1 50 10 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/a274d5d6aa7367cd3ddb2e5703fa8992.pdf 6b45fe4cee5511188e2c849bd33571f7 PDF Text Text 36 SLOVAKIA SLOVAK PARTISAN COMMANDERS IN WORLD WAR TI: THE CASE OF JOSEF TROJAN R. Vladimir Baumgarten The Slovak resistance movement, which opposed the Nazis and the Government of the Slovak Repub lic in World War II, was sharply divided into two different and, oftentimes, conflicting orientations. One of them was both pro-Western and pro-Czech. Its adherents were most strongly represented by officers of the Slovak Army. In February of 1944 a group of four dissident lieutenant colonels Jan Golian, Mikulas Ferjencfk, Mirko Yesel and Dezider Kiss-Kalina-established contact with the Czechoslovak Government-in-Ex ile in London. Go lian was designated by the London government to head the uprising, which eventually took place in Aug ust of that year. These officers were unashamed to announce that they wanted a restoration of Czechoslovakia as it had been before the Munich accord of 1938. 1 It never occurred to them that, perhaps many Slovaks were fighting for something different - not the least of which was their recognition as a disti nct nation . The Communists, who represented the other orientation, had taken thi s difference into account. The Slovak Communist Party began its own resistance after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Initiall y, it did not favor the restoration of Czechoslovakia. Although opposed to the Nazis and the domestic regime of priest-president Jozef Tiso, the Communists were inclined toward s either a separate Slovak state or the incorporation of Slovakia as a republic of the Soviet Union. 2 Thi s position changed after the London government concluded a treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union 1 Mikulas Ferjencfk, "The Slovak ational Uprising and Mission to the USS R," in Lewis M. White, ed. , On All Fronts: Czechoslovaks in World War II Part II (Washington and New York, 1995), p.231. 2 Gustav Hu sak, "O vyvoji a situac ii na Slovensku" Svedectvi XV (58 ), I 979, pp. 377-378. �SLOVAKIA 37 late in 1943. 3 The Soviet Union favored the restoration of Czechoslovakia, a position that the Slovak Communists now had to take into acco unt. Henceforth the Communists, who made up half of the membership of the underground Slovak National Council, did likewise. It was intended, however, that the mistakes of the past would be avoided , and that Slovakia would play a greater role in the resur4 rected Czechoslovak state. By thi s time the Communists had assumed a predominant role in another resistance element which had begun to emerge. Since 1942, political di ssidents, military deserters, Jews fearing deportation, and escaped prisoners-of-war from France, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia had taken refuge in the mountains of Slovakia. They formed the first parti san units in the country. By late summer of 1944 they were reinforced by Soviet partisans parachuted into the country. The latter, consisting of hardened veterans of the war on the Eastern Front, brought the war home to Slovakia. Their activities encouraged German military intervention in the country, causing the Slovak National Upri sing to be launched under premature circumstances .5 3 For detailed descriptions of the Soviet-Czechoslovak agreeme nt, see Edvard Benes, Memoirs (London, I 954 ), pp. I 68- I 96 and Edward Taborsky, President Edward Benes Between &1st and West 1938-/948 (Stanford , I98 I), pp. 159- 174. 4 "The Christmas Agreement of 1943 ," in Joseph Mikus, Slovakia: A Political History 19 18- 1955 (Mil waukee, 1963), Appendi x VI, pp.346-347. 5 These Soviet partisans were commanded by Captain Pyotr Alexeyevitch Yelitchko. They commenced blowing up tun ne ls and bridges, and massac ring members of the German ethnic community in the minin g tow ns of ce ntral Slovaki a. Their ac ti vity culmin ated in the massacre o f members of a German military mi ss ion pass ing throu gh the country. Thi s military miss ion was ori ginally dispatched to Romani a to keep the latter in the war on the Axi s side. Since the Antonesc u regime had been overthrow n, its efforts were futile. As the German military mission passed through Slovakia, its members were intercepted in the vicinity of Turciansky Svaty Martin by Ye litchko's partisans, disg uised as Slovak soldiers. They convinced the Germans th at a bridge further ahead had been destroyed, and that they sho uld be escorted to the barracks for their own protection. It was Ye litchko 's intention that the Germans should be disarmed at the barrac ks and then sent to Partisan Headquarters in Kiev; if this fa iled , they would be exec uted. Lieutenant Colone l Emj l Perko, garrison commander at Turciansky Svaty Martin and a member of the Slovak National Council , feared for the li ves of the members of this German mili tary mission. He was inclined to treat them as guests until the Military Center in Banska Bystrica took them off his hand s. But Perk o's subordin ate, Li eutenant Cyril Ku chta, was more inc lined to �38 SLOVAKIA Throughout the course of the 1944 uprisi ng , relations between the Army and the partisans were oftentimes strai ned. To coordinate military action between the two bodies, a War Council was established. Yet the War Council became meaningless when individual partisan commanders either acted according to their own will or on orders from Partisan Headquarters in Kiev . Initiall y, the partisans were commanded by the Slovak Communist Karo l Smidke; later, the command passed to Soviet Colonel Aleksei N. Asmolov. A comparison of photographs taken of Asmolov is revealing. He arrived in Slovakia as a clean-cut regular Soviet officer; he soon grew a beard and wore a fur cap. Asmolov advised the Slovak military to adapt to the partisan method of warfare. In practice, this would involve breaking down units into smaller size, where they could be absorbed and taken over by the Communists. Relations between the military and the partisans became so tense that, during one meeting of the War Council, Golian (by now promoted to brigadier-general by the London government) referred to the partisans as "Enemy No. I ."6 A fact which is oftentimes overlooked is that not all partisans were Communists . This holds true for three particularly significant commanders: Jan Nalepka, Viliam Zingor and Josef Trojan. The fates of these individuals and the manner in which postwar jurisprudence and historiography came to grips with them merits study. The case of Trojan is particularly interesting for a number of reasons and, therefore, merits special attention. Josef Trojan was of Czech origin. He was born on March 28 , 1906, in Horni Hermanice, in Moravia. The son of a farmer, Trojan married Stanislava Novakova, who bore him three sons and two daughters. One of the daughters, Zdenka Trojanova (194 7-), eventually became a scientist of some di stinction. Trojan's formal education was limited. He attended grade school and agricultural high school in his native village, The latter provided him with enough expertise to work as administrator of the monastery estates in Nova Rise (19261931). Thereafter he was employed by the Bata shoe works, which transferred him to Slovakia. Trojan served as manager in Zlfn (1931follow Yelitchko's orders, and Kuchta was the officer in charge on the fateful ni ght of August 27-28. For an account of what fo llowed, see Jozef Jablonicky, Po vstanie bez Jegiend (Bratislava, 1990), pp.170-173. 6 Ferjenc(k, p.229. �SLOVAKIA 39 1932), Trebic (1932-1934 ), Hostavice (I 934-1938), Os Iany and Simovany during the war years. The Bata shoe works can justifiably boast of having been one of the finest Industries of the First Czechoslovak Republic . Interwar Czechoslovakia had no shortage of flaws, not the least of which was an official denial of Slovak nationality. But the state was sociall y progressive. Although decidedly anti-Bolshevik, the government of the First Republic was by no means hostile to organized labor. Tomas Bata, founder of the shoe works, was a self-made man who appears to have believed that wealth has a certain social function . The workers of the Bata industry enjoyed a comprehensive profit sharing plan, and lower level management was elective. The corporation was considered a model for progressive capitalism in the years between the two world wars. In his capacity as a manager, Trojan brought a number of Czechs into Slovakia. These naturally supported the Slovak National Uprisi ng, which offered a prelude to the liberation of their own nation . They enjoyed a certain liberty to join the Slovak insurgents that their kin in the "Reichsprotectorat" of Bohemia and Moravia were denied : not only were the latter subject to execution by the Nazis if they were caught attempting to cross over, but their families were jeopardized as hostages as well. 7 Trojan began his participation in the uprising as part of partisan group Pavel, which was headquartered in the rebel center of Banska Bystrica. Initially, the command center focused on the north, encouraging partisan activity at Zarnovice, on the Polish border, and even di spatching partisans across the border to establish contact with the Polish resistance. 8 But the situation in the south attained a certain precedence. The significance of this area during the uprisi ng should not be underestimated. Elsewhere in Slovakia, where insurgents had to give up ground, they had mountain ranges to fall back upon, which shielded the central core around Banska Bystrica. The open valleys of the southern lowlands, by contrast, offered a soft underbelly favoring the German advance. A certain amount of local sympathy 7 Karol Fremal , "The Czechs in the Resistance Movement in Slovakia", in Jan Stanislav, et. al. , We Were Not Alone (Banska Bystrica), 1994), pp.21-23 . 8 Documents pertaining to the command structure of Partisan Group Pavel. Archfv Muzea SNP,Fond IV , prir. cfs: 49/76. Pages are unnumbered. �40 SLOVAKIA also favored the Germans. In the so uthwest, an ominous new front was opened by the actions of SS Regiment Schill. Its bloodless takeover of the Nitra garrison, which numbered 2,000, was a major blow to the insurgent cause. The garrison commander, Major Smigovsky, was also a friend of the Schill commander, Obersturmfiihrer Klotz, having served with the latter on the Eastern Front. Henceforth Nitra became a supply center for the Nazi advance on Banska Bystrica. SS Regiment Schill became the most outstanding German military unit in Slovakia, ultimately capturing Banska Bystrica. It was composed largely of noncommissioned officer candidates, and had been assembled within 24 hours among Germans in the Reichsprotectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. These yo un g men were conesquently highly motivated.9 The command of partisan group Pavel di spatched Trojan southward to organize a new partisan detachment in the upper Nitra valley. He commanded approximately 150 men . 10 Troj an made contact with some of hi s Czech associates, and also recruited shoe workers of Batbvany, in southwestern Slovakia. On several occasions the Nitra Brigade held up the drive of SS Regiment Schil l in its advance towards Banska Bystrica. Colonel Ferjencfk, one of the military leaders of the upri sing, later noted that, after the fal l of Turciansky Svaty Martin around September 20, most active cooperation between the partisans and the regular military was terminated. An exception was provided by Trojan's group. 11 Enjoying the benefits of a more enlightened variety of capitalism before the war, these shoe workers were immune to Communi st attempts to recruit them. Although Trojan was not a Communist, he was not adverse to recruiting partisans of Communist or leftist sy mpathies. This particularly held true of a group of Bulgarian exchange students residing in Slovakia. Throughout the interwar period, many Balkan students of 9 Anonymous, "The Waffen SS and the Crushing of the Slovak Military Mutiny" Siegrunen: The Waffen SS in Historical Perspective Volume 5, No.6, undated, pp. 29-30 . Contributors to thi s journal consist large ly of the sons of Waffen SS officers who draw extensively from fam il y papers. 10 Document pertai ning to the history of Partisan Group Pavel , with spec ific reference to Captain Trojan and the struggle in the upper Nitra va lley . Archfv Muzea SNP, Fond IV, prir. cfs: 5 26/75, p.22. 11 Ferjencik, p.228. �SLOVAKIA 41 the mundane sciences (medicine, engineering, etc.) went for their education to the more advanced universities in Czechoslovakia. Most of them studied in Prague or Brno, in the Czech lands. In November 1939, the Nazi rulers of the Reichsprotectorate of Bohemia and Moravia shut down the Czech universities following a student protest. Most of the Bulgarians consequently transferred to Slovak (previously Comenius) Uni ve rsity in Bratislava. At the beginning of the 1940s, their numbers were estimated as between 500 and 600. 12 The life of the average Slovak university student at this time was anything but luxurious, and the Bulgarians received negligible stipends and lived in substandard housing. There was an officially sanctioned Bulgarian student society named after Georgii Rakovski , one of the national awakeners of the nineteenth century. It was nationalist and right-wing in political orientation. Yet a number of students organized their own underground association called B.O.N.S.S. (Bulharsky vseobecny narodny zvaz). Their acknowleged leader was Stojan Panov Stojanov, a student of mechanical engineering. At the time of the outbreak of the Slovak National Uprising, Bulgaria changed sides in the wake of the advance of the Soviet military. Even after the German capture of Banska Bystrica (October 27), many of the Bulgarians in Slovakia were willing to support the struggle. The bulk of these Bulgarians, under the leadership of Stojanov, was received into the Nitra Brigade on December 20. Unfortunately , the Nitra Brigade was in a particularly exposed position. Most partisan units had fallen back into the Tatras, where the terrain made their elimination by the German military more difficult than those fighting further to the south. The Nitra Brigade operated in an area where the Hron River valley stood just above the lowlands. On February 13-14, 1945, the Germans struck a decisive blow against the Nitra Brigade in the vicinity of the village of Orovnice. Stojanov and most of his followers were killed. Ten of them were captured and dispatched to Nazi concentration camps. Two among this group survived Dachau , but were too physically debilitated to last long afterwards. Two other Bulgarians man aged to escape the massac re 12 V. Valev , "Bulharskf vysokoskolaci na Slovensku", p.4 and Valerian Bys tricky, "Bulhari v SNP", p. l in Archfv Muzea SNP,Fond IV , prir. cfs: 29/71. Hereafter articles and documents from this collection shall be referred to as SNP Muzeum archives/Bulgarian collecti on. �42 SLOVAKIA and joined the advancing Red Army, although both were killed in action before the end of the war. 13 Josef Trojan had particularly sentimental feelings for these Bulgarian students. It was in thi s spirit that, on February 7, 1946, he submitted a literary contribution entitled "S lavonic Peace." He stresssed the Pan-Slav nature of the struggle, and praised the Red Army. 14 Yet Trojan had a falling out with the incoming Communist government. It was perhaps less a matter of opposition to the government than it was his previous track record, plus the political atmosphere prevailing in Czechoslovakia at this time. At this point the leadership of the Czechoslovak Communist Party requires mention. The chairman of the party was Klement Gottwald, who had spent the war years in Moscow. Those Communists who had done so generally served as wi lling executors of Soviet policy. Yet others had spent the war years in prison or had served in the resistance movements in their native countries. Although they too wished to construct socialism, they wished to do so according to conditions in their native lands. Following Yugoslavia's split with the Kremlin in June ofl 948, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered a massive purge of these nationali st elements throughout East Central Europe. Zionism was now targeted as an enemy ideology as well. Although both the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia had endorsed the creation of Israel , when the British began to depart from Palestine, the Soviets began courting the Arabs. Moreover, Stalin had always held a personal distrust of Jews since the time of his conflict with the so-called "Old Bolsheviks," many of whom were Jewish. This realignment was particularly felt in Czechoslovakia, where many of the Jews who had survived the holocaust of World War II joined the Communist Party. The Secretary General of the Party, Rudolf Stansky , was himself Jewish, although he had never considered himself a Jew or a Czech or anything other than a Communist. He had also spent the war years in the Soviet Union. As the Czechoslovak Communi st Party took on an increasingly militant approach to domestic 13 List of Bulgarians killed in Slovakia 1944-45 , in SNP Muzeum arch ives/Bulgarian collection, pp.1-2. 14 Jozef Trojan , "S lovansky mier" (February 7, I946), in SNP Muzeum archives/Bulgarian collection, p.5. �SLOVAKIA 43 affairs, Slansky ordered a wholesale inqui sition against suspected di ssidents. He created a machine of police terror which ultimately destroyed him as well. As those who were arrested were tortured to name other"conspirators," Slanskfs name became prominent. In the subsequent purge which followed , thousand s of innocent lives were destroyed. 15 Josef Trojan was arrested in Prague on the night of December 22, 1949 on the personal orders of Rudolf Slansky. He was charged with having collaborated with the Gestapo. Although Slansky was himself swept away not long afterwards, the machinery of repression had already been set in motion. Among its victims were Gustav Husak and other Slovak Communi st leaders of the 1944 upri sing, who received long terms of impri sonment. Even the death of Stalin early in 1953 did not halt the trend . Trojan was hanged on December 29th of that year. 16 A comparison of the fate of Trojan with those of the other two previously mentioned commanders reveal s a marked contrast, and more than just a few ironies. Jan Nalepka, unlike Trojan, was an intellectual. A poet and a teacher, he was noted for a mischievous disposition as a youth , and he retained hi s precociousness after having entered teachers' college in 1931. A conference of young teac hers in Komorna Lhotka (July 1933) was addressed by Czechoslovak president T . G. Masary k. The latter viewed the educational system as a means of molding young Slovaks into a "Czechoslovak" spirit. But, Nalepka whispered to hi s friend Vladimir Clementis that Slovak students were capable of cultivating their own spirits. 17 Clementis eventually became Czechoslovakia's foreign minister, and likew ise went to the gallows as a result of the "S lansky Affair." Nalepka was a lefti st, but also a nation alist. In February 1939, he began organizing clandestine elements against the governing Slovak People's Party-one month before the latter ass umed the leadership of 15 For the most comprehensive study of what has come to be known as the "Shi nsky Affair," see Jiri Pelikan, ed., The Czechoslovak Political Trials 1950-/ 954. The Suppressed Report of the Dubcek Government 's Commission of Inquiry, 1968 (London, 197 I). 16 Jozef Jablonicky, "Krute osudy ," in Vladimir Babni c, ed. , Na se povstanie (Banska Bystrica, I999), p. I00. 17 Jozef Nalepka, ed. , Jni kapit:foovi J:inovi N:ilepkovi (Spisska Nova Yes, 2002), p.28. �44 SLOVAKIA a se parate Slovak state. Yet the events of March 1939 inc luded a Hungari an invasion of eastern Slovakia. Called up fo r military service, Nalepka participated willingly in the brief border war. He saw no contradiction between thi s action and hi s ow n ideals. Later that year, Slovakia's military alliance with Nazi Germany dictated participati on in the Polish campaign. Nalepka, by then a lieutenant, fou ght with distinction on the northern side of the Carpathi ans. He was decorated by General Ferdinand Catlos, Slovakia's Minister of Defense. The war against Soviet Russia proved more problematic fo r Slovak soldiers. Slovaki a had territori al grievances with Hungary and Poland , but none with the Russians. Nalepka was ass igned to the soca ll ed "Security" Di visio n, whi ch was di spatched to the Pripet Marshes in northern Ukra ine and Be laru s fo r police duties against Soviet partisa ns. 18 He entered into c landes tine co ntact with these parti sans and eventu ally deserted to them, taking hi s men with him. The nature of parti san warfare in the swamps dictated th at Nalepka frequently travelled on horsebac k, carrying an automati c weapon. A photograph of this legend ary pose later inspired a plastic equestri an sc ulpture of him by Slovak sc ulptor Ann a Ki sakova . Nalepka's acti vity also contributed to hi s demj se. He was blled in an encounter with a German patro l outside the vill age of Ovruc on the ni ght of November 17, 1943. Co nsequentl y, Na lepka was un available to partic ipate in the Slovak National Uprising. But hi s survi ving comrades named their parti san brigade after him . The Captain Jan Nalepka Brigade was later parac huted back into Slovak ia to participate in the upri sing. Compared with other units which the Soviets ex ported, and which 18 Sold iers of the Security Division became, by Nazi standards, tota ll y corrupted by fra terni zation with local Ukrainians. Sov iet mili tary mobilization in the early part of the war had carried many yo un g men away. Others were forc ibly recruited by the Germans for labor services in th e Re ich. G ive n a shortage of domestic manpower, Ukra inian wome n rece ived th e Slovak sold iers willingly, if not enthusias ti call y. There was widespread venereal di sease among the Slovaks. Civilian hunger prompted a brisk trade in an exc lusive ly fe male commodity fo r rati ons, to the particul ar profit of Slovak warrant officers in charge of stores. As ide fro m all that, boredom drove many sold iers to alcohol ism. Slovak officers were re luctant to bring charges on such misdemeanors and began covering the m up, because men on punishment were removed from their co mmand without replacement. See Mark W. A. Axworthy, Axis Slovakia: Hitler's Slavic Wedge 1938- 1945 (Bays ide, New York, 2002), p. 148. �SLOVAKIA 45 largely engaged in looting, the Nalepka Brigade conducted itself in an exemplary manner. Together with the 2nd Czechoslovak Paratroopers, it shares credit for the capture of the strategic village of Jalna in the Hron River valley on October 10-12, 1944. This action was the last victory of the insurgents in Slovakia during the up• 19 n• smg. Nalepka died at a convenient time, which enabled him to become a legend in the postwar Communist era. Hi s peasant parents were received with honor in the Soviet Union at memorial services dedicated to the captain. His popularity survived the collapse of the Communist system in East Central Europe. Streets in various Slovak communities are still named after him. Being an established folk hero has its privileges. Viliam Zingor, like Nalepka, was an army deserter. Called up for service on the Eastern Front, he instead took to the mountains in the vicinity of Turciansky Svaty Martin. He was the brother of a nationally renowned hunter. Bohus Zingor was well known among forest rangers, a fact which was of considerable help to his fugitive brother. When Viliam Zingor took to hiding on the Podstranie Mountain, he was befriended and sheltered by forest ranger Ladislav Frimmel. The Zingor brothers and Frimmel organized a network to aid other fugitives. A significant member of this group was Vladimir Iershov, a Slovak professor of Ru ssian extraction. Iershov's area of specialty was escaped Soviet prisoners of war who had made their way to the Slovak highlands. These included people of Russian , Ukrainian, Georgian and Armenian nationalities.2° They played a key role in the overall partisan movement during the events of autumn 1944. By March of 1944, Viliam Zingor commanded a significant number of partisans in the vicinity of the Podstranie Mountain. In August, membership was estimated at roughly 100 men. Later that month the group was reinforced by Soviet partisans commanded by Captain Pyotr Alekseyevitch Velitchko, who had parachuted into 19 Ibid, p.292. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Un ion, participants in the Slovak National Uprising from the various republics were acknow ledged and honored simply as citizens of the Soviet Union. At the time of the 60th anniversary in Hanska Bystrica, a number of ambassadors of now sovereign republics participated in the celebrations. The participation of their citizens was duly acknow ledged by the Muzeum SNP, leading to a dramatic increase of nations listed as having contributed to the uprising. 20 �46 SLOVAKIA Slovakia. On August 25 - four days before the formal commencement of the upri sing - Zingor was made commander of the M. R. Stefanik Brigade. This partisan brigade was named after the Slovak member of the founding fathers of Czechoslovakia, who held the rank of brigadier-general in the army of France during the First World War. It was so named in part because of a large number of French members. Earlier in the war, French soldiers who had escaped from prisoner of war camps in Germany made their way eastward. It was their intention to reac h neutral Turkey , from whence they could board ships and make their way back to the Allied side. Most of these Frenchmen were recaptured or interned in either Slovakia or Hungary. The Slovak underground arranged their escape and transfer to the mountains around Turciansky Svaty Martin , where they were absorbed into the partisan movement. These Frenchmen enjoyed a certain independence of command under Lieutenant Georges Barazar de Lannurien. During the opening weeks of the uprising, they halted the German advance in the vicinity of Strecno. 21 Viliam Zingor supported the Democratic Party of Jozef Lettrich (a member of the Slovak National Council during the upri sing) in the years immediately following the war. Consequently, he opposed the incoming Communist government. Mutual antagonism intensified after the Communists consolidated power in February of 1948 . By now the state had recourse against Zingor. It alleged that he and several wartime associates had established a subversive organization. This body was said to be inspired by the "Anglo-American imperialists," now enemies of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia's protector. Zingor and his associates were accused of agitating among the trade union s. It was further alleged that they had disbursed various funds for this purpose. They were put on trial on October 12-2 1, 1950, 21 For an English-language acco unt of the French participation in Slovakia, see Bohus Chnoupek, A Breaking of Seals: The French Resistance in Slovakia (Oxford and New York, 1988). Chnoupek was a Slovak journalist who first publicized the French role at the time of the tenth anniversary of the upri sing. Later, he became Czechoslovakia's foreign minister under the Husak regime. For the most comprehensive work on the subject, see Dusan Halaj et. al., Francuzi v Slovenskom narodnom povstanf (Banska Bystrica, 2003). �SLOVAKIA 47 were found guilty, and were sentenced to death .22 Zingor was executed the following year. Viliam Zingor's rehabilitation came about as a result of the democratic reforms temporarily effected in Czechoslovakia in 1968. At the beginning of that year Slovak Communist Party leader Alexander Dubcek assumed the leadership of the Czechoslovak Communist Party . The way was paved for the redress of many outstanding grievances. Relatives of the defendants in the Zingor trial maintained that allegations concerning the disbursement of funds for illegal purposes were the invention of "agents provocateurs" in the service of State Security. It may be argued that the reviewing court was more generous than just in its evaluation. The hostility of the defendants to the Communist regime was an unquestionable fact. Yet, insofar as no network of conspiratorial activity actually existed, the district court of Banska Bystrica formally overturned the verdicts on April 29, 1968. 23 Czechoslovakia's democratic reforms , popularly known as the "Prague Spring," were abruptly terminated in August of that year. The Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia. Within a year Dubcek was forced out of his position as Party Secretary and replaced by Gustav Husak. A one-time Slovak nationalist and former political prisoner, Husak now acknowledged Soviet hegemony as an unavoidable fact and urged his countrymen to do likewise. He thus became the enforcer of Soviet policy in that hapless land . But the status of the Slovaks underwent a revision formally acting in their favor . Czechoslovakia was federalized into two republics - one Czech and the other Slovak although both were subject to a common Communi st Party . Most significantly, the official attitude towards the Slovak Nation al Upri22 Copies of documents pertainin g to both the prosecution of and the verdi ct on the state's case against Zingor may be found in the archives of the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising in Banska Bystrica. For the prosecution , see Odpi s zaloby rok 1950 in Archfv Muzea SNP, Fond IV , prir. cfs: 576/9 1, pp. 1-20. For the verdict , see Rozsudok rok 1950, Archiv Muzea SNP, Fond IV, prir. cfs : 575/96, pp. I - 15. 23 Documents pertaining to th e review of the case of the state versus Z ingor and associates may be found in the archives of the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising in Banska Bystri ca. For the formal verdict, see Rozsudok rok 1968 in Archfv Muzea SNP, Fond IV, prir. cfs: 5 76/9 1, pp.1 -33 . For the rehabilitati on, see Uznesenie rok 1968 in Archfv Muzea SN P, Fond IV, prir. cfs : 5 76/91 , pp. 1- 10. �48 SLOVAKIA sing changed. Previously vilified, it was now hailed as a cornerstone in relations between the two nationalities. Consequently, Zingor's rehabilitation was permitted to stand, and he began receiving honorable mention in officially sanctioned historical publications. The fact that he had aided escaped Soviet P.O.W.S made him less than objectionable to Czechoslovakia's overlords. Josef Trojan had to wai t another generation before receiving honorable mention in Slovak history books. Ironically, his memory is treated more charitably by Slovak historians such as Jozef Jablonicky than it is among his own Czech people. Trojan's case was reviewed following the collapse of the Communist system in the Velvet Revolution of autumn 1989. He was exonerated on the charge of having collaborated with the Gestapo, and his death penalty was overturned. But a conviction and prison sentence remained in force on the grounds that Trojan "organized murder," in this case hav ing executed members of his own partisan unit. Trojan 's case raises an interesting legal question. Under common maritime law, a captain on an isolated ship has virtually unlimited authority to execute insubordinates. To what extent does this apply to a partisan commander in an insurgent situation, in a country where the successor government disavows the sovereignty of the previous one? Czech historian Jan Rychlik has asserted that, according to a law promulgated on May 8, 1946, acts committed between September 30, 1938 and October 28,1945, which normally would be considered crimes, were not punishable if they contributed to the liberation of the Czech and Slovak peoples. Internal military ordinances permitted the commander to use force (including the use of firearms) under field conditions in which subordinate soldiers refu sed to fulfill orders. The question of the application of these legal norms, however, remained contingent upon the decision of an individual court. 24 A Slovak partisan who knew Trojan both before and after the war concurs with the revised verdict. Jan Kulhan began the war as a Slovak soldier di spatched to the Eastern Front. Like many others, he changed sides, becoming a member of the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps commanded by General Ludvik Svoboda. He was di spatched 24 Law of May 8, 1946 (No. 11 5/ 1946) from Collection of Laws, Official Law Gazette. Information provided by Jan Rychlfk, to whom the present author expresses his gratitude. �SLOVAKIA 49 ahead of the front on a mission to destroy German-held oil wells in southern Poland. Kulhan's recollection of Trojan remains a lively and coherent one. According to Kulhan , Trojan actually joined the Communist Party after the war. At this time he was noted as a stern manager, going so far as to insist that employees show up for work. Kulhan asserted that the charge of having collaborated with the Gestapo was a fabrication. Trojan's honeymoon with the Czechoslovak Communist Party was a brief one, and his disillusionment placed him on a collision course. Kulhan also conceded that, given his professional background, Trojan's partisans were perhaps the best shod in the Slovak National Uprising. But several friends of Kulhan's sister were among the partisans who were executed. Kulhan maintain s that Trojan acted wrongfully in this matter. 25 At the time of the writing of this essay, the Czech judicial system maintains an enigmatic silence concerning Trojan, although his case is again open for review. Meanwhile, Slovak historians and octogenarian veterans of World War II alike look forward to the rehabilitation of a man who, although born a Czech , enjoys a certain reputation as a Slovak hero. Yet, judging from the opinion of Kulhan , not all octogenarians agree. It remains for the Czech judicial system to give a complete account of the execution of partisans by Trojan, and the state's case against him. 25 Telephone interview with John Kulhan, August I0 , 2005. Mr. Kulhan is today a U.S. citizen and is currently a nominee fo r the Pres identi al Medal of Freedom. � 36 SLOVAKIA SLOVAK PARTISAN COMMANDERS IN WORLD WAR TI: THE CASE OF JOSEF TROJAN R. Vladimir Baumgarten The Slovak resistance movement, which opposed the Nazis and the Government of the Slovak Repub lic in World War II, was sharply divided into two different and, oftentimes, conflicting orientations. One of them was both pro-Western and pro-Czech. Its adherents were most strongly represented by officers of the Slovak Army. In February of 1944 a group of four dissident lieutenant colonels Jan Golian, Mikulas Ferjencfk, Mirko Yesel and Dezider Kiss-Kalina-established contact with the Czechoslovak Government-in-Ex ile in London. Go lian was designated by the London government to head the uprising, which eventually took place in Aug ust of that year. These officers were unashamed to announce that they wanted a restoration of Czechoslovakia as it had been before the Munich accord of 1938. 1 It never occurred to them that, perhaps many Slovaks were fighting for something different - not the least of which was their recognition as a disti nct nation . The Communists, who represented the other orientation, had taken thi s difference into account. The Slovak Communist Party began its own resistance after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Initiall y, it did not favor the restoration of Czechoslovakia. Although opposed to the Nazis and the domestic regime of priest-president Jozef Tiso, the Communists were inclined toward s either a separate Slovak state or the incorporation of Slovakia as a republic of the Soviet Union. 2 Thi s position changed after the London government concluded a treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union 1 Mikulas Ferjencfk, "The Slovak ational Uprising and Mission to the USS R," in Lewis M. White, ed. , On All Fronts: Czechoslovaks in World War II Part II (Washington and New York, 1995), p.231. 2 Gustav Hu sak, "O vyvoji a situac ii na Slovensku" Svedectvi XV (58 ), I 979, pp. 377-378. �SLOVAKIA 37 late in 1943. 3 The Soviet Union favored the restoration of Czechoslovakia, a position that the Slovak Communists now had to take into acco unt. Henceforth the Communists, who made up half of the membership of the underground Slovak National Council, did likewise. It was intended, however, that the mistakes of the past would be avoided , and that Slovakia would play a greater role in the resur4 rected Czechoslovak state. By thi s time the Communists had assumed a predominant role in another resistance element which had begun to emerge. Since 1942, political di ssidents, military deserters, Jews fearing deportation, and escaped prisoners-of-war from France, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia had taken refuge in the mountains of Slovakia. They formed the first parti san units in the country. By late summer of 1944 they were reinforced by Soviet partisans parachuted into the country. The latter, consisting of hardened veterans of the war on the Eastern Front, brought the war home to Slovakia. Their activities encouraged German military intervention in the country, causing the Slovak National Upri sing to be launched under premature circumstances .5 3 For detailed descriptions of the Soviet-Czechoslovak agreeme nt, see Edvard Benes, Memoirs (London, I 954 ), pp. I 68- I 96 and Edward Taborsky, President Edward Benes Between &1st and West 1938-/948 (Stanford , I98 I), pp. 159- 174. 4 "The Christmas Agreement of 1943 ," in Joseph Mikus, Slovakia: A Political History 19 18- 1955 (Mil waukee, 1963), Appendi x VI, pp.346-347. 5 These Soviet partisans were commanded by Captain Pyotr Alexeyevitch Yelitchko. They commenced blowing up tun ne ls and bridges, and massac ring members of the German ethnic community in the minin g tow ns of ce ntral Slovaki a. Their ac ti vity culmin ated in the massacre o f members of a German military mi ss ion pass ing throu gh the country. Thi s military miss ion was ori ginally dispatched to Romani a to keep the latter in the war on the Axi s side. Since the Antonesc u regime had been overthrow n, its efforts were futile. As the German military mission passed through Slovakia, its members were intercepted in the vicinity of Turciansky Svaty Martin by Ye litchko's partisans, disg uised as Slovak soldiers. They convinced the Germans th at a bridge further ahead had been destroyed, and that they sho uld be escorted to the barracks for their own protection. It was Ye litchko 's intention that the Germans should be disarmed at the barrac ks and then sent to Partisan Headquarters in Kiev; if this fa iled , they would be exec uted. Lieutenant Colone l Emj l Perko, garrison commander at Turciansky Svaty Martin and a member of the Slovak National Council , feared for the li ves of the members of this German mili tary mission. He was inclined to treat them as guests until the Military Center in Banska Bystrica took them off his hand s. But Perk o's subordin ate, Li eutenant Cyril Ku chta, was more inc lined to �38 SLOVAKIA Throughout the course of the 1944 uprisi ng , relations between the Army and the partisans were oftentimes strai ned. To coordinate military action between the two bodies, a War Council was established. Yet the War Council became meaningless when individual partisan commanders either acted according to their own will or on orders from Partisan Headquarters in Kiev . Initiall y, the partisans were commanded by the Slovak Communist Karo l Smidke; later, the command passed to Soviet Colonel Aleksei N. Asmolov. A comparison of photographs taken of Asmolov is revealing. He arrived in Slovakia as a clean-cut regular Soviet officer; he soon grew a beard and wore a fur cap. Asmolov advised the Slovak military to adapt to the partisan method of warfare. In practice, this would involve breaking down units into smaller size, where they could be absorbed and taken over by the Communists. Relations between the military and the partisans became so tense that, during one meeting of the War Council, Golian (by now promoted to brigadier-general by the London government) referred to the partisans as "Enemy No. I ."6 A fact which is oftentimes overlooked is that not all partisans were Communists . This holds true for three particularly significant commanders: Jan Nalepka, Viliam Zingor and Josef Trojan. The fates of these individuals and the manner in which postwar jurisprudence and historiography came to grips with them merits study. The case of Trojan is particularly interesting for a number of reasons and, therefore, merits special attention. Josef Trojan was of Czech origin. He was born on March 28 , 1906, in Horni Hermanice, in Moravia. The son of a farmer, Trojan married Stanislava Novakova, who bore him three sons and two daughters. One of the daughters, Zdenka Trojanova (194 7-), eventually became a scientist of some di stinction. Trojan's formal education was limited. He attended grade school and agricultural high school in his native village, The latter provided him with enough expertise to work as administrator of the monastery estates in Nova Rise (19261931). Thereafter he was employed by the Bata shoe works, which transferred him to Slovakia. Trojan served as manager in Zlfn (1931follow Yelitchko's orders, and Kuchta was the officer in charge on the fateful ni ght of August 27-28. For an account of what fo llowed, see Jozef Jablonicky, Po vstanie bez Jegiend (Bratislava, 1990), pp.170-173. 6 Ferjenc(k, p.229. �SLOVAKIA 39 1932), Trebic (1932-1934 ), Hostavice (I 934-1938), Os Iany and Simovany during the war years. The Bata shoe works can justifiably boast of having been one of the finest Industries of the First Czechoslovak Republic . Interwar Czechoslovakia had no shortage of flaws, not the least of which was an official denial of Slovak nationality. But the state was sociall y progressive. Although decidedly anti-Bolshevik, the government of the First Republic was by no means hostile to organized labor. Tomas Bata, founder of the shoe works, was a self-made man who appears to have believed that wealth has a certain social function . The workers of the Bata industry enjoyed a comprehensive profit sharing plan, and lower level management was elective. The corporation was considered a model for progressive capitalism in the years between the two world wars. In his capacity as a manager, Trojan brought a number of Czechs into Slovakia. These naturally supported the Slovak National Uprisi ng, which offered a prelude to the liberation of their own nation . They enjoyed a certain liberty to join the Slovak insurgents that their kin in the "Reichsprotectorat" of Bohemia and Moravia were denied : not only were the latter subject to execution by the Nazis if they were caught attempting to cross over, but their families were jeopardized as hostages as well. 7 Trojan began his participation in the uprising as part of partisan group Pavel, which was headquartered in the rebel center of Banska Bystrica. Initially, the command center focused on the north, encouraging partisan activity at Zarnovice, on the Polish border, and even di spatching partisans across the border to establish contact with the Polish resistance. 8 But the situation in the south attained a certain precedence. The significance of this area during the uprisi ng should not be underestimated. Elsewhere in Slovakia, where insurgents had to give up ground, they had mountain ranges to fall back upon, which shielded the central core around Banska Bystrica. The open valleys of the southern lowlands, by contrast, offered a soft underbelly favoring the German advance. A certain amount of local sympathy 7 Karol Fremal , "The Czechs in the Resistance Movement in Slovakia", in Jan Stanislav, et. al. , We Were Not Alone (Banska Bystrica), 1994), pp.21-23 . 8 Documents pertaining to the command structure of Partisan Group Pavel. Archfv Muzea SNP,Fond IV , prir. cfs: 49/76. Pages are unnumbered. �40 SLOVAKIA also favored the Germans. In the so uthwest, an ominous new front was opened by the actions of SS Regiment Schill. Its bloodless takeover of the Nitra garrison, which numbered 2,000, was a major blow to the insurgent cause. The garrison commander, Major Smigovsky, was also a friend of the Schill commander, Obersturmfiihrer Klotz, having served with the latter on the Eastern Front. Henceforth Nitra became a supply center for the Nazi advance on Banska Bystrica. SS Regiment Schill became the most outstanding German military unit in Slovakia, ultimately capturing Banska Bystrica. It was composed largely of noncommissioned officer candidates, and had been assembled within 24 hours among Germans in the Reichsprotectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. These yo un g men were conesquently highly motivated.9 The command of partisan group Pavel di spatched Trojan southward to organize a new partisan detachment in the upper Nitra valley. He commanded approximately 150 men . 10 Troj an made contact with some of hi s Czech associates, and also recruited shoe workers of Batbvany, in southwestern Slovakia. On several occasions the Nitra Brigade held up the drive of SS Regiment Schil l in its advance towards Banska Bystrica. Colonel Ferjencfk, one of the military leaders of the upri sing, later noted that, after the fal l of Turciansky Svaty Martin around September 20, most active cooperation between the partisans and the regular military was terminated. An exception was provided by Trojan's group. 11 Enjoying the benefits of a more enlightened variety of capitalism before the war, these shoe workers were immune to Communi st attempts to recruit them. Although Trojan was not a Communist, he was not adverse to recruiting partisans of Communist or leftist sy mpathies. This particularly held true of a group of Bulgarian exchange students residing in Slovakia. Throughout the interwar period, many Balkan students of 9 Anonymous, "The Waffen SS and the Crushing of the Slovak Military Mutiny" Siegrunen: The Waffen SS in Historical Perspective Volume 5, No.6, undated, pp. 29-30 . Contributors to thi s journal consist large ly of the sons of Waffen SS officers who draw extensively from fam il y papers. 10 Document pertai ning to the history of Partisan Group Pavel , with spec ific reference to Captain Trojan and the struggle in the upper Nitra va lley . Archfv Muzea SNP, Fond IV, prir. cfs: 5 26/75, p.22. 11 Ferjencik, p.228. �SLOVAKIA 41 the mundane sciences (medicine, engineering, etc.) went for their education to the more advanced universities in Czechoslovakia. Most of them studied in Prague or Brno, in the Czech lands. In November 1939, the Nazi rulers of the Reichsprotectorate of Bohemia and Moravia shut down the Czech universities following a student protest. Most of the Bulgarians consequently transferred to Slovak (previously Comenius) Uni ve rsity in Bratislava. At the beginning of the 1940s, their numbers were estimated as between 500 and 600. 12 The life of the average Slovak university student at this time was anything but luxurious, and the Bulgarians received negligible stipends and lived in substandard housing. There was an officially sanctioned Bulgarian student society named after Georgii Rakovski , one of the national awakeners of the nineteenth century. It was nationalist and right-wing in political orientation. Yet a number of students organized their own underground association called B.O.N.S.S. (Bulharsky vseobecny narodny zvaz). Their acknowleged leader was Stojan Panov Stojanov, a student of mechanical engineering. At the time of the outbreak of the Slovak National Uprising, Bulgaria changed sides in the wake of the advance of the Soviet military. Even after the German capture of Banska Bystrica (October 27), many of the Bulgarians in Slovakia were willing to support the struggle. The bulk of these Bulgarians, under the leadership of Stojanov, was received into the Nitra Brigade on December 20. Unfortunately , the Nitra Brigade was in a particularly exposed position. Most partisan units had fallen back into the Tatras, where the terrain made their elimination by the German military more difficult than those fighting further to the south. The Nitra Brigade operated in an area where the Hron River valley stood just above the lowlands. On February 13-14, 1945, the Germans struck a decisive blow against the Nitra Brigade in the vicinity of the village of Orovnice. Stojanov and most of his followers were killed. Ten of them were captured and dispatched to Nazi concentration camps. Two among this group survived Dachau , but were too physically debilitated to last long afterwards. Two other Bulgarians man aged to escape the massac re 12 V. Valev , "Bulharskf vysokoskolaci na Slovensku", p.4 and Valerian Bys tricky, "Bulhari v SNP", p. l in Archfv Muzea SNP,Fond IV , prir. cfs: 29/71. Hereafter articles and documents from this collection shall be referred to as SNP Muzeum archives/Bulgarian collecti on. �42 SLOVAKIA and joined the advancing Red Army, although both were killed in action before the end of the war. 13 Josef Trojan had particularly sentimental feelings for these Bulgarian students. It was in thi s spirit that, on February 7, 1946, he submitted a literary contribution entitled "S lavonic Peace." He stresssed the Pan-Slav nature of the struggle, and praised the Red Army. 14 Yet Trojan had a falling out with the incoming Communist government. It was perhaps less a matter of opposition to the government than it was his previous track record, plus the political atmosphere prevailing in Czechoslovakia at this time. At this point the leadership of the Czechoslovak Communist Party requires mention. The chairman of the party was Klement Gottwald, who had spent the war years in Moscow. Those Communists who had done so generally served as wi lling executors of Soviet policy. Yet others had spent the war years in prison or had served in the resistance movements in their native countries. Although they too wished to construct socialism, they wished to do so according to conditions in their native lands. Following Yugoslavia's split with the Kremlin in June ofl 948, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered a massive purge of these nationali st elements throughout East Central Europe. Zionism was now targeted as an enemy ideology as well. Although both the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia had endorsed the creation of Israel , when the British began to depart from Palestine, the Soviets began courting the Arabs. Moreover, Stalin had always held a personal distrust of Jews since the time of his conflict with the so-called "Old Bolsheviks," many of whom were Jewish. This realignment was particularly felt in Czechoslovakia, where many of the Jews who had survived the holocaust of World War II joined the Communist Party. The Secretary General of the Party, Rudolf Stansky , was himself Jewish, although he had never considered himself a Jew or a Czech or anything other than a Communist. He had also spent the war years in the Soviet Union. As the Czechoslovak Communi st Party took on an increasingly militant approach to domestic 13 List of Bulgarians killed in Slovakia 1944-45 , in SNP Muzeum arch ives/Bulgarian collection, pp.1-2. 14 Jozef Trojan , "S lovansky mier" (February 7, I946), in SNP Muzeum archives/Bulgarian collection, p.5. �SLOVAKIA 43 affairs, Slansky ordered a wholesale inqui sition against suspected di ssidents. He created a machine of police terror which ultimately destroyed him as well. As those who were arrested were tortured to name other"conspirators," Slanskfs name became prominent. In the subsequent purge which followed , thousand s of innocent lives were destroyed. 15 Josef Trojan was arrested in Prague on the night of December 22, 1949 on the personal orders of Rudolf Slansky. He was charged with having collaborated with the Gestapo. Although Slansky was himself swept away not long afterwards, the machinery of repression had already been set in motion. Among its victims were Gustav Husak and other Slovak Communi st leaders of the 1944 upri sing, who received long terms of impri sonment. Even the death of Stalin early in 1953 did not halt the trend . Trojan was hanged on December 29th of that year. 16 A comparison of the fate of Trojan with those of the other two previously mentioned commanders reveal s a marked contrast, and more than just a few ironies. Jan Nalepka, unlike Trojan, was an intellectual. A poet and a teacher, he was noted for a mischievous disposition as a youth , and he retained hi s precociousness after having entered teachers' college in 1931. A conference of young teac hers in Komorna Lhotka (July 1933) was addressed by Czechoslovak president T . G. Masary k. The latter viewed the educational system as a means of molding young Slovaks into a "Czechoslovak" spirit. But, Nalepka whispered to hi s friend Vladimir Clementis that Slovak students were capable of cultivating their own spirits. 17 Clementis eventually became Czechoslovakia's foreign minister, and likew ise went to the gallows as a result of the "S lansky Affair." Nalepka was a lefti st, but also a nation alist. In February 1939, he began organizing clandestine elements against the governing Slovak People's Party-one month before the latter ass umed the leadership of 15 For the most comprehensive study of what has come to be known as the "Shi nsky Affair," see Jiri Pelikan, ed., The Czechoslovak Political Trials 1950-/ 954. The Suppressed Report of the Dubcek Government 's Commission of Inquiry, 1968 (London, 197 I). 16 Jozef Jablonicky, "Krute osudy ," in Vladimir Babni c, ed. , Na se povstanie (Banska Bystrica, I999), p. I00. 17 Jozef Nalepka, ed. , Jni kapit:foovi J:inovi N:ilepkovi (Spisska Nova Yes, 2002), p.28. �44 SLOVAKIA a se parate Slovak state. Yet the events of March 1939 inc luded a Hungari an invasion of eastern Slovakia. Called up fo r military service, Nalepka participated willingly in the brief border war. He saw no contradiction between thi s action and hi s ow n ideals. Later that year, Slovakia's military alliance with Nazi Germany dictated participati on in the Polish campaign. Nalepka, by then a lieutenant, fou ght with distinction on the northern side of the Carpathi ans. He was decorated by General Ferdinand Catlos, Slovakia's Minister of Defense. The war against Soviet Russia proved more problematic fo r Slovak soldiers. Slovaki a had territori al grievances with Hungary and Poland , but none with the Russians. Nalepka was ass igned to the soca ll ed "Security" Di visio n, whi ch was di spatched to the Pripet Marshes in northern Ukra ine and Be laru s fo r police duties against Soviet partisa ns. 18 He entered into c landes tine co ntact with these parti sans and eventu ally deserted to them, taking hi s men with him. The nature of parti san warfare in the swamps dictated th at Nalepka frequently travelled on horsebac k, carrying an automati c weapon. A photograph of this legend ary pose later inspired a plastic equestri an sc ulpture of him by Slovak sc ulptor Ann a Ki sakova . Nalepka's acti vity also contributed to hi s demj se. He was blled in an encounter with a German patro l outside the vill age of Ovruc on the ni ght of November 17, 1943. Co nsequentl y, Na lepka was un available to partic ipate in the Slovak National Uprising. But hi s survi ving comrades named their parti san brigade after him . The Captain Jan Nalepka Brigade was later parac huted back into Slovak ia to participate in the upri sing. Compared with other units which the Soviets ex ported, and which 18 Sold iers of the Security Division became, by Nazi standards, tota ll y corrupted by fra terni zation with local Ukrainians. Sov iet mili tary mobilization in the early part of the war had carried many yo un g men away. Others were forc ibly recruited by the Germans for labor services in th e Re ich. G ive n a shortage of domestic manpower, Ukra inian wome n rece ived th e Slovak sold iers willingly, if not enthusias ti call y. There was widespread venereal di sease among the Slovaks. Civilian hunger prompted a brisk trade in an exc lusive ly fe male commodity fo r rati ons, to the particul ar profit of Slovak warrant officers in charge of stores. As ide fro m all that, boredom drove many sold iers to alcohol ism. Slovak officers were re luctant to bring charges on such misdemeanors and began covering the m up, because men on punishment were removed from their co mmand without replacement. See Mark W. A. Axworthy, Axis Slovakia: Hitler's Slavic Wedge 1938- 1945 (Bays ide, New York, 2002), p. 148. �SLOVAKIA 45 largely engaged in looting, the Nalepka Brigade conducted itself in an exemplary manner. Together with the 2nd Czechoslovak Paratroopers, it shares credit for the capture of the strategic village of Jalna in the Hron River valley on October 10-12, 1944. This action was the last victory of the insurgents in Slovakia during the up• 19 n• smg. Nalepka died at a convenient time, which enabled him to become a legend in the postwar Communist era. Hi s peasant parents were received with honor in the Soviet Union at memorial services dedicated to the captain. His popularity survived the collapse of the Communist system in East Central Europe. Streets in various Slovak communities are still named after him. Being an established folk hero has its privileges. Viliam Zingor, like Nalepka, was an army deserter. Called up for service on the Eastern Front, he instead took to the mountains in the vicinity of Turciansky Svaty Martin. He was the brother of a nationally renowned hunter. Bohus Zingor was well known among forest rangers, a fact which was of considerable help to his fugitive brother. When Viliam Zingor took to hiding on the Podstranie Mountain, he was befriended and sheltered by forest ranger Ladislav Frimmel. The Zingor brothers and Frimmel organized a network to aid other fugitives. A significant member of this group was Vladimir Iershov, a Slovak professor of Ru ssian extraction. Iershov's area of specialty was escaped Soviet prisoners of war who had made their way to the Slovak highlands. These included people of Russian , Ukrainian, Georgian and Armenian nationalities.2° They played a key role in the overall partisan movement during the events of autumn 1944. By March of 1944, Viliam Zingor commanded a significant number of partisans in the vicinity of the Podstranie Mountain. In August, membership was estimated at roughly 100 men. Later that month the group was reinforced by Soviet partisans commanded by Captain Pyotr Alekseyevitch Velitchko, who had parachuted into 19 Ibid, p.292. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Un ion, participants in the Slovak National Uprising from the various republics were acknow ledged and honored simply as citizens of the Soviet Union. At the time of the 60th anniversary in Hanska Bystrica, a number of ambassadors of now sovereign republics participated in the celebrations. The participation of their citizens was duly acknow ledged by the Muzeum SNP, leading to a dramatic increase of nations listed as having contributed to the uprising. 20 �46 SLOVAKIA Slovakia. On August 25 - four days before the formal commencement of the upri sing - Zingor was made commander of the M. R. Stefanik Brigade. This partisan brigade was named after the Slovak member of the founding fathers of Czechoslovakia, who held the rank of brigadier-general in the army of France during the First World War. It was so named in part because of a large number of French members. Earlier in the war, French soldiers who had escaped from prisoner of war camps in Germany made their way eastward. It was their intention to reac h neutral Turkey , from whence they could board ships and make their way back to the Allied side. Most of these Frenchmen were recaptured or interned in either Slovakia or Hungary. The Slovak underground arranged their escape and transfer to the mountains around Turciansky Svaty Martin , where they were absorbed into the partisan movement. These Frenchmen enjoyed a certain independence of command under Lieutenant Georges Barazar de Lannurien. During the opening weeks of the uprising, they halted the German advance in the vicinity of Strecno. 21 Viliam Zingor supported the Democratic Party of Jozef Lettrich (a member of the Slovak National Council during the upri sing) in the years immediately following the war. Consequently, he opposed the incoming Communist government. Mutual antagonism intensified after the Communists consolidated power in February of 1948 . By now the state had recourse against Zingor. It alleged that he and several wartime associates had established a subversive organization. This body was said to be inspired by the "Anglo-American imperialists," now enemies of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia's protector. Zingor and his associates were accused of agitating among the trade union s. It was further alleged that they had disbursed various funds for this purpose. They were put on trial on October 12-2 1, 1950, 21 For an English-language acco unt of the French participation in Slovakia, see Bohus Chnoupek, A Breaking of Seals: The French Resistance in Slovakia (Oxford and New York, 1988). Chnoupek was a Slovak journalist who first publicized the French role at the time of the tenth anniversary of the upri sing. Later, he became Czechoslovakia's foreign minister under the Husak regime. For the most comprehensive work on the subject, see Dusan Halaj et. al., Francuzi v Slovenskom narodnom povstanf (Banska Bystrica, 2003). �SLOVAKIA 47 were found guilty, and were sentenced to death .22 Zingor was executed the following year. Viliam Zingor's rehabilitation came about as a result of the democratic reforms temporarily effected in Czechoslovakia in 1968. At the beginning of that year Slovak Communist Party leader Alexander Dubcek assumed the leadership of the Czechoslovak Communist Party . The way was paved for the redress of many outstanding grievances. Relatives of the defendants in the Zingor trial maintained that allegations concerning the disbursement of funds for illegal purposes were the invention of "agents provocateurs" in the service of State Security. It may be argued that the reviewing court was more generous than just in its evaluation. The hostility of the defendants to the Communist regime was an unquestionable fact. Yet, insofar as no network of conspiratorial activity actually existed, the district court of Banska Bystrica formally overturned the verdicts on April 29, 1968. 23 Czechoslovakia's democratic reforms , popularly known as the "Prague Spring," were abruptly terminated in August of that year. The Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia. Within a year Dubcek was forced out of his position as Party Secretary and replaced by Gustav Husak. A one-time Slovak nationalist and former political prisoner, Husak now acknowledged Soviet hegemony as an unavoidable fact and urged his countrymen to do likewise. He thus became the enforcer of Soviet policy in that hapless land . But the status of the Slovaks underwent a revision formally acting in their favor . Czechoslovakia was federalized into two republics - one Czech and the other Slovak although both were subject to a common Communi st Party . Most significantly, the official attitude towards the Slovak Nation al Upri22 Copies of documents pertainin g to both the prosecution of and the verdi ct on the state's case against Zingor may be found in the archives of the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising in Banska Bystrica. For the prosecution , see Odpi s zaloby rok 1950 in Archfv Muzea SNP, Fond IV , prir. cfs: 576/9 1, pp. 1-20. For the verdict , see Rozsudok rok 1950, Archiv Muzea SNP, Fond IV, prir. cfs : 575/96, pp. I - 15. 23 Documents pertaining to th e review of the case of the state versus Z ingor and associates may be found in the archives of the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising in Banska Bystri ca. For the formal verdict, see Rozsudok rok 1968 in Archfv Muzea SNP, Fond IV, prir. cfs: 5 76/9 1, pp.1 -33 . For the rehabilitati on, see Uznesenie rok 1968 in Archfv Muzea SN P, Fond IV, prir. cfs : 5 76/91 , pp. 1- 10. �48 SLOVAKIA sing changed. Previously vilified, it was now hailed as a cornerstone in relations between the two nationalities. Consequently, Zingor's rehabilitation was permitted to stand, and he began receiving honorable mention in officially sanctioned historical publications. The fact that he had aided escaped Soviet P.O.W.S made him less than objectionable to Czechoslovakia's overlords. Josef Trojan had to wai t another generation before receiving honorable mention in Slovak history books. Ironically, his memory is treated more charitably by Slovak historians such as Jozef Jablonicky than it is among his own Czech people. Trojan's case was reviewed following the collapse of the Communist system in the Velvet Revolution of autumn 1989. He was exonerated on the charge of having collaborated with the Gestapo, and his death penalty was overturned. But a conviction and prison sentence remained in force on the grounds that Trojan "organized murder," in this case hav ing executed members of his own partisan unit. Trojan 's case raises an interesting legal question. Under common maritime law, a captain on an isolated ship has virtually unlimited authority to execute insubordinates. To what extent does this apply to a partisan commander in an insurgent situation, in a country where the successor government disavows the sovereignty of the previous one? Czech historian Jan Rychlik has asserted that, according to a law promulgated on May 8, 1946, acts committed between September 30, 1938 and October 28,1945, which normally would be considered crimes, were not punishable if they contributed to the liberation of the Czech and Slovak peoples. Internal military ordinances permitted the commander to use force (including the use of firearms) under field conditions in which subordinate soldiers refu sed to fulfill orders. The question of the application of these legal norms, however, remained contingent upon the decision of an individual court. 24 A Slovak partisan who knew Trojan both before and after the war concurs with the revised verdict. Jan Kulhan began the war as a Slovak soldier di spatched to the Eastern Front. Like many others, he changed sides, becoming a member of the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps commanded by General Ludvik Svoboda. He was di spatched 24 Law of May 8, 1946 (No. 11 5/ 1946) from Collection of Laws, Official Law Gazette. Information provided by Jan Rychlfk, to whom the present author expresses his gratitude. �SLOVAKIA 49 ahead of the front on a mission to destroy German-held oil wells in southern Poland. Kulhan's recollection of Trojan remains a lively and coherent one. According to Kulhan , Trojan actually joined the Communist Party after the war. At this time he was noted as a stern manager, going so far as to insist that employees show up for work. Kulhan asserted that the charge of having collaborated with the Gestapo was a fabrication. Trojan's honeymoon with the Czechoslovak Communist Party was a brief one, and his disillusionment placed him on a collision course. Kulhan also conceded that, given his professional background, Trojan's partisans were perhaps the best shod in the Slovak National Uprising. But several friends of Kulhan's sister were among the partisans who were executed. Kulhan maintain s that Trojan acted wrongfully in this matter. 25 At the time of the writing of this essay, the Czech judicial system maintains an enigmatic silence concerning Trojan, although his case is again open for review. Meanwhile, Slovak historians and octogenarian veterans of World War II alike look forward to the rehabilitation of a man who, although born a Czech , enjoys a certain reputation as a Slovak hero. Yet, judging from the opinion of Kulhan , not all octogenarians agree. It remains for the Czech judicial system to give a complete account of the execution of partisans by Trojan, and the state's case against him. 25 Telephone interview with John Kulhan, August I0 , 2005. Mr. Kulhan is today a U.S. citizen and is currently a nominee fo r the Pres identi al Medal of Freedom. � 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 2007, Vol. 39 Description An account of the resource Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007. 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 2007 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 36 SLOVAKIA SLOVAK PARTISAN COMMANDERS IN WORLD WAR TI: THE CASE OF JOSEF TROJAN R. Vladimir Baumgarten The Slovak resistance movement, which opposed the Nazis and the Government of the Slovak Repub lic in World War II, was sharply divided into two different and, oftentimes, conflicting orientations. One of them was both pro-Western and pro-Czech. Its adherents were most strongly represented by officers of the Slovak Army. In February of 1944 a group of four dissident lieutenant colonels Jan Golian, Mikulas Ferjencfk, Mirko Yesel and Dezider Kiss-Kalina-established contact with the Czechoslovak Government-in-Ex ile in London. Go lian was designated by the London government to head the uprising, which eventually took place in Aug ust of that year. These officers were unashamed to announce that they wanted a restoration of Czechoslovakia as it had been before the Munich accord of 1938. 1 It never occurred to them that, perhaps many Slovaks were fighting for something different - not the least of which was their recognition as a disti nct nation . The Communists, who represented the other orientation, had taken thi s difference into account. The Slovak Communist Party began its own resistance after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Initiall y, it did not favor the restoration of Czechoslovakia. Although opposed to the Nazis and the domestic regime of priest-president Jozef Tiso, the Communists were inclined toward s either a separate Slovak state or the incorporation of Slovakia as a republic of the Soviet Union. 2 Thi s position changed after the London government concluded a treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union 1 Mikulas Ferjencfk, "The Slovak ational Uprising and Mission to the USS R," in Lewis M. White, ed. , On All Fronts: Czechoslovaks in World War II Part II (Washington and New York, 1995), p.231. 2 Gustav Hu sak, "O vyvoji a situac ii na Slovensku" Svedectvi XV (58 ), I 979, pp. 377-378. SLOVAKIA 37 late in 1943. 3 The Soviet Union favored the restoration of Czechoslovakia, a position that the Slovak Communists now had to take into acco unt. Henceforth the Communists, who made up half of the membership of the underground Slovak National Council, did likewise. It was intended, however, that the mistakes of the past would be avoided , and that Slovakia would play a greater role in the resur4 rected Czechoslovak state. By thi s time the Communists had assumed a predominant role in another resistance element which had begun to emerge. Since 1942, political di ssidents, military deserters, Jews fearing deportation, and escaped prisoners-of-war from France, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia had taken refuge in the mountains of Slovakia. They formed the first parti san units in the country. By late summer of 1944 they were reinforced by Soviet partisans parachuted into the country. The latter, consisting of hardened veterans of the war on the Eastern Front, brought the war home to Slovakia. Their activities encouraged German military intervention in the country, causing the Slovak National Upri sing to be launched under premature circumstances .5 3 For detailed descriptions of the Soviet-Czechoslovak agreeme nt, see Edvard Benes, Memoirs (London, I 954 ), pp. I 68- I 96 and Edward Taborsky, President Edward Benes Between &1st and West 1938-/948 (Stanford , I98 I), pp. 159- 174. 4 "The Christmas Agreement of 1943 ," in Joseph Mikus, Slovakia: A Political History 19 18- 1955 (Mil waukee, 1963), Appendi x VI, pp.346-347. 5 These Soviet partisans were commanded by Captain Pyotr Alexeyevitch Yelitchko. They commenced blowing up tun ne ls and bridges, and massac ring members of the German ethnic community in the minin g tow ns of ce ntral Slovaki a. Their ac ti vity culmin ated in the massacre o f members of a German military mi ss ion pass ing throu gh the country. Thi s military miss ion was ori ginally dispatched to Romani a to keep the latter in the war on the Axi s side. Since the Antonesc u regime had been overthrow n, its efforts were futile. As the German military mission passed through Slovakia, its members were intercepted in the vicinity of Turciansky Svaty Martin by Ye litchko's partisans, disg uised as Slovak soldiers. They convinced the Germans th at a bridge further ahead had been destroyed, and that they sho uld be escorted to the barracks for their own protection. It was Ye litchko 's intention that the Germans should be disarmed at the barrac ks and then sent to Partisan Headquarters in Kiev; if this fa iled , they would be exec uted. Lieutenant Colone l Emj l Perko, garrison commander at Turciansky Svaty Martin and a member of the Slovak National Council , feared for the li ves of the members of this German mili tary mission. He was inclined to treat them as guests until the Military Center in Banska Bystrica took them off his hand s. But Perk o's subordin ate, Li eutenant Cyril Ku chta, was more inc lined to 38 SLOVAKIA Throughout the course of the 1944 uprisi ng , relations between the Army and the partisans were oftentimes strai ned. To coordinate military action between the two bodies, a War Council was established. Yet the War Council became meaningless when individual partisan commanders either acted according to their own will or on orders from Partisan Headquarters in Kiev . Initiall y, the partisans were commanded by the Slovak Communist Karo l Smidke; later, the command passed to Soviet Colonel Aleksei N. Asmolov. A comparison of photographs taken of Asmolov is revealing. He arrived in Slovakia as a clean-cut regular Soviet officer; he soon grew a beard and wore a fur cap. Asmolov advised the Slovak military to adapt to the partisan method of warfare. In practice, this would involve breaking down units into smaller size, where they could be absorbed and taken over by the Communists. Relations between the military and the partisans became so tense that, during one meeting of the War Council, Golian (by now promoted to brigadier-general by the London government) referred to the partisans as "Enemy No. I ."6 A fact which is oftentimes overlooked is that not all partisans were Communists . This holds true for three particularly significant commanders: Jan Nalepka, Viliam Zingor and Josef Trojan. The fates of these individuals and the manner in which postwar jurisprudence and historiography came to grips with them merits study. The case of Trojan is particularly interesting for a number of reasons and, therefore, merits special attention. Josef Trojan was of Czech origin. He was born on March 28 , 1906, in Horni Hermanice, in Moravia. The son of a farmer, Trojan married Stanislava Novakova, who bore him three sons and two daughters. One of the daughters, Zdenka Trojanova (194 7-), eventually became a scientist of some di stinction. Trojan's formal education was limited. He attended grade school and agricultural high school in his native village, The latter provided him with enough expertise to work as administrator of the monastery estates in Nova Rise (19261931). Thereafter he was employed by the Bata shoe works, which transferred him to Slovakia. Trojan served as manager in Zlfn (1931follow Yelitchko's orders, and Kuchta was the officer in charge on the fateful ni ght of August 27-28. For an account of what fo llowed, see Jozef Jablonicky, Po vstanie bez Jegiend (Bratislava, 1990), pp.170-173. 6 Ferjenc(k, p.229. SLOVAKIA 39 1932), Trebic (1932-1934 ), Hostavice (I 934-1938), Os Iany and Simovany during the war years. The Bata shoe works can justifiably boast of having been one of the finest Industries of the First Czechoslovak Republic . Interwar Czechoslovakia had no shortage of flaws, not the least of which was an official denial of Slovak nationality. But the state was sociall y progressive. Although decidedly anti-Bolshevik, the government of the First Republic was by no means hostile to organized labor. Tomas Bata, founder of the shoe works, was a self-made man who appears to have believed that wealth has a certain social function . The workers of the Bata industry enjoyed a comprehensive profit sharing plan, and lower level management was elective. The corporation was considered a model for progressive capitalism in the years between the two world wars. In his capacity as a manager, Trojan brought a number of Czechs into Slovakia. These naturally supported the Slovak National Uprisi ng, which offered a prelude to the liberation of their own nation . They enjoyed a certain liberty to join the Slovak insurgents that their kin in the "Reichsprotectorat" of Bohemia and Moravia were denied : not only were the latter subject to execution by the Nazis if they were caught attempting to cross over, but their families were jeopardized as hostages as well. 7 Trojan began his participation in the uprising as part of partisan group Pavel, which was headquartered in the rebel center of Banska Bystrica. Initially, the command center focused on the north, encouraging partisan activity at Zarnovice, on the Polish border, and even di spatching partisans across the border to establish contact with the Polish resistance. 8 But the situation in the south attained a certain precedence. The significance of this area during the uprisi ng should not be underestimated. Elsewhere in Slovakia, where insurgents had to give up ground, they had mountain ranges to fall back upon, which shielded the central core around Banska Bystrica. The open valleys of the southern lowlands, by contrast, offered a soft underbelly favoring the German advance. A certain amount of local sympathy 7 Karol Fremal , "The Czechs in the Resistance Movement in Slovakia", in Jan Stanislav, et. al. , We Were Not Alone (Banska Bystrica), 1994), pp.21-23 . 8 Documents pertaining to the command structure of Partisan Group Pavel. Archfv Muzea SNP,Fond IV , prir. cfs: 49/76. Pages are unnumbered. 40 SLOVAKIA also favored the Germans. In the so uthwest, an ominous new front was opened by the actions of SS Regiment Schill. Its bloodless takeover of the Nitra garrison, which numbered 2,000, was a major blow to the insurgent cause. The garrison commander, Major Smigovsky, was also a friend of the Schill commander, Obersturmfiihrer Klotz, having served with the latter on the Eastern Front. Henceforth Nitra became a supply center for the Nazi advance on Banska Bystrica. SS Regiment Schill became the most outstanding German military unit in Slovakia, ultimately capturing Banska Bystrica. It was composed largely of noncommissioned officer candidates, and had been assembled within 24 hours among Germans in the Reichsprotectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. These yo un g men were conesquently highly motivated.9 The command of partisan group Pavel di spatched Trojan southward to organize a new partisan detachment in the upper Nitra valley. He commanded approximately 150 men . 10 Troj an made contact with some of hi s Czech associates, and also recruited shoe workers of Batbvany, in southwestern Slovakia. On several occasions the Nitra Brigade held up the drive of SS Regiment Schil l in its advance towards Banska Bystrica. Colonel Ferjencfk, one of the military leaders of the upri sing, later noted that, after the fal l of Turciansky Svaty Martin around September 20, most active cooperation between the partisans and the regular military was terminated. An exception was provided by Trojan's group. 11 Enjoying the benefits of a more enlightened variety of capitalism before the war, these shoe workers were immune to Communi st attempts to recruit them. Although Trojan was not a Communist, he was not adverse to recruiting partisans of Communist or leftist sy mpathies. This particularly held true of a group of Bulgarian exchange students residing in Slovakia. Throughout the interwar period, many Balkan students of 9 Anonymous, "The Waffen SS and the Crushing of the Slovak Military Mutiny" Siegrunen: The Waffen SS in Historical Perspective Volume 5, No.6, undated, pp. 29-30 . Contributors to thi s journal consist large ly of the sons of Waffen SS officers who draw extensively from fam il y papers. 10 Document pertai ning to the history of Partisan Group Pavel , with spec ific reference to Captain Trojan and the struggle in the upper Nitra va lley . Archfv Muzea SNP, Fond IV, prir. cfs: 5 26/75, p.22. 11 Ferjencik, p.228. SLOVAKIA 41 the mundane sciences (medicine, engineering, etc.) went for their education to the more advanced universities in Czechoslovakia. Most of them studied in Prague or Brno, in the Czech lands. In November 1939, the Nazi rulers of the Reichsprotectorate of Bohemia and Moravia shut down the Czech universities following a student protest. Most of the Bulgarians consequently transferred to Slovak (previously Comenius) Uni ve rsity in Bratislava. At the beginning of the 1940s, their numbers were estimated as between 500 and 600. 12 The life of the average Slovak university student at this time was anything but luxurious, and the Bulgarians received negligible stipends and lived in substandard housing. There was an officially sanctioned Bulgarian student society named after Georgii Rakovski , one of the national awakeners of the nineteenth century. It was nationalist and right-wing in political orientation. Yet a number of students organized their own underground association called B.O.N.S.S. (Bulharsky vseobecny narodny zvaz). Their acknowleged leader was Stojan Panov Stojanov, a student of mechanical engineering. At the time of the outbreak of the Slovak National Uprising, Bulgaria changed sides in the wake of the advance of the Soviet military. Even after the German capture of Banska Bystrica (October 27), many of the Bulgarians in Slovakia were willing to support the struggle. The bulk of these Bulgarians, under the leadership of Stojanov, was received into the Nitra Brigade on December 20. Unfortunately , the Nitra Brigade was in a particularly exposed position. Most partisan units had fallen back into the Tatras, where the terrain made their elimination by the German military more difficult than those fighting further to the south. The Nitra Brigade operated in an area where the Hron River valley stood just above the lowlands. On February 13-14, 1945, the Germans struck a decisive blow against the Nitra Brigade in the vicinity of the village of Orovnice. Stojanov and most of his followers were killed. Ten of them were captured and dispatched to Nazi concentration camps. Two among this group survived Dachau , but were too physically debilitated to last long afterwards. Two other Bulgarians man aged to escape the massac re 12 V. Valev , "Bulharskf vysokoskolaci na Slovensku", p.4 and Valerian Bys tricky, "Bulhari v SNP", p. l in Archfv Muzea SNP,Fond IV , prir. cfs: 29/71. Hereafter articles and documents from this collection shall be referred to as SNP Muzeum archives/Bulgarian collecti on. 42 SLOVAKIA and joined the advancing Red Army, although both were killed in action before the end of the war. 13 Josef Trojan had particularly sentimental feelings for these Bulgarian students. It was in thi s spirit that, on February 7, 1946, he submitted a literary contribution entitled "S lavonic Peace." He stresssed the Pan-Slav nature of the struggle, and praised the Red Army. 14 Yet Trojan had a falling out with the incoming Communist government. It was perhaps less a matter of opposition to the government than it was his previous track record, plus the political atmosphere prevailing in Czechoslovakia at this time. At this point the leadership of the Czechoslovak Communist Party requires mention. The chairman of the party was Klement Gottwald, who had spent the war years in Moscow. Those Communists who had done so generally served as wi lling executors of Soviet policy. Yet others had spent the war years in prison or had served in the resistance movements in their native countries. Although they too wished to construct socialism, they wished to do so according to conditions in their native lands. Following Yugoslavia's split with the Kremlin in June ofl 948, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered a massive purge of these nationali st elements throughout East Central Europe. Zionism was now targeted as an enemy ideology as well. Although both the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia had endorsed the creation of Israel , when the British began to depart from Palestine, the Soviets began courting the Arabs. Moreover, Stalin had always held a personal distrust of Jews since the time of his conflict with the so-called "Old Bolsheviks," many of whom were Jewish. This realignment was particularly felt in Czechoslovakia, where many of the Jews who had survived the holocaust of World War II joined the Communist Party. The Secretary General of the Party, Rudolf Stansky , was himself Jewish, although he had never considered himself a Jew or a Czech or anything other than a Communist. He had also spent the war years in the Soviet Union. As the Czechoslovak Communi st Party took on an increasingly militant approach to domestic 13 List of Bulgarians killed in Slovakia 1944-45 , in SNP Muzeum arch ives/Bulgarian collection, pp.1-2. 14 Jozef Trojan , "S lovansky mier" (February 7, I946), in SNP Muzeum archives/Bulgarian collection, p.5. SLOVAKIA 43 affairs, Slansky ordered a wholesale inqui sition against suspected di ssidents. He created a machine of police terror which ultimately destroyed him as well. As those who were arrested were tortured to name other"conspirators," Slanskfs name became prominent. In the subsequent purge which followed , thousand s of innocent lives were destroyed. 15 Josef Trojan was arrested in Prague on the night of December 22, 1949 on the personal orders of Rudolf Slansky. He was charged with having collaborated with the Gestapo. Although Slansky was himself swept away not long afterwards, the machinery of repression had already been set in motion. Among its victims were Gustav Husak and other Slovak Communi st leaders of the 1944 upri sing, who received long terms of impri sonment. Even the death of Stalin early in 1953 did not halt the trend . Trojan was hanged on December 29th of that year. 16 A comparison of the fate of Trojan with those of the other two previously mentioned commanders reveal s a marked contrast, and more than just a few ironies. Jan Nalepka, unlike Trojan, was an intellectual. A poet and a teacher, he was noted for a mischievous disposition as a youth , and he retained hi s precociousness after having entered teachers' college in 1931. A conference of young teac hers in Komorna Lhotka (July 1933) was addressed by Czechoslovak president T . G. Masary k. The latter viewed the educational system as a means of molding young Slovaks into a "Czechoslovak" spirit. But, Nalepka whispered to hi s friend Vladimir Clementis that Slovak students were capable of cultivating their own spirits. 17 Clementis eventually became Czechoslovakia's foreign minister, and likew ise went to the gallows as a result of the "S lansky Affair." Nalepka was a lefti st, but also a nation alist. In February 1939, he began organizing clandestine elements against the governing Slovak People's Party-one month before the latter ass umed the leadership of 15 For the most comprehensive study of what has come to be known as the "Shi nsky Affair," see Jiri Pelikan, ed., The Czechoslovak Political Trials 1950-/ 954. The Suppressed Report of the Dubcek Government 's Commission of Inquiry, 1968 (London, 197 I). 16 Jozef Jablonicky, "Krute osudy ," in Vladimir Babni c, ed. , Na se povstanie (Banska Bystrica, I999), p. I00. 17 Jozef Nalepka, ed. , Jni kapit:foovi J:inovi N:ilepkovi (Spisska Nova Yes, 2002), p.28. 44 SLOVAKIA a se parate Slovak state. Yet the events of March 1939 inc luded a Hungari an invasion of eastern Slovakia. Called up fo r military service, Nalepka participated willingly in the brief border war. He saw no contradiction between thi s action and hi s ow n ideals. Later that year, Slovakia's military alliance with Nazi Germany dictated participati on in the Polish campaign. Nalepka, by then a lieutenant, fou ght with distinction on the northern side of the Carpathi ans. He was decorated by General Ferdinand Catlos, Slovakia's Minister of Defense. The war against Soviet Russia proved more problematic fo r Slovak soldiers. Slovaki a had territori al grievances with Hungary and Poland , but none with the Russians. Nalepka was ass igned to the soca ll ed "Security" Di visio n, whi ch was di spatched to the Pripet Marshes in northern Ukra ine and Be laru s fo r police duties against Soviet partisa ns. 18 He entered into c landes tine co ntact with these parti sans and eventu ally deserted to them, taking hi s men with him. The nature of parti san warfare in the swamps dictated th at Nalepka frequently travelled on horsebac k, carrying an automati c weapon. A photograph of this legend ary pose later inspired a plastic equestri an sc ulpture of him by Slovak sc ulptor Ann a Ki sakova . Nalepka's acti vity also contributed to hi s demj se. He was blled in an encounter with a German patro l outside the vill age of Ovruc on the ni ght of November 17, 1943. Co nsequentl y, Na lepka was un available to partic ipate in the Slovak National Uprising. But hi s survi ving comrades named their parti san brigade after him . The Captain Jan Nalepka Brigade was later parac huted back into Slovak ia to participate in the upri sing. Compared with other units which the Soviets ex ported, and which 18 Sold iers of the Security Division became, by Nazi standards, tota ll y corrupted by fra terni zation with local Ukrainians. Sov iet mili tary mobilization in the early part of the war had carried many yo un g men away. Others were forc ibly recruited by the Germans for labor services in th e Re ich. G ive n a shortage of domestic manpower, Ukra inian wome n rece ived th e Slovak sold iers willingly, if not enthusias ti call y. There was widespread venereal di sease among the Slovaks. Civilian hunger prompted a brisk trade in an exc lusive ly fe male commodity fo r rati ons, to the particul ar profit of Slovak warrant officers in charge of stores. As ide fro m all that, boredom drove many sold iers to alcohol ism. Slovak officers were re luctant to bring charges on such misdemeanors and began covering the m up, because men on punishment were removed from their co mmand without replacement. See Mark W. A. Axworthy, Axis Slovakia: Hitler's Slavic Wedge 1938- 1945 (Bays ide, New York, 2002), p. 148. SLOVAKIA 45 largely engaged in looting, the Nalepka Brigade conducted itself in an exemplary manner. Together with the 2nd Czechoslovak Paratroopers, it shares credit for the capture of the strategic village of Jalna in the Hron River valley on October 10-12, 1944. This action was the last victory of the insurgents in Slovakia during the up• 19 n• smg. Nalepka died at a convenient time, which enabled him to become a legend in the postwar Communist era. Hi s peasant parents were received with honor in the Soviet Union at memorial services dedicated to the captain. His popularity survived the collapse of the Communist system in East Central Europe. Streets in various Slovak communities are still named after him. Being an established folk hero has its privileges. Viliam Zingor, like Nalepka, was an army deserter. Called up for service on the Eastern Front, he instead took to the mountains in the vicinity of Turciansky Svaty Martin. He was the brother of a nationally renowned hunter. Bohus Zingor was well known among forest rangers, a fact which was of considerable help to his fugitive brother. When Viliam Zingor took to hiding on the Podstranie Mountain, he was befriended and sheltered by forest ranger Ladislav Frimmel. The Zingor brothers and Frimmel organized a network to aid other fugitives. A significant member of this group was Vladimir Iershov, a Slovak professor of Ru ssian extraction. Iershov's area of specialty was escaped Soviet prisoners of war who had made their way to the Slovak highlands. These included people of Russian , Ukrainian, Georgian and Armenian nationalities.2° They played a key role in the overall partisan movement during the events of autumn 1944. By March of 1944, Viliam Zingor commanded a significant number of partisans in the vicinity of the Podstranie Mountain. In August, membership was estimated at roughly 100 men. Later that month the group was reinforced by Soviet partisans commanded by Captain Pyotr Alekseyevitch Velitchko, who had parachuted into 19 Ibid, p.292. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Un ion, participants in the Slovak National Uprising from the various republics were acknow ledged and honored simply as citizens of the Soviet Union. At the time of the 60th anniversary in Hanska Bystrica, a number of ambassadors of now sovereign republics participated in the celebrations. The participation of their citizens was duly acknow ledged by the Muzeum SNP, leading to a dramatic increase of nations listed as having contributed to the uprising. 20 46 SLOVAKIA Slovakia. On August 25 - four days before the formal commencement of the upri sing - Zingor was made commander of the M. R. Stefanik Brigade. This partisan brigade was named after the Slovak member of the founding fathers of Czechoslovakia, who held the rank of brigadier-general in the army of France during the First World War. It was so named in part because of a large number of French members. Earlier in the war, French soldiers who had escaped from prisoner of war camps in Germany made their way eastward. It was their intention to reac h neutral Turkey , from whence they could board ships and make their way back to the Allied side. Most of these Frenchmen were recaptured or interned in either Slovakia or Hungary. The Slovak underground arranged their escape and transfer to the mountains around Turciansky Svaty Martin , where they were absorbed into the partisan movement. These Frenchmen enjoyed a certain independence of command under Lieutenant Georges Barazar de Lannurien. During the opening weeks of the uprising, they halted the German advance in the vicinity of Strecno. 21 Viliam Zingor supported the Democratic Party of Jozef Lettrich (a member of the Slovak National Council during the upri sing) in the years immediately following the war. Consequently, he opposed the incoming Communist government. Mutual antagonism intensified after the Communists consolidated power in February of 1948 . By now the state had recourse against Zingor. It alleged that he and several wartime associates had established a subversive organization. This body was said to be inspired by the "Anglo-American imperialists," now enemies of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia's protector. Zingor and his associates were accused of agitating among the trade union s. It was further alleged that they had disbursed various funds for this purpose. They were put on trial on October 12-2 1, 1950, 21 For an English-language acco unt of the French participation in Slovakia, see Bohus Chnoupek, A Breaking of Seals: The French Resistance in Slovakia (Oxford and New York, 1988). Chnoupek was a Slovak journalist who first publicized the French role at the time of the tenth anniversary of the upri sing. Later, he became Czechoslovakia's foreign minister under the Husak regime. For the most comprehensive work on the subject, see Dusan Halaj et. al., Francuzi v Slovenskom narodnom povstanf (Banska Bystrica, 2003). SLOVAKIA 47 were found guilty, and were sentenced to death .22 Zingor was executed the following year. Viliam Zingor's rehabilitation came about as a result of the democratic reforms temporarily effected in Czechoslovakia in 1968. At the beginning of that year Slovak Communist Party leader Alexander Dubcek assumed the leadership of the Czechoslovak Communist Party . The way was paved for the redress of many outstanding grievances. Relatives of the defendants in the Zingor trial maintained that allegations concerning the disbursement of funds for illegal purposes were the invention of "agents provocateurs" in the service of State Security. It may be argued that the reviewing court was more generous than just in its evaluation. The hostility of the defendants to the Communist regime was an unquestionable fact. Yet, insofar as no network of conspiratorial activity actually existed, the district court of Banska Bystrica formally overturned the verdicts on April 29, 1968. 23 Czechoslovakia's democratic reforms , popularly known as the "Prague Spring," were abruptly terminated in August of that year. The Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia. Within a year Dubcek was forced out of his position as Party Secretary and replaced by Gustav Husak. A one-time Slovak nationalist and former political prisoner, Husak now acknowledged Soviet hegemony as an unavoidable fact and urged his countrymen to do likewise. He thus became the enforcer of Soviet policy in that hapless land . But the status of the Slovaks underwent a revision formally acting in their favor . Czechoslovakia was federalized into two republics - one Czech and the other Slovak although both were subject to a common Communi st Party . Most significantly, the official attitude towards the Slovak Nation al Upri22 Copies of documents pertainin g to both the prosecution of and the verdi ct on the state's case against Zingor may be found in the archives of the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising in Banska Bystrica. For the prosecution , see Odpi s zaloby rok 1950 in Archfv Muzea SNP, Fond IV , prir. cfs: 576/9 1, pp. 1-20. For the verdict , see Rozsudok rok 1950, Archiv Muzea SNP, Fond IV, prir. cfs : 575/96, pp. I - 15. 23 Documents pertaining to th e review of the case of the state versus Z ingor and associates may be found in the archives of the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising in Banska Bystri ca. For the formal verdict, see Rozsudok rok 1968 in Archfv Muzea SNP, Fond IV, prir. cfs: 5 76/9 1, pp.1 -33 . For the rehabilitati on, see Uznesenie rok 1968 in Archfv Muzea SN P, Fond IV, prir. cfs : 5 76/91 , pp. 1- 10. 48 SLOVAKIA sing changed. Previously vilified, it was now hailed as a cornerstone in relations between the two nationalities. Consequently, Zingor's rehabilitation was permitted to stand, and he began receiving honorable mention in officially sanctioned historical publications. The fact that he had aided escaped Soviet P.O.W.S made him less than objectionable to Czechoslovakia's overlords. Josef Trojan had to wai t another generation before receiving honorable mention in Slovak history books. Ironically, his memory is treated more charitably by Slovak historians such as Jozef Jablonicky than it is among his own Czech people. Trojan's case was reviewed following the collapse of the Communist system in the Velvet Revolution of autumn 1989. He was exonerated on the charge of having collaborated with the Gestapo, and his death penalty was overturned. But a conviction and prison sentence remained in force on the grounds that Trojan "organized murder," in this case hav ing executed members of his own partisan unit. Trojan 's case raises an interesting legal question. Under common maritime law, a captain on an isolated ship has virtually unlimited authority to execute insubordinates. To what extent does this apply to a partisan commander in an insurgent situation, in a country where the successor government disavows the sovereignty of the previous one? Czech historian Jan Rychlik has asserted that, according to a law promulgated on May 8, 1946, acts committed between September 30, 1938 and October 28,1945, which normally would be considered crimes, were not punishable if they contributed to the liberation of the Czech and Slovak peoples. Internal military ordinances permitted the commander to use force (including the use of firearms) under field conditions in which subordinate soldiers refu sed to fulfill orders. The question of the application of these legal norms, however, remained contingent upon the decision of an individual court. 24 A Slovak partisan who knew Trojan both before and after the war concurs with the revised verdict. Jan Kulhan began the war as a Slovak soldier di spatched to the Eastern Front. Like many others, he changed sides, becoming a member of the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps commanded by General Ludvik Svoboda. He was di spatched 24 Law of May 8, 1946 (No. 11 5/ 1946) from Collection of Laws, Official Law Gazette. Information provided by Jan Rychlfk, to whom the present author expresses his gratitude. SLOVAKIA 49 ahead of the front on a mission to destroy German-held oil wells in southern Poland. Kulhan's recollection of Trojan remains a lively and coherent one. According to Kulhan , Trojan actually joined the Communist Party after the war. At this time he was noted as a stern manager, going so far as to insist that employees show up for work. Kulhan asserted that the charge of having collaborated with the Gestapo was a fabrication. Trojan's honeymoon with the Czechoslovak Communist Party was a brief one, and his disillusionment placed him on a collision course. Kulhan also conceded that, given his professional background, Trojan's partisans were perhaps the best shod in the Slovak National Uprising. But several friends of Kulhan's sister were among the partisans who were executed. Kulhan maintain s that Trojan acted wrongfully in this matter. 25 At the time of the writing of this essay, the Czech judicial system maintains an enigmatic silence concerning Trojan, although his case is again open for review. Meanwhile, Slovak historians and octogenarian veterans of World War II alike look forward to the rehabilitation of a man who, although born a Czech , enjoys a certain reputation as a Slovak hero. Yet, judging from the opinion of Kulhan , not all octogenarians agree. It remains for the Czech judicial system to give a complete account of the execution of partisans by Trojan, and the state's case against him. 25 Telephone interview with John Kulhan, August I0 , 2005. Mr. Kulhan is today a U.S. citizen and is currently a nominee fo r the Pres identi al Medal of Freedom.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Slovak Partisan Commanders in World War II: The Case of Josef Trojan Description An account of the resource R. Vladimír Baumgarten Slovakia, Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007 pp. 36-49 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Baumgarten, R. Vladimir Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/77ae7728cbfaed1948b983254b1b7916.pdf 63d60bb63d722e7fef72b40f1cb8a349 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 99 THE 1985 PILGRIMAGE AT VELEHRAD: SLOVAK CATHOLICS AND THE CREATION OF A PUBLIC SPACE David Doellinger An analysis of the 1985 pilgrimage at Velehrad reveals many of the ways that the nature of pilgrimages (and thus Catholicism's role in Communist Czechoslovakia) had begun to change during the 1980s. At this event, Catholic activists and pilgrims surprised church leaders by voicing their opposition to state policy in front of Party officials, thereby transforming a religious tradition into a public space where Slovak Catholics could meet free from state interference to assert their religious and political beliefs. The 1985 Yelehrad pilgrimage offers an interesting window into the increas ingly contentious relationship between church and state in Czec hoslovakia. It illustrates the mobilizing influence of Pope John Paul II and reveals that restive Catholics, who had been practicing their faith secretly in the underground, helped empower some leaders in the Czechoslovakia's official hierarchy - particularly Cardinal Frantisek Tomasek of Prague - to be more critical of the state's religious policies. Man y scholars have recognized the ability of pilgrimages to serve as barometers of soc ial and political change. In their analysis of Christian pilgrimage traditi ons, anthropologists Victor and Edith Turner conclude: Pilgrimage should be regarded ... as an institution with a history. Each pilgrimage, of any length, is vulnerable to the history of its period and must come to terms with shifts of political geography. Pilgrimage is more responsive to social change and popular moods than liturgical ritual, fixed by rubric. 1 1 Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives (New York : Columbia Un ivers ity Press, 1978), 23 1. �SLOVAKIA The character of Slovak pilgrimages had certainly reflected the changing social and political landscape in Slovakia after the Second World War. Pilgrimages had been an important part of Slovak reli gious life since the middle ages. Over thirty pilgrimage sites exist throughout Slovakia and Slovak pilgrim s also visited several religious sites in the Czech lands. Until 1949, when state permission to hold public gatherings such as pilgrimages became mandatory, local church officials had organized the annu al pilgrimages and services at these sites. Thereafter, there had been little acti vity at these sites on pilgrimage days, with the exception of the moments of political liberalization, such as in 1956 (following Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin) and 1968 (during the Prague Spring). 2 The 1985 Velehrad pilgrimage has received much attention by Western political analysts and scholars. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Keston News Service fo llowed this event closely and released extensive reports about thi s pilgrimage (and the pilgrimages that followed). 3 Although Velehrad is located in Moravi a, this pilgrimage was of particular importance to Slovak Catholi cs, who attended in relatively high numbers. Several schol ars writing in the latter half of the 1980s referred to thi s pilgrimage as evidence of a reli gious revival and the resilience of Catholicism in Slovakia. 4 Scholars writing after 1989 have referred to thi s pilgrimage and those that followed, not only in the context of a religious revival, but 2 Karel Kaplan notes that not onl y pilgrimages, but also attendance at reli gious services and the forma tion of new youth groups occurred during the upheaval s in Poland and Hungary in 1956. Karel Kaplan, " Church and State in Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1956 - Part III ," Religion in Comm unist Lands, 14, no. 3 (fall 1986): 280. Milan J. Reban reports a sim ilar resurgence of pilgrimages during the Prague Spring in 1968 . Milan J. Reban, "The Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia," in Catholicism and Politics in Communist Societies, ed . Pedro Ramet (Durham and London: Duke Uni versity Press, I 990), 15 I. 3 The Keston News Service was based at Keston College, England and provided reports and analys is of the religious situation in East Europe. 4 See Janice Brou n, Conscience and Capti vity: Religion in Eastern Europe (Washington D.C.: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1988), 67- 101. Also see Pedro Ramet, Cross and Commissar (Bloom ington and Indianapo lis: Ind iana Universi ty Press, 1987), 78. �SLOVAKIA 101 also as an example of one of the few expressions of independent or non-state activity in Slovakia. 5 Pilgrimages and their increasing popularity throughout the 1980s became one of the most visible markers of a religious revival in Slovakia. This religious revival had begun almost a decade earlier and was closely related to the election of a Pole, Karol Wojtyla, as Pope John Paul II in 1978. Pope John Paul II took a new aggressive and uncompromising stand when dealing with the Communist governments of Eastern Europe. Under Pope Paul Vi's (1963-1978) eastern policy (Ostpolitik), the Vatican had made preserving the church hierarchy in Czechoslovakia a primary goal, even at the expense of making important concessions to the Communist government. In 1973, Cardinal Casaroli, responsible for the Vatican's Ostpolitik, had negotiated the regime's approval of four new bishops, even though all four remained members of Pacem in Terris, a state sponsored organization that coordinated the work of priests in Czechoslovakia. Although this agreement brought the total number of bishops to five (out of thirteen dioceses), many Czech and Slovak Catholics criticized the Vatican's tolerance of Pacem in Terris. Breaking with his predecessor, Pope John Paul II refused to compromise with these governments, particularly with regards to spiritual matters. In 1982, he formally condemned Pacem in Terris. 6 As Archbishop of Krakow, Wojtyla had secretly ordained many Czech and Slovak priests in the 1970s. Silvester Krcmery, a leader of Slovakia's secret church and a friend of Wojtyla since 1973, described him as a protector of the Slovaks. Emphasizing the importance of their shared experiences under Communism, Krcmery pointed to a 5 Stokes refers to the 1985 Velehrad pilgrimage not only in terms of attendance, but also as evidence of Cardinal Tomasek's increasing willingness to act independently of the state. Gale Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Down (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 152. See also Sabrina Ramet, Social Currents in Eastern Europe (Durham and London : Duke University Press , 1991), 109 and Padraic Kenney , A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989 (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002), 36. 6 Alexander Tomsky, "Pacem in Terris," Religion in Communist Lands lO (1982): 278-279. For a discussion of bishop vacancies, see Sabrina P. Ramet, Nihil Obstat: Religion, Politics, and Social Change in East-Central Europe and Russia (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998), 125. �102 SLOVAKIA bond that undoubted ly other Catholics in Czechoslovakia shared by saying: "He has lived all thi s persec ution of Catholics." 7 While the election of a Polish pope in 1978 helps explain the increased popularity of Catholicism and religious traditions in Slovakia, the events at Yelehrad in 1985 indicate th at the nature of the pilgrimage experience was transformed by activists in the secret (underground) Catholic church. Such a church existed in the Czech lands and Slovakia from the late 1940s to 1989. It was organized by Catholics in response to the persec ution they faced by the Communist authorities. Members of the secret church met in private apartments for bible study , fellowship and even choir practice. Bishops and priests who had been clandestinely trained and ordained provided pastoral serv ices to these believers. By the 1980s, activists in the secret church published and distributed a wide variety of books and newsletters as samizdat. 8 The undergro und church used its samizdat network to publicize this and later pilgrimages by printing announcements of upcoming pilgrimages and it published accounts of each year's pilgrimages. A rich written record of the 1985 Velehrad pil gri mage can be found in thi s body of sa mizdat literature. 9 7 Silvester Krcmery , interview by author, 3 July I996 , Bratislava, Slovakia. For a brief description of Krcmery's first meeting with Wojtyta, see Frantisek Miklosko, Nebudete ich m6ct' roz vratit: z osudov katolickej cfrkvi na Slovensku v rokoch I 943-89 (Bratislava: Archa, 1990), 125. 8 David Doellinger, " Prayers, Pilgrims , and Petitions: The Secret Church and the Growth of Civ il Society in Slovakia," Nationalities Papers 30, no. 2 (June 2002): 215-240. 9 Samizdat (self-published) refers to newspapers, articles, essays, books , etc. that were printed with mimeograph machines or typed carbon copy, and often distributed illegall y, usuall y throu gh personal contacts and info rm al networks. Archi ves with the most extensive holdings on Slovak religious samizdat include: Listy z podzemia samizdat arch ive at the Christian Democratic Movement headq uarters, Bratislava, Slovakia ; Libri Prohibiti Samizdat Archive, Prag ue, Czech Republic; Czechoslovak Documentation Center, Dobrichovice (Prague), Czech Republic. Slovak samizda t can also be found in the Keston Institute's arc hi ve, Oxford , England and th e arc hives of Radi o Free Europe/Radio Liberty in th e Open Society Archives , Budapest, Hungary. For a comprehensive catalog of Slovak religious sam izdat, see Rudolf Lessak, Listy z podzemia: suboma dokumentacia krestanskej samizdatovej publicistiky na S/ovensku v rokoch I 945- I989 (Bratislava: US PO, 1998). �SLOVAKIA 103 The 1985 Velehrad Pilgrimage An increasing number of Catholics attended pilgrimages in Slovakia in the first half of the 1980s. Between 1982 and 1985, samizdat reports only carried information for the pilgrimages to Sastfn and Levoca, the two most popular Slovak pilgrimages. An estimated 15 ,000 people attended the pilgrimage at Sastfn in 1983 ; attendance jumped to 50,000 in 1984. 10 About 100,000 pilgrims attended the pilgrimages at Levoca in both 1982 and 1983. 11 The new role and importance of the pilgrimage tradition became firmly established at the 1985 pilgrimage at Yelehrad. An important pil grimage site in Moravia, Velehrad had already hosted an estim ated 40,000 pilgrims in 1984. The 1985 Yelehrad pilgrimage, however, commemorated the 1, 100th anni versary of the death of St. Methodius, who along with St. Cyril , had introduced eastern Christianity (and the Slavic liturgy) to the Great Moravian Empire in the ninth century. The work of Sts. Cyril and Methodius is particulai:.ly important to Slovak Catholics, who trace their political, cultural and religious history to thi s early empire and the arrival of these monks. 12 Several months prior to the pilgrimage, Czechoslovak Catholics and the Communist authorities began to contest the direction of the Yelehrad commemoration. At the center of the dispute was the question of whether Pope John Paul II would be permitted to attend the event. The Pope had made his first visit to Poland as early as 1979, and Czechoslovakia 's Catholics hoped this anniversary would bring a papal visit. An August 1984 letter to President Gustav Husak, signed simpl y the " Youth of CSSR," demanded that the Pope be 10 "Sastfnska put' I983 ," Naboienstvo a sucasnost'(sami zdat) 4 (1983): 2; "Sastfnsky prihovor otca Biskupa Gabrisa," Naboi enstvo a sucasnost'5 ( 1984): 8; " Sastfn '84," Vy ber (sami zdat) 4 ( 1984): 38. 11 "Annual Pilgrimage to Levoca," Keston News Service (KNS), no. 156 (August I6, I982): 3-4. Also, see Vy ber, 3 (1984 ): 7. 12 See lmrich Kruzliak, "The Heritage of Saints Cyril and Methodius in the Works of Slovak Writers and Artists," in SS. Cy ril and M ethodius Among the Slovaks: Observing the 1, JOd" Anniversary of Saint Methodius' Death, eds. lmrich Kru zliak and Frances L. Mi zenko (Middletown, PA : Slovak Catholic Federation, 1985), 134-143. The territori al extent of thi s empire is unclear, but it probably included large porti ons of present day Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. �104 SLOVAKIA permitted to attend the 1, l 00 th anniversary event. The authors indicated that they were Catholics from Banska Bystrica (in central Slovakia) and argued that there was popular support for a papal visit: We are in the jubilee year of St. Methodius. Thousands of young hearts put their signature on the request that the Holy Father John Paul II come to our country for thi s jubilee celebration. We join with Cardinal Frantisek Tomasek, who personally invited the Holy Father to this celebration. Esteemed Mr. President, if these thousands of signatures are [too] few, we are willing to collect additional thousands from young people to agai n document for you the desire of the absolute majority of inhabitants of the CSSR, so that the Holy Father comes to our republic for this precious jubilee occasion. 13 In February 1984, Cardinal Tomasek had formally invited the Pope to Velehrad, and over 17,000 Catholic youth in Czechoslovakia 14 signed a statement demonstrating their support for thi s visit. Cardinal Tomasek also cited this petition action in a letter to the CSSR government requesting permission for the visit. 15 A samizdat author analyzing the importance of the Velehrad celebration for Slovaks and the meaning of the petition wrote: "It is a new first in the public life of our church." 16 The Slovak secret church helped publicize several of these appeals for the Pope' s attendance. Despite the authorities' refusal, public support for the Papal visit continued. On New Years Day 1985 , Cardinal Tomasek sent a letter to the Pope with an additional 500 signatures that had been collected over Christmas. The letter reaffirmed the desire of Czechoslovak Catholics for the Pope to come to Velehrad on September 14 for the Methodius commemoration. It also invited the Pope to visit Sastfn, a Slovak pilgrimage site, afterwards 17 The authorities continued to refuse permission for the visit. 18 13 Letter to President Husak from the Youth of CSS R, 29 August 1984, I, Keston st Institute Fi le (hereafter KJ): CZ ROM 7/4 1 Methodius Celebrations 1985. 14 "Pozvanie sv. Otca do Ceskoslovenska," Naboienstvo a sucasnost'3 ( 1984): 17. 15 Una Sane ta Catholica (samizdat) Tu rice ( 1984 ): 35. 16 • "Pozvanie sv. Otca do Ceskoslovenska," 17-1 8. 17 Naboienstvo a sucasnost'2 (1985): 19. 18 Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Do wn, 152. Though the authori ties prevented Pope John Paul II from attending the commemoration, his encyc lical Slavorum �SLOVAKIA 105 As the Velehrad pilgrimage approached, members of the secret church in both the Czech lands and Slovakia began making plans to alter the length and nature of the commemoration by organizing a special night program. Catholic activists wanted to invite youth to the site on Saturday, July 6, 1985, for a special program of song and prayer during the night preceding the official commemoration, which had been scheduled for Sunday, July 7. Night programs had already become a popular component of pilgrimages in Slovakia. Over 50,000 pilgrims attended the night program at the Levoca pilgrimage in 1983. 19 At Sastfn in 1984, a night program organized by Vladimir Jukl, one of the leaders of the Slovak secret church, had also preceded the regular pilgrimage celebration.20 The plan for a night program at Velehrad appears to have originated with both Moravian and Slovak sources. Catholic youth in Moravia invited their counterparts in Slovakia and Bohemia to the Saturday program that would include prayers for the unity of the church, the Pope, bishops and others in the Church. The Slovak reli gious samizdat Vy ber helped distribute this invitation by prominently publishing it on the back of the front cover of a spring 1985 issue.2' Frantisek Miklosko, another activist in the Slovak secret church , refers to the Moravian Catholics' pl an in a history of the post-war Catholi c Church in Slovakia that he published in 1991 . He credits Vladimir Jukl with the idea of introducing the night program at Velehrad. Miklosko personally presented Jukl 's plan for a night program to Cardinal Tomasek, who supported the idea. Though the local priest and bishop responsible for Velehrad refused to officially approve the night program or permit the youth to spend the night in Velehrad's basilica, the plan for the night program went ahead. 22 On Saturday afternoon , Ju ly 6, the Velehrad celebration made its informal start with the arri val of an estimated 5,000 young Apostoli - which praised the work of Sts. Cyril and Methodius - was published on the day of the event. Alexander Tomsky, "St Methodius Return s to Czechos lovakia," KNS, no. 235 (October 3, 1985): 18- 19. 19 " Vfce nez sto ti sfc poutn fku na Levocske hofe 3.7. 1983," ln fo rmace o cfrk vi (sami zdat) 9 (1983): 13. 20 "Sastfn ' 84," Vfber 4 ( 1984): 38. Miklosko writes that Ju kl developed the idea for the night program for Sastfn that year. Miklosko, Nebudete ich moct'rozvratit, 136. 21 Vfber4 (1985). 22 Miklosko, Nebudete ich m6ct'rozvratit;128- l 30. �106 SLOVAKIA Catholics. Accounts of their activities filled subseq uent samizdat periodicals and painted a vivid picture of their activities prior to the formal opening of the celebration at 10:00 AM on Sunday morning. As they arrived on Saturday, the young pilgrims sat in small groups in front of the basilica, some talking with friends and others singing songs, sometimes with the accompaniment of a guitar. Bishop Jan Korec , who had been secretly consecrated in 1951, visited with the young pilgrims in the afternoon and remained with them throughout the night. 23 After an evening mass inside the basilica, the pilgrims spent the night outside with one group in front of the basilica and the other in a nearby field. Each group stayed awake the entire night and observed a program of prayer, meditation and si nging. During the night, both groups chanted slogans such as "We want cloisters," "Long live Tomasek," and "Long live the Pope." One report indicated that the pilgrims also chanted "Let the Pope Come" for about twenty-five minutes. 24 One member of the Slovak secret church apparently spent Saturday afternoon and night with a tape recorder recording the songs, chants and conversations with the pilgrims. A Slovak samiz dat periodical published excerpts from this recording, capturing some of the different hopes and concerns of those in attendance, including the di sappointment of one young pilgrim that the state authorities viewed the pilgrimage and anniversary celebration as a "peace event." The pilgrim, speaking sometime late Saturday evening, described his mixed response to the weekend: I assumed that many believers would participate in this pilgrimage, but I am very surprised by the multitude of people who are already here today. I am very enthusiastic about it, because I expect rich spiritual fruits from this pilgrimage. I regret, of course - and I also think everyone else does - that we may not have the Holy Father here among us. But on the other hand, we are glad that he is represented here by Cardinal Casaro li [responsible for the Vatican's Ostpolitik]. 25 23 " Velehrad ' 85 ," Naboienstvo a sucasnost'3 ( 1985): 17. The largest Czech religious samizdat periodical republished this report. "Velehrad I985 , videny zo Slovenska," Jnformace o cirkvi IO (1985), 6-7. 24 "Boli sme na Velehrade," Rodinne spolocenstvo (samizdat) 5 ( 1985): 5-6. 25 "Velehrad ' 85 z magnetofonoveho zaznamu," Vyber9 (1985): 12. �SLOVAKIA 107 Early in the morning a fifty-year old priest, asked for his reaction to thi s " uncommon" event, replied: We spent this night at Velehrad together with Sai nts Cyril and Methodius. And it was very beautiful. There are groups of young believers here from all over Slovakia and also from the Czech lands, but a preponderance here are Slovaks. 26 Though located in Moravia, the night program at Velehrad was of particul ar interest to Slovak Catholics, and other observers also noted the large presence of Slovaks at Velehrad.27 . The enthusiasm of the young Catholics who had arri ved early to spend the night at Velehrad carried over to the official celebrations on Sunday. Despite the state's efforts to curtail attendance by canceling public transportation to Velehrad, pilgrims from all over Czechoslovakia arrived , many on foot, to join those who had spent the night singing, praying and chanting. 28 One samizdat periodical reported that at a 7:00 AM mass outside the Basilica, the pilgrims who had arrived only that morning were surprised that the young people, fo llowing the singing of the papal hymn, broke into chants of "Long li ve John Paul II! " and " Let us have the Hol y Father! " 29 The youth had been chanting these slogans throughout the night, and like a team coming out of a hi gh-school pep rally, they were ready for the celebration to begin. By 10:00 AM, when the official celebration began, an estimated 100,000-250,000 pilgrims had gathered outside the Basilica in the center of Velehrad. 30 A local Party official opened the celebration by welcoming everyone to what he called the St. Methodiu s " Peace Celebration ." In response to this designation, the 26 Ibid., 19. Another Slovak priest, Father Martinec, explai ned that he had he lped wi th the organization of the pilgrimage and the arriva l of Slovak Catholics at Yelehrad . Karel Martinec, interview by author, 4 Jul y 1996, Bratislava, Slovakia. 28 "Yelehrad 1985 ," Vzkffsenf(samizdat) 2 ( 1985): 15. 29 " Boli sme na Yelehrade," 5. 30 Religious samizdat peri odical s re ported this wide range estimate of pilgrims in attendance. See "Boli sme na Yelehrade," 8; "Yelehrad ' 85," 18; " Yelehrad 1985," Vzkifsenf2 ( 1985): 15; and " Yelehrad nas," Informace o cfrk vi 10 ( 1985): 6. Photographs of the pilgrims gathered around the Bas ilica at Yelehrad on Jul y 7 - taken from different angles - indicate that the pilgrims filled every inch of the square and support the magnitude of the size of the crowd as reported by religious samizdat. Kl: photo collection, photos# 1793 and # 1876. 27 �108 SLOVAKIA pilgrims responded negatively with whistles and shouts of "We want Holy Mass!" 3 1 Following the singi ng of the state anthem, the Minister of Culture, Dr. Milan Klu sak, spoke. Again, the pilgrims expressed their dissatisfaction with the official spin he gave to the importance of the anniversary. Several samizdat periodicals reported the following exchange between Klusak and the pilgrims: [Minister Klusak] grasped the situation and therefore improvised as he spoke. In order to stress that he did not consider the celebration to be a peace celebration, he said that he came to the pilgrimage to celebrate Methodius' memory. The crowd corrected him by chanting "Saint, Saint." When he said that Cyril and Methodius brought us a language and alphabet, the people supplemented it with "Faith , Faith!" The surpri sed minister then began a discussion with the people by saying "The Bi shop will speak about Faith to you. We have divided up the work." ... the young people replied to him: "Freedom, Religious Freedom." The minister argued back to the youth and everyone else: "If you did not have [religious freedom], you would not be here." 32 The pilgrims responded to the remainder of Klusak's speech with chants: "We Want the Holy Father!" "We Want Religious Freedom," and "We Want Bishops!" In contrast to the pilgrims' dissatisfaction with the state authorities' remarks, the pilgrims enthusiastically supported the words of the church officials. During the heckling of Minister Klu sak, the pilgrims had also chanted "Long Live Cardinal Tomasek! and "Casaroli!" 33 Cardinal Tomasek read a letter from the Pope that reportedly energized the pilgrims despite their disappointment that the Pope was not there to deliver his words personally . During the Mass, Cardinal Casaroli switched between Czech and Slovak while delivering his sermon.34 Accounts indicate that Cardinal Tomasek and Cardinal Casaroli clearly were surprised by the hi gh attendance and the enthusiasm of the pilgrims. After- 31 "Boli sme na Yelehrade," 7. fbid ., 7. A similar account of this exchange, written by a Slovak pilgrim , appeared in Czech samizdat. " Velehrad 1985 ," Vzkfisenf2 ( 1985): 16. See also Jan Korec, Od barbarskej noci na slobode (Bratislava: Luc, 1993), 342. 33 "Velehrad '85," Naboienstvo a sucasnost; 18. 34 "Boli sme na Velehrade," 7-8. 32 �SLOVAKIA 109 wards, Cardinal Tomasek reportedly told a group of young people, "This is not reality, this is a dream. " 35 The Significance of Velehrad The relatively large number of Catholic youth from Slovakia that chose to come earl y to this pilgrimage indicates both the strength of Catholicism in Slovakia and the failure of the state 's restricti ve policies against the church. Vaclav Benda, a Catholic Czech activist, afterwards commented on the significance of this pilgrimage: Yelehrad was an effective demonstration that the experiment of splitting the church was condemned to failure and ridiculous from the beginning. It must presently be clear from this pilgrimage ... that the prohibitions or radical restriction on the church drove several million active believers into the underground. 36 The 1985 Velehrad pilgrimage was critical turning point in a revival of the pilgrimage tradition in Slovakia. After Yelehrad, pilgrimage attendance and the number of sites hosting pilgrimages in Slovakia increased significantly. 37 Levoca, in eastern Slovakia, received the largest number of pilgrims with an estimated 150,000 in 1986,38 200,000-230,000 in 1987,39 and possibly as high as 280,000 300,000 in 1988.40 The number of pilgrims to Sastfn, a small village located north of Bratislava near the Moravian border, grew steadily from estimates of 40,000-50,000 in 1986,4 1 and 60,000 in 1987 ,42 to 35 " Yelehrad '85," Naboienstvo a sricasnost; 18. Vaclav Benda, "Ako d'alej po Yelehrade?" Naboienstvo a sricasnost'2 (I 986): 4. 37 Attendance at Slo vak pil grimages in 1989 was also high, but there is less information in samizdat about that year's pilgrimages than for earlier years. This is probably due to the fac t that reports of the summer pilgrimages usually appeared in late fa ll samizdat issues, by which time the Velvet Revolution had already begun. 38 "Levoca 1986," Voice of A merica (VOA) 12 July 1986. 39 "Record Numbers Attend Slovak Pilgrimages," Keston News Service, 280 (23 Jul y 87): 19; "Message from Jan Carnogursky to Keston College," KI: CZ ROM 7 /4 Pilgrimages; "Levoca put' 1987," Naboienstvo a sricasnost'4 ( 1987): 7. 40 " Mariansky rok na Slovensku," Katolfcky mesacnik (sami zdat) 4 (1 988): I ; Peter Marti n, "The Pilgrimage to Levoca," R FE/RL, 14 July 1988, 19. Another sami zdat periodical estimated the attendance in 1988 at " more than 200,000 ." See "Mys lienky z Levocskej pute," Naboienstvo a sricasnost'3 (I 988): 3. 41 " Putne slav nosti na Slovensku v r. 1986," Naboienstvo a sricasnost' I ( I 987): I 719. 36 �110 SLOVAKIA 60,000-70,000 in 1988. 43 The number of pilgrims to Gaboltov, estimated at 20,000-25,000 in 1985 ,44 increased more dramatically from estimates of 30,000-50,000 in 198645 to as high as l 00,000 in 1987 and 1988. 46 Large numbers of pilgrims also visited traditionally less popular pilgrimage sites in Slovakia during this period. Lutina, an important Greek Catholic pilgrimage site in eastern Slovakia, received 40,000 pilgrims in 198647 and 50,000 in 1987 .48 Topolcany received 25,000 pilgrims in 1988.49 Due to the nature of a pilgrimage, usually an outdoor event with people sitting or standing in a town square or in a nearby field, only estimates, probably made by members of the secret church present at the pilgrimage, are available. Jan Camogursky , a prominent activist in the Slovak secret church, reported that as he became aware of the political significance of the pilgrimages in 1987, he began making estimates of the number of pilgrims attending the events throughout Slovakia.50 Although not an exact count, these estimates are significant as a measure of the increase in the multitude of pilgrim s attending a particular pilgrimage, an increase that the authors of samizdat reports on pilgrimages were certainly observing. The increase in attendance after 1985 suggests that pilgrimages can be more than barometers of social change; the Velehrad pilgrimage promoted a change in the function of pilgrimages and their appeal to Catholics. The active force that promoted this transformation was the secret church. Members of this community helped transform the pilgrimage tradition into a space where Catholics could meet publicly and in large numbers to worship. Velehrad 's night program allowed young people active in the underground to meet 42 "Sastfn - September 1987," Naboienstvo a sucasnost'5 (1987): l 1. "Sastfn - '88," K ato/fcky mesacnik 5 ( 1988): I. 44 "Gaboltov ' 85 ," Naboi enstvo a sucasnost'3 (I 985): 20. 45 " Putne slavnosti na Slovensku v r 1986," 17- 19. 46 " Message from Jan Camogursky to Keston College"; "Put' v Gaboltove," VOA , 24 Jul y 1988. 47 "Pout' reckokatoliku v Lu tine 1986," lnformace o cfrkvi 10 (1986): I0. 48 "Message from Jan Camogursky." 49 "Pilgrimage at Topol'cany," Summary of World Broadcasts (SWB), 13 September 1988. 50 Jan Camogursky, interview by author, 16 Jul y 1996, Bratislava, Slovakia. Documents in the Keston Institute archive indicate that he sent reports of these estimates to Western news organizations. See for example, "Message from Jan Camogursky." 43 �SLOVAKIA 111 with other Catholics and express their faith publicly. Velehrad had demonstrated the secret church 's ability to mobilize its members to participate in a public event, and it continued to do so during the remainder of the decade. Slovak Catholic activists contributed to the popularity of pilgrimages and their night programs in the later half of the 1980s. The used the secret church 's samizdat network to inform its members about previous pilgrimages and to promote attendance at upcoming ones. From 1986 to 1989, the issues of Naboi enstvo a sucasnost; Rodinne spolocenstvo and later Katolfcky mesacnfk published extensive articles and reports about Slovak pilgrimages. This coverage included first hand reports of pilgrims' experiences, often including descriptions of their walk to the site and the activities of the night program. These samizdat periodicals also frequently published transcripts of prayers and sermons spoken during Mass at a pilgrimage, as well as historical information about different pilgrimage sites. 5 1 They also published schedules and information about upcoming pilgrimages in Slovakia. 52 As a result of this coverage, a written record of the experiences, worship service, activities, and even the chants at pilgrimages has been preserved. Catholics unable to attend a particular pilgrimage could learn about what had been said and done by reading these accounts. Since most samizdat reports on pilgrimages were usuall y publi shed several months after the pilgrimage, this coverage reminded Slovak Catholics of what had happened during the summer. Its reports and descriptions of previous pilgrimages promoted the events, and its schedule information certainly helped coordinate attendance at a pilgrimage. In addition to its samiz dat network, information about pilgrimages was shared through the communities of the secret church. Carnogursky reported that many of its communities "visited these pilgrimages collectively as groups." 53 The Slovak secret church also continued to promote the night program for pilgrimages after 1985, and attendance at night prog- 51 For the text of a prayer read by a local priest at the I 988 Sastfn pilgrimage, see "Modlitba na zaver marianskeho Rok u," Kato/icky mesacnfk 6 ( 1988): 5-7 . Another arti cle recounts the history of th e Sastfn pilgrim age site fro m 9 16 A.O. to 1987. "Sastfn," Naboienstvo a sucasnost'4 ( 1987): 8-10. 52 " Letna - putnicka - aktivita 1989," Kato/icky mesacmk 5 ( I 989): 6. 53 Camogursky, interview. �112 SLOVAKIA rams increased. A samizdat article describing the pilgrimage celebrations that had taken place throughout Slovakia in 1986 announced that in 1987 night programs were scheduled in Gaboltov and Uhorna in addition to Levoca and Sastin. 54 In 1988, an estimated 50,000 pilgrims attended the night program at Gaboltov,55 and 100,000 attended the night program during the Marian year pilgrimage in Levoca. 56 The following year, 5,000-10,000 people attended the night pro57 gram at the smaller pilgrimage site of Lutina. At the pilgrimage, the members of the secret church could do openly and publicly what they had done since their foundation: gather for prayer, meditation, and worship. Rather than finding safety in small numbers by meeting in private apartments, the pilgrimage tradition allowed the secret church members to practice their faith publicly, on a larger scale, and in fellowship with Catholics not active in the secret church. Jan Camogursky, reporting on the significance of pilgrimages in Slovakia, writes: [While] they last, pilgrimages solve a basic problem of our society - the problem of being outnumbered by the police ... The police are unable even to act against individuals on pilgrimages, because they are protected in the solidarity of numbers ... [This] feeling of safety gives the pilgrims another feeling - that of freedom . On a pilgrimage they can act according to their convictions and openly display their religious faith. 58 Although the secret church had traditionally distanced itself from the political opposition to avoid additional persecution by the state, the pilgrimage tradition facilitated a shift towards a new engagement in the public sphere. For members of the secret church, this issue of religious freedom could always be discussed among fellow members through its communities and samizdat press. Chants for religious freedom and in support of certain church officials had been voiced publicly to a significantly large gathering at Velehrad in 1985. The 54 "Putne slavnosti na Slovensku v r. 1986," 19. " Put' v Gaboltove," VOA, 24 July 1988. 56 "Mariansky rok na Slovensku," l. 57 "0 puti V Lutine," Rodinne spolocenstvo 5 (1989): 14. 58 Jan Carnogursky, "The Underground Church and Pilgrimages in Slovakia," The Salisbury Review (Ju ne 1989): 36. 55 �SLOVAKIA 113 pilgrimage tradition provided a public space and forum where political demands arti culated by the secret church could be discussed, debated, and shared with the broader public in relative safety. The contest between church and state exhibited at the 1985 Velehrad pilgrimage is one of the most striking feature s of this event. 59 The contest over the orientation of the commemoration could be said to have begun in 1984 as Cardinal Tomasek and Czechoslovak Catholics began demanding that Pope John Paul II be given permi ssion to attend. While the state argued that the commemoration should celebrate the cultural significance of St. Methodius, the church argued that the anniversary was a religious event. This conflict between church and state, so publicly exhibited at Velehrad in 1985, suggests that a term such as "church" fail s to capture the complexity of relations between church and state. Rather than a monolith, the "church" was represented by at least three distinct groups in this contest: the official church hierarchy , pilgrims active in the secret church, and pilgrims not active in the secret church. Of the three, it was the pilgrims (both within and without the secret church) listening to the Party officials' presentations who openly challenged the state's authority over the pilgrimage. Through their efforts, the pilgrimage became a public space where Catholics could challenge the status quo and the state 's right to define the meaning of St. Methodius and the l ,lO0 th anni versary . The pilgrimage created a forum where these three representations of the church ' s position could interact and influence one another. Even more interesting is the fact that the challenge to the status quo did not end in 1985 . Leaders of the Slovak underground church increasingly crossed into more politically-oriented public activities, most notably its collection of signatures to a 31-point petition for greater religious freedom in 1987 and 1988 and its organization of a public demonstration for religious freedom in Bratislava on March 25 , 1988 whi ch was violently 59 John Eade and Michael J. Sallnow, in the introduction to an edited vo lume of research on pilgrimages, assert that the new agenda in pilgrimage stud ies recogni zes that pilgrimage " is above all an arena for competing re ligious and secular discourses, for both the offi cial co-optation and the non-official recovery of rel igious meanings, fo r conflict between orthodoxies, sects and confess ional groups, fo r dri ves towards consensus and communities, and for counter movements towards separateness and division." John Eade and Michae l J. Sallnow , eds. Contesting the Sacred: The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 2. �114 SLOVAKIA broken up by the police. Altogether, 600,000 Czechs and Slovaks signed the petition and a reported 300,000-400,000 of the signatures were collected in Slovakia. Samizdat reports indicate that this petition was often read aloud at pilgrimages in Slovakia during night programs in the late 1980s.60 Divisions also existed within the official hierarchy of the Czechoslovak Catholic Church regarding the direction the 1985 Velehrad pilgrimage should take. Cardinal Frantisek Tomasek, since the election of Pope John Paul II, had become increasingly willing to criticize the state's interference in church affairs. In a 1981 letter to the editors of Katolfcke noviny, the state-approved and supported news organ of the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia, Cardinal Tomasek had criticized this periodical's focus on Pacem in Terris, disarmament and international relations, rather than Papal speeches and material that responded to the spiritual needs of the country ' s believers.61 In 1984, Cardinal Tomasek had not only formally invited Pope John Paul II to attend the Velehrad commemoration, but had also supported unofficial initiatives that demonstrated popular support for a papal visit. Cardinal Tomasek had also supported the secret church's plan to organize a night program at Velehrad, thus demonstrating that the lines between the secret church's activities and the official church sometimes became quite blurred. The unwillingness of the local bishop and priest responsible for Velehrad to approve the night program or permit the youth to spend the night in the basilica stands in stark contrast to Cardinal Tomasek's interest in it. All reports indicate that the police and other authorities in Slovakia were fairly ineffective in their efforts to clamp down on pilgrimages. Samizdat articles indicate that the pilgrims were quite aware of secret police agents dressed in civilian clothes and using cameras and video-recorders to document the event, but their presence apparently did little to deter their activities. As early as the 1984 pilgrimage to Levoca, police put several obstacles in the way of 60 For more about the 31-point petition and the March 25, 1988 demonstration, see David Doellinger, "From Prayers to Protests: The Impact of Religio us-Based Dissent on the Emergence of Civil Society in Slovakia and the GDR," (Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Pittsburgh, 2002), chapter 4. 61 This letter appeared in lnformace o cirkvi, no. 4 ( 198 1): 24-25. �SLOVAKIA 115 pilgrims, such as running road checks to back up traffic to the site, canceling train and bus service to Levoca, and even cutting down trees to block the road to the basilica. More subtle efforts focused on keeping young people away from Levoca by scheduling a concert by a Slovak pop star in a nearby town . Some schools scheduled special activities on the day of pilgrimages, and others even posted notices banning participation in the pilgrimage.62 Police efforts took a more violent turn in 1986, when militia used dogs to break up groups of pilgrims making their way to Gaboltov.63 Also in 1986, the police interrogated Jozef Halko, a priest who had been sec retly ordained, and Anton Selecky, a Catholic activist, for their activities earlier in the year at the Sastin and Levoca pilgrimages. Holk.o 's interrogation focused on the fact that he had heard confessions at Levoca and Selecky ' s interrogators were concerned that he had written accounts of the pilgrimages for publication in samizdat. 64 In addition to signaling the pilgrimage' s transformation into a public space for Catholics, Velehrad also reflected the increasingly political potential of religion itself in the Soviet bloc in the 1980s. The political significance of religion and religious activities in the Soviet bloc had become quite apparent during the Pope 's first visit to Poland in 1979. In Warsaw's Victory Square on June 2, John Paul II spoke freely about the historically close rel ationship between Christianity and the Polish nation. He also spoke about the failed Warsaw uprising in 1944 (when Soviet troops allowed the Polish Home Army to be defeated by the Nazis), Polish independence, and human dignity. 65 In his analysis of the rise of Solidarity in Poland, Jan Kubik notes that Pope John Paul II 's speech and visit brought an end to the " Party-state's monopoly over public di scourse in 62 " Levoca - the Slovak National Shrine," K NS 2 14 (6 December I 984) . For references to the presence of the secret police at Velehrad in 1985, see " Velehrad 85 - spomienka studentov," Naboi enstvo a sucasnost'3 ( 1986): 17 and " Boli sme na Velehrade," 5. 63 "Militia Set Dogs on Pilgrims (Czechoslovakia)," KNS 257 (2 1 August 1986). 64 "Slovak Cathol ics interrogated," KNS 264 (27 November 1986). 65 Pope John Paul II , "Pope John Paul IL Speaks in Victory Square, Warsaw," in ed., Gale Stokes, From Stalinism to Pluralism (New York and Oxford : Oxford Universi ty Press, 1996), 200-203. �116 SLOVAKIA Poland."66 Though Solidarity was not a religious movement, Kubik argues that its close association with the Catholic Church and the use of religious symbols strengthened its ability to mobilize the Polish population and to construct a sphere of activity separate from and in defiance to the state. Among its achievements was the construction of public spaces not reserved for the state, including the Gdansk Monument and the Poznan Monument. Both incorporated crosses into their design, and, as Kubik explains, both monuments had been unveiled in religious ceremonies that emphasized the participation of society, rather than society 's subservience to the state. 67 Jan Kubik's analysis of these public events in Poland that preceded the formation of Solidarity offers insight into the political significance of religion in East Central Europe. Just as religion and religious traditions offered an alternative to the state's monopoly of power in Poland, the pilgrimage at Velehrad demonstrated that religion and religious traditions could offer a similar alternative in Czechoslovakia. Pope John Paul II had emphasized the historical significance of Christianity in Poland during his visit in 1979 and the commemoration of St. Methodius at Velehrad had allowed Catholic pilgrims the unique opportunity to confront state officials regarding Czechoslovakia's historical relationship with Christianity. The pilgrims at Velehrad, by vocally opposing the state's emphasis on the cultural contribution of Methodius, expressed their defiance of and unwillingness to be subservient to the state's religious policies. In doing so, the pilgrims transformed the traditional religious pilgrimage into an event of political significance. 66 Jan Kubik, The Power of Symbols Against the Symbols of Power: The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, I 994 ), 144. 67 For description and analysis of the Gdansk and the Poznan Monuments, see Kubik, The Power of Symbols, I 96-206, 2 14-216. � SLOVAKIA 99 THE 1985 PILGRIMAGE AT VELEHRAD: SLOVAK CATHOLICS AND THE CREATION OF A PUBLIC SPACE David Doellinger An analysis of the 1985 pilgrimage at Velehrad reveals many of the ways that the nature of pilgrimages (and thus Catholicism's role in Communist Czechoslovakia) had begun to change during the 1980s. At this event, Catholic activists and pilgrims surprised church leaders by voicing their opposition to state policy in front of Party officials, thereby transforming a religious tradition into a public space where Slovak Catholics could meet free from state interference to assert their religious and political beliefs. The 1985 Yelehrad pilgrimage offers an interesting window into the increas ingly contentious relationship between church and state in Czec hoslovakia. It illustrates the mobilizing influence of Pope John Paul II and reveals that restive Catholics, who had been practicing their faith secretly in the underground, helped empower some leaders in the Czechoslovakia's official hierarchy - particularly Cardinal Frantisek Tomasek of Prague - to be more critical of the state's religious policies. Man y scholars have recognized the ability of pilgrimages to serve as barometers of soc ial and political change. In their analysis of Christian pilgrimage traditi ons, anthropologists Victor and Edith Turner conclude: Pilgrimage should be regarded ... as an institution with a history. Each pilgrimage, of any length, is vulnerable to the history of its period and must come to terms with shifts of political geography. Pilgrimage is more responsive to social change and popular moods than liturgical ritual, fixed by rubric. 1 1 Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives (New York : Columbia Un ivers ity Press, 1978), 23 1. �SLOVAKIA The character of Slovak pilgrimages had certainly reflected the changing social and political landscape in Slovakia after the Second World War. Pilgrimages had been an important part of Slovak reli gious life since the middle ages. Over thirty pilgrimage sites exist throughout Slovakia and Slovak pilgrim s also visited several religious sites in the Czech lands. Until 1949, when state permission to hold public gatherings such as pilgrimages became mandatory, local church officials had organized the annu al pilgrimages and services at these sites. Thereafter, there had been little acti vity at these sites on pilgrimage days, with the exception of the moments of political liberalization, such as in 1956 (following Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin) and 1968 (during the Prague Spring). 2 The 1985 Velehrad pilgrimage has received much attention by Western political analysts and scholars. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Keston News Service fo llowed this event closely and released extensive reports about thi s pilgrimage (and the pilgrimages that followed). 3 Although Velehrad is located in Moravi a, this pilgrimage was of particular importance to Slovak Catholi cs, who attended in relatively high numbers. Several schol ars writing in the latter half of the 1980s referred to thi s pilgrimage as evidence of a reli gious revival and the resilience of Catholicism in Slovakia. 4 Scholars writing after 1989 have referred to thi s pilgrimage and those that followed, not only in the context of a religious revival, but 2 Karel Kaplan notes that not onl y pilgrimages, but also attendance at reli gious services and the forma tion of new youth groups occurred during the upheaval s in Poland and Hungary in 1956. Karel Kaplan, " Church and State in Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1956 - Part III ," Religion in Comm unist Lands, 14, no. 3 (fall 1986): 280. Milan J. Reban reports a sim ilar resurgence of pilgrimages during the Prague Spring in 1968 . Milan J. Reban, "The Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia," in Catholicism and Politics in Communist Societies, ed . Pedro Ramet (Durham and London: Duke Uni versity Press, I 990), 15 I. 3 The Keston News Service was based at Keston College, England and provided reports and analys is of the religious situation in East Europe. 4 See Janice Brou n, Conscience and Capti vity: Religion in Eastern Europe (Washington D.C.: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1988), 67- 101. Also see Pedro Ramet, Cross and Commissar (Bloom ington and Indianapo lis: Ind iana Universi ty Press, 1987), 78. �SLOVAKIA 101 also as an example of one of the few expressions of independent or non-state activity in Slovakia. 5 Pilgrimages and their increasing popularity throughout the 1980s became one of the most visible markers of a religious revival in Slovakia. This religious revival had begun almost a decade earlier and was closely related to the election of a Pole, Karol Wojtyla, as Pope John Paul II in 1978. Pope John Paul II took a new aggressive and uncompromising stand when dealing with the Communist governments of Eastern Europe. Under Pope Paul Vi's (1963-1978) eastern policy (Ostpolitik), the Vatican had made preserving the church hierarchy in Czechoslovakia a primary goal, even at the expense of making important concessions to the Communist government. In 1973, Cardinal Casaroli, responsible for the Vatican's Ostpolitik, had negotiated the regime's approval of four new bishops, even though all four remained members of Pacem in Terris, a state sponsored organization that coordinated the work of priests in Czechoslovakia. Although this agreement brought the total number of bishops to five (out of thirteen dioceses), many Czech and Slovak Catholics criticized the Vatican's tolerance of Pacem in Terris. Breaking with his predecessor, Pope John Paul II refused to compromise with these governments, particularly with regards to spiritual matters. In 1982, he formally condemned Pacem in Terris. 6 As Archbishop of Krakow, Wojtyla had secretly ordained many Czech and Slovak priests in the 1970s. Silvester Krcmery, a leader of Slovakia's secret church and a friend of Wojtyla since 1973, described him as a protector of the Slovaks. Emphasizing the importance of their shared experiences under Communism, Krcmery pointed to a 5 Stokes refers to the 1985 Velehrad pilgrimage not only in terms of attendance, but also as evidence of Cardinal Tomasek's increasing willingness to act independently of the state. Gale Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Down (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 152. See also Sabrina Ramet, Social Currents in Eastern Europe (Durham and London : Duke University Press , 1991), 109 and Padraic Kenney , A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989 (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002), 36. 6 Alexander Tomsky, "Pacem in Terris," Religion in Communist Lands lO (1982): 278-279. For a discussion of bishop vacancies, see Sabrina P. Ramet, Nihil Obstat: Religion, Politics, and Social Change in East-Central Europe and Russia (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998), 125. �102 SLOVAKIA bond that undoubted ly other Catholics in Czechoslovakia shared by saying: "He has lived all thi s persec ution of Catholics." 7 While the election of a Polish pope in 1978 helps explain the increased popularity of Catholicism and religious traditions in Slovakia, the events at Yelehrad in 1985 indicate th at the nature of the pilgrimage experience was transformed by activists in the secret (underground) Catholic church. Such a church existed in the Czech lands and Slovakia from the late 1940s to 1989. It was organized by Catholics in response to the persec ution they faced by the Communist authorities. Members of the secret church met in private apartments for bible study , fellowship and even choir practice. Bishops and priests who had been clandestinely trained and ordained provided pastoral serv ices to these believers. By the 1980s, activists in the secret church published and distributed a wide variety of books and newsletters as samizdat. 8 The undergro und church used its samizdat network to publicize this and later pilgrimages by printing announcements of upcoming pilgrimages and it published accounts of each year's pilgrimages. A rich written record of the 1985 Velehrad pil gri mage can be found in thi s body of sa mizdat literature. 9 7 Silvester Krcmery , interview by author, 3 July I996 , Bratislava, Slovakia. For a brief description of Krcmery's first meeting with Wojtyta, see Frantisek Miklosko, Nebudete ich m6ct' roz vratit: z osudov katolickej cfrkvi na Slovensku v rokoch I 943-89 (Bratislava: Archa, 1990), 125. 8 David Doellinger, " Prayers, Pilgrims , and Petitions: The Secret Church and the Growth of Civ il Society in Slovakia," Nationalities Papers 30, no. 2 (June 2002): 215-240. 9 Samizdat (self-published) refers to newspapers, articles, essays, books , etc. that were printed with mimeograph machines or typed carbon copy, and often distributed illegall y, usuall y throu gh personal contacts and info rm al networks. Archi ves with the most extensive holdings on Slovak religious samizdat include: Listy z podzemia samizdat arch ive at the Christian Democratic Movement headq uarters, Bratislava, Slovakia ; Libri Prohibiti Samizdat Archive, Prag ue, Czech Republic; Czechoslovak Documentation Center, Dobrichovice (Prague), Czech Republic. Slovak samizda t can also be found in the Keston Institute's arc hi ve, Oxford , England and th e arc hives of Radi o Free Europe/Radio Liberty in th e Open Society Archives , Budapest, Hungary. For a comprehensive catalog of Slovak religious sam izdat, see Rudolf Lessak, Listy z podzemia: suboma dokumentacia krestanskej samizdatovej publicistiky na S/ovensku v rokoch I 945- I989 (Bratislava: US PO, 1998). �SLOVAKIA 103 The 1985 Velehrad Pilgrimage An increasing number of Catholics attended pilgrimages in Slovakia in the first half of the 1980s. Between 1982 and 1985, samizdat reports only carried information for the pilgrimages to Sastfn and Levoca, the two most popular Slovak pilgrimages. An estimated 15 ,000 people attended the pilgrimage at Sastfn in 1983 ; attendance jumped to 50,000 in 1984. 10 About 100,000 pilgrims attended the pilgrimages at Levoca in both 1982 and 1983. 11 The new role and importance of the pilgrimage tradition became firmly established at the 1985 pilgrimage at Yelehrad. An important pil grimage site in Moravia, Velehrad had already hosted an estim ated 40,000 pilgrims in 1984. The 1985 Yelehrad pilgrimage, however, commemorated the 1, 100th anni versary of the death of St. Methodius, who along with St. Cyril , had introduced eastern Christianity (and the Slavic liturgy) to the Great Moravian Empire in the ninth century. The work of Sts. Cyril and Methodius is particulai:.ly important to Slovak Catholics, who trace their political, cultural and religious history to thi s early empire and the arrival of these monks. 12 Several months prior to the pilgrimage, Czechoslovak Catholics and the Communist authorities began to contest the direction of the Yelehrad commemoration. At the center of the dispute was the question of whether Pope John Paul II would be permitted to attend the event. The Pope had made his first visit to Poland as early as 1979, and Czechoslovakia 's Catholics hoped this anniversary would bring a papal visit. An August 1984 letter to President Gustav Husak, signed simpl y the " Youth of CSSR," demanded that the Pope be 10 "Sastfnska put' I983 ," Naboienstvo a sucasnost'(sami zdat) 4 (1983): 2; "Sastfnsky prihovor otca Biskupa Gabrisa," Naboi enstvo a sucasnost'5 ( 1984): 8; " Sastfn '84," Vy ber (sami zdat) 4 ( 1984): 38. 11 "Annual Pilgrimage to Levoca," Keston News Service (KNS), no. 156 (August I6, I982): 3-4. Also, see Vy ber, 3 (1984 ): 7. 12 See lmrich Kruzliak, "The Heritage of Saints Cyril and Methodius in the Works of Slovak Writers and Artists," in SS. Cy ril and M ethodius Among the Slovaks: Observing the 1, JOd" Anniversary of Saint Methodius' Death, eds. lmrich Kru zliak and Frances L. Mi zenko (Middletown, PA : Slovak Catholic Federation, 1985), 134-143. The territori al extent of thi s empire is unclear, but it probably included large porti ons of present day Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. �104 SLOVAKIA permitted to attend the 1, l 00 th anniversary event. The authors indicated that they were Catholics from Banska Bystrica (in central Slovakia) and argued that there was popular support for a papal visit: We are in the jubilee year of St. Methodius. Thousands of young hearts put their signature on the request that the Holy Father John Paul II come to our country for thi s jubilee celebration. We join with Cardinal Frantisek Tomasek, who personally invited the Holy Father to this celebration. Esteemed Mr. President, if these thousands of signatures are [too] few, we are willing to collect additional thousands from young people to agai n document for you the desire of the absolute majority of inhabitants of the CSSR, so that the Holy Father comes to our republic for this precious jubilee occasion. 13 In February 1984, Cardinal Tomasek had formally invited the Pope to Velehrad, and over 17,000 Catholic youth in Czechoslovakia 14 signed a statement demonstrating their support for thi s visit. Cardinal Tomasek also cited this petition action in a letter to the CSSR government requesting permission for the visit. 15 A samizdat author analyzing the importance of the Velehrad celebration for Slovaks and the meaning of the petition wrote: "It is a new first in the public life of our church." 16 The Slovak secret church helped publicize several of these appeals for the Pope' s attendance. Despite the authorities' refusal, public support for the Papal visit continued. On New Years Day 1985 , Cardinal Tomasek sent a letter to the Pope with an additional 500 signatures that had been collected over Christmas. The letter reaffirmed the desire of Czechoslovak Catholics for the Pope to come to Velehrad on September 14 for the Methodius commemoration. It also invited the Pope to visit Sastfn, a Slovak pilgrimage site, afterwards 17 The authorities continued to refuse permission for the visit. 18 13 Letter to President Husak from the Youth of CSS R, 29 August 1984, I, Keston st Institute Fi le (hereafter KJ): CZ ROM 7/4 1 Methodius Celebrations 1985. 14 "Pozvanie sv. Otca do Ceskoslovenska," Naboienstvo a sucasnost'3 ( 1984): 17. 15 Una Sane ta Catholica (samizdat) Tu rice ( 1984 ): 35. 16 • "Pozvanie sv. Otca do Ceskoslovenska," 17-1 8. 17 Naboienstvo a sucasnost'2 (1985): 19. 18 Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Do wn, 152. Though the authori ties prevented Pope John Paul II from attending the commemoration, his encyc lical Slavorum �SLOVAKIA 105 As the Velehrad pilgrimage approached, members of the secret church in both the Czech lands and Slovakia began making plans to alter the length and nature of the commemoration by organizing a special night program. Catholic activists wanted to invite youth to the site on Saturday, July 6, 1985, for a special program of song and prayer during the night preceding the official commemoration, which had been scheduled for Sunday, July 7. Night programs had already become a popular component of pilgrimages in Slovakia. Over 50,000 pilgrims attended the night program at the Levoca pilgrimage in 1983. 19 At Sastfn in 1984, a night program organized by Vladimir Jukl, one of the leaders of the Slovak secret church, had also preceded the regular pilgrimage celebration.20 The plan for a night program at Velehrad appears to have originated with both Moravian and Slovak sources. Catholic youth in Moravia invited their counterparts in Slovakia and Bohemia to the Saturday program that would include prayers for the unity of the church, the Pope, bishops and others in the Church. The Slovak reli gious samizdat Vy ber helped distribute this invitation by prominently publishing it on the back of the front cover of a spring 1985 issue.2' Frantisek Miklosko, another activist in the Slovak secret church , refers to the Moravian Catholics' pl an in a history of the post-war Catholi c Church in Slovakia that he published in 1991 . He credits Vladimir Jukl with the idea of introducing the night program at Velehrad. Miklosko personally presented Jukl 's plan for a night program to Cardinal Tomasek, who supported the idea. Though the local priest and bishop responsible for Velehrad refused to officially approve the night program or permit the youth to spend the night in Velehrad's basilica, the plan for the night program went ahead. 22 On Saturday afternoon , Ju ly 6, the Velehrad celebration made its informal start with the arri val of an estimated 5,000 young Apostoli - which praised the work of Sts. Cyril and Methodius - was published on the day of the event. Alexander Tomsky, "St Methodius Return s to Czechos lovakia," KNS, no. 235 (October 3, 1985): 18- 19. 19 " Vfce nez sto ti sfc poutn fku na Levocske hofe 3.7. 1983," ln fo rmace o cfrk vi (sami zdat) 9 (1983): 13. 20 "Sastfn ' 84," Vfber 4 ( 1984): 38. Miklosko writes that Ju kl developed the idea for the night program for Sastfn that year. Miklosko, Nebudete ich moct'rozvratit, 136. 21 Vfber4 (1985). 22 Miklosko, Nebudete ich m6ct'rozvratit;128- l 30. �106 SLOVAKIA Catholics. Accounts of their activities filled subseq uent samizdat periodicals and painted a vivid picture of their activities prior to the formal opening of the celebration at 10:00 AM on Sunday morning. As they arrived on Saturday, the young pilgrims sat in small groups in front of the basilica, some talking with friends and others singing songs, sometimes with the accompaniment of a guitar. Bishop Jan Korec , who had been secretly consecrated in 1951, visited with the young pilgrims in the afternoon and remained with them throughout the night. 23 After an evening mass inside the basilica, the pilgrims spent the night outside with one group in front of the basilica and the other in a nearby field. Each group stayed awake the entire night and observed a program of prayer, meditation and si nging. During the night, both groups chanted slogans such as "We want cloisters," "Long live Tomasek," and "Long live the Pope." One report indicated that the pilgrims also chanted "Let the Pope Come" for about twenty-five minutes. 24 One member of the Slovak secret church apparently spent Saturday afternoon and night with a tape recorder recording the songs, chants and conversations with the pilgrims. A Slovak samiz dat periodical published excerpts from this recording, capturing some of the different hopes and concerns of those in attendance, including the di sappointment of one young pilgrim that the state authorities viewed the pilgrimage and anniversary celebration as a "peace event." The pilgrim, speaking sometime late Saturday evening, described his mixed response to the weekend: I assumed that many believers would participate in this pilgrimage, but I am very surprised by the multitude of people who are already here today. I am very enthusiastic about it, because I expect rich spiritual fruits from this pilgrimage. I regret, of course - and I also think everyone else does - that we may not have the Holy Father here among us. But on the other hand, we are glad that he is represented here by Cardinal Casaro li [responsible for the Vatican's Ostpolitik]. 25 23 " Velehrad ' 85 ," Naboienstvo a sucasnost'3 ( 1985): 17. The largest Czech religious samizdat periodical republished this report. "Velehrad I985 , videny zo Slovenska," Jnformace o cirkvi IO (1985), 6-7. 24 "Boli sme na Velehrade," Rodinne spolocenstvo (samizdat) 5 ( 1985): 5-6. 25 "Velehrad ' 85 z magnetofonoveho zaznamu," Vyber9 (1985): 12. �SLOVAKIA 107 Early in the morning a fifty-year old priest, asked for his reaction to thi s " uncommon" event, replied: We spent this night at Velehrad together with Sai nts Cyril and Methodius. And it was very beautiful. There are groups of young believers here from all over Slovakia and also from the Czech lands, but a preponderance here are Slovaks. 26 Though located in Moravia, the night program at Velehrad was of particul ar interest to Slovak Catholics, and other observers also noted the large presence of Slovaks at Velehrad.27 . The enthusiasm of the young Catholics who had arri ved early to spend the night at Velehrad carried over to the official celebrations on Sunday. Despite the state's efforts to curtail attendance by canceling public transportation to Velehrad, pilgrims from all over Czechoslovakia arrived , many on foot, to join those who had spent the night singing, praying and chanting. 28 One samizdat periodical reported that at a 7:00 AM mass outside the Basilica, the pilgrims who had arrived only that morning were surprised that the young people, fo llowing the singing of the papal hymn, broke into chants of "Long li ve John Paul II! " and " Let us have the Hol y Father! " 29 The youth had been chanting these slogans throughout the night, and like a team coming out of a hi gh-school pep rally, they were ready for the celebration to begin. By 10:00 AM, when the official celebration began, an estimated 100,000-250,000 pilgrims had gathered outside the Basilica in the center of Velehrad. 30 A local Party official opened the celebration by welcoming everyone to what he called the St. Methodiu s " Peace Celebration ." In response to this designation, the 26 Ibid., 19. Another Slovak priest, Father Martinec, explai ned that he had he lped wi th the organization of the pilgrimage and the arriva l of Slovak Catholics at Yelehrad . Karel Martinec, interview by author, 4 Jul y 1996, Bratislava, Slovakia. 28 "Yelehrad 1985 ," Vzkffsenf(samizdat) 2 ( 1985): 15. 29 " Boli sme na Yelehrade," 5. 30 Religious samizdat peri odical s re ported this wide range estimate of pilgrims in attendance. See "Boli sme na Yelehrade," 8; "Yelehrad ' 85," 18; " Yelehrad 1985," Vzkifsenf2 ( 1985): 15; and " Yelehrad nas," Informace o cfrk vi 10 ( 1985): 6. Photographs of the pilgrims gathered around the Bas ilica at Yelehrad on Jul y 7 - taken from different angles - indicate that the pilgrims filled every inch of the square and support the magnitude of the size of the crowd as reported by religious samizdat. Kl: photo collection, photos# 1793 and # 1876. 27 �108 SLOVAKIA pilgrims responded negatively with whistles and shouts of "We want Holy Mass!" 3 1 Following the singi ng of the state anthem, the Minister of Culture, Dr. Milan Klu sak, spoke. Again, the pilgrims expressed their dissatisfaction with the official spin he gave to the importance of the anniversary. Several samizdat periodicals reported the following exchange between Klusak and the pilgrims: [Minister Klusak] grasped the situation and therefore improvised as he spoke. In order to stress that he did not consider the celebration to be a peace celebration, he said that he came to the pilgrimage to celebrate Methodius' memory. The crowd corrected him by chanting "Saint, Saint." When he said that Cyril and Methodius brought us a language and alphabet, the people supplemented it with "Faith , Faith!" The surpri sed minister then began a discussion with the people by saying "The Bi shop will speak about Faith to you. We have divided up the work." ... the young people replied to him: "Freedom, Religious Freedom." The minister argued back to the youth and everyone else: "If you did not have [religious freedom], you would not be here." 32 The pilgrims responded to the remainder of Klusak's speech with chants: "We Want the Holy Father!" "We Want Religious Freedom," and "We Want Bishops!" In contrast to the pilgrims' dissatisfaction with the state authorities' remarks, the pilgrims enthusiastically supported the words of the church officials. During the heckling of Minister Klu sak, the pilgrims had also chanted "Long Live Cardinal Tomasek! and "Casaroli!" 33 Cardinal Tomasek read a letter from the Pope that reportedly energized the pilgrims despite their disappointment that the Pope was not there to deliver his words personally . During the Mass, Cardinal Casaroli switched between Czech and Slovak while delivering his sermon.34 Accounts indicate that Cardinal Tomasek and Cardinal Casaroli clearly were surprised by the hi gh attendance and the enthusiasm of the pilgrims. After- 31 "Boli sme na Yelehrade," 7. fbid ., 7. A similar account of this exchange, written by a Slovak pilgrim , appeared in Czech samizdat. " Velehrad 1985 ," Vzkfisenf2 ( 1985): 16. See also Jan Korec, Od barbarskej noci na slobode (Bratislava: Luc, 1993), 342. 33 "Velehrad '85," Naboienstvo a sucasnost; 18. 34 "Boli sme na Velehrade," 7-8. 32 �SLOVAKIA 109 wards, Cardinal Tomasek reportedly told a group of young people, "This is not reality, this is a dream. " 35 The Significance of Velehrad The relatively large number of Catholic youth from Slovakia that chose to come earl y to this pilgrimage indicates both the strength of Catholicism in Slovakia and the failure of the state 's restricti ve policies against the church. Vaclav Benda, a Catholic Czech activist, afterwards commented on the significance of this pilgrimage: Yelehrad was an effective demonstration that the experiment of splitting the church was condemned to failure and ridiculous from the beginning. It must presently be clear from this pilgrimage ... that the prohibitions or radical restriction on the church drove several million active believers into the underground. 36 The 1985 Velehrad pilgrimage was critical turning point in a revival of the pilgrimage tradition in Slovakia. After Yelehrad, pilgrimage attendance and the number of sites hosting pilgrimages in Slovakia increased significantly. 37 Levoca, in eastern Slovakia, received the largest number of pilgrims with an estimated 150,000 in 1986,38 200,000-230,000 in 1987,39 and possibly as high as 280,000 300,000 in 1988.40 The number of pilgrims to Sastfn, a small village located north of Bratislava near the Moravian border, grew steadily from estimates of 40,000-50,000 in 1986,4 1 and 60,000 in 1987 ,42 to 35 " Yelehrad '85," Naboienstvo a sricasnost; 18. Vaclav Benda, "Ako d'alej po Yelehrade?" Naboienstvo a sricasnost'2 (I 986): 4. 37 Attendance at Slo vak pil grimages in 1989 was also high, but there is less information in samizdat about that year's pilgrimages than for earlier years. This is probably due to the fac t that reports of the summer pilgrimages usually appeared in late fa ll samizdat issues, by which time the Velvet Revolution had already begun. 38 "Levoca 1986," Voice of A merica (VOA) 12 July 1986. 39 "Record Numbers Attend Slovak Pilgrimages," Keston News Service, 280 (23 Jul y 87): 19; "Message from Jan Carnogursky to Keston College," KI: CZ ROM 7 /4 Pilgrimages; "Levoca put' 1987," Naboienstvo a sricasnost'4 ( 1987): 7. 40 " Mariansky rok na Slovensku," Katolfcky mesacnik (sami zdat) 4 (1 988): I ; Peter Marti n, "The Pilgrimage to Levoca," R FE/RL, 14 July 1988, 19. Another sami zdat periodical estimated the attendance in 1988 at " more than 200,000 ." See "Mys lienky z Levocskej pute," Naboienstvo a sricasnost'3 (I 988): 3. 41 " Putne slav nosti na Slovensku v r. 1986," Naboienstvo a sricasnost' I ( I 987): I 719. 36 �110 SLOVAKIA 60,000-70,000 in 1988. 43 The number of pilgrims to Gaboltov, estimated at 20,000-25,000 in 1985 ,44 increased more dramatically from estimates of 30,000-50,000 in 198645 to as high as l 00,000 in 1987 and 1988. 46 Large numbers of pilgrims also visited traditionally less popular pilgrimage sites in Slovakia during this period. Lutina, an important Greek Catholic pilgrimage site in eastern Slovakia, received 40,000 pilgrims in 198647 and 50,000 in 1987 .48 Topolcany received 25,000 pilgrims in 1988.49 Due to the nature of a pilgrimage, usually an outdoor event with people sitting or standing in a town square or in a nearby field, only estimates, probably made by members of the secret church present at the pilgrimage, are available. Jan Camogursky , a prominent activist in the Slovak secret church, reported that as he became aware of the political significance of the pilgrimages in 1987, he began making estimates of the number of pilgrims attending the events throughout Slovakia.50 Although not an exact count, these estimates are significant as a measure of the increase in the multitude of pilgrim s attending a particular pilgrimage, an increase that the authors of samizdat reports on pilgrimages were certainly observing. The increase in attendance after 1985 suggests that pilgrimages can be more than barometers of social change; the Velehrad pilgrimage promoted a change in the function of pilgrimages and their appeal to Catholics. The active force that promoted this transformation was the secret church. Members of this community helped transform the pilgrimage tradition into a space where Catholics could meet publicly and in large numbers to worship. Velehrad 's night program allowed young people active in the underground to meet 42 "Sastfn - September 1987," Naboienstvo a sucasnost'5 (1987): l 1. "Sastfn - '88," K ato/fcky mesacnik 5 ( 1988): I. 44 "Gaboltov ' 85 ," Naboi enstvo a sucasnost'3 (I 985): 20. 45 " Putne slavnosti na Slovensku v r 1986," 17- 19. 46 " Message from Jan Camogursky to Keston College"; "Put' v Gaboltove," VOA , 24 Jul y 1988. 47 "Pout' reckokatoliku v Lu tine 1986," lnformace o cfrkvi 10 (1986): I0. 48 "Message from Jan Camogursky." 49 "Pilgrimage at Topol'cany," Summary of World Broadcasts (SWB), 13 September 1988. 50 Jan Camogursky, interview by author, 16 Jul y 1996, Bratislava, Slovakia. Documents in the Keston Institute archive indicate that he sent reports of these estimates to Western news organizations. See for example, "Message from Jan Camogursky." 43 �SLOVAKIA 111 with other Catholics and express their faith publicly. Velehrad had demonstrated the secret church 's ability to mobilize its members to participate in a public event, and it continued to do so during the remainder of the decade. Slovak Catholic activists contributed to the popularity of pilgrimages and their night programs in the later half of the 1980s. The used the secret church 's samizdat network to inform its members about previous pilgrimages and to promote attendance at upcoming ones. From 1986 to 1989, the issues of Naboi enstvo a sucasnost; Rodinne spolocenstvo and later Katolfcky mesacnfk published extensive articles and reports about Slovak pilgrimages. This coverage included first hand reports of pilgrims' experiences, often including descriptions of their walk to the site and the activities of the night program. These samizdat periodicals also frequently published transcripts of prayers and sermons spoken during Mass at a pilgrimage, as well as historical information about different pilgrimage sites. 5 1 They also published schedules and information about upcoming pilgrimages in Slovakia. 52 As a result of this coverage, a written record of the experiences, worship service, activities, and even the chants at pilgrimages has been preserved. Catholics unable to attend a particular pilgrimage could learn about what had been said and done by reading these accounts. Since most samizdat reports on pilgrimages were usuall y publi shed several months after the pilgrimage, this coverage reminded Slovak Catholics of what had happened during the summer. Its reports and descriptions of previous pilgrimages promoted the events, and its schedule information certainly helped coordinate attendance at a pilgrimage. In addition to its samiz dat network, information about pilgrimages was shared through the communities of the secret church. Carnogursky reported that many of its communities "visited these pilgrimages collectively as groups." 53 The Slovak secret church also continued to promote the night program for pilgrimages after 1985, and attendance at night prog- 51 For the text of a prayer read by a local priest at the I 988 Sastfn pilgrimage, see "Modlitba na zaver marianskeho Rok u," Kato/icky mesacnfk 6 ( 1988): 5-7 . Another arti cle recounts the history of th e Sastfn pilgrim age site fro m 9 16 A.O. to 1987. "Sastfn," Naboienstvo a sucasnost'4 ( 1987): 8-10. 52 " Letna - putnicka - aktivita 1989," Kato/icky mesacmk 5 ( I 989): 6. 53 Camogursky, interview. �112 SLOVAKIA rams increased. A samizdat article describing the pilgrimage celebrations that had taken place throughout Slovakia in 1986 announced that in 1987 night programs were scheduled in Gaboltov and Uhorna in addition to Levoca and Sastin. 54 In 1988, an estimated 50,000 pilgrims attended the night program at Gaboltov,55 and 100,000 attended the night program during the Marian year pilgrimage in Levoca. 56 The following year, 5,000-10,000 people attended the night pro57 gram at the smaller pilgrimage site of Lutina. At the pilgrimage, the members of the secret church could do openly and publicly what they had done since their foundation: gather for prayer, meditation, and worship. Rather than finding safety in small numbers by meeting in private apartments, the pilgrimage tradition allowed the secret church members to practice their faith publicly, on a larger scale, and in fellowship with Catholics not active in the secret church. Jan Camogursky, reporting on the significance of pilgrimages in Slovakia, writes: [While] they last, pilgrimages solve a basic problem of our society - the problem of being outnumbered by the police ... The police are unable even to act against individuals on pilgrimages, because they are protected in the solidarity of numbers ... [This] feeling of safety gives the pilgrims another feeling - that of freedom . On a pilgrimage they can act according to their convictions and openly display their religious faith. 58 Although the secret church had traditionally distanced itself from the political opposition to avoid additional persecution by the state, the pilgrimage tradition facilitated a shift towards a new engagement in the public sphere. For members of the secret church, this issue of religious freedom could always be discussed among fellow members through its communities and samizdat press. Chants for religious freedom and in support of certain church officials had been voiced publicly to a significantly large gathering at Velehrad in 1985. The 54 "Putne slavnosti na Slovensku v r. 1986," 19. " Put' v Gaboltove," VOA, 24 July 1988. 56 "Mariansky rok na Slovensku," l. 57 "0 puti V Lutine," Rodinne spolocenstvo 5 (1989): 14. 58 Jan Carnogursky, "The Underground Church and Pilgrimages in Slovakia," The Salisbury Review (Ju ne 1989): 36. 55 �SLOVAKIA 113 pilgrimage tradition provided a public space and forum where political demands arti culated by the secret church could be discussed, debated, and shared with the broader public in relative safety. The contest between church and state exhibited at the 1985 Velehrad pilgrimage is one of the most striking feature s of this event. 59 The contest over the orientation of the commemoration could be said to have begun in 1984 as Cardinal Tomasek and Czechoslovak Catholics began demanding that Pope John Paul II be given permi ssion to attend. While the state argued that the commemoration should celebrate the cultural significance of St. Methodius, the church argued that the anniversary was a religious event. This conflict between church and state, so publicly exhibited at Velehrad in 1985, suggests that a term such as "church" fail s to capture the complexity of relations between church and state. Rather than a monolith, the "church" was represented by at least three distinct groups in this contest: the official church hierarchy , pilgrims active in the secret church, and pilgrims not active in the secret church. Of the three, it was the pilgrims (both within and without the secret church) listening to the Party officials' presentations who openly challenged the state's authority over the pilgrimage. Through their efforts, the pilgrimage became a public space where Catholics could challenge the status quo and the state 's right to define the meaning of St. Methodius and the l ,lO0 th anni versary . The pilgrimage created a forum where these three representations of the church ' s position could interact and influence one another. Even more interesting is the fact that the challenge to the status quo did not end in 1985 . Leaders of the Slovak underground church increasingly crossed into more politically-oriented public activities, most notably its collection of signatures to a 31-point petition for greater religious freedom in 1987 and 1988 and its organization of a public demonstration for religious freedom in Bratislava on March 25 , 1988 whi ch was violently 59 John Eade and Michael J. Sallnow, in the introduction to an edited vo lume of research on pilgrimages, assert that the new agenda in pilgrimage stud ies recogni zes that pilgrimage " is above all an arena for competing re ligious and secular discourses, for both the offi cial co-optation and the non-official recovery of rel igious meanings, fo r conflict between orthodoxies, sects and confess ional groups, fo r dri ves towards consensus and communities, and for counter movements towards separateness and division." John Eade and Michae l J. Sallnow , eds. Contesting the Sacred: The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 2. �114 SLOVAKIA broken up by the police. Altogether, 600,000 Czechs and Slovaks signed the petition and a reported 300,000-400,000 of the signatures were collected in Slovakia. Samizdat reports indicate that this petition was often read aloud at pilgrimages in Slovakia during night programs in the late 1980s.60 Divisions also existed within the official hierarchy of the Czechoslovak Catholic Church regarding the direction the 1985 Velehrad pilgrimage should take. Cardinal Frantisek Tomasek, since the election of Pope John Paul II, had become increasingly willing to criticize the state's interference in church affairs. In a 1981 letter to the editors of Katolfcke noviny, the state-approved and supported news organ of the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia, Cardinal Tomasek had criticized this periodical's focus on Pacem in Terris, disarmament and international relations, rather than Papal speeches and material that responded to the spiritual needs of the country ' s believers.61 In 1984, Cardinal Tomasek had not only formally invited Pope John Paul II to attend the Velehrad commemoration, but had also supported unofficial initiatives that demonstrated popular support for a papal visit. Cardinal Tomasek had also supported the secret church's plan to organize a night program at Velehrad, thus demonstrating that the lines between the secret church's activities and the official church sometimes became quite blurred. The unwillingness of the local bishop and priest responsible for Velehrad to approve the night program or permit the youth to spend the night in the basilica stands in stark contrast to Cardinal Tomasek's interest in it. All reports indicate that the police and other authorities in Slovakia were fairly ineffective in their efforts to clamp down on pilgrimages. Samizdat articles indicate that the pilgrims were quite aware of secret police agents dressed in civilian clothes and using cameras and video-recorders to document the event, but their presence apparently did little to deter their activities. As early as the 1984 pilgrimage to Levoca, police put several obstacles in the way of 60 For more about the 31-point petition and the March 25, 1988 demonstration, see David Doellinger, "From Prayers to Protests: The Impact of Religio us-Based Dissent on the Emergence of Civil Society in Slovakia and the GDR," (Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Pittsburgh, 2002), chapter 4. 61 This letter appeared in lnformace o cirkvi, no. 4 ( 198 1): 24-25. �SLOVAKIA 115 pilgrims, such as running road checks to back up traffic to the site, canceling train and bus service to Levoca, and even cutting down trees to block the road to the basilica. More subtle efforts focused on keeping young people away from Levoca by scheduling a concert by a Slovak pop star in a nearby town . Some schools scheduled special activities on the day of pilgrimages, and others even posted notices banning participation in the pilgrimage.62 Police efforts took a more violent turn in 1986, when militia used dogs to break up groups of pilgrims making their way to Gaboltov.63 Also in 1986, the police interrogated Jozef Halko, a priest who had been sec retly ordained, and Anton Selecky, a Catholic activist, for their activities earlier in the year at the Sastin and Levoca pilgrimages. Holk.o 's interrogation focused on the fact that he had heard confessions at Levoca and Selecky ' s interrogators were concerned that he had written accounts of the pilgrimages for publication in samizdat. 64 In addition to signaling the pilgrimage' s transformation into a public space for Catholics, Velehrad also reflected the increasingly political potential of religion itself in the Soviet bloc in the 1980s. The political significance of religion and religious activities in the Soviet bloc had become quite apparent during the Pope 's first visit to Poland in 1979. In Warsaw's Victory Square on June 2, John Paul II spoke freely about the historically close rel ationship between Christianity and the Polish nation. He also spoke about the failed Warsaw uprising in 1944 (when Soviet troops allowed the Polish Home Army to be defeated by the Nazis), Polish independence, and human dignity. 65 In his analysis of the rise of Solidarity in Poland, Jan Kubik notes that Pope John Paul II 's speech and visit brought an end to the " Party-state's monopoly over public di scourse in 62 " Levoca - the Slovak National Shrine," K NS 2 14 (6 December I 984) . For references to the presence of the secret police at Velehrad in 1985, see " Velehrad 85 - spomienka studentov," Naboi enstvo a sucasnost'3 ( 1986): 17 and " Boli sme na Velehrade," 5. 63 "Militia Set Dogs on Pilgrims (Czechoslovakia)," KNS 257 (2 1 August 1986). 64 "Slovak Cathol ics interrogated," KNS 264 (27 November 1986). 65 Pope John Paul II , "Pope John Paul IL Speaks in Victory Square, Warsaw," in ed., Gale Stokes, From Stalinism to Pluralism (New York and Oxford : Oxford Universi ty Press, 1996), 200-203. �116 SLOVAKIA Poland."66 Though Solidarity was not a religious movement, Kubik argues that its close association with the Catholic Church and the use of religious symbols strengthened its ability to mobilize the Polish population and to construct a sphere of activity separate from and in defiance to the state. Among its achievements was the construction of public spaces not reserved for the state, including the Gdansk Monument and the Poznan Monument. Both incorporated crosses into their design, and, as Kubik explains, both monuments had been unveiled in religious ceremonies that emphasized the participation of society, rather than society 's subservience to the state. 67 Jan Kubik's analysis of these public events in Poland that preceded the formation of Solidarity offers insight into the political significance of religion in East Central Europe. Just as religion and religious traditions offered an alternative to the state's monopoly of power in Poland, the pilgrimage at Velehrad demonstrated that religion and religious traditions could offer a similar alternative in Czechoslovakia. Pope John Paul II had emphasized the historical significance of Christianity in Poland during his visit in 1979 and the commemoration of St. Methodius at Velehrad had allowed Catholic pilgrims the unique opportunity to confront state officials regarding Czechoslovakia's historical relationship with Christianity. The pilgrims at Velehrad, by vocally opposing the state's emphasis on the cultural contribution of Methodius, expressed their defiance of and unwillingness to be subservient to the state's religious policies. In doing so, the pilgrims transformed the traditional religious pilgrimage into an event of political significance. 66 Jan Kubik, The Power of Symbols Against the Symbols of Power: The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, I 994 ), 144. 67 For description and analysis of the Gdansk and the Poznan Monuments, see Kubik, The Power of Symbols, I 96-206, 2 14-216. � 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 2007, Vol. 39 Description An account of the resource Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007. 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 2007 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 99 THE 1985 PILGRIMAGE AT VELEHRAD: SLOVAK CATHOLICS AND THE CREATION OF A PUBLIC SPACE David Doellinger An analysis of the 1985 pilgrimage at Velehrad reveals many of the ways that the nature of pilgrimages (and thus Catholicism's role in Communist Czechoslovakia) had begun to change during the 1980s. At this event, Catholic activists and pilgrims surprised church leaders by voicing their opposition to state policy in front of Party officials, thereby transforming a religious tradition into a public space where Slovak Catholics could meet free from state interference to assert their religious and political beliefs. The 1985 Yelehrad pilgrimage offers an interesting window into the increas ingly contentious relationship between church and state in Czec hoslovakia. It illustrates the mobilizing influence of Pope John Paul II and reveals that restive Catholics, who had been practicing their faith secretly in the underground, helped empower some leaders in the Czechoslovakia's official hierarchy - particularly Cardinal Frantisek Tomasek of Prague - to be more critical of the state's religious policies. Man y scholars have recognized the ability of pilgrimages to serve as barometers of soc ial and political change. In their analysis of Christian pilgrimage traditi ons, anthropologists Victor and Edith Turner conclude: Pilgrimage should be regarded ... as an institution with a history. Each pilgrimage, of any length, is vulnerable to the history of its period and must come to terms with shifts of political geography. Pilgrimage is more responsive to social change and popular moods than liturgical ritual, fixed by rubric. 1 1 Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives (New York : Columbia Un ivers ity Press, 1978), 23 1. SLOVAKIA The character of Slovak pilgrimages had certainly reflected the changing social and political landscape in Slovakia after the Second World War. Pilgrimages had been an important part of Slovak reli gious life since the middle ages. Over thirty pilgrimage sites exist throughout Slovakia and Slovak pilgrim s also visited several religious sites in the Czech lands. Until 1949, when state permission to hold public gatherings such as pilgrimages became mandatory, local church officials had organized the annu al pilgrimages and services at these sites. Thereafter, there had been little acti vity at these sites on pilgrimage days, with the exception of the moments of political liberalization, such as in 1956 (following Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin) and 1968 (during the Prague Spring). 2 The 1985 Velehrad pilgrimage has received much attention by Western political analysts and scholars. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Keston News Service fo llowed this event closely and released extensive reports about thi s pilgrimage (and the pilgrimages that followed). 3 Although Velehrad is located in Moravi a, this pilgrimage was of particular importance to Slovak Catholi cs, who attended in relatively high numbers. Several schol ars writing in the latter half of the 1980s referred to thi s pilgrimage as evidence of a reli gious revival and the resilience of Catholicism in Slovakia. 4 Scholars writing after 1989 have referred to thi s pilgrimage and those that followed, not only in the context of a religious revival, but 2 Karel Kaplan notes that not onl y pilgrimages, but also attendance at reli gious services and the forma tion of new youth groups occurred during the upheaval s in Poland and Hungary in 1956. Karel Kaplan, " Church and State in Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1956 - Part III ," Religion in Comm unist Lands, 14, no. 3 (fall 1986): 280. Milan J. Reban reports a sim ilar resurgence of pilgrimages during the Prague Spring in 1968 . Milan J. Reban, "The Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia," in Catholicism and Politics in Communist Societies, ed . Pedro Ramet (Durham and London: Duke Uni versity Press, I 990), 15 I. 3 The Keston News Service was based at Keston College, England and provided reports and analys is of the religious situation in East Europe. 4 See Janice Brou n, Conscience and Capti vity: Religion in Eastern Europe (Washington D.C.: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1988), 67- 101. Also see Pedro Ramet, Cross and Commissar (Bloom ington and Indianapo lis: Ind iana Universi ty Press, 1987), 78. SLOVAKIA 101 also as an example of one of the few expressions of independent or non-state activity in Slovakia. 5 Pilgrimages and their increasing popularity throughout the 1980s became one of the most visible markers of a religious revival in Slovakia. This religious revival had begun almost a decade earlier and was closely related to the election of a Pole, Karol Wojtyla, as Pope John Paul II in 1978. Pope John Paul II took a new aggressive and uncompromising stand when dealing with the Communist governments of Eastern Europe. Under Pope Paul Vi's (1963-1978) eastern policy (Ostpolitik), the Vatican had made preserving the church hierarchy in Czechoslovakia a primary goal, even at the expense of making important concessions to the Communist government. In 1973, Cardinal Casaroli, responsible for the Vatican's Ostpolitik, had negotiated the regime's approval of four new bishops, even though all four remained members of Pacem in Terris, a state sponsored organization that coordinated the work of priests in Czechoslovakia. Although this agreement brought the total number of bishops to five (out of thirteen dioceses), many Czech and Slovak Catholics criticized the Vatican's tolerance of Pacem in Terris. Breaking with his predecessor, Pope John Paul II refused to compromise with these governments, particularly with regards to spiritual matters. In 1982, he formally condemned Pacem in Terris. 6 As Archbishop of Krakow, Wojtyla had secretly ordained many Czech and Slovak priests in the 1970s. Silvester Krcmery, a leader of Slovakia's secret church and a friend of Wojtyla since 1973, described him as a protector of the Slovaks. Emphasizing the importance of their shared experiences under Communism, Krcmery pointed to a 5 Stokes refers to the 1985 Velehrad pilgrimage not only in terms of attendance, but also as evidence of Cardinal Tomasek's increasing willingness to act independently of the state. Gale Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Down (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 152. See also Sabrina Ramet, Social Currents in Eastern Europe (Durham and London : Duke University Press , 1991), 109 and Padraic Kenney , A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989 (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002), 36. 6 Alexander Tomsky, "Pacem in Terris," Religion in Communist Lands lO (1982): 278-279. For a discussion of bishop vacancies, see Sabrina P. Ramet, Nihil Obstat: Religion, Politics, and Social Change in East-Central Europe and Russia (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998), 125. 102 SLOVAKIA bond that undoubted ly other Catholics in Czechoslovakia shared by saying: "He has lived all thi s persec ution of Catholics." 7 While the election of a Polish pope in 1978 helps explain the increased popularity of Catholicism and religious traditions in Slovakia, the events at Yelehrad in 1985 indicate th at the nature of the pilgrimage experience was transformed by activists in the secret (underground) Catholic church. Such a church existed in the Czech lands and Slovakia from the late 1940s to 1989. It was organized by Catholics in response to the persec ution they faced by the Communist authorities. Members of the secret church met in private apartments for bible study , fellowship and even choir practice. Bishops and priests who had been clandestinely trained and ordained provided pastoral serv ices to these believers. By the 1980s, activists in the secret church published and distributed a wide variety of books and newsletters as samizdat. 8 The undergro und church used its samizdat network to publicize this and later pilgrimages by printing announcements of upcoming pilgrimages and it published accounts of each year's pilgrimages. A rich written record of the 1985 Velehrad pil gri mage can be found in thi s body of sa mizdat literature. 9 7 Silvester Krcmery , interview by author, 3 July I996 , Bratislava, Slovakia. For a brief description of Krcmery's first meeting with Wojtyta, see Frantisek Miklosko, Nebudete ich m6ct' roz vratit: z osudov katolickej cfrkvi na Slovensku v rokoch I 943-89 (Bratislava: Archa, 1990), 125. 8 David Doellinger, " Prayers, Pilgrims , and Petitions: The Secret Church and the Growth of Civ il Society in Slovakia," Nationalities Papers 30, no. 2 (June 2002): 215-240. 9 Samizdat (self-published) refers to newspapers, articles, essays, books , etc. that were printed with mimeograph machines or typed carbon copy, and often distributed illegall y, usuall y throu gh personal contacts and info rm al networks. Archi ves with the most extensive holdings on Slovak religious samizdat include: Listy z podzemia samizdat arch ive at the Christian Democratic Movement headq uarters, Bratislava, Slovakia ; Libri Prohibiti Samizdat Archive, Prag ue, Czech Republic; Czechoslovak Documentation Center, Dobrichovice (Prague), Czech Republic. Slovak samizda t can also be found in the Keston Institute's arc hi ve, Oxford , England and th e arc hives of Radi o Free Europe/Radio Liberty in th e Open Society Archives , Budapest, Hungary. For a comprehensive catalog of Slovak religious sam izdat, see Rudolf Lessak, Listy z podzemia: suboma dokumentacia krestanskej samizdatovej publicistiky na S/ovensku v rokoch I 945- I989 (Bratislava: US PO, 1998). SLOVAKIA 103 The 1985 Velehrad Pilgrimage An increasing number of Catholics attended pilgrimages in Slovakia in the first half of the 1980s. Between 1982 and 1985, samizdat reports only carried information for the pilgrimages to Sastfn and Levoca, the two most popular Slovak pilgrimages. An estimated 15 ,000 people attended the pilgrimage at Sastfn in 1983 ; attendance jumped to 50,000 in 1984. 10 About 100,000 pilgrims attended the pilgrimages at Levoca in both 1982 and 1983. 11 The new role and importance of the pilgrimage tradition became firmly established at the 1985 pilgrimage at Yelehrad. An important pil grimage site in Moravia, Velehrad had already hosted an estim ated 40,000 pilgrims in 1984. The 1985 Yelehrad pilgrimage, however, commemorated the 1, 100th anni versary of the death of St. Methodius, who along with St. Cyril , had introduced eastern Christianity (and the Slavic liturgy) to the Great Moravian Empire in the ninth century. The work of Sts. Cyril and Methodius is particulai:.ly important to Slovak Catholics, who trace their political, cultural and religious history to thi s early empire and the arrival of these monks. 12 Several months prior to the pilgrimage, Czechoslovak Catholics and the Communist authorities began to contest the direction of the Yelehrad commemoration. At the center of the dispute was the question of whether Pope John Paul II would be permitted to attend the event. The Pope had made his first visit to Poland as early as 1979, and Czechoslovakia 's Catholics hoped this anniversary would bring a papal visit. An August 1984 letter to President Gustav Husak, signed simpl y the " Youth of CSSR," demanded that the Pope be 10 "Sastfnska put' I983 ," Naboienstvo a sucasnost'(sami zdat) 4 (1983): 2; "Sastfnsky prihovor otca Biskupa Gabrisa," Naboi enstvo a sucasnost'5 ( 1984): 8; " Sastfn '84," Vy ber (sami zdat) 4 ( 1984): 38. 11 "Annual Pilgrimage to Levoca," Keston News Service (KNS), no. 156 (August I6, I982): 3-4. Also, see Vy ber, 3 (1984 ): 7. 12 See lmrich Kruzliak, "The Heritage of Saints Cyril and Methodius in the Works of Slovak Writers and Artists," in SS. Cy ril and M ethodius Among the Slovaks: Observing the 1, JOd" Anniversary of Saint Methodius' Death, eds. lmrich Kru zliak and Frances L. Mi zenko (Middletown, PA : Slovak Catholic Federation, 1985), 134-143. The territori al extent of thi s empire is unclear, but it probably included large porti ons of present day Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. 104 SLOVAKIA permitted to attend the 1, l 00 th anniversary event. The authors indicated that they were Catholics from Banska Bystrica (in central Slovakia) and argued that there was popular support for a papal visit: We are in the jubilee year of St. Methodius. Thousands of young hearts put their signature on the request that the Holy Father John Paul II come to our country for thi s jubilee celebration. We join with Cardinal Frantisek Tomasek, who personally invited the Holy Father to this celebration. Esteemed Mr. President, if these thousands of signatures are [too] few, we are willing to collect additional thousands from young people to agai n document for you the desire of the absolute majority of inhabitants of the CSSR, so that the Holy Father comes to our republic for this precious jubilee occasion. 13 In February 1984, Cardinal Tomasek had formally invited the Pope to Velehrad, and over 17,000 Catholic youth in Czechoslovakia 14 signed a statement demonstrating their support for thi s visit. Cardinal Tomasek also cited this petition action in a letter to the CSSR government requesting permission for the visit. 15 A samizdat author analyzing the importance of the Velehrad celebration for Slovaks and the meaning of the petition wrote: "It is a new first in the public life of our church." 16 The Slovak secret church helped publicize several of these appeals for the Pope' s attendance. Despite the authorities' refusal, public support for the Papal visit continued. On New Years Day 1985 , Cardinal Tomasek sent a letter to the Pope with an additional 500 signatures that had been collected over Christmas. The letter reaffirmed the desire of Czechoslovak Catholics for the Pope to come to Velehrad on September 14 for the Methodius commemoration. It also invited the Pope to visit Sastfn, a Slovak pilgrimage site, afterwards 17 The authorities continued to refuse permission for the visit. 18 13 Letter to President Husak from the Youth of CSS R, 29 August 1984, I, Keston st Institute Fi le (hereafter KJ): CZ ROM 7/4 1 Methodius Celebrations 1985. 14 "Pozvanie sv. Otca do Ceskoslovenska," Naboienstvo a sucasnost'3 ( 1984): 17. 15 Una Sane ta Catholica (samizdat) Tu rice ( 1984 ): 35. 16 • "Pozvanie sv. Otca do Ceskoslovenska," 17-1 8. 17 Naboienstvo a sucasnost'2 (1985): 19. 18 Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Do wn, 152. Though the authori ties prevented Pope John Paul II from attending the commemoration, his encyc lical Slavorum SLOVAKIA 105 As the Velehrad pilgrimage approached, members of the secret church in both the Czech lands and Slovakia began making plans to alter the length and nature of the commemoration by organizing a special night program. Catholic activists wanted to invite youth to the site on Saturday, July 6, 1985, for a special program of song and prayer during the night preceding the official commemoration, which had been scheduled for Sunday, July 7. Night programs had already become a popular component of pilgrimages in Slovakia. Over 50,000 pilgrims attended the night program at the Levoca pilgrimage in 1983. 19 At Sastfn in 1984, a night program organized by Vladimir Jukl, one of the leaders of the Slovak secret church, had also preceded the regular pilgrimage celebration.20 The plan for a night program at Velehrad appears to have originated with both Moravian and Slovak sources. Catholic youth in Moravia invited their counterparts in Slovakia and Bohemia to the Saturday program that would include prayers for the unity of the church, the Pope, bishops and others in the Church. The Slovak reli gious samizdat Vy ber helped distribute this invitation by prominently publishing it on the back of the front cover of a spring 1985 issue.2' Frantisek Miklosko, another activist in the Slovak secret church , refers to the Moravian Catholics' pl an in a history of the post-war Catholi c Church in Slovakia that he published in 1991 . He credits Vladimir Jukl with the idea of introducing the night program at Velehrad. Miklosko personally presented Jukl 's plan for a night program to Cardinal Tomasek, who supported the idea. Though the local priest and bishop responsible for Velehrad refused to officially approve the night program or permit the youth to spend the night in Velehrad's basilica, the plan for the night program went ahead. 22 On Saturday afternoon , Ju ly 6, the Velehrad celebration made its informal start with the arri val of an estimated 5,000 young Apostoli - which praised the work of Sts. Cyril and Methodius - was published on the day of the event. Alexander Tomsky, "St Methodius Return s to Czechos lovakia," KNS, no. 235 (October 3, 1985): 18- 19. 19 " Vfce nez sto ti sfc poutn fku na Levocske hofe 3.7. 1983," ln fo rmace o cfrk vi (sami zdat) 9 (1983): 13. 20 "Sastfn ' 84," Vfber 4 ( 1984): 38. Miklosko writes that Ju kl developed the idea for the night program for Sastfn that year. Miklosko, Nebudete ich moct'rozvratit, 136. 21 Vfber4 (1985). 22 Miklosko, Nebudete ich m6ct'rozvratit;128- l 30. 106 SLOVAKIA Catholics. Accounts of their activities filled subseq uent samizdat periodicals and painted a vivid picture of their activities prior to the formal opening of the celebration at 10:00 AM on Sunday morning. As they arrived on Saturday, the young pilgrims sat in small groups in front of the basilica, some talking with friends and others singing songs, sometimes with the accompaniment of a guitar. Bishop Jan Korec , who had been secretly consecrated in 1951, visited with the young pilgrims in the afternoon and remained with them throughout the night. 23 After an evening mass inside the basilica, the pilgrims spent the night outside with one group in front of the basilica and the other in a nearby field. Each group stayed awake the entire night and observed a program of prayer, meditation and si nging. During the night, both groups chanted slogans such as "We want cloisters," "Long live Tomasek," and "Long live the Pope." One report indicated that the pilgrims also chanted "Let the Pope Come" for about twenty-five minutes. 24 One member of the Slovak secret church apparently spent Saturday afternoon and night with a tape recorder recording the songs, chants and conversations with the pilgrims. A Slovak samiz dat periodical published excerpts from this recording, capturing some of the different hopes and concerns of those in attendance, including the di sappointment of one young pilgrim that the state authorities viewed the pilgrimage and anniversary celebration as a "peace event." The pilgrim, speaking sometime late Saturday evening, described his mixed response to the weekend: I assumed that many believers would participate in this pilgrimage, but I am very surprised by the multitude of people who are already here today. I am very enthusiastic about it, because I expect rich spiritual fruits from this pilgrimage. I regret, of course - and I also think everyone else does - that we may not have the Holy Father here among us. But on the other hand, we are glad that he is represented here by Cardinal Casaro li [responsible for the Vatican's Ostpolitik]. 25 23 " Velehrad ' 85 ," Naboienstvo a sucasnost'3 ( 1985): 17. The largest Czech religious samizdat periodical republished this report. "Velehrad I985 , videny zo Slovenska," Jnformace o cirkvi IO (1985), 6-7. 24 "Boli sme na Velehrade," Rodinne spolocenstvo (samizdat) 5 ( 1985): 5-6. 25 "Velehrad ' 85 z magnetofonoveho zaznamu," Vyber9 (1985): 12. SLOVAKIA 107 Early in the morning a fifty-year old priest, asked for his reaction to thi s " uncommon" event, replied: We spent this night at Velehrad together with Sai nts Cyril and Methodius. And it was very beautiful. There are groups of young believers here from all over Slovakia and also from the Czech lands, but a preponderance here are Slovaks. 26 Though located in Moravia, the night program at Velehrad was of particul ar interest to Slovak Catholics, and other observers also noted the large presence of Slovaks at Velehrad.27 . The enthusiasm of the young Catholics who had arri ved early to spend the night at Velehrad carried over to the official celebrations on Sunday. Despite the state's efforts to curtail attendance by canceling public transportation to Velehrad, pilgrims from all over Czechoslovakia arrived , many on foot, to join those who had spent the night singing, praying and chanting. 28 One samizdat periodical reported that at a 7:00 AM mass outside the Basilica, the pilgrims who had arrived only that morning were surprised that the young people, fo llowing the singing of the papal hymn, broke into chants of "Long li ve John Paul II! " and " Let us have the Hol y Father! " 29 The youth had been chanting these slogans throughout the night, and like a team coming out of a hi gh-school pep rally, they were ready for the celebration to begin. By 10:00 AM, when the official celebration began, an estimated 100,000-250,000 pilgrims had gathered outside the Basilica in the center of Velehrad. 30 A local Party official opened the celebration by welcoming everyone to what he called the St. Methodiu s " Peace Celebration ." In response to this designation, the 26 Ibid., 19. Another Slovak priest, Father Martinec, explai ned that he had he lped wi th the organization of the pilgrimage and the arriva l of Slovak Catholics at Yelehrad . Karel Martinec, interview by author, 4 Jul y 1996, Bratislava, Slovakia. 28 "Yelehrad 1985 ," Vzkffsenf(samizdat) 2 ( 1985): 15. 29 " Boli sme na Yelehrade," 5. 30 Religious samizdat peri odical s re ported this wide range estimate of pilgrims in attendance. See "Boli sme na Yelehrade," 8; "Yelehrad ' 85," 18; " Yelehrad 1985," Vzkifsenf2 ( 1985): 15; and " Yelehrad nas," Informace o cfrk vi 10 ( 1985): 6. Photographs of the pilgrims gathered around the Bas ilica at Yelehrad on Jul y 7 - taken from different angles - indicate that the pilgrims filled every inch of the square and support the magnitude of the size of the crowd as reported by religious samizdat. Kl: photo collection, photos# 1793 and # 1876. 27 108 SLOVAKIA pilgrims responded negatively with whistles and shouts of "We want Holy Mass!" 3 1 Following the singi ng of the state anthem, the Minister of Culture, Dr. Milan Klu sak, spoke. Again, the pilgrims expressed their dissatisfaction with the official spin he gave to the importance of the anniversary. Several samizdat periodicals reported the following exchange between Klusak and the pilgrims: [Minister Klusak] grasped the situation and therefore improvised as he spoke. In order to stress that he did not consider the celebration to be a peace celebration, he said that he came to the pilgrimage to celebrate Methodius' memory. The crowd corrected him by chanting "Saint, Saint." When he said that Cyril and Methodius brought us a language and alphabet, the people supplemented it with "Faith , Faith!" The surpri sed minister then began a discussion with the people by saying "The Bi shop will speak about Faith to you. We have divided up the work." ... the young people replied to him: "Freedom, Religious Freedom." The minister argued back to the youth and everyone else: "If you did not have [religious freedom], you would not be here." 32 The pilgrims responded to the remainder of Klusak's speech with chants: "We Want the Holy Father!" "We Want Religious Freedom," and "We Want Bishops!" In contrast to the pilgrims' dissatisfaction with the state authorities' remarks, the pilgrims enthusiastically supported the words of the church officials. During the heckling of Minister Klu sak, the pilgrims had also chanted "Long Live Cardinal Tomasek! and "Casaroli!" 33 Cardinal Tomasek read a letter from the Pope that reportedly energized the pilgrims despite their disappointment that the Pope was not there to deliver his words personally . During the Mass, Cardinal Casaroli switched between Czech and Slovak while delivering his sermon.34 Accounts indicate that Cardinal Tomasek and Cardinal Casaroli clearly were surprised by the hi gh attendance and the enthusiasm of the pilgrims. After- 31 "Boli sme na Yelehrade," 7. fbid ., 7. A similar account of this exchange, written by a Slovak pilgrim , appeared in Czech samizdat. " Velehrad 1985 ," Vzkfisenf2 ( 1985): 16. See also Jan Korec, Od barbarskej noci na slobode (Bratislava: Luc, 1993), 342. 33 "Velehrad '85," Naboienstvo a sucasnost; 18. 34 "Boli sme na Velehrade," 7-8. 32 SLOVAKIA 109 wards, Cardinal Tomasek reportedly told a group of young people, "This is not reality, this is a dream. " 35 The Significance of Velehrad The relatively large number of Catholic youth from Slovakia that chose to come earl y to this pilgrimage indicates both the strength of Catholicism in Slovakia and the failure of the state 's restricti ve policies against the church. Vaclav Benda, a Catholic Czech activist, afterwards commented on the significance of this pilgrimage: Yelehrad was an effective demonstration that the experiment of splitting the church was condemned to failure and ridiculous from the beginning. It must presently be clear from this pilgrimage ... that the prohibitions or radical restriction on the church drove several million active believers into the underground. 36 The 1985 Velehrad pilgrimage was critical turning point in a revival of the pilgrimage tradition in Slovakia. After Yelehrad, pilgrimage attendance and the number of sites hosting pilgrimages in Slovakia increased significantly. 37 Levoca, in eastern Slovakia, received the largest number of pilgrims with an estimated 150,000 in 1986,38 200,000-230,000 in 1987,39 and possibly as high as 280,000 300,000 in 1988.40 The number of pilgrims to Sastfn, a small village located north of Bratislava near the Moravian border, grew steadily from estimates of 40,000-50,000 in 1986,4 1 and 60,000 in 1987 ,42 to 35 " Yelehrad '85," Naboienstvo a sricasnost; 18. Vaclav Benda, "Ako d'alej po Yelehrade?" Naboienstvo a sricasnost'2 (I 986): 4. 37 Attendance at Slo vak pil grimages in 1989 was also high, but there is less information in samizdat about that year's pilgrimages than for earlier years. This is probably due to the fac t that reports of the summer pilgrimages usually appeared in late fa ll samizdat issues, by which time the Velvet Revolution had already begun. 38 "Levoca 1986," Voice of A merica (VOA) 12 July 1986. 39 "Record Numbers Attend Slovak Pilgrimages," Keston News Service, 280 (23 Jul y 87): 19; "Message from Jan Carnogursky to Keston College," KI: CZ ROM 7 /4 Pilgrimages; "Levoca put' 1987," Naboienstvo a sricasnost'4 ( 1987): 7. 40 " Mariansky rok na Slovensku," Katolfcky mesacnik (sami zdat) 4 (1 988): I ; Peter Marti n, "The Pilgrimage to Levoca," R FE/RL, 14 July 1988, 19. Another sami zdat periodical estimated the attendance in 1988 at " more than 200,000 ." See "Mys lienky z Levocskej pute," Naboienstvo a sricasnost'3 (I 988): 3. 41 " Putne slav nosti na Slovensku v r. 1986," Naboienstvo a sricasnost' I ( I 987): I 719. 36 110 SLOVAKIA 60,000-70,000 in 1988. 43 The number of pilgrims to Gaboltov, estimated at 20,000-25,000 in 1985 ,44 increased more dramatically from estimates of 30,000-50,000 in 198645 to as high as l 00,000 in 1987 and 1988. 46 Large numbers of pilgrims also visited traditionally less popular pilgrimage sites in Slovakia during this period. Lutina, an important Greek Catholic pilgrimage site in eastern Slovakia, received 40,000 pilgrims in 198647 and 50,000 in 1987 .48 Topolcany received 25,000 pilgrims in 1988.49 Due to the nature of a pilgrimage, usually an outdoor event with people sitting or standing in a town square or in a nearby field, only estimates, probably made by members of the secret church present at the pilgrimage, are available. Jan Camogursky , a prominent activist in the Slovak secret church, reported that as he became aware of the political significance of the pilgrimages in 1987, he began making estimates of the number of pilgrims attending the events throughout Slovakia.50 Although not an exact count, these estimates are significant as a measure of the increase in the multitude of pilgrim s attending a particular pilgrimage, an increase that the authors of samizdat reports on pilgrimages were certainly observing. The increase in attendance after 1985 suggests that pilgrimages can be more than barometers of social change; the Velehrad pilgrimage promoted a change in the function of pilgrimages and their appeal to Catholics. The active force that promoted this transformation was the secret church. Members of this community helped transform the pilgrimage tradition into a space where Catholics could meet publicly and in large numbers to worship. Velehrad 's night program allowed young people active in the underground to meet 42 "Sastfn - September 1987," Naboienstvo a sucasnost'5 (1987): l 1. "Sastfn - '88," K ato/fcky mesacnik 5 ( 1988): I. 44 "Gaboltov ' 85 ," Naboi enstvo a sucasnost'3 (I 985): 20. 45 " Putne slavnosti na Slovensku v r 1986," 17- 19. 46 " Message from Jan Camogursky to Keston College"; "Put' v Gaboltove," VOA , 24 Jul y 1988. 47 "Pout' reckokatoliku v Lu tine 1986," lnformace o cfrkvi 10 (1986): I0. 48 "Message from Jan Camogursky." 49 "Pilgrimage at Topol'cany," Summary of World Broadcasts (SWB), 13 September 1988. 50 Jan Camogursky, interview by author, 16 Jul y 1996, Bratislava, Slovakia. Documents in the Keston Institute archive indicate that he sent reports of these estimates to Western news organizations. See for example, "Message from Jan Camogursky." 43 SLOVAKIA 111 with other Catholics and express their faith publicly. Velehrad had demonstrated the secret church 's ability to mobilize its members to participate in a public event, and it continued to do so during the remainder of the decade. Slovak Catholic activists contributed to the popularity of pilgrimages and their night programs in the later half of the 1980s. The used the secret church 's samizdat network to inform its members about previous pilgrimages and to promote attendance at upcoming ones. From 1986 to 1989, the issues of Naboi enstvo a sucasnost; Rodinne spolocenstvo and later Katolfcky mesacnfk published extensive articles and reports about Slovak pilgrimages. This coverage included first hand reports of pilgrims' experiences, often including descriptions of their walk to the site and the activities of the night program. These samizdat periodicals also frequently published transcripts of prayers and sermons spoken during Mass at a pilgrimage, as well as historical information about different pilgrimage sites. 5 1 They also published schedules and information about upcoming pilgrimages in Slovakia. 52 As a result of this coverage, a written record of the experiences, worship service, activities, and even the chants at pilgrimages has been preserved. Catholics unable to attend a particular pilgrimage could learn about what had been said and done by reading these accounts. Since most samizdat reports on pilgrimages were usuall y publi shed several months after the pilgrimage, this coverage reminded Slovak Catholics of what had happened during the summer. Its reports and descriptions of previous pilgrimages promoted the events, and its schedule information certainly helped coordinate attendance at a pilgrimage. In addition to its samiz dat network, information about pilgrimages was shared through the communities of the secret church. Carnogursky reported that many of its communities "visited these pilgrimages collectively as groups." 53 The Slovak secret church also continued to promote the night program for pilgrimages after 1985, and attendance at night prog- 51 For the text of a prayer read by a local priest at the I 988 Sastfn pilgrimage, see "Modlitba na zaver marianskeho Rok u," Kato/icky mesacnfk 6 ( 1988): 5-7 . Another arti cle recounts the history of th e Sastfn pilgrim age site fro m 9 16 A.O. to 1987. "Sastfn," Naboienstvo a sucasnost'4 ( 1987): 8-10. 52 " Letna - putnicka - aktivita 1989," Kato/icky mesacmk 5 ( I 989): 6. 53 Camogursky, interview. 112 SLOVAKIA rams increased. A samizdat article describing the pilgrimage celebrations that had taken place throughout Slovakia in 1986 announced that in 1987 night programs were scheduled in Gaboltov and Uhorna in addition to Levoca and Sastin. 54 In 1988, an estimated 50,000 pilgrims attended the night program at Gaboltov,55 and 100,000 attended the night program during the Marian year pilgrimage in Levoca. 56 The following year, 5,000-10,000 people attended the night pro57 gram at the smaller pilgrimage site of Lutina. At the pilgrimage, the members of the secret church could do openly and publicly what they had done since their foundation: gather for prayer, meditation, and worship. Rather than finding safety in small numbers by meeting in private apartments, the pilgrimage tradition allowed the secret church members to practice their faith publicly, on a larger scale, and in fellowship with Catholics not active in the secret church. Jan Camogursky, reporting on the significance of pilgrimages in Slovakia, writes: [While] they last, pilgrimages solve a basic problem of our society - the problem of being outnumbered by the police ... The police are unable even to act against individuals on pilgrimages, because they are protected in the solidarity of numbers ... [This] feeling of safety gives the pilgrims another feeling - that of freedom . On a pilgrimage they can act according to their convictions and openly display their religious faith. 58 Although the secret church had traditionally distanced itself from the political opposition to avoid additional persecution by the state, the pilgrimage tradition facilitated a shift towards a new engagement in the public sphere. For members of the secret church, this issue of religious freedom could always be discussed among fellow members through its communities and samizdat press. Chants for religious freedom and in support of certain church officials had been voiced publicly to a significantly large gathering at Velehrad in 1985. The 54 "Putne slavnosti na Slovensku v r. 1986," 19. " Put' v Gaboltove," VOA, 24 July 1988. 56 "Mariansky rok na Slovensku," l. 57 "0 puti V Lutine," Rodinne spolocenstvo 5 (1989): 14. 58 Jan Carnogursky, "The Underground Church and Pilgrimages in Slovakia," The Salisbury Review (Ju ne 1989): 36. 55 SLOVAKIA 113 pilgrimage tradition provided a public space and forum where political demands arti culated by the secret church could be discussed, debated, and shared with the broader public in relative safety. The contest between church and state exhibited at the 1985 Velehrad pilgrimage is one of the most striking feature s of this event. 59 The contest over the orientation of the commemoration could be said to have begun in 1984 as Cardinal Tomasek and Czechoslovak Catholics began demanding that Pope John Paul II be given permi ssion to attend. While the state argued that the commemoration should celebrate the cultural significance of St. Methodius, the church argued that the anniversary was a religious event. This conflict between church and state, so publicly exhibited at Velehrad in 1985, suggests that a term such as "church" fail s to capture the complexity of relations between church and state. Rather than a monolith, the "church" was represented by at least three distinct groups in this contest: the official church hierarchy , pilgrims active in the secret church, and pilgrims not active in the secret church. Of the three, it was the pilgrims (both within and without the secret church) listening to the Party officials' presentations who openly challenged the state's authority over the pilgrimage. Through their efforts, the pilgrimage became a public space where Catholics could challenge the status quo and the state 's right to define the meaning of St. Methodius and the l ,lO0 th anni versary . The pilgrimage created a forum where these three representations of the church ' s position could interact and influence one another. Even more interesting is the fact that the challenge to the status quo did not end in 1985 . Leaders of the Slovak underground church increasingly crossed into more politically-oriented public activities, most notably its collection of signatures to a 31-point petition for greater religious freedom in 1987 and 1988 and its organization of a public demonstration for religious freedom in Bratislava on March 25 , 1988 whi ch was violently 59 John Eade and Michael J. Sallnow, in the introduction to an edited vo lume of research on pilgrimages, assert that the new agenda in pilgrimage stud ies recogni zes that pilgrimage " is above all an arena for competing re ligious and secular discourses, for both the offi cial co-optation and the non-official recovery of rel igious meanings, fo r conflict between orthodoxies, sects and confess ional groups, fo r dri ves towards consensus and communities, and for counter movements towards separateness and division." John Eade and Michae l J. Sallnow , eds. Contesting the Sacred: The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 2. 114 SLOVAKIA broken up by the police. Altogether, 600,000 Czechs and Slovaks signed the petition and a reported 300,000-400,000 of the signatures were collected in Slovakia. Samizdat reports indicate that this petition was often read aloud at pilgrimages in Slovakia during night programs in the late 1980s.60 Divisions also existed within the official hierarchy of the Czechoslovak Catholic Church regarding the direction the 1985 Velehrad pilgrimage should take. Cardinal Frantisek Tomasek, since the election of Pope John Paul II, had become increasingly willing to criticize the state's interference in church affairs. In a 1981 letter to the editors of Katolfcke noviny, the state-approved and supported news organ of the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia, Cardinal Tomasek had criticized this periodical's focus on Pacem in Terris, disarmament and international relations, rather than Papal speeches and material that responded to the spiritual needs of the country ' s believers.61 In 1984, Cardinal Tomasek had not only formally invited Pope John Paul II to attend the Velehrad commemoration, but had also supported unofficial initiatives that demonstrated popular support for a papal visit. Cardinal Tomasek had also supported the secret church's plan to organize a night program at Velehrad, thus demonstrating that the lines between the secret church's activities and the official church sometimes became quite blurred. The unwillingness of the local bishop and priest responsible for Velehrad to approve the night program or permit the youth to spend the night in the basilica stands in stark contrast to Cardinal Tomasek's interest in it. All reports indicate that the police and other authorities in Slovakia were fairly ineffective in their efforts to clamp down on pilgrimages. Samizdat articles indicate that the pilgrims were quite aware of secret police agents dressed in civilian clothes and using cameras and video-recorders to document the event, but their presence apparently did little to deter their activities. As early as the 1984 pilgrimage to Levoca, police put several obstacles in the way of 60 For more about the 31-point petition and the March 25, 1988 demonstration, see David Doellinger, "From Prayers to Protests: The Impact of Religio us-Based Dissent on the Emergence of Civil Society in Slovakia and the GDR," (Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Pittsburgh, 2002), chapter 4. 61 This letter appeared in lnformace o cirkvi, no. 4 ( 198 1): 24-25. SLOVAKIA 115 pilgrims, such as running road checks to back up traffic to the site, canceling train and bus service to Levoca, and even cutting down trees to block the road to the basilica. More subtle efforts focused on keeping young people away from Levoca by scheduling a concert by a Slovak pop star in a nearby town . Some schools scheduled special activities on the day of pilgrimages, and others even posted notices banning participation in the pilgrimage.62 Police efforts took a more violent turn in 1986, when militia used dogs to break up groups of pilgrims making their way to Gaboltov.63 Also in 1986, the police interrogated Jozef Halko, a priest who had been sec retly ordained, and Anton Selecky, a Catholic activist, for their activities earlier in the year at the Sastin and Levoca pilgrimages. Holk.o 's interrogation focused on the fact that he had heard confessions at Levoca and Selecky ' s interrogators were concerned that he had written accounts of the pilgrimages for publication in samizdat. 64 In addition to signaling the pilgrimage' s transformation into a public space for Catholics, Velehrad also reflected the increasingly political potential of religion itself in the Soviet bloc in the 1980s. The political significance of religion and religious activities in the Soviet bloc had become quite apparent during the Pope 's first visit to Poland in 1979. In Warsaw's Victory Square on June 2, John Paul II spoke freely about the historically close rel ationship between Christianity and the Polish nation. He also spoke about the failed Warsaw uprising in 1944 (when Soviet troops allowed the Polish Home Army to be defeated by the Nazis), Polish independence, and human dignity. 65 In his analysis of the rise of Solidarity in Poland, Jan Kubik notes that Pope John Paul II 's speech and visit brought an end to the " Party-state's monopoly over public di scourse in 62 " Levoca - the Slovak National Shrine," K NS 2 14 (6 December I 984) . For references to the presence of the secret police at Velehrad in 1985, see " Velehrad 85 - spomienka studentov," Naboi enstvo a sucasnost'3 ( 1986): 17 and " Boli sme na Velehrade," 5. 63 "Militia Set Dogs on Pilgrims (Czechoslovakia)," KNS 257 (2 1 August 1986). 64 "Slovak Cathol ics interrogated," KNS 264 (27 November 1986). 65 Pope John Paul II , "Pope John Paul IL Speaks in Victory Square, Warsaw," in ed., Gale Stokes, From Stalinism to Pluralism (New York and Oxford : Oxford Universi ty Press, 1996), 200-203. 116 SLOVAKIA Poland."66 Though Solidarity was not a religious movement, Kubik argues that its close association with the Catholic Church and the use of religious symbols strengthened its ability to mobilize the Polish population and to construct a sphere of activity separate from and in defiance to the state. Among its achievements was the construction of public spaces not reserved for the state, including the Gdansk Monument and the Poznan Monument. Both incorporated crosses into their design, and, as Kubik explains, both monuments had been unveiled in religious ceremonies that emphasized the participation of society, rather than society 's subservience to the state. 67 Jan Kubik's analysis of these public events in Poland that preceded the formation of Solidarity offers insight into the political significance of religion in East Central Europe. Just as religion and religious traditions offered an alternative to the state's monopoly of power in Poland, the pilgrimage at Velehrad demonstrated that religion and religious traditions could offer a similar alternative in Czechoslovakia. Pope John Paul II had emphasized the historical significance of Christianity in Poland during his visit in 1979 and the commemoration of St. Methodius at Velehrad had allowed Catholic pilgrims the unique opportunity to confront state officials regarding Czechoslovakia's historical relationship with Christianity. The pilgrims at Velehrad, by vocally opposing the state's emphasis on the cultural contribution of Methodius, expressed their defiance of and unwillingness to be subservient to the state's religious policies. In doing so, the pilgrims transformed the traditional religious pilgrimage into an event of political significance. 66 Jan Kubik, The Power of Symbols Against the Symbols of Power: The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, I 994 ), 144. 67 For description and analysis of the Gdansk and the Poznan Monuments, see Kubik, The Power of Symbols, I 96-206, 2 14-216.  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 1985 Pilgrimage at Velehrad: Slovak Catholics and the Creation of a Public Space Description An account of the resource David Doellinger Slovakia, Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007 pp. 99-116 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Doellinger, David Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/46fdc3e0c813f2a93adbad435b51483e.pdf 9061638c10f0fc8565df947913f2662b PDF Text Text REVIEWS ��SLOVAKIA 131 Jan Steinhtibe l, Nitrianske knieiatstvo: Pociatky stredovekeho Slovenska. Rozpravanie o dejinach nasho tizemia a okolitych krajfn od st!lho vania narodov do zaciatku 12. storocia. Brati slava: Veda, 2004. 575pp., bibliography, index of names, index of places, maps, photos, illustration s. M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa This massive sy nthesis is the culmination of fifteen years of research and publication on the ancestors of the Slovaks in Central Europe. Jan Steinhi.ibel, who works for the Historical Institute of the Sloak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, is a worthy successor to the late Peter Ratkos, the age ing Richard Marsina, and the recentl yretired Matus Kucera , all ex perts on the ancient hi story of the Slovaks. According to Ste inhtibel , the Principality of Nitra was the earliest state of the ancestors of the Slovaks. It started to form in the 6th century, and was independent from 805 to 833. After it was conquered by the nearby Moravians, it remained an important Principality until the demi se of the Great Morav ian Empire in 906. Once the Magyar Arpad dynasty establi shed itself in Central Europe in the 10th century, Nitra, which was inhabited large ly by Slavs, remained a key Principality in the emerging Hungarian Kin gdom until the beginning of the I 2th century. Prince l mri ch, ruler of Nitra and son of King (Sa int) Stephen, was even dubbed " Henricus nobilis dux Sc lavoni e" by a Polish chronicler in I029. And, as long as the Principality existed, its people were called "Nytrenses Sclavi" by Hungarian chroniclers. For three ce nturi es Nitra served as the steppingstone for the future rulers of, first Great Moravia, and later the Kingdom of Hungary. Indeed, the rul ers of Nitra were sovereign over nine counties (large ly coterminous with present-day Slovakia, with the exception of the eastern counties), commanded armies of 3,000 soldiers and often struck their own coins. Eventuall y, however, the early Kings of Hungary, who had traditionally shared their rule wi th their brothers as Princes of Nitra, came to regard this principality as a source of rebellion against them selves or their designated successsors (their leg itimate sons). As a result, in 1108 King Koloman depo- �132 SLOVAKIA sed and blinded his brother Almos, along with the latter's son, and two years later abolished the Principality, along wi th its southern border. Thereafter, medieval chroniclers referred to the local inhabitants si mply as " Sclavi ," but by the 15th century they had become "Slowak." Of course the 18th century Czech linguist Josef Dobrovsky , who claimed that the term "Slovak" or "Slovensko" were recent inventions, did not know any of this. After 336 pages of text, lavishly illustrated with relevant quotations from medieval chroniclers, Steinhiibel concluded that one can trace the beginnings of Slovak history to the Principality of Nitra. Indeed, he continued, one has to look to thi s Principality to find the national, territorial and historical roots of Slovakia. This book is a testament to the deep eruditon of the author. As the 1900 footnotes covering pages 337-495 testify, SteinhUbel mined virtually all (largely Latin) medieval sources written by German, Magyar, Polish, Czech, Ru ssian and Byzantine chroniclers that pertain to Central Europe. He also read the relevant books and articles in the vernacular languages of contemporary scholars of Central Europe and he judiciously illustrated his book with copies of medieval manuscripts , drawings and photos of artifacts. This monograph was a pleasure to read and I will eagerly mine it for relevant quotations for my course on the early history of the Slovaks. Dusan Kovac et. al. Na zaciatku storocia, 1901 -1914. Bratislava: Veda, 2004. 292 pp. , ill., index . GREGORY C. FERENCE Salisbury University This is the first of a scheduled seven volume series entitled Slovensko v 20. storoci (Slovakia in the 2(Jh Century) sponsored by the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, under the chief editorship of Dusan Kovac, a leading Slovak historian. Kovac, one of five historians who wrote chapters in this volume penned the introduction and the first "Raku sko-Uhorsko a slo venska otazka v narodnych vztahoch" (A ustria-Hungary and the Slovak Question in International Affairs) and sixth "Pred prvou svetovou vojnou" (Be- �SLOVAKIA 133 fore the First World War) chapters. Other eminent Slovak historians included in this volume are alphabetically: Roman Holec, Chapter 3 "Hospodarstvo" (Economics), Elena Jakesova, chapter 2 "Spolocnost" (Society), Elena Mannova, Chapter 7 "Ideove smery. Kulturny a spolocensky zivot" (Ideological Movements. Cultural and Social Life), and Milan Podrimavsky, Chapters 4 "Krfza liberalneho rezimu 1901-1904" (Crisis of the Liberal Regime 1901-1904) and 5 "Vyvrcholenie politickej krfzy. Koalicna vlada 1905-1910" (Culmination of the Political Crisis. The Coalition Government 1905-1910). Although only these five authors receive credit for the entries, Kovac notes that they relied on the research of another ten historians. This is the most comprehensive general history of Slovakia produced thus far. As Kovac states in his introduction, the Slovak public, and indeed the world, has not until this time possessed a true synthesized historical work written by experts. Previous attempts developed under the totalitarian regime failed to fulfill this goal because they presented distorted interpretations. Kovac hopes this and subsequent works of the series will return to the tradition of noted historian Cubomfr Liptak when he wrote his Slovensko v 20. storoci in 1968 This volume contains traditional aspects of any society, but also gives coverage to areas rarely found in general historical works such as architecture, the beaux arts, mass communication, education, the family , business, and economics . It is not intended to be an all encompassing in-depth study, but rather explores the topics with sufficient coverage without becoming too bogged down in detail. It is meant to be a starting point for further research and study , and it accomplishes this feat quite well. The fourteen years prior to the outbreak of war were a very dynamic and dramatic period, so much so that Slovakia, in the spring of 1914, was quite a different place than in1901 , especially in its urban areas. Despite the Slovaks politically and culturally waging an uphill battle against intensive Magyarization aimed at their assimilation, they fared much better than they had in 1901. The book contains information about the Slovak diaspora, including Budapest, Vienna, the United States, and the Yojvodina/Banat region. The authors explained that a general history of Slovakia and Slovaks before the First World War needs to explore territories other than that of �134 SLOVAKIA Slovakia or Upper Hungary. Indeed, during this time, the true urban center of the Slovaks was Budapest. The work also covers, in much less detail, the other inhabitants of the region including Jews, Germans, Rusyns, and Gypsies (Romany) and provides ample evidence of the ethnic plurali sm of Upper Hungary . At times, too much emphasis appears to be placed on trends and developments throughout Hungary, but, naturall y, it proves impossible to divorce Slovakia from the rest of the Lands of St. Stephen. Each chapter is broken down into numerous short subsections of several pages thereby enabling the reader to easily digest and comprehend them without becoming lost in lengthy discu ssions. Seven charts placed throughout the work and numerous photographs in five section s better illustrate and clarify the points made in the text. The bibliography is intended to be used for further study of the various issues addressed in this work. It contains older essential, fundamental works alongside newly published research. As is often the case for books published in Slovakia, this work contains an index of names, but not subjects, rendering it of marginal value. Overall, this is a fine volume that will become an accepted, starting point for anyone wishing to delve into virtually all aspects of Slovak history at the turn of the last century. Its thoughtful, well constructed chapters present information that piques the interest of the reader. If the quality of this work is upheld in the sc heduled six additional volumes, this series will prove to be a definiti ve collection. Hopefully, an English translation will follow. Ivan A. Petran sky, Stat a katolfcka cirkev na Slovensku 19451946. Nitra: Garmond, 2001, 318pp, summary in English, bibliography, index. JAMES RAMON FELAK University of Washington Ivan Petransky ' s Stat a katolfcka cirkev na Slovensku 1945-1946 covers a brief but crucial period in church-state relations in the history of Slovakia. This was a time of transition between the wartime �SLOVAKIA 135 regime, when the Catholic Church had a rel atively pri vi leged place due to its more or less positive relations with the Tiso regime, and the Communist era, when the state brought immense press ure and control on the Church. This period has been largely ignored in the past, though increasingly it is becoming a topic of research across East Central Europe. Petransky used a number of archival sources. At the Slovak National Archive, he employed the collections of the Slovak National Council, the Commission of Education, the Commission of the Interior, and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia. In addition, he made significant use of diocesan archives, in partic ular those of Kosice, Banska Bystrica, and Nitra. These latter sources enabled him to present and discuss conversations that occurred within the church leadership, and he revealed some of the differences of opinion among Slovak bishops over how best to defend Catholic interests and respond to state press ures. They also provided insight into the nature of decision-making and consensus-building within the hierarchy . Among the other sources employed by Petransky are documents from the post- 1948 trial s of Catholic bishops and political leaders, documents of the Foreign Ministry pertaining to relations with the Vatican, memoirs, and articles from the press. After a brief overview of relations between church and state in Czechoslovakia and Slovakia from 191 8 to 1945, Petransky presented a narrative of developments in church-state relations during the period from the liberation of Slovakia from Nazi occupation in the spring of 1945 to the parliamentary elections of May 1946. During this period the Communists tried both to weaken the Catholic Church and its social influence, and to attract Catholics to the Communi st camp, or at least keep them away from the rival Democratic Party. Petransky's narrati ve is followed by the longest section of the book, an examination of a variety conflicts between church and state. These include the state 's attempt at a near-complete takeover of education , the outlawing of a number of Catholic organizations, restriction s on the Catholic press, state claims to the Church' s agricultural property, and the persec ution of bishops, priests, and members of reli gious orders. Petransky also examined the question of Church ties with Slovakia 's illegal underground opposition, and the Church's policies toward s the national minorities, in particular the Magyars. �136 SLOVAKIA Finally, he gave his book an international dimension by looking at the situation of the Catholic Church in Slovakia from the perspectives of the Slovak emigre press and the Vatican. This book has several strengths. It keeps its focus on the issues of church-state relations, while providing sufficient context for understanding how those issues fit into the larger context of post-war Slovakia. Though the author's sympathies are clearly with the Catholics, the work remained fair to all sides. This is not simply a litany of crimes and abuses aga inst the Catholic Church, though there were enough of those. Rather, it is a serious and largely successful attempt to present and ana lyze the complex and dynamic relationship between Church , state, Catholics, and Democrats during a cruc ial period of Slovakia 's modern history. One definitely takes away from this book a deeper understanding of the period and the forces at play in it. It is to be hoped that Mr. Petransky, or someone of his caliber, writes a sequel up to the Communist takeover of February 1948. Anton Hyki sch, Ako chutf politika, Spomienky a zaznamy z rokov 1990-1992. Yydavatel'stvo Pozsony/Pressburg/Bratislava, 2004. 349pp. Index of names. MARCEL JESENSKY University of Ottawa The years I 990-1992 represent one of the most fascinating periods in the modern-day history of Slovakia. During the last months of 1989 the seemingly permanent political , social and eco nomi c order in Czechoslovakia disintegrated and set into motion a process of dramatic reforms that changed the lives of the majority of Slovaks and Czechs. Anton Hykisch, an acclaimed Slovak writer, Christian Democratic politician and member of parliament, and a former diplomat, presents his personal narrative of those dynamic days. He offers an analys is of Slovak society based on his personal diaries and consultations of other primary so urces. Like many of his contemporaries, Hykisch could not resist the challenges of active participation in Slovak society's revitalization and transformation. His long-cherished �SLOVAKIA 137 idea of the creation of a Christian political movement in Slovakia materialized in 1990, although not entirely according to his wishes. Should it be a movement or a political party? There was no time for such "details." Everything happened so quickly before the first free elections (since 1946) in 1990. Anton Hykisch became a member of the Slovak Parliament (SNR) for the Christian Democratic Movement (KOH), as well as a member of its Executive Council (Predsednfctvo ). In l 990-1992 Slovakia experienced its own revolution, one pertaining to its identity. What should be Slovakia's place in post-communist Czechoslovakia, Czecho-Slovakia or the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic? How could one re-formulate the relations between Slovaks and Czechs? The " revolutionaries" from the ruling VPN (Verejnost' proti nasiliu), the strongest political force in the aftermath of the " Velvet Revolution" of 1989, wished to transform Slovakia into a non-national civic society. The crowds in Brati slava that brought the "velvet revolutionaries" to power in November 1989, merely one year later denounced many of them as traitors to the Slovak national cause. What went wrong? The author believes that Slovakia experienced twin revo lutions, the "velvet" anti-communist one, as well as a national one. This was contrary to the plans and expectations of president Vaclav Havel's followers in Prague. Slovakia " wanted and had to abandon its twin yoke. ls it so difficult to understand?" (p.51) Hykisc h believes that Slovakia became a victim of the post-November 1989 myth originating in Prague. Havel and hi s colleagues dreamed of proving to the world that " their" Czechoslovakia could defy the national selfdetermination trends prevailing in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s. In other words, Slovaks and Czechs should demonstrate their allegedly more advanced moral and civic feelings by defying the laws and trends of national movements, the wave of creation of new national states in Europe (p.52). Slovaks and Czechs allegedly wanted to only be citizens of the world, and Czechoslovakia was merely a way-station to the " blessed civic society of the world" (p.53). To put it more bluntly, Czechoslovakia should not di sintegrate. According to Hykisch, thi s, quixotic task, dream or vision, was politically unrealistic and practically impossible. Throughout the book the reader detects the author's disappoint- �138 SLOVAKIA ment over missed opportunities. Hykisc h believes that the Christian Democrats (KOH) mishandled the question of Slovakia ' s sovereignty. "Had we (i.e. the Christian Democrats), hal f a year before the general elections of June 1992, submitted to ourselves, to our Czech partners and to the world, a serious, economically-sound plan of gradual self-determination or a plan of suitable union of Slovak and Czech states, it would not have to be done after the 1992 elections by somebody else" (p.241). The question of Slovakia's sovereignty played a decisive role in the author 's decision to eventually break with the Christian Democrats and to join a new political party , the Slovak Christian Democratic Movement, led by Jan Klepac. Thi s book offers an interesting, personal , interpretation of the 1990-1992 events in Slovakia and Czechoslovakia. Anton Hykisch 's attractive literary style, as well as his informed and insightful perspecti ve, will not di sappoint those who desire to submerge themselves into the complexities of Slovakia's modern history and the deteriorating Slovak-Czech relationship of the early l 990 's. Jan Rychlfk, Rozpad Ceskoslovenska. Cesko-slovenske vztahy 1989-1992. Bratislava: Academic Electronic Press, 2002, 457 pp., notes, summaries in English and German, bibliography , documents, index . JURAJ HOCMAN University of Ottawa Both the " Velvet Revolution" and the "Velvet Divorce" of Czechoslovakia have fascinated many scholars and much has been written about them. After a decade had passed, Jan Rychlik published his interpretation of the breakup of Czechoslovakia. The author is a trained and experienced Czech historian who witnessed the collapse of the communist regime and the emergence of new political elites in Czechoslovakia at the end of the 1980s. He started with the so-called era of "normalization", while analyzing the reasons for the collapse of the ancien regime. He then describes the appearance of the new, inexperienced , Czech and Slovak national political elites. In his introduction Rychlfk stresses the fact that wes- �SLOVAKIA 139 tern scholars, such as Eric Stein in his Czecho/Slovakia: Ethnic Conflict, Constitutional Fissure, Negotiated Breakup (1997), looked at the recent events in this country from a legal perspective that lacked empathy for the overlapping, but also diverging histories of the country's constituent parts. By contrast, as Rychlfk rightly points out, it was the residua of the past, not the constitutional issues emerging in 1990-1992, that sealed the fa te of Czechoslovakia (pp.1011 ). For a good history book, however, empathy is not enough. Ryc hlfk added access to primary documents that had not been released or commented on before to hi s personal proximity to the events, which proceeded from a federation to the creation of two separate states. He strengthened his work with narrati ves stemming from interv iews wi th several prominent former di ssidents and moderate politicians such as Petr Pithart and Jan Carnogursky, for they pl ayed a deci sive role in the negotiations between the Czech and Slovak governments in the period 1990-1992. At the same time, Rychlfk demonstrates his familiarity with the sc holarly literature published in the West. While the general picture of what took place in post-communist Czechoslovakia is well-known, Rychlfk adds many detai ls to the story. First, radicals and nationalists appeared on both sides. During the constitutional crisis the names of the radical Slovak politicians were frequently reported in the media. Nevertheless, as the author shows, Jan Slota, Jan Klep ac and Stanislav Panis had their counterparts across the Morava River who voiced Czech national interests. They were Jan Kalvoda, Dagmar Buresova, Jan Bratinka, and Miroslav Macek, to name but a few. Strangely enough, Rudolf Sladek, the leader of the Republican Party , who favored , quite paradoxi cally, a common state, does not appear in the book at all. Secondly, Rychlfk poi nts out that already on November 16, 1989, university students in Slovakia had demonstrated against the regime in Bratislava, without any coordination with their Czech counterparts in Prague. This clearly showed Slovak initiati ve and courage. Thirdly, the Charta dissenters were not the only ones in Communist Czechoslovakia, though they appeared in the West as the most prominent ones. Since the mid- I 980s, there had already ex isted two �140 SLOVAKIA main groups of dissenters in Slovakia: the environmentalists, and for the communist regime the far more dangerous Catholic dissenters. Furthermore, Rychlfk cites Slovak emigre historians as well. However, he differentiates between the ' hard core' sympathizers of the J'udaks (the term describing the members of the Slovak People's Party prior to and during WWII) and of the Slovak Republic (19391945), and acceptable ' moderates '. While cliches and stereotypes regarding the past have existed on both sides, Rychlfk shows courage vis a vis his fellow citizens as this most recent perspective may still be something totally new for general Czech audiences. While the author made a sincere effort to be sy mpathetic to Slovak political objectives, there are some instances where important details are missing. For example, in the dispute over the Gabcikovo dam on the Danube between Czechoslovakia and Hungary , the author seems to have limited himself to telling only a part of the story. He sees the Gabcfkovo dispute as exclusively a Slovak problem in which the Czechs were not interested, especially in the last couple of months before the negotiated breakup (pp.308-3 I I). This is only partly true as Josef Vavrousek, the last Czechoslovak federal minister of the environment, seemed particularly keen to be engaged in the negotiations, even to lead them, when Slovak politicians already took the initiative from the federal government. Likewise, the author rightly argues that the forced expatriation of the Magyars, who had collaborated with the fascists in the Slovak (Czechoslovak) territories in 1945, which had stemmed from the Benes Decrees, had negatively affected the current Slovak - Magyar relationship. On the other hand, the author states that such a problem did not arise in the Czech lands with regard to the expulsion of the German minority (p.255). This statement, if meant as a sharp antipode to the Slovak-Magyar relationship, would deserve far more historic and contextual background. Rychlik' s book is a very solid overview of what happened in the ' heart of Europe' after the fall of communism. Due to its complex and balanced perspective, it could serve as a valuable textbook for graduate students and a good primary source for scholars dealing with the last chapter in the history of Czechoslovakia. � REVIEWS ��SLOVAKIA 131 Jan Steinhtibe l, Nitrianske knieiatstvo: Pociatky stredovekeho Slovenska. Rozpravanie o dejinach nasho tizemia a okolitych krajfn od st!lho vania narodov do zaciatku 12. storocia. Brati slava: Veda, 2004. 575pp., bibliography, index of names, index of places, maps, photos, illustration s. M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa This massive sy nthesis is the culmination of fifteen years of research and publication on the ancestors of the Slovaks in Central Europe. Jan Steinhi.ibel, who works for the Historical Institute of the Sloak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, is a worthy successor to the late Peter Ratkos, the age ing Richard Marsina, and the recentl yretired Matus Kucera , all ex perts on the ancient hi story of the Slovaks. According to Ste inhtibel , the Principality of Nitra was the earliest state of the ancestors of the Slovaks. It started to form in the 6th century, and was independent from 805 to 833. After it was conquered by the nearby Moravians, it remained an important Principality until the demi se of the Great Morav ian Empire in 906. Once the Magyar Arpad dynasty establi shed itself in Central Europe in the 10th century, Nitra, which was inhabited large ly by Slavs, remained a key Principality in the emerging Hungarian Kin gdom until the beginning of the I 2th century. Prince l mri ch, ruler of Nitra and son of King (Sa int) Stephen, was even dubbed " Henricus nobilis dux Sc lavoni e" by a Polish chronicler in I029. And, as long as the Principality existed, its people were called "Nytrenses Sclavi" by Hungarian chroniclers. For three ce nturi es Nitra served as the steppingstone for the future rulers of, first Great Moravia, and later the Kingdom of Hungary. Indeed, the rul ers of Nitra were sovereign over nine counties (large ly coterminous with present-day Slovakia, with the exception of the eastern counties), commanded armies of 3,000 soldiers and often struck their own coins. Eventuall y, however, the early Kings of Hungary, who had traditionally shared their rule wi th their brothers as Princes of Nitra, came to regard this principality as a source of rebellion against them selves or their designated successsors (their leg itimate sons). As a result, in 1108 King Koloman depo- �132 SLOVAKIA sed and blinded his brother Almos, along with the latter's son, and two years later abolished the Principality, along wi th its southern border. Thereafter, medieval chroniclers referred to the local inhabitants si mply as " Sclavi ," but by the 15th century they had become "Slowak." Of course the 18th century Czech linguist Josef Dobrovsky , who claimed that the term "Slovak" or "Slovensko" were recent inventions, did not know any of this. After 336 pages of text, lavishly illustrated with relevant quotations from medieval chroniclers, Steinhiibel concluded that one can trace the beginnings of Slovak history to the Principality of Nitra. Indeed, he continued, one has to look to thi s Principality to find the national, territorial and historical roots of Slovakia. This book is a testament to the deep eruditon of the author. As the 1900 footnotes covering pages 337-495 testify, SteinhUbel mined virtually all (largely Latin) medieval sources written by German, Magyar, Polish, Czech, Ru ssian and Byzantine chroniclers that pertain to Central Europe. He also read the relevant books and articles in the vernacular languages of contemporary scholars of Central Europe and he judiciously illustrated his book with copies of medieval manuscripts , drawings and photos of artifacts. This monograph was a pleasure to read and I will eagerly mine it for relevant quotations for my course on the early history of the Slovaks. Dusan Kovac et. al. Na zaciatku storocia, 1901 -1914. Bratislava: Veda, 2004. 292 pp. , ill., index . GREGORY C. FERENCE Salisbury University This is the first of a scheduled seven volume series entitled Slovensko v 20. storoci (Slovakia in the 2(Jh Century) sponsored by the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, under the chief editorship of Dusan Kovac, a leading Slovak historian. Kovac, one of five historians who wrote chapters in this volume penned the introduction and the first "Raku sko-Uhorsko a slo venska otazka v narodnych vztahoch" (A ustria-Hungary and the Slovak Question in International Affairs) and sixth "Pred prvou svetovou vojnou" (Be- �SLOVAKIA 133 fore the First World War) chapters. Other eminent Slovak historians included in this volume are alphabetically: Roman Holec, Chapter 3 "Hospodarstvo" (Economics), Elena Jakesova, chapter 2 "Spolocnost" (Society), Elena Mannova, Chapter 7 "Ideove smery. Kulturny a spolocensky zivot" (Ideological Movements. Cultural and Social Life), and Milan Podrimavsky, Chapters 4 "Krfza liberalneho rezimu 1901-1904" (Crisis of the Liberal Regime 1901-1904) and 5 "Vyvrcholenie politickej krfzy. Koalicna vlada 1905-1910" (Culmination of the Political Crisis. The Coalition Government 1905-1910). Although only these five authors receive credit for the entries, Kovac notes that they relied on the research of another ten historians. This is the most comprehensive general history of Slovakia produced thus far. As Kovac states in his introduction, the Slovak public, and indeed the world, has not until this time possessed a true synthesized historical work written by experts. Previous attempts developed under the totalitarian regime failed to fulfill this goal because they presented distorted interpretations. Kovac hopes this and subsequent works of the series will return to the tradition of noted historian Cubomfr Liptak when he wrote his Slovensko v 20. storoci in 1968 This volume contains traditional aspects of any society, but also gives coverage to areas rarely found in general historical works such as architecture, the beaux arts, mass communication, education, the family , business, and economics . It is not intended to be an all encompassing in-depth study, but rather explores the topics with sufficient coverage without becoming too bogged down in detail. It is meant to be a starting point for further research and study , and it accomplishes this feat quite well. The fourteen years prior to the outbreak of war were a very dynamic and dramatic period, so much so that Slovakia, in the spring of 1914, was quite a different place than in1901 , especially in its urban areas. Despite the Slovaks politically and culturally waging an uphill battle against intensive Magyarization aimed at their assimilation, they fared much better than they had in 1901. The book contains information about the Slovak diaspora, including Budapest, Vienna, the United States, and the Yojvodina/Banat region. The authors explained that a general history of Slovakia and Slovaks before the First World War needs to explore territories other than that of �134 SLOVAKIA Slovakia or Upper Hungary. Indeed, during this time, the true urban center of the Slovaks was Budapest. The work also covers, in much less detail, the other inhabitants of the region including Jews, Germans, Rusyns, and Gypsies (Romany) and provides ample evidence of the ethnic plurali sm of Upper Hungary . At times, too much emphasis appears to be placed on trends and developments throughout Hungary, but, naturall y, it proves impossible to divorce Slovakia from the rest of the Lands of St. Stephen. Each chapter is broken down into numerous short subsections of several pages thereby enabling the reader to easily digest and comprehend them without becoming lost in lengthy discu ssions. Seven charts placed throughout the work and numerous photographs in five section s better illustrate and clarify the points made in the text. The bibliography is intended to be used for further study of the various issues addressed in this work. It contains older essential, fundamental works alongside newly published research. As is often the case for books published in Slovakia, this work contains an index of names, but not subjects, rendering it of marginal value. Overall, this is a fine volume that will become an accepted, starting point for anyone wishing to delve into virtually all aspects of Slovak history at the turn of the last century. Its thoughtful, well constructed chapters present information that piques the interest of the reader. If the quality of this work is upheld in the sc heduled six additional volumes, this series will prove to be a definiti ve collection. Hopefully, an English translation will follow. Ivan A. Petran sky, Stat a katolfcka cirkev na Slovensku 19451946. Nitra: Garmond, 2001, 318pp, summary in English, bibliography, index. JAMES RAMON FELAK University of Washington Ivan Petransky ' s Stat a katolfcka cirkev na Slovensku 1945-1946 covers a brief but crucial period in church-state relations in the history of Slovakia. This was a time of transition between the wartime �SLOVAKIA 135 regime, when the Catholic Church had a rel atively pri vi leged place due to its more or less positive relations with the Tiso regime, and the Communist era, when the state brought immense press ure and control on the Church. This period has been largely ignored in the past, though increasingly it is becoming a topic of research across East Central Europe. Petransky used a number of archival sources. At the Slovak National Archive, he employed the collections of the Slovak National Council, the Commission of Education, the Commission of the Interior, and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia. In addition, he made significant use of diocesan archives, in partic ular those of Kosice, Banska Bystrica, and Nitra. These latter sources enabled him to present and discuss conversations that occurred within the church leadership, and he revealed some of the differences of opinion among Slovak bishops over how best to defend Catholic interests and respond to state press ures. They also provided insight into the nature of decision-making and consensus-building within the hierarchy . Among the other sources employed by Petransky are documents from the post- 1948 trial s of Catholic bishops and political leaders, documents of the Foreign Ministry pertaining to relations with the Vatican, memoirs, and articles from the press. After a brief overview of relations between church and state in Czechoslovakia and Slovakia from 191 8 to 1945, Petransky presented a narrative of developments in church-state relations during the period from the liberation of Slovakia from Nazi occupation in the spring of 1945 to the parliamentary elections of May 1946. During this period the Communists tried both to weaken the Catholic Church and its social influence, and to attract Catholics to the Communi st camp, or at least keep them away from the rival Democratic Party. Petransky's narrati ve is followed by the longest section of the book, an examination of a variety conflicts between church and state. These include the state 's attempt at a near-complete takeover of education , the outlawing of a number of Catholic organizations, restriction s on the Catholic press, state claims to the Church' s agricultural property, and the persec ution of bishops, priests, and members of reli gious orders. Petransky also examined the question of Church ties with Slovakia 's illegal underground opposition, and the Church's policies toward s the national minorities, in particular the Magyars. �136 SLOVAKIA Finally, he gave his book an international dimension by looking at the situation of the Catholic Church in Slovakia from the perspectives of the Slovak emigre press and the Vatican. This book has several strengths. It keeps its focus on the issues of church-state relations, while providing sufficient context for understanding how those issues fit into the larger context of post-war Slovakia. Though the author's sympathies are clearly with the Catholics, the work remained fair to all sides. This is not simply a litany of crimes and abuses aga inst the Catholic Church, though there were enough of those. Rather, it is a serious and largely successful attempt to present and ana lyze the complex and dynamic relationship between Church , state, Catholics, and Democrats during a cruc ial period of Slovakia 's modern history. One definitely takes away from this book a deeper understanding of the period and the forces at play in it. It is to be hoped that Mr. Petransky, or someone of his caliber, writes a sequel up to the Communist takeover of February 1948. Anton Hyki sch, Ako chutf politika, Spomienky a zaznamy z rokov 1990-1992. Yydavatel'stvo Pozsony/Pressburg/Bratislava, 2004. 349pp. Index of names. MARCEL JESENSKY University of Ottawa The years I 990-1992 represent one of the most fascinating periods in the modern-day history of Slovakia. During the last months of 1989 the seemingly permanent political , social and eco nomi c order in Czechoslovakia disintegrated and set into motion a process of dramatic reforms that changed the lives of the majority of Slovaks and Czechs. Anton Hykisch, an acclaimed Slovak writer, Christian Democratic politician and member of parliament, and a former diplomat, presents his personal narrative of those dynamic days. He offers an analys is of Slovak society based on his personal diaries and consultations of other primary so urces. Like many of his contemporaries, Hykisch could not resist the challenges of active participation in Slovak society's revitalization and transformation. His long-cherished �SLOVAKIA 137 idea of the creation of a Christian political movement in Slovakia materialized in 1990, although not entirely according to his wishes. Should it be a movement or a political party? There was no time for such "details." Everything happened so quickly before the first free elections (since 1946) in 1990. Anton Hykisch became a member of the Slovak Parliament (SNR) for the Christian Democratic Movement (KOH), as well as a member of its Executive Council (Predsednfctvo ). In l 990-1992 Slovakia experienced its own revolution, one pertaining to its identity. What should be Slovakia's place in post-communist Czechoslovakia, Czecho-Slovakia or the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic? How could one re-formulate the relations between Slovaks and Czechs? The " revolutionaries" from the ruling VPN (Verejnost' proti nasiliu), the strongest political force in the aftermath of the " Velvet Revolution" of 1989, wished to transform Slovakia into a non-national civic society. The crowds in Brati slava that brought the "velvet revolutionaries" to power in November 1989, merely one year later denounced many of them as traitors to the Slovak national cause. What went wrong? The author believes that Slovakia experienced twin revo lutions, the "velvet" anti-communist one, as well as a national one. This was contrary to the plans and expectations of president Vaclav Havel's followers in Prague. Slovakia " wanted and had to abandon its twin yoke. ls it so difficult to understand?" (p.51) Hykisc h believes that Slovakia became a victim of the post-November 1989 myth originating in Prague. Havel and hi s colleagues dreamed of proving to the world that " their" Czechoslovakia could defy the national selfdetermination trends prevailing in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s. In other words, Slovaks and Czechs should demonstrate their allegedly more advanced moral and civic feelings by defying the laws and trends of national movements, the wave of creation of new national states in Europe (p.52). Slovaks and Czechs allegedly wanted to only be citizens of the world, and Czechoslovakia was merely a way-station to the " blessed civic society of the world" (p.53). To put it more bluntly, Czechoslovakia should not di sintegrate. According to Hykisch, thi s, quixotic task, dream or vision, was politically unrealistic and practically impossible. Throughout the book the reader detects the author's disappoint- �138 SLOVAKIA ment over missed opportunities. Hykisc h believes that the Christian Democrats (KOH) mishandled the question of Slovakia ' s sovereignty. "Had we (i.e. the Christian Democrats), hal f a year before the general elections of June 1992, submitted to ourselves, to our Czech partners and to the world, a serious, economically-sound plan of gradual self-determination or a plan of suitable union of Slovak and Czech states, it would not have to be done after the 1992 elections by somebody else" (p.241). The question of Slovakia's sovereignty played a decisive role in the author 's decision to eventually break with the Christian Democrats and to join a new political party , the Slovak Christian Democratic Movement, led by Jan Klepac. Thi s book offers an interesting, personal , interpretation of the 1990-1992 events in Slovakia and Czechoslovakia. Anton Hykisch 's attractive literary style, as well as his informed and insightful perspecti ve, will not di sappoint those who desire to submerge themselves into the complexities of Slovakia's modern history and the deteriorating Slovak-Czech relationship of the early l 990 's. Jan Rychlfk, Rozpad Ceskoslovenska. Cesko-slovenske vztahy 1989-1992. Bratislava: Academic Electronic Press, 2002, 457 pp., notes, summaries in English and German, bibliography , documents, index . JURAJ HOCMAN University of Ottawa Both the " Velvet Revolution" and the "Velvet Divorce" of Czechoslovakia have fascinated many scholars and much has been written about them. After a decade had passed, Jan Rychlik published his interpretation of the breakup of Czechoslovakia. The author is a trained and experienced Czech historian who witnessed the collapse of the communist regime and the emergence of new political elites in Czechoslovakia at the end of the 1980s. He started with the so-called era of "normalization", while analyzing the reasons for the collapse of the ancien regime. He then describes the appearance of the new, inexperienced , Czech and Slovak national political elites. In his introduction Rychlfk stresses the fact that wes- �SLOVAKIA 139 tern scholars, such as Eric Stein in his Czecho/Slovakia: Ethnic Conflict, Constitutional Fissure, Negotiated Breakup (1997), looked at the recent events in this country from a legal perspective that lacked empathy for the overlapping, but also diverging histories of the country's constituent parts. By contrast, as Rychlfk rightly points out, it was the residua of the past, not the constitutional issues emerging in 1990-1992, that sealed the fa te of Czechoslovakia (pp.1011 ). For a good history book, however, empathy is not enough. Ryc hlfk added access to primary documents that had not been released or commented on before to hi s personal proximity to the events, which proceeded from a federation to the creation of two separate states. He strengthened his work with narrati ves stemming from interv iews wi th several prominent former di ssidents and moderate politicians such as Petr Pithart and Jan Carnogursky, for they pl ayed a deci sive role in the negotiations between the Czech and Slovak governments in the period 1990-1992. At the same time, Rychlfk demonstrates his familiarity with the sc holarly literature published in the West. While the general picture of what took place in post-communist Czechoslovakia is well-known, Rychlfk adds many detai ls to the story. First, radicals and nationalists appeared on both sides. During the constitutional crisis the names of the radical Slovak politicians were frequently reported in the media. Nevertheless, as the author shows, Jan Slota, Jan Klep ac and Stanislav Panis had their counterparts across the Morava River who voiced Czech national interests. They were Jan Kalvoda, Dagmar Buresova, Jan Bratinka, and Miroslav Macek, to name but a few. Strangely enough, Rudolf Sladek, the leader of the Republican Party , who favored , quite paradoxi cally, a common state, does not appear in the book at all. Secondly, Rychlfk poi nts out that already on November 16, 1989, university students in Slovakia had demonstrated against the regime in Bratislava, without any coordination with their Czech counterparts in Prague. This clearly showed Slovak initiati ve and courage. Thirdly, the Charta dissenters were not the only ones in Communist Czechoslovakia, though they appeared in the West as the most prominent ones. Since the mid- I 980s, there had already ex isted two �140 SLOVAKIA main groups of dissenters in Slovakia: the environmentalists, and for the communist regime the far more dangerous Catholic dissenters. Furthermore, Rychlfk cites Slovak emigre historians as well. However, he differentiates between the ' hard core' sympathizers of the J'udaks (the term describing the members of the Slovak People's Party prior to and during WWII) and of the Slovak Republic (19391945), and acceptable ' moderates '. While cliches and stereotypes regarding the past have existed on both sides, Rychlfk shows courage vis a vis his fellow citizens as this most recent perspective may still be something totally new for general Czech audiences. While the author made a sincere effort to be sy mpathetic to Slovak political objectives, there are some instances where important details are missing. For example, in the dispute over the Gabcikovo dam on the Danube between Czechoslovakia and Hungary , the author seems to have limited himself to telling only a part of the story. He sees the Gabcfkovo dispute as exclusively a Slovak problem in which the Czechs were not interested, especially in the last couple of months before the negotiated breakup (pp.308-3 I I). This is only partly true as Josef Vavrousek, the last Czechoslovak federal minister of the environment, seemed particularly keen to be engaged in the negotiations, even to lead them, when Slovak politicians already took the initiative from the federal government. Likewise, the author rightly argues that the forced expatriation of the Magyars, who had collaborated with the fascists in the Slovak (Czechoslovak) territories in 1945, which had stemmed from the Benes Decrees, had negatively affected the current Slovak - Magyar relationship. On the other hand, the author states that such a problem did not arise in the Czech lands with regard to the expulsion of the German minority (p.255). This statement, if meant as a sharp antipode to the Slovak-Magyar relationship, would deserve far more historic and contextual background. Rychlik' s book is a very solid overview of what happened in the ' heart of Europe' after the fall of communism. Due to its complex and balanced perspective, it could serve as a valuable textbook for graduate students and a good primary source for scholars dealing with the last chapter in the history of Czechoslovakia. � 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 2007, Vol. 39 Description An account of the resource Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007. 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 2007 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 131 Jan Steinhtibe l, Nitrianske knieiatstvo: Pociatky stredovekeho Slovenska. Rozpravanie o dejinach nasho tizemia a okolitych krajfn od st!lho vania narodov do zaciatku 12. storocia. Brati slava: Veda, 2004. 575pp., bibliography, index of names, index of places, maps, photos, illustration s. M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa This massive sy nthesis is the culmination of fifteen years of research and publication on the ancestors of the Slovaks in Central Europe. Jan Steinhi.ibel, who works for the Historical Institute of the Sloak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, is a worthy successor to the late Peter Ratkos, the age ing Richard Marsina, and the recentl yretired Matus Kucera , all ex perts on the ancient hi story of the Slovaks. According to Ste inhtibel , the Principality of Nitra was the earliest state of the ancestors of the Slovaks. It started to form in the 6th century, and was independent from 805 to 833. After it was conquered by the nearby Moravians, it remained an important Principality until the demi se of the Great Morav ian Empire in 906. Once the Magyar Arpad dynasty establi shed itself in Central Europe in the 10th century, Nitra, which was inhabited large ly by Slavs, remained a key Principality in the emerging Hungarian Kin gdom until the beginning of the I 2th century. Prince l mri ch, ruler of Nitra and son of King (Sa int) Stephen, was even dubbed " Henricus nobilis dux Sc lavoni e" by a Polish chronicler in I029. And, as long as the Principality existed, its people were called "Nytrenses Sclavi" by Hungarian chroniclers. For three ce nturi es Nitra served as the steppingstone for the future rulers of, first Great Moravia, and later the Kingdom of Hungary. Indeed, the rul ers of Nitra were sovereign over nine counties (large ly coterminous with present-day Slovakia, with the exception of the eastern counties), commanded armies of 3,000 soldiers and often struck their own coins. Eventuall y, however, the early Kings of Hungary, who had traditionally shared their rule wi th their brothers as Princes of Nitra, came to regard this principality as a source of rebellion against them selves or their designated successsors (their leg itimate sons). As a result, in 1108 King Koloman depo- 132 SLOVAKIA sed and blinded his brother Almos, along with the latter's son, and two years later abolished the Principality, along wi th its southern border. Thereafter, medieval chroniclers referred to the local inhabitants si mply as " Sclavi ," but by the 15th century they had become "Slowak." Of course the 18th century Czech linguist Josef Dobrovsky , who claimed that the term "Slovak" or "Slovensko" were recent inventions, did not know any of this. After 336 pages of text, lavishly illustrated with relevant quotations from medieval chroniclers, Steinhiibel concluded that one can trace the beginnings of Slovak history to the Principality of Nitra. Indeed, he continued, one has to look to thi s Principality to find the national, territorial and historical roots of Slovakia. This book is a testament to the deep eruditon of the author. As the 1900 footnotes covering pages 337-495 testify, SteinhUbel mined virtually all (largely Latin) medieval sources written by German, Magyar, Polish, Czech, Ru ssian and Byzantine chroniclers that pertain to Central Europe. He also read the relevant books and articles in the vernacular languages of contemporary scholars of Central Europe and he judiciously illustrated his book with copies of medieval manuscripts , drawings and photos of artifacts. This monograph was a pleasure to read and I will eagerly mine it for relevant quotations for my course on the early history of the Slovaks. Dusan Kovac et. al. Na zaciatku storocia, 1901 -1914. Bratislava: Veda, 2004. 292 pp. , ill., index . GREGORY C. FERENCE Salisbury University This is the first of a scheduled seven volume series entitled Slovensko v 20. storoci (Slovakia in the 2(Jh Century) sponsored by the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, under the chief editorship of Dusan Kovac, a leading Slovak historian. Kovac, one of five historians who wrote chapters in this volume penned the introduction and the first "Raku sko-Uhorsko a slo venska otazka v narodnych vztahoch" (A ustria-Hungary and the Slovak Question in International Affairs) and sixth "Pred prvou svetovou vojnou" (Be- SLOVAKIA 133 fore the First World War) chapters. Other eminent Slovak historians included in this volume are alphabetically: Roman Holec, Chapter 3 "Hospodarstvo" (Economics), Elena Jakesova, chapter 2 "Spolocnost" (Society), Elena Mannova, Chapter 7 "Ideove smery. Kulturny a spolocensky zivot" (Ideological Movements. Cultural and Social Life), and Milan Podrimavsky, Chapters 4 "Krfza liberalneho rezimu 1901-1904" (Crisis of the Liberal Regime 1901-1904) and 5 "Vyvrcholenie politickej krfzy. Koalicna vlada 1905-1910" (Culmination of the Political Crisis. The Coalition Government 1905-1910). Although only these five authors receive credit for the entries, Kovac notes that they relied on the research of another ten historians. This is the most comprehensive general history of Slovakia produced thus far. As Kovac states in his introduction, the Slovak public, and indeed the world, has not until this time possessed a true synthesized historical work written by experts. Previous attempts developed under the totalitarian regime failed to fulfill this goal because they presented distorted interpretations. Kovac hopes this and subsequent works of the series will return to the tradition of noted historian Cubomfr Liptak when he wrote his Slovensko v 20. storoci in 1968 This volume contains traditional aspects of any society, but also gives coverage to areas rarely found in general historical works such as architecture, the beaux arts, mass communication, education, the family , business, and economics . It is not intended to be an all encompassing in-depth study, but rather explores the topics with sufficient coverage without becoming too bogged down in detail. It is meant to be a starting point for further research and study , and it accomplishes this feat quite well. The fourteen years prior to the outbreak of war were a very dynamic and dramatic period, so much so that Slovakia, in the spring of 1914, was quite a different place than in1901 , especially in its urban areas. Despite the Slovaks politically and culturally waging an uphill battle against intensive Magyarization aimed at their assimilation, they fared much better than they had in 1901. The book contains information about the Slovak diaspora, including Budapest, Vienna, the United States, and the Yojvodina/Banat region. The authors explained that a general history of Slovakia and Slovaks before the First World War needs to explore territories other than that of 134 SLOVAKIA Slovakia or Upper Hungary. Indeed, during this time, the true urban center of the Slovaks was Budapest. The work also covers, in much less detail, the other inhabitants of the region including Jews, Germans, Rusyns, and Gypsies (Romany) and provides ample evidence of the ethnic plurali sm of Upper Hungary . At times, too much emphasis appears to be placed on trends and developments throughout Hungary, but, naturall y, it proves impossible to divorce Slovakia from the rest of the Lands of St. Stephen. Each chapter is broken down into numerous short subsections of several pages thereby enabling the reader to easily digest and comprehend them without becoming lost in lengthy discu ssions. Seven charts placed throughout the work and numerous photographs in five section s better illustrate and clarify the points made in the text. The bibliography is intended to be used for further study of the various issues addressed in this work. It contains older essential, fundamental works alongside newly published research. As is often the case for books published in Slovakia, this work contains an index of names, but not subjects, rendering it of marginal value. Overall, this is a fine volume that will become an accepted, starting point for anyone wishing to delve into virtually all aspects of Slovak history at the turn of the last century. Its thoughtful, well constructed chapters present information that piques the interest of the reader. If the quality of this work is upheld in the sc heduled six additional volumes, this series will prove to be a definiti ve collection. Hopefully, an English translation will follow. Ivan A. Petran sky, Stat a katolfcka cirkev na Slovensku 19451946. Nitra: Garmond, 2001, 318pp, summary in English, bibliography, index. JAMES RAMON FELAK University of Washington Ivan Petransky ' s Stat a katolfcka cirkev na Slovensku 1945-1946 covers a brief but crucial period in church-state relations in the history of Slovakia. This was a time of transition between the wartime SLOVAKIA 135 regime, when the Catholic Church had a rel atively pri vi leged place due to its more or less positive relations with the Tiso regime, and the Communist era, when the state brought immense press ure and control on the Church. This period has been largely ignored in the past, though increasingly it is becoming a topic of research across East Central Europe. Petransky used a number of archival sources. At the Slovak National Archive, he employed the collections of the Slovak National Council, the Commission of Education, the Commission of the Interior, and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia. In addition, he made significant use of diocesan archives, in partic ular those of Kosice, Banska Bystrica, and Nitra. These latter sources enabled him to present and discuss conversations that occurred within the church leadership, and he revealed some of the differences of opinion among Slovak bishops over how best to defend Catholic interests and respond to state press ures. They also provided insight into the nature of decision-making and consensus-building within the hierarchy . Among the other sources employed by Petransky are documents from the post- 1948 trial s of Catholic bishops and political leaders, documents of the Foreign Ministry pertaining to relations with the Vatican, memoirs, and articles from the press. After a brief overview of relations between church and state in Czechoslovakia and Slovakia from 191 8 to 1945, Petransky presented a narrative of developments in church-state relations during the period from the liberation of Slovakia from Nazi occupation in the spring of 1945 to the parliamentary elections of May 1946. During this period the Communists tried both to weaken the Catholic Church and its social influence, and to attract Catholics to the Communi st camp, or at least keep them away from the rival Democratic Party. Petransky's narrati ve is followed by the longest section of the book, an examination of a variety conflicts between church and state. These include the state 's attempt at a near-complete takeover of education , the outlawing of a number of Catholic organizations, restriction s on the Catholic press, state claims to the Church' s agricultural property, and the persec ution of bishops, priests, and members of reli gious orders. Petransky also examined the question of Church ties with Slovakia 's illegal underground opposition, and the Church's policies toward s the national minorities, in particular the Magyars. 136 SLOVAKIA Finally, he gave his book an international dimension by looking at the situation of the Catholic Church in Slovakia from the perspectives of the Slovak emigre press and the Vatican. This book has several strengths. It keeps its focus on the issues of church-state relations, while providing sufficient context for understanding how those issues fit into the larger context of post-war Slovakia. Though the author's sympathies are clearly with the Catholics, the work remained fair to all sides. This is not simply a litany of crimes and abuses aga inst the Catholic Church, though there were enough of those. Rather, it is a serious and largely successful attempt to present and ana lyze the complex and dynamic relationship between Church , state, Catholics, and Democrats during a cruc ial period of Slovakia 's modern history. One definitely takes away from this book a deeper understanding of the period and the forces at play in it. It is to be hoped that Mr. Petransky, or someone of his caliber, writes a sequel up to the Communist takeover of February 1948. Anton Hyki sch, Ako chutf politika, Spomienky a zaznamy z rokov 1990-1992. Yydavatel'stvo Pozsony/Pressburg/Bratislava, 2004. 349pp. Index of names. MARCEL JESENSKY University of Ottawa The years I 990-1992 represent one of the most fascinating periods in the modern-day history of Slovakia. During the last months of 1989 the seemingly permanent political , social and eco nomi c order in Czechoslovakia disintegrated and set into motion a process of dramatic reforms that changed the lives of the majority of Slovaks and Czechs. Anton Hykisch, an acclaimed Slovak writer, Christian Democratic politician and member of parliament, and a former diplomat, presents his personal narrative of those dynamic days. He offers an analys is of Slovak society based on his personal diaries and consultations of other primary so urces. Like many of his contemporaries, Hykisch could not resist the challenges of active participation in Slovak society's revitalization and transformation. His long-cherished SLOVAKIA 137 idea of the creation of a Christian political movement in Slovakia materialized in 1990, although not entirely according to his wishes. Should it be a movement or a political party? There was no time for such "details." Everything happened so quickly before the first free elections (since 1946) in 1990. Anton Hykisch became a member of the Slovak Parliament (SNR) for the Christian Democratic Movement (KOH), as well as a member of its Executive Council (Predsednfctvo ). In l 990-1992 Slovakia experienced its own revolution, one pertaining to its identity. What should be Slovakia's place in post-communist Czechoslovakia, Czecho-Slovakia or the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic? How could one re-formulate the relations between Slovaks and Czechs? The " revolutionaries" from the ruling VPN (Verejnost' proti nasiliu), the strongest political force in the aftermath of the " Velvet Revolution" of 1989, wished to transform Slovakia into a non-national civic society. The crowds in Brati slava that brought the "velvet revolutionaries" to power in November 1989, merely one year later denounced many of them as traitors to the Slovak national cause. What went wrong? The author believes that Slovakia experienced twin revo lutions, the "velvet" anti-communist one, as well as a national one. This was contrary to the plans and expectations of president Vaclav Havel's followers in Prague. Slovakia " wanted and had to abandon its twin yoke. ls it so difficult to understand?" (p.51) Hykisc h believes that Slovakia became a victim of the post-November 1989 myth originating in Prague. Havel and hi s colleagues dreamed of proving to the world that " their" Czechoslovakia could defy the national selfdetermination trends prevailing in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s. In other words, Slovaks and Czechs should demonstrate their allegedly more advanced moral and civic feelings by defying the laws and trends of national movements, the wave of creation of new national states in Europe (p.52). Slovaks and Czechs allegedly wanted to only be citizens of the world, and Czechoslovakia was merely a way-station to the " blessed civic society of the world" (p.53). To put it more bluntly, Czechoslovakia should not di sintegrate. According to Hykisch, thi s, quixotic task, dream or vision, was politically unrealistic and practically impossible. Throughout the book the reader detects the author's disappoint- 138 SLOVAKIA ment over missed opportunities. Hykisc h believes that the Christian Democrats (KOH) mishandled the question of Slovakia ' s sovereignty. "Had we (i.e. the Christian Democrats), hal f a year before the general elections of June 1992, submitted to ourselves, to our Czech partners and to the world, a serious, economically-sound plan of gradual self-determination or a plan of suitable union of Slovak and Czech states, it would not have to be done after the 1992 elections by somebody else" (p.241). The question of Slovakia's sovereignty played a decisive role in the author 's decision to eventually break with the Christian Democrats and to join a new political party , the Slovak Christian Democratic Movement, led by Jan Klepac. Thi s book offers an interesting, personal , interpretation of the 1990-1992 events in Slovakia and Czechoslovakia. Anton Hykisch 's attractive literary style, as well as his informed and insightful perspecti ve, will not di sappoint those who desire to submerge themselves into the complexities of Slovakia's modern history and the deteriorating Slovak-Czech relationship of the early l 990 's. Jan Rychlfk, Rozpad Ceskoslovenska. Cesko-slovenske vztahy 1989-1992. Bratislava: Academic Electronic Press, 2002, 457 pp., notes, summaries in English and German, bibliography , documents, index . JURAJ HOCMAN University of Ottawa Both the " Velvet Revolution" and the "Velvet Divorce" of Czechoslovakia have fascinated many scholars and much has been written about them. After a decade had passed, Jan Rychlik published his interpretation of the breakup of Czechoslovakia. The author is a trained and experienced Czech historian who witnessed the collapse of the communist regime and the emergence of new political elites in Czechoslovakia at the end of the 1980s. He started with the so-called era of "normalization", while analyzing the reasons for the collapse of the ancien regime. He then describes the appearance of the new, inexperienced , Czech and Slovak national political elites. In his introduction Rychlfk stresses the fact that wes- SLOVAKIA 139 tern scholars, such as Eric Stein in his Czecho/Slovakia: Ethnic Conflict, Constitutional Fissure, Negotiated Breakup (1997), looked at the recent events in this country from a legal perspective that lacked empathy for the overlapping, but also diverging histories of the country's constituent parts. By contrast, as Rychlfk rightly points out, it was the residua of the past, not the constitutional issues emerging in 1990-1992, that sealed the fa te of Czechoslovakia (pp.1011 ). For a good history book, however, empathy is not enough. Ryc hlfk added access to primary documents that had not been released or commented on before to hi s personal proximity to the events, which proceeded from a federation to the creation of two separate states. He strengthened his work with narrati ves stemming from interv iews wi th several prominent former di ssidents and moderate politicians such as Petr Pithart and Jan Carnogursky, for they pl ayed a deci sive role in the negotiations between the Czech and Slovak governments in the period 1990-1992. At the same time, Rychlfk demonstrates his familiarity with the sc holarly literature published in the West. While the general picture of what took place in post-communist Czechoslovakia is well-known, Rychlfk adds many detai ls to the story. First, radicals and nationalists appeared on both sides. During the constitutional crisis the names of the radical Slovak politicians were frequently reported in the media. Nevertheless, as the author shows, Jan Slota, Jan Klep ac and Stanislav Panis had their counterparts across the Morava River who voiced Czech national interests. They were Jan Kalvoda, Dagmar Buresova, Jan Bratinka, and Miroslav Macek, to name but a few. Strangely enough, Rudolf Sladek, the leader of the Republican Party , who favored , quite paradoxi cally, a common state, does not appear in the book at all. Secondly, Rychlfk poi nts out that already on November 16, 1989, university students in Slovakia had demonstrated against the regime in Bratislava, without any coordination with their Czech counterparts in Prague. This clearly showed Slovak initiati ve and courage. Thirdly, the Charta dissenters were not the only ones in Communist Czechoslovakia, though they appeared in the West as the most prominent ones. Since the mid- I 980s, there had already ex isted two 140 SLOVAKIA main groups of dissenters in Slovakia: the environmentalists, and for the communist regime the far more dangerous Catholic dissenters. Furthermore, Rychlfk cites Slovak emigre historians as well. However, he differentiates between the ' hard core' sympathizers of the J'udaks (the term describing the members of the Slovak People's Party prior to and during WWII) and of the Slovak Republic (19391945), and acceptable ' moderates '. While cliches and stereotypes regarding the past have existed on both sides, Rychlfk shows courage vis a vis his fellow citizens as this most recent perspective may still be something totally new for general Czech audiences. While the author made a sincere effort to be sy mpathetic to Slovak political objectives, there are some instances where important details are missing. For example, in the dispute over the Gabcikovo dam on the Danube between Czechoslovakia and Hungary , the author seems to have limited himself to telling only a part of the story. He sees the Gabcfkovo dispute as exclusively a Slovak problem in which the Czechs were not interested, especially in the last couple of months before the negotiated breakup (pp.308-3 I I). This is only partly true as Josef Vavrousek, the last Czechoslovak federal minister of the environment, seemed particularly keen to be engaged in the negotiations, even to lead them, when Slovak politicians already took the initiative from the federal government. Likewise, the author rightly argues that the forced expatriation of the Magyars, who had collaborated with the fascists in the Slovak (Czechoslovak) territories in 1945, which had stemmed from the Benes Decrees, had negatively affected the current Slovak - Magyar relationship. On the other hand, the author states that such a problem did not arise in the Czech lands with regard to the expulsion of the German minority (p.255). This statement, if meant as a sharp antipode to the Slovak-Magyar relationship, would deserve far more historic and contextual background. Rychlik' s book is a very solid overview of what happened in the ' heart of Europe' after the fall of communism. Due to its complex and balanced perspective, it could serve as a valuable textbook for graduate students and a good primary source for scholars dealing with the last chapter in the history of Czechoslovakia.  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 Books Reviews, Slovakia, Vol. 39 (No. 72-73) Description An account of the resource includes:<br /><ul><li>Ján Steinhübel, Nitrianske kniežatstvo: Počiatky stredovekého Slovenska (M. Mark Stolarik), p. 131</li> <li>Dušan Kováč et. al., Na začiatku storočia, 1901-1914 (Gregory C. Ference), p. 132</li> <li>Ivan A. Petranský, Štát a katolícka cirkev na Slovensku 1945-1946 (James Ramon Felak), p. 134</li> <li>Anton Hykisch, Ako chutí politika, Spomienky a záznamy z rokov 1990-1992 (Marcel Jesenský), p. 136</li> <li>Jan Rychlík, Rozpad Československa: Česko-slovenské vztahy 1989-1992 (Juraj Hocman), p. 138</li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Felak, James Ramon, 1957- Ference, Gregory Curtis, 1957- Hocman, Juraj Jesenský, Marcel Stolarik, M. Mark, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/c374b16744dd148fe28258d5532cc0d9.pdf 9762bbd6824bc1ff069d948c46a42d14 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA ,, 63 V,, JANOSIK AS A SYMBOL OFFREDOMIN COMMUNIST SLOVAK.IA Patricia A. Krafcik The new millennium has witnessed a continued fascination in Central Europe with the figure of Janosfk, the well-known eighteenth-century Slovak brigand hero. Among the works relating to Janosfk that have appeared thus far, Polish scholar Joanna Goszczynska 's study, Mit Janosika w folklorze i literaturze Slowackiej XIX wieku (The Janosfk Myth in Slovak Folklore and Literature of the Nineteenth Century), examines the emergence of Janosfk from Slovak popular folklore and other sources, as well as the evolution of his figure in nineteenth-century Slovak literature. 1 Geroi iii zboinik? Obraz razboinika v fol 'klore Karpatskogo regiona (Heroes or Bandits? Outlaw Traditions in the Carpathian Region) , edited by Slovak ethnographer Viera Gasparfkova and Russian folklorist Boris N. Putilov, offers a comparative study of Carpathian bandit traditions, including that of Janosfk. 2 In a more popular vein, Zuzana Krizkova 's and Margareta Horvathova's popu lar collection of Janosfk folktales, Jura) Janosik: Rozpnivanie o zbojnfckom kapitanovi (Juraj Janosik : Tales of the Brigand Captain) , intersperses several texts with summaries of historical information from the mid-seventeeth century to just after Janosfk' s execution in Liptovsky Svaty Mikulas in 1713, and is replete with dozens of miniature historical and art prints relating to Slovak hi story prior to and during Janosfk's time.3 In 2005-2006, the Slovak National Gallery and the Slovak National Museum co-sponsored an ex hibition entitled "S lovensky mytu s" 1 Joanna Goszczynska, Mit Janosika w folklorze i literaturze Sfowackiej XIX wieku (Warszawa: Uniwersytet Warszawski , Lnsty tut Filologii Stowianskiej , 200 I). 2 Viera Gasparfkova and Boris N. Putilov, eds. , Geroi iii zboinik ? Obraz razboinika v fol'klore Kmpatskogo regiona (B udapest: European Folklore Insti tute, 2002). This work is published in Russian with a substantial summary in English. 3 Zuzana Kri zkova and Margareta Horvathova, Juraj Janosik: Rozprtivanie o zbojnickom kapittinovi (Bratislava: Perfekt, 2004). �64 SLOVAKIA (Slovak Myth), which included a prominent exhibit devoted to Janosfk: "Mytu s Juraj Janosfk , alebo Janosfko mani a v slove nskom vytvarnom umenf" (The Myth of Juraj Janosfk or Janosfk Mania in Slovak Creati ve Art). 4 As part of this "Janosfk mania" in Slovaki a, two mu sical plays, Poli sh pl ay wright Ernes t Bryll ' s and co mposer Katarzy na Gartnerova's Na skle malbvane: Spevohra v 3 castiach (Painted on Glass: A Musical Play in Three Parts, 1970)5 and Stani slav Stepka's Jaaanosfffk : Sprava o hrdinovi alebo hra na hrdinu (Jaaanosfffk : News about the hero or a play on the hero , 1970)6 have been rev itali zed and restaged. When they first appeared in co mmunist Czechoslovakia of the 1970s-80s, these mu sica l pl ays were wildl y popular. Along with 4 Slovak Nati onal Ga llery at www s ng sk (accessed August 5, 2006). The ex hib ition's accompanying catalog contains an arti cle devoted to Janosik: Hana Hl6skova, "Narodny hrdina Ju raj Janosfk," My ty Nase Slovenske, eds. Edu ard Krekovic, Elena Mannova, and Eva Krekov icova, (Bratislava: Academic Electro nic Press, 2005), 94103 . 5 M albvane na skle premiered in Warsaw in 1970; in Czechoslovaki a in 1972 at the Statni divadl o in Brno under the title Z bojn fci a iandafi ; and in 1974 in Bratislava at the Slovak Natio nal T heater. Perfo rm ances resum ed again fro m October 2005 in Bratislava' s Nova scena theater in a new translation from the Polish by Slovak playwright J.:ubomfr Feldek, with singers and dancers from SCUK, Sl ove nsky l'udovy umelecky ko lektfv (S lovak Folk Artisti c Ensemble). See: http ://mu zikaly .szm.sk/nsm html (accessed August 4, 2006), and more on SCU K's ro le can be found in "I.:udovy umelec ky kolektfv koprodukcny partner di ela" at: http: //www nova-sce ne.sk/ index/php?page-page& itemid-15 (accessed August 6, 2006). For a brief descri ption of the revitalized musical' s fir st-night perform ance on September 22, 2005 at Brati slava's Nova scena theater, see "Prem iera Na skle ma lbvane mala us pech," at : http://koktail pravda sk/sk kfilm.asp?r=sk kfi lm&c-A050923 114927 sk kfi lm p 1Q (accessed Aug ust 6, 2006). The rev iew mentio ns that the spectac ul ar performance was attended by me mbers of the Nati onal Co unc il of the Slovak Repu blic, including its speaker Pavol Hrusovsky. The play is avai lab le on DVD; see: http://www panorama.sk/i ndex.asp?kam-/go/mapa.asp&lang-en&sv-2&mc- I430 &m id=l. 6 Jaaanosfffk premiered in 1970 in Rados ina' s Klu b ml adyc h (fou nded 1963) in th e hometow n of the Radosina Na'ive Theater (RND) which moved its operations that year to Brati slava. http: //www.rnd.sk/?i-program&id- J022 . The play is now run as "Jaaanosfffk (po tridsiatich rokoch)" (Janosik [after thirty years)), thi s rev ised title given to it during an earlier revival in 2000 in Kezmarok. The musical has continued to play in theaters through this past year: see, fo r instance, about a perform ance of the play in Rufo mberok in 2006 at : http ://www.ruzomberok.sk/index novinky.php?novinka-15 3. �SLOVAKIA 65 a third production - I.:ubomfr Feldek's Janosik podl'a Vivaldiho (Jano sfk According to Vivaldi , 1979)7 - they employed in an innovative way folksong, folk dance, and classical mu sic, as well as contemporary rock mu sic elements, and were rife with raucous humor, language play, and scarcely veiled social and political criticism. In them the figure of Janosfk, so beloved in Slovak folklore and literature and so exploited by the communist regime for its own purposes, was demythologized and parodied. By daring to manipulate a fi gure and a myth solidified and sanctified by the regime, the mu sicals in fact functioned as a form of resistance to the communist regime in Czechoslovakia and to its many "myths" and false promises. Yet even in a demythologized form, the subversive nature of the bri gand hero as a sy mbol of freedom from oppression and as a challenge to the social order still served as a liberating force .8 The evolution of the Janosik fi gure over the past four centuries is complex, as Martin Votruba demon strates in hi s recent article, "Hang Him High: The Elevation of Janosfk to an Ethnic Icon . "9 Inspired in part by the fate of the hi storical eighteenth-century Juraj Janosik, the folklore and literary fi gure was shaped over the years by many sources: Slovak mythology, pre-eighteenth-century Slovak brigand songs and tales, medieval anecdotes about bandits, eighteenthcentury Slovak "market songs," and the nineteenth-century Romantic literary movement in Europe. As an expression of their zealous patriotism during the mid-nineteenth century's national awakening in Central Europe, the younger generation of Slovak poets surrounding Cudovft Stur adopted and furth er shaped the image of Janosik and hi s "mountain lads" as the nation al sy mbol of the Slovak people 's 7 The play premiered I 979 at Statne divadlo in Kos ice under th e direction of Vaclav Martinec, music by Jaroslav Fi lip. The script was published along with other Feldek plays in the fo llowing vo lume: I.:ubomfr Feldek, Smutne komedie (Brati slava : Slovensky spi sovatel', 1982) 79- 11 9. 8 Eri c Hobsbawm , Bandits (London : Weidenfeld & Nico lson, 2000). Hobsbawm ' s landmark study is devoted to defi ning the archetypal figure of the bri gand hero as a perpetually liberating force. He refers to Janosik as one of the "noble robber" types (47). 9 Martin Yotruba, "Hang Him H igh: The Elevation of Janosik to an Ethnic Icon, " Slavic Review 65: I (2006): 24-44. For more on the historical Janosik, see Patricia A. Krafc ik , "Janosfk: Unrave ling the M an from the Legend, " Slovakia XXX III : 606 I ( 1987- I 988) : 7-22. A lso see Jozef K oc is, Neznamy Janosfk (Marti n: Osveta, I 986) for a more detai led study of Janosik's historical context. �66 SLOVAKIA struggle for liberation from the domination of Austrian and Hungarian rule. Beautiful in their language and hi ghl y emotive in their imagery, poems by Stefan Marko Daxner (1822-92), Samo Chalupka (1812-83), and Jan Botto (1829-81) are still today memorized, recited , and loved by Slovaks. Early twentieth-century Slovak prose writers ' attempts at further romanticizing hi s image by playing up the motifs of Janosfk's gi rlfriend and Janosfk as a seminary student did not tarni sh the Stur poets' image of Janosfk as a noble outlaw, a representati ve of freedom and defender of the oppressed. In the mid-twentieth century, communist Czec hoslovakia embraced the Janosfk myth co ntoured large ly by the Stur poets. Bas ing their version on selected folklore and the Sturists' vision of the hero, communist propagandists attempted to demonstrate that Janosi'.k, honored as the Slovak national sy mbol , had in fact been a proto-revolutionary who advocated preci sely what the communist government advocated: both the destruction of the bourgeo isie and aristocracy and the redi stribution of wealth in the spirit of socialism. After all , in both the folklore and nineteenth -ce ntury literature, Janosfk, the "mountain eagle," was depicted , like Robin Hood , confronting and humiliating noblemen and rich merchants and aiding and rewarding his supporters. Genuine hi storical court documents from his trial also clearly showed that Janosfk had never killed anyone, and had actually given gifts of jewelry to the young women of Terchova. 1 Furthermore, Janosfk's name and hi s image as a defender of the Slovak people had just recently been invoked among Slovak partisans in the Slovak National Uprising in 1944. 11 Finally, Soviet scholars did not shy away from the subj ect of social bandits in these decades, thu s affording it a further official stamp of approva l. Di stingui shed Russian folklori st Petr Grigor' evich Bogatyrev (1893- 1971 ) wrote about brigands before the 1950s and publi shed two excellent books about ° 10 see Andrej M elichercfk, Janosikovska tradfcia na Slovensku (Brati slava : SA YU. 1952) 248-59, for texts of the court documents revea ling inform ation about Janosik's activities. 11 M eli chercfk, Juraj Janosfk: Hrdina Protifeudalneho odboja slovenskeho J'udu, 2nd ed. (Martin: Osveta, 1963) 16 1- 164. See also "Janosfk-partizanska brigada" and "Janosfk- ilegalny casopis protifasisti ckeho frontu," Encyklopedia Slovenska 11 (Bratislava, 1978): 478-479. �SLOVAKIA 67 Slovak outlaws in 1963 and 1976. 12 Even earlier, nineteenth-century Russian revolutionaries and Lenin himself had perceived in the Cossac k-bri gands, such as Sten ' ka Razin and Emeliian Pugachev, the people 's inherent revo lutionary spirit. 13 Janosik, in short, was thought to be a safe subject in communist Czechoslovakia, as well as advantageou s to the regime 's ideology, and thu s could be researched and celebrated by a host of writers, poets, artists, dramatists, composers, and scholars during the l 950s- l 980s . Through the ir work, he was elevated to communist sainthood. In Slovakia, the "father of Janosik studies," ethnographer Andrej Melichercfk (1917-1966) , was unquestionabl y the most ardent of them all. Born in the year of the Ru ssian revolution s, Melichercfk was educated at the Philosophical Faculty of Comenius University in Brati slava and was mentored in hi s chosen field of ethnography by Bogatyrev himself. 14 He served as an assistant professo r in ethnography at the university , was a "docent" from 1947, and lectured there to the end of hi s life. He also worked at the Matica slovenska, the key institution for the preservation of Slovak culture, from 1945, and served as its secretary from 1948. At the same time, as a tru sted sudruh (comrade), Melichercfk was asked to organize the Ethnographic Division (N arodnopisny ustav) in the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Arts and became president of that division in 1950. It was his responsibility in the new communist Slovakia to organize a unified body from diverse individuals, to critique the so-called bourgeois school s of folklore (that is, all folklore studies up to the communist ascend anc y in Czecho slovakia), and to align the work of hi s Academy sc holars with the "progress ive" Soviet ethnographic 12 P. G. Bogatyrev, S/ova tskie epicheskie rasskazy i /iro-epicheskie pesni ("zbojnickij cikl ") (Moskva: AN SSSR , 1963) and Slovatskie narodnye razbojnich 'i pesni i ballady (Moskva: Khudozhestvenna ia literatura, 1976). Bogatyrev helped pave the way for the stud y of the Carpathian brigand phenomenon in such articles as the fo llow ing about the "oprishki " or brigands and their legends in Western Ukraine: P. G. Bogatyrev , "Fo llklornye skazanija ob oprishkakh Zapadnoi Ukra iny," Sove tskaia etnografiia: Sbornik statei V ( 1941 ): 59-80. 13 Patricia A. Krafc ik, "Sten 'ka Ra zin in Ru ss ian Hi storical Fo lksongs : A Robin Hood of the Volga" (PhD diss., Columbia Uni versity, l 980), 3-6. 14 Jan Mjartan, "Za Prof. Dr. And rejom Melichercfkom , l 9I7-I966," Slovensky mirodopis XIV : 4 (1966): 501-505 . Subsequent biographical information is taken from thi s brief artic le. �68 SLOVAKIA school. The Soviet Union, after all , provided a model to be em ulated by the satellite countries in all fields. 15 Melichercfk energetically threw himself into thi s task, publishing a compilation of transl ations into Slovak of selected ethnographic studies from Soviet folklorists which were to serve as a methodolog ical aid for Slovak communist scholars, followed by the publication of a volume of exemplary Soviet-type studies by Slovak folklorists the mselves. Melichercik's personal history helps us understand his determination to do the right thing, to make certain that Slovak fo lkl ore sc holarship approached the folk tradition "correctly," and that it serve not just to inform but also to educate, to shape Slovak citi zens in a proper understanding of their past and "for the building of socialism" in Slovakia. 16 Indeed , thi s is what, according to Soviet culture tsar Andrei Zhdanov ( 18961948), Socialist Realist literature, art, and schol arship were supposed 17 to do. Melichercfk began publishin g hi s research on Janosfk in the 1950s. Until hi s untimely death in I 966 at age forty-nine as a result of so me fatal illness, perhaps contracted during a fi e ld trip with students near Rufomberok, he produced books and articles on the subject of the Slovak brigand hero. 18 He publi shed hi s defi nitive work on Janosfk in 1952, which was, in fact, the first major scholarl y study of the tradition in general , entitled Janos1ko vska tradfcia na 19 Slovensku (The Janosfk Tradition in Slovakia). Here, in great detail , Meli chercfk covered the historical backgro und of soc ial brigandage in Slovakia, the hi storical Juraj Janosfk on whom the image of the ideal brigand was based, and the Janosfk tradition in folklore and in Slovak formal literature. He also included several pages of folksong and folktale texts, as well as documents connected with Janosfk's trial and exec ution in I 7 I 3, and some literary texts. In 1956 Me li chercfk publi shed another major study of the Janosik tradition wh ich appeared in both Slovak and Czech editi ons. It was entitled Juraj Janosik: Hrdina protifeudalneho odboja slovenske- 15 Mjartan, 501-502. Mjartan, 502. 17 Gleb Struve, Russian Literature Under Lenin and Stalin 1917-1953 (Norman: Un iversity of Oklahoma Press, 197 1) 26 1-262. 18 Martjan, 503. 19 Melichercik, Janosfkovska tradfcia. 16 �SLOVAKIA 69 ho J'udu (Juraj Janosfk: Hero of the Anti-Feudal Struggle of the Slovak People) .20 This time, while repeating some material from his first study, he placed even greater emphasis on the socio-economic conditions that gave ri se to the brigand phenomenon in Slovakia and in the greater Carpathian region. In hi s chapter on the comparative study of the bandit tradition in the Carpathian context, he was a pioneer in widening the scope of the study of that tradition in Slovak scholarship.21 Indeed, from the 1970s to the present, the most fruitful work on the brigand theme has been the comparative study of the bandit tradition within the Carpathian area, supported by the International Commission for the Study of Popular Culture in the Carpathian and Balkan Region , founded in 1976.22 Melichercfk 's study, Juraj Janosfk: Hrdina , was published in a second revised and enlarged edition in 1963 for the 250 th anniversary of Janosfk 's execution.23 Although after this he wrote a few articles and some short pieces about Janosik and other bandits, as well as a substantial textbook on Slovak folklore in general , this second edition of Juraj 24 Janosfk: hrdina was hi s last major statement about his beloved idol. In providing what became the official and definitive description of Janosfk in communist Slovakia, Melichercfk wrote with an almost religious fervor: Janosfk's struggle ended tragically, but the idea of struggle against exp loiters for the truth and for justice and a more beautiful life for the simple working people shone in the consciousness of our people like a bright star in the evening sky. Decades went by, centuries passed, and that struggle - even though its conditions changed - continued. In the memory of the people the figure of Juraj Janosfk revived afresh, and a 20 Juraj Janosik: Hrdina protifeuda/neho odboja s/ovenskeho J'udu (Praha : Nase vojsko, 1956). 21 Melichercfk pursued comparative study a lso in two separate articles: "K otazke vzn iku zbojnfctva v Karpatoc h," Slovensky narodopi s IV: 2 ( I 956) I 63-194 and "Slovensko-Ukrajinske vztahy v zbojnfckom folkl6re ," Slovanske studie I (Bratislava, 1957) 539-548. 22 Milan Lescak, CSc. , ed., lnteretnicke vztahy vo folk/6re karpatskej oblasti (Bratislava: Veda, 1980). Also see note 2 for Gasparfkova and Putilov , eds. , Geroi iii zboinik? Gasparfkova herself has contributed in a major way to brigand study with books and articles over the past several decades, including: Zbojn[k Michal Vdovec v hist6rii a folk/6re gemerskeho l'udu (Bratislava: SA V, 1964 ); Povesti o zbojnikoch zo slovenskych a pol's ky ch Tatier (Bratislava: Veda, 1979); and Janosik: Obraz zbojnika v narodnej kulture (Bratislava: Tatran, 1988). 23 Melichercfk, Juraj Janos{k: Hrdina, 2nd ed. 24 Melichercfk, Slovensky fo lk/6r: Chrestomatia (Bratislava : SA V, 1959). �70 SLOVAKIA beautiful poe m abo ut freedom linked to hi s life took shape and was 25 ex pressed in the Janosfk tradition for over two centuries. Melichercfk offered a biography of the hi storical Juraj Janosfk drawn from ex tant court documents connected to his trial in Liptovsky Mikul as, and viewed Janosfk in folklore and literature as a composite hero whose figure was influenced by many sources. As a communist sc holar, Melichercik emphasized Janosfk 's image as a product of hi storical conditions, that is, an image born of the struggle of the masses of serfs and peasants against their feudal lords. He also recognized the role of the human creative imagination in the contouring of thi s image, shaped by the people as "one of the most beautiful and humani stic types of hero ," reflecting the experience 26 and yearning of the masses for freedom from feudal exploitation. Like mantras, such statements are repeated over and over throughout all of Melichercfk 's writings about Janosfk . Melichercfk 's adoration of Janosik as a proto-revolutionary hero helps explain hi s high praise for the young Stur poets. Their work, he stressed, preserved the simple and pure lines of the folk hero who engaged in an elemental struggle for hi s people and who in a sense died a martyr's terribl e death - executed by being hung on a meat 27 hook piercing the left side of his rib cage. Melichercfk's unwavering devotion to this perception of Janosik also accounts for hi s extraordinarily harsh criticism of prose writers and dramatists from the end of the nineteenth and first few decades of the twentieth century . These writers, he claimed, intentionally di storted and falsified the Janosik tradition by playing down or eliminating the revolutionary content of the tradition and clothing the brigand in "adventure, sentimentality, megalomania, [and] day-dreaming. "28 He had in mind writers such as Pa vol Beblavy in Janosik: Po vest' o hrdinovi a dobrodincovi J'udu (Janosik: Tale of the People' s Hero and Benefactor), 25 Melichercfk , Jura} Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed., 7. M elichercfk, Jura} Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed. , 158. 27 Yotruba describes how the bri gand fi gure from Slovak fo lklore was adapted by the Stur poets from fo lklore and other sources and further recontoured to fit their purposes, adapting some attributes of the Romantic bri gand hero well-known throu ghout Europe and eliminating a motif found in some previous folklore and poetry which harshly judged the bandits' deeds. The Stur poets, that is, pl ayed a significant role in manipul atin g the figure, rather th an simply "preserving" some sacred original image from the folklore. See Yotruba, 42-43. 28 Melichercfk , Jura} Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed., 143. 26 �SLOVAKIA 71 which first appeared in installments in Slovenske pohl'ady (IX, 1889); Dobry Slovak in Janosfk, junak slobody (Janosfk, Hero of Freedom) (l 893); Gu stav Marsall-Petrovsky in his two-volume novel Janos[k (1894); and Emo Bohun in his two novel s, Janos1kov poklad (Ja no sfk 's Treasure Hoard ) (1926) and Dedics tvo Janostkovho pokladu (The Legacy of Jano sfk's Treasure Hoard) . About these, 29 Melichercfk had only the most negative observations. Melichercfk adopted the bitter tone of a real zealot when he focused on Slovak drama , in much of which he saw further destruction of what he considered the authentic folk tradition . He lashed out at Viliam Pauliny-T6th, for example, as the first to recontour Janosik in hi s play Janosik (1862) as a Roman Catholic seminary student, the so n of wealthy peasants, and an educated "gentleman bri ga nd ," 30 thereby di storting the "authentic " brigand figure. Evoking the language of di sease, he insisted that these bourgeoi s writers tried to "infect" the people 's consciousness "with traditions that are entirely harmful and hostile" because they wanted to divert the attention of the working masses away from their most important interests, that is, away from the class strugg le, and to "prevent them from correctly recognizing and assessi ng their own capabilities for resistance and 31 their successes in the past. " He added further: It is eno ugh o nl y to reca ll what efforts the Slovak bourgeoisie expended in order to infect our people with the idea th at the ir basic characteristics were humility, co mpli ance, resignation to the will of God , that they were a so{!, patient, God-fearing people, humbl y obli gated to the lords, and so on. - Melichercfk injected a positive note, however, pointing out a few works which he considered reflected the genuine folk hero who "goes into brigandage with stron g conviction to puni sh injustice perpetrated by the lords on the poor Slovak people, "33 as in Jiff Mahen 's play Janos[k. Tragedie o peti dejstv[ch (Janosfk - A Tragedy in Five Acts.) 34 He was pleased that these elements in Mahen 's play served as a basis for so me other dramatic and mu sical re-wor- 29 Melichercfk. Jura) Janosfk: Hrdina, 2nd ed., 142-147. Melichercfk. Jura) Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed., 150. 31 Melichercfk , Jura) Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed. , 157. 32 Melichercfk . Jura) Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed. , 157. 33 Melichercfk. Jura) Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed. , 15 I. 34 Jirf Mahen, Janosfk. Tragedie o peti dejstvfch (Prah a, 1910). 30 �72 SLOVAKIA 35 kings of the Janosfk story. Jan Cikker's 1953 opera Jura Janosik, according to Melichercfk, captured so accurately the "entire magnitude of the concept the Janosfk rebellion and its revolutionary message" that in hi s estimation it qualified as a folk opera - that is, an authentic expression of the masses - in terms of its theme and 36 music. Melichercfk ended hi s di sc uss ion of Janosfk in literature and the arts with the hope that arti sts would produce an abundance of Janosfk images so that these "will decorate buildings, parks, and squares of our nation and Janosfk wi ll live everywhere as a sy mbol of struggle and freedom , as a great message from the past for us and 37 for future generations. " He also offered a challenge to Slovak dramati sts that they take up the task of writing a "genuine Slovak folk play" about Janosfk. 38 Although thi s last task would indeed be taken up and fulfilled by dramatists, it would not be carried out in the way Melichercfk had hoped. In the cynical years after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, dram atists responded to Melichercfk 's call and wrote musical plays about Janosfk. Stepka's Jaaanosfffk: News About the Hero or a Play on the Hero, Bryll 's and Gartnerova's Painted on Glass, and Feldek's Janosik According to Vivaldi were produced and performed for co untl ess Slovak audiences. These plays, however, manipul ated the conventi onal image defined by Melichercfk and offered audiences radically new ways of considering not only the figure of Janosfk and the brigand tradition, but their own social, political, and existential reality. As for the depiction of Janosfk him self, it was as if tired of occ upying the glorious, but increas ingly cramped role of the almost superhum an hero officially sanctioned by the communist governme nt, he broke free from th at role 's confines and assumed another g ui se - as an ordinary man with ordinary weaknesses, coming from a well-meaning, but simple-minded family, and, at best, a reluctant bandit. The debunking and parodying of the conventional and officially approved myth of Janosfk in the musicals occurred in the context of a broad postmodern movement apparent throughout Central Europe 35 Jan Cikker, Juro Janosik: Opera v 6 obrazoch (Libretto: Stefan Hoza), l 953 . Melichercfk, Jura) Janosik: hrdina, 2nd ed ., 153. 37 Melichercfk , Jura) Janosik: hrdina, 2nd ed. , 154. 38 Melichercfk, Jura) Janosfk: hrdina, 2nd ed. , 152. 36 �SLOVAKIA 73 which had begun at the end of the 1950s. Slovak literary scholar Peter Petro refers to the period of the I 960s as a "turbulent decade," a period of experimentation , which gradua lly undercut the official Socialist Realism and pushed the limits of the permissible in literature. 39 The impul se to parody and debunk carried over into the 1970s and 1980s. It was strengthened by pressures of the "normalization," which took place directly after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and was connected to the reemergence of surrealism influenced by the surrealist movement during World War 11. 40 Central to thi s movement was new activity in the theater and in dramatic productions. Playwrights, utilizing the language of surrealism and the grotesque, sought to expose the absurdity of the political system by undermining its values and utopian premises which had claimed that "it is possible to control everything, even the dreams and hopes of the citizens. "41 Productions were characterized by fragmentation of the main motifs into parts and the insertion of poetry, mu sic , and dance. Humor, irony, skepticism , interaction with the spectators, direct appeals to the audience's imagination, word games, verbal improvisation-and all of this intended to unmask falsehoods, to shatter ideological stereotypes--characterized plays of this pe42 riod. It was in this context that Bryll, Feldek, and Stepka conceived their musicals and chose the officially sanctioned and exploited image of the Slovak national hero in their subversive work. Bryll's Painted on Glass was translated from the 1970 original Polish libretto and performed in Slovakia from the mid-l 970s. 43 Its title refers to the widespread folk art of painting colorful images on glass, popular in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and well 39 Peter Petro, A History of Sl ovak Literature (Montreal & Kingston, London , Buffalo: McGill-Queens University Press), 143-44. 40 Petro, 143. 41 Halina Janaszek-lvanicov, "Post-Modernism in the West Slavonic Literature in the Context of Euro-Atlantic Changes of the Postmodern Paradigms," Part Ill : "Five tides of postmodernism in Polish, Czech, and Slovak Literature," at: http: //src- h. sla v. hokuda i.ac. jp/pub Iictn/N o.64/ janaszek/ janaszek. htm I. 42 Janaszek-I van icov. 43 111 Slovakia the play premiered at the Slovak National Theater Oct. 19, 1974, where it ran for three decades. It was pulled from the stage briefly in 1983 when Ernest Bryll was forced to leave Poland for crit icizi ng the political situatio n. Bratislava's Novii scena theater has staged the play in an updated form since 2005. http://mu zikal y. szm.sk/nsm.html �74 SLOVAKIA known for preserving images of Janosik and hi s brigands and various 44 moments related to the conventional myth. Reproducing these images in dramatic action with song and dance, Painted on Glass broke with Melichercik 's communist definition of the myth by disclosing both Janosik's very ordinary human yearnings and failings. Janosfk's love for Anicka is unfulfilled, the gendarmes are not the hero 's eternal class enemies, but also human beings; and Death personified awaits the hero, as it does all of us. Light humor, rousing folk dance, memorable songs, and poking holes in the conventional myth all blended in Painted on Glass, and the figure of Janosfk was endeared to the audience which identified with the demythologized hero. The music of Bryll' s play, composed by Katarzyna Gartnerova, was a delightful hybrid of rhythmic rock and folk, and gave new voice to the expression of the Janosik tradition in the 1970s and 1980s. Feldek chose the title for hi s play, Janosik According to Vivaldi, because he wanted to indicate that in the eighteenth century Slovaks li ved "not only in Yratna dolina (ie., in the isolated depth s of Slovakia) but also in Europe. "45 Action in the play alternates between Slovakia and the Viennese court of Charles YI (d. 1740), where the emperor's daughter, the young Maria Theresa (1717- 1780), is heard in the background playing the mu sic of Antonio Vivaldi (16801743), then popular throughout Europe. Feldek worked from actu al hi storical documents linked to Janosfk's trial , but wove an amusing and fantastical version of the myth . Here, Uhorcfk is portrayed as the real bandit hero, and he and hi s wife Katarfnka manipulate Janosik into becoming the brigand captain. In quick order, however, Janosfk tires of stealing, as he tell s Katarfnka in very contemporary sounding terms: "We rob from morning to night and then again from night to morning and I'm as tired as a dog. And I swear that people would do better if they didn 't carry all thi s silly gold with them" (Zbfjame od rana do vecera a potom este aj od vecera do rana, unaveny so m ako pes. Prisaham bohu, casto si hovorfm , ze by tf 44 See introductory texts and reproductions of glass-painted images of Janosfk and brigands in IIena Pi sutova, Painted Dreams: Slovak Folk Painting on Glass in the 2dh Century (Bratislava: Tatran, 1983), and Katarfna Ciema, Janosik v Slovenskom vytvamom umenf (Bratislava: Slovenska narodna galeria, 1988). This last is the catalog to an exhibition of the same name, held in March - May 1988. 45 Feldek, 125. �SLOVAKIA 75 l'udi a urobili Iepsie, keby so sebou nenosili tolko toho poondiateho zlata.)46 In the end Katarfnka angri ly insi sts that the people should celebrate Uhorcfk ' s memory, not Janosik's. At the same time, in the absence of a male heir to the throne, Charles VI decides that Uhorcik is his illegitimate son and should be the next emperor. Feldek plays with the myth , the hi story, and language, as, fo r instance, in Charles Vi 's interview with the w idow of one of hi s Au stri an genera ls, Madame Schardonova, whose existence is attested in the hi storical doc uments since she actuall y was robbed by Janosfk in Slovakia. Her stilted Slovak, prono unced with a German acce nt, is hil ario us, because a ll of her mi stake s ac tu a ll y convey other ridiculous meanings. Instead of saying "I am a widow " (som vdova), she says "I 47 am water" (som voda) ; instead of complimenting Charles for his nobility (s l'achetn y), she compliments him for being "tendinous" (... 48 aky ste sl'achovity). Painted on Glass offers great humor and new twists on the convention al elements of the communist interpretation of Janosfk so well defi ned by Melichercik. Perhaps most radical in its depiction of Janosfk and the brigand myth is Stepka 's Jaaanosfffk, pl ayed by his own troupe, the Rados inske naivne divadlo (Radosi na Nai·ve Theater). Its unu sual title was inspired by Slovak actor and director Pal'o Bielik 's famo us two-part film , Janosik ( 1963), in which Janosik's name is called out in the mountains and echoes lo udl y with a prolonged stress on the vowels. Whil e Melichercfk had approached the Janosik tradition with the utmo st gravity, Stepka kept hi s co mmuni st-era audience laughing throughout the entire musical. His language is rich with puns and humorously distorted references from fo lkl ore, literature, and especiall y from dail y life in com munist Slovakia. Ribald sex ual innuendoes are woven into the entire script. Janosik appears onl y in the last third of the play , during which the punning continues. Hi s family members - mothe r Dag mar, fathe r Jon athan , and sister He len a occ upy center stage through the play and are depicted as slow, thickwitted , shrewd, but also likeab le peasants. Their plight as serfs under the control of a Hungarian count, Artus Revay, is treated with humor and irony. The Radosina Na"ive Theater company performed and still 46 Feldek, 96. Feldek, 93. 48 Feldek, 93 . 47 �76 SLOVAKIA performs the play with few props and simple Slovak folk costumes with so me ac tors wearing regular contemporary clothes . The tone and atmosphere, free and characterized by improvisation , suggests an amateur village production with simple, barel y literate actors - but in fact the theater' s actors are professionals who bring their ro les to li fe exceedingly well. 49 The writer of thi s article attended a performance of Jaaanosfffk in Slovakia in 1983, which was played with great g usto and hilarious improvi sation . That perform ance diverged somewhat from the published script of 1970, but thi s is to be expected , considering that improvisation is integra l to the pl ay, contributing to its "amateur" quality , and insurin g that there be room for some actor-audience interaction. The very first lines of Jaaanosfffk immediatel y set the tone for the ling ui stic and cultu ral manipulation to come: Instead of the co nventional opening of a Slovak fo lktale - "Kde bolo, tam bolo" (Once upon a time ... ; litera ll y: Where it was, there it was) - two narrators begin with "Kde bolelo, tam bolelo" (Where it hurt, there it hurt), a play on the traditional phrase and suggesting that much more would be turned on its head before the end of the performance.so Janosfk's Slovak mother and father are given spurious genealogies by the narrators - Pani Dagmar Janosfkov a, nee Trautenbergerova, and Jon ath an Jano sfk , whose real s urname, we are told , is Weissmann_s, To suggest th at the Slovak national hero is actually of German de sce nt is, of course, hi ghly ironical and am usin g. When Helena and Dagmar are visited by a local constable sent by the count, they are pleased to welcome him in, having locked father in the cellar. The constable tell s Dagmar that he is on the lookout for a rebel , specifically her hu sband , who is inciting or rou sing the serfs (" Poddanych buri .. . "), and she responds cynicall y that her husband 49 Stanis lav Stepka's Radosinske naivne div adlo produced a CD of Jaacinosfffk and a DVD of three pl ays, including Jaaanosffik. For availability, see : http://www. panorama. sk/index.asp?kam-/go/mapa.asp&lan g-s k&sv-2&mc- 12 I9 ~. 50 Stani slav Stepka, Jaaanosfffk: Sprava o hrdinovi alebo hra na hrdinu (Bratislava: Tatran , 1983) 19. All quotes are take n from the publi shed sc ript. Ac tors in the perfo rmance attended by the writer of this artic le fo llowed thi s sc ript closely, but not exactly. And this published script differs slightl y from the DVD version of the musical from 2004. 51 Jaaanosfffk, 23. �SLOVAKIA 77 "no longer arouses anything" ("Prosfm vas, on uz nic nevzburi. . ") and is willing to sign her name to that. 52 The constable summons Dagmar and Helena to the manor house, informing them that the Count Revay, a "candidate of the amorous sciences" (kandidat milostnych vied) - a satirical reference to scholarl y titles in communist Slovakia - wants them to come and "sew sacks" (obsfvat' vrecia), connoting here some kind of sex ual activity. In response, Helena blithely asks: "Which amorous lord ordered this, the young one or the old one?" When the constable says "the old one," Helena responds with complete confidence: "Mamicka, then that must mean the invitation 's for you. "53 Unlike in the conventional myth, the women here clearly do not feel threatened by the count's demand , and in fact they act as though it has happened repeatedly and welcome it eagerly. When the constable leaves, Helena and Dagmar di scuss how fine it is that the aristocracy, the lords, want only what is good for the serfs - surely a satirical reference to the contemporary situation with the communist government as the aristocracy and the serfs as the ordinary citizens. Helena means to say "They come here, advise us, and look around (pride, poradf, pohl'adf)," but, to the audience's surprise and amusement, in her simple-mindedness she says instead that "they come, advise us, and caress" (pride, poradi, pohladf)." 54 Dagmar then echoes, anachronistically for the eighteenth century, the sentiments of contemporary communist brigade workers perpetually urged to find ways to work harder, ways to over-fulfill the Plan: Let me pose this question to you, my daughter: are we really working on the estate like we should? Are we working a full eighteen hours? Couldn't we manage to work more? Sometimes we sing. Couldn't we work another eight or nine hours? We work only six days. And the seventh is the Sabbath. But couldn 't we work thirty-six days a month and then celebrate the Sabbath with whatever is left? And what about order at the workplace? Do we keep all our bundles in one place? So, see. We 55 need to think all thi s over sometime. 52 J aaanosifik, 22. Jaaanosffik, 22. 54 Jaaanosffik, 23. 55 Jti:i:inos([fk, 23. As an example of d ivergence from the written script of 1970, the 1983 viny l disc recordi ng of the musical , for instance, prov ides an al ternati ve statement in thi s section of the play. Dagmar asks: "Couldn 't we work six days a week and celebrate for seven?" This, again, is reflective of the improvisational nature of the script. 53 �78 SLOVAKIA These words, all too familiar to the audience daily subjected to pressure to achieve communist "excellence," provoked uproarious laughter from the audience. More bitter self-recognition for the Slovak audience in communist times - oftentimes struggling to procure even the basics, yet reassured by the government that they had the best possible living situation - resulted from Dagmar' s observation that they already had acquired everything they could possibly need: "We already have everything - a table, a chair, a bowl , a crucifix, and eventually even a house with doors. My God!" (A mame uz vsetko, aha - stol, stolicka, miska, krfzik , pomaly uz aj <lorn s dvermi. Boze!)56 Only after all this does the youthful Janosfk appear. Sister Helena, a family friend Samo, as well as Janosfk ' s girlfriend Anicka, and eventually his own mother all push him to become a brigand for the material benefits this will bring them, echoing a situation again all too familiar to the audience: that the only way to acquire goods , especially luxury goods, is by theft in one way or another. Janosfk acquiesces reluctantly, and only after complaining: Do I have to be a man? Do I have to be a hero? Do I have to be an example? You'll be at home lying in your feather quilts, and I have to offer up my kidneys [to the executioner's hook]? I don't want to be a hero, I want to be an ordinary man. . . I don't want to enter into reading books, I want to live out my life beautifully . . . This literature will live off me for 300 years , but I won ' t make it to thirty . . . I don ' t want to 57 enter history with a bullet between my shoulders. Janosfk, however, appears in the final scene with Uhorcfk, grudgingly about to begin his career, while Uhorcfk berates him for tossing aside his weapon and for showing no interest in banditry . Uhorcfk then initiates the highway robbery of two aristocratic travelers, a mother and daughter, with the traditional demand found in folktale s: "Your money or your life. . . " (Bohu dusu a nam dukaty. Literally: Hand over your soul to God and your money to us.) , but add s "and your citizenship documents" (a obcianske preukazy), much like the police could demand of anyone on the street in communist Slovakia. 58 The women, instead of fearing or hating Janosik, are enamored with hi s dashing appearance and charm - "Mama, so these are those famous brigands! My God, what beau56 Jaaanosfffk, 23. Jaaanosfffk, 33. 58 Jaaanosfffk, 34. 57 �SLOVAKIA 79 tiful folk garb they have" (Mamicka, tak toto su tf zbojnfci? Boze, ake krasne kroje maju.) - and he and Uhorcfk treat the robbery like a customs check. This certainly resonated with Slovaks, as well as foreigners, who passed repeatedly through Czechoslovak customs in communist times and often felt robbed and violated. 59 During the robbery, however, Janosik begins to wax poetic about the bandit life, and Uhorcik again reprimands him for getting distracted, but in a way which again sounds ironical in reference to brigandage and echoes a typical warning to the communist worker: "Duri, you keep forgetting your obligation" (Duri, zabudas na povinnost:)60 This Janosik is not Melichercfk's noble social brigand, a fighter against feudal lords, protector of the poor and oppressed. Stepka 's musical, as well as Bryll's and Feldek's, presented the Slovak public in the 1970s and 1980s not with a communist superhero, but with an ordinary guy, much of whose life and environment resonated with those of the audience. Janosik's experiences and the struggles of his time depicted in the musicals were a reflection of their own life. The outlines of the conventional myth were brought into question and turned upside down , and social and political issues that could not be criticized openly were spoofed. Audiences who experienced the plays together could leave the theater, having, in a sense, expressed and shared publicly their plight under the communist regime. Through irony and laughter, they could feel stronger in their resolve to resist. By employing the Janosik figure and myth, wrenching it free from the regime's ideology, the dramatists held up a mirror to the audience so that they could see themselves more clearly and could come to an understanding about how they might better deal with their social and political reality. Through humor and satire and breaking with the Soviet - and communist-approved conventional interpretation, the dramatists allowed Janosik once again to reach out to his people, to inspire in them the courage to resist the new authorities. Because Melichercik had so successfully portrayed Janosik as an acceptable proto-communist hero, the brigand's image in these musicals passed under the censors' radar screens. Once again, in a way not anticipated by Melichercik, Janosik was there to contribute to the 59 60 Jaaanosfffk, 34. Jaaanosfffk, 35. �80 SLOVAKIA social and political resistance, to help undermine the system. Once again, in a way not anticipated by Melichercik, Janosik was a symbol of freedom - this time for a new generation in a new time and against a new oppressor. Feldek suggested just exactly that when in an interview in 1979, he said of his work: "There is no such thing as a historical play . We write and play alway s for the contemporary audience and for the present. The hi storical subject in a good 'historical' play is only a pretext - almost like the subject of animals in a fable. The viewer should leave my play with the sense that this was about us. "61 And by the end of the next decade, 1989, the communist system finally collapsed from within and the barbed wire was torn down - perhaps with just a little help from Janosik. 61 Feldek, 126. � SLOVAKIA ,, 63 V,, JANOSIK AS A SYMBOL OFFREDOMIN COMMUNIST SLOVAK.IA Patricia A. Krafcik The new millennium has witnessed a continued fascination in Central Europe with the figure of Janosfk, the well-known eighteenth-century Slovak brigand hero. Among the works relating to Janosfk that have appeared thus far, Polish scholar Joanna Goszczynska 's study, Mit Janosika w folklorze i literaturze Slowackiej XIX wieku (The Janosfk Myth in Slovak Folklore and Literature of the Nineteenth Century), examines the emergence of Janosfk from Slovak popular folklore and other sources, as well as the evolution of his figure in nineteenth-century Slovak literature. 1 Geroi iii zboinik? Obraz razboinika v fol 'klore Karpatskogo regiona (Heroes or Bandits? Outlaw Traditions in the Carpathian Region) , edited by Slovak ethnographer Viera Gasparfkova and Russian folklorist Boris N. Putilov, offers a comparative study of Carpathian bandit traditions, including that of Janosfk. 2 In a more popular vein, Zuzana Krizkova 's and Margareta Horvathova's popu lar collection of Janosfk folktales, Jura) Janosik: Rozpnivanie o zbojnfckom kapitanovi (Juraj Janosik : Tales of the Brigand Captain) , intersperses several texts with summaries of historical information from the mid-seventeeth century to just after Janosfk' s execution in Liptovsky Svaty Mikulas in 1713, and is replete with dozens of miniature historical and art prints relating to Slovak hi story prior to and during Janosfk's time.3 In 2005-2006, the Slovak National Gallery and the Slovak National Museum co-sponsored an ex hibition entitled "S lovensky mytu s" 1 Joanna Goszczynska, Mit Janosika w folklorze i literaturze Sfowackiej XIX wieku (Warszawa: Uniwersytet Warszawski , Lnsty tut Filologii Stowianskiej , 200 I). 2 Viera Gasparfkova and Boris N. Putilov, eds. , Geroi iii zboinik ? Obraz razboinika v fol'klore Kmpatskogo regiona (B udapest: European Folklore Insti tute, 2002). This work is published in Russian with a substantial summary in English. 3 Zuzana Kri zkova and Margareta Horvathova, Juraj Janosik: Rozprtivanie o zbojnickom kapittinovi (Bratislava: Perfekt, 2004). �64 SLOVAKIA (Slovak Myth), which included a prominent exhibit devoted to Janosfk: "Mytu s Juraj Janosfk , alebo Janosfko mani a v slove nskom vytvarnom umenf" (The Myth of Juraj Janosfk or Janosfk Mania in Slovak Creati ve Art). 4 As part of this "Janosfk mania" in Slovaki a, two mu sical plays, Poli sh pl ay wright Ernes t Bryll ' s and co mposer Katarzy na Gartnerova's Na skle malbvane: Spevohra v 3 castiach (Painted on Glass: A Musical Play in Three Parts, 1970)5 and Stani slav Stepka's Jaaanosfffk : Sprava o hrdinovi alebo hra na hrdinu (Jaaanosfffk : News about the hero or a play on the hero , 1970)6 have been rev itali zed and restaged. When they first appeared in co mmunist Czechoslovakia of the 1970s-80s, these mu sica l pl ays were wildl y popular. Along with 4 Slovak Nati onal Ga llery at www s ng sk (accessed August 5, 2006). The ex hib ition's accompanying catalog contains an arti cle devoted to Janosik: Hana Hl6skova, "Narodny hrdina Ju raj Janosfk," My ty Nase Slovenske, eds. Edu ard Krekovic, Elena Mannova, and Eva Krekov icova, (Bratislava: Academic Electro nic Press, 2005), 94103 . 5 M albvane na skle premiered in Warsaw in 1970; in Czechoslovaki a in 1972 at the Statni divadl o in Brno under the title Z bojn fci a iandafi ; and in 1974 in Bratislava at the Slovak Natio nal T heater. Perfo rm ances resum ed again fro m October 2005 in Bratislava' s Nova scena theater in a new translation from the Polish by Slovak playwright J.:ubomfr Feldek, with singers and dancers from SCUK, Sl ove nsky l'udovy umelecky ko lektfv (S lovak Folk Artisti c Ensemble). See: http ://mu zikaly .szm.sk/nsm html (accessed August 4, 2006), and more on SCU K's ro le can be found in "I.:udovy umelec ky kolektfv koprodukcny partner di ela" at: http: //www nova-sce ne.sk/ index/php?page-page& itemid-15 (accessed August 6, 2006). For a brief descri ption of the revitalized musical' s fir st-night perform ance on September 22, 2005 at Brati slava's Nova scena theater, see "Prem iera Na skle ma lbvane mala us pech," at : http://koktail pravda sk/sk kfilm.asp?r=sk kfi lm&c-A050923 114927 sk kfi lm p 1Q (accessed Aug ust 6, 2006). The rev iew mentio ns that the spectac ul ar performance was attended by me mbers of the Nati onal Co unc il of the Slovak Repu blic, including its speaker Pavol Hrusovsky. The play is avai lab le on DVD; see: http://www panorama.sk/i ndex.asp?kam-/go/mapa.asp&lang-en&sv-2&mc- I430 &m id=l. 6 Jaaanosfffk premiered in 1970 in Rados ina' s Klu b ml adyc h (fou nded 1963) in th e hometow n of the Radosina Na'ive Theater (RND) which moved its operations that year to Brati slava. http: //www.rnd.sk/?i-program&id- J022 . The play is now run as "Jaaanosfffk (po tridsiatich rokoch)" (Janosik [after thirty years)), thi s rev ised title given to it during an earlier revival in 2000 in Kezmarok. The musical has continued to play in theaters through this past year: see, fo r instance, about a perform ance of the play in Rufo mberok in 2006 at : http ://www.ruzomberok.sk/index novinky.php?novinka-15 3. �SLOVAKIA 65 a third production - I.:ubomfr Feldek's Janosik podl'a Vivaldiho (Jano sfk According to Vivaldi , 1979)7 - they employed in an innovative way folksong, folk dance, and classical mu sic, as well as contemporary rock mu sic elements, and were rife with raucous humor, language play, and scarcely veiled social and political criticism. In them the figure of Janosfk, so beloved in Slovak folklore and literature and so exploited by the communist regime for its own purposes, was demythologized and parodied. By daring to manipulate a fi gure and a myth solidified and sanctified by the regime, the mu sicals in fact functioned as a form of resistance to the communist regime in Czechoslovakia and to its many "myths" and false promises. Yet even in a demythologized form, the subversive nature of the bri gand hero as a sy mbol of freedom from oppression and as a challenge to the social order still served as a liberating force .8 The evolution of the Janosik fi gure over the past four centuries is complex, as Martin Votruba demon strates in hi s recent article, "Hang Him High: The Elevation of Janosfk to an Ethnic Icon . "9 Inspired in part by the fate of the hi storical eighteenth-century Juraj Janosik, the folklore and literary fi gure was shaped over the years by many sources: Slovak mythology, pre-eighteenth-century Slovak brigand songs and tales, medieval anecdotes about bandits, eighteenthcentury Slovak "market songs," and the nineteenth-century Romantic literary movement in Europe. As an expression of their zealous patriotism during the mid-nineteenth century's national awakening in Central Europe, the younger generation of Slovak poets surrounding Cudovft Stur adopted and furth er shaped the image of Janosik and hi s "mountain lads" as the nation al sy mbol of the Slovak people 's 7 The play premiered I 979 at Statne divadlo in Kos ice under th e direction of Vaclav Martinec, music by Jaroslav Fi lip. The script was published along with other Feldek plays in the fo llowing vo lume: I.:ubomfr Feldek, Smutne komedie (Brati slava : Slovensky spi sovatel', 1982) 79- 11 9. 8 Eri c Hobsbawm , Bandits (London : Weidenfeld & Nico lson, 2000). Hobsbawm ' s landmark study is devoted to defi ning the archetypal figure of the bri gand hero as a perpetually liberating force. He refers to Janosik as one of the "noble robber" types (47). 9 Martin Yotruba, "Hang Him H igh: The Elevation of Janosik to an Ethnic Icon, " Slavic Review 65: I (2006): 24-44. For more on the historical Janosik, see Patricia A. Krafc ik , "Janosfk: Unrave ling the M an from the Legend, " Slovakia XXX III : 606 I ( 1987- I 988) : 7-22. A lso see Jozef K oc is, Neznamy Janosfk (Marti n: Osveta, I 986) for a more detai led study of Janosik's historical context. �66 SLOVAKIA struggle for liberation from the domination of Austrian and Hungarian rule. Beautiful in their language and hi ghl y emotive in their imagery, poems by Stefan Marko Daxner (1822-92), Samo Chalupka (1812-83), and Jan Botto (1829-81) are still today memorized, recited , and loved by Slovaks. Early twentieth-century Slovak prose writers ' attempts at further romanticizing hi s image by playing up the motifs of Janosfk's gi rlfriend and Janosfk as a seminary student did not tarni sh the Stur poets' image of Janosfk as a noble outlaw, a representati ve of freedom and defender of the oppressed. In the mid-twentieth century, communist Czec hoslovakia embraced the Janosfk myth co ntoured large ly by the Stur poets. Bas ing their version on selected folklore and the Sturists' vision of the hero, communist propagandists attempted to demonstrate that Janosi'.k, honored as the Slovak national sy mbol , had in fact been a proto-revolutionary who advocated preci sely what the communist government advocated: both the destruction of the bourgeo isie and aristocracy and the redi stribution of wealth in the spirit of socialism. After all , in both the folklore and nineteenth -ce ntury literature, Janosfk, the "mountain eagle," was depicted , like Robin Hood , confronting and humiliating noblemen and rich merchants and aiding and rewarding his supporters. Genuine hi storical court documents from his trial also clearly showed that Janosfk had never killed anyone, and had actually given gifts of jewelry to the young women of Terchova. 1 Furthermore, Janosfk's name and hi s image as a defender of the Slovak people had just recently been invoked among Slovak partisans in the Slovak National Uprising in 1944. 11 Finally, Soviet scholars did not shy away from the subj ect of social bandits in these decades, thu s affording it a further official stamp of approva l. Di stingui shed Russian folklori st Petr Grigor' evich Bogatyrev (1893- 1971 ) wrote about brigands before the 1950s and publi shed two excellent books about ° 10 see Andrej M elichercfk, Janosikovska tradfcia na Slovensku (Brati slava : SA YU. 1952) 248-59, for texts of the court documents revea ling inform ation about Janosik's activities. 11 M eli chercfk, Juraj Janosfk: Hrdina Protifeudalneho odboja slovenskeho J'udu, 2nd ed. (Martin: Osveta, 1963) 16 1- 164. See also "Janosfk-partizanska brigada" and "Janosfk- ilegalny casopis protifasisti ckeho frontu," Encyklopedia Slovenska 11 (Bratislava, 1978): 478-479. �SLOVAKIA 67 Slovak outlaws in 1963 and 1976. 12 Even earlier, nineteenth-century Russian revolutionaries and Lenin himself had perceived in the Cossac k-bri gands, such as Sten ' ka Razin and Emeliian Pugachev, the people 's inherent revo lutionary spirit. 13 Janosik, in short, was thought to be a safe subject in communist Czechoslovakia, as well as advantageou s to the regime 's ideology, and thu s could be researched and celebrated by a host of writers, poets, artists, dramatists, composers, and scholars during the l 950s- l 980s . Through the ir work, he was elevated to communist sainthood. In Slovakia, the "father of Janosik studies," ethnographer Andrej Melichercfk (1917-1966) , was unquestionabl y the most ardent of them all. Born in the year of the Ru ssian revolution s, Melichercfk was educated at the Philosophical Faculty of Comenius University in Brati slava and was mentored in hi s chosen field of ethnography by Bogatyrev himself. 14 He served as an assistant professo r in ethnography at the university , was a "docent" from 1947, and lectured there to the end of hi s life. He also worked at the Matica slovenska, the key institution for the preservation of Slovak culture, from 1945, and served as its secretary from 1948. At the same time, as a tru sted sudruh (comrade), Melichercfk was asked to organize the Ethnographic Division (N arodnopisny ustav) in the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Arts and became president of that division in 1950. It was his responsibility in the new communist Slovakia to organize a unified body from diverse individuals, to critique the so-called bourgeois school s of folklore (that is, all folklore studies up to the communist ascend anc y in Czecho slovakia), and to align the work of hi s Academy sc holars with the "progress ive" Soviet ethnographic 12 P. G. Bogatyrev, S/ova tskie epicheskie rasskazy i /iro-epicheskie pesni ("zbojnickij cikl ") (Moskva: AN SSSR , 1963) and Slovatskie narodnye razbojnich 'i pesni i ballady (Moskva: Khudozhestvenna ia literatura, 1976). Bogatyrev helped pave the way for the stud y of the Carpathian brigand phenomenon in such articles as the fo llow ing about the "oprishki " or brigands and their legends in Western Ukraine: P. G. Bogatyrev , "Fo llklornye skazanija ob oprishkakh Zapadnoi Ukra iny," Sove tskaia etnografiia: Sbornik statei V ( 1941 ): 59-80. 13 Patricia A. Krafc ik, "Sten 'ka Ra zin in Ru ss ian Hi storical Fo lksongs : A Robin Hood of the Volga" (PhD diss., Columbia Uni versity, l 980), 3-6. 14 Jan Mjartan, "Za Prof. Dr. And rejom Melichercfkom , l 9I7-I966," Slovensky mirodopis XIV : 4 (1966): 501-505 . Subsequent biographical information is taken from thi s brief artic le. �68 SLOVAKIA school. The Soviet Union, after all , provided a model to be em ulated by the satellite countries in all fields. 15 Melichercfk energetically threw himself into thi s task, publishing a compilation of transl ations into Slovak of selected ethnographic studies from Soviet folklorists which were to serve as a methodolog ical aid for Slovak communist scholars, followed by the publication of a volume of exemplary Soviet-type studies by Slovak folklorists the mselves. Melichercik's personal history helps us understand his determination to do the right thing, to make certain that Slovak fo lkl ore sc holarship approached the folk tradition "correctly," and that it serve not just to inform but also to educate, to shape Slovak citi zens in a proper understanding of their past and "for the building of socialism" in Slovakia. 16 Indeed , thi s is what, according to Soviet culture tsar Andrei Zhdanov ( 18961948), Socialist Realist literature, art, and schol arship were supposed 17 to do. Melichercfk began publishin g hi s research on Janosfk in the 1950s. Until hi s untimely death in I 966 at age forty-nine as a result of so me fatal illness, perhaps contracted during a fi e ld trip with students near Rufomberok, he produced books and articles on the subject of the Slovak brigand hero. 18 He publi shed hi s defi nitive work on Janosfk in 1952, which was, in fact, the first major scholarl y study of the tradition in general , entitled Janos1ko vska tradfcia na 19 Slovensku (The Janosfk Tradition in Slovakia). Here, in great detail , Meli chercfk covered the historical backgro und of soc ial brigandage in Slovakia, the hi storical Juraj Janosfk on whom the image of the ideal brigand was based, and the Janosfk tradition in folklore and in Slovak formal literature. He also included several pages of folksong and folktale texts, as well as documents connected with Janosfk's trial and exec ution in I 7 I 3, and some literary texts. In 1956 Me li chercfk publi shed another major study of the Janosik tradition wh ich appeared in both Slovak and Czech editi ons. It was entitled Juraj Janosik: Hrdina protifeudalneho odboja slovenske- 15 Mjartan, 501-502. Mjartan, 502. 17 Gleb Struve, Russian Literature Under Lenin and Stalin 1917-1953 (Norman: Un iversity of Oklahoma Press, 197 1) 26 1-262. 18 Martjan, 503. 19 Melichercik, Janosfkovska tradfcia. 16 �SLOVAKIA 69 ho J'udu (Juraj Janosfk: Hero of the Anti-Feudal Struggle of the Slovak People) .20 This time, while repeating some material from his first study, he placed even greater emphasis on the socio-economic conditions that gave ri se to the brigand phenomenon in Slovakia and in the greater Carpathian region. In hi s chapter on the comparative study of the bandit tradition in the Carpathian context, he was a pioneer in widening the scope of the study of that tradition in Slovak scholarship.21 Indeed, from the 1970s to the present, the most fruitful work on the brigand theme has been the comparative study of the bandit tradition within the Carpathian area, supported by the International Commission for the Study of Popular Culture in the Carpathian and Balkan Region , founded in 1976.22 Melichercfk 's study, Juraj Janosfk: Hrdina , was published in a second revised and enlarged edition in 1963 for the 250 th anniversary of Janosfk 's execution.23 Although after this he wrote a few articles and some short pieces about Janosik and other bandits, as well as a substantial textbook on Slovak folklore in general , this second edition of Juraj 24 Janosfk: hrdina was hi s last major statement about his beloved idol. In providing what became the official and definitive description of Janosfk in communist Slovakia, Melichercfk wrote with an almost religious fervor: Janosfk's struggle ended tragically, but the idea of struggle against exp loiters for the truth and for justice and a more beautiful life for the simple working people shone in the consciousness of our people like a bright star in the evening sky. Decades went by, centuries passed, and that struggle - even though its conditions changed - continued. In the memory of the people the figure of Juraj Janosfk revived afresh, and a 20 Juraj Janosik: Hrdina protifeuda/neho odboja s/ovenskeho J'udu (Praha : Nase vojsko, 1956). 21 Melichercfk pursued comparative study a lso in two separate articles: "K otazke vzn iku zbojnfctva v Karpatoc h," Slovensky narodopi s IV: 2 ( I 956) I 63-194 and "Slovensko-Ukrajinske vztahy v zbojnfckom folkl6re ," Slovanske studie I (Bratislava, 1957) 539-548. 22 Milan Lescak, CSc. , ed., lnteretnicke vztahy vo folk/6re karpatskej oblasti (Bratislava: Veda, 1980). Also see note 2 for Gasparfkova and Putilov , eds. , Geroi iii zboinik? Gasparfkova herself has contributed in a major way to brigand study with books and articles over the past several decades, including: Zbojn[k Michal Vdovec v hist6rii a folk/6re gemerskeho l'udu (Bratislava: SA V, 1964 ); Povesti o zbojnikoch zo slovenskych a pol's ky ch Tatier (Bratislava: Veda, 1979); and Janosik: Obraz zbojnika v narodnej kulture (Bratislava: Tatran, 1988). 23 Melichercfk, Juraj Janos{k: Hrdina, 2nd ed. 24 Melichercfk, Slovensky fo lk/6r: Chrestomatia (Bratislava : SA V, 1959). �70 SLOVAKIA beautiful poe m abo ut freedom linked to hi s life took shape and was 25 ex pressed in the Janosfk tradition for over two centuries. Melichercfk offered a biography of the hi storical Juraj Janosfk drawn from ex tant court documents connected to his trial in Liptovsky Mikul as, and viewed Janosfk in folklore and literature as a composite hero whose figure was influenced by many sources. As a communist sc holar, Melichercik emphasized Janosfk 's image as a product of hi storical conditions, that is, an image born of the struggle of the masses of serfs and peasants against their feudal lords. He also recognized the role of the human creative imagination in the contouring of thi s image, shaped by the people as "one of the most beautiful and humani stic types of hero ," reflecting the experience 26 and yearning of the masses for freedom from feudal exploitation. Like mantras, such statements are repeated over and over throughout all of Melichercfk 's writings about Janosfk . Melichercfk 's adoration of Janosik as a proto-revolutionary hero helps explain hi s high praise for the young Stur poets. Their work, he stressed, preserved the simple and pure lines of the folk hero who engaged in an elemental struggle for hi s people and who in a sense died a martyr's terribl e death - executed by being hung on a meat 27 hook piercing the left side of his rib cage. Melichercfk's unwavering devotion to this perception of Janosik also accounts for hi s extraordinarily harsh criticism of prose writers and dramatists from the end of the nineteenth and first few decades of the twentieth century . These writers, he claimed, intentionally di storted and falsified the Janosik tradition by playing down or eliminating the revolutionary content of the tradition and clothing the brigand in "adventure, sentimentality, megalomania, [and] day-dreaming. "28 He had in mind writers such as Pa vol Beblavy in Janosik: Po vest' o hrdinovi a dobrodincovi J'udu (Janosik: Tale of the People' s Hero and Benefactor), 25 Melichercfk , Jura} Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed., 7. M elichercfk, Jura} Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed. , 158. 27 Yotruba describes how the bri gand fi gure from Slovak fo lklore was adapted by the Stur poets from fo lklore and other sources and further recontoured to fit their purposes, adapting some attributes of the Romantic bri gand hero well-known throu ghout Europe and eliminating a motif found in some previous folklore and poetry which harshly judged the bandits' deeds. The Stur poets, that is, pl ayed a significant role in manipul atin g the figure, rather th an simply "preserving" some sacred original image from the folklore. See Yotruba, 42-43. 28 Melichercfk , Jura} Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed., 143. 26 �SLOVAKIA 71 which first appeared in installments in Slovenske pohl'ady (IX, 1889); Dobry Slovak in Janosfk, junak slobody (Janosfk, Hero of Freedom) (l 893); Gu stav Marsall-Petrovsky in his two-volume novel Janos[k (1894); and Emo Bohun in his two novel s, Janos1kov poklad (Ja no sfk 's Treasure Hoard ) (1926) and Dedics tvo Janostkovho pokladu (The Legacy of Jano sfk's Treasure Hoard) . About these, 29 Melichercfk had only the most negative observations. Melichercfk adopted the bitter tone of a real zealot when he focused on Slovak drama , in much of which he saw further destruction of what he considered the authentic folk tradition . He lashed out at Viliam Pauliny-T6th, for example, as the first to recontour Janosik in hi s play Janosik (1862) as a Roman Catholic seminary student, the so n of wealthy peasants, and an educated "gentleman bri ga nd ," 30 thereby di storting the "authentic " brigand figure. Evoking the language of di sease, he insisted that these bourgeoi s writers tried to "infect" the people 's consciousness "with traditions that are entirely harmful and hostile" because they wanted to divert the attention of the working masses away from their most important interests, that is, away from the class strugg le, and to "prevent them from correctly recognizing and assessi ng their own capabilities for resistance and 31 their successes in the past. " He added further: It is eno ugh o nl y to reca ll what efforts the Slovak bourgeoisie expended in order to infect our people with the idea th at the ir basic characteristics were humility, co mpli ance, resignation to the will of God , that they were a so{!, patient, God-fearing people, humbl y obli gated to the lords, and so on. - Melichercfk injected a positive note, however, pointing out a few works which he considered reflected the genuine folk hero who "goes into brigandage with stron g conviction to puni sh injustice perpetrated by the lords on the poor Slovak people, "33 as in Jiff Mahen 's play Janos[k. Tragedie o peti dejstv[ch (Janosfk - A Tragedy in Five Acts.) 34 He was pleased that these elements in Mahen 's play served as a basis for so me other dramatic and mu sical re-wor- 29 Melichercfk. Jura) Janosfk: Hrdina, 2nd ed., 142-147. Melichercfk. Jura) Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed., 150. 31 Melichercfk , Jura) Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed. , 157. 32 Melichercfk . Jura) Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed. , 157. 33 Melichercfk. Jura) Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed. , 15 I. 34 Jirf Mahen, Janosfk. Tragedie o peti dejstvfch (Prah a, 1910). 30 �72 SLOVAKIA 35 kings of the Janosfk story. Jan Cikker's 1953 opera Jura Janosik, according to Melichercfk, captured so accurately the "entire magnitude of the concept the Janosfk rebellion and its revolutionary message" that in hi s estimation it qualified as a folk opera - that is, an authentic expression of the masses - in terms of its theme and 36 music. Melichercfk ended hi s di sc uss ion of Janosfk in literature and the arts with the hope that arti sts would produce an abundance of Janosfk images so that these "will decorate buildings, parks, and squares of our nation and Janosfk wi ll live everywhere as a sy mbol of struggle and freedom , as a great message from the past for us and 37 for future generations. " He also offered a challenge to Slovak dramati sts that they take up the task of writing a "genuine Slovak folk play" about Janosfk. 38 Although thi s last task would indeed be taken up and fulfilled by dramatists, it would not be carried out in the way Melichercfk had hoped. In the cynical years after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, dram atists responded to Melichercfk 's call and wrote musical plays about Janosfk. Stepka's Jaaanosfffk: News About the Hero or a Play on the Hero, Bryll 's and Gartnerova's Painted on Glass, and Feldek's Janosik According to Vivaldi were produced and performed for co untl ess Slovak audiences. These plays, however, manipul ated the conventi onal image defined by Melichercfk and offered audiences radically new ways of considering not only the figure of Janosfk and the brigand tradition, but their own social, political, and existential reality. As for the depiction of Janosfk him self, it was as if tired of occ upying the glorious, but increas ingly cramped role of the almost superhum an hero officially sanctioned by the communist governme nt, he broke free from th at role 's confines and assumed another g ui se - as an ordinary man with ordinary weaknesses, coming from a well-meaning, but simple-minded family, and, at best, a reluctant bandit. The debunking and parodying of the conventional and officially approved myth of Janosfk in the musicals occurred in the context of a broad postmodern movement apparent throughout Central Europe 35 Jan Cikker, Juro Janosik: Opera v 6 obrazoch (Libretto: Stefan Hoza), l 953 . Melichercfk, Jura) Janosik: hrdina, 2nd ed ., 153. 37 Melichercfk , Jura) Janosik: hrdina, 2nd ed. , 154. 38 Melichercfk, Jura) Janosfk: hrdina, 2nd ed. , 152. 36 �SLOVAKIA 73 which had begun at the end of the 1950s. Slovak literary scholar Peter Petro refers to the period of the I 960s as a "turbulent decade," a period of experimentation , which gradua lly undercut the official Socialist Realism and pushed the limits of the permissible in literature. 39 The impul se to parody and debunk carried over into the 1970s and 1980s. It was strengthened by pressures of the "normalization," which took place directly after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and was connected to the reemergence of surrealism influenced by the surrealist movement during World War 11. 40 Central to thi s movement was new activity in the theater and in dramatic productions. Playwrights, utilizing the language of surrealism and the grotesque, sought to expose the absurdity of the political system by undermining its values and utopian premises which had claimed that "it is possible to control everything, even the dreams and hopes of the citizens. "41 Productions were characterized by fragmentation of the main motifs into parts and the insertion of poetry, mu sic , and dance. Humor, irony, skepticism , interaction with the spectators, direct appeals to the audience's imagination, word games, verbal improvisation-and all of this intended to unmask falsehoods, to shatter ideological stereotypes--characterized plays of this pe42 riod. It was in this context that Bryll, Feldek, and Stepka conceived their musicals and chose the officially sanctioned and exploited image of the Slovak national hero in their subversive work. Bryll's Painted on Glass was translated from the 1970 original Polish libretto and performed in Slovakia from the mid-l 970s. 43 Its title refers to the widespread folk art of painting colorful images on glass, popular in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and well 39 Peter Petro, A History of Sl ovak Literature (Montreal & Kingston, London , Buffalo: McGill-Queens University Press), 143-44. 40 Petro, 143. 41 Halina Janaszek-lvanicov, "Post-Modernism in the West Slavonic Literature in the Context of Euro-Atlantic Changes of the Postmodern Paradigms," Part Ill : "Five tides of postmodernism in Polish, Czech, and Slovak Literature," at: http: //src- h. sla v. hokuda i.ac. jp/pub Iictn/N o.64/ janaszek/ janaszek. htm I. 42 Janaszek-I van icov. 43 111 Slovakia the play premiered at the Slovak National Theater Oct. 19, 1974, where it ran for three decades. It was pulled from the stage briefly in 1983 when Ernest Bryll was forced to leave Poland for crit icizi ng the political situatio n. Bratislava's Novii scena theater has staged the play in an updated form since 2005. http://mu zikal y. szm.sk/nsm.html �74 SLOVAKIA known for preserving images of Janosik and hi s brigands and various 44 moments related to the conventional myth. Reproducing these images in dramatic action with song and dance, Painted on Glass broke with Melichercik 's communist definition of the myth by disclosing both Janosik's very ordinary human yearnings and failings. Janosfk's love for Anicka is unfulfilled, the gendarmes are not the hero 's eternal class enemies, but also human beings; and Death personified awaits the hero, as it does all of us. Light humor, rousing folk dance, memorable songs, and poking holes in the conventional myth all blended in Painted on Glass, and the figure of Janosfk was endeared to the audience which identified with the demythologized hero. The music of Bryll' s play, composed by Katarzyna Gartnerova, was a delightful hybrid of rhythmic rock and folk, and gave new voice to the expression of the Janosik tradition in the 1970s and 1980s. Feldek chose the title for hi s play, Janosik According to Vivaldi, because he wanted to indicate that in the eighteenth century Slovaks li ved "not only in Yratna dolina (ie., in the isolated depth s of Slovakia) but also in Europe. "45 Action in the play alternates between Slovakia and the Viennese court of Charles YI (d. 1740), where the emperor's daughter, the young Maria Theresa (1717- 1780), is heard in the background playing the mu sic of Antonio Vivaldi (16801743), then popular throughout Europe. Feldek worked from actu al hi storical documents linked to Janosfk's trial , but wove an amusing and fantastical version of the myth . Here, Uhorcfk is portrayed as the real bandit hero, and he and hi s wife Katarfnka manipulate Janosik into becoming the brigand captain. In quick order, however, Janosfk tires of stealing, as he tell s Katarfnka in very contemporary sounding terms: "We rob from morning to night and then again from night to morning and I'm as tired as a dog. And I swear that people would do better if they didn 't carry all thi s silly gold with them" (Zbfjame od rana do vecera a potom este aj od vecera do rana, unaveny so m ako pes. Prisaham bohu, casto si hovorfm , ze by tf 44 See introductory texts and reproductions of glass-painted images of Janosfk and brigands in IIena Pi sutova, Painted Dreams: Slovak Folk Painting on Glass in the 2dh Century (Bratislava: Tatran, 1983), and Katarfna Ciema, Janosik v Slovenskom vytvamom umenf (Bratislava: Slovenska narodna galeria, 1988). This last is the catalog to an exhibition of the same name, held in March - May 1988. 45 Feldek, 125. �SLOVAKIA 75 l'udi a urobili Iepsie, keby so sebou nenosili tolko toho poondiateho zlata.)46 In the end Katarfnka angri ly insi sts that the people should celebrate Uhorcfk ' s memory, not Janosik's. At the same time, in the absence of a male heir to the throne, Charles VI decides that Uhorcik is his illegitimate son and should be the next emperor. Feldek plays with the myth , the hi story, and language, as, fo r instance, in Charles Vi 's interview with the w idow of one of hi s Au stri an genera ls, Madame Schardonova, whose existence is attested in the hi storical doc uments since she actuall y was robbed by Janosfk in Slovakia. Her stilted Slovak, prono unced with a German acce nt, is hil ario us, because a ll of her mi stake s ac tu a ll y convey other ridiculous meanings. Instead of saying "I am a widow " (som vdova), she says "I 47 am water" (som voda) ; instead of complimenting Charles for his nobility (s l'achetn y), she compliments him for being "tendinous" (... 48 aky ste sl'achovity). Painted on Glass offers great humor and new twists on the convention al elements of the communist interpretation of Janosfk so well defi ned by Melichercik. Perhaps most radical in its depiction of Janosfk and the brigand myth is Stepka 's Jaaanosfffk, pl ayed by his own troupe, the Rados inske naivne divadlo (Radosi na Nai·ve Theater). Its unu sual title was inspired by Slovak actor and director Pal'o Bielik 's famo us two-part film , Janosik ( 1963), in which Janosik's name is called out in the mountains and echoes lo udl y with a prolonged stress on the vowels. Whil e Melichercfk had approached the Janosik tradition with the utmo st gravity, Stepka kept hi s co mmuni st-era audience laughing throughout the entire musical. His language is rich with puns and humorously distorted references from fo lkl ore, literature, and especiall y from dail y life in com munist Slovakia. Ribald sex ual innuendoes are woven into the entire script. Janosik appears onl y in the last third of the play , during which the punning continues. Hi s family members - mothe r Dag mar, fathe r Jon athan , and sister He len a occ upy center stage through the play and are depicted as slow, thickwitted , shrewd, but also likeab le peasants. Their plight as serfs under the control of a Hungarian count, Artus Revay, is treated with humor and irony. The Radosina Na"ive Theater company performed and still 46 Feldek, 96. Feldek, 93. 48 Feldek, 93 . 47 �76 SLOVAKIA performs the play with few props and simple Slovak folk costumes with so me ac tors wearing regular contemporary clothes . The tone and atmosphere, free and characterized by improvisation , suggests an amateur village production with simple, barel y literate actors - but in fact the theater' s actors are professionals who bring their ro les to li fe exceedingly well. 49 The writer of thi s article attended a performance of Jaaanosfffk in Slovakia in 1983, which was played with great g usto and hilarious improvi sation . That perform ance diverged somewhat from the published script of 1970, but thi s is to be expected , considering that improvisation is integra l to the pl ay, contributing to its "amateur" quality , and insurin g that there be room for some actor-audience interaction. The very first lines of Jaaanosfffk immediatel y set the tone for the ling ui stic and cultu ral manipulation to come: Instead of the co nventional opening of a Slovak fo lktale - "Kde bolo, tam bolo" (Once upon a time ... ; litera ll y: Where it was, there it was) - two narrators begin with "Kde bolelo, tam bolelo" (Where it hurt, there it hurt), a play on the traditional phrase and suggesting that much more would be turned on its head before the end of the performance.so Janosfk's Slovak mother and father are given spurious genealogies by the narrators - Pani Dagmar Janosfkov a, nee Trautenbergerova, and Jon ath an Jano sfk , whose real s urname, we are told , is Weissmann_s, To suggest th at the Slovak national hero is actually of German de sce nt is, of course, hi ghly ironical and am usin g. When Helena and Dagmar are visited by a local constable sent by the count, they are pleased to welcome him in, having locked father in the cellar. The constable tell s Dagmar that he is on the lookout for a rebel , specifically her hu sband , who is inciting or rou sing the serfs (" Poddanych buri .. . "), and she responds cynicall y that her husband 49 Stanis lav Stepka's Radosinske naivne div adlo produced a CD of Jaacinosfffk and a DVD of three pl ays, including Jaaanosffik. For availability, see : http://www. panorama. sk/index.asp?kam-/go/mapa.asp&lan g-s k&sv-2&mc- 12 I9 ~. 50 Stani slav Stepka, Jaaanosfffk: Sprava o hrdinovi alebo hra na hrdinu (Bratislava: Tatran , 1983) 19. All quotes are take n from the publi shed sc ript. Ac tors in the perfo rmance attended by the writer of this artic le fo llowed thi s sc ript closely, but not exactly. And this published script differs slightl y from the DVD version of the musical from 2004. 51 Jaaanosfffk, 23. �SLOVAKIA 77 "no longer arouses anything" ("Prosfm vas, on uz nic nevzburi. . ") and is willing to sign her name to that. 52 The constable summons Dagmar and Helena to the manor house, informing them that the Count Revay, a "candidate of the amorous sciences" (kandidat milostnych vied) - a satirical reference to scholarl y titles in communist Slovakia - wants them to come and "sew sacks" (obsfvat' vrecia), connoting here some kind of sex ual activity. In response, Helena blithely asks: "Which amorous lord ordered this, the young one or the old one?" When the constable says "the old one," Helena responds with complete confidence: "Mamicka, then that must mean the invitation 's for you. "53 Unlike in the conventional myth, the women here clearly do not feel threatened by the count's demand , and in fact they act as though it has happened repeatedly and welcome it eagerly. When the constable leaves, Helena and Dagmar di scuss how fine it is that the aristocracy, the lords, want only what is good for the serfs - surely a satirical reference to the contemporary situation with the communist government as the aristocracy and the serfs as the ordinary citizens. Helena means to say "They come here, advise us, and look around (pride, poradf, pohl'adf)," but, to the audience's surprise and amusement, in her simple-mindedness she says instead that "they come, advise us, and caress" (pride, poradi, pohladf)." 54 Dagmar then echoes, anachronistically for the eighteenth century, the sentiments of contemporary communist brigade workers perpetually urged to find ways to work harder, ways to over-fulfill the Plan: Let me pose this question to you, my daughter: are we really working on the estate like we should? Are we working a full eighteen hours? Couldn't we manage to work more? Sometimes we sing. Couldn't we work another eight or nine hours? We work only six days. And the seventh is the Sabbath. But couldn 't we work thirty-six days a month and then celebrate the Sabbath with whatever is left? And what about order at the workplace? Do we keep all our bundles in one place? So, see. We 55 need to think all thi s over sometime. 52 J aaanosifik, 22. Jaaanosffik, 22. 54 Jaaanosffik, 23. 55 Jti:i:inos([fk, 23. As an example of d ivergence from the written script of 1970, the 1983 viny l disc recordi ng of the musical , for instance, prov ides an al ternati ve statement in thi s section of the play. Dagmar asks: "Couldn 't we work six days a week and celebrate for seven?" This, again, is reflective of the improvisational nature of the script. 53 �78 SLOVAKIA These words, all too familiar to the audience daily subjected to pressure to achieve communist "excellence," provoked uproarious laughter from the audience. More bitter self-recognition for the Slovak audience in communist times - oftentimes struggling to procure even the basics, yet reassured by the government that they had the best possible living situation - resulted from Dagmar' s observation that they already had acquired everything they could possibly need: "We already have everything - a table, a chair, a bowl , a crucifix, and eventually even a house with doors. My God!" (A mame uz vsetko, aha - stol, stolicka, miska, krfzik , pomaly uz aj <lorn s dvermi. Boze!)56 Only after all this does the youthful Janosfk appear. Sister Helena, a family friend Samo, as well as Janosfk ' s girlfriend Anicka, and eventually his own mother all push him to become a brigand for the material benefits this will bring them, echoing a situation again all too familiar to the audience: that the only way to acquire goods , especially luxury goods, is by theft in one way or another. Janosfk acquiesces reluctantly, and only after complaining: Do I have to be a man? Do I have to be a hero? Do I have to be an example? You'll be at home lying in your feather quilts, and I have to offer up my kidneys [to the executioner's hook]? I don't want to be a hero, I want to be an ordinary man. . . I don't want to enter into reading books, I want to live out my life beautifully . . . This literature will live off me for 300 years , but I won ' t make it to thirty . . . I don ' t want to 57 enter history with a bullet between my shoulders. Janosfk, however, appears in the final scene with Uhorcfk, grudgingly about to begin his career, while Uhorcfk berates him for tossing aside his weapon and for showing no interest in banditry . Uhorcfk then initiates the highway robbery of two aristocratic travelers, a mother and daughter, with the traditional demand found in folktale s: "Your money or your life. . . " (Bohu dusu a nam dukaty. Literally: Hand over your soul to God and your money to us.) , but add s "and your citizenship documents" (a obcianske preukazy), much like the police could demand of anyone on the street in communist Slovakia. 58 The women, instead of fearing or hating Janosik, are enamored with hi s dashing appearance and charm - "Mama, so these are those famous brigands! My God, what beau56 Jaaanosfffk, 23. Jaaanosfffk, 33. 58 Jaaanosfffk, 34. 57 �SLOVAKIA 79 tiful folk garb they have" (Mamicka, tak toto su tf zbojnfci? Boze, ake krasne kroje maju.) - and he and Uhorcfk treat the robbery like a customs check. This certainly resonated with Slovaks, as well as foreigners, who passed repeatedly through Czechoslovak customs in communist times and often felt robbed and violated. 59 During the robbery, however, Janosik begins to wax poetic about the bandit life, and Uhorcik again reprimands him for getting distracted, but in a way which again sounds ironical in reference to brigandage and echoes a typical warning to the communist worker: "Duri, you keep forgetting your obligation" (Duri, zabudas na povinnost:)60 This Janosik is not Melichercfk's noble social brigand, a fighter against feudal lords, protector of the poor and oppressed. Stepka 's musical, as well as Bryll's and Feldek's, presented the Slovak public in the 1970s and 1980s not with a communist superhero, but with an ordinary guy, much of whose life and environment resonated with those of the audience. Janosik's experiences and the struggles of his time depicted in the musicals were a reflection of their own life. The outlines of the conventional myth were brought into question and turned upside down , and social and political issues that could not be criticized openly were spoofed. Audiences who experienced the plays together could leave the theater, having, in a sense, expressed and shared publicly their plight under the communist regime. Through irony and laughter, they could feel stronger in their resolve to resist. By employing the Janosik figure and myth, wrenching it free from the regime's ideology, the dramatists held up a mirror to the audience so that they could see themselves more clearly and could come to an understanding about how they might better deal with their social and political reality. Through humor and satire and breaking with the Soviet - and communist-approved conventional interpretation, the dramatists allowed Janosik once again to reach out to his people, to inspire in them the courage to resist the new authorities. Because Melichercik had so successfully portrayed Janosik as an acceptable proto-communist hero, the brigand's image in these musicals passed under the censors' radar screens. Once again, in a way not anticipated by Melichercik, Janosik was there to contribute to the 59 60 Jaaanosfffk, 34. Jaaanosfffk, 35. �80 SLOVAKIA social and political resistance, to help undermine the system. Once again, in a way not anticipated by Melichercik, Janosik was a symbol of freedom - this time for a new generation in a new time and against a new oppressor. Feldek suggested just exactly that when in an interview in 1979, he said of his work: "There is no such thing as a historical play . We write and play alway s for the contemporary audience and for the present. The hi storical subject in a good 'historical' play is only a pretext - almost like the subject of animals in a fable. The viewer should leave my play with the sense that this was about us. "61 And by the end of the next decade, 1989, the communist system finally collapsed from within and the barbed wire was torn down - perhaps with just a little help from Janosik. 61 Feldek, 126. � 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 2007, Vol. 39 Description An account of the resource Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007. 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 2007 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA ,, 63 V,, JANOSIK AS A SYMBOL OFFREDOMIN COMMUNIST SLOVAK.IA Patricia A. Krafcik The new millennium has witnessed a continued fascination in Central Europe with the figure of Janosfk, the well-known eighteenth-century Slovak brigand hero. Among the works relating to Janosfk that have appeared thus far, Polish scholar Joanna Goszczynska 's study, Mit Janosika w folklorze i literaturze Slowackiej XIX wieku (The Janosfk Myth in Slovak Folklore and Literature of the Nineteenth Century), examines the emergence of Janosfk from Slovak popular folklore and other sources, as well as the evolution of his figure in nineteenth-century Slovak literature. 1 Geroi iii zboinik? Obraz razboinika v fol 'klore Karpatskogo regiona (Heroes or Bandits? Outlaw Traditions in the Carpathian Region) , edited by Slovak ethnographer Viera Gasparfkova and Russian folklorist Boris N. Putilov, offers a comparative study of Carpathian bandit traditions, including that of Janosfk. 2 In a more popular vein, Zuzana Krizkova 's and Margareta Horvathova's popu lar collection of Janosfk folktales, Jura) Janosik: Rozpnivanie o zbojnfckom kapitanovi (Juraj Janosik : Tales of the Brigand Captain) , intersperses several texts with summaries of historical information from the mid-seventeeth century to just after Janosfk' s execution in Liptovsky Svaty Mikulas in 1713, and is replete with dozens of miniature historical and art prints relating to Slovak hi story prior to and during Janosfk's time.3 In 2005-2006, the Slovak National Gallery and the Slovak National Museum co-sponsored an ex hibition entitled "S lovensky mytu s" 1 Joanna Goszczynska, Mit Janosika w folklorze i literaturze Sfowackiej XIX wieku (Warszawa: Uniwersytet Warszawski , Lnsty tut Filologii Stowianskiej , 200 I). 2 Viera Gasparfkova and Boris N. Putilov, eds. , Geroi iii zboinik ? Obraz razboinika v fol'klore Kmpatskogo regiona (B udapest: European Folklore Insti tute, 2002). This work is published in Russian with a substantial summary in English. 3 Zuzana Kri zkova and Margareta Horvathova, Juraj Janosik: Rozprtivanie o zbojnickom kapittinovi (Bratislava: Perfekt, 2004). 64 SLOVAKIA (Slovak Myth), which included a prominent exhibit devoted to Janosfk: "Mytu s Juraj Janosfk , alebo Janosfko mani a v slove nskom vytvarnom umenf" (The Myth of Juraj Janosfk or Janosfk Mania in Slovak Creati ve Art). 4 As part of this "Janosfk mania" in Slovaki a, two mu sical plays, Poli sh pl ay wright Ernes t Bryll ' s and co mposer Katarzy na Gartnerova's Na skle malbvane: Spevohra v 3 castiach (Painted on Glass: A Musical Play in Three Parts, 1970)5 and Stani slav Stepka's Jaaanosfffk : Sprava o hrdinovi alebo hra na hrdinu (Jaaanosfffk : News about the hero or a play on the hero , 1970)6 have been rev itali zed and restaged. When they first appeared in co mmunist Czechoslovakia of the 1970s-80s, these mu sica l pl ays were wildl y popular. Along with 4 Slovak Nati onal Ga llery at www s ng sk (accessed August 5, 2006). The ex hib ition's accompanying catalog contains an arti cle devoted to Janosik: Hana Hl6skova, "Narodny hrdina Ju raj Janosfk," My ty Nase Slovenske, eds. Edu ard Krekovic, Elena Mannova, and Eva Krekov icova, (Bratislava: Academic Electro nic Press, 2005), 94103 . 5 M albvane na skle premiered in Warsaw in 1970; in Czechoslovaki a in 1972 at the Statni divadl o in Brno under the title Z bojn fci a iandafi ; and in 1974 in Bratislava at the Slovak Natio nal T heater. Perfo rm ances resum ed again fro m October 2005 in Bratislava' s Nova scena theater in a new translation from the Polish by Slovak playwright J.:ubomfr Feldek, with singers and dancers from SCUK, Sl ove nsky l'udovy umelecky ko lektfv (S lovak Folk Artisti c Ensemble). See: http ://mu zikaly .szm.sk/nsm html (accessed August 4, 2006), and more on SCU K's ro le can be found in "I.:udovy umelec ky kolektfv koprodukcny partner di ela" at: http: //www nova-sce ne.sk/ index/php?page-page& itemid-15 (accessed August 6, 2006). For a brief descri ption of the revitalized musical' s fir st-night perform ance on September 22, 2005 at Brati slava's Nova scena theater, see "Prem iera Na skle ma lbvane mala us pech," at : http://koktail pravda sk/sk kfilm.asp?r=sk kfi lm&c-A050923 114927 sk kfi lm p 1Q (accessed Aug ust 6, 2006). The rev iew mentio ns that the spectac ul ar performance was attended by me mbers of the Nati onal Co unc il of the Slovak Repu blic, including its speaker Pavol Hrusovsky. The play is avai lab le on DVD; see: http://www panorama.sk/i ndex.asp?kam-/go/mapa.asp&lang-en&sv-2&mc- I430 &m id=l. 6 Jaaanosfffk premiered in 1970 in Rados ina' s Klu b ml adyc h (fou nded 1963) in th e hometow n of the Radosina Na'ive Theater (RND) which moved its operations that year to Brati slava. http: //www.rnd.sk/?i-program&id- J022 . The play is now run as "Jaaanosfffk (po tridsiatich rokoch)" (Janosik [after thirty years)), thi s rev ised title given to it during an earlier revival in 2000 in Kezmarok. The musical has continued to play in theaters through this past year: see, fo r instance, about a perform ance of the play in Rufo mberok in 2006 at : http ://www.ruzomberok.sk/index novinky.php?novinka-15 3. SLOVAKIA 65 a third production - I.:ubomfr Feldek's Janosik podl'a Vivaldiho (Jano sfk According to Vivaldi , 1979)7 - they employed in an innovative way folksong, folk dance, and classical mu sic, as well as contemporary rock mu sic elements, and were rife with raucous humor, language play, and scarcely veiled social and political criticism. In them the figure of Janosfk, so beloved in Slovak folklore and literature and so exploited by the communist regime for its own purposes, was demythologized and parodied. By daring to manipulate a fi gure and a myth solidified and sanctified by the regime, the mu sicals in fact functioned as a form of resistance to the communist regime in Czechoslovakia and to its many "myths" and false promises. Yet even in a demythologized form, the subversive nature of the bri gand hero as a sy mbol of freedom from oppression and as a challenge to the social order still served as a liberating force .8 The evolution of the Janosik fi gure over the past four centuries is complex, as Martin Votruba demon strates in hi s recent article, "Hang Him High: The Elevation of Janosfk to an Ethnic Icon . "9 Inspired in part by the fate of the hi storical eighteenth-century Juraj Janosik, the folklore and literary fi gure was shaped over the years by many sources: Slovak mythology, pre-eighteenth-century Slovak brigand songs and tales, medieval anecdotes about bandits, eighteenthcentury Slovak "market songs," and the nineteenth-century Romantic literary movement in Europe. As an expression of their zealous patriotism during the mid-nineteenth century's national awakening in Central Europe, the younger generation of Slovak poets surrounding Cudovft Stur adopted and furth er shaped the image of Janosik and hi s "mountain lads" as the nation al sy mbol of the Slovak people 's 7 The play premiered I 979 at Statne divadlo in Kos ice under th e direction of Vaclav Martinec, music by Jaroslav Fi lip. The script was published along with other Feldek plays in the fo llowing vo lume: I.:ubomfr Feldek, Smutne komedie (Brati slava : Slovensky spi sovatel', 1982) 79- 11 9. 8 Eri c Hobsbawm , Bandits (London : Weidenfeld & Nico lson, 2000). Hobsbawm ' s landmark study is devoted to defi ning the archetypal figure of the bri gand hero as a perpetually liberating force. He refers to Janosik as one of the "noble robber" types (47). 9 Martin Yotruba, "Hang Him H igh: The Elevation of Janosik to an Ethnic Icon, " Slavic Review 65: I (2006): 24-44. For more on the historical Janosik, see Patricia A. Krafc ik , "Janosfk: Unrave ling the M an from the Legend, " Slovakia XXX III : 606 I ( 1987- I 988) : 7-22. A lso see Jozef K oc is, Neznamy Janosfk (Marti n: Osveta, I 986) for a more detai led study of Janosik's historical context. 66 SLOVAKIA struggle for liberation from the domination of Austrian and Hungarian rule. Beautiful in their language and hi ghl y emotive in their imagery, poems by Stefan Marko Daxner (1822-92), Samo Chalupka (1812-83), and Jan Botto (1829-81) are still today memorized, recited , and loved by Slovaks. Early twentieth-century Slovak prose writers ' attempts at further romanticizing hi s image by playing up the motifs of Janosfk's gi rlfriend and Janosfk as a seminary student did not tarni sh the Stur poets' image of Janosfk as a noble outlaw, a representati ve of freedom and defender of the oppressed. In the mid-twentieth century, communist Czec hoslovakia embraced the Janosfk myth co ntoured large ly by the Stur poets. Bas ing their version on selected folklore and the Sturists' vision of the hero, communist propagandists attempted to demonstrate that Janosi'.k, honored as the Slovak national sy mbol , had in fact been a proto-revolutionary who advocated preci sely what the communist government advocated: both the destruction of the bourgeo isie and aristocracy and the redi stribution of wealth in the spirit of socialism. After all , in both the folklore and nineteenth -ce ntury literature, Janosfk, the "mountain eagle," was depicted , like Robin Hood , confronting and humiliating noblemen and rich merchants and aiding and rewarding his supporters. Genuine hi storical court documents from his trial also clearly showed that Janosfk had never killed anyone, and had actually given gifts of jewelry to the young women of Terchova. 1 Furthermore, Janosfk's name and hi s image as a defender of the Slovak people had just recently been invoked among Slovak partisans in the Slovak National Uprising in 1944. 11 Finally, Soviet scholars did not shy away from the subj ect of social bandits in these decades, thu s affording it a further official stamp of approva l. Di stingui shed Russian folklori st Petr Grigor' evich Bogatyrev (1893- 1971 ) wrote about brigands before the 1950s and publi shed two excellent books about ° 10 see Andrej M elichercfk, Janosikovska tradfcia na Slovensku (Brati slava : SA YU. 1952) 248-59, for texts of the court documents revea ling inform ation about Janosik's activities. 11 M eli chercfk, Juraj Janosfk: Hrdina Protifeudalneho odboja slovenskeho J'udu, 2nd ed. (Martin: Osveta, 1963) 16 1- 164. See also "Janosfk-partizanska brigada" and "Janosfk- ilegalny casopis protifasisti ckeho frontu," Encyklopedia Slovenska 11 (Bratislava, 1978): 478-479. SLOVAKIA 67 Slovak outlaws in 1963 and 1976. 12 Even earlier, nineteenth-century Russian revolutionaries and Lenin himself had perceived in the Cossac k-bri gands, such as Sten ' ka Razin and Emeliian Pugachev, the people 's inherent revo lutionary spirit. 13 Janosik, in short, was thought to be a safe subject in communist Czechoslovakia, as well as advantageou s to the regime 's ideology, and thu s could be researched and celebrated by a host of writers, poets, artists, dramatists, composers, and scholars during the l 950s- l 980s . Through the ir work, he was elevated to communist sainthood. In Slovakia, the "father of Janosik studies," ethnographer Andrej Melichercfk (1917-1966) , was unquestionabl y the most ardent of them all. Born in the year of the Ru ssian revolution s, Melichercfk was educated at the Philosophical Faculty of Comenius University in Brati slava and was mentored in hi s chosen field of ethnography by Bogatyrev himself. 14 He served as an assistant professo r in ethnography at the university , was a "docent" from 1947, and lectured there to the end of hi s life. He also worked at the Matica slovenska, the key institution for the preservation of Slovak culture, from 1945, and served as its secretary from 1948. At the same time, as a tru sted sudruh (comrade), Melichercfk was asked to organize the Ethnographic Division (N arodnopisny ustav) in the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Arts and became president of that division in 1950. It was his responsibility in the new communist Slovakia to organize a unified body from diverse individuals, to critique the so-called bourgeois school s of folklore (that is, all folklore studies up to the communist ascend anc y in Czecho slovakia), and to align the work of hi s Academy sc holars with the "progress ive" Soviet ethnographic 12 P. G. Bogatyrev, S/ova tskie epicheskie rasskazy i /iro-epicheskie pesni ("zbojnickij cikl ") (Moskva: AN SSSR , 1963) and Slovatskie narodnye razbojnich 'i pesni i ballady (Moskva: Khudozhestvenna ia literatura, 1976). Bogatyrev helped pave the way for the stud y of the Carpathian brigand phenomenon in such articles as the fo llow ing about the "oprishki " or brigands and their legends in Western Ukraine: P. G. Bogatyrev , "Fo llklornye skazanija ob oprishkakh Zapadnoi Ukra iny," Sove tskaia etnografiia: Sbornik statei V ( 1941 ): 59-80. 13 Patricia A. Krafc ik, "Sten 'ka Ra zin in Ru ss ian Hi storical Fo lksongs : A Robin Hood of the Volga" (PhD diss., Columbia Uni versity, l 980), 3-6. 14 Jan Mjartan, "Za Prof. Dr. And rejom Melichercfkom , l 9I7-I966," Slovensky mirodopis XIV : 4 (1966): 501-505 . Subsequent biographical information is taken from thi s brief artic le. 68 SLOVAKIA school. The Soviet Union, after all , provided a model to be em ulated by the satellite countries in all fields. 15 Melichercfk energetically threw himself into thi s task, publishing a compilation of transl ations into Slovak of selected ethnographic studies from Soviet folklorists which were to serve as a methodolog ical aid for Slovak communist scholars, followed by the publication of a volume of exemplary Soviet-type studies by Slovak folklorists the mselves. Melichercik's personal history helps us understand his determination to do the right thing, to make certain that Slovak fo lkl ore sc holarship approached the folk tradition "correctly," and that it serve not just to inform but also to educate, to shape Slovak citi zens in a proper understanding of their past and "for the building of socialism" in Slovakia. 16 Indeed , thi s is what, according to Soviet culture tsar Andrei Zhdanov ( 18961948), Socialist Realist literature, art, and schol arship were supposed 17 to do. Melichercfk began publishin g hi s research on Janosfk in the 1950s. Until hi s untimely death in I 966 at age forty-nine as a result of so me fatal illness, perhaps contracted during a fi e ld trip with students near Rufomberok, he produced books and articles on the subject of the Slovak brigand hero. 18 He publi shed hi s defi nitive work on Janosfk in 1952, which was, in fact, the first major scholarl y study of the tradition in general , entitled Janos1ko vska tradfcia na 19 Slovensku (The Janosfk Tradition in Slovakia). Here, in great detail , Meli chercfk covered the historical backgro und of soc ial brigandage in Slovakia, the hi storical Juraj Janosfk on whom the image of the ideal brigand was based, and the Janosfk tradition in folklore and in Slovak formal literature. He also included several pages of folksong and folktale texts, as well as documents connected with Janosfk's trial and exec ution in I 7 I 3, and some literary texts. In 1956 Me li chercfk publi shed another major study of the Janosik tradition wh ich appeared in both Slovak and Czech editi ons. It was entitled Juraj Janosik: Hrdina protifeudalneho odboja slovenske- 15 Mjartan, 501-502. Mjartan, 502. 17 Gleb Struve, Russian Literature Under Lenin and Stalin 1917-1953 (Norman: Un iversity of Oklahoma Press, 197 1) 26 1-262. 18 Martjan, 503. 19 Melichercik, Janosfkovska tradfcia. 16 SLOVAKIA 69 ho J'udu (Juraj Janosfk: Hero of the Anti-Feudal Struggle of the Slovak People) .20 This time, while repeating some material from his first study, he placed even greater emphasis on the socio-economic conditions that gave ri se to the brigand phenomenon in Slovakia and in the greater Carpathian region. In hi s chapter on the comparative study of the bandit tradition in the Carpathian context, he was a pioneer in widening the scope of the study of that tradition in Slovak scholarship.21 Indeed, from the 1970s to the present, the most fruitful work on the brigand theme has been the comparative study of the bandit tradition within the Carpathian area, supported by the International Commission for the Study of Popular Culture in the Carpathian and Balkan Region , founded in 1976.22 Melichercfk 's study, Juraj Janosfk: Hrdina , was published in a second revised and enlarged edition in 1963 for the 250 th anniversary of Janosfk 's execution.23 Although after this he wrote a few articles and some short pieces about Janosik and other bandits, as well as a substantial textbook on Slovak folklore in general , this second edition of Juraj 24 Janosfk: hrdina was hi s last major statement about his beloved idol. In providing what became the official and definitive description of Janosfk in communist Slovakia, Melichercfk wrote with an almost religious fervor: Janosfk's struggle ended tragically, but the idea of struggle against exp loiters for the truth and for justice and a more beautiful life for the simple working people shone in the consciousness of our people like a bright star in the evening sky. Decades went by, centuries passed, and that struggle - even though its conditions changed - continued. In the memory of the people the figure of Juraj Janosfk revived afresh, and a 20 Juraj Janosik: Hrdina protifeuda/neho odboja s/ovenskeho J'udu (Praha : Nase vojsko, 1956). 21 Melichercfk pursued comparative study a lso in two separate articles: "K otazke vzn iku zbojnfctva v Karpatoc h," Slovensky narodopi s IV: 2 ( I 956) I 63-194 and "Slovensko-Ukrajinske vztahy v zbojnfckom folkl6re ," Slovanske studie I (Bratislava, 1957) 539-548. 22 Milan Lescak, CSc. , ed., lnteretnicke vztahy vo folk/6re karpatskej oblasti (Bratislava: Veda, 1980). Also see note 2 for Gasparfkova and Putilov , eds. , Geroi iii zboinik? Gasparfkova herself has contributed in a major way to brigand study with books and articles over the past several decades, including: Zbojn[k Michal Vdovec v hist6rii a folk/6re gemerskeho l'udu (Bratislava: SA V, 1964 ); Povesti o zbojnikoch zo slovenskych a pol's ky ch Tatier (Bratislava: Veda, 1979); and Janosik: Obraz zbojnika v narodnej kulture (Bratislava: Tatran, 1988). 23 Melichercfk, Juraj Janos{k: Hrdina, 2nd ed. 24 Melichercfk, Slovensky fo lk/6r: Chrestomatia (Bratislava : SA V, 1959). 70 SLOVAKIA beautiful poe m abo ut freedom linked to hi s life took shape and was 25 ex pressed in the Janosfk tradition for over two centuries. Melichercfk offered a biography of the hi storical Juraj Janosfk drawn from ex tant court documents connected to his trial in Liptovsky Mikul as, and viewed Janosfk in folklore and literature as a composite hero whose figure was influenced by many sources. As a communist sc holar, Melichercik emphasized Janosfk 's image as a product of hi storical conditions, that is, an image born of the struggle of the masses of serfs and peasants against their feudal lords. He also recognized the role of the human creative imagination in the contouring of thi s image, shaped by the people as "one of the most beautiful and humani stic types of hero ," reflecting the experience 26 and yearning of the masses for freedom from feudal exploitation. Like mantras, such statements are repeated over and over throughout all of Melichercfk 's writings about Janosfk . Melichercfk 's adoration of Janosik as a proto-revolutionary hero helps explain hi s high praise for the young Stur poets. Their work, he stressed, preserved the simple and pure lines of the folk hero who engaged in an elemental struggle for hi s people and who in a sense died a martyr's terribl e death - executed by being hung on a meat 27 hook piercing the left side of his rib cage. Melichercfk's unwavering devotion to this perception of Janosik also accounts for hi s extraordinarily harsh criticism of prose writers and dramatists from the end of the nineteenth and first few decades of the twentieth century . These writers, he claimed, intentionally di storted and falsified the Janosik tradition by playing down or eliminating the revolutionary content of the tradition and clothing the brigand in "adventure, sentimentality, megalomania, [and] day-dreaming. "28 He had in mind writers such as Pa vol Beblavy in Janosik: Po vest' o hrdinovi a dobrodincovi J'udu (Janosik: Tale of the People' s Hero and Benefactor), 25 Melichercfk , Jura} Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed., 7. M elichercfk, Jura} Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed. , 158. 27 Yotruba describes how the bri gand fi gure from Slovak fo lklore was adapted by the Stur poets from fo lklore and other sources and further recontoured to fit their purposes, adapting some attributes of the Romantic bri gand hero well-known throu ghout Europe and eliminating a motif found in some previous folklore and poetry which harshly judged the bandits' deeds. The Stur poets, that is, pl ayed a significant role in manipul atin g the figure, rather th an simply "preserving" some sacred original image from the folklore. See Yotruba, 42-43. 28 Melichercfk , Jura} Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed., 143. 26 SLOVAKIA 71 which first appeared in installments in Slovenske pohl'ady (IX, 1889); Dobry Slovak in Janosfk, junak slobody (Janosfk, Hero of Freedom) (l 893); Gu stav Marsall-Petrovsky in his two-volume novel Janos[k (1894); and Emo Bohun in his two novel s, Janos1kov poklad (Ja no sfk 's Treasure Hoard ) (1926) and Dedics tvo Janostkovho pokladu (The Legacy of Jano sfk's Treasure Hoard) . About these, 29 Melichercfk had only the most negative observations. Melichercfk adopted the bitter tone of a real zealot when he focused on Slovak drama , in much of which he saw further destruction of what he considered the authentic folk tradition . He lashed out at Viliam Pauliny-T6th, for example, as the first to recontour Janosik in hi s play Janosik (1862) as a Roman Catholic seminary student, the so n of wealthy peasants, and an educated "gentleman bri ga nd ," 30 thereby di storting the "authentic " brigand figure. Evoking the language of di sease, he insisted that these bourgeoi s writers tried to "infect" the people 's consciousness "with traditions that are entirely harmful and hostile" because they wanted to divert the attention of the working masses away from their most important interests, that is, away from the class strugg le, and to "prevent them from correctly recognizing and assessi ng their own capabilities for resistance and 31 their successes in the past. " He added further: It is eno ugh o nl y to reca ll what efforts the Slovak bourgeoisie expended in order to infect our people with the idea th at the ir basic characteristics were humility, co mpli ance, resignation to the will of God , that they were a so{!, patient, God-fearing people, humbl y obli gated to the lords, and so on. - Melichercfk injected a positive note, however, pointing out a few works which he considered reflected the genuine folk hero who "goes into brigandage with stron g conviction to puni sh injustice perpetrated by the lords on the poor Slovak people, "33 as in Jiff Mahen 's play Janos[k. Tragedie o peti dejstv[ch (Janosfk - A Tragedy in Five Acts.) 34 He was pleased that these elements in Mahen 's play served as a basis for so me other dramatic and mu sical re-wor- 29 Melichercfk. Jura) Janosfk: Hrdina, 2nd ed., 142-147. Melichercfk. Jura) Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed., 150. 31 Melichercfk , Jura) Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed. , 157. 32 Melichercfk . Jura) Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed. , 157. 33 Melichercfk. Jura) Janosik: Hrdina, 2nd ed. , 15 I. 34 Jirf Mahen, Janosfk. Tragedie o peti dejstvfch (Prah a, 1910). 30 72 SLOVAKIA 35 kings of the Janosfk story. Jan Cikker's 1953 opera Jura Janosik, according to Melichercfk, captured so accurately the "entire magnitude of the concept the Janosfk rebellion and its revolutionary message" that in hi s estimation it qualified as a folk opera - that is, an authentic expression of the masses - in terms of its theme and 36 music. Melichercfk ended hi s di sc uss ion of Janosfk in literature and the arts with the hope that arti sts would produce an abundance of Janosfk images so that these "will decorate buildings, parks, and squares of our nation and Janosfk wi ll live everywhere as a sy mbol of struggle and freedom , as a great message from the past for us and 37 for future generations. " He also offered a challenge to Slovak dramati sts that they take up the task of writing a "genuine Slovak folk play" about Janosfk. 38 Although thi s last task would indeed be taken up and fulfilled by dramatists, it would not be carried out in the way Melichercfk had hoped. In the cynical years after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, dram atists responded to Melichercfk 's call and wrote musical plays about Janosfk. Stepka's Jaaanosfffk: News About the Hero or a Play on the Hero, Bryll 's and Gartnerova's Painted on Glass, and Feldek's Janosik According to Vivaldi were produced and performed for co untl ess Slovak audiences. These plays, however, manipul ated the conventi onal image defined by Melichercfk and offered audiences radically new ways of considering not only the figure of Janosfk and the brigand tradition, but their own social, political, and existential reality. As for the depiction of Janosfk him self, it was as if tired of occ upying the glorious, but increas ingly cramped role of the almost superhum an hero officially sanctioned by the communist governme nt, he broke free from th at role 's confines and assumed another g ui se - as an ordinary man with ordinary weaknesses, coming from a well-meaning, but simple-minded family, and, at best, a reluctant bandit. The debunking and parodying of the conventional and officially approved myth of Janosfk in the musicals occurred in the context of a broad postmodern movement apparent throughout Central Europe 35 Jan Cikker, Juro Janosik: Opera v 6 obrazoch (Libretto: Stefan Hoza), l 953 . Melichercfk, Jura) Janosik: hrdina, 2nd ed ., 153. 37 Melichercfk , Jura) Janosik: hrdina, 2nd ed. , 154. 38 Melichercfk, Jura) Janosfk: hrdina, 2nd ed. , 152. 36 SLOVAKIA 73 which had begun at the end of the 1950s. Slovak literary scholar Peter Petro refers to the period of the I 960s as a "turbulent decade," a period of experimentation , which gradua lly undercut the official Socialist Realism and pushed the limits of the permissible in literature. 39 The impul se to parody and debunk carried over into the 1970s and 1980s. It was strengthened by pressures of the "normalization," which took place directly after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and was connected to the reemergence of surrealism influenced by the surrealist movement during World War 11. 40 Central to thi s movement was new activity in the theater and in dramatic productions. Playwrights, utilizing the language of surrealism and the grotesque, sought to expose the absurdity of the political system by undermining its values and utopian premises which had claimed that "it is possible to control everything, even the dreams and hopes of the citizens. "41 Productions were characterized by fragmentation of the main motifs into parts and the insertion of poetry, mu sic , and dance. Humor, irony, skepticism , interaction with the spectators, direct appeals to the audience's imagination, word games, verbal improvisation-and all of this intended to unmask falsehoods, to shatter ideological stereotypes--characterized plays of this pe42 riod. It was in this context that Bryll, Feldek, and Stepka conceived their musicals and chose the officially sanctioned and exploited image of the Slovak national hero in their subversive work. Bryll's Painted on Glass was translated from the 1970 original Polish libretto and performed in Slovakia from the mid-l 970s. 43 Its title refers to the widespread folk art of painting colorful images on glass, popular in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and well 39 Peter Petro, A History of Sl ovak Literature (Montreal & Kingston, London , Buffalo: McGill-Queens University Press), 143-44. 40 Petro, 143. 41 Halina Janaszek-lvanicov, "Post-Modernism in the West Slavonic Literature in the Context of Euro-Atlantic Changes of the Postmodern Paradigms," Part Ill : "Five tides of postmodernism in Polish, Czech, and Slovak Literature," at: http: //src- h. sla v. hokuda i.ac. jp/pub Iictn/N o.64/ janaszek/ janaszek. htm I. 42 Janaszek-I van icov. 43 111 Slovakia the play premiered at the Slovak National Theater Oct. 19, 1974, where it ran for three decades. It was pulled from the stage briefly in 1983 when Ernest Bryll was forced to leave Poland for crit icizi ng the political situatio n. Bratislava's Novii scena theater has staged the play in an updated form since 2005. http://mu zikal y. szm.sk/nsm.html 74 SLOVAKIA known for preserving images of Janosik and hi s brigands and various 44 moments related to the conventional myth. Reproducing these images in dramatic action with song and dance, Painted on Glass broke with Melichercik 's communist definition of the myth by disclosing both Janosik's very ordinary human yearnings and failings. Janosfk's love for Anicka is unfulfilled, the gendarmes are not the hero 's eternal class enemies, but also human beings; and Death personified awaits the hero, as it does all of us. Light humor, rousing folk dance, memorable songs, and poking holes in the conventional myth all blended in Painted on Glass, and the figure of Janosfk was endeared to the audience which identified with the demythologized hero. The music of Bryll' s play, composed by Katarzyna Gartnerova, was a delightful hybrid of rhythmic rock and folk, and gave new voice to the expression of the Janosik tradition in the 1970s and 1980s. Feldek chose the title for hi s play, Janosik According to Vivaldi, because he wanted to indicate that in the eighteenth century Slovaks li ved "not only in Yratna dolina (ie., in the isolated depth s of Slovakia) but also in Europe. "45 Action in the play alternates between Slovakia and the Viennese court of Charles YI (d. 1740), where the emperor's daughter, the young Maria Theresa (1717- 1780), is heard in the background playing the mu sic of Antonio Vivaldi (16801743), then popular throughout Europe. Feldek worked from actu al hi storical documents linked to Janosfk's trial , but wove an amusing and fantastical version of the myth . Here, Uhorcfk is portrayed as the real bandit hero, and he and hi s wife Katarfnka manipulate Janosik into becoming the brigand captain. In quick order, however, Janosfk tires of stealing, as he tell s Katarfnka in very contemporary sounding terms: "We rob from morning to night and then again from night to morning and I'm as tired as a dog. And I swear that people would do better if they didn 't carry all thi s silly gold with them" (Zbfjame od rana do vecera a potom este aj od vecera do rana, unaveny so m ako pes. Prisaham bohu, casto si hovorfm , ze by tf 44 See introductory texts and reproductions of glass-painted images of Janosfk and brigands in IIena Pi sutova, Painted Dreams: Slovak Folk Painting on Glass in the 2dh Century (Bratislava: Tatran, 1983), and Katarfna Ciema, Janosik v Slovenskom vytvamom umenf (Bratislava: Slovenska narodna galeria, 1988). This last is the catalog to an exhibition of the same name, held in March - May 1988. 45 Feldek, 125. SLOVAKIA 75 l'udi a urobili Iepsie, keby so sebou nenosili tolko toho poondiateho zlata.)46 In the end Katarfnka angri ly insi sts that the people should celebrate Uhorcfk ' s memory, not Janosik's. At the same time, in the absence of a male heir to the throne, Charles VI decides that Uhorcik is his illegitimate son and should be the next emperor. Feldek plays with the myth , the hi story, and language, as, fo r instance, in Charles Vi 's interview with the w idow of one of hi s Au stri an genera ls, Madame Schardonova, whose existence is attested in the hi storical doc uments since she actuall y was robbed by Janosfk in Slovakia. Her stilted Slovak, prono unced with a German acce nt, is hil ario us, because a ll of her mi stake s ac tu a ll y convey other ridiculous meanings. Instead of saying "I am a widow " (som vdova), she says "I 47 am water" (som voda) ; instead of complimenting Charles for his nobility (s l'achetn y), she compliments him for being "tendinous" (... 48 aky ste sl'achovity). Painted on Glass offers great humor and new twists on the convention al elements of the communist interpretation of Janosfk so well defi ned by Melichercik. Perhaps most radical in its depiction of Janosfk and the brigand myth is Stepka 's Jaaanosfffk, pl ayed by his own troupe, the Rados inske naivne divadlo (Radosi na Nai·ve Theater). Its unu sual title was inspired by Slovak actor and director Pal'o Bielik 's famo us two-part film , Janosik ( 1963), in which Janosik's name is called out in the mountains and echoes lo udl y with a prolonged stress on the vowels. Whil e Melichercfk had approached the Janosik tradition with the utmo st gravity, Stepka kept hi s co mmuni st-era audience laughing throughout the entire musical. His language is rich with puns and humorously distorted references from fo lkl ore, literature, and especiall y from dail y life in com munist Slovakia. Ribald sex ual innuendoes are woven into the entire script. Janosik appears onl y in the last third of the play , during which the punning continues. Hi s family members - mothe r Dag mar, fathe r Jon athan , and sister He len a occ upy center stage through the play and are depicted as slow, thickwitted , shrewd, but also likeab le peasants. Their plight as serfs under the control of a Hungarian count, Artus Revay, is treated with humor and irony. The Radosina Na"ive Theater company performed and still 46 Feldek, 96. Feldek, 93. 48 Feldek, 93 . 47 76 SLOVAKIA performs the play with few props and simple Slovak folk costumes with so me ac tors wearing regular contemporary clothes . The tone and atmosphere, free and characterized by improvisation , suggests an amateur village production with simple, barel y literate actors - but in fact the theater' s actors are professionals who bring their ro les to li fe exceedingly well. 49 The writer of thi s article attended a performance of Jaaanosfffk in Slovakia in 1983, which was played with great g usto and hilarious improvi sation . That perform ance diverged somewhat from the published script of 1970, but thi s is to be expected , considering that improvisation is integra l to the pl ay, contributing to its "amateur" quality , and insurin g that there be room for some actor-audience interaction. The very first lines of Jaaanosfffk immediatel y set the tone for the ling ui stic and cultu ral manipulation to come: Instead of the co nventional opening of a Slovak fo lktale - "Kde bolo, tam bolo" (Once upon a time ... ; litera ll y: Where it was, there it was) - two narrators begin with "Kde bolelo, tam bolelo" (Where it hurt, there it hurt), a play on the traditional phrase and suggesting that much more would be turned on its head before the end of the performance.so Janosfk's Slovak mother and father are given spurious genealogies by the narrators - Pani Dagmar Janosfkov a, nee Trautenbergerova, and Jon ath an Jano sfk , whose real s urname, we are told , is Weissmann_s, To suggest th at the Slovak national hero is actually of German de sce nt is, of course, hi ghly ironical and am usin g. When Helena and Dagmar are visited by a local constable sent by the count, they are pleased to welcome him in, having locked father in the cellar. The constable tell s Dagmar that he is on the lookout for a rebel , specifically her hu sband , who is inciting or rou sing the serfs (" Poddanych buri .. . "), and she responds cynicall y that her husband 49 Stanis lav Stepka's Radosinske naivne div adlo produced a CD of Jaacinosfffk and a DVD of three pl ays, including Jaaanosffik. For availability, see : http://www. panorama. sk/index.asp?kam-/go/mapa.asp&lan g-s k&sv-2&mc- 12 I9 ~. 50 Stani slav Stepka, Jaaanosfffk: Sprava o hrdinovi alebo hra na hrdinu (Bratislava: Tatran , 1983) 19. All quotes are take n from the publi shed sc ript. Ac tors in the perfo rmance attended by the writer of this artic le fo llowed thi s sc ript closely, but not exactly. And this published script differs slightl y from the DVD version of the musical from 2004. 51 Jaaanosfffk, 23. SLOVAKIA 77 "no longer arouses anything" ("Prosfm vas, on uz nic nevzburi. . ") and is willing to sign her name to that. 52 The constable summons Dagmar and Helena to the manor house, informing them that the Count Revay, a "candidate of the amorous sciences" (kandidat milostnych vied) - a satirical reference to scholarl y titles in communist Slovakia - wants them to come and "sew sacks" (obsfvat' vrecia), connoting here some kind of sex ual activity. In response, Helena blithely asks: "Which amorous lord ordered this, the young one or the old one?" When the constable says "the old one," Helena responds with complete confidence: "Mamicka, then that must mean the invitation 's for you. "53 Unlike in the conventional myth, the women here clearly do not feel threatened by the count's demand , and in fact they act as though it has happened repeatedly and welcome it eagerly. When the constable leaves, Helena and Dagmar di scuss how fine it is that the aristocracy, the lords, want only what is good for the serfs - surely a satirical reference to the contemporary situation with the communist government as the aristocracy and the serfs as the ordinary citizens. Helena means to say "They come here, advise us, and look around (pride, poradf, pohl'adf)," but, to the audience's surprise and amusement, in her simple-mindedness she says instead that "they come, advise us, and caress" (pride, poradi, pohladf)." 54 Dagmar then echoes, anachronistically for the eighteenth century, the sentiments of contemporary communist brigade workers perpetually urged to find ways to work harder, ways to over-fulfill the Plan: Let me pose this question to you, my daughter: are we really working on the estate like we should? Are we working a full eighteen hours? Couldn't we manage to work more? Sometimes we sing. Couldn't we work another eight or nine hours? We work only six days. And the seventh is the Sabbath. But couldn 't we work thirty-six days a month and then celebrate the Sabbath with whatever is left? And what about order at the workplace? Do we keep all our bundles in one place? So, see. We 55 need to think all thi s over sometime. 52 J aaanosifik, 22. Jaaanosffik, 22. 54 Jaaanosffik, 23. 55 Jti:i:inos([fk, 23. As an example of d ivergence from the written script of 1970, the 1983 viny l disc recordi ng of the musical , for instance, prov ides an al ternati ve statement in thi s section of the play. Dagmar asks: "Couldn 't we work six days a week and celebrate for seven?" This, again, is reflective of the improvisational nature of the script. 53 78 SLOVAKIA These words, all too familiar to the audience daily subjected to pressure to achieve communist "excellence," provoked uproarious laughter from the audience. More bitter self-recognition for the Slovak audience in communist times - oftentimes struggling to procure even the basics, yet reassured by the government that they had the best possible living situation - resulted from Dagmar' s observation that they already had acquired everything they could possibly need: "We already have everything - a table, a chair, a bowl , a crucifix, and eventually even a house with doors. My God!" (A mame uz vsetko, aha - stol, stolicka, miska, krfzik , pomaly uz aj <lorn s dvermi. Boze!)56 Only after all this does the youthful Janosfk appear. Sister Helena, a family friend Samo, as well as Janosfk ' s girlfriend Anicka, and eventually his own mother all push him to become a brigand for the material benefits this will bring them, echoing a situation again all too familiar to the audience: that the only way to acquire goods , especially luxury goods, is by theft in one way or another. Janosfk acquiesces reluctantly, and only after complaining: Do I have to be a man? Do I have to be a hero? Do I have to be an example? You'll be at home lying in your feather quilts, and I have to offer up my kidneys [to the executioner's hook]? I don't want to be a hero, I want to be an ordinary man. . . I don't want to enter into reading books, I want to live out my life beautifully . . . This literature will live off me for 300 years , but I won ' t make it to thirty . . . I don ' t want to 57 enter history with a bullet between my shoulders. Janosfk, however, appears in the final scene with Uhorcfk, grudgingly about to begin his career, while Uhorcfk berates him for tossing aside his weapon and for showing no interest in banditry . Uhorcfk then initiates the highway robbery of two aristocratic travelers, a mother and daughter, with the traditional demand found in folktale s: "Your money or your life. . . " (Bohu dusu a nam dukaty. Literally: Hand over your soul to God and your money to us.) , but add s "and your citizenship documents" (a obcianske preukazy), much like the police could demand of anyone on the street in communist Slovakia. 58 The women, instead of fearing or hating Janosik, are enamored with hi s dashing appearance and charm - "Mama, so these are those famous brigands! My God, what beau56 Jaaanosfffk, 23. Jaaanosfffk, 33. 58 Jaaanosfffk, 34. 57 SLOVAKIA 79 tiful folk garb they have" (Mamicka, tak toto su tf zbojnfci? Boze, ake krasne kroje maju.) - and he and Uhorcfk treat the robbery like a customs check. This certainly resonated with Slovaks, as well as foreigners, who passed repeatedly through Czechoslovak customs in communist times and often felt robbed and violated. 59 During the robbery, however, Janosik begins to wax poetic about the bandit life, and Uhorcik again reprimands him for getting distracted, but in a way which again sounds ironical in reference to brigandage and echoes a typical warning to the communist worker: "Duri, you keep forgetting your obligation" (Duri, zabudas na povinnost:)60 This Janosik is not Melichercfk's noble social brigand, a fighter against feudal lords, protector of the poor and oppressed. Stepka 's musical, as well as Bryll's and Feldek's, presented the Slovak public in the 1970s and 1980s not with a communist superhero, but with an ordinary guy, much of whose life and environment resonated with those of the audience. Janosik's experiences and the struggles of his time depicted in the musicals were a reflection of their own life. The outlines of the conventional myth were brought into question and turned upside down , and social and political issues that could not be criticized openly were spoofed. Audiences who experienced the plays together could leave the theater, having, in a sense, expressed and shared publicly their plight under the communist regime. Through irony and laughter, they could feel stronger in their resolve to resist. By employing the Janosik figure and myth, wrenching it free from the regime's ideology, the dramatists held up a mirror to the audience so that they could see themselves more clearly and could come to an understanding about how they might better deal with their social and political reality. Through humor and satire and breaking with the Soviet - and communist-approved conventional interpretation, the dramatists allowed Janosik once again to reach out to his people, to inspire in them the courage to resist the new authorities. Because Melichercik had so successfully portrayed Janosik as an acceptable proto-communist hero, the brigand's image in these musicals passed under the censors' radar screens. Once again, in a way not anticipated by Melichercik, Janosik was there to contribute to the 59 60 Jaaanosfffk, 34. Jaaanosfffk, 35. 80 SLOVAKIA social and political resistance, to help undermine the system. Once again, in a way not anticipated by Melichercik, Janosik was a symbol of freedom - this time for a new generation in a new time and against a new oppressor. Feldek suggested just exactly that when in an interview in 1979, he said of his work: "There is no such thing as a historical play . We write and play alway s for the contemporary audience and for the present. The hi storical subject in a good 'historical' play is only a pretext - almost like the subject of animals in a fable. The viewer should leave my play with the sense that this was about us. "61 And by the end of the next decade, 1989, the communist system finally collapsed from within and the barbed wire was torn down - perhaps with just a little help from Janosik. 61 Feldek, 126.  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 Jánošík as a Symbol of Freedom in Communist Slovakia Description An account of the resource Patricia A. Krafcik Slovakia, Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007 pp. 63-80 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Krafcik, Patricia Ann, 1949- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/5b30d7c559730fe0284be847504b1c99.pdf e38a1fce9cdd2c89b02a9d4a53163b52 PDF Text Text 50 SLOVAKIA CZECHOSLOVAKIA 1945-1950: A FAILURE OF INTELLIGENCE Igor Lukes The outcome of the Czechoslovak political crisis from the end of World War II via the communist Machtergreifung in February 1948, and into the early fifties was not a preordained conclusion . It was not determined solely by the weight of the emerging blocs, it was not driven by the map, nor was it simply for the Kremlin to dictate. On the Czech side, it was mainly the product of unfounded hope (faith in an untested "socialism"), misplaced trust (deification of the Soviet Union and its leaders), and pathological fear of Germany. But the west also contributed to the communist victory by political blunders and amateurism in other field s. This papers focu ses on the U.S. intelligence community in postwar Prague. Looking at Czechoslovakia before the end of the war, and seeking to predict its political course in postwar Europe cou ld lead one to imagine a variety of scenarios. A minority saw the future in dark colors: they thought the country was destined to become a colony of the Soviet Union . They noted that the Czechoslovak political elite, punch-drunk from the Munich catastrophe, had taken steps that tied their country with Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. No one in the west doubted that President Edvard Benes and most of his colleagues in London were ideologically on their side, but it was clear that they still felt deep resentment over the manner in which their diplomatic alliances were imploded by the western appeasers of the Third Reich. They moved closer toward the Soviet Union because of the Munich experience and in order to show the British Foreign Office that when it came to coalitions in the postwar setting they no longer depended exclusively on the west; they had the Soviet card and they wou ld play it as needed to prevent "another Munich". An even greater factor for the pessimists was the country's location on the map and the situation at the front. The Red Army crossed the Czechoslovak border on 6 October 1944, while the allies were recovering from the disastrous Operation Market-Garden . Stalin was inside Czechoslovakia, but the western allies were stil l far away �SLOVAKIA 51 (U.S. Army units would cross onto Czech territory only on 18 April 1945). This led Ambassador William C. Bullitt to predict that after the war the Kremlin would "domin ate Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland , Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia." Bullitt speculated that Moscow had learned from its defeat in Hungary after World War I and would therefore apply different strategies in different countries located in the space between Germany and Ru ssia. 1 The Soviet Union might come with cold steel into the Baltics and Poland, but with treaties and patience to Finland and Czechoslovakia. Two wartime U.S. intelligence analysts observed years later that after the signing of the Czechoslovak-Soviet Agreement of December 1943 they had no illusions about the way Stalin was setting forth his policy toward all the countries of Eastern Europe, including Czechoslovakia. 2 The political course of Czechoslovakia inspired lots of optimists in the fall of 1944. The allied press was beaming with good new s, predicting that the country's postwar political life would simply pick up where "it was ruthlessly interrupted by the Munich Agreement of September 1938." Some American journalists celebrated a " pattern of cooperation" among the allied governments and proposed that the December 1943 Czechoslovak-Soviet Agreement was a " model " for others to follow. 3 Some suggested that the May 1944 Dutch, Belgian, and Norwegian agreements with the British and the Americans regarding the restoration of their sovereign status after liberation followed in the path originally established by the exiled Czechoslovak government, which had signed half a year before a treaty with the Soviet Union addressing matters of sovereignty and postwar administration. 4 When the country 's President Edvard Benes turned sixty on 28 May 1944, he received telegrams from many leaders of the 1 Willi am C. Bullitt, "The World From Rome: The Ete rn al C ity Fears a Struggle Between Christianity and Comm uni sm," Life Magazine, 4 September 1944. For a Soviet reaction to Bullitt' s ana lysis, see K. Demidov, "Obankrotivshiisia razvedch ik, ,. Pra vda, 4 September 1944. Note the dates. 2 Interview wi th Spencer L. Taggart, Logan, Utah, 23 April 1999 and interview with Paul Zinner, 5 Apri l 2005 , Washington . 3 No au thor, "The Pattern of Cooperati on," New York Times, 18 May 1944. 4 J. Emlyn Williams, " Smaller Allies in Europe Differ in Peace Readiness," Christian Science Monitor. IO May 1944. �52 SLOVAKIA anti-Nazi alliance, and New York Times called him a " prophet of a great cause" and a "fine champion" of democracy.5 Among the optimists was the influential C. L. Sulzberger who summed up the geopolitical situation in the east at the end of August 1944. The future borders of Finland , the Baltic republics, Poland, Hungary and others were at the mercy of Joseph Stalin. But "Mr. Benes has already got - he obtained it three years ago - a Soviet guarantee that Czechoslovakia 's pre-Munich frontiers will be re-established." 6 No doubt, thi s flattered President Benes enormously and reaffirmed him in his determination to establish hi s country as a friend of both the blocs and a bridge between them. The optimistic view that Czechoslovakia, balancing precariously between east and west, would maintain its sovereignty persisted even in the face of hard evidence that its political scene was undergoing dramatic changes in the direction of a gloomy scenario. In early April 1945, when the composition of the new Czechoslovak Government became known, Paul Zinner, an OSS (Office of Strategic Services) analyst in Washington , took the list of its members to the Department of State. He hoped to explain that the new Prime Minister had gained a reputation for being an apologist for even the most odious Soviet foreign policy deci sions. Zinner was di sturbed that the Czechoslovak Ministry of Interior was to be headed by a communist, and the same was true for the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Information, Ministry of Agriculture, and de facto, the Ministry of Defense . All in all, he thought that the government' s composition was a bad omen. But Zinner's State Department colleagues thou ght there was no reaso n to be concerned. They glanced at the list and learned that the country would have Edvard Benes as president and Jan Masaryk as foreign minister. " What could go wrong with such friends at the helm ?" they asked . " We have nothing to fear, " they concluded, di smisssed Zinner's concerns and turned their attention to other matters, including the imminent opening of the United States Embassy in Prague. Zinner recalls leaving the Czech affairs desk with a sense of foreboding and frustration: there seemed little he could do to 5 No author, "Benes at 60," New York Times, 28 May 1944. C. L. Sulzberger, " Frontier Policies of Russia Emerge," New York Times, 28 August 1944. 6 �SLOVAKIA 53 persuade the optimists that the Czechs might ultimately share the fate of the Poles, Hungarians and others in the region. 7 Finally, there were the reali sts, who staked out their territory in the space between the optimists and pessimists. They did not believe it was possible in 1944 to predict Czechoslovakia's future political orientation and course. But they were prepared to say that the country was the most important laboratory for testing east-west relations in the region. Charles E . Bohlen rejected the view expressed by his colleagues that Poland was the country to study in order to discern whether the west could coexist with Stalin. Poland's fate had been sealed, he thought. The real test, Bohlen went on to argue, was Czechoslovakia. Benes had signed the December 1943 treaty with Stalin despite opposition from his British hosts. " If the USSR really implemented that treaty and did not violate it then we would have an indication that it might be possible to get along with the Soviet Union after all. If the Soviet Union should break the treaty - the Czechs having gone as far as anybody could expect them to go - this might be an indication that cooperation with the Soviet Union would not be possible." 8 Other Americans, for instance, Averell Harrimann, shaed thi s view. 9 Bohlen ' s analysis carried the day. The United States would henceforth treat Prague as a testing ground and an observation post. Although it was in Eastern Europe and the spires of the Kremlin cast a shadow over it, the city had the atmosphere of a western outpost. It welcomed the Americans who came to reopen the United States Embassy in May 1945. And Washington reciprocated by building up its diplomatic and intelligence presence in postwar Czechoslovakia to unprecedented levels. In short order, the embassy at the Schoenborn Palace had a staff of more than two hundred employees. There were several reasons why U.S. intelligence in postwar Czechoslovakia could have performed well during the crisis leading up to the Communist Machtergreifung of February 1948. The first 7 Interview with Paul Zinner, 5 April 2005 , Washington. The Harry S. Truman Library . Harry N. Howard , "Oral Hi story Interview ," 7-8 October 1976. lnterview by Richard D. McKinzie. 9 Eduard Mark, "Charles Bohlen and the Acceptable Limits of Soviet Hegemony in Eastern Europe: A Memorandum of 18 October 1945," Diplomatic History 3, 2 (Spring 1979): I05. 8 �54 SLOVAKIA has to do with time and opportunity to launch intelligence operations. The U.S. Army had not played any direct role in the liberation of Poland from Nazism, and the imposition of Soviet rule over the country was violent and rapid. The same was true - with significant regional variations - in Hungary and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. When American diplomats and intelligence officers arrived in postwar Warsaw they had little or no time to get to know the terrain and to establish contacts to be exploited in the future. Right from the start they operated under significant or even extreme counterintelligence pressure from the domestic and Soviet special services. The opposite was true in Czechoslovakia, where the American intelligence community had plenty of time to prepare for the co ming crisis. Small elements of the U.S. Army had arrived in Prague some two days before the Russians, the U.S. military liberated several prominent Czech cities, and the G.l.s remained deployed in Western Bohemi a for seven months. During thi s time and later - until the spri ng of 1948 - Americans could freely travel in and out of Prague, and U.S. intelligence thus had countless opportunities to set down its roots in Czech soil. Moreover, the Czech co mmunists took until February 1948 to establish their dictatorship. Throughout thi s time each branch of the Prague government included individuals who were happy to provide confidential information to the Americans. President Edvard Benes set the tone when he met with such known U.S. intelligence officials as Allen Dulles, the Englishman Robert Bruce Lockhart, and others. Many other high-ranking government officials, including cabinet ministers, scores of military officers, policemen, secret police agents, and intellige nce service officials were willing to provide information to U.S. intelligence operatives in Prague. These individuals were not agents in the formal meaning of the word. They had not been formally recruited, handled in a clandestine manner, and paid. They provided the Americans with information from various denied areas of official life because there was a community of interest between the United States and their well positioned so urces in Czechoslovakia. From a spymaster's perspective a better environment was hard to imagine. American diplomats and intelligence officers came to postwar Poland and other East European countries only after Russian tanks �SLOVAKIA 55 had helped install a Moscow-vetted government in power. This relegated them to the role of observers. But United States intelligence operatives in postwar Czechoslovakia had had plenty of time to prepare for the Cold War milieu. How did they do in postwar Czechoslovakia? This is the question this paper seeks to address. The chief American diplomat in Prague was Ambassador Laurence A. Steinhardt, whose service in the Soviet Union included the period of the Stalin-Hitler pact, and who had, as a result, a skeptical view of all things Soviet. The Kremlin bosses had snubbed him repeatedly, and he disliked them with passion. In Prague Steinhardt surrounded himself with such like-minded anti -Stalinists as Colonel (later General ) Joseph Anthony Michela, US Military Attache, and others . The U.S. Embassy in Prague under Steinhardt had no intention of accommodating any communist or Soviet schemes. The ambassador's ideology and hi s can-do attitude combined to provide a good working atmosphere for American intelligence in Prague. U.S. Intelligence in Prague after the end of World War II was organized around two separate pl atforms, the Military Mission and the United States Embassy. The United States Military Mission was established in Prague only a few weeks after the end of the war. Even in that most abnormal era it was a very unorthodox operation. The commaning officer of the Military Mission was Colonel Charles Katek. 10 He was the first among several larger-than-life Americans who descended upon Prague right after the war's end. When Katek joined the Army, his Ph.D. in hi story from Northwestern University and hi s Czech and German language skills did not go unnoticed. After an officer candidate course, the OSS was a logical destination . Katek and his team of OSS operatives reached Prague on IO May 1945, soon after the Red Army had arrived. In Prague Katek found a luxurious apartment on Loretanske Square, a most prestigious address. He and his colleagues developed it into a salon where so me of the most interesting and influential people gathered regularly. It was well known that Katek was keenly 10 Most of my infonnation is from the Prague archives and from Janet Edwards, Colone l Katek 's daughter, Interv iew, 19 Jul y 2000. The ori ginal name of the fami ly was Kotek; it was changed to Katek in Chicago. Since "Kotek" does not sound particul arly Czech, it remains unclear whether the fam il y had come from Bohemia or Slovakia. �56 SLOVAKIA interested in intelligence; he was remarkably open about it. Among his guests were members of various noble families, such as Schwarzenberg, Lobkowitz, Czernin, Kolowrat, and Nadherny ; government officials, for instance Minister Jan Masaryk, Minister Petr Zenk), Minister Jaroslav Stransky , Minister Adolf Prochazka, and Minister Frantisek Hala; at least a dozen members of parliament, including lvo Duchacek; countless personalities from business circles, and influential political journalists, such as Julius Firt, Ferdinand Peroutka and Pavel Tigrid. Visitors were attracted to the Military Mission by the prospect of friendly conversation and challenging political debates. Of course, no one should underestimate the importance in postwar Prague of good food, exotic alcohol, tobacco, and jazz records, all of which were made plentiful by Colonel Katek 's regular truck deliveries from a U.S. Army base in Nuremberg. Those who came and talked to the Americans at Loretanske Square knew full well that their words would be passed on to the authorities. Katek 's approach was to blur the line between dinner parties and espionage. It made his life both simple and pleasant. The Military Mission had a few sources who were not invited to join the parties on Loretanske Square. Even in such cases Colonel Katek made no attempt to practice the kind of tradecraft that is common in the world of intelligence. He met them durin g office hours at the Mission. The activities around the Military Miss ion in Prague were so notorious that other Americans who served in postwar Czechoslovakia were not quite sure what to think about the situation. 11 They were right to be concerned. The Czech authorities paid attention to what was happening around Colonel Katek. They quickly surmi sed that he was conducting military and political espionage. An StB document notes that in November 1945 thirty-eight Czechs were in the category of regular visitors at the Military Mission. In January 1946 the OBZ insisted that the Mission with its 10 US Army 11 Interview with Louise Schaffner, 30 January 1999. Mrs. Schaffner was a Foreign Service officer in the U. S. Embassy in Prague at the time of the communi st coup d ' etat. �SLOVAKIA 57 officers ran 109 agents. 12 On the basis of my interviews the claim appears to be signifycantly exaggerated. But the Military Mission under Colonel Katek 's direction was very active in gathering intelligence in postwar Prague. Its information came from willing and well-placed sources, not recruited agents. Though it seemed like a good idea at the time, the weakness of this manner of gathering intelligence would be revealed in February 1948. From the summer of 1945 to February 1948, the Military Mission reported information from an impressive array of well-placed sources: aristocrats, ministers, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Mini stry of Interior, Ministry of Defense generals, high-ranking soldiers and pilots, security officials, and businessmen . It was easy to think that intelligence gathered from such knowledgeable and well-placed individuals was enough for analysts in Washington to create a true and accurate picture of the political crisis in Czechoslovakia. The intelligence section in the Embassy was led by Spencer Taggart. He arrived in Prague in the Spring of 1945 with a clear mission : "I was sent there with a long-term objective - to help the Czechs guard their independence and to promote western democracy." 13 Seen in thi s light, Taggart came to protect and promote the values that were agreeable to the majority of the political class and the population . Therefore, it was not difficult for him to gain access to a number of sources that were both knowledgeable and well informed - he was prepared to identify only four, Petr Zenk! , Major Jaromir Nechansky, Jan Stransky and lvo Duchacek, but there were others. For all their commitment, their well-placed so urces of information, and their knowledge of the terrain, the United States Embassy in Prague was consistently taken by surprise whenever a crisis developed. The first such occasion involved the May 1946 elections that resulted in a swee ping victory for the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The OSS and State Department analysts took note of it, of course, but as one member of Katek 's team put it "were we smart enough to realize that thi s was the beginning of the end? I 12 Archives of the Ministry of Interi or, AMI Z-651, file 13. LT COL Bedrich Reicin and CPT Kare l Vas, Main Directorate, OBZ, Ministry of Defense, 302-592-1, no. 150.457/secret report -2c-/ 1946, 24 January 1946. 13 Interview with Spencer L. Taggart, Logan , Utah , 23 April 1999. �58 SLOVAKIA doubt it. " 14 Ambassador Steinhardt had predicted an entirel y different outcome and he adopted an ostrich-like posture when faced with the election results. Another event that clearly and unmi stakabl y indicated th at the Kremlin and the Czechoslovak communists were on the verge of seizing power took place in Ju ly 1947 . It involved the Marshall plan. The Soviets had made clear in early July 1947 that they would take part neither in the conference nor in the Marshall plan itself. But the Czechs, including the leaders of the CPC, were planning to go as late as 7 Jul y 1947. They were invited to the Kremlin , and two days later, an official delegation from Prague was in Moscow. On 10 July 1947 Czechoslovakia announced that it would not be represented in Paris. The American Embassy happened to be rudderless while the Prague Government was performing its backward so mersault on the Marshall Plan : the Ambassador and hi s Deputy Chief of Miss ion , John Bruins, were attending a boar hunt organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Katek and Taggart went with them. Two junior diplomats found out about the reversal and informed Washington . 15 But hav ing arrived from the desk of a junior diplomat it left no lasting footprint in the halls of the Department of State. The story was leaked also to the New York Times. An in-depth article described the Marshall Plan fiasco and the current tense situation in Prague realistically and accurately. But then it quoted "observers here," a reference to U.S. diplomats in Prague, as being skeptical that the Ru ssians would try to impose upon Czechoslovakia " the kind of communist state that preva il s in Rumani a, Bul garia and Poland. " 16 The hopeful view, the paper reported , was that in following its tradition the Kremlin might in fact decide to withdraw altogether back to Ru ssia, lest its people become contaminated with the west. This optimism was anchored in the views of the ambassador, his deputy , but also Katek and Taggart. The Embassy's record during the deci sive days of February 1948 is not impressive. Ambassador Steinhardt was in the United States attending to business at the law firm Guggenheimer, Untermyer & 14 Interview with Walter Taub, Salzburg. Austria. 6 March 2000 . Interview with George Bogardus, Washington, 3 June 1998. 16 James Reston, "Czechs Bow East Politicall y but Back West Inte llectuall y," New York Times, 5 August 1947. 15 �SLOVAKIA 59 Marshall on Pine Street in New York City. He had joined it in 1920 and remained an active partner even after he started, in 1933, his diplomatic career as U. S. Ambassador in Stockholm. Spencer Taggart was on a motoring tour of Italy with his wife. For the ambassador and for Spencer Taggart to be out of the country at the time of the coup was embarrassing. The game was lost now - when the opponent took to the field , the Americans were not even dressed to play. The ambassador and the upper echelons at the Embassy had surrounded themselves primarily with the titled and propertied classes. They failed to notice that the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia had won real support not only among the working class and trade unionists, but importantly among the intellectual s, traditionally a crucial social group in the Czech lands. Neither the Embassy nor the Military Mission had connections in those circles. The CPC had saturated the democratic parties with its agents; it could anticipate and neutralize their activities. The democrats had not imagined that such conduct was possible. Neither they nor their American friends at the Embassy or Mission had recruited any intelligence assets at the level of the CPC Politburo or even the Central Committee apparat. Steinhardt ' s optimism influenced others in the Embassy and some in the State Department. But leading American diplomats, such as George Kennan and Charles Bohlen, were not at all surprised by the Prague coup. As we have seen, this was not thanks to reports of the U. S. Embassy in Prague or thanks to information from U. S. intelligence. Among those who had been expecting a decisive communist move against Czechoslovakia was Secretary of State Marshall. In his November 1947 memorandum for President Truman he approached the iss ue like a military strategist examining the map. He found that Moscow " will probably have to clamp down on Czechoslovakia, for a relatively free Czechoslovakia could become a threatening salient in Moscow's political position. " 17 As it happened, the Prague coup d'etat was played out as an internal affair, and Moscow could remain in its comfortable position of a sympathetic observer. The result was exactly as Marshall had predicted. 17 The Harry S. Truman Library, Papers of Harry S. Truman , Files of the White House Nava l Aide, G. C. M., Secretary of State, Memorandum for the President, 7 November 1947 . �60 SLOVAKIA Marshall 's analysis, based on common sense and years of military experience, offered more insight into the crisis in Prague than that provided by American diplomats and intelligence personnel based in the city. It is a serious indictment of U.S. intelligence performance in postwar Prague that the sec retary of state should have come up with a more accurate assessment of the evolving crisis than trained intelligence personnel with language skills and sources at the highest ranks of the Czechoslovak Government. Even if the communist coup d 'etat in Czechoslovakia did not surprise Secretary Marshall, like many others he considered it a watershed in east-west relations. On 10 March 1948 he stated that the situation in Europe was "very , very serious" and ten days later he called for " urgent and resolute action" if the United States was to defend the west. The United States Embassy in Prague was not in a position to contribute to the effort. The February coup d 'etat brutally revealed the weaknesses of the overt style of intelligence gathering employed by the Military Mission. Almost overnight, the former guests of Colonel Katek had lost their posts in government, security, the military, and the world of business. At least one was dead, some in prison, the majority seeking to escape; the lucky ones were already in the west; some of the prominent habitues of Loretanske Square were under house arrest. None had access to information that would be of interest to the Americans. Neither Katek nor Taggart had thought of putting in place an intelligence-gathering network that would become operational in case of a communist assumption of power. Building one now was next to imposs ible: no Czech with some official standing (except for StB agents) dared to come to the Embassy, and few were willing to risk speaking with American diplomats even in private. Yet this was the time when intelligence was most desperately needed. In June or July 1948, in the first weeks of the Berlin blockade, General Lucius Clay, Commanding General of U.S . Forces in Europe and Military Governor of Germany, summoned Taggart and told him to expect an outbreak of war with the Soviet Union within four months. The general asked him to build in Czechoslovakia a network of intelligence assets who would be equipped with radio stations. It was to remain inactive during peacetime but spring into action in case of hostilities between the United States and the Soviet �SLOVAKIA 61 bloc. Their mission was to gather military intelligence and transmit it to the Americans if the east-west tensions caused an evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Prague. Taggart was eager to carry out his orders, but he was scheduled to leave the Prague post in October 1948 at the latest. When he reviewed the list of people who might help him put together the kind of network General Clay wanted, he selected Major Jaromir Nechansky (born I 916). It was not a lucky choice. Nechansky was a brave, highly motivated , British-trained commando and intelligence officer, but his wartime service in the west, his activities in occupied Czechoslovakia from February to May 1945, and his frequent social contacts with the Americans before the communist take-over made him an obvious target of the Czechoslovak Military Counter Intelligence, Obranne zpravodajstvi, OBZ. In 1946 it concluded: "Nechansky is in frequent contact with Katek ; he most likely works for the Americans." 18 The Americans decided to recruit also Veleslav Wahl. This young man - he was born in 1922 - came from a well-known family that had already experienced more than its share of tragedy: his father, Veleslav, and uncle, Karel, were executed by the Nazis in 1942; his future wife ' s father, Josef Ruzicka, was killed at the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1943. It was unhelpful that Nechansky and Wahl were known to be very close friends since the war. The discovery of one would automatically lead to the arrest of the other. First Nechansky, then Wahl and all the other agents whom the two leaders had recruited on behalf of the Americans, were arrested in early September 1949. They never had a chance. All - men and women - were severely tortured; even the police photographer who took their pictures for the court did not bother to cover up this fact. The trial in April 1950 became an orgy of anti-American propaganda, played out in the communist daily Rude Pravo, but also in other papers. The names of Taggart, hi s assistant Samuel Meryn, and others from the Embassy appeared repeatedly in the manipulated press, accompanied by photographs of radio stations and weapons the StB uncovered in the houses of the would-be agents. The outcome of the tri al had been determined in advance. Nechansky and 18 AMI , Z-651 , fil e 13, OBZ (Main Directorate), Ministry of Defen se, Summary of Reports 302-592- 1. �62 SLOVAKIA Wahl were sentenced to death and executed on I 6 Jul y I 950. All other sentences were draconian. When American intelligence officers arrived in Czechoslovakia in May 1945 it see med th at the cause of western democracy was dealt a lucky hand. They were educated and motivated, they understood the country, its language and hi story , they had time to prepare for the comi ng confrontation with their Soviet opponent, and they enjoyed the unqualified support of Ambassador Steinhardt. Importantly, many in the Czech political and military elites, and significant numbers in the sec urity appara t were approachable by US intelligence personnel seeking classified information. The Americans who were in the business of collecting political, military, and comercial secrets in Prague had access to some of the highest ranking personalities in the Office of the President and Government, including the Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Defense, and Ministry of Interior. Some Czechoslovak officials were eager to provide Americans with classified information. Leaking information to American officials was neither dishonorable nor unpatriotic. It was a contribution to the cause of democracy. It would be hard to imagine any other country where there existed such a harmony of interest between American intelligence collectors and their sources. All these factors put together make the swift defeat of democracy in Czechoslovakia and the totalitarian victory in February 1948 all the more humiliating. � 50 SLOVAKIA CZECHOSLOVAKIA 1945-1950: A FAILURE OF INTELLIGENCE Igor Lukes The outcome of the Czechoslovak political crisis from the end of World War II via the communist Machtergreifung in February 1948, and into the early fifties was not a preordained conclusion . It was not determined solely by the weight of the emerging blocs, it was not driven by the map, nor was it simply for the Kremlin to dictate. On the Czech side, it was mainly the product of unfounded hope (faith in an untested "socialism"), misplaced trust (deification of the Soviet Union and its leaders), and pathological fear of Germany. But the west also contributed to the communist victory by political blunders and amateurism in other field s. This papers focu ses on the U.S. intelligence community in postwar Prague. Looking at Czechoslovakia before the end of the war, and seeking to predict its political course in postwar Europe cou ld lead one to imagine a variety of scenarios. A minority saw the future in dark colors: they thought the country was destined to become a colony of the Soviet Union . They noted that the Czechoslovak political elite, punch-drunk from the Munich catastrophe, had taken steps that tied their country with Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. No one in the west doubted that President Edvard Benes and most of his colleagues in London were ideologically on their side, but it was clear that they still felt deep resentment over the manner in which their diplomatic alliances were imploded by the western appeasers of the Third Reich. They moved closer toward the Soviet Union because of the Munich experience and in order to show the British Foreign Office that when it came to coalitions in the postwar setting they no longer depended exclusively on the west; they had the Soviet card and they wou ld play it as needed to prevent "another Munich". An even greater factor for the pessimists was the country's location on the map and the situation at the front. The Red Army crossed the Czechoslovak border on 6 October 1944, while the allies were recovering from the disastrous Operation Market-Garden . Stalin was inside Czechoslovakia, but the western allies were stil l far away �SLOVAKIA 51 (U.S. Army units would cross onto Czech territory only on 18 April 1945). This led Ambassador William C. Bullitt to predict that after the war the Kremlin would "domin ate Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland , Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia." Bullitt speculated that Moscow had learned from its defeat in Hungary after World War I and would therefore apply different strategies in different countries located in the space between Germany and Ru ssia. 1 The Soviet Union might come with cold steel into the Baltics and Poland, but with treaties and patience to Finland and Czechoslovakia. Two wartime U.S. intelligence analysts observed years later that after the signing of the Czechoslovak-Soviet Agreement of December 1943 they had no illusions about the way Stalin was setting forth his policy toward all the countries of Eastern Europe, including Czechoslovakia. 2 The political course of Czechoslovakia inspired lots of optimists in the fall of 1944. The allied press was beaming with good new s, predicting that the country's postwar political life would simply pick up where "it was ruthlessly interrupted by the Munich Agreement of September 1938." Some American journalists celebrated a " pattern of cooperation" among the allied governments and proposed that the December 1943 Czechoslovak-Soviet Agreement was a " model " for others to follow. 3 Some suggested that the May 1944 Dutch, Belgian, and Norwegian agreements with the British and the Americans regarding the restoration of their sovereign status after liberation followed in the path originally established by the exiled Czechoslovak government, which had signed half a year before a treaty with the Soviet Union addressing matters of sovereignty and postwar administration. 4 When the country 's President Edvard Benes turned sixty on 28 May 1944, he received telegrams from many leaders of the 1 Willi am C. Bullitt, "The World From Rome: The Ete rn al C ity Fears a Struggle Between Christianity and Comm uni sm," Life Magazine, 4 September 1944. For a Soviet reaction to Bullitt' s ana lysis, see K. Demidov, "Obankrotivshiisia razvedch ik, ,. Pra vda, 4 September 1944. Note the dates. 2 Interview wi th Spencer L. Taggart, Logan, Utah, 23 April 1999 and interview with Paul Zinner, 5 Apri l 2005 , Washington . 3 No au thor, "The Pattern of Cooperati on," New York Times, 18 May 1944. 4 J. Emlyn Williams, " Smaller Allies in Europe Differ in Peace Readiness," Christian Science Monitor. IO May 1944. �52 SLOVAKIA anti-Nazi alliance, and New York Times called him a " prophet of a great cause" and a "fine champion" of democracy.5 Among the optimists was the influential C. L. Sulzberger who summed up the geopolitical situation in the east at the end of August 1944. The future borders of Finland , the Baltic republics, Poland, Hungary and others were at the mercy of Joseph Stalin. But "Mr. Benes has already got - he obtained it three years ago - a Soviet guarantee that Czechoslovakia 's pre-Munich frontiers will be re-established." 6 No doubt, thi s flattered President Benes enormously and reaffirmed him in his determination to establish hi s country as a friend of both the blocs and a bridge between them. The optimistic view that Czechoslovakia, balancing precariously between east and west, would maintain its sovereignty persisted even in the face of hard evidence that its political scene was undergoing dramatic changes in the direction of a gloomy scenario. In early April 1945, when the composition of the new Czechoslovak Government became known, Paul Zinner, an OSS (Office of Strategic Services) analyst in Washington , took the list of its members to the Department of State. He hoped to explain that the new Prime Minister had gained a reputation for being an apologist for even the most odious Soviet foreign policy deci sions. Zinner was di sturbed that the Czechoslovak Ministry of Interior was to be headed by a communist, and the same was true for the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Information, Ministry of Agriculture, and de facto, the Ministry of Defense . All in all, he thought that the government' s composition was a bad omen. But Zinner's State Department colleagues thou ght there was no reaso n to be concerned. They glanced at the list and learned that the country would have Edvard Benes as president and Jan Masaryk as foreign minister. " What could go wrong with such friends at the helm ?" they asked . " We have nothing to fear, " they concluded, di smisssed Zinner's concerns and turned their attention to other matters, including the imminent opening of the United States Embassy in Prague. Zinner recalls leaving the Czech affairs desk with a sense of foreboding and frustration: there seemed little he could do to 5 No author, "Benes at 60," New York Times, 28 May 1944. C. L. Sulzberger, " Frontier Policies of Russia Emerge," New York Times, 28 August 1944. 6 �SLOVAKIA 53 persuade the optimists that the Czechs might ultimately share the fate of the Poles, Hungarians and others in the region. 7 Finally, there were the reali sts, who staked out their territory in the space between the optimists and pessimists. They did not believe it was possible in 1944 to predict Czechoslovakia's future political orientation and course. But they were prepared to say that the country was the most important laboratory for testing east-west relations in the region. Charles E . Bohlen rejected the view expressed by his colleagues that Poland was the country to study in order to discern whether the west could coexist with Stalin. Poland's fate had been sealed, he thought. The real test, Bohlen went on to argue, was Czechoslovakia. Benes had signed the December 1943 treaty with Stalin despite opposition from his British hosts. " If the USSR really implemented that treaty and did not violate it then we would have an indication that it might be possible to get along with the Soviet Union after all. If the Soviet Union should break the treaty - the Czechs having gone as far as anybody could expect them to go - this might be an indication that cooperation with the Soviet Union would not be possible." 8 Other Americans, for instance, Averell Harrimann, shaed thi s view. 9 Bohlen ' s analysis carried the day. The United States would henceforth treat Prague as a testing ground and an observation post. Although it was in Eastern Europe and the spires of the Kremlin cast a shadow over it, the city had the atmosphere of a western outpost. It welcomed the Americans who came to reopen the United States Embassy in May 1945. And Washington reciprocated by building up its diplomatic and intelligence presence in postwar Czechoslovakia to unprecedented levels. In short order, the embassy at the Schoenborn Palace had a staff of more than two hundred employees. There were several reasons why U.S. intelligence in postwar Czechoslovakia could have performed well during the crisis leading up to the Communist Machtergreifung of February 1948. The first 7 Interview with Paul Zinner, 5 April 2005 , Washington. The Harry S. Truman Library . Harry N. Howard , "Oral Hi story Interview ," 7-8 October 1976. lnterview by Richard D. McKinzie. 9 Eduard Mark, "Charles Bohlen and the Acceptable Limits of Soviet Hegemony in Eastern Europe: A Memorandum of 18 October 1945," Diplomatic History 3, 2 (Spring 1979): I05. 8 �54 SLOVAKIA has to do with time and opportunity to launch intelligence operations. The U.S. Army had not played any direct role in the liberation of Poland from Nazism, and the imposition of Soviet rule over the country was violent and rapid. The same was true - with significant regional variations - in Hungary and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. When American diplomats and intelligence officers arrived in postwar Warsaw they had little or no time to get to know the terrain and to establish contacts to be exploited in the future. Right from the start they operated under significant or even extreme counterintelligence pressure from the domestic and Soviet special services. The opposite was true in Czechoslovakia, where the American intelligence community had plenty of time to prepare for the co ming crisis. Small elements of the U.S. Army had arrived in Prague some two days before the Russians, the U.S. military liberated several prominent Czech cities, and the G.l.s remained deployed in Western Bohemi a for seven months. During thi s time and later - until the spri ng of 1948 - Americans could freely travel in and out of Prague, and U.S. intelligence thus had countless opportunities to set down its roots in Czech soil. Moreover, the Czech co mmunists took until February 1948 to establish their dictatorship. Throughout thi s time each branch of the Prague government included individuals who were happy to provide confidential information to the Americans. President Edvard Benes set the tone when he met with such known U.S. intelligence officials as Allen Dulles, the Englishman Robert Bruce Lockhart, and others. Many other high-ranking government officials, including cabinet ministers, scores of military officers, policemen, secret police agents, and intellige nce service officials were willing to provide information to U.S. intelligence operatives in Prague. These individuals were not agents in the formal meaning of the word. They had not been formally recruited, handled in a clandestine manner, and paid. They provided the Americans with information from various denied areas of official life because there was a community of interest between the United States and their well positioned so urces in Czechoslovakia. From a spymaster's perspective a better environment was hard to imagine. American diplomats and intelligence officers came to postwar Poland and other East European countries only after Russian tanks �SLOVAKIA 55 had helped install a Moscow-vetted government in power. This relegated them to the role of observers. But United States intelligence operatives in postwar Czechoslovakia had had plenty of time to prepare for the Cold War milieu. How did they do in postwar Czechoslovakia? This is the question this paper seeks to address. The chief American diplomat in Prague was Ambassador Laurence A. Steinhardt, whose service in the Soviet Union included the period of the Stalin-Hitler pact, and who had, as a result, a skeptical view of all things Soviet. The Kremlin bosses had snubbed him repeatedly, and he disliked them with passion. In Prague Steinhardt surrounded himself with such like-minded anti -Stalinists as Colonel (later General ) Joseph Anthony Michela, US Military Attache, and others . The U.S. Embassy in Prague under Steinhardt had no intention of accommodating any communist or Soviet schemes. The ambassador's ideology and hi s can-do attitude combined to provide a good working atmosphere for American intelligence in Prague. U.S. Intelligence in Prague after the end of World War II was organized around two separate pl atforms, the Military Mission and the United States Embassy. The United States Military Mission was established in Prague only a few weeks after the end of the war. Even in that most abnormal era it was a very unorthodox operation. The commaning officer of the Military Mission was Colonel Charles Katek. 10 He was the first among several larger-than-life Americans who descended upon Prague right after the war's end. When Katek joined the Army, his Ph.D. in hi story from Northwestern University and hi s Czech and German language skills did not go unnoticed. After an officer candidate course, the OSS was a logical destination . Katek and his team of OSS operatives reached Prague on IO May 1945, soon after the Red Army had arrived. In Prague Katek found a luxurious apartment on Loretanske Square, a most prestigious address. He and his colleagues developed it into a salon where so me of the most interesting and influential people gathered regularly. It was well known that Katek was keenly 10 Most of my infonnation is from the Prague archives and from Janet Edwards, Colone l Katek 's daughter, Interv iew, 19 Jul y 2000. The ori ginal name of the fami ly was Kotek; it was changed to Katek in Chicago. Since "Kotek" does not sound particul arly Czech, it remains unclear whether the fam il y had come from Bohemia or Slovakia. �56 SLOVAKIA interested in intelligence; he was remarkably open about it. Among his guests were members of various noble families, such as Schwarzenberg, Lobkowitz, Czernin, Kolowrat, and Nadherny ; government officials, for instance Minister Jan Masaryk, Minister Petr Zenk), Minister Jaroslav Stransky , Minister Adolf Prochazka, and Minister Frantisek Hala; at least a dozen members of parliament, including lvo Duchacek; countless personalities from business circles, and influential political journalists, such as Julius Firt, Ferdinand Peroutka and Pavel Tigrid. Visitors were attracted to the Military Mission by the prospect of friendly conversation and challenging political debates. Of course, no one should underestimate the importance in postwar Prague of good food, exotic alcohol, tobacco, and jazz records, all of which were made plentiful by Colonel Katek 's regular truck deliveries from a U.S. Army base in Nuremberg. Those who came and talked to the Americans at Loretanske Square knew full well that their words would be passed on to the authorities. Katek 's approach was to blur the line between dinner parties and espionage. It made his life both simple and pleasant. The Military Mission had a few sources who were not invited to join the parties on Loretanske Square. Even in such cases Colonel Katek made no attempt to practice the kind of tradecraft that is common in the world of intelligence. He met them durin g office hours at the Mission. The activities around the Military Miss ion in Prague were so notorious that other Americans who served in postwar Czechoslovakia were not quite sure what to think about the situation. 11 They were right to be concerned. The Czech authorities paid attention to what was happening around Colonel Katek. They quickly surmi sed that he was conducting military and political espionage. An StB document notes that in November 1945 thirty-eight Czechs were in the category of regular visitors at the Military Mission. In January 1946 the OBZ insisted that the Mission with its 10 US Army 11 Interview with Louise Schaffner, 30 January 1999. Mrs. Schaffner was a Foreign Service officer in the U. S. Embassy in Prague at the time of the communi st coup d ' etat. �SLOVAKIA 57 officers ran 109 agents. 12 On the basis of my interviews the claim appears to be signifycantly exaggerated. But the Military Mission under Colonel Katek 's direction was very active in gathering intelligence in postwar Prague. Its information came from willing and well-placed sources, not recruited agents. Though it seemed like a good idea at the time, the weakness of this manner of gathering intelligence would be revealed in February 1948. From the summer of 1945 to February 1948, the Military Mission reported information from an impressive array of well-placed sources: aristocrats, ministers, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Mini stry of Interior, Ministry of Defense generals, high-ranking soldiers and pilots, security officials, and businessmen . It was easy to think that intelligence gathered from such knowledgeable and well-placed individuals was enough for analysts in Washington to create a true and accurate picture of the political crisis in Czechoslovakia. The intelligence section in the Embassy was led by Spencer Taggart. He arrived in Prague in the Spring of 1945 with a clear mission : "I was sent there with a long-term objective - to help the Czechs guard their independence and to promote western democracy." 13 Seen in thi s light, Taggart came to protect and promote the values that were agreeable to the majority of the political class and the population . Therefore, it was not difficult for him to gain access to a number of sources that were both knowledgeable and well informed - he was prepared to identify only four, Petr Zenk! , Major Jaromir Nechansky, Jan Stransky and lvo Duchacek, but there were others. For all their commitment, their well-placed so urces of information, and their knowledge of the terrain, the United States Embassy in Prague was consistently taken by surprise whenever a crisis developed. The first such occasion involved the May 1946 elections that resulted in a swee ping victory for the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The OSS and State Department analysts took note of it, of course, but as one member of Katek 's team put it "were we smart enough to realize that thi s was the beginning of the end? I 12 Archives of the Ministry of Interi or, AMI Z-651, file 13. LT COL Bedrich Reicin and CPT Kare l Vas, Main Directorate, OBZ, Ministry of Defense, 302-592-1, no. 150.457/secret report -2c-/ 1946, 24 January 1946. 13 Interview with Spencer L. Taggart, Logan , Utah , 23 April 1999. �58 SLOVAKIA doubt it. " 14 Ambassador Steinhardt had predicted an entirel y different outcome and he adopted an ostrich-like posture when faced with the election results. Another event that clearly and unmi stakabl y indicated th at the Kremlin and the Czechoslovak communists were on the verge of seizing power took place in Ju ly 1947 . It involved the Marshall plan. The Soviets had made clear in early July 1947 that they would take part neither in the conference nor in the Marshall plan itself. But the Czechs, including the leaders of the CPC, were planning to go as late as 7 Jul y 1947. They were invited to the Kremlin , and two days later, an official delegation from Prague was in Moscow. On 10 July 1947 Czechoslovakia announced that it would not be represented in Paris. The American Embassy happened to be rudderless while the Prague Government was performing its backward so mersault on the Marshall Plan : the Ambassador and hi s Deputy Chief of Miss ion , John Bruins, were attending a boar hunt organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Katek and Taggart went with them. Two junior diplomats found out about the reversal and informed Washington . 15 But hav ing arrived from the desk of a junior diplomat it left no lasting footprint in the halls of the Department of State. The story was leaked also to the New York Times. An in-depth article described the Marshall Plan fiasco and the current tense situation in Prague realistically and accurately. But then it quoted "observers here," a reference to U.S. diplomats in Prague, as being skeptical that the Ru ssians would try to impose upon Czechoslovakia " the kind of communist state that preva il s in Rumani a, Bul garia and Poland. " 16 The hopeful view, the paper reported , was that in following its tradition the Kremlin might in fact decide to withdraw altogether back to Ru ssia, lest its people become contaminated with the west. This optimism was anchored in the views of the ambassador, his deputy , but also Katek and Taggart. The Embassy's record during the deci sive days of February 1948 is not impressive. Ambassador Steinhardt was in the United States attending to business at the law firm Guggenheimer, Untermyer & 14 Interview with Walter Taub, Salzburg. Austria. 6 March 2000 . Interview with George Bogardus, Washington, 3 June 1998. 16 James Reston, "Czechs Bow East Politicall y but Back West Inte llectuall y," New York Times, 5 August 1947. 15 �SLOVAKIA 59 Marshall on Pine Street in New York City. He had joined it in 1920 and remained an active partner even after he started, in 1933, his diplomatic career as U. S. Ambassador in Stockholm. Spencer Taggart was on a motoring tour of Italy with his wife. For the ambassador and for Spencer Taggart to be out of the country at the time of the coup was embarrassing. The game was lost now - when the opponent took to the field , the Americans were not even dressed to play. The ambassador and the upper echelons at the Embassy had surrounded themselves primarily with the titled and propertied classes. They failed to notice that the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia had won real support not only among the working class and trade unionists, but importantly among the intellectual s, traditionally a crucial social group in the Czech lands. Neither the Embassy nor the Military Mission had connections in those circles. The CPC had saturated the democratic parties with its agents; it could anticipate and neutralize their activities. The democrats had not imagined that such conduct was possible. Neither they nor their American friends at the Embassy or Mission had recruited any intelligence assets at the level of the CPC Politburo or even the Central Committee apparat. Steinhardt ' s optimism influenced others in the Embassy and some in the State Department. But leading American diplomats, such as George Kennan and Charles Bohlen, were not at all surprised by the Prague coup. As we have seen, this was not thanks to reports of the U. S. Embassy in Prague or thanks to information from U. S. intelligence. Among those who had been expecting a decisive communist move against Czechoslovakia was Secretary of State Marshall. In his November 1947 memorandum for President Truman he approached the iss ue like a military strategist examining the map. He found that Moscow " will probably have to clamp down on Czechoslovakia, for a relatively free Czechoslovakia could become a threatening salient in Moscow's political position. " 17 As it happened, the Prague coup d'etat was played out as an internal affair, and Moscow could remain in its comfortable position of a sympathetic observer. The result was exactly as Marshall had predicted. 17 The Harry S. Truman Library, Papers of Harry S. Truman , Files of the White House Nava l Aide, G. C. M., Secretary of State, Memorandum for the President, 7 November 1947 . �60 SLOVAKIA Marshall 's analysis, based on common sense and years of military experience, offered more insight into the crisis in Prague than that provided by American diplomats and intelligence personnel based in the city. It is a serious indictment of U.S. intelligence performance in postwar Prague that the sec retary of state should have come up with a more accurate assessment of the evolving crisis than trained intelligence personnel with language skills and sources at the highest ranks of the Czechoslovak Government. Even if the communist coup d 'etat in Czechoslovakia did not surprise Secretary Marshall, like many others he considered it a watershed in east-west relations. On 10 March 1948 he stated that the situation in Europe was "very , very serious" and ten days later he called for " urgent and resolute action" if the United States was to defend the west. The United States Embassy in Prague was not in a position to contribute to the effort. The February coup d 'etat brutally revealed the weaknesses of the overt style of intelligence gathering employed by the Military Mission. Almost overnight, the former guests of Colonel Katek had lost their posts in government, security, the military, and the world of business. At least one was dead, some in prison, the majority seeking to escape; the lucky ones were already in the west; some of the prominent habitues of Loretanske Square were under house arrest. None had access to information that would be of interest to the Americans. Neither Katek nor Taggart had thought of putting in place an intelligence-gathering network that would become operational in case of a communist assumption of power. Building one now was next to imposs ible: no Czech with some official standing (except for StB agents) dared to come to the Embassy, and few were willing to risk speaking with American diplomats even in private. Yet this was the time when intelligence was most desperately needed. In June or July 1948, in the first weeks of the Berlin blockade, General Lucius Clay, Commanding General of U.S . Forces in Europe and Military Governor of Germany, summoned Taggart and told him to expect an outbreak of war with the Soviet Union within four months. The general asked him to build in Czechoslovakia a network of intelligence assets who would be equipped with radio stations. It was to remain inactive during peacetime but spring into action in case of hostilities between the United States and the Soviet �SLOVAKIA 61 bloc. Their mission was to gather military intelligence and transmit it to the Americans if the east-west tensions caused an evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Prague. Taggart was eager to carry out his orders, but he was scheduled to leave the Prague post in October 1948 at the latest. When he reviewed the list of people who might help him put together the kind of network General Clay wanted, he selected Major Jaromir Nechansky (born I 916). It was not a lucky choice. Nechansky was a brave, highly motivated , British-trained commando and intelligence officer, but his wartime service in the west, his activities in occupied Czechoslovakia from February to May 1945, and his frequent social contacts with the Americans before the communist take-over made him an obvious target of the Czechoslovak Military Counter Intelligence, Obranne zpravodajstvi, OBZ. In 1946 it concluded: "Nechansky is in frequent contact with Katek ; he most likely works for the Americans." 18 The Americans decided to recruit also Veleslav Wahl. This young man - he was born in 1922 - came from a well-known family that had already experienced more than its share of tragedy: his father, Veleslav, and uncle, Karel, were executed by the Nazis in 1942; his future wife ' s father, Josef Ruzicka, was killed at the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1943. It was unhelpful that Nechansky and Wahl were known to be very close friends since the war. The discovery of one would automatically lead to the arrest of the other. First Nechansky, then Wahl and all the other agents whom the two leaders had recruited on behalf of the Americans, were arrested in early September 1949. They never had a chance. All - men and women - were severely tortured; even the police photographer who took their pictures for the court did not bother to cover up this fact. The trial in April 1950 became an orgy of anti-American propaganda, played out in the communist daily Rude Pravo, but also in other papers. The names of Taggart, hi s assistant Samuel Meryn, and others from the Embassy appeared repeatedly in the manipulated press, accompanied by photographs of radio stations and weapons the StB uncovered in the houses of the would-be agents. The outcome of the tri al had been determined in advance. Nechansky and 18 AMI , Z-651 , fil e 13, OBZ (Main Directorate), Ministry of Defen se, Summary of Reports 302-592- 1. �62 SLOVAKIA Wahl were sentenced to death and executed on I 6 Jul y I 950. All other sentences were draconian. When American intelligence officers arrived in Czechoslovakia in May 1945 it see med th at the cause of western democracy was dealt a lucky hand. They were educated and motivated, they understood the country, its language and hi story , they had time to prepare for the comi ng confrontation with their Soviet opponent, and they enjoyed the unqualified support of Ambassador Steinhardt. Importantly, many in the Czech political and military elites, and significant numbers in the sec urity appara t were approachable by US intelligence personnel seeking classified information. The Americans who were in the business of collecting political, military, and comercial secrets in Prague had access to some of the highest ranking personalities in the Office of the President and Government, including the Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Defense, and Ministry of Interior. Some Czechoslovak officials were eager to provide Americans with classified information. Leaking information to American officials was neither dishonorable nor unpatriotic. It was a contribution to the cause of democracy. It would be hard to imagine any other country where there existed such a harmony of interest between American intelligence collectors and their sources. All these factors put together make the swift defeat of democracy in Czechoslovakia and the totalitarian victory in February 1948 all the more humiliating. � 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 2007, Vol. 39 Description An account of the resource Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007. 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 2007 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 50 SLOVAKIA CZECHOSLOVAKIA 1945-1950: A FAILURE OF INTELLIGENCE Igor Lukes The outcome of the Czechoslovak political crisis from the end of World War II via the communist Machtergreifung in February 1948, and into the early fifties was not a preordained conclusion . It was not determined solely by the weight of the emerging blocs, it was not driven by the map, nor was it simply for the Kremlin to dictate. On the Czech side, it was mainly the product of unfounded hope (faith in an untested "socialism"), misplaced trust (deification of the Soviet Union and its leaders), and pathological fear of Germany. But the west also contributed to the communist victory by political blunders and amateurism in other field s. This papers focu ses on the U.S. intelligence community in postwar Prague. Looking at Czechoslovakia before the end of the war, and seeking to predict its political course in postwar Europe cou ld lead one to imagine a variety of scenarios. A minority saw the future in dark colors: they thought the country was destined to become a colony of the Soviet Union . They noted that the Czechoslovak political elite, punch-drunk from the Munich catastrophe, had taken steps that tied their country with Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. No one in the west doubted that President Edvard Benes and most of his colleagues in London were ideologically on their side, but it was clear that they still felt deep resentment over the manner in which their diplomatic alliances were imploded by the western appeasers of the Third Reich. They moved closer toward the Soviet Union because of the Munich experience and in order to show the British Foreign Office that when it came to coalitions in the postwar setting they no longer depended exclusively on the west; they had the Soviet card and they wou ld play it as needed to prevent "another Munich". An even greater factor for the pessimists was the country's location on the map and the situation at the front. The Red Army crossed the Czechoslovak border on 6 October 1944, while the allies were recovering from the disastrous Operation Market-Garden . Stalin was inside Czechoslovakia, but the western allies were stil l far away SLOVAKIA 51 (U.S. Army units would cross onto Czech territory only on 18 April 1945). This led Ambassador William C. Bullitt to predict that after the war the Kremlin would "domin ate Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland , Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia." Bullitt speculated that Moscow had learned from its defeat in Hungary after World War I and would therefore apply different strategies in different countries located in the space between Germany and Ru ssia. 1 The Soviet Union might come with cold steel into the Baltics and Poland, but with treaties and patience to Finland and Czechoslovakia. Two wartime U.S. intelligence analysts observed years later that after the signing of the Czechoslovak-Soviet Agreement of December 1943 they had no illusions about the way Stalin was setting forth his policy toward all the countries of Eastern Europe, including Czechoslovakia. 2 The political course of Czechoslovakia inspired lots of optimists in the fall of 1944. The allied press was beaming with good new s, predicting that the country's postwar political life would simply pick up where "it was ruthlessly interrupted by the Munich Agreement of September 1938." Some American journalists celebrated a " pattern of cooperation" among the allied governments and proposed that the December 1943 Czechoslovak-Soviet Agreement was a " model " for others to follow. 3 Some suggested that the May 1944 Dutch, Belgian, and Norwegian agreements with the British and the Americans regarding the restoration of their sovereign status after liberation followed in the path originally established by the exiled Czechoslovak government, which had signed half a year before a treaty with the Soviet Union addressing matters of sovereignty and postwar administration. 4 When the country 's President Edvard Benes turned sixty on 28 May 1944, he received telegrams from many leaders of the 1 Willi am C. Bullitt, "The World From Rome: The Ete rn al C ity Fears a Struggle Between Christianity and Comm uni sm," Life Magazine, 4 September 1944. For a Soviet reaction to Bullitt' s ana lysis, see K. Demidov, "Obankrotivshiisia razvedch ik, ,. Pra vda, 4 September 1944. Note the dates. 2 Interview wi th Spencer L. Taggart, Logan, Utah, 23 April 1999 and interview with Paul Zinner, 5 Apri l 2005 , Washington . 3 No au thor, "The Pattern of Cooperati on," New York Times, 18 May 1944. 4 J. Emlyn Williams, " Smaller Allies in Europe Differ in Peace Readiness," Christian Science Monitor. IO May 1944. 52 SLOVAKIA anti-Nazi alliance, and New York Times called him a " prophet of a great cause" and a "fine champion" of democracy.5 Among the optimists was the influential C. L. Sulzberger who summed up the geopolitical situation in the east at the end of August 1944. The future borders of Finland , the Baltic republics, Poland, Hungary and others were at the mercy of Joseph Stalin. But "Mr. Benes has already got - he obtained it three years ago - a Soviet guarantee that Czechoslovakia 's pre-Munich frontiers will be re-established." 6 No doubt, thi s flattered President Benes enormously and reaffirmed him in his determination to establish hi s country as a friend of both the blocs and a bridge between them. The optimistic view that Czechoslovakia, balancing precariously between east and west, would maintain its sovereignty persisted even in the face of hard evidence that its political scene was undergoing dramatic changes in the direction of a gloomy scenario. In early April 1945, when the composition of the new Czechoslovak Government became known, Paul Zinner, an OSS (Office of Strategic Services) analyst in Washington , took the list of its members to the Department of State. He hoped to explain that the new Prime Minister had gained a reputation for being an apologist for even the most odious Soviet foreign policy deci sions. Zinner was di sturbed that the Czechoslovak Ministry of Interior was to be headed by a communist, and the same was true for the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Information, Ministry of Agriculture, and de facto, the Ministry of Defense . All in all, he thought that the government' s composition was a bad omen. But Zinner's State Department colleagues thou ght there was no reaso n to be concerned. They glanced at the list and learned that the country would have Edvard Benes as president and Jan Masaryk as foreign minister. " What could go wrong with such friends at the helm ?" they asked . " We have nothing to fear, " they concluded, di smisssed Zinner's concerns and turned their attention to other matters, including the imminent opening of the United States Embassy in Prague. Zinner recalls leaving the Czech affairs desk with a sense of foreboding and frustration: there seemed little he could do to 5 No author, "Benes at 60," New York Times, 28 May 1944. C. L. Sulzberger, " Frontier Policies of Russia Emerge," New York Times, 28 August 1944. 6 SLOVAKIA 53 persuade the optimists that the Czechs might ultimately share the fate of the Poles, Hungarians and others in the region. 7 Finally, there were the reali sts, who staked out their territory in the space between the optimists and pessimists. They did not believe it was possible in 1944 to predict Czechoslovakia's future political orientation and course. But they were prepared to say that the country was the most important laboratory for testing east-west relations in the region. Charles E . Bohlen rejected the view expressed by his colleagues that Poland was the country to study in order to discern whether the west could coexist with Stalin. Poland's fate had been sealed, he thought. The real test, Bohlen went on to argue, was Czechoslovakia. Benes had signed the December 1943 treaty with Stalin despite opposition from his British hosts. " If the USSR really implemented that treaty and did not violate it then we would have an indication that it might be possible to get along with the Soviet Union after all. If the Soviet Union should break the treaty - the Czechs having gone as far as anybody could expect them to go - this might be an indication that cooperation with the Soviet Union would not be possible." 8 Other Americans, for instance, Averell Harrimann, shaed thi s view. 9 Bohlen ' s analysis carried the day. The United States would henceforth treat Prague as a testing ground and an observation post. Although it was in Eastern Europe and the spires of the Kremlin cast a shadow over it, the city had the atmosphere of a western outpost. It welcomed the Americans who came to reopen the United States Embassy in May 1945. And Washington reciprocated by building up its diplomatic and intelligence presence in postwar Czechoslovakia to unprecedented levels. In short order, the embassy at the Schoenborn Palace had a staff of more than two hundred employees. There were several reasons why U.S. intelligence in postwar Czechoslovakia could have performed well during the crisis leading up to the Communist Machtergreifung of February 1948. The first 7 Interview with Paul Zinner, 5 April 2005 , Washington. The Harry S. Truman Library . Harry N. Howard , "Oral Hi story Interview ," 7-8 October 1976. lnterview by Richard D. McKinzie. 9 Eduard Mark, "Charles Bohlen and the Acceptable Limits of Soviet Hegemony in Eastern Europe: A Memorandum of 18 October 1945," Diplomatic History 3, 2 (Spring 1979): I05. 8 54 SLOVAKIA has to do with time and opportunity to launch intelligence operations. The U.S. Army had not played any direct role in the liberation of Poland from Nazism, and the imposition of Soviet rule over the country was violent and rapid. The same was true - with significant regional variations - in Hungary and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. When American diplomats and intelligence officers arrived in postwar Warsaw they had little or no time to get to know the terrain and to establish contacts to be exploited in the future. Right from the start they operated under significant or even extreme counterintelligence pressure from the domestic and Soviet special services. The opposite was true in Czechoslovakia, where the American intelligence community had plenty of time to prepare for the co ming crisis. Small elements of the U.S. Army had arrived in Prague some two days before the Russians, the U.S. military liberated several prominent Czech cities, and the G.l.s remained deployed in Western Bohemi a for seven months. During thi s time and later - until the spri ng of 1948 - Americans could freely travel in and out of Prague, and U.S. intelligence thus had countless opportunities to set down its roots in Czech soil. Moreover, the Czech co mmunists took until February 1948 to establish their dictatorship. Throughout thi s time each branch of the Prague government included individuals who were happy to provide confidential information to the Americans. President Edvard Benes set the tone when he met with such known U.S. intelligence officials as Allen Dulles, the Englishman Robert Bruce Lockhart, and others. Many other high-ranking government officials, including cabinet ministers, scores of military officers, policemen, secret police agents, and intellige nce service officials were willing to provide information to U.S. intelligence operatives in Prague. These individuals were not agents in the formal meaning of the word. They had not been formally recruited, handled in a clandestine manner, and paid. They provided the Americans with information from various denied areas of official life because there was a community of interest between the United States and their well positioned so urces in Czechoslovakia. From a spymaster's perspective a better environment was hard to imagine. American diplomats and intelligence officers came to postwar Poland and other East European countries only after Russian tanks SLOVAKIA 55 had helped install a Moscow-vetted government in power. This relegated them to the role of observers. But United States intelligence operatives in postwar Czechoslovakia had had plenty of time to prepare for the Cold War milieu. How did they do in postwar Czechoslovakia? This is the question this paper seeks to address. The chief American diplomat in Prague was Ambassador Laurence A. Steinhardt, whose service in the Soviet Union included the period of the Stalin-Hitler pact, and who had, as a result, a skeptical view of all things Soviet. The Kremlin bosses had snubbed him repeatedly, and he disliked them with passion. In Prague Steinhardt surrounded himself with such like-minded anti -Stalinists as Colonel (later General ) Joseph Anthony Michela, US Military Attache, and others . The U.S. Embassy in Prague under Steinhardt had no intention of accommodating any communist or Soviet schemes. The ambassador's ideology and hi s can-do attitude combined to provide a good working atmosphere for American intelligence in Prague. U.S. Intelligence in Prague after the end of World War II was organized around two separate pl atforms, the Military Mission and the United States Embassy. The United States Military Mission was established in Prague only a few weeks after the end of the war. Even in that most abnormal era it was a very unorthodox operation. The commaning officer of the Military Mission was Colonel Charles Katek. 10 He was the first among several larger-than-life Americans who descended upon Prague right after the war's end. When Katek joined the Army, his Ph.D. in hi story from Northwestern University and hi s Czech and German language skills did not go unnoticed. After an officer candidate course, the OSS was a logical destination . Katek and his team of OSS operatives reached Prague on IO May 1945, soon after the Red Army had arrived. In Prague Katek found a luxurious apartment on Loretanske Square, a most prestigious address. He and his colleagues developed it into a salon where so me of the most interesting and influential people gathered regularly. It was well known that Katek was keenly 10 Most of my infonnation is from the Prague archives and from Janet Edwards, Colone l Katek 's daughter, Interv iew, 19 Jul y 2000. The ori ginal name of the fami ly was Kotek; it was changed to Katek in Chicago. Since "Kotek" does not sound particul arly Czech, it remains unclear whether the fam il y had come from Bohemia or Slovakia. 56 SLOVAKIA interested in intelligence; he was remarkably open about it. Among his guests were members of various noble families, such as Schwarzenberg, Lobkowitz, Czernin, Kolowrat, and Nadherny ; government officials, for instance Minister Jan Masaryk, Minister Petr Zenk), Minister Jaroslav Stransky , Minister Adolf Prochazka, and Minister Frantisek Hala; at least a dozen members of parliament, including lvo Duchacek; countless personalities from business circles, and influential political journalists, such as Julius Firt, Ferdinand Peroutka and Pavel Tigrid. Visitors were attracted to the Military Mission by the prospect of friendly conversation and challenging political debates. Of course, no one should underestimate the importance in postwar Prague of good food, exotic alcohol, tobacco, and jazz records, all of which were made plentiful by Colonel Katek 's regular truck deliveries from a U.S. Army base in Nuremberg. Those who came and talked to the Americans at Loretanske Square knew full well that their words would be passed on to the authorities. Katek 's approach was to blur the line between dinner parties and espionage. It made his life both simple and pleasant. The Military Mission had a few sources who were not invited to join the parties on Loretanske Square. Even in such cases Colonel Katek made no attempt to practice the kind of tradecraft that is common in the world of intelligence. He met them durin g office hours at the Mission. The activities around the Military Miss ion in Prague were so notorious that other Americans who served in postwar Czechoslovakia were not quite sure what to think about the situation. 11 They were right to be concerned. The Czech authorities paid attention to what was happening around Colonel Katek. They quickly surmi sed that he was conducting military and political espionage. An StB document notes that in November 1945 thirty-eight Czechs were in the category of regular visitors at the Military Mission. In January 1946 the OBZ insisted that the Mission with its 10 US Army 11 Interview with Louise Schaffner, 30 January 1999. Mrs. Schaffner was a Foreign Service officer in the U. S. Embassy in Prague at the time of the communi st coup d ' etat. SLOVAKIA 57 officers ran 109 agents. 12 On the basis of my interviews the claim appears to be signifycantly exaggerated. But the Military Mission under Colonel Katek 's direction was very active in gathering intelligence in postwar Prague. Its information came from willing and well-placed sources, not recruited agents. Though it seemed like a good idea at the time, the weakness of this manner of gathering intelligence would be revealed in February 1948. From the summer of 1945 to February 1948, the Military Mission reported information from an impressive array of well-placed sources: aristocrats, ministers, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Mini stry of Interior, Ministry of Defense generals, high-ranking soldiers and pilots, security officials, and businessmen . It was easy to think that intelligence gathered from such knowledgeable and well-placed individuals was enough for analysts in Washington to create a true and accurate picture of the political crisis in Czechoslovakia. The intelligence section in the Embassy was led by Spencer Taggart. He arrived in Prague in the Spring of 1945 with a clear mission : "I was sent there with a long-term objective - to help the Czechs guard their independence and to promote western democracy." 13 Seen in thi s light, Taggart came to protect and promote the values that were agreeable to the majority of the political class and the population . Therefore, it was not difficult for him to gain access to a number of sources that were both knowledgeable and well informed - he was prepared to identify only four, Petr Zenk! , Major Jaromir Nechansky, Jan Stransky and lvo Duchacek, but there were others. For all their commitment, their well-placed so urces of information, and their knowledge of the terrain, the United States Embassy in Prague was consistently taken by surprise whenever a crisis developed. The first such occasion involved the May 1946 elections that resulted in a swee ping victory for the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The OSS and State Department analysts took note of it, of course, but as one member of Katek 's team put it "were we smart enough to realize that thi s was the beginning of the end? I 12 Archives of the Ministry of Interi or, AMI Z-651, file 13. LT COL Bedrich Reicin and CPT Kare l Vas, Main Directorate, OBZ, Ministry of Defense, 302-592-1, no. 150.457/secret report -2c-/ 1946, 24 January 1946. 13 Interview with Spencer L. Taggart, Logan , Utah , 23 April 1999. 58 SLOVAKIA doubt it. " 14 Ambassador Steinhardt had predicted an entirel y different outcome and he adopted an ostrich-like posture when faced with the election results. Another event that clearly and unmi stakabl y indicated th at the Kremlin and the Czechoslovak communists were on the verge of seizing power took place in Ju ly 1947 . It involved the Marshall plan. The Soviets had made clear in early July 1947 that they would take part neither in the conference nor in the Marshall plan itself. But the Czechs, including the leaders of the CPC, were planning to go as late as 7 Jul y 1947. They were invited to the Kremlin , and two days later, an official delegation from Prague was in Moscow. On 10 July 1947 Czechoslovakia announced that it would not be represented in Paris. The American Embassy happened to be rudderless while the Prague Government was performing its backward so mersault on the Marshall Plan : the Ambassador and hi s Deputy Chief of Miss ion , John Bruins, were attending a boar hunt organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Katek and Taggart went with them. Two junior diplomats found out about the reversal and informed Washington . 15 But hav ing arrived from the desk of a junior diplomat it left no lasting footprint in the halls of the Department of State. The story was leaked also to the New York Times. An in-depth article described the Marshall Plan fiasco and the current tense situation in Prague realistically and accurately. But then it quoted "observers here," a reference to U.S. diplomats in Prague, as being skeptical that the Ru ssians would try to impose upon Czechoslovakia " the kind of communist state that preva il s in Rumani a, Bul garia and Poland. " 16 The hopeful view, the paper reported , was that in following its tradition the Kremlin might in fact decide to withdraw altogether back to Ru ssia, lest its people become contaminated with the west. This optimism was anchored in the views of the ambassador, his deputy , but also Katek and Taggart. The Embassy's record during the deci sive days of February 1948 is not impressive. Ambassador Steinhardt was in the United States attending to business at the law firm Guggenheimer, Untermyer & 14 Interview with Walter Taub, Salzburg. Austria. 6 March 2000 . Interview with George Bogardus, Washington, 3 June 1998. 16 James Reston, "Czechs Bow East Politicall y but Back West Inte llectuall y," New York Times, 5 August 1947. 15 SLOVAKIA 59 Marshall on Pine Street in New York City. He had joined it in 1920 and remained an active partner even after he started, in 1933, his diplomatic career as U. S. Ambassador in Stockholm. Spencer Taggart was on a motoring tour of Italy with his wife. For the ambassador and for Spencer Taggart to be out of the country at the time of the coup was embarrassing. The game was lost now - when the opponent took to the field , the Americans were not even dressed to play. The ambassador and the upper echelons at the Embassy had surrounded themselves primarily with the titled and propertied classes. They failed to notice that the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia had won real support not only among the working class and trade unionists, but importantly among the intellectual s, traditionally a crucial social group in the Czech lands. Neither the Embassy nor the Military Mission had connections in those circles. The CPC had saturated the democratic parties with its agents; it could anticipate and neutralize their activities. The democrats had not imagined that such conduct was possible. Neither they nor their American friends at the Embassy or Mission had recruited any intelligence assets at the level of the CPC Politburo or even the Central Committee apparat. Steinhardt ' s optimism influenced others in the Embassy and some in the State Department. But leading American diplomats, such as George Kennan and Charles Bohlen, were not at all surprised by the Prague coup. As we have seen, this was not thanks to reports of the U. S. Embassy in Prague or thanks to information from U. S. intelligence. Among those who had been expecting a decisive communist move against Czechoslovakia was Secretary of State Marshall. In his November 1947 memorandum for President Truman he approached the iss ue like a military strategist examining the map. He found that Moscow " will probably have to clamp down on Czechoslovakia, for a relatively free Czechoslovakia could become a threatening salient in Moscow's political position. " 17 As it happened, the Prague coup d'etat was played out as an internal affair, and Moscow could remain in its comfortable position of a sympathetic observer. The result was exactly as Marshall had predicted. 17 The Harry S. Truman Library, Papers of Harry S. Truman , Files of the White House Nava l Aide, G. C. M., Secretary of State, Memorandum for the President, 7 November 1947 . 60 SLOVAKIA Marshall 's analysis, based on common sense and years of military experience, offered more insight into the crisis in Prague than that provided by American diplomats and intelligence personnel based in the city. It is a serious indictment of U.S. intelligence performance in postwar Prague that the sec retary of state should have come up with a more accurate assessment of the evolving crisis than trained intelligence personnel with language skills and sources at the highest ranks of the Czechoslovak Government. Even if the communist coup d 'etat in Czechoslovakia did not surprise Secretary Marshall, like many others he considered it a watershed in east-west relations. On 10 March 1948 he stated that the situation in Europe was "very , very serious" and ten days later he called for " urgent and resolute action" if the United States was to defend the west. The United States Embassy in Prague was not in a position to contribute to the effort. The February coup d 'etat brutally revealed the weaknesses of the overt style of intelligence gathering employed by the Military Mission. Almost overnight, the former guests of Colonel Katek had lost their posts in government, security, the military, and the world of business. At least one was dead, some in prison, the majority seeking to escape; the lucky ones were already in the west; some of the prominent habitues of Loretanske Square were under house arrest. None had access to information that would be of interest to the Americans. Neither Katek nor Taggart had thought of putting in place an intelligence-gathering network that would become operational in case of a communist assumption of power. Building one now was next to imposs ible: no Czech with some official standing (except for StB agents) dared to come to the Embassy, and few were willing to risk speaking with American diplomats even in private. Yet this was the time when intelligence was most desperately needed. In June or July 1948, in the first weeks of the Berlin blockade, General Lucius Clay, Commanding General of U.S . Forces in Europe and Military Governor of Germany, summoned Taggart and told him to expect an outbreak of war with the Soviet Union within four months. The general asked him to build in Czechoslovakia a network of intelligence assets who would be equipped with radio stations. It was to remain inactive during peacetime but spring into action in case of hostilities between the United States and the Soviet SLOVAKIA 61 bloc. Their mission was to gather military intelligence and transmit it to the Americans if the east-west tensions caused an evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Prague. Taggart was eager to carry out his orders, but he was scheduled to leave the Prague post in October 1948 at the latest. When he reviewed the list of people who might help him put together the kind of network General Clay wanted, he selected Major Jaromir Nechansky (born I 916). It was not a lucky choice. Nechansky was a brave, highly motivated , British-trained commando and intelligence officer, but his wartime service in the west, his activities in occupied Czechoslovakia from February to May 1945, and his frequent social contacts with the Americans before the communist take-over made him an obvious target of the Czechoslovak Military Counter Intelligence, Obranne zpravodajstvi, OBZ. In 1946 it concluded: "Nechansky is in frequent contact with Katek ; he most likely works for the Americans." 18 The Americans decided to recruit also Veleslav Wahl. This young man - he was born in 1922 - came from a well-known family that had already experienced more than its share of tragedy: his father, Veleslav, and uncle, Karel, were executed by the Nazis in 1942; his future wife ' s father, Josef Ruzicka, was killed at the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1943. It was unhelpful that Nechansky and Wahl were known to be very close friends since the war. The discovery of one would automatically lead to the arrest of the other. First Nechansky, then Wahl and all the other agents whom the two leaders had recruited on behalf of the Americans, were arrested in early September 1949. They never had a chance. All - men and women - were severely tortured; even the police photographer who took their pictures for the court did not bother to cover up this fact. The trial in April 1950 became an orgy of anti-American propaganda, played out in the communist daily Rude Pravo, but also in other papers. The names of Taggart, hi s assistant Samuel Meryn, and others from the Embassy appeared repeatedly in the manipulated press, accompanied by photographs of radio stations and weapons the StB uncovered in the houses of the would-be agents. The outcome of the tri al had been determined in advance. Nechansky and 18 AMI , Z-651 , fil e 13, OBZ (Main Directorate), Ministry of Defen se, Summary of Reports 302-592- 1. 62 SLOVAKIA Wahl were sentenced to death and executed on I 6 Jul y I 950. All other sentences were draconian. When American intelligence officers arrived in Czechoslovakia in May 1945 it see med th at the cause of western democracy was dealt a lucky hand. They were educated and motivated, they understood the country, its language and hi story , they had time to prepare for the comi ng confrontation with their Soviet opponent, and they enjoyed the unqualified support of Ambassador Steinhardt. Importantly, many in the Czech political and military elites, and significant numbers in the sec urity appara t were approachable by US intelligence personnel seeking classified information. The Americans who were in the business of collecting political, military, and comercial secrets in Prague had access to some of the highest ranking personalities in the Office of the President and Government, including the Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Defense, and Ministry of Interior. Some Czechoslovak officials were eager to provide Americans with classified information. Leaking information to American officials was neither dishonorable nor unpatriotic. It was a contribution to the cause of democracy. It would be hard to imagine any other country where there existed such a harmony of interest between American intelligence collectors and their sources. All these factors put together make the swift defeat of democracy in Czechoslovakia and the totalitarian victory in February 1948 all the more humiliating.  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 Czechoslovakia 1945-1950: A Failure of Intelligence Description An account of the resource Igor Lukes Slovakia, Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007 pp. 50-62 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lukes, Igor Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/e042cae3d975eba92d39991df47aace0.pdf 0f326f309d067af6ab96aeb8a67372ed PDF Text Text REVIEW ESSAYS ��SLOVAKIA 119 SUBCARPATHIAN RUS' AND THE NEW SLOVAK HISTORIOGRAPHY: Peter Mosny. Podkarpatska Rus ': nerealizovana auton6mia. Bratislava: Slovak Academic Press, 2001 , 2 I 6 pp. Index. Paper. Peter Svorc. Krajinska hranica medzi Sloven skom a Podkarpatskou Rusou, 1919-1939. Presov: Vydavatel'stvo Universum , 2003, 424 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index . cloth. PAUL ROBERT MAGOCSI University of Toronto As we move further and further into the twenty-first century, the former Czechoslovakia is rapidly being transformed into little more than a hi stori c memory. The first phase of memory loss about the concept of Czechoslovakia began just after World War II, when the country was reco nstituted but without its far eastern reg ion, Subcarpathian Ru s', which was formally annexed to the Soviet Union. After 1945 the concept of Czechoslovakia became one in which for all intents and purposes Subcarpathian Ru s' did not exist. Now that we are in the second stage of memory loss, which could be said to have begun with the break-up of Czechoslovakia in 1993, it is not difficult to foresee a time when the inhabitants of the Czech Republic and Slovakia will at best have only some vague recollection that their two countries once formed a single sociopolitical entity. The second stage of memory loss will be like the first, which occurred between 1945 and 1993 , when the public-at-large and sc hol ars (who should have known better) forgot that the country was founded as a state of three, not two , Slavic peoples-Czec hs, Slovaks, and CarpathoRusyns. It is interesting to note that even during the first Czechoslovak Republic (19 I 9-1938) , let alone post-World War II Socialist Czechoslovakia (1948-1989) , Slovak sc hol arl y interest in the region of Subcarpathian Ru s' and its majority population , Carpatho-Rusyns , was virtually non-ex istent. For example, during the First Republic there was a whole host of Czech scholars (Vac lav Chaloupecky, Frantisek Gabriel , Antonfn Hartl , Jiri Kral, Frantisek Tichy, among �120 SLOVAKIA others), not to mention belletrists (Karel Capek, Ivan Olbracht, Jaromfr Tomecek, Vladislav Vancura), who studied Subcarpathian Rus' or who were inspired by its landscape and people. One would be hard-pressed to find a few Slovaks who during that period evinced any interest in their Slavic brethren to the east. One could speculate about the reasons for thi s lack of interest: at the time Slovak intellectual s had enough of a challenge to demonstrate that they themselves represented a culture and people distinct from the Czechs. Moreover, in contrast to the largely urbanized Czechs, interwar Slovak intellectuals-removed from the village at best by one generation-did not have to seek, nor were they particularly interested in , an undeveloped rural area like Subcarpathian Rus' , no matter how exotic its peop le and landscape may have seemed. During the post-World War II Communist decades, neither Czechs nor Slovaks (in the unlikely case that they wanted) were able to publish about their country 's former eastern province, since Subcarpathian Rus ', or the Transcarpathian oblast' of Ukraine, was by then part of the Soviet workers' state, whose scholarly and literary circles were allowed to remember only that once their homeland had been "occupied" by "bourgeois Czechoslovakia." In short, Subcarpathian Ru s' as a subject was a taboo for Czechs and Slovaks, who in popular parlance referred to everything east of the Slovak border, including the Transcarpathian oblast' of Ukraine, as Rusko-Russia. As for the handful of Slovak scholars who during the Communist era were allowed to publish on Rusyn topics (the historian I.:udovft Haraksim, the ethnographer Jan Podolak), they were forced to focus solely on the "Ukrainian minority" (i. e., Rusyns) living in northeastern Slovakia. The political and intellectual environment has certainly changed in Slovakia since the collapse of Communist rule in l 989 and the establishment of independent Slovakia three years later. The old Soviet taboo has been lifted, and Rusyns, not only in eastern Slovakia, but also in Subcarpathian Rus ', have finally become legitimate topics of scholarly inquiry. Among the new generation of Slovak scholars who have turned their attention to Carpatho-Rusyns are the sociologist Marian Gajdos, the historian Stanislav Konecny, the political scientist Alexander Duleba, and the authors of the two books under review, Peter Mosny and Peter Svorc. �SLOVAKIA 121 Both authors examine different but related aspects of Subcarpathia' s relationship to Czechoslovakia during the period 1919 to 1945. In contrast to the Czech lands and Slovakia, Subcarpathian Rus' had joined Czechoslovakia in 1919 under the specific condition that it would granted "the widest degree of autonomy compatible with the Czechoslovak state." The proviso on autonomy was spelled out in two of the treaties (St. Germain and Trianon) signed within the framework of the Paris Peace Conference ( 1919 and 1920) and it was incorporated into the Czechoslovak Con stitution adopted in February of 1920. Mosny 's monograph focuses on three themes: the reluctance of Czechoslovakia's authorities to implement autonomy in Subcarpathian Rus' during the years of the First Republic; the form of autonomy that finally came into being in post-Munich Czechoslovakia (October 1938-March I 939); and the promises that were again made to Rusyns during World War II, when it was expected that Czechoslovakia was to be recreated according to its pre-Munich boundaries as "a state comprised of three Slavic peoples: Czechs, Slovaks, and Carpatho-Rusyns/Ukrainians" (p. 162). Mosny provides an incredible amount of documented detail for those who wish to know of Czechoslovak policy toward Subcarpathian Rus ' from the standpoint of the regime in Prague. His legalistic and often tediously dry account says virtually nothing, however, about the activity of Rusyn civic and political leaders to attain the autonomy their province was promised at the close of World War I. Mosny 's onesided approach to the problem may be explained by the fact that he used only Czech- and Slovak-language sources, a serious shortcoming for anyone interested in studying a region in which knowledge of Ukrainian, Russian, and Hungarian is essential. Far more ambitious and intellectually satisfying is the monograph by Peter Svorc. His ostensible focus is the question of the regional border between Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus' during the First Czechoslovak Republic. In fact, the book provides a wide-ranging discussion of Slovak national activists toward Rusy ns beginning already in the nineteenth century, as well as the key political issues faced by Subcarpathia' s leaders from the end of World War I to the end of World War II. Svorc is not only a specialist and widelypublished historian of eastern Slovakia in the twentieth century, but �122 SLOVAKIA he has also published several studies on specific aspects of Ru syn history, as well as the first survey of Subcarpathian Rus' in the first half of the twentieth century to appear in Slovak: Zakliata krajina: Podkarpatska Rus, 1918-1946 (Presov, 1996). The book by Svorc under review here reflects his close familiarity with the secondary literature in a wide variety of languages. Svorc has made use of materials from archives in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, and Slovakia, but not in Hungary or Ukraine. Particularly valuable are several historic photographs and maps that accompany the heavily-footnoted text, although considering the author's approach to the subject, it is surprising not to find a map that compares the various proposals put forth by Slovak and non-Slovak scholars in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries regarding the traditional ethnolinguistic boundary between Slovaks and Rusyns. Svorc's monograph comprises 24 chapters. Several of them provide a detailed description of the views put forth by Slovak, Czech, and Ru syn authors-Pavo! Jozef Safarik, Josef Skultety, Stefan Misik, Lubor Niederle, Samuel Czambel, Jan Husek, and Nikolaj Beskid-who in their writings tried to define the ethnolinguistic border between Slovaks and Rusyns. Svorc also deals at length with Slovak and Rusyn immigrants in the United States and their impact on homeland politics, with the Rusyn question at the Paris Peace Conference and League of Nations, with Czechoslovak administrative policy in Subcarpathian Rus ' and the efforts of Rusyn activists to attain autonomy, and with the controversy in eastern Slovakia among Slovaks and Rusyns regarding the possible unification of all or part of that region with Subcarpathian Rus '. The latter topic is only one of many in which Svorc provides new or previously littleknown information. For example, a bilateral Slovak-Rusyn governmental commission met as early as September 1919 to propose a Slovak-Subcarpathian boundary. The Slovak negotiators, who included Igor Hrusovsky, Jozef Skultety, Karel Chotek, and Yiktor Dvorsky proposed that the following "Rusyn-inhabited" areas should be united with Subcarpathian Rus ' : northeastern Saris county (including the town of Svidnfk and surrounding villages), northeastern Zemplfn county (beyond the line connecting Hanusovce and Snina), and parts of Uh county west of the Uh River (below the Vihorlat �123 SLOVAKIA ridge). The Rusyn delegation , however, refused to compromise on its demand that all of Uh and Zemplfn counties, most of Saris county, and northern Spis county around Stani r.ubovna should be included within Subcarpathian Rus '. As a result of the impasse, Subcarpathian Rus' was in the end reduced to territory east of the Uh River and eventually (after 1928) along a parallel line just west of the river that was to become an international border that remains in place to this day. Slovak-Rusyn political (as opposed to cultural) relations could be said to have begun in 1918, when the land s within the Danubian Bas in were being reconfi gured to accord with the new post-World War I international order. Since that time Slovak scholars have been very slow in coming to grips with the Rusy n lands just to the east. When Czechoslovakia existed, whether in the form of the First Republic or the post-World War II socialist state, Slovak researchers showed little or no interest in their neighbors to the east. It is only from the last decade of the twentieth century that one can finally speak of a Slovak historiography about Rusyn s and Subcarpathian Rus ' . This new tradition has certainly gotten off to a good start with serious and impartial writings by sc holars like Peter Mosny and, in particular, Peter Svare. Eighty Years of English Studies at the Faculty of Arts, ed. by Alojz Kenfz. PHILOLOGICA LX , Zbornfk Filozofickej fakulty Univerzity Komenskeho Bratislava: FFUK, 2004; 406 pages. JA.N SIMKO Washington, DC A SHORT HISTORY In 1924 English studies began at the Comenius University in Bratislava. The first professor, Otakar Yocadlo, however, resigned in February 1939 during the turbulent political developments rocking Czecho-Slovakia . The continuation of English studies was, nevertheless, secured thanks to the appointment of both one lecturer taking over the instruction of the older periods of English language and literature and the other one to teach the modern period. �124 SLOVAKIA Following the communist seizure of political power in February 1948, hotheads began urging the total elimination of English from FFUK, and, in the early I 950 ' s, no new students were admitted for three consecutive years. Fortunately, the argument prevailed that the only Slovak University in existence needed to have its own Department of English . For several years thereafter, on ly three new students were enrolled per year. In the 1960s this number was raised to 20, and later even more. So much so that, when it was later renamed the Department of English and American Studies, it was in a good position to commemorate its eighty years of existence with the publication of this festive, anniversary volume of Ang listic contributions. The total of forty-nine articles includes nine by foreign contributors and forty by domestic authors. All "guest" contributors are current or retired professors of English and are leading world experts in their respective fields of specialization. Their inclusion in this volume is justified by their positive personal relations with Slovakia and the Slovaks as attested by these facts : not only have they been for many years colleagues and friends of this reviewer but, three of them: S. Berkner, S. Noguchi, R. Quirk, and Y. Nakao's son, have paid individual visits to Slovakia, while K. Fukuda has extended his effective help to the FFUK's new Department of Japanese Studies! LANGUAGE STUDIES (1) Sergey Berkner of Voronezh University in Russia spent eight months in 1994 at Ohio State University on a Fu lbright grant. His topical contribution: "Language as an Instrument of Politics: the Role of Cliches and Ideological Lexicon," characterizes the use of language of propaganda as a strong instrument of persuasion, as illustrated by examples from Ru ssian , English , and German. (2) Shunichi Noguchi (b.1933), since 1996 an Emeritus from Osaka University of Education, sent in: "How Can We Not Mismetre Chaucer's Troilus?" He argues that Chaucer had very few specialized terms at his disposal referring to poetry. In classifying the variety of verse patterns used in Troilus, Noguchi has adopted my methods applied to the study of the word-order patterns in 15th century English, namely: "simplification and abstraction" as implemented in my 1957 book. Many typographical errors mar �SLOVAKIA 125 this valuable article. S. Noguchi is one of the world's foremost Malory scholars. The discussion of his article here has been found preferable with regard to the following: (3) Yuji Nakao (b.1935), since March 2007 an Emeritus from both Nagoya and Chubu Universities. He had spent 1967-68 at Brown University in Providence, R.I. , while I was at the same time a Folger Shakespeare Library scholar in Washington, D.C., with neither of us knowing "aught" of the other! His contribution: "On Negative Disjunctive Connectives" in Malory and Caxton of the 15th century, deals with the same material as did I in my 1957 book. While, however, I had been studying the "larger picture," that is, the word-order, he studied the small connectives: nother, neuther, neyther, nor. In the 15th century, they were interchangeable. While of an inconspicuous personal appearance, Y. Nakao is a giant in Arthurian studies. (4) Kazuo Fukuda (b. 1947), of Niigata University, sent in an article: "Theme-Rheme Articulation: A View Based on a Comparison of English and Japanese." He examines the various definitions of these terms well-known to Slovak linguists. He emphasizes the need of a functional , rather than a formalistic view of language. He has extended his generous help to the new Slovak Japanists at FFUK. LITERARY STUDIES (1) Paul Miller (b. 1926), is an Emeritus of Wittenberg University of Springfield, Ohio, where he had taught from 1961 to 1991. In his article: "In Theodore Roosevelt's Footsteps: Midwestern Writers Hunt Lion in East Africa," he offers a fascinating insight into the positive evolution of the African safari wild animal hunter and killer into a wild animal photographer. (2) David George, of Urbana University in Ohio, has, since 1986, been working on a monumental New Yariorum edition of Shakespeare's Roman tragedy CORIOLANUS (1608), to be ready at the end of 2007. In his contribution: "Coriolanus: Narrative and Mythic Sources, " he aims at establishing that, rather than having read Livy in Latin, Shakespeare consulted Livy and Plutarch in English translation. In his meticulous, "clinical" dissection, the author demonstrates that Shakespeare not only followed Plutarch �126 SLOVAKIA but also improved upon his sources, thus exemplifying the Bard's amazing mastery of Roman and Greek history and mythology. (3) Robert Fleissner retired, after 38 years of service (1967-2006), from the Central State University of Springfield, Ohio. He is an unusually prolific author, with fourteen books and 585 published articles (by 2006). Nor does he shun controversy with startling statements, such as, the ones of, respectively, 2000 and 2006 (in the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America), suggesting that Shakespeare could have studied, or spent some time, at Oxford! In his article: "Richard II in His Own Way: An Intertextual Study," he debates the question "whether the play is more of a historical play or a tragedy." He inclines to the opinion that it is "a history play with a tragic hero manque" (that is: might have been but is not). (4) The eminent Shakespearean Soji Iwasaki (b.1929) has been, among others, also a professor at Nagoya University. It is surprising that his mentor and supervisor at Cambridge (1964-66), the late eminent Shakespearean, Muriel C. Bradbrook, was, by family connections, related to Professor 0. Vocadlo, through 1939 at FFUK! Also surprisingly but significantly, the two of us have found common ground in each of us having devoted some related unconventional insights into Shakespeare's masterful comedy As You Like It (c . 1599) : he, in his contribution : "Transvestism and Social Reformation in A YLI;" and, as to me, in " W. Shakespeare's A YLI and Slovakia" (Almanac of the National Slovak Society, Pittsburgh 1999). The latter article compares the situation in the former Czecho-Slovakia, both after WW II in May 1945 and to the demise of Communism on November 17, 1989, to the situation following the usurper Duke Frederick's abdication in A YLI. (5) Jan Simko was, from 1945 to 1967 at FFUK, then in the U.S .A. In his contribution: "A Possible Parallel to 'Shall I Die?' A Poem Attributed to Shakespeare?" he compares this poem to English poetry of the 1590s, finding it highly unlikely for it to be by Shakespeare. �SLOVAKIA 127 These contributions by mainly foreign, outstanding Anglicists , have added both luster and prestige to thi s commemorative volume published by Slovak Anglicists. Contributions by Domestic, that is, Slovak Anglicists LANGUAGE STUDIES Seventeen articles deal with the following areas: syntax; wordformation; semantics; style and stylistics; language and culture; language teaching (this is to be grouped with methodology below) ; translation (also to be grouped with translation below). Missing are articles on historical linguistics, varieties of English, etc, Seven (c.42%) of these articles quote A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (London: Longman, 1985), a seminal , monumental work created by Lord Quirk (and collaborators) of the University College, London. Although, for health reasons, he was unable to send in a contribution, his keen interest in the progress of Slovak studies of English and his April 1966 lecture at FFUK deserve special recognition. LITERARY STUDIES Out of eight contributions, English literature is di sc ussed in three; one each disc usses Canadian literature, women's iss ues, theory (realism: modified, and magic; tragedy). No article is devoted to Shakespeare or to American literature. TEACHING METHODOLOGY Nine articles di scuss various topics: the use of storytelling and drama; novels; on-line tutoring; innovative approaches; learning strategies; foreign-language teaching training. Eva Tandlichova (author of the introductory article) advocates, in her contribution: "More Autonomy ... The Need for Real LearnerCentred Teaching and Leaming." BRITISH STUDIES (2 contributions) �128 SLOVAKIA TRANSLATIONS (4 contributions) The emphasis is on quality philological preparation and a good memory. Jan Vilikovsky (former Czecho-Slovak and after 1993 Slovak Republic's first Ambassador to London) di sc usses, in his fundamental contribution: "Orwell, Politics and Translation - Notes of a Translator." He emphasizes the need to evaluate Orwell's texts with a view to the political situation in which they were written. CONCLUSION Even if considering the empty spaces in its overall coverage of the wide field of Anglistics, PHILOLOGICA LX of 2004 cannot but be evaluated as an obvious quantitative and qualitative advance of Slovak studies of English. � REVIEW ESSAYS ��SLOVAKIA 119 SUBCARPATHIAN RUS' AND THE NEW SLOVAK HISTORIOGRAPHY: Peter Mosny. Podkarpatska Rus ': nerealizovana auton6mia. Bratislava: Slovak Academic Press, 2001 , 2 I 6 pp. Index. Paper. Peter Svorc. Krajinska hranica medzi Sloven skom a Podkarpatskou Rusou, 1919-1939. Presov: Vydavatel'stvo Universum , 2003, 424 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index . cloth. PAUL ROBERT MAGOCSI University of Toronto As we move further and further into the twenty-first century, the former Czechoslovakia is rapidly being transformed into little more than a hi stori c memory. The first phase of memory loss about the concept of Czechoslovakia began just after World War II, when the country was reco nstituted but without its far eastern reg ion, Subcarpathian Ru s', which was formally annexed to the Soviet Union. After 1945 the concept of Czechoslovakia became one in which for all intents and purposes Subcarpathian Ru s' did not exist. Now that we are in the second stage of memory loss, which could be said to have begun with the break-up of Czechoslovakia in 1993, it is not difficult to foresee a time when the inhabitants of the Czech Republic and Slovakia will at best have only some vague recollection that their two countries once formed a single sociopolitical entity. The second stage of memory loss will be like the first, which occurred between 1945 and 1993 , when the public-at-large and sc hol ars (who should have known better) forgot that the country was founded as a state of three, not two , Slavic peoples-Czec hs, Slovaks, and CarpathoRusyns. It is interesting to note that even during the first Czechoslovak Republic (19 I 9-1938) , let alone post-World War II Socialist Czechoslovakia (1948-1989) , Slovak sc hol arl y interest in the region of Subcarpathian Ru s' and its majority population , Carpatho-Rusyns , was virtually non-ex istent. For example, during the First Republic there was a whole host of Czech scholars (Vac lav Chaloupecky, Frantisek Gabriel , Antonfn Hartl , Jiri Kral, Frantisek Tichy, among �120 SLOVAKIA others), not to mention belletrists (Karel Capek, Ivan Olbracht, Jaromfr Tomecek, Vladislav Vancura), who studied Subcarpathian Rus' or who were inspired by its landscape and people. One would be hard-pressed to find a few Slovaks who during that period evinced any interest in their Slavic brethren to the east. One could speculate about the reasons for thi s lack of interest: at the time Slovak intellectual s had enough of a challenge to demonstrate that they themselves represented a culture and people distinct from the Czechs. Moreover, in contrast to the largely urbanized Czechs, interwar Slovak intellectuals-removed from the village at best by one generation-did not have to seek, nor were they particularly interested in , an undeveloped rural area like Subcarpathian Rus' , no matter how exotic its peop le and landscape may have seemed. During the post-World War II Communist decades, neither Czechs nor Slovaks (in the unlikely case that they wanted) were able to publish about their country 's former eastern province, since Subcarpathian Rus ', or the Transcarpathian oblast' of Ukraine, was by then part of the Soviet workers' state, whose scholarly and literary circles were allowed to remember only that once their homeland had been "occupied" by "bourgeois Czechoslovakia." In short, Subcarpathian Ru s' as a subject was a taboo for Czechs and Slovaks, who in popular parlance referred to everything east of the Slovak border, including the Transcarpathian oblast' of Ukraine, as Rusko-Russia. As for the handful of Slovak scholars who during the Communist era were allowed to publish on Rusyn topics (the historian I.:udovft Haraksim, the ethnographer Jan Podolak), they were forced to focus solely on the "Ukrainian minority" (i. e., Rusyns) living in northeastern Slovakia. The political and intellectual environment has certainly changed in Slovakia since the collapse of Communist rule in l 989 and the establishment of independent Slovakia three years later. The old Soviet taboo has been lifted, and Rusyns, not only in eastern Slovakia, but also in Subcarpathian Rus ', have finally become legitimate topics of scholarly inquiry. Among the new generation of Slovak scholars who have turned their attention to Carpatho-Rusyns are the sociologist Marian Gajdos, the historian Stanislav Konecny, the political scientist Alexander Duleba, and the authors of the two books under review, Peter Mosny and Peter Svorc. �SLOVAKIA 121 Both authors examine different but related aspects of Subcarpathia' s relationship to Czechoslovakia during the period 1919 to 1945. In contrast to the Czech lands and Slovakia, Subcarpathian Rus' had joined Czechoslovakia in 1919 under the specific condition that it would granted "the widest degree of autonomy compatible with the Czechoslovak state." The proviso on autonomy was spelled out in two of the treaties (St. Germain and Trianon) signed within the framework of the Paris Peace Conference ( 1919 and 1920) and it was incorporated into the Czechoslovak Con stitution adopted in February of 1920. Mosny 's monograph focuses on three themes: the reluctance of Czechoslovakia's authorities to implement autonomy in Subcarpathian Rus' during the years of the First Republic; the form of autonomy that finally came into being in post-Munich Czechoslovakia (October 1938-March I 939); and the promises that were again made to Rusyns during World War II, when it was expected that Czechoslovakia was to be recreated according to its pre-Munich boundaries as "a state comprised of three Slavic peoples: Czechs, Slovaks, and Carpatho-Rusyns/Ukrainians" (p. 162). Mosny provides an incredible amount of documented detail for those who wish to know of Czechoslovak policy toward Subcarpathian Rus ' from the standpoint of the regime in Prague. His legalistic and often tediously dry account says virtually nothing, however, about the activity of Rusyn civic and political leaders to attain the autonomy their province was promised at the close of World War I. Mosny 's onesided approach to the problem may be explained by the fact that he used only Czech- and Slovak-language sources, a serious shortcoming for anyone interested in studying a region in which knowledge of Ukrainian, Russian, and Hungarian is essential. Far more ambitious and intellectually satisfying is the monograph by Peter Svorc. His ostensible focus is the question of the regional border between Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus' during the First Czechoslovak Republic. In fact, the book provides a wide-ranging discussion of Slovak national activists toward Rusy ns beginning already in the nineteenth century, as well as the key political issues faced by Subcarpathia' s leaders from the end of World War I to the end of World War II. Svorc is not only a specialist and widelypublished historian of eastern Slovakia in the twentieth century, but �122 SLOVAKIA he has also published several studies on specific aspects of Ru syn history, as well as the first survey of Subcarpathian Rus' in the first half of the twentieth century to appear in Slovak: Zakliata krajina: Podkarpatska Rus, 1918-1946 (Presov, 1996). The book by Svorc under review here reflects his close familiarity with the secondary literature in a wide variety of languages. Svorc has made use of materials from archives in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, and Slovakia, but not in Hungary or Ukraine. Particularly valuable are several historic photographs and maps that accompany the heavily-footnoted text, although considering the author's approach to the subject, it is surprising not to find a map that compares the various proposals put forth by Slovak and non-Slovak scholars in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries regarding the traditional ethnolinguistic boundary between Slovaks and Rusyns. Svorc's monograph comprises 24 chapters. Several of them provide a detailed description of the views put forth by Slovak, Czech, and Ru syn authors-Pavo! Jozef Safarik, Josef Skultety, Stefan Misik, Lubor Niederle, Samuel Czambel, Jan Husek, and Nikolaj Beskid-who in their writings tried to define the ethnolinguistic border between Slovaks and Rusyns. Svorc also deals at length with Slovak and Rusyn immigrants in the United States and their impact on homeland politics, with the Rusyn question at the Paris Peace Conference and League of Nations, with Czechoslovak administrative policy in Subcarpathian Rus ' and the efforts of Rusyn activists to attain autonomy, and with the controversy in eastern Slovakia among Slovaks and Rusyns regarding the possible unification of all or part of that region with Subcarpathian Rus '. The latter topic is only one of many in which Svorc provides new or previously littleknown information. For example, a bilateral Slovak-Rusyn governmental commission met as early as September 1919 to propose a Slovak-Subcarpathian boundary. The Slovak negotiators, who included Igor Hrusovsky, Jozef Skultety, Karel Chotek, and Yiktor Dvorsky proposed that the following "Rusyn-inhabited" areas should be united with Subcarpathian Rus ' : northeastern Saris county (including the town of Svidnfk and surrounding villages), northeastern Zemplfn county (beyond the line connecting Hanusovce and Snina), and parts of Uh county west of the Uh River (below the Vihorlat �123 SLOVAKIA ridge). The Rusyn delegation , however, refused to compromise on its demand that all of Uh and Zemplfn counties, most of Saris county, and northern Spis county around Stani r.ubovna should be included within Subcarpathian Rus '. As a result of the impasse, Subcarpathian Rus' was in the end reduced to territory east of the Uh River and eventually (after 1928) along a parallel line just west of the river that was to become an international border that remains in place to this day. Slovak-Rusyn political (as opposed to cultural) relations could be said to have begun in 1918, when the land s within the Danubian Bas in were being reconfi gured to accord with the new post-World War I international order. Since that time Slovak scholars have been very slow in coming to grips with the Rusy n lands just to the east. When Czechoslovakia existed, whether in the form of the First Republic or the post-World War II socialist state, Slovak researchers showed little or no interest in their neighbors to the east. It is only from the last decade of the twentieth century that one can finally speak of a Slovak historiography about Rusyn s and Subcarpathian Rus ' . This new tradition has certainly gotten off to a good start with serious and impartial writings by sc holars like Peter Mosny and, in particular, Peter Svare. Eighty Years of English Studies at the Faculty of Arts, ed. by Alojz Kenfz. PHILOLOGICA LX , Zbornfk Filozofickej fakulty Univerzity Komenskeho Bratislava: FFUK, 2004; 406 pages. JA.N SIMKO Washington, DC A SHORT HISTORY In 1924 English studies began at the Comenius University in Bratislava. The first professor, Otakar Yocadlo, however, resigned in February 1939 during the turbulent political developments rocking Czecho-Slovakia . The continuation of English studies was, nevertheless, secured thanks to the appointment of both one lecturer taking over the instruction of the older periods of English language and literature and the other one to teach the modern period. �124 SLOVAKIA Following the communist seizure of political power in February 1948, hotheads began urging the total elimination of English from FFUK, and, in the early I 950 ' s, no new students were admitted for three consecutive years. Fortunately, the argument prevailed that the only Slovak University in existence needed to have its own Department of English . For several years thereafter, on ly three new students were enrolled per year. In the 1960s this number was raised to 20, and later even more. So much so that, when it was later renamed the Department of English and American Studies, it was in a good position to commemorate its eighty years of existence with the publication of this festive, anniversary volume of Ang listic contributions. The total of forty-nine articles includes nine by foreign contributors and forty by domestic authors. All "guest" contributors are current or retired professors of English and are leading world experts in their respective fields of specialization. Their inclusion in this volume is justified by their positive personal relations with Slovakia and the Slovaks as attested by these facts : not only have they been for many years colleagues and friends of this reviewer but, three of them: S. Berkner, S. Noguchi, R. Quirk, and Y. Nakao's son, have paid individual visits to Slovakia, while K. Fukuda has extended his effective help to the FFUK's new Department of Japanese Studies! LANGUAGE STUDIES (1) Sergey Berkner of Voronezh University in Russia spent eight months in 1994 at Ohio State University on a Fu lbright grant. His topical contribution: "Language as an Instrument of Politics: the Role of Cliches and Ideological Lexicon," characterizes the use of language of propaganda as a strong instrument of persuasion, as illustrated by examples from Ru ssian , English , and German. (2) Shunichi Noguchi (b.1933), since 1996 an Emeritus from Osaka University of Education, sent in: "How Can We Not Mismetre Chaucer's Troilus?" He argues that Chaucer had very few specialized terms at his disposal referring to poetry. In classifying the variety of verse patterns used in Troilus, Noguchi has adopted my methods applied to the study of the word-order patterns in 15th century English, namely: "simplification and abstraction" as implemented in my 1957 book. Many typographical errors mar �SLOVAKIA 125 this valuable article. S. Noguchi is one of the world's foremost Malory scholars. The discussion of his article here has been found preferable with regard to the following: (3) Yuji Nakao (b.1935), since March 2007 an Emeritus from both Nagoya and Chubu Universities. He had spent 1967-68 at Brown University in Providence, R.I. , while I was at the same time a Folger Shakespeare Library scholar in Washington, D.C., with neither of us knowing "aught" of the other! His contribution: "On Negative Disjunctive Connectives" in Malory and Caxton of the 15th century, deals with the same material as did I in my 1957 book. While, however, I had been studying the "larger picture," that is, the word-order, he studied the small connectives: nother, neuther, neyther, nor. In the 15th century, they were interchangeable. While of an inconspicuous personal appearance, Y. Nakao is a giant in Arthurian studies. (4) Kazuo Fukuda (b. 1947), of Niigata University, sent in an article: "Theme-Rheme Articulation: A View Based on a Comparison of English and Japanese." He examines the various definitions of these terms well-known to Slovak linguists. He emphasizes the need of a functional , rather than a formalistic view of language. He has extended his generous help to the new Slovak Japanists at FFUK. LITERARY STUDIES (1) Paul Miller (b. 1926), is an Emeritus of Wittenberg University of Springfield, Ohio, where he had taught from 1961 to 1991. In his article: "In Theodore Roosevelt's Footsteps: Midwestern Writers Hunt Lion in East Africa," he offers a fascinating insight into the positive evolution of the African safari wild animal hunter and killer into a wild animal photographer. (2) David George, of Urbana University in Ohio, has, since 1986, been working on a monumental New Yariorum edition of Shakespeare's Roman tragedy CORIOLANUS (1608), to be ready at the end of 2007. In his contribution: "Coriolanus: Narrative and Mythic Sources, " he aims at establishing that, rather than having read Livy in Latin, Shakespeare consulted Livy and Plutarch in English translation. In his meticulous, "clinical" dissection, the author demonstrates that Shakespeare not only followed Plutarch �126 SLOVAKIA but also improved upon his sources, thus exemplifying the Bard's amazing mastery of Roman and Greek history and mythology. (3) Robert Fleissner retired, after 38 years of service (1967-2006), from the Central State University of Springfield, Ohio. He is an unusually prolific author, with fourteen books and 585 published articles (by 2006). Nor does he shun controversy with startling statements, such as, the ones of, respectively, 2000 and 2006 (in the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America), suggesting that Shakespeare could have studied, or spent some time, at Oxford! In his article: "Richard II in His Own Way: An Intertextual Study," he debates the question "whether the play is more of a historical play or a tragedy." He inclines to the opinion that it is "a history play with a tragic hero manque" (that is: might have been but is not). (4) The eminent Shakespearean Soji Iwasaki (b.1929) has been, among others, also a professor at Nagoya University. It is surprising that his mentor and supervisor at Cambridge (1964-66), the late eminent Shakespearean, Muriel C. Bradbrook, was, by family connections, related to Professor 0. Vocadlo, through 1939 at FFUK! Also surprisingly but significantly, the two of us have found common ground in each of us having devoted some related unconventional insights into Shakespeare's masterful comedy As You Like It (c . 1599) : he, in his contribution : "Transvestism and Social Reformation in A YLI;" and, as to me, in " W. Shakespeare's A YLI and Slovakia" (Almanac of the National Slovak Society, Pittsburgh 1999). The latter article compares the situation in the former Czecho-Slovakia, both after WW II in May 1945 and to the demise of Communism on November 17, 1989, to the situation following the usurper Duke Frederick's abdication in A YLI. (5) Jan Simko was, from 1945 to 1967 at FFUK, then in the U.S .A. In his contribution: "A Possible Parallel to 'Shall I Die?' A Poem Attributed to Shakespeare?" he compares this poem to English poetry of the 1590s, finding it highly unlikely for it to be by Shakespeare. �SLOVAKIA 127 These contributions by mainly foreign, outstanding Anglicists , have added both luster and prestige to thi s commemorative volume published by Slovak Anglicists. Contributions by Domestic, that is, Slovak Anglicists LANGUAGE STUDIES Seventeen articles deal with the following areas: syntax; wordformation; semantics; style and stylistics; language and culture; language teaching (this is to be grouped with methodology below) ; translation (also to be grouped with translation below). Missing are articles on historical linguistics, varieties of English, etc, Seven (c.42%) of these articles quote A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (London: Longman, 1985), a seminal , monumental work created by Lord Quirk (and collaborators) of the University College, London. Although, for health reasons, he was unable to send in a contribution, his keen interest in the progress of Slovak studies of English and his April 1966 lecture at FFUK deserve special recognition. LITERARY STUDIES Out of eight contributions, English literature is di sc ussed in three; one each disc usses Canadian literature, women's iss ues, theory (realism: modified, and magic; tragedy). No article is devoted to Shakespeare or to American literature. TEACHING METHODOLOGY Nine articles di scuss various topics: the use of storytelling and drama; novels; on-line tutoring; innovative approaches; learning strategies; foreign-language teaching training. Eva Tandlichova (author of the introductory article) advocates, in her contribution: "More Autonomy ... The Need for Real LearnerCentred Teaching and Leaming." BRITISH STUDIES (2 contributions) �128 SLOVAKIA TRANSLATIONS (4 contributions) The emphasis is on quality philological preparation and a good memory. Jan Vilikovsky (former Czecho-Slovak and after 1993 Slovak Republic's first Ambassador to London) di sc usses, in his fundamental contribution: "Orwell, Politics and Translation - Notes of a Translator." He emphasizes the need to evaluate Orwell's texts with a view to the political situation in which they were written. CONCLUSION Even if considering the empty spaces in its overall coverage of the wide field of Anglistics, PHILOLOGICA LX of 2004 cannot but be evaluated as an obvious quantitative and qualitative advance of Slovak studies of English. � 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 2007, Vol. 39 Description An account of the resource Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007. 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 2007 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 REVIEW ESSAYS SLOVAKIA 119 SUBCARPATHIAN RUS' AND THE NEW SLOVAK HISTORIOGRAPHY: Peter Mosny. Podkarpatska Rus ': nerealizovana auton6mia. Bratislava: Slovak Academic Press, 2001 , 2 I 6 pp. Index. Paper. Peter Svorc. Krajinska hranica medzi Sloven skom a Podkarpatskou Rusou, 1919-1939. Presov: Vydavatel'stvo Universum , 2003, 424 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index . cloth. PAUL ROBERT MAGOCSI University of Toronto As we move further and further into the twenty-first century, the former Czechoslovakia is rapidly being transformed into little more than a hi stori c memory. The first phase of memory loss about the concept of Czechoslovakia began just after World War II, when the country was reco nstituted but without its far eastern reg ion, Subcarpathian Ru s', which was formally annexed to the Soviet Union. After 1945 the concept of Czechoslovakia became one in which for all intents and purposes Subcarpathian Ru s' did not exist. Now that we are in the second stage of memory loss, which could be said to have begun with the break-up of Czechoslovakia in 1993, it is not difficult to foresee a time when the inhabitants of the Czech Republic and Slovakia will at best have only some vague recollection that their two countries once formed a single sociopolitical entity. The second stage of memory loss will be like the first, which occurred between 1945 and 1993 , when the public-at-large and sc hol ars (who should have known better) forgot that the country was founded as a state of three, not two , Slavic peoples-Czec hs, Slovaks, and CarpathoRusyns. It is interesting to note that even during the first Czechoslovak Republic (19 I 9-1938) , let alone post-World War II Socialist Czechoslovakia (1948-1989) , Slovak sc hol arl y interest in the region of Subcarpathian Ru s' and its majority population , Carpatho-Rusyns , was virtually non-ex istent. For example, during the First Republic there was a whole host of Czech scholars (Vac lav Chaloupecky, Frantisek Gabriel , Antonfn Hartl , Jiri Kral, Frantisek Tichy, among 120 SLOVAKIA others), not to mention belletrists (Karel Capek, Ivan Olbracht, Jaromfr Tomecek, Vladislav Vancura), who studied Subcarpathian Rus' or who were inspired by its landscape and people. One would be hard-pressed to find a few Slovaks who during that period evinced any interest in their Slavic brethren to the east. One could speculate about the reasons for thi s lack of interest: at the time Slovak intellectual s had enough of a challenge to demonstrate that they themselves represented a culture and people distinct from the Czechs. Moreover, in contrast to the largely urbanized Czechs, interwar Slovak intellectuals-removed from the village at best by one generation-did not have to seek, nor were they particularly interested in , an undeveloped rural area like Subcarpathian Rus' , no matter how exotic its peop le and landscape may have seemed. During the post-World War II Communist decades, neither Czechs nor Slovaks (in the unlikely case that they wanted) were able to publish about their country 's former eastern province, since Subcarpathian Rus ', or the Transcarpathian oblast' of Ukraine, was by then part of the Soviet workers' state, whose scholarly and literary circles were allowed to remember only that once their homeland had been "occupied" by "bourgeois Czechoslovakia." In short, Subcarpathian Ru s' as a subject was a taboo for Czechs and Slovaks, who in popular parlance referred to everything east of the Slovak border, including the Transcarpathian oblast' of Ukraine, as Rusko-Russia. As for the handful of Slovak scholars who during the Communist era were allowed to publish on Rusyn topics (the historian I.:udovft Haraksim, the ethnographer Jan Podolak), they were forced to focus solely on the "Ukrainian minority" (i. e., Rusyns) living in northeastern Slovakia. The political and intellectual environment has certainly changed in Slovakia since the collapse of Communist rule in l 989 and the establishment of independent Slovakia three years later. The old Soviet taboo has been lifted, and Rusyns, not only in eastern Slovakia, but also in Subcarpathian Rus ', have finally become legitimate topics of scholarly inquiry. Among the new generation of Slovak scholars who have turned their attention to Carpatho-Rusyns are the sociologist Marian Gajdos, the historian Stanislav Konecny, the political scientist Alexander Duleba, and the authors of the two books under review, Peter Mosny and Peter Svorc. SLOVAKIA 121 Both authors examine different but related aspects of Subcarpathia' s relationship to Czechoslovakia during the period 1919 to 1945. In contrast to the Czech lands and Slovakia, Subcarpathian Rus' had joined Czechoslovakia in 1919 under the specific condition that it would granted "the widest degree of autonomy compatible with the Czechoslovak state." The proviso on autonomy was spelled out in two of the treaties (St. Germain and Trianon) signed within the framework of the Paris Peace Conference ( 1919 and 1920) and it was incorporated into the Czechoslovak Con stitution adopted in February of 1920. Mosny 's monograph focuses on three themes: the reluctance of Czechoslovakia's authorities to implement autonomy in Subcarpathian Rus' during the years of the First Republic; the form of autonomy that finally came into being in post-Munich Czechoslovakia (October 1938-March I 939); and the promises that were again made to Rusyns during World War II, when it was expected that Czechoslovakia was to be recreated according to its pre-Munich boundaries as "a state comprised of three Slavic peoples: Czechs, Slovaks, and Carpatho-Rusyns/Ukrainians" (p. 162). Mosny provides an incredible amount of documented detail for those who wish to know of Czechoslovak policy toward Subcarpathian Rus ' from the standpoint of the regime in Prague. His legalistic and often tediously dry account says virtually nothing, however, about the activity of Rusyn civic and political leaders to attain the autonomy their province was promised at the close of World War I. Mosny 's onesided approach to the problem may be explained by the fact that he used only Czech- and Slovak-language sources, a serious shortcoming for anyone interested in studying a region in which knowledge of Ukrainian, Russian, and Hungarian is essential. Far more ambitious and intellectually satisfying is the monograph by Peter Svorc. His ostensible focus is the question of the regional border between Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus' during the First Czechoslovak Republic. In fact, the book provides a wide-ranging discussion of Slovak national activists toward Rusy ns beginning already in the nineteenth century, as well as the key political issues faced by Subcarpathia' s leaders from the end of World War I to the end of World War II. Svorc is not only a specialist and widelypublished historian of eastern Slovakia in the twentieth century, but 122 SLOVAKIA he has also published several studies on specific aspects of Ru syn history, as well as the first survey of Subcarpathian Rus' in the first half of the twentieth century to appear in Slovak: Zakliata krajina: Podkarpatska Rus, 1918-1946 (Presov, 1996). The book by Svorc under review here reflects his close familiarity with the secondary literature in a wide variety of languages. Svorc has made use of materials from archives in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, and Slovakia, but not in Hungary or Ukraine. Particularly valuable are several historic photographs and maps that accompany the heavily-footnoted text, although considering the author's approach to the subject, it is surprising not to find a map that compares the various proposals put forth by Slovak and non-Slovak scholars in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries regarding the traditional ethnolinguistic boundary between Slovaks and Rusyns. Svorc's monograph comprises 24 chapters. Several of them provide a detailed description of the views put forth by Slovak, Czech, and Ru syn authors-Pavo! Jozef Safarik, Josef Skultety, Stefan Misik, Lubor Niederle, Samuel Czambel, Jan Husek, and Nikolaj Beskid-who in their writings tried to define the ethnolinguistic border between Slovaks and Rusyns. Svorc also deals at length with Slovak and Rusyn immigrants in the United States and their impact on homeland politics, with the Rusyn question at the Paris Peace Conference and League of Nations, with Czechoslovak administrative policy in Subcarpathian Rus ' and the efforts of Rusyn activists to attain autonomy, and with the controversy in eastern Slovakia among Slovaks and Rusyns regarding the possible unification of all or part of that region with Subcarpathian Rus '. The latter topic is only one of many in which Svorc provides new or previously littleknown information. For example, a bilateral Slovak-Rusyn governmental commission met as early as September 1919 to propose a Slovak-Subcarpathian boundary. The Slovak negotiators, who included Igor Hrusovsky, Jozef Skultety, Karel Chotek, and Yiktor Dvorsky proposed that the following "Rusyn-inhabited" areas should be united with Subcarpathian Rus ' : northeastern Saris county (including the town of Svidnfk and surrounding villages), northeastern Zemplfn county (beyond the line connecting Hanusovce and Snina), and parts of Uh county west of the Uh River (below the Vihorlat 123 SLOVAKIA ridge). The Rusyn delegation , however, refused to compromise on its demand that all of Uh and Zemplfn counties, most of Saris county, and northern Spis county around Stani r.ubovna should be included within Subcarpathian Rus '. As a result of the impasse, Subcarpathian Rus' was in the end reduced to territory east of the Uh River and eventually (after 1928) along a parallel line just west of the river that was to become an international border that remains in place to this day. Slovak-Rusyn political (as opposed to cultural) relations could be said to have begun in 1918, when the land s within the Danubian Bas in were being reconfi gured to accord with the new post-World War I international order. Since that time Slovak scholars have been very slow in coming to grips with the Rusy n lands just to the east. When Czechoslovakia existed, whether in the form of the First Republic or the post-World War II socialist state, Slovak researchers showed little or no interest in their neighbors to the east. It is only from the last decade of the twentieth century that one can finally speak of a Slovak historiography about Rusyn s and Subcarpathian Rus ' . This new tradition has certainly gotten off to a good start with serious and impartial writings by sc holars like Peter Mosny and, in particular, Peter Svare. Eighty Years of English Studies at the Faculty of Arts, ed. by Alojz Kenfz. PHILOLOGICA LX , Zbornfk Filozofickej fakulty Univerzity Komenskeho Bratislava: FFUK, 2004; 406 pages. JA.N SIMKO Washington, DC A SHORT HISTORY In 1924 English studies began at the Comenius University in Bratislava. The first professor, Otakar Yocadlo, however, resigned in February 1939 during the turbulent political developments rocking Czecho-Slovakia . The continuation of English studies was, nevertheless, secured thanks to the appointment of both one lecturer taking over the instruction of the older periods of English language and literature and the other one to teach the modern period. 124 SLOVAKIA Following the communist seizure of political power in February 1948, hotheads began urging the total elimination of English from FFUK, and, in the early I 950 ' s, no new students were admitted for three consecutive years. Fortunately, the argument prevailed that the only Slovak University in existence needed to have its own Department of English . For several years thereafter, on ly three new students were enrolled per year. In the 1960s this number was raised to 20, and later even more. So much so that, when it was later renamed the Department of English and American Studies, it was in a good position to commemorate its eighty years of existence with the publication of this festive, anniversary volume of Ang listic contributions. The total of forty-nine articles includes nine by foreign contributors and forty by domestic authors. All "guest" contributors are current or retired professors of English and are leading world experts in their respective fields of specialization. Their inclusion in this volume is justified by their positive personal relations with Slovakia and the Slovaks as attested by these facts : not only have they been for many years colleagues and friends of this reviewer but, three of them: S. Berkner, S. Noguchi, R. Quirk, and Y. Nakao's son, have paid individual visits to Slovakia, while K. Fukuda has extended his effective help to the FFUK's new Department of Japanese Studies! LANGUAGE STUDIES (1) Sergey Berkner of Voronezh University in Russia spent eight months in 1994 at Ohio State University on a Fu lbright grant. His topical contribution: "Language as an Instrument of Politics: the Role of Cliches and Ideological Lexicon," characterizes the use of language of propaganda as a strong instrument of persuasion, as illustrated by examples from Ru ssian , English , and German. (2) Shunichi Noguchi (b.1933), since 1996 an Emeritus from Osaka University of Education, sent in: "How Can We Not Mismetre Chaucer's Troilus?" He argues that Chaucer had very few specialized terms at his disposal referring to poetry. In classifying the variety of verse patterns used in Troilus, Noguchi has adopted my methods applied to the study of the word-order patterns in 15th century English, namely: "simplification and abstraction" as implemented in my 1957 book. Many typographical errors mar SLOVAKIA 125 this valuable article. S. Noguchi is one of the world's foremost Malory scholars. The discussion of his article here has been found preferable with regard to the following: (3) Yuji Nakao (b.1935), since March 2007 an Emeritus from both Nagoya and Chubu Universities. He had spent 1967-68 at Brown University in Providence, R.I. , while I was at the same time a Folger Shakespeare Library scholar in Washington, D.C., with neither of us knowing "aught" of the other! His contribution: "On Negative Disjunctive Connectives" in Malory and Caxton of the 15th century, deals with the same material as did I in my 1957 book. While, however, I had been studying the "larger picture," that is, the word-order, he studied the small connectives: nother, neuther, neyther, nor. In the 15th century, they were interchangeable. While of an inconspicuous personal appearance, Y. Nakao is a giant in Arthurian studies. (4) Kazuo Fukuda (b. 1947), of Niigata University, sent in an article: "Theme-Rheme Articulation: A View Based on a Comparison of English and Japanese." He examines the various definitions of these terms well-known to Slovak linguists. He emphasizes the need of a functional , rather than a formalistic view of language. He has extended his generous help to the new Slovak Japanists at FFUK. LITERARY STUDIES (1) Paul Miller (b. 1926), is an Emeritus of Wittenberg University of Springfield, Ohio, where he had taught from 1961 to 1991. In his article: "In Theodore Roosevelt's Footsteps: Midwestern Writers Hunt Lion in East Africa," he offers a fascinating insight into the positive evolution of the African safari wild animal hunter and killer into a wild animal photographer. (2) David George, of Urbana University in Ohio, has, since 1986, been working on a monumental New Yariorum edition of Shakespeare's Roman tragedy CORIOLANUS (1608), to be ready at the end of 2007. In his contribution: "Coriolanus: Narrative and Mythic Sources, " he aims at establishing that, rather than having read Livy in Latin, Shakespeare consulted Livy and Plutarch in English translation. In his meticulous, "clinical" dissection, the author demonstrates that Shakespeare not only followed Plutarch 126 SLOVAKIA but also improved upon his sources, thus exemplifying the Bard's amazing mastery of Roman and Greek history and mythology. (3) Robert Fleissner retired, after 38 years of service (1967-2006), from the Central State University of Springfield, Ohio. He is an unusually prolific author, with fourteen books and 585 published articles (by 2006). Nor does he shun controversy with startling statements, such as, the ones of, respectively, 2000 and 2006 (in the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America), suggesting that Shakespeare could have studied, or spent some time, at Oxford! In his article: "Richard II in His Own Way: An Intertextual Study," he debates the question "whether the play is more of a historical play or a tragedy." He inclines to the opinion that it is "a history play with a tragic hero manque" (that is: might have been but is not). (4) The eminent Shakespearean Soji Iwasaki (b.1929) has been, among others, also a professor at Nagoya University. It is surprising that his mentor and supervisor at Cambridge (1964-66), the late eminent Shakespearean, Muriel C. Bradbrook, was, by family connections, related to Professor 0. Vocadlo, through 1939 at FFUK! Also surprisingly but significantly, the two of us have found common ground in each of us having devoted some related unconventional insights into Shakespeare's masterful comedy As You Like It (c . 1599) : he, in his contribution : "Transvestism and Social Reformation in A YLI;" and, as to me, in " W. Shakespeare's A YLI and Slovakia" (Almanac of the National Slovak Society, Pittsburgh 1999). The latter article compares the situation in the former Czecho-Slovakia, both after WW II in May 1945 and to the demise of Communism on November 17, 1989, to the situation following the usurper Duke Frederick's abdication in A YLI. (5) Jan Simko was, from 1945 to 1967 at FFUK, then in the U.S .A. In his contribution: "A Possible Parallel to 'Shall I Die?' A Poem Attributed to Shakespeare?" he compares this poem to English poetry of the 1590s, finding it highly unlikely for it to be by Shakespeare. SLOVAKIA 127 These contributions by mainly foreign, outstanding Anglicists , have added both luster and prestige to thi s commemorative volume published by Slovak Anglicists. Contributions by Domestic, that is, Slovak Anglicists LANGUAGE STUDIES Seventeen articles deal with the following areas: syntax; wordformation; semantics; style and stylistics; language and culture; language teaching (this is to be grouped with methodology below) ; translation (also to be grouped with translation below). Missing are articles on historical linguistics, varieties of English, etc, Seven (c.42%) of these articles quote A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (London: Longman, 1985), a seminal , monumental work created by Lord Quirk (and collaborators) of the University College, London. Although, for health reasons, he was unable to send in a contribution, his keen interest in the progress of Slovak studies of English and his April 1966 lecture at FFUK deserve special recognition. LITERARY STUDIES Out of eight contributions, English literature is di sc ussed in three; one each disc usses Canadian literature, women's iss ues, theory (realism: modified, and magic; tragedy). No article is devoted to Shakespeare or to American literature. TEACHING METHODOLOGY Nine articles di scuss various topics: the use of storytelling and drama; novels; on-line tutoring; innovative approaches; learning strategies; foreign-language teaching training. Eva Tandlichova (author of the introductory article) advocates, in her contribution: "More Autonomy ... The Need for Real LearnerCentred Teaching and Leaming." BRITISH STUDIES (2 contributions) 128 SLOVAKIA TRANSLATIONS (4 contributions) The emphasis is on quality philological preparation and a good memory. Jan Vilikovsky (former Czecho-Slovak and after 1993 Slovak Republic's first Ambassador to London) di sc usses, in his fundamental contribution: "Orwell, Politics and Translation - Notes of a Translator." He emphasizes the need to evaluate Orwell's texts with a view to the political situation in which they were written. CONCLUSION Even if considering the empty spaces in its overall coverage of the wide field of Anglistics, PHILOLOGICA LX of 2004 cannot but be evaluated as an obvious quantitative and qualitative advance of Slovak studies of English.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Review Essays, Slovakia, Vol. 39 (No. 72-73) Description An account of the resource includes:<br /><ul><li>Subcarpathian Rus' and the New Slovak Historiography: Peter Mosný, Podkarpatská Rus', and Peter Švorc, Krajinská hranica medzi Slovenskom a Podkarpatskou Rusou, 1919-1939 (Paul Robert Magocsi), p. 119</li> <li>Zborník Filozofickej fakulty Univerzity Komenského, Philologica LX (Ján Šimko), p. 123</li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Magocsi, Paul Robert, 1945- Šimko, Ján, 1920-2011 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/d925da0d8a7832d0462546dec79e89fb.pdf f1f8f259cd81edb019364cc519241de2 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 7 THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA AND THE CANADIAN SLOVAK LEAGUE IN THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SELF-DETERMINATION OF THE NATION, 1907-1992 M. Mark Stolarik 1 In the 20th century the American and Canadian Slovak Leagues pl ayed a major role in the struggle for the self-determination of the Slovak nation. Founded by immi grants who so ught a better li ve lyhood in the New World , the Slovak League of America played a leading ro le in the creation of Czecho-S lovakia during the Great War. In the inter-war years , the Slovak League of America, joined by its Canadian offshoot, bombard ed the central government in Prag ue with demands to grant the Slovaks in the newly-created state their promised autonom y. When the Slovaks achi eved autonomy in the fa ll of 1938, both Leagues rejoiced. When the Autonomous Diet procl aimed Slovak independence in March of 1939, both Leagues were caught by surpri se, but, after so me hesitation , they supported it. However, because Slovakia was allied with Nazi Germany , both Leagues had to te mper their support after Canada entered the war against Germany in September of 1939 and the U nited States followed sui t in December of 1941. After the war had ended , however, both the American and the Canadian Slovak Leagues demanded a plebiscite on the future of their countrymen in Europe. Having fai led to achieve thi s goal, both Leag ues, whi ch were buttressed by recently-arrived political emigres after 1945, decl ared their support for a new Slovak liberatio n movement which was first led by the Slovak National Council Abroad and, from 1970 on by the Slovak World 1 An earlier version of this paper was presented to the conference on "Emigration to the Engli sh Speaking world," Catho lic University of Rufo mberok, Slovakia, May 19, 2006. �8 SLOVAKIA Congress. After the Communist government gave up its monopol y of power in 1989, both Leagues sent fact-finding delegation s to Czechoslovakia and both supported the movement for Slova k independence, which became a reality in 1993. Since then , they have continued to help their countrymen to consolidate their independence. Between 1870 and 19 14 approx imate ly half a million Slovaks left their homeland in the Kingdom of Hungary and settled in North America in search of work. Once there, they established three pillars of their new communities- fraternal-benefit societies, parish churches and a newspaper press. Largely of peasant stock from eastern Slovaki a, they sought better wages in the coal mines, steel mills and oil refineries of the American Northeast and Midwest (Connec ti cut , New York, New Jersey, Pennsy lvania, Ohio, Indiana and lllinois). 2 The early arriva ls quickly di scovered that the United State s provided vi1tually no social services. Therefore, these immigrants establi shed their own fratern al-benefit societies which, from monthly membership dues, provided accident, illness or death benefits to their members or families , as well as a pl ace to socialize. By 1890 over fifty such fraternals existed and they then began to federate into nation al organizations such as the National Slovak Society , headquartered in Pittsburgh and the First Catholic Slovak Union, with its headquarters in Cleveland . Since the men initially excluded women from their organizations, Slovak women established the Zivena Beneficial Society in New York in 1891 and Catholic women established the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union in Cleveland in 1892. Lutherans established their own Slovak Evangelical Union in 1893 and Calvini sts their Slovak Cal vin Presbyterian Union in 1902. Even the tiny group of socialists estab li shed their own Slovak Workers Society in 1916. By 1920 American Slovaks had enrolled over 200,000 members in these, and other, fraternal-benefit societies. 3 2 For more details on the process of Slovak migration and resettlement in the United States see my Immigration and Urbanization: Th e Slovak Experience, 1870- 191 8 (New York: AMS Press, I 989), I-7 1. 3 For the story of Slovak fratern al-benefit soc ieties in the United States see my "A Place fo r Everyo ne: Slovak Fratern al-Benefi t Societies," in Scott Cummings, ed ., Self-Help in Urban America: Patterns of Minority Business Enterprise (Port Washington, NY : Kennikat Press, 1980, 130-41 and "Slovak Fraternal-Benefit Societies in North America: An Overview ( 1883- 1993), in Matjaz Klemenc ic ed. , Etnicni fra- �SLOVAKIA 9 Besides the need for social benefits , Slovak immigrants also yearned for religious services in their own language. The fraternalbenefit societies led the way in establishing pari sh churches , in recruiting their priests and in supporting (or not supporting) them. Slovak Roman Catholics established 241 parishes, Lutherans 68 , Calvinists 9 and Greek Catholics (mixed parishes of Rusins and Slovaks) 155 by 1930.4 At least half of the Roman Catholic parishes also established parochial schools which taught their children to read, write and sing in Slovak, while all other subjects were taught in English. The Roman Catholics also established several religious orders to teach their children, as well as Benedictine High School for boys in Cleveland and Danville Academy for girls in Danville, Pen. 5 nsy Ivama. Finally, most of the immigrants from Slovakia yearned for news from their homeland and were also curious about conditions in the New World. Therefore, a small number of intellectuals, who had followed them from Slovakia, established a very vigorous newspaper press. Starting with a mere Bulletin in 1885, American Slovaks developed a full-service press that consisted of dailies, weeklies and monthlies , and that varied in orientation from nationalist to Magyarone, from secular to religious, from socialist to capitalist. By 1914 the combined circulation of the Slovak-American press was over 150,000, which was four times the circulation of the Slovak-langu- terna/izem v priseljenskich deie/ach/Ethnic Fratemalism in Immigra nt Countries (Maribor: University of Maribor, 1996), 147-59. 4 For the process of the creation of parishes, see my Growing Up on the South Side: Three Generations of Slovaks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, I 880- 1976 (Lewsiburg: Bucknell Uni vers ity Press, 1985), 44-62; for the number of parishes of various denominations see Filip Hrobak, comp., and ed. , Slovak Catholic Parishes and Institutions in the United States and Canada (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union , 1955), 3 I- I65; George Dolak, A History of the Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States of America, /902-1927 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955), 189-206; Jan Body & John Adam , comp. and ed .. History of the Slovak Zion Synod LCA (Pittsburgh: Zion Synod, 1976), 199-200; Kalendar pre slovenskych Kalvfnov, 1927 (P ittsburgh), 97- 147; and Paul R. Magocs i, Our People: CarpathoRusyns and Their Descendants in North America (Toron to: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1984), 14. 5 Hrobak, Parishes and institutions, 169-82. �SLOVAKIA . Hungary. 6 age press m As they were building the pillars of the ir new co mmunities in America, Slovak immigrants did not fo rget their homeland . Indi vidual immigrants sent several hundred million doll ars to support their fa milies in Slovakia in the period 1870-1914. In addition , Slovak fraternal-benefit societies and their leaders rai sed fund s for the Slovak National Museum, for Slovak schools and churches in Hungary, they paid for and published in the ir Almanacs articles written by Slovak inte llectuals, and they established schol arship fund s to support Slovak high-school students in Bohe mi a and Moravia. Most important of all , they fi nancially supported Slovak candidates to the Hungarian Parli ament and rejo iced when, for the first time in hi story, seven nati onall y-conscious Slovaks were elected in 1906.7 Meanwhile, since the 1867 "Compromi se," whereby the ruling Habsburgs of Austri a and the Magyars of Hungary agreed to divide the empire into the Dual Monarchy of Au stri a-Hungary, the Magyars set out to forcibl y assimilate all the non-M agyar nationalities in Hungary. 8 American Slovak leaders were aware of thi s poli cy of "Magyari zation" and joined their counterparts in Slova ki a in trying to combat it. To thi s end American Slovaks, reacting to urgings from Slovak leaders in Europe, organized a " national congress" to be held in Cleveland on May 26, 1907 . On that day over l0,000 countrymen fro m across America packed into Greys Armory and established the Slovak Leag ue of Ameri ca, whi ch would be the cover organization fo r all nationall y-conscious Slovak organizations in the United States. Thi s sa me congress also e lected the Rev. Stefa n Furdek of Cleveland (originally from Trstena, Orava county), fo under of the First Catholic Slovak Union, as its president and Peter V. Rovnianek of Pittsburgh (originally fro m Doln y Hricov, Trencfn county), foun 6 For an over-view see my "The Slovak-American Press," in Sall y M. Miller ed. , The Ethnic Press in the United States: A Historical A nalysis and Handbook (Westport, CT: Gree nwood Press, 1987), 354-68 ; fo r the circul ation of the Slovak-Ameri can press in 19 14 see my " Slovak Nati onalism in the USA as Refl ected in th e Slovak-American Press, 1885- 1918 ," Canadian Review of Studies in Na tionalism, 3 1 (Nos. 1-2, 2004) , 65-76. 7 Stolarik, Immigration and Urbanization, 185-205 . 8 The best desc ripti on of " Magyarization" is still Scotus Viator (R.W. Seton-Watson), Racial Problems in Hungary (London: Archibald Constable, 1908 ; reprinted by Howard Ferti g, New York, 1972). �SLOVAKIA 11 der of the National Slovak Society , as its first vice-president, as well as the presidents of all the other fraternals as vice-presidents. The League published its formal program of autonomy for the Slovaks in Hungary in September of 1914, just as the world was entering into the first of two world wars that would plague the 20th century. 9 While the League 's official program was autonomy for its countrymen in the Kingdom of Hungary , a small group of Slovaks dissented and called for the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the liberation of their people. These di ssidents were large ly organized in the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol , which had been established in New Jersey in 1896, and which adopted the program of the Czech professsor of philosophy T.G. Masaryk. ' 0 The latter had fled hi s homeland in the fall of 1914 and had started to organize a movement to liberate the linguistically-related Czechs and Slovaks from Au stria-Hungary and to create a new state on its ruin s. Masaryk was assisted in hi s quest by one of hi s form er students, the Paris-based Slovak astronomer, Milan R. Stefanik. Later, Masaryk was joined by another of hi s students, the sociologist Edvard Benes. This trio organized itself into a "Czech Committee" and hoped to persuade the western Allies, if they were victorious over the Central Powers, to dismember AustriaHungary and to allow the Czechs and Slovaks to establish their own state. 11 While Masaryk was an elected member of the Austrian Parliament, and in touch with hi s Czech colleagues, who approved of his plans, he had no mandate from the Slovaks in Hungary to include 9 Fo r the creation of the Slovak League see Jednota (C leveland), May 29, 1907; ~udove noviny (Ska lica), Jun e 4, 1907; Jan Pank uch, Dejiny Clevelandskych a Lakewoodskych Slovakov (C leveland: Jan Pankuch, 1930), 71-3 ; and Kon stantin Cul en, Dejiny Slovakov v A merike, JI (Bratislava: Slovenska Liga, 1942), 11 3-24 ; for the program of autonomy see " Memorandum Slovenskej Ligy v Amerike vydane menom americkyc h Slovakov," in Dr. Yacovsky [Milan Ivanka], Slovaci a Madari: Politicko-historicka uvaha (Pittsburgh: Slovak League of America, I 9 14), 10 I-7. 10 For the ac ti vities of the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol see Milan Getting, A merickf Slovaci a vyvin ceskoslovenskej myslienky v rokoch 19 14-1 9 /8 (Perth Amboy, NJ: Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol , 1933) 11 Masaryk and Benes left us the ir memoirs: T.G . Masaryk, The Making of a State: Memories and Observations, 19 14-1 918 (London: Frederick A. Stokes, 1927; Edu ard Benes, Souvenirs de g uerre et de revolution (1914-1918), 2 Vols. (Paris: E. Lero ux , 1928). Stefanik left no memoirs but Jan Jurfcek wrote a sy mpathetic biography: M.R. Stefanik: t ivotopisny nacrt (Brati slava: Mlade !eta, 1968). �12 SLOVAKIA them in the proposed state. Therefore, Masaryk sought such a mandate from American Slovak immigrants, most of whom were not yet citizens of the United States, but whose leaders had been in close touch with Slovak leaders in Hungary before the war, and who had a mandate from them to speak on behalf of the Slovak nation . 12 As a result, Masaryk urged his Czech colleagues in the United States to seek out the Slovaks and try to persuade them to join in his liberation movement. American Czechs did so and on October 22, 1915 the Bohemian National Alliance, which was the cover organization of most American Czechs, and the Slovak League of America met and concluded the Cleveland Agreement, which was named after the city in which it was signed. In this Agreement, the two sides pledged to work for the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the creation of a new, federal state consisting "of the Czech and Slovak nations," with "complete national autonomy for Slovakia, with its own Diet, its own state administration, complete cultural freedom .. ..its own financial and political administration," and "with Slovak as the state language ." The Slovak League insisted upon these points because it knew that the Czechs would outnumber the Slovaks in the new state by three-to-one and the League did not want the Czechs to dominate the Slovaks as had the Magyars in Hungary. 13 Had the two sides respected the Cleveland Agreement, the liberation movement might have worked smoothly and led to a harmonious future for the Czechs and Slovaks. Unfortunately, T.G. Masaryk did not believe in the existence of separate Czech and Slovak nations. Perhaps because he was of mixed Slovak (father) and Czech (mother) origin, he believed that the Czechs and Slovaks 12 On August 6, 1906, political leaders in Slovakia sent their counterparts in the USA a letter in which they proposed to share the leadership of the Slovak natio n with them. The letter was published in lmrich Mazar, Dejiny Binghamtonskych Slovakov za dobu styridsat' rokov, I 879-19 I 9 (Bingha mton : Branch I04 of the Slovak League of America, 1919), 2 1-22 . The Czechs recog nized th at Slovak leaders in the USA were authorized to speak on behalf of the Slovaks in Hungary in an editorial that appeared in The Bohemian Review (Chicago), March, 19 18, p.47 . 13 Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 23 , 1915 , p.7 ; Jednota (M iddl etow n, PA ), November 24, 1915, p.4; Narodne noviny (Pittsburgh), November 25, 19 15, p.5 ; the original was published in Dokumenty slovenskej nardonej identity a statnosti, I (Bratislava: Narodne literarne centrum, 1998), 445-7; an English translation can be found in my "The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of Czecho-S lovakia, 1914-1918," Slovak Studies, VIII (Rome, I 968), p.55. �SLOVAKIA 13 formed one "Czechoslovak" nation and merely spoke two dialects of the same language. Therefore, when he arrived in the United States in the spring of 1918 to seek the recognition of the American government for the liberation movement and was shown the Cleveland Agreement, he proclaimed it "out of date" and proceeded to negotiate a new one with the Slovaks. On May 31st, 1918 Masaryk in Pittsburgh negotiated a weaker agreement with American Slovaks. According to thi s new "Pittsburgh Agreement," the two sides approved a "political program to unite the Czechs and Slovaks into an independent state of Czech and Slovak lands," in which " Slovakia will have its own administration, its own Diet and its own courts." Furthermore, "S lovak will be the official language in the school s, in offices and public life generally." And the "Czecho-Slovak state will be a republic and its Constitution will be a democratic one." Noticeably absent from this Agreement were the phrases "federal state" and "complete national autonomy for Slovakia," and there was no mention of the "Czech and Slovak nations," as there had been in the Cleveland Agreement. 14 Members of the Slovak League of America, led by its president Albert Mamatey of Pittsburgh (originall y from Klastor pod Znievom in Turiec county), signed the Pittsburgh Agreement because by then the liberation movement, led by Masaryk, was in high gear. The newly-formed Czechoslovak Legions in Russia revolted against the Bolsheviks and seized control over the entire Trans-Siberian Railway. These Legions had been organized from prisoners-of-war by Masaryk and Stefanik, and their seizure of the railroad greatly aided the Allied war effort, because they prevented hundreds of thousands of German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners-of-war from returning to fight on the western front. 15 In addition, si nce Masaryk himself had 14 Jednota, June 5, 191 8, p.5; N:irodne noviny, June 6, 1918 , p.5; Jozef Hu sek, "Prehl'ad vaznejsfch udalostf v hi storii I. Kat. Slovenskej Jednoty, Jednota Katolfcky Kalend:ir, 1931, (Middletown, PA), pp.58-9. Victor S. Mamatey pointed ou t that the date of the Pittsburgh Agreement was May 3 1, 191 8, not May 30 as the calligrapher erroneously wrote it. Cf "Este raz o Pittsburgskej dohode," Premeny (Flushing, NY), 20 (No.3 , 1983), 39. For the full text of the Pittsburgh Agreement see Dokumenty, QJ2&i.t. , 485-6 and for an English translation see my The Role of, QJ2,....ci_t., 56. 15 Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 20, 1918, p.5; New York Times, June 29, 1918, p.3 ; for a detailed di sc ussion of the Czechoslovak Leg ion see J.F.N. Bradley , "The Allies and the Czech Revolt aga inst the Bol sheviks in 191 8," Slavonic and East �14 SLOVAKIA drafted and signed the Pittsburgh Agreement, along with the Bohemian National Alliance and the Union of Czech Catholics, American Slovak leaders felt confident that Masaryk would honor it. Skeptics, such as Jozef Hu sek, editor of Jednota (originall y from Okolicne, Liptov county), the official organ of the First Catholic Slovak Union, the largest Slovak fraternal-benefit society in America, did not tru st Masaryk. lt was Husek who forced Masary k into drafting the Pittsburgh Agreement, and it was Husek who insisted that he sign a calligraphed copy of it on November 14, I 918 , the very day that the newly-created Czecho-Slovak government in Prague e lected Masaryk President of the Republic. After Masaryk signed it a second time, American Slovaks were sati sfied and hoped for the best for their people in the new Czecho-Slovak Republic, which was proclaimed by a gathering of Czec h deputies of the former Austrian Parli ament in Prague on October 28 , 191 8, just as the defeated Austria-Hungary was collapsing. 16 Unfortunately for the future of Czecho-Slovakia, the promi ses made to American Slovaks by T.G. Masary k in the Pittsburgh Agreement were not carried out. Once he had returned in triumph to the newl y-created Republic in Dece mber of 1918 , Masaryk promptl y forgot about the Pittsburgh Agreement. The Czec h deputies in Prague , meanwhile, formed themselves into a "Czechoslovak government" on November 14th and later appointed a Czech-dominated "Constitutional Committee" to draft a Constitution for the new Republic. 17 Hearing of these events, the Slovak League of America sent a five-person delegation to Czecho-Slovakia in the spring of 1919, to remind Masaryk of hi s promises and to demand that the Pittsburgh Agreement be included in the proposed Constitution . Upon their return to the United States, the Executive Board of the Slovak League passed a resolution at its quarterly meeting on October 24, 1919, Europea n Review, 43 (No. I OI , 1965), 175-92 . The lack of the word "S lovak" in Bradley ' s title testifi es to the pro-Czech bias of western hi storian s during the ex istence of Czechoslovakia. 16 Husek, " Prehl'ad," op.cit. , 58-9 ; Joze f Husek, " Pittsburghska Dohoda," Jednota Katolfcky K al endar, 1933, 11 I. 17 For more on these proceedings see Vaclav L. Benes , " Czechoslovak Democracy and Its Problems, 1918-1920," in Victor S. Mamatey & Radomir Lu za, eds. , A History of the Czechoslovak Republic. 19 18- 1948 (Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1973), 53-6. �SLOVAKIA 15 calling for the incorporation of the Pittsburgh Agreement into the proposed Czecho-Slovak Constitution. 18 Indeed, at the last meeting of the Czecho-Slovak Nation al Council in America, which had been founded in 1917 to coordinate the work of the Leag ue and of the Bohemian National Alliance, the Slovak delegates asked their Czech colleagues to pass a similar resolution, and the latter gladly complied 19 on November 7, 1919. Thus, American Czechs recogni zed the validity of the Pittsburgh Agreement while the Constitutional Committee did not. Masaryk, on the other hand , when asked by Prime Mini ster Vl astimil Tu s:cir in January of 1920 to comment on the validity of the Pittsburgh Agreement, brushed it aside as " one of many pre-revolutionary program s made beyond the boundaries. It has its hi storical value." 20 As a result, in March of 1920 the Constitutional Committee drafted , and the Prague Parliament adopted , a very centrali st Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic , which sy mboli ca ll y dropped the hyphen from its name , and proclaimed that " the Czechoslovak Republic is a unified, not a federative state ," that its official language was the "Czechoslovak language" (even thou gh no such lang uage existed) , and Slovakia did not receive its own administration, its own Diet and its own courts, nor did Slovak become the official language of administration, as promised in the Pittsburgh Agreement? In the inter-war period , after some hesitatio n, the Slovak League of America continued to demand the home-rule promi sed the Slovaks by T.G. Masaryk. Albert Mamatey, the president of the League, visited Slovakia with a copy of the Pittsburgh Agreement in the winter of 19 I 9-1920 and was reass ured by Mil an Hodfa, one of the leaders of the Czec hoslovak Agrarian Party, that the Slovaks had nothing to worry about. Indeed , in September of 1920 Mamatey was rewarded for hi s wartime services on behalf of Slovakia by being ap- 18 19 Jednota, October 29, I 9 I 9. p. l The Czechoslovak Review [Formerly the Bohemian Review], December, 1919, p. 394. T.G. Masaryk to Y lastimil Tu sar, February 5. I920 , as published in The Slovaks 20 and the Pittsburgh Pact (Chicago : Slovak Catholic Federation, 1934), p.34. Jii'i Hoetzl and V. Joachim ( Introd uction by) , The Constitution of the Czechoslo vak Republic (Prague: Ed ition de la Soc iete de I'effort de la T checoslovaqu ie. 1920), pp. I 2, 47 . 21 �16 SLOVAKIA pointed the Czechoslo vak Consul in Pittsburgh. 22 He was succeeded as president of the League by hi s colleague Ivan Bielek, the former editor of the American Narodn e noviny, offici al organ of the National Slovak Society.23 Jan A. Kocur, a pre-war immigrant from 24 Turzovka, meanwhile, became the League ' s secretary. Under thi s new leadership the 14th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh, PA on June 28-29, 1922, sent a Memorandum to the National Assembly in Prague in which it demanded that the Pittsburgh Agreement be made a part of the Czechoslovak Constitution .25 Meanwhil e, after some prodding by Jozef Husek, editor of Jednota, as well as by the leadership of the First Catholic Slovak Union and the Slovak Catholic Federation, the 15th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Binghamton , New York on May 27-29, 1924, rejected the philosophy of "Czechoslovakism" as practiced by the Prague government and once again demanded that the provi sions of the Pittsburgh Agreem ent be carried out. 26 In addition , the Slovak League now openl y supported the Slovak People 's Party, led by the Reverend Andrej Hlinka, because that party had adopted the program of the Pittsburgh Agreement. Indeed , in 1926 the Slovak League made Hlinka an honorary member. 27 Interestingly enough, the League was so committed to the Pittsburgh Agreement th at, when the Slovak People ' s Party ag reed to join the center-right Czechoslovak coalition government in 1927-29, the League denounced this step! 28 On the other hand , it heartily approved of the People ' s Party 's withdrawal from the coalition after the October 1929 trial and conviction for treason of Yojtech Tuka, editor of Slo vak, the People 's Party ' s official organ .29 Furthermore, in 1928, on the l 0th anniver22 Joze f Paufo, 75. Rok ov Prvej K atolfckej Slovenskej Jednory (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union, 1965), 160. For a short biograph y of A lbert M amatey see Joze f Paufo, Slovensk f priekopn fci v A merike (Cleveland: First Cath olic Slovak Union, 1972), 269-75. 23 For a short biograph y of Ivan Bielek see Paufo , Slovenskf priekopnfci, p. 25-28. 24 For hi s biography see ilii.d.. , 229. 25 M emorandum Slovenskej Ligy v A merike upravene na vladu a Narodne Shromai denie Cesko-Sl ovenskej Republiky v zaujme vte/enia Pittsburghskej Dohody do ustavy C.-S. Republiky (Pittsburgh: Slovak League of A meri ca, 1922). 26 " Z XV. Kongresu Slovenskej Ligy v A merike." Jednota, June 4, 1924, pp. 1-2, 4. 27 Paufo, 75 roko v, 21 I. 28 lb.id... 223 . 29 " Prehlas od Ivana Bieleka,'· Jednota, October 23 , 1929, p.4. �SLOVAKIA 17 sary of the founding of Czechoslovakia, the League rejected a special commendation from the Czechoslovak government for its role in the liberation of the country.30 Thereafter the League continued to publish and send memoranda to the Czecho-Slovak government, as it had in the l 920's, demanding that it grant the Slovaks the home-rule that Masaryk had promised in the Pittsburgh Agreement. 3 1 During the 1930's the Slovak League and the People ' s Party closely cooperated for the benefit of both sides. At its 19th Congress held in Cleveland on November 19-20, 1934, the assembled delegates elected the American-born Chicago medical doctor Peter P. Hletko as their president and he and his executive board invited the nationalist cultural organization Matica slovenska to send a delegation of scholars and leaders to help American Slovaks to maintain their national identity. The Matica complied in 1935-1936 by sending its director, the writer J.C. Hronsky, the publicist Konstantin Culen, the art historian Jozef Cincfk, and the photographer Karel Plicka. They visited 98 of the largest Slovak-American communities, presented lectures, slides and films about Slovakia, and donated four large libraries to the Slovak communities of New York City, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Chicago. This delegation also gathered a wealth of published and manuscript materials pertaining to the history of American Slovaks , which are now stored in the Slovak National Library.32 The People ' s Party, which was the main supporter of the Matica slovenska, reciprocated in 1938 when it invited the Slovak League to send a delegation to the mother country in order to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Pittsburgh Agreement. The 20th congress of the League, held in Pittsburgh on April 28-29, 1938, elected a six-person delegation, which included Peter P. Hletko and Jozef Husek, to travel to Slovakia, and to bring with it the original of 30 "Kongres Slovenskej Ligy," Jednota, June 6, 1928, p. l. See, for example the, fo llow ing: Prehlas Slovenskej Ligy v Amerike upraveny na vsetkych politickych cinitelbv Cesko-Slovenskej Republiky (Pittsburgh: P. Jamriska & Co., 1925); V zaujme pra vdy ! (Pittsburgh: P. Jamriska & Co., 1930); and An Autonomi st [Peter P. Hletko], Slovakia's Plea for Autonomy (Middletown, PA: Slovak Literary Society, I 935). 32 J.C. Hronsky described the Matica's trip and its achieve ments in Cesta slovenskou Amerikou: Cestopisne crty z r. 1935-36. v dvoch dieloch (Turc. Sv. Martin : Matica slovenska, 1940). 31 �18 SLOVAKIA the Pittsburgh Agreement. The delegation went via Poland, in order to first visit the Rev. Andrej Hlinka in Rufomberok, and only then did it proceed to Bratislava and Prague. In Bratislava on June 5th the Slovak League delegation appeared on the balcony of the Slovak National Theater on Hviezdoslav Square, along with Andrej Hlinka and other notables of the People 's Party. Peter P. Hletko then triumphantly held up the original of the Pittsburgh Agreement, to the cheers of over 100,000 people.33 Finally, on October 6, 1938, after the infamous Munich Agreement weakened Czechoslovakia and president Edvard Benes resigned his office and fled to the west, the Slovak People 's Party, with the support of the Agrarian and National Parties and the approval of Prague, proclaimed the autonomy of Slovakia and formed a six-man government headed by Dr. Jozef Tiso. He had succeeded Andrej Hlinka as party leader after the latter' s death on August 16th. The Prague Parliament formally approved Slovak autonomy on November 22nd and re-named the Republic as Czecho-Slovakia, to reflect thi s new reality. Needless to say, the Slovak League of America was overjoyed to see that, after 20 years of strugg le, the provisions of the Pittsburgh Agreement were finally carried out. 34 While the Slovak League was satisfied with the outcome of its efforts on behalf of the Pittsburgh Agreement, Adolph Hitler was not. The German Chancellor was determined to destroy Czecho-Slovakia and to incorporate Bohemia-Moravia into his "Third Reich." Therefore, he had his agents get in touch with the most radical individuals in the People 's Party, who were led by the recently-releasedfrom-prison Vojtech Tuka, and urged them to seek complete Slovak independence. Tuka and his followers began to plot against CzechoSlovakia and the Prague government reacted by declaring martial law on March 11th, by di ssolving the recently-elected Slovak Diet, 33 Hlas l'udu (Toronto), May 27, 1938, pp.l-2 , June 7, 1938, pp.1-4 ; Slovak v Kan ade (Montreal ), June 2, 1938, p. l; Osadne hlasy (Chicago), June 24, 1938, pp.12; Narodne noviny, Jul y 6, 1938, p.5. Photos of the delegation in Poland and in Slovakia can be found in J.M . Kirschbaum, Slovakia: Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe (New York: Robert Speller & Sons, 1960), between pp.264-265. 34 New Yorksky dennfk (New York) , October 9, 1938 , p.1; Kato/icky Sokol (Passaic, NJ) , October 12, 1938, p.l; Narodne no viny, October 12, 1938, p.l; Osadne h/asy, October 14, 1938 , p.l and October 21 , 1938, pp. 1&3 ; Jednota, November 2, 1938, p.3 �SLOVAKIA 19 and by arresting over 200 suspected "plotters" against the Republic. Meanwhile, Hitler's agents summoned the recently-dismissed Prime Minister Jozef Tiso to Berlin on March 13th and gave him an ultimatum: either proclaim independence or watch Slovakia be partitioned by Poland and Hungary. Tiso returned to Bratislava on March 14th, he persuaded President Emil Hacha to reconvene the Slovak Diet, and after Tiso passed on to the Diet Hitler's message, the Diet unanimously declared Slovak independence. Since Czecho-Slovakia no longer existed, Hitler ordered the German army to occupy BohemiaMoravia and turn it into a German " Protectorate." He also recognized the independence of the Slovak Republic, but forced it into a German alliance and put it under German protection. 35 When news of the declaration of Slovak Independence reached American Slovaks, they were at first puzzled and subsequently split into two camps-those who supported Slovak independence and those who did not. This split had first surfaced right after World War I, when certain American Slovaks chose to support the new, centralized Czechoslovak Republic, while others did not. Generally speaking, most Slovak Protestant societies in the USA, as well as those individuals organized in the militantly secular Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol (founded in 1896) supported the new state because they agreed with its official philosophy of "Czechoslovakism," that is, that the Czechs and Slovaks formed one nation but spoke two dialects of the "Czechoslovak" language. 36 The majority of American Slovaks, who were Roman Catholics, and were represented by the First Catholic Slovak Union and the Slovak Catholic Federation, among others, did not. Between 1919 and 1924 the pro-Czechoslovak group controlled the Slovak League. 37 After 1924 the Slovak nationalists regained control over the League, and continue to do so. Therefore, the Protestants and the Sokols (as well as Slovak Communi sts), rejected the independent Slovak Republic and hoped that 35 The best description of this period in Czecho-Slovakia ' s hi story is by Theodor Prochazka, The Second Republic: Th e Disintegration of post-Munich Czechoslovakia (Boulder: East European Monographs, 198 1); for an alternative view see Frantisek Ynuk, " Slovakia' s Six Eventfu l Months," Slovak Studies, 4 ( 1964), 7- I 64. 36 Milan Getting best represented thi s group and described their act ivities in his Americki Slovaci, ~ 37 " Z XV . Kongresu Slovenskej Li gy v Amerike," Q)hci.t. �20 SLOVAKIA Czecho-Slovakia could be resurrected.38 To this end they supported ex-president Edvard Benes's new liberation movement during World War 11. 39 The leadership of the Slovak League, largely representing the majority Roman Catholics, on the other hand, supported the new state. Indeed, Jozef Husek, who was elected president of the League at its 21 st Congress in Cleveland on October 14th, 1938, form all y requested president Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the United States on April 24, 1939 to grant the Slovak Republic diplomatic recognition.40 Shortly thereafter the Slovak League was heartened by a message ("Posolstvo") sent by Prime Minister Jozef Tiso to American and Canadian Slovaks on May 23rd of 1939. Here Tiso explained in 38 A group of Slovak Protestants (Lutherans, Calvini sts and Congregationalists), led by the Baptist preac her A. P. Slabey, met in Duquesne, PA on May 30th, 1938 and denounced the Hletko- led delegati on of the Slovak League to Slovakja that spring. Cf. Narodne noviny, June 8, 1938 , p.3; In the fall Jan Pankuch, a Lutheran and fo rmer mem ber of the Delegati on, regretted the granting of autonomy to Slovakia. Cf. Hla s (C leveland), October 13, I 938, p. l ; after the Slovak Diet declared independence on Marc h 14th , 1939 . the Lutheran-dominated Nati onal Slovak Society denounced this act. Cf. Narodne noviny, March 15, 1939, p. l , as did the secul arist and Sokol-do minated New Yorksky dennik , March 15, 1939, p. l. Slovak communists also de nounced both Slovak auto no my and independence. Cf. I', udovy dennik (Chicago), October 7, 1938, p. l ; October 8, 1938, p. I; March I6, 1939, p. l 39 Those American Slovaks who opposed Slovak indepe ndence and wished to see Czecho-Slovakja res urrected after th e war initiall y organi zed the mselves into th e Slovak Nati onal Council of America. However, they soon split into fac tions th at either supported ex-president Benes or else Dr. Milan Hodfa or Dr. Stefan Osusky, both of whom had fl ed to the West after the fa ll of France in June of 1940, and both of whom broke with Benes over the future of a res urrected Czecho-S lovakia. While Be nes wanted a return to the cent ra lized pre-M un ich Czechoslovakia, Hodfa and Osusky wished to return to a federated Czecho-S lovilia. Cf. Letters of Jan Dend'ur, Secretary of the Slovak National Council to Vlad imir Hurban, ex-Ambassador of Czechos lovakia in Washington, Papers of Jan Dend'ur, Box I , File A-S , Balch Institute at th e Histori cal Society of Penn sy lvania, Philade lphia; those who supported Benes joined the Czechoslovak Nati onal Co un cil of America and we re led by the Lutheran Rev . Jaros lav Pelikan, Sr. of Chicago. Cf. New York sky dennik, Dece mber 11 , 1941 , p. I. For a descri ption of the Benes-led liberation move ment see Ed uard Taborsky, " Politics in Exile, 1939- 1945 ," in Mamatey & Lufa , A History , QP..ci.1. , 322-42. 40 Letter of Jozef Husek to Frank lin Delano Roosevelt, April 24, 1939, publ ished in Correspondence in re Slovakia and the Declaration of the Aim and Principles of the Slo vak League of A merica (Middletown? Slovak League of America, 1940?), 1718. Husek sent a similar letter to Secretary of State Corde ll Hull on August 4, 1939, ilii.d., 19-20. �SLOVAKIA 21 great detail how and why the Slovak Republic came into being and he asked American and Canadian Slovaks to support it. 4 1 As a result, the 22nd Congress of the Slovak League, which was held on November 14-15 in Cleveland, and which re-elected Husek as its president, passed a resolution in which it fully supported the independent Slovak Republic. Furthermore, it called upon the United States government to grant Slovakia diplomatic recognition, and it deplored ex-president Edvard Benes's American speaking tour, in which he called for the restoration of pre-war Czechoslovakia.42 In the fo llowing October, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt received a IS-person delegation of the Slovak League led by Husek and Hletko during which they pledged their loyalty to the USA . They considered thi s meeting to be a moral victory, even though FDR refu sed to recognize the Slovak Republic. 43 On the other hand, because of attacks launched upon the Slovak League by the supporters of Edvard Benes, Husek and the Slovak League were investigated by the Dies Committee on Un-American Activities. Thereafter they were under FBI surveillance. 44 Since the United States entered the Second World War on the side of the Allies on December 7, 1941 , and since Prime Mini ster Vojtech Tuka of Slovakia foolishly declared war upon the United States shortly there41 Tiso was responding to a letter sent to him by Andrej Potocky, Supreme Secretary of the Canadian Slovak League, askin g for an ex planation as to why the Slovak Diet had declared independence. Cf. And rej Potocky to Jozef Tiso, April 20, 1939 and Tiso's reply, of June 2, 1939, with a copy of the " Posolstvo," in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, lmrich Stolarik Co ll ection, Box 576, fo lder 2, 1939, Slovak Archives, University of Ottawa, Archi ves and Spec ia l Collections, and in the Andrej Potocky Papers, box 282 , folder 4, I 939, lhid. Jozef Husek translated and published it as " Dr. Joseph Tiso to the Slovaks in America," in Correspondence in re Slovakia, QJ2,.Q!., 716. This " Posolstvo" was originall y published in Slovak in several pro-independence newspapers in the USA and Canada. Cf. S lovenske bratstvo (Montreal), Jul y 2 1, and July 31, 1939, p.3 . 42 Jednota, Novem ber 29, 1939, p. 3; H/as Judu, November 18 and 21 , p. I. 43 Jedno ta, October 30, 1940, p. I, November 6, 1940, p.2; Slo venske bratstvo, November I, 1940, p.2. 44 Hlas Judu , October 24, 1939 , p. l ; see also Jozef Husek's letters to Martin Dies, Chairman , Dies House Committee, October 6, 1939 and October 28, 1939, in Correspondence in re Slovakia, QJ2..ci.t. , 23-4. In the summer of 1970 I visited with Dr. Peter P. Hletko in Chi cago and he confi rmed that the FBI had him and Husek under survei llance throughout the war, a lthough Hletko struck up a friendship with those watching him . �22 SLOVAKIA after, the Slovak League had to become more circumspect m its pronouncements. It now pledged absolute loyalty to the United States, although it continued to passively support the Slovak Republic. 45 However, the United States Office of War Information arranged a meeting of all Slovak-American organizations in Pittsburgh on September 14, 1942, and urged them to sign a declaration in which they repudiated the Slovak Republic and pledged their loyalty to the United States and its Allies. 46 By December a dejected Jozef Husek resigned as president of the League.47 He was eventually replaced by the more cautious Msgr. Frantisek Du bosh of Lakewood, Ohio, at the 23rd Congress of the League held in Pittsburgh on February 25-26, 1943. 48 Since the Slovak League could no longer openly support Slovak independence, it had to lower its expectations. At its 23rd Congress it had to develop a new program for Slovakia and, at the same time, deal with the issue of accepting or rejecting two former hi gh-ranking Slovaks in the pre-war Czechoslovak government and bureaucracy who had come to America. One was the former Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia, Milan Hodz.a, and the other was the former Czechoslovak Minister to Paris, Stefan Osusky. Both had broken with Edvard Benes after the destruction of Czecho-Slovakia. Hodza now recognized the Slovaks as a distinct nation but favored the resurrection of a federated Czecho-Slovakia within a Central European Federation . Osu sky also recognized the Slovaks as an independent nation and favored the resurrection of a federated Czecho-Slovakia as stipul ated in the Cleveland Agreement of 1915 , which he had helped to draft. After much debate, the League rejected both Hodza and 45 Osadne h/asy, December 19, 194 1, p.2; Jednota , January 7, 1942 , p.8. Pavel Jamriska, the vice-president of the L eague, pledged that " American Slovaks never betrayed and never w ill betray the Slovak nation and Slovakia." Cf. Jednota, January 2 1, 1942, p.4. Jozef Husek president of the League, added that " Slovakia should retain its freedom ," in spite of the war. Jednota, February 25, 1942, p.4. 46 Jednota, September 23, 1942, p. l and October 14, 1942, p.2. Thi s " Resolution " was reprinted in Martin Kvetko and Miroslav J. Licko 's edited Zbornik tivah a osobnych spomienok o S/ovenskom narodnom povstanf (Toronto: Stala konferencia slovenskych demokratickych exu lantov, 1976), pp. 396-7 w ithout any explanation. 47 I.:udo ve zvesti (Toronto), December 12, 1942, p. I and January 16, 1943, p.5. 48 Kanadsky Slovak (Montrea l), March 11 , 1943, p. I ; I.:udove zves ti, March 20 , 1943 , p.5. �SLOVAKIA 23 Osusky as former collaborators of the first Czechoslovak Republic and it returned to its pre-war program of "self-determination" for the Slovaks in the future. 49 When the Slovak National Uprising against the Germans broke out at the end of August, 1944, American Slovaks were once again divided. After some hesitation, the 26th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh on October 18-19, 1944, and most American Catholic organizations , rejected the leadership of the newlyformed Slovak National Council as too "Czechoslovak" and Communi st. 50 Most American Lutherans, National Sokols and Communi sts, on the other hand, cheered and recognized the leadership of the SNC. 51 To complicate matters even more, the People' s Party journali st Peter Prfdavok, who had initially rejected the Slovak Republic and had fled to France and Great Britain in 1939, al so broke with Edvard Benes and in 1943 establi shed a Slovak National Council in London . He immediately contacted the Slovak League of America and , after the 1944 uprising in Slovakia, counseled the Slovak League not to recognize the Slovak National Council in Slovakia. 52 The League did not do so until it heard of the promulgation of the Kosice Programme of April 5, 1945 , which recognized the Slovaks as a di stinct nation and which al so recognized the Slovak National Council as the government of Slovakia. Thi s was a major concession by representatives of Edvard Benes 's victorious government-in-exile, which by then had returned to Slovak ("Czechoslovak") territory on 49 Cudove z vesti, March 20, 1943 and Kanadsky Slovak, March 25 , 1943, p.4. After Osusky broke with Benes he publi shed a series of pamphlets in whi ch he denounced the latter: Pravda vfthzf 1 (Pohlhd do zrkadla druheho odboj a) (London : The Continental Publishers, 1942); Benes and Slovakia (Middletown, PA : First Catholi c Slovak Union, 1943) ; Triedenie duchov nastalo (L ondon : The Continental Publishers, 1943) ; Hodza ' s position was best reported in K anadsky Slovak, M ay 28, 1942, pp. 7 & 10. For Hodza ' s acti vities in the USA see Michal Mudry, Milan Hodi a v Amerike (Chicago: Geringer Press, 1949). For more on Benes's opponents during World War II see Jan Kuklfk and Jan Nemecek, Prati Beneso vi! Ceska a slovenska protibeneso vska opozice v Londy ne /939-1 945 (Praha: Karolinum , 2004). 50 Kanadsky Slovak, November 9, 1944, p.4; Jednota, N ovember 15, 1944, p.2. 51 Cudove zvesti, September 23 , 1944, pp. I & 4. 52 Slovenske bratst vo, M ay 24, 1940, p.2; Slo vensky priekopnfk, November 27, 1942, pp. I & 4; ~udove zvesti, M arch 18, 1944, p.5 ; Jednota, April 16, 1945, p.5; for a short biograph y of Prfdavok see Literarny almanach Slovaka v A merike, 1967 (Middletown, PA), 209- 10. �24 SLOVAKIA the heel s of the Red Army, and which by now included the Communist leader Klement Gottwald. 53 However, this "Washington Declaration" of April 6, 1945 by the Executive of the Slovak League of America was immediately denounced by Jozef Husek and Peter P. Hletko.54 Furthermore, the 27th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in October of 1945 also repudiated it. Instead, the Congress reaffirmed the right of the Slovaks in Europe to self-determination. This Congress, which elected the Amercanborn attorney Peter P. Yurchak as its president, also announced a new fund-rai sing campaign to help rebuild post-war Slovakia, as well as to help thousands of political refugees who had fled the resurrected post-war Czechoslovakia.55 Meanwhile, the Slovak League had also sent a three-person delegation to the San Francisco meeting of the newly-founded United Nations from April 25th to June 21st. It was led by the Rev. Jan J. Lach of Whiting, Indiana, in the company of the poet, the Rev . Milos Mlynarovic, and the young Americanborn attorney Edward J. Behuncfk. The League had hoped that its delegation could speak on behalf of the Slovak nation but Jan Masaryk, son of the former president of Czechoslovakia, registered himself as a Slovak (whic h he was not) and, in hi s capacity as Czechoslovakia's new Foreign Minister, claimed that the Slovaks were well-represented at the United Nations, and therefore, did not need the services of the League. Lach was given only the status of an observer and could not participate in the debates about the future of Europe. 56 Meanwhile, Slovaks who had emigrated to Canada also took an interest in the fate of their countrymen. Since the United States Congress had passed three Immigration Acts in the l 920's, which severely restricted further migration from east-central and southern Europe to the United States, about 40,000 Slovaks moved to Canada in search of work in the l 920's and 1930's. Even though the government of Canada wanted them to settle on farms on the Prairies, they 53 For the text of the Kosice Program see "Kosicky vlad ny program," in Dokumenty, II (1998), 407-8 . 54 Osadne hlasy, April 20, 1945 , p.4 and June I, 1945, p.2, June 30, I 945, p.2 ; Kanadsky Slovak, June 14, 1945, p.5. 55 Osadne hlasy, October 26, 1945, p. l ; Kanadsky Slovak, November I, 1945. 56 Jednota , May 23, I 945 , p. l; Osadne hlasy, May 25, 1945, p.4; I'.udove zvesti, June 9, 1945, p.4, and Jul y 2 1, 1945 , p.2. �SLOVAKIA 25 largely headed to the metropolitan areas of Winnipeg, Fort William, Montreal and Toronto. There, they quickly copied their American countrymen and established fraternal-benefit societies, parishes and newspapers. Indeed, they originally joined American-Slovak organizations, subsc ribed to their newspapers and were served by SlovakAmerican priests and mini sters. 57 However, when the Great Depression broke out in 1929, SlovakCanadians di scovered that they had to look out for themselves. For instance, when the Slovak League of America announced that it was raising funds to provide food and clothing for its members who were in dire straits, Canadian members of the Slovak League , who had organized fifteen branches in Canada, applied for thi s " relief. " They were shocked when Jan A. Kocur, the Leag ue 's Secretary , replied that American Slovaks had only enough resources to help themselves, and could not afford to help Slovaks in Canada. 58 Therefore, led by Andrej Kucera of Winnipeg (ori ginall y from Radosovce, in Bratislava county) representatives of three Canadian branches of the Slovak League of America met in Winnipeg in 1932 and organized the Slovak League of Canada which, when it was officially incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1934, had its name changed to the Canadian Slovak League. Meanwhile, in order to help its countrymen to survive the Great Depression, leaders of the Canadian Slovak League organized it into a fratern al-benefit society, as well as a nationalist organization. 59 The national orientation of the Canadian Slovak League mirrored that of its American parent. Thus, in November of 1933 the Central Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League sent president T . G. Masa57 For a brief history of the Slovaks in Canada see the entry by Elena Jakesova and M. Mark Stolarik in the Encyclopedia of Canada 's Peoples, ed. By Paul R. Magocsi (Toronto: Uni versity of Toronto Press, 1999), 11 68-79. For a longer treatment see J. M. Kirschbaum , Slovaks in Canada (Toronto: Canadian Eth ni c Press Association of Ontario, 1967). 58 See the correspondence between Kucera and Kocur in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, Lmrich Stolarik Collection, Box 575, fo lder 7, 1928- 1934, Slovak Archives in the Archives and Special Collections, Uni versity of Ottawa and Kucera 's article on the 10th an ni versary of the fo unding of the CSL, Kanadsky Slovak, December 17, 1942, pp. 1-2. For a fuller description see " Pociatky a rozvoj Kanadskej Slovenskej Ligy ," in lmrich Stolarik ed. , Kanadska Slovenska Liga: 35 rocna: Historicky nacrt (19321967) (Toronto: Kanadska Slovenska Liga, 1967), 18-20. 59 Ibid. 2 1-26. �26 SLOVAKIA ryk of Czechoslovakia a reso lution demanding that the Pittsburgh Agreement be incorporated into the Constitution of the Republic.6() Indeed, in 1935 the two Leagues sent a joint appeal to all voters in Slovaki a to support only those political parties that recognized the Pittsburgh Agreement. 61 After Slovakia achieved its autonomy in the fall of 1938, the Canadian Slovak League, like its American counterpart, welcomed this autonomy and congratulated Dr. Jozef Tiso, its first Prime Minister. 62 After the Slovak Diet proclaimed the independence of Slovakia on March 14th, 1939, Canadian Slovaks, like their American cousins, were initially caught off guard and divided over the issue. To clarify matters, Andrej Potocky (w ho hailed from Sedliacka Dubova, Orava county) , the secretary of the Canadian Slovak League, addressed a letter to Dr. Jozef Tiso and asked him for an explanation. Tiso replied in May in his already-mentioned "Posolstvo" and both Leagues published it in newspapers that supported their politics. 63 Thereafter, both Leagues supported the independent Slovak Republic as much as they could. The Canadian Slovak League, like its American counterpart, also rejected Edvard Benes's World War II liberation movement, as well as Milan Hodfa' s plans for a Central European federation. 64 It seriously considered sending a delegate to the San Francisco meeting of the United Nations in 1945 , but could not afford to do so. 65 Meanwhile, delegates to the 28th Congress of the Slovak League of America, held in Detroit on October 29-30th, 1946 and to the 7th Convention of the Canadian Slovak League held in neighboring Windsor on October 28-30th of the same year, iss ued a joint resolution wherein they rejected the resurrected post-war Cze60 See the "Ustredn a sprava Slov . Ligy v Kanade: Rezolucia" , dated November 6, 1933, Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, QJlii1. 61 Kucera to Kocur, March 30, 1935, ibid 62 Centra l Assembly of the Canadian Slovak Leag ue to Dr. Jozef Tiso, January 2 1, 1939, i..b.id... 63 Andrej Potocky to Jozef Tiso, April 20, 1939 and Jozef Tiso to Andrej Potocky, June 2, 1939 plus the ' Posolstvo" dated May 23, 1939 in ilii..d. See also Slovenske bratstvo, Jul y 21 , 1939, p.3 and Jul y 28 , 1939, p.3. 64 S lovenske bratstvo, August 4, 1939 , p.4 ; March 15, 1940, p. I; Kanadsky Slovak, August 6, 1942, p.2 and December 9, 1943 , p.2 65 Letter of Msgr. F.J. Dubosh, president of the Slovak league of Ameri ca to Jan Ivan of the Canadian Slovak League, March 25 , 1945 , papers of Andrej Kucera, QJlii1. �SLOVAKIA 27 choslovakia and instead declared their support for the re-establishment of an independent Slovak Republic. 66 This political stand by both Leagues was reinforced by the arrival of post-war political refugees from Slovakia. Several thou sand supporters of the independent Slovak Republic, consisting of government officials, bureaucrats, soldiers and intellectuals fled the advancing Red Army in the winter and spring of 1945 and settled in Upper Austria and, eventually, in the defeated Germany. From there they sent appea ls to both Slovak Leagues for financial and other assistance. The two Leagues responded by sending them material goods, by arranging for surplus Red Cross packages to be distributed among them and, most importantly, by persuading the International Refugee Organization to recognize them as refugees and to help them emigrate out of war-torn Europe.67 One of the Slovak League of America's first successes was the appointment of Dr. Jozef Kirsc hbaum as its official delegate to the IRO in September of 1947.68 Kirschbaum had been the Slovak Charge d ' Affaires in Switzerland for most of the 66 Indeed , the Canadian Slovak League had also deplored the April 6, 1945 "Washington Resolution" of the Slovak League of America. CF. Andrej Kucera to Msgr. F. Dubosh, October 12, 1945, Papers of Andrej Ku cera, lmrich Stolarik Fonds, Box 572, file 1945 , Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library, University of Ottawa; Kanadsky Slov;:ik, November 16, 1946, p.2 and January 2, 1947, p.3. 67 See the " Memorandum" drafted by the writer Milo Urban to the Slovak League of America dated May 30 , 1945, as publi shed on its 20th an ni versary in K anadsky Slovak, May 29, 1965, p. 2 and September 4, 1965, p.3; see also Osadne hlasy, Jul y 6, 1945, p.2, Apri l 4, 1947, p.l and April 11 , 1947, p.2; see also Kanadsky Slovak, Jul y 12, 1945, p.2. A preliminary li st of these refugees in Austria was compiled by the Czechoslovak Ambassador to Switzerland and se nt to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague because the Czechoslovak government wished to " repatriate" some of them. Cf. Slove nsky narodn y arc hfv, PY , beop.- lll dov. , 1945, 6. Sept. , 1945, Ministerstvo zahrani cnfch veci. Praha, 26079/11-2/45 . No-one has yet written a schol arl y acco unt of this phenomenon as it pertains to the Slovaks. However. l:ubomfr Gleiman , one of these refugees, has penned hi s reminiscences in a manuscript entitled "Out of thi s Century ' s Mae lstro m: A Pilgrim 's Story of Disse nt and Surviva l," (Cary , NC: 200 I ). A co py of this manuscript, as well as his father' s diaries from 1944 to 1954, on whi ch the manuscript is partly based, can be found in the Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library, University of Ottawa, Canada. For a general description of the plight of post-war refugees see Mark Wyman , DP: Europe 's Displaced Persons, 1945-1951 (Philadelphia: The Balch Institute Press, 1989). 68 Kanadsky Slovak, May 27, 1948, p.2 and June I 0, 1948, p. l. �28 SLOVAKIA war. Since he had acti vely supported the creation of the Slovak Republic , he refu sed to return to post-war Czechoslovakia. Instead, he worked vigorou sly with both Slovak Leagues to arrange for the emigration of hundreds of Slovaks to the USA and Canada, once these countries opened their borders to post-war refugees in 1947 and 1948. 69 As the refugees began to arrive in the United States and Canada, they quickly joined the two Slovak Leag ues and reinforced their commitment to Slovak independence. The first to come to the USA was the poet, the Rev . Mikul as Sprinc. He arrived in Jul y of 1946, settled in Cleveland, and immediate ly informed the executive of the Slovak League of what had actually transpired during the existence of the Slovak Republic.70 That is why the Slovak League, at its 28th Congress in Detroit called for a plebiscite to be held in Slovakia to decide its future and it also appealed for a fair trial for Dr. Jozef Tiso. 7 1 The latter had evacuated to Austria with the Slovak government in the dying days of the war but was turned over to Czechoslovak authorities by the victorious American Army. 72 Meanwhile, the historian Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky arrived in the USA at the end of 1947 and he also joined the Slovak League. Indeed, after Jan A. Kocu r died , Hrusovsky was elected the Secretary of the League at its 30th Congress in Chicago in March of 1948. On September 15, 1952, largely on hi s initiative, the Slovak Institute was established at the Slovak Benedictine Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio, 73 and Hrusovsky became its first director. In 1950 Dr. Jozef Pauco gained admittance to the USA. Thi s former editor of the dail y Slovak, official organ of the Slovak Peo- 69 Author interview with J.M. Kirschbaum, November 7, 1998.He recorded his political views and activities in Nas boj o sam ostatnost' Slovenska (C leveland: Slovak Institute, 1958; reprinted and updated by the Matica slovenska, 2000). 70 Paufo , 75. Rokov QJU;lL 353; Sprinc described his trip to the USA in K slobodnym pobreiiam (Scranton, PA : Obrana Press, 1949). 71 See footnote 65 . 72 For Tiso' s activities during and after World War II , as penned by hi s forme r personal secretary, see Karo l Murin, Spomienky a svedectvo (Hami lton,Ontario: Zahranicna Matica slovenska, 1987). 73 Kanadsky Slovak, October 30, 1947 , pp.1 -2, November 6, 1947 , pp.I & 7, March 17, I949, p. 1. For a short biograph y see " Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky ," in Literarny Almanach Slovaka v Amerik e, 1967 (Middletown, PA), 16 1-2. �SLOVAKIA 29 pie' s Party , initially found employment as assistant editor of the weekly fraternal Jednota , which was published in Middletown, PA. In 1958 he became editor and in 1964 also publisher of the weekly Slovak v Amerike, the oldest Slovak newspaper in America. In 1962 Pauco was elected Secretary of the Slovak League of America, a 74 post which he held until his death in 1975. Finally, in 1952 Dr. Jozef A. Mikus came to the USA. This former Slovak Charge d ' Affaires in Spain fled his homeland after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. He initi ally lived in Paris but after four years he moved to Washington , D.C. For the first five years of his life in the USA he was employed by the Slovak League as its Press Secretary. After that he taught at various American colleges until his retirement. He also remained active within the Slovak League and the Slovak World Congress. 75 While a few post-war Slovak refugees managed to gain entry into the United States after the war, the majority headed for Canada, because the latter opened its doors to refugees first. Among the most important to arrive in 1949 were Dr. Karol Murin, the former personal secretary of president Jozef Tiso, Dr. Jozef Kirschbaum (mentioned earlier) and the publicist and historian Konstantin Culen. 76 In 1950 Karol Sidor, former Slovak Ambassador to the Vatican, and the most prominent of all the emigres, made his way to Montreal. 77 All of them immediately joined the Canadian Slovak League and Culen even became editor of its weekly Kanadsky Slovak from 1952 to 74 Ibid. , 200-2. Kanadsky Slovak, May 18, 1950, p.2. Ibid., 188-9. Kanadsky Slovak, January 24, 1952, p.5 and June 21 , 1952, p.7. The complete life of Jozef Mikus can be reconstructed in "The Jozef Mikus Fonds" located in the Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library , University of Ottawa. 76 Kanadsky S lovak, February 10, 1949, p. I; £udove zvesti, March 12. 1949, p.4, February 25, 1950, p.4. For biographies of Murin and Cu len see Literarny almanach S/ovaka v Amerike, / 967 (Middletown, PA), 129-30 and 194-95. 77 Andrej Kucera to Andrej Potocky, Apri l 6, 1950, Papers of A. Kucera, lmrich Stolarik Collec tion. Box 576, fo lder 7. 1950, Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library , University of Ottawa; Kanadsky Slovak, April 20, 1950, p.5; letter of Karol Sidor to lmrich Stolarik, January 12, 1951 , Joseph Stasko Fonds, Slovenska narodna rada v zahranicf, Box 30, Series II , File 4, Subfile 4.1 , Folder 22, ARCS 92-3 , Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Mori sset Library, University of Ottawa. For more on Sidor see Literamy almanach I 967, 2212. 75 �30 SLOVAKIA 1956. Needless to say, these emigres strengthened the League's commitment to promoting Slovak independence. Indeed, they and their American counterparts started to celebrate the anniversary of Slovak independence (Marc h 14th) as early as 1947.78 Both of the Slovak Leagues, meanwhile, denounced the execution of Dr. Jozef Tiso after he was found gui lty of treason by the Communist-dominated National Court in Bratislava in April of 1947. 79 After the Communist takeover of power in Czechoslovakia in February of 1948, a new wave of political refugees fled to the West. This was a mixture of Slovaks who favored independence and those who did not. Those refugees who had fled to the west after 1945 seized the initiative and re-established the Slovak National Council Abroad in the fall of 1948 and elected Karol Sidor as its president and Peter Pridavok of London as its secretary. 80 Those who wished Czechoslovakia to continue, but were opposed to its communist government, organized themselves into the Council for a Free Czechoslovakia, led by Dr. Jozef Lettrich , the former Chairman of the postwar Democratic Party in Slovakia. 81 Both Slovak Leagues rejected Lettrich and his followers as early as 1946 and instead supported the Slovak National Council Abroad .82 Indeed, both Slovak Leagues had previously also rejected the more radical Slovak Action Committee, founded in Rome in 1946 by Dr. Ferdinand Durcansky, the first Foreign Minister of the Slovak Republic .83 Rivalries between the leaders of the Slovak National Council Abroad and that of the Slovak Action Committee seeped into both Leagues and caused much in- 78 Osadne hlasy, March 14, 1947, p.l ; Kanadsky Slovak, April JO and 17, 1954, pp.2-4. 79 Osadne hlasy, April 25 , 1947, pp. I & 2; Kanadsky Slovak, May 8, 1947, p.l, October 30, 1947, pp. 1-2 and November 6, 1947, pp. I & 7; for the reminiscences of the chief prosecutor and the chief defense attorney at thi s trial see Proces s dr. 1. Tisom (Bratislava: Tatra Press, 1990). 8 Kanadsky Slovak, June 24, 1948 , p.3 , December I6, 1948 , p. I and December 30, 1948, p.3 ; Kirschbaum , Nas boj, QJ1.&iL (2000) , 370- 1. 81 Spetko, "Slovenska exi lova," QJ1.&iL 247-8. 82 Kanadsky Slovak, April 11 , 1946, p.5; Ferdinand Durcansky to Andrej Kucera, September 8, 1949, in Papers of A. Kucera, Correspondence with Refugees in Europe, Box 572, lmrich Stolarik Fonds, Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa. 83 Durcansky, Ibid. For more on Durcansky see Literarny almanach 1967 , 137-9. ° �SLOVAKIA 31 fighting among both in the 1950's. 84 The matter was finally settled in 1960 when the two sides decided to merge into the Slovak Liberation Council, with two co-chairmen: Dr. Jozef Kirschbaum in Toronto (Sidor had died in 1953) and Dr. Ferdinand Durcansky in Munich. 85 Meanwhile, in 1962, Dr. Peter P. Hletko, once again became president of the Slovak League of America, which had undergone some turbulent times. Hletko had succeeded Filip A. Hrobak, editor of Jednota , who had become president in 1950 . The American-born Hrobak was an activist, who had established the Slovak League 's Information Office in Washington in 1952, as well as the Englishlanguage periodical Slovakia in 1950 to champion the independence of his cousins overseas. Meanwhile, Hrobak also had to referee an intense rivalry that broke out between various factions in the League, a rivalry that resulted in the di smissal of Konstantfn Culen from the directorship of the Slovak institute in Cleveland (he had come down from Canada in 1956 and was made director of the Institute shortly after the death of Hrusovsky in the same year) and his banishment from Slovak-American life. 86 Hletko, who had largely been responsible for Culen's dismissal, congratulated the Canadian Slovak League on its 30th anniversary and remarked that it had become " more active" than the Slovak League of America. 87 He may have had in mind the fact that, on March 16th, 1953 (strategically close to the 14th anniversary of Slovak independence on March 14th), the First 84 See the letter of A. Ku cera to Jozef Siksa dated March 20, 1950 as well as the circ ul ar letter of Ferdinand Durcansky dated February 9, 1951, an undated letter from early 195 1, as well as letters from Michael Yargovic , president of the First Catholic Union , dated February 19, 1951 and Fi lip A. Hrobak, president of the Slovak League of America, dated February 20. 1951 , in the Papers of A. Kucera, Qlhci..!.; see also Kanadsky Slovak, January 17, 1952, p.3 and February 14, 1952, p.2, and November 5, 1955, p.2. See also l',udove zves ti. February I, 1958, p.6, and March I, 1958, p.4. 85 Kanadsky Slovak, October 11 , 1958, p.1 , March 2 1, 1959, p.1 , June 4, 1960, p.1 and June 18, 1960, p. I ; l',udove zvesti, September I, 1960, p.6 86 Kanadsky Slovak, June 8, 1950, p.1 , June 2 1, 1952, p.7 , June 27, 1959, p.1 ; I.:udove zvesti, June 17, 1950, p.2 ; for Konstantin Cu len's problems with Hletko and other American Slovak leaders see hi s V zajatf fa losnych legiend od nenavistneho srdca, 11 Vols. (Mim ieographed, New York, 1961). Frantisek Ynuk, in his Z ivotopis Konstantfna Culena (Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1984), 190-93 also touched on this problem. 87 Kanadsky Slovak, December 15 , 1962, p. I. Filip A. Hrobak, a few years earlier, had expressed simi lar sentiments ; cf. Kanadsky S lovak, July 18, 1959, p. I. �32 SLOVAKIA District Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League had organized a gala banquet at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Leag ue. Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, four cabi net ministers and 25 mem bers of the Canadian Parliament attended! 88 Thi s diplomati c "coup" by the Canadian Slovak League was not matched by its American counterpart. The most the Slovak League of America was able to accomplish on the diplomatic front in the l 950's was to arrange a meeting with officials of Radio Free Europe in 1953 and wi th Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in October of 1956. 89 Nothing came of these meetings. Peter P. Hletko also noticed that the Canadian Slovak League was both younger than its parent organization and had more youthful members. In thi s respect he may have been thinking of Stephen B. Roman, who had come to Oshawa, Canada from Velky Ruskov, Slovakia as a 16 year-old in 1937. Through a seri es of shrewd investments in the 1940's and 1950's, Roman had become a multi-millionaire in Canada's uranium industry. Roman was an active member of the Canadi an Slovak League who had lobbied for the early adm ittance of Slovak post-war political refugees, and who supported the movement for Slovak independence.90 As a devout Greek Catholi c, in 1963 Roman took a leading role in the 1100th anniversary celebrations of the arri val of Sts. Cyril and Methodius on Slovak territory, he contributed to the establishment of the Institute of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Rome in that same year, he was a lay observer to the Second Vatican Council (l 962-1965) and he successfull y lobbied the Vatican to appoint a Slovak Greek Catholic bishop in Canada ( 1965), as well as to create a Slovak Greek Catholic Eparchy (diocese) in Toronto in 1980. 9 1 88 The most comprehensive treatment of th is banquet can be found in " Historicky banket Kanad. Slov. Ligy v Ottawe," in lmrich Stolarik ed., Kanadska Slovenska Liga 35 rocna (Toronto: Canad ian Slovak League, 1967), 268-75. 89 Kanadsk f Slovak, Jul y 18, 1953, p.4 and November 10, 1956, p.5. 90 Slovenske bratstvo (Montreal), Apri l 25 , 1941 , p.3 ; Kanadskf Slovak, April 16, 1943, p.10, December 16, 1943, p.7, May 24, 1945 , p.5, October 4, 1945, September 3, 1955 , p.5, October 20, 1956, p.5, October 19, 1957 , p.3. For a sympathetic biography of Roman see Peter C. Newman, Th e Canadian Establishment, I (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, I975), 269-72. 91 Kanadskf Slovak, November 25 , 1961 , p.2 , Jul y 6, 1963 , p.l, October 3, 1964, p.l, October 17, 1964, p. l , January 9, 196 1, p.l , January 3, 198 1, p. I and February �SLOVAKIA 33 Roman ' s greatest achievement, however, was to establish the Slovak World Congress. Even though he had been a member of the Canadian Slovak League since the early 1940's, Roman lamented the fact that Slovaks in the Western world were divided into so many different organizations.92 He first attempted to bring together the Canadian Slovak League and its rival Canadian Slovak Benefit Society in 1969 but failed .93 Then , angered by the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 , Roman decided to approach various individuals and organizations to issue an appeal to all Slovak organizations the world over to unite in the struggle to overthrow Communism in the homeland and to seek self-determination for the Slovak nation. The appeal was signed by the presidents of the Slovak League of America, the Canadian Slovak League, the National Slovak Society, Stephen B. Roman , three bishops and an abbot. As a result, in July of 1970 representatives of dozen s of Slovak organizations the world over, including the Slovak League of America and the Canadian Slovak League, met in New York City and created the Slovak World Congress.94 For the next twenty years the Slovak World Congress, led by Stephen B. Roman, worked to spread the good name of the Slovaks the world over. It held meetings in many of the major cities of the world, including Toronto, New York, Washington, Chicago, Munich and Rome; it sponsored scholarly conferences which published their proceedings; it organized Slovak world youth festival s and it published a monthly Bulletin. The two Slovak Leagues participated in most of these ventures. 95 Indeed , the two Slovak Leagues, at first independently, and later working within the Slovak World Congress, successfully lobbied the Vatican to create an independent archbis- 21, 198 1, p. I. Kanadsky Slovak, January 4, 1945, p. 3. 93 Kanadsky S lovak, Septe mber 20 , 1969 , p. I. Nove mber 15, 1969, p. I, June 6, 1970, p. l. 94 Kanadsky S lovak, March 2 1, 1970. p.l , June 26, 197 1, p. l , Jul y 4, 1970, p. l , Jul y 11 , 1970, p. l. 95 The first ten years of the Congress were described by J.M. Kirschbaum in Desa t' rokov cinnosti SKS (Toronto: Slovak World Congress, 1981 ); a short summary was written by Dusan T6th, the Sec retary-General of the Congress from 1971 to 1990 in Kanadsky Slovak , September 10, 2005, p.4. T here is not yet a scholarl y history of the entire period of the Congress's ex istence. 92 �34 SLOVAKIA hopric and church province in Slovakia. Their dream came true in 1977 , although the communist government blocked the appointment of an archbishop until 1988. 96 Thi s was a sy mbolic victory for the two Leagues and the Slovak World Congress because it gave Slovakia its own church jurisdiction, which implied that the Slovaks could also have their own state. Unfortunately for all concerned, Stephen B. Roman died in 1988, just one year before Czechoslovakia threw off its communist rulers.97 With its patron gone, the Slovak World Congress slowly withered away. The two Slovak Leagues, on the other hand , sprang into action. The Canadian Slovak League sent a delegation to Slovakia in February of 1990, to urge Slovak leaders to seek either more homerule or else complete independence. 98 The Slovak League of America likewise sent a delegation in May of 1990 for the same purpose.99 Both Slovak Leagues started a fund-raising campaign for various Slovak causes, and both rejoiced when Slovakia became independent in 1993. 100 Since then both Leagues have cooperated with the various Slovak governments to spread the good name of the Slovaks the world over and to help Slovakia in its transition from a communist dictatorship to a democratic and capitalist society. It should be apparent, therefore, that the Slovak League of America, and the Canadian Slovak League, remained dedicated to Slovak self-determination throughout the 20th century. During World War I 96 See, for instance, the Memorandum of the Central Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League to the Vati can requesting a Church Province and an Archbi shop for Slovaki a, Kanadsky Slovak, September 25, 1965, p. l . J. M. Kirschbaum had firs t suggested thi s move in 1959, Ibid. , and Peter Mulik, " Usilie o zriaden ie slovenskej cirkev nej provincie od roku 1939 a jej vyvoj po sucasnost:" in Mulik ed., Katolfcka cirkev a Slovaci: Us ilie Slovakov o samostatnti cirkevnti provinciu (Brati slava: Bernolakova spolocnost: 1997), 68. 97 See the special iss ue of the monthly Maria (Toronto), May, 1988 for many eulogies concerning the life and achievements of Stephen B. Roman. 98 Smer (Bratislava), February 15, 1990 and Praca (Brati slava), February 16, 1990. See also Rudolf Schu ster's Ultim atum (Bratislava, 1996), pp.101 -2 and the photo section between pages 96 and 97. 99 Slovak v Amerike, June, 1990. I happened to be a member of this del egation. We traveled all over Slovakia, met with governme nt officials, journalists and students and urged them to seek more self-determ ination or independence. See al so Schuster's Ultimatum, op. cit. , 224-5. 100 Kanadsky Slovak, January 2, 1993 ; Slovak v Amerike, January issue, 1993. �SLOVAKIA 35 the Slovak League of America spoke on behalf of its brethren in Slovakia when the latter could not do so. Since T. G. Masaryk had no mandate from Slovaks in Hungary to create a new state consisting of Czechs and Slovaks, the Slovak League of America gave him that mandate in the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Agreements. Since Masaryk and hi s followers did not respect the promises that they had made guaranteeing Slovaks home-rule in Czechoslovakia, both the Slovak Leag ue of America, and its Canadian offshoot, the Canadian Slovak League, demanded home-rule for the Slovaks in the inter-war period. When Slovakia unexpectedly became independent in 1939, both Leagues, after some hesitation, supported thi s independence. After Czechoslovakia was restored by the victorious Allies, both Slovak Leagues supported a return to Slovak independence, especiall y after the arrival in North America of several thou sa nd political refu gees . During the communist era (1948-1989) both Leagues denounced the communi st regime that ruled over their overseas cousins and they co ntinued to demand Slovak independence. After the Communists gave up their power in 1989, both Leagues urged the Slovaks to either demand more home-rule or else complete independence from the Czechs. When Slovakia finally became independent on January 1, 1993 , both Leagues rejoiced and pledged to help it grow and prosper. � SLOVAKIA 7 THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA AND THE CANADIAN SLOVAK LEAGUE IN THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SELF-DETERMINATION OF THE NATION, 1907-1992 M. Mark Stolarik 1 In the 20th century the American and Canadian Slovak Leagues pl ayed a major role in the struggle for the self-determination of the Slovak nation. Founded by immi grants who so ught a better li ve lyhood in the New World , the Slovak League of America played a leading ro le in the creation of Czecho-S lovakia during the Great War. In the inter-war years , the Slovak League of America, joined by its Canadian offshoot, bombard ed the central government in Prag ue with demands to grant the Slovaks in the newly-created state their promised autonom y. When the Slovaks achi eved autonomy in the fa ll of 1938, both Leagues rejoiced. When the Autonomous Diet procl aimed Slovak independence in March of 1939, both Leagues were caught by surpri se, but, after so me hesitation , they supported it. However, because Slovakia was allied with Nazi Germany , both Leagues had to te mper their support after Canada entered the war against Germany in September of 1939 and the U nited States followed sui t in December of 1941. After the war had ended , however, both the American and the Canadian Slovak Leagues demanded a plebiscite on the future of their countrymen in Europe. Having fai led to achieve thi s goal, both Leag ues, whi ch were buttressed by recently-arrived political emigres after 1945, decl ared their support for a new Slovak liberatio n movement which was first led by the Slovak National Council Abroad and, from 1970 on by the Slovak World 1 An earlier version of this paper was presented to the conference on "Emigration to the Engli sh Speaking world," Catho lic University of Rufo mberok, Slovakia, May 19, 2006. �8 SLOVAKIA Congress. After the Communist government gave up its monopol y of power in 1989, both Leagues sent fact-finding delegation s to Czechoslovakia and both supported the movement for Slova k independence, which became a reality in 1993. Since then , they have continued to help their countrymen to consolidate their independence. Between 1870 and 19 14 approx imate ly half a million Slovaks left their homeland in the Kingdom of Hungary and settled in North America in search of work. Once there, they established three pillars of their new communities- fraternal-benefit societies, parish churches and a newspaper press. Largely of peasant stock from eastern Slovaki a, they sought better wages in the coal mines, steel mills and oil refineries of the American Northeast and Midwest (Connec ti cut , New York, New Jersey, Pennsy lvania, Ohio, Indiana and lllinois). 2 The early arriva ls quickly di scovered that the United State s provided vi1tually no social services. Therefore, these immigrants establi shed their own fratern al-benefit societies which, from monthly membership dues, provided accident, illness or death benefits to their members or families , as well as a pl ace to socialize. By 1890 over fifty such fraternals existed and they then began to federate into nation al organizations such as the National Slovak Society , headquartered in Pittsburgh and the First Catholic Slovak Union, with its headquarters in Cleveland . Since the men initially excluded women from their organizations, Slovak women established the Zivena Beneficial Society in New York in 1891 and Catholic women established the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union in Cleveland in 1892. Lutherans established their own Slovak Evangelical Union in 1893 and Calvini sts their Slovak Cal vin Presbyterian Union in 1902. Even the tiny group of socialists estab li shed their own Slovak Workers Society in 1916. By 1920 American Slovaks had enrolled over 200,000 members in these, and other, fraternal-benefit societies. 3 2 For more details on the process of Slovak migration and resettlement in the United States see my Immigration and Urbanization: Th e Slovak Experience, 1870- 191 8 (New York: AMS Press, I 989), I-7 1. 3 For the story of Slovak fratern al-benefit soc ieties in the United States see my "A Place fo r Everyo ne: Slovak Fratern al-Benefi t Societies," in Scott Cummings, ed ., Self-Help in Urban America: Patterns of Minority Business Enterprise (Port Washington, NY : Kennikat Press, 1980, 130-41 and "Slovak Fraternal-Benefit Societies in North America: An Overview ( 1883- 1993), in Matjaz Klemenc ic ed. , Etnicni fra- �SLOVAKIA 9 Besides the need for social benefits , Slovak immigrants also yearned for religious services in their own language. The fraternalbenefit societies led the way in establishing pari sh churches , in recruiting their priests and in supporting (or not supporting) them. Slovak Roman Catholics established 241 parishes, Lutherans 68 , Calvinists 9 and Greek Catholics (mixed parishes of Rusins and Slovaks) 155 by 1930.4 At least half of the Roman Catholic parishes also established parochial schools which taught their children to read, write and sing in Slovak, while all other subjects were taught in English. The Roman Catholics also established several religious orders to teach their children, as well as Benedictine High School for boys in Cleveland and Danville Academy for girls in Danville, Pen. 5 nsy Ivama. Finally, most of the immigrants from Slovakia yearned for news from their homeland and were also curious about conditions in the New World. Therefore, a small number of intellectuals, who had followed them from Slovakia, established a very vigorous newspaper press. Starting with a mere Bulletin in 1885, American Slovaks developed a full-service press that consisted of dailies, weeklies and monthlies , and that varied in orientation from nationalist to Magyarone, from secular to religious, from socialist to capitalist. By 1914 the combined circulation of the Slovak-American press was over 150,000, which was four times the circulation of the Slovak-langu- terna/izem v priseljenskich deie/ach/Ethnic Fratemalism in Immigra nt Countries (Maribor: University of Maribor, 1996), 147-59. 4 For the process of the creation of parishes, see my Growing Up on the South Side: Three Generations of Slovaks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, I 880- 1976 (Lewsiburg: Bucknell Uni vers ity Press, 1985), 44-62; for the number of parishes of various denominations see Filip Hrobak, comp., and ed. , Slovak Catholic Parishes and Institutions in the United States and Canada (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union , 1955), 3 I- I65; George Dolak, A History of the Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States of America, /902-1927 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955), 189-206; Jan Body & John Adam , comp. and ed .. History of the Slovak Zion Synod LCA (Pittsburgh: Zion Synod, 1976), 199-200; Kalendar pre slovenskych Kalvfnov, 1927 (P ittsburgh), 97- 147; and Paul R. Magocs i, Our People: CarpathoRusyns and Their Descendants in North America (Toron to: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1984), 14. 5 Hrobak, Parishes and institutions, 169-82. �SLOVAKIA . Hungary. 6 age press m As they were building the pillars of the ir new co mmunities in America, Slovak immigrants did not fo rget their homeland . Indi vidual immigrants sent several hundred million doll ars to support their fa milies in Slovakia in the period 1870-1914. In addition , Slovak fraternal-benefit societies and their leaders rai sed fund s for the Slovak National Museum, for Slovak schools and churches in Hungary, they paid for and published in the ir Almanacs articles written by Slovak inte llectuals, and they established schol arship fund s to support Slovak high-school students in Bohe mi a and Moravia. Most important of all , they fi nancially supported Slovak candidates to the Hungarian Parli ament and rejo iced when, for the first time in hi story, seven nati onall y-conscious Slovaks were elected in 1906.7 Meanwhile, since the 1867 "Compromi se," whereby the ruling Habsburgs of Austri a and the Magyars of Hungary agreed to divide the empire into the Dual Monarchy of Au stri a-Hungary, the Magyars set out to forcibl y assimilate all the non-M agyar nationalities in Hungary. 8 American Slovak leaders were aware of thi s poli cy of "Magyari zation" and joined their counterparts in Slova ki a in trying to combat it. To thi s end American Slovaks, reacting to urgings from Slovak leaders in Europe, organized a " national congress" to be held in Cleveland on May 26, 1907 . On that day over l0,000 countrymen fro m across America packed into Greys Armory and established the Slovak Leag ue of Ameri ca, whi ch would be the cover organization fo r all nationall y-conscious Slovak organizations in the United States. Thi s sa me congress also e lected the Rev. Stefa n Furdek of Cleveland (originally from Trstena, Orava county), fo under of the First Catholic Slovak Union, as its president and Peter V. Rovnianek of Pittsburgh (originally fro m Doln y Hricov, Trencfn county), foun 6 For an over-view see my "The Slovak-American Press," in Sall y M. Miller ed. , The Ethnic Press in the United States: A Historical A nalysis and Handbook (Westport, CT: Gree nwood Press, 1987), 354-68 ; fo r the circul ation of the Slovak-Ameri can press in 19 14 see my " Slovak Nati onalism in the USA as Refl ected in th e Slovak-American Press, 1885- 1918 ," Canadian Review of Studies in Na tionalism, 3 1 (Nos. 1-2, 2004) , 65-76. 7 Stolarik, Immigration and Urbanization, 185-205 . 8 The best desc ripti on of " Magyarization" is still Scotus Viator (R.W. Seton-Watson), Racial Problems in Hungary (London: Archibald Constable, 1908 ; reprinted by Howard Ferti g, New York, 1972). �SLOVAKIA 11 der of the National Slovak Society , as its first vice-president, as well as the presidents of all the other fraternals as vice-presidents. The League published its formal program of autonomy for the Slovaks in Hungary in September of 1914, just as the world was entering into the first of two world wars that would plague the 20th century. 9 While the League 's official program was autonomy for its countrymen in the Kingdom of Hungary , a small group of Slovaks dissented and called for the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the liberation of their people. These di ssidents were large ly organized in the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol , which had been established in New Jersey in 1896, and which adopted the program of the Czech professsor of philosophy T.G. Masaryk. ' 0 The latter had fled hi s homeland in the fall of 1914 and had started to organize a movement to liberate the linguistically-related Czechs and Slovaks from Au stria-Hungary and to create a new state on its ruin s. Masaryk was assisted in hi s quest by one of hi s form er students, the Paris-based Slovak astronomer, Milan R. Stefanik. Later, Masaryk was joined by another of hi s students, the sociologist Edvard Benes. This trio organized itself into a "Czech Committee" and hoped to persuade the western Allies, if they were victorious over the Central Powers, to dismember AustriaHungary and to allow the Czechs and Slovaks to establish their own state. 11 While Masaryk was an elected member of the Austrian Parliament, and in touch with hi s Czech colleagues, who approved of his plans, he had no mandate from the Slovaks in Hungary to include 9 Fo r the creation of the Slovak League see Jednota (C leveland), May 29, 1907; ~udove noviny (Ska lica), Jun e 4, 1907; Jan Pank uch, Dejiny Clevelandskych a Lakewoodskych Slovakov (C leveland: Jan Pankuch, 1930), 71-3 ; and Kon stantin Cul en, Dejiny Slovakov v A merike, JI (Bratislava: Slovenska Liga, 1942), 11 3-24 ; for the program of autonomy see " Memorandum Slovenskej Ligy v Amerike vydane menom americkyc h Slovakov," in Dr. Yacovsky [Milan Ivanka], Slovaci a Madari: Politicko-historicka uvaha (Pittsburgh: Slovak League of America, I 9 14), 10 I-7. 10 For the ac ti vities of the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol see Milan Getting, A merickf Slovaci a vyvin ceskoslovenskej myslienky v rokoch 19 14-1 9 /8 (Perth Amboy, NJ: Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol , 1933) 11 Masaryk and Benes left us the ir memoirs: T.G . Masaryk, The Making of a State: Memories and Observations, 19 14-1 918 (London: Frederick A. Stokes, 1927; Edu ard Benes, Souvenirs de g uerre et de revolution (1914-1918), 2 Vols. (Paris: E. Lero ux , 1928). Stefanik left no memoirs but Jan Jurfcek wrote a sy mpathetic biography: M.R. Stefanik: t ivotopisny nacrt (Brati slava: Mlade !eta, 1968). �12 SLOVAKIA them in the proposed state. Therefore, Masaryk sought such a mandate from American Slovak immigrants, most of whom were not yet citizens of the United States, but whose leaders had been in close touch with Slovak leaders in Hungary before the war, and who had a mandate from them to speak on behalf of the Slovak nation . 12 As a result, Masaryk urged his Czech colleagues in the United States to seek out the Slovaks and try to persuade them to join in his liberation movement. American Czechs did so and on October 22, 1915 the Bohemian National Alliance, which was the cover organization of most American Czechs, and the Slovak League of America met and concluded the Cleveland Agreement, which was named after the city in which it was signed. In this Agreement, the two sides pledged to work for the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the creation of a new, federal state consisting "of the Czech and Slovak nations," with "complete national autonomy for Slovakia, with its own Diet, its own state administration, complete cultural freedom .. ..its own financial and political administration," and "with Slovak as the state language ." The Slovak League insisted upon these points because it knew that the Czechs would outnumber the Slovaks in the new state by three-to-one and the League did not want the Czechs to dominate the Slovaks as had the Magyars in Hungary. 13 Had the two sides respected the Cleveland Agreement, the liberation movement might have worked smoothly and led to a harmonious future for the Czechs and Slovaks. Unfortunately, T.G. Masaryk did not believe in the existence of separate Czech and Slovak nations. Perhaps because he was of mixed Slovak (father) and Czech (mother) origin, he believed that the Czechs and Slovaks 12 On August 6, 1906, political leaders in Slovakia sent their counterparts in the USA a letter in which they proposed to share the leadership of the Slovak natio n with them. The letter was published in lmrich Mazar, Dejiny Binghamtonskych Slovakov za dobu styridsat' rokov, I 879-19 I 9 (Bingha mton : Branch I04 of the Slovak League of America, 1919), 2 1-22 . The Czechs recog nized th at Slovak leaders in the USA were authorized to speak on behalf of the Slovaks in Hungary in an editorial that appeared in The Bohemian Review (Chicago), March, 19 18, p.47 . 13 Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 23 , 1915 , p.7 ; Jednota (M iddl etow n, PA ), November 24, 1915, p.4; Narodne noviny (Pittsburgh), November 25, 19 15, p.5 ; the original was published in Dokumenty slovenskej nardonej identity a statnosti, I (Bratislava: Narodne literarne centrum, 1998), 445-7; an English translation can be found in my "The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of Czecho-S lovakia, 1914-1918," Slovak Studies, VIII (Rome, I 968), p.55. �SLOVAKIA 13 formed one "Czechoslovak" nation and merely spoke two dialects of the same language. Therefore, when he arrived in the United States in the spring of 1918 to seek the recognition of the American government for the liberation movement and was shown the Cleveland Agreement, he proclaimed it "out of date" and proceeded to negotiate a new one with the Slovaks. On May 31st, 1918 Masaryk in Pittsburgh negotiated a weaker agreement with American Slovaks. According to thi s new "Pittsburgh Agreement," the two sides approved a "political program to unite the Czechs and Slovaks into an independent state of Czech and Slovak lands," in which " Slovakia will have its own administration, its own Diet and its own courts." Furthermore, "S lovak will be the official language in the school s, in offices and public life generally." And the "Czecho-Slovak state will be a republic and its Constitution will be a democratic one." Noticeably absent from this Agreement were the phrases "federal state" and "complete national autonomy for Slovakia," and there was no mention of the "Czech and Slovak nations," as there had been in the Cleveland Agreement. 14 Members of the Slovak League of America, led by its president Albert Mamatey of Pittsburgh (originall y from Klastor pod Znievom in Turiec county), signed the Pittsburgh Agreement because by then the liberation movement, led by Masaryk, was in high gear. The newly-formed Czechoslovak Legions in Russia revolted against the Bolsheviks and seized control over the entire Trans-Siberian Railway. These Legions had been organized from prisoners-of-war by Masaryk and Stefanik, and their seizure of the railroad greatly aided the Allied war effort, because they prevented hundreds of thousands of German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners-of-war from returning to fight on the western front. 15 In addition, si nce Masaryk himself had 14 Jednota, June 5, 191 8, p.5; N:irodne noviny, June 6, 1918 , p.5; Jozef Hu sek, "Prehl'ad vaznejsfch udalostf v hi storii I. Kat. Slovenskej Jednoty, Jednota Katolfcky Kalend:ir, 1931, (Middletown, PA), pp.58-9. Victor S. Mamatey pointed ou t that the date of the Pittsburgh Agreement was May 3 1, 191 8, not May 30 as the calligrapher erroneously wrote it. Cf "Este raz o Pittsburgskej dohode," Premeny (Flushing, NY), 20 (No.3 , 1983), 39. For the full text of the Pittsburgh Agreement see Dokumenty, QJ2&i.t. , 485-6 and for an English translation see my The Role of, QJ2,....ci_t., 56. 15 Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 20, 1918, p.5; New York Times, June 29, 1918, p.3 ; for a detailed di sc ussion of the Czechoslovak Leg ion see J.F.N. Bradley , "The Allies and the Czech Revolt aga inst the Bol sheviks in 191 8," Slavonic and East �14 SLOVAKIA drafted and signed the Pittsburgh Agreement, along with the Bohemian National Alliance and the Union of Czech Catholics, American Slovak leaders felt confident that Masaryk would honor it. Skeptics, such as Jozef Hu sek, editor of Jednota (originall y from Okolicne, Liptov county), the official organ of the First Catholic Slovak Union, the largest Slovak fraternal-benefit society in America, did not tru st Masaryk. lt was Husek who forced Masary k into drafting the Pittsburgh Agreement, and it was Husek who insisted that he sign a calligraphed copy of it on November 14, I 918 , the very day that the newly-created Czecho-Slovak government in Prague e lected Masaryk President of the Republic. After Masaryk signed it a second time, American Slovaks were sati sfied and hoped for the best for their people in the new Czecho-Slovak Republic, which was proclaimed by a gathering of Czec h deputies of the former Austrian Parli ament in Prague on October 28 , 191 8, just as the defeated Austria-Hungary was collapsing. 16 Unfortunately for the future of Czecho-Slovakia, the promi ses made to American Slovaks by T.G. Masary k in the Pittsburgh Agreement were not carried out. Once he had returned in triumph to the newl y-created Republic in Dece mber of 1918 , Masaryk promptl y forgot about the Pittsburgh Agreement. The Czec h deputies in Prague , meanwhile, formed themselves into a "Czechoslovak government" on November 14th and later appointed a Czech-dominated "Constitutional Committee" to draft a Constitution for the new Republic. 17 Hearing of these events, the Slovak League of America sent a five-person delegation to Czecho-Slovakia in the spring of 1919, to remind Masaryk of hi s promises and to demand that the Pittsburgh Agreement be included in the proposed Constitution . Upon their return to the United States, the Executive Board of the Slovak League passed a resolution at its quarterly meeting on October 24, 1919, Europea n Review, 43 (No. I OI , 1965), 175-92 . The lack of the word "S lovak" in Bradley ' s title testifi es to the pro-Czech bias of western hi storian s during the ex istence of Czechoslovakia. 16 Husek, " Prehl'ad," op.cit. , 58-9 ; Joze f Husek, " Pittsburghska Dohoda," Jednota Katolfcky K al endar, 1933, 11 I. 17 For more on these proceedings see Vaclav L. Benes , " Czechoslovak Democracy and Its Problems, 1918-1920," in Victor S. Mamatey & Radomir Lu za, eds. , A History of the Czechoslovak Republic. 19 18- 1948 (Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1973), 53-6. �SLOVAKIA 15 calling for the incorporation of the Pittsburgh Agreement into the proposed Czecho-Slovak Constitution. 18 Indeed, at the last meeting of the Czecho-Slovak Nation al Council in America, which had been founded in 1917 to coordinate the work of the Leag ue and of the Bohemian National Alliance, the Slovak delegates asked their Czech colleagues to pass a similar resolution, and the latter gladly complied 19 on November 7, 1919. Thus, American Czechs recogni zed the validity of the Pittsburgh Agreement while the Constitutional Committee did not. Masaryk, on the other hand , when asked by Prime Mini ster Vl astimil Tu s:cir in January of 1920 to comment on the validity of the Pittsburgh Agreement, brushed it aside as " one of many pre-revolutionary program s made beyond the boundaries. It has its hi storical value." 20 As a result, in March of 1920 the Constitutional Committee drafted , and the Prague Parliament adopted , a very centrali st Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic , which sy mboli ca ll y dropped the hyphen from its name , and proclaimed that " the Czechoslovak Republic is a unified, not a federative state ," that its official language was the "Czechoslovak language" (even thou gh no such lang uage existed) , and Slovakia did not receive its own administration, its own Diet and its own courts, nor did Slovak become the official language of administration, as promised in the Pittsburgh Agreement? In the inter-war period , after some hesitatio n, the Slovak League of America continued to demand the home-rule promi sed the Slovaks by T.G. Masaryk. Albert Mamatey, the president of the League, visited Slovakia with a copy of the Pittsburgh Agreement in the winter of 19 I 9-1920 and was reass ured by Mil an Hodfa, one of the leaders of the Czec hoslovak Agrarian Party, that the Slovaks had nothing to worry about. Indeed , in September of 1920 Mamatey was rewarded for hi s wartime services on behalf of Slovakia by being ap- 18 19 Jednota, October 29, I 9 I 9. p. l The Czechoslovak Review [Formerly the Bohemian Review], December, 1919, p. 394. T.G. Masaryk to Y lastimil Tu sar, February 5. I920 , as published in The Slovaks 20 and the Pittsburgh Pact (Chicago : Slovak Catholic Federation, 1934), p.34. Jii'i Hoetzl and V. Joachim ( Introd uction by) , The Constitution of the Czechoslo vak Republic (Prague: Ed ition de la Soc iete de I'effort de la T checoslovaqu ie. 1920), pp. I 2, 47 . 21 �16 SLOVAKIA pointed the Czechoslo vak Consul in Pittsburgh. 22 He was succeeded as president of the League by hi s colleague Ivan Bielek, the former editor of the American Narodn e noviny, offici al organ of the National Slovak Society.23 Jan A. Kocur, a pre-war immigrant from 24 Turzovka, meanwhile, became the League ' s secretary. Under thi s new leadership the 14th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh, PA on June 28-29, 1922, sent a Memorandum to the National Assembly in Prague in which it demanded that the Pittsburgh Agreement be made a part of the Czechoslovak Constitution .25 Meanwhil e, after some prodding by Jozef Husek, editor of Jednota, as well as by the leadership of the First Catholic Slovak Union and the Slovak Catholic Federation, the 15th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Binghamton , New York on May 27-29, 1924, rejected the philosophy of "Czechoslovakism" as practiced by the Prague government and once again demanded that the provi sions of the Pittsburgh Agreem ent be carried out. 26 In addition , the Slovak League now openl y supported the Slovak People 's Party, led by the Reverend Andrej Hlinka, because that party had adopted the program of the Pittsburgh Agreement. Indeed , in 1926 the Slovak League made Hlinka an honorary member. 27 Interestingly enough, the League was so committed to the Pittsburgh Agreement th at, when the Slovak People ' s Party ag reed to join the center-right Czechoslovak coalition government in 1927-29, the League denounced this step! 28 On the other hand , it heartily approved of the People ' s Party 's withdrawal from the coalition after the October 1929 trial and conviction for treason of Yojtech Tuka, editor of Slo vak, the People 's Party ' s official organ .29 Furthermore, in 1928, on the l 0th anniver22 Joze f Paufo, 75. Rok ov Prvej K atolfckej Slovenskej Jednory (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union, 1965), 160. For a short biograph y of A lbert M amatey see Joze f Paufo, Slovensk f priekopn fci v A merike (Cleveland: First Cath olic Slovak Union, 1972), 269-75. 23 For a short biograph y of Ivan Bielek see Paufo , Slovenskf priekopnfci, p. 25-28. 24 For hi s biography see ilii.d.. , 229. 25 M emorandum Slovenskej Ligy v A merike upravene na vladu a Narodne Shromai denie Cesko-Sl ovenskej Republiky v zaujme vte/enia Pittsburghskej Dohody do ustavy C.-S. Republiky (Pittsburgh: Slovak League of A meri ca, 1922). 26 " Z XV. Kongresu Slovenskej Ligy v A merike." Jednota, June 4, 1924, pp. 1-2, 4. 27 Paufo, 75 roko v, 21 I. 28 lb.id... 223 . 29 " Prehlas od Ivana Bieleka,'· Jednota, October 23 , 1929, p.4. �SLOVAKIA 17 sary of the founding of Czechoslovakia, the League rejected a special commendation from the Czechoslovak government for its role in the liberation of the country.30 Thereafter the League continued to publish and send memoranda to the Czecho-Slovak government, as it had in the l 920's, demanding that it grant the Slovaks the home-rule that Masaryk had promised in the Pittsburgh Agreement. 3 1 During the 1930's the Slovak League and the People ' s Party closely cooperated for the benefit of both sides. At its 19th Congress held in Cleveland on November 19-20, 1934, the assembled delegates elected the American-born Chicago medical doctor Peter P. Hletko as their president and he and his executive board invited the nationalist cultural organization Matica slovenska to send a delegation of scholars and leaders to help American Slovaks to maintain their national identity. The Matica complied in 1935-1936 by sending its director, the writer J.C. Hronsky, the publicist Konstantin Culen, the art historian Jozef Cincfk, and the photographer Karel Plicka. They visited 98 of the largest Slovak-American communities, presented lectures, slides and films about Slovakia, and donated four large libraries to the Slovak communities of New York City, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Chicago. This delegation also gathered a wealth of published and manuscript materials pertaining to the history of American Slovaks , which are now stored in the Slovak National Library.32 The People ' s Party, which was the main supporter of the Matica slovenska, reciprocated in 1938 when it invited the Slovak League to send a delegation to the mother country in order to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Pittsburgh Agreement. The 20th congress of the League, held in Pittsburgh on April 28-29, 1938, elected a six-person delegation, which included Peter P. Hletko and Jozef Husek, to travel to Slovakia, and to bring with it the original of 30 "Kongres Slovenskej Ligy," Jednota, June 6, 1928, p. l. See, for example the, fo llow ing: Prehlas Slovenskej Ligy v Amerike upraveny na vsetkych politickych cinitelbv Cesko-Slovenskej Republiky (Pittsburgh: P. Jamriska & Co., 1925); V zaujme pra vdy ! (Pittsburgh: P. Jamriska & Co., 1930); and An Autonomi st [Peter P. Hletko], Slovakia's Plea for Autonomy (Middletown, PA: Slovak Literary Society, I 935). 32 J.C. Hronsky described the Matica's trip and its achieve ments in Cesta slovenskou Amerikou: Cestopisne crty z r. 1935-36. v dvoch dieloch (Turc. Sv. Martin : Matica slovenska, 1940). 31 �18 SLOVAKIA the Pittsburgh Agreement. The delegation went via Poland, in order to first visit the Rev. Andrej Hlinka in Rufomberok, and only then did it proceed to Bratislava and Prague. In Bratislava on June 5th the Slovak League delegation appeared on the balcony of the Slovak National Theater on Hviezdoslav Square, along with Andrej Hlinka and other notables of the People 's Party. Peter P. Hletko then triumphantly held up the original of the Pittsburgh Agreement, to the cheers of over 100,000 people.33 Finally, on October 6, 1938, after the infamous Munich Agreement weakened Czechoslovakia and president Edvard Benes resigned his office and fled to the west, the Slovak People 's Party, with the support of the Agrarian and National Parties and the approval of Prague, proclaimed the autonomy of Slovakia and formed a six-man government headed by Dr. Jozef Tiso. He had succeeded Andrej Hlinka as party leader after the latter' s death on August 16th. The Prague Parliament formally approved Slovak autonomy on November 22nd and re-named the Republic as Czecho-Slovakia, to reflect thi s new reality. Needless to say, the Slovak League of America was overjoyed to see that, after 20 years of strugg le, the provisions of the Pittsburgh Agreement were finally carried out. 34 While the Slovak League was satisfied with the outcome of its efforts on behalf of the Pittsburgh Agreement, Adolph Hitler was not. The German Chancellor was determined to destroy Czecho-Slovakia and to incorporate Bohemia-Moravia into his "Third Reich." Therefore, he had his agents get in touch with the most radical individuals in the People 's Party, who were led by the recently-releasedfrom-prison Vojtech Tuka, and urged them to seek complete Slovak independence. Tuka and his followers began to plot against CzechoSlovakia and the Prague government reacted by declaring martial law on March 11th, by di ssolving the recently-elected Slovak Diet, 33 Hlas l'udu (Toronto), May 27, 1938, pp.l-2 , June 7, 1938, pp.1-4 ; Slovak v Kan ade (Montreal ), June 2, 1938, p. l; Osadne hlasy (Chicago), June 24, 1938, pp.12; Narodne noviny, Jul y 6, 1938, p.5. Photos of the delegation in Poland and in Slovakia can be found in J.M . Kirschbaum, Slovakia: Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe (New York: Robert Speller & Sons, 1960), between pp.264-265. 34 New Yorksky dennfk (New York) , October 9, 1938 , p.1; Kato/icky Sokol (Passaic, NJ) , October 12, 1938, p.l; Narodne no viny, October 12, 1938, p.l; Osadne h/asy, October 14, 1938 , p.l and October 21 , 1938, pp. 1&3 ; Jednota, November 2, 1938, p.3 �SLOVAKIA 19 and by arresting over 200 suspected "plotters" against the Republic. Meanwhile, Hitler's agents summoned the recently-dismissed Prime Minister Jozef Tiso to Berlin on March 13th and gave him an ultimatum: either proclaim independence or watch Slovakia be partitioned by Poland and Hungary. Tiso returned to Bratislava on March 14th, he persuaded President Emil Hacha to reconvene the Slovak Diet, and after Tiso passed on to the Diet Hitler's message, the Diet unanimously declared Slovak independence. Since Czecho-Slovakia no longer existed, Hitler ordered the German army to occupy BohemiaMoravia and turn it into a German " Protectorate." He also recognized the independence of the Slovak Republic, but forced it into a German alliance and put it under German protection. 35 When news of the declaration of Slovak Independence reached American Slovaks, they were at first puzzled and subsequently split into two camps-those who supported Slovak independence and those who did not. This split had first surfaced right after World War I, when certain American Slovaks chose to support the new, centralized Czechoslovak Republic, while others did not. Generally speaking, most Slovak Protestant societies in the USA, as well as those individuals organized in the militantly secular Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol (founded in 1896) supported the new state because they agreed with its official philosophy of "Czechoslovakism," that is, that the Czechs and Slovaks formed one nation but spoke two dialects of the "Czechoslovak" language. 36 The majority of American Slovaks, who were Roman Catholics, and were represented by the First Catholic Slovak Union and the Slovak Catholic Federation, among others, did not. Between 1919 and 1924 the pro-Czechoslovak group controlled the Slovak League. 37 After 1924 the Slovak nationalists regained control over the League, and continue to do so. Therefore, the Protestants and the Sokols (as well as Slovak Communi sts), rejected the independent Slovak Republic and hoped that 35 The best description of this period in Czecho-Slovakia ' s hi story is by Theodor Prochazka, The Second Republic: Th e Disintegration of post-Munich Czechoslovakia (Boulder: East European Monographs, 198 1); for an alternative view see Frantisek Ynuk, " Slovakia' s Six Eventfu l Months," Slovak Studies, 4 ( 1964), 7- I 64. 36 Milan Getting best represented thi s group and described their act ivities in his Americki Slovaci, ~ 37 " Z XV . Kongresu Slovenskej Li gy v Amerike," Q)hci.t. �20 SLOVAKIA Czecho-Slovakia could be resurrected.38 To this end they supported ex-president Edvard Benes's new liberation movement during World War 11. 39 The leadership of the Slovak League, largely representing the majority Roman Catholics, on the other hand, supported the new state. Indeed, Jozef Husek, who was elected president of the League at its 21 st Congress in Cleveland on October 14th, 1938, form all y requested president Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the United States on April 24, 1939 to grant the Slovak Republic diplomatic recognition.40 Shortly thereafter the Slovak League was heartened by a message ("Posolstvo") sent by Prime Minister Jozef Tiso to American and Canadian Slovaks on May 23rd of 1939. Here Tiso explained in 38 A group of Slovak Protestants (Lutherans, Calvini sts and Congregationalists), led by the Baptist preac her A. P. Slabey, met in Duquesne, PA on May 30th, 1938 and denounced the Hletko- led delegati on of the Slovak League to Slovakja that spring. Cf. Narodne noviny, June 8, 1938 , p.3; In the fall Jan Pankuch, a Lutheran and fo rmer mem ber of the Delegati on, regretted the granting of autonomy to Slovakia. Cf. Hla s (C leveland), October 13, I 938, p. l ; after the Slovak Diet declared independence on Marc h 14th , 1939 . the Lutheran-dominated Nati onal Slovak Society denounced this act. Cf. Narodne noviny, March 15, 1939, p. l , as did the secul arist and Sokol-do minated New Yorksky dennik , March 15, 1939, p. l. Slovak communists also de nounced both Slovak auto no my and independence. Cf. I', udovy dennik (Chicago), October 7, 1938, p. l ; October 8, 1938, p. I; March I6, 1939, p. l 39 Those American Slovaks who opposed Slovak indepe ndence and wished to see Czecho-Slovakja res urrected after th e war initiall y organi zed the mselves into th e Slovak Nati onal Council of America. However, they soon split into fac tions th at either supported ex-president Benes or else Dr. Milan Hodfa or Dr. Stefan Osusky, both of whom had fl ed to the West after the fa ll of France in June of 1940, and both of whom broke with Benes over the future of a res urrected Czecho-S lovakia. While Be nes wanted a return to the cent ra lized pre-M un ich Czechoslovakia, Hodfa and Osusky wished to return to a federated Czecho-S lovilia. Cf. Letters of Jan Dend'ur, Secretary of the Slovak National Council to Vlad imir Hurban, ex-Ambassador of Czechos lovakia in Washington, Papers of Jan Dend'ur, Box I , File A-S , Balch Institute at th e Histori cal Society of Penn sy lvania, Philade lphia; those who supported Benes joined the Czechoslovak Nati onal Co un cil of America and we re led by the Lutheran Rev . Jaros lav Pelikan, Sr. of Chicago. Cf. New York sky dennik, Dece mber 11 , 1941 , p. I. For a descri ption of the Benes-led liberation move ment see Ed uard Taborsky, " Politics in Exile, 1939- 1945 ," in Mamatey & Lufa , A History , QP..ci.1. , 322-42. 40 Letter of Jozef Husek to Frank lin Delano Roosevelt, April 24, 1939, publ ished in Correspondence in re Slovakia and the Declaration of the Aim and Principles of the Slo vak League of A merica (Middletown? Slovak League of America, 1940?), 1718. Husek sent a similar letter to Secretary of State Corde ll Hull on August 4, 1939, ilii.d., 19-20. �SLOVAKIA 21 great detail how and why the Slovak Republic came into being and he asked American and Canadian Slovaks to support it. 4 1 As a result, the 22nd Congress of the Slovak League, which was held on November 14-15 in Cleveland, and which re-elected Husek as its president, passed a resolution in which it fully supported the independent Slovak Republic. Furthermore, it called upon the United States government to grant Slovakia diplomatic recognition, and it deplored ex-president Edvard Benes's American speaking tour, in which he called for the restoration of pre-war Czechoslovakia.42 In the fo llowing October, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt received a IS-person delegation of the Slovak League led by Husek and Hletko during which they pledged their loyalty to the USA . They considered thi s meeting to be a moral victory, even though FDR refu sed to recognize the Slovak Republic. 43 On the other hand, because of attacks launched upon the Slovak League by the supporters of Edvard Benes, Husek and the Slovak League were investigated by the Dies Committee on Un-American Activities. Thereafter they were under FBI surveillance. 44 Since the United States entered the Second World War on the side of the Allies on December 7, 1941 , and since Prime Mini ster Vojtech Tuka of Slovakia foolishly declared war upon the United States shortly there41 Tiso was responding to a letter sent to him by Andrej Potocky, Supreme Secretary of the Canadian Slovak League, askin g for an ex planation as to why the Slovak Diet had declared independence. Cf. And rej Potocky to Jozef Tiso, April 20, 1939 and Tiso's reply, of June 2, 1939, with a copy of the " Posolstvo," in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, lmrich Stolarik Co ll ection, Box 576, fo lder 2, 1939, Slovak Archives, University of Ottawa, Archi ves and Spec ia l Collections, and in the Andrej Potocky Papers, box 282 , folder 4, I 939, lhid. Jozef Husek translated and published it as " Dr. Joseph Tiso to the Slovaks in America," in Correspondence in re Slovakia, QJ2,.Q!., 716. This " Posolstvo" was originall y published in Slovak in several pro-independence newspapers in the USA and Canada. Cf. S lovenske bratstvo (Montreal), Jul y 2 1, and July 31, 1939, p.3 . 42 Jednota, Novem ber 29, 1939, p. 3; H/as Judu, November 18 and 21 , p. I. 43 Jedno ta, October 30, 1940, p. I, November 6, 1940, p.2; Slo venske bratstvo, November I, 1940, p.2. 44 Hlas Judu , October 24, 1939 , p. l ; see also Jozef Husek's letters to Martin Dies, Chairman , Dies House Committee, October 6, 1939 and October 28, 1939, in Correspondence in re Slovakia, QJ2..ci.t. , 23-4. In the summer of 1970 I visited with Dr. Peter P. Hletko in Chi cago and he confi rmed that the FBI had him and Husek under survei llance throughout the war, a lthough Hletko struck up a friendship with those watching him . �22 SLOVAKIA after, the Slovak League had to become more circumspect m its pronouncements. It now pledged absolute loyalty to the United States, although it continued to passively support the Slovak Republic. 45 However, the United States Office of War Information arranged a meeting of all Slovak-American organizations in Pittsburgh on September 14, 1942, and urged them to sign a declaration in which they repudiated the Slovak Republic and pledged their loyalty to the United States and its Allies. 46 By December a dejected Jozef Husek resigned as president of the League.47 He was eventually replaced by the more cautious Msgr. Frantisek Du bosh of Lakewood, Ohio, at the 23rd Congress of the League held in Pittsburgh on February 25-26, 1943. 48 Since the Slovak League could no longer openly support Slovak independence, it had to lower its expectations. At its 23rd Congress it had to develop a new program for Slovakia and, at the same time, deal with the issue of accepting or rejecting two former hi gh-ranking Slovaks in the pre-war Czechoslovak government and bureaucracy who had come to America. One was the former Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia, Milan Hodz.a, and the other was the former Czechoslovak Minister to Paris, Stefan Osusky. Both had broken with Edvard Benes after the destruction of Czecho-Slovakia. Hodza now recognized the Slovaks as a distinct nation but favored the resurrection of a federated Czecho-Slovakia within a Central European Federation . Osu sky also recognized the Slovaks as an independent nation and favored the resurrection of a federated Czecho-Slovakia as stipul ated in the Cleveland Agreement of 1915 , which he had helped to draft. After much debate, the League rejected both Hodza and 45 Osadne h/asy, December 19, 194 1, p.2; Jednota , January 7, 1942 , p.8. Pavel Jamriska, the vice-president of the L eague, pledged that " American Slovaks never betrayed and never w ill betray the Slovak nation and Slovakia." Cf. Jednota, January 2 1, 1942, p.4. Jozef Husek president of the League, added that " Slovakia should retain its freedom ," in spite of the war. Jednota, February 25, 1942, p.4. 46 Jednota, September 23, 1942, p. l and October 14, 1942, p.2. Thi s " Resolution " was reprinted in Martin Kvetko and Miroslav J. Licko 's edited Zbornik tivah a osobnych spomienok o S/ovenskom narodnom povstanf (Toronto: Stala konferencia slovenskych demokratickych exu lantov, 1976), pp. 396-7 w ithout any explanation. 47 I.:udo ve zvesti (Toronto), December 12, 1942, p. I and January 16, 1943, p.5. 48 Kanadsky Slovak (Montrea l), March 11 , 1943, p. I ; I.:udove zves ti, March 20 , 1943 , p.5. �SLOVAKIA 23 Osusky as former collaborators of the first Czechoslovak Republic and it returned to its pre-war program of "self-determination" for the Slovaks in the future. 49 When the Slovak National Uprising against the Germans broke out at the end of August, 1944, American Slovaks were once again divided. After some hesitation, the 26th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh on October 18-19, 1944, and most American Catholic organizations , rejected the leadership of the newlyformed Slovak National Council as too "Czechoslovak" and Communi st. 50 Most American Lutherans, National Sokols and Communi sts, on the other hand, cheered and recognized the leadership of the SNC. 51 To complicate matters even more, the People' s Party journali st Peter Prfdavok, who had initially rejected the Slovak Republic and had fled to France and Great Britain in 1939, al so broke with Edvard Benes and in 1943 establi shed a Slovak National Council in London . He immediately contacted the Slovak League of America and , after the 1944 uprising in Slovakia, counseled the Slovak League not to recognize the Slovak National Council in Slovakia. 52 The League did not do so until it heard of the promulgation of the Kosice Programme of April 5, 1945 , which recognized the Slovaks as a di stinct nation and which al so recognized the Slovak National Council as the government of Slovakia. Thi s was a major concession by representatives of Edvard Benes 's victorious government-in-exile, which by then had returned to Slovak ("Czechoslovak") territory on 49 Cudove z vesti, March 20, 1943 and Kanadsky Slovak, March 25 , 1943, p.4. After Osusky broke with Benes he publi shed a series of pamphlets in whi ch he denounced the latter: Pravda vfthzf 1 (Pohlhd do zrkadla druheho odboj a) (London : The Continental Publishers, 1942); Benes and Slovakia (Middletown, PA : First Catholi c Slovak Union, 1943) ; Triedenie duchov nastalo (L ondon : The Continental Publishers, 1943) ; Hodza ' s position was best reported in K anadsky Slovak, M ay 28, 1942, pp. 7 & 10. For Hodza ' s acti vities in the USA see Michal Mudry, Milan Hodi a v Amerike (Chicago: Geringer Press, 1949). For more on Benes's opponents during World War II see Jan Kuklfk and Jan Nemecek, Prati Beneso vi! Ceska a slovenska protibeneso vska opozice v Londy ne /939-1 945 (Praha: Karolinum , 2004). 50 Kanadsky Slovak, November 9, 1944, p.4; Jednota, N ovember 15, 1944, p.2. 51 Cudove zvesti, September 23 , 1944, pp. I & 4. 52 Slovenske bratst vo, M ay 24, 1940, p.2; Slo vensky priekopnfk, November 27, 1942, pp. I & 4; ~udove zvesti, M arch 18, 1944, p.5 ; Jednota, April 16, 1945, p.5; for a short biograph y of Prfdavok see Literarny almanach Slovaka v A merike, 1967 (Middletown, PA), 209- 10. �24 SLOVAKIA the heel s of the Red Army, and which by now included the Communist leader Klement Gottwald. 53 However, this "Washington Declaration" of April 6, 1945 by the Executive of the Slovak League of America was immediately denounced by Jozef Husek and Peter P. Hletko.54 Furthermore, the 27th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in October of 1945 also repudiated it. Instead, the Congress reaffirmed the right of the Slovaks in Europe to self-determination. This Congress, which elected the Amercanborn attorney Peter P. Yurchak as its president, also announced a new fund-rai sing campaign to help rebuild post-war Slovakia, as well as to help thousands of political refugees who had fled the resurrected post-war Czechoslovakia.55 Meanwhile, the Slovak League had also sent a three-person delegation to the San Francisco meeting of the newly-founded United Nations from April 25th to June 21st. It was led by the Rev. Jan J. Lach of Whiting, Indiana, in the company of the poet, the Rev . Milos Mlynarovic, and the young Americanborn attorney Edward J. Behuncfk. The League had hoped that its delegation could speak on behalf of the Slovak nation but Jan Masaryk, son of the former president of Czechoslovakia, registered himself as a Slovak (whic h he was not) and, in hi s capacity as Czechoslovakia's new Foreign Minister, claimed that the Slovaks were well-represented at the United Nations, and therefore, did not need the services of the League. Lach was given only the status of an observer and could not participate in the debates about the future of Europe. 56 Meanwhile, Slovaks who had emigrated to Canada also took an interest in the fate of their countrymen. Since the United States Congress had passed three Immigration Acts in the l 920's, which severely restricted further migration from east-central and southern Europe to the United States, about 40,000 Slovaks moved to Canada in search of work in the l 920's and 1930's. Even though the government of Canada wanted them to settle on farms on the Prairies, they 53 For the text of the Kosice Program see "Kosicky vlad ny program," in Dokumenty, II (1998), 407-8 . 54 Osadne hlasy, April 20, 1945 , p.4 and June I, 1945, p.2, June 30, I 945, p.2 ; Kanadsky Slovak, June 14, 1945, p.5. 55 Osadne hlasy, October 26, 1945, p. l ; Kanadsky Slovak, November I, 1945. 56 Jednota , May 23, I 945 , p. l; Osadne hlasy, May 25, 1945, p.4; I'.udove zvesti, June 9, 1945, p.4, and Jul y 2 1, 1945 , p.2. �SLOVAKIA 25 largely headed to the metropolitan areas of Winnipeg, Fort William, Montreal and Toronto. There, they quickly copied their American countrymen and established fraternal-benefit societies, parishes and newspapers. Indeed, they originally joined American-Slovak organizations, subsc ribed to their newspapers and were served by SlovakAmerican priests and mini sters. 57 However, when the Great Depression broke out in 1929, SlovakCanadians di scovered that they had to look out for themselves. For instance, when the Slovak League of America announced that it was raising funds to provide food and clothing for its members who were in dire straits, Canadian members of the Slovak League , who had organized fifteen branches in Canada, applied for thi s " relief. " They were shocked when Jan A. Kocur, the Leag ue 's Secretary , replied that American Slovaks had only enough resources to help themselves, and could not afford to help Slovaks in Canada. 58 Therefore, led by Andrej Kucera of Winnipeg (ori ginall y from Radosovce, in Bratislava county) representatives of three Canadian branches of the Slovak League of America met in Winnipeg in 1932 and organized the Slovak League of Canada which, when it was officially incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1934, had its name changed to the Canadian Slovak League. Meanwhile, in order to help its countrymen to survive the Great Depression, leaders of the Canadian Slovak League organized it into a fratern al-benefit society, as well as a nationalist organization. 59 The national orientation of the Canadian Slovak League mirrored that of its American parent. Thus, in November of 1933 the Central Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League sent president T . G. Masa57 For a brief history of the Slovaks in Canada see the entry by Elena Jakesova and M. Mark Stolarik in the Encyclopedia of Canada 's Peoples, ed. By Paul R. Magocsi (Toronto: Uni versity of Toronto Press, 1999), 11 68-79. For a longer treatment see J. M. Kirschbaum , Slovaks in Canada (Toronto: Canadian Eth ni c Press Association of Ontario, 1967). 58 See the correspondence between Kucera and Kocur in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, Lmrich Stolarik Collection, Box 575, fo lder 7, 1928- 1934, Slovak Archives in the Archives and Special Collections, Uni versity of Ottawa and Kucera 's article on the 10th an ni versary of the fo unding of the CSL, Kanadsky Slovak, December 17, 1942, pp. 1-2. For a fuller description see " Pociatky a rozvoj Kanadskej Slovenskej Ligy ," in lmrich Stolarik ed. , Kanadska Slovenska Liga: 35 rocna: Historicky nacrt (19321967) (Toronto: Kanadska Slovenska Liga, 1967), 18-20. 59 Ibid. 2 1-26. �26 SLOVAKIA ryk of Czechoslovakia a reso lution demanding that the Pittsburgh Agreement be incorporated into the Constitution of the Republic.6() Indeed, in 1935 the two Leagues sent a joint appeal to all voters in Slovaki a to support only those political parties that recognized the Pittsburgh Agreement. 61 After Slovakia achieved its autonomy in the fall of 1938, the Canadian Slovak League, like its American counterpart, welcomed this autonomy and congratulated Dr. Jozef Tiso, its first Prime Minister. 62 After the Slovak Diet proclaimed the independence of Slovakia on March 14th, 1939, Canadian Slovaks, like their American cousins, were initially caught off guard and divided over the issue. To clarify matters, Andrej Potocky (w ho hailed from Sedliacka Dubova, Orava county) , the secretary of the Canadian Slovak League, addressed a letter to Dr. Jozef Tiso and asked him for an explanation. Tiso replied in May in his already-mentioned "Posolstvo" and both Leagues published it in newspapers that supported their politics. 63 Thereafter, both Leagues supported the independent Slovak Republic as much as they could. The Canadian Slovak League, like its American counterpart, also rejected Edvard Benes's World War II liberation movement, as well as Milan Hodfa' s plans for a Central European federation. 64 It seriously considered sending a delegate to the San Francisco meeting of the United Nations in 1945 , but could not afford to do so. 65 Meanwhile, delegates to the 28th Congress of the Slovak League of America, held in Detroit on October 29-30th, 1946 and to the 7th Convention of the Canadian Slovak League held in neighboring Windsor on October 28-30th of the same year, iss ued a joint resolution wherein they rejected the resurrected post-war Cze60 See the "Ustredn a sprava Slov . Ligy v Kanade: Rezolucia" , dated November 6, 1933, Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, QJlii1. 61 Kucera to Kocur, March 30, 1935, ibid 62 Centra l Assembly of the Canadian Slovak Leag ue to Dr. Jozef Tiso, January 2 1, 1939, i..b.id... 63 Andrej Potocky to Jozef Tiso, April 20, 1939 and Jozef Tiso to Andrej Potocky, June 2, 1939 plus the ' Posolstvo" dated May 23, 1939 in ilii..d. See also Slovenske bratstvo, Jul y 21 , 1939, p.3 and Jul y 28 , 1939, p.3. 64 S lovenske bratstvo, August 4, 1939 , p.4 ; March 15, 1940, p. I; Kanadsky Slovak, August 6, 1942, p.2 and December 9, 1943 , p.2 65 Letter of Msgr. F.J. Dubosh, president of the Slovak league of Ameri ca to Jan Ivan of the Canadian Slovak League, March 25 , 1945 , papers of Andrej Kucera, QJlii1. �SLOVAKIA 27 choslovakia and instead declared their support for the re-establishment of an independent Slovak Republic. 66 This political stand by both Leagues was reinforced by the arrival of post-war political refugees from Slovakia. Several thou sand supporters of the independent Slovak Republic, consisting of government officials, bureaucrats, soldiers and intellectuals fled the advancing Red Army in the winter and spring of 1945 and settled in Upper Austria and, eventually, in the defeated Germany. From there they sent appea ls to both Slovak Leagues for financial and other assistance. The two Leagues responded by sending them material goods, by arranging for surplus Red Cross packages to be distributed among them and, most importantly, by persuading the International Refugee Organization to recognize them as refugees and to help them emigrate out of war-torn Europe.67 One of the Slovak League of America's first successes was the appointment of Dr. Jozef Kirsc hbaum as its official delegate to the IRO in September of 1947.68 Kirschbaum had been the Slovak Charge d ' Affaires in Switzerland for most of the 66 Indeed , the Canadian Slovak League had also deplored the April 6, 1945 "Washington Resolution" of the Slovak League of America. CF. Andrej Kucera to Msgr. F. Dubosh, October 12, 1945, Papers of Andrej Ku cera, lmrich Stolarik Fonds, Box 572, file 1945 , Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library, University of Ottawa; Kanadsky Slov;:ik, November 16, 1946, p.2 and January 2, 1947, p.3. 67 See the " Memorandum" drafted by the writer Milo Urban to the Slovak League of America dated May 30 , 1945, as publi shed on its 20th an ni versary in K anadsky Slovak, May 29, 1965, p. 2 and September 4, 1965, p.3; see also Osadne hlasy, Jul y 6, 1945, p.2, Apri l 4, 1947, p.l and April 11 , 1947, p.2; see also Kanadsky Slovak, Jul y 12, 1945, p.2. A preliminary li st of these refugees in Austria was compiled by the Czechoslovak Ambassador to Switzerland and se nt to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague because the Czechoslovak government wished to " repatriate" some of them. Cf. Slove nsky narodn y arc hfv, PY , beop.- lll dov. , 1945, 6. Sept. , 1945, Ministerstvo zahrani cnfch veci. Praha, 26079/11-2/45 . No-one has yet written a schol arl y acco unt of this phenomenon as it pertains to the Slovaks. However. l:ubomfr Gleiman , one of these refugees, has penned hi s reminiscences in a manuscript entitled "Out of thi s Century ' s Mae lstro m: A Pilgrim 's Story of Disse nt and Surviva l," (Cary , NC: 200 I ). A co py of this manuscript, as well as his father' s diaries from 1944 to 1954, on whi ch the manuscript is partly based, can be found in the Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library, University of Ottawa, Canada. For a general description of the plight of post-war refugees see Mark Wyman , DP: Europe 's Displaced Persons, 1945-1951 (Philadelphia: The Balch Institute Press, 1989). 68 Kanadsky Slovak, May 27, 1948, p.2 and June I 0, 1948, p. l. �28 SLOVAKIA war. Since he had acti vely supported the creation of the Slovak Republic , he refu sed to return to post-war Czechoslovakia. Instead, he worked vigorou sly with both Slovak Leagues to arrange for the emigration of hundreds of Slovaks to the USA and Canada, once these countries opened their borders to post-war refugees in 1947 and 1948. 69 As the refugees began to arrive in the United States and Canada, they quickly joined the two Slovak Leag ues and reinforced their commitment to Slovak independence. The first to come to the USA was the poet, the Rev . Mikul as Sprinc. He arrived in Jul y of 1946, settled in Cleveland, and immediate ly informed the executive of the Slovak League of what had actually transpired during the existence of the Slovak Republic.70 That is why the Slovak League, at its 28th Congress in Detroit called for a plebiscite to be held in Slovakia to decide its future and it also appealed for a fair trial for Dr. Jozef Tiso. 7 1 The latter had evacuated to Austria with the Slovak government in the dying days of the war but was turned over to Czechoslovak authorities by the victorious American Army. 72 Meanwhile, the historian Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky arrived in the USA at the end of 1947 and he also joined the Slovak League. Indeed, after Jan A. Kocu r died , Hrusovsky was elected the Secretary of the League at its 30th Congress in Chicago in March of 1948. On September 15, 1952, largely on hi s initiative, the Slovak Institute was established at the Slovak Benedictine Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio, 73 and Hrusovsky became its first director. In 1950 Dr. Jozef Pauco gained admittance to the USA. Thi s former editor of the dail y Slovak, official organ of the Slovak Peo- 69 Author interview with J.M. Kirschbaum, November 7, 1998.He recorded his political views and activities in Nas boj o sam ostatnost' Slovenska (C leveland: Slovak Institute, 1958; reprinted and updated by the Matica slovenska, 2000). 70 Paufo , 75. Rokov QJU;lL 353; Sprinc described his trip to the USA in K slobodnym pobreiiam (Scranton, PA : Obrana Press, 1949). 71 See footnote 65 . 72 For Tiso' s activities during and after World War II , as penned by hi s forme r personal secretary, see Karo l Murin, Spomienky a svedectvo (Hami lton,Ontario: Zahranicna Matica slovenska, 1987). 73 Kanadsky Slovak, October 30, 1947 , pp.1 -2, November 6, 1947 , pp.I & 7, March 17, I949, p. 1. For a short biograph y see " Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky ," in Literarny Almanach Slovaka v Amerik e, 1967 (Middletown, PA), 16 1-2. �SLOVAKIA 29 pie' s Party , initially found employment as assistant editor of the weekly fraternal Jednota , which was published in Middletown, PA. In 1958 he became editor and in 1964 also publisher of the weekly Slovak v Amerike, the oldest Slovak newspaper in America. In 1962 Pauco was elected Secretary of the Slovak League of America, a 74 post which he held until his death in 1975. Finally, in 1952 Dr. Jozef A. Mikus came to the USA. This former Slovak Charge d ' Affaires in Spain fled his homeland after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. He initi ally lived in Paris but after four years he moved to Washington , D.C. For the first five years of his life in the USA he was employed by the Slovak League as its Press Secretary. After that he taught at various American colleges until his retirement. He also remained active within the Slovak League and the Slovak World Congress. 75 While a few post-war Slovak refugees managed to gain entry into the United States after the war, the majority headed for Canada, because the latter opened its doors to refugees first. Among the most important to arrive in 1949 were Dr. Karol Murin, the former personal secretary of president Jozef Tiso, Dr. Jozef Kirschbaum (mentioned earlier) and the publicist and historian Konstantin Culen. 76 In 1950 Karol Sidor, former Slovak Ambassador to the Vatican, and the most prominent of all the emigres, made his way to Montreal. 77 All of them immediately joined the Canadian Slovak League and Culen even became editor of its weekly Kanadsky Slovak from 1952 to 74 Ibid. , 200-2. Kanadsky Slovak, May 18, 1950, p.2. Ibid., 188-9. Kanadsky Slovak, January 24, 1952, p.5 and June 21 , 1952, p.7. The complete life of Jozef Mikus can be reconstructed in "The Jozef Mikus Fonds" located in the Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library , University of Ottawa. 76 Kanadsky S lovak, February 10, 1949, p. I; £udove zvesti, March 12. 1949, p.4, February 25, 1950, p.4. For biographies of Murin and Cu len see Literarny almanach S/ovaka v Amerike, / 967 (Middletown, PA), 129-30 and 194-95. 77 Andrej Kucera to Andrej Potocky, Apri l 6, 1950, Papers of A. Kucera, lmrich Stolarik Collec tion. Box 576, fo lder 7. 1950, Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library , University of Ottawa; Kanadsky Slovak, April 20, 1950, p.5; letter of Karol Sidor to lmrich Stolarik, January 12, 1951 , Joseph Stasko Fonds, Slovenska narodna rada v zahranicf, Box 30, Series II , File 4, Subfile 4.1 , Folder 22, ARCS 92-3 , Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Mori sset Library, University of Ottawa. For more on Sidor see Literamy almanach I 967, 2212. 75 �30 SLOVAKIA 1956. Needless to say, these emigres strengthened the League's commitment to promoting Slovak independence. Indeed, they and their American counterparts started to celebrate the anniversary of Slovak independence (Marc h 14th) as early as 1947.78 Both of the Slovak Leagues, meanwhile, denounced the execution of Dr. Jozef Tiso after he was found gui lty of treason by the Communist-dominated National Court in Bratislava in April of 1947. 79 After the Communist takeover of power in Czechoslovakia in February of 1948, a new wave of political refugees fled to the West. This was a mixture of Slovaks who favored independence and those who did not. Those refugees who had fled to the west after 1945 seized the initiative and re-established the Slovak National Council Abroad in the fall of 1948 and elected Karol Sidor as its president and Peter Pridavok of London as its secretary. 80 Those who wished Czechoslovakia to continue, but were opposed to its communist government, organized themselves into the Council for a Free Czechoslovakia, led by Dr. Jozef Lettrich , the former Chairman of the postwar Democratic Party in Slovakia. 81 Both Slovak Leagues rejected Lettrich and his followers as early as 1946 and instead supported the Slovak National Council Abroad .82 Indeed, both Slovak Leagues had previously also rejected the more radical Slovak Action Committee, founded in Rome in 1946 by Dr. Ferdinand Durcansky, the first Foreign Minister of the Slovak Republic .83 Rivalries between the leaders of the Slovak National Council Abroad and that of the Slovak Action Committee seeped into both Leagues and caused much in- 78 Osadne hlasy, March 14, 1947, p.l ; Kanadsky Slovak, April JO and 17, 1954, pp.2-4. 79 Osadne hlasy, April 25 , 1947, pp. I & 2; Kanadsky Slovak, May 8, 1947, p.l, October 30, 1947, pp. 1-2 and November 6, 1947, pp. I & 7; for the reminiscences of the chief prosecutor and the chief defense attorney at thi s trial see Proces s dr. 1. Tisom (Bratislava: Tatra Press, 1990). 8 Kanadsky Slovak, June 24, 1948 , p.3 , December I6, 1948 , p. I and December 30, 1948, p.3 ; Kirschbaum , Nas boj, QJ1.&iL (2000) , 370- 1. 81 Spetko, "Slovenska exi lova," QJ1.&iL 247-8. 82 Kanadsky Slovak, April 11 , 1946, p.5; Ferdinand Durcansky to Andrej Kucera, September 8, 1949, in Papers of A. Kucera, Correspondence with Refugees in Europe, Box 572, lmrich Stolarik Fonds, Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa. 83 Durcansky, Ibid. For more on Durcansky see Literarny almanach 1967 , 137-9. ° �SLOVAKIA 31 fighting among both in the 1950's. 84 The matter was finally settled in 1960 when the two sides decided to merge into the Slovak Liberation Council, with two co-chairmen: Dr. Jozef Kirschbaum in Toronto (Sidor had died in 1953) and Dr. Ferdinand Durcansky in Munich. 85 Meanwhile, in 1962, Dr. Peter P. Hletko, once again became president of the Slovak League of America, which had undergone some turbulent times. Hletko had succeeded Filip A. Hrobak, editor of Jednota , who had become president in 1950 . The American-born Hrobak was an activist, who had established the Slovak League 's Information Office in Washington in 1952, as well as the Englishlanguage periodical Slovakia in 1950 to champion the independence of his cousins overseas. Meanwhile, Hrobak also had to referee an intense rivalry that broke out between various factions in the League, a rivalry that resulted in the di smissal of Konstantfn Culen from the directorship of the Slovak institute in Cleveland (he had come down from Canada in 1956 and was made director of the Institute shortly after the death of Hrusovsky in the same year) and his banishment from Slovak-American life. 86 Hletko, who had largely been responsible for Culen's dismissal, congratulated the Canadian Slovak League on its 30th anniversary and remarked that it had become " more active" than the Slovak League of America. 87 He may have had in mind the fact that, on March 16th, 1953 (strategically close to the 14th anniversary of Slovak independence on March 14th), the First 84 See the letter of A. Ku cera to Jozef Siksa dated March 20, 1950 as well as the circ ul ar letter of Ferdinand Durcansky dated February 9, 1951, an undated letter from early 195 1, as well as letters from Michael Yargovic , president of the First Catholic Union , dated February 19, 1951 and Fi lip A. Hrobak, president of the Slovak League of America, dated February 20. 1951 , in the Papers of A. Kucera, Qlhci..!.; see also Kanadsky Slovak, January 17, 1952, p.3 and February 14, 1952, p.2, and November 5, 1955, p.2. See also l',udove zves ti. February I, 1958, p.6, and March I, 1958, p.4. 85 Kanadsky Slovak, October 11 , 1958, p.1 , March 2 1, 1959, p.1 , June 4, 1960, p.1 and June 18, 1960, p. I ; l',udove zvesti, September I, 1960, p.6 86 Kanadsky Slovak, June 8, 1950, p.1 , June 2 1, 1952, p.7 , June 27, 1959, p.1 ; I.:udove zvesti, June 17, 1950, p.2 ; for Konstantin Cu len's problems with Hletko and other American Slovak leaders see hi s V zajatf fa losnych legiend od nenavistneho srdca, 11 Vols. (Mim ieographed, New York, 1961). Frantisek Ynuk, in his Z ivotopis Konstantfna Culena (Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1984), 190-93 also touched on this problem. 87 Kanadsky Slovak, December 15 , 1962, p. I. Filip A. Hrobak, a few years earlier, had expressed simi lar sentiments ; cf. Kanadsky S lovak, July 18, 1959, p. I. �32 SLOVAKIA District Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League had organized a gala banquet at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Leag ue. Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, four cabi net ministers and 25 mem bers of the Canadian Parliament attended! 88 Thi s diplomati c "coup" by the Canadian Slovak League was not matched by its American counterpart. The most the Slovak League of America was able to accomplish on the diplomatic front in the l 950's was to arrange a meeting with officials of Radio Free Europe in 1953 and wi th Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in October of 1956. 89 Nothing came of these meetings. Peter P. Hletko also noticed that the Canadian Slovak League was both younger than its parent organization and had more youthful members. In thi s respect he may have been thinking of Stephen B. Roman, who had come to Oshawa, Canada from Velky Ruskov, Slovakia as a 16 year-old in 1937. Through a seri es of shrewd investments in the 1940's and 1950's, Roman had become a multi-millionaire in Canada's uranium industry. Roman was an active member of the Canadi an Slovak League who had lobbied for the early adm ittance of Slovak post-war political refugees, and who supported the movement for Slovak independence.90 As a devout Greek Catholi c, in 1963 Roman took a leading role in the 1100th anniversary celebrations of the arri val of Sts. Cyril and Methodius on Slovak territory, he contributed to the establishment of the Institute of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Rome in that same year, he was a lay observer to the Second Vatican Council (l 962-1965) and he successfull y lobbied the Vatican to appoint a Slovak Greek Catholic bishop in Canada ( 1965), as well as to create a Slovak Greek Catholic Eparchy (diocese) in Toronto in 1980. 9 1 88 The most comprehensive treatment of th is banquet can be found in " Historicky banket Kanad. Slov. Ligy v Ottawe," in lmrich Stolarik ed., Kanadska Slovenska Liga 35 rocna (Toronto: Canad ian Slovak League, 1967), 268-75. 89 Kanadsk f Slovak, Jul y 18, 1953, p.4 and November 10, 1956, p.5. 90 Slovenske bratstvo (Montreal), Apri l 25 , 1941 , p.3 ; Kanadskf Slovak, April 16, 1943, p.10, December 16, 1943, p.7, May 24, 1945 , p.5, October 4, 1945, September 3, 1955 , p.5, October 20, 1956, p.5, October 19, 1957 , p.3. For a sympathetic biography of Roman see Peter C. Newman, Th e Canadian Establishment, I (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, I975), 269-72. 91 Kanadskf Slovak, November 25 , 1961 , p.2 , Jul y 6, 1963 , p.l, October 3, 1964, p.l, October 17, 1964, p. l , January 9, 196 1, p.l , January 3, 198 1, p. I and February �SLOVAKIA 33 Roman ' s greatest achievement, however, was to establish the Slovak World Congress. Even though he had been a member of the Canadian Slovak League since the early 1940's, Roman lamented the fact that Slovaks in the Western world were divided into so many different organizations.92 He first attempted to bring together the Canadian Slovak League and its rival Canadian Slovak Benefit Society in 1969 but failed .93 Then , angered by the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 , Roman decided to approach various individuals and organizations to issue an appeal to all Slovak organizations the world over to unite in the struggle to overthrow Communism in the homeland and to seek self-determination for the Slovak nation. The appeal was signed by the presidents of the Slovak League of America, the Canadian Slovak League, the National Slovak Society, Stephen B. Roman , three bishops and an abbot. As a result, in July of 1970 representatives of dozen s of Slovak organizations the world over, including the Slovak League of America and the Canadian Slovak League, met in New York City and created the Slovak World Congress.94 For the next twenty years the Slovak World Congress, led by Stephen B. Roman, worked to spread the good name of the Slovaks the world over. It held meetings in many of the major cities of the world, including Toronto, New York, Washington, Chicago, Munich and Rome; it sponsored scholarly conferences which published their proceedings; it organized Slovak world youth festival s and it published a monthly Bulletin. The two Slovak Leagues participated in most of these ventures. 95 Indeed , the two Slovak Leagues, at first independently, and later working within the Slovak World Congress, successfully lobbied the Vatican to create an independent archbis- 21, 198 1, p. I. Kanadsky Slovak, January 4, 1945, p. 3. 93 Kanadsky S lovak, Septe mber 20 , 1969 , p. I. Nove mber 15, 1969, p. I, June 6, 1970, p. l. 94 Kanadsky S lovak, March 2 1, 1970. p.l , June 26, 197 1, p. l , Jul y 4, 1970, p. l , Jul y 11 , 1970, p. l. 95 The first ten years of the Congress were described by J.M. Kirschbaum in Desa t' rokov cinnosti SKS (Toronto: Slovak World Congress, 1981 ); a short summary was written by Dusan T6th, the Sec retary-General of the Congress from 1971 to 1990 in Kanadsky Slovak , September 10, 2005, p.4. T here is not yet a scholarl y history of the entire period of the Congress's ex istence. 92 �34 SLOVAKIA hopric and church province in Slovakia. Their dream came true in 1977 , although the communist government blocked the appointment of an archbishop until 1988. 96 Thi s was a sy mbolic victory for the two Leagues and the Slovak World Congress because it gave Slovakia its own church jurisdiction, which implied that the Slovaks could also have their own state. Unfortunately for all concerned, Stephen B. Roman died in 1988, just one year before Czechoslovakia threw off its communist rulers.97 With its patron gone, the Slovak World Congress slowly withered away. The two Slovak Leagues, on the other hand , sprang into action. The Canadian Slovak League sent a delegation to Slovakia in February of 1990, to urge Slovak leaders to seek either more homerule or else complete independence. 98 The Slovak League of America likewise sent a delegation in May of 1990 for the same purpose.99 Both Slovak Leagues started a fund-raising campaign for various Slovak causes, and both rejoiced when Slovakia became independent in 1993. 100 Since then both Leagues have cooperated with the various Slovak governments to spread the good name of the Slovaks the world over and to help Slovakia in its transition from a communist dictatorship to a democratic and capitalist society. It should be apparent, therefore, that the Slovak League of America, and the Canadian Slovak League, remained dedicated to Slovak self-determination throughout the 20th century. During World War I 96 See, for instance, the Memorandum of the Central Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League to the Vati can requesting a Church Province and an Archbi shop for Slovaki a, Kanadsky Slovak, September 25, 1965, p. l . J. M. Kirschbaum had firs t suggested thi s move in 1959, Ibid. , and Peter Mulik, " Usilie o zriaden ie slovenskej cirkev nej provincie od roku 1939 a jej vyvoj po sucasnost:" in Mulik ed., Katolfcka cirkev a Slovaci: Us ilie Slovakov o samostatnti cirkevnti provinciu (Brati slava: Bernolakova spolocnost: 1997), 68. 97 See the special iss ue of the monthly Maria (Toronto), May, 1988 for many eulogies concerning the life and achievements of Stephen B. Roman. 98 Smer (Bratislava), February 15, 1990 and Praca (Brati slava), February 16, 1990. See also Rudolf Schu ster's Ultim atum (Bratislava, 1996), pp.101 -2 and the photo section between pages 96 and 97. 99 Slovak v Amerike, June, 1990. I happened to be a member of this del egation. We traveled all over Slovakia, met with governme nt officials, journalists and students and urged them to seek more self-determ ination or independence. See al so Schuster's Ultimatum, op. cit. , 224-5. 100 Kanadsky Slovak, January 2, 1993 ; Slovak v Amerike, January issue, 1993. �SLOVAKIA 35 the Slovak League of America spoke on behalf of its brethren in Slovakia when the latter could not do so. Since T. G. Masaryk had no mandate from Slovaks in Hungary to create a new state consisting of Czechs and Slovaks, the Slovak League of America gave him that mandate in the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Agreements. Since Masaryk and hi s followers did not respect the promises that they had made guaranteeing Slovaks home-rule in Czechoslovakia, both the Slovak Leag ue of America, and its Canadian offshoot, the Canadian Slovak League, demanded home-rule for the Slovaks in the inter-war period. When Slovakia unexpectedly became independent in 1939, both Leagues, after some hesitation, supported thi s independence. After Czechoslovakia was restored by the victorious Allies, both Slovak Leagues supported a return to Slovak independence, especiall y after the arrival in North America of several thou sa nd political refu gees . During the communist era (1948-1989) both Leagues denounced the communi st regime that ruled over their overseas cousins and they co ntinued to demand Slovak independence. After the Communists gave up their power in 1989, both Leagues urged the Slovaks to either demand more home-rule or else complete independence from the Czechs. When Slovakia finally became independent on January 1, 1993 , both Leagues rejoiced and pledged to help it grow and prosper. � 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 2007, Vol. 39 Description An account of the resource Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007. 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 2007 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 LEAGUE OF AMERICA AND THE CANADIAN SLOVAK LEAGUE IN THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SELF-DETERMINATION OF THE NATION, 1907-1992 M. Mark Stolarik 1 In the 20th century the American and Canadian Slovak Leagues pl ayed a major role in the struggle for the self-determination of the Slovak nation. Founded by immi grants who so ught a better li ve lyhood in the New World , the Slovak League of America played a leading ro le in the creation of Czecho-S lovakia during the Great War. In the inter-war years , the Slovak League of America, joined by its Canadian offshoot, bombard ed the central government in Prag ue with demands to grant the Slovaks in the newly-created state their promised autonom y. When the Slovaks achi eved autonomy in the fa ll of 1938, both Leagues rejoiced. When the Autonomous Diet procl aimed Slovak independence in March of 1939, both Leagues were caught by surpri se, but, after so me hesitation , they supported it. However, because Slovakia was allied with Nazi Germany , both Leagues had to te mper their support after Canada entered the war against Germany in September of 1939 and the U nited States followed sui t in December of 1941. After the war had ended , however, both the American and the Canadian Slovak Leagues demanded a plebiscite on the future of their countrymen in Europe. Having fai led to achieve thi s goal, both Leag ues, whi ch were buttressed by recently-arrived political emigres after 1945, decl ared their support for a new Slovak liberatio n movement which was first led by the Slovak National Council Abroad and, from 1970 on by the Slovak World 1 An earlier version of this paper was presented to the conference on "Emigration to the Engli sh Speaking world," Catho lic University of Rufo mberok, Slovakia, May 19, 2006. 8 SLOVAKIA Congress. After the Communist government gave up its monopol y of power in 1989, both Leagues sent fact-finding delegation s to Czechoslovakia and both supported the movement for Slova k independence, which became a reality in 1993. Since then , they have continued to help their countrymen to consolidate their independence. Between 1870 and 19 14 approx imate ly half a million Slovaks left their homeland in the Kingdom of Hungary and settled in North America in search of work. Once there, they established three pillars of their new communities- fraternal-benefit societies, parish churches and a newspaper press. Largely of peasant stock from eastern Slovaki a, they sought better wages in the coal mines, steel mills and oil refineries of the American Northeast and Midwest (Connec ti cut , New York, New Jersey, Pennsy lvania, Ohio, Indiana and lllinois). 2 The early arriva ls quickly di scovered that the United State s provided vi1tually no social services. Therefore, these immigrants establi shed their own fratern al-benefit societies which, from monthly membership dues, provided accident, illness or death benefits to their members or families , as well as a pl ace to socialize. By 1890 over fifty such fraternals existed and they then began to federate into nation al organizations such as the National Slovak Society , headquartered in Pittsburgh and the First Catholic Slovak Union, with its headquarters in Cleveland . Since the men initially excluded women from their organizations, Slovak women established the Zivena Beneficial Society in New York in 1891 and Catholic women established the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union in Cleveland in 1892. Lutherans established their own Slovak Evangelical Union in 1893 and Calvini sts their Slovak Cal vin Presbyterian Union in 1902. Even the tiny group of socialists estab li shed their own Slovak Workers Society in 1916. By 1920 American Slovaks had enrolled over 200,000 members in these, and other, fraternal-benefit societies. 3 2 For more details on the process of Slovak migration and resettlement in the United States see my Immigration and Urbanization: Th e Slovak Experience, 1870- 191 8 (New York: AMS Press, I 989), I-7 1. 3 For the story of Slovak fratern al-benefit soc ieties in the United States see my "A Place fo r Everyo ne: Slovak Fratern al-Benefi t Societies," in Scott Cummings, ed ., Self-Help in Urban America: Patterns of Minority Business Enterprise (Port Washington, NY : Kennikat Press, 1980, 130-41 and "Slovak Fraternal-Benefit Societies in North America: An Overview ( 1883- 1993), in Matjaz Klemenc ic ed. , Etnicni fra- SLOVAKIA 9 Besides the need for social benefits , Slovak immigrants also yearned for religious services in their own language. The fraternalbenefit societies led the way in establishing pari sh churches , in recruiting their priests and in supporting (or not supporting) them. Slovak Roman Catholics established 241 parishes, Lutherans 68 , Calvinists 9 and Greek Catholics (mixed parishes of Rusins and Slovaks) 155 by 1930.4 At least half of the Roman Catholic parishes also established parochial schools which taught their children to read, write and sing in Slovak, while all other subjects were taught in English. The Roman Catholics also established several religious orders to teach their children, as well as Benedictine High School for boys in Cleveland and Danville Academy for girls in Danville, Pen. 5 nsy Ivama. Finally, most of the immigrants from Slovakia yearned for news from their homeland and were also curious about conditions in the New World. Therefore, a small number of intellectuals, who had followed them from Slovakia, established a very vigorous newspaper press. Starting with a mere Bulletin in 1885, American Slovaks developed a full-service press that consisted of dailies, weeklies and monthlies , and that varied in orientation from nationalist to Magyarone, from secular to religious, from socialist to capitalist. By 1914 the combined circulation of the Slovak-American press was over 150,000, which was four times the circulation of the Slovak-langu- terna/izem v priseljenskich deie/ach/Ethnic Fratemalism in Immigra nt Countries (Maribor: University of Maribor, 1996), 147-59. 4 For the process of the creation of parishes, see my Growing Up on the South Side: Three Generations of Slovaks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, I 880- 1976 (Lewsiburg: Bucknell Uni vers ity Press, 1985), 44-62; for the number of parishes of various denominations see Filip Hrobak, comp., and ed. , Slovak Catholic Parishes and Institutions in the United States and Canada (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union , 1955), 3 I- I65; George Dolak, A History of the Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States of America, /902-1927 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955), 189-206; Jan Body & John Adam , comp. and ed .. History of the Slovak Zion Synod LCA (Pittsburgh: Zion Synod, 1976), 199-200; Kalendar pre slovenskych Kalvfnov, 1927 (P ittsburgh), 97- 147; and Paul R. Magocs i, Our People: CarpathoRusyns and Their Descendants in North America (Toron to: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1984), 14. 5 Hrobak, Parishes and institutions, 169-82. SLOVAKIA . Hungary. 6 age press m As they were building the pillars of the ir new co mmunities in America, Slovak immigrants did not fo rget their homeland . Indi vidual immigrants sent several hundred million doll ars to support their fa milies in Slovakia in the period 1870-1914. In addition , Slovak fraternal-benefit societies and their leaders rai sed fund s for the Slovak National Museum, for Slovak schools and churches in Hungary, they paid for and published in the ir Almanacs articles written by Slovak inte llectuals, and they established schol arship fund s to support Slovak high-school students in Bohe mi a and Moravia. Most important of all , they fi nancially supported Slovak candidates to the Hungarian Parli ament and rejo iced when, for the first time in hi story, seven nati onall y-conscious Slovaks were elected in 1906.7 Meanwhile, since the 1867 "Compromi se," whereby the ruling Habsburgs of Austri a and the Magyars of Hungary agreed to divide the empire into the Dual Monarchy of Au stri a-Hungary, the Magyars set out to forcibl y assimilate all the non-M agyar nationalities in Hungary. 8 American Slovak leaders were aware of thi s poli cy of "Magyari zation" and joined their counterparts in Slova ki a in trying to combat it. To thi s end American Slovaks, reacting to urgings from Slovak leaders in Europe, organized a " national congress" to be held in Cleveland on May 26, 1907 . On that day over l0,000 countrymen fro m across America packed into Greys Armory and established the Slovak Leag ue of Ameri ca, whi ch would be the cover organization fo r all nationall y-conscious Slovak organizations in the United States. Thi s sa me congress also e lected the Rev. Stefa n Furdek of Cleveland (originally from Trstena, Orava county), fo under of the First Catholic Slovak Union, as its president and Peter V. Rovnianek of Pittsburgh (originally fro m Doln y Hricov, Trencfn county), foun 6 For an over-view see my "The Slovak-American Press," in Sall y M. Miller ed. , The Ethnic Press in the United States: A Historical A nalysis and Handbook (Westport, CT: Gree nwood Press, 1987), 354-68 ; fo r the circul ation of the Slovak-Ameri can press in 19 14 see my " Slovak Nati onalism in the USA as Refl ected in th e Slovak-American Press, 1885- 1918 ," Canadian Review of Studies in Na tionalism, 3 1 (Nos. 1-2, 2004) , 65-76. 7 Stolarik, Immigration and Urbanization, 185-205 . 8 The best desc ripti on of " Magyarization" is still Scotus Viator (R.W. Seton-Watson), Racial Problems in Hungary (London: Archibald Constable, 1908 ; reprinted by Howard Ferti g, New York, 1972). SLOVAKIA 11 der of the National Slovak Society , as its first vice-president, as well as the presidents of all the other fraternals as vice-presidents. The League published its formal program of autonomy for the Slovaks in Hungary in September of 1914, just as the world was entering into the first of two world wars that would plague the 20th century. 9 While the League 's official program was autonomy for its countrymen in the Kingdom of Hungary , a small group of Slovaks dissented and called for the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the liberation of their people. These di ssidents were large ly organized in the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol , which had been established in New Jersey in 1896, and which adopted the program of the Czech professsor of philosophy T.G. Masaryk. ' 0 The latter had fled hi s homeland in the fall of 1914 and had started to organize a movement to liberate the linguistically-related Czechs and Slovaks from Au stria-Hungary and to create a new state on its ruin s. Masaryk was assisted in hi s quest by one of hi s form er students, the Paris-based Slovak astronomer, Milan R. Stefanik. Later, Masaryk was joined by another of hi s students, the sociologist Edvard Benes. This trio organized itself into a "Czech Committee" and hoped to persuade the western Allies, if they were victorious over the Central Powers, to dismember AustriaHungary and to allow the Czechs and Slovaks to establish their own state. 11 While Masaryk was an elected member of the Austrian Parliament, and in touch with hi s Czech colleagues, who approved of his plans, he had no mandate from the Slovaks in Hungary to include 9 Fo r the creation of the Slovak League see Jednota (C leveland), May 29, 1907; ~udove noviny (Ska lica), Jun e 4, 1907; Jan Pank uch, Dejiny Clevelandskych a Lakewoodskych Slovakov (C leveland: Jan Pankuch, 1930), 71-3 ; and Kon stantin Cul en, Dejiny Slovakov v A merike, JI (Bratislava: Slovenska Liga, 1942), 11 3-24 ; for the program of autonomy see " Memorandum Slovenskej Ligy v Amerike vydane menom americkyc h Slovakov," in Dr. Yacovsky [Milan Ivanka], Slovaci a Madari: Politicko-historicka uvaha (Pittsburgh: Slovak League of America, I 9 14), 10 I-7. 10 For the ac ti vities of the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol see Milan Getting, A merickf Slovaci a vyvin ceskoslovenskej myslienky v rokoch 19 14-1 9 /8 (Perth Amboy, NJ: Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol , 1933) 11 Masaryk and Benes left us the ir memoirs: T.G . Masaryk, The Making of a State: Memories and Observations, 19 14-1 918 (London: Frederick A. Stokes, 1927; Edu ard Benes, Souvenirs de g uerre et de revolution (1914-1918), 2 Vols. (Paris: E. Lero ux , 1928). Stefanik left no memoirs but Jan Jurfcek wrote a sy mpathetic biography: M.R. Stefanik: t ivotopisny nacrt (Brati slava: Mlade !eta, 1968). 12 SLOVAKIA them in the proposed state. Therefore, Masaryk sought such a mandate from American Slovak immigrants, most of whom were not yet citizens of the United States, but whose leaders had been in close touch with Slovak leaders in Hungary before the war, and who had a mandate from them to speak on behalf of the Slovak nation . 12 As a result, Masaryk urged his Czech colleagues in the United States to seek out the Slovaks and try to persuade them to join in his liberation movement. American Czechs did so and on October 22, 1915 the Bohemian National Alliance, which was the cover organization of most American Czechs, and the Slovak League of America met and concluded the Cleveland Agreement, which was named after the city in which it was signed. In this Agreement, the two sides pledged to work for the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the creation of a new, federal state consisting "of the Czech and Slovak nations," with "complete national autonomy for Slovakia, with its own Diet, its own state administration, complete cultural freedom .. ..its own financial and political administration," and "with Slovak as the state language ." The Slovak League insisted upon these points because it knew that the Czechs would outnumber the Slovaks in the new state by three-to-one and the League did not want the Czechs to dominate the Slovaks as had the Magyars in Hungary. 13 Had the two sides respected the Cleveland Agreement, the liberation movement might have worked smoothly and led to a harmonious future for the Czechs and Slovaks. Unfortunately, T.G. Masaryk did not believe in the existence of separate Czech and Slovak nations. Perhaps because he was of mixed Slovak (father) and Czech (mother) origin, he believed that the Czechs and Slovaks 12 On August 6, 1906, political leaders in Slovakia sent their counterparts in the USA a letter in which they proposed to share the leadership of the Slovak natio n with them. The letter was published in lmrich Mazar, Dejiny Binghamtonskych Slovakov za dobu styridsat' rokov, I 879-19 I 9 (Bingha mton : Branch I04 of the Slovak League of America, 1919), 2 1-22 . The Czechs recog nized th at Slovak leaders in the USA were authorized to speak on behalf of the Slovaks in Hungary in an editorial that appeared in The Bohemian Review (Chicago), March, 19 18, p.47 . 13 Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 23 , 1915 , p.7 ; Jednota (M iddl etow n, PA ), November 24, 1915, p.4; Narodne noviny (Pittsburgh), November 25, 19 15, p.5 ; the original was published in Dokumenty slovenskej nardonej identity a statnosti, I (Bratislava: Narodne literarne centrum, 1998), 445-7; an English translation can be found in my "The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of Czecho-S lovakia, 1914-1918," Slovak Studies, VIII (Rome, I 968), p.55. SLOVAKIA 13 formed one "Czechoslovak" nation and merely spoke two dialects of the same language. Therefore, when he arrived in the United States in the spring of 1918 to seek the recognition of the American government for the liberation movement and was shown the Cleveland Agreement, he proclaimed it "out of date" and proceeded to negotiate a new one with the Slovaks. On May 31st, 1918 Masaryk in Pittsburgh negotiated a weaker agreement with American Slovaks. According to thi s new "Pittsburgh Agreement," the two sides approved a "political program to unite the Czechs and Slovaks into an independent state of Czech and Slovak lands," in which " Slovakia will have its own administration, its own Diet and its own courts." Furthermore, "S lovak will be the official language in the school s, in offices and public life generally." And the "Czecho-Slovak state will be a republic and its Constitution will be a democratic one." Noticeably absent from this Agreement were the phrases "federal state" and "complete national autonomy for Slovakia," and there was no mention of the "Czech and Slovak nations," as there had been in the Cleveland Agreement. 14 Members of the Slovak League of America, led by its president Albert Mamatey of Pittsburgh (originall y from Klastor pod Znievom in Turiec county), signed the Pittsburgh Agreement because by then the liberation movement, led by Masaryk, was in high gear. The newly-formed Czechoslovak Legions in Russia revolted against the Bolsheviks and seized control over the entire Trans-Siberian Railway. These Legions had been organized from prisoners-of-war by Masaryk and Stefanik, and their seizure of the railroad greatly aided the Allied war effort, because they prevented hundreds of thousands of German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners-of-war from returning to fight on the western front. 15 In addition, si nce Masaryk himself had 14 Jednota, June 5, 191 8, p.5; N:irodne noviny, June 6, 1918 , p.5; Jozef Hu sek, "Prehl'ad vaznejsfch udalostf v hi storii I. Kat. Slovenskej Jednoty, Jednota Katolfcky Kalend:ir, 1931, (Middletown, PA), pp.58-9. Victor S. Mamatey pointed ou t that the date of the Pittsburgh Agreement was May 3 1, 191 8, not May 30 as the calligrapher erroneously wrote it. Cf "Este raz o Pittsburgskej dohode," Premeny (Flushing, NY), 20 (No.3 , 1983), 39. For the full text of the Pittsburgh Agreement see Dokumenty, QJ2&i.t. , 485-6 and for an English translation see my The Role of, QJ2,....ci_t., 56. 15 Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 20, 1918, p.5; New York Times, June 29, 1918, p.3 ; for a detailed di sc ussion of the Czechoslovak Leg ion see J.F.N. Bradley , "The Allies and the Czech Revolt aga inst the Bol sheviks in 191 8," Slavonic and East 14 SLOVAKIA drafted and signed the Pittsburgh Agreement, along with the Bohemian National Alliance and the Union of Czech Catholics, American Slovak leaders felt confident that Masaryk would honor it. Skeptics, such as Jozef Hu sek, editor of Jednota (originall y from Okolicne, Liptov county), the official organ of the First Catholic Slovak Union, the largest Slovak fraternal-benefit society in America, did not tru st Masaryk. lt was Husek who forced Masary k into drafting the Pittsburgh Agreement, and it was Husek who insisted that he sign a calligraphed copy of it on November 14, I 918 , the very day that the newly-created Czecho-Slovak government in Prague e lected Masaryk President of the Republic. After Masaryk signed it a second time, American Slovaks were sati sfied and hoped for the best for their people in the new Czecho-Slovak Republic, which was proclaimed by a gathering of Czec h deputies of the former Austrian Parli ament in Prague on October 28 , 191 8, just as the defeated Austria-Hungary was collapsing. 16 Unfortunately for the future of Czecho-Slovakia, the promi ses made to American Slovaks by T.G. Masary k in the Pittsburgh Agreement were not carried out. Once he had returned in triumph to the newl y-created Republic in Dece mber of 1918 , Masaryk promptl y forgot about the Pittsburgh Agreement. The Czec h deputies in Prague , meanwhile, formed themselves into a "Czechoslovak government" on November 14th and later appointed a Czech-dominated "Constitutional Committee" to draft a Constitution for the new Republic. 17 Hearing of these events, the Slovak League of America sent a five-person delegation to Czecho-Slovakia in the spring of 1919, to remind Masaryk of hi s promises and to demand that the Pittsburgh Agreement be included in the proposed Constitution . Upon their return to the United States, the Executive Board of the Slovak League passed a resolution at its quarterly meeting on October 24, 1919, Europea n Review, 43 (No. I OI , 1965), 175-92 . The lack of the word "S lovak" in Bradley ' s title testifi es to the pro-Czech bias of western hi storian s during the ex istence of Czechoslovakia. 16 Husek, " Prehl'ad," op.cit. , 58-9 ; Joze f Husek, " Pittsburghska Dohoda," Jednota Katolfcky K al endar, 1933, 11 I. 17 For more on these proceedings see Vaclav L. Benes , " Czechoslovak Democracy and Its Problems, 1918-1920," in Victor S. Mamatey & Radomir Lu za, eds. , A History of the Czechoslovak Republic. 19 18- 1948 (Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1973), 53-6. SLOVAKIA 15 calling for the incorporation of the Pittsburgh Agreement into the proposed Czecho-Slovak Constitution. 18 Indeed, at the last meeting of the Czecho-Slovak Nation al Council in America, which had been founded in 1917 to coordinate the work of the Leag ue and of the Bohemian National Alliance, the Slovak delegates asked their Czech colleagues to pass a similar resolution, and the latter gladly complied 19 on November 7, 1919. Thus, American Czechs recogni zed the validity of the Pittsburgh Agreement while the Constitutional Committee did not. Masaryk, on the other hand , when asked by Prime Mini ster Vl astimil Tu s:cir in January of 1920 to comment on the validity of the Pittsburgh Agreement, brushed it aside as " one of many pre-revolutionary program s made beyond the boundaries. It has its hi storical value." 20 As a result, in March of 1920 the Constitutional Committee drafted , and the Prague Parliament adopted , a very centrali st Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic , which sy mboli ca ll y dropped the hyphen from its name , and proclaimed that " the Czechoslovak Republic is a unified, not a federative state ," that its official language was the "Czechoslovak language" (even thou gh no such lang uage existed) , and Slovakia did not receive its own administration, its own Diet and its own courts, nor did Slovak become the official language of administration, as promised in the Pittsburgh Agreement? In the inter-war period , after some hesitatio n, the Slovak League of America continued to demand the home-rule promi sed the Slovaks by T.G. Masaryk. Albert Mamatey, the president of the League, visited Slovakia with a copy of the Pittsburgh Agreement in the winter of 19 I 9-1920 and was reass ured by Mil an Hodfa, one of the leaders of the Czec hoslovak Agrarian Party, that the Slovaks had nothing to worry about. Indeed , in September of 1920 Mamatey was rewarded for hi s wartime services on behalf of Slovakia by being ap- 18 19 Jednota, October 29, I 9 I 9. p. l The Czechoslovak Review [Formerly the Bohemian Review], December, 1919, p. 394. T.G. Masaryk to Y lastimil Tu sar, February 5. I920 , as published in The Slovaks 20 and the Pittsburgh Pact (Chicago : Slovak Catholic Federation, 1934), p.34. Jii'i Hoetzl and V. Joachim ( Introd uction by) , The Constitution of the Czechoslo vak Republic (Prague: Ed ition de la Soc iete de I'effort de la T checoslovaqu ie. 1920), pp. I 2, 47 . 21 16 SLOVAKIA pointed the Czechoslo vak Consul in Pittsburgh. 22 He was succeeded as president of the League by hi s colleague Ivan Bielek, the former editor of the American Narodn e noviny, offici al organ of the National Slovak Society.23 Jan A. Kocur, a pre-war immigrant from 24 Turzovka, meanwhile, became the League ' s secretary. Under thi s new leadership the 14th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh, PA on June 28-29, 1922, sent a Memorandum to the National Assembly in Prague in which it demanded that the Pittsburgh Agreement be made a part of the Czechoslovak Constitution .25 Meanwhil e, after some prodding by Jozef Husek, editor of Jednota, as well as by the leadership of the First Catholic Slovak Union and the Slovak Catholic Federation, the 15th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Binghamton , New York on May 27-29, 1924, rejected the philosophy of "Czechoslovakism" as practiced by the Prague government and once again demanded that the provi sions of the Pittsburgh Agreem ent be carried out. 26 In addition , the Slovak League now openl y supported the Slovak People 's Party, led by the Reverend Andrej Hlinka, because that party had adopted the program of the Pittsburgh Agreement. Indeed , in 1926 the Slovak League made Hlinka an honorary member. 27 Interestingly enough, the League was so committed to the Pittsburgh Agreement th at, when the Slovak People ' s Party ag reed to join the center-right Czechoslovak coalition government in 1927-29, the League denounced this step! 28 On the other hand , it heartily approved of the People ' s Party 's withdrawal from the coalition after the October 1929 trial and conviction for treason of Yojtech Tuka, editor of Slo vak, the People 's Party ' s official organ .29 Furthermore, in 1928, on the l 0th anniver22 Joze f Paufo, 75. Rok ov Prvej K atolfckej Slovenskej Jednory (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union, 1965), 160. For a short biograph y of A lbert M amatey see Joze f Paufo, Slovensk f priekopn fci v A merike (Cleveland: First Cath olic Slovak Union, 1972), 269-75. 23 For a short biograph y of Ivan Bielek see Paufo , Slovenskf priekopnfci, p. 25-28. 24 For hi s biography see ilii.d.. , 229. 25 M emorandum Slovenskej Ligy v A merike upravene na vladu a Narodne Shromai denie Cesko-Sl ovenskej Republiky v zaujme vte/enia Pittsburghskej Dohody do ustavy C.-S. Republiky (Pittsburgh: Slovak League of A meri ca, 1922). 26 " Z XV. Kongresu Slovenskej Ligy v A merike." Jednota, June 4, 1924, pp. 1-2, 4. 27 Paufo, 75 roko v, 21 I. 28 lb.id... 223 . 29 " Prehlas od Ivana Bieleka,'· Jednota, October 23 , 1929, p.4. SLOVAKIA 17 sary of the founding of Czechoslovakia, the League rejected a special commendation from the Czechoslovak government for its role in the liberation of the country.30 Thereafter the League continued to publish and send memoranda to the Czecho-Slovak government, as it had in the l 920's, demanding that it grant the Slovaks the home-rule that Masaryk had promised in the Pittsburgh Agreement. 3 1 During the 1930's the Slovak League and the People ' s Party closely cooperated for the benefit of both sides. At its 19th Congress held in Cleveland on November 19-20, 1934, the assembled delegates elected the American-born Chicago medical doctor Peter P. Hletko as their president and he and his executive board invited the nationalist cultural organization Matica slovenska to send a delegation of scholars and leaders to help American Slovaks to maintain their national identity. The Matica complied in 1935-1936 by sending its director, the writer J.C. Hronsky, the publicist Konstantin Culen, the art historian Jozef Cincfk, and the photographer Karel Plicka. They visited 98 of the largest Slovak-American communities, presented lectures, slides and films about Slovakia, and donated four large libraries to the Slovak communities of New York City, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Chicago. This delegation also gathered a wealth of published and manuscript materials pertaining to the history of American Slovaks , which are now stored in the Slovak National Library.32 The People ' s Party, which was the main supporter of the Matica slovenska, reciprocated in 1938 when it invited the Slovak League to send a delegation to the mother country in order to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Pittsburgh Agreement. The 20th congress of the League, held in Pittsburgh on April 28-29, 1938, elected a six-person delegation, which included Peter P. Hletko and Jozef Husek, to travel to Slovakia, and to bring with it the original of 30 "Kongres Slovenskej Ligy," Jednota, June 6, 1928, p. l. See, for example the, fo llow ing: Prehlas Slovenskej Ligy v Amerike upraveny na vsetkych politickych cinitelbv Cesko-Slovenskej Republiky (Pittsburgh: P. Jamriska & Co., 1925); V zaujme pra vdy ! (Pittsburgh: P. Jamriska & Co., 1930); and An Autonomi st [Peter P. Hletko], Slovakia's Plea for Autonomy (Middletown, PA: Slovak Literary Society, I 935). 32 J.C. Hronsky described the Matica's trip and its achieve ments in Cesta slovenskou Amerikou: Cestopisne crty z r. 1935-36. v dvoch dieloch (Turc. Sv. Martin : Matica slovenska, 1940). 31 18 SLOVAKIA the Pittsburgh Agreement. The delegation went via Poland, in order to first visit the Rev. Andrej Hlinka in Rufomberok, and only then did it proceed to Bratislava and Prague. In Bratislava on June 5th the Slovak League delegation appeared on the balcony of the Slovak National Theater on Hviezdoslav Square, along with Andrej Hlinka and other notables of the People 's Party. Peter P. Hletko then triumphantly held up the original of the Pittsburgh Agreement, to the cheers of over 100,000 people.33 Finally, on October 6, 1938, after the infamous Munich Agreement weakened Czechoslovakia and president Edvard Benes resigned his office and fled to the west, the Slovak People 's Party, with the support of the Agrarian and National Parties and the approval of Prague, proclaimed the autonomy of Slovakia and formed a six-man government headed by Dr. Jozef Tiso. He had succeeded Andrej Hlinka as party leader after the latter' s death on August 16th. The Prague Parliament formally approved Slovak autonomy on November 22nd and re-named the Republic as Czecho-Slovakia, to reflect thi s new reality. Needless to say, the Slovak League of America was overjoyed to see that, after 20 years of strugg le, the provisions of the Pittsburgh Agreement were finally carried out. 34 While the Slovak League was satisfied with the outcome of its efforts on behalf of the Pittsburgh Agreement, Adolph Hitler was not. The German Chancellor was determined to destroy Czecho-Slovakia and to incorporate Bohemia-Moravia into his "Third Reich." Therefore, he had his agents get in touch with the most radical individuals in the People 's Party, who were led by the recently-releasedfrom-prison Vojtech Tuka, and urged them to seek complete Slovak independence. Tuka and his followers began to plot against CzechoSlovakia and the Prague government reacted by declaring martial law on March 11th, by di ssolving the recently-elected Slovak Diet, 33 Hlas l'udu (Toronto), May 27, 1938, pp.l-2 , June 7, 1938, pp.1-4 ; Slovak v Kan ade (Montreal ), June 2, 1938, p. l; Osadne hlasy (Chicago), June 24, 1938, pp.12; Narodne noviny, Jul y 6, 1938, p.5. Photos of the delegation in Poland and in Slovakia can be found in J.M . Kirschbaum, Slovakia: Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe (New York: Robert Speller & Sons, 1960), between pp.264-265. 34 New Yorksky dennfk (New York) , October 9, 1938 , p.1; Kato/icky Sokol (Passaic, NJ) , October 12, 1938, p.l; Narodne no viny, October 12, 1938, p.l; Osadne h/asy, October 14, 1938 , p.l and October 21 , 1938, pp. 1&3 ; Jednota, November 2, 1938, p.3 SLOVAKIA 19 and by arresting over 200 suspected "plotters" against the Republic. Meanwhile, Hitler's agents summoned the recently-dismissed Prime Minister Jozef Tiso to Berlin on March 13th and gave him an ultimatum: either proclaim independence or watch Slovakia be partitioned by Poland and Hungary. Tiso returned to Bratislava on March 14th, he persuaded President Emil Hacha to reconvene the Slovak Diet, and after Tiso passed on to the Diet Hitler's message, the Diet unanimously declared Slovak independence. Since Czecho-Slovakia no longer existed, Hitler ordered the German army to occupy BohemiaMoravia and turn it into a German " Protectorate." He also recognized the independence of the Slovak Republic, but forced it into a German alliance and put it under German protection. 35 When news of the declaration of Slovak Independence reached American Slovaks, they were at first puzzled and subsequently split into two camps-those who supported Slovak independence and those who did not. This split had first surfaced right after World War I, when certain American Slovaks chose to support the new, centralized Czechoslovak Republic, while others did not. Generally speaking, most Slovak Protestant societies in the USA, as well as those individuals organized in the militantly secular Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol (founded in 1896) supported the new state because they agreed with its official philosophy of "Czechoslovakism," that is, that the Czechs and Slovaks formed one nation but spoke two dialects of the "Czechoslovak" language. 36 The majority of American Slovaks, who were Roman Catholics, and were represented by the First Catholic Slovak Union and the Slovak Catholic Federation, among others, did not. Between 1919 and 1924 the pro-Czechoslovak group controlled the Slovak League. 37 After 1924 the Slovak nationalists regained control over the League, and continue to do so. Therefore, the Protestants and the Sokols (as well as Slovak Communi sts), rejected the independent Slovak Republic and hoped that 35 The best description of this period in Czecho-Slovakia ' s hi story is by Theodor Prochazka, The Second Republic: Th e Disintegration of post-Munich Czechoslovakia (Boulder: East European Monographs, 198 1); for an alternative view see Frantisek Ynuk, " Slovakia' s Six Eventfu l Months," Slovak Studies, 4 ( 1964), 7- I 64. 36 Milan Getting best represented thi s group and described their act ivities in his Americki Slovaci, ~ 37 " Z XV . Kongresu Slovenskej Li gy v Amerike," Q)hci.t. 20 SLOVAKIA Czecho-Slovakia could be resurrected.38 To this end they supported ex-president Edvard Benes's new liberation movement during World War 11. 39 The leadership of the Slovak League, largely representing the majority Roman Catholics, on the other hand, supported the new state. Indeed, Jozef Husek, who was elected president of the League at its 21 st Congress in Cleveland on October 14th, 1938, form all y requested president Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the United States on April 24, 1939 to grant the Slovak Republic diplomatic recognition.40 Shortly thereafter the Slovak League was heartened by a message ("Posolstvo") sent by Prime Minister Jozef Tiso to American and Canadian Slovaks on May 23rd of 1939. Here Tiso explained in 38 A group of Slovak Protestants (Lutherans, Calvini sts and Congregationalists), led by the Baptist preac her A. P. Slabey, met in Duquesne, PA on May 30th, 1938 and denounced the Hletko- led delegati on of the Slovak League to Slovakja that spring. Cf. Narodne noviny, June 8, 1938 , p.3; In the fall Jan Pankuch, a Lutheran and fo rmer mem ber of the Delegati on, regretted the granting of autonomy to Slovakia. Cf. Hla s (C leveland), October 13, I 938, p. l ; after the Slovak Diet declared independence on Marc h 14th , 1939 . the Lutheran-dominated Nati onal Slovak Society denounced this act. Cf. Narodne noviny, March 15, 1939, p. l , as did the secul arist and Sokol-do minated New Yorksky dennik , March 15, 1939, p. l. Slovak communists also de nounced both Slovak auto no my and independence. Cf. I', udovy dennik (Chicago), October 7, 1938, p. l ; October 8, 1938, p. I; March I6, 1939, p. l 39 Those American Slovaks who opposed Slovak indepe ndence and wished to see Czecho-Slovakja res urrected after th e war initiall y organi zed the mselves into th e Slovak Nati onal Council of America. However, they soon split into fac tions th at either supported ex-president Benes or else Dr. Milan Hodfa or Dr. Stefan Osusky, both of whom had fl ed to the West after the fa ll of France in June of 1940, and both of whom broke with Benes over the future of a res urrected Czecho-S lovakia. While Be nes wanted a return to the cent ra lized pre-M un ich Czechoslovakia, Hodfa and Osusky wished to return to a federated Czecho-S lovilia. Cf. Letters of Jan Dend'ur, Secretary of the Slovak National Council to Vlad imir Hurban, ex-Ambassador of Czechos lovakia in Washington, Papers of Jan Dend'ur, Box I , File A-S , Balch Institute at th e Histori cal Society of Penn sy lvania, Philade lphia; those who supported Benes joined the Czechoslovak Nati onal Co un cil of America and we re led by the Lutheran Rev . Jaros lav Pelikan, Sr. of Chicago. Cf. New York sky dennik, Dece mber 11 , 1941 , p. I. For a descri ption of the Benes-led liberation move ment see Ed uard Taborsky, " Politics in Exile, 1939- 1945 ," in Mamatey & Lufa , A History , QP..ci.1. , 322-42. 40 Letter of Jozef Husek to Frank lin Delano Roosevelt, April 24, 1939, publ ished in Correspondence in re Slovakia and the Declaration of the Aim and Principles of the Slo vak League of A merica (Middletown? Slovak League of America, 1940?), 1718. Husek sent a similar letter to Secretary of State Corde ll Hull on August 4, 1939, ilii.d., 19-20. SLOVAKIA 21 great detail how and why the Slovak Republic came into being and he asked American and Canadian Slovaks to support it. 4 1 As a result, the 22nd Congress of the Slovak League, which was held on November 14-15 in Cleveland, and which re-elected Husek as its president, passed a resolution in which it fully supported the independent Slovak Republic. Furthermore, it called upon the United States government to grant Slovakia diplomatic recognition, and it deplored ex-president Edvard Benes's American speaking tour, in which he called for the restoration of pre-war Czechoslovakia.42 In the fo llowing October, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt received a IS-person delegation of the Slovak League led by Husek and Hletko during which they pledged their loyalty to the USA . They considered thi s meeting to be a moral victory, even though FDR refu sed to recognize the Slovak Republic. 43 On the other hand, because of attacks launched upon the Slovak League by the supporters of Edvard Benes, Husek and the Slovak League were investigated by the Dies Committee on Un-American Activities. Thereafter they were under FBI surveillance. 44 Since the United States entered the Second World War on the side of the Allies on December 7, 1941 , and since Prime Mini ster Vojtech Tuka of Slovakia foolishly declared war upon the United States shortly there41 Tiso was responding to a letter sent to him by Andrej Potocky, Supreme Secretary of the Canadian Slovak League, askin g for an ex planation as to why the Slovak Diet had declared independence. Cf. And rej Potocky to Jozef Tiso, April 20, 1939 and Tiso's reply, of June 2, 1939, with a copy of the " Posolstvo," in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, lmrich Stolarik Co ll ection, Box 576, fo lder 2, 1939, Slovak Archives, University of Ottawa, Archi ves and Spec ia l Collections, and in the Andrej Potocky Papers, box 282 , folder 4, I 939, lhid. Jozef Husek translated and published it as " Dr. Joseph Tiso to the Slovaks in America," in Correspondence in re Slovakia, QJ2,.Q!., 716. This " Posolstvo" was originall y published in Slovak in several pro-independence newspapers in the USA and Canada. Cf. S lovenske bratstvo (Montreal), Jul y 2 1, and July 31, 1939, p.3 . 42 Jednota, Novem ber 29, 1939, p. 3; H/as Judu, November 18 and 21 , p. I. 43 Jedno ta, October 30, 1940, p. I, November 6, 1940, p.2; Slo venske bratstvo, November I, 1940, p.2. 44 Hlas Judu , October 24, 1939 , p. l ; see also Jozef Husek's letters to Martin Dies, Chairman , Dies House Committee, October 6, 1939 and October 28, 1939, in Correspondence in re Slovakia, QJ2..ci.t. , 23-4. In the summer of 1970 I visited with Dr. Peter P. Hletko in Chi cago and he confi rmed that the FBI had him and Husek under survei llance throughout the war, a lthough Hletko struck up a friendship with those watching him . 22 SLOVAKIA after, the Slovak League had to become more circumspect m its pronouncements. It now pledged absolute loyalty to the United States, although it continued to passively support the Slovak Republic. 45 However, the United States Office of War Information arranged a meeting of all Slovak-American organizations in Pittsburgh on September 14, 1942, and urged them to sign a declaration in which they repudiated the Slovak Republic and pledged their loyalty to the United States and its Allies. 46 By December a dejected Jozef Husek resigned as president of the League.47 He was eventually replaced by the more cautious Msgr. Frantisek Du bosh of Lakewood, Ohio, at the 23rd Congress of the League held in Pittsburgh on February 25-26, 1943. 48 Since the Slovak League could no longer openly support Slovak independence, it had to lower its expectations. At its 23rd Congress it had to develop a new program for Slovakia and, at the same time, deal with the issue of accepting or rejecting two former hi gh-ranking Slovaks in the pre-war Czechoslovak government and bureaucracy who had come to America. One was the former Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia, Milan Hodz.a, and the other was the former Czechoslovak Minister to Paris, Stefan Osusky. Both had broken with Edvard Benes after the destruction of Czecho-Slovakia. Hodza now recognized the Slovaks as a distinct nation but favored the resurrection of a federated Czecho-Slovakia within a Central European Federation . Osu sky also recognized the Slovaks as an independent nation and favored the resurrection of a federated Czecho-Slovakia as stipul ated in the Cleveland Agreement of 1915 , which he had helped to draft. After much debate, the League rejected both Hodza and 45 Osadne h/asy, December 19, 194 1, p.2; Jednota , January 7, 1942 , p.8. Pavel Jamriska, the vice-president of the L eague, pledged that " American Slovaks never betrayed and never w ill betray the Slovak nation and Slovakia." Cf. Jednota, January 2 1, 1942, p.4. Jozef Husek president of the League, added that " Slovakia should retain its freedom ," in spite of the war. Jednota, February 25, 1942, p.4. 46 Jednota, September 23, 1942, p. l and October 14, 1942, p.2. Thi s " Resolution " was reprinted in Martin Kvetko and Miroslav J. Licko 's edited Zbornik tivah a osobnych spomienok o S/ovenskom narodnom povstanf (Toronto: Stala konferencia slovenskych demokratickych exu lantov, 1976), pp. 396-7 w ithout any explanation. 47 I.:udo ve zvesti (Toronto), December 12, 1942, p. I and January 16, 1943, p.5. 48 Kanadsky Slovak (Montrea l), March 11 , 1943, p. I ; I.:udove zves ti, March 20 , 1943 , p.5. SLOVAKIA 23 Osusky as former collaborators of the first Czechoslovak Republic and it returned to its pre-war program of "self-determination" for the Slovaks in the future. 49 When the Slovak National Uprising against the Germans broke out at the end of August, 1944, American Slovaks were once again divided. After some hesitation, the 26th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh on October 18-19, 1944, and most American Catholic organizations , rejected the leadership of the newlyformed Slovak National Council as too "Czechoslovak" and Communi st. 50 Most American Lutherans, National Sokols and Communi sts, on the other hand, cheered and recognized the leadership of the SNC. 51 To complicate matters even more, the People' s Party journali st Peter Prfdavok, who had initially rejected the Slovak Republic and had fled to France and Great Britain in 1939, al so broke with Edvard Benes and in 1943 establi shed a Slovak National Council in London . He immediately contacted the Slovak League of America and , after the 1944 uprising in Slovakia, counseled the Slovak League not to recognize the Slovak National Council in Slovakia. 52 The League did not do so until it heard of the promulgation of the Kosice Programme of April 5, 1945 , which recognized the Slovaks as a di stinct nation and which al so recognized the Slovak National Council as the government of Slovakia. Thi s was a major concession by representatives of Edvard Benes 's victorious government-in-exile, which by then had returned to Slovak ("Czechoslovak") territory on 49 Cudove z vesti, March 20, 1943 and Kanadsky Slovak, March 25 , 1943, p.4. After Osusky broke with Benes he publi shed a series of pamphlets in whi ch he denounced the latter: Pravda vfthzf 1 (Pohlhd do zrkadla druheho odboj a) (London : The Continental Publishers, 1942); Benes and Slovakia (Middletown, PA : First Catholi c Slovak Union, 1943) ; Triedenie duchov nastalo (L ondon : The Continental Publishers, 1943) ; Hodza ' s position was best reported in K anadsky Slovak, M ay 28, 1942, pp. 7 & 10. For Hodza ' s acti vities in the USA see Michal Mudry, Milan Hodi a v Amerike (Chicago: Geringer Press, 1949). For more on Benes's opponents during World War II see Jan Kuklfk and Jan Nemecek, Prati Beneso vi! Ceska a slovenska protibeneso vska opozice v Londy ne /939-1 945 (Praha: Karolinum , 2004). 50 Kanadsky Slovak, November 9, 1944, p.4; Jednota, N ovember 15, 1944, p.2. 51 Cudove zvesti, September 23 , 1944, pp. I & 4. 52 Slovenske bratst vo, M ay 24, 1940, p.2; Slo vensky priekopnfk, November 27, 1942, pp. I & 4; ~udove zvesti, M arch 18, 1944, p.5 ; Jednota, April 16, 1945, p.5; for a short biograph y of Prfdavok see Literarny almanach Slovaka v A merike, 1967 (Middletown, PA), 209- 10. 24 SLOVAKIA the heel s of the Red Army, and which by now included the Communist leader Klement Gottwald. 53 However, this "Washington Declaration" of April 6, 1945 by the Executive of the Slovak League of America was immediately denounced by Jozef Husek and Peter P. Hletko.54 Furthermore, the 27th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in October of 1945 also repudiated it. Instead, the Congress reaffirmed the right of the Slovaks in Europe to self-determination. This Congress, which elected the Amercanborn attorney Peter P. Yurchak as its president, also announced a new fund-rai sing campaign to help rebuild post-war Slovakia, as well as to help thousands of political refugees who had fled the resurrected post-war Czechoslovakia.55 Meanwhile, the Slovak League had also sent a three-person delegation to the San Francisco meeting of the newly-founded United Nations from April 25th to June 21st. It was led by the Rev. Jan J. Lach of Whiting, Indiana, in the company of the poet, the Rev . Milos Mlynarovic, and the young Americanborn attorney Edward J. Behuncfk. The League had hoped that its delegation could speak on behalf of the Slovak nation but Jan Masaryk, son of the former president of Czechoslovakia, registered himself as a Slovak (whic h he was not) and, in hi s capacity as Czechoslovakia's new Foreign Minister, claimed that the Slovaks were well-represented at the United Nations, and therefore, did not need the services of the League. Lach was given only the status of an observer and could not participate in the debates about the future of Europe. 56 Meanwhile, Slovaks who had emigrated to Canada also took an interest in the fate of their countrymen. Since the United States Congress had passed three Immigration Acts in the l 920's, which severely restricted further migration from east-central and southern Europe to the United States, about 40,000 Slovaks moved to Canada in search of work in the l 920's and 1930's. Even though the government of Canada wanted them to settle on farms on the Prairies, they 53 For the text of the Kosice Program see "Kosicky vlad ny program," in Dokumenty, II (1998), 407-8 . 54 Osadne hlasy, April 20, 1945 , p.4 and June I, 1945, p.2, June 30, I 945, p.2 ; Kanadsky Slovak, June 14, 1945, p.5. 55 Osadne hlasy, October 26, 1945, p. l ; Kanadsky Slovak, November I, 1945. 56 Jednota , May 23, I 945 , p. l; Osadne hlasy, May 25, 1945, p.4; I'.udove zvesti, June 9, 1945, p.4, and Jul y 2 1, 1945 , p.2. SLOVAKIA 25 largely headed to the metropolitan areas of Winnipeg, Fort William, Montreal and Toronto. There, they quickly copied their American countrymen and established fraternal-benefit societies, parishes and newspapers. Indeed, they originally joined American-Slovak organizations, subsc ribed to their newspapers and were served by SlovakAmerican priests and mini sters. 57 However, when the Great Depression broke out in 1929, SlovakCanadians di scovered that they had to look out for themselves. For instance, when the Slovak League of America announced that it was raising funds to provide food and clothing for its members who were in dire straits, Canadian members of the Slovak League , who had organized fifteen branches in Canada, applied for thi s " relief. " They were shocked when Jan A. Kocur, the Leag ue 's Secretary , replied that American Slovaks had only enough resources to help themselves, and could not afford to help Slovaks in Canada. 58 Therefore, led by Andrej Kucera of Winnipeg (ori ginall y from Radosovce, in Bratislava county) representatives of three Canadian branches of the Slovak League of America met in Winnipeg in 1932 and organized the Slovak League of Canada which, when it was officially incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1934, had its name changed to the Canadian Slovak League. Meanwhile, in order to help its countrymen to survive the Great Depression, leaders of the Canadian Slovak League organized it into a fratern al-benefit society, as well as a nationalist organization. 59 The national orientation of the Canadian Slovak League mirrored that of its American parent. Thus, in November of 1933 the Central Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League sent president T . G. Masa57 For a brief history of the Slovaks in Canada see the entry by Elena Jakesova and M. Mark Stolarik in the Encyclopedia of Canada 's Peoples, ed. By Paul R. Magocsi (Toronto: Uni versity of Toronto Press, 1999), 11 68-79. For a longer treatment see J. M. Kirschbaum , Slovaks in Canada (Toronto: Canadian Eth ni c Press Association of Ontario, 1967). 58 See the correspondence between Kucera and Kocur in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, Lmrich Stolarik Collection, Box 575, fo lder 7, 1928- 1934, Slovak Archives in the Archives and Special Collections, Uni versity of Ottawa and Kucera 's article on the 10th an ni versary of the fo unding of the CSL, Kanadsky Slovak, December 17, 1942, pp. 1-2. For a fuller description see " Pociatky a rozvoj Kanadskej Slovenskej Ligy ," in lmrich Stolarik ed. , Kanadska Slovenska Liga: 35 rocna: Historicky nacrt (19321967) (Toronto: Kanadska Slovenska Liga, 1967), 18-20. 59 Ibid. 2 1-26. 26 SLOVAKIA ryk of Czechoslovakia a reso lution demanding that the Pittsburgh Agreement be incorporated into the Constitution of the Republic.6() Indeed, in 1935 the two Leagues sent a joint appeal to all voters in Slovaki a to support only those political parties that recognized the Pittsburgh Agreement. 61 After Slovakia achieved its autonomy in the fall of 1938, the Canadian Slovak League, like its American counterpart, welcomed this autonomy and congratulated Dr. Jozef Tiso, its first Prime Minister. 62 After the Slovak Diet proclaimed the independence of Slovakia on March 14th, 1939, Canadian Slovaks, like their American cousins, were initially caught off guard and divided over the issue. To clarify matters, Andrej Potocky (w ho hailed from Sedliacka Dubova, Orava county) , the secretary of the Canadian Slovak League, addressed a letter to Dr. Jozef Tiso and asked him for an explanation. Tiso replied in May in his already-mentioned "Posolstvo" and both Leagues published it in newspapers that supported their politics. 63 Thereafter, both Leagues supported the independent Slovak Republic as much as they could. The Canadian Slovak League, like its American counterpart, also rejected Edvard Benes's World War II liberation movement, as well as Milan Hodfa' s plans for a Central European federation. 64 It seriously considered sending a delegate to the San Francisco meeting of the United Nations in 1945 , but could not afford to do so. 65 Meanwhile, delegates to the 28th Congress of the Slovak League of America, held in Detroit on October 29-30th, 1946 and to the 7th Convention of the Canadian Slovak League held in neighboring Windsor on October 28-30th of the same year, iss ued a joint resolution wherein they rejected the resurrected post-war Cze60 See the "Ustredn a sprava Slov . Ligy v Kanade: Rezolucia" , dated November 6, 1933, Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, QJlii1. 61 Kucera to Kocur, March 30, 1935, ibid 62 Centra l Assembly of the Canadian Slovak Leag ue to Dr. Jozef Tiso, January 2 1, 1939, i..b.id... 63 Andrej Potocky to Jozef Tiso, April 20, 1939 and Jozef Tiso to Andrej Potocky, June 2, 1939 plus the ' Posolstvo" dated May 23, 1939 in ilii..d. See also Slovenske bratstvo, Jul y 21 , 1939, p.3 and Jul y 28 , 1939, p.3. 64 S lovenske bratstvo, August 4, 1939 , p.4 ; March 15, 1940, p. I; Kanadsky Slovak, August 6, 1942, p.2 and December 9, 1943 , p.2 65 Letter of Msgr. F.J. Dubosh, president of the Slovak league of Ameri ca to Jan Ivan of the Canadian Slovak League, March 25 , 1945 , papers of Andrej Kucera, QJlii1. SLOVAKIA 27 choslovakia and instead declared their support for the re-establishment of an independent Slovak Republic. 66 This political stand by both Leagues was reinforced by the arrival of post-war political refugees from Slovakia. Several thou sand supporters of the independent Slovak Republic, consisting of government officials, bureaucrats, soldiers and intellectuals fled the advancing Red Army in the winter and spring of 1945 and settled in Upper Austria and, eventually, in the defeated Germany. From there they sent appea ls to both Slovak Leagues for financial and other assistance. The two Leagues responded by sending them material goods, by arranging for surplus Red Cross packages to be distributed among them and, most importantly, by persuading the International Refugee Organization to recognize them as refugees and to help them emigrate out of war-torn Europe.67 One of the Slovak League of America's first successes was the appointment of Dr. Jozef Kirsc hbaum as its official delegate to the IRO in September of 1947.68 Kirschbaum had been the Slovak Charge d ' Affaires in Switzerland for most of the 66 Indeed , the Canadian Slovak League had also deplored the April 6, 1945 "Washington Resolution" of the Slovak League of America. CF. Andrej Kucera to Msgr. F. Dubosh, October 12, 1945, Papers of Andrej Ku cera, lmrich Stolarik Fonds, Box 572, file 1945 , Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library, University of Ottawa; Kanadsky Slov;:ik, November 16, 1946, p.2 and January 2, 1947, p.3. 67 See the " Memorandum" drafted by the writer Milo Urban to the Slovak League of America dated May 30 , 1945, as publi shed on its 20th an ni versary in K anadsky Slovak, May 29, 1965, p. 2 and September 4, 1965, p.3; see also Osadne hlasy, Jul y 6, 1945, p.2, Apri l 4, 1947, p.l and April 11 , 1947, p.2; see also Kanadsky Slovak, Jul y 12, 1945, p.2. A preliminary li st of these refugees in Austria was compiled by the Czechoslovak Ambassador to Switzerland and se nt to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague because the Czechoslovak government wished to " repatriate" some of them. Cf. Slove nsky narodn y arc hfv, PY , beop.- lll dov. , 1945, 6. Sept. , 1945, Ministerstvo zahrani cnfch veci. Praha, 26079/11-2/45 . No-one has yet written a schol arl y acco unt of this phenomenon as it pertains to the Slovaks. However. l:ubomfr Gleiman , one of these refugees, has penned hi s reminiscences in a manuscript entitled "Out of thi s Century ' s Mae lstro m: A Pilgrim 's Story of Disse nt and Surviva l," (Cary , NC: 200 I ). A co py of this manuscript, as well as his father' s diaries from 1944 to 1954, on whi ch the manuscript is partly based, can be found in the Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library, University of Ottawa, Canada. For a general description of the plight of post-war refugees see Mark Wyman , DP: Europe 's Displaced Persons, 1945-1951 (Philadelphia: The Balch Institute Press, 1989). 68 Kanadsky Slovak, May 27, 1948, p.2 and June I 0, 1948, p. l. 28 SLOVAKIA war. Since he had acti vely supported the creation of the Slovak Republic , he refu sed to return to post-war Czechoslovakia. Instead, he worked vigorou sly with both Slovak Leagues to arrange for the emigration of hundreds of Slovaks to the USA and Canada, once these countries opened their borders to post-war refugees in 1947 and 1948. 69 As the refugees began to arrive in the United States and Canada, they quickly joined the two Slovak Leag ues and reinforced their commitment to Slovak independence. The first to come to the USA was the poet, the Rev . Mikul as Sprinc. He arrived in Jul y of 1946, settled in Cleveland, and immediate ly informed the executive of the Slovak League of what had actually transpired during the existence of the Slovak Republic.70 That is why the Slovak League, at its 28th Congress in Detroit called for a plebiscite to be held in Slovakia to decide its future and it also appealed for a fair trial for Dr. Jozef Tiso. 7 1 The latter had evacuated to Austria with the Slovak government in the dying days of the war but was turned over to Czechoslovak authorities by the victorious American Army. 72 Meanwhile, the historian Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky arrived in the USA at the end of 1947 and he also joined the Slovak League. Indeed, after Jan A. Kocu r died , Hrusovsky was elected the Secretary of the League at its 30th Congress in Chicago in March of 1948. On September 15, 1952, largely on hi s initiative, the Slovak Institute was established at the Slovak Benedictine Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio, 73 and Hrusovsky became its first director. In 1950 Dr. Jozef Pauco gained admittance to the USA. Thi s former editor of the dail y Slovak, official organ of the Slovak Peo- 69 Author interview with J.M. Kirschbaum, November 7, 1998.He recorded his political views and activities in Nas boj o sam ostatnost' Slovenska (C leveland: Slovak Institute, 1958; reprinted and updated by the Matica slovenska, 2000). 70 Paufo , 75. Rokov QJU;lL 353; Sprinc described his trip to the USA in K slobodnym pobreiiam (Scranton, PA : Obrana Press, 1949). 71 See footnote 65 . 72 For Tiso' s activities during and after World War II , as penned by hi s forme r personal secretary, see Karo l Murin, Spomienky a svedectvo (Hami lton,Ontario: Zahranicna Matica slovenska, 1987). 73 Kanadsky Slovak, October 30, 1947 , pp.1 -2, November 6, 1947 , pp.I & 7, March 17, I949, p. 1. For a short biograph y see " Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky ," in Literarny Almanach Slovaka v Amerik e, 1967 (Middletown, PA), 16 1-2. SLOVAKIA 29 pie' s Party , initially found employment as assistant editor of the weekly fraternal Jednota , which was published in Middletown, PA. In 1958 he became editor and in 1964 also publisher of the weekly Slovak v Amerike, the oldest Slovak newspaper in America. In 1962 Pauco was elected Secretary of the Slovak League of America, a 74 post which he held until his death in 1975. Finally, in 1952 Dr. Jozef A. Mikus came to the USA. This former Slovak Charge d ' Affaires in Spain fled his homeland after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. He initi ally lived in Paris but after four years he moved to Washington , D.C. For the first five years of his life in the USA he was employed by the Slovak League as its Press Secretary. After that he taught at various American colleges until his retirement. He also remained active within the Slovak League and the Slovak World Congress. 75 While a few post-war Slovak refugees managed to gain entry into the United States after the war, the majority headed for Canada, because the latter opened its doors to refugees first. Among the most important to arrive in 1949 were Dr. Karol Murin, the former personal secretary of president Jozef Tiso, Dr. Jozef Kirschbaum (mentioned earlier) and the publicist and historian Konstantin Culen. 76 In 1950 Karol Sidor, former Slovak Ambassador to the Vatican, and the most prominent of all the emigres, made his way to Montreal. 77 All of them immediately joined the Canadian Slovak League and Culen even became editor of its weekly Kanadsky Slovak from 1952 to 74 Ibid. , 200-2. Kanadsky Slovak, May 18, 1950, p.2. Ibid., 188-9. Kanadsky Slovak, January 24, 1952, p.5 and June 21 , 1952, p.7. The complete life of Jozef Mikus can be reconstructed in "The Jozef Mikus Fonds" located in the Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library , University of Ottawa. 76 Kanadsky S lovak, February 10, 1949, p. I; £udove zvesti, March 12. 1949, p.4, February 25, 1950, p.4. For biographies of Murin and Cu len see Literarny almanach S/ovaka v Amerike, / 967 (Middletown, PA), 129-30 and 194-95. 77 Andrej Kucera to Andrej Potocky, Apri l 6, 1950, Papers of A. Kucera, lmrich Stolarik Collec tion. Box 576, fo lder 7. 1950, Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library , University of Ottawa; Kanadsky Slovak, April 20, 1950, p.5; letter of Karol Sidor to lmrich Stolarik, January 12, 1951 , Joseph Stasko Fonds, Slovenska narodna rada v zahranicf, Box 30, Series II , File 4, Subfile 4.1 , Folder 22, ARCS 92-3 , Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Mori sset Library, University of Ottawa. For more on Sidor see Literamy almanach I 967, 2212. 75 30 SLOVAKIA 1956. Needless to say, these emigres strengthened the League's commitment to promoting Slovak independence. Indeed, they and their American counterparts started to celebrate the anniversary of Slovak independence (Marc h 14th) as early as 1947.78 Both of the Slovak Leagues, meanwhile, denounced the execution of Dr. Jozef Tiso after he was found gui lty of treason by the Communist-dominated National Court in Bratislava in April of 1947. 79 After the Communist takeover of power in Czechoslovakia in February of 1948, a new wave of political refugees fled to the West. This was a mixture of Slovaks who favored independence and those who did not. Those refugees who had fled to the west after 1945 seized the initiative and re-established the Slovak National Council Abroad in the fall of 1948 and elected Karol Sidor as its president and Peter Pridavok of London as its secretary. 80 Those who wished Czechoslovakia to continue, but were opposed to its communist government, organized themselves into the Council for a Free Czechoslovakia, led by Dr. Jozef Lettrich , the former Chairman of the postwar Democratic Party in Slovakia. 81 Both Slovak Leagues rejected Lettrich and his followers as early as 1946 and instead supported the Slovak National Council Abroad .82 Indeed, both Slovak Leagues had previously also rejected the more radical Slovak Action Committee, founded in Rome in 1946 by Dr. Ferdinand Durcansky, the first Foreign Minister of the Slovak Republic .83 Rivalries between the leaders of the Slovak National Council Abroad and that of the Slovak Action Committee seeped into both Leagues and caused much in- 78 Osadne hlasy, March 14, 1947, p.l ; Kanadsky Slovak, April JO and 17, 1954, pp.2-4. 79 Osadne hlasy, April 25 , 1947, pp. I & 2; Kanadsky Slovak, May 8, 1947, p.l, October 30, 1947, pp. 1-2 and November 6, 1947, pp. I & 7; for the reminiscences of the chief prosecutor and the chief defense attorney at thi s trial see Proces s dr. 1. Tisom (Bratislava: Tatra Press, 1990). 8 Kanadsky Slovak, June 24, 1948 , p.3 , December I6, 1948 , p. I and December 30, 1948, p.3 ; Kirschbaum , Nas boj, QJ1.&iL (2000) , 370- 1. 81 Spetko, "Slovenska exi lova," QJ1.&iL 247-8. 82 Kanadsky Slovak, April 11 , 1946, p.5; Ferdinand Durcansky to Andrej Kucera, September 8, 1949, in Papers of A. Kucera, Correspondence with Refugees in Europe, Box 572, lmrich Stolarik Fonds, Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa. 83 Durcansky, Ibid. For more on Durcansky see Literarny almanach 1967 , 137-9. ° SLOVAKIA 31 fighting among both in the 1950's. 84 The matter was finally settled in 1960 when the two sides decided to merge into the Slovak Liberation Council, with two co-chairmen: Dr. Jozef Kirschbaum in Toronto (Sidor had died in 1953) and Dr. Ferdinand Durcansky in Munich. 85 Meanwhile, in 1962, Dr. Peter P. Hletko, once again became president of the Slovak League of America, which had undergone some turbulent times. Hletko had succeeded Filip A. Hrobak, editor of Jednota , who had become president in 1950 . The American-born Hrobak was an activist, who had established the Slovak League 's Information Office in Washington in 1952, as well as the Englishlanguage periodical Slovakia in 1950 to champion the independence of his cousins overseas. Meanwhile, Hrobak also had to referee an intense rivalry that broke out between various factions in the League, a rivalry that resulted in the di smissal of Konstantfn Culen from the directorship of the Slovak institute in Cleveland (he had come down from Canada in 1956 and was made director of the Institute shortly after the death of Hrusovsky in the same year) and his banishment from Slovak-American life. 86 Hletko, who had largely been responsible for Culen's dismissal, congratulated the Canadian Slovak League on its 30th anniversary and remarked that it had become " more active" than the Slovak League of America. 87 He may have had in mind the fact that, on March 16th, 1953 (strategically close to the 14th anniversary of Slovak independence on March 14th), the First 84 See the letter of A. Ku cera to Jozef Siksa dated March 20, 1950 as well as the circ ul ar letter of Ferdinand Durcansky dated February 9, 1951, an undated letter from early 195 1, as well as letters from Michael Yargovic , president of the First Catholic Union , dated February 19, 1951 and Fi lip A. Hrobak, president of the Slovak League of America, dated February 20. 1951 , in the Papers of A. Kucera, Qlhci..!.; see also Kanadsky Slovak, January 17, 1952, p.3 and February 14, 1952, p.2, and November 5, 1955, p.2. See also l',udove zves ti. February I, 1958, p.6, and March I, 1958, p.4. 85 Kanadsky Slovak, October 11 , 1958, p.1 , March 2 1, 1959, p.1 , June 4, 1960, p.1 and June 18, 1960, p. I ; l',udove zvesti, September I, 1960, p.6 86 Kanadsky Slovak, June 8, 1950, p.1 , June 2 1, 1952, p.7 , June 27, 1959, p.1 ; I.:udove zvesti, June 17, 1950, p.2 ; for Konstantin Cu len's problems with Hletko and other American Slovak leaders see hi s V zajatf fa losnych legiend od nenavistneho srdca, 11 Vols. (Mim ieographed, New York, 1961). Frantisek Ynuk, in his Z ivotopis Konstantfna Culena (Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1984), 190-93 also touched on this problem. 87 Kanadsky Slovak, December 15 , 1962, p. I. Filip A. Hrobak, a few years earlier, had expressed simi lar sentiments ; cf. Kanadsky S lovak, July 18, 1959, p. I. 32 SLOVAKIA District Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League had organized a gala banquet at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Leag ue. Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, four cabi net ministers and 25 mem bers of the Canadian Parliament attended! 88 Thi s diplomati c "coup" by the Canadian Slovak League was not matched by its American counterpart. The most the Slovak League of America was able to accomplish on the diplomatic front in the l 950's was to arrange a meeting with officials of Radio Free Europe in 1953 and wi th Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in October of 1956. 89 Nothing came of these meetings. Peter P. Hletko also noticed that the Canadian Slovak League was both younger than its parent organization and had more youthful members. In thi s respect he may have been thinking of Stephen B. Roman, who had come to Oshawa, Canada from Velky Ruskov, Slovakia as a 16 year-old in 1937. Through a seri es of shrewd investments in the 1940's and 1950's, Roman had become a multi-millionaire in Canada's uranium industry. Roman was an active member of the Canadi an Slovak League who had lobbied for the early adm ittance of Slovak post-war political refugees, and who supported the movement for Slovak independence.90 As a devout Greek Catholi c, in 1963 Roman took a leading role in the 1100th anniversary celebrations of the arri val of Sts. Cyril and Methodius on Slovak territory, he contributed to the establishment of the Institute of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Rome in that same year, he was a lay observer to the Second Vatican Council (l 962-1965) and he successfull y lobbied the Vatican to appoint a Slovak Greek Catholic bishop in Canada ( 1965), as well as to create a Slovak Greek Catholic Eparchy (diocese) in Toronto in 1980. 9 1 88 The most comprehensive treatment of th is banquet can be found in " Historicky banket Kanad. Slov. Ligy v Ottawe," in lmrich Stolarik ed., Kanadska Slovenska Liga 35 rocna (Toronto: Canad ian Slovak League, 1967), 268-75. 89 Kanadsk f Slovak, Jul y 18, 1953, p.4 and November 10, 1956, p.5. 90 Slovenske bratstvo (Montreal), Apri l 25 , 1941 , p.3 ; Kanadskf Slovak, April 16, 1943, p.10, December 16, 1943, p.7, May 24, 1945 , p.5, October 4, 1945, September 3, 1955 , p.5, October 20, 1956, p.5, October 19, 1957 , p.3. For a sympathetic biography of Roman see Peter C. Newman, Th e Canadian Establishment, I (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, I975), 269-72. 91 Kanadskf Slovak, November 25 , 1961 , p.2 , Jul y 6, 1963 , p.l, October 3, 1964, p.l, October 17, 1964, p. l , January 9, 196 1, p.l , January 3, 198 1, p. I and February SLOVAKIA 33 Roman ' s greatest achievement, however, was to establish the Slovak World Congress. Even though he had been a member of the Canadian Slovak League since the early 1940's, Roman lamented the fact that Slovaks in the Western world were divided into so many different organizations.92 He first attempted to bring together the Canadian Slovak League and its rival Canadian Slovak Benefit Society in 1969 but failed .93 Then , angered by the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 , Roman decided to approach various individuals and organizations to issue an appeal to all Slovak organizations the world over to unite in the struggle to overthrow Communism in the homeland and to seek self-determination for the Slovak nation. The appeal was signed by the presidents of the Slovak League of America, the Canadian Slovak League, the National Slovak Society, Stephen B. Roman , three bishops and an abbot. As a result, in July of 1970 representatives of dozen s of Slovak organizations the world over, including the Slovak League of America and the Canadian Slovak League, met in New York City and created the Slovak World Congress.94 For the next twenty years the Slovak World Congress, led by Stephen B. Roman, worked to spread the good name of the Slovaks the world over. It held meetings in many of the major cities of the world, including Toronto, New York, Washington, Chicago, Munich and Rome; it sponsored scholarly conferences which published their proceedings; it organized Slovak world youth festival s and it published a monthly Bulletin. The two Slovak Leagues participated in most of these ventures. 95 Indeed , the two Slovak Leagues, at first independently, and later working within the Slovak World Congress, successfully lobbied the Vatican to create an independent archbis- 21, 198 1, p. I. Kanadsky Slovak, January 4, 1945, p. 3. 93 Kanadsky S lovak, Septe mber 20 , 1969 , p. I. Nove mber 15, 1969, p. I, June 6, 1970, p. l. 94 Kanadsky S lovak, March 2 1, 1970. p.l , June 26, 197 1, p. l , Jul y 4, 1970, p. l , Jul y 11 , 1970, p. l. 95 The first ten years of the Congress were described by J.M. Kirschbaum in Desa t' rokov cinnosti SKS (Toronto: Slovak World Congress, 1981 ); a short summary was written by Dusan T6th, the Sec retary-General of the Congress from 1971 to 1990 in Kanadsky Slovak , September 10, 2005, p.4. T here is not yet a scholarl y history of the entire period of the Congress's ex istence. 92 34 SLOVAKIA hopric and church province in Slovakia. Their dream came true in 1977 , although the communist government blocked the appointment of an archbishop until 1988. 96 Thi s was a sy mbolic victory for the two Leagues and the Slovak World Congress because it gave Slovakia its own church jurisdiction, which implied that the Slovaks could also have their own state. Unfortunately for all concerned, Stephen B. Roman died in 1988, just one year before Czechoslovakia threw off its communist rulers.97 With its patron gone, the Slovak World Congress slowly withered away. The two Slovak Leagues, on the other hand , sprang into action. The Canadian Slovak League sent a delegation to Slovakia in February of 1990, to urge Slovak leaders to seek either more homerule or else complete independence. 98 The Slovak League of America likewise sent a delegation in May of 1990 for the same purpose.99 Both Slovak Leagues started a fund-raising campaign for various Slovak causes, and both rejoiced when Slovakia became independent in 1993. 100 Since then both Leagues have cooperated with the various Slovak governments to spread the good name of the Slovaks the world over and to help Slovakia in its transition from a communist dictatorship to a democratic and capitalist society. It should be apparent, therefore, that the Slovak League of America, and the Canadian Slovak League, remained dedicated to Slovak self-determination throughout the 20th century. During World War I 96 See, for instance, the Memorandum of the Central Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League to the Vati can requesting a Church Province and an Archbi shop for Slovaki a, Kanadsky Slovak, September 25, 1965, p. l . J. M. Kirschbaum had firs t suggested thi s move in 1959, Ibid. , and Peter Mulik, " Usilie o zriaden ie slovenskej cirkev nej provincie od roku 1939 a jej vyvoj po sucasnost:" in Mulik ed., Katolfcka cirkev a Slovaci: Us ilie Slovakov o samostatnti cirkevnti provinciu (Brati slava: Bernolakova spolocnost: 1997), 68. 97 See the special iss ue of the monthly Maria (Toronto), May, 1988 for many eulogies concerning the life and achievements of Stephen B. Roman. 98 Smer (Bratislava), February 15, 1990 and Praca (Brati slava), February 16, 1990. See also Rudolf Schu ster's Ultim atum (Bratislava, 1996), pp.101 -2 and the photo section between pages 96 and 97. 99 Slovak v Amerike, June, 1990. I happened to be a member of this del egation. We traveled all over Slovakia, met with governme nt officials, journalists and students and urged them to seek more self-determ ination or independence. See al so Schuster's Ultimatum, op. cit. , 224-5. 100 Kanadsky Slovak, January 2, 1993 ; Slovak v Amerike, January issue, 1993. SLOVAKIA 35 the Slovak League of America spoke on behalf of its brethren in Slovakia when the latter could not do so. Since T. G. Masaryk had no mandate from Slovaks in Hungary to create a new state consisting of Czechs and Slovaks, the Slovak League of America gave him that mandate in the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Agreements. Since Masaryk and hi s followers did not respect the promises that they had made guaranteeing Slovaks home-rule in Czechoslovakia, both the Slovak Leag ue of America, and its Canadian offshoot, the Canadian Slovak League, demanded home-rule for the Slovaks in the inter-war period. When Slovakia unexpectedly became independent in 1939, both Leagues, after some hesitation, supported thi s independence. After Czechoslovakia was restored by the victorious Allies, both Slovak Leagues supported a return to Slovak independence, especiall y after the arrival in North America of several thou sa nd political refu gees . During the communist era (1948-1989) both Leagues denounced the communi st regime that ruled over their overseas cousins and they co ntinued to demand Slovak independence. After the Communists gave up their power in 1989, both Leagues urged the Slovaks to either demand more home-rule or else complete independence from the Czechs. When Slovakia finally became independent on January 1, 1993 , both Leagues rejoiced and pledged to help it grow and prosper.  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 League of America and the Canadian Slovak League in the Struggle for the Self-Determination of the Nation, 1907-1992 Description An account of the resource M. Mark Stolarik Slovakia, Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007 pp. 7-35 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 2007 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/e483d453a2b5c628bd44e309c2e5d189.pdf 1247a703bb9bba36d0cc0c5f129e0491 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 81 A HIGHWAYMAN'S LIFE: EXTANT DOCUMENTS v~ ABOUT JANOSIK ~ Martin Votruba "Our salvation can come only from Janosik," lamented a Czech blogger over the budget proposals in Prague. 1 In Poland, a group of developers has been working on recalcitrant software intended to undermine the program called Platnik ("Payer"), which is mandatory for employers to handle social security payments and works only with Microsoft Windows. The leader of the developers named their open-source software Janosik.2 Both of these people invoked the name of a brigand who robbed three hundred years ago in the northern and central predominantly Slovak counties in the Habsburg monarchy, was caught, tried and hanged. About a century after Janosfk's execution, his image began to emerge as the local embodiment of the pervasive myth of a hero who takes from the rich and gives to the poor. The folk stories, Romantic poems, and the more recent films ascribe 3 to him other quite universally idolized trappings, the ones that, for example, helped to generate Hollywood 's legendary rebel stars - he was good looking, single, made a stash of money, lived wild, and died young. 4 All of this is contained in Janosfk's modern Slovak, Czech, and Polish mythology. Practically none of that, however, finds any support in the existing evidence about the actual brigand 's life. 1 Hana Fonminkova, I Oct. 2003 , http: //www neraweb cz/index. php?stype-all&id=632. 2 Danuta Frey, "Janosik chce rozgryzc program Ptatnik." Rzeczpospolita, 6-7 Dec. 2004. 3 Dozens of books, thousands of stories, and popular and academic articles, at least nine plays, six films, one TV series, several classical compositions, and one opera th have been dedicated to Janosfk since the 19 century. His legend was discussed in this journal by Patricia A. Krafcik, "Janosik: Unraveling the Man from the Legend." Slovakia 33, no. 60-6 1 (1987-1988): 7-22. 4 Martin Votruba, " Hang Him High: The Elevation of Janosfk to an Ethnic Icon ." Slavic Review, vol. 56, no. I, Spring 2006, pp. 24-44. �82 SLOVAKIA Name variations There was a historical figure whose name was close or identical to Juraj Janosfk,5 who was sentenced for highway robbery and executed at the age of 25 in 1713. The limited sources about his actual life are the proceedings from his trial and an earlier interrogation, the proceedings from the trial with hi s friend and accomplice Tomas Uhorcfk, whom Janosik replaced as the leader of his band, and several brief records maintained by landlords. The trial proceedings were edited and published by several authors before most of them appeared together for the first time as an appendix to a book on Janosik in 1952. 6 The proceedings from his trial gave three versions of his last name: Janosik, Janosiak and Janosak. There are variations in the records of Uhorcfk ' s name, too. For instance, Janosik referred to him as Uhnk during his trial. Each spelling of Janosfk's name indicates a slightly different pronunciation, but that was not unusual at that time. Historically , people had only one - given - name, and what we know as the last name developed gradually, along with bureaucratic record-keeping, from attributes used to distinguish persons with the same given name, or from various nicknames. The bureaucratic effort to standardize people 's last (and first) names started in Catholic Europe with the Vatican-sponsored Council of Trent (1545-1563). Although the practice of maintaining the same last name within a family became quite common in the Habsburg 7 monarchy, where the Slovaks lived, by the I 600s, it was not formalized until the Imperial and Royal 8 Edict on Family Names was issued in 1787 - perhaps 5 [YOUray YAHnosheek] Ju raj is the Slovak version of George, the nicknames are Jura, Jurko, Dura. 6 Andrej Melichercfk, Janosikovska tradfcia na Slovensku Bratislava: Nakladatel'stvo Slovenskej akademie vied a umenf, 1952, pp. 165-176. 7 Often spelled Hapsburg in English history books. 8 "Imperi al and Royal" were standard attributes of a host of ' federal' institutions in the Habsburg monarchy. They indicated that the ruling monarch was the hereditary king of several kingdoms-provinces th at compri sed the Habsburgs' personal possessions, including the Kingdom of Hungary , and at the same time the emperor of a looser association of German states. The terms Habsburg monarchy and Austrian Empire usually refer only to the Habsburgs' personal possessions whose core were the Kingdom of Hungary (today: Slovakia, Hungary , Croatia), Kingdom of Bohemia, Margravi ate of Moravia (together today : the Czec h Republic) , Austria, and �SLOVAKIA 83 the first law on names in Europe. The three pronunciations of Janosfk 's last name during his trial are not indicative of any confusion about the captive' s identity. Birth date and place According to the trial proceedings, Juraj Janosfk came from the north-west Slovak village of Terchova. 9 Birth and death records were rare, or non-existent in the more distant past, but the maintenance of baptismal and burial records by parishes was among the guidelines set forth by the Council of Trent and became widely practiced by both the Slovak Catholic and Lutheran Churches. A governmentsponsored law on recording births and deaths was not adopted in the Habsburg monarchy until 1828. Baptismal records from the Varin parish that comprised Terchova contain the names of five babies christened in 1687-1688 that could have grown up to be the Juraj Janosfk sentenced in 1713. '0 Without discussing their choice, authors mostly give one of the dates as his true entry - commonly 25 February 1688, father Martin and mother Anna Czisznek or Czisznik, occasionally 16 May 1688, father Michal and mother Barbara Cingel. Only one, not particularly reliable, source makes an argument why the entry of 25 February is to be seen as more likely than the others: when Juraj's father bought his son out of military service in 1710, the father's name was apparently recorded as Martin Janosik. 11 However, if Juraj Janosfk, the brigand executed in March 1713, were baptized on 25 February, other entries in the baptismal records would show him as having a younger brother Jan. That would appear to be at odds with the record of a trial with Jan Janosik in December 1713 during which Jan was identified as an older brother of the executed brigand Juraj . The issue is complicated because the existing baptismal records are not sufficiently consistent and complete, because the name Jan, introduced to Europe through which also incorporated parts of their modern neighboring countries - Italy, Poland, Romania and others. 9 [TERkhova] 10 Rudo Brian, "Na tropie Janosika i polskich zb6jnik6w." Pam(:tnik Slowianski, vo l. 18, 1968, pp. I 67-186; and Rudo Brian, " Pat' Janosikov - ktory je ten pravy?" Nede/ha pravda, 3 Feb. 1978, p. 18. 11 The llles hazy archives, Strecno estate, Vol. 19, No. 15 as referenced in Jozef Kocis, Neznamy Janos1k, Bratislava: Yydavatel'stvo Osveta, l 986, p. 47 . �84 SLOVAKIA the New Testament, has historicall y been the most co mmon given name in Slovak (like its Anglicized version John in English), and the family name Janosfk 12 was, and still is, common in Terchova and vicinity (67 listings in the telephone directory) . It al so occurs elsewhere in Slovakia, and spread even to the United States where its frequency ranks as the 35,524 th most common name. 13 There is some inconsistency in the reading of the last name of Janosik 's mother among those who opt for 25 February as the date of his baptism. Many modem authors transcribe the recorded old spelling of Anna 's last name (Czisznek or Czisznik), without further explanation, as Cesnek, a few others as Cfsnik. Cesnek is a probable reading because such last names are still common in the area (29 telephone directory listings), while Cfsnik or other plausible modernized versions of the old spelling are absent there. Nothing is known about Janosfk 's life until he was between 15 and 21 years old - the time of the Francis Rak6czi uprising, which Janosik joined at an unknown age and for an unknown period of time according to the trial proceedings. Folk tales, as well as the first two film s about him, 14 depict him as a former seminary student who turned to brigandage after his parents were abused by the landlord. The earliest written reference to the legend of Janosfk 's schooling comes from 1809. 15 It says that he was popularly believed to have been a student of the humanities, not of theology. However, no preserved document and nothing in the trial proceedings suggests an educated Janosik. 12 It originated as a Slovak variation on Janos - the Hungarian version of the Biblical name John in English, Jan in Slovak. Janos was occas ionall y used as a ni ckname fo r persons named Jan by the Slovaks , too, and sometimes appeared instead of the th Slovak Jan in the Kingdom' s records. But durin g the 17 century, Janosik and its variations had become established Slovak fa mily names . 13 U.S. Census Burea u, Population Divi sio n, Population Anal ys is and Evaluati on Staff as quoted by Rhett A. Butler in "Most Common Names and Surnames in the U.S." at mongabay com. 14 Jan osfk directed by Jaros lav Jerry Siake l', Tatra Film, Chi cago, 192 1; Janostk directed by Martin Frie, A- B Studio, Praha [Prague] , I935. 15 Bohuslav Tablic, a 3-page unnumbered foo tnote to "Janossjk Liptowsky Laupeznjk ," in S/owensstj W ersso wcy. Collecta revirescunt. S wazek druhf. We Wacove [Yac]: v Antonjna Gotljba pry wil. Knehtlac itele, 1809, pp. 120-1 23 . �SLOVAKIA 85 The Kingdom's situation The trial proceedings begin to reveal glimpses of Janosfk 's life with him taking part in the Franci s Rak6czi 16 uprising of 1703-1711. It was a massive religious and separatist movement in the Kingdom of Hungary aga inst the Habsburg dynasty, which ruled it from Vienna (A ustria). The Slovaks were the majority inhabitants of the north-western , mostl y mountainous counties of the multi-ethnic 17 Kingdom. The Kingdom , established around the year 1000, was defeated and lost its sovereignty in the 1500s, and was incorporated as a province in the expanding Habsburg monarchy. The Kingdom was 90% Protestant (Lutheran in the Slovak areas) in the early 1600s, but by the mid- l 600s, the Vatican-allied Habsburgs began forcibly to reCatholicize it, and also increased their efforts to further reduce the Kingdom 's remaining limited self-government. The uprising led by nobleman Franci s Rak6czi II was the last of a series of substantial , but economically destructive armed attempts in the Kingdom to reverse that course. 18 He was Catholic, but in favor of the Kingdom 's independence and religious freedom. Janosik the insurgent It is not known when and under what circumstances Janosik joined Rak6czi 's rebel troops. It is not known , either, how he became a soldier in the Habsburg army later. The Rak6czi rebels suffered a crushing defeat in the Battle of Trencfn 19 (about 60 miles south-west 16 [RAHkotsee], Francis Rak:6czi II, Prince of Transylvani a, born on 27 March I 676. After his fin al defeat, he and some of his supporters initially defected to Poland. He eventu all y died in exi le in Turkey on 8 April 1735. 17 The country's language of admi nistration and education from high school up was Latin , which was no one ' s mother ton gue. The languages of individual ethnic groups, most of whom li ved in their majority areas, were used in everyday life, local businesses, emerging literatures, etc. The ethni c gro ups of the Kingdom of Hungary inc luded the Slovaks, Magyars ([MAHdars] often called Hungarians), Croats, Romani ans, Germans, Ru syns, Roma (Gypsies), and others. The Slovaks were in the majority in about 15 counties in the Kingdom ' s mountainous north-west (today's Slovakia) customari ly called the "Upper Co untry" in the Kingdo m, which is usuall y rendered as Upper Hungary in English. 1 8The major anti-Habsburg insurgenc ies that affected the Slovak counti es extensive ly were (the year of inception and leader): 1604 Stephen Bocskay, 16 19 Gabriel Bethlen, 1644 George Rak:6czi, 1678 Emerich Thokoly, 1703 Francis Rak:6czi II . 19 [TRENtsheen); in West Slovakia on the Yah River �86 SLOVAKIA of Terc hova) the actual fightin g took pl ace at Hamre, a haml et and originall y a forge site two miles south of Trencfn) on 3 August 1708. The Habsburgs had taken full control of the Kingdom by the time of Janosfk's tri al. It therefore needs to be taken with a grai n of salt that hi s defen se lawyer Baltazar Palugyay portrayed Janosik as the Emperor's loyal subj ect at hi s tri al, and insisted that Janosik had eage rl y and willingly enlisted in the Habsburg army during the upri sing. Authors mostly speculate that Janosfk first left the Rak6czi rebe ls, returned to Terchova, and was subsequentl y drafted by the Imperial and Royal Army. Another possibility put forward is that he was captured during the Battle of Trencfn and turned into a soldier, 20 which was what happe ned to hundreds of insurge nts on th at occasion. No records document either ass umption. Janosik the loyalist and a brigand's assistant Once in the Imperial and Royal Army, Janosik was stationed at Bytca Castle, 25 miles from his home. He was made a prison guard . During hi s trial, Janosik admitted providing unspecified services to Tomas Uhorcfk,2 1 a brigand leader he ld in the castle's dungeons. Uhorcik managed to escape in the fa ll of 1710 while Janosik still served at Bytca. Janosik 's father bought Ju raj out of military service a month later. This seq uence of events that emanates from the trial proceedings gave ri se to later spec ul ation s that Janosik may have actu ally he lped Uhorcfk to escape. Family background The statement from Janosik's trial that hi s father had bought him out of military service, for which he had to have enough spare money, appears to contrad ict the co mmon, but undoc umented , assertions that Janosik came fro m a particul arl y poor farmer's famil y. The existing records from the landlord of Terchova ' s estate around 1700 do not li st the Janosfk famil y among those obligated to work for a day or two each week in the landlord ' s field s22 - a common duty of fe ud al subj ects. It could mean that members of the Janosik fa mil y °Koc is, Neznamy ... 2 21 [TOmahsh OOhortsheek], from the village of Predmi er near Turzovka. Andrej Melichercfk, Janosikovska tradfcia na Slovensku. Brati slava: Nakladatel'stvo SAY , 1952. 22 �SLOVAKIA 87 were still obligated to work, but were among the poorest, almost landless families and therefore not entered in the records of households with farms; or it could be due to a contract between some of the original settlers of the village and a past landlord. Numerous Slovak villages originated as contractual settlements of a landlord's unimproved property in earlier centuries. Finally, Janosfk 's family could have been prosperous enough to be able to pay the landlord instead of providing labor services. Besides these historical reasons, the absence of an entry for the Janosfks in the landlord 's records could also be due to deficient record-keeping, or to lost documents. If the Janosfks could be shown to have been a particularly poor family, it would increase the likelihood that the money they used to buy Juraj out was not theirs, and that the Janosfks may have received it for that purpose from Uhorcfk who was grateful for Juraj's unspecified services in the dungeons (possibly including his escape). By the fall of 1710, Uhorcfk had had about eight robbing seasons behind him , which would have allowed him to accumulate some disposable cash. Highwaymen Other court records show the inhabitants of Terchova to have been fervent supporters of brigands. 23 That ties in with Uhorcfk's testimony, according to which Janosik sometimes stayed with the teacher at Terchova, and the local tavern-keeper would bring him food. Juraj Janosfk's brother Jan was hanged for highway robbery ten months after Juraj. 24 Highway robbery was common in Europe until the advent of modern times, which brought about increased policing, personal record-tracing, education, perhaps honesty, and new, less arduous forms of crime. The first mention of brigands in the Slovak region comes from the Legend of Saints Zoerardus and Benedict recorded in 1064. Two ancient north-south trade routes from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean passed through eastern Slovakia. The merchants' caravans were among the earliest lucrative targets for highway robbery. Legal records of highway robberies and 23 Stefan Kazimfr, "O novych dokumentoch k janosikovskej legende." Cudove cftanie Vol. 3, No. 6, 1957. 24 Stanistaw Sroka, Janosik: Pra wdziwa historia karpackiego zb6jnika. Krakow [Cracow]: Wydawnictwo Homini, 2004, p. 41; Kocis, Neznamy .. . p. 86. �88 SLOVAKIA trials with brigands begin to accumulate in the late 15 th century and do not start to dwindle until the mid-19 th century. One of the first known brigand bands in the Slovak counties, led by Fedor Hlavaty, operated in the north-east (Saris County). Its 50 members included Slovaks, Poles, and Rusyns.25 In 1493, Hlavaty sent a ransom letter to the town of Bardejov threatening to burn it down unless the Town Council paid a hefty compensation for the execution of four of Hlavaty's highwaymen. Incentives to rob in the 1600s The religious-cum-separatist wars of the 1i" century caused a great deal of destruction in the Kingdom already harmed by decades of attacks by the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire from the south. 26 Highway robbery must have appeared to be a way out to some of those impoverished by the developments. The brigands' ranks were also increased by displaced soldiers made redundant by both the insurgent and the Habsburg armies after the resolution of each rebellion. With the reduced, or periodicall y absent authority of the monarch, some noblemen, too, turned their hill-top castles to brigands' nests, armed large bands and in addition to highway robbery, raided villages, as well as their peers' residences. The Kingdom therefore saw a jump in highway robberies in the 17 th century.2 7 25 The Rusyns, also called Ruthenians, are an East Slav ic ethni c group (as opposed to the West Slavic Slovaks and Poles) who li ve as a recogni zed minority in the north-eastern parts of Slovakia, as well as in so uth-eastern Poland - often called L emkos there. Their acti vists call for a recognition of their much more substantial numbers in south- western Ukraine where the authorities insist they are Ukrainians. 26 The Slovak counties never fell to the Turks, but es peciall y the southern ones were continuall y harassed and attacked. The fac t that the mostl y Magyar/Hungarian counties (today's Hungary) fell under the Ottoman rule and became their prov ince of Ma1,aristan fo r about l 50 years added to the disruption of the economy of the Slovak counties and brought in some ethni c Hungari ans, especiall y noblemen, who ran away north fro m the encroaching Turks. 27 Although just a pass ing reference has been preserved about him , the name of briga nd leader Adamcik survived from the 1630s in fo lklore, and was later added to the list of Janosik 's band members in fo lk tales. The name Ilcfk - another of Janosik's comrades in fo lk stories - has a similar, albeit somewhat later origin. �SLOVAKIA 89 Highwaymen's seasons In the Kingdom , and in Central Europe in general, the brigands' season was limited by the climate. Late summer and early fall was the time when seasonal sheepfolds in mountain pastures were abandoned and the flocks were dri ven back to villages. These shepherds played an important role in hi ghwaymen 's support networks. Cold winters made clandestine surviva l in the Slovak mountai ns almost impossible. Moreover, Europe was at the height of its Little Ice Age (l 560-1850). The deciduous forests at the lower elevations lose leaves and provide less cover, and while the higher elevations have spruce and fir trees that do not lose their needles, they are also colder and therefore even less suitable for winter subsistence 28 . Snow tracks made the brigands easily traceable. But brigands needed villagers ' support year-round. In the winter, they needed farmers to accept them as hired hands, and even their help to cover up their identities and summer acti vity. In the summer, the brigands needed to obtain food , sell their loot, and learn about the police searches for them, not to mention their less operative desires to show off, party, booze and flirt. Some of the villagers in turn , made welcome profit on the services and goods rendered to the brigands, since they were paid for their silence as well. Moreover, the vi llagers were paid by people with periodic windfalls who are generall y inclined to overspending. According to the court records, the Janosiks were among Terchova 's notorious rowdy , thieving fa milies. Jano~fk' s participation During his trial , Janosik confessed that he joined Tomas Uhorcfk ' s band of brigands " around Michaelmas" 29 in 1711. Brigand bands in the Western Carpathians would traditionall y di sperse on or not long after Michaelmas and agree to reassemble on St. Adalbert's Feast-George mas (23-24 April). Numero us saints' days were associated with a variety of far m works and festivities , and were used to identify periods of the year in the same manner that months and parts of months are used today (" late September"). Michae lmas was a typical day of post-harvest fa irs. Janosik claimed that he had 28 Some mountains aro und Terchova reach over 5,000 ft, some mountain ridges around Liptov County rise to 7,000 ft. 29 September 29, St. Michael' s Day. �90 SLOVAKIA joined the brigands at Uhorcik's insistence. It was customary that a new member would swear allegiance to the band leader°. The group he joined may have had about two to three dozen members, but that was always in a state of flux with highwaymen. Some were disabled or killed during robberies and chases, so me were caught, some dropped out, temporarily , or for good, and aspiring highwaymen joined. Janosfk's confession that Uhorcik handed the leadership of the band to him soon afterwards indicates that it was hardly as simple as Uhorcik looking up Janosik almost a year after the latter provided him with some incidental assistance in prison. Uhorcik had to have great tru st in Janosik in order to persuade his band of thugs that a rel ati ve newcomer should take over after him . That, in turn , suggests that Janosik's assistance at Bytca Castle may have extended to Uhorcik ' s escape, that they maintained contacts afterwards, that Uhorcfk 's band had already seen Janosik in action, and it opens to speculation the source of the money that his father used to buy Juraj out of military service. It is also poss ible that the members of Uhorcik's band already knew Janosik because he became involved with them earlier. The highwaymen's logistics Limited circumstantial evidence contradicts Janosfk's testimony that he did not meet with Uhorcik until a year after Uhorcik's escape and that he simply talked Janosik into joining his band on that single occasion. A court record hints that there could have been rather a pressing incentive for Janosik to turn from initially a brigands' assistant and perhaps a subsequent incidental brigand into a regular member of Uhorcik's band. On 30 September 1711 , a day after Michaelmas, the confessed time of Janosik's pledge to Uhorcfk, three of the Janosfks of Terchova were brought to court and charged with assault 30 In contrast with their life of crime, the pledge could appear quite pious - an indication that they perceived Christianity as part of a flexible set of beliefs in the supernatural rather than the strict doctrine with a specific moral code preached by the Church. A documented pledge in the band of Jakub Surovec from the 1730s said: " I swear to God eternal, the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary and all the divine saints that I shall neither betray, nor cheat, nor yet abandon my companions in fortu ne, or misfortune. Thus help me God the Lord." �SLOVAKIA 91 and robbery .31 If they were Juraj Janosik' s family, and moreover, if he was among the suspects (and guilty), he might have preferred to remove himself from the village rather than face the charges and possibly be forced to reveal more of his recent past. The Habsburgs did not ban torture as an investi gati ve method until 1776. J ano~ik' s season Soon after 23-year old Janosik became the band 's leader, Uhorcfk , after nine seasons as a highwayman, retired to Klenovec in south-central Slovakia under the adopted name Martin Mravec. He married and became the village's hired shepherd and occasional musician (he also managed briefly to serve as the village's policeman). Janosfk's band robbed mainly in the north-central Slovak counties of Orava, Liptov, and Spis, sometimes to the south of them, and occasionally - still in the Habsburg monarchy - across the Kingdom 's north -western border in parts of Silesia and the Margrav iate of Moravia (both now in the Czech Republic). All of the three Slovak counties border Poland in the north , and Janosik identified several members of his band as coming from Poland, but no document has surfaced to confirm legends about his raids into the Kingdom of Poland. Simple economics may have played a role: while Moravia and Silesia were relatively wealthy, the Polish Podhale region north of Slovakia was poorer than the Slovak counties and with fewer noblemen 's residences, and therefore less attractive, especially since the border follows a rel atively high mountain ridge in Liptov and in parts of Spis and Orava, which was a substanti al obstacle to bringing back any loot except money. On the other hand, the Podhale folklore occasionally depicted the Slovak counties as desirable targets of Polish brigands. The expected higher return may have made the climb somewhat more worthwhile. However, Janosik was questioned specifically during hi s tri al whether he had also robbed in Poland : an indication that the border was crossed by hi ghwaymen from both sides, but also of the authorities' concern about possible contacts with leaders of the Rak6cz i upri sing who defected to Pol and after their final defeat in 1711. 31 Rudo Brtan "Na tropie Janosika i polskich zb6jnik6w." Pami~tnik Slowiariski 18, pp. 167-186. �92 SLOVAKIA Janosik:' s victims and spoils While the list was certainly not complete, Janosik's trial revealed rather meager, and some bizarre spoils from hi s only full-time robbing season from the spring to the fall of 1712: several guns, including a "valuable" one, unimpressive amounts of cash, some jewelry, as well as two ladies' wigs and elegant ladies' clothing impossible to be worn by villagers and therefore awkward to sell or donate in those days. However, Uhorcfk said Janosfk's highway robberies yielded more. Among other things, he apparently accumulated almost two bushels of coins, enough cloth to dress 300 men, and maintained a stash of weapons in another hiding place. Although cloth may appear to be an unlikely booty, it was among the brigands' prized possessions. It was needed to repair their clothing, which was more prone to wear and tear, yet less readily replaceable in case of damage than the clothes of law-abiding subjects. 32 Rolls of cloth, not ready-made clothes, were loaded in merchants' wagons that were attacked by brigands. Cloth was also among the more durable goods in their loot, but not as easy to exchange as money, jewelry, or guns, so the brigands were likely to have a surplus of cloth in their hiding places. 33 Uhorcfk also spoke of Janosfk's attacks on small detachments of the Imperial and Royal Army which yielded weapons, ammunition, and on one occasion a carriage. Janosfk admitted robbing men and women, commoners as well as three noblemen , a clergyman, another clergyman's wife, a blacksmith (he did not respond to this charge), a goldsmith, a butcher, a cloth trader, and wine traders. He robbed them on the road, in their homes, in the woods, even on the Vah River (see below), emphasized the prosecutor. Of all the regional authorities, Liptov County was probably the most bitter about Janosfk's actions because of his assault on Imperial and Royal Officer Rudolf Schardon's wife and her retinue. Slovak and Polish sources commonly say she was Officer Schardon 's widow. One author contradicts thi s without giving his 32 John S. Koliopoulos, Brigands with a Cause, Brigandage and Irredentism in Mo- dem Greece /821-1912. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. 33 Jozef Kocis, Neznamy ... creates a weighty narrative about Janosfk's apparent revolutionary intentions from a historical report that guns and substantial amounts of cloth were discovered in some of his hiding places. �SLOVAKIA 93 reasons. 34 The trial proceedings refer to her as Schardonka (the ending -ka indicates that she was a woman) and as vojenskeho oficfra pani, which means "a military officer's lady [wife]" without any indication of her being a widow. Because her husband was employed by the Crown and the robbery took place while she was passing through Liptov, the law obligated the County to pay the Lady the damages, which must have been higher than usual due to her rank. Throughout his trial, Janosik maintained that he had not killed anyone, but the court still considered him a guilty party when a priest from Domaniza was "shot through" by two brigands from his band during a robbery. The priest, 58-year old Juraj Yrtik (also spelled Yertik), died a month later. Janosik was also accused of sacrilege target-shooting at a host (the Eucharistic bread) attached to a treetrunk. He neither denied, nor confirmed this charge. While it is not clear why so many authors call Lady Schardon a widow rather than a wife, some of the counterfactual information in modern writing about Janosik ' s robberies and victims stems from cross-linguistic confusion by Polish authors reading Slovak sources, which is then repeated by others. Thus, for example, one author has Janosik rob a magnate on his way to Turkey (do Turcji in Polish), while the person, John Radvanszky, County Lieutenant of Zvolen, was actually on his way to Turiec County (do Turca in Slovak) in north-central Slovakia. 35 Another author says that Janosik robbed a pastor' s wife as she was fetching water (po wodf! in Polish) from the Yah River. 36 It is not only unlikely for geographic and historical reasons because her village was not on the V ah and people used wells as their source of water, not the river. It is mistaken factually because the trial proceedings say that she was robbed about a half-day's journey from her home, while traveling down the Vah (po vode in Slovak) on a raft - a common means of transport provided comercially at that time. Such confusion about language and geography happens with some regularity and can affect the authors' arguments. For instance, Stanislaw Sroka believes that the village of Klenovec where Janosik was captured was in Liptov County , a mere geogra34 Jozef Kocis, Neznamy .. . Jace k Kotbu szewski , "Janosik ni eznany?" Literatura Judowa, vol. 3 1, no. 4-6, Jul y- December 1987, pp. 108-11 2, - p. 110. 36 Sroka, Janosik ... p. 50. 35 �SLOVAKIA 94 phic error, but the error then becomes Sroka's explanation of why Janosik was tried by Liptov County. Klenovec, however, was in Malohont County. The real reason for the location of Janosik's trial was that he was captured in Klenovec by the Liptov police (see below). Cross-linguistic confusion can lead to much farther-reaching fallacious conclusions. Jacek Kolbuszewski, the author who believes that Janosik robbed John Radvanszky on his way to Turkey, then 37 assumes that he was going to the funeral of Stephen Petrycy [sic], a former general in the Kuruc army, according to Kolbuszewski, who took refuge in Turkey in order to avoid persec ution by the Habsburgs. Kolbuszewski subsequently presents his conjecture as evidence to disprove a point made by another author, Jozef Koci s, 38 and accuses him of "keeping silent" about that apparent fact. Yet, Radvanszky was robbed in 1712 while traveling from Zvolen County to Turiec County in order to attend the funeral of Stephen Petr6czy de Petr6cz et Kaszavar (villages near Trencfn : the name could be Stefan Petrovicky of Petrovice and Koseca in modern Slovak spelling), sonin-law of the late Turiec County Chief Emerich Revay - not to Turkey to a conjectured funeral of Baron Stephen Petr6czy, born around 1620, a commander in the Kuruc insurgencies in the l 670- l 680s who sought refuge in Turkey after their failure . Baron Petr6czy would have to have been in his 90s had he died, as Kotbuszewski concludes, in 1712 when Radvanszky was robbed by Janosfk (the date of his death is actually unknown). Janosik, s capture Janosik was first caught, along with Uhorcfk, about a year after he joined Uhorcik's former band and became its leader. They were detained by Malohont County authorities in Klenovec in south37 Kotbuszewski , "Janosik ... " p. 110. Kocis, Neznamy ... Kotbuszewski's goal was to disprove Kocis's claims about Janosfk's sym pathies for the anti-Habsburg rebels by showing that Janosfk actually robbed a nobleman presumably supportive of the rebellion since he went to a former rebel ' s and political defector' s funeral. If Polish scholars had not misread the Slovak sources, which was the starting point for Kotbuszewski's disoriented conclusions about the historical figures, Kotbuszewski could have made the same argument without any reference to Petr6czy, because Janosfk ' s victim John Radvanszky, Zvolen County Lieutenant and minor poet born in 1666, was himself a former influential supporter of the Kuruc rebellion, Thokoly, as well as Francis Rak6czi. 38 �SLOVAKIA 95 central Slovakia, where Uhorcik had settled as Martin Mravec, on 26 October 1712 - around the end of the robbing season. Janosik probably came to spend the winter with his comrade under an assumed identity . They were put in jail in the Mansion of Hrachov but were released after they "proved" their innocence. Janosik's subsequent trial revealed that the proof rested mainly in fox furs and cheese passed on to the detaining authorities. Moreover, the County Lieutenant of Malohont 39 who testified on their behalf had earlier received a prized rifle from Uhorcik. The historical, decorated weapon came from Janosik's loot when his band ambushed Baron Paul Revay. Janosik was arrested again while still in Klenovec before he had a chance to start his next robbing season, and so was "Mravec" for giving him shelter for the winter. Although in another county, this time he was traced and captured by the Liptov police put on special alert after the robbery of Lady Schardon. They were transferred to Svaty Mikulas, 40 the seat of Liptov County, where Uhorcik 's identity was eventually discovered. JaI1osik's sentence Janosik's trial took place on 16-17 March 1713. The Kingdom ' s main statutes were contained in the Tripartitum of 1514,41 and two subsequent royal decrees. Chapter I, Titulus XV, Paragraph I of the Tripartitum mandated that highwaymen be hanged, broken upon the wheel, impaled, or beheaded, as a warning to others. When the Habsburgs added the Kingdom to their lands, they tried to limit various laws contained in the Tripartitum, especially those that gave more privileges to its nobles and greater self-government to its counties and some municipalities than were granted in other Habsburg lands, but they reinforced some other laws including those against brigandage. Emperor Ferdinand II iss ued a decree in 1625 "On pillaging vagabonds and highwaymen and on ways of handling them," whose 39 Pal Lan yi/Pavol Lani (1670-1733) was a prominent supporter of the Rak6czi insurgency. 40 Now called Liptovsky Mikulas. 41 Tripartitum opus iuris consuetudinarii incly ti regni Hungariae partiumque annexarum , by Stephen Werboczy (1460-1541), presented to the Diet in 1514 and published by the author in Vienna in 1517. Although not a fo rmall y adopted document, it was used as the authoritati ve compend ium of the Kingdom's customary law. �96 SLOVAKIA Article XIII mandated that hi ghwaymen and similar criminals be tortured if their testimonies were not comprehensive and convincing. The decision to apply torture was regulated in the Kingdom by a widely used book of comments on the Tripartitum from 1619,42 whose Article 8, Section 6 required that the defendant be rel eased without torture if the preliminary proceedings did not raise sufficient suspicions about the truthfulness of his denial of guilt. Emperor Ferdinand Ill 's decree from 1655 contained Article XXVI , which prohibited any leniency or pardon in such trials. Additionally , Emperor Leopold I decreed in Article XVII in 1659 that those providing shelter to brigands be executed as well. Janosik's assigned defense lawyer Palugyay described him as a former victim of Francis Rak6czi 's insurgents and played up his loyalty to the Crown demonstrated by his apparent eagerness to join the Imperial and Royal Army. Palugyay also stressed that although submitted to both the light and severe levels of torture, Janosik denied having been guilty of the murder of the Reverend Yrtik. Under the Kingdom 's legislation it meant that the defendant (called the "accused" then) was to be seen as innocent of the crime. Although people submitted to torture did not normally survive for more than three days - if for no additional injuries, then due to the internal hemorrhage and other damage to the joints pulled out of their sockets during stretching - the county was obligated to pay an annual allowance to the family of the accused who failed to admit guilt under torture. Janosfk's defense lawyer called for his release because, according to Palugay, he certainly regretted his actions and would mend his ways. Yet, Janosik did admit to highway robbery, and the court still considered him an accomplice in the priest' s murder. He was sentenced to death. As usual in those days , it was a public execution. In Janosfk' s case, a hook was threaded through his left side, and he was left dangling on the gallows to die - a fairly common execution then especially for brigand leaders, although this was the only instance of its implementation by Liptov County between 1700 and 1715.43 42 Directio methodica processus judiciarii; Juris consuetudinarii lnclyti Regni Hun gariae .. . , by Johannes Kitonich de Koztanicza [Ivan Kitonic/Janos Kaszony i of Kostajnica] , Tymavia: [Tmava] : Anno Domini MDCXIX. 43 Stanistaw Dzieciolowski in an interview with Zdena Sisova "Odpocfva Janosfk na dne Liptovskej Mary?" Slovenske dotyky Maj 2002, p. 7. �SLOVAKIA 97 Uhorcik's identity was not discovered until after the first day of his trial during which he was still taken to be a Martin Mravec. He was sentenced more than a month after Janosik, on 21 April 1713 . He was broken upon the wheel, another common form of execution. As an act of benevolence, perhaps obtained by the County Lieutenant of Malohont who testified on Janosik ' s and Uhorcik's behalf at their trials, the court ordered that his neck be broken first. The burial place of either of the brigands is unknown. Corpses were often left hanging or otherwise exposed as a warning for a period of time after the criminals' execution and then di sposed of unceremoniously. Conclusion The trial proceedings, effectively the only extant source of information about Janosik, offer a meager picture of his life because he disclosed very little before or under torture. Most questions posed by the interrogators remained unanswered. All that transpires from the proceedings besides some of his robberies is that he was loyal to his fellow-criminals, that he remained so under severe torture, and that he proved to be a cunning liar before severe torture more-or-less silenced him. When he gave answers, they were often misleading or quite untrue, crafted to protect his accomplices. For example, while Uhorcik, still known to the authorities only as Martin Mravec, was awaiting his trial in the same building, Janosik was telling the interrogators that Uhorcik had been killed by another brigand several years earlier. Most of the accomplices Janosik divulged were already dead or believed to be dead. He claimed not to know the whereabouts of the others whose names came up during the interrogation. He did not di sclose the names of those who gave him shelter. Uhorcfk's testimony a month later revealed that Janosik had withheld the names of at least a half of his fellow brigands. Even without the strict Imperial and Royal decrees on brigandage, several factors would have probably contributed to Janosik's harsh punishment by Liptov County anyway: the damages that the county had to pay to Lady Schardon; the blame it probably received from the monarc hy's central authorities and the county 's subsequent increased efforts to eradicate hi ghway robbery; Janosik's origin in Terchova known for its support to highwaymen ; Janosik 's participation in the Francis Rak6czi uprising against the Habsburgs, which �98 SLOVAKIA the judge reiterated before reading his sentence; and finally , susp icions of anti-Catholic and heretic sentiments reflected in hi s insurgent past and in the alleged target-shooting at hosts augmented by his presence at the killing of a priest. In a broader context, the existence of the enormous gap between what is documented about Juraj Janosfk and his modern myth is unremarkable. Discrepancies, elevations or degradations, are common, universal features of historical mythology. Equally pervasive are folk legends about characters from the feudal past who "took from the rich and gave to the poor" and defended the commoners from the injustices of the masters. Such tales dot the Eurasian continent from English Robin Hood at its north-western periphery all the way to Korean Hong Kildong and Japanese Oyake Akahachi at its south-eastern edge. What makes Janosfk 's myth in Slovakia special (which applies only partly in the Czech Republic and decidedly less so in Poland) is the manner in which it was first embraced and molded by the intellectuals around the middle of the 19 th century44 and then by academia from around the middle of the 20 th century, and the degree to which his intellectualized and academic myth incorporated the notion that it is not talking merely about folk mythology (whose modern shape has actually been largely formed by Janosfk' s myth created in high culture), but that it is also talking about a real hi storical character. 44 Yotruba, " Hang Him Hi gh .. ." � SLOVAKIA 81 A HIGHWAYMAN'S LIFE: EXTANT DOCUMENTS v~ ABOUT JANOSIK ~ Martin Votruba "Our salvation can come only from Janosik," lamented a Czech blogger over the budget proposals in Prague. 1 In Poland, a group of developers has been working on recalcitrant software intended to undermine the program called Platnik ("Payer"), which is mandatory for employers to handle social security payments and works only with Microsoft Windows. The leader of the developers named their open-source software Janosik.2 Both of these people invoked the name of a brigand who robbed three hundred years ago in the northern and central predominantly Slovak counties in the Habsburg monarchy, was caught, tried and hanged. About a century after Janosfk's execution, his image began to emerge as the local embodiment of the pervasive myth of a hero who takes from the rich and gives to the poor. The folk stories, Romantic poems, and the more recent films ascribe 3 to him other quite universally idolized trappings, the ones that, for example, helped to generate Hollywood 's legendary rebel stars - he was good looking, single, made a stash of money, lived wild, and died young. 4 All of this is contained in Janosfk's modern Slovak, Czech, and Polish mythology. Practically none of that, however, finds any support in the existing evidence about the actual brigand 's life. 1 Hana Fonminkova, I Oct. 2003 , http: //www neraweb cz/index. php?stype-all&id=632. 2 Danuta Frey, "Janosik chce rozgryzc program Ptatnik." Rzeczpospolita, 6-7 Dec. 2004. 3 Dozens of books, thousands of stories, and popular and academic articles, at least nine plays, six films, one TV series, several classical compositions, and one opera th have been dedicated to Janosfk since the 19 century. His legend was discussed in this journal by Patricia A. Krafcik, "Janosik: Unraveling the Man from the Legend." Slovakia 33, no. 60-6 1 (1987-1988): 7-22. 4 Martin Votruba, " Hang Him High: The Elevation of Janosfk to an Ethnic Icon ." Slavic Review, vol. 56, no. I, Spring 2006, pp. 24-44. �82 SLOVAKIA Name variations There was a historical figure whose name was close or identical to Juraj Janosfk,5 who was sentenced for highway robbery and executed at the age of 25 in 1713. The limited sources about his actual life are the proceedings from his trial and an earlier interrogation, the proceedings from the trial with hi s friend and accomplice Tomas Uhorcfk, whom Janosik replaced as the leader of his band, and several brief records maintained by landlords. The trial proceedings were edited and published by several authors before most of them appeared together for the first time as an appendix to a book on Janosik in 1952. 6 The proceedings from his trial gave three versions of his last name: Janosik, Janosiak and Janosak. There are variations in the records of Uhorcfk ' s name, too. For instance, Janosik referred to him as Uhnk during his trial. Each spelling of Janosfk's name indicates a slightly different pronunciation, but that was not unusual at that time. Historically , people had only one - given - name, and what we know as the last name developed gradually, along with bureaucratic record-keeping, from attributes used to distinguish persons with the same given name, or from various nicknames. The bureaucratic effort to standardize people 's last (and first) names started in Catholic Europe with the Vatican-sponsored Council of Trent (1545-1563). Although the practice of maintaining the same last name within a family became quite common in the Habsburg 7 monarchy, where the Slovaks lived, by the I 600s, it was not formalized until the Imperial and Royal 8 Edict on Family Names was issued in 1787 - perhaps 5 [YOUray YAHnosheek] Ju raj is the Slovak version of George, the nicknames are Jura, Jurko, Dura. 6 Andrej Melichercfk, Janosikovska tradfcia na Slovensku Bratislava: Nakladatel'stvo Slovenskej akademie vied a umenf, 1952, pp. 165-176. 7 Often spelled Hapsburg in English history books. 8 "Imperi al and Royal" were standard attributes of a host of ' federal' institutions in the Habsburg monarchy. They indicated that the ruling monarch was the hereditary king of several kingdoms-provinces th at compri sed the Habsburgs' personal possessions, including the Kingdom of Hungary , and at the same time the emperor of a looser association of German states. The terms Habsburg monarchy and Austrian Empire usually refer only to the Habsburgs' personal possessions whose core were the Kingdom of Hungary (today: Slovakia, Hungary , Croatia), Kingdom of Bohemia, Margravi ate of Moravia (together today : the Czec h Republic) , Austria, and �SLOVAKIA 83 the first law on names in Europe. The three pronunciations of Janosfk 's last name during his trial are not indicative of any confusion about the captive' s identity. Birth date and place According to the trial proceedings, Juraj Janosfk came from the north-west Slovak village of Terchova. 9 Birth and death records were rare, or non-existent in the more distant past, but the maintenance of baptismal and burial records by parishes was among the guidelines set forth by the Council of Trent and became widely practiced by both the Slovak Catholic and Lutheran Churches. A governmentsponsored law on recording births and deaths was not adopted in the Habsburg monarchy until 1828. Baptismal records from the Varin parish that comprised Terchova contain the names of five babies christened in 1687-1688 that could have grown up to be the Juraj Janosfk sentenced in 1713. '0 Without discussing their choice, authors mostly give one of the dates as his true entry - commonly 25 February 1688, father Martin and mother Anna Czisznek or Czisznik, occasionally 16 May 1688, father Michal and mother Barbara Cingel. Only one, not particularly reliable, source makes an argument why the entry of 25 February is to be seen as more likely than the others: when Juraj's father bought his son out of military service in 1710, the father's name was apparently recorded as Martin Janosik. 11 However, if Juraj Janosfk, the brigand executed in March 1713, were baptized on 25 February, other entries in the baptismal records would show him as having a younger brother Jan. That would appear to be at odds with the record of a trial with Jan Janosik in December 1713 during which Jan was identified as an older brother of the executed brigand Juraj . The issue is complicated because the existing baptismal records are not sufficiently consistent and complete, because the name Jan, introduced to Europe through which also incorporated parts of their modern neighboring countries - Italy, Poland, Romania and others. 9 [TERkhova] 10 Rudo Brian, "Na tropie Janosika i polskich zb6jnik6w." Pam(:tnik Slowianski, vo l. 18, 1968, pp. I 67-186; and Rudo Brian, " Pat' Janosikov - ktory je ten pravy?" Nede/ha pravda, 3 Feb. 1978, p. 18. 11 The llles hazy archives, Strecno estate, Vol. 19, No. 15 as referenced in Jozef Kocis, Neznamy Janos1k, Bratislava: Yydavatel'stvo Osveta, l 986, p. 47 . �84 SLOVAKIA the New Testament, has historicall y been the most co mmon given name in Slovak (like its Anglicized version John in English), and the family name Janosfk 12 was, and still is, common in Terchova and vicinity (67 listings in the telephone directory) . It al so occurs elsewhere in Slovakia, and spread even to the United States where its frequency ranks as the 35,524 th most common name. 13 There is some inconsistency in the reading of the last name of Janosik 's mother among those who opt for 25 February as the date of his baptism. Many modem authors transcribe the recorded old spelling of Anna 's last name (Czisznek or Czisznik), without further explanation, as Cesnek, a few others as Cfsnik. Cesnek is a probable reading because such last names are still common in the area (29 telephone directory listings), while Cfsnik or other plausible modernized versions of the old spelling are absent there. Nothing is known about Janosfk 's life until he was between 15 and 21 years old - the time of the Francis Rak6czi uprising, which Janosik joined at an unknown age and for an unknown period of time according to the trial proceedings. Folk tales, as well as the first two film s about him, 14 depict him as a former seminary student who turned to brigandage after his parents were abused by the landlord. The earliest written reference to the legend of Janosfk 's schooling comes from 1809. 15 It says that he was popularly believed to have been a student of the humanities, not of theology. However, no preserved document and nothing in the trial proceedings suggests an educated Janosik. 12 It originated as a Slovak variation on Janos - the Hungarian version of the Biblical name John in English, Jan in Slovak. Janos was occas ionall y used as a ni ckname fo r persons named Jan by the Slovaks , too, and sometimes appeared instead of the th Slovak Jan in the Kingdom' s records. But durin g the 17 century, Janosik and its variations had become established Slovak fa mily names . 13 U.S. Census Burea u, Population Divi sio n, Population Anal ys is and Evaluati on Staff as quoted by Rhett A. Butler in "Most Common Names and Surnames in the U.S." at mongabay com. 14 Jan osfk directed by Jaros lav Jerry Siake l', Tatra Film, Chi cago, 192 1; Janostk directed by Martin Frie, A- B Studio, Praha [Prague] , I935. 15 Bohuslav Tablic, a 3-page unnumbered foo tnote to "Janossjk Liptowsky Laupeznjk ," in S/owensstj W ersso wcy. Collecta revirescunt. S wazek druhf. We Wacove [Yac]: v Antonjna Gotljba pry wil. Knehtlac itele, 1809, pp. 120-1 23 . �SLOVAKIA 85 The Kingdom's situation The trial proceedings begin to reveal glimpses of Janosfk 's life with him taking part in the Franci s Rak6czi 16 uprising of 1703-1711. It was a massive religious and separatist movement in the Kingdom of Hungary aga inst the Habsburg dynasty, which ruled it from Vienna (A ustria). The Slovaks were the majority inhabitants of the north-western , mostl y mountainous counties of the multi-ethnic 17 Kingdom. The Kingdom , established around the year 1000, was defeated and lost its sovereignty in the 1500s, and was incorporated as a province in the expanding Habsburg monarchy. The Kingdom was 90% Protestant (Lutheran in the Slovak areas) in the early 1600s, but by the mid- l 600s, the Vatican-allied Habsburgs began forcibly to reCatholicize it, and also increased their efforts to further reduce the Kingdom 's remaining limited self-government. The uprising led by nobleman Franci s Rak6czi II was the last of a series of substantial , but economically destructive armed attempts in the Kingdom to reverse that course. 18 He was Catholic, but in favor of the Kingdom 's independence and religious freedom. Janosik the insurgent It is not known when and under what circumstances Janosik joined Rak6czi 's rebel troops. It is not known , either, how he became a soldier in the Habsburg army later. The Rak6czi rebels suffered a crushing defeat in the Battle of Trencfn 19 (about 60 miles south-west 16 [RAHkotsee], Francis Rak:6czi II, Prince of Transylvani a, born on 27 March I 676. After his fin al defeat, he and some of his supporters initially defected to Poland. He eventu all y died in exi le in Turkey on 8 April 1735. 17 The country's language of admi nistration and education from high school up was Latin , which was no one ' s mother ton gue. The languages of individual ethnic groups, most of whom li ved in their majority areas, were used in everyday life, local businesses, emerging literatures, etc. The ethni c gro ups of the Kingdom of Hungary inc luded the Slovaks, Magyars ([MAHdars] often called Hungarians), Croats, Romani ans, Germans, Ru syns, Roma (Gypsies), and others. The Slovaks were in the majority in about 15 counties in the Kingdom ' s mountainous north-west (today's Slovakia) customari ly called the "Upper Co untry" in the Kingdo m, which is usuall y rendered as Upper Hungary in English. 1 8The major anti-Habsburg insurgenc ies that affected the Slovak counti es extensive ly were (the year of inception and leader): 1604 Stephen Bocskay, 16 19 Gabriel Bethlen, 1644 George Rak:6czi, 1678 Emerich Thokoly, 1703 Francis Rak:6czi II . 19 [TRENtsheen); in West Slovakia on the Yah River �86 SLOVAKIA of Terc hova) the actual fightin g took pl ace at Hamre, a haml et and originall y a forge site two miles south of Trencfn) on 3 August 1708. The Habsburgs had taken full control of the Kingdom by the time of Janosfk's tri al. It therefore needs to be taken with a grai n of salt that hi s defen se lawyer Baltazar Palugyay portrayed Janosik as the Emperor's loyal subj ect at hi s tri al, and insisted that Janosik had eage rl y and willingly enlisted in the Habsburg army during the upri sing. Authors mostly speculate that Janosfk first left the Rak6czi rebe ls, returned to Terchova, and was subsequentl y drafted by the Imperial and Royal Army. Another possibility put forward is that he was captured during the Battle of Trencfn and turned into a soldier, 20 which was what happe ned to hundreds of insurge nts on th at occasion. No records document either ass umption. Janosik the loyalist and a brigand's assistant Once in the Imperial and Royal Army, Janosik was stationed at Bytca Castle, 25 miles from his home. He was made a prison guard . During hi s trial, Janosik admitted providing unspecified services to Tomas Uhorcfk,2 1 a brigand leader he ld in the castle's dungeons. Uhorcik managed to escape in the fa ll of 1710 while Janosik still served at Bytca. Janosik 's father bought Ju raj out of military service a month later. This seq uence of events that emanates from the trial proceedings gave ri se to later spec ul ation s that Janosik may have actu ally he lped Uhorcfk to escape. Family background The statement from Janosik's trial that hi s father had bought him out of military service, for which he had to have enough spare money, appears to contrad ict the co mmon, but undoc umented , assertions that Janosik came fro m a particul arl y poor farmer's famil y. The existing records from the landlord of Terchova ' s estate around 1700 do not li st the Janosfk famil y among those obligated to work for a day or two each week in the landlord ' s field s22 - a common duty of fe ud al subj ects. It could mean that members of the Janosik fa mil y °Koc is, Neznamy ... 2 21 [TOmahsh OOhortsheek], from the village of Predmi er near Turzovka. Andrej Melichercfk, Janosikovska tradfcia na Slovensku. Brati slava: Nakladatel'stvo SAY , 1952. 22 �SLOVAKIA 87 were still obligated to work, but were among the poorest, almost landless families and therefore not entered in the records of households with farms; or it could be due to a contract between some of the original settlers of the village and a past landlord. Numerous Slovak villages originated as contractual settlements of a landlord's unimproved property in earlier centuries. Finally, Janosfk 's family could have been prosperous enough to be able to pay the landlord instead of providing labor services. Besides these historical reasons, the absence of an entry for the Janosfks in the landlord 's records could also be due to deficient record-keeping, or to lost documents. If the Janosfks could be shown to have been a particularly poor family, it would increase the likelihood that the money they used to buy Juraj out was not theirs, and that the Janosfks may have received it for that purpose from Uhorcfk who was grateful for Juraj's unspecified services in the dungeons (possibly including his escape). By the fall of 1710, Uhorcfk had had about eight robbing seasons behind him , which would have allowed him to accumulate some disposable cash. Highwaymen Other court records show the inhabitants of Terchova to have been fervent supporters of brigands. 23 That ties in with Uhorcfk's testimony, according to which Janosik sometimes stayed with the teacher at Terchova, and the local tavern-keeper would bring him food. Juraj Janosfk's brother Jan was hanged for highway robbery ten months after Juraj. 24 Highway robbery was common in Europe until the advent of modern times, which brought about increased policing, personal record-tracing, education, perhaps honesty, and new, less arduous forms of crime. The first mention of brigands in the Slovak region comes from the Legend of Saints Zoerardus and Benedict recorded in 1064. Two ancient north-south trade routes from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean passed through eastern Slovakia. The merchants' caravans were among the earliest lucrative targets for highway robbery. Legal records of highway robberies and 23 Stefan Kazimfr, "O novych dokumentoch k janosikovskej legende." Cudove cftanie Vol. 3, No. 6, 1957. 24 Stanistaw Sroka, Janosik: Pra wdziwa historia karpackiego zb6jnika. Krakow [Cracow]: Wydawnictwo Homini, 2004, p. 41; Kocis, Neznamy .. . p. 86. �88 SLOVAKIA trials with brigands begin to accumulate in the late 15 th century and do not start to dwindle until the mid-19 th century. One of the first known brigand bands in the Slovak counties, led by Fedor Hlavaty, operated in the north-east (Saris County). Its 50 members included Slovaks, Poles, and Rusyns.25 In 1493, Hlavaty sent a ransom letter to the town of Bardejov threatening to burn it down unless the Town Council paid a hefty compensation for the execution of four of Hlavaty's highwaymen. Incentives to rob in the 1600s The religious-cum-separatist wars of the 1i" century caused a great deal of destruction in the Kingdom already harmed by decades of attacks by the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire from the south. 26 Highway robbery must have appeared to be a way out to some of those impoverished by the developments. The brigands' ranks were also increased by displaced soldiers made redundant by both the insurgent and the Habsburg armies after the resolution of each rebellion. With the reduced, or periodicall y absent authority of the monarch, some noblemen, too, turned their hill-top castles to brigands' nests, armed large bands and in addition to highway robbery, raided villages, as well as their peers' residences. The Kingdom therefore saw a jump in highway robberies in the 17 th century.2 7 25 The Rusyns, also called Ruthenians, are an East Slav ic ethni c group (as opposed to the West Slavic Slovaks and Poles) who li ve as a recogni zed minority in the north-eastern parts of Slovakia, as well as in so uth-eastern Poland - often called L emkos there. Their acti vists call for a recognition of their much more substantial numbers in south- western Ukraine where the authorities insist they are Ukrainians. 26 The Slovak counties never fell to the Turks, but es peciall y the southern ones were continuall y harassed and attacked. The fac t that the mostl y Magyar/Hungarian counties (today's Hungary) fell under the Ottoman rule and became their prov ince of Ma1,aristan fo r about l 50 years added to the disruption of the economy of the Slovak counties and brought in some ethni c Hungari ans, especiall y noblemen, who ran away north fro m the encroaching Turks. 27 Although just a pass ing reference has been preserved about him , the name of briga nd leader Adamcik survived from the 1630s in fo lklore, and was later added to the list of Janosik 's band members in fo lk tales. The name Ilcfk - another of Janosik's comrades in fo lk stories - has a similar, albeit somewhat later origin. �SLOVAKIA 89 Highwaymen's seasons In the Kingdom , and in Central Europe in general, the brigands' season was limited by the climate. Late summer and early fall was the time when seasonal sheepfolds in mountain pastures were abandoned and the flocks were dri ven back to villages. These shepherds played an important role in hi ghwaymen 's support networks. Cold winters made clandestine surviva l in the Slovak mountai ns almost impossible. Moreover, Europe was at the height of its Little Ice Age (l 560-1850). The deciduous forests at the lower elevations lose leaves and provide less cover, and while the higher elevations have spruce and fir trees that do not lose their needles, they are also colder and therefore even less suitable for winter subsistence 28 . Snow tracks made the brigands easily traceable. But brigands needed villagers ' support year-round. In the winter, they needed farmers to accept them as hired hands, and even their help to cover up their identities and summer acti vity. In the summer, the brigands needed to obtain food , sell their loot, and learn about the police searches for them, not to mention their less operative desires to show off, party, booze and flirt. Some of the villagers in turn , made welcome profit on the services and goods rendered to the brigands, since they were paid for their silence as well. Moreover, the vi llagers were paid by people with periodic windfalls who are generall y inclined to overspending. According to the court records, the Janosiks were among Terchova 's notorious rowdy , thieving fa milies. Jano~fk' s participation During his trial , Janosik confessed that he joined Tomas Uhorcfk ' s band of brigands " around Michaelmas" 29 in 1711. Brigand bands in the Western Carpathians would traditionall y di sperse on or not long after Michaelmas and agree to reassemble on St. Adalbert's Feast-George mas (23-24 April). Numero us saints' days were associated with a variety of far m works and festivities , and were used to identify periods of the year in the same manner that months and parts of months are used today (" late September"). Michae lmas was a typical day of post-harvest fa irs. Janosik claimed that he had 28 Some mountains aro und Terchova reach over 5,000 ft, some mountain ridges around Liptov County rise to 7,000 ft. 29 September 29, St. Michael' s Day. �90 SLOVAKIA joined the brigands at Uhorcik's insistence. It was customary that a new member would swear allegiance to the band leader°. The group he joined may have had about two to three dozen members, but that was always in a state of flux with highwaymen. Some were disabled or killed during robberies and chases, so me were caught, some dropped out, temporarily , or for good, and aspiring highwaymen joined. Janosfk's confession that Uhorcik handed the leadership of the band to him soon afterwards indicates that it was hardly as simple as Uhorcik looking up Janosik almost a year after the latter provided him with some incidental assistance in prison. Uhorcik had to have great tru st in Janosik in order to persuade his band of thugs that a rel ati ve newcomer should take over after him . That, in turn , suggests that Janosik's assistance at Bytca Castle may have extended to Uhorcik ' s escape, that they maintained contacts afterwards, that Uhorcfk 's band had already seen Janosik in action, and it opens to speculation the source of the money that his father used to buy Juraj out of military service. It is also poss ible that the members of Uhorcik's band already knew Janosik because he became involved with them earlier. The highwaymen's logistics Limited circumstantial evidence contradicts Janosfk's testimony that he did not meet with Uhorcik until a year after Uhorcik's escape and that he simply talked Janosik into joining his band on that single occasion. A court record hints that there could have been rather a pressing incentive for Janosik to turn from initially a brigands' assistant and perhaps a subsequent incidental brigand into a regular member of Uhorcik's band. On 30 September 1711 , a day after Michaelmas, the confessed time of Janosik's pledge to Uhorcfk, three of the Janosfks of Terchova were brought to court and charged with assault 30 In contrast with their life of crime, the pledge could appear quite pious - an indication that they perceived Christianity as part of a flexible set of beliefs in the supernatural rather than the strict doctrine with a specific moral code preached by the Church. A documented pledge in the band of Jakub Surovec from the 1730s said: " I swear to God eternal, the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary and all the divine saints that I shall neither betray, nor cheat, nor yet abandon my companions in fortu ne, or misfortune. Thus help me God the Lord." �SLOVAKIA 91 and robbery .31 If they were Juraj Janosik' s family, and moreover, if he was among the suspects (and guilty), he might have preferred to remove himself from the village rather than face the charges and possibly be forced to reveal more of his recent past. The Habsburgs did not ban torture as an investi gati ve method until 1776. J ano~ik' s season Soon after 23-year old Janosik became the band 's leader, Uhorcfk , after nine seasons as a highwayman, retired to Klenovec in south-central Slovakia under the adopted name Martin Mravec. He married and became the village's hired shepherd and occasional musician (he also managed briefly to serve as the village's policeman). Janosfk's band robbed mainly in the north-central Slovak counties of Orava, Liptov, and Spis, sometimes to the south of them, and occasionally - still in the Habsburg monarchy - across the Kingdom 's north -western border in parts of Silesia and the Margrav iate of Moravia (both now in the Czech Republic). All of the three Slovak counties border Poland in the north , and Janosik identified several members of his band as coming from Poland, but no document has surfaced to confirm legends about his raids into the Kingdom of Poland. Simple economics may have played a role: while Moravia and Silesia were relatively wealthy, the Polish Podhale region north of Slovakia was poorer than the Slovak counties and with fewer noblemen 's residences, and therefore less attractive, especially since the border follows a rel atively high mountain ridge in Liptov and in parts of Spis and Orava, which was a substanti al obstacle to bringing back any loot except money. On the other hand, the Podhale folklore occasionally depicted the Slovak counties as desirable targets of Polish brigands. The expected higher return may have made the climb somewhat more worthwhile. However, Janosik was questioned specifically during hi s tri al whether he had also robbed in Poland : an indication that the border was crossed by hi ghwaymen from both sides, but also of the authorities' concern about possible contacts with leaders of the Rak6cz i upri sing who defected to Pol and after their final defeat in 1711. 31 Rudo Brtan "Na tropie Janosika i polskich zb6jnik6w." Pami~tnik Slowiariski 18, pp. 167-186. �92 SLOVAKIA Janosik:' s victims and spoils While the list was certainly not complete, Janosik's trial revealed rather meager, and some bizarre spoils from hi s only full-time robbing season from the spring to the fall of 1712: several guns, including a "valuable" one, unimpressive amounts of cash, some jewelry, as well as two ladies' wigs and elegant ladies' clothing impossible to be worn by villagers and therefore awkward to sell or donate in those days. However, Uhorcfk said Janosfk's highway robberies yielded more. Among other things, he apparently accumulated almost two bushels of coins, enough cloth to dress 300 men, and maintained a stash of weapons in another hiding place. Although cloth may appear to be an unlikely booty, it was among the brigands' prized possessions. It was needed to repair their clothing, which was more prone to wear and tear, yet less readily replaceable in case of damage than the clothes of law-abiding subjects. 32 Rolls of cloth, not ready-made clothes, were loaded in merchants' wagons that were attacked by brigands. Cloth was also among the more durable goods in their loot, but not as easy to exchange as money, jewelry, or guns, so the brigands were likely to have a surplus of cloth in their hiding places. 33 Uhorcfk also spoke of Janosfk's attacks on small detachments of the Imperial and Royal Army which yielded weapons, ammunition, and on one occasion a carriage. Janosfk admitted robbing men and women, commoners as well as three noblemen , a clergyman, another clergyman's wife, a blacksmith (he did not respond to this charge), a goldsmith, a butcher, a cloth trader, and wine traders. He robbed them on the road, in their homes, in the woods, even on the Vah River (see below), emphasized the prosecutor. Of all the regional authorities, Liptov County was probably the most bitter about Janosfk's actions because of his assault on Imperial and Royal Officer Rudolf Schardon's wife and her retinue. Slovak and Polish sources commonly say she was Officer Schardon 's widow. One author contradicts thi s without giving his 32 John S. Koliopoulos, Brigands with a Cause, Brigandage and Irredentism in Mo- dem Greece /821-1912. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. 33 Jozef Kocis, Neznamy ... creates a weighty narrative about Janosfk's apparent revolutionary intentions from a historical report that guns and substantial amounts of cloth were discovered in some of his hiding places. �SLOVAKIA 93 reasons. 34 The trial proceedings refer to her as Schardonka (the ending -ka indicates that she was a woman) and as vojenskeho oficfra pani, which means "a military officer's lady [wife]" without any indication of her being a widow. Because her husband was employed by the Crown and the robbery took place while she was passing through Liptov, the law obligated the County to pay the Lady the damages, which must have been higher than usual due to her rank. Throughout his trial, Janosik maintained that he had not killed anyone, but the court still considered him a guilty party when a priest from Domaniza was "shot through" by two brigands from his band during a robbery. The priest, 58-year old Juraj Yrtik (also spelled Yertik), died a month later. Janosik was also accused of sacrilege target-shooting at a host (the Eucharistic bread) attached to a treetrunk. He neither denied, nor confirmed this charge. While it is not clear why so many authors call Lady Schardon a widow rather than a wife, some of the counterfactual information in modern writing about Janosik ' s robberies and victims stems from cross-linguistic confusion by Polish authors reading Slovak sources, which is then repeated by others. Thus, for example, one author has Janosik rob a magnate on his way to Turkey (do Turcji in Polish), while the person, John Radvanszky, County Lieutenant of Zvolen, was actually on his way to Turiec County (do Turca in Slovak) in north-central Slovakia. 35 Another author says that Janosik robbed a pastor' s wife as she was fetching water (po wodf! in Polish) from the Yah River. 36 It is not only unlikely for geographic and historical reasons because her village was not on the V ah and people used wells as their source of water, not the river. It is mistaken factually because the trial proceedings say that she was robbed about a half-day's journey from her home, while traveling down the Vah (po vode in Slovak) on a raft - a common means of transport provided comercially at that time. Such confusion about language and geography happens with some regularity and can affect the authors' arguments. For instance, Stanislaw Sroka believes that the village of Klenovec where Janosik was captured was in Liptov County , a mere geogra34 Jozef Kocis, Neznamy .. . Jace k Kotbu szewski , "Janosik ni eznany?" Literatura Judowa, vol. 3 1, no. 4-6, Jul y- December 1987, pp. 108-11 2, - p. 110. 36 Sroka, Janosik ... p. 50. 35 �SLOVAKIA 94 phic error, but the error then becomes Sroka's explanation of why Janosik was tried by Liptov County. Klenovec, however, was in Malohont County. The real reason for the location of Janosik's trial was that he was captured in Klenovec by the Liptov police (see below). Cross-linguistic confusion can lead to much farther-reaching fallacious conclusions. Jacek Kolbuszewski, the author who believes that Janosik robbed John Radvanszky on his way to Turkey, then 37 assumes that he was going to the funeral of Stephen Petrycy [sic], a former general in the Kuruc army, according to Kolbuszewski, who took refuge in Turkey in order to avoid persec ution by the Habsburgs. Kolbuszewski subsequently presents his conjecture as evidence to disprove a point made by another author, Jozef Koci s, 38 and accuses him of "keeping silent" about that apparent fact. Yet, Radvanszky was robbed in 1712 while traveling from Zvolen County to Turiec County in order to attend the funeral of Stephen Petr6czy de Petr6cz et Kaszavar (villages near Trencfn : the name could be Stefan Petrovicky of Petrovice and Koseca in modern Slovak spelling), sonin-law of the late Turiec County Chief Emerich Revay - not to Turkey to a conjectured funeral of Baron Stephen Petr6czy, born around 1620, a commander in the Kuruc insurgencies in the l 670- l 680s who sought refuge in Turkey after their failure . Baron Petr6czy would have to have been in his 90s had he died, as Kotbuszewski concludes, in 1712 when Radvanszky was robbed by Janosfk (the date of his death is actually unknown). Janosik, s capture Janosik was first caught, along with Uhorcfk, about a year after he joined Uhorcik's former band and became its leader. They were detained by Malohont County authorities in Klenovec in south37 Kotbuszewski , "Janosik ... " p. 110. Kocis, Neznamy ... Kotbuszewski's goal was to disprove Kocis's claims about Janosfk's sym pathies for the anti-Habsburg rebels by showing that Janosfk actually robbed a nobleman presumably supportive of the rebellion since he went to a former rebel ' s and political defector' s funeral. If Polish scholars had not misread the Slovak sources, which was the starting point for Kotbuszewski's disoriented conclusions about the historical figures, Kotbuszewski could have made the same argument without any reference to Petr6czy, because Janosfk ' s victim John Radvanszky, Zvolen County Lieutenant and minor poet born in 1666, was himself a former influential supporter of the Kuruc rebellion, Thokoly, as well as Francis Rak6czi. 38 �SLOVAKIA 95 central Slovakia, where Uhorcik had settled as Martin Mravec, on 26 October 1712 - around the end of the robbing season. Janosik probably came to spend the winter with his comrade under an assumed identity . They were put in jail in the Mansion of Hrachov but were released after they "proved" their innocence. Janosik's subsequent trial revealed that the proof rested mainly in fox furs and cheese passed on to the detaining authorities. Moreover, the County Lieutenant of Malohont 39 who testified on their behalf had earlier received a prized rifle from Uhorcik. The historical, decorated weapon came from Janosik's loot when his band ambushed Baron Paul Revay. Janosik was arrested again while still in Klenovec before he had a chance to start his next robbing season, and so was "Mravec" for giving him shelter for the winter. Although in another county, this time he was traced and captured by the Liptov police put on special alert after the robbery of Lady Schardon. They were transferred to Svaty Mikulas, 40 the seat of Liptov County, where Uhorcik 's identity was eventually discovered. JaI1osik's sentence Janosik's trial took place on 16-17 March 1713. The Kingdom ' s main statutes were contained in the Tripartitum of 1514,41 and two subsequent royal decrees. Chapter I, Titulus XV, Paragraph I of the Tripartitum mandated that highwaymen be hanged, broken upon the wheel, impaled, or beheaded, as a warning to others. When the Habsburgs added the Kingdom to their lands, they tried to limit various laws contained in the Tripartitum, especially those that gave more privileges to its nobles and greater self-government to its counties and some municipalities than were granted in other Habsburg lands, but they reinforced some other laws including those against brigandage. Emperor Ferdinand II iss ued a decree in 1625 "On pillaging vagabonds and highwaymen and on ways of handling them," whose 39 Pal Lan yi/Pavol Lani (1670-1733) was a prominent supporter of the Rak6czi insurgency. 40 Now called Liptovsky Mikulas. 41 Tripartitum opus iuris consuetudinarii incly ti regni Hungariae partiumque annexarum , by Stephen Werboczy (1460-1541), presented to the Diet in 1514 and published by the author in Vienna in 1517. Although not a fo rmall y adopted document, it was used as the authoritati ve compend ium of the Kingdom's customary law. �96 SLOVAKIA Article XIII mandated that hi ghwaymen and similar criminals be tortured if their testimonies were not comprehensive and convincing. The decision to apply torture was regulated in the Kingdom by a widely used book of comments on the Tripartitum from 1619,42 whose Article 8, Section 6 required that the defendant be rel eased without torture if the preliminary proceedings did not raise sufficient suspicions about the truthfulness of his denial of guilt. Emperor Ferdinand Ill 's decree from 1655 contained Article XXVI , which prohibited any leniency or pardon in such trials. Additionally , Emperor Leopold I decreed in Article XVII in 1659 that those providing shelter to brigands be executed as well. Janosik's assigned defense lawyer Palugyay described him as a former victim of Francis Rak6czi 's insurgents and played up his loyalty to the Crown demonstrated by his apparent eagerness to join the Imperial and Royal Army. Palugyay also stressed that although submitted to both the light and severe levels of torture, Janosik denied having been guilty of the murder of the Reverend Yrtik. Under the Kingdom 's legislation it meant that the defendant (called the "accused" then) was to be seen as innocent of the crime. Although people submitted to torture did not normally survive for more than three days - if for no additional injuries, then due to the internal hemorrhage and other damage to the joints pulled out of their sockets during stretching - the county was obligated to pay an annual allowance to the family of the accused who failed to admit guilt under torture. Janosfk's defense lawyer called for his release because, according to Palugay, he certainly regretted his actions and would mend his ways. Yet, Janosik did admit to highway robbery, and the court still considered him an accomplice in the priest' s murder. He was sentenced to death. As usual in those days , it was a public execution. In Janosfk' s case, a hook was threaded through his left side, and he was left dangling on the gallows to die - a fairly common execution then especially for brigand leaders, although this was the only instance of its implementation by Liptov County between 1700 and 1715.43 42 Directio methodica processus judiciarii; Juris consuetudinarii lnclyti Regni Hun gariae .. . , by Johannes Kitonich de Koztanicza [Ivan Kitonic/Janos Kaszony i of Kostajnica] , Tymavia: [Tmava] : Anno Domini MDCXIX. 43 Stanistaw Dzieciolowski in an interview with Zdena Sisova "Odpocfva Janosfk na dne Liptovskej Mary?" Slovenske dotyky Maj 2002, p. 7. �SLOVAKIA 97 Uhorcik's identity was not discovered until after the first day of his trial during which he was still taken to be a Martin Mravec. He was sentenced more than a month after Janosik, on 21 April 1713 . He was broken upon the wheel, another common form of execution. As an act of benevolence, perhaps obtained by the County Lieutenant of Malohont who testified on Janosik ' s and Uhorcik's behalf at their trials, the court ordered that his neck be broken first. The burial place of either of the brigands is unknown. Corpses were often left hanging or otherwise exposed as a warning for a period of time after the criminals' execution and then di sposed of unceremoniously. Conclusion The trial proceedings, effectively the only extant source of information about Janosik, offer a meager picture of his life because he disclosed very little before or under torture. Most questions posed by the interrogators remained unanswered. All that transpires from the proceedings besides some of his robberies is that he was loyal to his fellow-criminals, that he remained so under severe torture, and that he proved to be a cunning liar before severe torture more-or-less silenced him. When he gave answers, they were often misleading or quite untrue, crafted to protect his accomplices. For example, while Uhorcik, still known to the authorities only as Martin Mravec, was awaiting his trial in the same building, Janosik was telling the interrogators that Uhorcik had been killed by another brigand several years earlier. Most of the accomplices Janosik divulged were already dead or believed to be dead. He claimed not to know the whereabouts of the others whose names came up during the interrogation. He did not di sclose the names of those who gave him shelter. Uhorcfk's testimony a month later revealed that Janosik had withheld the names of at least a half of his fellow brigands. Even without the strict Imperial and Royal decrees on brigandage, several factors would have probably contributed to Janosik's harsh punishment by Liptov County anyway: the damages that the county had to pay to Lady Schardon; the blame it probably received from the monarc hy's central authorities and the county 's subsequent increased efforts to eradicate hi ghway robbery; Janosik's origin in Terchova known for its support to highwaymen ; Janosik 's participation in the Francis Rak6czi uprising against the Habsburgs, which �98 SLOVAKIA the judge reiterated before reading his sentence; and finally , susp icions of anti-Catholic and heretic sentiments reflected in hi s insurgent past and in the alleged target-shooting at hosts augmented by his presence at the killing of a priest. In a broader context, the existence of the enormous gap between what is documented about Juraj Janosfk and his modern myth is unremarkable. Discrepancies, elevations or degradations, are common, universal features of historical mythology. Equally pervasive are folk legends about characters from the feudal past who "took from the rich and gave to the poor" and defended the commoners from the injustices of the masters. Such tales dot the Eurasian continent from English Robin Hood at its north-western periphery all the way to Korean Hong Kildong and Japanese Oyake Akahachi at its south-eastern edge. What makes Janosfk 's myth in Slovakia special (which applies only partly in the Czech Republic and decidedly less so in Poland) is the manner in which it was first embraced and molded by the intellectuals around the middle of the 19 th century44 and then by academia from around the middle of the 20 th century, and the degree to which his intellectualized and academic myth incorporated the notion that it is not talking merely about folk mythology (whose modern shape has actually been largely formed by Janosfk' s myth created in high culture), but that it is also talking about a real hi storical character. 44 Yotruba, " Hang Him Hi gh .. ." � 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 2007, Vol. 39 Description An account of the resource Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007. 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 2007 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 81 A HIGHWAYMAN'S LIFE: EXTANT DOCUMENTS v~ ABOUT JANOSIK ~ Martin Votruba "Our salvation can come only from Janosik," lamented a Czech blogger over the budget proposals in Prague. 1 In Poland, a group of developers has been working on recalcitrant software intended to undermine the program called Platnik ("Payer"), which is mandatory for employers to handle social security payments and works only with Microsoft Windows. The leader of the developers named their open-source software Janosik.2 Both of these people invoked the name of a brigand who robbed three hundred years ago in the northern and central predominantly Slovak counties in the Habsburg monarchy, was caught, tried and hanged. About a century after Janosfk's execution, his image began to emerge as the local embodiment of the pervasive myth of a hero who takes from the rich and gives to the poor. The folk stories, Romantic poems, and the more recent films ascribe 3 to him other quite universally idolized trappings, the ones that, for example, helped to generate Hollywood 's legendary rebel stars - he was good looking, single, made a stash of money, lived wild, and died young. 4 All of this is contained in Janosfk's modern Slovak, Czech, and Polish mythology. Practically none of that, however, finds any support in the existing evidence about the actual brigand 's life. 1 Hana Fonminkova, I Oct. 2003 , http: //www neraweb cz/index. php?stype-all&id=632. 2 Danuta Frey, "Janosik chce rozgryzc program Ptatnik." Rzeczpospolita, 6-7 Dec. 2004. 3 Dozens of books, thousands of stories, and popular and academic articles, at least nine plays, six films, one TV series, several classical compositions, and one opera th have been dedicated to Janosfk since the 19 century. His legend was discussed in this journal by Patricia A. Krafcik, "Janosik: Unraveling the Man from the Legend." Slovakia 33, no. 60-6 1 (1987-1988): 7-22. 4 Martin Votruba, " Hang Him High: The Elevation of Janosfk to an Ethnic Icon ." Slavic Review, vol. 56, no. I, Spring 2006, pp. 24-44. 82 SLOVAKIA Name variations There was a historical figure whose name was close or identical to Juraj Janosfk,5 who was sentenced for highway robbery and executed at the age of 25 in 1713. The limited sources about his actual life are the proceedings from his trial and an earlier interrogation, the proceedings from the trial with hi s friend and accomplice Tomas Uhorcfk, whom Janosik replaced as the leader of his band, and several brief records maintained by landlords. The trial proceedings were edited and published by several authors before most of them appeared together for the first time as an appendix to a book on Janosik in 1952. 6 The proceedings from his trial gave three versions of his last name: Janosik, Janosiak and Janosak. There are variations in the records of Uhorcfk ' s name, too. For instance, Janosik referred to him as Uhnk during his trial. Each spelling of Janosfk's name indicates a slightly different pronunciation, but that was not unusual at that time. Historically , people had only one - given - name, and what we know as the last name developed gradually, along with bureaucratic record-keeping, from attributes used to distinguish persons with the same given name, or from various nicknames. The bureaucratic effort to standardize people 's last (and first) names started in Catholic Europe with the Vatican-sponsored Council of Trent (1545-1563). Although the practice of maintaining the same last name within a family became quite common in the Habsburg 7 monarchy, where the Slovaks lived, by the I 600s, it was not formalized until the Imperial and Royal 8 Edict on Family Names was issued in 1787 - perhaps 5 [YOUray YAHnosheek] Ju raj is the Slovak version of George, the nicknames are Jura, Jurko, Dura. 6 Andrej Melichercfk, Janosikovska tradfcia na Slovensku Bratislava: Nakladatel'stvo Slovenskej akademie vied a umenf, 1952, pp. 165-176. 7 Often spelled Hapsburg in English history books. 8 "Imperi al and Royal" were standard attributes of a host of ' federal' institutions in the Habsburg monarchy. They indicated that the ruling monarch was the hereditary king of several kingdoms-provinces th at compri sed the Habsburgs' personal possessions, including the Kingdom of Hungary , and at the same time the emperor of a looser association of German states. The terms Habsburg monarchy and Austrian Empire usually refer only to the Habsburgs' personal possessions whose core were the Kingdom of Hungary (today: Slovakia, Hungary , Croatia), Kingdom of Bohemia, Margravi ate of Moravia (together today : the Czec h Republic) , Austria, and SLOVAKIA 83 the first law on names in Europe. The three pronunciations of Janosfk 's last name during his trial are not indicative of any confusion about the captive' s identity. Birth date and place According to the trial proceedings, Juraj Janosfk came from the north-west Slovak village of Terchova. 9 Birth and death records were rare, or non-existent in the more distant past, but the maintenance of baptismal and burial records by parishes was among the guidelines set forth by the Council of Trent and became widely practiced by both the Slovak Catholic and Lutheran Churches. A governmentsponsored law on recording births and deaths was not adopted in the Habsburg monarchy until 1828. Baptismal records from the Varin parish that comprised Terchova contain the names of five babies christened in 1687-1688 that could have grown up to be the Juraj Janosfk sentenced in 1713. '0 Without discussing their choice, authors mostly give one of the dates as his true entry - commonly 25 February 1688, father Martin and mother Anna Czisznek or Czisznik, occasionally 16 May 1688, father Michal and mother Barbara Cingel. Only one, not particularly reliable, source makes an argument why the entry of 25 February is to be seen as more likely than the others: when Juraj's father bought his son out of military service in 1710, the father's name was apparently recorded as Martin Janosik. 11 However, if Juraj Janosfk, the brigand executed in March 1713, were baptized on 25 February, other entries in the baptismal records would show him as having a younger brother Jan. That would appear to be at odds with the record of a trial with Jan Janosik in December 1713 during which Jan was identified as an older brother of the executed brigand Juraj . The issue is complicated because the existing baptismal records are not sufficiently consistent and complete, because the name Jan, introduced to Europe through which also incorporated parts of their modern neighboring countries - Italy, Poland, Romania and others. 9 [TERkhova] 10 Rudo Brian, "Na tropie Janosika i polskich zb6jnik6w." Pam(:tnik Slowianski, vo l. 18, 1968, pp. I 67-186; and Rudo Brian, " Pat' Janosikov - ktory je ten pravy?" Nede/ha pravda, 3 Feb. 1978, p. 18. 11 The llles hazy archives, Strecno estate, Vol. 19, No. 15 as referenced in Jozef Kocis, Neznamy Janos1k, Bratislava: Yydavatel'stvo Osveta, l 986, p. 47 . 84 SLOVAKIA the New Testament, has historicall y been the most co mmon given name in Slovak (like its Anglicized version John in English), and the family name Janosfk 12 was, and still is, common in Terchova and vicinity (67 listings in the telephone directory) . It al so occurs elsewhere in Slovakia, and spread even to the United States where its frequency ranks as the 35,524 th most common name. 13 There is some inconsistency in the reading of the last name of Janosik 's mother among those who opt for 25 February as the date of his baptism. Many modem authors transcribe the recorded old spelling of Anna 's last name (Czisznek or Czisznik), without further explanation, as Cesnek, a few others as Cfsnik. Cesnek is a probable reading because such last names are still common in the area (29 telephone directory listings), while Cfsnik or other plausible modernized versions of the old spelling are absent there. Nothing is known about Janosfk 's life until he was between 15 and 21 years old - the time of the Francis Rak6czi uprising, which Janosik joined at an unknown age and for an unknown period of time according to the trial proceedings. Folk tales, as well as the first two film s about him, 14 depict him as a former seminary student who turned to brigandage after his parents were abused by the landlord. The earliest written reference to the legend of Janosfk 's schooling comes from 1809. 15 It says that he was popularly believed to have been a student of the humanities, not of theology. However, no preserved document and nothing in the trial proceedings suggests an educated Janosik. 12 It originated as a Slovak variation on Janos - the Hungarian version of the Biblical name John in English, Jan in Slovak. Janos was occas ionall y used as a ni ckname fo r persons named Jan by the Slovaks , too, and sometimes appeared instead of the th Slovak Jan in the Kingdom' s records. But durin g the 17 century, Janosik and its variations had become established Slovak fa mily names . 13 U.S. Census Burea u, Population Divi sio n, Population Anal ys is and Evaluati on Staff as quoted by Rhett A. Butler in "Most Common Names and Surnames in the U.S." at mongabay com. 14 Jan osfk directed by Jaros lav Jerry Siake l', Tatra Film, Chi cago, 192 1; Janostk directed by Martin Frie, A- B Studio, Praha [Prague] , I935. 15 Bohuslav Tablic, a 3-page unnumbered foo tnote to "Janossjk Liptowsky Laupeznjk ," in S/owensstj W ersso wcy. Collecta revirescunt. S wazek druhf. We Wacove [Yac]: v Antonjna Gotljba pry wil. Knehtlac itele, 1809, pp. 120-1 23 . SLOVAKIA 85 The Kingdom's situation The trial proceedings begin to reveal glimpses of Janosfk 's life with him taking part in the Franci s Rak6czi 16 uprising of 1703-1711. It was a massive religious and separatist movement in the Kingdom of Hungary aga inst the Habsburg dynasty, which ruled it from Vienna (A ustria). The Slovaks were the majority inhabitants of the north-western , mostl y mountainous counties of the multi-ethnic 17 Kingdom. The Kingdom , established around the year 1000, was defeated and lost its sovereignty in the 1500s, and was incorporated as a province in the expanding Habsburg monarchy. The Kingdom was 90% Protestant (Lutheran in the Slovak areas) in the early 1600s, but by the mid- l 600s, the Vatican-allied Habsburgs began forcibly to reCatholicize it, and also increased their efforts to further reduce the Kingdom 's remaining limited self-government. The uprising led by nobleman Franci s Rak6czi II was the last of a series of substantial , but economically destructive armed attempts in the Kingdom to reverse that course. 18 He was Catholic, but in favor of the Kingdom 's independence and religious freedom. Janosik the insurgent It is not known when and under what circumstances Janosik joined Rak6czi 's rebel troops. It is not known , either, how he became a soldier in the Habsburg army later. The Rak6czi rebels suffered a crushing defeat in the Battle of Trencfn 19 (about 60 miles south-west 16 [RAHkotsee], Francis Rak:6czi II, Prince of Transylvani a, born on 27 March I 676. After his fin al defeat, he and some of his supporters initially defected to Poland. He eventu all y died in exi le in Turkey on 8 April 1735. 17 The country's language of admi nistration and education from high school up was Latin , which was no one ' s mother ton gue. The languages of individual ethnic groups, most of whom li ved in their majority areas, were used in everyday life, local businesses, emerging literatures, etc. The ethni c gro ups of the Kingdom of Hungary inc luded the Slovaks, Magyars ([MAHdars] often called Hungarians), Croats, Romani ans, Germans, Ru syns, Roma (Gypsies), and others. The Slovaks were in the majority in about 15 counties in the Kingdom ' s mountainous north-west (today's Slovakia) customari ly called the "Upper Co untry" in the Kingdo m, which is usuall y rendered as Upper Hungary in English. 1 8The major anti-Habsburg insurgenc ies that affected the Slovak counti es extensive ly were (the year of inception and leader): 1604 Stephen Bocskay, 16 19 Gabriel Bethlen, 1644 George Rak:6czi, 1678 Emerich Thokoly, 1703 Francis Rak:6czi II . 19 [TRENtsheen); in West Slovakia on the Yah River 86 SLOVAKIA of Terc hova) the actual fightin g took pl ace at Hamre, a haml et and originall y a forge site two miles south of Trencfn) on 3 August 1708. The Habsburgs had taken full control of the Kingdom by the time of Janosfk's tri al. It therefore needs to be taken with a grai n of salt that hi s defen se lawyer Baltazar Palugyay portrayed Janosik as the Emperor's loyal subj ect at hi s tri al, and insisted that Janosik had eage rl y and willingly enlisted in the Habsburg army during the upri sing. Authors mostly speculate that Janosfk first left the Rak6czi rebe ls, returned to Terchova, and was subsequentl y drafted by the Imperial and Royal Army. Another possibility put forward is that he was captured during the Battle of Trencfn and turned into a soldier, 20 which was what happe ned to hundreds of insurge nts on th at occasion. No records document either ass umption. Janosik the loyalist and a brigand's assistant Once in the Imperial and Royal Army, Janosik was stationed at Bytca Castle, 25 miles from his home. He was made a prison guard . During hi s trial, Janosik admitted providing unspecified services to Tomas Uhorcfk,2 1 a brigand leader he ld in the castle's dungeons. Uhorcik managed to escape in the fa ll of 1710 while Janosik still served at Bytca. Janosik 's father bought Ju raj out of military service a month later. This seq uence of events that emanates from the trial proceedings gave ri se to later spec ul ation s that Janosik may have actu ally he lped Uhorcfk to escape. Family background The statement from Janosik's trial that hi s father had bought him out of military service, for which he had to have enough spare money, appears to contrad ict the co mmon, but undoc umented , assertions that Janosik came fro m a particul arl y poor farmer's famil y. The existing records from the landlord of Terchova ' s estate around 1700 do not li st the Janosfk famil y among those obligated to work for a day or two each week in the landlord ' s field s22 - a common duty of fe ud al subj ects. It could mean that members of the Janosik fa mil y °Koc is, Neznamy ... 2 21 [TOmahsh OOhortsheek], from the village of Predmi er near Turzovka. Andrej Melichercfk, Janosikovska tradfcia na Slovensku. Brati slava: Nakladatel'stvo SAY , 1952. 22 SLOVAKIA 87 were still obligated to work, but were among the poorest, almost landless families and therefore not entered in the records of households with farms; or it could be due to a contract between some of the original settlers of the village and a past landlord. Numerous Slovak villages originated as contractual settlements of a landlord's unimproved property in earlier centuries. Finally, Janosfk 's family could have been prosperous enough to be able to pay the landlord instead of providing labor services. Besides these historical reasons, the absence of an entry for the Janosfks in the landlord 's records could also be due to deficient record-keeping, or to lost documents. If the Janosfks could be shown to have been a particularly poor family, it would increase the likelihood that the money they used to buy Juraj out was not theirs, and that the Janosfks may have received it for that purpose from Uhorcfk who was grateful for Juraj's unspecified services in the dungeons (possibly including his escape). By the fall of 1710, Uhorcfk had had about eight robbing seasons behind him , which would have allowed him to accumulate some disposable cash. Highwaymen Other court records show the inhabitants of Terchova to have been fervent supporters of brigands. 23 That ties in with Uhorcfk's testimony, according to which Janosik sometimes stayed with the teacher at Terchova, and the local tavern-keeper would bring him food. Juraj Janosfk's brother Jan was hanged for highway robbery ten months after Juraj. 24 Highway robbery was common in Europe until the advent of modern times, which brought about increased policing, personal record-tracing, education, perhaps honesty, and new, less arduous forms of crime. The first mention of brigands in the Slovak region comes from the Legend of Saints Zoerardus and Benedict recorded in 1064. Two ancient north-south trade routes from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean passed through eastern Slovakia. The merchants' caravans were among the earliest lucrative targets for highway robbery. Legal records of highway robberies and 23 Stefan Kazimfr, "O novych dokumentoch k janosikovskej legende." Cudove cftanie Vol. 3, No. 6, 1957. 24 Stanistaw Sroka, Janosik: Pra wdziwa historia karpackiego zb6jnika. Krakow [Cracow]: Wydawnictwo Homini, 2004, p. 41; Kocis, Neznamy .. . p. 86. 88 SLOVAKIA trials with brigands begin to accumulate in the late 15 th century and do not start to dwindle until the mid-19 th century. One of the first known brigand bands in the Slovak counties, led by Fedor Hlavaty, operated in the north-east (Saris County). Its 50 members included Slovaks, Poles, and Rusyns.25 In 1493, Hlavaty sent a ransom letter to the town of Bardejov threatening to burn it down unless the Town Council paid a hefty compensation for the execution of four of Hlavaty's highwaymen. Incentives to rob in the 1600s The religious-cum-separatist wars of the 1i" century caused a great deal of destruction in the Kingdom already harmed by decades of attacks by the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire from the south. 26 Highway robbery must have appeared to be a way out to some of those impoverished by the developments. The brigands' ranks were also increased by displaced soldiers made redundant by both the insurgent and the Habsburg armies after the resolution of each rebellion. With the reduced, or periodicall y absent authority of the monarch, some noblemen, too, turned their hill-top castles to brigands' nests, armed large bands and in addition to highway robbery, raided villages, as well as their peers' residences. The Kingdom therefore saw a jump in highway robberies in the 17 th century.2 7 25 The Rusyns, also called Ruthenians, are an East Slav ic ethni c group (as opposed to the West Slavic Slovaks and Poles) who li ve as a recogni zed minority in the north-eastern parts of Slovakia, as well as in so uth-eastern Poland - often called L emkos there. Their acti vists call for a recognition of their much more substantial numbers in south- western Ukraine where the authorities insist they are Ukrainians. 26 The Slovak counties never fell to the Turks, but es peciall y the southern ones were continuall y harassed and attacked. The fac t that the mostl y Magyar/Hungarian counties (today's Hungary) fell under the Ottoman rule and became their prov ince of Ma1,aristan fo r about l 50 years added to the disruption of the economy of the Slovak counties and brought in some ethni c Hungari ans, especiall y noblemen, who ran away north fro m the encroaching Turks. 27 Although just a pass ing reference has been preserved about him , the name of briga nd leader Adamcik survived from the 1630s in fo lklore, and was later added to the list of Janosik 's band members in fo lk tales. The name Ilcfk - another of Janosik's comrades in fo lk stories - has a similar, albeit somewhat later origin. SLOVAKIA 89 Highwaymen's seasons In the Kingdom , and in Central Europe in general, the brigands' season was limited by the climate. Late summer and early fall was the time when seasonal sheepfolds in mountain pastures were abandoned and the flocks were dri ven back to villages. These shepherds played an important role in hi ghwaymen 's support networks. Cold winters made clandestine surviva l in the Slovak mountai ns almost impossible. Moreover, Europe was at the height of its Little Ice Age (l 560-1850). The deciduous forests at the lower elevations lose leaves and provide less cover, and while the higher elevations have spruce and fir trees that do not lose their needles, they are also colder and therefore even less suitable for winter subsistence 28 . Snow tracks made the brigands easily traceable. But brigands needed villagers ' support year-round. In the winter, they needed farmers to accept them as hired hands, and even their help to cover up their identities and summer acti vity. In the summer, the brigands needed to obtain food , sell their loot, and learn about the police searches for them, not to mention their less operative desires to show off, party, booze and flirt. Some of the villagers in turn , made welcome profit on the services and goods rendered to the brigands, since they were paid for their silence as well. Moreover, the vi llagers were paid by people with periodic windfalls who are generall y inclined to overspending. According to the court records, the Janosiks were among Terchova 's notorious rowdy , thieving fa milies. Jano~fk' s participation During his trial , Janosik confessed that he joined Tomas Uhorcfk ' s band of brigands " around Michaelmas" 29 in 1711. Brigand bands in the Western Carpathians would traditionall y di sperse on or not long after Michaelmas and agree to reassemble on St. Adalbert's Feast-George mas (23-24 April). Numero us saints' days were associated with a variety of far m works and festivities , and were used to identify periods of the year in the same manner that months and parts of months are used today (" late September"). Michae lmas was a typical day of post-harvest fa irs. Janosik claimed that he had 28 Some mountains aro und Terchova reach over 5,000 ft, some mountain ridges around Liptov County rise to 7,000 ft. 29 September 29, St. Michael' s Day. 90 SLOVAKIA joined the brigands at Uhorcik's insistence. It was customary that a new member would swear allegiance to the band leader°. The group he joined may have had about two to three dozen members, but that was always in a state of flux with highwaymen. Some were disabled or killed during robberies and chases, so me were caught, some dropped out, temporarily , or for good, and aspiring highwaymen joined. Janosfk's confession that Uhorcik handed the leadership of the band to him soon afterwards indicates that it was hardly as simple as Uhorcik looking up Janosik almost a year after the latter provided him with some incidental assistance in prison. Uhorcik had to have great tru st in Janosik in order to persuade his band of thugs that a rel ati ve newcomer should take over after him . That, in turn , suggests that Janosik's assistance at Bytca Castle may have extended to Uhorcik ' s escape, that they maintained contacts afterwards, that Uhorcfk 's band had already seen Janosik in action, and it opens to speculation the source of the money that his father used to buy Juraj out of military service. It is also poss ible that the members of Uhorcik's band already knew Janosik because he became involved with them earlier. The highwaymen's logistics Limited circumstantial evidence contradicts Janosfk's testimony that he did not meet with Uhorcik until a year after Uhorcik's escape and that he simply talked Janosik into joining his band on that single occasion. A court record hints that there could have been rather a pressing incentive for Janosik to turn from initially a brigands' assistant and perhaps a subsequent incidental brigand into a regular member of Uhorcik's band. On 30 September 1711 , a day after Michaelmas, the confessed time of Janosik's pledge to Uhorcfk, three of the Janosfks of Terchova were brought to court and charged with assault 30 In contrast with their life of crime, the pledge could appear quite pious - an indication that they perceived Christianity as part of a flexible set of beliefs in the supernatural rather than the strict doctrine with a specific moral code preached by the Church. A documented pledge in the band of Jakub Surovec from the 1730s said: " I swear to God eternal, the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary and all the divine saints that I shall neither betray, nor cheat, nor yet abandon my companions in fortu ne, or misfortune. Thus help me God the Lord." SLOVAKIA 91 and robbery .31 If they were Juraj Janosik' s family, and moreover, if he was among the suspects (and guilty), he might have preferred to remove himself from the village rather than face the charges and possibly be forced to reveal more of his recent past. The Habsburgs did not ban torture as an investi gati ve method until 1776. J ano~ik' s season Soon after 23-year old Janosik became the band 's leader, Uhorcfk , after nine seasons as a highwayman, retired to Klenovec in south-central Slovakia under the adopted name Martin Mravec. He married and became the village's hired shepherd and occasional musician (he also managed briefly to serve as the village's policeman). Janosfk's band robbed mainly in the north-central Slovak counties of Orava, Liptov, and Spis, sometimes to the south of them, and occasionally - still in the Habsburg monarchy - across the Kingdom 's north -western border in parts of Silesia and the Margrav iate of Moravia (both now in the Czech Republic). All of the three Slovak counties border Poland in the north , and Janosik identified several members of his band as coming from Poland, but no document has surfaced to confirm legends about his raids into the Kingdom of Poland. Simple economics may have played a role: while Moravia and Silesia were relatively wealthy, the Polish Podhale region north of Slovakia was poorer than the Slovak counties and with fewer noblemen 's residences, and therefore less attractive, especially since the border follows a rel atively high mountain ridge in Liptov and in parts of Spis and Orava, which was a substanti al obstacle to bringing back any loot except money. On the other hand, the Podhale folklore occasionally depicted the Slovak counties as desirable targets of Polish brigands. The expected higher return may have made the climb somewhat more worthwhile. However, Janosik was questioned specifically during hi s tri al whether he had also robbed in Poland : an indication that the border was crossed by hi ghwaymen from both sides, but also of the authorities' concern about possible contacts with leaders of the Rak6cz i upri sing who defected to Pol and after their final defeat in 1711. 31 Rudo Brtan "Na tropie Janosika i polskich zb6jnik6w." Pami~tnik Slowiariski 18, pp. 167-186. 92 SLOVAKIA Janosik:' s victims and spoils While the list was certainly not complete, Janosik's trial revealed rather meager, and some bizarre spoils from hi s only full-time robbing season from the spring to the fall of 1712: several guns, including a "valuable" one, unimpressive amounts of cash, some jewelry, as well as two ladies' wigs and elegant ladies' clothing impossible to be worn by villagers and therefore awkward to sell or donate in those days. However, Uhorcfk said Janosfk's highway robberies yielded more. Among other things, he apparently accumulated almost two bushels of coins, enough cloth to dress 300 men, and maintained a stash of weapons in another hiding place. Although cloth may appear to be an unlikely booty, it was among the brigands' prized possessions. It was needed to repair their clothing, which was more prone to wear and tear, yet less readily replaceable in case of damage than the clothes of law-abiding subjects. 32 Rolls of cloth, not ready-made clothes, were loaded in merchants' wagons that were attacked by brigands. Cloth was also among the more durable goods in their loot, but not as easy to exchange as money, jewelry, or guns, so the brigands were likely to have a surplus of cloth in their hiding places. 33 Uhorcfk also spoke of Janosfk's attacks on small detachments of the Imperial and Royal Army which yielded weapons, ammunition, and on one occasion a carriage. Janosfk admitted robbing men and women, commoners as well as three noblemen , a clergyman, another clergyman's wife, a blacksmith (he did not respond to this charge), a goldsmith, a butcher, a cloth trader, and wine traders. He robbed them on the road, in their homes, in the woods, even on the Vah River (see below), emphasized the prosecutor. Of all the regional authorities, Liptov County was probably the most bitter about Janosfk's actions because of his assault on Imperial and Royal Officer Rudolf Schardon's wife and her retinue. Slovak and Polish sources commonly say she was Officer Schardon 's widow. One author contradicts thi s without giving his 32 John S. Koliopoulos, Brigands with a Cause, Brigandage and Irredentism in Mo- dem Greece /821-1912. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. 33 Jozef Kocis, Neznamy ... creates a weighty narrative about Janosfk's apparent revolutionary intentions from a historical report that guns and substantial amounts of cloth were discovered in some of his hiding places. SLOVAKIA 93 reasons. 34 The trial proceedings refer to her as Schardonka (the ending -ka indicates that she was a woman) and as vojenskeho oficfra pani, which means "a military officer's lady [wife]" without any indication of her being a widow. Because her husband was employed by the Crown and the robbery took place while she was passing through Liptov, the law obligated the County to pay the Lady the damages, which must have been higher than usual due to her rank. Throughout his trial, Janosik maintained that he had not killed anyone, but the court still considered him a guilty party when a priest from Domaniza was "shot through" by two brigands from his band during a robbery. The priest, 58-year old Juraj Yrtik (also spelled Yertik), died a month later. Janosik was also accused of sacrilege target-shooting at a host (the Eucharistic bread) attached to a treetrunk. He neither denied, nor confirmed this charge. While it is not clear why so many authors call Lady Schardon a widow rather than a wife, some of the counterfactual information in modern writing about Janosik ' s robberies and victims stems from cross-linguistic confusion by Polish authors reading Slovak sources, which is then repeated by others. Thus, for example, one author has Janosik rob a magnate on his way to Turkey (do Turcji in Polish), while the person, John Radvanszky, County Lieutenant of Zvolen, was actually on his way to Turiec County (do Turca in Slovak) in north-central Slovakia. 35 Another author says that Janosik robbed a pastor' s wife as she was fetching water (po wodf! in Polish) from the Yah River. 36 It is not only unlikely for geographic and historical reasons because her village was not on the V ah and people used wells as their source of water, not the river. It is mistaken factually because the trial proceedings say that she was robbed about a half-day's journey from her home, while traveling down the Vah (po vode in Slovak) on a raft - a common means of transport provided comercially at that time. Such confusion about language and geography happens with some regularity and can affect the authors' arguments. For instance, Stanislaw Sroka believes that the village of Klenovec where Janosik was captured was in Liptov County , a mere geogra34 Jozef Kocis, Neznamy .. . Jace k Kotbu szewski , "Janosik ni eznany?" Literatura Judowa, vol. 3 1, no. 4-6, Jul y- December 1987, pp. 108-11 2, - p. 110. 36 Sroka, Janosik ... p. 50. 35 SLOVAKIA 94 phic error, but the error then becomes Sroka's explanation of why Janosik was tried by Liptov County. Klenovec, however, was in Malohont County. The real reason for the location of Janosik's trial was that he was captured in Klenovec by the Liptov police (see below). Cross-linguistic confusion can lead to much farther-reaching fallacious conclusions. Jacek Kolbuszewski, the author who believes that Janosik robbed John Radvanszky on his way to Turkey, then 37 assumes that he was going to the funeral of Stephen Petrycy [sic], a former general in the Kuruc army, according to Kolbuszewski, who took refuge in Turkey in order to avoid persec ution by the Habsburgs. Kolbuszewski subsequently presents his conjecture as evidence to disprove a point made by another author, Jozef Koci s, 38 and accuses him of "keeping silent" about that apparent fact. Yet, Radvanszky was robbed in 1712 while traveling from Zvolen County to Turiec County in order to attend the funeral of Stephen Petr6czy de Petr6cz et Kaszavar (villages near Trencfn : the name could be Stefan Petrovicky of Petrovice and Koseca in modern Slovak spelling), sonin-law of the late Turiec County Chief Emerich Revay - not to Turkey to a conjectured funeral of Baron Stephen Petr6czy, born around 1620, a commander in the Kuruc insurgencies in the l 670- l 680s who sought refuge in Turkey after their failure . Baron Petr6czy would have to have been in his 90s had he died, as Kotbuszewski concludes, in 1712 when Radvanszky was robbed by Janosfk (the date of his death is actually unknown). Janosik, s capture Janosik was first caught, along with Uhorcfk, about a year after he joined Uhorcik's former band and became its leader. They were detained by Malohont County authorities in Klenovec in south37 Kotbuszewski , "Janosik ... " p. 110. Kocis, Neznamy ... Kotbuszewski's goal was to disprove Kocis's claims about Janosfk's sym pathies for the anti-Habsburg rebels by showing that Janosfk actually robbed a nobleman presumably supportive of the rebellion since he went to a former rebel ' s and political defector' s funeral. If Polish scholars had not misread the Slovak sources, which was the starting point for Kotbuszewski's disoriented conclusions about the historical figures, Kotbuszewski could have made the same argument without any reference to Petr6czy, because Janosfk ' s victim John Radvanszky, Zvolen County Lieutenant and minor poet born in 1666, was himself a former influential supporter of the Kuruc rebellion, Thokoly, as well as Francis Rak6czi. 38 SLOVAKIA 95 central Slovakia, where Uhorcik had settled as Martin Mravec, on 26 October 1712 - around the end of the robbing season. Janosik probably came to spend the winter with his comrade under an assumed identity . They were put in jail in the Mansion of Hrachov but were released after they "proved" their innocence. Janosik's subsequent trial revealed that the proof rested mainly in fox furs and cheese passed on to the detaining authorities. Moreover, the County Lieutenant of Malohont 39 who testified on their behalf had earlier received a prized rifle from Uhorcik. The historical, decorated weapon came from Janosik's loot when his band ambushed Baron Paul Revay. Janosik was arrested again while still in Klenovec before he had a chance to start his next robbing season, and so was "Mravec" for giving him shelter for the winter. Although in another county, this time he was traced and captured by the Liptov police put on special alert after the robbery of Lady Schardon. They were transferred to Svaty Mikulas, 40 the seat of Liptov County, where Uhorcik 's identity was eventually discovered. JaI1osik's sentence Janosik's trial took place on 16-17 March 1713. The Kingdom ' s main statutes were contained in the Tripartitum of 1514,41 and two subsequent royal decrees. Chapter I, Titulus XV, Paragraph I of the Tripartitum mandated that highwaymen be hanged, broken upon the wheel, impaled, or beheaded, as a warning to others. When the Habsburgs added the Kingdom to their lands, they tried to limit various laws contained in the Tripartitum, especially those that gave more privileges to its nobles and greater self-government to its counties and some municipalities than were granted in other Habsburg lands, but they reinforced some other laws including those against brigandage. Emperor Ferdinand II iss ued a decree in 1625 "On pillaging vagabonds and highwaymen and on ways of handling them," whose 39 Pal Lan yi/Pavol Lani (1670-1733) was a prominent supporter of the Rak6czi insurgency. 40 Now called Liptovsky Mikulas. 41 Tripartitum opus iuris consuetudinarii incly ti regni Hungariae partiumque annexarum , by Stephen Werboczy (1460-1541), presented to the Diet in 1514 and published by the author in Vienna in 1517. Although not a fo rmall y adopted document, it was used as the authoritati ve compend ium of the Kingdom's customary law. 96 SLOVAKIA Article XIII mandated that hi ghwaymen and similar criminals be tortured if their testimonies were not comprehensive and convincing. The decision to apply torture was regulated in the Kingdom by a widely used book of comments on the Tripartitum from 1619,42 whose Article 8, Section 6 required that the defendant be rel eased without torture if the preliminary proceedings did not raise sufficient suspicions about the truthfulness of his denial of guilt. Emperor Ferdinand Ill 's decree from 1655 contained Article XXVI , which prohibited any leniency or pardon in such trials. Additionally , Emperor Leopold I decreed in Article XVII in 1659 that those providing shelter to brigands be executed as well. Janosik's assigned defense lawyer Palugyay described him as a former victim of Francis Rak6czi 's insurgents and played up his loyalty to the Crown demonstrated by his apparent eagerness to join the Imperial and Royal Army. Palugyay also stressed that although submitted to both the light and severe levels of torture, Janosik denied having been guilty of the murder of the Reverend Yrtik. Under the Kingdom 's legislation it meant that the defendant (called the "accused" then) was to be seen as innocent of the crime. Although people submitted to torture did not normally survive for more than three days - if for no additional injuries, then due to the internal hemorrhage and other damage to the joints pulled out of their sockets during stretching - the county was obligated to pay an annual allowance to the family of the accused who failed to admit guilt under torture. Janosfk's defense lawyer called for his release because, according to Palugay, he certainly regretted his actions and would mend his ways. Yet, Janosik did admit to highway robbery, and the court still considered him an accomplice in the priest' s murder. He was sentenced to death. As usual in those days , it was a public execution. In Janosfk' s case, a hook was threaded through his left side, and he was left dangling on the gallows to die - a fairly common execution then especially for brigand leaders, although this was the only instance of its implementation by Liptov County between 1700 and 1715.43 42 Directio methodica processus judiciarii; Juris consuetudinarii lnclyti Regni Hun gariae .. . , by Johannes Kitonich de Koztanicza [Ivan Kitonic/Janos Kaszony i of Kostajnica] , Tymavia: [Tmava] : Anno Domini MDCXIX. 43 Stanistaw Dzieciolowski in an interview with Zdena Sisova "Odpocfva Janosfk na dne Liptovskej Mary?" Slovenske dotyky Maj 2002, p. 7. SLOVAKIA 97 Uhorcik's identity was not discovered until after the first day of his trial during which he was still taken to be a Martin Mravec. He was sentenced more than a month after Janosik, on 21 April 1713 . He was broken upon the wheel, another common form of execution. As an act of benevolence, perhaps obtained by the County Lieutenant of Malohont who testified on Janosik ' s and Uhorcik's behalf at their trials, the court ordered that his neck be broken first. The burial place of either of the brigands is unknown. Corpses were often left hanging or otherwise exposed as a warning for a period of time after the criminals' execution and then di sposed of unceremoniously. Conclusion The trial proceedings, effectively the only extant source of information about Janosik, offer a meager picture of his life because he disclosed very little before or under torture. Most questions posed by the interrogators remained unanswered. All that transpires from the proceedings besides some of his robberies is that he was loyal to his fellow-criminals, that he remained so under severe torture, and that he proved to be a cunning liar before severe torture more-or-less silenced him. When he gave answers, they were often misleading or quite untrue, crafted to protect his accomplices. For example, while Uhorcik, still known to the authorities only as Martin Mravec, was awaiting his trial in the same building, Janosik was telling the interrogators that Uhorcik had been killed by another brigand several years earlier. Most of the accomplices Janosik divulged were already dead or believed to be dead. He claimed not to know the whereabouts of the others whose names came up during the interrogation. He did not di sclose the names of those who gave him shelter. Uhorcfk's testimony a month later revealed that Janosik had withheld the names of at least a half of his fellow brigands. Even without the strict Imperial and Royal decrees on brigandage, several factors would have probably contributed to Janosik's harsh punishment by Liptov County anyway: the damages that the county had to pay to Lady Schardon; the blame it probably received from the monarc hy's central authorities and the county 's subsequent increased efforts to eradicate hi ghway robbery; Janosik's origin in Terchova known for its support to highwaymen ; Janosik 's participation in the Francis Rak6czi uprising against the Habsburgs, which 98 SLOVAKIA the judge reiterated before reading his sentence; and finally , susp icions of anti-Catholic and heretic sentiments reflected in hi s insurgent past and in the alleged target-shooting at hosts augmented by his presence at the killing of a priest. In a broader context, the existence of the enormous gap between what is documented about Juraj Janosfk and his modern myth is unremarkable. Discrepancies, elevations or degradations, are common, universal features of historical mythology. Equally pervasive are folk legends about characters from the feudal past who "took from the rich and gave to the poor" and defended the commoners from the injustices of the masters. Such tales dot the Eurasian continent from English Robin Hood at its north-western periphery all the way to Korean Hong Kildong and Japanese Oyake Akahachi at its south-eastern edge. What makes Janosfk 's myth in Slovakia special (which applies only partly in the Czech Republic and decidedly less so in Poland) is the manner in which it was first embraced and molded by the intellectuals around the middle of the 19 th century44 and then by academia from around the middle of the 20 th century, and the degree to which his intellectualized and academic myth incorporated the notion that it is not talking merely about folk mythology (whose modern shape has actually been largely formed by Janosfk' s myth created in high culture), but that it is also talking about a real hi storical character. 44 Yotruba, " Hang Him Hi gh .. ."  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Highwayman's Life: Extant Documents About Jánošík Description An account of the resource Martin Votruba Slovakia, Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007 pp. 81-98 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 2007 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/6f28d140a4a7671aa310bb9eb9cdca00.pdf 32c11d50197ea3dea58a565151e1be3a PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 141 CONTRIBUTORS R. VLADIMIR BAUMGARTEN earned his Ph .D. in the history of East Central Europe from the Florida State University. He is an independent scholar who co-authored The National Slovak Society: a JOO Year History (Pittsburgh, 1990), and has published articles on the Slovak role in the Revolutions of 1848-49 and on the Slovak National Uprising. DAVID DOELLINGER is an Assistant Professor of History at Western Oregon University. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 2002. He is currently revising for publication his dissertation: From Prayers to Protests: The Impact of Religiousbased Dissent in the Emergence of Civil Society in Slovakia and the German Democratic Republic. PATRICIA A. KRAFCIK is Associate Professor of Russian Language and Literature at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Her scholarly presentations and publications have been in Slavic folklore, particularly Russian, Slovak, and Carpatho-Rusyn . IGOR LUKES is a University Professor and a Professor of History and International Affairs at Boston University. He is also an Associate of the Davis Center at Harvard University. Among his many publications is the award-wi nning Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler: The Diplomacy of Edvard Benes in the 193O's (New York: Oxford , I 996) and, more recently, Rudolf Slansky: His Trials and Trial (Washington , DC: Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, 2006). PAUL ROBERT MAGOCSI is Professor of History and Political Science and holder of the Chair in Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto. He is the foremost expert on Ru sy ns in the world, having published numerous books and articles about them. He was also research editor of the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (1975-1978), and editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples ( 1999). �142 SLOVAKIA JAN SIMKO received hi s PhDr. in English from the Slovak University in 1944, and taught this subject, with brief interruptions, at the renamed Comenius University until 1967 . He studied at the Folger Shakespeare Library and, after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, he remained in the United States, where he taught Slovak at various educational institutions. He is the author of the comprehensive English Slovak Dictionary (Wauconda, II, 1989) and of numerous artic les in Narodny Kalendar (Pittsburgh). M. MARK STOLARIK is Professor of History and holder of the Chair in Slovak History and Cu lture at the University of Ottawa. He specializes in the hi story of Slovak immigration to North America and has published many books and articles in thi s field, including Growing Up on the South Side: Three Generations of Slovaks in Bethlehem, Penn sylvania , 1880-1976 ( 1985 ) and Immigra tion and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience , 1870-1918 ( 1989). He is c urrent ly writing Where i s my Homeland ? A Slovak Odyssey Thmugh the 2(Jh Centwy. MARTIN VOTRUBA is Director of the Slovak Studies Program in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh. The image of Janosik is part of hi s current research and teaching projects, which include editing a special iss ue on Slovak filmmaking for KinoKultura and a dictionary for American learners of Slovak. �SLOVAKIA 143 GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPTS Manu scripts for poss ible publication should be sent to the editor. Articles should normall y not exceed twenty-five pages in length , should be typed doubl e-s paced, should include footnotes at the bottom of the page, and should be submitted as one hard copy and one in e lectronic format, using e ither MicrosoftWord or WordPerfec t. Text and format should adhere to the Chicago M anual of Style. Proper orthography and di acritical marks mu st be supplied for all foreign words. Manu sc ripts wi ll not be returned unle ss specifical ly requested and postage is provided. Boo ks for review are to be se nt to the editor. Unsolicited book rev iews are not encouraged. ���THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA A civic and cultural federation of Americans of Slovak Ancestry Organized in 1907 W. NINA HOLY Secretary - Treasurer DANIEL F. TANZONE President Vice Presidents Dr. L. P. Hinterbuchner Martha Kana Gabriel Kovac Executive Board Daniel F, Tanzone , W. Nina Holy, John A. Holy, Eileen S. Wilson, John G. Duch , Esq ., Stephanie Seigel , Dr. Ludwig J. Pavlo, Andrew M. Rajec, Mary Ann S. Johanek, Esq. , Larry M. Glugosh , Theresa M. Kluchinski, David M. Blazek, John Yuhas, Kenneth A. Arendt, Steven M. Pogorelec, Irene J. Drotleff, Dr. L. P. Hinterbuchner 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.A. AND CANADA Independence, Ohio SLOVAK CATHOLIC SOKOL Passaic, New Jersey NATIONAL SLOVAK SOCIETY OF THE U.S.A. McMurray, Pennsylvania LADIES PENNSYLVANIA SLOVAK CATHOLIC UNION Wilkes - Barre, Pennsylvania THE SLOVAK NEWSPAPERMEN 'S ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA THE SLOVAK GARDEN, INC. Winter Park, Florida SLOVAKIA $ 10.00 per issue � SLOVAKIA 141 CONTRIBUTORS R. VLADIMIR BAUMGARTEN earned his Ph .D. in the history of East Central Europe from the Florida State University. He is an independent scholar who co-authored The National Slovak Society: a JOO Year History (Pittsburgh, 1990), and has published articles on the Slovak role in the Revolutions of 1848-49 and on the Slovak National Uprising. DAVID DOELLINGER is an Assistant Professor of History at Western Oregon University. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 2002. He is currently revising for publication his dissertation: From Prayers to Protests: The Impact of Religiousbased Dissent in the Emergence of Civil Society in Slovakia and the German Democratic Republic. PATRICIA A. KRAFCIK is Associate Professor of Russian Language and Literature at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Her scholarly presentations and publications have been in Slavic folklore, particularly Russian, Slovak, and Carpatho-Rusyn . IGOR LUKES is a University Professor and a Professor of History and International Affairs at Boston University. He is also an Associate of the Davis Center at Harvard University. Among his many publications is the award-wi nning Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler: The Diplomacy of Edvard Benes in the 193O's (New York: Oxford , I 996) and, more recently, Rudolf Slansky: His Trials and Trial (Washington , DC: Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, 2006). PAUL ROBERT MAGOCSI is Professor of History and Political Science and holder of the Chair in Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto. He is the foremost expert on Ru sy ns in the world, having published numerous books and articles about them. He was also research editor of the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (1975-1978), and editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples ( 1999). �142 SLOVAKIA JAN SIMKO received hi s PhDr. in English from the Slovak University in 1944, and taught this subject, with brief interruptions, at the renamed Comenius University until 1967 . He studied at the Folger Shakespeare Library and, after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, he remained in the United States, where he taught Slovak at various educational institutions. He is the author of the comprehensive English Slovak Dictionary (Wauconda, II, 1989) and of numerous artic les in Narodny Kalendar (Pittsburgh). M. MARK STOLARIK is Professor of History and holder of the Chair in Slovak History and Cu lture at the University of Ottawa. He specializes in the hi story of Slovak immigration to North America and has published many books and articles in thi s field, including Growing Up on the South Side: Three Generations of Slovaks in Bethlehem, Penn sylvania , 1880-1976 ( 1985 ) and Immigra tion and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience , 1870-1918 ( 1989). He is c urrent ly writing Where i s my Homeland ? A Slovak Odyssey Thmugh the 2(Jh Centwy. MARTIN VOTRUBA is Director of the Slovak Studies Program in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh. The image of Janosik is part of hi s current research and teaching projects, which include editing a special iss ue on Slovak filmmaking for KinoKultura and a dictionary for American learners of Slovak. �SLOVAKIA 143 GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPTS Manu scripts for poss ible publication should be sent to the editor. Articles should normall y not exceed twenty-five pages in length , should be typed doubl e-s paced, should include footnotes at the bottom of the page, and should be submitted as one hard copy and one in e lectronic format, using e ither MicrosoftWord or WordPerfec t. Text and format should adhere to the Chicago M anual of Style. Proper orthography and di acritical marks mu st be supplied for all foreign words. Manu sc ripts wi ll not be returned unle ss specifical ly requested and postage is provided. Boo ks for review are to be se nt to the editor. Unsolicited book rev iews are not encouraged. ���THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA A civic and cultural federation of Americans of Slovak Ancestry Organized in 1907 W. NINA HOLY Secretary - Treasurer DANIEL F. TANZONE President Vice Presidents Dr. L. P. Hinterbuchner Martha Kana Gabriel Kovac Executive Board Daniel F, Tanzone , W. Nina Holy, John A. Holy, Eileen S. Wilson, John G. Duch , Esq ., Stephanie Seigel , Dr. Ludwig J. Pavlo, Andrew M. Rajec, Mary Ann S. Johanek, Esq. , Larry M. Glugosh , Theresa M. Kluchinski, David M. Blazek, John Yuhas, Kenneth A. Arendt, Steven M. Pogorelec, Irene J. Drotleff, Dr. L. P. Hinterbuchner 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.A. AND CANADA Independence, Ohio SLOVAK CATHOLIC SOKOL Passaic, New Jersey NATIONAL SLOVAK SOCIETY OF THE U.S.A. McMurray, Pennsylvania LADIES PENNSYLVANIA SLOVAK CATHOLIC UNION Wilkes - Barre, Pennsylvania THE 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 2007, Vol. 39 Description An account of the resource Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007. 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 2007 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 141 CONTRIBUTORS R. VLADIMIR BAUMGARTEN earned his Ph .D. in the history of East Central Europe from the Florida State University. He is an independent scholar who co-authored The National Slovak Society: a JOO Year History (Pittsburgh, 1990), and has published articles on the Slovak role in the Revolutions of 1848-49 and on the Slovak National Uprising. DAVID DOELLINGER is an Assistant Professor of History at Western Oregon University. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 2002. He is currently revising for publication his dissertation: From Prayers to Protests: The Impact of Religiousbased Dissent in the Emergence of Civil Society in Slovakia and the German Democratic Republic. PATRICIA A. KRAFCIK is Associate Professor of Russian Language and Literature at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Her scholarly presentations and publications have been in Slavic folklore, particularly Russian, Slovak, and Carpatho-Rusyn . IGOR LUKES is a University Professor and a Professor of History and International Affairs at Boston University. He is also an Associate of the Davis Center at Harvard University. Among his many publications is the award-wi nning Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler: The Diplomacy of Edvard Benes in the 193O's (New York: Oxford , I 996) and, more recently, Rudolf Slansky: His Trials and Trial (Washington , DC: Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, 2006). PAUL ROBERT MAGOCSI is Professor of History and Political Science and holder of the Chair in Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto. He is the foremost expert on Ru sy ns in the world, having published numerous books and articles about them. He was also research editor of the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (1975-1978), and editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples ( 1999). 142 SLOVAKIA JAN SIMKO received hi s PhDr. in English from the Slovak University in 1944, and taught this subject, with brief interruptions, at the renamed Comenius University until 1967 . He studied at the Folger Shakespeare Library and, after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, he remained in the United States, where he taught Slovak at various educational institutions. He is the author of the comprehensive English Slovak Dictionary (Wauconda, II, 1989) and of numerous artic les in Narodny Kalendar (Pittsburgh). M. MARK STOLARIK is Professor of History and holder of the Chair in Slovak History and Cu lture at the University of Ottawa. He specializes in the hi story of Slovak immigration to North America and has published many books and articles in thi s field, including Growing Up on the South Side: Three Generations of Slovaks in Bethlehem, Penn sylvania , 1880-1976 ( 1985 ) and Immigra tion and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience , 1870-1918 ( 1989). He is c urrent ly writing Where i s my Homeland ? A Slovak Odyssey Thmugh the 2(Jh Centwy. MARTIN VOTRUBA is Director of the Slovak Studies Program in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh. The image of Janosik is part of hi s current research and teaching projects, which include editing a special iss ue on Slovak filmmaking for KinoKultura and a dictionary for American learners of Slovak. SLOVAKIA 143 GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPTS Manu scripts for poss ible publication should be sent to the editor. Articles should normall y not exceed twenty-five pages in length , should be typed doubl e-s paced, should include footnotes at the bottom of the page, and should be submitted as one hard copy and one in e lectronic format, using e ither MicrosoftWord or WordPerfec t. Text and format should adhere to the Chicago M anual of Style. Proper orthography and di acritical marks mu st be supplied for all foreign words. Manu sc ripts wi ll not be returned unle ss specifical ly requested and postage is provided. Boo ks for review are to be se nt to the editor. Unsolicited book rev iews are not encouraged. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA A civic and cultural federation of Americans of Slovak Ancestry Organized in 1907 W. NINA HOLY Secretary - Treasurer DANIEL F. TANZONE President Vice Presidents Dr. L. P. Hinterbuchner Martha Kana Gabriel Kovac Executive Board Daniel F, Tanzone , W. Nina Holy, John A. Holy, Eileen S. Wilson, John G. Duch , Esq ., Stephanie Seigel , Dr. Ludwig J. Pavlo, Andrew M. Rajec, Mary Ann S. Johanek, Esq. , Larry M. Glugosh , Theresa M. Kluchinski, David M. Blazek, John Yuhas, Kenneth A. Arendt, Steven M. Pogorelec, Irene J. Drotleff, Dr. L. P. Hinterbuchner 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.A. AND CANADA Independence, Ohio SLOVAK CATHOLIC SOKOL Passaic, New Jersey NATIONAL SLOVAK SOCIETY OF THE U.S.A. McMurray, Pennsylvania LADIES PENNSYLVANIA SLOVAK CATHOLIC UNION Wilkes - Barre, Pennsylvania THE 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. 39 (No. 72-73) 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 2007 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/f0178ed3bde688ca66bfd471db259fb7.pdf 7ce99fb1536f60761be9983cd8ba8cb4 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA Published By THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA ��SLOVAKIA NUMBERS 72-73 2007 VOLUME XXXIX A scholarly annual devoted to the history, literature and culture of the Slovaks the world over Editor M. MARK STOLAR IK University of Ottawa Editorial Board ROB ERT K. EV ANSON Uni ve rsity of Mi ssouri MI C HAEL NOVAK American Enterpri se Institute PETER PETRO Uni ve rsity of Briti sh Co lumbi a JAM ES R. FELAK Uni ve rsity of Washington PATRICIA KRAFC IK The Evergreen State Co llege C AROLS . LEFF University of Illinoi s Publisher Slovak League of America 205 Madi son Street Passa ic, NJ 07055 , USA Inquiries regardin g subscripti ons should be sent to the above address. The cost of a sing le issue is $ 10.00 Manuscripts fo r possible publication and books for review should be sent to M. Mark Stolarik, Editor, Slovakia 22 Bren-Maur Road, epean, Ontario, Canada , K2J 3Z7 sto larik@ uot tawa.ca ��Table of Contents ARTICLES The Slovak League of America and the Canadian Slovak League in the Struggle for the Self-Determination of the Nation , 1907-1992 M. M ark Stolarik ....... ..... ........................... ......... .......... .......... ...... ... 7 Slovak Partizan Commanders in World War II: The Case of Josef Trojan R. Vladimir Baumgarten .......................... ......... ................... ... ...... 36 Czechoslovakia 1945-1950: A Failure of Intelligence Igor Lukes ................. .. .. ........................... ............................... ....... 50 Janosfk as a Symbol of Freedom in Communist Slovakia Patricia A. Krafcik ............. .............................. .......................... .... 63 A Highway man' s Life: Extant Documents About Janosfk Martin Votruba .. ..... .... .......... ............ .. ............. ... .. ...... ................... 81 The I 988 Pilgrimage at Velehrad : Slovak Catholics and the Creation of a Public Space David Doe/linger ......................... ......................... ................ ......... 99 REVIEW ESSAYS Subcarpathian Rus' and the New Slovak Historiography Paul Robert Magocsi ....................... .................. ................. ......... 119 Zbornfk Filozofickej fakulty Univerzity Komenskeho, PHILOLOGICA LX Jan Simko ..... ............ .. ............................. .. ...... ... ...... ............... ..... 123 �4 SLOVAKIA REVIEWS Jan Steinhtibel, Nitriansk e knieiatstvo M. Mark Stolarik ................................ .... .. .... ... ... .................... ..... 131 Dusan Kovac et. al. , Na zaciatku storocia, 1901-1 914 Gregory C. Ference ....... .... ................ .................. .... .................... 132 Ivan A. Petransky, Stat a katolfcka cirkev na Slovensku, 1945- 1946 Jam es Ram on Pelak ............ ...................... ............... .............. ...... 134 Anton Hykisch, Ak o chutf politika Marcel Jesenskf ............. .............. .......... .... ..... ... ........ ................ . 136 Jan Rychlik, R ozpad Ceskoslovenska Jura} Hocman ........ ......... ....... ................................... ....... ..... .. ...... 138 Contributors ........ ............. ...... ....... .... .... ...... ... ................... .... .............. 14 1 Guidelines for Manuscripts ........... ........................ .. .......... ................. 143 �ARTICLES �� SLOVAKIA Published By THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA ��SLOVAKIA NUMBERS 72-73 2007 VOLUME XXXIX A scholarly annual devoted to the history, literature and culture of the Slovaks the world over Editor M. MARK STOLAR IK University of Ottawa Editorial Board ROB ERT K. EV ANSON Uni ve rsity of Mi ssouri MI C HAEL NOVAK American Enterpri se Institute PETER PETRO Uni ve rsity of Briti sh Co lumbi a JAM ES R. FELAK Uni ve rsity of Washington PATRICIA KRAFC IK The Evergreen State Co llege C AROLS . LEFF University of Illinoi s Publisher Slovak League of America 205 Madi son Street Passa ic, NJ 07055 , USA Inquiries regardin g subscripti ons should be sent to the above address. The cost of a sing le issue is $ 10.00 Manuscripts fo r possible publication and books for review should be sent to M. Mark Stolarik, Editor, Slovakia 22 Bren-Maur Road, epean, Ontario, Canada , K2J 3Z7 sto larik@ uot tawa.ca ��Table of Contents ARTICLES The Slovak League of America and the Canadian Slovak League in the Struggle for the Self-Determination of the Nation , 1907-1992 M. M ark Stolarik ....... ..... ........................... ......... .......... .......... ...... ... 7 Slovak Partizan Commanders in World War II: The Case of Josef Trojan R. Vladimir Baumgarten .......................... ......... ................... ... ...... 36 Czechoslovakia 1945-1950: A Failure of Intelligence Igor Lukes ................. .. .. ........................... ............................... ....... 50 Janosfk as a Symbol of Freedom in Communist Slovakia Patricia A. Krafcik ............. .............................. .......................... .... 63 A Highway man' s Life: Extant Documents About Janosfk Martin Votruba .. ..... .... .......... ............ .. ............. ... .. ...... ................... 81 The I 988 Pilgrimage at Velehrad : Slovak Catholics and the Creation of a Public Space David Doe/linger ......................... ......................... ................ ......... 99 REVIEW ESSAYS Subcarpathian Rus' and the New Slovak Historiography Paul Robert Magocsi ....................... .................. ................. ......... 119 Zbornfk Filozofickej fakulty Univerzity Komenskeho, PHILOLOGICA LX Jan Simko ..... ............ .. ............................. .. ...... ... ...... ............... ..... 123 �4 SLOVAKIA REVIEWS Jan Steinhtibel, Nitriansk e knieiatstvo M. Mark Stolarik ................................ .... .. .... ... ... .................... ..... 131 Dusan Kovac et. al. , Na zaciatku storocia, 1901-1 914 Gregory C. Ference ....... .... ................ .................. .... .................... 132 Ivan A. Petransky, Stat a katolfcka cirkev na Slovensku, 1945- 1946 Jam es Ram on Pelak ............ ...................... ............... .............. ...... 134 Anton Hykisch, Ak o chutf politika Marcel Jesenskf ............. .............. .......... .... ..... ... ........ ................ . 136 Jan Rychlik, R ozpad Ceskoslovenska Jura} Hocman ........ ......... ....... ................................... ....... ..... .. ...... 138 Contributors ........ ............. ...... ....... .... .... ...... ... ................... .... .............. 14 1 Guidelines for Manuscripts ........... ........................ .. .......... ................. 143 �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 2007, Vol. 39 Description An account of the resource Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007. 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 2007 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 NUMBERS 72-73 2007 VOLUME XXXIX A scholarly annual devoted to the history, literature and culture of the Slovaks the world over Editor M. MARK STOLAR IK University of Ottawa Editorial Board ROB ERT K. EV ANSON Uni ve rsity of Mi ssouri MI C HAEL NOVAK American Enterpri se Institute PETER PETRO Uni ve rsity of Briti sh Co lumbi a JAM ES R. FELAK Uni ve rsity of Washington PATRICIA KRAFC IK The Evergreen State Co llege C AROLS . LEFF University of Illinoi s Publisher Slovak League of America 205 Madi son Street Passa ic, NJ 07055 , USA Inquiries regardin g subscripti ons should be sent to the above address. The cost of a sing le issue is $ 10.00 Manuscripts fo r possible publication and books for review should be sent to M. Mark Stolarik, Editor, Slovakia 22 Bren-Maur Road, epean, Ontario, Canada , K2J 3Z7 sto larik@ uot tawa.ca Table of Contents ARTICLES The Slovak League of America and the Canadian Slovak League in the Struggle for the Self-Determination of the Nation , 1907-1992 M. M ark Stolarik ....... ..... ........................... ......... .......... .......... ...... ... 7 Slovak Partizan Commanders in World War II: The Case of Josef Trojan R. Vladimir Baumgarten .......................... ......... ................... ... ...... 36 Czechoslovakia 1945-1950: A Failure of Intelligence Igor Lukes ................. .. .. ........................... ............................... ....... 50 Janosfk as a Symbol of Freedom in Communist Slovakia Patricia A. Krafcik ............. .............................. .......................... .... 63 A Highway man' s Life: Extant Documents About Janosfk Martin Votruba .. ..... .... .......... ............ .. ............. ... .. ...... ................... 81 The I 988 Pilgrimage at Velehrad : Slovak Catholics and the Creation of a Public Space David Doe/linger ......................... ......................... ................ ......... 99 REVIEW ESSAYS Subcarpathian Rus' and the New Slovak Historiography Paul Robert Magocsi ....................... .................. ................. ......... 119 Zbornfk Filozofickej fakulty Univerzity Komenskeho, PHILOLOGICA LX Jan Simko ..... ............ .. ............................. .. ...... ... ...... ............... ..... 123 4 SLOVAKIA REVIEWS Jan Steinhtibel, Nitriansk e knieiatstvo M. Mark Stolarik ................................ .... .. .... ... ... .................... ..... 131 Dusan Kovac et. al. , Na zaciatku storocia, 1901-1 914 Gregory C. Ference ....... .... ................ .................. .... .................... 132 Ivan A. Petransky, Stat a katolfcka cirkev na Slovensku, 1945- 1946 Jam es Ram on Pelak ............ ...................... ............... .............. ...... 134 Anton Hykisch, Ak o chutf politika Marcel Jesenskf ............. .............. .......... .... ..... ... ........ ................ . 136 Jan Rychlik, R ozpad Ceskoslovenska Jura} Hocman ........ ......... ....... ................................... ....... ..... .. ...... 138 Contributors ........ ............. ...... ....... .... .... ...... ... ................... .... .............. 14 1 Guidelines for Manuscripts ........... ........................ .. .......... ................. 143 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. 39 (No. 72-73) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007