1 50 10 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/9413ffa2fd93e550347188753b7d33a3.pdf 7fdf70c9433ba45bf2de2217e32752cd PDF Text Text 32 SLOVAKIA ANDREJ HLINKA'S JOURNEY TO THE USA IN 1926 Stefan Kucik Andrej Hlinka belongs among those in Slovak history whose achievements await a complex analysis and evaluation. He and his activities were ignored or misinterpreted by most Marxist historians during the communist era. On the other hand, he was also very controversial. The aim of this article is to analyze the circumstances and the course of his journey to the USA in 1926. Although the official reason for Hlinka's journey was to participate in the 28 th International Eucharistic Congress in Chicago, he made use of his visit to lecture to American Slovaks and to raise funds for the cause of Slovak autonomy in the Czechoslovak Republic. After some disagreements between the Slovak League of America and Jozef Husek, the lecture tour was held under the auspices of the Slovak League of America with the support of the Slovak clergy, organizations, newspapers and other societies. Even if his lecture tour to the USA proved financially disappointing to Hlinka, he did win the sympathy of American Slovaks to his person, and to the autonomist movement in Slovakia. On June 20- 24, 1926 the 28 th International Eucharistic Congress took place in Chicago, Illinois. As the first such Congress on the soil of the United States of America, 1 it presented the Reverend Andrej Hlinka of Rufomberok an opportunity to visit American Slovaks for the first time. Although American Slovaks had already invited Hlinka visit them in 1924, Czechoslovak authorities had refused to grant him a passport because he had been prosecuted for having illegally travelled to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. In 1926 he was again prosecuted and, despite having been cleared by the County Court in Bratislava, in March of that year, he was sentenced by the Supreme Court to eight days in jail for his article on T. G. Masaryk' s favortism of the Jews published in the daily Slovak on April 5, 1924. 1 The second time such a congress met in th e USA was in 1976 tional Euchari stic Congress in Philade lphia, Pennsy lvani a, the 4 1st Interna- �SLOVAKIA 33 After explaining that he wished to travel to the Eucharistic Congress, Jan Cerny' s administration finally granted him a passport. 2 Andrej Hlinka was repeatedly invited to America by the Committee of Friends of Slovak Freedom led by Jozef Husek.3 On April 21 , 1926 the weekly Jednota published a letter from Hlinka to Husek dated April 3, 1926. In this letter Hlinka announced that he would arrive accompanied by his secretary Andrej Genit and the Parliamentary Deputy Jozef Buday on June 3-4, 1926. He asked Husek to prepare a schedule for his lectures. He wrote that his passport was valid for half a year, which he wished to spend in the USA, provided that political issues would not force his return home. 4 While Hlinka was granted a passport to travel to the Eucharistic Congress on April 30, 1926, the Ministry with Full Powers for the Administration of Slovakia in Bratislava informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague about the details of Hlinka's planned journey. According to the Ministry in Bratislava, the goal of Hlinka's journey was to spread autonomist propaganda on behalf of the Hlinka's Slovak People's Party (hereinafter HSPP) and to raise funds for the Party. He also allegedly planned to draft a resolution of Slovak complaints and pleas and to submit it to the Czechoslovak government and to the League ofNations.5 Hlinka outlined the programme of his journey in the daily Slovak on May 23 , 1926. Among other things he stated that, as early as in 1894 he was asked by American Slovaks to "choke the hydra" of brotherly quarrels among them, but thus far he had not been enable to do so. Now he was going to America to enlighten the Slovaks and to help the Republic and the nation. He was going where the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Agreements were signed. He wanted to see with 2 Karol Sidor, Andrej Hli nka (I 864 - I 926) (Brati slava, 1934), p. 544 . Ibid. , p. 543. 4 Archiv Ministerstva zahran icnich veci Ceske republiky [Archi ves of the Mini stry of Foreign Affa irs of the Czech Republi c] (here inafter AMZV CR), fund (here inafter f. ) Ill. sekce MZV 19 I 8 - 1939 [3 rd section Mini stry of Foreign Affairs 19 I 8 193 8] (hereinafter III), in ventory number (hereinafter i. no.) 22 , fo lder (here inafter fold .) 651 . The report o f the Consul ate of the Czechoslovak Republic (hereinafter CSR) in Pittsburgh, to the Mini stry of Foreign Affa irs (hereinafter MFA ) of the CSR in Prague from April 22, 1926 ; Jednota, April 2 1, 1926, p. 4. 5 AMZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22, fo ld. 651. Letter of the Minister of the CSR with Full Powers fo r the Admini stration of Slovakia in Brati slava to the MFA in Prague, April 30, 1926 . 3 �34 SLOVAKIA his own eyes and hear with his own ears if it was a sin to demand autonomy for Slovakia within the Czechoslovak Republic and the Czechoslovak Constitution. 6 At the time of the Hlinka's trip to the USA, reports of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh characterized the situation in the Slovak autonomist camp in America as quite tense. Besides personal problems, anxiety arose from frustration arising from the Czechoslovak government' s failure to uphold the Pittsburgh Agreement. Meanwhile, State Insurance Commissioners were exerting pressure on fraternal societies to increase their monthly dues, which greatly upset their members. 7 The reports of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh also described an alleged rivalry between Ivan Bielek, the President of the Slovak League of America and Jozef Rusek. Apparently, Rusek feared losing his editorship of the weekly Jednota at the upcoming 22 nd convention of the First Catholic Slovak Union in Scranton, Pennsylvania on September 20 - 25 , 1926. His rival was Jan C. Sciranka, editor of Slovak v Amerike. The owner of the Slovak v Amerike was Bielek's brother-in-law Christopher L. Orbach.8 However, according to the report of the Pittsburgh Consulate, the tension between Bielek and Rusek soon dissipated. On April 14, 1926 Bielek published an article entitled Segedin-Mirov in Slo vak v Amerike, in which he denounced the imprisonment of Hlinka in the Czech Mirov prison for having offended President Masaryk. According to the Consulate, Bielek did so because he needed Husek's support at the upcoming convention of the National Slovak Society and the congress of the Slovak League of America. 9 Soon, however, arguments within the Slovak-American autonomist camp broke out again, thanks to Jozef Rusek. In a letter of April 3, 1926, Hlinka asked Rusek to prepare his lecture schedule. Rusek began to register applications for Hlinka's lectures and he wished to carry out this tour under the aegis of the Committe of Friends of Slovak Freedom. Some newspapers and organizations protested: the banker Michal Bosak in his weekly Obrana, a number of priests who 6 Slovak, May 23, 1926, pp. 1-2. AMZ V CR, f. III , i. no. 22, fo ld. 650. Report of the Consul ate of the CSR in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, April 15, 1926. 8 ibid. 9 i bid. 7 �SLOVAKIA 35 supported the programme of the Magyarone priest Frantisek Jehlicska for the return of Slovakia to Hungary, and Bielek and Orbach in 10 Slovak v Amerike. In addition, the Committe had already been out of existence for three years. It was originally founded to purge the "Czechoslovaks" from the Slovak League of America, and then it merged with it. Despite this fact, Husek kept the title of president of this non-existent organization, announced the arrival of Hlinka to Slovak priests and newspapers and launched the campaign on his own. II Although Jozef Husek, through his contact with Slovak priests in America started to organize Hlinka's lecture tour, the Slovak League of America, led by president Bielek, also started to organize the lectures. It established an organizing committee, composed almost entirely of priests. Husek refused to become a member of this committee and the Slovak v Amerike started to complain about Husek's actions. 12 As a result, a group of Slovak priests ended up organizing Hlinka's lecture tour and the Slovak League of America, even though it compiled the schedule of the lectures, did not control the • 13 pnests. On May 26-27 the 16 th congress of the Slovak League of America was held in Detroit. The congress "with great joy received the news, that the noble leader of the Slovak nation, Msgr. Hlinka, President of the People's Party, would visit American Slovaks." It expressed confidence in him and promised that it would "with all its strength help his noble efforts and during his stay he would be a guest of the Slovak League of America." 14 Hlinka and his colleague Jozef Buday, together with Hynek Dostal , editor of the Czech-American newspaper Hlas, which supported autonomy for the Slovaks, 15 were named honorary members of the Slovak League of America. 10 AMZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22 , fo ld . 65 1. Situat ion report in Pittsburgh, to the MF A in Prague, October 5, 1926. 11 AMZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22 , fold. 65 1. Situation report in Pittsburgh, to the MF A in Prague, June 11 , 1926. 12 A MZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22, fo ld . 65 1. Situation report in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prag ue, October 5, I 926. 13 Ibid. 14 A MZV CR, f. 111 , i. no. 22 , fo ld . 65 1. Situation report in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, June 11 , 1926. 15 Ibid. of the Consul ate of the CS R of the Consulate of the CSR of the Consul ate of the CSR of the Co nsulate of the CSR �36 SLOVAKIA At the congress of the Slovak League, the previous officers were re-elected under the leadership of Ivan Bielek. Husek criticized this outcome. 16 He reported that the League had no funds , he accused the officers of incompetence, and warned that the League would perish if nothing was done to build up its treasury. 17 However, all these arguments between Husek and Bielek were simply personal. In fact, the Slovak League under the leadership of Ivan Bielek (1920- 1934) championed the Pittsburgh Agreement and openly supported the Slovak autonomist movement in the Czechoslovak Republic . The "Czechoslovaks" in America also prepared for the arrival of Andrej Hlinka. For instance, the Reverend Jozef Murgas of WilkesBarre, Pennsylvania, promised Milan Getting, the Czechoslovak consul in Pittsburgh, that at the next meeting of priests of eastern Pennsylvania, he would ask them if their real interest was in politics or in religion and he promised to inform Getting of their answer. 18 Hlinka's arrival was announced by the daily Slovak (Bratislava) on June 4, 1926: "On June 3 our editorial staff received this telegram from Halifax : We have arrived safely. - Hlinka." 19 From the Canadian port of Halifax, Hlinka' s ship continued on to New York City, where it docked on June 5, 1926. 20 About 300 American Slovaks welcomed Hlinka at the dock. Once he had disembarked, Hlinka briefly outlined the goal of his journey. He stressed that he had come to work for both the Slovak nation and for his homeland, the Czechoslovak Republic. He emphasized concord, unity, the settling of petty arguments and forgivness, because "the nation needs us all and it needs us united." 21 In a 26-car procession the delegation proceeded to the Church of St. John Nepomucene on 66 th street, where the Reverend Stefan J. Krasul'a had been the pastor since 1916. An official reception was held in the Parish Hall, where the representatives of American Slovaks delivered their speeches.22 Here Andrej Hlinka spoke his 16 Ibid. Jednota, Jun e 2, 1926, p. 4. 18 A MZ V CR, f. III, i. no. 22, fo ld. 65 1. Missive of the Consul ate of the CSR in Pittsburgh, to the MFA , April 15, I 926. "Czechos lovaks" were Slovaks who supp,orted th e unitary policies of the Czechoslovak government in Prague. 9 Slovak, June 5, 1926, p. I. 20 Slovak, June 23, 1926, p. 5. 21 Jednota, June 9, 1926, p. I. 22 Slovak, June 23, 1926, p. 5. 17 �SLOVAKIA 37 memorable words: "If there were no America, Slovakia would still be under the Magyar yoke. To its credit the Slovaks finally got rid of the thousand-year subjugation." 23 The Slovak League of America officially welcomed Hlinka in the evening at a session of its local branch. 24 On this occassion the Slovak League also issued an official communique which was published by the daily Slowik in Bratislava. 25 A banquet was held the next day under the aegis of the Slovak League of America with the support of the Slovak clergy, organizations, newspapers and other societies. The banquet marked the completion of the programme of welcome with speeches by representatives of various Slovak organizations. Hlinka and Buday were presented with special diplomas, certifying that the Slovak League of America had granted them honorary memberships. 26 After the official welcome in New York, Jozef Rusek left the organizing of Hlinka's lecture tour to the Slovak League of America. 27 It began in Chicago after the end of the Eucharistic Congress on June 27, 1926. 28 According to the official announcement of the president of the Slovak League of America, published in the daily Slovak on July 14, 1926, Hlinka requested that lectures be presented on working days, because at the time of the announcement, there were already 136 requests for lectures. 29 Since the content of Hlinka's lecture in Chicago was generally the same as at other places in the USA, I will summarize it based upon the report of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Chicago. The lecture was held in the Ashland Boulevard Auditorium which had a capacity of 4,000. The Czechoslovak Consulate in Chicago stated that two thirds of the hall was filled, 30 which, in comparison with the 23 Jednota, June 9, 1926, p. I. Slovak, June 23 , 1926, p. 5. 25 Slovak, June 16, 1926, p. I. 26 Slovak, June 23 , 1926, p. 5. 27 PAUCO, Jozef. 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty 1890 - 1965 (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union, 1965), p. 210. 28 AMZV CR, f. lll, i. no. 22, fold. 651. Report of the Consulate of the CSR in Chicago on the political activities of the People 's Party leaders in the Chicago region. Supplement to a letter of the Embassy of the CSR in Washington, DC, July 30, 1926. 29 Slovak, July 14, 1926, p. 3. 30 The daily Slovak gave the number of 5,000 - 5,500 and stated that the hall was overcrowded. Cf. Slovak, July 16, I 926, p. 3. 24 �38 SLOVAKIA number of Slovaks living in Chicago, the majority of whom were Catholics, was not that great. Information on the lectures was also disseminated by priests from their pulpits. Tickets were sold in the churches and by the Slovak Catholic Federation. This was designed to prevent unauthorized persons from attending. The $1,000 rent for the hall was paid by the Slovak Catholic Federation. The profits were given to Andrej Hlinka. Tickets were sold for 50 and 75 cents, $1.00 and $2.00, depending upon the seating.31 As the report of the Consulate states, the beginning of the lecture was scheduled for 2:00 p.m. However, Hlinka and his entourage arrived at 2:45 p.m. The audience welcomed him with a standing ovation. The session was openned by Jan Mayer, the president of the Slovak Catholic Federation, who introduced the guests. After him Gregor K. Vaniscak, the pastor of the Slovak Parish of St. Michael the Archangel in Chicago, spoke highly of the great Andrej Hlinka's work for the Slovak nation. He compared Hlinka with the three "most important people in world history" - George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Cardinal Richelieu. After that Andrej Hlinka delivered his speech. The audience greeted him with applause and some shouted: "Viva, hooray! " Somebody from the audience, allegedly a Slovak Communist, tried to disrupt the lecture and shouted "Shame on him!" for which he was ejected by the police. Some tried to distribute the communist daily Rovnost' /'udu, for which they were also ejected and held overnight at the police station. According to the report of the Chicago consulate, Andrej Hlinka first read the list of donors who contributed to the fund Narod sebe [The Nation for Itself] and to the HSPP's election fund . He asked the donors to keep their trust in him, because he had received all the money and had spent every penny for the right purpose. As evidence he cited the establishment of Slovak Catholic enterprises such as the Lev printery, the daily Slovak, and, most importantly, the half million votes that the HSPP had gained in the last parliamentary elections, which made it the most powerful political party in Slovakia. He asked American Slovaks to continue to remember the HSPP and its struggle for recognition of the Pittsburgh Agreement and the autono31 A MZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22 , fo ld . 65 1. Report of the Consu late of th e CS R in Chi cago on the political acti vities of th e Peopl e's Party leaders in th e Chi cago region. Supplement to a letter of th e Embassy of the CS R in Was hin gton, DC, Jul y 30, 1926. �SLOVAKIA 39 my of Slovakia. Hlinka stated that he and the HSPP did not want anything more than that Slovaks be masters in Slovakia and Czechs in Bohemia and that Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" concerning the self-determination of nations be also applied to the Slovaks and the Pittsburgh Agreement. He declared that he was not against the Czechoslovak Republic and he was ready to "both live and die" for it, because October 28 was also the result of his nation-building efforts . He had struggled in Slovakia against the Magyars, who imprisoned him, first in Rufomberok, and then in Segedin. He added that Slovakia had long awaited October 28, 1918 as the day of liberation from the Magyar yoke. However, Hlinka continued, Slovak sons did not fight in the Czechoslovak Legions to move from one yoke to another. Instead of freedom , Slovaks were now offered "Czechization." Jozef M. Hurban, when he with others led the revolt against the Magyars in 1848, already spoke of the Slovak nation and not a "branch of the Czech nation." Similarly, when the Matica slovenska was founded in 1863, the Slovak leaders set its aim as the defence of the Slovak language as a national language and not a "Czech dialect." To spread the Czech language in Slovakia it was not necessary to establish the Matica slovenska. Therefore, if Hlinka now demands autonomy for Slovakia and wants the Pittsburgh Agreement to be respected and incorporated into the Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic, he does not want anything new. The Memorandum of Stefan Marko Daxner from as early as in the 1860's requested from the Hungarian government a so-called "Slovak Region" that completely agrees with his present request for autonomy. However, according to Hlinka, the Czech language rules in Slovak courts, offices and schools. Catholic schools were taken from the Slovaks in spite of the fact that the Catholics form the majority in Slovakia and they have to pay taxes to maintain the school system. For these taxes Slovak Catholic children are being indoctrinated with atheism and are taught by teachers such as a certain Bilek, who was a servant in Bohemia, but in Slovakia was made a high school professor! Moreover, Hlinka continued, Slovak intellectuals cannot find work at home. Slovak workers have to look for freedom in America. Despite the fact that Slovaks constitute 15% of the total number of inhabitants in Czechoslovakia, they are virtually absent from the �40 SLOVAKIA state administration . In high schools Slovaks have no principal. From among 786 high school professors, only 175 are Slovaks. An even greater disproportion exists in the railways--from among 13,000 employees, only 412 are Slovaks. There are enough qualified intellectuals in Slovakia, but the Prague government ignores them. Therefore, the demand for autonomy is not just political posturing, but is a cultural and economic need and is crucial to the existence of the Slovak nation. Furthermore, Hlinka stated that he wanted the Slovak and Czech nations to come together and jointly work on maintaining and developing their common state, but by observing equality in the national, cultural and economic spheres. He is not creating discord for the sake of discord. He supports the Czechoslovak Republic, which he proved when the communist attack on Slovakia occurred. Then the Czechoslovak governent had an opportunity to negotiate with him and establish order; the same was true after the last parliamentary elections, in which the HSPP gained the largest number of votes in Slovakia. However, the HSPP was not even noticed by the Czechoslovak government, it was not called by the government and it was even not considered to be necessary to negotiate with it.32 As the consulate report stated, Andrej Hlinka spoke for more than an hour. The tone of his voice was gentle and polite, hence very impressive. The audience often expressed its approval with applause, especially when he defended himself against accusations of treason and Magyaronism. On this occassion he stated that his life was an open book, from which every unbiased person could read, that he had always been selflessly fighting for the rights of the Slovak people. Before World War I, when he defended the rights of the Slovaks, the Magyars accused him of being a "Pan-Slav" and after the war, when he defended the same rights, the secularists and gullible Czechs accused him of being a Magyarone. In this context he asked the audience if it was possible that he would lead the Slovak people back to Magyar slavery, in which it had suffered for more than a thousand years? If anybody with common sense could accuse him of being an instrument of the Magyars, who, because of his fight for the rights of the Slovak nation, had escorted him from one prison to another? Hlinka concluded with an appeal to American 32 Ibid. �SLOVAKIA 41 Slovaks to support him and the HSPP in this fight for autonomy and the recognition of the Pittsburgh Agreement. 33 After Hlinka Jozef Buday delivered his speech. According to the consular report, he was "thoughtless and rudely incited against the atheistic Czechs." He complemented the factual parts of the speech, in which Hlinka mentioned the Czech injustice against the Slovaks. 34 The consular report further stated that F. Wilson, a representative of the district council, spoke after Buday. After him came Andrej Gerat, who criticized the methods of education in Slovakia. After Gerat the Rev. G. K. Vaniscak read this resolution: 1. We support the Czecho-Slovak Republic. 2. We demand that the Pittsburgh Agreement to be incorporated into its Constitution. 3. We demand for Slovaks Slovak Christian schools . 4. We demand that in Slovakia the Slovaks be given priority m government offices, post offices, the railways, etc. 5. We demand that the Slovak language be exclusively used as the official language in all schools, offices, etc. After Vaniscak read the resolution, he asked the audience to possibly supplement it. Allegedly, some Communist suggested that all county and episcopal manors be confiscated and parceled out to the poor. After a short silence, the audience started to rise up and wanted to throw him out. Andrej Hlinka called for calm and said that the question had been politely put, so it would be politely answered. He answered that he agreed that all the manors be parceled out to the people who tilled them. Though the government is doing so, it is doing it along political lines. Concerning the episcopal manors, these belong to the Church, ergo to the people. From them schools, monasteries, publications, magazines and everything that the Church needs are maintained. Why should these manors be confiscated and parceled out when they are owned by all the people? 35 The Communist, as the daily Slo vak noted, said: "Thank you for the explanation, now 33 34 35 Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. �42 SLOVAKIA I know everything. I am content. " 36 The resolution was approved in the original wording. 37 Before the session ended, Andrej Hlinka talked to his countrymen from Orava about the annexation of parts of Spis and Orava by Poland. In the name of the HSPP he promised that he would negotiate to have these regions returned to Slovakia. 38 The session concluded with the national hymn ,,Lightening over the Tatras." 39 There followed a banquet, at which Frantiska C. Jakabcinova, the president of the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union, gave Hlinka and Buday a gold membership medal and a gift of $1,000.40 On July 3, 1926, Andrej Hlinka had one more lecture in Chicago, the content of which was much the same as the first one. Among other places at which Hlinka and Buday lectured were Kenosha, Wisconsin, on July 3, Milwaukee, on July 14, Streator, Illinois, on July 5, Mount Olive, Illinois, on July 8, East St. Louis, on July 10, St. Louis, Missouri, on July 11 , and in Whiting, Indiana, on July 14, 1926. Then Hlinka's lectures continued in the Cleveland region. The content of these lectures was everywhere almost the same. 41 According to the consular report, the impact of Hlinka' s lectures upon the Slovak people in America was great. Workers debated them in factories and there were also quarrels and even battles (in Hege42 wich, Illinois, and Chicago Heights). Andrej Hlinka's message was summed up by Milan Getting, the Czechoslovak consul in Pittsburgh, as follows: 1. A. Hlinka declined an interview with the editorial staff of the Czech Narodne listy before his departure to America; 36 Slovak, July 16, 1926, p. 3. 37 A MZV CR, f. III , i. no. 22, fo ld . 651. Report of the Co nsul ate of the CS R in Chica- go on the political activ ities of th e Peo ple's Party leaders in the Chi cago region . Suppl ement to a letter of th e Embassy of the CSR in Washin gton, DC, Jul y 30, 1926. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Slovak, Jul y 16, 1926, p. 3. 41 A MZV CR, f. III, i. no. 22 , fold. 651. Report of the Consul ate of the CS R in Chicago on the political activities of the People 's Party leaders in the Chi cago region . Supplement to a letter of the Embassy of the CS R in Washington , DC, Jul y 30, 1926. 42 Ibid. �SLOVAKIA 43 2. He does not fear the separation of church and state and he foretold the extinction of the Slovak Lutherans if it happened; 3. The next president of Czechoslovakia will accept the Pittsburgh Agreement; 4. Hlinka severely criticized Edvard Benes and Vavro Srobar; 5. Hlinka stressed several times that he had nothing to do with Frantisek Jehlicska, but he lectured at places, where the lectures were organized by Jehlicska's followers; 6. The lectures resulted in an anti-Czech mood; 7. Collecting money was many times carried out in such a way as if it were the only purpose of the lectures; 8. Andrej Gerat put most of the resolutions to a vote for further use in Slovakia.43 Hlinka, according to his own words, visited more than one hundred parishes, took part in eighty sessions and had more than two hundred lectures. "In the whole of America only four Catholic priests did not attend our lectures that were held in their town or neighborhood." 44 Part of Andrej Hlinka's journey to the USA was for the purpose of fund-raising . The Slovak League of America created a motto for the collection: Fund for the Victory of the Slovak Nation. In this context it printed envelopes with the following text: I believe in the sovereignty of the Slovak nation. I believe in the united Czecho-Slovak Republic. I believe my own contrymen-leaders. I believe in the gradual administration of Slovakia. I believe that a Slovak should have priority in Slovakia. I believe that a Czech is Czech and a Slovak is Slovak. I believe that, by enacting the Pittsburgh Agreement, conditions between Czechs and Slovaks will improve, hence we willingly support the Fund for the Victory of the Slovak Nation. 45 43 A MZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22 , fold. 65 1. Situation report of the Consu late of the CS R in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, October 5, 1926. 44 Andrej Hlinka v Amerike [Andrej Hlinka in America]. In Jednota : Katolic/..y kalendar na obycajny rok 192 7. Middletown, PA: First Catholi c Slovak Union, 1927, p. 38. 45 A MZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22, fold. 65 1. Situation report of the Consulate of the CS R in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, October 5, 1926 . �44 SLOVAKIA At the same time the Slovak League of America published the leaflet Svoji svojim [One for oneself] , in which it invited people to become its members. 46 However, the Slovak League did not have much influence over the financial part of Hlinka' s lectures. These were organized by priests in a committee established by the League. Allegedly, the envelopes were not distributed everywhere and it might happen that a local priest took the collected money, withdrew a certain amount to cover the costs of organizing the lecture, and turned the balance over to Hlinka in the form of a personal check. 47 About the collections it can be said that, there were fs laces where the fund-raising drive could not be properly organized, 8 but, on the other hand, there were places where a sizeable amount of money was raised. Milan Getting estimated the total raised was $10,000. However, he added that his estimate should be treated with some reserve. For instance, at the convention of the First Catholic Slovak Union in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in September of 1926, Jozef Husek allegedly proposed to give Hlinka $5 ,000, but the delegates objected that the head office gave, without their consent, $1 ,000 to each Slovak bishop. They agreed on the same amount for Andrej Hlinka.49 At that time, the assets of the organization totaled $5,095 ,583 .37.50 The Slovak League of America, according to the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh, could not contribute to Hlinka, because its treasury was too small. 5 1 The final result of the fund-raising drive was most pertinently expressed by Hlinka in his letter to the Reverend Jan Postenyi after his return from the USA: "As you know, I have returned with fame , pennants and rings-but not many dollars. Business is business and I 46 AMZ V CR, f. III , i. no. 22, fo ld. 65 1. The leaflet Svoji svojim. AMZV CR, f. lll, i. no. 22, fo ld . 651 . Situati on report of the Consul ate of the CS R in Pittsburgh, to the MF A in Prague, October 5, 1926. 48 For instance, the lecture in Pittsburgh, that was held on Sund ay August 8, 1926, because according to Pennsylvania law, one co uld not collect an entrance fee. Cf. Ibid 49 AMZ V CR, f. lll, i. no. 22 , fo ld. 651 . Situati on report of the Consul ate of th e CS R in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, October 5, 1926. 50 PAUCO, Jozef. 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty 1890 - / 965 (Cleveland : First Catholic Slovak Uni on, I 965), p. 2 I 2. 51 AMZ V CR, f. III, i. no. 22, fo ld . 651 . Situation report of th e Consul ate of the CS R in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, October 5, I 926. 47 �SLOVAKIA 45 am not very good at it. I am a great idealist and our masters, the bishops, skimmed off the cream." 52 According to the report of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh, Andrej Hlinka ended his lecture tour by annoying his sympathizers in America. Allegedly, Gerat did not stick to the official schedule, which resulted in Hlinka presenting his lectures without reference to the local organizing committee. However, the main cause of the annoyance of American Slovaks was the fact that Hlinka refused to lecture at the parish of the nationalist Stefan Panik in Torrington, Connecticut, but instead agreed to lecture at Andrej Komara's parish in Bridgeport, Connecticut. 53 As Milan Getting noted, Komara had been denounced by neighboring Slovak priests as a Magyarone. Therefore, by accepting his invitation, Hlinka disappointed many of his followers .54 Allegedly, after the lecture at Komara's parish on October 3, 1926, Hlinka and Gerat55 began to show a certain nervousness. This, according to the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh, arose from the fact that Hlinka had failed to settle the arguments in the SlovakAmerican Catholic camp. It could also have been a result of their disappointment in the fund-raising drive. Another reason could have been the development of the political situation back home. In addition, Hlinka could see that the audience at his lectures was declining. He may also have been frustrated by articles published in the Czechoslovak daily Newyorsky dennik, which attacked him during his whole stay in the USA. 56 52 Archiv Spolku sv. Vojtecha v Tmave [Archives of the Society of St. Adalbert in Tmava] , fascic le (hereinafter fasc.) 156. Letter of A. Hlinka to J. Postenyi, November 3, 1926. 53 According to the Newyorsky dennik, Komara promised Hlinka $2,000, which, according to Getting, Hlinka did not deny. Cf. AMZV CR, f. Ill, i. no. 22, fold. 651. Situation report of the Consulate of the CSR in Pittsburgh, to the MFA of th e CSR in Prague from October 15 , 1926. Not following the schedule of the lectures was also reported in Jednota, October 6, 1926, p. 2. 54 AMZV CR, f. III , i. no. 22, fold. 651. Situation report of the Consulate of the CSR in Pittsburgh, to the MF A of the CSR in Prague from October 15, 1926. 55 Meanwhile, Buday returned to Slovakia. He left America on July 24, 1926. Cf. Slovak, August 6, 1926, p. 1. 56 AMZV CR, f. 111, i. no. 22, fold. 651. Situation report of the Consulate of the CSR in Pittsburgh, to the MFA of the CSR in Prague from October 15, 1926. �46 SLOVAKIA The last of Hlinka's lectures in the USA was in New York City on October 11 , 1926. 57 He left the USA on October 13 , 1926 and returned to Slovakia on October 22, 1926. 58 Even if the conclusion of his lecture tour to the USA looked disappointing, it did not radically affect the attitudes of American Slovaks to his person, nor the autonomist movement in Slovakia. It is apparent, therefore, that on the occasion of the 28 th International Eucharistic Congress in Chicago, Illinois, Andrej Hlinka, made use of his trip to lecture and to raise funds in favour of autonomy within the Czechoslovak Republic. According to the report of the Czechoslovak consulate in Pittsburgh, the situation in the Slovak autonomist camp in America at that time was quite tense. The reasons for the tension were personal problems, frustration arising from the Czechoslovak government's failure to uphold the Pittsburgh Agreement and the pressure of State Insurance Commissioners on fraternal societies to increase their monthly dues. After initial disagreements, Hlinka's lecture tour was organized by a committee composed almost entirely of priests. Hlinka visited more than one hundred Slovak parishes, took part in eighty discussions and presented more than two hundred lectures. However, the fund-raising drive did not bring the expected results. In addition, according to the report of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh, Andrej Hlinka ended his lecture tour by annoying his sympathizers in America by not having respected the schedule of the local organizational committee. The main cause of the annoyance, however, was the fact that Hlinka refused to lecture at nationalist Stefan Panik's parish in Torrington, Connecticut, but rather at the parish of the alleged Magyarone Andrej Komara in Bridgeport. Even if in the end his lecture tour to the USA disappointed many Slovak nationalists, Hlinka did not lose the sympathy of American Slovaks, nor support for the autonomist movement in Slovakia. 57 58 Ibid. Slo vak, October 23 , 1926, p. 3. � 32 SLOVAKIA ANDREJ HLINKA'S JOURNEY TO THE USA IN 1926 Stefan Kucik Andrej Hlinka belongs among those in Slovak history whose achievements await a complex analysis and evaluation. He and his activities were ignored or misinterpreted by most Marxist historians during the communist era. On the other hand, he was also very controversial. The aim of this article is to analyze the circumstances and the course of his journey to the USA in 1926. Although the official reason for Hlinka's journey was to participate in the 28 th International Eucharistic Congress in Chicago, he made use of his visit to lecture to American Slovaks and to raise funds for the cause of Slovak autonomy in the Czechoslovak Republic. After some disagreements between the Slovak League of America and Jozef Husek, the lecture tour was held under the auspices of the Slovak League of America with the support of the Slovak clergy, organizations, newspapers and other societies. Even if his lecture tour to the USA proved financially disappointing to Hlinka, he did win the sympathy of American Slovaks to his person, and to the autonomist movement in Slovakia. On June 20- 24, 1926 the 28 th International Eucharistic Congress took place in Chicago, Illinois. As the first such Congress on the soil of the United States of America, 1 it presented the Reverend Andrej Hlinka of Rufomberok an opportunity to visit American Slovaks for the first time. Although American Slovaks had already invited Hlinka visit them in 1924, Czechoslovak authorities had refused to grant him a passport because he had been prosecuted for having illegally travelled to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. In 1926 he was again prosecuted and, despite having been cleared by the County Court in Bratislava, in March of that year, he was sentenced by the Supreme Court to eight days in jail for his article on T. G. Masaryk' s favortism of the Jews published in the daily Slovak on April 5, 1924. 1 The second time such a congress met in th e USA was in 1976 tional Euchari stic Congress in Philade lphia, Pennsy lvani a, the 4 1st Interna- �SLOVAKIA 33 After explaining that he wished to travel to the Eucharistic Congress, Jan Cerny' s administration finally granted him a passport. 2 Andrej Hlinka was repeatedly invited to America by the Committee of Friends of Slovak Freedom led by Jozef Husek.3 On April 21 , 1926 the weekly Jednota published a letter from Hlinka to Husek dated April 3, 1926. In this letter Hlinka announced that he would arrive accompanied by his secretary Andrej Genit and the Parliamentary Deputy Jozef Buday on June 3-4, 1926. He asked Husek to prepare a schedule for his lectures. He wrote that his passport was valid for half a year, which he wished to spend in the USA, provided that political issues would not force his return home. 4 While Hlinka was granted a passport to travel to the Eucharistic Congress on April 30, 1926, the Ministry with Full Powers for the Administration of Slovakia in Bratislava informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague about the details of Hlinka's planned journey. According to the Ministry in Bratislava, the goal of Hlinka's journey was to spread autonomist propaganda on behalf of the Hlinka's Slovak People's Party (hereinafter HSPP) and to raise funds for the Party. He also allegedly planned to draft a resolution of Slovak complaints and pleas and to submit it to the Czechoslovak government and to the League ofNations.5 Hlinka outlined the programme of his journey in the daily Slovak on May 23 , 1926. Among other things he stated that, as early as in 1894 he was asked by American Slovaks to "choke the hydra" of brotherly quarrels among them, but thus far he had not been enable to do so. Now he was going to America to enlighten the Slovaks and to help the Republic and the nation. He was going where the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Agreements were signed. He wanted to see with 2 Karol Sidor, Andrej Hli nka (I 864 - I 926) (Brati slava, 1934), p. 544 . Ibid. , p. 543. 4 Archiv Ministerstva zahran icnich veci Ceske republiky [Archi ves of the Mini stry of Foreign Affa irs of the Czech Republi c] (here inafter AMZV CR), fund (here inafter f. ) Ill. sekce MZV 19 I 8 - 1939 [3 rd section Mini stry of Foreign Affairs 19 I 8 193 8] (hereinafter III), in ventory number (hereinafter i. no.) 22 , fo lder (here inafter fold .) 651 . The report o f the Consul ate of the Czechoslovak Republic (hereinafter CSR) in Pittsburgh, to the Mini stry of Foreign Affa irs (hereinafter MFA ) of the CSR in Prague from April 22, 1926 ; Jednota, April 2 1, 1926, p. 4. 5 AMZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22, fo ld. 651. Letter of the Minister of the CSR with Full Powers fo r the Admini stration of Slovakia in Brati slava to the MFA in Prague, April 30, 1926 . 3 �34 SLOVAKIA his own eyes and hear with his own ears if it was a sin to demand autonomy for Slovakia within the Czechoslovak Republic and the Czechoslovak Constitution. 6 At the time of the Hlinka's trip to the USA, reports of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh characterized the situation in the Slovak autonomist camp in America as quite tense. Besides personal problems, anxiety arose from frustration arising from the Czechoslovak government' s failure to uphold the Pittsburgh Agreement. Meanwhile, State Insurance Commissioners were exerting pressure on fraternal societies to increase their monthly dues, which greatly upset their members. 7 The reports of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh also described an alleged rivalry between Ivan Bielek, the President of the Slovak League of America and Jozef Rusek. Apparently, Rusek feared losing his editorship of the weekly Jednota at the upcoming 22 nd convention of the First Catholic Slovak Union in Scranton, Pennsylvania on September 20 - 25 , 1926. His rival was Jan C. Sciranka, editor of Slovak v Amerike. The owner of the Slovak v Amerike was Bielek's brother-in-law Christopher L. Orbach.8 However, according to the report of the Pittsburgh Consulate, the tension between Bielek and Rusek soon dissipated. On April 14, 1926 Bielek published an article entitled Segedin-Mirov in Slo vak v Amerike, in which he denounced the imprisonment of Hlinka in the Czech Mirov prison for having offended President Masaryk. According to the Consulate, Bielek did so because he needed Husek's support at the upcoming convention of the National Slovak Society and the congress of the Slovak League of America. 9 Soon, however, arguments within the Slovak-American autonomist camp broke out again, thanks to Jozef Rusek. In a letter of April 3, 1926, Hlinka asked Rusek to prepare his lecture schedule. Rusek began to register applications for Hlinka's lectures and he wished to carry out this tour under the aegis of the Committe of Friends of Slovak Freedom. Some newspapers and organizations protested: the banker Michal Bosak in his weekly Obrana, a number of priests who 6 Slovak, May 23, 1926, pp. 1-2. AMZ V CR, f. III , i. no. 22, fo ld. 650. Report of the Consul ate of the CSR in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, April 15, 1926. 8 ibid. 9 i bid. 7 �SLOVAKIA 35 supported the programme of the Magyarone priest Frantisek Jehlicska for the return of Slovakia to Hungary, and Bielek and Orbach in 10 Slovak v Amerike. In addition, the Committe had already been out of existence for three years. It was originally founded to purge the "Czechoslovaks" from the Slovak League of America, and then it merged with it. Despite this fact, Husek kept the title of president of this non-existent organization, announced the arrival of Hlinka to Slovak priests and newspapers and launched the campaign on his own. II Although Jozef Husek, through his contact with Slovak priests in America started to organize Hlinka's lecture tour, the Slovak League of America, led by president Bielek, also started to organize the lectures. It established an organizing committee, composed almost entirely of priests. Husek refused to become a member of this committee and the Slovak v Amerike started to complain about Husek's actions. 12 As a result, a group of Slovak priests ended up organizing Hlinka's lecture tour and the Slovak League of America, even though it compiled the schedule of the lectures, did not control the • 13 pnests. On May 26-27 the 16 th congress of the Slovak League of America was held in Detroit. The congress "with great joy received the news, that the noble leader of the Slovak nation, Msgr. Hlinka, President of the People's Party, would visit American Slovaks." It expressed confidence in him and promised that it would "with all its strength help his noble efforts and during his stay he would be a guest of the Slovak League of America." 14 Hlinka and his colleague Jozef Buday, together with Hynek Dostal , editor of the Czech-American newspaper Hlas, which supported autonomy for the Slovaks, 15 were named honorary members of the Slovak League of America. 10 AMZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22 , fo ld . 65 1. Situat ion report in Pittsburgh, to the MF A in Prague, October 5, 1926. 11 AMZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22 , fold. 65 1. Situation report in Pittsburgh, to the MF A in Prague, June 11 , 1926. 12 A MZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22, fo ld . 65 1. Situation report in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prag ue, October 5, I 926. 13 Ibid. 14 A MZV CR, f. 111 , i. no. 22 , fo ld . 65 1. Situation report in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, June 11 , 1926. 15 Ibid. of the Consul ate of the CS R of the Consulate of the CSR of the Consul ate of the CSR of the Co nsulate of the CSR �36 SLOVAKIA At the congress of the Slovak League, the previous officers were re-elected under the leadership of Ivan Bielek. Husek criticized this outcome. 16 He reported that the League had no funds , he accused the officers of incompetence, and warned that the League would perish if nothing was done to build up its treasury. 17 However, all these arguments between Husek and Bielek were simply personal. In fact, the Slovak League under the leadership of Ivan Bielek (1920- 1934) championed the Pittsburgh Agreement and openly supported the Slovak autonomist movement in the Czechoslovak Republic . The "Czechoslovaks" in America also prepared for the arrival of Andrej Hlinka. For instance, the Reverend Jozef Murgas of WilkesBarre, Pennsylvania, promised Milan Getting, the Czechoslovak consul in Pittsburgh, that at the next meeting of priests of eastern Pennsylvania, he would ask them if their real interest was in politics or in religion and he promised to inform Getting of their answer. 18 Hlinka's arrival was announced by the daily Slovak (Bratislava) on June 4, 1926: "On June 3 our editorial staff received this telegram from Halifax : We have arrived safely. - Hlinka." 19 From the Canadian port of Halifax, Hlinka' s ship continued on to New York City, where it docked on June 5, 1926. 20 About 300 American Slovaks welcomed Hlinka at the dock. Once he had disembarked, Hlinka briefly outlined the goal of his journey. He stressed that he had come to work for both the Slovak nation and for his homeland, the Czechoslovak Republic. He emphasized concord, unity, the settling of petty arguments and forgivness, because "the nation needs us all and it needs us united." 21 In a 26-car procession the delegation proceeded to the Church of St. John Nepomucene on 66 th street, where the Reverend Stefan J. Krasul'a had been the pastor since 1916. An official reception was held in the Parish Hall, where the representatives of American Slovaks delivered their speeches.22 Here Andrej Hlinka spoke his 16 Ibid. Jednota, Jun e 2, 1926, p. 4. 18 A MZ V CR, f. III, i. no. 22, fo ld. 65 1. Missive of the Consul ate of the CSR in Pittsburgh, to the MFA , April 15, I 926. "Czechos lovaks" were Slovaks who supp,orted th e unitary policies of the Czechoslovak government in Prague. 9 Slovak, June 5, 1926, p. I. 20 Slovak, June 23, 1926, p. 5. 21 Jednota, June 9, 1926, p. I. 22 Slovak, June 23, 1926, p. 5. 17 �SLOVAKIA 37 memorable words: "If there were no America, Slovakia would still be under the Magyar yoke. To its credit the Slovaks finally got rid of the thousand-year subjugation." 23 The Slovak League of America officially welcomed Hlinka in the evening at a session of its local branch. 24 On this occassion the Slovak League also issued an official communique which was published by the daily Slowik in Bratislava. 25 A banquet was held the next day under the aegis of the Slovak League of America with the support of the Slovak clergy, organizations, newspapers and other societies. The banquet marked the completion of the programme of welcome with speeches by representatives of various Slovak organizations. Hlinka and Buday were presented with special diplomas, certifying that the Slovak League of America had granted them honorary memberships. 26 After the official welcome in New York, Jozef Rusek left the organizing of Hlinka's lecture tour to the Slovak League of America. 27 It began in Chicago after the end of the Eucharistic Congress on June 27, 1926. 28 According to the official announcement of the president of the Slovak League of America, published in the daily Slovak on July 14, 1926, Hlinka requested that lectures be presented on working days, because at the time of the announcement, there were already 136 requests for lectures. 29 Since the content of Hlinka's lecture in Chicago was generally the same as at other places in the USA, I will summarize it based upon the report of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Chicago. The lecture was held in the Ashland Boulevard Auditorium which had a capacity of 4,000. The Czechoslovak Consulate in Chicago stated that two thirds of the hall was filled, 30 which, in comparison with the 23 Jednota, June 9, 1926, p. I. Slovak, June 23 , 1926, p. 5. 25 Slovak, June 16, 1926, p. I. 26 Slovak, June 23 , 1926, p. 5. 27 PAUCO, Jozef. 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty 1890 - 1965 (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union, 1965), p. 210. 28 AMZV CR, f. lll, i. no. 22, fold. 651. Report of the Consulate of the CSR in Chicago on the political activities of the People 's Party leaders in the Chicago region. Supplement to a letter of the Embassy of the CSR in Washington, DC, July 30, 1926. 29 Slovak, July 14, 1926, p. 3. 30 The daily Slovak gave the number of 5,000 - 5,500 and stated that the hall was overcrowded. Cf. Slovak, July 16, I 926, p. 3. 24 �38 SLOVAKIA number of Slovaks living in Chicago, the majority of whom were Catholics, was not that great. Information on the lectures was also disseminated by priests from their pulpits. Tickets were sold in the churches and by the Slovak Catholic Federation. This was designed to prevent unauthorized persons from attending. The $1,000 rent for the hall was paid by the Slovak Catholic Federation. The profits were given to Andrej Hlinka. Tickets were sold for 50 and 75 cents, $1.00 and $2.00, depending upon the seating.31 As the report of the Consulate states, the beginning of the lecture was scheduled for 2:00 p.m. However, Hlinka and his entourage arrived at 2:45 p.m. The audience welcomed him with a standing ovation. The session was openned by Jan Mayer, the president of the Slovak Catholic Federation, who introduced the guests. After him Gregor K. Vaniscak, the pastor of the Slovak Parish of St. Michael the Archangel in Chicago, spoke highly of the great Andrej Hlinka's work for the Slovak nation. He compared Hlinka with the three "most important people in world history" - George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Cardinal Richelieu. After that Andrej Hlinka delivered his speech. The audience greeted him with applause and some shouted: "Viva, hooray! " Somebody from the audience, allegedly a Slovak Communist, tried to disrupt the lecture and shouted "Shame on him!" for which he was ejected by the police. Some tried to distribute the communist daily Rovnost' /'udu, for which they were also ejected and held overnight at the police station. According to the report of the Chicago consulate, Andrej Hlinka first read the list of donors who contributed to the fund Narod sebe [The Nation for Itself] and to the HSPP's election fund . He asked the donors to keep their trust in him, because he had received all the money and had spent every penny for the right purpose. As evidence he cited the establishment of Slovak Catholic enterprises such as the Lev printery, the daily Slovak, and, most importantly, the half million votes that the HSPP had gained in the last parliamentary elections, which made it the most powerful political party in Slovakia. He asked American Slovaks to continue to remember the HSPP and its struggle for recognition of the Pittsburgh Agreement and the autono31 A MZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22 , fo ld . 65 1. Report of the Consu late of th e CS R in Chi cago on the political acti vities of th e Peopl e's Party leaders in th e Chi cago region. Supplement to a letter of th e Embassy of the CS R in Was hin gton, DC, Jul y 30, 1926. �SLOVAKIA 39 my of Slovakia. Hlinka stated that he and the HSPP did not want anything more than that Slovaks be masters in Slovakia and Czechs in Bohemia and that Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" concerning the self-determination of nations be also applied to the Slovaks and the Pittsburgh Agreement. He declared that he was not against the Czechoslovak Republic and he was ready to "both live and die" for it, because October 28 was also the result of his nation-building efforts . He had struggled in Slovakia against the Magyars, who imprisoned him, first in Rufomberok, and then in Segedin. He added that Slovakia had long awaited October 28, 1918 as the day of liberation from the Magyar yoke. However, Hlinka continued, Slovak sons did not fight in the Czechoslovak Legions to move from one yoke to another. Instead of freedom , Slovaks were now offered "Czechization." Jozef M. Hurban, when he with others led the revolt against the Magyars in 1848, already spoke of the Slovak nation and not a "branch of the Czech nation." Similarly, when the Matica slovenska was founded in 1863, the Slovak leaders set its aim as the defence of the Slovak language as a national language and not a "Czech dialect." To spread the Czech language in Slovakia it was not necessary to establish the Matica slovenska. Therefore, if Hlinka now demands autonomy for Slovakia and wants the Pittsburgh Agreement to be respected and incorporated into the Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic, he does not want anything new. The Memorandum of Stefan Marko Daxner from as early as in the 1860's requested from the Hungarian government a so-called "Slovak Region" that completely agrees with his present request for autonomy. However, according to Hlinka, the Czech language rules in Slovak courts, offices and schools. Catholic schools were taken from the Slovaks in spite of the fact that the Catholics form the majority in Slovakia and they have to pay taxes to maintain the school system. For these taxes Slovak Catholic children are being indoctrinated with atheism and are taught by teachers such as a certain Bilek, who was a servant in Bohemia, but in Slovakia was made a high school professor! Moreover, Hlinka continued, Slovak intellectuals cannot find work at home. Slovak workers have to look for freedom in America. Despite the fact that Slovaks constitute 15% of the total number of inhabitants in Czechoslovakia, they are virtually absent from the �40 SLOVAKIA state administration . In high schools Slovaks have no principal. From among 786 high school professors, only 175 are Slovaks. An even greater disproportion exists in the railways--from among 13,000 employees, only 412 are Slovaks. There are enough qualified intellectuals in Slovakia, but the Prague government ignores them. Therefore, the demand for autonomy is not just political posturing, but is a cultural and economic need and is crucial to the existence of the Slovak nation. Furthermore, Hlinka stated that he wanted the Slovak and Czech nations to come together and jointly work on maintaining and developing their common state, but by observing equality in the national, cultural and economic spheres. He is not creating discord for the sake of discord. He supports the Czechoslovak Republic, which he proved when the communist attack on Slovakia occurred. Then the Czechoslovak governent had an opportunity to negotiate with him and establish order; the same was true after the last parliamentary elections, in which the HSPP gained the largest number of votes in Slovakia. However, the HSPP was not even noticed by the Czechoslovak government, it was not called by the government and it was even not considered to be necessary to negotiate with it.32 As the consulate report stated, Andrej Hlinka spoke for more than an hour. The tone of his voice was gentle and polite, hence very impressive. The audience often expressed its approval with applause, especially when he defended himself against accusations of treason and Magyaronism. On this occassion he stated that his life was an open book, from which every unbiased person could read, that he had always been selflessly fighting for the rights of the Slovak people. Before World War I, when he defended the rights of the Slovaks, the Magyars accused him of being a "Pan-Slav" and after the war, when he defended the same rights, the secularists and gullible Czechs accused him of being a Magyarone. In this context he asked the audience if it was possible that he would lead the Slovak people back to Magyar slavery, in which it had suffered for more than a thousand years? If anybody with common sense could accuse him of being an instrument of the Magyars, who, because of his fight for the rights of the Slovak nation, had escorted him from one prison to another? Hlinka concluded with an appeal to American 32 Ibid. �SLOVAKIA 41 Slovaks to support him and the HSPP in this fight for autonomy and the recognition of the Pittsburgh Agreement. 33 After Hlinka Jozef Buday delivered his speech. According to the consular report, he was "thoughtless and rudely incited against the atheistic Czechs." He complemented the factual parts of the speech, in which Hlinka mentioned the Czech injustice against the Slovaks. 34 The consular report further stated that F. Wilson, a representative of the district council, spoke after Buday. After him came Andrej Gerat, who criticized the methods of education in Slovakia. After Gerat the Rev. G. K. Vaniscak read this resolution: 1. We support the Czecho-Slovak Republic. 2. We demand that the Pittsburgh Agreement to be incorporated into its Constitution. 3. We demand for Slovaks Slovak Christian schools . 4. We demand that in Slovakia the Slovaks be given priority m government offices, post offices, the railways, etc. 5. We demand that the Slovak language be exclusively used as the official language in all schools, offices, etc. After Vaniscak read the resolution, he asked the audience to possibly supplement it. Allegedly, some Communist suggested that all county and episcopal manors be confiscated and parceled out to the poor. After a short silence, the audience started to rise up and wanted to throw him out. Andrej Hlinka called for calm and said that the question had been politely put, so it would be politely answered. He answered that he agreed that all the manors be parceled out to the people who tilled them. Though the government is doing so, it is doing it along political lines. Concerning the episcopal manors, these belong to the Church, ergo to the people. From them schools, monasteries, publications, magazines and everything that the Church needs are maintained. Why should these manors be confiscated and parceled out when they are owned by all the people? 35 The Communist, as the daily Slo vak noted, said: "Thank you for the explanation, now 33 34 35 Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. �42 SLOVAKIA I know everything. I am content. " 36 The resolution was approved in the original wording. 37 Before the session ended, Andrej Hlinka talked to his countrymen from Orava about the annexation of parts of Spis and Orava by Poland. In the name of the HSPP he promised that he would negotiate to have these regions returned to Slovakia. 38 The session concluded with the national hymn ,,Lightening over the Tatras." 39 There followed a banquet, at which Frantiska C. Jakabcinova, the president of the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union, gave Hlinka and Buday a gold membership medal and a gift of $1,000.40 On July 3, 1926, Andrej Hlinka had one more lecture in Chicago, the content of which was much the same as the first one. Among other places at which Hlinka and Buday lectured were Kenosha, Wisconsin, on July 3, Milwaukee, on July 14, Streator, Illinois, on July 5, Mount Olive, Illinois, on July 8, East St. Louis, on July 10, St. Louis, Missouri, on July 11 , and in Whiting, Indiana, on July 14, 1926. Then Hlinka's lectures continued in the Cleveland region. The content of these lectures was everywhere almost the same. 41 According to the consular report, the impact of Hlinka' s lectures upon the Slovak people in America was great. Workers debated them in factories and there were also quarrels and even battles (in Hege42 wich, Illinois, and Chicago Heights). Andrej Hlinka's message was summed up by Milan Getting, the Czechoslovak consul in Pittsburgh, as follows: 1. A. Hlinka declined an interview with the editorial staff of the Czech Narodne listy before his departure to America; 36 Slovak, July 16, 1926, p. 3. 37 A MZV CR, f. III , i. no. 22, fo ld . 651. Report of the Co nsul ate of the CS R in Chica- go on the political activ ities of th e Peo ple's Party leaders in the Chi cago region . Suppl ement to a letter of th e Embassy of the CSR in Washin gton, DC, Jul y 30, 1926. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Slovak, Jul y 16, 1926, p. 3. 41 A MZV CR, f. III, i. no. 22 , fold. 651. Report of the Consul ate of the CS R in Chicago on the political activities of the People 's Party leaders in the Chi cago region . Supplement to a letter of the Embassy of the CS R in Washington , DC, Jul y 30, 1926. 42 Ibid. �SLOVAKIA 43 2. He does not fear the separation of church and state and he foretold the extinction of the Slovak Lutherans if it happened; 3. The next president of Czechoslovakia will accept the Pittsburgh Agreement; 4. Hlinka severely criticized Edvard Benes and Vavro Srobar; 5. Hlinka stressed several times that he had nothing to do with Frantisek Jehlicska, but he lectured at places, where the lectures were organized by Jehlicska's followers; 6. The lectures resulted in an anti-Czech mood; 7. Collecting money was many times carried out in such a way as if it were the only purpose of the lectures; 8. Andrej Gerat put most of the resolutions to a vote for further use in Slovakia.43 Hlinka, according to his own words, visited more than one hundred parishes, took part in eighty sessions and had more than two hundred lectures. "In the whole of America only four Catholic priests did not attend our lectures that were held in their town or neighborhood." 44 Part of Andrej Hlinka's journey to the USA was for the purpose of fund-raising . The Slovak League of America created a motto for the collection: Fund for the Victory of the Slovak Nation. In this context it printed envelopes with the following text: I believe in the sovereignty of the Slovak nation. I believe in the united Czecho-Slovak Republic. I believe my own contrymen-leaders. I believe in the gradual administration of Slovakia. I believe that a Slovak should have priority in Slovakia. I believe that a Czech is Czech and a Slovak is Slovak. I believe that, by enacting the Pittsburgh Agreement, conditions between Czechs and Slovaks will improve, hence we willingly support the Fund for the Victory of the Slovak Nation. 45 43 A MZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22 , fold. 65 1. Situation report of the Consu late of the CS R in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, October 5, 1926. 44 Andrej Hlinka v Amerike [Andrej Hlinka in America]. In Jednota : Katolic/..y kalendar na obycajny rok 192 7. Middletown, PA: First Catholi c Slovak Union, 1927, p. 38. 45 A MZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22, fold. 65 1. Situation report of the Consulate of the CS R in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, October 5, 1926 . �44 SLOVAKIA At the same time the Slovak League of America published the leaflet Svoji svojim [One for oneself] , in which it invited people to become its members. 46 However, the Slovak League did not have much influence over the financial part of Hlinka' s lectures. These were organized by priests in a committee established by the League. Allegedly, the envelopes were not distributed everywhere and it might happen that a local priest took the collected money, withdrew a certain amount to cover the costs of organizing the lecture, and turned the balance over to Hlinka in the form of a personal check. 47 About the collections it can be said that, there were fs laces where the fund-raising drive could not be properly organized, 8 but, on the other hand, there were places where a sizeable amount of money was raised. Milan Getting estimated the total raised was $10,000. However, he added that his estimate should be treated with some reserve. For instance, at the convention of the First Catholic Slovak Union in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in September of 1926, Jozef Husek allegedly proposed to give Hlinka $5 ,000, but the delegates objected that the head office gave, without their consent, $1 ,000 to each Slovak bishop. They agreed on the same amount for Andrej Hlinka.49 At that time, the assets of the organization totaled $5,095 ,583 .37.50 The Slovak League of America, according to the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh, could not contribute to Hlinka, because its treasury was too small. 5 1 The final result of the fund-raising drive was most pertinently expressed by Hlinka in his letter to the Reverend Jan Postenyi after his return from the USA: "As you know, I have returned with fame , pennants and rings-but not many dollars. Business is business and I 46 AMZ V CR, f. III , i. no. 22, fo ld. 65 1. The leaflet Svoji svojim. AMZV CR, f. lll, i. no. 22, fo ld . 651 . Situati on report of the Consul ate of the CS R in Pittsburgh, to the MF A in Prague, October 5, 1926. 48 For instance, the lecture in Pittsburgh, that was held on Sund ay August 8, 1926, because according to Pennsylvania law, one co uld not collect an entrance fee. Cf. Ibid 49 AMZ V CR, f. lll, i. no. 22 , fo ld. 651 . Situati on report of the Consul ate of th e CS R in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, October 5, 1926. 50 PAUCO, Jozef. 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty 1890 - / 965 (Cleveland : First Catholic Slovak Uni on, I 965), p. 2 I 2. 51 AMZ V CR, f. III, i. no. 22, fo ld . 651 . Situation report of th e Consul ate of the CS R in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, October 5, I 926. 47 �SLOVAKIA 45 am not very good at it. I am a great idealist and our masters, the bishops, skimmed off the cream." 52 According to the report of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh, Andrej Hlinka ended his lecture tour by annoying his sympathizers in America. Allegedly, Gerat did not stick to the official schedule, which resulted in Hlinka presenting his lectures without reference to the local organizing committee. However, the main cause of the annoyance of American Slovaks was the fact that Hlinka refused to lecture at the parish of the nationalist Stefan Panik in Torrington, Connecticut, but instead agreed to lecture at Andrej Komara's parish in Bridgeport, Connecticut. 53 As Milan Getting noted, Komara had been denounced by neighboring Slovak priests as a Magyarone. Therefore, by accepting his invitation, Hlinka disappointed many of his followers .54 Allegedly, after the lecture at Komara's parish on October 3, 1926, Hlinka and Gerat55 began to show a certain nervousness. This, according to the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh, arose from the fact that Hlinka had failed to settle the arguments in the SlovakAmerican Catholic camp. It could also have been a result of their disappointment in the fund-raising drive. Another reason could have been the development of the political situation back home. In addition, Hlinka could see that the audience at his lectures was declining. He may also have been frustrated by articles published in the Czechoslovak daily Newyorsky dennik, which attacked him during his whole stay in the USA. 56 52 Archiv Spolku sv. Vojtecha v Tmave [Archives of the Society of St. Adalbert in Tmava] , fascic le (hereinafter fasc.) 156. Letter of A. Hlinka to J. Postenyi, November 3, 1926. 53 According to the Newyorsky dennik, Komara promised Hlinka $2,000, which, according to Getting, Hlinka did not deny. Cf. AMZV CR, f. Ill, i. no. 22, fold. 651. Situation report of the Consulate of the CSR in Pittsburgh, to the MFA of th e CSR in Prague from October 15 , 1926. Not following the schedule of the lectures was also reported in Jednota, October 6, 1926, p. 2. 54 AMZV CR, f. III , i. no. 22, fold. 651. Situation report of the Consulate of the CSR in Pittsburgh, to the MF A of the CSR in Prague from October 15, 1926. 55 Meanwhile, Buday returned to Slovakia. He left America on July 24, 1926. Cf. Slovak, August 6, 1926, p. 1. 56 AMZV CR, f. 111, i. no. 22, fold. 651. Situation report of the Consulate of the CSR in Pittsburgh, to the MFA of the CSR in Prague from October 15, 1926. �46 SLOVAKIA The last of Hlinka's lectures in the USA was in New York City on October 11 , 1926. 57 He left the USA on October 13 , 1926 and returned to Slovakia on October 22, 1926. 58 Even if the conclusion of his lecture tour to the USA looked disappointing, it did not radically affect the attitudes of American Slovaks to his person, nor the autonomist movement in Slovakia. It is apparent, therefore, that on the occasion of the 28 th International Eucharistic Congress in Chicago, Illinois, Andrej Hlinka, made use of his trip to lecture and to raise funds in favour of autonomy within the Czechoslovak Republic. According to the report of the Czechoslovak consulate in Pittsburgh, the situation in the Slovak autonomist camp in America at that time was quite tense. The reasons for the tension were personal problems, frustration arising from the Czechoslovak government's failure to uphold the Pittsburgh Agreement and the pressure of State Insurance Commissioners on fraternal societies to increase their monthly dues. After initial disagreements, Hlinka's lecture tour was organized by a committee composed almost entirely of priests. Hlinka visited more than one hundred Slovak parishes, took part in eighty discussions and presented more than two hundred lectures. However, the fund-raising drive did not bring the expected results. In addition, according to the report of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh, Andrej Hlinka ended his lecture tour by annoying his sympathizers in America by not having respected the schedule of the local organizational committee. The main cause of the annoyance, however, was the fact that Hlinka refused to lecture at nationalist Stefan Panik's parish in Torrington, Connecticut, but rather at the parish of the alleged Magyarone Andrej Komara in Bridgeport. Even if in the end his lecture tour to the USA disappointed many Slovak nationalists, Hlinka did not lose the sympathy of American Slovaks, nor support for the autonomist movement in Slovakia. 57 58 Ibid. Slo vak, October 23 , 1926, p. 3. � 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 2010, Vol. 40 Description An account of the resource Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010. 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 2010 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 32 SLOVAKIA ANDREJ HLINKA'S JOURNEY TO THE USA IN 1926 Stefan Kucik Andrej Hlinka belongs among those in Slovak history whose achievements await a complex analysis and evaluation. He and his activities were ignored or misinterpreted by most Marxist historians during the communist era. On the other hand, he was also very controversial. The aim of this article is to analyze the circumstances and the course of his journey to the USA in 1926. Although the official reason for Hlinka's journey was to participate in the 28 th International Eucharistic Congress in Chicago, he made use of his visit to lecture to American Slovaks and to raise funds for the cause of Slovak autonomy in the Czechoslovak Republic. After some disagreements between the Slovak League of America and Jozef Husek, the lecture tour was held under the auspices of the Slovak League of America with the support of the Slovak clergy, organizations, newspapers and other societies. Even if his lecture tour to the USA proved financially disappointing to Hlinka, he did win the sympathy of American Slovaks to his person, and to the autonomist movement in Slovakia. On June 20- 24, 1926 the 28 th International Eucharistic Congress took place in Chicago, Illinois. As the first such Congress on the soil of the United States of America, 1 it presented the Reverend Andrej Hlinka of Rufomberok an opportunity to visit American Slovaks for the first time. Although American Slovaks had already invited Hlinka visit them in 1924, Czechoslovak authorities had refused to grant him a passport because he had been prosecuted for having illegally travelled to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. In 1926 he was again prosecuted and, despite having been cleared by the County Court in Bratislava, in March of that year, he was sentenced by the Supreme Court to eight days in jail for his article on T. G. Masaryk' s favortism of the Jews published in the daily Slovak on April 5, 1924. 1 The second time such a congress met in th e USA was in 1976 tional Euchari stic Congress in Philade lphia, Pennsy lvani a, the 4 1st Interna- SLOVAKIA 33 After explaining that he wished to travel to the Eucharistic Congress, Jan Cerny' s administration finally granted him a passport. 2 Andrej Hlinka was repeatedly invited to America by the Committee of Friends of Slovak Freedom led by Jozef Husek.3 On April 21 , 1926 the weekly Jednota published a letter from Hlinka to Husek dated April 3, 1926. In this letter Hlinka announced that he would arrive accompanied by his secretary Andrej Genit and the Parliamentary Deputy Jozef Buday on June 3-4, 1926. He asked Husek to prepare a schedule for his lectures. He wrote that his passport was valid for half a year, which he wished to spend in the USA, provided that political issues would not force his return home. 4 While Hlinka was granted a passport to travel to the Eucharistic Congress on April 30, 1926, the Ministry with Full Powers for the Administration of Slovakia in Bratislava informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague about the details of Hlinka's planned journey. According to the Ministry in Bratislava, the goal of Hlinka's journey was to spread autonomist propaganda on behalf of the Hlinka's Slovak People's Party (hereinafter HSPP) and to raise funds for the Party. He also allegedly planned to draft a resolution of Slovak complaints and pleas and to submit it to the Czechoslovak government and to the League ofNations.5 Hlinka outlined the programme of his journey in the daily Slovak on May 23 , 1926. Among other things he stated that, as early as in 1894 he was asked by American Slovaks to "choke the hydra" of brotherly quarrels among them, but thus far he had not been enable to do so. Now he was going to America to enlighten the Slovaks and to help the Republic and the nation. He was going where the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Agreements were signed. He wanted to see with 2 Karol Sidor, Andrej Hli nka (I 864 - I 926) (Brati slava, 1934), p. 544 . Ibid. , p. 543. 4 Archiv Ministerstva zahran icnich veci Ceske republiky [Archi ves of the Mini stry of Foreign Affa irs of the Czech Republi c] (here inafter AMZV CR), fund (here inafter f. ) Ill. sekce MZV 19 I 8 - 1939 [3 rd section Mini stry of Foreign Affairs 19 I 8 193 8] (hereinafter III), in ventory number (hereinafter i. no.) 22 , fo lder (here inafter fold .) 651 . The report o f the Consul ate of the Czechoslovak Republic (hereinafter CSR) in Pittsburgh, to the Mini stry of Foreign Affa irs (hereinafter MFA ) of the CSR in Prague from April 22, 1926 ; Jednota, April 2 1, 1926, p. 4. 5 AMZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22, fo ld. 651. Letter of the Minister of the CSR with Full Powers fo r the Admini stration of Slovakia in Brati slava to the MFA in Prague, April 30, 1926 . 3 34 SLOVAKIA his own eyes and hear with his own ears if it was a sin to demand autonomy for Slovakia within the Czechoslovak Republic and the Czechoslovak Constitution. 6 At the time of the Hlinka's trip to the USA, reports of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh characterized the situation in the Slovak autonomist camp in America as quite tense. Besides personal problems, anxiety arose from frustration arising from the Czechoslovak government' s failure to uphold the Pittsburgh Agreement. Meanwhile, State Insurance Commissioners were exerting pressure on fraternal societies to increase their monthly dues, which greatly upset their members. 7 The reports of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh also described an alleged rivalry between Ivan Bielek, the President of the Slovak League of America and Jozef Rusek. Apparently, Rusek feared losing his editorship of the weekly Jednota at the upcoming 22 nd convention of the First Catholic Slovak Union in Scranton, Pennsylvania on September 20 - 25 , 1926. His rival was Jan C. Sciranka, editor of Slovak v Amerike. The owner of the Slovak v Amerike was Bielek's brother-in-law Christopher L. Orbach.8 However, according to the report of the Pittsburgh Consulate, the tension between Bielek and Rusek soon dissipated. On April 14, 1926 Bielek published an article entitled Segedin-Mirov in Slo vak v Amerike, in which he denounced the imprisonment of Hlinka in the Czech Mirov prison for having offended President Masaryk. According to the Consulate, Bielek did so because he needed Husek's support at the upcoming convention of the National Slovak Society and the congress of the Slovak League of America. 9 Soon, however, arguments within the Slovak-American autonomist camp broke out again, thanks to Jozef Rusek. In a letter of April 3, 1926, Hlinka asked Rusek to prepare his lecture schedule. Rusek began to register applications for Hlinka's lectures and he wished to carry out this tour under the aegis of the Committe of Friends of Slovak Freedom. Some newspapers and organizations protested: the banker Michal Bosak in his weekly Obrana, a number of priests who 6 Slovak, May 23, 1926, pp. 1-2. AMZ V CR, f. III , i. no. 22, fo ld. 650. Report of the Consul ate of the CSR in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, April 15, 1926. 8 ibid. 9 i bid. 7 SLOVAKIA 35 supported the programme of the Magyarone priest Frantisek Jehlicska for the return of Slovakia to Hungary, and Bielek and Orbach in 10 Slovak v Amerike. In addition, the Committe had already been out of existence for three years. It was originally founded to purge the "Czechoslovaks" from the Slovak League of America, and then it merged with it. Despite this fact, Husek kept the title of president of this non-existent organization, announced the arrival of Hlinka to Slovak priests and newspapers and launched the campaign on his own. II Although Jozef Husek, through his contact with Slovak priests in America started to organize Hlinka's lecture tour, the Slovak League of America, led by president Bielek, also started to organize the lectures. It established an organizing committee, composed almost entirely of priests. Husek refused to become a member of this committee and the Slovak v Amerike started to complain about Husek's actions. 12 As a result, a group of Slovak priests ended up organizing Hlinka's lecture tour and the Slovak League of America, even though it compiled the schedule of the lectures, did not control the • 13 pnests. On May 26-27 the 16 th congress of the Slovak League of America was held in Detroit. The congress "with great joy received the news, that the noble leader of the Slovak nation, Msgr. Hlinka, President of the People's Party, would visit American Slovaks." It expressed confidence in him and promised that it would "with all its strength help his noble efforts and during his stay he would be a guest of the Slovak League of America." 14 Hlinka and his colleague Jozef Buday, together with Hynek Dostal , editor of the Czech-American newspaper Hlas, which supported autonomy for the Slovaks, 15 were named honorary members of the Slovak League of America. 10 AMZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22 , fo ld . 65 1. Situat ion report in Pittsburgh, to the MF A in Prague, October 5, 1926. 11 AMZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22 , fold. 65 1. Situation report in Pittsburgh, to the MF A in Prague, June 11 , 1926. 12 A MZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22, fo ld . 65 1. Situation report in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prag ue, October 5, I 926. 13 Ibid. 14 A MZV CR, f. 111 , i. no. 22 , fo ld . 65 1. Situation report in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, June 11 , 1926. 15 Ibid. of the Consul ate of the CS R of the Consulate of the CSR of the Consul ate of the CSR of the Co nsulate of the CSR 36 SLOVAKIA At the congress of the Slovak League, the previous officers were re-elected under the leadership of Ivan Bielek. Husek criticized this outcome. 16 He reported that the League had no funds , he accused the officers of incompetence, and warned that the League would perish if nothing was done to build up its treasury. 17 However, all these arguments between Husek and Bielek were simply personal. In fact, the Slovak League under the leadership of Ivan Bielek (1920- 1934) championed the Pittsburgh Agreement and openly supported the Slovak autonomist movement in the Czechoslovak Republic . The "Czechoslovaks" in America also prepared for the arrival of Andrej Hlinka. For instance, the Reverend Jozef Murgas of WilkesBarre, Pennsylvania, promised Milan Getting, the Czechoslovak consul in Pittsburgh, that at the next meeting of priests of eastern Pennsylvania, he would ask them if their real interest was in politics or in religion and he promised to inform Getting of their answer. 18 Hlinka's arrival was announced by the daily Slovak (Bratislava) on June 4, 1926: "On June 3 our editorial staff received this telegram from Halifax : We have arrived safely. - Hlinka." 19 From the Canadian port of Halifax, Hlinka' s ship continued on to New York City, where it docked on June 5, 1926. 20 About 300 American Slovaks welcomed Hlinka at the dock. Once he had disembarked, Hlinka briefly outlined the goal of his journey. He stressed that he had come to work for both the Slovak nation and for his homeland, the Czechoslovak Republic. He emphasized concord, unity, the settling of petty arguments and forgivness, because "the nation needs us all and it needs us united." 21 In a 26-car procession the delegation proceeded to the Church of St. John Nepomucene on 66 th street, where the Reverend Stefan J. Krasul'a had been the pastor since 1916. An official reception was held in the Parish Hall, where the representatives of American Slovaks delivered their speeches.22 Here Andrej Hlinka spoke his 16 Ibid. Jednota, Jun e 2, 1926, p. 4. 18 A MZ V CR, f. III, i. no. 22, fo ld. 65 1. Missive of the Consul ate of the CSR in Pittsburgh, to the MFA , April 15, I 926. "Czechos lovaks" were Slovaks who supp,orted th e unitary policies of the Czechoslovak government in Prague. 9 Slovak, June 5, 1926, p. I. 20 Slovak, June 23, 1926, p. 5. 21 Jednota, June 9, 1926, p. I. 22 Slovak, June 23, 1926, p. 5. 17 SLOVAKIA 37 memorable words: "If there were no America, Slovakia would still be under the Magyar yoke. To its credit the Slovaks finally got rid of the thousand-year subjugation." 23 The Slovak League of America officially welcomed Hlinka in the evening at a session of its local branch. 24 On this occassion the Slovak League also issued an official communique which was published by the daily Slowik in Bratislava. 25 A banquet was held the next day under the aegis of the Slovak League of America with the support of the Slovak clergy, organizations, newspapers and other societies. The banquet marked the completion of the programme of welcome with speeches by representatives of various Slovak organizations. Hlinka and Buday were presented with special diplomas, certifying that the Slovak League of America had granted them honorary memberships. 26 After the official welcome in New York, Jozef Rusek left the organizing of Hlinka's lecture tour to the Slovak League of America. 27 It began in Chicago after the end of the Eucharistic Congress on June 27, 1926. 28 According to the official announcement of the president of the Slovak League of America, published in the daily Slovak on July 14, 1926, Hlinka requested that lectures be presented on working days, because at the time of the announcement, there were already 136 requests for lectures. 29 Since the content of Hlinka's lecture in Chicago was generally the same as at other places in the USA, I will summarize it based upon the report of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Chicago. The lecture was held in the Ashland Boulevard Auditorium which had a capacity of 4,000. The Czechoslovak Consulate in Chicago stated that two thirds of the hall was filled, 30 which, in comparison with the 23 Jednota, June 9, 1926, p. I. Slovak, June 23 , 1926, p. 5. 25 Slovak, June 16, 1926, p. I. 26 Slovak, June 23 , 1926, p. 5. 27 PAUCO, Jozef. 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty 1890 - 1965 (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union, 1965), p. 210. 28 AMZV CR, f. lll, i. no. 22, fold. 651. Report of the Consulate of the CSR in Chicago on the political activities of the People 's Party leaders in the Chicago region. Supplement to a letter of the Embassy of the CSR in Washington, DC, July 30, 1926. 29 Slovak, July 14, 1926, p. 3. 30 The daily Slovak gave the number of 5,000 - 5,500 and stated that the hall was overcrowded. Cf. Slovak, July 16, I 926, p. 3. 24 38 SLOVAKIA number of Slovaks living in Chicago, the majority of whom were Catholics, was not that great. Information on the lectures was also disseminated by priests from their pulpits. Tickets were sold in the churches and by the Slovak Catholic Federation. This was designed to prevent unauthorized persons from attending. The $1,000 rent for the hall was paid by the Slovak Catholic Federation. The profits were given to Andrej Hlinka. Tickets were sold for 50 and 75 cents, $1.00 and $2.00, depending upon the seating.31 As the report of the Consulate states, the beginning of the lecture was scheduled for 2:00 p.m. However, Hlinka and his entourage arrived at 2:45 p.m. The audience welcomed him with a standing ovation. The session was openned by Jan Mayer, the president of the Slovak Catholic Federation, who introduced the guests. After him Gregor K. Vaniscak, the pastor of the Slovak Parish of St. Michael the Archangel in Chicago, spoke highly of the great Andrej Hlinka's work for the Slovak nation. He compared Hlinka with the three "most important people in world history" - George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Cardinal Richelieu. After that Andrej Hlinka delivered his speech. The audience greeted him with applause and some shouted: "Viva, hooray! " Somebody from the audience, allegedly a Slovak Communist, tried to disrupt the lecture and shouted "Shame on him!" for which he was ejected by the police. Some tried to distribute the communist daily Rovnost' /'udu, for which they were also ejected and held overnight at the police station. According to the report of the Chicago consulate, Andrej Hlinka first read the list of donors who contributed to the fund Narod sebe [The Nation for Itself] and to the HSPP's election fund . He asked the donors to keep their trust in him, because he had received all the money and had spent every penny for the right purpose. As evidence he cited the establishment of Slovak Catholic enterprises such as the Lev printery, the daily Slovak, and, most importantly, the half million votes that the HSPP had gained in the last parliamentary elections, which made it the most powerful political party in Slovakia. He asked American Slovaks to continue to remember the HSPP and its struggle for recognition of the Pittsburgh Agreement and the autono31 A MZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22 , fo ld . 65 1. Report of the Consu late of th e CS R in Chi cago on the political acti vities of th e Peopl e's Party leaders in th e Chi cago region. Supplement to a letter of th e Embassy of the CS R in Was hin gton, DC, Jul y 30, 1926. SLOVAKIA 39 my of Slovakia. Hlinka stated that he and the HSPP did not want anything more than that Slovaks be masters in Slovakia and Czechs in Bohemia and that Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" concerning the self-determination of nations be also applied to the Slovaks and the Pittsburgh Agreement. He declared that he was not against the Czechoslovak Republic and he was ready to "both live and die" for it, because October 28 was also the result of his nation-building efforts . He had struggled in Slovakia against the Magyars, who imprisoned him, first in Rufomberok, and then in Segedin. He added that Slovakia had long awaited October 28, 1918 as the day of liberation from the Magyar yoke. However, Hlinka continued, Slovak sons did not fight in the Czechoslovak Legions to move from one yoke to another. Instead of freedom , Slovaks were now offered "Czechization." Jozef M. Hurban, when he with others led the revolt against the Magyars in 1848, already spoke of the Slovak nation and not a "branch of the Czech nation." Similarly, when the Matica slovenska was founded in 1863, the Slovak leaders set its aim as the defence of the Slovak language as a national language and not a "Czech dialect." To spread the Czech language in Slovakia it was not necessary to establish the Matica slovenska. Therefore, if Hlinka now demands autonomy for Slovakia and wants the Pittsburgh Agreement to be respected and incorporated into the Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic, he does not want anything new. The Memorandum of Stefan Marko Daxner from as early as in the 1860's requested from the Hungarian government a so-called "Slovak Region" that completely agrees with his present request for autonomy. However, according to Hlinka, the Czech language rules in Slovak courts, offices and schools. Catholic schools were taken from the Slovaks in spite of the fact that the Catholics form the majority in Slovakia and they have to pay taxes to maintain the school system. For these taxes Slovak Catholic children are being indoctrinated with atheism and are taught by teachers such as a certain Bilek, who was a servant in Bohemia, but in Slovakia was made a high school professor! Moreover, Hlinka continued, Slovak intellectuals cannot find work at home. Slovak workers have to look for freedom in America. Despite the fact that Slovaks constitute 15% of the total number of inhabitants in Czechoslovakia, they are virtually absent from the 40 SLOVAKIA state administration . In high schools Slovaks have no principal. From among 786 high school professors, only 175 are Slovaks. An even greater disproportion exists in the railways--from among 13,000 employees, only 412 are Slovaks. There are enough qualified intellectuals in Slovakia, but the Prague government ignores them. Therefore, the demand for autonomy is not just political posturing, but is a cultural and economic need and is crucial to the existence of the Slovak nation. Furthermore, Hlinka stated that he wanted the Slovak and Czech nations to come together and jointly work on maintaining and developing their common state, but by observing equality in the national, cultural and economic spheres. He is not creating discord for the sake of discord. He supports the Czechoslovak Republic, which he proved when the communist attack on Slovakia occurred. Then the Czechoslovak governent had an opportunity to negotiate with him and establish order; the same was true after the last parliamentary elections, in which the HSPP gained the largest number of votes in Slovakia. However, the HSPP was not even noticed by the Czechoslovak government, it was not called by the government and it was even not considered to be necessary to negotiate with it.32 As the consulate report stated, Andrej Hlinka spoke for more than an hour. The tone of his voice was gentle and polite, hence very impressive. The audience often expressed its approval with applause, especially when he defended himself against accusations of treason and Magyaronism. On this occassion he stated that his life was an open book, from which every unbiased person could read, that he had always been selflessly fighting for the rights of the Slovak people. Before World War I, when he defended the rights of the Slovaks, the Magyars accused him of being a "Pan-Slav" and after the war, when he defended the same rights, the secularists and gullible Czechs accused him of being a Magyarone. In this context he asked the audience if it was possible that he would lead the Slovak people back to Magyar slavery, in which it had suffered for more than a thousand years? If anybody with common sense could accuse him of being an instrument of the Magyars, who, because of his fight for the rights of the Slovak nation, had escorted him from one prison to another? Hlinka concluded with an appeal to American 32 Ibid. SLOVAKIA 41 Slovaks to support him and the HSPP in this fight for autonomy and the recognition of the Pittsburgh Agreement. 33 After Hlinka Jozef Buday delivered his speech. According to the consular report, he was "thoughtless and rudely incited against the atheistic Czechs." He complemented the factual parts of the speech, in which Hlinka mentioned the Czech injustice against the Slovaks. 34 The consular report further stated that F. Wilson, a representative of the district council, spoke after Buday. After him came Andrej Gerat, who criticized the methods of education in Slovakia. After Gerat the Rev. G. K. Vaniscak read this resolution: 1. We support the Czecho-Slovak Republic. 2. We demand that the Pittsburgh Agreement to be incorporated into its Constitution. 3. We demand for Slovaks Slovak Christian schools . 4. We demand that in Slovakia the Slovaks be given priority m government offices, post offices, the railways, etc. 5. We demand that the Slovak language be exclusively used as the official language in all schools, offices, etc. After Vaniscak read the resolution, he asked the audience to possibly supplement it. Allegedly, some Communist suggested that all county and episcopal manors be confiscated and parceled out to the poor. After a short silence, the audience started to rise up and wanted to throw him out. Andrej Hlinka called for calm and said that the question had been politely put, so it would be politely answered. He answered that he agreed that all the manors be parceled out to the people who tilled them. Though the government is doing so, it is doing it along political lines. Concerning the episcopal manors, these belong to the Church, ergo to the people. From them schools, monasteries, publications, magazines and everything that the Church needs are maintained. Why should these manors be confiscated and parceled out when they are owned by all the people? 35 The Communist, as the daily Slo vak noted, said: "Thank you for the explanation, now 33 34 35 Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. 42 SLOVAKIA I know everything. I am content. " 36 The resolution was approved in the original wording. 37 Before the session ended, Andrej Hlinka talked to his countrymen from Orava about the annexation of parts of Spis and Orava by Poland. In the name of the HSPP he promised that he would negotiate to have these regions returned to Slovakia. 38 The session concluded with the national hymn ,,Lightening over the Tatras." 39 There followed a banquet, at which Frantiska C. Jakabcinova, the president of the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union, gave Hlinka and Buday a gold membership medal and a gift of $1,000.40 On July 3, 1926, Andrej Hlinka had one more lecture in Chicago, the content of which was much the same as the first one. Among other places at which Hlinka and Buday lectured were Kenosha, Wisconsin, on July 3, Milwaukee, on July 14, Streator, Illinois, on July 5, Mount Olive, Illinois, on July 8, East St. Louis, on July 10, St. Louis, Missouri, on July 11 , and in Whiting, Indiana, on July 14, 1926. Then Hlinka's lectures continued in the Cleveland region. The content of these lectures was everywhere almost the same. 41 According to the consular report, the impact of Hlinka' s lectures upon the Slovak people in America was great. Workers debated them in factories and there were also quarrels and even battles (in Hege42 wich, Illinois, and Chicago Heights). Andrej Hlinka's message was summed up by Milan Getting, the Czechoslovak consul in Pittsburgh, as follows: 1. A. Hlinka declined an interview with the editorial staff of the Czech Narodne listy before his departure to America; 36 Slovak, July 16, 1926, p. 3. 37 A MZV CR, f. III , i. no. 22, fo ld . 651. Report of the Co nsul ate of the CS R in Chica- go on the political activ ities of th e Peo ple's Party leaders in the Chi cago region . Suppl ement to a letter of th e Embassy of the CSR in Washin gton, DC, Jul y 30, 1926. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Slovak, Jul y 16, 1926, p. 3. 41 A MZV CR, f. III, i. no. 22 , fold. 651. Report of the Consul ate of the CS R in Chicago on the political activities of the People 's Party leaders in the Chi cago region . Supplement to a letter of the Embassy of the CS R in Washington , DC, Jul y 30, 1926. 42 Ibid. SLOVAKIA 43 2. He does not fear the separation of church and state and he foretold the extinction of the Slovak Lutherans if it happened; 3. The next president of Czechoslovakia will accept the Pittsburgh Agreement; 4. Hlinka severely criticized Edvard Benes and Vavro Srobar; 5. Hlinka stressed several times that he had nothing to do with Frantisek Jehlicska, but he lectured at places, where the lectures were organized by Jehlicska's followers; 6. The lectures resulted in an anti-Czech mood; 7. Collecting money was many times carried out in such a way as if it were the only purpose of the lectures; 8. Andrej Gerat put most of the resolutions to a vote for further use in Slovakia.43 Hlinka, according to his own words, visited more than one hundred parishes, took part in eighty sessions and had more than two hundred lectures. "In the whole of America only four Catholic priests did not attend our lectures that were held in their town or neighborhood." 44 Part of Andrej Hlinka's journey to the USA was for the purpose of fund-raising . The Slovak League of America created a motto for the collection: Fund for the Victory of the Slovak Nation. In this context it printed envelopes with the following text: I believe in the sovereignty of the Slovak nation. I believe in the united Czecho-Slovak Republic. I believe my own contrymen-leaders. I believe in the gradual administration of Slovakia. I believe that a Slovak should have priority in Slovakia. I believe that a Czech is Czech and a Slovak is Slovak. I believe that, by enacting the Pittsburgh Agreement, conditions between Czechs and Slovaks will improve, hence we willingly support the Fund for the Victory of the Slovak Nation. 45 43 A MZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22 , fold. 65 1. Situation report of the Consu late of the CS R in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, October 5, 1926. 44 Andrej Hlinka v Amerike [Andrej Hlinka in America]. In Jednota : Katolic/..y kalendar na obycajny rok 192 7. Middletown, PA: First Catholi c Slovak Union, 1927, p. 38. 45 A MZV CR, f. Ill , i. no. 22, fold. 65 1. Situation report of the Consulate of the CS R in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, October 5, 1926 . 44 SLOVAKIA At the same time the Slovak League of America published the leaflet Svoji svojim [One for oneself] , in which it invited people to become its members. 46 However, the Slovak League did not have much influence over the financial part of Hlinka' s lectures. These were organized by priests in a committee established by the League. Allegedly, the envelopes were not distributed everywhere and it might happen that a local priest took the collected money, withdrew a certain amount to cover the costs of organizing the lecture, and turned the balance over to Hlinka in the form of a personal check. 47 About the collections it can be said that, there were fs laces where the fund-raising drive could not be properly organized, 8 but, on the other hand, there were places where a sizeable amount of money was raised. Milan Getting estimated the total raised was $10,000. However, he added that his estimate should be treated with some reserve. For instance, at the convention of the First Catholic Slovak Union in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in September of 1926, Jozef Husek allegedly proposed to give Hlinka $5 ,000, but the delegates objected that the head office gave, without their consent, $1 ,000 to each Slovak bishop. They agreed on the same amount for Andrej Hlinka.49 At that time, the assets of the organization totaled $5,095 ,583 .37.50 The Slovak League of America, according to the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh, could not contribute to Hlinka, because its treasury was too small. 5 1 The final result of the fund-raising drive was most pertinently expressed by Hlinka in his letter to the Reverend Jan Postenyi after his return from the USA: "As you know, I have returned with fame , pennants and rings-but not many dollars. Business is business and I 46 AMZ V CR, f. III , i. no. 22, fo ld. 65 1. The leaflet Svoji svojim. AMZV CR, f. lll, i. no. 22, fo ld . 651 . Situati on report of the Consul ate of the CS R in Pittsburgh, to the MF A in Prague, October 5, 1926. 48 For instance, the lecture in Pittsburgh, that was held on Sund ay August 8, 1926, because according to Pennsylvania law, one co uld not collect an entrance fee. Cf. Ibid 49 AMZ V CR, f. lll, i. no. 22 , fo ld. 651 . Situati on report of the Consul ate of th e CS R in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, October 5, 1926. 50 PAUCO, Jozef. 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty 1890 - / 965 (Cleveland : First Catholic Slovak Uni on, I 965), p. 2 I 2. 51 AMZ V CR, f. III, i. no. 22, fo ld . 651 . Situation report of th e Consul ate of the CS R in Pittsburgh, to the MFA in Prague, October 5, I 926. 47 SLOVAKIA 45 am not very good at it. I am a great idealist and our masters, the bishops, skimmed off the cream." 52 According to the report of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh, Andrej Hlinka ended his lecture tour by annoying his sympathizers in America. Allegedly, Gerat did not stick to the official schedule, which resulted in Hlinka presenting his lectures without reference to the local organizing committee. However, the main cause of the annoyance of American Slovaks was the fact that Hlinka refused to lecture at the parish of the nationalist Stefan Panik in Torrington, Connecticut, but instead agreed to lecture at Andrej Komara's parish in Bridgeport, Connecticut. 53 As Milan Getting noted, Komara had been denounced by neighboring Slovak priests as a Magyarone. Therefore, by accepting his invitation, Hlinka disappointed many of his followers .54 Allegedly, after the lecture at Komara's parish on October 3, 1926, Hlinka and Gerat55 began to show a certain nervousness. This, according to the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh, arose from the fact that Hlinka had failed to settle the arguments in the SlovakAmerican Catholic camp. It could also have been a result of their disappointment in the fund-raising drive. Another reason could have been the development of the political situation back home. In addition, Hlinka could see that the audience at his lectures was declining. He may also have been frustrated by articles published in the Czechoslovak daily Newyorsky dennik, which attacked him during his whole stay in the USA. 56 52 Archiv Spolku sv. Vojtecha v Tmave [Archives of the Society of St. Adalbert in Tmava] , fascic le (hereinafter fasc.) 156. Letter of A. Hlinka to J. Postenyi, November 3, 1926. 53 According to the Newyorsky dennik, Komara promised Hlinka $2,000, which, according to Getting, Hlinka did not deny. Cf. AMZV CR, f. Ill, i. no. 22, fold. 651. Situation report of the Consulate of the CSR in Pittsburgh, to the MFA of th e CSR in Prague from October 15 , 1926. Not following the schedule of the lectures was also reported in Jednota, October 6, 1926, p. 2. 54 AMZV CR, f. III , i. no. 22, fold. 651. Situation report of the Consulate of the CSR in Pittsburgh, to the MF A of the CSR in Prague from October 15, 1926. 55 Meanwhile, Buday returned to Slovakia. He left America on July 24, 1926. Cf. Slovak, August 6, 1926, p. 1. 56 AMZV CR, f. 111, i. no. 22, fold. 651. Situation report of the Consulate of the CSR in Pittsburgh, to the MFA of the CSR in Prague from October 15, 1926. 46 SLOVAKIA The last of Hlinka's lectures in the USA was in New York City on October 11 , 1926. 57 He left the USA on October 13 , 1926 and returned to Slovakia on October 22, 1926. 58 Even if the conclusion of his lecture tour to the USA looked disappointing, it did not radically affect the attitudes of American Slovaks to his person, nor the autonomist movement in Slovakia. It is apparent, therefore, that on the occasion of the 28 th International Eucharistic Congress in Chicago, Illinois, Andrej Hlinka, made use of his trip to lecture and to raise funds in favour of autonomy within the Czechoslovak Republic. According to the report of the Czechoslovak consulate in Pittsburgh, the situation in the Slovak autonomist camp in America at that time was quite tense. The reasons for the tension were personal problems, frustration arising from the Czechoslovak government's failure to uphold the Pittsburgh Agreement and the pressure of State Insurance Commissioners on fraternal societies to increase their monthly dues. After initial disagreements, Hlinka's lecture tour was organized by a committee composed almost entirely of priests. Hlinka visited more than one hundred Slovak parishes, took part in eighty discussions and presented more than two hundred lectures. However, the fund-raising drive did not bring the expected results. In addition, according to the report of the Czechoslovak Consulate in Pittsburgh, Andrej Hlinka ended his lecture tour by annoying his sympathizers in America by not having respected the schedule of the local organizational committee. The main cause of the annoyance, however, was the fact that Hlinka refused to lecture at nationalist Stefan Panik's parish in Torrington, Connecticut, but rather at the parish of the alleged Magyarone Andrej Komara in Bridgeport. Even if in the end his lecture tour to the USA disappointed many Slovak nationalists, Hlinka did not lose the sympathy of American Slovaks, nor support for the autonomist movement in Slovakia. 57 58 Ibid. Slo vak, October 23 , 1926, p. 3.  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 Andrej Hlinka's Journey to the USA in 1926 Description An account of the resource Štefan Kucík Slovakia, Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010 pp. 32-46 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kucík, Štefan, 1979- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/b4134cbe012ed95da160e500b7f956ce.pdf 5a5fd563ab9b0ecff7c73ad92c80a00b PDF Text Text 120 SLOVAKIA CONTRIBUTORS EDITA BOSAK is an Associate Professor of History at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She is a specialist in I 8th and 19 th Slovak and Central European history, and she has published many articles in this field, as well as on the contemporary Czech and Slovak Roma. At present she is preparing a monograph on Slovak nationalism and Czech-Slovak relations . SCOTT BROWN received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Washington in 2010. He specializes in the Slovak question in the 1960's. He has published articles on such topics as the federalization debate of 1968 and the parallels between the Czechoslovak Spring and the Velvet Divorce. His current research is focused on Communist-era political cartoons in East-Central Europe. JAN CARNOGURSKY was Minister of Justice of the Slovak Republic from 1998 to 2002. Educated as an attorney (Comenius University, Bratislava, 1971), he specialized in defending political prisoners in communist Czechoslovakia. Disbarred for political reasons in 1981 , Carnogursky became a taxi driver but in 1987 the government forbade him to do even that. In 1988 he started to publish the underground weekly Bratislavske listy, for which he was arrested in 1989. Freed during the "Velet Revolution" of 1989, he was catapulted to the position of Deputy Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia. In March of 1990 he founded the Christian Democratic Movement in Slovakia and Chaired that party until 2002. Meanwhile, he served as Deputy Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic in 1990-1991 and as Prime Minister from 1991 to 1992. During 19921998 he served (in opposition) as a deputy in the Slovak Parliament. He is now retired from politics and practices law in Bratislava. �SLOVAKIA 121 MIROSLA V CHROMEK received his M.A. from Comenius University in Bratislava in 2008. He wrote his thesis on the Slovak intellectual and politician Jozef Stasko. He hopes to continue doing research on Slovak emigres in the West after World War II. STEFAN KUCIK, Paed.Dr., is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Education, Catholic University of Ruzomberok, Slovak Republic. He specializes in Slovak history and the history of American and Canadian Slovaks. He is currently completing his Ph.D. at the University of Presov on "The Participation of American and Canadian Slovaks in the Autonomist Movement in Slovakia in 1918 - 1938." JAN PETROVSKY, is an Assistant Lecturer at the Catholic University of Ruzomberok. He wrote his M.A. thesis on Slovak Emigration to North America in the late 19 th and Early 20 th centuries. He is currently teaching English and history at the same university. �122 SLOVAKIA GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPTS Manuscripts for possible publication should be sent to the editor. Articles should normally not exceed twenty-five pages in length, should be typed double-spaced, should include footnotes at the bottom of the page, and should be submitted as one hard copy and one in electronic format, using either MicrosoftWord or WordPerfect. Text and format should adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style. Proper orthography and diacritical marks must be supplied for all foreign words. Manuscripts will not be returned unless specifically requested and postage is provided. Books for review are to be sent to the editor. Unsolicited book reviews are not encouraged. ��THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA A civic and cultural federation of Americans of Slovak Ancestry Organized in 1907 DANIEL F. TANZONE President W. NINA HOLY Secretary - Treasurer Vice Presidents Gabriel Kovac Martha Kona 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, Kenneth A. Arendt, Steven M. Pogorelec, Irene J. Drotleff, Justine Wesnak 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 � 120 SLOVAKIA CONTRIBUTORS EDITA BOSAK is an Associate Professor of History at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She is a specialist in I 8th and 19 th Slovak and Central European history, and she has published many articles in this field, as well as on the contemporary Czech and Slovak Roma. At present she is preparing a monograph on Slovak nationalism and Czech-Slovak relations . SCOTT BROWN received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Washington in 2010. He specializes in the Slovak question in the 1960's. He has published articles on such topics as the federalization debate of 1968 and the parallels between the Czechoslovak Spring and the Velvet Divorce. His current research is focused on Communist-era political cartoons in East-Central Europe. JAN CARNOGURSKY was Minister of Justice of the Slovak Republic from 1998 to 2002. Educated as an attorney (Comenius University, Bratislava, 1971), he specialized in defending political prisoners in communist Czechoslovakia. Disbarred for political reasons in 1981 , Carnogursky became a taxi driver but in 1987 the government forbade him to do even that. In 1988 he started to publish the underground weekly Bratislavske listy, for which he was arrested in 1989. Freed during the "Velet Revolution" of 1989, he was catapulted to the position of Deputy Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia. In March of 1990 he founded the Christian Democratic Movement in Slovakia and Chaired that party until 2002. Meanwhile, he served as Deputy Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic in 1990-1991 and as Prime Minister from 1991 to 1992. During 19921998 he served (in opposition) as a deputy in the Slovak Parliament. He is now retired from politics and practices law in Bratislava. �SLOVAKIA 121 MIROSLA V CHROMEK received his M.A. from Comenius University in Bratislava in 2008. He wrote his thesis on the Slovak intellectual and politician Jozef Stasko. He hopes to continue doing research on Slovak emigres in the West after World War II. STEFAN KUCIK, Paed.Dr., is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Education, Catholic University of Ruzomberok, Slovak Republic. He specializes in Slovak history and the history of American and Canadian Slovaks. He is currently completing his Ph.D. at the University of Presov on "The Participation of American and Canadian Slovaks in the Autonomist Movement in Slovakia in 1918 - 1938." JAN PETROVSKY, is an Assistant Lecturer at the Catholic University of Ruzomberok. He wrote his M.A. thesis on Slovak Emigration to North America in the late 19 th and Early 20 th centuries. He is currently teaching English and history at the same university. �122 SLOVAKIA GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPTS Manuscripts for possible publication should be sent to the editor. Articles should normally not exceed twenty-five pages in length, should be typed double-spaced, should include footnotes at the bottom of the page, and should be submitted as one hard copy and one in electronic format, using either MicrosoftWord or WordPerfect. Text and format should adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style. Proper orthography and diacritical marks must be supplied for all foreign words. Manuscripts will not be returned unless specifically requested and postage is provided. Books for review are to be sent to the editor. Unsolicited book reviews are not encouraged. ��THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA A civic and cultural federation of Americans of Slovak Ancestry Organized in 1907 DANIEL F. TANZONE President W. NINA HOLY Secretary - Treasurer Vice Presidents Gabriel Kovac Martha Kona 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, Kenneth A. Arendt, Steven M. Pogorelec, Irene J. Drotleff, Justine Wesnak 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 2010, Vol. 40 Description An account of the resource Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010. 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 2010 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 120 SLOVAKIA CONTRIBUTORS EDITA BOSAK is an Associate Professor of History at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She is a specialist in I 8th and 19 th Slovak and Central European history, and she has published many articles in this field, as well as on the contemporary Czech and Slovak Roma. At present she is preparing a monograph on Slovak nationalism and Czech-Slovak relations . SCOTT BROWN received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Washington in 2010. He specializes in the Slovak question in the 1960's. He has published articles on such topics as the federalization debate of 1968 and the parallels between the Czechoslovak Spring and the Velvet Divorce. His current research is focused on Communist-era political cartoons in East-Central Europe. JAN CARNOGURSKY was Minister of Justice of the Slovak Republic from 1998 to 2002. Educated as an attorney (Comenius University, Bratislava, 1971), he specialized in defending political prisoners in communist Czechoslovakia. Disbarred for political reasons in 1981 , Carnogursky became a taxi driver but in 1987 the government forbade him to do even that. In 1988 he started to publish the underground weekly Bratislavske listy, for which he was arrested in 1989. Freed during the "Velet Revolution" of 1989, he was catapulted to the position of Deputy Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia. In March of 1990 he founded the Christian Democratic Movement in Slovakia and Chaired that party until 2002. Meanwhile, he served as Deputy Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic in 1990-1991 and as Prime Minister from 1991 to 1992. During 19921998 he served (in opposition) as a deputy in the Slovak Parliament. He is now retired from politics and practices law in Bratislava. SLOVAKIA 121 MIROSLA V CHROMEK received his M.A. from Comenius University in Bratislava in 2008. He wrote his thesis on the Slovak intellectual and politician Jozef Stasko. He hopes to continue doing research on Slovak emigres in the West after World War II. STEFAN KUCIK, Paed.Dr., is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Education, Catholic University of Ruzomberok, Slovak Republic. He specializes in Slovak history and the history of American and Canadian Slovaks. He is currently completing his Ph.D. at the University of Presov on "The Participation of American and Canadian Slovaks in the Autonomist Movement in Slovakia in 1918 - 1938." JAN PETROVSKY, is an Assistant Lecturer at the Catholic University of Ruzomberok. He wrote his M.A. thesis on Slovak Emigration to North America in the late 19 th and Early 20 th centuries. He is currently teaching English and history at the same university. 122 SLOVAKIA GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPTS Manuscripts for possible publication should be sent to the editor. Articles should normally not exceed twenty-five pages in length, should be typed double-spaced, should include footnotes at the bottom of the page, and should be submitted as one hard copy and one in electronic format, using either MicrosoftWord or WordPerfect. Text and format should adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style. Proper orthography and diacritical marks must be supplied for all foreign words. Manuscripts will not be returned unless specifically requested and postage is provided. Books for review are to be sent to the editor. Unsolicited book reviews are not encouraged. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA A civic and cultural federation of Americans of Slovak Ancestry Organized in 1907 DANIEL F. TANZONE President W. NINA HOLY Secretary - Treasurer Vice Presidents Gabriel Kovac Martha Kona 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, Kenneth A. Arendt, Steven M. Pogorelec, Irene J. Drotleff, Justine Wesnak 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. 40 (No. 74-75) 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 2010 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/dc4c8882b864b26602b53f8832e69f24.pdf 395f55d674e2e1cd0c8467de9b7ffe0f PDF Text Text REVIEWS ��SLOVAKIA 103 Nauka reci slovenskej [Nauka reci slovenskej vistavena od Ludevita Stura], Ludevit Stur, Vol. l : Faksimile povodneho vydania na vydanie pripravili Eubomir Durovic and Slavomir Ondrejovic. Bratislava: VEDA, 2006. 228 pages, facsimile of the 1846 grammar text. Nauka reci slovenskej : Komentare, Bibliograjia, Vol. 2, Eugen Jona, Eubomir Durovic, Slavomir Ondrejovic. Bratislava: VEDA, 2006 . 323 pp., commentary, bibliography, and various indices. GERALD J. SABO , S.J. John Carroll University This two-volume publication is a singular event. The first volume is a facsimile edition of the 1846 grammar by Eudovit Stur (1815-56), whose availability inside Slovakia is quite limited, and outside Slovakia is virtually non-existent. The second volume enhances the grammar with background information, providing detailed analysis of and commentary by eminent Slovak linguists, among them Eubomir Durovic. Both volumes appear on the 160th anniversary of the grammar' s original publication, but also the 150th anniversary of Stur's accidental death. Lutheran pastors and Catholic priests worked on the codification of Slovak from the eighteenth century through the mid-nineteenth. In the l 720s the Slovak Lutheran pastors and scholars Matej Bel and Daniel Krrnan published the Bible in the primarily Czech linguistic form espoused by Slovak Lutherans. In his 1746 grammar the Lutheran pastor Pavel Dolezal presented Slovak and Czech as two dialects of one language- Czechoslovak. In the 1750s the Catholic Camaldolese monks translated the Bible into Slovak for their own useespecially in readings for the liturgical year, a significant accomplishment that would be discovered only in the mid-twentieth century. In the late 1780s the Catholic priest Anton Bemolak initiated the extensive Catholic efforts for codifying Slovak and then promoted his codified norm. For his codification Bemolak drew upon the Slovak that had been nurtured through the activities and �104 SLOVAKIA publications of the Jesuit university in Trnava since 1635 , and that in the twentieth century Slovak linguists would call "Cultural WestSlovak." Among Bernolak's various language-related writings, he realized a grammar and even a five-language dictionary in six large volumes, completed and published in the 1820s by the priest Jur[ aj] Palkovic. Through their writings, two priests helped spread Bernolak's codified Slovak- Juraj Fandly in his prose works, and Jan Holly in his extensive epic and lyric poetry. Thanks to Holly, Fandly, and others, Bernolak-Slovak (bernolakovcina) became the acceptable and promoted means of expression among Slovak Catholics through the 1840s. During this period, Lutherans continued to publish various literary and other works in biblictina ("Biblical language," in effect, the version of Czech used in the Bohemian Brethren 's Kralice Bible of the late sixteenth century with varying mixtures of Slovak language elements through the nineteenth century). The extent of such writing is clear from the four-volume biographic compilation of Slovak Lutheran poets (1806-12) by the pastor Bohuslav Tablic. Although Slovak Lutherans were a decided minority in the Slovak region of the Kingdom of Hungary, despite their quite modest numbers they remained a well-educated group that strove to retain this distinction in contrast to the much more numerous but less-educated fellow Christian-Catholics. Indeed, the Lutherans especially employed and espoused biblictina in their cultural and liturgical activities to emphasize their relationship with Czech Protestants, thereby increasing their group's numerical strength and enhancing their cultural status. Given this, the Lutherans' reasoning could well have been why should they adopt a linguistic norm created and promoted by the majority Catholic population that was not as educated or cultivated as they? In 1803 Slovak Lutherans established a Chair of Czechoslovak Language and Literature at their lycee in Bratislava. Jiri [Juraj] Palkovic was the first and only holder of this Chair ( 1803-50), and helped to foster Slovak Lutheran publications and cultural exchange. At the Lutheran lycee in Bratislava students and staff became the nucleus for the Lutheran promotion of Slavic/Slovak consciousness in response to the increasing Magyarization in Slovakia. I:udovit Stur studied at the lycee between 1829 and 1834. After his student years from 1835-3 7, Stur was vice-president of the Czecho-Slavic Society, whose 1836 almanach Plody (Fruits) of various writings �SLOVAKIA 105 also represented a manifesto of Slovak national consciousness and identity. On April I 0, 1836 Stur wrote to the Protestant Czech/Moravian cultural figure and historian Frantisek Palacky emphasizing the need for unity among Slovaks and Czechs. As Stt'.ir pointed out, the Czech language used by Lutherans in the Slovak area was not accessible to Catholic Slovaks, and thus there was a need for some combination of the Czech and Slovak language to provide for Slovak and Czech unity and understanding. The Czechs were unwilling to accept Stur's proposal. Although on February I, 1837 Stur became an unremunerated deputy to Jiff Palkovic, on April 5th the Czecho-Slavic society halted its activites because of a government ban on student societies. Stur served as a deputy to Palkovic during 1837-38 and 1840-43 , with his university study at Halle between those periods. After a lengthy investigation, on December 31, 1843 the Bratislava convention of the Lutheran Church relieved Stur of his position as Palkovic's deputy, after which he devoted himself to scholarly, journalistic, and political activity. By 1843 Stur had come to view Slovak as a distinct Slavic language, especially vis-a-vis Czech. According to the Lutheran poet Samo Hrobon, on February 14, 1843 a meeting of various Lutheran lycee students/alumni and their professor L. Stur marked the "day of resurrection of Slovak" (J6na, vol. 2: 31 ). In mid-July of 1843 Stur met with the Lutheran pastors Jozef Miloslav Hurban and Michal Miloslav Hodza at Hurban's parish in Hlboke for the purpose of creating a di stinct Slovak norm. A day after that discussion the three met with the Catholic priest-poet Jan Holly at the latter's parish in Dobra Yoda and received Holly's blessing for their endeavor. At the founding gathering in Liptovsky Svaty Mikulas for the journal Tatrin during August 26-28, 1844, Stur's Slovak norm was publicly proclaimed (Durovic, vol. 2: 59). In codifying Slovak as a distinct language, Stur prepared two texts: one explaining the need for writing in Slovak and a grammar of Slovak based on the Central Slovak dialect of Liptovsky Svaty Mikulas (Durovic, vol. 2: 62). Both these texts would be published only in 1846. In vo lume 2 of this publication, three linguists focus on Stur and his grammar. Eugen J6na's study provides a very detailed commentary on Stur, hi s evolving writing activity related to Slovak, especially the two texts of 1846, as well as the influences on Stur's cultural, political, and linguistic thinking (pp. 11-47). Cubomir Durovic has �106 SLOVAKIA the most extensive study (51-257). In his introduction, Durovic discusses Stur's grammar and Slovak in relation to the two editions ( 1809 and 1819) of the Czech/Bohemian grammar by Josef Dobrovsky and various Slovak Lutheran cultural publications (58-63) . This is followed by an extensive and meticulous analysis of Stur's grammar (64-194) with reference to various nineteenth - and twentiethcentury linguistic writings listed at the end (195-196). Completing f:>urovic's study are three indices in relation to his commentary on Stur's grammar proper: an index of words, morphemes, and phonemes (195-227); a "phonematicifonematicky" index of interpreted morphemes and words (229-3 I); and a topic/subject index (233-57). Slavo Ondrejovic concludes this volume with two bibliographies: one of Stur's personal and linguistic works published from 1841 through 2003 (259-68), and a select one on writings about Stur that concern language and linguistic questions published from 1817 through 2006 (269-323). In their introduction to the second volume, Durovic and Ondrejovic have noted the need for such a publication and the lengthy process involved in realizing this work. Specialists in Slovak linguistics, especially in the historical development of contemporary Slovak, will appreciate their efforts for many years to come. Likewise, Slovakia-based, but especially international specialists in Slovak culture and history, will also enhance their understanding of the codifycation of Slovak by Stur and his Lutheran colleagues. Andras Gero, The Jewish Criterion in Hungary, translated from the Magyar by Alan Campbell. Boulder, Colorado, Social Science Monographs: Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York, 2007. 153 pp., notes, biographical notes, photographs, index. YESHA YAHU A. JELINEK Beer-Sheva, Israel This is both a confusing and challenging book. The challenge comes in trying to clarify the definition of a Jew. The confusion comes in trying to define a Jew from Hungary. Of the book's five chapters, the first two were the most confusing. Gero first sets out to discuss Hungarian Jewry. However, he does not differentiate (as do all Slavic languages) between "Hunga- �SLOVAKIA 107 rian" and "Magyar." "Hungary" until 1918 was a geographico-political term for the lands of the Crown of St. Stephen. "Magyar" referred to the largest ethnic (and ruling) group in the Kingdom of Hungary. For contemporary Magyars, as for Gero, such a differentiation does not exist. He equated "Hungary" with "Magyarorszag" (the land of the Magyars). Therefore, when Gero analyzes the "Hungarian Jew" (Magyar Zsid6 ), we do not really understand who he has in mind. Jews appeared on the territory between the Carpathian mountains and the Balkans in the Roman period, much earlier than the Slavs or Magyars. They inhabited the Kingdom of Hungary, initially ruled by the Arpad dynasty and later the Habsburgs . They were not considered to be Magyars. Only in the 19 th century did the Magyars try to "Magyarize" the Jews, as well as the other non-Magyar nationalities. Gero knows these facts, but avoids them. For Gero, there were only "Hungarian Jews" in the entire Kingdom of Hungary. He seems to be entirely unaware of ethnic divisions within Jewry- the existence of Slovak, Rusin , Croat, Transylvanian, etc. Jews. While Gero devotes much space to a rather intelligent discussion of the living conditions, historical environment, and ethnic survival of Magyar Jews, he ignores the fact that Jews in Hungary lived among different nations. He is aware of the oppresssive Magyar nationalism, and criticizes it severely in his last three chapters, but remains unaware of the varieties of Judaism within the Kingdom. The challenging part of this book is the thoughtful discussion of Jewish existence in Hungary and the relations of Jews with the Gentile majority. This discussion forces the reader to re-evaluate quite a few accepted notions about Jewish life in Hungary. Unfortunately, Gero is not familiar with the history of the various Jewish groups in the Kingdom of Hungary. This becomes clear when one compares Jewish life on the Pannonian Plain (today's Hungary) with that of Upper Hungary (Slovakia) or with Sub-Carpathian Rus. Furthermore, he erroneously refers to Hungarian Jews "leaving the ghetto" in the 19 th century. Only Bratislava and a few cities in the Burgenland had "ghettos." That is why Jews who left Moravia for Hungary, or Galicia for Hungary in the 19 th century, suddenly found much greater freedom than they had ever fe lt before. Gero 's lack of knowledge about the Slovak and Rusin portions of the Kingdom of Hungary becomes clear when he discusses Jewish �108 SLOVAKIA conversions to Christianity and the rise of Zionism. For instance, while conversion to Christianity on the Pannonian Plain was not uncommon, it was rare in Upper Hungary or in Sub-Carpathian Rus. When discussing Zionism, Gero neglected its manifestations on Slovak territory and did not perceive that it was weak in the Magyar counties because it was persecuted by the Hungarian government. On the other hand, in Upper Hungary, where Zionizm was weak, Chasidism was strong. Chasidic rabbis were bitter enemies of Zionism. Therefore, one must tread carefully when discussing the strength or weakness of Zionism in Hungary. The most challenging part of Gero's book deals with the rise of anti-Semitism at the end of the 19 th century. Here he deals with the riddle of who is a Jew and when is he considered as such, and under what conditions . Most of Gero's arguments deal only with the Magyar portion of Hungary, which is a pity, because, if he had dug deeper, he could have made the case that it was largely the Magyars who taught the other ethnic groups to hate the Jews. Tiso, Jozef Prejavy a clanky. Vol. I (1913-1938). Ed. Miroslav Fabricius and Ladislav Susko. Bratislava: Academic Electronic Press and Historicky ustav SA V, 2002 . 567 pp. Tiso, Jozef Prejavy a clanky. Vol. 2: (193 8-1944). Ed. Miroslav Fabricius and Katarina Hradska. Bratislava: Academic Electronic Press and Historicky ustav SAV, 2007 . 696 pp. DANIEL E. MILLER University of West Florida, Pensacola The editors of this set of two volumes assembled the speeches and articles of Jozef Tiso (1887-1947) to provide researchers with a valuable source for the history of Slovak politics covering the periods from shortly before the Great War until the Munich Agreement and then from October 1938 until just before 29 August 1944, the beginning of the Slovak National Uprising. Each volume has a very brief introduction and a table of contents that lists the numbered documents in chronological order (this review cites the volume and document numbers). The first volume contains 267 documents and five addenda; the second, 389 documents and 10 addenda. Together, �SLOVAKIA 109 they contain 671 documents on 1,226 pages with no introductions or summaries for each document to color the readers ' opinions. The editors cited multiple sources for each selection, including Slovak archives and newspapers throughout Slovakia. They included explanatory notes, some of which are rather detailed, about individuals, groups, events, terms, and foreign phrases (as a theologian, Tiso had a propensity to use Latin phrases). Some footnotes point out discrepancies in the speeches as they appeared in the various periodicals. In their efforts to be thorough, the editors included journalists' paraphrased summaries of Tiso's speeches when actual texts were unavailable. Furthermore, they did not overlook minor comments, the shortest of which is a mere two lines (l/ 177). Significant gaps raise questions about the completeness of the collection. At the beginning of his career as a priest, Tiso 's publications were understandably sparse, but several selections toward the end of the Great War and immediately afterward are missing. At least a dozen of Tiso's articles appeared in 1917 and 1918 in Papok Kozlonye [Priests' Bulletin] and Duchovny pastier [Spiritual Shepherd], all of which James Mace Ward cites in his dissertation, "No Saint: Jozef Tiso, 1887-1947" (Stanford University, 2008, pp. 63-65), with proper notations about pseudonyms and, in some cases, authorship. By his own admission, after the war Tiso edited and wrote articles for Nyitra/Nitra. In contrast, the first volume of Tiso ' s speeches and articles for the same period contain only a few articles. Oddly enough, there are only five entries in 1929 and 1930 and seven in 1931 , all speeches, aside from one, and an average of 23 entries per year for the previous five years and 15 for the following five years. Additional citations are in Ward's work, including police reports. Police agents attended every open party meeting for all political parties during the First Republic, and they reported the comments of speakers, the reactions of the crowds, and any incidents . The material from these reports is no less valid than the redacted summaries of Tiso ' s speeches that appeared in the press, and they would have filled the voids in Tiso ' s public addresses in these two volumes . While Tiso indeed might have been preoccupied in 1929-1931 , undoubtedly more publications and addresses exist, especially in light of the 1917-1 8 omissions. At times, Tiso ' s silence was intentional. In his 65 months as president of the Slovak Republic, Tiso produced an average of sli- �110 SLOVAKIA ghtly more than five speeches and articles each month, but the frequency declined over time. Most likely, Tiso withdrew from public view with the mounting legitimacy crisis in the Slovak Republic resulting from Germany's losses on the Eastern Front, as well as the prospect of the Allies recreating Czechoslovakia at the war's end and criminalizing Slovakia 's clerical-fascist regime. As a result, in the first eight months of 1944, there are only 23 entries, That is less than three speeches and articles for each month . The speeches and articles in these two volumes portray Tiso as priest, ideologist, party politician, parliamentarian, cabinet minister, and president. The value of this collection is greater than the sum of its parts. Certainly, researchers are relieved that they have the bulk of Tiso 's works at their fingertips and need not spend countless hours scouring sources and fearing that they overlooked something. Furthermore, the assemblage of Tiso 's works in one venue facilitates fresh perspectives on his career. A change in Tiso 's speaking style is apparent in the two volumes. The paucity of his speeches before he became a cabinet minister in 1927 is striking, and it is unfortunate that more texts and transcripts of speeches do not exist from this time. Nevertheless, it is impossible that Tiso could have built his popularity solely on the basis of articles, and the police reports could have made the evidence from this period more balanced . Tiso's speeches in the decade from 1927 until 1938 were disciplined- they had a single topic and a logical argument. This is especially true of his carefully crafted speeches in the National Assembly and before selected audiences. As president, Tiso addressed a wide variety of audiences with speeches that lacked focus and often contained topics not well suited for his listeners. As a result, he analyzed the development of the Slovak Republic with respect to the fate of other East-Central European states while addressing Catholics on a pilgrimage (Il/135). When celebrating the electrification of a district, he spoke about the wonders of electricity, encouraged factory workers and farmers to cooperate in building the state, and admonished listeners about observing the laws regarding economic matters (II/221 ). At a religious gathering in 1942, he criticized efforts to count all Greek-Catholic Slovaks as Rusyns and shortly afterward justified the confiscation of Jewish property with the slogan "Slovakia for Slovaks" (II/282). Aside from being an undisciplined extemporaneous speaker, one possible explanation for the �SLOVAKIA 111 change in style was Tiso ' s need to account for the policies of the state in the simplest terms for the broadest range of listeners. Between 1918 and 1938, Tiso's public comments and writings focused in part or exclusively on the need for Slovak autonomy as fulfilling the promise of the Pittsburgh Agreement. The tenor of his mesages heightened over the years, and in February 193 7 he referred to Czechoslovakia as an "aberration of democracy" (1/243), although he uttered plenty of vituperative condemnations of the First Republic both before and afterward. Despite efforts to cooperate with supporters of Slovak autonomy in the camp of Lutheran Slovaks within the Slovak National Party and even Hungarian politicians in the 1930s, Tiso tirelessly strove to bind Slovak identity with the Catholic faith, to link the leadership of the nation to the Catholic clergy, and to advance his Hlinka' s Slovak People's Party as the only major political party to recognize and defend the Slovak nation as unique. After the Munich Agreement, Tiso became minister for Slovak affairs and then on October 6, 1938 premier of an autonomous Slovakia. During this time, Tiso concentrated on policy and restructuring the political system, which essentially made Slovakia a oneparty state. After Slovak independence on 14 March 1939, Tiso served as prime minister and then, beginning in October 1939, he became the republic ' s president. Tiso now sought to legitimize the new republic, justifying its independence and thanking Adolf Hitler for extending his protection to the Slovaks. Tiso linked Slovakia to Germany's successes and Germany's leadership in the construction of a new Europe. Beginning in 1943, roughly coinciding with the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, Tiso's references to Hitler and Germany became sparse, and Tiso did not mention either in his address in 1944 on the fifth anniversary of the Slovak state (ll/374). Tiso obviously wanted to distance himself from Hitler, but fewer references to his patron also suggest the limits of Tiso's acceptance of his own earlier rhetoric. Throughout the war, Tiso's description of Slovakia ' s mission on the Eastern Front as a struggle against Bolshevism, with its Jewish and anti-Christian influences, remained constant. In the final document dated 6 August 1944, Tiso ended with a prophetic statement: "we cannot deny that the Bolsheviks are at the border and that they promise the scaffold!" (II/389) . The two volumes reveal much about the development of Tiso's anti-Semitism. There are few references to Jews in Tiso ' s statements �112 SLOVAKIA between the world wars, and at one point in 1934, he even invited Jews, Germans, Hungarians, and Czechs in Slovakia to join with Slovaks in demanding autonomy (l/202). Nevertheless, there are occasional anti-Jewish comments, such as Ti so's call for land from the church estates parceled under the land reform to go to Catholic farmers , not Jews, nonbelievers, and speculators (l/78). During the Second Czecho-Slovak Republic, Tiso identified Jews as a foreign element whose presence in Slovak society must be proportionate to their numbers. Nevertheless, he warned that Jews should not become the objects of "hatred and sadistic tendencies" (I/32). His rhetoric against Jews heightened when Slovakia became independent, and in August 1942 he justified the removal of Jews from Slovak society as the elimination of an enemy, an act of self-defense in keeping with Christian morals. Loving oneself is a precept from God, according to Tiso, "and I think there is no need to convince anyone that the Jewish element endangers the life of a Slovak" (11/287). There is little evidence in these two volumes to suggest that Tiso 's antiSemitism was anything but genuine, but the addition of Tiso's intensely anti-Semitic Ny itra/Nitra articles make his hatred of Jews indisputable. The editors are preparing a third vo lume to cover the conversations of Hitler and Tiso as well as Tiso 's statements from the beginning of the Slovak National Uprising on 29 August 1944 through his 1946-1947 trial. They indicated their intent to include in the third volume addenda for the first two volumes and expressed their wish that historians inform them of additional documents. The inclusion of missing items- those signed with a pseudonym or abbreviated name and those whose authorship is disputable- is absoutely essential , not only for the convenience of researchers, but also for the sake of objectivity. Perhaps they can be in a section of their own. The editors had planned to include three indexes in the second volume, and one can assume that these essential tools for researchers will appear in the planned third volume. Specialists on Slovak affairs in the Habsburg Monarchy, the First Czechoslovak Republic, and the first Slovak Republic are greatly indebted to Fabricius, Susko, Hradska, and the others who contributed to the production of these two volumes . They anxiously await the appearance of the third volume in this indispensable series. �SLOVAKIA 113 Max Domarus, Th e Complete Hitler: A Digital Desktop Reference to His Speeches and Proclamations 1932-1945. Wauconda, Ill. : Bolchazy-Carducci, 2007. (CD-ROM edition). VASILLIS VOURKOUTIOTIS University of Ottawa While documentary collections concerning the Third Reich are not, generally speaking, difficult to come by, few students are exposed to the actual words of Adolf Hitler except as summarized by other compilers in wider works . The exception to this has been Max Domtarus' four-volume collection of Hitler's speeches. The compilation of this resource was linked to the history it attempted to capture. In 1932, Max Domarus was only twenty-two years old. Yet, he realized that in Adolf Hitler, Germany and the world were faced with a new phenomenon whose significance should not be underestimated. He began, in that year, to collect and compile as many of Hitler's speeches as he could find , and continued the project through the war years until Hitler' s death in 1945 . After the war, Domarus supplemented his collection as much as possible, and the resulting work, which included his annotations and commentary, was a four-volume set published in German. For each year in question, the reader is offered a detailed summary of events, and photographs from the Domarus archive. Full endnotes for each section yield bibliographical citations, as well as additional explanatory commentary. Each volume also contains a list of abbreviations which users will find helpful. Although some of Domarus' commentaries have been superceded by historical research, his perceptions remain as interesting in several instances as the speeches they comment upon. The four-volume set, even though it only covers Hitler's speeches from 1932 onward, remains the best single collection of the dictator's words. With this CD, Domarus's publishers have brought an important printed historical resource into the modem information age. An English-language translation accompanies the original German text, bringing to the user eight volumes of material in a single disk. Although presented in a chronological format, the speeches are in a searchable PDF format, allowing the student or researcher the ability to scan years of �114 SLOVAKIA material for keywords . For those with the language abilities and desire, the English version can be easily compared for accuracy with the German original. Given how long Hitler could speak for at a single event, it is not surprising that Domarus felt the need to offer exerpts rather than a stenographic record. This may strike some as a potential drawback, and might lead some researches to seek the full text of a particular speech of interest. The vast majority of users, however, will not find this a significant issue; Domarus' work has remained the standard reference for university libraries since its first publication in 1962 with good reason. Two versions of the CD ROM exist, the Standard and ePremium. In addition to the advantages of the Standard, the ePremium addition allows the user to print, copy and paste text directly from the PDF files into one's own documents, and add commentary to the texts. These enhancements will be of interest to those who work closely enough with the material in their own research. On the whole, in making both the English and German versions of Domarus' compilations available in such a format, the publishers have not only made an important work more accessible, but also provided a service to both students and academics alike. James Ramon Felak After Hitler, Before Stalin: Catholics, Communists, and Democrats in Slovakia, 1945-1948. Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009. xv-261 pp. , notes, bibliography, index. M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa Having perceived a negl ected period of history, James R. Felak set out to tell the story of the role of Catholicism in Slovakia in the period 1945-48, especially its relationship with the Communist and Democratic Parties. The essence of the book is that, even though both the Communists and the Lutheran leaders of the Democratic Party were either hostile to or suspicious of the Roman Catholic Church, both courted Roman Catholic voters in order to attain political power in post-war Slovakia. Having combed the relevant Slovak archives, and read the Communist, Lutheran and Roman Catholic press, along with most secondary sources on the subject, Felak carefully related what actually �SLOVAKIA 115 transpired in Slovakia in the three years after the Second World War. He pointed out that the post-war National Front government that came into existence on April 3, 1945, reduced the pre-war political parties of Czechoslovakia from 16 to 5, and in Slovakia permitted only the Communists and Democrats. The two strongest pre-war political parties, Hlinka Slovak People's Party and the Czechoslovak Agrarian Party were banned as "collaborationist". That meant that the minority Lutherans could (and did) join the newly-formed Democratic Party, but the majority Catholics were disenfranchised. As a result, both the Communists and Democrats courted Catholic voters in anticipation of the May, 1946 elections, while simultaneously attacking the Roman Catholic Church. Thus, the self-appointed Slovak National Council, with its executive Board of Commissioners, nationalized all religious schools, seized most Catholic institutions, severely limited the size of the Catholic press and imprisoned two Slovak bishops. On the other hand, the Communists tried to persuade Catholic voters to vote for their party, because the Democrats were largely Lutherans . Indeed, the Communists even supported the creation of a Christian Republican Party, but the Catholics and Communists could not agree on its name, and this project fell through. The Lutherans, on the other hand, also wooed the Catholics by promising to split future political representation and patronage with them on the basis of a 7:3 ratio in favor of the Catholics. The Catholics found this promise more enticing than Communist overtures and, as a result, the Catholic and Lutheran politicians reached the so-called April Agreement on March 31, 1946. Since they were now united, the Catholics and Lutherans both supported the Democratic Party and won the 1946 elections with a convincing majority of 62%. Since they had lost the elections, the Communist Party of Slovakia went on the offensive. With the collusion of the government in Prague, where the Communists had more influence, and where certain Czech parties resented Slovak home-rule, Slovak Communists, led by Gustav Husak, negotiated the "Third Prague Agreement" of June 27, 1946, by which the Slovak National Council and the Board of Commissioners subordinated themselves to the Prague government. Then the Slovak Communists decided to try for treason the Reverend Jozef Tiso, former president of the first Slovak Republic ( 1939-1945). They saw to it that the National Court was domina- �116 SLOVAKIA ted by Communists who, as expected, found Tiso guilty and sentenced him to death on April 15, 1947. The hapless Democrats on the executive of the Board of Commissioners failed to recommend clemency and left the final verdict to the government in Prague, which upheld the verdict, as did president Benes, and Tiso was hanged on April 17. After this fiasco, Slovak Catholics lost faith in the Democratic Party, just as the Communists began their offensive against it. In the summer and fall of 194 7 the Communists fabricated an anti-state conspiracy against certain Catholic Democrats. On this basis Gustav Husak on October 31 staged a mini-coup in Slovakia by (with Prague support) illegally dissolving and then reappointing the Board of Commissioners in favor of the Communists. This was a prelude to similar tactics by the Communists in Prague in February of 1948, when three non-Communist parties resigned from the government in the hope of toppling it. Instead, the Communists, led by Klement Gottwald offered to form a new government and president Edvard Benes approved it. Thus, by February of 1948 the Communists had completed their takeover of both the Slovak and Czechoslovak governments and instituted totalitarian rule for the next 40 years, during which they tried (but failed) to completely destroy the Roman Catholic church in Czechoslovakia. Felak's book is well-written and comprehensive. Perhaps his greatest contribution is that he laid to rest the oft-repeated Slovak complaint that president Benes arranged for Tiso's death. Instead, as Felak convincingly shows, it was the incompetence of the Lutheradominated executive of the Board of Commissioners which was most responsible because of its inability to reach a consensus on the issue of clemency. They essentially "passed the buck" to Prague, where Tiso had few friends and that sealed his doom. In spite of Felak's meticulous scholarship, the book contained a few glitches and one omission. The slang expression "First off "appeared a few times (p.6), Stanislav Kirschbaum's first name was shortened to Stanley in footnote 5 on page 217, the surname Viktorin was misspelled Victory (p.63), and Banovce nad Bebravou was identified as Tiso's home town (p.100), when that honor goes to Vel'ka Bytca. Perhaps the greatest omission is the revelation that Ferdinand Durcansky, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the first Slovak Republic, who fled to the west after the war and tried to �SLOVAKIA 117 organize an anti-state underground movement in post-war Slovakia, was actually controlled by Kim Philby, the notorious British spy who was, in fact, working for the KGB . Mark Aarons and John Loftus, on the basis of research in the files of the CIA in Washington, revealed this interesting detail in their Ratlines: How the Vatican Networks Betrayed Western Intelligence to the Soviets (London, 1991 ), pp. 21 19 and footnotes 46-50, page 334. Thus, the anti-state conspiracy of 1947 was carefully staged from abroad by the KGB as an excuse for the communist takeover of Slovakia. Edward Snajdr, Nature Protests: The End of Ecology in Slovakia. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2008 . xiii242 pp., photographs, notes, bibliography, list of interviews, index. JURAJ HOCMAN University of Ottawa Edward Snajdr, an American cultural anthropologist at New York University, examined Slovakia's emerging civic environmental protection movement in the communist era and its rapid disappearance during the country 's post-communist transformation (19851995). The author did his fieldwork in situ and that is why it is particularly interesting to read about his experience. In the first two chapters, Snajdr focuses on urban and extraurban contexts of social life in communist Slovakia while providing general, yet adequate, historical background. The author traces the origins of environmental movements among young Slovaks and Czechs that had begun with associations such as SZOPK (Slovensky zvaz ochrancov prfrody a kraj iny - the Slovak Union of Protectors of Nature and the Countryside) in Slovakia and Brontosaurus in the Czech lands. He contrasts the difference between the effectiveness of state legislation designed to protect the environment in the massively and insensitively industrialized Slovakia, with spontaneous projects of young people whose aims were to improve the quality of the environment that surrounded them. Despite their local character, those efforts were not only efficient, but also inspirational. Snajdr then proceeds to the period from 1985 to 1989 during which environmentalist activities spread to the politics of discontent with the communist regime. He stresses the significance of the acce- �118 SLOVAKIA lerated drive for environmental protection in Slovakia during the period of perestroika and glasnost in the case of the samizdat Bratislava Nahlas (Bratislava Aloud). This publication, which voiced the concerns of ordinary citizens regarding disrespectful and harmful socio-economic policies of the communist regime, was prohibited by state authorities. Its editor, Jan Budaj, who became one of the most visible leaders of the "Velvet Revolution" in Slovakia in the fall of 1989, as well as the samizdat' s distributors, were harassed by the communist secret police (the StB). The fall of the communist regime might have become the new beginning of a friendlier approach to environmental protection in Slovakia. That is where the second part of the story begins. A new political reality in Eastern Europe, which was closely tied to nationalism, brought a new perspective on how to cope with the legacy of communism and its negative ecological effects. The members of the Slovak Green Party (Strana zelenych), which was formed in November of 1989, and was represented in the new Slovak parliament, took a firm stand against the completion of the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros dam on the Danube river, which formed the Slovak-Hungarian border. This started as a joint venture of the communist governments of Czechoslovakia and Hungary under a treaty signed in I 977. Hungary withdrew from the project at the end of the 1980s, bowing to pressure from ecologists at home and abroad. To Slovaks, as Snajdr observes, the project was a matter of national prestige and a rallying point against warnings of environmental risks that stood in the forefront of Hungary 's concerns. Snajdr elaborates on how its chief engineer, Julius Binder, defended the completion of the Slovak part of the project and gained the support of the Slovak public. From then on the Greens (Zeleni), who, in the meantime, split into two groups, the Czecho-Slovak federalists and the Slovak nationalists, started slipping into political obscurity and eventually returned to small and isolated projects of landscape revitalization at various locations . Thus, "nation won over nature" and Slovakia, together with representatives of the ecology movement, entered into an age of post-ecology. The book paints a credible picture of a former communist regime unconcerned with the ecological impact of insensitive industrialization and socio-economic modernization. The first part of the study, which analyzes the evolution of environmental protection, is more �SLOVAKIA 119 cohesive than the second. If the second part appears a bit fragmentary, it is due to the overall ruptured character of the ecology movement in Slovakia in the second half of the 1990s. Though the sympathies of the author towards a cleaner environment cannot be overlooked, he did not take sides in intra and extra-national political conflicts. Apart from a few minor aberrations, such as the subtler use of the geographic term the Czech lands or the Czech Republic instead of Bohemia when referring to the second half of the 20 th century; and the incorrect transliteration of Gabcikovo-Nagymaros instead of GNagymaros, and Kvacian (gen . or accus; Slovak) instead of Kvacany (nom.), the book profits from its narrative and analysis based on the author's knowledge of theory and his authentic experience. It is an insightful contribution to the discourse on the continuing multilayered evolution of post-communist states and societies in Eastern Europe, in which ecology has played an important part. With Slovakia now being a member of the European Union and a signatory of international treaties on environmental protection, it would be interesting to discover whether the previous gap between government and civic initiatives has remained the same or has disappeared. � REVIEWS ��SLOVAKIA 103 Nauka reci slovenskej [Nauka reci slovenskej vistavena od Ludevita Stura], Ludevit Stur, Vol. l : Faksimile povodneho vydania na vydanie pripravili Eubomir Durovic and Slavomir Ondrejovic. Bratislava: VEDA, 2006. 228 pages, facsimile of the 1846 grammar text. Nauka reci slovenskej : Komentare, Bibliograjia, Vol. 2, Eugen Jona, Eubomir Durovic, Slavomir Ondrejovic. Bratislava: VEDA, 2006 . 323 pp., commentary, bibliography, and various indices. GERALD J. SABO , S.J. John Carroll University This two-volume publication is a singular event. The first volume is a facsimile edition of the 1846 grammar by Eudovit Stur (1815-56), whose availability inside Slovakia is quite limited, and outside Slovakia is virtually non-existent. The second volume enhances the grammar with background information, providing detailed analysis of and commentary by eminent Slovak linguists, among them Eubomir Durovic. Both volumes appear on the 160th anniversary of the grammar' s original publication, but also the 150th anniversary of Stur's accidental death. Lutheran pastors and Catholic priests worked on the codification of Slovak from the eighteenth century through the mid-nineteenth. In the l 720s the Slovak Lutheran pastors and scholars Matej Bel and Daniel Krrnan published the Bible in the primarily Czech linguistic form espoused by Slovak Lutherans. In his 1746 grammar the Lutheran pastor Pavel Dolezal presented Slovak and Czech as two dialects of one language- Czechoslovak. In the 1750s the Catholic Camaldolese monks translated the Bible into Slovak for their own useespecially in readings for the liturgical year, a significant accomplishment that would be discovered only in the mid-twentieth century. In the late 1780s the Catholic priest Anton Bemolak initiated the extensive Catholic efforts for codifying Slovak and then promoted his codified norm. For his codification Bemolak drew upon the Slovak that had been nurtured through the activities and �104 SLOVAKIA publications of the Jesuit university in Trnava since 1635 , and that in the twentieth century Slovak linguists would call "Cultural WestSlovak." Among Bernolak's various language-related writings, he realized a grammar and even a five-language dictionary in six large volumes, completed and published in the 1820s by the priest Jur[ aj] Palkovic. Through their writings, two priests helped spread Bernolak's codified Slovak- Juraj Fandly in his prose works, and Jan Holly in his extensive epic and lyric poetry. Thanks to Holly, Fandly, and others, Bernolak-Slovak (bernolakovcina) became the acceptable and promoted means of expression among Slovak Catholics through the 1840s. During this period, Lutherans continued to publish various literary and other works in biblictina ("Biblical language," in effect, the version of Czech used in the Bohemian Brethren 's Kralice Bible of the late sixteenth century with varying mixtures of Slovak language elements through the nineteenth century). The extent of such writing is clear from the four-volume biographic compilation of Slovak Lutheran poets (1806-12) by the pastor Bohuslav Tablic. Although Slovak Lutherans were a decided minority in the Slovak region of the Kingdom of Hungary, despite their quite modest numbers they remained a well-educated group that strove to retain this distinction in contrast to the much more numerous but less-educated fellow Christian-Catholics. Indeed, the Lutherans especially employed and espoused biblictina in their cultural and liturgical activities to emphasize their relationship with Czech Protestants, thereby increasing their group's numerical strength and enhancing their cultural status. Given this, the Lutherans' reasoning could well have been why should they adopt a linguistic norm created and promoted by the majority Catholic population that was not as educated or cultivated as they? In 1803 Slovak Lutherans established a Chair of Czechoslovak Language and Literature at their lycee in Bratislava. Jiri [Juraj] Palkovic was the first and only holder of this Chair ( 1803-50), and helped to foster Slovak Lutheran publications and cultural exchange. At the Lutheran lycee in Bratislava students and staff became the nucleus for the Lutheran promotion of Slavic/Slovak consciousness in response to the increasing Magyarization in Slovakia. I:udovit Stur studied at the lycee between 1829 and 1834. After his student years from 1835-3 7, Stur was vice-president of the Czecho-Slavic Society, whose 1836 almanach Plody (Fruits) of various writings �SLOVAKIA 105 also represented a manifesto of Slovak national consciousness and identity. On April I 0, 1836 Stur wrote to the Protestant Czech/Moravian cultural figure and historian Frantisek Palacky emphasizing the need for unity among Slovaks and Czechs. As Stt'.ir pointed out, the Czech language used by Lutherans in the Slovak area was not accessible to Catholic Slovaks, and thus there was a need for some combination of the Czech and Slovak language to provide for Slovak and Czech unity and understanding. The Czechs were unwilling to accept Stur's proposal. Although on February I, 1837 Stur became an unremunerated deputy to Jiff Palkovic, on April 5th the Czecho-Slavic society halted its activites because of a government ban on student societies. Stur served as a deputy to Palkovic during 1837-38 and 1840-43 , with his university study at Halle between those periods. After a lengthy investigation, on December 31, 1843 the Bratislava convention of the Lutheran Church relieved Stur of his position as Palkovic's deputy, after which he devoted himself to scholarly, journalistic, and political activity. By 1843 Stur had come to view Slovak as a distinct Slavic language, especially vis-a-vis Czech. According to the Lutheran poet Samo Hrobon, on February 14, 1843 a meeting of various Lutheran lycee students/alumni and their professor L. Stur marked the "day of resurrection of Slovak" (J6na, vol. 2: 31 ). In mid-July of 1843 Stur met with the Lutheran pastors Jozef Miloslav Hurban and Michal Miloslav Hodza at Hurban's parish in Hlboke for the purpose of creating a di stinct Slovak norm. A day after that discussion the three met with the Catholic priest-poet Jan Holly at the latter's parish in Dobra Yoda and received Holly's blessing for their endeavor. At the founding gathering in Liptovsky Svaty Mikulas for the journal Tatrin during August 26-28, 1844, Stur's Slovak norm was publicly proclaimed (Durovic, vol. 2: 59). In codifying Slovak as a distinct language, Stur prepared two texts: one explaining the need for writing in Slovak and a grammar of Slovak based on the Central Slovak dialect of Liptovsky Svaty Mikulas (Durovic, vol. 2: 62). Both these texts would be published only in 1846. In vo lume 2 of this publication, three linguists focus on Stur and his grammar. Eugen J6na's study provides a very detailed commentary on Stur, hi s evolving writing activity related to Slovak, especially the two texts of 1846, as well as the influences on Stur's cultural, political, and linguistic thinking (pp. 11-47). Cubomir Durovic has �106 SLOVAKIA the most extensive study (51-257). In his introduction, Durovic discusses Stur's grammar and Slovak in relation to the two editions ( 1809 and 1819) of the Czech/Bohemian grammar by Josef Dobrovsky and various Slovak Lutheran cultural publications (58-63) . This is followed by an extensive and meticulous analysis of Stur's grammar (64-194) with reference to various nineteenth - and twentiethcentury linguistic writings listed at the end (195-196). Completing f:>urovic's study are three indices in relation to his commentary on Stur's grammar proper: an index of words, morphemes, and phonemes (195-227); a "phonematicifonematicky" index of interpreted morphemes and words (229-3 I); and a topic/subject index (233-57). Slavo Ondrejovic concludes this volume with two bibliographies: one of Stur's personal and linguistic works published from 1841 through 2003 (259-68), and a select one on writings about Stur that concern language and linguistic questions published from 1817 through 2006 (269-323). In their introduction to the second volume, Durovic and Ondrejovic have noted the need for such a publication and the lengthy process involved in realizing this work. Specialists in Slovak linguistics, especially in the historical development of contemporary Slovak, will appreciate their efforts for many years to come. Likewise, Slovakia-based, but especially international specialists in Slovak culture and history, will also enhance their understanding of the codifycation of Slovak by Stur and his Lutheran colleagues. Andras Gero, The Jewish Criterion in Hungary, translated from the Magyar by Alan Campbell. Boulder, Colorado, Social Science Monographs: Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York, 2007. 153 pp., notes, biographical notes, photographs, index. YESHA YAHU A. JELINEK Beer-Sheva, Israel This is both a confusing and challenging book. The challenge comes in trying to clarify the definition of a Jew. The confusion comes in trying to define a Jew from Hungary. Of the book's five chapters, the first two were the most confusing. Gero first sets out to discuss Hungarian Jewry. However, he does not differentiate (as do all Slavic languages) between "Hunga- �SLOVAKIA 107 rian" and "Magyar." "Hungary" until 1918 was a geographico-political term for the lands of the Crown of St. Stephen. "Magyar" referred to the largest ethnic (and ruling) group in the Kingdom of Hungary. For contemporary Magyars, as for Gero, such a differentiation does not exist. He equated "Hungary" with "Magyarorszag" (the land of the Magyars). Therefore, when Gero analyzes the "Hungarian Jew" (Magyar Zsid6 ), we do not really understand who he has in mind. Jews appeared on the territory between the Carpathian mountains and the Balkans in the Roman period, much earlier than the Slavs or Magyars. They inhabited the Kingdom of Hungary, initially ruled by the Arpad dynasty and later the Habsburgs . They were not considered to be Magyars. Only in the 19 th century did the Magyars try to "Magyarize" the Jews, as well as the other non-Magyar nationalities. Gero knows these facts, but avoids them. For Gero, there were only "Hungarian Jews" in the entire Kingdom of Hungary. He seems to be entirely unaware of ethnic divisions within Jewry- the existence of Slovak, Rusin , Croat, Transylvanian, etc. Jews. While Gero devotes much space to a rather intelligent discussion of the living conditions, historical environment, and ethnic survival of Magyar Jews, he ignores the fact that Jews in Hungary lived among different nations. He is aware of the oppresssive Magyar nationalism, and criticizes it severely in his last three chapters, but remains unaware of the varieties of Judaism within the Kingdom. The challenging part of this book is the thoughtful discussion of Jewish existence in Hungary and the relations of Jews with the Gentile majority. This discussion forces the reader to re-evaluate quite a few accepted notions about Jewish life in Hungary. Unfortunately, Gero is not familiar with the history of the various Jewish groups in the Kingdom of Hungary. This becomes clear when one compares Jewish life on the Pannonian Plain (today's Hungary) with that of Upper Hungary (Slovakia) or with Sub-Carpathian Rus. Furthermore, he erroneously refers to Hungarian Jews "leaving the ghetto" in the 19 th century. Only Bratislava and a few cities in the Burgenland had "ghettos." That is why Jews who left Moravia for Hungary, or Galicia for Hungary in the 19 th century, suddenly found much greater freedom than they had ever fe lt before. Gero 's lack of knowledge about the Slovak and Rusin portions of the Kingdom of Hungary becomes clear when he discusses Jewish �108 SLOVAKIA conversions to Christianity and the rise of Zionism. For instance, while conversion to Christianity on the Pannonian Plain was not uncommon, it was rare in Upper Hungary or in Sub-Carpathian Rus. When discussing Zionism, Gero neglected its manifestations on Slovak territory and did not perceive that it was weak in the Magyar counties because it was persecuted by the Hungarian government. On the other hand, in Upper Hungary, where Zionizm was weak, Chasidism was strong. Chasidic rabbis were bitter enemies of Zionism. Therefore, one must tread carefully when discussing the strength or weakness of Zionism in Hungary. The most challenging part of Gero's book deals with the rise of anti-Semitism at the end of the 19 th century. Here he deals with the riddle of who is a Jew and when is he considered as such, and under what conditions . Most of Gero's arguments deal only with the Magyar portion of Hungary, which is a pity, because, if he had dug deeper, he could have made the case that it was largely the Magyars who taught the other ethnic groups to hate the Jews. Tiso, Jozef Prejavy a clanky. Vol. I (1913-1938). Ed. Miroslav Fabricius and Ladislav Susko. Bratislava: Academic Electronic Press and Historicky ustav SA V, 2002 . 567 pp. Tiso, Jozef Prejavy a clanky. Vol. 2: (193 8-1944). Ed. Miroslav Fabricius and Katarina Hradska. Bratislava: Academic Electronic Press and Historicky ustav SAV, 2007 . 696 pp. DANIEL E. MILLER University of West Florida, Pensacola The editors of this set of two volumes assembled the speeches and articles of Jozef Tiso (1887-1947) to provide researchers with a valuable source for the history of Slovak politics covering the periods from shortly before the Great War until the Munich Agreement and then from October 1938 until just before 29 August 1944, the beginning of the Slovak National Uprising. Each volume has a very brief introduction and a table of contents that lists the numbered documents in chronological order (this review cites the volume and document numbers). The first volume contains 267 documents and five addenda; the second, 389 documents and 10 addenda. Together, �SLOVAKIA 109 they contain 671 documents on 1,226 pages with no introductions or summaries for each document to color the readers ' opinions. The editors cited multiple sources for each selection, including Slovak archives and newspapers throughout Slovakia. They included explanatory notes, some of which are rather detailed, about individuals, groups, events, terms, and foreign phrases (as a theologian, Tiso had a propensity to use Latin phrases). Some footnotes point out discrepancies in the speeches as they appeared in the various periodicals. In their efforts to be thorough, the editors included journalists' paraphrased summaries of Tiso's speeches when actual texts were unavailable. Furthermore, they did not overlook minor comments, the shortest of which is a mere two lines (l/ 177). Significant gaps raise questions about the completeness of the collection. At the beginning of his career as a priest, Tiso 's publications were understandably sparse, but several selections toward the end of the Great War and immediately afterward are missing. At least a dozen of Tiso's articles appeared in 1917 and 1918 in Papok Kozlonye [Priests' Bulletin] and Duchovny pastier [Spiritual Shepherd], all of which James Mace Ward cites in his dissertation, "No Saint: Jozef Tiso, 1887-1947" (Stanford University, 2008, pp. 63-65), with proper notations about pseudonyms and, in some cases, authorship. By his own admission, after the war Tiso edited and wrote articles for Nyitra/Nitra. In contrast, the first volume of Tiso ' s speeches and articles for the same period contain only a few articles. Oddly enough, there are only five entries in 1929 and 1930 and seven in 1931 , all speeches, aside from one, and an average of 23 entries per year for the previous five years and 15 for the following five years. Additional citations are in Ward's work, including police reports. Police agents attended every open party meeting for all political parties during the First Republic, and they reported the comments of speakers, the reactions of the crowds, and any incidents . The material from these reports is no less valid than the redacted summaries of Tiso ' s speeches that appeared in the press, and they would have filled the voids in Tiso ' s public addresses in these two volumes . While Tiso indeed might have been preoccupied in 1929-1931 , undoubtedly more publications and addresses exist, especially in light of the 1917-1 8 omissions. At times, Tiso ' s silence was intentional. In his 65 months as president of the Slovak Republic, Tiso produced an average of sli- �110 SLOVAKIA ghtly more than five speeches and articles each month, but the frequency declined over time. Most likely, Tiso withdrew from public view with the mounting legitimacy crisis in the Slovak Republic resulting from Germany's losses on the Eastern Front, as well as the prospect of the Allies recreating Czechoslovakia at the war's end and criminalizing Slovakia 's clerical-fascist regime. As a result, in the first eight months of 1944, there are only 23 entries, That is less than three speeches and articles for each month . The speeches and articles in these two volumes portray Tiso as priest, ideologist, party politician, parliamentarian, cabinet minister, and president. The value of this collection is greater than the sum of its parts. Certainly, researchers are relieved that they have the bulk of Tiso 's works at their fingertips and need not spend countless hours scouring sources and fearing that they overlooked something. Furthermore, the assemblage of Tiso 's works in one venue facilitates fresh perspectives on his career. A change in Tiso 's speaking style is apparent in the two volumes. The paucity of his speeches before he became a cabinet minister in 1927 is striking, and it is unfortunate that more texts and transcripts of speeches do not exist from this time. Nevertheless, it is impossible that Tiso could have built his popularity solely on the basis of articles, and the police reports could have made the evidence from this period more balanced . Tiso's speeches in the decade from 1927 until 1938 were disciplined- they had a single topic and a logical argument. This is especially true of his carefully crafted speeches in the National Assembly and before selected audiences. As president, Tiso addressed a wide variety of audiences with speeches that lacked focus and often contained topics not well suited for his listeners. As a result, he analyzed the development of the Slovak Republic with respect to the fate of other East-Central European states while addressing Catholics on a pilgrimage (Il/135). When celebrating the electrification of a district, he spoke about the wonders of electricity, encouraged factory workers and farmers to cooperate in building the state, and admonished listeners about observing the laws regarding economic matters (II/221 ). At a religious gathering in 1942, he criticized efforts to count all Greek-Catholic Slovaks as Rusyns and shortly afterward justified the confiscation of Jewish property with the slogan "Slovakia for Slovaks" (II/282). Aside from being an undisciplined extemporaneous speaker, one possible explanation for the �SLOVAKIA 111 change in style was Tiso ' s need to account for the policies of the state in the simplest terms for the broadest range of listeners. Between 1918 and 1938, Tiso's public comments and writings focused in part or exclusively on the need for Slovak autonomy as fulfilling the promise of the Pittsburgh Agreement. The tenor of his mesages heightened over the years, and in February 193 7 he referred to Czechoslovakia as an "aberration of democracy" (1/243), although he uttered plenty of vituperative condemnations of the First Republic both before and afterward. Despite efforts to cooperate with supporters of Slovak autonomy in the camp of Lutheran Slovaks within the Slovak National Party and even Hungarian politicians in the 1930s, Tiso tirelessly strove to bind Slovak identity with the Catholic faith, to link the leadership of the nation to the Catholic clergy, and to advance his Hlinka' s Slovak People's Party as the only major political party to recognize and defend the Slovak nation as unique. After the Munich Agreement, Tiso became minister for Slovak affairs and then on October 6, 1938 premier of an autonomous Slovakia. During this time, Tiso concentrated on policy and restructuring the political system, which essentially made Slovakia a oneparty state. After Slovak independence on 14 March 1939, Tiso served as prime minister and then, beginning in October 1939, he became the republic ' s president. Tiso now sought to legitimize the new republic, justifying its independence and thanking Adolf Hitler for extending his protection to the Slovaks. Tiso linked Slovakia to Germany's successes and Germany's leadership in the construction of a new Europe. Beginning in 1943, roughly coinciding with the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, Tiso's references to Hitler and Germany became sparse, and Tiso did not mention either in his address in 1944 on the fifth anniversary of the Slovak state (ll/374). Tiso obviously wanted to distance himself from Hitler, but fewer references to his patron also suggest the limits of Tiso's acceptance of his own earlier rhetoric. Throughout the war, Tiso's description of Slovakia ' s mission on the Eastern Front as a struggle against Bolshevism, with its Jewish and anti-Christian influences, remained constant. In the final document dated 6 August 1944, Tiso ended with a prophetic statement: "we cannot deny that the Bolsheviks are at the border and that they promise the scaffold!" (II/389) . The two volumes reveal much about the development of Tiso's anti-Semitism. There are few references to Jews in Tiso ' s statements �112 SLOVAKIA between the world wars, and at one point in 1934, he even invited Jews, Germans, Hungarians, and Czechs in Slovakia to join with Slovaks in demanding autonomy (l/202). Nevertheless, there are occasional anti-Jewish comments, such as Ti so's call for land from the church estates parceled under the land reform to go to Catholic farmers , not Jews, nonbelievers, and speculators (l/78). During the Second Czecho-Slovak Republic, Tiso identified Jews as a foreign element whose presence in Slovak society must be proportionate to their numbers. Nevertheless, he warned that Jews should not become the objects of "hatred and sadistic tendencies" (I/32). His rhetoric against Jews heightened when Slovakia became independent, and in August 1942 he justified the removal of Jews from Slovak society as the elimination of an enemy, an act of self-defense in keeping with Christian morals. Loving oneself is a precept from God, according to Tiso, "and I think there is no need to convince anyone that the Jewish element endangers the life of a Slovak" (11/287). There is little evidence in these two volumes to suggest that Tiso 's antiSemitism was anything but genuine, but the addition of Tiso's intensely anti-Semitic Ny itra/Nitra articles make his hatred of Jews indisputable. The editors are preparing a third vo lume to cover the conversations of Hitler and Tiso as well as Tiso 's statements from the beginning of the Slovak National Uprising on 29 August 1944 through his 1946-1947 trial. They indicated their intent to include in the third volume addenda for the first two volumes and expressed their wish that historians inform them of additional documents. The inclusion of missing items- those signed with a pseudonym or abbreviated name and those whose authorship is disputable- is absoutely essential , not only for the convenience of researchers, but also for the sake of objectivity. Perhaps they can be in a section of their own. The editors had planned to include three indexes in the second volume, and one can assume that these essential tools for researchers will appear in the planned third volume. Specialists on Slovak affairs in the Habsburg Monarchy, the First Czechoslovak Republic, and the first Slovak Republic are greatly indebted to Fabricius, Susko, Hradska, and the others who contributed to the production of these two volumes . They anxiously await the appearance of the third volume in this indispensable series. �SLOVAKIA 113 Max Domarus, Th e Complete Hitler: A Digital Desktop Reference to His Speeches and Proclamations 1932-1945. Wauconda, Ill. : Bolchazy-Carducci, 2007. (CD-ROM edition). VASILLIS VOURKOUTIOTIS University of Ottawa While documentary collections concerning the Third Reich are not, generally speaking, difficult to come by, few students are exposed to the actual words of Adolf Hitler except as summarized by other compilers in wider works . The exception to this has been Max Domtarus' four-volume collection of Hitler's speeches. The compilation of this resource was linked to the history it attempted to capture. In 1932, Max Domarus was only twenty-two years old. Yet, he realized that in Adolf Hitler, Germany and the world were faced with a new phenomenon whose significance should not be underestimated. He began, in that year, to collect and compile as many of Hitler's speeches as he could find , and continued the project through the war years until Hitler' s death in 1945 . After the war, Domarus supplemented his collection as much as possible, and the resulting work, which included his annotations and commentary, was a four-volume set published in German. For each year in question, the reader is offered a detailed summary of events, and photographs from the Domarus archive. Full endnotes for each section yield bibliographical citations, as well as additional explanatory commentary. Each volume also contains a list of abbreviations which users will find helpful. Although some of Domarus' commentaries have been superceded by historical research, his perceptions remain as interesting in several instances as the speeches they comment upon. The four-volume set, even though it only covers Hitler's speeches from 1932 onward, remains the best single collection of the dictator's words. With this CD, Domarus's publishers have brought an important printed historical resource into the modem information age. An English-language translation accompanies the original German text, bringing to the user eight volumes of material in a single disk. Although presented in a chronological format, the speeches are in a searchable PDF format, allowing the student or researcher the ability to scan years of �114 SLOVAKIA material for keywords . For those with the language abilities and desire, the English version can be easily compared for accuracy with the German original. Given how long Hitler could speak for at a single event, it is not surprising that Domarus felt the need to offer exerpts rather than a stenographic record. This may strike some as a potential drawback, and might lead some researches to seek the full text of a particular speech of interest. The vast majority of users, however, will not find this a significant issue; Domarus' work has remained the standard reference for university libraries since its first publication in 1962 with good reason. Two versions of the CD ROM exist, the Standard and ePremium. In addition to the advantages of the Standard, the ePremium addition allows the user to print, copy and paste text directly from the PDF files into one's own documents, and add commentary to the texts. These enhancements will be of interest to those who work closely enough with the material in their own research. On the whole, in making both the English and German versions of Domarus' compilations available in such a format, the publishers have not only made an important work more accessible, but also provided a service to both students and academics alike. James Ramon Felak After Hitler, Before Stalin: Catholics, Communists, and Democrats in Slovakia, 1945-1948. Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009. xv-261 pp. , notes, bibliography, index. M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa Having perceived a negl ected period of history, James R. Felak set out to tell the story of the role of Catholicism in Slovakia in the period 1945-48, especially its relationship with the Communist and Democratic Parties. The essence of the book is that, even though both the Communists and the Lutheran leaders of the Democratic Party were either hostile to or suspicious of the Roman Catholic Church, both courted Roman Catholic voters in order to attain political power in post-war Slovakia. Having combed the relevant Slovak archives, and read the Communist, Lutheran and Roman Catholic press, along with most secondary sources on the subject, Felak carefully related what actually �SLOVAKIA 115 transpired in Slovakia in the three years after the Second World War. He pointed out that the post-war National Front government that came into existence on April 3, 1945, reduced the pre-war political parties of Czechoslovakia from 16 to 5, and in Slovakia permitted only the Communists and Democrats. The two strongest pre-war political parties, Hlinka Slovak People's Party and the Czechoslovak Agrarian Party were banned as "collaborationist". That meant that the minority Lutherans could (and did) join the newly-formed Democratic Party, but the majority Catholics were disenfranchised. As a result, both the Communists and Democrats courted Catholic voters in anticipation of the May, 1946 elections, while simultaneously attacking the Roman Catholic Church. Thus, the self-appointed Slovak National Council, with its executive Board of Commissioners, nationalized all religious schools, seized most Catholic institutions, severely limited the size of the Catholic press and imprisoned two Slovak bishops. On the other hand, the Communists tried to persuade Catholic voters to vote for their party, because the Democrats were largely Lutherans . Indeed, the Communists even supported the creation of a Christian Republican Party, but the Catholics and Communists could not agree on its name, and this project fell through. The Lutherans, on the other hand, also wooed the Catholics by promising to split future political representation and patronage with them on the basis of a 7:3 ratio in favor of the Catholics. The Catholics found this promise more enticing than Communist overtures and, as a result, the Catholic and Lutheran politicians reached the so-called April Agreement on March 31, 1946. Since they were now united, the Catholics and Lutherans both supported the Democratic Party and won the 1946 elections with a convincing majority of 62%. Since they had lost the elections, the Communist Party of Slovakia went on the offensive. With the collusion of the government in Prague, where the Communists had more influence, and where certain Czech parties resented Slovak home-rule, Slovak Communists, led by Gustav Husak, negotiated the "Third Prague Agreement" of June 27, 1946, by which the Slovak National Council and the Board of Commissioners subordinated themselves to the Prague government. Then the Slovak Communists decided to try for treason the Reverend Jozef Tiso, former president of the first Slovak Republic ( 1939-1945). They saw to it that the National Court was domina- �116 SLOVAKIA ted by Communists who, as expected, found Tiso guilty and sentenced him to death on April 15, 1947. The hapless Democrats on the executive of the Board of Commissioners failed to recommend clemency and left the final verdict to the government in Prague, which upheld the verdict, as did president Benes, and Tiso was hanged on April 17. After this fiasco, Slovak Catholics lost faith in the Democratic Party, just as the Communists began their offensive against it. In the summer and fall of 194 7 the Communists fabricated an anti-state conspiracy against certain Catholic Democrats. On this basis Gustav Husak on October 31 staged a mini-coup in Slovakia by (with Prague support) illegally dissolving and then reappointing the Board of Commissioners in favor of the Communists. This was a prelude to similar tactics by the Communists in Prague in February of 1948, when three non-Communist parties resigned from the government in the hope of toppling it. Instead, the Communists, led by Klement Gottwald offered to form a new government and president Edvard Benes approved it. Thus, by February of 1948 the Communists had completed their takeover of both the Slovak and Czechoslovak governments and instituted totalitarian rule for the next 40 years, during which they tried (but failed) to completely destroy the Roman Catholic church in Czechoslovakia. Felak's book is well-written and comprehensive. Perhaps his greatest contribution is that he laid to rest the oft-repeated Slovak complaint that president Benes arranged for Tiso's death. Instead, as Felak convincingly shows, it was the incompetence of the Lutheradominated executive of the Board of Commissioners which was most responsible because of its inability to reach a consensus on the issue of clemency. They essentially "passed the buck" to Prague, where Tiso had few friends and that sealed his doom. In spite of Felak's meticulous scholarship, the book contained a few glitches and one omission. The slang expression "First off "appeared a few times (p.6), Stanislav Kirschbaum's first name was shortened to Stanley in footnote 5 on page 217, the surname Viktorin was misspelled Victory (p.63), and Banovce nad Bebravou was identified as Tiso's home town (p.100), when that honor goes to Vel'ka Bytca. Perhaps the greatest omission is the revelation that Ferdinand Durcansky, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the first Slovak Republic, who fled to the west after the war and tried to �SLOVAKIA 117 organize an anti-state underground movement in post-war Slovakia, was actually controlled by Kim Philby, the notorious British spy who was, in fact, working for the KGB . Mark Aarons and John Loftus, on the basis of research in the files of the CIA in Washington, revealed this interesting detail in their Ratlines: How the Vatican Networks Betrayed Western Intelligence to the Soviets (London, 1991 ), pp. 21 19 and footnotes 46-50, page 334. Thus, the anti-state conspiracy of 1947 was carefully staged from abroad by the KGB as an excuse for the communist takeover of Slovakia. Edward Snajdr, Nature Protests: The End of Ecology in Slovakia. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2008 . xiii242 pp., photographs, notes, bibliography, list of interviews, index. JURAJ HOCMAN University of Ottawa Edward Snajdr, an American cultural anthropologist at New York University, examined Slovakia's emerging civic environmental protection movement in the communist era and its rapid disappearance during the country 's post-communist transformation (19851995). The author did his fieldwork in situ and that is why it is particularly interesting to read about his experience. In the first two chapters, Snajdr focuses on urban and extraurban contexts of social life in communist Slovakia while providing general, yet adequate, historical background. The author traces the origins of environmental movements among young Slovaks and Czechs that had begun with associations such as SZOPK (Slovensky zvaz ochrancov prfrody a kraj iny - the Slovak Union of Protectors of Nature and the Countryside) in Slovakia and Brontosaurus in the Czech lands. He contrasts the difference between the effectiveness of state legislation designed to protect the environment in the massively and insensitively industrialized Slovakia, with spontaneous projects of young people whose aims were to improve the quality of the environment that surrounded them. Despite their local character, those efforts were not only efficient, but also inspirational. Snajdr then proceeds to the period from 1985 to 1989 during which environmentalist activities spread to the politics of discontent with the communist regime. He stresses the significance of the acce- �118 SLOVAKIA lerated drive for environmental protection in Slovakia during the period of perestroika and glasnost in the case of the samizdat Bratislava Nahlas (Bratislava Aloud). This publication, which voiced the concerns of ordinary citizens regarding disrespectful and harmful socio-economic policies of the communist regime, was prohibited by state authorities. Its editor, Jan Budaj, who became one of the most visible leaders of the "Velvet Revolution" in Slovakia in the fall of 1989, as well as the samizdat' s distributors, were harassed by the communist secret police (the StB). The fall of the communist regime might have become the new beginning of a friendlier approach to environmental protection in Slovakia. That is where the second part of the story begins. A new political reality in Eastern Europe, which was closely tied to nationalism, brought a new perspective on how to cope with the legacy of communism and its negative ecological effects. The members of the Slovak Green Party (Strana zelenych), which was formed in November of 1989, and was represented in the new Slovak parliament, took a firm stand against the completion of the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros dam on the Danube river, which formed the Slovak-Hungarian border. This started as a joint venture of the communist governments of Czechoslovakia and Hungary under a treaty signed in I 977. Hungary withdrew from the project at the end of the 1980s, bowing to pressure from ecologists at home and abroad. To Slovaks, as Snajdr observes, the project was a matter of national prestige and a rallying point against warnings of environmental risks that stood in the forefront of Hungary 's concerns. Snajdr elaborates on how its chief engineer, Julius Binder, defended the completion of the Slovak part of the project and gained the support of the Slovak public. From then on the Greens (Zeleni), who, in the meantime, split into two groups, the Czecho-Slovak federalists and the Slovak nationalists, started slipping into political obscurity and eventually returned to small and isolated projects of landscape revitalization at various locations . Thus, "nation won over nature" and Slovakia, together with representatives of the ecology movement, entered into an age of post-ecology. The book paints a credible picture of a former communist regime unconcerned with the ecological impact of insensitive industrialization and socio-economic modernization. The first part of the study, which analyzes the evolution of environmental protection, is more �SLOVAKIA 119 cohesive than the second. If the second part appears a bit fragmentary, it is due to the overall ruptured character of the ecology movement in Slovakia in the second half of the 1990s. Though the sympathies of the author towards a cleaner environment cannot be overlooked, he did not take sides in intra and extra-national political conflicts. Apart from a few minor aberrations, such as the subtler use of the geographic term the Czech lands or the Czech Republic instead of Bohemia when referring to the second half of the 20 th century; and the incorrect transliteration of Gabcikovo-Nagymaros instead of GNagymaros, and Kvacian (gen . or accus; Slovak) instead of Kvacany (nom.), the book profits from its narrative and analysis based on the author's knowledge of theory and his authentic experience. It is an insightful contribution to the discourse on the continuing multilayered evolution of post-communist states and societies in Eastern Europe, in which ecology has played an important part. With Slovakia now being a member of the European Union and a signatory of international treaties on environmental protection, it would be interesting to discover whether the previous gap between government and civic initiatives has remained the same or has disappeared. � 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 2010, Vol. 40 Description An account of the resource Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010. 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 2010 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 103 Nauka reci slovenskej [Nauka reci slovenskej vistavena od Ludevita Stura], Ludevit Stur, Vol. l : Faksimile povodneho vydania na vydanie pripravili Eubomir Durovic and Slavomir Ondrejovic. Bratislava: VEDA, 2006. 228 pages, facsimile of the 1846 grammar text. Nauka reci slovenskej : Komentare, Bibliograjia, Vol. 2, Eugen Jona, Eubomir Durovic, Slavomir Ondrejovic. Bratislava: VEDA, 2006 . 323 pp., commentary, bibliography, and various indices. GERALD J. SABO , S.J. John Carroll University This two-volume publication is a singular event. The first volume is a facsimile edition of the 1846 grammar by Eudovit Stur (1815-56), whose availability inside Slovakia is quite limited, and outside Slovakia is virtually non-existent. The second volume enhances the grammar with background information, providing detailed analysis of and commentary by eminent Slovak linguists, among them Eubomir Durovic. Both volumes appear on the 160th anniversary of the grammar' s original publication, but also the 150th anniversary of Stur's accidental death. Lutheran pastors and Catholic priests worked on the codification of Slovak from the eighteenth century through the mid-nineteenth. In the l 720s the Slovak Lutheran pastors and scholars Matej Bel and Daniel Krrnan published the Bible in the primarily Czech linguistic form espoused by Slovak Lutherans. In his 1746 grammar the Lutheran pastor Pavel Dolezal presented Slovak and Czech as two dialects of one language- Czechoslovak. In the 1750s the Catholic Camaldolese monks translated the Bible into Slovak for their own useespecially in readings for the liturgical year, a significant accomplishment that would be discovered only in the mid-twentieth century. In the late 1780s the Catholic priest Anton Bemolak initiated the extensive Catholic efforts for codifying Slovak and then promoted his codified norm. For his codification Bemolak drew upon the Slovak that had been nurtured through the activities and 104 SLOVAKIA publications of the Jesuit university in Trnava since 1635 , and that in the twentieth century Slovak linguists would call "Cultural WestSlovak." Among Bernolak's various language-related writings, he realized a grammar and even a five-language dictionary in six large volumes, completed and published in the 1820s by the priest Jur[ aj] Palkovic. Through their writings, two priests helped spread Bernolak's codified Slovak- Juraj Fandly in his prose works, and Jan Holly in his extensive epic and lyric poetry. Thanks to Holly, Fandly, and others, Bernolak-Slovak (bernolakovcina) became the acceptable and promoted means of expression among Slovak Catholics through the 1840s. During this period, Lutherans continued to publish various literary and other works in biblictina ("Biblical language," in effect, the version of Czech used in the Bohemian Brethren 's Kralice Bible of the late sixteenth century with varying mixtures of Slovak language elements through the nineteenth century). The extent of such writing is clear from the four-volume biographic compilation of Slovak Lutheran poets (1806-12) by the pastor Bohuslav Tablic. Although Slovak Lutherans were a decided minority in the Slovak region of the Kingdom of Hungary, despite their quite modest numbers they remained a well-educated group that strove to retain this distinction in contrast to the much more numerous but less-educated fellow Christian-Catholics. Indeed, the Lutherans especially employed and espoused biblictina in their cultural and liturgical activities to emphasize their relationship with Czech Protestants, thereby increasing their group's numerical strength and enhancing their cultural status. Given this, the Lutherans' reasoning could well have been why should they adopt a linguistic norm created and promoted by the majority Catholic population that was not as educated or cultivated as they? In 1803 Slovak Lutherans established a Chair of Czechoslovak Language and Literature at their lycee in Bratislava. Jiri [Juraj] Palkovic was the first and only holder of this Chair ( 1803-50), and helped to foster Slovak Lutheran publications and cultural exchange. At the Lutheran lycee in Bratislava students and staff became the nucleus for the Lutheran promotion of Slavic/Slovak consciousness in response to the increasing Magyarization in Slovakia. I:udovit Stur studied at the lycee between 1829 and 1834. After his student years from 1835-3 7, Stur was vice-president of the Czecho-Slavic Society, whose 1836 almanach Plody (Fruits) of various writings SLOVAKIA 105 also represented a manifesto of Slovak national consciousness and identity. On April I 0, 1836 Stur wrote to the Protestant Czech/Moravian cultural figure and historian Frantisek Palacky emphasizing the need for unity among Slovaks and Czechs. As Stt'.ir pointed out, the Czech language used by Lutherans in the Slovak area was not accessible to Catholic Slovaks, and thus there was a need for some combination of the Czech and Slovak language to provide for Slovak and Czech unity and understanding. The Czechs were unwilling to accept Stur's proposal. Although on February I, 1837 Stur became an unremunerated deputy to Jiff Palkovic, on April 5th the Czecho-Slavic society halted its activites because of a government ban on student societies. Stur served as a deputy to Palkovic during 1837-38 and 1840-43 , with his university study at Halle between those periods. After a lengthy investigation, on December 31, 1843 the Bratislava convention of the Lutheran Church relieved Stur of his position as Palkovic's deputy, after which he devoted himself to scholarly, journalistic, and political activity. By 1843 Stur had come to view Slovak as a distinct Slavic language, especially vis-a-vis Czech. According to the Lutheran poet Samo Hrobon, on February 14, 1843 a meeting of various Lutheran lycee students/alumni and their professor L. Stur marked the "day of resurrection of Slovak" (J6na, vol. 2: 31 ). In mid-July of 1843 Stur met with the Lutheran pastors Jozef Miloslav Hurban and Michal Miloslav Hodza at Hurban's parish in Hlboke for the purpose of creating a di stinct Slovak norm. A day after that discussion the three met with the Catholic priest-poet Jan Holly at the latter's parish in Dobra Yoda and received Holly's blessing for their endeavor. At the founding gathering in Liptovsky Svaty Mikulas for the journal Tatrin during August 26-28, 1844, Stur's Slovak norm was publicly proclaimed (Durovic, vol. 2: 59). In codifying Slovak as a distinct language, Stur prepared two texts: one explaining the need for writing in Slovak and a grammar of Slovak based on the Central Slovak dialect of Liptovsky Svaty Mikulas (Durovic, vol. 2: 62). Both these texts would be published only in 1846. In vo lume 2 of this publication, three linguists focus on Stur and his grammar. Eugen J6na's study provides a very detailed commentary on Stur, hi s evolving writing activity related to Slovak, especially the two texts of 1846, as well as the influences on Stur's cultural, political, and linguistic thinking (pp. 11-47). Cubomir Durovic has 106 SLOVAKIA the most extensive study (51-257). In his introduction, Durovic discusses Stur's grammar and Slovak in relation to the two editions ( 1809 and 1819) of the Czech/Bohemian grammar by Josef Dobrovsky and various Slovak Lutheran cultural publications (58-63) . This is followed by an extensive and meticulous analysis of Stur's grammar (64-194) with reference to various nineteenth - and twentiethcentury linguistic writings listed at the end (195-196). Completing f:>urovic's study are three indices in relation to his commentary on Stur's grammar proper: an index of words, morphemes, and phonemes (195-227); a "phonematicifonematicky" index of interpreted morphemes and words (229-3 I); and a topic/subject index (233-57). Slavo Ondrejovic concludes this volume with two bibliographies: one of Stur's personal and linguistic works published from 1841 through 2003 (259-68), and a select one on writings about Stur that concern language and linguistic questions published from 1817 through 2006 (269-323). In their introduction to the second volume, Durovic and Ondrejovic have noted the need for such a publication and the lengthy process involved in realizing this work. Specialists in Slovak linguistics, especially in the historical development of contemporary Slovak, will appreciate their efforts for many years to come. Likewise, Slovakia-based, but especially international specialists in Slovak culture and history, will also enhance their understanding of the codifycation of Slovak by Stur and his Lutheran colleagues. Andras Gero, The Jewish Criterion in Hungary, translated from the Magyar by Alan Campbell. Boulder, Colorado, Social Science Monographs: Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York, 2007. 153 pp., notes, biographical notes, photographs, index. YESHA YAHU A. JELINEK Beer-Sheva, Israel This is both a confusing and challenging book. The challenge comes in trying to clarify the definition of a Jew. The confusion comes in trying to define a Jew from Hungary. Of the book's five chapters, the first two were the most confusing. Gero first sets out to discuss Hungarian Jewry. However, he does not differentiate (as do all Slavic languages) between "Hunga- SLOVAKIA 107 rian" and "Magyar." "Hungary" until 1918 was a geographico-political term for the lands of the Crown of St. Stephen. "Magyar" referred to the largest ethnic (and ruling) group in the Kingdom of Hungary. For contemporary Magyars, as for Gero, such a differentiation does not exist. He equated "Hungary" with "Magyarorszag" (the land of the Magyars). Therefore, when Gero analyzes the "Hungarian Jew" (Magyar Zsid6 ), we do not really understand who he has in mind. Jews appeared on the territory between the Carpathian mountains and the Balkans in the Roman period, much earlier than the Slavs or Magyars. They inhabited the Kingdom of Hungary, initially ruled by the Arpad dynasty and later the Habsburgs . They were not considered to be Magyars. Only in the 19 th century did the Magyars try to "Magyarize" the Jews, as well as the other non-Magyar nationalities. Gero knows these facts, but avoids them. For Gero, there were only "Hungarian Jews" in the entire Kingdom of Hungary. He seems to be entirely unaware of ethnic divisions within Jewry- the existence of Slovak, Rusin , Croat, Transylvanian, etc. Jews. While Gero devotes much space to a rather intelligent discussion of the living conditions, historical environment, and ethnic survival of Magyar Jews, he ignores the fact that Jews in Hungary lived among different nations. He is aware of the oppresssive Magyar nationalism, and criticizes it severely in his last three chapters, but remains unaware of the varieties of Judaism within the Kingdom. The challenging part of this book is the thoughtful discussion of Jewish existence in Hungary and the relations of Jews with the Gentile majority. This discussion forces the reader to re-evaluate quite a few accepted notions about Jewish life in Hungary. Unfortunately, Gero is not familiar with the history of the various Jewish groups in the Kingdom of Hungary. This becomes clear when one compares Jewish life on the Pannonian Plain (today's Hungary) with that of Upper Hungary (Slovakia) or with Sub-Carpathian Rus. Furthermore, he erroneously refers to Hungarian Jews "leaving the ghetto" in the 19 th century. Only Bratislava and a few cities in the Burgenland had "ghettos." That is why Jews who left Moravia for Hungary, or Galicia for Hungary in the 19 th century, suddenly found much greater freedom than they had ever fe lt before. Gero 's lack of knowledge about the Slovak and Rusin portions of the Kingdom of Hungary becomes clear when he discusses Jewish 108 SLOVAKIA conversions to Christianity and the rise of Zionism. For instance, while conversion to Christianity on the Pannonian Plain was not uncommon, it was rare in Upper Hungary or in Sub-Carpathian Rus. When discussing Zionism, Gero neglected its manifestations on Slovak territory and did not perceive that it was weak in the Magyar counties because it was persecuted by the Hungarian government. On the other hand, in Upper Hungary, where Zionizm was weak, Chasidism was strong. Chasidic rabbis were bitter enemies of Zionism. Therefore, one must tread carefully when discussing the strength or weakness of Zionism in Hungary. The most challenging part of Gero's book deals with the rise of anti-Semitism at the end of the 19 th century. Here he deals with the riddle of who is a Jew and when is he considered as such, and under what conditions . Most of Gero's arguments deal only with the Magyar portion of Hungary, which is a pity, because, if he had dug deeper, he could have made the case that it was largely the Magyars who taught the other ethnic groups to hate the Jews. Tiso, Jozef Prejavy a clanky. Vol. I (1913-1938). Ed. Miroslav Fabricius and Ladislav Susko. Bratislava: Academic Electronic Press and Historicky ustav SA V, 2002 . 567 pp. Tiso, Jozef Prejavy a clanky. Vol. 2: (193 8-1944). Ed. Miroslav Fabricius and Katarina Hradska. Bratislava: Academic Electronic Press and Historicky ustav SAV, 2007 . 696 pp. DANIEL E. MILLER University of West Florida, Pensacola The editors of this set of two volumes assembled the speeches and articles of Jozef Tiso (1887-1947) to provide researchers with a valuable source for the history of Slovak politics covering the periods from shortly before the Great War until the Munich Agreement and then from October 1938 until just before 29 August 1944, the beginning of the Slovak National Uprising. Each volume has a very brief introduction and a table of contents that lists the numbered documents in chronological order (this review cites the volume and document numbers). The first volume contains 267 documents and five addenda; the second, 389 documents and 10 addenda. Together, SLOVAKIA 109 they contain 671 documents on 1,226 pages with no introductions or summaries for each document to color the readers ' opinions. The editors cited multiple sources for each selection, including Slovak archives and newspapers throughout Slovakia. They included explanatory notes, some of which are rather detailed, about individuals, groups, events, terms, and foreign phrases (as a theologian, Tiso had a propensity to use Latin phrases). Some footnotes point out discrepancies in the speeches as they appeared in the various periodicals. In their efforts to be thorough, the editors included journalists' paraphrased summaries of Tiso's speeches when actual texts were unavailable. Furthermore, they did not overlook minor comments, the shortest of which is a mere two lines (l/ 177). Significant gaps raise questions about the completeness of the collection. At the beginning of his career as a priest, Tiso 's publications were understandably sparse, but several selections toward the end of the Great War and immediately afterward are missing. At least a dozen of Tiso's articles appeared in 1917 and 1918 in Papok Kozlonye [Priests' Bulletin] and Duchovny pastier [Spiritual Shepherd], all of which James Mace Ward cites in his dissertation, "No Saint: Jozef Tiso, 1887-1947" (Stanford University, 2008, pp. 63-65), with proper notations about pseudonyms and, in some cases, authorship. By his own admission, after the war Tiso edited and wrote articles for Nyitra/Nitra. In contrast, the first volume of Tiso ' s speeches and articles for the same period contain only a few articles. Oddly enough, there are only five entries in 1929 and 1930 and seven in 1931 , all speeches, aside from one, and an average of 23 entries per year for the previous five years and 15 for the following five years. Additional citations are in Ward's work, including police reports. Police agents attended every open party meeting for all political parties during the First Republic, and they reported the comments of speakers, the reactions of the crowds, and any incidents . The material from these reports is no less valid than the redacted summaries of Tiso ' s speeches that appeared in the press, and they would have filled the voids in Tiso ' s public addresses in these two volumes . While Tiso indeed might have been preoccupied in 1929-1931 , undoubtedly more publications and addresses exist, especially in light of the 1917-1 8 omissions. At times, Tiso ' s silence was intentional. In his 65 months as president of the Slovak Republic, Tiso produced an average of sli- 110 SLOVAKIA ghtly more than five speeches and articles each month, but the frequency declined over time. Most likely, Tiso withdrew from public view with the mounting legitimacy crisis in the Slovak Republic resulting from Germany's losses on the Eastern Front, as well as the prospect of the Allies recreating Czechoslovakia at the war's end and criminalizing Slovakia 's clerical-fascist regime. As a result, in the first eight months of 1944, there are only 23 entries, That is less than three speeches and articles for each month . The speeches and articles in these two volumes portray Tiso as priest, ideologist, party politician, parliamentarian, cabinet minister, and president. The value of this collection is greater than the sum of its parts. Certainly, researchers are relieved that they have the bulk of Tiso 's works at their fingertips and need not spend countless hours scouring sources and fearing that they overlooked something. Furthermore, the assemblage of Tiso 's works in one venue facilitates fresh perspectives on his career. A change in Tiso 's speaking style is apparent in the two volumes. The paucity of his speeches before he became a cabinet minister in 1927 is striking, and it is unfortunate that more texts and transcripts of speeches do not exist from this time. Nevertheless, it is impossible that Tiso could have built his popularity solely on the basis of articles, and the police reports could have made the evidence from this period more balanced . Tiso's speeches in the decade from 1927 until 1938 were disciplined- they had a single topic and a logical argument. This is especially true of his carefully crafted speeches in the National Assembly and before selected audiences. As president, Tiso addressed a wide variety of audiences with speeches that lacked focus and often contained topics not well suited for his listeners. As a result, he analyzed the development of the Slovak Republic with respect to the fate of other East-Central European states while addressing Catholics on a pilgrimage (Il/135). When celebrating the electrification of a district, he spoke about the wonders of electricity, encouraged factory workers and farmers to cooperate in building the state, and admonished listeners about observing the laws regarding economic matters (II/221 ). At a religious gathering in 1942, he criticized efforts to count all Greek-Catholic Slovaks as Rusyns and shortly afterward justified the confiscation of Jewish property with the slogan "Slovakia for Slovaks" (II/282). Aside from being an undisciplined extemporaneous speaker, one possible explanation for the SLOVAKIA 111 change in style was Tiso ' s need to account for the policies of the state in the simplest terms for the broadest range of listeners. Between 1918 and 1938, Tiso's public comments and writings focused in part or exclusively on the need for Slovak autonomy as fulfilling the promise of the Pittsburgh Agreement. The tenor of his mesages heightened over the years, and in February 193 7 he referred to Czechoslovakia as an "aberration of democracy" (1/243), although he uttered plenty of vituperative condemnations of the First Republic both before and afterward. Despite efforts to cooperate with supporters of Slovak autonomy in the camp of Lutheran Slovaks within the Slovak National Party and even Hungarian politicians in the 1930s, Tiso tirelessly strove to bind Slovak identity with the Catholic faith, to link the leadership of the nation to the Catholic clergy, and to advance his Hlinka' s Slovak People's Party as the only major political party to recognize and defend the Slovak nation as unique. After the Munich Agreement, Tiso became minister for Slovak affairs and then on October 6, 1938 premier of an autonomous Slovakia. During this time, Tiso concentrated on policy and restructuring the political system, which essentially made Slovakia a oneparty state. After Slovak independence on 14 March 1939, Tiso served as prime minister and then, beginning in October 1939, he became the republic ' s president. Tiso now sought to legitimize the new republic, justifying its independence and thanking Adolf Hitler for extending his protection to the Slovaks. Tiso linked Slovakia to Germany's successes and Germany's leadership in the construction of a new Europe. Beginning in 1943, roughly coinciding with the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, Tiso's references to Hitler and Germany became sparse, and Tiso did not mention either in his address in 1944 on the fifth anniversary of the Slovak state (ll/374). Tiso obviously wanted to distance himself from Hitler, but fewer references to his patron also suggest the limits of Tiso's acceptance of his own earlier rhetoric. Throughout the war, Tiso's description of Slovakia ' s mission on the Eastern Front as a struggle against Bolshevism, with its Jewish and anti-Christian influences, remained constant. In the final document dated 6 August 1944, Tiso ended with a prophetic statement: "we cannot deny that the Bolsheviks are at the border and that they promise the scaffold!" (II/389) . The two volumes reveal much about the development of Tiso's anti-Semitism. There are few references to Jews in Tiso ' s statements 112 SLOVAKIA between the world wars, and at one point in 1934, he even invited Jews, Germans, Hungarians, and Czechs in Slovakia to join with Slovaks in demanding autonomy (l/202). Nevertheless, there are occasional anti-Jewish comments, such as Ti so's call for land from the church estates parceled under the land reform to go to Catholic farmers , not Jews, nonbelievers, and speculators (l/78). During the Second Czecho-Slovak Republic, Tiso identified Jews as a foreign element whose presence in Slovak society must be proportionate to their numbers. Nevertheless, he warned that Jews should not become the objects of "hatred and sadistic tendencies" (I/32). His rhetoric against Jews heightened when Slovakia became independent, and in August 1942 he justified the removal of Jews from Slovak society as the elimination of an enemy, an act of self-defense in keeping with Christian morals. Loving oneself is a precept from God, according to Tiso, "and I think there is no need to convince anyone that the Jewish element endangers the life of a Slovak" (11/287). There is little evidence in these two volumes to suggest that Tiso 's antiSemitism was anything but genuine, but the addition of Tiso's intensely anti-Semitic Ny itra/Nitra articles make his hatred of Jews indisputable. The editors are preparing a third vo lume to cover the conversations of Hitler and Tiso as well as Tiso 's statements from the beginning of the Slovak National Uprising on 29 August 1944 through his 1946-1947 trial. They indicated their intent to include in the third volume addenda for the first two volumes and expressed their wish that historians inform them of additional documents. The inclusion of missing items- those signed with a pseudonym or abbreviated name and those whose authorship is disputable- is absoutely essential , not only for the convenience of researchers, but also for the sake of objectivity. Perhaps they can be in a section of their own. The editors had planned to include three indexes in the second volume, and one can assume that these essential tools for researchers will appear in the planned third volume. Specialists on Slovak affairs in the Habsburg Monarchy, the First Czechoslovak Republic, and the first Slovak Republic are greatly indebted to Fabricius, Susko, Hradska, and the others who contributed to the production of these two volumes . They anxiously await the appearance of the third volume in this indispensable series. SLOVAKIA 113 Max Domarus, Th e Complete Hitler: A Digital Desktop Reference to His Speeches and Proclamations 1932-1945. Wauconda, Ill. : Bolchazy-Carducci, 2007. (CD-ROM edition). VASILLIS VOURKOUTIOTIS University of Ottawa While documentary collections concerning the Third Reich are not, generally speaking, difficult to come by, few students are exposed to the actual words of Adolf Hitler except as summarized by other compilers in wider works . The exception to this has been Max Domtarus' four-volume collection of Hitler's speeches. The compilation of this resource was linked to the history it attempted to capture. In 1932, Max Domarus was only twenty-two years old. Yet, he realized that in Adolf Hitler, Germany and the world were faced with a new phenomenon whose significance should not be underestimated. He began, in that year, to collect and compile as many of Hitler's speeches as he could find , and continued the project through the war years until Hitler' s death in 1945 . After the war, Domarus supplemented his collection as much as possible, and the resulting work, which included his annotations and commentary, was a four-volume set published in German. For each year in question, the reader is offered a detailed summary of events, and photographs from the Domarus archive. Full endnotes for each section yield bibliographical citations, as well as additional explanatory commentary. Each volume also contains a list of abbreviations which users will find helpful. Although some of Domarus' commentaries have been superceded by historical research, his perceptions remain as interesting in several instances as the speeches they comment upon. The four-volume set, even though it only covers Hitler's speeches from 1932 onward, remains the best single collection of the dictator's words. With this CD, Domarus's publishers have brought an important printed historical resource into the modem information age. An English-language translation accompanies the original German text, bringing to the user eight volumes of material in a single disk. Although presented in a chronological format, the speeches are in a searchable PDF format, allowing the student or researcher the ability to scan years of 114 SLOVAKIA material for keywords . For those with the language abilities and desire, the English version can be easily compared for accuracy with the German original. Given how long Hitler could speak for at a single event, it is not surprising that Domarus felt the need to offer exerpts rather than a stenographic record. This may strike some as a potential drawback, and might lead some researches to seek the full text of a particular speech of interest. The vast majority of users, however, will not find this a significant issue; Domarus' work has remained the standard reference for university libraries since its first publication in 1962 with good reason. Two versions of the CD ROM exist, the Standard and ePremium. In addition to the advantages of the Standard, the ePremium addition allows the user to print, copy and paste text directly from the PDF files into one's own documents, and add commentary to the texts. These enhancements will be of interest to those who work closely enough with the material in their own research. On the whole, in making both the English and German versions of Domarus' compilations available in such a format, the publishers have not only made an important work more accessible, but also provided a service to both students and academics alike. James Ramon Felak After Hitler, Before Stalin: Catholics, Communists, and Democrats in Slovakia, 1945-1948. Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009. xv-261 pp. , notes, bibliography, index. M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa Having perceived a negl ected period of history, James R. Felak set out to tell the story of the role of Catholicism in Slovakia in the period 1945-48, especially its relationship with the Communist and Democratic Parties. The essence of the book is that, even though both the Communists and the Lutheran leaders of the Democratic Party were either hostile to or suspicious of the Roman Catholic Church, both courted Roman Catholic voters in order to attain political power in post-war Slovakia. Having combed the relevant Slovak archives, and read the Communist, Lutheran and Roman Catholic press, along with most secondary sources on the subject, Felak carefully related what actually SLOVAKIA 115 transpired in Slovakia in the three years after the Second World War. He pointed out that the post-war National Front government that came into existence on April 3, 1945, reduced the pre-war political parties of Czechoslovakia from 16 to 5, and in Slovakia permitted only the Communists and Democrats. The two strongest pre-war political parties, Hlinka Slovak People's Party and the Czechoslovak Agrarian Party were banned as "collaborationist". That meant that the minority Lutherans could (and did) join the newly-formed Democratic Party, but the majority Catholics were disenfranchised. As a result, both the Communists and Democrats courted Catholic voters in anticipation of the May, 1946 elections, while simultaneously attacking the Roman Catholic Church. Thus, the self-appointed Slovak National Council, with its executive Board of Commissioners, nationalized all religious schools, seized most Catholic institutions, severely limited the size of the Catholic press and imprisoned two Slovak bishops. On the other hand, the Communists tried to persuade Catholic voters to vote for their party, because the Democrats were largely Lutherans . Indeed, the Communists even supported the creation of a Christian Republican Party, but the Catholics and Communists could not agree on its name, and this project fell through. The Lutherans, on the other hand, also wooed the Catholics by promising to split future political representation and patronage with them on the basis of a 7:3 ratio in favor of the Catholics. The Catholics found this promise more enticing than Communist overtures and, as a result, the Catholic and Lutheran politicians reached the so-called April Agreement on March 31, 1946. Since they were now united, the Catholics and Lutherans both supported the Democratic Party and won the 1946 elections with a convincing majority of 62%. Since they had lost the elections, the Communist Party of Slovakia went on the offensive. With the collusion of the government in Prague, where the Communists had more influence, and where certain Czech parties resented Slovak home-rule, Slovak Communists, led by Gustav Husak, negotiated the "Third Prague Agreement" of June 27, 1946, by which the Slovak National Council and the Board of Commissioners subordinated themselves to the Prague government. Then the Slovak Communists decided to try for treason the Reverend Jozef Tiso, former president of the first Slovak Republic ( 1939-1945). They saw to it that the National Court was domina- 116 SLOVAKIA ted by Communists who, as expected, found Tiso guilty and sentenced him to death on April 15, 1947. The hapless Democrats on the executive of the Board of Commissioners failed to recommend clemency and left the final verdict to the government in Prague, which upheld the verdict, as did president Benes, and Tiso was hanged on April 17. After this fiasco, Slovak Catholics lost faith in the Democratic Party, just as the Communists began their offensive against it. In the summer and fall of 194 7 the Communists fabricated an anti-state conspiracy against certain Catholic Democrats. On this basis Gustav Husak on October 31 staged a mini-coup in Slovakia by (with Prague support) illegally dissolving and then reappointing the Board of Commissioners in favor of the Communists. This was a prelude to similar tactics by the Communists in Prague in February of 1948, when three non-Communist parties resigned from the government in the hope of toppling it. Instead, the Communists, led by Klement Gottwald offered to form a new government and president Edvard Benes approved it. Thus, by February of 1948 the Communists had completed their takeover of both the Slovak and Czechoslovak governments and instituted totalitarian rule for the next 40 years, during which they tried (but failed) to completely destroy the Roman Catholic church in Czechoslovakia. Felak's book is well-written and comprehensive. Perhaps his greatest contribution is that he laid to rest the oft-repeated Slovak complaint that president Benes arranged for Tiso's death. Instead, as Felak convincingly shows, it was the incompetence of the Lutheradominated executive of the Board of Commissioners which was most responsible because of its inability to reach a consensus on the issue of clemency. They essentially "passed the buck" to Prague, where Tiso had few friends and that sealed his doom. In spite of Felak's meticulous scholarship, the book contained a few glitches and one omission. The slang expression "First off "appeared a few times (p.6), Stanislav Kirschbaum's first name was shortened to Stanley in footnote 5 on page 217, the surname Viktorin was misspelled Victory (p.63), and Banovce nad Bebravou was identified as Tiso's home town (p.100), when that honor goes to Vel'ka Bytca. Perhaps the greatest omission is the revelation that Ferdinand Durcansky, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the first Slovak Republic, who fled to the west after the war and tried to SLOVAKIA 117 organize an anti-state underground movement in post-war Slovakia, was actually controlled by Kim Philby, the notorious British spy who was, in fact, working for the KGB . Mark Aarons and John Loftus, on the basis of research in the files of the CIA in Washington, revealed this interesting detail in their Ratlines: How the Vatican Networks Betrayed Western Intelligence to the Soviets (London, 1991 ), pp. 21 19 and footnotes 46-50, page 334. Thus, the anti-state conspiracy of 1947 was carefully staged from abroad by the KGB as an excuse for the communist takeover of Slovakia. Edward Snajdr, Nature Protests: The End of Ecology in Slovakia. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2008 . xiii242 pp., photographs, notes, bibliography, list of interviews, index. JURAJ HOCMAN University of Ottawa Edward Snajdr, an American cultural anthropologist at New York University, examined Slovakia's emerging civic environmental protection movement in the communist era and its rapid disappearance during the country 's post-communist transformation (19851995). The author did his fieldwork in situ and that is why it is particularly interesting to read about his experience. In the first two chapters, Snajdr focuses on urban and extraurban contexts of social life in communist Slovakia while providing general, yet adequate, historical background. The author traces the origins of environmental movements among young Slovaks and Czechs that had begun with associations such as SZOPK (Slovensky zvaz ochrancov prfrody a kraj iny - the Slovak Union of Protectors of Nature and the Countryside) in Slovakia and Brontosaurus in the Czech lands. He contrasts the difference between the effectiveness of state legislation designed to protect the environment in the massively and insensitively industrialized Slovakia, with spontaneous projects of young people whose aims were to improve the quality of the environment that surrounded them. Despite their local character, those efforts were not only efficient, but also inspirational. Snajdr then proceeds to the period from 1985 to 1989 during which environmentalist activities spread to the politics of discontent with the communist regime. He stresses the significance of the acce- 118 SLOVAKIA lerated drive for environmental protection in Slovakia during the period of perestroika and glasnost in the case of the samizdat Bratislava Nahlas (Bratislava Aloud). This publication, which voiced the concerns of ordinary citizens regarding disrespectful and harmful socio-economic policies of the communist regime, was prohibited by state authorities. Its editor, Jan Budaj, who became one of the most visible leaders of the "Velvet Revolution" in Slovakia in the fall of 1989, as well as the samizdat' s distributors, were harassed by the communist secret police (the StB). The fall of the communist regime might have become the new beginning of a friendlier approach to environmental protection in Slovakia. That is where the second part of the story begins. A new political reality in Eastern Europe, which was closely tied to nationalism, brought a new perspective on how to cope with the legacy of communism and its negative ecological effects. The members of the Slovak Green Party (Strana zelenych), which was formed in November of 1989, and was represented in the new Slovak parliament, took a firm stand against the completion of the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros dam on the Danube river, which formed the Slovak-Hungarian border. This started as a joint venture of the communist governments of Czechoslovakia and Hungary under a treaty signed in I 977. Hungary withdrew from the project at the end of the 1980s, bowing to pressure from ecologists at home and abroad. To Slovaks, as Snajdr observes, the project was a matter of national prestige and a rallying point against warnings of environmental risks that stood in the forefront of Hungary 's concerns. Snajdr elaborates on how its chief engineer, Julius Binder, defended the completion of the Slovak part of the project and gained the support of the Slovak public. From then on the Greens (Zeleni), who, in the meantime, split into two groups, the Czecho-Slovak federalists and the Slovak nationalists, started slipping into political obscurity and eventually returned to small and isolated projects of landscape revitalization at various locations . Thus, "nation won over nature" and Slovakia, together with representatives of the ecology movement, entered into an age of post-ecology. The book paints a credible picture of a former communist regime unconcerned with the ecological impact of insensitive industrialization and socio-economic modernization. The first part of the study, which analyzes the evolution of environmental protection, is more SLOVAKIA 119 cohesive than the second. If the second part appears a bit fragmentary, it is due to the overall ruptured character of the ecology movement in Slovakia in the second half of the 1990s. Though the sympathies of the author towards a cleaner environment cannot be overlooked, he did not take sides in intra and extra-national political conflicts. Apart from a few minor aberrations, such as the subtler use of the geographic term the Czech lands or the Czech Republic instead of Bohemia when referring to the second half of the 20 th century; and the incorrect transliteration of Gabcikovo-Nagymaros instead of GNagymaros, and Kvacian (gen . or accus; Slovak) instead of Kvacany (nom.), the book profits from its narrative and analysis based on the author's knowledge of theory and his authentic experience. It is an insightful contribution to the discourse on the continuing multilayered evolution of post-communist states and societies in Eastern Europe, in which ecology has played an important part. With Slovakia now being a member of the European Union and a signatory of international treaties on environmental protection, it would be interesting to discover whether the previous gap between government and civic initiatives has remained the same or has disappeared.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Book Reviews, Slovakia, Vol. 40 (No. 74-75) Description An account of the resource includes:<br /><ul><li>Ludevít Štúr (Ľudovít Štúr), Nauka reči slovensky (Gerald J. Sabo), p. 103</li> <li>András Gerö, The Jewish Criterion in Hungary (Yeshayahu A. Jelinek), p. 106</li> <li>Miroslav Fabricius, ed., Tiso, Jozef: Prejavy a články, vol. 1 (1913-1938) and vol. 2 (1938-1944) (Daniel E. Miller), p. 108</li> <li>Max Domarus, The Complete Hitler: A Digital Desktop Reference to His Speeches and Proclamations 1932-1945 (Vasillis Vourkoutiotis), p. 113</li> <li>James Roman Felak, After Hitler, Before Stalin: Catholics, Communists, and Democrats in Slovakia, 1945-1948 (M. Mark Stolarik), p. 114</li> <li>Edward Snajdr, Nature Protests: The End of Ecology in Slovakia (Juraj Hocman), p. 117</li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hocman, Juraj Jelinek, Yeshayahu A. Miller, Daniel E. (Daniel Edward), 1954- Sabo, Gerald J., 1945–2020 Stolarik, M. Mark, 1943- Vourkoutiotis, Vasilis, 1970- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 LCNAF LCNAF+dates https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/cc7123542f80466fc86cc2b01b73390c.pdf f3ff830665ae007adbc865cdb11ab61e PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA Published By THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA ��SLOVAKIA VOLUME XL NUMBERS 74-75 2010 A scholarl y annual devoted to the history, literature and culture of the Slovaks the world over Editor M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa Ed itoria l Board MICHAEL NOV AK American Enterprise Institute ROBERT K. EVANSON University of Missouri JAMES R. FELAK University of Washington PETER PETRO University of British Columbia CAROL S. LEFF University of Illinois PA TRICIA KRAFCIK The Evergreen State College Publisher Slovak Leag ue of America 205 Madison Street Passaic, NJ 07055 , USA Inquiries regarding subscriptions shou ld be sent to the above address . The cost of a single issue is U.S. $10.00 Manuscripts for possible publication and books for review should be sent to M. Mark Stolarik, Ed itor, Slovakia 22 Bren-Maur Road , Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2J 3Z7 stolarik@uottawa .ca ��Table of Contents ARTICLES The Cemova Massacre: Magyar Miscalculation, Slovak Gain Edita Bosak .............. ... .. ... ... .. .... ..... ..... ....... .. ..................... .......... . 7 Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky ( 1862-1916) Jan Petrovsky .. ..... ..... ............. ...... ....... .......... ........ .......... ........... 24 Andrej Hlinka's Journey to the USA in 1926 Stefan Kucik .. .... ....... ... .... ...... ... .. ........................ .. ......... ...... ....... 32 Jozef Stasko ( 1917-1999): His Life and Achievements Miroslav Chromek ... .................................... ........ ....................... 47 Rising Against Stalinism: De-Stalinization and the Reinterpretation of the Slovak National Uprising in Slovak Historiography of the 1960's Scott Brown ..... ........ ................ ....... ..... ........ ..... .. ....... .. .. ... .......... 60 Myths Regarding the Anti-Communist Resistance in Slovakia Jan Carnogursky ....................................... .. .. .. .... .......... .. .... .. .. ... 81 REVIEW ESSAY Slovak-Polish Relations Marcel Jesensky .................. ........... .... .... .......... ...... .. ..... ....... .. .... 95 REVIEWS Ludevit Stur, Nauka reci slovenskej Gerald J. Sabo ..... .... ....... ........ ................ .................................. 103 Andras Gero, The Jewish Criterion in Hungary Yeshayahu Jelinek ..................................................... ..... .. ....... . 106 �4 SLOVAKIA Miroslav Fabricius, Ladislav Susko and Katarina Hradska, eds., Tiso, Jozef Prejavy a clcinky Daniel E. Miller ........... ...... .............. ... ............ ......... ...... .... ....... l 08 Max Domarus, The Complete Hitler Vasil/is Vourkoutiotis .. ..................... ........ ....... ...... ....... ............ 113 James R. Pelak, After Hitler, Before Stalin M Mark Stolarik .. ............ ... ..... .... ....... ........ ......... ...... ... .. .......... 114 Edward Snajdr, Nature Protests Jura) Hocman .......... .. ..................... .. ........... .. .. ......................... 117 Contributors .... ... .. .............. ................... ............... ............ .. .............. 120 Guidelines for Manuscripts ........ ......... ... ......... ......... .... .. .. ........... .... 122 �ARTICLES �� SLOVAKIA Published By THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA ��SLOVAKIA VOLUME XL NUMBERS 74-75 2010 A scholarl y annual devoted to the history, literature and culture of the Slovaks the world over Editor M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa Ed itoria l Board MICHAEL NOV AK American Enterprise Institute ROBERT K. EVANSON University of Missouri JAMES R. FELAK University of Washington PETER PETRO University of British Columbia CAROL S. LEFF University of Illinois PA TRICIA KRAFCIK The Evergreen State College Publisher Slovak Leag ue of America 205 Madison Street Passaic, NJ 07055 , USA Inquiries regarding subscriptions shou ld be sent to the above address . The cost of a single issue is U.S. $10.00 Manuscripts for possible publication and books for review should be sent to M. Mark Stolarik, Ed itor, Slovakia 22 Bren-Maur Road , Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2J 3Z7 stolarik@uottawa .ca ��Table of Contents ARTICLES The Cemova Massacre: Magyar Miscalculation, Slovak Gain Edita Bosak .............. ... .. ... ... .. .... ..... ..... ....... .. ..................... .......... . 7 Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky ( 1862-1916) Jan Petrovsky .. ..... ..... ............. ...... ....... .......... ........ .......... ........... 24 Andrej Hlinka's Journey to the USA in 1926 Stefan Kucik .. .... ....... ... .... ...... ... .. ........................ .. ......... ...... ....... 32 Jozef Stasko ( 1917-1999): His Life and Achievements Miroslav Chromek ... .................................... ........ ....................... 47 Rising Against Stalinism: De-Stalinization and the Reinterpretation of the Slovak National Uprising in Slovak Historiography of the 1960's Scott Brown ..... ........ ................ ....... ..... ........ ..... .. ....... .. .. ... .......... 60 Myths Regarding the Anti-Communist Resistance in Slovakia Jan Carnogursky ....................................... .. .. .. .... .......... .. .... .. .. ... 81 REVIEW ESSAY Slovak-Polish Relations Marcel Jesensky .................. ........... .... .... .......... ...... .. ..... ....... .. .... 95 REVIEWS Ludevit Stur, Nauka reci slovenskej Gerald J. Sabo ..... .... ....... ........ ................ .................................. 103 Andras Gero, The Jewish Criterion in Hungary Yeshayahu Jelinek ..................................................... ..... .. ....... . 106 �4 SLOVAKIA Miroslav Fabricius, Ladislav Susko and Katarina Hradska, eds., Tiso, Jozef Prejavy a clcinky Daniel E. Miller ........... ...... .............. ... ............ ......... ...... .... ....... l 08 Max Domarus, The Complete Hitler Vasil/is Vourkoutiotis .. ..................... ........ ....... ...... ....... ............ 113 James R. Pelak, After Hitler, Before Stalin M Mark Stolarik .. ............ ... ..... .... ....... ........ ......... ...... ... .. .......... 114 Edward Snajdr, Nature Protests Jura) Hocman .......... .. ..................... .. ........... .. .. ......................... 117 Contributors .... ... .. .............. ................... ............... ............ .. .............. 120 Guidelines for Manuscripts ........ ......... ... ......... ......... .... .. .. ........... .... 122 �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 2010, Vol. 40 Description An account of the resource Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010. 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 2010 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA Published By THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA SLOVAKIA VOLUME XL NUMBERS 74-75 2010 A scholarl y annual devoted to the history, literature and culture of the Slovaks the world over Editor M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa Ed itoria l Board MICHAEL NOV AK American Enterprise Institute ROBERT K. EVANSON University of Missouri JAMES R. FELAK University of Washington PETER PETRO University of British Columbia CAROL S. LEFF University of Illinois PA TRICIA KRAFCIK The Evergreen State College Publisher Slovak Leag ue of America 205 Madison Street Passaic, NJ 07055 , USA Inquiries regarding subscriptions shou ld be sent to the above address . The cost of a single issue is U.S. $10.00 Manuscripts for possible publication and books for review should be sent to M. Mark Stolarik, Ed itor, Slovakia 22 Bren-Maur Road , Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2J 3Z7 stolarik@uottawa .ca Table of Contents ARTICLES The Cemova Massacre: Magyar Miscalculation, Slovak Gain Edita Bosak .............. ... .. ... ... .. .... ..... ..... ....... .. ..................... .......... . 7 Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky ( 1862-1916) Jan Petrovsky .. ..... ..... ............. ...... ....... .......... ........ .......... ........... 24 Andrej Hlinka's Journey to the USA in 1926 Stefan Kucik .. .... ....... ... .... ...... ... .. ........................ .. ......... ...... ....... 32 Jozef Stasko ( 1917-1999): His Life and Achievements Miroslav Chromek ... .................................... ........ ....................... 47 Rising Against Stalinism: De-Stalinization and the Reinterpretation of the Slovak National Uprising in Slovak Historiography of the 1960's Scott Brown ..... ........ ................ ....... ..... ........ ..... .. ....... .. .. ... .......... 60 Myths Regarding the Anti-Communist Resistance in Slovakia Jan Carnogursky ....................................... .. .. .. .... .......... .. .... .. .. ... 81 REVIEW ESSAY Slovak-Polish Relations Marcel Jesensky .................. ........... .... .... .......... ...... .. ..... ....... .. .... 95 REVIEWS Ludevit Stur, Nauka reci slovenskej Gerald J. Sabo ..... .... ....... ........ ................ .................................. 103 Andras Gero, The Jewish Criterion in Hungary Yeshayahu Jelinek ..................................................... ..... .. ....... . 106 4 SLOVAKIA Miroslav Fabricius, Ladislav Susko and Katarina Hradska, eds., Tiso, Jozef Prejavy a clcinky Daniel E. Miller ........... ...... .............. ... ............ ......... ...... .... ....... l 08 Max Domarus, The Complete Hitler Vasil/is Vourkoutiotis .. ..................... ........ ....... ...... ....... ............ 113 James R. Pelak, After Hitler, Before Stalin M Mark Stolarik .. ............ ... ..... .... ....... ........ ......... ...... ... .. .......... 114 Edward Snajdr, Nature Protests Jura) Hocman .......... .. ..................... .. ........... .. .. ......................... 117 Contributors .... ... .. .............. ................... ............... ............ .. .............. 120 Guidelines for Manuscripts ........ ......... ... ......... ......... .... .. .. ........... .... 122 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. 40 (No. 74-75) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/2c556388b5ae469772d396e611e7b6a3.pdf 22be1dfe9b4f01ed3cda7b57635994ef PDF Text Text 24 SLOVAKIA GUSTAV MARSHALL-PETROVSKY (1862-1916) Jan Petrovsky In the capitalist United States of America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, conditions were such that American Slovaks were able to achieve a higher level of national consciousness than their cousins in the Kingdom of Hungary. This was shown by their well-developed societies, associations and organizations, by the quality and range of numerous American-Slovak publications and by their cultural activities with their own literary, theatrical and scientific achievements. 1 One of the preeminent cultural leaders of American Slovaks at that time was Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky and, since Jozef Pauco failed to include him in his book on Slovak pioneers in America, I will attempt to fill this gap. 2 The idea of national self-realization among American Slovaks originated in the last decades of the nineteenth century, when Slovak fraternal benefit societies were established. 3 The writer, journalist and patriot Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky was one of the pre-eminent leaders of American Slovaks. He was the best-known and most published of Slovak prose writers living in the USA. As such, he was an important symbol of Slovak national development. 4 He defined a nation as a people related by blood, speaking the same language and practicing the same culture and ideals. 5 Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky played a leading role in promoting Slovak culture and ideals.6 11 Bielik, Frantisek, "Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo a jeho mi es to v nas ich narodnyc h dejinach" [Slova k Emigration and Its Place in Our Nati onal History], in "Vyst'ahovalectvo a i ivot kraj anov vo svete [E mi grati on and the Life of Our Co untrymen Abroad] (Martin: Matica slove nska, 1982), 32. 2 Pauco, Jozef, Slovenski priekopnici v Amerike (Cleveland, 1972). 3 Bielik, op.cit. 4 Alner, Juraj , " Literatura o slove nskom vyst'ahovalectve do Spojenych statov americkych" [Literature about Slovak Emi grati on to the United States of Ameri ca], in : Slovaci v zahranici 4 - 5 ( I 979), I 3 7. 5 Balch, Emily G., Our Slavic Fellow Citizens (New York: Charities Publication Committee, 1910), I 0. 6 Alner, " Literature about Slova k Emi gra ti on .. ... , 137. �SLOVAKIA 25 This patriot was born on June 8, 1862 in the Lutheran village of Bacsky Petrovec, in southern Hungary (now in Serbia) to the family of an affluent Slovak tanner. He attended elementary school in his home town and went on to grammar school in nearby Novy Sad and Sarvas. After studying law for a year at the Lutheran Lyceum in Presov (Slovakia), he was expelled by Education Minister Agoston Trefort for his national activity among fellow-students when he tried to form a Slovak student organization. Indeed, he was forbidden to study in any school in Hungary. Therefore, between 1882 and 1890 he studied medicine in Vienna and joined the Slovak academic society "Tatran," of which he was elected president three times. 7 Gustav's father and grandfather had also made a deep impresssion upon him, especially in his perception of his nation, language and culture. Both gave him a strong appreciation of his homeland. But the strongest influence on Gustav was his father. 8 That led to his umbrage against national oppression and Magyarization 9 in Hungary, which made his further studies in that Kingdom impossible. 10 Petrovsky was a conscious Slovak patriot who, even in the most difficult and crucial moments of harassment in Presov, never turned away from his primary goal: the social, economic, cultural and literary elevation of his nation. In that effort there was no obstacle in his temperament, boisterous and ambitious character, but on the contrary, these attributes enabled him to penetrate the cause of the problems, to recruit young Slovak students and inflame them for work 7 Kocak, Michal , "Gustav Marsall- Petrovsky : Spomienka pri 135. vyroc i narodeni a" [Gustav Marshall - Petrovsky: On the Anniversary of his 135 th Birthday], in: Slovenske narodne noviny. 8, No. 11 , 1997, p. 8. 8 Various authors, "Zivot a die/a Gustava Marfola- Petrovskeho: Zborn ik prac z medzinarodneho sy mp6zia v Novom Sade, Petro vci a Hloianoch 23. a 24. okt6bra 1987" [The Life and Work of Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky," Almanac of Works from the International Symposium in No vy Sad, Petrovec and Hloiany on October 23rd and 24th, 198 7] (Novy Sad: OBZOR, 1989), p. 19. 9 It was an attem pt by the Magyar ruling classes to create a united Hungarian state of 30 mill ion people speaki ng one language (Magyar), practicing one culture, and having one fee ling and thought. Butvin , Jozef, "V boj i za narodnu a socialnu slobodu" [The Struggle fo r Nat iona l and Social Freedom], in Dejiny Slovenska slovom i obrazom II. [Slovak Histo,y in Words and Pictures II.] (Martin: Osveta, I 98 I), 58. Various authors, Life and Work of Gustav ... , p. I 9. 10 Petrovsky, Gustav, M, Janosik, kapitan horskych chlapcov - j eho biirlivy i ivot a desna smrt' [Janosik, Captain of the Mountain Boys- His Notorious Life and Frightful Death] (Bacsky Petrovec: OBZOR, I 967), 267. �26 SLOVAKIA among his people. His unshakeable activity in the 1880s helped in the revival of Slovak national life, especially the Slovak student movement, in times of the strongest Magyarization. 11 In addition to his works that appeared in the Almanach slovenskej mladeie in 1885 (Slovak Youth Almanac) and Pamatnica Tatrana in 1890 (Memory of Tatran), Petrovsky made his literary debut in Tatran with "Novely" - Z parku, Kaplan, Pod hrubou korou (Short Stories- of the Park, the Chaplain, Under the Thick Crust) in 1887. Before leaving Vienna in 1890 he published a Slovak grammar in German. 12 In the United States he published a second edition of a Practical Guidebook of Slovak in the German Language in 1907. 13 In 1890 the persecuted Marshall-Petrovsky moved to the United States. He immediately joined various Slovak fraternal-benefit societies and worked as an editor of Slovak newspapers and periodicals. From the beginning he became one of the pioneers of Slovak national and cultural life. In 1893, together with the Reverend Stefan Furdek of Cleveland, he founded the Matica slovenska in America and Petrovsky became its second president (the Hungarian government had closed the original Matica in 1875). Petrovsky was one of the founders of the Slovak Evangelical Union (1892), initially editor of P.V. Rovnianek's weekly Amerikansko-slovenske noviny (American-Slovak News, founded in 1886) in Pittsburgh, and later editor and co-owner of the weekly Slovak v Amerike (The Slovak in America, founded in 1889) 14 in New York City. Still later he edited the weekly Luteran (Lutheran) 15 in Cleveland, he helped to found the weekly Slovenske slovo (The Slovak Word) in Chicago in 19131914, and became managing editor of Chicagsky dennik (Chicago Daily). After he had a falling out with the publisher of the latter newspaper, he decided to become a banker, but failed in this attempt. He died destitute in Chicago on June 15th, 1916 after 24 years of work in the USA and was buried in the Bohemian National Cemetery. Petrovsky's work in so many newspapers may have drained him of lot of creative energy. The continual uncertainty in that profess11 Various authors, "Life and Work of Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky," Almanac of .. , p. 28 . 12 Praktisches Lehrbuch der slowakische Sprache (Vienna, 1890). 13 Bartalska, I.:ubica, "Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky," in : Slovaks abroad. .., p. 299. 14 The first newspaper in which he started to wri te as an American immigrant. 15 Later Slovens/..y hlasnik (Slovak Herald). �SLOVAKIA 27 sion brought him many troubles . But the same destiny overtook many of his fellow workers. He advertised his works in the newspapers at which he was employed. These works included sketches, novels and fairy tales. The lives and characters of his literary works reflected the hardships and experiences of Slovak immigrants after they moved to the United States. 16 Petrovskys American short stories appeared at a very specific time in his life--from August of 1905 to March of 1906. From his correspondence we know that Petrovsky was at that time editor of Slovensky hlasnik (Slovak Herald) in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. This newspaper was the official organ of the Slovak Evangelical Union and had a strong national orientation. In 1906 it paid a lot of attention to the trial of the Rev. Andrej Hlinka of Ruzomberok. On July 13, 1905 Petrovsky started the valuable rubric Zabava a poucenie (Fun and Advice), given to fiction . In July and August of 1905, drawing upon a Greek fairy tale and a Russian sketch, Petrovsky elaborated upon and translated four didactic pictures of life and published his sketch Kto mecom bojuje, mecom zahynie! (He Who Fights with the Sword, Will Die by the Sword!). The same literary invention follows in two short stories--The Samaritan and The Parakeet. Petrovsky's resolution to fill this rubric with reality was activated by his literary experience and so his pictures of real life as didactic stories attained wider artistic merit and gradually merged into clear fictional works: Tak sa easy menia ... (The Times, They Are a Changing . .. ), September, 1905, Pan Tlchuba v nesnadzach (Mr. Babbler in Trouble), October, 1905, which appeared under "Amusing Narratives in the Life of American Slovaks;" Spat' (Back) November-December, 1905 ; Mi n6 spik englis (Me no Speak English), January, 1906; Ochranca komarov (Protector of Mosquitoes), February, 1906; Pozde (Late), February 1906, with the subtitle "A Short Story from the Life of American Slovaks;" and Presta/ pr6by (He stopped Trying), March, 1906, with the subtitle "A Story From the life of Hungarian Serbians." 17 Meanwhile, Petrovsky also published books of advice and novels . In his much earlier Radca slovenskych prist'ahovalcov v Ame16 Bartalska, Cubica, "Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky," in Slovaci v zahranici, 4-5 (Slovaks abroad) ( 1979), p. 299, 30 I. 17 Marsall-Petrovs ky, Gustav : Spod zavejov americkych. Bacsky Petrovec: Obzor, 1966, s. 260, 26 1. �28 SLOVAKIA rike (Advisor to Slovak Immigrants in America), which he published in 1895, Petrovsky warned his countrymen against exploitation and abuse as cheap labor and criticized contemporary conditions, the system of capitalism and the huge social differences that existed in the United States. In his 1894 novel Janosik, kapitan horskych chlapcov - j eho bur/ivy i ivot a desna smrt' (Janosik, Captain of the Mountain Boys: His Riotous Life and Frightful Death), which is his most extensive work, Petrovsky focused upon traditional, never-beforetold and fabulous acts in Janosik's life. He did not depart from the main, traditional, stories which are divided into particular themesJanosik who steals from the rich and gives to the poor, who has his great love and enemies among his own people, who is admired and hated. Nevertheless, Petrovsky ' s Janosik is different in some places. Through his hero the author wanted to awaken a love for all Slovaks, emphasizing the spirit of patriotism and love for the everlasting values of his ancestors. 18 In 1906 Petrovsky published a collection of short stories entitled Spod zavejov americkych (From Beneath the Snowdrifts of America), in which he detailed the tragedy of many inexperienced countrymen, cruelly exploited and abused by capitalists. 19 Here he utilized the most common anglicized words such as majna (mine) in America, ollerajt (all right) or st6r (store). 20 As he declared: "I named my little book Spod zavejov americkych because the fairy tales contained in it originated in snowdrifts, both there and here. " 21 While in America, Petrovsky did not forget his homeland and tried to rouse his countrymen against Magyarization in Hungary. He criticized those who were indifferent to national societies. In his story Spat' (Back), he discussed the problem of the gradual denationalizing of Slovaks in America, blaming not only the American educational system, but also the indifference of many countrymen to their assimilation. 22 The literary message of this patriot, journalist, rebel, editor and social activist can be illustrated in two ways. In several novels and 18 Petrovsky, Gustav M., Janosik, Captain of .. , p. 267 . Kutlik, F. , "Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky," in : Eud, 35, No. 69 ( I982), p. 5. 20 Petrovsky, Gustav M., Spod zavejo v americkych [From Beneath the Snowdrifts of America] (Bacsky Petrovec : OBZOR and Bratislava: TATRAN0, p. 276 . 21 Petrovsky, Gustav M. : Dielo llJ (Bae sky Petrovec: Obzor, 1966), 196 . 22 Kutlik, F., "Gustav Marshall - Petrovsky," in: People, p. 5. 19 �SLOVAKIA 29 romances he tried to educate the reader in a popular way, at the expense of literary quality. Many of his stories, especially of the love genre, are artistically of high quality and the story Back and the collection of tales From Beneath the Snowdrifts of America are touching and masterfully written.23 In his novel about Slovak coal miners in the United States, Obete ciernych diamantov (Victims of Black Diamonds, 1906), tragedy is substituted for sentimental love, and it leads to a fatal climax. Here he described the coal mining environment in the USA.24 Amongst the best of Marshall's works are the stories which he published in Spod zavejov americkych and Obete ciernych diamantov. The focus of the first group are love affairs, amusing stories of everyday life and sad, even tragic, events. In these stories Petrovsky penetrated inside of a Slovak man who lived separated from his family and his place of birth. He fixed his eyes, not only on his face, but even on his privacy. It is a sad face, covered by tragedy, often by despair, a face yearning for home, a face which is disturbed by those who forgot their homeland. In Obete ciernych diamantov, he presented the story of a mining disaster in one of America's many coalfields . He brought to the surface the tragic story of Slovaks who were looking for work overseas at a time of national oppression and poverty. The author wrote it in a remarkably suggestive style, with a sense for drama and intensity of action.25 The trials and tribulations of Slovak emigrants to America were described by Marshall- Petrovsky himself: "A frost awaits them. What a cry, what hopes they must bury in their scramble for bread. And what will happen to those living at home? Not even millions of dollars sent to Slovakia can compensate for each sender's soul and spirit. " He then added, I greet you all with my sincere fraternal heart and I wish you and I could be back in the place from whence misery and tragedy banished us, to this cold and unforgiving place. 23 1bid. Cabadaj , Peter, "Album za budanych osobnosti: Marsall- Petrovsky, Gustav [Album of Forgotten Persona liti es: Marshall- Petrovsky, Gustav], in Literarny tyi dennfk, 13 , No. 18 (2000), p. 8. 25 Petrovs ky , Gustav M., Spod zavejov americkych [From Beneath the Snowdrifts of America], p. 276. 24 �30 SLOVAKIA The branch ripped from the tree will never become rooted and the stem will dry up, even breaking its limbs ... therefore come back! Back from beneath the snowdrifts of America, here to your place of birth and poverty! Better to cry with a f ellow countryman than to smile with strangers. Here, by ourselves, we will become aliens !26 Until his death, Marshall- Petrovsky was on the front lines of the struggle for Slovak national liberation. At the beginning of the Great War in 1914 he was a co-signer in the name of the Chicagsky dennik (Chicago Daily) of the Memorandum of the Slovak League.27 When he died in 1916 as the most significant American Slovak writer and journalist, Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky had fallen into poverty and was almost forgotten. However, by 1922 his memory was resurrected and his countrymen built him a monument. 28 He died at the age of 54, still eager to work, although he had none. He had abandoned Hungary due to national oppression and was going to leave America due to social oppression. His big dream to return to his liberated homeland went unfulfilled. 29 Whoever knew Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky in his younger years would never forget his elegant and aristocratic looks. He was erudite and well-educated but impulsive and always dissatisfied. He studied law, theology and medicine but finished none. In the USA he worked as a journalist, as a writer, as a banker, but without success. Nevertheless, he had one thing in common with the Czech writer Vladimir Klacel : during his life poverty, after his death, recognition.30 Here is what the literary critic Andrej Mraz had to say about him : Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky, cried out from deep within his soul to his countrymen spread across the United States of 26 Petrovsky, Gustav M.: , Dielo lll (Bacsky Petrovec : Obzor, 1966), 196 . OL ME I 9 15, XXV, 16 I 3 ,"Memorandum of the Slovak League of America." SYD I, 360. Literamy archi v Mati ci slovenskej (LAMS), fo nd broadsheets 5/21 / 19 16. 28 Composite authors: L ife and work of Gustav Mars hall - Petrovsky: Almanac of .. , 73, 74. 9 KUTLiK, F.: Gustav Marshall - Petrovsky. In: Peop le. p. 5. 3 °Capek, Tomas, Nasa Amerika [Our America ] (Prague: Czechoslovak Nati onal Council. 1926) 92. 27 g- �SLOVAKIA 31 America: come back, come home, we are perishing here, we are like a branch ripped from a tree. Many of his countrymen responded, but Marshall-Petrovsky did not make it to the ship carrying home the Slovak emigrants from America, and so came the day whhen his sad and tormented heart beat for the last time .... 31 31 Kocak, Michal, "Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky: Remembrance of... ," In: Slovak ... , p. 8. � 24 SLOVAKIA GUSTAV MARSHALL-PETROVSKY (1862-1916) Jan Petrovsky In the capitalist United States of America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, conditions were such that American Slovaks were able to achieve a higher level of national consciousness than their cousins in the Kingdom of Hungary. This was shown by their well-developed societies, associations and organizations, by the quality and range of numerous American-Slovak publications and by their cultural activities with their own literary, theatrical and scientific achievements. 1 One of the preeminent cultural leaders of American Slovaks at that time was Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky and, since Jozef Pauco failed to include him in his book on Slovak pioneers in America, I will attempt to fill this gap. 2 The idea of national self-realization among American Slovaks originated in the last decades of the nineteenth century, when Slovak fraternal benefit societies were established. 3 The writer, journalist and patriot Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky was one of the pre-eminent leaders of American Slovaks. He was the best-known and most published of Slovak prose writers living in the USA. As such, he was an important symbol of Slovak national development. 4 He defined a nation as a people related by blood, speaking the same language and practicing the same culture and ideals. 5 Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky played a leading role in promoting Slovak culture and ideals.6 11 Bielik, Frantisek, "Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo a jeho mi es to v nas ich narodnyc h dejinach" [Slova k Emigration and Its Place in Our Nati onal History], in "Vyst'ahovalectvo a i ivot kraj anov vo svete [E mi grati on and the Life of Our Co untrymen Abroad] (Martin: Matica slove nska, 1982), 32. 2 Pauco, Jozef, Slovenski priekopnici v Amerike (Cleveland, 1972). 3 Bielik, op.cit. 4 Alner, Juraj , " Literatura o slove nskom vyst'ahovalectve do Spojenych statov americkych" [Literature about Slovak Emi grati on to the United States of Ameri ca], in : Slovaci v zahranici 4 - 5 ( I 979), I 3 7. 5 Balch, Emily G., Our Slavic Fellow Citizens (New York: Charities Publication Committee, 1910), I 0. 6 Alner, " Literature about Slova k Emi gra ti on .. ... , 137. �SLOVAKIA 25 This patriot was born on June 8, 1862 in the Lutheran village of Bacsky Petrovec, in southern Hungary (now in Serbia) to the family of an affluent Slovak tanner. He attended elementary school in his home town and went on to grammar school in nearby Novy Sad and Sarvas. After studying law for a year at the Lutheran Lyceum in Presov (Slovakia), he was expelled by Education Minister Agoston Trefort for his national activity among fellow-students when he tried to form a Slovak student organization. Indeed, he was forbidden to study in any school in Hungary. Therefore, between 1882 and 1890 he studied medicine in Vienna and joined the Slovak academic society "Tatran," of which he was elected president three times. 7 Gustav's father and grandfather had also made a deep impresssion upon him, especially in his perception of his nation, language and culture. Both gave him a strong appreciation of his homeland. But the strongest influence on Gustav was his father. 8 That led to his umbrage against national oppression and Magyarization 9 in Hungary, which made his further studies in that Kingdom impossible. 10 Petrovsky was a conscious Slovak patriot who, even in the most difficult and crucial moments of harassment in Presov, never turned away from his primary goal: the social, economic, cultural and literary elevation of his nation. In that effort there was no obstacle in his temperament, boisterous and ambitious character, but on the contrary, these attributes enabled him to penetrate the cause of the problems, to recruit young Slovak students and inflame them for work 7 Kocak, Michal , "Gustav Marsall- Petrovsky : Spomienka pri 135. vyroc i narodeni a" [Gustav Marshall - Petrovsky: On the Anniversary of his 135 th Birthday], in: Slovenske narodne noviny. 8, No. 11 , 1997, p. 8. 8 Various authors, "Zivot a die/a Gustava Marfola- Petrovskeho: Zborn ik prac z medzinarodneho sy mp6zia v Novom Sade, Petro vci a Hloianoch 23. a 24. okt6bra 1987" [The Life and Work of Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky," Almanac of Works from the International Symposium in No vy Sad, Petrovec and Hloiany on October 23rd and 24th, 198 7] (Novy Sad: OBZOR, 1989), p. 19. 9 It was an attem pt by the Magyar ruling classes to create a united Hungarian state of 30 mill ion people speaki ng one language (Magyar), practicing one culture, and having one fee ling and thought. Butvin , Jozef, "V boj i za narodnu a socialnu slobodu" [The Struggle fo r Nat iona l and Social Freedom], in Dejiny Slovenska slovom i obrazom II. [Slovak Histo,y in Words and Pictures II.] (Martin: Osveta, I 98 I), 58. Various authors, Life and Work of Gustav ... , p. I 9. 10 Petrovsky, Gustav, M, Janosik, kapitan horskych chlapcov - j eho biirlivy i ivot a desna smrt' [Janosik, Captain of the Mountain Boys- His Notorious Life and Frightful Death] (Bacsky Petrovec: OBZOR, I 967), 267. �26 SLOVAKIA among his people. His unshakeable activity in the 1880s helped in the revival of Slovak national life, especially the Slovak student movement, in times of the strongest Magyarization. 11 In addition to his works that appeared in the Almanach slovenskej mladeie in 1885 (Slovak Youth Almanac) and Pamatnica Tatrana in 1890 (Memory of Tatran), Petrovsky made his literary debut in Tatran with "Novely" - Z parku, Kaplan, Pod hrubou korou (Short Stories- of the Park, the Chaplain, Under the Thick Crust) in 1887. Before leaving Vienna in 1890 he published a Slovak grammar in German. 12 In the United States he published a second edition of a Practical Guidebook of Slovak in the German Language in 1907. 13 In 1890 the persecuted Marshall-Petrovsky moved to the United States. He immediately joined various Slovak fraternal-benefit societies and worked as an editor of Slovak newspapers and periodicals. From the beginning he became one of the pioneers of Slovak national and cultural life. In 1893, together with the Reverend Stefan Furdek of Cleveland, he founded the Matica slovenska in America and Petrovsky became its second president (the Hungarian government had closed the original Matica in 1875). Petrovsky was one of the founders of the Slovak Evangelical Union (1892), initially editor of P.V. Rovnianek's weekly Amerikansko-slovenske noviny (American-Slovak News, founded in 1886) in Pittsburgh, and later editor and co-owner of the weekly Slovak v Amerike (The Slovak in America, founded in 1889) 14 in New York City. Still later he edited the weekly Luteran (Lutheran) 15 in Cleveland, he helped to found the weekly Slovenske slovo (The Slovak Word) in Chicago in 19131914, and became managing editor of Chicagsky dennik (Chicago Daily). After he had a falling out with the publisher of the latter newspaper, he decided to become a banker, but failed in this attempt. He died destitute in Chicago on June 15th, 1916 after 24 years of work in the USA and was buried in the Bohemian National Cemetery. Petrovsky's work in so many newspapers may have drained him of lot of creative energy. The continual uncertainty in that profess11 Various authors, "Life and Work of Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky," Almanac of .. , p. 28 . 12 Praktisches Lehrbuch der slowakische Sprache (Vienna, 1890). 13 Bartalska, I.:ubica, "Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky," in : Slovaks abroad. .., p. 299. 14 The first newspaper in which he started to wri te as an American immigrant. 15 Later Slovens/..y hlasnik (Slovak Herald). �SLOVAKIA 27 sion brought him many troubles . But the same destiny overtook many of his fellow workers. He advertised his works in the newspapers at which he was employed. These works included sketches, novels and fairy tales. The lives and characters of his literary works reflected the hardships and experiences of Slovak immigrants after they moved to the United States. 16 Petrovskys American short stories appeared at a very specific time in his life--from August of 1905 to March of 1906. From his correspondence we know that Petrovsky was at that time editor of Slovensky hlasnik (Slovak Herald) in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. This newspaper was the official organ of the Slovak Evangelical Union and had a strong national orientation. In 1906 it paid a lot of attention to the trial of the Rev. Andrej Hlinka of Ruzomberok. On July 13, 1905 Petrovsky started the valuable rubric Zabava a poucenie (Fun and Advice), given to fiction . In July and August of 1905, drawing upon a Greek fairy tale and a Russian sketch, Petrovsky elaborated upon and translated four didactic pictures of life and published his sketch Kto mecom bojuje, mecom zahynie! (He Who Fights with the Sword, Will Die by the Sword!). The same literary invention follows in two short stories--The Samaritan and The Parakeet. Petrovsky's resolution to fill this rubric with reality was activated by his literary experience and so his pictures of real life as didactic stories attained wider artistic merit and gradually merged into clear fictional works: Tak sa easy menia ... (The Times, They Are a Changing . .. ), September, 1905, Pan Tlchuba v nesnadzach (Mr. Babbler in Trouble), October, 1905, which appeared under "Amusing Narratives in the Life of American Slovaks;" Spat' (Back) November-December, 1905 ; Mi n6 spik englis (Me no Speak English), January, 1906; Ochranca komarov (Protector of Mosquitoes), February, 1906; Pozde (Late), February 1906, with the subtitle "A Short Story from the Life of American Slovaks;" and Presta/ pr6by (He stopped Trying), March, 1906, with the subtitle "A Story From the life of Hungarian Serbians." 17 Meanwhile, Petrovsky also published books of advice and novels . In his much earlier Radca slovenskych prist'ahovalcov v Ame16 Bartalska, Cubica, "Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky," in Slovaci v zahranici, 4-5 (Slovaks abroad) ( 1979), p. 299, 30 I. 17 Marsall-Petrovs ky, Gustav : Spod zavejov americkych. Bacsky Petrovec: Obzor, 1966, s. 260, 26 1. �28 SLOVAKIA rike (Advisor to Slovak Immigrants in America), which he published in 1895, Petrovsky warned his countrymen against exploitation and abuse as cheap labor and criticized contemporary conditions, the system of capitalism and the huge social differences that existed in the United States. In his 1894 novel Janosik, kapitan horskych chlapcov - j eho bur/ivy i ivot a desna smrt' (Janosik, Captain of the Mountain Boys: His Riotous Life and Frightful Death), which is his most extensive work, Petrovsky focused upon traditional, never-beforetold and fabulous acts in Janosik's life. He did not depart from the main, traditional, stories which are divided into particular themesJanosik who steals from the rich and gives to the poor, who has his great love and enemies among his own people, who is admired and hated. Nevertheless, Petrovsky ' s Janosik is different in some places. Through his hero the author wanted to awaken a love for all Slovaks, emphasizing the spirit of patriotism and love for the everlasting values of his ancestors. 18 In 1906 Petrovsky published a collection of short stories entitled Spod zavejov americkych (From Beneath the Snowdrifts of America), in which he detailed the tragedy of many inexperienced countrymen, cruelly exploited and abused by capitalists. 19 Here he utilized the most common anglicized words such as majna (mine) in America, ollerajt (all right) or st6r (store). 20 As he declared: "I named my little book Spod zavejov americkych because the fairy tales contained in it originated in snowdrifts, both there and here. " 21 While in America, Petrovsky did not forget his homeland and tried to rouse his countrymen against Magyarization in Hungary. He criticized those who were indifferent to national societies. In his story Spat' (Back), he discussed the problem of the gradual denationalizing of Slovaks in America, blaming not only the American educational system, but also the indifference of many countrymen to their assimilation. 22 The literary message of this patriot, journalist, rebel, editor and social activist can be illustrated in two ways. In several novels and 18 Petrovsky, Gustav M., Janosik, Captain of .. , p. 267 . Kutlik, F. , "Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky," in : Eud, 35, No. 69 ( I982), p. 5. 20 Petrovsky, Gustav M., Spod zavejo v americkych [From Beneath the Snowdrifts of America] (Bacsky Petrovec : OBZOR and Bratislava: TATRAN0, p. 276 . 21 Petrovsky, Gustav M. : Dielo llJ (Bae sky Petrovec: Obzor, 1966), 196 . 22 Kutlik, F., "Gustav Marshall - Petrovsky," in: People, p. 5. 19 �SLOVAKIA 29 romances he tried to educate the reader in a popular way, at the expense of literary quality. Many of his stories, especially of the love genre, are artistically of high quality and the story Back and the collection of tales From Beneath the Snowdrifts of America are touching and masterfully written.23 In his novel about Slovak coal miners in the United States, Obete ciernych diamantov (Victims of Black Diamonds, 1906), tragedy is substituted for sentimental love, and it leads to a fatal climax. Here he described the coal mining environment in the USA.24 Amongst the best of Marshall's works are the stories which he published in Spod zavejov americkych and Obete ciernych diamantov. The focus of the first group are love affairs, amusing stories of everyday life and sad, even tragic, events. In these stories Petrovsky penetrated inside of a Slovak man who lived separated from his family and his place of birth. He fixed his eyes, not only on his face, but even on his privacy. It is a sad face, covered by tragedy, often by despair, a face yearning for home, a face which is disturbed by those who forgot their homeland. In Obete ciernych diamantov, he presented the story of a mining disaster in one of America's many coalfields . He brought to the surface the tragic story of Slovaks who were looking for work overseas at a time of national oppression and poverty. The author wrote it in a remarkably suggestive style, with a sense for drama and intensity of action.25 The trials and tribulations of Slovak emigrants to America were described by Marshall- Petrovsky himself: "A frost awaits them. What a cry, what hopes they must bury in their scramble for bread. And what will happen to those living at home? Not even millions of dollars sent to Slovakia can compensate for each sender's soul and spirit. " He then added, I greet you all with my sincere fraternal heart and I wish you and I could be back in the place from whence misery and tragedy banished us, to this cold and unforgiving place. 23 1bid. Cabadaj , Peter, "Album za budanych osobnosti: Marsall- Petrovsky, Gustav [Album of Forgotten Persona liti es: Marshall- Petrovsky, Gustav], in Literarny tyi dennfk, 13 , No. 18 (2000), p. 8. 25 Petrovs ky , Gustav M., Spod zavejov americkych [From Beneath the Snowdrifts of America], p. 276. 24 �30 SLOVAKIA The branch ripped from the tree will never become rooted and the stem will dry up, even breaking its limbs ... therefore come back! Back from beneath the snowdrifts of America, here to your place of birth and poverty! Better to cry with a f ellow countryman than to smile with strangers. Here, by ourselves, we will become aliens !26 Until his death, Marshall- Petrovsky was on the front lines of the struggle for Slovak national liberation. At the beginning of the Great War in 1914 he was a co-signer in the name of the Chicagsky dennik (Chicago Daily) of the Memorandum of the Slovak League.27 When he died in 1916 as the most significant American Slovak writer and journalist, Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky had fallen into poverty and was almost forgotten. However, by 1922 his memory was resurrected and his countrymen built him a monument. 28 He died at the age of 54, still eager to work, although he had none. He had abandoned Hungary due to national oppression and was going to leave America due to social oppression. His big dream to return to his liberated homeland went unfulfilled. 29 Whoever knew Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky in his younger years would never forget his elegant and aristocratic looks. He was erudite and well-educated but impulsive and always dissatisfied. He studied law, theology and medicine but finished none. In the USA he worked as a journalist, as a writer, as a banker, but without success. Nevertheless, he had one thing in common with the Czech writer Vladimir Klacel : during his life poverty, after his death, recognition.30 Here is what the literary critic Andrej Mraz had to say about him : Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky, cried out from deep within his soul to his countrymen spread across the United States of 26 Petrovsky, Gustav M.: , Dielo lll (Bacsky Petrovec : Obzor, 1966), 196 . OL ME I 9 15, XXV, 16 I 3 ,"Memorandum of the Slovak League of America." SYD I, 360. Literamy archi v Mati ci slovenskej (LAMS), fo nd broadsheets 5/21 / 19 16. 28 Composite authors: L ife and work of Gustav Mars hall - Petrovsky: Almanac of .. , 73, 74. 9 KUTLiK, F.: Gustav Marshall - Petrovsky. In: Peop le. p. 5. 3 °Capek, Tomas, Nasa Amerika [Our America ] (Prague: Czechoslovak Nati onal Council. 1926) 92. 27 g- �SLOVAKIA 31 America: come back, come home, we are perishing here, we are like a branch ripped from a tree. Many of his countrymen responded, but Marshall-Petrovsky did not make it to the ship carrying home the Slovak emigrants from America, and so came the day whhen his sad and tormented heart beat for the last time .... 31 31 Kocak, Michal, "Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky: Remembrance of... ," In: Slovak ... , p. 8. � 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 2010, Vol. 40 Description An account of the resource Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010. 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 2010 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 24 SLOVAKIA GUSTAV MARSHALL-PETROVSKY (1862-1916) Jan Petrovsky In the capitalist United States of America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, conditions were such that American Slovaks were able to achieve a higher level of national consciousness than their cousins in the Kingdom of Hungary. This was shown by their well-developed societies, associations and organizations, by the quality and range of numerous American-Slovak publications and by their cultural activities with their own literary, theatrical and scientific achievements. 1 One of the preeminent cultural leaders of American Slovaks at that time was Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky and, since Jozef Pauco failed to include him in his book on Slovak pioneers in America, I will attempt to fill this gap. 2 The idea of national self-realization among American Slovaks originated in the last decades of the nineteenth century, when Slovak fraternal benefit societies were established. 3 The writer, journalist and patriot Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky was one of the pre-eminent leaders of American Slovaks. He was the best-known and most published of Slovak prose writers living in the USA. As such, he was an important symbol of Slovak national development. 4 He defined a nation as a people related by blood, speaking the same language and practicing the same culture and ideals. 5 Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky played a leading role in promoting Slovak culture and ideals.6 11 Bielik, Frantisek, "Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo a jeho mi es to v nas ich narodnyc h dejinach" [Slova k Emigration and Its Place in Our Nati onal History], in "Vyst'ahovalectvo a i ivot kraj anov vo svete [E mi grati on and the Life of Our Co untrymen Abroad] (Martin: Matica slove nska, 1982), 32. 2 Pauco, Jozef, Slovenski priekopnici v Amerike (Cleveland, 1972). 3 Bielik, op.cit. 4 Alner, Juraj , " Literatura o slove nskom vyst'ahovalectve do Spojenych statov americkych" [Literature about Slovak Emi grati on to the United States of Ameri ca], in : Slovaci v zahranici 4 - 5 ( I 979), I 3 7. 5 Balch, Emily G., Our Slavic Fellow Citizens (New York: Charities Publication Committee, 1910), I 0. 6 Alner, " Literature about Slova k Emi gra ti on .. ... , 137. SLOVAKIA 25 This patriot was born on June 8, 1862 in the Lutheran village of Bacsky Petrovec, in southern Hungary (now in Serbia) to the family of an affluent Slovak tanner. He attended elementary school in his home town and went on to grammar school in nearby Novy Sad and Sarvas. After studying law for a year at the Lutheran Lyceum in Presov (Slovakia), he was expelled by Education Minister Agoston Trefort for his national activity among fellow-students when he tried to form a Slovak student organization. Indeed, he was forbidden to study in any school in Hungary. Therefore, between 1882 and 1890 he studied medicine in Vienna and joined the Slovak academic society "Tatran," of which he was elected president three times. 7 Gustav's father and grandfather had also made a deep impresssion upon him, especially in his perception of his nation, language and culture. Both gave him a strong appreciation of his homeland. But the strongest influence on Gustav was his father. 8 That led to his umbrage against national oppression and Magyarization 9 in Hungary, which made his further studies in that Kingdom impossible. 10 Petrovsky was a conscious Slovak patriot who, even in the most difficult and crucial moments of harassment in Presov, never turned away from his primary goal: the social, economic, cultural and literary elevation of his nation. In that effort there was no obstacle in his temperament, boisterous and ambitious character, but on the contrary, these attributes enabled him to penetrate the cause of the problems, to recruit young Slovak students and inflame them for work 7 Kocak, Michal , "Gustav Marsall- Petrovsky : Spomienka pri 135. vyroc i narodeni a" [Gustav Marshall - Petrovsky: On the Anniversary of his 135 th Birthday], in: Slovenske narodne noviny. 8, No. 11 , 1997, p. 8. 8 Various authors, "Zivot a die/a Gustava Marfola- Petrovskeho: Zborn ik prac z medzinarodneho sy mp6zia v Novom Sade, Petro vci a Hloianoch 23. a 24. okt6bra 1987" [The Life and Work of Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky," Almanac of Works from the International Symposium in No vy Sad, Petrovec and Hloiany on October 23rd and 24th, 198 7] (Novy Sad: OBZOR, 1989), p. 19. 9 It was an attem pt by the Magyar ruling classes to create a united Hungarian state of 30 mill ion people speaki ng one language (Magyar), practicing one culture, and having one fee ling and thought. Butvin , Jozef, "V boj i za narodnu a socialnu slobodu" [The Struggle fo r Nat iona l and Social Freedom], in Dejiny Slovenska slovom i obrazom II. [Slovak Histo,y in Words and Pictures II.] (Martin: Osveta, I 98 I), 58. Various authors, Life and Work of Gustav ... , p. I 9. 10 Petrovsky, Gustav, M, Janosik, kapitan horskych chlapcov - j eho biirlivy i ivot a desna smrt' [Janosik, Captain of the Mountain Boys- His Notorious Life and Frightful Death] (Bacsky Petrovec: OBZOR, I 967), 267. 26 SLOVAKIA among his people. His unshakeable activity in the 1880s helped in the revival of Slovak national life, especially the Slovak student movement, in times of the strongest Magyarization. 11 In addition to his works that appeared in the Almanach slovenskej mladeie in 1885 (Slovak Youth Almanac) and Pamatnica Tatrana in 1890 (Memory of Tatran), Petrovsky made his literary debut in Tatran with "Novely" - Z parku, Kaplan, Pod hrubou korou (Short Stories- of the Park, the Chaplain, Under the Thick Crust) in 1887. Before leaving Vienna in 1890 he published a Slovak grammar in German. 12 In the United States he published a second edition of a Practical Guidebook of Slovak in the German Language in 1907. 13 In 1890 the persecuted Marshall-Petrovsky moved to the United States. He immediately joined various Slovak fraternal-benefit societies and worked as an editor of Slovak newspapers and periodicals. From the beginning he became one of the pioneers of Slovak national and cultural life. In 1893, together with the Reverend Stefan Furdek of Cleveland, he founded the Matica slovenska in America and Petrovsky became its second president (the Hungarian government had closed the original Matica in 1875). Petrovsky was one of the founders of the Slovak Evangelical Union (1892), initially editor of P.V. Rovnianek's weekly Amerikansko-slovenske noviny (American-Slovak News, founded in 1886) in Pittsburgh, and later editor and co-owner of the weekly Slovak v Amerike (The Slovak in America, founded in 1889) 14 in New York City. Still later he edited the weekly Luteran (Lutheran) 15 in Cleveland, he helped to found the weekly Slovenske slovo (The Slovak Word) in Chicago in 19131914, and became managing editor of Chicagsky dennik (Chicago Daily). After he had a falling out with the publisher of the latter newspaper, he decided to become a banker, but failed in this attempt. He died destitute in Chicago on June 15th, 1916 after 24 years of work in the USA and was buried in the Bohemian National Cemetery. Petrovsky's work in so many newspapers may have drained him of lot of creative energy. The continual uncertainty in that profess11 Various authors, "Life and Work of Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky," Almanac of .. , p. 28 . 12 Praktisches Lehrbuch der slowakische Sprache (Vienna, 1890). 13 Bartalska, I.:ubica, "Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky," in : Slovaks abroad. .., p. 299. 14 The first newspaper in which he started to wri te as an American immigrant. 15 Later Slovens/..y hlasnik (Slovak Herald). SLOVAKIA 27 sion brought him many troubles . But the same destiny overtook many of his fellow workers. He advertised his works in the newspapers at which he was employed. These works included sketches, novels and fairy tales. The lives and characters of his literary works reflected the hardships and experiences of Slovak immigrants after they moved to the United States. 16 Petrovskys American short stories appeared at a very specific time in his life--from August of 1905 to March of 1906. From his correspondence we know that Petrovsky was at that time editor of Slovensky hlasnik (Slovak Herald) in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. This newspaper was the official organ of the Slovak Evangelical Union and had a strong national orientation. In 1906 it paid a lot of attention to the trial of the Rev. Andrej Hlinka of Ruzomberok. On July 13, 1905 Petrovsky started the valuable rubric Zabava a poucenie (Fun and Advice), given to fiction . In July and August of 1905, drawing upon a Greek fairy tale and a Russian sketch, Petrovsky elaborated upon and translated four didactic pictures of life and published his sketch Kto mecom bojuje, mecom zahynie! (He Who Fights with the Sword, Will Die by the Sword!). The same literary invention follows in two short stories--The Samaritan and The Parakeet. Petrovsky's resolution to fill this rubric with reality was activated by his literary experience and so his pictures of real life as didactic stories attained wider artistic merit and gradually merged into clear fictional works: Tak sa easy menia ... (The Times, They Are a Changing . .. ), September, 1905, Pan Tlchuba v nesnadzach (Mr. Babbler in Trouble), October, 1905, which appeared under "Amusing Narratives in the Life of American Slovaks;" Spat' (Back) November-December, 1905 ; Mi n6 spik englis (Me no Speak English), January, 1906; Ochranca komarov (Protector of Mosquitoes), February, 1906; Pozde (Late), February 1906, with the subtitle "A Short Story from the Life of American Slovaks;" and Presta/ pr6by (He stopped Trying), March, 1906, with the subtitle "A Story From the life of Hungarian Serbians." 17 Meanwhile, Petrovsky also published books of advice and novels . In his much earlier Radca slovenskych prist'ahovalcov v Ame16 Bartalska, Cubica, "Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky," in Slovaci v zahranici, 4-5 (Slovaks abroad) ( 1979), p. 299, 30 I. 17 Marsall-Petrovs ky, Gustav : Spod zavejov americkych. Bacsky Petrovec: Obzor, 1966, s. 260, 26 1. 28 SLOVAKIA rike (Advisor to Slovak Immigrants in America), which he published in 1895, Petrovsky warned his countrymen against exploitation and abuse as cheap labor and criticized contemporary conditions, the system of capitalism and the huge social differences that existed in the United States. In his 1894 novel Janosik, kapitan horskych chlapcov - j eho bur/ivy i ivot a desna smrt' (Janosik, Captain of the Mountain Boys: His Riotous Life and Frightful Death), which is his most extensive work, Petrovsky focused upon traditional, never-beforetold and fabulous acts in Janosik's life. He did not depart from the main, traditional, stories which are divided into particular themesJanosik who steals from the rich and gives to the poor, who has his great love and enemies among his own people, who is admired and hated. Nevertheless, Petrovsky ' s Janosik is different in some places. Through his hero the author wanted to awaken a love for all Slovaks, emphasizing the spirit of patriotism and love for the everlasting values of his ancestors. 18 In 1906 Petrovsky published a collection of short stories entitled Spod zavejov americkych (From Beneath the Snowdrifts of America), in which he detailed the tragedy of many inexperienced countrymen, cruelly exploited and abused by capitalists. 19 Here he utilized the most common anglicized words such as majna (mine) in America, ollerajt (all right) or st6r (store). 20 As he declared: "I named my little book Spod zavejov americkych because the fairy tales contained in it originated in snowdrifts, both there and here. " 21 While in America, Petrovsky did not forget his homeland and tried to rouse his countrymen against Magyarization in Hungary. He criticized those who were indifferent to national societies. In his story Spat' (Back), he discussed the problem of the gradual denationalizing of Slovaks in America, blaming not only the American educational system, but also the indifference of many countrymen to their assimilation. 22 The literary message of this patriot, journalist, rebel, editor and social activist can be illustrated in two ways. In several novels and 18 Petrovsky, Gustav M., Janosik, Captain of .. , p. 267 . Kutlik, F. , "Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky," in : Eud, 35, No. 69 ( I982), p. 5. 20 Petrovsky, Gustav M., Spod zavejo v americkych [From Beneath the Snowdrifts of America] (Bacsky Petrovec : OBZOR and Bratislava: TATRAN0, p. 276 . 21 Petrovsky, Gustav M. : Dielo llJ (Bae sky Petrovec: Obzor, 1966), 196 . 22 Kutlik, F., "Gustav Marshall - Petrovsky," in: People, p. 5. 19 SLOVAKIA 29 romances he tried to educate the reader in a popular way, at the expense of literary quality. Many of his stories, especially of the love genre, are artistically of high quality and the story Back and the collection of tales From Beneath the Snowdrifts of America are touching and masterfully written.23 In his novel about Slovak coal miners in the United States, Obete ciernych diamantov (Victims of Black Diamonds, 1906), tragedy is substituted for sentimental love, and it leads to a fatal climax. Here he described the coal mining environment in the USA.24 Amongst the best of Marshall's works are the stories which he published in Spod zavejov americkych and Obete ciernych diamantov. The focus of the first group are love affairs, amusing stories of everyday life and sad, even tragic, events. In these stories Petrovsky penetrated inside of a Slovak man who lived separated from his family and his place of birth. He fixed his eyes, not only on his face, but even on his privacy. It is a sad face, covered by tragedy, often by despair, a face yearning for home, a face which is disturbed by those who forgot their homeland. In Obete ciernych diamantov, he presented the story of a mining disaster in one of America's many coalfields . He brought to the surface the tragic story of Slovaks who were looking for work overseas at a time of national oppression and poverty. The author wrote it in a remarkably suggestive style, with a sense for drama and intensity of action.25 The trials and tribulations of Slovak emigrants to America were described by Marshall- Petrovsky himself: "A frost awaits them. What a cry, what hopes they must bury in their scramble for bread. And what will happen to those living at home? Not even millions of dollars sent to Slovakia can compensate for each sender's soul and spirit. " He then added, I greet you all with my sincere fraternal heart and I wish you and I could be back in the place from whence misery and tragedy banished us, to this cold and unforgiving place. 23 1bid. Cabadaj , Peter, "Album za budanych osobnosti: Marsall- Petrovsky, Gustav [Album of Forgotten Persona liti es: Marshall- Petrovsky, Gustav], in Literarny tyi dennfk, 13 , No. 18 (2000), p. 8. 25 Petrovs ky , Gustav M., Spod zavejov americkych [From Beneath the Snowdrifts of America], p. 276. 24 30 SLOVAKIA The branch ripped from the tree will never become rooted and the stem will dry up, even breaking its limbs ... therefore come back! Back from beneath the snowdrifts of America, here to your place of birth and poverty! Better to cry with a f ellow countryman than to smile with strangers. Here, by ourselves, we will become aliens !26 Until his death, Marshall- Petrovsky was on the front lines of the struggle for Slovak national liberation. At the beginning of the Great War in 1914 he was a co-signer in the name of the Chicagsky dennik (Chicago Daily) of the Memorandum of the Slovak League.27 When he died in 1916 as the most significant American Slovak writer and journalist, Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky had fallen into poverty and was almost forgotten. However, by 1922 his memory was resurrected and his countrymen built him a monument. 28 He died at the age of 54, still eager to work, although he had none. He had abandoned Hungary due to national oppression and was going to leave America due to social oppression. His big dream to return to his liberated homeland went unfulfilled. 29 Whoever knew Gustav Marshall-Petrovsky in his younger years would never forget his elegant and aristocratic looks. He was erudite and well-educated but impulsive and always dissatisfied. He studied law, theology and medicine but finished none. In the USA he worked as a journalist, as a writer, as a banker, but without success. Nevertheless, he had one thing in common with the Czech writer Vladimir Klacel : during his life poverty, after his death, recognition.30 Here is what the literary critic Andrej Mraz had to say about him : Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky, cried out from deep within his soul to his countrymen spread across the United States of 26 Petrovsky, Gustav M.: , Dielo lll (Bacsky Petrovec : Obzor, 1966), 196 . OL ME I 9 15, XXV, 16 I 3 ,"Memorandum of the Slovak League of America." SYD I, 360. Literamy archi v Mati ci slovenskej (LAMS), fo nd broadsheets 5/21 / 19 16. 28 Composite authors: L ife and work of Gustav Mars hall - Petrovsky: Almanac of .. , 73, 74. 9 KUTLiK, F.: Gustav Marshall - Petrovsky. In: Peop le. p. 5. 3 °Capek, Tomas, Nasa Amerika [Our America ] (Prague: Czechoslovak Nati onal Council. 1926) 92. 27 g- SLOVAKIA 31 America: come back, come home, we are perishing here, we are like a branch ripped from a tree. Many of his countrymen responded, but Marshall-Petrovsky did not make it to the ship carrying home the Slovak emigrants from America, and so came the day whhen his sad and tormented heart beat for the last time .... 31 31 Kocak, Michal, "Gustav Marshall- Petrovsky: Remembrance of... ," In: Slovak ... , p. 8.  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 Gustáv Marshall-Petrovský (1862-1916) Description An account of the resource Ján Petrovský Slovakia, Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010 pp. 24-31 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Petrovský, Ján Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/0ac606234030bb0bc1acc7b83b34b087.pdf df782531580eefa1e027fb5d95fd7090 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 47 " JOZEF STASKO (1917-1999): HIS LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS Miroslav Chromek In the history of Slovakia, many people who opposed the communist regime in the 1940's and 1950's were severely persecuted by the Communists. They were arrested, tortured, and sent to the uranium mines. The communist authorities, meanwhile, did everything in their power to erase any mention of them in official histories of the period. Now that Slovakia is no longer ruled by the Communists, it is incumbent upon historians to reveal the story of the many thousands who suffered under communist oppression. One of these individuals was Dr. Jozef Stasko. Jozef Stasko was born of Slovak peasants in the village of Sedliacka Dubova, Orava, county, on August 1, 1917. His father Peter, who was born in 1884, emigrated to the United States before the Great War in search of work. There he suffered an industrial accident from which he ultimately died on February 27, 1923. Jozef was only six years old and his sister Anna eight when their father died. Thus, Jozefs mother Johana, who had been born in 1887, had to raise her children on her own . 1 Jozef and his sister had to help their mother work the fields , as well as to attend school. In spite of her hard life, Jozef s mother persevered and gave her children all her love, for which Jozef was grateful. After he had made his way to the United States, he wrote a long article in praise of his mother, and all mothers who cared for their children.2 After completing the local Catholic grade school, the bright young Jozef went on to high school , but ran into difficulties. At the Trstena ' gymnasium,' where he first enrolled, he was repelled by the liberal and pro-Czechoslovak attitude of his Czech teachers and decided to switch to the more Catholic-oriented 'gymnasium' m Dolny Kubin. He later reminisced about these times as follows: 1 Stefan Baranovic, "Zivot a di elo PhDr. Jozefa Stasku," in Peter Maruniak, ed ., Dr. Jozef Stasko osemdesiatrocny (Martin: Mati ca slovenska, 1998), 9. 2 JozefStasko, " Moja matka," Ave Maria, 49 (No. 4, 1965), 106. �48 SLOVAKIA At 'gymnasium 'I was reminded that I belonged to an insignificant peasant people. My mother often told me how she had to hide Slovak newspapers from Magyar authorities. After the Great War, in speaking with Slovak patriots who had been jailed by the Magyars, I felt a deep pain in my heart for the past and continued suffering of our nation. 3 After graduating from 'gymansium' in 1935 Stasko continued his studies at Comenius University in Bratislava. In the first two years he studied French and Latin, and then switched to law. At Comenius he encountered the same attitudes as at Trstena-namely Czech professors trying to create a "Czechoslovak" language: "The University was run by Czechs, the Slovak language was degraded. Professor Vazny was trying to change Slovak into Czechoslovak and Professor Chaloupecky taught us Slovak history as if Slovaks were a mere branch of the Czech nation, and that was how were supposed to comport ourselves ."4 While at university, Stasko began to display his organizational and leadership abilities. He joined the student organizations Slavia Catholica, Detvan and Mayzes. Indeed, he was elected secretary of the latter. He lived in the student Catholic dormitory Svoradov, which was a hotbed for future political, scientific and cultural leaders.5 Since he was awarded a scholarship to continue his studies at the Sorbonne, Stasko left for Paris in February of 1939, and was caught in a maelstrom. The Slovak Diet had proclaimed independence on March 14, 1939, but Stasko disagreed with this proclamation. Therefore, he immediately contacted Dr. Stefan Osusky, the former Czechoslovak Minister to Paris, and offered him his services. However, in their discussions, Stasko found Osusky to be too proCzechoslovak, and too supportive of the philosophy of the late president T.G. Masaryk. 6 3 Baranovic, op.cit., 9. /bid. , I 0. 5 Jan Okal , "Dr. Jozef Stasko 65-rocny," Bulletin Svetoveho kongresu Slovakov, 12, 2:10. 53, 1982), 22. . Stasko wrote about his discussions with Osusky in " Stefan Osusky's Attempts to Establi sh Contacts with Slovakia in 1939: A Personal Memoir," Slo vakia, 32, nos. 4 �SLOVAKIA 49 Meanwhile, Stasko sought to help Slovak workers in France. Once Slovakia declared independence, Slovaks in France were regarded with suspicion as "Germanophiles. " Therefore, French employers fired many of them. In his fluent French, Stasko either defended these workers in front of their former employers or helped them to find other jobs.7 By the end of April Stasko returned to Slovakia by train. He surmised that war would soon break out and he wanted to size up the situation at home. He was particularly concerned about the 35,000 Slovak workers in Belgium and France, who might be drafted if a war broke out. He also sought to involve the government of Slovakia in helping them to retain their jobs in those uncertain times. He also wished to report to Osusky about the situation of Slovaks in southern Slovakia, which had been occupied by Hungary the previous November. 8 While in Slovakia Stasko met with Dr. Gejza Medricky, the Minister of Economics of the Slovak Republic and with General Rudolf Viest, a member of the Slovak General Staff. Stasko managed to convince Medricky not to cancel the wage agreement between France and Slovakia, which allowed Slovak workers to receive parcels without having to pay any duty on them. 9 In his meeting with General Viest, he tried to persuade the latter to send as many Slovak officers to France as possible, ostensibly to further their educations, but really to be drafted into the French army, where they could then form the nucleus of a Czecho-Slovak army when the war broke out. 10 Viest politely listened but promised nothing. If we are to believe a letter that Stasko wrote to Dr. Jozef Mikus in 1980, Stasko also met with President Jozef Tiso in Banovce nad Bebravou, while the latter was on vacation. Stasko claimed that, in a friendly atmosphere, they discussed various problems that confron58-59 ( 198 5- I 986), 9-33. See also "Zapisky Jozefa Staska," Martin , Sl ovenska narodn a knizn ica, Arch iv literatury a um eni a, (hereafter SN K-ALU) p. 15. 7 Mini sterstvo vnutra Slovenskej republi ke , Statny archiv v Bra ti slave (hereafter MVS R- SA B), Fond okresneho L.:u doveho sudu- Jozef Stasko: Vypoved Jozefa Staska na L.: ud ovom sude z 26.4. 1946, p. 3. 8 /bid 9 "Zapisky Jozefa Staska," op.cit., p. 18. 1 °Fra ntisek Vnuk , "S lovenske studentske spolky v medzivojnovo m obdobi ," in Jozef Stasko, Tvorcovia noveho Slovenska (Ca mbri dge , ON : Fri ends of Good Books, 1982) , 174. �50 SLOVAKIA ted the Slovak State. Stasko further claimed that he upbraided Tiso for Slovakia's pro-Nazi political orientation and for naively looking upon Germany as a trusted protector of the new republic. From his alleged conversation with Tiso, it is clear that Stasko did not expect 11 Nazi Germany to last very long. At the beginning of June Jozef Stasko returned to France, where he experienced the first months of the Second World War. As soon as the war broke out, he volunteered to serve in the Czechoslovak army-in-exile, which Stefan Osusky had organized in France. Stasko began his service on October 17, 1939 in camp Agda, where, incidentally, the Slovak communist politician Vladimir Clementis was also stationed. However, the latter stayed only a few months, and then moved to London, where he would join in the Czechoslovak 12 liberation movement led by ex-president Edvard Benes. Stasko, meanwhile, looked for ways and means to remain in France, and, barring that, in some other western country. As an officer-in-training, Stasko was assigned an apartment on the shores of the Mediterranean. Lieutenant Sivak, a Roman Catholic chaplain, helped him to secure this lodging. 13 On May I 0, 1940, Stasko was assigned to the I st Platoon of the 2nd Czechoslovak Regiment as a 14 sergeant, and as such, in June was sent to the front on the Marne. After France ' s defeat by the Germans, his commanding officer, First Lieutenant Dolejsek, ordered him to retreat with his platoon, and to blow up any and all stores of supplies and ammunition, which Stasko did, and for which he was recommended for a commendation . 15 Stasko then sought to remain in France, and even persuaded a French family to help him to obtain the necessary papers in order to be properly demobilized. He then hoped to make his way to the United States and asked his Orava friend and former fellow-resident at the Svoradov, Jozef Mikus, who was then charge d' affaires in Madrid, to 11 Uni versity of Ottawa, Archives and Special Collections, Slovak Arc hi ves, Jozef Mikus Fo nds, box 205, fasc . 205-7, letter of Jozef Stasko to Jozef Mikus, August 16, 1980. 12 MVSR-SAB , Yypoved Jozefa Staska, op.ci t. , p. 3, and Jozef Mikus, " Dr. Jozef Stasko sedemdesiatnik ," in Bulletin Svetoveho kongresu S/o vako v, 16 (No.77 , 1987), 18. 13 SNK-ALU, Jozef Stasko, " Yo vazeni na majaku Fort de Brescau." 14 Hitl er attacked western Europe on May I 0, 1940. 15 MVSR-SAB , Vypoved Jozefa Staska, p. 5 �SLOVAKIA 51 help him. The latter replied that it was Stasko's duty to return to Slovakia. 16 Meanwhile, Stasko refused to obey what he considered to be an impossible order, and found himself jailed by the French. Stasko's regiment was stationed in a Belgian camp that was shared by soldiers from Senegal. These got roaring drunk and armed themselves and began to loot the local town. French authorities ordered Stasko to quell this rebellion but Stasko knew that the Senegalese outnumbered his forces and refused. As a result, he and his soldiers found themselves jailed, along with the Senegalese, first in Belgium and from the end of August until the middle of November in the French prison Fort de Brescau, and after that in the prison of the Chasseurs Alpins in the port city of Set. While the prison regimen was not too onerous, living conditions were terrible, especially in Belgium, because the blankets were full of bed-bugs and the prison was overrun with rats, which Stasko and the Senegalese sought to kill during the night. 17 Jozef Stasko was finally rescued by Slovak authorities, although his subsequent life in Slovakia remained difficult. Dr. Eduard Malis, of the Slovak Repatriation Commission in France, arranged for Stasko to be released and he returned to Slovakia on March 22, 1941. 18 Stasko was immediately interrogated by the police for having allegedly revealed military secrets to the enemy, but released for lack of evidence. He then returned to Orava and helped his mother with her farm work, all the while being watched by the Gestapo. 19 Since he had no prospects in Orava, he eventually moved to Bratislava and found employment as the secretary of the Association of Industry, Trade and Finance. For three years he studied and published the history of trade and commerce in Slovakia for the magazine Zivnost'. He also planned to write a history of Slovak craft guilds. 20 During the Slovak Republic, Stasko did not engage in politics, nor did he join the ruling Hlinka Slovak People's Party. He did attend a lecture by Dr. Imrich Karvas, the Governor of the Slovak 16 "Zapi sky Jozefa Staska," op.cit., p. 33. Stasko , " Vo vaze ni .. .," op. cit. , 1-11 18 MVSR-SA B, Vypoved Jozefa Staska, op.cit ., p. 8 19 Author interview with lmrich Kruzliak in Bratislava, April 23, 2008. 20 Milan Beres, " Laudac ia na Dr. Jozefa Stas ku pri ude l'ovanf Ceny M . R. Stefanika ," in Peter Maruni ak, ed. , Dr. Jozef Stasko osemdesiatrocny (Martin : Matica slove nska) , 70. 17 �52 SLOVAKIA National Bank, and he did take advantage of a healing session at a Slovak spa, courtesy of his friend Jozef Mikula, who was a member of the People's Party.21 Conversely, Stasko did not participate in the Slovak National Uprising of August, 1944, which he considered illprepared and premature.22 Meanwhile, at the end of the war, some Russian soldiers broke into his bachelor apartment, ransacked it and beat him up when he tried to stop them. For all these reasons, a certain Major Peter Kozurka had him arrested on December 8, 1945 for his alleged "collaboration" activities. Due to a lack of evidence against him, Stasko was released just before Christmas, 1945. 23 After these bitter experiences, Stasko became a steadfast opponent of Communism, which he saw slowly engulfing his homeland. He joined the newly-established Democratic Party, worked tirelessly to unite the Lutherans and Catholics in it, and saw it emerge victorious in the 1946 elections. Initially, four political parties fielded candidates in the 1946 elections-the Democratic Party, the Communist Party of Slovakia, the Party of Freedom and the Party of the Workers. Only the Democrats and the Communists had a chance of winning. Both campaigned against each other. The Communists, largely through their mouthpiece Pravda, tried to divide the Catholic and Lutheran supporters of the Democratic Party. They even supported the creation of a Christian Democratic Party, to represent the Catholics. Initially, Stasko supported this movement, but later abandoned it. When he campaigned on behalf of the Democratic Party, for instance in Rufomberok, the Communists had him arrested while he was making a speech! Nevertheless, in the May 26, 1946 elections, 92.3% of the Orava electorate supported Stasko to the Czechoslovak Parliament for the Democratic Party.24 However, Stasko's victory lasted only until the fall of 1947. That summer he had guided a visiting American Slovak and her daughter across the country, and they both noticed that the secret police had been following them. In September the police arrested him again, on trumped-up charges, in spite of his parliamentary immunity. After 21 MVSR-SAB , Fond od resneho l'udoveho sudu- Jozef Stasko, Cs 414/46: Zapisnica o vysluchu svedka Jozefa Staska z 18. 2. 1947 22 Jnterview with lmrich K.ruzliak, op.cit. 23 Jozef Stasko, "Vazenska psychoterapia," Slovenske poh/'ady, no.3 , 1994, p. 124. 24 "Jozefa Staska prepustili 5. Novembra 1953 ," in "Zapisky Jozefa Staska- Na galejac h v Jachymove," SNK-ALU , Martin, p. 16. �SLOVAKIA 53 his release he was warned to flee the country but refused. Therefore, he was arrested again on November 4, 1947, and this time was sentenced to six years in jail. Once again, the Democratic Party did nothing to free him and he ended up in the notorious Leopoldov prison. Here he found himself in the company of former leaders of the Slovak Republic, such as Alexander Mach and Stefan Tiso, and Jan Kempny and later certain leaders of the Democratic Party, such as , Ursmy. , 25 Jan In spite of their difficult situation, Stasko and his fellow-prisoners decided to draft and sign a "Manifest" in which they protested their imprisonment and the political situation in Czechoslovakia. Interestingly, it was signed on March 14, 1951 (the 12 th anniversary of the Slovak Diet' s declaration of independence), by politicians from completely different ideologycal backgrounds . They were: Dr. Andrej Buza, Jan Kempny, Alexander Mach, Jozef Stasko Dr. Stefan Tiso and Jan Ursiny. Incredibly enough, it proclaimed the following: 1-The Slovak nation is founded upon its Christian heritage and its application in all spheres of social life. 2-In order to safeguard its Christian heritage, the Slovak nation must be free. It will be free only when it is independent and selfgovernmg. 3-The experience of our nation has led us to proclaim its right to home-rule, the form of which will be decided by the Slovak nation . One possible form is statehood. 4-W e recognize the right of humans and citizens to a democratic social and political system . We support open and friendly relations with the Czech nation and with our Magyar and Polish neighbors. 5-We are opposed to oppression, whether of individuals or of societies, in the name of ideological totalitarianism. We shall defend, even unto death, the right to our God-given freedom. 26 This "Manifest" is significant, because, after 1945 the Democratic Party had proposed a common state with the Czechs, albeit with Slovak home-rule. Now both the jailed proponents and former opponents of Slovak independence were united in their demands for Slovak independence. 25 26 Ibid. , 124-6. /bid. , 124. �54 SLOVAKIA After three years in Leopoldov prison, Stasko was transferred to the Jachymov uranium mines in the Czech Lands . Here Stasko 's health broke down , due to the ill-effects of radiation poisoning, which was evident in the development of serious skin lesions on his hands . Even though he was released after he had served a total of six 27 years in prison, he never recovered his health. After his release from jail in 1953 , Stasko returned to his native Orava, to try to start over. Initially he found work studying and cataloging the extensive correspondence of the writer-priest Ignac Grebac-Orlov at the latter's parish in Velicna. Here Stasko discovered a rich correspondence with Hviezdoslav, Jege, Bulla and Hlinka, and other important writers or politicians. He notified the Slovak Academy of Sciences of his discovery and asked if it would publish his findings. However, because of his former prison sentence, the SA V turned him down. Stasko then found employment as a manual laborer at a sawmill in Oravsky Podzamok, but his injured hands made it impossible for him to continue. After he lost this job, he was hired as a clerk at the Research Institute for the Mechanization of Forestry in the same village, largely because he was fluent in French . 28 Meanwhile, Stasko visited Bratislava on several occasions. There he met with Dr. Ambrus, who worked for Slovak Radio. He offered Stasko part-time employment as a co-producer of the serial "Know Your Land." For this program Stasko visited many villages in his native Orava, and interviewed the inhabitants. In this way he became an expert on Slovak folk culture. However, Stasko lost his job as a clerk in Oravsky Podzamok and then had to look for work in Zilina. Here he had great difficulty finding a place to board. Altogether he changed locations ten times. Finally, he found work repairing refrigerators. While working on a refrigerator at the Hotel Fatra in the nearby spa town of Rajecke Teplice, he was poisoned by leaking Methylchloride. As a result, he became a patient in the spa for about a month. While there he had the opportunity to meet with his old friends Jan Kempny and Jan Spisiak, the former ambassador to Hungary. Since his physician ordered Stasko to find less dangerous work, he then was employed in a 27 "Jozefa Staska prepustili 5. nove mb ra 1953 ," in "Zapisky Jozefa Staska- Na ¥,a lejach v Jachymove," SNK-ALU, Martin , p.21 . 8 - Ibid., p. 18. �SLOVAKIA 55 local plywood factory. The Communists saw to it that he could never find work suitable to his education.29 After six years of hard manual labor, with no prospect of the communist regime ending, Stasko decided to flee to the West. He did so with the collaboration of a former prisoner in the Jachymov mines, the electrical engineer Jozef Merko. Even though Merko lived in Moravia and Stasko in Slovakia, they started to meet on the Slovak-Moravian border, near the village of Makov, to plan their escape. They settled on the vi llage of Hulin, on the AustrianMoravian border, because it met all of their criteria-close to the border, with a main road, some friendly contacts, plus a route avoiding the mines, and with barbed-wire that could be penetrated by a truck. The truck would be "borrowed" by Merko from the television-repair factory where he worked. Merko would take with him his wife and children and Stasko his fiancee Ema Schmeringaiova. However, Stasko and Merko would not reveal to them their plans until the last moment. Stasko arrived in Hulin on August 8, 1961. He and Merko then added protective armor to the truck, to shield it from the 5,000-volt electrical wire which they would have to penetrate. Stasko described the actual escape in minute detail: We cut through the first barbed wire as if through a thread. The second wire was higher and more dangerous. We hit an obstruction and had to back up. That took about ten seconds. When we hit the thicker wire, which was electrified, we saw and heard an explosion. One section of the severed wire hit the roof of the truck and burned through it. The third wire was easily broken, but by then we noticed that the wires had coiled themselves around our tires and we were pulling the entire fence behind us. Once we had reached the Austrian side, we stepped on the gas and into freedom! 30 The refugees crossed to the Austrian side on August 15, at 3 :40 a.m. After the Austrian border guards had checked their papers and story, they allowed the truck to proceed. When they arrived in 29 30 !bid., p. 20 /bid. , p.82 �56 SLOVAKIA Vienna, astounded journalists dubbed their Tatra truck as the "tank of freedom." Austrian authorities returned it to Czechoslovakia. The refugees were then taken to the refugee camp called Kagran, where they had to wait for one month in order to acquire Austrian visas. Merko was then hired as a technician by the local television station and Stasko found work in a winery.31 Now that Stasko was free , he breathed a sigh of relief, but still had medical problems. As he put it, "The medicine of freedom relaxed my nerves. At home I had really suffered from headaches, body pain, and depression."32 However, his body still suffered from radiation poisoning. Therefore, he decided to visit his good friend Irnrich Kruzliak, who worked at Radio Free Europe in Munich . The latter immediately sent him to his doctor for a physical. When the physician inspected Stasko's hands, which had millimeter-deep cracks in them, he predicted that Stasko would survive for a maximum of two years.33 He recommended that he go to Rome, to the headquarters of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which specialized in the disease that afflicted him. Here Stasko was, indeed, helped by taking new medicines. His health improved so much that he was then able to travel all over Europe, particularly to London and Paris, where he met various Slovaks and could guage their political activities. He was interviewed on French television about his escape from Czechoslovakia, and by the French press as well. On February 1, 1962, Dominique Aucleres published a long interview with him in Le Figaro , France 's largest-circulation newspaper. 34 Meanwhile, when Stasko visited with Kruzliak in Munich, he expressed interest in also working for Radio Free Europe, but was disappointed. Some of his former Lutheran colleagues in the Democratic Party, who had the final say as to who was hired, turned Stasko down . Therefore, a dejected Stasko decided to apply for a visa to the United States and was successful. He arrived with his fiancee in New York in May of 1962.35 31 !bid. , p.83 /bid. , p.84. 33 Author interview with Imrich Kruzliak, April 23 , 2008 34 Jozef Mikus, " Dr. Jozef Stasko sedemdesiatnik," in Bulletin Svetoveho kongresu S/ovakov, l 6 (No.77, 1987), p.1 8. 35 Jnterview with Imrich Kruzliak, op.cit. 32 �SLOVAKIA 57 In New York Stasko and his wife (they were married in 1962) flourished . He intensively studied the English language, earned a Master of Library Science degree at Columbia University, and found employment as a librarian at the New York Public Library. His wife Ema, who even in Slovakia had nursed him back to health as best as she could, also enrolled at Columbia University, where she earned a BSc. in chemistry. Meanwhile, on October 27, 1963, they were blessed with a son, Jozef Jr. With the help of their friends, the Stasko family was able to purchase a condominium apartment on Park Terrace in New York City, where he lived for the rest of his life. 36 Shortly after his arrival in the United States, Jozef Stasko joined the Slovak-American community and contributed to its cultural life. He wrote articles for the monthly Ave Maria, Verbum, Horizon!. and especially for the Bulletin Svetoveho kongresu Slovakov. In 1973-74 he also taught courses on immigration and American Slovaks as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the City College in New York.37 One of Stasko ' s dreams was to establish a Library and Archives dedicated to documenting the history and culture of American Slovaks. He hoped that it would be located in Danville, Pennsylvania, at the Jankola Library, which was already in existence, and which was organized by the Sisters of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. This Slovak congregation had been founded by the Rev. Matus Jankola in 1909 and, since all the sisters were fluent in Slovak, he felt that they would be the ideal recipients of such an archive.38 Jozef Stasko also took an active role in the founding of the Slovak World Congress in 1970. In his 1969 presentation to a meeting of the Organizing Committee of the SWC in Linden, New Jersey, Stasko outlined his conception of the role of the Slovak World Congress among Slovaks in the USA and Canada. He rejected the "Czechoslovakism" that still existed in some quarters and, instead, championed the cause of Slovak independence. On the other 36 /bid., and Jozef Stasko to Frantisek Sub fk, ovember 3, 1963 , Uni versity of Ottawa, Arc hi ves and Spec ial Coll ecti ons, Jozef Stasko Fonds, Box 205, Fasc . 20626. 37 Baranov ic, op. cit., 13. 38 Jozef Stasko to Jozef Papi n, September 8, I 972 and Slovak Hi story Assoc iation of Ameri ca n Sisters of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Uni versity of Ottawa, Slovak Archi ves, Archi ves and Spec ial Collectio ns, Fond Jozef Stasko, Box 205 , fasc. 20515 and fasc . 2 12. �58 SLOVAKIA hand, he naively called on the SKS to seek the support of all Slovak factions in the USA, including Catholics and Lutherans and supporters of the Slovak State and its opponents.39 The Slovak World Congress was founded in reaction to the "normalization" of Czechoslovakia after the Warsaw Pact invasion of 1968. Stasko put it this way: "We had to recognize that the Slovak nation at home was not free to speak its mind. Therefore, we had to do it. And we had to truly reflect what it wanted and needed." The main goal of the SKS, according to Stasko, was twofold: "to unite all Slovak factions, which by themselves were weak and ineffective, and to demand the right of the Slovak nation to self-govemment."40 Stasko then drafted what he considered to be the main role of the Slovak World Congress in the following points: 1- The leadership of the Slovak World Congress should gather information about Slovak achievements in the arts and sciences and make them available for all to see, so that Slovak demands for homerule would seem reasonable. 2- The Slovak World Congress should publish books about Slovak history and literature in foreign languages and donate them to university libraries. 3- The Slovak World Congress should seek to revise information about the Slovaks in foreign publications. To this end, it should support research and translation into foreign-languages books about the Slovak past and present. 4- The Slovak World Congress must seek to persuade Slovaks abroad to publish quality books for practical purposes. It should seek out qualified Slovaks for this purpose. It must publish in English, French and German. It should publish a periodical geared towards the general public. Slovaks abroad lack a good Slovak-English dictionary, and that makes Americans dependent upon Slovak-speakers for translations. 5- The Slovak World Congress should establish a Slovak library containing information in English about Slovakia. The SKS should consider purchasing a building in New York City for this purpose. 39 Jozef Stasko, "Preco som za SKS?" Bulletin Svetoveho kongresu Slovakov, No. 7, 1972, p. 18. 40 Ibid. , 17. �SLOVAKIA 59 Slovaks also lack restaurants and delicatessens, where one could purchase Slovak products. 6- The Slovak World Congress should also strive to overcome the divisions among Slovaks between Catholics, Lutherans and Jews. 41 Jozef Stasko also wrote a letter in 1980 to former members of the Democratic Party living in the USA. In it one can see that he was convinced that Communism in Czechoslovakia was doomed, and he also correctly predicted the breakup of the republic.42 Jozef Stasko lived to see an independent Slovak Republic in 1993. He and his generation had long fought for it. As he later remarked, it was one of the happiest days of his life. However, in the second half of the l 990's, Stasko's health began to deteriorate. He never really recovered from the negative effects of his imprisonment and radiation poisoning. Jozef Stasko died in New York City on September 19, 1999. At his request, his remains were transferred to and interred in Sedliacka Dubova, the village of his birth. Thus ended the almost unbelievable life of a person who, in spite of great difficulties, lived to see the realization of his dream: an independent Slovak Republic. 41 /bid., 19. lbid. , 20. 42 � SLOVAKIA 47 " JOZEF STASKO (1917-1999): HIS LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS Miroslav Chromek In the history of Slovakia, many people who opposed the communist regime in the 1940's and 1950's were severely persecuted by the Communists. They were arrested, tortured, and sent to the uranium mines. The communist authorities, meanwhile, did everything in their power to erase any mention of them in official histories of the period. Now that Slovakia is no longer ruled by the Communists, it is incumbent upon historians to reveal the story of the many thousands who suffered under communist oppression. One of these individuals was Dr. Jozef Stasko. Jozef Stasko was born of Slovak peasants in the village of Sedliacka Dubova, Orava, county, on August 1, 1917. His father Peter, who was born in 1884, emigrated to the United States before the Great War in search of work. There he suffered an industrial accident from which he ultimately died on February 27, 1923. Jozef was only six years old and his sister Anna eight when their father died. Thus, Jozefs mother Johana, who had been born in 1887, had to raise her children on her own . 1 Jozef and his sister had to help their mother work the fields , as well as to attend school. In spite of her hard life, Jozef s mother persevered and gave her children all her love, for which Jozef was grateful. After he had made his way to the United States, he wrote a long article in praise of his mother, and all mothers who cared for their children.2 After completing the local Catholic grade school, the bright young Jozef went on to high school , but ran into difficulties. At the Trstena ' gymnasium,' where he first enrolled, he was repelled by the liberal and pro-Czechoslovak attitude of his Czech teachers and decided to switch to the more Catholic-oriented 'gymnasium' m Dolny Kubin. He later reminisced about these times as follows: 1 Stefan Baranovic, "Zivot a di elo PhDr. Jozefa Stasku," in Peter Maruniak, ed ., Dr. Jozef Stasko osemdesiatrocny (Martin: Mati ca slovenska, 1998), 9. 2 JozefStasko, " Moja matka," Ave Maria, 49 (No. 4, 1965), 106. �48 SLOVAKIA At 'gymnasium 'I was reminded that I belonged to an insignificant peasant people. My mother often told me how she had to hide Slovak newspapers from Magyar authorities. After the Great War, in speaking with Slovak patriots who had been jailed by the Magyars, I felt a deep pain in my heart for the past and continued suffering of our nation. 3 After graduating from 'gymansium' in 1935 Stasko continued his studies at Comenius University in Bratislava. In the first two years he studied French and Latin, and then switched to law. At Comenius he encountered the same attitudes as at Trstena-namely Czech professors trying to create a "Czechoslovak" language: "The University was run by Czechs, the Slovak language was degraded. Professor Vazny was trying to change Slovak into Czechoslovak and Professor Chaloupecky taught us Slovak history as if Slovaks were a mere branch of the Czech nation, and that was how were supposed to comport ourselves ."4 While at university, Stasko began to display his organizational and leadership abilities. He joined the student organizations Slavia Catholica, Detvan and Mayzes. Indeed, he was elected secretary of the latter. He lived in the student Catholic dormitory Svoradov, which was a hotbed for future political, scientific and cultural leaders.5 Since he was awarded a scholarship to continue his studies at the Sorbonne, Stasko left for Paris in February of 1939, and was caught in a maelstrom. The Slovak Diet had proclaimed independence on March 14, 1939, but Stasko disagreed with this proclamation. Therefore, he immediately contacted Dr. Stefan Osusky, the former Czechoslovak Minister to Paris, and offered him his services. However, in their discussions, Stasko found Osusky to be too proCzechoslovak, and too supportive of the philosophy of the late president T.G. Masaryk. 6 3 Baranovic, op.cit., 9. /bid. , I 0. 5 Jan Okal , "Dr. Jozef Stasko 65-rocny," Bulletin Svetoveho kongresu Slovakov, 12, 2:10. 53, 1982), 22. . Stasko wrote about his discussions with Osusky in " Stefan Osusky's Attempts to Establi sh Contacts with Slovakia in 1939: A Personal Memoir," Slo vakia, 32, nos. 4 �SLOVAKIA 49 Meanwhile, Stasko sought to help Slovak workers in France. Once Slovakia declared independence, Slovaks in France were regarded with suspicion as "Germanophiles. " Therefore, French employers fired many of them. In his fluent French, Stasko either defended these workers in front of their former employers or helped them to find other jobs.7 By the end of April Stasko returned to Slovakia by train. He surmised that war would soon break out and he wanted to size up the situation at home. He was particularly concerned about the 35,000 Slovak workers in Belgium and France, who might be drafted if a war broke out. He also sought to involve the government of Slovakia in helping them to retain their jobs in those uncertain times. He also wished to report to Osusky about the situation of Slovaks in southern Slovakia, which had been occupied by Hungary the previous November. 8 While in Slovakia Stasko met with Dr. Gejza Medricky, the Minister of Economics of the Slovak Republic and with General Rudolf Viest, a member of the Slovak General Staff. Stasko managed to convince Medricky not to cancel the wage agreement between France and Slovakia, which allowed Slovak workers to receive parcels without having to pay any duty on them. 9 In his meeting with General Viest, he tried to persuade the latter to send as many Slovak officers to France as possible, ostensibly to further their educations, but really to be drafted into the French army, where they could then form the nucleus of a Czecho-Slovak army when the war broke out. 10 Viest politely listened but promised nothing. If we are to believe a letter that Stasko wrote to Dr. Jozef Mikus in 1980, Stasko also met with President Jozef Tiso in Banovce nad Bebravou, while the latter was on vacation. Stasko claimed that, in a friendly atmosphere, they discussed various problems that confron58-59 ( 198 5- I 986), 9-33. See also "Zapisky Jozefa Staska," Martin , Sl ovenska narodn a knizn ica, Arch iv literatury a um eni a, (hereafter SN K-ALU) p. 15. 7 Mini sterstvo vnutra Slovenskej republi ke , Statny archiv v Bra ti slave (hereafter MVS R- SA B), Fond okresneho L.:u doveho sudu- Jozef Stasko: Vypoved Jozefa Staska na L.: ud ovom sude z 26.4. 1946, p. 3. 8 /bid 9 "Zapisky Jozefa Staska," op.cit., p. 18. 1 °Fra ntisek Vnuk , "S lovenske studentske spolky v medzivojnovo m obdobi ," in Jozef Stasko, Tvorcovia noveho Slovenska (Ca mbri dge , ON : Fri ends of Good Books, 1982) , 174. �50 SLOVAKIA ted the Slovak State. Stasko further claimed that he upbraided Tiso for Slovakia's pro-Nazi political orientation and for naively looking upon Germany as a trusted protector of the new republic. From his alleged conversation with Tiso, it is clear that Stasko did not expect 11 Nazi Germany to last very long. At the beginning of June Jozef Stasko returned to France, where he experienced the first months of the Second World War. As soon as the war broke out, he volunteered to serve in the Czechoslovak army-in-exile, which Stefan Osusky had organized in France. Stasko began his service on October 17, 1939 in camp Agda, where, incidentally, the Slovak communist politician Vladimir Clementis was also stationed. However, the latter stayed only a few months, and then moved to London, where he would join in the Czechoslovak 12 liberation movement led by ex-president Edvard Benes. Stasko, meanwhile, looked for ways and means to remain in France, and, barring that, in some other western country. As an officer-in-training, Stasko was assigned an apartment on the shores of the Mediterranean. Lieutenant Sivak, a Roman Catholic chaplain, helped him to secure this lodging. 13 On May I 0, 1940, Stasko was assigned to the I st Platoon of the 2nd Czechoslovak Regiment as a 14 sergeant, and as such, in June was sent to the front on the Marne. After France ' s defeat by the Germans, his commanding officer, First Lieutenant Dolejsek, ordered him to retreat with his platoon, and to blow up any and all stores of supplies and ammunition, which Stasko did, and for which he was recommended for a commendation . 15 Stasko then sought to remain in France, and even persuaded a French family to help him to obtain the necessary papers in order to be properly demobilized. He then hoped to make his way to the United States and asked his Orava friend and former fellow-resident at the Svoradov, Jozef Mikus, who was then charge d' affaires in Madrid, to 11 Uni versity of Ottawa, Archives and Special Collections, Slovak Arc hi ves, Jozef Mikus Fo nds, box 205, fasc . 205-7, letter of Jozef Stasko to Jozef Mikus, August 16, 1980. 12 MVSR-SAB , Yypoved Jozefa Staska, op.ci t. , p. 3, and Jozef Mikus, " Dr. Jozef Stasko sedemdesiatnik ," in Bulletin Svetoveho kongresu S/o vako v, 16 (No.77 , 1987), 18. 13 SNK-ALU, Jozef Stasko, " Yo vazeni na majaku Fort de Brescau." 14 Hitl er attacked western Europe on May I 0, 1940. 15 MVSR-SAB , Vypoved Jozefa Staska, p. 5 �SLOVAKIA 51 help him. The latter replied that it was Stasko's duty to return to Slovakia. 16 Meanwhile, Stasko refused to obey what he considered to be an impossible order, and found himself jailed by the French. Stasko's regiment was stationed in a Belgian camp that was shared by soldiers from Senegal. These got roaring drunk and armed themselves and began to loot the local town. French authorities ordered Stasko to quell this rebellion but Stasko knew that the Senegalese outnumbered his forces and refused. As a result, he and his soldiers found themselves jailed, along with the Senegalese, first in Belgium and from the end of August until the middle of November in the French prison Fort de Brescau, and after that in the prison of the Chasseurs Alpins in the port city of Set. While the prison regimen was not too onerous, living conditions were terrible, especially in Belgium, because the blankets were full of bed-bugs and the prison was overrun with rats, which Stasko and the Senegalese sought to kill during the night. 17 Jozef Stasko was finally rescued by Slovak authorities, although his subsequent life in Slovakia remained difficult. Dr. Eduard Malis, of the Slovak Repatriation Commission in France, arranged for Stasko to be released and he returned to Slovakia on March 22, 1941. 18 Stasko was immediately interrogated by the police for having allegedly revealed military secrets to the enemy, but released for lack of evidence. He then returned to Orava and helped his mother with her farm work, all the while being watched by the Gestapo. 19 Since he had no prospects in Orava, he eventually moved to Bratislava and found employment as the secretary of the Association of Industry, Trade and Finance. For three years he studied and published the history of trade and commerce in Slovakia for the magazine Zivnost'. He also planned to write a history of Slovak craft guilds. 20 During the Slovak Republic, Stasko did not engage in politics, nor did he join the ruling Hlinka Slovak People's Party. He did attend a lecture by Dr. Imrich Karvas, the Governor of the Slovak 16 "Zapi sky Jozefa Staska," op.cit., p. 33. Stasko , " Vo vaze ni .. .," op. cit. , 1-11 18 MVSR-SA B, Vypoved Jozefa Staska, op.cit ., p. 8 19 Author interview with lmrich Kruzliak in Bratislava, April 23, 2008. 20 Milan Beres, " Laudac ia na Dr. Jozefa Stas ku pri ude l'ovanf Ceny M . R. Stefanika ," in Peter Maruni ak, ed. , Dr. Jozef Stasko osemdesiatrocny (Martin : Matica slove nska) , 70. 17 �52 SLOVAKIA National Bank, and he did take advantage of a healing session at a Slovak spa, courtesy of his friend Jozef Mikula, who was a member of the People's Party.21 Conversely, Stasko did not participate in the Slovak National Uprising of August, 1944, which he considered illprepared and premature.22 Meanwhile, at the end of the war, some Russian soldiers broke into his bachelor apartment, ransacked it and beat him up when he tried to stop them. For all these reasons, a certain Major Peter Kozurka had him arrested on December 8, 1945 for his alleged "collaboration" activities. Due to a lack of evidence against him, Stasko was released just before Christmas, 1945. 23 After these bitter experiences, Stasko became a steadfast opponent of Communism, which he saw slowly engulfing his homeland. He joined the newly-established Democratic Party, worked tirelessly to unite the Lutherans and Catholics in it, and saw it emerge victorious in the 1946 elections. Initially, four political parties fielded candidates in the 1946 elections-the Democratic Party, the Communist Party of Slovakia, the Party of Freedom and the Party of the Workers. Only the Democrats and the Communists had a chance of winning. Both campaigned against each other. The Communists, largely through their mouthpiece Pravda, tried to divide the Catholic and Lutheran supporters of the Democratic Party. They even supported the creation of a Christian Democratic Party, to represent the Catholics. Initially, Stasko supported this movement, but later abandoned it. When he campaigned on behalf of the Democratic Party, for instance in Rufomberok, the Communists had him arrested while he was making a speech! Nevertheless, in the May 26, 1946 elections, 92.3% of the Orava electorate supported Stasko to the Czechoslovak Parliament for the Democratic Party.24 However, Stasko's victory lasted only until the fall of 1947. That summer he had guided a visiting American Slovak and her daughter across the country, and they both noticed that the secret police had been following them. In September the police arrested him again, on trumped-up charges, in spite of his parliamentary immunity. After 21 MVSR-SAB , Fond od resneho l'udoveho sudu- Jozef Stasko, Cs 414/46: Zapisnica o vysluchu svedka Jozefa Staska z 18. 2. 1947 22 Jnterview with lmrich K.ruzliak, op.cit. 23 Jozef Stasko, "Vazenska psychoterapia," Slovenske poh/'ady, no.3 , 1994, p. 124. 24 "Jozefa Staska prepustili 5. Novembra 1953 ," in "Zapisky Jozefa Staska- Na galejac h v Jachymove," SNK-ALU , Martin, p. 16. �SLOVAKIA 53 his release he was warned to flee the country but refused. Therefore, he was arrested again on November 4, 1947, and this time was sentenced to six years in jail. Once again, the Democratic Party did nothing to free him and he ended up in the notorious Leopoldov prison. Here he found himself in the company of former leaders of the Slovak Republic, such as Alexander Mach and Stefan Tiso, and Jan Kempny and later certain leaders of the Democratic Party, such as , Ursmy. , 25 Jan In spite of their difficult situation, Stasko and his fellow-prisoners decided to draft and sign a "Manifest" in which they protested their imprisonment and the political situation in Czechoslovakia. Interestingly, it was signed on March 14, 1951 (the 12 th anniversary of the Slovak Diet' s declaration of independence), by politicians from completely different ideologycal backgrounds . They were: Dr. Andrej Buza, Jan Kempny, Alexander Mach, Jozef Stasko Dr. Stefan Tiso and Jan Ursiny. Incredibly enough, it proclaimed the following: 1-The Slovak nation is founded upon its Christian heritage and its application in all spheres of social life. 2-In order to safeguard its Christian heritage, the Slovak nation must be free. It will be free only when it is independent and selfgovernmg. 3-The experience of our nation has led us to proclaim its right to home-rule, the form of which will be decided by the Slovak nation . One possible form is statehood. 4-W e recognize the right of humans and citizens to a democratic social and political system . We support open and friendly relations with the Czech nation and with our Magyar and Polish neighbors. 5-We are opposed to oppression, whether of individuals or of societies, in the name of ideological totalitarianism. We shall defend, even unto death, the right to our God-given freedom. 26 This "Manifest" is significant, because, after 1945 the Democratic Party had proposed a common state with the Czechs, albeit with Slovak home-rule. Now both the jailed proponents and former opponents of Slovak independence were united in their demands for Slovak independence. 25 26 Ibid. , 124-6. /bid. , 124. �54 SLOVAKIA After three years in Leopoldov prison, Stasko was transferred to the Jachymov uranium mines in the Czech Lands . Here Stasko 's health broke down , due to the ill-effects of radiation poisoning, which was evident in the development of serious skin lesions on his hands . Even though he was released after he had served a total of six 27 years in prison, he never recovered his health. After his release from jail in 1953 , Stasko returned to his native Orava, to try to start over. Initially he found work studying and cataloging the extensive correspondence of the writer-priest Ignac Grebac-Orlov at the latter's parish in Velicna. Here Stasko discovered a rich correspondence with Hviezdoslav, Jege, Bulla and Hlinka, and other important writers or politicians. He notified the Slovak Academy of Sciences of his discovery and asked if it would publish his findings. However, because of his former prison sentence, the SA V turned him down. Stasko then found employment as a manual laborer at a sawmill in Oravsky Podzamok, but his injured hands made it impossible for him to continue. After he lost this job, he was hired as a clerk at the Research Institute for the Mechanization of Forestry in the same village, largely because he was fluent in French . 28 Meanwhile, Stasko visited Bratislava on several occasions. There he met with Dr. Ambrus, who worked for Slovak Radio. He offered Stasko part-time employment as a co-producer of the serial "Know Your Land." For this program Stasko visited many villages in his native Orava, and interviewed the inhabitants. In this way he became an expert on Slovak folk culture. However, Stasko lost his job as a clerk in Oravsky Podzamok and then had to look for work in Zilina. Here he had great difficulty finding a place to board. Altogether he changed locations ten times. Finally, he found work repairing refrigerators. While working on a refrigerator at the Hotel Fatra in the nearby spa town of Rajecke Teplice, he was poisoned by leaking Methylchloride. As a result, he became a patient in the spa for about a month. While there he had the opportunity to meet with his old friends Jan Kempny and Jan Spisiak, the former ambassador to Hungary. Since his physician ordered Stasko to find less dangerous work, he then was employed in a 27 "Jozefa Staska prepustili 5. nove mb ra 1953 ," in "Zapisky Jozefa Staska- Na ¥,a lejach v Jachymove," SNK-ALU, Martin , p.21 . 8 - Ibid., p. 18. �SLOVAKIA 55 local plywood factory. The Communists saw to it that he could never find work suitable to his education.29 After six years of hard manual labor, with no prospect of the communist regime ending, Stasko decided to flee to the West. He did so with the collaboration of a former prisoner in the Jachymov mines, the electrical engineer Jozef Merko. Even though Merko lived in Moravia and Stasko in Slovakia, they started to meet on the Slovak-Moravian border, near the village of Makov, to plan their escape. They settled on the vi llage of Hulin, on the AustrianMoravian border, because it met all of their criteria-close to the border, with a main road, some friendly contacts, plus a route avoiding the mines, and with barbed-wire that could be penetrated by a truck. The truck would be "borrowed" by Merko from the television-repair factory where he worked. Merko would take with him his wife and children and Stasko his fiancee Ema Schmeringaiova. However, Stasko and Merko would not reveal to them their plans until the last moment. Stasko arrived in Hulin on August 8, 1961. He and Merko then added protective armor to the truck, to shield it from the 5,000-volt electrical wire which they would have to penetrate. Stasko described the actual escape in minute detail: We cut through the first barbed wire as if through a thread. The second wire was higher and more dangerous. We hit an obstruction and had to back up. That took about ten seconds. When we hit the thicker wire, which was electrified, we saw and heard an explosion. One section of the severed wire hit the roof of the truck and burned through it. The third wire was easily broken, but by then we noticed that the wires had coiled themselves around our tires and we were pulling the entire fence behind us. Once we had reached the Austrian side, we stepped on the gas and into freedom! 30 The refugees crossed to the Austrian side on August 15, at 3 :40 a.m. After the Austrian border guards had checked their papers and story, they allowed the truck to proceed. When they arrived in 29 30 !bid., p. 20 /bid. , p.82 �56 SLOVAKIA Vienna, astounded journalists dubbed their Tatra truck as the "tank of freedom." Austrian authorities returned it to Czechoslovakia. The refugees were then taken to the refugee camp called Kagran, where they had to wait for one month in order to acquire Austrian visas. Merko was then hired as a technician by the local television station and Stasko found work in a winery.31 Now that Stasko was free , he breathed a sigh of relief, but still had medical problems. As he put it, "The medicine of freedom relaxed my nerves. At home I had really suffered from headaches, body pain, and depression."32 However, his body still suffered from radiation poisoning. Therefore, he decided to visit his good friend Irnrich Kruzliak, who worked at Radio Free Europe in Munich . The latter immediately sent him to his doctor for a physical. When the physician inspected Stasko's hands, which had millimeter-deep cracks in them, he predicted that Stasko would survive for a maximum of two years.33 He recommended that he go to Rome, to the headquarters of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which specialized in the disease that afflicted him. Here Stasko was, indeed, helped by taking new medicines. His health improved so much that he was then able to travel all over Europe, particularly to London and Paris, where he met various Slovaks and could guage their political activities. He was interviewed on French television about his escape from Czechoslovakia, and by the French press as well. On February 1, 1962, Dominique Aucleres published a long interview with him in Le Figaro , France 's largest-circulation newspaper. 34 Meanwhile, when Stasko visited with Kruzliak in Munich, he expressed interest in also working for Radio Free Europe, but was disappointed. Some of his former Lutheran colleagues in the Democratic Party, who had the final say as to who was hired, turned Stasko down . Therefore, a dejected Stasko decided to apply for a visa to the United States and was successful. He arrived with his fiancee in New York in May of 1962.35 31 !bid. , p.83 /bid. , p.84. 33 Author interview with Imrich Kruzliak, April 23 , 2008 34 Jozef Mikus, " Dr. Jozef Stasko sedemdesiatnik," in Bulletin Svetoveho kongresu S/ovakov, l 6 (No.77, 1987), p.1 8. 35 Jnterview with Imrich Kruzliak, op.cit. 32 �SLOVAKIA 57 In New York Stasko and his wife (they were married in 1962) flourished . He intensively studied the English language, earned a Master of Library Science degree at Columbia University, and found employment as a librarian at the New York Public Library. His wife Ema, who even in Slovakia had nursed him back to health as best as she could, also enrolled at Columbia University, where she earned a BSc. in chemistry. Meanwhile, on October 27, 1963, they were blessed with a son, Jozef Jr. With the help of their friends, the Stasko family was able to purchase a condominium apartment on Park Terrace in New York City, where he lived for the rest of his life. 36 Shortly after his arrival in the United States, Jozef Stasko joined the Slovak-American community and contributed to its cultural life. He wrote articles for the monthly Ave Maria, Verbum, Horizon!. and especially for the Bulletin Svetoveho kongresu Slovakov. In 1973-74 he also taught courses on immigration and American Slovaks as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the City College in New York.37 One of Stasko ' s dreams was to establish a Library and Archives dedicated to documenting the history and culture of American Slovaks. He hoped that it would be located in Danville, Pennsylvania, at the Jankola Library, which was already in existence, and which was organized by the Sisters of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. This Slovak congregation had been founded by the Rev. Matus Jankola in 1909 and, since all the sisters were fluent in Slovak, he felt that they would be the ideal recipients of such an archive.38 Jozef Stasko also took an active role in the founding of the Slovak World Congress in 1970. In his 1969 presentation to a meeting of the Organizing Committee of the SWC in Linden, New Jersey, Stasko outlined his conception of the role of the Slovak World Congress among Slovaks in the USA and Canada. He rejected the "Czechoslovakism" that still existed in some quarters and, instead, championed the cause of Slovak independence. On the other 36 /bid., and Jozef Stasko to Frantisek Sub fk, ovember 3, 1963 , Uni versity of Ottawa, Arc hi ves and Spec ial Coll ecti ons, Jozef Stasko Fonds, Box 205, Fasc . 20626. 37 Baranov ic, op. cit., 13. 38 Jozef Stasko to Jozef Papi n, September 8, I 972 and Slovak Hi story Assoc iation of Ameri ca n Sisters of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Uni versity of Ottawa, Slovak Archi ves, Archi ves and Spec ial Collectio ns, Fond Jozef Stasko, Box 205 , fasc. 20515 and fasc . 2 12. �58 SLOVAKIA hand, he naively called on the SKS to seek the support of all Slovak factions in the USA, including Catholics and Lutherans and supporters of the Slovak State and its opponents.39 The Slovak World Congress was founded in reaction to the "normalization" of Czechoslovakia after the Warsaw Pact invasion of 1968. Stasko put it this way: "We had to recognize that the Slovak nation at home was not free to speak its mind. Therefore, we had to do it. And we had to truly reflect what it wanted and needed." The main goal of the SKS, according to Stasko, was twofold: "to unite all Slovak factions, which by themselves were weak and ineffective, and to demand the right of the Slovak nation to self-govemment."40 Stasko then drafted what he considered to be the main role of the Slovak World Congress in the following points: 1- The leadership of the Slovak World Congress should gather information about Slovak achievements in the arts and sciences and make them available for all to see, so that Slovak demands for homerule would seem reasonable. 2- The Slovak World Congress should publish books about Slovak history and literature in foreign languages and donate them to university libraries. 3- The Slovak World Congress should seek to revise information about the Slovaks in foreign publications. To this end, it should support research and translation into foreign-languages books about the Slovak past and present. 4- The Slovak World Congress must seek to persuade Slovaks abroad to publish quality books for practical purposes. It should seek out qualified Slovaks for this purpose. It must publish in English, French and German. It should publish a periodical geared towards the general public. Slovaks abroad lack a good Slovak-English dictionary, and that makes Americans dependent upon Slovak-speakers for translations. 5- The Slovak World Congress should establish a Slovak library containing information in English about Slovakia. The SKS should consider purchasing a building in New York City for this purpose. 39 Jozef Stasko, "Preco som za SKS?" Bulletin Svetoveho kongresu Slovakov, No. 7, 1972, p. 18. 40 Ibid. , 17. �SLOVAKIA 59 Slovaks also lack restaurants and delicatessens, where one could purchase Slovak products. 6- The Slovak World Congress should also strive to overcome the divisions among Slovaks between Catholics, Lutherans and Jews. 41 Jozef Stasko also wrote a letter in 1980 to former members of the Democratic Party living in the USA. In it one can see that he was convinced that Communism in Czechoslovakia was doomed, and he also correctly predicted the breakup of the republic.42 Jozef Stasko lived to see an independent Slovak Republic in 1993. He and his generation had long fought for it. As he later remarked, it was one of the happiest days of his life. However, in the second half of the l 990's, Stasko's health began to deteriorate. He never really recovered from the negative effects of his imprisonment and radiation poisoning. Jozef Stasko died in New York City on September 19, 1999. At his request, his remains were transferred to and interred in Sedliacka Dubova, the village of his birth. Thus ended the almost unbelievable life of a person who, in spite of great difficulties, lived to see the realization of his dream: an independent Slovak Republic. 41 /bid., 19. lbid. , 20. 42 � 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 2010, Vol. 40 Description An account of the resource Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010. 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 2010 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 47 " JOZEF STASKO (1917-1999): HIS LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS Miroslav Chromek In the history of Slovakia, many people who opposed the communist regime in the 1940's and 1950's were severely persecuted by the Communists. They were arrested, tortured, and sent to the uranium mines. The communist authorities, meanwhile, did everything in their power to erase any mention of them in official histories of the period. Now that Slovakia is no longer ruled by the Communists, it is incumbent upon historians to reveal the story of the many thousands who suffered under communist oppression. One of these individuals was Dr. Jozef Stasko. Jozef Stasko was born of Slovak peasants in the village of Sedliacka Dubova, Orava, county, on August 1, 1917. His father Peter, who was born in 1884, emigrated to the United States before the Great War in search of work. There he suffered an industrial accident from which he ultimately died on February 27, 1923. Jozef was only six years old and his sister Anna eight when their father died. Thus, Jozefs mother Johana, who had been born in 1887, had to raise her children on her own . 1 Jozef and his sister had to help their mother work the fields , as well as to attend school. In spite of her hard life, Jozef s mother persevered and gave her children all her love, for which Jozef was grateful. After he had made his way to the United States, he wrote a long article in praise of his mother, and all mothers who cared for their children.2 After completing the local Catholic grade school, the bright young Jozef went on to high school , but ran into difficulties. At the Trstena ' gymnasium,' where he first enrolled, he was repelled by the liberal and pro-Czechoslovak attitude of his Czech teachers and decided to switch to the more Catholic-oriented 'gymnasium' m Dolny Kubin. He later reminisced about these times as follows: 1 Stefan Baranovic, "Zivot a di elo PhDr. Jozefa Stasku," in Peter Maruniak, ed ., Dr. Jozef Stasko osemdesiatrocny (Martin: Mati ca slovenska, 1998), 9. 2 JozefStasko, " Moja matka," Ave Maria, 49 (No. 4, 1965), 106. 48 SLOVAKIA At 'gymnasium 'I was reminded that I belonged to an insignificant peasant people. My mother often told me how she had to hide Slovak newspapers from Magyar authorities. After the Great War, in speaking with Slovak patriots who had been jailed by the Magyars, I felt a deep pain in my heart for the past and continued suffering of our nation. 3 After graduating from 'gymansium' in 1935 Stasko continued his studies at Comenius University in Bratislava. In the first two years he studied French and Latin, and then switched to law. At Comenius he encountered the same attitudes as at Trstena-namely Czech professors trying to create a "Czechoslovak" language: "The University was run by Czechs, the Slovak language was degraded. Professor Vazny was trying to change Slovak into Czechoslovak and Professor Chaloupecky taught us Slovak history as if Slovaks were a mere branch of the Czech nation, and that was how were supposed to comport ourselves ."4 While at university, Stasko began to display his organizational and leadership abilities. He joined the student organizations Slavia Catholica, Detvan and Mayzes. Indeed, he was elected secretary of the latter. He lived in the student Catholic dormitory Svoradov, which was a hotbed for future political, scientific and cultural leaders.5 Since he was awarded a scholarship to continue his studies at the Sorbonne, Stasko left for Paris in February of 1939, and was caught in a maelstrom. The Slovak Diet had proclaimed independence on March 14, 1939, but Stasko disagreed with this proclamation. Therefore, he immediately contacted Dr. Stefan Osusky, the former Czechoslovak Minister to Paris, and offered him his services. However, in their discussions, Stasko found Osusky to be too proCzechoslovak, and too supportive of the philosophy of the late president T.G. Masaryk. 6 3 Baranovic, op.cit., 9. /bid. , I 0. 5 Jan Okal , "Dr. Jozef Stasko 65-rocny," Bulletin Svetoveho kongresu Slovakov, 12, 2:10. 53, 1982), 22. . Stasko wrote about his discussions with Osusky in " Stefan Osusky's Attempts to Establi sh Contacts with Slovakia in 1939: A Personal Memoir," Slo vakia, 32, nos. 4 SLOVAKIA 49 Meanwhile, Stasko sought to help Slovak workers in France. Once Slovakia declared independence, Slovaks in France were regarded with suspicion as "Germanophiles. " Therefore, French employers fired many of them. In his fluent French, Stasko either defended these workers in front of their former employers or helped them to find other jobs.7 By the end of April Stasko returned to Slovakia by train. He surmised that war would soon break out and he wanted to size up the situation at home. He was particularly concerned about the 35,000 Slovak workers in Belgium and France, who might be drafted if a war broke out. He also sought to involve the government of Slovakia in helping them to retain their jobs in those uncertain times. He also wished to report to Osusky about the situation of Slovaks in southern Slovakia, which had been occupied by Hungary the previous November. 8 While in Slovakia Stasko met with Dr. Gejza Medricky, the Minister of Economics of the Slovak Republic and with General Rudolf Viest, a member of the Slovak General Staff. Stasko managed to convince Medricky not to cancel the wage agreement between France and Slovakia, which allowed Slovak workers to receive parcels without having to pay any duty on them. 9 In his meeting with General Viest, he tried to persuade the latter to send as many Slovak officers to France as possible, ostensibly to further their educations, but really to be drafted into the French army, where they could then form the nucleus of a Czecho-Slovak army when the war broke out. 10 Viest politely listened but promised nothing. If we are to believe a letter that Stasko wrote to Dr. Jozef Mikus in 1980, Stasko also met with President Jozef Tiso in Banovce nad Bebravou, while the latter was on vacation. Stasko claimed that, in a friendly atmosphere, they discussed various problems that confron58-59 ( 198 5- I 986), 9-33. See also "Zapisky Jozefa Staska," Martin , Sl ovenska narodn a knizn ica, Arch iv literatury a um eni a, (hereafter SN K-ALU) p. 15. 7 Mini sterstvo vnutra Slovenskej republi ke , Statny archiv v Bra ti slave (hereafter MVS R- SA B), Fond okresneho L.:u doveho sudu- Jozef Stasko: Vypoved Jozefa Staska na L.: ud ovom sude z 26.4. 1946, p. 3. 8 /bid 9 "Zapisky Jozefa Staska," op.cit., p. 18. 1 °Fra ntisek Vnuk , "S lovenske studentske spolky v medzivojnovo m obdobi ," in Jozef Stasko, Tvorcovia noveho Slovenska (Ca mbri dge , ON : Fri ends of Good Books, 1982) , 174. 50 SLOVAKIA ted the Slovak State. Stasko further claimed that he upbraided Tiso for Slovakia's pro-Nazi political orientation and for naively looking upon Germany as a trusted protector of the new republic. From his alleged conversation with Tiso, it is clear that Stasko did not expect 11 Nazi Germany to last very long. At the beginning of June Jozef Stasko returned to France, where he experienced the first months of the Second World War. As soon as the war broke out, he volunteered to serve in the Czechoslovak army-in-exile, which Stefan Osusky had organized in France. Stasko began his service on October 17, 1939 in camp Agda, where, incidentally, the Slovak communist politician Vladimir Clementis was also stationed. However, the latter stayed only a few months, and then moved to London, where he would join in the Czechoslovak 12 liberation movement led by ex-president Edvard Benes. Stasko, meanwhile, looked for ways and means to remain in France, and, barring that, in some other western country. As an officer-in-training, Stasko was assigned an apartment on the shores of the Mediterranean. Lieutenant Sivak, a Roman Catholic chaplain, helped him to secure this lodging. 13 On May I 0, 1940, Stasko was assigned to the I st Platoon of the 2nd Czechoslovak Regiment as a 14 sergeant, and as such, in June was sent to the front on the Marne. After France ' s defeat by the Germans, his commanding officer, First Lieutenant Dolejsek, ordered him to retreat with his platoon, and to blow up any and all stores of supplies and ammunition, which Stasko did, and for which he was recommended for a commendation . 15 Stasko then sought to remain in France, and even persuaded a French family to help him to obtain the necessary papers in order to be properly demobilized. He then hoped to make his way to the United States and asked his Orava friend and former fellow-resident at the Svoradov, Jozef Mikus, who was then charge d' affaires in Madrid, to 11 Uni versity of Ottawa, Archives and Special Collections, Slovak Arc hi ves, Jozef Mikus Fo nds, box 205, fasc . 205-7, letter of Jozef Stasko to Jozef Mikus, August 16, 1980. 12 MVSR-SAB , Yypoved Jozefa Staska, op.ci t. , p. 3, and Jozef Mikus, " Dr. Jozef Stasko sedemdesiatnik ," in Bulletin Svetoveho kongresu S/o vako v, 16 (No.77 , 1987), 18. 13 SNK-ALU, Jozef Stasko, " Yo vazeni na majaku Fort de Brescau." 14 Hitl er attacked western Europe on May I 0, 1940. 15 MVSR-SAB , Vypoved Jozefa Staska, p. 5 SLOVAKIA 51 help him. The latter replied that it was Stasko's duty to return to Slovakia. 16 Meanwhile, Stasko refused to obey what he considered to be an impossible order, and found himself jailed by the French. Stasko's regiment was stationed in a Belgian camp that was shared by soldiers from Senegal. These got roaring drunk and armed themselves and began to loot the local town. French authorities ordered Stasko to quell this rebellion but Stasko knew that the Senegalese outnumbered his forces and refused. As a result, he and his soldiers found themselves jailed, along with the Senegalese, first in Belgium and from the end of August until the middle of November in the French prison Fort de Brescau, and after that in the prison of the Chasseurs Alpins in the port city of Set. While the prison regimen was not too onerous, living conditions were terrible, especially in Belgium, because the blankets were full of bed-bugs and the prison was overrun with rats, which Stasko and the Senegalese sought to kill during the night. 17 Jozef Stasko was finally rescued by Slovak authorities, although his subsequent life in Slovakia remained difficult. Dr. Eduard Malis, of the Slovak Repatriation Commission in France, arranged for Stasko to be released and he returned to Slovakia on March 22, 1941. 18 Stasko was immediately interrogated by the police for having allegedly revealed military secrets to the enemy, but released for lack of evidence. He then returned to Orava and helped his mother with her farm work, all the while being watched by the Gestapo. 19 Since he had no prospects in Orava, he eventually moved to Bratislava and found employment as the secretary of the Association of Industry, Trade and Finance. For three years he studied and published the history of trade and commerce in Slovakia for the magazine Zivnost'. He also planned to write a history of Slovak craft guilds. 20 During the Slovak Republic, Stasko did not engage in politics, nor did he join the ruling Hlinka Slovak People's Party. He did attend a lecture by Dr. Imrich Karvas, the Governor of the Slovak 16 "Zapi sky Jozefa Staska," op.cit., p. 33. Stasko , " Vo vaze ni .. .," op. cit. , 1-11 18 MVSR-SA B, Vypoved Jozefa Staska, op.cit ., p. 8 19 Author interview with lmrich Kruzliak in Bratislava, April 23, 2008. 20 Milan Beres, " Laudac ia na Dr. Jozefa Stas ku pri ude l'ovanf Ceny M . R. Stefanika ," in Peter Maruni ak, ed. , Dr. Jozef Stasko osemdesiatrocny (Martin : Matica slove nska) , 70. 17 52 SLOVAKIA National Bank, and he did take advantage of a healing session at a Slovak spa, courtesy of his friend Jozef Mikula, who was a member of the People's Party.21 Conversely, Stasko did not participate in the Slovak National Uprising of August, 1944, which he considered illprepared and premature.22 Meanwhile, at the end of the war, some Russian soldiers broke into his bachelor apartment, ransacked it and beat him up when he tried to stop them. For all these reasons, a certain Major Peter Kozurka had him arrested on December 8, 1945 for his alleged "collaboration" activities. Due to a lack of evidence against him, Stasko was released just before Christmas, 1945. 23 After these bitter experiences, Stasko became a steadfast opponent of Communism, which he saw slowly engulfing his homeland. He joined the newly-established Democratic Party, worked tirelessly to unite the Lutherans and Catholics in it, and saw it emerge victorious in the 1946 elections. Initially, four political parties fielded candidates in the 1946 elections-the Democratic Party, the Communist Party of Slovakia, the Party of Freedom and the Party of the Workers. Only the Democrats and the Communists had a chance of winning. Both campaigned against each other. The Communists, largely through their mouthpiece Pravda, tried to divide the Catholic and Lutheran supporters of the Democratic Party. They even supported the creation of a Christian Democratic Party, to represent the Catholics. Initially, Stasko supported this movement, but later abandoned it. When he campaigned on behalf of the Democratic Party, for instance in Rufomberok, the Communists had him arrested while he was making a speech! Nevertheless, in the May 26, 1946 elections, 92.3% of the Orava electorate supported Stasko to the Czechoslovak Parliament for the Democratic Party.24 However, Stasko's victory lasted only until the fall of 1947. That summer he had guided a visiting American Slovak and her daughter across the country, and they both noticed that the secret police had been following them. In September the police arrested him again, on trumped-up charges, in spite of his parliamentary immunity. After 21 MVSR-SAB , Fond od resneho l'udoveho sudu- Jozef Stasko, Cs 414/46: Zapisnica o vysluchu svedka Jozefa Staska z 18. 2. 1947 22 Jnterview with lmrich K.ruzliak, op.cit. 23 Jozef Stasko, "Vazenska psychoterapia," Slovenske poh/'ady, no.3 , 1994, p. 124. 24 "Jozefa Staska prepustili 5. Novembra 1953 ," in "Zapisky Jozefa Staska- Na galejac h v Jachymove," SNK-ALU , Martin, p. 16. SLOVAKIA 53 his release he was warned to flee the country but refused. Therefore, he was arrested again on November 4, 1947, and this time was sentenced to six years in jail. Once again, the Democratic Party did nothing to free him and he ended up in the notorious Leopoldov prison. Here he found himself in the company of former leaders of the Slovak Republic, such as Alexander Mach and Stefan Tiso, and Jan Kempny and later certain leaders of the Democratic Party, such as , Ursmy. , 25 Jan In spite of their difficult situation, Stasko and his fellow-prisoners decided to draft and sign a "Manifest" in which they protested their imprisonment and the political situation in Czechoslovakia. Interestingly, it was signed on March 14, 1951 (the 12 th anniversary of the Slovak Diet' s declaration of independence), by politicians from completely different ideologycal backgrounds . They were: Dr. Andrej Buza, Jan Kempny, Alexander Mach, Jozef Stasko Dr. Stefan Tiso and Jan Ursiny. Incredibly enough, it proclaimed the following: 1-The Slovak nation is founded upon its Christian heritage and its application in all spheres of social life. 2-In order to safeguard its Christian heritage, the Slovak nation must be free. It will be free only when it is independent and selfgovernmg. 3-The experience of our nation has led us to proclaim its right to home-rule, the form of which will be decided by the Slovak nation . One possible form is statehood. 4-W e recognize the right of humans and citizens to a democratic social and political system . We support open and friendly relations with the Czech nation and with our Magyar and Polish neighbors. 5-We are opposed to oppression, whether of individuals or of societies, in the name of ideological totalitarianism. We shall defend, even unto death, the right to our God-given freedom. 26 This "Manifest" is significant, because, after 1945 the Democratic Party had proposed a common state with the Czechs, albeit with Slovak home-rule. Now both the jailed proponents and former opponents of Slovak independence were united in their demands for Slovak independence. 25 26 Ibid. , 124-6. /bid. , 124. 54 SLOVAKIA After three years in Leopoldov prison, Stasko was transferred to the Jachymov uranium mines in the Czech Lands . Here Stasko 's health broke down , due to the ill-effects of radiation poisoning, which was evident in the development of serious skin lesions on his hands . Even though he was released after he had served a total of six 27 years in prison, he never recovered his health. After his release from jail in 1953 , Stasko returned to his native Orava, to try to start over. Initially he found work studying and cataloging the extensive correspondence of the writer-priest Ignac Grebac-Orlov at the latter's parish in Velicna. Here Stasko discovered a rich correspondence with Hviezdoslav, Jege, Bulla and Hlinka, and other important writers or politicians. He notified the Slovak Academy of Sciences of his discovery and asked if it would publish his findings. However, because of his former prison sentence, the SA V turned him down. Stasko then found employment as a manual laborer at a sawmill in Oravsky Podzamok, but his injured hands made it impossible for him to continue. After he lost this job, he was hired as a clerk at the Research Institute for the Mechanization of Forestry in the same village, largely because he was fluent in French . 28 Meanwhile, Stasko visited Bratislava on several occasions. There he met with Dr. Ambrus, who worked for Slovak Radio. He offered Stasko part-time employment as a co-producer of the serial "Know Your Land." For this program Stasko visited many villages in his native Orava, and interviewed the inhabitants. In this way he became an expert on Slovak folk culture. However, Stasko lost his job as a clerk in Oravsky Podzamok and then had to look for work in Zilina. Here he had great difficulty finding a place to board. Altogether he changed locations ten times. Finally, he found work repairing refrigerators. While working on a refrigerator at the Hotel Fatra in the nearby spa town of Rajecke Teplice, he was poisoned by leaking Methylchloride. As a result, he became a patient in the spa for about a month. While there he had the opportunity to meet with his old friends Jan Kempny and Jan Spisiak, the former ambassador to Hungary. Since his physician ordered Stasko to find less dangerous work, he then was employed in a 27 "Jozefa Staska prepustili 5. nove mb ra 1953 ," in "Zapisky Jozefa Staska- Na ¥,a lejach v Jachymove," SNK-ALU, Martin , p.21 . 8 - Ibid., p. 18. SLOVAKIA 55 local plywood factory. The Communists saw to it that he could never find work suitable to his education.29 After six years of hard manual labor, with no prospect of the communist regime ending, Stasko decided to flee to the West. He did so with the collaboration of a former prisoner in the Jachymov mines, the electrical engineer Jozef Merko. Even though Merko lived in Moravia and Stasko in Slovakia, they started to meet on the Slovak-Moravian border, near the village of Makov, to plan their escape. They settled on the vi llage of Hulin, on the AustrianMoravian border, because it met all of their criteria-close to the border, with a main road, some friendly contacts, plus a route avoiding the mines, and with barbed-wire that could be penetrated by a truck. The truck would be "borrowed" by Merko from the television-repair factory where he worked. Merko would take with him his wife and children and Stasko his fiancee Ema Schmeringaiova. However, Stasko and Merko would not reveal to them their plans until the last moment. Stasko arrived in Hulin on August 8, 1961. He and Merko then added protective armor to the truck, to shield it from the 5,000-volt electrical wire which they would have to penetrate. Stasko described the actual escape in minute detail: We cut through the first barbed wire as if through a thread. The second wire was higher and more dangerous. We hit an obstruction and had to back up. That took about ten seconds. When we hit the thicker wire, which was electrified, we saw and heard an explosion. One section of the severed wire hit the roof of the truck and burned through it. The third wire was easily broken, but by then we noticed that the wires had coiled themselves around our tires and we were pulling the entire fence behind us. Once we had reached the Austrian side, we stepped on the gas and into freedom! 30 The refugees crossed to the Austrian side on August 15, at 3 :40 a.m. After the Austrian border guards had checked their papers and story, they allowed the truck to proceed. When they arrived in 29 30 !bid., p. 20 /bid. , p.82 56 SLOVAKIA Vienna, astounded journalists dubbed their Tatra truck as the "tank of freedom." Austrian authorities returned it to Czechoslovakia. The refugees were then taken to the refugee camp called Kagran, where they had to wait for one month in order to acquire Austrian visas. Merko was then hired as a technician by the local television station and Stasko found work in a winery.31 Now that Stasko was free , he breathed a sigh of relief, but still had medical problems. As he put it, "The medicine of freedom relaxed my nerves. At home I had really suffered from headaches, body pain, and depression."32 However, his body still suffered from radiation poisoning. Therefore, he decided to visit his good friend Irnrich Kruzliak, who worked at Radio Free Europe in Munich . The latter immediately sent him to his doctor for a physical. When the physician inspected Stasko's hands, which had millimeter-deep cracks in them, he predicted that Stasko would survive for a maximum of two years.33 He recommended that he go to Rome, to the headquarters of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which specialized in the disease that afflicted him. Here Stasko was, indeed, helped by taking new medicines. His health improved so much that he was then able to travel all over Europe, particularly to London and Paris, where he met various Slovaks and could guage their political activities. He was interviewed on French television about his escape from Czechoslovakia, and by the French press as well. On February 1, 1962, Dominique Aucleres published a long interview with him in Le Figaro , France 's largest-circulation newspaper. 34 Meanwhile, when Stasko visited with Kruzliak in Munich, he expressed interest in also working for Radio Free Europe, but was disappointed. Some of his former Lutheran colleagues in the Democratic Party, who had the final say as to who was hired, turned Stasko down . Therefore, a dejected Stasko decided to apply for a visa to the United States and was successful. He arrived with his fiancee in New York in May of 1962.35 31 !bid. , p.83 /bid. , p.84. 33 Author interview with Imrich Kruzliak, April 23 , 2008 34 Jozef Mikus, " Dr. Jozef Stasko sedemdesiatnik," in Bulletin Svetoveho kongresu S/ovakov, l 6 (No.77, 1987), p.1 8. 35 Jnterview with Imrich Kruzliak, op.cit. 32 SLOVAKIA 57 In New York Stasko and his wife (they were married in 1962) flourished . He intensively studied the English language, earned a Master of Library Science degree at Columbia University, and found employment as a librarian at the New York Public Library. His wife Ema, who even in Slovakia had nursed him back to health as best as she could, also enrolled at Columbia University, where she earned a BSc. in chemistry. Meanwhile, on October 27, 1963, they were blessed with a son, Jozef Jr. With the help of their friends, the Stasko family was able to purchase a condominium apartment on Park Terrace in New York City, where he lived for the rest of his life. 36 Shortly after his arrival in the United States, Jozef Stasko joined the Slovak-American community and contributed to its cultural life. He wrote articles for the monthly Ave Maria, Verbum, Horizon!. and especially for the Bulletin Svetoveho kongresu Slovakov. In 1973-74 he also taught courses on immigration and American Slovaks as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the City College in New York.37 One of Stasko ' s dreams was to establish a Library and Archives dedicated to documenting the history and culture of American Slovaks. He hoped that it would be located in Danville, Pennsylvania, at the Jankola Library, which was already in existence, and which was organized by the Sisters of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. This Slovak congregation had been founded by the Rev. Matus Jankola in 1909 and, since all the sisters were fluent in Slovak, he felt that they would be the ideal recipients of such an archive.38 Jozef Stasko also took an active role in the founding of the Slovak World Congress in 1970. In his 1969 presentation to a meeting of the Organizing Committee of the SWC in Linden, New Jersey, Stasko outlined his conception of the role of the Slovak World Congress among Slovaks in the USA and Canada. He rejected the "Czechoslovakism" that still existed in some quarters and, instead, championed the cause of Slovak independence. On the other 36 /bid., and Jozef Stasko to Frantisek Sub fk, ovember 3, 1963 , Uni versity of Ottawa, Arc hi ves and Spec ial Coll ecti ons, Jozef Stasko Fonds, Box 205, Fasc . 20626. 37 Baranov ic, op. cit., 13. 38 Jozef Stasko to Jozef Papi n, September 8, I 972 and Slovak Hi story Assoc iation of Ameri ca n Sisters of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Uni versity of Ottawa, Slovak Archi ves, Archi ves and Spec ial Collectio ns, Fond Jozef Stasko, Box 205 , fasc. 20515 and fasc . 2 12. 58 SLOVAKIA hand, he naively called on the SKS to seek the support of all Slovak factions in the USA, including Catholics and Lutherans and supporters of the Slovak State and its opponents.39 The Slovak World Congress was founded in reaction to the "normalization" of Czechoslovakia after the Warsaw Pact invasion of 1968. Stasko put it this way: "We had to recognize that the Slovak nation at home was not free to speak its mind. Therefore, we had to do it. And we had to truly reflect what it wanted and needed." The main goal of the SKS, according to Stasko, was twofold: "to unite all Slovak factions, which by themselves were weak and ineffective, and to demand the right of the Slovak nation to self-govemment."40 Stasko then drafted what he considered to be the main role of the Slovak World Congress in the following points: 1- The leadership of the Slovak World Congress should gather information about Slovak achievements in the arts and sciences and make them available for all to see, so that Slovak demands for homerule would seem reasonable. 2- The Slovak World Congress should publish books about Slovak history and literature in foreign languages and donate them to university libraries. 3- The Slovak World Congress should seek to revise information about the Slovaks in foreign publications. To this end, it should support research and translation into foreign-languages books about the Slovak past and present. 4- The Slovak World Congress must seek to persuade Slovaks abroad to publish quality books for practical purposes. It should seek out qualified Slovaks for this purpose. It must publish in English, French and German. It should publish a periodical geared towards the general public. Slovaks abroad lack a good Slovak-English dictionary, and that makes Americans dependent upon Slovak-speakers for translations. 5- The Slovak World Congress should establish a Slovak library containing information in English about Slovakia. The SKS should consider purchasing a building in New York City for this purpose. 39 Jozef Stasko, "Preco som za SKS?" Bulletin Svetoveho kongresu Slovakov, No. 7, 1972, p. 18. 40 Ibid. , 17. SLOVAKIA 59 Slovaks also lack restaurants and delicatessens, where one could purchase Slovak products. 6- The Slovak World Congress should also strive to overcome the divisions among Slovaks between Catholics, Lutherans and Jews. 41 Jozef Stasko also wrote a letter in 1980 to former members of the Democratic Party living in the USA. In it one can see that he was convinced that Communism in Czechoslovakia was doomed, and he also correctly predicted the breakup of the republic.42 Jozef Stasko lived to see an independent Slovak Republic in 1993. He and his generation had long fought for it. As he later remarked, it was one of the happiest days of his life. However, in the second half of the l 990's, Stasko's health began to deteriorate. He never really recovered from the negative effects of his imprisonment and radiation poisoning. Jozef Stasko died in New York City on September 19, 1999. At his request, his remains were transferred to and interred in Sedliacka Dubova, the village of his birth. Thus ended the almost unbelievable life of a person who, in spite of great difficulties, lived to see the realization of his dream: an independent Slovak Republic. 41 /bid., 19. lbid. , 20. 42  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 Jozef Staško (1917-1999): His Life and Achievements Description An account of the resource Miroslav Chromek Slovakia, Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010 pp. 47-59 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chromek, Miroslav Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/4b1065536d042f64530048acc0e18dd7.pdf 11f6405210b8e969acee1fcd584bbede PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 81 MYTHS REGARDING THE ANTI-COMMUNIST RESISTANCE IN SLOV AKIA 1 Jan Carnogursky The preparation and course of the Velvet Revolution in Slovakia has gradually become known. The response to the fall of Communism across Europe has shown that the participation and contribution to the overthrow of Communism and the establishment of democracy is part of the legitimacy of Europe today, and a starting point for confident behaviour. The overthrow of Communism was a prerequisite for the unification of Europe in general and the unification of Germany in particular. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, it was shown that Eastern Europe did not have any objections to the unification of Germany, unlike Great Britain and France. But that is not the point any more. The media 's revelation of the anti-Communist resistance in Slovakia created many myths which still distort our knowledge about the anti-Communist resistance in Slovakia. I will try to correct at least some of them. I have to note that some of the myths are positive, some negative. 1. Few Chartists in Slovakia. Almost every report on the anti-Communist resistance in Slovakia, specifically on the Velvet Revolution, begins with the statement that there were only a few Chartists (Members of Charter 77) in Slovakia. Indeed, there were not even ten of them . The myth is that there should have been many more. The reason is simple: Charter 77 reflected the Czech, and especially Prague ' s, terms of resistance against Communism. It did not represent the Slovak. Charter 77 included legalistically-conceived demands to respect human rights, which referred to Czechoslovak Decree No. 120/1 976 on the "Covenant on Human Rights." Its provisions were based on the conclusions 1 Speech delivered to th e Eco nomi c C lub of Bra ti slava on October 29, 2009. �82 SLOVAKIA of the Helsinki Conference of 197 5. Charter 77 could count on media and diplomatic support from the West throughout its existence. Charter 77 had existed for less than three months when the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hans van der Broek, during his visit to Prague, received the spokesman of the Charter, Professor Jan Patocka. Subsequently, Jan Patocka suffered from a heart attack and died during an interrogation by State Security (StB) - the secret police, but that's another story. Whenever the police arrested or detained a signatory of the Charter, the Western media reported it within a few hours . Slovakia could not count on similar media support. There were no Western correspondents in Bratislava. They were accredited only in Prague. Similarly, Bratislava had no Western diplomatic offices . The US Consulate General was closed most of the time, and only once a month or two American diplomats from Prague commuted for the day to their building in Bratislava. Let me illustrate. The Candle Demonstration on Hviezdoslav Square in March of 1988, with 5,000 participants, was a much greater manifestation against the communist regime than Charter 77. However, in the following days, the western press reported only a few lines about it. It could not be compared with the constant news about Charter 77. The internal structure of Charter 77 reflected the social situation in the Czech Republic. Among three spokesmen of the Charter, one was a purged Communist, one a practicing Christian, and one was a secular intellectual. Until November of 1989, purged Communists in Slovakia were unable to form their own resistance group against Communism. Alexander Dubcek was isolated. The creative intelligentsia also failed to form any significant alignment against the regime. The centre of resistance against Communism in Slovakia was in the Christian church, with all of its particularities. Until 1989, Charter 77 was signed by about 1,300 to 2,000 people, 200 to 300 of whom were active. The underground Catholic church in Slovakia involved much larger numbers of people. The Candle Demonstration was attended by thousands, while Charter 77 was never able to organize such a massive public demonstration . Charter 77 played an important role in the opposition against Communism, as it influenced the trends and forms of resistance. It was also able to give legitimacy to other forms of resistance and, in �SLOVAKIA 83 such a case, foreign observers did not have any doubts despite communist propaganda (e.g. Ivan Polansky's case in Slovakia). Resistance against a continental dictatorial regime, such as Communism, always had to be based on the deepest national traditions of any society. Using theoretical and political criteria for evaluating resistance against Communism is ridiculous. Such resistance could be easily suppressed by the StB . Slovak resistance against Communism was, therefore, based on Slovak national traditions and historical experience. Czech resistance, on the other hand, was based on Czech national traditions and historical experience. Czech forms of resistance against Communism could not, therefore, be mechanically transferred to Slovakia and used to compare the intensity of Slovak resistance. If we were to proceed in the same way, for example, when comparing and assessing Polish and Czech resistance against Communism, Czech resistance would come out as negligibly weak. 2. Milder "Normalization" in Slovakia. Another myth claims that "normalization" in Slovakia was milder than in the Czech Republic. It is based on the same unscientific observation as the previous claim that there were only few Chartists in Slovakia. Yes, many Party members were purged from cultural institutions and were forced to work in various research institutions where they were stuck, and could only do office work, and were expected to keep quiet. That is how, after having been purged from the Party, the Ideological Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia, Miroslav Kusy, could work in some sort of research institute and the historian Jozef Jablonicky in a local historical institute. And the list could be continued. When they did not obey, the regime went further and sent them to do manual work, as happened to Miroslav Kusy. This, however, only concerned a numerically insignificant group of excluded Party members, formerly of high rank which, by the way, they received through their membership in the Party, and who had no social support in Slovakia. The regime knew that it did not have to fear them and, therefore, pushed them further. This was the major difference with the Czech Republic, where purged Party members represented a greater threat, and the regime had more to fear. It must not be forgotten that in the Czech Republic �84 SLOVAKIA there was a group of more conservative Communists grouped around Antonin Kapek, Alois Indra and later Miroslav Stepan and others, who knew their former colleagues well and let them feel it. This becomes obvious after reading just a few issues of the daily Tribuna, which started publication after the Warsaw pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in the autumn of 1968 by the Bureau for the Management of Party Activity in the Czech Republic. In Slovakia, the regime mostly feared the Christian underground network, and particularly the underground church. It showed it no mercy. Jan Chryzostom Cardinal Korec, who was an underground bishop, was forced to work as an elevator repairman until his retirement. The present Archbishop of Kosice, Alojz Tkac, operated a streetcar. Bishop Rudolf Balaz of Banska Bystrica was a teamster. Trials for obstructing StB surveillance of churches occurred in Slovakia throughout the 1970s and 1980s, with unconditional sentences meted out. Furthermore, doctors and teachers were fired because of their church attendance. The myth of milder "normalization" in Slovakia does not take any of this into account. 3. The Candle Demonstration. The Candle Demonstration on March 25 , 1988, was the first mass public protest since 1969 against the regime in the former Czechoslovakia. It was organized on the initiative of Marian St'astny, then the President of the Slovak World Congress. His intention was to organize demonstrations on the 25th of March 1988 in front of Czechoslovak embassies in several Western countries as an appeal to respect the civil rights of his people. In the end, the only demonstration that took place was in Bratislava. However, it was based on completely different principles compared to those applicable in the Czech Republic or in Western Europe. The demonstrators demanded three things: allowing the Pope to appoint Catholic bishops in Slovakia, full religious freedom, and respect for human rights . This combination is unimaginable in the Czech Republic or in any Western country. But just such a combination was demanded by simple believers on the one hand, and by the urban intelligentsia on the other. This becomes clear after one reads Martin Simecka's report on the participants in the Candle Demonstration for the samizdat press shortly thereafter. The demonstration did not require any �SLOVAKIA 85 leading speaker, as he would have been immediately arrested by the police. The demonstration itself did not give any excuse to the police to intervene and when, despite that, the police sprayed the demonstrators with water cannons and arrested them, the illegality of the reaction was even more evident. In his book A Carnival of Revolution (also published in Czech), the American historian Padraic Kenney charted a time-table of events in Eastern Europe from 1975 until 1989. The table shows that the Candle Demonstration in Bratislava and a demonstration in Budapest on the 15th of March 1988 were the first mass demonstrations in the former Eastern Bloc. I will return later to the Budapest demonstration. Of course, the Candle Demonstration evoked responses in the Czech and Slovak samizdat press, setting a standard for other manifestations against the regime. As to the number of participants, the Candle Demonstration was not outnumbered until demonstrations in Prague took place in October of 1988 in honour of the anniversary of the Republic . The Candle Demonstration, however, has been mentioned only marginally in scholarly works, especially in the Czech Republic, and in the evaluation of the antiCommunist resistance in Czechoslovakia as a whole. 4. State Symbols and Anniversaries. Anniversaries commemorating national and state history have the greatest mobilizing potential in any society. Perhaps some of them are emblazoned with legends, but they are able to attract people to commemorate, and, on the other hand to demonstrate against a ruling regime if they think that it flouts tradition. They are associated with patriotism in the best sense of the word. The opposition in the surrounding countries, as well as in the Czech Republic, used such anniversaries to organize demonstrations against the ruling communist regimes. In Budapest, there was a demonstration on the 15th of March, which hearkened back to the Revolution of 1848. In Prague, October 28 was the anniversary of the creation of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, and in Poland there are many such anniversaries. The taking of one ' s life for the common good also has a great potential to mobilize people. The self-immolation of Jan Palach in Prague in January of 1969 is a good example. In November of 1989, a false rumor circulated in Prague about the death of a student during �86 SLOVAKIA a demonstration on the 17th of November, commemorating the Nazi suppression of a student demonstration in 1939. It was sufficient to spark demonstrations across the country. Slovakia did not have such an anniversary. Slovakia also does not perceive the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918 as being a historical event with significant mobilization potential. But this is not the place to discuss the causes . State traditions could only apply to the Slovak Republic which existed from 1939 to 1945, and which was allied with Nazi Germany. Those traditions could not be used. The Slovak National Uprising of 1944 did not leave any clear message - again this is not the place to discuss the reasons - and its message was in any case attributed to the communist regime. The death of General M. R. Stefanik had a certain mobilizing potential in itself, which was used by the Slovak opposition at Brad lo in May of 1989. Mobilizing impulses which had the greatest potential in the surrounding countries and nations could not be applied in Slovakia. Slovak resistance against Communism, therefore, had to be based on some other mobilizing principle. And that, in every society, is religion. However, it is a more abstract principle compared to significant national and state anniversaries. To organize opposition around religion is, therefore, more difficult. On the other hand, the mobilizing potential of religion does have distortions that are threatened by national and state anniversaries. So far, no one has appreciated that the Candle Demonstration outshone public demonstrations throughout Europe against oppressive regimes based on national and state anniversaries. 5. Velehrad, The Petition of Moravian Catholics. In 1985, a commemoration was held in Moravian Velehrad on the occasion of the 1100th anniversary of the death of Saint Methodius in Great Moravia. The ceremony was attended by about 150,000 - 200,000 believers, most of them from Slovakia. The Vatican State Secretary, Cardinal Cassaroli, attended. It was a significant anniversary, generally recognized by the people and, of course, remembered in Catholic churches throughout the country. For that reason, the communist regime could not ignore it and sent to Velehrad the Minister of Culture of the Czech Republic, Milan Klusak. In his speech, the minister tried to diminish the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius to simply that of a linguistic and cultural mission. For example, �SLOVAKIA 87 he did not call them Saints Cyril and Methodius, but only Cyril and Methodius . The audience booed him, shouting "Saints Cyril and Methodius" and the gathering turned into a demonstration against the regime. In the autumn 1987, a Moravian farmer, Augustin Navratil, addressed to the communist authorities 31 requests of Moravian Catholics pertaining to religious freedom. The requests were written in simple, understandable language. After being supported by Cardinal Frantisek Tomasek of Prague, Navratil began to collect signatures for his petition. By the beginning of 1988, half a million people had signed the petition, two thirds of them from Slovakia. This petition was the largest in the Communist Bloc. The signatures revealed that the underground church was active in all of Slovakia and that it had a clear leadership. Of course, such leadership had to remain underground, and could not, for example, emulate Charter 77. However, the number of signatures and their method of collection sent a signal to the regime that there was an invisible enemy which could, under certain circumstances, rise up and become uncontrollable. Velehrad, as well as the petition of the Moravian Catholics, are also only marginally mentioned in the analysis of anti-Communist resistance in the whole of Czechoslovakia. 6. Cooperation of Dissenters. During "normalization," dissent against the regime developed simultaneously in Slovakia and in the Czech Republic . In Slovakia, it was specifically Christian dissent and so-called "civil" dissent. Each of them was based on its own conditions and initially operated only internally. From the end of the 1970s, the StB in Slovakia had concluded that there was a risk of a major strengthening of dissenters if the Christian dissidents were to join with civil dissidents in Slovakia and the Slovak and Czech di ssidents within Czechoslovakia. Within its capabilities, the StB tried to maintain the isolation of individual dissident movements. There was some interaction between them, but it was too weak to unite them. In the mid 1980' s, contacts and mutual assistance intensified so much that it finally allowed the coordination of such dissident movements. In Slovakia, the newly-born Green Movement, as well as independent artists, began to partake in civil and Christian dissent. Christian activists began to meet on �88 SLOVAKIA a regular basis with purged Party members. The now-deceased Milan Simecka, a Moravian living in Bratislava, connected the Slovak and Czech dissents and encouraged many activists from Slovakia to travel to meetings in Prague. It must be said that the connection between the Czech and Slovak Catholic dissents had existed for a long time, following the message of the Croatian Jesuit priest Tomislav Poglajen - Kolakovic in the l 940 's . Very little has been written about Kolakovic. His followers spent many years in Slovak and Czech prisons. After having been released, they used to meet regularly and maintained the Slovak-Czech dialogue, which has lasted until the present day. The cooperation of dissidents in the 1980's helped to prepare the way for the November, 1989 revolution in Slovakia. 7. The Assistance of Czech Dissents. The appearance of Charter 77 was a milestone in the anti-Communist movement in Czechoslovakia. The Charter showed that public opposition against a regime is possible, but at the price of great sacrifice. Samizdat journals began to appear as a result. Petitions were organized for the freeing of political prisoners, and so on. The samizdat periodical press in Slovakia followed the lead of samizdat periodical press in the Czech Republic. Czech forms of resistance against Communism, which were transferable to Slovakia, became a source of inspiration. The State Security in Slovakia tried to label any opposition as a continuation of the Slovak People 's Party, clerical fascism and so on. For foreign defenders of dissdents, it was difficult to tell when communist propaganda was truthful and when it was lying. That was also the case with Ivan Polansky, who was arrested in 1987 and accused of supporting and spreading fascism. Ivan Polansky had prepared a samizdat volume on the Reverend Andrej Hlinka, founder of the Slovak People's Party, and a police search of Polansky's house also revealed materials concerning Jozef Tiso, president of the wartime Slovak Republic. In the end, Charter 77 stood up for Ivan Polansky and the publishers of the Czech samizdat press signed a declaration in which they dared the police to arrest them for carrying out the same activities as Polansky. Whether Ivan Polansky was a clerical fascist or not, it was enough for Wes tern publicists to believe that he was not, and they gave him full publicity �SLOVAKIA 89 and diplomatic support. This was similar to events in February of 1988, when the communist daily Pravda in Bratislava and its counterpart Rude Pravo in Prague published a series of articles denouncing Pavo) Camogursky, the author's father. The articles focused on the activities of Pavo! Carnogursky during the first Slovak Republic. Vaclav Havel, the most prominent of the Czech dissidents, persuaded his followers to sign a declaration in support of Pavo! Camogursky. Havel also used his contacts to transmit messages about Pavo! Carnogursky through various channels in the Prague diplomatic corps. In Slovakia, none of that was possible. The assistance of the Czech dissents significantly improved the chances of the defense of Slovak dissidents in case they were arrested. 8. The Speed of the Fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia. The comparison of the speed of the fall of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and, perhaps in other countries, has also become mythical. Based on such comparisons, Czechoslovakia comes out the best since the regime fell in about two weeks. Perhaps it would be useful to have a closer look at the reality. The regime fell quickly in Czechoslovakia for two reasons, one external and one internal. The external reason was that by the 17th of November, 1989 the Berlin wall had already fallen in Eastern Germany, the non-communist government of Tadeusz Mazowiecki was already established in Poland, Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika was already working in the Soviet Union and Hungary was allowing East Germans to escape into Austria. Thus, Czechoslovakia was already de facto surrounded by non-Communist Poland and countries with qualitatively different styles of Communism (the Democratic Republic of Germany, the Soviet Union and Hungary). In geopolitical terms, there was nothing the Czechoslovak communist regime could do than to give up. Furthermore, the communist regime in Czechoslovakia could not rely on internal support, because it had none. Communists were also not willing to fight for their regime. Resistance would mean ineviable defeat for the Communists, followed by their imprisonment and punishment. None of them was willing to take such a risk. The internal reason was the unity of the opposition. This unity consisted in the fact that the opposition in Slovakia and in the Czech Republic wan- �90 SLOVAKIA ted only free elections, a parliamentary democracy, a market economy and European integration. The Slovak opposition did not demand a change in Slovakia's national status. The only small difference lay in its support of Alexander Dubcek' s candidacy for the post of the President of the Republic. The Slovak opposition however, represented by VPN (Public Against Violence), supported Vaclav Havel 's candidacy. Opposition in Czechoslovakia in November and December 1989 was almost exclusively based on demonstrations in cities that were attended by thousands of people. Had any media reports on major differences in the attitude of Czech and Slovak oppositions penetrated the public, it could have significantly reduced the willingness of people to demonstrate in city squares. It was also important that Vaclav Havel was adopted as a generally-recognized symbol of the Velvet Revolution. If any other groups had made other demands, for example purged Slovak Party members pushing Dubcek' s candidacy for the post of the President, they would have failed. Their position was weak because, in previous years, they had not joined in the resistance against the communist regime. Later proponents of the independence of Slovakia had no record of showing resistance against Communism in the form of samizdat or other ways. Therefore, they were ignored in the first few months following the revolution. Prematurely raising requirements for a change in the national status of Czechoslovakia could have significantly weakened the pressure on the communist regime and, in fact, would have given it new legitimacy. The main challenge in November and December of 1989 was to overthrow Communism. Harmonization and balancing of the national form of resistance against Communism in the Czech Republic and Slovakia also contributed to the rapidity of the fall of Communism. After the creation of Charter 77, the Czech opposition against Communism took the lead in the Republic. Based on future analyses, historians will perhaps come to the conclusion that a certain balance was established sometime around 1987 between the Slovak and Czech opposition. In Slovakia, the Greens came out with the publication Bratislava nahlas (Bratislava Aloud), which preceded the results of the Green Movement in the Czech Republic. This was followed by the petition of Moravian Catholics and the Candle Demonstration. American historian Padraic Kenney wrote that in the mid 1980's an exhaustion and weariness of the original anti-Communist movements occurred in �SLOVAKIA 91 several former communist countries and the initiative was then taken by new, emerging, movements . This finding could perhaps also apply to Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia has a complicated history because it consisted of two founding nations which were linguistically close, but differed culturally . The course of the resistance against Communism, and eventually the breakdown of the Republic, have created new, and seemingly better, relations between the Slovaks and the Czechs. However, these remain to be tested during future crises. ��REVIEW ESSAY �� SLOVAKIA 81 MYTHS REGARDING THE ANTI-COMMUNIST RESISTANCE IN SLOV AKIA 1 Jan Carnogursky The preparation and course of the Velvet Revolution in Slovakia has gradually become known. The response to the fall of Communism across Europe has shown that the participation and contribution to the overthrow of Communism and the establishment of democracy is part of the legitimacy of Europe today, and a starting point for confident behaviour. The overthrow of Communism was a prerequisite for the unification of Europe in general and the unification of Germany in particular. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, it was shown that Eastern Europe did not have any objections to the unification of Germany, unlike Great Britain and France. But that is not the point any more. The media 's revelation of the anti-Communist resistance in Slovakia created many myths which still distort our knowledge about the anti-Communist resistance in Slovakia. I will try to correct at least some of them. I have to note that some of the myths are positive, some negative. 1. Few Chartists in Slovakia. Almost every report on the anti-Communist resistance in Slovakia, specifically on the Velvet Revolution, begins with the statement that there were only a few Chartists (Members of Charter 77) in Slovakia. Indeed, there were not even ten of them . The myth is that there should have been many more. The reason is simple: Charter 77 reflected the Czech, and especially Prague ' s, terms of resistance against Communism. It did not represent the Slovak. Charter 77 included legalistically-conceived demands to respect human rights, which referred to Czechoslovak Decree No. 120/1 976 on the "Covenant on Human Rights." Its provisions were based on the conclusions 1 Speech delivered to th e Eco nomi c C lub of Bra ti slava on October 29, 2009. �82 SLOVAKIA of the Helsinki Conference of 197 5. Charter 77 could count on media and diplomatic support from the West throughout its existence. Charter 77 had existed for less than three months when the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hans van der Broek, during his visit to Prague, received the spokesman of the Charter, Professor Jan Patocka. Subsequently, Jan Patocka suffered from a heart attack and died during an interrogation by State Security (StB) - the secret police, but that's another story. Whenever the police arrested or detained a signatory of the Charter, the Western media reported it within a few hours . Slovakia could not count on similar media support. There were no Western correspondents in Bratislava. They were accredited only in Prague. Similarly, Bratislava had no Western diplomatic offices . The US Consulate General was closed most of the time, and only once a month or two American diplomats from Prague commuted for the day to their building in Bratislava. Let me illustrate. The Candle Demonstration on Hviezdoslav Square in March of 1988, with 5,000 participants, was a much greater manifestation against the communist regime than Charter 77. However, in the following days, the western press reported only a few lines about it. It could not be compared with the constant news about Charter 77. The internal structure of Charter 77 reflected the social situation in the Czech Republic. Among three spokesmen of the Charter, one was a purged Communist, one a practicing Christian, and one was a secular intellectual. Until November of 1989, purged Communists in Slovakia were unable to form their own resistance group against Communism. Alexander Dubcek was isolated. The creative intelligentsia also failed to form any significant alignment against the regime. The centre of resistance against Communism in Slovakia was in the Christian church, with all of its particularities. Until 1989, Charter 77 was signed by about 1,300 to 2,000 people, 200 to 300 of whom were active. The underground Catholic church in Slovakia involved much larger numbers of people. The Candle Demonstration was attended by thousands, while Charter 77 was never able to organize such a massive public demonstration . Charter 77 played an important role in the opposition against Communism, as it influenced the trends and forms of resistance. It was also able to give legitimacy to other forms of resistance and, in �SLOVAKIA 83 such a case, foreign observers did not have any doubts despite communist propaganda (e.g. Ivan Polansky's case in Slovakia). Resistance against a continental dictatorial regime, such as Communism, always had to be based on the deepest national traditions of any society. Using theoretical and political criteria for evaluating resistance against Communism is ridiculous. Such resistance could be easily suppressed by the StB . Slovak resistance against Communism was, therefore, based on Slovak national traditions and historical experience. Czech resistance, on the other hand, was based on Czech national traditions and historical experience. Czech forms of resistance against Communism could not, therefore, be mechanically transferred to Slovakia and used to compare the intensity of Slovak resistance. If we were to proceed in the same way, for example, when comparing and assessing Polish and Czech resistance against Communism, Czech resistance would come out as negligibly weak. 2. Milder "Normalization" in Slovakia. Another myth claims that "normalization" in Slovakia was milder than in the Czech Republic. It is based on the same unscientific observation as the previous claim that there were only few Chartists in Slovakia. Yes, many Party members were purged from cultural institutions and were forced to work in various research institutions where they were stuck, and could only do office work, and were expected to keep quiet. That is how, after having been purged from the Party, the Ideological Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia, Miroslav Kusy, could work in some sort of research institute and the historian Jozef Jablonicky in a local historical institute. And the list could be continued. When they did not obey, the regime went further and sent them to do manual work, as happened to Miroslav Kusy. This, however, only concerned a numerically insignificant group of excluded Party members, formerly of high rank which, by the way, they received through their membership in the Party, and who had no social support in Slovakia. The regime knew that it did not have to fear them and, therefore, pushed them further. This was the major difference with the Czech Republic, where purged Party members represented a greater threat, and the regime had more to fear. It must not be forgotten that in the Czech Republic �84 SLOVAKIA there was a group of more conservative Communists grouped around Antonin Kapek, Alois Indra and later Miroslav Stepan and others, who knew their former colleagues well and let them feel it. This becomes obvious after reading just a few issues of the daily Tribuna, which started publication after the Warsaw pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in the autumn of 1968 by the Bureau for the Management of Party Activity in the Czech Republic. In Slovakia, the regime mostly feared the Christian underground network, and particularly the underground church. It showed it no mercy. Jan Chryzostom Cardinal Korec, who was an underground bishop, was forced to work as an elevator repairman until his retirement. The present Archbishop of Kosice, Alojz Tkac, operated a streetcar. Bishop Rudolf Balaz of Banska Bystrica was a teamster. Trials for obstructing StB surveillance of churches occurred in Slovakia throughout the 1970s and 1980s, with unconditional sentences meted out. Furthermore, doctors and teachers were fired because of their church attendance. The myth of milder "normalization" in Slovakia does not take any of this into account. 3. The Candle Demonstration. The Candle Demonstration on March 25 , 1988, was the first mass public protest since 1969 against the regime in the former Czechoslovakia. It was organized on the initiative of Marian St'astny, then the President of the Slovak World Congress. His intention was to organize demonstrations on the 25th of March 1988 in front of Czechoslovak embassies in several Western countries as an appeal to respect the civil rights of his people. In the end, the only demonstration that took place was in Bratislava. However, it was based on completely different principles compared to those applicable in the Czech Republic or in Western Europe. The demonstrators demanded three things: allowing the Pope to appoint Catholic bishops in Slovakia, full religious freedom, and respect for human rights . This combination is unimaginable in the Czech Republic or in any Western country. But just such a combination was demanded by simple believers on the one hand, and by the urban intelligentsia on the other. This becomes clear after one reads Martin Simecka's report on the participants in the Candle Demonstration for the samizdat press shortly thereafter. The demonstration did not require any �SLOVAKIA 85 leading speaker, as he would have been immediately arrested by the police. The demonstration itself did not give any excuse to the police to intervene and when, despite that, the police sprayed the demonstrators with water cannons and arrested them, the illegality of the reaction was even more evident. In his book A Carnival of Revolution (also published in Czech), the American historian Padraic Kenney charted a time-table of events in Eastern Europe from 1975 until 1989. The table shows that the Candle Demonstration in Bratislava and a demonstration in Budapest on the 15th of March 1988 were the first mass demonstrations in the former Eastern Bloc. I will return later to the Budapest demonstration. Of course, the Candle Demonstration evoked responses in the Czech and Slovak samizdat press, setting a standard for other manifestations against the regime. As to the number of participants, the Candle Demonstration was not outnumbered until demonstrations in Prague took place in October of 1988 in honour of the anniversary of the Republic . The Candle Demonstration, however, has been mentioned only marginally in scholarly works, especially in the Czech Republic, and in the evaluation of the antiCommunist resistance in Czechoslovakia as a whole. 4. State Symbols and Anniversaries. Anniversaries commemorating national and state history have the greatest mobilizing potential in any society. Perhaps some of them are emblazoned with legends, but they are able to attract people to commemorate, and, on the other hand to demonstrate against a ruling regime if they think that it flouts tradition. They are associated with patriotism in the best sense of the word. The opposition in the surrounding countries, as well as in the Czech Republic, used such anniversaries to organize demonstrations against the ruling communist regimes. In Budapest, there was a demonstration on the 15th of March, which hearkened back to the Revolution of 1848. In Prague, October 28 was the anniversary of the creation of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, and in Poland there are many such anniversaries. The taking of one ' s life for the common good also has a great potential to mobilize people. The self-immolation of Jan Palach in Prague in January of 1969 is a good example. In November of 1989, a false rumor circulated in Prague about the death of a student during �86 SLOVAKIA a demonstration on the 17th of November, commemorating the Nazi suppression of a student demonstration in 1939. It was sufficient to spark demonstrations across the country. Slovakia did not have such an anniversary. Slovakia also does not perceive the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918 as being a historical event with significant mobilization potential. But this is not the place to discuss the causes . State traditions could only apply to the Slovak Republic which existed from 1939 to 1945, and which was allied with Nazi Germany. Those traditions could not be used. The Slovak National Uprising of 1944 did not leave any clear message - again this is not the place to discuss the reasons - and its message was in any case attributed to the communist regime. The death of General M. R. Stefanik had a certain mobilizing potential in itself, which was used by the Slovak opposition at Brad lo in May of 1989. Mobilizing impulses which had the greatest potential in the surrounding countries and nations could not be applied in Slovakia. Slovak resistance against Communism, therefore, had to be based on some other mobilizing principle. And that, in every society, is religion. However, it is a more abstract principle compared to significant national and state anniversaries. To organize opposition around religion is, therefore, more difficult. On the other hand, the mobilizing potential of religion does have distortions that are threatened by national and state anniversaries. So far, no one has appreciated that the Candle Demonstration outshone public demonstrations throughout Europe against oppressive regimes based on national and state anniversaries. 5. Velehrad, The Petition of Moravian Catholics. In 1985, a commemoration was held in Moravian Velehrad on the occasion of the 1100th anniversary of the death of Saint Methodius in Great Moravia. The ceremony was attended by about 150,000 - 200,000 believers, most of them from Slovakia. The Vatican State Secretary, Cardinal Cassaroli, attended. It was a significant anniversary, generally recognized by the people and, of course, remembered in Catholic churches throughout the country. For that reason, the communist regime could not ignore it and sent to Velehrad the Minister of Culture of the Czech Republic, Milan Klusak. In his speech, the minister tried to diminish the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius to simply that of a linguistic and cultural mission. For example, �SLOVAKIA 87 he did not call them Saints Cyril and Methodius, but only Cyril and Methodius . The audience booed him, shouting "Saints Cyril and Methodius" and the gathering turned into a demonstration against the regime. In the autumn 1987, a Moravian farmer, Augustin Navratil, addressed to the communist authorities 31 requests of Moravian Catholics pertaining to religious freedom. The requests were written in simple, understandable language. After being supported by Cardinal Frantisek Tomasek of Prague, Navratil began to collect signatures for his petition. By the beginning of 1988, half a million people had signed the petition, two thirds of them from Slovakia. This petition was the largest in the Communist Bloc. The signatures revealed that the underground church was active in all of Slovakia and that it had a clear leadership. Of course, such leadership had to remain underground, and could not, for example, emulate Charter 77. However, the number of signatures and their method of collection sent a signal to the regime that there was an invisible enemy which could, under certain circumstances, rise up and become uncontrollable. Velehrad, as well as the petition of the Moravian Catholics, are also only marginally mentioned in the analysis of anti-Communist resistance in the whole of Czechoslovakia. 6. Cooperation of Dissenters. During "normalization," dissent against the regime developed simultaneously in Slovakia and in the Czech Republic . In Slovakia, it was specifically Christian dissent and so-called "civil" dissent. Each of them was based on its own conditions and initially operated only internally. From the end of the 1970s, the StB in Slovakia had concluded that there was a risk of a major strengthening of dissenters if the Christian dissidents were to join with civil dissidents in Slovakia and the Slovak and Czech di ssidents within Czechoslovakia. Within its capabilities, the StB tried to maintain the isolation of individual dissident movements. There was some interaction between them, but it was too weak to unite them. In the mid 1980' s, contacts and mutual assistance intensified so much that it finally allowed the coordination of such dissident movements. In Slovakia, the newly-born Green Movement, as well as independent artists, began to partake in civil and Christian dissent. Christian activists began to meet on �88 SLOVAKIA a regular basis with purged Party members. The now-deceased Milan Simecka, a Moravian living in Bratislava, connected the Slovak and Czech dissents and encouraged many activists from Slovakia to travel to meetings in Prague. It must be said that the connection between the Czech and Slovak Catholic dissents had existed for a long time, following the message of the Croatian Jesuit priest Tomislav Poglajen - Kolakovic in the l 940 's . Very little has been written about Kolakovic. His followers spent many years in Slovak and Czech prisons. After having been released, they used to meet regularly and maintained the Slovak-Czech dialogue, which has lasted until the present day. The cooperation of dissidents in the 1980's helped to prepare the way for the November, 1989 revolution in Slovakia. 7. The Assistance of Czech Dissents. The appearance of Charter 77 was a milestone in the anti-Communist movement in Czechoslovakia. The Charter showed that public opposition against a regime is possible, but at the price of great sacrifice. Samizdat journals began to appear as a result. Petitions were organized for the freeing of political prisoners, and so on. The samizdat periodical press in Slovakia followed the lead of samizdat periodical press in the Czech Republic. Czech forms of resistance against Communism, which were transferable to Slovakia, became a source of inspiration. The State Security in Slovakia tried to label any opposition as a continuation of the Slovak People 's Party, clerical fascism and so on. For foreign defenders of dissdents, it was difficult to tell when communist propaganda was truthful and when it was lying. That was also the case with Ivan Polansky, who was arrested in 1987 and accused of supporting and spreading fascism. Ivan Polansky had prepared a samizdat volume on the Reverend Andrej Hlinka, founder of the Slovak People's Party, and a police search of Polansky's house also revealed materials concerning Jozef Tiso, president of the wartime Slovak Republic. In the end, Charter 77 stood up for Ivan Polansky and the publishers of the Czech samizdat press signed a declaration in which they dared the police to arrest them for carrying out the same activities as Polansky. Whether Ivan Polansky was a clerical fascist or not, it was enough for Wes tern publicists to believe that he was not, and they gave him full publicity �SLOVAKIA 89 and diplomatic support. This was similar to events in February of 1988, when the communist daily Pravda in Bratislava and its counterpart Rude Pravo in Prague published a series of articles denouncing Pavo) Camogursky, the author's father. The articles focused on the activities of Pavo! Carnogursky during the first Slovak Republic. Vaclav Havel, the most prominent of the Czech dissidents, persuaded his followers to sign a declaration in support of Pavo! Camogursky. Havel also used his contacts to transmit messages about Pavo! Carnogursky through various channels in the Prague diplomatic corps. In Slovakia, none of that was possible. The assistance of the Czech dissents significantly improved the chances of the defense of Slovak dissidents in case they were arrested. 8. The Speed of the Fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia. The comparison of the speed of the fall of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and, perhaps in other countries, has also become mythical. Based on such comparisons, Czechoslovakia comes out the best since the regime fell in about two weeks. Perhaps it would be useful to have a closer look at the reality. The regime fell quickly in Czechoslovakia for two reasons, one external and one internal. The external reason was that by the 17th of November, 1989 the Berlin wall had already fallen in Eastern Germany, the non-communist government of Tadeusz Mazowiecki was already established in Poland, Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika was already working in the Soviet Union and Hungary was allowing East Germans to escape into Austria. Thus, Czechoslovakia was already de facto surrounded by non-Communist Poland and countries with qualitatively different styles of Communism (the Democratic Republic of Germany, the Soviet Union and Hungary). In geopolitical terms, there was nothing the Czechoslovak communist regime could do than to give up. Furthermore, the communist regime in Czechoslovakia could not rely on internal support, because it had none. Communists were also not willing to fight for their regime. Resistance would mean ineviable defeat for the Communists, followed by their imprisonment and punishment. None of them was willing to take such a risk. The internal reason was the unity of the opposition. This unity consisted in the fact that the opposition in Slovakia and in the Czech Republic wan- �90 SLOVAKIA ted only free elections, a parliamentary democracy, a market economy and European integration. The Slovak opposition did not demand a change in Slovakia's national status. The only small difference lay in its support of Alexander Dubcek' s candidacy for the post of the President of the Republic. The Slovak opposition however, represented by VPN (Public Against Violence), supported Vaclav Havel 's candidacy. Opposition in Czechoslovakia in November and December 1989 was almost exclusively based on demonstrations in cities that were attended by thousands of people. Had any media reports on major differences in the attitude of Czech and Slovak oppositions penetrated the public, it could have significantly reduced the willingness of people to demonstrate in city squares. It was also important that Vaclav Havel was adopted as a generally-recognized symbol of the Velvet Revolution. If any other groups had made other demands, for example purged Slovak Party members pushing Dubcek' s candidacy for the post of the President, they would have failed. Their position was weak because, in previous years, they had not joined in the resistance against the communist regime. Later proponents of the independence of Slovakia had no record of showing resistance against Communism in the form of samizdat or other ways. Therefore, they were ignored in the first few months following the revolution. Prematurely raising requirements for a change in the national status of Czechoslovakia could have significantly weakened the pressure on the communist regime and, in fact, would have given it new legitimacy. The main challenge in November and December of 1989 was to overthrow Communism. Harmonization and balancing of the national form of resistance against Communism in the Czech Republic and Slovakia also contributed to the rapidity of the fall of Communism. After the creation of Charter 77, the Czech opposition against Communism took the lead in the Republic. Based on future analyses, historians will perhaps come to the conclusion that a certain balance was established sometime around 1987 between the Slovak and Czech opposition. In Slovakia, the Greens came out with the publication Bratislava nahlas (Bratislava Aloud), which preceded the results of the Green Movement in the Czech Republic. This was followed by the petition of Moravian Catholics and the Candle Demonstration. American historian Padraic Kenney wrote that in the mid 1980's an exhaustion and weariness of the original anti-Communist movements occurred in �SLOVAKIA 91 several former communist countries and the initiative was then taken by new, emerging, movements . This finding could perhaps also apply to Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia has a complicated history because it consisted of two founding nations which were linguistically close, but differed culturally . The course of the resistance against Communism, and eventually the breakdown of the Republic, have created new, and seemingly better, relations between the Slovaks and the Czechs. However, these remain to be tested during future crises. ��REVIEW ESSAY �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 2010, Vol. 40 Description An account of the resource Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010. 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 2010 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 MYTHS REGARDING THE ANTI-COMMUNIST RESISTANCE IN SLOV AKIA 1 Jan Carnogursky The preparation and course of the Velvet Revolution in Slovakia has gradually become known. The response to the fall of Communism across Europe has shown that the participation and contribution to the overthrow of Communism and the establishment of democracy is part of the legitimacy of Europe today, and a starting point for confident behaviour. The overthrow of Communism was a prerequisite for the unification of Europe in general and the unification of Germany in particular. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, it was shown that Eastern Europe did not have any objections to the unification of Germany, unlike Great Britain and France. But that is not the point any more. The media 's revelation of the anti-Communist resistance in Slovakia created many myths which still distort our knowledge about the anti-Communist resistance in Slovakia. I will try to correct at least some of them. I have to note that some of the myths are positive, some negative. 1. Few Chartists in Slovakia. Almost every report on the anti-Communist resistance in Slovakia, specifically on the Velvet Revolution, begins with the statement that there were only a few Chartists (Members of Charter 77) in Slovakia. Indeed, there were not even ten of them . The myth is that there should have been many more. The reason is simple: Charter 77 reflected the Czech, and especially Prague ' s, terms of resistance against Communism. It did not represent the Slovak. Charter 77 included legalistically-conceived demands to respect human rights, which referred to Czechoslovak Decree No. 120/1 976 on the "Covenant on Human Rights." Its provisions were based on the conclusions 1 Speech delivered to th e Eco nomi c C lub of Bra ti slava on October 29, 2009. 82 SLOVAKIA of the Helsinki Conference of 197 5. Charter 77 could count on media and diplomatic support from the West throughout its existence. Charter 77 had existed for less than three months when the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hans van der Broek, during his visit to Prague, received the spokesman of the Charter, Professor Jan Patocka. Subsequently, Jan Patocka suffered from a heart attack and died during an interrogation by State Security (StB) - the secret police, but that's another story. Whenever the police arrested or detained a signatory of the Charter, the Western media reported it within a few hours . Slovakia could not count on similar media support. There were no Western correspondents in Bratislava. They were accredited only in Prague. Similarly, Bratislava had no Western diplomatic offices . The US Consulate General was closed most of the time, and only once a month or two American diplomats from Prague commuted for the day to their building in Bratislava. Let me illustrate. The Candle Demonstration on Hviezdoslav Square in March of 1988, with 5,000 participants, was a much greater manifestation against the communist regime than Charter 77. However, in the following days, the western press reported only a few lines about it. It could not be compared with the constant news about Charter 77. The internal structure of Charter 77 reflected the social situation in the Czech Republic. Among three spokesmen of the Charter, one was a purged Communist, one a practicing Christian, and one was a secular intellectual. Until November of 1989, purged Communists in Slovakia were unable to form their own resistance group against Communism. Alexander Dubcek was isolated. The creative intelligentsia also failed to form any significant alignment against the regime. The centre of resistance against Communism in Slovakia was in the Christian church, with all of its particularities. Until 1989, Charter 77 was signed by about 1,300 to 2,000 people, 200 to 300 of whom were active. The underground Catholic church in Slovakia involved much larger numbers of people. The Candle Demonstration was attended by thousands, while Charter 77 was never able to organize such a massive public demonstration . Charter 77 played an important role in the opposition against Communism, as it influenced the trends and forms of resistance. It was also able to give legitimacy to other forms of resistance and, in SLOVAKIA 83 such a case, foreign observers did not have any doubts despite communist propaganda (e.g. Ivan Polansky's case in Slovakia). Resistance against a continental dictatorial regime, such as Communism, always had to be based on the deepest national traditions of any society. Using theoretical and political criteria for evaluating resistance against Communism is ridiculous. Such resistance could be easily suppressed by the StB . Slovak resistance against Communism was, therefore, based on Slovak national traditions and historical experience. Czech resistance, on the other hand, was based on Czech national traditions and historical experience. Czech forms of resistance against Communism could not, therefore, be mechanically transferred to Slovakia and used to compare the intensity of Slovak resistance. If we were to proceed in the same way, for example, when comparing and assessing Polish and Czech resistance against Communism, Czech resistance would come out as negligibly weak. 2. Milder "Normalization" in Slovakia. Another myth claims that "normalization" in Slovakia was milder than in the Czech Republic. It is based on the same unscientific observation as the previous claim that there were only few Chartists in Slovakia. Yes, many Party members were purged from cultural institutions and were forced to work in various research institutions where they were stuck, and could only do office work, and were expected to keep quiet. That is how, after having been purged from the Party, the Ideological Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia, Miroslav Kusy, could work in some sort of research institute and the historian Jozef Jablonicky in a local historical institute. And the list could be continued. When they did not obey, the regime went further and sent them to do manual work, as happened to Miroslav Kusy. This, however, only concerned a numerically insignificant group of excluded Party members, formerly of high rank which, by the way, they received through their membership in the Party, and who had no social support in Slovakia. The regime knew that it did not have to fear them and, therefore, pushed them further. This was the major difference with the Czech Republic, where purged Party members represented a greater threat, and the regime had more to fear. It must not be forgotten that in the Czech Republic 84 SLOVAKIA there was a group of more conservative Communists grouped around Antonin Kapek, Alois Indra and later Miroslav Stepan and others, who knew their former colleagues well and let them feel it. This becomes obvious after reading just a few issues of the daily Tribuna, which started publication after the Warsaw pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in the autumn of 1968 by the Bureau for the Management of Party Activity in the Czech Republic. In Slovakia, the regime mostly feared the Christian underground network, and particularly the underground church. It showed it no mercy. Jan Chryzostom Cardinal Korec, who was an underground bishop, was forced to work as an elevator repairman until his retirement. The present Archbishop of Kosice, Alojz Tkac, operated a streetcar. Bishop Rudolf Balaz of Banska Bystrica was a teamster. Trials for obstructing StB surveillance of churches occurred in Slovakia throughout the 1970s and 1980s, with unconditional sentences meted out. Furthermore, doctors and teachers were fired because of their church attendance. The myth of milder "normalization" in Slovakia does not take any of this into account. 3. The Candle Demonstration. The Candle Demonstration on March 25 , 1988, was the first mass public protest since 1969 against the regime in the former Czechoslovakia. It was organized on the initiative of Marian St'astny, then the President of the Slovak World Congress. His intention was to organize demonstrations on the 25th of March 1988 in front of Czechoslovak embassies in several Western countries as an appeal to respect the civil rights of his people. In the end, the only demonstration that took place was in Bratislava. However, it was based on completely different principles compared to those applicable in the Czech Republic or in Western Europe. The demonstrators demanded three things: allowing the Pope to appoint Catholic bishops in Slovakia, full religious freedom, and respect for human rights . This combination is unimaginable in the Czech Republic or in any Western country. But just such a combination was demanded by simple believers on the one hand, and by the urban intelligentsia on the other. This becomes clear after one reads Martin Simecka's report on the participants in the Candle Demonstration for the samizdat press shortly thereafter. The demonstration did not require any SLOVAKIA 85 leading speaker, as he would have been immediately arrested by the police. The demonstration itself did not give any excuse to the police to intervene and when, despite that, the police sprayed the demonstrators with water cannons and arrested them, the illegality of the reaction was even more evident. In his book A Carnival of Revolution (also published in Czech), the American historian Padraic Kenney charted a time-table of events in Eastern Europe from 1975 until 1989. The table shows that the Candle Demonstration in Bratislava and a demonstration in Budapest on the 15th of March 1988 were the first mass demonstrations in the former Eastern Bloc. I will return later to the Budapest demonstration. Of course, the Candle Demonstration evoked responses in the Czech and Slovak samizdat press, setting a standard for other manifestations against the regime. As to the number of participants, the Candle Demonstration was not outnumbered until demonstrations in Prague took place in October of 1988 in honour of the anniversary of the Republic . The Candle Demonstration, however, has been mentioned only marginally in scholarly works, especially in the Czech Republic, and in the evaluation of the antiCommunist resistance in Czechoslovakia as a whole. 4. State Symbols and Anniversaries. Anniversaries commemorating national and state history have the greatest mobilizing potential in any society. Perhaps some of them are emblazoned with legends, but they are able to attract people to commemorate, and, on the other hand to demonstrate against a ruling regime if they think that it flouts tradition. They are associated with patriotism in the best sense of the word. The opposition in the surrounding countries, as well as in the Czech Republic, used such anniversaries to organize demonstrations against the ruling communist regimes. In Budapest, there was a demonstration on the 15th of March, which hearkened back to the Revolution of 1848. In Prague, October 28 was the anniversary of the creation of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, and in Poland there are many such anniversaries. The taking of one ' s life for the common good also has a great potential to mobilize people. The self-immolation of Jan Palach in Prague in January of 1969 is a good example. In November of 1989, a false rumor circulated in Prague about the death of a student during 86 SLOVAKIA a demonstration on the 17th of November, commemorating the Nazi suppression of a student demonstration in 1939. It was sufficient to spark demonstrations across the country. Slovakia did not have such an anniversary. Slovakia also does not perceive the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918 as being a historical event with significant mobilization potential. But this is not the place to discuss the causes . State traditions could only apply to the Slovak Republic which existed from 1939 to 1945, and which was allied with Nazi Germany. Those traditions could not be used. The Slovak National Uprising of 1944 did not leave any clear message - again this is not the place to discuss the reasons - and its message was in any case attributed to the communist regime. The death of General M. R. Stefanik had a certain mobilizing potential in itself, which was used by the Slovak opposition at Brad lo in May of 1989. Mobilizing impulses which had the greatest potential in the surrounding countries and nations could not be applied in Slovakia. Slovak resistance against Communism, therefore, had to be based on some other mobilizing principle. And that, in every society, is religion. However, it is a more abstract principle compared to significant national and state anniversaries. To organize opposition around religion is, therefore, more difficult. On the other hand, the mobilizing potential of religion does have distortions that are threatened by national and state anniversaries. So far, no one has appreciated that the Candle Demonstration outshone public demonstrations throughout Europe against oppressive regimes based on national and state anniversaries. 5. Velehrad, The Petition of Moravian Catholics. In 1985, a commemoration was held in Moravian Velehrad on the occasion of the 1100th anniversary of the death of Saint Methodius in Great Moravia. The ceremony was attended by about 150,000 - 200,000 believers, most of them from Slovakia. The Vatican State Secretary, Cardinal Cassaroli, attended. It was a significant anniversary, generally recognized by the people and, of course, remembered in Catholic churches throughout the country. For that reason, the communist regime could not ignore it and sent to Velehrad the Minister of Culture of the Czech Republic, Milan Klusak. In his speech, the minister tried to diminish the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius to simply that of a linguistic and cultural mission. For example, SLOVAKIA 87 he did not call them Saints Cyril and Methodius, but only Cyril and Methodius . The audience booed him, shouting "Saints Cyril and Methodius" and the gathering turned into a demonstration against the regime. In the autumn 1987, a Moravian farmer, Augustin Navratil, addressed to the communist authorities 31 requests of Moravian Catholics pertaining to religious freedom. The requests were written in simple, understandable language. After being supported by Cardinal Frantisek Tomasek of Prague, Navratil began to collect signatures for his petition. By the beginning of 1988, half a million people had signed the petition, two thirds of them from Slovakia. This petition was the largest in the Communist Bloc. The signatures revealed that the underground church was active in all of Slovakia and that it had a clear leadership. Of course, such leadership had to remain underground, and could not, for example, emulate Charter 77. However, the number of signatures and their method of collection sent a signal to the regime that there was an invisible enemy which could, under certain circumstances, rise up and become uncontrollable. Velehrad, as well as the petition of the Moravian Catholics, are also only marginally mentioned in the analysis of anti-Communist resistance in the whole of Czechoslovakia. 6. Cooperation of Dissenters. During "normalization," dissent against the regime developed simultaneously in Slovakia and in the Czech Republic . In Slovakia, it was specifically Christian dissent and so-called "civil" dissent. Each of them was based on its own conditions and initially operated only internally. From the end of the 1970s, the StB in Slovakia had concluded that there was a risk of a major strengthening of dissenters if the Christian dissidents were to join with civil dissidents in Slovakia and the Slovak and Czech di ssidents within Czechoslovakia. Within its capabilities, the StB tried to maintain the isolation of individual dissident movements. There was some interaction between them, but it was too weak to unite them. In the mid 1980' s, contacts and mutual assistance intensified so much that it finally allowed the coordination of such dissident movements. In Slovakia, the newly-born Green Movement, as well as independent artists, began to partake in civil and Christian dissent. Christian activists began to meet on 88 SLOVAKIA a regular basis with purged Party members. The now-deceased Milan Simecka, a Moravian living in Bratislava, connected the Slovak and Czech dissents and encouraged many activists from Slovakia to travel to meetings in Prague. It must be said that the connection between the Czech and Slovak Catholic dissents had existed for a long time, following the message of the Croatian Jesuit priest Tomislav Poglajen - Kolakovic in the l 940 's . Very little has been written about Kolakovic. His followers spent many years in Slovak and Czech prisons. After having been released, they used to meet regularly and maintained the Slovak-Czech dialogue, which has lasted until the present day. The cooperation of dissidents in the 1980's helped to prepare the way for the November, 1989 revolution in Slovakia. 7. The Assistance of Czech Dissents. The appearance of Charter 77 was a milestone in the anti-Communist movement in Czechoslovakia. The Charter showed that public opposition against a regime is possible, but at the price of great sacrifice. Samizdat journals began to appear as a result. Petitions were organized for the freeing of political prisoners, and so on. The samizdat periodical press in Slovakia followed the lead of samizdat periodical press in the Czech Republic. Czech forms of resistance against Communism, which were transferable to Slovakia, became a source of inspiration. The State Security in Slovakia tried to label any opposition as a continuation of the Slovak People 's Party, clerical fascism and so on. For foreign defenders of dissdents, it was difficult to tell when communist propaganda was truthful and when it was lying. That was also the case with Ivan Polansky, who was arrested in 1987 and accused of supporting and spreading fascism. Ivan Polansky had prepared a samizdat volume on the Reverend Andrej Hlinka, founder of the Slovak People's Party, and a police search of Polansky's house also revealed materials concerning Jozef Tiso, president of the wartime Slovak Republic. In the end, Charter 77 stood up for Ivan Polansky and the publishers of the Czech samizdat press signed a declaration in which they dared the police to arrest them for carrying out the same activities as Polansky. Whether Ivan Polansky was a clerical fascist or not, it was enough for Wes tern publicists to believe that he was not, and they gave him full publicity SLOVAKIA 89 and diplomatic support. This was similar to events in February of 1988, when the communist daily Pravda in Bratislava and its counterpart Rude Pravo in Prague published a series of articles denouncing Pavo) Camogursky, the author's father. The articles focused on the activities of Pavo! Carnogursky during the first Slovak Republic. Vaclav Havel, the most prominent of the Czech dissidents, persuaded his followers to sign a declaration in support of Pavo! Camogursky. Havel also used his contacts to transmit messages about Pavo! Carnogursky through various channels in the Prague diplomatic corps. In Slovakia, none of that was possible. The assistance of the Czech dissents significantly improved the chances of the defense of Slovak dissidents in case they were arrested. 8. The Speed of the Fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia. The comparison of the speed of the fall of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and, perhaps in other countries, has also become mythical. Based on such comparisons, Czechoslovakia comes out the best since the regime fell in about two weeks. Perhaps it would be useful to have a closer look at the reality. The regime fell quickly in Czechoslovakia for two reasons, one external and one internal. The external reason was that by the 17th of November, 1989 the Berlin wall had already fallen in Eastern Germany, the non-communist government of Tadeusz Mazowiecki was already established in Poland, Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika was already working in the Soviet Union and Hungary was allowing East Germans to escape into Austria. Thus, Czechoslovakia was already de facto surrounded by non-Communist Poland and countries with qualitatively different styles of Communism (the Democratic Republic of Germany, the Soviet Union and Hungary). In geopolitical terms, there was nothing the Czechoslovak communist regime could do than to give up. Furthermore, the communist regime in Czechoslovakia could not rely on internal support, because it had none. Communists were also not willing to fight for their regime. Resistance would mean ineviable defeat for the Communists, followed by their imprisonment and punishment. None of them was willing to take such a risk. The internal reason was the unity of the opposition. This unity consisted in the fact that the opposition in Slovakia and in the Czech Republic wan- 90 SLOVAKIA ted only free elections, a parliamentary democracy, a market economy and European integration. The Slovak opposition did not demand a change in Slovakia's national status. The only small difference lay in its support of Alexander Dubcek' s candidacy for the post of the President of the Republic. The Slovak opposition however, represented by VPN (Public Against Violence), supported Vaclav Havel 's candidacy. Opposition in Czechoslovakia in November and December 1989 was almost exclusively based on demonstrations in cities that were attended by thousands of people. Had any media reports on major differences in the attitude of Czech and Slovak oppositions penetrated the public, it could have significantly reduced the willingness of people to demonstrate in city squares. It was also important that Vaclav Havel was adopted as a generally-recognized symbol of the Velvet Revolution. If any other groups had made other demands, for example purged Slovak Party members pushing Dubcek' s candidacy for the post of the President, they would have failed. Their position was weak because, in previous years, they had not joined in the resistance against the communist regime. Later proponents of the independence of Slovakia had no record of showing resistance against Communism in the form of samizdat or other ways. Therefore, they were ignored in the first few months following the revolution. Prematurely raising requirements for a change in the national status of Czechoslovakia could have significantly weakened the pressure on the communist regime and, in fact, would have given it new legitimacy. The main challenge in November and December of 1989 was to overthrow Communism. Harmonization and balancing of the national form of resistance against Communism in the Czech Republic and Slovakia also contributed to the rapidity of the fall of Communism. After the creation of Charter 77, the Czech opposition against Communism took the lead in the Republic. Based on future analyses, historians will perhaps come to the conclusion that a certain balance was established sometime around 1987 between the Slovak and Czech opposition. In Slovakia, the Greens came out with the publication Bratislava nahlas (Bratislava Aloud), which preceded the results of the Green Movement in the Czech Republic. This was followed by the petition of Moravian Catholics and the Candle Demonstration. American historian Padraic Kenney wrote that in the mid 1980's an exhaustion and weariness of the original anti-Communist movements occurred in SLOVAKIA 91 several former communist countries and the initiative was then taken by new, emerging, movements . This finding could perhaps also apply to Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia has a complicated history because it consisted of two founding nations which were linguistically close, but differed culturally . The course of the resistance against Communism, and eventually the breakdown of the Republic, have created new, and seemingly better, relations between the Slovaks and the Czechs. However, these remain to be tested during future crises. REVIEW ESSAY  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Myths Regarding the Anti-Communist Resistance in Slovakia Description An account of the resource Ján Čarnogurský Slovakia, Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010 pp. 81-91 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Čarnogurský, Ján, 1944- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/05fe4f2f83dc4f2aa778c108aefd8aec.pdf c0a4fb8581aad0734d386ff72b9d397f PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 95 SLOVAK-POLISH RELATIONS Joanna Glowinska, ed., Stosunki polsko-slowackie w I polowie XX wieku. Wroclaw: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej Wroclaw, 2006. 118 pp., list of abbreviations, name index. Petr Blazek, Pawel Jaworski, and Lukasz Kaminski , eds., Mirdzy przymusowq przyjainiq a prawdziwq solidarnosciq. Czesi - Polacy Slowacy, 1938-39 - 1945 - 1989, Cz~sc I. Warszawa: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej , 2007 . 152 pp., name index. Grzegorz Motyka, ed., Sluiby bezpieczenstwa Polski i Czechoslowacji wobec Ukrainc6w (1945-1989) . Z warsztat6w badawczych. Warszawa: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej , 2005 . 381 pp., list of abbreviations, name index. MARCEL JESENSKY University of Ottawa lnstytut Pamirci Narodowej (the Institute of National Remembrance) in Warsaw was established by the Polish Parliament in 1998 to preserve the memory of the 1939-1989 period. It is also engages in public education, research and dissemination of its findings. The three publications under review cover various aspects of Slovak Czech - Polish bilateral and trilateral relations in the 20th century. Polish-Slovak Relations in the First Half of the 20th Century, edited by Joanna Glowinska presents materials from a 2006 PolishSlovak conference held in Opole, Poland. Despite the fact that Polish-Slovak relations in the first half of the 20th century remained in the shadow of Polish-Czech relations, publications like this could signal the beginnings of a "catch-up" process. The book offers the contributions of four Slovak and three Polish historians on a wide range of topics. For the Polish contributors, Dariusz Dllbrowski examined Eastern Slovakia as a subject of PolishHungarian activities before WW II, Mateusz Gniazdowski reviewed relations between Slovak autonomists and the so-called Sanacja government of Jozef Pilsudski , and Ewa Orlof discussed relations between the Polish and Slovak governments from 15 March to 1 Sep- �96 SLOVAKIA tember 1939. For the Slovak contributors, Ivan A. Petransky evaluated the history of the Slovak Republic in 1939 - 1945, Dusan Seges discussed relations between the Polish exile government and Slovak politicians during WW II, Martin Lacko scrutinized the activities of Slovak soldiers in Poland in 1939 and 1941 and Juraj Marusiak reconsidered the Slovak National Uprising in 1944 and its consequences and the role of the Poles in the Uprising. Lukasz Kaminski concluded the conference with a comparison of Polish and Slovak positions at the end of WW II. Two additional pieces were particularly interesting. One was a review of the Polish "awakening movement" among the highlanders of the Slovak-Polish borderland (Gorals) by Mateusz Gniazdowski. The Gorals fascinated Polish "awakeners" and they considered them to be Poles because of the closeness of their dialect to the Polish language (asserting as obvious the link between language and nationality). But the majority of the Gorals in Slovakia lacked any Polish national consciousness and claimed Slovak nationality. Some Polish "awakeners" maintained the naive view that the Polish-Slovak rapprochement would persuade the Slovaks to accept Polish ethno-linguistic argumentation with the consequent border readjustment in the Slovak-Polish borderland. Thus one of the interesting paradoxes of Polish-Slovak relations in the interwar period was the fact that the persons who supported and shaped the Polish policy of rapprochement with the Slovaks advocated, at the same time, irredentism in the common borderland. Secondly, Dusan Seges's penetrating analysis of multifaceted and evolving contacts between the Polish and Slovak political authorities during WW II made a strong argument for the need to consider Slovak-Polish relations as a distinct problem, not as one element of Polish-Czechoslovak relations during wartime. It is hardly surprising that, on some historical questions, the Slovak and Polish perspectives could not be reconciled. This was demonstrated in Kaminski's concluding remarks that "Slovakia saw the war end with the losses of territories that had never been an integral part of the country, neither in a historical nor in a cultural sense." The issue of the Polish-Slovak borderland and its population remains particularly challenging, but the era of a single "correct" historical perspective has ended. The publication Between the Forced Sympathy and the Real Soli- �SLOVAKIA 97 darity. Czechs - Poles - Slovaks, 1938-39 - 1945 - 1989, Part I, contains 18 contributions of historians from Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Great Britain made within the "Enemies or Allies during WWII" segment of the November 2004 conference in Wroclaw, Poland. The History Institute of Wroclaw University and the Institute of National Remembrance jointly sponsored the conference in collaboration with the Institute For Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Thus, Slawomir M. Nowinowski presented an introductory overview of Polish-Czechoslovak relations at the outset of WW II, Jaroslav Boucek gave a picture of Poland in the work of the Czech historian Jan Slavik (1885-1978) and Anna Cichocka reviewed the portrayal of Czechoslovakia on the pages of the Polish journal Polityka in 193 8-193 9. Furthermore, Piotr Kolakowski focused his attention on the activities of Polish military intelligence against Czechoslovakia at the end of the 1930s, Robert Kowalski described Polish-Slovak relations against a background of German diplomatic activities in 1939, Pavel Micianik inspected the activities of the Slovak army during the campaign against Poland and Jan Nemecek examined the relations between the Polish and Czechoslovak governments in exile. In addition, Jacek Piotrowski observed exiled Polish president Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz and the plans for a Polish-Czechoslovak federation , Dariusz Miszewski talked about general Kazimierz Sosnkowski's views on the strategic importance of Czechoslovakia for Poland' s security in 1938-1943, Pawel Jaworski pondered on the Polish-Czechoslovak contacts in Sweden during WWII and Dusan Seges explored Karol Sidor's contacts with Kazimierz Papee in the Vatican through the memorandum La question slovaque from June of 1943. Subsequently, Roman Baron clarified the mutual perceptions of the Czechs and Poles from the perspective of Polish and Czechoslovak political emigres, Martin D. Brown shed light on the Foreign Office ' s influence on shaping British-PolishCzechoslovak relations, Radoslaw Zurawski elucidated on the Foreign Office' s role in Polish-Czechoslovak relations (November 1940-August 1942) and Vit Smetana expounded on the issue of Czecho-slovak-Polish confederation and the big powers. Finally, Jaroslav Vaculik illustrated the activities of the Czechoslovak army group in Volhynia in 1939-1940, Mecislav Barak gave details about two concepts of resistance in Tes in Silesia (Zaolzie) in 193 8-1945 and Petr Koura talked about the picture of Poland in the Czech un- �98 SLOVAKIA derground press in 1939-1945. The majority of the participants reflected, from various perspectives, upon the issues of competing Slovak, Czech and Polish territorial claims in Tesin Silesia (Zaolzie), Spis and Orava, and on Slovak-Czech-Polish regional cooperation with the emphasis on the role of Slovakia and its presence or absence. The presentations made several interesting observations and I would like to focus on two of them. Slawomir Nowikowski observed that the Zaolzie region played the role of a barometer in Polish-Czechoslovak relations in 19181938. It was a striking revelation that the Poles seemed unaware of the extent of hostility generated in Czechoslovakia by Polish territorial aspirations in Zaolzie, Spis and Orava. Accordingly, the search for a consensus in the Czechoslovak-Polish territorial issues in 19181938 appeared like squaring the circle. The Czechoslovak-Polish territorial disputes became insignificant after 1945 in comparison with the Polish territorial loses incurred in its eastern regions. Mecislav Borak demonstrated divergent attitudes of the Communists towards the territorial ambitions of their governments. While the Polish Communists condemned and distanced themselves verbally from the prewar Polish governments' foreign policies, they never abandoned Polish territorial claims in Tesin. The Polish Communists adopted the view of their bourgeois predecessors, upholding in their activities the right of self-determination of all Poles. This attitude sharply contrasted with that of the Slovak and Czech Communists who supported the abandonment of Slovak territorial claims in the Northern Spis and Orava regions. This publication advances further Slovak-Czech-Polish exchanges of views on their shared past, particularly in less researched and published topics. A divergence of views should not hamper the continuing evaluation and re-evaluation of the shared Slovak-Czech-Polish past. The publication's plentiful collection of new and older archival resources will certainly help researchers and historians dealing with the Slovak, Czech and Polish histories. Therefore, the publication is recommended reading for professional and amateur historians. The IPN 's Monografie series is dedicated to the modem history of Poland (1939-1989). Its publication The Security Services of Poland and Czechoslovakia against the Ukrainians (1945-1989) presents eight works of Polish and Czech authors dealing with the �SLOVAKIA 99 Polish and Czechoslovak special services and their activities against the Ukrainian minority and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Resistance Anny (UPA). Grzegorz Motyka introduced the activities of the security services of Poland and Czechoslovakia against the Ukrainians, Jan Pisulinski spoke about Rzeszow's security office and its activities against the Ukrainians in 1944-1956, Tomasz Balbus described anti-communist actions of the Ukrainians in south-west Poland in 1945-1954 and Mariusz Zaj<l_czkowski glanced at Polish-Czechoslovak security cooperation in the case of Jan Szpontak. Marcin Majewski, meanwhile, spoke about the case of Teodor Oak and the security operation "Paj<l,ki," Igor Halagida discussed the cooperation of the Polish State Security (SB) and the Soviet KGB against the Ukrainian minority in the 1960s, Grzegorz Motyka and Mariusz Zaj<l_czkowski documented attempts at re-writing history in the Peoples' Republic of Poland, Ondrej Koutek commented on the activities of the Czechoslovak security services against the Ukrainians in 1945-1989 and Lubos Vesely expounded on the war with the banderovci in post-war Czechoslovakia. The contribution of Tomasz Balbus attracted my attention. The governments of Poland and Czechoslovakia resolved to keep all aspects of Ukrainian nationalist expression under control and to manipulate it for their own purposes. The Polish government successfully created and maintained the perception, widely shared by the Poles until today, that the OUN-UPA activities targeted primarily the Polish population. In reality the Ukrainian nationalists hoped to liberate the Ukraine from the Soviet Union and to create an independent country. The publication concludes the current stage of research conduced by the Office of Public Education of the IPN on the Polish-Ukrainian relations in 1939-1989. Historians of Central and East Europe will find plentiful archival resources in The Security Services of Poland and Czechoslovakia Against the Ukrainians (I 945-1989). However, many interesting questions remain on the activities of the Ukrainian resistance in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Taking into account the fact that their resistance activities made substantial contact with Slovakia, Slovak scholars should also be involved in such research. �� SLOVAKIA 95 SLOVAK-POLISH RELATIONS Joanna Glowinska, ed., Stosunki polsko-slowackie w I polowie XX wieku. Wroclaw: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej Wroclaw, 2006. 118 pp., list of abbreviations, name index. Petr Blazek, Pawel Jaworski, and Lukasz Kaminski , eds., Mirdzy przymusowq przyjainiq a prawdziwq solidarnosciq. Czesi - Polacy Slowacy, 1938-39 - 1945 - 1989, Cz~sc I. Warszawa: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej , 2007 . 152 pp., name index. Grzegorz Motyka, ed., Sluiby bezpieczenstwa Polski i Czechoslowacji wobec Ukrainc6w (1945-1989) . Z warsztat6w badawczych. Warszawa: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej , 2005 . 381 pp., list of abbreviations, name index. MARCEL JESENSKY University of Ottawa lnstytut Pamirci Narodowej (the Institute of National Remembrance) in Warsaw was established by the Polish Parliament in 1998 to preserve the memory of the 1939-1989 period. It is also engages in public education, research and dissemination of its findings. The three publications under review cover various aspects of Slovak Czech - Polish bilateral and trilateral relations in the 20th century. Polish-Slovak Relations in the First Half of the 20th Century, edited by Joanna Glowinska presents materials from a 2006 PolishSlovak conference held in Opole, Poland. Despite the fact that Polish-Slovak relations in the first half of the 20th century remained in the shadow of Polish-Czech relations, publications like this could signal the beginnings of a "catch-up" process. The book offers the contributions of four Slovak and three Polish historians on a wide range of topics. For the Polish contributors, Dariusz Dllbrowski examined Eastern Slovakia as a subject of PolishHungarian activities before WW II, Mateusz Gniazdowski reviewed relations between Slovak autonomists and the so-called Sanacja government of Jozef Pilsudski , and Ewa Orlof discussed relations between the Polish and Slovak governments from 15 March to 1 Sep- �96 SLOVAKIA tember 1939. For the Slovak contributors, Ivan A. Petransky evaluated the history of the Slovak Republic in 1939 - 1945, Dusan Seges discussed relations between the Polish exile government and Slovak politicians during WW II, Martin Lacko scrutinized the activities of Slovak soldiers in Poland in 1939 and 1941 and Juraj Marusiak reconsidered the Slovak National Uprising in 1944 and its consequences and the role of the Poles in the Uprising. Lukasz Kaminski concluded the conference with a comparison of Polish and Slovak positions at the end of WW II. Two additional pieces were particularly interesting. One was a review of the Polish "awakening movement" among the highlanders of the Slovak-Polish borderland (Gorals) by Mateusz Gniazdowski. The Gorals fascinated Polish "awakeners" and they considered them to be Poles because of the closeness of their dialect to the Polish language (asserting as obvious the link between language and nationality). But the majority of the Gorals in Slovakia lacked any Polish national consciousness and claimed Slovak nationality. Some Polish "awakeners" maintained the naive view that the Polish-Slovak rapprochement would persuade the Slovaks to accept Polish ethno-linguistic argumentation with the consequent border readjustment in the Slovak-Polish borderland. Thus one of the interesting paradoxes of Polish-Slovak relations in the interwar period was the fact that the persons who supported and shaped the Polish policy of rapprochement with the Slovaks advocated, at the same time, irredentism in the common borderland. Secondly, Dusan Seges's penetrating analysis of multifaceted and evolving contacts between the Polish and Slovak political authorities during WW II made a strong argument for the need to consider Slovak-Polish relations as a distinct problem, not as one element of Polish-Czechoslovak relations during wartime. It is hardly surprising that, on some historical questions, the Slovak and Polish perspectives could not be reconciled. This was demonstrated in Kaminski's concluding remarks that "Slovakia saw the war end with the losses of territories that had never been an integral part of the country, neither in a historical nor in a cultural sense." The issue of the Polish-Slovak borderland and its population remains particularly challenging, but the era of a single "correct" historical perspective has ended. The publication Between the Forced Sympathy and the Real Soli- �SLOVAKIA 97 darity. Czechs - Poles - Slovaks, 1938-39 - 1945 - 1989, Part I, contains 18 contributions of historians from Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Great Britain made within the "Enemies or Allies during WWII" segment of the November 2004 conference in Wroclaw, Poland. The History Institute of Wroclaw University and the Institute of National Remembrance jointly sponsored the conference in collaboration with the Institute For Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Thus, Slawomir M. Nowinowski presented an introductory overview of Polish-Czechoslovak relations at the outset of WW II, Jaroslav Boucek gave a picture of Poland in the work of the Czech historian Jan Slavik (1885-1978) and Anna Cichocka reviewed the portrayal of Czechoslovakia on the pages of the Polish journal Polityka in 193 8-193 9. Furthermore, Piotr Kolakowski focused his attention on the activities of Polish military intelligence against Czechoslovakia at the end of the 1930s, Robert Kowalski described Polish-Slovak relations against a background of German diplomatic activities in 1939, Pavel Micianik inspected the activities of the Slovak army during the campaign against Poland and Jan Nemecek examined the relations between the Polish and Czechoslovak governments in exile. In addition, Jacek Piotrowski observed exiled Polish president Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz and the plans for a Polish-Czechoslovak federation , Dariusz Miszewski talked about general Kazimierz Sosnkowski's views on the strategic importance of Czechoslovakia for Poland' s security in 1938-1943, Pawel Jaworski pondered on the Polish-Czechoslovak contacts in Sweden during WWII and Dusan Seges explored Karol Sidor's contacts with Kazimierz Papee in the Vatican through the memorandum La question slovaque from June of 1943. Subsequently, Roman Baron clarified the mutual perceptions of the Czechs and Poles from the perspective of Polish and Czechoslovak political emigres, Martin D. Brown shed light on the Foreign Office ' s influence on shaping British-PolishCzechoslovak relations, Radoslaw Zurawski elucidated on the Foreign Office' s role in Polish-Czechoslovak relations (November 1940-August 1942) and Vit Smetana expounded on the issue of Czecho-slovak-Polish confederation and the big powers. Finally, Jaroslav Vaculik illustrated the activities of the Czechoslovak army group in Volhynia in 1939-1940, Mecislav Barak gave details about two concepts of resistance in Tes in Silesia (Zaolzie) in 193 8-1945 and Petr Koura talked about the picture of Poland in the Czech un- �98 SLOVAKIA derground press in 1939-1945. The majority of the participants reflected, from various perspectives, upon the issues of competing Slovak, Czech and Polish territorial claims in Tesin Silesia (Zaolzie), Spis and Orava, and on Slovak-Czech-Polish regional cooperation with the emphasis on the role of Slovakia and its presence or absence. The presentations made several interesting observations and I would like to focus on two of them. Slawomir Nowikowski observed that the Zaolzie region played the role of a barometer in Polish-Czechoslovak relations in 19181938. It was a striking revelation that the Poles seemed unaware of the extent of hostility generated in Czechoslovakia by Polish territorial aspirations in Zaolzie, Spis and Orava. Accordingly, the search for a consensus in the Czechoslovak-Polish territorial issues in 19181938 appeared like squaring the circle. The Czechoslovak-Polish territorial disputes became insignificant after 1945 in comparison with the Polish territorial loses incurred in its eastern regions. Mecislav Borak demonstrated divergent attitudes of the Communists towards the territorial ambitions of their governments. While the Polish Communists condemned and distanced themselves verbally from the prewar Polish governments' foreign policies, they never abandoned Polish territorial claims in Tesin. The Polish Communists adopted the view of their bourgeois predecessors, upholding in their activities the right of self-determination of all Poles. This attitude sharply contrasted with that of the Slovak and Czech Communists who supported the abandonment of Slovak territorial claims in the Northern Spis and Orava regions. This publication advances further Slovak-Czech-Polish exchanges of views on their shared past, particularly in less researched and published topics. A divergence of views should not hamper the continuing evaluation and re-evaluation of the shared Slovak-Czech-Polish past. The publication's plentiful collection of new and older archival resources will certainly help researchers and historians dealing with the Slovak, Czech and Polish histories. Therefore, the publication is recommended reading for professional and amateur historians. The IPN 's Monografie series is dedicated to the modem history of Poland (1939-1989). Its publication The Security Services of Poland and Czechoslovakia against the Ukrainians (1945-1989) presents eight works of Polish and Czech authors dealing with the �SLOVAKIA 99 Polish and Czechoslovak special services and their activities against the Ukrainian minority and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Resistance Anny (UPA). Grzegorz Motyka introduced the activities of the security services of Poland and Czechoslovakia against the Ukrainians, Jan Pisulinski spoke about Rzeszow's security office and its activities against the Ukrainians in 1944-1956, Tomasz Balbus described anti-communist actions of the Ukrainians in south-west Poland in 1945-1954 and Mariusz Zaj<l_czkowski glanced at Polish-Czechoslovak security cooperation in the case of Jan Szpontak. Marcin Majewski, meanwhile, spoke about the case of Teodor Oak and the security operation "Paj<l,ki," Igor Halagida discussed the cooperation of the Polish State Security (SB) and the Soviet KGB against the Ukrainian minority in the 1960s, Grzegorz Motyka and Mariusz Zaj<l_czkowski documented attempts at re-writing history in the Peoples' Republic of Poland, Ondrej Koutek commented on the activities of the Czechoslovak security services against the Ukrainians in 1945-1989 and Lubos Vesely expounded on the war with the banderovci in post-war Czechoslovakia. The contribution of Tomasz Balbus attracted my attention. The governments of Poland and Czechoslovakia resolved to keep all aspects of Ukrainian nationalist expression under control and to manipulate it for their own purposes. The Polish government successfully created and maintained the perception, widely shared by the Poles until today, that the OUN-UPA activities targeted primarily the Polish population. In reality the Ukrainian nationalists hoped to liberate the Ukraine from the Soviet Union and to create an independent country. The publication concludes the current stage of research conduced by the Office of Public Education of the IPN on the Polish-Ukrainian relations in 1939-1989. Historians of Central and East Europe will find plentiful archival resources in The Security Services of Poland and Czechoslovakia Against the Ukrainians (I 945-1989). However, many interesting questions remain on the activities of the Ukrainian resistance in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Taking into account the fact that their resistance activities made substantial contact with Slovakia, Slovak scholars should also be involved in such research. �� 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 2010, Vol. 40 Description An account of the resource Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010. 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 2010 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 95 SLOVAK-POLISH RELATIONS Joanna Glowinska, ed., Stosunki polsko-slowackie w I polowie XX wieku. Wroclaw: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej Wroclaw, 2006. 118 pp., list of abbreviations, name index. Petr Blazek, Pawel Jaworski, and Lukasz Kaminski , eds., Mirdzy przymusowq przyjainiq a prawdziwq solidarnosciq. Czesi - Polacy Slowacy, 1938-39 - 1945 - 1989, Cz~sc I. Warszawa: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej , 2007 . 152 pp., name index. Grzegorz Motyka, ed., Sluiby bezpieczenstwa Polski i Czechoslowacji wobec Ukrainc6w (1945-1989) . Z warsztat6w badawczych. Warszawa: Instytut Pami~ci Narodowej , 2005 . 381 pp., list of abbreviations, name index. MARCEL JESENSKY University of Ottawa lnstytut Pamirci Narodowej (the Institute of National Remembrance) in Warsaw was established by the Polish Parliament in 1998 to preserve the memory of the 1939-1989 period. It is also engages in public education, research and dissemination of its findings. The three publications under review cover various aspects of Slovak Czech - Polish bilateral and trilateral relations in the 20th century. Polish-Slovak Relations in the First Half of the 20th Century, edited by Joanna Glowinska presents materials from a 2006 PolishSlovak conference held in Opole, Poland. Despite the fact that Polish-Slovak relations in the first half of the 20th century remained in the shadow of Polish-Czech relations, publications like this could signal the beginnings of a "catch-up" process. The book offers the contributions of four Slovak and three Polish historians on a wide range of topics. For the Polish contributors, Dariusz Dllbrowski examined Eastern Slovakia as a subject of PolishHungarian activities before WW II, Mateusz Gniazdowski reviewed relations between Slovak autonomists and the so-called Sanacja government of Jozef Pilsudski , and Ewa Orlof discussed relations between the Polish and Slovak governments from 15 March to 1 Sep- 96 SLOVAKIA tember 1939. For the Slovak contributors, Ivan A. Petransky evaluated the history of the Slovak Republic in 1939 - 1945, Dusan Seges discussed relations between the Polish exile government and Slovak politicians during WW II, Martin Lacko scrutinized the activities of Slovak soldiers in Poland in 1939 and 1941 and Juraj Marusiak reconsidered the Slovak National Uprising in 1944 and its consequences and the role of the Poles in the Uprising. Lukasz Kaminski concluded the conference with a comparison of Polish and Slovak positions at the end of WW II. Two additional pieces were particularly interesting. One was a review of the Polish "awakening movement" among the highlanders of the Slovak-Polish borderland (Gorals) by Mateusz Gniazdowski. The Gorals fascinated Polish "awakeners" and they considered them to be Poles because of the closeness of their dialect to the Polish language (asserting as obvious the link between language and nationality). But the majority of the Gorals in Slovakia lacked any Polish national consciousness and claimed Slovak nationality. Some Polish "awakeners" maintained the naive view that the Polish-Slovak rapprochement would persuade the Slovaks to accept Polish ethno-linguistic argumentation with the consequent border readjustment in the Slovak-Polish borderland. Thus one of the interesting paradoxes of Polish-Slovak relations in the interwar period was the fact that the persons who supported and shaped the Polish policy of rapprochement with the Slovaks advocated, at the same time, irredentism in the common borderland. Secondly, Dusan Seges's penetrating analysis of multifaceted and evolving contacts between the Polish and Slovak political authorities during WW II made a strong argument for the need to consider Slovak-Polish relations as a distinct problem, not as one element of Polish-Czechoslovak relations during wartime. It is hardly surprising that, on some historical questions, the Slovak and Polish perspectives could not be reconciled. This was demonstrated in Kaminski's concluding remarks that "Slovakia saw the war end with the losses of territories that had never been an integral part of the country, neither in a historical nor in a cultural sense." The issue of the Polish-Slovak borderland and its population remains particularly challenging, but the era of a single "correct" historical perspective has ended. The publication Between the Forced Sympathy and the Real Soli- SLOVAKIA 97 darity. Czechs - Poles - Slovaks, 1938-39 - 1945 - 1989, Part I, contains 18 contributions of historians from Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Great Britain made within the "Enemies or Allies during WWII" segment of the November 2004 conference in Wroclaw, Poland. The History Institute of Wroclaw University and the Institute of National Remembrance jointly sponsored the conference in collaboration with the Institute For Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Thus, Slawomir M. Nowinowski presented an introductory overview of Polish-Czechoslovak relations at the outset of WW II, Jaroslav Boucek gave a picture of Poland in the work of the Czech historian Jan Slavik (1885-1978) and Anna Cichocka reviewed the portrayal of Czechoslovakia on the pages of the Polish journal Polityka in 193 8-193 9. Furthermore, Piotr Kolakowski focused his attention on the activities of Polish military intelligence against Czechoslovakia at the end of the 1930s, Robert Kowalski described Polish-Slovak relations against a background of German diplomatic activities in 1939, Pavel Micianik inspected the activities of the Slovak army during the campaign against Poland and Jan Nemecek examined the relations between the Polish and Czechoslovak governments in exile. In addition, Jacek Piotrowski observed exiled Polish president Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz and the plans for a Polish-Czechoslovak federation , Dariusz Miszewski talked about general Kazimierz Sosnkowski's views on the strategic importance of Czechoslovakia for Poland' s security in 1938-1943, Pawel Jaworski pondered on the Polish-Czechoslovak contacts in Sweden during WWII and Dusan Seges explored Karol Sidor's contacts with Kazimierz Papee in the Vatican through the memorandum La question slovaque from June of 1943. Subsequently, Roman Baron clarified the mutual perceptions of the Czechs and Poles from the perspective of Polish and Czechoslovak political emigres, Martin D. Brown shed light on the Foreign Office ' s influence on shaping British-PolishCzechoslovak relations, Radoslaw Zurawski elucidated on the Foreign Office' s role in Polish-Czechoslovak relations (November 1940-August 1942) and Vit Smetana expounded on the issue of Czecho-slovak-Polish confederation and the big powers. Finally, Jaroslav Vaculik illustrated the activities of the Czechoslovak army group in Volhynia in 1939-1940, Mecislav Barak gave details about two concepts of resistance in Tes in Silesia (Zaolzie) in 193 8-1945 and Petr Koura talked about the picture of Poland in the Czech un- 98 SLOVAKIA derground press in 1939-1945. The majority of the participants reflected, from various perspectives, upon the issues of competing Slovak, Czech and Polish territorial claims in Tesin Silesia (Zaolzie), Spis and Orava, and on Slovak-Czech-Polish regional cooperation with the emphasis on the role of Slovakia and its presence or absence. The presentations made several interesting observations and I would like to focus on two of them. Slawomir Nowikowski observed that the Zaolzie region played the role of a barometer in Polish-Czechoslovak relations in 19181938. It was a striking revelation that the Poles seemed unaware of the extent of hostility generated in Czechoslovakia by Polish territorial aspirations in Zaolzie, Spis and Orava. Accordingly, the search for a consensus in the Czechoslovak-Polish territorial issues in 19181938 appeared like squaring the circle. The Czechoslovak-Polish territorial disputes became insignificant after 1945 in comparison with the Polish territorial loses incurred in its eastern regions. Mecislav Borak demonstrated divergent attitudes of the Communists towards the territorial ambitions of their governments. While the Polish Communists condemned and distanced themselves verbally from the prewar Polish governments' foreign policies, they never abandoned Polish territorial claims in Tesin. The Polish Communists adopted the view of their bourgeois predecessors, upholding in their activities the right of self-determination of all Poles. This attitude sharply contrasted with that of the Slovak and Czech Communists who supported the abandonment of Slovak territorial claims in the Northern Spis and Orava regions. This publication advances further Slovak-Czech-Polish exchanges of views on their shared past, particularly in less researched and published topics. A divergence of views should not hamper the continuing evaluation and re-evaluation of the shared Slovak-Czech-Polish past. The publication's plentiful collection of new and older archival resources will certainly help researchers and historians dealing with the Slovak, Czech and Polish histories. Therefore, the publication is recommended reading for professional and amateur historians. The IPN 's Monografie series is dedicated to the modem history of Poland (1939-1989). Its publication The Security Services of Poland and Czechoslovakia against the Ukrainians (1945-1989) presents eight works of Polish and Czech authors dealing with the SLOVAKIA 99 Polish and Czechoslovak special services and their activities against the Ukrainian minority and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Resistance Anny (UPA). Grzegorz Motyka introduced the activities of the security services of Poland and Czechoslovakia against the Ukrainians, Jan Pisulinski spoke about Rzeszow's security office and its activities against the Ukrainians in 1944-1956, Tomasz Balbus described anti-communist actions of the Ukrainians in south-west Poland in 1945-1954 and Mariusz Zaj<l_czkowski glanced at Polish-Czechoslovak security cooperation in the case of Jan Szpontak. Marcin Majewski, meanwhile, spoke about the case of Teodor Oak and the security operation "Paj<l,ki," Igor Halagida discussed the cooperation of the Polish State Security (SB) and the Soviet KGB against the Ukrainian minority in the 1960s, Grzegorz Motyka and Mariusz Zaj<l_czkowski documented attempts at re-writing history in the Peoples' Republic of Poland, Ondrej Koutek commented on the activities of the Czechoslovak security services against the Ukrainians in 1945-1989 and Lubos Vesely expounded on the war with the banderovci in post-war Czechoslovakia. The contribution of Tomasz Balbus attracted my attention. The governments of Poland and Czechoslovakia resolved to keep all aspects of Ukrainian nationalist expression under control and to manipulate it for their own purposes. The Polish government successfully created and maintained the perception, widely shared by the Poles until today, that the OUN-UPA activities targeted primarily the Polish population. In reality the Ukrainian nationalists hoped to liberate the Ukraine from the Soviet Union and to create an independent country. The publication concludes the current stage of research conduced by the Office of Public Education of the IPN on the Polish-Ukrainian relations in 1939-1989. Historians of Central and East Europe will find plentiful archival resources in The Security Services of Poland and Czechoslovakia Against the Ukrainians (I 945-1989). However, many interesting questions remain on the activities of the Ukrainian resistance in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Taking into account the fact that their resistance activities made substantial contact with Slovakia, Slovak scholars should also be involved in such research.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Review Essay: Slovak-Polish Relations Description An account of the resource Marcel Jesenský Slovakia, Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010 pp. 95-99 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jesenský, Marcel Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/e23b30d9c18f6ab55f89c7ca48a7b6e0.pdf ad08d2ad7eb8104d12818bbb29c41235 PDF Text Text 60 SLOVAKIA RISING AGAINST STALINISM: DESTALINIZATION AND THE REINTERPRETATION OF THE SLOVAK NATIONAL UPRISING IN SLOVAK HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE 1960s Scott Brown In the morning hours of 29 August 1944, several thousand Slovak and foreign partisans took up arms against the German soldiers who entered Slovakia the previous day to crush the country's growing anti-German resistance. This armed insurrection marked the start of the Slovak National Uprising (Slovenske narodne povstanie, or SNP), a rebellion centered on the city of Banska Bystrica and directed against the German invaders and the pro-German leaders of the wartime Slovak state. Over the ensuing two months, roughly 60,000 Slovak and foreign partisans, including rebel units of the Slovak Army, fought a loosely coordinated campaign against the German incursion. Outnumbered and outgunned, the partisans steadily lost the territory they had initially controlled, and by the end of October 1944 the German units had quelled the Uprising. Yet the military shortcomings of the SNP paled in comparison to its political significance: the Slovak underground had carried out the largest resistance operation on once (and future) Czechoslovak soil during the Second World War. The Uprising bolstered the position of the Czechoslovak government in exile, which could point to the SNP as proof that Czechoslovakia had contributed militarily to its own liberation. Further-more, in the eyes of Czechs, the Uprising also helped to "redeem" Slovaks for their unilateral declaration of independence in 1939, and for the quasi-fascist government that ruled Slovakia during the war. After the war, the SNP became the centerpiece of a new, reconstructed form of Slovak nationalism that played a major role in precipitating the Czechoslovak Spring of the late 1960s. Nonetheless, Slovak nationalism remained a liability for nearly two decades after the war. The mere existence of the wartime Slovak state left Slovak nationalism suspect, since many Czechs continued �SLOVAKIA 61 to equate it with Slovak separatism and the humiliating loss of Czech independence in 1939. In addition, the persecution of Slovak "bourgeois nationalists" - many of whom had played prominent roles in the Uprising - in the political trials of the 1950s further compromised the legitimacy of Slovak nationalism in a Czechoslovak context. These problematic legacies left Slovak nationalism without a usable past until the rehabilitation of the erstwhile Slovak "bourgeois nationalists" in 1963 afforded the Slovaks a political opening to reevaluate the SNP. In tum, this reinterpretation of the Uprising's historical significance provided the foundation for a new, positive brand of nationalism Slovaks could safely assert. If nothing else, the SNP had given the lie to the notion that Slovak nationalism was incompatible with a Czechoslovak state. Gradually, many Slovak historians, intellectuals and politicians advanced a narrative of the SNP that interpreted the Uprising as the great redemptive act of the Slovak nation. In this view, Slovaks rose up as a nation against the wartime pro-Nazi regime of Jozef Tiso, sacrificing "their own" state in order to resurrect Czechoslovakia and make the new republic their own state. For champions of the Slovak national cause in the 1960s, finding their place in the restored Czechoslovakia entailed recognition of the existence of a separate Slovak nation and the enshrinement of its equality with the other titular nation through the federalization of the state. By reconstructing the history of the Uprising in this way, Slovak nationalists could then lay claim to specific rights as a nation. Like their calls for a Czechoslovak federation later in the decade, Slovak nationalists' demands for legal recognition of Slovak nationhood in the mid- to late 1960s referred directly or indirectly to the Slovak National Uprising for justification. As historians and political figures constructed a new narrative of the Uprising in the 1960s, they toned down old Stalinist and Marxist dogmas. Instead, the language they used to describe the SNP restored Slovaks - and the Slovak nation - to a central role. Important in this regard was how Slovaks writing and speaking about the Uprising during the Czechoslovak Spring began to accentuate the Slovak nation (narod) in retelling the history of the Uprising, placing new stress on the national component of the Slovak National Uprising. Thus, along with their stated desire to seek historical truth and to rectify the "errors" of Stalinism, Slovak historians writing about the �62 SLOVAKIA Uprising in the sixties also contributed to the reconstruction of Slovak nationalism by linking Slovaks' demands for national rights and a just solution to the Slovak question with the progressive and democratic traditions of the Uprising. The process of reinterpreting the Uprising and reconstructing Slovak nationalism - a process that occurred in fits and starts, with much equivocation - shows, in turn, how important Slovak developments of the mid-1960s served as antecedents to the Czechoslovak Spring that blossomed in 1968. One of the crucial, yet underappreciated, facets of this prehistory took shape in the new historiography of the SNP produced in the l 960s. Several groups of historians participated in crafting this new narrative. Younger historians, such as Jozef Jablonicky, perhaps had an advantage of personal detachment, since they had fought in neither the Uprising nor the battles over its history during the Stalinist era. 1 Other important contributors came from the historians who served on the Bamabite Commission and subsequently attempted to produce more "objective" and "factual" histories of the Uprising. 2 But veterans of the Up1 lndeed, Jab lonicky di sti ngui shed himself as arguabl y the most profess iona l and darin g histo ri an with hi s willingness to te ll the story of the significant but politically margin ali zed non-communi st "c ivilian" component of the Slovak resi stance that fought in th e NP. Yet even Jablonicky's work ex hibited an evolution in hi s willingness to challenge former taboos, since his first works from early in the decade did not go quite so far in this regard as hi s later work. See Jozef Jablon icky, Sloven- ska na prelome: Zapas o vit'azstvo narodnej a demokratickej revohicie na Slovensku (Bratislava : Yydavatel'stvo politickej literatury, 1965); and Jozef Jablonicky, Z ilegality do povstania (Kapitoly z obcianskeho odboja) (Bratislava : Epocha, 1969). 2 In Apri l 1963 , the Central Comm ittee of th e Communist Party of Czechos lovakia (Komunis ticka strana Ceskoslovenska, or KSC) convened a working gro up of Slovak and Czech party and academic "experts," popularly known as the " Bamabite Commiss ion," to investi gate th e allegations of " bourgeois nationalism" that had been leve led aga inst Ladi slav ovomesky, Gustav Husak and oth er wartime leaders of the Communist Party of Slovakia (Komunisticka strana S/o venska, or KSS) in th e major Slovak political trial s of the early 1950s. The Bamabite Commission's report, issued in August 1963 , di spro ved the Stalinist-era charges and called for the co mplete political rehabilitation of Husak, Novomesky and the oth er accused Slovak " bourgeois nationa lists." Stanis lav Sikora, " Politicky vyvoj na Slovensku v rokoch I 960- 1967 ," in Miroslav Londak, Stanis lav Sikora an d Elena Londakova, Predjarie: Politicky, ekonomicky a kul!iirny vyvoj na Slovensku v rokoch 1960- 1967 (Bratislava: Veda, 2002), 46-47 . The major schol arl y product that followed from th e work of the Barnabite Comm ission , not to mention one of the best studi es of th e Uprising from this era, was Ferdinand Beer and others, Dejinna kriiovatka: Slovenske ncirod- �SLOVAKIA 63 rising, like Gustav Husak, and older scholars like Samo Falt'an (also a former partisan) participated in this process as well, whether to exonerate themselves for their activities during the SNP, or to offer a mea culpa for their distorted publications from the Stalinist era.3 Many western studies of the Czechoslovak Spring that address the years prior to 1968 offer at best a fleeting mention of the revival of Slovak history and efforts to remove discredited cliches of the 4 Stalinist era from the historical image of the SNP. Nonetheless, the lack of scholarly attention to this important trend in Slovak historiography does a disservice to its importance in Slovak - and Czechoslovak - politics of the mid- to late 1960s. Though de-Stalinization may have begun from on high in the Czechoslovak capital, Slovak historians, writers, intellectuals, politicians and other public figures took full advantage of the chance to break old taboos and raise formerly forbidden issues, none of which was more heretical or politically pregnant than the Slovak question. As the Slovak writer Peter Karvas told Antonin J. Liehrn in 1968, Stalinist propaganda had a banalizing effect on all this; it reduced the Uprising to a historical cliche, and in the end the generation of the Uprising convinced itself that this view was somehow a more noble and correct one. Thus it is neither an accident nor an illusion that the rehabilitation of the ne povstanie - predpoklady a vysledky (Brati slava: Vydavatel's tvo po litic kej literatury, I 964). Important exampl es of these work s we re Samo Falt'an, 0 Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Bra ti slava: Osveta, 1964); a nd Gustav Husak, Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Brati slava: Vydavatel'stvo po litickej literatury, 1964). Husak also published a second , slightl y rev ised editi o n of hi s memo ir cum hi story in 1969. nd Gustav Hu sak, Svedectvo o Slovensko narodnom povstani, 2 ed. (Bratislava: Epocha, 1969). 4 H. Gordon Skilling a nd V ladimir V . Ku sin each pro vide a pass in g mention of the importance of SN P hi stori ography in th e m id-sixties. See H. Gordon Skilling, Czechoslovakia ·s Interrupted Revolution (Princeto n, N .J .: Princeton Uni ve rsity Press, 1976), 50-51 ; V ladimir V. Kusin, The Intellectual Origins of the Prague 3 Spring: The Development of Reform ist Ideas in Czechoslovakia, 1956- 1967 (Ca mbridge: Ca mbrid ge Uni versity Press, 197 1), 70. �64 SLOVAKIA Uprising coincided with a wave of reawakening sweeping across all the Slovak social and intellectual life. 5 Accordingly, chronicling the "history of the history" of the Slovak National Uprising during the 1960s offers a way to challenge these conventional boundaries and interpretations of the Czechoslovak Spring. Tracing the shifts in Slovak historiography and the new brand of Slovak nationalism constructed in the process restores Slovaks to the significant role they played in this upheaval, showing how Slovakia experienced an "early spring" following the renewed effort at de-Stalinization and rehabilitation in 1963 . The Pitfalls of History (and Historiography) Pointing to the "errors" that plagued earlier histories of the Slovak National Uprising, the writer Ladislav Novomesky made a plea to Slovak and Czech historians in 1964. His appeal to the participants at a conference at Smolenice on the Uprising urged historians to pay close attention to the image of the SNP through twenty years of historiography. As part of the process of rectifying the mistakes of Stalinism and rewriting history, Novomesky proposed that historians "delineate the history of the history [emphasis in original]" of the Uprising. 6 As Novomesky's remarks indicated, the political context in which historians worked had left an indelible mark on historiography and on the history of the Slovak National Uprising. Political constraints of the Stalinist era had curtailed the research possibilities available to scholars, who could not access most of the relevant documents and other materials. But political dictates had also imposed ready-made interpretations on historians' narratives. When Novomesky made his pitch to historians to take stock of the historiography of the Uprising, he mainly had in mind the correction of the lies, distortions and half-truths that had colored histories of the Uprising 5 Antonin J. Liehm, The Politics of Culture, trans. Peter Kussi (New York : Grove Press, 1972), 351. 6 Ladislav Novomesky, "Za hi storicku pravdu o Povstani," in Slovenske narodne povstanie ro/..."U 1944 (Sbornik prispevkov z narodnooslobodzovacieho boja 19381945), eds . Cudovit Holotik and Miroslav Kropilak, (Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo Slovenskej akademie vied, 1965), 668. �SLOVAKIA 65 since the onset of Stalinism in Czechoslovakia in the late 1940s. Revisions to these histories had become possible only with the work of the Bamabite Commission and the first concrete steps at deStalinization in 1963 . As the Slovak writer Michal Chorvath claimed on the Uprising's nineteenth anniversary in August 1963 , the "liquidation of the cult of personality" made it possible for the first time in years "to say about the Slovak National Uprising and its significance for our nation and state what the whole public has already thought for a long time." 7 De-Stalinization thus provided an important stimulus in the midI 960s for historians to attempt a more objective look at the Uprising. But while this political opening afforded scholars an opportunity to contest the older dogmatic accounts of the SNP, the historical image of the Uprising remained deeply politicized in the new narratives of the sixties. In the middle and later years of the decade, many Slovak intellectuals and politicians contested Stalinist-era views in rewriting the history of the SNP, yet the individuals driving these shifts continued to interpret the historical significance of the Uprising in a way that served their contemporary personal and political agendas. For instance, Husak claimed expertise as a historian of the Uprising based on his background as the leading Slovak Communist in the SNP. Yet Husak also traded on his stature as an "authority" on the Uprising (and as the most prominent surviving Slovak victim of the Stalinist era) to mount his political comeback, culminating in his ascent to the post of KSC first secretary in April 1969. As the Czech historian Jan Rychlik notes, the new interpretation of the Uprising formulated in the mid-sixties "had a supremely political character," since it weighed directly on the question of rehabilitation and a return to politics for Husak and Novomesky.8 Nonetheless, a "rehabilitation" of the historical image of the SNP was a necessary part of de-Stalinization in Slovakia after 1963 , because the dictates of Stalinism had skewed earlier narratives. Older histories of the Uprising painted it as the opening act of the national and democratic revolution in Czechoslovakia, depicting the SNP as little more than a stepping stone toward the Communist seizure of 7 Mi cha l Chorvath , "K metodam skum ani a SN P," Ku /uirny i ivot, 3 1 August 1963. Jan Rychlik, Ce.si a Slovaci ve 20. sto /eti: Cesko-slovenske vztahy 1945-/ 992, vo l. 2 (Bra ti slava : Academi c Electroni c Press, 1998), 206. 8 �66 SLOVAKIA power. 9 These Stalinist-era narratives forced the SNP into a doctrinaire Marxist framework. Accordingly, historiography from the 1950s and early 1960s celebrated the toiling masses of the Slovak people (l'ud) , who rejected the "clerico-fascism" of the Tiso regime and adopted an internationalist outlook in fightin g side by side with the fraternal Czech nation, aided by the heroic Soviet Union, in order to create a new Czechoslovak Republic oriented towards the international Communist movement centered in Moscow. The heavy-handed Marxist language employed in these older narratives practically wrote Slovaks out of their own Uprising as it lionized the role of the Red Army and even of Czech partisans in the SNP, treating the contributions of Slovaks as an afterthought. Writing in samizdat in 1980, Jablonicky, the leading Slovak historian of the Uprising, divided historiography of the SNP into three distinct periods. Jablonicky characterized the first period, from 1949 to 1962, as one of "deformation," a time when historians falsified the history of the SNP to suit the dogmas of Stalinism and the attack on Slovak "bourgeois nationalism," which claimed as victims many prominent communist veterans of the Slovak resistance, including Husak, Novomesky and Karol Smidke. 10 Beginning with the work of the Barnabite Commission, a second period, which Jablonicky called "rehabilitation" took shape in 1963 . Though it lasted only until the installation of the Husak regime in April 1969, this era witnessed a burst of scholarship on the Uprising distinguished by its pursuit of "historical truth," including efforts to docu9 See, for instance, Jaros lav Kubat, ed., Slovenske narodni po vstani - Vyznamna etapa narodne osvobozeneckeho boje ceskoslovenskeho lidu: Material pro lektory a propagandisty k 15. vyroci SNP (Prague: Statn i nak ladatelstvi poli ticke literatu ry, 1959) . 10 Smidke had been a member the illegal KSS Centra l Committee that orga nized the Uprising, as we ll as the co-creator of the Christmas Agreement. Du ring the early stages of the campa ign aga inst the "bourgeois nationalists," Smidke faced accusations of collaboration, along with Vladimir Clementi s, Husak and Novo mesky, and lost his party and governmenta l posts, inc ludi ng his position as chairman of the Slovak Nati onal Council. Sm idke avo ided jo ining his supposed co llaborators in the dock at the poli tical tria ls of the ea rl y fifti es only due to hi s death in an automobile acc ident in late 1952, th ough various witnesses c laimed it had been a planned murder. He was posthumously rehabilitated with the other Slovak "bourgeois nati onalists" in December 1963. Jan Pesek, " Karo l Smidke," ed. Ja n Pesek, Akteri jednej ery na Slovensku: Personiflkacia politickeho vyvoja (Presov: Vydavatel'stvo Michala Vaska, 2003), 328-330. �SLOVAKIA 67 ment the role of non-Communists in the SNP. With the onset of "normalization" in 1970, a third period commenced, bringing a return to deformations and the silencing of "inconvenient historians" a group that included Jablonicky - and lasted until the fall of the communist regime in 1989. 11 Though Jablonicky's periodization conforms to wide trends in historiography on the Uprising, his characterization of the second period oversimplifies the contours of this pivotal era. Scholarship on the SNP produced from 1963 to 1969 witnessed a new push for historical truth and objectivity, with historians drawing on previously inaccessible documents, filling in former "blank spots" and challenging earlier dogmatic interpretations of the Uprising. However, the general trend toward historical fidelity did not follow the linear trajectory Jablonicky describes. While many historians sought accuracy and improved professional practices, others held fast to old dogmas, resulting in a multiplicity of narratives and interpretations of the SNP. Moreover, the ambiguities inherent in the quest for historical truth cut through the scholarship of individual historians. In May 1963 , Jan Kfen, a Czech historian who served as one of the experts on the Bamabite Commission, explained the challenges ahead for historians after Stalinism: The battle against dogmatism is, in my opmzon, above all an internal matter of every historian, a question of his theoretical level, his ideological potential. Like all progress in science, the overcoming of dogmatism is not possible without abilities and talent. Untalented thinking is always dogmatic, stereotypical and toady ish. 12 Yet Kfen overstated the importance of professional abilities, as many talented historians struggled to discard political considerations in order to write better histories. For instance, while Jablonicky's Slovensko na prelome, published in 1965, stressed the importance of the Uprising for inaugurating a new chapter in Czech-Slovak rela11 Jozef Ja bl oni cky, Glosy o historiograjii SNP: Zneuiivanie a f alfovanie dej in SNP (Brati slava: NVK In te rn ati onal, 1994), I 0, 13. 12 Jan Kfe n, " Kult a hi stori e," Kulttirna tvorba, 23 May 1963. �68 SLOVAKIA tions, Jablonicky equivocated in repeating the best orthodox cliches about nefarious Slovak and Czech bourgeoisies and the leading role of Communists in the resistance. 13 To Jablonicky's credit, he penned perhaps the decade ' s most important historiographical contribution in 1969, Z illegality do povstania, which offered the most stunning refutation of dogmatic interpretations of the Uprising and destroyed several taboos in praising the non-communist resistance and units of the Slovak Army for their roles in the Uprising while simultaneously portraying its communist leaders in an unflattering light. In a samizdat essay from 1979, Jablonicky even offered a mea culpa for his early scholarship in which he acknowledges the shortcomings of his first works. As Jablonicky recalled, conversations with dozens of former partisans and victims of Stalinism "gradually opened my eyes" as a young historian in the 1960s, leading him to appreciate the importance of the non-communist resistance. 14 Of course, Jablonicky was not alone. At a conference of Slovak historians in June 1963, Milos Gosiorovsky presented a harsh evaluation of his own works on the Uprising from the Stalinist era, criticizing his monographs Ilegalny boj KSS and Slovenske narodne povstanie for presenting a "substantially deformed" picture of the 15 SNP. A year later, Samo Falt'an described how the dictates of editorial boards and the pressures of self-censorship had handicapped evaluations of the Uprising in the Stalinist era, preventing him from including anything critical in his book Partizanska vojna na Slovensku, published in 1959 . 16 As the confessions of Gosiorovsky and Falt'an revealed, the most prominent Slovak historians had been especially susceptible to pressures for ideological conformity, which 13 Jablonicky, Slovensko na prelome, 3 1, 148- 149. Vilem Precan, " Historik proti nas iliu - Jozef Jabloni cky," in Jozef Jablonicky, Samizdat o odboji: Stiidie a clanky, vol. 2 (Bratislava: Kalligram, 2006), 12; Jablonicky, Glosy o historiografii SNP, 6 1. 15 Frantisek Bokes, "Vaine zhromazdeni e Slovenskej hi stori ckej spolocnosti ," Historicky casopis 12, no. 4 (1963): 650; Milos Gosiorovsky, !legalny boj KSS a Slovenske narodne povstanie (Bratislava: Nakladatel'stvo Pravda, 1949); Milos Gosiorovsky, Slovenske narodne povstanie (Bra ti slava : Slovenske vydava tel'stvo politi ckej literatury, 1954). 16 Samo Falt'an, "Niektore otazky okolo hodnoteni a Slovenskeho narodneho povstania," Historicky casop is 12, no. 2 ( 1964): 161 , 164; Samo Falt'an, Partizanska vojna na Slovensku (Bratislava: Osveta, 1959). 14 �SLOVAKIA 69 seemed to spur their self-conscious push for objectivity in the more relaxed Slovak political climate of the mid-l 960s. Just as Slovak historians in the l 960s recognized the harmful effects of Stalinism on scholarship on the Uprising, scholars writing about the sixties acknowledge the importance of historiography for the larger crisis gestating in Czechoslovakia. Nonetheless, scholarship about the l 960s has pronounced limitations when it comes to historiography from the 1960s. Non-Slovak writers treat the history of the Uprising as but one issue among many new historiographical developments in Czechoslovakia, an approach characterristic of the wider tendency to trivialize the role of Slovaks and the Slovak question in the l 960s. 17 While the Slovak National Uprising was hardly the only historical theme to gamer renewed interest from historians in the mid-sixties - or even the only topic from Slovak history - it was unique in the political purposes to which prominent Slovaks put it in justifying contemporary demands for a resolution of the Slovak question in line with the ostensible aims of the Uprising. More obvious, however, was the extent to which the new historiography on the SNP from the 1960s broke with old dogmas. The doctrinaire narrative of the Uprising from the Stalinist era marginalized the role of Slovaks in the Slovak National Uprising. An instructional manual for lecturers and propagandists published in advance of the SNP's fifteenth anniversary - and, tellingly, written in Czech inflated the importance of Soviet and Czech contributions to the Uprising: In August 1944 the Slovak nation, emboldened by the heroic battle of the Soviet p eople in the Great Patriotic War, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, alongside the Soviet Army advancing to victory, together with the fraternal Czech nation, rose up with weapons in 17 See, fo r instance, th e scant treatm ent prov ided in Stanl ey Z. Pec h, " Fe rment in Czec hoslova k Marxist Hi stori ograph y," Canadian Slavonic Papers l 0, no. 4 (Dece mber 1968): 502-522; Ga lia Gol an, The Czechoslovak Refo rm Movement: Communism in Crisis. 1962- / 968 ; and Skillin g, Czechoslovakia 's Interrupted Revolution. By contrast, M. Mark Stolarik observed how hi stori ans, beginning with Husak and the th eme of the SNP, increasingly reasserted Slovak nati onali sm in their th work . M. Mark Stolarik , "The Painful Birth of Slovak Histori ography in the 20 Century," Zeitschriftfiir Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 50, no. 2 (2 00 I): 176 . �70 SLOVAKIA hand against the German occupiers and their domestic fascist supporters in order to contribute to the liberation of their own homeland - the Czechoslovak Republic. 18 Amid the rambling succession of clauses inserted to show obligatory deference to the Soviet Union and the KSC and to flatter Czechs, the propaganda manual, like the Stalinist-era interpretations of the SNP it typifies, lost sight of the Slovaks, who nearly disappeared from the history of their own Uprising. At the same time, older orthodoxy ascribed the Marxist categories of proletarian internationalism and class struggle to the Uprising. In their work on international participation in the SNP, the Czech Jii'i Dolezal and the Slovak Jozef Hroziencik credited the liberation of Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Army on the international stage, and to the working class at home. The Uprising occurred as a consequence, Dolezal and Hroziencik argued, of "the strengthening of the working class and its ideological leadership in the nation," along with the blossoming of the idea of internationalism within the proletariat. 19 Near the end of the Stalinist era, an editorial in 1962 from the KSC Central Committee daily Rude pravo made the dubious claim that, "on an ideological plane," the Uprising "aimed mainly at developing a unified economy," along with combining all other aspects of Slovak and Czech society after liberation - making the SNP appear as the first step toward amalgamating Slovaks and Czechs into a single Czechoslovak nation.2° Conventional interpretations from the Stalinist era thus reduced the Uprising to little more than the opening act in the Czechoslovak revolution and a prelude to the communist takeover in 1948.21 Such a view seemed at odds with the reality of communist electoral strength in the elections of 1946, when the party made considerable gains over its interwar showing, yet still suffered a decisive defeat at the hands of the Democratic Party. 18 Kubat, Slovenske narodni povstani, 3. Jifi Dolezal and Jozef Hroziencik, Medzinarodna solidarita v Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Bratislava: Osveta, 1959), 35, 219 20 " Rozvij ime spolecne dilo," Rude pravo, 29 August 1962. 21 Doleza l and Hroziencik, Medzinarodna solidarita , 74. 19 �SLOVAKIA 71 Coming to Terms with the Past: De-Stalinization and the Uprising Rewriting the history of the Slovak National Uprising first required important political developments to transpire, and the process drew succor from new efforts at de-Stalinization in 1963 . But the impact of the Bamabite Commission also revealed the crucial role historians played in this process. As Ferdinand Beer, Antonin Bencik, Frantisek Janacek and Jan Kfon recalled, their work on the Bamabite Commission offered historians a rare chance to play an important role in current events: ft was - as far as we know - the first time such a large group of scholars was asked to do this kind of work. This experience left its mark on their whole way of doing work and became, at least for historians, one of those rare occasions when they could not only reconstruct history, but also help to make it. 22 The recollections of these historians also spoke to the transformative effect the Bamabite Commission had on its member-scholars, which proved a formative experience for the way they approached their craft thereafter. Because it focused not only on the political trials of the early 1950s, but also on the activities of the "bourgeois nationalists" during the SNP, the Bamabite Commission employed several professional historians who consequently gained access to documents formerly off limits to researchers, including the files of the "bourgeois nationalists" and materials concerning the cases of Vladimir Clementis and others.23 A document collection on the SNP, originally planned to appear in conjunction with the twentieth anniversary of the Uprising in 1964 and intended to span 300 to 400 pages when conceived in the spring of 1963, soon ballooned to more than a thousand pages and took an extra year to produce. As Vilem Precan, the Czech editor of the volume, recounts in hi s preface, the renewed interest in the Uprising first observed during celebrations of its nineteenth anniversary, coupled with the political fallout of the 22 23 Beer and others, "Svedectvi z Barnabitek," Kulturni tvorba, 2 May 1968. Sikora, " Po liticky vyvoj na Slovensku," 38. �72 SLOVAKIA Barnabite Commission's report, created "editorial possibilities" that compelled him to broaden the scope of the project. Precan had to sift through piles of newly available documents and include as many of these materials as he could, a daunting task that kept him from completing the volume until 1965 - a full year behind schedule.24 Confronted with documentary evidence of the fabrications from the political trials, the historian-members of the Bamabite Commission were floored by the level of deceit, which exceeded their wildest imagination. Confronting such proof of the crimes of Stalinism had a galvanizing effect on Slovak and Czech historians similar to the jolt Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" had given to Soviet Communists in 1956. As a group of historians recalled in the spring of 1968, "In a certain sense, all of us inside the walls of the former Bamabite monastery went through our own 20 th Congress." 25 For these historians at least, there could be no going back to the old, dogmatic interpretations of Slovak history, especially where the Uprising was concerned. Sensing the opportunity de-Stalinization and the Barnabite Commission had created, historians took the initiative in probing sensitive issues like the Slovak question and the wartime resistance in Slovakia. As early as March of 1963, Falt'an had urged a drastic reexamination of the Uprising, one that would break out of the "black-and-white pigeonholes" of historiography from the Stalinist era to "evaluate objectively and justly" such topics as the role of (non-communist) Slovak regulars from the 1st Czechoslovak Army in the SNP. 26 Further steps in this direction came in the summer of 1963, when historians openly connected the significance of their professional work to the concurrent process of rehabilitation. Miroslav Kropilak opened the Slovak Historical Society ' s conference in June 1963 by reminding his fellow historians of their shared obligation in reassessing "wrongly interpreted" segments of their history. 27 The congress helped to engage Slovak historians in the task 24 Vilem Precan, "S lovo cita tel'ovi," in Slovenske narodne povstanie - Dokumenty, ed. Precan, 5-6. 25 Beer and others, " Svedectvi z Barnabitek. " 26 Samo Falt'an, " Histori a a dn esok," Kulturny i ivot, 23 March 1963 . 27 Kropilak's ex hortati on to eliminate th e "unscienti fic methods" of research employed in studi es of recent Slovak history marked an about fac e from his own presentation at the Fourth Congress of Slovak Histori ans a year earli er in Kosice. At Kosi- �SLOVAKIA 73 of eliminating vestiges of the "cult of personality," and it created space, as the historian Marek Havrila remarked, for the "de-ideologizing" (odideologizovanie) of history and the "academifying" (zvedectenie) of the discipline.28 Rewriting History: New (and Old) Narratives of the Uprising Historians began to rewrite the history of the Uprising in time for its twentieth anniversary in 1964, reflecting not only the opportunities created by the Bamabite Commission, but also the heightened interest in commemorating this milestone. Many historians took seriously the need for better scholarship on the Uprising and strove to make use both of newly available materials as well as the relaxation of political constraints. But other historians largely paid lip service to the tasks of writing new, post-Stalinist narratives of the SNP, hewing closely to older, more dogmatic interpretations. On the whole, the new historiography of the Uprising produced in the 1960s yielded improved histories, but it remained bound to the shifting politics of the day. A key development early in this process was an academic conference held at Smolenice on 8-10 June 1964, when several Slovak and Czech historians presented their latest research on the Uprising. The conference marked important progress on the "arduous journey" historians had traveled, as Kropilak recalled in his foreword to the published volume of conference papers, since it brought a "difficult acknowledgment of the unexamined truths, half-truths and untruths" that had characterized historiography of the Uprising from the Stalinist era.29 In a similar vein, Alexander Dubcek, who became KSS first secretary amid the political shakeup of the previous year, ce in I 962 , Kropil ak gave a paper on the anti fas ci st move ment in Eastern Slovakia th at uphe ld communist orthodoxy. He credited the party for building the resistance from the grass roots until the Upri sing, but made no mention of th e contributions of non-Co mmuni sts in the Slova k res istance. Bokes, " Va ine zhromazdenie," 650 ; "Stvrty sjazd slovenskych hi storik ov," Historicky casopis I 0, no. 4 ( 1962): 632. 28 Marek Havril a, " K ni ektory m pro blemom vyv inu slovenskej hi storiografie a slovenskej histori ckej spolocnosti pri SA V v 50. a 60. rokoch 20. storocia," Historicky casopis 55 , no. I (2007) : 28, 32. 29 Mi ros lav Kropil ak, " Uvod," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku I 944, eds. Hol otik and Kropilak, 5. �74 SLOVAKIA opened the conference proceedings by exhorting historians to undertake "a really broad and deep critical analysis of all problems" concerning this significant chapter in recent Slovak history, and Dubcek also reminded historians that the rectification of earlier mistakes was not simply a question of the past, but also a living concern of the present and future .30 As if Dubcek's point could somehow be lost on his audience, the participation of Husak and Novomesky at Smolenice underscored the topicality of scholarship on the SNP. Indeed, Husak expressed his belief on the final day that the conference itself was a sign of the times, since a definite measure of political relaxation in Slovakia was a precondition for historians to address openly the pitfalls of Stalinist-era historiography, and to shed new light on the history of the Uprising. 31 The papers presented at Smolenice aimed mainly at debunking the myths and errors of the Stalinist-era narrative of the SNP. For instance, Falt'an directly criticized the Ninth KSS Congress for having "artificially created" a circle of "bourgeois nationalist traitors and agents of imperialism" that included Husak, Novomesky and Smidke as its leading figures. This trio of Slovak Communists had created the illegal Fifth KSS Central Committee in 1943 , following the arrest of members of the Fourth KSS Central Committee, and had played a major role in organizing the Uprising. Yet the members of the Fifth KSS Central Committee came under fire after the communist takeover of 1948 for their collaboration with nonCommunists, which provided one justification for their persecution as Slovak "bourgeois nationalists." Falt'an portrayed the Slovak Communists who had helped to orchestrate the SNP as both patriotic and communist, rendering the wartime KSS leadership as neither "bourgeois" nor "nationalist" in an effort to break with the dogmatic interpretations that had marred previous historiography.32 Another crucial component of this attempt to cast aside Stalinistera narratives was the effort historians made to address lacunae in scholarship on the Uprising. To this end, the Slovak historian Milos 30 Alexander Dubcek, "Marx isticka histori ografia a nasa revolucna minulost'," in S/ovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropil ak, I 8. 31 Gustav Husak, " K ni ektorym otazkam Slovenskeho narodn eho povstania," in S/ovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 652-653. 32 Samo Falt'an, " Slovenske narodn e povstani e a jeho problemy," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 222, 234. �SLOVAKIA 75 Tichy called attention to the contributions of non-Communists in the SNP. Though the Communists had been the only party in Slovakia that opposed the breakup of the republic and the Tiso government from the outset, Tichy emphasized how the non-communist parties could not be treated as monolithic supporters of Slovak separatism. Thus, Tichy took care to note how segments of the Social Democratic Party, along with individual members of other "bourgeois" (meaning non-communist) parties had held views similar to those of Slovak Communists with respect to the creation of a pro-German Slovak state. It was noteworthy for Tichy even to mention these nonCommunists who went on to join the wartime resistance, since, as he noted, the record of the non-communist resistance had been thoroughly trivialized and falsified in earlier historiography.33 Tichy struck one of the first important blows against the Stalinist narrative of the Uprising by virtue of recognizing the existence of noncommunist opposition to the Slovak state, though it was not until Jablonicky published Z ilegality do povstania at the end of the decade that this "civilian" segment of the wartime Slovak resistance gained the recognition it deserved. Even though historians consciously sought objectivity and historical fidelity at Smolen ice, they did not reject all elements of the Stalinist-era narrative of the SNP. Thus, while Falt'an preached the importance of historical truth in denouncing the lies that characterrized earlier histories, he sought this "truth" within a distinctly Marxist framework. Comparing the Slovak National Uprising of 1944 to the Warsaw Uprising of the same year, Falt'an placed the Slovak revolt on a qualitatively higher plane than the Polish insurrection, since the SNP had, in Falt'an 's estimation, the superior class orientation. Whereas the Polish "reactionary bourgeoisie" had "abused" popular hatred of Nazi Germany in order to serve its own "political speculations" and "anti-Soviet aims," the Slovak people had taken up arms under the leadership of "revolutionary forces" headed by the KSS .34 Marxist hermeneutics continued to color other interpretations of the Uprising advanced at Smolenice. Like Falt'an, Tichy took great 33 Milos Tic hy, " Hl avne etapy fo rmy a probl emy narodn ooslobodzo vac ieho hnuti a na Slove nsku do vzniku Povstani a," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Ho lotik and Kropilak, 65, 7 1. 34 Fa lt'a n, "S lovens ke narodn e povstanie a jeho pro bl emy," 27 1. �76 SLOVAKIA pains to emphasize the class dimension of the Slovak people's rejection of the pre-Munich First Republic. Tichy claimed the Slovak people (l'ud) had directed their hatred not at the fraternal Czech nation, but rather against the "politics of the ruling Czech bourgeoisie." 35 Similarly, Frantisek Janacek, a Czech historian and former member of the Barnabite Commission, conceded the importance of the national element in the Uprising, yet he suggested there was less real significance to such national sentiment in and of itself than in the political objectives to which Slovak Communists could put it in the SNP. Thus, Janacek upheld a doctrinaire Marxist interpretation of national sentiment in deeming it instrumental to revolutionary ends. He argued the initiative the Communists exhibited on the Slovak question had made the KSS a vanguard force that Slovaks recognized as a "national" (narodm) party. 36 Husak also hewed closely to this orthodox narrative of the Uprising instead of accentuating the national dimension of the SNP, averring at Smolenice that "the Slovak National Uprising was above all a political conception, the political revolution of the Slovak people." 37 Even as historians embarked on a pursuit for the truth about the SNP at Smolenice, they continued to parrot old party cliches about the Uprising. Indeed, historical fidelity coexisted alongside shifting political dictates in the historiography of the SNP throughout the l 960s, demonstrating how historians' professed desire for objectivity toward the past ran aground on their inability to remain aloof from the politics of the present. In O Slovenskom narodnom povstani, published in 1964, Falt'an culled new facts and documents in a quest to tell the truth about the Uprising, albeit a truth with a clear agenda. Falt'an's book expanded on the ideas he presented at Smolenice, as he continued his efforts to vindicate the Slovak Communists who had been condemned as "bourgeois nationalists" in the 1950s. But while Falt'an made skillful use of wartime documents to present a more historically accurate picture of the Slovak resistance, the same tired cliches about international solidarity and the Soviet Union 35 Tichy, " Hlavne etapy formy a problemy narodnooslobodzovacieho hnutia na Slovensku," 68-69. 36 Frantisek Janacek, " Dve promeny slovenske otazky (Mezi Mnichovem a Slovenskym narodnim povsta nim)," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku /944 , eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 618 , 628. 37 Husak, "K ni ektorym otazkam Slovenskeho narodneho povstania," 657. �SLOVAKIA 77 still peppered his work. He claimed the Uprising, among other things, "was the expression of great faith in the Soviet people," showing how de-Stalinization and a more relaxed political environment did not relieve Slovaks and Czechs of the duty to show deference to their Soviet allies - an obligation that remained in force even at the height of liberalization in 1968.38 Even the most groundbreaking histories of the Uprising from the mid-sixties exhibited a multiplicity of agendas. In Dejinna kriiovatka, a group of Slovak and Czech historians drew on their work on the Bamabite Commission in an attempt to "rehabilitate" the historical image of the SNP. Their work helped to expose the distortions of the Stalinist era, but it also restored the Slovak question to a prominent role in the new, post-Stalinist narrative of the Uprising. Dejinna kriiovatka appeared in a modest printing of 10,000 copies, yet it gained renown as the first attempt at a comprehensive history of the Slovak National Uprising that consciously rejected the Stalinist narrative and addressed several lacunae in scholarship on the Uprising. And yet, for all its significance as a landmark of Slovak historiography, Dejinna kriiovatka continued to uphold a Marxist worldview in interpreting the SNP as an affirmation of socialist revolution as well as a manifestation of how attractive communist ideas were to the average Slovaks who formed the core of the partisan masses in the Uprising.39 A similar emphasis on the communist aims of the Uprising appeared in Husak's Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani. To his credit, Husak addressed some previously neglected or trivialized facets of the Uprising, pointing out the contributions of the noncommunist opposition within the antifascist camp, the existence of 40 which had been all but denied in Stalinist-era scholarship. Yet Husak's motives for calling attention to this marginalized component of the resistance were also self-serving. Lauding the role of the nonCommunists in the Uprising allowed Husak to validate the strategy of cooperating with non-Communists that he and other KSS leaders had pursued. Husak's intent in writing his recollection of the Uprising seemed to be to vindicate himself, not only in terms of the 38 Falt'an, 0 Slovenskom narodnom povstani, 8, I 03. Beer and others, Dejinna kriiovatka, 125-126, 252. 40 Husak, Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani, 36-37. 39 �78 SLOVAKIA historical record, but also in the eyes of the party. As such, Husak stuck close to the communist interpretation of the SNP as a revolt directed against the ruling Slovak and Czech bourgeoisies, while simultaneously heralding the Communist Party (a self-referential bit of praise, considering his role as a member of the wartime KSS leadership) for leading the Uprising and launching the national and democratic revolution in Slovakia. 41 Husak's book also created a sensation after it appeared in August of 1964. The responses from Slovak and Czech intellectuals and historians ranged from the fawning to the damning, but most reviews 42 emphasized its positive contributions to scholarship on the SNP. These early favorable reviews led many Slovaks to view Husak, not only as a prominent figure in the Uprising, but as Jablonicky observed years later, they also encouraged both defenders and detractors of Husak to think of him "as a promising politician possibly on the rise in Slovakia."43 Husak's account of the Uprising conferred considerable authority on him, though not all historians accepted his portrayal of the SNP without reservation. The Czech scholar Josef Domansky offered the first critical remarks on Husak's book, noting one shortcoming was its "methodological non-clarity" resulting from the blurred division between Husak the memoirist and Husak the historian. On the whole, Domansky judged the book positively, even if it had its flaw s, and he regarded it as part of the new trend in historiography that helped to clarify the importance of the Slovak question and to transcend the oversimplifications of earlier scholarship on the Uprising.44 Yet Husak's book became a cause celebre among Slovak - and Czech - intellectuals when it came under fire from on high . Antonin Novotny had little patience for Husak, since Novotny had resisted the rehabilitation of Husak and other victims of Stalinism. When KSS leaders refused to rein in Husak, Novotny commissioned a party hack, the Czech historian Vaclav Kral , to write a scathing review in 41 Ibid., 129, 133 , 139. See, for instance, Anna Stvrtecka, "O dokum entoc h a fa ktoc h," Kultiirny i ivot, 27 August I 965 ; and Jifi Doleza l, " Dvakrat o S P," Mezinarodni politika I 0, no. I 0 (October 1964): 472. 43 Jablonicky, "S lovenske narodne povstani e a tri etapy jeho hodnoteni a," 452 . 44 Josef Domansky, " Nad knihou o Slovenskem narodnim povs tani," Nova mys/ 20, no. I ( 1965): 133- 134. 42 �SLOVAKIA 79 order to discredit Husak.45 The KSC cultural weekly Kulturni tvorba published Kral 's review in February 1966, almost two years after Husak' s book appeared in print, and focused, in Kral ' s words, "on a series of theses and questions that are insufficiently or incorrectly developed in Husak's book." Yet Kral's dissection of Husak' s narrative contained thinly veiled criticism of Husak's wartime activities as a member of the KSS Central Committee that organized the • · 46 Upnsmg. Though the high-level political machinations behind Kral ' s review were not common knowledge at the time, the response from Slovak and Czech historians was irate. Anton Bencik, Vaclav Kura) and Jaromir Navratil - one Slovak and two Czech historians - published a reply to Kral in defense of Husak' s work, which stressed the importance of Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani as a harbinger of the new developments in historiography following the KSC's renunciation of "bourgeois nationalism" in 1963 . "The publication of Husak's book was indisputably an event," they offered in their response, yet the renown Husak had achieved with this work was only possible because it corresponded to contemporary knowledge of the Uprising and had been accepted by the historical community. Indeed, Husak 's book had been vetted in several reviews, which generally judged it favorably , albeit with some criticism of individual facets . Bencik, Kura! and Navratil also found it puzzling how Kral had remained silent during the historiographical discussions of Husak 's book when it first appeared, and was only then speaking out against the work, long after the fact. The timing was peculiar, though Bencik, Kura) and Navratil did not press their • • 47 susp1c10ns. 45 Vac lav Kra l, "O os udu jedne recenze," Kulturni tvorba, 25 April 1968. Vaclav Kra l, "O Husakove svedectvi troc hu j inak," Kul!urni tvorba, 24 February 1966. 47 Anton Benci k, Vaclav Ku ra ] and Jaromir Navratil , "Jes te o Husakove svedectvi a nejen o nem," Kulturni tvorba, 3 1 March 1966. The rev iew was reprinted a week later in th e Slovak cul tura l magaz ine Predvoj. Anton Benc ik , Vac lav Ku ra ] and Jaro mir Nav ratil , "Este o Husakovom Svedectve a nielen o i\om," Predvoj , 7 April 1966. 46 �80 SLOVAKIA Toward Better Histories? On the whole, Slovak historiography of the SNP during the sixties struggled to find its way, as the competing impulses of communist orthodoxy and professional integrity pulled individual historians in opposite directions. While some scholars, like Jablonicky, or the historians who worked on the Bamabite Commission, proved relatively successful at eschewing dogma in writing new narratives more concerned with fidelity to the historical record, it proved impossible even for these more commendable histories to avoid all the cliches about the Uprising that had marked Stalinist-era scholarship. Yet historiography did not exist in a vacuum, and Slovak historians - as well as journalists, writers, politicians and other public figures addressing the theme of the SNP - also played an active role in using the history of the Uprising to reshape contemporary politics. The Slovak National Uprising was an episode from recent history, and the new vitality of scholarship on it during the midsixties ensured the Uprising remained living history for the remainder of the decade. Rewriting the history of the SNP allowed Slovak (and Czech) scholars to press for the rehabilitation of its persecuted leaders. But the new narrative of the Uprising also helped to "rehabilitate" the idea of the Slovak nation in public discourse, which in tum created an opening for politically engaged Slovaks to advance a nationalist agenda. Ultimately, this agenda would aim at a new approach to the Slovak question in the form of a federation, but in the interim, it entailed the promotion of a Slovak national consciousness firmly rooted in the new, "rehabilitated" historical image of the Uprising. � 60 SLOVAKIA RISING AGAINST STALINISM: DESTALINIZATION AND THE REINTERPRETATION OF THE SLOVAK NATIONAL UPRISING IN SLOVAK HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE 1960s Scott Brown In the morning hours of 29 August 1944, several thousand Slovak and foreign partisans took up arms against the German soldiers who entered Slovakia the previous day to crush the country's growing anti-German resistance. This armed insurrection marked the start of the Slovak National Uprising (Slovenske narodne povstanie, or SNP), a rebellion centered on the city of Banska Bystrica and directed against the German invaders and the pro-German leaders of the wartime Slovak state. Over the ensuing two months, roughly 60,000 Slovak and foreign partisans, including rebel units of the Slovak Army, fought a loosely coordinated campaign against the German incursion. Outnumbered and outgunned, the partisans steadily lost the territory they had initially controlled, and by the end of October 1944 the German units had quelled the Uprising. Yet the military shortcomings of the SNP paled in comparison to its political significance: the Slovak underground had carried out the largest resistance operation on once (and future) Czechoslovak soil during the Second World War. The Uprising bolstered the position of the Czechoslovak government in exile, which could point to the SNP as proof that Czechoslovakia had contributed militarily to its own liberation. Further-more, in the eyes of Czechs, the Uprising also helped to "redeem" Slovaks for their unilateral declaration of independence in 1939, and for the quasi-fascist government that ruled Slovakia during the war. After the war, the SNP became the centerpiece of a new, reconstructed form of Slovak nationalism that played a major role in precipitating the Czechoslovak Spring of the late 1960s. Nonetheless, Slovak nationalism remained a liability for nearly two decades after the war. The mere existence of the wartime Slovak state left Slovak nationalism suspect, since many Czechs continued �SLOVAKIA 61 to equate it with Slovak separatism and the humiliating loss of Czech independence in 1939. In addition, the persecution of Slovak "bourgeois nationalists" - many of whom had played prominent roles in the Uprising - in the political trials of the 1950s further compromised the legitimacy of Slovak nationalism in a Czechoslovak context. These problematic legacies left Slovak nationalism without a usable past until the rehabilitation of the erstwhile Slovak "bourgeois nationalists" in 1963 afforded the Slovaks a political opening to reevaluate the SNP. In tum, this reinterpretation of the Uprising's historical significance provided the foundation for a new, positive brand of nationalism Slovaks could safely assert. If nothing else, the SNP had given the lie to the notion that Slovak nationalism was incompatible with a Czechoslovak state. Gradually, many Slovak historians, intellectuals and politicians advanced a narrative of the SNP that interpreted the Uprising as the great redemptive act of the Slovak nation. In this view, Slovaks rose up as a nation against the wartime pro-Nazi regime of Jozef Tiso, sacrificing "their own" state in order to resurrect Czechoslovakia and make the new republic their own state. For champions of the Slovak national cause in the 1960s, finding their place in the restored Czechoslovakia entailed recognition of the existence of a separate Slovak nation and the enshrinement of its equality with the other titular nation through the federalization of the state. By reconstructing the history of the Uprising in this way, Slovak nationalists could then lay claim to specific rights as a nation. Like their calls for a Czechoslovak federation later in the decade, Slovak nationalists' demands for legal recognition of Slovak nationhood in the mid- to late 1960s referred directly or indirectly to the Slovak National Uprising for justification. As historians and political figures constructed a new narrative of the Uprising in the 1960s, they toned down old Stalinist and Marxist dogmas. Instead, the language they used to describe the SNP restored Slovaks - and the Slovak nation - to a central role. Important in this regard was how Slovaks writing and speaking about the Uprising during the Czechoslovak Spring began to accentuate the Slovak nation (narod) in retelling the history of the Uprising, placing new stress on the national component of the Slovak National Uprising. Thus, along with their stated desire to seek historical truth and to rectify the "errors" of Stalinism, Slovak historians writing about the �62 SLOVAKIA Uprising in the sixties also contributed to the reconstruction of Slovak nationalism by linking Slovaks' demands for national rights and a just solution to the Slovak question with the progressive and democratic traditions of the Uprising. The process of reinterpreting the Uprising and reconstructing Slovak nationalism - a process that occurred in fits and starts, with much equivocation - shows, in turn, how important Slovak developments of the mid-1960s served as antecedents to the Czechoslovak Spring that blossomed in 1968. One of the crucial, yet underappreciated, facets of this prehistory took shape in the new historiography of the SNP produced in the l 960s. Several groups of historians participated in crafting this new narrative. Younger historians, such as Jozef Jablonicky, perhaps had an advantage of personal detachment, since they had fought in neither the Uprising nor the battles over its history during the Stalinist era. 1 Other important contributors came from the historians who served on the Bamabite Commission and subsequently attempted to produce more "objective" and "factual" histories of the Uprising. 2 But veterans of the Up1 lndeed, Jab lonicky di sti ngui shed himself as arguabl y the most profess iona l and darin g histo ri an with hi s willingness to te ll the story of the significant but politically margin ali zed non-communi st "c ivilian" component of the Slovak resi stance that fought in th e NP. Yet even Jablonicky's work ex hibited an evolution in hi s willingness to challenge former taboos, since his first works from early in the decade did not go quite so far in this regard as hi s later work. See Jozef Jablon icky, Sloven- ska na prelome: Zapas o vit'azstvo narodnej a demokratickej revohicie na Slovensku (Bratislava : Yydavatel'stvo politickej literatury, 1965); and Jozef Jablonicky, Z ilegality do povstania (Kapitoly z obcianskeho odboja) (Bratislava : Epocha, 1969). 2 In Apri l 1963 , the Central Comm ittee of th e Communist Party of Czechos lovakia (Komunis ticka strana Ceskoslovenska, or KSC) convened a working gro up of Slovak and Czech party and academic "experts," popularly known as the " Bamabite Commiss ion," to investi gate th e allegations of " bourgeois nationalism" that had been leve led aga inst Ladi slav ovomesky, Gustav Husak and oth er wartime leaders of the Communist Party of Slovakia (Komunisticka strana S/o venska, or KSS) in th e major Slovak political trial s of the early 1950s. The Bamabite Commission's report, issued in August 1963 , di spro ved the Stalinist-era charges and called for the co mplete political rehabilitation of Husak, Novomesky and the oth er accused Slovak " bourgeois nationa lists." Stanis lav Sikora, " Politicky vyvoj na Slovensku v rokoch I 960- 1967 ," in Miroslav Londak, Stanis lav Sikora an d Elena Londakova, Predjarie: Politicky, ekonomicky a kul!iirny vyvoj na Slovensku v rokoch 1960- 1967 (Bratislava: Veda, 2002), 46-47 . The major schol arl y product that followed from th e work of the Barnabite Comm ission , not to mention one of the best studi es of th e Uprising from this era, was Ferdinand Beer and others, Dejinna kriiovatka: Slovenske ncirod- �SLOVAKIA 63 rising, like Gustav Husak, and older scholars like Samo Falt'an (also a former partisan) participated in this process as well, whether to exonerate themselves for their activities during the SNP, or to offer a mea culpa for their distorted publications from the Stalinist era.3 Many western studies of the Czechoslovak Spring that address the years prior to 1968 offer at best a fleeting mention of the revival of Slovak history and efforts to remove discredited cliches of the 4 Stalinist era from the historical image of the SNP. Nonetheless, the lack of scholarly attention to this important trend in Slovak historiography does a disservice to its importance in Slovak - and Czechoslovak - politics of the mid- to late 1960s. Though de-Stalinization may have begun from on high in the Czechoslovak capital, Slovak historians, writers, intellectuals, politicians and other public figures took full advantage of the chance to break old taboos and raise formerly forbidden issues, none of which was more heretical or politically pregnant than the Slovak question. As the Slovak writer Peter Karvas told Antonin J. Liehrn in 1968, Stalinist propaganda had a banalizing effect on all this; it reduced the Uprising to a historical cliche, and in the end the generation of the Uprising convinced itself that this view was somehow a more noble and correct one. Thus it is neither an accident nor an illusion that the rehabilitation of the ne povstanie - predpoklady a vysledky (Brati slava: Vydavatel's tvo po litic kej literatury, I 964). Important exampl es of these work s we re Samo Falt'an, 0 Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Bra ti slava: Osveta, 1964); a nd Gustav Husak, Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Brati slava: Vydavatel'stvo po litickej literatury, 1964). Husak also published a second , slightl y rev ised editi o n of hi s memo ir cum hi story in 1969. nd Gustav Hu sak, Svedectvo o Slovensko narodnom povstani, 2 ed. (Bratislava: Epocha, 1969). 4 H. Gordon Skilling a nd V ladimir V . Ku sin each pro vide a pass in g mention of the importance of SN P hi stori ography in th e m id-sixties. See H. Gordon Skilling, Czechoslovakia ·s Interrupted Revolution (Princeto n, N .J .: Princeton Uni ve rsity Press, 1976), 50-51 ; V ladimir V. Kusin, The Intellectual Origins of the Prague 3 Spring: The Development of Reform ist Ideas in Czechoslovakia, 1956- 1967 (Ca mbridge: Ca mbrid ge Uni versity Press, 197 1), 70. �64 SLOVAKIA Uprising coincided with a wave of reawakening sweeping across all the Slovak social and intellectual life. 5 Accordingly, chronicling the "history of the history" of the Slovak National Uprising during the 1960s offers a way to challenge these conventional boundaries and interpretations of the Czechoslovak Spring. Tracing the shifts in Slovak historiography and the new brand of Slovak nationalism constructed in the process restores Slovaks to the significant role they played in this upheaval, showing how Slovakia experienced an "early spring" following the renewed effort at de-Stalinization and rehabilitation in 1963 . The Pitfalls of History (and Historiography) Pointing to the "errors" that plagued earlier histories of the Slovak National Uprising, the writer Ladislav Novomesky made a plea to Slovak and Czech historians in 1964. His appeal to the participants at a conference at Smolenice on the Uprising urged historians to pay close attention to the image of the SNP through twenty years of historiography. As part of the process of rectifying the mistakes of Stalinism and rewriting history, Novomesky proposed that historians "delineate the history of the history [emphasis in original]" of the Uprising. 6 As Novomesky's remarks indicated, the political context in which historians worked had left an indelible mark on historiography and on the history of the Slovak National Uprising. Political constraints of the Stalinist era had curtailed the research possibilities available to scholars, who could not access most of the relevant documents and other materials. But political dictates had also imposed ready-made interpretations on historians' narratives. When Novomesky made his pitch to historians to take stock of the historiography of the Uprising, he mainly had in mind the correction of the lies, distortions and half-truths that had colored histories of the Uprising 5 Antonin J. Liehm, The Politics of Culture, trans. Peter Kussi (New York : Grove Press, 1972), 351. 6 Ladislav Novomesky, "Za hi storicku pravdu o Povstani," in Slovenske narodne povstanie ro/..."U 1944 (Sbornik prispevkov z narodnooslobodzovacieho boja 19381945), eds . Cudovit Holotik and Miroslav Kropilak, (Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo Slovenskej akademie vied, 1965), 668. �SLOVAKIA 65 since the onset of Stalinism in Czechoslovakia in the late 1940s. Revisions to these histories had become possible only with the work of the Bamabite Commission and the first concrete steps at deStalinization in 1963 . As the Slovak writer Michal Chorvath claimed on the Uprising's nineteenth anniversary in August 1963 , the "liquidation of the cult of personality" made it possible for the first time in years "to say about the Slovak National Uprising and its significance for our nation and state what the whole public has already thought for a long time." 7 De-Stalinization thus provided an important stimulus in the midI 960s for historians to attempt a more objective look at the Uprising. But while this political opening afforded scholars an opportunity to contest the older dogmatic accounts of the SNP, the historical image of the Uprising remained deeply politicized in the new narratives of the sixties. In the middle and later years of the decade, many Slovak intellectuals and politicians contested Stalinist-era views in rewriting the history of the SNP, yet the individuals driving these shifts continued to interpret the historical significance of the Uprising in a way that served their contemporary personal and political agendas. For instance, Husak claimed expertise as a historian of the Uprising based on his background as the leading Slovak Communist in the SNP. Yet Husak also traded on his stature as an "authority" on the Uprising (and as the most prominent surviving Slovak victim of the Stalinist era) to mount his political comeback, culminating in his ascent to the post of KSC first secretary in April 1969. As the Czech historian Jan Rychlik notes, the new interpretation of the Uprising formulated in the mid-sixties "had a supremely political character," since it weighed directly on the question of rehabilitation and a return to politics for Husak and Novomesky.8 Nonetheless, a "rehabilitation" of the historical image of the SNP was a necessary part of de-Stalinization in Slovakia after 1963 , because the dictates of Stalinism had skewed earlier narratives. Older histories of the Uprising painted it as the opening act of the national and democratic revolution in Czechoslovakia, depicting the SNP as little more than a stepping stone toward the Communist seizure of 7 Mi cha l Chorvath , "K metodam skum ani a SN P," Ku /uirny i ivot, 3 1 August 1963. Jan Rychlik, Ce.si a Slovaci ve 20. sto /eti: Cesko-slovenske vztahy 1945-/ 992, vo l. 2 (Bra ti slava : Academi c Electroni c Press, 1998), 206. 8 �66 SLOVAKIA power. 9 These Stalinist-era narratives forced the SNP into a doctrinaire Marxist framework. Accordingly, historiography from the 1950s and early 1960s celebrated the toiling masses of the Slovak people (l'ud) , who rejected the "clerico-fascism" of the Tiso regime and adopted an internationalist outlook in fightin g side by side with the fraternal Czech nation, aided by the heroic Soviet Union, in order to create a new Czechoslovak Republic oriented towards the international Communist movement centered in Moscow. The heavy-handed Marxist language employed in these older narratives practically wrote Slovaks out of their own Uprising as it lionized the role of the Red Army and even of Czech partisans in the SNP, treating the contributions of Slovaks as an afterthought. Writing in samizdat in 1980, Jablonicky, the leading Slovak historian of the Uprising, divided historiography of the SNP into three distinct periods. Jablonicky characterized the first period, from 1949 to 1962, as one of "deformation," a time when historians falsified the history of the SNP to suit the dogmas of Stalinism and the attack on Slovak "bourgeois nationalism," which claimed as victims many prominent communist veterans of the Slovak resistance, including Husak, Novomesky and Karol Smidke. 10 Beginning with the work of the Barnabite Commission, a second period, which Jablonicky called "rehabilitation" took shape in 1963 . Though it lasted only until the installation of the Husak regime in April 1969, this era witnessed a burst of scholarship on the Uprising distinguished by its pursuit of "historical truth," including efforts to docu9 See, for instance, Jaros lav Kubat, ed., Slovenske narodni po vstani - Vyznamna etapa narodne osvobozeneckeho boje ceskoslovenskeho lidu: Material pro lektory a propagandisty k 15. vyroci SNP (Prague: Statn i nak ladatelstvi poli ticke literatu ry, 1959) . 10 Smidke had been a member the illegal KSS Centra l Committee that orga nized the Uprising, as we ll as the co-creator of the Christmas Agreement. Du ring the early stages of the campa ign aga inst the "bourgeois nationalists," Smidke faced accusations of collaboration, along with Vladimir Clementi s, Husak and Novo mesky, and lost his party and governmenta l posts, inc ludi ng his position as chairman of the Slovak Nati onal Council. Sm idke avo ided jo ining his supposed co llaborators in the dock at the poli tical tria ls of the ea rl y fifti es only due to hi s death in an automobile acc ident in late 1952, th ough various witnesses c laimed it had been a planned murder. He was posthumously rehabilitated with the other Slovak "bourgeois nati onalists" in December 1963. Jan Pesek, " Karo l Smidke," ed. Ja n Pesek, Akteri jednej ery na Slovensku: Personiflkacia politickeho vyvoja (Presov: Vydavatel'stvo Michala Vaska, 2003), 328-330. �SLOVAKIA 67 ment the role of non-Communists in the SNP. With the onset of "normalization" in 1970, a third period commenced, bringing a return to deformations and the silencing of "inconvenient historians" a group that included Jablonicky - and lasted until the fall of the communist regime in 1989. 11 Though Jablonicky's periodization conforms to wide trends in historiography on the Uprising, his characterization of the second period oversimplifies the contours of this pivotal era. Scholarship on the SNP produced from 1963 to 1969 witnessed a new push for historical truth and objectivity, with historians drawing on previously inaccessible documents, filling in former "blank spots" and challenging earlier dogmatic interpretations of the Uprising. However, the general trend toward historical fidelity did not follow the linear trajectory Jablonicky describes. While many historians sought accuracy and improved professional practices, others held fast to old dogmas, resulting in a multiplicity of narratives and interpretations of the SNP. Moreover, the ambiguities inherent in the quest for historical truth cut through the scholarship of individual historians. In May 1963 , Jan Kfen, a Czech historian who served as one of the experts on the Bamabite Commission, explained the challenges ahead for historians after Stalinism: The battle against dogmatism is, in my opmzon, above all an internal matter of every historian, a question of his theoretical level, his ideological potential. Like all progress in science, the overcoming of dogmatism is not possible without abilities and talent. Untalented thinking is always dogmatic, stereotypical and toady ish. 12 Yet Kfen overstated the importance of professional abilities, as many talented historians struggled to discard political considerations in order to write better histories. For instance, while Jablonicky's Slovensko na prelome, published in 1965, stressed the importance of the Uprising for inaugurating a new chapter in Czech-Slovak rela11 Jozef Ja bl oni cky, Glosy o historiograjii SNP: Zneuiivanie a f alfovanie dej in SNP (Brati slava: NVK In te rn ati onal, 1994), I 0, 13. 12 Jan Kfe n, " Kult a hi stori e," Kulttirna tvorba, 23 May 1963. �68 SLOVAKIA tions, Jablonicky equivocated in repeating the best orthodox cliches about nefarious Slovak and Czech bourgeoisies and the leading role of Communists in the resistance. 13 To Jablonicky's credit, he penned perhaps the decade ' s most important historiographical contribution in 1969, Z illegality do povstania, which offered the most stunning refutation of dogmatic interpretations of the Uprising and destroyed several taboos in praising the non-communist resistance and units of the Slovak Army for their roles in the Uprising while simultaneously portraying its communist leaders in an unflattering light. In a samizdat essay from 1979, Jablonicky even offered a mea culpa for his early scholarship in which he acknowledges the shortcomings of his first works. As Jablonicky recalled, conversations with dozens of former partisans and victims of Stalinism "gradually opened my eyes" as a young historian in the 1960s, leading him to appreciate the importance of the non-communist resistance. 14 Of course, Jablonicky was not alone. At a conference of Slovak historians in June 1963, Milos Gosiorovsky presented a harsh evaluation of his own works on the Uprising from the Stalinist era, criticizing his monographs Ilegalny boj KSS and Slovenske narodne povstanie for presenting a "substantially deformed" picture of the 15 SNP. A year later, Samo Falt'an described how the dictates of editorial boards and the pressures of self-censorship had handicapped evaluations of the Uprising in the Stalinist era, preventing him from including anything critical in his book Partizanska vojna na Slovensku, published in 1959 . 16 As the confessions of Gosiorovsky and Falt'an revealed, the most prominent Slovak historians had been especially susceptible to pressures for ideological conformity, which 13 Jablonicky, Slovensko na prelome, 3 1, 148- 149. Vilem Precan, " Historik proti nas iliu - Jozef Jabloni cky," in Jozef Jablonicky, Samizdat o odboji: Stiidie a clanky, vol. 2 (Bratislava: Kalligram, 2006), 12; Jablonicky, Glosy o historiografii SNP, 6 1. 15 Frantisek Bokes, "Vaine zhromazdeni e Slovenskej hi stori ckej spolocnosti ," Historicky casopis 12, no. 4 (1963): 650; Milos Gosiorovsky, !legalny boj KSS a Slovenske narodne povstanie (Bratislava: Nakladatel'stvo Pravda, 1949); Milos Gosiorovsky, Slovenske narodne povstanie (Bra ti slava : Slovenske vydava tel'stvo politi ckej literatury, 1954). 16 Samo Falt'an, "Niektore otazky okolo hodnoteni a Slovenskeho narodneho povstania," Historicky casop is 12, no. 2 ( 1964): 161 , 164; Samo Falt'an, Partizanska vojna na Slovensku (Bratislava: Osveta, 1959). 14 �SLOVAKIA 69 seemed to spur their self-conscious push for objectivity in the more relaxed Slovak political climate of the mid-l 960s. Just as Slovak historians in the l 960s recognized the harmful effects of Stalinism on scholarship on the Uprising, scholars writing about the sixties acknowledge the importance of historiography for the larger crisis gestating in Czechoslovakia. Nonetheless, scholarship about the l 960s has pronounced limitations when it comes to historiography from the 1960s. Non-Slovak writers treat the history of the Uprising as but one issue among many new historiographical developments in Czechoslovakia, an approach characterristic of the wider tendency to trivialize the role of Slovaks and the Slovak question in the l 960s. 17 While the Slovak National Uprising was hardly the only historical theme to gamer renewed interest from historians in the mid-sixties - or even the only topic from Slovak history - it was unique in the political purposes to which prominent Slovaks put it in justifying contemporary demands for a resolution of the Slovak question in line with the ostensible aims of the Uprising. More obvious, however, was the extent to which the new historiography on the SNP from the 1960s broke with old dogmas. The doctrinaire narrative of the Uprising from the Stalinist era marginalized the role of Slovaks in the Slovak National Uprising. An instructional manual for lecturers and propagandists published in advance of the SNP's fifteenth anniversary - and, tellingly, written in Czech inflated the importance of Soviet and Czech contributions to the Uprising: In August 1944 the Slovak nation, emboldened by the heroic battle of the Soviet p eople in the Great Patriotic War, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, alongside the Soviet Army advancing to victory, together with the fraternal Czech nation, rose up with weapons in 17 See, fo r instance, th e scant treatm ent prov ided in Stanl ey Z. Pec h, " Fe rment in Czec hoslova k Marxist Hi stori ograph y," Canadian Slavonic Papers l 0, no. 4 (Dece mber 1968): 502-522; Ga lia Gol an, The Czechoslovak Refo rm Movement: Communism in Crisis. 1962- / 968 ; and Skillin g, Czechoslovakia 's Interrupted Revolution. By contrast, M. Mark Stolarik observed how hi stori ans, beginning with Husak and the th eme of the SNP, increasingly reasserted Slovak nati onali sm in their th work . M. Mark Stolarik , "The Painful Birth of Slovak Histori ography in the 20 Century," Zeitschriftfiir Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 50, no. 2 (2 00 I): 176 . �70 SLOVAKIA hand against the German occupiers and their domestic fascist supporters in order to contribute to the liberation of their own homeland - the Czechoslovak Republic. 18 Amid the rambling succession of clauses inserted to show obligatory deference to the Soviet Union and the KSC and to flatter Czechs, the propaganda manual, like the Stalinist-era interpretations of the SNP it typifies, lost sight of the Slovaks, who nearly disappeared from the history of their own Uprising. At the same time, older orthodoxy ascribed the Marxist categories of proletarian internationalism and class struggle to the Uprising. In their work on international participation in the SNP, the Czech Jii'i Dolezal and the Slovak Jozef Hroziencik credited the liberation of Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Army on the international stage, and to the working class at home. The Uprising occurred as a consequence, Dolezal and Hroziencik argued, of "the strengthening of the working class and its ideological leadership in the nation," along with the blossoming of the idea of internationalism within the proletariat. 19 Near the end of the Stalinist era, an editorial in 1962 from the KSC Central Committee daily Rude pravo made the dubious claim that, "on an ideological plane," the Uprising "aimed mainly at developing a unified economy," along with combining all other aspects of Slovak and Czech society after liberation - making the SNP appear as the first step toward amalgamating Slovaks and Czechs into a single Czechoslovak nation.2° Conventional interpretations from the Stalinist era thus reduced the Uprising to little more than the opening act in the Czechoslovak revolution and a prelude to the communist takeover in 1948.21 Such a view seemed at odds with the reality of communist electoral strength in the elections of 1946, when the party made considerable gains over its interwar showing, yet still suffered a decisive defeat at the hands of the Democratic Party. 18 Kubat, Slovenske narodni povstani, 3. Jifi Dolezal and Jozef Hroziencik, Medzinarodna solidarita v Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Bratislava: Osveta, 1959), 35, 219 20 " Rozvij ime spolecne dilo," Rude pravo, 29 August 1962. 21 Doleza l and Hroziencik, Medzinarodna solidarita , 74. 19 �SLOVAKIA 71 Coming to Terms with the Past: De-Stalinization and the Uprising Rewriting the history of the Slovak National Uprising first required important political developments to transpire, and the process drew succor from new efforts at de-Stalinization in 1963 . But the impact of the Bamabite Commission also revealed the crucial role historians played in this process. As Ferdinand Beer, Antonin Bencik, Frantisek Janacek and Jan Kfon recalled, their work on the Bamabite Commission offered historians a rare chance to play an important role in current events: ft was - as far as we know - the first time such a large group of scholars was asked to do this kind of work. This experience left its mark on their whole way of doing work and became, at least for historians, one of those rare occasions when they could not only reconstruct history, but also help to make it. 22 The recollections of these historians also spoke to the transformative effect the Bamabite Commission had on its member-scholars, which proved a formative experience for the way they approached their craft thereafter. Because it focused not only on the political trials of the early 1950s, but also on the activities of the "bourgeois nationalists" during the SNP, the Bamabite Commission employed several professional historians who consequently gained access to documents formerly off limits to researchers, including the files of the "bourgeois nationalists" and materials concerning the cases of Vladimir Clementis and others.23 A document collection on the SNP, originally planned to appear in conjunction with the twentieth anniversary of the Uprising in 1964 and intended to span 300 to 400 pages when conceived in the spring of 1963, soon ballooned to more than a thousand pages and took an extra year to produce. As Vilem Precan, the Czech editor of the volume, recounts in hi s preface, the renewed interest in the Uprising first observed during celebrations of its nineteenth anniversary, coupled with the political fallout of the 22 23 Beer and others, "Svedectvi z Barnabitek," Kulturni tvorba, 2 May 1968. Sikora, " Po liticky vyvoj na Slovensku," 38. �72 SLOVAKIA Barnabite Commission's report, created "editorial possibilities" that compelled him to broaden the scope of the project. Precan had to sift through piles of newly available documents and include as many of these materials as he could, a daunting task that kept him from completing the volume until 1965 - a full year behind schedule.24 Confronted with documentary evidence of the fabrications from the political trials, the historian-members of the Bamabite Commission were floored by the level of deceit, which exceeded their wildest imagination. Confronting such proof of the crimes of Stalinism had a galvanizing effect on Slovak and Czech historians similar to the jolt Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" had given to Soviet Communists in 1956. As a group of historians recalled in the spring of 1968, "In a certain sense, all of us inside the walls of the former Bamabite monastery went through our own 20 th Congress." 25 For these historians at least, there could be no going back to the old, dogmatic interpretations of Slovak history, especially where the Uprising was concerned. Sensing the opportunity de-Stalinization and the Barnabite Commission had created, historians took the initiative in probing sensitive issues like the Slovak question and the wartime resistance in Slovakia. As early as March of 1963, Falt'an had urged a drastic reexamination of the Uprising, one that would break out of the "black-and-white pigeonholes" of historiography from the Stalinist era to "evaluate objectively and justly" such topics as the role of (non-communist) Slovak regulars from the 1st Czechoslovak Army in the SNP. 26 Further steps in this direction came in the summer of 1963, when historians openly connected the significance of their professional work to the concurrent process of rehabilitation. Miroslav Kropilak opened the Slovak Historical Society ' s conference in June 1963 by reminding his fellow historians of their shared obligation in reassessing "wrongly interpreted" segments of their history. 27 The congress helped to engage Slovak historians in the task 24 Vilem Precan, "S lovo cita tel'ovi," in Slovenske narodne povstanie - Dokumenty, ed. Precan, 5-6. 25 Beer and others, " Svedectvi z Barnabitek. " 26 Samo Falt'an, " Histori a a dn esok," Kulturny i ivot, 23 March 1963 . 27 Kropilak's ex hortati on to eliminate th e "unscienti fic methods" of research employed in studi es of recent Slovak history marked an about fac e from his own presentation at the Fourth Congress of Slovak Histori ans a year earli er in Kosice. At Kosi- �SLOVAKIA 73 of eliminating vestiges of the "cult of personality," and it created space, as the historian Marek Havrila remarked, for the "de-ideologizing" (odideologizovanie) of history and the "academifying" (zvedectenie) of the discipline.28 Rewriting History: New (and Old) Narratives of the Uprising Historians began to rewrite the history of the Uprising in time for its twentieth anniversary in 1964, reflecting not only the opportunities created by the Bamabite Commission, but also the heightened interest in commemorating this milestone. Many historians took seriously the need for better scholarship on the Uprising and strove to make use both of newly available materials as well as the relaxation of political constraints. But other historians largely paid lip service to the tasks of writing new, post-Stalinist narratives of the SNP, hewing closely to older, more dogmatic interpretations. On the whole, the new historiography of the Uprising produced in the 1960s yielded improved histories, but it remained bound to the shifting politics of the day. A key development early in this process was an academic conference held at Smolenice on 8-10 June 1964, when several Slovak and Czech historians presented their latest research on the Uprising. The conference marked important progress on the "arduous journey" historians had traveled, as Kropilak recalled in his foreword to the published volume of conference papers, since it brought a "difficult acknowledgment of the unexamined truths, half-truths and untruths" that had characterized historiography of the Uprising from the Stalinist era.29 In a similar vein, Alexander Dubcek, who became KSS first secretary amid the political shakeup of the previous year, ce in I 962 , Kropil ak gave a paper on the anti fas ci st move ment in Eastern Slovakia th at uphe ld communist orthodoxy. He credited the party for building the resistance from the grass roots until the Upri sing, but made no mention of th e contributions of non-Co mmuni sts in the Slova k res istance. Bokes, " Va ine zhromazdenie," 650 ; "Stvrty sjazd slovenskych hi storik ov," Historicky casopis I 0, no. 4 ( 1962): 632. 28 Marek Havril a, " K ni ektory m pro blemom vyv inu slovenskej hi storiografie a slovenskej histori ckej spolocnosti pri SA V v 50. a 60. rokoch 20. storocia," Historicky casopis 55 , no. I (2007) : 28, 32. 29 Mi ros lav Kropil ak, " Uvod," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku I 944, eds. Hol otik and Kropilak, 5. �74 SLOVAKIA opened the conference proceedings by exhorting historians to undertake "a really broad and deep critical analysis of all problems" concerning this significant chapter in recent Slovak history, and Dubcek also reminded historians that the rectification of earlier mistakes was not simply a question of the past, but also a living concern of the present and future .30 As if Dubcek's point could somehow be lost on his audience, the participation of Husak and Novomesky at Smolenice underscored the topicality of scholarship on the SNP. Indeed, Husak expressed his belief on the final day that the conference itself was a sign of the times, since a definite measure of political relaxation in Slovakia was a precondition for historians to address openly the pitfalls of Stalinist-era historiography, and to shed new light on the history of the Uprising. 31 The papers presented at Smolenice aimed mainly at debunking the myths and errors of the Stalinist-era narrative of the SNP. For instance, Falt'an directly criticized the Ninth KSS Congress for having "artificially created" a circle of "bourgeois nationalist traitors and agents of imperialism" that included Husak, Novomesky and Smidke as its leading figures. This trio of Slovak Communists had created the illegal Fifth KSS Central Committee in 1943 , following the arrest of members of the Fourth KSS Central Committee, and had played a major role in organizing the Uprising. Yet the members of the Fifth KSS Central Committee came under fire after the communist takeover of 1948 for their collaboration with nonCommunists, which provided one justification for their persecution as Slovak "bourgeois nationalists." Falt'an portrayed the Slovak Communists who had helped to orchestrate the SNP as both patriotic and communist, rendering the wartime KSS leadership as neither "bourgeois" nor "nationalist" in an effort to break with the dogmatic interpretations that had marred previous historiography.32 Another crucial component of this attempt to cast aside Stalinistera narratives was the effort historians made to address lacunae in scholarship on the Uprising. To this end, the Slovak historian Milos 30 Alexander Dubcek, "Marx isticka histori ografia a nasa revolucna minulost'," in S/ovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropil ak, I 8. 31 Gustav Husak, " K ni ektorym otazkam Slovenskeho narodn eho povstania," in S/ovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 652-653. 32 Samo Falt'an, " Slovenske narodn e povstani e a jeho problemy," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 222, 234. �SLOVAKIA 75 Tichy called attention to the contributions of non-Communists in the SNP. Though the Communists had been the only party in Slovakia that opposed the breakup of the republic and the Tiso government from the outset, Tichy emphasized how the non-communist parties could not be treated as monolithic supporters of Slovak separatism. Thus, Tichy took care to note how segments of the Social Democratic Party, along with individual members of other "bourgeois" (meaning non-communist) parties had held views similar to those of Slovak Communists with respect to the creation of a pro-German Slovak state. It was noteworthy for Tichy even to mention these nonCommunists who went on to join the wartime resistance, since, as he noted, the record of the non-communist resistance had been thoroughly trivialized and falsified in earlier historiography.33 Tichy struck one of the first important blows against the Stalinist narrative of the Uprising by virtue of recognizing the existence of noncommunist opposition to the Slovak state, though it was not until Jablonicky published Z ilegality do povstania at the end of the decade that this "civilian" segment of the wartime Slovak resistance gained the recognition it deserved. Even though historians consciously sought objectivity and historical fidelity at Smolen ice, they did not reject all elements of the Stalinist-era narrative of the SNP. Thus, while Falt'an preached the importance of historical truth in denouncing the lies that characterrized earlier histories, he sought this "truth" within a distinctly Marxist framework. Comparing the Slovak National Uprising of 1944 to the Warsaw Uprising of the same year, Falt'an placed the Slovak revolt on a qualitatively higher plane than the Polish insurrection, since the SNP had, in Falt'an 's estimation, the superior class orientation. Whereas the Polish "reactionary bourgeoisie" had "abused" popular hatred of Nazi Germany in order to serve its own "political speculations" and "anti-Soviet aims," the Slovak people had taken up arms under the leadership of "revolutionary forces" headed by the KSS .34 Marxist hermeneutics continued to color other interpretations of the Uprising advanced at Smolenice. Like Falt'an, Tichy took great 33 Milos Tic hy, " Hl avne etapy fo rmy a probl emy narodn ooslobodzo vac ieho hnuti a na Slove nsku do vzniku Povstani a," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Ho lotik and Kropilak, 65, 7 1. 34 Fa lt'a n, "S lovens ke narodn e povstanie a jeho pro bl emy," 27 1. �76 SLOVAKIA pains to emphasize the class dimension of the Slovak people's rejection of the pre-Munich First Republic. Tichy claimed the Slovak people (l'ud) had directed their hatred not at the fraternal Czech nation, but rather against the "politics of the ruling Czech bourgeoisie." 35 Similarly, Frantisek Janacek, a Czech historian and former member of the Barnabite Commission, conceded the importance of the national element in the Uprising, yet he suggested there was less real significance to such national sentiment in and of itself than in the political objectives to which Slovak Communists could put it in the SNP. Thus, Janacek upheld a doctrinaire Marxist interpretation of national sentiment in deeming it instrumental to revolutionary ends. He argued the initiative the Communists exhibited on the Slovak question had made the KSS a vanguard force that Slovaks recognized as a "national" (narodm) party. 36 Husak also hewed closely to this orthodox narrative of the Uprising instead of accentuating the national dimension of the SNP, averring at Smolenice that "the Slovak National Uprising was above all a political conception, the political revolution of the Slovak people." 37 Even as historians embarked on a pursuit for the truth about the SNP at Smolenice, they continued to parrot old party cliches about the Uprising. Indeed, historical fidelity coexisted alongside shifting political dictates in the historiography of the SNP throughout the l 960s, demonstrating how historians' professed desire for objectivity toward the past ran aground on their inability to remain aloof from the politics of the present. In O Slovenskom narodnom povstani, published in 1964, Falt'an culled new facts and documents in a quest to tell the truth about the Uprising, albeit a truth with a clear agenda. Falt'an's book expanded on the ideas he presented at Smolenice, as he continued his efforts to vindicate the Slovak Communists who had been condemned as "bourgeois nationalists" in the 1950s. But while Falt'an made skillful use of wartime documents to present a more historically accurate picture of the Slovak resistance, the same tired cliches about international solidarity and the Soviet Union 35 Tichy, " Hlavne etapy formy a problemy narodnooslobodzovacieho hnutia na Slovensku," 68-69. 36 Frantisek Janacek, " Dve promeny slovenske otazky (Mezi Mnichovem a Slovenskym narodnim povsta nim)," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku /944 , eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 618 , 628. 37 Husak, "K ni ektorym otazkam Slovenskeho narodneho povstania," 657. �SLOVAKIA 77 still peppered his work. He claimed the Uprising, among other things, "was the expression of great faith in the Soviet people," showing how de-Stalinization and a more relaxed political environment did not relieve Slovaks and Czechs of the duty to show deference to their Soviet allies - an obligation that remained in force even at the height of liberalization in 1968.38 Even the most groundbreaking histories of the Uprising from the mid-sixties exhibited a multiplicity of agendas. In Dejinna kriiovatka, a group of Slovak and Czech historians drew on their work on the Bamabite Commission in an attempt to "rehabilitate" the historical image of the SNP. Their work helped to expose the distortions of the Stalinist era, but it also restored the Slovak question to a prominent role in the new, post-Stalinist narrative of the Uprising. Dejinna kriiovatka appeared in a modest printing of 10,000 copies, yet it gained renown as the first attempt at a comprehensive history of the Slovak National Uprising that consciously rejected the Stalinist narrative and addressed several lacunae in scholarship on the Uprising. And yet, for all its significance as a landmark of Slovak historiography, Dejinna kriiovatka continued to uphold a Marxist worldview in interpreting the SNP as an affirmation of socialist revolution as well as a manifestation of how attractive communist ideas were to the average Slovaks who formed the core of the partisan masses in the Uprising.39 A similar emphasis on the communist aims of the Uprising appeared in Husak's Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani. To his credit, Husak addressed some previously neglected or trivialized facets of the Uprising, pointing out the contributions of the noncommunist opposition within the antifascist camp, the existence of 40 which had been all but denied in Stalinist-era scholarship. Yet Husak's motives for calling attention to this marginalized component of the resistance were also self-serving. Lauding the role of the nonCommunists in the Uprising allowed Husak to validate the strategy of cooperating with non-Communists that he and other KSS leaders had pursued. Husak's intent in writing his recollection of the Uprising seemed to be to vindicate himself, not only in terms of the 38 Falt'an, 0 Slovenskom narodnom povstani, 8, I 03. Beer and others, Dejinna kriiovatka, 125-126, 252. 40 Husak, Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani, 36-37. 39 �78 SLOVAKIA historical record, but also in the eyes of the party. As such, Husak stuck close to the communist interpretation of the SNP as a revolt directed against the ruling Slovak and Czech bourgeoisies, while simultaneously heralding the Communist Party (a self-referential bit of praise, considering his role as a member of the wartime KSS leadership) for leading the Uprising and launching the national and democratic revolution in Slovakia. 41 Husak's book also created a sensation after it appeared in August of 1964. The responses from Slovak and Czech intellectuals and historians ranged from the fawning to the damning, but most reviews 42 emphasized its positive contributions to scholarship on the SNP. These early favorable reviews led many Slovaks to view Husak, not only as a prominent figure in the Uprising, but as Jablonicky observed years later, they also encouraged both defenders and detractors of Husak to think of him "as a promising politician possibly on the rise in Slovakia."43 Husak's account of the Uprising conferred considerable authority on him, though not all historians accepted his portrayal of the SNP without reservation. The Czech scholar Josef Domansky offered the first critical remarks on Husak's book, noting one shortcoming was its "methodological non-clarity" resulting from the blurred division between Husak the memoirist and Husak the historian. On the whole, Domansky judged the book positively, even if it had its flaw s, and he regarded it as part of the new trend in historiography that helped to clarify the importance of the Slovak question and to transcend the oversimplifications of earlier scholarship on the Uprising.44 Yet Husak's book became a cause celebre among Slovak - and Czech - intellectuals when it came under fire from on high . Antonin Novotny had little patience for Husak, since Novotny had resisted the rehabilitation of Husak and other victims of Stalinism. When KSS leaders refused to rein in Husak, Novotny commissioned a party hack, the Czech historian Vaclav Kral , to write a scathing review in 41 Ibid., 129, 133 , 139. See, for instance, Anna Stvrtecka, "O dokum entoc h a fa ktoc h," Kultiirny i ivot, 27 August I 965 ; and Jifi Doleza l, " Dvakrat o S P," Mezinarodni politika I 0, no. I 0 (October 1964): 472. 43 Jablonicky, "S lovenske narodne povstani e a tri etapy jeho hodnoteni a," 452 . 44 Josef Domansky, " Nad knihou o Slovenskem narodnim povs tani," Nova mys/ 20, no. I ( 1965): 133- 134. 42 �SLOVAKIA 79 order to discredit Husak.45 The KSC cultural weekly Kulturni tvorba published Kral 's review in February 1966, almost two years after Husak' s book appeared in print, and focused, in Kral ' s words, "on a series of theses and questions that are insufficiently or incorrectly developed in Husak's book." Yet Kral's dissection of Husak' s narrative contained thinly veiled criticism of Husak's wartime activities as a member of the KSS Central Committee that organized the • · 46 Upnsmg. Though the high-level political machinations behind Kral ' s review were not common knowledge at the time, the response from Slovak and Czech historians was irate. Anton Bencik, Vaclav Kura) and Jaromir Navratil - one Slovak and two Czech historians - published a reply to Kral in defense of Husak' s work, which stressed the importance of Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani as a harbinger of the new developments in historiography following the KSC's renunciation of "bourgeois nationalism" in 1963 . "The publication of Husak's book was indisputably an event," they offered in their response, yet the renown Husak had achieved with this work was only possible because it corresponded to contemporary knowledge of the Uprising and had been accepted by the historical community. Indeed, Husak 's book had been vetted in several reviews, which generally judged it favorably , albeit with some criticism of individual facets . Bencik, Kura! and Navratil also found it puzzling how Kral had remained silent during the historiographical discussions of Husak 's book when it first appeared, and was only then speaking out against the work, long after the fact. The timing was peculiar, though Bencik, Kura) and Navratil did not press their • • 47 susp1c10ns. 45 Vac lav Kra l, "O os udu jedne recenze," Kulturni tvorba, 25 April 1968. Vaclav Kra l, "O Husakove svedectvi troc hu j inak," Kul!urni tvorba, 24 February 1966. 47 Anton Benci k, Vaclav Ku ra ] and Jaromir Navratil , "Jes te o Husakove svedectvi a nejen o nem," Kulturni tvorba, 3 1 March 1966. The rev iew was reprinted a week later in th e Slovak cul tura l magaz ine Predvoj. Anton Benc ik , Vac lav Ku ra ] and Jaro mir Nav ratil , "Este o Husakovom Svedectve a nielen o i\om," Predvoj , 7 April 1966. 46 �80 SLOVAKIA Toward Better Histories? On the whole, Slovak historiography of the SNP during the sixties struggled to find its way, as the competing impulses of communist orthodoxy and professional integrity pulled individual historians in opposite directions. While some scholars, like Jablonicky, or the historians who worked on the Bamabite Commission, proved relatively successful at eschewing dogma in writing new narratives more concerned with fidelity to the historical record, it proved impossible even for these more commendable histories to avoid all the cliches about the Uprising that had marked Stalinist-era scholarship. Yet historiography did not exist in a vacuum, and Slovak historians - as well as journalists, writers, politicians and other public figures addressing the theme of the SNP - also played an active role in using the history of the Uprising to reshape contemporary politics. The Slovak National Uprising was an episode from recent history, and the new vitality of scholarship on it during the midsixties ensured the Uprising remained living history for the remainder of the decade. Rewriting the history of the SNP allowed Slovak (and Czech) scholars to press for the rehabilitation of its persecuted leaders. But the new narrative of the Uprising also helped to "rehabilitate" the idea of the Slovak nation in public discourse, which in tum created an opening for politically engaged Slovaks to advance a nationalist agenda. Ultimately, this agenda would aim at a new approach to the Slovak question in the form of a federation, but in the interim, it entailed the promotion of a Slovak national consciousness firmly rooted in the new, "rehabilitated" historical image of the Uprising. � 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 2010, Vol. 40 Description An account of the resource Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010. 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 2010 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 60 SLOVAKIA RISING AGAINST STALINISM: DESTALINIZATION AND THE REINTERPRETATION OF THE SLOVAK NATIONAL UPRISING IN SLOVAK HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE 1960s Scott Brown In the morning hours of 29 August 1944, several thousand Slovak and foreign partisans took up arms against the German soldiers who entered Slovakia the previous day to crush the country's growing anti-German resistance. This armed insurrection marked the start of the Slovak National Uprising (Slovenske narodne povstanie, or SNP), a rebellion centered on the city of Banska Bystrica and directed against the German invaders and the pro-German leaders of the wartime Slovak state. Over the ensuing two months, roughly 60,000 Slovak and foreign partisans, including rebel units of the Slovak Army, fought a loosely coordinated campaign against the German incursion. Outnumbered and outgunned, the partisans steadily lost the territory they had initially controlled, and by the end of October 1944 the German units had quelled the Uprising. Yet the military shortcomings of the SNP paled in comparison to its political significance: the Slovak underground had carried out the largest resistance operation on once (and future) Czechoslovak soil during the Second World War. The Uprising bolstered the position of the Czechoslovak government in exile, which could point to the SNP as proof that Czechoslovakia had contributed militarily to its own liberation. Further-more, in the eyes of Czechs, the Uprising also helped to "redeem" Slovaks for their unilateral declaration of independence in 1939, and for the quasi-fascist government that ruled Slovakia during the war. After the war, the SNP became the centerpiece of a new, reconstructed form of Slovak nationalism that played a major role in precipitating the Czechoslovak Spring of the late 1960s. Nonetheless, Slovak nationalism remained a liability for nearly two decades after the war. The mere existence of the wartime Slovak state left Slovak nationalism suspect, since many Czechs continued SLOVAKIA 61 to equate it with Slovak separatism and the humiliating loss of Czech independence in 1939. In addition, the persecution of Slovak "bourgeois nationalists" - many of whom had played prominent roles in the Uprising - in the political trials of the 1950s further compromised the legitimacy of Slovak nationalism in a Czechoslovak context. These problematic legacies left Slovak nationalism without a usable past until the rehabilitation of the erstwhile Slovak "bourgeois nationalists" in 1963 afforded the Slovaks a political opening to reevaluate the SNP. In tum, this reinterpretation of the Uprising's historical significance provided the foundation for a new, positive brand of nationalism Slovaks could safely assert. If nothing else, the SNP had given the lie to the notion that Slovak nationalism was incompatible with a Czechoslovak state. Gradually, many Slovak historians, intellectuals and politicians advanced a narrative of the SNP that interpreted the Uprising as the great redemptive act of the Slovak nation. In this view, Slovaks rose up as a nation against the wartime pro-Nazi regime of Jozef Tiso, sacrificing "their own" state in order to resurrect Czechoslovakia and make the new republic their own state. For champions of the Slovak national cause in the 1960s, finding their place in the restored Czechoslovakia entailed recognition of the existence of a separate Slovak nation and the enshrinement of its equality with the other titular nation through the federalization of the state. By reconstructing the history of the Uprising in this way, Slovak nationalists could then lay claim to specific rights as a nation. Like their calls for a Czechoslovak federation later in the decade, Slovak nationalists' demands for legal recognition of Slovak nationhood in the mid- to late 1960s referred directly or indirectly to the Slovak National Uprising for justification. As historians and political figures constructed a new narrative of the Uprising in the 1960s, they toned down old Stalinist and Marxist dogmas. Instead, the language they used to describe the SNP restored Slovaks - and the Slovak nation - to a central role. Important in this regard was how Slovaks writing and speaking about the Uprising during the Czechoslovak Spring began to accentuate the Slovak nation (narod) in retelling the history of the Uprising, placing new stress on the national component of the Slovak National Uprising. Thus, along with their stated desire to seek historical truth and to rectify the "errors" of Stalinism, Slovak historians writing about the 62 SLOVAKIA Uprising in the sixties also contributed to the reconstruction of Slovak nationalism by linking Slovaks' demands for national rights and a just solution to the Slovak question with the progressive and democratic traditions of the Uprising. The process of reinterpreting the Uprising and reconstructing Slovak nationalism - a process that occurred in fits and starts, with much equivocation - shows, in turn, how important Slovak developments of the mid-1960s served as antecedents to the Czechoslovak Spring that blossomed in 1968. One of the crucial, yet underappreciated, facets of this prehistory took shape in the new historiography of the SNP produced in the l 960s. Several groups of historians participated in crafting this new narrative. Younger historians, such as Jozef Jablonicky, perhaps had an advantage of personal detachment, since they had fought in neither the Uprising nor the battles over its history during the Stalinist era. 1 Other important contributors came from the historians who served on the Bamabite Commission and subsequently attempted to produce more "objective" and "factual" histories of the Uprising. 2 But veterans of the Up1 lndeed, Jab lonicky di sti ngui shed himself as arguabl y the most profess iona l and darin g histo ri an with hi s willingness to te ll the story of the significant but politically margin ali zed non-communi st "c ivilian" component of the Slovak resi stance that fought in th e NP. Yet even Jablonicky's work ex hibited an evolution in hi s willingness to challenge former taboos, since his first works from early in the decade did not go quite so far in this regard as hi s later work. See Jozef Jablon icky, Sloven- ska na prelome: Zapas o vit'azstvo narodnej a demokratickej revohicie na Slovensku (Bratislava : Yydavatel'stvo politickej literatury, 1965); and Jozef Jablonicky, Z ilegality do povstania (Kapitoly z obcianskeho odboja) (Bratislava : Epocha, 1969). 2 In Apri l 1963 , the Central Comm ittee of th e Communist Party of Czechos lovakia (Komunis ticka strana Ceskoslovenska, or KSC) convened a working gro up of Slovak and Czech party and academic "experts," popularly known as the " Bamabite Commiss ion," to investi gate th e allegations of " bourgeois nationalism" that had been leve led aga inst Ladi slav ovomesky, Gustav Husak and oth er wartime leaders of the Communist Party of Slovakia (Komunisticka strana S/o venska, or KSS) in th e major Slovak political trial s of the early 1950s. The Bamabite Commission's report, issued in August 1963 , di spro ved the Stalinist-era charges and called for the co mplete political rehabilitation of Husak, Novomesky and the oth er accused Slovak " bourgeois nationa lists." Stanis lav Sikora, " Politicky vyvoj na Slovensku v rokoch I 960- 1967 ," in Miroslav Londak, Stanis lav Sikora an d Elena Londakova, Predjarie: Politicky, ekonomicky a kul!iirny vyvoj na Slovensku v rokoch 1960- 1967 (Bratislava: Veda, 2002), 46-47 . The major schol arl y product that followed from th e work of the Barnabite Comm ission , not to mention one of the best studi es of th e Uprising from this era, was Ferdinand Beer and others, Dejinna kriiovatka: Slovenske ncirod- SLOVAKIA 63 rising, like Gustav Husak, and older scholars like Samo Falt'an (also a former partisan) participated in this process as well, whether to exonerate themselves for their activities during the SNP, or to offer a mea culpa for their distorted publications from the Stalinist era.3 Many western studies of the Czechoslovak Spring that address the years prior to 1968 offer at best a fleeting mention of the revival of Slovak history and efforts to remove discredited cliches of the 4 Stalinist era from the historical image of the SNP. Nonetheless, the lack of scholarly attention to this important trend in Slovak historiography does a disservice to its importance in Slovak - and Czechoslovak - politics of the mid- to late 1960s. Though de-Stalinization may have begun from on high in the Czechoslovak capital, Slovak historians, writers, intellectuals, politicians and other public figures took full advantage of the chance to break old taboos and raise formerly forbidden issues, none of which was more heretical or politically pregnant than the Slovak question. As the Slovak writer Peter Karvas told Antonin J. Liehrn in 1968, Stalinist propaganda had a banalizing effect on all this; it reduced the Uprising to a historical cliche, and in the end the generation of the Uprising convinced itself that this view was somehow a more noble and correct one. Thus it is neither an accident nor an illusion that the rehabilitation of the ne povstanie - predpoklady a vysledky (Brati slava: Vydavatel's tvo po litic kej literatury, I 964). Important exampl es of these work s we re Samo Falt'an, 0 Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Bra ti slava: Osveta, 1964); a nd Gustav Husak, Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Brati slava: Vydavatel'stvo po litickej literatury, 1964). Husak also published a second , slightl y rev ised editi o n of hi s memo ir cum hi story in 1969. nd Gustav Hu sak, Svedectvo o Slovensko narodnom povstani, 2 ed. (Bratislava: Epocha, 1969). 4 H. Gordon Skilling a nd V ladimir V . Ku sin each pro vide a pass in g mention of the importance of SN P hi stori ography in th e m id-sixties. See H. Gordon Skilling, Czechoslovakia ·s Interrupted Revolution (Princeto n, N .J .: Princeton Uni ve rsity Press, 1976), 50-51 ; V ladimir V. Kusin, The Intellectual Origins of the Prague 3 Spring: The Development of Reform ist Ideas in Czechoslovakia, 1956- 1967 (Ca mbridge: Ca mbrid ge Uni versity Press, 197 1), 70. 64 SLOVAKIA Uprising coincided with a wave of reawakening sweeping across all the Slovak social and intellectual life. 5 Accordingly, chronicling the "history of the history" of the Slovak National Uprising during the 1960s offers a way to challenge these conventional boundaries and interpretations of the Czechoslovak Spring. Tracing the shifts in Slovak historiography and the new brand of Slovak nationalism constructed in the process restores Slovaks to the significant role they played in this upheaval, showing how Slovakia experienced an "early spring" following the renewed effort at de-Stalinization and rehabilitation in 1963 . The Pitfalls of History (and Historiography) Pointing to the "errors" that plagued earlier histories of the Slovak National Uprising, the writer Ladislav Novomesky made a plea to Slovak and Czech historians in 1964. His appeal to the participants at a conference at Smolenice on the Uprising urged historians to pay close attention to the image of the SNP through twenty years of historiography. As part of the process of rectifying the mistakes of Stalinism and rewriting history, Novomesky proposed that historians "delineate the history of the history [emphasis in original]" of the Uprising. 6 As Novomesky's remarks indicated, the political context in which historians worked had left an indelible mark on historiography and on the history of the Slovak National Uprising. Political constraints of the Stalinist era had curtailed the research possibilities available to scholars, who could not access most of the relevant documents and other materials. But political dictates had also imposed ready-made interpretations on historians' narratives. When Novomesky made his pitch to historians to take stock of the historiography of the Uprising, he mainly had in mind the correction of the lies, distortions and half-truths that had colored histories of the Uprising 5 Antonin J. Liehm, The Politics of Culture, trans. Peter Kussi (New York : Grove Press, 1972), 351. 6 Ladislav Novomesky, "Za hi storicku pravdu o Povstani," in Slovenske narodne povstanie ro/..."U 1944 (Sbornik prispevkov z narodnooslobodzovacieho boja 19381945), eds . Cudovit Holotik and Miroslav Kropilak, (Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo Slovenskej akademie vied, 1965), 668. SLOVAKIA 65 since the onset of Stalinism in Czechoslovakia in the late 1940s. Revisions to these histories had become possible only with the work of the Bamabite Commission and the first concrete steps at deStalinization in 1963 . As the Slovak writer Michal Chorvath claimed on the Uprising's nineteenth anniversary in August 1963 , the "liquidation of the cult of personality" made it possible for the first time in years "to say about the Slovak National Uprising and its significance for our nation and state what the whole public has already thought for a long time." 7 De-Stalinization thus provided an important stimulus in the midI 960s for historians to attempt a more objective look at the Uprising. But while this political opening afforded scholars an opportunity to contest the older dogmatic accounts of the SNP, the historical image of the Uprising remained deeply politicized in the new narratives of the sixties. In the middle and later years of the decade, many Slovak intellectuals and politicians contested Stalinist-era views in rewriting the history of the SNP, yet the individuals driving these shifts continued to interpret the historical significance of the Uprising in a way that served their contemporary personal and political agendas. For instance, Husak claimed expertise as a historian of the Uprising based on his background as the leading Slovak Communist in the SNP. Yet Husak also traded on his stature as an "authority" on the Uprising (and as the most prominent surviving Slovak victim of the Stalinist era) to mount his political comeback, culminating in his ascent to the post of KSC first secretary in April 1969. As the Czech historian Jan Rychlik notes, the new interpretation of the Uprising formulated in the mid-sixties "had a supremely political character," since it weighed directly on the question of rehabilitation and a return to politics for Husak and Novomesky.8 Nonetheless, a "rehabilitation" of the historical image of the SNP was a necessary part of de-Stalinization in Slovakia after 1963 , because the dictates of Stalinism had skewed earlier narratives. Older histories of the Uprising painted it as the opening act of the national and democratic revolution in Czechoslovakia, depicting the SNP as little more than a stepping stone toward the Communist seizure of 7 Mi cha l Chorvath , "K metodam skum ani a SN P," Ku /uirny i ivot, 3 1 August 1963. Jan Rychlik, Ce.si a Slovaci ve 20. sto /eti: Cesko-slovenske vztahy 1945-/ 992, vo l. 2 (Bra ti slava : Academi c Electroni c Press, 1998), 206. 8 66 SLOVAKIA power. 9 These Stalinist-era narratives forced the SNP into a doctrinaire Marxist framework. Accordingly, historiography from the 1950s and early 1960s celebrated the toiling masses of the Slovak people (l'ud) , who rejected the "clerico-fascism" of the Tiso regime and adopted an internationalist outlook in fightin g side by side with the fraternal Czech nation, aided by the heroic Soviet Union, in order to create a new Czechoslovak Republic oriented towards the international Communist movement centered in Moscow. The heavy-handed Marxist language employed in these older narratives practically wrote Slovaks out of their own Uprising as it lionized the role of the Red Army and even of Czech partisans in the SNP, treating the contributions of Slovaks as an afterthought. Writing in samizdat in 1980, Jablonicky, the leading Slovak historian of the Uprising, divided historiography of the SNP into three distinct periods. Jablonicky characterized the first period, from 1949 to 1962, as one of "deformation," a time when historians falsified the history of the SNP to suit the dogmas of Stalinism and the attack on Slovak "bourgeois nationalism," which claimed as victims many prominent communist veterans of the Slovak resistance, including Husak, Novomesky and Karol Smidke. 10 Beginning with the work of the Barnabite Commission, a second period, which Jablonicky called "rehabilitation" took shape in 1963 . Though it lasted only until the installation of the Husak regime in April 1969, this era witnessed a burst of scholarship on the Uprising distinguished by its pursuit of "historical truth," including efforts to docu9 See, for instance, Jaros lav Kubat, ed., Slovenske narodni po vstani - Vyznamna etapa narodne osvobozeneckeho boje ceskoslovenskeho lidu: Material pro lektory a propagandisty k 15. vyroci SNP (Prague: Statn i nak ladatelstvi poli ticke literatu ry, 1959) . 10 Smidke had been a member the illegal KSS Centra l Committee that orga nized the Uprising, as we ll as the co-creator of the Christmas Agreement. Du ring the early stages of the campa ign aga inst the "bourgeois nationalists," Smidke faced accusations of collaboration, along with Vladimir Clementi s, Husak and Novo mesky, and lost his party and governmenta l posts, inc ludi ng his position as chairman of the Slovak Nati onal Council. Sm idke avo ided jo ining his supposed co llaborators in the dock at the poli tical tria ls of the ea rl y fifti es only due to hi s death in an automobile acc ident in late 1952, th ough various witnesses c laimed it had been a planned murder. He was posthumously rehabilitated with the other Slovak "bourgeois nati onalists" in December 1963. Jan Pesek, " Karo l Smidke," ed. Ja n Pesek, Akteri jednej ery na Slovensku: Personiflkacia politickeho vyvoja (Presov: Vydavatel'stvo Michala Vaska, 2003), 328-330. SLOVAKIA 67 ment the role of non-Communists in the SNP. With the onset of "normalization" in 1970, a third period commenced, bringing a return to deformations and the silencing of "inconvenient historians" a group that included Jablonicky - and lasted until the fall of the communist regime in 1989. 11 Though Jablonicky's periodization conforms to wide trends in historiography on the Uprising, his characterization of the second period oversimplifies the contours of this pivotal era. Scholarship on the SNP produced from 1963 to 1969 witnessed a new push for historical truth and objectivity, with historians drawing on previously inaccessible documents, filling in former "blank spots" and challenging earlier dogmatic interpretations of the Uprising. However, the general trend toward historical fidelity did not follow the linear trajectory Jablonicky describes. While many historians sought accuracy and improved professional practices, others held fast to old dogmas, resulting in a multiplicity of narratives and interpretations of the SNP. Moreover, the ambiguities inherent in the quest for historical truth cut through the scholarship of individual historians. In May 1963 , Jan Kfen, a Czech historian who served as one of the experts on the Bamabite Commission, explained the challenges ahead for historians after Stalinism: The battle against dogmatism is, in my opmzon, above all an internal matter of every historian, a question of his theoretical level, his ideological potential. Like all progress in science, the overcoming of dogmatism is not possible without abilities and talent. Untalented thinking is always dogmatic, stereotypical and toady ish. 12 Yet Kfen overstated the importance of professional abilities, as many talented historians struggled to discard political considerations in order to write better histories. For instance, while Jablonicky's Slovensko na prelome, published in 1965, stressed the importance of the Uprising for inaugurating a new chapter in Czech-Slovak rela11 Jozef Ja bl oni cky, Glosy o historiograjii SNP: Zneuiivanie a f alfovanie dej in SNP (Brati slava: NVK In te rn ati onal, 1994), I 0, 13. 12 Jan Kfe n, " Kult a hi stori e," Kulttirna tvorba, 23 May 1963. 68 SLOVAKIA tions, Jablonicky equivocated in repeating the best orthodox cliches about nefarious Slovak and Czech bourgeoisies and the leading role of Communists in the resistance. 13 To Jablonicky's credit, he penned perhaps the decade ' s most important historiographical contribution in 1969, Z illegality do povstania, which offered the most stunning refutation of dogmatic interpretations of the Uprising and destroyed several taboos in praising the non-communist resistance and units of the Slovak Army for their roles in the Uprising while simultaneously portraying its communist leaders in an unflattering light. In a samizdat essay from 1979, Jablonicky even offered a mea culpa for his early scholarship in which he acknowledges the shortcomings of his first works. As Jablonicky recalled, conversations with dozens of former partisans and victims of Stalinism "gradually opened my eyes" as a young historian in the 1960s, leading him to appreciate the importance of the non-communist resistance. 14 Of course, Jablonicky was not alone. At a conference of Slovak historians in June 1963, Milos Gosiorovsky presented a harsh evaluation of his own works on the Uprising from the Stalinist era, criticizing his monographs Ilegalny boj KSS and Slovenske narodne povstanie for presenting a "substantially deformed" picture of the 15 SNP. A year later, Samo Falt'an described how the dictates of editorial boards and the pressures of self-censorship had handicapped evaluations of the Uprising in the Stalinist era, preventing him from including anything critical in his book Partizanska vojna na Slovensku, published in 1959 . 16 As the confessions of Gosiorovsky and Falt'an revealed, the most prominent Slovak historians had been especially susceptible to pressures for ideological conformity, which 13 Jablonicky, Slovensko na prelome, 3 1, 148- 149. Vilem Precan, " Historik proti nas iliu - Jozef Jabloni cky," in Jozef Jablonicky, Samizdat o odboji: Stiidie a clanky, vol. 2 (Bratislava: Kalligram, 2006), 12; Jablonicky, Glosy o historiografii SNP, 6 1. 15 Frantisek Bokes, "Vaine zhromazdeni e Slovenskej hi stori ckej spolocnosti ," Historicky casopis 12, no. 4 (1963): 650; Milos Gosiorovsky, !legalny boj KSS a Slovenske narodne povstanie (Bratislava: Nakladatel'stvo Pravda, 1949); Milos Gosiorovsky, Slovenske narodne povstanie (Bra ti slava : Slovenske vydava tel'stvo politi ckej literatury, 1954). 16 Samo Falt'an, "Niektore otazky okolo hodnoteni a Slovenskeho narodneho povstania," Historicky casop is 12, no. 2 ( 1964): 161 , 164; Samo Falt'an, Partizanska vojna na Slovensku (Bratislava: Osveta, 1959). 14 SLOVAKIA 69 seemed to spur their self-conscious push for objectivity in the more relaxed Slovak political climate of the mid-l 960s. Just as Slovak historians in the l 960s recognized the harmful effects of Stalinism on scholarship on the Uprising, scholars writing about the sixties acknowledge the importance of historiography for the larger crisis gestating in Czechoslovakia. Nonetheless, scholarship about the l 960s has pronounced limitations when it comes to historiography from the 1960s. Non-Slovak writers treat the history of the Uprising as but one issue among many new historiographical developments in Czechoslovakia, an approach characterristic of the wider tendency to trivialize the role of Slovaks and the Slovak question in the l 960s. 17 While the Slovak National Uprising was hardly the only historical theme to gamer renewed interest from historians in the mid-sixties - or even the only topic from Slovak history - it was unique in the political purposes to which prominent Slovaks put it in justifying contemporary demands for a resolution of the Slovak question in line with the ostensible aims of the Uprising. More obvious, however, was the extent to which the new historiography on the SNP from the 1960s broke with old dogmas. The doctrinaire narrative of the Uprising from the Stalinist era marginalized the role of Slovaks in the Slovak National Uprising. An instructional manual for lecturers and propagandists published in advance of the SNP's fifteenth anniversary - and, tellingly, written in Czech inflated the importance of Soviet and Czech contributions to the Uprising: In August 1944 the Slovak nation, emboldened by the heroic battle of the Soviet p eople in the Great Patriotic War, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, alongside the Soviet Army advancing to victory, together with the fraternal Czech nation, rose up with weapons in 17 See, fo r instance, th e scant treatm ent prov ided in Stanl ey Z. Pec h, " Fe rment in Czec hoslova k Marxist Hi stori ograph y," Canadian Slavonic Papers l 0, no. 4 (Dece mber 1968): 502-522; Ga lia Gol an, The Czechoslovak Refo rm Movement: Communism in Crisis. 1962- / 968 ; and Skillin g, Czechoslovakia 's Interrupted Revolution. By contrast, M. Mark Stolarik observed how hi stori ans, beginning with Husak and the th eme of the SNP, increasingly reasserted Slovak nati onali sm in their th work . M. Mark Stolarik , "The Painful Birth of Slovak Histori ography in the 20 Century," Zeitschriftfiir Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 50, no. 2 (2 00 I): 176 . 70 SLOVAKIA hand against the German occupiers and their domestic fascist supporters in order to contribute to the liberation of their own homeland - the Czechoslovak Republic. 18 Amid the rambling succession of clauses inserted to show obligatory deference to the Soviet Union and the KSC and to flatter Czechs, the propaganda manual, like the Stalinist-era interpretations of the SNP it typifies, lost sight of the Slovaks, who nearly disappeared from the history of their own Uprising. At the same time, older orthodoxy ascribed the Marxist categories of proletarian internationalism and class struggle to the Uprising. In their work on international participation in the SNP, the Czech Jii'i Dolezal and the Slovak Jozef Hroziencik credited the liberation of Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Army on the international stage, and to the working class at home. The Uprising occurred as a consequence, Dolezal and Hroziencik argued, of "the strengthening of the working class and its ideological leadership in the nation," along with the blossoming of the idea of internationalism within the proletariat. 19 Near the end of the Stalinist era, an editorial in 1962 from the KSC Central Committee daily Rude pravo made the dubious claim that, "on an ideological plane," the Uprising "aimed mainly at developing a unified economy," along with combining all other aspects of Slovak and Czech society after liberation - making the SNP appear as the first step toward amalgamating Slovaks and Czechs into a single Czechoslovak nation.2° Conventional interpretations from the Stalinist era thus reduced the Uprising to little more than the opening act in the Czechoslovak revolution and a prelude to the communist takeover in 1948.21 Such a view seemed at odds with the reality of communist electoral strength in the elections of 1946, when the party made considerable gains over its interwar showing, yet still suffered a decisive defeat at the hands of the Democratic Party. 18 Kubat, Slovenske narodni povstani, 3. Jifi Dolezal and Jozef Hroziencik, Medzinarodna solidarita v Slovenskom narodnom povstani (Bratislava: Osveta, 1959), 35, 219 20 " Rozvij ime spolecne dilo," Rude pravo, 29 August 1962. 21 Doleza l and Hroziencik, Medzinarodna solidarita , 74. 19 SLOVAKIA 71 Coming to Terms with the Past: De-Stalinization and the Uprising Rewriting the history of the Slovak National Uprising first required important political developments to transpire, and the process drew succor from new efforts at de-Stalinization in 1963 . But the impact of the Bamabite Commission also revealed the crucial role historians played in this process. As Ferdinand Beer, Antonin Bencik, Frantisek Janacek and Jan Kfon recalled, their work on the Bamabite Commission offered historians a rare chance to play an important role in current events: ft was - as far as we know - the first time such a large group of scholars was asked to do this kind of work. This experience left its mark on their whole way of doing work and became, at least for historians, one of those rare occasions when they could not only reconstruct history, but also help to make it. 22 The recollections of these historians also spoke to the transformative effect the Bamabite Commission had on its member-scholars, which proved a formative experience for the way they approached their craft thereafter. Because it focused not only on the political trials of the early 1950s, but also on the activities of the "bourgeois nationalists" during the SNP, the Bamabite Commission employed several professional historians who consequently gained access to documents formerly off limits to researchers, including the files of the "bourgeois nationalists" and materials concerning the cases of Vladimir Clementis and others.23 A document collection on the SNP, originally planned to appear in conjunction with the twentieth anniversary of the Uprising in 1964 and intended to span 300 to 400 pages when conceived in the spring of 1963, soon ballooned to more than a thousand pages and took an extra year to produce. As Vilem Precan, the Czech editor of the volume, recounts in hi s preface, the renewed interest in the Uprising first observed during celebrations of its nineteenth anniversary, coupled with the political fallout of the 22 23 Beer and others, "Svedectvi z Barnabitek," Kulturni tvorba, 2 May 1968. Sikora, " Po liticky vyvoj na Slovensku," 38. 72 SLOVAKIA Barnabite Commission's report, created "editorial possibilities" that compelled him to broaden the scope of the project. Precan had to sift through piles of newly available documents and include as many of these materials as he could, a daunting task that kept him from completing the volume until 1965 - a full year behind schedule.24 Confronted with documentary evidence of the fabrications from the political trials, the historian-members of the Bamabite Commission were floored by the level of deceit, which exceeded their wildest imagination. Confronting such proof of the crimes of Stalinism had a galvanizing effect on Slovak and Czech historians similar to the jolt Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" had given to Soviet Communists in 1956. As a group of historians recalled in the spring of 1968, "In a certain sense, all of us inside the walls of the former Bamabite monastery went through our own 20 th Congress." 25 For these historians at least, there could be no going back to the old, dogmatic interpretations of Slovak history, especially where the Uprising was concerned. Sensing the opportunity de-Stalinization and the Barnabite Commission had created, historians took the initiative in probing sensitive issues like the Slovak question and the wartime resistance in Slovakia. As early as March of 1963, Falt'an had urged a drastic reexamination of the Uprising, one that would break out of the "black-and-white pigeonholes" of historiography from the Stalinist era to "evaluate objectively and justly" such topics as the role of (non-communist) Slovak regulars from the 1st Czechoslovak Army in the SNP. 26 Further steps in this direction came in the summer of 1963, when historians openly connected the significance of their professional work to the concurrent process of rehabilitation. Miroslav Kropilak opened the Slovak Historical Society ' s conference in June 1963 by reminding his fellow historians of their shared obligation in reassessing "wrongly interpreted" segments of their history. 27 The congress helped to engage Slovak historians in the task 24 Vilem Precan, "S lovo cita tel'ovi," in Slovenske narodne povstanie - Dokumenty, ed. Precan, 5-6. 25 Beer and others, " Svedectvi z Barnabitek. " 26 Samo Falt'an, " Histori a a dn esok," Kulturny i ivot, 23 March 1963 . 27 Kropilak's ex hortati on to eliminate th e "unscienti fic methods" of research employed in studi es of recent Slovak history marked an about fac e from his own presentation at the Fourth Congress of Slovak Histori ans a year earli er in Kosice. At Kosi- SLOVAKIA 73 of eliminating vestiges of the "cult of personality," and it created space, as the historian Marek Havrila remarked, for the "de-ideologizing" (odideologizovanie) of history and the "academifying" (zvedectenie) of the discipline.28 Rewriting History: New (and Old) Narratives of the Uprising Historians began to rewrite the history of the Uprising in time for its twentieth anniversary in 1964, reflecting not only the opportunities created by the Bamabite Commission, but also the heightened interest in commemorating this milestone. Many historians took seriously the need for better scholarship on the Uprising and strove to make use both of newly available materials as well as the relaxation of political constraints. But other historians largely paid lip service to the tasks of writing new, post-Stalinist narratives of the SNP, hewing closely to older, more dogmatic interpretations. On the whole, the new historiography of the Uprising produced in the 1960s yielded improved histories, but it remained bound to the shifting politics of the day. A key development early in this process was an academic conference held at Smolenice on 8-10 June 1964, when several Slovak and Czech historians presented their latest research on the Uprising. The conference marked important progress on the "arduous journey" historians had traveled, as Kropilak recalled in his foreword to the published volume of conference papers, since it brought a "difficult acknowledgment of the unexamined truths, half-truths and untruths" that had characterized historiography of the Uprising from the Stalinist era.29 In a similar vein, Alexander Dubcek, who became KSS first secretary amid the political shakeup of the previous year, ce in I 962 , Kropil ak gave a paper on the anti fas ci st move ment in Eastern Slovakia th at uphe ld communist orthodoxy. He credited the party for building the resistance from the grass roots until the Upri sing, but made no mention of th e contributions of non-Co mmuni sts in the Slova k res istance. Bokes, " Va ine zhromazdenie," 650 ; "Stvrty sjazd slovenskych hi storik ov," Historicky casopis I 0, no. 4 ( 1962): 632. 28 Marek Havril a, " K ni ektory m pro blemom vyv inu slovenskej hi storiografie a slovenskej histori ckej spolocnosti pri SA V v 50. a 60. rokoch 20. storocia," Historicky casopis 55 , no. I (2007) : 28, 32. 29 Mi ros lav Kropil ak, " Uvod," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku I 944, eds. Hol otik and Kropilak, 5. 74 SLOVAKIA opened the conference proceedings by exhorting historians to undertake "a really broad and deep critical analysis of all problems" concerning this significant chapter in recent Slovak history, and Dubcek also reminded historians that the rectification of earlier mistakes was not simply a question of the past, but also a living concern of the present and future .30 As if Dubcek's point could somehow be lost on his audience, the participation of Husak and Novomesky at Smolenice underscored the topicality of scholarship on the SNP. Indeed, Husak expressed his belief on the final day that the conference itself was a sign of the times, since a definite measure of political relaxation in Slovakia was a precondition for historians to address openly the pitfalls of Stalinist-era historiography, and to shed new light on the history of the Uprising. 31 The papers presented at Smolenice aimed mainly at debunking the myths and errors of the Stalinist-era narrative of the SNP. For instance, Falt'an directly criticized the Ninth KSS Congress for having "artificially created" a circle of "bourgeois nationalist traitors and agents of imperialism" that included Husak, Novomesky and Smidke as its leading figures. This trio of Slovak Communists had created the illegal Fifth KSS Central Committee in 1943 , following the arrest of members of the Fourth KSS Central Committee, and had played a major role in organizing the Uprising. Yet the members of the Fifth KSS Central Committee came under fire after the communist takeover of 1948 for their collaboration with nonCommunists, which provided one justification for their persecution as Slovak "bourgeois nationalists." Falt'an portrayed the Slovak Communists who had helped to orchestrate the SNP as both patriotic and communist, rendering the wartime KSS leadership as neither "bourgeois" nor "nationalist" in an effort to break with the dogmatic interpretations that had marred previous historiography.32 Another crucial component of this attempt to cast aside Stalinistera narratives was the effort historians made to address lacunae in scholarship on the Uprising. To this end, the Slovak historian Milos 30 Alexander Dubcek, "Marx isticka histori ografia a nasa revolucna minulost'," in S/ovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropil ak, I 8. 31 Gustav Husak, " K ni ektorym otazkam Slovenskeho narodn eho povstania," in S/ovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 652-653. 32 Samo Falt'an, " Slovenske narodn e povstani e a jeho problemy," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 222, 234. SLOVAKIA 75 Tichy called attention to the contributions of non-Communists in the SNP. Though the Communists had been the only party in Slovakia that opposed the breakup of the republic and the Tiso government from the outset, Tichy emphasized how the non-communist parties could not be treated as monolithic supporters of Slovak separatism. Thus, Tichy took care to note how segments of the Social Democratic Party, along with individual members of other "bourgeois" (meaning non-communist) parties had held views similar to those of Slovak Communists with respect to the creation of a pro-German Slovak state. It was noteworthy for Tichy even to mention these nonCommunists who went on to join the wartime resistance, since, as he noted, the record of the non-communist resistance had been thoroughly trivialized and falsified in earlier historiography.33 Tichy struck one of the first important blows against the Stalinist narrative of the Uprising by virtue of recognizing the existence of noncommunist opposition to the Slovak state, though it was not until Jablonicky published Z ilegality do povstania at the end of the decade that this "civilian" segment of the wartime Slovak resistance gained the recognition it deserved. Even though historians consciously sought objectivity and historical fidelity at Smolen ice, they did not reject all elements of the Stalinist-era narrative of the SNP. Thus, while Falt'an preached the importance of historical truth in denouncing the lies that characterrized earlier histories, he sought this "truth" within a distinctly Marxist framework. Comparing the Slovak National Uprising of 1944 to the Warsaw Uprising of the same year, Falt'an placed the Slovak revolt on a qualitatively higher plane than the Polish insurrection, since the SNP had, in Falt'an 's estimation, the superior class orientation. Whereas the Polish "reactionary bourgeoisie" had "abused" popular hatred of Nazi Germany in order to serve its own "political speculations" and "anti-Soviet aims," the Slovak people had taken up arms under the leadership of "revolutionary forces" headed by the KSS .34 Marxist hermeneutics continued to color other interpretations of the Uprising advanced at Smolenice. Like Falt'an, Tichy took great 33 Milos Tic hy, " Hl avne etapy fo rmy a probl emy narodn ooslobodzo vac ieho hnuti a na Slove nsku do vzniku Povstani a," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku / 944, eds. Ho lotik and Kropilak, 65, 7 1. 34 Fa lt'a n, "S lovens ke narodn e povstanie a jeho pro bl emy," 27 1. 76 SLOVAKIA pains to emphasize the class dimension of the Slovak people's rejection of the pre-Munich First Republic. Tichy claimed the Slovak people (l'ud) had directed their hatred not at the fraternal Czech nation, but rather against the "politics of the ruling Czech bourgeoisie." 35 Similarly, Frantisek Janacek, a Czech historian and former member of the Barnabite Commission, conceded the importance of the national element in the Uprising, yet he suggested there was less real significance to such national sentiment in and of itself than in the political objectives to which Slovak Communists could put it in the SNP. Thus, Janacek upheld a doctrinaire Marxist interpretation of national sentiment in deeming it instrumental to revolutionary ends. He argued the initiative the Communists exhibited on the Slovak question had made the KSS a vanguard force that Slovaks recognized as a "national" (narodm) party. 36 Husak also hewed closely to this orthodox narrative of the Uprising instead of accentuating the national dimension of the SNP, averring at Smolenice that "the Slovak National Uprising was above all a political conception, the political revolution of the Slovak people." 37 Even as historians embarked on a pursuit for the truth about the SNP at Smolenice, they continued to parrot old party cliches about the Uprising. Indeed, historical fidelity coexisted alongside shifting political dictates in the historiography of the SNP throughout the l 960s, demonstrating how historians' professed desire for objectivity toward the past ran aground on their inability to remain aloof from the politics of the present. In O Slovenskom narodnom povstani, published in 1964, Falt'an culled new facts and documents in a quest to tell the truth about the Uprising, albeit a truth with a clear agenda. Falt'an's book expanded on the ideas he presented at Smolenice, as he continued his efforts to vindicate the Slovak Communists who had been condemned as "bourgeois nationalists" in the 1950s. But while Falt'an made skillful use of wartime documents to present a more historically accurate picture of the Slovak resistance, the same tired cliches about international solidarity and the Soviet Union 35 Tichy, " Hlavne etapy formy a problemy narodnooslobodzovacieho hnutia na Slovensku," 68-69. 36 Frantisek Janacek, " Dve promeny slovenske otazky (Mezi Mnichovem a Slovenskym narodnim povsta nim)," in Slovenske narodne povstanie roku /944 , eds. Holotik and Kropilak, 618 , 628. 37 Husak, "K ni ektorym otazkam Slovenskeho narodneho povstania," 657. SLOVAKIA 77 still peppered his work. He claimed the Uprising, among other things, "was the expression of great faith in the Soviet people," showing how de-Stalinization and a more relaxed political environment did not relieve Slovaks and Czechs of the duty to show deference to their Soviet allies - an obligation that remained in force even at the height of liberalization in 1968.38 Even the most groundbreaking histories of the Uprising from the mid-sixties exhibited a multiplicity of agendas. In Dejinna kriiovatka, a group of Slovak and Czech historians drew on their work on the Bamabite Commission in an attempt to "rehabilitate" the historical image of the SNP. Their work helped to expose the distortions of the Stalinist era, but it also restored the Slovak question to a prominent role in the new, post-Stalinist narrative of the Uprising. Dejinna kriiovatka appeared in a modest printing of 10,000 copies, yet it gained renown as the first attempt at a comprehensive history of the Slovak National Uprising that consciously rejected the Stalinist narrative and addressed several lacunae in scholarship on the Uprising. And yet, for all its significance as a landmark of Slovak historiography, Dejinna kriiovatka continued to uphold a Marxist worldview in interpreting the SNP as an affirmation of socialist revolution as well as a manifestation of how attractive communist ideas were to the average Slovaks who formed the core of the partisan masses in the Uprising.39 A similar emphasis on the communist aims of the Uprising appeared in Husak's Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani. To his credit, Husak addressed some previously neglected or trivialized facets of the Uprising, pointing out the contributions of the noncommunist opposition within the antifascist camp, the existence of 40 which had been all but denied in Stalinist-era scholarship. Yet Husak's motives for calling attention to this marginalized component of the resistance were also self-serving. Lauding the role of the nonCommunists in the Uprising allowed Husak to validate the strategy of cooperating with non-Communists that he and other KSS leaders had pursued. Husak's intent in writing his recollection of the Uprising seemed to be to vindicate himself, not only in terms of the 38 Falt'an, 0 Slovenskom narodnom povstani, 8, I 03. Beer and others, Dejinna kriiovatka, 125-126, 252. 40 Husak, Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani, 36-37. 39 78 SLOVAKIA historical record, but also in the eyes of the party. As such, Husak stuck close to the communist interpretation of the SNP as a revolt directed against the ruling Slovak and Czech bourgeoisies, while simultaneously heralding the Communist Party (a self-referential bit of praise, considering his role as a member of the wartime KSS leadership) for leading the Uprising and launching the national and democratic revolution in Slovakia. 41 Husak's book also created a sensation after it appeared in August of 1964. The responses from Slovak and Czech intellectuals and historians ranged from the fawning to the damning, but most reviews 42 emphasized its positive contributions to scholarship on the SNP. These early favorable reviews led many Slovaks to view Husak, not only as a prominent figure in the Uprising, but as Jablonicky observed years later, they also encouraged both defenders and detractors of Husak to think of him "as a promising politician possibly on the rise in Slovakia."43 Husak's account of the Uprising conferred considerable authority on him, though not all historians accepted his portrayal of the SNP without reservation. The Czech scholar Josef Domansky offered the first critical remarks on Husak's book, noting one shortcoming was its "methodological non-clarity" resulting from the blurred division between Husak the memoirist and Husak the historian. On the whole, Domansky judged the book positively, even if it had its flaw s, and he regarded it as part of the new trend in historiography that helped to clarify the importance of the Slovak question and to transcend the oversimplifications of earlier scholarship on the Uprising.44 Yet Husak's book became a cause celebre among Slovak - and Czech - intellectuals when it came under fire from on high . Antonin Novotny had little patience for Husak, since Novotny had resisted the rehabilitation of Husak and other victims of Stalinism. When KSS leaders refused to rein in Husak, Novotny commissioned a party hack, the Czech historian Vaclav Kral , to write a scathing review in 41 Ibid., 129, 133 , 139. See, for instance, Anna Stvrtecka, "O dokum entoc h a fa ktoc h," Kultiirny i ivot, 27 August I 965 ; and Jifi Doleza l, " Dvakrat o S P," Mezinarodni politika I 0, no. I 0 (October 1964): 472. 43 Jablonicky, "S lovenske narodne povstani e a tri etapy jeho hodnoteni a," 452 . 44 Josef Domansky, " Nad knihou o Slovenskem narodnim povs tani," Nova mys/ 20, no. I ( 1965): 133- 134. 42 SLOVAKIA 79 order to discredit Husak.45 The KSC cultural weekly Kulturni tvorba published Kral 's review in February 1966, almost two years after Husak' s book appeared in print, and focused, in Kral ' s words, "on a series of theses and questions that are insufficiently or incorrectly developed in Husak's book." Yet Kral's dissection of Husak' s narrative contained thinly veiled criticism of Husak's wartime activities as a member of the KSS Central Committee that organized the • · 46 Upnsmg. Though the high-level political machinations behind Kral ' s review were not common knowledge at the time, the response from Slovak and Czech historians was irate. Anton Bencik, Vaclav Kura) and Jaromir Navratil - one Slovak and two Czech historians - published a reply to Kral in defense of Husak' s work, which stressed the importance of Svedectvo o Slovenskom narodnom povstani as a harbinger of the new developments in historiography following the KSC's renunciation of "bourgeois nationalism" in 1963 . "The publication of Husak's book was indisputably an event," they offered in their response, yet the renown Husak had achieved with this work was only possible because it corresponded to contemporary knowledge of the Uprising and had been accepted by the historical community. Indeed, Husak 's book had been vetted in several reviews, which generally judged it favorably , albeit with some criticism of individual facets . Bencik, Kura! and Navratil also found it puzzling how Kral had remained silent during the historiographical discussions of Husak 's book when it first appeared, and was only then speaking out against the work, long after the fact. The timing was peculiar, though Bencik, Kura) and Navratil did not press their • • 47 susp1c10ns. 45 Vac lav Kra l, "O os udu jedne recenze," Kulturni tvorba, 25 April 1968. Vaclav Kra l, "O Husakove svedectvi troc hu j inak," Kul!urni tvorba, 24 February 1966. 47 Anton Benci k, Vaclav Ku ra ] and Jaromir Navratil , "Jes te o Husakove svedectvi a nejen o nem," Kulturni tvorba, 3 1 March 1966. The rev iew was reprinted a week later in th e Slovak cul tura l magaz ine Predvoj. Anton Benc ik , Vac lav Ku ra ] and Jaro mir Nav ratil , "Este o Husakovom Svedectve a nielen o i\om," Predvoj , 7 April 1966. 46 80 SLOVAKIA Toward Better Histories? On the whole, Slovak historiography of the SNP during the sixties struggled to find its way, as the competing impulses of communist orthodoxy and professional integrity pulled individual historians in opposite directions. While some scholars, like Jablonicky, or the historians who worked on the Bamabite Commission, proved relatively successful at eschewing dogma in writing new narratives more concerned with fidelity to the historical record, it proved impossible even for these more commendable histories to avoid all the cliches about the Uprising that had marked Stalinist-era scholarship. Yet historiography did not exist in a vacuum, and Slovak historians - as well as journalists, writers, politicians and other public figures addressing the theme of the SNP - also played an active role in using the history of the Uprising to reshape contemporary politics. The Slovak National Uprising was an episode from recent history, and the new vitality of scholarship on it during the midsixties ensured the Uprising remained living history for the remainder of the decade. Rewriting the history of the SNP allowed Slovak (and Czech) scholars to press for the rehabilitation of its persecuted leaders. But the new narrative of the Uprising also helped to "rehabilitate" the idea of the Slovak nation in public discourse, which in tum created an opening for politically engaged Slovaks to advance a nationalist agenda. Ultimately, this agenda would aim at a new approach to the Slovak question in the form of a federation, but in the interim, it entailed the promotion of a Slovak national consciousness firmly rooted in the new, "rehabilitated" historical image of the Uprising.  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 Rising Against Stalinism: Destalinization and the Reinterpretation of the Slovak National Uprising in Slovak Historiography of the 1960s Description An account of the resource Scott Brown Slovakia, Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010 pp. 60-80 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brown, Scott A., 1981- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/5537aaa0888771e68d80eaae7e103dbe.pdf 755e88aca23327760f4d22f566a11ece PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 7 THE CERNOVA MASSACRE: MAGYAR MISCALCULATION, SLOVAK GAIN Edita Bosak Cernova, formerly an independent municipality of Liptov county, today a suburb of Ruzomberok, played a key role in the Slovak national movement in the first decade of the twentieth century. With the signing of the 1867 Austro-Hungarian Compromise, which created the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary, the hegemony of the Austrian Empire ended. The agreement opened the way for the ruling Magyar political forces in the Kingdom of Hungary to enforce their national interests without regard for the interests of the non-Magyar nationalities. Since this meant that no legal rights would be granted to the non-Magyar nations in Hungary, the Slovaks in Northern Hungary found their political situation deteriorating over the next fifty years. Between 1905 and 1907, the Dual Monarchy found itself in a serious political and social crisis and also faced deeply divisive nationality problems as a result of the Compromise. This study will explore the role of the Cernova massacre in changing the direction of the Slovak national movement, in exposing the Magyar government's nationalities' policies both internally and abroad, and thus forcing the Magyars into a defensive position. With the passing of the Compromise in 1867, Magyar statesmen Ferenc Deak and J6szef Eotvos, crafted the Legislative Act 44/1868 on the Equality of the Nationalities, 1 commonly known as the Nationalities Law. Although this law was intended to satisfy the nationalities' yearning for equality, in actual fact it denied the equality of all the nationalities in Hungary except for the Croats, who were recognized as a separate nation. The preamble of the law clearly stated: " .... all citizens of the Kingdom of Hungary, in conformity with the 1 Torveny-czikk a nemzetisek egyenj ogus:ig t:irgy:iban. Magyar torvenyt:ir 10001895 . 1838-1 868 evi torvenyczikkek. (Budapest, I 896) 490-4, as cited in Milan Podrim avsky, " Slovaks in the Conditions of the Hungarian State at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century." Human Affairs, 9, I (1999), 45 . �8 SLOVAKIA Constitution and from the political point of view, create an indivisible unitary Hungarian (Magyar) nation, of which each citizen of the country, belonging to any nationality, is an equal member." 2 In effect, the equality of the citizens of the state as individuals, independent of their nationality, was proclaimed; but the equality of the nationalities of the old Kingdom of Hungary was not. The discriminatory character of the Nationality Law had serious ramifications for the Slovaks. As a result, in 1878 the Slovaks sent another deputation led by one of the heroes of the 1848 Revolution, Jozef M. Hurban, to Vienna requesting an independent Slovak territory.3 The emperor refused to meet with Hurban, and returned his Memorandum to him. This led to an escalation in Magyarization (assimilation into the Magyar language and culture) and legislation by Magyar political forces which sought to erode any remaining rights of the nationalities. Prior to 1867, the Slovak national movement had made considerable headway. In the early 1860's intellectuals accepted the language reforms which I.:udovit Stur had made in 1846, and which led 4 to the final codification of the Slovak language in 1851. The Slovak nationalists sought to win legal guarantees that would safeguard the Slovak national existence and sovereignty. Although they were unsuccessful in obtaining recognition for the Memorandum of 1861 and the Okolie (a Slovak territory), they did manage to create the cultural and literary organization Matica slovenska in 1863 in the small town of Turciansky Svaty Martin and three Slovak gymnazia in the 1860s. The number of Slovak newspapers also expanded at this time. These achievements gave the Slovaks hope for bettering their political, social and economic situation in Hungary. It was short lived. With the signing of the A usgleich in 1867, these national developments came to a rapid end. The gymnazia were closed in 1874 and the Matica slovenska in 1875, with the state confiscating all of Matica 's property. The Prime Minister of Hungary, Kalman Tisza, announced at the sitting of the Diet that he did not know of "any Slovak nation" . Hungary.s m 2 Podrimavsky, " Slovaks ... ," 45. Anton Spiesz and Dusan Caplovic, Illustrated Slovak History (Wauconda, Ill inois: Bolchazy- Carducci Publi shers, 2006), 149. 4 Ludevi t Stur, Nauka reci slovenskej (Presporok, 1846; reprinted in Bratislava, 2006). 5 Milan Durica, Dejiny Slovenska a Slovakov (Bratislava: Luc, 2003), 235. 3 �SLOVAKIA 9 The arrival of the government of Kalman Tisza in 1875 inaugurated a new period of oppression. The ruling Magyar circles were determined to strengthen the supremacy of national politics within the old Kingdom of Hungary vis-a-vis Vienna and also outside of the Monarchy, especially towards the Balkans. The virulent Magyarization policies of fifteen years of Tisza rule seriously hampered the ability of Slovaks to keep pace with their counterparts in other regions of Europe. The Slovak intelligentsia was continuously attacked and began to lose hope. The Hungarian government believed that the only solution to the nationality problem was assimilating the nonMagyar nations. Its Magyarization policies employed a variety of devices. The Magyar language was implemented at all levels of society, including from the pulpit. Various associations to help assimilate the nationalities 6 were established and also the local press was harnessed to ensure the Magyarization program would be effecttive and ensure the elimination of the Slovak language from public life. In terms of organized religion, both the authorities of the Catholic and Lutheran Churches practiced Magyarization in private, as well as in public. Slovak children attending Catholic schools were required to use the Magyar language. Slovak priests and teachers were persecuted for their national consciousness and participation in the Slovak national movement. 7 Slovak ministers and priests, who were known to be nationalists, were transferred from wealthier parishes to ones where the minister or priest, along with his flock, had . 8 to strugg Ie to survive. In 1878, the Slovenska narodna strana (Slovak National Party) announced it would boycott the elections to protest the discrimination suffered by the Slovaks. Not a single Slovak deputy was elected 6 Tisza' s gove rnment establi shed th e Magyar Educa tio nal League for Upper Hungary (FEMKE) in 1882 w ith its seat in the anci ent Slova k city of Nitra and the Educati onal League fo r Upper Hun ga ry (MT KE) in 1885 w ith its headquarters in Budapest, as we ll several j ourn als and news papers to aid in fi ghting th e g rowth of Slovak nati onal co nsc io usness. Podrimavsky, "S lova ks in the Co nditions of th e Hun gari an State . . . ," 4 7. 7 Ibid., 47-8. 8 Karel Kalal, Mad'arizacia. Obraz slovenske utrpenie. (Originall y publi shed in 1900, reprinted in Brati slava : Eko- ko nzult, 2006), 27. "The Sl ovak priest Moyses los t hi s parish in Lucky and th e Magyarone Smizar repl aced him ; the people sto pped go in g to church, th ey are bu ry in g their dead themselves, children are not be ing bapti zed, but no ne of th at moves either Smi za r, or " Fath er" Parvy. " �SLOVAKIA to the Diet in the elections of 1875 or 1878 . From this date until the early twentieth century, the Slovenska narodna strana followed a policy of political passivity and withdrew to the small town of Turciansky Svaty Martin in Central Slovakia. They also brought with them their newspaper Slovenske narodne noviny (Slovak National News) from its previous home in Budapest. Two factors , one internal and the other external , were instrumental in activating the Martin nationalists at the turn of the century. First of all, the economic situation was depressed and created a climate of both social and political unrest. The gravity of this situation was described as late as 1914 in an article entitled "The Decline of Industry" 9 by the pro-Magyar, government-sponsored, newspaper Slovenske noviny , published in Budapest. Alongside this industrial problem was the failure of the agrarian sector to thrive as a result of several bad harvests. The result was a growth in anti-Semitism, as the Jews were blamed for the drop in agricultural prices. This was followed by the rise of a new Catholic, anti-Semitic, Hungarian political party: the Hungarian People's Party (Neppart) established by Ferdinand Zichy and its weekly Krest'an. ' 0 It should be pointed out that most Jews in Hungary tied their economic well-being to support for the Magyar ruling class. Another catalyst for Slovak patriots was the trial of Romanian nationalists in 1894 which helped bring together a coalition of nonMagyar nationalists. Recognizing their common goals and the advantage of solidarity, the nationalities came together for the first time in the Congress of Non-Hungarian Nations in Budapest in 1895 . The Congress sought national equality in conjunction with democratic demands for universal and secret manhood suffrage, and freedom of the press, speech, assembly and association for all the nationalities. An external factor which played a major role in ending political passivity was a new generation of university students who were 9 Dr. Adolf Phany, "Upado k priemys lu," Slovenske noviny, 14 January 1914, p. l . Robert W. Seton-Watso n, A Hislory of 1he Czechs and Slovaks (Londo n, 1943:, reprint ed., Hamden, CT, 1965) 27 1-2. See also Julius Popely, " Boj o liberalne cirkevnopoliticke reform y v Uhorsku a zaloze nie katolickej l' udovej strany," Hisloricky casopis 29, 6 ( 198 1), 85 7-70, and Julius Popely, "Yzt' ah medzi statom a cirkvou v posledn ej tretine 19. storocia a korene politi ckeho kl erikali zmu v Uhorsku," Historickestudie 24 ( 1980): 77 -96, and Owen V. Johnson, " Losing Faith : The Slova k Hungari an Constitutional Struggle, 1906-1914," Harvard Ukrainian S1udies, 22, I, ( 1998), 293-3 12. 10 �SLOVAKIA 11 either educated by Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, a Czech professor at Charles University in Prague, or who read his works while studying in Vienna and Budapest. As graduates and young professionals, they returned to Slovakia and spread Masaryk's ideas and teachings, his "Realist" program, and especially the concept of "drobna praca" (intensive work) . 11 On the advice of Masaryk, some of his students in 1898 established the journal Hlas (Voice). It preached the advantages of closer Czech and Slovak cooperation. This was enough to prompt the leadership of the old guard--the poet, writer, and editor of Ncirodne noviny, Svetozar Hurban Vajansky; Pavel Mudroii, party chair for the Slovenskci ncirodnci strana; Matus Dula, Ambro Pietor, and several others into protesting that the charges of political passivity levelled by Hlas editors Vavro Srobar and Pavel Blaho were unjust. A rift emerged between the older and younger generation. The elders felt the younger generation was neither respectful nor grateful for the sacrifices made by their elders in furthering the Slovak national movement. When Hlas ceased publication in 1904, there was a short respite. However, the demands of the young nationalists for a platform led to the publiccation of another journal, Prudy (Currents) in 1909. Milan Hodza, a young Budapest lawyer and publicist recognized that the Slovaks needed to become politically engaged and he put his energies into the building of a mass movement. In his newspaper Slovensky tyi dennik (Slovak Weekly) begun in 1903, Hodza tried to capture the Slovak peoples' interests and educate them in political activity. The young people rejected their elders' policy of political passivity. 11 Edita Bosak, "Czech-Slovak Relati ons and the Student Organisati on Detvan, 1882- I 91 4" in Slovak Polirics, Ed. Stani slav J. Kirsc hbaum (C leveland : Slovak Institute, 1983), 6-41. See also Ed ita Bosa k, "The Slovak National Movement, 184819 18" in Rejlecrions on Slovak Hisrory, Ed. Stani slav J. Kirschbaum and Anne C. Roman (Toronto: Sl ovak World Congress, 1987), 59-72 , and Edita Bosak, "T. G. Masaryk and th e Emerge nce of th e Hl as ist Move ment, 1898-1904", in J. M. Rydlo , ed, Milan S. Durica. Fesrschrift (Brati slava, 1995) 29-42. Edita Bosa k, " Slowakische Studentenorganisati onen in W ien, Prag und Budapes t und ihre Zusa mm enarbeit," in Wegenetz europiiischen Ceistes fl - Universitiiten und Studenten: Die Bedeutung studentischer Migrationen in Mittel - und Siidosteuropa vom 18. Bis zum 20. Jahrhundert. Eds. Ri chard G. Plasc hka and Karlheinz Mac k (Muni ch: 1987), 162-1 82. �SLOVAKIA 12 Slovak politicians finally dropped their pass1v1ty before the Hungarian constitutional crisis in 1905-1906. Hungarian political circles noted this and their Magyarisation politics were stepped up and the persecution of Slovak nationalists reached their peak. On the eve of the 1905 elections, Prime Minister Istvan Tisza bluntly stated his position on the nationalities as follows : A cardinal condition for the enjoyment of rights by other nationalities is that the citizens of other nationalities should recognize unreservedly that this State is the Magyar State .... The Magyar nation has never given a binding promise to maintain the Law of Nationalities for all time, or not to alter it... when conditions change, and when we perceive that through this law we grant to our opponents rights against ourselves. 12 The policy of Magyarization continued to escalate at all government and religious levels, and to touch the social, economic, and political fabric of the state. The Apponyi Education Acts of 1907 reiterated that teachers in religious schools were state employees, and, as such, had to be able to read, write, and teach in Magyar. Leading Magyar nationalists held firm to these views . There were even fears among government leaders that negotiations with the nationalities would derail the Magyar goal of a single national state. Tisza, in response to the fears expressed by Count Albert Apponyi, that he was negotiating with the Romanians, stated very clearly that he stood " ... on the basis of a single undivided Hungarian national state ... No Hungarian can hold any other position other than the position of a single Hungarian nation, creating a single united Hungarian national state. 13 As far as Tisza was concerned, this position was unassailable. These views were held by most of the Hungarian ruling circle and permeated throughout the administrative echelons and bureaucracy. Surprisingly, in the 1906 elections, six Slovaks from the Slovenska l'udova strana (Slovak People's Party) 14 and one from the Slovenska 12 R. W. Seton-Watson, German, Slav, and Magyar (New York : Howard Fertig, 1968), 45-6. 13 Kalman Tisza Slovenske noviny, 16 January 19 14, p. l. 14 The Slovenska /'udova strana had separated from Zichy's People' s Party, Neppart, in 1905 because the latter did not represent the Slovak peoples ' interests. 1 �SLOVAKIA 13 narodna strana (Slovak National Party) were elected. They demonstrated that a well-organized campaign, with emphasis on the needs of the peasants, was the way to attract votes. 15 However, the campaigners also pointed out that parties such as Neppart were not working in the interests of the Slovak peasants. Although this was a small win for the Slovak national movement (given their proportion of the population, the Slovaks should have had 40 seats in Parliament), its impact was significant enough that the Hungarian government expanded and increased the tempo of its Magyarization process. With hindsight it is clear that this political achievement was very much a milestone in the Slovak national movement. Slovak leaders, laymen as well as clergy, were now targeted in a stepped up campaign of persecution. 16 The Catholic Church's hierarchy, educated in the "great Magyar spirit," 17 was also actively involved in these persecutions . Even sermons had to be given in Magyar in completely Slovak parishes. Slovak priests who expressed national sentiments and used their own language in church were persecuted. Yet it was this Slovak clergy to which the people looked for guidance. The Slovak intelligentsia was very small, and as a result, both Roman Catholic priests and Lutheran ministers filled this gap. This form of Magyarization also attracted the attention of William Ritter, 18 a Swiss writer and artist. He published the details of the trial of Andrej Hlinka in Ruzomberok, October 26-November 6, 15 Ameri can Slovaks, in a sign of support and solidarity, had co llected $ I 0,000 and se nt it to the Slovak leadership back home to help defray electi on ex penses. The electi on of seven Slovaks to th e Hun ga ri an Parli ament, a first in history , was enthusiasti call y received as one Slovak Am erican decl ared "Our mon ey has been well spent. " In M. Mark Stolarik , Immig ration and Urban ization: The Slovak Experience, 1870- / 9 18 (New York: AM S Press, 1989), 194. 16 Several Slova k nati onali st leaders were now tri ed and convicted of " inciting aga inst the Magya r nati on" and sentenced to term s in prison: the Rev. Ferdi s Juriga, Dr. Vavro Srobar, the Rev. Andrej Hlinka, Milan Iva nka, etc. 17 Kuruc, Stefa n, " Katolicka cirkev na Slovenskom uze mi Uhorska na zaciatku 20. storocia," in My tus a realita, Stefan Kuci k, ed. (Rufo mberok : Katolicka uni versita v Rufo mberku, 2008), 6 1. 18 William Ritter ( I 867- I 955) was one of th e earli est and most creati ve of the foreign Sl ovakophiles who wrote about th e situati on faced by the Slovak s in the Hungari an part of the Dual Monarc hy of Austri a-H ungary. He pro tested aga inst Magyari zati on w ith others like th e Ru ssian Alexander Alexa ndrovic Papkov ( I 866-1920), the Scot Robert William Seton-Watson ( I 879- I 95 I), the Frenchm an Ernest Deni s ( 1849-1 92 1) and the No rweg ian Bj ornstjern e Bjorn son ( 1832- 19 10). �14 SLOVAKIA 1906 in the French Catholic magazine Demain. His article was read by officials in the Vatican and, as result, Hlinka was able to defend himself successfully from the Hungarian hierarchy' s accusations. 19 Ritter also published the letters of Hungarian bishops and Slovak priests in 1906 in Demain. He was a regular visitor to Slovakia from 1888 until 1947, and maintained a faithful and steadfast interest in the Slovaks until his death.20 Ritter had a vibrant correspondence with Slovakia's nationalists and greatest writers and poets, and through his publications pointed out to the western world the inhumane political, religious, social and cultural Magyarization of the Slovaks in the Kingdom Hungary. 21 Ritter was the first Slovakophile to expose the brutal sentiments expressed by the Magyar Prime Minister Istvan Tisza in 1905. In his article "Eveques hongrois et pretres slovaques" in the Lyons journal Demain politique, social, religieux,22 Ritter quoted Tisza as having stated "The law is dead for you Slovaks."23 Ritter had also published the harsh words of Tisza's father, Kalman Tisza, when he had been the head of government years earlier: "Slovaks should be crushed under the heel." 24 This Swiss humanitarian also expounded on Magyarization carried out in poor Slovak parish schools, in the theological seminaries and amongst Slovak priests . In fact, the fateful Cernova massacre simply confirmed the truth of Ritter's writings. Villagers in the small settlement of Cemova, in the diocese of Spis, had constructed a church mainly through the initiative and support of a local son, the Reverend Andrej Hlinka. Out of pride and gratitude, the citizens of Cemova, asked their bishop, Alexander Parvy, to allow Hlinka to consecrate the new church. 25 These people knew the importance of having one of their own sons fulfill this ceremony. Since Hlinka had been suspended from his priestly duties by Parvy because of his nationalist behavior, the people of Cemova requested a delay in consecration until such time as Hlinka could 19 Jozef M. Rydl o, " Sudny proces proti Andrejovi Hlinkovi v Rufo mberku 26. 106.11.1906 a obrana Slovakov proti mad 'arizacii perom William Rittera na strankach francu zskeho Demain", in Kucik, My tus a realita, 24. 20 Ibid. , 22 . 21 Ibid ., 23 . 22 Ibid ., 24. 23 Ibid., 24. 24 Ibid., 24. 25 Alexander Parvy was bishop of the Spis diocese from 1904 to 19 19. �SLOVAKIA 15 preside over it. The bishop refused. The political background leading up to this is important for, as F. S. Clarke, in a dispatch from the British Consul-General in Budapest reported to the Foreign Office, The parish priest at Rozsahegy (Ruiomberok) ... , named Hlinka ... , by his nationalist tendencies, has incurred the displeasure--not only of the civil, but also of the ecclesiastical authorities, and had, in December last, been sentenced to a fine and to two years for the incitement against the Magyar State idea '-- ... 26 Hlinka had been actively backing his friend Dr. Vavro Srobar during the election campaign, something which Parvy considered tantamount to political agitation against the Magyar state. Thus, in Hlinka's place, Parvy chose the Reverend Anton Klurimsky, a Magyarone, to consecrate the newly-built church, despite the objections of the people of Cemova. These sentiments had even been personally relayed to the bishop by deacon M. Pazurik. The bishop decided that the dedication ceremony would take place regardless of the objections voiced by the parishioners. A group of gendarmes and a magistrate from Ruzomberok were assigned to escort the priests to nearby Cemova, and to maintain law and order. Upon their arrival on 27 October 1907, the priests and the squad of gendarmes were greeted by the people of Cemova, who although passive, verbally berated them. According to eye-witness reports, the gendarmes, without any provocation, shot into the crowd gathered on the roadside, which was impeding their progress. The result was "nine dead immediately, three died the following day, one on the third day" 27 and by the 25 th of December all told there were fifteen dead. 28 Because it was feared that a revolt would follow , a contingent of Honveds (National Guards) was dispatched from Ruzomberok.29 The following day a series of arrests of so-called "agi26 F. S. Clarke to Sir Edward Goschen, Budapest, October 31 , 1907. Foreign Office Papers #371 , Pol. A-H , 1907 - # 196 fil e 36724, No. 58, (United Kingdom: Public Record Office) . 27 "Vrazdenie slovenseho l' udu v Cemovej", S/o vensky tyidennik, 1 November 1907, p. I. 28 Karol Sidor, Cerno va (/80 7- /937) (Bratislava: " Slovak", 1937), 35. 29 Ibid. , 32. �16 SLOVAKIA tators" 30 among the survivors began, one of whom was Hlinka's sister, fifty-five year old Anna Fullova. In all, there were 13 arrests. 3 1 The tragedy of Cernova did more than any other event to bring the Slovak problem before a national and international forum . Two Czech deputies, Silinger and Dr. Hruban, brought before the Reichsrat in Vienna an interpellation which requested the government "to ask for an official report on how this sad affair came about and if the guilty parties had been investigated and punished and to put it before them?" 32 The second part of the document " ... asked the Hungarian government, as the second component of the Austro-Hungarian compromise, to finally end similar persecution of the Slovak people and the non-Magyar nationalities of Hungary." 33 Dr. Hruban stated most emphatically "that the Czech nation will think over very carefully if it can make an agreement with a state which so persecutes the Slovak nation and the other non-Magyar nationalities."34 During the debate on the Austro-Hungarian economic agreement before the Austrian Parliament, T.G. Masaryk took the opportunity to present his views: I turn to the nationality question. For us, who are here from Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, for us Czechs the Compromise had politico-national importance. You heard today in the interpellation about the events in Ruiomberok which the Agrarian speaker also spoke about. The matter is quite simple. We have two million Slovaks in Hungary who belong to our nation: a nation of eight million will not abandon two million of its brethren to Magyar national chauvinism. It is our duty here and at every opportunity in 30 Ibid., 35. Ibid. , 35. 32 Anhang zu den Stenographischen Protokollen des Ha uses der Abgeordneten des oesterreichischen Reichsrates im Jahre 1907. Haus der Abgeordneten - 30. Sitzung der XVIII. Sess ion am 30. October 1907, p. 3 I 79. "Dotaz". (London , UK: Briti sh Museum). (Hereafter, Protocol). 33 Protocol, p. 3179 34 "Cemovska vrazda na sneme," Slovensky tyi dennik, I November 190 7, p. 3. The agreement mentioned here refers to the new ten-year agreement between Austria and Hungary wh ich was about to be voted on by the Viennese Parliament. 31 �SLOVAKIA 17 this house to declare to Austria and the whole public that what the Magyars are doing to our Slovaks is inhumane. 35 The German Moravian representative Dr. Redlich also expressed his concern with the Magyarizing fervor in Hungary: I need not remind any of your Czech gentlemen of what is happening to the Slovaks in Hungary. Think not of Cernova alone; think of the whole process which led to it, the Hlinka trial, the Juriga trial /36 Later, the Czech deputy Dr. Zahradnik requested to know if the president of the Parliament intended to add the following to the protocol: " ... the expression of our deep regret and our deep sympathy not only for the unfortunate victims of Cernova but for all the nonMagyar nations who suffer under such great oppression. " 37 Deputy Gunther raised the hope that " ... the whole of civilized Europe, all who still have some feeling for human suffering will finally put themselves on the side of the great Norwegian poet. .. the whole world will find out what is hidden behind this Magyar liberalism ." 38 Gunther was referring to the poet and Nobel-prize winner Bjornstjerne Bjornson, who, the previous month, had delivered a speech criticizing the "Magyar humbug and ... oppression in the service of nationalistic thinking," 39 thus drawing the attention of Europe to its deeds. Bjornson had taken up the cudgel on Hungarian policy towards its nationalists with special reference to the Slovaks. Cernova gave him the opportunity to follow up with a long article in the Neue Freie Presse, describing at length the Magyarizing process. Needless to say, the above annoyed the Hungarian government but even greater was the upheaval caused by the writings of such wellknown foreign journalists as Henry Wickham Steed of The Times 40 (London), and the conversion of Scotus Viator to the Slovak cause. 35 Protocol, p. 2346. Protocol, p. 2365. 37 Protocol, p. 23 18. 38 Protocol, p. 2376. 39 Bjomstjerne Bjornson , Narodni listy, 23 October I 907, p. 2. 40 Scotus Viator was the pseudonym of R. W. Seton-Watson, the renowned Scots historian. Seton-Watson became acquai nted with the sociologist Anton Stefanek in 1906 in Vienna, and it was through Stefanek that he had the opportunity to learn the 36 �18 SLOVAKIA 41 In 1908, Scotus Viator published Racial Problems in Hungary, which dealt with the corruption of electoral practices and Magyarization in that country. It earned him his doctorate. Shortly after the first publication, the book was translated into several other European languages, including Czech . This book helped publicize the oppresssed condition of the Slovaks in Upper Hungary throughout the western world. The French press also adopted an inimical stance towards the Magyars . The Poles wrote in Swiat slowianski that: It is not necessary to have concern about our sympathy. We sympathize with all the p ersecuted. We are wholeheartedly on their side. No mistake is as outrageous as that which the Magyars are making when they p ersecute the Slovaks. The Magyar advance against the Slovaks will end badly for the Magyars, but the Slovaks will live on. 42 William Ritter, who was already writing and exposing the Slovaks' plight, added his voice to that of the others. The Slovak politician Milan Hodza made an interpellation in the Hungarian Parliament on the subject of Cernova only an hour after the proceedings of the Austrian Reichstag had become known to the Hungarian Parliament. Feeling amongst the Magyar deputies ran high . Hodza had barely begun to speak before he was rudely interrupted by a very rowdy assembly. His interpellation consisted of a request that the Minister of the Interior, Julius Andrassy, extend the investigation of the Cernova massacre to include an examination of the actions of the administrative official present at Cernova; then, secondly, to suspend the said official from his office on the basis of already known facts until such time as the investigation will have 43 been concluded; and finally, to withdraw the army from the village. facts about Magyari zati on and the oppresssion of the Slovaks and th e other nonMagyar peoples in Hungary. Ce rnova served to re info rce Seton-Watson' s views and he became a vigorous defender of the non-M agya r nationalities in the European ~ress, much to the ire and indignati on of the Hungari an government. 1 London: Archiba ld Constabl e, 1908; reprinted by Howa rd Ferti g, New York, 1972. 42 Swiat slowianski (Cracow, 1907), 12 and 375 , cited in Karo l Sidor, Cernova, 51 . 43 "Cernovska vrazda na sneme" Slo venskj tyi dennik, I November 1907 , p. 4. �SLOVAKIA 19 Julius Andrassy defended the priests as having gone to Cemova only to reassure the people that the consecration would not take place at that time, that the gendarmes had fired in self-defence, and finally, that Zoltan Pereszleny would not be suspended but that a fair investigation would be made.44 Andrassy, along with his colleagues, accused such newspapers as Slovensky tyidennik of "stirring the people to bloodshed." 45 Meanwhile, Hlinka continued his lecture tour of Moravia and Bohemia, acquainting the Czechs with Magyar policy and the events of Cemova. The massacre at Cemova served as a unifying force among the Czechs for the Slovak cause. Hlinka was greeted enthusiastically wherever he went. He was seen as a martyr, a representative of the whole Slovak nation. His speeches activated a far more systematic interest in the Slovaks than ever before exhibited by the Czechs. Slovensky obzor put it quite frankly: What Kalal, Masaryk, Heyduk after long years did not know how to achieve, that is what Cernova events did - in one night! In fact, Cernova even captured the interest of the heir presumptive Francis Ferdinand, who had deputy Milan Hodza inform him personally of the whole sequence of 46 events at the Cernova massacre. V In November of 1907 the Cardinal Primate of Hungary issued a circular in which he put the Eudove noviny on the Index of forbidden reading. Hlinka responded with a plea in the Brno Hlas (6 December 1907) to the Bohemian and Moravian clergy for support: ... the Magyar hierarchy has come down hard on us. They wish to suffocate Eudove noviny, the most Catholic of newspapers, with a clerical curse. I turn to the Moravian and Bohemian clergy today so that they may defend us. Do not let the strongest bastion of the faith and the Slovak language fall. The newspaper Eudove noviny is a substitute today for school. It is equally a catechism and a syllabus. Without it the Slovaks will die or will become a senseless 44 45 46 Ibid ., p.4. "Prijezd Andreje HI inky," Cas, XXI, No. 303 ( 1907), 5. Slovensky obzor, 1907, 564 cited in Sidor, Cernova, 51. �SLOVAKIA 20 mass of slaves and helots .. . Me, they failed, my paper Eudove noviny they prosecute with clerical punishments! Protect our press! 47 His call did not go unheeded - the strength of the religious tie and the events of Cemova caused Czech and Moravian papers to write, urging Slovaks to continue to read Eudove noviny as a good Catholic newspaper. Arriving in Prague on 1 November 1907 in the company of A. Kolisek and J. Uprka, Hlinka was greeted by Czech leaders F. Taborsky, J. Rotnagl , Dr. Lang, and Dr. E. Krajicek, and a large number of students.48 On the 2 November 1907, he gave a speech on Slovansky ostrov which created such a stir that Ceskoslovanska jednota established a Ceskoslovensky komitet (Czechoslovak Committee) on the following day. Its function was to collect money to aid the orphans of Cemova49 and to organize the rest of Hlinka's lecture tours in the Czech Lands. Altogether, there were over 700 rallies on behalf of the Slovaks and Cemova. 50 Josef Anyz, editor-in-chief of Narodni listy, was elected chairman of the Committee with J. Rotnagl as secretary. Such a good working relationship between Anyz and Rotnagl grew out of the Committee that, according to Rotnagl , "whatever I went to N. listy 51 with some request from Cs/. Jednota, l was never turned down." Right after Cemova the number of Slovak evenings organized to acquaint the Czech public with the Slovaks and their culture increased dramatically, as did informative lectures on the same theme. Great speakers such as Pavel Blaho, Matus Dula, Andrej Hlinka, Milan Hodza, Jozef I:udovit Hol'uby, I:udovit Medvecky, Anton Stefanek, Vavro Srobar, and Svetozar Hurban Vajansky, were invited by Jednota to speak to the people of Moravia and Bohemia. Czech newspapers touched the hearts of their reading public, calling for Czech financial support for the victims of Cemova: V 47 Hlas, 6 December 1907, cited in K. Sidor, Andrej Hlinka , p. 205. "Prijezd Andreje Hlinky," Cas, XXI, No. 303 ( 1907), 5. 49 " Pomozte sirotkum po zavrazdenych v Cemove," Cas, XXI , o. 303 ( 1907), 5. 50 "Nasi bratia Ces i," Slovenky tyidennik, 27 March 1908, p. I. 51 "Narodni listy a slovenska vec," Rotn ag l Papers, Literarni archiv pamatnik narodniho pisemnictvi, Prague. (He reafter, LA PNP). 48 �SLOVAKIA 21 At this difficult tim e it is our duty to help those .. . orphans, whose fath ers have fallen in def ense of the rights of the Slovak people against brutal violence. Let a collection be taken throughout the whole nation, the y ield of which will be dedicated to the unfortunate victims of Cernova as proof that Czechs and Slovaks f eel together both joy and grief 52 The success of the fund-raising was evident in the letter of 8 August 1908 from Anton Stefanek to Seton-Watson: "We have the whole Czech people behind us. During the last year the Czech people have raised a fund of 80,000 Crowns for us under the influence of Cemova." 53 Seton-Watson received a full report on Cemova and the imprisonment of Hlinka for "incitement against the Magyar nation" 54 from Stefanek. This caused him to write a letter to the London Spectator, describing all the events and he referred to them "as a typical example of the oppression of the Slovaks." 55 The result was a response from Count Esterhazy defending the Magyar position, followed by a scathing rebuttal from Seton-Watson in the Spectator and Manchester Guardian. The Times editor, Wickham Steed, was particularly gleeful when he read them and wrote to Seton-Watson: "The reply to Esterhazy is the best bit of pulverization I have seen anywhere. It made me green with envy for the whole day. Talk about sledgehammers! You are a steamroller when you get going." 56 Czech-Slovak relations drew closer in 1907 when Antonin Reis, a member of Ceskoslovanska j ednota suggested to Pavel Blaho, that now would be a good time to establish an informative journal on Slovakia, especially for the Czech readership. 57 Thus was born Nase Slovensko , short-lived from 1907 to 1910, but important because it 52 " Hunove vrazdi ," Cas, No. 300 ( 1907), p. I . Hugh Seton-Watson, "Anton Stefanek and R. W. Seton-Watson," Bohemia Jahrbuch des Co /legium Carolin um, 18 ( 1977), 236. 54 Jan Ryc hlfk, Thomas D. Marzik, Mi ros lav Bie lik, eds. R. W. Seton-Watson and his Relations with the Czechs and the Slovaks, I, (Prague: Ostav T. G. Masaryka and Martin : Matica slovenska, 1995), 22 55 Rychlfk, et a l. , 22. 56 Ryc hlfk, et al. , p. 139. 57 Antonin Reis, Letter to P. Blaho, 8 March 1907, Blaho Papers (Slovak State Archi ves, Bratislava, hereafter SSUA), Carton 12, Signature Bll-98. The same letter was sent to other prominent Slovaks introduc ing the plan to fo und this journal and seeking support. 53 �22 SLOVAKIA gave the young Slovak generation the motivation to seek other ways of saving themselves from the oppression of the Magyars. They became more engaged in the Slovak national movement and were able to test their skills through such vehicles as Nase Slovensko and later Prudy. It also distanced them from the old generation in Martin who continued to believe that only the Russians could save them from the Magyars. American Slovaks also became very outspoken about the situation in Slovakia. From the late 1860s to the late l 880's, American Slovaks had been more concerned with survival in their new homeland and saving their money to send home to their families . By the late 1890s and early 1900s, they had acclimatized to their new democracy and created self-help associations and newspapers indicative of a maturing Slovak national consciousness. The persecution of Hlinka in connection with the pre-election agitation in 1906 was brought to the attention of the American Slovak public by the Roman Catholic priest Stefan Furdek. 58 The result was an open letter in the newspaper Eudove noviny written by Slovak priests working in America. Collections were organized as a result of the persecution during the elections of 1906, and once this precedent was set a similar procedure was followed to aid Cernova victims. A direct result of the persecution of Hlinka and the other Slovak representatives resulted in the emergence of the Union of Slovak Journalists and the Slovak League of America.59 A very impassioned message "For the Cernova Widows and Orphans," to all Slovaks was written by Furdek in his weekly Jednota, on 7 November 1907: They won't frighten us; our truth will not go begging crumbs from the tyrant. If it 's a fight they want, then a fight they will get; we are not afraid of it .. . Now, when we have the attention of the world, we must prove to the world that we stand together like a strong chain ... A bloody battle has begun in Cernova! Our sacred duty is to financially and morally support the struggle, which will determine whether 58 Stefan Furdek was the founder of The First Cath olic Slovak Union ( 1890) and th e Slovak League of America ( I 907). 59 Stefan Kucik, "Ohlas prenasledovania Andreja Hlinku a Cemovskej tragedie medzi Americkymi Slovakmi", in Kucik, Mytus a Realita, 115. �SLOVAKIA 23 the Slovak nation will exist or not exist in its ancient homeland. 60 With the passing of time, the furor created around Cernova abated. However, the actions of the Magyar authorities in bringing to trial those persons arrested on that tragic day, served to re-awaken interest in various camps. Both Czech and Slovak newspapers reported on the proceedings of the trial, but the Slovak newspaper Narodnie noviny gave its readers a daily account which lasted from the 2 nd to the 10 th of March in 1908. Altogether forty men and women were sentenced to a total of 37 years of imprisonment. 61 Cernova was in some ways a catalyst, not just on home ground but in Bohemia and Moravia and internationally. Slovaks in America also rallied and sought to acquaint their government of the situation in the homeland. What the Magyars had probably thought was an insignificant consecration and sign of Slovak thick-headedness turned into a cause celebre. The Magyars never expected this event to attract such attention and greatly miscalculated the damage this would cause them in the eyes of Europe. Men like Count Esterhazy never expected to find themselves having to defend Magyar racial policies, all because of an insignificant village like Cernova and a "people who did not exist," 62 according to Magyar politicians! In many ways, Cernova helped the Slovaks both in Slovakia and in America to unite and to begin thinking of alternatives to the rule of the Hungarian government and its Magyarizing policies. 60 Stefan Furdek, "Pre vdovy a siroty ce m ovske" quoted in Kucik, I 16-1 7. V. H., Cernovsky process (Turciansky Sv. Martin : Knihtl ac iarskeho ucas tinarskeho spolku, I 908), 72 . 62 Bela Grun wa ld, A felv idek, in Duri ca, Dejiny Slovenska a Slovakov, 238. Grunwa ld wrote in 1887 that there were Slovak speak ing-inhabi tants in Hungary but there was no Slovak nation. 61 � SLOVAKIA 7 THE CERNOVA MASSACRE: MAGYAR MISCALCULATION, SLOVAK GAIN Edita Bosak Cernova, formerly an independent municipality of Liptov county, today a suburb of Ruzomberok, played a key role in the Slovak national movement in the first decade of the twentieth century. With the signing of the 1867 Austro-Hungarian Compromise, which created the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary, the hegemony of the Austrian Empire ended. The agreement opened the way for the ruling Magyar political forces in the Kingdom of Hungary to enforce their national interests without regard for the interests of the non-Magyar nationalities. Since this meant that no legal rights would be granted to the non-Magyar nations in Hungary, the Slovaks in Northern Hungary found their political situation deteriorating over the next fifty years. Between 1905 and 1907, the Dual Monarchy found itself in a serious political and social crisis and also faced deeply divisive nationality problems as a result of the Compromise. This study will explore the role of the Cernova massacre in changing the direction of the Slovak national movement, in exposing the Magyar government's nationalities' policies both internally and abroad, and thus forcing the Magyars into a defensive position. With the passing of the Compromise in 1867, Magyar statesmen Ferenc Deak and J6szef Eotvos, crafted the Legislative Act 44/1868 on the Equality of the Nationalities, 1 commonly known as the Nationalities Law. Although this law was intended to satisfy the nationalities' yearning for equality, in actual fact it denied the equality of all the nationalities in Hungary except for the Croats, who were recognized as a separate nation. The preamble of the law clearly stated: " .... all citizens of the Kingdom of Hungary, in conformity with the 1 Torveny-czikk a nemzetisek egyenj ogus:ig t:irgy:iban. Magyar torvenyt:ir 10001895 . 1838-1 868 evi torvenyczikkek. (Budapest, I 896) 490-4, as cited in Milan Podrim avsky, " Slovaks in the Conditions of the Hungarian State at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century." Human Affairs, 9, I (1999), 45 . �8 SLOVAKIA Constitution and from the political point of view, create an indivisible unitary Hungarian (Magyar) nation, of which each citizen of the country, belonging to any nationality, is an equal member." 2 In effect, the equality of the citizens of the state as individuals, independent of their nationality, was proclaimed; but the equality of the nationalities of the old Kingdom of Hungary was not. The discriminatory character of the Nationality Law had serious ramifications for the Slovaks. As a result, in 1878 the Slovaks sent another deputation led by one of the heroes of the 1848 Revolution, Jozef M. Hurban, to Vienna requesting an independent Slovak territory.3 The emperor refused to meet with Hurban, and returned his Memorandum to him. This led to an escalation in Magyarization (assimilation into the Magyar language and culture) and legislation by Magyar political forces which sought to erode any remaining rights of the nationalities. Prior to 1867, the Slovak national movement had made considerable headway. In the early 1860's intellectuals accepted the language reforms which I.:udovit Stur had made in 1846, and which led 4 to the final codification of the Slovak language in 1851. The Slovak nationalists sought to win legal guarantees that would safeguard the Slovak national existence and sovereignty. Although they were unsuccessful in obtaining recognition for the Memorandum of 1861 and the Okolie (a Slovak territory), they did manage to create the cultural and literary organization Matica slovenska in 1863 in the small town of Turciansky Svaty Martin and three Slovak gymnazia in the 1860s. The number of Slovak newspapers also expanded at this time. These achievements gave the Slovaks hope for bettering their political, social and economic situation in Hungary. It was short lived. With the signing of the A usgleich in 1867, these national developments came to a rapid end. The gymnazia were closed in 1874 and the Matica slovenska in 1875, with the state confiscating all of Matica 's property. The Prime Minister of Hungary, Kalman Tisza, announced at the sitting of the Diet that he did not know of "any Slovak nation" . Hungary.s m 2 Podrimavsky, " Slovaks ... ," 45. Anton Spiesz and Dusan Caplovic, Illustrated Slovak History (Wauconda, Ill inois: Bolchazy- Carducci Publi shers, 2006), 149. 4 Ludevi t Stur, Nauka reci slovenskej (Presporok, 1846; reprinted in Bratislava, 2006). 5 Milan Durica, Dejiny Slovenska a Slovakov (Bratislava: Luc, 2003), 235. 3 �SLOVAKIA 9 The arrival of the government of Kalman Tisza in 1875 inaugurated a new period of oppression. The ruling Magyar circles were determined to strengthen the supremacy of national politics within the old Kingdom of Hungary vis-a-vis Vienna and also outside of the Monarchy, especially towards the Balkans. The virulent Magyarization policies of fifteen years of Tisza rule seriously hampered the ability of Slovaks to keep pace with their counterparts in other regions of Europe. The Slovak intelligentsia was continuously attacked and began to lose hope. The Hungarian government believed that the only solution to the nationality problem was assimilating the nonMagyar nations. Its Magyarization policies employed a variety of devices. The Magyar language was implemented at all levels of society, including from the pulpit. Various associations to help assimilate the nationalities 6 were established and also the local press was harnessed to ensure the Magyarization program would be effecttive and ensure the elimination of the Slovak language from public life. In terms of organized religion, both the authorities of the Catholic and Lutheran Churches practiced Magyarization in private, as well as in public. Slovak children attending Catholic schools were required to use the Magyar language. Slovak priests and teachers were persecuted for their national consciousness and participation in the Slovak national movement. 7 Slovak ministers and priests, who were known to be nationalists, were transferred from wealthier parishes to ones where the minister or priest, along with his flock, had . 8 to strugg Ie to survive. In 1878, the Slovenska narodna strana (Slovak National Party) announced it would boycott the elections to protest the discrimination suffered by the Slovaks. Not a single Slovak deputy was elected 6 Tisza' s gove rnment establi shed th e Magyar Educa tio nal League for Upper Hungary (FEMKE) in 1882 w ith its seat in the anci ent Slova k city of Nitra and the Educati onal League fo r Upper Hun ga ry (MT KE) in 1885 w ith its headquarters in Budapest, as we ll several j ourn als and news papers to aid in fi ghting th e g rowth of Slovak nati onal co nsc io usness. Podrimavsky, "S lova ks in the Co nditions of th e Hun gari an State . . . ," 4 7. 7 Ibid., 47-8. 8 Karel Kalal, Mad'arizacia. Obraz slovenske utrpenie. (Originall y publi shed in 1900, reprinted in Brati slava : Eko- ko nzult, 2006), 27. "The Sl ovak priest Moyses los t hi s parish in Lucky and th e Magyarone Smizar repl aced him ; the people sto pped go in g to church, th ey are bu ry in g their dead themselves, children are not be ing bapti zed, but no ne of th at moves either Smi za r, or " Fath er" Parvy. " �SLOVAKIA to the Diet in the elections of 1875 or 1878 . From this date until the early twentieth century, the Slovenska narodna strana followed a policy of political passivity and withdrew to the small town of Turciansky Svaty Martin in Central Slovakia. They also brought with them their newspaper Slovenske narodne noviny (Slovak National News) from its previous home in Budapest. Two factors , one internal and the other external , were instrumental in activating the Martin nationalists at the turn of the century. First of all, the economic situation was depressed and created a climate of both social and political unrest. The gravity of this situation was described as late as 1914 in an article entitled "The Decline of Industry" 9 by the pro-Magyar, government-sponsored, newspaper Slovenske noviny , published in Budapest. Alongside this industrial problem was the failure of the agrarian sector to thrive as a result of several bad harvests. The result was a growth in anti-Semitism, as the Jews were blamed for the drop in agricultural prices. This was followed by the rise of a new Catholic, anti-Semitic, Hungarian political party: the Hungarian People's Party (Neppart) established by Ferdinand Zichy and its weekly Krest'an. ' 0 It should be pointed out that most Jews in Hungary tied their economic well-being to support for the Magyar ruling class. Another catalyst for Slovak patriots was the trial of Romanian nationalists in 1894 which helped bring together a coalition of nonMagyar nationalists. Recognizing their common goals and the advantage of solidarity, the nationalities came together for the first time in the Congress of Non-Hungarian Nations in Budapest in 1895 . The Congress sought national equality in conjunction with democratic demands for universal and secret manhood suffrage, and freedom of the press, speech, assembly and association for all the nationalities. An external factor which played a major role in ending political passivity was a new generation of university students who were 9 Dr. Adolf Phany, "Upado k priemys lu," Slovenske noviny, 14 January 1914, p. l . Robert W. Seton-Watso n, A Hislory of 1he Czechs and Slovaks (Londo n, 1943:, reprint ed., Hamden, CT, 1965) 27 1-2. See also Julius Popely, " Boj o liberalne cirkevnopoliticke reform y v Uhorsku a zaloze nie katolickej l' udovej strany," Hisloricky casopis 29, 6 ( 198 1), 85 7-70, and Julius Popely, "Yzt' ah medzi statom a cirkvou v posledn ej tretine 19. storocia a korene politi ckeho kl erikali zmu v Uhorsku," Historickestudie 24 ( 1980): 77 -96, and Owen V. Johnson, " Losing Faith : The Slova k Hungari an Constitutional Struggle, 1906-1914," Harvard Ukrainian S1udies, 22, I, ( 1998), 293-3 12. 10 �SLOVAKIA 11 either educated by Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, a Czech professor at Charles University in Prague, or who read his works while studying in Vienna and Budapest. As graduates and young professionals, they returned to Slovakia and spread Masaryk's ideas and teachings, his "Realist" program, and especially the concept of "drobna praca" (intensive work) . 11 On the advice of Masaryk, some of his students in 1898 established the journal Hlas (Voice). It preached the advantages of closer Czech and Slovak cooperation. This was enough to prompt the leadership of the old guard--the poet, writer, and editor of Ncirodne noviny, Svetozar Hurban Vajansky; Pavel Mudroii, party chair for the Slovenskci ncirodnci strana; Matus Dula, Ambro Pietor, and several others into protesting that the charges of political passivity levelled by Hlas editors Vavro Srobar and Pavel Blaho were unjust. A rift emerged between the older and younger generation. The elders felt the younger generation was neither respectful nor grateful for the sacrifices made by their elders in furthering the Slovak national movement. When Hlas ceased publication in 1904, there was a short respite. However, the demands of the young nationalists for a platform led to the publiccation of another journal, Prudy (Currents) in 1909. Milan Hodza, a young Budapest lawyer and publicist recognized that the Slovaks needed to become politically engaged and he put his energies into the building of a mass movement. In his newspaper Slovensky tyi dennik (Slovak Weekly) begun in 1903, Hodza tried to capture the Slovak peoples' interests and educate them in political activity. The young people rejected their elders' policy of political passivity. 11 Edita Bosak, "Czech-Slovak Relati ons and the Student Organisati on Detvan, 1882- I 91 4" in Slovak Polirics, Ed. Stani slav J. Kirsc hbaum (C leveland : Slovak Institute, 1983), 6-41. See also Ed ita Bosa k, "The Slovak National Movement, 184819 18" in Rejlecrions on Slovak Hisrory, Ed. Stani slav J. Kirschbaum and Anne C. Roman (Toronto: Sl ovak World Congress, 1987), 59-72 , and Edita Bosak, "T. G. Masaryk and th e Emerge nce of th e Hl as ist Move ment, 1898-1904", in J. M. Rydlo , ed, Milan S. Durica. Fesrschrift (Brati slava, 1995) 29-42. Edita Bosa k, " Slowakische Studentenorganisati onen in W ien, Prag und Budapes t und ihre Zusa mm enarbeit," in Wegenetz europiiischen Ceistes fl - Universitiiten und Studenten: Die Bedeutung studentischer Migrationen in Mittel - und Siidosteuropa vom 18. Bis zum 20. Jahrhundert. Eds. Ri chard G. Plasc hka and Karlheinz Mac k (Muni ch: 1987), 162-1 82. �SLOVAKIA 12 Slovak politicians finally dropped their pass1v1ty before the Hungarian constitutional crisis in 1905-1906. Hungarian political circles noted this and their Magyarisation politics were stepped up and the persecution of Slovak nationalists reached their peak. On the eve of the 1905 elections, Prime Minister Istvan Tisza bluntly stated his position on the nationalities as follows : A cardinal condition for the enjoyment of rights by other nationalities is that the citizens of other nationalities should recognize unreservedly that this State is the Magyar State .... The Magyar nation has never given a binding promise to maintain the Law of Nationalities for all time, or not to alter it... when conditions change, and when we perceive that through this law we grant to our opponents rights against ourselves. 12 The policy of Magyarization continued to escalate at all government and religious levels, and to touch the social, economic, and political fabric of the state. The Apponyi Education Acts of 1907 reiterated that teachers in religious schools were state employees, and, as such, had to be able to read, write, and teach in Magyar. Leading Magyar nationalists held firm to these views . There were even fears among government leaders that negotiations with the nationalities would derail the Magyar goal of a single national state. Tisza, in response to the fears expressed by Count Albert Apponyi, that he was negotiating with the Romanians, stated very clearly that he stood " ... on the basis of a single undivided Hungarian national state ... No Hungarian can hold any other position other than the position of a single Hungarian nation, creating a single united Hungarian national state. 13 As far as Tisza was concerned, this position was unassailable. These views were held by most of the Hungarian ruling circle and permeated throughout the administrative echelons and bureaucracy. Surprisingly, in the 1906 elections, six Slovaks from the Slovenska l'udova strana (Slovak People's Party) 14 and one from the Slovenska 12 R. W. Seton-Watson, German, Slav, and Magyar (New York : Howard Fertig, 1968), 45-6. 13 Kalman Tisza Slovenske noviny, 16 January 19 14, p. l. 14 The Slovenska /'udova strana had separated from Zichy's People' s Party, Neppart, in 1905 because the latter did not represent the Slovak peoples ' interests. 1 �SLOVAKIA 13 narodna strana (Slovak National Party) were elected. They demonstrated that a well-organized campaign, with emphasis on the needs of the peasants, was the way to attract votes. 15 However, the campaigners also pointed out that parties such as Neppart were not working in the interests of the Slovak peasants. Although this was a small win for the Slovak national movement (given their proportion of the population, the Slovaks should have had 40 seats in Parliament), its impact was significant enough that the Hungarian government expanded and increased the tempo of its Magyarization process. With hindsight it is clear that this political achievement was very much a milestone in the Slovak national movement. Slovak leaders, laymen as well as clergy, were now targeted in a stepped up campaign of persecution. 16 The Catholic Church's hierarchy, educated in the "great Magyar spirit," 17 was also actively involved in these persecutions . Even sermons had to be given in Magyar in completely Slovak parishes. Slovak priests who expressed national sentiments and used their own language in church were persecuted. Yet it was this Slovak clergy to which the people looked for guidance. The Slovak intelligentsia was very small, and as a result, both Roman Catholic priests and Lutheran ministers filled this gap. This form of Magyarization also attracted the attention of William Ritter, 18 a Swiss writer and artist. He published the details of the trial of Andrej Hlinka in Ruzomberok, October 26-November 6, 15 Ameri can Slovaks, in a sign of support and solidarity, had co llected $ I 0,000 and se nt it to the Slovak leadership back home to help defray electi on ex penses. The electi on of seven Slovaks to th e Hun ga ri an Parli ament, a first in history , was enthusiasti call y received as one Slovak Am erican decl ared "Our mon ey has been well spent. " In M. Mark Stolarik , Immig ration and Urban ization: The Slovak Experience, 1870- / 9 18 (New York: AM S Press, 1989), 194. 16 Several Slova k nati onali st leaders were now tri ed and convicted of " inciting aga inst the Magya r nati on" and sentenced to term s in prison: the Rev. Ferdi s Juriga, Dr. Vavro Srobar, the Rev. Andrej Hlinka, Milan Iva nka, etc. 17 Kuruc, Stefa n, " Katolicka cirkev na Slovenskom uze mi Uhorska na zaciatku 20. storocia," in My tus a realita, Stefan Kuci k, ed. (Rufo mberok : Katolicka uni versita v Rufo mberku, 2008), 6 1. 18 William Ritter ( I 867- I 955) was one of th e earli est and most creati ve of the foreign Sl ovakophiles who wrote about th e situati on faced by the Slovak s in the Hungari an part of the Dual Monarc hy of Austri a-H ungary. He pro tested aga inst Magyari zati on w ith others like th e Ru ssian Alexander Alexa ndrovic Papkov ( I 866-1920), the Scot Robert William Seton-Watson ( I 879- I 95 I), the Frenchm an Ernest Deni s ( 1849-1 92 1) and the No rweg ian Bj ornstjern e Bjorn son ( 1832- 19 10). �14 SLOVAKIA 1906 in the French Catholic magazine Demain. His article was read by officials in the Vatican and, as result, Hlinka was able to defend himself successfully from the Hungarian hierarchy' s accusations. 19 Ritter also published the letters of Hungarian bishops and Slovak priests in 1906 in Demain. He was a regular visitor to Slovakia from 1888 until 1947, and maintained a faithful and steadfast interest in the Slovaks until his death.20 Ritter had a vibrant correspondence with Slovakia's nationalists and greatest writers and poets, and through his publications pointed out to the western world the inhumane political, religious, social and cultural Magyarization of the Slovaks in the Kingdom Hungary. 21 Ritter was the first Slovakophile to expose the brutal sentiments expressed by the Magyar Prime Minister Istvan Tisza in 1905. In his article "Eveques hongrois et pretres slovaques" in the Lyons journal Demain politique, social, religieux,22 Ritter quoted Tisza as having stated "The law is dead for you Slovaks."23 Ritter had also published the harsh words of Tisza's father, Kalman Tisza, when he had been the head of government years earlier: "Slovaks should be crushed under the heel." 24 This Swiss humanitarian also expounded on Magyarization carried out in poor Slovak parish schools, in the theological seminaries and amongst Slovak priests . In fact, the fateful Cernova massacre simply confirmed the truth of Ritter's writings. Villagers in the small settlement of Cemova, in the diocese of Spis, had constructed a church mainly through the initiative and support of a local son, the Reverend Andrej Hlinka. Out of pride and gratitude, the citizens of Cemova, asked their bishop, Alexander Parvy, to allow Hlinka to consecrate the new church. 25 These people knew the importance of having one of their own sons fulfill this ceremony. Since Hlinka had been suspended from his priestly duties by Parvy because of his nationalist behavior, the people of Cemova requested a delay in consecration until such time as Hlinka could 19 Jozef M. Rydl o, " Sudny proces proti Andrejovi Hlinkovi v Rufo mberku 26. 106.11.1906 a obrana Slovakov proti mad 'arizacii perom William Rittera na strankach francu zskeho Demain", in Kucik, My tus a realita, 24. 20 Ibid. , 22 . 21 Ibid ., 23 . 22 Ibid ., 24. 23 Ibid., 24. 24 Ibid., 24. 25 Alexander Parvy was bishop of the Spis diocese from 1904 to 19 19. �SLOVAKIA 15 preside over it. The bishop refused. The political background leading up to this is important for, as F. S. Clarke, in a dispatch from the British Consul-General in Budapest reported to the Foreign Office, The parish priest at Rozsahegy (Ruiomberok) ... , named Hlinka ... , by his nationalist tendencies, has incurred the displeasure--not only of the civil, but also of the ecclesiastical authorities, and had, in December last, been sentenced to a fine and to two years for the incitement against the Magyar State idea '-- ... 26 Hlinka had been actively backing his friend Dr. Vavro Srobar during the election campaign, something which Parvy considered tantamount to political agitation against the Magyar state. Thus, in Hlinka's place, Parvy chose the Reverend Anton Klurimsky, a Magyarone, to consecrate the newly-built church, despite the objections of the people of Cemova. These sentiments had even been personally relayed to the bishop by deacon M. Pazurik. The bishop decided that the dedication ceremony would take place regardless of the objections voiced by the parishioners. A group of gendarmes and a magistrate from Ruzomberok were assigned to escort the priests to nearby Cemova, and to maintain law and order. Upon their arrival on 27 October 1907, the priests and the squad of gendarmes were greeted by the people of Cemova, who although passive, verbally berated them. According to eye-witness reports, the gendarmes, without any provocation, shot into the crowd gathered on the roadside, which was impeding their progress. The result was "nine dead immediately, three died the following day, one on the third day" 27 and by the 25 th of December all told there were fifteen dead. 28 Because it was feared that a revolt would follow , a contingent of Honveds (National Guards) was dispatched from Ruzomberok.29 The following day a series of arrests of so-called "agi26 F. S. Clarke to Sir Edward Goschen, Budapest, October 31 , 1907. Foreign Office Papers #371 , Pol. A-H , 1907 - # 196 fil e 36724, No. 58, (United Kingdom: Public Record Office) . 27 "Vrazdenie slovenseho l' udu v Cemovej", S/o vensky tyidennik, 1 November 1907, p. I. 28 Karol Sidor, Cerno va (/80 7- /937) (Bratislava: " Slovak", 1937), 35. 29 Ibid. , 32. �16 SLOVAKIA tators" 30 among the survivors began, one of whom was Hlinka's sister, fifty-five year old Anna Fullova. In all, there were 13 arrests. 3 1 The tragedy of Cernova did more than any other event to bring the Slovak problem before a national and international forum . Two Czech deputies, Silinger and Dr. Hruban, brought before the Reichsrat in Vienna an interpellation which requested the government "to ask for an official report on how this sad affair came about and if the guilty parties had been investigated and punished and to put it before them?" 32 The second part of the document " ... asked the Hungarian government, as the second component of the Austro-Hungarian compromise, to finally end similar persecution of the Slovak people and the non-Magyar nationalities of Hungary." 33 Dr. Hruban stated most emphatically "that the Czech nation will think over very carefully if it can make an agreement with a state which so persecutes the Slovak nation and the other non-Magyar nationalities."34 During the debate on the Austro-Hungarian economic agreement before the Austrian Parliament, T.G. Masaryk took the opportunity to present his views: I turn to the nationality question. For us, who are here from Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, for us Czechs the Compromise had politico-national importance. You heard today in the interpellation about the events in Ruiomberok which the Agrarian speaker also spoke about. The matter is quite simple. We have two million Slovaks in Hungary who belong to our nation: a nation of eight million will not abandon two million of its brethren to Magyar national chauvinism. It is our duty here and at every opportunity in 30 Ibid., 35. Ibid. , 35. 32 Anhang zu den Stenographischen Protokollen des Ha uses der Abgeordneten des oesterreichischen Reichsrates im Jahre 1907. Haus der Abgeordneten - 30. Sitzung der XVIII. Sess ion am 30. October 1907, p. 3 I 79. "Dotaz". (London , UK: Briti sh Museum). (Hereafter, Protocol). 33 Protocol, p. 3179 34 "Cemovska vrazda na sneme," Slovensky tyi dennik, I November 190 7, p. 3. The agreement mentioned here refers to the new ten-year agreement between Austria and Hungary wh ich was about to be voted on by the Viennese Parliament. 31 �SLOVAKIA 17 this house to declare to Austria and the whole public that what the Magyars are doing to our Slovaks is inhumane. 35 The German Moravian representative Dr. Redlich also expressed his concern with the Magyarizing fervor in Hungary: I need not remind any of your Czech gentlemen of what is happening to the Slovaks in Hungary. Think not of Cernova alone; think of the whole process which led to it, the Hlinka trial, the Juriga trial /36 Later, the Czech deputy Dr. Zahradnik requested to know if the president of the Parliament intended to add the following to the protocol: " ... the expression of our deep regret and our deep sympathy not only for the unfortunate victims of Cernova but for all the nonMagyar nations who suffer under such great oppression. " 37 Deputy Gunther raised the hope that " ... the whole of civilized Europe, all who still have some feeling for human suffering will finally put themselves on the side of the great Norwegian poet. .. the whole world will find out what is hidden behind this Magyar liberalism ." 38 Gunther was referring to the poet and Nobel-prize winner Bjornstjerne Bjornson, who, the previous month, had delivered a speech criticizing the "Magyar humbug and ... oppression in the service of nationalistic thinking," 39 thus drawing the attention of Europe to its deeds. Bjornson had taken up the cudgel on Hungarian policy towards its nationalists with special reference to the Slovaks. Cernova gave him the opportunity to follow up with a long article in the Neue Freie Presse, describing at length the Magyarizing process. Needless to say, the above annoyed the Hungarian government but even greater was the upheaval caused by the writings of such wellknown foreign journalists as Henry Wickham Steed of The Times 40 (London), and the conversion of Scotus Viator to the Slovak cause. 35 Protocol, p. 2346. Protocol, p. 2365. 37 Protocol, p. 23 18. 38 Protocol, p. 2376. 39 Bjomstjerne Bjornson , Narodni listy, 23 October I 907, p. 2. 40 Scotus Viator was the pseudonym of R. W. Seton-Watson, the renowned Scots historian. Seton-Watson became acquai nted with the sociologist Anton Stefanek in 1906 in Vienna, and it was through Stefanek that he had the opportunity to learn the 36 �18 SLOVAKIA 41 In 1908, Scotus Viator published Racial Problems in Hungary, which dealt with the corruption of electoral practices and Magyarization in that country. It earned him his doctorate. Shortly after the first publication, the book was translated into several other European languages, including Czech . This book helped publicize the oppresssed condition of the Slovaks in Upper Hungary throughout the western world. The French press also adopted an inimical stance towards the Magyars . The Poles wrote in Swiat slowianski that: It is not necessary to have concern about our sympathy. We sympathize with all the p ersecuted. We are wholeheartedly on their side. No mistake is as outrageous as that which the Magyars are making when they p ersecute the Slovaks. The Magyar advance against the Slovaks will end badly for the Magyars, but the Slovaks will live on. 42 William Ritter, who was already writing and exposing the Slovaks' plight, added his voice to that of the others. The Slovak politician Milan Hodza made an interpellation in the Hungarian Parliament on the subject of Cernova only an hour after the proceedings of the Austrian Reichstag had become known to the Hungarian Parliament. Feeling amongst the Magyar deputies ran high . Hodza had barely begun to speak before he was rudely interrupted by a very rowdy assembly. His interpellation consisted of a request that the Minister of the Interior, Julius Andrassy, extend the investigation of the Cernova massacre to include an examination of the actions of the administrative official present at Cernova; then, secondly, to suspend the said official from his office on the basis of already known facts until such time as the investigation will have 43 been concluded; and finally, to withdraw the army from the village. facts about Magyari zati on and the oppresssion of the Slovaks and th e other nonMagyar peoples in Hungary. Ce rnova served to re info rce Seton-Watson' s views and he became a vigorous defender of the non-M agya r nationalities in the European ~ress, much to the ire and indignati on of the Hungari an government. 1 London: Archiba ld Constabl e, 1908; reprinted by Howa rd Ferti g, New York, 1972. 42 Swiat slowianski (Cracow, 1907), 12 and 375 , cited in Karo l Sidor, Cernova, 51 . 43 "Cernovska vrazda na sneme" Slo venskj tyi dennik, I November 1907 , p. 4. �SLOVAKIA 19 Julius Andrassy defended the priests as having gone to Cemova only to reassure the people that the consecration would not take place at that time, that the gendarmes had fired in self-defence, and finally, that Zoltan Pereszleny would not be suspended but that a fair investigation would be made.44 Andrassy, along with his colleagues, accused such newspapers as Slovensky tyidennik of "stirring the people to bloodshed." 45 Meanwhile, Hlinka continued his lecture tour of Moravia and Bohemia, acquainting the Czechs with Magyar policy and the events of Cemova. The massacre at Cemova served as a unifying force among the Czechs for the Slovak cause. Hlinka was greeted enthusiastically wherever he went. He was seen as a martyr, a representative of the whole Slovak nation. His speeches activated a far more systematic interest in the Slovaks than ever before exhibited by the Czechs. Slovensky obzor put it quite frankly: What Kalal, Masaryk, Heyduk after long years did not know how to achieve, that is what Cernova events did - in one night! In fact, Cernova even captured the interest of the heir presumptive Francis Ferdinand, who had deputy Milan Hodza inform him personally of the whole sequence of 46 events at the Cernova massacre. V In November of 1907 the Cardinal Primate of Hungary issued a circular in which he put the Eudove noviny on the Index of forbidden reading. Hlinka responded with a plea in the Brno Hlas (6 December 1907) to the Bohemian and Moravian clergy for support: ... the Magyar hierarchy has come down hard on us. They wish to suffocate Eudove noviny, the most Catholic of newspapers, with a clerical curse. I turn to the Moravian and Bohemian clergy today so that they may defend us. Do not let the strongest bastion of the faith and the Slovak language fall. The newspaper Eudove noviny is a substitute today for school. It is equally a catechism and a syllabus. Without it the Slovaks will die or will become a senseless 44 45 46 Ibid ., p.4. "Prijezd Andreje HI inky," Cas, XXI, No. 303 ( 1907), 5. Slovensky obzor, 1907, 564 cited in Sidor, Cernova, 51. �SLOVAKIA 20 mass of slaves and helots .. . Me, they failed, my paper Eudove noviny they prosecute with clerical punishments! Protect our press! 47 His call did not go unheeded - the strength of the religious tie and the events of Cemova caused Czech and Moravian papers to write, urging Slovaks to continue to read Eudove noviny as a good Catholic newspaper. Arriving in Prague on 1 November 1907 in the company of A. Kolisek and J. Uprka, Hlinka was greeted by Czech leaders F. Taborsky, J. Rotnagl , Dr. Lang, and Dr. E. Krajicek, and a large number of students.48 On the 2 November 1907, he gave a speech on Slovansky ostrov which created such a stir that Ceskoslovanska jednota established a Ceskoslovensky komitet (Czechoslovak Committee) on the following day. Its function was to collect money to aid the orphans of Cemova49 and to organize the rest of Hlinka's lecture tours in the Czech Lands. Altogether, there were over 700 rallies on behalf of the Slovaks and Cemova. 50 Josef Anyz, editor-in-chief of Narodni listy, was elected chairman of the Committee with J. Rotnagl as secretary. Such a good working relationship between Anyz and Rotnagl grew out of the Committee that, according to Rotnagl , "whatever I went to N. listy 51 with some request from Cs/. Jednota, l was never turned down." Right after Cemova the number of Slovak evenings organized to acquaint the Czech public with the Slovaks and their culture increased dramatically, as did informative lectures on the same theme. Great speakers such as Pavel Blaho, Matus Dula, Andrej Hlinka, Milan Hodza, Jozef I:udovit Hol'uby, I:udovit Medvecky, Anton Stefanek, Vavro Srobar, and Svetozar Hurban Vajansky, were invited by Jednota to speak to the people of Moravia and Bohemia. Czech newspapers touched the hearts of their reading public, calling for Czech financial support for the victims of Cemova: V 47 Hlas, 6 December 1907, cited in K. Sidor, Andrej Hlinka , p. 205. "Prijezd Andreje Hlinky," Cas, XXI, No. 303 ( 1907), 5. 49 " Pomozte sirotkum po zavrazdenych v Cemove," Cas, XXI , o. 303 ( 1907), 5. 50 "Nasi bratia Ces i," Slovenky tyidennik, 27 March 1908, p. I. 51 "Narodni listy a slovenska vec," Rotn ag l Papers, Literarni archiv pamatnik narodniho pisemnictvi, Prague. (He reafter, LA PNP). 48 �SLOVAKIA 21 At this difficult tim e it is our duty to help those .. . orphans, whose fath ers have fallen in def ense of the rights of the Slovak people against brutal violence. Let a collection be taken throughout the whole nation, the y ield of which will be dedicated to the unfortunate victims of Cernova as proof that Czechs and Slovaks f eel together both joy and grief 52 The success of the fund-raising was evident in the letter of 8 August 1908 from Anton Stefanek to Seton-Watson: "We have the whole Czech people behind us. During the last year the Czech people have raised a fund of 80,000 Crowns for us under the influence of Cemova." 53 Seton-Watson received a full report on Cemova and the imprisonment of Hlinka for "incitement against the Magyar nation" 54 from Stefanek. This caused him to write a letter to the London Spectator, describing all the events and he referred to them "as a typical example of the oppression of the Slovaks." 55 The result was a response from Count Esterhazy defending the Magyar position, followed by a scathing rebuttal from Seton-Watson in the Spectator and Manchester Guardian. The Times editor, Wickham Steed, was particularly gleeful when he read them and wrote to Seton-Watson: "The reply to Esterhazy is the best bit of pulverization I have seen anywhere. It made me green with envy for the whole day. Talk about sledgehammers! You are a steamroller when you get going." 56 Czech-Slovak relations drew closer in 1907 when Antonin Reis, a member of Ceskoslovanska j ednota suggested to Pavel Blaho, that now would be a good time to establish an informative journal on Slovakia, especially for the Czech readership. 57 Thus was born Nase Slovensko , short-lived from 1907 to 1910, but important because it 52 " Hunove vrazdi ," Cas, No. 300 ( 1907), p. I . Hugh Seton-Watson, "Anton Stefanek and R. W. Seton-Watson," Bohemia Jahrbuch des Co /legium Carolin um, 18 ( 1977), 236. 54 Jan Ryc hlfk, Thomas D. Marzik, Mi ros lav Bie lik, eds. R. W. Seton-Watson and his Relations with the Czechs and the Slovaks, I, (Prague: Ostav T. G. Masaryka and Martin : Matica slovenska, 1995), 22 55 Rychlfk, et a l. , 22. 56 Ryc hlfk, et al. , p. 139. 57 Antonin Reis, Letter to P. Blaho, 8 March 1907, Blaho Papers (Slovak State Archi ves, Bratislava, hereafter SSUA), Carton 12, Signature Bll-98. The same letter was sent to other prominent Slovaks introduc ing the plan to fo und this journal and seeking support. 53 �22 SLOVAKIA gave the young Slovak generation the motivation to seek other ways of saving themselves from the oppression of the Magyars. They became more engaged in the Slovak national movement and were able to test their skills through such vehicles as Nase Slovensko and later Prudy. It also distanced them from the old generation in Martin who continued to believe that only the Russians could save them from the Magyars. American Slovaks also became very outspoken about the situation in Slovakia. From the late 1860s to the late l 880's, American Slovaks had been more concerned with survival in their new homeland and saving their money to send home to their families . By the late 1890s and early 1900s, they had acclimatized to their new democracy and created self-help associations and newspapers indicative of a maturing Slovak national consciousness. The persecution of Hlinka in connection with the pre-election agitation in 1906 was brought to the attention of the American Slovak public by the Roman Catholic priest Stefan Furdek. 58 The result was an open letter in the newspaper Eudove noviny written by Slovak priests working in America. Collections were organized as a result of the persecution during the elections of 1906, and once this precedent was set a similar procedure was followed to aid Cernova victims. A direct result of the persecution of Hlinka and the other Slovak representatives resulted in the emergence of the Union of Slovak Journalists and the Slovak League of America.59 A very impassioned message "For the Cernova Widows and Orphans," to all Slovaks was written by Furdek in his weekly Jednota, on 7 November 1907: They won't frighten us; our truth will not go begging crumbs from the tyrant. If it 's a fight they want, then a fight they will get; we are not afraid of it .. . Now, when we have the attention of the world, we must prove to the world that we stand together like a strong chain ... A bloody battle has begun in Cernova! Our sacred duty is to financially and morally support the struggle, which will determine whether 58 Stefan Furdek was the founder of The First Cath olic Slovak Union ( 1890) and th e Slovak League of America ( I 907). 59 Stefan Kucik, "Ohlas prenasledovania Andreja Hlinku a Cemovskej tragedie medzi Americkymi Slovakmi", in Kucik, Mytus a Realita, 115. �SLOVAKIA 23 the Slovak nation will exist or not exist in its ancient homeland. 60 With the passing of time, the furor created around Cernova abated. However, the actions of the Magyar authorities in bringing to trial those persons arrested on that tragic day, served to re-awaken interest in various camps. Both Czech and Slovak newspapers reported on the proceedings of the trial, but the Slovak newspaper Narodnie noviny gave its readers a daily account which lasted from the 2 nd to the 10 th of March in 1908. Altogether forty men and women were sentenced to a total of 37 years of imprisonment. 61 Cernova was in some ways a catalyst, not just on home ground but in Bohemia and Moravia and internationally. Slovaks in America also rallied and sought to acquaint their government of the situation in the homeland. What the Magyars had probably thought was an insignificant consecration and sign of Slovak thick-headedness turned into a cause celebre. The Magyars never expected this event to attract such attention and greatly miscalculated the damage this would cause them in the eyes of Europe. Men like Count Esterhazy never expected to find themselves having to defend Magyar racial policies, all because of an insignificant village like Cernova and a "people who did not exist," 62 according to Magyar politicians! In many ways, Cernova helped the Slovaks both in Slovakia and in America to unite and to begin thinking of alternatives to the rule of the Hungarian government and its Magyarizing policies. 60 Stefan Furdek, "Pre vdovy a siroty ce m ovske" quoted in Kucik, I 16-1 7. V. H., Cernovsky process (Turciansky Sv. Martin : Knihtl ac iarskeho ucas tinarskeho spolku, I 908), 72 . 62 Bela Grun wa ld, A felv idek, in Duri ca, Dejiny Slovenska a Slovakov, 238. Grunwa ld wrote in 1887 that there were Slovak speak ing-inhabi tants in Hungary but there was no Slovak nation. 61 � 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 2010, Vol. 40 Description An account of the resource Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010. 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 2010 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 CERNOVA MASSACRE: MAGYAR MISCALCULATION, SLOVAK GAIN Edita Bosak Cernova, formerly an independent municipality of Liptov county, today a suburb of Ruzomberok, played a key role in the Slovak national movement in the first decade of the twentieth century. With the signing of the 1867 Austro-Hungarian Compromise, which created the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary, the hegemony of the Austrian Empire ended. The agreement opened the way for the ruling Magyar political forces in the Kingdom of Hungary to enforce their national interests without regard for the interests of the non-Magyar nationalities. Since this meant that no legal rights would be granted to the non-Magyar nations in Hungary, the Slovaks in Northern Hungary found their political situation deteriorating over the next fifty years. Between 1905 and 1907, the Dual Monarchy found itself in a serious political and social crisis and also faced deeply divisive nationality problems as a result of the Compromise. This study will explore the role of the Cernova massacre in changing the direction of the Slovak national movement, in exposing the Magyar government's nationalities' policies both internally and abroad, and thus forcing the Magyars into a defensive position. With the passing of the Compromise in 1867, Magyar statesmen Ferenc Deak and J6szef Eotvos, crafted the Legislative Act 44/1868 on the Equality of the Nationalities, 1 commonly known as the Nationalities Law. Although this law was intended to satisfy the nationalities' yearning for equality, in actual fact it denied the equality of all the nationalities in Hungary except for the Croats, who were recognized as a separate nation. The preamble of the law clearly stated: " .... all citizens of the Kingdom of Hungary, in conformity with the 1 Torveny-czikk a nemzetisek egyenj ogus:ig t:irgy:iban. Magyar torvenyt:ir 10001895 . 1838-1 868 evi torvenyczikkek. (Budapest, I 896) 490-4, as cited in Milan Podrim avsky, " Slovaks in the Conditions of the Hungarian State at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century." Human Affairs, 9, I (1999), 45 . 8 SLOVAKIA Constitution and from the political point of view, create an indivisible unitary Hungarian (Magyar) nation, of which each citizen of the country, belonging to any nationality, is an equal member." 2 In effect, the equality of the citizens of the state as individuals, independent of their nationality, was proclaimed; but the equality of the nationalities of the old Kingdom of Hungary was not. The discriminatory character of the Nationality Law had serious ramifications for the Slovaks. As a result, in 1878 the Slovaks sent another deputation led by one of the heroes of the 1848 Revolution, Jozef M. Hurban, to Vienna requesting an independent Slovak territory.3 The emperor refused to meet with Hurban, and returned his Memorandum to him. This led to an escalation in Magyarization (assimilation into the Magyar language and culture) and legislation by Magyar political forces which sought to erode any remaining rights of the nationalities. Prior to 1867, the Slovak national movement had made considerable headway. In the early 1860's intellectuals accepted the language reforms which I.:udovit Stur had made in 1846, and which led 4 to the final codification of the Slovak language in 1851. The Slovak nationalists sought to win legal guarantees that would safeguard the Slovak national existence and sovereignty. Although they were unsuccessful in obtaining recognition for the Memorandum of 1861 and the Okolie (a Slovak territory), they did manage to create the cultural and literary organization Matica slovenska in 1863 in the small town of Turciansky Svaty Martin and three Slovak gymnazia in the 1860s. The number of Slovak newspapers also expanded at this time. These achievements gave the Slovaks hope for bettering their political, social and economic situation in Hungary. It was short lived. With the signing of the A usgleich in 1867, these national developments came to a rapid end. The gymnazia were closed in 1874 and the Matica slovenska in 1875, with the state confiscating all of Matica 's property. The Prime Minister of Hungary, Kalman Tisza, announced at the sitting of the Diet that he did not know of "any Slovak nation" . Hungary.s m 2 Podrimavsky, " Slovaks ... ," 45. Anton Spiesz and Dusan Caplovic, Illustrated Slovak History (Wauconda, Ill inois: Bolchazy- Carducci Publi shers, 2006), 149. 4 Ludevi t Stur, Nauka reci slovenskej (Presporok, 1846; reprinted in Bratislava, 2006). 5 Milan Durica, Dejiny Slovenska a Slovakov (Bratislava: Luc, 2003), 235. 3 SLOVAKIA 9 The arrival of the government of Kalman Tisza in 1875 inaugurated a new period of oppression. The ruling Magyar circles were determined to strengthen the supremacy of national politics within the old Kingdom of Hungary vis-a-vis Vienna and also outside of the Monarchy, especially towards the Balkans. The virulent Magyarization policies of fifteen years of Tisza rule seriously hampered the ability of Slovaks to keep pace with their counterparts in other regions of Europe. The Slovak intelligentsia was continuously attacked and began to lose hope. The Hungarian government believed that the only solution to the nationality problem was assimilating the nonMagyar nations. Its Magyarization policies employed a variety of devices. The Magyar language was implemented at all levels of society, including from the pulpit. Various associations to help assimilate the nationalities 6 were established and also the local press was harnessed to ensure the Magyarization program would be effecttive and ensure the elimination of the Slovak language from public life. In terms of organized religion, both the authorities of the Catholic and Lutheran Churches practiced Magyarization in private, as well as in public. Slovak children attending Catholic schools were required to use the Magyar language. Slovak priests and teachers were persecuted for their national consciousness and participation in the Slovak national movement. 7 Slovak ministers and priests, who were known to be nationalists, were transferred from wealthier parishes to ones where the minister or priest, along with his flock, had . 8 to strugg Ie to survive. In 1878, the Slovenska narodna strana (Slovak National Party) announced it would boycott the elections to protest the discrimination suffered by the Slovaks. Not a single Slovak deputy was elected 6 Tisza' s gove rnment establi shed th e Magyar Educa tio nal League for Upper Hungary (FEMKE) in 1882 w ith its seat in the anci ent Slova k city of Nitra and the Educati onal League fo r Upper Hun ga ry (MT KE) in 1885 w ith its headquarters in Budapest, as we ll several j ourn als and news papers to aid in fi ghting th e g rowth of Slovak nati onal co nsc io usness. Podrimavsky, "S lova ks in the Co nditions of th e Hun gari an State . . . ," 4 7. 7 Ibid., 47-8. 8 Karel Kalal, Mad'arizacia. Obraz slovenske utrpenie. (Originall y publi shed in 1900, reprinted in Brati slava : Eko- ko nzult, 2006), 27. "The Sl ovak priest Moyses los t hi s parish in Lucky and th e Magyarone Smizar repl aced him ; the people sto pped go in g to church, th ey are bu ry in g their dead themselves, children are not be ing bapti zed, but no ne of th at moves either Smi za r, or " Fath er" Parvy. " SLOVAKIA to the Diet in the elections of 1875 or 1878 . From this date until the early twentieth century, the Slovenska narodna strana followed a policy of political passivity and withdrew to the small town of Turciansky Svaty Martin in Central Slovakia. They also brought with them their newspaper Slovenske narodne noviny (Slovak National News) from its previous home in Budapest. Two factors , one internal and the other external , were instrumental in activating the Martin nationalists at the turn of the century. First of all, the economic situation was depressed and created a climate of both social and political unrest. The gravity of this situation was described as late as 1914 in an article entitled "The Decline of Industry" 9 by the pro-Magyar, government-sponsored, newspaper Slovenske noviny , published in Budapest. Alongside this industrial problem was the failure of the agrarian sector to thrive as a result of several bad harvests. The result was a growth in anti-Semitism, as the Jews were blamed for the drop in agricultural prices. This was followed by the rise of a new Catholic, anti-Semitic, Hungarian political party: the Hungarian People's Party (Neppart) established by Ferdinand Zichy and its weekly Krest'an. ' 0 It should be pointed out that most Jews in Hungary tied their economic well-being to support for the Magyar ruling class. Another catalyst for Slovak patriots was the trial of Romanian nationalists in 1894 which helped bring together a coalition of nonMagyar nationalists. Recognizing their common goals and the advantage of solidarity, the nationalities came together for the first time in the Congress of Non-Hungarian Nations in Budapest in 1895 . The Congress sought national equality in conjunction with democratic demands for universal and secret manhood suffrage, and freedom of the press, speech, assembly and association for all the nationalities. An external factor which played a major role in ending political passivity was a new generation of university students who were 9 Dr. Adolf Phany, "Upado k priemys lu," Slovenske noviny, 14 January 1914, p. l . Robert W. Seton-Watso n, A Hislory of 1he Czechs and Slovaks (Londo n, 1943:, reprint ed., Hamden, CT, 1965) 27 1-2. See also Julius Popely, " Boj o liberalne cirkevnopoliticke reform y v Uhorsku a zaloze nie katolickej l' udovej strany," Hisloricky casopis 29, 6 ( 198 1), 85 7-70, and Julius Popely, "Yzt' ah medzi statom a cirkvou v posledn ej tretine 19. storocia a korene politi ckeho kl erikali zmu v Uhorsku," Historickestudie 24 ( 1980): 77 -96, and Owen V. Johnson, " Losing Faith : The Slova k Hungari an Constitutional Struggle, 1906-1914," Harvard Ukrainian S1udies, 22, I, ( 1998), 293-3 12. 10 SLOVAKIA 11 either educated by Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, a Czech professor at Charles University in Prague, or who read his works while studying in Vienna and Budapest. As graduates and young professionals, they returned to Slovakia and spread Masaryk's ideas and teachings, his "Realist" program, and especially the concept of "drobna praca" (intensive work) . 11 On the advice of Masaryk, some of his students in 1898 established the journal Hlas (Voice). It preached the advantages of closer Czech and Slovak cooperation. This was enough to prompt the leadership of the old guard--the poet, writer, and editor of Ncirodne noviny, Svetozar Hurban Vajansky; Pavel Mudroii, party chair for the Slovenskci ncirodnci strana; Matus Dula, Ambro Pietor, and several others into protesting that the charges of political passivity levelled by Hlas editors Vavro Srobar and Pavel Blaho were unjust. A rift emerged between the older and younger generation. The elders felt the younger generation was neither respectful nor grateful for the sacrifices made by their elders in furthering the Slovak national movement. When Hlas ceased publication in 1904, there was a short respite. However, the demands of the young nationalists for a platform led to the publiccation of another journal, Prudy (Currents) in 1909. Milan Hodza, a young Budapest lawyer and publicist recognized that the Slovaks needed to become politically engaged and he put his energies into the building of a mass movement. In his newspaper Slovensky tyi dennik (Slovak Weekly) begun in 1903, Hodza tried to capture the Slovak peoples' interests and educate them in political activity. The young people rejected their elders' policy of political passivity. 11 Edita Bosak, "Czech-Slovak Relati ons and the Student Organisati on Detvan, 1882- I 91 4" in Slovak Polirics, Ed. Stani slav J. Kirsc hbaum (C leveland : Slovak Institute, 1983), 6-41. See also Ed ita Bosa k, "The Slovak National Movement, 184819 18" in Rejlecrions on Slovak Hisrory, Ed. Stani slav J. Kirschbaum and Anne C. Roman (Toronto: Sl ovak World Congress, 1987), 59-72 , and Edita Bosak, "T. G. Masaryk and th e Emerge nce of th e Hl as ist Move ment, 1898-1904", in J. M. Rydlo , ed, Milan S. Durica. Fesrschrift (Brati slava, 1995) 29-42. Edita Bosa k, " Slowakische Studentenorganisati onen in W ien, Prag und Budapes t und ihre Zusa mm enarbeit," in Wegenetz europiiischen Ceistes fl - Universitiiten und Studenten: Die Bedeutung studentischer Migrationen in Mittel - und Siidosteuropa vom 18. Bis zum 20. Jahrhundert. Eds. Ri chard G. Plasc hka and Karlheinz Mac k (Muni ch: 1987), 162-1 82. SLOVAKIA 12 Slovak politicians finally dropped their pass1v1ty before the Hungarian constitutional crisis in 1905-1906. Hungarian political circles noted this and their Magyarisation politics were stepped up and the persecution of Slovak nationalists reached their peak. On the eve of the 1905 elections, Prime Minister Istvan Tisza bluntly stated his position on the nationalities as follows : A cardinal condition for the enjoyment of rights by other nationalities is that the citizens of other nationalities should recognize unreservedly that this State is the Magyar State .... The Magyar nation has never given a binding promise to maintain the Law of Nationalities for all time, or not to alter it... when conditions change, and when we perceive that through this law we grant to our opponents rights against ourselves. 12 The policy of Magyarization continued to escalate at all government and religious levels, and to touch the social, economic, and political fabric of the state. The Apponyi Education Acts of 1907 reiterated that teachers in religious schools were state employees, and, as such, had to be able to read, write, and teach in Magyar. Leading Magyar nationalists held firm to these views . There were even fears among government leaders that negotiations with the nationalities would derail the Magyar goal of a single national state. Tisza, in response to the fears expressed by Count Albert Apponyi, that he was negotiating with the Romanians, stated very clearly that he stood " ... on the basis of a single undivided Hungarian national state ... No Hungarian can hold any other position other than the position of a single Hungarian nation, creating a single united Hungarian national state. 13 As far as Tisza was concerned, this position was unassailable. These views were held by most of the Hungarian ruling circle and permeated throughout the administrative echelons and bureaucracy. Surprisingly, in the 1906 elections, six Slovaks from the Slovenska l'udova strana (Slovak People's Party) 14 and one from the Slovenska 12 R. W. Seton-Watson, German, Slav, and Magyar (New York : Howard Fertig, 1968), 45-6. 13 Kalman Tisza Slovenske noviny, 16 January 19 14, p. l. 14 The Slovenska /'udova strana had separated from Zichy's People' s Party, Neppart, in 1905 because the latter did not represent the Slovak peoples ' interests. 1 SLOVAKIA 13 narodna strana (Slovak National Party) were elected. They demonstrated that a well-organized campaign, with emphasis on the needs of the peasants, was the way to attract votes. 15 However, the campaigners also pointed out that parties such as Neppart were not working in the interests of the Slovak peasants. Although this was a small win for the Slovak national movement (given their proportion of the population, the Slovaks should have had 40 seats in Parliament), its impact was significant enough that the Hungarian government expanded and increased the tempo of its Magyarization process. With hindsight it is clear that this political achievement was very much a milestone in the Slovak national movement. Slovak leaders, laymen as well as clergy, were now targeted in a stepped up campaign of persecution. 16 The Catholic Church's hierarchy, educated in the "great Magyar spirit," 17 was also actively involved in these persecutions . Even sermons had to be given in Magyar in completely Slovak parishes. Slovak priests who expressed national sentiments and used their own language in church were persecuted. Yet it was this Slovak clergy to which the people looked for guidance. The Slovak intelligentsia was very small, and as a result, both Roman Catholic priests and Lutheran ministers filled this gap. This form of Magyarization also attracted the attention of William Ritter, 18 a Swiss writer and artist. He published the details of the trial of Andrej Hlinka in Ruzomberok, October 26-November 6, 15 Ameri can Slovaks, in a sign of support and solidarity, had co llected $ I 0,000 and se nt it to the Slovak leadership back home to help defray electi on ex penses. The electi on of seven Slovaks to th e Hun ga ri an Parli ament, a first in history , was enthusiasti call y received as one Slovak Am erican decl ared "Our mon ey has been well spent. " In M. Mark Stolarik , Immig ration and Urban ization: The Slovak Experience, 1870- / 9 18 (New York: AM S Press, 1989), 194. 16 Several Slova k nati onali st leaders were now tri ed and convicted of " inciting aga inst the Magya r nati on" and sentenced to term s in prison: the Rev. Ferdi s Juriga, Dr. Vavro Srobar, the Rev. Andrej Hlinka, Milan Iva nka, etc. 17 Kuruc, Stefa n, " Katolicka cirkev na Slovenskom uze mi Uhorska na zaciatku 20. storocia," in My tus a realita, Stefan Kuci k, ed. (Rufo mberok : Katolicka uni versita v Rufo mberku, 2008), 6 1. 18 William Ritter ( I 867- I 955) was one of th e earli est and most creati ve of the foreign Sl ovakophiles who wrote about th e situati on faced by the Slovak s in the Hungari an part of the Dual Monarc hy of Austri a-H ungary. He pro tested aga inst Magyari zati on w ith others like th e Ru ssian Alexander Alexa ndrovic Papkov ( I 866-1920), the Scot Robert William Seton-Watson ( I 879- I 95 I), the Frenchm an Ernest Deni s ( 1849-1 92 1) and the No rweg ian Bj ornstjern e Bjorn son ( 1832- 19 10). 14 SLOVAKIA 1906 in the French Catholic magazine Demain. His article was read by officials in the Vatican and, as result, Hlinka was able to defend himself successfully from the Hungarian hierarchy' s accusations. 19 Ritter also published the letters of Hungarian bishops and Slovak priests in 1906 in Demain. He was a regular visitor to Slovakia from 1888 until 1947, and maintained a faithful and steadfast interest in the Slovaks until his death.20 Ritter had a vibrant correspondence with Slovakia's nationalists and greatest writers and poets, and through his publications pointed out to the western world the inhumane political, religious, social and cultural Magyarization of the Slovaks in the Kingdom Hungary. 21 Ritter was the first Slovakophile to expose the brutal sentiments expressed by the Magyar Prime Minister Istvan Tisza in 1905. In his article "Eveques hongrois et pretres slovaques" in the Lyons journal Demain politique, social, religieux,22 Ritter quoted Tisza as having stated "The law is dead for you Slovaks."23 Ritter had also published the harsh words of Tisza's father, Kalman Tisza, when he had been the head of government years earlier: "Slovaks should be crushed under the heel." 24 This Swiss humanitarian also expounded on Magyarization carried out in poor Slovak parish schools, in the theological seminaries and amongst Slovak priests . In fact, the fateful Cernova massacre simply confirmed the truth of Ritter's writings. Villagers in the small settlement of Cemova, in the diocese of Spis, had constructed a church mainly through the initiative and support of a local son, the Reverend Andrej Hlinka. Out of pride and gratitude, the citizens of Cemova, asked their bishop, Alexander Parvy, to allow Hlinka to consecrate the new church. 25 These people knew the importance of having one of their own sons fulfill this ceremony. Since Hlinka had been suspended from his priestly duties by Parvy because of his nationalist behavior, the people of Cemova requested a delay in consecration until such time as Hlinka could 19 Jozef M. Rydl o, " Sudny proces proti Andrejovi Hlinkovi v Rufo mberku 26. 106.11.1906 a obrana Slovakov proti mad 'arizacii perom William Rittera na strankach francu zskeho Demain", in Kucik, My tus a realita, 24. 20 Ibid. , 22 . 21 Ibid ., 23 . 22 Ibid ., 24. 23 Ibid., 24. 24 Ibid., 24. 25 Alexander Parvy was bishop of the Spis diocese from 1904 to 19 19. SLOVAKIA 15 preside over it. The bishop refused. The political background leading up to this is important for, as F. S. Clarke, in a dispatch from the British Consul-General in Budapest reported to the Foreign Office, The parish priest at Rozsahegy (Ruiomberok) ... , named Hlinka ... , by his nationalist tendencies, has incurred the displeasure--not only of the civil, but also of the ecclesiastical authorities, and had, in December last, been sentenced to a fine and to two years for the incitement against the Magyar State idea '-- ... 26 Hlinka had been actively backing his friend Dr. Vavro Srobar during the election campaign, something which Parvy considered tantamount to political agitation against the Magyar state. Thus, in Hlinka's place, Parvy chose the Reverend Anton Klurimsky, a Magyarone, to consecrate the newly-built church, despite the objections of the people of Cemova. These sentiments had even been personally relayed to the bishop by deacon M. Pazurik. The bishop decided that the dedication ceremony would take place regardless of the objections voiced by the parishioners. A group of gendarmes and a magistrate from Ruzomberok were assigned to escort the priests to nearby Cemova, and to maintain law and order. Upon their arrival on 27 October 1907, the priests and the squad of gendarmes were greeted by the people of Cemova, who although passive, verbally berated them. According to eye-witness reports, the gendarmes, without any provocation, shot into the crowd gathered on the roadside, which was impeding their progress. The result was "nine dead immediately, three died the following day, one on the third day" 27 and by the 25 th of December all told there were fifteen dead. 28 Because it was feared that a revolt would follow , a contingent of Honveds (National Guards) was dispatched from Ruzomberok.29 The following day a series of arrests of so-called "agi26 F. S. Clarke to Sir Edward Goschen, Budapest, October 31 , 1907. Foreign Office Papers #371 , Pol. A-H , 1907 - # 196 fil e 36724, No. 58, (United Kingdom: Public Record Office) . 27 "Vrazdenie slovenseho l' udu v Cemovej", S/o vensky tyidennik, 1 November 1907, p. I. 28 Karol Sidor, Cerno va (/80 7- /937) (Bratislava: " Slovak", 1937), 35. 29 Ibid. , 32. 16 SLOVAKIA tators" 30 among the survivors began, one of whom was Hlinka's sister, fifty-five year old Anna Fullova. In all, there were 13 arrests. 3 1 The tragedy of Cernova did more than any other event to bring the Slovak problem before a national and international forum . Two Czech deputies, Silinger and Dr. Hruban, brought before the Reichsrat in Vienna an interpellation which requested the government "to ask for an official report on how this sad affair came about and if the guilty parties had been investigated and punished and to put it before them?" 32 The second part of the document " ... asked the Hungarian government, as the second component of the Austro-Hungarian compromise, to finally end similar persecution of the Slovak people and the non-Magyar nationalities of Hungary." 33 Dr. Hruban stated most emphatically "that the Czech nation will think over very carefully if it can make an agreement with a state which so persecutes the Slovak nation and the other non-Magyar nationalities."34 During the debate on the Austro-Hungarian economic agreement before the Austrian Parliament, T.G. Masaryk took the opportunity to present his views: I turn to the nationality question. For us, who are here from Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, for us Czechs the Compromise had politico-national importance. You heard today in the interpellation about the events in Ruiomberok which the Agrarian speaker also spoke about. The matter is quite simple. We have two million Slovaks in Hungary who belong to our nation: a nation of eight million will not abandon two million of its brethren to Magyar national chauvinism. It is our duty here and at every opportunity in 30 Ibid., 35. Ibid. , 35. 32 Anhang zu den Stenographischen Protokollen des Ha uses der Abgeordneten des oesterreichischen Reichsrates im Jahre 1907. Haus der Abgeordneten - 30. Sitzung der XVIII. Sess ion am 30. October 1907, p. 3 I 79. "Dotaz". (London , UK: Briti sh Museum). (Hereafter, Protocol). 33 Protocol, p. 3179 34 "Cemovska vrazda na sneme," Slovensky tyi dennik, I November 190 7, p. 3. The agreement mentioned here refers to the new ten-year agreement between Austria and Hungary wh ich was about to be voted on by the Viennese Parliament. 31 SLOVAKIA 17 this house to declare to Austria and the whole public that what the Magyars are doing to our Slovaks is inhumane. 35 The German Moravian representative Dr. Redlich also expressed his concern with the Magyarizing fervor in Hungary: I need not remind any of your Czech gentlemen of what is happening to the Slovaks in Hungary. Think not of Cernova alone; think of the whole process which led to it, the Hlinka trial, the Juriga trial /36 Later, the Czech deputy Dr. Zahradnik requested to know if the president of the Parliament intended to add the following to the protocol: " ... the expression of our deep regret and our deep sympathy not only for the unfortunate victims of Cernova but for all the nonMagyar nations who suffer under such great oppression. " 37 Deputy Gunther raised the hope that " ... the whole of civilized Europe, all who still have some feeling for human suffering will finally put themselves on the side of the great Norwegian poet. .. the whole world will find out what is hidden behind this Magyar liberalism ." 38 Gunther was referring to the poet and Nobel-prize winner Bjornstjerne Bjornson, who, the previous month, had delivered a speech criticizing the "Magyar humbug and ... oppression in the service of nationalistic thinking," 39 thus drawing the attention of Europe to its deeds. Bjornson had taken up the cudgel on Hungarian policy towards its nationalists with special reference to the Slovaks. Cernova gave him the opportunity to follow up with a long article in the Neue Freie Presse, describing at length the Magyarizing process. Needless to say, the above annoyed the Hungarian government but even greater was the upheaval caused by the writings of such wellknown foreign journalists as Henry Wickham Steed of The Times 40 (London), and the conversion of Scotus Viator to the Slovak cause. 35 Protocol, p. 2346. Protocol, p. 2365. 37 Protocol, p. 23 18. 38 Protocol, p. 2376. 39 Bjomstjerne Bjornson , Narodni listy, 23 October I 907, p. 2. 40 Scotus Viator was the pseudonym of R. W. Seton-Watson, the renowned Scots historian. Seton-Watson became acquai nted with the sociologist Anton Stefanek in 1906 in Vienna, and it was through Stefanek that he had the opportunity to learn the 36 18 SLOVAKIA 41 In 1908, Scotus Viator published Racial Problems in Hungary, which dealt with the corruption of electoral practices and Magyarization in that country. It earned him his doctorate. Shortly after the first publication, the book was translated into several other European languages, including Czech . This book helped publicize the oppresssed condition of the Slovaks in Upper Hungary throughout the western world. The French press also adopted an inimical stance towards the Magyars . The Poles wrote in Swiat slowianski that: It is not necessary to have concern about our sympathy. We sympathize with all the p ersecuted. We are wholeheartedly on their side. No mistake is as outrageous as that which the Magyars are making when they p ersecute the Slovaks. The Magyar advance against the Slovaks will end badly for the Magyars, but the Slovaks will live on. 42 William Ritter, who was already writing and exposing the Slovaks' plight, added his voice to that of the others. The Slovak politician Milan Hodza made an interpellation in the Hungarian Parliament on the subject of Cernova only an hour after the proceedings of the Austrian Reichstag had become known to the Hungarian Parliament. Feeling amongst the Magyar deputies ran high . Hodza had barely begun to speak before he was rudely interrupted by a very rowdy assembly. His interpellation consisted of a request that the Minister of the Interior, Julius Andrassy, extend the investigation of the Cernova massacre to include an examination of the actions of the administrative official present at Cernova; then, secondly, to suspend the said official from his office on the basis of already known facts until such time as the investigation will have 43 been concluded; and finally, to withdraw the army from the village. facts about Magyari zati on and the oppresssion of the Slovaks and th e other nonMagyar peoples in Hungary. Ce rnova served to re info rce Seton-Watson' s views and he became a vigorous defender of the non-M agya r nationalities in the European ~ress, much to the ire and indignati on of the Hungari an government. 1 London: Archiba ld Constabl e, 1908; reprinted by Howa rd Ferti g, New York, 1972. 42 Swiat slowianski (Cracow, 1907), 12 and 375 , cited in Karo l Sidor, Cernova, 51 . 43 "Cernovska vrazda na sneme" Slo venskj tyi dennik, I November 1907 , p. 4. SLOVAKIA 19 Julius Andrassy defended the priests as having gone to Cemova only to reassure the people that the consecration would not take place at that time, that the gendarmes had fired in self-defence, and finally, that Zoltan Pereszleny would not be suspended but that a fair investigation would be made.44 Andrassy, along with his colleagues, accused such newspapers as Slovensky tyidennik of "stirring the people to bloodshed." 45 Meanwhile, Hlinka continued his lecture tour of Moravia and Bohemia, acquainting the Czechs with Magyar policy and the events of Cemova. The massacre at Cemova served as a unifying force among the Czechs for the Slovak cause. Hlinka was greeted enthusiastically wherever he went. He was seen as a martyr, a representative of the whole Slovak nation. His speeches activated a far more systematic interest in the Slovaks than ever before exhibited by the Czechs. Slovensky obzor put it quite frankly: What Kalal, Masaryk, Heyduk after long years did not know how to achieve, that is what Cernova events did - in one night! In fact, Cernova even captured the interest of the heir presumptive Francis Ferdinand, who had deputy Milan Hodza inform him personally of the whole sequence of 46 events at the Cernova massacre. V In November of 1907 the Cardinal Primate of Hungary issued a circular in which he put the Eudove noviny on the Index of forbidden reading. Hlinka responded with a plea in the Brno Hlas (6 December 1907) to the Bohemian and Moravian clergy for support: ... the Magyar hierarchy has come down hard on us. They wish to suffocate Eudove noviny, the most Catholic of newspapers, with a clerical curse. I turn to the Moravian and Bohemian clergy today so that they may defend us. Do not let the strongest bastion of the faith and the Slovak language fall. The newspaper Eudove noviny is a substitute today for school. It is equally a catechism and a syllabus. Without it the Slovaks will die or will become a senseless 44 45 46 Ibid ., p.4. "Prijezd Andreje HI inky," Cas, XXI, No. 303 ( 1907), 5. Slovensky obzor, 1907, 564 cited in Sidor, Cernova, 51. SLOVAKIA 20 mass of slaves and helots .. . Me, they failed, my paper Eudove noviny they prosecute with clerical punishments! Protect our press! 47 His call did not go unheeded - the strength of the religious tie and the events of Cemova caused Czech and Moravian papers to write, urging Slovaks to continue to read Eudove noviny as a good Catholic newspaper. Arriving in Prague on 1 November 1907 in the company of A. Kolisek and J. Uprka, Hlinka was greeted by Czech leaders F. Taborsky, J. Rotnagl , Dr. Lang, and Dr. E. Krajicek, and a large number of students.48 On the 2 November 1907, he gave a speech on Slovansky ostrov which created such a stir that Ceskoslovanska jednota established a Ceskoslovensky komitet (Czechoslovak Committee) on the following day. Its function was to collect money to aid the orphans of Cemova49 and to organize the rest of Hlinka's lecture tours in the Czech Lands. Altogether, there were over 700 rallies on behalf of the Slovaks and Cemova. 50 Josef Anyz, editor-in-chief of Narodni listy, was elected chairman of the Committee with J. Rotnagl as secretary. Such a good working relationship between Anyz and Rotnagl grew out of the Committee that, according to Rotnagl , "whatever I went to N. listy 51 with some request from Cs/. Jednota, l was never turned down." Right after Cemova the number of Slovak evenings organized to acquaint the Czech public with the Slovaks and their culture increased dramatically, as did informative lectures on the same theme. Great speakers such as Pavel Blaho, Matus Dula, Andrej Hlinka, Milan Hodza, Jozef I:udovit Hol'uby, I:udovit Medvecky, Anton Stefanek, Vavro Srobar, and Svetozar Hurban Vajansky, were invited by Jednota to speak to the people of Moravia and Bohemia. Czech newspapers touched the hearts of their reading public, calling for Czech financial support for the victims of Cemova: V 47 Hlas, 6 December 1907, cited in K. Sidor, Andrej Hlinka , p. 205. "Prijezd Andreje Hlinky," Cas, XXI, No. 303 ( 1907), 5. 49 " Pomozte sirotkum po zavrazdenych v Cemove," Cas, XXI , o. 303 ( 1907), 5. 50 "Nasi bratia Ces i," Slovenky tyidennik, 27 March 1908, p. I. 51 "Narodni listy a slovenska vec," Rotn ag l Papers, Literarni archiv pamatnik narodniho pisemnictvi, Prague. (He reafter, LA PNP). 48 SLOVAKIA 21 At this difficult tim e it is our duty to help those .. . orphans, whose fath ers have fallen in def ense of the rights of the Slovak people against brutal violence. Let a collection be taken throughout the whole nation, the y ield of which will be dedicated to the unfortunate victims of Cernova as proof that Czechs and Slovaks f eel together both joy and grief 52 The success of the fund-raising was evident in the letter of 8 August 1908 from Anton Stefanek to Seton-Watson: "We have the whole Czech people behind us. During the last year the Czech people have raised a fund of 80,000 Crowns for us under the influence of Cemova." 53 Seton-Watson received a full report on Cemova and the imprisonment of Hlinka for "incitement against the Magyar nation" 54 from Stefanek. This caused him to write a letter to the London Spectator, describing all the events and he referred to them "as a typical example of the oppression of the Slovaks." 55 The result was a response from Count Esterhazy defending the Magyar position, followed by a scathing rebuttal from Seton-Watson in the Spectator and Manchester Guardian. The Times editor, Wickham Steed, was particularly gleeful when he read them and wrote to Seton-Watson: "The reply to Esterhazy is the best bit of pulverization I have seen anywhere. It made me green with envy for the whole day. Talk about sledgehammers! You are a steamroller when you get going." 56 Czech-Slovak relations drew closer in 1907 when Antonin Reis, a member of Ceskoslovanska j ednota suggested to Pavel Blaho, that now would be a good time to establish an informative journal on Slovakia, especially for the Czech readership. 57 Thus was born Nase Slovensko , short-lived from 1907 to 1910, but important because it 52 " Hunove vrazdi ," Cas, No. 300 ( 1907), p. I . Hugh Seton-Watson, "Anton Stefanek and R. W. Seton-Watson," Bohemia Jahrbuch des Co /legium Carolin um, 18 ( 1977), 236. 54 Jan Ryc hlfk, Thomas D. Marzik, Mi ros lav Bie lik, eds. R. W. Seton-Watson and his Relations with the Czechs and the Slovaks, I, (Prague: Ostav T. G. Masaryka and Martin : Matica slovenska, 1995), 22 55 Rychlfk, et a l. , 22. 56 Ryc hlfk, et al. , p. 139. 57 Antonin Reis, Letter to P. Blaho, 8 March 1907, Blaho Papers (Slovak State Archi ves, Bratislava, hereafter SSUA), Carton 12, Signature Bll-98. The same letter was sent to other prominent Slovaks introduc ing the plan to fo und this journal and seeking support. 53 22 SLOVAKIA gave the young Slovak generation the motivation to seek other ways of saving themselves from the oppression of the Magyars. They became more engaged in the Slovak national movement and were able to test their skills through such vehicles as Nase Slovensko and later Prudy. It also distanced them from the old generation in Martin who continued to believe that only the Russians could save them from the Magyars. American Slovaks also became very outspoken about the situation in Slovakia. From the late 1860s to the late l 880's, American Slovaks had been more concerned with survival in their new homeland and saving their money to send home to their families . By the late 1890s and early 1900s, they had acclimatized to their new democracy and created self-help associations and newspapers indicative of a maturing Slovak national consciousness. The persecution of Hlinka in connection with the pre-election agitation in 1906 was brought to the attention of the American Slovak public by the Roman Catholic priest Stefan Furdek. 58 The result was an open letter in the newspaper Eudove noviny written by Slovak priests working in America. Collections were organized as a result of the persecution during the elections of 1906, and once this precedent was set a similar procedure was followed to aid Cernova victims. A direct result of the persecution of Hlinka and the other Slovak representatives resulted in the emergence of the Union of Slovak Journalists and the Slovak League of America.59 A very impassioned message "For the Cernova Widows and Orphans," to all Slovaks was written by Furdek in his weekly Jednota, on 7 November 1907: They won't frighten us; our truth will not go begging crumbs from the tyrant. If it 's a fight they want, then a fight they will get; we are not afraid of it .. . Now, when we have the attention of the world, we must prove to the world that we stand together like a strong chain ... A bloody battle has begun in Cernova! Our sacred duty is to financially and morally support the struggle, which will determine whether 58 Stefan Furdek was the founder of The First Cath olic Slovak Union ( 1890) and th e Slovak League of America ( I 907). 59 Stefan Kucik, "Ohlas prenasledovania Andreja Hlinku a Cemovskej tragedie medzi Americkymi Slovakmi", in Kucik, Mytus a Realita, 115. SLOVAKIA 23 the Slovak nation will exist or not exist in its ancient homeland. 60 With the passing of time, the furor created around Cernova abated. However, the actions of the Magyar authorities in bringing to trial those persons arrested on that tragic day, served to re-awaken interest in various camps. Both Czech and Slovak newspapers reported on the proceedings of the trial, but the Slovak newspaper Narodnie noviny gave its readers a daily account which lasted from the 2 nd to the 10 th of March in 1908. Altogether forty men and women were sentenced to a total of 37 years of imprisonment. 61 Cernova was in some ways a catalyst, not just on home ground but in Bohemia and Moravia and internationally. Slovaks in America also rallied and sought to acquaint their government of the situation in the homeland. What the Magyars had probably thought was an insignificant consecration and sign of Slovak thick-headedness turned into a cause celebre. The Magyars never expected this event to attract such attention and greatly miscalculated the damage this would cause them in the eyes of Europe. Men like Count Esterhazy never expected to find themselves having to defend Magyar racial policies, all because of an insignificant village like Cernova and a "people who did not exist," 62 according to Magyar politicians! In many ways, Cernova helped the Slovaks both in Slovakia and in America to unite and to begin thinking of alternatives to the rule of the Hungarian government and its Magyarizing policies. 60 Stefan Furdek, "Pre vdovy a siroty ce m ovske" quoted in Kucik, I 16-1 7. V. H., Cernovsky process (Turciansky Sv. Martin : Knihtl ac iarskeho ucas tinarskeho spolku, I 908), 72 . 62 Bela Grun wa ld, A felv idek, in Duri ca, Dejiny Slovenska a Slovakov, 238. Grunwa ld wrote in 1887 that there were Slovak speak ing-inhabi tants in Hungary but there was no Slovak nation. 61  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 Černová Massacre: Magyar Miscalculation, Slovak Gain Description An account of the resource Edita Bosak Slovakia, Vol. 40 (No. 74-75), 2010 pp. 7-23 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bosák, Edita, 1950-2022 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 name