) in the foothills of the northcentral Carpathian Mountains that from time immemorial has been inhabited by an East Slavic people called Carpatho-Rusyns, or simply Rusyns (sometimes in English: Ruthenians). Thus, in geographic terms, the Rusyns are not a peripheral group, but rather one whose homeland - Carpathian Rus 1 - is located literally in the heart of Europe. According to present day international boundaries, Rusyns live in more or less compact territory within the boundaries of four 1For a description, see Fedor Korecki, "Stredok Evropi-na Homjici," Nova dumka , VIII (21] (Vukovar, Yugoslavia, 1979), pp . 101-102. �SLOVAKIA 37 countries: Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, and Romania. There is also a small group of Rusyns in Yugoslavia, descendants of immigrants who left the Carpathian homeland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Statistical data on Rusyns is, depending on the country, inadequate or completely unavailable. Therefore, we can only speak in theoretical terms when discussing numbers . In theory, the number of Rusyns could be as high as 1.2 million people: 977 ,000 in the Transcarpathian oblast (former Subcarpathian Rus') of the Ukraine; 130,000 in the Presov Region of northeastern Slovakia; 60,000 in the Lemko Region of southeastern Poland as well as in other parts of that country; and 30,000 in the Vojvodina (Backa) and the Croatian republic of former Yugoslavia.2 The Problem of Nomenclature It is important to keep in mind what is meant by the term Rusyn. Traditionally, the name Rusyn, or its local variant Rusnak, has been used by the East Slavic inhabitants of the Carpathian region to describe themselves. However, by the twentieth century, in particular its second half, the historic names Rusyn/Rusnak were replaced by others, such as Ukrainian in Soviet Transcarpathia and the Presov Region of Slovakia, or Lemko in Poland . There are also Rusyns who have given up identifying with any East Slavic group, and instead associate with the dominant nationality of the country in which 2Since World War II, Rusyns were recorded in official statistics only in Yugoslavia (21,000 in 1991) , Romania (1,000 in 1977), and most recently in Slovakia (17 ,000 in 1991) . "Vojvodina u tisloch i slovoch," Ruski kalendar 1992 (Novi Sad , 1991), p. 38; Anuarul statistic al Romaniei 1990 (Bucharest, 1990), p. 64; Czech and Slovak Federal Republic: Preliminary Results of Population and Housing Census (Prague, 1991), pp . 30-3 I. There are also unconfirmed reports that the final published version of the 1991 Czecho-Slovak statistics will indicate 49,000 persons in Slovakia who reported Rusyn as their mother tongue . As for the estimates given here, the figure for the Transcarpathian oblast refers to persons in that region who in the 1991 Ukrainian census were reported as Ukrainian (the term Rusyn when given by a respondant is recorded as Ukrainian). The estimates for Slovakia and Poland are from: Paul Robert Magocsi , The Rusyns of Slovakia (New York, 1993), p. 1-2 and 111-112; and his Historical Atlas of East Central Europe (Seattle , 1993) , p. 131. �38 SLOVAKIA they live, such as Polish in Poland or Slovak in Slovakia. These changes in national self-designation have in some cases come gradually , prompted either by intellectual conviction or by national assimilation, especially among families of nationally-mixed parentage. In the latter case, children often choose to identify - or are identified by their parents - with the dominant state nationality, Slovak or Polish. More often, however, the change in nomenclature has been the result of governmental decree in which the name Rusyn was banned from official usage, as was the case after 1945 in Soviet Transcarpathia and Poland and by the early 1950s in Czechoslovakia. The result is that today one can find within the same ethnolinguistic group, within the same village, in some cases even within the same family, people who will identify as a Rusyn, or a Lemko, or a Ukrainian, or a Slovak, or a Pole. Moreover, in the case of the East Slavic designations - Rusyn/Rusnak, Lemko, Ukrainian - some people consider these as synonyms, others as mutually-exclusive terms. In other words, some people will say that Rusyn is simply the older historic name for Ukrainian, and that Lemko is a regional name of Ukrainian, while others are convinced that the names Lemko or Rusnak are regional forms for Rusyn which, in tum, designates a people that is distinct from the Ukrainian and every other surrounding nationality. It should be noted that the estimated figure of 1.2 million Rusyns given above refers to all people of the same linguistic and ethnographic origin, regardless of how they designate themselves on documents such as internal identity papers, passports, or decennial censuses. Our concern here will be primarily with the present-day Rusyn movement or with that portion of the group (the precise numbers are unknown) that considers Rusyns to comprise a distinct people. Historical Background It is neither possible nor appropriate to provide here an extensive outline of Rusyn history. It is necessary, however, to keep a few historical factors in mind in order to comprehend the current �SLOVAKIA 39 situation. Rusyns never had their own state or political independence. Since the Middle Ages, the Rusyn homeland was ruled by Hungary and Poland or Austria. Nonetheless, during the past century and a half, they have at various times been recognized by neighboring or ruling states as having the right to a territorial entity whose existence was justified on the grounds that it was somehow of and for Rusyns and that it would have some degree of automony or self-rule. 3 The first experience in this regard came in late 1849, when in the wake of the failure of the Hungarian revolution, the Austrian government divided Hungary into five military and several civil districts. One of the civil districts (Ungvar/Uzhorod) was based in the Subcarpathian region and administered by local Rusyn political and cultural activists . This experiment was to last only a few months. Much more important was the period of political upheaval that followed World War I. At that time, in an effort to retain Rusyninhabited lands within Hungary, the new government in Budapest created, in December 1918, an autonomous Rusyn Land (Rus'ka Krajina) that continued to function even after a pro-Soviet Communist regime came to power in March 1919.4 Simultaneously, the recently-founded Czechoslovak government was also courting the Rusyns, offering them a self-governing province to be called Rusinsko (Rusinia), or Subcarpathian Rus' (Podkarpatska Rus), if they would join the Czechs and Slovaks in their new state. In May 1919, the Rusyns accepted the Czechoslovak offer. Most significantly, the Rusyn issue had reached the international political forum , so that "the fullest degree of self-government" for "Ruthene territory south of the Carpathians" was guaranteed by two international treaties at the Paris Peace Conference (St. Germain-en-Laye, September 10, 3 For further details on Rusyn political entities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, see Paul Robert Magocsi, The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus' 1848-1948 (Cambridge, Mass .: Harvard University Press, 1978) . pp 46-47, 93-95 , and 237-245. 4soviet-Marxist literature is fond of elaborating upon the 40 days of Soviet rule in Transcarpathia. Cf. Borys Spivak and Mychajlo Trojan, 40 nezabutnich dniv: z istoriji borot'by za vladu Rad na Zakarpatti v 1919 roci (Uzhorod: Karpaty, 1967). �40 SLOVAKIA 1919, and Trianon, June 4, 1920) and by the Czechoslovak constitution (February 29, 1920). For the next two decades the vast majority of Rusyns - approximately three-fourths the total number at the time - lived in Subcarpathian Rus, a territory that was Rusyn in name, that had its own Rusyn schools, and that had all the trappings of self-rule including a governor, a partially-elected diet, a national anthem, and a national theater. Finally, in late 1938, actual autonomy was granted to Subcarpathian Rus' (by then renamed Carpatho-Ukraine). Not only had autonomy been demanded by local politicians, it was also one of the provisions of the infamous Munich Pact, which led to the restructuring of Czechoslovakia. The Carpatho-Ukraine was to function for nearly half a year until the complete liquidation of what remained of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. The twentieth century also witnessed three short-lived efforts at Rusyn independence. The first of these came in 1919, when after being unsuccessful in their bid to join fellow Rusyns south of the mountains, the Lernkos living in the former Austrian province of Galicia created an independent republic that functioned for sixteen months before its government was arrested in March 1920, by the authorities of Poland, which became the new ruler over Rusyn lands north of the Carpathians.5 At the same time, along the eastern edge of Subcarpathian territory a regional ethnic group known as Hutsuls established their own republic which lasted four months (FebruaryJune 1919) before being driven out by troops from Romania. The last unsuccessful attempt came two decades later, when the Carpatho-Ukrainian autonomous government declared symbolically its independence on the last day of Czechoslovakia's existence (March 15, 1939) before the province was invaded and reannexed to Hungary .6 The point is that although Rusyns may never have had their 5 On the little-known Lemko Republic and its relationship to political thought in the western Ukrainian lands, see Paul Robert Magocsi,"The Ukrainian Question Between Poland and Czechoslovakia: The Lernko Rusyn Republic (1918-1920) and Political Thought in Western Rus'-Ukraine," Nationalities Papers (New York, forthcoming) . 6 Ukrainian-oriented emigres from Carpatho-Ukraine have put great stress on the �SLOVAKIA 41 own state, they did have for a significant period of time in the twentieth century the experience - and therefore historical memory - of their own political entity, Subcarpathian Rus', which was recognized both by the state in which they lived (Czechoslovakia) and by the international community (Paris Peace Conference, League of Nations). Although the Rusyn homeland is located in the geographical center of Europe, it is at the same time along a cultural borderland. It is along that great divide between the Catholic West and Orthodox East, what Riccardo Picchio has classified in the broadest cultural terms as Slavia romana and Slavia orthodoxa.7 Located where they are, this division has had a profound effect on the Rusyn psyche. The very language or series of dialects that Rusyns speak reflect the influences of both cultural spheres. Thus, while their speech clearly belongs to the realm of East Slavic languages, much of their vocabulary, pronounciational stress, and even syntax is West Slavic. The cultural divide is most graphically evident in what is for traditional Rusyn culture the all-important factor of religion. Some Rusyns are Orthodox, but the majority, at least during the past two centuries, is Catholic, or more precisely Greek Catholic. These confessional differences reflect a whole mind-set that is either western - or eastern-oriented. The eastern mind-set tends to surrender the self to fate in the hope that the Christian God and his intercessors, Christ and the Virgin Mary, might somehow alleviate the burdens of this earthly life. In contrast, the western mind-set seems March I 5, I 939 declaration of independence, arguing that it revealed how the Ukrainian orientation had supposedly won the hearts and minds of the entire population even before the Soviets arrived in the region in late 1944 . Cf. Peter G. Stercho, Diplomacy of Double Morality: Europe's Crossroads in Carpatho- Ukraine , 1919-1939 (New York: Carpathian Research Centre , 1971) . This view is also being promoted in the Ukraine since the onset of the Gorbachev era. See the minutes of the RUCH meeting held in the former Carpathi-Ukrainian capitol of Chust to coincide with the 52nd anniversary of the one-day of independence: "4 sesija Velykoji Rady Ruchu," Visnyk Ruchu, no . 4 (Kiev, 1990). 7Riccardo Picchio, "Guidelines for the Comparative Study of the Language Question Among the Slavs," in Aspects of the Slavic Language Question, Vol.I, ed. Riccardo Picchio and Harvey Goldblatt (New Haven , Conn .: Yale Concilium on International and Area Studies, 1984), pp. 1-42. �42 SLOVAKIA to feel that if an individual receives education or political training, he or she can somehow put their lives in order and, therefore, be able to have some control over destiny . The east-west dichotomy in the Rusyn psyche also impinges on attitudes toward nationai identity. The eastern orientation tends to think in universalistic terms and be satisfied with viewing Rusyns as part of a single East Slavic Orthodox religious and cultural world. The western orientation - epitomized by the very distinctiveness of Greek Catholics from other Catholics - accepts the idea of national and linguistic particularity. Universalism versus particularism are attitudes that greatly influenced Rusyn political and cultural leaders , especially regarding the nationality question. Being a stateless people, Rusyns have had, at least until the second half of the twentieth century , to depend on their leaders, the intelligentsia, to determine the precise direction of their national revival . The Rusyn national revival began during the second half of the nineteenth century and culminated during the interwar years, by which time it had evolved into a comprehensive movement concerned with political, cultural, and social issues. Most of the nationalist intelligentsia did agree on one basic premise: that Rusyns are East Slavs and that their linguistic and cultural traditions were based in the east, albeit with pronounced western influences. What they could not agree upon, however, was whether Rusyns were a branch of the Russian nationality, or of the Ukrainian nationality, or whether they formed a distinct fourth East Slavic Rusyn nationality. Not surprisingly, debates about national and linguistic orientation quickly became caught up in local partisan politics. Politicians had their own agendas, and they more often than not made opportunistic use of the nationality question in order to promote party or other ideological interests. As for the nationalist intelligentsia, they easily fulfilled the precepts of all activists in the formative stages of national movements. Namely, they had no difficulty using history to formulate an ideology that was able to convince people they were either Russian, �SLOVAKIA 43 Ukrainian, or Rusyn. 8 The debate over the national orientation of the Rusyns was not yet resolved before the outbreak of World War II, despite the achievements during the interwar years of the Ukrainian orientation in the largest Rusyn territory , Subcarpathian Rus' (Carpath~Ukraine). In a sense, the year 1939 marked an end to the natural evolution of discussions about a Rusyn nationality. This is because beginning in that year and lasting for half a century, the nationality debate was effectively stifled by state intervention. This happened first under fascist regimes in Hungary(which reannexed Subcarpathian Rus'), in Slovakia (which retained the Presov Region), and in the Germanruled Generalgouvernement (which ruled the Lemko Region); and then as a result of Soviet rule after 1945, whether directly in Subcarpathian Rus' (renamed Transcarpathian Ukraine) or through proSoviet Communist governments in Poland and Czechoslovakia. As is well known, the Communist era with its anti-democratic approach to the nationality question was to last until the revolutions of 1989 and 1991. The only exception was the case of the small group of Rusyns in the Vojvodina region of Yugoslavia. Although a Communist regime was installed in their land as well, the Yugoslav government allowed the Vojvodinian Rusyns to decide their own national orientation. This was not to be the case for the Rusyns living in the Carpathian homeland. In short, the Soviet regime declared that further debate was unnecessary because the nationality question had supposedly been resolved long ago. Based on a decision made by the Communist party (Bolshevik) of the Ukraine taken in December 8Generally, the Russian-oriented intelligentsia, or Russophiles, were Orthodox adherents or sympathizers who believed in the unity of Eastern Slavic Christian culture represented by three branches of the East Slavs - Great Russians , Belorussians, and Little Russians (including Carpatho-Rusyns) - all considered to be part of one common Russian (ob§cerusskiJ) nationality . The Ukrainian--0riented and Rusyn--0riented intelligentsias were western--0riented Greek Catholics who believed in various degrees of national and/or regional differentiation - the Ukrainophiles arguing for the unity of one people that stretched "from the Carpathians to the Caucasus"; the Rusynophiles arguing that the Rus' population in the Carpathians (from the Poprad to Tysa rivers) comprises a separate people. �44 SLOVAKIA 1925, all Rusyns , regardless what they may have called themselves, were declared to be Ukrainians. Any who opposed the Ukrainian viewpoint were accused of having "anti-historical" and, therefore, "anti-Soviet" opinions; they often were removed from their jobs; and they might even have been arrested as "counterrevolutionaries." Closely connected with these developments was the liquidation first in Soviet Transcarpathia (1949) and then in Czechoslovakia (1950) of the Greek Catholic Church, which by the mid-twentieth century had become the stronghold of the Rusyn orientation. When Communist regimes were established in Poland (1945) and Czechoslovakia (1948), they adapted the Soviet line and decreed that the Ru syn minorities within their borders were Ukrainians. They forbade Rusyn publications and the use of the name Rusyn in official documents. The situation was particularly bad in Poland. Not only were the Lemko Rusyns declared to be Ukrainians, they were forcibly deported en masse from their Carpathian homeland in 1947 and scattered throughout the former German lands of post-1945 western and northern Poland.9 It is ironic to note the advantages that accrued to the governments in question through their use - or, more properly, misuse - of the name Ukrainian. For example, by declaring that the population was Ukrainian, this allowed the Soviet Union to justify the annexation in 1945 of Subcarpathian Rus', a territory that throughout the war it had agreed should be returned to Czechoslovakia. Nationalist ideology could now conveniently serve Stalin's political designs on the international stage. In any case, how could the Soviet worker's state refuse the request of fellow "Ukrainian workers" in Transcarpathia who "voluntarily" were demanding to be united with the "Mother Ukraine"? 9 The actual deportations took place in two phases. Between 1945 and 1946, about 200,000 Lemko Rusyns "voluntarily" took up the offer to resettle eastward in the Ukraine in exchange for Poles who moved west within the new postwar boundaries of Poland . The remaining 80,000 Lemko Rusyns , mostly in the western Lemko region , were forcibly deported in 1947 . For details, see Kazimierz Pudlo , Lemkowie: process wrastania w ~rodowisko Dolnego Sl{lska, 1947-1985 (Wroclaw: Polskie Towarszystwo Ludoznawcze, 1987), esp . pp. 24-34. �SLOVAKIA 45 In neighboring Poland, identification of Lemkos as Ukrainians made it easier for the government to deport them, since the Communist Polish government argued that, as "Ukrainians," the Lemkos were helping the anti-Communist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) under Stepan Bandera, which was held up in the Carpathians and still fighting the Polish and Soviet authorities after the end of World War II. South of the mountains in Czechoslovakia, the administrative imposition of a Ukrainian identity beginning in 1952 proved to be advantageous to those Slovaks who had always claimed that "their Rusnaks" were really "Slovaks of the Greek Catholic faith. 1110 In essence, forced Ukrainianization (combined with the liquidation of the local Greek Catholic Church and forced collectivization of peasant land) led during the 1950s and 1960s to the most rapid degree of Slovakization and national assimilation that Rusyns had ever experienced. It is nonetheless true that during this same period, the Czechoslovak government provided extensive funding to create a wide range of cultural organizations that were Ukrainian in national form but socialist in content. A well-paid local Ukrainian intelligentsia was even able to attain several significant scholarly and literary achievements. However, this had little real effect upon the Rusyn peasant masses in Slovakia. For them, the choice was simple: if one could not be a Rusyn, better declare oneself a Slovak than a Ukrainian (which among other things was associated with the hated East). Once again Yugoslavia was the exception. The government there provided both funding and legal guarantees, while the local intelligentsia decided to adopt a Rusyn orientation and to develop the local speech into a sociologically-complete Rusyn literary language. In fact, Rusyns became one of the five official nationalities in the lO Beginning already in 1945, new Rusyn political and cultural organizations carried the name Ukrainian . However, despite their name, they paradoxically functioned using Russian or vernacular Rusyn as the language of instruction and communication. In 1952, a decree of the Communist Party of Slovakia initiated a policy of Ukrainianization that banned use of the term Rusyn and replaced Russian with Ukrainian as the language of instruction in schools . For details, see Pavel Macu, "National Assimilation: The Case of the Rusyn-Ukrainians of Czechoslovakia," East-Central Europe, II, 2 (Pittsburgh, 1975), pp. 101-131. �46 SLOVAKIA autonomous province of the Vojvodina. Yet Yugoslavia was the exception that proved the rule. And the rule was that after 1945, Rusyns ceased to exist. All Soviet, Czechoslovak, and Polish documents and publications referred to the population only as Ukrainian.1 1 Publications in the West, both by Ukrainian emigre and North American Soviet and East European specialists, also accepted the view that Rusyns did not exist, or to quote the New Columbia Encyclopedia (1975): "There is no ethnic or linguistic distinction between Ukrainians and Ruthenians [Rusyns] ." "The majority of the population [of Transcarpathia] is Ukrainian." 12 The Current Situation Then came the 1980s. The first signs of change came in Poland, where the Lemko Rusyns - both those who were dispersed in the "West" of that country as well as about 10,000 who had managed to return to the Carpathian homeland - began to gather at annual cultural festivals. These "unofficial" festivals received no government financial support, but by the same token they were not under any ideological control. As a result, the Lemkos began to revive the idea that they were neither Poles nor Ukrainians, but rather part of a distinct Slavic people closely related to Rusyns living south of the mountains in Slovakia. The Lemkos seemed to be acting in isolation and for several years that was , indeed, the case.1 3 Later came the changes brought about by the November 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. New initiative committees were founded that were often dominated by individuals who had not 11 Whereas the idea of a Rusyn nationality in the Carpathians was not recognized by schools and official circles in the Soviet Union and its satellite countries, they have recognized the Rusyns (Rusnaks) of Yugoslavia as a distinct ethnic group with its own literary language . Cf. A.E. Suprun and A .M. Kaljuta, Vvedenie v slavjanskuju filologiju (Minsk: Vy§ej§aja §kola, 1981), pp . 137-139. 12 "Ruthenia," in the New Columbia Encyclopedia , ed. William H. Harris and Judith S. Levey, eds. (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1975), p. 2383. l3 On the Lemko-Rusyn revival, see the series of articles in the Carpatho-Rusyn American, X and XI (Fairview, NJ ., 1987-88). �SLOVAKIA 47 been associated with the Communist regime. At first, the initiative committees tried to transform (they would say democratize) the older Ukrainian organizations, but when that failed they established their own Rusyn organizations and publications. At the very same time, in neighboring Transcarpathia, the first Rusyn-oriented organization to exist anywhere in Carpathian Rus' since World War II was established in February 1990 in the oblast's administrative center of Uzhorod. Known as the Society of Carpatho-Rusyns (Tovarystvo Karpats'kych Rusyniv) and with branches throughout Transcarpathia, its goals were at first of a cultural and ecological nature - to promote and preserve knowledge of local history and customs. But before long, the Society moved on to political demands, in particular the recognition of Rusyn as a distinct nationality and the return of the autonomous status of Subcarpathian Rus', a status which they argued was illegally taken away in 1945. Before 1990 came to a close, a total of five new Rusyn organizations had come into existence where Rusyns live. Aside from the Society of Carpatho-Rusyns in Ukrainian Transcarpathia were the Rusyn Renaissance Society (Rusyns'ka Obroda) in Medzilaborce, Czechoslovakia (est. March 1990); the Lemko Association (Stovarysynja Lemkiv) in Legnica, Poland (est. April 1990); the Society of Friends of Subcarpathian Rus' (Spolecnost pratel Podkarpatske Rusi) in Prague (est. October 1990); and the Ruska Matka (Rusyn Matka) in Ruski Kerestur, Yugoslavia (est. December 1990). By the spring of 1991, a sixth one was established, this time in Hungary: the Rusyn Organization in Hungary (Magyarorszagi Ruszinok Szervezete) in Budapest (est. May 1991). Most of these organizations have their own Rusyn-language newspaper or magazine, 14 or they have access to existing publications. All five organizations have put forth basically the same demands: that Rusyns be recognized as a distinct nationality; that a Rusyn literary language be codified and eventually be used in schools as a medium of instruction; and that 14 These include: Besida (Legnica, Poland, 1989-present); Otcyj chram (Uzhorod, 1990-91); Podkarpatski Rus (Prague, 1991-present); Rusyn (Medzilaborce , Czechoslovakia, 1990-present); Narodny novyntj (Pre§ov, 1991-present). �48 SLOVAKIA Rusyns be guaranteed full rights as a national minority in the countries where they live or, in the case of Transcarpathia, that Rusyns be recognized as the dominant indigenous nationality. As in all new or revived movements, the Rusyn orientation must first be able to make itself known to the constituency it purports to represent. This is inherently problematic, because with the exception of Yugoslavia, nowhere do Rusyns control the local media. Their message, or at least an awareness of their movement's existence, has been helped less by their own publications than by the fierce polemics that have filled the non-Rusyn press in Poland, former Czechoslovakia, and most especially former Soviet Transcarpathia. This is because from the moment the first Rusyn activity began, local pro-Ukrainian activists attacked the Rusyn orientation as "anachronistic," "ahistorical," "unenlightened," "in the service of American imperialists," and "treacherous" to the Ukrainian nation. 15 As a result, more attention of a semi-sensationalist journalistic nature was given the Rusyn problem than might otherwise have been the case. The Czech and Slovak press also paid much - although more rational - attention to the Rusyn-Ukrainian debate, especially in the context of the nationality question that concerned Czechoslovak society as a whole. Whatever latent isolation Rusyn leaders in their respective countries may have still felt was overcome in March 1991, when, at the initiative of the Rusyn Renaissance Society, the first World Congress of Rusyns was convened in Medzilaborce, Czechoslovakia. Indeed, despite a history of interaction between Rusyn communities in the homeland as well as the immigration in America during the twentieth century, this was, in fact, the first time representatives from all countries where Rusyns live (Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, 15 The best (or worst) examples of the anti-Rusyn polemical attacks comes from scholars in the former Soviet Ukrainian intellectual establishment: Pavlo Cucka, "Kak rusiny stali ukraincami," Zakarpatskaja pravda (U:lhorod), September 12-16, 1989; Vasyl' Mel'nyk, "Neorusynstvo i joho interpretatory," Zakarpats'ka pravda (U:lhorod), August 18, 21, 22, 24, 1990; Jurij Balega, "Rusynstvo: ideolohy i pokrovyteli," ibid., September 6,7 ,9, 1990; and Oleksa Myfanyc, "To chto :le vony?: do idejnych vytokiv novitn'oho 'karpatorusynstva'," Literatuma Ukrajina (Kiev), January 17, 1991. �SLOVAKIA 49 Yugoslavia, the United States) gathered together in one place. The congress constituted itself as a permanent umbrella organization, and its very existence had an enormous impact on instilling Rusyn national pride in the over 300 persons who attended, not to mention innumerable others who read about it through the generally widespread press coverage.1 6 It is interesting to note that one week after the congress took place, Czechoslovakia conducted its decennial census in which people for the first time since World War II had the right to answer that they were of Rusyn nationality. Despite problems with the manner in which the nationality questionwas asked and subsequently classified, in Slovakia 17,000 persons responded they were Rusyns as compared to 14,000 Ukrainians. 17 This raises the question of numbers. Observers will legitimately ask just how many people identify as Rusyns? And even among those who do respond Rusyn, does use of such a term necessarily mean they are denying a possible simultaneous identification as Ukrainians? At this point, there is no way to know the precise answers to those questions. All we know is that in Slovakia, when given a chance in March 1991, of those people of East Slavic background who did not identify as Slovak and who had the choice between a Rusyn or Ukrainian identity, 55 percent chose Rusyn. As for the number of Rusyns in Poland and Ukrainian Transcarpathia, we simply do not know at this stage, nor do we have any indications, such as census data, scientific polling, or membership in political parties, that might help to provide a reasonable estimate. What we can be certain of, however, is that after forty years of Communist rule, Rusyns have not gone away. Today, there are Rusyn organizations, Rusyn publications, and a relatively wide range of writers, teachers, professionals, and peasants who continue to articulate in the press and at public manifestations their belonging 16 Information on the First World Congress as well as its official declaration are found in the Carpatho--Rusyn American , XIV, 2 and 3 (Fairview, NJ., 1991). pp . 7-9 and 8-9. 17 Mykola Mu§ynka, "Skil'ky rusyniv-ukrajinciv u Slovaccyni? ," Svoboda (Jersey City, NJ.), July 19, 1991. �50 SLOVAKIA to a distinct Rusyn people.1 8 Protection for Rusyns in the Future As with many minorities, the future of their survival depends on the willingness of the governments in the states where they live to provide them with adequate legal protection and perhaps financial assistance for their national development. In this regard, the Rusyns need to inform and constantly to remind the international community that they exist. In tum, Rusyns should be able to expect that the international community will monitor their status and, if necessary, put pressure on the governments of the Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia, in order to ensure that their national rights are protected. In fact, all four states in which Rusyns live have already ratified several agreements pertaining to national minorities at recent meetings of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Of particular importance for Rusyns were the decisions reached in·June 1990 at the Copenhagen meeting of the CSCE .. At Copenhagen it was agreed that "to belong to a national minority is a matter of a person's individual choice and no disadvantage may arise from the exercise of such choice." Moreover, "persons belonging to national minorities can exercise and enjoy their rights individually as well as in community with other members of their group. 1119 This means that regardless how scholars or governments might define Rusyns, if there are individuals and/or groups who call themselves by that name and who believe they constitute a distinct natio18 Among the best known of these to date are: in Transcarpathia , the writers Volodymyr Fedyny§ynec', Ivan Petrovcij, and Vasylij Socka, and the political activists Mychajlo Tomcanij, Petro Hodma§, and Vasyl' Zajac; in Czechoslovakia, the head of the Rusyn Renaissance Society, Vasyl' Turok, and the advisor to the Slovak government on nationality affairs, Ivan Bicko, and the editor Aleksander Zozuljak; in Poland, the poets Petro Trochanovskij and Olena Due , and the head of the Lemko Association , Andrij Kopca; and in Yugoslavia, the director of the Ruske Slovo publishing house, Ljubomir Medje§i, and the writers Djura Papharhaj and Natalja Duda§. 19 Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE (Copenhagen, 1990), pp. 40--41, paragraphs 32 and 32.6. �SLOVAKIA 51 nality , they have a right to do so and to be recognized as Rusyns by the governments of the countries in which they live. The Copenhagen agreement also recognized the role of non-governmental organizations in promoting the interests of national minorities, and it called on the participating states to assure that the teaching of history and culture in the educational establishments "will also take account of the history and culture of national minorities. 1120 At a follow-up CSCE meeting in Geneva (July 1991), member states accepted the provisions of a special report which guaranteed the right of national minorities to participate in non-governmental organizations outside their country of residence. The report reaffirmed as well the principle that individuals or organizations representing national minorities be allowed "unimpeded contacts ... across frontiers ... with persons with whom they share a common ethnic or national origin." 21 Finally, at the most recent CSCE meeting held in Moscow (September-October 1991), member states reaffirmed the agreements reached at all previous meetings and agreed further that "commitments undertaken in the field of the human dimension of the CSCE [including those pertaining to national minorities] are matters of direct legitimate concern to all participating States and do not belong exclusively to the internal affairs of the State concemed." 22 Before looking specifically at what Rusyns need in each country to protect and guarantee their future existence, it is necessary to clarify the issue of international boundaries. In the Carpathian homeland, Rusyns live within the borders of three states, and at least until late 1992 there was discussion in the Czech , Slovak, and Transcarpathian press about certain political activists who demanded the return of Ukraine's Transcarpathian oblast (historic Subcarpathian Rus') to Czechoslovakia. 23 There was even talk that Transcarpathia 20 Ibid., p. 41 , paragraph 34. 21 Report of the CSCE Meeting of Experts on National Minorities (Geneva , 1991) , p. 10 . 22 Document of the Moscow Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE (Moscow, 1991 ), p. 2. 23 The Republican party in Czechoslovakia led by Dr. Miroslav SIMek had as one of its goals the "return of Subcarpathian Rus"' to Czechoslovakia. "Zpl!t do Ceskoslovenska," Republika (Prague), October 18-24, 1990; "Rozhovor s pi'edsedou SPR- �52 SLOVAKIA might be returned to Hungary or divided between Hungary and Czechoslovakia. In fact, most of these propositions were little more than the speculations of individuals that were blown out of proportion by political rivals and by journalists seeking to report a good story .24 The Czecho--Slovak federal government publicly declared that it "cannot be concerned with the fate" of Transcarpathia.25 With the end of Czechoslovakia in December 1992, the question of unification has become moot. As for the Rusyn organizations that have come into existence in 1990, none of them nor the World Congress of Rusyns that met in 1991 has ever voiced any demand for border changes. On the contrary, all the new organizations as well as· the vast majority of Rusyn spokespersons wherever they live warn against tampering with existing international boundaries. On the other hand, the Society of Carpatho--Rusyns in Transcarpathia has called openly for the return of the status of automony that Subcarpathian Rus' did enjoy during the interwar years. 26 In order to determine the views of the local population, the society, joined by other minority organizations, called for a question on Transcarpathian autonomy to be added to the referendum on Ukrainian indeRS, Ph Dr. Miroslavem Shidkem," ibid., August, 1991. The head of the National Socialist party, C. Cejka, stated that Czechoslovak jurisdiction still applies to Subcarpathian Rus' . "NSS chtc!jf Podkarpatskou Rus, "Lidova demokracie (Prague), September 3, 1991. 24 Jaromfr Hoi'ec of the Society of Friends of Subcarpathian Rus' in Prague and wellknown publicist has written about the recent political activism in Transcarpathia in numerous articles in the Czech press, which imply that the local population would be sympathetic to re-unification with Czechoslovakia. Cf. his recent articles in Lidova demokracie (Prague): "Freedom for Subcarpathian Rus"' (September 7, 1991); "Czechs in Subcarpathia" (September 18, 1991); and "Subcarpathia Calls For an Independent Republic" (September 20, 1991). The Hungarian press has also followed closely the demands for Transcarpathian autonomy: "Ruszin koztlirsaslig Klirplitaljlin, "Magyar hfrlap (Budapest), September 10, 1991; "A ruszinok kovetelese: Jegyen Klirplitalja koztlirsaslig! , "Nap/6 (Debrecen), September 3, 1991. 25 The quote is attributed to Czechoslovakia's foreign minister, Jiff Dienstbier, in "Svobodu pro Podkarpatskou Rus," Lidova demokracie, September 9, 1991. 26 The text of the declaration, which was sent to the Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev , to the Supreme Soviets of the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR, and to the United Nations, appeared first in the Society's newspaper, Otey} chram (SeptemberOctober, 1990) . It is available in English translation in the Carpatho-Rusyn American, XIV, 1 (Fairview , NJ., 1991), pp 4-5 . �SLOVAKIA 53 pendence that was held on December 1, 1991 .27 There was a large voter tum-out, with 92.6 percent favoring Ukrainian independence and 78 percent self-rule for Transcarpathia. 28 The issue of Transcarpathian autonomy elicited great interest in neighboring countries, although this is, in fact, an internal issue for whatever kind of government and state structure is finally established in what until recently was the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. In short, Transcarpathia has been and should for the foreseeable future remain a part of Ukraine. However, as a sovereign member of the international community, Ukraine must, in tum, guarantee the individual and corporate rights of Rusyns - or those citizens of Ukraine who wish to call themselves Rusyns. It is true that the Ukrainian government has already provided guarantees for national minorities living on its territory: Russians, Jews, Poles, Germans, Tatars, etc. To this list must be added Rusyns. This would mean that the "official," or one might say traditional, Ukrainian view of the Rusyns has to change. Namely, Ukrainian authorities must accept the fact that within its boundaries, primarily in its Transcarpathian oblast, there are people who define themselves as Rusyns in the sense of a nationality distinct from Ukrainians. Such people should have the right to declare themselves in their passports and internal documents as Rusyns, and the state census bureau should publish data on the number of persons who identify as Rusyns and not simply classify them - as has been done until now - as Ukrainians. 29 If such guarantees are 27 "Rezoljucija mityngu Tovarystva Karpats'kych Rusyniv z pytannja nacional'noho vidrod!ennja rusyns'koho narodu i vidnovlennja statusu Pidkarpats'koho kraju , Mukacevo, 01.09.1991," Molod' Zakarpattja (Uzhorod), September 14, 1991, p. 4. 28 Paul Robert Magocsi, "Rusyns Regain Their Autonomy," Ukrainian Canadian Herald (Toronto), March 16, 1992, p. 7. 29 Soviet guidelines used by the State Committee for Statistics in order to classify answers in the census reports were determined largely on recommendations from authorities in individual republics as well as from the Institute of Ethnography and the Institute of Linguistics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. SeeSJovari nacional'nostej i jazykov dlja kodirovanija otvetov na 8 i 9 voprosy perepisnych Jistov (Moscow: Gosudarstvennyj komitet SSSR po statistike, 1988). It is interesting to note that a recent report by the Institute of Ethnography (No. 14110/2171, dated February 6, 1990) stated: "It is theoretically possible to con- �54 SLOVAKIA provided, there is no reason why Rusyns in Transcarpathia could not remain Rusyns as well as function as full-fledged citizens of a sovereign and democratic Ukrainian state. Indeed, independent Ukraine has recently become a member of the Conference in Security and Cooperation in Europe, which obliges it to accept and implement the principles of the Copenhagen and other agreements on national minorities outlined above. Following the trend that has taken hold in the former Soviet Union, it would seem desirable that the new Ukrainian state become a decentralized entity in which each of its component regions would have a large degree of automony in economic and cultural matters .30 Thus, questions such as what language might be taught in elementary schools, or what kind of national orientation should be adopted by regional cultural and educational institutions, or what amount of funding might be given to Rusyn-oriented groups, are all decisions that would be made by the people's assembly in Uzhorod and not in Kiev. Of course, it goes without saying that the free movement of peoples across borders with neighboring Rusyn regions in Slovakia and Poland must be guaranteed. Fortunately, this possibility exists already, albeit with a waiting time at border crossings that every day of the week averages between 15 and 20 hours. As for neighboring Slovakia, the situation of Rusyns, especially since the November 1989 Velvet Revolution, is much better than in either Ukrainian Transcarpathia or Poland. Initially, the Slovak government (generally through its Ministry of Culture) and the former Czecho-Slovak federal government (through allotment of discretionary funds) provided only ad hoc grants to the new Rusyn organizations and publications. Normal budgetary allotments of the Slovak government intended for its East Slavic Rusyn/Ukrainian elude that Rusyns can be considered at the same level as Russians , Ukrainians , and Belorussians, and that they are not a part of any of those groups ." (document in the author's possession) . 30 Discussions regarding the restructuring of the Ukraine have been going on for the past few years . Neighbouring Galicia as well as Transcarpathia feel confident that each could do much better economically if it were independent of the centre in Kiev . Cf. Ivan Hrancak, "Vidnovleni haluzky karpats'koho kraju : Ukrajina federatyvna?," No vyny Zakarpattja (Uzhorod), February 6, 1991 . �SLOVAKIA 55 minority continued to go to the Union of Rusyn-Ukrainians of Czechoslovakia (SRUC), that is, to the Ukrainian-oriented cultural organization that is the direct descendant (still with largely the same leadership) as the formerly Communist-dominated Cultural Union of Ukrainian Workers (KSUT). Slovak government funding through other ministries also supported in Presov several Ukrainian university departments and institutes at Safarik University , a Ukrainian radio station, and a Ukrainian publishing house, as well as the Museum of Ukrainian Culture (recently renamed the Aleksander Pavlovy Regional Museum) in Svidnik. As of 1993 , two Rusyn-oriented organizations also receive a normal budgetary allotment. These include the Aleksander Duchnovyc Theater (formerly the Ukrainian National Theater) which is of a Rusyn orientation and the Rusyn Renasissance Society (Rusyns'ka Obroda), both based in Presov. The Slovak government now recognizes that there are two clearly-defined national orientations - Rusyn and Ukrainian - and that if support for national minorities is to continue in Slovakia, then funding should be provided to Rusyn as well as Ukrainian organizations. But how should the government divide a financial allotment among its East Slavic minority, which until recently has been designated only as Ukrainian? The Slovak government has opted for what seems the most reasonable solution. It has accepted the percentages revealed in the results of the 1991 census, and, therefore, has provided roughly 50 percent financial support to Rusyn cultural organizations and media and 50 percent to Ukrainian cultural organizations, schools, and its media. The question of schools in Slovakia is particularly problematic, because beginning in the 1960s the language of instruction in the vast majority of Rusyn-inhabited villages was changed - at the request of parents themselves - from Ukrainian to Slovak. Moreover, as part of a consolidation process during the past two decades, many small elementary schools in Rusyn-inhabited villages were closed. Even if private or public elementary schools will be reopened in Rusyn villages, it is likely that Slovak will be the language of instruction. The Slovak ministry of education, however, should �56 SLOVAKIA provide teachers and textbooks in Rusyn or in Ukrainian for those villages that may submit such requests. Most important, the standard Slovak-language history textbooks used throughout Slovakia should include an adequate discussion of the history and culture of Rusyns and other minorities which will be of benefit to all students. This would be in keeping with the CSCE agreement reached in Copenhagen, which - along with other "international treaties on human rights and freedoms" - are, according to the new consitution of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, "universally binding on its territory and supercede its own laws."31 The Rusyns, or Lemko Rusyns of Poland perhaps need the most help. Not only is the majority of Lemko Rusyns scattered throughout the western and northern regions of Poland, but their fledgling pro-Rusyn organization, the Lemko Association with its amateur theatrical troupe, and the older Lemkovyna folk ensemble receive no financial support at all from the Polish government, either in the form of an annual budgetary allotment or ad hoc grants. Whatever government funds assigned to national minority cultural activity are given, they invariably go to the Union of Ukrainians in Poland (Ob'jednannja Ukrajinciv Pollsci), the direct descendant of the Communist-dominated Ukrainian Socio-Cultural Society (USKT). Support for the new Union of Ukrainians must continue, especially since most Ukrainians in Poland are not originally from nor do they live in the Carpathian region. On the otherhand, Lemko Rusyns must also be recognized as a distinct national minority and receive a fair share of funding. How to determine what is a "fair share" will, of course, be difficult, since Poland does not even have nationality as a category on its decennial census questionnaires. Perhaps a referendum attached to the next national vote could include a question that lists all the national groups in Poland and asks the respondent to which one he/she would wish to assign a portion of their taxes for cultural 31 Cf. Section 2 of the Constitutional Act of January 9, 1991, instituting the charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms as a Constitutional Act of the Federal Assembly of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic . �SLOVAK.IA 57 activity. This would be somewhat similar to municipalities in Canada that ask their residents to indicate whether they want their tax dollars to be assigned to public schools or to separate (Catholic) schools. Whatever the mechanism decided upon, in keeping with its commitments as a member state of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Polish government is obliged to recognize Lernko Rusyns as a distinct national minority and to provide funding for Lernko cultural organizations and Lernko-language schools in those communities that demand them. Lastly, we turn to the situation in Yugoslavia. Ever since World War II, the Yugoslav policy of equality for its six component republics and support for the national minorities that live within them has encouraged the Croatian Republic and, in particular, the Vojvodina Autonomous Region of the Serbian Republic to finance liberally Rusyn cultural and educational activity. It is to be expected that when the republics of Yugoslavia sort out their present difficulties, the republics of Croatia and, in particular, Serbia will continue their judicious support and protection of their respective Rusyn minorities. Conclusion The Rusyns are one example of the many groups who suffered under the totalitarian regimes imposed on East Central Europe during the past four decades. Now that those regimes no longer exist, there is a real opportunity to correct past injustices and to assure the future survival of the Rusyns. It is, after all, in the interest of all four countries where Rusyns live - Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia - to become part of the larger European community. The way in which those countries resolve the Rusyn issue will, in part, determine to what degree they are ready for membership in the new Europe. ��SYMPOSIUM �� SLOVAKIA 36 Carpatho-Rusyns: Their Current Status And Future Perspectives PAUL ROBERT MAGOSCI Who Are The Rusyns? In 1875, geographers from the old Hungarian Kingdom erected a monument in a remote region of their country that carried the following inscription: "Precise instruments have confirmed this point where the latitude and longitude lines meet as the center of Europe." 1 Just over a century later, in 1977, the former Soviet authorities, who had by then ruled the area, erected a second monument to mark the center of the continent that stretches from the Arctic shores of Norway in the north to the beaches of Crete in the south, and from the coast of Ireland in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east. The precise center where the monuments are located is near the village of Dilove (formerly Trebusany) in the foothills of the northcentral Carpathian Mountains that from time immemorial has been inhabited by an East Slavic people called Carpatho-Rusyns, or simply Rusyns (sometimes in English: Ruthenians). Thus, in geographic terms, the Rusyns are not a peripheral group, but rather one whose homeland - Carpathian Rus 1 - is located literally in the heart of Europe. According to present day international boundaries, Rusyns live in more or less compact territory within the boundaries of four 1For a description, see Fedor Korecki, "Stredok Evropi-na Homjici," Nova dumka , VIII (21] (Vukovar, Yugoslavia, 1979), pp . 101-102. �SLOVAKIA 37 countries: Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, and Romania. There is also a small group of Rusyns in Yugoslavia, descendants of immigrants who left the Carpathian homeland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Statistical data on Rusyns is, depending on the country, inadequate or completely unavailable. Therefore, we can only speak in theoretical terms when discussing numbers . In theory, the number of Rusyns could be as high as 1.2 million people: 977 ,000 in the Transcarpathian oblast (former Subcarpathian Rus') of the Ukraine; 130,000 in the Presov Region of northeastern Slovakia; 60,000 in the Lemko Region of southeastern Poland as well as in other parts of that country; and 30,000 in the Vojvodina (Backa) and the Croatian republic of former Yugoslavia.2 The Problem of Nomenclature It is important to keep in mind what is meant by the term Rusyn. Traditionally, the name Rusyn, or its local variant Rusnak, has been used by the East Slavic inhabitants of the Carpathian region to describe themselves. However, by the twentieth century, in particular its second half, the historic names Rusyn/Rusnak were replaced by others, such as Ukrainian in Soviet Transcarpathia and the Presov Region of Slovakia, or Lemko in Poland . There are also Rusyns who have given up identifying with any East Slavic group, and instead associate with the dominant nationality of the country in which 2Since World War II, Rusyns were recorded in official statistics only in Yugoslavia (21,000 in 1991) , Romania (1,000 in 1977), and most recently in Slovakia (17 ,000 in 1991) . "Vojvodina u tisloch i slovoch," Ruski kalendar 1992 (Novi Sad , 1991), p. 38; Anuarul statistic al Romaniei 1990 (Bucharest, 1990), p. 64; Czech and Slovak Federal Republic: Preliminary Results of Population and Housing Census (Prague, 1991), pp . 30-3 I. There are also unconfirmed reports that the final published version of the 1991 Czecho-Slovak statistics will indicate 49,000 persons in Slovakia who reported Rusyn as their mother tongue . As for the estimates given here, the figure for the Transcarpathian oblast refers to persons in that region who in the 1991 Ukrainian census were reported as Ukrainian (the term Rusyn when given by a respondant is recorded as Ukrainian). The estimates for Slovakia and Poland are from: Paul Robert Magocsi , The Rusyns of Slovakia (New York, 1993), p. 1-2 and 111-112; and his Historical Atlas of East Central Europe (Seattle , 1993) , p. 131. �38 SLOVAKIA they live, such as Polish in Poland or Slovak in Slovakia. These changes in national self-designation have in some cases come gradually , prompted either by intellectual conviction or by national assimilation, especially among families of nationally-mixed parentage. In the latter case, children often choose to identify - or are identified by their parents - with the dominant state nationality, Slovak or Polish. More often, however, the change in nomenclature has been the result of governmental decree in which the name Rusyn was banned from official usage, as was the case after 1945 in Soviet Transcarpathia and Poland and by the early 1950s in Czechoslovakia. The result is that today one can find within the same ethnolinguistic group, within the same village, in some cases even within the same family, people who will identify as a Rusyn, or a Lemko, or a Ukrainian, or a Slovak, or a Pole. Moreover, in the case of the East Slavic designations - Rusyn/Rusnak, Lemko, Ukrainian - some people consider these as synonyms, others as mutually-exclusive terms. In other words, some people will say that Rusyn is simply the older historic name for Ukrainian, and that Lemko is a regional name of Ukrainian, while others are convinced that the names Lemko or Rusnak are regional forms for Rusyn which, in tum, designates a people that is distinct from the Ukrainian and every other surrounding nationality. It should be noted that the estimated figure of 1.2 million Rusyns given above refers to all people of the same linguistic and ethnographic origin, regardless of how they designate themselves on documents such as internal identity papers, passports, or decennial censuses. Our concern here will be primarily with the present-day Rusyn movement or with that portion of the group (the precise numbers are unknown) that considers Rusyns to comprise a distinct people. Historical Background It is neither possible nor appropriate to provide here an extensive outline of Rusyn history. It is necessary, however, to keep a few historical factors in mind in order to comprehend the current �SLOVAKIA 39 situation. Rusyns never had their own state or political independence. Since the Middle Ages, the Rusyn homeland was ruled by Hungary and Poland or Austria. Nonetheless, during the past century and a half, they have at various times been recognized by neighboring or ruling states as having the right to a territorial entity whose existence was justified on the grounds that it was somehow of and for Rusyns and that it would have some degree of automony or self-rule. 3 The first experience in this regard came in late 1849, when in the wake of the failure of the Hungarian revolution, the Austrian government divided Hungary into five military and several civil districts. One of the civil districts (Ungvar/Uzhorod) was based in the Subcarpathian region and administered by local Rusyn political and cultural activists . This experiment was to last only a few months. Much more important was the period of political upheaval that followed World War I. At that time, in an effort to retain Rusyninhabited lands within Hungary, the new government in Budapest created, in December 1918, an autonomous Rusyn Land (Rus'ka Krajina) that continued to function even after a pro-Soviet Communist regime came to power in March 1919.4 Simultaneously, the recently-founded Czechoslovak government was also courting the Rusyns, offering them a self-governing province to be called Rusinsko (Rusinia), or Subcarpathian Rus' (Podkarpatska Rus), if they would join the Czechs and Slovaks in their new state. In May 1919, the Rusyns accepted the Czechoslovak offer. Most significantly, the Rusyn issue had reached the international political forum , so that "the fullest degree of self-government" for "Ruthene territory south of the Carpathians" was guaranteed by two international treaties at the Paris Peace Conference (St. Germain-en-Laye, September 10, 3 For further details on Rusyn political entities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, see Paul Robert Magocsi, The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus' 1848-1948 (Cambridge, Mass .: Harvard University Press, 1978) . pp 46-47, 93-95 , and 237-245. 4soviet-Marxist literature is fond of elaborating upon the 40 days of Soviet rule in Transcarpathia. Cf. Borys Spivak and Mychajlo Trojan, 40 nezabutnich dniv: z istoriji borot'by za vladu Rad na Zakarpatti v 1919 roci (Uzhorod: Karpaty, 1967). �40 SLOVAKIA 1919, and Trianon, June 4, 1920) and by the Czechoslovak constitution (February 29, 1920). For the next two decades the vast majority of Rusyns - approximately three-fourths the total number at the time - lived in Subcarpathian Rus, a territory that was Rusyn in name, that had its own Rusyn schools, and that had all the trappings of self-rule including a governor, a partially-elected diet, a national anthem, and a national theater. Finally, in late 1938, actual autonomy was granted to Subcarpathian Rus' (by then renamed Carpatho-Ukraine). Not only had autonomy been demanded by local politicians, it was also one of the provisions of the infamous Munich Pact, which led to the restructuring of Czechoslovakia. The Carpatho-Ukraine was to function for nearly half a year until the complete liquidation of what remained of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. The twentieth century also witnessed three short-lived efforts at Rusyn independence. The first of these came in 1919, when after being unsuccessful in their bid to join fellow Rusyns south of the mountains, the Lernkos living in the former Austrian province of Galicia created an independent republic that functioned for sixteen months before its government was arrested in March 1920, by the authorities of Poland, which became the new ruler over Rusyn lands north of the Carpathians.5 At the same time, along the eastern edge of Subcarpathian territory a regional ethnic group known as Hutsuls established their own republic which lasted four months (FebruaryJune 1919) before being driven out by troops from Romania. The last unsuccessful attempt came two decades later, when the Carpatho-Ukrainian autonomous government declared symbolically its independence on the last day of Czechoslovakia's existence (March 15, 1939) before the province was invaded and reannexed to Hungary .6 The point is that although Rusyns may never have had their 5 On the little-known Lemko Republic and its relationship to political thought in the western Ukrainian lands, see Paul Robert Magocsi,"The Ukrainian Question Between Poland and Czechoslovakia: The Lernko Rusyn Republic (1918-1920) and Political Thought in Western Rus'-Ukraine," Nationalities Papers (New York, forthcoming) . 6 Ukrainian-oriented emigres from Carpatho-Ukraine have put great stress on the �SLOVAKIA 41 own state, they did have for a significant period of time in the twentieth century the experience - and therefore historical memory - of their own political entity, Subcarpathian Rus', which was recognized both by the state in which they lived (Czechoslovakia) and by the international community (Paris Peace Conference, League of Nations). Although the Rusyn homeland is located in the geographical center of Europe, it is at the same time along a cultural borderland. It is along that great divide between the Catholic West and Orthodox East, what Riccardo Picchio has classified in the broadest cultural terms as Slavia romana and Slavia orthodoxa.7 Located where they are, this division has had a profound effect on the Rusyn psyche. The very language or series of dialects that Rusyns speak reflect the influences of both cultural spheres. Thus, while their speech clearly belongs to the realm of East Slavic languages, much of their vocabulary, pronounciational stress, and even syntax is West Slavic. The cultural divide is most graphically evident in what is for traditional Rusyn culture the all-important factor of religion. Some Rusyns are Orthodox, but the majority, at least during the past two centuries, is Catholic, or more precisely Greek Catholic. These confessional differences reflect a whole mind-set that is either western - or eastern-oriented. The eastern mind-set tends to surrender the self to fate in the hope that the Christian God and his intercessors, Christ and the Virgin Mary, might somehow alleviate the burdens of this earthly life. In contrast, the western mind-set seems March I 5, I 939 declaration of independence, arguing that it revealed how the Ukrainian orientation had supposedly won the hearts and minds of the entire population even before the Soviets arrived in the region in late 1944 . Cf. Peter G. Stercho, Diplomacy of Double Morality: Europe's Crossroads in Carpatho- Ukraine , 1919-1939 (New York: Carpathian Research Centre , 1971) . This view is also being promoted in the Ukraine since the onset of the Gorbachev era. See the minutes of the RUCH meeting held in the former Carpathi-Ukrainian capitol of Chust to coincide with the 52nd anniversary of the one-day of independence: "4 sesija Velykoji Rady Ruchu," Visnyk Ruchu, no . 4 (Kiev, 1990). 7Riccardo Picchio, "Guidelines for the Comparative Study of the Language Question Among the Slavs," in Aspects of the Slavic Language Question, Vol.I, ed. Riccardo Picchio and Harvey Goldblatt (New Haven , Conn .: Yale Concilium on International and Area Studies, 1984), pp. 1-42. �42 SLOVAKIA to feel that if an individual receives education or political training, he or she can somehow put their lives in order and, therefore, be able to have some control over destiny . The east-west dichotomy in the Rusyn psyche also impinges on attitudes toward nationai identity. The eastern orientation tends to think in universalistic terms and be satisfied with viewing Rusyns as part of a single East Slavic Orthodox religious and cultural world. The western orientation - epitomized by the very distinctiveness of Greek Catholics from other Catholics - accepts the idea of national and linguistic particularity. Universalism versus particularism are attitudes that greatly influenced Rusyn political and cultural leaders , especially regarding the nationality question. Being a stateless people, Rusyns have had, at least until the second half of the twentieth century , to depend on their leaders, the intelligentsia, to determine the precise direction of their national revival . The Rusyn national revival began during the second half of the nineteenth century and culminated during the interwar years, by which time it had evolved into a comprehensive movement concerned with political, cultural, and social issues. Most of the nationalist intelligentsia did agree on one basic premise: that Rusyns are East Slavs and that their linguistic and cultural traditions were based in the east, albeit with pronounced western influences. What they could not agree upon, however, was whether Rusyns were a branch of the Russian nationality, or of the Ukrainian nationality, or whether they formed a distinct fourth East Slavic Rusyn nationality. Not surprisingly, debates about national and linguistic orientation quickly became caught up in local partisan politics. Politicians had their own agendas, and they more often than not made opportunistic use of the nationality question in order to promote party or other ideological interests. As for the nationalist intelligentsia, they easily fulfilled the precepts of all activists in the formative stages of national movements. Namely, they had no difficulty using history to formulate an ideology that was able to convince people they were either Russian, �SLOVAKIA 43 Ukrainian, or Rusyn. 8 The debate over the national orientation of the Rusyns was not yet resolved before the outbreak of World War II, despite the achievements during the interwar years of the Ukrainian orientation in the largest Rusyn territory , Subcarpathian Rus' (Carpath~Ukraine). In a sense, the year 1939 marked an end to the natural evolution of discussions about a Rusyn nationality. This is because beginning in that year and lasting for half a century, the nationality debate was effectively stifled by state intervention. This happened first under fascist regimes in Hungary(which reannexed Subcarpathian Rus'), in Slovakia (which retained the Presov Region), and in the Germanruled Generalgouvernement (which ruled the Lemko Region); and then as a result of Soviet rule after 1945, whether directly in Subcarpathian Rus' (renamed Transcarpathian Ukraine) or through proSoviet Communist governments in Poland and Czechoslovakia. As is well known, the Communist era with its anti-democratic approach to the nationality question was to last until the revolutions of 1989 and 1991. The only exception was the case of the small group of Rusyns in the Vojvodina region of Yugoslavia. Although a Communist regime was installed in their land as well, the Yugoslav government allowed the Vojvodinian Rusyns to decide their own national orientation. This was not to be the case for the Rusyns living in the Carpathian homeland. In short, the Soviet regime declared that further debate was unnecessary because the nationality question had supposedly been resolved long ago. Based on a decision made by the Communist party (Bolshevik) of the Ukraine taken in December 8Generally, the Russian-oriented intelligentsia, or Russophiles, were Orthodox adherents or sympathizers who believed in the unity of Eastern Slavic Christian culture represented by three branches of the East Slavs - Great Russians , Belorussians, and Little Russians (including Carpatho-Rusyns) - all considered to be part of one common Russian (ob§cerusskiJ) nationality . The Ukrainian--0riented and Rusyn--0riented intelligentsias were western--0riented Greek Catholics who believed in various degrees of national and/or regional differentiation - the Ukrainophiles arguing for the unity of one people that stretched "from the Carpathians to the Caucasus"; the Rusynophiles arguing that the Rus' population in the Carpathians (from the Poprad to Tysa rivers) comprises a separate people. �44 SLOVAKIA 1925, all Rusyns , regardless what they may have called themselves, were declared to be Ukrainians. Any who opposed the Ukrainian viewpoint were accused of having "anti-historical" and, therefore, "anti-Soviet" opinions; they often were removed from their jobs; and they might even have been arrested as "counterrevolutionaries." Closely connected with these developments was the liquidation first in Soviet Transcarpathia (1949) and then in Czechoslovakia (1950) of the Greek Catholic Church, which by the mid-twentieth century had become the stronghold of the Rusyn orientation. When Communist regimes were established in Poland (1945) and Czechoslovakia (1948), they adapted the Soviet line and decreed that the Ru syn minorities within their borders were Ukrainians. They forbade Rusyn publications and the use of the name Rusyn in official documents. The situation was particularly bad in Poland. Not only were the Lemko Rusyns declared to be Ukrainians, they were forcibly deported en masse from their Carpathian homeland in 1947 and scattered throughout the former German lands of post-1945 western and northern Poland.9 It is ironic to note the advantages that accrued to the governments in question through their use - or, more properly, misuse - of the name Ukrainian. For example, by declaring that the population was Ukrainian, this allowed the Soviet Union to justify the annexation in 1945 of Subcarpathian Rus', a territory that throughout the war it had agreed should be returned to Czechoslovakia. Nationalist ideology could now conveniently serve Stalin's political designs on the international stage. In any case, how could the Soviet worker's state refuse the request of fellow "Ukrainian workers" in Transcarpathia who "voluntarily" were demanding to be united with the "Mother Ukraine"? 9 The actual deportations took place in two phases. Between 1945 and 1946, about 200,000 Lemko Rusyns "voluntarily" took up the offer to resettle eastward in the Ukraine in exchange for Poles who moved west within the new postwar boundaries of Poland . The remaining 80,000 Lemko Rusyns , mostly in the western Lemko region , were forcibly deported in 1947 . For details, see Kazimierz Pudlo , Lemkowie: process wrastania w ~rodowisko Dolnego Sl{lska, 1947-1985 (Wroclaw: Polskie Towarszystwo Ludoznawcze, 1987), esp . pp. 24-34. �SLOVAKIA 45 In neighboring Poland, identification of Lemkos as Ukrainians made it easier for the government to deport them, since the Communist Polish government argued that, as "Ukrainians," the Lemkos were helping the anti-Communist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) under Stepan Bandera, which was held up in the Carpathians and still fighting the Polish and Soviet authorities after the end of World War II. South of the mountains in Czechoslovakia, the administrative imposition of a Ukrainian identity beginning in 1952 proved to be advantageous to those Slovaks who had always claimed that "their Rusnaks" were really "Slovaks of the Greek Catholic faith. 1110 In essence, forced Ukrainianization (combined with the liquidation of the local Greek Catholic Church and forced collectivization of peasant land) led during the 1950s and 1960s to the most rapid degree of Slovakization and national assimilation that Rusyns had ever experienced. It is nonetheless true that during this same period, the Czechoslovak government provided extensive funding to create a wide range of cultural organizations that were Ukrainian in national form but socialist in content. A well-paid local Ukrainian intelligentsia was even able to attain several significant scholarly and literary achievements. However, this had little real effect upon the Rusyn peasant masses in Slovakia. For them, the choice was simple: if one could not be a Rusyn, better declare oneself a Slovak than a Ukrainian (which among other things was associated with the hated East). Once again Yugoslavia was the exception. The government there provided both funding and legal guarantees, while the local intelligentsia decided to adopt a Rusyn orientation and to develop the local speech into a sociologically-complete Rusyn literary language. In fact, Rusyns became one of the five official nationalities in the lO Beginning already in 1945, new Rusyn political and cultural organizations carried the name Ukrainian . However, despite their name, they paradoxically functioned using Russian or vernacular Rusyn as the language of instruction and communication. In 1952, a decree of the Communist Party of Slovakia initiated a policy of Ukrainianization that banned use of the term Rusyn and replaced Russian with Ukrainian as the language of instruction in schools . For details, see Pavel Macu, "National Assimilation: The Case of the Rusyn-Ukrainians of Czechoslovakia," East-Central Europe, II, 2 (Pittsburgh, 1975), pp. 101-131. �46 SLOVAKIA autonomous province of the Vojvodina. Yet Yugoslavia was the exception that proved the rule. And the rule was that after 1945, Rusyns ceased to exist. All Soviet, Czechoslovak, and Polish documents and publications referred to the population only as Ukrainian.1 1 Publications in the West, both by Ukrainian emigre and North American Soviet and East European specialists, also accepted the view that Rusyns did not exist, or to quote the New Columbia Encyclopedia (1975): "There is no ethnic or linguistic distinction between Ukrainians and Ruthenians [Rusyns] ." "The majority of the population [of Transcarpathia] is Ukrainian." 12 The Current Situation Then came the 1980s. The first signs of change came in Poland, where the Lemko Rusyns - both those who were dispersed in the "West" of that country as well as about 10,000 who had managed to return to the Carpathian homeland - began to gather at annual cultural festivals. These "unofficial" festivals received no government financial support, but by the same token they were not under any ideological control. As a result, the Lemkos began to revive the idea that they were neither Poles nor Ukrainians, but rather part of a distinct Slavic people closely related to Rusyns living south of the mountains in Slovakia. The Lemkos seemed to be acting in isolation and for several years that was , indeed, the case.1 3 Later came the changes brought about by the November 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. New initiative committees were founded that were often dominated by individuals who had not 11 Whereas the idea of a Rusyn nationality in the Carpathians was not recognized by schools and official circles in the Soviet Union and its satellite countries, they have recognized the Rusyns (Rusnaks) of Yugoslavia as a distinct ethnic group with its own literary language . Cf. A.E. Suprun and A .M. Kaljuta, Vvedenie v slavjanskuju filologiju (Minsk: Vy§ej§aja §kola, 1981), pp . 137-139. 12 "Ruthenia," in the New Columbia Encyclopedia , ed. William H. Harris and Judith S. Levey, eds. (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1975), p. 2383. l3 On the Lemko-Rusyn revival, see the series of articles in the Carpatho-Rusyn American, X and XI (Fairview, NJ ., 1987-88). �SLOVAKIA 47 been associated with the Communist regime. At first, the initiative committees tried to transform (they would say democratize) the older Ukrainian organizations, but when that failed they established their own Rusyn organizations and publications. At the very same time, in neighboring Transcarpathia, the first Rusyn-oriented organization to exist anywhere in Carpathian Rus' since World War II was established in February 1990 in the oblast's administrative center of Uzhorod. Known as the Society of Carpatho-Rusyns (Tovarystvo Karpats'kych Rusyniv) and with branches throughout Transcarpathia, its goals were at first of a cultural and ecological nature - to promote and preserve knowledge of local history and customs. But before long, the Society moved on to political demands, in particular the recognition of Rusyn as a distinct nationality and the return of the autonomous status of Subcarpathian Rus', a status which they argued was illegally taken away in 1945. Before 1990 came to a close, a total of five new Rusyn organizations had come into existence where Rusyns live. Aside from the Society of Carpatho-Rusyns in Ukrainian Transcarpathia were the Rusyn Renaissance Society (Rusyns'ka Obroda) in Medzilaborce, Czechoslovakia (est. March 1990); the Lemko Association (Stovarysynja Lemkiv) in Legnica, Poland (est. April 1990); the Society of Friends of Subcarpathian Rus' (Spolecnost pratel Podkarpatske Rusi) in Prague (est. October 1990); and the Ruska Matka (Rusyn Matka) in Ruski Kerestur, Yugoslavia (est. December 1990). By the spring of 1991, a sixth one was established, this time in Hungary: the Rusyn Organization in Hungary (Magyarorszagi Ruszinok Szervezete) in Budapest (est. May 1991). Most of these organizations have their own Rusyn-language newspaper or magazine, 14 or they have access to existing publications. All five organizations have put forth basically the same demands: that Rusyns be recognized as a distinct nationality; that a Rusyn literary language be codified and eventually be used in schools as a medium of instruction; and that 14 These include: Besida (Legnica, Poland, 1989-present); Otcyj chram (Uzhorod, 1990-91); Podkarpatski Rus (Prague, 1991-present); Rusyn (Medzilaborce , Czechoslovakia, 1990-present); Narodny novyntj (Pre§ov, 1991-present). �48 SLOVAKIA Rusyns be guaranteed full rights as a national minority in the countries where they live or, in the case of Transcarpathia, that Rusyns be recognized as the dominant indigenous nationality. As in all new or revived movements, the Rusyn orientation must first be able to make itself known to the constituency it purports to represent. This is inherently problematic, because with the exception of Yugoslavia, nowhere do Rusyns control the local media. Their message, or at least an awareness of their movement's existence, has been helped less by their own publications than by the fierce polemics that have filled the non-Rusyn press in Poland, former Czechoslovakia, and most especially former Soviet Transcarpathia. This is because from the moment the first Rusyn activity began, local pro-Ukrainian activists attacked the Rusyn orientation as "anachronistic," "ahistorical," "unenlightened," "in the service of American imperialists," and "treacherous" to the Ukrainian nation. 15 As a result, more attention of a semi-sensationalist journalistic nature was given the Rusyn problem than might otherwise have been the case. The Czech and Slovak press also paid much - although more rational - attention to the Rusyn-Ukrainian debate, especially in the context of the nationality question that concerned Czechoslovak society as a whole. Whatever latent isolation Rusyn leaders in their respective countries may have still felt was overcome in March 1991, when, at the initiative of the Rusyn Renaissance Society, the first World Congress of Rusyns was convened in Medzilaborce, Czechoslovakia. Indeed, despite a history of interaction between Rusyn communities in the homeland as well as the immigration in America during the twentieth century, this was, in fact, the first time representatives from all countries where Rusyns live (Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, 15 The best (or worst) examples of the anti-Rusyn polemical attacks comes from scholars in the former Soviet Ukrainian intellectual establishment: Pavlo Cucka, "Kak rusiny stali ukraincami," Zakarpatskaja pravda (U:lhorod), September 12-16, 1989; Vasyl' Mel'nyk, "Neorusynstvo i joho interpretatory," Zakarpats'ka pravda (U:lhorod), August 18, 21, 22, 24, 1990; Jurij Balega, "Rusynstvo: ideolohy i pokrovyteli," ibid., September 6,7 ,9, 1990; and Oleksa Myfanyc, "To chto :le vony?: do idejnych vytokiv novitn'oho 'karpatorusynstva'," Literatuma Ukrajina (Kiev), January 17, 1991. �SLOVAKIA 49 Yugoslavia, the United States) gathered together in one place. The congress constituted itself as a permanent umbrella organization, and its very existence had an enormous impact on instilling Rusyn national pride in the over 300 persons who attended, not to mention innumerable others who read about it through the generally widespread press coverage.1 6 It is interesting to note that one week after the congress took place, Czechoslovakia conducted its decennial census in which people for the first time since World War II had the right to answer that they were of Rusyn nationality. Despite problems with the manner in which the nationality questionwas asked and subsequently classified, in Slovakia 17,000 persons responded they were Rusyns as compared to 14,000 Ukrainians. 17 This raises the question of numbers. Observers will legitimately ask just how many people identify as Rusyns? And even among those who do respond Rusyn, does use of such a term necessarily mean they are denying a possible simultaneous identification as Ukrainians? At this point, there is no way to know the precise answers to those questions. All we know is that in Slovakia, when given a chance in March 1991, of those people of East Slavic background who did not identify as Slovak and who had the choice between a Rusyn or Ukrainian identity, 55 percent chose Rusyn. As for the number of Rusyns in Poland and Ukrainian Transcarpathia, we simply do not know at this stage, nor do we have any indications, such as census data, scientific polling, or membership in political parties, that might help to provide a reasonable estimate. What we can be certain of, however, is that after forty years of Communist rule, Rusyns have not gone away. Today, there are Rusyn organizations, Rusyn publications, and a relatively wide range of writers, teachers, professionals, and peasants who continue to articulate in the press and at public manifestations their belonging 16 Information on the First World Congress as well as its official declaration are found in the Carpatho--Rusyn American , XIV, 2 and 3 (Fairview, NJ., 1991). pp . 7-9 and 8-9. 17 Mykola Mu§ynka, "Skil'ky rusyniv-ukrajinciv u Slovaccyni? ," Svoboda (Jersey City, NJ.), July 19, 1991. �50 SLOVAKIA to a distinct Rusyn people.1 8 Protection for Rusyns in the Future As with many minorities, the future of their survival depends on the willingness of the governments in the states where they live to provide them with adequate legal protection and perhaps financial assistance for their national development. In this regard, the Rusyns need to inform and constantly to remind the international community that they exist. In tum, Rusyns should be able to expect that the international community will monitor their status and, if necessary, put pressure on the governments of the Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia, in order to ensure that their national rights are protected. In fact, all four states in which Rusyns live have already ratified several agreements pertaining to national minorities at recent meetings of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Of particular importance for Rusyns were the decisions reached in·June 1990 at the Copenhagen meeting of the CSCE .. At Copenhagen it was agreed that "to belong to a national minority is a matter of a person's individual choice and no disadvantage may arise from the exercise of such choice." Moreover, "persons belonging to national minorities can exercise and enjoy their rights individually as well as in community with other members of their group. 1119 This means that regardless how scholars or governments might define Rusyns, if there are individuals and/or groups who call themselves by that name and who believe they constitute a distinct natio18 Among the best known of these to date are: in Transcarpathia , the writers Volodymyr Fedyny§ynec', Ivan Petrovcij, and Vasylij Socka, and the political activists Mychajlo Tomcanij, Petro Hodma§, and Vasyl' Zajac; in Czechoslovakia, the head of the Rusyn Renaissance Society, Vasyl' Turok, and the advisor to the Slovak government on nationality affairs, Ivan Bicko, and the editor Aleksander Zozuljak; in Poland, the poets Petro Trochanovskij and Olena Due , and the head of the Lemko Association , Andrij Kopca; and in Yugoslavia, the director of the Ruske Slovo publishing house, Ljubomir Medje§i, and the writers Djura Papharhaj and Natalja Duda§. 19 Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE (Copenhagen, 1990), pp. 40--41, paragraphs 32 and 32.6. �SLOVAKIA 51 nality , they have a right to do so and to be recognized as Rusyns by the governments of the countries in which they live. The Copenhagen agreement also recognized the role of non-governmental organizations in promoting the interests of national minorities, and it called on the participating states to assure that the teaching of history and culture in the educational establishments "will also take account of the history and culture of national minorities. 1120 At a follow-up CSCE meeting in Geneva (July 1991), member states accepted the provisions of a special report which guaranteed the right of national minorities to participate in non-governmental organizations outside their country of residence. The report reaffirmed as well the principle that individuals or organizations representing national minorities be allowed "unimpeded contacts ... across frontiers ... with persons with whom they share a common ethnic or national origin." 21 Finally, at the most recent CSCE meeting held in Moscow (September-October 1991), member states reaffirmed the agreements reached at all previous meetings and agreed further that "commitments undertaken in the field of the human dimension of the CSCE [including those pertaining to national minorities] are matters of direct legitimate concern to all participating States and do not belong exclusively to the internal affairs of the State concemed." 22 Before looking specifically at what Rusyns need in each country to protect and guarantee their future existence, it is necessary to clarify the issue of international boundaries. In the Carpathian homeland, Rusyns live within the borders of three states, and at least until late 1992 there was discussion in the Czech , Slovak, and Transcarpathian press about certain political activists who demanded the return of Ukraine's Transcarpathian oblast (historic Subcarpathian Rus') to Czechoslovakia. 23 There was even talk that Transcarpathia 20 Ibid., p. 41 , paragraph 34. 21 Report of the CSCE Meeting of Experts on National Minorities (Geneva , 1991) , p. 10 . 22 Document of the Moscow Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE (Moscow, 1991 ), p. 2. 23 The Republican party in Czechoslovakia led by Dr. Miroslav SIMek had as one of its goals the "return of Subcarpathian Rus"' to Czechoslovakia. "Zpl!t do Ceskoslovenska," Republika (Prague), October 18-24, 1990; "Rozhovor s pi'edsedou SPR- �52 SLOVAKIA might be returned to Hungary or divided between Hungary and Czechoslovakia. In fact, most of these propositions were little more than the speculations of individuals that were blown out of proportion by political rivals and by journalists seeking to report a good story .24 The Czecho--Slovak federal government publicly declared that it "cannot be concerned with the fate" of Transcarpathia.25 With the end of Czechoslovakia in December 1992, the question of unification has become moot. As for the Rusyn organizations that have come into existence in 1990, none of them nor the World Congress of Rusyns that met in 1991 has ever voiced any demand for border changes. On the contrary, all the new organizations as well as· the vast majority of Rusyn spokespersons wherever they live warn against tampering with existing international boundaries. On the other hand, the Society of Carpatho--Rusyns in Transcarpathia has called openly for the return of the status of automony that Subcarpathian Rus' did enjoy during the interwar years. 26 In order to determine the views of the local population, the society, joined by other minority organizations, called for a question on Transcarpathian autonomy to be added to the referendum on Ukrainian indeRS, Ph Dr. Miroslavem Shidkem," ibid., August, 1991. The head of the National Socialist party, C. Cejka, stated that Czechoslovak jurisdiction still applies to Subcarpathian Rus' . "NSS chtc!jf Podkarpatskou Rus, "Lidova demokracie (Prague), September 3, 1991. 24 Jaromfr Hoi'ec of the Society of Friends of Subcarpathian Rus' in Prague and wellknown publicist has written about the recent political activism in Transcarpathia in numerous articles in the Czech press, which imply that the local population would be sympathetic to re-unification with Czechoslovakia. Cf. his recent articles in Lidova demokracie (Prague): "Freedom for Subcarpathian Rus"' (September 7, 1991); "Czechs in Subcarpathia" (September 18, 1991); and "Subcarpathia Calls For an Independent Republic" (September 20, 1991). The Hungarian press has also followed closely the demands for Transcarpathian autonomy: "Ruszin koztlirsaslig Klirplitaljlin, "Magyar hfrlap (Budapest), September 10, 1991; "A ruszinok kovetelese: Jegyen Klirplitalja koztlirsaslig! , "Nap/6 (Debrecen), September 3, 1991. 25 The quote is attributed to Czechoslovakia's foreign minister, Jiff Dienstbier, in "Svobodu pro Podkarpatskou Rus," Lidova demokracie, September 9, 1991. 26 The text of the declaration, which was sent to the Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev , to the Supreme Soviets of the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR, and to the United Nations, appeared first in the Society's newspaper, Otey} chram (SeptemberOctober, 1990) . It is available in English translation in the Carpatho-Rusyn American, XIV, 1 (Fairview , NJ., 1991), pp 4-5 . �SLOVAKIA 53 pendence that was held on December 1, 1991 .27 There was a large voter tum-out, with 92.6 percent favoring Ukrainian independence and 78 percent self-rule for Transcarpathia. 28 The issue of Transcarpathian autonomy elicited great interest in neighboring countries, although this is, in fact, an internal issue for whatever kind of government and state structure is finally established in what until recently was the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. In short, Transcarpathia has been and should for the foreseeable future remain a part of Ukraine. However, as a sovereign member of the international community, Ukraine must, in tum, guarantee the individual and corporate rights of Rusyns - or those citizens of Ukraine who wish to call themselves Rusyns. It is true that the Ukrainian government has already provided guarantees for national minorities living on its territory: Russians, Jews, Poles, Germans, Tatars, etc. To this list must be added Rusyns. This would mean that the "official," or one might say traditional, Ukrainian view of the Rusyns has to change. Namely, Ukrainian authorities must accept the fact that within its boundaries, primarily in its Transcarpathian oblast, there are people who define themselves as Rusyns in the sense of a nationality distinct from Ukrainians. Such people should have the right to declare themselves in their passports and internal documents as Rusyns, and the state census bureau should publish data on the number of persons who identify as Rusyns and not simply classify them - as has been done until now - as Ukrainians. 29 If such guarantees are 27 "Rezoljucija mityngu Tovarystva Karpats'kych Rusyniv z pytannja nacional'noho vidrod!ennja rusyns'koho narodu i vidnovlennja statusu Pidkarpats'koho kraju , Mukacevo, 01.09.1991," Molod' Zakarpattja (Uzhorod), September 14, 1991, p. 4. 28 Paul Robert Magocsi, "Rusyns Regain Their Autonomy," Ukrainian Canadian Herald (Toronto), March 16, 1992, p. 7. 29 Soviet guidelines used by the State Committee for Statistics in order to classify answers in the census reports were determined largely on recommendations from authorities in individual republics as well as from the Institute of Ethnography and the Institute of Linguistics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. SeeSJovari nacional'nostej i jazykov dlja kodirovanija otvetov na 8 i 9 voprosy perepisnych Jistov (Moscow: Gosudarstvennyj komitet SSSR po statistike, 1988). It is interesting to note that a recent report by the Institute of Ethnography (No. 14110/2171, dated February 6, 1990) stated: "It is theoretically possible to con- �54 SLOVAKIA provided, there is no reason why Rusyns in Transcarpathia could not remain Rusyns as well as function as full-fledged citizens of a sovereign and democratic Ukrainian state. Indeed, independent Ukraine has recently become a member of the Conference in Security and Cooperation in Europe, which obliges it to accept and implement the principles of the Copenhagen and other agreements on national minorities outlined above. Following the trend that has taken hold in the former Soviet Union, it would seem desirable that the new Ukrainian state become a decentralized entity in which each of its component regions would have a large degree of automony in economic and cultural matters .30 Thus, questions such as what language might be taught in elementary schools, or what kind of national orientation should be adopted by regional cultural and educational institutions, or what amount of funding might be given to Rusyn-oriented groups, are all decisions that would be made by the people's assembly in Uzhorod and not in Kiev. Of course, it goes without saying that the free movement of peoples across borders with neighboring Rusyn regions in Slovakia and Poland must be guaranteed. Fortunately, this possibility exists already, albeit with a waiting time at border crossings that every day of the week averages between 15 and 20 hours. As for neighboring Slovakia, the situation of Rusyns, especially since the November 1989 Velvet Revolution, is much better than in either Ukrainian Transcarpathia or Poland. Initially, the Slovak government (generally through its Ministry of Culture) and the former Czecho-Slovak federal government (through allotment of discretionary funds) provided only ad hoc grants to the new Rusyn organizations and publications. Normal budgetary allotments of the Slovak government intended for its East Slavic Rusyn/Ukrainian elude that Rusyns can be considered at the same level as Russians , Ukrainians , and Belorussians, and that they are not a part of any of those groups ." (document in the author's possession) . 30 Discussions regarding the restructuring of the Ukraine have been going on for the past few years . Neighbouring Galicia as well as Transcarpathia feel confident that each could do much better economically if it were independent of the centre in Kiev . Cf. Ivan Hrancak, "Vidnovleni haluzky karpats'koho kraju : Ukrajina federatyvna?," No vyny Zakarpattja (Uzhorod), February 6, 1991 . �SLOVAKIA 55 minority continued to go to the Union of Rusyn-Ukrainians of Czechoslovakia (SRUC), that is, to the Ukrainian-oriented cultural organization that is the direct descendant (still with largely the same leadership) as the formerly Communist-dominated Cultural Union of Ukrainian Workers (KSUT). Slovak government funding through other ministries also supported in Presov several Ukrainian university departments and institutes at Safarik University , a Ukrainian radio station, and a Ukrainian publishing house, as well as the Museum of Ukrainian Culture (recently renamed the Aleksander Pavlovy Regional Museum) in Svidnik. As of 1993 , two Rusyn-oriented organizations also receive a normal budgetary allotment. These include the Aleksander Duchnovyc Theater (formerly the Ukrainian National Theater) which is of a Rusyn orientation and the Rusyn Renasissance Society (Rusyns'ka Obroda), both based in Presov. The Slovak government now recognizes that there are two clearly-defined national orientations - Rusyn and Ukrainian - and that if support for national minorities is to continue in Slovakia, then funding should be provided to Rusyn as well as Ukrainian organizations. But how should the government divide a financial allotment among its East Slavic minority, which until recently has been designated only as Ukrainian? The Slovak government has opted for what seems the most reasonable solution. It has accepted the percentages revealed in the results of the 1991 census, and, therefore, has provided roughly 50 percent financial support to Rusyn cultural organizations and media and 50 percent to Ukrainian cultural organizations, schools, and its media. The question of schools in Slovakia is particularly problematic, because beginning in the 1960s the language of instruction in the vast majority of Rusyn-inhabited villages was changed - at the request of parents themselves - from Ukrainian to Slovak. Moreover, as part of a consolidation process during the past two decades, many small elementary schools in Rusyn-inhabited villages were closed. Even if private or public elementary schools will be reopened in Rusyn villages, it is likely that Slovak will be the language of instruction. The Slovak ministry of education, however, should �56 SLOVAKIA provide teachers and textbooks in Rusyn or in Ukrainian for those villages that may submit such requests. Most important, the standard Slovak-language history textbooks used throughout Slovakia should include an adequate discussion of the history and culture of Rusyns and other minorities which will be of benefit to all students. This would be in keeping with the CSCE agreement reached in Copenhagen, which - along with other "international treaties on human rights and freedoms" - are, according to the new consitution of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, "universally binding on its territory and supercede its own laws."31 The Rusyns, or Lemko Rusyns of Poland perhaps need the most help. Not only is the majority of Lemko Rusyns scattered throughout the western and northern regions of Poland, but their fledgling pro-Rusyn organization, the Lemko Association with its amateur theatrical troupe, and the older Lemkovyna folk ensemble receive no financial support at all from the Polish government, either in the form of an annual budgetary allotment or ad hoc grants. Whatever government funds assigned to national minority cultural activity are given, they invariably go to the Union of Ukrainians in Poland (Ob'jednannja Ukrajinciv Pollsci), the direct descendant of the Communist-dominated Ukrainian Socio-Cultural Society (USKT). Support for the new Union of Ukrainians must continue, especially since most Ukrainians in Poland are not originally from nor do they live in the Carpathian region. On the otherhand, Lemko Rusyns must also be recognized as a distinct national minority and receive a fair share of funding. How to determine what is a "fair share" will, of course, be difficult, since Poland does not even have nationality as a category on its decennial census questionnaires. Perhaps a referendum attached to the next national vote could include a question that lists all the national groups in Poland and asks the respondent to which one he/she would wish to assign a portion of their taxes for cultural 31 Cf. Section 2 of the Constitutional Act of January 9, 1991, instituting the charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms as a Constitutional Act of the Federal Assembly of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic . �SLOVAK.IA 57 activity. This would be somewhat similar to municipalities in Canada that ask their residents to indicate whether they want their tax dollars to be assigned to public schools or to separate (Catholic) schools. Whatever the mechanism decided upon, in keeping with its commitments as a member state of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Polish government is obliged to recognize Lernko Rusyns as a distinct national minority and to provide funding for Lernko cultural organizations and Lernko-language schools in those communities that demand them. Lastly, we turn to the situation in Yugoslavia. Ever since World War II, the Yugoslav policy of equality for its six component republics and support for the national minorities that live within them has encouraged the Croatian Republic and, in particular, the Vojvodina Autonomous Region of the Serbian Republic to finance liberally Rusyn cultural and educational activity. It is to be expected that when the republics of Yugoslavia sort out their present difficulties, the republics of Croatia and, in particular, Serbia will continue their judicious support and protection of their respective Rusyn minorities. Conclusion The Rusyns are one example of the many groups who suffered under the totalitarian regimes imposed on East Central Europe during the past four decades. Now that those regimes no longer exist, there is a real opportunity to correct past injustices and to assure the future survival of the Rusyns. It is, after all, in the interest of all four countries where Rusyns live - Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia - to become part of the larger European community. The way in which those countries resolve the Rusyn issue will, in part, determine to what degree they are ready for membership in the new Europe. ��SYMPOSIUM �� 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 1991-92, Vol. 35 Description An account of the resource Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Slovak League of America Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 1991-92 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 36 Carpatho-Rusyns: Their Current Status And Future Perspectives PAUL ROBERT MAGOSCI Who Are The Rusyns? In 1875, geographers from the old Hungarian Kingdom erected a monument in a remote region of their country that carried the following inscription: "Precise instruments have confirmed this point where the latitude and longitude lines meet as the center of Europe." 1 Just over a century later, in 1977, the former Soviet authorities, who had by then ruled the area, erected a second monument to mark the center of the continent that stretches from the Arctic shores of Norway in the north to the beaches of Crete in the south, and from the coast of Ireland in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east. The precise center where the monuments are located is near the village of Dilove (formerly Trebusany) in the foothills of the northcentral Carpathian Mountains that from time immemorial has been inhabited by an East Slavic people called Carpatho-Rusyns, or simply Rusyns (sometimes in English: Ruthenians). Thus, in geographic terms, the Rusyns are not a peripheral group, but rather one whose homeland - Carpathian Rus 1 - is located literally in the heart of Europe. According to present day international boundaries, Rusyns live in more or less compact territory within the boundaries of four 1For a description, see Fedor Korecki, "Stredok Evropi-na Homjici," Nova dumka , VIII (21] (Vukovar, Yugoslavia, 1979), pp . 101-102. SLOVAKIA 37 countries: Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, and Romania. There is also a small group of Rusyns in Yugoslavia, descendants of immigrants who left the Carpathian homeland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Statistical data on Rusyns is, depending on the country, inadequate or completely unavailable. Therefore, we can only speak in theoretical terms when discussing numbers . In theory, the number of Rusyns could be as high as 1.2 million people: 977 ,000 in the Transcarpathian oblast (former Subcarpathian Rus') of the Ukraine; 130,000 in the Presov Region of northeastern Slovakia; 60,000 in the Lemko Region of southeastern Poland as well as in other parts of that country; and 30,000 in the Vojvodina (Backa) and the Croatian republic of former Yugoslavia.2 The Problem of Nomenclature It is important to keep in mind what is meant by the term Rusyn. Traditionally, the name Rusyn, or its local variant Rusnak, has been used by the East Slavic inhabitants of the Carpathian region to describe themselves. However, by the twentieth century, in particular its second half, the historic names Rusyn/Rusnak were replaced by others, such as Ukrainian in Soviet Transcarpathia and the Presov Region of Slovakia, or Lemko in Poland . There are also Rusyns who have given up identifying with any East Slavic group, and instead associate with the dominant nationality of the country in which 2Since World War II, Rusyns were recorded in official statistics only in Yugoslavia (21,000 in 1991) , Romania (1,000 in 1977), and most recently in Slovakia (17 ,000 in 1991) . "Vojvodina u tisloch i slovoch," Ruski kalendar 1992 (Novi Sad , 1991), p. 38; Anuarul statistic al Romaniei 1990 (Bucharest, 1990), p. 64; Czech and Slovak Federal Republic: Preliminary Results of Population and Housing Census (Prague, 1991), pp . 30-3 I. There are also unconfirmed reports that the final published version of the 1991 Czecho-Slovak statistics will indicate 49,000 persons in Slovakia who reported Rusyn as their mother tongue . As for the estimates given here, the figure for the Transcarpathian oblast refers to persons in that region who in the 1991 Ukrainian census were reported as Ukrainian (the term Rusyn when given by a respondant is recorded as Ukrainian). The estimates for Slovakia and Poland are from: Paul Robert Magocsi , The Rusyns of Slovakia (New York, 1993), p. 1-2 and 111-112; and his Historical Atlas of East Central Europe (Seattle , 1993) , p. 131. 38 SLOVAKIA they live, such as Polish in Poland or Slovak in Slovakia. These changes in national self-designation have in some cases come gradually , prompted either by intellectual conviction or by national assimilation, especially among families of nationally-mixed parentage. In the latter case, children often choose to identify - or are identified by their parents - with the dominant state nationality, Slovak or Polish. More often, however, the change in nomenclature has been the result of governmental decree in which the name Rusyn was banned from official usage, as was the case after 1945 in Soviet Transcarpathia and Poland and by the early 1950s in Czechoslovakia. The result is that today one can find within the same ethnolinguistic group, within the same village, in some cases even within the same family, people who will identify as a Rusyn, or a Lemko, or a Ukrainian, or a Slovak, or a Pole. Moreover, in the case of the East Slavic designations - Rusyn/Rusnak, Lemko, Ukrainian - some people consider these as synonyms, others as mutually-exclusive terms. In other words, some people will say that Rusyn is simply the older historic name for Ukrainian, and that Lemko is a regional name of Ukrainian, while others are convinced that the names Lemko or Rusnak are regional forms for Rusyn which, in tum, designates a people that is distinct from the Ukrainian and every other surrounding nationality. It should be noted that the estimated figure of 1.2 million Rusyns given above refers to all people of the same linguistic and ethnographic origin, regardless of how they designate themselves on documents such as internal identity papers, passports, or decennial censuses. Our concern here will be primarily with the present-day Rusyn movement or with that portion of the group (the precise numbers are unknown) that considers Rusyns to comprise a distinct people. Historical Background It is neither possible nor appropriate to provide here an extensive outline of Rusyn history. It is necessary, however, to keep a few historical factors in mind in order to comprehend the current SLOVAKIA 39 situation. Rusyns never had their own state or political independence. Since the Middle Ages, the Rusyn homeland was ruled by Hungary and Poland or Austria. Nonetheless, during the past century and a half, they have at various times been recognized by neighboring or ruling states as having the right to a territorial entity whose existence was justified on the grounds that it was somehow of and for Rusyns and that it would have some degree of automony or self-rule. 3 The first experience in this regard came in late 1849, when in the wake of the failure of the Hungarian revolution, the Austrian government divided Hungary into five military and several civil districts. One of the civil districts (Ungvar/Uzhorod) was based in the Subcarpathian region and administered by local Rusyn political and cultural activists . This experiment was to last only a few months. Much more important was the period of political upheaval that followed World War I. At that time, in an effort to retain Rusyninhabited lands within Hungary, the new government in Budapest created, in December 1918, an autonomous Rusyn Land (Rus'ka Krajina) that continued to function even after a pro-Soviet Communist regime came to power in March 1919.4 Simultaneously, the recently-founded Czechoslovak government was also courting the Rusyns, offering them a self-governing province to be called Rusinsko (Rusinia), or Subcarpathian Rus' (Podkarpatska Rus), if they would join the Czechs and Slovaks in their new state. In May 1919, the Rusyns accepted the Czechoslovak offer. Most significantly, the Rusyn issue had reached the international political forum , so that "the fullest degree of self-government" for "Ruthene territory south of the Carpathians" was guaranteed by two international treaties at the Paris Peace Conference (St. Germain-en-Laye, September 10, 3 For further details on Rusyn political entities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, see Paul Robert Magocsi, The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus' 1848-1948 (Cambridge, Mass .: Harvard University Press, 1978) . pp 46-47, 93-95 , and 237-245. 4soviet-Marxist literature is fond of elaborating upon the 40 days of Soviet rule in Transcarpathia. Cf. Borys Spivak and Mychajlo Trojan, 40 nezabutnich dniv: z istoriji borot'by za vladu Rad na Zakarpatti v 1919 roci (Uzhorod: Karpaty, 1967). 40 SLOVAKIA 1919, and Trianon, June 4, 1920) and by the Czechoslovak constitution (February 29, 1920). For the next two decades the vast majority of Rusyns - approximately three-fourths the total number at the time - lived in Subcarpathian Rus, a territory that was Rusyn in name, that had its own Rusyn schools, and that had all the trappings of self-rule including a governor, a partially-elected diet, a national anthem, and a national theater. Finally, in late 1938, actual autonomy was granted to Subcarpathian Rus' (by then renamed Carpatho-Ukraine). Not only had autonomy been demanded by local politicians, it was also one of the provisions of the infamous Munich Pact, which led to the restructuring of Czechoslovakia. The Carpatho-Ukraine was to function for nearly half a year until the complete liquidation of what remained of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. The twentieth century also witnessed three short-lived efforts at Rusyn independence. The first of these came in 1919, when after being unsuccessful in their bid to join fellow Rusyns south of the mountains, the Lernkos living in the former Austrian province of Galicia created an independent republic that functioned for sixteen months before its government was arrested in March 1920, by the authorities of Poland, which became the new ruler over Rusyn lands north of the Carpathians.5 At the same time, along the eastern edge of Subcarpathian territory a regional ethnic group known as Hutsuls established their own republic which lasted four months (FebruaryJune 1919) before being driven out by troops from Romania. The last unsuccessful attempt came two decades later, when the Carpatho-Ukrainian autonomous government declared symbolically its independence on the last day of Czechoslovakia's existence (March 15, 1939) before the province was invaded and reannexed to Hungary .6 The point is that although Rusyns may never have had their 5 On the little-known Lemko Republic and its relationship to political thought in the western Ukrainian lands, see Paul Robert Magocsi,"The Ukrainian Question Between Poland and Czechoslovakia: The Lernko Rusyn Republic (1918-1920) and Political Thought in Western Rus'-Ukraine," Nationalities Papers (New York, forthcoming) . 6 Ukrainian-oriented emigres from Carpatho-Ukraine have put great stress on the SLOVAKIA 41 own state, they did have for a significant period of time in the twentieth century the experience - and therefore historical memory - of their own political entity, Subcarpathian Rus', which was recognized both by the state in which they lived (Czechoslovakia) and by the international community (Paris Peace Conference, League of Nations). Although the Rusyn homeland is located in the geographical center of Europe, it is at the same time along a cultural borderland. It is along that great divide between the Catholic West and Orthodox East, what Riccardo Picchio has classified in the broadest cultural terms as Slavia romana and Slavia orthodoxa.7 Located where they are, this division has had a profound effect on the Rusyn psyche. The very language or series of dialects that Rusyns speak reflect the influences of both cultural spheres. Thus, while their speech clearly belongs to the realm of East Slavic languages, much of their vocabulary, pronounciational stress, and even syntax is West Slavic. The cultural divide is most graphically evident in what is for traditional Rusyn culture the all-important factor of religion. Some Rusyns are Orthodox, but the majority, at least during the past two centuries, is Catholic, or more precisely Greek Catholic. These confessional differences reflect a whole mind-set that is either western - or eastern-oriented. The eastern mind-set tends to surrender the self to fate in the hope that the Christian God and his intercessors, Christ and the Virgin Mary, might somehow alleviate the burdens of this earthly life. In contrast, the western mind-set seems March I 5, I 939 declaration of independence, arguing that it revealed how the Ukrainian orientation had supposedly won the hearts and minds of the entire population even before the Soviets arrived in the region in late 1944 . Cf. Peter G. Stercho, Diplomacy of Double Morality: Europe's Crossroads in Carpatho- Ukraine , 1919-1939 (New York: Carpathian Research Centre , 1971) . This view is also being promoted in the Ukraine since the onset of the Gorbachev era. See the minutes of the RUCH meeting held in the former Carpathi-Ukrainian capitol of Chust to coincide with the 52nd anniversary of the one-day of independence: "4 sesija Velykoji Rady Ruchu," Visnyk Ruchu, no . 4 (Kiev, 1990). 7Riccardo Picchio, "Guidelines for the Comparative Study of the Language Question Among the Slavs," in Aspects of the Slavic Language Question, Vol.I, ed. Riccardo Picchio and Harvey Goldblatt (New Haven , Conn .: Yale Concilium on International and Area Studies, 1984), pp. 1-42. 42 SLOVAKIA to feel that if an individual receives education or political training, he or she can somehow put their lives in order and, therefore, be able to have some control over destiny . The east-west dichotomy in the Rusyn psyche also impinges on attitudes toward nationai identity. The eastern orientation tends to think in universalistic terms and be satisfied with viewing Rusyns as part of a single East Slavic Orthodox religious and cultural world. The western orientation - epitomized by the very distinctiveness of Greek Catholics from other Catholics - accepts the idea of national and linguistic particularity. Universalism versus particularism are attitudes that greatly influenced Rusyn political and cultural leaders , especially regarding the nationality question. Being a stateless people, Rusyns have had, at least until the second half of the twentieth century , to depend on their leaders, the intelligentsia, to determine the precise direction of their national revival . The Rusyn national revival began during the second half of the nineteenth century and culminated during the interwar years, by which time it had evolved into a comprehensive movement concerned with political, cultural, and social issues. Most of the nationalist intelligentsia did agree on one basic premise: that Rusyns are East Slavs and that their linguistic and cultural traditions were based in the east, albeit with pronounced western influences. What they could not agree upon, however, was whether Rusyns were a branch of the Russian nationality, or of the Ukrainian nationality, or whether they formed a distinct fourth East Slavic Rusyn nationality. Not surprisingly, debates about national and linguistic orientation quickly became caught up in local partisan politics. Politicians had their own agendas, and they more often than not made opportunistic use of the nationality question in order to promote party or other ideological interests. As for the nationalist intelligentsia, they easily fulfilled the precepts of all activists in the formative stages of national movements. Namely, they had no difficulty using history to formulate an ideology that was able to convince people they were either Russian, SLOVAKIA 43 Ukrainian, or Rusyn. 8 The debate over the national orientation of the Rusyns was not yet resolved before the outbreak of World War II, despite the achievements during the interwar years of the Ukrainian orientation in the largest Rusyn territory , Subcarpathian Rus' (Carpath~Ukraine). In a sense, the year 1939 marked an end to the natural evolution of discussions about a Rusyn nationality. This is because beginning in that year and lasting for half a century, the nationality debate was effectively stifled by state intervention. This happened first under fascist regimes in Hungary(which reannexed Subcarpathian Rus'), in Slovakia (which retained the Presov Region), and in the Germanruled Generalgouvernement (which ruled the Lemko Region); and then as a result of Soviet rule after 1945, whether directly in Subcarpathian Rus' (renamed Transcarpathian Ukraine) or through proSoviet Communist governments in Poland and Czechoslovakia. As is well known, the Communist era with its anti-democratic approach to the nationality question was to last until the revolutions of 1989 and 1991. The only exception was the case of the small group of Rusyns in the Vojvodina region of Yugoslavia. Although a Communist regime was installed in their land as well, the Yugoslav government allowed the Vojvodinian Rusyns to decide their own national orientation. This was not to be the case for the Rusyns living in the Carpathian homeland. In short, the Soviet regime declared that further debate was unnecessary because the nationality question had supposedly been resolved long ago. Based on a decision made by the Communist party (Bolshevik) of the Ukraine taken in December 8Generally, the Russian-oriented intelligentsia, or Russophiles, were Orthodox adherents or sympathizers who believed in the unity of Eastern Slavic Christian culture represented by three branches of the East Slavs - Great Russians , Belorussians, and Little Russians (including Carpatho-Rusyns) - all considered to be part of one common Russian (ob§cerusskiJ) nationality . The Ukrainian--0riented and Rusyn--0riented intelligentsias were western--0riented Greek Catholics who believed in various degrees of national and/or regional differentiation - the Ukrainophiles arguing for the unity of one people that stretched "from the Carpathians to the Caucasus"; the Rusynophiles arguing that the Rus' population in the Carpathians (from the Poprad to Tysa rivers) comprises a separate people. 44 SLOVAKIA 1925, all Rusyns , regardless what they may have called themselves, were declared to be Ukrainians. Any who opposed the Ukrainian viewpoint were accused of having "anti-historical" and, therefore, "anti-Soviet" opinions; they often were removed from their jobs; and they might even have been arrested as "counterrevolutionaries." Closely connected with these developments was the liquidation first in Soviet Transcarpathia (1949) and then in Czechoslovakia (1950) of the Greek Catholic Church, which by the mid-twentieth century had become the stronghold of the Rusyn orientation. When Communist regimes were established in Poland (1945) and Czechoslovakia (1948), they adapted the Soviet line and decreed that the Ru syn minorities within their borders were Ukrainians. They forbade Rusyn publications and the use of the name Rusyn in official documents. The situation was particularly bad in Poland. Not only were the Lemko Rusyns declared to be Ukrainians, they were forcibly deported en masse from their Carpathian homeland in 1947 and scattered throughout the former German lands of post-1945 western and northern Poland.9 It is ironic to note the advantages that accrued to the governments in question through their use - or, more properly, misuse - of the name Ukrainian. For example, by declaring that the population was Ukrainian, this allowed the Soviet Union to justify the annexation in 1945 of Subcarpathian Rus', a territory that throughout the war it had agreed should be returned to Czechoslovakia. Nationalist ideology could now conveniently serve Stalin's political designs on the international stage. In any case, how could the Soviet worker's state refuse the request of fellow "Ukrainian workers" in Transcarpathia who "voluntarily" were demanding to be united with the "Mother Ukraine"? 9 The actual deportations took place in two phases. Between 1945 and 1946, about 200,000 Lemko Rusyns "voluntarily" took up the offer to resettle eastward in the Ukraine in exchange for Poles who moved west within the new postwar boundaries of Poland . The remaining 80,000 Lemko Rusyns , mostly in the western Lemko region , were forcibly deported in 1947 . For details, see Kazimierz Pudlo , Lemkowie: process wrastania w ~rodowisko Dolnego Sl{lska, 1947-1985 (Wroclaw: Polskie Towarszystwo Ludoznawcze, 1987), esp . pp. 24-34. SLOVAKIA 45 In neighboring Poland, identification of Lemkos as Ukrainians made it easier for the government to deport them, since the Communist Polish government argued that, as "Ukrainians," the Lemkos were helping the anti-Communist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) under Stepan Bandera, which was held up in the Carpathians and still fighting the Polish and Soviet authorities after the end of World War II. South of the mountains in Czechoslovakia, the administrative imposition of a Ukrainian identity beginning in 1952 proved to be advantageous to those Slovaks who had always claimed that "their Rusnaks" were really "Slovaks of the Greek Catholic faith. 1110 In essence, forced Ukrainianization (combined with the liquidation of the local Greek Catholic Church and forced collectivization of peasant land) led during the 1950s and 1960s to the most rapid degree of Slovakization and national assimilation that Rusyns had ever experienced. It is nonetheless true that during this same period, the Czechoslovak government provided extensive funding to create a wide range of cultural organizations that were Ukrainian in national form but socialist in content. A well-paid local Ukrainian intelligentsia was even able to attain several significant scholarly and literary achievements. However, this had little real effect upon the Rusyn peasant masses in Slovakia. For them, the choice was simple: if one could not be a Rusyn, better declare oneself a Slovak than a Ukrainian (which among other things was associated with the hated East). Once again Yugoslavia was the exception. The government there provided both funding and legal guarantees, while the local intelligentsia decided to adopt a Rusyn orientation and to develop the local speech into a sociologically-complete Rusyn literary language. In fact, Rusyns became one of the five official nationalities in the lO Beginning already in 1945, new Rusyn political and cultural organizations carried the name Ukrainian . However, despite their name, they paradoxically functioned using Russian or vernacular Rusyn as the language of instruction and communication. In 1952, a decree of the Communist Party of Slovakia initiated a policy of Ukrainianization that banned use of the term Rusyn and replaced Russian with Ukrainian as the language of instruction in schools . For details, see Pavel Macu, "National Assimilation: The Case of the Rusyn-Ukrainians of Czechoslovakia," East-Central Europe, II, 2 (Pittsburgh, 1975), pp. 101-131. 46 SLOVAKIA autonomous province of the Vojvodina. Yet Yugoslavia was the exception that proved the rule. And the rule was that after 1945, Rusyns ceased to exist. All Soviet, Czechoslovak, and Polish documents and publications referred to the population only as Ukrainian.1 1 Publications in the West, both by Ukrainian emigre and North American Soviet and East European specialists, also accepted the view that Rusyns did not exist, or to quote the New Columbia Encyclopedia (1975): "There is no ethnic or linguistic distinction between Ukrainians and Ruthenians [Rusyns] ." "The majority of the population [of Transcarpathia] is Ukrainian." 12 The Current Situation Then came the 1980s. The first signs of change came in Poland, where the Lemko Rusyns - both those who were dispersed in the "West" of that country as well as about 10,000 who had managed to return to the Carpathian homeland - began to gather at annual cultural festivals. These "unofficial" festivals received no government financial support, but by the same token they were not under any ideological control. As a result, the Lemkos began to revive the idea that they were neither Poles nor Ukrainians, but rather part of a distinct Slavic people closely related to Rusyns living south of the mountains in Slovakia. The Lemkos seemed to be acting in isolation and for several years that was , indeed, the case.1 3 Later came the changes brought about by the November 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. New initiative committees were founded that were often dominated by individuals who had not 11 Whereas the idea of a Rusyn nationality in the Carpathians was not recognized by schools and official circles in the Soviet Union and its satellite countries, they have recognized the Rusyns (Rusnaks) of Yugoslavia as a distinct ethnic group with its own literary language . Cf. A.E. Suprun and A .M. Kaljuta, Vvedenie v slavjanskuju filologiju (Minsk: Vy§ej§aja §kola, 1981), pp . 137-139. 12 "Ruthenia," in the New Columbia Encyclopedia , ed. William H. Harris and Judith S. Levey, eds. (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1975), p. 2383. l3 On the Lemko-Rusyn revival, see the series of articles in the Carpatho-Rusyn American, X and XI (Fairview, NJ ., 1987-88). SLOVAKIA 47 been associated with the Communist regime. At first, the initiative committees tried to transform (they would say democratize) the older Ukrainian organizations, but when that failed they established their own Rusyn organizations and publications. At the very same time, in neighboring Transcarpathia, the first Rusyn-oriented organization to exist anywhere in Carpathian Rus' since World War II was established in February 1990 in the oblast's administrative center of Uzhorod. Known as the Society of Carpatho-Rusyns (Tovarystvo Karpats'kych Rusyniv) and with branches throughout Transcarpathia, its goals were at first of a cultural and ecological nature - to promote and preserve knowledge of local history and customs. But before long, the Society moved on to political demands, in particular the recognition of Rusyn as a distinct nationality and the return of the autonomous status of Subcarpathian Rus', a status which they argued was illegally taken away in 1945. Before 1990 came to a close, a total of five new Rusyn organizations had come into existence where Rusyns live. Aside from the Society of Carpatho-Rusyns in Ukrainian Transcarpathia were the Rusyn Renaissance Society (Rusyns'ka Obroda) in Medzilaborce, Czechoslovakia (est. March 1990); the Lemko Association (Stovarysynja Lemkiv) in Legnica, Poland (est. April 1990); the Society of Friends of Subcarpathian Rus' (Spolecnost pratel Podkarpatske Rusi) in Prague (est. October 1990); and the Ruska Matka (Rusyn Matka) in Ruski Kerestur, Yugoslavia (est. December 1990). By the spring of 1991, a sixth one was established, this time in Hungary: the Rusyn Organization in Hungary (Magyarorszagi Ruszinok Szervezete) in Budapest (est. May 1991). Most of these organizations have their own Rusyn-language newspaper or magazine, 14 or they have access to existing publications. All five organizations have put forth basically the same demands: that Rusyns be recognized as a distinct nationality; that a Rusyn literary language be codified and eventually be used in schools as a medium of instruction; and that 14 These include: Besida (Legnica, Poland, 1989-present); Otcyj chram (Uzhorod, 1990-91); Podkarpatski Rus (Prague, 1991-present); Rusyn (Medzilaborce , Czechoslovakia, 1990-present); Narodny novyntj (Pre§ov, 1991-present). 48 SLOVAKIA Rusyns be guaranteed full rights as a national minority in the countries where they live or, in the case of Transcarpathia, that Rusyns be recognized as the dominant indigenous nationality. As in all new or revived movements, the Rusyn orientation must first be able to make itself known to the constituency it purports to represent. This is inherently problematic, because with the exception of Yugoslavia, nowhere do Rusyns control the local media. Their message, or at least an awareness of their movement's existence, has been helped less by their own publications than by the fierce polemics that have filled the non-Rusyn press in Poland, former Czechoslovakia, and most especially former Soviet Transcarpathia. This is because from the moment the first Rusyn activity began, local pro-Ukrainian activists attacked the Rusyn orientation as "anachronistic," "ahistorical," "unenlightened," "in the service of American imperialists," and "treacherous" to the Ukrainian nation. 15 As a result, more attention of a semi-sensationalist journalistic nature was given the Rusyn problem than might otherwise have been the case. The Czech and Slovak press also paid much - although more rational - attention to the Rusyn-Ukrainian debate, especially in the context of the nationality question that concerned Czechoslovak society as a whole. Whatever latent isolation Rusyn leaders in their respective countries may have still felt was overcome in March 1991, when, at the initiative of the Rusyn Renaissance Society, the first World Congress of Rusyns was convened in Medzilaborce, Czechoslovakia. Indeed, despite a history of interaction between Rusyn communities in the homeland as well as the immigration in America during the twentieth century, this was, in fact, the first time representatives from all countries where Rusyns live (Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, 15 The best (or worst) examples of the anti-Rusyn polemical attacks comes from scholars in the former Soviet Ukrainian intellectual establishment: Pavlo Cucka, "Kak rusiny stali ukraincami," Zakarpatskaja pravda (U:lhorod), September 12-16, 1989; Vasyl' Mel'nyk, "Neorusynstvo i joho interpretatory," Zakarpats'ka pravda (U:lhorod), August 18, 21, 22, 24, 1990; Jurij Balega, "Rusynstvo: ideolohy i pokrovyteli," ibid., September 6,7 ,9, 1990; and Oleksa Myfanyc, "To chto :le vony?: do idejnych vytokiv novitn'oho 'karpatorusynstva'," Literatuma Ukrajina (Kiev), January 17, 1991. SLOVAKIA 49 Yugoslavia, the United States) gathered together in one place. The congress constituted itself as a permanent umbrella organization, and its very existence had an enormous impact on instilling Rusyn national pride in the over 300 persons who attended, not to mention innumerable others who read about it through the generally widespread press coverage.1 6 It is interesting to note that one week after the congress took place, Czechoslovakia conducted its decennial census in which people for the first time since World War II had the right to answer that they were of Rusyn nationality. Despite problems with the manner in which the nationality questionwas asked and subsequently classified, in Slovakia 17,000 persons responded they were Rusyns as compared to 14,000 Ukrainians. 17 This raises the question of numbers. Observers will legitimately ask just how many people identify as Rusyns? And even among those who do respond Rusyn, does use of such a term necessarily mean they are denying a possible simultaneous identification as Ukrainians? At this point, there is no way to know the precise answers to those questions. All we know is that in Slovakia, when given a chance in March 1991, of those people of East Slavic background who did not identify as Slovak and who had the choice between a Rusyn or Ukrainian identity, 55 percent chose Rusyn. As for the number of Rusyns in Poland and Ukrainian Transcarpathia, we simply do not know at this stage, nor do we have any indications, such as census data, scientific polling, or membership in political parties, that might help to provide a reasonable estimate. What we can be certain of, however, is that after forty years of Communist rule, Rusyns have not gone away. Today, there are Rusyn organizations, Rusyn publications, and a relatively wide range of writers, teachers, professionals, and peasants who continue to articulate in the press and at public manifestations their belonging 16 Information on the First World Congress as well as its official declaration are found in the Carpatho--Rusyn American , XIV, 2 and 3 (Fairview, NJ., 1991). pp . 7-9 and 8-9. 17 Mykola Mu§ynka, "Skil'ky rusyniv-ukrajinciv u Slovaccyni? ," Svoboda (Jersey City, NJ.), July 19, 1991. 50 SLOVAKIA to a distinct Rusyn people.1 8 Protection for Rusyns in the Future As with many minorities, the future of their survival depends on the willingness of the governments in the states where they live to provide them with adequate legal protection and perhaps financial assistance for their national development. In this regard, the Rusyns need to inform and constantly to remind the international community that they exist. In tum, Rusyns should be able to expect that the international community will monitor their status and, if necessary, put pressure on the governments of the Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia, in order to ensure that their national rights are protected. In fact, all four states in which Rusyns live have already ratified several agreements pertaining to national minorities at recent meetings of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Of particular importance for Rusyns were the decisions reached in·June 1990 at the Copenhagen meeting of the CSCE .. At Copenhagen it was agreed that "to belong to a national minority is a matter of a person's individual choice and no disadvantage may arise from the exercise of such choice." Moreover, "persons belonging to national minorities can exercise and enjoy their rights individually as well as in community with other members of their group. 1119 This means that regardless how scholars or governments might define Rusyns, if there are individuals and/or groups who call themselves by that name and who believe they constitute a distinct natio18 Among the best known of these to date are: in Transcarpathia , the writers Volodymyr Fedyny§ynec', Ivan Petrovcij, and Vasylij Socka, and the political activists Mychajlo Tomcanij, Petro Hodma§, and Vasyl' Zajac; in Czechoslovakia, the head of the Rusyn Renaissance Society, Vasyl' Turok, and the advisor to the Slovak government on nationality affairs, Ivan Bicko, and the editor Aleksander Zozuljak; in Poland, the poets Petro Trochanovskij and Olena Due , and the head of the Lemko Association , Andrij Kopca; and in Yugoslavia, the director of the Ruske Slovo publishing house, Ljubomir Medje§i, and the writers Djura Papharhaj and Natalja Duda§. 19 Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE (Copenhagen, 1990), pp. 40--41, paragraphs 32 and 32.6. SLOVAKIA 51 nality , they have a right to do so and to be recognized as Rusyns by the governments of the countries in which they live. The Copenhagen agreement also recognized the role of non-governmental organizations in promoting the interests of national minorities, and it called on the participating states to assure that the teaching of history and culture in the educational establishments "will also take account of the history and culture of national minorities. 1120 At a follow-up CSCE meeting in Geneva (July 1991), member states accepted the provisions of a special report which guaranteed the right of national minorities to participate in non-governmental organizations outside their country of residence. The report reaffirmed as well the principle that individuals or organizations representing national minorities be allowed "unimpeded contacts ... across frontiers ... with persons with whom they share a common ethnic or national origin." 21 Finally, at the most recent CSCE meeting held in Moscow (September-October 1991), member states reaffirmed the agreements reached at all previous meetings and agreed further that "commitments undertaken in the field of the human dimension of the CSCE [including those pertaining to national minorities] are matters of direct legitimate concern to all participating States and do not belong exclusively to the internal affairs of the State concemed." 22 Before looking specifically at what Rusyns need in each country to protect and guarantee their future existence, it is necessary to clarify the issue of international boundaries. In the Carpathian homeland, Rusyns live within the borders of three states, and at least until late 1992 there was discussion in the Czech , Slovak, and Transcarpathian press about certain political activists who demanded the return of Ukraine's Transcarpathian oblast (historic Subcarpathian Rus') to Czechoslovakia. 23 There was even talk that Transcarpathia 20 Ibid., p. 41 , paragraph 34. 21 Report of the CSCE Meeting of Experts on National Minorities (Geneva , 1991) , p. 10 . 22 Document of the Moscow Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE (Moscow, 1991 ), p. 2. 23 The Republican party in Czechoslovakia led by Dr. Miroslav SIMek had as one of its goals the "return of Subcarpathian Rus"' to Czechoslovakia. "Zpl!t do Ceskoslovenska," Republika (Prague), October 18-24, 1990; "Rozhovor s pi'edsedou SPR- 52 SLOVAKIA might be returned to Hungary or divided between Hungary and Czechoslovakia. In fact, most of these propositions were little more than the speculations of individuals that were blown out of proportion by political rivals and by journalists seeking to report a good story .24 The Czecho--Slovak federal government publicly declared that it "cannot be concerned with the fate" of Transcarpathia.25 With the end of Czechoslovakia in December 1992, the question of unification has become moot. As for the Rusyn organizations that have come into existence in 1990, none of them nor the World Congress of Rusyns that met in 1991 has ever voiced any demand for border changes. On the contrary, all the new organizations as well as· the vast majority of Rusyn spokespersons wherever they live warn against tampering with existing international boundaries. On the other hand, the Society of Carpatho--Rusyns in Transcarpathia has called openly for the return of the status of automony that Subcarpathian Rus' did enjoy during the interwar years. 26 In order to determine the views of the local population, the society, joined by other minority organizations, called for a question on Transcarpathian autonomy to be added to the referendum on Ukrainian indeRS, Ph Dr. Miroslavem Shidkem," ibid., August, 1991. The head of the National Socialist party, C. Cejka, stated that Czechoslovak jurisdiction still applies to Subcarpathian Rus' . "NSS chtc!jf Podkarpatskou Rus, "Lidova demokracie (Prague), September 3, 1991. 24 Jaromfr Hoi'ec of the Society of Friends of Subcarpathian Rus' in Prague and wellknown publicist has written about the recent political activism in Transcarpathia in numerous articles in the Czech press, which imply that the local population would be sympathetic to re-unification with Czechoslovakia. Cf. his recent articles in Lidova demokracie (Prague): "Freedom for Subcarpathian Rus"' (September 7, 1991); "Czechs in Subcarpathia" (September 18, 1991); and "Subcarpathia Calls For an Independent Republic" (September 20, 1991). The Hungarian press has also followed closely the demands for Transcarpathian autonomy: "Ruszin koztlirsaslig Klirplitaljlin, "Magyar hfrlap (Budapest), September 10, 1991; "A ruszinok kovetelese: Jegyen Klirplitalja koztlirsaslig! , "Nap/6 (Debrecen), September 3, 1991. 25 The quote is attributed to Czechoslovakia's foreign minister, Jiff Dienstbier, in "Svobodu pro Podkarpatskou Rus," Lidova demokracie, September 9, 1991. 26 The text of the declaration, which was sent to the Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev , to the Supreme Soviets of the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR, and to the United Nations, appeared first in the Society's newspaper, Otey} chram (SeptemberOctober, 1990) . It is available in English translation in the Carpatho-Rusyn American, XIV, 1 (Fairview , NJ., 1991), pp 4-5 . SLOVAKIA 53 pendence that was held on December 1, 1991 .27 There was a large voter tum-out, with 92.6 percent favoring Ukrainian independence and 78 percent self-rule for Transcarpathia. 28 The issue of Transcarpathian autonomy elicited great interest in neighboring countries, although this is, in fact, an internal issue for whatever kind of government and state structure is finally established in what until recently was the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. In short, Transcarpathia has been and should for the foreseeable future remain a part of Ukraine. However, as a sovereign member of the international community, Ukraine must, in tum, guarantee the individual and corporate rights of Rusyns - or those citizens of Ukraine who wish to call themselves Rusyns. It is true that the Ukrainian government has already provided guarantees for national minorities living on its territory: Russians, Jews, Poles, Germans, Tatars, etc. To this list must be added Rusyns. This would mean that the "official," or one might say traditional, Ukrainian view of the Rusyns has to change. Namely, Ukrainian authorities must accept the fact that within its boundaries, primarily in its Transcarpathian oblast, there are people who define themselves as Rusyns in the sense of a nationality distinct from Ukrainians. Such people should have the right to declare themselves in their passports and internal documents as Rusyns, and the state census bureau should publish data on the number of persons who identify as Rusyns and not simply classify them - as has been done until now - as Ukrainians. 29 If such guarantees are 27 "Rezoljucija mityngu Tovarystva Karpats'kych Rusyniv z pytannja nacional'noho vidrod!ennja rusyns'koho narodu i vidnovlennja statusu Pidkarpats'koho kraju , Mukacevo, 01.09.1991," Molod' Zakarpattja (Uzhorod), September 14, 1991, p. 4. 28 Paul Robert Magocsi, "Rusyns Regain Their Autonomy," Ukrainian Canadian Herald (Toronto), March 16, 1992, p. 7. 29 Soviet guidelines used by the State Committee for Statistics in order to classify answers in the census reports were determined largely on recommendations from authorities in individual republics as well as from the Institute of Ethnography and the Institute of Linguistics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. SeeSJovari nacional'nostej i jazykov dlja kodirovanija otvetov na 8 i 9 voprosy perepisnych Jistov (Moscow: Gosudarstvennyj komitet SSSR po statistike, 1988). It is interesting to note that a recent report by the Institute of Ethnography (No. 14110/2171, dated February 6, 1990) stated: "It is theoretically possible to con- 54 SLOVAKIA provided, there is no reason why Rusyns in Transcarpathia could not remain Rusyns as well as function as full-fledged citizens of a sovereign and democratic Ukrainian state. Indeed, independent Ukraine has recently become a member of the Conference in Security and Cooperation in Europe, which obliges it to accept and implement the principles of the Copenhagen and other agreements on national minorities outlined above. Following the trend that has taken hold in the former Soviet Union, it would seem desirable that the new Ukrainian state become a decentralized entity in which each of its component regions would have a large degree of automony in economic and cultural matters .30 Thus, questions such as what language might be taught in elementary schools, or what kind of national orientation should be adopted by regional cultural and educational institutions, or what amount of funding might be given to Rusyn-oriented groups, are all decisions that would be made by the people's assembly in Uzhorod and not in Kiev. Of course, it goes without saying that the free movement of peoples across borders with neighboring Rusyn regions in Slovakia and Poland must be guaranteed. Fortunately, this possibility exists already, albeit with a waiting time at border crossings that every day of the week averages between 15 and 20 hours. As for neighboring Slovakia, the situation of Rusyns, especially since the November 1989 Velvet Revolution, is much better than in either Ukrainian Transcarpathia or Poland. Initially, the Slovak government (generally through its Ministry of Culture) and the former Czecho-Slovak federal government (through allotment of discretionary funds) provided only ad hoc grants to the new Rusyn organizations and publications. Normal budgetary allotments of the Slovak government intended for its East Slavic Rusyn/Ukrainian elude that Rusyns can be considered at the same level as Russians , Ukrainians , and Belorussians, and that they are not a part of any of those groups ." (document in the author's possession) . 30 Discussions regarding the restructuring of the Ukraine have been going on for the past few years . Neighbouring Galicia as well as Transcarpathia feel confident that each could do much better economically if it were independent of the centre in Kiev . Cf. Ivan Hrancak, "Vidnovleni haluzky karpats'koho kraju : Ukrajina federatyvna?," No vyny Zakarpattja (Uzhorod), February 6, 1991 . SLOVAKIA 55 minority continued to go to the Union of Rusyn-Ukrainians of Czechoslovakia (SRUC), that is, to the Ukrainian-oriented cultural organization that is the direct descendant (still with largely the same leadership) as the formerly Communist-dominated Cultural Union of Ukrainian Workers (KSUT). Slovak government funding through other ministries also supported in Presov several Ukrainian university departments and institutes at Safarik University , a Ukrainian radio station, and a Ukrainian publishing house, as well as the Museum of Ukrainian Culture (recently renamed the Aleksander Pavlovy Regional Museum) in Svidnik. As of 1993 , two Rusyn-oriented organizations also receive a normal budgetary allotment. These include the Aleksander Duchnovyc Theater (formerly the Ukrainian National Theater) which is of a Rusyn orientation and the Rusyn Renasissance Society (Rusyns'ka Obroda), both based in Presov. The Slovak government now recognizes that there are two clearly-defined national orientations - Rusyn and Ukrainian - and that if support for national minorities is to continue in Slovakia, then funding should be provided to Rusyn as well as Ukrainian organizations. But how should the government divide a financial allotment among its East Slavic minority, which until recently has been designated only as Ukrainian? The Slovak government has opted for what seems the most reasonable solution. It has accepted the percentages revealed in the results of the 1991 census, and, therefore, has provided roughly 50 percent financial support to Rusyn cultural organizations and media and 50 percent to Ukrainian cultural organizations, schools, and its media. The question of schools in Slovakia is particularly problematic, because beginning in the 1960s the language of instruction in the vast majority of Rusyn-inhabited villages was changed - at the request of parents themselves - from Ukrainian to Slovak. Moreover, as part of a consolidation process during the past two decades, many small elementary schools in Rusyn-inhabited villages were closed. Even if private or public elementary schools will be reopened in Rusyn villages, it is likely that Slovak will be the language of instruction. The Slovak ministry of education, however, should 56 SLOVAKIA provide teachers and textbooks in Rusyn or in Ukrainian for those villages that may submit such requests. Most important, the standard Slovak-language history textbooks used throughout Slovakia should include an adequate discussion of the history and culture of Rusyns and other minorities which will be of benefit to all students. This would be in keeping with the CSCE agreement reached in Copenhagen, which - along with other "international treaties on human rights and freedoms" - are, according to the new consitution of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, "universally binding on its territory and supercede its own laws."31 The Rusyns, or Lemko Rusyns of Poland perhaps need the most help. Not only is the majority of Lemko Rusyns scattered throughout the western and northern regions of Poland, but their fledgling pro-Rusyn organization, the Lemko Association with its amateur theatrical troupe, and the older Lemkovyna folk ensemble receive no financial support at all from the Polish government, either in the form of an annual budgetary allotment or ad hoc grants. Whatever government funds assigned to national minority cultural activity are given, they invariably go to the Union of Ukrainians in Poland (Ob'jednannja Ukrajinciv Pollsci), the direct descendant of the Communist-dominated Ukrainian Socio-Cultural Society (USKT). Support for the new Union of Ukrainians must continue, especially since most Ukrainians in Poland are not originally from nor do they live in the Carpathian region. On the otherhand, Lemko Rusyns must also be recognized as a distinct national minority and receive a fair share of funding. How to determine what is a "fair share" will, of course, be difficult, since Poland does not even have nationality as a category on its decennial census questionnaires. Perhaps a referendum attached to the next national vote could include a question that lists all the national groups in Poland and asks the respondent to which one he/she would wish to assign a portion of their taxes for cultural 31 Cf. Section 2 of the Constitutional Act of January 9, 1991, instituting the charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms as a Constitutional Act of the Federal Assembly of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic . SLOVAK.IA 57 activity. This would be somewhat similar to municipalities in Canada that ask their residents to indicate whether they want their tax dollars to be assigned to public schools or to separate (Catholic) schools. Whatever the mechanism decided upon, in keeping with its commitments as a member state of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Polish government is obliged to recognize Lernko Rusyns as a distinct national minority and to provide funding for Lernko cultural organizations and Lernko-language schools in those communities that demand them. Lastly, we turn to the situation in Yugoslavia. Ever since World War II, the Yugoslav policy of equality for its six component republics and support for the national minorities that live within them has encouraged the Croatian Republic and, in particular, the Vojvodina Autonomous Region of the Serbian Republic to finance liberally Rusyn cultural and educational activity. It is to be expected that when the republics of Yugoslavia sort out their present difficulties, the republics of Croatia and, in particular, Serbia will continue their judicious support and protection of their respective Rusyn minorities. Conclusion The Rusyns are one example of the many groups who suffered under the totalitarian regimes imposed on East Central Europe during the past four decades. Now that those regimes no longer exist, there is a real opportunity to correct past injustices and to assure the future survival of the Rusyns. It is, after all, in the interest of all four countries where Rusyns live - Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia - to become part of the larger European community. The way in which those countries resolve the Rusyn issue will, in part, determine to what degree they are ready for membership in the new Europe. SYMPOSIUM  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 Carpatho-Rusyns: Their Current Status and Future Perspectives Description An account of the resource Paul Robert Magosci Slovakia, Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92 pp. 36-57 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Magocsi, Paul Robert, 1945- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-92 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/2f686333d61a0f6f7c6836ec8b30d0b2.pdf 6871f9d1450242f7d5e2d428d3686255 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 7 Slovak Emigrants in Canada as Reflected in Diplomatic Documents (1920 - 1938) ELENA JAKESOVA Slovak emigration to Canada - not taking into account the European continental migration - can be considered one of the strongest and most significant of all of the Slovak migrations during the inter-war period. Great numbers of Slovaks moved to Canada across the Antlantic to earn some money, especially in the second half of the 1920s. 1 The inter-war years, however, represented only its second stage, because Slovaks had started to leave for the United States as early as the 1870s. The 1920s witnessed only a change in destination. The United States of America, which in 1920 contained about 620,000 Slovaks, halted that mass emigration. When the continuity of the traditional emigration had been broken partly in the year 1921, and definitely in the year 1924, the search for an alternative solution of the problem did not take long. The immigrants saw in Canada's common frontier with the United States the possibility of emigration south in the future. Therefore, Canada became in the second half of the twenties "the second chance", a kind of alternative destination of the Slovak emigrants in spite of the fact that in comparison with the USA there 1 Shipping companies transported from Slovakia to Canada in 1922 110 persons, in 1923 2029 , in 1924 2832, in 1925 2134 , in 1926 6066 , in 1927 6301 , in 1928 8184 , in 1929 4116 , in 1930 3586, in 1931 730, in 1932 522, in 1933 673 , in 1934 851, in 1935 742 , in 1936 716. Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 4, Prague, 1932) and in Statistical Yearbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Prague 1934 , 1935, 1936, 1937) . �8 SLOVAKIA were not many reasons to look for opportunities for employment on its territory. In the period up to World War I, Canada attracted only about 5,000 Slovaks. 2 As early as the beginning of the 1920s it appeared that Canada could become the alternative overseas country of destination of Slovak emigrants. That alternative began to attract not only applicants for emigration passports in Slovakia but also Czecho-Slovak diplomats, and their representatives in Canada. In elucidating the development of the stated tendency, and its impact, we chose a series of diplomatic documents, representing the activities of the Czechoslovak consulate in Montreal in the years 1920-1938 as the basis of the following essay . The most significant are those documents which give special attention to the process of emigration. The subjects of the correspondence of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Montreal were the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague, and the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa.3 The Goals of this essay are limited. I will focus only on those aspects of the topic falling into the competence, tasks and activities of the Czechoslovak representatives in Canada. In consequence of the pro-emigration attitudes of the Czechoslovak government, two basic trends will coincide: Canadian immigration policy, and the development of the Slovak community in Canada. Slovak nationals represented the vast majority of all the people involved in the process of Czechoslovak emigration, especialy in the second half of the 2 Message of the Austro-Hungarian Consulate General in Montreal, IO December, I 902 to Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vienna . Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv Wien, F 15, File 62, deliv . 27 December, 1902. 3 sources: Archives of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs , Prague (hereinafter only AFMZV), Political reports - Montreal (1920- I 938) (hereinafter PZ-M) , and Section II. National Archives, Prague (hereinafter SUA) , Fund of Ministry of Social Welfare (hereinafter MSP), Ministry of International Affairs - Old registers of 19191944 (hereinafter MV) . Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa (hereinafter PAC) , Immigration Branch (RG 76) , Vol. 198 Consul General of Czechoslovakia, Montreal , Quebec (1922-1940) (File 80671) , Vol. 251 Czechoslovakia, Passports (1924-1939) (File 183211), Vol. 616 Czechoslovaks (File 916207) . �SLOVAKIA 9 1920s .4 This fact accounted for the basis for the final ethnic identification of the newly-formed community in the Canadian environment, and, at the same time, determined the attitudes, and activities of the Czechoslovak Representatives in Canada. The first diplomatic contacts between Czechoslovakia and Canada were established on the consular level in Montreal in November of 1920. Bohuslav K. Ryznar was appointed the first Czechoslovak Consul. The Consulate was subordinated to the Czechoslovak Embassy in London, which corresponded with the arrangements of the relations between London and Ottawa. Despite the urgent request of B . K . Ryznar to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague, the functional designation of the Consulate in Montreal was not changed in the years 1920-1922 . He stressed the fact that "Canada is absolutely a self-governing country, and does not pay any taxes , duties or other allowances to the British Empire to be used by the army or navy. There is no British soldier, and no British warship in the whole territory of the Dominion .. ."5 B. K. Ryznar submitted several arguments to support his request for changing the Montreal office's rank to Consulate General. He suggested that the Governor General of Canada, the federal government, and the ministries in Ottawa entered into contacts only with accredited diplomats on the level of Consuls General. 6 Therefore, lower consular rankings resulted in the absence of contacts and information which, to a great extent, limited the possibility of diplomatic activity. Despite the Consul's assurances that eventual installation of a Consul General would not increase the budget, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague strictly refused the request.7 4 comparing the number of emigrants from Czechoslovakia to Canada during the years 1922-1932 with the number of emigrants from Slovakia for the same period, we have found that 83% were Slovaks, and only 17% were Czechs . If we compared it with the number of inhabitants , the difference would be even more extreme . Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 4, Prague , 1932). 5AFMZV, PZ-M, year I 921, No. 19, 27 . 6. 1921. 6With the addition that of all European countries, only Czechoslovakia and Portugal had their Consulates in Canada. AFMZV , PZ-M, year 1921 , No . 9, 17 . 2. 1921 . 7AFMZV , PZ-M, year 1921, No. 10 (B . ve .). �SLOVAKIA In reply to the refusal , the Consul Ryznar again reminded the Ministry of the difficulties connected with the execution of his mission : "The situation looks as if the Prague centre has to seek information on the territory from Brittany to the foot of the Urals, and from Cadiz to Hamerfest, without any auxiliary offices and means" .8 These basic arguments - i. e. the inferior position of the representation , and the large size of Canada - were, for a certain period, the most effective tool in the hands of the Czechoslovak Consul in Canada to be used whenever he was obliged to take a stand , or to characterize some generally valid phenomenon. The taking of such an attitude was under those circumstances understandable. The presence and activity of the first Czechoslovak Consul in Canada represented but the first stage of the Czechoslovak diplomatic activity in Canada, aimed at the gradual acquisition and transmission to the Czechoslovak Government of essential information on anything he considered important, including the care for his own nationals, with special attention paid to immigrants coming to the country. Taking into account the goal of the present essay , it is important to stress first of all the Consul's investigation of the state of the regional community of his fellow-countrymen. This all formed a part of the information sent at the beginning of 1920 to the Political Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague. He characterized it as follows : 11 ••• a colony of Czechoslovak nationals representing over five thousand persons living in the whole Dominion , i. e. an area equal to the extent of the United States of North America ... , it is , however, insufficiently organized, and could not be used as a decisive element to support any political faction .. . Also the interest of the Czechoslovak farmers settled in the province of Saskatchewan are quite different from those of the miners in Nova Scotia, living apart a distance of about four thousand kilometers. It will be very difficult to unify them and to make them act together" _9 It is obvious that recognizing the small numbers in the community provoked both interested parties to consider the further possibi8AFMZV , PZ-M,year 1921 , No . 19, 27. 6. 1921. 9AFMZV , PZ-M , year 1921, No . 2, File No . 10/21. �SLOVAK.IA 11 lities of its growth. These appeared already in 1921 in connection with the increasing interest in emigration from Czechoslovakia, and also with the growing threat of the limitation of immigration by the US Government. Therefore, the future Canadian immigration policy , and especially its relation to Central Europe, became the primary area of interest of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Montreal. The formulation dealing with the diffusion and disorganization of the colony had the hidden agenda of the further activity of the Czechoslovak Consulate - i.e. co-operation with the community in order to unify it as far as its organization is concerned, and, in this way, to shape its future direction. A matter of question, however, was - by which means and in what manner should it be done? The organizational and political attitudes chosen by the consular authorities in relationship to the Slovak community is the principal topic of this essay. The diplomatic communiques themselves contained certain signals in answer to the question because there the community was referred to as a colony of Czechoslovak nationals, without more detailed ethnic identification. Despite the fact that the first impression acquired by the Czechoslovak side from the trends in Canadian immigration policy was not in any way favourable - "the Canadian authorities obstructed the immigrants" 10 - the Consul reported to Prague at the beginning of 1921 that the consular office succeeded in finding some indications of change. Public debates began to mould opinions that, with respect to the growing need for cheap labour, it was necessary to retain the principle of a priority in the selection of immigrants, i. e. not to prefer Britons as the representatives of the "mother country" of Canada, but to permit a bit of benevolence in the selection of the immigrants. 11 It was decided by the Consulate to seize the opportunity immediately. The federal Department of Immigration and Colonization in IOAFMZV, Sec . II ., Reg . 531, File No . 514, 4.2.1921. 11 AFMZV, PZ-M, year 1921, No . 19, an article published in The Montreal Daily Star, 4. 6. 1921 , "Repudiation , Annexation or Population". �12 SLOVAKIA Ottawal 2 was asked in November of 1922 to provide statistical data on the number of Czechoslovak immigrants in Canada, and, at the same time, to inform the Consulate about the willingness of the Canadian government to accept the immigration and settlement of Czechoslovak nationals in Canada,13 This initiative of the Czechoslovak Consul was premature. The department took a very reserved attitude. Its Secretary, F. C. Blair, provided only the requested statistical data, and completely omitted the problem connected with the possibility of immigration from Czechoslovakia. 14 It is, therefore, clear that it was only the Czechoslovak side which initiated and tried to recommend its own citizens as suitable potential immigrants to Canada. Despite the fact that this effort had been ignored, the Consul Ryznar was not discouraged. He went on searching for some sign of permissivness in the Canadian immigration policy towards the Continent and concretely to Central Europe. He tried to convince the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs and also the Ministry of Social Welfare, that he was doing his best to search for possibilities for Slovak applicants for emigration to countries other than to the USA. The Consul constantly tried to find some solution and began to consider the most attractive the idea of the Canadian immigration officials - i. e. to attract peasants, who, unlike the British colonists coming mainly from towns, and again settled in towns in Canada, would be able and willing to farm in Canada, to cutlivate the virgin land, and to revive the economy of the country.15 He saw such a solution in Central Europe. Ryznar had been so encouraged with the possibility of Slovak immigration that he decided at the beginning of 1923 to send another letter to F. C. Blair. He did so in order to get some information about the new policy of settlement being enforced by certain political 12The Department of Immigration and Colonization, an independent Department of the Federal Government, came into existence in 1917 through its separation from the Ministry of the Interior. 13 PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 198, File 80671 , 11. I 1. 1922. 14 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 28 . 11.1922. 15 AFMZV, PZ-M, year 1922, No. 7, 4.12 . 1922. �SLOVAKIA 13 circles . His primary goal was, however, again to remind the Canadian government of Czechoslovakia, and its peasantry applying for immigration visas. He stressed in his letter that he had been urged by his own government, and primarily by the Ministry of Social Welfare, which was greatly interested in the possibility of immigration of its citizens to Canada. In another letter he told of the intention of the above-mentioned Ministry to subscribe to the most significant Canadian newspaper in order to receive information on the programme of the settlement of the country, and at the same time to find missing information for numerous applicants for emigration, i.e. the citizens of Czechoslovakia.16 His efforts to attract the attention of the highest authorities of the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization brought some results in the end. The Czechoslovak Ministry of Social Welfare was finally put on the list of the addresses of the immigration press being issued by the Department of Immigration and Colonization. 17 Above all, those institutions realised that Czechoslovakia was offering a certain part of its peasantry with the assurance that they certainly would be very suitable future colonists . The explanation of the following could be found in the activity of the Czechoslovak Consulate: when in the autumn of 1923 a great need for a cheap labor force emerged in Canada in connection with the logging of old wood in forests, and its preparation for further processing in sawmills, representing in itself very heavy manual work, the citizens of British or French origin did not want to do it. Therefore, the Department of Immigration and Colonization met the demands of some entrepreneurial circles and agreed with the submitted proposal to obtain suitable lumberjacks in Central Europe . The Minister of Immigration and Colonization personally suggested that sort of labour force be sought in Czechoslovakia. He explained it in the following manner: "based on the information received, applicants for emigration from Czechoslovakia are said to have some experience with agricultural work, and also the prerequisites for 16pAc, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671 , 27 . 2. 1923. 17PAC , RG 76 , Vol. 198 , File 80671 , 7. 3. 1923. �14 SLOVAKIA managing methods used in Canadian agriculture in order to become true Canadian farmers in the end" .1 8 The Consulate was very proud of the results of its diplomatic mission. It interpreted its work in the following, quite inadequate, manner: "The Canadian immigration authorities prefer Czechoslovak nationals because of their good physical condition, honesty and industriousness. They find them excellent colonists , and they would be very glad to receive them" _19 In fact the Canadian authorities permitted workers at the end of 1923 in Czechoslovakia for the Canadian lumbering industry only, with only some five hundred, 20 later increased to a thousand workers. 21 Most of those people were obtained in Slovakia as can be seen in the statistical data of the shipping companies concerning the transporting of over two thousand persons from Slovakia to Canada during that same year.22 Immediately after the arrival of the first post-war contingent of Slovak immigrants, they faced numerous problems . The consulate in February 1924 issued the following message: "Most of those (i. e. immigrants) devoted themselves in the winter season to cutting wood. The living standards in those camps, hundreds of miles from civilization, situated in vast forests , are hardly enviable .. . They work from early morning till late at night. They eat food prepared in a common kitchen and pay for it through the reduction of their salaries. The employer provides workers with clothes and other requisites paid for in the above-mentioned manner. It is obvious that our fellows , knowing neither the language nor the customs , are in an endless wilderness thrown at the mercy of dishonest officials, and some problems had to be solved through the consular authorities with the director or owner of the company in order to ensure their protection" .23 18 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 3. 11. 1923. 19.-;;:,UA, , MSP, Reg. 3894, No. 2028 , 2. 6. 1923. 20PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt. 1, 18. 10. 1923. 21SUA, MSP, Reg. 3899, File 847, 20. 2. 1924. 22 Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 3, Prague, 1928). 23SUA, MSP, Reg. 3899, File 847 , 20.2. 1924. �SLOVAKIA 15 In addition to the difficult position of a part of the Slovak immigrants in lumber camps, there were also other problems . The Canadian authorities offered, in fact only seasonal work. That meant that in the spring of the year 1924, when the season had ended, the immigrants were on their own. A part of them started to drift to Montreal, and other cities, especially those near the American border. It was clear in the end that the first group of post-war immigrants had come to Canada with a clear goal: to get around the restrictive immigration measures imposed by the American authorities, and to get to the United States via Canada,24 where their relatives and friends were already settled. Numerous requests of the immigrants to solve this problem were a heavy burden for the Czechoslovak consular officials .25 All their efforts, however, were useless. At least a one-year stay of the immigrant in Canada was a necessary precondition to receiving a visa to the USA. The situation of the Slovak lumberjacks was very difficult to resolve. The Czechoslovak Consulate tried to avoid growing difficulties caused partly by its own activity. The Czechoslovak authorities were immediately asked to inform passport offices about issuing emigration visas to Canada only to those applicants willing to settle permanently in Canada. 26 In order to stop the growth of further complications, the Consulate again addressed the Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa to provide it with the form, or the text of the agreement usually concluded between the employer and employee.27 The letter also expressed the Government's interest in receiving more detailed information about living conditions of the 1mmigrants in Canada. The highest Canadian authorities answered the letter immediately. They informed the Consulate that neither an agreement form, nor any legislative criteria, existed in Canada for concluding contracts. As far as the securing of certain living standards for immigrants was concerned, living conditions were different in various 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 198 , File 80671 , 16. 4.1924 . �16 SLOVAKIA parts of the country and what was offered was generally considered sufficient. 28 It was too late and quite useless to ask those questions. We know that the Canadian government authorities cared for the problems of their own poorest workers even less than for the Czechoslovak ones, and there was no motivation to help the immigrants, coming without any financial means, and at their own risk. It follows from the above that, at the beginning of 1924, the activity of the Consulate had to orient itself to immigration from Czechoslovakia. It had to decide what to do with people coming from Slovakia with the intention of going to the United States. The chance to get there was only minimal. While the Czechoslovak Consulate was asking the questions, the Slovak League of America, as the cover organization of Slovak immigrants in the USA, took the initiative. Many Slovak immigrants in Canada turned to it with requests for help, because the CanadianSlovak community itself was small in number, lost over the huge territory, and therefore could not support them. In the summer of 1924, the Slovak League sent its delegate to Canada to investigate the situation. Upon his arrival the delegate confirmed the fact that the immigrants had come to Canada with the goal of getting into the USA. At the same time he informed the American-Slovak public that "the prisons on the frontier are full of our people caught when they tried to get to the USA illegally" .29 After receiving that information, the executive of the Slovak League decided to publish information about the hopeless situation of most of the Slovak immigrants in Canada in magazines in Slovakia. 30 Thus a short article published later in numerous Slovak magazines came into being. The text of it was more than meaningful: "The representative of the Slovak League of America who had been sent to Canada reported about a sad group there. Over 12,000 of them are living there and suffer awfully. They cannot find work, and when they get 28PAC , RG 76, Vol. 198 , File 80212 , 25 . 4. 1924. 29 Minutes of the session of the delegates of the Slovak organizations in America organized by the executive of the Slovak League , held in Pittsburgh, Pa ., 18 . December of 1924. In: Slovak v Amerike, 51, No. 37, 2. 3. 1925, p. 3. 3oIbid. �SLOVAKIA 17 it, they have to work in the Canadian virgin forests and are paid only a pittance. Their feet and hands are frost-bitten and some of them even went mad" _31 The disclosure of the irresponsibility of the Czechoslovak and Canadian authorities who had prepared and organized the immigration , upset not only American Slovaks and people in Slovakia, it also affected diplomatic relations between Czechoslovakia and Canada. The Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa was probably informed directly through the British Ambassador in Prague . A letter was immediately sent to the Czechoslovak Consul in Montreal containing - a slightly paraphrased - "anxiety about the fact that the published information on the situation in Canada does not correspond with reality" _32 At the same time Ottawa asked the Consul to inform it about the Slovak League of America. They were mostly interested in whether the organization had a branch in Canada consisting of the proper members, and finally asked the Consul about the alleged problem, i. e. whether he was really informed about a greater number of Slovak immigrants in Canada who had not found work.33 In his answer B. K. Ryznar suggested to the Minister W. J. Egan that the Slovak League of America was a strong organization with half a million members. He assured him, however, that the organization had not had any branch in Canada. 34 As he had not ment to destroy his previous efforts in the field of creating premises for acceptance of immigrants from Czechoslovakia, he to a certain extent negated the arguments of the above-mentioned article, and assured Ottawa that there were not many unemployed Slovaks in Canada. In order not to minimize his duties and problems connected with the execution of his mission, Ryznar mentioned in his letter having heard only about the complaints of the immigrants concerning irregular practices applied by the employers and the labour 3 IE. g. Sloven ska domovina, 7, No. 6, 5. 2. I 925, p. 2. 32 As in Note 29 . 33PAC , RG 76, Vol. 616 , File 916207, pt . I, 10. 2. 1925 . 34Toe Slovak League of America had but one subsidiary in Canada, at Fort William , Ontario, founded in 1916, havi ng one hundred and fifty members. �18 SLOVAKIA agencies, and their attempts to misuse them. His attitude to the whole problem was contrary to the facts .35 The above-mentioned problem had been disturbing to both interested parties, and therefore the Department in Ottawa decided to inform the Czechoslovak authorities in order to elucidate somehow the problems of unemployment and basic social care provided to the Slovak immigrants. The information was , however, only general , covering but the job opportunities offered by Canada to the immigrants . Job opportunities were represented principally by seasonal work for agricultural workers. The number of needed seasonal workers was very difficult to determine ahead of time. The Department cleared up only the problem of the salaries offered. They assured the Czechoslovak authorities that the minimum monthly salary had to be 25 dollars , at the same time admitting even higher wages in case of additional seasonal work.36 But the Czechoslovak authorities wanted to make the problem clear. Therefore, they sent a delegate on a mission to Eastern Canada. He could only confirm the well-known facts about the difficulties of a part of the new Slovak immigrants. The most serious of them represented unemployment on the one hand, and unpaid salaries for work done on the other. The employers, for various reasons, often refused to pay the immigrants. They were sure that it was quite impossible to claim their salaries through the courts, as no service contracts had been concluded with the immigrants. 37 Together with the arrival of a greater number of immigrants, and especially when the lumbering season had ended, a tendency appeared during 1924 among groups of immigrants settling in Montreal to be near the residence of the Czechoslovak Consulate. Growing unemployment was the motive for their concentration. The officials saw the reasons for immigrants remaining in the big cities in their apparent aversion to working on farms, and in their false illusions of 35PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt . I, 14.2.1925. 36 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt. I, 26.3.1925. 37SUA, MSP, Reg . 3803, No . 10219, 2.5. 1925. �SLOVAKIA 19 better salaries in cities. The immigrants hoped to find in Montreal an advanced industry, as was the case in cities of the United States .38 Social dislocation, therefore, became the decisive experience of the people. This motivated them during the summer 1924 to support each other through a co-operative association. 39 The forming of the ethnically homogenous Slovak group in Montreal, welded together by common problems, could not be ignored by the Czechoslovak Consul. He reported to Prague in detail about the two Slovaks in Montreal, who strove to establish a "Slovak Benefit Society". He added, however, that their task was very difficult, because of the small and ever-changing number of the Slovaks in Montreal, as most of them were looking for work, and their stay in the city was temporary .40 He also reported on the activity of the Slovak League of America, aimed at the organization of Slovak immigrants in Canada. The League sent its delegate to Montreal to investigate the situation. According to the Consul there was no response to the efforts of that Slovak-American organization in Canada. His opinion was, that the representative of the Slovak League "had not been accepted positively by his fellow-countrymen" _41 It is clear that the associative efforts of the Slovak immigrants were from the very beginning followed very carefully by the Consulate. The fact that the Slovak immigrants had decided to go their own way inspired the Consulate General to act in accordance with its original intention to organize the whole community in Canada, representing several thousand. At the beginning the Consulate tried to control the activity of the newly-formed association of Slovaks in Montreal. The Consul Ryznar, as soon as he arrived in 1920, decided to enter in a most decisive manner into the life of the community. But there was little hope of realizing that because of the originally small 38 Jbid. 39The association was founded by Gabriel Kurdel and F. Capkovic , at the end of 1924, in the first Slovak restaurant in Montreal , named "Tatra" . It was opened by F. Capkovic in the spring of I 924 . From the letter of G . Kurdel to the author dated 8. 12. 1974. (Personal archives of the author) . 40 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1924, No. 8, 8. 9. 1924. 41 Ibid. �20 SLOVAKIA number of the Slovak immigrants scattered across the vast Canadian lanscape. That all prevented him from managing the situation. Therefore, in his diplomatic agenda, he prudently suggested that the Slovak inhabitants in Canada were not organized as they could not be organized. But, as it is known from the diplomatic agenda of the former Austro-Hungarian Consuls General in Canada, the truth was just opposite. The Slovaks in Canada did organize already at the tum of the 19th and 20th centuries but not in their own associations. They were establishing in Canada numerous branches of American-Slovak associations. This resulted in subordinating them to centres in the USA, thus connecting more tightly the Canadian Slovaks with American ones, rather than the Slovaks living across Canada. With respect to the above-mentioned facts, the Czechoslovak Consul did not consider uniting the Canadian-Slovak community possible. This made him believe in the end that the Slovaks in Canada were not organized at all. The alternative of establishing new associations after World War I was impossible. In 1922 the Consul expressed his attitude in the following manner: "there are not suitable conditions here for establishing Czechoslovak associations" .42 It follows that he really intended to establish not only new associations, but also to make those already existing acquire the status of Czechoslovak ones, i. e. to conform to the Czechoslovak stateforming conception, and to manifest it in concrete organizational forms of their foreign enclave. When it was necessary to explain the reasons preventing him from realizing his plans, the Consul stressed the fact that there was a conflict between his intentions and the Slovak attitude represented by the strong pro-Hungarian orientation of the greatest concentration of the pre-war Slovak immigrants in Fort William, Ontario.43 About six hundred to one thousand and two hundred Slovaks were living there. The pro-Hungarian tendencies of that nationally and organizationally unified group of the Slovak immigrants coming mostly from 4 2SuA . MSP, Reg . 3894, No . 2313, 26. 6. 1922. 43 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1922, File 36 d, 25.4. 1922. �SLOVAKIA 21 the Orava region - which was in the period before the World War I known as an area nearly untouched by the process of magyarization - "were explained" very simply: those Slovaks had attended Hungarian schools and immigrated to Canada from Hungarian lands. We must add, however, that he, himself, doubted his statements about the pro-Hungarian manifestations of the Fort William Slovaks with the confession about getting his information "second hand" . Later on, he made use of his statements about magyarized Slovaks as a serious obstacle to the enforcement of the Czechoslovak philosophy. He said that the pro-Hungarian tendencies were permanently supported both by former Austro-Hungarian and new Hungarian Consuls in Canada during his journeys across Canada where the Hungarians had lived together with the Slovaks.44 The Czechoslovak Consul made use of that fact. He remarked that he himself as a Consul had not been able to travel along the consular "region" by permission of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs even after his three years' stay in Canada.45 In such a way he brought forward both the "principal", and other, i.e. "technical" cause of his temporary failure in relation to the Slovak community in Canada. We must say, however, that arguments such as the long distances between Montreal and individual Slovak settlements, the absence of contact with them, or surviving pro-Hungarian emotions among regional inhabitants, as well as the existence of no chance to change it, also survived. They could never be used to characterize the newly-forming associations of Slovak immigrants. The consul chose quite a different explanation. As he himself noted in the consular report, he had evaluated the activity of "the Czechoslovak citizens coming from Slovakia". In relationship to the existing foreign-political conception of the unitary Czechoslovak state, and the officialy-accepted theory of the Czechoslovak nation as well, he started to characterize the new associative tendencies of Montreal's Slovaks as the activation of anti-Czech 44 AFMZ, PZ-M , year 1924, No . 6. 11. 11. 1924. 4SAFMZ, PZ-M , year 1923, No. 13. 13 . 12. 1923 . �22 SLOVAKIA ideas, and the spreading of treasonous ideas brought apparently by Slovak immigrants and spread among fellow-countrymen. 46 Characterization of the associative tendencies of the Slovak immigrants in Montreal as anti-Czech, or even treasonous, was naive , and in the end turned against the Consulate itself. The Consulate had immediately to respond, and to eliminate the manifestations of the Slovak separatists represented, and replace them with the associative efforts of helpless immigrants. The Consul was supposed to initiate an unifying processes and make the Slovak immigrants accept their organization with those Czech immigrants who had settled in Montreal long before. It was, however, very difficult to find a proper way to solve the problem. There were only a few Czech immigrants living in Montreal. 47 They were mostly older inhabitants, and besides, they were on a higher social level, with other interests and needs. The Slovaks, meanwhile, were not in the least interested in any sort of social activity, or even "making policy". Therefore even the old traditional and experienced way of ideologically influencing the community, as it was suggested by the Czechoslovak authorities - i. e. to issue a newspaper - was considered inappropriate, and even useless. Migrating Slovaks searching all the time for jobs would not accept any newspaper _48 The following "solution" proved the most suitable one: the Canadian public was informed through an article published in The Montreal Daily Star in December of 1924 about the organization of "the Czechoslovak citizens in order to establish an independent association of Czechoslovak immigrants" .49 When, at the beginning of 1925, B. K. Ryznar finished his diplomatic mission to Canada (from January 1923 he was Consul General) the Montreal Slovak community was already officialy represented by the Czechoslovak 46 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1924, No. 8. 8.9.1924. 47 Before World War I, thirteen Czech families and one Slovak family lived in Montreal. In: Rybnfcek, A.: "Vzpomfnky starousadlfka." I:udove zvesti, 26, No. 40 , I 9. 10. 1961, p. 14. 48 AFMZ, PZ-M , year 1924, No . 12. 11. 11 . 1924. 4 9"Society formed to aid Czechs . New body will assist immigrants to prosper here". The Montreal Daily Star, 16. 12. 1924 . PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616 , File 916207, pt. I . �SLOVAKIA 23 Benefit Society. An internal conflict existed, however, concerning its name, emerging from time to time with greater or less intensity ,50 as the roots of a sort of natural alliance were missing.51 The beginning of 1925, connected with the end of B. K. Ryznar's diplomatic mission, and the coming of the new Consul General F. V. Kveton, represented a break in the immigration policy of Canada. Thanks to favourable economic-political decisions of the Canadian Government to end the policy of favouring immigrants from Great Britain, psychologically and physically not sufficiently prepared to do hard agricultural work in the Canadian wilderness, resulted in the recruitment of immigrants - mainly peasants - from the Central European region. It was the poor state of the Canadian economy at the beginning of 1925 as mentioned by the federal Parliament of Canada,52 which resulted in the above-mentioned changes in immigration policy. That new alternative was, despite the poor economic situation of Canada, evaluated by the Czechoslovak authorities with great satisfaction. It seemed that the arrival of immigrants would be greatly simplified for the immigrants comming from some "selected European countries, including the Czechoslovak Republic" .53 New workers were expected to revive the Canadian economy. They, however, misunderstood each other. The Canadian politicians saw the solution in further cultivation of land and farms left by the British colonists , thus solving the urgent need for agricultural workers. In fact, most of the applicants for emigration from the 50From a letter of G. Kurdel to the author dated 8. 12. 1974. 51 Canadian immigration policy allowed from Czechoslovakia only agricultural workers. Therefore, the intelligentsia had no place among immigrants (with some few exceptions). It meant that the Slovak community had no natural leaders. Some did develop. Gabriel Kurdel was the most significant one. In connection with the newlyfounded association in Montreal, G. Kurdel in his memoires said that he had informed the new Consul General Kv~ton about existing conflicts in the association. The Consul agreed with the change of the name of the association to a Slovak one. But, according to his memoirs, when he submitted his proposal to the leaders of the association, represented by Czech fellow-countrymen, they commented on it as follows: "It is nonsense". In: Memoirs of G. Kurdel. Phone record from 26. 10. 1977. No. SLK 3023. Archives of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario, Toronto. 52AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1925, No. 5. 7.2.1925. • 53~.:.UA, , MSP, Reg. 3894, File 847, 20. 2. 1924. �24 SLOVAKIA Central European region, including Slovakia, were poor people unable to participate in the Canadian programme of immigration of farming families with some capital. They could only saturate the secondary needs of the workforces , i.e. the agricultural workers on farms. The second alternative attracted primarily those applicants for emigration from Slovakia who were rejected by the United States. The number of those interested was very large. According to officials of the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague, it was nearly impossible to control the situation. The quota permitted annualy by the Canadian side could not be exceeded. The Canadians succeeded in keeping it low .54 In this way the number of Slovaks in Canada was by the end of the year 1930 increased to some 30 ,000 - 40,000 persons. 55 Czechoslobvak representatives in Montreal protested by means of a Memorandum to Minister Egan aginst the recruitment of workers without appropriate legislative requisites. The Consul stressed in the Memorandum that, according to Czechoslovak emigration law, each of the emigrants should, before their departure , be furnished with a -valid contract with the name of the employer, the location , sort of work, the duration of the employment, as well as the offered wage. 56 In response to the Memorandum, the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization considered it its duty to inform the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague only of the fact that an immigrant - agricultural worker - was to be paid 25 dollars per month with board and lodging.57 Further disputes and legally-unsolved problems were on both sides consulted usually in the following manner: in further similar inter-governmental agreements concerning the emigration and immi- 54Approximately 6,000 to 7,000 persons. 55 Archives of the President's Office, D. 12331/38. Secret message of CS . Consul General dr. F. Pavl~sek to Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague about the situation among Slovaks in Canada, dated 17. 3. 1937. In: Bielik, F.: Sloven ske vys(ahovaleccvo. Dokumency III. Martin, MS 1976, doc. No. 375 . 56PAC, RG. 76, Vol. 616, File 916207 , pt. 1, 23 . 5. 1925 . 57 PAC, RG. 76, Vol. 616, File 916207 , pt. 1, 23 . 5. 1925 . �SLOVAKIA 25 gration , proper attention should be paid to the solution of the problem of concrete labour contracts.58 From the above-mentioned it follows that the period of activity of Consul General F. V. Kveton (during the years 1925-1929) reflected a considerable increase in the community, not only in Montreal or Toronto, but also in other Canadian regions. This was connected with new organizations of the immigration process. The immigrants were placed primarily on the Praires of Canada, with the organizational centre located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Consul General F. V. Kveton visited that region in 1926. On his journey across Canada he discovered an increase in Slovak colonists despite the fact that he had intended to investigate mainly the Czech settlements. He came to the conclusion that "the Czechoslovak colony" in Canada was in fact the Slovak community. He stressed that fact in his report . Fort William was, according to him , the most significant and stable Slovak city. He estimated that some 1,100 to 1,200 Slovak souls were concentrated there with their own Catholic parish, and a nice church. He said that the Slovaks were working mainly in the port, loading and unloading the ships transporting goods across Lake Ontario, i. e. the inland Canadian "sea". In order to verify known opinions of his diplomatic predecessor concerning the pro-Hungarian orientation of Fort William Slovaks, he asked not only the old inhabitants , but post-war ones too. He came to the following conclusion: the community as a whole takes an autonomous attitude towards the solution of the problem of the constitutional position of Slovakia within the Czechoslovak Republic. The city of Winnipeg in Manitoba, as the destination place of his journey, was characterized as the biggest Czech settlement in Canada, with some four hundred souls, represented primarily by tailors and shoemakers. The Consul General stressed , however, the other function of Winnipeg. It was used as the "winter station" to retire in after the agricultural season on farms was over. His own opinions shifted into a different position because of having obtained new facts about the community. The Consul started 58s(JA, MV, Reg. 1015, No. 6980/1925. �26 SLOVAKIA to respond to the demands of older emigrants concerning education and national culture. He explained his attempt to the Czechoslovak authorities by the need to preserve national consciousness. He asked for the delivery of Slovak books for Montreal and Fort William, and above all, for a Slovak teacher for approximately two hundred school-aged children in Fort William.59 Thanks to the new consular representative, the Czechoslovak authorities were in 1926 forced to return to the problem of the social position of the Slovak immigrants. At first they started to investigate the chances of immigrants to obtain farms. Ottawa was asked questions about the place to obtain certain capital loans if an immigrant intended to do private farming.6() The federal Ministry did not intend to answer the question. The Consul was asked to address the responsible institutions, and first of all the Secretary of the Association of Canadian Bankers 61 who had offered him information on the existence of credit permitted by the Government in 1926 to be used exclusively for the purchase of agricultural land, the construction of houses, and affiliated buildings, for the purchase of cattle, irrigation systems, construction, etc.62 Despite a positive answer, no references were found in the archives referring to the use of that aid by Slovak immigrants. Because of those circumstances, the arrival of the two delegates from Czechoslovakia was a matter of question. They were invited by the Canadian Pacific Railway to investigate local conditions for settlement of independent families with some capital. Research has shown that there were only a few solvent families leaving Slovakia for Canada. Therefore, the information offered by the host company was quite useless for ordinary Slovak immigrants.63 Another delegate of the Ministry of Social Welfare offered to the interested Ministries information about his journey to Canada in the spring 1927 . He considered the position of Slovak agricultural workers as gene59S(JA, MSP, Reg. 3894, No. 6588. 6()PAC, RG . 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 10. 6. 1926. 61PAC, RG . 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, I 7. 6. 1926. 62SCJA, MSP, Reg . 3965, 2782/26. 63SCJA, MV, Reg . 1015, 498/1927. �SLOVAKIA 27 rally bad. He presented the following facts: they were working without any contract between them and their employers, and thrown on the mercy of the farmers. Above all, they were working without any health or accident insurance. No such insurance existed in Canada. Only Railways and larger industries had their own insurance systems. The afflicted immigrant could be protected only through a benefit society of fellow-countrymen, or by Canadian charity institutions. 64 When the Consulate had intervened in the Canadian Department it was offered a long list of the agencies and associations entitled to protecting the interests of immigrants in Canada.65 During the following year quite different opinions appeared among fellow-countrymen, evaluating the situation of Slovak immigrants. Some of them had strongly criticized their position because they had to be regularly aided through the Slovak League of America. Others were satisfied, pointing to those individuals living in Canada for a long time who became rich. The most objective evaluation, however, resulted from the latest information gathered during the years 1924-1927. It was as follows: "Fellow-countrymen are not for the time being doing well" _66 Evidence about it was provided by the Czechoslovak Consulate in Canada in a document published in Slovak newspapers. The title of the mentioned article was "Information for Those Emigrating to Canada" .67 It analysed the social conditions of Slovak immigrants in Canada, considered them to be insufficient, thus preventing others from making the decision to leave for Canada to work. The intention to get through Canada to the USA was considered nonsense. There were many profiteers promising to get people secretly over the borders to the USA, extorting their last money. The Consulate warned people because the promises had been false. Those profiteers were interested only in their hard-earned money. 64 SUA, MV, Reg . 1015, No . 27464/1927, 11.4. 1927. 65 S0A, MSP, Reg . 3965 , File 6849/1927, 28. 12. 1927. 66 Kopac, A.: "Ako sa zije na~fm v Kanade?", I:udova politika, 3, 1927, p. 3. 67 Narodnie noviny, 58., No . 50, 29. 4. 1927 , p. 3. No . 207, 15. 9. �28 SLOVAKIA Despite those facts, the Consul Kveton sent in the summer of 1928 an optimistic report to Prague about enough job opportunities, and that there was no unemployment among the immigrants. 68 He was, however, undoubtly conscious of the fact that critical situations were emerging after seasonal work was over, i.e. during the longlasting winter. It was almost the same by the end of the year 1928 . The unemployed started, as usual, to concentrate in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, and other cities. That concentration resulted in great associative activity. Consular reports paid special attention primarily to the activity of the Slovak League of America, which had succeeded in establishing its subsidiaries in Canada in the years 1927 and 1928 (in Toronto and Montreal, and a year before also in Winnipeg). For most Slovak immigrants in Canada membership in those organizations was quite necessary, because they had been aiding them in case of illnesses, or accidents. However, the activity of the Slovak League did not correspond with the above-mentioned intentions of the Czechoslovak Consulate. The Committee for Emigration was immediately addressed with urgent demands for the Government to provide some financial aid to the co-operative association in Montreal to cover its activities. 69 Such procedures did not surprise anybody. Once again the original arguments were used about the Slovaks looking for locations with older settlements of their fellow-countrymen, and gradually losing their interest in the idea of the so-called Czechoslovak nationality _?O That private opinion of the informer was in strong contradiction with the tendencies of the Slovak League being known with its identification with the Slovak autonomy programme during the inter-war years. The League was popular among the immigrants, especially for its co-operative function. The situation, however, got worse as the years went on. Unemployment was increasing, and as a result, a new phenomenon ap68S(JA , MSP, Reg. 3965, 30.11.1928 . 69S(JA, MSP, Reg . 3966, No . 21443, 28 .6.1928 . 7oIbid. �SLOVAKIA 29 peared in the diplomatic agenda as early as the winter of 1929-1930 . It concerned the deportation of Czechoslovak nationals from Canada. According to existing Canadian law a man who, during the first five years of his arrival in Canada applied for, or was provided with some public finacial aid, was considered an undesirable person, not able to conform to Canadian conditions. Such a person was to be deported to his mother country .7 1 The situation between the two countries worsened. There were frequent controversies between them. Many of the persons to be deported by the Canadians were ill or even incapacitated, either physically or psychically, and there were also criminals among them. Finally, the Czechoslovak authorities refused to accept those individuals who had not had, after a ten years' stay in Canada, re-established their Czechoslovak citizenship, or had not requested an extension of the validity of the right of domicle abroad. It is very difficult to find an accurate count of such persons,72 but they were often mentioned in diplomatic reports. It is obvious that this situation resulted from the economic crisis which broke out in 1929. The Depression affected the immigrants as never before. Besides increasing unemployment, the crisis meant also a significant reduction of the immigration quota for Czechoslovakia to two thousand people a year. This uncompromising procedure of the immigration authorities irritated the Czechoslovak Consulate so much that the Consul addressed Ottawa with an open protest. It follows from his report, sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague, that he was discussing the problem with Deputy Minister Egan in Ottawa. The Consul considered the quota unfair, and even offensive, for Czechoslovakia. The reaction of the Canadian Minister to that invective was related the Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Affairs as follows: the Deputy Minister said that "if only the immigrants from Bohemia and Moravia were concerned, 71SuA , MSP, Reg. 4029, No. 4310-36. 72 PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 251 , File 183211. �30 SLOVAKIA the whole situation would have been quite different, but there was only a minimum percentage of immigrants coming those regions" .73 At the beginning of 1930 K. Kveton was ending his diplomatic mission in Montreal , and was replaced by the new Consul-General, K. Moser. The attitude of the Canadian public and the immigration authorities as well, towards the immigration policy became even more hostile . Finally, in August of 1930 immigration from Czechoslovakia was halted. Public opinion accused the Government of having caused both the crisis, and the unemployment, too, due to its rather "benevolent" immigration policy, mainly in the second half of the 1920s. According to this opinion, the labour market was saturated, resulting in unexpected problems. No improvement in the field of employment occured even after spring work had started. The situation was the same even during the harvest. Farmers were so cutting back on wages that it became quite unprofitable to travel for work to the prairie provincies. Therefore the new Consul Moser reported to Prague in June of 1930 that: "don't let the emigrants come here under these circumstances, as they would only have travel expenses and _a temporary stay here" .74 Thus the hot issue of a part of the diplomatic agenda, represented by the immigration policy, disappeared from it at the beginning of the 1930s. A natural consequence of that was only sporadic contacts between the Czechoslovak Consulate and the Federal Department for Immigration and Colonization. Due to the restriction of immigration, the Federal Department had given up its original position, and importance as well, and beginning with the year 1936 started to function as the Immigration Branch of the Federal Department of Mines and Resources. Unemployment and deportations represented the most serious problem of the period of the economic crisis. Therefo- 73 SUA, MSP, Reg. 3990, 6. 2. 1929. It is necessary to add that the Canadian Government limited or stopped immigration from the entire continent of Europe, of course except for families with some capital, or wives and children of those already settled in Canada, In: an article "Immigration from Europe is Stopped" . The Gazette, Montreal, 16. 8. 1930. 74<'1, .:>UA, MSP, Reg . 3990, No. 6921, 3. 6. 1930. �SLOVAKIA 31 re, the Czechoslovak Consulate paid special attention to the internal i.e. social, associative, and political life of the Slovak community. When in 1930 the Director of the Czechoslovak Institute of Foreign Affairs in Prague V. Tlapak went on a study-tour to Canada, he could only confirm the well-known facts about numerous unemployed immigrants who would like to return to their native land, if only they could. Many of them did not earn enough money to pay the travel expences for the journey back home . He found many examples of those who worked only to cover their daily food costs.7 5 The first to sense the impact of the Depression were farm workers . Having come to Canada in the second half of the 1920s, these people were not accepted in Canada with special favour. The crisis made their position quite unbearable. The Federal Government, trying to solve the situation as best as it would, created a programme of emergency works. Nearly every province "drew" the unemployed from the cities and organized in the country so-called labour camps. Especially the young unemployed did such beneficial work as reconstruction of roads, cultivation of natural parks, etc. No Slovaks took part in it, according to diplomatic reports. In January of 1932 Consul Moser reported to Prague that unemployment was not decreasing at all, but on the contrary, it was gradually increasing. 76 Not only the immigamts who were agricultural workers had problems. Even some better-situated individuals had problems. In spite of the fact that some of the immigrants had succeded in getting land, they had to leave the farms as they were not able to pay off the mortgage.77 Deportations became the accompanying phenomenon of unemployment. Canada resorted to that unpleasant measure in order to shake off the burden of the persons who were not able to care for themselves.7 8 There were many Slovak immigrants among them. Consul General Moser, in his effort to somehow protect the interests 75 SDA, MSP , Reg . 4019, No . 3751/30, 29.11.1930. 76AFMzv, PZ-M, year 1932, No. 3, 27 .. 1. 1932. 77 SUA, MSP , Reg . 3990, No. 4105 - 32. 78 vystehovalecky zpravodaj Ministerstva socialnf pece , Vol. 2, 20. 5. 1932 , p. 19 . �32 SLOVAKIA of the immigrants, sent a complaint to Ottawa in August of 1932, stressing the fact that Canada was deporting immigrants too late, because most of them were in such a bad situation that they could not wait the two-to-three months for the departure. Therefore, he asked the Department to deport them as early as possible.79 The Department in Ottawa answered that they had a huge list of those waiting for deportation, and in any case could not make the deportation process quicker, especially due to the limited capacity of the ships departing from Montreal. 80 Even in January 1934 the consular materials contained information about unemployed immigrants who, for three years, had hopelessly waited for deportation. Therefore, some of them illegaly left for the USA, only to be caught, and in such way to be more quickly deported (after a two-to-three months stay in prison) to Czechoslovakia.81 By the end of 1935 the Consul suggested that things were going better and visits to the Consulate were rare. At the same time he reported that numerous immigrants had succeded in finding some work in construction, mines and forests, while others had returned to Czechosloyakia. 82 It does not mean, however, that he automatically considered an improvement in the field of employment a symptom of the restoration of the immigration process, or the release of the restrictions imposed on immigration policy. The only exception was that concerning the possibility of immigration of some peasant families with a capital of $1,000 - $2,000. Even under those circumstances the Consul considered the immigration of well-off individuals more than disputable. He reasoned in the following way: If the applicant for immigration to Canada sells in Czechoslovakia his whole property to get the necessary financial means, it will be enough only to invest in uncultivated land. Very hard work will follow the purchase, with the results coming in most cases too late. 79PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, I. 8. 1932. 80PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 20. 8.1932. 8lx, .:>UA, MSP, Reg. 4029, 12. I. 1934. 82X' .:>UA, MSP, Reg. 4029, 27.1.1936. �SLOVAKIA 33 This will make the immigrant fail , which often will result in his deportation. 83 It has been stated already that no other event influenced the Slovak community so much as the Depression. The immigration process of the second half of the 1920s was practically halted and the number of immigrants in the community was relatively stabilized (representing some 30,000 Slovaks, and about 1,000 Czechs). During the period preceding the crisis , the community was insufficiently organized. It was lacking in leaders, preachers, teachers, and schools. During the crisis the community was more active, and even more radical. Some new associations were founded. Ethnic consciousness was also activated. This resulted in a rapid decrease in their interest and willingness to co-operate in so-called Czechoslovak: associations. The activity of the benefit society in Montreal was nearly halted. 84 The Consulate notified Prague of the revival of autonomist tendencies, illustrating it with the fact that the First Slovak Benefit Society came into existence in Western Canada. More seriously, he considered the fact that there were being established numerous subsidiaries of the American-Slovak: associations with centers situated in the USA. He noticed, however, the great disappointment among the Canadian members because their funds had been delivered to the USA, thus not sufficiently meeting their needs. Finally, some of the members met in Winnipeg, Manitoba to reach a decision about leaving the American-Slovak: Association in order to found their own Canadian-Slovak: one. 85 The newly established Canadian Slovak League, together with the newspaper Slovak v Kanade, were by Consul Moser characterized as the principal representatives of the autonomist flow in the Slovak community, with the addition, that the same opinion was shared by the First Catholic Slovak Union in Canada. When F. Pavlasek took up his consular mission in Canada, he came to the conclusion that Slovaks were against the Czechs because 83SDA , MSP, Reg. 4029, 19. 8.1936. 84AFMZV, Section II., Reg . 492, No . 6787, I. 10. 1932. 85 SDA, MSP , Reg . 4029 . Periodical Report of the Immigration Branch , IV . quart. 1932. �34 SLOVAKIA of their motto "Slovakia for the Slovaks" .86 According to the new Consul General, the immigrants transfered from Slovakia to Canada many of Andrej Hlinka's ideas. Their attitudes were enforced both due to the American Slovak influences, and the agitation about the Pittsburgh Agreement. The fact that the Slovaks represented the poorest layers of the inhabitants of Canada, and belonged often to the unemployed, resulted in some being attracted to Marxism. The Consul discovered that in Montreal some four hundred persons were concentrating around the Slovak newspaper Robotnfcke slovo. The Consul Pavlasek characterized the group as quite compatible and devoted to their common ideal. At the same time he stressed the fact that the magazine was doing well and had a lot of symphatizers, in spite of the fact that many of them were not organized in the Association at all .87 Finally, in 1934 he characterized the community as politically split between the autonomists, autonomist communists, and those loyal to democratic Czechoslovakia. He considered it the result of the differentiation process which occured during the Depression. The autonomist communists were originally Czechoslovaks but had split in 1936 into Czechs and Slovaks. He tried to contact the different groups . "At first I tried to attract the conservative Catholic associations (the parish of Saints Cyril and Methodius) but without any success ... When I saw that the door for my activity among autonomists was shut for a certain period, I turned to less radical workers in order to build up co-operation between them and a middle democratic group. The result, however, was much the same ... 11 88 The Consul came to the conclusion that comunists triumphed during the crisis because they had exploited unemployment for establishing new associations. Among them were Czechoslovak Worker Education Clubs, the Slovak Workmen's Association, The International Workmen's Association, etc. They had numerous sym86AFMZV, Section II ., Reg. 531, 18.7.1934. 87 Ibid. 88 As in Note 55. �SLOVAKIA 35 pathizers among the common people. They improved the financial state of their associations, and a quality newspaper as well. In other words, they were very succesfuI. 89 The Consul Pavlasek stressed the intensity of communist propaganda among their fellow-countrymen in 1936. At the same time he noticed the fact that the propaganda could not be discounted, and in spite of the fact that it had been the result of a long-term Depression, it was spreading very rapidly, and fellow-countrymen were accepting it.90 Already in 1937 the Consul Pavlasek.was very pessimistic: "The position of this office is extremely difficult, because we have nobody to lean on. There are only a few Czechs here, and they are mostly assimilated, and a majority of them have withdrawn from public life due to permanent attacks". The fact that the Slovak community rejected Czechoslovakism nearly 'en bloc', he characterized as follows: "loyal Czechoslovak thinking, ever respecting the democracy and the Czechoslovak national unity, represents in some colonies but a minority", at the same time he added that the Czechs had arrived in Canada already before World War I, and they had been living there for two or three generations. They had been greatly assimililated, because the second generation had been educated in the Canadian manner. Finally, he expressed his "sad" conclusion that he himself, as well as the Consulate, were permanently attacked by the autonomists, and communists as well. It meant that the Consulate was to a great extent isolated from the Slovak community as a whole, in spite of the latter's internal ideological differentiation. In other words, the Consulate's mission was unsuccesful - it failed completely to unify the Czecho-Slovak nationals in Canada. Therefore, its arguments, formulated in 1937, suggesting that "everything must be done to keep the consciousness of Czechoslovak national unity in spite of the protests and demonstrations of the autonomist circles", were in vain.9 1 89SuA , MSP , Reg. 4029 , 25 . 10. 1935 . 90SuA, MSP, Reg . 4029 , 13.5 . 1937 . 91 As in note 88. � SLOVAKIA 7 Slovak Emigrants in Canada as Reflected in Diplomatic Documents (1920 - 1938) ELENA JAKESOVA Slovak emigration to Canada - not taking into account the European continental migration - can be considered one of the strongest and most significant of all of the Slovak migrations during the inter-war period. Great numbers of Slovaks moved to Canada across the Antlantic to earn some money, especially in the second half of the 1920s. 1 The inter-war years, however, represented only its second stage, because Slovaks had started to leave for the United States as early as the 1870s. The 1920s witnessed only a change in destination. The United States of America, which in 1920 contained about 620,000 Slovaks, halted that mass emigration. When the continuity of the traditional emigration had been broken partly in the year 1921, and definitely in the year 1924, the search for an alternative solution of the problem did not take long. The immigrants saw in Canada's common frontier with the United States the possibility of emigration south in the future. Therefore, Canada became in the second half of the twenties "the second chance", a kind of alternative destination of the Slovak emigrants in spite of the fact that in comparison with the USA there 1 Shipping companies transported from Slovakia to Canada in 1922 110 persons, in 1923 2029 , in 1924 2832, in 1925 2134 , in 1926 6066 , in 1927 6301 , in 1928 8184 , in 1929 4116 , in 1930 3586, in 1931 730, in 1932 522, in 1933 673 , in 1934 851, in 1935 742 , in 1936 716. Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 4, Prague, 1932) and in Statistical Yearbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Prague 1934 , 1935, 1936, 1937) . �8 SLOVAKIA were not many reasons to look for opportunities for employment on its territory. In the period up to World War I, Canada attracted only about 5,000 Slovaks. 2 As early as the beginning of the 1920s it appeared that Canada could become the alternative overseas country of destination of Slovak emigrants. That alternative began to attract not only applicants for emigration passports in Slovakia but also Czecho-Slovak diplomats, and their representatives in Canada. In elucidating the development of the stated tendency, and its impact, we chose a series of diplomatic documents, representing the activities of the Czechoslovak consulate in Montreal in the years 1920-1938 as the basis of the following essay . The most significant are those documents which give special attention to the process of emigration. The subjects of the correspondence of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Montreal were the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague, and the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa.3 The Goals of this essay are limited. I will focus only on those aspects of the topic falling into the competence, tasks and activities of the Czechoslovak representatives in Canada. In consequence of the pro-emigration attitudes of the Czechoslovak government, two basic trends will coincide: Canadian immigration policy, and the development of the Slovak community in Canada. Slovak nationals represented the vast majority of all the people involved in the process of Czechoslovak emigration, especialy in the second half of the 2 Message of the Austro-Hungarian Consulate General in Montreal, IO December, I 902 to Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vienna . Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv Wien, F 15, File 62, deliv . 27 December, 1902. 3 sources: Archives of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs , Prague (hereinafter only AFMZV), Political reports - Montreal (1920- I 938) (hereinafter PZ-M) , and Section II. National Archives, Prague (hereinafter SUA) , Fund of Ministry of Social Welfare (hereinafter MSP), Ministry of International Affairs - Old registers of 19191944 (hereinafter MV) . Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa (hereinafter PAC) , Immigration Branch (RG 76) , Vol. 198 Consul General of Czechoslovakia, Montreal , Quebec (1922-1940) (File 80671) , Vol. 251 Czechoslovakia, Passports (1924-1939) (File 183211), Vol. 616 Czechoslovaks (File 916207) . �SLOVAKIA 9 1920s .4 This fact accounted for the basis for the final ethnic identification of the newly-formed community in the Canadian environment, and, at the same time, determined the attitudes, and activities of the Czechoslovak Representatives in Canada. The first diplomatic contacts between Czechoslovakia and Canada were established on the consular level in Montreal in November of 1920. Bohuslav K. Ryznar was appointed the first Czechoslovak Consul. The Consulate was subordinated to the Czechoslovak Embassy in London, which corresponded with the arrangements of the relations between London and Ottawa. Despite the urgent request of B . K . Ryznar to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague, the functional designation of the Consulate in Montreal was not changed in the years 1920-1922 . He stressed the fact that "Canada is absolutely a self-governing country, and does not pay any taxes , duties or other allowances to the British Empire to be used by the army or navy. There is no British soldier, and no British warship in the whole territory of the Dominion .. ."5 B. K. Ryznar submitted several arguments to support his request for changing the Montreal office's rank to Consulate General. He suggested that the Governor General of Canada, the federal government, and the ministries in Ottawa entered into contacts only with accredited diplomats on the level of Consuls General. 6 Therefore, lower consular rankings resulted in the absence of contacts and information which, to a great extent, limited the possibility of diplomatic activity. Despite the Consul's assurances that eventual installation of a Consul General would not increase the budget, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague strictly refused the request.7 4 comparing the number of emigrants from Czechoslovakia to Canada during the years 1922-1932 with the number of emigrants from Slovakia for the same period, we have found that 83% were Slovaks, and only 17% were Czechs . If we compared it with the number of inhabitants , the difference would be even more extreme . Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 4, Prague , 1932). 5AFMZV, PZ-M, year I 921, No. 19, 27 . 6. 1921. 6With the addition that of all European countries, only Czechoslovakia and Portugal had their Consulates in Canada. AFMZV , PZ-M, year 1921 , No . 9, 17 . 2. 1921 . 7AFMZV , PZ-M, year 1921, No. 10 (B . ve .). �SLOVAKIA In reply to the refusal , the Consul Ryznar again reminded the Ministry of the difficulties connected with the execution of his mission : "The situation looks as if the Prague centre has to seek information on the territory from Brittany to the foot of the Urals, and from Cadiz to Hamerfest, without any auxiliary offices and means" .8 These basic arguments - i. e. the inferior position of the representation , and the large size of Canada - were, for a certain period, the most effective tool in the hands of the Czechoslovak Consul in Canada to be used whenever he was obliged to take a stand , or to characterize some generally valid phenomenon. The taking of such an attitude was under those circumstances understandable. The presence and activity of the first Czechoslovak Consul in Canada represented but the first stage of the Czechoslovak diplomatic activity in Canada, aimed at the gradual acquisition and transmission to the Czechoslovak Government of essential information on anything he considered important, including the care for his own nationals, with special attention paid to immigrants coming to the country. Taking into account the goal of the present essay , it is important to stress first of all the Consul's investigation of the state of the regional community of his fellow-countrymen. This all formed a part of the information sent at the beginning of 1920 to the Political Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague. He characterized it as follows : 11 ••• a colony of Czechoslovak nationals representing over five thousand persons living in the whole Dominion , i. e. an area equal to the extent of the United States of North America ... , it is , however, insufficiently organized, and could not be used as a decisive element to support any political faction .. . Also the interest of the Czechoslovak farmers settled in the province of Saskatchewan are quite different from those of the miners in Nova Scotia, living apart a distance of about four thousand kilometers. It will be very difficult to unify them and to make them act together" _9 It is obvious that recognizing the small numbers in the community provoked both interested parties to consider the further possibi8AFMZV , PZ-M,year 1921 , No . 19, 27. 6. 1921. 9AFMZV , PZ-M , year 1921, No . 2, File No . 10/21. �SLOVAK.IA 11 lities of its growth. These appeared already in 1921 in connection with the increasing interest in emigration from Czechoslovakia, and also with the growing threat of the limitation of immigration by the US Government. Therefore, the future Canadian immigration policy , and especially its relation to Central Europe, became the primary area of interest of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Montreal. The formulation dealing with the diffusion and disorganization of the colony had the hidden agenda of the further activity of the Czechoslovak Consulate - i.e. co-operation with the community in order to unify it as far as its organization is concerned, and, in this way, to shape its future direction. A matter of question, however, was - by which means and in what manner should it be done? The organizational and political attitudes chosen by the consular authorities in relationship to the Slovak community is the principal topic of this essay. The diplomatic communiques themselves contained certain signals in answer to the question because there the community was referred to as a colony of Czechoslovak nationals, without more detailed ethnic identification. Despite the fact that the first impression acquired by the Czechoslovak side from the trends in Canadian immigration policy was not in any way favourable - "the Canadian authorities obstructed the immigrants" 10 - the Consul reported to Prague at the beginning of 1921 that the consular office succeeded in finding some indications of change. Public debates began to mould opinions that, with respect to the growing need for cheap labour, it was necessary to retain the principle of a priority in the selection of immigrants, i. e. not to prefer Britons as the representatives of the "mother country" of Canada, but to permit a bit of benevolence in the selection of the immigrants. 11 It was decided by the Consulate to seize the opportunity immediately. The federal Department of Immigration and Colonization in IOAFMZV, Sec . II ., Reg . 531, File No . 514, 4.2.1921. 11 AFMZV, PZ-M, year 1921, No . 19, an article published in The Montreal Daily Star, 4. 6. 1921 , "Repudiation , Annexation or Population". �12 SLOVAKIA Ottawal 2 was asked in November of 1922 to provide statistical data on the number of Czechoslovak immigrants in Canada, and, at the same time, to inform the Consulate about the willingness of the Canadian government to accept the immigration and settlement of Czechoslovak nationals in Canada,13 This initiative of the Czechoslovak Consul was premature. The department took a very reserved attitude. Its Secretary, F. C. Blair, provided only the requested statistical data, and completely omitted the problem connected with the possibility of immigration from Czechoslovakia. 14 It is, therefore, clear that it was only the Czechoslovak side which initiated and tried to recommend its own citizens as suitable potential immigrants to Canada. Despite the fact that this effort had been ignored, the Consul Ryznar was not discouraged. He went on searching for some sign of permissivness in the Canadian immigration policy towards the Continent and concretely to Central Europe. He tried to convince the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs and also the Ministry of Social Welfare, that he was doing his best to search for possibilities for Slovak applicants for emigration to countries other than to the USA. The Consul constantly tried to find some solution and began to consider the most attractive the idea of the Canadian immigration officials - i. e. to attract peasants, who, unlike the British colonists coming mainly from towns, and again settled in towns in Canada, would be able and willing to farm in Canada, to cutlivate the virgin land, and to revive the economy of the country.15 He saw such a solution in Central Europe. Ryznar had been so encouraged with the possibility of Slovak immigration that he decided at the beginning of 1923 to send another letter to F. C. Blair. He did so in order to get some information about the new policy of settlement being enforced by certain political 12The Department of Immigration and Colonization, an independent Department of the Federal Government, came into existence in 1917 through its separation from the Ministry of the Interior. 13 PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 198, File 80671 , 11. I 1. 1922. 14 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 28 . 11.1922. 15 AFMZV, PZ-M, year 1922, No. 7, 4.12 . 1922. �SLOVAKIA 13 circles . His primary goal was, however, again to remind the Canadian government of Czechoslovakia, and its peasantry applying for immigration visas. He stressed in his letter that he had been urged by his own government, and primarily by the Ministry of Social Welfare, which was greatly interested in the possibility of immigration of its citizens to Canada. In another letter he told of the intention of the above-mentioned Ministry to subscribe to the most significant Canadian newspaper in order to receive information on the programme of the settlement of the country, and at the same time to find missing information for numerous applicants for emigration, i.e. the citizens of Czechoslovakia.16 His efforts to attract the attention of the highest authorities of the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization brought some results in the end. The Czechoslovak Ministry of Social Welfare was finally put on the list of the addresses of the immigration press being issued by the Department of Immigration and Colonization. 17 Above all, those institutions realised that Czechoslovakia was offering a certain part of its peasantry with the assurance that they certainly would be very suitable future colonists . The explanation of the following could be found in the activity of the Czechoslovak Consulate: when in the autumn of 1923 a great need for a cheap labor force emerged in Canada in connection with the logging of old wood in forests, and its preparation for further processing in sawmills, representing in itself very heavy manual work, the citizens of British or French origin did not want to do it. Therefore, the Department of Immigration and Colonization met the demands of some entrepreneurial circles and agreed with the submitted proposal to obtain suitable lumberjacks in Central Europe . The Minister of Immigration and Colonization personally suggested that sort of labour force be sought in Czechoslovakia. He explained it in the following manner: "based on the information received, applicants for emigration from Czechoslovakia are said to have some experience with agricultural work, and also the prerequisites for 16pAc, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671 , 27 . 2. 1923. 17PAC , RG 76 , Vol. 198 , File 80671 , 7. 3. 1923. �14 SLOVAKIA managing methods used in Canadian agriculture in order to become true Canadian farmers in the end" .1 8 The Consulate was very proud of the results of its diplomatic mission. It interpreted its work in the following, quite inadequate, manner: "The Canadian immigration authorities prefer Czechoslovak nationals because of their good physical condition, honesty and industriousness. They find them excellent colonists , and they would be very glad to receive them" _19 In fact the Canadian authorities permitted workers at the end of 1923 in Czechoslovakia for the Canadian lumbering industry only, with only some five hundred, 20 later increased to a thousand workers. 21 Most of those people were obtained in Slovakia as can be seen in the statistical data of the shipping companies concerning the transporting of over two thousand persons from Slovakia to Canada during that same year.22 Immediately after the arrival of the first post-war contingent of Slovak immigrants, they faced numerous problems . The consulate in February 1924 issued the following message: "Most of those (i. e. immigrants) devoted themselves in the winter season to cutting wood. The living standards in those camps, hundreds of miles from civilization, situated in vast forests , are hardly enviable .. . They work from early morning till late at night. They eat food prepared in a common kitchen and pay for it through the reduction of their salaries. The employer provides workers with clothes and other requisites paid for in the above-mentioned manner. It is obvious that our fellows , knowing neither the language nor the customs , are in an endless wilderness thrown at the mercy of dishonest officials, and some problems had to be solved through the consular authorities with the director or owner of the company in order to ensure their protection" .23 18 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 3. 11. 1923. 19.-;;:,UA, , MSP, Reg. 3894, No. 2028 , 2. 6. 1923. 20PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt. 1, 18. 10. 1923. 21SUA, MSP, Reg. 3899, File 847, 20. 2. 1924. 22 Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 3, Prague, 1928). 23SUA, MSP, Reg. 3899, File 847 , 20.2. 1924. �SLOVAKIA 15 In addition to the difficult position of a part of the Slovak immigrants in lumber camps, there were also other problems . The Canadian authorities offered, in fact only seasonal work. That meant that in the spring of the year 1924, when the season had ended, the immigrants were on their own. A part of them started to drift to Montreal, and other cities, especially those near the American border. It was clear in the end that the first group of post-war immigrants had come to Canada with a clear goal: to get around the restrictive immigration measures imposed by the American authorities, and to get to the United States via Canada,24 where their relatives and friends were already settled. Numerous requests of the immigrants to solve this problem were a heavy burden for the Czechoslovak consular officials .25 All their efforts, however, were useless. At least a one-year stay of the immigrant in Canada was a necessary precondition to receiving a visa to the USA. The situation of the Slovak lumberjacks was very difficult to resolve. The Czechoslovak Consulate tried to avoid growing difficulties caused partly by its own activity. The Czechoslovak authorities were immediately asked to inform passport offices about issuing emigration visas to Canada only to those applicants willing to settle permanently in Canada. 26 In order to stop the growth of further complications, the Consulate again addressed the Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa to provide it with the form, or the text of the agreement usually concluded between the employer and employee.27 The letter also expressed the Government's interest in receiving more detailed information about living conditions of the 1mmigrants in Canada. The highest Canadian authorities answered the letter immediately. They informed the Consulate that neither an agreement form, nor any legislative criteria, existed in Canada for concluding contracts. As far as the securing of certain living standards for immigrants was concerned, living conditions were different in various 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 198 , File 80671 , 16. 4.1924 . �16 SLOVAKIA parts of the country and what was offered was generally considered sufficient. 28 It was too late and quite useless to ask those questions. We know that the Canadian government authorities cared for the problems of their own poorest workers even less than for the Czechoslovak ones, and there was no motivation to help the immigrants, coming without any financial means, and at their own risk. It follows from the above that, at the beginning of 1924, the activity of the Consulate had to orient itself to immigration from Czechoslovakia. It had to decide what to do with people coming from Slovakia with the intention of going to the United States. The chance to get there was only minimal. While the Czechoslovak Consulate was asking the questions, the Slovak League of America, as the cover organization of Slovak immigrants in the USA, took the initiative. Many Slovak immigrants in Canada turned to it with requests for help, because the CanadianSlovak community itself was small in number, lost over the huge territory, and therefore could not support them. In the summer of 1924, the Slovak League sent its delegate to Canada to investigate the situation. Upon his arrival the delegate confirmed the fact that the immigrants had come to Canada with the goal of getting into the USA. At the same time he informed the American-Slovak public that "the prisons on the frontier are full of our people caught when they tried to get to the USA illegally" .29 After receiving that information, the executive of the Slovak League decided to publish information about the hopeless situation of most of the Slovak immigrants in Canada in magazines in Slovakia. 30 Thus a short article published later in numerous Slovak magazines came into being. The text of it was more than meaningful: "The representative of the Slovak League of America who had been sent to Canada reported about a sad group there. Over 12,000 of them are living there and suffer awfully. They cannot find work, and when they get 28PAC , RG 76, Vol. 198 , File 80212 , 25 . 4. 1924. 29 Minutes of the session of the delegates of the Slovak organizations in America organized by the executive of the Slovak League , held in Pittsburgh, Pa ., 18 . December of 1924. In: Slovak v Amerike, 51, No. 37, 2. 3. 1925, p. 3. 3oIbid. �SLOVAKIA 17 it, they have to work in the Canadian virgin forests and are paid only a pittance. Their feet and hands are frost-bitten and some of them even went mad" _31 The disclosure of the irresponsibility of the Czechoslovak and Canadian authorities who had prepared and organized the immigration , upset not only American Slovaks and people in Slovakia, it also affected diplomatic relations between Czechoslovakia and Canada. The Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa was probably informed directly through the British Ambassador in Prague . A letter was immediately sent to the Czechoslovak Consul in Montreal containing - a slightly paraphrased - "anxiety about the fact that the published information on the situation in Canada does not correspond with reality" _32 At the same time Ottawa asked the Consul to inform it about the Slovak League of America. They were mostly interested in whether the organization had a branch in Canada consisting of the proper members, and finally asked the Consul about the alleged problem, i. e. whether he was really informed about a greater number of Slovak immigrants in Canada who had not found work.33 In his answer B. K. Ryznar suggested to the Minister W. J. Egan that the Slovak League of America was a strong organization with half a million members. He assured him, however, that the organization had not had any branch in Canada. 34 As he had not ment to destroy his previous efforts in the field of creating premises for acceptance of immigrants from Czechoslovakia, he to a certain extent negated the arguments of the above-mentioned article, and assured Ottawa that there were not many unemployed Slovaks in Canada. In order not to minimize his duties and problems connected with the execution of his mission, Ryznar mentioned in his letter having heard only about the complaints of the immigrants concerning irregular practices applied by the employers and the labour 3 IE. g. Sloven ska domovina, 7, No. 6, 5. 2. I 925, p. 2. 32 As in Note 29 . 33PAC , RG 76, Vol. 616 , File 916207, pt . I, 10. 2. 1925 . 34Toe Slovak League of America had but one subsidiary in Canada, at Fort William , Ontario, founded in 1916, havi ng one hundred and fifty members. �18 SLOVAKIA agencies, and their attempts to misuse them. His attitude to the whole problem was contrary to the facts .35 The above-mentioned problem had been disturbing to both interested parties, and therefore the Department in Ottawa decided to inform the Czechoslovak authorities in order to elucidate somehow the problems of unemployment and basic social care provided to the Slovak immigrants. The information was , however, only general , covering but the job opportunities offered by Canada to the immigrants . Job opportunities were represented principally by seasonal work for agricultural workers. The number of needed seasonal workers was very difficult to determine ahead of time. The Department cleared up only the problem of the salaries offered. They assured the Czechoslovak authorities that the minimum monthly salary had to be 25 dollars , at the same time admitting even higher wages in case of additional seasonal work.36 But the Czechoslovak authorities wanted to make the problem clear. Therefore, they sent a delegate on a mission to Eastern Canada. He could only confirm the well-known facts about the difficulties of a part of the new Slovak immigrants. The most serious of them represented unemployment on the one hand, and unpaid salaries for work done on the other. The employers, for various reasons, often refused to pay the immigrants. They were sure that it was quite impossible to claim their salaries through the courts, as no service contracts had been concluded with the immigrants. 37 Together with the arrival of a greater number of immigrants, and especially when the lumbering season had ended, a tendency appeared during 1924 among groups of immigrants settling in Montreal to be near the residence of the Czechoslovak Consulate. Growing unemployment was the motive for their concentration. The officials saw the reasons for immigrants remaining in the big cities in their apparent aversion to working on farms, and in their false illusions of 35PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt . I, 14.2.1925. 36 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt. I, 26.3.1925. 37SUA, MSP, Reg . 3803, No . 10219, 2.5. 1925. �SLOVAKIA 19 better salaries in cities. The immigrants hoped to find in Montreal an advanced industry, as was the case in cities of the United States .38 Social dislocation, therefore, became the decisive experience of the people. This motivated them during the summer 1924 to support each other through a co-operative association. 39 The forming of the ethnically homogenous Slovak group in Montreal, welded together by common problems, could not be ignored by the Czechoslovak Consul. He reported to Prague in detail about the two Slovaks in Montreal, who strove to establish a "Slovak Benefit Society". He added, however, that their task was very difficult, because of the small and ever-changing number of the Slovaks in Montreal, as most of them were looking for work, and their stay in the city was temporary .40 He also reported on the activity of the Slovak League of America, aimed at the organization of Slovak immigrants in Canada. The League sent its delegate to Montreal to investigate the situation. According to the Consul there was no response to the efforts of that Slovak-American organization in Canada. His opinion was, that the representative of the Slovak League "had not been accepted positively by his fellow-countrymen" _41 It is clear that the associative efforts of the Slovak immigrants were from the very beginning followed very carefully by the Consulate. The fact that the Slovak immigrants had decided to go their own way inspired the Consulate General to act in accordance with its original intention to organize the whole community in Canada, representing several thousand. At the beginning the Consulate tried to control the activity of the newly-formed association of Slovaks in Montreal. The Consul Ryznar, as soon as he arrived in 1920, decided to enter in a most decisive manner into the life of the community. But there was little hope of realizing that because of the originally small 38 Jbid. 39The association was founded by Gabriel Kurdel and F. Capkovic , at the end of 1924, in the first Slovak restaurant in Montreal , named "Tatra" . It was opened by F. Capkovic in the spring of I 924 . From the letter of G . Kurdel to the author dated 8. 12. 1974. (Personal archives of the author) . 40 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1924, No. 8, 8. 9. 1924. 41 Ibid. �20 SLOVAKIA number of the Slovak immigrants scattered across the vast Canadian lanscape. That all prevented him from managing the situation. Therefore, in his diplomatic agenda, he prudently suggested that the Slovak inhabitants in Canada were not organized as they could not be organized. But, as it is known from the diplomatic agenda of the former Austro-Hungarian Consuls General in Canada, the truth was just opposite. The Slovaks in Canada did organize already at the tum of the 19th and 20th centuries but not in their own associations. They were establishing in Canada numerous branches of American-Slovak associations. This resulted in subordinating them to centres in the USA, thus connecting more tightly the Canadian Slovaks with American ones, rather than the Slovaks living across Canada. With respect to the above-mentioned facts, the Czechoslovak Consul did not consider uniting the Canadian-Slovak community possible. This made him believe in the end that the Slovaks in Canada were not organized at all. The alternative of establishing new associations after World War I was impossible. In 1922 the Consul expressed his attitude in the following manner: "there are not suitable conditions here for establishing Czechoslovak associations" .42 It follows that he really intended to establish not only new associations, but also to make those already existing acquire the status of Czechoslovak ones, i. e. to conform to the Czechoslovak stateforming conception, and to manifest it in concrete organizational forms of their foreign enclave. When it was necessary to explain the reasons preventing him from realizing his plans, the Consul stressed the fact that there was a conflict between his intentions and the Slovak attitude represented by the strong pro-Hungarian orientation of the greatest concentration of the pre-war Slovak immigrants in Fort William, Ontario.43 About six hundred to one thousand and two hundred Slovaks were living there. The pro-Hungarian tendencies of that nationally and organizationally unified group of the Slovak immigrants coming mostly from 4 2SuA . MSP, Reg . 3894, No . 2313, 26. 6. 1922. 43 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1922, File 36 d, 25.4. 1922. �SLOVAKIA 21 the Orava region - which was in the period before the World War I known as an area nearly untouched by the process of magyarization - "were explained" very simply: those Slovaks had attended Hungarian schools and immigrated to Canada from Hungarian lands. We must add, however, that he, himself, doubted his statements about the pro-Hungarian manifestations of the Fort William Slovaks with the confession about getting his information "second hand" . Later on, he made use of his statements about magyarized Slovaks as a serious obstacle to the enforcement of the Czechoslovak philosophy. He said that the pro-Hungarian tendencies were permanently supported both by former Austro-Hungarian and new Hungarian Consuls in Canada during his journeys across Canada where the Hungarians had lived together with the Slovaks.44 The Czechoslovak Consul made use of that fact. He remarked that he himself as a Consul had not been able to travel along the consular "region" by permission of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs even after his three years' stay in Canada.45 In such a way he brought forward both the "principal", and other, i.e. "technical" cause of his temporary failure in relation to the Slovak community in Canada. We must say, however, that arguments such as the long distances between Montreal and individual Slovak settlements, the absence of contact with them, or surviving pro-Hungarian emotions among regional inhabitants, as well as the existence of no chance to change it, also survived. They could never be used to characterize the newly-forming associations of Slovak immigrants. The consul chose quite a different explanation. As he himself noted in the consular report, he had evaluated the activity of "the Czechoslovak citizens coming from Slovakia". In relationship to the existing foreign-political conception of the unitary Czechoslovak state, and the officialy-accepted theory of the Czechoslovak nation as well, he started to characterize the new associative tendencies of Montreal's Slovaks as the activation of anti-Czech 44 AFMZ, PZ-M , year 1924, No . 6. 11. 11. 1924. 4SAFMZ, PZ-M , year 1923, No. 13. 13 . 12. 1923 . �22 SLOVAKIA ideas, and the spreading of treasonous ideas brought apparently by Slovak immigrants and spread among fellow-countrymen. 46 Characterization of the associative tendencies of the Slovak immigrants in Montreal as anti-Czech, or even treasonous, was naive , and in the end turned against the Consulate itself. The Consulate had immediately to respond, and to eliminate the manifestations of the Slovak separatists represented, and replace them with the associative efforts of helpless immigrants. The Consul was supposed to initiate an unifying processes and make the Slovak immigrants accept their organization with those Czech immigrants who had settled in Montreal long before. It was, however, very difficult to find a proper way to solve the problem. There were only a few Czech immigrants living in Montreal. 47 They were mostly older inhabitants, and besides, they were on a higher social level, with other interests and needs. The Slovaks, meanwhile, were not in the least interested in any sort of social activity, or even "making policy". Therefore even the old traditional and experienced way of ideologically influencing the community, as it was suggested by the Czechoslovak authorities - i. e. to issue a newspaper - was considered inappropriate, and even useless. Migrating Slovaks searching all the time for jobs would not accept any newspaper _48 The following "solution" proved the most suitable one: the Canadian public was informed through an article published in The Montreal Daily Star in December of 1924 about the organization of "the Czechoslovak citizens in order to establish an independent association of Czechoslovak immigrants" .49 When, at the beginning of 1925, B. K. Ryznar finished his diplomatic mission to Canada (from January 1923 he was Consul General) the Montreal Slovak community was already officialy represented by the Czechoslovak 46 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1924, No. 8. 8.9.1924. 47 Before World War I, thirteen Czech families and one Slovak family lived in Montreal. In: Rybnfcek, A.: "Vzpomfnky starousadlfka." I:udove zvesti, 26, No. 40 , I 9. 10. 1961, p. 14. 48 AFMZ, PZ-M , year 1924, No . 12. 11. 11 . 1924. 4 9"Society formed to aid Czechs . New body will assist immigrants to prosper here". The Montreal Daily Star, 16. 12. 1924 . PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616 , File 916207, pt. I . �SLOVAKIA 23 Benefit Society. An internal conflict existed, however, concerning its name, emerging from time to time with greater or less intensity ,50 as the roots of a sort of natural alliance were missing.51 The beginning of 1925, connected with the end of B. K. Ryznar's diplomatic mission, and the coming of the new Consul General F. V. Kveton, represented a break in the immigration policy of Canada. Thanks to favourable economic-political decisions of the Canadian Government to end the policy of favouring immigrants from Great Britain, psychologically and physically not sufficiently prepared to do hard agricultural work in the Canadian wilderness, resulted in the recruitment of immigrants - mainly peasants - from the Central European region. It was the poor state of the Canadian economy at the beginning of 1925 as mentioned by the federal Parliament of Canada,52 which resulted in the above-mentioned changes in immigration policy. That new alternative was, despite the poor economic situation of Canada, evaluated by the Czechoslovak authorities with great satisfaction. It seemed that the arrival of immigrants would be greatly simplified for the immigrants comming from some "selected European countries, including the Czechoslovak Republic" .53 New workers were expected to revive the Canadian economy. They, however, misunderstood each other. The Canadian politicians saw the solution in further cultivation of land and farms left by the British colonists , thus solving the urgent need for agricultural workers. In fact, most of the applicants for emigration from the 50From a letter of G. Kurdel to the author dated 8. 12. 1974. 51 Canadian immigration policy allowed from Czechoslovakia only agricultural workers. Therefore, the intelligentsia had no place among immigrants (with some few exceptions). It meant that the Slovak community had no natural leaders. Some did develop. Gabriel Kurdel was the most significant one. In connection with the newlyfounded association in Montreal, G. Kurdel in his memoires said that he had informed the new Consul General Kv~ton about existing conflicts in the association. The Consul agreed with the change of the name of the association to a Slovak one. But, according to his memoirs, when he submitted his proposal to the leaders of the association, represented by Czech fellow-countrymen, they commented on it as follows: "It is nonsense". In: Memoirs of G. Kurdel. Phone record from 26. 10. 1977. No. SLK 3023. Archives of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario, Toronto. 52AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1925, No. 5. 7.2.1925. • 53~.:.UA, , MSP, Reg. 3894, File 847, 20. 2. 1924. �24 SLOVAKIA Central European region, including Slovakia, were poor people unable to participate in the Canadian programme of immigration of farming families with some capital. They could only saturate the secondary needs of the workforces , i.e. the agricultural workers on farms. The second alternative attracted primarily those applicants for emigration from Slovakia who were rejected by the United States. The number of those interested was very large. According to officials of the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague, it was nearly impossible to control the situation. The quota permitted annualy by the Canadian side could not be exceeded. The Canadians succeeded in keeping it low .54 In this way the number of Slovaks in Canada was by the end of the year 1930 increased to some 30 ,000 - 40,000 persons. 55 Czechoslobvak representatives in Montreal protested by means of a Memorandum to Minister Egan aginst the recruitment of workers without appropriate legislative requisites. The Consul stressed in the Memorandum that, according to Czechoslovak emigration law, each of the emigrants should, before their departure , be furnished with a -valid contract with the name of the employer, the location , sort of work, the duration of the employment, as well as the offered wage. 56 In response to the Memorandum, the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization considered it its duty to inform the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague only of the fact that an immigrant - agricultural worker - was to be paid 25 dollars per month with board and lodging.57 Further disputes and legally-unsolved problems were on both sides consulted usually in the following manner: in further similar inter-governmental agreements concerning the emigration and immi- 54Approximately 6,000 to 7,000 persons. 55 Archives of the President's Office, D. 12331/38. Secret message of CS . Consul General dr. F. Pavl~sek to Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague about the situation among Slovaks in Canada, dated 17. 3. 1937. In: Bielik, F.: Sloven ske vys(ahovaleccvo. Dokumency III. Martin, MS 1976, doc. No. 375 . 56PAC, RG. 76, Vol. 616, File 916207 , pt. 1, 23 . 5. 1925 . 57 PAC, RG. 76, Vol. 616, File 916207 , pt. 1, 23 . 5. 1925 . �SLOVAKIA 25 gration , proper attention should be paid to the solution of the problem of concrete labour contracts.58 From the above-mentioned it follows that the period of activity of Consul General F. V. Kveton (during the years 1925-1929) reflected a considerable increase in the community, not only in Montreal or Toronto, but also in other Canadian regions. This was connected with new organizations of the immigration process. The immigrants were placed primarily on the Praires of Canada, with the organizational centre located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Consul General F. V. Kveton visited that region in 1926. On his journey across Canada he discovered an increase in Slovak colonists despite the fact that he had intended to investigate mainly the Czech settlements. He came to the conclusion that "the Czechoslovak colony" in Canada was in fact the Slovak community. He stressed that fact in his report . Fort William was, according to him , the most significant and stable Slovak city. He estimated that some 1,100 to 1,200 Slovak souls were concentrated there with their own Catholic parish, and a nice church. He said that the Slovaks were working mainly in the port, loading and unloading the ships transporting goods across Lake Ontario, i. e. the inland Canadian "sea". In order to verify known opinions of his diplomatic predecessor concerning the pro-Hungarian orientation of Fort William Slovaks, he asked not only the old inhabitants , but post-war ones too. He came to the following conclusion: the community as a whole takes an autonomous attitude towards the solution of the problem of the constitutional position of Slovakia within the Czechoslovak Republic. The city of Winnipeg in Manitoba, as the destination place of his journey, was characterized as the biggest Czech settlement in Canada, with some four hundred souls, represented primarily by tailors and shoemakers. The Consul General stressed , however, the other function of Winnipeg. It was used as the "winter station" to retire in after the agricultural season on farms was over. His own opinions shifted into a different position because of having obtained new facts about the community. The Consul started 58s(JA, MV, Reg. 1015, No. 6980/1925. �26 SLOVAKIA to respond to the demands of older emigrants concerning education and national culture. He explained his attempt to the Czechoslovak authorities by the need to preserve national consciousness. He asked for the delivery of Slovak books for Montreal and Fort William, and above all, for a Slovak teacher for approximately two hundred school-aged children in Fort William.59 Thanks to the new consular representative, the Czechoslovak authorities were in 1926 forced to return to the problem of the social position of the Slovak immigrants. At first they started to investigate the chances of immigrants to obtain farms. Ottawa was asked questions about the place to obtain certain capital loans if an immigrant intended to do private farming.6() The federal Ministry did not intend to answer the question. The Consul was asked to address the responsible institutions, and first of all the Secretary of the Association of Canadian Bankers 61 who had offered him information on the existence of credit permitted by the Government in 1926 to be used exclusively for the purchase of agricultural land, the construction of houses, and affiliated buildings, for the purchase of cattle, irrigation systems, construction, etc.62 Despite a positive answer, no references were found in the archives referring to the use of that aid by Slovak immigrants. Because of those circumstances, the arrival of the two delegates from Czechoslovakia was a matter of question. They were invited by the Canadian Pacific Railway to investigate local conditions for settlement of independent families with some capital. Research has shown that there were only a few solvent families leaving Slovakia for Canada. Therefore, the information offered by the host company was quite useless for ordinary Slovak immigrants.63 Another delegate of the Ministry of Social Welfare offered to the interested Ministries information about his journey to Canada in the spring 1927 . He considered the position of Slovak agricultural workers as gene59S(JA, MSP, Reg. 3894, No. 6588. 6()PAC, RG . 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 10. 6. 1926. 61PAC, RG . 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, I 7. 6. 1926. 62SCJA, MSP, Reg . 3965, 2782/26. 63SCJA, MV, Reg . 1015, 498/1927. �SLOVAKIA 27 rally bad. He presented the following facts: they were working without any contract between them and their employers, and thrown on the mercy of the farmers. Above all, they were working without any health or accident insurance. No such insurance existed in Canada. Only Railways and larger industries had their own insurance systems. The afflicted immigrant could be protected only through a benefit society of fellow-countrymen, or by Canadian charity institutions. 64 When the Consulate had intervened in the Canadian Department it was offered a long list of the agencies and associations entitled to protecting the interests of immigrants in Canada.65 During the following year quite different opinions appeared among fellow-countrymen, evaluating the situation of Slovak immigrants. Some of them had strongly criticized their position because they had to be regularly aided through the Slovak League of America. Others were satisfied, pointing to those individuals living in Canada for a long time who became rich. The most objective evaluation, however, resulted from the latest information gathered during the years 1924-1927. It was as follows: "Fellow-countrymen are not for the time being doing well" _66 Evidence about it was provided by the Czechoslovak Consulate in Canada in a document published in Slovak newspapers. The title of the mentioned article was "Information for Those Emigrating to Canada" .67 It analysed the social conditions of Slovak immigrants in Canada, considered them to be insufficient, thus preventing others from making the decision to leave for Canada to work. The intention to get through Canada to the USA was considered nonsense. There were many profiteers promising to get people secretly over the borders to the USA, extorting their last money. The Consulate warned people because the promises had been false. Those profiteers were interested only in their hard-earned money. 64 SUA, MV, Reg . 1015, No . 27464/1927, 11.4. 1927. 65 S0A, MSP, Reg . 3965 , File 6849/1927, 28. 12. 1927. 66 Kopac, A.: "Ako sa zije na~fm v Kanade?", I:udova politika, 3, 1927, p. 3. 67 Narodnie noviny, 58., No . 50, 29. 4. 1927 , p. 3. No . 207, 15. 9. �28 SLOVAKIA Despite those facts, the Consul Kveton sent in the summer of 1928 an optimistic report to Prague about enough job opportunities, and that there was no unemployment among the immigrants. 68 He was, however, undoubtly conscious of the fact that critical situations were emerging after seasonal work was over, i.e. during the longlasting winter. It was almost the same by the end of the year 1928 . The unemployed started, as usual, to concentrate in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, and other cities. That concentration resulted in great associative activity. Consular reports paid special attention primarily to the activity of the Slovak League of America, which had succeeded in establishing its subsidiaries in Canada in the years 1927 and 1928 (in Toronto and Montreal, and a year before also in Winnipeg). For most Slovak immigrants in Canada membership in those organizations was quite necessary, because they had been aiding them in case of illnesses, or accidents. However, the activity of the Slovak League did not correspond with the above-mentioned intentions of the Czechoslovak Consulate. The Committee for Emigration was immediately addressed with urgent demands for the Government to provide some financial aid to the co-operative association in Montreal to cover its activities. 69 Such procedures did not surprise anybody. Once again the original arguments were used about the Slovaks looking for locations with older settlements of their fellow-countrymen, and gradually losing their interest in the idea of the so-called Czechoslovak nationality _?O That private opinion of the informer was in strong contradiction with the tendencies of the Slovak League being known with its identification with the Slovak autonomy programme during the inter-war years. The League was popular among the immigrants, especially for its co-operative function. The situation, however, got worse as the years went on. Unemployment was increasing, and as a result, a new phenomenon ap68S(JA , MSP, Reg. 3965, 30.11.1928 . 69S(JA, MSP, Reg . 3966, No . 21443, 28 .6.1928 . 7oIbid. �SLOVAKIA 29 peared in the diplomatic agenda as early as the winter of 1929-1930 . It concerned the deportation of Czechoslovak nationals from Canada. According to existing Canadian law a man who, during the first five years of his arrival in Canada applied for, or was provided with some public finacial aid, was considered an undesirable person, not able to conform to Canadian conditions. Such a person was to be deported to his mother country .7 1 The situation between the two countries worsened. There were frequent controversies between them. Many of the persons to be deported by the Canadians were ill or even incapacitated, either physically or psychically, and there were also criminals among them. Finally, the Czechoslovak authorities refused to accept those individuals who had not had, after a ten years' stay in Canada, re-established their Czechoslovak citizenship, or had not requested an extension of the validity of the right of domicle abroad. It is very difficult to find an accurate count of such persons,72 but they were often mentioned in diplomatic reports. It is obvious that this situation resulted from the economic crisis which broke out in 1929. The Depression affected the immigrants as never before. Besides increasing unemployment, the crisis meant also a significant reduction of the immigration quota for Czechoslovakia to two thousand people a year. This uncompromising procedure of the immigration authorities irritated the Czechoslovak Consulate so much that the Consul addressed Ottawa with an open protest. It follows from his report, sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague, that he was discussing the problem with Deputy Minister Egan in Ottawa. The Consul considered the quota unfair, and even offensive, for Czechoslovakia. The reaction of the Canadian Minister to that invective was related the Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Affairs as follows: the Deputy Minister said that "if only the immigrants from Bohemia and Moravia were concerned, 71SuA , MSP, Reg. 4029, No. 4310-36. 72 PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 251 , File 183211. �30 SLOVAKIA the whole situation would have been quite different, but there was only a minimum percentage of immigrants coming those regions" .73 At the beginning of 1930 K. Kveton was ending his diplomatic mission in Montreal , and was replaced by the new Consul-General, K. Moser. The attitude of the Canadian public and the immigration authorities as well, towards the immigration policy became even more hostile . Finally, in August of 1930 immigration from Czechoslovakia was halted. Public opinion accused the Government of having caused both the crisis, and the unemployment, too, due to its rather "benevolent" immigration policy, mainly in the second half of the 1920s. According to this opinion, the labour market was saturated, resulting in unexpected problems. No improvement in the field of employment occured even after spring work had started. The situation was the same even during the harvest. Farmers were so cutting back on wages that it became quite unprofitable to travel for work to the prairie provincies. Therefore the new Consul Moser reported to Prague in June of 1930 that: "don't let the emigrants come here under these circumstances, as they would only have travel expenses and _a temporary stay here" .74 Thus the hot issue of a part of the diplomatic agenda, represented by the immigration policy, disappeared from it at the beginning of the 1930s. A natural consequence of that was only sporadic contacts between the Czechoslovak Consulate and the Federal Department for Immigration and Colonization. Due to the restriction of immigration, the Federal Department had given up its original position, and importance as well, and beginning with the year 1936 started to function as the Immigration Branch of the Federal Department of Mines and Resources. Unemployment and deportations represented the most serious problem of the period of the economic crisis. Therefo- 73 SUA, MSP, Reg. 3990, 6. 2. 1929. It is necessary to add that the Canadian Government limited or stopped immigration from the entire continent of Europe, of course except for families with some capital, or wives and children of those already settled in Canada, In: an article "Immigration from Europe is Stopped" . The Gazette, Montreal, 16. 8. 1930. 74<'1, .:>UA, MSP, Reg . 3990, No. 6921, 3. 6. 1930. �SLOVAKIA 31 re, the Czechoslovak Consulate paid special attention to the internal i.e. social, associative, and political life of the Slovak community. When in 1930 the Director of the Czechoslovak Institute of Foreign Affairs in Prague V. Tlapak went on a study-tour to Canada, he could only confirm the well-known facts about numerous unemployed immigrants who would like to return to their native land, if only they could. Many of them did not earn enough money to pay the travel expences for the journey back home . He found many examples of those who worked only to cover their daily food costs.7 5 The first to sense the impact of the Depression were farm workers . Having come to Canada in the second half of the 1920s, these people were not accepted in Canada with special favour. The crisis made their position quite unbearable. The Federal Government, trying to solve the situation as best as it would, created a programme of emergency works. Nearly every province "drew" the unemployed from the cities and organized in the country so-called labour camps. Especially the young unemployed did such beneficial work as reconstruction of roads, cultivation of natural parks, etc. No Slovaks took part in it, according to diplomatic reports. In January of 1932 Consul Moser reported to Prague that unemployment was not decreasing at all, but on the contrary, it was gradually increasing. 76 Not only the immigamts who were agricultural workers had problems. Even some better-situated individuals had problems. In spite of the fact that some of the immigrants had succeded in getting land, they had to leave the farms as they were not able to pay off the mortgage.77 Deportations became the accompanying phenomenon of unemployment. Canada resorted to that unpleasant measure in order to shake off the burden of the persons who were not able to care for themselves.7 8 There were many Slovak immigrants among them. Consul General Moser, in his effort to somehow protect the interests 75 SDA, MSP , Reg . 4019, No . 3751/30, 29.11.1930. 76AFMzv, PZ-M, year 1932, No. 3, 27 .. 1. 1932. 77 SUA, MSP , Reg . 3990, No. 4105 - 32. 78 vystehovalecky zpravodaj Ministerstva socialnf pece , Vol. 2, 20. 5. 1932 , p. 19 . �32 SLOVAKIA of the immigrants, sent a complaint to Ottawa in August of 1932, stressing the fact that Canada was deporting immigrants too late, because most of them were in such a bad situation that they could not wait the two-to-three months for the departure. Therefore, he asked the Department to deport them as early as possible.79 The Department in Ottawa answered that they had a huge list of those waiting for deportation, and in any case could not make the deportation process quicker, especially due to the limited capacity of the ships departing from Montreal. 80 Even in January 1934 the consular materials contained information about unemployed immigrants who, for three years, had hopelessly waited for deportation. Therefore, some of them illegaly left for the USA, only to be caught, and in such way to be more quickly deported (after a two-to-three months stay in prison) to Czechoslovakia.81 By the end of 1935 the Consul suggested that things were going better and visits to the Consulate were rare. At the same time he reported that numerous immigrants had succeded in finding some work in construction, mines and forests, while others had returned to Czechosloyakia. 82 It does not mean, however, that he automatically considered an improvement in the field of employment a symptom of the restoration of the immigration process, or the release of the restrictions imposed on immigration policy. The only exception was that concerning the possibility of immigration of some peasant families with a capital of $1,000 - $2,000. Even under those circumstances the Consul considered the immigration of well-off individuals more than disputable. He reasoned in the following way: If the applicant for immigration to Canada sells in Czechoslovakia his whole property to get the necessary financial means, it will be enough only to invest in uncultivated land. Very hard work will follow the purchase, with the results coming in most cases too late. 79PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, I. 8. 1932. 80PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 20. 8.1932. 8lx, .:>UA, MSP, Reg. 4029, 12. I. 1934. 82X' .:>UA, MSP, Reg. 4029, 27.1.1936. �SLOVAKIA 33 This will make the immigrant fail , which often will result in his deportation. 83 It has been stated already that no other event influenced the Slovak community so much as the Depression. The immigration process of the second half of the 1920s was practically halted and the number of immigrants in the community was relatively stabilized (representing some 30,000 Slovaks, and about 1,000 Czechs). During the period preceding the crisis , the community was insufficiently organized. It was lacking in leaders, preachers, teachers, and schools. During the crisis the community was more active, and even more radical. Some new associations were founded. Ethnic consciousness was also activated. This resulted in a rapid decrease in their interest and willingness to co-operate in so-called Czechoslovak: associations. The activity of the benefit society in Montreal was nearly halted. 84 The Consulate notified Prague of the revival of autonomist tendencies, illustrating it with the fact that the First Slovak Benefit Society came into existence in Western Canada. More seriously, he considered the fact that there were being established numerous subsidiaries of the American-Slovak: associations with centers situated in the USA. He noticed, however, the great disappointment among the Canadian members because their funds had been delivered to the USA, thus not sufficiently meeting their needs. Finally, some of the members met in Winnipeg, Manitoba to reach a decision about leaving the American-Slovak: Association in order to found their own Canadian-Slovak: one. 85 The newly established Canadian Slovak League, together with the newspaper Slovak v Kanade, were by Consul Moser characterized as the principal representatives of the autonomist flow in the Slovak community, with the addition, that the same opinion was shared by the First Catholic Slovak Union in Canada. When F. Pavlasek took up his consular mission in Canada, he came to the conclusion that Slovaks were against the Czechs because 83SDA , MSP, Reg. 4029, 19. 8.1936. 84AFMZV, Section II., Reg . 492, No . 6787, I. 10. 1932. 85 SDA, MSP , Reg . 4029 . Periodical Report of the Immigration Branch , IV . quart. 1932. �34 SLOVAKIA of their motto "Slovakia for the Slovaks" .86 According to the new Consul General, the immigrants transfered from Slovakia to Canada many of Andrej Hlinka's ideas. Their attitudes were enforced both due to the American Slovak influences, and the agitation about the Pittsburgh Agreement. The fact that the Slovaks represented the poorest layers of the inhabitants of Canada, and belonged often to the unemployed, resulted in some being attracted to Marxism. The Consul discovered that in Montreal some four hundred persons were concentrating around the Slovak newspaper Robotnfcke slovo. The Consul Pavlasek characterized the group as quite compatible and devoted to their common ideal. At the same time he stressed the fact that the magazine was doing well and had a lot of symphatizers, in spite of the fact that many of them were not organized in the Association at all .87 Finally, in 1934 he characterized the community as politically split between the autonomists, autonomist communists, and those loyal to democratic Czechoslovakia. He considered it the result of the differentiation process which occured during the Depression. The autonomist communists were originally Czechoslovaks but had split in 1936 into Czechs and Slovaks. He tried to contact the different groups . "At first I tried to attract the conservative Catholic associations (the parish of Saints Cyril and Methodius) but without any success ... When I saw that the door for my activity among autonomists was shut for a certain period, I turned to less radical workers in order to build up co-operation between them and a middle democratic group. The result, however, was much the same ... 11 88 The Consul came to the conclusion that comunists triumphed during the crisis because they had exploited unemployment for establishing new associations. Among them were Czechoslovak Worker Education Clubs, the Slovak Workmen's Association, The International Workmen's Association, etc. They had numerous sym86AFMZV, Section II ., Reg. 531, 18.7.1934. 87 Ibid. 88 As in Note 55. �SLOVAKIA 35 pathizers among the common people. They improved the financial state of their associations, and a quality newspaper as well. In other words, they were very succesfuI. 89 The Consul Pavlasek stressed the intensity of communist propaganda among their fellow-countrymen in 1936. At the same time he noticed the fact that the propaganda could not be discounted, and in spite of the fact that it had been the result of a long-term Depression, it was spreading very rapidly, and fellow-countrymen were accepting it.90 Already in 1937 the Consul Pavlasek.was very pessimistic: "The position of this office is extremely difficult, because we have nobody to lean on. There are only a few Czechs here, and they are mostly assimilated, and a majority of them have withdrawn from public life due to permanent attacks". The fact that the Slovak community rejected Czechoslovakism nearly 'en bloc', he characterized as follows: "loyal Czechoslovak thinking, ever respecting the democracy and the Czechoslovak national unity, represents in some colonies but a minority", at the same time he added that the Czechs had arrived in Canada already before World War I, and they had been living there for two or three generations. They had been greatly assimililated, because the second generation had been educated in the Canadian manner. Finally, he expressed his "sad" conclusion that he himself, as well as the Consulate, were permanently attacked by the autonomists, and communists as well. It meant that the Consulate was to a great extent isolated from the Slovak community as a whole, in spite of the latter's internal ideological differentiation. In other words, the Consulate's mission was unsuccesful - it failed completely to unify the Czecho-Slovak nationals in Canada. Therefore, its arguments, formulated in 1937, suggesting that "everything must be done to keep the consciousness of Czechoslovak national unity in spite of the protests and demonstrations of the autonomist circles", were in vain.9 1 89SuA , MSP , Reg. 4029 , 25 . 10. 1935 . 90SuA, MSP, Reg . 4029 , 13.5 . 1937 . 91 As in note 88. � 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 1991-92, Vol. 35 Description An account of the resource Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Slovak League of America Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 1991-92 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 7 Slovak Emigrants in Canada as Reflected in Diplomatic Documents (1920 - 1938) ELENA JAKESOVA Slovak emigration to Canada - not taking into account the European continental migration - can be considered one of the strongest and most significant of all of the Slovak migrations during the inter-war period. Great numbers of Slovaks moved to Canada across the Antlantic to earn some money, especially in the second half of the 1920s. 1 The inter-war years, however, represented only its second stage, because Slovaks had started to leave for the United States as early as the 1870s. The 1920s witnessed only a change in destination. The United States of America, which in 1920 contained about 620,000 Slovaks, halted that mass emigration. When the continuity of the traditional emigration had been broken partly in the year 1921, and definitely in the year 1924, the search for an alternative solution of the problem did not take long. The immigrants saw in Canada's common frontier with the United States the possibility of emigration south in the future. Therefore, Canada became in the second half of the twenties "the second chance", a kind of alternative destination of the Slovak emigrants in spite of the fact that in comparison with the USA there 1 Shipping companies transported from Slovakia to Canada in 1922 110 persons, in 1923 2029 , in 1924 2832, in 1925 2134 , in 1926 6066 , in 1927 6301 , in 1928 8184 , in 1929 4116 , in 1930 3586, in 1931 730, in 1932 522, in 1933 673 , in 1934 851, in 1935 742 , in 1936 716. Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 4, Prague, 1932) and in Statistical Yearbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Prague 1934 , 1935, 1936, 1937) . 8 SLOVAKIA were not many reasons to look for opportunities for employment on its territory. In the period up to World War I, Canada attracted only about 5,000 Slovaks. 2 As early as the beginning of the 1920s it appeared that Canada could become the alternative overseas country of destination of Slovak emigrants. That alternative began to attract not only applicants for emigration passports in Slovakia but also Czecho-Slovak diplomats, and their representatives in Canada. In elucidating the development of the stated tendency, and its impact, we chose a series of diplomatic documents, representing the activities of the Czechoslovak consulate in Montreal in the years 1920-1938 as the basis of the following essay . The most significant are those documents which give special attention to the process of emigration. The subjects of the correspondence of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Montreal were the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague, and the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa.3 The Goals of this essay are limited. I will focus only on those aspects of the topic falling into the competence, tasks and activities of the Czechoslovak representatives in Canada. In consequence of the pro-emigration attitudes of the Czechoslovak government, two basic trends will coincide: Canadian immigration policy, and the development of the Slovak community in Canada. Slovak nationals represented the vast majority of all the people involved in the process of Czechoslovak emigration, especialy in the second half of the 2 Message of the Austro-Hungarian Consulate General in Montreal, IO December, I 902 to Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vienna . Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv Wien, F 15, File 62, deliv . 27 December, 1902. 3 sources: Archives of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs , Prague (hereinafter only AFMZV), Political reports - Montreal (1920- I 938) (hereinafter PZ-M) , and Section II. National Archives, Prague (hereinafter SUA) , Fund of Ministry of Social Welfare (hereinafter MSP), Ministry of International Affairs - Old registers of 19191944 (hereinafter MV) . Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa (hereinafter PAC) , Immigration Branch (RG 76) , Vol. 198 Consul General of Czechoslovakia, Montreal , Quebec (1922-1940) (File 80671) , Vol. 251 Czechoslovakia, Passports (1924-1939) (File 183211), Vol. 616 Czechoslovaks (File 916207) . SLOVAKIA 9 1920s .4 This fact accounted for the basis for the final ethnic identification of the newly-formed community in the Canadian environment, and, at the same time, determined the attitudes, and activities of the Czechoslovak Representatives in Canada. The first diplomatic contacts between Czechoslovakia and Canada were established on the consular level in Montreal in November of 1920. Bohuslav K. Ryznar was appointed the first Czechoslovak Consul. The Consulate was subordinated to the Czechoslovak Embassy in London, which corresponded with the arrangements of the relations between London and Ottawa. Despite the urgent request of B . K . Ryznar to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague, the functional designation of the Consulate in Montreal was not changed in the years 1920-1922 . He stressed the fact that "Canada is absolutely a self-governing country, and does not pay any taxes , duties or other allowances to the British Empire to be used by the army or navy. There is no British soldier, and no British warship in the whole territory of the Dominion .. ."5 B. K. Ryznar submitted several arguments to support his request for changing the Montreal office's rank to Consulate General. He suggested that the Governor General of Canada, the federal government, and the ministries in Ottawa entered into contacts only with accredited diplomats on the level of Consuls General. 6 Therefore, lower consular rankings resulted in the absence of contacts and information which, to a great extent, limited the possibility of diplomatic activity. Despite the Consul's assurances that eventual installation of a Consul General would not increase the budget, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague strictly refused the request.7 4 comparing the number of emigrants from Czechoslovakia to Canada during the years 1922-1932 with the number of emigrants from Slovakia for the same period, we have found that 83% were Slovaks, and only 17% were Czechs . If we compared it with the number of inhabitants , the difference would be even more extreme . Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 4, Prague , 1932). 5AFMZV, PZ-M, year I 921, No. 19, 27 . 6. 1921. 6With the addition that of all European countries, only Czechoslovakia and Portugal had their Consulates in Canada. AFMZV , PZ-M, year 1921 , No . 9, 17 . 2. 1921 . 7AFMZV , PZ-M, year 1921, No. 10 (B . ve .). SLOVAKIA In reply to the refusal , the Consul Ryznar again reminded the Ministry of the difficulties connected with the execution of his mission : "The situation looks as if the Prague centre has to seek information on the territory from Brittany to the foot of the Urals, and from Cadiz to Hamerfest, without any auxiliary offices and means" .8 These basic arguments - i. e. the inferior position of the representation , and the large size of Canada - were, for a certain period, the most effective tool in the hands of the Czechoslovak Consul in Canada to be used whenever he was obliged to take a stand , or to characterize some generally valid phenomenon. The taking of such an attitude was under those circumstances understandable. The presence and activity of the first Czechoslovak Consul in Canada represented but the first stage of the Czechoslovak diplomatic activity in Canada, aimed at the gradual acquisition and transmission to the Czechoslovak Government of essential information on anything he considered important, including the care for his own nationals, with special attention paid to immigrants coming to the country. Taking into account the goal of the present essay , it is important to stress first of all the Consul's investigation of the state of the regional community of his fellow-countrymen. This all formed a part of the information sent at the beginning of 1920 to the Political Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague. He characterized it as follows : 11 ••• a colony of Czechoslovak nationals representing over five thousand persons living in the whole Dominion , i. e. an area equal to the extent of the United States of North America ... , it is , however, insufficiently organized, and could not be used as a decisive element to support any political faction .. . Also the interest of the Czechoslovak farmers settled in the province of Saskatchewan are quite different from those of the miners in Nova Scotia, living apart a distance of about four thousand kilometers. It will be very difficult to unify them and to make them act together" _9 It is obvious that recognizing the small numbers in the community provoked both interested parties to consider the further possibi8AFMZV , PZ-M,year 1921 , No . 19, 27. 6. 1921. 9AFMZV , PZ-M , year 1921, No . 2, File No . 10/21. SLOVAK.IA 11 lities of its growth. These appeared already in 1921 in connection with the increasing interest in emigration from Czechoslovakia, and also with the growing threat of the limitation of immigration by the US Government. Therefore, the future Canadian immigration policy , and especially its relation to Central Europe, became the primary area of interest of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Montreal. The formulation dealing with the diffusion and disorganization of the colony had the hidden agenda of the further activity of the Czechoslovak Consulate - i.e. co-operation with the community in order to unify it as far as its organization is concerned, and, in this way, to shape its future direction. A matter of question, however, was - by which means and in what manner should it be done? The organizational and political attitudes chosen by the consular authorities in relationship to the Slovak community is the principal topic of this essay. The diplomatic communiques themselves contained certain signals in answer to the question because there the community was referred to as a colony of Czechoslovak nationals, without more detailed ethnic identification. Despite the fact that the first impression acquired by the Czechoslovak side from the trends in Canadian immigration policy was not in any way favourable - "the Canadian authorities obstructed the immigrants" 10 - the Consul reported to Prague at the beginning of 1921 that the consular office succeeded in finding some indications of change. Public debates began to mould opinions that, with respect to the growing need for cheap labour, it was necessary to retain the principle of a priority in the selection of immigrants, i. e. not to prefer Britons as the representatives of the "mother country" of Canada, but to permit a bit of benevolence in the selection of the immigrants. 11 It was decided by the Consulate to seize the opportunity immediately. The federal Department of Immigration and Colonization in IOAFMZV, Sec . II ., Reg . 531, File No . 514, 4.2.1921. 11 AFMZV, PZ-M, year 1921, No . 19, an article published in The Montreal Daily Star, 4. 6. 1921 , "Repudiation , Annexation or Population". 12 SLOVAKIA Ottawal 2 was asked in November of 1922 to provide statistical data on the number of Czechoslovak immigrants in Canada, and, at the same time, to inform the Consulate about the willingness of the Canadian government to accept the immigration and settlement of Czechoslovak nationals in Canada,13 This initiative of the Czechoslovak Consul was premature. The department took a very reserved attitude. Its Secretary, F. C. Blair, provided only the requested statistical data, and completely omitted the problem connected with the possibility of immigration from Czechoslovakia. 14 It is, therefore, clear that it was only the Czechoslovak side which initiated and tried to recommend its own citizens as suitable potential immigrants to Canada. Despite the fact that this effort had been ignored, the Consul Ryznar was not discouraged. He went on searching for some sign of permissivness in the Canadian immigration policy towards the Continent and concretely to Central Europe. He tried to convince the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs and also the Ministry of Social Welfare, that he was doing his best to search for possibilities for Slovak applicants for emigration to countries other than to the USA. The Consul constantly tried to find some solution and began to consider the most attractive the idea of the Canadian immigration officials - i. e. to attract peasants, who, unlike the British colonists coming mainly from towns, and again settled in towns in Canada, would be able and willing to farm in Canada, to cutlivate the virgin land, and to revive the economy of the country.15 He saw such a solution in Central Europe. Ryznar had been so encouraged with the possibility of Slovak immigration that he decided at the beginning of 1923 to send another letter to F. C. Blair. He did so in order to get some information about the new policy of settlement being enforced by certain political 12The Department of Immigration and Colonization, an independent Department of the Federal Government, came into existence in 1917 through its separation from the Ministry of the Interior. 13 PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 198, File 80671 , 11. I 1. 1922. 14 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 28 . 11.1922. 15 AFMZV, PZ-M, year 1922, No. 7, 4.12 . 1922. SLOVAKIA 13 circles . His primary goal was, however, again to remind the Canadian government of Czechoslovakia, and its peasantry applying for immigration visas. He stressed in his letter that he had been urged by his own government, and primarily by the Ministry of Social Welfare, which was greatly interested in the possibility of immigration of its citizens to Canada. In another letter he told of the intention of the above-mentioned Ministry to subscribe to the most significant Canadian newspaper in order to receive information on the programme of the settlement of the country, and at the same time to find missing information for numerous applicants for emigration, i.e. the citizens of Czechoslovakia.16 His efforts to attract the attention of the highest authorities of the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization brought some results in the end. The Czechoslovak Ministry of Social Welfare was finally put on the list of the addresses of the immigration press being issued by the Department of Immigration and Colonization. 17 Above all, those institutions realised that Czechoslovakia was offering a certain part of its peasantry with the assurance that they certainly would be very suitable future colonists . The explanation of the following could be found in the activity of the Czechoslovak Consulate: when in the autumn of 1923 a great need for a cheap labor force emerged in Canada in connection with the logging of old wood in forests, and its preparation for further processing in sawmills, representing in itself very heavy manual work, the citizens of British or French origin did not want to do it. Therefore, the Department of Immigration and Colonization met the demands of some entrepreneurial circles and agreed with the submitted proposal to obtain suitable lumberjacks in Central Europe . The Minister of Immigration and Colonization personally suggested that sort of labour force be sought in Czechoslovakia. He explained it in the following manner: "based on the information received, applicants for emigration from Czechoslovakia are said to have some experience with agricultural work, and also the prerequisites for 16pAc, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671 , 27 . 2. 1923. 17PAC , RG 76 , Vol. 198 , File 80671 , 7. 3. 1923. 14 SLOVAKIA managing methods used in Canadian agriculture in order to become true Canadian farmers in the end" .1 8 The Consulate was very proud of the results of its diplomatic mission. It interpreted its work in the following, quite inadequate, manner: "The Canadian immigration authorities prefer Czechoslovak nationals because of their good physical condition, honesty and industriousness. They find them excellent colonists , and they would be very glad to receive them" _19 In fact the Canadian authorities permitted workers at the end of 1923 in Czechoslovakia for the Canadian lumbering industry only, with only some five hundred, 20 later increased to a thousand workers. 21 Most of those people were obtained in Slovakia as can be seen in the statistical data of the shipping companies concerning the transporting of over two thousand persons from Slovakia to Canada during that same year.22 Immediately after the arrival of the first post-war contingent of Slovak immigrants, they faced numerous problems . The consulate in February 1924 issued the following message: "Most of those (i. e. immigrants) devoted themselves in the winter season to cutting wood. The living standards in those camps, hundreds of miles from civilization, situated in vast forests , are hardly enviable .. . They work from early morning till late at night. They eat food prepared in a common kitchen and pay for it through the reduction of their salaries. The employer provides workers with clothes and other requisites paid for in the above-mentioned manner. It is obvious that our fellows , knowing neither the language nor the customs , are in an endless wilderness thrown at the mercy of dishonest officials, and some problems had to be solved through the consular authorities with the director or owner of the company in order to ensure their protection" .23 18 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 3. 11. 1923. 19.-;;:,UA, , MSP, Reg. 3894, No. 2028 , 2. 6. 1923. 20PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt. 1, 18. 10. 1923. 21SUA, MSP, Reg. 3899, File 847, 20. 2. 1924. 22 Statistical Handbook of the Czechoslovak Republic (Vol. 3, Prague, 1928). 23SUA, MSP, Reg. 3899, File 847 , 20.2. 1924. SLOVAKIA 15 In addition to the difficult position of a part of the Slovak immigrants in lumber camps, there were also other problems . The Canadian authorities offered, in fact only seasonal work. That meant that in the spring of the year 1924, when the season had ended, the immigrants were on their own. A part of them started to drift to Montreal, and other cities, especially those near the American border. It was clear in the end that the first group of post-war immigrants had come to Canada with a clear goal: to get around the restrictive immigration measures imposed by the American authorities, and to get to the United States via Canada,24 where their relatives and friends were already settled. Numerous requests of the immigrants to solve this problem were a heavy burden for the Czechoslovak consular officials .25 All their efforts, however, were useless. At least a one-year stay of the immigrant in Canada was a necessary precondition to receiving a visa to the USA. The situation of the Slovak lumberjacks was very difficult to resolve. The Czechoslovak Consulate tried to avoid growing difficulties caused partly by its own activity. The Czechoslovak authorities were immediately asked to inform passport offices about issuing emigration visas to Canada only to those applicants willing to settle permanently in Canada. 26 In order to stop the growth of further complications, the Consulate again addressed the Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa to provide it with the form, or the text of the agreement usually concluded between the employer and employee.27 The letter also expressed the Government's interest in receiving more detailed information about living conditions of the 1mmigrants in Canada. The highest Canadian authorities answered the letter immediately. They informed the Consulate that neither an agreement form, nor any legislative criteria, existed in Canada for concluding contracts. As far as the securing of certain living standards for immigrants was concerned, living conditions were different in various 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 198 , File 80671 , 16. 4.1924 . 16 SLOVAKIA parts of the country and what was offered was generally considered sufficient. 28 It was too late and quite useless to ask those questions. We know that the Canadian government authorities cared for the problems of their own poorest workers even less than for the Czechoslovak ones, and there was no motivation to help the immigrants, coming without any financial means, and at their own risk. It follows from the above that, at the beginning of 1924, the activity of the Consulate had to orient itself to immigration from Czechoslovakia. It had to decide what to do with people coming from Slovakia with the intention of going to the United States. The chance to get there was only minimal. While the Czechoslovak Consulate was asking the questions, the Slovak League of America, as the cover organization of Slovak immigrants in the USA, took the initiative. Many Slovak immigrants in Canada turned to it with requests for help, because the CanadianSlovak community itself was small in number, lost over the huge territory, and therefore could not support them. In the summer of 1924, the Slovak League sent its delegate to Canada to investigate the situation. Upon his arrival the delegate confirmed the fact that the immigrants had come to Canada with the goal of getting into the USA. At the same time he informed the American-Slovak public that "the prisons on the frontier are full of our people caught when they tried to get to the USA illegally" .29 After receiving that information, the executive of the Slovak League decided to publish information about the hopeless situation of most of the Slovak immigrants in Canada in magazines in Slovakia. 30 Thus a short article published later in numerous Slovak magazines came into being. The text of it was more than meaningful: "The representative of the Slovak League of America who had been sent to Canada reported about a sad group there. Over 12,000 of them are living there and suffer awfully. They cannot find work, and when they get 28PAC , RG 76, Vol. 198 , File 80212 , 25 . 4. 1924. 29 Minutes of the session of the delegates of the Slovak organizations in America organized by the executive of the Slovak League , held in Pittsburgh, Pa ., 18 . December of 1924. In: Slovak v Amerike, 51, No. 37, 2. 3. 1925, p. 3. 3oIbid. SLOVAKIA 17 it, they have to work in the Canadian virgin forests and are paid only a pittance. Their feet and hands are frost-bitten and some of them even went mad" _31 The disclosure of the irresponsibility of the Czechoslovak and Canadian authorities who had prepared and organized the immigration , upset not only American Slovaks and people in Slovakia, it also affected diplomatic relations between Czechoslovakia and Canada. The Department of Immigration and Colonization in Ottawa was probably informed directly through the British Ambassador in Prague . A letter was immediately sent to the Czechoslovak Consul in Montreal containing - a slightly paraphrased - "anxiety about the fact that the published information on the situation in Canada does not correspond with reality" _32 At the same time Ottawa asked the Consul to inform it about the Slovak League of America. They were mostly interested in whether the organization had a branch in Canada consisting of the proper members, and finally asked the Consul about the alleged problem, i. e. whether he was really informed about a greater number of Slovak immigrants in Canada who had not found work.33 In his answer B. K. Ryznar suggested to the Minister W. J. Egan that the Slovak League of America was a strong organization with half a million members. He assured him, however, that the organization had not had any branch in Canada. 34 As he had not ment to destroy his previous efforts in the field of creating premises for acceptance of immigrants from Czechoslovakia, he to a certain extent negated the arguments of the above-mentioned article, and assured Ottawa that there were not many unemployed Slovaks in Canada. In order not to minimize his duties and problems connected with the execution of his mission, Ryznar mentioned in his letter having heard only about the complaints of the immigrants concerning irregular practices applied by the employers and the labour 3 IE. g. Sloven ska domovina, 7, No. 6, 5. 2. I 925, p. 2. 32 As in Note 29 . 33PAC , RG 76, Vol. 616 , File 916207, pt . I, 10. 2. 1925 . 34Toe Slovak League of America had but one subsidiary in Canada, at Fort William , Ontario, founded in 1916, havi ng one hundred and fifty members. 18 SLOVAKIA agencies, and their attempts to misuse them. His attitude to the whole problem was contrary to the facts .35 The above-mentioned problem had been disturbing to both interested parties, and therefore the Department in Ottawa decided to inform the Czechoslovak authorities in order to elucidate somehow the problems of unemployment and basic social care provided to the Slovak immigrants. The information was , however, only general , covering but the job opportunities offered by Canada to the immigrants . Job opportunities were represented principally by seasonal work for agricultural workers. The number of needed seasonal workers was very difficult to determine ahead of time. The Department cleared up only the problem of the salaries offered. They assured the Czechoslovak authorities that the minimum monthly salary had to be 25 dollars , at the same time admitting even higher wages in case of additional seasonal work.36 But the Czechoslovak authorities wanted to make the problem clear. Therefore, they sent a delegate on a mission to Eastern Canada. He could only confirm the well-known facts about the difficulties of a part of the new Slovak immigrants. The most serious of them represented unemployment on the one hand, and unpaid salaries for work done on the other. The employers, for various reasons, often refused to pay the immigrants. They were sure that it was quite impossible to claim their salaries through the courts, as no service contracts had been concluded with the immigrants. 37 Together with the arrival of a greater number of immigrants, and especially when the lumbering season had ended, a tendency appeared during 1924 among groups of immigrants settling in Montreal to be near the residence of the Czechoslovak Consulate. Growing unemployment was the motive for their concentration. The officials saw the reasons for immigrants remaining in the big cities in their apparent aversion to working on farms, and in their false illusions of 35PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt . I, 14.2.1925. 36 PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616, File 916207, pt. I, 26.3.1925. 37SUA, MSP, Reg . 3803, No . 10219, 2.5. 1925. SLOVAKIA 19 better salaries in cities. The immigrants hoped to find in Montreal an advanced industry, as was the case in cities of the United States .38 Social dislocation, therefore, became the decisive experience of the people. This motivated them during the summer 1924 to support each other through a co-operative association. 39 The forming of the ethnically homogenous Slovak group in Montreal, welded together by common problems, could not be ignored by the Czechoslovak Consul. He reported to Prague in detail about the two Slovaks in Montreal, who strove to establish a "Slovak Benefit Society". He added, however, that their task was very difficult, because of the small and ever-changing number of the Slovaks in Montreal, as most of them were looking for work, and their stay in the city was temporary .40 He also reported on the activity of the Slovak League of America, aimed at the organization of Slovak immigrants in Canada. The League sent its delegate to Montreal to investigate the situation. According to the Consul there was no response to the efforts of that Slovak-American organization in Canada. His opinion was, that the representative of the Slovak League "had not been accepted positively by his fellow-countrymen" _41 It is clear that the associative efforts of the Slovak immigrants were from the very beginning followed very carefully by the Consulate. The fact that the Slovak immigrants had decided to go their own way inspired the Consulate General to act in accordance with its original intention to organize the whole community in Canada, representing several thousand. At the beginning the Consulate tried to control the activity of the newly-formed association of Slovaks in Montreal. The Consul Ryznar, as soon as he arrived in 1920, decided to enter in a most decisive manner into the life of the community. But there was little hope of realizing that because of the originally small 38 Jbid. 39The association was founded by Gabriel Kurdel and F. Capkovic , at the end of 1924, in the first Slovak restaurant in Montreal , named "Tatra" . It was opened by F. Capkovic in the spring of I 924 . From the letter of G . Kurdel to the author dated 8. 12. 1974. (Personal archives of the author) . 40 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1924, No. 8, 8. 9. 1924. 41 Ibid. 20 SLOVAKIA number of the Slovak immigrants scattered across the vast Canadian lanscape. That all prevented him from managing the situation. Therefore, in his diplomatic agenda, he prudently suggested that the Slovak inhabitants in Canada were not organized as they could not be organized. But, as it is known from the diplomatic agenda of the former Austro-Hungarian Consuls General in Canada, the truth was just opposite. The Slovaks in Canada did organize already at the tum of the 19th and 20th centuries but not in their own associations. They were establishing in Canada numerous branches of American-Slovak associations. This resulted in subordinating them to centres in the USA, thus connecting more tightly the Canadian Slovaks with American ones, rather than the Slovaks living across Canada. With respect to the above-mentioned facts, the Czechoslovak Consul did not consider uniting the Canadian-Slovak community possible. This made him believe in the end that the Slovaks in Canada were not organized at all. The alternative of establishing new associations after World War I was impossible. In 1922 the Consul expressed his attitude in the following manner: "there are not suitable conditions here for establishing Czechoslovak associations" .42 It follows that he really intended to establish not only new associations, but also to make those already existing acquire the status of Czechoslovak ones, i. e. to conform to the Czechoslovak stateforming conception, and to manifest it in concrete organizational forms of their foreign enclave. When it was necessary to explain the reasons preventing him from realizing his plans, the Consul stressed the fact that there was a conflict between his intentions and the Slovak attitude represented by the strong pro-Hungarian orientation of the greatest concentration of the pre-war Slovak immigrants in Fort William, Ontario.43 About six hundred to one thousand and two hundred Slovaks were living there. The pro-Hungarian tendencies of that nationally and organizationally unified group of the Slovak immigrants coming mostly from 4 2SuA . MSP, Reg . 3894, No . 2313, 26. 6. 1922. 43 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1922, File 36 d, 25.4. 1922. SLOVAKIA 21 the Orava region - which was in the period before the World War I known as an area nearly untouched by the process of magyarization - "were explained" very simply: those Slovaks had attended Hungarian schools and immigrated to Canada from Hungarian lands. We must add, however, that he, himself, doubted his statements about the pro-Hungarian manifestations of the Fort William Slovaks with the confession about getting his information "second hand" . Later on, he made use of his statements about magyarized Slovaks as a serious obstacle to the enforcement of the Czechoslovak philosophy. He said that the pro-Hungarian tendencies were permanently supported both by former Austro-Hungarian and new Hungarian Consuls in Canada during his journeys across Canada where the Hungarians had lived together with the Slovaks.44 The Czechoslovak Consul made use of that fact. He remarked that he himself as a Consul had not been able to travel along the consular "region" by permission of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs even after his three years' stay in Canada.45 In such a way he brought forward both the "principal", and other, i.e. "technical" cause of his temporary failure in relation to the Slovak community in Canada. We must say, however, that arguments such as the long distances between Montreal and individual Slovak settlements, the absence of contact with them, or surviving pro-Hungarian emotions among regional inhabitants, as well as the existence of no chance to change it, also survived. They could never be used to characterize the newly-forming associations of Slovak immigrants. The consul chose quite a different explanation. As he himself noted in the consular report, he had evaluated the activity of "the Czechoslovak citizens coming from Slovakia". In relationship to the existing foreign-political conception of the unitary Czechoslovak state, and the officialy-accepted theory of the Czechoslovak nation as well, he started to characterize the new associative tendencies of Montreal's Slovaks as the activation of anti-Czech 44 AFMZ, PZ-M , year 1924, No . 6. 11. 11. 1924. 4SAFMZ, PZ-M , year 1923, No. 13. 13 . 12. 1923 . 22 SLOVAKIA ideas, and the spreading of treasonous ideas brought apparently by Slovak immigrants and spread among fellow-countrymen. 46 Characterization of the associative tendencies of the Slovak immigrants in Montreal as anti-Czech, or even treasonous, was naive , and in the end turned against the Consulate itself. The Consulate had immediately to respond, and to eliminate the manifestations of the Slovak separatists represented, and replace them with the associative efforts of helpless immigrants. The Consul was supposed to initiate an unifying processes and make the Slovak immigrants accept their organization with those Czech immigrants who had settled in Montreal long before. It was, however, very difficult to find a proper way to solve the problem. There were only a few Czech immigrants living in Montreal. 47 They were mostly older inhabitants, and besides, they were on a higher social level, with other interests and needs. The Slovaks, meanwhile, were not in the least interested in any sort of social activity, or even "making policy". Therefore even the old traditional and experienced way of ideologically influencing the community, as it was suggested by the Czechoslovak authorities - i. e. to issue a newspaper - was considered inappropriate, and even useless. Migrating Slovaks searching all the time for jobs would not accept any newspaper _48 The following "solution" proved the most suitable one: the Canadian public was informed through an article published in The Montreal Daily Star in December of 1924 about the organization of "the Czechoslovak citizens in order to establish an independent association of Czechoslovak immigrants" .49 When, at the beginning of 1925, B. K. Ryznar finished his diplomatic mission to Canada (from January 1923 he was Consul General) the Montreal Slovak community was already officialy represented by the Czechoslovak 46 AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1924, No. 8. 8.9.1924. 47 Before World War I, thirteen Czech families and one Slovak family lived in Montreal. In: Rybnfcek, A.: "Vzpomfnky starousadlfka." I:udove zvesti, 26, No. 40 , I 9. 10. 1961, p. 14. 48 AFMZ, PZ-M , year 1924, No . 12. 11. 11 . 1924. 4 9"Society formed to aid Czechs . New body will assist immigrants to prosper here". The Montreal Daily Star, 16. 12. 1924 . PAC, RG 76, Vol. 616 , File 916207, pt. I . SLOVAKIA 23 Benefit Society. An internal conflict existed, however, concerning its name, emerging from time to time with greater or less intensity ,50 as the roots of a sort of natural alliance were missing.51 The beginning of 1925, connected with the end of B. K. Ryznar's diplomatic mission, and the coming of the new Consul General F. V. Kveton, represented a break in the immigration policy of Canada. Thanks to favourable economic-political decisions of the Canadian Government to end the policy of favouring immigrants from Great Britain, psychologically and physically not sufficiently prepared to do hard agricultural work in the Canadian wilderness, resulted in the recruitment of immigrants - mainly peasants - from the Central European region. It was the poor state of the Canadian economy at the beginning of 1925 as mentioned by the federal Parliament of Canada,52 which resulted in the above-mentioned changes in immigration policy. That new alternative was, despite the poor economic situation of Canada, evaluated by the Czechoslovak authorities with great satisfaction. It seemed that the arrival of immigrants would be greatly simplified for the immigrants comming from some "selected European countries, including the Czechoslovak Republic" .53 New workers were expected to revive the Canadian economy. They, however, misunderstood each other. The Canadian politicians saw the solution in further cultivation of land and farms left by the British colonists , thus solving the urgent need for agricultural workers. In fact, most of the applicants for emigration from the 50From a letter of G. Kurdel to the author dated 8. 12. 1974. 51 Canadian immigration policy allowed from Czechoslovakia only agricultural workers. Therefore, the intelligentsia had no place among immigrants (with some few exceptions). It meant that the Slovak community had no natural leaders. Some did develop. Gabriel Kurdel was the most significant one. In connection with the newlyfounded association in Montreal, G. Kurdel in his memoires said that he had informed the new Consul General Kv~ton about existing conflicts in the association. The Consul agreed with the change of the name of the association to a Slovak one. But, according to his memoirs, when he submitted his proposal to the leaders of the association, represented by Czech fellow-countrymen, they commented on it as follows: "It is nonsense". In: Memoirs of G. Kurdel. Phone record from 26. 10. 1977. No. SLK 3023. Archives of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario, Toronto. 52AFMZ, PZ-M, year 1925, No. 5. 7.2.1925. • 53~.:.UA, , MSP, Reg. 3894, File 847, 20. 2. 1924. 24 SLOVAKIA Central European region, including Slovakia, were poor people unable to participate in the Canadian programme of immigration of farming families with some capital. They could only saturate the secondary needs of the workforces , i.e. the agricultural workers on farms. The second alternative attracted primarily those applicants for emigration from Slovakia who were rejected by the United States. The number of those interested was very large. According to officials of the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague, it was nearly impossible to control the situation. The quota permitted annualy by the Canadian side could not be exceeded. The Canadians succeeded in keeping it low .54 In this way the number of Slovaks in Canada was by the end of the year 1930 increased to some 30 ,000 - 40,000 persons. 55 Czechoslobvak representatives in Montreal protested by means of a Memorandum to Minister Egan aginst the recruitment of workers without appropriate legislative requisites. The Consul stressed in the Memorandum that, according to Czechoslovak emigration law, each of the emigrants should, before their departure , be furnished with a -valid contract with the name of the employer, the location , sort of work, the duration of the employment, as well as the offered wage. 56 In response to the Memorandum, the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization considered it its duty to inform the Ministry of Social Welfare in Prague only of the fact that an immigrant - agricultural worker - was to be paid 25 dollars per month with board and lodging.57 Further disputes and legally-unsolved problems were on both sides consulted usually in the following manner: in further similar inter-governmental agreements concerning the emigration and immi- 54Approximately 6,000 to 7,000 persons. 55 Archives of the President's Office, D. 12331/38. Secret message of CS . Consul General dr. F. Pavl~sek to Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague about the situation among Slovaks in Canada, dated 17. 3. 1937. In: Bielik, F.: Sloven ske vys(ahovaleccvo. Dokumency III. Martin, MS 1976, doc. No. 375 . 56PAC, RG. 76, Vol. 616, File 916207 , pt. 1, 23 . 5. 1925 . 57 PAC, RG. 76, Vol. 616, File 916207 , pt. 1, 23 . 5. 1925 . SLOVAKIA 25 gration , proper attention should be paid to the solution of the problem of concrete labour contracts.58 From the above-mentioned it follows that the period of activity of Consul General F. V. Kveton (during the years 1925-1929) reflected a considerable increase in the community, not only in Montreal or Toronto, but also in other Canadian regions. This was connected with new organizations of the immigration process. The immigrants were placed primarily on the Praires of Canada, with the organizational centre located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Consul General F. V. Kveton visited that region in 1926. On his journey across Canada he discovered an increase in Slovak colonists despite the fact that he had intended to investigate mainly the Czech settlements. He came to the conclusion that "the Czechoslovak colony" in Canada was in fact the Slovak community. He stressed that fact in his report . Fort William was, according to him , the most significant and stable Slovak city. He estimated that some 1,100 to 1,200 Slovak souls were concentrated there with their own Catholic parish, and a nice church. He said that the Slovaks were working mainly in the port, loading and unloading the ships transporting goods across Lake Ontario, i. e. the inland Canadian "sea". In order to verify known opinions of his diplomatic predecessor concerning the pro-Hungarian orientation of Fort William Slovaks, he asked not only the old inhabitants , but post-war ones too. He came to the following conclusion: the community as a whole takes an autonomous attitude towards the solution of the problem of the constitutional position of Slovakia within the Czechoslovak Republic. The city of Winnipeg in Manitoba, as the destination place of his journey, was characterized as the biggest Czech settlement in Canada, with some four hundred souls, represented primarily by tailors and shoemakers. The Consul General stressed , however, the other function of Winnipeg. It was used as the "winter station" to retire in after the agricultural season on farms was over. His own opinions shifted into a different position because of having obtained new facts about the community. The Consul started 58s(JA, MV, Reg. 1015, No. 6980/1925. 26 SLOVAKIA to respond to the demands of older emigrants concerning education and national culture. He explained his attempt to the Czechoslovak authorities by the need to preserve national consciousness. He asked for the delivery of Slovak books for Montreal and Fort William, and above all, for a Slovak teacher for approximately two hundred school-aged children in Fort William.59 Thanks to the new consular representative, the Czechoslovak authorities were in 1926 forced to return to the problem of the social position of the Slovak immigrants. At first they started to investigate the chances of immigrants to obtain farms. Ottawa was asked questions about the place to obtain certain capital loans if an immigrant intended to do private farming.6() The federal Ministry did not intend to answer the question. The Consul was asked to address the responsible institutions, and first of all the Secretary of the Association of Canadian Bankers 61 who had offered him information on the existence of credit permitted by the Government in 1926 to be used exclusively for the purchase of agricultural land, the construction of houses, and affiliated buildings, for the purchase of cattle, irrigation systems, construction, etc.62 Despite a positive answer, no references were found in the archives referring to the use of that aid by Slovak immigrants. Because of those circumstances, the arrival of the two delegates from Czechoslovakia was a matter of question. They were invited by the Canadian Pacific Railway to investigate local conditions for settlement of independent families with some capital. Research has shown that there were only a few solvent families leaving Slovakia for Canada. Therefore, the information offered by the host company was quite useless for ordinary Slovak immigrants.63 Another delegate of the Ministry of Social Welfare offered to the interested Ministries information about his journey to Canada in the spring 1927 . He considered the position of Slovak agricultural workers as gene59S(JA, MSP, Reg. 3894, No. 6588. 6()PAC, RG . 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 10. 6. 1926. 61PAC, RG . 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, I 7. 6. 1926. 62SCJA, MSP, Reg . 3965, 2782/26. 63SCJA, MV, Reg . 1015, 498/1927. SLOVAKIA 27 rally bad. He presented the following facts: they were working without any contract between them and their employers, and thrown on the mercy of the farmers. Above all, they were working without any health or accident insurance. No such insurance existed in Canada. Only Railways and larger industries had their own insurance systems. The afflicted immigrant could be protected only through a benefit society of fellow-countrymen, or by Canadian charity institutions. 64 When the Consulate had intervened in the Canadian Department it was offered a long list of the agencies and associations entitled to protecting the interests of immigrants in Canada.65 During the following year quite different opinions appeared among fellow-countrymen, evaluating the situation of Slovak immigrants. Some of them had strongly criticized their position because they had to be regularly aided through the Slovak League of America. Others were satisfied, pointing to those individuals living in Canada for a long time who became rich. The most objective evaluation, however, resulted from the latest information gathered during the years 1924-1927. It was as follows: "Fellow-countrymen are not for the time being doing well" _66 Evidence about it was provided by the Czechoslovak Consulate in Canada in a document published in Slovak newspapers. The title of the mentioned article was "Information for Those Emigrating to Canada" .67 It analysed the social conditions of Slovak immigrants in Canada, considered them to be insufficient, thus preventing others from making the decision to leave for Canada to work. The intention to get through Canada to the USA was considered nonsense. There were many profiteers promising to get people secretly over the borders to the USA, extorting their last money. The Consulate warned people because the promises had been false. Those profiteers were interested only in their hard-earned money. 64 SUA, MV, Reg . 1015, No . 27464/1927, 11.4. 1927. 65 S0A, MSP, Reg . 3965 , File 6849/1927, 28. 12. 1927. 66 Kopac, A.: "Ako sa zije na~fm v Kanade?", I:udova politika, 3, 1927, p. 3. 67 Narodnie noviny, 58., No . 50, 29. 4. 1927 , p. 3. No . 207, 15. 9. 28 SLOVAKIA Despite those facts, the Consul Kveton sent in the summer of 1928 an optimistic report to Prague about enough job opportunities, and that there was no unemployment among the immigrants. 68 He was, however, undoubtly conscious of the fact that critical situations were emerging after seasonal work was over, i.e. during the longlasting winter. It was almost the same by the end of the year 1928 . The unemployed started, as usual, to concentrate in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, and other cities. That concentration resulted in great associative activity. Consular reports paid special attention primarily to the activity of the Slovak League of America, which had succeeded in establishing its subsidiaries in Canada in the years 1927 and 1928 (in Toronto and Montreal, and a year before also in Winnipeg). For most Slovak immigrants in Canada membership in those organizations was quite necessary, because they had been aiding them in case of illnesses, or accidents. However, the activity of the Slovak League did not correspond with the above-mentioned intentions of the Czechoslovak Consulate. The Committee for Emigration was immediately addressed with urgent demands for the Government to provide some financial aid to the co-operative association in Montreal to cover its activities. 69 Such procedures did not surprise anybody. Once again the original arguments were used about the Slovaks looking for locations with older settlements of their fellow-countrymen, and gradually losing their interest in the idea of the so-called Czechoslovak nationality _?O That private opinion of the informer was in strong contradiction with the tendencies of the Slovak League being known with its identification with the Slovak autonomy programme during the inter-war years. The League was popular among the immigrants, especially for its co-operative function. The situation, however, got worse as the years went on. Unemployment was increasing, and as a result, a new phenomenon ap68S(JA , MSP, Reg. 3965, 30.11.1928 . 69S(JA, MSP, Reg . 3966, No . 21443, 28 .6.1928 . 7oIbid. SLOVAKIA 29 peared in the diplomatic agenda as early as the winter of 1929-1930 . It concerned the deportation of Czechoslovak nationals from Canada. According to existing Canadian law a man who, during the first five years of his arrival in Canada applied for, or was provided with some public finacial aid, was considered an undesirable person, not able to conform to Canadian conditions. Such a person was to be deported to his mother country .7 1 The situation between the two countries worsened. There were frequent controversies between them. Many of the persons to be deported by the Canadians were ill or even incapacitated, either physically or psychically, and there were also criminals among them. Finally, the Czechoslovak authorities refused to accept those individuals who had not had, after a ten years' stay in Canada, re-established their Czechoslovak citizenship, or had not requested an extension of the validity of the right of domicle abroad. It is very difficult to find an accurate count of such persons,72 but they were often mentioned in diplomatic reports. It is obvious that this situation resulted from the economic crisis which broke out in 1929. The Depression affected the immigrants as never before. Besides increasing unemployment, the crisis meant also a significant reduction of the immigration quota for Czechoslovakia to two thousand people a year. This uncompromising procedure of the immigration authorities irritated the Czechoslovak Consulate so much that the Consul addressed Ottawa with an open protest. It follows from his report, sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague, that he was discussing the problem with Deputy Minister Egan in Ottawa. The Consul considered the quota unfair, and even offensive, for Czechoslovakia. The reaction of the Canadian Minister to that invective was related the Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Affairs as follows: the Deputy Minister said that "if only the immigrants from Bohemia and Moravia were concerned, 71SuA , MSP, Reg. 4029, No. 4310-36. 72 PAC, RG 76 , Vol. 251 , File 183211. 30 SLOVAKIA the whole situation would have been quite different, but there was only a minimum percentage of immigrants coming those regions" .73 At the beginning of 1930 K. Kveton was ending his diplomatic mission in Montreal , and was replaced by the new Consul-General, K. Moser. The attitude of the Canadian public and the immigration authorities as well, towards the immigration policy became even more hostile . Finally, in August of 1930 immigration from Czechoslovakia was halted. Public opinion accused the Government of having caused both the crisis, and the unemployment, too, due to its rather "benevolent" immigration policy, mainly in the second half of the 1920s. According to this opinion, the labour market was saturated, resulting in unexpected problems. No improvement in the field of employment occured even after spring work had started. The situation was the same even during the harvest. Farmers were so cutting back on wages that it became quite unprofitable to travel for work to the prairie provincies. Therefore the new Consul Moser reported to Prague in June of 1930 that: "don't let the emigrants come here under these circumstances, as they would only have travel expenses and _a temporary stay here" .74 Thus the hot issue of a part of the diplomatic agenda, represented by the immigration policy, disappeared from it at the beginning of the 1930s. A natural consequence of that was only sporadic contacts between the Czechoslovak Consulate and the Federal Department for Immigration and Colonization. Due to the restriction of immigration, the Federal Department had given up its original position, and importance as well, and beginning with the year 1936 started to function as the Immigration Branch of the Federal Department of Mines and Resources. Unemployment and deportations represented the most serious problem of the period of the economic crisis. Therefo- 73 SUA, MSP, Reg. 3990, 6. 2. 1929. It is necessary to add that the Canadian Government limited or stopped immigration from the entire continent of Europe, of course except for families with some capital, or wives and children of those already settled in Canada, In: an article "Immigration from Europe is Stopped" . The Gazette, Montreal, 16. 8. 1930. 74<'1, .:>UA, MSP, Reg . 3990, No. 6921, 3. 6. 1930. SLOVAKIA 31 re, the Czechoslovak Consulate paid special attention to the internal i.e. social, associative, and political life of the Slovak community. When in 1930 the Director of the Czechoslovak Institute of Foreign Affairs in Prague V. Tlapak went on a study-tour to Canada, he could only confirm the well-known facts about numerous unemployed immigrants who would like to return to their native land, if only they could. Many of them did not earn enough money to pay the travel expences for the journey back home . He found many examples of those who worked only to cover their daily food costs.7 5 The first to sense the impact of the Depression were farm workers . Having come to Canada in the second half of the 1920s, these people were not accepted in Canada with special favour. The crisis made their position quite unbearable. The Federal Government, trying to solve the situation as best as it would, created a programme of emergency works. Nearly every province "drew" the unemployed from the cities and organized in the country so-called labour camps. Especially the young unemployed did such beneficial work as reconstruction of roads, cultivation of natural parks, etc. No Slovaks took part in it, according to diplomatic reports. In January of 1932 Consul Moser reported to Prague that unemployment was not decreasing at all, but on the contrary, it was gradually increasing. 76 Not only the immigamts who were agricultural workers had problems. Even some better-situated individuals had problems. In spite of the fact that some of the immigrants had succeded in getting land, they had to leave the farms as they were not able to pay off the mortgage.77 Deportations became the accompanying phenomenon of unemployment. Canada resorted to that unpleasant measure in order to shake off the burden of the persons who were not able to care for themselves.7 8 There were many Slovak immigrants among them. Consul General Moser, in his effort to somehow protect the interests 75 SDA, MSP , Reg . 4019, No . 3751/30, 29.11.1930. 76AFMzv, PZ-M, year 1932, No. 3, 27 .. 1. 1932. 77 SUA, MSP , Reg . 3990, No. 4105 - 32. 78 vystehovalecky zpravodaj Ministerstva socialnf pece , Vol. 2, 20. 5. 1932 , p. 19 . 32 SLOVAKIA of the immigrants, sent a complaint to Ottawa in August of 1932, stressing the fact that Canada was deporting immigrants too late, because most of them were in such a bad situation that they could not wait the two-to-three months for the departure. Therefore, he asked the Department to deport them as early as possible.79 The Department in Ottawa answered that they had a huge list of those waiting for deportation, and in any case could not make the deportation process quicker, especially due to the limited capacity of the ships departing from Montreal. 80 Even in January 1934 the consular materials contained information about unemployed immigrants who, for three years, had hopelessly waited for deportation. Therefore, some of them illegaly left for the USA, only to be caught, and in such way to be more quickly deported (after a two-to-three months stay in prison) to Czechoslovakia.81 By the end of 1935 the Consul suggested that things were going better and visits to the Consulate were rare. At the same time he reported that numerous immigrants had succeded in finding some work in construction, mines and forests, while others had returned to Czechosloyakia. 82 It does not mean, however, that he automatically considered an improvement in the field of employment a symptom of the restoration of the immigration process, or the release of the restrictions imposed on immigration policy. The only exception was that concerning the possibility of immigration of some peasant families with a capital of $1,000 - $2,000. Even under those circumstances the Consul considered the immigration of well-off individuals more than disputable. He reasoned in the following way: If the applicant for immigration to Canada sells in Czechoslovakia his whole property to get the necessary financial means, it will be enough only to invest in uncultivated land. Very hard work will follow the purchase, with the results coming in most cases too late. 79PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, I. 8. 1932. 80PAC, RG 76, Vol. 198, File 80671, 20. 8.1932. 8lx, .:>UA, MSP, Reg. 4029, 12. I. 1934. 82X' .:>UA, MSP, Reg. 4029, 27.1.1936. SLOVAKIA 33 This will make the immigrant fail , which often will result in his deportation. 83 It has been stated already that no other event influenced the Slovak community so much as the Depression. The immigration process of the second half of the 1920s was practically halted and the number of immigrants in the community was relatively stabilized (representing some 30,000 Slovaks, and about 1,000 Czechs). During the period preceding the crisis , the community was insufficiently organized. It was lacking in leaders, preachers, teachers, and schools. During the crisis the community was more active, and even more radical. Some new associations were founded. Ethnic consciousness was also activated. This resulted in a rapid decrease in their interest and willingness to co-operate in so-called Czechoslovak: associations. The activity of the benefit society in Montreal was nearly halted. 84 The Consulate notified Prague of the revival of autonomist tendencies, illustrating it with the fact that the First Slovak Benefit Society came into existence in Western Canada. More seriously, he considered the fact that there were being established numerous subsidiaries of the American-Slovak: associations with centers situated in the USA. He noticed, however, the great disappointment among the Canadian members because their funds had been delivered to the USA, thus not sufficiently meeting their needs. Finally, some of the members met in Winnipeg, Manitoba to reach a decision about leaving the American-Slovak: Association in order to found their own Canadian-Slovak: one. 85 The newly established Canadian Slovak League, together with the newspaper Slovak v Kanade, were by Consul Moser characterized as the principal representatives of the autonomist flow in the Slovak community, with the addition, that the same opinion was shared by the First Catholic Slovak Union in Canada. When F. Pavlasek took up his consular mission in Canada, he came to the conclusion that Slovaks were against the Czechs because 83SDA , MSP, Reg. 4029, 19. 8.1936. 84AFMZV, Section II., Reg . 492, No . 6787, I. 10. 1932. 85 SDA, MSP , Reg . 4029 . Periodical Report of the Immigration Branch , IV . quart. 1932. 34 SLOVAKIA of their motto "Slovakia for the Slovaks" .86 According to the new Consul General, the immigrants transfered from Slovakia to Canada many of Andrej Hlinka's ideas. Their attitudes were enforced both due to the American Slovak influences, and the agitation about the Pittsburgh Agreement. The fact that the Slovaks represented the poorest layers of the inhabitants of Canada, and belonged often to the unemployed, resulted in some being attracted to Marxism. The Consul discovered that in Montreal some four hundred persons were concentrating around the Slovak newspaper Robotnfcke slovo. The Consul Pavlasek characterized the group as quite compatible and devoted to their common ideal. At the same time he stressed the fact that the magazine was doing well and had a lot of symphatizers, in spite of the fact that many of them were not organized in the Association at all .87 Finally, in 1934 he characterized the community as politically split between the autonomists, autonomist communists, and those loyal to democratic Czechoslovakia. He considered it the result of the differentiation process which occured during the Depression. The autonomist communists were originally Czechoslovaks but had split in 1936 into Czechs and Slovaks. He tried to contact the different groups . "At first I tried to attract the conservative Catholic associations (the parish of Saints Cyril and Methodius) but without any success ... When I saw that the door for my activity among autonomists was shut for a certain period, I turned to less radical workers in order to build up co-operation between them and a middle democratic group. The result, however, was much the same ... 11 88 The Consul came to the conclusion that comunists triumphed during the crisis because they had exploited unemployment for establishing new associations. Among them were Czechoslovak Worker Education Clubs, the Slovak Workmen's Association, The International Workmen's Association, etc. They had numerous sym86AFMZV, Section II ., Reg. 531, 18.7.1934. 87 Ibid. 88 As in Note 55. SLOVAKIA 35 pathizers among the common people. They improved the financial state of their associations, and a quality newspaper as well. In other words, they were very succesfuI. 89 The Consul Pavlasek stressed the intensity of communist propaganda among their fellow-countrymen in 1936. At the same time he noticed the fact that the propaganda could not be discounted, and in spite of the fact that it had been the result of a long-term Depression, it was spreading very rapidly, and fellow-countrymen were accepting it.90 Already in 1937 the Consul Pavlasek.was very pessimistic: "The position of this office is extremely difficult, because we have nobody to lean on. There are only a few Czechs here, and they are mostly assimilated, and a majority of them have withdrawn from public life due to permanent attacks". The fact that the Slovak community rejected Czechoslovakism nearly 'en bloc', he characterized as follows: "loyal Czechoslovak thinking, ever respecting the democracy and the Czechoslovak national unity, represents in some colonies but a minority", at the same time he added that the Czechs had arrived in Canada already before World War I, and they had been living there for two or three generations. They had been greatly assimililated, because the second generation had been educated in the Canadian manner. Finally, he expressed his "sad" conclusion that he himself, as well as the Consulate, were permanently attacked by the autonomists, and communists as well. It meant that the Consulate was to a great extent isolated from the Slovak community as a whole, in spite of the latter's internal ideological differentiation. In other words, the Consulate's mission was unsuccesful - it failed completely to unify the Czecho-Slovak nationals in Canada. Therefore, its arguments, formulated in 1937, suggesting that "everything must be done to keep the consciousness of Czechoslovak national unity in spite of the protests and demonstrations of the autonomist circles", were in vain.9 1 89SuA , MSP , Reg. 4029 , 25 . 10. 1935 . 90SuA, MSP, Reg . 4029 , 13.5 . 1937 . 91 As in note 88.  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 Slovak Emigrants in Canada as Reflected in Diplomatic Documents (1920-1938) Description An account of the resource Elena Jakešová Slovakia, Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92 pp. 7-35 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jakešová, Elena, 1937- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-92 LCNAF+dates https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/adb2438bee25c23f9619366e4ab6014c.pdf b40d2ab3ed191610cc63071ca3dde090 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA Published By THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA ��SLOVAKIA VOLUME XXXV NUMBERS 64-65 1991-1992 A scholarly annual devoted to the history, literature, and culture of the Slovaks the world over. Editor M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa Editorial Board DA YID P. DANIEL Bratislava, Slcvakia MICHAEL NOV AK American Enterprise Institute ROBERT K. EV ANSON University of Missouri PETER PETRO University of British Columbia LOUISE B. HAMMER Indiana University NORMAL. RUDINSKY Oregon State University Slovak League Advisory Board DANIEL F. T ANZONE EDWARD J. BEHUNCIK DRAGA DIVINSKA JOHN. A HOLY JOSEPH C. KRAJSA Publisher Slovak League of America 870 Rifle Camp Road West Paterson, NJ 07424 Inquiries regarding subscriptions should be sent to the above address. The cost of a single issue is U.S. $7.00 Manuscripts for possible spublication and books for review should be sent to M. Mark Stolarik, Editor, Slovakia, 22 Bren- Maur Road, Nepean, Ontario, Canada K2J 327. ��Table of Contents ARTICLES Slovak Emigrants in Canada as Reflected in Diplomatic Documents (1920- I 938) Elena Jakesova .... ................. ...... .. ................. ... ... ........ .................... 7 Carpatho-Rusyns: Their Current Status and Future Perspectives Paul R. Magocsi .. ... ..... ... ............... ..... .. ... ................ .. ......... .. ..... ... . 36 SYMPOSIUM A Century and a half of Czech-Slovak Relations: A Slovak Perspective Edited by Stanis/av J. Kirschbaum .... .... .................................. .......... 61 Czech-Slovak Relations from the 1840's to 1914 Edita Bosak ... ......................... ................... ..... .. ... .............. ...... .... 63 Relations Between Slovaks and Czechs in the first CSR Susan Mikula .................... .... ... .... .. .. .............................. ... ........... 78 The Czech Question in Slovakia in the Post-War Years Stanislav J. Kirschbaum ......... ... ..... ..... .... ..................... ... ....... .. ..... .967 Slovak-Czech Relations: An Assessment Carol Skalnik Leff ............ .............. .... ..... ... .. ............. ... ................ 109 REVIEW ESSAY Marxist Historians in Search of Slovak History: Milan Podrimavsky et. al., Dejiny Slovenska, m M. Mark Stolarik .......... ...... .............. .... ......................... ...... .... .... .119 �4 SLOVAKIA REVIEWS Hugolfn Gavlovic , Valaska Skala, edited by Gerald J. Sabo Jan F. Frjdeckj .. ..... .. .. ... ..... ..... .. .... ... ..... ........ ..... ... .. .... ..... ... ....... 125 Max Domarus , ed., Hitler, Speeches and Proclamations Brian L . Villa .... .. .............. .. ... ....... .. ... .. ..... ............. ... ................ ..126 Jozef Jablonicky, Povstanie bez legiend Stanislav J. Kirschbaum .. .... .. ..... .... .............. ... .. ... .. .. ............ .. ....... .128 Bohus Chnoupek, A Breaking of Seals R. Vladimir Baumgarten . .. .... .... ...... .. ........ ..... ......... ..... ..... .. .... ...... .130 Jan Smolec et.al., Proces s dr. J. Tisom: Spomienky James R . Pelak ................................................... ...... ... .. ...... ........ 132 Athanasius Pekar, History of the Church in Carpathian Rus' Keith P. Dyrud ............................................................................ .134 Volodymyr Fedynysynec', Our Peaceful Rusyn Way Patricia A. Krafcik ....... ...... ... ............................. .... .......... .. ..... ..... .136 Norma Rudinsky, Incipient Feminists and That Alluring Land Maria Furimsky-Lackova .......... ..... .. ............... ....... ........... ........ .. ... 138 Jan Simko, English-Slovak Dictionary Louise B. Hammer................................... ... ...... .. ............... ...... .... .141 Contributors ...... ......................... .... ...... ... .. ..... ... ... .. .. .... .. .. ... ........ .. .... 145 Guidelines for Manuscripts .......... .. ........... ....... ........ ... .... ... ..... ...... ........ 148 �ARTICLES �� SLOVAKIA Published By THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA ��SLOVAKIA VOLUME XXXV NUMBERS 64-65 1991-1992 A scholarly annual devoted to the history, literature, and culture of the Slovaks the world over. Editor M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa Editorial Board DA YID P. DANIEL Bratislava, Slcvakia MICHAEL NOV AK American Enterprise Institute ROBERT K. EV ANSON University of Missouri PETER PETRO University of British Columbia LOUISE B. HAMMER Indiana University NORMAL. RUDINSKY Oregon State University Slovak League Advisory Board DANIEL F. T ANZONE EDWARD J. BEHUNCIK DRAGA DIVINSKA JOHN. A HOLY JOSEPH C. KRAJSA Publisher Slovak League of America 870 Rifle Camp Road West Paterson, NJ 07424 Inquiries regarding subscriptions should be sent to the above address. The cost of a single issue is U.S. $7.00 Manuscripts for possible spublication and books for review should be sent to M. Mark Stolarik, Editor, Slovakia, 22 Bren- Maur Road, Nepean, Ontario, Canada K2J 327. ��Table of Contents ARTICLES Slovak Emigrants in Canada as Reflected in Diplomatic Documents (1920- I 938) Elena Jakesova .... ................. ...... .. ................. ... ... ........ .................... 7 Carpatho-Rusyns: Their Current Status and Future Perspectives Paul R. Magocsi .. ... ..... ... ............... ..... .. ... ................ .. ......... .. ..... ... . 36 SYMPOSIUM A Century and a half of Czech-Slovak Relations: A Slovak Perspective Edited by Stanis/av J. Kirschbaum .... .... .................................. .......... 61 Czech-Slovak Relations from the 1840's to 1914 Edita Bosak ... ......................... ................... ..... .. ... .............. ...... .... 63 Relations Between Slovaks and Czechs in the first CSR Susan Mikula .................... .... ... .... .. .. .............................. ... ........... 78 The Czech Question in Slovakia in the Post-War Years Stanislav J. Kirschbaum ......... ... ..... ..... .... ..................... ... ....... .. ..... .967 Slovak-Czech Relations: An Assessment Carol Skalnik Leff ............ .............. .... ..... ... .. ............. ... ................ 109 REVIEW ESSAY Marxist Historians in Search of Slovak History: Milan Podrimavsky et. al., Dejiny Slovenska, m M. Mark Stolarik .......... ...... .............. .... ......................... ...... .... .... .119 �4 SLOVAKIA REVIEWS Hugolfn Gavlovic , Valaska Skala, edited by Gerald J. Sabo Jan F. Frjdeckj .. ..... .. .. ... ..... ..... .. .... ... ..... ........ ..... ... .. .... ..... ... ....... 125 Max Domarus , ed., Hitler, Speeches and Proclamations Brian L . Villa .... .. .............. .. ... ....... .. ... .. ..... ............. ... ................ ..126 Jozef Jablonicky, Povstanie bez legiend Stanislav J. Kirschbaum .. .... .. ..... .... .............. ... .. ... .. .. ............ .. ....... .128 Bohus Chnoupek, A Breaking of Seals R. Vladimir Baumgarten . .. .... .... ...... .. ........ ..... ......... ..... ..... .. .... ...... .130 Jan Smolec et.al., Proces s dr. J. Tisom: Spomienky James R . Pelak ................................................... ...... ... .. ...... ........ 132 Athanasius Pekar, History of the Church in Carpathian Rus' Keith P. Dyrud ............................................................................ .134 Volodymyr Fedynysynec', Our Peaceful Rusyn Way Patricia A. Krafcik ....... ...... ... ............................. .... .......... .. ..... ..... .136 Norma Rudinsky, Incipient Feminists and That Alluring Land Maria Furimsky-Lackova .......... ..... .. ............... ....... ........... ........ .. ... 138 Jan Simko, English-Slovak Dictionary Louise B. Hammer................................... ... ...... .. ............... ...... .... .141 Contributors ...... ......................... .... ...... ... .. ..... ... ... .. .. .... .. .. ... ........ .. .... 145 Guidelines for Manuscripts .......... .. ........... ....... ........ ... .... ... ..... ...... ........ 148 �ARTICLES �� 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 1991-92, Vol. 35 Description An account of the resource Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Slovak League of America Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 1991-92 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 Published By THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA SLOVAKIA VOLUME XXXV NUMBERS 64-65 1991-1992 A scholarly annual devoted to the history, literature, and culture of the Slovaks the world over. Editor M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa Editorial Board DA YID P. DANIEL Bratislava, Slcvakia MICHAEL NOV AK American Enterprise Institute ROBERT K. EV ANSON University of Missouri PETER PETRO University of British Columbia LOUISE B. HAMMER Indiana University NORMAL. RUDINSKY Oregon State University Slovak League Advisory Board DANIEL F. T ANZONE EDWARD J. BEHUNCIK DRAGA DIVINSKA JOHN. A HOLY JOSEPH C. KRAJSA Publisher Slovak League of America 870 Rifle Camp Road West Paterson, NJ 07424 Inquiries regarding subscriptions should be sent to the above address. The cost of a single issue is U.S. $7.00 Manuscripts for possible spublication and books for review should be sent to M. Mark Stolarik, Editor, Slovakia, 22 Bren- Maur Road, Nepean, Ontario, Canada K2J 327. Table of Contents ARTICLES Slovak Emigrants in Canada as Reflected in Diplomatic Documents (1920- I 938) Elena Jakesova .... ................. ...... .. ................. ... ... ........ .................... 7 Carpatho-Rusyns: Their Current Status and Future Perspectives Paul R. Magocsi .. ... ..... ... ............... ..... .. ... ................ .. ......... .. ..... ... . 36 SYMPOSIUM A Century and a half of Czech-Slovak Relations: A Slovak Perspective Edited by Stanis/av J. Kirschbaum .... .... .................................. .......... 61 Czech-Slovak Relations from the 1840's to 1914 Edita Bosak ... ......................... ................... ..... .. ... .............. ...... .... 63 Relations Between Slovaks and Czechs in the first CSR Susan Mikula .................... .... ... .... .. .. .............................. ... ........... 78 The Czech Question in Slovakia in the Post-War Years Stanislav J. Kirschbaum ......... ... ..... ..... .... ..................... ... ....... .. ..... .967 Slovak-Czech Relations: An Assessment Carol Skalnik Leff ............ .............. .... ..... ... .. ............. ... ................ 109 REVIEW ESSAY Marxist Historians in Search of Slovak History: Milan Podrimavsky et. al., Dejiny Slovenska, m M. Mark Stolarik .......... ...... .............. .... ......................... ...... .... .... .119 4 SLOVAKIA REVIEWS Hugolfn Gavlovic , Valaska Skala, edited by Gerald J. Sabo Jan F. Frjdeckj .. ..... .. .. ... ..... ..... .. .... ... ..... ........ ..... ... .. .... ..... ... ....... 125 Max Domarus , ed., Hitler, Speeches and Proclamations Brian L . Villa .... .. .............. .. ... ....... .. ... .. ..... ............. ... ................ ..126 Jozef Jablonicky, Povstanie bez legiend Stanislav J. Kirschbaum .. .... .. ..... .... .............. ... .. ... .. .. ............ .. ....... .128 Bohus Chnoupek, A Breaking of Seals R. Vladimir Baumgarten . .. .... .... ...... .. ........ ..... ......... ..... ..... .. .... ...... .130 Jan Smolec et.al., Proces s dr. J. Tisom: Spomienky James R . Pelak ................................................... ...... ... .. ...... ........ 132 Athanasius Pekar, History of the Church in Carpathian Rus' Keith P. Dyrud ............................................................................ .134 Volodymyr Fedynysynec', Our Peaceful Rusyn Way Patricia A. Krafcik ....... ...... ... ............................. .... .......... .. ..... ..... .136 Norma Rudinsky, Incipient Feminists and That Alluring Land Maria Furimsky-Lackova .......... ..... .. ............... ....... ........... ........ .. ... 138 Jan Simko, English-Slovak Dictionary Louise B. Hammer................................... ... ...... .. ............... ...... .... .141 Contributors ...... ......................... .... ...... ... .. ..... ... ... .. .. .... .. .. ... ........ .. .... 145 Guidelines for Manuscripts .......... .. ........... ....... ........ ... .... ... ..... ...... ........ 148 ARTICLES  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. 35 (No. 64-65) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-92