1 50 10 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/5820cfa6b5d526b8e40d1774450f18f1.pdf 95fb31338013ee80a4c4852b0b160e6d PDF Text Text 28 SLOVAKJA 'Slovak som a Slovak budem ... 'l Explaining Nationalism in Post-Communist Slovakia Paal Sigurd Hilde The question of the position of Slovakia within the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (CSFR), the official name as of April 1990, was among the most divisive issues in Slovak and Czech politics in the post-communist era. As is well known, the conflict over the future basis and structure of the federation eventually led to the division of the state on 1 January 1993. Despite the impression given by many press reports at the time, the break-up was not the result of Slovak secession. With the exception of the Slovak National Party (SNS), representing about 10 per cent of the votes in Slovakia, all Slovak political parties successful in the decisive June 1992 elections were in favor of some kind of common state with the Czechs. This included the winner, Vladimir Meciar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS). There were, however, near irreconcilable policy differences between the left-populist HZDS and the right wing coalition victorious in the Czech Republic. Given the minority veto in the Federal assembly, whereby a minority of representatives from either Republic could block important legislation in the House of Nations, only a carefully crafted compromise could save the Federation from political deadlock. Rather than seeking a compromise, however, the Czech 1 The title is taken from Miroslav Kusfs 1981 samizdat essay. Reprinted in Miroslav Kusy: Eseje (Bratislava: Archa, 1991 ), pp. 88 -96 . �SLOVAKlA 29 right wing coalition led by Vaclav Klaus of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) pushed for the division of the state if a 'functional federation' was not possible. Unwilling and politically unable to accept Klaus 's vision of a strong federal government, Meciar reluctantly followed the Czech Prime Minister's lead towards a break-up. 2 The political phenomenon generally referred to as Slovak nationalisn was thus not the decisive force behind the break-up of the CSFR. 3 It was, however, Slovak nationalism that after the collapse of communism started the process that eventuallly led to the rejection of the common state by right-wing Czech parties. As all nationalisms, Slovak post-communist nationalism was a complex phenomenon. It came in moderate and more radical forms, focus sing on several political issues. In its most basic expression, it held that Slovakia and the Slovaks deserved a more equal and visible position within a state seen as unfairly dominated by the Czech part. 4 Basically all Slovak political parties, including the 2 On the process preceding the break-up see Eric Stein : Czecho/Slovakia: Ethnic Conflict, Constitutional Fiss ure, Negotiated Breakup (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997). 3 Nationalism is fo r the purpose of th is study defined as a world view, which holds that the pop ulation of the world is divided into nations. A nation, claim nationalists, consists of a grou p of people identifiable and identifying according to cultural, religious, historical and/or territorial criteria. Nationalists see nations as constituting natural social units and seek to promote the po litical, cultural, economic or other kind of status, in symbolical or more material terms, of the nation they claim to represent. The nationalist discourse, common to a ll forms of nationalism, is used thro ughout the world, most often to oppose or defe nd existing political units. See Craig Calhoun: Nationalism (Buckin gham : Open University Press, 1997). •Foran examination of mainstream Slovak national ism see Paal Sigurd Hil de: 'Slovak Nationalism and the Break-Up of Czechoslovakia', Europe-Asia Stu die s, vol. 51 (1999), no. 4, pp. 64 7-665. �30 SLOVAKIA most pro-federal, shared this demand. More radical expressions called not only for more radical solutions to the question of the Federation, but focussed also negatively on the position of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia and the perceived threat from Hungarian irredentism. In its exteme, which was promoted only by small, popular unrepresentative groups, Slovak · nationalism promoted radically anti-Czech, anti-Hungarian and sometimes also anti-Semitic views. This article will analyse another complexity of nationalism in post-communist Slovakia. 5 As with all nationalisms, the popular success of the Slovak form can be seen as a result of several, intricate causes. These include historical, political, social and econ omic determinants. The aim of this study is not to reach a final decision on what caused the apperance and success of post-communist nationalism. Rather, the article offers an overview of a range of possible explanations and the strengths and weaknesses of these. This might be a combination of all, some, just one or none . Ultimately, it was Slovak6 politicians and other political actors that gave nationalism the political significance it had after the collapse of communism. Without nationalists, there is no nationalism. Focusing merely on the role of actors, however, leaves many unanswered questions. The most important of these is why the demands and rhetoric of the nationalists gained such a favourable response from the population. Certain political factors in the postcommunist period can be seen to have facilitated the success of the nationalist agenda among Slovaks. One such factor was the 5 For the sake of simplifying the analysis the multi-issue complexity of Slovak nationalism will be not discussed in detail. • The word Slovak will in this article denote a person of Slovak culture and identity. Similarly, a Czechoslovak is a person of Czech or Slovak ethnicity with a Czechoslovak identity . �SLOVAK1A 31 institutional legacy of the socialist federation (more on this below). A second factor was the changing international environment after the Cold War, with the secession of the Baltic states, Slovenia and Croatia as examples of the new stress on national self-determination. Interaction with the two major 'others', the Hungarians and Czechs, was also important. The upsurge of post-communist nationalism in the Hungarian speaking minority in Slovakia and in Hungary, and the increasingly hostile attacks on Slovak nationalism, particularly in the Czech press, both served to spur Slovak nationalists into action. 7 Even more important in increasing support for nationalist de mands in post-communist Slovakia was the issue of economic reform. The generally harder impact of the Federal economic programme on the Slovak than on the Czech economy was by many taken as a sign of the disadvantaged position of Slovaks within the common state.8 The call for a greater Slovak control over economic policy thus became the one of the most important and substantial claims of Slovak nationalists . Yet, even given the activities of nationalists and the political factors conducive to the appeal of the nationalist discourse, to understand post-communist nationalism one must understand the historical developments that formed the basis for the appeal of the ethnic nationalism in Slovakia. Several historical precondition s can be identified . These are the topic of this study . 7 For examples of this see (H ungarian) Andrej Ferko: Stredna Europa - Eseje (Bratislava: VSSS, 1998) and (Czech) Dusan Sl obodnfk: Proti sedemhlavemu drakovi : Z dejin zapasu za Sia vensko (Bratislava: VSSS, 1998 ). ' In a January 1992 poll , for example. 53 % of respondents in Slovakia antici pated that the Czech economy wou ld grow at the expense of the Slovak. Cen trum pre social nu analyzu: Aktualne problemy Cesko-S/ovensk a, januar 1992 (Bratislava: CSA, 1992), p. 29. �32 SLOVAKIA Preconditions for the Success of Post-Communist Nationalism. To clarify the analysis of the historical preconditions of postcommunist nationalism, it is useful to divide the examination into two stages. The first stage focuses on the generally different impact nationalist ideas have had in the Eastern and Western parts of Europe. Whereas the civic, territorial version of nationalism became dominant in the West, ethnic, especially linguistically centred nationalism prevailed in Central and Eastern Europe (hereafter CEE)9. In the twentieth century, this ethnic nationalism be came the underlying ideal for the political reorganisations of CEE in two world wars. The first half of the twentieth century thus served to establish ethnic nationalism as a dominant political ideology and ethnic ties as primary lines of political identification. An example of the causes of the success of ethnic nationalism thus forms what one might call the 'deep ' historic background for understanding post-communist nationalism. The second stage in the analysis focuses on the impact of the socialist era. For the majority of the population of post-commu nist Slovakia, the just over forty years of communist indoctrination through education, mass media and other means, had formed their primary so urce of fo rmal socialisation. Moreover, Soviet Communism brought one of the most dramatic periods of social and economic change in Slovak history. The analysis below outlines the different assessments scholars have made of the impact the social, economic and political devel opments of the las t halfcentury before 1989 had on the strength of nationalism in Slovakia. • Central and Eastern Europe will in this article denote roughly the area of the fonner Habsburg Empire as well as the European parts of the Romanov and Ottoman em pires. �SLOVAKIA 33 The Success of Ethnic Nationalism. In his celebrated 1882 lecture, Ernest Rennan started by making a distinction 'between the fusion of "races" in the nations of Western Europe, and the retention of ethnic distinctiveness in Eastern Europe .' 10 In 1944, Hans Kohn developed this theme when he introduced the concepts of 'Western' and 'Eastern' nationalisms. 11 While challenged by several authors, this typology has survived the test of time and is used in various forms by scholars today. As most nationalisms contain both civic (Western) and ethnic (Eastern) elements, the distinction is, as Anthony D. Smith points out, analytical and not normative. 12 Czechoslovak nationalism in the interwar years, for example, was clearly ethnic m relations with Germans and Hungarians, but civic m its merger of Slovaks and Czechs into one nation. On the whole, scholars agree on the basic causes why civic nationalism was more successful in Western Europe and ethnic nationalism in the Eastern part of the continent. The main factors are generally identified as the socio-economic and, partly linked, cultural differences between the two regions at the time of the dissemination of nationalist ideas. 13 From about the fifteenth century, Western Europe saw the beginning of the development of the modem state. The new economy saw the abolition of serfdom , the weakening of the feudal-agricultural economy and the strengthening of trade and manufacture centred in cities. The develop0 Anthony D. Smith: Nationalism and Modernism (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 9 ' '' Hans Kohn : The Idea of Nationalism (New York : Collier, 1967), pp. 329-331. 12 Smith: Nationalism and Modernism, p. 126 '-' For a good analysis of East-West historical differences see Robert Bideleux and Ian Jeffries: A Hi/story of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change (Lo ndon, Routledge, I 998), pp. 15-25. �34 SLOVAKlA ment of centralised, strong states, yet with an increasingly urbanised and literate population capable of challenging the authority of the ruler, had important social, economic and political effects. Western, civic nationalism grew gradually out of the socio-economic developments and changes in political thought of pre-nineteenth century Europe. 14 This nationalism was state centred and focused on gaining the loyality of and homogenising the population of a territory. Crucially, nationalist ideas were promoted in societies whose elites, if not populations, were already quite homogenous culturally. This was particularly the case in Protestant, North-Western Europe. In important respects, Central and Eastern Europe was relatively 'backward' when nationalist ideas spread through the intellectual life of the region in the early nineteenth century. 15 The relative backwardness had both external and internal causes. The centuries of warfare with the Ottomans had weakened the states in the region and led to their inclusion into large empires. Hungary, which then included today's Slovakia, came under Habsburg rule after the battle of Mohacs in 1526. At the eve of the French Revolution, the Ottoman, Habsburg and Romanov empires dominated Central and Eastern Europe. Compared with rapidly developing Western states, the three Eastern empires remained despotic. As the feudal-agricultural economic structure retained its dominance, no strong middle class developed . In Slovakia, or Felvidek (Upper Hungary) as the Hungarian rulers called it, the development of mining in Eastern Slovakia, for instance, led to the growth of some smaller towns. Generally, these were dominated by ethnic 14 See Liah Greenfeld: Nationalism : Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 1992 ) ,s The concept of Central and East European 'backwardness' is obviously very general and simplifying, also given the large differences within the region . �SLOVAKJA 35 Germans or Jews. The majority of the population of Slovakia remained rural and often illiterate. The socio-econonic conditions for cultural homogenisation were, therefore, not present. The ethnically very heterogeneous dynasties of Central and Eastern Europe were initially not interested in trying to turn their empires into nation-states on the Western model. 16 Only in the final decades of the nineteenth century did Tsarist Russia attempt to Russify the Western Borderlands and the Hungarian leadership promote its policy of Magyarisation (Hungarianisation). 17 Given its lack of an ethnic nobility and being an integral part of Hungary proper, the Slav population of Felvidek was particularly exposed. Yet even here the Hungarian nation-bulding project did not succeed. History was soon to take a surprising turn. Ultimately more successful than the civic nation builders in CEE were elites opposed to central rule and integration. State centred, civic nationalism had no advantages for such elites. When they adopted nationalist discourse as a political tool , they were inspired by German romanticism rather than Western liberalism . Nationalists in Central and Eastern Europe looked not to Locke and Stuart Mill, but to Herder and Fichte. In German romantic thought, it was not political boundaries that determined the extent of a nation , but culture and particularly language. In the ethnically diverse empires of CEE such ideas were to have a dramatic impact. It was no coincidence that two leading Slovak (Pan-Slav) nationalists, Jan Kollar and Pavo) Jozef Safarik, both studied at "' Charles Ingrao: ' Forum: Understanding Ethnic Conflict in Central Europe: An Historical Perspective', Nationalities Papers, vol. 27 ( 1999), no. 2, p. 293 . 17 See Edward C. Thaden (ed.): Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Fin land, J855 - 19 14 (Princenton: Princenton University Press, 198 I ) and Tibor Frank: 'Hungary and the Dual Monarchy, 1867- 1890' , in Peter F. Sugar, Peter Hanak and Tibor Frank (eds.): A History of Hungary (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994). �36 SLOVAKJA the University of Jena in the early nineteenth century. 18 The 'father of Slovak nationalism', Cudovit Stur, like Kollar and Safarik, a Protestant, also studied in Germany, in Halle. 19 By the outbreak of World War One, ethnic nationalism had emerged as one of the leading political ideologies in Central and Eastern Europe. In Austria-Hungary, leaders claiming to represent various ethnically defined nations, such as Slovak nationalists in the Slovak National Party, promoted their rights within the Empire. World War I was to bring victory to such nationalist programmes. Towards the end of the war, when the Entente Powers started supporting the programmes of Central and Eastern Europe (mainly exile) nationalists , their support was limited to the de mand for an administrative reorganisation of Austria-Hungary . By 1918, however, the right to self-determination had come to mean the right for independence. Allied victory in World War I thus resulted in a reorganisation of the Central European region according to the principle of the 'self-determination of nations', that is, the self-determination of ethnically defined nations. This right was by no means allowed for all , particularly not for the 'defeated nations'. All the new and old, expanded states of the region contained sizeable ethnic minority groups . While political life in Austria-Hungary had increasingly taken the form of a struggle between the central authorities and nationalist leaders, inter-war Central and Eastern Europe took this to a new level. In the new Czechoslovak Republic as well, ethnic belonging became the main dividing line in politics. Ethnic Ger- "Victor S. Mamatey : 'The Establishment of the Republic' . in Victor S. Mamatey and Radomir Luz.a (eds.): A History of the Czechoslovak Republic: l 9 l 81948 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 6. 19 Peter Petro: A History of Slovak Literature (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press), p. 65 . �SLOVAKIA 37 mans and Hungarians (Magyars) voted overwhelmingly for ethnically based parties . The Slovaks, according to official ideology part of the Czechoslovak nation, were divided. As in the late Habsburg period, one part of the Slovak political elite was Czechoslovak nationalist, another, strongly connected to the Catholic clergy, was more sceptical to the Czechoslovak idea. Loyal to the Czechoslovak state until pushed into declaring independence inl939, the Slovak nationalist movement promoted Slovak, as opposed to Czechoslovak, national awareness and nationalism throughout the inter-war period . While it is impossible to get an accurate picture of the popular support for Slovak nationalism after World War II, it seems safe to agree with Carol Skalnik Leff's claim that when taking power in 1948, the communists faced a 'full-blown' Slovak nationalism. 20 If the creation of a Slovak education system, the flowering of Slovak culture and promotion of Slovak nationalism in politics was not sufficient to cement the importance of ethnic belonging and nationalism in people's thinking in the inter-war years, the Second War War was .2 1 With the rise towards authoritarian rule by the Slovak People ' s Party from the autumn of 1938, ethnic nationalism became a central part of official ideology. In the region as a whole, ethnicity became a supreme organizing principle increasing or limiting chances for employment, economic prosperity and even survival. Supported by the Catholic clergy, the Slovak state sought to educate the Slovaks into becoming good nationalists. Nationalism was promoted in schools, the mass media and 10 Carol Skalnik Leff: National Conflict in Czech oslovakia (Princeton: Prince- ton University Press. 1987), p. 281. 11 On national identity in the inter-war period see Owen V. Johnson: Slovakia 191 8- 1938: Education and the Making of a Nati on (Boulder: Co lumbia Uni versity Press, 1985). �38 SLOVAKIA official and religious life in general. 22 For many groups among ethnic Slovaks, the war-time state was a positive experience. The relative economic prosperity, the ease of employment (especially for the young intelligentsia) and the elevated position of the Catholic faith and church were aspects of the state that for some Slovaks compared favourably with pre-war Czechoslovakia. Obviously, for parts of the population, the experience had been clearly negative. For Jews and Romanies it was one of inhuman crimes. Yet, despite the horrors and injustices, the experience of independence under German influence strengthened the position of nationalism in Slovak society. While the leaders of the 1944 Slovak National Uprising had called for the reestablishment of Czechoslovakia, they did not want to return to the centralist system of the First Republic (1918-1938). The extent to which Slovakia had been changed by the war became evident in the 1946 election. Whereas the Slovak political scene had been split on the issue of Slovakia's position within the common state before the war, all parties standing in 1946 supported Slovak self-rule within Czechoslovakia in their programmes. 23 The Impact of the Socialist Period. In the intersection between empirical studies that directly or indirectly offer an explanation for the success of nationalism in post-communist Slovakia and general theoretical works on nationalism, it is possible to identify three main approaches to the question of the impact of the communist era. The first focuses 22 See e.g. Yeshayahu Jelinek : The Parish Republic: H/inka 's Slovak People's Party 1939- 1945 (Boulder: Columbia University Press, 1976). lJ Jan Ryc hlik : Cesi a Slovaci ve 20.stoleti: Cesko-slovenske vztahy 19451992 (Bratislava: Academic Electronic Press, 1998), pp.40-42. �SLOVAKIA 39 mainly on the way in which nationalism survived despite the forty years of communism. Given the strength of Slovak nationalism before Communism and the resilience of ethnic and cultural ties, nationalism would, according to this approach, have survived whatever policy the Communist Party had chosen. Scholars taking this approach would put the greatest emphasis on the 'deep' historic background outlined above. The second approach, where scholars stress the continuation of nationalism through the socialist period, could be considered the mainstream historical view . This approach focuses on the way Slovak national identity and support for nationalism survived the socialist era not only because of their pre-1948 strength, but also due to certain policies during Communism that served to strenghten their basis of support. According to the final approach, the success of post-communist nationalism was mainly due to the policies adopted by the Communist Party. Putting much less emphasis on the strength of precommunist national identity and nationalism (and thus the •deep' historical explanation), the 'due to' approach takes two main forms . One focuses on the effects of the socio-economic development of Slovakia during Communism, the other on the impact of the construction of nationally based institutional structures. These three analytical categories form a continuum rather than three clearly identifiable positions. Differences between studies falling into the different categories are generally one of focus or degree. Few scholars argue the extreme positions: that postcommunist nationalism was purely a revival of suppressed nationalism, or that it was a result of developments in the communist period only. Most would note the continued expressions of Slovak nationalism during the communist era, and then stress the degree to which the socialist period suppressed , maintained or actually strengthened the appeal of nationalism. �40 SLOVAKIA Nationalism Despite Communism. Particulary in the first years after the collapse of Communism, the 'retum-of-history'argument was commonly used to explain the success of nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe. Precommunist nationalism, merely suppressed by the communist regimes, re-emerged to become the political factor it had been forty years earlier. As one historian put it: Communism may have temporarily relieved Central Europe's ethnic tensions for nearly half a century. But if religion was the opiate of the people, Communism proved no more effective than methadone (sic) in suspending their craving for ethnically whole nation states, without providing a cure. 24 In the literature on nationalism in Slovakia, Jacques Rupnik supported this view when he argued that Slovak nationalism had been in the 'communist refrigerator' for most of the period after 1948. 25 Of the monographs in English discussing Slovak nationalism, Stanislav Kirschaum's A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival is, arguably, one of those that leans most toward the 'despite ' approach. 26 While describing in detail the persistence of nationalism during Communism and the radical changes Slovak society went through, Kirschbaum notes no positive effect of the communist regime on the strength of Slovak national identity and nationalism. Rather, he highlights the attempts the communist lea- 1 ' Ingrano: 'Forum ... ' , p. 307 . 15 Jaques Rupnik, quoted in Martin Butora and Zora Butorova: 'Slovakia after the Split ' ,Joumal o[Democracy,vol. 4(1993), no. 2,p. 75 . 16 Stanislav Kirschbaum : A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival (London : Macmillian, 1995). �SLOVAKIA 41 dership made at suppressing national identity.27 If Slovak nationalism gained strength during the communist period , it was more a reaction to the 'Czechoslovakism' favoured by the regime .2 8 The primordialist theories of nationalism would be the most obvious theoretical basis for the works in this approach. Stressing the ' ineffable, and at times overpowering' strength of the ' cultural givens' in a society, Clifford Geertz, for example, points to how ethnic ties in some societies come to be seen as a 'natural some would say spiritual affinity' .29 Given the strong emphasis put on cultural belonging in Slovak history, at least since the late nineteeth century, one could argue that ethnicity had gained a primordial character in Slovak society by the end of World War II. Consequently, the communist regime would not have been able to suppress Slovak identity, and therefore neither the potential for Slovak nationalism. While not going as far as the primordialist in stressing the naturalness of central ties, the so-called ethno-sym- bolist theories of nationalism could also be interpreted as lending support to the 'despite' approach. According to Anthony D. Smith, post-communist nationalism confirms the resilience and strength of ehnic myths, symbols and popular memory. He writes:' Though the timing of the current ethnic revival is a function of social and geopolitical changes, their contents and intensities are largely determined resources,' by pre-existing ethno-sy mbolic 30 27 Note e.g. ibid., pp. 228, 245, 252. Kirschbaum ta.lees a very favo urable view of Slovak nationalism and a more negative one of the common Czech and Slovak state . " Ibid., p. 24 7. 19 Clifford Geertz: The Interpretation of Cultures (London : Fontana, 1973). pp . 259-260 . 0 ' Anthony D. Smith : 'LSE Centennial Lecture: The Resurgence of Nationalism ? Myth and memory in the renewal of nations ', British Journal of Sociology, vo l. �42 SLOVAKIA Empirical support for the 'despite' argument can be found in post-communist Slovakia. In a study of regional patterns of political culture, a group of Slovak sociologists found strong similarities between the inter-war and post-communist era. 31 In both periods, nationalist and populist parties gained most support in northwest and central Slovakia. The persistence of this regional pattern seems to suggest that at least elements of pre-communist political culture had been preserved. Moreover, studies from other post-communist countries show that national minorities that were actively discouraged from maintaining their separate identity and culture, still emerged to voice nationalist demands after Communism. In Poland, this was the case with the German minority .32 While counter-factual history necessarily amounts to speculation, it does seem likely that regardless of what the policy the Communists had adopted, also the separate Slovak identity, in both its cultural and political expression, would have survived. The relatively short period of communist rule would clearly have facilitated this. As can be seen from the above, focusing on links to pre-communist nationalism and the preservation of popular myths and memory has some advantages. Firstly, it points to the strength of ethnic nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe after the Second World War. The conviction that ethnically defined nations formed natural bases for political legitimacy, be it in a separate state or as 47 (1996), no. 4, p. 573. Elsewhere, Smith does stress the role of communi st policies in preserving these myths and memories. See e.g. Smith: Nationalism and Modernism, 237, endnote 9. 31 Vladimir Krivy , Viera Fialova and Daniel Balko: Slovensko a jeho regi6ny: sociokultume suvislosti volebneho spravania (Bratislava: Nadacia Media, 1996). 12 Janusz Mucha: 'Democratisation and Cultural Minorities: The Polish Case of the 1980s/90s', East European Quarterly, vol. 25 (1992), no. 4. �SLOVAKIA 43 an autonomous region within a larger entity, had by 1948 been deeply ingrained in CEE. This was not only the case with most of the Slovak political elite, but also, many historians would agree, large parts of the population. Secondly, stressing the preservation of political culture is perhaps the only way to explain the continued regional pattern of support for nationalism. In its pure form, the 'despite' argument rejects any important effect of the socialist period on national identity and the popular view of nationalism. If one accepts that national identity is a social construct, that nations are not some kind of natural social unit, this jump across forty years of history is difficult to defend. As shall be discussed in more detail below, 1948-1989 was probably the most dramatic period of social and economic change in Slovak history. It was also a period of an intense policy of officially managed, public socialisation. Given the impact this period had on people' s lives, it seems difficult to assume that popular views on national identity and nationalism would not also change. One example that it had is that before 1948 Slovakia was a deeply religious society and mainstream nationalism was strongly connected to the Catholic Church. In the post-communist period, however, the leading nationalists parties HZDS and SNS were both secular. Catholic nationalism, as represented by the Christian Democratic Party (KDH), was much less successful. Explanations focusing more on the way the communist period served to change Slovak national identity and thereby the bases for nationalism during that period, thus seemingly provide a more convincing explanation for the widespread appeal of nationalism in the postcommunist era. Finallly, the 'despite' argument cannot explain the emergence of 'new' nationalisms in the post-communist period . Some groups without a history of common national identity and nationalism formed nationalist parties after 1989. Most im- �44 SLOVAKIA portantly, this included the Roma community. Also the emergence of a relatively strong nationalism in Moravia and Silesia was a sign of the increased importance of cultural identity. 33 Traditionally a regional identity and before Communism never a major political issue, the Moravian-Silesian autonomy party became the largest party in the Czech National Council in 1990. Nationalism Through the Communist Era. The 'through' approach makes up the middle ground between stressing the resilience of pre-communist nationalism and the strengthening of national identity during the communist period. Studies falling into this category would seek to explain the perpetuation of national conflict due to the persistence of support for nationalism built up before the communist period and to certain factors that served to strengthen Slovak national identity during the 1948-1989 era. Most historical studies tend to be in this category. Carol Skalnik Leff' s 1987 seminal book on national conflict in Czechoslovakia is probably the best study in English in this category. 34 In Leff's analysis, the deep social, economic and cultural differences between the Czech Lands and Slovakia were politicised during the inter-was republic. A triangular pattern of support and opposition was created, whereby the central leadership in Prague relied on the pro-Czechoslovak section of the Slovak political elite to help neutralise the demands of Slovak nationalists. In the communist period , this pattern persisted until it was displaced JJ Jaroslav Krejci and Pavel Machonin: Czechoslovakia 1918- 1992: A Laboratory for Social Change (Oxford: Macmill an and St. Anthony ' s, 1996), p. 51 . 14 Leff: National Conflict. Ryc hlik: Cesi a Slovaci .. . 1945-1992 is a later, eve n more detailed work of this approcah. �SLOVAKIA 45 with the ascent of Gustav Husak to power in 1969. Both the interwar and the socialist regimes failed in their attempts to modernize away the problem of Slovak nationalism (culturally and educationaly in the inter-war period, economically during socialism). These failures, combined with the unwillingness of both regimes to adequately accommodate the Slovak nationalist's demands, led to a growing sense of antagonism (mutual antagonism, as Czechs resented that Slovaks used times of international crisis to force through their demands). Leff concludes: 'Given the persistence of Slovak national feeling, on the one hand, and Czech power, on the other, the result has been persistent national conflict'. 35 While Leff notes that Slovak nationalism was strong in the post-war period, much due to the experience of statehood during the war, she also identifies several factors during the communist era that served to strengthen its basis. The existence of separate Slovak political institutions, for instance, was important. Leff writes: 'Week as the KSS (Slovak Communist Party) and the SNR (Slovak National Council) were in the years following 1948, both would retain the capacity to serve as nationalist time bombs. ' 36 One important reason for this was that the system of separate Slovak institutions created a Slovak elite separate from Prague-based Czechoslovak one. 37 Also other aspects of the regime 's policy proved counter-productive to its official aim of promoting the 'coming together' (zblfienie) of Czechs and Slovaks. The mass media, for instance, was 'segmented and not adapted to the integrative intentions of the policy-making elite. 38 Thus , by the late 1980, 'the Slovak question ' had become 'deeply, perhaps 35 Leff: National Conflict, p. 282. Ibid ., p. 112 . 37 Ibid ., p.294 . " Ibid., p. 297 . 36 �46 SLOVAKlA irreversibly, woven into the fabric of Czechoslovak politics as usual'. This statement carries with it the implication that the Slovak question wi1l continue to assert itself as a political force in the future .39 Three years after Leff published her study, her prediction came true . Theoretically, the 'through' approach occupies the middle ground between the primoridalists emphasis on the strength of cultural ties and the stress put on social processes by the modernist and institutional views outlined below. With more emphasis on the way myths, symbols, values and memories are preserved in societies, ethno-symbolist theories would come closest to forming a theoretical basis for this approach. From the ethno-symbolist perspective, the communists ' attempt to defuse nationalism in Slovakia by flagging symbols of self-determination could only serve to strengthen the feeling of national identity. The reason for this was that the only symbols that would evoke a positive response from the population would be symbols that had a basis in popular tradition . For example, while the communists did try to reframe the historical image of r.udovft Stur as a social revolutionary, they could not eradicate the view of Stur as a champion of Slovak rights so strongly ingrained in popular tradition and myths . As Smith writes : "Ethno-history is no sweetshop in which nationalists may ' pick and mix'; it sets limits to any appropriation by providing a distinctive context and patterns of events, personages and ,, 4 0 processes ... . The most obvious strength of the 'through' approach is that by stressing both the strong social basis of pre-communist nationalism and the way it was maintained and changed during the 1948-1989 period , it can account more or less convincingly for 39 ' 0 Ibid. , pp. 281 -282 . Smith: Nationalism and Modernism, p. 45 �SLOVAKIA 47 nationalism in both periods. It points to the continuity of not only political conflict over the status of Slovakia, but also that of popular symbols and myths. Noting how the communist period maintained and strengthened preexisting national identity and traditions also allows for an explanation of the persistent regional differences in support for nationalism. Despite these important strengths, however, the 'through' approach does have some weak points. Some will argue that the most important of these is that it does not go far enough in emphasising how dramatically the communist period changed Slovak society. As with the 'despite' approach, the focus on the continuation of national conflict through the communist period also faces problems in explaining the 'new' nationalisms of the post-communist era. The political organisation and activism of the Romany community after 1989, for example, is difficult to explain without stressing the way the communist period served to strengthen the importance of ethnic belonging. Nationalism Due to Communism. Studies focusing on the way the communist period . served to strengthen national identity and nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe are generally more theoretically grounded than the two approaches above. The presentation of these will therefore have to be a bit different. Two main theoretical starting points can be identified. 41 The first, based on modernisation theories of 41 Shari Cohen supposes a third, unconventional, approach in her Politics without a Past: The Absence of History in Postcommunist Nationalism (Lon- don: Duke University Press, 1999). It was not the strength of national identity in Slovakia that formed the basis for the success of post-communist nationalism, Cohen claims, but rather the lack of a clear historical consciousness. By �48 SLOVAKJA nationalism, focus on the massive socio-economic changes in the CEE countries during the fourty years of communist rule. As many other countries and areas of the region, Slovakia underwent a rapid transformation from an agricultural to an industrial society. Such a process of social modernization, scholars such as Ernest Gellner claim, is the basis for the strength of post-communist nationalism. The second starting point is based on the so called 'new institutionalism' in social science. According to its proponents, the communist regimes honoured their Leninist commitment to national self-determination by building nationally defined institutions and stressing national identities. Rather than, as intended, weakening the social basis for nationalism, however, their policy served to strengthen it. Put otherwise: the Soviet type nationality policy was to be 'nationalist in form, socialist in content ' . When the socialist content disappeared, only the nationalist form remained . Modernisation. It is the erosion of traditional society and its values with urbanisation and the growth of the state that, in Gellner's view, is responsible for the emergence of nationalism.42 In an agricultural society, where mobility is low and socialisation within the family and local community is sufficient, a person's language and culture is of little consequence. Urban life, particularly in the industrial age, exercises different pressures on the population. Industrial society, requiring formal socialisation through an education preventing the emergence of a collective memory of World War II, the communist regime made Slovak society susceptible to elite manipulation after the collapse of communism. 42 Ernest Gellner: Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983). �SLOVAKIA 49 system, thus makes an individual's culture and especially language important. Particularly when cultural differences overlapped with an actual or perceived pattern of social and economic discrimination, nationalism is a likely outcome. In socialist societies, as they suppressed civil society, class identities and other social lines of identification , the importance of cultural identities became particularly strong. When the regimes collapsed, there existed no 'serious rival ideology ' or any 'serious rival institutions' capable of providing alternatives to identification along national lines. 43 In the resulting 'double vacuum', nationalism, the 'culture of industrialism ', was 'the most plausible and easily available candidate for filling this emptiness. ' 44 After the Communists came to power in Czechoslovakia in 1948, Slovakia entered its most important period of socio-economic development. Over a period of seventeen years, the share of agricultural workers in the total workforce more than halved: from 62.2% in 1948 to30.1% in 1965. 4 5 By 1989 it has reached 14.5%. Similarly, the percentage of the population living in cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants increased from 11.5% in 1950 to 40.8% in 1991 .46 In the space of a few decades, Slovakia was transformed from an agricultural to an industrial society. That the industrial structure of Slovakia was accordingly based on the socialist idealisation of heavy industry, matters little in this context. Territorial and social mobility increased, as did the general level of education. The steadily increasing availability and reach 43 Ernest Gellner: ' Nationalism in the Vacuum', in Alexander J. Motyl (ed .): Thinking Theoretically about Soviet Nationalities: History and Comparison in the Study of the USSR(New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), p. 250. 44 Ernest Gellner: 'Homeland of the Unrevolution' , Daedalus, vol. 122 (1993) , no. 3, p. 152. 45 See Krejci and Machonin : Czechoslovakia, p. 120. 46 Ibid., p. 126. �50 SLOVAKIA of mass communication, such as radio and television, also served to promote a standardised ('high') culture. Combined, these factors served to increase cultural homogeneity in the Slovak population and put focus on the differences between the Slovaks and other cultural groups in society. An individual's cultural-cumnational identity was therefore highlighted . The main strength of the modernist approach is that it brings our attention to the massive social and economic changes in the region during Communism. Slovak society was fundamentally changed through industrialisation and urbanisation . Most theories of nationalism hold that modernisation (towards a Western type society) is at least conducive to the formation of national consciousness and emergence of nationalism. If one accepts this , the socialist period is likely to have strengthened the appeal of nationalism in Slovakia. Furthemore, the modernisation approach offers an explanation for why new ethnic conflicts arose once Communism released its grip. Even the communities without the history of nationalism can be seen to have been mobilised as a result of industrialisation. There are, however, several weaknesses with this modernist view. First, in its pure form it is very functional and does not accredit much importance to ideas. This is problematic particularly because the massive transformation and uprooting of Slovak society took place under heavy pressure from socialist socialisation. Second, if urbanisation and industrialisation were the main causes of post-communist nationalism, then one should expect to find the strongest nationalism where the effects of these processes was strongest. Before 1948 eastern Slovakia was the most 'backward' and multi-cultural region of Slovakia. Consequently, it was one of the regions that went through the most dramatic socio-economic development during Communism. Despite this , after 1989, sup- �SLOVAKIA 51 port for nationalist parties in the region was well below the Slovak average. 47 Indeed, inhabitants of Kosice, the 'capital' of eastern Slovakia and the second largest city in the country, were among those most vocally opposed to the break-up of the CSFR in the autumn of 1992.48 The Institutional Approach. The institutional approach places the cause of the strength of post-communist nationalism in the policies and structure, the institutions, of the communist regimes. The stress Leninism put on the right of national self-determination led most Soviet-style socialist regimes to not only promote national self-identification, but also build institutional frameworks along national lines. This served to institutionalise national identity as the key identity and thus create the nationalist bias of politics after the collapse of Communism. In its most basic form , the institutional approach stresses the way in which members of political institutions tend to promote the interests of their institutions in competition with others . Throughout the socialist period, Slovakia had cultural, academic , administrative and political institutions separate from the all-Czechoslovak ones. Due to the policy of stressing the Slovakness of these institutions, recruitment was conducted almost exclusively in Slovakia, and sometimes among Slovaks only. The separate poli tical institutions consisted most importantly of a branch of the Communist Party (KSS), a parliamentary assembly (SNR), and 47 See Krivy, Fialova and Balko: Slovensko ajeho regi6ny, pp.29 1-342 . •• For a more humorous expression of this see Peter Holub: 'At' uz to nestes tf piijde: Kosice se branf mirodnfmu sjednocenf', Respect, 24-30, August 1992, pp. 5-6. �52 SLOVAKIA ( except for the period 1960-69) an executive branch. While limited in their political importance during Communism, these institutions gained a dramatically different role with democratisation . Not long after the collapse of Communism, the Slovak government and legislature started calling for an increase in their competencies. Using nationalist rhetoric to mobilise the population was an obvious way to gain support for strengthening the authority and power of the Slovak institutions at the expense of federal ones. On a more complex level, the institutional approach examines the wider impact institutional structures had on creating certain attitudes and beliefs in the population. One leading institutional theoretician , Rogers Brubaker, explained the strength of postcommunist nationalism in the Soviet Union as a result of the ' dual institutionalisation ' of what he termed ' territorial nationhood ' and 'ethnic nationality ' .49 Territorial nationhood refers to the linkin g of a specific territory to national identity through the admi nistrative division of the country according to nationality. As with most administrative components in the Soviet Union, Slovakia was a clearly defined territorial unit interpreted as the homeland of the Slovaks. While this was made explicit after the federalisation of Czechoslovakia in 1968, it was implicit already from the end of World War IL The principle of equality (rovny s rovnym) introduced during the war and maintained in the 1948 Constitution •• Rogers Brubaker: Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the national question in the New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp 23-54. The nationality and, particularly after 1969, the institutional stru cture of socialist Czechoslovakia was almost identical to that of the Soviet Unio n. �SLOVAKIA 53 was clearly interpreted as a principle of equality of nations. 50 Hungarians, Ruthenes, Romanies and other national groups in Slovakia were national minorities; the Slovaks were the statotvorny (literally: state forming) nation. Along with officially pronouncing Czechoslovakia a country of two nations, the regime built institutions to create the appearance of national self-determination. While Czechoslovakia did not go as far as the Soviet Union in awarding the constituent republics symbols of statehood, the Czech and Slovak Socialist Republics were in the 1968 Law on Federalisation declared to have the status of independent legal subjects that surrendered part of their sovereignty to the Federation. The Republics were also awarded the 'inalienable right of self-determination even to the point of separation'. 51 The Law on Federalization thus 'rehabilitated and restored the idea of a national state as an attribute of a fully developed nation'. 52 The effect of this policy was to encourage Slovaks to think of themselves as a separate nation with wide-ranging political rights. The second aspect of Brubaker's institutional approach focuses on the way the communist regime made ethnic identification compulsory. In common English usage, the concepts of 'nationality' and 'citizenship' are synonymous. In the socialist federations, however, the distinction was important. All who held Czechoslovak passports were Czechoslovak citizens. Their nationality, however, would be Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Ruthene, Romany, Polish, Ukrainian or some other. A person's nationality 5 ° Katarina Zavacka: "Metamorf6zy statopravneho postavenia Slovenska v Ceskoslovensku v rokoch 1948-1967" in Vladimir Gonec (ed. ): Cesko-s/oven ska historicka rocenka I 998 (Brno: Masarykova Universita, 1998), pp. 17-29. 51 See ' Ustavnf zakon 143/ 1968 Sb.' at http://www.psp. czldocs/textslconstitution. 1968.html. 52 Kusy: Eseje,p. 69 . �54 SLOVAKIA was ascertained at birth according to that of her of his parents and could generally not be changed. As in inter-war Czechoslovakia, the communist regime did promote a Czechoslovak political identity. Avoiding the word narod, nation, which has clear ethnic connotations, the communists called for the creation of a 'Czec hoslovak working people ' (ceskoslovensky pracujlici J'ud). The identity was not, even in relation to the Czechs and Slovaks, intended as a Czechoslovak cultural identity. On the contrary, the Communist Party put great stress on promoting the cultures of the various national groups, particularly the Slovak. Generous reso urces were devoted to building cultural institutions and supporting the cultural life of all official nationalities. 53 For most children primary and sometimes secondary and higher education was available in their mother tongue. While all culture was to be socialist, the art forms favored by the regime, those that were seen to form the basis of national culture (s uch as folk dancing and traditional artisan-and craftsmanship), were not particularly affected . The Centre for the Production of Folk Art (UI:UV) and the folk-dancing and folk-mu sic group the Slovak People' s Artistic Collective (SI:UK) were presented as the best of centuries-old , traditional Slovak culture, thus reminding all of not only the cultural , but also historical separateness of the Slovaks. Combined, these two processes of institutionalisation made nations and nationality into basic units of people' s world-view. When the communist regime collapsed and democratisation started, nationally based institutions and their elites became centres of 51 See Elena Londakova: ' Slovcnske predjarie: Myty a realita slovenskej inte li gcncic v Ceskoslovensku pred rokom 1956 (a po iiom)', in Vladimir Gonec (ed .): Cesko-s/ovensk;i historick;i rocenka I 998 (Brno: Masarykova Universita, 1998), p. 2 10 and Dusan Kovac: Dejiny Slovenska (Prague: NLN, 1998), pp. 275-276 . �SLOVAKIA 55 political activity. 54 National identity became the basic organising. principle in politics. The nationally defined elites in the separate national institutions could gain popular support among a population identified and identifying according to their nationality by claiming to defend the interest of that nation. The system of compulsory national identification thus became the basis for new political constituencies. The main strength of the institutional approach is that it offers a very powerfull explanation of the near universal succes of national identity and nationalism as political principles after Communism. It does so by placing the cause of this succes in the very world-view engendered by the communist regime. As Brubaker writes: the communist nationality policy 'created a political field supremely conductive to nationalism' .55 The 'new' nationalism of the post-communist period can therefore be explained. Due to its explanatory strength, the institutional approach has emerged as one of the most popular among scholars trying to explain postcommunist nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe. However, the institutional approach, like the other presented above, has its shortcomings. Like the modernist approach it cannot alone explain the regionalised support for nationalism in Slovakia, nor does it account for the impact of pre-communist nationalism. 54 This was also the case for minorities that did not have explicitly political institutions. For example, the Slovak Hungarian cultural organization CSEMADOK became the centre of Hungarian political activity in the first period after 1989. ss Brubaker: Nationalism Reframed, p. I 7 �56 SLOVAKIA Conclusion While the process thc1· 1ed to the break-up of the common Czech and Slovak stat:· after communissm has received a fair amount of attention, few scholars have attempted to comprehensively explain why nationalism had such succes in postcommunist Slovakia.56 The above is only an overview of the possible explanations for the success of post-communist nationalism that would meet with the most support among scholars today. In fact, it is doubtful there will ever be single generally accepted explanation, be it theoretical or historical. As Katherine Verdery noted, nationalism in the post-communist region 'has many causes, ranging from the macro-social to matters of personal identity. It is, in other words, overdetermined, and the relevant causes vary from one county to another. 5 7 What is needed to approach a consensus on what factors were most important in the Slovak case, is a series of studies that evaluate the explanatory power of various approaches, such as those above. If this article serves to encourage someone to write such a study, it has served its purpose. ,. To this author's knowledge, the only monograph that explicitly does so is Cohen: Politics without a Past. 57 Katherine Verdery: 'Nationalism and National Sentiment in Post-socialist Romania' , Slavic Review, vol. 52 (1993), no. 2, p. 180. � 28 SLOVAKJA 'Slovak som a Slovak budem ... 'l Explaining Nationalism in Post-Communist Slovakia Paal Sigurd Hilde The question of the position of Slovakia within the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (CSFR), the official name as of April 1990, was among the most divisive issues in Slovak and Czech politics in the post-communist era. As is well known, the conflict over the future basis and structure of the federation eventually led to the division of the state on 1 January 1993. Despite the impression given by many press reports at the time, the break-up was not the result of Slovak secession. With the exception of the Slovak National Party (SNS), representing about 10 per cent of the votes in Slovakia, all Slovak political parties successful in the decisive June 1992 elections were in favor of some kind of common state with the Czechs. This included the winner, Vladimir Meciar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS). There were, however, near irreconcilable policy differences between the left-populist HZDS and the right wing coalition victorious in the Czech Republic. Given the minority veto in the Federal assembly, whereby a minority of representatives from either Republic could block important legislation in the House of Nations, only a carefully crafted compromise could save the Federation from political deadlock. Rather than seeking a compromise, however, the Czech 1 The title is taken from Miroslav Kusfs 1981 samizdat essay. Reprinted in Miroslav Kusy: Eseje (Bratislava: Archa, 1991 ), pp. 88 -96 . �SLOVAKlA 29 right wing coalition led by Vaclav Klaus of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) pushed for the division of the state if a 'functional federation' was not possible. Unwilling and politically unable to accept Klaus 's vision of a strong federal government, Meciar reluctantly followed the Czech Prime Minister's lead towards a break-up. 2 The political phenomenon generally referred to as Slovak nationalisn was thus not the decisive force behind the break-up of the CSFR. 3 It was, however, Slovak nationalism that after the collapse of communism started the process that eventuallly led to the rejection of the common state by right-wing Czech parties. As all nationalisms, Slovak post-communist nationalism was a complex phenomenon. It came in moderate and more radical forms, focus sing on several political issues. In its most basic expression, it held that Slovakia and the Slovaks deserved a more equal and visible position within a state seen as unfairly dominated by the Czech part. 4 Basically all Slovak political parties, including the 2 On the process preceding the break-up see Eric Stein : Czecho/Slovakia: Ethnic Conflict, Constitutional Fiss ure, Negotiated Breakup (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997). 3 Nationalism is fo r the purpose of th is study defined as a world view, which holds that the pop ulation of the world is divided into nations. A nation, claim nationalists, consists of a grou p of people identifiable and identifying according to cultural, religious, historical and/or territorial criteria. Nationalists see nations as constituting natural social units and seek to promote the po litical, cultural, economic or other kind of status, in symbolical or more material terms, of the nation they claim to represent. The nationalist discourse, common to a ll forms of nationalism, is used thro ughout the world, most often to oppose or defe nd existing political units. See Craig Calhoun: Nationalism (Buckin gham : Open University Press, 1997). •Foran examination of mainstream Slovak national ism see Paal Sigurd Hil de: 'Slovak Nationalism and the Break-Up of Czechoslovakia', Europe-Asia Stu die s, vol. 51 (1999), no. 4, pp. 64 7-665. �30 SLOVAKIA most pro-federal, shared this demand. More radical expressions called not only for more radical solutions to the question of the Federation, but focussed also negatively on the position of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia and the perceived threat from Hungarian irredentism. In its exteme, which was promoted only by small, popular unrepresentative groups, Slovak · nationalism promoted radically anti-Czech, anti-Hungarian and sometimes also anti-Semitic views. This article will analyse another complexity of nationalism in post-communist Slovakia. 5 As with all nationalisms, the popular success of the Slovak form can be seen as a result of several, intricate causes. These include historical, political, social and econ omic determinants. The aim of this study is not to reach a final decision on what caused the apperance and success of post-communist nationalism. Rather, the article offers an overview of a range of possible explanations and the strengths and weaknesses of these. This might be a combination of all, some, just one or none . Ultimately, it was Slovak6 politicians and other political actors that gave nationalism the political significance it had after the collapse of communism. Without nationalists, there is no nationalism. Focusing merely on the role of actors, however, leaves many unanswered questions. The most important of these is why the demands and rhetoric of the nationalists gained such a favourable response from the population. Certain political factors in the postcommunist period can be seen to have facilitated the success of the nationalist agenda among Slovaks. One such factor was the 5 For the sake of simplifying the analysis the multi-issue complexity of Slovak nationalism will be not discussed in detail. • The word Slovak will in this article denote a person of Slovak culture and identity. Similarly, a Czechoslovak is a person of Czech or Slovak ethnicity with a Czechoslovak identity . �SLOVAK1A 31 institutional legacy of the socialist federation (more on this below). A second factor was the changing international environment after the Cold War, with the secession of the Baltic states, Slovenia and Croatia as examples of the new stress on national self-determination. Interaction with the two major 'others', the Hungarians and Czechs, was also important. The upsurge of post-communist nationalism in the Hungarian speaking minority in Slovakia and in Hungary, and the increasingly hostile attacks on Slovak nationalism, particularly in the Czech press, both served to spur Slovak nationalists into action. 7 Even more important in increasing support for nationalist de mands in post-communist Slovakia was the issue of economic reform. The generally harder impact of the Federal economic programme on the Slovak than on the Czech economy was by many taken as a sign of the disadvantaged position of Slovaks within the common state.8 The call for a greater Slovak control over economic policy thus became the one of the most important and substantial claims of Slovak nationalists . Yet, even given the activities of nationalists and the political factors conducive to the appeal of the nationalist discourse, to understand post-communist nationalism one must understand the historical developments that formed the basis for the appeal of the ethnic nationalism in Slovakia. Several historical precondition s can be identified . These are the topic of this study . 7 For examples of this see (H ungarian) Andrej Ferko: Stredna Europa - Eseje (Bratislava: VSSS, 1998) and (Czech) Dusan Sl obodnfk: Proti sedemhlavemu drakovi : Z dejin zapasu za Sia vensko (Bratislava: VSSS, 1998 ). ' In a January 1992 poll , for example. 53 % of respondents in Slovakia antici pated that the Czech economy wou ld grow at the expense of the Slovak. Cen trum pre social nu analyzu: Aktualne problemy Cesko-S/ovensk a, januar 1992 (Bratislava: CSA, 1992), p. 29. �32 SLOVAKIA Preconditions for the Success of Post-Communist Nationalism. To clarify the analysis of the historical preconditions of postcommunist nationalism, it is useful to divide the examination into two stages. The first stage focuses on the generally different impact nationalist ideas have had in the Eastern and Western parts of Europe. Whereas the civic, territorial version of nationalism became dominant in the West, ethnic, especially linguistically centred nationalism prevailed in Central and Eastern Europe (hereafter CEE)9. In the twentieth century, this ethnic nationalism be came the underlying ideal for the political reorganisations of CEE in two world wars. The first half of the twentieth century thus served to establish ethnic nationalism as a dominant political ideology and ethnic ties as primary lines of political identification. An example of the causes of the success of ethnic nationalism thus forms what one might call the 'deep ' historic background for understanding post-communist nationalism. The second stage in the analysis focuses on the impact of the socialist era. For the majority of the population of post-commu nist Slovakia, the just over forty years of communist indoctrination through education, mass media and other means, had formed their primary so urce of fo rmal socialisation. Moreover, Soviet Communism brought one of the most dramatic periods of social and economic change in Slovak history. The analysis below outlines the different assessments scholars have made of the impact the social, economic and political devel opments of the las t halfcentury before 1989 had on the strength of nationalism in Slovakia. • Central and Eastern Europe will in this article denote roughly the area of the fonner Habsburg Empire as well as the European parts of the Romanov and Ottoman em pires. �SLOVAKIA 33 The Success of Ethnic Nationalism. In his celebrated 1882 lecture, Ernest Rennan started by making a distinction 'between the fusion of "races" in the nations of Western Europe, and the retention of ethnic distinctiveness in Eastern Europe .' 10 In 1944, Hans Kohn developed this theme when he introduced the concepts of 'Western' and 'Eastern' nationalisms. 11 While challenged by several authors, this typology has survived the test of time and is used in various forms by scholars today. As most nationalisms contain both civic (Western) and ethnic (Eastern) elements, the distinction is, as Anthony D. Smith points out, analytical and not normative. 12 Czechoslovak nationalism in the interwar years, for example, was clearly ethnic m relations with Germans and Hungarians, but civic m its merger of Slovaks and Czechs into one nation. On the whole, scholars agree on the basic causes why civic nationalism was more successful in Western Europe and ethnic nationalism in the Eastern part of the continent. The main factors are generally identified as the socio-economic and, partly linked, cultural differences between the two regions at the time of the dissemination of nationalist ideas. 13 From about the fifteenth century, Western Europe saw the beginning of the development of the modem state. The new economy saw the abolition of serfdom , the weakening of the feudal-agricultural economy and the strengthening of trade and manufacture centred in cities. The develop0 Anthony D. Smith: Nationalism and Modernism (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 9 ' '' Hans Kohn : The Idea of Nationalism (New York : Collier, 1967), pp. 329-331. 12 Smith: Nationalism and Modernism, p. 126 '-' For a good analysis of East-West historical differences see Robert Bideleux and Ian Jeffries: A Hi/story of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change (Lo ndon, Routledge, I 998), pp. 15-25. �34 SLOVAKlA ment of centralised, strong states, yet with an increasingly urbanised and literate population capable of challenging the authority of the ruler, had important social, economic and political effects. Western, civic nationalism grew gradually out of the socio-economic developments and changes in political thought of pre-nineteenth century Europe. 14 This nationalism was state centred and focused on gaining the loyality of and homogenising the population of a territory. Crucially, nationalist ideas were promoted in societies whose elites, if not populations, were already quite homogenous culturally. This was particularly the case in Protestant, North-Western Europe. In important respects, Central and Eastern Europe was relatively 'backward' when nationalist ideas spread through the intellectual life of the region in the early nineteenth century. 15 The relative backwardness had both external and internal causes. The centuries of warfare with the Ottomans had weakened the states in the region and led to their inclusion into large empires. Hungary, which then included today's Slovakia, came under Habsburg rule after the battle of Mohacs in 1526. At the eve of the French Revolution, the Ottoman, Habsburg and Romanov empires dominated Central and Eastern Europe. Compared with rapidly developing Western states, the three Eastern empires remained despotic. As the feudal-agricultural economic structure retained its dominance, no strong middle class developed . In Slovakia, or Felvidek (Upper Hungary) as the Hungarian rulers called it, the development of mining in Eastern Slovakia, for instance, led to the growth of some smaller towns. Generally, these were dominated by ethnic 14 See Liah Greenfeld: Nationalism : Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 1992 ) ,s The concept of Central and East European 'backwardness' is obviously very general and simplifying, also given the large differences within the region . �SLOVAKJA 35 Germans or Jews. The majority of the population of Slovakia remained rural and often illiterate. The socio-econonic conditions for cultural homogenisation were, therefore, not present. The ethnically very heterogeneous dynasties of Central and Eastern Europe were initially not interested in trying to turn their empires into nation-states on the Western model. 16 Only in the final decades of the nineteenth century did Tsarist Russia attempt to Russify the Western Borderlands and the Hungarian leadership promote its policy of Magyarisation (Hungarianisation). 17 Given its lack of an ethnic nobility and being an integral part of Hungary proper, the Slav population of Felvidek was particularly exposed. Yet even here the Hungarian nation-bulding project did not succeed. History was soon to take a surprising turn. Ultimately more successful than the civic nation builders in CEE were elites opposed to central rule and integration. State centred, civic nationalism had no advantages for such elites. When they adopted nationalist discourse as a political tool , they were inspired by German romanticism rather than Western liberalism . Nationalists in Central and Eastern Europe looked not to Locke and Stuart Mill, but to Herder and Fichte. In German romantic thought, it was not political boundaries that determined the extent of a nation , but culture and particularly language. In the ethnically diverse empires of CEE such ideas were to have a dramatic impact. It was no coincidence that two leading Slovak (Pan-Slav) nationalists, Jan Kollar and Pavo) Jozef Safarik, both studied at "' Charles Ingrao: ' Forum: Understanding Ethnic Conflict in Central Europe: An Historical Perspective', Nationalities Papers, vol. 27 ( 1999), no. 2, p. 293 . 17 See Edward C. Thaden (ed.): Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Fin land, J855 - 19 14 (Princenton: Princenton University Press, 198 I ) and Tibor Frank: 'Hungary and the Dual Monarchy, 1867- 1890' , in Peter F. Sugar, Peter Hanak and Tibor Frank (eds.): A History of Hungary (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994). �36 SLOVAKJA the University of Jena in the early nineteenth century. 18 The 'father of Slovak nationalism', Cudovit Stur, like Kollar and Safarik, a Protestant, also studied in Germany, in Halle. 19 By the outbreak of World War One, ethnic nationalism had emerged as one of the leading political ideologies in Central and Eastern Europe. In Austria-Hungary, leaders claiming to represent various ethnically defined nations, such as Slovak nationalists in the Slovak National Party, promoted their rights within the Empire. World War I was to bring victory to such nationalist programmes. Towards the end of the war, when the Entente Powers started supporting the programmes of Central and Eastern Europe (mainly exile) nationalists , their support was limited to the de mand for an administrative reorganisation of Austria-Hungary . By 1918, however, the right to self-determination had come to mean the right for independence. Allied victory in World War I thus resulted in a reorganisation of the Central European region according to the principle of the 'self-determination of nations', that is, the self-determination of ethnically defined nations. This right was by no means allowed for all , particularly not for the 'defeated nations'. All the new and old, expanded states of the region contained sizeable ethnic minority groups . While political life in Austria-Hungary had increasingly taken the form of a struggle between the central authorities and nationalist leaders, inter-war Central and Eastern Europe took this to a new level. In the new Czechoslovak Republic as well, ethnic belonging became the main dividing line in politics. Ethnic Ger- "Victor S. Mamatey : 'The Establishment of the Republic' . in Victor S. Mamatey and Radomir Luz.a (eds.): A History of the Czechoslovak Republic: l 9 l 81948 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 6. 19 Peter Petro: A History of Slovak Literature (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press), p. 65 . �SLOVAKIA 37 mans and Hungarians (Magyars) voted overwhelmingly for ethnically based parties . The Slovaks, according to official ideology part of the Czechoslovak nation, were divided. As in the late Habsburg period, one part of the Slovak political elite was Czechoslovak nationalist, another, strongly connected to the Catholic clergy, was more sceptical to the Czechoslovak idea. Loyal to the Czechoslovak state until pushed into declaring independence inl939, the Slovak nationalist movement promoted Slovak, as opposed to Czechoslovak, national awareness and nationalism throughout the inter-war period . While it is impossible to get an accurate picture of the popular support for Slovak nationalism after World War II, it seems safe to agree with Carol Skalnik Leff's claim that when taking power in 1948, the communists faced a 'full-blown' Slovak nationalism. 20 If the creation of a Slovak education system, the flowering of Slovak culture and promotion of Slovak nationalism in politics was not sufficient to cement the importance of ethnic belonging and nationalism in people's thinking in the inter-war years, the Second War War was .2 1 With the rise towards authoritarian rule by the Slovak People ' s Party from the autumn of 1938, ethnic nationalism became a central part of official ideology. In the region as a whole, ethnicity became a supreme organizing principle increasing or limiting chances for employment, economic prosperity and even survival. Supported by the Catholic clergy, the Slovak state sought to educate the Slovaks into becoming good nationalists. Nationalism was promoted in schools, the mass media and 10 Carol Skalnik Leff: National Conflict in Czech oslovakia (Princeton: Prince- ton University Press. 1987), p. 281. 11 On national identity in the inter-war period see Owen V. Johnson: Slovakia 191 8- 1938: Education and the Making of a Nati on (Boulder: Co lumbia Uni versity Press, 1985). �38 SLOVAKIA official and religious life in general. 22 For many groups among ethnic Slovaks, the war-time state was a positive experience. The relative economic prosperity, the ease of employment (especially for the young intelligentsia) and the elevated position of the Catholic faith and church were aspects of the state that for some Slovaks compared favourably with pre-war Czechoslovakia. Obviously, for parts of the population, the experience had been clearly negative. For Jews and Romanies it was one of inhuman crimes. Yet, despite the horrors and injustices, the experience of independence under German influence strengthened the position of nationalism in Slovak society. While the leaders of the 1944 Slovak National Uprising had called for the reestablishment of Czechoslovakia, they did not want to return to the centralist system of the First Republic (1918-1938). The extent to which Slovakia had been changed by the war became evident in the 1946 election. Whereas the Slovak political scene had been split on the issue of Slovakia's position within the common state before the war, all parties standing in 1946 supported Slovak self-rule within Czechoslovakia in their programmes. 23 The Impact of the Socialist Period. In the intersection between empirical studies that directly or indirectly offer an explanation for the success of nationalism in post-communist Slovakia and general theoretical works on nationalism, it is possible to identify three main approaches to the question of the impact of the communist era. The first focuses 22 See e.g. Yeshayahu Jelinek : The Parish Republic: H/inka 's Slovak People's Party 1939- 1945 (Boulder: Columbia University Press, 1976). lJ Jan Ryc hlik : Cesi a Slovaci ve 20.stoleti: Cesko-slovenske vztahy 19451992 (Bratislava: Academic Electronic Press, 1998), pp.40-42. �SLOVAKIA 39 mainly on the way in which nationalism survived despite the forty years of communism. Given the strength of Slovak nationalism before Communism and the resilience of ethnic and cultural ties, nationalism would, according to this approach, have survived whatever policy the Communist Party had chosen. Scholars taking this approach would put the greatest emphasis on the 'deep' historic background outlined above. The second approach, where scholars stress the continuation of nationalism through the socialist period, could be considered the mainstream historical view . This approach focuses on the way Slovak national identity and support for nationalism survived the socialist era not only because of their pre-1948 strength, but also due to certain policies during Communism that served to strenghten their basis of support. According to the final approach, the success of post-communist nationalism was mainly due to the policies adopted by the Communist Party. Putting much less emphasis on the strength of precommunist national identity and nationalism (and thus the •deep' historical explanation), the 'due to' approach takes two main forms . One focuses on the effects of the socio-economic development of Slovakia during Communism, the other on the impact of the construction of nationally based institutional structures. These three analytical categories form a continuum rather than three clearly identifiable positions. Differences between studies falling into the different categories are generally one of focus or degree. Few scholars argue the extreme positions: that postcommunist nationalism was purely a revival of suppressed nationalism, or that it was a result of developments in the communist period only. Most would note the continued expressions of Slovak nationalism during the communist era, and then stress the degree to which the socialist period suppressed , maintained or actually strengthened the appeal of nationalism. �40 SLOVAKIA Nationalism Despite Communism. Particulary in the first years after the collapse of Communism, the 'retum-of-history'argument was commonly used to explain the success of nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe. Precommunist nationalism, merely suppressed by the communist regimes, re-emerged to become the political factor it had been forty years earlier. As one historian put it: Communism may have temporarily relieved Central Europe's ethnic tensions for nearly half a century. But if religion was the opiate of the people, Communism proved no more effective than methadone (sic) in suspending their craving for ethnically whole nation states, without providing a cure. 24 In the literature on nationalism in Slovakia, Jacques Rupnik supported this view when he argued that Slovak nationalism had been in the 'communist refrigerator' for most of the period after 1948. 25 Of the monographs in English discussing Slovak nationalism, Stanislav Kirschaum's A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival is, arguably, one of those that leans most toward the 'despite ' approach. 26 While describing in detail the persistence of nationalism during Communism and the radical changes Slovak society went through, Kirschbaum notes no positive effect of the communist regime on the strength of Slovak national identity and nationalism. Rather, he highlights the attempts the communist lea- 1 ' Ingrano: 'Forum ... ' , p. 307 . 15 Jaques Rupnik, quoted in Martin Butora and Zora Butorova: 'Slovakia after the Split ' ,Joumal o[Democracy,vol. 4(1993), no. 2,p. 75 . 16 Stanislav Kirschbaum : A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival (London : Macmillian, 1995). �SLOVAKIA 41 dership made at suppressing national identity.27 If Slovak nationalism gained strength during the communist period , it was more a reaction to the 'Czechoslovakism' favoured by the regime .2 8 The primordialist theories of nationalism would be the most obvious theoretical basis for the works in this approach. Stressing the ' ineffable, and at times overpowering' strength of the ' cultural givens' in a society, Clifford Geertz, for example, points to how ethnic ties in some societies come to be seen as a 'natural some would say spiritual affinity' .29 Given the strong emphasis put on cultural belonging in Slovak history, at least since the late nineteeth century, one could argue that ethnicity had gained a primordial character in Slovak society by the end of World War II. Consequently, the communist regime would not have been able to suppress Slovak identity, and therefore neither the potential for Slovak nationalism. While not going as far as the primordialist in stressing the naturalness of central ties, the so-called ethno-sym- bolist theories of nationalism could also be interpreted as lending support to the 'despite' approach. According to Anthony D. Smith, post-communist nationalism confirms the resilience and strength of ehnic myths, symbols and popular memory. He writes:' Though the timing of the current ethnic revival is a function of social and geopolitical changes, their contents and intensities are largely determined resources,' by pre-existing ethno-sy mbolic 30 27 Note e.g. ibid., pp. 228, 245, 252. Kirschbaum ta.lees a very favo urable view of Slovak nationalism and a more negative one of the common Czech and Slovak state . " Ibid., p. 24 7. 19 Clifford Geertz: The Interpretation of Cultures (London : Fontana, 1973). pp . 259-260 . 0 ' Anthony D. Smith : 'LSE Centennial Lecture: The Resurgence of Nationalism ? Myth and memory in the renewal of nations ', British Journal of Sociology, vo l. �42 SLOVAKIA Empirical support for the 'despite' argument can be found in post-communist Slovakia. In a study of regional patterns of political culture, a group of Slovak sociologists found strong similarities between the inter-war and post-communist era. 31 In both periods, nationalist and populist parties gained most support in northwest and central Slovakia. The persistence of this regional pattern seems to suggest that at least elements of pre-communist political culture had been preserved. Moreover, studies from other post-communist countries show that national minorities that were actively discouraged from maintaining their separate identity and culture, still emerged to voice nationalist demands after Communism. In Poland, this was the case with the German minority .32 While counter-factual history necessarily amounts to speculation, it does seem likely that regardless of what the policy the Communists had adopted, also the separate Slovak identity, in both its cultural and political expression, would have survived. The relatively short period of communist rule would clearly have facilitated this. As can be seen from the above, focusing on links to pre-communist nationalism and the preservation of popular myths and memory has some advantages. Firstly, it points to the strength of ethnic nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe after the Second World War. The conviction that ethnically defined nations formed natural bases for political legitimacy, be it in a separate state or as 47 (1996), no. 4, p. 573. Elsewhere, Smith does stress the role of communi st policies in preserving these myths and memories. See e.g. Smith: Nationalism and Modernism, 237, endnote 9. 31 Vladimir Krivy , Viera Fialova and Daniel Balko: Slovensko a jeho regi6ny: sociokultume suvislosti volebneho spravania (Bratislava: Nadacia Media, 1996). 12 Janusz Mucha: 'Democratisation and Cultural Minorities: The Polish Case of the 1980s/90s', East European Quarterly, vol. 25 (1992), no. 4. �SLOVAKIA 43 an autonomous region within a larger entity, had by 1948 been deeply ingrained in CEE. This was not only the case with most of the Slovak political elite, but also, many historians would agree, large parts of the population. Secondly, stressing the preservation of political culture is perhaps the only way to explain the continued regional pattern of support for nationalism. In its pure form, the 'despite' argument rejects any important effect of the socialist period on national identity and the popular view of nationalism. If one accepts that national identity is a social construct, that nations are not some kind of natural social unit, this jump across forty years of history is difficult to defend. As shall be discussed in more detail below, 1948-1989 was probably the most dramatic period of social and economic change in Slovak history. It was also a period of an intense policy of officially managed, public socialisation. Given the impact this period had on people' s lives, it seems difficult to assume that popular views on national identity and nationalism would not also change. One example that it had is that before 1948 Slovakia was a deeply religious society and mainstream nationalism was strongly connected to the Catholic Church. In the post-communist period, however, the leading nationalists parties HZDS and SNS were both secular. Catholic nationalism, as represented by the Christian Democratic Party (KDH), was much less successful. Explanations focusing more on the way the communist period served to change Slovak national identity and thereby the bases for nationalism during that period, thus seemingly provide a more convincing explanation for the widespread appeal of nationalism in the postcommunist era. Finallly, the 'despite' argument cannot explain the emergence of 'new' nationalisms in the post-communist period . Some groups without a history of common national identity and nationalism formed nationalist parties after 1989. Most im- �44 SLOVAKIA portantly, this included the Roma community. Also the emergence of a relatively strong nationalism in Moravia and Silesia was a sign of the increased importance of cultural identity. 33 Traditionally a regional identity and before Communism never a major political issue, the Moravian-Silesian autonomy party became the largest party in the Czech National Council in 1990. Nationalism Through the Communist Era. The 'through' approach makes up the middle ground between stressing the resilience of pre-communist nationalism and the strengthening of national identity during the communist period. Studies falling into this category would seek to explain the perpetuation of national conflict due to the persistence of support for nationalism built up before the communist period and to certain factors that served to strengthen Slovak national identity during the 1948-1989 era. Most historical studies tend to be in this category. Carol Skalnik Leff' s 1987 seminal book on national conflict in Czechoslovakia is probably the best study in English in this category. 34 In Leff's analysis, the deep social, economic and cultural differences between the Czech Lands and Slovakia were politicised during the inter-was republic. A triangular pattern of support and opposition was created, whereby the central leadership in Prague relied on the pro-Czechoslovak section of the Slovak political elite to help neutralise the demands of Slovak nationalists. In the communist period , this pattern persisted until it was displaced JJ Jaroslav Krejci and Pavel Machonin: Czechoslovakia 1918- 1992: A Laboratory for Social Change (Oxford: Macmill an and St. Anthony ' s, 1996), p. 51 . 14 Leff: National Conflict. Ryc hlik: Cesi a Slovaci .. . 1945-1992 is a later, eve n more detailed work of this approcah. �SLOVAKIA 45 with the ascent of Gustav Husak to power in 1969. Both the interwar and the socialist regimes failed in their attempts to modernize away the problem of Slovak nationalism (culturally and educationaly in the inter-war period, economically during socialism). These failures, combined with the unwillingness of both regimes to adequately accommodate the Slovak nationalist's demands, led to a growing sense of antagonism (mutual antagonism, as Czechs resented that Slovaks used times of international crisis to force through their demands). Leff concludes: 'Given the persistence of Slovak national feeling, on the one hand, and Czech power, on the other, the result has been persistent national conflict'. 35 While Leff notes that Slovak nationalism was strong in the post-war period, much due to the experience of statehood during the war, she also identifies several factors during the communist era that served to strengthen its basis. The existence of separate Slovak political institutions, for instance, was important. Leff writes: 'Week as the KSS (Slovak Communist Party) and the SNR (Slovak National Council) were in the years following 1948, both would retain the capacity to serve as nationalist time bombs. ' 36 One important reason for this was that the system of separate Slovak institutions created a Slovak elite separate from Prague-based Czechoslovak one. 37 Also other aspects of the regime 's policy proved counter-productive to its official aim of promoting the 'coming together' (zblfienie) of Czechs and Slovaks. The mass media, for instance, was 'segmented and not adapted to the integrative intentions of the policy-making elite. 38 Thus , by the late 1980, 'the Slovak question ' had become 'deeply, perhaps 35 Leff: National Conflict, p. 282. Ibid ., p. 112 . 37 Ibid ., p.294 . " Ibid., p. 297 . 36 �46 SLOVAKlA irreversibly, woven into the fabric of Czechoslovak politics as usual'. This statement carries with it the implication that the Slovak question wi1l continue to assert itself as a political force in the future .39 Three years after Leff published her study, her prediction came true . Theoretically, the 'through' approach occupies the middle ground between the primoridalists emphasis on the strength of cultural ties and the stress put on social processes by the modernist and institutional views outlined below. With more emphasis on the way myths, symbols, values and memories are preserved in societies, ethno-symbolist theories would come closest to forming a theoretical basis for this approach. From the ethno-symbolist perspective, the communists ' attempt to defuse nationalism in Slovakia by flagging symbols of self-determination could only serve to strengthen the feeling of national identity. The reason for this was that the only symbols that would evoke a positive response from the population would be symbols that had a basis in popular tradition . For example, while the communists did try to reframe the historical image of r.udovft Stur as a social revolutionary, they could not eradicate the view of Stur as a champion of Slovak rights so strongly ingrained in popular tradition and myths . As Smith writes : "Ethno-history is no sweetshop in which nationalists may ' pick and mix'; it sets limits to any appropriation by providing a distinctive context and patterns of events, personages and ,, 4 0 processes ... . The most obvious strength of the 'through' approach is that by stressing both the strong social basis of pre-communist nationalism and the way it was maintained and changed during the 1948-1989 period , it can account more or less convincingly for 39 ' 0 Ibid. , pp. 281 -282 . Smith: Nationalism and Modernism, p. 45 �SLOVAKIA 47 nationalism in both periods. It points to the continuity of not only political conflict over the status of Slovakia, but also that of popular symbols and myths. Noting how the communist period maintained and strengthened preexisting national identity and traditions also allows for an explanation of the persistent regional differences in support for nationalism. Despite these important strengths, however, the 'through' approach does have some weak points. Some will argue that the most important of these is that it does not go far enough in emphasising how dramatically the communist period changed Slovak society. As with the 'despite' approach, the focus on the continuation of national conflict through the communist period also faces problems in explaining the 'new' nationalisms of the post-communist era. The political organisation and activism of the Romany community after 1989, for example, is difficult to explain without stressing the way the communist period served to strengthen the importance of ethnic belonging. Nationalism Due to Communism. Studies focusing on the way the communist period . served to strengthen national identity and nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe are generally more theoretically grounded than the two approaches above. The presentation of these will therefore have to be a bit different. Two main theoretical starting points can be identified. 41 The first, based on modernisation theories of 41 Shari Cohen supposes a third, unconventional, approach in her Politics without a Past: The Absence of History in Postcommunist Nationalism (Lon- don: Duke University Press, 1999). It was not the strength of national identity in Slovakia that formed the basis for the success of post-communist nationalism, Cohen claims, but rather the lack of a clear historical consciousness. By �48 SLOVAKJA nationalism, focus on the massive socio-economic changes in the CEE countries during the fourty years of communist rule. As many other countries and areas of the region, Slovakia underwent a rapid transformation from an agricultural to an industrial society. Such a process of social modernization, scholars such as Ernest Gellner claim, is the basis for the strength of post-communist nationalism. The second starting point is based on the so called 'new institutionalism' in social science. According to its proponents, the communist regimes honoured their Leninist commitment to national self-determination by building nationally defined institutions and stressing national identities. Rather than, as intended, weakening the social basis for nationalism, however, their policy served to strengthen it. Put otherwise: the Soviet type nationality policy was to be 'nationalist in form, socialist in content ' . When the socialist content disappeared, only the nationalist form remained . Modernisation. It is the erosion of traditional society and its values with urbanisation and the growth of the state that, in Gellner's view, is responsible for the emergence of nationalism.42 In an agricultural society, where mobility is low and socialisation within the family and local community is sufficient, a person's language and culture is of little consequence. Urban life, particularly in the industrial age, exercises different pressures on the population. Industrial society, requiring formal socialisation through an education preventing the emergence of a collective memory of World War II, the communist regime made Slovak society susceptible to elite manipulation after the collapse of communism. 42 Ernest Gellner: Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983). �SLOVAKIA 49 system, thus makes an individual's culture and especially language important. Particularly when cultural differences overlapped with an actual or perceived pattern of social and economic discrimination, nationalism is a likely outcome. In socialist societies, as they suppressed civil society, class identities and other social lines of identification , the importance of cultural identities became particularly strong. When the regimes collapsed, there existed no 'serious rival ideology ' or any 'serious rival institutions' capable of providing alternatives to identification along national lines. 43 In the resulting 'double vacuum', nationalism, the 'culture of industrialism ', was 'the most plausible and easily available candidate for filling this emptiness. ' 44 After the Communists came to power in Czechoslovakia in 1948, Slovakia entered its most important period of socio-economic development. Over a period of seventeen years, the share of agricultural workers in the total workforce more than halved: from 62.2% in 1948 to30.1% in 1965. 4 5 By 1989 it has reached 14.5%. Similarly, the percentage of the population living in cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants increased from 11.5% in 1950 to 40.8% in 1991 .46 In the space of a few decades, Slovakia was transformed from an agricultural to an industrial society. That the industrial structure of Slovakia was accordingly based on the socialist idealisation of heavy industry, matters little in this context. Territorial and social mobility increased, as did the general level of education. The steadily increasing availability and reach 43 Ernest Gellner: ' Nationalism in the Vacuum', in Alexander J. Motyl (ed .): Thinking Theoretically about Soviet Nationalities: History and Comparison in the Study of the USSR(New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), p. 250. 44 Ernest Gellner: 'Homeland of the Unrevolution' , Daedalus, vol. 122 (1993) , no. 3, p. 152. 45 See Krejci and Machonin : Czechoslovakia, p. 120. 46 Ibid., p. 126. �50 SLOVAKIA of mass communication, such as radio and television, also served to promote a standardised ('high') culture. Combined, these factors served to increase cultural homogeneity in the Slovak population and put focus on the differences between the Slovaks and other cultural groups in society. An individual's cultural-cumnational identity was therefore highlighted . The main strength of the modernist approach is that it brings our attention to the massive social and economic changes in the region during Communism. Slovak society was fundamentally changed through industrialisation and urbanisation . Most theories of nationalism hold that modernisation (towards a Western type society) is at least conducive to the formation of national consciousness and emergence of nationalism. If one accepts this , the socialist period is likely to have strengthened the appeal of nationalism in Slovakia. Furthemore, the modernisation approach offers an explanation for why new ethnic conflicts arose once Communism released its grip. Even the communities without the history of nationalism can be seen to have been mobilised as a result of industrialisation. There are, however, several weaknesses with this modernist view. First, in its pure form it is very functional and does not accredit much importance to ideas. This is problematic particularly because the massive transformation and uprooting of Slovak society took place under heavy pressure from socialist socialisation. Second, if urbanisation and industrialisation were the main causes of post-communist nationalism, then one should expect to find the strongest nationalism where the effects of these processes was strongest. Before 1948 eastern Slovakia was the most 'backward' and multi-cultural region of Slovakia. Consequently, it was one of the regions that went through the most dramatic socio-economic development during Communism. Despite this , after 1989, sup- �SLOVAKIA 51 port for nationalist parties in the region was well below the Slovak average. 47 Indeed, inhabitants of Kosice, the 'capital' of eastern Slovakia and the second largest city in the country, were among those most vocally opposed to the break-up of the CSFR in the autumn of 1992.48 The Institutional Approach. The institutional approach places the cause of the strength of post-communist nationalism in the policies and structure, the institutions, of the communist regimes. The stress Leninism put on the right of national self-determination led most Soviet-style socialist regimes to not only promote national self-identification, but also build institutional frameworks along national lines. This served to institutionalise national identity as the key identity and thus create the nationalist bias of politics after the collapse of Communism. In its most basic form , the institutional approach stresses the way in which members of political institutions tend to promote the interests of their institutions in competition with others . Throughout the socialist period, Slovakia had cultural, academic , administrative and political institutions separate from the all-Czechoslovak ones. Due to the policy of stressing the Slovakness of these institutions, recruitment was conducted almost exclusively in Slovakia, and sometimes among Slovaks only. The separate poli tical institutions consisted most importantly of a branch of the Communist Party (KSS), a parliamentary assembly (SNR), and 47 See Krivy, Fialova and Balko: Slovensko ajeho regi6ny, pp.29 1-342 . •• For a more humorous expression of this see Peter Holub: 'At' uz to nestes tf piijde: Kosice se branf mirodnfmu sjednocenf', Respect, 24-30, August 1992, pp. 5-6. �52 SLOVAKIA ( except for the period 1960-69) an executive branch. While limited in their political importance during Communism, these institutions gained a dramatically different role with democratisation . Not long after the collapse of Communism, the Slovak government and legislature started calling for an increase in their competencies. Using nationalist rhetoric to mobilise the population was an obvious way to gain support for strengthening the authority and power of the Slovak institutions at the expense of federal ones. On a more complex level, the institutional approach examines the wider impact institutional structures had on creating certain attitudes and beliefs in the population. One leading institutional theoretician , Rogers Brubaker, explained the strength of postcommunist nationalism in the Soviet Union as a result of the ' dual institutionalisation ' of what he termed ' territorial nationhood ' and 'ethnic nationality ' .49 Territorial nationhood refers to the linkin g of a specific territory to national identity through the admi nistrative division of the country according to nationality. As with most administrative components in the Soviet Union, Slovakia was a clearly defined territorial unit interpreted as the homeland of the Slovaks. While this was made explicit after the federalisation of Czechoslovakia in 1968, it was implicit already from the end of World War IL The principle of equality (rovny s rovnym) introduced during the war and maintained in the 1948 Constitution •• Rogers Brubaker: Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the national question in the New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp 23-54. The nationality and, particularly after 1969, the institutional stru cture of socialist Czechoslovakia was almost identical to that of the Soviet Unio n. �SLOVAKIA 53 was clearly interpreted as a principle of equality of nations. 50 Hungarians, Ruthenes, Romanies and other national groups in Slovakia were national minorities; the Slovaks were the statotvorny (literally: state forming) nation. Along with officially pronouncing Czechoslovakia a country of two nations, the regime built institutions to create the appearance of national self-determination. While Czechoslovakia did not go as far as the Soviet Union in awarding the constituent republics symbols of statehood, the Czech and Slovak Socialist Republics were in the 1968 Law on Federalisation declared to have the status of independent legal subjects that surrendered part of their sovereignty to the Federation. The Republics were also awarded the 'inalienable right of self-determination even to the point of separation'. 51 The Law on Federalization thus 'rehabilitated and restored the idea of a national state as an attribute of a fully developed nation'. 52 The effect of this policy was to encourage Slovaks to think of themselves as a separate nation with wide-ranging political rights. The second aspect of Brubaker's institutional approach focuses on the way the communist regime made ethnic identification compulsory. In common English usage, the concepts of 'nationality' and 'citizenship' are synonymous. In the socialist federations, however, the distinction was important. All who held Czechoslovak passports were Czechoslovak citizens. Their nationality, however, would be Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Ruthene, Romany, Polish, Ukrainian or some other. A person's nationality 5 ° Katarina Zavacka: "Metamorf6zy statopravneho postavenia Slovenska v Ceskoslovensku v rokoch 1948-1967" in Vladimir Gonec (ed. ): Cesko-s/oven ska historicka rocenka I 998 (Brno: Masarykova Universita, 1998), pp. 17-29. 51 See ' Ustavnf zakon 143/ 1968 Sb.' at http://www.psp. czldocs/textslconstitution. 1968.html. 52 Kusy: Eseje,p. 69 . �54 SLOVAKIA was ascertained at birth according to that of her of his parents and could generally not be changed. As in inter-war Czechoslovakia, the communist regime did promote a Czechoslovak political identity. Avoiding the word narod, nation, which has clear ethnic connotations, the communists called for the creation of a 'Czec hoslovak working people ' (ceskoslovensky pracujlici J'ud). The identity was not, even in relation to the Czechs and Slovaks, intended as a Czechoslovak cultural identity. On the contrary, the Communist Party put great stress on promoting the cultures of the various national groups, particularly the Slovak. Generous reso urces were devoted to building cultural institutions and supporting the cultural life of all official nationalities. 53 For most children primary and sometimes secondary and higher education was available in their mother tongue. While all culture was to be socialist, the art forms favored by the regime, those that were seen to form the basis of national culture (s uch as folk dancing and traditional artisan-and craftsmanship), were not particularly affected . The Centre for the Production of Folk Art (UI:UV) and the folk-dancing and folk-mu sic group the Slovak People' s Artistic Collective (SI:UK) were presented as the best of centuries-old , traditional Slovak culture, thus reminding all of not only the cultural , but also historical separateness of the Slovaks. Combined, these two processes of institutionalisation made nations and nationality into basic units of people' s world-view. When the communist regime collapsed and democratisation started, nationally based institutions and their elites became centres of 51 See Elena Londakova: ' Slovcnske predjarie: Myty a realita slovenskej inte li gcncic v Ceskoslovensku pred rokom 1956 (a po iiom)', in Vladimir Gonec (ed .): Cesko-s/ovensk;i historick;i rocenka I 998 (Brno: Masarykova Universita, 1998), p. 2 10 and Dusan Kovac: Dejiny Slovenska (Prague: NLN, 1998), pp. 275-276 . �SLOVAKIA 55 political activity. 54 National identity became the basic organising. principle in politics. The nationally defined elites in the separate national institutions could gain popular support among a population identified and identifying according to their nationality by claiming to defend the interest of that nation. The system of compulsory national identification thus became the basis for new political constituencies. The main strength of the institutional approach is that it offers a very powerfull explanation of the near universal succes of national identity and nationalism as political principles after Communism. It does so by placing the cause of this succes in the very world-view engendered by the communist regime. As Brubaker writes: the communist nationality policy 'created a political field supremely conductive to nationalism' .55 The 'new' nationalism of the post-communist period can therefore be explained. Due to its explanatory strength, the institutional approach has emerged as one of the most popular among scholars trying to explain postcommunist nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe. However, the institutional approach, like the other presented above, has its shortcomings. Like the modernist approach it cannot alone explain the regionalised support for nationalism in Slovakia, nor does it account for the impact of pre-communist nationalism. 54 This was also the case for minorities that did not have explicitly political institutions. For example, the Slovak Hungarian cultural organization CSEMADOK became the centre of Hungarian political activity in the first period after 1989. ss Brubaker: Nationalism Reframed, p. I 7 �56 SLOVAKIA Conclusion While the process thc1· 1ed to the break-up of the common Czech and Slovak stat:· after communissm has received a fair amount of attention, few scholars have attempted to comprehensively explain why nationalism had such succes in postcommunist Slovakia.56 The above is only an overview of the possible explanations for the success of post-communist nationalism that would meet with the most support among scholars today. In fact, it is doubtful there will ever be single generally accepted explanation, be it theoretical or historical. As Katherine Verdery noted, nationalism in the post-communist region 'has many causes, ranging from the macro-social to matters of personal identity. It is, in other words, overdetermined, and the relevant causes vary from one county to another. 5 7 What is needed to approach a consensus on what factors were most important in the Slovak case, is a series of studies that evaluate the explanatory power of various approaches, such as those above. If this article serves to encourage someone to write such a study, it has served its purpose. ,. To this author's knowledge, the only monograph that explicitly does so is Cohen: Politics without a Past. 57 Katherine Verdery: 'Nationalism and National Sentiment in Post-socialist Romania' , Slavic Review, vol. 52 (1993), no. 2, p. 180. � 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 2003, Vol. 37 Description An account of the resource Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 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 28 SLOVAKJA 'Slovak som a Slovak budem ... 'l Explaining Nationalism in Post-Communist Slovakia Paal Sigurd Hilde The question of the position of Slovakia within the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (CSFR), the official name as of April 1990, was among the most divisive issues in Slovak and Czech politics in the post-communist era. As is well known, the conflict over the future basis and structure of the federation eventually led to the division of the state on 1 January 1993. Despite the impression given by many press reports at the time, the break-up was not the result of Slovak secession. With the exception of the Slovak National Party (SNS), representing about 10 per cent of the votes in Slovakia, all Slovak political parties successful in the decisive June 1992 elections were in favor of some kind of common state with the Czechs. This included the winner, Vladimir Meciar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS). There were, however, near irreconcilable policy differences between the left-populist HZDS and the right wing coalition victorious in the Czech Republic. Given the minority veto in the Federal assembly, whereby a minority of representatives from either Republic could block important legislation in the House of Nations, only a carefully crafted compromise could save the Federation from political deadlock. Rather than seeking a compromise, however, the Czech 1 The title is taken from Miroslav Kusfs 1981 samizdat essay. Reprinted in Miroslav Kusy: Eseje (Bratislava: Archa, 1991 ), pp. 88 -96 . SLOVAKlA 29 right wing coalition led by Vaclav Klaus of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) pushed for the division of the state if a 'functional federation' was not possible. Unwilling and politically unable to accept Klaus 's vision of a strong federal government, Meciar reluctantly followed the Czech Prime Minister's lead towards a break-up. 2 The political phenomenon generally referred to as Slovak nationalisn was thus not the decisive force behind the break-up of the CSFR. 3 It was, however, Slovak nationalism that after the collapse of communism started the process that eventuallly led to the rejection of the common state by right-wing Czech parties. As all nationalisms, Slovak post-communist nationalism was a complex phenomenon. It came in moderate and more radical forms, focus sing on several political issues. In its most basic expression, it held that Slovakia and the Slovaks deserved a more equal and visible position within a state seen as unfairly dominated by the Czech part. 4 Basically all Slovak political parties, including the 2 On the process preceding the break-up see Eric Stein : Czecho/Slovakia: Ethnic Conflict, Constitutional Fiss ure, Negotiated Breakup (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997). 3 Nationalism is fo r the purpose of th is study defined as a world view, which holds that the pop ulation of the world is divided into nations. A nation, claim nationalists, consists of a grou p of people identifiable and identifying according to cultural, religious, historical and/or territorial criteria. Nationalists see nations as constituting natural social units and seek to promote the po litical, cultural, economic or other kind of status, in symbolical or more material terms, of the nation they claim to represent. The nationalist discourse, common to a ll forms of nationalism, is used thro ughout the world, most often to oppose or defe nd existing political units. See Craig Calhoun: Nationalism (Buckin gham : Open University Press, 1997). •Foran examination of mainstream Slovak national ism see Paal Sigurd Hil de: 'Slovak Nationalism and the Break-Up of Czechoslovakia', Europe-Asia Stu die s, vol. 51 (1999), no. 4, pp. 64 7-665. 30 SLOVAKIA most pro-federal, shared this demand. More radical expressions called not only for more radical solutions to the question of the Federation, but focussed also negatively on the position of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia and the perceived threat from Hungarian irredentism. In its exteme, which was promoted only by small, popular unrepresentative groups, Slovak · nationalism promoted radically anti-Czech, anti-Hungarian and sometimes also anti-Semitic views. This article will analyse another complexity of nationalism in post-communist Slovakia. 5 As with all nationalisms, the popular success of the Slovak form can be seen as a result of several, intricate causes. These include historical, political, social and econ omic determinants. The aim of this study is not to reach a final decision on what caused the apperance and success of post-communist nationalism. Rather, the article offers an overview of a range of possible explanations and the strengths and weaknesses of these. This might be a combination of all, some, just one or none . Ultimately, it was Slovak6 politicians and other political actors that gave nationalism the political significance it had after the collapse of communism. Without nationalists, there is no nationalism. Focusing merely on the role of actors, however, leaves many unanswered questions. The most important of these is why the demands and rhetoric of the nationalists gained such a favourable response from the population. Certain political factors in the postcommunist period can be seen to have facilitated the success of the nationalist agenda among Slovaks. One such factor was the 5 For the sake of simplifying the analysis the multi-issue complexity of Slovak nationalism will be not discussed in detail. • The word Slovak will in this article denote a person of Slovak culture and identity. Similarly, a Czechoslovak is a person of Czech or Slovak ethnicity with a Czechoslovak identity . SLOVAK1A 31 institutional legacy of the socialist federation (more on this below). A second factor was the changing international environment after the Cold War, with the secession of the Baltic states, Slovenia and Croatia as examples of the new stress on national self-determination. Interaction with the two major 'others', the Hungarians and Czechs, was also important. The upsurge of post-communist nationalism in the Hungarian speaking minority in Slovakia and in Hungary, and the increasingly hostile attacks on Slovak nationalism, particularly in the Czech press, both served to spur Slovak nationalists into action. 7 Even more important in increasing support for nationalist de mands in post-communist Slovakia was the issue of economic reform. The generally harder impact of the Federal economic programme on the Slovak than on the Czech economy was by many taken as a sign of the disadvantaged position of Slovaks within the common state.8 The call for a greater Slovak control over economic policy thus became the one of the most important and substantial claims of Slovak nationalists . Yet, even given the activities of nationalists and the political factors conducive to the appeal of the nationalist discourse, to understand post-communist nationalism one must understand the historical developments that formed the basis for the appeal of the ethnic nationalism in Slovakia. Several historical precondition s can be identified . These are the topic of this study . 7 For examples of this see (H ungarian) Andrej Ferko: Stredna Europa - Eseje (Bratislava: VSSS, 1998) and (Czech) Dusan Sl obodnfk: Proti sedemhlavemu drakovi : Z dejin zapasu za Sia vensko (Bratislava: VSSS, 1998 ). ' In a January 1992 poll , for example. 53 % of respondents in Slovakia antici pated that the Czech economy wou ld grow at the expense of the Slovak. Cen trum pre social nu analyzu: Aktualne problemy Cesko-S/ovensk a, januar 1992 (Bratislava: CSA, 1992), p. 29. 32 SLOVAKIA Preconditions for the Success of Post-Communist Nationalism. To clarify the analysis of the historical preconditions of postcommunist nationalism, it is useful to divide the examination into two stages. The first stage focuses on the generally different impact nationalist ideas have had in the Eastern and Western parts of Europe. Whereas the civic, territorial version of nationalism became dominant in the West, ethnic, especially linguistically centred nationalism prevailed in Central and Eastern Europe (hereafter CEE)9. In the twentieth century, this ethnic nationalism be came the underlying ideal for the political reorganisations of CEE in two world wars. The first half of the twentieth century thus served to establish ethnic nationalism as a dominant political ideology and ethnic ties as primary lines of political identification. An example of the causes of the success of ethnic nationalism thus forms what one might call the 'deep ' historic background for understanding post-communist nationalism. The second stage in the analysis focuses on the impact of the socialist era. For the majority of the population of post-commu nist Slovakia, the just over forty years of communist indoctrination through education, mass media and other means, had formed their primary so urce of fo rmal socialisation. Moreover, Soviet Communism brought one of the most dramatic periods of social and economic change in Slovak history. The analysis below outlines the different assessments scholars have made of the impact the social, economic and political devel opments of the las t halfcentury before 1989 had on the strength of nationalism in Slovakia. • Central and Eastern Europe will in this article denote roughly the area of the fonner Habsburg Empire as well as the European parts of the Romanov and Ottoman em pires. SLOVAKIA 33 The Success of Ethnic Nationalism. In his celebrated 1882 lecture, Ernest Rennan started by making a distinction 'between the fusion of "races" in the nations of Western Europe, and the retention of ethnic distinctiveness in Eastern Europe .' 10 In 1944, Hans Kohn developed this theme when he introduced the concepts of 'Western' and 'Eastern' nationalisms. 11 While challenged by several authors, this typology has survived the test of time and is used in various forms by scholars today. As most nationalisms contain both civic (Western) and ethnic (Eastern) elements, the distinction is, as Anthony D. Smith points out, analytical and not normative. 12 Czechoslovak nationalism in the interwar years, for example, was clearly ethnic m relations with Germans and Hungarians, but civic m its merger of Slovaks and Czechs into one nation. On the whole, scholars agree on the basic causes why civic nationalism was more successful in Western Europe and ethnic nationalism in the Eastern part of the continent. The main factors are generally identified as the socio-economic and, partly linked, cultural differences between the two regions at the time of the dissemination of nationalist ideas. 13 From about the fifteenth century, Western Europe saw the beginning of the development of the modem state. The new economy saw the abolition of serfdom , the weakening of the feudal-agricultural economy and the strengthening of trade and manufacture centred in cities. The develop0 Anthony D. Smith: Nationalism and Modernism (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 9 ' '' Hans Kohn : The Idea of Nationalism (New York : Collier, 1967), pp. 329-331. 12 Smith: Nationalism and Modernism, p. 126 '-' For a good analysis of East-West historical differences see Robert Bideleux and Ian Jeffries: A Hi/story of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change (Lo ndon, Routledge, I 998), pp. 15-25. 34 SLOVAKlA ment of centralised, strong states, yet with an increasingly urbanised and literate population capable of challenging the authority of the ruler, had important social, economic and political effects. Western, civic nationalism grew gradually out of the socio-economic developments and changes in political thought of pre-nineteenth century Europe. 14 This nationalism was state centred and focused on gaining the loyality of and homogenising the population of a territory. Crucially, nationalist ideas were promoted in societies whose elites, if not populations, were already quite homogenous culturally. This was particularly the case in Protestant, North-Western Europe. In important respects, Central and Eastern Europe was relatively 'backward' when nationalist ideas spread through the intellectual life of the region in the early nineteenth century. 15 The relative backwardness had both external and internal causes. The centuries of warfare with the Ottomans had weakened the states in the region and led to their inclusion into large empires. Hungary, which then included today's Slovakia, came under Habsburg rule after the battle of Mohacs in 1526. At the eve of the French Revolution, the Ottoman, Habsburg and Romanov empires dominated Central and Eastern Europe. Compared with rapidly developing Western states, the three Eastern empires remained despotic. As the feudal-agricultural economic structure retained its dominance, no strong middle class developed . In Slovakia, or Felvidek (Upper Hungary) as the Hungarian rulers called it, the development of mining in Eastern Slovakia, for instance, led to the growth of some smaller towns. Generally, these were dominated by ethnic 14 See Liah Greenfeld: Nationalism : Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 1992 ) ,s The concept of Central and East European 'backwardness' is obviously very general and simplifying, also given the large differences within the region . SLOVAKJA 35 Germans or Jews. The majority of the population of Slovakia remained rural and often illiterate. The socio-econonic conditions for cultural homogenisation were, therefore, not present. The ethnically very heterogeneous dynasties of Central and Eastern Europe were initially not interested in trying to turn their empires into nation-states on the Western model. 16 Only in the final decades of the nineteenth century did Tsarist Russia attempt to Russify the Western Borderlands and the Hungarian leadership promote its policy of Magyarisation (Hungarianisation). 17 Given its lack of an ethnic nobility and being an integral part of Hungary proper, the Slav population of Felvidek was particularly exposed. Yet even here the Hungarian nation-bulding project did not succeed. History was soon to take a surprising turn. Ultimately more successful than the civic nation builders in CEE were elites opposed to central rule and integration. State centred, civic nationalism had no advantages for such elites. When they adopted nationalist discourse as a political tool , they were inspired by German romanticism rather than Western liberalism . Nationalists in Central and Eastern Europe looked not to Locke and Stuart Mill, but to Herder and Fichte. In German romantic thought, it was not political boundaries that determined the extent of a nation , but culture and particularly language. In the ethnically diverse empires of CEE such ideas were to have a dramatic impact. It was no coincidence that two leading Slovak (Pan-Slav) nationalists, Jan Kollar and Pavo) Jozef Safarik, both studied at "' Charles Ingrao: ' Forum: Understanding Ethnic Conflict in Central Europe: An Historical Perspective', Nationalities Papers, vol. 27 ( 1999), no. 2, p. 293 . 17 See Edward C. Thaden (ed.): Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Fin land, J855 - 19 14 (Princenton: Princenton University Press, 198 I ) and Tibor Frank: 'Hungary and the Dual Monarchy, 1867- 1890' , in Peter F. Sugar, Peter Hanak and Tibor Frank (eds.): A History of Hungary (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994). 36 SLOVAKJA the University of Jena in the early nineteenth century. 18 The 'father of Slovak nationalism', Cudovit Stur, like Kollar and Safarik, a Protestant, also studied in Germany, in Halle. 19 By the outbreak of World War One, ethnic nationalism had emerged as one of the leading political ideologies in Central and Eastern Europe. In Austria-Hungary, leaders claiming to represent various ethnically defined nations, such as Slovak nationalists in the Slovak National Party, promoted their rights within the Empire. World War I was to bring victory to such nationalist programmes. Towards the end of the war, when the Entente Powers started supporting the programmes of Central and Eastern Europe (mainly exile) nationalists , their support was limited to the de mand for an administrative reorganisation of Austria-Hungary . By 1918, however, the right to self-determination had come to mean the right for independence. Allied victory in World War I thus resulted in a reorganisation of the Central European region according to the principle of the 'self-determination of nations', that is, the self-determination of ethnically defined nations. This right was by no means allowed for all , particularly not for the 'defeated nations'. All the new and old, expanded states of the region contained sizeable ethnic minority groups . While political life in Austria-Hungary had increasingly taken the form of a struggle between the central authorities and nationalist leaders, inter-war Central and Eastern Europe took this to a new level. In the new Czechoslovak Republic as well, ethnic belonging became the main dividing line in politics. Ethnic Ger- "Victor S. Mamatey : 'The Establishment of the Republic' . in Victor S. Mamatey and Radomir Luz.a (eds.): A History of the Czechoslovak Republic: l 9 l 81948 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 6. 19 Peter Petro: A History of Slovak Literature (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press), p. 65 . SLOVAKIA 37 mans and Hungarians (Magyars) voted overwhelmingly for ethnically based parties . The Slovaks, according to official ideology part of the Czechoslovak nation, were divided. As in the late Habsburg period, one part of the Slovak political elite was Czechoslovak nationalist, another, strongly connected to the Catholic clergy, was more sceptical to the Czechoslovak idea. Loyal to the Czechoslovak state until pushed into declaring independence inl939, the Slovak nationalist movement promoted Slovak, as opposed to Czechoslovak, national awareness and nationalism throughout the inter-war period . While it is impossible to get an accurate picture of the popular support for Slovak nationalism after World War II, it seems safe to agree with Carol Skalnik Leff's claim that when taking power in 1948, the communists faced a 'full-blown' Slovak nationalism. 20 If the creation of a Slovak education system, the flowering of Slovak culture and promotion of Slovak nationalism in politics was not sufficient to cement the importance of ethnic belonging and nationalism in people's thinking in the inter-war years, the Second War War was .2 1 With the rise towards authoritarian rule by the Slovak People ' s Party from the autumn of 1938, ethnic nationalism became a central part of official ideology. In the region as a whole, ethnicity became a supreme organizing principle increasing or limiting chances for employment, economic prosperity and even survival. Supported by the Catholic clergy, the Slovak state sought to educate the Slovaks into becoming good nationalists. Nationalism was promoted in schools, the mass media and 10 Carol Skalnik Leff: National Conflict in Czech oslovakia (Princeton: Prince- ton University Press. 1987), p. 281. 11 On national identity in the inter-war period see Owen V. Johnson: Slovakia 191 8- 1938: Education and the Making of a Nati on (Boulder: Co lumbia Uni versity Press, 1985). 38 SLOVAKIA official and religious life in general. 22 For many groups among ethnic Slovaks, the war-time state was a positive experience. The relative economic prosperity, the ease of employment (especially for the young intelligentsia) and the elevated position of the Catholic faith and church were aspects of the state that for some Slovaks compared favourably with pre-war Czechoslovakia. Obviously, for parts of the population, the experience had been clearly negative. For Jews and Romanies it was one of inhuman crimes. Yet, despite the horrors and injustices, the experience of independence under German influence strengthened the position of nationalism in Slovak society. While the leaders of the 1944 Slovak National Uprising had called for the reestablishment of Czechoslovakia, they did not want to return to the centralist system of the First Republic (1918-1938). The extent to which Slovakia had been changed by the war became evident in the 1946 election. Whereas the Slovak political scene had been split on the issue of Slovakia's position within the common state before the war, all parties standing in 1946 supported Slovak self-rule within Czechoslovakia in their programmes. 23 The Impact of the Socialist Period. In the intersection between empirical studies that directly or indirectly offer an explanation for the success of nationalism in post-communist Slovakia and general theoretical works on nationalism, it is possible to identify three main approaches to the question of the impact of the communist era. The first focuses 22 See e.g. Yeshayahu Jelinek : The Parish Republic: H/inka 's Slovak People's Party 1939- 1945 (Boulder: Columbia University Press, 1976). lJ Jan Ryc hlik : Cesi a Slovaci ve 20.stoleti: Cesko-slovenske vztahy 19451992 (Bratislava: Academic Electronic Press, 1998), pp.40-42. SLOVAKIA 39 mainly on the way in which nationalism survived despite the forty years of communism. Given the strength of Slovak nationalism before Communism and the resilience of ethnic and cultural ties, nationalism would, according to this approach, have survived whatever policy the Communist Party had chosen. Scholars taking this approach would put the greatest emphasis on the 'deep' historic background outlined above. The second approach, where scholars stress the continuation of nationalism through the socialist period, could be considered the mainstream historical view . This approach focuses on the way Slovak national identity and support for nationalism survived the socialist era not only because of their pre-1948 strength, but also due to certain policies during Communism that served to strenghten their basis of support. According to the final approach, the success of post-communist nationalism was mainly due to the policies adopted by the Communist Party. Putting much less emphasis on the strength of precommunist national identity and nationalism (and thus the •deep' historical explanation), the 'due to' approach takes two main forms . One focuses on the effects of the socio-economic development of Slovakia during Communism, the other on the impact of the construction of nationally based institutional structures. These three analytical categories form a continuum rather than three clearly identifiable positions. Differences between studies falling into the different categories are generally one of focus or degree. Few scholars argue the extreme positions: that postcommunist nationalism was purely a revival of suppressed nationalism, or that it was a result of developments in the communist period only. Most would note the continued expressions of Slovak nationalism during the communist era, and then stress the degree to which the socialist period suppressed , maintained or actually strengthened the appeal of nationalism. 40 SLOVAKIA Nationalism Despite Communism. Particulary in the first years after the collapse of Communism, the 'retum-of-history'argument was commonly used to explain the success of nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe. Precommunist nationalism, merely suppressed by the communist regimes, re-emerged to become the political factor it had been forty years earlier. As one historian put it: Communism may have temporarily relieved Central Europe's ethnic tensions for nearly half a century. But if religion was the opiate of the people, Communism proved no more effective than methadone (sic) in suspending their craving for ethnically whole nation states, without providing a cure. 24 In the literature on nationalism in Slovakia, Jacques Rupnik supported this view when he argued that Slovak nationalism had been in the 'communist refrigerator' for most of the period after 1948. 25 Of the monographs in English discussing Slovak nationalism, Stanislav Kirschaum's A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival is, arguably, one of those that leans most toward the 'despite ' approach. 26 While describing in detail the persistence of nationalism during Communism and the radical changes Slovak society went through, Kirschbaum notes no positive effect of the communist regime on the strength of Slovak national identity and nationalism. Rather, he highlights the attempts the communist lea- 1 ' Ingrano: 'Forum ... ' , p. 307 . 15 Jaques Rupnik, quoted in Martin Butora and Zora Butorova: 'Slovakia after the Split ' ,Joumal o[Democracy,vol. 4(1993), no. 2,p. 75 . 16 Stanislav Kirschbaum : A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival (London : Macmillian, 1995). SLOVAKIA 41 dership made at suppressing national identity.27 If Slovak nationalism gained strength during the communist period , it was more a reaction to the 'Czechoslovakism' favoured by the regime .2 8 The primordialist theories of nationalism would be the most obvious theoretical basis for the works in this approach. Stressing the ' ineffable, and at times overpowering' strength of the ' cultural givens' in a society, Clifford Geertz, for example, points to how ethnic ties in some societies come to be seen as a 'natural some would say spiritual affinity' .29 Given the strong emphasis put on cultural belonging in Slovak history, at least since the late nineteeth century, one could argue that ethnicity had gained a primordial character in Slovak society by the end of World War II. Consequently, the communist regime would not have been able to suppress Slovak identity, and therefore neither the potential for Slovak nationalism. While not going as far as the primordialist in stressing the naturalness of central ties, the so-called ethno-sym- bolist theories of nationalism could also be interpreted as lending support to the 'despite' approach. According to Anthony D. Smith, post-communist nationalism confirms the resilience and strength of ehnic myths, symbols and popular memory. He writes:' Though the timing of the current ethnic revival is a function of social and geopolitical changes, their contents and intensities are largely determined resources,' by pre-existing ethno-sy mbolic 30 27 Note e.g. ibid., pp. 228, 245, 252. Kirschbaum ta.lees a very favo urable view of Slovak nationalism and a more negative one of the common Czech and Slovak state . " Ibid., p. 24 7. 19 Clifford Geertz: The Interpretation of Cultures (London : Fontana, 1973). pp . 259-260 . 0 ' Anthony D. Smith : 'LSE Centennial Lecture: The Resurgence of Nationalism ? Myth and memory in the renewal of nations ', British Journal of Sociology, vo l. 42 SLOVAKIA Empirical support for the 'despite' argument can be found in post-communist Slovakia. In a study of regional patterns of political culture, a group of Slovak sociologists found strong similarities between the inter-war and post-communist era. 31 In both periods, nationalist and populist parties gained most support in northwest and central Slovakia. The persistence of this regional pattern seems to suggest that at least elements of pre-communist political culture had been preserved. Moreover, studies from other post-communist countries show that national minorities that were actively discouraged from maintaining their separate identity and culture, still emerged to voice nationalist demands after Communism. In Poland, this was the case with the German minority .32 While counter-factual history necessarily amounts to speculation, it does seem likely that regardless of what the policy the Communists had adopted, also the separate Slovak identity, in both its cultural and political expression, would have survived. The relatively short period of communist rule would clearly have facilitated this. As can be seen from the above, focusing on links to pre-communist nationalism and the preservation of popular myths and memory has some advantages. Firstly, it points to the strength of ethnic nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe after the Second World War. The conviction that ethnically defined nations formed natural bases for political legitimacy, be it in a separate state or as 47 (1996), no. 4, p. 573. Elsewhere, Smith does stress the role of communi st policies in preserving these myths and memories. See e.g. Smith: Nationalism and Modernism, 237, endnote 9. 31 Vladimir Krivy , Viera Fialova and Daniel Balko: Slovensko a jeho regi6ny: sociokultume suvislosti volebneho spravania (Bratislava: Nadacia Media, 1996). 12 Janusz Mucha: 'Democratisation and Cultural Minorities: The Polish Case of the 1980s/90s', East European Quarterly, vol. 25 (1992), no. 4. SLOVAKIA 43 an autonomous region within a larger entity, had by 1948 been deeply ingrained in CEE. This was not only the case with most of the Slovak political elite, but also, many historians would agree, large parts of the population. Secondly, stressing the preservation of political culture is perhaps the only way to explain the continued regional pattern of support for nationalism. In its pure form, the 'despite' argument rejects any important effect of the socialist period on national identity and the popular view of nationalism. If one accepts that national identity is a social construct, that nations are not some kind of natural social unit, this jump across forty years of history is difficult to defend. As shall be discussed in more detail below, 1948-1989 was probably the most dramatic period of social and economic change in Slovak history. It was also a period of an intense policy of officially managed, public socialisation. Given the impact this period had on people' s lives, it seems difficult to assume that popular views on national identity and nationalism would not also change. One example that it had is that before 1948 Slovakia was a deeply religious society and mainstream nationalism was strongly connected to the Catholic Church. In the post-communist period, however, the leading nationalists parties HZDS and SNS were both secular. Catholic nationalism, as represented by the Christian Democratic Party (KDH), was much less successful. Explanations focusing more on the way the communist period served to change Slovak national identity and thereby the bases for nationalism during that period, thus seemingly provide a more convincing explanation for the widespread appeal of nationalism in the postcommunist era. Finallly, the 'despite' argument cannot explain the emergence of 'new' nationalisms in the post-communist period . Some groups without a history of common national identity and nationalism formed nationalist parties after 1989. Most im- 44 SLOVAKIA portantly, this included the Roma community. Also the emergence of a relatively strong nationalism in Moravia and Silesia was a sign of the increased importance of cultural identity. 33 Traditionally a regional identity and before Communism never a major political issue, the Moravian-Silesian autonomy party became the largest party in the Czech National Council in 1990. Nationalism Through the Communist Era. The 'through' approach makes up the middle ground between stressing the resilience of pre-communist nationalism and the strengthening of national identity during the communist period. Studies falling into this category would seek to explain the perpetuation of national conflict due to the persistence of support for nationalism built up before the communist period and to certain factors that served to strengthen Slovak national identity during the 1948-1989 era. Most historical studies tend to be in this category. Carol Skalnik Leff' s 1987 seminal book on national conflict in Czechoslovakia is probably the best study in English in this category. 34 In Leff's analysis, the deep social, economic and cultural differences between the Czech Lands and Slovakia were politicised during the inter-was republic. A triangular pattern of support and opposition was created, whereby the central leadership in Prague relied on the pro-Czechoslovak section of the Slovak political elite to help neutralise the demands of Slovak nationalists. In the communist period , this pattern persisted until it was displaced JJ Jaroslav Krejci and Pavel Machonin: Czechoslovakia 1918- 1992: A Laboratory for Social Change (Oxford: Macmill an and St. Anthony ' s, 1996), p. 51 . 14 Leff: National Conflict. Ryc hlik: Cesi a Slovaci .. . 1945-1992 is a later, eve n more detailed work of this approcah. SLOVAKIA 45 with the ascent of Gustav Husak to power in 1969. Both the interwar and the socialist regimes failed in their attempts to modernize away the problem of Slovak nationalism (culturally and educationaly in the inter-war period, economically during socialism). These failures, combined with the unwillingness of both regimes to adequately accommodate the Slovak nationalist's demands, led to a growing sense of antagonism (mutual antagonism, as Czechs resented that Slovaks used times of international crisis to force through their demands). Leff concludes: 'Given the persistence of Slovak national feeling, on the one hand, and Czech power, on the other, the result has been persistent national conflict'. 35 While Leff notes that Slovak nationalism was strong in the post-war period, much due to the experience of statehood during the war, she also identifies several factors during the communist era that served to strengthen its basis. The existence of separate Slovak political institutions, for instance, was important. Leff writes: 'Week as the KSS (Slovak Communist Party) and the SNR (Slovak National Council) were in the years following 1948, both would retain the capacity to serve as nationalist time bombs. ' 36 One important reason for this was that the system of separate Slovak institutions created a Slovak elite separate from Prague-based Czechoslovak one. 37 Also other aspects of the regime 's policy proved counter-productive to its official aim of promoting the 'coming together' (zblfienie) of Czechs and Slovaks. The mass media, for instance, was 'segmented and not adapted to the integrative intentions of the policy-making elite. 38 Thus , by the late 1980, 'the Slovak question ' had become 'deeply, perhaps 35 Leff: National Conflict, p. 282. Ibid ., p. 112 . 37 Ibid ., p.294 . " Ibid., p. 297 . 36 46 SLOVAKlA irreversibly, woven into the fabric of Czechoslovak politics as usual'. This statement carries with it the implication that the Slovak question wi1l continue to assert itself as a political force in the future .39 Three years after Leff published her study, her prediction came true . Theoretically, the 'through' approach occupies the middle ground between the primoridalists emphasis on the strength of cultural ties and the stress put on social processes by the modernist and institutional views outlined below. With more emphasis on the way myths, symbols, values and memories are preserved in societies, ethno-symbolist theories would come closest to forming a theoretical basis for this approach. From the ethno-symbolist perspective, the communists ' attempt to defuse nationalism in Slovakia by flagging symbols of self-determination could only serve to strengthen the feeling of national identity. The reason for this was that the only symbols that would evoke a positive response from the population would be symbols that had a basis in popular tradition . For example, while the communists did try to reframe the historical image of r.udovft Stur as a social revolutionary, they could not eradicate the view of Stur as a champion of Slovak rights so strongly ingrained in popular tradition and myths . As Smith writes : "Ethno-history is no sweetshop in which nationalists may ' pick and mix'; it sets limits to any appropriation by providing a distinctive context and patterns of events, personages and ,, 4 0 processes ... . The most obvious strength of the 'through' approach is that by stressing both the strong social basis of pre-communist nationalism and the way it was maintained and changed during the 1948-1989 period , it can account more or less convincingly for 39 ' 0 Ibid. , pp. 281 -282 . Smith: Nationalism and Modernism, p. 45 SLOVAKIA 47 nationalism in both periods. It points to the continuity of not only political conflict over the status of Slovakia, but also that of popular symbols and myths. Noting how the communist period maintained and strengthened preexisting national identity and traditions also allows for an explanation of the persistent regional differences in support for nationalism. Despite these important strengths, however, the 'through' approach does have some weak points. Some will argue that the most important of these is that it does not go far enough in emphasising how dramatically the communist period changed Slovak society. As with the 'despite' approach, the focus on the continuation of national conflict through the communist period also faces problems in explaining the 'new' nationalisms of the post-communist era. The political organisation and activism of the Romany community after 1989, for example, is difficult to explain without stressing the way the communist period served to strengthen the importance of ethnic belonging. Nationalism Due to Communism. Studies focusing on the way the communist period . served to strengthen national identity and nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe are generally more theoretically grounded than the two approaches above. The presentation of these will therefore have to be a bit different. Two main theoretical starting points can be identified. 41 The first, based on modernisation theories of 41 Shari Cohen supposes a third, unconventional, approach in her Politics without a Past: The Absence of History in Postcommunist Nationalism (Lon- don: Duke University Press, 1999). It was not the strength of national identity in Slovakia that formed the basis for the success of post-communist nationalism, Cohen claims, but rather the lack of a clear historical consciousness. By 48 SLOVAKJA nationalism, focus on the massive socio-economic changes in the CEE countries during the fourty years of communist rule. As many other countries and areas of the region, Slovakia underwent a rapid transformation from an agricultural to an industrial society. Such a process of social modernization, scholars such as Ernest Gellner claim, is the basis for the strength of post-communist nationalism. The second starting point is based on the so called 'new institutionalism' in social science. According to its proponents, the communist regimes honoured their Leninist commitment to national self-determination by building nationally defined institutions and stressing national identities. Rather than, as intended, weakening the social basis for nationalism, however, their policy served to strengthen it. Put otherwise: the Soviet type nationality policy was to be 'nationalist in form, socialist in content ' . When the socialist content disappeared, only the nationalist form remained . Modernisation. It is the erosion of traditional society and its values with urbanisation and the growth of the state that, in Gellner's view, is responsible for the emergence of nationalism.42 In an agricultural society, where mobility is low and socialisation within the family and local community is sufficient, a person's language and culture is of little consequence. Urban life, particularly in the industrial age, exercises different pressures on the population. Industrial society, requiring formal socialisation through an education preventing the emergence of a collective memory of World War II, the communist regime made Slovak society susceptible to elite manipulation after the collapse of communism. 42 Ernest Gellner: Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983). SLOVAKIA 49 system, thus makes an individual's culture and especially language important. Particularly when cultural differences overlapped with an actual or perceived pattern of social and economic discrimination, nationalism is a likely outcome. In socialist societies, as they suppressed civil society, class identities and other social lines of identification , the importance of cultural identities became particularly strong. When the regimes collapsed, there existed no 'serious rival ideology ' or any 'serious rival institutions' capable of providing alternatives to identification along national lines. 43 In the resulting 'double vacuum', nationalism, the 'culture of industrialism ', was 'the most plausible and easily available candidate for filling this emptiness. ' 44 After the Communists came to power in Czechoslovakia in 1948, Slovakia entered its most important period of socio-economic development. Over a period of seventeen years, the share of agricultural workers in the total workforce more than halved: from 62.2% in 1948 to30.1% in 1965. 4 5 By 1989 it has reached 14.5%. Similarly, the percentage of the population living in cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants increased from 11.5% in 1950 to 40.8% in 1991 .46 In the space of a few decades, Slovakia was transformed from an agricultural to an industrial society. That the industrial structure of Slovakia was accordingly based on the socialist idealisation of heavy industry, matters little in this context. Territorial and social mobility increased, as did the general level of education. The steadily increasing availability and reach 43 Ernest Gellner: ' Nationalism in the Vacuum', in Alexander J. Motyl (ed .): Thinking Theoretically about Soviet Nationalities: History and Comparison in the Study of the USSR(New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), p. 250. 44 Ernest Gellner: 'Homeland of the Unrevolution' , Daedalus, vol. 122 (1993) , no. 3, p. 152. 45 See Krejci and Machonin : Czechoslovakia, p. 120. 46 Ibid., p. 126. 50 SLOVAKIA of mass communication, such as radio and television, also served to promote a standardised ('high') culture. Combined, these factors served to increase cultural homogeneity in the Slovak population and put focus on the differences between the Slovaks and other cultural groups in society. An individual's cultural-cumnational identity was therefore highlighted . The main strength of the modernist approach is that it brings our attention to the massive social and economic changes in the region during Communism. Slovak society was fundamentally changed through industrialisation and urbanisation . Most theories of nationalism hold that modernisation (towards a Western type society) is at least conducive to the formation of national consciousness and emergence of nationalism. If one accepts this , the socialist period is likely to have strengthened the appeal of nationalism in Slovakia. Furthemore, the modernisation approach offers an explanation for why new ethnic conflicts arose once Communism released its grip. Even the communities without the history of nationalism can be seen to have been mobilised as a result of industrialisation. There are, however, several weaknesses with this modernist view. First, in its pure form it is very functional and does not accredit much importance to ideas. This is problematic particularly because the massive transformation and uprooting of Slovak society took place under heavy pressure from socialist socialisation. Second, if urbanisation and industrialisation were the main causes of post-communist nationalism, then one should expect to find the strongest nationalism where the effects of these processes was strongest. Before 1948 eastern Slovakia was the most 'backward' and multi-cultural region of Slovakia. Consequently, it was one of the regions that went through the most dramatic socio-economic development during Communism. Despite this , after 1989, sup- SLOVAKIA 51 port for nationalist parties in the region was well below the Slovak average. 47 Indeed, inhabitants of Kosice, the 'capital' of eastern Slovakia and the second largest city in the country, were among those most vocally opposed to the break-up of the CSFR in the autumn of 1992.48 The Institutional Approach. The institutional approach places the cause of the strength of post-communist nationalism in the policies and structure, the institutions, of the communist regimes. The stress Leninism put on the right of national self-determination led most Soviet-style socialist regimes to not only promote national self-identification, but also build institutional frameworks along national lines. This served to institutionalise national identity as the key identity and thus create the nationalist bias of politics after the collapse of Communism. In its most basic form , the institutional approach stresses the way in which members of political institutions tend to promote the interests of their institutions in competition with others . Throughout the socialist period, Slovakia had cultural, academic , administrative and political institutions separate from the all-Czechoslovak ones. Due to the policy of stressing the Slovakness of these institutions, recruitment was conducted almost exclusively in Slovakia, and sometimes among Slovaks only. The separate poli tical institutions consisted most importantly of a branch of the Communist Party (KSS), a parliamentary assembly (SNR), and 47 See Krivy, Fialova and Balko: Slovensko ajeho regi6ny, pp.29 1-342 . •• For a more humorous expression of this see Peter Holub: 'At' uz to nestes tf piijde: Kosice se branf mirodnfmu sjednocenf', Respect, 24-30, August 1992, pp. 5-6. 52 SLOVAKIA ( except for the period 1960-69) an executive branch. While limited in their political importance during Communism, these institutions gained a dramatically different role with democratisation . Not long after the collapse of Communism, the Slovak government and legislature started calling for an increase in their competencies. Using nationalist rhetoric to mobilise the population was an obvious way to gain support for strengthening the authority and power of the Slovak institutions at the expense of federal ones. On a more complex level, the institutional approach examines the wider impact institutional structures had on creating certain attitudes and beliefs in the population. One leading institutional theoretician , Rogers Brubaker, explained the strength of postcommunist nationalism in the Soviet Union as a result of the ' dual institutionalisation ' of what he termed ' territorial nationhood ' and 'ethnic nationality ' .49 Territorial nationhood refers to the linkin g of a specific territory to national identity through the admi nistrative division of the country according to nationality. As with most administrative components in the Soviet Union, Slovakia was a clearly defined territorial unit interpreted as the homeland of the Slovaks. While this was made explicit after the federalisation of Czechoslovakia in 1968, it was implicit already from the end of World War IL The principle of equality (rovny s rovnym) introduced during the war and maintained in the 1948 Constitution •• Rogers Brubaker: Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the national question in the New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp 23-54. The nationality and, particularly after 1969, the institutional stru cture of socialist Czechoslovakia was almost identical to that of the Soviet Unio n. SLOVAKIA 53 was clearly interpreted as a principle of equality of nations. 50 Hungarians, Ruthenes, Romanies and other national groups in Slovakia were national minorities; the Slovaks were the statotvorny (literally: state forming) nation. Along with officially pronouncing Czechoslovakia a country of two nations, the regime built institutions to create the appearance of national self-determination. While Czechoslovakia did not go as far as the Soviet Union in awarding the constituent republics symbols of statehood, the Czech and Slovak Socialist Republics were in the 1968 Law on Federalisation declared to have the status of independent legal subjects that surrendered part of their sovereignty to the Federation. The Republics were also awarded the 'inalienable right of self-determination even to the point of separation'. 51 The Law on Federalization thus 'rehabilitated and restored the idea of a national state as an attribute of a fully developed nation'. 52 The effect of this policy was to encourage Slovaks to think of themselves as a separate nation with wide-ranging political rights. The second aspect of Brubaker's institutional approach focuses on the way the communist regime made ethnic identification compulsory. In common English usage, the concepts of 'nationality' and 'citizenship' are synonymous. In the socialist federations, however, the distinction was important. All who held Czechoslovak passports were Czechoslovak citizens. Their nationality, however, would be Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Ruthene, Romany, Polish, Ukrainian or some other. A person's nationality 5 ° Katarina Zavacka: "Metamorf6zy statopravneho postavenia Slovenska v Ceskoslovensku v rokoch 1948-1967" in Vladimir Gonec (ed. ): Cesko-s/oven ska historicka rocenka I 998 (Brno: Masarykova Universita, 1998), pp. 17-29. 51 See ' Ustavnf zakon 143/ 1968 Sb.' at http://www.psp. czldocs/textslconstitution. 1968.html. 52 Kusy: Eseje,p. 69 . 54 SLOVAKIA was ascertained at birth according to that of her of his parents and could generally not be changed. As in inter-war Czechoslovakia, the communist regime did promote a Czechoslovak political identity. Avoiding the word narod, nation, which has clear ethnic connotations, the communists called for the creation of a 'Czec hoslovak working people ' (ceskoslovensky pracujlici J'ud). The identity was not, even in relation to the Czechs and Slovaks, intended as a Czechoslovak cultural identity. On the contrary, the Communist Party put great stress on promoting the cultures of the various national groups, particularly the Slovak. Generous reso urces were devoted to building cultural institutions and supporting the cultural life of all official nationalities. 53 For most children primary and sometimes secondary and higher education was available in their mother tongue. While all culture was to be socialist, the art forms favored by the regime, those that were seen to form the basis of national culture (s uch as folk dancing and traditional artisan-and craftsmanship), were not particularly affected . The Centre for the Production of Folk Art (UI:UV) and the folk-dancing and folk-mu sic group the Slovak People' s Artistic Collective (SI:UK) were presented as the best of centuries-old , traditional Slovak culture, thus reminding all of not only the cultural , but also historical separateness of the Slovaks. Combined, these two processes of institutionalisation made nations and nationality into basic units of people' s world-view. When the communist regime collapsed and democratisation started, nationally based institutions and their elites became centres of 51 See Elena Londakova: ' Slovcnske predjarie: Myty a realita slovenskej inte li gcncic v Ceskoslovensku pred rokom 1956 (a po iiom)', in Vladimir Gonec (ed .): Cesko-s/ovensk;i historick;i rocenka I 998 (Brno: Masarykova Universita, 1998), p. 2 10 and Dusan Kovac: Dejiny Slovenska (Prague: NLN, 1998), pp. 275-276 . SLOVAKIA 55 political activity. 54 National identity became the basic organising. principle in politics. The nationally defined elites in the separate national institutions could gain popular support among a population identified and identifying according to their nationality by claiming to defend the interest of that nation. The system of compulsory national identification thus became the basis for new political constituencies. The main strength of the institutional approach is that it offers a very powerfull explanation of the near universal succes of national identity and nationalism as political principles after Communism. It does so by placing the cause of this succes in the very world-view engendered by the communist regime. As Brubaker writes: the communist nationality policy 'created a political field supremely conductive to nationalism' .55 The 'new' nationalism of the post-communist period can therefore be explained. Due to its explanatory strength, the institutional approach has emerged as one of the most popular among scholars trying to explain postcommunist nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe. However, the institutional approach, like the other presented above, has its shortcomings. Like the modernist approach it cannot alone explain the regionalised support for nationalism in Slovakia, nor does it account for the impact of pre-communist nationalism. 54 This was also the case for minorities that did not have explicitly political institutions. For example, the Slovak Hungarian cultural organization CSEMADOK became the centre of Hungarian political activity in the first period after 1989. ss Brubaker: Nationalism Reframed, p. I 7 56 SLOVAKIA Conclusion While the process thc1· 1ed to the break-up of the common Czech and Slovak stat:· after communissm has received a fair amount of attention, few scholars have attempted to comprehensively explain why nationalism had such succes in postcommunist Slovakia.56 The above is only an overview of the possible explanations for the success of post-communist nationalism that would meet with the most support among scholars today. In fact, it is doubtful there will ever be single generally accepted explanation, be it theoretical or historical. As Katherine Verdery noted, nationalism in the post-communist region 'has many causes, ranging from the macro-social to matters of personal identity. It is, in other words, overdetermined, and the relevant causes vary from one county to another. 5 7 What is needed to approach a consensus on what factors were most important in the Slovak case, is a series of studies that evaluate the explanatory power of various approaches, such as those above. If this article serves to encourage someone to write such a study, it has served its purpose. ,. To this author's knowledge, the only monograph that explicitly does so is Cohen: Politics without a Past. 57 Katherine Verdery: 'Nationalism and National Sentiment in Post-socialist Romania' , Slavic Review, vol. 52 (1993), no. 2, p. 180.  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 'Slovák som a Slovák budem...': Explaining Nationalism in Post-Communist Slovakia Description An account of the resource Paal Sigurd Hilde Slovakia, Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003 pp. 28-56 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hilde, Paal Sigurd, 1970- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/5a2fafd7139eef1d2eec0d44618b498c.pdf 7887d46da9598e2b36037e9965fb5875 PDF Text Text 208 SLOVAKIA CONTRIBUTORS JAMES R. FELAK is Associate Professor of History at the University of Washington. He is the author of 'At the Price of the Republic': Hlinka 's Slovak People's Party, 1929-/938 (Pittsburgh , 1994) which won the 1996 Slovak Studies Association Prize, as well as the Orbis Prize of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies. He has al so published many articles in scholarly journals. He specializes in the history of East Central Europe in the 20th century, with a focus on nationalism, communism, and religion. JAN CARNOGURSKY was Slovakia's leading Catholic dissident in the era of 'Normalization ' ( 1969-1989). As an attor- ney he defended fellow -dissidents in communist courts , and , from 1980 on , he published the underground newspaper Bratislavskc listy. Freed from jail during the 'Velvet Revolution' of 1989, Carnog ursky was propelled to the position of Deputy Prime Minister o f the non-communist federal government. He founded and Chaired (until 2002) the Christian Democratic Movement in the spring of 1990. After the June, 1990 elections Carnogursky became Deputy Prime Minister of the Slovak government and in the spring of I 991 Prime Minister. After the June, 1992 elections he was a Member of Parliament in opposition to the Meciar government. After the 1998 elections he served as Minister of Justice in the Dzurinda government active politics in September of 2002 . until his retirement from �SLOVAKIA 209 PAAL SIGURD HILDE is a doctoral candidate at St. Anthony ' s College, Oxford University . He is writing his dissertation on Slovak nationalism after the collapse of Communism and has published "Slovak Nationalism and the Breakup of Czechoslovakia" . Europe-Asia Studies, 5 (No.2, 1998), 54 7-65. SUSUMU NAGA YO is Associate Professor of Political Science and Economics at Waseda University in Tokyo. He has published numerous articles about the Slovak language, literature, history and politics in Japanese, Slovak and American sc holarly journals. He is fluent in Russ ian and Slovak and also teaches those languages at his university . M. MARK STOLARIK is Professor of Hi story 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 many books and articles in the field. including Growing Up on the South Side: Three Genera- tions of Slovaks in Bethlehem. Pennsylvania. I 880-1976 (1985) and I111111igration a11(/ Urbani7.ation : The Slovak Experience. I 870- I 9 / 8 ( 1989). MARTIN VOTRUBA 1s Director of the Slovak Studies Programme in the Slavic Department of the University of Pittsburgh. He teaches courses in Slovak lan g uage , literature, film. and history. In the past he worked for Radio Free Europe and is still its U.S. correspondent. �210 SLOVAKIA GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPTS Manuscripts for poss ible publication sho uld be sent to th e editor. Articles sho uld not normally exceed twenty-five pages in length, should be submitted in duplicate and typed double -s paced, with generou s margins for copy-editing. Footnotes shou ld be numbered , entered consecutively and placed at the end of the paper. A copy of the paper s ho uld also be submitted on a flopp y disc, either in WordPerfect or MicrosoftWord format. Text and format should adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style. Proper orthography and diacritical marks mu st be s upplied for all foreign words . Manuscripts will no t be returned unless specifically requested and postage is provided. Books for review arc to be sent to the editor. Unsolicited book reviews are not encouraged . Individuals who wish to review books should request th e m from the editor . ��THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA Organized in 1907 Dr. LUDWIG J. PAVLO President W. NINA HOLY Secretary-Treasurer Vice-presidents: MIKULAS BENO ANNE Z. SAROSY JUSTINE WESNAK Executive Board: Dr. Ludwig J. Pavlo, W. Nina Holy, Dr. L. P. Hinterbuchner, Daniel F. Tanzone, Dr. John Karch, John A Holy, Mary Ann S. Johanek, Esq., Thomas M. Hricik, Sue Ann M. Seich, Rita M. Simalchik, David G. Balzek, Frank Rudzik Milan Cuba Youth Director SLOVAK FRATERNAL ORGANIZATIONS AFFILIATED WITH THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA FIRST CATHOLIC SLOVAK LADIES ASSOCIATION Beachwood, Ohio FIRST CATHOLIC SLOVAK UNION OF THE U.S. AND CANADA Independence, Ohio SLOVAK CATHOLIC SOKOL Passaic, New Jersey NATIONAL SLOVAK SOCIETY OF THE U.S.A. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania LADIES PENNSYLVANIA SLOVAK CATHOLIC UNION Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania SLOVAK NEWSPAPERMEN'S ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA THE SLOVAK GARDEN, INC. Winter Park, Florida SLOVAKIA $10.00 per issue � 208 SLOVAKIA CONTRIBUTORS JAMES R. FELAK is Associate Professor of History at the University of Washington. He is the author of 'At the Price of the Republic': Hlinka 's Slovak People's Party, 1929-/938 (Pittsburgh , 1994) which won the 1996 Slovak Studies Association Prize, as well as the Orbis Prize of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies. He has al so published many articles in scholarly journals. He specializes in the history of East Central Europe in the 20th century, with a focus on nationalism, communism, and religion. JAN CARNOGURSKY was Slovakia's leading Catholic dissident in the era of 'Normalization ' ( 1969-1989). As an attor- ney he defended fellow -dissidents in communist courts , and , from 1980 on , he published the underground newspaper Bratislavskc listy. Freed from jail during the 'Velvet Revolution' of 1989, Carnog ursky was propelled to the position of Deputy Prime Minister o f the non-communist federal government. He founded and Chaired (until 2002) the Christian Democratic Movement in the spring of 1990. After the June, 1990 elections Carnogursky became Deputy Prime Minister of the Slovak government and in the spring of I 991 Prime Minister. After the June, 1992 elections he was a Member of Parliament in opposition to the Meciar government. After the 1998 elections he served as Minister of Justice in the Dzurinda government active politics in September of 2002 . until his retirement from �SLOVAKIA 209 PAAL SIGURD HILDE is a doctoral candidate at St. Anthony ' s College, Oxford University . He is writing his dissertation on Slovak nationalism after the collapse of Communism and has published "Slovak Nationalism and the Breakup of Czechoslovakia" . Europe-Asia Studies, 5 (No.2, 1998), 54 7-65. SUSUMU NAGA YO is Associate Professor of Political Science and Economics at Waseda University in Tokyo. He has published numerous articles about the Slovak language, literature, history and politics in Japanese, Slovak and American sc holarly journals. He is fluent in Russ ian and Slovak and also teaches those languages at his university . M. MARK STOLARIK is Professor of Hi story 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 many books and articles in the field. including Growing Up on the South Side: Three Genera- tions of Slovaks in Bethlehem. Pennsylvania. I 880-1976 (1985) and I111111igration a11(/ Urbani7.ation : The Slovak Experience. I 870- I 9 / 8 ( 1989). MARTIN VOTRUBA 1s Director of the Slovak Studies Programme in the Slavic Department of the University of Pittsburgh. He teaches courses in Slovak lan g uage , literature, film. and history. In the past he worked for Radio Free Europe and is still its U.S. correspondent. �210 SLOVAKIA GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPTS Manuscripts for poss ible publication sho uld be sent to th e editor. Articles sho uld not normally exceed twenty-five pages in length, should be submitted in duplicate and typed double -s paced, with generou s margins for copy-editing. Footnotes shou ld be numbered , entered consecutively and placed at the end of the paper. A copy of the paper s ho uld also be submitted on a flopp y disc, either in WordPerfect or MicrosoftWord format. Text and format should adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style. Proper orthography and diacritical marks mu st be s upplied for all foreign words . Manuscripts will no t be returned unless specifically requested and postage is provided. Books for review arc to be sent to the editor. Unsolicited book reviews are not encouraged . Individuals who wish to review books should request th e m from the editor . ��THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA Organized in 1907 Dr. LUDWIG J. PAVLO President W. NINA HOLY Secretary-Treasurer Vice-presidents: MIKULAS BENO ANNE Z. SAROSY JUSTINE WESNAK Executive Board: Dr. Ludwig J. Pavlo, W. Nina Holy, Dr. L. P. Hinterbuchner, Daniel F. Tanzone, Dr. John Karch, John A Holy, Mary Ann S. Johanek, Esq., Thomas M. Hricik, Sue Ann M. Seich, Rita M. Simalchik, David G. Balzek, Frank Rudzik Milan Cuba Youth Director SLOVAK FRATERNAL ORGANIZATIONS AFFILIATED WITH THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA FIRST CATHOLIC SLOVAK LADIES ASSOCIATION Beachwood, Ohio FIRST CATHOLIC SLOVAK UNION OF THE U.S. AND CANADA Independence, Ohio SLOVAK CATHOLIC SOKOL Passaic, New Jersey NATIONAL SLOVAK SOCIETY OF THE U.S.A. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania LADIES PENNSYLVANIA SLOVAK CATHOLIC UNION Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania SLOVAK NEWSPAPERMEN'S ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA THE SLOVAK GARDEN, INC. Winter Park, Florida SLOVAKIA $10.00 per issue � 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 2003, Vol. 37 Description An account of the resource Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 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 208 SLOVAKIA CONTRIBUTORS JAMES R. FELAK is Associate Professor of History at the University of Washington. He is the author of 'At the Price of the Republic': Hlinka 's Slovak People's Party, 1929-/938 (Pittsburgh , 1994) which won the 1996 Slovak Studies Association Prize, as well as the Orbis Prize of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies. He has al so published many articles in scholarly journals. He specializes in the history of East Central Europe in the 20th century, with a focus on nationalism, communism, and religion. JAN CARNOGURSKY was Slovakia's leading Catholic dissident in the era of 'Normalization ' ( 1969-1989). As an attor- ney he defended fellow -dissidents in communist courts , and , from 1980 on , he published the underground newspaper Bratislavskc listy. Freed from jail during the 'Velvet Revolution' of 1989, Carnog ursky was propelled to the position of Deputy Prime Minister o f the non-communist federal government. He founded and Chaired (until 2002) the Christian Democratic Movement in the spring of 1990. After the June, 1990 elections Carnogursky became Deputy Prime Minister of the Slovak government and in the spring of I 991 Prime Minister. After the June, 1992 elections he was a Member of Parliament in opposition to the Meciar government. After the 1998 elections he served as Minister of Justice in the Dzurinda government active politics in September of 2002 . until his retirement from SLOVAKIA 209 PAAL SIGURD HILDE is a doctoral candidate at St. Anthony ' s College, Oxford University . He is writing his dissertation on Slovak nationalism after the collapse of Communism and has published "Slovak Nationalism and the Breakup of Czechoslovakia" . Europe-Asia Studies, 5 (No.2, 1998), 54 7-65. SUSUMU NAGA YO is Associate Professor of Political Science and Economics at Waseda University in Tokyo. He has published numerous articles about the Slovak language, literature, history and politics in Japanese, Slovak and American sc holarly journals. He is fluent in Russ ian and Slovak and also teaches those languages at his university . M. MARK STOLARIK is Professor of Hi story 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 many books and articles in the field. including Growing Up on the South Side: Three Genera- tions of Slovaks in Bethlehem. Pennsylvania. I 880-1976 (1985) and I111111igration a11(/ Urbani7.ation : The Slovak Experience. I 870- I 9 / 8 ( 1989). MARTIN VOTRUBA 1s Director of the Slovak Studies Programme in the Slavic Department of the University of Pittsburgh. He teaches courses in Slovak lan g uage , literature, film. and history. In the past he worked for Radio Free Europe and is still its U.S. correspondent. 210 SLOVAKIA GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPTS Manuscripts for poss ible publication sho uld be sent to th e editor. Articles sho uld not normally exceed twenty-five pages in length, should be submitted in duplicate and typed double -s paced, with generou s margins for copy-editing. Footnotes shou ld be numbered , entered consecutively and placed at the end of the paper. A copy of the paper s ho uld also be submitted on a flopp y disc, either in WordPerfect or MicrosoftWord format. Text and format should adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style. Proper orthography and diacritical marks mu st be s upplied for all foreign words . Manuscripts will no t be returned unless specifically requested and postage is provided. Books for review arc to be sent to the editor. Unsolicited book reviews are not encouraged . Individuals who wish to review books should request th e m from the editor . THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA Organized in 1907 Dr. LUDWIG J. PAVLO President W. NINA HOLY Secretary-Treasurer Vice-presidents: MIKULAS BENO ANNE Z. SAROSY JUSTINE WESNAK Executive Board: Dr. Ludwig J. Pavlo, W. Nina Holy, Dr. L. P. Hinterbuchner, Daniel F. Tanzone, Dr. John Karch, John A Holy, Mary Ann S. Johanek, Esq., Thomas M. Hricik, Sue Ann M. Seich, Rita M. Simalchik, David G. Balzek, Frank Rudzik Milan Cuba Youth Director SLOVAK FRATERNAL ORGANIZATIONS AFFILIATED WITH THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA FIRST CATHOLIC SLOVAK LADIES ASSOCIATION Beachwood, Ohio FIRST CATHOLIC SLOVAK UNION OF THE U.S. AND CANADA Independence, Ohio SLOVAK CATHOLIC SOKOL Passaic, New Jersey NATIONAL SLOVAK SOCIETY OF THE U.S.A. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania LADIES PENNSYLVANIA SLOVAK CATHOLIC UNION Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania SLOVAK NEWSPAPERMEN'S ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA THE SLOVAK GARDEN, INC. Winter Park, Florida SLOVAKIA $10.00 per issue  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. 37 (No. 68-69) 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 2003 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/05dfafdd202334bbd4ae128be709e595.pdf 3cff60302ef100432f5cf13ff2767e89 PDF Text Text REVIEWS ��SLOVAKIA 201 Stephen L. Crane, Survivor From An Unknown War: The Life of lsakjan Narzikul. Upland, PA.: Diane Publishing, 1999, 333pp. VLADIMIR BAUMGARTEN Tallahassee, Florida One of the most fundamental dilemmas confronting politically conscious individuals in East Central Europe during World War II was that of choosing between two evils: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. For the peoples of Soviet Central Asia, the choice was deceptively simple. They had never suffered under German domination , whereas Stalin's regime had abolished many aspects of their traditional way of life. Consequently, a Turkistani battalion served as part of the German Army and later the Nazi SS . The experiences of a Turkistani officer, Is.ikjan Narzikul, is the subject of the present work . lsakjan Nar1.ikul's boyhood offered every indication he would become a model Soviet citizen. Notwithstanding the Communist doctrine of international solidarity, at the military academy of Tashkent (predominately Russian in composition), Isakjan was treated as a member of a despised, dark-skinned minority. Yet he performed well , and was commissioned a lieutenant m the Red Army. During the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Isakjan was stationed in the Baltic territories, where he was captured. At this time a number of German military officers broke with Nazi racial ideology. They felt that, in order for Germany to win the war in the East, it was necessary to rally the Soviet peoples in a popular struggle against the Stalinist Soviet Union. Among the �202 SLOVAKJA various organizations sponsored in Berlin was the National Turkistani Unity Committee. Isakjan Narzikul became an adherent, and subseq uentl y an officer in the Turkistani battalion . This unit admitted and concealed the religious identity of Turkistan's Jewish co-nationals . Ironically, then , under Turkistani auspices, Jews served in the SS. The Turkistanis aided the Germans in the suppression of the Warsaw uprising in the summer of 1944. They conducted themselves with far less brutality toward s the civilians than did the Germans, although they were not averse to a certain amount of looting. From there they were transferred to Slovakia. The author did not mention that Slovakia experienced a full-fledged uprising in the autumn of 1944; he merely stated that the area was characterized by "partisan activity ." The Slovak National Uprising was formally crushed when the Germans captured the rebel center of Hanska Bystrica late in October. The Turkistanis did not arrive until December. Given the loot that they had acquired in Warsaw, and Slovakia's relative prosperity, it was initially an idyllic intervention . Isakjan's life underwent a dramatic change when his superior officer (who had a Ru ssian partisan girlfriend) decided to change sides once again. Only a few officers, including lsakjan, were consulted; the rank and file were shanghaied into the partisan movement. The Soviet officer who received them gave them the name Chapajcv group. It is worth noting here that a Chapajcv Brigade of partisans had previously been outstandingly active tn the Slovak uprising. The Turkistani gro up was largely decimated in a German ambush; Isakjan gathered together the survivors . He commanded a curious group of partisans, whose objectives did not include �SLOVAKIA 203 destroying railways , cutting communication wires, or ambushing German troops . Isakjan was concerned that its members simply survive. Eventually, they returned fire when the Germans fired upon them. But Isakjan 's most noteworthy accomplishment was winning the goodwill of the Slovak people. He maintained strict discipline over his unit in the village it occupied, punished an attempted rape, and was scrupulous in matters of requisition . Ultimately, he married a Slovak woman and overcame the distrust of his future father-in-law. After the war Isakjan became a Czechoslovak citizen. He was popular with the local Slovaks, who helped thwart Soviet efforts to deport him back to Turkistan . Eventually, however, Isakjan had to nee Czechoslovakia. He ultimately made his way to Philadelphia, where he worked hard and experienced a measure of success. He came to the attention of a local doctor, whose nephew , Stephen Crane, authored the present work . Survivor from an Unknown War suffers from several weaknesses . Crane is not a professional historian . He repeatedly refers to the Soviet intelligence/secret police apparatus as the KGB. During World War IL Soviet state security was referred to as the NKVD; KGB was not adopted as an acronym until 1964 . The book's index is virtually worthless. having numerous inaccuracies in page citations . In at least one instance it refers the reader to a blank page' Finally, when compared with other foreign groups which participated in the Slovak uprising (Frenchmen, Yugoslavs, Russians and Ukrainians) and non-Slovak nati vc groups (Jews and Roma), the participation or the Turkistanis was at best peripheral. None of this, however, detracts from Crane's poignant portrayal of a man who maintained his moral integrity under extremely adverse circumstances . The book also re11ccts favourably on the �204 SLOVAKJA Slovak people's sense of fair-play and hospitality during a particularly painful period in their hi story. Konstantin V. Lifanov, Jazyk duxovnoj literatury slovackich kato/ikov 16-18 vv. i kodifikacija A. Berno/aka. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 2000, I I 8pp . MARTIN VOTRUBA University of Pittsburgh During the early years of communism in the J95(fs, Slovak linguists - agreeing with their former Czech professors - wrote that literary Slovak was first codified in the 1780s by Anton Bernolak, a priest and zcman (lower nobleman) from Orava County. According to them, the written norm before Bernolak had been literary Czech, with varying degrees of regional Slovak influences. While insightful works about the development of the Slovak language as such had already been published by then , only limited research into its written norms prior to Bernolak was actually carried out earlier, or after that, and the assertions from the 1950s have been repeated since. Detailed analyses of the norms and standards did not reappear until the 1990s. Interestingly , they were done by linguists outside Slovakia: [ubomfr Durovic at the University of Lund, Sweden ; Mark Lauersdorf at Luther University, Iowa: and Konstantin Lifanov, at the M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University , Russia. In February of 2001 Moscow University published Lifanov ' s book on the language of Slovak Catholic ecclesiastical literature from the l 6th through the 18th centuries. During two decades of �SLOVAKJA 205 research in Slovak archives and libraries , Lifanov analyzed both printed and written texts that originated before Bernolak. Lifanov concluded that, contrary to earlier assumptions, Slovak authors have used a written standard separate from the written standard of Prague since the 16th century. The Kingdom of Bohemia, with its large Czech population , was part of the Holy Roman Empire, and as such was among the first areas in Central Europe to pick up on new trends from the West, including writing in the local vernacular instead of in Latin. The written standard that developed in Prag ue served as an influential model in the establishment of Polish writing, and was adopted outright by the Slovaks in the Kingdom of Hungary to the east of Bohemia in the 14th century. At that time Czech was closer to Slovak than it is now . However, prompted by the spread of Luther's reforms m the Kingdom of Hungary after the 1530s, the need to publish in the vernacular, rather than in Latin, grew and ongoing changes m the Czech written standard gradually ceased to be picked up by Slovak writers. They began to rely on their own traditions , first in religious writing, and later in administrative texts as well. The changes in the written standard involved both a retention of grammatical features originally adopted from Czech, which had become obsolete in the written standard of Prague, and an establishment of Slovak features in many instances where the two languages differed. By the 1610s a systematic written standard was in place in Slovakia, which was never used in Moravia or Bohemia. It was respected by authors regardless of their religious affiliation Catholic, or Lutheran. While Slovak linguists in the 1950s said that their written language had been subdivided into western, central and eastern varieties, Lifanov demonstrated that Slovak �SLOVAKIA 206 authors in the Kingdom of Hungary respected a single literary standard , which mainly relied on western Slovak features. According to Lifanov, Bcrnolak 's " manual of style" from the l 780s was not a new standardization , but a description and adjustment of the Slovak written standard that had been in place since the early 17th century. Only the Lutheran ecclesiastical writin g and poetry (but not many of their other texts) took a different path during the counter-Reformation , when their persec ution peaked . But the Lutherans did not use the contemporary Prague written standard either. Rather, they reverted to the archaic style of a Protestant translation of the Bible published in Moravia in the 1590s, whose lang uage had already been o bsolete for one or two ce nturies at the time of its publication . During empress Maria Theresa's re ig n in the 18th century, the close adherence to th e language of that tran slatio n of the Bible in their ' hig h literature' became an article of faith and religious survival for the Lutherans. Tradition made their descendants partial to the o bsolete style fo r several decades after emperor Joseph ll 's Edict of Toleration of 1781. Czec h and Slovak lin guists in the 20th century ge nerally reviewed only old high literature, and hig h literature was mos tl y written by the Lutheran intelligentsia. Moreover, Slovak and Czech have many common features. and the academics Czech and later their Slovak disciples - first took all the features that did not differ from Czech to be Czech, including in the vast num ber of instances when the features were the same in Slovak. To illustrate the approach in a theo retical example, if the features m a text were one-third Czech, one-third the same in Czech and Slovak , and one-third Slovak, the whole text would be seen as two-thirds, i.e. " in principle" Czech, rather than as two-third s �207 SLOVAKIA Slovak, or as open to both interpretations and subject to further analysis. Yet another reason for misidentification was that, by comparison to modem Slovak, west Slovak features, which used to be the main source of the Slovak written standard, are ofte n closer to Czech. That increased the like lihood that 20th-ce ntury linguists, not familiar with regional varieties of Slovak, dismissive of the possibility of their employment in the old written standard , or not s ufficiently th orough, would no t take account of them. It is worth noting that, although his research may no t converge with Lifanov 's, Durovic showed in a recent paper th at there indeed was a concept of a written standard before Bernolak 's manual of style. Bcmo lak drew o n a grammar book pub lished in Bratislava in the 1740s by Lutheran Pas tor Pavel Do lezal, who chastised his contemporaries for writing in their 18th century lang uage instead of using the archaic Biblical style. According to Lifanov, the pre-existin g Slovak written standard was established so well that even those who welcomed Bcrnolak 's manual of style often just appeared to respect it where Bcmolak 's codification agreed with the existing norm , but adhered to the traditional standard where Bcrnolak di verged from it. To sum up. Lifanov ·s research shows that the Slovaks ado pted the ir written norm from Prague in the 14th ce ntury. Slovak and Czech writing bifurcated after the 1530s, when the Slovaks began to ignore ongoing changes in Prag ue , and introduced Slovak innovations. A Slovak written standard had developed by the 1610s. Except for a reversal to an arc haic style limited to hi g h literature by Lutheran authors in the 18th and earl y 19th centuries, that written standard was used through its major reform by [udovft Stur in the middle of the 19th ce ntury. � REVIEWS ��SLOVAKIA 201 Stephen L. Crane, Survivor From An Unknown War: The Life of lsakjan Narzikul. Upland, PA.: Diane Publishing, 1999, 333pp. VLADIMIR BAUMGARTEN Tallahassee, Florida One of the most fundamental dilemmas confronting politically conscious individuals in East Central Europe during World War II was that of choosing between two evils: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. For the peoples of Soviet Central Asia, the choice was deceptively simple. They had never suffered under German domination , whereas Stalin's regime had abolished many aspects of their traditional way of life. Consequently, a Turkistani battalion served as part of the German Army and later the Nazi SS . The experiences of a Turkistani officer, Is.ikjan Narzikul, is the subject of the present work . lsakjan Nar1.ikul's boyhood offered every indication he would become a model Soviet citizen. Notwithstanding the Communist doctrine of international solidarity, at the military academy of Tashkent (predominately Russian in composition), Isakjan was treated as a member of a despised, dark-skinned minority. Yet he performed well , and was commissioned a lieutenant m the Red Army. During the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Isakjan was stationed in the Baltic territories, where he was captured. At this time a number of German military officers broke with Nazi racial ideology. They felt that, in order for Germany to win the war in the East, it was necessary to rally the Soviet peoples in a popular struggle against the Stalinist Soviet Union. Among the �202 SLOVAKJA various organizations sponsored in Berlin was the National Turkistani Unity Committee. Isakjan Narzikul became an adherent, and subseq uentl y an officer in the Turkistani battalion . This unit admitted and concealed the religious identity of Turkistan's Jewish co-nationals . Ironically, then , under Turkistani auspices, Jews served in the SS. The Turkistanis aided the Germans in the suppression of the Warsaw uprising in the summer of 1944. They conducted themselves with far less brutality toward s the civilians than did the Germans, although they were not averse to a certain amount of looting. From there they were transferred to Slovakia. The author did not mention that Slovakia experienced a full-fledged uprising in the autumn of 1944; he merely stated that the area was characterized by "partisan activity ." The Slovak National Uprising was formally crushed when the Germans captured the rebel center of Hanska Bystrica late in October. The Turkistanis did not arrive until December. Given the loot that they had acquired in Warsaw, and Slovakia's relative prosperity, it was initially an idyllic intervention . Isakjan's life underwent a dramatic change when his superior officer (who had a Ru ssian partisan girlfriend) decided to change sides once again. Only a few officers, including lsakjan, were consulted; the rank and file were shanghaied into the partisan movement. The Soviet officer who received them gave them the name Chapajcv group. It is worth noting here that a Chapajcv Brigade of partisans had previously been outstandingly active tn the Slovak uprising. The Turkistani gro up was largely decimated in a German ambush; Isakjan gathered together the survivors . He commanded a curious group of partisans, whose objectives did not include �SLOVAKIA 203 destroying railways , cutting communication wires, or ambushing German troops . Isakjan was concerned that its members simply survive. Eventually, they returned fire when the Germans fired upon them. But Isakjan 's most noteworthy accomplishment was winning the goodwill of the Slovak people. He maintained strict discipline over his unit in the village it occupied, punished an attempted rape, and was scrupulous in matters of requisition . Ultimately, he married a Slovak woman and overcame the distrust of his future father-in-law. After the war Isakjan became a Czechoslovak citizen. He was popular with the local Slovaks, who helped thwart Soviet efforts to deport him back to Turkistan . Eventually, however, Isakjan had to nee Czechoslovakia. He ultimately made his way to Philadelphia, where he worked hard and experienced a measure of success. He came to the attention of a local doctor, whose nephew , Stephen Crane, authored the present work . Survivor from an Unknown War suffers from several weaknesses . Crane is not a professional historian . He repeatedly refers to the Soviet intelligence/secret police apparatus as the KGB. During World War IL Soviet state security was referred to as the NKVD; KGB was not adopted as an acronym until 1964 . The book's index is virtually worthless. having numerous inaccuracies in page citations . In at least one instance it refers the reader to a blank page' Finally, when compared with other foreign groups which participated in the Slovak uprising (Frenchmen, Yugoslavs, Russians and Ukrainians) and non-Slovak nati vc groups (Jews and Roma), the participation or the Turkistanis was at best peripheral. None of this, however, detracts from Crane's poignant portrayal of a man who maintained his moral integrity under extremely adverse circumstances . The book also re11ccts favourably on the �204 SLOVAKJA Slovak people's sense of fair-play and hospitality during a particularly painful period in their hi story. Konstantin V. Lifanov, Jazyk duxovnoj literatury slovackich kato/ikov 16-18 vv. i kodifikacija A. Berno/aka. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 2000, I I 8pp . MARTIN VOTRUBA University of Pittsburgh During the early years of communism in the J95(fs, Slovak linguists - agreeing with their former Czech professors - wrote that literary Slovak was first codified in the 1780s by Anton Bernolak, a priest and zcman (lower nobleman) from Orava County. According to them, the written norm before Bernolak had been literary Czech, with varying degrees of regional Slovak influences. While insightful works about the development of the Slovak language as such had already been published by then , only limited research into its written norms prior to Bernolak was actually carried out earlier, or after that, and the assertions from the 1950s have been repeated since. Detailed analyses of the norms and standards did not reappear until the 1990s. Interestingly , they were done by linguists outside Slovakia: [ubomfr Durovic at the University of Lund, Sweden ; Mark Lauersdorf at Luther University, Iowa: and Konstantin Lifanov, at the M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University , Russia. In February of 2001 Moscow University published Lifanov ' s book on the language of Slovak Catholic ecclesiastical literature from the l 6th through the 18th centuries. During two decades of �SLOVAKJA 205 research in Slovak archives and libraries , Lifanov analyzed both printed and written texts that originated before Bernolak. Lifanov concluded that, contrary to earlier assumptions, Slovak authors have used a written standard separate from the written standard of Prague since the 16th century. The Kingdom of Bohemia, with its large Czech population , was part of the Holy Roman Empire, and as such was among the first areas in Central Europe to pick up on new trends from the West, including writing in the local vernacular instead of in Latin. The written standard that developed in Prag ue served as an influential model in the establishment of Polish writing, and was adopted outright by the Slovaks in the Kingdom of Hungary to the east of Bohemia in the 14th century. At that time Czech was closer to Slovak than it is now . However, prompted by the spread of Luther's reforms m the Kingdom of Hungary after the 1530s, the need to publish in the vernacular, rather than in Latin, grew and ongoing changes m the Czech written standard gradually ceased to be picked up by Slovak writers. They began to rely on their own traditions , first in religious writing, and later in administrative texts as well. The changes in the written standard involved both a retention of grammatical features originally adopted from Czech, which had become obsolete in the written standard of Prague, and an establishment of Slovak features in many instances where the two languages differed. By the 1610s a systematic written standard was in place in Slovakia, which was never used in Moravia or Bohemia. It was respected by authors regardless of their religious affiliation Catholic, or Lutheran. While Slovak linguists in the 1950s said that their written language had been subdivided into western, central and eastern varieties, Lifanov demonstrated that Slovak �SLOVAKIA 206 authors in the Kingdom of Hungary respected a single literary standard , which mainly relied on western Slovak features. According to Lifanov, Bcrnolak 's " manual of style" from the l 780s was not a new standardization , but a description and adjustment of the Slovak written standard that had been in place since the early 17th century. Only the Lutheran ecclesiastical writin g and poetry (but not many of their other texts) took a different path during the counter-Reformation , when their persec ution peaked . But the Lutherans did not use the contemporary Prague written standard either. Rather, they reverted to the archaic style of a Protestant translation of the Bible published in Moravia in the 1590s, whose lang uage had already been o bsolete for one or two ce nturies at the time of its publication . During empress Maria Theresa's re ig n in the 18th century, the close adherence to th e language of that tran slatio n of the Bible in their ' hig h literature' became an article of faith and religious survival for the Lutherans. Tradition made their descendants partial to the o bsolete style fo r several decades after emperor Joseph ll 's Edict of Toleration of 1781. Czec h and Slovak lin guists in the 20th century ge nerally reviewed only old high literature, and hig h literature was mos tl y written by the Lutheran intelligentsia. Moreover, Slovak and Czech have many common features. and the academics Czech and later their Slovak disciples - first took all the features that did not differ from Czech to be Czech, including in the vast num ber of instances when the features were the same in Slovak. To illustrate the approach in a theo retical example, if the features m a text were one-third Czech, one-third the same in Czech and Slovak , and one-third Slovak, the whole text would be seen as two-thirds, i.e. " in principle" Czech, rather than as two-third s �207 SLOVAKIA Slovak, or as open to both interpretations and subject to further analysis. Yet another reason for misidentification was that, by comparison to modem Slovak, west Slovak features, which used to be the main source of the Slovak written standard, are ofte n closer to Czech. That increased the like lihood that 20th-ce ntury linguists, not familiar with regional varieties of Slovak, dismissive of the possibility of their employment in the old written standard , or not s ufficiently th orough, would no t take account of them. It is worth noting that, although his research may no t converge with Lifanov 's, Durovic showed in a recent paper th at there indeed was a concept of a written standard before Bernolak 's manual of style. Bcmo lak drew o n a grammar book pub lished in Bratislava in the 1740s by Lutheran Pas tor Pavel Do lezal, who chastised his contemporaries for writing in their 18th century lang uage instead of using the archaic Biblical style. According to Lifanov, the pre-existin g Slovak written standard was established so well that even those who welcomed Bcrnolak 's manual of style often just appeared to respect it where Bcmolak 's codification agreed with the existing norm , but adhered to the traditional standard where Bcrnolak di verged from it. To sum up. Lifanov ·s research shows that the Slovaks ado pted the ir written norm from Prague in the 14th ce ntury. Slovak and Czech writing bifurcated after the 1530s, when the Slovaks began to ignore ongoing changes in Prag ue , and introduced Slovak innovations. A Slovak written standard had developed by the 1610s. Except for a reversal to an arc haic style limited to hi g h literature by Lutheran authors in the 18th and earl y 19th centuries, that written standard was used through its major reform by [udovft Stur in the middle of the 19th ce ntury. � 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 2003, Vol. 37 Description An account of the resource Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 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 201 Stephen L. Crane, Survivor From An Unknown War: The Life of lsakjan Narzikul. Upland, PA.: Diane Publishing, 1999, 333pp. VLADIMIR BAUMGARTEN Tallahassee, Florida One of the most fundamental dilemmas confronting politically conscious individuals in East Central Europe during World War II was that of choosing between two evils: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. For the peoples of Soviet Central Asia, the choice was deceptively simple. They had never suffered under German domination , whereas Stalin's regime had abolished many aspects of their traditional way of life. Consequently, a Turkistani battalion served as part of the German Army and later the Nazi SS . The experiences of a Turkistani officer, Is.ikjan Narzikul, is the subject of the present work . lsakjan Nar1.ikul's boyhood offered every indication he would become a model Soviet citizen. Notwithstanding the Communist doctrine of international solidarity, at the military academy of Tashkent (predominately Russian in composition), Isakjan was treated as a member of a despised, dark-skinned minority. Yet he performed well , and was commissioned a lieutenant m the Red Army. During the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Isakjan was stationed in the Baltic territories, where he was captured. At this time a number of German military officers broke with Nazi racial ideology. They felt that, in order for Germany to win the war in the East, it was necessary to rally the Soviet peoples in a popular struggle against the Stalinist Soviet Union. Among the 202 SLOVAKJA various organizations sponsored in Berlin was the National Turkistani Unity Committee. Isakjan Narzikul became an adherent, and subseq uentl y an officer in the Turkistani battalion . This unit admitted and concealed the religious identity of Turkistan's Jewish co-nationals . Ironically, then , under Turkistani auspices, Jews served in the SS. The Turkistanis aided the Germans in the suppression of the Warsaw uprising in the summer of 1944. They conducted themselves with far less brutality toward s the civilians than did the Germans, although they were not averse to a certain amount of looting. From there they were transferred to Slovakia. The author did not mention that Slovakia experienced a full-fledged uprising in the autumn of 1944; he merely stated that the area was characterized by "partisan activity ." The Slovak National Uprising was formally crushed when the Germans captured the rebel center of Hanska Bystrica late in October. The Turkistanis did not arrive until December. Given the loot that they had acquired in Warsaw, and Slovakia's relative prosperity, it was initially an idyllic intervention . Isakjan's life underwent a dramatic change when his superior officer (who had a Ru ssian partisan girlfriend) decided to change sides once again. Only a few officers, including lsakjan, were consulted; the rank and file were shanghaied into the partisan movement. The Soviet officer who received them gave them the name Chapajcv group. It is worth noting here that a Chapajcv Brigade of partisans had previously been outstandingly active tn the Slovak uprising. The Turkistani gro up was largely decimated in a German ambush; Isakjan gathered together the survivors . He commanded a curious group of partisans, whose objectives did not include SLOVAKIA 203 destroying railways , cutting communication wires, or ambushing German troops . Isakjan was concerned that its members simply survive. Eventually, they returned fire when the Germans fired upon them. But Isakjan 's most noteworthy accomplishment was winning the goodwill of the Slovak people. He maintained strict discipline over his unit in the village it occupied, punished an attempted rape, and was scrupulous in matters of requisition . Ultimately, he married a Slovak woman and overcame the distrust of his future father-in-law. After the war Isakjan became a Czechoslovak citizen. He was popular with the local Slovaks, who helped thwart Soviet efforts to deport him back to Turkistan . Eventually, however, Isakjan had to nee Czechoslovakia. He ultimately made his way to Philadelphia, where he worked hard and experienced a measure of success. He came to the attention of a local doctor, whose nephew , Stephen Crane, authored the present work . Survivor from an Unknown War suffers from several weaknesses . Crane is not a professional historian . He repeatedly refers to the Soviet intelligence/secret police apparatus as the KGB. During World War IL Soviet state security was referred to as the NKVD; KGB was not adopted as an acronym until 1964 . The book's index is virtually worthless. having numerous inaccuracies in page citations . In at least one instance it refers the reader to a blank page' Finally, when compared with other foreign groups which participated in the Slovak uprising (Frenchmen, Yugoslavs, Russians and Ukrainians) and non-Slovak nati vc groups (Jews and Roma), the participation or the Turkistanis was at best peripheral. None of this, however, detracts from Crane's poignant portrayal of a man who maintained his moral integrity under extremely adverse circumstances . The book also re11ccts favourably on the 204 SLOVAKJA Slovak people's sense of fair-play and hospitality during a particularly painful period in their hi story. Konstantin V. Lifanov, Jazyk duxovnoj literatury slovackich kato/ikov 16-18 vv. i kodifikacija A. Berno/aka. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 2000, I I 8pp . MARTIN VOTRUBA University of Pittsburgh During the early years of communism in the J95(fs, Slovak linguists - agreeing with their former Czech professors - wrote that literary Slovak was first codified in the 1780s by Anton Bernolak, a priest and zcman (lower nobleman) from Orava County. According to them, the written norm before Bernolak had been literary Czech, with varying degrees of regional Slovak influences. While insightful works about the development of the Slovak language as such had already been published by then , only limited research into its written norms prior to Bernolak was actually carried out earlier, or after that, and the assertions from the 1950s have been repeated since. Detailed analyses of the norms and standards did not reappear until the 1990s. Interestingly , they were done by linguists outside Slovakia: [ubomfr Durovic at the University of Lund, Sweden ; Mark Lauersdorf at Luther University, Iowa: and Konstantin Lifanov, at the M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University , Russia. In February of 2001 Moscow University published Lifanov ' s book on the language of Slovak Catholic ecclesiastical literature from the l 6th through the 18th centuries. During two decades of SLOVAKJA 205 research in Slovak archives and libraries , Lifanov analyzed both printed and written texts that originated before Bernolak. Lifanov concluded that, contrary to earlier assumptions, Slovak authors have used a written standard separate from the written standard of Prague since the 16th century. The Kingdom of Bohemia, with its large Czech population , was part of the Holy Roman Empire, and as such was among the first areas in Central Europe to pick up on new trends from the West, including writing in the local vernacular instead of in Latin. The written standard that developed in Prag ue served as an influential model in the establishment of Polish writing, and was adopted outright by the Slovaks in the Kingdom of Hungary to the east of Bohemia in the 14th century. At that time Czech was closer to Slovak than it is now . However, prompted by the spread of Luther's reforms m the Kingdom of Hungary after the 1530s, the need to publish in the vernacular, rather than in Latin, grew and ongoing changes m the Czech written standard gradually ceased to be picked up by Slovak writers. They began to rely on their own traditions , first in religious writing, and later in administrative texts as well. The changes in the written standard involved both a retention of grammatical features originally adopted from Czech, which had become obsolete in the written standard of Prague, and an establishment of Slovak features in many instances where the two languages differed. By the 1610s a systematic written standard was in place in Slovakia, which was never used in Moravia or Bohemia. It was respected by authors regardless of their religious affiliation Catholic, or Lutheran. While Slovak linguists in the 1950s said that their written language had been subdivided into western, central and eastern varieties, Lifanov demonstrated that Slovak SLOVAKIA 206 authors in the Kingdom of Hungary respected a single literary standard , which mainly relied on western Slovak features. According to Lifanov, Bcrnolak 's " manual of style" from the l 780s was not a new standardization , but a description and adjustment of the Slovak written standard that had been in place since the early 17th century. Only the Lutheran ecclesiastical writin g and poetry (but not many of their other texts) took a different path during the counter-Reformation , when their persec ution peaked . But the Lutherans did not use the contemporary Prague written standard either. Rather, they reverted to the archaic style of a Protestant translation of the Bible published in Moravia in the 1590s, whose lang uage had already been o bsolete for one or two ce nturies at the time of its publication . During empress Maria Theresa's re ig n in the 18th century, the close adherence to th e language of that tran slatio n of the Bible in their ' hig h literature' became an article of faith and religious survival for the Lutherans. Tradition made their descendants partial to the o bsolete style fo r several decades after emperor Joseph ll 's Edict of Toleration of 1781. Czec h and Slovak lin guists in the 20th century ge nerally reviewed only old high literature, and hig h literature was mos tl y written by the Lutheran intelligentsia. Moreover, Slovak and Czech have many common features. and the academics Czech and later their Slovak disciples - first took all the features that did not differ from Czech to be Czech, including in the vast num ber of instances when the features were the same in Slovak. To illustrate the approach in a theo retical example, if the features m a text were one-third Czech, one-third the same in Czech and Slovak , and one-third Slovak, the whole text would be seen as two-thirds, i.e. " in principle" Czech, rather than as two-third s 207 SLOVAKIA Slovak, or as open to both interpretations and subject to further analysis. Yet another reason for misidentification was that, by comparison to modem Slovak, west Slovak features, which used to be the main source of the Slovak written standard, are ofte n closer to Czech. That increased the like lihood that 20th-ce ntury linguists, not familiar with regional varieties of Slovak, dismissive of the possibility of their employment in the old written standard , or not s ufficiently th orough, would no t take account of them. It is worth noting that, although his research may no t converge with Lifanov 's, Durovic showed in a recent paper th at there indeed was a concept of a written standard before Bernolak 's manual of style. Bcmo lak drew o n a grammar book pub lished in Bratislava in the 1740s by Lutheran Pas tor Pavel Do lezal, who chastised his contemporaries for writing in their 18th century lang uage instead of using the archaic Biblical style. According to Lifanov, the pre-existin g Slovak written standard was established so well that even those who welcomed Bcrnolak 's manual of style often just appeared to respect it where Bcmolak 's codification agreed with the existing norm , but adhered to the traditional standard where Bcrnolak di verged from it. To sum up. Lifanov ·s research shows that the Slovaks ado pted the ir written norm from Prague in the 14th ce ntury. Slovak and Czech writing bifurcated after the 1530s, when the Slovaks began to ignore ongoing changes in Prag ue , and introduced Slovak innovations. A Slovak written standard had developed by the 1610s. Except for a reversal to an arc haic style limited to hi g h literature by Lutheran authors in the 18th and earl y 19th centuries, that written standard was used through its major reform by [udovft Stur in the middle of the 19th ce ntury.  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. 37 (No. 68-69) Description An account of the resource includes:<br /><ul><li>Stephen L. Crane, Survivor From An Unknown War: The Life of Isakjan Narzikul (Vladimír Baumgarten), p. 201</li> <li>Konstantin V. Lifanov, Jazyk duxovnoj literatury slovackich katolikov 16-18 vv. i kodifikacija A. Bernolaka (Martin Votruba), p. 204</li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Baumgarten, R. Vladimir Votruba, Martin Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 LCNAF name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/90f56c4ca7321a1486c0a713952b72ee.pdf 54df99dee04ce3534055921e37d4af78 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA Published By THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA ��SLOVAKIA VOLUME 2003 XXXVII NUMBERS 68-69 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 ROBERT K. EV ANSON University of Missouri MICHAEL NOV AK American Enterprise Institute JAMES R. FELAK University of Washington PETER PETRO University of British Columbia LOUISE B. HAMMER Indiana University NORMA L. RUDINSKY Oregon State University Publisher Slovak League of America 205 Madison Str. Passaic, NJ 07055, USA Inquiries regarding subscriptions should be sent to the above address. The cost of a single issue is U.S. $10.00 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 3Z7. ��Table of Contents ARTICLES The Slovak Question in the lnterwar (1918-1938) and Post-War ( 1945-1948) Czechoslovak Republics James R . Pelak.... ... ..... .. ... ... ...... ......... ........................... .... ... ... .... . 7 Slovak som a Slovak budem: Explaining Nationalism in PostCommunist Slovakia Paa/ Sigurd Hilde .................. ........... .............. ... ..... ........ ... ........ 2 8 Reversing the Trend : Central Europe from Dictatorship to Democracy Jan Carnogursky .... ........ .. ....... ....... ... .. ...... ........... ....... ... ........... 5 7 Trends in 20th Century Slovak Filmmaking Martin Votruba ........ ....... ....... ... .. ....... ................... ..... .... .. ......... 71 DOCUMENTATION Sketches from a Slovak Catholic Parish in Pittston , PA [ 1900) Mattis Jankola ..... .... ...... ..... ...... .. ... ......... ..... .............. ..... ... ...... IO I Konstantfn Culen 's Long Journey from Italy to Canada as Illustrated by His Correspondence with Juraj Rondos Susumu Nagayo ... ...... ..... .. .......... .... ....... ............. .................. .. 112 The Political , Economic, and Cultural Situation in the Slovak Republic (As of May, 1995) M. Mark Stolarik .. ...... ............ .............. ...... ......... ..... ......... ...... l 72 �4 SLOVAKIA REVIEWS Stephen L. Crane, Survivor from an Unknown War: The Life of Isakjan Narzikul Vladimir Baumgarten ............ ............ ....... .... ..... ... .... ... .. .. .... .... 20 l Konstantin V. Lifanov, Jazyk duchovnoj literatury slovackich katolikov 16-18 vv. i kodifikacija A. Bemo/aka. Martin Votruba ... .. .. .. ...... .... .. .. ........ ..... .. ..... ....... ... .... ......... ..... 204 Contributors .......... ...... .... .... ........ .. .. .............. ... ..... ............. .... ..... .. 208 Guidelines for Manuscripts .......... ........ ................. ................. ..... ... 2 l 0 �ARTICLES �� SLOVAKIA Published By THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA ��SLOVAKIA VOLUME 2003 XXXVII NUMBERS 68-69 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 ROBERT K. EV ANSON University of Missouri MICHAEL NOV AK American Enterprise Institute JAMES R. FELAK University of Washington PETER PETRO University of British Columbia LOUISE B. HAMMER Indiana University NORMA L. RUDINSKY Oregon State University Publisher Slovak League of America 205 Madison Str. Passaic, NJ 07055, USA Inquiries regarding subscriptions should be sent to the above address. The cost of a single issue is U.S. $10.00 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 3Z7. ��Table of Contents ARTICLES The Slovak Question in the lnterwar (1918-1938) and Post-War ( 1945-1948) Czechoslovak Republics James R . Pelak.... ... ..... .. ... ... ...... ......... ........................... .... ... ... .... . 7 Slovak som a Slovak budem: Explaining Nationalism in PostCommunist Slovakia Paa/ Sigurd Hilde .................. ........... .............. ... ..... ........ ... ........ 2 8 Reversing the Trend : Central Europe from Dictatorship to Democracy Jan Carnogursky .... ........ .. ....... ....... ... .. ...... ........... ....... ... ........... 5 7 Trends in 20th Century Slovak Filmmaking Martin Votruba ........ ....... ....... ... .. ....... ................... ..... .... .. ......... 71 DOCUMENTATION Sketches from a Slovak Catholic Parish in Pittston , PA [ 1900) Mattis Jankola ..... .... ...... ..... ...... .. ... ......... ..... .............. ..... ... ...... IO I Konstantfn Culen 's Long Journey from Italy to Canada as Illustrated by His Correspondence with Juraj Rondos Susumu Nagayo ... ...... ..... .. .......... .... ....... ............. .................. .. 112 The Political , Economic, and Cultural Situation in the Slovak Republic (As of May, 1995) M. Mark Stolarik .. ...... ............ .............. ...... ......... ..... ......... ...... l 72 �4 SLOVAKIA REVIEWS Stephen L. Crane, Survivor from an Unknown War: The Life of Isakjan Narzikul Vladimir Baumgarten ............ ............ ....... .... ..... ... .... ... .. .. .... .... 20 l Konstantin V. Lifanov, Jazyk duchovnoj literatury slovackich katolikov 16-18 vv. i kodifikacija A. Bemo/aka. Martin Votruba ... .. .. .. ...... .... .. .. ........ ..... .. ..... ....... ... .... ......... ..... 204 Contributors .......... ...... .... .... ........ .. .. .............. ... ..... ............. .... ..... .. 208 Guidelines for Manuscripts .......... ........ ................. ................. ..... ... 2 l 0 �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 2003, Vol. 37 Description An account of the resource Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 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 2003 XXXVII NUMBERS 68-69 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 ROBERT K. EV ANSON University of Missouri MICHAEL NOV AK American Enterprise Institute JAMES R. FELAK University of Washington PETER PETRO University of British Columbia LOUISE B. HAMMER Indiana University NORMA L. RUDINSKY Oregon State University Publisher Slovak League of America 205 Madison Str. Passaic, NJ 07055, USA Inquiries regarding subscriptions should be sent to the above address. The cost of a single issue is U.S. $10.00 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 3Z7. Table of Contents ARTICLES The Slovak Question in the lnterwar (1918-1938) and Post-War ( 1945-1948) Czechoslovak Republics James R . Pelak.... ... ..... .. ... ... ...... ......... ........................... .... ... ... .... . 7 Slovak som a Slovak budem: Explaining Nationalism in PostCommunist Slovakia Paa/ Sigurd Hilde .................. ........... .............. ... ..... ........ ... ........ 2 8 Reversing the Trend : Central Europe from Dictatorship to Democracy Jan Carnogursky .... ........ .. ....... ....... ... .. ...... ........... ....... ... ........... 5 7 Trends in 20th Century Slovak Filmmaking Martin Votruba ........ ....... ....... ... .. ....... ................... ..... .... .. ......... 71 DOCUMENTATION Sketches from a Slovak Catholic Parish in Pittston , PA [ 1900) Mattis Jankola ..... .... ...... ..... ...... .. ... ......... ..... .............. ..... ... ...... IO I Konstantfn Culen 's Long Journey from Italy to Canada as Illustrated by His Correspondence with Juraj Rondos Susumu Nagayo ... ...... ..... .. .......... .... ....... ............. .................. .. 112 The Political , Economic, and Cultural Situation in the Slovak Republic (As of May, 1995) M. Mark Stolarik .. ...... ............ .............. ...... ......... ..... ......... ...... l 72 4 SLOVAKIA REVIEWS Stephen L. Crane, Survivor from an Unknown War: The Life of Isakjan Narzikul Vladimir Baumgarten ............ ............ ....... .... ..... ... .... ... .. .. .... .... 20 l Konstantin V. Lifanov, Jazyk duchovnoj literatury slovackich katolikov 16-18 vv. i kodifikacija A. Bemo/aka. Martin Votruba ... .. .. .. ...... .... .. .. ........ ..... .. ..... ....... ... .... ......... ..... 204 Contributors .......... ...... .... .... ........ .. .. .............. ... ..... ............. .... ..... .. 208 Guidelines for Manuscripts .......... ........ ................. ................. ..... ... 2 l 0 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. 37 (No. 68-69) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/56bacb841e7207956374c07341cd4331.pdf 981e19dce89d5c113176023f9f6f41ac PDF Text Text 112 SLOVAKJA DOCUMENTATION: V Konstantin Culen' s Long Journey from Italy to Canada As Illustrated by his Correspondence with Juraj Rondos 1 Susumu Nagayo The emigration of post-World War II political emigres from Europe to North America was a long and complicated process. Both the United States and Canada had passed legislation severely restricting immigration to their respective countries in the l 920's and l 930's and this legislation made it virtually impossible for post-war refugees to gain easy access into either country. T o illustrate this difficulty I will focu s upon one such refugee - the 2 nationalist Slovak writer Konstantin Culen . This article is based ' I would like to thank the staff of the Archives and Special Collec tio ns of Mori sset Library at the Uni versity of Ottawa fo r their kind supp011 of my work. I also deeply th ank Professor M. M. Stolarik fo r his critical comme nts and English correcti o ns. 2 On Konstantin C\ilen ' s life see the fo llowing works and arti cles: Franti sek Vnuk, Zivotopis Konstantina Culena [Biograph y of Konstantin Cul en]. C le veland , the Sl ovak Institute, 1984; S/ovensk f biografick f s/ovnik (od roku 833 do roku 1990) I [Slovak Biographical Dictionary (from 833 to 1990)]. I. Martin. Matica slovenska, 1986, pp.433-434; "Kalend ari um zivota a d iela [Chro nicle of his life and work s]". · In Stefan Baranovic (ed.), Konstantin Cu/en (1904 Brodsk e - 1964 New York ). Z bomik vydanf na pocest' nedoiitfch deviit'desiatych naro- �113 SLOVAKJA on the unpublished correspondence between Konstantin Culen and Juraj Rondos, which is in the Slovak Archives of Morisset Library at the University of Ottawa. 3 We will reconstruct Culen 's case by extensively quoting from his correspondence, which was written in Slovak. dcnfn historika a novinara [Konstantfn Culen. Almanac Published in Ho nor of the Ninetieth Birthday of the Historian and Journalist]. Martin , Mati ca slove nska. 1995, pp.66-68: Augustfn Mat'ovcfk and others, Reprezentacny biografic- ky Jexik6n 5/ovenska [Representative Biographical Lexicon of Slovakia] Martin, Matica slovenska. 1999, pp.59-60. During his life Culen wrote many boo k s and articles. We still do not have his complete bibliography. Meanwhile see the following articles : Jozef Kirschbaum, "Bibliografia literarnych prac K. C ul e na [Bibliography of Literary Works of K. Culen]", Slovak v Amerike, Jul y 29 th. 1964: Frantisek Vnuk, :Zvotopis Konstantfna C ulena. pp.225-227; 5/ovensky biograficky s/ovmk. I, p. 434; Jozef Pauco, "Predstavitelia slovenskej kulturnej tvorby [Representati ves of Slovak Cultural Creation]. Konstantfn C ulen ", Jcdnota, September 19th , 1990; "Bibliografia literarncj tvorby [Bibliography of Literary Creation] ". in Stefan Baranovic (ed.), Konstantfn Culen , pp .55 -63. Among the above-mentioned bibliographies. the last has the most information . ' The correspondence between Konstantin Culen and Juraj Rond os is located in the Slovak Archives of the Archives and Special Co llecti ons. It belongs to th e Imrich Stolarik Fonds (ARCS 98 -1). which co nsists of 38 boxes. The material s were donated to the Uni ve rsity at the end of 1998 by the fo nner President of th e Canadian Slovak League, Inu·ich Stolarik ( 1909-2000). They consist mainly of the organi zational papers of the League . but also contai n personal materials of the founders of the League. such as Gabriel Kurdel, Andrej Kucera, and Juraj Rondos. At prese nt (November of 200 1). the Imric h Stolarik Fonds is still being processed. A Preliminary Guide to the Imrich Stolarik Fo nds is available in the reading room of the Archives . The corresponde nce of Juraj Rondos is in fo ur boxes (575-578). It co nsists of his official and personal documents and co ntains thousands of items. Among them are interestin g materials relating t o Rondos ·s mediation on behalf of Slovak refu gees seeking to enter Canada after World War II. The file of correspondence between Cul en and Ro ndos is fo und in box 577. This fi le co ntain s 165 letters (6 1 from C ul e n to Rondos, 42 from Rondos to Culen. and other letters) from 1947 to 1952. �SLOVAKIA 114 * * * By the end of March, 1945, as World War II in Europe was coming to an end, a group of people evacuated from Slovakia to escape capture by the Red Army and possible retribution in postwar Czechoslovakia. They were representatives of the independent Slovak State which was allied with Nazi Germany. These refugees briefly stayed in Holic and Skalica in Western Slovakia and , at the beginning of April, they entered Austrian territory. Finally, they settled in Kremsmiinster, a small city to the south of Linz. Among them was Konstantfn Culen with his wife and daughter. On May 8th, 1945, representatives of the Slovak government capitulated in Kremsmiinster to the American Army. At the beginning they were treated politely. However, on May 19th the former Prime Minister Stefan Tiso and three other former Cabinet Ministers were arrested by the United States Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) . On June 7th fifteen more people, including Culen, were arrested as " Nazi collaborators". They were detained in American Army camps in Peuerbach (until September of 1945) and then in Glasenbach. In March of 1946 Culen was released from the camp due to the intervention of his wife. The family met again in Ried im Innkreis in Upper Austria. At the end of April, avoiding "war criminal" hunters of the Czechoslovak authorities, Culen moved to Munich. But even here he did not feel secure, so at the end of August he returned to Austria. On September 20th, with the help of a friend in the CIC, he illegally crossed the border into Italy, hiding in the trunk of his friend's car. The next day he arrived in Rome, where he was reunited with his family. In Rome, under the protection of Karol Sidor, the former Slovak Minister to the Vatican, Culen started to work again as a �115 SLOVAKIA journalist. Utilizing newspapers and magazines from Slovakia as sources, he began to contribute articles to Slovak nationalist newspapers in the United States and Canada. At the same time, through connections with Slovak organizations abroad, Culen began to seek entry into Canada. The story begins with a letter dated June 6th, 1947, which Culen sent to Juraj Rondos4 in Winnipeg. Rondos was one of the leading members of the nationalist fraternal organization, the Canadian Slovak League. At that time he was president of its ' Juraj (George) Rondos ( 1900- 1985) was born in May 1900. the so n of a fam1er in the village of Vinne (Michalovce district, Zemplfn County ) in eastern Sl ovakia. In March 1926. he came to Canada looking for work. After engaging in various jobs, in October 1928, he opened in Winnipeg (Manitoba) a restaurant with a boarding house. In 1930 he became a member of the Winnipeg branch of the Slovenska liga v Amerike [the Slovak League of Ame1ica]. In 1932 he established, together with his friend s Andrej Kucera and Pavo! Sabo. the fraternal organization Slovenska liga v Kanade [the Slovak League in Canada] which was renamed in 1934 the Kanadska slovenska liga [the Canadian Sl ovak Leag ue]. At the beginning of the 1930's he received hi s Canadian ci ti ze ns hip. In 1936- 1938 he parti cipated in the organization of colonization of Slovak agricultural immigrants to Rosewood (Manitoba). In 1938 he brought hi s wife and children to Canada. After World War II. as an official of the Canadian Slo vak Leag ue. he helped many Slovak refugees (Displaced Persons) to emigrate t o Canada. Cule n' s case, which I reconstructed in this article. was one of them. After holding various important posts of the League. Rondos died in Winnipeg in March of 1985 at the age of 84. For Rondos's life see: Anonym (Ko nstant in Culen), "Ujo Rondos [Uncle Rondos]". Kalendar Kanadskej s/ovenskej ligy [Almanac of the Canadian Slovak Leag ue ], 1953, pp.209-212; Juraj Ro ndos. "V lete sli spat' na breh rieky [In the Summer They Slept on the Ri verbank] ". In lmrich Stolarik, ed .. Spomienky pionierov [Memories of Pio neers], Toro nto, Canadian Slovak Leag ue. 1978, pp.207-220: Juraj Rondos. "Moje rozpomie nky na zasle easy [My memories of lo ng-ago days] ", Jubilejnf kalendar Kanadskej s/ovenskej ligy [Jubilee Almanac of the Canadian Slovak League] , 1982. pp.51 55: Anton Hacko, "Posledne Zbohom Ju rajovi Ro ndosovi [Last Farewell to Juraj Rondos]". Kalend ar KanadskeJ slovenskej /igy.1 985- 1986. pp.1 27- 129. �116 SLOVAKIA Colonization Committee. 5 In this letter Culen informed Rondos, with whom he had never met, of his desire to immigrate to Canada. Culen introduced himself as follows: As you know, in 1945, with many others I emigrated on my own initiative. After much pain and suffering, I settled here (in Rome). Since Czech and Bolshevik agents will not leave me alone and there is still the danger of being arrested , we would like to find us a place where we could begin a new life and work and live in safety. I have many friends and relatives in America, but it is still hard to go there. They promise us much, but quotas are small, so perhaps we would have to wait for decades. To go to South America seems perhaps more easy, but, even so, it requires 5 In the Minutes of the 7th Convention of the Canadian Slovak League, which was held in October of 1946, we read the following passages: "News from the Colonization Committee - Brother Rondos, the chairperson of the Colonization Committee, made an oral report and added that he has close contacts with members of the Colonization Office of the Canadian National Railways, who offered him the necessary information regarding immigration to Canada. es pecially with regard to Slovaks. Other ethnic groups also exert pressure on the Canadian government with respect to immigration of Displaced Persons. demanding revision of the Canadian Immigration Act. ( ... ) Brother Rondos. based on their explanation about the settlement of immigrants on Canadian farn1s. assured the delegates that the Canadian government would admit Slovaks to Canada if the provincial offices would give them permission . Brother Rond os strongly appealed for sponsors for Slovak refugees and to help them to enter Canada. (. .. ) At the end Brother Rondos clarified who can immigrate to Canada and also referred to difficulties, such as temporary passports. the voyage across the Atlantic, and the lack of ships etc. At the same time he displayed so me application forms which he received from the Colonization Office." Zapisnica zo VII. kongresu Kanadskej s/ovenskej ligy vydriiavancho v diioch 28-29-30 a 31. okt6bra 1946 vo Windsoru, Ontario [Minutes of the 7th Convention of th e Canadian Slovak League. held on October 28th - 31st, 1946, in Windsor, On tario]. pp.9- 10. �117 SLOVAKJA time. So, I thought, what about Canada? I wrote a letter about this to Father Sprinc [Mikulas Sprinc], who in turn sent a letter to president [of the Canadian Slovak League] Kucera ([Andrej Kucera]. And he told us to send to you the necessary information . I have a brother in America [Stefan Culen in Chicago] who is also trying every possible means to get me nearer, so I want to try this as well . I would like to ask you the following : 1. Can we enter [Canada] ? There are three of us. 2. What do we need to do in order to enter? 3. How can you help us? Culen then provided his and his family's life histories. I was born on February 26th, 1904, in the village Brodske, District of Skalica, Slovakia. My occupation is engineer (do not worry about it; it is so registered in my passport. It is exact, because I studied engineering in high school.). Since April of 1945 I am in exile. The reason why I do not want to go back and cannot do so is an antipathy towards the domestic Bol shevik rule. I have a Red Cross passport iss ued in Rome . Alzbeta Culen, born on December 19th, 1906, m Bratislava, is my wife. She has a Red Cross passport too. Elena Eva Culen , born in January 22nd, 1929, m Bratislava, a student, is my daughter. She too has a Red Cross pass port. We are all stateless. As we can guess from Culen's defensive tone, this life history is not entirely accurate. Culen was no engineer. According to his biography, Culen was a middle-aged Slovak nationalist journalist. �SLOVAKIA 118 Although he did not have a university education, he had been a brilliant journalist even as a youth. At the time of political crisis in Czechoslovakia in 1938-39, Culen participated in the activities of the Hlinka Slovak People's Party for Slovak autonomy. After March of 1939, when the independent Slovak State was declared, he became its strong supporter. He was a Member of Parliament (December, 1938 - March, 1939, the Slovak Autonomy Parliament, then March, 1939 - spring of 1945, the Parliament of the independent Slovak State) and he served as a cultural attache at the Czecho-Slovak Legation in Washington (January - March , 1939). Although he was prevented from participating in political activities by his political rivals from the summer of 1940 on, he continued to be active in the field of culture and journalism until the end of the war. In his letter to Rondos, Culen explained the reason for his emigration as "an antipathy towards the domestic Bolshevik rule" . He told only half of the story. In June of 1947, when the letter was written, the Communist Party already held the leading pos ition and had great influence in Czec hoslovakia, but political pluralism still existed. The Communists did not seize power until February of 1948. More likely, Culen was afraid of "war criminal" hunters and the so-called "people's courts" of the Czec hos lo6 vak authorities . • "Being condemned a ·war criminal' by London [the Czechoslovak government in exile], Moscow [the Czechos lovak Communist group in exile], and Banska Bystrica [the headquarters of the Slovak National Uprising in 1944]. he [Culen] had to go into exile to escape the gallows." Frantisek Vnuk. Z i votopis K onstantfna Culen a. p. l 02. - "To my question why he [Cu len] fled abroad at the end of war, he answered that he had been afraid of Bencs 's revenge." Imrich Krnzliak, "Spomienky na Kon stantfna Culena [Memories of Konstantin Cu len]", in Stefan Baranovic (ed.), Konstantin Cu/en. p.48 . - "When the front [of the Red Anny] approached, Culen. who opposed. as a Member of the Parli ame nt �SLOVAKIA 119 Culen shifted the whole responsibility of his emigration onto the "Bolsheviks", because he knew that the independent Slovak State, which he had strongly supported during World War II, had been allied with Nazi Germany and Canada had fought the war on the side of the Allies. He was also counting on the emerging Cold War, which was shaping Canada's relations with Western countries . However, as we may guess from the tone of his reply, Rondos already understood Culen's delicate situation . It was common knowledge, not only in Slovakia, but also in the Slovak immigrant communities in North America, that Culen had a "s plendid past record" as a Slovak nationalist. Without hesitation , Rondos answered Culen's request with a skillful and kind reply dated June 23rd. I understood well your letter, and your wish to enter Canada with your family. You asked me to answer the three following question s: 1. Whether can you enter Canada with your family ? You can enter Canada as a farm worker. I have close friend s who occupy high positions in the Canadian Immigration Office. I had a long conversation with them. I explained briefl y your situation . I simply told them as a friend that you arc highly educated and the reason why you were expelled abroad. I also told them what are you thinking of doing if you enter Canada. They assured me that, after arriving in Canada, you will be free here, according to your ability. But if you want to and representative politician of the first Slovak Republic. Bo ls hevism and especiall y Benes ' s Czechos lovak politics. which did not even recognize the ex istence of the Slovak nat ion. had to evacuate from Slovaki a by government decree ." Dusan M. Janota. "Spomienk a [Memories]", in Stefan Baranovic (ed.), Ibid. p.52 . �SLOVAKJA 120 enter Canada as soon as possible, you have to be registered together with your family as farm workers. Please forget other worries. Canada needs people like you. Here everybody is free and everybody is responsible for their own future . 2. What do you need to do for that? You have to do nothing. I will find for you a good Slovak farmer who will submit an application to the Canadian Immigration Office. He will petition to admit you and your family to Canada and declare that he has work and lodging on his farm for all of you . 3. What could I do fo r you ? I could do what I ex plained to you in 1. and 2. I will begin the work with your permission and by Divine protection. And I hope that our work will be successful according to the information which I provided for you and your family . A responsible person (at the Immigration Office) told me that it will take you three to six months at most to enter Canada. It was a smooth beginning. Culen was very pleased with the reply. As promised, Rondos quickly fo und a sponsor for the Culen family and so informed him of it in a letter dated Jul y 9th: Your fe llow-countryman from Tmava named Jozef Vo lek submitted an application that he needs you and your fam il y for work on the farm. He also submitted an application to th e Canadian Immigration Office, a copy of which I am enclos ing with this letter. Please do not worry. Either a Canadian Immigration Officer there will personally visit you or they will inform you by letter as to where you should present yourself. In the correspondence between Culen and Rondos we fo und drafts of an application entitled "This form has been prepared by �121 SLOVAKIA the Immigration Branch, Department of Mines and Resources, for the use of persons applying for the admission to Canada of immigrants". There are two copies of the same form, for Konstantin Culen and his wife Alzbeta Culen, and for their daughter Elena Eva Culen. Both copies indicate at the end: "Dated at Rosewood Man. (Manitoba) this 4 day of July A.D.1947. Volek" Signed Jozef 7 In this application there are some misleading statements. In the space for "relationship to applicant" they filled out as "friend" (needless to say, neither Culen nor his wife had ever met Volek) and in the space for "citizenship" as "C.S.R. [the Czechoslovak Republic]" (in his first letter to Rondoas Culen wrote that they were "stateless"). To the question "occupation in own county" they filled out as "fam1er" (not "engineer" as Culen had written before) and to the question "intended occupation in Canada", they answered: "to work on a farm". The most serious falsehood was the answer to the question "Has Immigrant ever lived in Canada or the United States? If so, between what dates and what address?" They simply answered "No", which was not true. Culen had actually lived in the United States three times. The first time (1905-1909) it was as a child with his parents, who were migrant workers; the second time 7 Jozef Volek ( 1903- ?) was one of the Slovak fam1ers who lived in Rosewood (Manitoba). He was born in 1903 in Trnava (Western Slovakia), came to Canada in 1927 and later obtained his Canadian citizenship. He acted as the financial secretary of the Branch 19 (Rosewood) of the Canadian Slovak League (the head of the Branch was Juraj Rondos). Volek wrote in the application , which was sent to the Immigration Office of the Ministry of Mines and Re sources in Ju Iy of 1947: ··1 have clear title to 560 acres( ... ) Financial resurses (sic) $ 25.000.oo. Anaal (sic) income about $ 7.000.oo ." Culen wrote in his letter of August 1st, 1947, to Rondos that Volek was a friend of the famous Slovak historian exile. Frantisek Hrusovsky. in �SLOVAKIA 122 (December, 1935 - July, 1936) as one of members of the delegation sent by Matica slovenska (Slovak national cultural organization) to visit fellow-countrymen in the United State; the third time (January - December, 1939), as indicated above, as a cultural attache at the Czecho-Slovak Legation in Washington and then, after March, as an editor of the official organ of the Slovak League in America, Slovenska obrana [The Slovak Defence]. Certainly the purpose of the last two stays was not as a fam1er. His third stay in 1939 was especially significant and controversial. At that time Culen openly supported Slovak autonomy and, ultimately, independence. Even though Volek filled in the application, he probably only took dictation from Rondos. Rondos must have known about Culen's career in the United States. However, as reported in his letter dated June 23rd, he already had prior consultations with high-ranking officials in the Immigration Office in Winnipeg, so he probably considered this application as just a formality. Furthermore, Volek filled out after the sentence that "I have made the following arrangements for a home and employment for the above named immigrants," as "We will recive (sic) them on aur (sic) Farm and guarantee full maintenance and farm Employment at going Wages. " To the question "Is transportation to be prepaid?" he answered that "I will pay transportation," even though Volek must have known from the beginning that the Culen family had no intention of working on a farm. On July 15th Culen received Rondos's letter dated July 9th . Enclosed were copies of the application which Volek had submitted to the Immigration Office. In his reply dated August l st, Culen complained as follows: �SLOVAKIA 123 Well, now I would only ask you to take up this matter with the proper authorities, because there are several Slovaks here who have papers like this and have been waiting for a long time, but nothing is happening. The worst thing is that they write much about our difficulties and thousands of people live by talking about the necessity of doing something to solve the refugee problem, and make as if they have done and deliberated . Meanwhile, emigrants are perishing physically and morally, while the gentlemen are having a good time. America in particular pays much attention to the matter, but not even one refugee is admitted. The bill, which should have been passed, was pigeonholed . Congress went into recess for a vacation. It will be reconvened again only in January ( of next year) and undoubtedly the bill will not be touched until the summer of 1948. If it is passed, migration can be started in 1949 or 1950. However, who can bear it? [In reality the DP (Displaced Persons) Act was passed in Congress in the spring of I 948 and the migration started in October of that year.] Why don ' t they speak less, write less and act more? Of course, what can we, small and simple people, do against the roguery of gentlemen's politics ? In reply to Culen's complaint (the letter was not dated, but according to its contents it was perhaps written in the middle of August), Rondos reported as follows: You asked me to expedite the matter. Well , I will tell you what is happening. Mr. Volek was summoned to the Immigration Office where he was asked [to provide evidence regarding the following l: I. Evidence from the district office that he [Volek] is really the owner of 520 acres of land [according �SLOVAKIA 124 to the application which Volek submitted to the Immigration office, it was 560 acres of land] . He proved it by showing a private letter from the district office and also doc ume nts which proved that he has no debt. 2. Evide nce from a bank regarding his savings. We could prove that easil y enough. But after that they asked the third question. We were asked to explain how Mr. Vo lek came to know yo u. We answered that he went to school together with you and he remembers yo u as a farmer's son who was also trained in bl ac ksmithing. Thu s, when Mr. Volek left fo r Canada twe nty years ago, you [C ulen] remained at home working as a village bl acksmith a nd also as the cultivator of a small estate. We were asked wh y you lived in ex ile. Did you run away as a civilian or as a soldier? To this we answered that you were not a soldier and that you ran away as a civilian from communist terror. In his repl y, dated A ugust 28th , Culen humorously promised to "tell the same story": Thank yo u for the in formation about the examin ation by the Canadian office. Well , arri ving there , I will prese nt myse lf as the blac ksmith . It is not such a big lie, because my fa th er was a blacksmith , and, fro m childhood I was in his shop. If necessary, I pumped the bellows and helped with the bi g hammer, so th is is not a craft which I co uld not ac kn ow ledge . I coul d, perhaps, pass the examinatio n. By the end o f September the Canadian bureaucracy fin all y replied. Culen's sponsor, Jozef Volek, received the fo llowing pos iti ve notice dated Septem ber 29th from R.N. Mun roe , the �125 SLOVAKlA District Superintendent of the Immigration Branch of the fro [sic-for] the Department of Mines and Resources in Winnipeg: In connection with your application admission to Canada of your friends, Konstantin Culen, his wife, Alzbeta and their daughter, Elena Eva, of c/o Karel (sicKarol) Sidor, Citta del Vaticano, Italy, this is to advise that the settlement arrangements have been found satisfactory, and the necessary steps are being taken to have the proposed immigrants examined overseas. It will , of course, take some little time to complete these arrangements . A copy of this notice was immediately sent by Rondos to Culen who wrote about the news in his reply dated October 20th. These were the most delightful letters which I received during almost three years of exile. And especially, as I see, it is serious and we can judge according to the letter which you received [the above-mentioned letter by Munroe] that in fact the matter has already been arranged . Now it is only a question of time, according to the letter. Culen concluded optimistically: I am ending this letter with thanks for all which you have done for now. I caused you much concern, but I really had nobody else to ask. After all kinds of promises and assurances which I received, what you have done is most real and most clear. Well , once again sincere thanks and if that "some little time" in office is prolonged (I do not know how the bureaucrats function in Canada, but in Slovakia they say that a short �SLOVAKIA 126 time lasts one year), please expedite it again. In any case, I hope that by Christmas I will be with you. While awaiting a reply from the Canadian bureaucrats , Rondos reported to Culen in a letter dated November 3rd that he had already arranged for Culen's tickets: "I am informing you that today I purchased for you and your family the steamship tickets . It means the following: You have your fare paid from Southampton , England, to New York by ship and from New York to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, by train ." As we shall see later, Rondos paid the fare out of his own pocket. However, on November 18th, Rondos received a notice dated November 17th from the Cunard White Star Line, where he had booked the tickets. In the notice a certain Patterson , the person in charge, wrote: You will recall our conversation, in which I advised you that we are not permitted to sell Prepaid for non-Canadians resident in Italy, for the reason that the Canadian Government has not an Examining Office for immigrants in that country. Our Head Office Iin England] is moct lsic-mostl anxious to assist us , but point out very plainly that they cannot take the responsibility of bringing the family forward to Paris for examination by the Canadian Civil and Medical Authorities , on the chance that they might be turned down . Therefore, I give you the suggestion, for what it is worth, that if these people can legitimately leave Italy and establish themselves in Paris, and you will confirm to us the Paris address at which they are resident, we could then make _representations to have the Permit transferred to Paris and the examination take place there . �127 SLOVAKIA Rondos at once wrote a letter (dated November 18th) to Culen. I have very close contacts with the company regarding your matter. Just now I received a letter from them in which they say that they cannot start with your matter and that you have to go to Paris with your family by yourself and that in Italy they cannot arrange a medical examination. In order not to explain much, I enclose you with this letter a copy of the notice. I hope you will choose a trip to Paris. And please present yourself at their company. [... ] And show them the copy of the notice which I am _sending you and either they or you announce yourself as soon as probable to the main office in England where they already have all the best information about you and the registered ship tickets are waiting for you. The same day Rondos sent a letter to Stefan Culen 8 , Kon stan- tin's younger brother, who lived in Chicago: " [... ] I dared to pay for the steamship tickets of your brother and his family from England to New York and I also paid for train tickets from New York to Winnipeg out of my own pocket $636.42 [ .. . ] I did not want to tell this even to my friends , in order not to confuse somebody about my work." Rondos also enclosed as evidence the copy of the notice from the ship company of November 17th and continued: "From your letter I understood that you are willing to pay your brother's fare, in order to get him here as soon as possible. I dared to pay it out of my own pocket. I hope that I am cooperating with good peo' Sefan Culen ( 1909- ?), third of five brothers of Konstantin Culen , was born in Pennsy lvania (USA), and worked in Chicago as a manual laborer. �SLOVAKIA 128 pie and that my money will not be wasted." Rondos here suggested that, since he paid Culen's travelling expenses, Stefan Culen should reimburse him. Referring to "your letter, Rondos had in mind Stefan Culen's letter (stamped October 15th) in which Stefan wrote from Chicago that, "As soon as they [his brother's family] get visas, I would like immediately to send them plane tickets. If I could somehow help, please write me." Stefan Culen, after receiving Rondos 's letter of November 18th, answered on November 21st, and informed him of his intention to reimburse Rondos, as requested .9 Meanwhile, around November 22nd, Kon stantin Culen visited the Canadian Legation to Italy in Rome accompanied by an Italian friend, General Armando Mola. The Legation was newlyestablished and the Minister to Italy, Jean Desy' 0 had just been appointed on October 13th of that year. In a letter dated November 24th, Culen reported to Rondos the result of his visit: A while ago I returned from the Canadian Embassy. I went there with our friend, the general , who knows the Ambassador well. They received us warmly. We explained to them how our matter is going. We gave them an English tran- 9 Because of the complication in getting Culen ' s entrance visa to Canada. Ro n- dos cancelled in June 1948. the reserved tickets. See the notice of the Cunard Donaldson Limited Company of June 17th. 1948 . '" Jean Desy (1893-1960), Canadian diplomat. was born in Montreal (Q uebec) to a French Canadian family. In 1925 he entered the Department of External Affairs in Ottawa. He was one of the earliest Francophone diplomats in Canada. In I 941-1947 he was the Minister to Brazil (in 1943 promoted to Ambassador) . On October 13th, 1947, he was appoi nted Minister to Italy and on June 26th. 1948, was promoted to Ambassador and served in this position until 1952. In 1954-1958 he was the Ambassador to France and he died in Paris in 1960. �SLOVAKJA 129 slation of your last letter (of November 3rd) in which you wrote that travel expenses had been paid. We also gave them the letter (notice, dated September 29th) which the Immigration Office had sent to you. The Ambassador said that everything was O.K. He said that we do not even need to go to Paris and that he will arrange the matter himself, including a medical examination and visa. The only things you will need are the following: l. Confirmation from the (ship) company that travel expenses have been paid . 2. Confirmation from Ottawa (the Canadian government) that entry to Canada is permitted . We asked him (the Ambassador) to request the matter telegraphically on condition that we will pay the expense connected with it. He promised to arrange it in this way. We had already asked the agency of the Cunard Company here to obtain confirmation concerning the payment of travel expenses. It would be good, if you could call their attention to this matter as soon as possible. Because he [the Ambassador] said that, if he will have it [the Confirmation] in his hand , he may issue the visa, so we could depart about the middle of December. Well , we would truly like to do so. We would fly away from here to London and then we would await there the next ship and we would depart. Really, we are growing impatient, like children before Christmas , and already we would like to be on the road. We will rest only when our ship moves in your direction . Culen's optimism grew after he received two letters from Rondos (dated November I 8th and November 20th) and a copy of the notice from the ship company (dated November 17th). �130 SLOVAKIA Culen wrote in his letter dated November 27th as follows: "If the matter moves faster, we will be there (in Canada) even in December, if slower, we will be there in January. Anyway, our hope was never so clear, as it is now. We feel as if we have everything within reach." However, "Confirmation from Ottawa that entry to Canada is permitted," which they had asked the Legation to obtain did not come. As Culen reminded Rondos in his letter of December 3rd, "The Legation here is waiting for information from Ottawa that they may issue us visas. I think that he [the Ambassador] already requested it telegraphically. If you have an o pportunity , please ask them to send it here as soon as possible. Because, as long as we do not have a Canadian visa, we cannot take the next step." Feeling uneasy about the delay, Culen sent to Rondos the letter of General Mola written in English (dated December 13th). On behalf of Culen General Mola explained his situation as follows: I saw again this morning, Mr. [T.L.] CARTER, [Second] Secretary at the Canadian Legation , acting for the Ambassador Mr.[Jean] DESY, so as to facilitate matters in every possible way. 1) Everything is all right as regards prepaid tickets. since the Legation is satisfied with the written declaration given CULEN by the CUNARD Office (Mr. BROOKS). 2) Mr. CARTER took note of what you wrote about the permit to enter Canada having already been sent to Rome . Nothing, however, reached the Canadian Legation yet , though the latter wrote Ottawa about it Nov. 22nd already . 3) By same letter, the authorisation was asked of the Canadian Government for the Legation actually applying the �131 SLOVAKJA visas on the three passports, even though the immigration Officials, to whom such a task is usually entrusted, are still to arrive. In the opinion of the Legation, such an exception might be granted since all documents were checked and found all right, and since the Legation have already their own Doctor who'll be able to submit the CULENS to the required medical examination. Were the authorisation not granted, Mr. CARTER says there seems to be no hope for the proper office to be ready for work here before two months or so! It would seem therefore most advisable that you should kindly complete the extraordinary work you and Mr. VOLEK have already done in favour of our friends by personally going to the proper Department in OTTAW A and - making precise reference to the Legation's letter of Nov. 22nd insisting that it should be answered favourably, possibly by cable: mind, not for the permit only, but also for the power to be granted the Legation. This is also Mr. CARTER's advice. On December 14th, Culen sent Rondos a cable. Unfortunately, I could not find it in the files of the correspondence, but, according to the contents of the aforementioned letter, we may guess that Culen's cable asked Rondos to obtain the confirmation from Ottawa by cable and to give to the Legation the power to issue visas. Having received it on December 15th, Rondos visited the agency of the Cunard Company and the Immigration Office in Winnipeg without getting a favourable response. In those circumstances he decided to seek the intervention to his close friend, Senator John Thomas Haig 11 , and visited his law " John Thomas Haig (I 877-1962), Influential politician in Winnipeg (Mani- toba). He was born to a Scottish family in Ontario and was a lawyer by profession . In 19 I 4 he was elected to several tenures in the Manitoba Legislature In �SLOVAKIA 132 office in the city. Unfortunately Haig was attending Parliament in Ottawa. His brother, who had received Rondos, reported to Haig in a letter dated December 15th (to which was enclosed a notice from Munroe, dated September 29th and a copy of Culen's cable dated December 14th): Your old friend , Mr. Rondos was in the office today. He has applied under the Immigration Act, to bring out his friend, Konstantin Culen, his wife and daughter who are presently in Italy. [ ... ] The difficulty seems to be that we have no immigration authority in Rome. There is nothing there but a Legation and without special authority, they apparently have not the power to grant immigration permits. You will note the wire asking that the permit be cabled and that authority be given to the legation to Grant a visa. [... ] The only difficulty seems to be the permit and the visa. We know that you will do everything in your power to have this rushed to completion before you return from Ottawa. Mr. Rondos is exceedingly anxious, he has gone to a lot of trouble and spent a lot of money, and would certainly appreciate anything you could do to iron out the difficulties. 1935 he was appointed to the Senate, Dominion of Canada. in Ottawa. From 1945 on he was the leader of the opposition party (the Progressive Con serva- tive Party) in the Senate. In June 1957. through the victory of his party in the general election, he became the leader of the governme nt party. In October of that year he was appointed Minister without portfolio in the Diefenbaker Governme nt. In May of 1958 he resigned this position. �SLOVAKIA 133 Receiving the news from Winnipeg, Senator Haig met with his personal friend, Hugh Llewellyn Keenleyside 12 who was the Deputy Minister of the Department of Mines and Resources and in charge of Immigration. After being "probed", Haig answered Rondos in a letter dated December 22nd as follows: [ ... ] You also know that I am leader of the Opposition [the Progressive Conservative Party] in the Senate of Canada and I took the time off to go and see the Deputy Minister of Mines and Natural Resources who is also the Deputy Minister of Immigration. He assured me that in two weeks from the 14th of December, that they would either have one of their own officers in Rome to give Visas for Canada or authority would be given to the Canadian Legation to issue them. The Deputy is a personal friend of mine and I am sure he will do exactly that thing. I sent the Immigration letter, about the duties to the Deputy Minister and he said it would all be cleared up in two weeks so that your friend [Cul en I will be able to get his Visas not later than January first. " Hugh Llewellyn Keenleyside ( 1898- I 992). Canadian scholar. diplomat. and high-ranking civil servant. was born in Toronto. In 1928 he entered the Department of External Affairs in Ottawa. In 1929- 1936 he served in Tokyo as First Secretary of the Canadian Legation in Japan. During World War II he was opposed to the forced evacuation of Japanese Canadians. In 1944-1947 he became Minister to Mexico. and in 1947-1950 the Deputy Minister of the Department of Mines and Resources. In this period he published the article Canadian Immigration Policy. Vancouver, the University of British Columbia, 1948 . Later he held various important positions in the United Nations and in British Columbia. He published Memoirs of Hugh L. Keenleyside, Toronto, McClelland and Stewart Limited. 1981 -82. in two volumes. �134 SLOVAKIA On the same day Rondos, enclosing a copy of Haig's letter, answered General Mola in English: I was indeed pleased to receive your letter of December 13th with the detailed information therein. I also received the cable of Mr. Culen , and immediately took the necessary action with the Immigration officials in Ottawa. To assure you that immediate action will be taken by the Canadian Immigration authorities , I am enclosing herewith a copy of a letter written by Mr. John T. Haig, Leader of the Opposition in the Canadian Senate, which is self-explanatory . Many of Mr. Culen's Slovak friends in Canada are looking forward to his arrival. Culen described to Rondos, on December 31st how he felt when he received the letter: We were feeling very blue at the end of the year. It seemed that everything had gone wrong. And here, in the last hours of the passing year, your latest news, which you sent to General Mola, arrived. It delighted us very much and it gave us new hope. Yesterday General Mola told me: "I am 73 years old , I travelled around the world, I saw and experienced much, but I have never yet in my life met with such a case of a countryman's friendship, as I see here with Mr. Rondos. You can be proud of it not only as a human being, but especially as a Slovak." Meanwhile, on the same day General Mola went to petition the Canadian Legation with a copy of Senator Haig's letter of �SLOVAKIA 135 December 22nd which Rondos had sent him. Culen reported to Rondos about this episode at the end of his December 31st letter: Just a while ago the General returned from the Legation . They read the letter [from Haig] and they said that it is interesting, but according to the existing laws they may issue a visa only to Italian citizens, but not to foreigners. Until now they received nothing about our matter. They promised that they will send a cable and request an answer from Ottawa to the previous letter [dated November 22nd] about our matter. They have certain objections to our Red Cross passports and they say that we have to get others. In a word, there will be still many difficulties . By the way, the General is writing to you about this matter. They will have to get a special order to iss ue a visa to Culen and his family. While there is no order, nothing can be done. We also found in the file General Mola's letter to Rondos written in English (dated December 31st): Many thanks for your kind letter of Dec . 22nd and appended enclosure from Sen. JOHN T. HAIG . I immediately went to the Canadian Legation and showed them both letters to Mr.CARTER [Second Secretaryl . He was evidently impressed; but unfortunately he said that - though they already had authority to give visas without awaiting for the arrival of the Emigration Officials in Rome - this is for the time being applicable to Italians only. The Legation has as yet not received any similar instructions, neither for your specific case, nor for emigrants other than Italians. �SLOVAKIA 136 I saw H.E. DESY also, and he assured me they would do their showing their best good-will, since they promised me they would cable to-day to insist that OTT AWA should answer by cable to the letter the Legation originally wrote to the Department last November. Knowing unfortunately how slow burocracy [sic] is in all countries, may I suggest that - with this piece of news in hand - you should ask your powerful friends to specifically insist that a cable was immediately sent, as suggested by the Legation. General Mola wrote m detail about the passport problem which Culen mentioned only briefly: Another complication arose at the last moment: namely that the RED CROSS passports - which had been by the Legation declared valid - are now not considered fit , by some recent new regulations!!! It would be necessary to have them substituted by some C.S.I.R.O documents - which it would take an enormous time to obtain - even though the Legation promised their support to hasten matters. Couldn't it also be obtained from OTT AW A that they should cable and authorise the Legation to exceptionally accept the RED CROSS passports as valid for the CULENs case only? According to their expectation at the beginning, it would "take you [Culen's family] three to six months at most to enter Canada" (Rondos's letter of June 23rd, 1947). However, the barrier of the Canadian bureaucracy was greater than they imagined and 1947 drew to a close over the anxiety of obtaining a visa. In the second half of January 1948, Culen 's attempts to enter Canada looked hopeful. He reported in his letter to Rondos , dated January 16th as follows : �SLOVAKIA 137 Just a while ago they phoned me from the [Canadian] Legation, that. they already received the documents and perhaps within a week they will arrange the matter. They already fixed for us even the date of the medical examination. I hope it will end well, because we all feel ourselves quite healthy. [... ] If it will go well, we could perhaps get a visa by about [January] 23rd. Then it will take some time, while we receive an English and possibly an American [transit visa]. So we reckon that at the end of February we could arrive in Canada or in the United States. At that moment Culen thought that an entry visa to Canada was within reach. To his great disappointment, however, he failed his medical examination. Twenty-two years earlier Culen had suffered from a senous disease. At the end of August in 1926, when the twenty-one-yearold had worked in the editorial office of the daily Slovak in Bratislava, he was hospitalized for pleurisy. For two weeks he hovered between life and death. His temperature sometimes rose as high as 41 degrees. After three months of fighting the disease, he was allowed to leave the hospital. After convalescing for months at a sanatorium in the High Tatras, at the end of the year Culen returned to his regular life in Bratislava. 13 On January 28th, 1948, the Culen family reported to the newly established Canadian Immigration Office m Rome for a medical examination. Culen reported the results to Rondos in a letter dated the same day : It seemed that everything would be all right, when they suddenly looked at the X-ray of my bowels. Twenty-two " Frnntisck Ynuk. Zi votopis K onstantfna CuJena. p.45. �138 SLOVAKIA years ago I suffered from pleurisy. They said that even today one can see on the photograph traces of the inflammation. Since then I never got sick, but a Canadian doctor questioned it and postponed the issuance of our visas for later, only after the agreement of the Department of National Health and Welfare [for Canada] in London. They will send all the documents there. If they will agree, we can get visas, but if not, we can do nothing. We are for ever kept waiting. Culen continued in a pessimistic tone: Well, we truly did not expect it. Everything seemed all right. We received passports from the I.R.O. With the documents we had no problem, nor with the civil investigation . It never occurred to me that today they would call into question my illness of 22 years ago and that it would halt everything. My wife and daughter were recognised as healthy. This is sad and unexpected news for you and for us. So much work, so much running around and expenses, and finally this. You can hardly imagine what kind of medical examination we had. First of all the X-ray, then the medical and physical examination , then blood tests and then once more the face of a Canadian doctor. They were more strict than at the med ical check-ups for conscription. Now we have to wait for what they will decide in London. After so many experiences there is in our mind only a small spark of hope, si nce for emigrants things usually do not go well. What more can we do ? We arc truly bewildered and unhappy. We descended from hope into the abyss of hopelessness. �139 SLOVAKJA After he received Culen's "sad and unexpected news ", Rondos answered (in his letter of February 3rd) to keep his hopes up: .. . believe me, I and my whole family grieved when we read your letter. But, considering the whole matter, I think it will change for the better, because many people have suc h traces as you mentioned. The blood test will prove (that yo u are healthy) and in London they will reconsider the matter. I still believe in Almighty God and everything will be fin e. Please wait a couple of days, to see how they will answer yo u . And then, let me know instantly what kind of answer you get. If you do not fee l weak, I think it will pass and soon you can move in the direction of Canada. It was said that "within three weeks they will certainl y answer from London" (Culen's letter to Rondos of March 3rd), "at the latest within three weeks we will receive the answer" (his letter of March 20th ), but the repl y fro m the Department of National Health and Welfare for Canada in London was again delayed . Growing nervous, C ul en compl ained to Rondos on March 29th as fo ll ows : The Canadian gentlemen unpleasantl y trifled with us and in an un-Christian manner. The mos t unpl easant part is th at they said neither "yes" nor "no" . Government officials, havi ng a good life , tease poor emigrants. If one were not thoro ughl y affected by anti-Bolshevism, we ll , after such an ex perience one would like to give up, to leave for the other side and to say to them; "Forgive me, we wronged you." However, th e sorrowful truth is that the so-called democrats who chatter a lot about humanism and democracy practice such un - �140 SLOVAKIA Christian and such brutal things that on this point there are few differences between them and the Bolsheviks. [ ... ] Well, what shall we do? We all are against the heartlessness of the authorities and the stupidity of the bureaucracy and feel very helpless. You have done more than one could expect from a close family member. I am sorry that it turned out so badly. In Culen's letters we noticed several parts where he expressed dissatisfaction towards the immigration policy of Canada and the United States, and criticism and antipathy against the Western countries. Even the nationalist Culen, who professed to be a hardline anti-Bolshevik, reflected the emotional anti-Western sentiment of the contemporary left-wing intellectuals. Conversely, we found here and there sentences in which Culen praised the attitude of the Argentine and Spanish governments which gladly accepted immigrants . At the beginning of April Culen at last received a reply from London. The result was negative. In a letter to Rondoas of April 1st, Culen exploded in anger: Well, finally the obvious happened. Today we went to the Canadian ([Immigration] Office. They welcomed us very nicely, saying: "I just wanted to write you , you came just at the right time!" After such an introduction we were curious about the good news. They did not keep us waiting. They said:" You can not receive a visa for Canada. We received such an answer from our superiors." It did not surprise us. Because, after the long comedy which they subjected us to, we shouldn ' t have expected anything else. Your work was in vain . Our efforts were in �SLOVAKIA 141 vain. Even the intervention of Abbot Kojis of Cleveland was in vain and useless. It helped nothing. Canada needs men with strong fists such as Joe Louis, but it does not need men who dared once in their life to become sick. I am sorry about your efforts and work. Although on the other hand, I had a beautiful experience. And I see clearly the true character of the humanity and Christianity of the United States, Britain, and Canada in the international conferences against Bolshevism. They pretend as if only they are apostles of mercy. One is disgusted with it, when one hears these hypocritical speeches and sees these brutal behaviours. Believe me, they are as bad as the Communists . Culen also vented his anger on Senator Haig, who acted as an intermediary: I thought that such a Senator, as leader of the opposition, has yet some power and the right to speak. But it seems to me that he has not much. I was once an unimportant deputy, but when I petitioned to the Minister of the Interior [Alexander Mach I that there were several Polish refugees who were hunted by the Gestapo, and if they were arrested, they would be shot, it was sufficient for the Minister immediately to issue them Slovak passports and as Slovak citizens to place them in the state service. Our Minister did not send them to an X-ray examination in order to have a look at their lungs, whether they had not by chance some medical history. If you want , you may tell Mr. Senator that it is strange that such an important politician can do nothing even for such a trifle. We have to clench our teeth and regret the lost time. After such experiences, one has to consider what to do next. There are not �SLOVAKIA 142 many choices. One might even consider returning to the home country and to confess to the Bolsheviks as follows : "Forgive me, I was disappointed. In the West there is no democracy, no humanity, no Christianity, there are only forests for which they need cheap and absolutely healthy workers. No more, no less . Nothing had changed since the Americans carried slaves from Africa. The only difference is perhaps that now they check them even by X-ray, which they did not have one hundred years ago." In the morning of April 2nd , Culen received the notice with the same contents from the Canadian Immigration Office. Reporting to Rondos shortly thereafter, he wrote in a pessimistic tone that "otherwise I doubt that it is possible to change the matter" (letter dated April 2nd). To do justice to the Canadian authorities , it should be pointed out that they did not make a wrong diagnosis. In reality, in August of that year, Culen spat blood and was hospitalized . A spot was found in his right lung, but thanks to streptomycin and a calcium injection he was discharged from the hospital on September 10th. 14 In February of 1948, when Culen was disappointed by the medical examination and its aftermath, the Communist Party finally seized power in Czechoslovakia. When Culen suggested, perhaps only rhetorically, the possibility of returning to Czechoslovakia and of surrendering to the "Bolsheviks," in Czechoslovakia they were preparing a political trial against him. However, before Culen's trial started, the Communists organized another political trial against a group of people, including 14 Ibid. pp. 145-146. �SLOVAKIA 143 his youngest brother Ladislav Culen 15 , who remained in Slovakia. Ladislav was arrested in September of 1947, under suspicion of participating in the underground activities of the Slovak Action Committee [Slovensky akcny vybor] led by a nationalist politician in exile, Ferdinand Durcansky. Stefan Culen, Konstantin's younger brother, wrote in a letter to Rondos (stamped October 15th, 1947): I [Stefan Culenj received a letter from Slovakia. They arrested our brother [Ladislav Culen] who was a professor in Bratislava. We do not expect that he will come back alive, for many people were arrested and accused of wanting to assassinate Benes [then the Czechoslovak President] . It is nothing but pretence to murder them. Very many people are arrested . These poor guys will never return. Suspicions of plotting to assassinate President Edvard Benes were spread by the State Security Police (STB). However, it was true that these people, including Ladislav Culen , organized the underground, supporting the idea of an independent Slovak state , and supplied information to Dr. Duransky , one of the leaders of the Slovak independence movement, who was in exile in Italy (after July of 1947 in Argentina). 15 16 Ladislav Culen ( I 9 I 6- I 990 ), fi fth of fi ve brothers of Konstantin Cul en. stu - died history at Comenius University in Bratislava. During the independent Sl ovak State he served at the Slovak Embassy in Budapest. As me ntio ned above. he was arrested in September 1947, under suspicion o f participatin g in an anti - state conspiracy and was se ntenced in April 1948 . to 18 years in prison. He wa s released in 1962. 16 .. The organizational network of the Slovak Action Committee in Slovaki a was initiated at the suggestio n of J. Fickuli ak in May of 1947. The group o rganized aro und Jozef Dobrovodsky and parti cipated in this in iti ative through L �144 SLOVAKlA Otto Obuch, the central figure of the so-called "anti-state conspiracy", was a press officer who worked in the office of then deputy-Prime Minister of the Czechoslovak government, Jan Ursfny. Ursfny was one of the leaders of the Democratic Party, the largest political party in Slovakia at that time. Obuch was arrested in late September of 1947. By the end of October State Security, taking advantage of the affair, forced the deputy-P.M. Ursfny out of office. Slovakia fell into a political crisis (the so-called November crisis) and as a result, the Communist Party succeeded m weakening its rival, the Democratic Party, and strengthened its position in Slovak politics. 17 Culen. Members of this illegal organi zation. Action Committee - official ly named "the Sl ovak headqu arters in Brati slava", spread its acti vity to all of Slovakia, which was divided into three regions." Robert Letz, S/ovensk o v rokoch 1945- 1948 na ceste ku k onwnistickej to tali te [Sl ovakia in 1945- 1948 on the Road To Communist Totality]. Bratislava. Ustredie slovenskej t'anskej intc ligencic v Bratislavc. 1994. p. 157. Jozef Fickuliak supplied kres- "Obuch. Ladi slav Culen. and Durcansky with important material regarding the political backgro und. the negotiatio ns of the gove rnment. copies of laws and decrees. unusual articles in the press etc ." Robert Letz. "Slovenska politicka emigracia z rok u 1945 a ohlas na jej cinnost' doma [The Slovak Political Emi gration of 1945 and the Respo nse to its Activi ty at Home 1". In Slovenskf po vojnovf exil. Z bomfk materialov zo seminara Dejiny slovenskeho exilu p o roku 1945 v Matici s/ovenskej v Martine 27. -28. j1ina 1996 [The Slovak Pos t- war Emigres. Papers from the Seminar '·The History of the Slovak Emigres after 1945" organized by Matica slovenska in Martin on June 27th - 28th. 1996 ]. Martin, Matica slovenska . 1998 . p. 118 . 17 For details of the po litical bac kgro und of the "anti-state conspiracy" see : Michal Barnovsky. Na ceste k monopolu m oci. M ocensk opo/iticke zapasy na Slovensku v rokoch 1945- 1948 [On the Road to Monopoly of Power. Power- political Struggles in Slovakia in 1945 - 1948 ]. Bratislava. Archa. 1993. pp . I 6 1207: Robert Letz. Slovensk o v rok och 1945-1948 na ceste ku k omunistickej totali te. pp. 156- I 76 and p. 2 30. �145 SLOVAKIA After seizing power in February of 1948, between April 19th and 29th in Bratislava, the Communist regime tried Otto Obuch and his followers. Obuch was sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment. Ladislav Culen received 18 years for being a party to "the anti-state conspiracy" which intended to overthrow the Czechoslovak Government and to restore the independent Slovak State. Exdeputy-P.M. Ursfny, who was allegedly involved in the affair, was sentenced to seven years in prison . 18 Ladislav Culen was heavily punished, perhaps, as a warning to his older brother. Konstantin Culen wrote to Rondos on May 7th as follows: l- --1 in Bratislava they tried my brother as an "AngloAmerican" spy and the prosecutor demanded the death penalty. Well, we were in bitter and tense expectation of what would happen and how everything would develop. He received 18 years' imprisonment, which is the second heaviest sentence among the accused. The Czech judge [K.] Bedrna sentenced the accused in all to 85 years. In the Hungarian Kingdom, during the last century, Slovaks were sentenced to about 78 years and, now, at one stroke they got so much more, and it is still said that they are "liberated ." Besides , they treated my brother so badly that he will take it very hard. The worst thing is that everything was unnecessary, that if there had been no stupidity by [Ferdinand)] Durcansky , his unnecessary propagandizing and forecasting of war, his unneces""Jan Ursfny. byvaly podpredseda c-s vl:idy. bol ods udeny na 7 rokov viize nia ("Jan Ursfny. former Deputy Prime Minister of the Czechoslovak governme nt. was sentenced to 7 years in prison). Slovensk:i obrana. May 4th. 1948. On Ursfny 's memories of this episode see: J:in Ursfny. Zm6jho tivota (Prfspevok k vf- voju slovenskej n:irodnej mys/ienky). [From my Life (Co ntribution to the Deve lopment of the Slovak National Idea)]. Martin, Matica slovensk:i , 2000, pp. 134- 149. �146 SLOVAKIA sary instigating of young enthusiasts, of careless people, the trial would not have taken place. 19 Culen also wrote about the matter in his letter of May 13th: Otherwise from the country [Slovakia] there is always only news about trials. My brother was already sentenced as an "Anglo-American" spy; however, I can enter neither England nor America. Isn't it a little strange? In the country they would like to try me as a collaborator with Americans. How this world is confused! On May 28th and 29th, m the local court in Bratislava, Konstantfn Culen was tried m absentia. One of the Slovak newspapers reported : '""The State Security Police (STB) took advantage of the activities of the Slo vak Action Committee. Even th ough the activity of the Committee brought im portant arguments about the stru ggle for the Slovak statehood back home. it also enabled State Security to manufacture ··the anti-state conspiracy" and to accuse the Catholic wing of the Democratic Party of cooperating with po liti cal emigres. which they interpreted as anti-state activity. Robert Letz. "Slovenska emigracia z roku 1945 a ohlas na jej cinnost' doma" . In Slovensky povojnovy exil. pp.118- 11 9. For details of the illegal political movements in Slovakia after World War II see: Robert Letz. Slovensko v rokoch 1945- / 948 na ceste ku komunistickej totalite . pp. 129- 176. See also the memoirs of one of th e leading figures of the Slovak Action Committee. Stefan Polakovic. "Zaznam o cinnosti SA V-u [Records of the activity of the Slovak Action Committee]" . In Stefan Polakovic and Frantiasek Ynuk. Zahranicne akcie na zachranu a obnovcnie slovenskej samostatn osti (1943- / 948) [Activities Abroad for the Preservation and Renewal of Slovak Independence ( 1943-1948 )], Lakewood-Hamilton. Slovak Research Institute of America. 1988. pp . I 09-225 . politicka �SLOYAKJA 147 The people 's court in Bratislava, with Dr. Artur Sipka presiding, tried in absentia on the 28th of this month Konstantin Culen, former deputy of the Slovak Parliament. The Prosecutor accused Culen of the following crimes: that as an important politician he worked for the dissolution of the Czechoslovak Republic [in 1939], that he supported the military and political interests of Nazi Germany, that he supported the declaring and making of war against the Soviet Union, that he thwarted the struggle of the Slovak nation for the restoration of the Czec hoslovak Republic , that he became rich at the expense of other citizens , therefore he committed criminal acts of domestic treachery, collaboration, and treachery in the Uprising (of 1944). The public prosec utor of the trial is Dr. Amoast Barat. Vojteeh Vycanek spoke in his defence. The written statement and doc umentary material presented was proof of his guilt. The sentence will be passed on Saturday at 9 o'c lock.2' 1 Culen wrote in his diary of June 2nd , which is cited in Vnuk's biograph y, as fo llows: There is a newspaper with an article on my sentence "Cul en - 30 years' Imprisonment: [...)] Senate of Dr. Sipka of the people's court in Bratislava on Saturday of May 29 th passed judgement on Kon stantin Culen who was sentenced in his absentia to 30 years' imprisonment, 15 years' divestiture of citizenship, and confiscation of all his property ." Only 30 years! They fo und me guilty of so many cnmes and they gave me so few years! However, we two brothers, together with Laco [Ladislav Culen] got from the Czechs al- ' " Frantisek Vn uk. Zivotopis Konstantfna Cu/ena. pp.139- 140 . �148 SLOVAKIA most the same number of years as all Slovaks had gotten during the entire Hungarian regime. These gentlemen succeeded so well. The state prosecutor was Arnost Barath, a Hungarian from Nitra, whose two brothers, Elemer and Zoltan, are in exile, and one of them has just left for Venezuela. Vojta ([Vojtech] Vycanek, my old acquaintance, pleaded on my behalf. I am indeed curious how he did it. I wrote in a hurry an article for Jednota [a Slovak nationalist newspaper in the United States] where I just dealt with the curiosity that they could find for my trial neither a Slovak judge nor a Slovak lawyer. 21 Culen also wrote to Rondos on June 10th that "they sentenced my brother in Bratislava as an Anglo-American spy and confiscated all our property." These political trials perhaps dissuaded him from returning to Czechoslovakia and of surrendering to the "Bolsheviks". The trial of Kon stantin Culen belonged to a series of political trials which took place at that time in Bratislava. A group of Slovak nationalist intellectuals in exile were judged in absentia as well. Karol Sidor, Reverend Ferdinand Mondok, and Jozef M. Kirschbaum were each sentenced to 20 years in prison. The historian Frantisek Hrusovsky received ten years. It is worth mentioning that Culen received the heaviest sentence. In the meantime, Rondos, who had been informed by Culen 's letter of April 1st that London had turned down his visa application, once again visited Senator Haig. The Senator promised to bring to Ottawa the notice of the Canadian Immigration l l Ibid. p.140. �SLOVAKIA 149 Office in Rome, which Culen had sent, in order to tack.le the matter at first hand (Rondos's letter to Culen of April 8th). Late in May, when Rondos went to Ottawa as a member of the delegation of the Canadian Slovak League, he visited the office of the International Refugee Organization (IRO), where he found a file according to which the entrance visa to Canada for Culen and his family had already been issued on March 5th. Feeling doubtful about the situation , Rondos met the secretary of Senator Haig (at that time Haig was not in Ottawa), and asked about the matter (letter of June 16th). At Rondos 's request, Haig wrote a letter to the Department of Mines and Resources in Ottawa. He received an answer of July 6th from his acquaintance, Deputy Minister Keenleyside: Since Mr. Kulen (sic) has been refused a visa for reasons of health, any review must be on medical grounds. Accordingly, the Director of Immigration has forwarded the entire file to the Departmental medical advisor, in order that we may have the benefit of his professional opinion. The original certificate was severe and I would not wish , at this time, to raise any hope on the part of the applicant. Just as soon as the file is returned , I shall promptly advise you and , in view of your representation, I sincerely hope the medical findings arc favourable. On July 14th, Haig sent a copy of this letter to Rondos . In the morning of July 16th, Rondos visited the District Superintendent of the Immigration Branch, Munroe, who called him the day before. In Rondos's letter of July 15th to Culen, we have a detailed report of their conversation. Based on it, we will reproduce Rondos's petition. Rondos and Munroe talked for over one hour �150 SLOVAKIA about Culen's entrance into Canada. Naturally, they also talked about his medical examination in Rome: Munroe: They did not say that Mr. Culen is really weak, but he has a medical history. By the way, how do you know these people? Why did you help to raise the Culen matter? Rondos reported all the circumstances. Munroe: I know the Senator [Haig] from childhood and we are now very good friends. Well , how did you get in contact with Mr. [T.P.] Devlin, the chairman of the colonization of immigrants for West Canada? Rondos began to explain. Munroe: It is enough. I was informed by Mr. Devlin about what you are asking me. Do you support the application which Mr. Volek submitted? According to it Mr. Culcn will work on his farm . Rondos: I am sure from his letter that Mr. Culen will work on the farm. In Canada nobody will take care of him. He 1s responsible for himself. Munroe: I have information that he is highly educated. Rondoas: It is true , but he had his own farm in Slovakia and he understands farmer's work . Munroe: If Mr. Culen enters Canada and cannot work on Mr. Yolek's farm, I was told that your organization lthe Canadian Slovak League] would help him, because he is a writer and can write good anti-Communist articles . Is it true? Rondos: I have a secret which I would not normally reveal. But I recognise that I am talking with a high state official, so I confess to you . I have a close connection with the Royal Police in Canada I RCMP I and I provide them with information about Communist activities. When a Czech agita- �SLOVAKIA 151 tor comes here and the Police really want to know about his purpose, they ask me to participate in their meeting. Mr. Culen already sent me articles about what Communists write about Canada. These articles were sent long ago to the police office. If you want to know about them, call and ask s uchand-such an officer, whether or not I indeed provided the m with articles which Mr. Culen sent me from Rome. And our organization works against turnin g Canada " Red " . If Mr. Culen could not work for Mr. Volek, o ur organization will help him. If yo u need some ass urances for the help, I am ready to offer it. Munroe: I am satisfied with yo ur words . I do not demand any assurances. I already heard personally about your activity and , according to the information which state officials se nt me, I recognize your words as true. By the way, does Mr. Culen not have the intentio n to go to his brother [Stefan Culen] in America? R ondos: When Mr. Culen comes to Canada, he will become a citizen of thi s country. Because he is educated a nd we Slovaks in Canada do not have such people, we very much need ed ucated peo ple here. His brother in Chicago 1s only an ordinary worker. He cannot he lp him . Munroe: Is Mr. Vo lek sati sfied that he pro vided one year ago an applicatio n for Mr. Culcn 's entry to Canada? R ondo.s: Yes. If yo u do not believe me, please call the Senator. He knows Mr. Volek well and he will prove to you that Mr. Volek is waiting fo r Mr. Culen . Munroe: I am glad that you told me the truth. I will send a report to Ottawa that Mr. Culen is awaited in Canada. And I agree with it. �SLOVAKIA 152 At the end of the conversation, Munroe called his secretary and ordered him to dictate a letter to Ottawa that he (Munroe) supports Culen's entry into Canada. However, in spite of Rondos's "frank" petition and Munroe's "guarantee", on August 9th, Senator Haig received from the Acting Deputy Minister of the Department of Mines and Resources, R. A. Gibson , a polite notice of refusal (of July 30th): The [Culen] file has been returned to the Director of Immigration from the Departmental Medical Adviser and, I regret to inform you, the original diagnosis has been confirmed. Under the circumstances, the Immigration officials in Rome cannot be instructed to issue a visa for the Culen [sic] family . Undoubtedly Mr. Volek will be disappointed with these developments but the Immigration Branch can be of no further assistance in the matter. Haig transmitted the notice on the same day to Rondos with the short comment: "I got a very disappointing letter this mornin g which I enclose . I don't think anything further can be done ." Rondos reported to Culen in a letter of August 17th: "Believe me , it [the notice] shocked me so much that I lay down and fell asleep. t .. .] I waited while everything passed away. I went to the Senator's office. He was at home and said the following : Haig: George [Juraj), I am sorry about such mean news. Rondos: Mr. Senator, I had an important meeting with Mr. Munroe, the chief (of the Immigration Department) for Western Canada. It was July 15th. In the letter [from R. A. Gibson] he wrote that they received from England a message �SLOVAKIA 153 of decisive refusal. In my mind , an answer from England was hardly reached between July 15th and 30th , es pecially an official answer through Ottawa. I would like to know whether in Ottawa any Czech communist conducts the immigration administration or not. Munro e: I al so think that the an swer should have come later. George, go to the Immigration Department and onc e more ask directly for Mr. Munroe . Next Morning (perhaps on Aug ust 11th) Rondos called Munroe and got an appointment to meet at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. He was welcom ed. Rondos: Sorry about disturbing you, but I fee l nervo us and I would like to kn ow the situation tho rou g hl y. Rondos again explained to him, as he did to the Senator, and handed him the Jetter from Ottawa. Munroe read it and called his secretary, telling him to bring Cu/en's file. Wh en he brought it, Munroe read once m ore the Jetter which he had written concerning Cu/en to Ottawa on July 15th . Mun roe: Do not take the letter which yo u received from Ottawa seriously. It is written in Ottawa on Jul y 30th , but m y letter to them was sent onl y on Jul y 29th . So it is not the answer to my letter. Mr. Rondos, the fact th at I sent to Ottawa the letter is the same as if I pe rsonally went there in order to carry out the matter. Do not worry because I have not yet received an answer to my letter. And Munroe took the copy of his letter to read what he had written: "According to my special meeting with Mr. Rondos, I approve of the entrance of Mr. Cul en to Canada." Afterwards, Culen had a long wait. In his letters to Rondos we find such sentences as : "The Canadian [Immigration] Office has �SLOVAKIA 154 not replied yet." (Letter of September 6th, 1948), "We know how officials work, •so we are not surprised at all." (Letter of September 18th), "We are waiting until they finally invite us and say Here are your papers and here is your visa. Since nothing had happened, I went to ask them privately. We heard that they indeed received some letter and they have just answered it. We d o not know what kind of answer they received. Well, we can o nly guess as we wait, optimisticall y or pessimisticall y. However, it is certain that it will still take some time. But we are used to waiting patiently, so we will live with it. " (Letter of October 9th), "Besides, nothing special has happened . We are waiting, as we waited one year, two years, or three years ago. Slowly we will look like Jews who are also waiting for the Messiah." (Letter of Nove mber 6th), "We expected last year that we would not have to celebrate Christmas and Easter [sic] by letter, but that we would do it orally. Well , our plans did not materialize and we must one year later wish yo u Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year by letter. " (Letter of December 6th) , "Till now the local (Immigration) Office did not move even an inch on the matter, so to speak. We are still waiting for them to invite us, but in vain. We do no t know what has happened . Now it seems that it has been mo ved, somebody, somewhere, puts a brake on it. " (Letter of December 27th). In August of this year, when Rondos visited Haig's office, he sugges ted, half jokingly, the possibility of "sabotage by a Czech communist". Being psychologicall y exhausted from the long wait, Culen began to suspect that his entry to Canada had bee n bl ocked by the political intervention of "the enemies" . He wrote to Rondos on January l 0th, 1949: "It would be interesting to find out why it all happened. I think that my health was not the question, but it �SLOVAKJA 155 was Czech political interference." In his letter of March 29th, the conjecture changed into conviction: General (Mola) visited the Canadian (Immigration) office to ask whether by chance they had something new. There were new officials there, so they began to check various papers and finally revealed that the difficulty was not caused by an X-ray, but by something else. Well , it might be only political. And if political , it is clear that it was Czech interference. I know that they were not pleased with my appearance there. [ ... ] Because the fact is that there is not a greater enemy than a Czech . If it were possible, Czechs would drown us in a teaspoon[ul of water. Culen's biographer Ynuk also suggested the possibility of "enemy's intervention " .22 However, it is still unclear whether some pro-Czechoslovak groups (for example, the Czechoslovak National Alliance in Canada) or pro-Communist groups really did it o r not. Meanwhile, waiting for an answer from the Canadian Immigration Office, Culcn did not waste his time . After the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia in February of 1948, the Slovak nationalist group in exile led by Karol Sidor began its political activities. In this period Culen participated, in addition to his ordinary work as a journalist, in two actions. The first was his radio broadcasting to Slovakia. We read in Culen's letter of November 16th, 1947, the following: u Ibid. p. 133. �SLOVAKIA 156 [.. .] the radio station Free Slovakia has started to operate in Europe. It broadcasts every day for two hours. Soon Radio Free Europe will have Slovak programmes, so the Iron curtain between Slovakia and the rest of the world will be breached and we can open our mouths again. There is much work with it, but it is joyful. Well, on such radio stations we already cite what your Kanadsky Slovak [the organ of the Canadian Slovak League] writes. We will have to arrange a quicker sending of the editorial page of Kanadsky Slovak in order to give our people at home more fresh news. Now we are waiting for a reaction from our homeland .2 3 In his letter of December 6th Culen also wrote the following: Now there is much to do. We prepare materials for our broadcasting to Slovakia. We hope it will be perfect. Well , every day half an hour is enough work for one person. One station is already operating . From the New Year on the Italian government will start short wave broadcasting every day for ten minutes. I hear that even in London [BBC] the Czech and Slovak broadcasting will be divided. If then the Canadian government wants the people in Slovakia to listen to their programmes [CBC International Service which started in 1945], they will have to do the same thing. If people at home will have the possibility to listen to programmes in the Slovak spirit, nobody 23 will tune in to the Czechoslovak jumble. The Czechoslovak section of Radi o Free Europe (RFE) began regular program- ming in May of 1951. However. the division between the Czech and Sl ov ak sections , which Culen had expected , did not materialize . On this problem see: Imrich Kruzliak , "Radio Slobodn a Europa a Slovaci [Radio Free Europe and the Slovaks]", In Slovensky povojnovy exil. pp.338-344. �SLOVAKIA 157 Everything which is connected with the Czechs is bad for the Slovaks. As Culen wrote, from the beginning of 1949 the Rome station began to provide Slovak programmes. He cooperated actively with it, writing articles and reading lectures. He wrote to Rondos on April 26th that "Now I have much work, for every Sunday I have a radio lecture for Slovakia and people there listen to it very carefully." Culen's second political activity of this period was participation in the newly established political organization of the Slovak nationalists in exile. In May of 1948 an agreement to establish a new organization was made between the group led by Karol Sidor and the Slovak National Council in London which was organized in January, 1944, by Peter Pridavok. On the front page of Kanadsky Slovak of December 16th, they announced the formation of the Slovak National Council Abroad as the coordinating body in the struggle for "the Slovak State within a federalized Europe" .24 It was dated Christmas of I 948 (in reality, it was published in the middle of December) and signed by Karol Sidor (as the president) and by Peter Prfdavok (as the general secretary). The main organizer was Jozef Kirschbaum. Culen supported him, and became one of its vice-presidents and at the same time chief of its Italian branch. 2 5 i, "Slovenska Narodna Rada v Zahranicf utvorcna [Creation of the Slovak Na- ti ona l Council Abroad]" , Kanadsky S lovak. December 16th. 1948 . is On the acti vities of the Slovak National Council Abroad see: Frantisek Vnuk. "S lovenska narodna rada v Londyne a v zahranicf (1943- 1948) (The Slovak National Council in London and Abroad (1943-1948))". In Stefan Polakovic and Frantisek Vnuk, Zahranicne akcie na zachran u a obnovenie s/ovenskej sa- mostatnosti (I 943-1948), pp.1-108; Genoveva Gracova , "Dve koncepcie boja za slovensku statnost' (Two conceptions of the struggle for Slovak statehood)", �158 SLOVAKIA With respect to this, Rondos wrote to Culen on December 18th that "the article of Mr. Sidor and Mr. Prfdavok [abovementioned] was published in [Kanadsky] Slovak and it provides evidence of the revival of the independence movement. [... ] As you are actively engaged in it, you are perhaps busy with it. Culen, meanwhile, reported to Rondos on January 18th, 1949: Otherwise we are led by the Slovak National Council [Abroad]. The press in Europe pays much attention to it. The Spanish press evaluated the meaning of this step as most important among all the European nations which are occupied by Communists. Even the Swiss press pays attention to our organization . We may say that until now not even one of our Slovak affairs created such a reaction . Yesterday American journalists visited the Minister [Sidor]. I was with them for half a day and we talked with them. In February of 1949 Culen departed for Paris, together with Sidor and Kirschbaum in order to negotiate with French government officials regarding the activities of the Slovak National Council Abroad. They arrived in Paris on February 20th . We found in the file of correspondence between Sidor and Rondos a post-card from Paris dated February 21st: "We sincerely greet you and on the occasion of the meeting of the Slovak National Council Abroad we remember you." The card was written by Culen and signed: Konsto [Konstantin] Culen, Karol Sidor, Laco [Ladislav)] Jankovic, and J. Kirschbaum . In S/ovensky povojnovy exil. pp.82-84: Frantisek Vnuk. "Aktivity exilu - obhajoba slovenskej statnosti v rokoch 1945- 1948 [Activities of the emigres The Defense of Slovak Statehood in I 945 - I 948 )". in Ibid. p.90 . �SLOVAKIA 159 On February 28th Culen returned to Rome. On March 29th he wrote: "There is now much work to do with the Slovak National Council IAbroadj. We described what had happened, and where we visited. I asked them to send you a copy in order to inform you. However, it is a confidential report and not for publication." Meanwhile, on May 6th, 1949, Senator Haig received a notice (dated April 30th) from the Deputy Minister of the Department of Mines and Resources, Keenleyside : You may recall that on July 30th, 1948 Mr. R. A. Gibso n [Acting Deputy Minister of the Department] wrote advising favourable consideration in the case of Konstantin Culen and family, Czechoslovakian refugees in the Vatican City, could not be extended due to Mr. Culen's failure to comply with our medical requirements. You will now be pleased to know that on rev1ewmg the entire situation it has been decided to allow this family to come forward provided Mr. Culen 's state of health is no worse than indicated and they can otherwise meet with the Immigration Regulations . The necessary advice in the matter has been transmitted to our office in Rome , Italy in order that appropriate action may be taken on behalf of these perso ns . I trust that it will not be too long before this family will be in a position to come forward. Having received the notice, Haig sent a short message to Rondos: "Dear George : I enclose lforl you a letter received this morning from Ottawa. This looks [like] better news . When you come in bring this letter back with you." Rondos , in tum , informed Culcn of the delightful news m a letter of May 8th: �160 SLOVAKIA I cannot stop myself from informing you. The day before yesterday I received a letter from the Senator in which he informed me that your matter had moved and that now everything is on track. He [the Senator] also sent me the letter which he had received , but he asked me to bring it back to him when I would visit his office. So I typed it once more , how Ottawa classified you, and I attach it with this letter. You will read in it that Ottawa informed the office in Italy I to issue a visal if you arc not weaker than at the last examination. I hope you understand the letter, so I did not write more . Indeed, Rondos did not mention in the letter any more about the matter. However, he could feel deep satisfaction that he had finally achieved his intended objective after a long struggle with the bureaucracy. Culcn received the good news about May 15th (Ynuk writes that Culen received on May 18th the invitation from the Canadian selection committcc). 26 He reported to Rondos further developments in his letter of May 22nd: On the day that I received your letter attached with the notice I from Kccnlcysidc I to the Senator, they already called me from the consulate and at the same time they invited me also by letter to come there. When we arrived. they were very nice to us, full of' willingness. If my health condition, they said , docs not worsen . they will give me the visa. I was sent again for a medical examination. I had to go to Naples where the IRO camp is. We spent three days there , and finally we received the medical report which we now have to hand over to IRO. They have to issue us a new passport, because the old 1 " Frantisek Vnuk. tivotopis Konstantina Culena. p. 147 . �SLOVAKIA 161 one is already invalid. Then I have to again go to the consulate and there we will be told the results. At this moment I do not know them, but before sending this letter I will perhaps know , so I inform you at the end of the letter. I am really curious as to whether they will give me the visa or not , whether the old comedy of sending the documents to London and then from London to Ottawa, repeats itself, as it did the first time. After the previous disappointments , Culen was very skeptical about the results, but this time they proved to be positive. In the second half of the same letter he wrote: "We just came back from the consulate. Well , my dear friend Rondos , you won . We have the visa and, if nothing else happens, I will take part in the Congress !the 8th Convention of the Canadian Slovak Leag ue I as you wished." It took Culen two years to sec ure the entry visa to Canada. He should have felt deep satisfaction . Instead , it caused him a new kind of anxiety. At the end of the same letter he added: "However, now, the most serious problem will be to find suitabl e work. Is it possible to become an assistant editor at Kanadsky Slovak'? Of course, the others would have to approve . Or, perhaps , I will find something else. Well , I think that many people succeeded there, so I will do so somehow as well ." Afterwards, Culen was busy for days preparing for the journey: "I already bought the steamship ticket and railway ticket. I will not use the IRO transportation as I originally had to , but I will go privatel y, because this month there is no transportation and next month they still do not know when. So, I bought a ticket for Yulkania Iperhaps Culcn 's mistake. It had to be Saturnia I, the Italian ship, which will leave on June 21st direct to Halifax . So �162 SLOYAKlA perhaps about July 1st I will arrive in Canada. Then , I will board a train and depart for Winnipeg. [ ... ] Now we are just packing and saying good-bye to Rome." (Letter of June I Ith) "Just now the ship company called that my ship Satumia will leave port not on the 21st, as I was originally informed, but on the 18th. In one word, this week. So I am packing quickly, since it changed unexpectedly." (Letter of June 12th) Culen then sent a post-card to Rondos on June 15th from Lido di Ostia, a port in the suburbs of Rome. He wrote: "Saying good-bye to Rome, I am looking forward to seeing you soon" . Beside his signature there are several others: A. Culenova (his wife), Eva Culcnova (daughter), Karol Sidor, Angela Sidorova (Sidor's wife), M. Doranska (Jan Doransky's wife), Ladislav Pudis , and J. Kirschbaum etc. Another post-card was sent to Rondos on June 17th, this time from Naples : " Dear friend, saying good-bye to friends on the beach, we all remember you most heartily. We send you our greetings and I look forward to seeing you soon ." We noticed the signatures of Konstantin Culen, A. Culenova, Angela Sidorova , Karol Sidor, and Ferdinand Mondok. Perhaps they came from Rome to Naples to sec him off. Culen 's Italian friend, General Armando Mola also signed with a short English message: "We arc all happy & and unhappy! " Needless to say that they were "unhappy" to part with Culen . However, before the departure, one more problem arose. The steamship on which Culen was supposed to sail from Naples on June 18th, cancelled the voyage. In a letter of June 22nd from Naples he explained: Certainly you read in the newspaper that here in Italy the crew of the steamship Satumia, on which I was to depart, �SLOYAKJA 163 went on strike. I have been stuck here in Naples for a week. I am sick with worry. Nobody knows anything, so they tell us "Come tomorrow" . The next day they tell us " In the afternoon", in the afternoon they tell us "Tomorrow". Fortunately, I take it with some humour, so I do not get angry, not even insulted . I tell myself that I will at last find some ship on which they do not strike and I will depart on it. Today they promised us that the steamship So bieski will carry us. [ ... ] According to tod ay's information this ship will depart on Jun e 28th . In spite of Culcn ·s skepticism, the ship did , indeed , depart o n June 28th. He wrote in a letter of the same day from Naples: "Well , finally it appears that I will indeed say good-bye to Europe and the Sobieski will finally move out with us. So sometime around July 14th I will arrive in Canada." Culen departed a lone , because his family planned to leave Italy a nwnth later. Culcn's protector Sidor wrote from the Vatican to Ro nd os on June 29th (in the file of correspondence between Sidor and Rondos): "We arc all really happy that on June 28th on the steamship Sobieski Kon sto Culcn left Italy." It is interesting to note that Sidor in the same letter continued as follows : I do not know what you intend to do with Ko nsto Culen . My personal opinion is that it will be best for him to go to the editor of Kanadsky Slo vak , !Stefan) Hreha. Hreha and he could make of Kanadsky Slovak such a new spaper which even Slovaks in the United States do not have. I wrote to editor Hreha, too, but I would like to ask you to disc uss with your friends the proposal of acceptance of Culcn as an �SLOVAKIA 164 assistant editor, to recommend it and suggest to the competent authorities of the Canadian Slovak League to accept it. It is not clear whether Sidor made the suggestion on his own initiative, or whether Culen asked him to do so. In either case, judging by the prestige which Sidor had at that time as the president of the Slovak National Council Abroad, it could almost be interpreted as an order. The steamship Jan Sobieski stopped at Genoa (on June 29th), Cannes (on June 30th), and Gibraltar (on July 2nd). On that day Culen sent to Rondos his last letter from Europe: My journey was delayed whole ten days owing to the sailors' strike. [ ... ] Life on board ship is quite good. It is full of Italian emigrants who go to Canada. There are some Jews too , but they go to USA. We can hear many languages. However, most people are travelling with the hope that their life abroad will be better than at home. [ ... ] Today the sea is slightly stormy, so most passengers sigh and feed the fish . For me, nothing ever happened on the sea. Otherwise I am using my time on the ship to study English, everyday for several hours . I hope that in Canada, when I will have the opportunity to listen and speak, it will come to me fairly quickly. And I believe that in a short time I will master English so that I will be able to communicate fairly well. Otherwise, I read books and newspapers quite well. At the end of the letter Culcn wrote with some emotion: This is the last letter from European shores which I will send you. We have exchanged many letters. I sometimes felt pity for you and admired you. Because I saw that other �165 SLOYAKJA people also received many letters from you. Where did this person find the time ? I asked myself. · You will certainly be glad that one of your troublemakers will drop off your list. I will always remember your struggle on my behalf and I intend to somehow record it. This letter was written on a typewriter with Slovak phonetic characters. Perhaps Culen brought his favourite typewriter with him. The voyage and the arrival in Canada witnessed no problems . The Sobieski smoothly crossed the Atlantic Ocean in one week and arrived in Halifax on July 10th. On the same day Culcn sent a telegram to Rondos in English: "Safely arrived to [sic] Halifax expect me about Sunday". The second half of the telegraph meant that he would arrive in Winnipeg by train around July 17th. In his letter of July 11th, which was written on the train from Halifax to Montreal , Culen reported as follows : "In [Halifax I harbour a young Slovak named Janega awaited me. They say that Mr. Kunda sent him. He helped me with my baggage; we had a chat and a snack. His willingness was very much appreciated ." Culen arrived in Montreal on the evening of July 11th. Kanadsky Slovak of July 21st reported as follows : "Writer K. Culen in Canada - on the way to the West he stopped at Montreal and Toronto ." 27 It then continued , In the evening of Monday IJuly I l th I arrived in Montreal one of the prominent Slovak writers, politicians and publicists, a nationalist and uncompromising defender of Slo' vak truth [an independent Slovak state] - Konstantin Culen. 17 "Spisovater K. Culen v Kanade (The Writer K. Culen in Canada]". Kanadskf Slovak.July 21st. 1949 . �SLOVAKIA 166 At the Windsor Station prominent members of the Slovak community in Montreal welcomed him, along with a group of Slovak emigres . On Tuesday, in the National Home of the Canadian Slovak League, a small party was organized in his honour. Officials of the League and the Canadian Jednota and other persons took part in it. On behalf of Slovaks living in Montreal, chairpersons of associations welcomed K. Culen . In his speech Mr. Culen promised to cooperate, declaring that every Slovak emigrant should have participated in the national activities of the Canadian Slovaks . On July 14th Culen left Montreal and, after stopping m Toronto, in the morning of July 16th he departed for Winnipeg, sending again a telegram in English to Rondos : "Arriving CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway) 9 A.M. standard time Sunday". As expected, he arrived in Winnipeg in the morning of July 17th and was welcomed by Rondos . It must have been a very dramatic scene. Culen then participated in the 8th Convention of the Canadian 28 Slovak League in Winnipeg . 1 ' At the convention he was elected According to the Minutes of the 8th Convention. Culen said the following on the first day (July 25th) : ··1 do not want to speak long. I intend to visit all Sl ovak colonies (i n Canada). I bring you the greetings of Minister Sidor. the presi dent of the Slovak National Council Abroad. and also the greetin gs of st udents . theologians. and other Slovaks from Italy !The greetin gs. with the signatures of Karol Sidor and Jozef Kirschbaum of May 19th. 1949. were published at the end of the Minutes] . I bow down to your work. I come to you to contribute to the prosperity and en largement of the Canadian Slovak League." Zapisnica z VIII. k ongresu Kanadskej s/ovenskej ligy. vydriiavaneho v diioch 25.. 26.. 27. a 28. ju/a 1949 v hoteli Marlborough [The Minutes of the 8th Convention of the Canadian Slovak League. held on July 25th - 28th, 1949. in the Hotel Marlborough], Winnipeg. Manitoba, Canada, p.2. On the second day (July 26th) parti cipants discussed the "Sidor versus Dursansky" problem. The following com- �167 SLOVAKIA as an assistant editor of the League 's newspaper Kanadskf Slovak . The convention also resolved that the Canad ian Slovak League, along with the Slovak League of America, recognized the Slovak National Council Abroad as "the competent representative to speak on behalf of the subjugated Slovak nation at home" (Kanadskf Slovak , August 11th, 1949) . At the beginning of August Culen returned from Winnipeg to Montreal where the editorial offices of Kanadsk f Slovak were located. His wife and dau g hter, who entered Canada through New York, on August 11th, came to Mo ntreal as well. After havin g found an apartment, Culen began to again work as a jo urnalist. Although it took two long years, Culen had finally succeeded in finding "a place where we could begin a new life and work and live in safety" (Letter of June 6th, 1947). Although this article should end on this happy note, it cannot. Even though he became an assistant editor of the newspaper promise was reac hed: '" they concluded th at brother preside nt [Andrej Kucera ] sho uld read the resolution on the recogn ition of the Slovak Nat io nal Co un ci l Abroad and th at th e Co uncil headed by Karo l Sidor. wh o is the compe te nt representative tn speak on be half nf the subjugated Slovak nation at home. Fo r Dr. Durcansky a letter has to be written in w hich they rronounce their esteem for hi s work for the freed om o f the Slovak nati on. Ibid. p. 18 . In the mo rning session of the last day (J ul y 28 th ) Ro ndos made a proposal to accept C ul en int o the edi torial office of Kanadsky S lovak. Kami Murin (fom1er pers1,11al secretary of Jozef Tiso) and Father Jan Zeman supported the proposal and it met wi th ge neral approval. In the evening sessio n "Konstantin Culen was elected as an assistant editor with applause. He is grateful for his election and promises to make efforts to build up the newspaper. He also will do his best to propagate the Ca nad ian Slovak Leag ue with all his might. He promises editor [Stefan] Hreha that he will be a loyal workmate. T hey will help each other. for brother Hreha knows Canad a and the Canadian si tuatio n well and he [Culen) knows in tum Slovaki a and the European situation." Ibid. pp.27-28. Also see the articl e "Po VIII. kongrese Kanadskej slovenskej ligy [After the 8th Conve ntion of the Canad ian Slovak League] ". Kanadsky S lovak. August I Ith . 1949. �SLOVAKIA 168 Kanadsky Slovak, Culen moved to Winnipeg in March of 1952, because the League had bought a small printery there. At that time he became the editor-in-chief. However, he became dissatisfied with this position, resigned in July, 1956, and moved to the United States. In September of the same year he became director of the Slovak Institute in Cleveland (Ohio) after the sudden death of the former director, the historian Frantisek Hrusovsky. Now his personal relations with leading members of Slovak organizations in the United States became complicated (His mimeographed work "V zajatf fa/osnych Jegiend a nenavistneho srdca (In the Grip of False Legends and an Unforgiving Heart)" which was published in New York in 1961, deals with this problem). Therefore, in September of 1958 he was dismissed from the Institute. Culen continued to write until his death on April 7th, 1964 in New York. His simple tombstone with the English inscription: "Culen / Konstantfn / Slovak historian / and writer / born in 1904 I died in 1964" stands modes ti y on the grounds of the Slovak cemetery in Passaic (New Jersey) . * * * Having reconstructed Cul en 's tortuous attempts to emigrate to Canada, we may conclude the following. Someone as famous as the nationalist journalist Culen could have had some advantages; he received the help of the influential Juraj Rondos, who shared Culen's nationalism. Thanks to Rondos ' s strong personal connections with Senator J. T. Haig, Culcn's matter was dealt with by the local government official, R. N. Munroe in Winnipeg. The matter reached even the Deputy Minister of the Department of Mines and Resources, H. L. Keenlcyside, who was in charge of immigration to Canada. In Rome Culen was helped by the former Slovak �SLOYAKJA l69 Minister to the Vatican, Karol Sidor, and also by the Italian General A. Mola who had connections with the Canadian Minister to Italy, J. Desy. In spite of such advantages, Culen had to struggle for two years with the Canadian burea ucracy before sec uring an entry visa to Canada. Owing to Culen 's past as a stron g supporter of the independent Slovak State, which during World War II was allied with Nazi Germany , he had to make some false statements in his application. However, it seems that the Canadian authorities did not care much about them. Culen 's standin g as an "anti -co mmu nist writer" may have helped him. It is clear that Culen 's health record complicated and delayed the process of hi s entry to Canada. It is not clear whether it had been blocked by the political intervention of his "enemies". Juraj Rondos's self-sac rificing efforts on behalf o f Culcn were impressive. His strong will and activities, which were evident in the struggle with the Canadian bureaucracy, were trul y surpri sing. Culcn expressed admiration and gratitude to' him : "Whenever I meet with Minister Sidor, we almost always talk about your work with admiration , which will remain as a beautiful example of quiet and determined efforts with patriotic eagerness . Very seldom in life docs one ex perience such work." (C ulcn 's letter to Rondos of December 6th, 1948). When Kon stantfn 's younger brother, Stefan Culcn visited his brother in Montreal at the end of October, 1949, " he IStefan Culen I was also very thankful to you !Rondos I and he just does not understand that a man, who did not know us at all, could fight for us so courageously and finally win." (Letter of Konstantfn Culen's wife, Alzbeta Culenova, to the Rondos family of October 31st, 1949). Later a rumour was circulated among Slovak immigrant communities in Canada, according to which Rondos received mo- �SLOVAKlA 170 ney from the Canadian government for helping immigrants. However, Culen doubted the rumour and Rondos rejected it decisively in his memoirs. Judging by the contents of his correspondence, Rondos 's good faith is clear and we probably can accept his explanation that " I worked from love of Slovak affairs and not for money" .29 19 K. Culen wrote in an ano nymo us article as fo ll ows: "There are many of us in Canada who may thank the Canadian Slovak League for ou r emigration and for the fact that we again live as human beings and that we again stand on our feet and we are out of the camps of poverty . They may also thank brother Rond os who did this wo rk in the name of the League. He [Ro nd os] did it co urageo us ly and conscientio usly. Many know well the Slovak ' s worst failing. namely envy. and they began to spread gossi p. sayi ng that he [Ro nd os] is a good business man who receives JOO dollars from the Canadian government for every emi grant. Many emigrants were also angry with his alleged earning of 100 dollars for this purpose. When once someone to ld me that. I [Culen I answered him : ··1 feel offe nded . In my mind. Ro nd os sho uld ge t for me at least 1.000 dollars. If I was rich and had the money. and if the Canadian gove rnment did not give him the mo ney . as in reality it did not. I would give him for every me mber of my family 1.000 do ll ars. Even so. it wo uld not be enough for all that he has d o nc . •• Anonym [Konstantfn Culen J. "Ujo Rondos". Ka/cnd;ir Kanadskcj s/ovcnskcj ligy. I 953, p.211. Rondos himself remini sced about the episode in his later years as follows : "When after World War II o ur fellow -co untrymen dispersed around the world. I tried to get as many of them to Canada as possi ble. I took charge of the help and the !Canadian I Co lonization Office helped me. I managed to get many families and individuals into this country. However. there were certain people who accused me of being paid by the Canadian government up to 2,000 dollars for single families . Of course. this was just a fairy talc. I worked from love of Slovak affairs and not for money . I even spent my ow n money by constant running around and arranging of documents for Slovak emigrants. " Juraj Rondos . "Moje rozpomienky na zasle easy". Ibid. I 982, p.54. �SLOVAKJA 171 In his correspondence Konstantfn Culen repeatedly promised to write the story of his immigration to Canada. He 0 never did so.' This article is an attempt to do it for him. 111 Meanwhile. we identified the following articles in which Culen mentioned Rondos: Konstantin Culen. "Dolczitc pre novych emigrantov [Important News for New Emigrants]". Kan.1dsky Slovak. September 15th. 1949: Anonym [Kon stantin Culen]. "Ujo Rondos ". Kalendar Kanadskej s/ovenskej ligy. /953. pp . 209-212 . � 112 SLOVAKJA DOCUMENTATION: V Konstantin Culen' s Long Journey from Italy to Canada As Illustrated by his Correspondence with Juraj Rondos 1 Susumu Nagayo The emigration of post-World War II political emigres from Europe to North America was a long and complicated process. Both the United States and Canada had passed legislation severely restricting immigration to their respective countries in the l 920's and l 930's and this legislation made it virtually impossible for post-war refugees to gain easy access into either country. T o illustrate this difficulty I will focu s upon one such refugee - the 2 nationalist Slovak writer Konstantin Culen . This article is based ' I would like to thank the staff of the Archives and Special Collec tio ns of Mori sset Library at the Uni versity of Ottawa fo r their kind supp011 of my work. I also deeply th ank Professor M. M. Stolarik fo r his critical comme nts and English correcti o ns. 2 On Konstantin C\ilen ' s life see the fo llowing works and arti cles: Franti sek Vnuk, Zivotopis Konstantina Culena [Biograph y of Konstantin Cul en]. C le veland , the Sl ovak Institute, 1984; S/ovensk f biografick f s/ovnik (od roku 833 do roku 1990) I [Slovak Biographical Dictionary (from 833 to 1990)]. I. Martin. Matica slovenska, 1986, pp.433-434; "Kalend ari um zivota a d iela [Chro nicle of his life and work s]". · In Stefan Baranovic (ed.), Konstantin Cu/en (1904 Brodsk e - 1964 New York ). Z bomik vydanf na pocest' nedoiitfch deviit'desiatych naro- �113 SLOVAKJA on the unpublished correspondence between Konstantin Culen and Juraj Rondos, which is in the Slovak Archives of Morisset Library at the University of Ottawa. 3 We will reconstruct Culen 's case by extensively quoting from his correspondence, which was written in Slovak. dcnfn historika a novinara [Konstantfn Culen. Almanac Published in Ho nor of the Ninetieth Birthday of the Historian and Journalist]. Martin , Mati ca slove nska. 1995, pp.66-68: Augustfn Mat'ovcfk and others, Reprezentacny biografic- ky Jexik6n 5/ovenska [Representative Biographical Lexicon of Slovakia] Martin, Matica slovenska. 1999, pp.59-60. During his life Culen wrote many boo k s and articles. We still do not have his complete bibliography. Meanwhile see the following articles : Jozef Kirschbaum, "Bibliografia literarnych prac K. C ul e na [Bibliography of Literary Works of K. Culen]", Slovak v Amerike, Jul y 29 th. 1964: Frantisek Vnuk, :Zvotopis Konstantfna C ulena. pp.225-227; 5/ovensky biograficky s/ovmk. I, p. 434; Jozef Pauco, "Predstavitelia slovenskej kulturnej tvorby [Representati ves of Slovak Cultural Creation]. Konstantfn C ulen ", Jcdnota, September 19th , 1990; "Bibliografia literarncj tvorby [Bibliography of Literary Creation] ". in Stefan Baranovic (ed.), Konstantfn Culen , pp .55 -63. Among the above-mentioned bibliographies. the last has the most information . ' The correspondence between Konstantin Culen and Juraj Rond os is located in the Slovak Archives of the Archives and Special Co llecti ons. It belongs to th e Imrich Stolarik Fonds (ARCS 98 -1). which co nsists of 38 boxes. The material s were donated to the Uni ve rsity at the end of 1998 by the fo nner President of th e Canadian Slovak League, Inu·ich Stolarik ( 1909-2000). They consist mainly of the organi zational papers of the League . but also contai n personal materials of the founders of the League. such as Gabriel Kurdel, Andrej Kucera, and Juraj Rondos. At prese nt (November of 200 1). the Imric h Stolarik Fonds is still being processed. A Preliminary Guide to the Imrich Stolarik Fo nds is available in the reading room of the Archives . The corresponde nce of Juraj Rondos is in fo ur boxes (575-578). It co nsists of his official and personal documents and co ntains thousands of items. Among them are interestin g materials relating t o Rondos ·s mediation on behalf of Slovak refu gees seeking to enter Canada after World War II. The file of correspondence between Cul en and Ro ndos is fo und in box 577. This fi le co ntain s 165 letters (6 1 from C ul e n to Rondos, 42 from Rondos to Culen. and other letters) from 1947 to 1952. �SLOVAKIA 114 * * * By the end of March, 1945, as World War II in Europe was coming to an end, a group of people evacuated from Slovakia to escape capture by the Red Army and possible retribution in postwar Czechoslovakia. They were representatives of the independent Slovak State which was allied with Nazi Germany. These refugees briefly stayed in Holic and Skalica in Western Slovakia and , at the beginning of April, they entered Austrian territory. Finally, they settled in Kremsmiinster, a small city to the south of Linz. Among them was Konstantfn Culen with his wife and daughter. On May 8th, 1945, representatives of the Slovak government capitulated in Kremsmiinster to the American Army. At the beginning they were treated politely. However, on May 19th the former Prime Minister Stefan Tiso and three other former Cabinet Ministers were arrested by the United States Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) . On June 7th fifteen more people, including Culen, were arrested as " Nazi collaborators". They were detained in American Army camps in Peuerbach (until September of 1945) and then in Glasenbach. In March of 1946 Culen was released from the camp due to the intervention of his wife. The family met again in Ried im Innkreis in Upper Austria. At the end of April, avoiding "war criminal" hunters of the Czechoslovak authorities, Culen moved to Munich. But even here he did not feel secure, so at the end of August he returned to Austria. On September 20th, with the help of a friend in the CIC, he illegally crossed the border into Italy, hiding in the trunk of his friend's car. The next day he arrived in Rome, where he was reunited with his family. In Rome, under the protection of Karol Sidor, the former Slovak Minister to the Vatican, Culen started to work again as a �115 SLOVAKIA journalist. Utilizing newspapers and magazines from Slovakia as sources, he began to contribute articles to Slovak nationalist newspapers in the United States and Canada. At the same time, through connections with Slovak organizations abroad, Culen began to seek entry into Canada. The story begins with a letter dated June 6th, 1947, which Culen sent to Juraj Rondos4 in Winnipeg. Rondos was one of the leading members of the nationalist fraternal organization, the Canadian Slovak League. At that time he was president of its ' Juraj (George) Rondos ( 1900- 1985) was born in May 1900. the so n of a fam1er in the village of Vinne (Michalovce district, Zemplfn County ) in eastern Sl ovakia. In March 1926. he came to Canada looking for work. After engaging in various jobs, in October 1928, he opened in Winnipeg (Manitoba) a restaurant with a boarding house. In 1930 he became a member of the Winnipeg branch of the Slovenska liga v Amerike [the Slovak League of Ame1ica]. In 1932 he established, together with his friend s Andrej Kucera and Pavo! Sabo. the fraternal organization Slovenska liga v Kanade [the Slovak League in Canada] which was renamed in 1934 the Kanadska slovenska liga [the Canadian Sl ovak Leag ue]. At the beginning of the 1930's he received hi s Canadian ci ti ze ns hip. In 1936- 1938 he parti cipated in the organization of colonization of Slovak agricultural immigrants to Rosewood (Manitoba). In 1938 he brought hi s wife and children to Canada. After World War II. as an official of the Canadian Slo vak Leag ue. he helped many Slovak refugees (Displaced Persons) to emigrate t o Canada. Cule n' s case, which I reconstructed in this article. was one of them. After holding various important posts of the League. Rondos died in Winnipeg in March of 1985 at the age of 84. For Rondos's life see: Anonym (Ko nstant in Culen), "Ujo Rondos [Uncle Rondos]". Kalendar Kanadskej s/ovenskej ligy [Almanac of the Canadian Slovak Leag ue ], 1953, pp.209-212; Juraj Ro ndos. "V lete sli spat' na breh rieky [In the Summer They Slept on the Ri verbank] ". In lmrich Stolarik, ed .. Spomienky pionierov [Memories of Pio neers], Toro nto, Canadian Slovak Leag ue. 1978, pp.207-220: Juraj Rondos. "Moje rozpomie nky na zasle easy [My memories of lo ng-ago days] ", Jubilejnf kalendar Kanadskej s/ovenskej ligy [Jubilee Almanac of the Canadian Slovak League] , 1982. pp.51 55: Anton Hacko, "Posledne Zbohom Ju rajovi Ro ndosovi [Last Farewell to Juraj Rondos]". Kalend ar KanadskeJ slovenskej /igy.1 985- 1986. pp.1 27- 129. �116 SLOVAKIA Colonization Committee. 5 In this letter Culen informed Rondos, with whom he had never met, of his desire to immigrate to Canada. Culen introduced himself as follows: As you know, in 1945, with many others I emigrated on my own initiative. After much pain and suffering, I settled here (in Rome). Since Czech and Bolshevik agents will not leave me alone and there is still the danger of being arrested , we would like to find us a place where we could begin a new life and work and live in safety. I have many friends and relatives in America, but it is still hard to go there. They promise us much, but quotas are small, so perhaps we would have to wait for decades. To go to South America seems perhaps more easy, but, even so, it requires 5 In the Minutes of the 7th Convention of the Canadian Slovak League, which was held in October of 1946, we read the following passages: "News from the Colonization Committee - Brother Rondos, the chairperson of the Colonization Committee, made an oral report and added that he has close contacts with members of the Colonization Office of the Canadian National Railways, who offered him the necessary information regarding immigration to Canada. es pecially with regard to Slovaks. Other ethnic groups also exert pressure on the Canadian government with respect to immigration of Displaced Persons. demanding revision of the Canadian Immigration Act. ( ... ) Brother Rondos. based on their explanation about the settlement of immigrants on Canadian farn1s. assured the delegates that the Canadian government would admit Slovaks to Canada if the provincial offices would give them permission . Brother Rond os strongly appealed for sponsors for Slovak refugees and to help them to enter Canada. (. .. ) At the end Brother Rondos clarified who can immigrate to Canada and also referred to difficulties, such as temporary passports. the voyage across the Atlantic, and the lack of ships etc. At the same time he displayed so me application forms which he received from the Colonization Office." Zapisnica zo VII. kongresu Kanadskej s/ovenskej ligy vydriiavancho v diioch 28-29-30 a 31. okt6bra 1946 vo Windsoru, Ontario [Minutes of the 7th Convention of th e Canadian Slovak League. held on October 28th - 31st, 1946, in Windsor, On tario]. pp.9- 10. �117 SLOVAKJA time. So, I thought, what about Canada? I wrote a letter about this to Father Sprinc [Mikulas Sprinc], who in turn sent a letter to president [of the Canadian Slovak League] Kucera ([Andrej Kucera]. And he told us to send to you the necessary information . I have a brother in America [Stefan Culen in Chicago] who is also trying every possible means to get me nearer, so I want to try this as well . I would like to ask you the following : 1. Can we enter [Canada] ? There are three of us. 2. What do we need to do in order to enter? 3. How can you help us? Culen then provided his and his family's life histories. I was born on February 26th, 1904, in the village Brodske, District of Skalica, Slovakia. My occupation is engineer (do not worry about it; it is so registered in my passport. It is exact, because I studied engineering in high school.). Since April of 1945 I am in exile. The reason why I do not want to go back and cannot do so is an antipathy towards the domestic Bol shevik rule. I have a Red Cross passport iss ued in Rome . Alzbeta Culen, born on December 19th, 1906, m Bratislava, is my wife. She has a Red Cross passport too. Elena Eva Culen , born in January 22nd, 1929, m Bratislava, a student, is my daughter. She too has a Red Cross pass port. We are all stateless. As we can guess from Culen's defensive tone, this life history is not entirely accurate. Culen was no engineer. According to his biography, Culen was a middle-aged Slovak nationalist journalist. �SLOVAKIA 118 Although he did not have a university education, he had been a brilliant journalist even as a youth. At the time of political crisis in Czechoslovakia in 1938-39, Culen participated in the activities of the Hlinka Slovak People's Party for Slovak autonomy. After March of 1939, when the independent Slovak State was declared, he became its strong supporter. He was a Member of Parliament (December, 1938 - March, 1939, the Slovak Autonomy Parliament, then March, 1939 - spring of 1945, the Parliament of the independent Slovak State) and he served as a cultural attache at the Czecho-Slovak Legation in Washington (January - March , 1939). Although he was prevented from participating in political activities by his political rivals from the summer of 1940 on, he continued to be active in the field of culture and journalism until the end of the war. In his letter to Rondos, Culen explained the reason for his emigration as "an antipathy towards the domestic Bolshevik rule" . He told only half of the story. In June of 1947, when the letter was written, the Communist Party already held the leading pos ition and had great influence in Czec hoslovakia, but political pluralism still existed. The Communists did not seize power until February of 1948. More likely, Culen was afraid of "war criminal" hunters and the so-called "people's courts" of the Czec hos lo6 vak authorities . • "Being condemned a ·war criminal' by London [the Czechoslovak government in exile], Moscow [the Czechos lovak Communist group in exile], and Banska Bystrica [the headquarters of the Slovak National Uprising in 1944]. he [Culen] had to go into exile to escape the gallows." Frantisek Vnuk. Z i votopis K onstantfna Culen a. p. l 02. - "To my question why he [Cu len] fled abroad at the end of war, he answered that he had been afraid of Bencs 's revenge." Imrich Krnzliak, "Spomienky na Kon stantfna Culena [Memories of Konstantin Cu len]", in Stefan Baranovic (ed.), Konstantin Cu/en. p.48 . - "When the front [of the Red Anny] approached, Culen. who opposed. as a Member of the Parli ame nt �SLOVAKIA 119 Culen shifted the whole responsibility of his emigration onto the "Bolsheviks", because he knew that the independent Slovak State, which he had strongly supported during World War II, had been allied with Nazi Germany and Canada had fought the war on the side of the Allies. He was also counting on the emerging Cold War, which was shaping Canada's relations with Western countries . However, as we may guess from the tone of his reply, Rondos already understood Culen's delicate situation . It was common knowledge, not only in Slovakia, but also in the Slovak immigrant communities in North America, that Culen had a "s plendid past record" as a Slovak nationalist. Without hesitation , Rondos answered Culen's request with a skillful and kind reply dated June 23rd. I understood well your letter, and your wish to enter Canada with your family. You asked me to answer the three following question s: 1. Whether can you enter Canada with your family ? You can enter Canada as a farm worker. I have close friend s who occupy high positions in the Canadian Immigration Office. I had a long conversation with them. I explained briefl y your situation . I simply told them as a friend that you arc highly educated and the reason why you were expelled abroad. I also told them what are you thinking of doing if you enter Canada. They assured me that, after arriving in Canada, you will be free here, according to your ability. But if you want to and representative politician of the first Slovak Republic. Bo ls hevism and especiall y Benes ' s Czechos lovak politics. which did not even recognize the ex istence of the Slovak nat ion. had to evacuate from Slovaki a by government decree ." Dusan M. Janota. "Spomienk a [Memories]", in Stefan Baranovic (ed.), Ibid. p.52 . �SLOVAKJA 120 enter Canada as soon as possible, you have to be registered together with your family as farm workers. Please forget other worries. Canada needs people like you. Here everybody is free and everybody is responsible for their own future . 2. What do you need to do for that? You have to do nothing. I will find for you a good Slovak farmer who will submit an application to the Canadian Immigration Office. He will petition to admit you and your family to Canada and declare that he has work and lodging on his farm for all of you . 3. What could I do fo r you ? I could do what I ex plained to you in 1. and 2. I will begin the work with your permission and by Divine protection. And I hope that our work will be successful according to the information which I provided for you and your family . A responsible person (at the Immigration Office) told me that it will take you three to six months at most to enter Canada. It was a smooth beginning. Culen was very pleased with the reply. As promised, Rondos quickly fo und a sponsor for the Culen family and so informed him of it in a letter dated Jul y 9th: Your fe llow-countryman from Tmava named Jozef Vo lek submitted an application that he needs you and your fam il y for work on the farm. He also submitted an application to th e Canadian Immigration Office, a copy of which I am enclos ing with this letter. Please do not worry. Either a Canadian Immigration Officer there will personally visit you or they will inform you by letter as to where you should present yourself. In the correspondence between Culen and Rondos we fo und drafts of an application entitled "This form has been prepared by �121 SLOVAKIA the Immigration Branch, Department of Mines and Resources, for the use of persons applying for the admission to Canada of immigrants". There are two copies of the same form, for Konstantin Culen and his wife Alzbeta Culen, and for their daughter Elena Eva Culen. Both copies indicate at the end: "Dated at Rosewood Man. (Manitoba) this 4 day of July A.D.1947. Volek" Signed Jozef 7 In this application there are some misleading statements. In the space for "relationship to applicant" they filled out as "friend" (needless to say, neither Culen nor his wife had ever met Volek) and in the space for "citizenship" as "C.S.R. [the Czechoslovak Republic]" (in his first letter to Rondoas Culen wrote that they were "stateless"). To the question "occupation in own county" they filled out as "fam1er" (not "engineer" as Culen had written before) and to the question "intended occupation in Canada", they answered: "to work on a farm". The most serious falsehood was the answer to the question "Has Immigrant ever lived in Canada or the United States? If so, between what dates and what address?" They simply answered "No", which was not true. Culen had actually lived in the United States three times. The first time (1905-1909) it was as a child with his parents, who were migrant workers; the second time 7 Jozef Volek ( 1903- ?) was one of the Slovak fam1ers who lived in Rosewood (Manitoba). He was born in 1903 in Trnava (Western Slovakia), came to Canada in 1927 and later obtained his Canadian citizenship. He acted as the financial secretary of the Branch 19 (Rosewood) of the Canadian Slovak League (the head of the Branch was Juraj Rondos). Volek wrote in the application , which was sent to the Immigration Office of the Ministry of Mines and Re sources in Ju Iy of 1947: ··1 have clear title to 560 acres( ... ) Financial resurses (sic) $ 25.000.oo. Anaal (sic) income about $ 7.000.oo ." Culen wrote in his letter of August 1st, 1947, to Rondos that Volek was a friend of the famous Slovak historian exile. Frantisek Hrusovsky. in �SLOVAKIA 122 (December, 1935 - July, 1936) as one of members of the delegation sent by Matica slovenska (Slovak national cultural organization) to visit fellow-countrymen in the United State; the third time (January - December, 1939), as indicated above, as a cultural attache at the Czecho-Slovak Legation in Washington and then, after March, as an editor of the official organ of the Slovak League in America, Slovenska obrana [The Slovak Defence]. Certainly the purpose of the last two stays was not as a fam1er. His third stay in 1939 was especially significant and controversial. At that time Culen openly supported Slovak autonomy and, ultimately, independence. Even though Volek filled in the application, he probably only took dictation from Rondos. Rondos must have known about Culen's career in the United States. However, as reported in his letter dated June 23rd, he already had prior consultations with high-ranking officials in the Immigration Office in Winnipeg, so he probably considered this application as just a formality. Furthermore, Volek filled out after the sentence that "I have made the following arrangements for a home and employment for the above named immigrants," as "We will recive (sic) them on aur (sic) Farm and guarantee full maintenance and farm Employment at going Wages. " To the question "Is transportation to be prepaid?" he answered that "I will pay transportation," even though Volek must have known from the beginning that the Culen family had no intention of working on a farm. On July 15th Culen received Rondos's letter dated July 9th . Enclosed were copies of the application which Volek had submitted to the Immigration Office. In his reply dated August l st, Culen complained as follows: �SLOVAKIA 123 Well, now I would only ask you to take up this matter with the proper authorities, because there are several Slovaks here who have papers like this and have been waiting for a long time, but nothing is happening. The worst thing is that they write much about our difficulties and thousands of people live by talking about the necessity of doing something to solve the refugee problem, and make as if they have done and deliberated . Meanwhile, emigrants are perishing physically and morally, while the gentlemen are having a good time. America in particular pays much attention to the matter, but not even one refugee is admitted. The bill, which should have been passed, was pigeonholed . Congress went into recess for a vacation. It will be reconvened again only in January ( of next year) and undoubtedly the bill will not be touched until the summer of 1948. If it is passed, migration can be started in 1949 or 1950. However, who can bear it? [In reality the DP (Displaced Persons) Act was passed in Congress in the spring of I 948 and the migration started in October of that year.] Why don ' t they speak less, write less and act more? Of course, what can we, small and simple people, do against the roguery of gentlemen's politics ? In reply to Culen's complaint (the letter was not dated, but according to its contents it was perhaps written in the middle of August), Rondos reported as follows: You asked me to expedite the matter. Well , I will tell you what is happening. Mr. Volek was summoned to the Immigration Office where he was asked [to provide evidence regarding the following l: I. Evidence from the district office that he [Volek] is really the owner of 520 acres of land [according �SLOVAKIA 124 to the application which Volek submitted to the Immigration office, it was 560 acres of land] . He proved it by showing a private letter from the district office and also doc ume nts which proved that he has no debt. 2. Evide nce from a bank regarding his savings. We could prove that easil y enough. But after that they asked the third question. We were asked to explain how Mr. Vo lek came to know yo u. We answered that he went to school together with you and he remembers yo u as a farmer's son who was also trained in bl ac ksmithing. Thu s, when Mr. Volek left fo r Canada twe nty years ago, you [C ulen] remained at home working as a village bl acksmith a nd also as the cultivator of a small estate. We were asked wh y you lived in ex ile. Did you run away as a civilian or as a soldier? To this we answered that you were not a soldier and that you ran away as a civilian from communist terror. In his repl y, dated A ugust 28th , Culen humorously promised to "tell the same story": Thank yo u for the in formation about the examin ation by the Canadian office. Well , arri ving there , I will prese nt myse lf as the blac ksmith . It is not such a big lie, because my fa th er was a blacksmith , and, fro m childhood I was in his shop. If necessary, I pumped the bellows and helped with the bi g hammer, so th is is not a craft which I co uld not ac kn ow ledge . I coul d, perhaps, pass the examinatio n. By the end o f September the Canadian bureaucracy fin all y replied. Culen's sponsor, Jozef Volek, received the fo llowing pos iti ve notice dated Septem ber 29th from R.N. Mun roe , the �125 SLOVAKlA District Superintendent of the Immigration Branch of the fro [sic-for] the Department of Mines and Resources in Winnipeg: In connection with your application admission to Canada of your friends, Konstantin Culen, his wife, Alzbeta and their daughter, Elena Eva, of c/o Karel (sicKarol) Sidor, Citta del Vaticano, Italy, this is to advise that the settlement arrangements have been found satisfactory, and the necessary steps are being taken to have the proposed immigrants examined overseas. It will , of course, take some little time to complete these arrangements . A copy of this notice was immediately sent by Rondos to Culen who wrote about the news in his reply dated October 20th. These were the most delightful letters which I received during almost three years of exile. And especially, as I see, it is serious and we can judge according to the letter which you received [the above-mentioned letter by Munroe] that in fact the matter has already been arranged . Now it is only a question of time, according to the letter. Culen concluded optimistically: I am ending this letter with thanks for all which you have done for now. I caused you much concern, but I really had nobody else to ask. After all kinds of promises and assurances which I received, what you have done is most real and most clear. Well , once again sincere thanks and if that "some little time" in office is prolonged (I do not know how the bureaucrats function in Canada, but in Slovakia they say that a short �SLOVAKIA 126 time lasts one year), please expedite it again. In any case, I hope that by Christmas I will be with you. While awaiting a reply from the Canadian bureaucrats , Rondos reported to Culen in a letter dated November 3rd that he had already arranged for Culen's tickets: "I am informing you that today I purchased for you and your family the steamship tickets . It means the following: You have your fare paid from Southampton , England, to New York by ship and from New York to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, by train ." As we shall see later, Rondos paid the fare out of his own pocket. However, on November 18th, Rondos received a notice dated November 17th from the Cunard White Star Line, where he had booked the tickets. In the notice a certain Patterson , the person in charge, wrote: You will recall our conversation, in which I advised you that we are not permitted to sell Prepaid for non-Canadians resident in Italy, for the reason that the Canadian Government has not an Examining Office for immigrants in that country. Our Head Office Iin England] is moct lsic-mostl anxious to assist us , but point out very plainly that they cannot take the responsibility of bringing the family forward to Paris for examination by the Canadian Civil and Medical Authorities , on the chance that they might be turned down . Therefore, I give you the suggestion, for what it is worth, that if these people can legitimately leave Italy and establish themselves in Paris, and you will confirm to us the Paris address at which they are resident, we could then make _representations to have the Permit transferred to Paris and the examination take place there . �127 SLOVAKIA Rondos at once wrote a letter (dated November 18th) to Culen. I have very close contacts with the company regarding your matter. Just now I received a letter from them in which they say that they cannot start with your matter and that you have to go to Paris with your family by yourself and that in Italy they cannot arrange a medical examination. In order not to explain much, I enclose you with this letter a copy of the notice. I hope you will choose a trip to Paris. And please present yourself at their company. [... ] And show them the copy of the notice which I am _sending you and either they or you announce yourself as soon as probable to the main office in England where they already have all the best information about you and the registered ship tickets are waiting for you. The same day Rondos sent a letter to Stefan Culen 8 , Kon stan- tin's younger brother, who lived in Chicago: " [... ] I dared to pay for the steamship tickets of your brother and his family from England to New York and I also paid for train tickets from New York to Winnipeg out of my own pocket $636.42 [ .. . ] I did not want to tell this even to my friends , in order not to confuse somebody about my work." Rondos also enclosed as evidence the copy of the notice from the ship company of November 17th and continued: "From your letter I understood that you are willing to pay your brother's fare, in order to get him here as soon as possible. I dared to pay it out of my own pocket. I hope that I am cooperating with good peo' Sefan Culen ( 1909- ?), third of five brothers of Konstantin Culen , was born in Pennsy lvania (USA), and worked in Chicago as a manual laborer. �SLOVAKIA 128 pie and that my money will not be wasted." Rondos here suggested that, since he paid Culen's travelling expenses, Stefan Culen should reimburse him. Referring to "your letter, Rondos had in mind Stefan Culen's letter (stamped October 15th) in which Stefan wrote from Chicago that, "As soon as they [his brother's family] get visas, I would like immediately to send them plane tickets. If I could somehow help, please write me." Stefan Culen, after receiving Rondos 's letter of November 18th, answered on November 21st, and informed him of his intention to reimburse Rondos, as requested .9 Meanwhile, around November 22nd, Kon stantin Culen visited the Canadian Legation to Italy in Rome accompanied by an Italian friend, General Armando Mola. The Legation was newlyestablished and the Minister to Italy, Jean Desy' 0 had just been appointed on October 13th of that year. In a letter dated November 24th, Culen reported to Rondos the result of his visit: A while ago I returned from the Canadian Embassy. I went there with our friend, the general , who knows the Ambassador well. They received us warmly. We explained to them how our matter is going. We gave them an English tran- 9 Because of the complication in getting Culen ' s entrance visa to Canada. Ro n- dos cancelled in June 1948. the reserved tickets. See the notice of the Cunard Donaldson Limited Company of June 17th. 1948 . '" Jean Desy (1893-1960), Canadian diplomat. was born in Montreal (Q uebec) to a French Canadian family. In 1925 he entered the Department of External Affairs in Ottawa. He was one of the earliest Francophone diplomats in Canada. In I 941-1947 he was the Minister to Brazil (in 1943 promoted to Ambassador) . On October 13th, 1947, he was appoi nted Minister to Italy and on June 26th. 1948, was promoted to Ambassador and served in this position until 1952. In 1954-1958 he was the Ambassador to France and he died in Paris in 1960. �SLOVAKJA 129 slation of your last letter (of November 3rd) in which you wrote that travel expenses had been paid. We also gave them the letter (notice, dated September 29th) which the Immigration Office had sent to you. The Ambassador said that everything was O.K. He said that we do not even need to go to Paris and that he will arrange the matter himself, including a medical examination and visa. The only things you will need are the following: l. Confirmation from the (ship) company that travel expenses have been paid . 2. Confirmation from Ottawa (the Canadian government) that entry to Canada is permitted . We asked him (the Ambassador) to request the matter telegraphically on condition that we will pay the expense connected with it. He promised to arrange it in this way. We had already asked the agency of the Cunard Company here to obtain confirmation concerning the payment of travel expenses. It would be good, if you could call their attention to this matter as soon as possible. Because he [the Ambassador] said that, if he will have it [the Confirmation] in his hand , he may issue the visa, so we could depart about the middle of December. Well , we would truly like to do so. We would fly away from here to London and then we would await there the next ship and we would depart. Really, we are growing impatient, like children before Christmas , and already we would like to be on the road. We will rest only when our ship moves in your direction . Culen's optimism grew after he received two letters from Rondos (dated November I 8th and November 20th) and a copy of the notice from the ship company (dated November 17th). �130 SLOVAKIA Culen wrote in his letter dated November 27th as follows: "If the matter moves faster, we will be there (in Canada) even in December, if slower, we will be there in January. Anyway, our hope was never so clear, as it is now. We feel as if we have everything within reach." However, "Confirmation from Ottawa that entry to Canada is permitted," which they had asked the Legation to obtain did not come. As Culen reminded Rondos in his letter of December 3rd, "The Legation here is waiting for information from Ottawa that they may issue us visas. I think that he [the Ambassador] already requested it telegraphically. If you have an o pportunity , please ask them to send it here as soon as possible. Because, as long as we do not have a Canadian visa, we cannot take the next step." Feeling uneasy about the delay, Culen sent to Rondos the letter of General Mola written in English (dated December 13th). On behalf of Culen General Mola explained his situation as follows: I saw again this morning, Mr. [T.L.] CARTER, [Second] Secretary at the Canadian Legation , acting for the Ambassador Mr.[Jean] DESY, so as to facilitate matters in every possible way. 1) Everything is all right as regards prepaid tickets. since the Legation is satisfied with the written declaration given CULEN by the CUNARD Office (Mr. BROOKS). 2) Mr. CARTER took note of what you wrote about the permit to enter Canada having already been sent to Rome . Nothing, however, reached the Canadian Legation yet , though the latter wrote Ottawa about it Nov. 22nd already . 3) By same letter, the authorisation was asked of the Canadian Government for the Legation actually applying the �131 SLOVAKJA visas on the three passports, even though the immigration Officials, to whom such a task is usually entrusted, are still to arrive. In the opinion of the Legation, such an exception might be granted since all documents were checked and found all right, and since the Legation have already their own Doctor who'll be able to submit the CULENS to the required medical examination. Were the authorisation not granted, Mr. CARTER says there seems to be no hope for the proper office to be ready for work here before two months or so! It would seem therefore most advisable that you should kindly complete the extraordinary work you and Mr. VOLEK have already done in favour of our friends by personally going to the proper Department in OTTAW A and - making precise reference to the Legation's letter of Nov. 22nd insisting that it should be answered favourably, possibly by cable: mind, not for the permit only, but also for the power to be granted the Legation. This is also Mr. CARTER's advice. On December 14th, Culen sent Rondos a cable. Unfortunately, I could not find it in the files of the correspondence, but, according to the contents of the aforementioned letter, we may guess that Culen's cable asked Rondos to obtain the confirmation from Ottawa by cable and to give to the Legation the power to issue visas. Having received it on December 15th, Rondos visited the agency of the Cunard Company and the Immigration Office in Winnipeg without getting a favourable response. In those circumstances he decided to seek the intervention to his close friend, Senator John Thomas Haig 11 , and visited his law " John Thomas Haig (I 877-1962), Influential politician in Winnipeg (Mani- toba). He was born to a Scottish family in Ontario and was a lawyer by profession . In 19 I 4 he was elected to several tenures in the Manitoba Legislature In �SLOVAKIA 132 office in the city. Unfortunately Haig was attending Parliament in Ottawa. His brother, who had received Rondos, reported to Haig in a letter dated December 15th (to which was enclosed a notice from Munroe, dated September 29th and a copy of Culen's cable dated December 14th): Your old friend , Mr. Rondos was in the office today. He has applied under the Immigration Act, to bring out his friend, Konstantin Culen, his wife and daughter who are presently in Italy. [ ... ] The difficulty seems to be that we have no immigration authority in Rome. There is nothing there but a Legation and without special authority, they apparently have not the power to grant immigration permits. You will note the wire asking that the permit be cabled and that authority be given to the legation to Grant a visa. [... ] The only difficulty seems to be the permit and the visa. We know that you will do everything in your power to have this rushed to completion before you return from Ottawa. Mr. Rondos is exceedingly anxious, he has gone to a lot of trouble and spent a lot of money, and would certainly appreciate anything you could do to iron out the difficulties. 1935 he was appointed to the Senate, Dominion of Canada. in Ottawa. From 1945 on he was the leader of the opposition party (the Progressive Con serva- tive Party) in the Senate. In June 1957. through the victory of his party in the general election, he became the leader of the governme nt party. In October of that year he was appointed Minister without portfolio in the Diefenbaker Governme nt. In May of 1958 he resigned this position. �SLOVAKIA 133 Receiving the news from Winnipeg, Senator Haig met with his personal friend, Hugh Llewellyn Keenleyside 12 who was the Deputy Minister of the Department of Mines and Resources and in charge of Immigration. After being "probed", Haig answered Rondos in a letter dated December 22nd as follows: [ ... ] You also know that I am leader of the Opposition [the Progressive Conservative Party] in the Senate of Canada and I took the time off to go and see the Deputy Minister of Mines and Natural Resources who is also the Deputy Minister of Immigration. He assured me that in two weeks from the 14th of December, that they would either have one of their own officers in Rome to give Visas for Canada or authority would be given to the Canadian Legation to issue them. The Deputy is a personal friend of mine and I am sure he will do exactly that thing. I sent the Immigration letter, about the duties to the Deputy Minister and he said it would all be cleared up in two weeks so that your friend [Cul en I will be able to get his Visas not later than January first. " Hugh Llewellyn Keenleyside ( 1898- I 992). Canadian scholar. diplomat. and high-ranking civil servant. was born in Toronto. In 1928 he entered the Department of External Affairs in Ottawa. In 1929- 1936 he served in Tokyo as First Secretary of the Canadian Legation in Japan. During World War II he was opposed to the forced evacuation of Japanese Canadians. In 1944-1947 he became Minister to Mexico. and in 1947-1950 the Deputy Minister of the Department of Mines and Resources. In this period he published the article Canadian Immigration Policy. Vancouver, the University of British Columbia, 1948 . Later he held various important positions in the United Nations and in British Columbia. He published Memoirs of Hugh L. Keenleyside, Toronto, McClelland and Stewart Limited. 1981 -82. in two volumes. �134 SLOVAKIA On the same day Rondos, enclosing a copy of Haig's letter, answered General Mola in English: I was indeed pleased to receive your letter of December 13th with the detailed information therein. I also received the cable of Mr. Culen , and immediately took the necessary action with the Immigration officials in Ottawa. To assure you that immediate action will be taken by the Canadian Immigration authorities , I am enclosing herewith a copy of a letter written by Mr. John T. Haig, Leader of the Opposition in the Canadian Senate, which is self-explanatory . Many of Mr. Culen's Slovak friends in Canada are looking forward to his arrival. Culen described to Rondos, on December 31st how he felt when he received the letter: We were feeling very blue at the end of the year. It seemed that everything had gone wrong. And here, in the last hours of the passing year, your latest news, which you sent to General Mola, arrived. It delighted us very much and it gave us new hope. Yesterday General Mola told me: "I am 73 years old , I travelled around the world, I saw and experienced much, but I have never yet in my life met with such a case of a countryman's friendship, as I see here with Mr. Rondos. You can be proud of it not only as a human being, but especially as a Slovak." Meanwhile, on the same day General Mola went to petition the Canadian Legation with a copy of Senator Haig's letter of �SLOVAKIA 135 December 22nd which Rondos had sent him. Culen reported to Rondos about this episode at the end of his December 31st letter: Just a while ago the General returned from the Legation . They read the letter [from Haig] and they said that it is interesting, but according to the existing laws they may issue a visa only to Italian citizens, but not to foreigners. Until now they received nothing about our matter. They promised that they will send a cable and request an answer from Ottawa to the previous letter [dated November 22nd] about our matter. They have certain objections to our Red Cross passports and they say that we have to get others. In a word, there will be still many difficulties . By the way, the General is writing to you about this matter. They will have to get a special order to iss ue a visa to Culen and his family. While there is no order, nothing can be done. We also found in the file General Mola's letter to Rondos written in English (dated December 31st): Many thanks for your kind letter of Dec . 22nd and appended enclosure from Sen. JOHN T. HAIG . I immediately went to the Canadian Legation and showed them both letters to Mr.CARTER [Second Secretaryl . He was evidently impressed; but unfortunately he said that - though they already had authority to give visas without awaiting for the arrival of the Emigration Officials in Rome - this is for the time being applicable to Italians only. The Legation has as yet not received any similar instructions, neither for your specific case, nor for emigrants other than Italians. �SLOVAKIA 136 I saw H.E. DESY also, and he assured me they would do their showing their best good-will, since they promised me they would cable to-day to insist that OTT AWA should answer by cable to the letter the Legation originally wrote to the Department last November. Knowing unfortunately how slow burocracy [sic] is in all countries, may I suggest that - with this piece of news in hand - you should ask your powerful friends to specifically insist that a cable was immediately sent, as suggested by the Legation. General Mola wrote m detail about the passport problem which Culen mentioned only briefly: Another complication arose at the last moment: namely that the RED CROSS passports - which had been by the Legation declared valid - are now not considered fit , by some recent new regulations!!! It would be necessary to have them substituted by some C.S.I.R.O documents - which it would take an enormous time to obtain - even though the Legation promised their support to hasten matters. Couldn't it also be obtained from OTT AW A that they should cable and authorise the Legation to exceptionally accept the RED CROSS passports as valid for the CULENs case only? According to their expectation at the beginning, it would "take you [Culen's family] three to six months at most to enter Canada" (Rondos's letter of June 23rd, 1947). However, the barrier of the Canadian bureaucracy was greater than they imagined and 1947 drew to a close over the anxiety of obtaining a visa. In the second half of January 1948, Culen 's attempts to enter Canada looked hopeful. He reported in his letter to Rondos , dated January 16th as follows : �SLOVAKIA 137 Just a while ago they phoned me from the [Canadian] Legation, that. they already received the documents and perhaps within a week they will arrange the matter. They already fixed for us even the date of the medical examination. I hope it will end well, because we all feel ourselves quite healthy. [... ] If it will go well, we could perhaps get a visa by about [January] 23rd. Then it will take some time, while we receive an English and possibly an American [transit visa]. So we reckon that at the end of February we could arrive in Canada or in the United States. At that moment Culen thought that an entry visa to Canada was within reach. To his great disappointment, however, he failed his medical examination. Twenty-two years earlier Culen had suffered from a senous disease. At the end of August in 1926, when the twenty-one-yearold had worked in the editorial office of the daily Slovak in Bratislava, he was hospitalized for pleurisy. For two weeks he hovered between life and death. His temperature sometimes rose as high as 41 degrees. After three months of fighting the disease, he was allowed to leave the hospital. After convalescing for months at a sanatorium in the High Tatras, at the end of the year Culen returned to his regular life in Bratislava. 13 On January 28th, 1948, the Culen family reported to the newly established Canadian Immigration Office m Rome for a medical examination. Culen reported the results to Rondos in a letter dated the same day : It seemed that everything would be all right, when they suddenly looked at the X-ray of my bowels. Twenty-two " Frnntisck Ynuk. Zi votopis K onstantfna CuJena. p.45. �138 SLOVAKIA years ago I suffered from pleurisy. They said that even today one can see on the photograph traces of the inflammation. Since then I never got sick, but a Canadian doctor questioned it and postponed the issuance of our visas for later, only after the agreement of the Department of National Health and Welfare [for Canada] in London. They will send all the documents there. If they will agree, we can get visas, but if not, we can do nothing. We are for ever kept waiting. Culen continued in a pessimistic tone: Well, we truly did not expect it. Everything seemed all right. We received passports from the I.R.O. With the documents we had no problem, nor with the civil investigation . It never occurred to me that today they would call into question my illness of 22 years ago and that it would halt everything. My wife and daughter were recognised as healthy. This is sad and unexpected news for you and for us. So much work, so much running around and expenses, and finally this. You can hardly imagine what kind of medical examination we had. First of all the X-ray, then the medical and physical examination , then blood tests and then once more the face of a Canadian doctor. They were more strict than at the med ical check-ups for conscription. Now we have to wait for what they will decide in London. After so many experiences there is in our mind only a small spark of hope, si nce for emigrants things usually do not go well. What more can we do ? We arc truly bewildered and unhappy. We descended from hope into the abyss of hopelessness. �139 SLOVAKJA After he received Culen's "sad and unexpected news ", Rondos answered (in his letter of February 3rd) to keep his hopes up: .. . believe me, I and my whole family grieved when we read your letter. But, considering the whole matter, I think it will change for the better, because many people have suc h traces as you mentioned. The blood test will prove (that yo u are healthy) and in London they will reconsider the matter. I still believe in Almighty God and everything will be fin e. Please wait a couple of days, to see how they will answer yo u . And then, let me know instantly what kind of answer you get. If you do not fee l weak, I think it will pass and soon you can move in the direction of Canada. It was said that "within three weeks they will certainl y answer from London" (Culen's letter to Rondos of March 3rd), "at the latest within three weeks we will receive the answer" (his letter of March 20th ), but the repl y fro m the Department of National Health and Welfare for Canada in London was again delayed . Growing nervous, C ul en compl ained to Rondos on March 29th as fo ll ows : The Canadian gentlemen unpleasantl y trifled with us and in an un-Christian manner. The mos t unpl easant part is th at they said neither "yes" nor "no" . Government officials, havi ng a good life , tease poor emigrants. If one were not thoro ughl y affected by anti-Bolshevism, we ll , after such an ex perience one would like to give up, to leave for the other side and to say to them; "Forgive me, we wronged you." However, th e sorrowful truth is that the so-called democrats who chatter a lot about humanism and democracy practice such un - �140 SLOVAKIA Christian and such brutal things that on this point there are few differences between them and the Bolsheviks. [ ... ] Well, what shall we do? We all are against the heartlessness of the authorities and the stupidity of the bureaucracy and feel very helpless. You have done more than one could expect from a close family member. I am sorry that it turned out so badly. In Culen's letters we noticed several parts where he expressed dissatisfaction towards the immigration policy of Canada and the United States, and criticism and antipathy against the Western countries. Even the nationalist Culen, who professed to be a hardline anti-Bolshevik, reflected the emotional anti-Western sentiment of the contemporary left-wing intellectuals. Conversely, we found here and there sentences in which Culen praised the attitude of the Argentine and Spanish governments which gladly accepted immigrants . At the beginning of April Culen at last received a reply from London. The result was negative. In a letter to Rondoas of April 1st, Culen exploded in anger: Well, finally the obvious happened. Today we went to the Canadian ([Immigration] Office. They welcomed us very nicely, saying: "I just wanted to write you , you came just at the right time!" After such an introduction we were curious about the good news. They did not keep us waiting. They said:" You can not receive a visa for Canada. We received such an answer from our superiors." It did not surprise us. Because, after the long comedy which they subjected us to, we shouldn ' t have expected anything else. Your work was in vain . Our efforts were in �SLOVAKIA 141 vain. Even the intervention of Abbot Kojis of Cleveland was in vain and useless. It helped nothing. Canada needs men with strong fists such as Joe Louis, but it does not need men who dared once in their life to become sick. I am sorry about your efforts and work. Although on the other hand, I had a beautiful experience. And I see clearly the true character of the humanity and Christianity of the United States, Britain, and Canada in the international conferences against Bolshevism. They pretend as if only they are apostles of mercy. One is disgusted with it, when one hears these hypocritical speeches and sees these brutal behaviours. Believe me, they are as bad as the Communists . Culen also vented his anger on Senator Haig, who acted as an intermediary: I thought that such a Senator, as leader of the opposition, has yet some power and the right to speak. But it seems to me that he has not much. I was once an unimportant deputy, but when I petitioned to the Minister of the Interior [Alexander Mach I that there were several Polish refugees who were hunted by the Gestapo, and if they were arrested, they would be shot, it was sufficient for the Minister immediately to issue them Slovak passports and as Slovak citizens to place them in the state service. Our Minister did not send them to an X-ray examination in order to have a look at their lungs, whether they had not by chance some medical history. If you want , you may tell Mr. Senator that it is strange that such an important politician can do nothing even for such a trifle. We have to clench our teeth and regret the lost time. After such experiences, one has to consider what to do next. There are not �SLOVAKIA 142 many choices. One might even consider returning to the home country and to confess to the Bolsheviks as follows : "Forgive me, I was disappointed. In the West there is no democracy, no humanity, no Christianity, there are only forests for which they need cheap and absolutely healthy workers. No more, no less . Nothing had changed since the Americans carried slaves from Africa. The only difference is perhaps that now they check them even by X-ray, which they did not have one hundred years ago." In the morning of April 2nd , Culen received the notice with the same contents from the Canadian Immigration Office. Reporting to Rondos shortly thereafter, he wrote in a pessimistic tone that "otherwise I doubt that it is possible to change the matter" (letter dated April 2nd). To do justice to the Canadian authorities , it should be pointed out that they did not make a wrong diagnosis. In reality, in August of that year, Culen spat blood and was hospitalized . A spot was found in his right lung, but thanks to streptomycin and a calcium injection he was discharged from the hospital on September 10th. 14 In February of 1948, when Culen was disappointed by the medical examination and its aftermath, the Communist Party finally seized power in Czechoslovakia. When Culen suggested, perhaps only rhetorically, the possibility of returning to Czechoslovakia and of surrendering to the "Bolsheviks," in Czechoslovakia they were preparing a political trial against him. However, before Culen's trial started, the Communists organized another political trial against a group of people, including 14 Ibid. pp. 145-146. �SLOVAKIA 143 his youngest brother Ladislav Culen 15 , who remained in Slovakia. Ladislav was arrested in September of 1947, under suspicion of participating in the underground activities of the Slovak Action Committee [Slovensky akcny vybor] led by a nationalist politician in exile, Ferdinand Durcansky. Stefan Culen, Konstantin's younger brother, wrote in a letter to Rondos (stamped October 15th, 1947): I [Stefan Culenj received a letter from Slovakia. They arrested our brother [Ladislav Culen] who was a professor in Bratislava. We do not expect that he will come back alive, for many people were arrested and accused of wanting to assassinate Benes [then the Czechoslovak President] . It is nothing but pretence to murder them. Very many people are arrested . These poor guys will never return. Suspicions of plotting to assassinate President Edvard Benes were spread by the State Security Police (STB). However, it was true that these people, including Ladislav Culen , organized the underground, supporting the idea of an independent Slovak state , and supplied information to Dr. Duransky , one of the leaders of the Slovak independence movement, who was in exile in Italy (after July of 1947 in Argentina). 15 16 Ladislav Culen ( I 9 I 6- I 990 ), fi fth of fi ve brothers of Konstantin Cul en. stu - died history at Comenius University in Bratislava. During the independent Sl ovak State he served at the Slovak Embassy in Budapest. As me ntio ned above. he was arrested in September 1947, under suspicion o f participatin g in an anti - state conspiracy and was se ntenced in April 1948 . to 18 years in prison. He wa s released in 1962. 16 .. The organizational network of the Slovak Action Committee in Slovaki a was initiated at the suggestio n of J. Fickuli ak in May of 1947. The group o rganized aro und Jozef Dobrovodsky and parti cipated in this in iti ative through L �144 SLOVAKlA Otto Obuch, the central figure of the so-called "anti-state conspiracy", was a press officer who worked in the office of then deputy-Prime Minister of the Czechoslovak government, Jan Ursfny. Ursfny was one of the leaders of the Democratic Party, the largest political party in Slovakia at that time. Obuch was arrested in late September of 1947. By the end of October State Security, taking advantage of the affair, forced the deputy-P.M. Ursfny out of office. Slovakia fell into a political crisis (the so-called November crisis) and as a result, the Communist Party succeeded m weakening its rival, the Democratic Party, and strengthened its position in Slovak politics. 17 Culen. Members of this illegal organi zation. Action Committee - official ly named "the Sl ovak headqu arters in Brati slava", spread its acti vity to all of Slovakia, which was divided into three regions." Robert Letz, S/ovensk o v rokoch 1945- 1948 na ceste ku k onwnistickej to tali te [Sl ovakia in 1945- 1948 on the Road To Communist Totality]. Bratislava. Ustredie slovenskej t'anskej intc ligencic v Bratislavc. 1994. p. 157. Jozef Fickuliak supplied kres- "Obuch. Ladi slav Culen. and Durcansky with important material regarding the political backgro und. the negotiatio ns of the gove rnment. copies of laws and decrees. unusual articles in the press etc ." Robert Letz. "Slovenska politicka emigracia z rok u 1945 a ohlas na jej cinnost' doma [The Slovak Political Emi gration of 1945 and the Respo nse to its Activi ty at Home 1". In Slovenskf po vojnovf exil. Z bomfk materialov zo seminara Dejiny slovenskeho exilu p o roku 1945 v Matici s/ovenskej v Martine 27. -28. j1ina 1996 [The Slovak Pos t- war Emigres. Papers from the Seminar '·The History of the Slovak Emigres after 1945" organized by Matica slovenska in Martin on June 27th - 28th. 1996 ]. Martin, Matica slovenska . 1998 . p. 118 . 17 For details of the po litical bac kgro und of the "anti-state conspiracy" see : Michal Barnovsky. Na ceste k monopolu m oci. M ocensk opo/iticke zapasy na Slovensku v rokoch 1945- 1948 [On the Road to Monopoly of Power. Power- political Struggles in Slovakia in 1945 - 1948 ]. Bratislava. Archa. 1993. pp . I 6 1207: Robert Letz. Slovensk o v rok och 1945-1948 na ceste ku k omunistickej totali te. pp. 156- I 76 and p. 2 30. �145 SLOVAKIA After seizing power in February of 1948, between April 19th and 29th in Bratislava, the Communist regime tried Otto Obuch and his followers. Obuch was sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment. Ladislav Culen received 18 years for being a party to "the anti-state conspiracy" which intended to overthrow the Czechoslovak Government and to restore the independent Slovak State. Exdeputy-P.M. Ursfny, who was allegedly involved in the affair, was sentenced to seven years in prison . 18 Ladislav Culen was heavily punished, perhaps, as a warning to his older brother. Konstantin Culen wrote to Rondos on May 7th as follows: l- --1 in Bratislava they tried my brother as an "AngloAmerican" spy and the prosecutor demanded the death penalty. Well, we were in bitter and tense expectation of what would happen and how everything would develop. He received 18 years' imprisonment, which is the second heaviest sentence among the accused. The Czech judge [K.] Bedrna sentenced the accused in all to 85 years. In the Hungarian Kingdom, during the last century, Slovaks were sentenced to about 78 years and, now, at one stroke they got so much more, and it is still said that they are "liberated ." Besides , they treated my brother so badly that he will take it very hard. The worst thing is that everything was unnecessary, that if there had been no stupidity by [Ferdinand)] Durcansky , his unnecessary propagandizing and forecasting of war, his unneces""Jan Ursfny. byvaly podpredseda c-s vl:idy. bol ods udeny na 7 rokov viize nia ("Jan Ursfny. former Deputy Prime Minister of the Czechoslovak governme nt. was sentenced to 7 years in prison). Slovensk:i obrana. May 4th. 1948. On Ursfny 's memories of this episode see: J:in Ursfny. Zm6jho tivota (Prfspevok k vf- voju slovenskej n:irodnej mys/ienky). [From my Life (Co ntribution to the Deve lopment of the Slovak National Idea)]. Martin, Matica slovensk:i , 2000, pp. 134- 149. �146 SLOVAKIA sary instigating of young enthusiasts, of careless people, the trial would not have taken place. 19 Culen also wrote about the matter in his letter of May 13th: Otherwise from the country [Slovakia] there is always only news about trials. My brother was already sentenced as an "Anglo-American" spy; however, I can enter neither England nor America. Isn't it a little strange? In the country they would like to try me as a collaborator with Americans. How this world is confused! On May 28th and 29th, m the local court in Bratislava, Konstantfn Culen was tried m absentia. One of the Slovak newspapers reported : '""The State Security Police (STB) took advantage of the activities of the Slo vak Action Committee. Even th ough the activity of the Committee brought im portant arguments about the stru ggle for the Slovak statehood back home. it also enabled State Security to manufacture ··the anti-state conspiracy" and to accuse the Catholic wing of the Democratic Party of cooperating with po liti cal emigres. which they interpreted as anti-state activity. Robert Letz. "Slovenska emigracia z roku 1945 a ohlas na jej cinnost' doma" . In Slovensky povojnovy exil. pp.118- 11 9. For details of the illegal political movements in Slovakia after World War II see: Robert Letz. Slovensko v rokoch 1945- / 948 na ceste ku komunistickej totalite . pp. 129- 176. See also the memoirs of one of th e leading figures of the Slovak Action Committee. Stefan Polakovic. "Zaznam o cinnosti SA V-u [Records of the activity of the Slovak Action Committee]" . In Stefan Polakovic and Frantiasek Ynuk. Zahranicne akcie na zachranu a obnovcnie slovenskej samostatn osti (1943- / 948) [Activities Abroad for the Preservation and Renewal of Slovak Independence ( 1943-1948 )], Lakewood-Hamilton. Slovak Research Institute of America. 1988. pp . I 09-225 . politicka �SLOYAKJA 147 The people 's court in Bratislava, with Dr. Artur Sipka presiding, tried in absentia on the 28th of this month Konstantin Culen, former deputy of the Slovak Parliament. The Prosecutor accused Culen of the following crimes: that as an important politician he worked for the dissolution of the Czechoslovak Republic [in 1939], that he supported the military and political interests of Nazi Germany, that he supported the declaring and making of war against the Soviet Union, that he thwarted the struggle of the Slovak nation for the restoration of the Czec hoslovak Republic , that he became rich at the expense of other citizens , therefore he committed criminal acts of domestic treachery, collaboration, and treachery in the Uprising (of 1944). The public prosec utor of the trial is Dr. Amoast Barat. Vojteeh Vycanek spoke in his defence. The written statement and doc umentary material presented was proof of his guilt. The sentence will be passed on Saturday at 9 o'c lock.2' 1 Culen wrote in his diary of June 2nd , which is cited in Vnuk's biograph y, as fo llows: There is a newspaper with an article on my sentence "Cul en - 30 years' Imprisonment: [...)] Senate of Dr. Sipka of the people's court in Bratislava on Saturday of May 29 th passed judgement on Kon stantin Culen who was sentenced in his absentia to 30 years' imprisonment, 15 years' divestiture of citizenship, and confiscation of all his property ." Only 30 years! They fo und me guilty of so many cnmes and they gave me so few years! However, we two brothers, together with Laco [Ladislav Culen] got from the Czechs al- ' " Frantisek Vn uk. Zivotopis Konstantfna Cu/ena. pp.139- 140 . �148 SLOVAKIA most the same number of years as all Slovaks had gotten during the entire Hungarian regime. These gentlemen succeeded so well. The state prosecutor was Arnost Barath, a Hungarian from Nitra, whose two brothers, Elemer and Zoltan, are in exile, and one of them has just left for Venezuela. Vojta ([Vojtech] Vycanek, my old acquaintance, pleaded on my behalf. I am indeed curious how he did it. I wrote in a hurry an article for Jednota [a Slovak nationalist newspaper in the United States] where I just dealt with the curiosity that they could find for my trial neither a Slovak judge nor a Slovak lawyer. 21 Culen also wrote to Rondos on June 10th that "they sentenced my brother in Bratislava as an Anglo-American spy and confiscated all our property." These political trials perhaps dissuaded him from returning to Czechoslovakia and of surrendering to the "Bolsheviks". The trial of Kon stantin Culen belonged to a series of political trials which took place at that time in Bratislava. A group of Slovak nationalist intellectuals in exile were judged in absentia as well. Karol Sidor, Reverend Ferdinand Mondok, and Jozef M. Kirschbaum were each sentenced to 20 years in prison. The historian Frantisek Hrusovsky received ten years. It is worth mentioning that Culen received the heaviest sentence. In the meantime, Rondos, who had been informed by Culen 's letter of April 1st that London had turned down his visa application, once again visited Senator Haig. The Senator promised to bring to Ottawa the notice of the Canadian Immigration l l Ibid. p.140. �SLOVAKIA 149 Office in Rome, which Culen had sent, in order to tack.le the matter at first hand (Rondos's letter to Culen of April 8th). Late in May, when Rondos went to Ottawa as a member of the delegation of the Canadian Slovak League, he visited the office of the International Refugee Organization (IRO), where he found a file according to which the entrance visa to Canada for Culen and his family had already been issued on March 5th. Feeling doubtful about the situation , Rondos met the secretary of Senator Haig (at that time Haig was not in Ottawa), and asked about the matter (letter of June 16th). At Rondos 's request, Haig wrote a letter to the Department of Mines and Resources in Ottawa. He received an answer of July 6th from his acquaintance, Deputy Minister Keenleyside: Since Mr. Kulen (sic) has been refused a visa for reasons of health, any review must be on medical grounds. Accordingly, the Director of Immigration has forwarded the entire file to the Departmental medical advisor, in order that we may have the benefit of his professional opinion. The original certificate was severe and I would not wish , at this time, to raise any hope on the part of the applicant. Just as soon as the file is returned , I shall promptly advise you and , in view of your representation, I sincerely hope the medical findings arc favourable. On July 14th, Haig sent a copy of this letter to Rondos . In the morning of July 16th, Rondos visited the District Superintendent of the Immigration Branch, Munroe, who called him the day before. In Rondos's letter of July 15th to Culen, we have a detailed report of their conversation. Based on it, we will reproduce Rondos's petition. Rondos and Munroe talked for over one hour �150 SLOVAKIA about Culen's entrance into Canada. Naturally, they also talked about his medical examination in Rome: Munroe: They did not say that Mr. Culen is really weak, but he has a medical history. By the way, how do you know these people? Why did you help to raise the Culen matter? Rondos reported all the circumstances. Munroe: I know the Senator [Haig] from childhood and we are now very good friends. Well , how did you get in contact with Mr. [T.P.] Devlin, the chairman of the colonization of immigrants for West Canada? Rondos began to explain. Munroe: It is enough. I was informed by Mr. Devlin about what you are asking me. Do you support the application which Mr. Volek submitted? According to it Mr. Culcn will work on his farm . Rondos: I am sure from his letter that Mr. Culen will work on the farm. In Canada nobody will take care of him. He 1s responsible for himself. Munroe: I have information that he is highly educated. Rondoas: It is true , but he had his own farm in Slovakia and he understands farmer's work . Munroe: If Mr. Culen enters Canada and cannot work on Mr. Yolek's farm, I was told that your organization lthe Canadian Slovak League] would help him, because he is a writer and can write good anti-Communist articles . Is it true? Rondos: I have a secret which I would not normally reveal. But I recognise that I am talking with a high state official, so I confess to you . I have a close connection with the Royal Police in Canada I RCMP I and I provide them with information about Communist activities. When a Czech agita- �SLOVAKIA 151 tor comes here and the Police really want to know about his purpose, they ask me to participate in their meeting. Mr. Culen already sent me articles about what Communists write about Canada. These articles were sent long ago to the police office. If you want to know about them, call and ask s uchand-such an officer, whether or not I indeed provided the m with articles which Mr. Culen sent me from Rome. And our organization works against turnin g Canada " Red " . If Mr. Culen could not work for Mr. Volek, o ur organization will help him. If yo u need some ass urances for the help, I am ready to offer it. Munroe: I am satisfied with yo ur words . I do not demand any assurances. I already heard personally about your activity and , according to the information which state officials se nt me, I recognize your words as true. By the way, does Mr. Culen not have the intentio n to go to his brother [Stefan Culen] in America? R ondos: When Mr. Culen comes to Canada, he will become a citizen of thi s country. Because he is educated a nd we Slovaks in Canada do not have such people, we very much need ed ucated peo ple here. His brother in Chicago 1s only an ordinary worker. He cannot he lp him . Munroe: Is Mr. Vo lek sati sfied that he pro vided one year ago an applicatio n for Mr. Culcn 's entry to Canada? R ondo.s: Yes. If yo u do not believe me, please call the Senator. He knows Mr. Volek well and he will prove to you that Mr. Volek is waiting fo r Mr. Culen . Munroe: I am glad that you told me the truth. I will send a report to Ottawa that Mr. Culen is awaited in Canada. And I agree with it. �SLOVAKIA 152 At the end of the conversation, Munroe called his secretary and ordered him to dictate a letter to Ottawa that he (Munroe) supports Culen's entry into Canada. However, in spite of Rondos's "frank" petition and Munroe's "guarantee", on August 9th, Senator Haig received from the Acting Deputy Minister of the Department of Mines and Resources, R. A. Gibson , a polite notice of refusal (of July 30th): The [Culen] file has been returned to the Director of Immigration from the Departmental Medical Adviser and, I regret to inform you, the original diagnosis has been confirmed. Under the circumstances, the Immigration officials in Rome cannot be instructed to issue a visa for the Culen [sic] family . Undoubtedly Mr. Volek will be disappointed with these developments but the Immigration Branch can be of no further assistance in the matter. Haig transmitted the notice on the same day to Rondos with the short comment: "I got a very disappointing letter this mornin g which I enclose . I don't think anything further can be done ." Rondos reported to Culen in a letter of August 17th: "Believe me , it [the notice] shocked me so much that I lay down and fell asleep. t .. .] I waited while everything passed away. I went to the Senator's office. He was at home and said the following : Haig: George [Juraj), I am sorry about such mean news. Rondos: Mr. Senator, I had an important meeting with Mr. Munroe, the chief (of the Immigration Department) for Western Canada. It was July 15th. In the letter [from R. A. Gibson] he wrote that they received from England a message �SLOVAKIA 153 of decisive refusal. In my mind , an answer from England was hardly reached between July 15th and 30th , es pecially an official answer through Ottawa. I would like to know whether in Ottawa any Czech communist conducts the immigration administration or not. Munro e: I al so think that the an swer should have come later. George, go to the Immigration Department and onc e more ask directly for Mr. Munroe . Next Morning (perhaps on Aug ust 11th) Rondos called Munroe and got an appointment to meet at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. He was welcom ed. Rondos: Sorry about disturbing you, but I fee l nervo us and I would like to kn ow the situation tho rou g hl y. Rondos again explained to him, as he did to the Senator, and handed him the Jetter from Ottawa. Munroe read it and called his secretary, telling him to bring Cu/en's file. Wh en he brought it, Munroe read once m ore the Jetter which he had written concerning Cu/en to Ottawa on July 15th . Mun roe: Do not take the letter which yo u received from Ottawa seriously. It is written in Ottawa on Jul y 30th , but m y letter to them was sent onl y on Jul y 29th . So it is not the answer to my letter. Mr. Rondos, the fact th at I sent to Ottawa the letter is the same as if I pe rsonally went there in order to carry out the matter. Do not worry because I have not yet received an answer to my letter. And Munroe took the copy of his letter to read what he had written: "According to my special meeting with Mr. Rondos, I approve of the entrance of Mr. Cul en to Canada." Afterwards, Culen had a long wait. In his letters to Rondos we find such sentences as : "The Canadian [Immigration] Office has �SLOVAKIA 154 not replied yet." (Letter of September 6th, 1948), "We know how officials work, •so we are not surprised at all." (Letter of September 18th), "We are waiting until they finally invite us and say Here are your papers and here is your visa. Since nothing had happened, I went to ask them privately. We heard that they indeed received some letter and they have just answered it. We d o not know what kind of answer they received. Well, we can o nly guess as we wait, optimisticall y or pessimisticall y. However, it is certain that it will still take some time. But we are used to waiting patiently, so we will live with it. " (Letter of October 9th), "Besides, nothing special has happened . We are waiting, as we waited one year, two years, or three years ago. Slowly we will look like Jews who are also waiting for the Messiah." (Letter of Nove mber 6th), "We expected last year that we would not have to celebrate Christmas and Easter [sic] by letter, but that we would do it orally. Well , our plans did not materialize and we must one year later wish yo u Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year by letter. " (Letter of December 6th) , "Till now the local (Immigration) Office did not move even an inch on the matter, so to speak. We are still waiting for them to invite us, but in vain. We do no t know what has happened . Now it seems that it has been mo ved, somebody, somewhere, puts a brake on it. " (Letter of December 27th). In August of this year, when Rondos visited Haig's office, he sugges ted, half jokingly, the possibility of "sabotage by a Czech communist". Being psychologicall y exhausted from the long wait, Culen began to suspect that his entry to Canada had bee n bl ocked by the political intervention of "the enemies" . He wrote to Rondos on January l 0th, 1949: "It would be interesting to find out why it all happened. I think that my health was not the question, but it �SLOVAKJA 155 was Czech political interference." In his letter of March 29th, the conjecture changed into conviction: General (Mola) visited the Canadian (Immigration) office to ask whether by chance they had something new. There were new officials there, so they began to check various papers and finally revealed that the difficulty was not caused by an X-ray, but by something else. Well , it might be only political. And if political , it is clear that it was Czech interference. I know that they were not pleased with my appearance there. [ ... ] Because the fact is that there is not a greater enemy than a Czech . If it were possible, Czechs would drown us in a teaspoon[ul of water. Culen's biographer Ynuk also suggested the possibility of "enemy's intervention " .22 However, it is still unclear whether some pro-Czechoslovak groups (for example, the Czechoslovak National Alliance in Canada) or pro-Communist groups really did it o r not. Meanwhile, waiting for an answer from the Canadian Immigration Office, Culcn did not waste his time . After the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia in February of 1948, the Slovak nationalist group in exile led by Karol Sidor began its political activities. In this period Culen participated, in addition to his ordinary work as a journalist, in two actions. The first was his radio broadcasting to Slovakia. We read in Culen's letter of November 16th, 1947, the following: u Ibid. p. 133. �SLOVAKIA 156 [.. .] the radio station Free Slovakia has started to operate in Europe. It broadcasts every day for two hours. Soon Radio Free Europe will have Slovak programmes, so the Iron curtain between Slovakia and the rest of the world will be breached and we can open our mouths again. There is much work with it, but it is joyful. Well, on such radio stations we already cite what your Kanadsky Slovak [the organ of the Canadian Slovak League] writes. We will have to arrange a quicker sending of the editorial page of Kanadsky Slovak in order to give our people at home more fresh news. Now we are waiting for a reaction from our homeland .2 3 In his letter of December 6th Culen also wrote the following: Now there is much to do. We prepare materials for our broadcasting to Slovakia. We hope it will be perfect. Well , every day half an hour is enough work for one person. One station is already operating . From the New Year on the Italian government will start short wave broadcasting every day for ten minutes. I hear that even in London [BBC] the Czech and Slovak broadcasting will be divided. If then the Canadian government wants the people in Slovakia to listen to their programmes [CBC International Service which started in 1945], they will have to do the same thing. If people at home will have the possibility to listen to programmes in the Slovak spirit, nobody 23 will tune in to the Czechoslovak jumble. The Czechoslovak section of Radi o Free Europe (RFE) began regular program- ming in May of 1951. However. the division between the Czech and Sl ov ak sections , which Culen had expected , did not materialize . On this problem see: Imrich Kruzliak , "Radio Slobodn a Europa a Slovaci [Radio Free Europe and the Slovaks]", In Slovensky povojnovy exil. pp.338-344. �SLOVAKIA 157 Everything which is connected with the Czechs is bad for the Slovaks. As Culen wrote, from the beginning of 1949 the Rome station began to provide Slovak programmes. He cooperated actively with it, writing articles and reading lectures. He wrote to Rondos on April 26th that "Now I have much work, for every Sunday I have a radio lecture for Slovakia and people there listen to it very carefully." Culen's second political activity of this period was participation in the newly established political organization of the Slovak nationalists in exile. In May of 1948 an agreement to establish a new organization was made between the group led by Karol Sidor and the Slovak National Council in London which was organized in January, 1944, by Peter Pridavok. On the front page of Kanadsky Slovak of December 16th, they announced the formation of the Slovak National Council Abroad as the coordinating body in the struggle for "the Slovak State within a federalized Europe" .24 It was dated Christmas of I 948 (in reality, it was published in the middle of December) and signed by Karol Sidor (as the president) and by Peter Prfdavok (as the general secretary). The main organizer was Jozef Kirschbaum. Culen supported him, and became one of its vice-presidents and at the same time chief of its Italian branch. 2 5 i, "Slovenska Narodna Rada v Zahranicf utvorcna [Creation of the Slovak Na- ti ona l Council Abroad]" , Kanadsky S lovak. December 16th. 1948 . is On the acti vities of the Slovak National Council Abroad see: Frantisek Vnuk. "S lovenska narodna rada v Londyne a v zahranicf (1943- 1948) (The Slovak National Council in London and Abroad (1943-1948))". In Stefan Polakovic and Frantisek Vnuk, Zahranicne akcie na zachran u a obnovenie s/ovenskej sa- mostatnosti (I 943-1948), pp.1-108; Genoveva Gracova , "Dve koncepcie boja za slovensku statnost' (Two conceptions of the struggle for Slovak statehood)", �158 SLOVAKIA With respect to this, Rondos wrote to Culen on December 18th that "the article of Mr. Sidor and Mr. Prfdavok [abovementioned] was published in [Kanadsky] Slovak and it provides evidence of the revival of the independence movement. [... ] As you are actively engaged in it, you are perhaps busy with it. Culen, meanwhile, reported to Rondos on January 18th, 1949: Otherwise we are led by the Slovak National Council [Abroad]. The press in Europe pays much attention to it. The Spanish press evaluated the meaning of this step as most important among all the European nations which are occupied by Communists. Even the Swiss press pays attention to our organization . We may say that until now not even one of our Slovak affairs created such a reaction . Yesterday American journalists visited the Minister [Sidor]. I was with them for half a day and we talked with them. In February of 1949 Culen departed for Paris, together with Sidor and Kirschbaum in order to negotiate with French government officials regarding the activities of the Slovak National Council Abroad. They arrived in Paris on February 20th . We found in the file of correspondence between Sidor and Rondos a post-card from Paris dated February 21st: "We sincerely greet you and on the occasion of the meeting of the Slovak National Council Abroad we remember you." The card was written by Culen and signed: Konsto [Konstantin] Culen, Karol Sidor, Laco [Ladislav)] Jankovic, and J. Kirschbaum . In S/ovensky povojnovy exil. pp.82-84: Frantisek Vnuk. "Aktivity exilu - obhajoba slovenskej statnosti v rokoch 1945- 1948 [Activities of the emigres The Defense of Slovak Statehood in I 945 - I 948 )". in Ibid. p.90 . �SLOVAKIA 159 On February 28th Culen returned to Rome. On March 29th he wrote: "There is now much work to do with the Slovak National Council IAbroadj. We described what had happened, and where we visited. I asked them to send you a copy in order to inform you. However, it is a confidential report and not for publication." Meanwhile, on May 6th, 1949, Senator Haig received a notice (dated April 30th) from the Deputy Minister of the Department of Mines and Resources, Keenleyside : You may recall that on July 30th, 1948 Mr. R. A. Gibso n [Acting Deputy Minister of the Department] wrote advising favourable consideration in the case of Konstantin Culen and family, Czechoslovakian refugees in the Vatican City, could not be extended due to Mr. Culen's failure to comply with our medical requirements. You will now be pleased to know that on rev1ewmg the entire situation it has been decided to allow this family to come forward provided Mr. Culen 's state of health is no worse than indicated and they can otherwise meet with the Immigration Regulations . The necessary advice in the matter has been transmitted to our office in Rome , Italy in order that appropriate action may be taken on behalf of these perso ns . I trust that it will not be too long before this family will be in a position to come forward. Having received the notice, Haig sent a short message to Rondos: "Dear George : I enclose lforl you a letter received this morning from Ottawa. This looks [like] better news . When you come in bring this letter back with you." Rondos , in tum , informed Culcn of the delightful news m a letter of May 8th: �160 SLOVAKIA I cannot stop myself from informing you. The day before yesterday I received a letter from the Senator in which he informed me that your matter had moved and that now everything is on track. He [the Senator] also sent me the letter which he had received , but he asked me to bring it back to him when I would visit his office. So I typed it once more , how Ottawa classified you, and I attach it with this letter. You will read in it that Ottawa informed the office in Italy I to issue a visal if you arc not weaker than at the last examination. I hope you understand the letter, so I did not write more . Indeed, Rondos did not mention in the letter any more about the matter. However, he could feel deep satisfaction that he had finally achieved his intended objective after a long struggle with the bureaucracy. Culcn received the good news about May 15th (Ynuk writes that Culen received on May 18th the invitation from the Canadian selection committcc). 26 He reported to Rondos further developments in his letter of May 22nd: On the day that I received your letter attached with the notice I from Kccnlcysidc I to the Senator, they already called me from the consulate and at the same time they invited me also by letter to come there. When we arrived. they were very nice to us, full of' willingness. If my health condition, they said , docs not worsen . they will give me the visa. I was sent again for a medical examination. I had to go to Naples where the IRO camp is. We spent three days there , and finally we received the medical report which we now have to hand over to IRO. They have to issue us a new passport, because the old 1 " Frantisek Vnuk. tivotopis Konstantina Culena. p. 147 . �SLOVAKIA 161 one is already invalid. Then I have to again go to the consulate and there we will be told the results. At this moment I do not know them, but before sending this letter I will perhaps know , so I inform you at the end of the letter. I am really curious as to whether they will give me the visa or not , whether the old comedy of sending the documents to London and then from London to Ottawa, repeats itself, as it did the first time. After the previous disappointments , Culen was very skeptical about the results, but this time they proved to be positive. In the second half of the same letter he wrote: "We just came back from the consulate. Well , my dear friend Rondos , you won . We have the visa and, if nothing else happens, I will take part in the Congress !the 8th Convention of the Canadian Slovak Leag ue I as you wished." It took Culen two years to sec ure the entry visa to Canada. He should have felt deep satisfaction . Instead , it caused him a new kind of anxiety. At the end of the same letter he added: "However, now, the most serious problem will be to find suitabl e work. Is it possible to become an assistant editor at Kanadsky Slovak'? Of course, the others would have to approve . Or, perhaps , I will find something else. Well , I think that many people succeeded there, so I will do so somehow as well ." Afterwards, Culen was busy for days preparing for the journey: "I already bought the steamship ticket and railway ticket. I will not use the IRO transportation as I originally had to , but I will go privatel y, because this month there is no transportation and next month they still do not know when. So, I bought a ticket for Yulkania Iperhaps Culcn 's mistake. It had to be Saturnia I, the Italian ship, which will leave on June 21st direct to Halifax . So �162 SLOYAKlA perhaps about July 1st I will arrive in Canada. Then , I will board a train and depart for Winnipeg. [ ... ] Now we are just packing and saying good-bye to Rome." (Letter of June I Ith) "Just now the ship company called that my ship Satumia will leave port not on the 21st, as I was originally informed, but on the 18th. In one word, this week. So I am packing quickly, since it changed unexpectedly." (Letter of June 12th) Culen then sent a post-card to Rondos on June 15th from Lido di Ostia, a port in the suburbs of Rome. He wrote: "Saying good-bye to Rome, I am looking forward to seeing you soon" . Beside his signature there are several others: A. Culenova (his wife), Eva Culcnova (daughter), Karol Sidor, Angela Sidorova (Sidor's wife), M. Doranska (Jan Doransky's wife), Ladislav Pudis , and J. Kirschbaum etc. Another post-card was sent to Rondos on June 17th, this time from Naples : " Dear friend, saying good-bye to friends on the beach, we all remember you most heartily. We send you our greetings and I look forward to seeing you soon ." We noticed the signatures of Konstantin Culen, A. Culenova, Angela Sidorova , Karol Sidor, and Ferdinand Mondok. Perhaps they came from Rome to Naples to sec him off. Culen 's Italian friend, General Armando Mola also signed with a short English message: "We arc all happy & and unhappy! " Needless to say that they were "unhappy" to part with Culen . However, before the departure, one more problem arose. The steamship on which Culen was supposed to sail from Naples on June 18th, cancelled the voyage. In a letter of June 22nd from Naples he explained: Certainly you read in the newspaper that here in Italy the crew of the steamship Satumia, on which I was to depart, �SLOYAKJA 163 went on strike. I have been stuck here in Naples for a week. I am sick with worry. Nobody knows anything, so they tell us "Come tomorrow" . The next day they tell us " In the afternoon", in the afternoon they tell us "Tomorrow". Fortunately, I take it with some humour, so I do not get angry, not even insulted . I tell myself that I will at last find some ship on which they do not strike and I will depart on it. Today they promised us that the steamship So bieski will carry us. [ ... ] According to tod ay's information this ship will depart on Jun e 28th . In spite of Culcn ·s skepticism, the ship did , indeed , depart o n June 28th. He wrote in a letter of the same day from Naples: "Well , finally it appears that I will indeed say good-bye to Europe and the Sobieski will finally move out with us. So sometime around July 14th I will arrive in Canada." Culen departed a lone , because his family planned to leave Italy a nwnth later. Culcn's protector Sidor wrote from the Vatican to Ro nd os on June 29th (in the file of correspondence between Sidor and Rondos): "We arc all really happy that on June 28th on the steamship Sobieski Kon sto Culcn left Italy." It is interesting to note that Sidor in the same letter continued as follows : I do not know what you intend to do with Ko nsto Culen . My personal opinion is that it will be best for him to go to the editor of Kanadsky Slo vak , !Stefan) Hreha. Hreha and he could make of Kanadsky Slovak such a new spaper which even Slovaks in the United States do not have. I wrote to editor Hreha, too, but I would like to ask you to disc uss with your friends the proposal of acceptance of Culcn as an �SLOVAKIA 164 assistant editor, to recommend it and suggest to the competent authorities of the Canadian Slovak League to accept it. It is not clear whether Sidor made the suggestion on his own initiative, or whether Culen asked him to do so. In either case, judging by the prestige which Sidor had at that time as the president of the Slovak National Council Abroad, it could almost be interpreted as an order. The steamship Jan Sobieski stopped at Genoa (on June 29th), Cannes (on June 30th), and Gibraltar (on July 2nd). On that day Culen sent to Rondos his last letter from Europe: My journey was delayed whole ten days owing to the sailors' strike. [ ... ] Life on board ship is quite good. It is full of Italian emigrants who go to Canada. There are some Jews too , but they go to USA. We can hear many languages. However, most people are travelling with the hope that their life abroad will be better than at home. [ ... ] Today the sea is slightly stormy, so most passengers sigh and feed the fish . For me, nothing ever happened on the sea. Otherwise I am using my time on the ship to study English, everyday for several hours . I hope that in Canada, when I will have the opportunity to listen and speak, it will come to me fairly quickly. And I believe that in a short time I will master English so that I will be able to communicate fairly well. Otherwise, I read books and newspapers quite well. At the end of the letter Culcn wrote with some emotion: This is the last letter from European shores which I will send you. We have exchanged many letters. I sometimes felt pity for you and admired you. Because I saw that other �165 SLOYAKJA people also received many letters from you. Where did this person find the time ? I asked myself. · You will certainly be glad that one of your troublemakers will drop off your list. I will always remember your struggle on my behalf and I intend to somehow record it. This letter was written on a typewriter with Slovak phonetic characters. Perhaps Culen brought his favourite typewriter with him. The voyage and the arrival in Canada witnessed no problems . The Sobieski smoothly crossed the Atlantic Ocean in one week and arrived in Halifax on July 10th. On the same day Culcn sent a telegram to Rondos in English: "Safely arrived to [sic] Halifax expect me about Sunday". The second half of the telegraph meant that he would arrive in Winnipeg by train around July 17th. In his letter of July 11th, which was written on the train from Halifax to Montreal , Culen reported as follows : "In [Halifax I harbour a young Slovak named Janega awaited me. They say that Mr. Kunda sent him. He helped me with my baggage; we had a chat and a snack. His willingness was very much appreciated ." Culen arrived in Montreal on the evening of July 11th. Kanadsky Slovak of July 21st reported as follows : "Writer K. Culen in Canada - on the way to the West he stopped at Montreal and Toronto ." 27 It then continued , In the evening of Monday IJuly I l th I arrived in Montreal one of the prominent Slovak writers, politicians and publicists, a nationalist and uncompromising defender of Slo' vak truth [an independent Slovak state] - Konstantin Culen. 17 "Spisovater K. Culen v Kanade (The Writer K. Culen in Canada]". Kanadskf Slovak.July 21st. 1949 . �SLOVAKIA 166 At the Windsor Station prominent members of the Slovak community in Montreal welcomed him, along with a group of Slovak emigres . On Tuesday, in the National Home of the Canadian Slovak League, a small party was organized in his honour. Officials of the League and the Canadian Jednota and other persons took part in it. On behalf of Slovaks living in Montreal, chairpersons of associations welcomed K. Culen . In his speech Mr. Culen promised to cooperate, declaring that every Slovak emigrant should have participated in the national activities of the Canadian Slovaks . On July 14th Culen left Montreal and, after stopping m Toronto, in the morning of July 16th he departed for Winnipeg, sending again a telegram in English to Rondos : "Arriving CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway) 9 A.M. standard time Sunday". As expected, he arrived in Winnipeg in the morning of July 17th and was welcomed by Rondos . It must have been a very dramatic scene. Culen then participated in the 8th Convention of the Canadian 28 Slovak League in Winnipeg . 1 ' At the convention he was elected According to the Minutes of the 8th Convention. Culen said the following on the first day (July 25th) : ··1 do not want to speak long. I intend to visit all Sl ovak colonies (i n Canada). I bring you the greetings of Minister Sidor. the presi dent of the Slovak National Council Abroad. and also the greetin gs of st udents . theologians. and other Slovaks from Italy !The greetin gs. with the signatures of Karol Sidor and Jozef Kirschbaum of May 19th. 1949. were published at the end of the Minutes] . I bow down to your work. I come to you to contribute to the prosperity and en largement of the Canadian Slovak League." Zapisnica z VIII. k ongresu Kanadskej s/ovenskej ligy. vydriiavaneho v diioch 25.. 26.. 27. a 28. ju/a 1949 v hoteli Marlborough [The Minutes of the 8th Convention of the Canadian Slovak League. held on July 25th - 28th, 1949. in the Hotel Marlborough], Winnipeg. Manitoba, Canada, p.2. On the second day (July 26th) parti cipants discussed the "Sidor versus Dursansky" problem. The following com- �167 SLOVAKIA as an assistant editor of the League 's newspaper Kanadskf Slovak . The convention also resolved that the Canad ian Slovak League, along with the Slovak League of America, recognized the Slovak National Council Abroad as "the competent representative to speak on behalf of the subjugated Slovak nation at home" (Kanadskf Slovak , August 11th, 1949) . At the beginning of August Culen returned from Winnipeg to Montreal where the editorial offices of Kanadsk f Slovak were located. His wife and dau g hter, who entered Canada through New York, on August 11th, came to Mo ntreal as well. After havin g found an apartment, Culen began to again work as a jo urnalist. Although it took two long years, Culen had finally succeeded in finding "a place where we could begin a new life and work and live in safety" (Letter of June 6th, 1947). Although this article should end on this happy note, it cannot. Even though he became an assistant editor of the newspaper promise was reac hed: '" they concluded th at brother preside nt [Andrej Kucera ] sho uld read the resolution on the recogn ition of the Slovak Nat io nal Co un ci l Abroad and th at th e Co uncil headed by Karo l Sidor. wh o is the compe te nt representative tn speak on be half nf the subjugated Slovak nation at home. Fo r Dr. Durcansky a letter has to be written in w hich they rronounce their esteem for hi s work for the freed om o f the Slovak nati on. Ibid. p. 18 . In the mo rning session of the last day (J ul y 28 th ) Ro ndos made a proposal to accept C ul en int o the edi torial office of Kanadsky S lovak. Kami Murin (fom1er pers1,11al secretary of Jozef Tiso) and Father Jan Zeman supported the proposal and it met wi th ge neral approval. In the evening sessio n "Konstantin Culen was elected as an assistant editor with applause. He is grateful for his election and promises to make efforts to build up the newspaper. He also will do his best to propagate the Ca nad ian Slovak Leag ue with all his might. He promises editor [Stefan] Hreha that he will be a loyal workmate. T hey will help each other. for brother Hreha knows Canad a and the Canadian si tuatio n well and he [Culen) knows in tum Slovaki a and the European situation." Ibid. pp.27-28. Also see the articl e "Po VIII. kongrese Kanadskej slovenskej ligy [After the 8th Conve ntion of the Canad ian Slovak League] ". Kanadsky S lovak. August I Ith . 1949. �SLOVAKIA 168 Kanadsky Slovak, Culen moved to Winnipeg in March of 1952, because the League had bought a small printery there. At that time he became the editor-in-chief. However, he became dissatisfied with this position, resigned in July, 1956, and moved to the United States. In September of the same year he became director of the Slovak Institute in Cleveland (Ohio) after the sudden death of the former director, the historian Frantisek Hrusovsky. Now his personal relations with leading members of Slovak organizations in the United States became complicated (His mimeographed work "V zajatf fa/osnych Jegiend a nenavistneho srdca (In the Grip of False Legends and an Unforgiving Heart)" which was published in New York in 1961, deals with this problem). Therefore, in September of 1958 he was dismissed from the Institute. Culen continued to write until his death on April 7th, 1964 in New York. His simple tombstone with the English inscription: "Culen / Konstantfn / Slovak historian / and writer / born in 1904 I died in 1964" stands modes ti y on the grounds of the Slovak cemetery in Passaic (New Jersey) . * * * Having reconstructed Cul en 's tortuous attempts to emigrate to Canada, we may conclude the following. Someone as famous as the nationalist journalist Culen could have had some advantages; he received the help of the influential Juraj Rondos, who shared Culen's nationalism. Thanks to Rondos ' s strong personal connections with Senator J. T. Haig, Culcn's matter was dealt with by the local government official, R. N. Munroe in Winnipeg. The matter reached even the Deputy Minister of the Department of Mines and Resources, H. L. Keenlcyside, who was in charge of immigration to Canada. In Rome Culen was helped by the former Slovak �SLOYAKJA l69 Minister to the Vatican, Karol Sidor, and also by the Italian General A. Mola who had connections with the Canadian Minister to Italy, J. Desy. In spite of such advantages, Culen had to struggle for two years with the Canadian burea ucracy before sec uring an entry visa to Canada. Owing to Culen 's past as a stron g supporter of the independent Slovak State, which during World War II was allied with Nazi Germany , he had to make some false statements in his application. However, it seems that the Canadian authorities did not care much about them. Culen 's standin g as an "anti -co mmu nist writer" may have helped him. It is clear that Culen 's health record complicated and delayed the process of hi s entry to Canada. It is not clear whether it had been blocked by the political intervention of his "enemies". Juraj Rondos's self-sac rificing efforts on behalf o f Culcn were impressive. His strong will and activities, which were evident in the struggle with the Canadian bureaucracy, were trul y surpri sing. Culcn expressed admiration and gratitude to' him : "Whenever I meet with Minister Sidor, we almost always talk about your work with admiration , which will remain as a beautiful example of quiet and determined efforts with patriotic eagerness . Very seldom in life docs one ex perience such work." (C ulcn 's letter to Rondos of December 6th, 1948). When Kon stantfn 's younger brother, Stefan Culcn visited his brother in Montreal at the end of October, 1949, " he IStefan Culen I was also very thankful to you !Rondos I and he just does not understand that a man, who did not know us at all, could fight for us so courageously and finally win." (Letter of Konstantfn Culen's wife, Alzbeta Culenova, to the Rondos family of October 31st, 1949). Later a rumour was circulated among Slovak immigrant communities in Canada, according to which Rondos received mo- �SLOVAKlA 170 ney from the Canadian government for helping immigrants. However, Culen doubted the rumour and Rondos rejected it decisively in his memoirs. Judging by the contents of his correspondence, Rondos 's good faith is clear and we probably can accept his explanation that " I worked from love of Slovak affairs and not for money" .29 19 K. Culen wrote in an ano nymo us article as fo ll ows: "There are many of us in Canada who may thank the Canadian Slovak League for ou r emigration and for the fact that we again live as human beings and that we again stand on our feet and we are out of the camps of poverty . They may also thank brother Rond os who did this wo rk in the name of the League. He [Ro nd os] did it co urageo us ly and conscientio usly. Many know well the Slovak ' s worst failing. namely envy. and they began to spread gossi p. sayi ng that he [Ro nd os] is a good business man who receives JOO dollars from the Canadian government for every emi grant. Many emigrants were also angry with his alleged earning of 100 dollars for this purpose. When once someone to ld me that. I [Culen I answered him : ··1 feel offe nded . In my mind. Ro nd os sho uld ge t for me at least 1.000 dollars. If I was rich and had the money. and if the Canadian gove rnment did not give him the mo ney . as in reality it did not. I would give him for every me mber of my family 1.000 do ll ars. Even so. it wo uld not be enough for all that he has d o nc . •• Anonym [Konstantfn Culen J. "Ujo Rondos". Ka/cnd;ir Kanadskcj s/ovcnskcj ligy. I 953, p.211. Rondos himself remini sced about the episode in his later years as follows : "When after World War II o ur fellow -co untrymen dispersed around the world. I tried to get as many of them to Canada as possi ble. I took charge of the help and the !Canadian I Co lonization Office helped me. I managed to get many families and individuals into this country. However. there were certain people who accused me of being paid by the Canadian government up to 2,000 dollars for single families . Of course. this was just a fairy talc. I worked from love of Slovak affairs and not for money . I even spent my ow n money by constant running around and arranging of documents for Slovak emigrants. " Juraj Rondos . "Moje rozpomienky na zasle easy". Ibid. I 982, p.54. �SLOVAKJA 171 In his correspondence Konstantfn Culen repeatedly promised to write the story of his immigration to Canada. He 0 never did so.' This article is an attempt to do it for him. 111 Meanwhile. we identified the following articles in which Culen mentioned Rondos: Konstantin Culen. "Dolczitc pre novych emigrantov [Important News for New Emigrants]". Kan.1dsky Slovak. September 15th. 1949: Anonym [Kon stantin Culen]. "Ujo Rondos ". Kalendar Kanadskej s/ovenskej ligy. /953. pp . 209-212 . � 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 2003, Vol. 37 Description An account of the resource Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 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 112 SLOVAKJA DOCUMENTATION: V Konstantin Culen' s Long Journey from Italy to Canada As Illustrated by his Correspondence with Juraj Rondos 1 Susumu Nagayo The emigration of post-World War II political emigres from Europe to North America was a long and complicated process. Both the United States and Canada had passed legislation severely restricting immigration to their respective countries in the l 920's and l 930's and this legislation made it virtually impossible for post-war refugees to gain easy access into either country. T o illustrate this difficulty I will focu s upon one such refugee - the 2 nationalist Slovak writer Konstantin Culen . This article is based ' I would like to thank the staff of the Archives and Special Collec tio ns of Mori sset Library at the Uni versity of Ottawa fo r their kind supp011 of my work. I also deeply th ank Professor M. M. Stolarik fo r his critical comme nts and English correcti o ns. 2 On Konstantin C\ilen ' s life see the fo llowing works and arti cles: Franti sek Vnuk, Zivotopis Konstantina Culena [Biograph y of Konstantin Cul en]. C le veland , the Sl ovak Institute, 1984; S/ovensk f biografick f s/ovnik (od roku 833 do roku 1990) I [Slovak Biographical Dictionary (from 833 to 1990)]. I. Martin. Matica slovenska, 1986, pp.433-434; "Kalend ari um zivota a d iela [Chro nicle of his life and work s]". · In Stefan Baranovic (ed.), Konstantin Cu/en (1904 Brodsk e - 1964 New York ). Z bomik vydanf na pocest' nedoiitfch deviit'desiatych naro- 113 SLOVAKJA on the unpublished correspondence between Konstantin Culen and Juraj Rondos, which is in the Slovak Archives of Morisset Library at the University of Ottawa. 3 We will reconstruct Culen 's case by extensively quoting from his correspondence, which was written in Slovak. dcnfn historika a novinara [Konstantfn Culen. Almanac Published in Ho nor of the Ninetieth Birthday of the Historian and Journalist]. Martin , Mati ca slove nska. 1995, pp.66-68: Augustfn Mat'ovcfk and others, Reprezentacny biografic- ky Jexik6n 5/ovenska [Representative Biographical Lexicon of Slovakia] Martin, Matica slovenska. 1999, pp.59-60. During his life Culen wrote many boo k s and articles. We still do not have his complete bibliography. Meanwhile see the following articles : Jozef Kirschbaum, "Bibliografia literarnych prac K. C ul e na [Bibliography of Literary Works of K. Culen]", Slovak v Amerike, Jul y 29 th. 1964: Frantisek Vnuk, :Zvotopis Konstantfna C ulena. pp.225-227; 5/ovensky biograficky s/ovmk. I, p. 434; Jozef Pauco, "Predstavitelia slovenskej kulturnej tvorby [Representati ves of Slovak Cultural Creation]. Konstantfn C ulen ", Jcdnota, September 19th , 1990; "Bibliografia literarncj tvorby [Bibliography of Literary Creation] ". in Stefan Baranovic (ed.), Konstantfn Culen , pp .55 -63. Among the above-mentioned bibliographies. the last has the most information . ' The correspondence between Konstantin Culen and Juraj Rond os is located in the Slovak Archives of the Archives and Special Co llecti ons. It belongs to th e Imrich Stolarik Fonds (ARCS 98 -1). which co nsists of 38 boxes. The material s were donated to the Uni ve rsity at the end of 1998 by the fo nner President of th e Canadian Slovak League, Inu·ich Stolarik ( 1909-2000). They consist mainly of the organi zational papers of the League . but also contai n personal materials of the founders of the League. such as Gabriel Kurdel, Andrej Kucera, and Juraj Rondos. At prese nt (November of 200 1). the Imric h Stolarik Fonds is still being processed. A Preliminary Guide to the Imrich Stolarik Fo nds is available in the reading room of the Archives . The corresponde nce of Juraj Rondos is in fo ur boxes (575-578). It co nsists of his official and personal documents and co ntains thousands of items. Among them are interestin g materials relating t o Rondos ·s mediation on behalf of Slovak refu gees seeking to enter Canada after World War II. The file of correspondence between Cul en and Ro ndos is fo und in box 577. This fi le co ntain s 165 letters (6 1 from C ul e n to Rondos, 42 from Rondos to Culen. and other letters) from 1947 to 1952. SLOVAKIA 114 * * * By the end of March, 1945, as World War II in Europe was coming to an end, a group of people evacuated from Slovakia to escape capture by the Red Army and possible retribution in postwar Czechoslovakia. They were representatives of the independent Slovak State which was allied with Nazi Germany. These refugees briefly stayed in Holic and Skalica in Western Slovakia and , at the beginning of April, they entered Austrian territory. Finally, they settled in Kremsmiinster, a small city to the south of Linz. Among them was Konstantfn Culen with his wife and daughter. On May 8th, 1945, representatives of the Slovak government capitulated in Kremsmiinster to the American Army. At the beginning they were treated politely. However, on May 19th the former Prime Minister Stefan Tiso and three other former Cabinet Ministers were arrested by the United States Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) . On June 7th fifteen more people, including Culen, were arrested as " Nazi collaborators". They were detained in American Army camps in Peuerbach (until September of 1945) and then in Glasenbach. In March of 1946 Culen was released from the camp due to the intervention of his wife. The family met again in Ried im Innkreis in Upper Austria. At the end of April, avoiding "war criminal" hunters of the Czechoslovak authorities, Culen moved to Munich. But even here he did not feel secure, so at the end of August he returned to Austria. On September 20th, with the help of a friend in the CIC, he illegally crossed the border into Italy, hiding in the trunk of his friend's car. The next day he arrived in Rome, where he was reunited with his family. In Rome, under the protection of Karol Sidor, the former Slovak Minister to the Vatican, Culen started to work again as a 115 SLOVAKIA journalist. Utilizing newspapers and magazines from Slovakia as sources, he began to contribute articles to Slovak nationalist newspapers in the United States and Canada. At the same time, through connections with Slovak organizations abroad, Culen began to seek entry into Canada. The story begins with a letter dated June 6th, 1947, which Culen sent to Juraj Rondos4 in Winnipeg. Rondos was one of the leading members of the nationalist fraternal organization, the Canadian Slovak League. At that time he was president of its ' Juraj (George) Rondos ( 1900- 1985) was born in May 1900. the so n of a fam1er in the village of Vinne (Michalovce district, Zemplfn County ) in eastern Sl ovakia. In March 1926. he came to Canada looking for work. After engaging in various jobs, in October 1928, he opened in Winnipeg (Manitoba) a restaurant with a boarding house. In 1930 he became a member of the Winnipeg branch of the Slovenska liga v Amerike [the Slovak League of Ame1ica]. In 1932 he established, together with his friend s Andrej Kucera and Pavo! Sabo. the fraternal organization Slovenska liga v Kanade [the Slovak League in Canada] which was renamed in 1934 the Kanadska slovenska liga [the Canadian Sl ovak Leag ue]. At the beginning of the 1930's he received hi s Canadian ci ti ze ns hip. In 1936- 1938 he parti cipated in the organization of colonization of Slovak agricultural immigrants to Rosewood (Manitoba). In 1938 he brought hi s wife and children to Canada. After World War II. as an official of the Canadian Slo vak Leag ue. he helped many Slovak refugees (Displaced Persons) to emigrate t o Canada. Cule n' s case, which I reconstructed in this article. was one of them. After holding various important posts of the League. Rondos died in Winnipeg in March of 1985 at the age of 84. For Rondos's life see: Anonym (Ko nstant in Culen), "Ujo Rondos [Uncle Rondos]". Kalendar Kanadskej s/ovenskej ligy [Almanac of the Canadian Slovak Leag ue ], 1953, pp.209-212; Juraj Ro ndos. "V lete sli spat' na breh rieky [In the Summer They Slept on the Ri verbank] ". In lmrich Stolarik, ed .. Spomienky pionierov [Memories of Pio neers], Toro nto, Canadian Slovak Leag ue. 1978, pp.207-220: Juraj Rondos. "Moje rozpomie nky na zasle easy [My memories of lo ng-ago days] ", Jubilejnf kalendar Kanadskej s/ovenskej ligy [Jubilee Almanac of the Canadian Slovak League] , 1982. pp.51 55: Anton Hacko, "Posledne Zbohom Ju rajovi Ro ndosovi [Last Farewell to Juraj Rondos]". Kalend ar KanadskeJ slovenskej /igy.1 985- 1986. pp.1 27- 129. 116 SLOVAKIA Colonization Committee. 5 In this letter Culen informed Rondos, with whom he had never met, of his desire to immigrate to Canada. Culen introduced himself as follows: As you know, in 1945, with many others I emigrated on my own initiative. After much pain and suffering, I settled here (in Rome). Since Czech and Bolshevik agents will not leave me alone and there is still the danger of being arrested , we would like to find us a place where we could begin a new life and work and live in safety. I have many friends and relatives in America, but it is still hard to go there. They promise us much, but quotas are small, so perhaps we would have to wait for decades. To go to South America seems perhaps more easy, but, even so, it requires 5 In the Minutes of the 7th Convention of the Canadian Slovak League, which was held in October of 1946, we read the following passages: "News from the Colonization Committee - Brother Rondos, the chairperson of the Colonization Committee, made an oral report and added that he has close contacts with members of the Colonization Office of the Canadian National Railways, who offered him the necessary information regarding immigration to Canada. es pecially with regard to Slovaks. Other ethnic groups also exert pressure on the Canadian government with respect to immigration of Displaced Persons. demanding revision of the Canadian Immigration Act. ( ... ) Brother Rondos. based on their explanation about the settlement of immigrants on Canadian farn1s. assured the delegates that the Canadian government would admit Slovaks to Canada if the provincial offices would give them permission . Brother Rond os strongly appealed for sponsors for Slovak refugees and to help them to enter Canada. (. .. ) At the end Brother Rondos clarified who can immigrate to Canada and also referred to difficulties, such as temporary passports. the voyage across the Atlantic, and the lack of ships etc. At the same time he displayed so me application forms which he received from the Colonization Office." Zapisnica zo VII. kongresu Kanadskej s/ovenskej ligy vydriiavancho v diioch 28-29-30 a 31. okt6bra 1946 vo Windsoru, Ontario [Minutes of the 7th Convention of th e Canadian Slovak League. held on October 28th - 31st, 1946, in Windsor, On tario]. pp.9- 10. 117 SLOVAKJA time. So, I thought, what about Canada? I wrote a letter about this to Father Sprinc [Mikulas Sprinc], who in turn sent a letter to president [of the Canadian Slovak League] Kucera ([Andrej Kucera]. And he told us to send to you the necessary information . I have a brother in America [Stefan Culen in Chicago] who is also trying every possible means to get me nearer, so I want to try this as well . I would like to ask you the following : 1. Can we enter [Canada] ? There are three of us. 2. What do we need to do in order to enter? 3. How can you help us? Culen then provided his and his family's life histories. I was born on February 26th, 1904, in the village Brodske, District of Skalica, Slovakia. My occupation is engineer (do not worry about it; it is so registered in my passport. It is exact, because I studied engineering in high school.). Since April of 1945 I am in exile. The reason why I do not want to go back and cannot do so is an antipathy towards the domestic Bol shevik rule. I have a Red Cross passport iss ued in Rome . Alzbeta Culen, born on December 19th, 1906, m Bratislava, is my wife. She has a Red Cross passport too. Elena Eva Culen , born in January 22nd, 1929, m Bratislava, a student, is my daughter. She too has a Red Cross pass port. We are all stateless. As we can guess from Culen's defensive tone, this life history is not entirely accurate. Culen was no engineer. According to his biography, Culen was a middle-aged Slovak nationalist journalist. SLOVAKIA 118 Although he did not have a university education, he had been a brilliant journalist even as a youth. At the time of political crisis in Czechoslovakia in 1938-39, Culen participated in the activities of the Hlinka Slovak People's Party for Slovak autonomy. After March of 1939, when the independent Slovak State was declared, he became its strong supporter. He was a Member of Parliament (December, 1938 - March, 1939, the Slovak Autonomy Parliament, then March, 1939 - spring of 1945, the Parliament of the independent Slovak State) and he served as a cultural attache at the Czecho-Slovak Legation in Washington (January - March , 1939). Although he was prevented from participating in political activities by his political rivals from the summer of 1940 on, he continued to be active in the field of culture and journalism until the end of the war. In his letter to Rondos, Culen explained the reason for his emigration as "an antipathy towards the domestic Bolshevik rule" . He told only half of the story. In June of 1947, when the letter was written, the Communist Party already held the leading pos ition and had great influence in Czec hoslovakia, but political pluralism still existed. The Communists did not seize power until February of 1948. More likely, Culen was afraid of "war criminal" hunters and the so-called "people's courts" of the Czec hos lo6 vak authorities . • "Being condemned a ·war criminal' by London [the Czechoslovak government in exile], Moscow [the Czechos lovak Communist group in exile], and Banska Bystrica [the headquarters of the Slovak National Uprising in 1944]. he [Culen] had to go into exile to escape the gallows." Frantisek Vnuk. Z i votopis K onstantfna Culen a. p. l 02. - "To my question why he [Cu len] fled abroad at the end of war, he answered that he had been afraid of Bencs 's revenge." Imrich Krnzliak, "Spomienky na Kon stantfna Culena [Memories of Konstantin Cu len]", in Stefan Baranovic (ed.), Konstantin Cu/en. p.48 . - "When the front [of the Red Anny] approached, Culen. who opposed. as a Member of the Parli ame nt SLOVAKIA 119 Culen shifted the whole responsibility of his emigration onto the "Bolsheviks", because he knew that the independent Slovak State, which he had strongly supported during World War II, had been allied with Nazi Germany and Canada had fought the war on the side of the Allies. He was also counting on the emerging Cold War, which was shaping Canada's relations with Western countries . However, as we may guess from the tone of his reply, Rondos already understood Culen's delicate situation . It was common knowledge, not only in Slovakia, but also in the Slovak immigrant communities in North America, that Culen had a "s plendid past record" as a Slovak nationalist. Without hesitation , Rondos answered Culen's request with a skillful and kind reply dated June 23rd. I understood well your letter, and your wish to enter Canada with your family. You asked me to answer the three following question s: 1. Whether can you enter Canada with your family ? You can enter Canada as a farm worker. I have close friend s who occupy high positions in the Canadian Immigration Office. I had a long conversation with them. I explained briefl y your situation . I simply told them as a friend that you arc highly educated and the reason why you were expelled abroad. I also told them what are you thinking of doing if you enter Canada. They assured me that, after arriving in Canada, you will be free here, according to your ability. But if you want to and representative politician of the first Slovak Republic. Bo ls hevism and especiall y Benes ' s Czechos lovak politics. which did not even recognize the ex istence of the Slovak nat ion. had to evacuate from Slovaki a by government decree ." Dusan M. Janota. "Spomienk a [Memories]", in Stefan Baranovic (ed.), Ibid. p.52 . SLOVAKJA 120 enter Canada as soon as possible, you have to be registered together with your family as farm workers. Please forget other worries. Canada needs people like you. Here everybody is free and everybody is responsible for their own future . 2. What do you need to do for that? You have to do nothing. I will find for you a good Slovak farmer who will submit an application to the Canadian Immigration Office. He will petition to admit you and your family to Canada and declare that he has work and lodging on his farm for all of you . 3. What could I do fo r you ? I could do what I ex plained to you in 1. and 2. I will begin the work with your permission and by Divine protection. And I hope that our work will be successful according to the information which I provided for you and your family . A responsible person (at the Immigration Office) told me that it will take you three to six months at most to enter Canada. It was a smooth beginning. Culen was very pleased with the reply. As promised, Rondos quickly fo und a sponsor for the Culen family and so informed him of it in a letter dated Jul y 9th: Your fe llow-countryman from Tmava named Jozef Vo lek submitted an application that he needs you and your fam il y for work on the farm. He also submitted an application to th e Canadian Immigration Office, a copy of which I am enclos ing with this letter. Please do not worry. Either a Canadian Immigration Officer there will personally visit you or they will inform you by letter as to where you should present yourself. In the correspondence between Culen and Rondos we fo und drafts of an application entitled "This form has been prepared by 121 SLOVAKIA the Immigration Branch, Department of Mines and Resources, for the use of persons applying for the admission to Canada of immigrants". There are two copies of the same form, for Konstantin Culen and his wife Alzbeta Culen, and for their daughter Elena Eva Culen. Both copies indicate at the end: "Dated at Rosewood Man. (Manitoba) this 4 day of July A.D.1947. Volek" Signed Jozef 7 In this application there are some misleading statements. In the space for "relationship to applicant" they filled out as "friend" (needless to say, neither Culen nor his wife had ever met Volek) and in the space for "citizenship" as "C.S.R. [the Czechoslovak Republic]" (in his first letter to Rondoas Culen wrote that they were "stateless"). To the question "occupation in own county" they filled out as "fam1er" (not "engineer" as Culen had written before) and to the question "intended occupation in Canada", they answered: "to work on a farm". The most serious falsehood was the answer to the question "Has Immigrant ever lived in Canada or the United States? If so, between what dates and what address?" They simply answered "No", which was not true. Culen had actually lived in the United States three times. The first time (1905-1909) it was as a child with his parents, who were migrant workers; the second time 7 Jozef Volek ( 1903- ?) was one of the Slovak fam1ers who lived in Rosewood (Manitoba). He was born in 1903 in Trnava (Western Slovakia), came to Canada in 1927 and later obtained his Canadian citizenship. He acted as the financial secretary of the Branch 19 (Rosewood) of the Canadian Slovak League (the head of the Branch was Juraj Rondos). Volek wrote in the application , which was sent to the Immigration Office of the Ministry of Mines and Re sources in Ju Iy of 1947: ··1 have clear title to 560 acres( ... ) Financial resurses (sic) $ 25.000.oo. Anaal (sic) income about $ 7.000.oo ." Culen wrote in his letter of August 1st, 1947, to Rondos that Volek was a friend of the famous Slovak historian exile. Frantisek Hrusovsky. in SLOVAKIA 122 (December, 1935 - July, 1936) as one of members of the delegation sent by Matica slovenska (Slovak national cultural organization) to visit fellow-countrymen in the United State; the third time (January - December, 1939), as indicated above, as a cultural attache at the Czecho-Slovak Legation in Washington and then, after March, as an editor of the official organ of the Slovak League in America, Slovenska obrana [The Slovak Defence]. Certainly the purpose of the last two stays was not as a fam1er. His third stay in 1939 was especially significant and controversial. At that time Culen openly supported Slovak autonomy and, ultimately, independence. Even though Volek filled in the application, he probably only took dictation from Rondos. Rondos must have known about Culen's career in the United States. However, as reported in his letter dated June 23rd, he already had prior consultations with high-ranking officials in the Immigration Office in Winnipeg, so he probably considered this application as just a formality. Furthermore, Volek filled out after the sentence that "I have made the following arrangements for a home and employment for the above named immigrants," as "We will recive (sic) them on aur (sic) Farm and guarantee full maintenance and farm Employment at going Wages. " To the question "Is transportation to be prepaid?" he answered that "I will pay transportation," even though Volek must have known from the beginning that the Culen family had no intention of working on a farm. On July 15th Culen received Rondos's letter dated July 9th . Enclosed were copies of the application which Volek had submitted to the Immigration Office. In his reply dated August l st, Culen complained as follows: SLOVAKIA 123 Well, now I would only ask you to take up this matter with the proper authorities, because there are several Slovaks here who have papers like this and have been waiting for a long time, but nothing is happening. The worst thing is that they write much about our difficulties and thousands of people live by talking about the necessity of doing something to solve the refugee problem, and make as if they have done and deliberated . Meanwhile, emigrants are perishing physically and morally, while the gentlemen are having a good time. America in particular pays much attention to the matter, but not even one refugee is admitted. The bill, which should have been passed, was pigeonholed . Congress went into recess for a vacation. It will be reconvened again only in January ( of next year) and undoubtedly the bill will not be touched until the summer of 1948. If it is passed, migration can be started in 1949 or 1950. However, who can bear it? [In reality the DP (Displaced Persons) Act was passed in Congress in the spring of I 948 and the migration started in October of that year.] Why don ' t they speak less, write less and act more? Of course, what can we, small and simple people, do against the roguery of gentlemen's politics ? In reply to Culen's complaint (the letter was not dated, but according to its contents it was perhaps written in the middle of August), Rondos reported as follows: You asked me to expedite the matter. Well , I will tell you what is happening. Mr. Volek was summoned to the Immigration Office where he was asked [to provide evidence regarding the following l: I. Evidence from the district office that he [Volek] is really the owner of 520 acres of land [according SLOVAKIA 124 to the application which Volek submitted to the Immigration office, it was 560 acres of land] . He proved it by showing a private letter from the district office and also doc ume nts which proved that he has no debt. 2. Evide nce from a bank regarding his savings. We could prove that easil y enough. But after that they asked the third question. We were asked to explain how Mr. Vo lek came to know yo u. We answered that he went to school together with you and he remembers yo u as a farmer's son who was also trained in bl ac ksmithing. Thu s, when Mr. Volek left fo r Canada twe nty years ago, you [C ulen] remained at home working as a village bl acksmith a nd also as the cultivator of a small estate. We were asked wh y you lived in ex ile. Did you run away as a civilian or as a soldier? To this we answered that you were not a soldier and that you ran away as a civilian from communist terror. In his repl y, dated A ugust 28th , Culen humorously promised to "tell the same story": Thank yo u for the in formation about the examin ation by the Canadian office. Well , arri ving there , I will prese nt myse lf as the blac ksmith . It is not such a big lie, because my fa th er was a blacksmith , and, fro m childhood I was in his shop. If necessary, I pumped the bellows and helped with the bi g hammer, so th is is not a craft which I co uld not ac kn ow ledge . I coul d, perhaps, pass the examinatio n. By the end o f September the Canadian bureaucracy fin all y replied. Culen's sponsor, Jozef Volek, received the fo llowing pos iti ve notice dated Septem ber 29th from R.N. Mun roe , the 125 SLOVAKlA District Superintendent of the Immigration Branch of the fro [sic-for] the Department of Mines and Resources in Winnipeg: In connection with your application admission to Canada of your friends, Konstantin Culen, his wife, Alzbeta and their daughter, Elena Eva, of c/o Karel (sicKarol) Sidor, Citta del Vaticano, Italy, this is to advise that the settlement arrangements have been found satisfactory, and the necessary steps are being taken to have the proposed immigrants examined overseas. It will , of course, take some little time to complete these arrangements . A copy of this notice was immediately sent by Rondos to Culen who wrote about the news in his reply dated October 20th. These were the most delightful letters which I received during almost three years of exile. And especially, as I see, it is serious and we can judge according to the letter which you received [the above-mentioned letter by Munroe] that in fact the matter has already been arranged . Now it is only a question of time, according to the letter. Culen concluded optimistically: I am ending this letter with thanks for all which you have done for now. I caused you much concern, but I really had nobody else to ask. After all kinds of promises and assurances which I received, what you have done is most real and most clear. Well , once again sincere thanks and if that "some little time" in office is prolonged (I do not know how the bureaucrats function in Canada, but in Slovakia they say that a short SLOVAKIA 126 time lasts one year), please expedite it again. In any case, I hope that by Christmas I will be with you. While awaiting a reply from the Canadian bureaucrats , Rondos reported to Culen in a letter dated November 3rd that he had already arranged for Culen's tickets: "I am informing you that today I purchased for you and your family the steamship tickets . It means the following: You have your fare paid from Southampton , England, to New York by ship and from New York to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, by train ." As we shall see later, Rondos paid the fare out of his own pocket. However, on November 18th, Rondos received a notice dated November 17th from the Cunard White Star Line, where he had booked the tickets. In the notice a certain Patterson , the person in charge, wrote: You will recall our conversation, in which I advised you that we are not permitted to sell Prepaid for non-Canadians resident in Italy, for the reason that the Canadian Government has not an Examining Office for immigrants in that country. Our Head Office Iin England] is moct lsic-mostl anxious to assist us , but point out very plainly that they cannot take the responsibility of bringing the family forward to Paris for examination by the Canadian Civil and Medical Authorities , on the chance that they might be turned down . Therefore, I give you the suggestion, for what it is worth, that if these people can legitimately leave Italy and establish themselves in Paris, and you will confirm to us the Paris address at which they are resident, we could then make _representations to have the Permit transferred to Paris and the examination take place there . 127 SLOVAKIA Rondos at once wrote a letter (dated November 18th) to Culen. I have very close contacts with the company regarding your matter. Just now I received a letter from them in which they say that they cannot start with your matter and that you have to go to Paris with your family by yourself and that in Italy they cannot arrange a medical examination. In order not to explain much, I enclose you with this letter a copy of the notice. I hope you will choose a trip to Paris. And please present yourself at their company. [... ] And show them the copy of the notice which I am _sending you and either they or you announce yourself as soon as probable to the main office in England where they already have all the best information about you and the registered ship tickets are waiting for you. The same day Rondos sent a letter to Stefan Culen 8 , Kon stan- tin's younger brother, who lived in Chicago: " [... ] I dared to pay for the steamship tickets of your brother and his family from England to New York and I also paid for train tickets from New York to Winnipeg out of my own pocket $636.42 [ .. . ] I did not want to tell this even to my friends , in order not to confuse somebody about my work." Rondos also enclosed as evidence the copy of the notice from the ship company of November 17th and continued: "From your letter I understood that you are willing to pay your brother's fare, in order to get him here as soon as possible. I dared to pay it out of my own pocket. I hope that I am cooperating with good peo' Sefan Culen ( 1909- ?), third of five brothers of Konstantin Culen , was born in Pennsy lvania (USA), and worked in Chicago as a manual laborer. SLOVAKIA 128 pie and that my money will not be wasted." Rondos here suggested that, since he paid Culen's travelling expenses, Stefan Culen should reimburse him. Referring to "your letter, Rondos had in mind Stefan Culen's letter (stamped October 15th) in which Stefan wrote from Chicago that, "As soon as they [his brother's family] get visas, I would like immediately to send them plane tickets. If I could somehow help, please write me." Stefan Culen, after receiving Rondos 's letter of November 18th, answered on November 21st, and informed him of his intention to reimburse Rondos, as requested .9 Meanwhile, around November 22nd, Kon stantin Culen visited the Canadian Legation to Italy in Rome accompanied by an Italian friend, General Armando Mola. The Legation was newlyestablished and the Minister to Italy, Jean Desy' 0 had just been appointed on October 13th of that year. In a letter dated November 24th, Culen reported to Rondos the result of his visit: A while ago I returned from the Canadian Embassy. I went there with our friend, the general , who knows the Ambassador well. They received us warmly. We explained to them how our matter is going. We gave them an English tran- 9 Because of the complication in getting Culen ' s entrance visa to Canada. Ro n- dos cancelled in June 1948. the reserved tickets. See the notice of the Cunard Donaldson Limited Company of June 17th. 1948 . '" Jean Desy (1893-1960), Canadian diplomat. was born in Montreal (Q uebec) to a French Canadian family. In 1925 he entered the Department of External Affairs in Ottawa. He was one of the earliest Francophone diplomats in Canada. In I 941-1947 he was the Minister to Brazil (in 1943 promoted to Ambassador) . On October 13th, 1947, he was appoi nted Minister to Italy and on June 26th. 1948, was promoted to Ambassador and served in this position until 1952. In 1954-1958 he was the Ambassador to France and he died in Paris in 1960. SLOVAKJA 129 slation of your last letter (of November 3rd) in which you wrote that travel expenses had been paid. We also gave them the letter (notice, dated September 29th) which the Immigration Office had sent to you. The Ambassador said that everything was O.K. He said that we do not even need to go to Paris and that he will arrange the matter himself, including a medical examination and visa. The only things you will need are the following: l. Confirmation from the (ship) company that travel expenses have been paid . 2. Confirmation from Ottawa (the Canadian government) that entry to Canada is permitted . We asked him (the Ambassador) to request the matter telegraphically on condition that we will pay the expense connected with it. He promised to arrange it in this way. We had already asked the agency of the Cunard Company here to obtain confirmation concerning the payment of travel expenses. It would be good, if you could call their attention to this matter as soon as possible. Because he [the Ambassador] said that, if he will have it [the Confirmation] in his hand , he may issue the visa, so we could depart about the middle of December. Well , we would truly like to do so. We would fly away from here to London and then we would await there the next ship and we would depart. Really, we are growing impatient, like children before Christmas , and already we would like to be on the road. We will rest only when our ship moves in your direction . Culen's optimism grew after he received two letters from Rondos (dated November I 8th and November 20th) and a copy of the notice from the ship company (dated November 17th). 130 SLOVAKIA Culen wrote in his letter dated November 27th as follows: "If the matter moves faster, we will be there (in Canada) even in December, if slower, we will be there in January. Anyway, our hope was never so clear, as it is now. We feel as if we have everything within reach." However, "Confirmation from Ottawa that entry to Canada is permitted," which they had asked the Legation to obtain did not come. As Culen reminded Rondos in his letter of December 3rd, "The Legation here is waiting for information from Ottawa that they may issue us visas. I think that he [the Ambassador] already requested it telegraphically. If you have an o pportunity , please ask them to send it here as soon as possible. Because, as long as we do not have a Canadian visa, we cannot take the next step." Feeling uneasy about the delay, Culen sent to Rondos the letter of General Mola written in English (dated December 13th). On behalf of Culen General Mola explained his situation as follows: I saw again this morning, Mr. [T.L.] CARTER, [Second] Secretary at the Canadian Legation , acting for the Ambassador Mr.[Jean] DESY, so as to facilitate matters in every possible way. 1) Everything is all right as regards prepaid tickets. since the Legation is satisfied with the written declaration given CULEN by the CUNARD Office (Mr. BROOKS). 2) Mr. CARTER took note of what you wrote about the permit to enter Canada having already been sent to Rome . Nothing, however, reached the Canadian Legation yet , though the latter wrote Ottawa about it Nov. 22nd already . 3) By same letter, the authorisation was asked of the Canadian Government for the Legation actually applying the 131 SLOVAKJA visas on the three passports, even though the immigration Officials, to whom such a task is usually entrusted, are still to arrive. In the opinion of the Legation, such an exception might be granted since all documents were checked and found all right, and since the Legation have already their own Doctor who'll be able to submit the CULENS to the required medical examination. Were the authorisation not granted, Mr. CARTER says there seems to be no hope for the proper office to be ready for work here before two months or so! It would seem therefore most advisable that you should kindly complete the extraordinary work you and Mr. VOLEK have already done in favour of our friends by personally going to the proper Department in OTTAW A and - making precise reference to the Legation's letter of Nov. 22nd insisting that it should be answered favourably, possibly by cable: mind, not for the permit only, but also for the power to be granted the Legation. This is also Mr. CARTER's advice. On December 14th, Culen sent Rondos a cable. Unfortunately, I could not find it in the files of the correspondence, but, according to the contents of the aforementioned letter, we may guess that Culen's cable asked Rondos to obtain the confirmation from Ottawa by cable and to give to the Legation the power to issue visas. Having received it on December 15th, Rondos visited the agency of the Cunard Company and the Immigration Office in Winnipeg without getting a favourable response. In those circumstances he decided to seek the intervention to his close friend, Senator John Thomas Haig 11 , and visited his law " John Thomas Haig (I 877-1962), Influential politician in Winnipeg (Mani- toba). He was born to a Scottish family in Ontario and was a lawyer by profession . In 19 I 4 he was elected to several tenures in the Manitoba Legislature In SLOVAKIA 132 office in the city. Unfortunately Haig was attending Parliament in Ottawa. His brother, who had received Rondos, reported to Haig in a letter dated December 15th (to which was enclosed a notice from Munroe, dated September 29th and a copy of Culen's cable dated December 14th): Your old friend , Mr. Rondos was in the office today. He has applied under the Immigration Act, to bring out his friend, Konstantin Culen, his wife and daughter who are presently in Italy. [ ... ] The difficulty seems to be that we have no immigration authority in Rome. There is nothing there but a Legation and without special authority, they apparently have not the power to grant immigration permits. You will note the wire asking that the permit be cabled and that authority be given to the legation to Grant a visa. [... ] The only difficulty seems to be the permit and the visa. We know that you will do everything in your power to have this rushed to completion before you return from Ottawa. Mr. Rondos is exceedingly anxious, he has gone to a lot of trouble and spent a lot of money, and would certainly appreciate anything you could do to iron out the difficulties. 1935 he was appointed to the Senate, Dominion of Canada. in Ottawa. From 1945 on he was the leader of the opposition party (the Progressive Con serva- tive Party) in the Senate. In June 1957. through the victory of his party in the general election, he became the leader of the governme nt party. In October of that year he was appointed Minister without portfolio in the Diefenbaker Governme nt. In May of 1958 he resigned this position. SLOVAKIA 133 Receiving the news from Winnipeg, Senator Haig met with his personal friend, Hugh Llewellyn Keenleyside 12 who was the Deputy Minister of the Department of Mines and Resources and in charge of Immigration. After being "probed", Haig answered Rondos in a letter dated December 22nd as follows: [ ... ] You also know that I am leader of the Opposition [the Progressive Conservative Party] in the Senate of Canada and I took the time off to go and see the Deputy Minister of Mines and Natural Resources who is also the Deputy Minister of Immigration. He assured me that in two weeks from the 14th of December, that they would either have one of their own officers in Rome to give Visas for Canada or authority would be given to the Canadian Legation to issue them. The Deputy is a personal friend of mine and I am sure he will do exactly that thing. I sent the Immigration letter, about the duties to the Deputy Minister and he said it would all be cleared up in two weeks so that your friend [Cul en I will be able to get his Visas not later than January first. " Hugh Llewellyn Keenleyside ( 1898- I 992). Canadian scholar. diplomat. and high-ranking civil servant. was born in Toronto. In 1928 he entered the Department of External Affairs in Ottawa. In 1929- 1936 he served in Tokyo as First Secretary of the Canadian Legation in Japan. During World War II he was opposed to the forced evacuation of Japanese Canadians. In 1944-1947 he became Minister to Mexico. and in 1947-1950 the Deputy Minister of the Department of Mines and Resources. In this period he published the article Canadian Immigration Policy. Vancouver, the University of British Columbia, 1948 . Later he held various important positions in the United Nations and in British Columbia. He published Memoirs of Hugh L. Keenleyside, Toronto, McClelland and Stewart Limited. 1981 -82. in two volumes. 134 SLOVAKIA On the same day Rondos, enclosing a copy of Haig's letter, answered General Mola in English: I was indeed pleased to receive your letter of December 13th with the detailed information therein. I also received the cable of Mr. Culen , and immediately took the necessary action with the Immigration officials in Ottawa. To assure you that immediate action will be taken by the Canadian Immigration authorities , I am enclosing herewith a copy of a letter written by Mr. John T. Haig, Leader of the Opposition in the Canadian Senate, which is self-explanatory . Many of Mr. Culen's Slovak friends in Canada are looking forward to his arrival. Culen described to Rondos, on December 31st how he felt when he received the letter: We were feeling very blue at the end of the year. It seemed that everything had gone wrong. And here, in the last hours of the passing year, your latest news, which you sent to General Mola, arrived. It delighted us very much and it gave us new hope. Yesterday General Mola told me: "I am 73 years old , I travelled around the world, I saw and experienced much, but I have never yet in my life met with such a case of a countryman's friendship, as I see here with Mr. Rondos. You can be proud of it not only as a human being, but especially as a Slovak." Meanwhile, on the same day General Mola went to petition the Canadian Legation with a copy of Senator Haig's letter of SLOVAKIA 135 December 22nd which Rondos had sent him. Culen reported to Rondos about this episode at the end of his December 31st letter: Just a while ago the General returned from the Legation . They read the letter [from Haig] and they said that it is interesting, but according to the existing laws they may issue a visa only to Italian citizens, but not to foreigners. Until now they received nothing about our matter. They promised that they will send a cable and request an answer from Ottawa to the previous letter [dated November 22nd] about our matter. They have certain objections to our Red Cross passports and they say that we have to get others. In a word, there will be still many difficulties . By the way, the General is writing to you about this matter. They will have to get a special order to iss ue a visa to Culen and his family. While there is no order, nothing can be done. We also found in the file General Mola's letter to Rondos written in English (dated December 31st): Many thanks for your kind letter of Dec . 22nd and appended enclosure from Sen. JOHN T. HAIG . I immediately went to the Canadian Legation and showed them both letters to Mr.CARTER [Second Secretaryl . He was evidently impressed; but unfortunately he said that - though they already had authority to give visas without awaiting for the arrival of the Emigration Officials in Rome - this is for the time being applicable to Italians only. The Legation has as yet not received any similar instructions, neither for your specific case, nor for emigrants other than Italians. SLOVAKIA 136 I saw H.E. DESY also, and he assured me they would do their showing their best good-will, since they promised me they would cable to-day to insist that OTT AWA should answer by cable to the letter the Legation originally wrote to the Department last November. Knowing unfortunately how slow burocracy [sic] is in all countries, may I suggest that - with this piece of news in hand - you should ask your powerful friends to specifically insist that a cable was immediately sent, as suggested by the Legation. General Mola wrote m detail about the passport problem which Culen mentioned only briefly: Another complication arose at the last moment: namely that the RED CROSS passports - which had been by the Legation declared valid - are now not considered fit , by some recent new regulations!!! It would be necessary to have them substituted by some C.S.I.R.O documents - which it would take an enormous time to obtain - even though the Legation promised their support to hasten matters. Couldn't it also be obtained from OTT AW A that they should cable and authorise the Legation to exceptionally accept the RED CROSS passports as valid for the CULENs case only? According to their expectation at the beginning, it would "take you [Culen's family] three to six months at most to enter Canada" (Rondos's letter of June 23rd, 1947). However, the barrier of the Canadian bureaucracy was greater than they imagined and 1947 drew to a close over the anxiety of obtaining a visa. In the second half of January 1948, Culen 's attempts to enter Canada looked hopeful. He reported in his letter to Rondos , dated January 16th as follows : SLOVAKIA 137 Just a while ago they phoned me from the [Canadian] Legation, that. they already received the documents and perhaps within a week they will arrange the matter. They already fixed for us even the date of the medical examination. I hope it will end well, because we all feel ourselves quite healthy. [... ] If it will go well, we could perhaps get a visa by about [January] 23rd. Then it will take some time, while we receive an English and possibly an American [transit visa]. So we reckon that at the end of February we could arrive in Canada or in the United States. At that moment Culen thought that an entry visa to Canada was within reach. To his great disappointment, however, he failed his medical examination. Twenty-two years earlier Culen had suffered from a senous disease. At the end of August in 1926, when the twenty-one-yearold had worked in the editorial office of the daily Slovak in Bratislava, he was hospitalized for pleurisy. For two weeks he hovered between life and death. His temperature sometimes rose as high as 41 degrees. After three months of fighting the disease, he was allowed to leave the hospital. After convalescing for months at a sanatorium in the High Tatras, at the end of the year Culen returned to his regular life in Bratislava. 13 On January 28th, 1948, the Culen family reported to the newly established Canadian Immigration Office m Rome for a medical examination. Culen reported the results to Rondos in a letter dated the same day : It seemed that everything would be all right, when they suddenly looked at the X-ray of my bowels. Twenty-two " Frnntisck Ynuk. Zi votopis K onstantfna CuJena. p.45. 138 SLOVAKIA years ago I suffered from pleurisy. They said that even today one can see on the photograph traces of the inflammation. Since then I never got sick, but a Canadian doctor questioned it and postponed the issuance of our visas for later, only after the agreement of the Department of National Health and Welfare [for Canada] in London. They will send all the documents there. If they will agree, we can get visas, but if not, we can do nothing. We are for ever kept waiting. Culen continued in a pessimistic tone: Well, we truly did not expect it. Everything seemed all right. We received passports from the I.R.O. With the documents we had no problem, nor with the civil investigation . It never occurred to me that today they would call into question my illness of 22 years ago and that it would halt everything. My wife and daughter were recognised as healthy. This is sad and unexpected news for you and for us. So much work, so much running around and expenses, and finally this. You can hardly imagine what kind of medical examination we had. First of all the X-ray, then the medical and physical examination , then blood tests and then once more the face of a Canadian doctor. They were more strict than at the med ical check-ups for conscription. Now we have to wait for what they will decide in London. After so many experiences there is in our mind only a small spark of hope, si nce for emigrants things usually do not go well. What more can we do ? We arc truly bewildered and unhappy. We descended from hope into the abyss of hopelessness. 139 SLOVAKJA After he received Culen's "sad and unexpected news ", Rondos answered (in his letter of February 3rd) to keep his hopes up: .. . believe me, I and my whole family grieved when we read your letter. But, considering the whole matter, I think it will change for the better, because many people have suc h traces as you mentioned. The blood test will prove (that yo u are healthy) and in London they will reconsider the matter. I still believe in Almighty God and everything will be fin e. Please wait a couple of days, to see how they will answer yo u . And then, let me know instantly what kind of answer you get. If you do not fee l weak, I think it will pass and soon you can move in the direction of Canada. It was said that "within three weeks they will certainl y answer from London" (Culen's letter to Rondos of March 3rd), "at the latest within three weeks we will receive the answer" (his letter of March 20th ), but the repl y fro m the Department of National Health and Welfare for Canada in London was again delayed . Growing nervous, C ul en compl ained to Rondos on March 29th as fo ll ows : The Canadian gentlemen unpleasantl y trifled with us and in an un-Christian manner. The mos t unpl easant part is th at they said neither "yes" nor "no" . Government officials, havi ng a good life , tease poor emigrants. If one were not thoro ughl y affected by anti-Bolshevism, we ll , after such an ex perience one would like to give up, to leave for the other side and to say to them; "Forgive me, we wronged you." However, th e sorrowful truth is that the so-called democrats who chatter a lot about humanism and democracy practice such un - 140 SLOVAKIA Christian and such brutal things that on this point there are few differences between them and the Bolsheviks. [ ... ] Well, what shall we do? We all are against the heartlessness of the authorities and the stupidity of the bureaucracy and feel very helpless. You have done more than one could expect from a close family member. I am sorry that it turned out so badly. In Culen's letters we noticed several parts where he expressed dissatisfaction towards the immigration policy of Canada and the United States, and criticism and antipathy against the Western countries. Even the nationalist Culen, who professed to be a hardline anti-Bolshevik, reflected the emotional anti-Western sentiment of the contemporary left-wing intellectuals. Conversely, we found here and there sentences in which Culen praised the attitude of the Argentine and Spanish governments which gladly accepted immigrants . At the beginning of April Culen at last received a reply from London. The result was negative. In a letter to Rondoas of April 1st, Culen exploded in anger: Well, finally the obvious happened. Today we went to the Canadian ([Immigration] Office. They welcomed us very nicely, saying: "I just wanted to write you , you came just at the right time!" After such an introduction we were curious about the good news. They did not keep us waiting. They said:" You can not receive a visa for Canada. We received such an answer from our superiors." It did not surprise us. Because, after the long comedy which they subjected us to, we shouldn ' t have expected anything else. Your work was in vain . Our efforts were in SLOVAKIA 141 vain. Even the intervention of Abbot Kojis of Cleveland was in vain and useless. It helped nothing. Canada needs men with strong fists such as Joe Louis, but it does not need men who dared once in their life to become sick. I am sorry about your efforts and work. Although on the other hand, I had a beautiful experience. And I see clearly the true character of the humanity and Christianity of the United States, Britain, and Canada in the international conferences against Bolshevism. They pretend as if only they are apostles of mercy. One is disgusted with it, when one hears these hypocritical speeches and sees these brutal behaviours. Believe me, they are as bad as the Communists . Culen also vented his anger on Senator Haig, who acted as an intermediary: I thought that such a Senator, as leader of the opposition, has yet some power and the right to speak. But it seems to me that he has not much. I was once an unimportant deputy, but when I petitioned to the Minister of the Interior [Alexander Mach I that there were several Polish refugees who were hunted by the Gestapo, and if they were arrested, they would be shot, it was sufficient for the Minister immediately to issue them Slovak passports and as Slovak citizens to place them in the state service. Our Minister did not send them to an X-ray examination in order to have a look at their lungs, whether they had not by chance some medical history. If you want , you may tell Mr. Senator that it is strange that such an important politician can do nothing even for such a trifle. We have to clench our teeth and regret the lost time. After such experiences, one has to consider what to do next. There are not SLOVAKIA 142 many choices. One might even consider returning to the home country and to confess to the Bolsheviks as follows : "Forgive me, I was disappointed. In the West there is no democracy, no humanity, no Christianity, there are only forests for which they need cheap and absolutely healthy workers. No more, no less . Nothing had changed since the Americans carried slaves from Africa. The only difference is perhaps that now they check them even by X-ray, which they did not have one hundred years ago." In the morning of April 2nd , Culen received the notice with the same contents from the Canadian Immigration Office. Reporting to Rondos shortly thereafter, he wrote in a pessimistic tone that "otherwise I doubt that it is possible to change the matter" (letter dated April 2nd). To do justice to the Canadian authorities , it should be pointed out that they did not make a wrong diagnosis. In reality, in August of that year, Culen spat blood and was hospitalized . A spot was found in his right lung, but thanks to streptomycin and a calcium injection he was discharged from the hospital on September 10th. 14 In February of 1948, when Culen was disappointed by the medical examination and its aftermath, the Communist Party finally seized power in Czechoslovakia. When Culen suggested, perhaps only rhetorically, the possibility of returning to Czechoslovakia and of surrendering to the "Bolsheviks," in Czechoslovakia they were preparing a political trial against him. However, before Culen's trial started, the Communists organized another political trial against a group of people, including 14 Ibid. pp. 145-146. SLOVAKIA 143 his youngest brother Ladislav Culen 15 , who remained in Slovakia. Ladislav was arrested in September of 1947, under suspicion of participating in the underground activities of the Slovak Action Committee [Slovensky akcny vybor] led by a nationalist politician in exile, Ferdinand Durcansky. Stefan Culen, Konstantin's younger brother, wrote in a letter to Rondos (stamped October 15th, 1947): I [Stefan Culenj received a letter from Slovakia. They arrested our brother [Ladislav Culen] who was a professor in Bratislava. We do not expect that he will come back alive, for many people were arrested and accused of wanting to assassinate Benes [then the Czechoslovak President] . It is nothing but pretence to murder them. Very many people are arrested . These poor guys will never return. Suspicions of plotting to assassinate President Edvard Benes were spread by the State Security Police (STB). However, it was true that these people, including Ladislav Culen , organized the underground, supporting the idea of an independent Slovak state , and supplied information to Dr. Duransky , one of the leaders of the Slovak independence movement, who was in exile in Italy (after July of 1947 in Argentina). 15 16 Ladislav Culen ( I 9 I 6- I 990 ), fi fth of fi ve brothers of Konstantin Cul en. stu - died history at Comenius University in Bratislava. During the independent Sl ovak State he served at the Slovak Embassy in Budapest. As me ntio ned above. he was arrested in September 1947, under suspicion o f participatin g in an anti - state conspiracy and was se ntenced in April 1948 . to 18 years in prison. He wa s released in 1962. 16 .. The organizational network of the Slovak Action Committee in Slovaki a was initiated at the suggestio n of J. Fickuli ak in May of 1947. The group o rganized aro und Jozef Dobrovodsky and parti cipated in this in iti ative through L 144 SLOVAKlA Otto Obuch, the central figure of the so-called "anti-state conspiracy", was a press officer who worked in the office of then deputy-Prime Minister of the Czechoslovak government, Jan Ursfny. Ursfny was one of the leaders of the Democratic Party, the largest political party in Slovakia at that time. Obuch was arrested in late September of 1947. By the end of October State Security, taking advantage of the affair, forced the deputy-P.M. Ursfny out of office. Slovakia fell into a political crisis (the so-called November crisis) and as a result, the Communist Party succeeded m weakening its rival, the Democratic Party, and strengthened its position in Slovak politics. 17 Culen. Members of this illegal organi zation. Action Committee - official ly named "the Sl ovak headqu arters in Brati slava", spread its acti vity to all of Slovakia, which was divided into three regions." Robert Letz, S/ovensk o v rokoch 1945- 1948 na ceste ku k onwnistickej to tali te [Sl ovakia in 1945- 1948 on the Road To Communist Totality]. Bratislava. Ustredie slovenskej t'anskej intc ligencic v Bratislavc. 1994. p. 157. Jozef Fickuliak supplied kres- "Obuch. Ladi slav Culen. and Durcansky with important material regarding the political backgro und. the negotiatio ns of the gove rnment. copies of laws and decrees. unusual articles in the press etc ." Robert Letz. "Slovenska politicka emigracia z rok u 1945 a ohlas na jej cinnost' doma [The Slovak Political Emi gration of 1945 and the Respo nse to its Activi ty at Home 1". In Slovenskf po vojnovf exil. Z bomfk materialov zo seminara Dejiny slovenskeho exilu p o roku 1945 v Matici s/ovenskej v Martine 27. -28. j1ina 1996 [The Slovak Pos t- war Emigres. Papers from the Seminar '·The History of the Slovak Emigres after 1945" organized by Matica slovenska in Martin on June 27th - 28th. 1996 ]. Martin, Matica slovenska . 1998 . p. 118 . 17 For details of the po litical bac kgro und of the "anti-state conspiracy" see : Michal Barnovsky. Na ceste k monopolu m oci. M ocensk opo/iticke zapasy na Slovensku v rokoch 1945- 1948 [On the Road to Monopoly of Power. Power- political Struggles in Slovakia in 1945 - 1948 ]. Bratislava. Archa. 1993. pp . I 6 1207: Robert Letz. Slovensk o v rok och 1945-1948 na ceste ku k omunistickej totali te. pp. 156- I 76 and p. 2 30. 145 SLOVAKIA After seizing power in February of 1948, between April 19th and 29th in Bratislava, the Communist regime tried Otto Obuch and his followers. Obuch was sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment. Ladislav Culen received 18 years for being a party to "the anti-state conspiracy" which intended to overthrow the Czechoslovak Government and to restore the independent Slovak State. Exdeputy-P.M. Ursfny, who was allegedly involved in the affair, was sentenced to seven years in prison . 18 Ladislav Culen was heavily punished, perhaps, as a warning to his older brother. Konstantin Culen wrote to Rondos on May 7th as follows: l- --1 in Bratislava they tried my brother as an "AngloAmerican" spy and the prosecutor demanded the death penalty. Well, we were in bitter and tense expectation of what would happen and how everything would develop. He received 18 years' imprisonment, which is the second heaviest sentence among the accused. The Czech judge [K.] Bedrna sentenced the accused in all to 85 years. In the Hungarian Kingdom, during the last century, Slovaks were sentenced to about 78 years and, now, at one stroke they got so much more, and it is still said that they are "liberated ." Besides , they treated my brother so badly that he will take it very hard. The worst thing is that everything was unnecessary, that if there had been no stupidity by [Ferdinand)] Durcansky , his unnecessary propagandizing and forecasting of war, his unneces""Jan Ursfny. byvaly podpredseda c-s vl:idy. bol ods udeny na 7 rokov viize nia ("Jan Ursfny. former Deputy Prime Minister of the Czechoslovak governme nt. was sentenced to 7 years in prison). Slovensk:i obrana. May 4th. 1948. On Ursfny 's memories of this episode see: J:in Ursfny. Zm6jho tivota (Prfspevok k vf- voju slovenskej n:irodnej mys/ienky). [From my Life (Co ntribution to the Deve lopment of the Slovak National Idea)]. Martin, Matica slovensk:i , 2000, pp. 134- 149. 146 SLOVAKIA sary instigating of young enthusiasts, of careless people, the trial would not have taken place. 19 Culen also wrote about the matter in his letter of May 13th: Otherwise from the country [Slovakia] there is always only news about trials. My brother was already sentenced as an "Anglo-American" spy; however, I can enter neither England nor America. Isn't it a little strange? In the country they would like to try me as a collaborator with Americans. How this world is confused! On May 28th and 29th, m the local court in Bratislava, Konstantfn Culen was tried m absentia. One of the Slovak newspapers reported : '""The State Security Police (STB) took advantage of the activities of the Slo vak Action Committee. Even th ough the activity of the Committee brought im portant arguments about the stru ggle for the Slovak statehood back home. it also enabled State Security to manufacture ··the anti-state conspiracy" and to accuse the Catholic wing of the Democratic Party of cooperating with po liti cal emigres. which they interpreted as anti-state activity. Robert Letz. "Slovenska emigracia z roku 1945 a ohlas na jej cinnost' doma" . In Slovensky povojnovy exil. pp.118- 11 9. For details of the illegal political movements in Slovakia after World War II see: Robert Letz. Slovensko v rokoch 1945- / 948 na ceste ku komunistickej totalite . pp. 129- 176. See also the memoirs of one of th e leading figures of the Slovak Action Committee. Stefan Polakovic. "Zaznam o cinnosti SA V-u [Records of the activity of the Slovak Action Committee]" . In Stefan Polakovic and Frantiasek Ynuk. Zahranicne akcie na zachranu a obnovcnie slovenskej samostatn osti (1943- / 948) [Activities Abroad for the Preservation and Renewal of Slovak Independence ( 1943-1948 )], Lakewood-Hamilton. Slovak Research Institute of America. 1988. pp . I 09-225 . politicka SLOYAKJA 147 The people 's court in Bratislava, with Dr. Artur Sipka presiding, tried in absentia on the 28th of this month Konstantin Culen, former deputy of the Slovak Parliament. The Prosecutor accused Culen of the following crimes: that as an important politician he worked for the dissolution of the Czechoslovak Republic [in 1939], that he supported the military and political interests of Nazi Germany, that he supported the declaring and making of war against the Soviet Union, that he thwarted the struggle of the Slovak nation for the restoration of the Czec hoslovak Republic , that he became rich at the expense of other citizens , therefore he committed criminal acts of domestic treachery, collaboration, and treachery in the Uprising (of 1944). The public prosec utor of the trial is Dr. Amoast Barat. Vojteeh Vycanek spoke in his defence. The written statement and doc umentary material presented was proof of his guilt. The sentence will be passed on Saturday at 9 o'c lock.2' 1 Culen wrote in his diary of June 2nd , which is cited in Vnuk's biograph y, as fo llows: There is a newspaper with an article on my sentence "Cul en - 30 years' Imprisonment: [...)] Senate of Dr. Sipka of the people's court in Bratislava on Saturday of May 29 th passed judgement on Kon stantin Culen who was sentenced in his absentia to 30 years' imprisonment, 15 years' divestiture of citizenship, and confiscation of all his property ." Only 30 years! They fo und me guilty of so many cnmes and they gave me so few years! However, we two brothers, together with Laco [Ladislav Culen] got from the Czechs al- ' " Frantisek Vn uk. Zivotopis Konstantfna Cu/ena. pp.139- 140 . 148 SLOVAKIA most the same number of years as all Slovaks had gotten during the entire Hungarian regime. These gentlemen succeeded so well. The state prosecutor was Arnost Barath, a Hungarian from Nitra, whose two brothers, Elemer and Zoltan, are in exile, and one of them has just left for Venezuela. Vojta ([Vojtech] Vycanek, my old acquaintance, pleaded on my behalf. I am indeed curious how he did it. I wrote in a hurry an article for Jednota [a Slovak nationalist newspaper in the United States] where I just dealt with the curiosity that they could find for my trial neither a Slovak judge nor a Slovak lawyer. 21 Culen also wrote to Rondos on June 10th that "they sentenced my brother in Bratislava as an Anglo-American spy and confiscated all our property." These political trials perhaps dissuaded him from returning to Czechoslovakia and of surrendering to the "Bolsheviks". The trial of Kon stantin Culen belonged to a series of political trials which took place at that time in Bratislava. A group of Slovak nationalist intellectuals in exile were judged in absentia as well. Karol Sidor, Reverend Ferdinand Mondok, and Jozef M. Kirschbaum were each sentenced to 20 years in prison. The historian Frantisek Hrusovsky received ten years. It is worth mentioning that Culen received the heaviest sentence. In the meantime, Rondos, who had been informed by Culen 's letter of April 1st that London had turned down his visa application, once again visited Senator Haig. The Senator promised to bring to Ottawa the notice of the Canadian Immigration l l Ibid. p.140. SLOVAKIA 149 Office in Rome, which Culen had sent, in order to tack.le the matter at first hand (Rondos's letter to Culen of April 8th). Late in May, when Rondos went to Ottawa as a member of the delegation of the Canadian Slovak League, he visited the office of the International Refugee Organization (IRO), where he found a file according to which the entrance visa to Canada for Culen and his family had already been issued on March 5th. Feeling doubtful about the situation , Rondos met the secretary of Senator Haig (at that time Haig was not in Ottawa), and asked about the matter (letter of June 16th). At Rondos 's request, Haig wrote a letter to the Department of Mines and Resources in Ottawa. He received an answer of July 6th from his acquaintance, Deputy Minister Keenleyside: Since Mr. Kulen (sic) has been refused a visa for reasons of health, any review must be on medical grounds. Accordingly, the Director of Immigration has forwarded the entire file to the Departmental medical advisor, in order that we may have the benefit of his professional opinion. The original certificate was severe and I would not wish , at this time, to raise any hope on the part of the applicant. Just as soon as the file is returned , I shall promptly advise you and , in view of your representation, I sincerely hope the medical findings arc favourable. On July 14th, Haig sent a copy of this letter to Rondos . In the morning of July 16th, Rondos visited the District Superintendent of the Immigration Branch, Munroe, who called him the day before. In Rondos's letter of July 15th to Culen, we have a detailed report of their conversation. Based on it, we will reproduce Rondos's petition. Rondos and Munroe talked for over one hour 150 SLOVAKIA about Culen's entrance into Canada. Naturally, they also talked about his medical examination in Rome: Munroe: They did not say that Mr. Culen is really weak, but he has a medical history. By the way, how do you know these people? Why did you help to raise the Culen matter? Rondos reported all the circumstances. Munroe: I know the Senator [Haig] from childhood and we are now very good friends. Well , how did you get in contact with Mr. [T.P.] Devlin, the chairman of the colonization of immigrants for West Canada? Rondos began to explain. Munroe: It is enough. I was informed by Mr. Devlin about what you are asking me. Do you support the application which Mr. Volek submitted? According to it Mr. Culcn will work on his farm . Rondos: I am sure from his letter that Mr. Culen will work on the farm. In Canada nobody will take care of him. He 1s responsible for himself. Munroe: I have information that he is highly educated. Rondoas: It is true , but he had his own farm in Slovakia and he understands farmer's work . Munroe: If Mr. Culen enters Canada and cannot work on Mr. Yolek's farm, I was told that your organization lthe Canadian Slovak League] would help him, because he is a writer and can write good anti-Communist articles . Is it true? Rondos: I have a secret which I would not normally reveal. But I recognise that I am talking with a high state official, so I confess to you . I have a close connection with the Royal Police in Canada I RCMP I and I provide them with information about Communist activities. When a Czech agita- SLOVAKIA 151 tor comes here and the Police really want to know about his purpose, they ask me to participate in their meeting. Mr. Culen already sent me articles about what Communists write about Canada. These articles were sent long ago to the police office. If you want to know about them, call and ask s uchand-such an officer, whether or not I indeed provided the m with articles which Mr. Culen sent me from Rome. And our organization works against turnin g Canada " Red " . If Mr. Culen could not work for Mr. Volek, o ur organization will help him. If yo u need some ass urances for the help, I am ready to offer it. Munroe: I am satisfied with yo ur words . I do not demand any assurances. I already heard personally about your activity and , according to the information which state officials se nt me, I recognize your words as true. By the way, does Mr. Culen not have the intentio n to go to his brother [Stefan Culen] in America? R ondos: When Mr. Culen comes to Canada, he will become a citizen of thi s country. Because he is educated a nd we Slovaks in Canada do not have such people, we very much need ed ucated peo ple here. His brother in Chicago 1s only an ordinary worker. He cannot he lp him . Munroe: Is Mr. Vo lek sati sfied that he pro vided one year ago an applicatio n for Mr. Culcn 's entry to Canada? R ondo.s: Yes. If yo u do not believe me, please call the Senator. He knows Mr. Volek well and he will prove to you that Mr. Volek is waiting fo r Mr. Culen . Munroe: I am glad that you told me the truth. I will send a report to Ottawa that Mr. Culen is awaited in Canada. And I agree with it. SLOVAKIA 152 At the end of the conversation, Munroe called his secretary and ordered him to dictate a letter to Ottawa that he (Munroe) supports Culen's entry into Canada. However, in spite of Rondos's "frank" petition and Munroe's "guarantee", on August 9th, Senator Haig received from the Acting Deputy Minister of the Department of Mines and Resources, R. A. Gibson , a polite notice of refusal (of July 30th): The [Culen] file has been returned to the Director of Immigration from the Departmental Medical Adviser and, I regret to inform you, the original diagnosis has been confirmed. Under the circumstances, the Immigration officials in Rome cannot be instructed to issue a visa for the Culen [sic] family . Undoubtedly Mr. Volek will be disappointed with these developments but the Immigration Branch can be of no further assistance in the matter. Haig transmitted the notice on the same day to Rondos with the short comment: "I got a very disappointing letter this mornin g which I enclose . I don't think anything further can be done ." Rondos reported to Culen in a letter of August 17th: "Believe me , it [the notice] shocked me so much that I lay down and fell asleep. t .. .] I waited while everything passed away. I went to the Senator's office. He was at home and said the following : Haig: George [Juraj), I am sorry about such mean news. Rondos: Mr. Senator, I had an important meeting with Mr. Munroe, the chief (of the Immigration Department) for Western Canada. It was July 15th. In the letter [from R. A. Gibson] he wrote that they received from England a message SLOVAKIA 153 of decisive refusal. In my mind , an answer from England was hardly reached between July 15th and 30th , es pecially an official answer through Ottawa. I would like to know whether in Ottawa any Czech communist conducts the immigration administration or not. Munro e: I al so think that the an swer should have come later. George, go to the Immigration Department and onc e more ask directly for Mr. Munroe . Next Morning (perhaps on Aug ust 11th) Rondos called Munroe and got an appointment to meet at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. He was welcom ed. Rondos: Sorry about disturbing you, but I fee l nervo us and I would like to kn ow the situation tho rou g hl y. Rondos again explained to him, as he did to the Senator, and handed him the Jetter from Ottawa. Munroe read it and called his secretary, telling him to bring Cu/en's file. Wh en he brought it, Munroe read once m ore the Jetter which he had written concerning Cu/en to Ottawa on July 15th . Mun roe: Do not take the letter which yo u received from Ottawa seriously. It is written in Ottawa on Jul y 30th , but m y letter to them was sent onl y on Jul y 29th . So it is not the answer to my letter. Mr. Rondos, the fact th at I sent to Ottawa the letter is the same as if I pe rsonally went there in order to carry out the matter. Do not worry because I have not yet received an answer to my letter. And Munroe took the copy of his letter to read what he had written: "According to my special meeting with Mr. Rondos, I approve of the entrance of Mr. Cul en to Canada." Afterwards, Culen had a long wait. In his letters to Rondos we find such sentences as : "The Canadian [Immigration] Office has SLOVAKIA 154 not replied yet." (Letter of September 6th, 1948), "We know how officials work, •so we are not surprised at all." (Letter of September 18th), "We are waiting until they finally invite us and say Here are your papers and here is your visa. Since nothing had happened, I went to ask them privately. We heard that they indeed received some letter and they have just answered it. We d o not know what kind of answer they received. Well, we can o nly guess as we wait, optimisticall y or pessimisticall y. However, it is certain that it will still take some time. But we are used to waiting patiently, so we will live with it. " (Letter of October 9th), "Besides, nothing special has happened . We are waiting, as we waited one year, two years, or three years ago. Slowly we will look like Jews who are also waiting for the Messiah." (Letter of Nove mber 6th), "We expected last year that we would not have to celebrate Christmas and Easter [sic] by letter, but that we would do it orally. Well , our plans did not materialize and we must one year later wish yo u Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year by letter. " (Letter of December 6th) , "Till now the local (Immigration) Office did not move even an inch on the matter, so to speak. We are still waiting for them to invite us, but in vain. We do no t know what has happened . Now it seems that it has been mo ved, somebody, somewhere, puts a brake on it. " (Letter of December 27th). In August of this year, when Rondos visited Haig's office, he sugges ted, half jokingly, the possibility of "sabotage by a Czech communist". Being psychologicall y exhausted from the long wait, Culen began to suspect that his entry to Canada had bee n bl ocked by the political intervention of "the enemies" . He wrote to Rondos on January l 0th, 1949: "It would be interesting to find out why it all happened. I think that my health was not the question, but it SLOVAKJA 155 was Czech political interference." In his letter of March 29th, the conjecture changed into conviction: General (Mola) visited the Canadian (Immigration) office to ask whether by chance they had something new. There were new officials there, so they began to check various papers and finally revealed that the difficulty was not caused by an X-ray, but by something else. Well , it might be only political. And if political , it is clear that it was Czech interference. I know that they were not pleased with my appearance there. [ ... ] Because the fact is that there is not a greater enemy than a Czech . If it were possible, Czechs would drown us in a teaspoon[ul of water. Culen's biographer Ynuk also suggested the possibility of "enemy's intervention " .22 However, it is still unclear whether some pro-Czechoslovak groups (for example, the Czechoslovak National Alliance in Canada) or pro-Communist groups really did it o r not. Meanwhile, waiting for an answer from the Canadian Immigration Office, Culcn did not waste his time . After the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia in February of 1948, the Slovak nationalist group in exile led by Karol Sidor began its political activities. In this period Culen participated, in addition to his ordinary work as a journalist, in two actions. The first was his radio broadcasting to Slovakia. We read in Culen's letter of November 16th, 1947, the following: u Ibid. p. 133. SLOVAKIA 156 [.. .] the radio station Free Slovakia has started to operate in Europe. It broadcasts every day for two hours. Soon Radio Free Europe will have Slovak programmes, so the Iron curtain between Slovakia and the rest of the world will be breached and we can open our mouths again. There is much work with it, but it is joyful. Well, on such radio stations we already cite what your Kanadsky Slovak [the organ of the Canadian Slovak League] writes. We will have to arrange a quicker sending of the editorial page of Kanadsky Slovak in order to give our people at home more fresh news. Now we are waiting for a reaction from our homeland .2 3 In his letter of December 6th Culen also wrote the following: Now there is much to do. We prepare materials for our broadcasting to Slovakia. We hope it will be perfect. Well , every day half an hour is enough work for one person. One station is already operating . From the New Year on the Italian government will start short wave broadcasting every day for ten minutes. I hear that even in London [BBC] the Czech and Slovak broadcasting will be divided. If then the Canadian government wants the people in Slovakia to listen to their programmes [CBC International Service which started in 1945], they will have to do the same thing. If people at home will have the possibility to listen to programmes in the Slovak spirit, nobody 23 will tune in to the Czechoslovak jumble. The Czechoslovak section of Radi o Free Europe (RFE) began regular program- ming in May of 1951. However. the division between the Czech and Sl ov ak sections , which Culen had expected , did not materialize . On this problem see: Imrich Kruzliak , "Radio Slobodn a Europa a Slovaci [Radio Free Europe and the Slovaks]", In Slovensky povojnovy exil. pp.338-344. SLOVAKIA 157 Everything which is connected with the Czechs is bad for the Slovaks. As Culen wrote, from the beginning of 1949 the Rome station began to provide Slovak programmes. He cooperated actively with it, writing articles and reading lectures. He wrote to Rondos on April 26th that "Now I have much work, for every Sunday I have a radio lecture for Slovakia and people there listen to it very carefully." Culen's second political activity of this period was participation in the newly established political organization of the Slovak nationalists in exile. In May of 1948 an agreement to establish a new organization was made between the group led by Karol Sidor and the Slovak National Council in London which was organized in January, 1944, by Peter Pridavok. On the front page of Kanadsky Slovak of December 16th, they announced the formation of the Slovak National Council Abroad as the coordinating body in the struggle for "the Slovak State within a federalized Europe" .24 It was dated Christmas of I 948 (in reality, it was published in the middle of December) and signed by Karol Sidor (as the president) and by Peter Prfdavok (as the general secretary). The main organizer was Jozef Kirschbaum. Culen supported him, and became one of its vice-presidents and at the same time chief of its Italian branch. 2 5 i, "Slovenska Narodna Rada v Zahranicf utvorcna [Creation of the Slovak Na- ti ona l Council Abroad]" , Kanadsky S lovak. December 16th. 1948 . is On the acti vities of the Slovak National Council Abroad see: Frantisek Vnuk. "S lovenska narodna rada v Londyne a v zahranicf (1943- 1948) (The Slovak National Council in London and Abroad (1943-1948))". In Stefan Polakovic and Frantisek Vnuk, Zahranicne akcie na zachran u a obnovenie s/ovenskej sa- mostatnosti (I 943-1948), pp.1-108; Genoveva Gracova , "Dve koncepcie boja za slovensku statnost' (Two conceptions of the struggle for Slovak statehood)", 158 SLOVAKIA With respect to this, Rondos wrote to Culen on December 18th that "the article of Mr. Sidor and Mr. Prfdavok [abovementioned] was published in [Kanadsky] Slovak and it provides evidence of the revival of the independence movement. [... ] As you are actively engaged in it, you are perhaps busy with it. Culen, meanwhile, reported to Rondos on January 18th, 1949: Otherwise we are led by the Slovak National Council [Abroad]. The press in Europe pays much attention to it. The Spanish press evaluated the meaning of this step as most important among all the European nations which are occupied by Communists. Even the Swiss press pays attention to our organization . We may say that until now not even one of our Slovak affairs created such a reaction . Yesterday American journalists visited the Minister [Sidor]. I was with them for half a day and we talked with them. In February of 1949 Culen departed for Paris, together with Sidor and Kirschbaum in order to negotiate with French government officials regarding the activities of the Slovak National Council Abroad. They arrived in Paris on February 20th . We found in the file of correspondence between Sidor and Rondos a post-card from Paris dated February 21st: "We sincerely greet you and on the occasion of the meeting of the Slovak National Council Abroad we remember you." The card was written by Culen and signed: Konsto [Konstantin] Culen, Karol Sidor, Laco [Ladislav)] Jankovic, and J. Kirschbaum . In S/ovensky povojnovy exil. pp.82-84: Frantisek Vnuk. "Aktivity exilu - obhajoba slovenskej statnosti v rokoch 1945- 1948 [Activities of the emigres The Defense of Slovak Statehood in I 945 - I 948 )". in Ibid. p.90 . SLOVAKIA 159 On February 28th Culen returned to Rome. On March 29th he wrote: "There is now much work to do with the Slovak National Council IAbroadj. We described what had happened, and where we visited. I asked them to send you a copy in order to inform you. However, it is a confidential report and not for publication." Meanwhile, on May 6th, 1949, Senator Haig received a notice (dated April 30th) from the Deputy Minister of the Department of Mines and Resources, Keenleyside : You may recall that on July 30th, 1948 Mr. R. A. Gibso n [Acting Deputy Minister of the Department] wrote advising favourable consideration in the case of Konstantin Culen and family, Czechoslovakian refugees in the Vatican City, could not be extended due to Mr. Culen's failure to comply with our medical requirements. You will now be pleased to know that on rev1ewmg the entire situation it has been decided to allow this family to come forward provided Mr. Culen 's state of health is no worse than indicated and they can otherwise meet with the Immigration Regulations . The necessary advice in the matter has been transmitted to our office in Rome , Italy in order that appropriate action may be taken on behalf of these perso ns . I trust that it will not be too long before this family will be in a position to come forward. Having received the notice, Haig sent a short message to Rondos: "Dear George : I enclose lforl you a letter received this morning from Ottawa. This looks [like] better news . When you come in bring this letter back with you." Rondos , in tum , informed Culcn of the delightful news m a letter of May 8th: 160 SLOVAKIA I cannot stop myself from informing you. The day before yesterday I received a letter from the Senator in which he informed me that your matter had moved and that now everything is on track. He [the Senator] also sent me the letter which he had received , but he asked me to bring it back to him when I would visit his office. So I typed it once more , how Ottawa classified you, and I attach it with this letter. You will read in it that Ottawa informed the office in Italy I to issue a visal if you arc not weaker than at the last examination. I hope you understand the letter, so I did not write more . Indeed, Rondos did not mention in the letter any more about the matter. However, he could feel deep satisfaction that he had finally achieved his intended objective after a long struggle with the bureaucracy. Culcn received the good news about May 15th (Ynuk writes that Culen received on May 18th the invitation from the Canadian selection committcc). 26 He reported to Rondos further developments in his letter of May 22nd: On the day that I received your letter attached with the notice I from Kccnlcysidc I to the Senator, they already called me from the consulate and at the same time they invited me also by letter to come there. When we arrived. they were very nice to us, full of' willingness. If my health condition, they said , docs not worsen . they will give me the visa. I was sent again for a medical examination. I had to go to Naples where the IRO camp is. We spent three days there , and finally we received the medical report which we now have to hand over to IRO. They have to issue us a new passport, because the old 1 " Frantisek Vnuk. tivotopis Konstantina Culena. p. 147 . SLOVAKIA 161 one is already invalid. Then I have to again go to the consulate and there we will be told the results. At this moment I do not know them, but before sending this letter I will perhaps know , so I inform you at the end of the letter. I am really curious as to whether they will give me the visa or not , whether the old comedy of sending the documents to London and then from London to Ottawa, repeats itself, as it did the first time. After the previous disappointments , Culen was very skeptical about the results, but this time they proved to be positive. In the second half of the same letter he wrote: "We just came back from the consulate. Well , my dear friend Rondos , you won . We have the visa and, if nothing else happens, I will take part in the Congress !the 8th Convention of the Canadian Slovak Leag ue I as you wished." It took Culen two years to sec ure the entry visa to Canada. He should have felt deep satisfaction . Instead , it caused him a new kind of anxiety. At the end of the same letter he added: "However, now, the most serious problem will be to find suitabl e work. Is it possible to become an assistant editor at Kanadsky Slovak'? Of course, the others would have to approve . Or, perhaps , I will find something else. Well , I think that many people succeeded there, so I will do so somehow as well ." Afterwards, Culen was busy for days preparing for the journey: "I already bought the steamship ticket and railway ticket. I will not use the IRO transportation as I originally had to , but I will go privatel y, because this month there is no transportation and next month they still do not know when. So, I bought a ticket for Yulkania Iperhaps Culcn 's mistake. It had to be Saturnia I, the Italian ship, which will leave on June 21st direct to Halifax . So 162 SLOYAKlA perhaps about July 1st I will arrive in Canada. Then , I will board a train and depart for Winnipeg. [ ... ] Now we are just packing and saying good-bye to Rome." (Letter of June I Ith) "Just now the ship company called that my ship Satumia will leave port not on the 21st, as I was originally informed, but on the 18th. In one word, this week. So I am packing quickly, since it changed unexpectedly." (Letter of June 12th) Culen then sent a post-card to Rondos on June 15th from Lido di Ostia, a port in the suburbs of Rome. He wrote: "Saying good-bye to Rome, I am looking forward to seeing you soon" . Beside his signature there are several others: A. Culenova (his wife), Eva Culcnova (daughter), Karol Sidor, Angela Sidorova (Sidor's wife), M. Doranska (Jan Doransky's wife), Ladislav Pudis , and J. Kirschbaum etc. Another post-card was sent to Rondos on June 17th, this time from Naples : " Dear friend, saying good-bye to friends on the beach, we all remember you most heartily. We send you our greetings and I look forward to seeing you soon ." We noticed the signatures of Konstantin Culen, A. Culenova, Angela Sidorova , Karol Sidor, and Ferdinand Mondok. Perhaps they came from Rome to Naples to sec him off. Culen 's Italian friend, General Armando Mola also signed with a short English message: "We arc all happy & and unhappy! " Needless to say that they were "unhappy" to part with Culen . However, before the departure, one more problem arose. The steamship on which Culen was supposed to sail from Naples on June 18th, cancelled the voyage. In a letter of June 22nd from Naples he explained: Certainly you read in the newspaper that here in Italy the crew of the steamship Satumia, on which I was to depart, SLOYAKJA 163 went on strike. I have been stuck here in Naples for a week. I am sick with worry. Nobody knows anything, so they tell us "Come tomorrow" . The next day they tell us " In the afternoon", in the afternoon they tell us "Tomorrow". Fortunately, I take it with some humour, so I do not get angry, not even insulted . I tell myself that I will at last find some ship on which they do not strike and I will depart on it. Today they promised us that the steamship So bieski will carry us. [ ... ] According to tod ay's information this ship will depart on Jun e 28th . In spite of Culcn ·s skepticism, the ship did , indeed , depart o n June 28th. He wrote in a letter of the same day from Naples: "Well , finally it appears that I will indeed say good-bye to Europe and the Sobieski will finally move out with us. So sometime around July 14th I will arrive in Canada." Culen departed a lone , because his family planned to leave Italy a nwnth later. Culcn's protector Sidor wrote from the Vatican to Ro nd os on June 29th (in the file of correspondence between Sidor and Rondos): "We arc all really happy that on June 28th on the steamship Sobieski Kon sto Culcn left Italy." It is interesting to note that Sidor in the same letter continued as follows : I do not know what you intend to do with Ko nsto Culen . My personal opinion is that it will be best for him to go to the editor of Kanadsky Slo vak , !Stefan) Hreha. Hreha and he could make of Kanadsky Slovak such a new spaper which even Slovaks in the United States do not have. I wrote to editor Hreha, too, but I would like to ask you to disc uss with your friends the proposal of acceptance of Culcn as an SLOVAKIA 164 assistant editor, to recommend it and suggest to the competent authorities of the Canadian Slovak League to accept it. It is not clear whether Sidor made the suggestion on his own initiative, or whether Culen asked him to do so. In either case, judging by the prestige which Sidor had at that time as the president of the Slovak National Council Abroad, it could almost be interpreted as an order. The steamship Jan Sobieski stopped at Genoa (on June 29th), Cannes (on June 30th), and Gibraltar (on July 2nd). On that day Culen sent to Rondos his last letter from Europe: My journey was delayed whole ten days owing to the sailors' strike. [ ... ] Life on board ship is quite good. It is full of Italian emigrants who go to Canada. There are some Jews too , but they go to USA. We can hear many languages. However, most people are travelling with the hope that their life abroad will be better than at home. [ ... ] Today the sea is slightly stormy, so most passengers sigh and feed the fish . For me, nothing ever happened on the sea. Otherwise I am using my time on the ship to study English, everyday for several hours . I hope that in Canada, when I will have the opportunity to listen and speak, it will come to me fairly quickly. And I believe that in a short time I will master English so that I will be able to communicate fairly well. Otherwise, I read books and newspapers quite well. At the end of the letter Culcn wrote with some emotion: This is the last letter from European shores which I will send you. We have exchanged many letters. I sometimes felt pity for you and admired you. Because I saw that other 165 SLOYAKJA people also received many letters from you. Where did this person find the time ? I asked myself. · You will certainly be glad that one of your troublemakers will drop off your list. I will always remember your struggle on my behalf and I intend to somehow record it. This letter was written on a typewriter with Slovak phonetic characters. Perhaps Culen brought his favourite typewriter with him. The voyage and the arrival in Canada witnessed no problems . The Sobieski smoothly crossed the Atlantic Ocean in one week and arrived in Halifax on July 10th. On the same day Culcn sent a telegram to Rondos in English: "Safely arrived to [sic] Halifax expect me about Sunday". The second half of the telegraph meant that he would arrive in Winnipeg by train around July 17th. In his letter of July 11th, which was written on the train from Halifax to Montreal , Culen reported as follows : "In [Halifax I harbour a young Slovak named Janega awaited me. They say that Mr. Kunda sent him. He helped me with my baggage; we had a chat and a snack. His willingness was very much appreciated ." Culen arrived in Montreal on the evening of July 11th. Kanadsky Slovak of July 21st reported as follows : "Writer K. Culen in Canada - on the way to the West he stopped at Montreal and Toronto ." 27 It then continued , In the evening of Monday IJuly I l th I arrived in Montreal one of the prominent Slovak writers, politicians and publicists, a nationalist and uncompromising defender of Slo' vak truth [an independent Slovak state] - Konstantin Culen. 17 "Spisovater K. Culen v Kanade (The Writer K. Culen in Canada]". Kanadskf Slovak.July 21st. 1949 . SLOVAKIA 166 At the Windsor Station prominent members of the Slovak community in Montreal welcomed him, along with a group of Slovak emigres . On Tuesday, in the National Home of the Canadian Slovak League, a small party was organized in his honour. Officials of the League and the Canadian Jednota and other persons took part in it. On behalf of Slovaks living in Montreal, chairpersons of associations welcomed K. Culen . In his speech Mr. Culen promised to cooperate, declaring that every Slovak emigrant should have participated in the national activities of the Canadian Slovaks . On July 14th Culen left Montreal and, after stopping m Toronto, in the morning of July 16th he departed for Winnipeg, sending again a telegram in English to Rondos : "Arriving CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway) 9 A.M. standard time Sunday". As expected, he arrived in Winnipeg in the morning of July 17th and was welcomed by Rondos . It must have been a very dramatic scene. Culen then participated in the 8th Convention of the Canadian 28 Slovak League in Winnipeg . 1 ' At the convention he was elected According to the Minutes of the 8th Convention. Culen said the following on the first day (July 25th) : ··1 do not want to speak long. I intend to visit all Sl ovak colonies (i n Canada). I bring you the greetings of Minister Sidor. the presi dent of the Slovak National Council Abroad. and also the greetin gs of st udents . theologians. and other Slovaks from Italy !The greetin gs. with the signatures of Karol Sidor and Jozef Kirschbaum of May 19th. 1949. were published at the end of the Minutes] . I bow down to your work. I come to you to contribute to the prosperity and en largement of the Canadian Slovak League." Zapisnica z VIII. k ongresu Kanadskej s/ovenskej ligy. vydriiavaneho v diioch 25.. 26.. 27. a 28. ju/a 1949 v hoteli Marlborough [The Minutes of the 8th Convention of the Canadian Slovak League. held on July 25th - 28th, 1949. in the Hotel Marlborough], Winnipeg. Manitoba, Canada, p.2. On the second day (July 26th) parti cipants discussed the "Sidor versus Dursansky" problem. The following com- 167 SLOVAKIA as an assistant editor of the League 's newspaper Kanadskf Slovak . The convention also resolved that the Canad ian Slovak League, along with the Slovak League of America, recognized the Slovak National Council Abroad as "the competent representative to speak on behalf of the subjugated Slovak nation at home" (Kanadskf Slovak , August 11th, 1949) . At the beginning of August Culen returned from Winnipeg to Montreal where the editorial offices of Kanadsk f Slovak were located. His wife and dau g hter, who entered Canada through New York, on August 11th, came to Mo ntreal as well. After havin g found an apartment, Culen began to again work as a jo urnalist. Although it took two long years, Culen had finally succeeded in finding "a place where we could begin a new life and work and live in safety" (Letter of June 6th, 1947). Although this article should end on this happy note, it cannot. Even though he became an assistant editor of the newspaper promise was reac hed: '" they concluded th at brother preside nt [Andrej Kucera ] sho uld read the resolution on the recogn ition of the Slovak Nat io nal Co un ci l Abroad and th at th e Co uncil headed by Karo l Sidor. wh o is the compe te nt representative tn speak on be half nf the subjugated Slovak nation at home. Fo r Dr. Durcansky a letter has to be written in w hich they rronounce their esteem for hi s work for the freed om o f the Slovak nati on. Ibid. p. 18 . In the mo rning session of the last day (J ul y 28 th ) Ro ndos made a proposal to accept C ul en int o the edi torial office of Kanadsky S lovak. Kami Murin (fom1er pers1,11al secretary of Jozef Tiso) and Father Jan Zeman supported the proposal and it met wi th ge neral approval. In the evening sessio n "Konstantin Culen was elected as an assistant editor with applause. He is grateful for his election and promises to make efforts to build up the newspaper. He also will do his best to propagate the Ca nad ian Slovak Leag ue with all his might. He promises editor [Stefan] Hreha that he will be a loyal workmate. T hey will help each other. for brother Hreha knows Canad a and the Canadian si tuatio n well and he [Culen) knows in tum Slovaki a and the European situation." Ibid. pp.27-28. Also see the articl e "Po VIII. kongrese Kanadskej slovenskej ligy [After the 8th Conve ntion of the Canad ian Slovak League] ". Kanadsky S lovak. August I Ith . 1949. SLOVAKIA 168 Kanadsky Slovak, Culen moved to Winnipeg in March of 1952, because the League had bought a small printery there. At that time he became the editor-in-chief. However, he became dissatisfied with this position, resigned in July, 1956, and moved to the United States. In September of the same year he became director of the Slovak Institute in Cleveland (Ohio) after the sudden death of the former director, the historian Frantisek Hrusovsky. Now his personal relations with leading members of Slovak organizations in the United States became complicated (His mimeographed work "V zajatf fa/osnych Jegiend a nenavistneho srdca (In the Grip of False Legends and an Unforgiving Heart)" which was published in New York in 1961, deals with this problem). Therefore, in September of 1958 he was dismissed from the Institute. Culen continued to write until his death on April 7th, 1964 in New York. His simple tombstone with the English inscription: "Culen / Konstantfn / Slovak historian / and writer / born in 1904 I died in 1964" stands modes ti y on the grounds of the Slovak cemetery in Passaic (New Jersey) . * * * Having reconstructed Cul en 's tortuous attempts to emigrate to Canada, we may conclude the following. Someone as famous as the nationalist journalist Culen could have had some advantages; he received the help of the influential Juraj Rondos, who shared Culen's nationalism. Thanks to Rondos ' s strong personal connections with Senator J. T. Haig, Culcn's matter was dealt with by the local government official, R. N. Munroe in Winnipeg. The matter reached even the Deputy Minister of the Department of Mines and Resources, H. L. Keenlcyside, who was in charge of immigration to Canada. In Rome Culen was helped by the former Slovak SLOYAKJA l69 Minister to the Vatican, Karol Sidor, and also by the Italian General A. Mola who had connections with the Canadian Minister to Italy, J. Desy. In spite of such advantages, Culen had to struggle for two years with the Canadian burea ucracy before sec uring an entry visa to Canada. Owing to Culen 's past as a stron g supporter of the independent Slovak State, which during World War II was allied with Nazi Germany , he had to make some false statements in his application. However, it seems that the Canadian authorities did not care much about them. Culen 's standin g as an "anti -co mmu nist writer" may have helped him. It is clear that Culen 's health record complicated and delayed the process of hi s entry to Canada. It is not clear whether it had been blocked by the political intervention of his "enemies". Juraj Rondos's self-sac rificing efforts on behalf o f Culcn were impressive. His strong will and activities, which were evident in the struggle with the Canadian bureaucracy, were trul y surpri sing. Culcn expressed admiration and gratitude to' him : "Whenever I meet with Minister Sidor, we almost always talk about your work with admiration , which will remain as a beautiful example of quiet and determined efforts with patriotic eagerness . Very seldom in life docs one ex perience such work." (C ulcn 's letter to Rondos of December 6th, 1948). When Kon stantfn 's younger brother, Stefan Culcn visited his brother in Montreal at the end of October, 1949, " he IStefan Culen I was also very thankful to you !Rondos I and he just does not understand that a man, who did not know us at all, could fight for us so courageously and finally win." (Letter of Konstantfn Culen's wife, Alzbeta Culenova, to the Rondos family of October 31st, 1949). Later a rumour was circulated among Slovak immigrant communities in Canada, according to which Rondos received mo- SLOVAKlA 170 ney from the Canadian government for helping immigrants. However, Culen doubted the rumour and Rondos rejected it decisively in his memoirs. Judging by the contents of his correspondence, Rondos 's good faith is clear and we probably can accept his explanation that " I worked from love of Slovak affairs and not for money" .29 19 K. Culen wrote in an ano nymo us article as fo ll ows: "There are many of us in Canada who may thank the Canadian Slovak League for ou r emigration and for the fact that we again live as human beings and that we again stand on our feet and we are out of the camps of poverty . They may also thank brother Rond os who did this wo rk in the name of the League. He [Ro nd os] did it co urageo us ly and conscientio usly. Many know well the Slovak ' s worst failing. namely envy. and they began to spread gossi p. sayi ng that he [Ro nd os] is a good business man who receives JOO dollars from the Canadian government for every emi grant. Many emigrants were also angry with his alleged earning of 100 dollars for this purpose. When once someone to ld me that. I [Culen I answered him : ··1 feel offe nded . In my mind. Ro nd os sho uld ge t for me at least 1.000 dollars. If I was rich and had the money. and if the Canadian gove rnment did not give him the mo ney . as in reality it did not. I would give him for every me mber of my family 1.000 do ll ars. Even so. it wo uld not be enough for all that he has d o nc . •• Anonym [Konstantfn Culen J. "Ujo Rondos". Ka/cnd;ir Kanadskcj s/ovcnskcj ligy. I 953, p.211. Rondos himself remini sced about the episode in his later years as follows : "When after World War II o ur fellow -co untrymen dispersed around the world. I tried to get as many of them to Canada as possi ble. I took charge of the help and the !Canadian I Co lonization Office helped me. I managed to get many families and individuals into this country. However. there were certain people who accused me of being paid by the Canadian government up to 2,000 dollars for single families . Of course. this was just a fairy talc. I worked from love of Slovak affairs and not for money . I even spent my ow n money by constant running around and arranging of documents for Slovak emigrants. " Juraj Rondos . "Moje rozpomienky na zasle easy". Ibid. I 982, p.54. SLOVAKJA 171 In his correspondence Konstantfn Culen repeatedly promised to write the story of his immigration to Canada. He 0 never did so.' This article is an attempt to do it for him. 111 Meanwhile. we identified the following articles in which Culen mentioned Rondos: Konstantin Culen. "Dolczitc pre novych emigrantov [Important News for New Emigrants]". Kan.1dsky Slovak. September 15th. 1949: Anonym [Kon stantin Culen]. "Ujo Rondos ". Kalendar Kanadskej s/ovenskej ligy. /953. pp . 209-212 .  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 Konštantín Čulen's Long Journey from Italy to Canada as illustrated by his correspondence with Juraj Rondoš Description An account of the resource Susumu Nagayo Slovakia, Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003 pp. 112-171 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nagayo, Susumu Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/133e31d958f4c4c61a8df5f47b1294cd.pdf d9357180613847a11ba6af10909217da PDF Text Text 57 SLOVAKJA Reversing the Trend: Central Europe from Dictatorship to Democracy 1 Jan Camogursky A currently-popular political term is "globalization." Seen from a North American perspective, it is very real. When one reads American or Canadian newspapers, magazines or books, the globe seems to be a tiny button. Planes and boats filled with goods dash from one continent to the next. Billions of dollars are transferred via computers and satellites. Television viewers can instantly discover if it is hot or cold in distant parts of the world on the Weather Channel. Its pictures show continents without state borders, and the sky above them is either sunny and clear or cloudy and raining. Some observers praise globalization, some protest against it, but it probably cannot be stopped. Central Europe has given the world many scientific, economic and cultural stimuli from which globalization evolved. The territory between Ukraine and Germany, Scandinavia and the Balkans, is only about 1/10 the size of Canada, but it has six times as many inhabitants. A multitude of nations exist here, sometimes at peace, and sometimes at war. In the 20th century the Slavs and Germans clashed in two World Wars, into which Canada and the United States were drawn. American and Canadian military cemeteries in Europe speak dramatically about Central Europe's signi1 A public lecture presented at the University of Ottawa on Ferbruary 29, 2000. �58 SLOVAKIA ficance to these two countries. On the other hand, Central Europe also produced Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig Von Beethoven, Antonin Dvorak, Albert Einstein and John Paul II . Central Europe has been a problem for the Great Powers in the last two centuries , and after World War II it became especially acute. The victorious Allies solved the problem by erasing it. They divided Central Europe between them and for four decades it disappeared from the political map. Ironically enough, Central Europe at this time groaned under the highest concentration of soldiers and weapons in the history of mankind. Even though it was divided, Central Europe continued to exist. One Austrian publicist commented that Central Europe is everywhere where cafes serve soda water with black coffee. Such coffee and soda continued to be served in Warsaw, Munich, Vienna, Budapest and Bratislava. Central Europe also had a foreign social system forced upon it. This foreign system provoked isolated explosions against it: in East Berlin in 1953; in Poznan and Budapest in 1956; in Prague and Bratislava in 1968; and in Gdansk in 1980. All were suppressed by external forces (or the threat of such force) and all evoked a feeling of solidarity among the nations of Central Europe. Before World War II every Central European country , except Switzerland, had disputes with its neighbours. Repeated interventions by the Soviet Union led Central Europeans to a new awareness of their common suffering. Eventually, Central European dissidents started to cooperate. In the 1960's opponents of the various communist regimes, who had been imprisoned in the I 950's, were released. It became possible, though with much difficulty, for people to travel between Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The level of freedom in these countries varied. In 1968 Czechoslovakia was the most free, �SLOVAKIA 59 and Polish and Hungarian political emigres in the West were able to bring forbidden books, magazines and photocopying machines to their respective countries via Czechoslovakia. In the l 970's and l 980's more liberal conditions prevailed in Hungary and Poland, and forbidden materials could be smuggled into Czechoslovakia from those countries. After the establishment of the Charter'77 movement in Czechoslovakia, dissidents in Hungary and Poland helped out. In the second half of the l 980's I twice met with Czech and Polish dissidents on the border. The first meeting was carefully planned. A few people on each side agreed on a place and time in northern Moravia. There the border runs through deep forests . Even though dissidents on both sides of the border had had their passports confiscated, they could approach the border in groups of two or three, ostensibly to pick mushrooms. After about an hour's walk, we arrived at the agreed-upon rendezvous and in the next three or four hours planned our future activities. The most prominent participant from the Czechoslovak side at the first meeting was Vaclav Havel. All the leading Polish dissidents, except Lech Walesa (who was interned by General Jaruzelski), were there. The second meeting took place in the early summer of 1989, when a free election had already been scheduled in Poland . Many of the participants were subsequently elected to the Polish Parliament. As MP's they had diplomatic passports, and they used them to visit us in August. The end of communism in 1989 was full of paradoxes. When Tadeusz Mazowiecki won the elections in Poland and came to power, I was in a Bratislava jail. Vaclav Havel then wrote to Mazowiecki and asked him to intervene with the Czechoslovak authorities on my behalf. Mazowiecki sent his reply to Havel via the-then communist Polish Ambassador in Prague! �60 SLOVAKIA Religious activists in Slovakia and Poland were very close. Religious oppression in Slovakia was much stronger than in Poland. The Slovak underground church sent its followers to summer camps in Poland and Polish bishops ordained Slovak priests who had secretly studied theology in Slovakia. Also, many thousands of religious books, printed by Slovaks in the West, were smuggled into Slovakia via the Polish Catholic church. Thus far I have spoken about solidarity between dissidents in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The solidarity of the noncommunist Central European countries, Germany and Austria, was reflected in their political and moral support for dissidents in communist countries and their acceptance of refugees from those countries. Some refugees escaped in a spectacular manner. At the beginning of the l 980's a Slovak flew across the border to Austria in a balloon which he had made by sewing together a bunch of raincoats. Another built himself a cart, which he then suspended from a high-voltage power line that went to Austria and he pulled himself across the border on the suspended cart! Twenty years ago NATO's decision to install medium-range missiles in Germany provoked a heated debate. The Eastern bloc responded with threats of military countermeasures. Pershing missiles were eventually placed in Germany. We dissidents supported this move. We knew that the Communists only understood the use of force, and it was ultimately the demonstrated strength of the West, and the internal dissent in Central Europe, that led to the fall of Communism. Central Europe resurrected itself after the fall of Communism. Austria abolished its visa requirements for us as early as December, 1989. As a result, huge crowds of people moved across the breached Iron Curtain. I was among them. Even though my home �SLOVAKIA 61 town of Bratislava borders on Austria, I was 46 years old before I could cross this border! Democratic revolutions in 1989 brought people who shared the same values of a civic society to power. The time had come to demonstrate that these common values really counted for us . We faced the challenge of completing the reverse trend and bringing cooperation to Central Europe, and even a new integration. It was necessary first to remove certain remnants of Communism. In July, 1991 the Warsaw Pact was formally dissolved. At the same time, the Council for Economic Assistance (COMECON) was abolished. This decision was controversial because for four decades the economies of the states of East Central Europe had focussed on eastern markets, and these were suddenly gone. COMECON's member states now traded with each other only on the basis of market demands. Prices were also allowed to reflect market forces. At the same time, Russia started to sell these countries raw materials at world prices and for world currencies. At the fall of Communism two slogans common to all Central European countries suddenly rang out. They were "Free Elections," and "Back to Europe." Free elections did take place in all these countries during 1990. However, joining the European Union was another matter. Brussels was far away and the roads leading to it were fraught with difficulties. It would first be necessary to bring post-communist Central European countries back together. The initiative came from President Vaclav Havel. In February of 1990 Havel invited the Prime Ministers of Poland and Hungary to a meeting with their Czechoslovak counterpart in Bratislava. The plan was to get these three states to cooperate in the future. At their second meeting in Visegrad, Hungary, in 1991, this coalition acquired its name from this historic locality where, in the 14th �62 SLOVAKIA century the Kings of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary had agreed upon peace and mutual trade. In its short history, the Visegrad Group has been through a period of growth and decline. The geographical location, common history, interconnected economy and identical external interests of these countries pushed them into close cooperation. However, Vaclav Klaus's government in Prague did not place much importance on cooperation in the Visegrad Group. Similarly, Vladimir Meciar's government in Bratislava looked for other ways to achieve its goals. With a change in government in 1998 in both Prague and Bratislava, the situation improved and the Visegrad Group caught its second wind. Slovakia's membership is important for the Visegrad Group, which has no formal standing. Slovakia lies in its centre and is the only country to border all three of the others. Without Slovakia's active participation, the Visegrad Group would lose many of its advantages. Membership in the Visegrad Group does not remove all of the disputes between its members, but it does make resolving them easier. One such dispute was the completion of the joint Czechoslovak-Hungarian Gabcikovo waterworks on the Danube River. After the collapse of Communism, Hungary opposed the completion of these waterworks. Following a mutual agreement in 1992, both countries requested a ruling from the International Court of Justice in the Hague. Five years later the Court ruled that Slovakia was almost entirely in the right. The Gabcikovo waterwt>rks stopped attracting media attention and now reliably supply the grid with electricity, regulate the flow of the Danube, and have become a recreation area. The dispute between Hungary and Slovakia is over, although the technical and financial issues �SLOVAKIA 63 surrounding the Gabcikovo waterworks are still being discussed by experts from both countries. While Europe was divided ( 1945-1989), we m the East followed the grad ual formation of today's European Union with interest, envy and admiration. We did not understand all of the problems which occurred while the original six states unified; we smiled at how fishing, the production of butter, the sale of wine and the like could be problems for the member countries. Despite this, the attractiveness of the unifying Western Europe grew . After the fall of Communism all of the countries of Central Europe expressed an interest in joining the European Union . Talks of the accession of these countries to the European Union started very quickly and were completed at the beginning of the l 990's through the conclusion of European agreements on association. The European Union's entry and expansion into Central Europe is important from many perspectives. Henry Kissinger stated that when a power vacuum had formed in Central Europe in the past, Russia and Germany were pulled into and clashed over it. A power vacuum formed in Central Europe after the fall of Communism, but the European Union has filled it in . The agreements on association opened up the European market to the former communist countries. Union ' s On the other hand, the markets of post-communist countries are only gradually opening up. The European Union later established four so-called "Copenhagen criteria" for those interested in joining the Union. They are a developed market economy, the ability to cope with competition in the European Union, a stabilized democracy with guarantees for the functioning of constitutional institutions and the protection of minorities, the adoption of �SLOVAKJA 64 the European acquis communotaire and an institutional structure comparable to the European Union's . At the same time, the European Union developed a number of financial assistance programmes for post-communist countries . The European Union's political and economic criteria speeded up reforms in post-communist countries, while at the same time isolating sources of political extremism. In 1997 the European Union invited Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia to negotiate their future membership. In 1999 it also invited Slovakia, Lithuania and Latvia, as well as Romania and Bulgaria. These countries ' membership in the European Union has wide support from the population everywhere. It seems as if membership in the Union has turned into a speed trial for the governments of Central European countries . Slovakia fell out of the first group in 1997 because of the European Union's political reservations about Slovak politics at the time. The current Slovak government is trying to catch up with its neighbours and enter the European Union at roughly the same time, around 2004 . In expanding to the East, the European Union is approaching half a billion inhabitants. It will expand its territory and strengthen its position on the world playing field . At the same time, it will reach the eastern border of Western Christianity. Expansion further east will mean crossing the borders of a civilization. In fact, Greece's current membership and Bulgaria's and Romania ' s future memberships are preparing the European union for just such a step. Another western organization that has expanded its presence into Central Europe since the fall of Communism is NATO. For a while after the Warsaw Pact was abolished, the armies of its former members felt aimless. However, in 1991 the military units from former communist Central European countries took part in �SLOVAKIA operation 65 Desert Storm. Soon thereafter war broke out m Yugoslavia and again all the states contributed at least small units to UNPROFOR. In 1993 I visited a Slovak UNPROFOR corps of engineers in Croatia. They were under the command of a Canadian colonel named Harris, who was very satisfied with their performance. It was a new experience for Slovak soldiers and officers, and certainly also for Czechs and Poles and others, when they started to use NA TO terminology and operational rules. The Partnership for Peace programme enabled former enemies to come closer together and gradually unify at least their communication technology. All the ex-communist Central European countries showed an interest in joining NATO. At NATO 's Madrid Summit in 1997 , Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were invited to join . They have since become members. Slovakia was excluded at that time. The Slovak army is now increasing its cooperation with NATO. It has liaison officers at the Brussels headquarters and membership in NATO is part of the current Slovak government's agenda. But, according to opinion polls, the majority of the Slovak population does not, as yet, support Slovakia's membership in NA TO. Germany has long been the most important country in Central Europe. From the end of the Napoleonic wars to the end of the Second World War German nationalism was a source of tension in Europe. After the defeat of Hitler, Germany turned itself around. Mostly under Christian Democratic governments, Germany achieved an economic miracle and rebuilt itself in record time. It then became a driving force for European integration, and still is today. In the 45 years since the war, Germany earned such trust from the East that there were no reservations in Central Europe about Germany' s reunification. Fran1yois Mitterand's �66 SLOVAKIA France and Margaret Thatcher's Great Britain placed greater obstacles to Germany's reunification than did Poland, Czechoslovakia or Russia. Germany acknowledged the permanence of its border with Poland and reconfirmed the invalidity of the Munich Agreement. Germany contributes the most to the European Union's treasury. British historian Paul Johnson called Germany of the l 920's a leading intellectual power. I do not intend to discuss the intellectual level of today's Germany, but politically Germany plays a very constructive role in Central Europe. Of the Central European countries, Poland is trying to present itself as a regional counterbalance to Germany. In Poland's case there is also a counterbalance to Johnson's statement on German intellect. Polish author Stan isl av Stomma wrote that Poland's intellectual potential has always exceeded its material possibilities. Unfortunately, Poland's material possibilities will probably hold back its intellectual potential for some time. Post-communist Central European countries also look to Germany with another question. Germany will have an important voice in the European Union's institutional reforms . The reforms will determine if and when the European Union will be able to accept new members. Under the current rule!>, the European Union does not have the resources to finance the development of new members from Central Europe to enable them to attain the level of the Union's current members. The countries that receive more money from the Union than they put into it do not want to share income with new members . The countries that contribute more than they take out, especially Germany, are not preparedjustifiably so-to pay more. German politicians freely answer the question of how to solve this quandary by saying that the European Union has always developed by a crisis coming along and then moving towards half-compromise. We shall see. �SLOVAKIA 67 The new Austrian government has posed a challenge for its eastern neighbours. In the Second World War, every country east of Germany, with the exception of Hungary, fought against Germany sooner or later. Some of them suffered exceptionally heavy losses. For example, Poland lost 20% of its population . Proud reminders of the Nazi regime from a politically relevant personality in Austria (forg Haider) are, therefore, unimaginable and incomprehensible in these countries. On the contrary, 40 years of denial of democracy under Communism fostered a tendency in these countries to trust democratic rules regardless of their content. Central European ex-communist countries were only able to give a constrained reaction to the new government in Austria; even more so as the harshness of the reaction from the European Union and some other countries was surprising. The division of Czechoslovakia in 1993 may seem to be at odds with the new integration of Central Europe. However, I would like to point out that in Central Europe the concept of a nation is understood in an ethnic, not in a political sense. Nations that see themselves as ethnically unique may live in one state. Two nations-Slovaks and Czechs-lived separate lives in Czechoslovakia. There was practically no common Czechoslovak culture, only Czech and Slovak cultures. The Slovak and Czech languages are similar, but they are also different. Under the communist dictatorship it was possible to silence national aspirations, but after the restoration of freedom the different political conceptions of the Czechs and Slovaks grew. The 1992 elections (the first free ones since 1946) brought very different political parties into power in Slovakia and in the Czech Lands, and these parties agreed to divide the country, and the Czechoslovak Federal Parliament then adopted the Constitutional Law on the Division of Czechoslovakia. �68 SLOVAKIA Happily, the story does not end there. After the breakup, Slovakia and the Czech Republic maintained fair or even friendly relations . When there were politically different governments in Prague and Bratislava, relations between the Republics were fair; when there are similar political parties in power in Prague and Bratislava, relations are friendly. The people of Slovakia and the Czech Republic have remained on friendly terms. According to public opinion surveys in Slovakia, the Czechs are the Slovaks ' favourite nation , and vice-versa. Slovak and Czech delegations generally support each other at international conferences. In the last few weeks the governments and parliaments of both countries have approved an agreement on the property settlement of the division of the former Czec hoslovakia. Both cooperate within the Visegrad group and their foreign policies are equally oriented towards western integration and security groups. On the other hand, the division of Czechoslovakia is final and there is no desire to resurrect it. Only one political party in 1994 ran on a pro-Czec hoslovak platform and it received a paltry one per cent of the vote. If we compare political developments in the two Republics since the "velvet divorce," Slovakia 's history has probably been more colourful. First, the Slovaks removed certain doubts about the viability of their state. Slovakia ' s economy also did fairly well despite a rather odd dispute between Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar and President Michal Kovac . The dispute did not escalate into a shooting war, but did result in the abduction of the president 's son to Austria. In 1999 the Slovak Parliament revoked the immunity of Ivan Lexa, the previous head of the secret service, who was suspected of having masterminded the abduction. In the seven years of Slovakia's independence there were three changes of government between political groups so opposed to each other that they were able to abduct or tolerate the abduc- �69 SLOVAKJA tion of one of their sons. Despite this, all the political changes took place democratically, within the parameters of the Constitution and on the basis of freely-held elections . In September of 1998, 84% of the electorate turned out to vote in the parliamentary elections. After 40 years of communism democracy works in strange ways. I often mention such figures as proof of the strength of democracy in Slovakia. I admit that it is sometimes necessary to make more of an effort for democracy to function in Slovakia than in other countries. But, it has always worked out. The sometimes strange workings of democracy in post- communist countries directly relate to their communist heritage. Communism ended in a sudden collapse but it soon became apparent that the Communists quickly found their way in the new social order. The Communist Parties changed their names and became Socialist Parties and former Communists appeared in other parties as well. After a short period of anti-communist enthusiasm in 1990 came the realization that economics, culture and politics are more complicated. It is not possible to replace people en masse because there are simply not enough experts to go around and certain stages of development cannot be omitted. In one country after another the former Communists were so successful in elections and constitutional cohabitation that even France was amazed . But the market economy was not disrupted and democracy survived . This is testimony to the strength of western democratic and political institutions which have come to the East. Just to complete the picture, I will mention that the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFT A) has existed since 1993. Originally it was between the Visegrad Group, but later it was joined by Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania. The Agreement liberalized trade between the participating countries and, except for agricultural products, it works well. �70 SLOYAKlA Another attempt at cooperation between Central and Eastern European countries is the Central European Initiative. It was established in 1989 as an association of four states (Italy, Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia) at Italy's initiative. Today it includes sixteen states. Its aim is, not only economic cooperation, but also cultural and political, especially assistance in associating its members with the European Union. The Central European Initiative, on the other hand, is stagnating . Every generation has the tendency to talk about a change of paradigm brought about by its own efforts. Who would not want to change the world, even if we cannot explain it? Why should we give up this ambition? All the more so because the paradigm has changed. For centuries European history was marked by conflicts between Gennany and France. It seems that these conflicts are over. In the twentieth century two World Wars started in Central Europe. I do not see a source of tension here that could lead to another such conflict. Now the most serious dispute in Western and Central Europe is the " Beef War" between France and Great Britain. As long as we do not ask the poor cows for their opinion , we can really talk about a change of paradigm. If in future decades we manage to expand the zone of peace further cast, and even to the Balkans , then Isaiah 's words might come to apply to Europe: "He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation , neither shall they learn war any more ." � 57 SLOVAKJA Reversing the Trend: Central Europe from Dictatorship to Democracy 1 Jan Camogursky A currently-popular political term is "globalization." Seen from a North American perspective, it is very real. When one reads American or Canadian newspapers, magazines or books, the globe seems to be a tiny button. Planes and boats filled with goods dash from one continent to the next. Billions of dollars are transferred via computers and satellites. Television viewers can instantly discover if it is hot or cold in distant parts of the world on the Weather Channel. Its pictures show continents without state borders, and the sky above them is either sunny and clear or cloudy and raining. Some observers praise globalization, some protest against it, but it probably cannot be stopped. Central Europe has given the world many scientific, economic and cultural stimuli from which globalization evolved. The territory between Ukraine and Germany, Scandinavia and the Balkans, is only about 1/10 the size of Canada, but it has six times as many inhabitants. A multitude of nations exist here, sometimes at peace, and sometimes at war. In the 20th century the Slavs and Germans clashed in two World Wars, into which Canada and the United States were drawn. American and Canadian military cemeteries in Europe speak dramatically about Central Europe's signi1 A public lecture presented at the University of Ottawa on Ferbruary 29, 2000. �58 SLOVAKIA ficance to these two countries. On the other hand, Central Europe also produced Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig Von Beethoven, Antonin Dvorak, Albert Einstein and John Paul II . Central Europe has been a problem for the Great Powers in the last two centuries , and after World War II it became especially acute. The victorious Allies solved the problem by erasing it. They divided Central Europe between them and for four decades it disappeared from the political map. Ironically enough, Central Europe at this time groaned under the highest concentration of soldiers and weapons in the history of mankind. Even though it was divided, Central Europe continued to exist. One Austrian publicist commented that Central Europe is everywhere where cafes serve soda water with black coffee. Such coffee and soda continued to be served in Warsaw, Munich, Vienna, Budapest and Bratislava. Central Europe also had a foreign social system forced upon it. This foreign system provoked isolated explosions against it: in East Berlin in 1953; in Poznan and Budapest in 1956; in Prague and Bratislava in 1968; and in Gdansk in 1980. All were suppressed by external forces (or the threat of such force) and all evoked a feeling of solidarity among the nations of Central Europe. Before World War II every Central European country , except Switzerland, had disputes with its neighbours. Repeated interventions by the Soviet Union led Central Europeans to a new awareness of their common suffering. Eventually, Central European dissidents started to cooperate. In the 1960's opponents of the various communist regimes, who had been imprisoned in the I 950's, were released. It became possible, though with much difficulty, for people to travel between Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The level of freedom in these countries varied. In 1968 Czechoslovakia was the most free, �SLOVAKIA 59 and Polish and Hungarian political emigres in the West were able to bring forbidden books, magazines and photocopying machines to their respective countries via Czechoslovakia. In the l 970's and l 980's more liberal conditions prevailed in Hungary and Poland, and forbidden materials could be smuggled into Czechoslovakia from those countries. After the establishment of the Charter'77 movement in Czechoslovakia, dissidents in Hungary and Poland helped out. In the second half of the l 980's I twice met with Czech and Polish dissidents on the border. The first meeting was carefully planned. A few people on each side agreed on a place and time in northern Moravia. There the border runs through deep forests . Even though dissidents on both sides of the border had had their passports confiscated, they could approach the border in groups of two or three, ostensibly to pick mushrooms. After about an hour's walk, we arrived at the agreed-upon rendezvous and in the next three or four hours planned our future activities. The most prominent participant from the Czechoslovak side at the first meeting was Vaclav Havel. All the leading Polish dissidents, except Lech Walesa (who was interned by General Jaruzelski), were there. The second meeting took place in the early summer of 1989, when a free election had already been scheduled in Poland . Many of the participants were subsequently elected to the Polish Parliament. As MP's they had diplomatic passports, and they used them to visit us in August. The end of communism in 1989 was full of paradoxes. When Tadeusz Mazowiecki won the elections in Poland and came to power, I was in a Bratislava jail. Vaclav Havel then wrote to Mazowiecki and asked him to intervene with the Czechoslovak authorities on my behalf. Mazowiecki sent his reply to Havel via the-then communist Polish Ambassador in Prague! �60 SLOVAKIA Religious activists in Slovakia and Poland were very close. Religious oppression in Slovakia was much stronger than in Poland. The Slovak underground church sent its followers to summer camps in Poland and Polish bishops ordained Slovak priests who had secretly studied theology in Slovakia. Also, many thousands of religious books, printed by Slovaks in the West, were smuggled into Slovakia via the Polish Catholic church. Thus far I have spoken about solidarity between dissidents in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The solidarity of the noncommunist Central European countries, Germany and Austria, was reflected in their political and moral support for dissidents in communist countries and their acceptance of refugees from those countries. Some refugees escaped in a spectacular manner. At the beginning of the l 980's a Slovak flew across the border to Austria in a balloon which he had made by sewing together a bunch of raincoats. Another built himself a cart, which he then suspended from a high-voltage power line that went to Austria and he pulled himself across the border on the suspended cart! Twenty years ago NATO's decision to install medium-range missiles in Germany provoked a heated debate. The Eastern bloc responded with threats of military countermeasures. Pershing missiles were eventually placed in Germany. We dissidents supported this move. We knew that the Communists only understood the use of force, and it was ultimately the demonstrated strength of the West, and the internal dissent in Central Europe, that led to the fall of Communism. Central Europe resurrected itself after the fall of Communism. Austria abolished its visa requirements for us as early as December, 1989. As a result, huge crowds of people moved across the breached Iron Curtain. I was among them. Even though my home �SLOVAKIA 61 town of Bratislava borders on Austria, I was 46 years old before I could cross this border! Democratic revolutions in 1989 brought people who shared the same values of a civic society to power. The time had come to demonstrate that these common values really counted for us . We faced the challenge of completing the reverse trend and bringing cooperation to Central Europe, and even a new integration. It was necessary first to remove certain remnants of Communism. In July, 1991 the Warsaw Pact was formally dissolved. At the same time, the Council for Economic Assistance (COMECON) was abolished. This decision was controversial because for four decades the economies of the states of East Central Europe had focussed on eastern markets, and these were suddenly gone. COMECON's member states now traded with each other only on the basis of market demands. Prices were also allowed to reflect market forces. At the same time, Russia started to sell these countries raw materials at world prices and for world currencies. At the fall of Communism two slogans common to all Central European countries suddenly rang out. They were "Free Elections," and "Back to Europe." Free elections did take place in all these countries during 1990. However, joining the European Union was another matter. Brussels was far away and the roads leading to it were fraught with difficulties. It would first be necessary to bring post-communist Central European countries back together. The initiative came from President Vaclav Havel. In February of 1990 Havel invited the Prime Ministers of Poland and Hungary to a meeting with their Czechoslovak counterpart in Bratislava. The plan was to get these three states to cooperate in the future. At their second meeting in Visegrad, Hungary, in 1991, this coalition acquired its name from this historic locality where, in the 14th �62 SLOVAKIA century the Kings of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary had agreed upon peace and mutual trade. In its short history, the Visegrad Group has been through a period of growth and decline. The geographical location, common history, interconnected economy and identical external interests of these countries pushed them into close cooperation. However, Vaclav Klaus's government in Prague did not place much importance on cooperation in the Visegrad Group. Similarly, Vladimir Meciar's government in Bratislava looked for other ways to achieve its goals. With a change in government in 1998 in both Prague and Bratislava, the situation improved and the Visegrad Group caught its second wind. Slovakia's membership is important for the Visegrad Group, which has no formal standing. Slovakia lies in its centre and is the only country to border all three of the others. Without Slovakia's active participation, the Visegrad Group would lose many of its advantages. Membership in the Visegrad Group does not remove all of the disputes between its members, but it does make resolving them easier. One such dispute was the completion of the joint Czechoslovak-Hungarian Gabcikovo waterworks on the Danube River. After the collapse of Communism, Hungary opposed the completion of these waterworks. Following a mutual agreement in 1992, both countries requested a ruling from the International Court of Justice in the Hague. Five years later the Court ruled that Slovakia was almost entirely in the right. The Gabcikovo waterwt>rks stopped attracting media attention and now reliably supply the grid with electricity, regulate the flow of the Danube, and have become a recreation area. The dispute between Hungary and Slovakia is over, although the technical and financial issues �SLOVAKIA 63 surrounding the Gabcikovo waterworks are still being discussed by experts from both countries. While Europe was divided ( 1945-1989), we m the East followed the grad ual formation of today's European Union with interest, envy and admiration. We did not understand all of the problems which occurred while the original six states unified; we smiled at how fishing, the production of butter, the sale of wine and the like could be problems for the member countries. Despite this, the attractiveness of the unifying Western Europe grew . After the fall of Communism all of the countries of Central Europe expressed an interest in joining the European Union . Talks of the accession of these countries to the European Union started very quickly and were completed at the beginning of the l 990's through the conclusion of European agreements on association. The European Union's entry and expansion into Central Europe is important from many perspectives. Henry Kissinger stated that when a power vacuum had formed in Central Europe in the past, Russia and Germany were pulled into and clashed over it. A power vacuum formed in Central Europe after the fall of Communism, but the European Union has filled it in . The agreements on association opened up the European market to the former communist countries. Union ' s On the other hand, the markets of post-communist countries are only gradually opening up. The European Union later established four so-called "Copenhagen criteria" for those interested in joining the Union. They are a developed market economy, the ability to cope with competition in the European Union, a stabilized democracy with guarantees for the functioning of constitutional institutions and the protection of minorities, the adoption of �SLOVAKJA 64 the European acquis communotaire and an institutional structure comparable to the European Union's . At the same time, the European Union developed a number of financial assistance programmes for post-communist countries . The European Union's political and economic criteria speeded up reforms in post-communist countries, while at the same time isolating sources of political extremism. In 1997 the European Union invited Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia to negotiate their future membership. In 1999 it also invited Slovakia, Lithuania and Latvia, as well as Romania and Bulgaria. These countries ' membership in the European Union has wide support from the population everywhere. It seems as if membership in the Union has turned into a speed trial for the governments of Central European countries . Slovakia fell out of the first group in 1997 because of the European Union's political reservations about Slovak politics at the time. The current Slovak government is trying to catch up with its neighbours and enter the European Union at roughly the same time, around 2004 . In expanding to the East, the European Union is approaching half a billion inhabitants. It will expand its territory and strengthen its position on the world playing field . At the same time, it will reach the eastern border of Western Christianity. Expansion further east will mean crossing the borders of a civilization. In fact, Greece's current membership and Bulgaria's and Romania ' s future memberships are preparing the European union for just such a step. Another western organization that has expanded its presence into Central Europe since the fall of Communism is NATO. For a while after the Warsaw Pact was abolished, the armies of its former members felt aimless. However, in 1991 the military units from former communist Central European countries took part in �SLOVAKIA operation 65 Desert Storm. Soon thereafter war broke out m Yugoslavia and again all the states contributed at least small units to UNPROFOR. In 1993 I visited a Slovak UNPROFOR corps of engineers in Croatia. They were under the command of a Canadian colonel named Harris, who was very satisfied with their performance. It was a new experience for Slovak soldiers and officers, and certainly also for Czechs and Poles and others, when they started to use NA TO terminology and operational rules. The Partnership for Peace programme enabled former enemies to come closer together and gradually unify at least their communication technology. All the ex-communist Central European countries showed an interest in joining NATO. At NATO 's Madrid Summit in 1997 , Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were invited to join . They have since become members. Slovakia was excluded at that time. The Slovak army is now increasing its cooperation with NATO. It has liaison officers at the Brussels headquarters and membership in NATO is part of the current Slovak government's agenda. But, according to opinion polls, the majority of the Slovak population does not, as yet, support Slovakia's membership in NA TO. Germany has long been the most important country in Central Europe. From the end of the Napoleonic wars to the end of the Second World War German nationalism was a source of tension in Europe. After the defeat of Hitler, Germany turned itself around. Mostly under Christian Democratic governments, Germany achieved an economic miracle and rebuilt itself in record time. It then became a driving force for European integration, and still is today. In the 45 years since the war, Germany earned such trust from the East that there were no reservations in Central Europe about Germany' s reunification. Fran1yois Mitterand's �66 SLOVAKIA France and Margaret Thatcher's Great Britain placed greater obstacles to Germany's reunification than did Poland, Czechoslovakia or Russia. Germany acknowledged the permanence of its border with Poland and reconfirmed the invalidity of the Munich Agreement. Germany contributes the most to the European Union's treasury. British historian Paul Johnson called Germany of the l 920's a leading intellectual power. I do not intend to discuss the intellectual level of today's Germany, but politically Germany plays a very constructive role in Central Europe. Of the Central European countries, Poland is trying to present itself as a regional counterbalance to Germany. In Poland's case there is also a counterbalance to Johnson's statement on German intellect. Polish author Stan isl av Stomma wrote that Poland's intellectual potential has always exceeded its material possibilities. Unfortunately, Poland's material possibilities will probably hold back its intellectual potential for some time. Post-communist Central European countries also look to Germany with another question. Germany will have an important voice in the European Union's institutional reforms . The reforms will determine if and when the European Union will be able to accept new members. Under the current rule!>, the European Union does not have the resources to finance the development of new members from Central Europe to enable them to attain the level of the Union's current members. The countries that receive more money from the Union than they put into it do not want to share income with new members . The countries that contribute more than they take out, especially Germany, are not preparedjustifiably so-to pay more. German politicians freely answer the question of how to solve this quandary by saying that the European Union has always developed by a crisis coming along and then moving towards half-compromise. We shall see. �SLOVAKIA 67 The new Austrian government has posed a challenge for its eastern neighbours. In the Second World War, every country east of Germany, with the exception of Hungary, fought against Germany sooner or later. Some of them suffered exceptionally heavy losses. For example, Poland lost 20% of its population . Proud reminders of the Nazi regime from a politically relevant personality in Austria (forg Haider) are, therefore, unimaginable and incomprehensible in these countries. On the contrary, 40 years of denial of democracy under Communism fostered a tendency in these countries to trust democratic rules regardless of their content. Central European ex-communist countries were only able to give a constrained reaction to the new government in Austria; even more so as the harshness of the reaction from the European Union and some other countries was surprising. The division of Czechoslovakia in 1993 may seem to be at odds with the new integration of Central Europe. However, I would like to point out that in Central Europe the concept of a nation is understood in an ethnic, not in a political sense. Nations that see themselves as ethnically unique may live in one state. Two nations-Slovaks and Czechs-lived separate lives in Czechoslovakia. There was practically no common Czechoslovak culture, only Czech and Slovak cultures. The Slovak and Czech languages are similar, but they are also different. Under the communist dictatorship it was possible to silence national aspirations, but after the restoration of freedom the different political conceptions of the Czechs and Slovaks grew. The 1992 elections (the first free ones since 1946) brought very different political parties into power in Slovakia and in the Czech Lands, and these parties agreed to divide the country, and the Czechoslovak Federal Parliament then adopted the Constitutional Law on the Division of Czechoslovakia. �68 SLOVAKIA Happily, the story does not end there. After the breakup, Slovakia and the Czech Republic maintained fair or even friendly relations . When there were politically different governments in Prague and Bratislava, relations between the Republics were fair; when there are similar political parties in power in Prague and Bratislava, relations are friendly. The people of Slovakia and the Czech Republic have remained on friendly terms. According to public opinion surveys in Slovakia, the Czechs are the Slovaks ' favourite nation , and vice-versa. Slovak and Czech delegations generally support each other at international conferences. In the last few weeks the governments and parliaments of both countries have approved an agreement on the property settlement of the division of the former Czec hoslovakia. Both cooperate within the Visegrad group and their foreign policies are equally oriented towards western integration and security groups. On the other hand, the division of Czechoslovakia is final and there is no desire to resurrect it. Only one political party in 1994 ran on a pro-Czec hoslovak platform and it received a paltry one per cent of the vote. If we compare political developments in the two Republics since the "velvet divorce," Slovakia 's history has probably been more colourful. First, the Slovaks removed certain doubts about the viability of their state. Slovakia ' s economy also did fairly well despite a rather odd dispute between Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar and President Michal Kovac . The dispute did not escalate into a shooting war, but did result in the abduction of the president 's son to Austria. In 1999 the Slovak Parliament revoked the immunity of Ivan Lexa, the previous head of the secret service, who was suspected of having masterminded the abduction. In the seven years of Slovakia's independence there were three changes of government between political groups so opposed to each other that they were able to abduct or tolerate the abduc- �69 SLOVAKJA tion of one of their sons. Despite this, all the political changes took place democratically, within the parameters of the Constitution and on the basis of freely-held elections . In September of 1998, 84% of the electorate turned out to vote in the parliamentary elections. After 40 years of communism democracy works in strange ways. I often mention such figures as proof of the strength of democracy in Slovakia. I admit that it is sometimes necessary to make more of an effort for democracy to function in Slovakia than in other countries. But, it has always worked out. The sometimes strange workings of democracy in post- communist countries directly relate to their communist heritage. Communism ended in a sudden collapse but it soon became apparent that the Communists quickly found their way in the new social order. The Communist Parties changed their names and became Socialist Parties and former Communists appeared in other parties as well. After a short period of anti-communist enthusiasm in 1990 came the realization that economics, culture and politics are more complicated. It is not possible to replace people en masse because there are simply not enough experts to go around and certain stages of development cannot be omitted. In one country after another the former Communists were so successful in elections and constitutional cohabitation that even France was amazed . But the market economy was not disrupted and democracy survived . This is testimony to the strength of western democratic and political institutions which have come to the East. Just to complete the picture, I will mention that the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFT A) has existed since 1993. Originally it was between the Visegrad Group, but later it was joined by Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania. The Agreement liberalized trade between the participating countries and, except for agricultural products, it works well. �70 SLOYAKlA Another attempt at cooperation between Central and Eastern European countries is the Central European Initiative. It was established in 1989 as an association of four states (Italy, Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia) at Italy's initiative. Today it includes sixteen states. Its aim is, not only economic cooperation, but also cultural and political, especially assistance in associating its members with the European Union. The Central European Initiative, on the other hand, is stagnating . Every generation has the tendency to talk about a change of paradigm brought about by its own efforts. Who would not want to change the world, even if we cannot explain it? Why should we give up this ambition? All the more so because the paradigm has changed. For centuries European history was marked by conflicts between Gennany and France. It seems that these conflicts are over. In the twentieth century two World Wars started in Central Europe. I do not see a source of tension here that could lead to another such conflict. Now the most serious dispute in Western and Central Europe is the " Beef War" between France and Great Britain. As long as we do not ask the poor cows for their opinion , we can really talk about a change of paradigm. If in future decades we manage to expand the zone of peace further cast, and even to the Balkans , then Isaiah 's words might come to apply to Europe: "He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation , neither shall they learn war any more ." � 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 2003, Vol. 37 Description An account of the resource Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 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 57 SLOVAKJA Reversing the Trend: Central Europe from Dictatorship to Democracy 1 Jan Camogursky A currently-popular political term is "globalization." Seen from a North American perspective, it is very real. When one reads American or Canadian newspapers, magazines or books, the globe seems to be a tiny button. Planes and boats filled with goods dash from one continent to the next. Billions of dollars are transferred via computers and satellites. Television viewers can instantly discover if it is hot or cold in distant parts of the world on the Weather Channel. Its pictures show continents without state borders, and the sky above them is either sunny and clear or cloudy and raining. Some observers praise globalization, some protest against it, but it probably cannot be stopped. Central Europe has given the world many scientific, economic and cultural stimuli from which globalization evolved. The territory between Ukraine and Germany, Scandinavia and the Balkans, is only about 1/10 the size of Canada, but it has six times as many inhabitants. A multitude of nations exist here, sometimes at peace, and sometimes at war. In the 20th century the Slavs and Germans clashed in two World Wars, into which Canada and the United States were drawn. American and Canadian military cemeteries in Europe speak dramatically about Central Europe's signi1 A public lecture presented at the University of Ottawa on Ferbruary 29, 2000. 58 SLOVAKIA ficance to these two countries. On the other hand, Central Europe also produced Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig Von Beethoven, Antonin Dvorak, Albert Einstein and John Paul II . Central Europe has been a problem for the Great Powers in the last two centuries , and after World War II it became especially acute. The victorious Allies solved the problem by erasing it. They divided Central Europe between them and for four decades it disappeared from the political map. Ironically enough, Central Europe at this time groaned under the highest concentration of soldiers and weapons in the history of mankind. Even though it was divided, Central Europe continued to exist. One Austrian publicist commented that Central Europe is everywhere where cafes serve soda water with black coffee. Such coffee and soda continued to be served in Warsaw, Munich, Vienna, Budapest and Bratislava. Central Europe also had a foreign social system forced upon it. This foreign system provoked isolated explosions against it: in East Berlin in 1953; in Poznan and Budapest in 1956; in Prague and Bratislava in 1968; and in Gdansk in 1980. All were suppressed by external forces (or the threat of such force) and all evoked a feeling of solidarity among the nations of Central Europe. Before World War II every Central European country , except Switzerland, had disputes with its neighbours. Repeated interventions by the Soviet Union led Central Europeans to a new awareness of their common suffering. Eventually, Central European dissidents started to cooperate. In the 1960's opponents of the various communist regimes, who had been imprisoned in the I 950's, were released. It became possible, though with much difficulty, for people to travel between Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The level of freedom in these countries varied. In 1968 Czechoslovakia was the most free, SLOVAKIA 59 and Polish and Hungarian political emigres in the West were able to bring forbidden books, magazines and photocopying machines to their respective countries via Czechoslovakia. In the l 970's and l 980's more liberal conditions prevailed in Hungary and Poland, and forbidden materials could be smuggled into Czechoslovakia from those countries. After the establishment of the Charter'77 movement in Czechoslovakia, dissidents in Hungary and Poland helped out. In the second half of the l 980's I twice met with Czech and Polish dissidents on the border. The first meeting was carefully planned. A few people on each side agreed on a place and time in northern Moravia. There the border runs through deep forests . Even though dissidents on both sides of the border had had their passports confiscated, they could approach the border in groups of two or three, ostensibly to pick mushrooms. After about an hour's walk, we arrived at the agreed-upon rendezvous and in the next three or four hours planned our future activities. The most prominent participant from the Czechoslovak side at the first meeting was Vaclav Havel. All the leading Polish dissidents, except Lech Walesa (who was interned by General Jaruzelski), were there. The second meeting took place in the early summer of 1989, when a free election had already been scheduled in Poland . Many of the participants were subsequently elected to the Polish Parliament. As MP's they had diplomatic passports, and they used them to visit us in August. The end of communism in 1989 was full of paradoxes. When Tadeusz Mazowiecki won the elections in Poland and came to power, I was in a Bratislava jail. Vaclav Havel then wrote to Mazowiecki and asked him to intervene with the Czechoslovak authorities on my behalf. Mazowiecki sent his reply to Havel via the-then communist Polish Ambassador in Prague! 60 SLOVAKIA Religious activists in Slovakia and Poland were very close. Religious oppression in Slovakia was much stronger than in Poland. The Slovak underground church sent its followers to summer camps in Poland and Polish bishops ordained Slovak priests who had secretly studied theology in Slovakia. Also, many thousands of religious books, printed by Slovaks in the West, were smuggled into Slovakia via the Polish Catholic church. Thus far I have spoken about solidarity between dissidents in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The solidarity of the noncommunist Central European countries, Germany and Austria, was reflected in their political and moral support for dissidents in communist countries and their acceptance of refugees from those countries. Some refugees escaped in a spectacular manner. At the beginning of the l 980's a Slovak flew across the border to Austria in a balloon which he had made by sewing together a bunch of raincoats. Another built himself a cart, which he then suspended from a high-voltage power line that went to Austria and he pulled himself across the border on the suspended cart! Twenty years ago NATO's decision to install medium-range missiles in Germany provoked a heated debate. The Eastern bloc responded with threats of military countermeasures. Pershing missiles were eventually placed in Germany. We dissidents supported this move. We knew that the Communists only understood the use of force, and it was ultimately the demonstrated strength of the West, and the internal dissent in Central Europe, that led to the fall of Communism. Central Europe resurrected itself after the fall of Communism. Austria abolished its visa requirements for us as early as December, 1989. As a result, huge crowds of people moved across the breached Iron Curtain. I was among them. Even though my home SLOVAKIA 61 town of Bratislava borders on Austria, I was 46 years old before I could cross this border! Democratic revolutions in 1989 brought people who shared the same values of a civic society to power. The time had come to demonstrate that these common values really counted for us . We faced the challenge of completing the reverse trend and bringing cooperation to Central Europe, and even a new integration. It was necessary first to remove certain remnants of Communism. In July, 1991 the Warsaw Pact was formally dissolved. At the same time, the Council for Economic Assistance (COMECON) was abolished. This decision was controversial because for four decades the economies of the states of East Central Europe had focussed on eastern markets, and these were suddenly gone. COMECON's member states now traded with each other only on the basis of market demands. Prices were also allowed to reflect market forces. At the same time, Russia started to sell these countries raw materials at world prices and for world currencies. At the fall of Communism two slogans common to all Central European countries suddenly rang out. They were "Free Elections," and "Back to Europe." Free elections did take place in all these countries during 1990. However, joining the European Union was another matter. Brussels was far away and the roads leading to it were fraught with difficulties. It would first be necessary to bring post-communist Central European countries back together. The initiative came from President Vaclav Havel. In February of 1990 Havel invited the Prime Ministers of Poland and Hungary to a meeting with their Czechoslovak counterpart in Bratislava. The plan was to get these three states to cooperate in the future. At their second meeting in Visegrad, Hungary, in 1991, this coalition acquired its name from this historic locality where, in the 14th 62 SLOVAKIA century the Kings of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary had agreed upon peace and mutual trade. In its short history, the Visegrad Group has been through a period of growth and decline. The geographical location, common history, interconnected economy and identical external interests of these countries pushed them into close cooperation. However, Vaclav Klaus's government in Prague did not place much importance on cooperation in the Visegrad Group. Similarly, Vladimir Meciar's government in Bratislava looked for other ways to achieve its goals. With a change in government in 1998 in both Prague and Bratislava, the situation improved and the Visegrad Group caught its second wind. Slovakia's membership is important for the Visegrad Group, which has no formal standing. Slovakia lies in its centre and is the only country to border all three of the others. Without Slovakia's active participation, the Visegrad Group would lose many of its advantages. Membership in the Visegrad Group does not remove all of the disputes between its members, but it does make resolving them easier. One such dispute was the completion of the joint Czechoslovak-Hungarian Gabcikovo waterworks on the Danube River. After the collapse of Communism, Hungary opposed the completion of these waterworks. Following a mutual agreement in 1992, both countries requested a ruling from the International Court of Justice in the Hague. Five years later the Court ruled that Slovakia was almost entirely in the right. The Gabcikovo waterwt>rks stopped attracting media attention and now reliably supply the grid with electricity, regulate the flow of the Danube, and have become a recreation area. The dispute between Hungary and Slovakia is over, although the technical and financial issues SLOVAKIA 63 surrounding the Gabcikovo waterworks are still being discussed by experts from both countries. While Europe was divided ( 1945-1989), we m the East followed the grad ual formation of today's European Union with interest, envy and admiration. We did not understand all of the problems which occurred while the original six states unified; we smiled at how fishing, the production of butter, the sale of wine and the like could be problems for the member countries. Despite this, the attractiveness of the unifying Western Europe grew . After the fall of Communism all of the countries of Central Europe expressed an interest in joining the European Union . Talks of the accession of these countries to the European Union started very quickly and were completed at the beginning of the l 990's through the conclusion of European agreements on association. The European Union's entry and expansion into Central Europe is important from many perspectives. Henry Kissinger stated that when a power vacuum had formed in Central Europe in the past, Russia and Germany were pulled into and clashed over it. A power vacuum formed in Central Europe after the fall of Communism, but the European Union has filled it in . The agreements on association opened up the European market to the former communist countries. Union ' s On the other hand, the markets of post-communist countries are only gradually opening up. The European Union later established four so-called "Copenhagen criteria" for those interested in joining the Union. They are a developed market economy, the ability to cope with competition in the European Union, a stabilized democracy with guarantees for the functioning of constitutional institutions and the protection of minorities, the adoption of SLOVAKJA 64 the European acquis communotaire and an institutional structure comparable to the European Union's . At the same time, the European Union developed a number of financial assistance programmes for post-communist countries . The European Union's political and economic criteria speeded up reforms in post-communist countries, while at the same time isolating sources of political extremism. In 1997 the European Union invited Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia to negotiate their future membership. In 1999 it also invited Slovakia, Lithuania and Latvia, as well as Romania and Bulgaria. These countries ' membership in the European Union has wide support from the population everywhere. It seems as if membership in the Union has turned into a speed trial for the governments of Central European countries . Slovakia fell out of the first group in 1997 because of the European Union's political reservations about Slovak politics at the time. The current Slovak government is trying to catch up with its neighbours and enter the European Union at roughly the same time, around 2004 . In expanding to the East, the European Union is approaching half a billion inhabitants. It will expand its territory and strengthen its position on the world playing field . At the same time, it will reach the eastern border of Western Christianity. Expansion further east will mean crossing the borders of a civilization. In fact, Greece's current membership and Bulgaria's and Romania ' s future memberships are preparing the European union for just such a step. Another western organization that has expanded its presence into Central Europe since the fall of Communism is NATO. For a while after the Warsaw Pact was abolished, the armies of its former members felt aimless. However, in 1991 the military units from former communist Central European countries took part in SLOVAKIA operation 65 Desert Storm. Soon thereafter war broke out m Yugoslavia and again all the states contributed at least small units to UNPROFOR. In 1993 I visited a Slovak UNPROFOR corps of engineers in Croatia. They were under the command of a Canadian colonel named Harris, who was very satisfied with their performance. It was a new experience for Slovak soldiers and officers, and certainly also for Czechs and Poles and others, when they started to use NA TO terminology and operational rules. The Partnership for Peace programme enabled former enemies to come closer together and gradually unify at least their communication technology. All the ex-communist Central European countries showed an interest in joining NATO. At NATO 's Madrid Summit in 1997 , Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were invited to join . They have since become members. Slovakia was excluded at that time. The Slovak army is now increasing its cooperation with NATO. It has liaison officers at the Brussels headquarters and membership in NATO is part of the current Slovak government's agenda. But, according to opinion polls, the majority of the Slovak population does not, as yet, support Slovakia's membership in NA TO. Germany has long been the most important country in Central Europe. From the end of the Napoleonic wars to the end of the Second World War German nationalism was a source of tension in Europe. After the defeat of Hitler, Germany turned itself around. Mostly under Christian Democratic governments, Germany achieved an economic miracle and rebuilt itself in record time. It then became a driving force for European integration, and still is today. In the 45 years since the war, Germany earned such trust from the East that there were no reservations in Central Europe about Germany' s reunification. Fran1yois Mitterand's 66 SLOVAKIA France and Margaret Thatcher's Great Britain placed greater obstacles to Germany's reunification than did Poland, Czechoslovakia or Russia. Germany acknowledged the permanence of its border with Poland and reconfirmed the invalidity of the Munich Agreement. Germany contributes the most to the European Union's treasury. British historian Paul Johnson called Germany of the l 920's a leading intellectual power. I do not intend to discuss the intellectual level of today's Germany, but politically Germany plays a very constructive role in Central Europe. Of the Central European countries, Poland is trying to present itself as a regional counterbalance to Germany. In Poland's case there is also a counterbalance to Johnson's statement on German intellect. Polish author Stan isl av Stomma wrote that Poland's intellectual potential has always exceeded its material possibilities. Unfortunately, Poland's material possibilities will probably hold back its intellectual potential for some time. Post-communist Central European countries also look to Germany with another question. Germany will have an important voice in the European Union's institutional reforms . The reforms will determine if and when the European Union will be able to accept new members. Under the current rule!>, the European Union does not have the resources to finance the development of new members from Central Europe to enable them to attain the level of the Union's current members. The countries that receive more money from the Union than they put into it do not want to share income with new members . The countries that contribute more than they take out, especially Germany, are not preparedjustifiably so-to pay more. German politicians freely answer the question of how to solve this quandary by saying that the European Union has always developed by a crisis coming along and then moving towards half-compromise. We shall see. SLOVAKIA 67 The new Austrian government has posed a challenge for its eastern neighbours. In the Second World War, every country east of Germany, with the exception of Hungary, fought against Germany sooner or later. Some of them suffered exceptionally heavy losses. For example, Poland lost 20% of its population . Proud reminders of the Nazi regime from a politically relevant personality in Austria (forg Haider) are, therefore, unimaginable and incomprehensible in these countries. On the contrary, 40 years of denial of democracy under Communism fostered a tendency in these countries to trust democratic rules regardless of their content. Central European ex-communist countries were only able to give a constrained reaction to the new government in Austria; even more so as the harshness of the reaction from the European Union and some other countries was surprising. The division of Czechoslovakia in 1993 may seem to be at odds with the new integration of Central Europe. However, I would like to point out that in Central Europe the concept of a nation is understood in an ethnic, not in a political sense. Nations that see themselves as ethnically unique may live in one state. Two nations-Slovaks and Czechs-lived separate lives in Czechoslovakia. There was practically no common Czechoslovak culture, only Czech and Slovak cultures. The Slovak and Czech languages are similar, but they are also different. Under the communist dictatorship it was possible to silence national aspirations, but after the restoration of freedom the different political conceptions of the Czechs and Slovaks grew. The 1992 elections (the first free ones since 1946) brought very different political parties into power in Slovakia and in the Czech Lands, and these parties agreed to divide the country, and the Czechoslovak Federal Parliament then adopted the Constitutional Law on the Division of Czechoslovakia. 68 SLOVAKIA Happily, the story does not end there. After the breakup, Slovakia and the Czech Republic maintained fair or even friendly relations . When there were politically different governments in Prague and Bratislava, relations between the Republics were fair; when there are similar political parties in power in Prague and Bratislava, relations are friendly. The people of Slovakia and the Czech Republic have remained on friendly terms. According to public opinion surveys in Slovakia, the Czechs are the Slovaks ' favourite nation , and vice-versa. Slovak and Czech delegations generally support each other at international conferences. In the last few weeks the governments and parliaments of both countries have approved an agreement on the property settlement of the division of the former Czec hoslovakia. Both cooperate within the Visegrad group and their foreign policies are equally oriented towards western integration and security groups. On the other hand, the division of Czechoslovakia is final and there is no desire to resurrect it. Only one political party in 1994 ran on a pro-Czec hoslovak platform and it received a paltry one per cent of the vote. If we compare political developments in the two Republics since the "velvet divorce," Slovakia 's history has probably been more colourful. First, the Slovaks removed certain doubts about the viability of their state. Slovakia ' s economy also did fairly well despite a rather odd dispute between Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar and President Michal Kovac . The dispute did not escalate into a shooting war, but did result in the abduction of the president 's son to Austria. In 1999 the Slovak Parliament revoked the immunity of Ivan Lexa, the previous head of the secret service, who was suspected of having masterminded the abduction. In the seven years of Slovakia's independence there were three changes of government between political groups so opposed to each other that they were able to abduct or tolerate the abduc- 69 SLOVAKJA tion of one of their sons. Despite this, all the political changes took place democratically, within the parameters of the Constitution and on the basis of freely-held elections . In September of 1998, 84% of the electorate turned out to vote in the parliamentary elections. After 40 years of communism democracy works in strange ways. I often mention such figures as proof of the strength of democracy in Slovakia. I admit that it is sometimes necessary to make more of an effort for democracy to function in Slovakia than in other countries. But, it has always worked out. The sometimes strange workings of democracy in post- communist countries directly relate to their communist heritage. Communism ended in a sudden collapse but it soon became apparent that the Communists quickly found their way in the new social order. The Communist Parties changed their names and became Socialist Parties and former Communists appeared in other parties as well. After a short period of anti-communist enthusiasm in 1990 came the realization that economics, culture and politics are more complicated. It is not possible to replace people en masse because there are simply not enough experts to go around and certain stages of development cannot be omitted. In one country after another the former Communists were so successful in elections and constitutional cohabitation that even France was amazed . But the market economy was not disrupted and democracy survived . This is testimony to the strength of western democratic and political institutions which have come to the East. Just to complete the picture, I will mention that the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFT A) has existed since 1993. Originally it was between the Visegrad Group, but later it was joined by Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania. The Agreement liberalized trade between the participating countries and, except for agricultural products, it works well. 70 SLOYAKlA Another attempt at cooperation between Central and Eastern European countries is the Central European Initiative. It was established in 1989 as an association of four states (Italy, Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia) at Italy's initiative. Today it includes sixteen states. Its aim is, not only economic cooperation, but also cultural and political, especially assistance in associating its members with the European Union. The Central European Initiative, on the other hand, is stagnating . Every generation has the tendency to talk about a change of paradigm brought about by its own efforts. Who would not want to change the world, even if we cannot explain it? Why should we give up this ambition? All the more so because the paradigm has changed. For centuries European history was marked by conflicts between Gennany and France. It seems that these conflicts are over. In the twentieth century two World Wars started in Central Europe. I do not see a source of tension here that could lead to another such conflict. Now the most serious dispute in Western and Central Europe is the " Beef War" between France and Great Britain. As long as we do not ask the poor cows for their opinion , we can really talk about a change of paradigm. If in future decades we manage to expand the zone of peace further cast, and even to the Balkans , then Isaiah 's words might come to apply to Europe: "He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation , neither shall they learn war any more ."  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 Reversing the Trend: Central Europe from Dictatorship to Democracy Description An account of the resource Ján Čarnogurský Slovakia, Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003 pp. 57-70 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Čarnogurský, Ján, 1944- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/0226d0dbb8be61341c5316e246bbf441.pdf 2c82293e937a7c62570f891dc067525c PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA IOI DOCUMENTATION: Sketches from a Slovak Catholic Parish in Pittston, PA [1900] by Matus Jankola (Translated by M. Mark Stolarik) 1 A nice, transparent picture is what you wish, I know. 2 However, that will be impossible. It is very difficult to write something short and interesting about our life here. I would, indeed, like to present you with something short, but our American conditions 'The Rev. Matus Jankola (1872, Budapest - 1916. Bridgeport, CT) was one of the most important leaders of Slovak Catholics in America. He emigrated to the USA with his family in 1893 and was consecrated a priest in 1895. He then served his people in Slovak parishes in Pittston. Wilkes-Barre and. from 1907 to his death in Bridgeport. Connecticut. A strong Slonk nationalist. Jankola served for a while as president of the First Catholic Slovak Union. he founded the Society of Slovak Priests in the USA. and. most important of all. the teaching order of the Sisters of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Danville, PA. When World War I broke out Jankola supported the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the creation of a federal Czccho-Slovak Republic. I have translated into English and reprinted his article on ··crty z katolfckcj slovcnskcj farnosti v Pit tston , PA", Tovary.{stvo. III (Rufombcrok. Slovakia. 1900). 301-05 for the benefit of our readers because it contains very valuable observations and insights into the early life of Slovak-Americans. For more on Jankola's life sec Jozef Pauco, Matiis Janka/a. kifoz a n.iroclovec (Danville. PA. 1959). ' Jankola wrote this article in response to a request from the Rev. Frantisek Richard Osvald. publisher and editor of Tovary.sstvo. �SLOVAKIA 102 could fill the entire issue of Tovary(stvo; nevertheless I will leave space for people more important than me. I would also like to reassure our nervous Lords I in Hungary I that they will find nothing "American" in my article which should cause them to worry. The Immense Size of the United States. With your permission I will begin with Adam and Eve, because I cannot do otherwise. The United States are truly strange with its people, customs, with its climate and untold wealth, and immense size. It is as far from New York to San Francisco as it is across the Atlantic Ocean-three days by train . If we were to compare this huge republic with Hungary , the former would be like a large, fat cat, and the latter like a mouse. For instance, Johnson 's Universal Encyclopedia gives the following statistics: the United States (including Alaska) covers 3,595 ,000 square miles whereas Hungary covers only 125,000 square miles. The state of Texas is composed of 265,780 square miles , while Austria-Hungary comprises only 264,204 square miles . Thus, the United States is 28 1/2 times larger than Hungary. Approximately a quarter of a million Slovaks live all over this huge country, and my parish is but a tiny dot. Slovak oases. One can find Slovaks all over the United States, especially in commercial and industrial cities. Our colonies resemble oases in the Sahara. They arc especially noticeable in the coal regions of Pennsylvania. The vast majority of our people work in the soft and hard coal mines. So, for instance, one will find Slovaks in the 150-milc stretch from Carbondale all the way to Shamokin , in the finest hard-coal region of the world. Some of the scams of coal arc up to twenty-five feet thick! This area is full of breakers sitting on mine shafts . It is the "Eldorado" of coal , and it employs upwards of 80,000 workers. Fifteen years ago you could count the number of Slovaks here on your fingers, today �SLOVAKIA 103 there are thousands. They are well-organized into 200 branches of fraternal-benefit societies, twelve Roman Catholic parishes, an equal number of Greek Catholic ones, and four Lutheran parishes. The Diocese of Scranton. It is the most "Slovak" of all dioceses in America, with JO Slovak parishes served by eight Roman Catholic priests, and an equal number of Greek Catholics . We Roman Catholics also have our own schools, but not everywhere. The Greek Catholic priests , on the other hand , do not care about having their own schools. We have Roman Catholic parishes in the following towns and cities: in Oliphant (founded in 1889) under the patronage of the Holy Ghost, with a filial parish in Jessup (founded in I 896) under the patronage of St. Michael; in Scranton (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Holy Family; in Plymouth (founded in 1886) under the patronage of St. Stephen the King; in Wilkes-Barre (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; in Freeland (founded in 1893) under the patronage of St. John Ncpomuccnc; in Nanticoke (founded in I 888) under the patronage of St. Joseph; in Hazleton (founded in I 883) under the patronage of St. Joseph; in Pittston (founded in 1894) under the patronage of St. John the Baptist, with a filial parish in Maltby (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Holy Trinity. At the moment we arc building a church dedicated to Sts. Cyril and Mcthodius as a filial of Plymouth. The author of this article organized the parishes in WilkesBarre and Maltby . Pittston and Other Matters. In the northern portion of Luzerne County (each county has a court house which can impose the death penalty) is a beautiful valley drained by the Susquehanna River, which resembles the Yah river at Koma.mo . The valley is approximately 20 miles long and two miles wide. It �SLOVAKIA 104 contains the best coal, and boasts 40 breakers ; The breakers and the mines below them are owned by small and large corporations . Various nationalities work here: Slovaks, Poles , Lithuanians, Italians; the Irish , Scots and Welsh are regarded as Americans, since they speak English, and our people do not. This "Wyoming Valley" has 130,000 inhabitants. Its most important cities arc Wilkes-Barre, with 60,000 people , Pittston with 15 ,000 , Nanticoke and Plymouth with 12,000. We Slovaks number more than 8,000. Surrounding these cities, as chicks s urround their mother hens, arc scattered the various villages and "places" where most of our countrymen live, because the housing is cheaper there. The houses that they rent arc of clapboard construction and consist of 3-4 rooms, with a kitchen, and give them some freedom. The entire population depends upon the coal industry , be cause there is no other. When coal is in demand . there is plenty of work and good times. and the miner can earn up to $80.00 per month, or more. It all depends upon how many wagons of coal he can fill ; at other times earnings arc skimpy: $10.00 to $20.00 per month. or less. In hard times. people work only 2-3 days a week. and goof oil the rest of the time . Even Vienna has beggars! The miner requires $4.00 to $8.00 a month to clothe and feed himself, his wife and children, and during hard times he often falls into debt. When winter comes the mines usually come alive. and the miner can pay off his debts . That's when the butcher. the grocer and saloonkeeper arc paid off. The Jewish saloonkeeper is like a white raven m America . Herc a Slovak can open his own business with a few hundred dollars in capital , become a businessman , and move up to a hig her class, just like in Hungary , when one becomes an aristocrat. Our �SLOVAKIA 105 brothers like to drink in America as well , so there are lots of saloons . Our comrades in the "wet" districts like to run up a tab, and promise to pay up on pay day. However, all saloonkcepers complain that they are owed more than they care to mention . It is impossible to collect on such a debt because state laws do not recognize it. Our saloonkccpers sell not only beer but also whiskey. Slovaks drink only the cheapest brand , which costs $ 1.25 a gallon and is pure poison! A gall on of good whiskey costs $4.00 to $6.00, but our people avoid it because it is not "strong" enough! Our Shortcomings. The most important day in the entire month is payday. Other industries pay twice a month . Here, it comes only once a month. On payday evening there is happiness and good cheer, and the saloonkeepers have their harvest, as does the devil. The "places" and "patches" are the mos t lively. because they have no police constables. Many houses arc full of noise , laughter and singing, because Slovaks love to sing, but this merrymaking often ends in sadness. The "finale" is usually a fi ght , jail , a fine , and judgment. The largest beneficiaries arc the squires and lawyers . These squabbles have often ended with the death penalty or life impri sonment. The day after one often finds in front of homes, or saloons. empty SO-litre kegs, drained of their beer and resembling cannons in Lad ys mith . In recent times , however, things have gotten better - people do not have much money, they arc more careful, and all nationalities arc organized into fratern al-benefit societies and parishes. We shouldn't be surprised by such be haviour, because the hungry do not know moderation. they stuff themselves until they get sick. Not all Slovaks behave like animals on payday. Usually it is only the bachelors, who live as boarders. Some Slovak homes contain as many as 12 boarders who pay $2.00 to $3 .00 per month for room and board . The poor owner of the hou se has to suffer much abuse because , if he �106 SLOVAKIA becomes too strict, the boarders will go elsewhere. The morality of these boarders is rapidly deteriorating (only a minority is upright). Many are married, but while their wives arc enjoying themselves in Slovakia, their husbands are having a good time in America. Some drink too much, and do not go to work until they arc penniless . They won 't hear of going to church or to confes- sion , with the excuse that their church is in the Old Country, as is their pastor, and they will go to him when they return. How many of them have already died in sin! The mines are very dangerous . Death comes as easily here as pears falling from a shaking tree. Every day one hears about someone being burned by coal gas, being crushed by coal or rocks, and killed . The hospitals in Wilkes-Barre and Pittston are full of such patients . It is fairly common to see people on the street who arc missing hands, legs or who arc crippled in some way. In America it is appalling to see so much human tragedy ; life here is worth nothing. Another failing of our people is that they arc very argumentative and sue each other. In parishes they claim that, because they financially support the church, they arc free to criticize the priest, his behaviour. his sermons , his orders and his general handling of matters (especially financial ones). The Poles arc "masters" at this game, they are leaving the Church and have even established a large number of national. independent parishes free from Irish bishops. Our Slovaks arc a more humble, they will grumble , criticize, but then give way. If other nationalities <lid not set a bad example for them, our Slovaks would be quiet. Herc, too. the proverb "The sheep arc like the shepherd," holds true. These arc the faults of our Slovaks. However, the Slovaks also have a lot of �SLOVAKIA 107 good qualities, but I don't need to list them, because they are obvious to all who see. My parish. Twenty years ago there wasn't a single Slovak soul here. No Slovaks, except me, live in the city of Pittston itself. The nearest Slovaks have to walk about twenty minutes to get to church. For this reason, I have one of the worst parishes in America. Whenever it is cold, or it rains, I always fear that few people will show up in church. My parishioners live in seven "places" around Pittston. These are: West Pittston, with seven families; Sturmerville, with about 40 families; Wyoming, with ten families; in Port Griffith, with about 40 families; Smithville, with 24 families; Duryea, with about 16 families; and Pittston Junction with 14 families. About 30 of them own their homes. Three or four parishioners own 3-4 homes . The majority of my parishioners hail from Spis County in Slovakia. For instance, Port Griffith houses Slovaks predominantly from the northern Spis region of "pod Magura" (from the villages of Nedeca, Trips , Yysny and Nizny Laps, Kacvin, Cierna Hora and so on.). 3 Others come from Abauj, Zemplfn, Saris and Uzhorod counties. Only a few originate in Grava or Trencfn counties. These statistics cover only parishioners, that is, those who regularly support the church. About 200 boarders, plus 60 families support my parish. Another 200-300 boarders never set foot in the church, and are not parishioners. In America there are three kinds of Catholics. The majority are good, they fulfil their Christian duty, live as Christians , support their parish and priest, the organist and so on. Then you have the lukewarm Catholics, who hem and haw; and finally, the boarders, who don't give a hoot, live a carefree life, pay no ·' This region was ceded by Czecho-Slovakia to Poland after World War I in spi te of the fact that the majority of its inhabitants identified themselves as Slovaks. �SLOVAKIA 108 attention to their souls, and plan to live a Christian life only in the Old Country! To this group also belong the "enlightened ones" and various other individuals. You might be surprised that I can give you only an estimate of the number of my parishioners. That's because our people are always looking for better work, and always on the move, like the Jews. In my Annual Spiritual Report for the Bishop I estimated 800 "souls." The Slovaks care about their religion in spite of the fact that they are abroad and have to fend for themselves in a land which proclaims "liberty of conscience" and has many temptations. We have no patrons, no foundations, no church property , and the state does not support us. The people have to take the initiative, build their churches, and support their priests and bishops by themselves. Priests are paid between $600 and $1 ,000 yearly and the parishes have to pay a church tax to the bishop of between $25 and $200 per month (my poor parish pays only $50 per month). In America we have a sixth Commandment: support your parishes. How do Slovaks support their churches and parishes in America'? In various ways. Where there is no debt or where there are a lot of parishioners, they contribute in small amounts. In some places parishioners pay up to $ 1.00 monthly, in other places 7 5 or 50 cents or only 25 cents (as for instance. in Freeland). With me families generally pay 75 cents and individuals 50 cents, for a total of about $6 .00 per year. In addition , because this year we will be building a church (our present church was purchased from the Germans and is too small and ugly), families arc supposed to contribute an additional $ I0.00 and individuals $5.00 more per year. In some parishes these monthly contributions are gathered by "collectors" , in others, such as in Irish churches , the people �SLOVAKIA 109 bring the money directly to the parish. We have two "collectors" at each location and, as soon as payday arrives, they visit every Slovak home and collect their dues. I went out collecting for the new church myself on two occasions. That's how it is in America! All gifts go into the parish treasury and all expenses are paid out of it: the building, the priest, the organist, the churchwarden, and the church and rectory decorations. The American priest, who is really a missionary, owns onl y his vestments and his books. He simpl y cannot afford to own any furniture or other material that he would have to transport from parish to parish. Ownership-the role of the priest. All churches, sc hools, cemeteries and so on arc church property and arc registered in the name of the bishop in trust. In our parish the property is registered in the land registry office as fo llows : St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Congregation in Pittston, PA , in trust of the Rt. Rev. M.J. Hoban, Bishop of Scranton , PA. In other places the property is registered directly in the name of the bishop, or in the name of the bishop and the parish council; that depends on diocesan laws and state laws. The bishop does not concern himself with parish finances unless a problem appears in the annual report. In my case I control everything. The parish finances are in my name and I write the checks. Once a year I call a meeting of the parish collectors, who are also the trustees, and I show them the books. After that I announce these figures in church: what was our income, expenses, and how much of our debt we have retired . Other pries ts post these figures on the ch urch doors; still others publish them and hand them out to their parishioners. Those church finan ces! They have caused many uprisings rn 4 American parishes . In some places the priest has no control over ' I have desc ribed some of these " uprisings" in my '·Lay Initiative in American Slovak Pari shes. 1880- 1930" in Records of the American Catholic Hi storical �SLOVAKIA 110 the finances, he receives his pay, and that is it. But these are exceptions (among Slovaks they rarely arise), and very bad ones, and such priests are to be pitied. If the people see that their pastor is devoted, active, a good administrator, pays his debts (especially this, or he will be warned), is not arrogant (with some people you have to be very tactful), rude, cheap, demanding, snobbish and lazy, and does not shirk his duties on Sunday after Mass, then the people will support him. The Slovaks are very good in this regard. However, if one's predecessor ruined everything, then it is very difficult to regain the people's trust. From this you musn 't conclude that the priest here is a servant of the people and has no authority. We all know that in Hungary, if the priest sides with the nobles, he will triumph, but what do the people think of him? I know that people value good priests more in America than they do in Hungary. We live in a land of 40 million Protestants and atheists but it is unheard of that someone would insult a Roman Catholic priest, as often happened in Hungary. We don 't normally wear vestments in public, but we do wear Roman collars, and even without it people recognize us and address us as "Father." Here, as in the old country, people do complain to the bishops about us, and especially here where there are so many trains and streetcars, and most often about that miserable treasury, and mostly it is by the smartalecks and loudmouths who wish to control the parish. We do not have great formalities here, we address the bishop simply as "Bishop" (and usually he also serves as his own secretary) and, if he so wishes, he simply tells you that he is removing you from the parish. You are now on vacation Society of Philadelphia, 83, 3-4 (September-December. 1972). 151 -8: as has Raymond J. Kupke in ..The Slovak National Catholic Church. Passaic. New Jersey. and the Jeczusko Affair," in Slovakia, 33, 60-61 (1987-88). 63 -86. �SLOVAKIA 111 and can travel wherever you want (provided you have the finances). However, since America is a "free country" you can appeal to the Apostolic Delegate in Washington , or even to Rome itself! Here you can do it. The spiritual life. If we did not have those dissolute "boarders" among us, I could safely say that our people would be the best, the most moral and religious of all. Those who were raised in a religious way in the old country are good Catholics here as well. The work of priests in Slovakia is evident here. My Spis Slovaks are the best of all those in Pittston-they attend services the most, they s upport the parish the most, and they obey and respect their pastor. Forty children attend the parochial sc hool and if they lived closer, over 100 would attend. The people go to confession 2-3 times a year. We have a Rosary Society of the Sacred Heart and a Living Rosary Society; both have many members . Thirty of them subscribe to the religious magazine Po.sol. In the last year my parishioners raised almost $4,000 for the support of their church. This is how we live in distant America, torn from our motherland, but very few of us wish to return. It must really be better here for the poor working person. Indeed , it is! � SLOVAKIA IOI DOCUMENTATION: Sketches from a Slovak Catholic Parish in Pittston, PA [1900] by Matus Jankola (Translated by M. Mark Stolarik) 1 A nice, transparent picture is what you wish, I know. 2 However, that will be impossible. It is very difficult to write something short and interesting about our life here. I would, indeed, like to present you with something short, but our American conditions 'The Rev. Matus Jankola (1872, Budapest - 1916. Bridgeport, CT) was one of the most important leaders of Slovak Catholics in America. He emigrated to the USA with his family in 1893 and was consecrated a priest in 1895. He then served his people in Slovak parishes in Pittston. Wilkes-Barre and. from 1907 to his death in Bridgeport. Connecticut. A strong Slonk nationalist. Jankola served for a while as president of the First Catholic Slovak Union. he founded the Society of Slovak Priests in the USA. and. most important of all. the teaching order of the Sisters of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Danville, PA. When World War I broke out Jankola supported the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the creation of a federal Czccho-Slovak Republic. I have translated into English and reprinted his article on ··crty z katolfckcj slovcnskcj farnosti v Pit tston , PA", Tovary.{stvo. III (Rufombcrok. Slovakia. 1900). 301-05 for the benefit of our readers because it contains very valuable observations and insights into the early life of Slovak-Americans. For more on Jankola's life sec Jozef Pauco, Matiis Janka/a. kifoz a n.iroclovec (Danville. PA. 1959). ' Jankola wrote this article in response to a request from the Rev. Frantisek Richard Osvald. publisher and editor of Tovary.sstvo. �SLOVAKIA 102 could fill the entire issue of Tovary(stvo; nevertheless I will leave space for people more important than me. I would also like to reassure our nervous Lords I in Hungary I that they will find nothing "American" in my article which should cause them to worry. The Immense Size of the United States. With your permission I will begin with Adam and Eve, because I cannot do otherwise. The United States are truly strange with its people, customs, with its climate and untold wealth, and immense size. It is as far from New York to San Francisco as it is across the Atlantic Ocean-three days by train . If we were to compare this huge republic with Hungary , the former would be like a large, fat cat, and the latter like a mouse. For instance, Johnson 's Universal Encyclopedia gives the following statistics: the United States (including Alaska) covers 3,595 ,000 square miles whereas Hungary covers only 125,000 square miles. The state of Texas is composed of 265,780 square miles , while Austria-Hungary comprises only 264,204 square miles . Thus, the United States is 28 1/2 times larger than Hungary. Approximately a quarter of a million Slovaks live all over this huge country, and my parish is but a tiny dot. Slovak oases. One can find Slovaks all over the United States, especially in commercial and industrial cities. Our colonies resemble oases in the Sahara. They arc especially noticeable in the coal regions of Pennsylvania. The vast majority of our people work in the soft and hard coal mines. So, for instance, one will find Slovaks in the 150-milc stretch from Carbondale all the way to Shamokin , in the finest hard-coal region of the world. Some of the scams of coal arc up to twenty-five feet thick! This area is full of breakers sitting on mine shafts . It is the "Eldorado" of coal , and it employs upwards of 80,000 workers. Fifteen years ago you could count the number of Slovaks here on your fingers, today �SLOVAKIA 103 there are thousands. They are well-organized into 200 branches of fraternal-benefit societies, twelve Roman Catholic parishes, an equal number of Greek Catholic ones, and four Lutheran parishes. The Diocese of Scranton. It is the most "Slovak" of all dioceses in America, with JO Slovak parishes served by eight Roman Catholic priests, and an equal number of Greek Catholics . We Roman Catholics also have our own schools, but not everywhere. The Greek Catholic priests , on the other hand , do not care about having their own schools. We have Roman Catholic parishes in the following towns and cities: in Oliphant (founded in 1889) under the patronage of the Holy Ghost, with a filial parish in Jessup (founded in I 896) under the patronage of St. Michael; in Scranton (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Holy Family; in Plymouth (founded in 1886) under the patronage of St. Stephen the King; in Wilkes-Barre (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; in Freeland (founded in 1893) under the patronage of St. John Ncpomuccnc; in Nanticoke (founded in I 888) under the patronage of St. Joseph; in Hazleton (founded in I 883) under the patronage of St. Joseph; in Pittston (founded in 1894) under the patronage of St. John the Baptist, with a filial parish in Maltby (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Holy Trinity. At the moment we arc building a church dedicated to Sts. Cyril and Mcthodius as a filial of Plymouth. The author of this article organized the parishes in WilkesBarre and Maltby . Pittston and Other Matters. In the northern portion of Luzerne County (each county has a court house which can impose the death penalty) is a beautiful valley drained by the Susquehanna River, which resembles the Yah river at Koma.mo . The valley is approximately 20 miles long and two miles wide. It �SLOVAKIA 104 contains the best coal, and boasts 40 breakers ; The breakers and the mines below them are owned by small and large corporations . Various nationalities work here: Slovaks, Poles , Lithuanians, Italians; the Irish , Scots and Welsh are regarded as Americans, since they speak English, and our people do not. This "Wyoming Valley" has 130,000 inhabitants. Its most important cities arc Wilkes-Barre, with 60,000 people , Pittston with 15 ,000 , Nanticoke and Plymouth with 12,000. We Slovaks number more than 8,000. Surrounding these cities, as chicks s urround their mother hens, arc scattered the various villages and "places" where most of our countrymen live, because the housing is cheaper there. The houses that they rent arc of clapboard construction and consist of 3-4 rooms, with a kitchen, and give them some freedom. The entire population depends upon the coal industry , be cause there is no other. When coal is in demand . there is plenty of work and good times. and the miner can earn up to $80.00 per month, or more. It all depends upon how many wagons of coal he can fill ; at other times earnings arc skimpy: $10.00 to $20.00 per month. or less. In hard times. people work only 2-3 days a week. and goof oil the rest of the time . Even Vienna has beggars! The miner requires $4.00 to $8.00 a month to clothe and feed himself, his wife and children, and during hard times he often falls into debt. When winter comes the mines usually come alive. and the miner can pay off his debts . That's when the butcher. the grocer and saloonkeeper arc paid off. The Jewish saloonkeeper is like a white raven m America . Herc a Slovak can open his own business with a few hundred dollars in capital , become a businessman , and move up to a hig her class, just like in Hungary , when one becomes an aristocrat. Our �SLOVAKIA 105 brothers like to drink in America as well , so there are lots of saloons . Our comrades in the "wet" districts like to run up a tab, and promise to pay up on pay day. However, all saloonkcepers complain that they are owed more than they care to mention . It is impossible to collect on such a debt because state laws do not recognize it. Our saloonkccpers sell not only beer but also whiskey. Slovaks drink only the cheapest brand , which costs $ 1.25 a gallon and is pure poison! A gall on of good whiskey costs $4.00 to $6.00, but our people avoid it because it is not "strong" enough! Our Shortcomings. The most important day in the entire month is payday. Other industries pay twice a month . Here, it comes only once a month. On payday evening there is happiness and good cheer, and the saloonkeepers have their harvest, as does the devil. The "places" and "patches" are the mos t lively. because they have no police constables. Many houses arc full of noise , laughter and singing, because Slovaks love to sing, but this merrymaking often ends in sadness. The "finale" is usually a fi ght , jail , a fine , and judgment. The largest beneficiaries arc the squires and lawyers . These squabbles have often ended with the death penalty or life impri sonment. The day after one often finds in front of homes, or saloons. empty SO-litre kegs, drained of their beer and resembling cannons in Lad ys mith . In recent times , however, things have gotten better - people do not have much money, they arc more careful, and all nationalities arc organized into fratern al-benefit societies and parishes. We shouldn't be surprised by such be haviour, because the hungry do not know moderation. they stuff themselves until they get sick. Not all Slovaks behave like animals on payday. Usually it is only the bachelors, who live as boarders. Some Slovak homes contain as many as 12 boarders who pay $2.00 to $3 .00 per month for room and board . The poor owner of the hou se has to suffer much abuse because , if he �106 SLOVAKIA becomes too strict, the boarders will go elsewhere. The morality of these boarders is rapidly deteriorating (only a minority is upright). Many are married, but while their wives arc enjoying themselves in Slovakia, their husbands are having a good time in America. Some drink too much, and do not go to work until they arc penniless . They won 't hear of going to church or to confes- sion , with the excuse that their church is in the Old Country, as is their pastor, and they will go to him when they return. How many of them have already died in sin! The mines are very dangerous . Death comes as easily here as pears falling from a shaking tree. Every day one hears about someone being burned by coal gas, being crushed by coal or rocks, and killed . The hospitals in Wilkes-Barre and Pittston are full of such patients . It is fairly common to see people on the street who arc missing hands, legs or who arc crippled in some way. In America it is appalling to see so much human tragedy ; life here is worth nothing. Another failing of our people is that they arc very argumentative and sue each other. In parishes they claim that, because they financially support the church, they arc free to criticize the priest, his behaviour. his sermons , his orders and his general handling of matters (especially financial ones). The Poles arc "masters" at this game, they are leaving the Church and have even established a large number of national. independent parishes free from Irish bishops. Our Slovaks arc a more humble, they will grumble , criticize, but then give way. If other nationalities <lid not set a bad example for them, our Slovaks would be quiet. Herc, too. the proverb "The sheep arc like the shepherd," holds true. These arc the faults of our Slovaks. However, the Slovaks also have a lot of �SLOVAKIA 107 good qualities, but I don't need to list them, because they are obvious to all who see. My parish. Twenty years ago there wasn't a single Slovak soul here. No Slovaks, except me, live in the city of Pittston itself. The nearest Slovaks have to walk about twenty minutes to get to church. For this reason, I have one of the worst parishes in America. Whenever it is cold, or it rains, I always fear that few people will show up in church. My parishioners live in seven "places" around Pittston. These are: West Pittston, with seven families; Sturmerville, with about 40 families; Wyoming, with ten families; in Port Griffith, with about 40 families; Smithville, with 24 families; Duryea, with about 16 families; and Pittston Junction with 14 families. About 30 of them own their homes. Three or four parishioners own 3-4 homes . The majority of my parishioners hail from Spis County in Slovakia. For instance, Port Griffith houses Slovaks predominantly from the northern Spis region of "pod Magura" (from the villages of Nedeca, Trips , Yysny and Nizny Laps, Kacvin, Cierna Hora and so on.). 3 Others come from Abauj, Zemplfn, Saris and Uzhorod counties. Only a few originate in Grava or Trencfn counties. These statistics cover only parishioners, that is, those who regularly support the church. About 200 boarders, plus 60 families support my parish. Another 200-300 boarders never set foot in the church, and are not parishioners. In America there are three kinds of Catholics. The majority are good, they fulfil their Christian duty, live as Christians , support their parish and priest, the organist and so on. Then you have the lukewarm Catholics, who hem and haw; and finally, the boarders, who don't give a hoot, live a carefree life, pay no ·' This region was ceded by Czecho-Slovakia to Poland after World War I in spi te of the fact that the majority of its inhabitants identified themselves as Slovaks. �SLOVAKIA 108 attention to their souls, and plan to live a Christian life only in the Old Country! To this group also belong the "enlightened ones" and various other individuals. You might be surprised that I can give you only an estimate of the number of my parishioners. That's because our people are always looking for better work, and always on the move, like the Jews. In my Annual Spiritual Report for the Bishop I estimated 800 "souls." The Slovaks care about their religion in spite of the fact that they are abroad and have to fend for themselves in a land which proclaims "liberty of conscience" and has many temptations. We have no patrons, no foundations, no church property , and the state does not support us. The people have to take the initiative, build their churches, and support their priests and bishops by themselves. Priests are paid between $600 and $1 ,000 yearly and the parishes have to pay a church tax to the bishop of between $25 and $200 per month (my poor parish pays only $50 per month). In America we have a sixth Commandment: support your parishes. How do Slovaks support their churches and parishes in America'? In various ways. Where there is no debt or where there are a lot of parishioners, they contribute in small amounts. In some places parishioners pay up to $ 1.00 monthly, in other places 7 5 or 50 cents or only 25 cents (as for instance. in Freeland). With me families generally pay 75 cents and individuals 50 cents, for a total of about $6 .00 per year. In addition , because this year we will be building a church (our present church was purchased from the Germans and is too small and ugly), families arc supposed to contribute an additional $ I0.00 and individuals $5.00 more per year. In some parishes these monthly contributions are gathered by "collectors" , in others, such as in Irish churches , the people �SLOVAKIA 109 bring the money directly to the parish. We have two "collectors" at each location and, as soon as payday arrives, they visit every Slovak home and collect their dues. I went out collecting for the new church myself on two occasions. That's how it is in America! All gifts go into the parish treasury and all expenses are paid out of it: the building, the priest, the organist, the churchwarden, and the church and rectory decorations. The American priest, who is really a missionary, owns onl y his vestments and his books. He simpl y cannot afford to own any furniture or other material that he would have to transport from parish to parish. Ownership-the role of the priest. All churches, sc hools, cemeteries and so on arc church property and arc registered in the name of the bishop in trust. In our parish the property is registered in the land registry office as fo llows : St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Congregation in Pittston, PA , in trust of the Rt. Rev. M.J. Hoban, Bishop of Scranton , PA. In other places the property is registered directly in the name of the bishop, or in the name of the bishop and the parish council; that depends on diocesan laws and state laws. The bishop does not concern himself with parish finances unless a problem appears in the annual report. In my case I control everything. The parish finances are in my name and I write the checks. Once a year I call a meeting of the parish collectors, who are also the trustees, and I show them the books. After that I announce these figures in church: what was our income, expenses, and how much of our debt we have retired . Other pries ts post these figures on the ch urch doors; still others publish them and hand them out to their parishioners. Those church finan ces! They have caused many uprisings rn 4 American parishes . In some places the priest has no control over ' I have desc ribed some of these " uprisings" in my '·Lay Initiative in American Slovak Pari shes. 1880- 1930" in Records of the American Catholic Hi storical �SLOVAKIA 110 the finances, he receives his pay, and that is it. But these are exceptions (among Slovaks they rarely arise), and very bad ones, and such priests are to be pitied. If the people see that their pastor is devoted, active, a good administrator, pays his debts (especially this, or he will be warned), is not arrogant (with some people you have to be very tactful), rude, cheap, demanding, snobbish and lazy, and does not shirk his duties on Sunday after Mass, then the people will support him. The Slovaks are very good in this regard. However, if one's predecessor ruined everything, then it is very difficult to regain the people's trust. From this you musn 't conclude that the priest here is a servant of the people and has no authority. We all know that in Hungary, if the priest sides with the nobles, he will triumph, but what do the people think of him? I know that people value good priests more in America than they do in Hungary. We live in a land of 40 million Protestants and atheists but it is unheard of that someone would insult a Roman Catholic priest, as often happened in Hungary. We don 't normally wear vestments in public, but we do wear Roman collars, and even without it people recognize us and address us as "Father." Here, as in the old country, people do complain to the bishops about us, and especially here where there are so many trains and streetcars, and most often about that miserable treasury, and mostly it is by the smartalecks and loudmouths who wish to control the parish. We do not have great formalities here, we address the bishop simply as "Bishop" (and usually he also serves as his own secretary) and, if he so wishes, he simply tells you that he is removing you from the parish. You are now on vacation Society of Philadelphia, 83, 3-4 (September-December. 1972). 151 -8: as has Raymond J. Kupke in ..The Slovak National Catholic Church. Passaic. New Jersey. and the Jeczusko Affair," in Slovakia, 33, 60-61 (1987-88). 63 -86. �SLOVAKIA 111 and can travel wherever you want (provided you have the finances). However, since America is a "free country" you can appeal to the Apostolic Delegate in Washington , or even to Rome itself! Here you can do it. The spiritual life. If we did not have those dissolute "boarders" among us, I could safely say that our people would be the best, the most moral and religious of all. Those who were raised in a religious way in the old country are good Catholics here as well. The work of priests in Slovakia is evident here. My Spis Slovaks are the best of all those in Pittston-they attend services the most, they s upport the parish the most, and they obey and respect their pastor. Forty children attend the parochial sc hool and if they lived closer, over 100 would attend. The people go to confession 2-3 times a year. We have a Rosary Society of the Sacred Heart and a Living Rosary Society; both have many members . Thirty of them subscribe to the religious magazine Po.sol. In the last year my parishioners raised almost $4,000 for the support of their church. This is how we live in distant America, torn from our motherland, but very few of us wish to return. It must really be better here for the poor working person. Indeed , it is! � 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 2003, Vol. 37 Description An account of the resource Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 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 IOI DOCUMENTATION: Sketches from a Slovak Catholic Parish in Pittston, PA [1900] by Matus Jankola (Translated by M. Mark Stolarik) 1 A nice, transparent picture is what you wish, I know. 2 However, that will be impossible. It is very difficult to write something short and interesting about our life here. I would, indeed, like to present you with something short, but our American conditions 'The Rev. Matus Jankola (1872, Budapest - 1916. Bridgeport, CT) was one of the most important leaders of Slovak Catholics in America. He emigrated to the USA with his family in 1893 and was consecrated a priest in 1895. He then served his people in Slovak parishes in Pittston. Wilkes-Barre and. from 1907 to his death in Bridgeport. Connecticut. A strong Slonk nationalist. Jankola served for a while as president of the First Catholic Slovak Union. he founded the Society of Slovak Priests in the USA. and. most important of all. the teaching order of the Sisters of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Danville, PA. When World War I broke out Jankola supported the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the creation of a federal Czccho-Slovak Republic. I have translated into English and reprinted his article on ··crty z katolfckcj slovcnskcj farnosti v Pit tston , PA", Tovary.{stvo. III (Rufombcrok. Slovakia. 1900). 301-05 for the benefit of our readers because it contains very valuable observations and insights into the early life of Slovak-Americans. For more on Jankola's life sec Jozef Pauco, Matiis Janka/a. kifoz a n.iroclovec (Danville. PA. 1959). ' Jankola wrote this article in response to a request from the Rev. Frantisek Richard Osvald. publisher and editor of Tovary.sstvo. SLOVAKIA 102 could fill the entire issue of Tovary(stvo; nevertheless I will leave space for people more important than me. I would also like to reassure our nervous Lords I in Hungary I that they will find nothing "American" in my article which should cause them to worry. The Immense Size of the United States. With your permission I will begin with Adam and Eve, because I cannot do otherwise. The United States are truly strange with its people, customs, with its climate and untold wealth, and immense size. It is as far from New York to San Francisco as it is across the Atlantic Ocean-three days by train . If we were to compare this huge republic with Hungary , the former would be like a large, fat cat, and the latter like a mouse. For instance, Johnson 's Universal Encyclopedia gives the following statistics: the United States (including Alaska) covers 3,595 ,000 square miles whereas Hungary covers only 125,000 square miles. The state of Texas is composed of 265,780 square miles , while Austria-Hungary comprises only 264,204 square miles . Thus, the United States is 28 1/2 times larger than Hungary. Approximately a quarter of a million Slovaks live all over this huge country, and my parish is but a tiny dot. Slovak oases. One can find Slovaks all over the United States, especially in commercial and industrial cities. Our colonies resemble oases in the Sahara. They arc especially noticeable in the coal regions of Pennsylvania. The vast majority of our people work in the soft and hard coal mines. So, for instance, one will find Slovaks in the 150-milc stretch from Carbondale all the way to Shamokin , in the finest hard-coal region of the world. Some of the scams of coal arc up to twenty-five feet thick! This area is full of breakers sitting on mine shafts . It is the "Eldorado" of coal , and it employs upwards of 80,000 workers. Fifteen years ago you could count the number of Slovaks here on your fingers, today SLOVAKIA 103 there are thousands. They are well-organized into 200 branches of fraternal-benefit societies, twelve Roman Catholic parishes, an equal number of Greek Catholic ones, and four Lutheran parishes. The Diocese of Scranton. It is the most "Slovak" of all dioceses in America, with JO Slovak parishes served by eight Roman Catholic priests, and an equal number of Greek Catholics . We Roman Catholics also have our own schools, but not everywhere. The Greek Catholic priests , on the other hand , do not care about having their own schools. We have Roman Catholic parishes in the following towns and cities: in Oliphant (founded in 1889) under the patronage of the Holy Ghost, with a filial parish in Jessup (founded in I 896) under the patronage of St. Michael; in Scranton (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Holy Family; in Plymouth (founded in 1886) under the patronage of St. Stephen the King; in Wilkes-Barre (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; in Freeland (founded in 1893) under the patronage of St. John Ncpomuccnc; in Nanticoke (founded in I 888) under the patronage of St. Joseph; in Hazleton (founded in I 883) under the patronage of St. Joseph; in Pittston (founded in 1894) under the patronage of St. John the Baptist, with a filial parish in Maltby (founded in 1895) under the patronage of the Holy Trinity. At the moment we arc building a church dedicated to Sts. Cyril and Mcthodius as a filial of Plymouth. The author of this article organized the parishes in WilkesBarre and Maltby . Pittston and Other Matters. In the northern portion of Luzerne County (each county has a court house which can impose the death penalty) is a beautiful valley drained by the Susquehanna River, which resembles the Yah river at Koma.mo . The valley is approximately 20 miles long and two miles wide. It SLOVAKIA 104 contains the best coal, and boasts 40 breakers ; The breakers and the mines below them are owned by small and large corporations . Various nationalities work here: Slovaks, Poles , Lithuanians, Italians; the Irish , Scots and Welsh are regarded as Americans, since they speak English, and our people do not. This "Wyoming Valley" has 130,000 inhabitants. Its most important cities arc Wilkes-Barre, with 60,000 people , Pittston with 15 ,000 , Nanticoke and Plymouth with 12,000. We Slovaks number more than 8,000. Surrounding these cities, as chicks s urround their mother hens, arc scattered the various villages and "places" where most of our countrymen live, because the housing is cheaper there. The houses that they rent arc of clapboard construction and consist of 3-4 rooms, with a kitchen, and give them some freedom. The entire population depends upon the coal industry , be cause there is no other. When coal is in demand . there is plenty of work and good times. and the miner can earn up to $80.00 per month, or more. It all depends upon how many wagons of coal he can fill ; at other times earnings arc skimpy: $10.00 to $20.00 per month. or less. In hard times. people work only 2-3 days a week. and goof oil the rest of the time . Even Vienna has beggars! The miner requires $4.00 to $8.00 a month to clothe and feed himself, his wife and children, and during hard times he often falls into debt. When winter comes the mines usually come alive. and the miner can pay off his debts . That's when the butcher. the grocer and saloonkeeper arc paid off. The Jewish saloonkeeper is like a white raven m America . Herc a Slovak can open his own business with a few hundred dollars in capital , become a businessman , and move up to a hig her class, just like in Hungary , when one becomes an aristocrat. Our SLOVAKIA 105 brothers like to drink in America as well , so there are lots of saloons . Our comrades in the "wet" districts like to run up a tab, and promise to pay up on pay day. However, all saloonkcepers complain that they are owed more than they care to mention . It is impossible to collect on such a debt because state laws do not recognize it. Our saloonkccpers sell not only beer but also whiskey. Slovaks drink only the cheapest brand , which costs $ 1.25 a gallon and is pure poison! A gall on of good whiskey costs $4.00 to $6.00, but our people avoid it because it is not "strong" enough! Our Shortcomings. The most important day in the entire month is payday. Other industries pay twice a month . Here, it comes only once a month. On payday evening there is happiness and good cheer, and the saloonkeepers have their harvest, as does the devil. The "places" and "patches" are the mos t lively. because they have no police constables. Many houses arc full of noise , laughter and singing, because Slovaks love to sing, but this merrymaking often ends in sadness. The "finale" is usually a fi ght , jail , a fine , and judgment. The largest beneficiaries arc the squires and lawyers . These squabbles have often ended with the death penalty or life impri sonment. The day after one often finds in front of homes, or saloons. empty SO-litre kegs, drained of their beer and resembling cannons in Lad ys mith . In recent times , however, things have gotten better - people do not have much money, they arc more careful, and all nationalities arc organized into fratern al-benefit societies and parishes. We shouldn't be surprised by such be haviour, because the hungry do not know moderation. they stuff themselves until they get sick. Not all Slovaks behave like animals on payday. Usually it is only the bachelors, who live as boarders. Some Slovak homes contain as many as 12 boarders who pay $2.00 to $3 .00 per month for room and board . The poor owner of the hou se has to suffer much abuse because , if he 106 SLOVAKIA becomes too strict, the boarders will go elsewhere. The morality of these boarders is rapidly deteriorating (only a minority is upright). Many are married, but while their wives arc enjoying themselves in Slovakia, their husbands are having a good time in America. Some drink too much, and do not go to work until they arc penniless . They won 't hear of going to church or to confes- sion , with the excuse that their church is in the Old Country, as is their pastor, and they will go to him when they return. How many of them have already died in sin! The mines are very dangerous . Death comes as easily here as pears falling from a shaking tree. Every day one hears about someone being burned by coal gas, being crushed by coal or rocks, and killed . The hospitals in Wilkes-Barre and Pittston are full of such patients . It is fairly common to see people on the street who arc missing hands, legs or who arc crippled in some way. In America it is appalling to see so much human tragedy ; life here is worth nothing. Another failing of our people is that they arc very argumentative and sue each other. In parishes they claim that, because they financially support the church, they arc free to criticize the priest, his behaviour. his sermons , his orders and his general handling of matters (especially financial ones). The Poles arc "masters" at this game, they are leaving the Church and have even established a large number of national. independent parishes free from Irish bishops. Our Slovaks arc a more humble, they will grumble , criticize, but then give way. If other nationalities <lid not set a bad example for them, our Slovaks would be quiet. Herc, too. the proverb "The sheep arc like the shepherd," holds true. These arc the faults of our Slovaks. However, the Slovaks also have a lot of SLOVAKIA 107 good qualities, but I don't need to list them, because they are obvious to all who see. My parish. Twenty years ago there wasn't a single Slovak soul here. No Slovaks, except me, live in the city of Pittston itself. The nearest Slovaks have to walk about twenty minutes to get to church. For this reason, I have one of the worst parishes in America. Whenever it is cold, or it rains, I always fear that few people will show up in church. My parishioners live in seven "places" around Pittston. These are: West Pittston, with seven families; Sturmerville, with about 40 families; Wyoming, with ten families; in Port Griffith, with about 40 families; Smithville, with 24 families; Duryea, with about 16 families; and Pittston Junction with 14 families. About 30 of them own their homes. Three or four parishioners own 3-4 homes . The majority of my parishioners hail from Spis County in Slovakia. For instance, Port Griffith houses Slovaks predominantly from the northern Spis region of "pod Magura" (from the villages of Nedeca, Trips , Yysny and Nizny Laps, Kacvin, Cierna Hora and so on.). 3 Others come from Abauj, Zemplfn, Saris and Uzhorod counties. Only a few originate in Grava or Trencfn counties. These statistics cover only parishioners, that is, those who regularly support the church. About 200 boarders, plus 60 families support my parish. Another 200-300 boarders never set foot in the church, and are not parishioners. In America there are three kinds of Catholics. The majority are good, they fulfil their Christian duty, live as Christians , support their parish and priest, the organist and so on. Then you have the lukewarm Catholics, who hem and haw; and finally, the boarders, who don't give a hoot, live a carefree life, pay no ·' This region was ceded by Czecho-Slovakia to Poland after World War I in spi te of the fact that the majority of its inhabitants identified themselves as Slovaks. SLOVAKIA 108 attention to their souls, and plan to live a Christian life only in the Old Country! To this group also belong the "enlightened ones" and various other individuals. You might be surprised that I can give you only an estimate of the number of my parishioners. That's because our people are always looking for better work, and always on the move, like the Jews. In my Annual Spiritual Report for the Bishop I estimated 800 "souls." The Slovaks care about their religion in spite of the fact that they are abroad and have to fend for themselves in a land which proclaims "liberty of conscience" and has many temptations. We have no patrons, no foundations, no church property , and the state does not support us. The people have to take the initiative, build their churches, and support their priests and bishops by themselves. Priests are paid between $600 and $1 ,000 yearly and the parishes have to pay a church tax to the bishop of between $25 and $200 per month (my poor parish pays only $50 per month). In America we have a sixth Commandment: support your parishes. How do Slovaks support their churches and parishes in America'? In various ways. Where there is no debt or where there are a lot of parishioners, they contribute in small amounts. In some places parishioners pay up to $ 1.00 monthly, in other places 7 5 or 50 cents or only 25 cents (as for instance. in Freeland). With me families generally pay 75 cents and individuals 50 cents, for a total of about $6 .00 per year. In addition , because this year we will be building a church (our present church was purchased from the Germans and is too small and ugly), families arc supposed to contribute an additional $ I0.00 and individuals $5.00 more per year. In some parishes these monthly contributions are gathered by "collectors" , in others, such as in Irish churches , the people SLOVAKIA 109 bring the money directly to the parish. We have two "collectors" at each location and, as soon as payday arrives, they visit every Slovak home and collect their dues. I went out collecting for the new church myself on two occasions. That's how it is in America! All gifts go into the parish treasury and all expenses are paid out of it: the building, the priest, the organist, the churchwarden, and the church and rectory decorations. The American priest, who is really a missionary, owns onl y his vestments and his books. He simpl y cannot afford to own any furniture or other material that he would have to transport from parish to parish. Ownership-the role of the priest. All churches, sc hools, cemeteries and so on arc church property and arc registered in the name of the bishop in trust. In our parish the property is registered in the land registry office as fo llows : St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Congregation in Pittston, PA , in trust of the Rt. Rev. M.J. Hoban, Bishop of Scranton , PA. In other places the property is registered directly in the name of the bishop, or in the name of the bishop and the parish council; that depends on diocesan laws and state laws. The bishop does not concern himself with parish finances unless a problem appears in the annual report. In my case I control everything. The parish finances are in my name and I write the checks. Once a year I call a meeting of the parish collectors, who are also the trustees, and I show them the books. After that I announce these figures in church: what was our income, expenses, and how much of our debt we have retired . Other pries ts post these figures on the ch urch doors; still others publish them and hand them out to their parishioners. Those church finan ces! They have caused many uprisings rn 4 American parishes . In some places the priest has no control over ' I have desc ribed some of these " uprisings" in my '·Lay Initiative in American Slovak Pari shes. 1880- 1930" in Records of the American Catholic Hi storical SLOVAKIA 110 the finances, he receives his pay, and that is it. But these are exceptions (among Slovaks they rarely arise), and very bad ones, and such priests are to be pitied. If the people see that their pastor is devoted, active, a good administrator, pays his debts (especially this, or he will be warned), is not arrogant (with some people you have to be very tactful), rude, cheap, demanding, snobbish and lazy, and does not shirk his duties on Sunday after Mass, then the people will support him. The Slovaks are very good in this regard. However, if one's predecessor ruined everything, then it is very difficult to regain the people's trust. From this you musn 't conclude that the priest here is a servant of the people and has no authority. We all know that in Hungary, if the priest sides with the nobles, he will triumph, but what do the people think of him? I know that people value good priests more in America than they do in Hungary. We live in a land of 40 million Protestants and atheists but it is unheard of that someone would insult a Roman Catholic priest, as often happened in Hungary. We don 't normally wear vestments in public, but we do wear Roman collars, and even without it people recognize us and address us as "Father." Here, as in the old country, people do complain to the bishops about us, and especially here where there are so many trains and streetcars, and most often about that miserable treasury, and mostly it is by the smartalecks and loudmouths who wish to control the parish. We do not have great formalities here, we address the bishop simply as "Bishop" (and usually he also serves as his own secretary) and, if he so wishes, he simply tells you that he is removing you from the parish. You are now on vacation Society of Philadelphia, 83, 3-4 (September-December. 1972). 151 -8: as has Raymond J. Kupke in ..The Slovak National Catholic Church. Passaic. New Jersey. and the Jeczusko Affair," in Slovakia, 33, 60-61 (1987-88). 63 -86. SLOVAKIA 111 and can travel wherever you want (provided you have the finances). However, since America is a "free country" you can appeal to the Apostolic Delegate in Washington , or even to Rome itself! Here you can do it. The spiritual life. If we did not have those dissolute "boarders" among us, I could safely say that our people would be the best, the most moral and religious of all. Those who were raised in a religious way in the old country are good Catholics here as well. The work of priests in Slovakia is evident here. My Spis Slovaks are the best of all those in Pittston-they attend services the most, they s upport the parish the most, and they obey and respect their pastor. Forty children attend the parochial sc hool and if they lived closer, over 100 would attend. The people go to confession 2-3 times a year. We have a Rosary Society of the Sacred Heart and a Living Rosary Society; both have many members . Thirty of them subscribe to the religious magazine Po.sol. In the last year my parishioners raised almost $4,000 for the support of their church. This is how we live in distant America, torn from our motherland, but very few of us wish to return. It must really be better here for the poor working person. Indeed , it is!  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 Sketches from a Slovak Catholic Parish in Pittston, PA [1900] by Matúš Jankola Description An account of the resource trans. by M. Mark Stolarik Slovakia, Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003 pp. 101-111 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jankola, Matúš, 1872-1916 Stolarik, M. Mark, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 LCNAF SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/74e92f3c4011eb55a040b909f3f3f351.pdf d085a6846bc9f744ad30c6fda7fd224c PDF Text Text 172 SLOVAKIA DOCUMENTATION: THE POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND CULTURAL SITUATION IN THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC (AS OF MAY, 1995) M. Mark Stolarik (Paper Presented to the Symposium " Economies in Transition: Europe to the Bering Strait, University of Montana, Missoula, May 1, 1995) 1 It is difficult to paint a clear picture of contemporary Slovakia because this newly-independent country is still undergoing rcvo1utionary changes at all levels of society due to the collapse of Communism in 1989. Since there is no model for the Slovaks ( or other states of East Central Europe) to follow in the transition from totalitarian Communism to democratic Capitalism. the current Slovak government is proceeding slowly and cautiously in this direction, amid much criticism. My observations arc based on official and unofficial visits to Slovakia in the last five years, on ' This paper was supposed to have been published as a part of the Proceedings by the organizers of the symposium. Since the Proceedings never saw the light of day. the author clecicled to publish the article in Slovakia because it an:urately reflected the political. economic and cultural situation in 1995 Slovakia. It should be react as a document of its time. �SLOVAKIA 173 my reading of a portion of the Slovak and western press, on reports issued by Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America, and on long discussions with various government officials, who have asked to remain anonymous . The political situation in the Slovak Republic is the most problematic. The Parliament (officially called the National Council of the Slovak Republic) consists of a unicameral legislature of 150 deputies who are elected to a four-year term on the basis of proportional representation. Slovakia has over 50 political parties but only seven of them (or party coalitions) are currently represented in Parliament. In order to run in an election, each new party must first obtain 10,000 certified signatures on a petition, and then must win at least 5% of the votes in order to obtain a seat. Party coalitions must win at least 10% of the vote. The seats are apportioned according to the percentage of votes won by each party .2 The elections held on September 30-October I, 1994, produced no clear winner, as is usual in a proportional representative system. Slovakia is currently governed by a coalition consisting of the left-of-center Movement for a Democratic Slovakia led by Vladimir Mcciar, which won 35% of the popular vote. or 61 scats; by the pro-communist Association of Workers of Slovakia led by Jan r.uptak. which won 7.3% of the vote and 13 scats: and the ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party led by Jan Slota. which won 5 .4% of the vote and 9 scats in Parliament. This coalition ended up with a grand total of 83 scats, although in April I 99 5 three members of the Association of Workers of Slovakia split with their leader and they reduced the coalition's voting majority 1 For more details on the electoral process in the Slovak Republic sec "The Con- stitution of the Slovak Republic." in Albert P. Blaustein & Gisbert H. Flanz. eds .. Constitution.~ of the Countries of the World (Dobbs Fe1Ty. New York: Oceana Publications. Inc .. 1993). 84-88 . �SLOVAKJA 174 to 80 seats. The oppos1t1on consists of the left-wing coalition Common Choice led by Peter Weiss, with 10.4 % of the popular vote or 17 seats; the Coalition of Magyar Parties led by Miklos Ouray, with 10.2% of the vote or 16 seats ; the right-wing Christian Democratic Movement led by Jan Carnog ursky , with I 0 . 1°4, of the votes or 16 seats; and the centrist Democratic Union of Slovakia led by Jozef Moravcik, with 8.6% of the vote or 13 seats.' Current Slovak politics is dominated by one strong leader who seems determined to undercut, by whatever means possible, other political leaders, many of whom are his former friends and associates . Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar, who is an attorney by training , and who supported the reforms of Alexander Dubcek in the 1960's, was purged from the ruling Communist Party in 1970 , and later became a corporate lawyer near the city of Trencfn . He entered politics in 1990, when the ruling Public Against Violence , the group of intellectuals which took power from the Communists in Slovakia in November of 1989, advertized for the position of Minister of the Interior of the post-communist Slovak Republic . Mr. Meciar won the competition and allegedly used his control over the Interior Ministry to both discover the past sins of his opponents, and to cover up those of his supporters . After the 3 "S lovakia's voters again turn to pugnacio us fom1er PM ." The Globe and Ma il (Toronto). October 3. 1994. The official election results were communicated to all embassies of the Sl ovak Rep ubli c by a "Tlacovy telegram MZY SR pre zahranicnu dipl omatich1 sluzbu SR." on October 3. 1994. of wh ich I have a copy. Fur an analysis of the results see Martin Yotruba's "S lovak News" (mimeogra phed). Slovak Studies Program. University of Pittsburgh. Sept. 27-Oct. 2. 1994. A much later analysis by Michael J. Kopanic. Jr.. including the creation of the coalition. appeared as "The Recent Elections in Slovakia." in Association for th e Study of NMion.1/ities: A nalysis of Current Eve nts. 6 (No.9. May. 1995). 1-3. For the split in the Association of Workers in Slovakia see Narodmi obroda, April 4. 1995 . �SLOVAKIA 175 Public Against Violence won the largest percentage of the vote in the June elections of 1990, it selected Mr. Meciar to become Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic , which at that time was still a part of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. While in this post, Mr. Meciar allegedly joined with others in slowing or manipulating the process of investigating (" lustracny proces" in Slovak) whether or not high government officials had collaborated with, or served as agents. of the dreaded communist secret p olice. He also increasi ngly argued with the presidium of the Public Against Violence, and its coalition partner, the Christian Demo4 cratic Movement, over government policy . Even though Mr. Meciar is very intelligent, 1s an excellent speaker, has a photographic memory, and radiates charisma wherever he goes, he appears to have what is colloquially known as a "type A" personality. In other words, he feels that he has to be in complete control of any situation, he seldom seeks advice, and is not very tol erant of criticism. He prefers to be surrounded by "yes ' For a brief biography or Mci'iar sec Kto Jc kto na S/ovensku. 199 P ( Ko nzo rci u111 Encyk lopcd ia: Bratislava. 199 I ). I 14- 15: The allegations ;:igainst Meci;:ir were 111adc by his political oppone nts in the Slovak Parlia111cnt's Defense and Security Co111111ittec on November 7. 1991 . cf. ··'Secret Report' Clai111s Meciar KGB Connections:· Foreign Bmadcast ln fonna tion Service (Washington. D.C.. hereafter FBIS). November 13. 1991. p.1 4: and summarized by Jan Obrman ··S lo vak Politician Accused or Secret Police Tics:· R adio Free Europe I R adio Liberty Rese.irch R eport (hereafter R FEIRL R ese.irch R eport ). Apri l 10. 1992 . Sec also ··Meciar Proposes Repeal or Screening Law:· CTK. December 21. I 99 3 . Two highly -placed public servants in the Slovak government. one or whom worked in the Office or the Pri111c Minister for both Mr. Mci': iar. and hi s predecessors. recently repeated these allegations to 111e. Since they fear for their jobs. the se public servants have asked me to keep secret their names. and the circu mstances or our 111cetings. At this time it is impossible to confinn. or disprove. these allegations since the ril es of the fonner secret police. which are in Prague. arc not open to the public . �SLOYAKJA 176 men" .5 Since the governing coalition Presidium was also composed of some very strong personalities, who opposed Mr. Meciar's attempts to become Chairman of the Public Against Violence in March of 1991, they decided to remove him from his Prime Ministerial post in April of that year. The Presidium replaced Mr. Meciar with Jan Carnogursky, an attorney and former Catholic dissident during the communist regime, who was also the founder and Chairman of the Christian Democratic Movement. 6 Mr. Meciar, and his most loyal supporters, subsequently withdrew from the Public Against Violence, which later fell apart, and they created the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia, which won the largest percentage of the votes in the June, 1992 elections . 7 In the next two years Mr. Meciar reached the height of his glory, but also suffered the humiliation of defeat. It was Mr. Meciar who in the summer of 1992, as Slovak Prime Minister, negotiated with Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus the dissolution 5 This observation is based on my reading of the Slovak press. on observing Mr. Mcciar delivering a po litical address in Nitra in August. 1993. on a pri va tc meeting that I had with him in September. 1993. and on several discussions that I had with Mr. Igor Uhrfk. The latte r is a fervent Slovak nationali st who sold his successful industrial-insurance business in New York city in 1992 and returned to Slovakia to ··help o ut" in 1993. He contributed 1,000.000 Slovak crowns to the Slovak National Pa11y. was made vicc-Chainnan of the Party. and later be came a principal advisor to the Minister of Privatization of the Slovak govern ment (as a volunteer). After Mr. Meciar's return to power in the fall of 1994. and a split in the Slovak National Party. among other things. Mr. Uhrfk became disgusted with Slovak politics and returned to the United States . " Kto je kto na S/ovensk11 1991 '.'. 190. 7 Jiri Pchc, ··s1ovak Nationalists Agitate for more Autonomy. Oppose Radical Pri vatizatio n." RFEIRL Research R eport. March 20. I 991: '"50,000 rally after Slovak leader fired," New York Times. April 24, I 99 I. A9: For more details sec Robert A. Young. The Breakup of Czechas/avakia (Kingston: Queen 's Uni vcrs ity. Insti tute of Intergovernmental Relati ons. Research Paper #3 2. 1994 ). 5. IO - J6. �SLOVAKIA 177 of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, and it was Mr. Meciar who proudly stood at the helm of the newly-independent Slovak Republic on January 1, 1993. Even though Mr. Meciar was not initially a nationalist, he shrewdly perceived that Slovak nationalism was the strongest single force in post-Communist CzechoSlovakia, and by 1992 he and his followers had firmly embraced this movement. 8 Slovak nationalism, however, was not enough to save Mr. Meciar from himself. He suffered his second major political defeat when the Slovak Parliament in February 1993 elected, not the physician Roman Kovac , the preferred candidate of Mr. Meciar's party for President of the Republic, but rather the fom1er Minister of Finance Michal Kovac .9 Much to Mr. Meciar's surprise, the latter refused to become a mere figurehead and instead took his duties as President quite seriously, to the point of attacking Mr. Meciar in the Slovak Parliament for alleged dictatorial tendencies in March of 1994. Meanwhile, Mr. Meciar had lost the confidence of several of his key allies and supporters, including Milan Knazko, his former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jozef Moravcfk, the subsequent Minister of Foreign Affairs, and two Deputy Prime Ministers, including Roman Kovac and I.:udovft Cernak, the latter '"Talks fail: Czechoslovakia dose to breakup. " Ottawa Citizen. June 9. 1992 : "Leaders start negotiations on splitting Czechoslovakia." The Globe and Mail. June 17. 1992: "Who Split Czechoslovakia'?" The New York Times. September 24. 1992. A29: "Parliament approves Czech-Slovak split." The Globe and Mail. November 26. 1992. "Fireworks. Tears and Doubt in Slovakia." The New York Times.January I. 1993. Al4: sec also Sabrina Petra Ramct. "The Reemergence of Slovakia." Nationalities Papers. 22 (No. I. Spring. 1994). I07 - 112 . '' "Havel elected first president of Czech Republic: Slovaks to hold runoff after vote rebuffs Prime Minister's candidate." The Globe and Mail. January 27. I 993 , A6: "Ex-Communist Chosen President of Slovakia." The New York Times. February 16. 1993. A7. �178 SLOVAKIA his coalition partner from the Slovak National Party! The net result was a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in Mr. Meciar and his party, his third political defeat, and his loss of power for a second time. Most of his former allies in the MOS, who abandoned him, joined Jozef Moravcfk's centrist Democratic Union of Slovakia. From March to October of 1994, a left-right coalition headed by Prime Minister Jozef Moravcfk ruled Slovakia. 111 For these reasons, ever since his election victory of 1994, and his subsequent return to power, Mr. Mcciar has tried to topple the President of the Slovak Republic and to destroy the Democratic Union of Slovakia. Between October and December of 1994 Mr. Meciar looked for coalition partners who would join him in his campaign against the President but had to settle for the two coalition partners mentioned above, who assured him of a voting majority in the Parliament, but not enough votes (90) to remove the President. Since he could not muster the votes to remove the President, he decided to try to strip him of some of his legal powers. For example, in April of 1995 Mr. Mcciar prevailed upon the Slovak Parliament to transfer from the President to the Prime Minister the right to appoint the Chief of Slovakia's Security Intelligence Service (the successor to the Secret Policc). 11 1 " .. Broad Coaliti on to govern Slovakia." The Globe and Mail. March 15 . 1994 . For the viewpoints of the two protagonists regarding the reasons for their fal - ling out see --sprava o stave Slovenskej republiky prednesena prezidentom SR Michalom Kovacom v Naroclncj radc SR dna 8.3.1994" and .. Prcjav predscdu vlady Slovcnskej republiky Yladimfra Mcciara na 27. sch6dzi NR SR di\a 11.3. 1994." published in a special issue of Republika (Bratis lava.March. I 9. 1994 ). I 5pp. For a legal interpretation of this struggle sec Spencer Zifcak ...The Battle over Presidential Power in Slovakia," Slovakia. 36 ( 1998). 70-80. For a profile of the Moravcfk government and its policies sec --cTK Profiles New Cabinet Members" in FB/S,March 17. 1994.4- 12 and --Text of Policy Statement of Slovak Government," FBIS. April 25. 1994, 16-30. 11 "Je Lexa v NR SR. v SIS. alebo v Iese?" Sme (Bratislava). April 26. 199 5. �179 SLOVAKIA Meanwhile, Mr. Meciar charged that the Democratic Union of Slovakia had not gathered the necessary 10,000 signatures before the elections of 1994. If he could prove his charge, then the DU members of Parliament would be stripped of their seats and Mr. Meciar would by default have the three-fifths of the votes necessary to remove the President. Unfortunately for Mr. Meciar, the Slovak Constitutional Court, headed by Milan Cic, the first Prime Minister of the post-communist Slovak Republic, and a former friend of Mr. Meciar, upheld the validity of the 10,000 signatures obtained by the DU before the 1994 elections. This did not stop Mr. Meciar from having his 80 supporters in Parliament pass a motion of " no confidence" in the President on May 5th, and in ordering the Slovak police to check on the validity of the l 0,000 signatures by visiting the homes of the signatories, and in the process harassing supporters of the DU. 12 Mr. Mcciar has also had his difficulties with the press . While he was out of office in 1994, the previous coalition government supported full freedom of the press , including radio and televi sion, and appointed boards of directors who were likewise inclined. Very few of these individuals were supporters of Mr. Mcciar. Once he returned to power in December of 1994 (it took him over two months to put together a coalition), Mr. Meciar began to fire the old boards of directors of radio and television (which arc still state-controlled), and to replace them \.Vith his own people. These , in turn , cancelled certain satiric television programs which had made fun of Mr. Meciar. As a result, there have been several mass-demonstrations in Bratislava against Mr. Meciar's alleged attempts to control the mass-media. Therefore, while television and radio commentators have ceased to lampoon 11 Zifcak. op.cit.. p.70; ··overovanie podpisov na harkoch DU je porusenie peticneho prava obcanov." Srne. May 23 . 1995 . �SLOVAKIA 180 Mr. Meciar, the print media, which 1s largely privatized , is still very critical of him . 13 The economic situation in Slovakia, meanwhile, is improving. Slovakia did not slide into a deep depression after it became independent, as some Western pundits had predicted . Instead, after some uncertainty in 1993, its economy grew by a spectacular 4.8% in 1994 and its budget deficit was a respectable 3% of GDP. Meanwhile, the Slovak crown , its basic unit of currency, was devalued by only 10% in 1993, it is convertible to hard currencies , and it remains stable. The rate of inflation also dropped from 25% in 1993 to around 11. 7% in 1994. Unemployment, however, remains high -14%. One of the causes of Slovak unemployment is the collapse of its heavy-arms industry, which used to serve the now-defunct Warsaw Pact and its allies world-wide. Converting this arms industry into something more useful remains a major challenge to the government of the Slovak Republic. 13 14 Re uter, December 16. 1994, as reported by Martin Votruba in Slovak News. December 16- 18. 1994; Jiri Pchc, .. Anti-Mcciar Rall y in Bratislava," R FEIRL Reports. Ibid., December 8- 11. In a TA SR report of May 12. 1995. Mr. Mcciar was quoted as saying that the press is free in Slovakia... but all newspapers should admit who owns them. and who pays them." impl ying that the print press in Slovakia is large ly financed by fore igners who arc hosti le to the current governme nt. The CTK on the same date quoted Juraj Veres. editor of N,irod n;i obroda (Bratislava). as agree ing that the Slovak press was still free . but th at ··the government is trying to gain contro l over the dailies:· However. he added th at lately "the go vernment has been backing down ." For Mr. Mci:iar's earlier problems with the press sec Jan Obnuan ...The Slovak Government vers us the Media." RFEIRL Research R eport. February 5. 1993 . 14 For an example of negative reporting o n Slovakia's eco nomic future sec Step- hen Enge lberg, "New Nation. Imperiled Economy." New York Time.~. February 12. 1993. DI; for an admission that the Slovak economy is doing surprisingly well see "How the Slovaks Have Taken Flight." The Globe nncl Mail. December 5, 1994. A JO (reprinted from the Wall Street Jo urnal); and --standard and Poors o Slovensk u." Sme. April 7. 199 5. �181 SLOVAKJA Indeed, converting the whole system from a command economy to a form of private enterprise remain s the major problem for the Slovak government. U ndcr Communism the state nationalized all the industry and the bulk of the land, it controlled all the means of production, it regulated prices, and subsidized housing , transportation and food, and created a complete welfare state with free education from pre-school through university, and free universal health-care. Unfortunately, the state enacted all these changes without the consent of the people, it enforced them through the use of police terror, and it discriminated in favour of members of the Communist Party and children of the workingclass when dispensing economic and cultural benefits. 15 Now that the Communists are no longer in charge, the various governments of Slovakia have tried to transform the economy into a form of private enterprise, as called for in the Constitution of the Slovak Republic. Since no real models exist on how to do this , n umcrous laws and regulations have been passed to try to bring it about. The first steps were taken in early 1991 when the Parliament of the C1.ech and Slovak Federal Republic passed a law for the restitution of confiscated private property (chiefly land). While some former landowners were delighted to receive their land back, most young people in Slovakia showed no interest in working it. The amount of land seized from individual families by the Communists had been small in the first place, and most young ' ' The literature on this subject is vast. For two co ncise a11iclcs that deal with most of this period sec Robert K. Evanson. ··Regime and Working Class in Czechoslovakia. 1948- 1%8." Soviet Studies. 37 (Nn. 2. 1985 ). 248-68; and by the same author "Political Repressi o n in Czechoslovakia. Slavonic Pi1pcrs. 28 (No. I. 1986). 1-21. 1948- 1984." Canadian �182 SLOVAKJA people have no intention of becoming smallholding • peasants 16 agam . Managers, officials, and many workers on collective and state farms , on the other hand , wish to preserve these institutions. Since collectives and state farms provide their employees with a guaranteed income, regular hours, easy work, and many opportunities for theft, the employees are loath to see such farms disappear. Such employees are among the pillars of support that Mr. Meciar can count on during elections. 17 The various churches of Slovakia, meanwhile, especially the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches, which were singled out for persecution by the Communists, have had much of their confiscated property returned . In l 991-92 the federal government returned most of the buildings that the Communists had seized from religious orders, and in the fall of l 993 Mr. Meciar's government returned most of the buildings that had been confiscated from Church Dioceses. However, most church land that was confiscated and turned into state or collective farms was not returned, largely because of the opposition of the collectives. Thus , the churches continue to rely upon government support for their existence, and '" "Czechoslovakia plans to return property ." Philadelphia 24, I 99 L ..Transfonn:icia pornohospod:irstva Inquirer. February a rcstitucie:· Pr.ic:.i (Bra ti slava). May 31. 1993; "Refonns Alter the Landscape or Czechoslovakia's Fanning ." New Y ork Times, June 4, I 99 L Milan Svec, "Czechoslovakia's Velvet Di vorce." Current Hist ory (November. I 992 ). 377; and discussions with the tw o public servants mentioned above in footnote 3. 17 "Who voted for Whom'1" (a poll conducted by the Slovak Research Office). as reported by Martin Yotruba in Slovak News. 7-9 October. 1994. p.4. The o bservatio ns abo ut state fam1s and collectives were made by the two public servants mentioned above. On many occasions when I visited Slovakia in the era of Communism. I also discussed collectives and state fanns with some of my relatives. who worked at such institutions. They detalied the many kinds of theft possible at state farms and collectives. �183 SLOVAKIA from a North American perspective, this . I8 S h Ip . IS an unhealthy relation- Meanwhile, the federal Parliament also passed the "small privatization" Act of J 990 concerning small business. This Act enabled a few thousand entrepreneurs to borrow money from banks to establish small retail businesses such as travel agencies, restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores, computer stores, and various skilled trades. These kinds of enterprises are flourishing all over Slovakia. 19 A little later the federal Parliament passed another Act that concerned itself with the privatization of large industries, the socalled "large privatization." This would involve all except the most strategic industries such as atomic energy, natural gas, transportation, the arms industry and so on . However, since the government did not wish its large industries to be bought by foreigners, and since most of the citizens of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic did not have the wealth tn purchase these industries outright, the government decided to enact a "coupon privati1.ation." By this plan , every citi1.cn over the age of 18 was entitled to buy a privatization coupon for J .000 C1.echoslovak crowns (Kcs), and then invest it in the company of his choice. The " For the story of the persecution of the churches in Slovakia sec Theodoric J. Zubek. The Church of Silence in Slovakia (Whi ting. IN: John J. Lach. 1956). and Michal Lacko. "The Forced Liquidation of the Union of Uzhorocl." Slovak Studies. I (1961). 145-85: for the story of the underground church in Slovakia under Communism sec "Secret Bishop." and for the story of the rebuilding of the Jesuit Order sec " New Oppmtunitics in Slovakia." Company: a magazine o{ the American Jc.m ils. 8 (No. 3. Spring. 1991 ). 2-5. and 9- 11. Details of the resti tution laws passed after 1990 can be found in Sharon Fisher. "Church Restitu tion Law Passed in Slovakia." RFEIRL Rese.1rch Report. November 19. 1993 . '" "Chystiime historicky ziikon: Ekonomicka refonna konecnc dostala tviir." Niirodn,i obroda. September 5. 1990. 13: Svec. op.cit.. 377 . �184 SLOVAKIA number of shares he would receive would depend upon the value of the company. This was the first step in the creation of a stock market in the Republic. The government also decided that this process would be divided into several rounds since it involved so many industries. The first round took place while the CzcchoSlovak Federation still existed ? ' The second round of the coupon privatization was supposed to take place after Slovakia became independent. However, the government of Mr. Mcciar soon discovered that most Slovaks were not investing their coupons directly into the companies for sale, but rather were selling them to investment companies controlled by foreigners . The Meciar government did not want to allow these foreign-owned holding companies to buy up so much of Slovakia's industries, and it postponed this privatization . However, the Moravcik government, which ruled Slovakia between March and October, 1994, allowed this privatization to continue . Then, when Mr. Meciar returned to power in the fall of 1994, he halted the privatization again. At the end of March, 1995 the government of Mr. Meciar decided to allow half of this coupon privatization to proceed, but he reserved the other half for potential Slovak buyers, most of whom arc in fact the managers of these industries . These managers allegedly neglected the upkeep of their factories and, therefore, their value has declined. Thus, if this privatization continues, the managers of these factories stand to make a lot of money once the value of their factories goes up again. Mr. Meciar's enemies have charged that these managers arc in league with Mr. Mcciar, that they arc all former Communists, and that they provide him with financial support. Mr. Meciar's supporters, on the other hand, charge that the proponents of the 1 " "A Divorce that Could Save the Czech Economy," The Wall Street Journal. March 11. 1991 ; Svec. op. cit.. 377 . �SLOVAKIA 185 strict coupon privatization are in leag ue with Mr. Moravcik and . financially support the opposition parties. Neutral observers have told me that both sides arc guilty of profiteering from this privatization process , and the greed and corruption involved goes a long way toward s explaining the bitterness of current Slovak politics. Also, because Mr. Meciar reduced the number of businesses to be privati1.ed in half, that is, from an estimated value of 80 billion Sk to 40 billion Sk, the 3.2 million holders of pri vatization coupons in the Slovak Republic witnessed a drop in the value of their coupons from 24,000 Sk to 12,000 Sk by March of 1995. Forty deputies of the Slovak Parliament then approached the Constitutional Court in Kosicc to protest against Law No . 340/ J 994, which had halted the coupon privatization on November 3-4, 1994, a nd the Constitutional Court decided in their favour. It then o rdere d the Slovak Parliament to re-write the law so that it would no t violate individuals' rights to private property as guaranteed by th e Slovak Constitution . Mr.Meciar's reaction was to propose that the privatization coupons be exchanged for government bo nd s, which could be redeemed for 10,000 Sk, or held for their interest, or used to purchase shares in companies. Most opposition deputies denounced this suggestion as ··theft" from the coupon-holders . 21 The average citizen. meanwhile, has had to tighten his belt several notches since the fall of Communism. While the gove rnment still controls the price o f electricity, transportation. fuel and basic " Smc. Apri l 6. 1995: "Privatizacny zakon nie je v s11lade s ustavou SR." TA SR. May 25 . 1995: "V . Meciar o novej kuponovej privatiz,icii ." Smc. June 8. 1995: "Anketa Sme:• Smc. June 8. 1995. Once again . the two public servants. cited above. ex plained the complexity of this iss ue to me. Dr. Juraj Svec. the Recto r of Comenius University in Bratislava. and a member of Parliament for the DU. confinned their analysis when he visited with me o n March 26. 1995. �186 SLOYAKJA foodstuffs, it has decided to provide smaller subsidies for these goods or services and, therefore, it has raised their prices dramatically in the last four years . Thus, while a streetcar ride used to cost a mere one crown, it now costs five ; while gasoline used to cost seven crowns a litre, it now costs nineteen. And, while a liter 22 of milk used to cost two crowns, it now costs twclvc . Wages, of state employees, on the other hand, have not kept up with the rise in prices. While members of the Slovak Parliament voted themselves hefty pay increases in the summer of 1993 (from 10,000 Sk to 25,000 Sk per month), ordinary state employees do not share in this largesse. Indeed, the wage-structure of state employees is still very Communist. Thus , a physician starting his career receives only 4,000 Sk, which is less than the wage of the average truck-driver! As a result, physicians in Slovakia recently demanded a 200% wage increase, and threatened to go on strike if they did not receive it. Teachers and professors are s1m1larly und erpaid , with the former receiving 5,000 Sk and the latter 8,600 Sk. Even though Mr. Mcciar promised during the last election campaign, among other things, to double teachers' salaries , " Interviews with the the two public servan ts cited above. plus my ow n observations on visits to Slovakia in the summers or 1990. 1991. 1992. I ()9J and 1994. In May of 1990 I visi ted Slovak ia as a delegate of the Slovak League of Ame ri ca. wh ich had come on a ••fact -finding" mission. This was an offi cial mis sio n. spo nsored by the governme nt of the Slovak Republic. It was the first official visi t of the Slovak Leag ue since 1938. whe n the first de legati on of th e League brought to Slovakia the original of the Pittsburgh Ag reeme nt. In 1993 I visited Slovakia as the newl y-elected president of the Canadian Slovak League. In this capaci ty I had official di scussio ns with Prime Minister Meciar and with Jan Findra, Chancellor to the President. My visits in I 991. 1992 and 1994 were for scholarly purposes - to participate in historical co nfere nces. �SLOVAKIA 187 he has thus far failed to do so. Indeed, Slovak schoolteachers are also threatening to go on strike over this issue. 23 Employees of the growing private enterprises, on the other hand , generally make much more than state employees. For instance, clerks in private banks earn 10,000-15,000 crowns a month. Accountants and computer programmers in private firms make up to 20,000 Sk per month. And attorneys, who were among the first to privatize in the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic , arc among the highest-paid professionals in Slovakia. Finally, growing numbers of entrepreneurs have become millionaires many times over. and some of these 'nouveau-riche' flaunt their wealth with expensive western cars, clothes, and other consumer goods. They have provoked increasing resentment among state employees, whose salaries have remained far behind the increase in the cost of consumer goods and scrviccs. 24 The price of housing has also skyrocketed . Under Communism, if one had the right connections, one could obtain a beautiful villa in the hills overlooking Bratislava and the Danube river officially for about 250,000 Kcs (and unofficially, that is, with an additional under-the-table payment of 250.000 Kcs). Now these villas cost anywhere from 2,000,000 to 20,000.000 Sk. Similarly, state and co-op apartments, which usually consist of only three rooms plus a small kitchen and tiny bath, are commanding premium prices. The co-op apartments, where one purchased the 11 Smc. April 6. 1995: " Pricskum ukaza l. zc vysc 70% lckarov jc oc ho tnych vs tupit' dn st rajku." Smc. April 26 . 1995: " Skolstvo dostane 530 mili6nov ." Smc. May 14. 1995 : "Ultimatum lckarnv na zvyscnic platov o 200% vyprsalo. strajkovat' sa asi ncbudc." Sme. May 15. 1995 : ··Pricmern,i mzda v skolstve nad'alcj ncjasna." Smc. June 8. 1995: and discussions with the two public servants cited above. " Discussions with the two public servants cited above. plus personal observations from past visits to Slovakia. �188 SLOVAKIA right to live for 30,000 Kcs under Communism , can now be bought by the renters for 50,000 Sk, and can then be re-sold for anywhere between 750,000 to 1,000,000 Sk 1 Former state-ow ned apartments, meanwhile, which until recently could not be purchased were often sub-leased to others for very hig h rents. The process of their sale will soon approximate what happened with the co-op apartments. The state, meanwhile, has lost interest in providing additional ho using for the people. Various entcrpreneurs have taken over this task, and the newly-built apartments generall y sell for around 1,000,000 Sk, which is far beyond what the average Slovak can a ffo rd. 25 Health care, meanwhile, is also in a state o f transition . Before 1989, health care was universal and free. However, one received quality care only if one was either a high functionary of the Communist Party, which had its own special clinics and hospitals , with modern , western , equipment; or, if one bribed one's physician and nurse with extra money or gifts. And, exotic western drugs were usuall y not available, except to the privileged few . Many American and Canadian Slovaks remember well the pl ain tive letters that they used to receive from their unfortunate relatives in Slovakia under Communism, and how these relatives sent prescriptions for Western-made drugs, along with the addresses of pharmacies in Switzerland , which when paid in hard 21 currencies, were willing to fill these orders for them . ' 15 Ibid. 1 Milada Vachudova and Sharon Fisher. "' Health Care Crisis : The Czech and '' Slovak Republics ." RFEIRL Research Report. October 8. 1993. 44-46: and dis c ussio ns wi th friends and relatives on visits to Slovakia in 1968. 1970. 1983 and 1988 . Our fami ly in Canada used to regularly receive requests fo r western drugs. and we filled these requests th rough a willing phannacist in Switze rland . Dr. Do broslav Valik of Bry n Mawr. Pe nnsy lvani a. to ld me in Octo ber of 1992 of having tried to establish a Dental Clinic in Bratislava right after the "'Ve lve t �SLOVAKIA 189 In an effort to save money, the Slovak government is trying to privatize parts of the health-care system, but at a very slow pace. Pharmacies have all been privatized and one can now buy whatever drugs one needs. However, the state pays only for routine drugs, and not always for the full amount. The more exotic drugs, which arc now readily available, must be paid for by the patient. Dentists are also privatizing as quickly as they can, with about one-third currently being self-s upporting and ex pensive . Most physicians, however, have not yet taken the plunge and arc unlikel y to do so. Because of their poor salaries , most M.D.'s in Slovakia cannot afford to purchase the expensive equipment necessary to open an office or clinic, and they also cannot afford private liability insurance. As long as they continue to work for state-run hospitals, they do not need liability insurance, and, thu s, they continue to be state employees . And, because they continue to be underpaid , many demand extra payments or gifts if they are to provide quality care. Meanwhile, most Slovaks oppose the privatization of their health care. They want it to remain universal and free . Thus, the Mcciar government is moving slowly and cautiously in trying to reform the health-care systcm. 27 The educational system of Slovakia is also undergo ing change. Shortly after the Communists sci1.cd power the y a bolished all religious schools and put education at the service or the state. The whole system from pre-school throug h university was then statefunded and controlled. Marxism was taught as the philosophy or Revo luti o n.. of 1989. Much to his amazement. his friends from the VPN showed him the clinic for funner me mbers of the Commu nist Pa11y in Bratislava. It had all the latest western equipment one could imagine. unlike clin ics for the general public . 17 Yaduchova & Fisher. op. cit.. 48-49. a nd discussions servants cited above . with the two public �SLOVAKIA 190 the state, and all teachers had to conform or face expulsion . Higher • education was free but operated under a quota system whereby in the process of admission children o f the working-class were favoured over those of the middle or upper classes . The latter then resorted to bribery to get their children into institutions of higher learning. Meanwhile , to their credit, the Communists also established several new universities , including the full-service Safarik University in Kos ice and the College of Transportation in Zilina, among others, to satisfy the demands of an increasingly industrialized society .2x After the downfall of Communism, state-support for cd ucation continued , but not its ideological requirements . Most universities held new elections for rectors and deans , and the professors and students threw out the communist administrators . However, because most of the communist professors have tenure, the uni versities cannot get rid of them. It will take another generation before these Marxist professors reach retirement age, and arc finally replaced by a new generation of professors . And even the new generation will bo hard to find, because the wages paid to professors arc so low. Meanwhile. the quota system that favored students of working-class origins has been replaced by a 4uota " Ladi slav G resfk. --vyc hova rokoch 1956 - 1960 ." vy,o kos ko lskej inte ligencie na Sl ove nsku v Historicky i'a.rnri.~. 31 ( No .6 . 198) ). 8') 1-91 O: A 111011 Hrnko & Jozef Zatkuliak," Uni vcrzita Ko me nskc ho na rozhranf piitiles iatyc h a sestHesialyc h rokov ." Hi.~toricky t'a .r npis. 32 (No.4. I 984 ). 59J-(1 19: pe rso na l o bservati o ns fro n1 past visi ts to Slovakia. di scussio ns w ith the two pub I ic servants cited abo ve. and di sc ussio n with Rudolf Korec. Recto r of Safarik U ni versity. May. 1990. On a visit to Slovakia in the summer of 1968 I asked one of my co usins what he was studying. He replied .. Philosophy ." When I in4uired a bo ut the kind o f philosophy . he replied "'Marxism-Lcnini sm 1" His mo ther. meanw hil e . w ho was a sc hoolteac her. used to go to church in a vill age o ut s id e o f the to wn in whi ch she lived. because if she had been seen atlendin g c hurc h services in her home to wn . she would have lost her job. �SLOVAKIA 191 based on grades . Even though Slovakia today has 14 institutions of higher learning, including brand-new universities in Trnava and Banska Bystrica, it still enrolls only 18% of high sc hool grad uatcs, which is very low when compared to Western Europe or North America, which attract between 30% and 50%. Meanwhile , the state has permitted the re-establishment of religious sc hools funded by the government. However, their number remains small beca use forty years of Communism thoroughly discredited religious education , and most employees of the Ministry of Education arc still opposed to their expansion .2'> Whether or not the government decides to in vest more m higher education remains to be seen. Recent attempts to introduce tuition to cover 20% of the cost of their education have met fierc e resistance from the students. Meanwhile, the quality of university education in Slovakia is not very high, large ly because the teaching staff was cut off from the West for over 40 years , and also because universities stressed education rather than researc h. Tha t is why all the Slovak universities arc hurridly signing agreements with universities all over the Western world that provide for scholarly exchanges o f staff and students . However. it is difficult to attract top Western scholars to teach at Slovak uni versities when they can expect salaries of only $300.00 per month . Onl y true idealists have thu s far volunteered to teac h at Slovak unive rsities under such conditions. 10 ' " Disrnssion with Rudolf Korec. Rector or Safarik University in Kosice. May. 1990: discussion wi th Dean Ladislav Pauliny. Farn lty of A11s. Co menius U ni ve rsity. May. 1994: discussio n with Juraj Svec. Rec tor of Comcni us Univers it y. March 26. 1995 : and discu ssions with the two public servants cited above. '" Discussion with Juraj Svec. op.cit.. and " Pod l'a prof. M. Urbana. dost:.\vaj11 vysokc skoly v SR iba tretinu financii v porovnani s vyspelymi st:.\tmi." TA SR. May 26. 1995. �SLOVAKIA 192 Slovak culture, meanwhile, is also undergoing a radical transformation. Under Communism all cultural activities were state-financed and controlled, and all cultural output was for the sake of promoting Marxism. A Slovak Academy of Sciences, as well as Unions of writers and creative artists were founded in the early l 950's, and they operated under five-year plans . Compliant historians, writers, and creative artists not only became state employees with respectable salaries, but they also received such perks as the use of confiscated castles for meetings and vacations, and statesubsidized clubs that served good food at very low prices . As long as they toed the Party line, their books were published or their paintings and illustrations were bought by mu se ums or publishing houses, and no-one worried, for instance, about how many copies of a book were actually sold, since the government subsidized everything. On the other hand , historians , writers and creative artists could only praise Communism and denounce Capitalism. Certain key personages in Slovak history, such as the Rev. Andrej Hlinka, founder and leader of the Slovak People's Party in the first third of the twentieth century, either became "non-persons" in official publications, or else were denounced as reactionary clcrico-fascists . The past was deliberately distorted to serve the communist futurc. Those intellectuals who refused to go along with this system were persecuted by being allowed to work only at menial labour, and those who dared to openly oppose this Marxist control over culture ended up in jail. 11 .II Julius Mesaros. " Retlexie O piitaesiatych a sestl:lcsiatych rokoch." f-lis/orick f casopis. 39 (Nos. 4-5. 199 I ). 379-88: Richard Marsina. "S lovensk.i historiografia I 945- I 990." f-li storickf brnpi5. 39 (Nos .4-5. I 99 I). 370-79: and discussions with Slovak historians and writers during my visits to Slovakia between 1968 and 1994. �SLOVAKJA 193 After the collapse of Communism, most Slovak intellectuals threw off the shackles of Marxism and started to create freely, as in other countries. Freedom, however, came with a price - declining government support. The bloated Slovak Academy of Sciences (SA V) has been reduced from 7,000 members in 1989 to 3,000 in 1995. While some people have been advocating its total abolition, others have come to its defense. In recent days , certain members of Mr. Meciar's government have even advocated that the Academy be retained in its present form , and that it continue to do basic research as before, while leaving university professors to do the teaching. This Soviet model runs contrary to western traditions, whereby university professors do both research and teaching, and government-supported research is kept to a minimum. Rectors of Slovakia's universities wish to adopt the western model and arc currently negotiating with the Meciar government to try to reach a compromise on this very touchy . \1 question. Slovakia's writers. meanwhile, have had to learn to fend for themselves. Some have become entrepreneurs in the publishing industry , which has shrunk in size and has become more selective in what it accepts for publication , based upon its market potential; others have entered politics and the diplomatic service, giving these professions an unusual (in North America, at least) intellectual llair; and a third group is now dependent upon government grants to subsidize its publications. Needless to say, the compc- 11 ·-z prejavu predsedu SA V Branislava Lichardusa na slavnostnom zhromaz- denf k 40. vyrociu SAY'". Spdvy sluvcnskcj akademic vied. 30 (No. I. 1994). 35; discussion with Dr. Juraj Svec. Rector of Comenius University. March 26. I 995; and discussion with Dr. Branislav Lichardus. president of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to the United States, April 22. 1995. in Washington. D.C. �SLOVAKIA 194 tition for such grants is very fierce, with only the best writers receiving support. No wonder that Slovak writers jealously g uard their perks and get very indignant when reminded that the government will not for long let them keep their castle at Budmerice, especially if some wealthy westerner offers to buy it for a large sum of money .D Slovak writers also face fierce competition from western writers. Bookstores are full of novels by westerners, especially Americans such as Stephen King (in translation), and only outstanding Slovak novels now have any chance of commercial success. This also applies to children's books , especially those published by the Walt Disney Corporation. Traditional Slovak children 's books, illustrated by Slovak graphic artists, now have to compete for the hearts and minds of Slovak children with Walt Disney characters such as Bambi and Mowgli speaking in Slovak! Unfortunately, Slovak writers also have to compete with the whole world of pornography, which is also a specialty of the West. Newspaper Kiosks in Bratislava feature as many naked women on magazine covers as one can see in Western Europe . This is another kind of price that one pays for freedom. 34 The Slovak media is also undergoing rapid change. The Slovak film industry (Koliba studios), which used to produce ten JJ Di sc ussions with the two public servants cited above. When I visited Slova- kia in the summer of 1992. I tonnented writer l.'.ubos Jurik with the suggestion th at he would soon lose his summer retreat at Budmcricc castle whe n some .. ri c h Arab sheik would offer $50.000,000 for it. " Jurik . who now works as the official spokesman fo r Dr. Ivan Gasparovic, the Speaker of the Slovak Parliament. became indignant at my suggestion. Meanwhile. the writer Anton Hykisch now serves as Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to Canada. 14 Personal observati ons based upo n my visits to Slovakia in 1990. 199 1, 1992. 1993 , 1994. The semi -monthl y KniinJ revue (Bratislava). now regularly features reviews of books published in the major western lan guages. �SLOVAKIA 195 fairly high-quality feature films per year with government subsidies in the past, now struggles to produce one a year. This industry, too, has to compete with the West, especially with Hollywood, and no country has yet succeeded in doing this. Thus, if the Slovak government wishes its film industry to continue to exist, it will have to continue to subsidize it. 35 Slovak television , meanwhile, is in the throes of a great controversy. Only two Slovak television stations exist at the moment , and both arc government-funded and controlled . As mentioned above, Mr. Meciar recently dismissed the Boards of Directors of both stations and replaced them with his own people, and many intellectuals have accused him of trying to control the electronic media. These intellectuals seem to have forgotten the folk-saying .. he who pays the piper, calls the tune. " The only solution that I sec to this dilemma is for Slovak entrepreneurs to establish private television stations, either in Slovakia. or, if necessary, in neighbouring Austria or the Czech lands, which will compete for the hearts and minds of their audiences. the same way that private television stations <lo in the West. Meanwhile. cheap films and programs from all over the world, either dubbed or licensed in Slovakia, now dominate the air-wavcs. 11 ' The Slovak print media, by contrast. 1s vibrant and free . Under Communism all media, whether print or electronic. had to " Ce lestine Bohlen . .. East Europe's Cultural Life. Once a Refu ge. Now Ec lipsed:· New York Ti Illes. November 13. 1990. A I. A 12: discussions public servants cited above: personal observations with the based upon my visits t o Slovakia . '" Sec above. footnote 12. for the dismissal of the directors of Slo vak radio and televisio n. Interestingly enough. on April 22. 1995. the first private cable net work began to broadcast in Slo vakia. It is called ··Vasa tcl c vfzia" (Your Televi sion ). or VTV. and at the moment covers only the Bratisl ava area. although it soon hopes to expand across the co untry. CL Slllc. April 24. 1995 . �196 SLOVAKIA parrot the Party line. In order to discover what was really gomg on, people had to learn to "read between the lines." Clever journalists often sent subtle signals to their readers by, for instance, not mentioning some prominent Party functionaries in a story, which meant that they were falling into disfavour, or else by lavishing praise upon them, which meant that they were about to be promoted . Not any more. Slovakia has about a dozen nationwide independent dailies , and only one - Slovenska republika supports the Meciar government. The rest are generally critical of the government, with Narodna obroda being the most objective , while Sme, which is edited by former members of the Public Against Violence, is the most critical. Unfortunately, the government still controls the supply and price of newsprint, and recently threatened, through taxes , to raise the price by I00% if the criticism of Mr. Meciar did not stop. Ten independent dailies responded by issuing newspapers with blank front pages, and the government backed off. Nevertheless, this game of "chicken" between Mr. Meciar, and Slovakia's independent press continues .~7 In spite of all the difficulties it faces, Slovakia is well on its way towards democratic Capitalism. Mr. Meciar's "Type 'A' ·'personality notwithstanding, Slovakia is a functioning democracy with a democratically-elected Parliament and President. And by signing a historic treaty with Hungary on March 19th. in which he promised that Slovakia would guarantee the cultural and JJ For the implications of the switd1 from a government-controlled press tu one that is free see Owen V. Johnson. '"Half Slave - Half Free: The Crisis of the Russian and East European Press," AAASS Newsletter. 33 (March. 1993 ). I. 4. The opinion regarding the objectivity of various Slovak newspapers is mine. For details regarding the recent struggle between Mr. Mcciar and the Slovak press see "Slovak Press Special," Slovak News (U . of Pittsburgh), March 3-5. 1995. For the reaction of America's most important daily to this struggle sec ··Slovakia Takes a Wrong Tum," New York Times. March 7. 1995. A 18 . �SLOVAKIA 197 linguistic rights of its Hungarian citizens, Mr. Meciar showed that he is capable of compromise, · and he can, if he is so inclined, behave as a pan-European politician. The Members of Parliament, and government Ministers, however, still have to learn the political culture of democracy--to treat each other with respect, and to serve the people, not just their own interests. This will take time, however, and we should be patient while it does. After all, some of our own politicians need to learn the same lesson .38 It should be apparent, therefore, that the most difficult part of the transition from Communism to Capitalism is in the realm of individual versus collective rights. After the overthrow of the Communists in 1989 most Slovaks were delighted to recover their individual rights, such as the freedom of expression, the freedom to travel to the West, and so on. However, with the increase in the cost of living that has occurred in the last four years, these rights have lost some of their lustre. Instead, many people are growing increasingly restive about their collective rights, that is, to free and universal health care, to free education, and to a whole host or previously free social programs which Communism inaugurated. It was Mr. Meciar's promises in the last elections to guarantee some of these social programs that, along with his strong nationalism. brought him the largest number of votes. How he will manage to retain these expensive social programs, and at the same time reform the economy and make it more market-oriented, remains to be seen. Indeed. many western countries share Mr. " For a grudging acknowledgement that Slovakia is a functioning democracy sec "2-Ycar-Old Slovakia Toddling Toward Democracy." New York Times. March I 9. 1995. AJ. For the treaty with Hungary see Sharon Fisher "Slovakia and Hungary Sign Bilateral Treaty.'' OMRI. Inc .. as cited in Slovak News. March 19. 1995. �198 SLOVAKIA Meciar's dilemma - how to promote capitalist growth while subsidizing expensive social programs . � 172 SLOVAKIA DOCUMENTATION: THE POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND CULTURAL SITUATION IN THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC (AS OF MAY, 1995) M. Mark Stolarik (Paper Presented to the Symposium " Economies in Transition: Europe to the Bering Strait, University of Montana, Missoula, May 1, 1995) 1 It is difficult to paint a clear picture of contemporary Slovakia because this newly-independent country is still undergoing rcvo1utionary changes at all levels of society due to the collapse of Communism in 1989. Since there is no model for the Slovaks ( or other states of East Central Europe) to follow in the transition from totalitarian Communism to democratic Capitalism. the current Slovak government is proceeding slowly and cautiously in this direction, amid much criticism. My observations arc based on official and unofficial visits to Slovakia in the last five years, on ' This paper was supposed to have been published as a part of the Proceedings by the organizers of the symposium. Since the Proceedings never saw the light of day. the author clecicled to publish the article in Slovakia because it an:urately reflected the political. economic and cultural situation in 1995 Slovakia. It should be react as a document of its time. �SLOVAKIA 173 my reading of a portion of the Slovak and western press, on reports issued by Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America, and on long discussions with various government officials, who have asked to remain anonymous . The political situation in the Slovak Republic is the most problematic. The Parliament (officially called the National Council of the Slovak Republic) consists of a unicameral legislature of 150 deputies who are elected to a four-year term on the basis of proportional representation. Slovakia has over 50 political parties but only seven of them (or party coalitions) are currently represented in Parliament. In order to run in an election, each new party must first obtain 10,000 certified signatures on a petition, and then must win at least 5% of the votes in order to obtain a seat. Party coalitions must win at least 10% of the vote. The seats are apportioned according to the percentage of votes won by each party .2 The elections held on September 30-October I, 1994, produced no clear winner, as is usual in a proportional representative system. Slovakia is currently governed by a coalition consisting of the left-of-center Movement for a Democratic Slovakia led by Vladimir Mcciar, which won 35% of the popular vote. or 61 scats; by the pro-communist Association of Workers of Slovakia led by Jan r.uptak. which won 7.3% of the vote and 13 scats: and the ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party led by Jan Slota. which won 5 .4% of the vote and 9 scats in Parliament. This coalition ended up with a grand total of 83 scats, although in April I 99 5 three members of the Association of Workers of Slovakia split with their leader and they reduced the coalition's voting majority 1 For more details on the electoral process in the Slovak Republic sec "The Con- stitution of the Slovak Republic." in Albert P. Blaustein & Gisbert H. Flanz. eds .. Constitution.~ of the Countries of the World (Dobbs Fe1Ty. New York: Oceana Publications. Inc .. 1993). 84-88 . �SLOVAKJA 174 to 80 seats. The oppos1t1on consists of the left-wing coalition Common Choice led by Peter Weiss, with 10.4 % of the popular vote or 17 seats; the Coalition of Magyar Parties led by Miklos Ouray, with 10.2% of the vote or 16 seats ; the right-wing Christian Democratic Movement led by Jan Carnog ursky , with I 0 . 1°4, of the votes or 16 seats; and the centrist Democratic Union of Slovakia led by Jozef Moravcik, with 8.6% of the vote or 13 seats.' Current Slovak politics is dominated by one strong leader who seems determined to undercut, by whatever means possible, other political leaders, many of whom are his former friends and associates . Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar, who is an attorney by training , and who supported the reforms of Alexander Dubcek in the 1960's, was purged from the ruling Communist Party in 1970 , and later became a corporate lawyer near the city of Trencfn . He entered politics in 1990, when the ruling Public Against Violence , the group of intellectuals which took power from the Communists in Slovakia in November of 1989, advertized for the position of Minister of the Interior of the post-communist Slovak Republic . Mr. Meciar won the competition and allegedly used his control over the Interior Ministry to both discover the past sins of his opponents, and to cover up those of his supporters . After the 3 "S lovakia's voters again turn to pugnacio us fom1er PM ." The Globe and Ma il (Toronto). October 3. 1994. The official election results were communicated to all embassies of the Sl ovak Rep ubli c by a "Tlacovy telegram MZY SR pre zahranicnu dipl omatich1 sluzbu SR." on October 3. 1994. of wh ich I have a copy. Fur an analysis of the results see Martin Yotruba's "S lovak News" (mimeogra phed). Slovak Studies Program. University of Pittsburgh. Sept. 27-Oct. 2. 1994. A much later analysis by Michael J. Kopanic. Jr.. including the creation of the coalition. appeared as "The Recent Elections in Slovakia." in Association for th e Study of NMion.1/ities: A nalysis of Current Eve nts. 6 (No.9. May. 1995). 1-3. For the split in the Association of Workers in Slovakia see Narodmi obroda, April 4. 1995 . �SLOVAKIA 175 Public Against Violence won the largest percentage of the vote in the June elections of 1990, it selected Mr. Meciar to become Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic , which at that time was still a part of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. While in this post, Mr. Meciar allegedly joined with others in slowing or manipulating the process of investigating (" lustracny proces" in Slovak) whether or not high government officials had collaborated with, or served as agents. of the dreaded communist secret p olice. He also increasi ngly argued with the presidium of the Public Against Violence, and its coalition partner, the Christian Demo4 cratic Movement, over government policy . Even though Mr. Meciar is very intelligent, 1s an excellent speaker, has a photographic memory, and radiates charisma wherever he goes, he appears to have what is colloquially known as a "type A" personality. In other words, he feels that he has to be in complete control of any situation, he seldom seeks advice, and is not very tol erant of criticism. He prefers to be surrounded by "yes ' For a brief biography or Mci'iar sec Kto Jc kto na S/ovensku. 199 P ( Ko nzo rci u111 Encyk lopcd ia: Bratislava. 199 I ). I 14- 15: The allegations ;:igainst Meci;:ir were 111adc by his political oppone nts in the Slovak Parlia111cnt's Defense and Security Co111111ittec on November 7. 1991 . cf. ··'Secret Report' Clai111s Meciar KGB Connections:· Foreign Bmadcast ln fonna tion Service (Washington. D.C.. hereafter FBIS). November 13. 1991. p.1 4: and summarized by Jan Obrman ··S lo vak Politician Accused or Secret Police Tics:· R adio Free Europe I R adio Liberty Rese.irch R eport (hereafter R FEIRL R ese.irch R eport ). Apri l 10. 1992 . Sec also ··Meciar Proposes Repeal or Screening Law:· CTK. December 21. I 99 3 . Two highly -placed public servants in the Slovak government. one or whom worked in the Office or the Pri111c Minister for both Mr. Mci': iar. and hi s predecessors. recently repeated these allegations to 111e. Since they fear for their jobs. the se public servants have asked me to keep secret their names. and the circu mstances or our 111cetings. At this time it is impossible to confinn. or disprove. these allegations since the ril es of the fonner secret police. which are in Prague. arc not open to the public . �SLOYAKJA 176 men" .5 Since the governing coalition Presidium was also composed of some very strong personalities, who opposed Mr. Meciar's attempts to become Chairman of the Public Against Violence in March of 1991, they decided to remove him from his Prime Ministerial post in April of that year. The Presidium replaced Mr. Meciar with Jan Carnogursky, an attorney and former Catholic dissident during the communist regime, who was also the founder and Chairman of the Christian Democratic Movement. 6 Mr. Meciar, and his most loyal supporters, subsequently withdrew from the Public Against Violence, which later fell apart, and they created the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia, which won the largest percentage of the votes in the June, 1992 elections . 7 In the next two years Mr. Meciar reached the height of his glory, but also suffered the humiliation of defeat. It was Mr. Meciar who in the summer of 1992, as Slovak Prime Minister, negotiated with Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus the dissolution 5 This observation is based on my reading of the Slovak press. on observing Mr. Mcciar delivering a po litical address in Nitra in August. 1993. on a pri va tc meeting that I had with him in September. 1993. and on several discussions that I had with Mr. Igor Uhrfk. The latte r is a fervent Slovak nationali st who sold his successful industrial-insurance business in New York city in 1992 and returned to Slovakia to ··help o ut" in 1993. He contributed 1,000.000 Slovak crowns to the Slovak National Pa11y. was made vicc-Chainnan of the Party. and later be came a principal advisor to the Minister of Privatization of the Slovak govern ment (as a volunteer). After Mr. Meciar's return to power in the fall of 1994. and a split in the Slovak National Party. among other things. Mr. Uhrfk became disgusted with Slovak politics and returned to the United States . " Kto je kto na S/ovensk11 1991 '.'. 190. 7 Jiri Pchc, ··s1ovak Nationalists Agitate for more Autonomy. Oppose Radical Pri vatizatio n." RFEIRL Research R eport. March 20. I 991: '"50,000 rally after Slovak leader fired," New York Times. April 24, I 99 I. A9: For more details sec Robert A. Young. The Breakup of Czechas/avakia (Kingston: Queen 's Uni vcrs ity. Insti tute of Intergovernmental Relati ons. Research Paper #3 2. 1994 ). 5. IO - J6. �SLOVAKIA 177 of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, and it was Mr. Meciar who proudly stood at the helm of the newly-independent Slovak Republic on January 1, 1993. Even though Mr. Meciar was not initially a nationalist, he shrewdly perceived that Slovak nationalism was the strongest single force in post-Communist CzechoSlovakia, and by 1992 he and his followers had firmly embraced this movement. 8 Slovak nationalism, however, was not enough to save Mr. Meciar from himself. He suffered his second major political defeat when the Slovak Parliament in February 1993 elected, not the physician Roman Kovac , the preferred candidate of Mr. Meciar's party for President of the Republic, but rather the fom1er Minister of Finance Michal Kovac .9 Much to Mr. Meciar's surprise, the latter refused to become a mere figurehead and instead took his duties as President quite seriously, to the point of attacking Mr. Meciar in the Slovak Parliament for alleged dictatorial tendencies in March of 1994. Meanwhile, Mr. Meciar had lost the confidence of several of his key allies and supporters, including Milan Knazko, his former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jozef Moravcfk, the subsequent Minister of Foreign Affairs, and two Deputy Prime Ministers, including Roman Kovac and I.:udovft Cernak, the latter '"Talks fail: Czechoslovakia dose to breakup. " Ottawa Citizen. June 9. 1992 : "Leaders start negotiations on splitting Czechoslovakia." The Globe and Mail. June 17. 1992: "Who Split Czechoslovakia'?" The New York Times. September 24. 1992. A29: "Parliament approves Czech-Slovak split." The Globe and Mail. November 26. 1992. "Fireworks. Tears and Doubt in Slovakia." The New York Times.January I. 1993. Al4: sec also Sabrina Petra Ramct. "The Reemergence of Slovakia." Nationalities Papers. 22 (No. I. Spring. 1994). I07 - 112 . '' "Havel elected first president of Czech Republic: Slovaks to hold runoff after vote rebuffs Prime Minister's candidate." The Globe and Mail. January 27. I 993 , A6: "Ex-Communist Chosen President of Slovakia." The New York Times. February 16. 1993. A7. �178 SLOVAKIA his coalition partner from the Slovak National Party! The net result was a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in Mr. Meciar and his party, his third political defeat, and his loss of power for a second time. Most of his former allies in the MOS, who abandoned him, joined Jozef Moravcfk's centrist Democratic Union of Slovakia. From March to October of 1994, a left-right coalition headed by Prime Minister Jozef Moravcfk ruled Slovakia. 111 For these reasons, ever since his election victory of 1994, and his subsequent return to power, Mr. Mcciar has tried to topple the President of the Slovak Republic and to destroy the Democratic Union of Slovakia. Between October and December of 1994 Mr. Meciar looked for coalition partners who would join him in his campaign against the President but had to settle for the two coalition partners mentioned above, who assured him of a voting majority in the Parliament, but not enough votes (90) to remove the President. Since he could not muster the votes to remove the President, he decided to try to strip him of some of his legal powers. For example, in April of 1995 Mr. Mcciar prevailed upon the Slovak Parliament to transfer from the President to the Prime Minister the right to appoint the Chief of Slovakia's Security Intelligence Service (the successor to the Secret Policc). 11 1 " .. Broad Coaliti on to govern Slovakia." The Globe and Mail. March 15 . 1994 . For the viewpoints of the two protagonists regarding the reasons for their fal - ling out see --sprava o stave Slovenskej republiky prednesena prezidentom SR Michalom Kovacom v Naroclncj radc SR dna 8.3.1994" and .. Prcjav predscdu vlady Slovcnskej republiky Yladimfra Mcciara na 27. sch6dzi NR SR di\a 11.3. 1994." published in a special issue of Republika (Bratis lava.March. I 9. 1994 ). I 5pp. For a legal interpretation of this struggle sec Spencer Zifcak ...The Battle over Presidential Power in Slovakia," Slovakia. 36 ( 1998). 70-80. For a profile of the Moravcfk government and its policies sec --cTK Profiles New Cabinet Members" in FB/S,March 17. 1994.4- 12 and --Text of Policy Statement of Slovak Government," FBIS. April 25. 1994, 16-30. 11 "Je Lexa v NR SR. v SIS. alebo v Iese?" Sme (Bratislava). April 26. 199 5. �179 SLOVAKIA Meanwhile, Mr. Meciar charged that the Democratic Union of Slovakia had not gathered the necessary 10,000 signatures before the elections of 1994. If he could prove his charge, then the DU members of Parliament would be stripped of their seats and Mr. Meciar would by default have the three-fifths of the votes necessary to remove the President. Unfortunately for Mr. Meciar, the Slovak Constitutional Court, headed by Milan Cic, the first Prime Minister of the post-communist Slovak Republic, and a former friend of Mr. Meciar, upheld the validity of the 10,000 signatures obtained by the DU before the 1994 elections. This did not stop Mr. Meciar from having his 80 supporters in Parliament pass a motion of " no confidence" in the President on May 5th, and in ordering the Slovak police to check on the validity of the l 0,000 signatures by visiting the homes of the signatories, and in the process harassing supporters of the DU. 12 Mr. Mcciar has also had his difficulties with the press . While he was out of office in 1994, the previous coalition government supported full freedom of the press , including radio and televi sion, and appointed boards of directors who were likewise inclined. Very few of these individuals were supporters of Mr. Mcciar. Once he returned to power in December of 1994 (it took him over two months to put together a coalition), Mr. Meciar began to fire the old boards of directors of radio and television (which arc still state-controlled), and to replace them \.Vith his own people. These , in turn , cancelled certain satiric television programs which had made fun of Mr. Meciar. As a result, there have been several mass-demonstrations in Bratislava against Mr. Meciar's alleged attempts to control the mass-media. Therefore, while television and radio commentators have ceased to lampoon 11 Zifcak. op.cit.. p.70; ··overovanie podpisov na harkoch DU je porusenie peticneho prava obcanov." Srne. May 23 . 1995 . �SLOVAKIA 180 Mr. Meciar, the print media, which 1s largely privatized , is still very critical of him . 13 The economic situation in Slovakia, meanwhile, is improving. Slovakia did not slide into a deep depression after it became independent, as some Western pundits had predicted . Instead, after some uncertainty in 1993, its economy grew by a spectacular 4.8% in 1994 and its budget deficit was a respectable 3% of GDP. Meanwhile, the Slovak crown , its basic unit of currency, was devalued by only 10% in 1993, it is convertible to hard currencies , and it remains stable. The rate of inflation also dropped from 25% in 1993 to around 11. 7% in 1994. Unemployment, however, remains high -14%. One of the causes of Slovak unemployment is the collapse of its heavy-arms industry, which used to serve the now-defunct Warsaw Pact and its allies world-wide. Converting this arms industry into something more useful remains a major challenge to the government of the Slovak Republic. 13 14 Re uter, December 16. 1994, as reported by Martin Votruba in Slovak News. December 16- 18. 1994; Jiri Pchc, .. Anti-Mcciar Rall y in Bratislava," R FEIRL Reports. Ibid., December 8- 11. In a TA SR report of May 12. 1995. Mr. Mcciar was quoted as saying that the press is free in Slovakia... but all newspapers should admit who owns them. and who pays them." impl ying that the print press in Slovakia is large ly financed by fore igners who arc hosti le to the current governme nt. The CTK on the same date quoted Juraj Veres. editor of N,irod n;i obroda (Bratislava). as agree ing that the Slovak press was still free . but th at ··the government is trying to gain contro l over the dailies:· However. he added th at lately "the go vernment has been backing down ." For Mr. Mci:iar's earlier problems with the press sec Jan Obnuan ...The Slovak Government vers us the Media." RFEIRL Research R eport. February 5. 1993 . 14 For an example of negative reporting o n Slovakia's eco nomic future sec Step- hen Enge lberg, "New Nation. Imperiled Economy." New York Time.~. February 12. 1993. DI; for an admission that the Slovak economy is doing surprisingly well see "How the Slovaks Have Taken Flight." The Globe nncl Mail. December 5, 1994. A JO (reprinted from the Wall Street Jo urnal); and --standard and Poors o Slovensk u." Sme. April 7. 199 5. �181 SLOVAKJA Indeed, converting the whole system from a command economy to a form of private enterprise remain s the major problem for the Slovak government. U ndcr Communism the state nationalized all the industry and the bulk of the land, it controlled all the means of production, it regulated prices, and subsidized housing , transportation and food, and created a complete welfare state with free education from pre-school through university, and free universal health-care. Unfortunately, the state enacted all these changes without the consent of the people, it enforced them through the use of police terror, and it discriminated in favour of members of the Communist Party and children of the workingclass when dispensing economic and cultural benefits. 15 Now that the Communists are no longer in charge, the various governments of Slovakia have tried to transform the economy into a form of private enterprise, as called for in the Constitution of the Slovak Republic. Since no real models exist on how to do this , n umcrous laws and regulations have been passed to try to bring it about. The first steps were taken in early 1991 when the Parliament of the C1.ech and Slovak Federal Republic passed a law for the restitution of confiscated private property (chiefly land). While some former landowners were delighted to receive their land back, most young people in Slovakia showed no interest in working it. The amount of land seized from individual families by the Communists had been small in the first place, and most young ' ' The literature on this subject is vast. For two co ncise a11iclcs that deal with most of this period sec Robert K. Evanson. ··Regime and Working Class in Czechoslovakia. 1948- 1%8." Soviet Studies. 37 (Nn. 2. 1985 ). 248-68; and by the same author "Political Repressi o n in Czechoslovakia. Slavonic Pi1pcrs. 28 (No. I. 1986). 1-21. 1948- 1984." Canadian �182 SLOVAKJA people have no intention of becoming smallholding • peasants 16 agam . Managers, officials, and many workers on collective and state farms , on the other hand , wish to preserve these institutions. Since collectives and state farms provide their employees with a guaranteed income, regular hours, easy work, and many opportunities for theft, the employees are loath to see such farms disappear. Such employees are among the pillars of support that Mr. Meciar can count on during elections. 17 The various churches of Slovakia, meanwhile, especially the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches, which were singled out for persecution by the Communists, have had much of their confiscated property returned . In l 991-92 the federal government returned most of the buildings that the Communists had seized from religious orders, and in the fall of l 993 Mr. Meciar's government returned most of the buildings that had been confiscated from Church Dioceses. However, most church land that was confiscated and turned into state or collective farms was not returned, largely because of the opposition of the collectives. Thus , the churches continue to rely upon government support for their existence, and '" "Czechoslovakia plans to return property ." Philadelphia 24, I 99 L ..Transfonn:icia pornohospod:irstva Inquirer. February a rcstitucie:· Pr.ic:.i (Bra ti slava). May 31. 1993; "Refonns Alter the Landscape or Czechoslovakia's Fanning ." New Y ork Times, June 4, I 99 L Milan Svec, "Czechoslovakia's Velvet Di vorce." Current Hist ory (November. I 992 ). 377; and discussions with the tw o public servants mentioned above in footnote 3. 17 "Who voted for Whom'1" (a poll conducted by the Slovak Research Office). as reported by Martin Yotruba in Slovak News. 7-9 October. 1994. p.4. The o bservatio ns abo ut state fam1s and collectives were made by the two public servants mentioned above. On many occasions when I visited Slovakia in the era of Communism. I also discussed collectives and state fanns with some of my relatives. who worked at such institutions. They detalied the many kinds of theft possible at state farms and collectives. �183 SLOVAKIA from a North American perspective, this . I8 S h Ip . IS an unhealthy relation- Meanwhile, the federal Parliament also passed the "small privatization" Act of J 990 concerning small business. This Act enabled a few thousand entrepreneurs to borrow money from banks to establish small retail businesses such as travel agencies, restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores, computer stores, and various skilled trades. These kinds of enterprises are flourishing all over Slovakia. 19 A little later the federal Parliament passed another Act that concerned itself with the privatization of large industries, the socalled "large privatization." This would involve all except the most strategic industries such as atomic energy, natural gas, transportation, the arms industry and so on . However, since the government did not wish its large industries to be bought by foreigners, and since most of the citizens of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic did not have the wealth tn purchase these industries outright, the government decided to enact a "coupon privati1.ation." By this plan , every citi1.cn over the age of 18 was entitled to buy a privatization coupon for J .000 C1.echoslovak crowns (Kcs), and then invest it in the company of his choice. The " For the story of the persecution of the churches in Slovakia sec Theodoric J. Zubek. The Church of Silence in Slovakia (Whi ting. IN: John J. Lach. 1956). and Michal Lacko. "The Forced Liquidation of the Union of Uzhorocl." Slovak Studies. I (1961). 145-85: for the story of the underground church in Slovakia under Communism sec "Secret Bishop." and for the story of the rebuilding of the Jesuit Order sec " New Oppmtunitics in Slovakia." Company: a magazine o{ the American Jc.m ils. 8 (No. 3. Spring. 1991 ). 2-5. and 9- 11. Details of the resti tution laws passed after 1990 can be found in Sharon Fisher. "Church Restitu tion Law Passed in Slovakia." RFEIRL Rese.1rch Report. November 19. 1993 . '" "Chystiime historicky ziikon: Ekonomicka refonna konecnc dostala tviir." Niirodn,i obroda. September 5. 1990. 13: Svec. op.cit.. 377 . �184 SLOVAKIA number of shares he would receive would depend upon the value of the company. This was the first step in the creation of a stock market in the Republic. The government also decided that this process would be divided into several rounds since it involved so many industries. The first round took place while the CzcchoSlovak Federation still existed ? ' The second round of the coupon privatization was supposed to take place after Slovakia became independent. However, the government of Mr. Mcciar soon discovered that most Slovaks were not investing their coupons directly into the companies for sale, but rather were selling them to investment companies controlled by foreigners . The Meciar government did not want to allow these foreign-owned holding companies to buy up so much of Slovakia's industries, and it postponed this privatization . However, the Moravcik government, which ruled Slovakia between March and October, 1994, allowed this privatization to continue . Then, when Mr. Meciar returned to power in the fall of 1994, he halted the privatization again. At the end of March, 1995 the government of Mr. Meciar decided to allow half of this coupon privatization to proceed, but he reserved the other half for potential Slovak buyers, most of whom arc in fact the managers of these industries . These managers allegedly neglected the upkeep of their factories and, therefore, their value has declined. Thus, if this privatization continues, the managers of these factories stand to make a lot of money once the value of their factories goes up again. Mr. Meciar's enemies have charged that these managers arc in league with Mr. Mcciar, that they arc all former Communists, and that they provide him with financial support. Mr. Meciar's supporters, on the other hand, charge that the proponents of the 1 " "A Divorce that Could Save the Czech Economy," The Wall Street Journal. March 11. 1991 ; Svec. op. cit.. 377 . �SLOVAKIA 185 strict coupon privatization are in leag ue with Mr. Moravcik and . financially support the opposition parties. Neutral observers have told me that both sides arc guilty of profiteering from this privatization process , and the greed and corruption involved goes a long way toward s explaining the bitterness of current Slovak politics. Also, because Mr. Meciar reduced the number of businesses to be privati1.ed in half, that is, from an estimated value of 80 billion Sk to 40 billion Sk, the 3.2 million holders of pri vatization coupons in the Slovak Republic witnessed a drop in the value of their coupons from 24,000 Sk to 12,000 Sk by March of 1995. Forty deputies of the Slovak Parliament then approached the Constitutional Court in Kosicc to protest against Law No . 340/ J 994, which had halted the coupon privatization on November 3-4, 1994, a nd the Constitutional Court decided in their favour. It then o rdere d the Slovak Parliament to re-write the law so that it would no t violate individuals' rights to private property as guaranteed by th e Slovak Constitution . Mr.Meciar's reaction was to propose that the privatization coupons be exchanged for government bo nd s, which could be redeemed for 10,000 Sk, or held for their interest, or used to purchase shares in companies. Most opposition deputies denounced this suggestion as ··theft" from the coupon-holders . 21 The average citizen. meanwhile, has had to tighten his belt several notches since the fall of Communism. While the gove rnment still controls the price o f electricity, transportation. fuel and basic " Smc. Apri l 6. 1995: "Privatizacny zakon nie je v s11lade s ustavou SR." TA SR. May 25 . 1995: "V . Meciar o novej kuponovej privatiz,icii ." Smc. June 8. 1995: "Anketa Sme:• Smc. June 8. 1995. Once again . the two public servants. cited above. ex plained the complexity of this iss ue to me. Dr. Juraj Svec. the Recto r of Comenius University in Bratislava. and a member of Parliament for the DU. confinned their analysis when he visited with me o n March 26. 1995. �186 SLOYAKJA foodstuffs, it has decided to provide smaller subsidies for these goods or services and, therefore, it has raised their prices dramatically in the last four years . Thus, while a streetcar ride used to cost a mere one crown, it now costs five ; while gasoline used to cost seven crowns a litre, it now costs nineteen. And, while a liter 22 of milk used to cost two crowns, it now costs twclvc . Wages, of state employees, on the other hand, have not kept up with the rise in prices. While members of the Slovak Parliament voted themselves hefty pay increases in the summer of 1993 (from 10,000 Sk to 25,000 Sk per month), ordinary state employees do not share in this largesse. Indeed, the wage-structure of state employees is still very Communist. Thus , a physician starting his career receives only 4,000 Sk, which is less than the wage of the average truck-driver! As a result, physicians in Slovakia recently demanded a 200% wage increase, and threatened to go on strike if they did not receive it. Teachers and professors are s1m1larly und erpaid , with the former receiving 5,000 Sk and the latter 8,600 Sk. Even though Mr. Mcciar promised during the last election campaign, among other things, to double teachers' salaries , " Interviews with the the two public servan ts cited above. plus my ow n observations on visits to Slovakia in the summers or 1990. 1991. 1992. I ()9J and 1994. In May of 1990 I visi ted Slovak ia as a delegate of the Slovak League of Ame ri ca. wh ich had come on a ••fact -finding" mission. This was an offi cial mis sio n. spo nsored by the governme nt of the Slovak Republic. It was the first official visi t of the Slovak Leag ue since 1938. whe n the first de legati on of th e League brought to Slovakia the original of the Pittsburgh Ag reeme nt. In 1993 I visited Slovakia as the newl y-elected president of the Canadian Slovak League. In this capaci ty I had official di scussio ns with Prime Minister Meciar and with Jan Findra, Chancellor to the President. My visits in I 991. 1992 and 1994 were for scholarly purposes - to participate in historical co nfere nces. �SLOVAKIA 187 he has thus far failed to do so. Indeed, Slovak schoolteachers are also threatening to go on strike over this issue. 23 Employees of the growing private enterprises, on the other hand , generally make much more than state employees. For instance, clerks in private banks earn 10,000-15,000 crowns a month. Accountants and computer programmers in private firms make up to 20,000 Sk per month. And attorneys, who were among the first to privatize in the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic , arc among the highest-paid professionals in Slovakia. Finally, growing numbers of entrepreneurs have become millionaires many times over. and some of these 'nouveau-riche' flaunt their wealth with expensive western cars, clothes, and other consumer goods. They have provoked increasing resentment among state employees, whose salaries have remained far behind the increase in the cost of consumer goods and scrviccs. 24 The price of housing has also skyrocketed . Under Communism, if one had the right connections, one could obtain a beautiful villa in the hills overlooking Bratislava and the Danube river officially for about 250,000 Kcs (and unofficially, that is, with an additional under-the-table payment of 250.000 Kcs). Now these villas cost anywhere from 2,000,000 to 20,000.000 Sk. Similarly, state and co-op apartments, which usually consist of only three rooms plus a small kitchen and tiny bath, are commanding premium prices. The co-op apartments, where one purchased the 11 Smc. April 6. 1995: " Pricskum ukaza l. zc vysc 70% lckarov jc oc ho tnych vs tupit' dn st rajku." Smc. April 26 . 1995: " Skolstvo dostane 530 mili6nov ." Smc. May 14. 1995 : "Ultimatum lckarnv na zvyscnic platov o 200% vyprsalo. strajkovat' sa asi ncbudc." Sme. May 15. 1995 : ··Pricmern,i mzda v skolstve nad'alcj ncjasna." Smc. June 8. 1995: and discussions with the two public servants cited above. " Discussions with the two public servants cited above. plus personal observations from past visits to Slovakia. �188 SLOVAKIA right to live for 30,000 Kcs under Communism , can now be bought by the renters for 50,000 Sk, and can then be re-sold for anywhere between 750,000 to 1,000,000 Sk 1 Former state-ow ned apartments, meanwhile, which until recently could not be purchased were often sub-leased to others for very hig h rents. The process of their sale will soon approximate what happened with the co-op apartments. The state, meanwhile, has lost interest in providing additional ho using for the people. Various entcrpreneurs have taken over this task, and the newly-built apartments generall y sell for around 1,000,000 Sk, which is far beyond what the average Slovak can a ffo rd. 25 Health care, meanwhile, is also in a state o f transition . Before 1989, health care was universal and free. However, one received quality care only if one was either a high functionary of the Communist Party, which had its own special clinics and hospitals , with modern , western , equipment; or, if one bribed one's physician and nurse with extra money or gifts. And, exotic western drugs were usuall y not available, except to the privileged few . Many American and Canadian Slovaks remember well the pl ain tive letters that they used to receive from their unfortunate relatives in Slovakia under Communism, and how these relatives sent prescriptions for Western-made drugs, along with the addresses of pharmacies in Switzerland , which when paid in hard 21 currencies, were willing to fill these orders for them . ' 15 Ibid. 1 Milada Vachudova and Sharon Fisher. "' Health Care Crisis : The Czech and '' Slovak Republics ." RFEIRL Research Report. October 8. 1993. 44-46: and dis c ussio ns wi th friends and relatives on visits to Slovakia in 1968. 1970. 1983 and 1988 . Our fami ly in Canada used to regularly receive requests fo r western drugs. and we filled these requests th rough a willing phannacist in Switze rland . Dr. Do broslav Valik of Bry n Mawr. Pe nnsy lvani a. to ld me in Octo ber of 1992 of having tried to establish a Dental Clinic in Bratislava right after the "'Ve lve t �SLOVAKIA 189 In an effort to save money, the Slovak government is trying to privatize parts of the health-care system, but at a very slow pace. Pharmacies have all been privatized and one can now buy whatever drugs one needs. However, the state pays only for routine drugs, and not always for the full amount. The more exotic drugs, which arc now readily available, must be paid for by the patient. Dentists are also privatizing as quickly as they can, with about one-third currently being self-s upporting and ex pensive . Most physicians, however, have not yet taken the plunge and arc unlikel y to do so. Because of their poor salaries , most M.D.'s in Slovakia cannot afford to purchase the expensive equipment necessary to open an office or clinic, and they also cannot afford private liability insurance. As long as they continue to work for state-run hospitals, they do not need liability insurance, and, thu s, they continue to be state employees . And, because they continue to be underpaid , many demand extra payments or gifts if they are to provide quality care. Meanwhile, most Slovaks oppose the privatization of their health care. They want it to remain universal and free . Thus, the Mcciar government is moving slowly and cautiously in trying to reform the health-care systcm. 27 The educational system of Slovakia is also undergo ing change. Shortly after the Communists sci1.cd power the y a bolished all religious schools and put education at the service or the state. The whole system from pre-school throug h university was then statefunded and controlled. Marxism was taught as the philosophy or Revo luti o n.. of 1989. Much to his amazement. his friends from the VPN showed him the clinic for funner me mbers of the Commu nist Pa11y in Bratislava. It had all the latest western equipment one could imagine. unlike clin ics for the general public . 17 Yaduchova & Fisher. op. cit.. 48-49. a nd discussions servants cited above . with the two public �SLOVAKIA 190 the state, and all teachers had to conform or face expulsion . Higher • education was free but operated under a quota system whereby in the process of admission children o f the working-class were favoured over those of the middle or upper classes . The latter then resorted to bribery to get their children into institutions of higher learning. Meanwhile , to their credit, the Communists also established several new universities , including the full-service Safarik University in Kos ice and the College of Transportation in Zilina, among others, to satisfy the demands of an increasingly industrialized society .2x After the downfall of Communism, state-support for cd ucation continued , but not its ideological requirements . Most universities held new elections for rectors and deans , and the professors and students threw out the communist administrators . However, because most of the communist professors have tenure, the uni versities cannot get rid of them. It will take another generation before these Marxist professors reach retirement age, and arc finally replaced by a new generation of professors . And even the new generation will bo hard to find, because the wages paid to professors arc so low. Meanwhile. the quota system that favored students of working-class origins has been replaced by a 4uota " Ladi slav G resfk. --vyc hova rokoch 1956 - 1960 ." vy,o kos ko lskej inte ligencie na Sl ove nsku v Historicky i'a.rnri.~. 31 ( No .6 . 198) ). 8') 1-91 O: A 111011 Hrnko & Jozef Zatkuliak," Uni vcrzita Ko me nskc ho na rozhranf piitiles iatyc h a sestHesialyc h rokov ." Hi.~toricky t'a .r npis. 32 (No.4. I 984 ). 59J-(1 19: pe rso na l o bservati o ns fro n1 past visi ts to Slovakia. di scussio ns w ith the two pub I ic servants cited abo ve. and di sc ussio n with Rudolf Korec. Recto r of Safarik U ni versity. May. 1990. On a visit to Slovakia in the summer of 1968 I asked one of my co usins what he was studying. He replied .. Philosophy ." When I in4uired a bo ut the kind o f philosophy . he replied "'Marxism-Lcnini sm 1" His mo ther. meanw hil e . w ho was a sc hoolteac her. used to go to church in a vill age o ut s id e o f the to wn in whi ch she lived. because if she had been seen atlendin g c hurc h services in her home to wn . she would have lost her job. �SLOVAKIA 191 based on grades . Even though Slovakia today has 14 institutions of higher learning, including brand-new universities in Trnava and Banska Bystrica, it still enrolls only 18% of high sc hool grad uatcs, which is very low when compared to Western Europe or North America, which attract between 30% and 50%. Meanwhile , the state has permitted the re-establishment of religious sc hools funded by the government. However, their number remains small beca use forty years of Communism thoroughly discredited religious education , and most employees of the Ministry of Education arc still opposed to their expansion .2'> Whether or not the government decides to in vest more m higher education remains to be seen. Recent attempts to introduce tuition to cover 20% of the cost of their education have met fierc e resistance from the students. Meanwhile, the quality of university education in Slovakia is not very high, large ly because the teaching staff was cut off from the West for over 40 years , and also because universities stressed education rather than researc h. Tha t is why all the Slovak universities arc hurridly signing agreements with universities all over the Western world that provide for scholarly exchanges o f staff and students . However. it is difficult to attract top Western scholars to teach at Slovak uni versities when they can expect salaries of only $300.00 per month . Onl y true idealists have thu s far volunteered to teac h at Slovak unive rsities under such conditions. 10 ' " Disrnssion with Rudolf Korec. Rector or Safarik University in Kosice. May. 1990: discussion wi th Dean Ladislav Pauliny. Farn lty of A11s. Co menius U ni ve rsity. May. 1994: discussio n with Juraj Svec. Rec tor of Comcni us Univers it y. March 26. 1995 : and discu ssions with the two public servants cited above. '" Discussion with Juraj Svec. op.cit.. and " Pod l'a prof. M. Urbana. dost:.\vaj11 vysokc skoly v SR iba tretinu financii v porovnani s vyspelymi st:.\tmi." TA SR. May 26. 1995. �SLOVAKIA 192 Slovak culture, meanwhile, is also undergoing a radical transformation. Under Communism all cultural activities were state-financed and controlled, and all cultural output was for the sake of promoting Marxism. A Slovak Academy of Sciences, as well as Unions of writers and creative artists were founded in the early l 950's, and they operated under five-year plans . Compliant historians, writers, and creative artists not only became state employees with respectable salaries, but they also received such perks as the use of confiscated castles for meetings and vacations, and statesubsidized clubs that served good food at very low prices . As long as they toed the Party line, their books were published or their paintings and illustrations were bought by mu se ums or publishing houses, and no-one worried, for instance, about how many copies of a book were actually sold, since the government subsidized everything. On the other hand , historians , writers and creative artists could only praise Communism and denounce Capitalism. Certain key personages in Slovak history, such as the Rev. Andrej Hlinka, founder and leader of the Slovak People's Party in the first third of the twentieth century, either became "non-persons" in official publications, or else were denounced as reactionary clcrico-fascists . The past was deliberately distorted to serve the communist futurc. Those intellectuals who refused to go along with this system were persecuted by being allowed to work only at menial labour, and those who dared to openly oppose this Marxist control over culture ended up in jail. 11 .II Julius Mesaros. " Retlexie O piitaesiatych a sestl:lcsiatych rokoch." f-lis/orick f casopis. 39 (Nos. 4-5. 199 I ). 379-88: Richard Marsina. "S lovensk.i historiografia I 945- I 990." f-li storickf brnpi5. 39 (Nos .4-5. I 99 I). 370-79: and discussions with Slovak historians and writers during my visits to Slovakia between 1968 and 1994. �SLOVAKJA 193 After the collapse of Communism, most Slovak intellectuals threw off the shackles of Marxism and started to create freely, as in other countries. Freedom, however, came with a price - declining government support. The bloated Slovak Academy of Sciences (SA V) has been reduced from 7,000 members in 1989 to 3,000 in 1995. While some people have been advocating its total abolition, others have come to its defense. In recent days , certain members of Mr. Meciar's government have even advocated that the Academy be retained in its present form , and that it continue to do basic research as before, while leaving university professors to do the teaching. This Soviet model runs contrary to western traditions, whereby university professors do both research and teaching, and government-supported research is kept to a minimum. Rectors of Slovakia's universities wish to adopt the western model and arc currently negotiating with the Meciar government to try to reach a compromise on this very touchy . \1 question. Slovakia's writers. meanwhile, have had to learn to fend for themselves. Some have become entrepreneurs in the publishing industry , which has shrunk in size and has become more selective in what it accepts for publication , based upon its market potential; others have entered politics and the diplomatic service, giving these professions an unusual (in North America, at least) intellectual llair; and a third group is now dependent upon government grants to subsidize its publications. Needless to say, the compc- 11 ·-z prejavu predsedu SA V Branislava Lichardusa na slavnostnom zhromaz- denf k 40. vyrociu SAY'". Spdvy sluvcnskcj akademic vied. 30 (No. I. 1994). 35; discussion with Dr. Juraj Svec. Rector of Comenius University. March 26. I 995; and discussion with Dr. Branislav Lichardus. president of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to the United States, April 22. 1995. in Washington. D.C. �SLOVAKIA 194 tition for such grants is very fierce, with only the best writers receiving support. No wonder that Slovak writers jealously g uard their perks and get very indignant when reminded that the government will not for long let them keep their castle at Budmerice, especially if some wealthy westerner offers to buy it for a large sum of money .D Slovak writers also face fierce competition from western writers. Bookstores are full of novels by westerners, especially Americans such as Stephen King (in translation), and only outstanding Slovak novels now have any chance of commercial success. This also applies to children's books , especially those published by the Walt Disney Corporation. Traditional Slovak children 's books, illustrated by Slovak graphic artists, now have to compete for the hearts and minds of Slovak children with Walt Disney characters such as Bambi and Mowgli speaking in Slovak! Unfortunately, Slovak writers also have to compete with the whole world of pornography, which is also a specialty of the West. Newspaper Kiosks in Bratislava feature as many naked women on magazine covers as one can see in Western Europe . This is another kind of price that one pays for freedom. 34 The Slovak media is also undergoing rapid change. The Slovak film industry (Koliba studios), which used to produce ten JJ Di sc ussions with the two public servants cited above. When I visited Slova- kia in the summer of 1992. I tonnented writer l.'.ubos Jurik with the suggestion th at he would soon lose his summer retreat at Budmcricc castle whe n some .. ri c h Arab sheik would offer $50.000,000 for it. " Jurik . who now works as the official spokesman fo r Dr. Ivan Gasparovic, the Speaker of the Slovak Parliament. became indignant at my suggestion. Meanwhile. the writer Anton Hykisch now serves as Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to Canada. 14 Personal observati ons based upo n my visits to Slovakia in 1990. 199 1, 1992. 1993 , 1994. The semi -monthl y KniinJ revue (Bratislava). now regularly features reviews of books published in the major western lan guages. �SLOVAKIA 195 fairly high-quality feature films per year with government subsidies in the past, now struggles to produce one a year. This industry, too, has to compete with the West, especially with Hollywood, and no country has yet succeeded in doing this. Thus, if the Slovak government wishes its film industry to continue to exist, it will have to continue to subsidize it. 35 Slovak television , meanwhile, is in the throes of a great controversy. Only two Slovak television stations exist at the moment , and both arc government-funded and controlled . As mentioned above, Mr. Meciar recently dismissed the Boards of Directors of both stations and replaced them with his own people, and many intellectuals have accused him of trying to control the electronic media. These intellectuals seem to have forgotten the folk-saying .. he who pays the piper, calls the tune. " The only solution that I sec to this dilemma is for Slovak entrepreneurs to establish private television stations, either in Slovakia. or, if necessary, in neighbouring Austria or the Czech lands, which will compete for the hearts and minds of their audiences. the same way that private television stations <lo in the West. Meanwhile. cheap films and programs from all over the world, either dubbed or licensed in Slovakia, now dominate the air-wavcs. 11 ' The Slovak print media, by contrast. 1s vibrant and free . Under Communism all media, whether print or electronic. had to " Ce lestine Bohlen . .. East Europe's Cultural Life. Once a Refu ge. Now Ec lipsed:· New York Ti Illes. November 13. 1990. A I. A 12: discussions public servants cited above: personal observations with the based upon my visits t o Slovakia . '" Sec above. footnote 12. for the dismissal of the directors of Slo vak radio and televisio n. Interestingly enough. on April 22. 1995. the first private cable net work began to broadcast in Slo vakia. It is called ··Vasa tcl c vfzia" (Your Televi sion ). or VTV. and at the moment covers only the Bratisl ava area. although it soon hopes to expand across the co untry. CL Slllc. April 24. 1995 . �196 SLOVAKIA parrot the Party line. In order to discover what was really gomg on, people had to learn to "read between the lines." Clever journalists often sent subtle signals to their readers by, for instance, not mentioning some prominent Party functionaries in a story, which meant that they were falling into disfavour, or else by lavishing praise upon them, which meant that they were about to be promoted . Not any more. Slovakia has about a dozen nationwide independent dailies , and only one - Slovenska republika supports the Meciar government. The rest are generally critical of the government, with Narodna obroda being the most objective , while Sme, which is edited by former members of the Public Against Violence, is the most critical. Unfortunately, the government still controls the supply and price of newsprint, and recently threatened, through taxes , to raise the price by I00% if the criticism of Mr. Meciar did not stop. Ten independent dailies responded by issuing newspapers with blank front pages, and the government backed off. Nevertheless, this game of "chicken" between Mr. Meciar, and Slovakia's independent press continues .~7 In spite of all the difficulties it faces, Slovakia is well on its way towards democratic Capitalism. Mr. Meciar's "Type 'A' ·'personality notwithstanding, Slovakia is a functioning democracy with a democratically-elected Parliament and President. And by signing a historic treaty with Hungary on March 19th. in which he promised that Slovakia would guarantee the cultural and JJ For the implications of the switd1 from a government-controlled press tu one that is free see Owen V. Johnson. '"Half Slave - Half Free: The Crisis of the Russian and East European Press," AAASS Newsletter. 33 (March. 1993 ). I. 4. The opinion regarding the objectivity of various Slovak newspapers is mine. For details regarding the recent struggle between Mr. Mcciar and the Slovak press see "Slovak Press Special," Slovak News (U . of Pittsburgh), March 3-5. 1995. For the reaction of America's most important daily to this struggle sec ··Slovakia Takes a Wrong Tum," New York Times. March 7. 1995. A 18 . �SLOVAKIA 197 linguistic rights of its Hungarian citizens, Mr. Meciar showed that he is capable of compromise, · and he can, if he is so inclined, behave as a pan-European politician. The Members of Parliament, and government Ministers, however, still have to learn the political culture of democracy--to treat each other with respect, and to serve the people, not just their own interests. This will take time, however, and we should be patient while it does. After all, some of our own politicians need to learn the same lesson .38 It should be apparent, therefore, that the most difficult part of the transition from Communism to Capitalism is in the realm of individual versus collective rights. After the overthrow of the Communists in 1989 most Slovaks were delighted to recover their individual rights, such as the freedom of expression, the freedom to travel to the West, and so on. However, with the increase in the cost of living that has occurred in the last four years, these rights have lost some of their lustre. Instead, many people are growing increasingly restive about their collective rights, that is, to free and universal health care, to free education, and to a whole host or previously free social programs which Communism inaugurated. It was Mr. Meciar's promises in the last elections to guarantee some of these social programs that, along with his strong nationalism. brought him the largest number of votes. How he will manage to retain these expensive social programs, and at the same time reform the economy and make it more market-oriented, remains to be seen. Indeed. many western countries share Mr. " For a grudging acknowledgement that Slovakia is a functioning democracy sec "2-Ycar-Old Slovakia Toddling Toward Democracy." New York Times. March I 9. 1995. AJ. For the treaty with Hungary see Sharon Fisher "Slovakia and Hungary Sign Bilateral Treaty.'' OMRI. Inc .. as cited in Slovak News. March 19. 1995. �198 SLOVAKIA Meciar's dilemma - how to promote capitalist growth while subsidizing expensive social programs . � 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 2003, Vol. 37 Description An account of the resource Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 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 172 SLOVAKIA DOCUMENTATION: THE POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND CULTURAL SITUATION IN THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC (AS OF MAY, 1995) M. Mark Stolarik (Paper Presented to the Symposium " Economies in Transition: Europe to the Bering Strait, University of Montana, Missoula, May 1, 1995) 1 It is difficult to paint a clear picture of contemporary Slovakia because this newly-independent country is still undergoing rcvo1utionary changes at all levels of society due to the collapse of Communism in 1989. Since there is no model for the Slovaks ( or other states of East Central Europe) to follow in the transition from totalitarian Communism to democratic Capitalism. the current Slovak government is proceeding slowly and cautiously in this direction, amid much criticism. My observations arc based on official and unofficial visits to Slovakia in the last five years, on ' This paper was supposed to have been published as a part of the Proceedings by the organizers of the symposium. Since the Proceedings never saw the light of day. the author clecicled to publish the article in Slovakia because it an:urately reflected the political. economic and cultural situation in 1995 Slovakia. It should be react as a document of its time. SLOVAKIA 173 my reading of a portion of the Slovak and western press, on reports issued by Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America, and on long discussions with various government officials, who have asked to remain anonymous . The political situation in the Slovak Republic is the most problematic. The Parliament (officially called the National Council of the Slovak Republic) consists of a unicameral legislature of 150 deputies who are elected to a four-year term on the basis of proportional representation. Slovakia has over 50 political parties but only seven of them (or party coalitions) are currently represented in Parliament. In order to run in an election, each new party must first obtain 10,000 certified signatures on a petition, and then must win at least 5% of the votes in order to obtain a seat. Party coalitions must win at least 10% of the vote. The seats are apportioned according to the percentage of votes won by each party .2 The elections held on September 30-October I, 1994, produced no clear winner, as is usual in a proportional representative system. Slovakia is currently governed by a coalition consisting of the left-of-center Movement for a Democratic Slovakia led by Vladimir Mcciar, which won 35% of the popular vote. or 61 scats; by the pro-communist Association of Workers of Slovakia led by Jan r.uptak. which won 7.3% of the vote and 13 scats: and the ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party led by Jan Slota. which won 5 .4% of the vote and 9 scats in Parliament. This coalition ended up with a grand total of 83 scats, although in April I 99 5 three members of the Association of Workers of Slovakia split with their leader and they reduced the coalition's voting majority 1 For more details on the electoral process in the Slovak Republic sec "The Con- stitution of the Slovak Republic." in Albert P. Blaustein & Gisbert H. Flanz. eds .. Constitution.~ of the Countries of the World (Dobbs Fe1Ty. New York: Oceana Publications. Inc .. 1993). 84-88 . SLOVAKJA 174 to 80 seats. The oppos1t1on consists of the left-wing coalition Common Choice led by Peter Weiss, with 10.4 % of the popular vote or 17 seats; the Coalition of Magyar Parties led by Miklos Ouray, with 10.2% of the vote or 16 seats ; the right-wing Christian Democratic Movement led by Jan Carnog ursky , with I 0 . 1°4, of the votes or 16 seats; and the centrist Democratic Union of Slovakia led by Jozef Moravcik, with 8.6% of the vote or 13 seats.' Current Slovak politics is dominated by one strong leader who seems determined to undercut, by whatever means possible, other political leaders, many of whom are his former friends and associates . Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar, who is an attorney by training , and who supported the reforms of Alexander Dubcek in the 1960's, was purged from the ruling Communist Party in 1970 , and later became a corporate lawyer near the city of Trencfn . He entered politics in 1990, when the ruling Public Against Violence , the group of intellectuals which took power from the Communists in Slovakia in November of 1989, advertized for the position of Minister of the Interior of the post-communist Slovak Republic . Mr. Meciar won the competition and allegedly used his control over the Interior Ministry to both discover the past sins of his opponents, and to cover up those of his supporters . After the 3 "S lovakia's voters again turn to pugnacio us fom1er PM ." The Globe and Ma il (Toronto). October 3. 1994. The official election results were communicated to all embassies of the Sl ovak Rep ubli c by a "Tlacovy telegram MZY SR pre zahranicnu dipl omatich1 sluzbu SR." on October 3. 1994. of wh ich I have a copy. Fur an analysis of the results see Martin Yotruba's "S lovak News" (mimeogra phed). Slovak Studies Program. University of Pittsburgh. Sept. 27-Oct. 2. 1994. A much later analysis by Michael J. Kopanic. Jr.. including the creation of the coalition. appeared as "The Recent Elections in Slovakia." in Association for th e Study of NMion.1/ities: A nalysis of Current Eve nts. 6 (No.9. May. 1995). 1-3. For the split in the Association of Workers in Slovakia see Narodmi obroda, April 4. 1995 . SLOVAKIA 175 Public Against Violence won the largest percentage of the vote in the June elections of 1990, it selected Mr. Meciar to become Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic , which at that time was still a part of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. While in this post, Mr. Meciar allegedly joined with others in slowing or manipulating the process of investigating (" lustracny proces" in Slovak) whether or not high government officials had collaborated with, or served as agents. of the dreaded communist secret p olice. He also increasi ngly argued with the presidium of the Public Against Violence, and its coalition partner, the Christian Demo4 cratic Movement, over government policy . Even though Mr. Meciar is very intelligent, 1s an excellent speaker, has a photographic memory, and radiates charisma wherever he goes, he appears to have what is colloquially known as a "type A" personality. In other words, he feels that he has to be in complete control of any situation, he seldom seeks advice, and is not very tol erant of criticism. He prefers to be surrounded by "yes ' For a brief biography or Mci'iar sec Kto Jc kto na S/ovensku. 199 P ( Ko nzo rci u111 Encyk lopcd ia: Bratislava. 199 I ). I 14- 15: The allegations ;:igainst Meci;:ir were 111adc by his political oppone nts in the Slovak Parlia111cnt's Defense and Security Co111111ittec on November 7. 1991 . cf. ··'Secret Report' Clai111s Meciar KGB Connections:· Foreign Bmadcast ln fonna tion Service (Washington. D.C.. hereafter FBIS). November 13. 1991. p.1 4: and summarized by Jan Obrman ··S lo vak Politician Accused or Secret Police Tics:· R adio Free Europe I R adio Liberty Rese.irch R eport (hereafter R FEIRL R ese.irch R eport ). Apri l 10. 1992 . Sec also ··Meciar Proposes Repeal or Screening Law:· CTK. December 21. I 99 3 . Two highly -placed public servants in the Slovak government. one or whom worked in the Office or the Pri111c Minister for both Mr. Mci': iar. and hi s predecessors. recently repeated these allegations to 111e. Since they fear for their jobs. the se public servants have asked me to keep secret their names. and the circu mstances or our 111cetings. At this time it is impossible to confinn. or disprove. these allegations since the ril es of the fonner secret police. which are in Prague. arc not open to the public . SLOYAKJA 176 men" .5 Since the governing coalition Presidium was also composed of some very strong personalities, who opposed Mr. Meciar's attempts to become Chairman of the Public Against Violence in March of 1991, they decided to remove him from his Prime Ministerial post in April of that year. The Presidium replaced Mr. Meciar with Jan Carnogursky, an attorney and former Catholic dissident during the communist regime, who was also the founder and Chairman of the Christian Democratic Movement. 6 Mr. Meciar, and his most loyal supporters, subsequently withdrew from the Public Against Violence, which later fell apart, and they created the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia, which won the largest percentage of the votes in the June, 1992 elections . 7 In the next two years Mr. Meciar reached the height of his glory, but also suffered the humiliation of defeat. It was Mr. Meciar who in the summer of 1992, as Slovak Prime Minister, negotiated with Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus the dissolution 5 This observation is based on my reading of the Slovak press. on observing Mr. Mcciar delivering a po litical address in Nitra in August. 1993. on a pri va tc meeting that I had with him in September. 1993. and on several discussions that I had with Mr. Igor Uhrfk. The latte r is a fervent Slovak nationali st who sold his successful industrial-insurance business in New York city in 1992 and returned to Slovakia to ··help o ut" in 1993. He contributed 1,000.000 Slovak crowns to the Slovak National Pa11y. was made vicc-Chainnan of the Party. and later be came a principal advisor to the Minister of Privatization of the Slovak govern ment (as a volunteer). After Mr. Meciar's return to power in the fall of 1994. and a split in the Slovak National Party. among other things. Mr. Uhrfk became disgusted with Slovak politics and returned to the United States . " Kto je kto na S/ovensk11 1991 '.'. 190. 7 Jiri Pchc, ··s1ovak Nationalists Agitate for more Autonomy. Oppose Radical Pri vatizatio n." RFEIRL Research R eport. March 20. I 991: '"50,000 rally after Slovak leader fired," New York Times. April 24, I 99 I. A9: For more details sec Robert A. Young. The Breakup of Czechas/avakia (Kingston: Queen 's Uni vcrs ity. Insti tute of Intergovernmental Relati ons. Research Paper #3 2. 1994 ). 5. IO - J6. SLOVAKIA 177 of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, and it was Mr. Meciar who proudly stood at the helm of the newly-independent Slovak Republic on January 1, 1993. Even though Mr. Meciar was not initially a nationalist, he shrewdly perceived that Slovak nationalism was the strongest single force in post-Communist CzechoSlovakia, and by 1992 he and his followers had firmly embraced this movement. 8 Slovak nationalism, however, was not enough to save Mr. Meciar from himself. He suffered his second major political defeat when the Slovak Parliament in February 1993 elected, not the physician Roman Kovac , the preferred candidate of Mr. Meciar's party for President of the Republic, but rather the fom1er Minister of Finance Michal Kovac .9 Much to Mr. Meciar's surprise, the latter refused to become a mere figurehead and instead took his duties as President quite seriously, to the point of attacking Mr. Meciar in the Slovak Parliament for alleged dictatorial tendencies in March of 1994. Meanwhile, Mr. Meciar had lost the confidence of several of his key allies and supporters, including Milan Knazko, his former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jozef Moravcfk, the subsequent Minister of Foreign Affairs, and two Deputy Prime Ministers, including Roman Kovac and I.:udovft Cernak, the latter '"Talks fail: Czechoslovakia dose to breakup. " Ottawa Citizen. June 9. 1992 : "Leaders start negotiations on splitting Czechoslovakia." The Globe and Mail. June 17. 1992: "Who Split Czechoslovakia'?" The New York Times. September 24. 1992. A29: "Parliament approves Czech-Slovak split." The Globe and Mail. November 26. 1992. "Fireworks. Tears and Doubt in Slovakia." The New York Times.January I. 1993. Al4: sec also Sabrina Petra Ramct. "The Reemergence of Slovakia." Nationalities Papers. 22 (No. I. Spring. 1994). I07 - 112 . '' "Havel elected first president of Czech Republic: Slovaks to hold runoff after vote rebuffs Prime Minister's candidate." The Globe and Mail. January 27. I 993 , A6: "Ex-Communist Chosen President of Slovakia." The New York Times. February 16. 1993. A7. 178 SLOVAKIA his coalition partner from the Slovak National Party! The net result was a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in Mr. Meciar and his party, his third political defeat, and his loss of power for a second time. Most of his former allies in the MOS, who abandoned him, joined Jozef Moravcfk's centrist Democratic Union of Slovakia. From March to October of 1994, a left-right coalition headed by Prime Minister Jozef Moravcfk ruled Slovakia. 111 For these reasons, ever since his election victory of 1994, and his subsequent return to power, Mr. Mcciar has tried to topple the President of the Slovak Republic and to destroy the Democratic Union of Slovakia. Between October and December of 1994 Mr. Meciar looked for coalition partners who would join him in his campaign against the President but had to settle for the two coalition partners mentioned above, who assured him of a voting majority in the Parliament, but not enough votes (90) to remove the President. Since he could not muster the votes to remove the President, he decided to try to strip him of some of his legal powers. For example, in April of 1995 Mr. Mcciar prevailed upon the Slovak Parliament to transfer from the President to the Prime Minister the right to appoint the Chief of Slovakia's Security Intelligence Service (the successor to the Secret Policc). 11 1 " .. Broad Coaliti on to govern Slovakia." The Globe and Mail. March 15 . 1994 . For the viewpoints of the two protagonists regarding the reasons for their fal - ling out see --sprava o stave Slovenskej republiky prednesena prezidentom SR Michalom Kovacom v Naroclncj radc SR dna 8.3.1994" and .. Prcjav predscdu vlady Slovcnskej republiky Yladimfra Mcciara na 27. sch6dzi NR SR di\a 11.3. 1994." published in a special issue of Republika (Bratis lava.March. I 9. 1994 ). I 5pp. For a legal interpretation of this struggle sec Spencer Zifcak ...The Battle over Presidential Power in Slovakia," Slovakia. 36 ( 1998). 70-80. For a profile of the Moravcfk government and its policies sec --cTK Profiles New Cabinet Members" in FB/S,March 17. 1994.4- 12 and --Text of Policy Statement of Slovak Government," FBIS. April 25. 1994, 16-30. 11 "Je Lexa v NR SR. v SIS. alebo v Iese?" Sme (Bratislava). April 26. 199 5. 179 SLOVAKIA Meanwhile, Mr. Meciar charged that the Democratic Union of Slovakia had not gathered the necessary 10,000 signatures before the elections of 1994. If he could prove his charge, then the DU members of Parliament would be stripped of their seats and Mr. Meciar would by default have the three-fifths of the votes necessary to remove the President. Unfortunately for Mr. Meciar, the Slovak Constitutional Court, headed by Milan Cic, the first Prime Minister of the post-communist Slovak Republic, and a former friend of Mr. Meciar, upheld the validity of the 10,000 signatures obtained by the DU before the 1994 elections. This did not stop Mr. Meciar from having his 80 supporters in Parliament pass a motion of " no confidence" in the President on May 5th, and in ordering the Slovak police to check on the validity of the l 0,000 signatures by visiting the homes of the signatories, and in the process harassing supporters of the DU. 12 Mr. Mcciar has also had his difficulties with the press . While he was out of office in 1994, the previous coalition government supported full freedom of the press , including radio and televi sion, and appointed boards of directors who were likewise inclined. Very few of these individuals were supporters of Mr. Mcciar. Once he returned to power in December of 1994 (it took him over two months to put together a coalition), Mr. Meciar began to fire the old boards of directors of radio and television (which arc still state-controlled), and to replace them \.Vith his own people. These , in turn , cancelled certain satiric television programs which had made fun of Mr. Meciar. As a result, there have been several mass-demonstrations in Bratislava against Mr. Meciar's alleged attempts to control the mass-media. Therefore, while television and radio commentators have ceased to lampoon 11 Zifcak. op.cit.. p.70; ··overovanie podpisov na harkoch DU je porusenie peticneho prava obcanov." Srne. May 23 . 1995 . SLOVAKIA 180 Mr. Meciar, the print media, which 1s largely privatized , is still very critical of him . 13 The economic situation in Slovakia, meanwhile, is improving. Slovakia did not slide into a deep depression after it became independent, as some Western pundits had predicted . Instead, after some uncertainty in 1993, its economy grew by a spectacular 4.8% in 1994 and its budget deficit was a respectable 3% of GDP. Meanwhile, the Slovak crown , its basic unit of currency, was devalued by only 10% in 1993, it is convertible to hard currencies , and it remains stable. The rate of inflation also dropped from 25% in 1993 to around 11. 7% in 1994. Unemployment, however, remains high -14%. One of the causes of Slovak unemployment is the collapse of its heavy-arms industry, which used to serve the now-defunct Warsaw Pact and its allies world-wide. Converting this arms industry into something more useful remains a major challenge to the government of the Slovak Republic. 13 14 Re uter, December 16. 1994, as reported by Martin Votruba in Slovak News. December 16- 18. 1994; Jiri Pchc, .. Anti-Mcciar Rall y in Bratislava," R FEIRL Reports. Ibid., December 8- 11. In a TA SR report of May 12. 1995. Mr. Mcciar was quoted as saying that the press is free in Slovakia... but all newspapers should admit who owns them. and who pays them." impl ying that the print press in Slovakia is large ly financed by fore igners who arc hosti le to the current governme nt. The CTK on the same date quoted Juraj Veres. editor of N,irod n;i obroda (Bratislava). as agree ing that the Slovak press was still free . but th at ··the government is trying to gain contro l over the dailies:· However. he added th at lately "the go vernment has been backing down ." For Mr. Mci:iar's earlier problems with the press sec Jan Obnuan ...The Slovak Government vers us the Media." RFEIRL Research R eport. February 5. 1993 . 14 For an example of negative reporting o n Slovakia's eco nomic future sec Step- hen Enge lberg, "New Nation. Imperiled Economy." New York Time.~. February 12. 1993. DI; for an admission that the Slovak economy is doing surprisingly well see "How the Slovaks Have Taken Flight." The Globe nncl Mail. December 5, 1994. A JO (reprinted from the Wall Street Jo urnal); and --standard and Poors o Slovensk u." Sme. April 7. 199 5. 181 SLOVAKJA Indeed, converting the whole system from a command economy to a form of private enterprise remain s the major problem for the Slovak government. U ndcr Communism the state nationalized all the industry and the bulk of the land, it controlled all the means of production, it regulated prices, and subsidized housing , transportation and food, and created a complete welfare state with free education from pre-school through university, and free universal health-care. Unfortunately, the state enacted all these changes without the consent of the people, it enforced them through the use of police terror, and it discriminated in favour of members of the Communist Party and children of the workingclass when dispensing economic and cultural benefits. 15 Now that the Communists are no longer in charge, the various governments of Slovakia have tried to transform the economy into a form of private enterprise, as called for in the Constitution of the Slovak Republic. Since no real models exist on how to do this , n umcrous laws and regulations have been passed to try to bring it about. The first steps were taken in early 1991 when the Parliament of the C1.ech and Slovak Federal Republic passed a law for the restitution of confiscated private property (chiefly land). While some former landowners were delighted to receive their land back, most young people in Slovakia showed no interest in working it. The amount of land seized from individual families by the Communists had been small in the first place, and most young ' ' The literature on this subject is vast. For two co ncise a11iclcs that deal with most of this period sec Robert K. Evanson. ··Regime and Working Class in Czechoslovakia. 1948- 1%8." Soviet Studies. 37 (Nn. 2. 1985 ). 248-68; and by the same author "Political Repressi o n in Czechoslovakia. Slavonic Pi1pcrs. 28 (No. I. 1986). 1-21. 1948- 1984." Canadian 182 SLOVAKJA people have no intention of becoming smallholding • peasants 16 agam . Managers, officials, and many workers on collective and state farms , on the other hand , wish to preserve these institutions. Since collectives and state farms provide their employees with a guaranteed income, regular hours, easy work, and many opportunities for theft, the employees are loath to see such farms disappear. Such employees are among the pillars of support that Mr. Meciar can count on during elections. 17 The various churches of Slovakia, meanwhile, especially the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches, which were singled out for persecution by the Communists, have had much of their confiscated property returned . In l 991-92 the federal government returned most of the buildings that the Communists had seized from religious orders, and in the fall of l 993 Mr. Meciar's government returned most of the buildings that had been confiscated from Church Dioceses. However, most church land that was confiscated and turned into state or collective farms was not returned, largely because of the opposition of the collectives. Thus , the churches continue to rely upon government support for their existence, and '" "Czechoslovakia plans to return property ." Philadelphia 24, I 99 L ..Transfonn:icia pornohospod:irstva Inquirer. February a rcstitucie:· Pr.ic:.i (Bra ti slava). May 31. 1993; "Refonns Alter the Landscape or Czechoslovakia's Fanning ." New Y ork Times, June 4, I 99 L Milan Svec, "Czechoslovakia's Velvet Di vorce." Current Hist ory (November. I 992 ). 377; and discussions with the tw o public servants mentioned above in footnote 3. 17 "Who voted for Whom'1" (a poll conducted by the Slovak Research Office). as reported by Martin Yotruba in Slovak News. 7-9 October. 1994. p.4. The o bservatio ns abo ut state fam1s and collectives were made by the two public servants mentioned above. On many occasions when I visited Slovakia in the era of Communism. I also discussed collectives and state fanns with some of my relatives. who worked at such institutions. They detalied the many kinds of theft possible at state farms and collectives. 183 SLOVAKIA from a North American perspective, this . I8 S h Ip . IS an unhealthy relation- Meanwhile, the federal Parliament also passed the "small privatization" Act of J 990 concerning small business. This Act enabled a few thousand entrepreneurs to borrow money from banks to establish small retail businesses such as travel agencies, restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores, computer stores, and various skilled trades. These kinds of enterprises are flourishing all over Slovakia. 19 A little later the federal Parliament passed another Act that concerned itself with the privatization of large industries, the socalled "large privatization." This would involve all except the most strategic industries such as atomic energy, natural gas, transportation, the arms industry and so on . However, since the government did not wish its large industries to be bought by foreigners, and since most of the citizens of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic did not have the wealth tn purchase these industries outright, the government decided to enact a "coupon privati1.ation." By this plan , every citi1.cn over the age of 18 was entitled to buy a privatization coupon for J .000 C1.echoslovak crowns (Kcs), and then invest it in the company of his choice. The " For the story of the persecution of the churches in Slovakia sec Theodoric J. Zubek. The Church of Silence in Slovakia (Whi ting. IN: John J. Lach. 1956). and Michal Lacko. "The Forced Liquidation of the Union of Uzhorocl." Slovak Studies. I (1961). 145-85: for the story of the underground church in Slovakia under Communism sec "Secret Bishop." and for the story of the rebuilding of the Jesuit Order sec " New Oppmtunitics in Slovakia." Company: a magazine o{ the American Jc.m ils. 8 (No. 3. Spring. 1991 ). 2-5. and 9- 11. Details of the resti tution laws passed after 1990 can be found in Sharon Fisher. "Church Restitu tion Law Passed in Slovakia." RFEIRL Rese.1rch Report. November 19. 1993 . '" "Chystiime historicky ziikon: Ekonomicka refonna konecnc dostala tviir." Niirodn,i obroda. September 5. 1990. 13: Svec. op.cit.. 377 . 184 SLOVAKIA number of shares he would receive would depend upon the value of the company. This was the first step in the creation of a stock market in the Republic. The government also decided that this process would be divided into several rounds since it involved so many industries. The first round took place while the CzcchoSlovak Federation still existed ? ' The second round of the coupon privatization was supposed to take place after Slovakia became independent. However, the government of Mr. Mcciar soon discovered that most Slovaks were not investing their coupons directly into the companies for sale, but rather were selling them to investment companies controlled by foreigners . The Meciar government did not want to allow these foreign-owned holding companies to buy up so much of Slovakia's industries, and it postponed this privatization . However, the Moravcik government, which ruled Slovakia between March and October, 1994, allowed this privatization to continue . Then, when Mr. Meciar returned to power in the fall of 1994, he halted the privatization again. At the end of March, 1995 the government of Mr. Meciar decided to allow half of this coupon privatization to proceed, but he reserved the other half for potential Slovak buyers, most of whom arc in fact the managers of these industries . These managers allegedly neglected the upkeep of their factories and, therefore, their value has declined. Thus, if this privatization continues, the managers of these factories stand to make a lot of money once the value of their factories goes up again. Mr. Meciar's enemies have charged that these managers arc in league with Mr. Mcciar, that they arc all former Communists, and that they provide him with financial support. Mr. Meciar's supporters, on the other hand, charge that the proponents of the 1 " "A Divorce that Could Save the Czech Economy," The Wall Street Journal. March 11. 1991 ; Svec. op. cit.. 377 . SLOVAKIA 185 strict coupon privatization are in leag ue with Mr. Moravcik and . financially support the opposition parties. Neutral observers have told me that both sides arc guilty of profiteering from this privatization process , and the greed and corruption involved goes a long way toward s explaining the bitterness of current Slovak politics. Also, because Mr. Meciar reduced the number of businesses to be privati1.ed in half, that is, from an estimated value of 80 billion Sk to 40 billion Sk, the 3.2 million holders of pri vatization coupons in the Slovak Republic witnessed a drop in the value of their coupons from 24,000 Sk to 12,000 Sk by March of 1995. Forty deputies of the Slovak Parliament then approached the Constitutional Court in Kosicc to protest against Law No . 340/ J 994, which had halted the coupon privatization on November 3-4, 1994, a nd the Constitutional Court decided in their favour. It then o rdere d the Slovak Parliament to re-write the law so that it would no t violate individuals' rights to private property as guaranteed by th e Slovak Constitution . Mr.Meciar's reaction was to propose that the privatization coupons be exchanged for government bo nd s, which could be redeemed for 10,000 Sk, or held for their interest, or used to purchase shares in companies. Most opposition deputies denounced this suggestion as ··theft" from the coupon-holders . 21 The average citizen. meanwhile, has had to tighten his belt several notches since the fall of Communism. While the gove rnment still controls the price o f electricity, transportation. fuel and basic " Smc. Apri l 6. 1995: "Privatizacny zakon nie je v s11lade s ustavou SR." TA SR. May 25 . 1995: "V . Meciar o novej kuponovej privatiz,icii ." Smc. June 8. 1995: "Anketa Sme:• Smc. June 8. 1995. Once again . the two public servants. cited above. ex plained the complexity of this iss ue to me. Dr. Juraj Svec. the Recto r of Comenius University in Bratislava. and a member of Parliament for the DU. confinned their analysis when he visited with me o n March 26. 1995. 186 SLOYAKJA foodstuffs, it has decided to provide smaller subsidies for these goods or services and, therefore, it has raised their prices dramatically in the last four years . Thus, while a streetcar ride used to cost a mere one crown, it now costs five ; while gasoline used to cost seven crowns a litre, it now costs nineteen. And, while a liter 22 of milk used to cost two crowns, it now costs twclvc . Wages, of state employees, on the other hand, have not kept up with the rise in prices. While members of the Slovak Parliament voted themselves hefty pay increases in the summer of 1993 (from 10,000 Sk to 25,000 Sk per month), ordinary state employees do not share in this largesse. Indeed, the wage-structure of state employees is still very Communist. Thus , a physician starting his career receives only 4,000 Sk, which is less than the wage of the average truck-driver! As a result, physicians in Slovakia recently demanded a 200% wage increase, and threatened to go on strike if they did not receive it. Teachers and professors are s1m1larly und erpaid , with the former receiving 5,000 Sk and the latter 8,600 Sk. Even though Mr. Mcciar promised during the last election campaign, among other things, to double teachers' salaries , " Interviews with the the two public servan ts cited above. plus my ow n observations on visits to Slovakia in the summers or 1990. 1991. 1992. I ()9J and 1994. In May of 1990 I visi ted Slovak ia as a delegate of the Slovak League of Ame ri ca. wh ich had come on a ••fact -finding" mission. This was an offi cial mis sio n. spo nsored by the governme nt of the Slovak Republic. It was the first official visi t of the Slovak Leag ue since 1938. whe n the first de legati on of th e League brought to Slovakia the original of the Pittsburgh Ag reeme nt. In 1993 I visited Slovakia as the newl y-elected president of the Canadian Slovak League. In this capaci ty I had official di scussio ns with Prime Minister Meciar and with Jan Findra, Chancellor to the President. My visits in I 991. 1992 and 1994 were for scholarly purposes - to participate in historical co nfere nces. SLOVAKIA 187 he has thus far failed to do so. Indeed, Slovak schoolteachers are also threatening to go on strike over this issue. 23 Employees of the growing private enterprises, on the other hand , generally make much more than state employees. For instance, clerks in private banks earn 10,000-15,000 crowns a month. Accountants and computer programmers in private firms make up to 20,000 Sk per month. And attorneys, who were among the first to privatize in the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic , arc among the highest-paid professionals in Slovakia. Finally, growing numbers of entrepreneurs have become millionaires many times over. and some of these 'nouveau-riche' flaunt their wealth with expensive western cars, clothes, and other consumer goods. They have provoked increasing resentment among state employees, whose salaries have remained far behind the increase in the cost of consumer goods and scrviccs. 24 The price of housing has also skyrocketed . Under Communism, if one had the right connections, one could obtain a beautiful villa in the hills overlooking Bratislava and the Danube river officially for about 250,000 Kcs (and unofficially, that is, with an additional under-the-table payment of 250.000 Kcs). Now these villas cost anywhere from 2,000,000 to 20,000.000 Sk. Similarly, state and co-op apartments, which usually consist of only three rooms plus a small kitchen and tiny bath, are commanding premium prices. The co-op apartments, where one purchased the 11 Smc. April 6. 1995: " Pricskum ukaza l. zc vysc 70% lckarov jc oc ho tnych vs tupit' dn st rajku." Smc. April 26 . 1995: " Skolstvo dostane 530 mili6nov ." Smc. May 14. 1995 : "Ultimatum lckarnv na zvyscnic platov o 200% vyprsalo. strajkovat' sa asi ncbudc." Sme. May 15. 1995 : ··Pricmern,i mzda v skolstve nad'alcj ncjasna." Smc. June 8. 1995: and discussions with the two public servants cited above. " Discussions with the two public servants cited above. plus personal observations from past visits to Slovakia. 188 SLOVAKIA right to live for 30,000 Kcs under Communism , can now be bought by the renters for 50,000 Sk, and can then be re-sold for anywhere between 750,000 to 1,000,000 Sk 1 Former state-ow ned apartments, meanwhile, which until recently could not be purchased were often sub-leased to others for very hig h rents. The process of their sale will soon approximate what happened with the co-op apartments. The state, meanwhile, has lost interest in providing additional ho using for the people. Various entcrpreneurs have taken over this task, and the newly-built apartments generall y sell for around 1,000,000 Sk, which is far beyond what the average Slovak can a ffo rd. 25 Health care, meanwhile, is also in a state o f transition . Before 1989, health care was universal and free. However, one received quality care only if one was either a high functionary of the Communist Party, which had its own special clinics and hospitals , with modern , western , equipment; or, if one bribed one's physician and nurse with extra money or gifts. And, exotic western drugs were usuall y not available, except to the privileged few . Many American and Canadian Slovaks remember well the pl ain tive letters that they used to receive from their unfortunate relatives in Slovakia under Communism, and how these relatives sent prescriptions for Western-made drugs, along with the addresses of pharmacies in Switzerland , which when paid in hard 21 currencies, were willing to fill these orders for them . ' 15 Ibid. 1 Milada Vachudova and Sharon Fisher. "' Health Care Crisis : The Czech and '' Slovak Republics ." RFEIRL Research Report. October 8. 1993. 44-46: and dis c ussio ns wi th friends and relatives on visits to Slovakia in 1968. 1970. 1983 and 1988 . Our fami ly in Canada used to regularly receive requests fo r western drugs. and we filled these requests th rough a willing phannacist in Switze rland . Dr. Do broslav Valik of Bry n Mawr. Pe nnsy lvani a. to ld me in Octo ber of 1992 of having tried to establish a Dental Clinic in Bratislava right after the "'Ve lve t SLOVAKIA 189 In an effort to save money, the Slovak government is trying to privatize parts of the health-care system, but at a very slow pace. Pharmacies have all been privatized and one can now buy whatever drugs one needs. However, the state pays only for routine drugs, and not always for the full amount. The more exotic drugs, which arc now readily available, must be paid for by the patient. Dentists are also privatizing as quickly as they can, with about one-third currently being self-s upporting and ex pensive . Most physicians, however, have not yet taken the plunge and arc unlikel y to do so. Because of their poor salaries , most M.D.'s in Slovakia cannot afford to purchase the expensive equipment necessary to open an office or clinic, and they also cannot afford private liability insurance. As long as they continue to work for state-run hospitals, they do not need liability insurance, and, thu s, they continue to be state employees . And, because they continue to be underpaid , many demand extra payments or gifts if they are to provide quality care. Meanwhile, most Slovaks oppose the privatization of their health care. They want it to remain universal and free . Thus, the Mcciar government is moving slowly and cautiously in trying to reform the health-care systcm. 27 The educational system of Slovakia is also undergo ing change. Shortly after the Communists sci1.cd power the y a bolished all religious schools and put education at the service or the state. The whole system from pre-school throug h university was then statefunded and controlled. Marxism was taught as the philosophy or Revo luti o n.. of 1989. Much to his amazement. his friends from the VPN showed him the clinic for funner me mbers of the Commu nist Pa11y in Bratislava. It had all the latest western equipment one could imagine. unlike clin ics for the general public . 17 Yaduchova & Fisher. op. cit.. 48-49. a nd discussions servants cited above . with the two public SLOVAKIA 190 the state, and all teachers had to conform or face expulsion . Higher • education was free but operated under a quota system whereby in the process of admission children o f the working-class were favoured over those of the middle or upper classes . The latter then resorted to bribery to get their children into institutions of higher learning. Meanwhile , to their credit, the Communists also established several new universities , including the full-service Safarik University in Kos ice and the College of Transportation in Zilina, among others, to satisfy the demands of an increasingly industrialized society .2x After the downfall of Communism, state-support for cd ucation continued , but not its ideological requirements . Most universities held new elections for rectors and deans , and the professors and students threw out the communist administrators . However, because most of the communist professors have tenure, the uni versities cannot get rid of them. It will take another generation before these Marxist professors reach retirement age, and arc finally replaced by a new generation of professors . And even the new generation will bo hard to find, because the wages paid to professors arc so low. Meanwhile. the quota system that favored students of working-class origins has been replaced by a 4uota " Ladi slav G resfk. --vyc hova rokoch 1956 - 1960 ." vy,o kos ko lskej inte ligencie na Sl ove nsku v Historicky i'a.rnri.~. 31 ( No .6 . 198) ). 8') 1-91 O: A 111011 Hrnko & Jozef Zatkuliak," Uni vcrzita Ko me nskc ho na rozhranf piitiles iatyc h a sestHesialyc h rokov ." Hi.~toricky t'a .r npis. 32 (No.4. I 984 ). 59J-(1 19: pe rso na l o bservati o ns fro n1 past visi ts to Slovakia. di scussio ns w ith the two pub I ic servants cited abo ve. and di sc ussio n with Rudolf Korec. Recto r of Safarik U ni versity. May. 1990. On a visit to Slovakia in the summer of 1968 I asked one of my co usins what he was studying. He replied .. Philosophy ." When I in4uired a bo ut the kind o f philosophy . he replied "'Marxism-Lcnini sm 1" His mo ther. meanw hil e . w ho was a sc hoolteac her. used to go to church in a vill age o ut s id e o f the to wn in whi ch she lived. because if she had been seen atlendin g c hurc h services in her home to wn . she would have lost her job. SLOVAKIA 191 based on grades . Even though Slovakia today has 14 institutions of higher learning, including brand-new universities in Trnava and Banska Bystrica, it still enrolls only 18% of high sc hool grad uatcs, which is very low when compared to Western Europe or North America, which attract between 30% and 50%. Meanwhile , the state has permitted the re-establishment of religious sc hools funded by the government. However, their number remains small beca use forty years of Communism thoroughly discredited religious education , and most employees of the Ministry of Education arc still opposed to their expansion .2'> Whether or not the government decides to in vest more m higher education remains to be seen. Recent attempts to introduce tuition to cover 20% of the cost of their education have met fierc e resistance from the students. Meanwhile, the quality of university education in Slovakia is not very high, large ly because the teaching staff was cut off from the West for over 40 years , and also because universities stressed education rather than researc h. Tha t is why all the Slovak universities arc hurridly signing agreements with universities all over the Western world that provide for scholarly exchanges o f staff and students . However. it is difficult to attract top Western scholars to teach at Slovak uni versities when they can expect salaries of only $300.00 per month . Onl y true idealists have thu s far volunteered to teac h at Slovak unive rsities under such conditions. 10 ' " Disrnssion with Rudolf Korec. Rector or Safarik University in Kosice. May. 1990: discussion wi th Dean Ladislav Pauliny. Farn lty of A11s. Co menius U ni ve rsity. May. 1994: discussio n with Juraj Svec. Rec tor of Comcni us Univers it y. March 26. 1995 : and discu ssions with the two public servants cited above. '" Discussion with Juraj Svec. op.cit.. and " Pod l'a prof. M. Urbana. dost:.\vaj11 vysokc skoly v SR iba tretinu financii v porovnani s vyspelymi st:.\tmi." TA SR. May 26. 1995. SLOVAKIA 192 Slovak culture, meanwhile, is also undergoing a radical transformation. Under Communism all cultural activities were state-financed and controlled, and all cultural output was for the sake of promoting Marxism. A Slovak Academy of Sciences, as well as Unions of writers and creative artists were founded in the early l 950's, and they operated under five-year plans . Compliant historians, writers, and creative artists not only became state employees with respectable salaries, but they also received such perks as the use of confiscated castles for meetings and vacations, and statesubsidized clubs that served good food at very low prices . As long as they toed the Party line, their books were published or their paintings and illustrations were bought by mu se ums or publishing houses, and no-one worried, for instance, about how many copies of a book were actually sold, since the government subsidized everything. On the other hand , historians , writers and creative artists could only praise Communism and denounce Capitalism. Certain key personages in Slovak history, such as the Rev. Andrej Hlinka, founder and leader of the Slovak People's Party in the first third of the twentieth century, either became "non-persons" in official publications, or else were denounced as reactionary clcrico-fascists . The past was deliberately distorted to serve the communist futurc. Those intellectuals who refused to go along with this system were persecuted by being allowed to work only at menial labour, and those who dared to openly oppose this Marxist control over culture ended up in jail. 11 .II Julius Mesaros. " Retlexie O piitaesiatych a sestl:lcsiatych rokoch." f-lis/orick f casopis. 39 (Nos. 4-5. 199 I ). 379-88: Richard Marsina. "S lovensk.i historiografia I 945- I 990." f-li storickf brnpi5. 39 (Nos .4-5. I 99 I). 370-79: and discussions with Slovak historians and writers during my visits to Slovakia between 1968 and 1994. SLOVAKJA 193 After the collapse of Communism, most Slovak intellectuals threw off the shackles of Marxism and started to create freely, as in other countries. Freedom, however, came with a price - declining government support. The bloated Slovak Academy of Sciences (SA V) has been reduced from 7,000 members in 1989 to 3,000 in 1995. While some people have been advocating its total abolition, others have come to its defense. In recent days , certain members of Mr. Meciar's government have even advocated that the Academy be retained in its present form , and that it continue to do basic research as before, while leaving university professors to do the teaching. This Soviet model runs contrary to western traditions, whereby university professors do both research and teaching, and government-supported research is kept to a minimum. Rectors of Slovakia's universities wish to adopt the western model and arc currently negotiating with the Meciar government to try to reach a compromise on this very touchy . \1 question. Slovakia's writers. meanwhile, have had to learn to fend for themselves. Some have become entrepreneurs in the publishing industry , which has shrunk in size and has become more selective in what it accepts for publication , based upon its market potential; others have entered politics and the diplomatic service, giving these professions an unusual (in North America, at least) intellectual llair; and a third group is now dependent upon government grants to subsidize its publications. Needless to say, the compc- 11 ·-z prejavu predsedu SA V Branislava Lichardusa na slavnostnom zhromaz- denf k 40. vyrociu SAY'". Spdvy sluvcnskcj akademic vied. 30 (No. I. 1994). 35; discussion with Dr. Juraj Svec. Rector of Comenius University. March 26. I 995; and discussion with Dr. Branislav Lichardus. president of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to the United States, April 22. 1995. in Washington. D.C. SLOVAKIA 194 tition for such grants is very fierce, with only the best writers receiving support. No wonder that Slovak writers jealously g uard their perks and get very indignant when reminded that the government will not for long let them keep their castle at Budmerice, especially if some wealthy westerner offers to buy it for a large sum of money .D Slovak writers also face fierce competition from western writers. Bookstores are full of novels by westerners, especially Americans such as Stephen King (in translation), and only outstanding Slovak novels now have any chance of commercial success. This also applies to children's books , especially those published by the Walt Disney Corporation. Traditional Slovak children 's books, illustrated by Slovak graphic artists, now have to compete for the hearts and minds of Slovak children with Walt Disney characters such as Bambi and Mowgli speaking in Slovak! Unfortunately, Slovak writers also have to compete with the whole world of pornography, which is also a specialty of the West. Newspaper Kiosks in Bratislava feature as many naked women on magazine covers as one can see in Western Europe . This is another kind of price that one pays for freedom. 34 The Slovak media is also undergoing rapid change. The Slovak film industry (Koliba studios), which used to produce ten JJ Di sc ussions with the two public servants cited above. When I visited Slova- kia in the summer of 1992. I tonnented writer l.'.ubos Jurik with the suggestion th at he would soon lose his summer retreat at Budmcricc castle whe n some .. ri c h Arab sheik would offer $50.000,000 for it. " Jurik . who now works as the official spokesman fo r Dr. Ivan Gasparovic, the Speaker of the Slovak Parliament. became indignant at my suggestion. Meanwhile. the writer Anton Hykisch now serves as Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to Canada. 14 Personal observati ons based upo n my visits to Slovakia in 1990. 199 1, 1992. 1993 , 1994. The semi -monthl y KniinJ revue (Bratislava). now regularly features reviews of books published in the major western lan guages. SLOVAKIA 195 fairly high-quality feature films per year with government subsidies in the past, now struggles to produce one a year. This industry, too, has to compete with the West, especially with Hollywood, and no country has yet succeeded in doing this. Thus, if the Slovak government wishes its film industry to continue to exist, it will have to continue to subsidize it. 35 Slovak television , meanwhile, is in the throes of a great controversy. Only two Slovak television stations exist at the moment , and both arc government-funded and controlled . As mentioned above, Mr. Meciar recently dismissed the Boards of Directors of both stations and replaced them with his own people, and many intellectuals have accused him of trying to control the electronic media. These intellectuals seem to have forgotten the folk-saying .. he who pays the piper, calls the tune. " The only solution that I sec to this dilemma is for Slovak entrepreneurs to establish private television stations, either in Slovakia. or, if necessary, in neighbouring Austria or the Czech lands, which will compete for the hearts and minds of their audiences. the same way that private television stations <lo in the West. Meanwhile. cheap films and programs from all over the world, either dubbed or licensed in Slovakia, now dominate the air-wavcs. 11 ' The Slovak print media, by contrast. 1s vibrant and free . Under Communism all media, whether print or electronic. had to " Ce lestine Bohlen . .. East Europe's Cultural Life. Once a Refu ge. Now Ec lipsed:· New York Ti Illes. November 13. 1990. A I. A 12: discussions public servants cited above: personal observations with the based upon my visits t o Slovakia . '" Sec above. footnote 12. for the dismissal of the directors of Slo vak radio and televisio n. Interestingly enough. on April 22. 1995. the first private cable net work began to broadcast in Slo vakia. It is called ··Vasa tcl c vfzia" (Your Televi sion ). or VTV. and at the moment covers only the Bratisl ava area. although it soon hopes to expand across the co untry. CL Slllc. April 24. 1995 . 196 SLOVAKIA parrot the Party line. In order to discover what was really gomg on, people had to learn to "read between the lines." Clever journalists often sent subtle signals to their readers by, for instance, not mentioning some prominent Party functionaries in a story, which meant that they were falling into disfavour, or else by lavishing praise upon them, which meant that they were about to be promoted . Not any more. Slovakia has about a dozen nationwide independent dailies , and only one - Slovenska republika supports the Meciar government. The rest are generally critical of the government, with Narodna obroda being the most objective , while Sme, which is edited by former members of the Public Against Violence, is the most critical. Unfortunately, the government still controls the supply and price of newsprint, and recently threatened, through taxes , to raise the price by I00% if the criticism of Mr. Meciar did not stop. Ten independent dailies responded by issuing newspapers with blank front pages, and the government backed off. Nevertheless, this game of "chicken" between Mr. Meciar, and Slovakia's independent press continues .~7 In spite of all the difficulties it faces, Slovakia is well on its way towards democratic Capitalism. Mr. Meciar's "Type 'A' ·'personality notwithstanding, Slovakia is a functioning democracy with a democratically-elected Parliament and President. And by signing a historic treaty with Hungary on March 19th. in which he promised that Slovakia would guarantee the cultural and JJ For the implications of the switd1 from a government-controlled press tu one that is free see Owen V. Johnson. '"Half Slave - Half Free: The Crisis of the Russian and East European Press," AAASS Newsletter. 33 (March. 1993 ). I. 4. The opinion regarding the objectivity of various Slovak newspapers is mine. For details regarding the recent struggle between Mr. Mcciar and the Slovak press see "Slovak Press Special," Slovak News (U . of Pittsburgh), March 3-5. 1995. For the reaction of America's most important daily to this struggle sec ··Slovakia Takes a Wrong Tum," New York Times. March 7. 1995. A 18 . SLOVAKIA 197 linguistic rights of its Hungarian citizens, Mr. Meciar showed that he is capable of compromise, · and he can, if he is so inclined, behave as a pan-European politician. The Members of Parliament, and government Ministers, however, still have to learn the political culture of democracy--to treat each other with respect, and to serve the people, not just their own interests. This will take time, however, and we should be patient while it does. After all, some of our own politicians need to learn the same lesson .38 It should be apparent, therefore, that the most difficult part of the transition from Communism to Capitalism is in the realm of individual versus collective rights. After the overthrow of the Communists in 1989 most Slovaks were delighted to recover their individual rights, such as the freedom of expression, the freedom to travel to the West, and so on. However, with the increase in the cost of living that has occurred in the last four years, these rights have lost some of their lustre. Instead, many people are growing increasingly restive about their collective rights, that is, to free and universal health care, to free education, and to a whole host or previously free social programs which Communism inaugurated. It was Mr. Meciar's promises in the last elections to guarantee some of these social programs that, along with his strong nationalism. brought him the largest number of votes. How he will manage to retain these expensive social programs, and at the same time reform the economy and make it more market-oriented, remains to be seen. Indeed. many western countries share Mr. " For a grudging acknowledgement that Slovakia is a functioning democracy sec "2-Ycar-Old Slovakia Toddling Toward Democracy." New York Times. March I 9. 1995. AJ. For the treaty with Hungary see Sharon Fisher "Slovakia and Hungary Sign Bilateral Treaty.'' OMRI. Inc .. as cited in Slovak News. March 19. 1995. 198 SLOVAKIA Meciar's dilemma - how to promote capitalist growth while subsidizing expensive social programs .  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 Political, Economic, and Cultural Situation in the Slovak Republic (As of May, 1995) Description An account of the resource M. Mark Stolarik Slovakia, Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003 pp. 172-198 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 2003 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/375a17065561ca0734c57eedcc9369fa.pdf dd43b677299f0b58fc78d8aab55eaa58 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 7 The Slovak Question in the Interwar (1918-1938) and Post-War (1945-1948) Czechoslovak Republics James R. Felak A key element of the aura of tragedy that surrounds Czechoslovakia's history in the eyes of many of its students, observers, and sympathizers is that state's experience in having its liberal, Western-oriented, parliamentary democratic, pluralistic political system destroyed by a powerful, aggressive, neighboring totalitarian empire twice in this century. In the early fall of 1938, threatened by Hitler's Germany, abandoned by their allies, and facing pressure from discontented ethnic minorities at home, Czechoslovakia's leaders succumbed to the Munich Agreement and dismantled their parliamentary democratic regime, the last one remaining in East Central Europe, and replaced it with a quasiauthoritarian alternative. In February 1948, a restored multi-party democracy in Czechoslovakia once again met its end, this time through the machinations of a pro-Soviet Communist minority that was able to seize power and thereafter transform Czechoslovakia into a carbon-copy of the Stalinist "people's democracies" that had been imposed over the previous years on most of the countries of the region. In the periods that concluded with the demise of both of these experiments in liberal democracy, the relations, and particularly the tensions between Slovaks and Czechs �8 SLOVAKIA played an important role. This paper will examine the state of Slovak-Czech relations in both the inter-war, and post-war Republics, arguing that the obstacles to a mutually satisfactory solution to the Slovak question were formidable in both situations. It will also draw comparisons between the two cases, identifying elements of continuity and change. The events of autumn 1918, with the collapse of the AustroHungarian empire and proclamation of an independent Czechoslovak Republic, brought Czechs and Slovaks together in a single state. Slovak discontent became apparent from very early on. It was inevitable that Czechs would dominate the new Republic. Czechs outnumbered Slovaks by more than two-to-one, and the Czech lands were much more highly developed economically than Slovakia. Czechs had large middle and working classes, and had acquired considerable political and administrative experience in the Austrian half of the Empire. By 1900, they were a well-organized, well-educated, confident nation with a strong sense of national identity. This was in stark contrast to relatively poor, largely rural Slovakia, where discriminatory Hungarian policies had kept Slovaks from acquiring much political or administrative experience or educating themselves in a Slovak national spirit. As the twentieth century dawned on Slovakia, Slovak nationalists were only just beginning to build a mass national movement. The new regime, both in its structure and its justification, carried the seeds of Slovak discontent. First, Czechoslovakia was based on the idea that a Czechoslovak nation existed, which served as the so-called constituent nation (statotvomy narocf) upon which the Republic was based. 1 This notion was anchored in ' See Ladislav Lipscher, Verfassung und politische Verwaltung in der Tschechos/owakei 1918-1939 (Munich, 1979), pp. 41 -42 for a discussion of the statotvornyconcept . �SLOVAKJA 9 the Czechoslovak Constitution of 1920, along with the belief that a Czechoslovak language existed and would serve as the Republic 's official language.2 These stipulations, while freeing the Slovaks from Magyarization, denied them one of the major goals of the Slovak national movement since its inception at the time of Cudovft Stur in the 1830s and 40-the recognition that a distinct Slovak nation in fact existed. In hand with the Czechoslovak idea went a centralistic administrative structure for the new state, with decision-making powers concentrated in the central government in Prague, which was situated in the heart of the Czech lands . Aside from being a corollary to the idea that the state was based on a single Czechoslovak nation, it reflected fears among Czechs and a number of Czech-oriented Slovaks that autonomy for Slovakia would set a precedent for similar demands by the German and Hungarian minorities and aid Hungary's efforts to ultimately detach Slovakia from Czechoslovakia and return it to Budapest 's control. As Czechoslovakia's then Foreign Minister Edvard Benes said in 1932, greater autonomy for Slovakia would "mean for this state the slogan Slovakia to the Slovaks, German regions to the Germans, Magyar regions to the Magyars." 3 There was also a strong anti-Catholic sentiment among Czech elites and some of their Slovak collaborators, manifested in a fear that if ' The Constitution opens with the words, "We, the Czechoslovak nation," and goes on to stipulate that "The Czechoslovak language shall be the state, official language of the Republic." For an English translation of the Constitution, see Howard Lee McBain and Lindsay Rogers, Eds., The New Constitutions of Europe(New York, 1922), pp. 307-342. ' Quoted in Carol Skalnik Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia; The Making and Remaking of a State, 1918-1987 (Princeton, NJ, 1988), p. 137. �10 SLOVAKIA Slovaks governed themselves, they would choose a government that was too reactionary and clerical for the progressive tastes shared by most of Czechoslovakia's founding fathers. Finally, there was a widespread belief that, blighted by Magyarization, Slovaks were not yet capable of self-government. Two further issues that served to fuel Slovak discontent were the economy and religion. Along with the damage done by the First World War, Slovaks now had to cope with a new international boundary that, among other things, cut them off from the traditional markets, resources, and outlets for surplus labor that they had enjoyed in the larger Austro-Hungarian economic unit. Furthermore, the industry that Slovakia did have, lost the subsidies that the Hungarian government had been providing and had to compete with the more efficient and more heavily capitalized industry of the Czech lands. The result was an economic depression and, in effect, a de-industrialization of Slovakia during the early l 920s. The tax rate was also higher in Slovakia than in the Czech lands during the l 920s. 4 Religion proved to be a major irritant in Slovak-Czech relations. Many Czech nationalists, drawing inspiration from the Hussite tradition and regarding Catholicism as a reactionary historical force identified with German-Austrian hegemony over the Czech lands, viewed the Roman Catholic Church with suspicion and even outright hostility. This was dramatically demonstrated shortly after Czechoslovakia achieved her independence, when a Czech 4 See C. A. Macartney , Hungary and Her Successors, The Treaty of Trianon and Its Consequences 1919-1937(London, 1937), pp. 127- 131 and R. W. SetonWatson, Slovakia Then and Now: A Political Survey(London, 1931), pp. 36-37, for contemporary discussions of Slovakia's economic problems. Despite their divergent interpretations of the Slovak question, Macartney's and SetonWatson's characterizations of Slovakia's economic plight are quite similar. �SLOVAKIA 11 mob smashed to pieces the statue of the Virgin Mary on Old Town Square in Prague. Reports of this renunciation of a part of the Bohemian past did not play well in Slovakia, where among Slovaks such hostility toward the Church was considerably weaker, if operative at all. The forced removal of crucifixes from the walls of schools, disruption of religions services and desecration of sacred places and objects, and state seizure of Catholic schools and church lands helped foster in Slovakia the image of the Czech as an enemy of Christianity, especially as traditionally understood in Slovakia. 5 Also contributing to religious tensions was the fact that Czech political elites had, already before 1918, developed their closest relations with members of Slovakia's Protestant (Lutheran) minority. Slovak Protestants had traditional links with Czech culture, and were more likely than Slovak Catholics to share the modernist world view that was standard among Czechoslovakia' s founders. By way of example, of the fifty-seven Slovaks appointed to the Provisional National Assembly that was established to draw up Czechoslovakia's constitution, twenty-eight were Protestants. This in a land that was approximately 79 per cent Catholic. 6 Such an outcome could hardly fail to appear discriminatory and unrepresentative to many Slovaks. One final irritant in Slovak-Czech relations is worth discussing at some length, as it shows just how complicated this relationship could be. This is the question of the migration of Czech administrators , teachers, and other professionals and government emplo5 Jozef Spirko, Cirkevne dejiny s osobitnym zretefom na vyvin cirkevnych de- Jin Slovenska, sv. IV (Bratislava, 1993), p. 466; see E L. Woodward and Rohan Butler, Eds., Documents on British Foreign Policy 19 I 9-1939, First Series, Vol. IV, 1919 (London, 1956), p. 3, for a reference co anti-Catholic actions in Slovakia in a report by the British Charge d' affaires in Prague . 6 Ladislav Lipscher, "Klub slovenskych poslancov v rokoch 1918-1920," Historicky casopis, XVI, 2 ( 1968), pp. 140- 141 . �12 SLOVAKIA yees to Slovakia after 1918. Slovakia lacked qualified professionals and administrators who were untainted by affiliation with the former Hungarian regime and its education system, given the fact that Slovaks before 1918 could rarely advance socially and professionally except by becoming "Magyarized." For this reason, tens of thousands of Czechs moved to Slovakia in the 1920s. 7 Though many of them were needed, their presence in Slovakia proved to be a major cause of Slovak discontent. First, they represented a cultural intrusion of modern-thinking, largely urban progressive types into a traditional, rural society, and as such offended many Slovaks with paternalism and tactlessness. Second , they received considerable salary supplements since Slovakia was regarded as a hardship post. 8 This income disparity between imported Czechs and native Slovak employees was also a sore point. Third, there was a perception among Slovaks that their native land was being used by Czechs as a dumping ground for officials who were second-rate. Finally, Slovak resentment was especially acute over the fact that among the Czechs who received employment in Slovakia were not only professionals and high-level administrators , but railway porters, postmen, doormen, messengers , and janitors, positions for which there were plenty of capable Slo- vaks at hand .9 This situation can be explained at least in part by the nature of Czechoslovakia's political system. In Czechoslovakia's coalition ' See Jan Rychlfk, Cesi a Slovaci ve 20.stoletf; cesko-slo venske vztahy J 9 J41945 (Bratislava, 1997), pp. 86-87 for statistics on the number of Czechs employed in Slovakia during the interwar period . ' Natasa Krajcovicova, "K otazke personalneho obsadzovania organov statnej a verejnej spravy na Slovensku v prvych rokoch po vzniku CSR", Historickf casopis, XLIV , 4, 1996, pp. 619-620. 9 Jozef Lettrich, History of Modem Slovakia (New York, 1955), pp. 61 -62; Seton-Watson, Slovakia, p. 34. �SLOVAKIA 13 governments, certain parties tended to retain particular ministries over the long-term. Thus, it was not unusual for a political party, whose support came almost exclusively from the Czech lands, to control a substantial number of state administrative positions in Slovakia which it would allot to its Czech adherents as patronage. Such was the case, for example, with the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party and the railroads. Compounding the problem of Czech employment in Slovakia was the fact that Prague, with the help of these migrants, was so successful in developing a Czechoslovak education system in Slovakia that by the end of the 1920s, Slovakia was producing for the first time a native intelligentsia fully trained in Czechoslovak high schools and colleges. Unfortunately, precisely at the time that these cohorts of educated Slovaks were coming onto the job market, Czechoslovakia was hit by the Great Depression. These young Slovaks, many of whom could not find appropriate employment, came to resent the fact that Czechs were working in Slovakia in positions that they coveted. Many of these Czechs meanwhile had struck roots in Slovakia and, even if they wished, had little to return to in Depressionstricken Bohemia and Moravia. Many of these members of the young Slovak intelligentsia inclined toward radical politics of the left and right; among the latter, calls for Czechs to go home became standard fare at political rallies. Though, as one scholar recently pointed out, the personnel question was an extremely complicated issue that cannot be understood from a purely ethnic standpoint, the fact that Czechs were working in Slovakia while Slovaks were unemployed provided grist for Slovak nationalist mills and made this issue a constant irritant for Slovak-Czech relations. 10 ' 0 Krajcovicova, "K otazke", pp. 627, 628 . �14 SLOVAKIA Politically, Slovaks responded to this growing discontent in a number of ways. The antidote to Czechoslovak centralism was Slovak autonomy, a call that was embraced by the Slovak party with the greatest popularity, the Slovak People's Party (SPP). Led by the populist priest Andrej Hlinka, it sought to mobilize Slovak religious, economic, political and cultural discontent into a broadbased movement for autonomy and national recognition. It staunchly supported an autonomous Slovakia right up to the end of the First Republic. Two other groups also called for autonomy for Slovakia, at least in their rhetoric-the Communists and the parties of the Hungarian minority. This meant that in the parliamentary elections of 1925, 1929, and 1935, over 50% of voters in Slovakia opted for parties that rejected Czechoslovak centralism. 11 While about half of ethnic Slovaks voted for the SPP, most other Slovaks voted for the Slovak affiliates of Czechoslovak-wide parties. These parties supported the idea of a Czechoslovak nation and the centralist system. Because they were always or nearly always in the government, they could provide supporters with certain material advantages that the SPP could not, so it was quite likely that considerably more Slovaks supported autonomy than voted for the autonomist SPP. The most significant of such parties was the Agrarians, which alone among the government parties had a strong Slovak wing, led by Milan Hodza. Though officially accepting the Czechoslovak idea and opposing autonomy for Slovakia, the Agrarians tried in the 1930s to develop an alternative to both Prague centralism and SPP autonomism - the socalled regionalist option. This involved promoting cooperation of Slovaks on behalf of Slovak interests on regional rather than national grounds. In theory, regionalism gave the Slovak Agra- 11 For electoral statistics, see Leff, National Conflict, p. 52. �SLOVAKIA 15 rians the possibility to champion Slovak interests without the sort of nationalism that could upset Prague and the Czechoslovak constitutional order. 12 Despite considerable support for autonomy in Slovakia throughout the inter-war period, the cards were stacked against success in this regard for a number of reasons. Some of these have been discussed above and need little further elaboration- the Czech numerical preponderance over Slovaks, and superiority in terms of modem economic, cultural, and political development; the constitutional stipulation that a Czechoslovak nation, rather than separate Czech and Slovak nations, existed and was the basis of the state; the distaste for traditional Catholicism among the Republic's ruling elites; the fears that autonomy for Slovakia would play into the hands of Hungarian and German nationalists and make it harder for Prague to resist their autonomist demands; the belief that Slovaks were not capable of governing themselves; and the difficulties, owing to problems of political patronage and economic stagnation, of finding appropriate employment for the university-educated Slovaks the system was producing by the late 1920s and their consequent tum towards radicalism. Other factors were at play as well. It should be kept in mind that both of Czechoslovakia's presidents during the inter-war period, Tomas G. Masaryk and Edvard Benes, were staunch champions of the Czechoslovak idea and opponents of autonomy for Slovakia. Furthermore, the autonomist forces in Slovakia were not united, and in fact were fundamentally divided over their conceptions of just what sort of autonomous Slovakia they wanted. The Hungarian parties regarded Slovaks and Hungarians as minorities with an equal claim to self-government in Slovakia, 12 M. Kropilak, ed., Dejiny S/ovenska, V ( 1918-1945) (Bratislava, 1985), p. 195. �16 SLOVAKlA with hopes that someday that territory would return to a restored Kingdom of Hungary. The SPP, on the other hand, believed in "Slovakia for the Slovaks," as one of its most cherished slogans rang out, and saw Slovaks as the statotvomy narod in Slovakia, with Hungarians as merely a minority. The Communists , for their part, were open to autonomy for Slovakia only if it were to come in conjunction with the establishment of a Communist dictatorship of the proletariat, something that repelled the other pro-autonomy parties. The nature of the Czechoslovak political system was particularly crucial in making it highly unlikely that the SPP, barring some sort of exceptional circumstances, would be able to realize its autonomist goals via normal political channels. While winning the votes of around half of the ethnic Slovaks, the SPP 's support statewide was only around 7%. This meant that it would have to find allies if it wished to establish influence in or increase pressure on the government. Such alliance-seeking was problematic, however. Several leading Czechoslovak parties were outright hostile to Slovak nationalism and the idea of autonomy, for example the Social Democratic Party, National Socialist Party, and, after 1921 , the Czechoslovak People 's Party. Taken together, these three parties represented a considerable proportion of the governing majority. 13 Among the opposition parties were a few that were open to cooperation with the SPP, such as the Hungarian nationalists, Czech fascists, and the Slovak National Party (a Protestant autonomist party), but they were either insignificant in numbers and influence, or holding fundamentally different ultimate goals from the SPP. The Slovak wing of the Czechoslovak Agrarian Party, the second strongest electoral draw in Slovakia, could theoreti13 For example, of the government 's 206 seats in Parliament after the 1929 elections, these three parties held 96 seats. �SLOVAKJA 17 cally have formed a powerful bloc had its regionalist program developed into a genuine political collaboration with the SPP. However, two factors-the Agrarians' fear that the SPP would dominate an autonomous Slovakia, and the fact that the Agrarian Party 's leadership in Prague was unwilling to abandon centralism-kept such collaboration at a minimum. As with many national conflicts, it was probably the vicious circle of fear that accounted most for the failure to solve the Slovak question satisfactorily. In the 1920s, Czechoslovak centralists feared that an autonomous Slovakia would be easy prey for Hungarians eager to revise the post-War peace treaties and detach Slovakia from the Czech lands and return it to Hungary. The close collaboration after 1918 between SPP leader Hlinka and two notorious Hungarian sympathizers, Frantisek Jehlicka and Vojtech Tuka, only heightened Prague's apprehensions. 14 By the mid1930s, the Germans had replaced the Hungarians as the chief fear of Czechoslovak centralists with respect to Slovakia. After Konrad Henlein 's strong showing in the 1935 parliamentary elections, Prague worried that autonomy for Slovakia would make it harder to resist similar demands by Czechoslovakia's Sudeten German minority. The SPP, at the same time, had a great fear that Czechs would solve the Sudeten German question by granting autonomy to the predominately and historically German lands, while ignoring similar demands from Slovaks. This fear, combined with the 1 • Jehlicka was a Slovak priest of pro-Hungarian sympathy who accompanied Hlinka on a trip to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, where they sought to present the Slovak national case to the Great Powers . After the trip, which proved to be a fiasco, Hlinka was imprisoned by the Czechoslovak government while Jehlicka went into exile; Tuka was a pro-Hungarian university professor who lost his job after 1918 and found a new career in the SPP as an editor, parliamentarian, and advisor to Hlinka. He was inv o lved in various intrigues against the Czechoslovak Republic in the 1920s. �18 SLOVAKJA SPP's inability to realize its demands via normal channels, led that party, or at least certain factions within it, to seek support repeatedly from abroad. And since the Western democracies tended to support the post-War status quo, the SPP sometimes looked to those neighbors of Czechoslovakia who were seeking change and, hence, were seen by the Republic's rulers as a threat. Hlinka and his party consistently cultivated good relations with official and unofficial circles in Poland, while SPP radicals sought closer ties with Germany and Czechoslovakia's pro-Nazi Sudeten Germans . 15 This in turn frightened Czechs and made it even less likely that autonomy for Slovakia would be agreed to by the power brokers in Prague. Throughout 1938, fears on both sides increased as German pressure, both from within and without Czechoslovakia, intensified, as did Slovak demands for autonomy. Once the Czechoslovak government elected to accept the Munich Agreement and hand over large tracts of its territory to Nazi Germany, the SPP pressed its claims and got a demoralized Czechoslovak government not only to acquiesce in its autonomist demands but also to accept the existence of a distinct Slovak nation. Scarcely a week after the Munich Agreement, Prague and the SPP agreed that Czechoslovakia would be restructured as Czecho-Slovakia, with an autonomous Slovakia run by the SPP. When Hitler opted to destroy Czecho-Slovakia m March of 1939, this autonomous Slovakia became the independent Slovak Republic, closely allied with Nazi Germany as one of its satellites, while the Czech lands were incorporated wholly into the Third Reich as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Slovakia 15 See, for example, James Ramon Felak, "At the Price of the Republic": Hlinka 's Slovak People 's Party 1929- 1938 (Pittsburgh , PA, 1994), pp. 171 -175, for a discussion of SPP flirtations with Polish and German nationalists. �SLOVAKIA 19 survived the war as an authoritarian, one-party state, led by the Roman Catholic priest Jozef Tiso, who succeeded Hlinka in the summer of 1938 as head of the SPP. Both Roman Catholics and their Church were privileged in this period. At the same time, a resistance movement emerged composed of an uneasy alliance of Communists and democrats, which erupted in the Slovak National Uprising of August-September 1944. Both the Slovak Republic and the Uprising would have major impacts on the post-War situation in Slovakia. First, by having their own state, Slovaks gained the confidence and experience necessary for self-government. By 1945, the idea of returning to a Czechoslovak nation and state run from Prague was repellent across the political spectrum in Slovakia. Second, the very fact of this state which, like the autonomous Slovakia of October 1938, came into existence on the coattails of Hitler's march into Central Europe, tainted Slovak accomplishments, as many Czechs regarded Slovaks, especially those in the SPP, as collaborators with the Czechs' mortal enemy, Nazi Germany. Thus, Czechs often saw manifestations of Slovak nationalism as fascist in nature and threatening to the Republic. Third, despite the susceptibility of Slovaks to charges of collaboration, at the same time, thanks to the Slovak National Uprising, Slovaks could point to the fact that their own homegrown resistance to Nazism far exceeded Czech efforts in numbers and intensity. It also created a politically influential association of partisan veterans who could potentially throw their weight around in the postWar situation. With Germany's defeat, Czechoslovakia was restored. This time, however, there would be no Czechoslovak idea. Slovaks were recognized as a distinct nation, and allowed to retain the Slovak national organs that they had set up during the Uprising. �20 SLOVAKJA Czech Communist leader Klement Gottwald, Czechoslovakia's most powerful politician at war's end, proclaimed that "the Slovaks are to be the masters in their own Slovak land." 16 A whole host of problems emerged however, some almost at once, to foil what was a hopeful beginning for advocates of Slovak autonomy. First, the set-up was an asymmetrical one. Slovak national organs, such as the Slovak National Council and Board of Commissioners, were established, but with no parallel Czech organs, only federal organs with competence for the entire state. This led to conflicts over where the competence of the central organs ended and that of the Slovak ones began. The "Slovak question" returned in a new form. Second, the cultural differences that plagued SlovakCzech relations during the First Republic continued. Czech suspicion of Slovak Catholicism was, if anything, even more intense after the experience of the Second World War, when the pro-Nazi Slovak state was led by a Catholic priest under whom the Church enjoyed far more privilege and influence than it had under the First Republic or could hope to after 1945. Third, Czech numerical dominance remained, and if Czech parties could be united on the issue, they would be able to scale back Slovak self-government with little resistance. It also became clear, especially after Czechoslovakia's first post-war parliamentary elections in May of 1946, that Slovakia was far less friendly politically to the Left than were the Czech lands. While Czechs chose left-wing parties in percentages that rank among all-time highs for Europe (the Communists, Social Democrats, and National Socialists together received over 79% of the vote in the Czech lands, with the Communists leading the way with 40% ), Slovaks rejected the Com16 Joseph A. Mikus, ed., Slovakia, A Political and Constitutional History, Acta Academica Slovaca 48 (Bratislava, 1995), p. 242; this work contains an English translation of the text of the Kosice Agreement of April 5, 1945, pp. 242-243. �SLOVAKIA 21 munists in favor of the Democrats by a slightly more than two-to• one margm . 17 These above factors combined to complicate post-war Czechoslovak politics and to pose formidable impediments to the realization of the promised program of autonomy for Slovakia. The political landscape in Slovakia after the War was occupied by three main groups, politically speaking. On the Left were the Communists, belonging to the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS), separate from, yet ultimately under the control of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (KSC) in Prague. The KSS was divided between those Slovak Communists who were willing to assert what they regarded as Slovak interests, and those who were more closely under the thumb of Prague. By August 1945 the latter, on Prague 's intervention, were given the upper hand in the KSS. 18 The only significant party besides the Communists was the Slovak Democratic Party (DP), founded by non-Communist veterans of the Slovak National Uprising, attracting above all those Slovak Protestants who had been alienated by the SPP's assertive Catholicism but at the same time suspicious of Prague 's centralism. The third group was the Catholics themselves, most of whom were unorganized politically with the outlawing of the SPP at war 's end. Thus, the party that traditionally drew about half the Slovak vote no longer existed, and a land that was 80% Catholic was offered only parties dominated by atheists or Protestants. This large bloc of voters without a party home would, as both the Communists and the Democrats realized, be decisive in the parlia- 17 Robert Letz, S/ovensko v rokoch 1945-1948 na ceste ku komunistickej tota/ite(Bratislava, 1994), p. 39. " l.'.ubomir Liptak, ed., Politicke strany na Slovensku, 1860-1989 (Bratislava, 1992), pp. 267-268; and Yeshayahu Jelinek, The Lust for Power: Nationalism. Slovakia, and the Communists, 19 I 8-1948 (Boulder, CO, 1983), p. 86. �22 SLOVAKJA mentary elections. Thus, the KSS began to woo Slovak Catholics, hoping to create a separate Slovak Catholic party that would keep Catholic voters away from the DP and thereby keep Slovakia's non-Communist population divided. 19 Just as it appeared that Communist intrigues would succeed, the DP delivered an olive branch to disgruntled Slovak Catholics. It was called the April Agreement, and involved the DP and leading Slovak Catholics. This Agreement specified that the ratio of Catholics to Protestants in all DP organs and institutions was to be seven-to-three, with Catholics to be allotted two-thirds of the party's seats in Parliament. In addition, Catholics were to get their own DP daily, the Demokraticke hlasy. 20 As a result of the April Agreement, Catholics moved into leading positions in the DP's presidium and general secretariat. Nevertheless, this Catholic-Protestant reconciliation was a Pyrrhic victory for Slovakia's non-Communist forces. It did enable the DP to win the May 1946 parliamentary elections in a resounding manner, and made it clear that Slovakia was overwhelmingly anti-Communist. At the same time, however, the Communists were able to exploit the April Agreement successfully for their own ends. With an influx of Catholics into the DP, the same Catholics that Communists had been wooing up to that point, the KSS now sought to portray the DP as riddled with fascist traitors loyal to former leader Tiso, and dangerous to the integrity and democracy of the Czechoslovak state. 21 Thus began a determined , 19 Letz, Slovensko, pp. 28-29 ; Michal Bamovsky, Na ceste k monopolu moci; Mocenskopoliticke zapasy na S/ovensku v rokoch 1945-1948 (Bratislava, 1993), p. 73 . 20 Bamovsky, Na ceste, p. 80; Letz, S/ovensko, p. 36. 21 See United States Department of State, Decimal Files, 860f.00/6- l 346, no. 985 ; (hereafter referred to as DOS). �SLOVAKIA 23 sustained, and aggressive effort by Communist propaganda to slander the DP. Furthermore, the election results made it clear to the Communists that autonomy for Slovakia would be a disaster for Communist interests. Consequently, the Communists began to push aggressively for a scaling back of the competence of Slovak national organs in favor of federal ones. At the same time, Communists sought to use the alarm they could generate over a "fascist restoration" in Slovakia to frighten Czech non-Communists into keeping the DP at a distance. With the acquiescence, and at times the support of the Czech democratic parties, the Communists succeeded in reasserting Prague's control over Slovakia and largely isolating the DP. As U.S. Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt wrote in May, 1947: For the Czech non-Communist parties and their leaders , including Benes, as a result of their experiences in 1938-1939 when Slovak aspirations contributed materially to the dissolution of the Czechoslovak State, feel with a deep intensity that Slovak autonomy, while acceptable in theory, must have definite limitations in practice. These leaders are therefore all too likely to side with the Communists on any issues to which the latter are able to give a Czech versus Slovak or autonomy versus centralism complexion. As a result the Democrats are very frequently left to face the Communist onslaught alone. 22 Although, strictly speaking, Czechoslovakia was a democracy, with free elections and multiple political parties with their own periodicals, one is struck by just how circumscribed the system in fact was. A number of political parties were banned, including the most popular Czech and Slovak parties of the inter-war years, the Agrarians and SPP, respectively. New parties were prohibited 22 DOS, 5-2947, no. 2477. �24 SLOVAKIA without the consent of the existing parties. Nor could one set up an individual periodical without their permission. Government intervention in and influence over the media was considerable, and publication of anything critical of the Soviet Union was taboo. The regime was also established to accord the Communists more influence than electoral results would warrant. 23 This was particularly the case in Slovakia, where despite losing by nearly a two-to-one margin in the parliamentary elections, the Communists retained the chairmanship of the Board of CoJilIIlissioners, which acted as the executive branch in Slovakia, and kept the Democrats from holding the crucial post of Commissioner of the Interior, which went to the non-partisan Mikulas Ferjencfk.24 Without much support from the Czech non-Communist parties and facing a Communist-influenced political police, the DP was an easy prey for the most concentrated Communist attack yet. In June of 1947, the security police in Slovakia uncovered an alleged "anti-state conspiracy", which the Communists used to blackmail and intimidate the DP.25 Using their influence in and control over state security organs and employing 'agents provocateurs', the Communists were able, reminiscent of their assault on the Smallholders Party in Hungary, to charge leading Slovak Democrats with complicity in the conspiracy. Though the Czech democratic parties were by this time wise to Communist intrigues and took some steps in defense of the DP, they never quite lost their suspicions that, just possibly, Communist charges against the 23 For a discussion of Czechoslovakia's "people's democratic" system, see Karel Kaplan, The Short March; The Communist Takeover in Czechoslovakia, 19451948 (London, 1987), pp. 33-54. 24 Bamovsky, Na ceste, pp. 116- I I 7. 25 lbid., pp. 140-141 ; Letz, Slovensko, pp. 54-55. �SLOVAKIA 25 DP might be accurate.26 With the Czech democrats thereby paralyzed, the Communists, with the police in their pockets, and the trade union and partisan organizations that they dominated mobilized on their behalf, felt that the correlation of forces were such in Slovakia that they attempted a 'putsch' in November of 194 7. This involved a KSS attempt to force a reconstitution of the Slovak Board of Commissioners through a political crisis caused by the planned and coordinated resignation of its Communist members. Though only partly successful, and though the DP and Czech non-Marxist parties stuck together from this point on, this cooperation proved to be too little, too late. The attempted coup in Slovakia was followed by a successful one in Prague in February 1948; in the latter case, it was the Czechoslovak Social Democrats who broke ranks with Czec hoslovakia's democratic parties and allowed the Communists' divide and rule tactics to bring Czec hoslovak democracy to an end . In contrasting the inter-war period and the post-war period , one finds much continuity in the Slovak-Czech relationship. The Czech bias against traditional Slovak Catholicism impeded relations both after 1918 and, reinforced by the events of 1938-1945, maintained itself into the post-war era. Czech fears of Slovaks as disloyal also continued, again reinforced by the events of the inter-war period and especially of 1938- 1939, and made evident in the ease with which the Communists could find Czech support for their efforts to undo 'de facto' the results of the elections in Slovakia. Both situations, though in quite different ways, presented insurmountable obstacles to the realization of Slovak autonomist desires, with Slovaks themselves divided over the iss ue, unable to bring sufficient pressure to bear on their behalf. Finally, in both 26 DOS, 10-647, no. 1342; see also Hu bert Ripka, Czechoslovakia Enslaved: The Story of the Communist Coup d'Etat (London, 1950), p. 113. �26 SLOVAKIA situations, external developments were crucial - in one case Nazi Germany's pressure against Czechoslovakia, in the other the intensifying Cold War, which made Czechoslovakia 's hopes of being a bridge between East and West futile and even dangerous. Along with important similarities, the Slovak question in the inter-war period and post-war period shows significant differences. After World War II, the Czechoslovak idea was abandoned and the existence of a Slovak nation was officially recognized. Furthermore, Prague came to believe that the best way to ease Slovak discontent was via the economic development of Slovakia. There were also important differences in the political structure of the two cases. In the inter-war period, the Government was composed of parties committed to the maintenance of Czechoslovak democracy, with Communists and fascists in the opposition along with Slovak nationalists. After the War, an opposition technically ceased to exist, Communists held key positions within the system they sought to destroy, and Slovak nationalists, albeit a new breed more moderate than the former SPP, sat in the Government. A final crucial difference lies in the relationship between the Slovak question and the health and survival of the democratic order in Czechoslovakia. In the inter-war period, Slovak nationalists had at best an ambivalent attitude toward Czechoslovakia's system. While a fascist element within the SPP viewed it with hostility, most Slovak nationalists accepted the system or were indifferent toward it. When Czechoslovakia faced potentially fatal threats in 1938, the SPP's primary concern was not "How can we defend Czechoslovak democracy at this critical time?" but rather the more parochial "What's in it for the Slovaks?" For all their failure to address satisfactorily the Slovak question in the 1920s and 1930s, most Czech political elites had a better grasp of just what was at stake as Nazism intensified its pressure on the First �SLOVAKIA 27 Republic from within and without. After the war, however, autonomy-minded Slovaks, now represented in the DP, had a very clear notion of just what was at stake, and arguably a better grasp of the situation than the Czechoslovak democrats, who well into 1947 seemed to fear an SPP-revival in Slovakia more than they feared the Communists . For national tensions to ease, both sides of a conflict need to relinquish, or at least moderate, their fears of the other. This the Czechs never really succeeded in doing, as the idea that Slovakia was disloyal and separatist was always in the back, and often in the front, of the minds of many of them. Slovak actions, whether it was Hlinka's consorting with Hungarian sympathizers in the 1920s, the SPP radical wing's flirting with fascism in the 19 30s, or the SPP's demand for autonomy and eventual secession from Czecho-Slovakia in conjunction with Hitler's penetration of East Central Europe, only reaffirmed or deepened Czech fears. When one takes into account these mutual suspicions, the psychological baggage both sides brought into their relationship, the structure of Czechoslovakia's regimes during this century, the persistent bias of Czech elites against Slovak Catholicism, the disparities between Slovak and Czech economic development, the presence of hostile neighbors hoping to exploit Slovak-Czech tensions, and the trauma that this part of Europe experienced from 1914 to 1989, it is not surprising that the Slovak question remained a running sore on Czechoslovakia's body politic throughout the twentieth century. � SLOVAKIA 7 The Slovak Question in the Interwar (1918-1938) and Post-War (1945-1948) Czechoslovak Republics James R. Felak A key element of the aura of tragedy that surrounds Czechoslovakia's history in the eyes of many of its students, observers, and sympathizers is that state's experience in having its liberal, Western-oriented, parliamentary democratic, pluralistic political system destroyed by a powerful, aggressive, neighboring totalitarian empire twice in this century. In the early fall of 1938, threatened by Hitler's Germany, abandoned by their allies, and facing pressure from discontented ethnic minorities at home, Czechoslovakia's leaders succumbed to the Munich Agreement and dismantled their parliamentary democratic regime, the last one remaining in East Central Europe, and replaced it with a quasiauthoritarian alternative. In February 1948, a restored multi-party democracy in Czechoslovakia once again met its end, this time through the machinations of a pro-Soviet Communist minority that was able to seize power and thereafter transform Czechoslovakia into a carbon-copy of the Stalinist "people's democracies" that had been imposed over the previous years on most of the countries of the region. In the periods that concluded with the demise of both of these experiments in liberal democracy, the relations, and particularly the tensions between Slovaks and Czechs �8 SLOVAKIA played an important role. This paper will examine the state of Slovak-Czech relations in both the inter-war, and post-war Republics, arguing that the obstacles to a mutually satisfactory solution to the Slovak question were formidable in both situations. It will also draw comparisons between the two cases, identifying elements of continuity and change. The events of autumn 1918, with the collapse of the AustroHungarian empire and proclamation of an independent Czechoslovak Republic, brought Czechs and Slovaks together in a single state. Slovak discontent became apparent from very early on. It was inevitable that Czechs would dominate the new Republic. Czechs outnumbered Slovaks by more than two-to-one, and the Czech lands were much more highly developed economically than Slovakia. Czechs had large middle and working classes, and had acquired considerable political and administrative experience in the Austrian half of the Empire. By 1900, they were a well-organized, well-educated, confident nation with a strong sense of national identity. This was in stark contrast to relatively poor, largely rural Slovakia, where discriminatory Hungarian policies had kept Slovaks from acquiring much political or administrative experience or educating themselves in a Slovak national spirit. As the twentieth century dawned on Slovakia, Slovak nationalists were only just beginning to build a mass national movement. The new regime, both in its structure and its justification, carried the seeds of Slovak discontent. First, Czechoslovakia was based on the idea that a Czechoslovak nation existed, which served as the so-called constituent nation (statotvomy narocf) upon which the Republic was based. 1 This notion was anchored in ' See Ladislav Lipscher, Verfassung und politische Verwaltung in der Tschechos/owakei 1918-1939 (Munich, 1979), pp. 41 -42 for a discussion of the statotvornyconcept . �SLOVAKJA 9 the Czechoslovak Constitution of 1920, along with the belief that a Czechoslovak language existed and would serve as the Republic 's official language.2 These stipulations, while freeing the Slovaks from Magyarization, denied them one of the major goals of the Slovak national movement since its inception at the time of Cudovft Stur in the 1830s and 40-the recognition that a distinct Slovak nation in fact existed. In hand with the Czechoslovak idea went a centralistic administrative structure for the new state, with decision-making powers concentrated in the central government in Prague, which was situated in the heart of the Czech lands . Aside from being a corollary to the idea that the state was based on a single Czechoslovak nation, it reflected fears among Czechs and a number of Czech-oriented Slovaks that autonomy for Slovakia would set a precedent for similar demands by the German and Hungarian minorities and aid Hungary's efforts to ultimately detach Slovakia from Czechoslovakia and return it to Budapest 's control. As Czechoslovakia's then Foreign Minister Edvard Benes said in 1932, greater autonomy for Slovakia would "mean for this state the slogan Slovakia to the Slovaks, German regions to the Germans, Magyar regions to the Magyars." 3 There was also a strong anti-Catholic sentiment among Czech elites and some of their Slovak collaborators, manifested in a fear that if ' The Constitution opens with the words, "We, the Czechoslovak nation," and goes on to stipulate that "The Czechoslovak language shall be the state, official language of the Republic." For an English translation of the Constitution, see Howard Lee McBain and Lindsay Rogers, Eds., The New Constitutions of Europe(New York, 1922), pp. 307-342. ' Quoted in Carol Skalnik Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia; The Making and Remaking of a State, 1918-1987 (Princeton, NJ, 1988), p. 137. �10 SLOVAKIA Slovaks governed themselves, they would choose a government that was too reactionary and clerical for the progressive tastes shared by most of Czechoslovakia's founding fathers. Finally, there was a widespread belief that, blighted by Magyarization, Slovaks were not yet capable of self-government. Two further issues that served to fuel Slovak discontent were the economy and religion. Along with the damage done by the First World War, Slovaks now had to cope with a new international boundary that, among other things, cut them off from the traditional markets, resources, and outlets for surplus labor that they had enjoyed in the larger Austro-Hungarian economic unit. Furthermore, the industry that Slovakia did have, lost the subsidies that the Hungarian government had been providing and had to compete with the more efficient and more heavily capitalized industry of the Czech lands. The result was an economic depression and, in effect, a de-industrialization of Slovakia during the early l 920s. The tax rate was also higher in Slovakia than in the Czech lands during the l 920s. 4 Religion proved to be a major irritant in Slovak-Czech relations. Many Czech nationalists, drawing inspiration from the Hussite tradition and regarding Catholicism as a reactionary historical force identified with German-Austrian hegemony over the Czech lands, viewed the Roman Catholic Church with suspicion and even outright hostility. This was dramatically demonstrated shortly after Czechoslovakia achieved her independence, when a Czech 4 See C. A. Macartney , Hungary and Her Successors, The Treaty of Trianon and Its Consequences 1919-1937(London, 1937), pp. 127- 131 and R. W. SetonWatson, Slovakia Then and Now: A Political Survey(London, 1931), pp. 36-37, for contemporary discussions of Slovakia's economic problems. Despite their divergent interpretations of the Slovak question, Macartney's and SetonWatson's characterizations of Slovakia's economic plight are quite similar. �SLOVAKIA 11 mob smashed to pieces the statue of the Virgin Mary on Old Town Square in Prague. Reports of this renunciation of a part of the Bohemian past did not play well in Slovakia, where among Slovaks such hostility toward the Church was considerably weaker, if operative at all. The forced removal of crucifixes from the walls of schools, disruption of religions services and desecration of sacred places and objects, and state seizure of Catholic schools and church lands helped foster in Slovakia the image of the Czech as an enemy of Christianity, especially as traditionally understood in Slovakia. 5 Also contributing to religious tensions was the fact that Czech political elites had, already before 1918, developed their closest relations with members of Slovakia's Protestant (Lutheran) minority. Slovak Protestants had traditional links with Czech culture, and were more likely than Slovak Catholics to share the modernist world view that was standard among Czechoslovakia' s founders. By way of example, of the fifty-seven Slovaks appointed to the Provisional National Assembly that was established to draw up Czechoslovakia's constitution, twenty-eight were Protestants. This in a land that was approximately 79 per cent Catholic. 6 Such an outcome could hardly fail to appear discriminatory and unrepresentative to many Slovaks. One final irritant in Slovak-Czech relations is worth discussing at some length, as it shows just how complicated this relationship could be. This is the question of the migration of Czech administrators , teachers, and other professionals and government emplo5 Jozef Spirko, Cirkevne dejiny s osobitnym zretefom na vyvin cirkevnych de- Jin Slovenska, sv. IV (Bratislava, 1993), p. 466; see E L. Woodward and Rohan Butler, Eds., Documents on British Foreign Policy 19 I 9-1939, First Series, Vol. IV, 1919 (London, 1956), p. 3, for a reference co anti-Catholic actions in Slovakia in a report by the British Charge d' affaires in Prague . 6 Ladislav Lipscher, "Klub slovenskych poslancov v rokoch 1918-1920," Historicky casopis, XVI, 2 ( 1968), pp. 140- 141 . �12 SLOVAKIA yees to Slovakia after 1918. Slovakia lacked qualified professionals and administrators who were untainted by affiliation with the former Hungarian regime and its education system, given the fact that Slovaks before 1918 could rarely advance socially and professionally except by becoming "Magyarized." For this reason, tens of thousands of Czechs moved to Slovakia in the 1920s. 7 Though many of them were needed, their presence in Slovakia proved to be a major cause of Slovak discontent. First, they represented a cultural intrusion of modern-thinking, largely urban progressive types into a traditional, rural society, and as such offended many Slovaks with paternalism and tactlessness. Second , they received considerable salary supplements since Slovakia was regarded as a hardship post. 8 This income disparity between imported Czechs and native Slovak employees was also a sore point. Third, there was a perception among Slovaks that their native land was being used by Czechs as a dumping ground for officials who were second-rate. Finally, Slovak resentment was especially acute over the fact that among the Czechs who received employment in Slovakia were not only professionals and high-level administrators , but railway porters, postmen, doormen, messengers , and janitors, positions for which there were plenty of capable Slo- vaks at hand .9 This situation can be explained at least in part by the nature of Czechoslovakia's political system. In Czechoslovakia's coalition ' See Jan Rychlfk, Cesi a Slovaci ve 20.stoletf; cesko-slo venske vztahy J 9 J41945 (Bratislava, 1997), pp. 86-87 for statistics on the number of Czechs employed in Slovakia during the interwar period . ' Natasa Krajcovicova, "K otazke personalneho obsadzovania organov statnej a verejnej spravy na Slovensku v prvych rokoch po vzniku CSR", Historickf casopis, XLIV , 4, 1996, pp. 619-620. 9 Jozef Lettrich, History of Modem Slovakia (New York, 1955), pp. 61 -62; Seton-Watson, Slovakia, p. 34. �SLOVAKIA 13 governments, certain parties tended to retain particular ministries over the long-term. Thus, it was not unusual for a political party, whose support came almost exclusively from the Czech lands, to control a substantial number of state administrative positions in Slovakia which it would allot to its Czech adherents as patronage. Such was the case, for example, with the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party and the railroads. Compounding the problem of Czech employment in Slovakia was the fact that Prague, with the help of these migrants, was so successful in developing a Czechoslovak education system in Slovakia that by the end of the 1920s, Slovakia was producing for the first time a native intelligentsia fully trained in Czechoslovak high schools and colleges. Unfortunately, precisely at the time that these cohorts of educated Slovaks were coming onto the job market, Czechoslovakia was hit by the Great Depression. These young Slovaks, many of whom could not find appropriate employment, came to resent the fact that Czechs were working in Slovakia in positions that they coveted. Many of these Czechs meanwhile had struck roots in Slovakia and, even if they wished, had little to return to in Depressionstricken Bohemia and Moravia. Many of these members of the young Slovak intelligentsia inclined toward radical politics of the left and right; among the latter, calls for Czechs to go home became standard fare at political rallies. Though, as one scholar recently pointed out, the personnel question was an extremely complicated issue that cannot be understood from a purely ethnic standpoint, the fact that Czechs were working in Slovakia while Slovaks were unemployed provided grist for Slovak nationalist mills and made this issue a constant irritant for Slovak-Czech relations. 10 ' 0 Krajcovicova, "K otazke", pp. 627, 628 . �14 SLOVAKIA Politically, Slovaks responded to this growing discontent in a number of ways. The antidote to Czechoslovak centralism was Slovak autonomy, a call that was embraced by the Slovak party with the greatest popularity, the Slovak People's Party (SPP). Led by the populist priest Andrej Hlinka, it sought to mobilize Slovak religious, economic, political and cultural discontent into a broadbased movement for autonomy and national recognition. It staunchly supported an autonomous Slovakia right up to the end of the First Republic. Two other groups also called for autonomy for Slovakia, at least in their rhetoric-the Communists and the parties of the Hungarian minority. This meant that in the parliamentary elections of 1925, 1929, and 1935, over 50% of voters in Slovakia opted for parties that rejected Czechoslovak centralism. 11 While about half of ethnic Slovaks voted for the SPP, most other Slovaks voted for the Slovak affiliates of Czechoslovak-wide parties. These parties supported the idea of a Czechoslovak nation and the centralist system. Because they were always or nearly always in the government, they could provide supporters with certain material advantages that the SPP could not, so it was quite likely that considerably more Slovaks supported autonomy than voted for the autonomist SPP. The most significant of such parties was the Agrarians, which alone among the government parties had a strong Slovak wing, led by Milan Hodza. Though officially accepting the Czechoslovak idea and opposing autonomy for Slovakia, the Agrarians tried in the 1930s to develop an alternative to both Prague centralism and SPP autonomism - the socalled regionalist option. This involved promoting cooperation of Slovaks on behalf of Slovak interests on regional rather than national grounds. In theory, regionalism gave the Slovak Agra- 11 For electoral statistics, see Leff, National Conflict, p. 52. �SLOVAKIA 15 rians the possibility to champion Slovak interests without the sort of nationalism that could upset Prague and the Czechoslovak constitutional order. 12 Despite considerable support for autonomy in Slovakia throughout the inter-war period, the cards were stacked against success in this regard for a number of reasons. Some of these have been discussed above and need little further elaboration- the Czech numerical preponderance over Slovaks, and superiority in terms of modem economic, cultural, and political development; the constitutional stipulation that a Czechoslovak nation, rather than separate Czech and Slovak nations, existed and was the basis of the state; the distaste for traditional Catholicism among the Republic's ruling elites; the fears that autonomy for Slovakia would play into the hands of Hungarian and German nationalists and make it harder for Prague to resist their autonomist demands; the belief that Slovaks were not capable of governing themselves; and the difficulties, owing to problems of political patronage and economic stagnation, of finding appropriate employment for the university-educated Slovaks the system was producing by the late 1920s and their consequent tum towards radicalism. Other factors were at play as well. It should be kept in mind that both of Czechoslovakia's presidents during the inter-war period, Tomas G. Masaryk and Edvard Benes, were staunch champions of the Czechoslovak idea and opponents of autonomy for Slovakia. Furthermore, the autonomist forces in Slovakia were not united, and in fact were fundamentally divided over their conceptions of just what sort of autonomous Slovakia they wanted. The Hungarian parties regarded Slovaks and Hungarians as minorities with an equal claim to self-government in Slovakia, 12 M. Kropilak, ed., Dejiny S/ovenska, V ( 1918-1945) (Bratislava, 1985), p. 195. �16 SLOVAKlA with hopes that someday that territory would return to a restored Kingdom of Hungary. The SPP, on the other hand, believed in "Slovakia for the Slovaks," as one of its most cherished slogans rang out, and saw Slovaks as the statotvomy narod in Slovakia, with Hungarians as merely a minority. The Communists , for their part, were open to autonomy for Slovakia only if it were to come in conjunction with the establishment of a Communist dictatorship of the proletariat, something that repelled the other pro-autonomy parties. The nature of the Czechoslovak political system was particularly crucial in making it highly unlikely that the SPP, barring some sort of exceptional circumstances, would be able to realize its autonomist goals via normal political channels. While winning the votes of around half of the ethnic Slovaks, the SPP 's support statewide was only around 7%. This meant that it would have to find allies if it wished to establish influence in or increase pressure on the government. Such alliance-seeking was problematic, however. Several leading Czechoslovak parties were outright hostile to Slovak nationalism and the idea of autonomy, for example the Social Democratic Party, National Socialist Party, and, after 1921 , the Czechoslovak People 's Party. Taken together, these three parties represented a considerable proportion of the governing majority. 13 Among the opposition parties were a few that were open to cooperation with the SPP, such as the Hungarian nationalists, Czech fascists, and the Slovak National Party (a Protestant autonomist party), but they were either insignificant in numbers and influence, or holding fundamentally different ultimate goals from the SPP. The Slovak wing of the Czechoslovak Agrarian Party, the second strongest electoral draw in Slovakia, could theoreti13 For example, of the government 's 206 seats in Parliament after the 1929 elections, these three parties held 96 seats. �SLOVAKJA 17 cally have formed a powerful bloc had its regionalist program developed into a genuine political collaboration with the SPP. However, two factors-the Agrarians' fear that the SPP would dominate an autonomous Slovakia, and the fact that the Agrarian Party 's leadership in Prague was unwilling to abandon centralism-kept such collaboration at a minimum. As with many national conflicts, it was probably the vicious circle of fear that accounted most for the failure to solve the Slovak question satisfactorily. In the 1920s, Czechoslovak centralists feared that an autonomous Slovakia would be easy prey for Hungarians eager to revise the post-War peace treaties and detach Slovakia from the Czech lands and return it to Hungary. The close collaboration after 1918 between SPP leader Hlinka and two notorious Hungarian sympathizers, Frantisek Jehlicka and Vojtech Tuka, only heightened Prague's apprehensions. 14 By the mid1930s, the Germans had replaced the Hungarians as the chief fear of Czechoslovak centralists with respect to Slovakia. After Konrad Henlein 's strong showing in the 1935 parliamentary elections, Prague worried that autonomy for Slovakia would make it harder to resist similar demands by Czechoslovakia's Sudeten German minority. The SPP, at the same time, had a great fear that Czechs would solve the Sudeten German question by granting autonomy to the predominately and historically German lands, while ignoring similar demands from Slovaks. This fear, combined with the 1 • Jehlicka was a Slovak priest of pro-Hungarian sympathy who accompanied Hlinka on a trip to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, where they sought to present the Slovak national case to the Great Powers . After the trip, which proved to be a fiasco, Hlinka was imprisoned by the Czechoslovak government while Jehlicka went into exile; Tuka was a pro-Hungarian university professor who lost his job after 1918 and found a new career in the SPP as an editor, parliamentarian, and advisor to Hlinka. He was inv o lved in various intrigues against the Czechoslovak Republic in the 1920s. �18 SLOVAKJA SPP's inability to realize its demands via normal channels, led that party, or at least certain factions within it, to seek support repeatedly from abroad. And since the Western democracies tended to support the post-War status quo, the SPP sometimes looked to those neighbors of Czechoslovakia who were seeking change and, hence, were seen by the Republic's rulers as a threat. Hlinka and his party consistently cultivated good relations with official and unofficial circles in Poland, while SPP radicals sought closer ties with Germany and Czechoslovakia's pro-Nazi Sudeten Germans . 15 This in turn frightened Czechs and made it even less likely that autonomy for Slovakia would be agreed to by the power brokers in Prague. Throughout 1938, fears on both sides increased as German pressure, both from within and without Czechoslovakia, intensified, as did Slovak demands for autonomy. Once the Czechoslovak government elected to accept the Munich Agreement and hand over large tracts of its territory to Nazi Germany, the SPP pressed its claims and got a demoralized Czechoslovak government not only to acquiesce in its autonomist demands but also to accept the existence of a distinct Slovak nation. Scarcely a week after the Munich Agreement, Prague and the SPP agreed that Czechoslovakia would be restructured as Czecho-Slovakia, with an autonomous Slovakia run by the SPP. When Hitler opted to destroy Czecho-Slovakia m March of 1939, this autonomous Slovakia became the independent Slovak Republic, closely allied with Nazi Germany as one of its satellites, while the Czech lands were incorporated wholly into the Third Reich as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Slovakia 15 See, for example, James Ramon Felak, "At the Price of the Republic": Hlinka 's Slovak People 's Party 1929- 1938 (Pittsburgh , PA, 1994), pp. 171 -175, for a discussion of SPP flirtations with Polish and German nationalists. �SLOVAKIA 19 survived the war as an authoritarian, one-party state, led by the Roman Catholic priest Jozef Tiso, who succeeded Hlinka in the summer of 1938 as head of the SPP. Both Roman Catholics and their Church were privileged in this period. At the same time, a resistance movement emerged composed of an uneasy alliance of Communists and democrats, which erupted in the Slovak National Uprising of August-September 1944. Both the Slovak Republic and the Uprising would have major impacts on the post-War situation in Slovakia. First, by having their own state, Slovaks gained the confidence and experience necessary for self-government. By 1945, the idea of returning to a Czechoslovak nation and state run from Prague was repellent across the political spectrum in Slovakia. Second, the very fact of this state which, like the autonomous Slovakia of October 1938, came into existence on the coattails of Hitler's march into Central Europe, tainted Slovak accomplishments, as many Czechs regarded Slovaks, especially those in the SPP, as collaborators with the Czechs' mortal enemy, Nazi Germany. Thus, Czechs often saw manifestations of Slovak nationalism as fascist in nature and threatening to the Republic. Third, despite the susceptibility of Slovaks to charges of collaboration, at the same time, thanks to the Slovak National Uprising, Slovaks could point to the fact that their own homegrown resistance to Nazism far exceeded Czech efforts in numbers and intensity. It also created a politically influential association of partisan veterans who could potentially throw their weight around in the postWar situation. With Germany's defeat, Czechoslovakia was restored. This time, however, there would be no Czechoslovak idea. Slovaks were recognized as a distinct nation, and allowed to retain the Slovak national organs that they had set up during the Uprising. �20 SLOVAKJA Czech Communist leader Klement Gottwald, Czechoslovakia's most powerful politician at war's end, proclaimed that "the Slovaks are to be the masters in their own Slovak land." 16 A whole host of problems emerged however, some almost at once, to foil what was a hopeful beginning for advocates of Slovak autonomy. First, the set-up was an asymmetrical one. Slovak national organs, such as the Slovak National Council and Board of Commissioners, were established, but with no parallel Czech organs, only federal organs with competence for the entire state. This led to conflicts over where the competence of the central organs ended and that of the Slovak ones began. The "Slovak question" returned in a new form. Second, the cultural differences that plagued SlovakCzech relations during the First Republic continued. Czech suspicion of Slovak Catholicism was, if anything, even more intense after the experience of the Second World War, when the pro-Nazi Slovak state was led by a Catholic priest under whom the Church enjoyed far more privilege and influence than it had under the First Republic or could hope to after 1945. Third, Czech numerical dominance remained, and if Czech parties could be united on the issue, they would be able to scale back Slovak self-government with little resistance. It also became clear, especially after Czechoslovakia's first post-war parliamentary elections in May of 1946, that Slovakia was far less friendly politically to the Left than were the Czech lands. While Czechs chose left-wing parties in percentages that rank among all-time highs for Europe (the Communists, Social Democrats, and National Socialists together received over 79% of the vote in the Czech lands, with the Communists leading the way with 40% ), Slovaks rejected the Com16 Joseph A. Mikus, ed., Slovakia, A Political and Constitutional History, Acta Academica Slovaca 48 (Bratislava, 1995), p. 242; this work contains an English translation of the text of the Kosice Agreement of April 5, 1945, pp. 242-243. �SLOVAKIA 21 munists in favor of the Democrats by a slightly more than two-to• one margm . 17 These above factors combined to complicate post-war Czechoslovak politics and to pose formidable impediments to the realization of the promised program of autonomy for Slovakia. The political landscape in Slovakia after the War was occupied by three main groups, politically speaking. On the Left were the Communists, belonging to the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS), separate from, yet ultimately under the control of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (KSC) in Prague. The KSS was divided between those Slovak Communists who were willing to assert what they regarded as Slovak interests, and those who were more closely under the thumb of Prague. By August 1945 the latter, on Prague 's intervention, were given the upper hand in the KSS. 18 The only significant party besides the Communists was the Slovak Democratic Party (DP), founded by non-Communist veterans of the Slovak National Uprising, attracting above all those Slovak Protestants who had been alienated by the SPP's assertive Catholicism but at the same time suspicious of Prague 's centralism. The third group was the Catholics themselves, most of whom were unorganized politically with the outlawing of the SPP at war 's end. Thus, the party that traditionally drew about half the Slovak vote no longer existed, and a land that was 80% Catholic was offered only parties dominated by atheists or Protestants. This large bloc of voters without a party home would, as both the Communists and the Democrats realized, be decisive in the parlia- 17 Robert Letz, S/ovensko v rokoch 1945-1948 na ceste ku komunistickej tota/ite(Bratislava, 1994), p. 39. " l.'.ubomir Liptak, ed., Politicke strany na Slovensku, 1860-1989 (Bratislava, 1992), pp. 267-268; and Yeshayahu Jelinek, The Lust for Power: Nationalism. Slovakia, and the Communists, 19 I 8-1948 (Boulder, CO, 1983), p. 86. �22 SLOVAKJA mentary elections. Thus, the KSS began to woo Slovak Catholics, hoping to create a separate Slovak Catholic party that would keep Catholic voters away from the DP and thereby keep Slovakia's non-Communist population divided. 19 Just as it appeared that Communist intrigues would succeed, the DP delivered an olive branch to disgruntled Slovak Catholics. It was called the April Agreement, and involved the DP and leading Slovak Catholics. This Agreement specified that the ratio of Catholics to Protestants in all DP organs and institutions was to be seven-to-three, with Catholics to be allotted two-thirds of the party's seats in Parliament. In addition, Catholics were to get their own DP daily, the Demokraticke hlasy. 20 As a result of the April Agreement, Catholics moved into leading positions in the DP's presidium and general secretariat. Nevertheless, this Catholic-Protestant reconciliation was a Pyrrhic victory for Slovakia's non-Communist forces. It did enable the DP to win the May 1946 parliamentary elections in a resounding manner, and made it clear that Slovakia was overwhelmingly anti-Communist. At the same time, however, the Communists were able to exploit the April Agreement successfully for their own ends. With an influx of Catholics into the DP, the same Catholics that Communists had been wooing up to that point, the KSS now sought to portray the DP as riddled with fascist traitors loyal to former leader Tiso, and dangerous to the integrity and democracy of the Czechoslovak state. 21 Thus began a determined , 19 Letz, Slovensko, pp. 28-29 ; Michal Bamovsky, Na ceste k monopolu moci; Mocenskopoliticke zapasy na S/ovensku v rokoch 1945-1948 (Bratislava, 1993), p. 73 . 20 Bamovsky, Na ceste, p. 80; Letz, S/ovensko, p. 36. 21 See United States Department of State, Decimal Files, 860f.00/6- l 346, no. 985 ; (hereafter referred to as DOS). �SLOVAKIA 23 sustained, and aggressive effort by Communist propaganda to slander the DP. Furthermore, the election results made it clear to the Communists that autonomy for Slovakia would be a disaster for Communist interests. Consequently, the Communists began to push aggressively for a scaling back of the competence of Slovak national organs in favor of federal ones. At the same time, Communists sought to use the alarm they could generate over a "fascist restoration" in Slovakia to frighten Czech non-Communists into keeping the DP at a distance. With the acquiescence, and at times the support of the Czech democratic parties, the Communists succeeded in reasserting Prague's control over Slovakia and largely isolating the DP. As U.S. Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt wrote in May, 1947: For the Czech non-Communist parties and their leaders , including Benes, as a result of their experiences in 1938-1939 when Slovak aspirations contributed materially to the dissolution of the Czechoslovak State, feel with a deep intensity that Slovak autonomy, while acceptable in theory, must have definite limitations in practice. These leaders are therefore all too likely to side with the Communists on any issues to which the latter are able to give a Czech versus Slovak or autonomy versus centralism complexion. As a result the Democrats are very frequently left to face the Communist onslaught alone. 22 Although, strictly speaking, Czechoslovakia was a democracy, with free elections and multiple political parties with their own periodicals, one is struck by just how circumscribed the system in fact was. A number of political parties were banned, including the most popular Czech and Slovak parties of the inter-war years, the Agrarians and SPP, respectively. New parties were prohibited 22 DOS, 5-2947, no. 2477. �24 SLOVAKIA without the consent of the existing parties. Nor could one set up an individual periodical without their permission. Government intervention in and influence over the media was considerable, and publication of anything critical of the Soviet Union was taboo. The regime was also established to accord the Communists more influence than electoral results would warrant. 23 This was particularly the case in Slovakia, where despite losing by nearly a two-to-one margin in the parliamentary elections, the Communists retained the chairmanship of the Board of CoJilIIlissioners, which acted as the executive branch in Slovakia, and kept the Democrats from holding the crucial post of Commissioner of the Interior, which went to the non-partisan Mikulas Ferjencfk.24 Without much support from the Czech non-Communist parties and facing a Communist-influenced political police, the DP was an easy prey for the most concentrated Communist attack yet. In June of 1947, the security police in Slovakia uncovered an alleged "anti-state conspiracy", which the Communists used to blackmail and intimidate the DP.25 Using their influence in and control over state security organs and employing 'agents provocateurs', the Communists were able, reminiscent of their assault on the Smallholders Party in Hungary, to charge leading Slovak Democrats with complicity in the conspiracy. Though the Czech democratic parties were by this time wise to Communist intrigues and took some steps in defense of the DP, they never quite lost their suspicions that, just possibly, Communist charges against the 23 For a discussion of Czechoslovakia's "people's democratic" system, see Karel Kaplan, The Short March; The Communist Takeover in Czechoslovakia, 19451948 (London, 1987), pp. 33-54. 24 Bamovsky, Na ceste, pp. 116- I I 7. 25 lbid., pp. 140-141 ; Letz, Slovensko, pp. 54-55. �SLOVAKIA 25 DP might be accurate.26 With the Czech democrats thereby paralyzed, the Communists, with the police in their pockets, and the trade union and partisan organizations that they dominated mobilized on their behalf, felt that the correlation of forces were such in Slovakia that they attempted a 'putsch' in November of 194 7. This involved a KSS attempt to force a reconstitution of the Slovak Board of Commissioners through a political crisis caused by the planned and coordinated resignation of its Communist members. Though only partly successful, and though the DP and Czech non-Marxist parties stuck together from this point on, this cooperation proved to be too little, too late. The attempted coup in Slovakia was followed by a successful one in Prague in February 1948; in the latter case, it was the Czechoslovak Social Democrats who broke ranks with Czec hoslovakia's democratic parties and allowed the Communists' divide and rule tactics to bring Czec hoslovak democracy to an end . In contrasting the inter-war period and the post-war period , one finds much continuity in the Slovak-Czech relationship. The Czech bias against traditional Slovak Catholicism impeded relations both after 1918 and, reinforced by the events of 1938-1945, maintained itself into the post-war era. Czech fears of Slovaks as disloyal also continued, again reinforced by the events of the inter-war period and especially of 1938- 1939, and made evident in the ease with which the Communists could find Czech support for their efforts to undo 'de facto' the results of the elections in Slovakia. Both situations, though in quite different ways, presented insurmountable obstacles to the realization of Slovak autonomist desires, with Slovaks themselves divided over the iss ue, unable to bring sufficient pressure to bear on their behalf. Finally, in both 26 DOS, 10-647, no. 1342; see also Hu bert Ripka, Czechoslovakia Enslaved: The Story of the Communist Coup d'Etat (London, 1950), p. 113. �26 SLOVAKIA situations, external developments were crucial - in one case Nazi Germany's pressure against Czechoslovakia, in the other the intensifying Cold War, which made Czechoslovakia 's hopes of being a bridge between East and West futile and even dangerous. Along with important similarities, the Slovak question in the inter-war period and post-war period shows significant differences. After World War II, the Czechoslovak idea was abandoned and the existence of a Slovak nation was officially recognized. Furthermore, Prague came to believe that the best way to ease Slovak discontent was via the economic development of Slovakia. There were also important differences in the political structure of the two cases. In the inter-war period, the Government was composed of parties committed to the maintenance of Czechoslovak democracy, with Communists and fascists in the opposition along with Slovak nationalists. After the War, an opposition technically ceased to exist, Communists held key positions within the system they sought to destroy, and Slovak nationalists, albeit a new breed more moderate than the former SPP, sat in the Government. A final crucial difference lies in the relationship between the Slovak question and the health and survival of the democratic order in Czechoslovakia. In the inter-war period, Slovak nationalists had at best an ambivalent attitude toward Czechoslovakia's system. While a fascist element within the SPP viewed it with hostility, most Slovak nationalists accepted the system or were indifferent toward it. When Czechoslovakia faced potentially fatal threats in 1938, the SPP's primary concern was not "How can we defend Czechoslovak democracy at this critical time?" but rather the more parochial "What's in it for the Slovaks?" For all their failure to address satisfactorily the Slovak question in the 1920s and 1930s, most Czech political elites had a better grasp of just what was at stake as Nazism intensified its pressure on the First �SLOVAKIA 27 Republic from within and without. After the war, however, autonomy-minded Slovaks, now represented in the DP, had a very clear notion of just what was at stake, and arguably a better grasp of the situation than the Czechoslovak democrats, who well into 1947 seemed to fear an SPP-revival in Slovakia more than they feared the Communists . For national tensions to ease, both sides of a conflict need to relinquish, or at least moderate, their fears of the other. This the Czechs never really succeeded in doing, as the idea that Slovakia was disloyal and separatist was always in the back, and often in the front, of the minds of many of them. Slovak actions, whether it was Hlinka's consorting with Hungarian sympathizers in the 1920s, the SPP radical wing's flirting with fascism in the 19 30s, or the SPP's demand for autonomy and eventual secession from Czecho-Slovakia in conjunction with Hitler's penetration of East Central Europe, only reaffirmed or deepened Czech fears. When one takes into account these mutual suspicions, the psychological baggage both sides brought into their relationship, the structure of Czechoslovakia's regimes during this century, the persistent bias of Czech elites against Slovak Catholicism, the disparities between Slovak and Czech economic development, the presence of hostile neighbors hoping to exploit Slovak-Czech tensions, and the trauma that this part of Europe experienced from 1914 to 1989, it is not surprising that the Slovak question remained a running sore on Czechoslovakia's body politic throughout the twentieth century. � 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 2003, Vol. 37 Description An account of the resource Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 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 The Slovak Question in the Interwar (1918-1938) and Post-War (1945-1948) Czechoslovak Republics James R. Felak A key element of the aura of tragedy that surrounds Czechoslovakia's history in the eyes of many of its students, observers, and sympathizers is that state's experience in having its liberal, Western-oriented, parliamentary democratic, pluralistic political system destroyed by a powerful, aggressive, neighboring totalitarian empire twice in this century. In the early fall of 1938, threatened by Hitler's Germany, abandoned by their allies, and facing pressure from discontented ethnic minorities at home, Czechoslovakia's leaders succumbed to the Munich Agreement and dismantled their parliamentary democratic regime, the last one remaining in East Central Europe, and replaced it with a quasiauthoritarian alternative. In February 1948, a restored multi-party democracy in Czechoslovakia once again met its end, this time through the machinations of a pro-Soviet Communist minority that was able to seize power and thereafter transform Czechoslovakia into a carbon-copy of the Stalinist "people's democracies" that had been imposed over the previous years on most of the countries of the region. In the periods that concluded with the demise of both of these experiments in liberal democracy, the relations, and particularly the tensions between Slovaks and Czechs 8 SLOVAKIA played an important role. This paper will examine the state of Slovak-Czech relations in both the inter-war, and post-war Republics, arguing that the obstacles to a mutually satisfactory solution to the Slovak question were formidable in both situations. It will also draw comparisons between the two cases, identifying elements of continuity and change. The events of autumn 1918, with the collapse of the AustroHungarian empire and proclamation of an independent Czechoslovak Republic, brought Czechs and Slovaks together in a single state. Slovak discontent became apparent from very early on. It was inevitable that Czechs would dominate the new Republic. Czechs outnumbered Slovaks by more than two-to-one, and the Czech lands were much more highly developed economically than Slovakia. Czechs had large middle and working classes, and had acquired considerable political and administrative experience in the Austrian half of the Empire. By 1900, they were a well-organized, well-educated, confident nation with a strong sense of national identity. This was in stark contrast to relatively poor, largely rural Slovakia, where discriminatory Hungarian policies had kept Slovaks from acquiring much political or administrative experience or educating themselves in a Slovak national spirit. As the twentieth century dawned on Slovakia, Slovak nationalists were only just beginning to build a mass national movement. The new regime, both in its structure and its justification, carried the seeds of Slovak discontent. First, Czechoslovakia was based on the idea that a Czechoslovak nation existed, which served as the so-called constituent nation (statotvomy narocf) upon which the Republic was based. 1 This notion was anchored in ' See Ladislav Lipscher, Verfassung und politische Verwaltung in der Tschechos/owakei 1918-1939 (Munich, 1979), pp. 41 -42 for a discussion of the statotvornyconcept . SLOVAKJA 9 the Czechoslovak Constitution of 1920, along with the belief that a Czechoslovak language existed and would serve as the Republic 's official language.2 These stipulations, while freeing the Slovaks from Magyarization, denied them one of the major goals of the Slovak national movement since its inception at the time of Cudovft Stur in the 1830s and 40-the recognition that a distinct Slovak nation in fact existed. In hand with the Czechoslovak idea went a centralistic administrative structure for the new state, with decision-making powers concentrated in the central government in Prague, which was situated in the heart of the Czech lands . Aside from being a corollary to the idea that the state was based on a single Czechoslovak nation, it reflected fears among Czechs and a number of Czech-oriented Slovaks that autonomy for Slovakia would set a precedent for similar demands by the German and Hungarian minorities and aid Hungary's efforts to ultimately detach Slovakia from Czechoslovakia and return it to Budapest 's control. As Czechoslovakia's then Foreign Minister Edvard Benes said in 1932, greater autonomy for Slovakia would "mean for this state the slogan Slovakia to the Slovaks, German regions to the Germans, Magyar regions to the Magyars." 3 There was also a strong anti-Catholic sentiment among Czech elites and some of their Slovak collaborators, manifested in a fear that if ' The Constitution opens with the words, "We, the Czechoslovak nation," and goes on to stipulate that "The Czechoslovak language shall be the state, official language of the Republic." For an English translation of the Constitution, see Howard Lee McBain and Lindsay Rogers, Eds., The New Constitutions of Europe(New York, 1922), pp. 307-342. ' Quoted in Carol Skalnik Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia; The Making and Remaking of a State, 1918-1987 (Princeton, NJ, 1988), p. 137. 10 SLOVAKIA Slovaks governed themselves, they would choose a government that was too reactionary and clerical for the progressive tastes shared by most of Czechoslovakia's founding fathers. Finally, there was a widespread belief that, blighted by Magyarization, Slovaks were not yet capable of self-government. Two further issues that served to fuel Slovak discontent were the economy and religion. Along with the damage done by the First World War, Slovaks now had to cope with a new international boundary that, among other things, cut them off from the traditional markets, resources, and outlets for surplus labor that they had enjoyed in the larger Austro-Hungarian economic unit. Furthermore, the industry that Slovakia did have, lost the subsidies that the Hungarian government had been providing and had to compete with the more efficient and more heavily capitalized industry of the Czech lands. The result was an economic depression and, in effect, a de-industrialization of Slovakia during the early l 920s. The tax rate was also higher in Slovakia than in the Czech lands during the l 920s. 4 Religion proved to be a major irritant in Slovak-Czech relations. Many Czech nationalists, drawing inspiration from the Hussite tradition and regarding Catholicism as a reactionary historical force identified with German-Austrian hegemony over the Czech lands, viewed the Roman Catholic Church with suspicion and even outright hostility. This was dramatically demonstrated shortly after Czechoslovakia achieved her independence, when a Czech 4 See C. A. Macartney , Hungary and Her Successors, The Treaty of Trianon and Its Consequences 1919-1937(London, 1937), pp. 127- 131 and R. W. SetonWatson, Slovakia Then and Now: A Political Survey(London, 1931), pp. 36-37, for contemporary discussions of Slovakia's economic problems. Despite their divergent interpretations of the Slovak question, Macartney's and SetonWatson's characterizations of Slovakia's economic plight are quite similar. SLOVAKIA 11 mob smashed to pieces the statue of the Virgin Mary on Old Town Square in Prague. Reports of this renunciation of a part of the Bohemian past did not play well in Slovakia, where among Slovaks such hostility toward the Church was considerably weaker, if operative at all. The forced removal of crucifixes from the walls of schools, disruption of religions services and desecration of sacred places and objects, and state seizure of Catholic schools and church lands helped foster in Slovakia the image of the Czech as an enemy of Christianity, especially as traditionally understood in Slovakia. 5 Also contributing to religious tensions was the fact that Czech political elites had, already before 1918, developed their closest relations with members of Slovakia's Protestant (Lutheran) minority. Slovak Protestants had traditional links with Czech culture, and were more likely than Slovak Catholics to share the modernist world view that was standard among Czechoslovakia' s founders. By way of example, of the fifty-seven Slovaks appointed to the Provisional National Assembly that was established to draw up Czechoslovakia's constitution, twenty-eight were Protestants. This in a land that was approximately 79 per cent Catholic. 6 Such an outcome could hardly fail to appear discriminatory and unrepresentative to many Slovaks. One final irritant in Slovak-Czech relations is worth discussing at some length, as it shows just how complicated this relationship could be. This is the question of the migration of Czech administrators , teachers, and other professionals and government emplo5 Jozef Spirko, Cirkevne dejiny s osobitnym zretefom na vyvin cirkevnych de- Jin Slovenska, sv. IV (Bratislava, 1993), p. 466; see E L. Woodward and Rohan Butler, Eds., Documents on British Foreign Policy 19 I 9-1939, First Series, Vol. IV, 1919 (London, 1956), p. 3, for a reference co anti-Catholic actions in Slovakia in a report by the British Charge d' affaires in Prague . 6 Ladislav Lipscher, "Klub slovenskych poslancov v rokoch 1918-1920," Historicky casopis, XVI, 2 ( 1968), pp. 140- 141 . 12 SLOVAKIA yees to Slovakia after 1918. Slovakia lacked qualified professionals and administrators who were untainted by affiliation with the former Hungarian regime and its education system, given the fact that Slovaks before 1918 could rarely advance socially and professionally except by becoming "Magyarized." For this reason, tens of thousands of Czechs moved to Slovakia in the 1920s. 7 Though many of them were needed, their presence in Slovakia proved to be a major cause of Slovak discontent. First, they represented a cultural intrusion of modern-thinking, largely urban progressive types into a traditional, rural society, and as such offended many Slovaks with paternalism and tactlessness. Second , they received considerable salary supplements since Slovakia was regarded as a hardship post. 8 This income disparity between imported Czechs and native Slovak employees was also a sore point. Third, there was a perception among Slovaks that their native land was being used by Czechs as a dumping ground for officials who were second-rate. Finally, Slovak resentment was especially acute over the fact that among the Czechs who received employment in Slovakia were not only professionals and high-level administrators , but railway porters, postmen, doormen, messengers , and janitors, positions for which there were plenty of capable Slo- vaks at hand .9 This situation can be explained at least in part by the nature of Czechoslovakia's political system. In Czechoslovakia's coalition ' See Jan Rychlfk, Cesi a Slovaci ve 20.stoletf; cesko-slo venske vztahy J 9 J41945 (Bratislava, 1997), pp. 86-87 for statistics on the number of Czechs employed in Slovakia during the interwar period . ' Natasa Krajcovicova, "K otazke personalneho obsadzovania organov statnej a verejnej spravy na Slovensku v prvych rokoch po vzniku CSR", Historickf casopis, XLIV , 4, 1996, pp. 619-620. 9 Jozef Lettrich, History of Modem Slovakia (New York, 1955), pp. 61 -62; Seton-Watson, Slovakia, p. 34. SLOVAKIA 13 governments, certain parties tended to retain particular ministries over the long-term. Thus, it was not unusual for a political party, whose support came almost exclusively from the Czech lands, to control a substantial number of state administrative positions in Slovakia which it would allot to its Czech adherents as patronage. Such was the case, for example, with the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party and the railroads. Compounding the problem of Czech employment in Slovakia was the fact that Prague, with the help of these migrants, was so successful in developing a Czechoslovak education system in Slovakia that by the end of the 1920s, Slovakia was producing for the first time a native intelligentsia fully trained in Czechoslovak high schools and colleges. Unfortunately, precisely at the time that these cohorts of educated Slovaks were coming onto the job market, Czechoslovakia was hit by the Great Depression. These young Slovaks, many of whom could not find appropriate employment, came to resent the fact that Czechs were working in Slovakia in positions that they coveted. Many of these Czechs meanwhile had struck roots in Slovakia and, even if they wished, had little to return to in Depressionstricken Bohemia and Moravia. Many of these members of the young Slovak intelligentsia inclined toward radical politics of the left and right; among the latter, calls for Czechs to go home became standard fare at political rallies. Though, as one scholar recently pointed out, the personnel question was an extremely complicated issue that cannot be understood from a purely ethnic standpoint, the fact that Czechs were working in Slovakia while Slovaks were unemployed provided grist for Slovak nationalist mills and made this issue a constant irritant for Slovak-Czech relations. 10 ' 0 Krajcovicova, "K otazke", pp. 627, 628 . 14 SLOVAKIA Politically, Slovaks responded to this growing discontent in a number of ways. The antidote to Czechoslovak centralism was Slovak autonomy, a call that was embraced by the Slovak party with the greatest popularity, the Slovak People's Party (SPP). Led by the populist priest Andrej Hlinka, it sought to mobilize Slovak religious, economic, political and cultural discontent into a broadbased movement for autonomy and national recognition. It staunchly supported an autonomous Slovakia right up to the end of the First Republic. Two other groups also called for autonomy for Slovakia, at least in their rhetoric-the Communists and the parties of the Hungarian minority. This meant that in the parliamentary elections of 1925, 1929, and 1935, over 50% of voters in Slovakia opted for parties that rejected Czechoslovak centralism. 11 While about half of ethnic Slovaks voted for the SPP, most other Slovaks voted for the Slovak affiliates of Czechoslovak-wide parties. These parties supported the idea of a Czechoslovak nation and the centralist system. Because they were always or nearly always in the government, they could provide supporters with certain material advantages that the SPP could not, so it was quite likely that considerably more Slovaks supported autonomy than voted for the autonomist SPP. The most significant of such parties was the Agrarians, which alone among the government parties had a strong Slovak wing, led by Milan Hodza. Though officially accepting the Czechoslovak idea and opposing autonomy for Slovakia, the Agrarians tried in the 1930s to develop an alternative to both Prague centralism and SPP autonomism - the socalled regionalist option. This involved promoting cooperation of Slovaks on behalf of Slovak interests on regional rather than national grounds. In theory, regionalism gave the Slovak Agra- 11 For electoral statistics, see Leff, National Conflict, p. 52. SLOVAKIA 15 rians the possibility to champion Slovak interests without the sort of nationalism that could upset Prague and the Czechoslovak constitutional order. 12 Despite considerable support for autonomy in Slovakia throughout the inter-war period, the cards were stacked against success in this regard for a number of reasons. Some of these have been discussed above and need little further elaboration- the Czech numerical preponderance over Slovaks, and superiority in terms of modem economic, cultural, and political development; the constitutional stipulation that a Czechoslovak nation, rather than separate Czech and Slovak nations, existed and was the basis of the state; the distaste for traditional Catholicism among the Republic's ruling elites; the fears that autonomy for Slovakia would play into the hands of Hungarian and German nationalists and make it harder for Prague to resist their autonomist demands; the belief that Slovaks were not capable of governing themselves; and the difficulties, owing to problems of political patronage and economic stagnation, of finding appropriate employment for the university-educated Slovaks the system was producing by the late 1920s and their consequent tum towards radicalism. Other factors were at play as well. It should be kept in mind that both of Czechoslovakia's presidents during the inter-war period, Tomas G. Masaryk and Edvard Benes, were staunch champions of the Czechoslovak idea and opponents of autonomy for Slovakia. Furthermore, the autonomist forces in Slovakia were not united, and in fact were fundamentally divided over their conceptions of just what sort of autonomous Slovakia they wanted. The Hungarian parties regarded Slovaks and Hungarians as minorities with an equal claim to self-government in Slovakia, 12 M. Kropilak, ed., Dejiny S/ovenska, V ( 1918-1945) (Bratislava, 1985), p. 195. 16 SLOVAKlA with hopes that someday that territory would return to a restored Kingdom of Hungary. The SPP, on the other hand, believed in "Slovakia for the Slovaks," as one of its most cherished slogans rang out, and saw Slovaks as the statotvomy narod in Slovakia, with Hungarians as merely a minority. The Communists , for their part, were open to autonomy for Slovakia only if it were to come in conjunction with the establishment of a Communist dictatorship of the proletariat, something that repelled the other pro-autonomy parties. The nature of the Czechoslovak political system was particularly crucial in making it highly unlikely that the SPP, barring some sort of exceptional circumstances, would be able to realize its autonomist goals via normal political channels. While winning the votes of around half of the ethnic Slovaks, the SPP 's support statewide was only around 7%. This meant that it would have to find allies if it wished to establish influence in or increase pressure on the government. Such alliance-seeking was problematic, however. Several leading Czechoslovak parties were outright hostile to Slovak nationalism and the idea of autonomy, for example the Social Democratic Party, National Socialist Party, and, after 1921 , the Czechoslovak People 's Party. Taken together, these three parties represented a considerable proportion of the governing majority. 13 Among the opposition parties were a few that were open to cooperation with the SPP, such as the Hungarian nationalists, Czech fascists, and the Slovak National Party (a Protestant autonomist party), but they were either insignificant in numbers and influence, or holding fundamentally different ultimate goals from the SPP. The Slovak wing of the Czechoslovak Agrarian Party, the second strongest electoral draw in Slovakia, could theoreti13 For example, of the government 's 206 seats in Parliament after the 1929 elections, these three parties held 96 seats. SLOVAKJA 17 cally have formed a powerful bloc had its regionalist program developed into a genuine political collaboration with the SPP. However, two factors-the Agrarians' fear that the SPP would dominate an autonomous Slovakia, and the fact that the Agrarian Party 's leadership in Prague was unwilling to abandon centralism-kept such collaboration at a minimum. As with many national conflicts, it was probably the vicious circle of fear that accounted most for the failure to solve the Slovak question satisfactorily. In the 1920s, Czechoslovak centralists feared that an autonomous Slovakia would be easy prey for Hungarians eager to revise the post-War peace treaties and detach Slovakia from the Czech lands and return it to Hungary. The close collaboration after 1918 between SPP leader Hlinka and two notorious Hungarian sympathizers, Frantisek Jehlicka and Vojtech Tuka, only heightened Prague's apprehensions. 14 By the mid1930s, the Germans had replaced the Hungarians as the chief fear of Czechoslovak centralists with respect to Slovakia. After Konrad Henlein 's strong showing in the 1935 parliamentary elections, Prague worried that autonomy for Slovakia would make it harder to resist similar demands by Czechoslovakia's Sudeten German minority. The SPP, at the same time, had a great fear that Czechs would solve the Sudeten German question by granting autonomy to the predominately and historically German lands, while ignoring similar demands from Slovaks. This fear, combined with the 1 • Jehlicka was a Slovak priest of pro-Hungarian sympathy who accompanied Hlinka on a trip to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, where they sought to present the Slovak national case to the Great Powers . After the trip, which proved to be a fiasco, Hlinka was imprisoned by the Czechoslovak government while Jehlicka went into exile; Tuka was a pro-Hungarian university professor who lost his job after 1918 and found a new career in the SPP as an editor, parliamentarian, and advisor to Hlinka. He was inv o lved in various intrigues against the Czechoslovak Republic in the 1920s. 18 SLOVAKJA SPP's inability to realize its demands via normal channels, led that party, or at least certain factions within it, to seek support repeatedly from abroad. And since the Western democracies tended to support the post-War status quo, the SPP sometimes looked to those neighbors of Czechoslovakia who were seeking change and, hence, were seen by the Republic's rulers as a threat. Hlinka and his party consistently cultivated good relations with official and unofficial circles in Poland, while SPP radicals sought closer ties with Germany and Czechoslovakia's pro-Nazi Sudeten Germans . 15 This in turn frightened Czechs and made it even less likely that autonomy for Slovakia would be agreed to by the power brokers in Prague. Throughout 1938, fears on both sides increased as German pressure, both from within and without Czechoslovakia, intensified, as did Slovak demands for autonomy. Once the Czechoslovak government elected to accept the Munich Agreement and hand over large tracts of its territory to Nazi Germany, the SPP pressed its claims and got a demoralized Czechoslovak government not only to acquiesce in its autonomist demands but also to accept the existence of a distinct Slovak nation. Scarcely a week after the Munich Agreement, Prague and the SPP agreed that Czechoslovakia would be restructured as Czecho-Slovakia, with an autonomous Slovakia run by the SPP. When Hitler opted to destroy Czecho-Slovakia m March of 1939, this autonomous Slovakia became the independent Slovak Republic, closely allied with Nazi Germany as one of its satellites, while the Czech lands were incorporated wholly into the Third Reich as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Slovakia 15 See, for example, James Ramon Felak, "At the Price of the Republic": Hlinka 's Slovak People 's Party 1929- 1938 (Pittsburgh , PA, 1994), pp. 171 -175, for a discussion of SPP flirtations with Polish and German nationalists. SLOVAKIA 19 survived the war as an authoritarian, one-party state, led by the Roman Catholic priest Jozef Tiso, who succeeded Hlinka in the summer of 1938 as head of the SPP. Both Roman Catholics and their Church were privileged in this period. At the same time, a resistance movement emerged composed of an uneasy alliance of Communists and democrats, which erupted in the Slovak National Uprising of August-September 1944. Both the Slovak Republic and the Uprising would have major impacts on the post-War situation in Slovakia. First, by having their own state, Slovaks gained the confidence and experience necessary for self-government. By 1945, the idea of returning to a Czechoslovak nation and state run from Prague was repellent across the political spectrum in Slovakia. Second, the very fact of this state which, like the autonomous Slovakia of October 1938, came into existence on the coattails of Hitler's march into Central Europe, tainted Slovak accomplishments, as many Czechs regarded Slovaks, especially those in the SPP, as collaborators with the Czechs' mortal enemy, Nazi Germany. Thus, Czechs often saw manifestations of Slovak nationalism as fascist in nature and threatening to the Republic. Third, despite the susceptibility of Slovaks to charges of collaboration, at the same time, thanks to the Slovak National Uprising, Slovaks could point to the fact that their own homegrown resistance to Nazism far exceeded Czech efforts in numbers and intensity. It also created a politically influential association of partisan veterans who could potentially throw their weight around in the postWar situation. With Germany's defeat, Czechoslovakia was restored. This time, however, there would be no Czechoslovak idea. Slovaks were recognized as a distinct nation, and allowed to retain the Slovak national organs that they had set up during the Uprising. 20 SLOVAKJA Czech Communist leader Klement Gottwald, Czechoslovakia's most powerful politician at war's end, proclaimed that "the Slovaks are to be the masters in their own Slovak land." 16 A whole host of problems emerged however, some almost at once, to foil what was a hopeful beginning for advocates of Slovak autonomy. First, the set-up was an asymmetrical one. Slovak national organs, such as the Slovak National Council and Board of Commissioners, were established, but with no parallel Czech organs, only federal organs with competence for the entire state. This led to conflicts over where the competence of the central organs ended and that of the Slovak ones began. The "Slovak question" returned in a new form. Second, the cultural differences that plagued SlovakCzech relations during the First Republic continued. Czech suspicion of Slovak Catholicism was, if anything, even more intense after the experience of the Second World War, when the pro-Nazi Slovak state was led by a Catholic priest under whom the Church enjoyed far more privilege and influence than it had under the First Republic or could hope to after 1945. Third, Czech numerical dominance remained, and if Czech parties could be united on the issue, they would be able to scale back Slovak self-government with little resistance. It also became clear, especially after Czechoslovakia's first post-war parliamentary elections in May of 1946, that Slovakia was far less friendly politically to the Left than were the Czech lands. While Czechs chose left-wing parties in percentages that rank among all-time highs for Europe (the Communists, Social Democrats, and National Socialists together received over 79% of the vote in the Czech lands, with the Communists leading the way with 40% ), Slovaks rejected the Com16 Joseph A. Mikus, ed., Slovakia, A Political and Constitutional History, Acta Academica Slovaca 48 (Bratislava, 1995), p. 242; this work contains an English translation of the text of the Kosice Agreement of April 5, 1945, pp. 242-243. SLOVAKIA 21 munists in favor of the Democrats by a slightly more than two-to• one margm . 17 These above factors combined to complicate post-war Czechoslovak politics and to pose formidable impediments to the realization of the promised program of autonomy for Slovakia. The political landscape in Slovakia after the War was occupied by three main groups, politically speaking. On the Left were the Communists, belonging to the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS), separate from, yet ultimately under the control of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (KSC) in Prague. The KSS was divided between those Slovak Communists who were willing to assert what they regarded as Slovak interests, and those who were more closely under the thumb of Prague. By August 1945 the latter, on Prague 's intervention, were given the upper hand in the KSS. 18 The only significant party besides the Communists was the Slovak Democratic Party (DP), founded by non-Communist veterans of the Slovak National Uprising, attracting above all those Slovak Protestants who had been alienated by the SPP's assertive Catholicism but at the same time suspicious of Prague 's centralism. The third group was the Catholics themselves, most of whom were unorganized politically with the outlawing of the SPP at war 's end. Thus, the party that traditionally drew about half the Slovak vote no longer existed, and a land that was 80% Catholic was offered only parties dominated by atheists or Protestants. This large bloc of voters without a party home would, as both the Communists and the Democrats realized, be decisive in the parlia- 17 Robert Letz, S/ovensko v rokoch 1945-1948 na ceste ku komunistickej tota/ite(Bratislava, 1994), p. 39. " l.'.ubomir Liptak, ed., Politicke strany na Slovensku, 1860-1989 (Bratislava, 1992), pp. 267-268; and Yeshayahu Jelinek, The Lust for Power: Nationalism. Slovakia, and the Communists, 19 I 8-1948 (Boulder, CO, 1983), p. 86. 22 SLOVAKJA mentary elections. Thus, the KSS began to woo Slovak Catholics, hoping to create a separate Slovak Catholic party that would keep Catholic voters away from the DP and thereby keep Slovakia's non-Communist population divided. 19 Just as it appeared that Communist intrigues would succeed, the DP delivered an olive branch to disgruntled Slovak Catholics. It was called the April Agreement, and involved the DP and leading Slovak Catholics. This Agreement specified that the ratio of Catholics to Protestants in all DP organs and institutions was to be seven-to-three, with Catholics to be allotted two-thirds of the party's seats in Parliament. In addition, Catholics were to get their own DP daily, the Demokraticke hlasy. 20 As a result of the April Agreement, Catholics moved into leading positions in the DP's presidium and general secretariat. Nevertheless, this Catholic-Protestant reconciliation was a Pyrrhic victory for Slovakia's non-Communist forces. It did enable the DP to win the May 1946 parliamentary elections in a resounding manner, and made it clear that Slovakia was overwhelmingly anti-Communist. At the same time, however, the Communists were able to exploit the April Agreement successfully for their own ends. With an influx of Catholics into the DP, the same Catholics that Communists had been wooing up to that point, the KSS now sought to portray the DP as riddled with fascist traitors loyal to former leader Tiso, and dangerous to the integrity and democracy of the Czechoslovak state. 21 Thus began a determined , 19 Letz, Slovensko, pp. 28-29 ; Michal Bamovsky, Na ceste k monopolu moci; Mocenskopoliticke zapasy na S/ovensku v rokoch 1945-1948 (Bratislava, 1993), p. 73 . 20 Bamovsky, Na ceste, p. 80; Letz, S/ovensko, p. 36. 21 See United States Department of State, Decimal Files, 860f.00/6- l 346, no. 985 ; (hereafter referred to as DOS). SLOVAKIA 23 sustained, and aggressive effort by Communist propaganda to slander the DP. Furthermore, the election results made it clear to the Communists that autonomy for Slovakia would be a disaster for Communist interests. Consequently, the Communists began to push aggressively for a scaling back of the competence of Slovak national organs in favor of federal ones. At the same time, Communists sought to use the alarm they could generate over a "fascist restoration" in Slovakia to frighten Czech non-Communists into keeping the DP at a distance. With the acquiescence, and at times the support of the Czech democratic parties, the Communists succeeded in reasserting Prague's control over Slovakia and largely isolating the DP. As U.S. Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt wrote in May, 1947: For the Czech non-Communist parties and their leaders , including Benes, as a result of their experiences in 1938-1939 when Slovak aspirations contributed materially to the dissolution of the Czechoslovak State, feel with a deep intensity that Slovak autonomy, while acceptable in theory, must have definite limitations in practice. These leaders are therefore all too likely to side with the Communists on any issues to which the latter are able to give a Czech versus Slovak or autonomy versus centralism complexion. As a result the Democrats are very frequently left to face the Communist onslaught alone. 22 Although, strictly speaking, Czechoslovakia was a democracy, with free elections and multiple political parties with their own periodicals, one is struck by just how circumscribed the system in fact was. A number of political parties were banned, including the most popular Czech and Slovak parties of the inter-war years, the Agrarians and SPP, respectively. New parties were prohibited 22 DOS, 5-2947, no. 2477. 24 SLOVAKIA without the consent of the existing parties. Nor could one set up an individual periodical without their permission. Government intervention in and influence over the media was considerable, and publication of anything critical of the Soviet Union was taboo. The regime was also established to accord the Communists more influence than electoral results would warrant. 23 This was particularly the case in Slovakia, where despite losing by nearly a two-to-one margin in the parliamentary elections, the Communists retained the chairmanship of the Board of CoJilIIlissioners, which acted as the executive branch in Slovakia, and kept the Democrats from holding the crucial post of Commissioner of the Interior, which went to the non-partisan Mikulas Ferjencfk.24 Without much support from the Czech non-Communist parties and facing a Communist-influenced political police, the DP was an easy prey for the most concentrated Communist attack yet. In June of 1947, the security police in Slovakia uncovered an alleged "anti-state conspiracy", which the Communists used to blackmail and intimidate the DP.25 Using their influence in and control over state security organs and employing 'agents provocateurs', the Communists were able, reminiscent of their assault on the Smallholders Party in Hungary, to charge leading Slovak Democrats with complicity in the conspiracy. Though the Czech democratic parties were by this time wise to Communist intrigues and took some steps in defense of the DP, they never quite lost their suspicions that, just possibly, Communist charges against the 23 For a discussion of Czechoslovakia's "people's democratic" system, see Karel Kaplan, The Short March; The Communist Takeover in Czechoslovakia, 19451948 (London, 1987), pp. 33-54. 24 Bamovsky, Na ceste, pp. 116- I I 7. 25 lbid., pp. 140-141 ; Letz, Slovensko, pp. 54-55. SLOVAKIA 25 DP might be accurate.26 With the Czech democrats thereby paralyzed, the Communists, with the police in their pockets, and the trade union and partisan organizations that they dominated mobilized on their behalf, felt that the correlation of forces were such in Slovakia that they attempted a 'putsch' in November of 194 7. This involved a KSS attempt to force a reconstitution of the Slovak Board of Commissioners through a political crisis caused by the planned and coordinated resignation of its Communist members. Though only partly successful, and though the DP and Czech non-Marxist parties stuck together from this point on, this cooperation proved to be too little, too late. The attempted coup in Slovakia was followed by a successful one in Prague in February 1948; in the latter case, it was the Czechoslovak Social Democrats who broke ranks with Czec hoslovakia's democratic parties and allowed the Communists' divide and rule tactics to bring Czec hoslovak democracy to an end . In contrasting the inter-war period and the post-war period , one finds much continuity in the Slovak-Czech relationship. The Czech bias against traditional Slovak Catholicism impeded relations both after 1918 and, reinforced by the events of 1938-1945, maintained itself into the post-war era. Czech fears of Slovaks as disloyal also continued, again reinforced by the events of the inter-war period and especially of 1938- 1939, and made evident in the ease with which the Communists could find Czech support for their efforts to undo 'de facto' the results of the elections in Slovakia. Both situations, though in quite different ways, presented insurmountable obstacles to the realization of Slovak autonomist desires, with Slovaks themselves divided over the iss ue, unable to bring sufficient pressure to bear on their behalf. Finally, in both 26 DOS, 10-647, no. 1342; see also Hu bert Ripka, Czechoslovakia Enslaved: The Story of the Communist Coup d'Etat (London, 1950), p. 113. 26 SLOVAKIA situations, external developments were crucial - in one case Nazi Germany's pressure against Czechoslovakia, in the other the intensifying Cold War, which made Czechoslovakia 's hopes of being a bridge between East and West futile and even dangerous. Along with important similarities, the Slovak question in the inter-war period and post-war period shows significant differences. After World War II, the Czechoslovak idea was abandoned and the existence of a Slovak nation was officially recognized. Furthermore, Prague came to believe that the best way to ease Slovak discontent was via the economic development of Slovakia. There were also important differences in the political structure of the two cases. In the inter-war period, the Government was composed of parties committed to the maintenance of Czechoslovak democracy, with Communists and fascists in the opposition along with Slovak nationalists. After the War, an opposition technically ceased to exist, Communists held key positions within the system they sought to destroy, and Slovak nationalists, albeit a new breed more moderate than the former SPP, sat in the Government. A final crucial difference lies in the relationship between the Slovak question and the health and survival of the democratic order in Czechoslovakia. In the inter-war period, Slovak nationalists had at best an ambivalent attitude toward Czechoslovakia's system. While a fascist element within the SPP viewed it with hostility, most Slovak nationalists accepted the system or were indifferent toward it. When Czechoslovakia faced potentially fatal threats in 1938, the SPP's primary concern was not "How can we defend Czechoslovak democracy at this critical time?" but rather the more parochial "What's in it for the Slovaks?" For all their failure to address satisfactorily the Slovak question in the 1920s and 1930s, most Czech political elites had a better grasp of just what was at stake as Nazism intensified its pressure on the First SLOVAKIA 27 Republic from within and without. After the war, however, autonomy-minded Slovaks, now represented in the DP, had a very clear notion of just what was at stake, and arguably a better grasp of the situation than the Czechoslovak democrats, who well into 1947 seemed to fear an SPP-revival in Slovakia more than they feared the Communists . For national tensions to ease, both sides of a conflict need to relinquish, or at least moderate, their fears of the other. This the Czechs never really succeeded in doing, as the idea that Slovakia was disloyal and separatist was always in the back, and often in the front, of the minds of many of them. Slovak actions, whether it was Hlinka's consorting with Hungarian sympathizers in the 1920s, the SPP radical wing's flirting with fascism in the 19 30s, or the SPP's demand for autonomy and eventual secession from Czecho-Slovakia in conjunction with Hitler's penetration of East Central Europe, only reaffirmed or deepened Czech fears. When one takes into account these mutual suspicions, the psychological baggage both sides brought into their relationship, the structure of Czechoslovakia's regimes during this century, the persistent bias of Czech elites against Slovak Catholicism, the disparities between Slovak and Czech economic development, the presence of hostile neighbors hoping to exploit Slovak-Czech tensions, and the trauma that this part of Europe experienced from 1914 to 1989, it is not surprising that the Slovak question remained a running sore on Czechoslovakia's body politic throughout the twentieth century.  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 Slovak Question in the lnterwar (1918-1938) and Post-War (1945-1948) Czechoslovak Republics Description An account of the resource James R. Felak Slovakia, Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003 pp. 7-27 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Felak, James Ramon, 1957- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/4ed4d7dcdf0a45d96faf6421fb49f590.pdf 0329af3b400ed22655aa5339538259ca PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 71 Trends in 20th Century Slovak Filmmaking Martin Votruba The transition from the rule of censorship to the rule of the free market after the collapse of Communism thirteen years ago has been more painful for Slovak filmmakers than for other artists. Filmmaking requires a substantially higher initial investment than other performing and fine arts. People are ready to pay much less for a movie ticket or rental than to buy a book or painting. This puts small countries like Slovakia at a great disadvantage. In a world where feature films in a language other than English have difficulty finding an audience outside their own language areas, even if they are in French, German or Spanish, the same-language audience for films in Slovak is the size of a single frame. A film in the Slovak language costs as much as a comparable film in any other language, but the chances that it will recoup its costs are minimal. Yet, several dedicated filmmakers have managed to find institutional and private support, perhaps resigned to the fact that profits will remain elusive, while hoping to make a statement, push the envelope, create Art. Filmmaking began in Slovakia while it was still part of Hungary in the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. According to film historians, the first motion picture shows in the Slovak counties took place in Kosice in December, 1896 and a few days later in Bratislava (then called Presporok by the Slovaks, Pressburg by the Germans). That was only a year after . the Lumiere brothers' first-ever public picture show in Paris and just six months after a similar showing in New York. The early shows were organized by �SLOVAKIA 72 traveling entrepreneurs, often in cafes or similar venues, but also under tents. People's visual perceptions of the world were being changed forever and those making and showing the films knew it. A show in Nitra in 1903 still touted the advent of the modern world, when it was advertised as "Hungary's 1st Scientific Electrical Theater Modeled on the Grand American Bioscope Awarded the Grand Prix at the World Fair in Paris." At that time, a linguistic barrier was not crucial to the films' distribution in the multinational Kingdom of Hungary. Silent movies were largely self-explanatory and most people would have been able to understand the few captions in Magyar or German, the two dominant languages in the Kingdom, or have them translated by other viewers. The shows consisted of several separate films, some colorized by hand, each of which were about two minutes long. For example, the first show in Kosice was a series of twelve such very, very brief films with titles like "The Arrival of a Train," "The Czar Arrives in Paris," "The Training of the French Infantry," "Four Ladies Dancing the French Cancan" and "An Interrupted Date." Clearly, foreign films dominated Central Europe from the start. The first title was the kind of film intended to create a spectacle - similar to some of the uses of special effects today: the engine would rush towards the camera, scaring an audience not accustomed to viewing images of moving trains at that angle and at such close quarters. The next two titles played a role similar to later newsreels shown before the main feature , or to contemporary world news and documentaries on, say, CNN or the Discovery Chanel. The last two titles were of the kind that - the filmmakers found - attracted the largest number of viewers: entertainment, fun and a rudimentary story. The proportion of such shorts quickly grew. �SLOVAKIA 73 The first permanent movie theater in Bratislava, Elektro Bioskop, was opened in a remodeled fencing hall in September, 1905. It had about 200 seats. The site is still in business. After a hiatus, an arts movie theater was opened in the same hall in the 1970s and is still in operation, now called Mladost' ("Youth"), on Hviezdoslav Square opposite the US Embassy. Theaters, hotel halls, storage buildings and other premises were remodeled in other towns, to become permanent movie theaters. In the absence of hi-fi sound and hi-tech projection systems, the competition often relied on interior decoration. An advertisement for the Bratislava movie theatre Fidelio (later Urania and now Hviezda) lured the audience thus: "427 upholstered seats in 3 colors , Alhambrastyle walls decorated with Oriental landscapes, live and man-made flowers." The fact that the theater showed two new releases a week was relegated to the bottom of the page. Attendance at traditional theater performances dropped after the introduction of motion pictures. Theater directors appealed to the authorities to disallow movie shows during the time of regular plays. In 1901 , the Ministry of the Interior (in charge of police and local government in Central Europe) issued a decree meeting their demands . The Viscount of Nitra went so far as to ban movie shows during the whole theater season , but the local movie-theater operators successfully appealed his decision. For a time, film producers thought they could benefit from a symbiosis of film and theater in "cinema-sketches." Actors would play on the stage, then the story would be picked up on the screen with the same actors and the conclusion would be played by live actors again. One such cinema-sketch from 1909 depicted night life in Kosice "The Kosice Promenade on the Screen." Walking on Main Street in one's Sunday best was a common pastime before the advent of TV and mass entertainment. It was among the few early �SLOVAKIA 74 motion pictures linked with Slovak territory. The limited production of cinema-sketches did not survive World War I and did not continue after the creation of Czecho-Slovakia (later renamed Czechoslovakia) in l 9 l 8 . Rather than cinema-sketches or story-based films , most of the early films linked to Slovakia were travel specials with titles like "The High Tatras," "Skiing in Tatranska Lomnica," "Traveling through the Vah Valley," or "The Kosice Institute of Corrections for Children," "Testing the Police Dogs in Bratislava," and news . Movies proved successful. The number of movie theaters in Slovakia reached about 100 by the end of World War I and two schools - the Mining Academy in Banska Stiavnica and a high school in Lucenec - had already used film as a teaching tool. When movies were still shown by traveling entrepreneurs, a copy of the film was bought and owned by them. With the establishment of permanent movie theaters, film distributors appeared, as well as a kind of 'film exchange' where copies of film were traded as on the stock market. The advent of copyright problems and foreign competition was heralded in 1913, in the first published complaint about illegal importation of foreign films , especially from France. As elsewhere in Central Europe, French films dominated the market. Legal power to regulate what movies were screened in Hungary was invested in the hands of the local authorities by a law from l 90 l , which required the traveling movie entrepreneurs to obtain permits for their shows . On the whole, a license was issued to anyone who applied for it. Local bans and complaints surfaced for a variety of reasons, including some familiar today. A city councilor in Kosice worried that worthless caper movies had a bad influence on boys, while dramas about sex ruined girls, be cause such movies extinguished their sense of morality and made �SLOVAKIA 75 them vulnerable to unconscionable seducers. In 1912, a priest and principal of a Roman Catholic boys' school in Nitra threatened his students with a bad grade in behavior if they went to the movies, even if accompanied by their parents. His ban extended to traditional theater performances as well. Censorship was also exercised by the authorities in Budapest, the capital of the Kingdom, who were able to ban individual titles from being shown all over Hungary , including the Slovak counties. In line with the traditions of Central European monarchies, politics was among the reasons for censorship. Among the banned titles were "King Ludwig II," depicting a story too similar to the life and mysterious death of Ludwig II of Bavaria and a film offensive to the prime minister of Hungary. However, the Kingdom did not follow suit when the rest of the Habsburg monarchy introduced formal film censorship in 1912. Among other things, it required that a license to open a movie theater be issued to individuals and institutions that would secure a respectable use of the profits. Its intent was to support charities and various associations. Budapest adopted the law in Apri l of 1918, half a year be fore the defeat and collapse of Austria-Hungary and the founding of Czec ho-Slovakia. The law empowered the censors to ban films offending patriotic interests, public order and morality. Children under sixteen were allowed to see only movies designated as suitable for them and only when accompanied by an adult. Despite a variety of problems , Czecho-S lovakia proved to be more democratic than the former Kingdom of Hungary and the whole Habsburg monarchy. But the new freedom , which benefited other forms of Slovak culture, proved even more difficult for Slovak film than the post-communist period after 1989. The film industry developed in Prague, which had been an important German-Czech cultural center, a university town and capital of the �76 SLOVAKIA Holy Roman Empire's Kingdom of Bohemia for centuries, attracting business and artistic talent. By comparison, Slovakia's new capital and largest city, Bratislava, was much smaller; moreover, it was only forty miles from the former Habsburg monarchy's large, vibrant and influential capital of Vienna. Given that artists and entrepreneurs flocked to it from all over the monarchy, Vienna must have created a degree of artistic brain-drain in its immediate vicinity. As with the Pittsburgh Agreement of 1918, which was a key document in the separation of the Slovak counties from the Habsburg monarchy, Slovak-Americans had an impact on Slovakia's nascent film industry. Andrej Sustek from Chicago founded the Selig Company with the intent to make historical films in Slovakia. It was subsequently incorporated in the new Slovak-American Tatra Film Corporation with a capital of about $30,000 from US investors . Their first and only film was Janosfk. It captured the legend of an 18th-century highwayman from Terchova in the northern Slovak County of Orava who gave rise to Carpathian legends comparable to those about Robin Hood in England. In 1919 Tatra Film's Daniel and Jaroslav Siakel' arrived in Slovakia to start filming in their native village of Blatnica near Martin in Central Slovakia, where they also built sets, and in the castle of Stiavnicka near Ruzomberok. The leading role was given to popular Theodor Pistek, who starred in nine other films that year. Maria Fabryova, an amateur actress from Martin, played Anka, Janosfk's girlfriend. The film was finished in the A-B studios in Prague . The screenplay by Jozef Zak-Marusiak was to be based on a novel by Slovak-American author and editor of the popular Amerikansko-Slovcnske Noviny "(American-Slovak News)", Gustav Marsall-Petrovsky (1862-1916). But it was much closer to the ac- �SLOVAKIA 77 tual local legends , which also inspired Slovak Romantic poets in the 19th century. Moreover, the play Janosfk - premiered in Brno in 1910 and written by Moravian playwright, poet and journalist Jiri Mahen - was well known by the l 920s and may have been a major source for the film's story . Janosfk was shown to the filmmakers' team in November 1921 in the city of Vrutky . It opened a few days later in Zilina and in December 1921 in Chicago - to be more specific , in Cicero, IL, then with a large Slovak-American population , at the Atlantic movie theater, now replaced by the Atlantic Mall at W. 26th St. and S. Pulaski Rd . The screenplay relied on the folk motif of ' taking from the rich and giving to the poor,' and greatly reinforced the hints present in 19th-century Slovak Romantic poems about Janosfk : the film fused feudal exploitation in the more distant past with the drive by the Magyar-speaking government in Budapest in the 19th century to suppress the Kingdom' s other languages and cultures . The latter became particularly forceful during the last decades of the Kingdom's existence and ultimately contributed to its demise. Unlike feudalism , that experience was still very fresh in people's memories and was among the reasons why Slovaks immigrated to the United States. By comparison to Czech films preserved from the early Czecho-Slovak period, Janosfk showed the authors' experience with American movies : in camera work, in the use of parallel narratives, as well as in shots inspired by Westerns . It had two directors of photography with two cameras: Oldrich Benes with a European camera and Daniel Siakel', who used a camera made by Andrej Sustek's company in Chicago. In effect, the two cameramen shot two parallel films - scenes were acted separately for each camera and the difference between the "Slovak" and "American" versions increased after separate editing. But the film's handling of the eth- �78 SLOVAKIA nic motif may have been too didactic, or the issue too recent to be successfully mythologized as entertainment on the silver screen. Janosik did not recover its costs and remained Tatra Film's only product, as well as Slovakia' s first preserved silent movie. It was thought to have been lost, but in 1975 it was discovered and restored from both versions by Ivan Rumanovsky in Bratislava. Until after World War II, attempts to set up film companies, occasionally with Slovak-American involvement, followed the same path. One film would be made and then the company folded, because the film was not profitable and the company lacked sufficient capital to sustain it through a few flops. The situation did not change after the emergence of sound in the movies. While about 30-50 sound films were made each year in Czechoslovakia between 1933 - 1938, fewer than one a year was in Slovak. Czech films occasionally featured Slovak actors. Among them, with eleven musicals to his credit, was Frantisek Kristof Vesely, who reached the level of stardom in Czechoslovakia. Documentaries fared better: partly because the costs were lower and partly thanks to occasional government funding for shorts featuring its officials. For example, Kvetna nedela vo Vajnoroch (Palm Sunday in Yajnory) recorded a folkloristic celebration of the holiday attended by Minister Plenipotentiary for Slovakia, Vavro Srobar. A potentially steady source of funding opened up in 1935 when Prague decided that each newsreel commonly shown before the main feature had to devote at least 20% of its length to items about Czechoslovakia. But this so urce remained untapped by Slovak filmmakers : most of the reports came from Bohemia and Moravia. However, government or institutional funding and fascination with village life proved to be a mix that worked for filmmakers in Slovakia on more than one occasion, right through the present. �SLOVAKIA 79 The first Slovak film to reach international acclaim relied on both. The potential of the Slovak countryside as a backdrop had already been discovered by non-native filmmakers and at least two of their films have become classics of world cinema. The early German horror Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu the Vampire) directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau was filmed at Orava Castle and in the High Tatras in 1922, and Czech director Gustav Machaty chose Slovakia as a location for his daring exploration of sexuality Extase (Ecstasy) in 1932. The second one propelled the career of Hedy Lamarr (born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiester), who became one of the most successful Hollywood stars. The Matica slovenska (by that time an eminent, mostly government-sponsored cultural, academic and archival institution) employed Karel Plicka (1894-1987) as its ethnographer, who was able to make documentary shorts from about 1926. He obtained funding from the President's Office in 1928 to produce an hourlong documentary about village life Po horach, po dolach (Through Mountains and Valleys). It was awarded a Gold Medal at the International Exposition of Photographic Art in Florence and received an Honorable Mention at the International Venice Film Festival in 1932. The favorable reception of his production, along with more funding from both the Matica slovenska and the President's Office, enabled Plicka to make Zem spieva (The Earth Sings) in 1933, a romanticized semi-documentary panorama of selected folk customs through the four seasons. Unlike Slovak feature movies of that period, Zem spieva struck a chord with the audience and topped it with another award at the International Venice Film Festival as part of a collection of films from Czechoslovakia that included Extase, mentioned above. But after this success, the Matica s/ovcnska was unable to raise sufficient funding and Plicka's hopes that he was laying the foundations of �80 SLOVAKIA Slovakia' s film industry were thwarted. He went on to make a documentary in the United States Za Slovakmi od New Yorku po Mississippi (Tracing Slovaks from New York to the Mississippi) in 1937 and then became a professor in the first Department of Film in Czechoslovakia and the third such department in Europe, at the School of Artistic Crafts in Bratislava in 1938. But the Department's potential for Slovak cinema was lost when the College was closed after Slovakia became a separate country in 19 39 . Plicka then resettled permanently in Prague, Bohemia, which was incorporated into the Third Reich during World War II. Czechoslovakia's only other Slovak-language blockbuster before World War II was a new Janosfk in 1935, funded from Prague and directed by the Czech Martin Frie (1902-1968). It was indicative of the volume of Czech film production that Frie finished three other films during the same year, having previously directed 23. Frie and Plicka were two of the authors of the screenplay based on the same play by Mahen, mentioned earlier, on which the first Janosfk may have been based. Plicka also found a policeman and amateur actor, Pal'o Bielik (1910-1983), in the village of Senica for the leading role. The film combined idealized images of villagers with action scenes to show their and Jan osik ' s resistance against Hungarian landlords. In spite of Budapest's protestations, it was screened at the International Venice Film Festival and was successfully released in Germany . During the existence of the Slovak Republic ( 1939-1945), movie theaters grew by more than 60% but no feature films were made. The government sponsored the film company Nastup (Line-up), which produced short films and weekly newsreels . The authorities, who described their own rule as "authoritarian and totalitarian," mandated that a newsreel be shown before every feature film and tightened censorship and ideological supervision of �SLOVAKIA 81 their production. The newsreel was customarily followed by a short film, a pattern that was picked up by the communist authorities after the war and survived through the collapse of Communism. The government's alliance with Germany meant that it became Slovakia's main source of films even before the war changed world trade patterns. At the same time, the number of imports dropped from about 400 a year in the former CzechoSlovakia (whose original hyphenated name was restored in 1938) to less than 150 after independence. In 1940, Slovakia still imported 15 "cultural-educational" films from the U.S., and a few more from countries other than Germany, but then German feature films were supplemented by just about a dozen films from Italy and Romania, and several Czech "oldies" from before the war. The film company Nastup was conscientious about training its employees, among whom was Pal'o Bielik, and sent them regularly to several studios in Germany as interns - including to neighboring Vienna and formerly Czechoslovak Prague, which were now ruled from Berlin. After World War II, Slovakia was re-joined with the Czechspeaking lands and Czech director Martin Frie returned to make Vanij. .. ! (Beware ... !) with folkloristic highlights similar to his successful Janosfk from 1935. The film was based on Ivan Stodola' s popular play Bacova iena (The Shepherd's Wife) and Palo Bielik played the leading role again . Things changed dramatically after Czechoslovakia became communist in 1948. The government nationalized all but the tiniest companies, including the film studios. It saw film as an important medium to indoctrinate the population and ideological control - under strict financed film production in the Slovak, as well as in the Czech part of the country. Directors, screenwriters, actors and other people connected with film production became �SLOVAKIA 82 state employees as everyone else, with a regular salary regardless of how many films were produced and whether they earned any profits or not - a concept born out of communist accounting. Although the authorities paid the salaried filmmakers more money for the films they made - separate contracts were signed for each one - from the American perspective, this was closer to bonuses than anything known in Hollywood today. The "bonuses" were higher for films considered particularly effective in showing the communist rule as benefiting the population and had nothing to do with ticket sales. The authorities mandated that the method used in all art be socialist realism. In general, its goal was to educate people to the benefits of communism and, before it was reached , socialism, which was what they called their existing political system. This was strictly enforced, especially in fiction and film, because these mediums reached the widest audience. The topics were to emphasize the need to work for the good of the 'collective,' i.e., communist society. Topics focusing on the individual and on personal feelings and concerns were deemed harmful, as was depicting anything negative about society. Love was considered such a topic: not only because it was personal and, therefore, did not educate the audience about the benefits of working on behalf of the collective, but also because it may have brought sex into the story, a definite 'no' in socialist realism. The official support of socialist-realist art and the transformation of filmmakers into salaried employees meant that a steady stream of feature films began to appear in the newly-established studios in Bratislava. Pal'o Bielik, the former star of Janosfk, who expanded his moviemaking experience in the newsreel studios during World War II, directed Vicic dicry (Wolves' Lairs), one of the first two films made after the communist takeover in 1948. It �SLOVAKIA 83 was the beginning of a succession of films about the 1944 antiGerman uprising in Slovakia, but because it was made so early during the Communist Party ' s drive to establish ideological dominance, the film still managed to include 'negative,' as well as 'positive' characters among both the Slovak insurgents and the German soldiers suppressing the uprising - something that did not get past the censors again for more than a decade. Bielik, as director, leaned away from the folkloristic style of the films in which he starred: the style of V/cie diery was inspired by early Italian neo-realism. After two feature films in 1948 and another two in 1949, the yearly output grew to 3-6 per year in the 1950s. 'Negative' characters could not be central in the plots, and the story had to prove them wrong. Central characters had to be 'positive' from the start or be seen discovering Marxist-Leninist solutions to any problems they encountered. Such problems had to be few and marginal, the general view of society had to be happy. If the central characters were not Communists from the start, a 'tutor' and Communist Party member would often be present, who helped them find the Marxist-Leninist way. Topics commonly dealt with World War II and the defeat of Nazi Germany, or with the imposition of Communism - the 'collectivization' of farms, i.e., the abolition of private ownership of most land larger than the immediate surroundings of one's house and garden. Farmers were to be shown as opening their eyes to the fact that this was actually good for them. The Communists proclaimed a classless society, which meant that everyone would eventually become a 'worker.' The three recognized social groups were the laborers, the farmers, and the intelligentsia, i.e., white-collar workers and college-educated people, but the Communist Party officials, although working in offices, classified themselves as laborers. The bourgeoisie, �84 SLOVAKIA i.e. , the private entrepreneurs, disappeared by virtue of their property being 'nationalized,' i.e., taken over by the government, but the - now former - bourgeoisie were persecuted never- theless . The intelligentsia was often suspected of harboring bourgeois ideas and persecuted, too . Since the bourgeoisie were often described as incapable of shedding their reactionary, i.e. anti-Communist skins, films about contemporary life generally focused on the villages and farmers. Marxism-Leninism saw in them the ' next best class' after the laborers, on their way to becoming agricultural laborers . Their initial qualms about any benefits of collectivization provided some meager source of conflict for the plots. The films about the past often returned to the uprising in Slovakia during World War II, which was depicted as organized by the Communists and aided by the Soviet Union. Plots that concerned the communist period had to end on an optimistic note. Since a former entrepreneur always remained at least suspect, their joyful transformation into a group auxiliary to the working class was essentially unacceptable as a topic, which - in effect - also kept town s and cities away from most of the scripts. Even socialist-realist authors felt that a ccnflict drives a story, but avoided settings that did not provide for politically acceptable conflicts . Socialist realism was strongly enforced during the first 10-15 years of communism . Unlike neighboring Poland and Hungary, communist Czechoslovakia saw little of the ideological thaw triggered by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalinism in February of l 956. The thaw did not reach Czechoslovakia until the early l 960s, during which time Bratislava produced 6- l O feature film s per year, and the first manifestations of the thaw in literature and film came from Slovakia. After more than a decade of socialist- �85 SLOVAKIA realist filmmaking, Sinko v sieti (The Sun in a Net) directed by Stefan Uher (1930-1993) in 1962 became a milestone in both Slovak and Czech filmmaking. It inspired a whole generation of students at the Film Academy in Prague, who soon followed with a series of films which attained international recognition as the "Czech New Wave." Sinko v sieti was Stefan Uher's second film . His first was about the life of a group of fifteen year-old students and their school My z deviate) A (We from Grade 9, Study Group A; 1961). The screenwriter, Alfonz Bednar (1914-1989), was a successful writer who published mildly non-conformist fiction somewhat earlier than most other authors. The film is based on his three short stories Fajolov prfspevok (Fajolo's Contribution), Pon- t6novy deii (Pontoon Day) and Zlata brana (Golden Gate). Uher's film depicted a number of hitherto unacceptable social and political themes : distant - perhaps uncaring - parents, a philandering husband, teenagers changing partners, an attempt at suicide, a poorly-run collectivized farm , and the requirement that a child attend summer 'voluntary work camps ' to make up for his parents belonging to the intelligentsia. Moreover, none of these issues were resolved in a 'positive' manner. The ending was rather somber, if not depressing, with the barest hint of optimism found only in the last sentence and possibly on the film's symbolic level, which was handled rather unevenly. It attempted a complex interplay of sun and clouds, vision and blindness, truth and lies, centered around a solar eclipse (Central Europe actually experienced a 95% solar eclipse on the morning of February 15, 196 l ). Contemporary critics found the symbolism difficult to decipher, and much of it was probably lost on the viewers. But the core story line - the ups and downs in the relationship of two teenagers - the realism and novelty of its urban setting, and the �86 SLOVAKIA hints at some social and political taboos were not lost on the audience and cannot have been lost on the censors. Sinko v sieti not only pushed the envelope, but also established for other artists and showed to the Slovaks and Czechs at large what the authorities could now be pushed to permit. According to Uher, Karol Bacflek, the head of the Communist Party in Slovakia at that time, attacked the film, saying it contained coded messages that conspirators were able to decipher precisely. For example, Bacflek thought the solar eclipse . was to indicate the twilight of communism and the pontoon on the dried-up riverbed stood for the state of communist rule in Czechoslovakia at that time. Communist officials believed that the blind mother was supposed to symbolize the blindness of their Party, which did not see the realities of life under communism. Because a political thaw had begun in Slovakia, other communist officials with enough influence dared to differ and the film was released. Besides Stefan Uher's efforts to get past the strict requirements of socialist realism, the director was inspired by some of the trends current in Western European cinema and culture in the 1950s. Among them was his focus on the symbolism of light and darkness, adherence to a low-key style, a hint of fashi0nablc quasi-existentialism in Fajolo's dialogues with Bela, and an attempt at serious cinema-verite: in the beer-drinking scenes in .1 tavern, the background soundtrack includes taped unscripted conversations of real villagers. Uher mostly chose inexperienced actors or nonactors. Only one of them, I.:,ubo Roman in a supporting role (b . 1944, then a student of acting), became a successful actor, theater administrator, and ultimately a politician - Member of Parlia- ment, Minister of Culture, and since 2001, County Chief of Bratislava. Actual music in the film included Western rock played on �SLOVAKIA 87 the radio. The film's score was by llja Zeljenka, an avant-garde composer of 'concrete music.' While Slnko v sieti became a prologue to the first minimalist, quasi-realist, and eventually more experimental Czechoslovak New Wave made by film students in Prague, in Slovakia the film was followed by several increasingly critical social commentaries by established filmmakers , by more films about contemporary urban life, and by increasingly intellectual and abstract films seen as Art. The most daring among the films that replaced socialist realism with social criticism was Peter Solan's Prfpad Barnabas Kos (The Case of Barnabas Kos; 1964), which removed the veil from arbitrary decision-making in communist society. Among contemporary topics, a potential for an approachable and successful film was lost with Nylonovy mesiac (Nylon Moon; 1965) directed by Eduard Greener. Its story, as well as the title came from a novel by Jaroslava Blazkova published in 1960, the first best-seller about contemporary life since the communist takeover. But there was entertainment in film , too, none more popular than Janosik II directed in 1963 by Pal'o Bielik, the star in the previous version of the story. In spite of its title, it was not a sequel: the film re-told the centuries-old legend. The theme of the brigand hero retains its attraction through the present day. Slovakia 's most successful producer, Rudolf Bierman, is currently producing The True Story al Janosfk and Uhorcfk, directed by the success[ul Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland and her daughter Kasia Adamik with an estimated budget of $2.4 million, $800,000 of which came from the Slovak Parliament and the Ministry of Culture. The first film to earn an Oscar for Czechoslovakia was Obchod na korze (The Shop on Main Street; 1965; Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1966; Special Mention for Acting �88 SLOVAKIA Performance, Cannes Film Festival 1965; New York Film Critics Circle A ward for Best Foreign Film in 1966). It was co-directed by Slovak Jan Kadar and Czech Elmar Klos , who had directed films together since the 1950s. Their earlier film was the groundbreaking Smrt' sa vola Engelchen (Death is Called Engelchen, 1963) based on a novel by Ladislav Mnacko, which diverted from the communist interpretation of the 1944 uprising in Slovakia as infallibly glorious and showed some aspects that brought about human tragedy. Along similar lines, Obchod na korze placed the politics of World War II in the background and focused on the dead-end street faced by many in Central Europe during the deportations of the Jews to German concentration camps . After the introduction of anti-Jewish laws in Slovakia, a simple carpenter named Tona is made the owner of a tiny haberdashery, until then owned by an old, almost deaf Jewish woman named Rozalia who has no comprehension of the contemporary political developments. After a crisis, the local Jewish community begins to pay Tono not to surrender his ownership, to prevent Rozalia 's store from being passed on to a ruthless Aryanizer. A tender friendship develops between Tono and Rozalia: she keeps selling buttons without realizing Tana's legal status, and he becomes her man about the house. When deportations begin, Roz.ilia remains oblivious of real life, and Tona is faced with the choice between sending her off, or probably facing his own and his wife ' s death, if he were discovered trying to hide a person incapable of understanding why she should live in hiding. The film starred Slovak Jozef Kroner ( 1924-1998) and Polish Ida Kaminska ( 1899-1980) with a Slovak cast and was shot on location in the town of Trebisov, Eastern Slovakia, and in the Prague studios. The film presents its captivating, morally complex story in a straightforward style, with a sprinkling of symbolism and dream �SLOVAKIA 89 sequences. It was an indication of changes in the political climate that Obchod na korze was able to get away without the mandated focus on criticism of the Slovak authorities during World War II , previously an inevitable feature of socialist realist work about that period, as well as without highlighting a central, resolute procommunist character. It has remained the most awarded and internationally successful Slovak film to the present day . The late l 960s reflected the direction filmmaking may take with little censorship and steady funding . An increasing number of - especially younger - filmmakers took advantage of the situation to experiment without concern about a need to target a specific audience or about how large their audience was going to be. They enjoyed the same creative luxury as the writers or painters convinced of the significance of their work, who manage to earn their living elsewhere. In a democratic society, this is rarely the case in cinema because of the extraordinary amounts of money even a low-budget film requires. But during the occasional relaxation of control in communist countries while the principles of the system remained in place, filmmakers were given substantial fund s to make films relatively free from prescription , as well as of a need to bring in profit. An early nonconformist film seen mostly by students in art theaters was Stefan Uher's Panna zazracnica (The Miraculous Virgin, 1966), soon followed by Juraj Jakubisko's (b. 1938) Kristove roky ("Christ's Years" or "Crucial Years," 1967), Elo Havetta's Slavnost' v botanickej zahrade (A Celebration in the Botanical Garden, 1969), and Dusan Hanak's 322 (the number identifying cancer in medical statistics of diseases, l 969). During this period (however brief) of almost total collapse of communist control, the Koliba Film Studio in Bratislava co-produced films with avantgarde filmmakers from abroad. Jerzy Skolimowski from Poland, �90 SLOVAKIA whose government was then significantly more repressive than Czechoslovakia, directed one story in Dialog 20-40-60, along with Czech Zbynek Brynych and Slovak Peter Solan in 1968 . Frenchman Alain Robbe-Grillet directed two films, including Mui, ktory Jute (The Man Who Lies, L 'homme qui ment; codirected with Martin Holly in 1968) with a Slovak and French cast. And 1969 saw the release of Juraj Jakubisko's Vtackovia, siroty a blazni (Birds, Orphans and Fools), considered by most Slovaks to be the best Slovak film. Jakubisko's preferences bounce between experiment, abstraction and ambitious intellectualism, as in this film , and less numerous popular crowd-pleasers. "Birds, Orphans and Fools" had the briefest of theater run s, not because of the audience, but because of the authorities. Conceived when communist control was at its weakest in Czechoslovakia, it was completed well after the Soviet-led invasion in August of 1968, by which time many of the mechanisms of authoritarian rule were at work again. Vtackovia, siroty a blazni takes place in an apparent historical vacuum in a desolate world with war raging somewhere outside the camera's field of vision and the director's focus. The two male and one female central characters , not unlike some of the hippies in the U.S.A. <1.t that time, live in a decrepit apartment, go through a series of bizarre encounters, sexual experiences and discuss a range of topics. When their lives begin to appear closer to normalcy, one of them murders the girl and commits suicide. The film is deliberately ex perimental in its style: it varies screen sizes, shots are taken at awkward angles with a hand-held or agitated camera, distortion lenses alter screen images, filmmakers ' equipment remains in the frame, characters talk to the camera. The adjectives surrealist and post-apocalyptic are perhaps representative of the filmmakers' intent. �SLOVAKIA The 1970s witnessed a re-introduction 91 of strict communist control in Czechoslovakia, called normalization . People were demoted at work or fired, if they had expressly supported the relaxation in the late 1960s or denounced the Soviet-led invasion in 1968, and their children often suffered, too. In an effort to a void repercussions, many repudiated their past views. Although persecution was somewhat milder in Slovakia than in the Czech-speaking areas, it had a stifling effect on art. Gone were the efforts of the 1960s to push the envelope of what was allowed. The population at large had learned its lesson : with the help of the Soviet Union, the Communists were able to pull the whole country back from unprecedented freedom of expression and the brink of a multi-party system in 1968 to a situation more reminiscent of the late 1950s, and those who resisted were punished. This repression lasted at least through the late 1970s, and Czechoslovakia remained more politically backward , although with a better standard of living, than Communist Poland or Hungary until the collapse of communism in 1989 . Cinema was affected like the rest of society, while the number of film releases grew. Slovakia produced 8-12 films per year throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Jakubisko still managed to finish Dovidenia v pek/e, priatelia (See You in Hell, Friends) in 1970, but hardly anyone saw it. The film was banned and Jakubisko was not allowed to make another feature film until 1979 . Although the early 1970s are sometimes compared to the 1950s, the authorities did not demand that Slovak filmmakers make socialist-realist films critical of the period of relaxation - the way films in the 1950s tried to discredit private enterprise and democracy which were abolished in 1948. Only one film was made about 1968, Honicka (Fever) directed by Martin Holly, Jr. (b. 1931) and based on a novel by Jozef Kot. In a country with �92 SLOVAKIA freedom of expression, the film could have been perceived as just focusing on a relatively plausible plot from 1968 and pushing a particular point of view - there indeed were people who did not support the pro-democratic reforms, or saw many flaws among the reformers. But under totalitarian control, which did not allow opposing points of view, it was impossible to distinguish the touting of the official view in film from just propaganda. Regardless, Honicka shared the destiny of the overwhelming majority of Slovak and Czech films produced during the forty years of Communism: after a couple of weeks in mostly empty theaters, it was not seen again . While the 1960s witnessed a desire to bring contemporary and urban themes to film, the 1970s began to solidify an inclination among a segment of the Slovak critics and filmmakers to emulate the centuries-old urban fashion in Europe of the 'return to nature:' well educated intellectuals living in Bratislava make and admire films with images of the countryside and villagers whose lives appear to be somehow more authentic than in towns. The trend-setter was the still admired hour-long documentary Obrazy stareho sveta (Pictures of the Old World, 1972) directed by Dusan Hanak who, suspicious to the authorities because of his films from the 1960s, found an early refuge in a topic sufficiently removed from big politics to survive in the margins of official production and yet, sufficiently non-conforn1ist and enamored with village life to please especially the chic audiences. Part of its additional attraction within the context of Communist Czechoslovakia rested in the fact that it offered snapshots from the lives of several highlanders, whose very existence belied the official claims of equal wealth for everyone. But Obrazy stareho sveta has a much more universal appeal and has received critical acclaim from Slovakia, Switzerland and France to Toronto and Los Angeles. �SLOVAKIA 93 A singular exception among about 90 domestic feature films that briefly flickered in Slovak theaters in the 1970s was Dusan Hanak's Ruto ve sny (Rosy Dreams, 1976). Although its style was poetic, it may have been the first film in the communist bloc with a de-romanticized portrayal of the Roma (Gypsies). It dove into the cultural barriers between them and the non-Romany population - an issue that, twenty years later, proved to be one of the key problems of post-communist societies in Central Europe. Two teenagers - a young Slovak postman and a Romany girl - fall in love. The film tells the viewers that it will not work due to different cultural expectations each of the two have of their budding relationship. Its imaginative filmmaking and affecting, slightly sentimental story might have been easy to understand and appreciate by a wider audience, but Rutove sny was shown only in limited release at the order of the authorities. The most popular film in that decade was yet another variation on the legend about a heroic highwayman Pacho, hybskf z bojnfk (Pacho, the Highwayman of Hybe; 1975) directed by Martin Tapak. In 1980, the authorities shelved fa milujem, ty milujes (I Love, You Love) directed by Dusan Hanak because of its focus on marginal social groups and eroticism. When it was released shortly before the collapse of communism, it received the highest international recognition for a Slovak film since The Shop on Main Street, including the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. However, the strict Communist control typical of the 1970s began to relax slowly, and the early 1980s brought two domestic blockbusters whose role in Slovak culture finally matched that of some of the films in the l 960s. In 1982 Stefan Uher directed Pas/a kone na bet6ne ("She. Grazed Horses on Concrete," or "A Ticket to Heaven"). The title used the first few words from an irreverent tune with just a few verses depicting impossible acti- �94 SLOVAKIA vities - the song continues " ... she bathed in razor blades." The story is about a single mother fending for herself in an East Slovak village, determined not to allow her teenaged daughter to follow in her footsteps . Partly a comedy and partly a candid portrayal of contemporary village life, it oscillates between humorous depictions of social customs and ceremonies, and the more serious issues of a woman's capacity to hold her own in a small community, and of abortion. Although co-written and directed by Uher, the film is largely the work of Milka Zirnkova, an author and actress, who wrote the original story, worked with Uher on the script, and starred in the leading role. Among the novelties in Slovak moviemaking was an extensive use of the East Slovak dialect in the film. Although Slovak has several highly recognizable regional accents, filmmakers - before and after this film - have the actors speak the standard, neutral variety of Slovak common in the news media, regardless of where in Slovakia the story of their film takes place. A success comparable to the handful of foreign blockbusters permitted by the authorities each year was Juraj Jakubisko's Tisfcrocna vce/a (A Thousand-Year Old Bee;l983). It is a 162-minute long saga of the life of a farmer's family covering three generations from the late 1800s through the early 1900s. It picked up on and reinforced a myth recurrent in Slovak cinema for several decades, in films from both popular and artsy filmmakers . Villagers are mostly good, while those who live in or move to town (perhaps the screenwriters and directors bowed to communist authorities) become entrepreneurial and tum out to be cold and corrupt. It was the first Slovak film with a comprehensive narrative that a large number of viewers were ready to perceive as their national, as well as local and family past, because it echoed themes they had encountered in literature and history classes at school. �SLOVAKIA 95 Moreover, it was a comforting past. The title was a parable, overplayed in the film with brief expensive special effects with a gigantic honey-bee created in the Bavarian Film Studios in Munich . Those sequences hammered in the symbolic thread in the storyline. They could have been be richer and more content, the film gave the viewers to understand, were it not for the cumulative effects of past injustice: the fruits of their hard-working ancestors' labor was periodically taken away from them for a thousand years, like honey from the bees. But as long as they stayed in the villages, they were an honest, sometimes whimsical bunch doing as well as they could . It helped that several popular actors starred in the film, including Jozef Kr6ner (Tona in The Shop on Main Street). Tisicrosmi vce/a received a Gold Phoenix for art and cinematography from the Cultural Center of the City of Venice awarded in tandem with the prestigious International Venice Film Festival. After decades of government-funded and censored production, Bratislava still produced twelve films in 1990, the year after the collapse of Communism. With no censorship, but also hardly any funding, the number of feature films ranged between one and three for most of the 1990s. Slovakia's theaters are now flooded with foreign , especially American, films and while the population might be ready for a domestic production addressing them specifically, perhaps along the lines of A Thousand-Year Old Bee, there is not enough money for a film on that scale, and perhaps even less interest on the part of the filmmakers . With one exception, the films made in the 1990s generally follow one of two thematic lines . The most successful film was Fontana pre Zuzanu 2 (A Fountain for Susan 2; 1993) directed by Dusan Rapos as a sequel to his more sedate Fontana pre Zuzanu from 1985, still limited by communist censorship. He released Fontana pre Zuza- �96 SLOVAKIA nu 3 in 1999. Both fall in the group of films with contemporary themes and are obviously interested in generating ticket sales. They rely on sex and crime to achieve that. Although it remained behind major foreign blockbusters , Fontana pre Zuzanu 2 sold 380,000 tickets in a country with 5.4 million inhabitants, which is comparable to a film that brings in over $130 million in the U.S.A. Titanic sold about 550,000 tickets in Slovakia and The Matrix 130,000. Another film with a contemporary theme is indicative of how times have changed since the collapse of communism. Rivers of Babylon (the tile is in English) directed by Vladimir Balco in 1998 was based on the first post-communist bestseller in l 990 by Peter Pistanek. Sequels of the novel had lower sales, because the novelty of the topic - Bratislava's underworld - and expressive presentation wore off, and because they had to compete with a growing number of translated foreign bestsellers. However, the filmmakers picked up on a particular aspect of the sequels vitriolic political commentary . The story of the rise of a skillful stoker and wheeler-dealer to political power was seen as a parable of the government in Bratislava at that time. Only about eight years earlier, a release of such a strongly critical film would have been either unthinkable, or a major event attracting huge crowds . Yet, Rivers of Babylon sold only 50,000 tickets and met with a lukewarm reception abroad. The other thematic line in contemporary Slovak cinema is the 'return to nature. ' Its main protagonist is director Martin Sulfk (b . 1962) whose films generally attract fewer viewers at home than Rivers of Babylon, but are favored by critics and have attained a degree of viewers' acclaim at film festivals organized by European cities. His most successful Zahrada (Garden; l 995), the earlier Neha (Tenderness ; 199 l ), as well as the more recent Orbis �SLOVAKIA 97 Pictus (Latin title, 1997) and Krajinka ("Landscape" or "A Small piece of the Country," 2000) are intellectualized continuations of the theme of the desirability of a return to, journey through, or life in a rural setting. Krajinka is the most accessible of Sulfk ' s films . Although it may be based on memories, as the opening sequence suggests, the discrete stories are not made to gel into a cohesive sequence for the audience. But each is readable on its own. Zahrada, the first Slovak film since the collapse of communism to be released abroad , and especially Orbis Pictus, break with traditional story-telling and show the main characters - a rather passive adult man living with his parents in Zahrada and a young girl released from a boarding school , perhaps for abandoned teenagers, in Orbis Pictus - find education in nature and disappointment in urban settings . With surreal scenes, philosophizing scripts, and a dedication to the filmmaker's expressive whim, Sulfk 's films re-package the theme of national rural bliss, recurrent in Slovak culture and education , in a form palatable for trendy audiences. The theme has had an incessant, powerful attraction for a segment of directors since the beginnings of filmmaking in Slovakia, whether they have leaned towards the popular and mythologizing approach from The Earth Sings 1933, through the decades of films about Janosik and similar productions, to The Thousand-Year Old Bee - or whether they take the approach aimed at art theaters, traceable to Organ directed by Stefan Uher in 1964. Due to the general drop in film production and to Martin Sulik ' s capacity to attract funding, films for art theatres have become more prevalent in the 1990s than in the earlier decades . �SLOVAKIA 98 Bibliography Author's interview with film producer Marian Urban, July 12, 2000. "Bandit pie to shoot." Daily Variety, March 7, 2002, p. 48. Bartosek, L.: Nas film - Kapitoly z dejin (1896-1945). Praha: Mlada fronta, 1985. Grega, A. : Prfspevok k dejinam slovenskej kinematografie, M.A. thesis at the FAMU in Prague,1968 . Havelka, J.: Kronika naseho filmu. Praha: Filmovy ustav, 1967. Macek, V.: Stefan Uher 1930-1993. Bratislava: Slovensky filmovy ustav, 1994. Macek, V. and J. Pastekova: Dejiny slovenskej kinematografie. Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo Osveta, 1997. Mihalik, P. : Vznik slovenskej narodnej kinematografie 1896- 1948. Bratislava: Kabinet divadla a filmu SA V, 1994 . Rumanovsky, I.: "Z najstar.sfch dejfn kinematografie na Slovensku. " Panorama, #3, 1977. Janosik 21 a filmove podnikanie na Slovensku. Kinema, #3, 1982 . Slivka, M.: Karol Plicka - basnik obrazu. Martin: Vydavatel'stvo Osveta, 1982. Smatlakova, Renata: Katal6g slovenskych celovecemych filmov 1921-1999. Bratislava: Slovensky filmovy ustav, l 999. Young, C.: The films of Hedy Lamarr. Secaucus, N.J. : Citadel Press, 1978. �DOCUMENTATION �� SLOVAKIA 71 Trends in 20th Century Slovak Filmmaking Martin Votruba The transition from the rule of censorship to the rule of the free market after the collapse of Communism thirteen years ago has been more painful for Slovak filmmakers than for other artists. Filmmaking requires a substantially higher initial investment than other performing and fine arts. People are ready to pay much less for a movie ticket or rental than to buy a book or painting. This puts small countries like Slovakia at a great disadvantage. In a world where feature films in a language other than English have difficulty finding an audience outside their own language areas, even if they are in French, German or Spanish, the same-language audience for films in Slovak is the size of a single frame. A film in the Slovak language costs as much as a comparable film in any other language, but the chances that it will recoup its costs are minimal. Yet, several dedicated filmmakers have managed to find institutional and private support, perhaps resigned to the fact that profits will remain elusive, while hoping to make a statement, push the envelope, create Art. Filmmaking began in Slovakia while it was still part of Hungary in the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. According to film historians, the first motion picture shows in the Slovak counties took place in Kosice in December, 1896 and a few days later in Bratislava (then called Presporok by the Slovaks, Pressburg by the Germans). That was only a year after . the Lumiere brothers' first-ever public picture show in Paris and just six months after a similar showing in New York. The early shows were organized by �SLOVAKIA 72 traveling entrepreneurs, often in cafes or similar venues, but also under tents. People's visual perceptions of the world were being changed forever and those making and showing the films knew it. A show in Nitra in 1903 still touted the advent of the modern world, when it was advertised as "Hungary's 1st Scientific Electrical Theater Modeled on the Grand American Bioscope Awarded the Grand Prix at the World Fair in Paris." At that time, a linguistic barrier was not crucial to the films' distribution in the multinational Kingdom of Hungary. Silent movies were largely self-explanatory and most people would have been able to understand the few captions in Magyar or German, the two dominant languages in the Kingdom, or have them translated by other viewers. The shows consisted of several separate films, some colorized by hand, each of which were about two minutes long. For example, the first show in Kosice was a series of twelve such very, very brief films with titles like "The Arrival of a Train," "The Czar Arrives in Paris," "The Training of the French Infantry," "Four Ladies Dancing the French Cancan" and "An Interrupted Date." Clearly, foreign films dominated Central Europe from the start. The first title was the kind of film intended to create a spectacle - similar to some of the uses of special effects today: the engine would rush towards the camera, scaring an audience not accustomed to viewing images of moving trains at that angle and at such close quarters. The next two titles played a role similar to later newsreels shown before the main feature , or to contemporary world news and documentaries on, say, CNN or the Discovery Chanel. The last two titles were of the kind that - the filmmakers found - attracted the largest number of viewers: entertainment, fun and a rudimentary story. The proportion of such shorts quickly grew. �SLOVAKIA 73 The first permanent movie theater in Bratislava, Elektro Bioskop, was opened in a remodeled fencing hall in September, 1905. It had about 200 seats. The site is still in business. After a hiatus, an arts movie theater was opened in the same hall in the 1970s and is still in operation, now called Mladost' ("Youth"), on Hviezdoslav Square opposite the US Embassy. Theaters, hotel halls, storage buildings and other premises were remodeled in other towns, to become permanent movie theaters. In the absence of hi-fi sound and hi-tech projection systems, the competition often relied on interior decoration. An advertisement for the Bratislava movie theatre Fidelio (later Urania and now Hviezda) lured the audience thus: "427 upholstered seats in 3 colors , Alhambrastyle walls decorated with Oriental landscapes, live and man-made flowers." The fact that the theater showed two new releases a week was relegated to the bottom of the page. Attendance at traditional theater performances dropped after the introduction of motion pictures. Theater directors appealed to the authorities to disallow movie shows during the time of regular plays. In 1901 , the Ministry of the Interior (in charge of police and local government in Central Europe) issued a decree meeting their demands . The Viscount of Nitra went so far as to ban movie shows during the whole theater season , but the local movie-theater operators successfully appealed his decision. For a time, film producers thought they could benefit from a symbiosis of film and theater in "cinema-sketches." Actors would play on the stage, then the story would be picked up on the screen with the same actors and the conclusion would be played by live actors again. One such cinema-sketch from 1909 depicted night life in Kosice "The Kosice Promenade on the Screen." Walking on Main Street in one's Sunday best was a common pastime before the advent of TV and mass entertainment. It was among the few early �SLOVAKIA 74 motion pictures linked with Slovak territory. The limited production of cinema-sketches did not survive World War I and did not continue after the creation of Czecho-Slovakia (later renamed Czechoslovakia) in l 9 l 8 . Rather than cinema-sketches or story-based films , most of the early films linked to Slovakia were travel specials with titles like "The High Tatras," "Skiing in Tatranska Lomnica," "Traveling through the Vah Valley," or "The Kosice Institute of Corrections for Children," "Testing the Police Dogs in Bratislava," and news . Movies proved successful. The number of movie theaters in Slovakia reached about 100 by the end of World War I and two schools - the Mining Academy in Banska Stiavnica and a high school in Lucenec - had already used film as a teaching tool. When movies were still shown by traveling entrepreneurs, a copy of the film was bought and owned by them. With the establishment of permanent movie theaters, film distributors appeared, as well as a kind of 'film exchange' where copies of film were traded as on the stock market. The advent of copyright problems and foreign competition was heralded in 1913, in the first published complaint about illegal importation of foreign films , especially from France. As elsewhere in Central Europe, French films dominated the market. Legal power to regulate what movies were screened in Hungary was invested in the hands of the local authorities by a law from l 90 l , which required the traveling movie entrepreneurs to obtain permits for their shows . On the whole, a license was issued to anyone who applied for it. Local bans and complaints surfaced for a variety of reasons, including some familiar today. A city councilor in Kosice worried that worthless caper movies had a bad influence on boys, while dramas about sex ruined girls, be cause such movies extinguished their sense of morality and made �SLOVAKIA 75 them vulnerable to unconscionable seducers. In 1912, a priest and principal of a Roman Catholic boys' school in Nitra threatened his students with a bad grade in behavior if they went to the movies, even if accompanied by their parents. His ban extended to traditional theater performances as well. Censorship was also exercised by the authorities in Budapest, the capital of the Kingdom, who were able to ban individual titles from being shown all over Hungary , including the Slovak counties. In line with the traditions of Central European monarchies, politics was among the reasons for censorship. Among the banned titles were "King Ludwig II," depicting a story too similar to the life and mysterious death of Ludwig II of Bavaria and a film offensive to the prime minister of Hungary. However, the Kingdom did not follow suit when the rest of the Habsburg monarchy introduced formal film censorship in 1912. Among other things, it required that a license to open a movie theater be issued to individuals and institutions that would secure a respectable use of the profits. Its intent was to support charities and various associations. Budapest adopted the law in Apri l of 1918, half a year be fore the defeat and collapse of Austria-Hungary and the founding of Czec ho-Slovakia. The law empowered the censors to ban films offending patriotic interests, public order and morality. Children under sixteen were allowed to see only movies designated as suitable for them and only when accompanied by an adult. Despite a variety of problems , Czecho-S lovakia proved to be more democratic than the former Kingdom of Hungary and the whole Habsburg monarchy. But the new freedom , which benefited other forms of Slovak culture, proved even more difficult for Slovak film than the post-communist period after 1989. The film industry developed in Prague, which had been an important German-Czech cultural center, a university town and capital of the �76 SLOVAKIA Holy Roman Empire's Kingdom of Bohemia for centuries, attracting business and artistic talent. By comparison, Slovakia's new capital and largest city, Bratislava, was much smaller; moreover, it was only forty miles from the former Habsburg monarchy's large, vibrant and influential capital of Vienna. Given that artists and entrepreneurs flocked to it from all over the monarchy, Vienna must have created a degree of artistic brain-drain in its immediate vicinity. As with the Pittsburgh Agreement of 1918, which was a key document in the separation of the Slovak counties from the Habsburg monarchy, Slovak-Americans had an impact on Slovakia's nascent film industry. Andrej Sustek from Chicago founded the Selig Company with the intent to make historical films in Slovakia. It was subsequently incorporated in the new Slovak-American Tatra Film Corporation with a capital of about $30,000 from US investors . Their first and only film was Janosfk. It captured the legend of an 18th-century highwayman from Terchova in the northern Slovak County of Orava who gave rise to Carpathian legends comparable to those about Robin Hood in England. In 1919 Tatra Film's Daniel and Jaroslav Siakel' arrived in Slovakia to start filming in their native village of Blatnica near Martin in Central Slovakia, where they also built sets, and in the castle of Stiavnicka near Ruzomberok. The leading role was given to popular Theodor Pistek, who starred in nine other films that year. Maria Fabryova, an amateur actress from Martin, played Anka, Janosfk's girlfriend. The film was finished in the A-B studios in Prague . The screenplay by Jozef Zak-Marusiak was to be based on a novel by Slovak-American author and editor of the popular Amerikansko-Slovcnske Noviny "(American-Slovak News)", Gustav Marsall-Petrovsky (1862-1916). But it was much closer to the ac- �SLOVAKIA 77 tual local legends , which also inspired Slovak Romantic poets in the 19th century. Moreover, the play Janosfk - premiered in Brno in 1910 and written by Moravian playwright, poet and journalist Jiri Mahen - was well known by the l 920s and may have been a major source for the film's story . Janosfk was shown to the filmmakers' team in November 1921 in the city of Vrutky . It opened a few days later in Zilina and in December 1921 in Chicago - to be more specific , in Cicero, IL, then with a large Slovak-American population , at the Atlantic movie theater, now replaced by the Atlantic Mall at W. 26th St. and S. Pulaski Rd . The screenplay relied on the folk motif of ' taking from the rich and giving to the poor,' and greatly reinforced the hints present in 19th-century Slovak Romantic poems about Janosfk : the film fused feudal exploitation in the more distant past with the drive by the Magyar-speaking government in Budapest in the 19th century to suppress the Kingdom' s other languages and cultures . The latter became particularly forceful during the last decades of the Kingdom's existence and ultimately contributed to its demise. Unlike feudalism , that experience was still very fresh in people's memories and was among the reasons why Slovaks immigrated to the United States. By comparison to Czech films preserved from the early Czecho-Slovak period, Janosfk showed the authors' experience with American movies : in camera work, in the use of parallel narratives, as well as in shots inspired by Westerns . It had two directors of photography with two cameras: Oldrich Benes with a European camera and Daniel Siakel', who used a camera made by Andrej Sustek's company in Chicago. In effect, the two cameramen shot two parallel films - scenes were acted separately for each camera and the difference between the "Slovak" and "American" versions increased after separate editing. But the film's handling of the eth- �78 SLOVAKIA nic motif may have been too didactic, or the issue too recent to be successfully mythologized as entertainment on the silver screen. Janosik did not recover its costs and remained Tatra Film's only product, as well as Slovakia' s first preserved silent movie. It was thought to have been lost, but in 1975 it was discovered and restored from both versions by Ivan Rumanovsky in Bratislava. Until after World War II, attempts to set up film companies, occasionally with Slovak-American involvement, followed the same path. One film would be made and then the company folded, because the film was not profitable and the company lacked sufficient capital to sustain it through a few flops. The situation did not change after the emergence of sound in the movies. While about 30-50 sound films were made each year in Czechoslovakia between 1933 - 1938, fewer than one a year was in Slovak. Czech films occasionally featured Slovak actors. Among them, with eleven musicals to his credit, was Frantisek Kristof Vesely, who reached the level of stardom in Czechoslovakia. Documentaries fared better: partly because the costs were lower and partly thanks to occasional government funding for shorts featuring its officials. For example, Kvetna nedela vo Vajnoroch (Palm Sunday in Yajnory) recorded a folkloristic celebration of the holiday attended by Minister Plenipotentiary for Slovakia, Vavro Srobar. A potentially steady source of funding opened up in 1935 when Prague decided that each newsreel commonly shown before the main feature had to devote at least 20% of its length to items about Czechoslovakia. But this so urce remained untapped by Slovak filmmakers : most of the reports came from Bohemia and Moravia. However, government or institutional funding and fascination with village life proved to be a mix that worked for filmmakers in Slovakia on more than one occasion, right through the present. �SLOVAKIA 79 The first Slovak film to reach international acclaim relied on both. The potential of the Slovak countryside as a backdrop had already been discovered by non-native filmmakers and at least two of their films have become classics of world cinema. The early German horror Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu the Vampire) directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau was filmed at Orava Castle and in the High Tatras in 1922, and Czech director Gustav Machaty chose Slovakia as a location for his daring exploration of sexuality Extase (Ecstasy) in 1932. The second one propelled the career of Hedy Lamarr (born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiester), who became one of the most successful Hollywood stars. The Matica slovenska (by that time an eminent, mostly government-sponsored cultural, academic and archival institution) employed Karel Plicka (1894-1987) as its ethnographer, who was able to make documentary shorts from about 1926. He obtained funding from the President's Office in 1928 to produce an hourlong documentary about village life Po horach, po dolach (Through Mountains and Valleys). It was awarded a Gold Medal at the International Exposition of Photographic Art in Florence and received an Honorable Mention at the International Venice Film Festival in 1932. The favorable reception of his production, along with more funding from both the Matica slovenska and the President's Office, enabled Plicka to make Zem spieva (The Earth Sings) in 1933, a romanticized semi-documentary panorama of selected folk customs through the four seasons. Unlike Slovak feature movies of that period, Zem spieva struck a chord with the audience and topped it with another award at the International Venice Film Festival as part of a collection of films from Czechoslovakia that included Extase, mentioned above. But after this success, the Matica s/ovcnska was unable to raise sufficient funding and Plicka's hopes that he was laying the foundations of �80 SLOVAKIA Slovakia' s film industry were thwarted. He went on to make a documentary in the United States Za Slovakmi od New Yorku po Mississippi (Tracing Slovaks from New York to the Mississippi) in 1937 and then became a professor in the first Department of Film in Czechoslovakia and the third such department in Europe, at the School of Artistic Crafts in Bratislava in 1938. But the Department's potential for Slovak cinema was lost when the College was closed after Slovakia became a separate country in 19 39 . Plicka then resettled permanently in Prague, Bohemia, which was incorporated into the Third Reich during World War II. Czechoslovakia's only other Slovak-language blockbuster before World War II was a new Janosfk in 1935, funded from Prague and directed by the Czech Martin Frie (1902-1968). It was indicative of the volume of Czech film production that Frie finished three other films during the same year, having previously directed 23. Frie and Plicka were two of the authors of the screenplay based on the same play by Mahen, mentioned earlier, on which the first Janosfk may have been based. Plicka also found a policeman and amateur actor, Pal'o Bielik (1910-1983), in the village of Senica for the leading role. The film combined idealized images of villagers with action scenes to show their and Jan osik ' s resistance against Hungarian landlords. In spite of Budapest's protestations, it was screened at the International Venice Film Festival and was successfully released in Germany . During the existence of the Slovak Republic ( 1939-1945), movie theaters grew by more than 60% but no feature films were made. The government sponsored the film company Nastup (Line-up), which produced short films and weekly newsreels . The authorities, who described their own rule as "authoritarian and totalitarian," mandated that a newsreel be shown before every feature film and tightened censorship and ideological supervision of �SLOVAKIA 81 their production. The newsreel was customarily followed by a short film, a pattern that was picked up by the communist authorities after the war and survived through the collapse of Communism. The government's alliance with Germany meant that it became Slovakia's main source of films even before the war changed world trade patterns. At the same time, the number of imports dropped from about 400 a year in the former CzechoSlovakia (whose original hyphenated name was restored in 1938) to less than 150 after independence. In 1940, Slovakia still imported 15 "cultural-educational" films from the U.S., and a few more from countries other than Germany, but then German feature films were supplemented by just about a dozen films from Italy and Romania, and several Czech "oldies" from before the war. The film company Nastup was conscientious about training its employees, among whom was Pal'o Bielik, and sent them regularly to several studios in Germany as interns - including to neighboring Vienna and formerly Czechoslovak Prague, which were now ruled from Berlin. After World War II, Slovakia was re-joined with the Czechspeaking lands and Czech director Martin Frie returned to make Vanij. .. ! (Beware ... !) with folkloristic highlights similar to his successful Janosfk from 1935. The film was based on Ivan Stodola' s popular play Bacova iena (The Shepherd's Wife) and Palo Bielik played the leading role again . Things changed dramatically after Czechoslovakia became communist in 1948. The government nationalized all but the tiniest companies, including the film studios. It saw film as an important medium to indoctrinate the population and ideological control - under strict financed film production in the Slovak, as well as in the Czech part of the country. Directors, screenwriters, actors and other people connected with film production became �SLOVAKIA 82 state employees as everyone else, with a regular salary regardless of how many films were produced and whether they earned any profits or not - a concept born out of communist accounting. Although the authorities paid the salaried filmmakers more money for the films they made - separate contracts were signed for each one - from the American perspective, this was closer to bonuses than anything known in Hollywood today. The "bonuses" were higher for films considered particularly effective in showing the communist rule as benefiting the population and had nothing to do with ticket sales. The authorities mandated that the method used in all art be socialist realism. In general, its goal was to educate people to the benefits of communism and, before it was reached , socialism, which was what they called their existing political system. This was strictly enforced, especially in fiction and film, because these mediums reached the widest audience. The topics were to emphasize the need to work for the good of the 'collective,' i.e., communist society. Topics focusing on the individual and on personal feelings and concerns were deemed harmful, as was depicting anything negative about society. Love was considered such a topic: not only because it was personal and, therefore, did not educate the audience about the benefits of working on behalf of the collective, but also because it may have brought sex into the story, a definite 'no' in socialist realism. The official support of socialist-realist art and the transformation of filmmakers into salaried employees meant that a steady stream of feature films began to appear in the newly-established studios in Bratislava. Pal'o Bielik, the former star of Janosfk, who expanded his moviemaking experience in the newsreel studios during World War II, directed Vicic dicry (Wolves' Lairs), one of the first two films made after the communist takeover in 1948. It �SLOVAKIA 83 was the beginning of a succession of films about the 1944 antiGerman uprising in Slovakia, but because it was made so early during the Communist Party ' s drive to establish ideological dominance, the film still managed to include 'negative,' as well as 'positive' characters among both the Slovak insurgents and the German soldiers suppressing the uprising - something that did not get past the censors again for more than a decade. Bielik, as director, leaned away from the folkloristic style of the films in which he starred: the style of V/cie diery was inspired by early Italian neo-realism. After two feature films in 1948 and another two in 1949, the yearly output grew to 3-6 per year in the 1950s. 'Negative' characters could not be central in the plots, and the story had to prove them wrong. Central characters had to be 'positive' from the start or be seen discovering Marxist-Leninist solutions to any problems they encountered. Such problems had to be few and marginal, the general view of society had to be happy. If the central characters were not Communists from the start, a 'tutor' and Communist Party member would often be present, who helped them find the Marxist-Leninist way. Topics commonly dealt with World War II and the defeat of Nazi Germany, or with the imposition of Communism - the 'collectivization' of farms, i.e., the abolition of private ownership of most land larger than the immediate surroundings of one's house and garden. Farmers were to be shown as opening their eyes to the fact that this was actually good for them. The Communists proclaimed a classless society, which meant that everyone would eventually become a 'worker.' The three recognized social groups were the laborers, the farmers, and the intelligentsia, i.e., white-collar workers and college-educated people, but the Communist Party officials, although working in offices, classified themselves as laborers. The bourgeoisie, �84 SLOVAKIA i.e. , the private entrepreneurs, disappeared by virtue of their property being 'nationalized,' i.e., taken over by the government, but the - now former - bourgeoisie were persecuted never- theless . The intelligentsia was often suspected of harboring bourgeois ideas and persecuted, too . Since the bourgeoisie were often described as incapable of shedding their reactionary, i.e. anti-Communist skins, films about contemporary life generally focused on the villages and farmers. Marxism-Leninism saw in them the ' next best class' after the laborers, on their way to becoming agricultural laborers . Their initial qualms about any benefits of collectivization provided some meager source of conflict for the plots. The films about the past often returned to the uprising in Slovakia during World War II, which was depicted as organized by the Communists and aided by the Soviet Union. Plots that concerned the communist period had to end on an optimistic note. Since a former entrepreneur always remained at least suspect, their joyful transformation into a group auxiliary to the working class was essentially unacceptable as a topic, which - in effect - also kept town s and cities away from most of the scripts. Even socialist-realist authors felt that a ccnflict drives a story, but avoided settings that did not provide for politically acceptable conflicts . Socialist realism was strongly enforced during the first 10-15 years of communism . Unlike neighboring Poland and Hungary, communist Czechoslovakia saw little of the ideological thaw triggered by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalinism in February of l 956. The thaw did not reach Czechoslovakia until the early l 960s, during which time Bratislava produced 6- l O feature film s per year, and the first manifestations of the thaw in literature and film came from Slovakia. After more than a decade of socialist- �85 SLOVAKIA realist filmmaking, Sinko v sieti (The Sun in a Net) directed by Stefan Uher (1930-1993) in 1962 became a milestone in both Slovak and Czech filmmaking. It inspired a whole generation of students at the Film Academy in Prague, who soon followed with a series of films which attained international recognition as the "Czech New Wave." Sinko v sieti was Stefan Uher's second film . His first was about the life of a group of fifteen year-old students and their school My z deviate) A (We from Grade 9, Study Group A; 1961). The screenwriter, Alfonz Bednar (1914-1989), was a successful writer who published mildly non-conformist fiction somewhat earlier than most other authors. The film is based on his three short stories Fajolov prfspevok (Fajolo's Contribution), Pon- t6novy deii (Pontoon Day) and Zlata brana (Golden Gate). Uher's film depicted a number of hitherto unacceptable social and political themes : distant - perhaps uncaring - parents, a philandering husband, teenagers changing partners, an attempt at suicide, a poorly-run collectivized farm , and the requirement that a child attend summer 'voluntary work camps ' to make up for his parents belonging to the intelligentsia. Moreover, none of these issues were resolved in a 'positive' manner. The ending was rather somber, if not depressing, with the barest hint of optimism found only in the last sentence and possibly on the film's symbolic level, which was handled rather unevenly. It attempted a complex interplay of sun and clouds, vision and blindness, truth and lies, centered around a solar eclipse (Central Europe actually experienced a 95% solar eclipse on the morning of February 15, 196 l ). Contemporary critics found the symbolism difficult to decipher, and much of it was probably lost on the viewers. But the core story line - the ups and downs in the relationship of two teenagers - the realism and novelty of its urban setting, and the �86 SLOVAKIA hints at some social and political taboos were not lost on the audience and cannot have been lost on the censors. Sinko v sieti not only pushed the envelope, but also established for other artists and showed to the Slovaks and Czechs at large what the authorities could now be pushed to permit. According to Uher, Karol Bacflek, the head of the Communist Party in Slovakia at that time, attacked the film, saying it contained coded messages that conspirators were able to decipher precisely. For example, Bacflek thought the solar eclipse . was to indicate the twilight of communism and the pontoon on the dried-up riverbed stood for the state of communist rule in Czechoslovakia at that time. Communist officials believed that the blind mother was supposed to symbolize the blindness of their Party, which did not see the realities of life under communism. Because a political thaw had begun in Slovakia, other communist officials with enough influence dared to differ and the film was released. Besides Stefan Uher's efforts to get past the strict requirements of socialist realism, the director was inspired by some of the trends current in Western European cinema and culture in the 1950s. Among them was his focus on the symbolism of light and darkness, adherence to a low-key style, a hint of fashi0nablc quasi-existentialism in Fajolo's dialogues with Bela, and an attempt at serious cinema-verite: in the beer-drinking scenes in .1 tavern, the background soundtrack includes taped unscripted conversations of real villagers. Uher mostly chose inexperienced actors or nonactors. Only one of them, I.:,ubo Roman in a supporting role (b . 1944, then a student of acting), became a successful actor, theater administrator, and ultimately a politician - Member of Parlia- ment, Minister of Culture, and since 2001, County Chief of Bratislava. Actual music in the film included Western rock played on �SLOVAKIA 87 the radio. The film's score was by llja Zeljenka, an avant-garde composer of 'concrete music.' While Slnko v sieti became a prologue to the first minimalist, quasi-realist, and eventually more experimental Czechoslovak New Wave made by film students in Prague, in Slovakia the film was followed by several increasingly critical social commentaries by established filmmakers , by more films about contemporary urban life, and by increasingly intellectual and abstract films seen as Art. The most daring among the films that replaced socialist realism with social criticism was Peter Solan's Prfpad Barnabas Kos (The Case of Barnabas Kos; 1964), which removed the veil from arbitrary decision-making in communist society. Among contemporary topics, a potential for an approachable and successful film was lost with Nylonovy mesiac (Nylon Moon; 1965) directed by Eduard Greener. Its story, as well as the title came from a novel by Jaroslava Blazkova published in 1960, the first best-seller about contemporary life since the communist takeover. But there was entertainment in film , too, none more popular than Janosik II directed in 1963 by Pal'o Bielik, the star in the previous version of the story. In spite of its title, it was not a sequel: the film re-told the centuries-old legend. The theme of the brigand hero retains its attraction through the present day. Slovakia 's most successful producer, Rudolf Bierman, is currently producing The True Story al Janosfk and Uhorcfk, directed by the success[ul Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland and her daughter Kasia Adamik with an estimated budget of $2.4 million, $800,000 of which came from the Slovak Parliament and the Ministry of Culture. The first film to earn an Oscar for Czechoslovakia was Obchod na korze (The Shop on Main Street; 1965; Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1966; Special Mention for Acting �88 SLOVAKIA Performance, Cannes Film Festival 1965; New York Film Critics Circle A ward for Best Foreign Film in 1966). It was co-directed by Slovak Jan Kadar and Czech Elmar Klos , who had directed films together since the 1950s. Their earlier film was the groundbreaking Smrt' sa vola Engelchen (Death is Called Engelchen, 1963) based on a novel by Ladislav Mnacko, which diverted from the communist interpretation of the 1944 uprising in Slovakia as infallibly glorious and showed some aspects that brought about human tragedy. Along similar lines, Obchod na korze placed the politics of World War II in the background and focused on the dead-end street faced by many in Central Europe during the deportations of the Jews to German concentration camps . After the introduction of anti-Jewish laws in Slovakia, a simple carpenter named Tona is made the owner of a tiny haberdashery, until then owned by an old, almost deaf Jewish woman named Rozalia who has no comprehension of the contemporary political developments. After a crisis, the local Jewish community begins to pay Tono not to surrender his ownership, to prevent Rozalia 's store from being passed on to a ruthless Aryanizer. A tender friendship develops between Tono and Rozalia: she keeps selling buttons without realizing Tana's legal status, and he becomes her man about the house. When deportations begin, Roz.ilia remains oblivious of real life, and Tona is faced with the choice between sending her off, or probably facing his own and his wife ' s death, if he were discovered trying to hide a person incapable of understanding why she should live in hiding. The film starred Slovak Jozef Kroner ( 1924-1998) and Polish Ida Kaminska ( 1899-1980) with a Slovak cast and was shot on location in the town of Trebisov, Eastern Slovakia, and in the Prague studios. The film presents its captivating, morally complex story in a straightforward style, with a sprinkling of symbolism and dream �SLOVAKIA 89 sequences. It was an indication of changes in the political climate that Obchod na korze was able to get away without the mandated focus on criticism of the Slovak authorities during World War II , previously an inevitable feature of socialist realist work about that period, as well as without highlighting a central, resolute procommunist character. It has remained the most awarded and internationally successful Slovak film to the present day . The late l 960s reflected the direction filmmaking may take with little censorship and steady funding . An increasing number of - especially younger - filmmakers took advantage of the situation to experiment without concern about a need to target a specific audience or about how large their audience was going to be. They enjoyed the same creative luxury as the writers or painters convinced of the significance of their work, who manage to earn their living elsewhere. In a democratic society, this is rarely the case in cinema because of the extraordinary amounts of money even a low-budget film requires. But during the occasional relaxation of control in communist countries while the principles of the system remained in place, filmmakers were given substantial fund s to make films relatively free from prescription , as well as of a need to bring in profit. An early nonconformist film seen mostly by students in art theaters was Stefan Uher's Panna zazracnica (The Miraculous Virgin, 1966), soon followed by Juraj Jakubisko's (b. 1938) Kristove roky ("Christ's Years" or "Crucial Years," 1967), Elo Havetta's Slavnost' v botanickej zahrade (A Celebration in the Botanical Garden, 1969), and Dusan Hanak's 322 (the number identifying cancer in medical statistics of diseases, l 969). During this period (however brief) of almost total collapse of communist control, the Koliba Film Studio in Bratislava co-produced films with avantgarde filmmakers from abroad. Jerzy Skolimowski from Poland, �90 SLOVAKIA whose government was then significantly more repressive than Czechoslovakia, directed one story in Dialog 20-40-60, along with Czech Zbynek Brynych and Slovak Peter Solan in 1968 . Frenchman Alain Robbe-Grillet directed two films, including Mui, ktory Jute (The Man Who Lies, L 'homme qui ment; codirected with Martin Holly in 1968) with a Slovak and French cast. And 1969 saw the release of Juraj Jakubisko's Vtackovia, siroty a blazni (Birds, Orphans and Fools), considered by most Slovaks to be the best Slovak film. Jakubisko's preferences bounce between experiment, abstraction and ambitious intellectualism, as in this film , and less numerous popular crowd-pleasers. "Birds, Orphans and Fools" had the briefest of theater run s, not because of the audience, but because of the authorities. Conceived when communist control was at its weakest in Czechoslovakia, it was completed well after the Soviet-led invasion in August of 1968, by which time many of the mechanisms of authoritarian rule were at work again. Vtackovia, siroty a blazni takes place in an apparent historical vacuum in a desolate world with war raging somewhere outside the camera's field of vision and the director's focus. The two male and one female central characters , not unlike some of the hippies in the U.S.A. <1.t that time, live in a decrepit apartment, go through a series of bizarre encounters, sexual experiences and discuss a range of topics. When their lives begin to appear closer to normalcy, one of them murders the girl and commits suicide. The film is deliberately ex perimental in its style: it varies screen sizes, shots are taken at awkward angles with a hand-held or agitated camera, distortion lenses alter screen images, filmmakers ' equipment remains in the frame, characters talk to the camera. The adjectives surrealist and post-apocalyptic are perhaps representative of the filmmakers' intent. �SLOVAKIA The 1970s witnessed a re-introduction 91 of strict communist control in Czechoslovakia, called normalization . People were demoted at work or fired, if they had expressly supported the relaxation in the late 1960s or denounced the Soviet-led invasion in 1968, and their children often suffered, too. In an effort to a void repercussions, many repudiated their past views. Although persecution was somewhat milder in Slovakia than in the Czech-speaking areas, it had a stifling effect on art. Gone were the efforts of the 1960s to push the envelope of what was allowed. The population at large had learned its lesson : with the help of the Soviet Union, the Communists were able to pull the whole country back from unprecedented freedom of expression and the brink of a multi-party system in 1968 to a situation more reminiscent of the late 1950s, and those who resisted were punished. This repression lasted at least through the late 1970s, and Czechoslovakia remained more politically backward , although with a better standard of living, than Communist Poland or Hungary until the collapse of communism in 1989 . Cinema was affected like the rest of society, while the number of film releases grew. Slovakia produced 8-12 films per year throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Jakubisko still managed to finish Dovidenia v pek/e, priatelia (See You in Hell, Friends) in 1970, but hardly anyone saw it. The film was banned and Jakubisko was not allowed to make another feature film until 1979 . Although the early 1970s are sometimes compared to the 1950s, the authorities did not demand that Slovak filmmakers make socialist-realist films critical of the period of relaxation - the way films in the 1950s tried to discredit private enterprise and democracy which were abolished in 1948. Only one film was made about 1968, Honicka (Fever) directed by Martin Holly, Jr. (b. 1931) and based on a novel by Jozef Kot. In a country with �92 SLOVAKIA freedom of expression, the film could have been perceived as just focusing on a relatively plausible plot from 1968 and pushing a particular point of view - there indeed were people who did not support the pro-democratic reforms, or saw many flaws among the reformers. But under totalitarian control, which did not allow opposing points of view, it was impossible to distinguish the touting of the official view in film from just propaganda. Regardless, Honicka shared the destiny of the overwhelming majority of Slovak and Czech films produced during the forty years of Communism: after a couple of weeks in mostly empty theaters, it was not seen again . While the 1960s witnessed a desire to bring contemporary and urban themes to film, the 1970s began to solidify an inclination among a segment of the Slovak critics and filmmakers to emulate the centuries-old urban fashion in Europe of the 'return to nature:' well educated intellectuals living in Bratislava make and admire films with images of the countryside and villagers whose lives appear to be somehow more authentic than in towns. The trend-setter was the still admired hour-long documentary Obrazy stareho sveta (Pictures of the Old World, 1972) directed by Dusan Hanak who, suspicious to the authorities because of his films from the 1960s, found an early refuge in a topic sufficiently removed from big politics to survive in the margins of official production and yet, sufficiently non-conforn1ist and enamored with village life to please especially the chic audiences. Part of its additional attraction within the context of Communist Czechoslovakia rested in the fact that it offered snapshots from the lives of several highlanders, whose very existence belied the official claims of equal wealth for everyone. But Obrazy stareho sveta has a much more universal appeal and has received critical acclaim from Slovakia, Switzerland and France to Toronto and Los Angeles. �SLOVAKIA 93 A singular exception among about 90 domestic feature films that briefly flickered in Slovak theaters in the 1970s was Dusan Hanak's Ruto ve sny (Rosy Dreams, 1976). Although its style was poetic, it may have been the first film in the communist bloc with a de-romanticized portrayal of the Roma (Gypsies). It dove into the cultural barriers between them and the non-Romany population - an issue that, twenty years later, proved to be one of the key problems of post-communist societies in Central Europe. Two teenagers - a young Slovak postman and a Romany girl - fall in love. The film tells the viewers that it will not work due to different cultural expectations each of the two have of their budding relationship. Its imaginative filmmaking and affecting, slightly sentimental story might have been easy to understand and appreciate by a wider audience, but Rutove sny was shown only in limited release at the order of the authorities. The most popular film in that decade was yet another variation on the legend about a heroic highwayman Pacho, hybskf z bojnfk (Pacho, the Highwayman of Hybe; 1975) directed by Martin Tapak. In 1980, the authorities shelved fa milujem, ty milujes (I Love, You Love) directed by Dusan Hanak because of its focus on marginal social groups and eroticism. When it was released shortly before the collapse of communism, it received the highest international recognition for a Slovak film since The Shop on Main Street, including the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. However, the strict Communist control typical of the 1970s began to relax slowly, and the early 1980s brought two domestic blockbusters whose role in Slovak culture finally matched that of some of the films in the l 960s. In 1982 Stefan Uher directed Pas/a kone na bet6ne ("She. Grazed Horses on Concrete," or "A Ticket to Heaven"). The title used the first few words from an irreverent tune with just a few verses depicting impossible acti- �94 SLOVAKIA vities - the song continues " ... she bathed in razor blades." The story is about a single mother fending for herself in an East Slovak village, determined not to allow her teenaged daughter to follow in her footsteps . Partly a comedy and partly a candid portrayal of contemporary village life, it oscillates between humorous depictions of social customs and ceremonies, and the more serious issues of a woman's capacity to hold her own in a small community, and of abortion. Although co-written and directed by Uher, the film is largely the work of Milka Zirnkova, an author and actress, who wrote the original story, worked with Uher on the script, and starred in the leading role. Among the novelties in Slovak moviemaking was an extensive use of the East Slovak dialect in the film. Although Slovak has several highly recognizable regional accents, filmmakers - before and after this film - have the actors speak the standard, neutral variety of Slovak common in the news media, regardless of where in Slovakia the story of their film takes place. A success comparable to the handful of foreign blockbusters permitted by the authorities each year was Juraj Jakubisko's Tisfcrocna vce/a (A Thousand-Year Old Bee;l983). It is a 162-minute long saga of the life of a farmer's family covering three generations from the late 1800s through the early 1900s. It picked up on and reinforced a myth recurrent in Slovak cinema for several decades, in films from both popular and artsy filmmakers . Villagers are mostly good, while those who live in or move to town (perhaps the screenwriters and directors bowed to communist authorities) become entrepreneurial and tum out to be cold and corrupt. It was the first Slovak film with a comprehensive narrative that a large number of viewers were ready to perceive as their national, as well as local and family past, because it echoed themes they had encountered in literature and history classes at school. �SLOVAKIA 95 Moreover, it was a comforting past. The title was a parable, overplayed in the film with brief expensive special effects with a gigantic honey-bee created in the Bavarian Film Studios in Munich . Those sequences hammered in the symbolic thread in the storyline. They could have been be richer and more content, the film gave the viewers to understand, were it not for the cumulative effects of past injustice: the fruits of their hard-working ancestors' labor was periodically taken away from them for a thousand years, like honey from the bees. But as long as they stayed in the villages, they were an honest, sometimes whimsical bunch doing as well as they could . It helped that several popular actors starred in the film, including Jozef Kr6ner (Tona in The Shop on Main Street). Tisicrosmi vce/a received a Gold Phoenix for art and cinematography from the Cultural Center of the City of Venice awarded in tandem with the prestigious International Venice Film Festival. After decades of government-funded and censored production, Bratislava still produced twelve films in 1990, the year after the collapse of Communism. With no censorship, but also hardly any funding, the number of feature films ranged between one and three for most of the 1990s. Slovakia's theaters are now flooded with foreign , especially American, films and while the population might be ready for a domestic production addressing them specifically, perhaps along the lines of A Thousand-Year Old Bee, there is not enough money for a film on that scale, and perhaps even less interest on the part of the filmmakers . With one exception, the films made in the 1990s generally follow one of two thematic lines . The most successful film was Fontana pre Zuzanu 2 (A Fountain for Susan 2; 1993) directed by Dusan Rapos as a sequel to his more sedate Fontana pre Zuzanu from 1985, still limited by communist censorship. He released Fontana pre Zuza- �96 SLOVAKIA nu 3 in 1999. Both fall in the group of films with contemporary themes and are obviously interested in generating ticket sales. They rely on sex and crime to achieve that. Although it remained behind major foreign blockbusters , Fontana pre Zuzanu 2 sold 380,000 tickets in a country with 5.4 million inhabitants, which is comparable to a film that brings in over $130 million in the U.S.A. Titanic sold about 550,000 tickets in Slovakia and The Matrix 130,000. Another film with a contemporary theme is indicative of how times have changed since the collapse of communism. Rivers of Babylon (the tile is in English) directed by Vladimir Balco in 1998 was based on the first post-communist bestseller in l 990 by Peter Pistanek. Sequels of the novel had lower sales, because the novelty of the topic - Bratislava's underworld - and expressive presentation wore off, and because they had to compete with a growing number of translated foreign bestsellers. However, the filmmakers picked up on a particular aspect of the sequels vitriolic political commentary . The story of the rise of a skillful stoker and wheeler-dealer to political power was seen as a parable of the government in Bratislava at that time. Only about eight years earlier, a release of such a strongly critical film would have been either unthinkable, or a major event attracting huge crowds . Yet, Rivers of Babylon sold only 50,000 tickets and met with a lukewarm reception abroad. The other thematic line in contemporary Slovak cinema is the 'return to nature. ' Its main protagonist is director Martin Sulfk (b . 1962) whose films generally attract fewer viewers at home than Rivers of Babylon, but are favored by critics and have attained a degree of viewers' acclaim at film festivals organized by European cities. His most successful Zahrada (Garden; l 995), the earlier Neha (Tenderness ; 199 l ), as well as the more recent Orbis �SLOVAKIA 97 Pictus (Latin title, 1997) and Krajinka ("Landscape" or "A Small piece of the Country," 2000) are intellectualized continuations of the theme of the desirability of a return to, journey through, or life in a rural setting. Krajinka is the most accessible of Sulfk ' s films . Although it may be based on memories, as the opening sequence suggests, the discrete stories are not made to gel into a cohesive sequence for the audience. But each is readable on its own. Zahrada, the first Slovak film since the collapse of communism to be released abroad , and especially Orbis Pictus, break with traditional story-telling and show the main characters - a rather passive adult man living with his parents in Zahrada and a young girl released from a boarding school , perhaps for abandoned teenagers, in Orbis Pictus - find education in nature and disappointment in urban settings . With surreal scenes, philosophizing scripts, and a dedication to the filmmaker's expressive whim, Sulfk 's films re-package the theme of national rural bliss, recurrent in Slovak culture and education , in a form palatable for trendy audiences. The theme has had an incessant, powerful attraction for a segment of directors since the beginnings of filmmaking in Slovakia, whether they have leaned towards the popular and mythologizing approach from The Earth Sings 1933, through the decades of films about Janosik and similar productions, to The Thousand-Year Old Bee - or whether they take the approach aimed at art theaters, traceable to Organ directed by Stefan Uher in 1964. Due to the general drop in film production and to Martin Sulik ' s capacity to attract funding, films for art theatres have become more prevalent in the 1990s than in the earlier decades . �SLOVAKIA 98 Bibliography Author's interview with film producer Marian Urban, July 12, 2000. "Bandit pie to shoot." Daily Variety, March 7, 2002, p. 48. Bartosek, L.: Nas film - Kapitoly z dejin (1896-1945). Praha: Mlada fronta, 1985. Grega, A. : Prfspevok k dejinam slovenskej kinematografie, M.A. thesis at the FAMU in Prague,1968 . Havelka, J.: Kronika naseho filmu. Praha: Filmovy ustav, 1967. Macek, V.: Stefan Uher 1930-1993. Bratislava: Slovensky filmovy ustav, 1994. Macek, V. and J. Pastekova: Dejiny slovenskej kinematografie. Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo Osveta, 1997. Mihalik, P. : Vznik slovenskej narodnej kinematografie 1896- 1948. Bratislava: Kabinet divadla a filmu SA V, 1994 . Rumanovsky, I.: "Z najstar.sfch dejfn kinematografie na Slovensku. " Panorama, #3, 1977. Janosik 21 a filmove podnikanie na Slovensku. Kinema, #3, 1982 . Slivka, M.: Karol Plicka - basnik obrazu. Martin: Vydavatel'stvo Osveta, 1982. Smatlakova, Renata: Katal6g slovenskych celovecemych filmov 1921-1999. Bratislava: Slovensky filmovy ustav, l 999. Young, C.: The films of Hedy Lamarr. Secaucus, N.J. : Citadel Press, 1978. �DOCUMENTATION �� 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 2003, Vol. 37 Description An account of the resource Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 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 71 Trends in 20th Century Slovak Filmmaking Martin Votruba The transition from the rule of censorship to the rule of the free market after the collapse of Communism thirteen years ago has been more painful for Slovak filmmakers than for other artists. Filmmaking requires a substantially higher initial investment than other performing and fine arts. People are ready to pay much less for a movie ticket or rental than to buy a book or painting. This puts small countries like Slovakia at a great disadvantage. In a world where feature films in a language other than English have difficulty finding an audience outside their own language areas, even if they are in French, German or Spanish, the same-language audience for films in Slovak is the size of a single frame. A film in the Slovak language costs as much as a comparable film in any other language, but the chances that it will recoup its costs are minimal. Yet, several dedicated filmmakers have managed to find institutional and private support, perhaps resigned to the fact that profits will remain elusive, while hoping to make a statement, push the envelope, create Art. Filmmaking began in Slovakia while it was still part of Hungary in the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. According to film historians, the first motion picture shows in the Slovak counties took place in Kosice in December, 1896 and a few days later in Bratislava (then called Presporok by the Slovaks, Pressburg by the Germans). That was only a year after . the Lumiere brothers' first-ever public picture show in Paris and just six months after a similar showing in New York. The early shows were organized by SLOVAKIA 72 traveling entrepreneurs, often in cafes or similar venues, but also under tents. People's visual perceptions of the world were being changed forever and those making and showing the films knew it. A show in Nitra in 1903 still touted the advent of the modern world, when it was advertised as "Hungary's 1st Scientific Electrical Theater Modeled on the Grand American Bioscope Awarded the Grand Prix at the World Fair in Paris." At that time, a linguistic barrier was not crucial to the films' distribution in the multinational Kingdom of Hungary. Silent movies were largely self-explanatory and most people would have been able to understand the few captions in Magyar or German, the two dominant languages in the Kingdom, or have them translated by other viewers. The shows consisted of several separate films, some colorized by hand, each of which were about two minutes long. For example, the first show in Kosice was a series of twelve such very, very brief films with titles like "The Arrival of a Train," "The Czar Arrives in Paris," "The Training of the French Infantry," "Four Ladies Dancing the French Cancan" and "An Interrupted Date." Clearly, foreign films dominated Central Europe from the start. The first title was the kind of film intended to create a spectacle - similar to some of the uses of special effects today: the engine would rush towards the camera, scaring an audience not accustomed to viewing images of moving trains at that angle and at such close quarters. The next two titles played a role similar to later newsreels shown before the main feature , or to contemporary world news and documentaries on, say, CNN or the Discovery Chanel. The last two titles were of the kind that - the filmmakers found - attracted the largest number of viewers: entertainment, fun and a rudimentary story. The proportion of such shorts quickly grew. SLOVAKIA 73 The first permanent movie theater in Bratislava, Elektro Bioskop, was opened in a remodeled fencing hall in September, 1905. It had about 200 seats. The site is still in business. After a hiatus, an arts movie theater was opened in the same hall in the 1970s and is still in operation, now called Mladost' ("Youth"), on Hviezdoslav Square opposite the US Embassy. Theaters, hotel halls, storage buildings and other premises were remodeled in other towns, to become permanent movie theaters. In the absence of hi-fi sound and hi-tech projection systems, the competition often relied on interior decoration. An advertisement for the Bratislava movie theatre Fidelio (later Urania and now Hviezda) lured the audience thus: "427 upholstered seats in 3 colors , Alhambrastyle walls decorated with Oriental landscapes, live and man-made flowers." The fact that the theater showed two new releases a week was relegated to the bottom of the page. Attendance at traditional theater performances dropped after the introduction of motion pictures. Theater directors appealed to the authorities to disallow movie shows during the time of regular plays. In 1901 , the Ministry of the Interior (in charge of police and local government in Central Europe) issued a decree meeting their demands . The Viscount of Nitra went so far as to ban movie shows during the whole theater season , but the local movie-theater operators successfully appealed his decision. For a time, film producers thought they could benefit from a symbiosis of film and theater in "cinema-sketches." Actors would play on the stage, then the story would be picked up on the screen with the same actors and the conclusion would be played by live actors again. One such cinema-sketch from 1909 depicted night life in Kosice "The Kosice Promenade on the Screen." Walking on Main Street in one's Sunday best was a common pastime before the advent of TV and mass entertainment. It was among the few early SLOVAKIA 74 motion pictures linked with Slovak territory. The limited production of cinema-sketches did not survive World War I and did not continue after the creation of Czecho-Slovakia (later renamed Czechoslovakia) in l 9 l 8 . Rather than cinema-sketches or story-based films , most of the early films linked to Slovakia were travel specials with titles like "The High Tatras," "Skiing in Tatranska Lomnica," "Traveling through the Vah Valley," or "The Kosice Institute of Corrections for Children," "Testing the Police Dogs in Bratislava," and news . Movies proved successful. The number of movie theaters in Slovakia reached about 100 by the end of World War I and two schools - the Mining Academy in Banska Stiavnica and a high school in Lucenec - had already used film as a teaching tool. When movies were still shown by traveling entrepreneurs, a copy of the film was bought and owned by them. With the establishment of permanent movie theaters, film distributors appeared, as well as a kind of 'film exchange' where copies of film were traded as on the stock market. The advent of copyright problems and foreign competition was heralded in 1913, in the first published complaint about illegal importation of foreign films , especially from France. As elsewhere in Central Europe, French films dominated the market. Legal power to regulate what movies were screened in Hungary was invested in the hands of the local authorities by a law from l 90 l , which required the traveling movie entrepreneurs to obtain permits for their shows . On the whole, a license was issued to anyone who applied for it. Local bans and complaints surfaced for a variety of reasons, including some familiar today. A city councilor in Kosice worried that worthless caper movies had a bad influence on boys, while dramas about sex ruined girls, be cause such movies extinguished their sense of morality and made SLOVAKIA 75 them vulnerable to unconscionable seducers. In 1912, a priest and principal of a Roman Catholic boys' school in Nitra threatened his students with a bad grade in behavior if they went to the movies, even if accompanied by their parents. His ban extended to traditional theater performances as well. Censorship was also exercised by the authorities in Budapest, the capital of the Kingdom, who were able to ban individual titles from being shown all over Hungary , including the Slovak counties. In line with the traditions of Central European monarchies, politics was among the reasons for censorship. Among the banned titles were "King Ludwig II," depicting a story too similar to the life and mysterious death of Ludwig II of Bavaria and a film offensive to the prime minister of Hungary. However, the Kingdom did not follow suit when the rest of the Habsburg monarchy introduced formal film censorship in 1912. Among other things, it required that a license to open a movie theater be issued to individuals and institutions that would secure a respectable use of the profits. Its intent was to support charities and various associations. Budapest adopted the law in Apri l of 1918, half a year be fore the defeat and collapse of Austria-Hungary and the founding of Czec ho-Slovakia. The law empowered the censors to ban films offending patriotic interests, public order and morality. Children under sixteen were allowed to see only movies designated as suitable for them and only when accompanied by an adult. Despite a variety of problems , Czecho-S lovakia proved to be more democratic than the former Kingdom of Hungary and the whole Habsburg monarchy. But the new freedom , which benefited other forms of Slovak culture, proved even more difficult for Slovak film than the post-communist period after 1989. The film industry developed in Prague, which had been an important German-Czech cultural center, a university town and capital of the 76 SLOVAKIA Holy Roman Empire's Kingdom of Bohemia for centuries, attracting business and artistic talent. By comparison, Slovakia's new capital and largest city, Bratislava, was much smaller; moreover, it was only forty miles from the former Habsburg monarchy's large, vibrant and influential capital of Vienna. Given that artists and entrepreneurs flocked to it from all over the monarchy, Vienna must have created a degree of artistic brain-drain in its immediate vicinity. As with the Pittsburgh Agreement of 1918, which was a key document in the separation of the Slovak counties from the Habsburg monarchy, Slovak-Americans had an impact on Slovakia's nascent film industry. Andrej Sustek from Chicago founded the Selig Company with the intent to make historical films in Slovakia. It was subsequently incorporated in the new Slovak-American Tatra Film Corporation with a capital of about $30,000 from US investors . Their first and only film was Janosfk. It captured the legend of an 18th-century highwayman from Terchova in the northern Slovak County of Orava who gave rise to Carpathian legends comparable to those about Robin Hood in England. In 1919 Tatra Film's Daniel and Jaroslav Siakel' arrived in Slovakia to start filming in their native village of Blatnica near Martin in Central Slovakia, where they also built sets, and in the castle of Stiavnicka near Ruzomberok. The leading role was given to popular Theodor Pistek, who starred in nine other films that year. Maria Fabryova, an amateur actress from Martin, played Anka, Janosfk's girlfriend. The film was finished in the A-B studios in Prague . The screenplay by Jozef Zak-Marusiak was to be based on a novel by Slovak-American author and editor of the popular Amerikansko-Slovcnske Noviny "(American-Slovak News)", Gustav Marsall-Petrovsky (1862-1916). But it was much closer to the ac- SLOVAKIA 77 tual local legends , which also inspired Slovak Romantic poets in the 19th century. Moreover, the play Janosfk - premiered in Brno in 1910 and written by Moravian playwright, poet and journalist Jiri Mahen - was well known by the l 920s and may have been a major source for the film's story . Janosfk was shown to the filmmakers' team in November 1921 in the city of Vrutky . It opened a few days later in Zilina and in December 1921 in Chicago - to be more specific , in Cicero, IL, then with a large Slovak-American population , at the Atlantic movie theater, now replaced by the Atlantic Mall at W. 26th St. and S. Pulaski Rd . The screenplay relied on the folk motif of ' taking from the rich and giving to the poor,' and greatly reinforced the hints present in 19th-century Slovak Romantic poems about Janosfk : the film fused feudal exploitation in the more distant past with the drive by the Magyar-speaking government in Budapest in the 19th century to suppress the Kingdom' s other languages and cultures . The latter became particularly forceful during the last decades of the Kingdom's existence and ultimately contributed to its demise. Unlike feudalism , that experience was still very fresh in people's memories and was among the reasons why Slovaks immigrated to the United States. By comparison to Czech films preserved from the early Czecho-Slovak period, Janosfk showed the authors' experience with American movies : in camera work, in the use of parallel narratives, as well as in shots inspired by Westerns . It had two directors of photography with two cameras: Oldrich Benes with a European camera and Daniel Siakel', who used a camera made by Andrej Sustek's company in Chicago. In effect, the two cameramen shot two parallel films - scenes were acted separately for each camera and the difference between the "Slovak" and "American" versions increased after separate editing. But the film's handling of the eth- 78 SLOVAKIA nic motif may have been too didactic, or the issue too recent to be successfully mythologized as entertainment on the silver screen. Janosik did not recover its costs and remained Tatra Film's only product, as well as Slovakia' s first preserved silent movie. It was thought to have been lost, but in 1975 it was discovered and restored from both versions by Ivan Rumanovsky in Bratislava. Until after World War II, attempts to set up film companies, occasionally with Slovak-American involvement, followed the same path. One film would be made and then the company folded, because the film was not profitable and the company lacked sufficient capital to sustain it through a few flops. The situation did not change after the emergence of sound in the movies. While about 30-50 sound films were made each year in Czechoslovakia between 1933 - 1938, fewer than one a year was in Slovak. Czech films occasionally featured Slovak actors. Among them, with eleven musicals to his credit, was Frantisek Kristof Vesely, who reached the level of stardom in Czechoslovakia. Documentaries fared better: partly because the costs were lower and partly thanks to occasional government funding for shorts featuring its officials. For example, Kvetna nedela vo Vajnoroch (Palm Sunday in Yajnory) recorded a folkloristic celebration of the holiday attended by Minister Plenipotentiary for Slovakia, Vavro Srobar. A potentially steady source of funding opened up in 1935 when Prague decided that each newsreel commonly shown before the main feature had to devote at least 20% of its length to items about Czechoslovakia. But this so urce remained untapped by Slovak filmmakers : most of the reports came from Bohemia and Moravia. However, government or institutional funding and fascination with village life proved to be a mix that worked for filmmakers in Slovakia on more than one occasion, right through the present. SLOVAKIA 79 The first Slovak film to reach international acclaim relied on both. The potential of the Slovak countryside as a backdrop had already been discovered by non-native filmmakers and at least two of their films have become classics of world cinema. The early German horror Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu the Vampire) directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau was filmed at Orava Castle and in the High Tatras in 1922, and Czech director Gustav Machaty chose Slovakia as a location for his daring exploration of sexuality Extase (Ecstasy) in 1932. The second one propelled the career of Hedy Lamarr (born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiester), who became one of the most successful Hollywood stars. The Matica slovenska (by that time an eminent, mostly government-sponsored cultural, academic and archival institution) employed Karel Plicka (1894-1987) as its ethnographer, who was able to make documentary shorts from about 1926. He obtained funding from the President's Office in 1928 to produce an hourlong documentary about village life Po horach, po dolach (Through Mountains and Valleys). It was awarded a Gold Medal at the International Exposition of Photographic Art in Florence and received an Honorable Mention at the International Venice Film Festival in 1932. The favorable reception of his production, along with more funding from both the Matica slovenska and the President's Office, enabled Plicka to make Zem spieva (The Earth Sings) in 1933, a romanticized semi-documentary panorama of selected folk customs through the four seasons. Unlike Slovak feature movies of that period, Zem spieva struck a chord with the audience and topped it with another award at the International Venice Film Festival as part of a collection of films from Czechoslovakia that included Extase, mentioned above. But after this success, the Matica s/ovcnska was unable to raise sufficient funding and Plicka's hopes that he was laying the foundations of 80 SLOVAKIA Slovakia' s film industry were thwarted. He went on to make a documentary in the United States Za Slovakmi od New Yorku po Mississippi (Tracing Slovaks from New York to the Mississippi) in 1937 and then became a professor in the first Department of Film in Czechoslovakia and the third such department in Europe, at the School of Artistic Crafts in Bratislava in 1938. But the Department's potential for Slovak cinema was lost when the College was closed after Slovakia became a separate country in 19 39 . Plicka then resettled permanently in Prague, Bohemia, which was incorporated into the Third Reich during World War II. Czechoslovakia's only other Slovak-language blockbuster before World War II was a new Janosfk in 1935, funded from Prague and directed by the Czech Martin Frie (1902-1968). It was indicative of the volume of Czech film production that Frie finished three other films during the same year, having previously directed 23. Frie and Plicka were two of the authors of the screenplay based on the same play by Mahen, mentioned earlier, on which the first Janosfk may have been based. Plicka also found a policeman and amateur actor, Pal'o Bielik (1910-1983), in the village of Senica for the leading role. The film combined idealized images of villagers with action scenes to show their and Jan osik ' s resistance against Hungarian landlords. In spite of Budapest's protestations, it was screened at the International Venice Film Festival and was successfully released in Germany . During the existence of the Slovak Republic ( 1939-1945), movie theaters grew by more than 60% but no feature films were made. The government sponsored the film company Nastup (Line-up), which produced short films and weekly newsreels . The authorities, who described their own rule as "authoritarian and totalitarian," mandated that a newsreel be shown before every feature film and tightened censorship and ideological supervision of SLOVAKIA 81 their production. The newsreel was customarily followed by a short film, a pattern that was picked up by the communist authorities after the war and survived through the collapse of Communism. The government's alliance with Germany meant that it became Slovakia's main source of films even before the war changed world trade patterns. At the same time, the number of imports dropped from about 400 a year in the former CzechoSlovakia (whose original hyphenated name was restored in 1938) to less than 150 after independence. In 1940, Slovakia still imported 15 "cultural-educational" films from the U.S., and a few more from countries other than Germany, but then German feature films were supplemented by just about a dozen films from Italy and Romania, and several Czech "oldies" from before the war. The film company Nastup was conscientious about training its employees, among whom was Pal'o Bielik, and sent them regularly to several studios in Germany as interns - including to neighboring Vienna and formerly Czechoslovak Prague, which were now ruled from Berlin. After World War II, Slovakia was re-joined with the Czechspeaking lands and Czech director Martin Frie returned to make Vanij. .. ! (Beware ... !) with folkloristic highlights similar to his successful Janosfk from 1935. The film was based on Ivan Stodola' s popular play Bacova iena (The Shepherd's Wife) and Palo Bielik played the leading role again . Things changed dramatically after Czechoslovakia became communist in 1948. The government nationalized all but the tiniest companies, including the film studios. It saw film as an important medium to indoctrinate the population and ideological control - under strict financed film production in the Slovak, as well as in the Czech part of the country. Directors, screenwriters, actors and other people connected with film production became SLOVAKIA 82 state employees as everyone else, with a regular salary regardless of how many films were produced and whether they earned any profits or not - a concept born out of communist accounting. Although the authorities paid the salaried filmmakers more money for the films they made - separate contracts were signed for each one - from the American perspective, this was closer to bonuses than anything known in Hollywood today. The "bonuses" were higher for films considered particularly effective in showing the communist rule as benefiting the population and had nothing to do with ticket sales. The authorities mandated that the method used in all art be socialist realism. In general, its goal was to educate people to the benefits of communism and, before it was reached , socialism, which was what they called their existing political system. This was strictly enforced, especially in fiction and film, because these mediums reached the widest audience. The topics were to emphasize the need to work for the good of the 'collective,' i.e., communist society. Topics focusing on the individual and on personal feelings and concerns were deemed harmful, as was depicting anything negative about society. Love was considered such a topic: not only because it was personal and, therefore, did not educate the audience about the benefits of working on behalf of the collective, but also because it may have brought sex into the story, a definite 'no' in socialist realism. The official support of socialist-realist art and the transformation of filmmakers into salaried employees meant that a steady stream of feature films began to appear in the newly-established studios in Bratislava. Pal'o Bielik, the former star of Janosfk, who expanded his moviemaking experience in the newsreel studios during World War II, directed Vicic dicry (Wolves' Lairs), one of the first two films made after the communist takeover in 1948. It SLOVAKIA 83 was the beginning of a succession of films about the 1944 antiGerman uprising in Slovakia, but because it was made so early during the Communist Party ' s drive to establish ideological dominance, the film still managed to include 'negative,' as well as 'positive' characters among both the Slovak insurgents and the German soldiers suppressing the uprising - something that did not get past the censors again for more than a decade. Bielik, as director, leaned away from the folkloristic style of the films in which he starred: the style of V/cie diery was inspired by early Italian neo-realism. After two feature films in 1948 and another two in 1949, the yearly output grew to 3-6 per year in the 1950s. 'Negative' characters could not be central in the plots, and the story had to prove them wrong. Central characters had to be 'positive' from the start or be seen discovering Marxist-Leninist solutions to any problems they encountered. Such problems had to be few and marginal, the general view of society had to be happy. If the central characters were not Communists from the start, a 'tutor' and Communist Party member would often be present, who helped them find the Marxist-Leninist way. Topics commonly dealt with World War II and the defeat of Nazi Germany, or with the imposition of Communism - the 'collectivization' of farms, i.e., the abolition of private ownership of most land larger than the immediate surroundings of one's house and garden. Farmers were to be shown as opening their eyes to the fact that this was actually good for them. The Communists proclaimed a classless society, which meant that everyone would eventually become a 'worker.' The three recognized social groups were the laborers, the farmers, and the intelligentsia, i.e., white-collar workers and college-educated people, but the Communist Party officials, although working in offices, classified themselves as laborers. The bourgeoisie, 84 SLOVAKIA i.e. , the private entrepreneurs, disappeared by virtue of their property being 'nationalized,' i.e., taken over by the government, but the - now former - bourgeoisie were persecuted never- theless . The intelligentsia was often suspected of harboring bourgeois ideas and persecuted, too . Since the bourgeoisie were often described as incapable of shedding their reactionary, i.e. anti-Communist skins, films about contemporary life generally focused on the villages and farmers. Marxism-Leninism saw in them the ' next best class' after the laborers, on their way to becoming agricultural laborers . Their initial qualms about any benefits of collectivization provided some meager source of conflict for the plots. The films about the past often returned to the uprising in Slovakia during World War II, which was depicted as organized by the Communists and aided by the Soviet Union. Plots that concerned the communist period had to end on an optimistic note. Since a former entrepreneur always remained at least suspect, their joyful transformation into a group auxiliary to the working class was essentially unacceptable as a topic, which - in effect - also kept town s and cities away from most of the scripts. Even socialist-realist authors felt that a ccnflict drives a story, but avoided settings that did not provide for politically acceptable conflicts . Socialist realism was strongly enforced during the first 10-15 years of communism . Unlike neighboring Poland and Hungary, communist Czechoslovakia saw little of the ideological thaw triggered by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalinism in February of l 956. The thaw did not reach Czechoslovakia until the early l 960s, during which time Bratislava produced 6- l O feature film s per year, and the first manifestations of the thaw in literature and film came from Slovakia. After more than a decade of socialist- 85 SLOVAKIA realist filmmaking, Sinko v sieti (The Sun in a Net) directed by Stefan Uher (1930-1993) in 1962 became a milestone in both Slovak and Czech filmmaking. It inspired a whole generation of students at the Film Academy in Prague, who soon followed with a series of films which attained international recognition as the "Czech New Wave." Sinko v sieti was Stefan Uher's second film . His first was about the life of a group of fifteen year-old students and their school My z deviate) A (We from Grade 9, Study Group A; 1961). The screenwriter, Alfonz Bednar (1914-1989), was a successful writer who published mildly non-conformist fiction somewhat earlier than most other authors. The film is based on his three short stories Fajolov prfspevok (Fajolo's Contribution), Pon- t6novy deii (Pontoon Day) and Zlata brana (Golden Gate). Uher's film depicted a number of hitherto unacceptable social and political themes : distant - perhaps uncaring - parents, a philandering husband, teenagers changing partners, an attempt at suicide, a poorly-run collectivized farm , and the requirement that a child attend summer 'voluntary work camps ' to make up for his parents belonging to the intelligentsia. Moreover, none of these issues were resolved in a 'positive' manner. The ending was rather somber, if not depressing, with the barest hint of optimism found only in the last sentence and possibly on the film's symbolic level, which was handled rather unevenly. It attempted a complex interplay of sun and clouds, vision and blindness, truth and lies, centered around a solar eclipse (Central Europe actually experienced a 95% solar eclipse on the morning of February 15, 196 l ). Contemporary critics found the symbolism difficult to decipher, and much of it was probably lost on the viewers. But the core story line - the ups and downs in the relationship of two teenagers - the realism and novelty of its urban setting, and the 86 SLOVAKIA hints at some social and political taboos were not lost on the audience and cannot have been lost on the censors. Sinko v sieti not only pushed the envelope, but also established for other artists and showed to the Slovaks and Czechs at large what the authorities could now be pushed to permit. According to Uher, Karol Bacflek, the head of the Communist Party in Slovakia at that time, attacked the film, saying it contained coded messages that conspirators were able to decipher precisely. For example, Bacflek thought the solar eclipse . was to indicate the twilight of communism and the pontoon on the dried-up riverbed stood for the state of communist rule in Czechoslovakia at that time. Communist officials believed that the blind mother was supposed to symbolize the blindness of their Party, which did not see the realities of life under communism. Because a political thaw had begun in Slovakia, other communist officials with enough influence dared to differ and the film was released. Besides Stefan Uher's efforts to get past the strict requirements of socialist realism, the director was inspired by some of the trends current in Western European cinema and culture in the 1950s. Among them was his focus on the symbolism of light and darkness, adherence to a low-key style, a hint of fashi0nablc quasi-existentialism in Fajolo's dialogues with Bela, and an attempt at serious cinema-verite: in the beer-drinking scenes in .1 tavern, the background soundtrack includes taped unscripted conversations of real villagers. Uher mostly chose inexperienced actors or nonactors. Only one of them, I.:,ubo Roman in a supporting role (b . 1944, then a student of acting), became a successful actor, theater administrator, and ultimately a politician - Member of Parlia- ment, Minister of Culture, and since 2001, County Chief of Bratislava. Actual music in the film included Western rock played on SLOVAKIA 87 the radio. The film's score was by llja Zeljenka, an avant-garde composer of 'concrete music.' While Slnko v sieti became a prologue to the first minimalist, quasi-realist, and eventually more experimental Czechoslovak New Wave made by film students in Prague, in Slovakia the film was followed by several increasingly critical social commentaries by established filmmakers , by more films about contemporary urban life, and by increasingly intellectual and abstract films seen as Art. The most daring among the films that replaced socialist realism with social criticism was Peter Solan's Prfpad Barnabas Kos (The Case of Barnabas Kos; 1964), which removed the veil from arbitrary decision-making in communist society. Among contemporary topics, a potential for an approachable and successful film was lost with Nylonovy mesiac (Nylon Moon; 1965) directed by Eduard Greener. Its story, as well as the title came from a novel by Jaroslava Blazkova published in 1960, the first best-seller about contemporary life since the communist takeover. But there was entertainment in film , too, none more popular than Janosik II directed in 1963 by Pal'o Bielik, the star in the previous version of the story. In spite of its title, it was not a sequel: the film re-told the centuries-old legend. The theme of the brigand hero retains its attraction through the present day. Slovakia 's most successful producer, Rudolf Bierman, is currently producing The True Story al Janosfk and Uhorcfk, directed by the success[ul Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland and her daughter Kasia Adamik with an estimated budget of $2.4 million, $800,000 of which came from the Slovak Parliament and the Ministry of Culture. The first film to earn an Oscar for Czechoslovakia was Obchod na korze (The Shop on Main Street; 1965; Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1966; Special Mention for Acting 88 SLOVAKIA Performance, Cannes Film Festival 1965; New York Film Critics Circle A ward for Best Foreign Film in 1966). It was co-directed by Slovak Jan Kadar and Czech Elmar Klos , who had directed films together since the 1950s. Their earlier film was the groundbreaking Smrt' sa vola Engelchen (Death is Called Engelchen, 1963) based on a novel by Ladislav Mnacko, which diverted from the communist interpretation of the 1944 uprising in Slovakia as infallibly glorious and showed some aspects that brought about human tragedy. Along similar lines, Obchod na korze placed the politics of World War II in the background and focused on the dead-end street faced by many in Central Europe during the deportations of the Jews to German concentration camps . After the introduction of anti-Jewish laws in Slovakia, a simple carpenter named Tona is made the owner of a tiny haberdashery, until then owned by an old, almost deaf Jewish woman named Rozalia who has no comprehension of the contemporary political developments. After a crisis, the local Jewish community begins to pay Tono not to surrender his ownership, to prevent Rozalia 's store from being passed on to a ruthless Aryanizer. A tender friendship develops between Tono and Rozalia: she keeps selling buttons without realizing Tana's legal status, and he becomes her man about the house. When deportations begin, Roz.ilia remains oblivious of real life, and Tona is faced with the choice between sending her off, or probably facing his own and his wife ' s death, if he were discovered trying to hide a person incapable of understanding why she should live in hiding. The film starred Slovak Jozef Kroner ( 1924-1998) and Polish Ida Kaminska ( 1899-1980) with a Slovak cast and was shot on location in the town of Trebisov, Eastern Slovakia, and in the Prague studios. The film presents its captivating, morally complex story in a straightforward style, with a sprinkling of symbolism and dream SLOVAKIA 89 sequences. It was an indication of changes in the political climate that Obchod na korze was able to get away without the mandated focus on criticism of the Slovak authorities during World War II , previously an inevitable feature of socialist realist work about that period, as well as without highlighting a central, resolute procommunist character. It has remained the most awarded and internationally successful Slovak film to the present day . The late l 960s reflected the direction filmmaking may take with little censorship and steady funding . An increasing number of - especially younger - filmmakers took advantage of the situation to experiment without concern about a need to target a specific audience or about how large their audience was going to be. They enjoyed the same creative luxury as the writers or painters convinced of the significance of their work, who manage to earn their living elsewhere. In a democratic society, this is rarely the case in cinema because of the extraordinary amounts of money even a low-budget film requires. But during the occasional relaxation of control in communist countries while the principles of the system remained in place, filmmakers were given substantial fund s to make films relatively free from prescription , as well as of a need to bring in profit. An early nonconformist film seen mostly by students in art theaters was Stefan Uher's Panna zazracnica (The Miraculous Virgin, 1966), soon followed by Juraj Jakubisko's (b. 1938) Kristove roky ("Christ's Years" or "Crucial Years," 1967), Elo Havetta's Slavnost' v botanickej zahrade (A Celebration in the Botanical Garden, 1969), and Dusan Hanak's 322 (the number identifying cancer in medical statistics of diseases, l 969). During this period (however brief) of almost total collapse of communist control, the Koliba Film Studio in Bratislava co-produced films with avantgarde filmmakers from abroad. Jerzy Skolimowski from Poland, 90 SLOVAKIA whose government was then significantly more repressive than Czechoslovakia, directed one story in Dialog 20-40-60, along with Czech Zbynek Brynych and Slovak Peter Solan in 1968 . Frenchman Alain Robbe-Grillet directed two films, including Mui, ktory Jute (The Man Who Lies, L 'homme qui ment; codirected with Martin Holly in 1968) with a Slovak and French cast. And 1969 saw the release of Juraj Jakubisko's Vtackovia, siroty a blazni (Birds, Orphans and Fools), considered by most Slovaks to be the best Slovak film. Jakubisko's preferences bounce between experiment, abstraction and ambitious intellectualism, as in this film , and less numerous popular crowd-pleasers. "Birds, Orphans and Fools" had the briefest of theater run s, not because of the audience, but because of the authorities. Conceived when communist control was at its weakest in Czechoslovakia, it was completed well after the Soviet-led invasion in August of 1968, by which time many of the mechanisms of authoritarian rule were at work again. Vtackovia, siroty a blazni takes place in an apparent historical vacuum in a desolate world with war raging somewhere outside the camera's field of vision and the director's focus. The two male and one female central characters , not unlike some of the hippies in the U.S.A. <1.t that time, live in a decrepit apartment, go through a series of bizarre encounters, sexual experiences and discuss a range of topics. When their lives begin to appear closer to normalcy, one of them murders the girl and commits suicide. The film is deliberately ex perimental in its style: it varies screen sizes, shots are taken at awkward angles with a hand-held or agitated camera, distortion lenses alter screen images, filmmakers ' equipment remains in the frame, characters talk to the camera. The adjectives surrealist and post-apocalyptic are perhaps representative of the filmmakers' intent. SLOVAKIA The 1970s witnessed a re-introduction 91 of strict communist control in Czechoslovakia, called normalization . People were demoted at work or fired, if they had expressly supported the relaxation in the late 1960s or denounced the Soviet-led invasion in 1968, and their children often suffered, too. In an effort to a void repercussions, many repudiated their past views. Although persecution was somewhat milder in Slovakia than in the Czech-speaking areas, it had a stifling effect on art. Gone were the efforts of the 1960s to push the envelope of what was allowed. The population at large had learned its lesson : with the help of the Soviet Union, the Communists were able to pull the whole country back from unprecedented freedom of expression and the brink of a multi-party system in 1968 to a situation more reminiscent of the late 1950s, and those who resisted were punished. This repression lasted at least through the late 1970s, and Czechoslovakia remained more politically backward , although with a better standard of living, than Communist Poland or Hungary until the collapse of communism in 1989 . Cinema was affected like the rest of society, while the number of film releases grew. Slovakia produced 8-12 films per year throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Jakubisko still managed to finish Dovidenia v pek/e, priatelia (See You in Hell, Friends) in 1970, but hardly anyone saw it. The film was banned and Jakubisko was not allowed to make another feature film until 1979 . Although the early 1970s are sometimes compared to the 1950s, the authorities did not demand that Slovak filmmakers make socialist-realist films critical of the period of relaxation - the way films in the 1950s tried to discredit private enterprise and democracy which were abolished in 1948. Only one film was made about 1968, Honicka (Fever) directed by Martin Holly, Jr. (b. 1931) and based on a novel by Jozef Kot. In a country with 92 SLOVAKIA freedom of expression, the film could have been perceived as just focusing on a relatively plausible plot from 1968 and pushing a particular point of view - there indeed were people who did not support the pro-democratic reforms, or saw many flaws among the reformers. But under totalitarian control, which did not allow opposing points of view, it was impossible to distinguish the touting of the official view in film from just propaganda. Regardless, Honicka shared the destiny of the overwhelming majority of Slovak and Czech films produced during the forty years of Communism: after a couple of weeks in mostly empty theaters, it was not seen again . While the 1960s witnessed a desire to bring contemporary and urban themes to film, the 1970s began to solidify an inclination among a segment of the Slovak critics and filmmakers to emulate the centuries-old urban fashion in Europe of the 'return to nature:' well educated intellectuals living in Bratislava make and admire films with images of the countryside and villagers whose lives appear to be somehow more authentic than in towns. The trend-setter was the still admired hour-long documentary Obrazy stareho sveta (Pictures of the Old World, 1972) directed by Dusan Hanak who, suspicious to the authorities because of his films from the 1960s, found an early refuge in a topic sufficiently removed from big politics to survive in the margins of official production and yet, sufficiently non-conforn1ist and enamored with village life to please especially the chic audiences. Part of its additional attraction within the context of Communist Czechoslovakia rested in the fact that it offered snapshots from the lives of several highlanders, whose very existence belied the official claims of equal wealth for everyone. But Obrazy stareho sveta has a much more universal appeal and has received critical acclaim from Slovakia, Switzerland and France to Toronto and Los Angeles. SLOVAKIA 93 A singular exception among about 90 domestic feature films that briefly flickered in Slovak theaters in the 1970s was Dusan Hanak's Ruto ve sny (Rosy Dreams, 1976). Although its style was poetic, it may have been the first film in the communist bloc with a de-romanticized portrayal of the Roma (Gypsies). It dove into the cultural barriers between them and the non-Romany population - an issue that, twenty years later, proved to be one of the key problems of post-communist societies in Central Europe. Two teenagers - a young Slovak postman and a Romany girl - fall in love. The film tells the viewers that it will not work due to different cultural expectations each of the two have of their budding relationship. Its imaginative filmmaking and affecting, slightly sentimental story might have been easy to understand and appreciate by a wider audience, but Rutove sny was shown only in limited release at the order of the authorities. The most popular film in that decade was yet another variation on the legend about a heroic highwayman Pacho, hybskf z bojnfk (Pacho, the Highwayman of Hybe; 1975) directed by Martin Tapak. In 1980, the authorities shelved fa milujem, ty milujes (I Love, You Love) directed by Dusan Hanak because of its focus on marginal social groups and eroticism. When it was released shortly before the collapse of communism, it received the highest international recognition for a Slovak film since The Shop on Main Street, including the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. However, the strict Communist control typical of the 1970s began to relax slowly, and the early 1980s brought two domestic blockbusters whose role in Slovak culture finally matched that of some of the films in the l 960s. In 1982 Stefan Uher directed Pas/a kone na bet6ne ("She. Grazed Horses on Concrete," or "A Ticket to Heaven"). The title used the first few words from an irreverent tune with just a few verses depicting impossible acti- 94 SLOVAKIA vities - the song continues " ... she bathed in razor blades." The story is about a single mother fending for herself in an East Slovak village, determined not to allow her teenaged daughter to follow in her footsteps . Partly a comedy and partly a candid portrayal of contemporary village life, it oscillates between humorous depictions of social customs and ceremonies, and the more serious issues of a woman's capacity to hold her own in a small community, and of abortion. Although co-written and directed by Uher, the film is largely the work of Milka Zirnkova, an author and actress, who wrote the original story, worked with Uher on the script, and starred in the leading role. Among the novelties in Slovak moviemaking was an extensive use of the East Slovak dialect in the film. Although Slovak has several highly recognizable regional accents, filmmakers - before and after this film - have the actors speak the standard, neutral variety of Slovak common in the news media, regardless of where in Slovakia the story of their film takes place. A success comparable to the handful of foreign blockbusters permitted by the authorities each year was Juraj Jakubisko's Tisfcrocna vce/a (A Thousand-Year Old Bee;l983). It is a 162-minute long saga of the life of a farmer's family covering three generations from the late 1800s through the early 1900s. It picked up on and reinforced a myth recurrent in Slovak cinema for several decades, in films from both popular and artsy filmmakers . Villagers are mostly good, while those who live in or move to town (perhaps the screenwriters and directors bowed to communist authorities) become entrepreneurial and tum out to be cold and corrupt. It was the first Slovak film with a comprehensive narrative that a large number of viewers were ready to perceive as their national, as well as local and family past, because it echoed themes they had encountered in literature and history classes at school. SLOVAKIA 95 Moreover, it was a comforting past. The title was a parable, overplayed in the film with brief expensive special effects with a gigantic honey-bee created in the Bavarian Film Studios in Munich . Those sequences hammered in the symbolic thread in the storyline. They could have been be richer and more content, the film gave the viewers to understand, were it not for the cumulative effects of past injustice: the fruits of their hard-working ancestors' labor was periodically taken away from them for a thousand years, like honey from the bees. But as long as they stayed in the villages, they were an honest, sometimes whimsical bunch doing as well as they could . It helped that several popular actors starred in the film, including Jozef Kr6ner (Tona in The Shop on Main Street). Tisicrosmi vce/a received a Gold Phoenix for art and cinematography from the Cultural Center of the City of Venice awarded in tandem with the prestigious International Venice Film Festival. After decades of government-funded and censored production, Bratislava still produced twelve films in 1990, the year after the collapse of Communism. With no censorship, but also hardly any funding, the number of feature films ranged between one and three for most of the 1990s. Slovakia's theaters are now flooded with foreign , especially American, films and while the population might be ready for a domestic production addressing them specifically, perhaps along the lines of A Thousand-Year Old Bee, there is not enough money for a film on that scale, and perhaps even less interest on the part of the filmmakers . With one exception, the films made in the 1990s generally follow one of two thematic lines . The most successful film was Fontana pre Zuzanu 2 (A Fountain for Susan 2; 1993) directed by Dusan Rapos as a sequel to his more sedate Fontana pre Zuzanu from 1985, still limited by communist censorship. He released Fontana pre Zuza- 96 SLOVAKIA nu 3 in 1999. Both fall in the group of films with contemporary themes and are obviously interested in generating ticket sales. They rely on sex and crime to achieve that. Although it remained behind major foreign blockbusters , Fontana pre Zuzanu 2 sold 380,000 tickets in a country with 5.4 million inhabitants, which is comparable to a film that brings in over $130 million in the U.S.A. Titanic sold about 550,000 tickets in Slovakia and The Matrix 130,000. Another film with a contemporary theme is indicative of how times have changed since the collapse of communism. Rivers of Babylon (the tile is in English) directed by Vladimir Balco in 1998 was based on the first post-communist bestseller in l 990 by Peter Pistanek. Sequels of the novel had lower sales, because the novelty of the topic - Bratislava's underworld - and expressive presentation wore off, and because they had to compete with a growing number of translated foreign bestsellers. However, the filmmakers picked up on a particular aspect of the sequels vitriolic political commentary . The story of the rise of a skillful stoker and wheeler-dealer to political power was seen as a parable of the government in Bratislava at that time. Only about eight years earlier, a release of such a strongly critical film would have been either unthinkable, or a major event attracting huge crowds . Yet, Rivers of Babylon sold only 50,000 tickets and met with a lukewarm reception abroad. The other thematic line in contemporary Slovak cinema is the 'return to nature. ' Its main protagonist is director Martin Sulfk (b . 1962) whose films generally attract fewer viewers at home than Rivers of Babylon, but are favored by critics and have attained a degree of viewers' acclaim at film festivals organized by European cities. His most successful Zahrada (Garden; l 995), the earlier Neha (Tenderness ; 199 l ), as well as the more recent Orbis SLOVAKIA 97 Pictus (Latin title, 1997) and Krajinka ("Landscape" or "A Small piece of the Country," 2000) are intellectualized continuations of the theme of the desirability of a return to, journey through, or life in a rural setting. Krajinka is the most accessible of Sulfk ' s films . Although it may be based on memories, as the opening sequence suggests, the discrete stories are not made to gel into a cohesive sequence for the audience. But each is readable on its own. Zahrada, the first Slovak film since the collapse of communism to be released abroad , and especially Orbis Pictus, break with traditional story-telling and show the main characters - a rather passive adult man living with his parents in Zahrada and a young girl released from a boarding school , perhaps for abandoned teenagers, in Orbis Pictus - find education in nature and disappointment in urban settings . With surreal scenes, philosophizing scripts, and a dedication to the filmmaker's expressive whim, Sulfk 's films re-package the theme of national rural bliss, recurrent in Slovak culture and education , in a form palatable for trendy audiences. The theme has had an incessant, powerful attraction for a segment of directors since the beginnings of filmmaking in Slovakia, whether they have leaned towards the popular and mythologizing approach from The Earth Sings 1933, through the decades of films about Janosik and similar productions, to The Thousand-Year Old Bee - or whether they take the approach aimed at art theaters, traceable to Organ directed by Stefan Uher in 1964. Due to the general drop in film production and to Martin Sulik ' s capacity to attract funding, films for art theatres have become more prevalent in the 1990s than in the earlier decades . SLOVAKIA 98 Bibliography Author's interview with film producer Marian Urban, July 12, 2000. "Bandit pie to shoot." Daily Variety, March 7, 2002, p. 48. Bartosek, L.: Nas film - Kapitoly z dejin (1896-1945). Praha: Mlada fronta, 1985. Grega, A. : Prfspevok k dejinam slovenskej kinematografie, M.A. thesis at the FAMU in Prague,1968 . Havelka, J.: Kronika naseho filmu. Praha: Filmovy ustav, 1967. Macek, V.: Stefan Uher 1930-1993. Bratislava: Slovensky filmovy ustav, 1994. Macek, V. and J. Pastekova: Dejiny slovenskej kinematografie. Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo Osveta, 1997. Mihalik, P. : Vznik slovenskej narodnej kinematografie 1896- 1948. Bratislava: Kabinet divadla a filmu SA V, 1994 . Rumanovsky, I.: "Z najstar.sfch dejfn kinematografie na Slovensku. " Panorama, #3, 1977. Janosik 21 a filmove podnikanie na Slovensku. Kinema, #3, 1982 . Slivka, M.: Karol Plicka - basnik obrazu. Martin: Vydavatel'stvo Osveta, 1982. Smatlakova, Renata: Katal6g slovenskych celovecemych filmov 1921-1999. Bratislava: Slovensky filmovy ustav, l 999. Young, C.: The films of Hedy Lamarr. Secaucus, N.J. : Citadel Press, 1978. DOCUMENTATION  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 Trends in 20th Century Slovak Filmmaking Description An account of the resource Martin Votruba Slovakia, Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003 pp. 71-98 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Votruba, Martin Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 name